Educational Advances (Asynchronous - Online Only)
The Benedictines, Sugar, and Slavery: Material Culture, Texts, and Contexts from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Worlds View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James Krippner
This paper analyzes a foundational text, several historical contexts, a specific location, and the traces of past practices and beliefs found in architecture, art, and historical documents. The foundational text is the Rule of St. Benedict, a set of guidelines for a radical monastic lifestyle produced during the sixth century in what we now call Italy after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Though often thought of as a core text of “Western Civilization,” The Rule of St. Benedict assimilated and redefined existing monastic traditions with roots in North Africa and West Asia. It contains explicit instructions for the relatively egalitarian treatment of slaves within the monastery, though the fact that in its original context enslaved people tended not to be of African descent provides a basis for interesting historical comparisons. My paper assess the meanings and practices justified by reference to this foundational text as Benedictine monasticism, sugar cultivation, and plantation agriculture spread across the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic worlds, alongside a network of Benedictine monasteries scattered throughout the Portuguese Empire. My research focuses on Rio de Janeiro’s Benedictine monastery, founded in 1595 and still an active monastery today. As we shall see, the history of this building and the religious order that inhabits it provides a unique window not only into Rio’s colonial and postcolonial history, but also the role of the Benedictine Order throughout the Portuguese Empire, while demonstrating cultural connections reaching back into late antiquity and across the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean worlds.
Religious Consciousness in Education: A Constitutional Relationship in the Greek Context View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Iro Potamousi, Polikarpos Karamouzis, Marios Koukounaras Liagkis
The aim of the paper is to present a study on the relationship between education and the development of religious consciousness according to the Greek constitution (1975) and the aim of the education as stated in it. Firstly, the paper questions whether the term and the concept of religious consciousness in the Greek Constitution should be ‘consciousness’ or ‘conscience’. For that an interdisciplinary study of different views based on politics/law, psychology, sociology, theology and philosophy provide tools to understand that in the Greek Constitution (bearing in mind that Greece is a case study of secularisation) the concept is explicitly referred as ‘consciousness’ precisely because it is related to the education of children. The paper, finally, discusses the link and implications (if any) between religious consciousness [(non-)faith, (non-)religiosity] with citizenship within secondary education as a part of an ongoing research project about Religion and Democratic Citizenship in Greece.
Social Responsibility and Sense of Mission through Online Religious Education: Actualizing Faith Through a Day of Service View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Myra Patambang
This paper presents an analysis of and a reflection on the consolidated summary of the final outputs accomplished by students who finished Religious Education 102 in De La Salle Medical & Health Sciences Institute. The final requirement was to render some form of service, considering their capabilities, talents, and contexts. Anchored on the Gospel maxims and the Social Teachings of the Church, the students were challenged to actualize social responsibility and intensify their sense of mission. Maximizing their access to social media and capitalizing on their technological prowess, the students have graciously put their hearts into their choices of projects and beneficiaries. The consolidated report unravels ingenious strategies in raising funds, in connecting with their recipients, in carrying out the actual projects and in achieving the goals of rendering various acts of service. Mostly through personal sacrifices, the aggregate amount had reached almost half a million pesos, thousands of individuals had been helped and places all over the Philippines and a few foreign countries were reached. Reflecting on the breadth and depth of what the students have achieved, it could be gleaned that despite this pandemic, education of the mind and of the heart remains possible in a virtual classroom; students can explore endless possibilities of reaching out to others and that magnanimity transcends peoples, places, religions, political affiliations, and economic situations. The projects deeply speak about faith, hope, love, service, community spirit and compassion for the less fortunate brethren.
In Loneliness, the Encounter between Science and Religion : Ecological Accompaniment from Connectivity to Closeness View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gerard Ryan
In my paper, I argue that faith communities can contribute toward the sustainability of our shared home in developing and prioritizing ecological accompaniment as part of an overall and re-imagined pastoral care for humanity and our common home. As such, my proposal expands the parameters of accompaniment to persons, communities, the material world, and its inhabitants. Ecological accompaniment, therefore, is profoundly social and interdisciplinary in its recognizing the relationality and interdependency of all life. Specifically, I explore loneliness as an interdisciplinary endeavour between science and religion in building sustainability in our shared home through ecological accompaniment. I contend that one of the inhibitors to sustainability is loneliness, which I understand to be an unsolicited experience of social isolation. Given the link between the environment and the social sphere, attending to social isolation is necessary for ecological accompaniment. In making explicit this claim, I engage with current scientific research on loneliness in proposing a theological engagement with loneliness that is scientifically informed. Religious actors or institutions can promote environmental sustainability directly through activities and statements, like the papal encyclical Laudato si. But religion also contributes to how faith communities accompany “the lonely other” and how the academic study of theology prepares religious ministers to attend the lonely other. I maintain the creation of a “Loneliness-Resilient Culture” by promoting a way of encountering life through spiritual and social support. Specifically, I prioritize spiritual and humanistic resilience through mediative participatory prayer as an intervention of ecological accompaniment to strengthen sustainability.
Featured "Marriage Interview" as a Best Practice in Teaching the Course Marriage and Family View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Reuel Rito Seno
I have been teaching the General Education undergraduate course MARFAMI or Marriage and Family in De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Manila Philippines, which has been for more than two years now, that is, both before and during the ongoing pandemic. One project I utilize in this specific course is a project entitled “Good Role-Models of the Sacrament of Matrimony”. In this project the students identify a couple (husband and wife) that for them are good role-models of the Sacrament of Marriage. The couple that they interview can be from among their family, relatives or neighbors or couples they know from their Church communities who have been married for at least 15 or so years. This research would like to present how this student requirement can be one of the best practices in teaching and conducting the undergraduate course Marriage and Family; and how this strategy can be used even during this ongoing pandemic through online teleconferencing apps like zoom or google meet; that even if this requirement is done fully online, it still can adhere to the learning outcomes of the course; and can be an authentic means of learning and teaching even during this new normal of education.
