Monsignor John Radano, a scholar-in-residence this semester at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas, will deliver the Archbishop Ireland Memorial Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 20, in the 3M Auditorium of Owens Science Hall on the university’s south campus.
Monsignor John Radano
The year 2017 will mark 500 years since Martin Luther’s 95 theses in 1517 challenged the Catholic Church. Clashes in the years that followed led to divisions among 16th-century Christians that continue today. The modern ecumenical movement, starting with the 1910 World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, Scotland, has seen a century of efforts to address the divisions.
Radano, who has spent the past 24 years working in Rome for the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, will discuss “From Reformation and Counter-Reformation to Reconciliation? Approaching the Year 2017 With an Ecumenical Perspective.”
The Archbishop Ireland Memorial Lecture, named for the founder of both the seminary and the university, is free and open to the public.
Radano, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, N. J., heads the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity’s Western division, a role that has placed him at the forefront of the ecumenical movement between non-Catholic Christians and the Roman Catholic Church. He also was the Pontifical Council’s liaison with the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches.
“Ecumenism involves knowing our own church first, engaging in dialogue and really listening to others about their church,” he said.
As the second scholar-in-residence at the seminary, he has been teaching a class this semester on the modern ecumenical movement. He is bringing together leaders from that movement for a June 17-19 conference on “A Century of Ecumenism: What Has Been Achieved? What Are the Next Steps Forward?”
More information about the conference can be found at the seminary’s Web site.
