Date/Time
Date(s) - 21/01/2021
10:50 am
Categories
There is a free day-long online conference being hosted by Maynooth College, entitled Maynooth College Reflects on COVID-19.
Thursday 21st January 2021 (11am-5pm).
Since last March, we have all been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only in recent weeks has news of a vaccine brought light at the end of the tunnel. While there has been endless media coverage of the medical and economic implications of the pandemic, religious issues have seldom been to the fore. Where is God in this pandemic? Can we draw meaning out of the long months of suffering? What can church communities do to survive and even prosper in times of restriction? What will be the lasting effects on church life?
Such issues will be discussed in the day conference, which will have three parts. The first is called SEEING (11.00-12.30pm), the second is DISCERNING (1.45-3.15pm), and the third is ACTING (3.30-5.00pm). Within each session, the speakers will begin on the hour / half-hour so you can dip in and out. It is not all Scripture- related, but there are a number of speakers focusing on Scripture in the second session which runs from 1.45-2.15 (Jessie Rogers on Psalm 137) and 2.45-3.15 (Jeremy Corley on Exile and Sabbath as Scriptural Models for a time of Pandemic). The full programme is as follows:
SEEING (11.00-12.30pm)
10.50am: Neil Xavier O’Donoghue, welcome from Zoommaster
11.00am: Anne Codd, ‘A Parish Journey Into, Through, and Beyond Pandemic’
11.30am: Michael Shortall, ‘Grief Observed when Mourning is Restricted’
12noon: Salvador Ryan, ‘The Final Rupture? COVID-19 and Popular Religious Practice’
DISCERNING (1.45-3.15pm)
1.45pm: Jessie Rogers, ‘Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land’
2.15pm: Gaven Kerr, ‘God and the Problem of Suffering’
2.45pm: Jeremy Corley, ‘Exile & Sabbath as Scriptural Models for a Time of Pandemic’
ACTING (3.30-5.00pm)
3.30pm: John-Paul Sheridan, ‘COVID-19 and the Spiritual Lives of Children’
4.00pm: Pádraig Corkery, ‘Catholic Social Teaching and COVID-19’
4.30pm: Philip Gonzales, ‘The Foolishness of the Daily in Light of COVID-19’
Join this free online conference, where theologians and philosophers from St Patrick’s College will offer their thought-provoking perspectives on these issues. You are welcome to attend as much or as little of the day as you wish.
Everyone wishing to attend this free event is asked to register on this Eventbrite link:
A Zoom link for the conference will be sent to all registered attendees closer to the date.
Advance notice: In spring 2021, Messenger Press are publishing a volume of sixteen reflections, entitled Maynooth College Reflects on COVID-19. The volume will offer a variety of reflections from the perspectives of theology, scripture, philosophy, ethics, liturgy, pastoral, and canon law. The aim of the volume is to assist anyone searching for spirituality during these difficult times.
