Our Summer and Winter Forum Series offer Catholic adults and young adults an opportunity to learn and grow in a comfortable, familiar environment..
We choose presenters from among pastors, pastoral leaders and academic leaders on both the local and diocesan level. We ask them to address a variety of important social, political, moral and theological issues which shape the lives of Catholics in the Church today.
2024 Summer Forum Location
Majestic Moon Event Center, 1955 Locke St., Waterloo
Free and open to the public. No registration required. Handicap Accessible.
(Bar service available)
Audience
This program is appropriate for adults and young adults in all levels of faith formation.
> Click here to learn more about the thresholds of faith formation.
Take-Away
Adults and young adults who participate in this opportunity will:
• learn more about important issues which affect our lives as Catholic Christians.
• have an opportunity to dialog with distinguished pastoral leaders, theologians and academics.
• appreciate the challenges and opportunities of a changing Church in a changing world.
Our Summer and Winter Forum programs are made possible in part by a grant from
the Archbishop Kucera Center for Catholic Intellectual and Spiritual Life at Loras College.
Thursday, June 27. 6:30-8:00pm.
Tuesday, July 9. 6:30-8:00pm.
Over the last five decades, the Catholic Church has emerged as a powerful critic of war and as an advocate for its alternatives. At the same time, researchers of armed conflict have produced a considerable body of scholarship on war and its prevention. In this presentation David Cochran will discuss his recent book, The Catholic Case Against War--A Brief Guide, published by the University of Notre Dame Press. He will present the key elements of the Vatican’s teaching on war and peace and highlight how well the church’s teaching fits with what secular researchers have learned about contemporary armed conflict.
> Read a review of The Catholic Case Against War here.
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David Cochran is professor of political science at Loras College in Dubuque. He grew up in Texas and earned his MA and PhD degrees from the University of Maryland. He has taught at Loras since 1996, and offers a range of courses primarily in the areas of political thought and American politics. His primary research interests are in religion and politics, multiculturalism and democracy, and the morality of war, topics on which he frequently publishes, lectures and leads workshops. He is co-author with his father, Clarke Cochran, of Catholics, Politics and Public Policy (Orbis, 2003) and author of The Catholic Vote--A Guide for the Perplexed (Orbis, 2008), Catholic Realism and the Abolition of War (Orbis, 2014) and The Catholic Case Against War—A Brief Guide (Notre Dame Press, 2024). Dr. Eochran served for many years as director of the Kucera Center for Catholic Intellectual and Spiritual Life at Loras.
John Eby is professor of history at Loras College. Dr. Eby received his BA degree from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and his MA degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. He received his PhD degree in Medieval History from the University of Washington. He joined the faculty at Loras in 1998 and teaches Medieval Christianity; the Crusades; the Celts; the Reformation; the Early and Late Middle Ages; Islamic History and the Arab-Israeli conflict; Religious Imagination; Gandhi and Nonviolence and Gandhi the Interfaith Peacebuilder. His main academic interest is in Early Medieval storytelling and religious diversity. He is co-author of The Collapse of Apartheid and the Dawn of Democracy in South Africa (University of North Carolina Press, 2017).
Andrew Massena is assistant professor of biblical studies and director of the Archbishop Kucera Center for Catholic Intellectual and Spiritual Life at Loras College. He received his BA degree from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and his MDiv degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York; he completed his PhD in comparative theology and biblical studies from Boston College. Dr. Massena currently teaches Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, Jesus and the Gospels, Women in the Bible, Jewish and Christian Exegesis, Jewish-Christian Dialogue, and World Religions. His research interests center on late antique rabbinic literature, Catholic and Protestant biblical interpretation, hermeneutics, Jewish-Christian relations, comparative theology, and interreligious dialogue. Dr. Massena also serves as faculty coordinator for the Interfaith Leaders Program at Loras.
David Pitt is Associate Professor of Theology at Loras College in Dubuque. He is a native of Peterborough, Ontario, and received his BA degree from St Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario. Dr. Pitt earned his MA degree in liturgical music from St John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and his Ph.D. degree in liturgical studies from the University of Notre Dame. He teaches classes in liturgical and sacramental theology and liturgical music at Loras and serves as organist at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque. His special interests focus on how church tradition informs contemporary pastoral practice, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, the liturgical year and liturgical music. He co-edited A Living Tradition--Essays on the Intersection of Liturgical History and Pastoral Practice (Liturgical Press, 2012) and is the author of over sixty essays, articles, and book reviews.
Matthew A. Shadle is the Academic Assessment Coordinator at the University of Iowa. He earned his MA and PhD in theology from the University of Dayton in Ohio. He previously served as a professor of Catholic ethics at Loras College in Dubuque and Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. He was also formerly an instructor in the Archdiocese of Dubuque’s diaconate formation program and was involved in young adult ministry. His academic work has focused on the development of Catholic social teaching and its intersection with both fundamental moral theology and the social sciences, with a special focus on war and peace, the economy, and immigration. He is the author of The Origins of War--A Catholic Perspective (Georgetown, 2011) and “No Peace on Earth--War and the Environment” in Green Discipleship--Catholic Theological Ethics and the Environment (Anselm Academic, 2011).
Dr. John Waldmeir retired in 2022 as Professor of Religious Studies and Theology at Loras College. Dr. Waldmier received his Ph.D. in Religion and Literature from the University of Chicago and has taught at Catholic colleges in Detroit and Bismarck, North Dakota. At Loras Dr. Waldmeir taught courses in Catholic identity, sacred scriptures, world religions, and American religious traditions for twenty-two years. He has published six books, including Cathedrals of Bone--The Role of the Body in Contemporary Catholic Literature (2009), The Catholic Church in Ireland Today (with David Cochran, 2015) and In-Between Identities--Signs of Islam in Contemporary American Writing (2018). Dr. Waldmeir is a regular presenter in the Waterloo parishes' Summer Bible Series.
[Last Update: 05.29.24]