For many non-Catholics looking from the outside the Church can seem quite monolithic. One might think that to become Catholic is somehow to lose ones identity or become a carbon-copy of every other Catholic. The reality couldn’t be more different. In Catholicism unity does not mean uniformity. The Church’s tradition is a treasure trove of diversity. A diversity of devotions, practices, expressions, and even approaches to evangelisation.
One of the dreams of Catholic Voices is to see lay Catholics inspired and equipped to share the Church’s story. We believe that there is so much wisdom to be gained from looking at the variety of approaches to evangelisation exemplified by different religious orders within the Church. We want to start by hearing from members of two of the most prominent religious orders in the world: the Jesuits and the Dominicans.
In this 11th CV Connect webinar we will be interviewing a Jesuit and a Dominican respectively to get a personal view of how their order, their founder and their mission has influenced their approach to evangelisation. We not only want to see how the Jesuits and Dominicans have historically responded to the challenges and opportunities of evangelisation, but also how these orders are approaching evangelisation and mission today in modern day Britain.
Guest Speakers
Fr Damian Howard SJ
Father Damian is priest of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and is the Provincial Superior of the Jesuit British Province. He read music and divinity at Trinity College, Cambridge, after which he joined the Jesuit novitiate in Birmingham in 1990 and was ordained a priest in Brixton Hill in 1999.
Fr Damian was awarded a PhD in contemporary Islamic thought in 2010 and his thesis was later published as Being Human in Islam: the impact of the evolutionary world-view. He also taught theology and Christian-Muslim relations at Heythrop College, University of London. Fr Damian has also given a lot of spiritual direction, helped out on the editorial board of the on-line Jesuit journal, Thinking Faith, offered days of reflection in our centre (The Hurtado Centre) in East London.
Fr Lawrence Lew OP
Father Lawrence is a friar of Order of Preachers (Dominicans) and is the Promoter General of the Holy Rosary. He is stationed at the English province’s Rosary Shrine in London of which he is the Rector.
Entering the Dominican Order in 2005, Fr Lawrence was ordained a priest in 2011. He has an STL in Dogmatic Theology from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (Dominican House of Studies) in Washington DC, and currently a lecturer in Apologetics, and Mariology at Blackfriars, Oxford. A “media missionary,” Fr. Lawrence became a photographer in 2000. He posts his photos on Flickr @paullew and Instagram @lawrenceop, tweets @LawrenceOP and blogs at Releasing the Arrow.