Merton 100: Living the Legacy
Speakers
David J. Belcastro is Professor of Religious Studies at Capital University in Columbus, OH. He is a co-editor of The Merton Annual and President of the International Thomas Merton Society.
Christine M. Bochen is a founding member and past president of ITMS. She has taught Merton in a variety of settings, as well as edited a volume of Merton's journals, several volumes of Merton's letters, and an anthology of Merton's writings as well as co-authored, with William H. Shannon and Patrick O'Connell, The Thomas Merton Encyclopedia.
James Finley Ph.D. lived as a monk at the cloistered
Trappist monastery of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where the
world-renowned monk and author, Thomas Merton, was his spiritual
director.
Sidney Griffith
Sidney Griffith is professor of Syriac patristics and Christian
Arabic at The Catholic University of America. The former chair of the
university’s department of Semitic and Egyptian languages and
literatures and the former director of its graduate program in early
Christian studies, he serves as secretary of CU’s Institute of Christian
Oriental Research. He earned undergraduate degrees in philosophy and
sacred theology at Holy Trinity Mission Seminary and was ordained a
Roman Catholic priest in 1965.
After
earning a master’s degree in library science and a licentiate in
theology at CU, he received his Ph.D. in Syriac and medieval Arabic from
the university in 1977, the year he joined its faculty. Dr. Griffith has
also taught at the Washington Theological Union and been a visiting
professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. A former president of the
Byzantine Studies Conference and the North American Patristic Society,
he has been a fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies
and the Institute for Advanced Studies at The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
He serves as co-editor of
Early
Christian Texts in Translation, a monographic series
published by Peeters in Leuven, Belgium, as associate editor of the
Journal
of Early Christian Studies, as consulting editor of
Islam
and Christian-Muslim Relations, and as a member of the
editorial boards of
Medieval
Encounters: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Culture in Confluence and
Dialogue and the
Bulletin
of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies. The author
of more than sixty scholarly articles and three books in his field,
including
The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the
World of Islam. Dr.
Griffith is an editor of
The
Blackwell Dictionary of Early Christianity (1999).
Edward Kaplan is Kaiserman Professor in the Humanities and
chair of the Program in Religious Studies at
Most Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D. was appointed as the fourth Archbishop and ninth bishop of the Archdiocese of Louisville on June 12, 2007. Before coming to Louisville, Archbishop Kurtz served as Bishop of Knoxville from 1999 to 2007. Archbishop Kurtz was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Allentown on March 18, 1972. Before becoming Bishop of Knoxville, Archbishop Kurtz served for 27 years in the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in charge of social services, diocesan administration, and parish ministry. Elected President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on November 12, 2013, Archbishop Kurtz serves on the executive and administrative committees of that body. In February of 2014, Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Kurtz to the Holy See’s Congregation for the Oriental Churches.
Charles MacCarthy
Charles MacCarthy trained at Camberwell School of Art and exhibits regularly in London, Shropshire and Herefordshire where he lives. Charles has drawn inspiration from painters of still life, such as Chardin and Morandi as well as from an intimist tradition including artists such as Bonnard and Gwen John. His artistic practice is one of observing and responding to everyday surroundings. Is it possible to combine these two things? “I have been trying and in this the photographs of Thomas Merton have been a wonderful example. The quality of stillness and attention that is to be found in them comes surely from his finding these things in himself.”
Bonnie Thurston
is a founding member, past president and former board member of the ITMS. She
is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
and formerly professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological
Seminary. She is the editor of
Merton and Buddhism (2007),
Thomas Merton: On Eastern Meditation,
Hidden in the Same Mystery: Thomas Merton and Loretto, and the author
of numerous books on scripture and on spirituality, most recently
O Taste and See: A Biblical Reflection of Experiencing God,
and is now living in
solitude in
Rowan Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is an Anglican bishop, poet and theologian. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, Metropolitan of the Province of Canterbury and Primate of All England, offices he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Williams was previously Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales. He spent much of his earlier career as an academic at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford successively. Apart from Welsh, he speaks or reads nine other languages. Williams stood down as Archbishop of Canterbury on 31 December 2012 and became Master of Magdalene College at Cambridge University in January 2013. Williams is the author of numerous books including On Christian Theology (2000), Arius: Heresy and Tradition (2002), Writing in the Dust: After September 11 (2002), Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (2007), Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction (2008), A Silent Action: Engagements with Thomas Merton (2011), and The Lion's World: A Journey into the Heart of Narnia (2013), along with countless articles, sermons and poetry.