SEMINARS

Luisa M. Saffiotti, PhD (peace psychologist, clinical psychologist, spiritual director, retreat director) is founding director of the Kairos Center, a collaborative practice based in Bethesda, MD that provides consultation, education and clinical services to religious communities and other groups internationally.  Luisa has worked with religious and clergy for fifteen years at .  Saint Luke Institute, at the Christian Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, for the Washington Area Formators’ Network and the Washington Theological Union.  She has collaborated with RFC’s  ForMission program.  Luisa has also taught in the area of building cultures of peace at the University of Maryland, and is active in Psychologists for Social Responsibility and in the Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association.  Luisa is a dual citizen of Italy and the United States and collaborates daily with the Spirit working on different continents in different tongues.  Much of her recent work has been in Latin America.  Luisa serves on the Editorial and Advisory Boards of Human Development magazine, is the author of numerous articles, and is writing a book on formation

Seminar 2

Sexual Energy for Celibate Living

This seminar will focus on the challenges of forming candidates for healthy celibate living.  What are some practical approaches for formation directors in helping candidates look at issues of sexual history, orientation, history of abuse, previous relationships, etc., in light of helping them discern a call to channeling sexual energy for the reign of God?

Quinn R. Conners O.Carm., Ph.D. is a Carmelite of the Chicago Province and a licensed clinical psychologist.  Prior to becoming the prior and director of formation at Whitefriars Hall in Washington, DC, he was director of novices (2004-2007), a member of the clinical staff at Saint Luke Institute (1997-2004), and provincial from 1990-1996.  He holds a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary.  He has also served as principal of Mt. Carmel High School in Los Angeles and as a psychotherapist, spiritual director and part-time faculty member at Washington Theological Union.  He has done workshops nationally and internationally in the areas of psychology and spirituality, sexuality, vocational discernment, and issues in the first five years of ministry.

Seminar 3

The Future of Religious Life in Context

Religious Life has experienced several significant decline and reform phases in its history.  Are we currently in one of those transition times?  This workshop surveys the current US context for hints of the future of religious life.  Topics include: new emerging communities, the emergence of the laity (lay movements, lay ecclesial ministry and consecrated laity), the various forms of consecrated life, the dreams of young religious, and a profile of the millennial generation

Mary Charlotte Chandler RSCJ is the Director of the Center for the Study of Religious Life (CSRL).  Before coming to CSRL she was a research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown, in Washington, DC.  Mary Charlotte came to that position after completing her PhD in religion and society at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  Her dissertation examined the social identity of women religious in the United States.  Previous ministries include teaching high school religion, math and computer science as well as college theology.  She worked part-time in the Pastoral Planning and Research Office of the Archdiocese of New York for two years.  Mary Charlotte entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1980 after finishing an MDiv at the University of Notre Dame.

Seminar 4

Formative Communities: Challenging Our Death Wish

This workshop will provide a forum to consider the ways to create and support a formative community for new members, renewal of community life and creating a preferred future. This action will activate, however, a potential shadow response of defensiveness and fear. We will have to confront our workaholism, excessive independence, terror of change and an unconscious death wish, if we attempt to renew community life.

Seminar 5

Compelled By The Spirit of Church Law To Liberate: Use of Formation Norms To Sustain The Members’ Fire

Responses in how to use church law can easily be one of two extremes: “Ignore the norms” or “Let the norms decide how we should live.” Neither approach draws from the richness of the law’s true nature and purpose to be a support in sustaining the life of a religious institute. The invitation is to let the compelling wisdom and energy of the Spirit guide us to use legal norms in a healthy, life-giving manner in all the stage of formation. The session will focus first on the spirit and intent of church law within religious institutes and then move to a consideration of how best to use formation norms to prepare and assist the individual to live consecrated life in a liberating manner. 

Lynn Jarrell, OSU, is currently the Associate Director of Canonical Affairs for the Legal Resource Center for Religious since January, 2004.  She has a doctorate in Canon Law and a Masters in Communications.  Lynn has previously served as the Vice-President of her congregation.  Over the past twenty years Lynn has worked closely with the Leadership of religious foundations in the United States and beyond in the role of consultant, presenter, and teacher on a variety of topics, especially on the role of Leadership and the internal life of the foundation. Each summer Lynn is a faculty member of the Institute of Law and Religious Life in Dallas, PA, which brings a large number of the leaders of religious foundations together to study and discuss the civil and canonical aspects of a foundation.  In addition, her teaching at two major seminaries has allowed Lynn to develop expertise in the areas of Canon Law that address temporal goods and the exercise of the rights/duties within the Church. 

Seminar 6

God, the Cosmos and Religious Life: Integrating an Ecological Perspective within the Formative Process

What was your first experience of God in nature? Creation, as we have come to know it through science and our faith tradition, provides us with cues, signs and lessons about how God embodies life in order to sustain it. How might leadership teams, formation directors or companions integrate these cultural cues in the formative process and their congregations in order to envision and enflesh the life that religious are called to sustain?

  Lyn Szymkiewicz CSJ, a Sister of St. Joseph of Baden, Pennsylvania, is currently directing ecological programs on her Congregation’s Motherhouse grounds.  Lyn served as the Project Director for the Building Sustainable Communities Project which connects women’s religious congregations in Southwestern PA with local farmers through institutional food buying.    Lyn holds a Master’s degree in Theology from Duquesne University and a Master’s degree in Earth Literacy from St. Mary of the Woods College near Terre Haute, Indiana.  Prior to entering her current ministry with the land, Lyn served her congregation as Director of Formation Ministry for nine years and was a board member of the national Religious Formation Conference for six of those years.

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