Mount St. Mary’s Seminary
Candidate for Executive Council (Seat A)
Candidate statement
I am grateful to accept a nomination for a position on our Executive Council. I have been a member of the ACHA since graduate school and have attended, given papers, and organized sessions at our national and spring meetings. I am especially excited to be nominated at this present moment because of the difficulties facing Catholic history—especially social and political pressures on history in general and on Catholicism in particular, as well as the opportunities—especially among people looking for roots and for stories within which to find direction and meaning in life.
I am a professor of Church History at Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, MD, which hosts a well-known National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, a large and well-respected Seminary, and a small Catholic university. Every day I witness the challenges of preserving Catholic history and making it relevant to pilgrims, to seminarians, and to students. In all these groups I see curiosity about the story of Catholicism and how it contributes to their lives, but often not a clear understanding of why or of what is at stake.
I hope to devote my service on the Executive Council to encouraging initiatives that promote the story of Catholic history to ordinary folks, like pilgrims drawn to churches and shrines, to ecclesiastical leaders, like priests and theologians, and to young people, like the students who choose Catholic education.
CV
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