Speakers
Keith BEAUMONT P.O. was born in Australia in 1944, obtained a Ph.D. from Warwick University in the U.K., and taught French Literature at the University of Leicester, U.K., from 1970 to 1991. Following a long path of conversion, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1986 and decided to radically re-orientate his life. He was ordained a priest of the French Oratory in 1996. He has taught courses on the history of spirituality and on John Henry Newman in several Catholic universities in France and preached numerous retreats in monasteries and religious communities. He has published a dozen books on Newman, including anthologies and a major study of Newman’s spiritual teaching (Dieu intérieur. La Théologie spirituelle de John Henry Newman, Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2014). His most recent publications are an anthology of 25 sermons arranged thematically (Être chrétien, Éditions du Cerf, 2017) and an edition of the first French translation of Newman’s two volumes of Catholic sermons. He is Hon. President of the Association francophone des Amis de Newman.
Peter BECKER, born in Trier in 1989, studied philosophy and theology in Trier and Rome accomplished his studies with a master thesis on the relation between love and knowledge in the work of John Henry Newman. After professional stays in Saarbrücken and Paris, he has been a University Assistant at the Department of Spiritual Theology at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Vienna since 2017 and is writing his doctoral thesis on the question of the vocation of man in the context of Maurice Blondel’s life and thought.
Joseph CAROLA, S.J., is a member of the United States Central and Southern Province of the Society of Jesus. He teaches patristic theology and Church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. His various publications include Augustine of Hippo: The Role of the Laity in Ecclesial Reconciliation, three volumes on priestly life and ministry, entitled Conformed to Christ Crucified, and contributions to the Augustinus-Lexikon. His present area of research considers the retrieval of the Church Fathers in nineteenth-century Catholic theology.
Uwe Michael LANG C.O., a native of Nuremberg, is a priest of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in London, where he serves as Parish Priest. He teaches Church History and Patrology at Allen Hall Seminary and Mater Ecclesiae College, St Mary's University, Twickenham. His publications include essays on the significance of the Church Fathers and the liturgy in the life and work of John Henry Newman.
Thomas MÖLLENBECK is a curate at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Dogma History at the Philosophical-Theological College of the Capuchins in Münster. He also teaches at the International Theological Institute in Trumau and at the Hochschule Heiligenkreuz. He received his doctorate in Paderborn with a thesis on the relationship between philosophy and theology in Duns Scotus, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar and habilitated in Vienna with a study on the conversion narratives and the doctrine of justification in John Henry Newman.
Richard SCHENK O.P., born in California in 1951, Dominican, studied in the USA and in Munich. He was a professor at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley from 1990 to 2011. At the same time he was the Director of the Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover (1991-2000) and of the Intercultural Forum for Studies in Faith and Culture (Washington, D.C. 2004-2006). From 2011 to 2014 he was President of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. He has also taught in Fribourg im Üechtland, Hannover, Atlanta, Washington, Eichstätt, and he is currently honorary professor in Freiburg im Breisgau and in Heiligenkreuz. His publications include, among numerous essays and essay collections, Die Gnade vollendeter Endlichkeit (Freiburg 1989), the critical edition of Robert Kilwardby’s Quaestiones in librum quartum Sententiarum (München 1993), and Soundings in the History of a Hope (Washington 2016). Exemplary for the effort of a contemporary university reform is his essay John Henry Newmans Idee einer Universität heute, in: Veit Neumann (ed.) Woher? Wohin? Chancen der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Würzburg 2012, 43-52.
Marianne SCHLOSSER, born in Donauwörth (Bavaria), studied Latin philology and Catholic theology at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich. She received a licentiate in 1985 and completed her doctorate with the thesis "Cognitio et amor. Zum kognitiven und voluntativen Grund der Gotteserfahrung nach Bonaventura". In 1998, she habilitated in Dogma History and Dogmatic Theology on the concept of prophecy in scholastic theology. From 1985 to 2004 she was a research associate at the Martin-Grabmann-Forschungsinstitut of the LMU. Since 2004 she is professor of Spiritual Theology at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Vienna. Her research interests are the patristic and medieval sources of Christian spirituality, spiritual life from the sacraments and the discernment of the spirits. In 2018 she received the Premio Joseph Ratzinger. She is a member of the International Theological Commission (2014-2020) and of various committees of the German and Austrian Bishop's Conferences.
Tobias SCHWADERLAPP has been diocesan youth chaplain for the Archdiocese of Cologne and Director of the Youth Centre Haus Altenberg since 2017. Born in 1982 in New York, he was ordained priest in 2008 after studying in Bonn, Berkeley and Rome and was then vicar in Düsseldorf. From 2009 to 2012 he continued his studies in Rome. In 2018, he completed his doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University with a thesis on the poetic work of John Henry Newman. Already in 2011, his licentiate thesis dealt with Newman’s conversion in the context of his two novels Callista (1856) and Loss and Gain (1848).
Felix Selden C.O., born in 1957, is a hospital chaplain at a clinic in Vienna. For 25 years he has been Provost of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Vienna, of which he was one of the founding members, and from 1988 to 2006 he was the parish priest of the Oratory parish of St. Roch. In 2006 he was elected / appointed "Delegate of the Apostolic See for the Confederation of the Oratories of St. Philip Neri", which entailed the charge of canonical visitations of about 85 communites worldwide. He still supports his successor in this task today. In his theological diploma thesis he dealt with Cardinal Newman's Oratorian spirituality.
Roman SIEBENROCK, born 1957, married and father of four children. After studying philosophy, theology and pedagogy in Innsbruck, Munich and Tübingen, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on the work of John H. Newman (Wahrheit, Gewissen und Geschichte. Eine systematisch-theologische Rekonstruktion des Wirkens John Henry Kardinal Newmans, Sigmaringendorf 1996) and habilitated in Innsbruck in 2003 on Karl Rahner’s work and reception. Since 2006 he has been Professor of Dogmatic and Fundamental Theology including Religious Studies at the Faculty of Catholic Theology of the University of Innsbruck, where he also is coordinator of the research centre “Religion-Gewalt-Kommunikation-Weltordnung”. His main research interests are the Second Vatican Council in the context of the perspective of the 19th and 20th century, the Theological Epistemology and the Christian theology of martyrdom. Roman Siebenrock is President of the “Internationale Deutsche Newman-Gesellschaft” and has published anthologies and numerous articles. He edited with W. Tolksdorf Sorgfalt des Denkens. Wege des Glaubens im Spiegel von Bildung und Wissenschaft. Ein Gespräch mit John Henry Newman, Bern et al. 2006 and with G. Biemer and L. Kuld Sinnsuchen und Lebenswenden. Gewissen als Praxis nach John Henry Newman, Bern u.a. 1998.
Gregory SOLARI, born in 1965, Doctor of Philosophy, is an Associate Professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris and works in adult education for the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg (Switzerland). As editor of the publishing house Ad solem and President of the French-speaking Association des Amis de Newman, he has translated various works of Newman into French and has published numerous books and articles on the work of the English cardinal, including John Henry Newman. L'argument de la sainteté, Paris 2019, Le temps découvert: développement et durée chez Newman et Bergson, Paris 2014 and Le cogito newmanien. Essai sur le Journal philosophique, Paris 2021.
Nicolas STEEVES S.J. (Paris, France, 1973) is a Jesuit priest who grew up on both sides of the North Atlantic. He is currently Extraordinary Professor for Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he is also the Moderator of the First Cycle of Theology. His interest in John Henry Newman arose when he visited the Birmingham Oratory as a Jesuit novice, and later developed under the direction of Keith Beaumont, P.O., at Centre Sèvres (Paris), then Michael Paul Gallagher, S.J., in Rome. Newman is key to his research on preaching and, more generally, the use of the imagination in theology. Fr. Steeves has been giving a seminar (Rome) or workshop (Paris) on Newman every year since 2013, chiefly on the Oxford University Sermons on faith and reason.
Bishop Rudolf VODERHOLZER, born 1959 in Munich, studied philosophy and theology in Munich and was ordained priest in 1987 in Freising. From 1992 to 2001 he was assistant at the Chair of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Munich. He received his doctorate in 1997 and continued his research at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). From 2005 to 2012 he was professor of Dogmatic Theology and Dogma History at the Faculty of Theology in Trier and served as Parish Priest in Kasel. Since 2008 he is Director of the “Institut Papst Benedikt XVI.” in Regensburg and since 2013 Bishop of Regensburg. In 2001, he published the German translation of Newman’s Dream of Gerontius (Johannes-Verlag Einsiedeln). In 2018, in cooperation with the theatre of Regensburg, the Hochschule für Katholische Kirchenmusik und Musikpädagogik and the university choir, Edward Elgar’s oratorio was performed on his initiative in the big lecture hall of the University of Regensburg.
Paul Bernhard WODRAZKA C.O., born in Vienna in 1977, holds a doctorate in Social and Economic Sciences from the WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) and in Theology from the University of Vienna. The priest of the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Vienna is a chaplain at the Catholic studen ministry of Vienna. He is the editor and author of numerous publications and research papers on theology, economic and social history, canon studies, as well as on Philip Neri and John Henry Newman.