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Lynch School of Education Professor Joseph O’Keefe, SJ, and School of Theology and Ministry Visiting Professor of Canon Law James J. Conn, SJ, were members of an influential working group of 30 academics, educators and clergy that gathered in Rome last month for the Congregation for Catholic Education.
Boston College was one of just four US universities to send representatives to the June 22-23 conference, which covered a range of challenges and opportunities confronting Catholic education throughout the world. The Congregation for Catholic Education is the Vatican department that oversees educational enterprises affiliated with the Catholic Church, said Fr. Conn, who also teaches law at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is a regular consultor to the Congregation.
“The Congregation see themselves as promoting cooperation and interaction among the various institutions – including Catholic universities, Catholic schools and seminaries,” Fr. Conn said. “I think this group broadly represents the different levels of Catholic education, different countries and different schools.”
Fr. O’Keefe, one of America’s foremost experts on Catholic education, said BC’s close partnership with Catholic schools in Boston and elsewhere in the US, as well as its role providing school leaders internationally, make the Lynch School uniquely qualified to share best practices with representatives from around the world.
“BC is uniquely poised to support an emerging international network of Catholic schools — which will, I hope, be one of the outcomes of the Congregation meetings,” Fr. O’Keefe said.