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School of Theology and Ministry Professor Thomas Groome, an internationally renowned theologian, popular Catholic author and authority on religious education, has been appointed director of the Church in the 21st Century Center (C21) by University President William P. Leahy, SJ.
Groome, who will assume his duties on July 1, succeeds former C21 Director Erik Goldschmidt, who resigned in 2014, and Special Assistant to the President Robert Newton, who has served as interim director this academic year. Newton will continue with his role as chair of the C21 steering committee and co-chair of its advisory committee.
“I’m looking forward to this new challenge and to working to take the Church in the 21st Century Center to its next level of excellence in service to the life of the Church in the world,” said Groome. “Since its inception, C21 has accomplished a great deal, but there are myriad issues remaining which need addressing for the Church to be effective and to flourish in this century.”
“Dr. Groome will bring much wisdom, vision, and experience to C21,” said Fr. Leahy. “His Catholic faith is foundational to his life, he values the Catholic intellectual tradition and pastoral approach, and he appreciates the opportunities and challenges facing contemporary Catholicism. I very much look forward to working with him to advance C21 and its mission.”
Established initially as a response to the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, the center has evolved into a catalyst and resource for the renewal of the Church, focusing on four main topics: handing on the faith; roles and relationships in the Church; sexuality in the Catholic tradition; and the Catholic intellectual tradition.
The center has sponsored/cosponsored more than 500 events that have attracted some 65,000 participants, including 500 scholars or prominent Church figures. Its website, which has an international viewership, boasts 400 webcasts of C21 programs, and its magazine, C21 Resources, has a circulation of 175,000. The award-winning C21 book series has produced more than a dozen titles to date.
“Building upon the good work done over the past 13 years, I’d like to deepen the center’s engagement with some cutting-edge issues for the Church of the 21st Century,” said Groome. “For example, how is the US Catholic Church to embrace the gifts and respond to the pastoral needs of its expanding Hispanic population? Or, as Pope Francis continues his clarion call for the Church to side with the poor, how should we respond in an America that has an ever-increasing divide between great wealth and dire poverty, with poor women and children suffering the most? And within the Church’s own backyard, it is urgent that we face honestly and openly the future of diocesan priesthood, its membership, culture and preparation.”
Groome has been a faculty member at Boston College since 1976. A native of Ireland, he completed seminary education at St. Patrick’s College in Carlow, Ireland. He earned a master’s degree in religious education from Fordham University and a doctorate in theology and education from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University Teachers College.
He has authored such books as Will There be Faith: A New Vision for Educating and Growing Disciples; What Makes Us Catholic: Eight Gifts for Life; and Educating for Life: A Spiritual Vision for Every Teacher and Parent. He also has published more than 150 articles and essays on religious education and ministry in scholarly journals and publications. He is co-editor of Horizons and Hopes: The Future of Religious Education, Reclaiming Catholicism: Treasures Old and New and Catholic Spiritual Practices: Treasures Old and New, a C21 book he edited with his wife Colleen Griffith, STM associate professor of the practice of theology.
As the primary author of the religion curriculum, Coming to Faith and God with Us, and general editor of the Credo religious education series, Groome has had an impact on the religious education — from kindergarten to high school — of generations of Catholics.
Groome has been honored for his work with the Emmaus Award from the National Association of Parish Religious Educators, Christian Culture Gold Medal Award from Assumption University (Canada) and by the Catholic Press Association.
Groome’s knowledge and expertise in religious education, theology and ministry make him a sought-after speaker in religious education circles and beyond. During the past 35 years, he has made more than 700 presentations to religious educators throughout North America, and served as a guest lecturer at several universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Emory, Chicago, Notre Dame and Georgetown, among others. He has lectured outside the US in Ireland, England, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Jamaica, Lithuania, Sweden, Peru, Ecuador, Germany, South Africa and the Netherlands.