Posted on 10/22/2012 1:24:16 PM PDT by marshmallow
Back in 1974, music writer John Landau achieved immortality after attending a set in the Harvard Square Theatre by a then-obscure act out of New Jersey, and declaring: "I have seen the future of rock and roll, and its name is Bruce Springsteen."
In a similar vein, let me say here and now: "I have seen the future of the new evangelization, and its name is the Ukrainian Catholic University."
If the place eventually becomes known as "the Boss" of Catholic evangelism, remember you heard it here first.
Located in Lviv in western Ukraine, the university is part of the revival of the Greek Catholic Church after the fall of the Soviet empire, when it was the largest illegal religious body in the world. The biggest of the 22 Eastern churches in communion with Rome, it has more than 3 million followers in Ukraine and around 5.5 million worldwide.
Re-established in 1994, with an enrollment today around 1,600, this is the only Catholic university in the former Soviet sphere; as they like to say, it's the only Catholic university "between Poland and Japan."
Its bold aim is nothing less than to "rethink" what a Catholic university can be in the 21st century.
I was at the university over the weekend for a speaking gig, and on Saturday, I sat down with Bishop Borys Gudziak, the rector and driving force. (Gudziak, 51, was recently named Apostolic Exarch of France, but he'll continue to play a role here.) He explained that during a reflection process in the early 1990s, planners identified two core challenges:
* Building on the legacy of the Ukrainian martyrs during the period of Soviet oppression, when the Greek Catholic Church was the most important source of social opposition. No country produced more martyrs in the 20th century.....
(Excerpt) Read more at ncronline.org ...
Sheesh! Get a load of some of the comments posted in response to the article! The NCR is where hippie CINOs go to intellectually die apparently.
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