A series of classes at the St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology are teaching future priests how to deal with issues like vaccine hesitancy and science denying within their parishes.
It sounds like a science classroom on any college campus. But Father Thomas Gricoski’s subject today is Cosmology and Theism in Conflict. The seven students are second year seminarians who will one day be ministering in far flung parishes.
The students, like Daniel Cooper, need some tools to help their parishoners understand the intersection of faith and science.
Cooper says, “By studying science and by learning what science can offer to faith and balancing both faith and reason, we can provide those answers to people who are looking for a more rational experience to explain why they believe what they believe.”
And they’ll need to deal with the consequences of parishoners who let their political views about science carry over to Sunday mass.
Cooper says, “I think it’s a minefield that you have to navigate, and that’s not just something you have to navigate as a priest, it’s something that everybody navigates.”
The seminarians’ science courses, which are paid for by a grant from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, will conclude next spring with public forums to discuss the issues.
