A Graduate School of Catechesis
This school was created in 1957 for the Belgian public. Today it forms professons of religion, parochial catechists, and youth group leaders.
To this school come also many students-at-large who make their choice of this or that program in biblical, theological, or catechetical study.
The program of formation is divided into small modules and is conceived in such a way as to allow great leeway to respond to a diversity of needs.
At present the school counts some sixty full-time students. It reaches each year about 500 persons with its courses and workshops.
The International Institute
The other teaching department of the Lumen Vitae Centre is the "International Institute." Created in 1956,
the International Institute aims at a university-level formation, in an intercultural environment, in
materials theological, catechetical, pastoral, and developmental.
The Institute welcomed this year some 100 male and female students from 35 different nationalities,
principally from the Third World. They are sent by their bishops or by their religions superiors.
They are lay people, male and female religious, priests. They are from diverse races, tongues, and
cultural outlooks.
They come to Lumen Vitae to prepare themselves to take positions of responsibility in their respective
homelands for tasks that are very often quite important. The intercultural pedagogy of the instituts
allows the students to share abundantly their pastoral experiences and to form friendships which extend
beyond their borders.
The cycles of formation last for three months, one year, or two years. In two years the students can
acquire a bachelor's or a master's degree in catechetics and pastoral theology. This master's is
conferred jointly by Lumen Vitae and the faculty of theology of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-
Neuve with which the institute is affiliated,
Almost 2,500 alumni of Lumen Vitae are at work today in the four corners of the earth. They undertake a
variety of catechetical and pastoral tasks. They facilitate parish or diocesan catechesis. They have
responsability for communities, the training of catechists, the direction of schools. They participate
in development projects. Four times a year the "Alumni News" communicates to all graduates the news of
one another's activity.
The Magazine Lumen Vitae
Lumen Vitae is still a centre of publication. The Lumen Vitae publications division puts out works of
research, pedagogical tools for catechesis, school manuals for the teaching of religion, and so forth.
The Review Lumen Vitae
The international review, Lumen Vitae, has, since 1946, been a privileged witness to the cultural and
religions evolution of the modem world. it is currently distributed in 95 different countries.
A center of Documentation
Lumen Vitae, finally, is a centre of documentation. That has been, furthermore, its primary objective
since 1935. Today 75.000 volumes make up its specialized library which is consulted by scholars who
come, at times, from afar to use it.
|
