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Next month, more than 500 adult Catholics from the Archdiocese of San Francisco are expected to take part in “Forward in Faith: Educational Enrichment for the Thinking Catholic,” a customized faith formation program developed especially for them by Church in the 21st Century Online. It is the first time C21 Online has developed a program for use across an entire diocese.
The courses, which will focus on faith discipleship and the Church, sacramental life and practices in Christian living, are geared for Catholics “in the pews” as well as those in parish leadership positions.
“We’re very excited about this program,” said School of Theology and Ministry Director of Continuing Education Barbara Anne Radtke, who designed the courses in concert with Bishop Robert W. McElroy, an auxiliary bishop in the San Francisco Archdiocese; Sister Celeste Arbuckle, SSS, director of the archdiocese’s Office for Religious Education and Youth Ministry, and Father Dave Pettingill, former director of the archdiocese’s School of Pastoral Leadership. Established in 1853, the Archdiocese of San Francisco is home to 400,000 Catholics.
The program will be administered both online, primarily for young adults ages 20-39, and in 12 parish locations throughout the archdiocese. The 20-session, two-semester program is adapted from Church in the 21st Century Center presentations and STM Continuing Education presentations. The parish-based sessions will feature a Boston College lecture on DVD followed by facilitated discussions led by local faith educators. For the online courses, Radtke and three others will serve as facilitators in moderated chat rooms.
The genesis of the relationship with the archdiocese can be traced back several years ago to a custom course designed by Radtke for master catechists in a parish leadership program directed by Sister Celeste.
Earlier this year, archdiocese officials reached out to Radtke with the idea for a faith formation course for adult learners. As Bishop McElroy explained to the Catholic San Francisco, he was looking to solve a problem he had encountered as a pastor: adult Catholics, with limited time, looking for more education and parishes without the money and resources to consistently offer quality faith education locally.
Radtke met with archdiocesan representatives over the summer. She said Bishop McElroy, who has experience teaching at a university level, “was very interested and brought a distinctive approach as bishop and educator to the process. I was very impressed with how involved he was.”
C21 Online has previously worked directly with other dioceses, such as Norwalk, Conn.; Fairbanks, Alaska; Albany, NY; and Green Bay, Wis. But as Radtke points out, those instances were limited to small groups or specific components of the dioceses’ population, such as Catholic elementary school teachers.
In addition to the courses for the San Francisco Archdiocese, C21 Online will continue its robust offering of other non-credit courses for Catholics seeking spiritual renewal and faith formation. According to Radtke, about 1,000 online learners participated in the moderated courses last academic year — a number that does not reflect the people taking the free, mini-courses offered 24/7 from the C21 Online website. Those mini-courses, available in English and Spanish, have been viewed by tens of thousands of people in all 50 states and some 130 countries since C21 Online’s inception in 2004.