Religious Studies at Santa Catalina School

The aim of the Religious Studies program is to facilitate the intellectual, moral and spiritual development of our students. We achieve this by deepening a student's understanding of herself, God, and the world around her and encouraging her to act in accordance with her informed conscience. We challenge and augment a student's self-understanding through the cultivation of critical thinking skills. We encourage the appropriation of religious questions and religious meaning. We foster an understanding of God through the study of Sacred Scriptures, various religious traditions, and investigations into the meaning of "faith" "religious experience" and "conversion." Finally, we affirm that a person discovers her own ultimate meaning and self-worth in the measure that she remains faithful to her own desire for such, by cultivating compassion, self-discipline, and the capacity for self-giving thereby becoming a person for others in the fashion of Jesus Christ.

Curriculum

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Catholic Social Teaching: Catholic Social Teaching offers a faith perspective on personal, social and global issues of moral concern. It examines social issues in the light of Gospel values, and the social teaching of the Catholic Church. Some of the issues considered in this course include capital punishment, abortion, stem cell research, strip mining, rain forest protection and the global distribution of wealth and resources.
Hebrew Bible and New Testament: Hebrew Bible and New Testament is a one-semester examination of the sacred texts of the Judeo-Christian heritage. Students become familiar with the foundational story of Salvation History as it has been mediated through the community of faith in the major covenants of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
History of Christianity: History of Christianity is a study of the Church and its relationship to the world from its Easter birth in the middle-east to the modern, post-conciliar and ecumenical period. The course examines internal doctrinal development as well as the dialogical relationship of the Church and the broader culture, wherever the Church is present.
Philosophy of Religion: Philosophy of Religion undertakes a serious examination of the relationship between faith and reason. It demonstrates the inadequacies of rationalist and empiricist approaches (both theistic and atheistic) to answering ultimate human questions, thereby disclosing the limits of reason alone and demonstrating the authentic faith response as trans-rational but not irrational.
Religion and Literature: Religion and Literature uses novels, short stories, documentaries and philosophical essays to explore the human condition, the spiritual journey and various religious themes from the Christian tradition. The seminar course raises questions regarding fundamental human desires and ultimate human fulfillment as we anticipate, imagine, and even experience such fulfillment. Materials used in this course include works by Leo Tolstoy, J.D. Salinger, Graham Greene, T.S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis and Flannery O'Connor.
Women of Faith: Women of Faith is a seminar course investigating and discussing the lives of contemporary women who model a radical devotion to God, or who live life with full religious commitment to truth, love, and peace. This course examines the life stories of Mother Teresa, Etty Hillesum, Edith Stein, Dorothy Day, and Sr. Helen Prejean.
World Religions: World Religions offers a basic introduction to Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam. The course considers each with respect to its individual tenets, traditions, and practices, and in relation to one another by elucidating common elements of the doctrine of God (Ultimate Reality), and common conceptions of the human person. The course focuses on the religious understandings of conversion, enlightenment, salvation and transformation in both the personal and social dimensions of those concepts.