The McGrath Institute at Notre Dame has released videos about two of its programs: Foundations New Orleans – Bringing Science and Faith Into Dialogue and Science & Religion Initiative Institute Days – Integrating Faith and Science Nationwide.

The McGrath Institute’s Science & Religion Initiative offers concurrent summer seminars at the University of Notre Dame campus and Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. At the week-long seminars, religion and science teachers from across the country gather to explore faith and science. Professors from universities across the country are Foundations lecturers. Science and Religion Seminars teach methods that enhance the dialogue between science and religion in Catholic education, challenging the notion that the two disciplines are in conflict. Science teachers learn how to engage the Catholic vision of creation and the human person while upholding the integrity and value of independent scientific investigation. Religion teachers explore how science informs and enhances their appreciation of God’s creation and action.

For the last three summers, St. Mary’s Dominican High School’s Gayle and Tom Benson Science and Technology Complex has been a host site for lab experiments that are part of the Foundations New Orleans seminars. Matt Foss, Chair of Dominican’s Science Department, has served as lab manager. This summer, Foss also was an instructor and seminar participant with fellow Dominican teachers Madelyn Maldonado (Science) and Mark Gonnella (Religion). They and Jill Cabes, Vice President of Dominican Catholic Identity, participated in the McGrath Institute videos.

In addition to the McGrath Institutes’ programs, Dominican also participated in the 38th annual Gulf Coast Faith Formation Conference. Cabes and Foss were panelists in the parallel implementation workshop sessions on Science and the Catholic Faith: Overcoming the Myth of Conflict. The three-day conference in January was hosted and sponsored by the Archdiocese of New Orleans in collaboration with other dioceses in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Each year, conference attendees include laity, clergy, and religious from the Gulf Coast and throughout the United States

During the academic year, the McGrath Institute hosts Institute Days at Catholic high schools across the nation to provide in-service programming for teachers and administrators. Holy Cross High School and its faculty hosted an Institute Day.