Completed Postgraduate Research

Meins G.S. Coetsier - Towards a Theology of Prison Ministry.'
Karl Rahner's views on prison ministry, although valuable and of significance in their context, are not adequate to deal with the more complex needs and demands of prison ministry in the twenty first century. A greater pastoral appreciation is necessary of the traumas, conflicts and suffering experienced by prisoners, prison pastors, prison staff and, indeed, in the wider world. The subjective world of the prisoner also needs to be addressed in an effort to engage with the innate human desire for meaning and fulfilment. Prison ministry today draws on concrete experience of the above-mentioned traumas and conflicts and must be sensitive to and inspired by the search for meaning as experienced by prisoners. Such an approach leads to a theology based on empowerment that can be found through a creative and meaning-centred response to suffering, as illustrated by the lives of Viktor Frankl, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Etty Hillesum.
Meins Coetsier studied philosophy at The Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy and was awarded doctorate degrees from Ghent University in Philosophy (2008) and Comparative Science of Culture (2012). After postdoctoral research at Zurich University, he works as a deacon and prison chaplain for the Diocese of Fulda in Germany.

Dr Meins Coetsier

Supervisor: Dr Fainche Ryan

Paul Corcoran: Christian Wonder and the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh
My research aimed to move towards the development of a modern Christian theology of wonder today. It began by tracing to the Patristic preoccupation with curiositas the negativistic assessment of wonder throughout much of the history of Christian theology. Building on Aquinas’ ideal of a ‘virtuous’ wonder, it will remimagine Christian wonder as a kind of active ‘receptivity’ with which Christians are called to partake in the inherent mystery of their faith, a sacramental state of mind attuned to the transcendent ‘more-than-is’ (Maritain) of God’s presence in the world and in the Sacraments of the Church. Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry will be established as displaying the virtue and sacramentality redolent of true Christian wonder and will offer an evocative example of the role Christian art can play in the cultivation and communication of a flourishing theology of wonder today.

Paul Corcoran

Supervisor: Prof. Fainche Ryan.

Oana Sanziana Marian- Just the Vessel with the Wine in It: Christianity’s Social Performances, Poetry’s Sacramental Refusals, and the Theology of Willie James Jennings
My research examined poetic modalities and potentialities in contemporary theological writing (particularly that of the contemporary American theologian Willie James Jennings), and theological dimensions of poetry and poets working, consciously or unconsciously, to rehabilitate diseased and distorted understandings of intimacy within what Jennings calls Christianity’s social performances. The nature of the distortion is racial and gendered, a diseased understanding of self and other, including understandings of self and land, self and animals, and self and community - in the language of Martin Buber, I-it, instead of I-Thou ways of relating to the not-me, including a divine not-me that people call God. A basic premise of this research is that, without an understanding of the centrality and necessity of intimacy – and the way intimacy has been distorted – Christian theological projects, even those driven by liberationist impulses, are stuck in an endlessly creative, ultimately futile, episodic repositioning.

Dr Oana Sanziana Marian

Supervisor: Prof. Siobhán Garrigan.

Kate Oxsen - Royal Women in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Building on my previous interest in the representation of gender in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (HB/OT), this project is focused on the depiction of the three most prominent royal women in the HB/OT: Bathsheba, Jezebel (with Athaliah), and Esther. These characters have received varying degrees of scholarly attention in their own right. However, a dearth of extended depictions of royal women elsewhere in the HB/OT suggests the merits of a reading strategy which explores the relationship between the narrative accounts of these three women.

Dr Kate Oxsen

Supervisor: Prof. David Shepherd

Emmett O’Regan: The Indefectibility of the Apostolic See.
Since the publication of Amoris Laetitia in 2016, there has been a resurgence of the medieval speculation on the problem of a heretical pope. According to the medieval canonists, a pope who succumbs to formal heresy would automatically forfeit the Petrine office. For the critics of Amoris Laetitia, this scenario raises the potential for a modern-day schism. This research demonstrates that this debate has already been definitively settled during the First Vatican Council, when St. Robert’s Bellarmine’s view of papal indefectibility was raised to dogmatic status as a secondary object of papal infallibility. The Relatio of Vatican I shows that the Council fathers understood that the doctrine of the indefectibility of the Apostolic See necessarily precludes the possibility of a heretical pope.

Dr. Emmett O’Regan

Supervisor: Dr Fainche Ryan

Mary Stefanazzi - THE NARRATIVE OF HUMAN FLOURISHING: A study of the dialogue between Victor White (Theologian) and Carl Jung (Analytical Psychology) on the frontier between theology and psychology.
This research considered the contemporary relevance of the collaboration between Victor White, theologian, and Carl Gustav Jung the founder of Analytical Psychology. The Jung-White dialogue is of particular interest because it demonstrates the challenge and the value of rigorous interdisciplinary engagement. Although theology and psychology each share the same subject matter – the human person – the distinction lies in the way in which the subject is knowable.The work recommends White’s anthropology, which is grounded in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas, as a basis for interdisciplinary dialogue on what it means to be a flourishing human person. White’s corpus has much to contribute towards a greater understanding of what constitutes mental health. Although the times we live in have changed considerably, the essence of the human condition has not. This research has added considerable benefit to Mary’s work as a psychotherapist, workshop facilitator and clinical supervisor.

Dr. Mary Stefanazz

Supervisor:

Kristopher Seaman - Mission, Liturgy, and World in Relationality: Towards a Decentred Liturgical Theology of Mission.
I explored how liturgical theologies of mission unnecessarily limit the potential for mission outside of the church gathered for liturgy. Where my thesis saught to go further than existing liturgical theologies of mission is to de-centre liturgy as a complete or normative site of mission. This is not to suggest that liturgy is unnecessary or that mission does not occur within liturgical ritual, but rather to suggest that mission is central to the activity of disciples living in the world, and liturgy supports that mission. Kristopher W. Seaman, D.Min, PhD is currently lecturing in theology at Saint Xavier University, Chicago. Whilst serving on the editorial committee for the American Society of Missiology Series, he will be teaching a course in mission theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Chicago this summer.

Dr. Kristopher Seaman

Supervisor: