Freshman Courses

Understanding Your Faith
This course is a basic review of Catholic Christian faith.  During this semester, key concepts and vocabulary are clarified.  The course takes the student as the starting point, works thorugh the reality of religious experience, and concentrates on the reality of Jesus Christ as focal to Christian belief.  Particular emphasis is given to sacramental theology.  The material offered seeks to engage students in an encounter with this essential dimension of Catholic life so that they can better appreicate the meaning underlying the sacraments and the relationship between the sacraments and their own lives.

Hebrew Scriptures
This course is based on the covenant God makes with each of us beginning with the covenants of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures.   Major biblical figures will be studied with emphasis on their call from and response to God. The history of the Israelites as a people struggling to know God will be reviewed.  Connections will be made to the fulfillment of the covenants in the Christian Scriptures.  Through this study, students will be given the opportunity to identify their own faith struggles and to see God working in their own lives.

Sophomore Courses

Sophomore Morality
This course discusses morality as it applies to every phase of life.  The course intends to address the moral struggles, issues, dilemmas, and emerging identity which confront all people.  Thus, the emphasis of this course will be the personal development of the individual.  It will center on Jesus Christ as the model of full humanness and look at the virtues of Jesus as can be seen in the lives of people past and present.  There will be discussions on morality, sin and forgiveness, and forming a healthy conscience.

Jesus in the New Testament 
This course will teach the basic Catholic doctrine on the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ.  The gospels will be the focus for this study; the formation of the gospels is covered as well as the message of Jesus in the gospels.  Through this course, the student will be invited to explore the New Testament and come to know the Jesus of faith as someone personal in his or her own life.  Attention will be given to the Letters, the Acts of the Apostles and the Book of Revelation in so far as they provide an understanding of who Jesus is.

Junior Courses

Church History
This course is a historical study of the Christian/Catholic Church from its beginning to its present day form. The course will provide the student with a perspective on how the Church has grown and developed through the years. It will show the students how Christians have been challenged to live out the gospel over the centuries. It is the purpose of this course to help the students understand the history of their Church so that they may be better able to identify with it.  The course will also focus on important historical figures in the church that have in a special way lived the gospel message of Jesus.

World Religions
This course provides an introduction of major non-Christian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Judaism, and Islam. Before exploring these traditions, the course focuses on a beginning chapter, which discusses the common elements
in all religions such as doctrines, sacred stories, and rituals as these components form the traditions of a religion. The chapter also looks at the nature of religious experience, ethics in religion, and the role of revelations.  A second chapter features some typical primal religions through a study of the Aborigines in Australia, the Yoruba in Africa, and the Lakota (Sioux) in the United States.  The overall purpose of the course is to promote an understanding of other peoples and religions so that students may come to respect the different traditions and thus become agents of tolerance and peace in a divided world. In addition, the course offers a more personal benefit to students: as they learn about other religions, they can arrive at a more precise understanding of their own.

Senior Courses

Marriage and Christian Lifestyles
This semester course explores how the primary Christian vocation is lived fully in the different lifestyle and relationship choices of single life, married life, ordained life, and vowed religious life. Class projects take the student through the stages of marriage and are the major focus of this course. Students will "experience" the Catholic Church's process and theology of sacramental marriage

The Christian Call to Justice and Peace
This course will relate the teachings of Jesus and the church to the struggle for justice and peace in our world today.  The principles of Catholic social teaching will be studied.  These include human dignity, respect for life, call to family and community, rights and responsiblities, common good, option for the poor and vulnerable, work and workers, solidarity, and stewardship. These principles will be applied to such issues as right to life, prejudice, racism, poverty, war, workers and the environment. Students are called to deepen consciousness and compassion and act responsibly in order to become citizens who promote peace in the domestic, national and global society.