Donum Ipsum

Last Thursday a group of students along with Fr. Jim Baraniak, O.Praem. and Shaun Johnson met in the Oratory of St. Joseph Church to talk about the future and direction of a collaborative program called Donum Ipsum. Last semester Fr. Jim and Shaun decided to pilot the program so that students could participate in an environment where they could pray together, share in open and honest discussion about the teachings of the Catholic Church, and develop a small community. Both Shaun and Fr. Jim felt it was time to assess how the program was going so last week the participants came with their thinking caps on and helped to contribute in a discussion that concluded that the program was going well as is. The group did suggest some minor changes that will be discussed and decided upon at a later time, but one changes was the need to come up with a general outline of topics to be discussed ahead of time so that students could come prepared to ask questions they may have at the sessions. As a response, the following topics were brought up for future discussions.
Topics of Interest for Donum Ipsum

- Church History - could be interspersed or part of the middle piece of the
experience - This day in history...
- Nicene Creed - dissecting it to see what we are saying we believe in...
- Rosary
- Polarization of Views in the Church
- Why distinction between and lack of conversation between
- The Norbertine Order and what it is today
- Theology of the Body
- Human Sexuality
- Hot Button Topics
- Abortion
- Stem Cell Research
- Sexuality
- Economics
- Politics
- Creationism/Evolution/Intelligent Design
- Transubstantiation
- Mysticism/Desert Fathers
- Sacraments
- Exorcism
- Different Rites w/in Catholicism
- Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue and the Catholic Church
- Priesthood
- Robinsonville/Maryology
- Technology and the Church

At this point, we are asking for students to look at the list and come up with their top two topics so we can schedule ahead for our discussions by either emailing me, responding to this post with a comment, or responding to the facebook post on the Donum Ipsum group page.