MA Theology - Catholic

Re: reply

Hi philosophy,

I reread my post and I just don't see an undignified tone. Such is the nature of electronic, rather than face-to-face communication.

I am in hopes disagreements on this Board or asking for clarification doesn't categorize someone as an "enemy."

I consider you a friend and thoroughly enjoy your posts.

Thanks for the clarification, my friend!

 

reply

I consider you a friend. You're a brilliant and caring person. I look forward to having more conversations with you in the future.

 

Re: reply

I may be caring but am certainly not brilliant, unless some fluorescent spray paint accidently gets on me when I refurbish my car opening tools.

 

I'm coming late to this thread, but I can't control myself because I just did some research in this area. I am a more-or-less "conservative" Catholic myself, and in general my set loves Holy Apostles, Steubenville, and Catholic Distance University.

Steubenville at $600 per 3 credit course is quite a bargain, for a 36 credit M.A. even not including books and shipping of the class tapes. However, Steubenville requires at least 3 weeks on campus over the summer for 6 of the credits, so if you don't have some hefty vacation time this might be a little hard.

CDU is more expensive than either Steubenville or Holy Apostles, and is not RA (tho' it is DETC). Not RA means it might be hard to be hired as a religion techer in a Catholic high school, etc.

Canon law in the Catholic Church requires 5 years of "formation" in a seminary for priestly ordination even if you have a Ph.D. in theology, so none of these schools fulfill ordination requirements.

Your local B&M Catholic university might be your best bet rather than DL. Tuition might be expensive, but most have part-time evening and weekend programs, often geared to lay ministry formation. If you commit to a certain apostolate, your archdiocese or diocese might even reduce or comp tuition.

 

If you understand Spanish, take a look at this program:

http://www.javeriana.edu.co/Facultades/Teologia/

 

I am at a loss as to what a ‘not too conservative’ Catholic is.

I can understand what a not too conservative US citizen, or liberal, or conservative or left wing or right wing or any flavor in between. nosborne and DesElms are on one end of that spectrum and I am on the other - and that is the way it should be as we are all free to believe as we do. I don't think DI has any members in countries that don't allow freedom of thought.

However Roman Catholicism seems rather less flexible to me. Either you accept the Magisterium of the Church or you don't. If you do then you are a Roman Catholic in Communion with the Church, if you don't your not.

Since 'not too conservative' infers some liberalism (not in a pejorative meaning) - some freedom if you will- I can't see how there can be a not too conservative Roman Catholic MA.

Sure some institutions like Gonzaga allow groups supporting homosexuality and its practice as well as pro-abortion groups on campus and still call themselves Catholic institutions - but are they really?

Pope John Paul II of Blessed Memory made it clear in Ex corde Ecclesiae that if you want to be a Roman Catholic University you must toe the line. So being a Roman Catholic who with great faith accepts the teachings of the Church I cannot grasp the concept of a liberal Catholic University at which one could get a MA in Theology. It seems like learning a foreign language but not learning verbs... either you are going to follow the Catholic teachings or not. Catholicism is not a club, or party to join and for the life of me I could not convince someone who had beliefs different from mine to join the Church. But a not too conservative Catholic Theology MA seems like an oxymoronic waste of time.

That said, you might want to look into Maryvale in the UK here although if I recall it has already been mentioned.

 

mdoneil, to view a web site that should bring a smile to your face, click here.

 

Indeed it did. I do belong to the Milita Immaculata (MI) and the Knights of Columbus. The KofC has the best outfits and swords too!

 

You make some excellent points, mdoneil. In general I have taken to cheerfully confessing to being a "more-or-less conservative" Catholic, largely because these terms have expanded so much. I spend far too much time on OTHER forums and blogs striating degrees of Catholic identity! For example, I would not consider Holy Apostles as "very conservative," certainly not so much that I would reach for the italics toolbar. They are known for preaching great Fr. John Corapi and general orthodoxy, not for the Tridentine Mass, et al. I suspect someone with ideological constraints might benefit more from a B&M environment, where concerns about 'too conservative" might be met head on in classroom discussion.

But I would like to shift this thread back to the great Maryvale mentioned twice above, and see if anyone can answer these questions:

Does "Open University validation" mean "foreign equivalent of RA"? Similar to UNISA, etc?

Does Maryvale admit to the PhD directly if one holds an M.A. in theology, or is their PhD only for graduates of their M.Phil programme?

And last but never least, does anyone know of Maryvale grads who teach and otherwise earn their bread with their degrees?

 

If I remember correctly, the PhD program at Maryvale is not in Theology but in Catholic Studies. By the way, the degree program is administered by Maryvale but the ultimate degree is granted by the Open University (UK). It may be the only way to get a PhD from OU (UK) while living in the USA.
Jack

 

I forgot to mention that some of the B&M Catholic schools will not accept credits from Catholic DL programs if the latter are not ACTS accredited, even if they are RA like Steubenville.

 

This is Gonzaga self definition:

"Gonzaga University belongs to a long and distinguished tradition of humanistic, Catholic, and Jesuit education. We, the trustees and regents, faculty, administration and staff of Gonzaga, are committed to preserving and developing that tradition and communicating it to our students and alumni.

As humanistic, we recognize the essential role of human creativity, intelligence, and initiative in the construction of society and culture.

As Catholic, we affirm the heritage which has developed through two thousand years of Christian living, theological reflection, and authentic interpretation.

As Jesuit, we are inspired by the vision of Christ at work in the world, transforming it by His love, and calling men and women to work with Him in loving service of the human community."

 

Try The Catholic Distance University - http://www.cdu.edu/ which is DETC Accredited.

 

Thank you, Jack, you are indeed correct about Maryvale's degrees being in "Catholic Studies" rather than "theology." I am currently in a B&M "theology" program and considering transfer into a "religious studies" program. My presumption is that "religious studies" might widen the job pool to include secular universities while narrowing it to exclude some denominational schools that expect strong grounding in a specific faith tradition.

 

SATS Question

Thank you all for all your suggestions. I am really confused as to which way to go after all the information provided!

I have been reading on the board a lot of information about SATS. The price is certainly nice, but in looking at their website, I am a bit confused about how the Master of Theology courses work. They have the structure program, but it is not actually coursework, it is writing mini-thesis? Can someone explain how this is organized? Since my MBA was all coursework at Baker College, I can't grasp exactly how this would work. Do you set up a certain topic to study with an instructor and then write a thesis? How are they graded?

Thanks in advance!

Teri

 

I completed an MA Theology degree from Australian Catholic University. It is reasonably priced and can be completed in less than two years by taking two courses at a time. The curriculum provides plenty of opportunity to take courses that appeal to you. The library is available via to Internet to all students. The amount of reading is tremendous, as one would expect. The assignments remain on topic and are fairly demanding. You will have to buy a number of books simply to compliment the available material and for indepth study. Course delivery via the Internet is outstanding and student-friendly.

 

What an interesting and helpful thread this is! Good luck to all of you!

 

Re: SATS Question

Excllent questions, and very much similar to what, among several other things, I asked SATS in a recent email to them... to which they replied promptly and thoroughly.

Both versions of the SATS MTh -- the thesis route, and the structured route -- are thesis-like in that neither of them contains any coursework, per se. However, those in the structured route are presumed to have less of a theological background and underpinning; and, therefore, may be asked to take some courses just to bring them up to speed before actually commencing to write any of those "mini-thesis" papers. I think even someone in the thesis route could, conceivably, be asked to take a course or two to round-out whatever is their theological background... but from what I understand, that would be less likely to happen to a thesis route student than it would to a structured route student. In fact, from what I understand, it woud be far more likely that if it were determined that a thesis route student needed to take a course after all, s/he would probably be switched over to the structured route.

Converting entirely-thesis-based degrees into credit hours for purposes of transferring into other programs, or for qualifying for some sort of license or certification, has always been problematic. Technically, there's really no way to do it and it is, to some degree, arbitrary. But most people tend to agree that a given thesis-based masters degree is probably equivalent to a certain number of hours of coursework... usually from 24 to 36 in the U.S. When that's the case, the school just sort of declares it so and as long as the school is accredited and reputable and rigorous and all that kinda' stuff, other schools often just take them at their word and consider the degree worth the declared number of hours and that's that.

SATS does not use the U.S. semester hour system. Instead, it uses the South African "National Qaulifications Framework" (NQF) standard. Under that standard, the conversion is:

• 1 US semester hour = roughly 4 South African credits
  (Actually, it's right around 3.75, but many round up to 4)

Each year of undergraduate work in South Africa is roughly 120 credits. A four-year South African bachelors degree is, therefore, 480 credits. Since an equivalent U.S. bachelors degree is 120 semester hours, that would be:

• 480 SA credits = 120 US semester hours

When I asked about precisely how a the SATS MTh would transfer into U.S. programs (i.e., how many credit hours of coursework it would be), I got two answers. The first one, in lower-case letters, below, was from one person at SATS; and the second one, in all upper-case letters, below, was from a second, higher-ranking person at SATS who got to read the first (all lower-case letters) person's answer and then annotated it with his own (all upper-case) added/clarifying comments, to wit:

• First person's answer
  At present, a Masters degree is rated at 120 credits on the NQF, but it will soon change to 180. However, it doesn't really work on credits. The requirement is a 120-150 page thesis that meets the academic demands of Master's level research.
  
  Second person's answer/annotation
  OUR M.TH DEGREE IS CURRENTLY 120 CREDITS ABOVE THE FOUR YEAR B.TH LEVEL. IN OTHER WORDS IT IS RATED AT 600 CREDITS IN TOTAL. AT MASTERS LEVEL THE CREDIT SYSTEM IS SOMEWHAT ARTIFICIAL BECAUSE OUR M.TH IS BY THESIS (OR A COMBINATION OF MINI-THESIS) ONLY. THE STANDARD IS SET IN TERMS OF QUALITY OF WORK WITHIN A STATED MINIMUM THESIS LENGTH RATHER THAN CREDITS. HOWEVER, IN TERMS OF TRANSFERABILITY THE M.TH CURRENTLY EQUALS 600 TRANSFERABLE CREDITS.

He means 600 transferable credits including the 480-credit bachelors, leaving 120 credits allocated to the MTh. So, based on the conversion forumula, SATS is saying that its 120-credit MTh is equivalent to from 30 to 32 US semester hours of transferable credit... or so SATS is declaring. The "30 hour" estimate is using the 4:1 (SA:US) ratio; and the "32 hour" estimate is using the more accurate 3.75:1 (SA:US) ratio. Since SATS is accredited in its home country, and since regionally-accredited US institutions tend to consider a SATS degree just as credible as one of their own, it's quite likely that a US foreign credential evaluator would declare the SATS MTh equivalent to at least 30 -- and possibly as many as 32 -- US graduate semester hours of transferable coursework.

So, in the case of the structured program, since three "mini-thesis" are required, this probably translates into each mini-thesis being worth -- or being equivalent to -- about 10 U.S. semester hours of transferable coursework... or maybe 10.66 or something like that.

As to your methodology question, first you choose from the following list of fields:

• Practical Theology
• Pastoral Counselling
• Systematic Theology
• Old Testament
• New Testament
• Biblical Studies
• Children’s Ministry
• Leadership
• Church Management
• Bible Translation
• Missiology
• Homiletics
• Church History
• Christian Education
• Greek
• Sport Ministry
• Worship Leadership

and that becomes your MTh's concentration area. From there, you and your degree supervisor (chosen for his/her expertise in the selected field/contentration area) decide precisely how you're gonna' get there. It is, to some extent, a negotiation and agreement, but within the general guidelines of how said supervisor believes that an MTh in the selected field/concentration area should be earned under any circumstances. A SATS MTh student does not just "surprise" his supervisor with one's choice of a given thesis's (or mini-thesis's) subject at the time that s/he submits said paper, if that's what you're wondering. It's all worked-out up front... a "plan your work, and then work your plan" sort of thing.

Does any of that help... or did I just miss the boat completely?

 

DesElms: Yes, that makes a lot of sense about SATS and I really thank you for your posting! It makes sense now seeing how they have the entire program all lined out before you actually start it. But the transferring of credits from there to a US school sounds like a headache, but I guess it can and is done!

jackjustice: Thank you for your comment. I would love to know more about the ACU. I went to their site last evening and it indeed looks quite interesting. I did get a bit confused on their tuition and trying to figure out what I would actually be paying, because they have one set of fees for Australian students, then another for international students that will be studying at the campus and then another for plain ole international students which I thought is where I would fall into. Can I ask you this, were you allowed directly into the MA Theology or did you do the certificate, then the diploma, and finally the MA? I know they break it down in Australian for the Master's differently then here, but the price indeed looks great considering the US dollar goes further there.

 

If I may just throw my $0.02 in -- I think that in my situation in which I'm pursuing the Diaconate, CDU might be a viable choice for my educational needs. As a previous poster stated, you have to go to seminary anyway for the priesthood, so CDU might be ok for laity and those pursuing the Diaconate. That's notwithstanding that I will have to go through three years of schooling in my Diocese (Oakland) anyway before I can be ordained.

If I recall correctly, a friend of mine commented that he was taking courses at CDU and thought they were very very good. I respect his opinion because he's pretty sound in the teachings of the Church, so...

With that said, CDU not being regionally accredited does bother me a little. Someone mentioned St. Joseph's as a possible solution for those, like myself, who are pursuing their Bachelor's.

If you wouldn't mind noting what colleges offer Bachelor degrees as well when you post a particular college, I'd appreciate it.

W