Sounds like good news

The School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America has hired three new professors who are international leaders in their fields and have joined CUA as full, or “ordinary,” professors. The school also has hired two young faculty members as assistant professors.

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“It is a rare opportunity for a school to be able to recruit three world renowned theology scholars at the same time,” says Monsignor Kevin W. Irwin, S.T.D., dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies. “These prestigious new hires take the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America to a new level of excellence.”

The first of those hired as full professors is an Australian, Rev. Brian V. Johnstone, C.SS.R., a widely-published moral theologian who has taught in Rome for 20 years, most recently at the Alphonsian Academy of the Pontifical Lateran University. Previously he taught at CUA from 1981 to 1987 (and in 2005) and at Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne from 1973 to 1981. He will hold the university’s endowed Warren Blanding Chair of Religion and Culture.

A third new ordinary professor is Rev. John Paul Heil, the author of 11 books focused on New Testament theology. Father Heil is known as one of the best of the classically trained biblical scholars and brings a vast knowledge of biblical and modern languages to his study and teaching, Monsignor Irwin says. Father Heil has taught at the Kenrick-Glennon Seminary’s School of Theology in St. Louis since 1979.

CUA’s School of Theology and Religious Studies also has hired two new assistant professors, William C. Mattison and Thomas Schärtl.

Mattison, a moral theologian, was formerly an assistant professor at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md. He is a co-chair of a national group of young Catholic moral theologians called New Wine, New Wineskins, and edited that group’s 2005 book, “New Wine, New Wineskins: A Next Generation Reflects on Key Issues in Catholic Moral Theology” (Rowan & Littlefield Publishers).

Schärtl, a systematic theologian, comes to CUA with a doctorate in theology and an M.A. in philosophy earned in his homeland of Germany. A specialist in the nexus of theology and philosophy, he brings an important European voice to the faculty, according to Monsignor Irwin.