Rev. Msgr. Richard Henning Appointed Rector of Seminary of the Immaculate Conception and Director of the New Sacred Heart Institute

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. – December 13, 2011 – The Most Reverend William Murphy, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre has announced the appointment of Reverend Monsignor Richard Henning as the Rector of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception (SIC), Huntington, New York, and the Director of the new Sacred Heart Institute for the Ongoing Formation of Clergy.

The appointments, made after consultation with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, will take effect in the summer of 2012.  Msgr. Henning, a priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, currently serves as the Vice-Rector and a professor of scripture at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception.

Ordained in 1992, Msgr. Henning takes charge of the 81-year-old seminary at a time when its academic programs will be focusing on the education of laity and permanent deacon candidates in the three dioceses of the downstate region (Archdiocese of New York, Diocese of Brooklyn, and Diocese of Rockville Centre).  The same dioceses have pledged to work together in the continuing education of their clergy through the Sacred Heart Institute.

"I am very grateful to my Bishop, Bishop William Murphy and to Archbishop Dolan and Bishop DiMarzio for their confidence,” said Msgr. Henning.  “I am excited by new possibilities for serving the good of the Church through these initiatives and I look forward to sharing in this work with many others."

The changes in the program at SIC and the creation of the Institute are part of a larger inter-diocesan partnership that took effect on November 10, 2011 when Bishop Murphy, Archbishop Dolan and Bishop DiMarzio signed a Joint Operating Agreement that pledges collaboration in the training of present and future Catholic priests and their co-workers in ministry.

Last September the three dioceses implemented the first phase of their partnership with the opening of the college and pre-Theology programs for training future priests at the Cathedral Seminary Residence in Douglaston, New York.

The current SIC program offers a Master of Arts in Theology and a Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies. Beginning next fall, SIC will offer these degrees to laity and permanent deacon candidates from the three dioceses on both the Huntington campus and on the campus of St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, New York.  At the same time, Saint Joseph’s Seminary will be the location for the single program in priestly formation at the graduate level.

Since joining the faculty in 2002, Msgr. Henning has coordinated a number of efforts to introduce distance-learning technologies to the seminary program in Huntington. “SIC looks forward to offering theological education to laity and deacon candidates through a variety of delivery systems in the coming years,” he said.  There are already some 400 graduates of SIC's programs in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.  The use of educational technologies will extend the programs to a larger student body over a larger geographic area.

The placement of the Sacred Heart Institute at the seminary in Huntington fits with its long history of forming the clergy for all of Long Island.  That mission will now expand to priests and deacons of the entire New York Metropolitan region and beyond.  The institute will provide opportunities for intellectual, pastoral, and spiritual renewal as well as programs tailored to the needs of international priests.

Msgr. Henning holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of St. Thomas in Rome (Angelicum) and a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. For the last two years, he has directed the Parresia Project, a grant-funded initiative working to improve reception processes for international priests serving in the US.

-30-

CONTACT: Sean P. Dolan
                 Director of Communications
                 (p) 516-678-5800, ext. 625
                 (c) 516-510-0473
                 E-mail: rvcinfo@drvc.org

New Single Program of Priestly Formation Announced by Archdiocese of New York, Diocese of Brooklyn, and Diocese of Rockville Centre

PRESS RELEASE

November 10, 2011, Huntington, New York – The Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Diocese of Rockville Centre today announced the formalization of a joint operating agreement to create a single program for priestly formation for their three dioceses and beyond, a new program for the ongoing theological and spiritual enrichment of priests and permanent deacons, and a centralization of lay ministry programs to support the New Evangelization.

Beginning in September 2012, candidates for priesthood at the graduate level from the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre will participate in a single program of priestly formation at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York, in the Archdiocese.  The program of priestly formation currently at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Huntington, New York, part of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, will move to Saint Joseph’s Seminary.

Concurrent with the single program of priestly formation located at Saint Joseph’s Seminary, the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Huntington, New York, will begin the process of renewing and extending academic programs offered to lay women and men and some candidates for the permanent diaconate.  Over the next year and one half, the Master of Arts in Religious Studies at Saint Joseph’s Institute for Religious Studies will come under the umbrella of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which will make new investments in distance learning technologies enabling courses to be taught in a variety of settings across the three campuses of Yonkers, Douglaston and Huntington.

“The joint operating agreement serves as a genuine expression of ecclesial communion and inter-diocesan partnership,” said the Most Reverend Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York.  “It is truly an expression of the collegiality among the three bishops.”

“This historic agreement will help primarily provide a stronger experience of formation for men of the downstate area.  By bringing the two programs together we will be able to offer a formation experience that integrates the best qualities of Immaculate Conception and Saint Joseph’s,” said the Most Reverend William Murphy, Bishop of Rockville Centre.

“This agreement establishes a system of formation for seminarians, priests and the laity in a way never before conceived, that recognizes where we are as a Church today and what the needs will be into the foreseeable future,” said the Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Brooklyn.

This announcement is the culmination of several years of planning and discussion among the three dioceses, and builds upon the program that was begun in September of 2011 when undergraduate and pre-theology students from the three dioceses came together in formation at the Cathedral Residence of the Immaculate Conception in Douglaston, New York.

 A new institute dedicated to the ongoing spiritual and pastoral formation of priests will be located in the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception.  The Sacred Heart Institute for the Ongoing Formation of Clergy will have regular programs of theological and spiritual enrichment for priests and permanent deacons and will also include the new Verbum Domini (”Word of the Lord”) Preaching Institute, formation programs for international priests and special workshops for new priests.

The Seminary of the Immaculate Conception will also have formation programs for the laity and a retreat center as the Church seeks to better prepare members of the laity to be active participants in the life of the Church.

 Each of the dioceses will retain ownership of their respective institutions, but each has agreed to establish a new council for joint episcopal oversight of the three formation programs, named the Saint Charles Borromeo Inter-diocesan Council for Spiritual and Theological Formation.  Throughout the period of transition to these new arrangements and in the coming years, both seminaries will work with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) and the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) to maintain their accreditation and act on previous recommendations of the two agencies.

-30-

CONTACT:  Joseph Zwilling
646-794-2997
joseph.zwilling@archny.org 

New Inter-Diocesan Partnership for Theological and Spiritual Formation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
September 29, 2011 – The Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Diocese of Rockville Centre, today announced the formalization of a new initiative of inter-diocesan partnership to share personnel resources and facilities to prepare future and present clergy, as well as other Catholic leaders, for various kinds of service in the spirit of the New Evangelization called for by the late Blessed John Paul II.
 
As a first step in what is being called, “The New Partnership in Theological and Spiritual Formation for the Priests, Deacons, Religious and lay Faithful of the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Diocese of Rockville Centre,” the three dioceses have agreed to a single program of priestly formation for college seminarians and pre-theologians at the Cathedral Seminary Residence of the Immaculate Conception, Douglaston, New York.  This college and pre-theology program began the 2011-2012 academic semester with eighty students from the three dioceses as well as from the dioceses of Rochester, Scranton and Syracuse.
 
Secondly, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, of the Archdiocese of New York, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn and Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre have appointed Reverend James Massa, a priest from the Diocese of Brooklyn and lately on the staff of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, to the newly created position of Coordinator to develop the plan for the New Partnership.
 
Among the tasks assigned to Father Massa is the furthering of discussions about a single graduate-level program in priestly formation for the region.  “The sharing of resources includes enhancing and opening up to other dioceses the excellent theological programs offered at all three centers of learning – Huntington, Dunwoodie and Douglaston,” said Father Massa.
 
For the past six years, Father Massa served as Executive Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and interreligious Affairs for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC.  There he coordinated national dialogues and meetings between Catholic leaders and scholars and their counterparts in other religious communities.  Father Massa earned a doctorate in theology from Fordham University, where he studied under the late Cardinal Avery Dulles.  He served on the faculty of the Blessed John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, MA from 1996-2001 and on the faculty of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Huntington, New York from 2001 – 2005.
 
In the coming months, the three diocesan bishops will announce further plans to implement the new partnership, especially as it pertains to the ongoing formation of priests and deacons and the graduate-level programs of priestly formation.
 
-30-
 
CONTACT: Sean P. Dolan
                Director of Communications
                (p)             516-678-5800      , ext. 625
                (c)             516-510-0473     
                E-mail: rvcinfo@drvc.org