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Continuing Education Program

The Continuing Education Series is designed for adults who would like to further their theological formation without embarking on graduate-level academic work. In addition to these general-interest students, high school teachers in the Diocese of Virginia and the Archdiocese of Washington may use these courses toward their VCEA or CEU requirements.

Classes are offered four times a year: one course in the fall semester, one in the spring semester, and two during the summer months. These courses are not part of the Institute’s regular graduate offerings but mirror such courses in theme and content.

During the fall and spring semesters, CE courses meet once a week on Wednesday evenings. During the summer months, each course is offered in intensive format—usually both mornings and afternoons of a single week, Monday through Friday.

To bring the curriculum of the Institute to a wider audience, class sessions are offered in hybrid format, both on campus and online.

Students are not required to have completed a bachelor’s degree to participate in CE classes.

Past courses have included:

Calendar-A-40-svg Spring'25 Course:
Called to Love: Theology of the Body
Contact Elena Martín,
Admissions Officer

The Spring 2025 course in the Institute’s ongoing Continuing Education Series will be “Called to Love: Theology of the Body.”  It will be held on Wednesday evenings from January 22 to April 30, 2025.

This course will provide a survey of John Paul II’s vision of the person and the vocation of human love drawn from the rich variety of philosophical, theological, and literary texts he gave to the Church over the course of his life. To begin, the course will provide an outline of his phenomenological-philosophical view of personhood drawn primarily from his pre-papal work Love and Responsibility. Next, we will examine the Pope’s theological approach to human love and the vocation inscribed within the sexual difference through select texts from his Wednesday Catechesis, Man and Woman He Created Them. These theological and philosophical frameworks “take flesh” in the final part of the course, in which we will read and discuss a number of literary texts written by Wojtyla/John Paul II including The Jeweler’s Shop.

The course will be taught in person and offered online simultaneously.

The course fee is $150. To register, please complete the online registration form. Payment can be submitted via check, cash, or credit card. To submit a credit card payment, please click here.

These courses can be taken toward renewal requirements for VCEA licensure. Numerous high schools in the Archdiocese of Washington accept the course for CEU credits.

If you have questions please contact [email protected].

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