T e ac h i n g t h e L i v i n g Tra d i t i o n Michael DeSanctis, Ph.D., Professor of Fine Arts and University Ombudsman, grew up connecting beauty and God through the Catholic Tradition of his family, whose patriarch was a religious artist. Today, he passes his knowledge and experience of this Tradition on to Gannon students in his Art and the Sacred, Erie Architecture, and Introduction to the Visual Arts classes. Catholicism plays a major role in DeSanctis’ life and career, and has led him to where he is today as a Gannon professor and a liturgical design consultant recognized across the United States. He has been a member of the Gannon community since 1985, and to date, he has served almost 70 Catholic parish communities across the country involved in the difficult work of building or renovating places of worship. Most recently, he assisted St. Michael Church in Wheaton, Illinois, in constructing a $15 million parish complex to replace one destroyed in 2002 by an arson fire. In doing so, DeSanctis personally painted and gilded a charred statue of the Sacred Heart that survived the fire as a reminder of the trauma of the parish’s loss and a tribute to the parish’s resilience against the arson. In the classrooms of Gannon University, DeSanctis strives to teach students the importance of art as a living tradition of faith. He
commented, “At our University, we have the courage to say that human life is complicated – we all make mistakes – and yet each of us can be transformed by our fleeting glimpses of Michael DeSanctis, Ph.D., guides his students on a Truth. Each of tour of St. Peter Cathedral in downtown Erie. us can achieve the ‘health, knowledge, and holiness’ announced by the Gannon seal if we assume the humility and wonder that marks true learners.” Sister Michele Healy, S.S.J., Assistant Professor of Theology, also brings the Catholic Tradition into her classroom as she guides students through Sacred Scripture and Women in the Pilgrim Church classes. Healy focuses on the important contributions that women have made to the Catholic Church throughout the centuries – part of the Tradition that is often less recognized. Healy has been a woman that has passed on the Catholic Tradition through her teaching at the University for the past 25 years, 13 of those years at Villa Maria College and 12 years at Gannon after the schools merged. Healy enjoys very much introducing her students to Christ through her teaching, as Sacred Scripture is a primary source of revelation and also the fundamental base for all theology classes at Gannon.
Sister Michele Healy, S.S.J., works with a group of her students in her Women in the Pilgrim Church class.
Thirteen seminarians attended the University in 2005-06. Five of them graduated and went onto major seminaries. This year, there is again a total of 13 seminarians attending Gannon, including sophomore Patrick Wiler (right), who helped initiate an opening prayer at men and women’s basketball games.
15