Training Faculty for the St. Padre Pio Center for Deliverance Counseling

Resident Faculty and Faculty Resources

Resident Faculty

Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM
SPCDC Director
Senior Counsellor-Practitioner
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Joe Meineke
Assistant Director
Associate Counsellor
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Faculty Resources

Through the marvel of modern technology we are able to include in our training program courses and lectures from priests and professors, who are not literally on our staff but through the technology of video tape and audio tape we may benefit from their teaching..

These video and audio taped courses and lectures are prepared by some of the most prominent priests and professors in the United States from educational institutions like Notre Dame University, Northwestern University, Middlebury College, Christendom College, and other top-rated Universities and colleges; and well-known priests from Religious Orders such as the Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans.

This ability for vicarious attendance at lectures of these prominent priests and professors through audio and video tapes, moderated by our own staff, allows us to bring to our Deliverance Counseling Training a top-level and diverse program of instruction and training unparalleled with any other Spiritual Warfare Apostolate.

Below are list our current Faculty Resources as of January 2003.

Please note: the lectures of the priests and professors below are available through audio and video tapes available to the general public. These people are not literally on our staff; we only use their materials. Our use of their materials and tapes does not imply any endorsement or knowledge on their part of our Apostolate

Father Gabriele Amorth Father Amorth is the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome and the President of the International Association of Exorcists, an exclusive association of Catholic Priests-exorcists. In a October 2000 interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Father Amorth said: “I speak with the Devil every day," he says, grinning like a benevolent gargoyle. "I talk to him in Latin. He answers in Italian. I have been wrestling with him, day in day out, for 14 years.”		Father Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R., Ph.D. Father Groeschel, founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, is the Director of the Office for Spiritual Development of the Archdiocese of New York. He founded and is on the staff of Trinity Retreat, a center for prayer and study for the clergy. Father Benedict obtained his doctorate in psychology at St. Joseph's Seminary of the Archdiocese of New York. He has taught at Fordham University, Iona College, and Maryknoll Seminary. He is also chairman of the Good Counsel Homes and the St. Francis House, which provides residence and programs for the homeless young mothers and homeless youth. Father Groeschel's Community, which follows the Capuchin Tradition, is dedicated to preaching reform and providing care for the homeless in South Bronx.

Father Stephen Valenta, O.F.M. Conv. Father Valenta, a Conventual Franciscan has been in both radio and television ministry, served as a University chaplain, and founded Mount St. Francis Hermitage in Maine, New York. He also served as the English speaking confessor for pilgrims at the Vatican and at Assisi in Italy. He now heads up his special ministry of Hearts to Heart Center preaching to countless people throughout the world with the primary purpose of bringing unity and love to all by using and praying with the heart.		Father Raymond T. Gawronski, S.J. Father Gawronski is an Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Marquette University. He specializes in dogmatic theology with a focus on eschatology, and on the mystical, particularly as articulated in the work of Hans Urs von Balthasa. Father is the author of over thirty articles on various themes, largely touching culture and spirituality, appearing in publications such as Communio, New Oxford Review and America, along with the chapter “Redemptor Hominis” in The Thought of John Paul II. Father Gawronski is the author of An Ignatian Retreat, (Our Sunday Visitor Press, 2003) and has contributed a foreword to For God’s Greater Glory: Gems of Jesuit Spirituality. He is also the author of Word and Silence: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Spiritual Encounter Between East and West.

Msgr. William B. Smith, S. T. D. Msgr. Smith has been Professor of Moral Theology at St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York, for 27 years. He is often the media representative for Cardinal John O'Connor formerly of the Archdiocese of New York on pro-life and other issues of concern to the church. As such he has appeared on the Today Show, 20/20, Firing Line, Night-Line, Phil Donahue, 60 Minutes, and other television programs.		Father Romanus Cessario, Ph.D. Father Cessario is a Professor of Systematic Theology at St John's Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts. He received his doctorate at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland under Colman E. O'Neill, who was a leading sacramental theologian of the immediate post-conciliar period. Father Cessario also studied moral theology and is the author of several books and many articles in the field. This course is based on Father Cessario's latest volume, Introduction to Moral Theology published by The Catholic University of America Press.

Father Gerald Ruane, Ph.D. Father Ruane is the Director of the Sacred Heart Institute, which he founded in 1979. The Institute is a Christian center for preaching, teaching and healing in the name and in the power of Jesus. Father Ruane has a doctorate in religious education and has done graduate work at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium and at Oxford University in England. He is also a certified Spiritual Director. Besides writing numerous books and producing numerous audio and video resources, Father Ruane is a life-long member of the Association of Christian Therapists. In the past Father Ruane has been a parish priest, a college professor at Caldwell College, and campus minister. He has been involved in the Cursillo movement since 1966 and the charismatic renewal since 1969. He became involved in the healing ministry in 1975.		Ralph McInerny, Ph.D. Professor McInerny is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of many fiction and non-fiction books. His academic work has focused on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and he is a fellow of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He has served as officer of many philosophical organizations and gave the Gifford Lectures at Glasgow in 1999. He is the founder of Catholic Dossier and International Catholic University, and co-founder of Crisis magazine. He is also the author of the Father Dowling mysteries.

Anthony Andres, Ph.D. Professor Andres is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Christendom College. He received his B.A. in Liberal Arts at Thomas Aquinas College in 1987 and his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in 1993. At Christendom College he has taught Introduction to Philosophy, Logic, Metaphysics, Medieval Philosophy, Euclidean Geometry, and Introduction to Scientific Thought. He has also published and lectured on the topic of evolution. He wrote his dissertation on Aristotelian Logic and is currently working on a book in logic, tentatively titled Reading Aristotle's Organon.		John Haas Mr. John Haas is nationally known through the St. Charles Forum which appears on Eternal Word Television Network. He was ordained in the Episcopalian ministry, but converted to Catholicism, and has become one of its most eloquent and articulate spokesmen. He has taught moral theology at the Atheneum of Ohio and is currently an Ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston.

James Hitchcock, Ph.D. Professor Hitchcock is Professor of History at St. Louis University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has authored many articles, some of which have appeared in New York Times Magazine and the National Review. His many books include Catholicism and Modernity.		Richard Wolfson, Ph.D. Professor Wolfson is a practicing reserach physicist and Professor at Middlebury College in Vermont.

David Zarefsky, Ph.D. Professor Zarefsky is the Professor of Argumentation and Debate and Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University.		Neil Anderson, Ph.D. Dr. Anderson is the founder of a Protestant ministry called Freedom in Christ Ministries. He was formerly chairman of the Practical Theology department at Talbot School of Theology, at BIOLA University. He holds five degrees from Talbot, Pepperdine University and Arizona State University. Neil has authored many best-selling books on spiritual freedom. Neil's pivotal work in developing methodology of deliverance called a "Truth Encounter" is a brilliant alternative approach to the "power encounter" of a typical exorism that is reserved to priests. We include Neil's training tapes in our program because they provide an invaluable tool to our students to see a "truth encounter" counseling session in action.

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