Adam Cardinal Maida, archbishop of Detroit, dedicated Sacred Heart Major Seminary's new "smart classroom" suite and rededicated its renovated liturgy laboratory at a Mass and ceremony at the seminary on Tuesday, September 16. The investment in the smart classroom and liturgy lab is the latest example of the cardinal's commitment to make Sacred Heart the premiere Roman Catholic seminary in the Midwest.

Smart Classroom

Sacred Heart has expanded access to theological education through its smart classroom suite completed in August 2003. The suite features a distance learning classroom, a videoconference room and a control room that houses sophisticated videoconferencing technology. Sacred Heart now is able to broadcast its theology, philosophy and ministry courses to any educational institution, nationally and internationally, that has standard videoconferencing capabilities. Using a T-1 multiple phone line, video monitors, cameras, microphones and a large screen projector, students at offsite locations can see, hear and interact with Sacred Heart professors and students in full motion video and audio, and in real time.

The first two interactive courses for commuter lay students—Introduction to Theology and Introduction to Sacred Scripture—are being broadcast this fall term to Sacred Heart's newest satellite location at Macomb Community College, Clinton Township, Michigan. Sacred Heart soon will offer its educational resources to distance learning students in the Washington, D.C. area, through a hookup with the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, and to the Lansing, Michigan, area, through the Michigan Catholic Conference located on North Capital Street. Plans are being made to connect with videoconferencing sites throughout Metro Detroit and across the state.

Liturgy Laboratory

A Liturgy Laboratory is used to train students studying for the Catholic priesthood in presiding and preaching skills. This past summer, Sacred Heart Major Seminary relocated its old liturgy laboratory from a lower level classroom into a remodeled former prayer meeting porch on the third floor.

The new laboratory better simulates a church setting by incorporating three realistic sacramental sites: an altar area, a confessional and a full-emersion baptismal font. Restored arch windows, red brick walls, and a new tile floor further contribute to the ambiance of a church building. Hand-carved oak pews were donated by the Detroit archdiocese. They were removed from the archdiocese' Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament after the cathedral's recent renovation.

A colorful mural, 10 feet high by 32 feet wide, graces an entire wall of the new liturgy lab and has an interesting history. "The Great Commission" by the artist Paul Fortier was donated to the seminary by the Detroit Area Cursillo Movement in 1982. From the late-1960s until the mid-1980s, Cursillo members, including Fortier, held their weekly prayer meeting in this room. The mural depicts a line of Christian disciples of all races and ages coming down from the mountain from which Christ has just ascended.. Dressed in cultural garb and surrounded by architecture from the past twenty centuries, they represent the march of the diverse faithful through human history, as they "make disciples of all nations."

Many Cursillo members who used to meet in the room attended the rededication ceremony and afterward the luncheon with Cardinal Maida, including Fortier's mother and two brothers. Some had posed for Fortier as models twenty-one years ago. They had great fun finding their profiles and comparing them to their looks today.