The Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research ("Wijngaards Institute") is a "progressive" think tank producing research on controversial issues within contemporary Roman Catholic theology. It does so by coordinating an international network of academics, most of whom are Roman Catholic.
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Early beginnings
The Institute was established by Dr John Wijngaards in 1983 as Housetop Centre for Adult Faith Formation ("Housetop"). Initially, it focused on producing resources for spirituality in the modern age.
Nationwide research in the UK produced material for a video course on the practice of meditation: "The Seven Circles of Prayer" (1987), winner of the award for "Creative Excellence" at the 1987 Video Festival in Elmhurst, Illinois, USA.
It was followed by two other video courses: "Peace in your Home" (1988) on ways of fostering prayer in the family, and "Loaves of Thanksgiving" (1989) on re-vitalising the celebration of the weekly Eucharist.
The "Walking on Water" video courses for training community leaders were produced between 1990-1992 and have been translated into 14 languages. They comprised three textbooks and nine 30-minute stories on accompanying videos. The stories were filmed in Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya and the UK. Several of those videos won awards.
In 1995 Housetop published "How To Make Sense of God". The course book received a prize from the Catholic Press Association (USA) for "best adult reading". The accompanying video film "Journey to the Centre of Love" comprises 5 episodes of approximately 45 minutes each, which are freely available online. It won the Grand Prix at the Catholic International Film Festival at Warsaw in 1995 and the Columbus Award (the main award) at the International Film Fair of Columbus, Ohio, in 1996.
Housetop’s latest video course focused on Christian marriage. "For Better, For Worse" was produced in 2000 with academic advice from the International Academy for Marital Spirituality (INTAMS). It was broadcast on the Belgian Catholic television network KTRC in autumn 2000 under the title "Tussen Man & Vrouw" ("Between Husband & Wife"). It is being distributed in the UK and Ireland by Veritas Publications.
Catherine of Siena Virtual College
In 2007 Housetop founded the Catherine of Siena Virtual College ("CSVC"), which offered affordable university-level online courses on leadership and the role of women in society. Under its direction more than 1,100 students enrolled, mostly women (90%), and from developing countries. Such a rapid growth has meant that it became difficult for the Institute to provide an adequate infra-structure to do justice to its potential. For this reason, in September 2014 Housetop, which by then had been renamed the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, agreed to hand over ownership of CSVC to the University of Roehampton, which has renamed it the "Catherine of Siena College".
Focus on Church reform
Pope John-Paul II's Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in 1994 which ruled out the ordination of women in the Catholic Church forced the question of women's equality within the Roman Catholic Church to the front. It was decided that the Institute would focus its research on the ordination of women and publish a website to present the academic evidence for and against."Women Can Be Priests". The website has grown out to be the largest internet resource on women and holy orders, with extensive documentation in 25 languages.
Subsequent research led to several declarations, statements, and reports being produced:
The online dissemination of the Statement before its official launch provoked the launch of a counter-statement at the Catholic University of America in Washington, titled "Affirmation of the Church’s Teaching on the Gift of Sexuality".