ALLEGANY, N.Y. – Alcuin Coyle and Luigi Pellegrini, OFM Cap, are the honorees for the 2006 festivities celebrating the feast of St. Bonaventure July 15-July 16 at St. Bonaventure University.
On July 15, a Eucharistic Liturgy will be celebrated at 5 p.m. at the University Chapel in Doyle Hall featuring celebrant and homilist Murray Bodo, OFM, of St. John the Baptist Province in Cincinnati, Ohio. Murray is teaching a one-week seminar for the Franciscan Institute on “Francis of Assisi in Literature.”
After the liturgy, Alcuin is being awarded an honorary degree for more than 50 years of teaching, administrative experience and extraordinary service to the Church after the Second Vatican Council. He served as the dean of students and the academic dean from 1964 to 1970 at Christ the King Seminary, when it was still located at St. Bonaventure; director of the Sacred Science summer program (1965-75) at St. Bonaventure; academic dean of Washington Theological Union (1970-1975); and president of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago (1975-1981). In addition to his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and master’s degree in classical languages from St. Bonaventure, Alcuin earned an S.T.L. (moral theology) and a J.C.D. (Church law) from the Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum in Rome. He has had a number of articles published in professional journals in the areas of theology, canon law and religious life.
Alcuin retired in February after 20 years as director of adult education at St. Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street in New York City.
July 16 events begin with solemn vespers at 7 p.m. at the University Chapel. At 7:30 p.m., the Franciscan Institute’s annual Academic Convocation will take place in the Rigas Family Theater in The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, where Italian scholar Luigi Pellegrini will be awarded the 19th Franciscan Institute Medal for a lifetime of outstanding contribution to Franciscan studies.
“The Franciscan Institute Medal is an annual award granted by the members of the faculty of the Franciscan Institute and given to a scholar whose works have contributed to the significant development of Franciscan studies and scholarship,” said Michael Cusato, OFM, director of the Franciscan Institute and dean of the School of Franciscan Studies. “The selection of the recipient is usually based either on a person’s outstanding contributions to Franciscan scholarship or his or her efforts to support, sustain or make possible the study and dissemination of the Franciscan tradition throughout the world.”
In making their selection, the Franciscan Institute faculty cited the following areas studied by Pellegrini over the last decades: (1) the question of the Franciscan insediamenti (settlements) in Italy the 13th century; (2) the contours of the life of early Franciscanism, with special emphasis on the eremitical sensibilities of the early friars; (3) the scritti (writings) of Francis of Assisi; and (4) the manuscript tradition of the early Franciscan sources, with special attention given to the Early Rule.
Together, these achievements comprise a lifetime of scholarly work important for all who are engaged in the study of medieval Franciscan history and its sources. Pellegrini is a professor at the Università di Chieti in Italy. He joins fellow Italian scholar Giovanni Miccoli who received the Franciscan Medal in 2004.