LATROBE, PENNSYLVANIA – The Very Rev. Thomas P. Acklin, O.S.B., Rector and Professor of Theology at Saint Vincent Seminary, will be the guest speaker at the Saint Vincent Seminary Scholarship Fund Dinner to be held Thursday, April 30, at the Churchill Valley Country Club, Pittsburgh. The Scholarship Fund dinner raises funds for scholarship aid to assist seminarians with their studies as they prepare for the priesthood.
Father Thomas has served as rector of Saint Vincent Seminary since 1989, and has been an assistant professor, associate professor and professor in the Departments of Theology and Psychology at Saint Vincent College since 1976. A licensed psychotherapist, he has been a faculty member of the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Foundation since 1994 and of the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute since 1995, a psychotherapist for Latrobe Psychotherapy Associates, Inc. since 1990, and has had a private practice since 1982. He is also the host of “Insights,” a program on WEDO-AM, McKeesport, dealing with religion from a psychological perspective (1988-present) and has been co-host of “Real to Reel,” WTAE-TV, Pittsburgh, a mazagine-format religious program produced by the Diocese of Greensburg, since 1991.
He is a 1967 graduate of Saint Veronica High School, Ambridge. He received a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Duquesne University in 1971, a master of arts degree in philosophy from Duquesne in 1975 and a master of divinity degree from Saint Vincent Seminary in 1978. He earned a licentiate in Sacred Theology in 1980, a doctor of philosophy degree in 1982, and a doctor of Sacred Theology degree in 1983 from the University of Louvain. Father Thomas has also received professional psychoanalytic certification and training from Belgian School of Psychoanalysis (1980-1982); Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center (1982-1985); The American Boards for Accreditation and Certification of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (1985); and the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute (1985-1994).
He made simple profession of Monastic vows on July 10, 1976 and solemn profession of vows on July 11, 1979. He was ordained to the priesthood on April 12, 1980 by Bishop Norbert Gaughan at Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica.
Father Thomas has received numerous distinctions, including being named to Who’s Who in Religion (1992-1993); International Man of the Year (1992-1993); Who’s Who in the East (1994-1995); Men of Achievement (1993); Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers (1994-1995); International Who’s Who in Medicine; and Who’s Who Registry. He also appears in the Dictionary of International Biography (1993-1994).
Saint Vincent Seminary currently serves students from 16 dioceses and seven Benedictine monasteries. The Seminary has graduated and prepared more than 2,300 men for the priesthood since its founding by Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., in 1846. Ordination students preparing for the priesthood this year are from the dioceses of Altoona-Johnstown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Columbus, Steubenville and Youngstown, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Charleston, South Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands; Beijing, China; and the Archdioceses of Atlanta, Georgia and de Campinas, Brazil.
The donation for the dinner is $60 per person or $600 for a reserved table of 10 people. The dinner begins with cocktails at 6:15 p.m. at the Country Club, located on Beulah Road in the Churchill section of Pittsburgh. Additional information is available from the Saint Vincent Seminary Development Office, 724-537-6740.
