Michael J. Sheeran

Michael J. Sheeran is a Jesuit priest, president of Regis University in Denver, Colorado, and author of the book Beyond Majority Rule: Voteless Decisions in the Society of Friends.

Sheeran was born in New York City in 1940, and entered the Society of Jesus at Florissant, Missouri, in 1957. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1970.

In 1968, Sheeran became interested in the Religious Society of Friends while studying religious communities which practice "communal discernment", a decision-making process which the Jesuit order also utilized when it was founded in 1540, but lost within a few generations.

During his doctoral work in the politics department at Princeton University, Sheeran spent two years conducting interviews, reading, and observing the communal discernment tradition, as exemplified in the voteless decisions of Quakers in their Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. This resulted in his book Beyond Majority Rule, which was published in 1983.

Sheeran received his doctorate in politics from Princeton in 1977. He also holds a Licentiate (European equivalent of a master's degree) in Sacred Theology, a Licentiate in Philosophy, a master's degree in political science, a master's degree in Moral and Pastoral Theology and a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and Letters. All are from St. Louis University.

Sheeran has taught at St. Louis University and at Regis Jesuit High School in Denver. He joined Regis University in 1975, and in 1993 became its president.

References

• http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Majority-Rule-Decisions-Religious/dp/0941308049/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280817708&sr=1-2
• http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/580121.Michael_J_Sheeran
• http://www.regis.edu/regis.asp?sctn=rcrcu&p1=ut&p2=pol&p3=fac&p4=msheeran
• http://coloradoindependent.com/3395/take-me-to-your-leader-part-ii
• http://www.fgcquaker.org/library/fosteringmeetings/0402.html

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Name	Sheeran, Michael J
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Date of birth	1940
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