The Catholic Press Association selected an essay by Rev. C. Kevin Gillespie, S.J., Chair of Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College in Maryland, for first place in the Best Essay: Prayer and Spirituality Magazines category at its recent convention in Toronto.

Fr. Gillespie’s winning essay, “Narcissism and Conversion,” appeared in the Summer 2007 edition of Spiritual Life, a quarterly journal published by the Discalced Carmelite Friars of the Washington Province. 

In selecting Fr. Gillespie’s essay, judges said that “using the insight of modern psychology, the author brings spiritual thought into the 21st Century by shedding light on the idea that narcissism both exists in different states of maturity and disputes its inherently negative nature . . .’Narcissism and Conversion’ is a thought-provoking and modern piece of spiritual journalism.”

A specialist on the integration of psychology and spirituality as well as issues related to sexual abuse and other traumas, Fr. Gillespie joined the Loyola Pastoral Counseling faculty in 1996. A graduate of St. Joseph’s College, now University, he holds advanced degrees from Duquesne University, St. Louis University and the Jesuit School of Theology, as well as a Ph.D. in Pastoral Psychology from Boston University.