Catholic Theological
Society of America

As we prepare to hold the CTSA's 76th convention in the historic city of Atlanta, Georgia, and as our learned Society continues its multi-year effort to enact the commitments articulated in its 2020 Statement on Racial Injustice, Emory University's efforts to unpack and learn from the history of slavery and dispossession of black and indigenous persons in the region, particularly in light of the university's involvement in that history,  offer thought-provoking reading.  Today, the rich pasts and presents of Atlanta's black citizens can be discovered throughout the city and region. This February, 2022 article points out just some of those sites and opportunities.

Dear Colleagues,

As we prepare to begin our 2022 CTSA annual convention with a Land Acknowledgment, expressing respect and honor for the Muscogee/Creek peoples as the original inhabitants and stewards of the land on which we will be meeting Atlanta. you, like me, may be prompted to wonder and seek to learn some of the history of the region's native peoples, and about the Muscogee/Creek nation today.  For doing this, exploring the website of the Muscogee Nation, and in particular the Nation's Culture & History pages, may prove a good start.  As we continue to ponder the implications of this new practice for our Society and for our work in our  home institutions, this 2021 story about how Emory University in Atlanta has been proceeding, in dialogue with present day Muscogee Nation leadership, offers food for thought. What actions or discussions are taking place in your institutions?

Indigenous Peoples and The Church:
Walking Together Toward Healing and Reconciliation

Monday, June 6th
7 - 9 pm Eastern / 6 - 8 pm Central / 5 - 7 pm Mountain / 4 - 6 pm Pacific

Sponsored by the Catholic Native Boarding School Accountability and Healing Project (AH) in collaboration with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, CCB.ca

We invite you to participate in a special two-hour conversation with Archbishop Donald Bolen of Regina, Saskatchewan, and three members of Canada’s Indigenous Delegation: Joanna Landry (First Nations), Gary Gagnon (Métis), and William Angalik (Inuit). These delegates will share what they experienced in their meetings with Pope Francis while at the Vatican, March 28th-April 1st. Our facilitator will be Maka Black Elk, Executive Director for Truth and Healing at Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, SD.

In Canada as well as in the U.S., the Catholic Church, together with other religious organizations, collaborated with the governments of these two countries to create a system of residential schools for Indigenous children. For well over a century, the intention of these schools was to assimilate these children into the way of life introduced by the colonizers, through the eradication of their languages, cultures, and social connections. The goal was severance of the deep ties of Indigenous Peoples with their ancestral lands.

Today we stand at a key historical moment in both our Church and our nation. Pope Francis made an apology to the Canadian Indigenous Delegation on April 1st. In late July, he will visit Canada to meet with residential school survivors and their families. Native American U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, released on May 11th, the first segment of the Department’s investigative report called for in the “Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.”

We look forward to having you and your colleagues join us on June 6th and seeing how we might collaborate more strategically together in the future.

The CTSA remembers and prays for member Rev. J. Michael Byron who died on May 20.  

The funeral Mass and celebration of the life of Fr. Michael Byron at Pax Christi on Wednesday, June 1 and Thursday, June 2.

Wednesday, June 1

• Visitation: 4:00-7:00pm
• Brief Vigil Service: 6:45pm

Thursday, June 2

• Visitation: 9:00-10:45am
• Funeral Mass: 11:00am, Archbishop Bernard Hebda presiding

Please note that the 11:00am Funeral Mass on Thursday, June 2 will also be livestreamed: 

 livestream 

Fr. Mike will be laid to rest at a later date.

Please contact the Parish with any questions at 952-941-3150 or you can find us at www.paxchristi.com.

Access Maria Wiering's piece, "Father Mike Byron, Pax Christi pastor, dies after arriving home from pilgrimage", The Catholic Spirit (May 20, 2022).

May Michael rest in the arms of the Lord
who formed him from the dust of the earth. 

In the wake of the horrific mass shooting of members of Buffalo's Black community at Top's grocery store on May 14th, 2022, John Gehring of the Faith and Public Life program has written an article that, as a white Catholic, I found informative and challenging:

 https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/buffalo-shooting-should-be-wake-call-white-catholics 

 As a CTSA member, the events of May 14 and too many others like it underscore how crucial it is that we continue to make good on our commitments as theologians and as a Society to engage humbly in the long haul work of fighting to uproot the pernicious evils of racism and white supremacy, and of building and nurturing the kinds of practices, cultures, communities and institutions that reflect and honor the divinely-given dignity of each and all.  I am thankful to be part of a learned Society dedicated to this work. 

CTSA - Fossil Fuel Divestment Review Committee's Report with Recommendations

Link to May 18, 2022 Report

"Catholic Peacebuilding in Times of Crisis: Hope for a Wounded World," an international virtual conference

Lead Sponsor: The Catholic Peacebuilding Network

June 20-23

Program, collaborators, and registration: go.nd.edu/CPNCon22

The world is emerging from an historic health crisis that has exacerbated existing conflicts, poverty, inequalities, polarization, and threats to the environment. While the pandemic led to unprecedented cooperation and heroic responses by many, it also exposed deficits in leadership and emboldened authoritarians, demagogues, and chauvinistic nationalists. Just as the world hopes to move beyond the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens global peace in ways thought unimaginable when the pandemic began. The challenge to Catholic peacebuilders is clear: we must ensure that the post-pandemic return to “normal” does not look like the pre-pandemic status quo, or worse. That will require an integral and integrated approach to peace, development and ecology because the cry of war’s victims, the cry of the poor, and the cry of the earth rise as one (Laudato Si’, no. 49).

This conference will convene a wide range of Catholic peacebuilders – Church leaders, scholars, peacebuilding specialists and other practitioners – from around the world. It will allow participants to learn from their rich and diverse experiences in confronting challenges to peace around the world and help them discern new and creative ways to respond to the historic challenges to peace that we now face.

Through a grant from the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement matched by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, Review for Religious is pleased to offer four $500 scholarships to support research for our upcoming themed issue on “religious life at the peripheries.”

Submissions will be evaluated on originality, fit for the theme of “religious life at the peripheries,” and relevance to contemporary religious life. Prospective recipients should be graduate students and/or hold a non-tenure track position.

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, with preference given to those received by May 27, 2022. The application form, which also links to the Call for Papers, can be found here.

CTSA Contributors: Lizette Larson-Miller and Anne McGowan, Lively Oracles of God: Perspectives on the Bible and Liturgy, edited by Bridget Nichols and Gordon Jeanes (Liturgical Press: February 2022).

Alison M. Benders, Recollecting America’s Original Sin: A Pilgrimage of Race and Grace (Liturgical Press: April 2022).

Bradford E. Hinze, Confronting a Church in Controversy (Paulist Press: June 2022).

Richard Lennan, Tilling the Church: Theology for an Unfinished Project (Liturgical Press: April 2022).

 

On May 24-25, 2021, Nazareth College’s Hickey Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue, Sacred Texts and Human Contexts Program (Muhammad Shafiq, Director), hosted a conference entitled Mystical Traditions: Approaches to Peaceful Co-Existence. Drs. Diane Oliver and Thomas Donlan Smith co-chaired the event, and the following institutions were amongst those listed as sponsors: the Chair of the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome (Jason Welle, OFM); the International Institution of Islamic Thought (IIIT); the Department of Religious Studies, Hobart and William Smith College, Geneva, New York; and the Departments of Religious Studies and Spirituality at Nazareth College. 

While this conference was originally planned for Rome, Italy, the CoVid epidemic prompted a virtual meeting instead.  On March 25 CTSA member Elizabeth Adams-Eilers read a paper entitled “Bonaventure’s Mind’s Road into God and Letter 22 of The Rasā’il of the Ikhwān al Ṣafā’: Tracing Mystical Pathways toward Union with God and Healing the Earth.”  The conference schedule is accessed through the following link: https://www2.naz.edu/hickey-center-interfaith-studies-dialogue/programs/academic-conference.  Individual sessions, Opening through Session 8, can be viewed on YouTube.