Catholic Theological
Society of America

CTSA members, especially those interested in topics related to religion and ethics in contemporary society, may enjoy these two resources (Full disclosure: I never knew about either one until recent requests to contribute from the curators of each):

1) The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University hosts an online forum for the exchange of opinions on matters of public import. One of the Berkley Center's recent topics (treated by an interreligious array of nearly a dozen well-informed writers, a few of them CTSA members) involves “Economic Justice and Universal Basic Income: Ethical and Religious Perspectives.” You don't need to be a member of the "Yang Gang" to appreciate the opinions expressed here. (That is a reference to recent Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang).

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/blogs/berkley-forum

2) The Canopy Forum on the Interactions of Law and Religion is a digital project of the Center for Law and Religion at Emory Law School. Its stated goal is “to provide sophisticated yet accessible content. . . on issues that lie at the intersection of law, religion, and society. . . in an informed, nuanced, and productive way.” Based on what I have seen on the website so far, these lofty goals are routinely achieved--again, in an interreligious mode.

https://canopyforum.org/

Happy reading!  Thomas Massaro, S.J. (Fordham University)

Commonweal continues to offer free one-year Commonweal  print 
subscriptions to all students (undergraduate or graduate) as well as to anyone who has finished a degree program in the past three years. We encourage professors to circulate this URL to all their students: https://cwlmag.org/freestudent.

We'd also like to introduce people to our Conversation Starter Series, which are small collections of Commonweal articles and discussion guides for classroom and small-group use. This year's topics are:

1. Catholic Citizenship
2. Listening to Marginalized Voices
3. Transforming Parishes Today
4. The Art of Conversion
5. Alternatives to Capitalism
6. How Does Church Teaching Change?
7. Seminaries & Formation
8. Environmental Spirituality

Free samples of any of these topical guides can be requested by emailing Thomas Baker, Publisher, at tbaker@commonwealmagazine.org. More information is at https://cwlmag.org/css.

Commonweal continues to offer free one-year Commonweal  print 
subscriptions to all students (undergraduate or graduate) as well as to anyone who has finished a degree program in the past three years. We encourage professors to circulate this URL to all their students: https://cwlmag.org/freestudent.

We'd also like to introduce people to our Conversation Starter Series, which are small collections of Commonweal articles and discussion guides for classroom and small-group use. This year's topics are:

1. Catholic Citizenship
2. Listening to Marginalized Voices
3. Transforming Parishes Today
4. The Art of Conversion
5. Alternatives to Capitalism
6. How Does Church Teaching Change?
7. Seminaries & Formation
8. Environmental Spirituality

Free samples of any of these topical guides can be requested by emailing Thomas Baker, Publisher, at tbaker@commonwealmagazine.org. More information is at https://cwlmag.org/css.

The CTSA has received approval  of Dennis Smolarski, S.J., Director, Campus Ministry, Santa Clara University, to provide the link to attend Paul Crowley's funeral on Monday, August 24, at 11:00 a.m.  The participants scheduled for the mass are the video and audio technicians, priests, readers, and musicians only.

The case-sensitive link for the mass is:

https://bit.ly/Crowleymemorial

The CTSA mourns the loss of beloved member Anselm Min.  Below is Claremont Graduate University's tribute to Anselm.

Eternal rest, grant unto Anslem O Lord, 
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May Anselm's soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. 

Passings: Anselm Mi, Scholar Who Helped Students See the Enduring Relevance of the Religious Past

Professor Emeritus Anselm Min, who passed away earlier this month, is seen here as he addresses an audience on the challenges that globalization presents to Christian theology during a 2017 conference.

The Catholic thinker Thomas Aquinas may have died some 750 years ago, but for Anselm Min, a longtime member of CGU’s Religion Department, Aquinas had much to teach Min’s students in our hyper-self-conscious age of social media.

“It was refreshing to read a thinker who reflects and argues rather than shouts and claims,” he wrote in his critically acclaimed 2005 study, Paths to the Triune God; “one who withdraws himself so as to let the matter speak for itself rather than intrude his own subjectivity at every available turn.”

A scholar renowned for his efforts to make historically distant theologies relevant to the present, Min passed away earlier this month at his Upland home. For nearly 30 years, he had served as a member of the university’s Religion Department.

Min had only just retired from CGU earlier this summer.

School of Arts & Humanities Dean Lori Anne Ferrell circulated a message to the SAH faculty about Min’s passing, praising “his remarkable gifts of intellect and spirit.”

On Instagram and Twitter, former colleagues and students expressed sorrow over his passing and paid tribute to Min’s warmth and scholarship.

CGU religion doctoral student Josiah Solis on Twitter described Min as “one of the most important professors I have ever studied with.”

Also on Twitter, University of Toronto doctoral student Sean Capener said Min was “almost single-handedly the reason I’ve spent the last seven years digging around in the medieval scholastic tradition.”

A Distinguished Career

Min held not one but two doctorates—one in religion from Vanderbilt University and one in philosophy from Fordham University—and helped maintain CGU’s high reputation in academic circles. He was the product of a Jesuit education and a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

At CGU, Min received many awards, including ones from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fletcher Jones Research Grant, and he enjoyed a five-year tenure as the John D. and Lillian Maguire Distinguished Professor of Religion.

In works such as Paths to the Triune God, Korean Religions in Relation, and Faith, Hope, Love and Justice, Min worked tirelessly to show the enduring power and relevance of traditions of religious thought to our contemporary age.

Recalling his earliest years at CGU (then CGS), Min writes in Paths to the Triune God that he had taught doctoral students since 1992, and that “during this time it occurred to me that some of our students tended to be so preoccupied with things contemporary that they not only suffered a woeful ignorance of the classical tradition but also had a positive contempt for the theological past.”

Professor Emeritus Anselm Min In his scholarship and teaching, Min sought to address this misunderstanding, explaining to generations of students and readers the “broadening and liberating experience” of understanding and appreciating past theologians while not making excuses for their errors and prejudices.

Ferrell also said in her message to the SAH community that they will honor and celebrate Min’s legacy as soon as quarantine conditions are lifted and in-person gatherings are allowed again.

Min is survived by his wife, Sonnya, and their daughter Sophia.

-------

By Claremont Graduate University (Aug. 17, 2020) at  https://www.cgu.edu/news/2020/08/passings-anselm-min-scholar-who-helped-students-see-the-enduring-relevance-of-the-religious-past/

May be of interest for those interested in Merton's writings on race, CTSA members who teach Merton, or who have spoken for the ITMS. A collaborative document, the fruit of an increasing wealth of scholarship on Merton and race. As current VP of the ITMS, I'd welcome any feedback, critical and otherwise.  (cpramuk@regis.edu) 

http://merton.org/ITMS/Racial-Justice-Statement-.July-2020.pdf

Here is Paul speaking on the mystery of suffering:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRjSi3B2nXQ

The CTSA mourns the loss of its beloved member Paul Crowley, S.J.  Below is Santa Clara's tribute of Paul the university community. 

Eternal rest, grant unto Paul, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May Paul's soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace. 

Dear Members of the University Community, Today, we lost one of our beloved faculty members, Paul Crowley, S.J., Santa Clara Jesuit Community Professor in Religious Studies, after his long battle with cancer. We join with the Jesuit community in mourning Paul’s loss and pray for consolation for all of us who loved and cared for him.  Since 1989, Paul served the Santa Clara University community with generosity, gentleness, and a profound holiness that grounded his teaching, scholarship and vocation. Over his years at Santa Clara, he held the titles of professor of religious studies, department chair, and member of numerous committees and planning initiatives that would guide the University’s understanding of its Jesuit Catholic mission in the world.  Paul’s contributions to the Church and all people of faith as a renowned and gifted theologian are expansive. Paul taught theology in the Religious Studies Department, Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries and at the Jesuit School of Theology. His teaching also brought him to Stanford University and the Weston School of Theology, now the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, as a visiting professor. He was a prolific writer with numerous award-winning publications, with books on Karl Rahner, Robert McAfee Brown, pluralism in the Church, and faith and suffering. Paul was very active in his profession, having served as editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal of the Society of Jesus, Theological Studies, and as a member of its board. He also held appointments on the boards of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, and Jesuit School of Theology.   Paul held an inclusive view of faith that reflected an Ignatian ministry of hospitality. As one of his colleagues reflected, “It is very easy to describe Paul and his life as a priest, professor, and friend. This word is simply this: Paul is a holy man. What a gift his holiness is to all of us!”  On a personal note, I am a better Jesuit, priest, theologian, and person because of Paul. By his writing and example, he always reminded me that before everything else, we are human, and it is in the human -- in our beauty and brokenness --  that we meet the divine.  We all have been so very blessed with Paul as priest, professor and friend. After such a generous life spent for others, we are confident he now rests in the peace of God, whom he spent his life leading others to. May God grant him eternal rest with the communion of saints! Notes of condolence may be sent to the Jesuit Community: Jesuit Community Santa Clara University 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95053 Sincerely, Kevin F. O'Brien, S.J. President

Hello Colleagues,

Just want to let you know that I have developed a new website on Pope Francis's reform of the church.  It is an effort to inform Catholics in the U.S. of the teachings and views of pope Francis, something that they do not often hear from the U.S. bishops and priests. Check it out if you like.

John Connolly

https://www.ref21cencath.com/

During graduate studies in ethics and society at the University of Chicago Divinity School in the late 1980s, I lived a few blocks from the Henry Moore sculpture commemorating the first self-sustained nuclear reaction, a key moment in the development of the atomic bomb. I often wondered what went through the minds of those brilliant contributors to the Manhattan Project as they labored under the bleachers of Stagg Field. As we mark the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, perhaps this reflective return to that site, published in the Martin Marty Center's "Sightings," will aid your own reflections on those deeply troubled times--and on ours. 

https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/moral-reckoning-under-mushroom-cloud