Catholic Theological
Society of America

MARIAN FELLOWSHIPS
The Marian Library and the International Marian Research Institute (IMRI) at the University of Dayton are accepting applications for short-term fellowships to support research and artistic creation using the Marian Library’s collections and the expertise of the International Marian Research Institute. These fellowships, made possible by a generous gift from the Marianist Province of the United States and additional support from the Marian Library and the International Marian Research Institute, illustrate the continued partnership between the Marian Library and IMRI to promote scholarship in Marian theology and related topics.
Application deadline for Summer 2024 fellowships: Monday, Jan. 15, 2024
Questions may be addressed to  MarianFellowships@udayton.edu.

Information may be found at the following links:
https://udayton.edu/artssciences/ctr/imri/fellows/index.php

https://udayton.edu/marianlibrary/fellowships/index.php

CALL FOR PAPERS

April 18-19, 2024   "Moving Along the Arc: Women and Men Religious as Agents of Reconciliation and Transformative Action Towards a More Racially Just Church and World"

Last year, together with The National Black Sisters’ Conference (NBSC), the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life (CSCL) at CTU began a conversation about the role of religious life in dismantling racial injustice. CSCL collaborated with the NBSC on a webinar series and have only begun to scratch the surface of these topics. Now, we want to hear from you! The original sin of racism in the United States is surging and those in consecrated life have a critical role to play in systemic healing through their own growth in becoming more strongly promoters of justice, opposing anti-racism, and through enabling others to do so through their ministries, and through programs dedicated to reparations. We invite papers that explore the intersection of racial/ethnic identity, anti/racism, social justice and religious life. We welcome submissions from both men and women religious.  CTU is blessed with an extensive network of educational institutions, religious orders, institutes, and nonprofit organizations focused on religious life. By emboldening this network in racial justice and reconciliation through this symposium, we can make an even greater difference. The symposium will take place at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago on April 18-19, 2024 with a keynote presentation from Fr. Bryan Massingale, STD of Fordham University.   For consideration, paper proposals must be submitted to cahanihu@ctu.edu no later than November 30, 2023 containing the following information: Author(s) name(s) and contact information Year of Ph.D. or graduate student status Title and an abstract no longer than 300 words

Click Here to Submit

Questions? Contact Director Chioma Ahanihu at cahanihu@ctu.edu

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF CONSECRATED LIFE The Center for the Study of Consecrated Life serves as a theological, academic, and pastoral resource for engaging contemporary issues and realities in consecrated life today from a global perspective. The goal of CSCL is to dynamically engage in research and dialogue, and to support events, publications, and other programming that engages with religious life.

The Centre for Catholic Studies (CCS) at Durham University (UK) has opened applications for its Scholarships and Bursaries in Catholic theology and Catholic studies for 2024/25.  Applications are welcome from home and international students. Available awards include:

• Up to FIVE Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ) Bicentenary Scholarships for full-time or part-time MA and PhD candidates in Catholic Theology or Catholic Studies.  Each award includes full tuition fees (at the UK/Home rate) and a maintenance allowance of up to £17,000 per annum (pro rata).
• ONE three-year Louis Lafosse PhD Scholarship funded by the Sisters of the Religious of Christian Education.  The award included full tuition fees (at UK/Home rate) and an annual maintenance grant of up to £13,850 per annum (pro rata).

The closing date for applications for the FCJ and Louis Lafosse scholarships is Sunday 18 February 2024. New candidates for a postgraduate degree within the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University must also complete a standard DU application for postgraduate admission with all supporting documents by Sunday 28 January 2024.

Full details of all the awards available, including eligibility criteria and an application form, are available at Funding - Durham University

Any queries, please contact theresa.phillips@durham.ac.uk 

 

 

Brandon Haskel, Assistant Coordinator, WFTL Secretariat, invites CTSA members, on behalf of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation (WFTL), to join the WFTL for an upcoming webinar focused on a crucial topic of global significance. 

 

Event Details 

Webinar Title: "Current Situation and Challenges for the Palestinian People and Palestinian Liberation Theology"  

Date and Time: November 4th, 2023, Saturday  

Bethlehem Time: 17:00 to 19:00 (5:00 PM to 7:00 PM)  

Montreal/New York Time: 11:00 to 13:00 (11:00 AM to 1:00 PM)  

Platform: Zoom 

The World Forum on Theology and Liberation serves as a platform for convergence, encounter, and exchange among theologians worldwide who are dedicated to the principle of liberation in personal, regional, and international contexts. We are committed to fostering discussions, debates, and publications that align with our thematic axes and principles. 

Event Description: For decades, the Palestinian people have endured a journey of oppression amid an Israeli colonization project that has impacted all dimensions of life in Palestine. In the midst of this permanent and structural situation, what are the more urgent concerns for the Palestinian people at the current time? As the ways of resistance have also encompassed spirituality through the development of Palestinian liberation theologies, how can the Palestinian experience of oppression and resistance inspire other liberation theologies across the globe? 

Panelists: 

• Mitri Raheb, PhD: A prominent figure in Palestinian theology, Mitri Raheb has made significant contributions to this field. His insights and publications, such as "Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes" and "The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christianity in the Age of Empire," are highly regarded. 
• Varsen Aghabekian, PhD: An expert in right-based community practice, Varsen Aghabekian has been actively engaged in NGOs working on various critical issues related to Palestine. Her publications, including "Palestinian Christians: Emigration, Displacement and Diaspora" and "The Saga of Survival: Armenian Palestinians, the British Mandate and the Nakba," have provided valuable perspectives. 

Registration: English-to-Spanish translation will be available during the webinar, ensuring accessibility to a wider audience. To ensure your participation in this webinar, please register before the 25th of October through the following link: Webinar Registration 

This is an invitation to join us in person or via zoom.  You can visit:

www.spiritunbounded.org

www.rootandbranchsynod.org

www.we-are-church.org and many other organizations.

You will hear speakers from around the world along with Sr. Joan Chittister and Dr. Mary McAleese.  This is a lay-led synod in solidarity with the Synod of Pope Francis.  We invite everyone to join in!

The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) has marked the release of Laudate Deum with a newsletter story on CTSA's fossil fuel divestment. Before you read the story, please take a moment and recognize those who helped make this achievement possible, especially:

• Erin Lothes Biviano, past chair of the ad hoc Fossil Fuel Divestment Review Committee (since re-named the Climate Justice Committee), who has led CTSA's divestment discernment since 2013.
• Executive Director Mary Jane Ponyik.
• President Kristin Heyer and past Presidents Francis Clooney and Christine Firer-Hinze.
  
• Matthew Shadle and Julia Brumbaugh, current Committee members.
• Nancy Rourke, past Committee member.
• John O'Shaughnessy, CFO for the Franciscan Sisters of Mary.
• Treasurer Patrick Flanagan.
• Thomas Massaro, Gina Wenzel Wolfe, and John Carr, who together produced the 2017 Abbreviated Fossil Fuel Investment Report.

CTSA Goes “All In”

By Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities Staff

https://shorturl.at/iCFQ2

The Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) may have a modest endowment compared to that of universities, but they recently went “all in” when it came to following the Pope Francis’ lead on attending to the world’s climate.

The largest association of Catholic theologians in the world, the CTSA noted that there was no shortage of vendors offering to invest their endowment of less than $1 million in ways that met various social justice criteria, but few that “allowed us to provide 100% fossil fuel exclusions,” explained Kristin E. Heyer, president of their board of directors.

In 2022, the CTSA committed to divest from fossil fuels in fidelity to Laudato Si’, the Pope’s 2015 encyclical on care for the natural environment. Subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home,” the encyclical emphasized God’s gift of the world for our use and God’s extraordinary trust of placing it our collective care.

That commitment led to an extensive search for a firm that would offer the fullest range of ways to assure that “CTSA budgets going forward will reflect our commitment to the biosphere, its diversity, health, and sustainability,” noted Rev. Patrick Flanagan, CM, CTSA treasurer. “We recognize that a budget is a moral document that reflects who we are called to be.”

We finally found a firm that “allowed us to maintain and go beyond our ethical investing status quo,” Heyer noted. “They will use USCCB exclusionary screens and provide customized shareholder engagement opportunities, Catholic values proxy voting, and broad asset diversification. Our new firm will also offer positive screening for Catholic values, and, most directly relevant to our committee’s charge, will provide fossil fuel exclusions to enable our divesting from the Carbon Underground 200.”

The Carbon Underground 200 is a list of publicly-traded companies considered to have the greatest negative impact from profiting on their coal, oil and gas reserves.

“100 percent of our invested funds are now subject to these investment standards,” said Flanagan. “I am so grateful to be part of a learned society like CTSA that is so faithful Pope Francis’ 2015 papal encyclical, Laudato Si’. It is an historic moment in the life of CTSA.”

That commitment is all the more prescient in light of the Pope’s newest apostolic exhortation, “Laudate Deum,” released on October 4th, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The document calls even more strongly for immediate action in light of the quickly worsening climatic conditions and obvious effects on some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

“What is being asked of us is nothing other than a certain responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind, once we pass from this world,” the Pope enjoins, and then pleads further. “In conscience, and with an eye to the children who will pay for the harm done by their actions, the question of meaning inevitably arises: ‘What is the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of my time on this earth? And what is the ultimate meaning of all my work and effort?’”

Breaking Boundaries in Theology
in Conversation with Roger Haight
(Online International Conference)
Nov. 30th - Dec. 2nd

The conference offers an introduction to key elements from Haight’s extensive theological oeuvre, built up over 50 years. On three consecutive afternoons (CET) Haight will present papers on “Foundational Issues” (Nov. 30), “Creation and Spirituality” (Dec. 1), and “Religious Pluralism & Liberating Christology” (Dec. 2). Each paper is followed by responses from international scholars with various religious backgrounds. Following these responses, there will be the opportunity for short online public discussion and thereupon breakout room discussion for students only.

Click here for further details

Dear Colleagues

I write to share with you the sad news that on Sunday morning, October 1, Fr. David Burrell, CSC, passed away.  He was a long-time and illustrious CTSA member, receiving the John Courtney Murray award in 2009.  He was former Chair of the Theology Department at the University of Notre Dame.  The Funeral Mass will be at 3:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame, Ind. You may also join us via livestream at https://livestream.holycrossusa.org.  May perpetual light shine upon him and may his memory be eternal.

His obituary can be found here.

May he rest in peace,

Nancy Pineda-Madrid

President Elect

Call for Papers: “Authority and Its Discontents”

March 15-16

Villanova University

Hosted by Fides Quaerens (Villanova doctoral students in the Dept of Theology and Religious Studies and Dept. of Philosophy)

Deadline for Submission: December 20, 2023

Featuring a roundtable discussion with: Vincent Lloyd and TBD

Fides Quaerens, the interdisciplinary philosophy and theology graduate student working group at Villanova University, invites graduate students and early career scholars to submit proposals and papers on the theme of “Authority and Its Discontents” for a conference to be held at Villanova University on March 15-16, 2024.

Narrating how authority goes wrong is a critical task. For this conference we seek creative approaches to the concept of authority, reckoning with its failures in a variety of intellectual traditions. What models for thinking differently about authority exist within these traditions, and what models must still be invented? What are the impediments to clearer articulations of how authority functions in individual, intellectual, social, and political life, and how can these be addressed? What are the connections and disconnections between how authority is imagined in intellectual work and the frameworks of authority structuring society, such as ‘family,’ ‘police,’ or ‘church.’ What other creative approaches to the concept of authority are useful? Papers might also explore related topics such as influence, force, law, sovereignty, inspiration, transference, or others, incorporating philosophical, theological, political, or other critical disciplinary approaches.

We invite topics from, but not limited to, the following areas:

Political Philosophy

Social Philosophy

Continental Philosophy

Political Theology

Philosophical Theology

Systematic Theology

Christian Ethics

Biblical Theology

Historical Theology

Psychoanalytic Theory

Deconstruction

Critical Theory

We welcome papers at all stages of development and see this as an opportunity to workshop new ideas and papers in progress. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words. Full paper submissions are welcome. Final papers should be suitable for a 20-minute presentation, around 3000 words, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. Proposals should be submitted to Nathaniel Grimes at nathaniel.grimes@villanova.edu and

prepared for blind review. With your submission, please include a cover page with the

presenter’s name, institutional affiliation, and contact information.

Acceptance notifications will be sent out in January 2024.

If you have any questions, please contact Jennifer Wang at y.wang@villanova.edu.

Please check our PhilEvents page for updates: https://philevents.org/event/show/115106

Good evening. Two weeks ago I requested, on behalf of the Centennial Committee, your responses to the Report on the June 9 evening session. I and the committee are very grateful for your response — thus far about 52 of you responded to us, almost 23,000 words. As I told the Committee at our meeting on September 22, your ideas are very interesting and timely, in part confirming what is in the Report and in part adding importance nuances. I was very taken also with the  personal insights in your statements - based on 50 or more years in the Society, or just one or two years, or some  length of membership years in between. We are thinking together on these issues, which is so very important. I would like very much to respond to each of you who did write, but I am a bit overwhelmed with it all at the moment, and have to let this note count for now. But let me assure you that the entire Committee has all your responses, and the Board will receive them too, and we are going to continue reading them. Finally, if you did not write, and would have time to write now, please do! I would love to receive another 50+. Peace, Frank (fclooney@hds.harvard.edu)