tag:theology.nd.edu,2005:/news-events/newsDepartment of Theology | News2023-12-04T13:23:00-05:00tag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1584852023-12-04T13:23:00-05:002023-12-04T13:23:34-05:00ND Expert David Lantigua on Pope Francis’ forthcoming ‘Laudate Deum’: ‘Destruction of the planet inevitably leads to degradation of human dignity’<p>University of Notre Dame associate professor of theology <a href="https://news.nd.edu/our-experts/david-lantigua/">David Lantigua</a>, the William W. and Anna Jean Cushwa Co-Director of the <a href="https://cushwa.nd.edu/">Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism</a>, anticipates that “Laudate Deum” will be an exhortation calling for a more urgent response to the climate crisis and offering bold proposals to address the accelerated climate change evident in recent events and environmental trends — including the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, hotter and more acidic oceans, rampant wildfires and extreme weather conditions.</p><figure class="image image-right"><img src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/534284/david_lantigua_headshot.jpg" alt="David Lantigua Headshot" width="600" height="750">
<figcaption>David Lantigua</figcaption>
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<p>On Oct. 4 (Wednesday), Pope Francis will release “Laudate Deum” — which means “Praise God” — an ecology document intended to follow up on his 2015 encyclical, “Laudato Si’, On Care for Our Common Home.”</p>
<p>University of Notre Dame associate professor of theology <a href="https://news.nd.edu/our-experts/david-lantigua/">David Lantigua</a>, the William W. and Anna Jean Cushwa Co-Director of the <a href="https://cushwa.nd.edu/">Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism</a>, anticipates that “Laudate Deum” will be an exhortation calling for a more urgent response to the climate crisis and offering bold proposals to address the accelerated climate change evident in recent events and environmental trends — including the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, hotter and more acidic oceans, rampant wildfires and extreme weather conditions.</p>
<p>“Similar to ‘Laudato Si’,’ Francis’ letter will be both prophetic and hortatory, at once challenging and encouraging, raising questions to prompt a change of direction — though perhaps with a tinge of apocalypticism given the alarming prospects of a climate catastrophe,” Lantigua said. “What are world leaders, specific countries and transnational corporations, especially Christians among them, doing and not doing to urgently address this global crisis?</p>
<p>“The Vatican, for its part, is committed to becoming the world’s first carbon neutral state by 2050, a project begun under the so-called ‘Green Pope,’ Benedict XVI, with the installation of solar panels atop Paul VI Audience Hall. But will it be too little, too late?”</p>
<p>Since “Laudate Deum” is part two of an existing social document, Lantigua expects it to delve further into what Catholic social teaching considers “directives for action” (or concrete actions) on a macro- and microscale because of the gravity and magnitude of the crisis.</p>
<p>Such directives may not be well received in the United States, he stated.</p>
<p>“Under the current political culture in the U.S. affecting American Catholicism, the exhortation will undoubtedly draw more backlash — even vehement opposition — from those who criticize Pope Francis and the social magisterium for weighing into political, economic and scientific matters that exceed the Church’s spiritual and moral competency,” he said.</p>
<p>In keeping with “Laudato Si’” and the writings of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Lantigua anticipates more discussion about sins against God’s creation — or ecological sins — with particular attention to the poor and excluded of society as the most vulnerable amid the crisis, including those who sometimes become climate refugees forced to migrate.</p>
<p>“Francis also speaks about a war that is being waged against the planet,” he said. “Certain industries relying on natural resource extraction (even for alternative technologies like lithium batteries) and deforestation for agribusiness may receive greater attention for their consequences of destroying biodiversity, creating pollution and violating cultural and political self-determination, especially among original and Indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>“The chief problem, as ‘Laudato Si’’ so clearly delineated, is the dominance of the monocultural mindset under the technocratic paradigm that abides by the logic of maximum efficiency and profit for the few versus sustainability and the common good for the dispossessed and the environment. Destruction of the planet inevitably leads to degradation of human dignity.”</p>
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<p>“To praise God, people must have gratitude for creation and learn to listen more deeply to the grammar inscribed in a nature that speaks, and now screams, out to us. We believe Notre Dame can and should be a leader in this endeavor to transform higher education and, consequently, culture.”</p>
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<p>That “Laudate Deum” is expected to be an apostolic exhortation, rather than an encyclical like “Laudato Si’,” is an important distinction with respect to its audience and its focus, Lantigua noted.</p>
<p>“First and foremost, it will be directed toward the global Church,” he said. “Of course, this potential narrowing contrasts with ‘Laudato Si’,’ which was read by religious and nonreligious people, ethicists and scientists, theorists, activists and policymakers alike.</p>
<p>“However, the narrowing should not be seen in parochial terms. Given the widespread appeal of ‘Laudato Si’’ across the world and the debilitating planetary effects of the ecological crisis, Pope Francis is likely to proclaim his message to a broader audience beyond the Christian faith community, as he did in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation on ‘The Beloved Amazon’ (2020). There is already a large captive audience for the new document.”</p>
<p>The new document’s release date on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Oct. 4, coincides with the conclusion of the Season of Creation but also the beginning of the month-long Synod on Synodality.</p>
<p>The latter event, Lantigua said, explores the process of renewing the Church through listening, dialogue and participation of the wider faithful, signaling the fruitful path of implementing the teachings of “Laudato Si’” at the local and regional levels.</p>
<p>“Notably, St. Francis is both the pope’s namesake and the patron saint of the environment, and his life and teachings have been a focal point for the pope’s previous social documents, ‘Laudato Si’’ and ‘Fratelli Tutti’ (2020) on human fraternity,” Lantigua said. “We expect to hear more in ‘Laudate Deum’ about this favorite saint of the pope.”</p>
<p>Another possible facet of “Laudate Deum” that is more encouraging and inspiring, Lantigua said, and that also echoes Patriarch Bartholomew and Catholic social teaching, is the spiritual call for ecological conversion — or an urgent plea for a major lifestyle transformation among individuals and peoples.</p>
<p>“This is not only a matter of changing social and institutional structures and policies to reflect deeper care for creation through renewed politics, but opening ourselves to a new way of life — a new culture,” he said, “one that values serious moderation and integral development rather than luxury and individual wealth accumulation, or solidarity and respect for dignity over competition and self-advancement.”</p>
<p>Pope Francis has promoted a culture of living well that receives creation as a gift from the Creator, not a commodity to use irresponsibly or throw away, Lantigua added. Pope Francis has also recognized the growing importance of ecumenical, interreligious and Indigenous wisdom for reimagining a more sustainable future open to subsequent generations.</p>
<p>“These underappreciated traditional sources of wisdom in our modern, technologically driven world provide an anchor for reorienting the purpose of education away from material success and toward a new horizon for an ecological education focused on the flourishing of ourselves, our communities, and God’s creation,” he said.</p>
<p>“To praise God, people must have gratitude for creation and learn to listen more deeply to the grammar inscribed in a nature that speaks, and now screams, out to us. We believe Notre Dame can and should be a leader in this endeavor to transform higher education and, consequently, culture.”</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Carrie Gates</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/nd-expert-david-lantigua-on-pope-francis-forthcoming-laudate-deum-destruction-of-the-planet-inevitably-leads-to-degradation-of-human-dignity/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">September 29, 2023</span>.</p>Carrie Gatestag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1584842023-12-04T13:22:00-05:002023-12-04T13:22:11-05:00(The Rev.) Hugh R. Page, Jr. was selected for SBL CUREMP Award<p><a href="https://raceandresilience.nd.edu/people/the-rev-hugh-r-page-jr/">(The Rev. Canon) Hugh R. Page, Jr.</a> was selected as one of the two recipients of Society of Biblical Literature's Outstanding Mentor Award for 2023. The Committee on Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession…</p><p><a href="https://raceandresilience.nd.edu/people/the-rev-hugh-r-page-jr/">(The Rev. Canon) Hugh R. Page, Jr.</a> was selected as one of the two recipients of Society of Biblical Literature's Outstanding Mentor Award for 2023. The Committee on Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession launched this award in 2020 to honor scholars who provide exceptional mentoring to other scholars and shape the field of Biblical Studies in significant ways.</p>
<p>Page was nominated and selected for this award in recognition of the multiple ways he is influencing the field through his scholarship, teaching, and mentoring of other scholars. The committee also expressed its gratitude for the important work Page does to advocate for other scholars and help them develop networks. This award is testament to his significant and continued influence on the field of Biblical Studies in different parts of the world.</p>
<p>(The Rev. Canon) Hugh R. Page, Jr. is a professor of Theology and Africana Studies. He also serves as Vice President, Associate Provost, and Dean of the First Year of Studies. An Episcopal priest, Page holds a bachelor’s in history from Hampton University, two master’s degrees from The General Theological Seminary in New York, a doctorate in ministry from the Graduate Theological Foundation, and a master’s and doctorate in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University. He joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1992 and, in 2001, received a Presidential Award for distinguished service to the University.</p>
<p>Page’s scholarly interests include early Hebrew poetry, Africana biblical interpretation, esoterism in Africa and the African Diaspora, poetry as a medium for theological expression, and the use of religious traditions and sacred texts in the construction of individual and corporate identity in the Africana world.</p>
<p>He is the author or editor of <em>Exploring New Paradigms in Biblical and Cognate Studies</em>, <em>The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion: A Study of its Reflexes in Ugaritic & Biblical Literature</em>, <em>Exodus: A Bible Commentary for Every Day</em>, <em>The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora</em>, and <em>Israel’s Poetry of Resistance: Africana Perspectives on Early Hebrew Verse</em>.</p>
<p>Congratulations!</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Pauline Namuleme</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://raceandresilience.nd.edu/news-and-events/news/the-rev-hugh-r-page-jr-was-selected-for-sbl-curemp-award/">raceandresilience.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">August 24, 2023</span>.</p>Pauline Namulemetag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1573042023-10-18T10:03:00-04:002023-10-18T10:03:15-04:00Assistant professor Jeremy Brown wins Kingdon Fellowship to research 13th-century Jewish theological movement<p>“I hope the award will underscore the promise of rigorous academic research into the heart of medieval Judaism and, likewise, testify to the strength of Jewish studies at Notre Dame,” Brown said.</p><p><a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/jeremy-phillip-brown/">Jeremy Phillip Brown</a>, the Jordan H. Kapson Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies in Notre Dame’s<a href="http://theology.nd.edu/"> Department of Theology</a>, won a prestigious fellowship to examine Kabbalah — a traditional form of Jewish wisdom from 13th-century Spain that concerns the attributes of God and their emulation through pious living.</p>
<p>The University of Wisconsin–Madison<a href="https://irh.wisc.edu/"> Institute for Research in the Humanities</a> awarded <a href="https://nd.academia.edu/JeremyPhillipBrown">Brown</a> a 2023-24<a href="https://irh.wisc.edu/irh-fellowships/"> Kingdon Fellowship</a>, which supports scholars in the humanities researching Jewish and Christian religious traditions in any period.</p>
<p>“I hope the award will underscore the promise of rigorous academic research into the heart of medieval Judaism and, likewise, testify to the strength of <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/about/interdisciplinary-initiatives/jewish-studies/">Jewish studies</a> at Notre Dame,” he said.</p>
<p>Since the 19th century, Brown said most scholars have clung to the explanation that Kabbalah (“tradition” or “transmission”) is “Jewish mysticism.”</p>
<p>While classical works of Kabbalah often contain elements that are analogous to what is called “mysticism” within Christian theology — including insights into the unity of existence, allusions to divine realities hidden from ordinary consciousness, and moving accounts of direct experiences with God — Brown said it is misleading to equate Kabbalah with mysticism.</p>
<p>Rather, a rabbinic type of pietism (<em>ḥasidut</em> in Hebrew) — the meticulous study of God’s gracious example in order to emulate it — is apt for classifying the most representative variety of kabbalah that developed in 13th-century Castile and coalesced within the authoritative <a href="https://www.sup.org/zohar/">Book of the Zohar</a>, he said.</p>
<p>“We read in the Zohar that ‘Whomsoever is made in the image of the King shall not stray from the ways of the King.’ Knowledge of God’s living image potentiated a pietism, one that hinged upon an intensive program of prayer, repentance, almsgiving, Torah study, and other practices that exceed the ordinary call of religious duty,” Brown said.</p>
<p>“Humankind’s creation in the image of God is fundamental for my texts. But the human form does not reflect the likeness of divine reality in its stasis. Only when the outward form is animated by the commandments and the virtues is the formal correlation of humanity and divinity achieved; <em>homo imago Dei </em>is thus an exhortation to the dynamic responsibility of embodying God’s living image through our actions. Living in this way testifies to the truth of divinity within a world that is often indifferent.”</p>
<p>This moralistic vision of God, Brown said, reflects a set of values that challenges popular neoliberal sensibilities; “though my texts polemicize against mendicant Christianity, their <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/717690?journalCode=hr">valorization of poverty</a> as a divine attribute presents a provocative point of comparison with the ‘evangelical poverty’ celebrated in contemporaneous Franciscan writings, and championed in our time by Pope Francis.</p>
<p>“Such values are core to the kabbalistic pietism I profile in my work,” he said. “When examined in its historical context, Kabbalah emerges as a profoundly moral knowledge about how to live a pious life as a Jew.”</p>
<p>Brown’s training in medieval Jewish intellectual and religious history complements the theology department’s strengths in medieval Christian scholasticism and advances the work of Jewish studies within the department and University.</p>
<p>The department boasts a talented cohort in Jewish studies, he said, including colleagues<a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/tzvi-novick/"> Tzvi Novick</a> in rabbinics and liturgical poetry (piyyuṭ);<a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/abraham-winitzer/"> Abraham Winitzer</a> in the Hebrew Bible and its ancient Near Eastern contexts, and<a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/daniel-machiela/"> Daniel Machiela</a> in the Dead Sea Scrolls.</p>
<p>And this fall,<a href="https://nd.academia.edu/IsaacSlater"> Isaac Slater</a>, a scholar of Jewish theology and modern Eastern European intellectual culture, joined the cohort as the first scholar to receive Notre Dame’s inaugural Postdoctoral Fellowship in Jewish Theology and Culture.</p>
<p>Brown is also organizing the 2025<a href="https://rome.nd.edu/news-stories/news/collaborative-interdisciplinary-grants-support-medieval-research-in-rome/"> Rome Kabbalah Symposium</a>, with funding from the<a href="https://rome.nd.edu/"> Rome Global Gateway</a>, the<a href="https://italianstudies.nd.edu/"> Center for Italian Studies</a>, and the<a href="https://medieval.nd.edu/"> Medieval Institute</a>. The event will renew and update an interreligious research collaboration dating back to the Renaissance, when Jews and Catholics studied Kabbalah together in Rome under less than irenic circumstances.</p>
<p>Brown is the second faculty member in the College of Arts & Letters to recently earn the Kingdon Fellowship. In 2022-23, associate professor of history<a href="https://history.nd.edu/people/jaime-m-pensado/"> Jaime M. Pensado</a> was also recognized. His research examined the radicalization of Catholic students in Latin America in the 1960s.</p>
<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-c3830c41-7fff-58a6-d279-89e0afbe58bf"><br><br><br><br></strong></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Beth Staples</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/theology-professor-jeremy-brown-wins-kingdon-fellowship-to-research-13th-century-jewish-theological-movement/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">October 16, 2023</span>.</p>Beth Staplestag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1546322023-07-18T09:39:00-04:002023-07-18T09:39:15-04:00Three Notre Dame faculty members win first-place book awards from Catholic Media Association<p>Six University of Notre Dame faculty members garnered seven book awards, including three first-place honors, from the Catholic Media Association. Fr. Dan Groody, C.S.C., professor of theology and global affairs and vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education, took top honors in the Theology–History of Theology, Church Fathers and Mothers category for his book, <em>A Theology of Migration: The Bodies of Refugees and the Body of Christ</em>. Fr. Emmanuel Katongole, professor of theology and peace studies, earned first place in the Gender Issues–Inclusion in the Church category for <em>Who Are My People?: Love, Violence, and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa</em>. And Timothy P. O’Malley, professor of the practice and director of education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life and academic director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, won in the Future Church category for <em>Becoming Eucharistic People</em>.</p><p>Six University of Notre Dame faculty members garnered seven book awards, including three first-place honors, from the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63576f4340973e1b5088347c/t/649264fa5e6f6c2da3a10805/1687315711520/20230620-Catholic-Journalist-Web.pdf">Catholic Media Association</a> in 2023.</p>
<p><a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/daniel-groody-csc/">Fr. Dan Groody, C.S.C.</a>, professor of <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/">theology</a> and <a href="https://keough.nd.edu/undergrad/global-affairs-major/">global affairs</a> and vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education, took top honors in the Theology–History of Theology, Church Fathers and Mothers category for his book, <a href="https://orbisbooks.com/products/a-theology-of-migration-the-bodies-of-refugees-and-the-body-of-christ"><em>A Theology of Migration: The Bodies of Refugees and the Body of Christ</em></a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/emmanuel-katongole/">Fr. Emmanuel Katongole</a>, professor of theology and <a href="https://kroc.nd.edu/undergraduate/">peace studies</a>, earned first place in the Gender Issues–Inclusion in the Church category for<em> </em><a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268202576/who-are-my-people/"><em>Who Are My People?: Love, Violence, and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa</em></a>.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://mcgrath.nd.edu/about/faculty-staff/timothy-omalley-ph-d/">Timothy P. O’Malley</a>, professor of the practice and director of education at the <a href="https://mcgrath.nd.edu/">McGrath Institute for Church Life</a> and academic director of the <a href="https://mcgrath.nd.edu/about/centers-initiatives-and-programs/notre-dame-center-for-liturgy/">Notre Dame Center for Liturgy</a>, won in the Future Church category for <a href="https://www.avemariapress.com/products/becoming-eucharistic-people"><em>Becoming Eucharistic People</em></a>.</p>
<figure class="image-right"><img src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/523812/350x/fr_dan_groody.jpg" alt="Fr Dan Groody" width="300" height="350">
<figcaption>Fr. Dan Groody</figcaption>
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<p>Father Groody’s <em>A Theology of Migration</em>, which has a foreword written by Pope Francis, draws upon first-hand accounts of narratives of those migrating around the world and reflects upon them under the light of the God, who first migrated to our world in the person of Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>“In a world where so many migrants are considered ‘no-bodies,’ it reminds of their desire to become somebody, their connection to everybody, and ultimately their relationship to the body of Christ,” he said. “This award is about highlighting their journey of hope and its integral relationship to our own.”</p>
<p>Judges called the book a timely and immensely important contribution to the field of contemporary theological studies.</p>
<p>“Groody views the current global crisis of the migration of peoples through the lens of the Eucharistic action of the Church. He develops a spirituality of migration that is at the heart of every believer’s journey of faith,” they wrote.</p>
<p>“His connection between the ‘bodies of refugees’ and the ‘Body of Christ,’ understood as both the person of Christ and the persons of all the faithful, is imaginative, theologically solid and, if put into practice, transformative for every believer and for the Church itself.”</p>
<figure class="image-right"><img src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/523811/350x/emmanuel_katongole.jpg" alt="Emmanuel Katongole" width="600" height="700">
<figcaption>Fr. Emmanuel Katongole</figcaption>
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<p>Father Katongole said he is humbled and delighted that the CMA chose <em>Who Are My People?, </em>which examines what it means to be an African and a Christian in a continent often riddled with violence,<em> </em>for a first-place award.</p>
<p>“It is a great honor to me personally, but a confirmation that the gender and identity issues that the book discusses are important issues not only in Africa but for the global church. I look forward to the conversation that will be generated by this recognition.”</p>
<p>A judge described <em>Who Are My People?</em> — which traces the crisis of recurring violence through three markers of identity: ethnicity, religion, and land — as an important, well-written, and readable exploration of issues of identity, violence, and peace in Africa.</p>
<p>“The conclusions Katongole draws also have broader implications,” the judge wrote. “I especially thought the stories of individuals and programs were well done, and I appreciated the photos…I hope Catholics and others read it to learn more about these urgent issues facing Africa and our world.”</p>
<figure class="image-right"><img src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/523814/350x/timothy_p._o_malley.jpg" alt="Timothy P O'Malley" width="600" height="700">
<figcaption>Timothy O'Malley</figcaption>
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<p>O’Malley said the CMA’s recognition for <em>Becoming Eucharistic People</em> is meaningful because it's written from the heart of the mission of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy.</p>
<p>The book outlines four essential dimensions of a Eucharistic culture in a parish: liturgies of joyful reverence that celebrate the gifts of diversity; formation that engages the mind, imagination, understanding, and will; a rich life of popular piety and the vibrancy of the domestic Church; and a commitment to solidarity with neighbors.</p>
<p>“We think that the rites of the Church are not just quaint exercises in piety,” said O’Malley, “but opportunities for the renewal of an imagination that perceives the gratuity of the world sending forth Catholics from parishes who can sanctify the cosmos and create a culture marked by friendship, reverence for the dignity of the person, the common good, solidarity, and justice.”</p>
<p>Judges wrote that O’Malley “offers a deep appreciation of what the Eucharist means personally and communally and how it truly is the ‘source and summit’ for the Christian life in the world.”</p>
<p>O'Malley also earned a second-place award in the Sacraments category for <a href="https://www.orderosv.com/product/invitation-and-encounter-evangelizing-through-the-sacraments"><em>Invitations and Encounter: Evangelizing Through the Sacraments</em></a>, which presents a pastoral introduction to sacramental theology from the standpoint of evangelization.</p>
<p><a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/j-matthew-ashley/">J. Matthew Ashley</a>, associate professor of theology, took second place in the Theology–Theological and Philosophical Studies category for <a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268203177/renewing-theology/"><em>Renewing Theology: Ignatian Spirituality and Karl Rahner, Ignacio Ellacuría, and Pope Francis</em></a>.</p>
<p>In this comprehensive study that investigates the role that Ignatian spirituality has played in the renewal of academic theology, Ashley offers three case studies to show how each Jesuit ― Rahner, Ellacuría, and Pope Francis ― responded to challenges of modernity on the basis of his experience and understanding of Ignatian spirituality..</p>
<p><a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/people/clemens-sedmak/">Clemens Sedmak</a>, director of the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a> and professor of social ethics, garnered second place in the Catholic Social Teaching section for<em> <a href="https://orbisbooks.com/products/enacting-catholic-social-tradition-the-deep-practice-of-human-dignity">Enacting Catholic Social Tradition: The Deep Practice of Human Dignity</a></em>.</p>
<p>In the book, Sedmak emphasizes that Catholic social tradition stems from moral guidance directly inspired by Scripture, especially the command to love Christ and the neighbor, even if doing so is extremely difficult in real-life situations.</p>
<p><a href="https://mcgrath.nd.edu/about/faculty-staff/leonard-j-delorenzo-ph-d/">Leonard DeLorenzo</a>, professor of the practice and director of undergraduate studies at the McGrath Institute for Church Life, earned third place in the Grief and Bereavement division for <a href="https://www.avemariapress.com/products/our-faithful-departed"><em>Our Faithful Departed</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p>In <em>Our Faithful Departed</em>, DeLorenzo discusses what “life is changed not ended” in the funeral liturgy means and how Catholics are called to remain faithful in their relationships with the dead.</p>
<p>The Catholic Media Association, which has been uniting and serving Catholic journalists since 1911, facilitates the professional development and spiritual growth of its members.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Beth Staples</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/three-notre-dame-faculty-members-win-first-place-book-awards-from-catholic-media-association/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">July 18, 2023</span>.</p>Beth Staplestag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1527622023-04-25T11:54:00-04:002023-04-25T11:54:53-04:00Theology professor Jean Porter, inaugural Graduate Student Mentorship Award winner, takes positive, personal approach to transforming students into scholars<p>Jean Porter finds it difficult to describe her approach to mentoring graduate students, because it changes with each and every one. As a mentor, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology has been described as providing candid and clarifying advice while also offering patience, support, and generosity. She has guided and encouraged 28 doctoral students as they finished their dissertations, then written recommendation letters for them and given further advice as they launched their own careers. </p>
<p>“It’s just about forming a personal relationship with the student,” Porter said. “In my experience, there’s no substitute for that.”</p>
<p>In recognition of the time and attention she has dedicated to her students, helping them grow intellectually and find their scholarly voices, Porter has been selected as the inaugural winner of the College of Arts & Letters Graduate Student Mentorship Award.</p><figure class="image-right"><img alt="Jean Porter" height="600" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/514110/450x/jean_porter.jpg" width="450">
<figcaption>Jean Porter</figcaption>
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<p><a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/jean-porter/">Jean Porter</a> finds it difficult to describe her approach to mentoring graduate students, because it changes with each and every one.</p>
<p>As a mentor, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame has been described as providing candid and clarifying advice while also offering patience, support, and generosity. She has guided and encouraged 28 doctoral students as they finished their dissertations, then written recommendation letters for them and given further advice as they launched their own careers. </p>
<p>“It’s just about forming a personal relationship with the student,” Porter said. “In my experience, there’s no substitute for that.”</p>
<p>In recognition of the time and attention she has dedicated to her students, helping them grow intellectually and find their scholarly voices, Porter has been selected as the inaugural winner of the <a href="https://al.nd.edu/about/the-faculty/college-awards/graduate-student-mentorship-award/">College of Arts & Letters Graduate Student Mentorship Award</a>. </p>
<p>The honor recognizes a tenured faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding scholarly mentorship and care for doctoral or MFA students, and will be presented to Porter at the A&L spring faculty meeting at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 2, in McKenna Hall. <a href="https://psychology.nd.edu/faculty/e-mark-cummings/">E. Mark Cummings</a>, the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Families Professor of Psychology, will receive the inaugural <a href="https://al.nd.edu/about/the-faculty/college-awards/research-achievement-award/">Arts & Letters Research Achievement Award</a> at the event as well.</p>
<h3>‘A special charism’</h3>
<p>Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, now the Legendre-Soulé Chair in Business Ethics and director of the Center for Ethics and Economic Justice at Loyola University New Orleans, completed her dissertation under Porter in 2018. She credits Porter for continually giving doctoral students care and attention as they forge their way through years of research and writing. </p>
<p>“All her students believe that she has a special charism as an advisor of helping us figure out the best and clearest way to say what we had always wanted to say but couldn’t figure out how to express or communicate,” Kincaid wrote in recommending Porter for the award. “Whereas some dissertation directors may seek to impose their own personality, ideas, or style, Jean’s goal is always to make each of us better scholars in the way most appropriate to each of our scholarly natures — rather than making us into mini-images of herself.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Jean’s goal is always to make each of us better scholars in the way most appropriate to each of our scholarly natures — rather than making us into mini-images of herself.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1990, Porter earned her Ph.D. from Yale University and holds an M.Div. from the Weston School of Theology and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. She is considered a leading scholar in moral theology and Christian ethics, and in 2012 <a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/theologian-jean-porter-elected-to-aaas/">she was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences</a>. She has published widely, including six books — including her most recent, <em>Justice as a Virtue: A Thomistic Perspective </em>(2016), and <em>Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theology of Legal Authority</em>, which won the Catholic Press Association Book Award in 2011. </p>
<p>When mentoring her doctoral students, Porter said, she gets to know her students “really, really, really well.” She learns how their minds work and what their interests are along with something about their personal circumstances and their lives outside of graduate school. She listens to them, reads what they write, and always offers guidance whenever they ask, whether during a formal meeting in her office or a quick chat on a campus sidewalk.</p>
<p>“There’s no substitute for taking time with them,” she said, “talking to them about where they want to go, and getting a feeling for what they can do and what they can do well.”</p>
<h3>‘She has made all the difference’</h3>
<p>Writing is central to doctoral work, and Porter keeps her students focused by reminding them to sit down and do it. Although she now writes more quickly, progressing on drafts of articles and chapters whenever she gets a few moments in the day, she once labored over her writing, agonizingly crafting one sentence at a time.</p>
<p>Because of the strong relationships she develops with her students, she knows they trust her as she critiques their drafts with positive suggestions instead of negative criticism.</p>
<p>“Feedback on students’ writing can be all kinds of things,” Porter said. “I can help them be more scholarly, if that’s needed — and at the beginning, it usually is, even for the best students. But I can also help them try to figure out what it is exactly they want to say, and that involves usually going back and talking about what got them interested in the project in the first place.”</p>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="Mary Hirschfeld" height="366" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/514171/300x/mary_hirschfeld.jpg" width="300">
<figcaption>Mary Hirschfeld</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Former student <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/mary-hirschfeld/">Mary Hirschfeld</a> began pursuing a Ph.D. in theology at Notre Dame after already completing a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard and working as an economist for 15 years. She struggled with finding the focus of her new dissertation until Porter suggested she build on her previous career by integrating economics with theology. </p>
<p>Hirschfeld began “painstaking scholarly excavation” by concentrating on the conversations of 18th- and 19th-century theologians about political economy. Her progress was slow, however, so to prove she was being productive, she showed Porter a paper she had written for an academic conference. </p>
<p>A few days later, Porter called to point out that the paper integrating Aquinas’s thought and economics <em>was</em> Hirschfeld’s dissertation proposal.</p>
<p>“I owe Jean a lot for having the wisdom to see clearly what skills I have and what contributions I might make,” Hirschfeld, now an associate professor of theology at Notre Dame, wrote in her letter of recommendation. “She has made all the difference for me.” </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I owe Jean a lot for having the wisdom to see clearly what skills I have and what contributions I might make. She has made all the difference for me.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h3>‘I watch them turn into scholars’</h3>
<p>After more than three decades at Notre Dame, Porter continues to value the University’s commitment to teaching — she fills her class schedule not only with graduate courses, but also routinely teaches undergraduates in Foundations of Theology. </p>
<figure class="image-left"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/assets/514112/original/porter_all_faculty_team.jpg"><img alt="Porter All Faculty Team" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/514112/400x/porter_all_faculty_team.jpg"></a>
<figcaption>After being named to Notre Dame’s All-Faculty Team, Porter was honored on the field at a football game and featured in this ad in the gameday program.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teaching, she said with a shrug, is what she was born to do, tracing her love for the classroom to her mother, who was a high school forensics speech and debate teacher. </p>
<p>“It’s the best life I could imagine,” Porter said. “There’s something really powerful about this kind of involvement in another person’s mind. I watch them make connections. I watch them turn into scholars.”</p>
<p>She’s played a part in that transformation for many, especially ones who go on to teach at Catholic universities or seminaries. In recommending Porter for the award, <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/timothy-matovina/">Timothy Matovina</a>, chair of the <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/">Department of Theology</a>, and <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/joseph-wawrykow/">Joseph Wawrykow</a>, a professor of theology and former director of graduate studies, noted that of the six most recent hires in moral theology at The Catholic University of America, four were Porter’s students. And many more hold tenured or tenure-track appointments at other major universities.</p>
<p>“Brilliant and no-nonsense, Jean is also caring and compassionate, utterly dedicated to her students,” Wawrykow wrote in their joint letter. “Jean Porter has set the standard for graduate mentoring in her long and distinguished time at our University, and her example has been inspirational for us all.”</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Marilyn Odendahl</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/theology-professor-jean-porter-inaugural-graduate-student-mentorship-award-winner-takes-positive-personal-approach-to-transforming-students-into-scholars/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">April 25, 2023</span>.</p>Marilyn Odendahltag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1533492023-04-21T13:52:00-04:002023-05-15T13:53:28-04:00Cummings concludes successful tenure leading Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism; Dochuk and Lantigua to become co-directors<p>American studies and history professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings, who has led the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism for the past 11 years, will step down from the position in June, with Notre Dame historian Darren Dochuk and theologian David Lantigua becoming co-directors. Cummings, the Rev. John A. O'Brien College Professor of History, has been associated with the center for nearly 30 years, starting when she arrived at the University as a doctoral student in history.</p><figure class="image-right"><img alt="Kathleen Sprows Cummings Headshot" height="366" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/452289/300x/kathleen_sprows_cummings_headshot.jpg" width="300">
<figcaption>Kathleen Sprows Cummings</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>American studies and history professor <a href="https://cushwa.nd.edu/about/staff/kathleen-sprows-cummings/">Kathleen Sprows Cummings</a>, who has led the <a href="https://cushwa.nd.edu/">Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism</a> for the past 11 years, will step down from the position in June, with Notre Dame historian <a href="https://history.nd.edu/people/darren-dochuk/">Darren Dochuk</a> and theologian <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/david-lantigua/">David Lantigua</a> becoming co-directors.</p>
<p>Cummings, the Rev. John A. O'Brien College Professor of History, has been associated with the center for nearly 30 years, starting when she arrived at the University as a doctoral student in history.</p>
<p>“It’s hard to overstate the importance of the Cushwa Center in my academic life; it’s been larger than any other institution,” said Cummings, who served as its associate director from 2001 to 2012. “I planned just to stay a couple of years and move on to somewhere else, but it was just a great place to be.”</p>
<p>Cummings credits Cushwa founding director <a href="https://history.nd.edu/people/jay-dolan/">Jay P. Dolan</a> as being instrumental in her development as a historian and scholar.</p>
<p>“I remember as a Ph.D. student saying to him that not enough had been written about women in the Catholic Church, and he said, ‘You’re right. You do it.’” </p>
<p>And that she has, including her 2010 book <em>New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholic Identity in the Progressive Era</em>, which won three Catholic Press Association Awards. She’s also written numerous journal articles and reviews centered on women and faith.</p>
<figure class="image-left"><img alt="Kathy Cummings Phd Commencement" height="400" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/513087/kathy_cummings_phd_commencement.jpg" width="600">
<figcaption>Cummings, who earned her Ph.D. in history, preparing to be hooded by Cushwa founding director Jay P. Dolan at Commencement in 1999.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Foregrounding the study of Catholic women — and women religious, in particular — was one of Cummings’ goals in her time as the William W. and Anna Jean Cushwa Director. Since 2012, the center has hosted the Conference on the History of Women Religious, which helps historians to learn about and preserve the record of vowed women since the Middle Ages and to integrate their stories into larger narratives.</p>
<p>Under her leadership, Cushwa also established a grant program for scholars focusing on the study of Catholic women with support from a gift from Anita Tiberi McMahon. In 2015, Cummings convened “The Nun and the World: Catholic Sisters and the Second Vatican Council,” an international conference at Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway. And from 2020 to 2022, she led a project called “Gender, Sex, and Power: Towards a History of Clergy Sex Abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church,” which culminated in an in-person research symposium.</p>
<p>“Kathy’s expertise, dedication, and enthusiasm have strengthened the Cushwa Center in so many ways and meant a great deal to people around the country and world who study Catholicism,” said Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. “And now, I look forward to seeing how Darren and David will shepherd and advance the work being done at Cushwa.” </p>
<h3>A marshaling of perspectives</h3>
<p>Dochuk, the Andrew V. Tackes College Professor of History, and Lantigua, an associate professor in the Department of Theology, lauded Cummings’ vision and contributions and said they’re honored to continue Cushwa’s vitally important work.</p>
<figure class="image-left"><img alt="Darren Dochuk Interview" height="367" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/513194/300x/darren_dochuk_interview.jpg" width="300">
<figcaption>Darren Dochuk</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dochuk’s expertise and experience includes U.S. religious history, energy, and the environment.</p>
<p>“At all levels, from Rome to the grassroots, Catholics and the Catholic Church have sought to address social and environmental challenges wrought by energy dependencies through a marshaling of moral, theological, and humanities perspectives,” said the co-executive editor of the journal <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-american-history"><em>Modern American History</em></a>, which is currently based at Notre Dame.</p>
<p>“I look forward to helping place the Cushwa Center at the heart of those ongoing conversations, and to making the historical study of Catholicism and American religion — Cushwa’s forte — relevant for clearer understanding of current climate-related circumstances.”</p>
<p>Lantigua’s research focuses on Catholicism in the colonial history of the Americas and the theology and social thought of Pope Francis, the first Hispanic pope from the global South. </p>
<p>“By anchoring the study of American Catholicism in historical and theological inquiry, I hope to preserve and strengthen the Center’s ongoing intellectual contribution to academia and the broader Church on critical issues of the past and present,” said Lantigua, who co-directs the <a href="https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/cstminor">Catholic social tradition minor</a> and is a faculty fellow of the <a href="https://kellogg.nd.edu/">Kellogg Institute for International Studies</a> and the <a href="https://latinostudies.nd.edu/">Institute for Latino Studies</a>.</p>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="David Lantigua" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/513238/300x/david_lantigua.jpg">
<figcaption>David Lantigua</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With Latin America as the most populous region of Catholicism in the world, and the growing demographic of U.S. Latino Catholics, Lantigua said the optics of American Catholicism are shifting in fascinating ways. He wants to make that reality visible. </p>
<p>“In addition to the U.S. Hispanic Catholic population, there are also ethnic traditions of American Catholicism among African/African American, Asian, and Indigenous American populations, and their historical presence raises acute questions surrounding pluralism, racism, and migration,” he said.</p>
<p>Dochuk welcomes the chance to connect Cushwa with other units on campus and centers beyond Notre Dame’s borders that are animated by similar questions about the nature of Catholicism and faith in the modern world — particularly along fresh lines of inquiry at the intersections of religion, energy, sustainability, social action, and environment. </p>
<p>“This is a dizzying world of change,” said Dochuk. “I am excited to see the Cushwa Center operate as an anchor of sorts, with programming and the provision of historically grounded and faith-informed knowledge geared to a rich plethora of social interests and concerns, scholarly methods and spirits of action.”</p>
<h3>‘An excellent trajectory’</h3>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="Cushwadirectors2015" height="428" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/513088/cushwadirectors2015.jpg" width="600">
<figcaption>The first four directors of Cushwa (from left, Timothy Matovina, R. Scott Appleby, Kathleen Cummings, and Jay Dolan) at a 40th anniversary celebration for the center in 2015.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout her time as director, Cummings has kept the center in the spotlight through her public commentary in a variety of media outlets. After Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, Cummings provided insights and historical context on NBC and MSNBC, then frequently offered on-air perspective as Pope Francis was elected and continued to make news.</p>
<p>The opening of Notre Dame’s <a href="https://rome.nd.edu/">Rome Global Gateway</a> also catalyzed another of Cummings’ goals as Cushwa director: studying Catholicism around the world in order to better understand Catholicism in the U.S. In 2014, she and historian <a href="https://history.nd.edu/people/john-mcgreevy/">John McGreevy</a>, then dean of the College of Arts and Letters and now the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost, coordinated “American Catholicism in a World Made Small,” the first seminar held at the site.</p>
<p>Next year, Cummings will be on sabbatical, continuing her research in Boston and Rome on the history of the clergy sex abuse scandal, and studying the history of Catholic sisters in Rome. The <a href="https://al.nd.edu/about/the-faculty/sheedy-teaching-award/">2021 Sheedy Excellence in Teaching Award</a> winner also will develop a course on global Catholicism with the Rev. <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/paul-kollman-csc/">Paul Kollman</a>, C.S.C., associate professor of theology.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://cushwa.nd.edu/news/from-the-director/">letter</a> she posted reflecting on her time at the center, Cummings thanks a number of people, including the three prior directors — Dolan, now-Keough School of Global Affairs Dean <a href="https://history.nd.edu/people/r-scott-appleby/">R. Scott Appleby</a>, and now-Department of Theology Chair <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/timothy-matovina/">Timothy Matovina</a>.</p>
<p>“I'm gratified to have been able to build on an excellent foundation,” she said, “and to have added my own stamp on Cushwa.”</p>
<hr>
<p class="attribution"><em>Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Beth Staples</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/cummings-concludes-successful-tenure-leading-cushwa-center-for-the-study-of-american-catholicism-dochuk-and-lantigua-to-become-co-directors/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">April 19, 2023</span>.</em></p>Beth Staplestag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1529072023-04-18T13:47:00-04:002023-05-01T13:47:49-04:00Confronting cultural change: Divinity students seek intercultural competency to improve ministry<p>Students in Notre Dame’s <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/graduate-programs/mdiv/">Master of Divinity</a> program cited a visit to the Basilica of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Basilica-of-Guadalupe">Our Lady of Guadalupe</a> as the emotional highlight of their pilgrimage to Mexico City.</p> <p>Seminarian Johnny…</p><p>Students in Notre Dame’s <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/graduate-programs/mdiv/">Master of Divinity</a> program cited a visit to the Basilica of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Basilica-of-Guadalupe">Our Lady of Guadalupe</a> as the emotional highlight of their pilgrimage to Mexico City.</p>
<p>Seminarian Johnny Ryan, C.S.C., said getting to experience Mary’s maternal love for everyone was more powerful than he expected even though he was familiar with the story of Mary’s appearance before Juan Diego in a vision in 1531. He brought back prayer cards with the iconic image that thrilled his Latino students at <a href="https://stadalbertschool.org/">Saint Adalbert</a> elementary in South Bend.</p>
<p>Juan Miguel Alvarez said his wife and classmates were overwhelmed–often to the point of tears–at the opportunity to bring their praises and sufferings to the holy site. He discerned a powerful lesson that we often don’t know the pain other people carry in their lives.</p>
<p>Read more <a href="https://www.nd.edu/stories/confronting-cultural-change/">here.</a></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Office of Strategic Content</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/confronting-cultural-change-divinity-students-seek-intercultural-competency-to-improve-ministry/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">April 17, 2023</span>.</p>Office of Brand Contenttag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1518842023-03-22T13:35:00-04:002023-03-22T13:36:02-04:00Theology at the service of decolonization, with Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez<p><em><a href="https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/mcas/departments/theology/people/faculty-directory/carlos-mendoza-alvarez.html">Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez</a> is professor of theology at Boston College and Friar of the Order of Preachers. His books include </em><a href="https://enlinea.uia.mx/libreriavirtual/detalle.cfm?clave=CRE0128&tipoPublicacion=LIBRO">Deus</a>…</p><p><em><a href="https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/mcas/departments/theology/people/faculty-directory/carlos-mendoza-alvarez.html">Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez</a> is professor of theology at Boston College and Friar of the Order of Preachers. His books include </em><a href="https://enlinea.uia.mx/libreriavirtual/detalle.cfm?clave=CRE0128&tipoPublicacion=LIBRO">Deus ineffabilis: Una teología posmoderna del fin de los tiempos</a><em> (2015) and </em><a href="https://enlinea.uia.mx/libreriavirtual/detalle.cfm?clave=CRE0141&tipoPublicacion=LIBRO">La resurrección como anticipación mesiánica: Duelo, memoria y esperanza desde los sobrevivientes</a><em> (2020). He is a member of the Board of Directors of <a href="https://concilium.hymnsam.co.uk/">Concilium International Journal of Theology</a>. Mendoza-Álvarez delivered the second of a series of lectures on "Decolonizing Scholarship." Hosted by the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>, this series will run through the spring ‘23 and fall ‘23 semesters and will feature scholars from various academic disciplines at the top of their fields.</em></p>
<p><em>Francisco J. Cintrón Mattei, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame, has written a summary of Mendoza-Álvarez’s lecture, which may also be re-watched on the Nanovic Institute’s YouTube page.</em></p>
<p><a class="btn btn-cta" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfC9JbrrDrc&t=465s">Watch lecture</a> <a class="btn btn-cta" href="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/500865/decolonizing_scholarship_series_spring_23.pdf">View Decolonizing Scholarship Poster</a></p>
<hr>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="Carlos Mendoza Alvarez Header 1200x800" height="400" src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/509305/cma_header_1200x800.png" width="600">
<figcaption>Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez during his Decolonizing Scholarship lunchtime lecture on February 24, 2023.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On February 24, 2023, Dr. Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez delivered his lecture "Decolonizing Scholarship in Theology: Bodies, Territories, and Knowledges in Resistance." His address began with a brief memory of a prior visit to Notre Dame: a conference with the founders of "liberation theology"—including Professor <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/gustavo-gutierrez/">Gustavo Gutiérrez</a>, who coined the term—where they discussed the Catholic teaching of "the option for the poor" and its wider application for victims, survivors, and the socially excluded.</p>
<h2>Decolonizing Christianity?</h2>
<p>Mendoza-Álvarez opened the lecture with a question, a central problem to solve: is it possible to decolonize Christianity? He framed the issue within the context of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and its modernizing promises of pastoral innovation for the Catholic Church. The Pastoral Constitution <em>Gaudium et Spes</em>, in particular, revealed the seeds of decolonial thinking in Vatican II’s reforms, decentering Eurocentric Christianity as the only frame of reference for thinking about revelation.</p>
<p>This was achieved partly by promoting the life and culture of local churches as full expressions of the universality of the one Church. While Mendoza-Álvarez explained that the final consequences of Vatican II’s decolonial turn have yet to be fully realized, he recalled Pope Francis’s recent exhortation to listen carefully to the social and geographical peripheries.</p>
<p>A mission to prioritize these peripheries guides Mendoza-Álvarez’s approach to decolonizing theological scholarship in the face of our century’s systemic violence. An essential task in this endeavor is recovering the centrality of the bodies, territories, and knowledges (plural) of the people of God on a global scale. In other words, recognizing and embracing the different forms of knowledge contained by communities made invisible by systemic violence. This approach (termed a "decolonial theology") confronts the theological knowledge that ideologically justifies a world of inequality today.</p>
<p>Drawing further from queer and deconstruction theology, Mendoza-Álvarez’s approach seeks to think and act from the viewpoints ("subjectivities") of those denied by such hegemonic world-systems as heteronormative patriarchy, the neocolonialism of globalization, and capitalism.</p>
<p>Decolonial theology therefore not only collaborates with Christian communities that live in resistance amidst the brutality of such world-systems, but also generates theological networks to learn from all who live within the peripheries in resistance to systemic violence.</p>
<h2>The “potency” of vulnerability</h2>
<p>Mendoza-Álvarez proposed three elements in the decolonization of theological scholarship to analyze the hegemonic systems that assail the world’s economic, social, and cultural processes today. These are the decolonization of theological scholarship in its dimensions related to being (ontology), knowledge (epistemology), and performance.</p>
<figure class="image-default"><img alt="Cma In Conversation With Sedmak X1200" height="785" src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/509306/fullsize/cma_in_conversation_with_sedmak_x1200.png" width="1200">
<figcaption>Mendoza-Álvarez in conversation with Clemens Sedmak, professor of social ethics and director of the Nanovic Institute, moderated by Fr. Paul V. Kollman, CSC, associate professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ontological dimension requires us to reimagine the vulnerability of victims, he explains. Decolonizing work has revealed the ontological and political power within the historical reality of oppression. The poor and the excluded are not only victims, but possess an inner power to resist via the reinvention of history and the world through their unique experiences. He argued there is a radical power to be found in the "potency" that marginalized communities discover amid the violence they face daily. Through this violence, they find strength and create new “networks of victims who cease to be victims.” Together, they transform their shared suffering into a political and spiritual principle of <em>re-existence</em>.</p>
<p>Mendoza-Álvarez elucidated his point with various examples of modern communities that have reimagined their historical vulnerability in resistance. He discussed, for example, the <em>quilombo </em>settlements in Brazil, where Afro-Diasporic communities actively recreated the collective memory of their enslaved ancestors; in particular, he referenced the memorial and artistic project of the Museu dos Quilombos e Favelas Urbanos in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.</p>
<h2>Resisting epistemic wars</h2>
<p>The decolonization of theological scholarship also requires an “epistemic conversion.” This process entails listening to other systems of knowledge so as to resolve the asymmetry of knowledge generated by Western intellectual hegemony. It is a process of making visible, problematizing, and reversing the denied knowledge of communities by exploring their own methods of learning within a global ecology of knowledge. Following the Mexican anthropologist Xóchitl Leyva, Mendoza-Álvarez describes the process as a resistance to the epistemic war of capitalism, patriarchy, and racism.</p>
<p>Importantly, Mendoza-Álvarez clarifies that the goal is not to deny the contributions of modern rationality (e.g. science, technology, or human rights). Rather, it must be related to other forms of knowledge, such as the jurisprudence of native peoples, in order to promote a “global cognitive justice.” Such an epistemological turn serves to decolonize the hegemonic techno-scientific knowledge that depredates the planet.</p>
<p>Mendoza-Álvarez furnished numerous examples of epistemological resistance: the creation of popular universities (like the community-run <a href="https://ecoversities.org/ecoversity/unitierra-oaxaca/#:~:text=Universidad%20de%20la%20Tierra%2C%20or,for%20a%20degree%20or%20diploma.">Unitierra Mexico</a> collective) that “deprofessionalize” knowledge; the Forensic Architecture Initiative that investigates networks of corruption in dialogue with the expertise of victims; the Argentinian Group of Forensic Anthropology, which combines forensic anthropology with local knowledge in the investigation of forced disappearances. He stressed how universities can join NGOs and professional guilds to put their knowledge at the service of communities living in resistance.</p>
<h2>Knowledge as performativity</h2>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="Web Cover Carlos Mendoza Alvarez" height="400" src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/504521/web_cover_carlos_mendoza_alvarez.jpg" width="600">
<figcaption>Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez, "La resurrección como anticipación mesiánica: Duelo, memoria y esperanza desde los sobrevivientes" (Universidad Iberoamericana, 2020).</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A third step in the decolonization of theological scholarship involves moving past language as the focus of university and ecclesiastical theology. Here, the goal is not to diminish the centrality of the written word, but to recover other sites of knowledge—or rationalities—such as living bodies, territories and the practices of communal life. For Mendoza-Álvarez, the elements of orality, aesthetics, and rituality can be combined with the critical category of “performativity” to take account of such rationalities in theological scholarship.</p>
<p>Referencing the resistances of the Mayan and Mixe people, he explained that the disinherited of the land have resorted historically to alternative practices of knowledge. Social movements from the past two decades (e.g. Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Springs, #MeToo, etc.) reveal how the performativity of resistance is a political practice. It permits denied viewpoints—or subjectivities—to affirm their right to difference in public and makes visible the hegemonic practices of machismo, patriarchy, racism, and dominant religious morality.</p>
<p>These performativities seek to propose a new social pact, a new idea of what community is about, Mendoza-Álvarez said. They are not merely symbolic actions, but the political expressions of individuals or communities of liberated, resilient, and “re-existing subjectivities.”</p>
<h2>Strategies for decolonizing theological scholarship</h2>
<p>Mendoza-Álvarez proposed concrete strategies for decolonizing theological scholarship. These include: instituting new university management policies to diversify the student population, diversifying faculty positions, and transforming the curriculum of traditional disciplines to include epistemic diversity. A recognition of diversity of theories of knowledge permits students and professors to open their horizons to denied local knowledge.</p>
<p>A decolonial theological curriculum should include diverse spiritualities and theologies, embrace new methodological approaches (such as comparative theology and intercultural thinking), and recognize the epistemic status of oral practices and rituals to promote a global cognitive justice.</p>
<h2>Christian theology & decolonization</h2>
<p>Mendoza-Álvarez reiterated that decolonizing theological scholarship is a process of dismantling the ontological, epistemic, and performative structures of a hegemonic Christianity tied to the colonial epic that began in the late 15th century. This process necessarily combines with the challenge of dismantling global systemic violence and recovering knowledge that has been destroyed or made invisible.</p>
<p>It is crucial to return to the survivors, those who live in the “region of non-being“ of systemic violence, who he describes as the <em>Tzadikkim</em>—the righteous of the nations. They hold the key to the decolonial goal of dismantling ways of thinking that make “the other” invisible. Mendoza-Álvarez concludes that Christian theology, with its narrative of a crucified, powerless God, contains a unique grammar through which to conjugate the verb “decolonize.”</p>
<figure class="image-right image-circle"><img alt="Francisco Matteo 2020 300x300" height="300" src="https://eitw.nd.edu/assets/509221/francisco_matteo_2020_300x300.jpg" width="300"></figure>
<p><em>Francisco J. Cintrón Mattei is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame. His research centers on the legal status of religious minorities in the medieval Mediterranean world, principally the Arabic-speaking Christians of the Iberian Peninsula and the broader Islamic Mediterranean.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="675" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WfC9JbrrDrc" title="YouTube video player" width="1080"></iframe></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Francisco J. Cintrón Mattei</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://eitw.nd.edu/articles/theology-at-the-service-of-decolonization-with-carlos-mendoza-alvarez/">eitw.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 21, 2023</span>.</p>Francisco J. Cintrón Matteitag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1518832023-03-22T13:34:00-04:002023-03-22T13:34:14-04:00Sister Helen Prejean, others to speak at biennial Catholic Social Tradition Conference<p>Guests including anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean, of “Dead Man Walking” fame, and Bishop Alfred Agyenta of Ghana will deliver remarks during the upcoming Catholic Social Tradition Conference from March 23 to 25 at the University of Notre Dame.</p><p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify">Guests including anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean, of “Dead Man Walking” fame, and Bishop Alfred Agyenta of Ghana will deliver remarks during the upcoming Catholic Social Tradition Conference from March 23 to 25 at the University of Notre Dame.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Hosted by the <a href="http://socialconcerns.nd.edu">Center for Social Concerns</a>, “Justice Sown in Peace: 60 years since Pacem in Terris” will mark six decades since Pope John XXIII’s seminal encyclical on peace in truth, justice, liberty and charity.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">It will also celebrate two 40-year-old milestones: the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pastoral on war and peace, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response,” and the founding of the Center for Social Concerns by Rev. Don McNeill, C.S.C.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="background:white">“This is the center’s seventh biennial Catholic Social Tradition Conference, and it’s become an important opportunity for scholars and practitioners from around the world to work together to understand and apply the Church’s social teaching to the challenges we face,” said <a href="https://socialconcerns.nd.edu/staff/suzanne-shanahan-phd">Suzanne Shanahan</a>, the Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of the Center for Social Concerns.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Occurring on a biennial basis, the three-day conference will examine issues of justice with a particular focus on migration, racism, violence, political structures and internationalization, among other critical concerns of the day.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">In addition to Bishop Agyenta, the third Indigenous bishop of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese, and Sister Prejean, guests will include Michelle Becka of Julius-Maximilians University, Marie Dennis of Pax Christi International, Bernard Prusak of King’s College and fellow educators and thought leaders from across the globe.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">The Center for Social Concerns is an interdisciplinary institute dedicated to justice education and research for the common good.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px; text-align:justify"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">For more information, visit socialconcerns.nd.edu.</span></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Erin Blasko</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/sister-helen-prejean-others-to-speak-at-biennial-catholic-social-tradition-conference/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 20, 2023</span>.</p>Erin Blaskotag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1517622023-03-16T16:28:00-04:002023-03-16T16:28:30-04:00Catholicism panel discusses the Church in the 21st century Global South<p>A March 6 panel discussion, “Global Catholicism: The Past, Present, and Future of the Church,” drew upon Provost John McGreevy’s book “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324003885">Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis</a>” and featured comments from several experts.</p><figure class="image-right"><img alt="Provost John T. McGreevy" height="360" src="https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/assets/508772/300x/mcgreevy_panel_300x.jpg" width="300">
<figcaption>Provost John T. McGreevy</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Most of my life, to my amazement, has been spent studying in, teaching at, writing about, and administering now, Catholic institutions. On an almost daily basis, I get asked, ‘How did we get here?’ And so I became interested in that long sweep of the 19th-century Catholic revival,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost and Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, during a March 6 panel discussion titled “Global Catholicism: The Past, Present, and Future of the Church.”</p>
<p>The panel drew upon McGreevy’s book “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324003885">Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis</a>” (W. W. Norton, 2022) and featured comments from Jeremy Adelman, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and director of the Global History Lab at Princeton University, and Rev. Stan Chu Ilo, research professor of world Christianity and African studies at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University. The event was moderated by Anna Bonta Moreland, the Anne Quinn Welsh Endowed Chair and Director of the University Honors Program at Villanova University, and included a response by McGreevy. The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies sponsored the afternoon’s conversation.</p>
<p>“[Provost McGreevy’s] book ‘Catholicism’ has deservedly received a great deal of attention and praise, and several events have been organized to celebrate its publication and explore its many layers,” said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “We chose to dedicate the entirety of this conversation to matters concerning the Church in the Global South, first, because there has not yet been an academic event on John’s book with such a singular focus, and second, because the subject deserves its own treatment, given the complexity and importance of this particular history, both for understanding the current moment as well as the future of the Church more broadly.”</p>
<p>Panelists discussed questions about missionary activity in the Global South, the subsequent decolonization movement of the 20th century, inculturation, the relationship between the Church and emerging democratic nation-states, ultramontanism, the Second Vatican Council and the historian’s challenge of telling the story of a global institution composed of local communities.</p>
<p>“The book is a story of the ways in which the Church has wrestled with the challenge of modernity, and in so doing, has shaped the modern world,” said Adelman. “I take it as a book that invites a conversation among Catholics, with and among non-Catholics, about the Church itself.”</p>
<p>“John has a nose for sifting what matters from what is inconsequential in both the minor and the major history of global Catholicism,” said Father Ilo. “He has an extraordinary ability to present this complex history with a hermeneutic of generosity, telling the story in a way that allows the events to speak for themselves, without interposing the judgment of the historian on the account.”</p>
<p>Reflecting on the panel’s comments, Clemens Sedmak, the director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, added: “Pope Francis said that ‘every event is both harvest and occasion for sowing seeds.’ There’s no question about the harvest. The seeds sown today are seeds for hope in the future of a colorful and wide Church.”</p>
<p>McGreevy concluded the conversation by reflecting on Notre Dame’s role in the 21st-century Church. “I think Catholicism as an institution will be reimagined in the 21st century much as it was after the French Revolution in the 19th century, and much as it was, courageously, at the Second Vatican Council. Notre Dame, maybe some of the people in this room, will play an important role in that reimagining. If this book, and some of the commentary that’s been provided today, provides a savvy baseline as that reimagining occurs, it will have certainly served its purpose.”</p>
<p>A recording of the panel can be viewed at <a href="https://youtu.be/Bb9BLqDqASI">https://youtu.be/Bb9BLqDqASI</a>.</p>
<p>The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is committed to sharing the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition through teaching, research and public engagement, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines – both on campus at the University of Notre Dame, and as Notre Dame in the public square. The center publishes four book series with the University of Notre Dame Press, which each feature first-rate scholarship that brings a distinctive voice to the most important conversations in elite academia, including Catholic Ideas for a Secular World, the Center for Ethics and Culture Solzhenitsyn Series, Studies in African Theology and Studies in Medical Ethics and Bioethics. For more information, visit <a href="http://ethicscenter.nd.edu">ethicscenter.nd.edu</a></p>
<p class="attribution"><em>Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Kenneth Hallenius</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/news/catholicism-panel-discusses-the-church-in-the-21st-century-global-south/">ethicscenter.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 16</span>.</em></p>Kenneth Halleniustag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1516812023-03-13T16:14:00-04:002023-03-13T16:14:56-04:00The McGrath Institute for Church Life Receives $1 Million Grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc. to Establish Compelling Preaching Program<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><strong style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:700; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">Notre Dame, IN</span></strong><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal"> – The McGrath Institute for</span></span>…</p><p style="margin-bottom:11px"><strong style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:700; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">Notre Dame, IN</span></strong><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal"> – The McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame has received a $1 million implementation grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish a three-year program titled </span></span><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><em style="font-style:italic">Savoring the Mystery: Catholic Preaching in an Age of Disaffiliation</em></span><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">. This initiative, based out of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy at the McGrath Institute, proposes a renewal of Roman Catholic preaching.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">Through a team-based cohort approach, 10 diverse cohorts of 20 Catholic leaders from across the United States will take part in a two-year formation process. These groupings will consist of one clergy member and one lay staff member and will focus on mediating an encounter with Jesus Christ through Scripture and preaching. In the third year of the program, McGrath staff will work with a select group of these participants to create digital courses and other resources to expand the impact of the formation process to the wider U.S. Church. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">“This program perfectly aligns with our mission to connect the intellectual resources of the University of Notre Dame to the daily pastoral challenges facing today’s Catholics leaders. It is clear, based on all sociological studies, that poverty in Catholic preaching is a major obstacle to the flourishing of Church life in our day,” says Timothy O’Malley, Ph.D., Associate Professor of the Practice, and Academic Director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy at the McGrath Institute for Church Life. “This generous grant will allow us to foster compelling preaching that resonates with U.S. Catholics experiencing the effects of disaffiliation. We hope to create a preaching culture of affiliation.” </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">The effort is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Compelling Preaching Initiative. The McGrath Institute is one of 32 organizations receiving funding in an invitational round of grants for the initiative, which is designed to help Christian pastors strengthen their abilities to proclaim the Gospel in more engaging and effective ways.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">“Through the richness of this program, we will be able to contribute to the formation of faithful Catholic leaders, and inspire a renewed Catholic imagination promoting the liturgical renewal of the church,” adds John C. Cavadini, Ph.D., McGrath-Cavadini Director, McGrath Institute for Church Life. </span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">“We are excited about the work that these organizations will do to foster and support preaching that better inspires, encourages and guides people to come to know and love God and to live out their Christian faith more fully,” said Christopher L. Coble, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion. “Their programs will serve a significant number of aspiring and current preachers who are working to reach and engage increasingly diverse audiences both within and beyond congregations.”</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">The Compelling Preaching Initiative is part of the Endowment’s longstanding interest in supporting projects that help to nurture the religious lives of individuals and families and foster the growth and vitality of Christian congregations in the United States.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><strong style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:700; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">About Lilly Endowment</span></strong><strong style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:700; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal"></span></strong><br>
<span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. The principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. In addition, the Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of diverse religious traditions by supporting fair and accurate portrayals of the role religion plays in the United States and across the globe.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><strong style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:700; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">About the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame</span></strong><strong style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:700; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal"></span></strong><br>
<span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal">The McGrath Institute for Church Life partners with Catholic dioceses, parishes, and schools to address pastoral challenges with theological depth and rigor. By connecting the Catholic intellectual life to the life of the Church, we form faithful Catholic leaders for service to the Church and the world.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:11px"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><span style="font-style:normal"></span></span><strong style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:700; white-space:pre-wrap"><em style="font-style:italic">Contact:</em></strong><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><em style="font-style:italic"> Maggie Scroope, Program Director of Communications, McGrath Institute for Church Life, 574-631-0153, </em></span><a href="mailto:mscroope@nd.edu"><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><em style="font-style:italic"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip:none"><span style="text-decoration-skip-ink:none">mscroope@nd.edu</span></span></em></span></a><span style="font-variant:normal; font-weight:400; white-space:pre-wrap"><em style="font-style:italic">.</em></span></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Margaret Scroope</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://mcgrath.nd.edu/news/the-mcgrath-institute-for-church-life-receives-1-million-grant-from-lilly-endowment-inc-to-establish-compelling-preaching-program/">mcgrath.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">March 13, 2023</span>.</p>Margaret Scroopetag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1516792023-03-13T16:12:00-04:002023-03-13T16:12:33-04:00Peter Jeffery elected a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America<p>This year’s distinguished cohort of Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America includes Peter Jeffery, director of Sacred Music at Notre Dame, professor of musicology and ethnomusicology, and the Michael P. Grace Chair in Medieval Studies. A small group of medievalists is elected to this honor each year, to recognize “major long-term scholarly achievement within the field of Medieval Studies.”</p><figure class="image-right"><img alt="Fy23 News Peter Jeffery Maa Img 0055 Small" height="635" src="https://sacredmusic.nd.edu/assets/508167/fy23_news_peter_jeffery_maa_img_0055_small.jpg" width="600">
<figcaption>Peter Jeffery shows off his Fellow’s pin from the Medieval Academy of America.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This year’s distinguished cohort of <a href="https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/Fellows_List">Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America</a> includes Peter Jeffery, director of Sacred Music at Notre Dame, professor of musicology and ethnomusicology, and the Michael P. Grace Chair in Medieval Studies.</p>
<p>A small group of medievalists is elected to this honor each year, to recognize “major long-term scholarly achievement within the field of Medieval Studies.”</p>
<p>The annual induction ceremony takes place at the national meeting, which was in Washington, D.C., for 2023. The ceremony includes the reading of a citation, and the signing of the Book of Fellows, which has been signed by every Fellow since 1926.</p>
<p>Jeffery’s citation lauded him for “unmatched linguistic skills” which have aided in his “illumination of the relationship between Eastern and Western liturgical practice from the earliest times.” His scholarship has “contributed to our understanding of Christian-Jewish liturgical encounters, and made major contributions to the histories of medieval Greek, Latin, Egyptian and Ethiopian liturgy.”</p>
<p>Among his many published essays, several monographs and an edited volume, there was praise for his book <em>Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant</em>, which argues convincingly for the incorporation of the techniques of ethnomusicology into research on medieval chant.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://sacredmusic.nd.edu/about/news/peter-jeffery-elected-a-fellow-of-the-medieval-academy-of-america/">sacredmusic.nd.edu</a></span>.</p>SMNDtag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1512952023-02-26T16:03:12-05:002023-02-26T16:03:12-05:00Father Jenkins leads prayer service for peace in Ukraine<p><span style="background:white">o mark the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the University of Notre Dame’s president, <a href="https://president.nd.edu/about/">Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.</a>, led a prayer service for peace on Thursday (Feb. 23) at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.</span></p><figure class="image-right"><img alt="Ukraine Prayer Service 1" height="338" src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/505434/ukraine_prayer_service_1.jpg" width="600">
<figcaption>Yana Muliarska, a student from Ukrainian Catholic University</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><span style="background:white"></span><span style="background:white">To mark the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the University of Notre Dame’s president, <a href="https://president.nd.edu/about/">Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.</a>, led a prayer service for peace on Thursday (Feb. 23) at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.</span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">“We pray for the people of Ukraine … We pray for world leaders … We pray for the world that, in this moment of crisis, we may reach out in solidarity to our brothers and sisters in need,” Father Jenkins prayed to begin the service.</span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">Yevdokiia Yevdokimova, a student from Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) who is studying at Notre Dame this semester, followed by reading from chapter 41 in the Book of Isaiah, verses 1 and 4 to 13. </span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<figure class="image-right">
<figcaption> </figcaption>
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<p><span style="background:white"></span><span style="background:white">Father Jenkins then offered reflections on the war and God’s providence, focusing on verse 10: </span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="background:white"><em>“Do not fear: for I am with you;</em></span></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="background:white"><em>do not be anxious: I am your God.</em></span></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="background:white"><em>I will strengthen you, I will help you,</em></span></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="background:white"><em>I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.”</em></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">“The words ‘Do not fear: for I am with you; do not be anxious, I am your God,’ mean as much today as they meant when they were written, nearly three millennia ago,” Father Jenkins said. “These are words of truth, hope, consolation. </span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">“Today, these verses are being read in Ukrainian bomb shelters, in hospitals caring for the wounded, at funerals, at the front line, in the lecture halls of our sister institution, the Ukrainian Catholic University.”</span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">He continued: “Let us at Notre Dame continue to stand in solidarity with all peace-loving people in praying for an end to this unjust war. </span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">“Let us pray that peace, freedom and dignity will be enjoyed again by our sisters and brothers in Ukraine, and by all people.”</span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">Yana Muliarska, another Ukrainian Catholic University student, offered intercessions. </span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">After praying the Lord’s Prayer, Father Jenkins closed the service: “O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Grant peace and protection to the people of Ukraine. Give them strength and courage to defend what is good, right and holy. Keep them safe from harm and provide for all their needs, both material and spiritual.”</span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">Prior to the prayer service, the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a> hosted a commemoration of the first anniversary of the war. Held in the Jenkins Nanovic Halls Forum, the gathering drew over 100 attendees to listen to emotional reflections on the war’s impact from UCU students, student leaders of the Ukrainian Society of Notre Dame and Nanovic Institute Director <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/people/clemens-sedmak/">Clemens Sedmak</a>. Attendees also had a chance to view a student research exhibition on “Ukrainian Art as Protest and Resilience.” </span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p><span style="background:white">After the commemoration, attendees joined a candlelight procession to the Grotto for the prayer service. </span></p>
<p><span style="background:white"></span></p>
<p style="border:none; margin-bottom:13px"><span style="background:white">Feb. 24 marks one year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The resulting war has claimed more than 300,000 lives to date, displaced over 5.9 million Ukrainian citizens and devastated cities and towns across the country. </span></p>
<p style="border:none; margin-bottom:13px"><span style="background:white">Notre Dame has had a long-standing partnership with UCU in Lviv, and this partnership has become ever more important as the University seeks to support the UCU community in this time of war. During the 2022-23 academic year, Notre Dame has hosted 28 exchange students from UCU for a semester on campus. </span></p>
<p style="border:none"><span style="background:white">Also, as part of the partnership with UCU, Notre Dame awarded 21 new grants to its faculty to conduct research alongside UCU scholars or Ukraine-based organizations in support of the country’s recovery efforts. The diverse array of projects is focused on helping Ukraine rebuild its communities and foster resilience.</span></p>
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<p style="border:none"><span style="background:white">Notre Dame has demonstrated its support for Ukraine in numerous other ways over the last year, through academic events and discussions, opportunities for prayer, recognition at various athletic events, and as part of this year’s Notre Dame Forum on War and Peace, including a Theater of War production last fall in Notre Dame Stadium based on the ancient Greek tragedy “The Suppliants,” titled “‘The Suppliants’ Project: Ukraine.” More information is <a href="https://international.nd.edu/solidarity-with-ukraine/">here</a>.</span></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Dennis Brown</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/father-jenkins-leads-prayer-service-for-peace-in-ukraine/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 24, 2023</span>.</p>Dennis Browntag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1511142023-02-17T08:54:00-05:002023-02-17T08:54:58-05:00Notre Dame Folk Choir to release new album on Christ’s Passion on Ash Wednesday<p>On Ash Wednesday (Feb. 22), the <a href="https://folkchoir.nd.edu/">Notre Dame Folk Choir</a> will release its latest album, <a href="https://bio.to/folk">“The Passion.”</a> Through song and spoken word, the album’s 40 tracks present the events of Holy Week through the eyes of Jesus’ disciples, led by a character called Memory who guides them as they grieve the loss of their friend.</p><figure class="image-right"><img alt="Passion Cover Final Copy Crop" height="605" src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/504419/passion_cover_final_copy_crop.jpg" width="600"></figure>
<p>On Ash Wednesday (Feb. 22), the <a href="https://folkchoir.nd.edu/">Notre Dame Folk Choir</a> will release its latest album, <a href="https://bio.to/folk">“The Passion.”</a></p>
<p>Through song and spoken word, the album’s 40 tracks present the events of Holy Week through the eyes of Jesus’ disciples, led by a character called Memory who guides them as they grieve the loss of their friend.</p>
<p>The Folk Choir serves the University community, including the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, as one of the principal liturgical choirs. Since its founding more than 40 years ago, it has toured across five continents and released eight studio albums.</p>
<p>For two years, the choir’s 60 students collaborated with professional artists, including poet and librettist Tristan Cooley, to compose the text and music of “The Passion,” staging the work over a series of workshops and retreats designed to communally rediscover the mystery of Christ’s saving passion and death.</p>
<p>“This collective work of praise invites listeners to find themselves in the story and to contemplate the experience of Christ’s passion,” said <a href="https://folkchoir.nd.edu/about/leadership/">J.J. Wright</a>, director of the Folk Choir. “The theology underlying this piece is that the passion as a faith environment can help us enter into a discussion about difficult things in our own lives in a meaningful way.”</p>
<p>Produced by three-time Grammy winner Joe Henry and directed by Wright, the album was recorded in Jerusalem at the end of the choir’s weeklong pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While there, the students traveled from Galilee to Golgotha, following in the footsteps of Jesus — an experience that was not only moving but also added depth to the project, Wright said.</p>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="Folk Choir 2 1200" height="400" src="https://news.nd.edu/assets/504422/folk_choir_2_1200.jpg" width="600">
<figcaption>Members of the Notre Dame Folk Choir in Jerusalem</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“The day we recorded the crucifixion scene, we went to the Holy Sepulchre in the morning so that we could connect our artistic work with our faith and our ministerial work,” Wright said. “It was really impactful in all the ways that we had hoped. In the end, I think we were able to capture something really special because of the context that we were in.”</p>
<p>In support of the album, the Folk Choir is embarking on an <a href="https://folkchoir.nd.edu/events/tour-2018/">East Coast tour</a>, where it will perform a fully staged production of “The Passion” directed by <a href="https://ftt.nd.edu/people/faculty/matt-hawkins/">Matt Hawkins</a>, director of musical theater at Notre Dame. The tour, which will feature an all-student cast, will conclude with an on-campus performance on Notre Dame’s South Quad on Good Friday (April 7).</p>
<p>The Folk Choir and its alumni members have also partnered with FaithND to present <a href="https://faith.nd.edu/s/1210/faith/interior.aspx?sid=1210&gid=609&pgid=54802">a series of Lenten video reflections</a> that include many of the album’s tracks. These one-minute meditations, accompanied by original poetry and music from “The Passion,” offer listeners a creative opportunity to pray and reflect upon different aspects of Christ’s final days.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In sacred music, there is a longstanding tradition of Passion plays that goes back as far as we know, and it’s a dramatic form that lends itself to these deep issues. The great wisdom in the Passion story relates really well to the contemporary problems we’re facing and things that are happening now.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The idea for the album began in 2019 as a follow-up to Wright’s successful Advent cantata with the Notre Dame Children’s Choir, “O Emmanuel.” That album debuted in November 2016 at the top of the Billboard Classical Charts, where it remained for eight weeks.</p>
<p>In light of the deepening mental health crisis among youth today, Wright and Mark Doerries, artistic director of the Children’s Choir, turned to Christ’s Passion as a way to help youth explore questions that are not often talked about in a sacred environment. </p>
<p>Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the project ultimately resonates all the more, Wright said.</p>
<p>“In sacred music, there is a longstanding tradition of Passion plays that goes back as far as we know, and it’s a dramatic form that lends itself to these deep issues,” he said. “The great wisdom in the Passion story relates really well to the contemporary problems we’re facing and things that are happening now.”</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Carrie Gates</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/notre-dame-folk-choir-to-release-new-album-on-christs-passion-on-ash-wednesday/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">February 16, 2023</span>.</p>Carrie Gatestag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1510542023-02-15T15:34:00-05:002023-02-15T15:34:19-05:00Theology, psychology professors to expand research on how sacred art impacts spiritual understanding with Templeton Religion Trust grant<p>Notre Dame theology and psychology professors are using science and technology to understand how people respond to sacred art. Robin Jensen, James Brockmole, and G.A. Radvansky received a nearly $1 million grant award from the Templeton Religion Trust for five related research studies that assess sacred art’s impact on viewers’ individual experiences, memories, and spiritual understanding. The grant will help the research team expand upon research done thanks to a previous award from Templeton. In 2020, the interdisciplinary trio began exploring ways in which looking at sacred art informed and enhanced spiritual growth and whether that changed based on time and place.</p><figure class="image-right"><img alt="Robin Jensen" height="305" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/201121/250x/robin_jensen_300.jpg" width="250">
<figcaption>Robin Jensen</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>University of Notre Dame <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/">theology</a> and <a href="https://psychology.nd.edu/">psychology</a> professors are using science and technology to understand how people respond to sacred art. </p>
<p><a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/robin-jensen/">Robin Jensen</a>, <a href="https://psychology.nd.edu/faculty/james-r-brockmole/">James Brockmole</a>, and <a href="https://psychology.nd.edu/faculty/g-a-radvansky/">G.A. Radvansky</a> received a nearly $1 million grant award from the <a href="https://templetonreligiontrust.org/">Templeton Religion Trust</a> for five related research studies that assess sacred art’s impact on viewers’ individual experiences, memories, and spiritual understanding. </p>
<p>The grant will help the research team expand upon research done thanks to a previous award from Templeton. In 2020, the <a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/interdisciplinary-study-by-notre-dame-theology-and-psychology-faculty-explores-link-between-art-and-spiritual-understanding/">interdisciplinary trio began exploring ways</a> in which looking at sacred art informed and enhanced spiritual growth and whether that changed based on time and place.</p>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="James Brockmole" height="305" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/493931/250x/james_brockmole.jpg" width="250">
<figcaption>James Brockmole</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In that initial study, they learned that the time and the place in which people view sacred art — such as whether it’s Christmas Eve at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City or July in a casino in Las Vegas — did indeed affect their experience.</p>
<p>They also learned that what viewers bring with them in terms of knowledge, experience, and attitude matters. </p>
<p>Understanding how and why sacred art shapes people’s theology, faith, and prayer life can be beneficial to artists, spiritual leaders, and museum curators, said Jensen, the Patrick O'Brien Professor in the Department of Theology and the project’s director.</p>
<p>People’s spiritual lives are often formed and enhanced by their sensory experiences in their place of worship, she said. In a Catholic church, for instance, worshipers hear homilies and organ music, smell incense and Easter lilies, and see stained glass windows or crucifixes. </p>
<p>“And sometimes, much to our impoverishment, people who plan worship don’t think enough about the visuals,” said Jensen, who studies early Christian art and archeology.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“By tying together the threads of perception, attention, memory, understanding, and spirituality, I think we will gain exciting insights into the ways people engage and use art in their secular and religious lives.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="image-right"><img alt="G.A. Radvansky" height="305" src="https://al.nd.edu/assets/493933/250x/g.a._radvansky.jpg" width="250">
<figcaption>G.A. Radvansky</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Notre Dame research team, however, is focused on the visuals. And it will use virtual reality, eye-tracking technology, and surveys to glean insight into people’s experiences with and responses to sacred art.</p>
<p>In the three distinct virtual reality spaces — a chapel, a warehouse, and a museum — study participants will view the same sacred art pieces as well as a control set of secular pieces.</p>
<p>Jensen envisions the virtual chapel, for instance, will have a vaulted ceiling, stained glass windows, an altar, and a singing choir. And the warehouse will have a girded ceiling, louvered windows, a supervisor’s desk, and a forklift beeping as it backs up.</p>
<p>Brockmole, the Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie College Professor of Psychology and the College of Arts & Letters’ associate dean for research and strategic initiatives, will use eye-tracking tools to learn about people’s visual attention, perception and cognitive processes.</p>
<p>The vision scientist, who for 20 years has studied how people see the world as it is, said the project is exciting because it offers a way to explore how people perceive and understand the world as it could be.</p>
<p>“Art offers a nearly endless means to portray our physical and psychological worlds. But, how are we affected by art? When, where, and how does art draw our attention, change the way we look at the world, become or evoke a memory, inspire a novel thought, or change a perspective?” he asked. </p>
<p>“By tying together the threads of perception, attention, memory, understanding, and spirituality, I think we will gain exciting insights into the ways people engage and use art in their secular and religious lives.”</p>
<p>Radvansky, a professor of psychology, will explore how images impact people’s memory differently than text and other types of knowledge sources.</p>
<p>Jensen was inspired to explore these questions when she began wondering what people gained or lost when looking at sacred art in places of worship versus museums. An image of Jesus, Mary, or Buddha might prompt a person to have a devotional response in a place of worship, she said, but would it elicit the same response in a museum?</p>
<p>Her curiosity coincided with the University’s building of the <a href="https://raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu/">Raclin Murphy Museum of Art</a>, a 132,000-square-foot complex with galleries, teaching spaces, a chapel, atrium, café, and retail space to be completed in fall 2023. This second, three-year study will include an interdisciplinary symposium and special visitor engagement booklets for select sacred art objects at the museum.</p>
<p>The team will examine how people emotionally respond to the art; what their behavior indicates about their cognition, spiritual impact, or depth of engagement; and if their understanding and engagement vary according to their education, gender, age, identity, or religious affiliation.</p>
<p>The researchers also will explore whether the season and place affect how viewers engage with the art, and if there are differences in how they engage with sacred versus secular art.</p>
<p>“To work with scientists on questions like this is very eye-opening,” Jensen said.</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Eb_DuYhEkF8?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Beth Staples</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/theology-psychology-professors-to-expand-research-on-how-sacred-art-impacts-spiritual-understanding-with-templeton-religion-trust-grant/">al.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">November 15, 2022</span>.</p>Beth Staplestag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1502532023-01-12T13:42:00-05:002023-01-12T13:42:03-05:00Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, and Natasha Tretheway, former US Poet Laureate, to be featured during Walk the Walk Week<p>The University of Notre Dame’s eighth annual <a href="https://walkthewalk.nd.edu/">Walk the Walk Week</a> will take place Jan. 19 (Thursday) through Jan. 27 (Friday).</p><p style="margin-bottom:13px">The University of Notre Dame’s eighth annual <a href="https://walkthewalk.nd.edu/">Walk the Walk Week</a> will take place Jan. 19 (Thursday) through Jan. 27 (Friday). Walk the Walk Week is a campus-wide series of events and discussions designed to invite reflection about diversity and inclusion at Notre Dame, in local communities and across the nation.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px">This year’s keynote events include a talk by <a href="https://natashatrethewey.com/">Natasha Trethewey</a>, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former two-time Poet Laureate of the United States, and an annual prayer service with a reflection by the <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/presiding-bishop-michael-curry/biography/">Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry</a>, presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church. Both events are free and open to the public.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px">Trethewey, who is an artist-in-residence this year with the Notre Dame <a href="https://raceandresilience.nd.edu/">Initiative on Race and Resilience</a>, will present a meditation titled “Why I Write” at 5 p.m. Jan. 19 in Room 215/216, McKenna Hall.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:13px">Trethewey is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir” (2020); a book of nonfiction,<em> </em>“Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast” (2010); and five collections of poetry. In 2017 she received the Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities, and in 2020, she received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the Library of Congress. At Northwestern University she is the Board of Trustees Professor of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:15px; margin-top:7px">At 6:30 p.m. Jan. 22 (Sunday) in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the University will hold its annual Walk the Walk Week prayer service. Bishop Curry will deliver the keynote reflection.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:19px">Bishop Curry serves as The Episcopal Church’s chief pastor, spokesperson and president and chief executive officer. Throughout his ministry, he has been a prophetic leader, particularly in the areas of racial reconciliation, climate change, evangelism, immigration policy and marriage equality. Bishop Curry was ordained a priest in 1978 and served parishes in North Carolina, Ohio and Maryland until his 2000 election as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. He graduated with high honors from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and earned his master of divinity degree from Yale University. Bishop Curry is the author of five books and a regular guest on national and international media outlets.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:15px; margin-top:7px">A candlelight march and reception in the Main Building Rotunda will follow the prayer service.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Sue Ryan</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/most-rev-michael-bruce-curry-presiding-bishop-of-the-episcopal-church-and-natasha-tretheway-former-us-poet-laureate-to-be-featured-during-walk-the-walk-week/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">January 12, 2023</span>.</p>Sue Ryantag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1500902023-01-04T09:43:00-05:002023-01-04T09:43:45-05:00Notre Dame faculty experts reflect on life, legacy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI<p>On Dec. 31, the retired Pope Benedict XVI passed away at the age of 95. As the University of Notre Dame joins the Church and the world in mourning Pope Benedict’s passing, the University’s faculty experts reflect on his life and legacy.</p><p>On Dec. 31, the retired Pope Benedict XVI passed away at the age of 95. Born Joseph Alois Ratzinger in 1927 in Germany, he had a distinguished career as a theologian before he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and named a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977. Following the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, Ratzinger was elected pope, and in 2013, he became the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.</p>
<p>As the University of Notre Dame joins the Church and the world in mourning Pope Benedict’s passing, the University’s faculty experts reflect on his life and legacy.</p>
<p><strong>‘The end of the post-Vatican II era’</strong></p>
<p>“Joseph Ratzinger’s death in some ways marks the end of the post-Vatican II era,” said <a href="https://www.nd.edu/about/leadership/council/john-t-mcgreevy/" target="_blank">John McGreevy</a>, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. McGreevy has authored four books that explore the people and the impact of the Catholic Church, including his most recent work, “Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis.”</p>
<p>“He was the last living major figure from the council, which is now sliding from living memory into history,” McGreevy said. “As a young theologian he was a major influence on some of the documents at the council; after the council, as a theologian, archbishop of Munich and then Vatican Cardinal, he became a leader of those resistant to further changes made in its name.</p>
<p>“Working with his friend and patron, Pope John Paul II — his predecessor — before his own election in 2005, he helped set the agenda within the Church and sometimes within the wider world for a full 35 years.”</p>
<p><strong>‘Humanizing the papacy’</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://keough.nd.edu/profile/clemens-sedmak/" target="_blank">Clemens Sedmak</a>, a professor of social ethics and director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, met Pope Benedict several times as part of the Ratzinger Circle of Alumni, an initiative started by former doctoral and postdoctoral students of professor Joseph Ratzinger. The circle met every year with Cardinal Ratzinger and then Pope Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, the papal summer residence.</p>
<p>“Pope Benedict was a beloved and revered teacher, and his former students thought the world of him — as a theologian, but also as a gentle human being,” Sedmak said. “They liked to call Pope Benedict (who was an avid piano player) ‘the Mozart of theology.’ I was personally deeply impressed by Pope Benedict’s theological brilliance combined with his deep faith and humility. He never forgot his humble origins and remained close to his home and his siblings until their death. He was also a person with a deep sense of beauty, especially through music, architecture and nature. He liked to hike in Austria and he loved Salzburg, sometimes called ‘the Rome of the Alps.’”</p>
<p>Sedmak also believes that Pope Benedict XVI was “misunderstood by many,” particularly since he had to inhabit the role of “guardian of the faith” as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005.</p>
<p>“It is no secret that he wanted to retire several times, but John Paul II asked him to stay,” Sedmak said. “He had shaped the work of the congregation through his theology, probably most notably so in the congregation’s instructions on the theology of liberation. It is also well known that Pope Benedict continued Pope John Paul II’s concern with pluralism and secularization and a Church that would enter compromises with wider society.”</p>
<p>When Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, effective Feb. 28, 2013, he took a step unprecedented in modern times, and by doing so “humanized the papacy,” Sedmak said.</p>
<p>“One of the features of Pope Benedict that I treasure is his serenity,” he said. “I was once told by a member of the Ratzinger Circle of Alumni that he had never seen Professor Ratzinger, Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict ‘in a bad mood.’ There was a fundamental joy which he communicated so powerfully during the first months of his pontificate.</p>
<p>“In the last years of Benedict’s life there were also many lessons in humility — and lessons of human fragility and frailty. It was moving to see how Pope Francis showed respect and affection for his predecessor and how Pope Benedict gracefully inhabited the role of ‘emeritus.’”</p>
<p><strong>‘A complicated legacy’</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://news.nd.edu/our-experts/kathleen-cummings/" target="_blank">Kathleen Sprows Cummings</a>, the William W. and Anna Jean Cushwa Director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and a professor of American studies, said that with Pope Benedict XVI’s death, “Catholics justly mourn a man of unwavering faith, deep conviction and towering intellect who indelibly shaped the church throughout the 24 years he served as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and the eight years he spent as pontiff.”</p>
<p>Moreover, she said his surprise resignation in 2013 represented “an extraordinary act of humility” that forever changed the modern papacy. However, there is no question that the retired pope leaves behind “a complicated legacy,” Cummings added.</p>
<p>“In February 2022, following a report that implicated him in the cover-up of sexual abuse during the years he served as Archbishop of Munich, Benedict acknowledged his failure to act decisively at times in confronting sexual abusers, yet anticipated facing the final judgment with confidence and without fear, trusting the Lord to be not only a ‘just judge’ but also ‘the friend and brother who has already suffered for my shortcomings,’” Cummings said. “History, however, is also a fair-minded judge, and when it comes to culpability in the clergy sexual abuse crisis, one that is far less likely to absolve Benedict than the God of mercy.</p>
<p>“For the time being, we await a papal funeral without a conclave — an unprecedented event that mirrors the experience of March 2013, a conclave without a papal funeral.”</p>
<p><strong>‘The God of love’</strong></p>
<figure class="image-right"> </figure>
<p><a href="https://news.nd.edu/our-experts/john-cavadini/" target="_blank">John Cavadini</a>, a professor of theology and the McGrath-Cavadini Director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, is the editor of “Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI,” which examines how Benedict’s writings shaped Catholic theological thought in the 20th century.</p>
<p>The lines of Benedict’s thought come to “a sublime convergence” in his first encyclical, God Is Love, Cavadini said, where Benedict wrote, “Love is the light — and in the end the only light — that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practice it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world — this is the invitation I would like to extend.”</p>
<p style="margin-right:40px">“With these sublime words, Benedict sums up, perhaps, his whole pastoral legacy as a theologian become bishop,” Cavadini said. “If, as Pope Francis has said, ‘Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others,’ then Pope Francis — and all of us, too — are well within the legacy laid out by Benedict’s lifetime call to focus on the essentials. He called us to remember why we have a religion in the first place and to evangelize ourselves and our contemporaries by first and foremost allowing the light of God’s love to enter into our own hearts and transform them — to experience love — and by our witness and solidarity with the cares of our neighbor, causing this light of God to enter into the world.”</p>
<p style="margin-right:40px"><strong>‘A man of the Christmastide’</strong></p>
<figure class="image-right">
<figcaption> </figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Benedict XVI will be remembered not only as the pope who brilliantly defended the intelligibility of the Catholic faith and illuminated it through his many books, but also as the first pope who tackled the abuse crisis in the Church, according to <a href="https://news.nd.edu/people/ulrich-lehner/" target="_blank">Ulrich Lehner</a>, the William K. Warren Professor of Theology.</p>
<p>“What sets him apart from many popes in history was his unique ability to dialogue with atheist scholars and leaders of other religions,” Lehner said. “Like no pope before him, he explained in lucid prose to the world that Catholicism is not about rules and letters, but about an encounter with the living God, who is love and who loves every person. He believed that the mystery at the heart of the universe was not a cold formula, but love, or as he said in ‘Introduction to Christianity’ in 1968: ‘In a world which in the last analysis is not mathematics but love, the minimum is a maximum; the smallest thing that can love is one of the biggest things; the particular is more than the universal; the person, the unique and unrepeatable, is at the same time the ultimate and highest thing.’”</p>
<p>Benedict XVI was a “man of the Christmastide” — his baptismal name was Joseph — and like Joseph he was never the man of big gestures, loud noises or flashy appearances, Lehner added.</p>
<p>“Like Joseph, he was immersed in quiet prayer and avoided the spotlight, but unlike his namesake had to wrestle with the fact that as cardinal and pope he was pushed onto the stage of world history.</p>
<p>“He loved to compare himself to the legendary bear who carried St. Corbinian’s baggage over the Alps — a parable that symbolizes answering God’s call — albeit with a twinkle in his eyes, because he knew he did not have the strength of a bear,” Lehner said. “The only thing that counted for him was that one day Christ would say to him: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’ (Matthew 25:23) — and I am sure he heard those words.”</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Carrie Gates</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/notre-dame-faculty-experts-reflect-on-life-legacy-of-pope-emeritus-benedict-xvi/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 31, 2022</span>.</p>Carrie Gatestag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1498832022-12-14T10:46:00-05:002022-12-14T10:47:42-05:00Theology minor Hannah Gillespie named 2023 Marshall Scholar<p>University of Notre Dame alumna Hannah Gillespie will study in the United Kingdom next year as a member of the Marshall Scholars class of 2023.</p><p>University of Notre Dame alumna Hannah Gillespie will study in the United Kingdom next year as a member of the Marshall Scholars class of 2023. Gillespie is the 10th Marshall Scholar in Notre Dame’s history. She plans to use the award to conduct research in engineering for international development, building upon her experiences at Notre Dame and as an engineer at Boeing.</p>
<p>“It is an honor to join the upcoming Marshall cohort to receive a graduate education in the U.K. I’m deeply grateful to my professors, mentors and classmates at Notre Dame, as well as my mentors and colleagues at Boeing,” Gillespie said. “The Marshall Scholarship provides a unique opportunity to dive into two distinct courses, one to expand my growing technical experience in aerial robotics and the other to co-create innovative solutions with communities around the world.”</p>
<p>In applying for the award, Gillespie worked closely with the <a href="https://cuse.nd.edu/">Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE)</a>, which promotes the intellectual development of Notre Dame undergraduates through scholarly engagement, research, creative endeavors and the pursuit of fellowships.</p>
<p>“Hannah Gillespie’s record of service and scholarship is impressive and represents the best of Notre Dame,” said Notre Dame President <a href="https://president.nd.edu/about/">Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.</a> “Congratulations to her, her family, her professors and the Flatley Center For Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement staff who supported her.”</p>
<p>Emily Hunt, student engagement program coordinator at CUSE, said, “We want to congratulate Hannah on her selection as a 2023 Marshall Scholar. Her commitment to combining her technical engineering skills with human-centered design to develop sustainable solutions across the globe is inspirational. As a Marshall Scholar, she will build on the tremendous opportunities she received at Notre Dame and as an engineer at Boeing. We would like to thank the members of the Notre Dame community who supported her, including those in the <a href="https://engineering.nd.edu/">College of Engineering</a>, the <a href="https://kellogg.nd.edu/">Kellogg Institute for International Studies</a> and the <a href="https://nanovic.nd.edu/">Nanovic Institute for European Studies</a>.”</p>
<p>Gillespie is a 2020 Notre Dame graduate from Johnsburg, Illinois, with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering and a minor in theology.</p>
<p>On campus, Gillespie was a <a href="https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/student-formation/sorin-fellows/">de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture Sorin Fellow</a>, president of the AIAA Design/Build/Fly club, member of the Kellogg International Scholars Program and research assistant in the Hypersonic Aerodynamics Lab. A classically trained pianist, she also played piano for Mass in the Pasquerilla West Hall choir and volunteered in South Bend with the Community of Sant’Egidio. </p>
<p>In her first year at Notre Dame, she received a grant through the Nanovic Institute for European Studies to serve as a research assistant in the Morph Lab at Imperial College London. She spent the summer developing a robotic proxy finger for physicians to evaluate the condition of patients in remote locations using haptic feedback.</p>
<p>As a Kellogg International Scholar, she assisted <a href="https://engineering.nd.edu/faculty/tracy-kijewski-correa/">Tracy Kijewski-Correa</a>, professor of engineering and global affairs, co-director of the Integration Lab and acting William J. Pulte Director of the Pulte Institute for Global Development, and <a href="https://engineering.nd.edu/faculty/alexandros-taflanidis/">Alexandros Taflanidis</a>, professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences, on a National Science Foundation-funded project in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. </p>
<p>During an in-person research visit to Léogâne, Haiti, the epicenter of the 2010 earthquake, Gillespie listened to the need expressed by community members for increased access to clean water. In response, she worked with fellow engineering students in the College of Engineering’s Grand Challenges Scholars Program, along with community members in Léogâne, to develop a cost-effective biosand filter. During her senior year, Gillespie studied social entrepreneurship to explore how business could serve as a sustainable distribution mechanism for products in development settings.</p>
<p>“Our team approached the lack of clean water using the framework of human-centered design thinking,” she said. “Even beyond technical requirements, my advisers and education at Notre Dame taught me to ask deeper questions: What sort of cultural and political factors are in place that may impact what solution is viable? Throughout its entire lifecycle, how can a piece of technology be employed to promote the dignity of the human person?”</p>
<p>Upon graduation, Gillespie joined a two-year rotation program for early-career engineers at Boeing in Seattle. She received a patent and several innovation awards as a manufacturing research and development engineer in her first year, and also rotated as a guidance, navigation and control engineer for Boeing’s subsidiary Insitu. She currently works full-time as an autonomous systems engineer.</p>
<p>Outside of work, she is a member of the board of directors of AscendNW, a nonprofit that supports Catholic healing ministry in the Pacific Northwest. She previously served as house leader at Lisieux House, an intentional community of young Catholic women in Seattle.</p>
<p>To bring technological advances into greater conversation with international development, Gillespie will spend her first year as a Marshall Scholar pursuing a Master of Science in computing at Imperial College London, followed by a Master of Science in social innovation and entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her course at LSE will enable her to develop her own social venture in collaboration with communities in vulnerable populations around the world. Long-term, she plans to return to the U.S. and create a network of makerspaces to connect more entrepreneurial engineers with opportunities to work on international development projects.</p>
<p>“Hannah possesses unique abilities to collaborate across disciplines and cultures to discover lasting solutions, making her well-primed to be an excellent ambassador who will devote her life to making lasting contributions to society, particularly on behalf of the most vulnerable,” Kijewski-Correa, who co-advised Gillespie as part of both the Kellogg International and Grand Challenges Scholars programs, said in recommending her for the Marshall program. “Ever since I met her, Hannah has been hard at work designing a better world, and I can’t wait to see what the world looks like when she is done.”</p>
<p>Founded in 1954 to commemorate the ideals of the Marshall Plan, the Marshall Scholarships support Americans of exceptional ability to pursue graduate-level studies in the U.K., covering university fees, cost of living, research and thesis grants and travel to and from the U.S., among other expenses.</p>
<p>For more on this and other scholarship opportunities, visit <a href="https://cuse.nd.edu/">cuse.nd.edu</a>.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Erin Blasko</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/alumna-hannah-gillespie-named-2023-marshall-scholar/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 13, 2022</span>.</p>Erin Blaskotag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1496792022-12-05T13:58:00-05:002022-12-05T13:58:45-05:00Video series highlights sacred, meaningful moments for Advent season<p>From life-changing experiences in the classroom and moments of stillness at the Grotto, to warm remembrances of friends and family, tales of sacred and meaningful moments abound at the University of Notre Dame.</p><div class="image-right video-right">
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<p>From life-changing experiences in the classroom and moments of stillness at the Grotto, to warm remembrances of friends and family, tales of sacred and meaningful moments abound at the University of Notre Dame. This Advent season, the <a href="https://my.nd.edu/">Notre Dame Alumni Association</a> invites members of the campus community, as well as the public, to share in such tales as part of Sacred Stories of Notre Dame, a series of daily video reflections from Notre Dame students, faculty, staff and alumni.</p>
<p>To view or sign up for the videos, visit <a href="https://sacredstories.nd.edu/">sacredstories.nd.edu</a>.</p>
<p class="attribution">Originally published by <span class="rel-author">Notre Dame News</span> at <span class="rel-source"><a href="https://news.nd.edu/news/video-series-highlights-sacred-meaningful-moments-for-advent-season/">news.nd.edu</a></span> on <span class="rel-pubdate">December 05, 2022</span>.</p>Notre Dame Newstag:theology.nd.edu,2005:News/1496582022-12-02T12:33:00-05:002022-12-02T12:35:12-05:00Video: Theology Professor Jeff Wickes on The Formation of Syriac Christian Culture Through Poetry<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KA3wi-oOZdU?rel=0&start=5" width="640"></iframe></p> <p>Jeff Wickes, associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, focuses on the interplay between Syriac literature, theology, and liturgy…</p><p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KA3wi-oOZdU?rel=0&start=5" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>Jeff Wickes, associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, focuses on the interplay between Syriac literature, theology, and liturgy in the context of late antique Christianity. Building projects that work from close readings of Syriac texts, he gravitates in his work towards larger questions of genre (especially poetry), religion, and theology as they play out within the historical horizons of late antique Christianity, and as those horizons meet our own in the contemporary world. His first two books focused on Syriac Christianity’s formative voice, Ephrem the Syrian, and sought to find the place where performative context and exegesis met in the space of Ephrem’s poetry. His current book turns to a range of Syriac hagiographical poems sung between the fourth and sixth centuries to ask questions around form, agency, time, and gender in late antique poetry and the cult of the saints. He comes to Notre Dame after nine years at Saint Louis University. Prior to that, he completed a PhD at the University of Notre Dame, an MA at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, and a BA at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. His work has been supported by grants from, among others, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, the Mellon Foundation, and the Dolores Zorhab Liebmann Fund.</p>
<p> </p>Margaret McVeigh