Catholic Theological
Society of America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, June 1

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

Thursday, June 2

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

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

 livestream 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Link to May 18, 2022 Report

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

Lead Sponsor: The Catholic Peacebuilding Network

June 20-23

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Pope Francis and Inter-Religious Dialogue:
Reflections on Fratelli Tutti

At the close of last night's engaging panel and group discussion, Christian Krokus promised to make available to everyone the panelists' questions and also the group breakout questions/comments to everyone. We invite all of last night's attendees and the membership to continue the conversation in this post's comment section.  (Login with member # and email address to comment.)

The Board of Director's extends a huge thank you to Christian Krokus for moderating the event and to panelists Stephanie Wong, James Frederick and Rita George Tvrtković for their insightful contributions and engagement.  In addition, thank you to the CTSA the Ad hoc Board Committee on Virtual Events Meghan Clark (chair), Craig Ford, and Elyse Raby for developing this amazing event.  

Questions / Comments from last night's fruitful virtual event:

Stephanie Wong's Question to Attendees:

•  What are the wounds, or problems, that generate the conflicts described in Fratelli Tutti, and how is fraternity a salve for those wounds?

James Frederick's Question to Attendees:

• How are we professional theologians to receive the challenge of Francis' shift away from the dialogues of theological exchange and religious experience and toward a dialogue of social concern? 
  

Rita George Tvrtković's Question to Attendees:

• Fraternity vs friendship: what are the benefits and/or problems of using these two concepts to shape Catholic approaches to IR relationships?

Group Breakout Questions / Comments:

• We have been talking about kinship, friendship, fraternity which suggests closeness is good. But at the same time we also think that it is good to preserve otherness. So how to combine these two ideas?
  
  
• What help do you think Francis needs to get us to take Fratelli Tutti forward & move past its limitations on engaging non-monotheistic religions?
  
  
• How might one define the common good in the light of impossible conflicts such as that between the different Orthodox churches regarding the war in Ukraine?
  
  
• With the growing need for robust Catholic inter-religiosity, what ways do the speakers see the incorporation of these skills for interreligious dialogue in our Catholic education system?
  
  
• Has Francis moved away from the fulfillment framework and is moving towards pluralism or is he presenting a new Christian theology of religion beyond exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism?
  
  
• How can we reconcile the lust for power with our shared humanity, our shared goals with the pressing need to build bridges across faith traditions?
  
  
• How is the relation between Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and interreligious dialogue (IRD) to be understood? Is it more formal, that is, does IRD provide a model for how to do CST in a pluralist society? Or is it substantive, that IRD has to be an integral part of CST, how we approach human dignity, the common good, etc.?
  
  
• An important note about difference and inter-religious relationships from Nostra Aetate: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all…”
  
  
• Would you go so far as to say the teaching of Fratelli Tuttti is “development of doctrine,” or more a shift in emphasis from the approach of his predecessors?
  
  
• Does this praxis of Pope Francis call for a new articulation of a theology of religions, rather than an abandonment of theology of religions as such?

If you know of any graduating majors/minors who want to continue their theological studies, John Carroll University's MA program offers GA positions with a full-tuition scholarship and stipend. Concentrations in religious education, ecclesial ministry, and interreligious engagement. Accepting applications for Fall '22 until May 15. Contact ehahnenberg@jcu.edu.