The First
The Monthly Newsletter of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church
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February 2022
Dear CTEWC Friends,
 
As travel plans begin to get underway again, we encourage you to take advantage of our new Enrico Dolazza Travel Fellowship. In this issue of the First, we offer an update on the Reproductive Justice and the Common Good Virtual Table. If you have an idea for a new table, please reach out to Jim Keenan and Suzanne Mulligan to get underway. Please also take note of this month’s EWA conference in the regional report below, as it takes place online this year offering wider participation possibilities.
 
In this month’s Junior Scholars’ Forum, Carlo Calleja reflects on how to respond to interconnected structural evils from the Maltese context. Writing from Japan, Osamu Takeuchi offers a meditation on peace and healing in light of the impact of Omicron variant of COVID-19; Jose Jorgé Ferrer elaborates the promise and challenge of enacting social friendship in light of the inequities the pandemic has exacerbated. Given the fallout from recent rape accusations brought against a bishop by a nun in Kerala, Tina Beattie turns to biblical stories to shed light on the preoccupation with controlling women’s bodies in the European Forum. For Black History Month, Teresia Hinga recounts the role songs of liberation and self-determination have played on the African continent and in the African diaspora. Finally we offer an inaugural First recipe in Emily Reimer-Barry’s entry, as she shares her New Year’s “food resolutions” with an eye to climate solidarity and cultural bridge-building. We invite you to share your own recipes in the comments!

As we enter the Lenten season this month, may we pray for one another as we journey to Jerusalem.

Kristin Heyer
Shaji George Kochuthara, CMI
Andrea Vicini, SJ
In this Issue
February Forum
Virtual Tables
Regional Reports
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Kristin Heyer, Editor

Sara Bernard-Hoverstad, Associate Editor
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Featured Forum Articles
African Forum: "The Rhythms of Black Folk and the Enduring Quest for Somebodiness"
-Teresia Hinga

European Forum: "The Woman Accused: A Reflection on the Case of the Indian Nun"
- Tina Beattie

North American Forum: "Food and Ethics: My New Year's Resolutions"
- Emily Reimer-Barry
Asian and Oceanian Forum: "Prayer for Peace in Covid-19"
- Osamu Takeuchi

"El principio fraternidad y la equidad vacunal"
- Jorge José Ferrer

Junior Scholars Forum: "Structural Evil: Rising Up to the Challenge"
- Carlo Calleja
Virtual Tables
The Reproductive Justice and the Common Good virtual table continues to meet on Zoom. Our last meeting was December 10 and the dinner at SCE was canceled. But we have plans to meet in February and March on Zoom. Members are taking turns sharing works in progress and seeking feedback from the other members in the group. We are also in the beginning stages of thinking about a collaborative publication. Simeiqi He (PhD Cand, Drew) and Emily Reimer-Barry (Assoc. Prof, Univ. of San Diego) are the points of contact for the group.
African Regional Report
Publication

Solange Ngah, Le paradoxe de la pauvreté consacrée en Afrique. Yaoundé, Presse de l’UCAC, 2021.
 
The author tackles the fundamental paradox of loving and embracing poverty by African religious men and women who come from a context, if not a background of poverty. How to discern, then, which poverty to embrace and which one to reject? Which poverty to love and which one to fight? In the quest of the human integral development, this book highlights this paradox of the spiritual and the material poverty, suggesting a revisitation of the religious vow of poverty in the context of Africa. Indeed, the future of religious life in Africa will depend on the courage to appropriate and inculturate the spiritual value of poverty in a continent besieged by abject and degrading material poverty. In conclusion, Solange contends that religious poverty is not about material want or economic solidarity, rather, it consists in an ontological and relational dependence on God, and on others.  
Asian-Oceanian Regional Report
10th Conference of Ecclesia of Women in Asia (EWA)
 
Ecclesia of Women in Asia will host its 10th conference on the theme, "Toward Life-giving Communities in a Time of Pandemic: Asian Feminist Theological Perspectives." The conference will be held online from February 24-25, 2022 (Thursday to Friday). More information about the conference can be accessed on EWA's website or via the conference program.
 
You are invited to join the full conference or some sessions, as you wish! The conference is free. Please fill out the online registration form and join the conference. On Thursday, February 24, 2022, at 8:15pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time there will be an intercontinental video-conferencing featuring one of the paper sessions.
 
The conference will be recorded and accessible to the public online. We plan to stream and post a video of this conference on our Facebook page. For any questions, please e-mail the EWA Secretary Patricia Santos or the Coordinator Mary Yuen.
European Regional Report
Conference

„Animate Life. Zum Futur 2 der Mensch-Tier-Beziehungen“, July 6.-8. 202, Dresden.
Die praktische wie theoretische Anerkennung nichtmenschlicher Lebewesen gehört zu den zentralen Herausforderungen der Zukunft. Bislang haben sich die Theologien mit Beiträgen zu dieser Frage zurückgehalten. Ihre Traditionen gehen überwiegend von einem Begriff des Menschen aus, der andere Tiere ausschließt, sich damit allerdings dem Vorwurf des Speziesismus aussetzt. Es muss deshalb zu einem theologischen Anliegen werden, Kritik an einer anthropozentrischen Theologie zu üben. Wie diese Kritik in Theorieentwicklung und praktischer Gestaltung von Interspezies-Beziehungen gedacht werden kann, soll im Rahmen der Konferenz diskutiert werden. Die Wirklichkeit des geteilten Lebens setzt die „Animate Life“-Tagung dabei in seiner phänomenologischen wie ökologischen Vernetztheit als Prämisse voraus. Further information.
 
Publications


Cet ouvrage propose une étude approfondie sur la question des abus sexuels, de pouvoir et de conscience. Il traite également des relations d’emprise, des abus psychologiques et spirituels qui leur sont connexes. Ces sujets sensibles sont analysés en amont et en aval, dans la société comme dans l’Église catholique. L’originalité de cette approche repose sur une large confrontation de points de vue interdisciplinaires et internationaux.
Christof Mandry (ed.), Suffering in Theology and Medical Ethics, Paderborn: Brill/Schoeningh 2022.

Medicine, ethics, and theology embrace various ideas and concepts regarding human suffering – ranging from pain, suffering from loneliness, a lack of meaning or finitude, to a religious understanding of suffering, grounded in a suffering and compassionate God. In the practices of clinical medical ethics and health care chaplaincy, these diverse concepts overlap; the international and interdisciplinary contributions of the book open up new perspectives for these questions.

Fratelli Tutti e Sorelle Blog

A brand new blog, the Fratelli Tutti e Sorelle Blog, has been launched by the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies’ Centre for the Study of Catholic Social Thought of the KU Leuven (Belgium) in honour of the retirement of Prof. Dr. Johan Verstraeten. A blog offers a unique way to put his legacy on display, and at the same time takes his inspiration a step further … into the future of Catholic social thought. If you want to address him personally, the 'guest book' might be a nice opportunity. Of course we also invite all network members to send us any contributions on Fratelli tutti, from abstract reflections to contextualized narratives. For the plan is to continuously expand the blog, and continue the work of Verstraeten following his example: through a cosmopolitan perspective on the world, including as many global voices as possible. Contact: Ellen Van Stichel (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Latin American-Caribbean Regional Report
Actividades

Panel en línea - Painel Online “Construindo pontes globais em ética teológica”.
Dia 24 de fevereiro às 19h30 (Brasil) ou 17:30 (EST)
Painelistas: James F. Keenan (Boston College e fundador da CTEWC) e Mário Marcelo Coelho (Faculdade Dehoniana e Presidente da Sociedade Brasileira de Moral – SBTM)
Mediador: Alexandre Martins (Marquette University e Vice-presidente da SBTM). Transmissão pelo canal SBTM no Youtube. Inscrições (participação pelo Zoom).


Nuestro compañero Agustín Ortega participa en un webinar, "San Juan Pablo II y Francisco" el próximo sábado 12 de febrero a las horas 11:00hrs Ciudad de México. Vía Zoom.

 
Solicitud de artículos - Chamada de Artigos -
Call for Papers

A Sociedade Brasileira de Teologia Moral, em parceria com a PUC-Rio, convida para a submissão de artigos à Revista Atualidade Teológica (peer-reviewed) que terá como tema principal: Pluralidades e convergências na Teologia Moral hodierna. Submissões até 31/07/2022 por meio do link da Atualidade Teológica. (Artigos podem ser submetidos em português, espanhol, inglês, francês ou italiano.)
 
Nombramiento

Pope Francis has appointed Professor Jorge José Ferrer, SJ, to the International Theological Commission for the 2021-2026 five-year period. Jorge is a member of our Latin American CTEWC team. He is professor of Moral Theology and Director of the School of Theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Link.
North American Regional Report
Book Publication

Maureen O'Connell, Undoing the Knots: Five Generations of American Anti-Blackness (Penguin Random House, 2022).

Excavating her Catholic family’s entanglements with race and racism from the time they immigrated to America to the present, Maureen O’Connell traces, by implication, how the larger Catholic population became white and why, despite the tenets of their faith, so many white Catholics have lukewarm commitments to racial justice.

Book Release and Launch Events


Two virtual launch events: 1) Hosted by Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies on Feb. 22 at 4:00 EST, which will include CTEWC member Anna Floerke Scheid; 2) Hosted by Las Casas Institute for Social Justice, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, March 1 at 5:00 GMT, which will include CTEWC members Elias Opongo, Maria Power, and Tobias Winright.

Recent Articles

David DeCosse, "What a burial service for 1,780 unclaimed dead tells us about dignity," National Catholic Reporter, December 29, 2021.

David DeCosse, "What Howard Thurman can teach Catholics about responding to racism today." National Catholic Reporter, January 17, 2022.

Eli McCarthy, "Wester's Powerful Letter Part of Hopeful Trend, Bishops Arguing for Nonviolence," National Catholic Reporter, January 28, 2021.

Via Eli McCarthy, "Living the Light of Christ's Peace: A Conversation toward Nuclear Disarmament" a Pastoral Letter by Archbishop John Wester, Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.

Call for Submissions

Matthew Gaudet, through his work at the Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and the Law, has developed a partnership with Commonweal magazine to publish an occasional series on Tech Ethics topics. If anyone is interested in writing on tech topics, they can contact Matthew. Commonweal has a list of specific topics they want articles on but are open to topical and timely work on all tech topics.  
 
Fellowship Application

Boston College Global Engagement's Summer Visiting Doctoral Research Fellowship is designed to support the next generation of scholars through research opportunities, networking, and hospitality. The fellowships will support graduate students matriculated at a partnering university, who are seeking to undertake two months of research at Boston College. For more information, click here.
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