Catholic Studies Commons^™

Surviving Tenure: The Plight Of Black Faculty; A Panel Discussion, Kimberly Flint-Hamilton, Diane Batts Morrow, John Morrow Jr., Jamie T. Phelps O.P.

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

This essay, delivered during the 2006 Annual Meeting in Boston, presents four tenured professors from three different universities who discuss the unique problems faced by Black faculty at predominantly White institutions as they attempt to earn tenure and promotion. Chair Kimberly Flint-Hamilton provides the introductory remarks.

Canons And Customs In Colonial Zimbabwe: Jesuits And African Marriage Practices, C. 1890-1967, Nicholas M. Creary

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

This article, delivered as a paper for the 2003 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, treats of African Marriage in Zimbabwe according to “Customary Law” and Western Christian Marriage according to Canon Law. In the beginning of colonialism the missionaries required observance of canonical requirements for Catholic marriage. The colonial government sought to regularize the African marriage traditions. The result was a lessening of Church marriages. This article is a report on the efforts made to renew inculturation in Zimbabwe from c. 1890 to 1967.

Committed To The Faith While Sticking Out Like A Sore Thumb: Stories Of Black Catholics On The Social Frontier, Robert L. Bartlett

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

Bartlett presents the results of a survey of Black Catholics in predominantly White parishes, a topic he presented in part during the 2002 Annual Meeting in Spokane, Washington. He focuses on the lived experiences of these Black Catholics who maneuver within what he terms “the social frontier” as they describe their challenges as they’ve tried, with mixed results, to practice their faith in the face of tension generated by racial, community, and personal pressures.

Cover And Front Matter, Black Catholic Theological Symposium

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

Cover, table of contents, administrative information

Catholicism And The Color Line: Black Catholics Beyond The Veil, Cyprian Davis O.S.B.

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

This paper, delivered in Atlanta, Georgia on October 9, 2003, was the keynote address of the 2003 Annual Meeting, which was dedicated to the centennial anniversary of W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk. Here, Davis discusses the history of the ‘double consciousness’ as perceived by Black Catholics throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Economic Ethics And Implications For Health Care Access, Shawnee M. Daniels-Sykes S.S.N.D.

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

In this paper, delivered in New Orleans at the 2004 Annual Meeting, Daniels-Sykes summarizes current scholarship on social justice and health care, inequality of access to health care and insurability, and welfare programs. She presents an analysis of Catholic theological ethics and its application in debates regarding access to health care.

A Vision For The Future, Kimberly Flint-Hamilton

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

Nearly thirty years ago, a group of young Catholic scholars gathered together to start what would be a long journey. The Reverend Thaddeus Posey convened them in 1978, and they met once again in 1979. They began meeting at that time because they all shared the same vision, to form a theology “that is authentically Black and truly Catholic,” as stated in what would become their Constitution.

More than a decade passed. Then, in 1991, Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., reconvened the group. Since then, the Black Catholic Theological Symposium has met almost every year, developing their vision together and offering …

The Descriptive Problem Of Evil, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Language is like the cane in the hand of the blind person. The better one becomes at getting around with the cane, the more he or she is apt to forget the cane but through the cane perceive the objects scraped and tapped by the other end. A defective cane may distort the world perceived by the blind person. So too, defective use of language threatens to muddy our understanding of the things we talk about. When discussing something as difficult as natural evils, a frequently undetected defect in our language use is “overly attenuated description.” In this piece, I …

Hymn To St. Joseph (Lootens), Harold Lootens S.M.

Musical Compositions about the Marianist Charism

Praise of St. Joseph

Mary Immaculate Star Of The Morning, Harold Lootens S.M.

Musical Compositions about the Marianist Charism

In praise of Mary

The Aesthetic Hermeneutics Of Hans-Georg Gadamer And Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Jason Paul Bourgeois

Marian Library Faculty Publications

This book compares two figures that are not often associated together within the field of Roman Catholic theology, namely Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hans Urs von Balthasar. This work attempts to find deep structural affinities in the aesthetics and hermeneutics of both thinkers, as expressed through shared metaphysical and anthropological assumptions about the dialogical nature of truth and interpretation. The body of the work will be devoted to analyzing these assumptions of Gadamer and Balthasar, both individually and in comparison with each other. However, this preface is necessary to place the concerns of this book into a broader theological context.

What I Overheard In The Sesquicentennial Conversation, Una M. Cadegan

History Faculty Publications

Catholic higher education is in many ways still responding to the challenge first articulated by John Tracy Ellis in his 1955 essay. In efforts to promote both a unique Catholic identity and a culture of excellence on par with secular institutions, Catholic universities can learn much from their historical context, founding religious communities, and contemporary experience.

This essay suggests some practical applications for campus life and governance that might be culled from a university’s religious history.

What Mega-Churches Can Learn From Catholics, Aaron James, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Mega-churches are not very popular among academics, even Christian ones. At a recent conference of theologians and ethicists, my colleague and I found ourselves on the defensive. According to the bulk of the seminar participants, the failure of mega-churches to form faithful disciples was a foregone conclusion.

This perspective was very troubling to us. Since we could vouch for the genuine and sincere faith of our academic peers, we could not simply dismiss their complaints as spiritually vacuous. At the same time, we could not deny that God's Spirit was genuinely present in our mega-church congregation. Formerly-unchurched persons are coming …

Some Things Are Worth Dying For, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In April of 1992, Kristen French, a 15 year-old girl was kidnapped and held as a sex slave in suburban Ontario. For two days she was raped and threatened with death. Surprisingly, on the third day she grew defiant, refusing to perform a particular sexual act even after she was shown pre-recorded videotape of her predecessor, Leslie, being strangled by her captors with an electrical cord. (Leslie's corpse was sawn into 10 pieces before disposal.) A record of Kristen's suffering was preserved on video tape too. Of interest is Kristen's dying claim: "Some things are worth dying for."

Kristen's story …

A Comparison Of The Aesthetic Approach Of Hans-Georg Gadamer And Hans-Urs Von Balthasar, Jason Paul Bourgeois

Marian Library Faculty Publications

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1901-2002), the German philosopher of hermeneutics, has exercised a powerful influence on post-Vatican II Roman Catholic fundamental theology, especially regarding questions of the development of doctrine and the appropriation of tradition. There is a tension in interpreting Gadamer's thought between his concept of "fusion of horizons," in which the horizon of the past is fused with the horizon of the present to yield new interpretations of past texts, and his defense of "prejudice, authority, classics, and tradition," in which Gadamer upholds the enduring truth-value of received wisdom from the past. … This article will broadly point out the …

The Fourth Gospel's Icon Of Mary, Bertrand Buby

Marian Studies

No abstract provided.

The Virgin Mother In The Sermons Of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, Frank Leo Jr.

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation gives a comprehensive, organic and profound systematization to all that he preached to the people of his time regarding the Virgin Mother of God. No complete, organic study of Savonarolan Marian theology has been done except for the Licentiate thesis that was based mainly on the writings or treatises of the friar. This present study will examine and relate Savonarola's thoughts on the Virgin Mary as they come forth from his sermons. These sermons were based on an array of biblical books, especially Old Testament prophets, and include a rich diversity of subject matter relative to this …

Blessed Chaminade, Harry Hagan O.S.B.

Musical Compositions about the Marianist Charism

In praise of Chaminade

Review: 'Women In Catholic Higher Education: Border Work, Living Experiences, And Social Justice', Carolyn Ridenour

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Twelve writers challenge the structures and priorities of traditional Catholic colleges and universities: contemporary “reality TV” for anyone who values social justice in Catholic education. Throughout the book the writers confront the status quo of Catholic universities, questioning even those who have embraced feminist theology. The editors divided the book into three parts with subheadings that overstate their contents: “Feminist Border Work: Tensions and Contradictions” (3 chapters), “Living Experiences: Identity, Empowerment, and Action” (4 chapters), and “Social Justice: The Ideal, the Reality, and the Quest” (3 chapters). Like bookends, the editors have constructed two additional chapters: one at the beginning …

On Locating Disaster, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Imagine a man, unknown to you, standing in your backyard calmly clasping and unclasping his hands three times each hour. If we ask "What is he doing?" we would not likely be satisfied with these words: "He's clasping his hands three times per hour." There is something unnerving about the whole scene, not only because we cannot comprehend the point of clasping one's hands three times per hour; we want to know, "What's he doing in my back yard?"

There is a similarly unnerving quality about the description of the Columbia disaster as posed by the case study. By it …

The Strange New World In The Church: A Review Essay Of 'With The Grain Of The Universe' By Stanley Hauerwas, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Hauerwas's refusal to translate the argument displayed in With the Grain of the Universe (his recent Gifford Lectures) into language that "anyone" can understand is itself part of the argument. Consequently, readers will not understand what Hauerwas is up to until they have attained fluency in the peculiar language that has epitomized three decades of Hauerwas's scholarship. Such fluency is not easily gained. Nevertheless, in this review essay, I situate Hauerwas's baffling language against the backdrop of his corpus to show at least this much: With the Grain of the Universe transforms natural theology into "witness." In the end, my …

Praying For Understanding: Reading Anselm Through Wittgenstein, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

If Wittgenstein is correct to assert that practice gives words their sense, then it is logically possible that an understanding of the ontological "argument" Anselm presents in Proslogion requires some level of practical participation in prayer. A close inspection of Anselm's historical context shows that the conceptual distance we stand from him may be too great to be overcome by mere spectatorship. Rather, participation in this case likely requires of the modern reader a reproduction of Anselm's conduct in prayer. If so, Anselm's case falsifies, and thus warrants our resistance of, the commonly presumed disconnect between knowledge and practice.

Fresh …

Lalanne Handbook 2003, University Of Dayton

Lalanne Handbook

No abstract provided.

The Sacred And The Secular: Aligning A Marianist Mission With Professional Standards Of Practice In An Educational Leadership Doctorial Program, Darla J. Twale, Carolyn Ridenour

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

This inquiry was conducted to explore how the characteristics of our university’s religious mission are interwoven into our educational leadership doctoral program and are manifest in the structure and learning experiences that our students encounter. We examined how these characteristics might correspond to or relate to the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards that resulted from national reform initiatives in educational leadership in the mid 1990s. We concluded that the foundations of the PhD program are built solidly on the distinctive characteristics and identity of our founders and are aligned with these professional standards as well. Implications for universities …

Professional Or Practitioner? What’S Missing From The Codes?, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Imagine a code of ethics that advocated shady business practices and that the organization proposing the code came under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. Imagine further, that the investigation came to trial and the stance taken by the organization was found to be illegal by the highest court of the land. Such a scenario, if true, would raise a host of questions about codes of professional ethics, not the least of which would be “What value, if any, do codes of ethics have for the teaching of ethics?”

Sadly, the above scenario is factual. However, I’m not referring …

Defending Hauerwas, Brad Kallenberg, Terrence W. Tilley, M. Therese Lysaught

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The commentary begins: Jeffrey Stout and Stanley Hauerwas have long been friends and conversation partners. One would not know that from reading Stout’s “Not of This World” (October 10). Nor does one emerge from Stout’s essay with an accurate sense of Hauerwas’s position.

Stout’s presentation is incomplete in many ways. For example, he labels Hauerwas’s ethic as “perfectionist,” implying that it is, in the words of the article’s title, unrealistic or “not of this world.” However, Stout fails to mention Hauerwas’s untiring emphasis on human sinfulness and-most crucially- the subsequent centrality of the practices of forgiveness and reconciliation. This is …

Lalanne Handbook 2002, University Of Dayton

Lalanne Handbook

No abstract provided.

Balthasar's Theodramatic Hermeneutics: Trinitarian And Ecclesial Dimensions Of Scriptural Interpretation, Jason Paul Bourgeois

Marian Library Faculty Publications

Hans Urs von Balthasar developed a unique style of biblical interpretation. This paper discusses four elements of his scriptural hermeneutics, a topic that offers glimpses of his fundamental theology and his ecclesiology as well. The first element of Balthasar’s hermeneutics is aesthetics. Balthasar’s aesthetic approach to scriptural interpretation stands in contrast with the commonly employed historical-critical method, which he found to be potentially limiting. The second element is theodrama. In Balthasar’s notion of theodramatic hermeneutics, the interpreter is already participating in the very salvation history that is being interpreted. The third and fourth elements of Balthasar’s hermeneutics involve the Trinitarian …

Live To Tell, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

In recent years, countless Christians have found evangelism a difficult and even baffling scriptural mandate. Those we encounter, particularly young people, are often entirely unfamiliar with the basics of the Gospel. Traditional means of communicating the faith, from cold-calling to mass-mailings, simply no longer speak the language of the culture.

Brad Kallenberg recognizes that evangelism, even in our own backyard, has become a cross-cultural task. Like missionaries serving in foreign countries, we must become "students of the host culture." Much more than a "sinner's prayer," conversion requires a change of social identity.

Indeed, becoming a follower of Christ involves gaining …

Ethics As Grammar: Changing The Postmodern Subject, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Wittgenstein, one of the most influential, and yet widely misunderstood, philosophers of our age, confronted his readers with aporias—linguistic puzzles—as a means of countering modern philosophical confusions over the nature of language without replicating the same confusions in his own writings. In Ethics as Grammar, Brad Kallenberg uses the writings of theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas as a foil for demonstrating how Wittgenstein’s method can become concrete within the Christian tradition. Kallenberg shows that the aesthetic, political, and grammatical strands epitomizing Hauerwas’s thought are the result of his learning to do Christian ethics by thinking through Wittgenstein.

Kallenberg argues that …