The Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies is very pleased to announce that the 2014 Bishop Gerber Distinguished Lecture will be given by Fr. Bryan Massingale, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and Professor of Theology at Marquette University. Fr. Massingale’s lecture is entitled “Race and Reconciliation: The Contribution of and Challenge to Catholic Faith.” The talk will take place at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 7 in the Performance Hall of the De Mattias Fine Arts Center on the campus of Newman University. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Race and Reconciliation:
The Contribution of and Challenge to Catholic Faith
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Monday, April 7, 2014, 7 p.m.
Performance Hall, De Mattias Fine Arts Center
About the Lecture
How do we overcome legacies of suspicion, mistrust, fear, animosity, and even hatred which divide races, tribes, and peoples, and consume far too many on our shared world? What do we do when the “forgiveness” needed and desired is not between individuals but races and communities, between black, white, brown, red, and yellow? What contribution does our faith make to the new beginning we long for and so desperately need? To explore these questions, I will propose an understanding of racial reconciliation and the dynamics that it requires, as well as consider the obstacles that to reconciliation and the role of faith in both fostering and coping with such barriers to just intergroup living.
About the Speaker
Fr. BRYAN MASSINGALE is a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. He completed his formal education in Rome at the Pontifical Institute for Moral Theology, earning the degree Doctor of Moral Theology, summa cum laude. Fr. Massingale is Professor of Theology at Marquette University, as well as a professor in the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana. His research focuses on stigmatized populations and the effects of religious faith both as a cause of social injustice and as a resource for social transformation. At Marquette, he teaches courses on Christian Faith and Justice, Liberation Theologies, Homosexuality and Christian Ethics, and African American Religious Ethics. He is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the immediate Past Convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium.
Fr. Massingale has authored more than seventy articles, book chapters, and book reviews. His most recent work is a book entitled Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, published by Orbis Books in March 2010. This work received a First Place Book Award from the Catholic Press Association of the U.S. and Canada. He also authored a major document for Catholic Charities USA, entitled “Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to the Common Good.” His current projects explore the contribution of Black religious radicalism to Catholic theology; the notion of “cultural sin” and its challenge to Catholic theological ethics; and the intersections of race, sexuality, and faith.
Fr. Massingale has served as a consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, providing theological assistance on issues such as criminal justice, capital punishment, environmental justice, and affirmative action. He has also been a theological consultant for the National Black Catholic Congress, Catholic Charities USA, the Catholic Health Association, and the National Catholic AIDS Network.
Further information is at: http://www.marquette.edu/theology/massingale.shtml
