Digital Commons@DePaul

Speaker Biographies

Conference Co-Chairs

Peter Casarella is a professor of Catholic Studies at DePaul University where he is also the director of DePaul Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology. He received his Ph.D. in 1992 from the department of Religious Studies at Yale University after completing a dissertation on the theology of the word of the fifteenth century Catholic thinker Nicholas of Cusa. He spent two years as an assistant professor of theology at the University of Dallas before assuming a similar position at The Catholic University of America. In 2007 he was appointed as a Professor in the Program of Catholic Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. In 2008 he was named the founding Director of DePaul’s Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology. In this capacity he will be organizing a series of colloquia and conferences at DePaul on the discourse of catholicity as a theological program and as a starting point for interdisciplinary research.

He has written essays in scholarly journals on a variety of topics, e.g., medieval Christian Neoplatonism, contemporary theological aesthetics, and the Hispanic/Latino presence in the U.S. Catholic Church. He has co-edited two volumes of essays: with Raúl Gómez, S.D.S., Cuerpo de Cristo: The Hispanic Presence in the U.S. Catholic Church. (Academic Renewal, 2003) and with George Schner, S.J., Christian Spirituality and the Culture of Modernity: The Thought of Louis Dupré (Eerdmans, 1998). He recently published “Carmen Dei: Music and Creation in Three Theologians,” in: Theology Today 62:4 (Jan 2006). In March 2006 The Catholic University of America Press published a volume that he edited: Cusanus: The Legacy of Learned Ignorance.

In 2003-2004, he held the J. Houston Witherspoon Research Fellowship in Theology and Natural Science at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, N.J. He is served a term in 2005-2006 as president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians in the U.S. (ACHTUS) and continues his on-going duties as vice president of the American Cusanus Society. He is also a member of the editorial board of Communio and a co-organizer of the annual session of the Hans Urs von Balthasar Society at the Catholic Theological Society of America.

His current research interests include a study of St. Bonaventure’s trinitarian theology of creation and the idea of emergence in contemporary physics and a book project on the Catholic theology of culture entitled Von Balthasar: The Centrifugal Politics of Culture. He is also working with Will Storrar and Paul Metzger on a forthcoming volume with Eerdmans Press entitled A World for All? The volume will address the question of global civil society in terms of new directions in political theory and Trinitarian theology.

Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández is assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Director of the Certificate in Pastoral Studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Her scholarship reflects an appreciation for contextual and postcolonial theologies and has focused on areas of US Hispanic/Latin@´ theologies, Catholic social teaching, interreligious and intercultural relations, youth, and on the intersections between faith and popular culture with particular attention to béisbol. Nanko-Fernández is currently the President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States [ACHTUS], co-editor of the New Theology Review, convener of the Latino/a section of the Catholic Theological Society of America [CTSA] and co-chair of the Latino/a Religion, Culture and Society section of the American Academy of Religion [AAR].

Her publications include the chapters “Language, Community and Identity,” in Handbook of Latina/o Theologies, "(Edwin Aponte and Miguel de la Torre, eds. 2006), and "Justice Crosses the Border: The Preferential Option for the Poor in the United States," in A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice (María Pilar Aquino et al, eds. 2002). Among her more recent journal articles are "From Pájaro to Paraclete: Retrieving the Spirit of God in the Company of Mary," in the Journal of Hispanic / Latino Theology (2007); “We Are Not Your Diversity, We Are the Church! Ecclesiological Reflections from the Marginalized Many,” Perspectivas: Occasional Papers [Fall 2006]; “¡Cuidado! The Church Who Cares and Pastoral Hostility” in New Theology Review (2006); “The World Series in Ordinary Time,” in Preach(2005). Her ACHTUS presidential address, “Theologizing en Espanglish: The Imago Dei in the Vernacular,” appears in Journal of Hispanic / Latino Theology (2008).

Conference Speakers

In 2000, John Allen, NCR Senior Correspondent, established the Rome office of the National Catholic Reporter. From that position, he broke stories on Rome's response to the American sexual abuse crisis, the Vatican's opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the death of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI, and a wide variety of other important Vatican events. In the summer of 2006, Allen established a new office in New York, allowing him to expand his coverage of both the American church and the global Catholic scene, while continuing to keep his eye on Rome. Allen is the author of five books on the Catholic Church, including All the Pope's Men, The Rise of Benedict XVI, and Opus Dei (all from Doubleday), and serves as senior Vatican analyst for CNN. His weekly Internet column, formerly "The Word from Rome" and now rechristened as "All Things Catholic," has a wide international readership. Allen's work is followed across the usual ideological divides in the church, and he speaks widely on Catholic affairs in the United States and around the world.

(courtesy of National Catholic Reporter)

Michel Andraos is an associate professor of Cross-Cultural Ministry at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A native of Lebanon and citizen of Canada, he has studied, worked and lived in six different countries. His diverse theological background and extensive cross-cultural exposure enable him to facilitate dialogue across cultural boundaries. Andraos’ areas of interest and research in theology include religion and culture, violence and peace, and Catholic social teaching. He is a member of EATWOT (Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians). He lives in Hyde Park, Chicago, with his wife Gisela and their two children Elias and Anna.

Andraos’ recent publications include: “Empire, Violence, Religion and Resistance,” New Theology Review, August 2008, vol. 21(3), 48-59; “Migration: A Human Right to Be Defended,” New Theology Review, August 2007, vol. 20(3), 78-81; “No Peace in Lying,” New Theology Review, May 2006, vol. 19(2), 73-76; "Indigenous Leadership in the Church: The Experience of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico," Toronto Journal of Theology, Spring 2005, vol. 21(1), 57-65; and “Becoming a Christian, Becoming a Peacemaker,” New Theology Review, August 2005, vol. 18(3), 32-40.

Mary Ann Beavis serves as professor and head of the Department of Religious Studies & Anthropology at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan. She has a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Cambridge University, M.A.s from the University of Notre Dame (Theology) and the University of Manitoba (Religion), and a B.Ed. from the University of Manitoba. She has taught at St. Thomas More College in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan since 1998. Prior to that, she was Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Urban Studies, the University of Winnipeg. She is a member of the Feminist Hermeneutics Task Force of the Catholic Biblical Association, and a co-chair of the steering committee of the Women in the Biblical World Section of the Society of Biblical Literature. Her most recent publication is the edited work Feminist Theology with a Canadian Accent: Canadian Perspectives on Contextual Feminist Theology (Ottawa: Novalis, 2008).

Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer is an associate professor of theology and dean of the Center of Theology and Human Sciences at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. She holds a Masters Degree in Theology from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, a Doctorate in Systematic Theology from the Pontifícia Universidade Gregoriana in Rome and has completed post-doctorate work at the Katholieke Universität Leuven. She is a member of the editorial board of Revista Eclesiastica Brasileira (REB), Communio (Lisbon), Rhema (Juiz de Fora), Criterio (Buenos Aires), Cadernos Adenauer (Rio de Janeiro), Alceu (PUC-Rio), Perspectiva Teológica (FAJE-Belo Horizonte), Revista Dominicana de Teologia (São Paulo), and Concilium. In addition, she is a member of the theological commission of Charitas Internationalis. She served as a member of JAAR for four years and was the former director of the Loyola Center for Faith and Culture of PUC-Rio.

She has written many articles, book chapters and books in a variety of languages. Among some of her publications are: Aparecida 2007: An Experience, A Testimony, A Reflection. Asian Christian Review, v. 1, p. 19-28, 2007; Religions and the Dialogue Among Cultures: The Brazilian Challenge. Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, v. 16, p. 72-88, 2006; Living the Faith to Arrive in the Promised Land. Communio Viatorum, Praga, República Checa, v. 47, n. 1, p. 63-89, 2004; Family and Religion in Brazil: Tensions and Perspectives. INTAMS Review, Bruxelas, BE, v. 10, n. 2, p. 177-183, 2004; Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Poor, NY, Orbis, 1990; War, Suffering and Detachment: Reading the Bhagavad Gita with Simone Weil. In: Cornille, Catherine, Ed., Song Divine. Christian Commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. 1 ed. Leuven: Peeters, 2006, p. 69-90; Catholic Faith Between Secularization and Pluralism. In: Miller, P.J.; Fossey, R. Ed., Mapping Catholic Cultural Landscape. 1 ed. Toronto, New York, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2004, p. 249-258; A Post-Christian and Post-Modern Christianism In: Amos Maynard. Ed. Liberation Theology, Postmodernity and the Americas. 1 ed. London/New York: Routledge, 1997, p. 83-9; Popular Religion and The Church. In: G.Cook Ed., New Face Of The Church In Latin America. New York: Orbis, 1994, p. 156-162; and Women in the Future of Liberation Theology. In: O. Maduro & M. Ellis. Ed. The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutierrez. New York: Orbis, 1989, p. 473-490.

Gerald M. Boodoo is an associate professor of systematic theology at Duquesne University. He has published numerous articles and chapters on theology in the Caribbean and is currently working on texts that explore theology in the Caribbean and among Caribbean immigrants in North America.Boodoo serves on the international committee of the recently formed World Forum on Theology and Liberation, the executive board of the Conference of Theology in the Caribbean Today and the board of Caribbean Catholics of North America, Inc. He has served for six years as convener of the World Church Theology Group of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and now serves as part of the administrative team of that society’s Catholicity and Mission group. Among his publications are “Understanding Church and Theology in the Caribbean Today”, in Peter C. Phan and Diana Hayes, eds., Many Faces, One Church: Cultural Diversity and the American Catholic Experience, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005; “Caribbean Catholics of North America: Call and Response”, in Groundings (Catholic Theological Reflections on Issues Facing Caribbean people in the 21st Century), July 2007, Issue 19, St. Michael’s Theological College, Kinston, Jamaica; “Christologies: Caribbean”, in Dictionary of Third World Theologies, Virginia Fabella and R.S. Sugirtharajah, eds., Orbis Books.

Maricarmen Bracamontes, O.S.B. is a founding member and teacher at CEDIMSE, S.C. (Centro de Desarrollo Integral de las Mujeres, Santa Escolástica). Maricarmen joined a Benedictine community in Mexico City in 1980 after completing studies in General Medicine. In 1992 she formed part of a new foundation that transplanted the Benedictine charism to Torreon, Coahuila, a semi-desert region in north central Mexico, where she lives with her monastic community in Pan de Vida Monastery. There she helped found CEDIMSE (St. Scholastica’s Center for the Development of Women); and continues to give workshops and classes in Social Analysis and Biblical Spirituality with a gender perspective. Maricarmen also works in an advisory capacity with many Mexican Religious Institutes.

Maricarmen completed her Licentiate in Theology at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. At present she is a doctoral candidate in the DMin program as a Bernardin Scholar at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She has been a member of the (ERT) Theological Reflection Team for the Mexican National Conference of Religious Institutes since 2003, as well as a theological advisor for the CLAR (Latin American Conference of Religious) since 2006. In 2002 and 2008 she made presentations in Gatherings of Women Theologians from Latin America and Germany. In August 2008 she participated in the IV International Theological Congress in Medellin, Colombia on the Situation of Theology in Latin America on the 40th Anniversary of the Latin American Bishop’s Meeting in Medellin.

Maricarmen’s most recent articles have been published in the CLAR’s Magazine. Her books include: Jesús de Nazaret y las Mujeres de su tiempo. 3erd Edition, 2005; Mujeres y Derechos Humanos: Aportes Sociales y Eclesiales. Co-authored with Patricia Henry, O.S.B., 4th ed. in preparation; Algunas Reflexiones sobre el Jubileo de las Mujeres, co-authored with Patricia Henry O.S.B. published in 2000 in collaboration with the Mexican Episcopal Commission for Social Action.

Michael L. Budde is a professor of political science at DePaul University where he was the former chair of the Political Science Department and former director of DePaul’s Center for Church-State Studies. Budde’s areas of research focus on interactions between ecclesiology and political economy, especially, but not exclusively, as such relate to Catholicism and Christianity as transnational communities.

Budde has authored the following books: The Two Churches: Catholicism and Capitalism in the World System (Duke University Press); The (Magic) Kingdom of God: Christianity and Global Culture Industries (Westview Press), Christianity Incorporated (Brazos Press). He has also written several edited volumes and articles in scholarly journals including Studies in Christian Ethics, Sociology of Religion, and World Policy Journal.

Paulo Andrade is vice-dean at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) where he has been a member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Theology since 1989. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1958 and received a Doctor in Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome. Andrade is a member of the Board of Globethics, a global network of institutions and people that work with applied ethics. He works with the Base Ecclesial Comminities and the Popular Movement. Andrade is also a past-president of SOTER (Brazilian Society of Theology and Religious Studies), one of the founders of the World Forum for Theology and Liberation, and a former vice president of INSeCT (International Network of Societies for Catholic Theology).

Andrade has written more than 60 academic publications. A few of his most recent include: Popular Leadership in a Context of Oppression. A Latin American Liberation Perspective. In: Stückelberger, C; Mugambi,J. (Org.). Responsible Leadership. Global and Contextual Ethical Perspectives. Genebra: WCC Publications, 2007, p. 324-331; Ciudadanía y Derechos Humanos. In: Amerindia; Soter. (Org.). Tejiendo redes de Vida y Esperanza. Cristianismo, sociedad y profecia en America Latina y el Caribe. Bogotá: Indo-American Press Service Ltda, 2006, p. 155-172; Debito Sociale ed Economia di Mercato. Prospettiva Persona, Roma, v. 12, n. 44, p. 34-38, 2003; and A crise da modernidade e as possibilidades de uma nova militância cristã. In: Suzin, L. C.. (Org.). Terra Prometida. Movimento Social, engajamento cristão e teologia. 1 ed. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2001, p. 213-224.

Gilberto Cavazos-González, O.F.M. is associate professor of Spirituality and the director of the Hispanic Ministry Program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He has a S.T.L and S.T.D. from the Pontificium Atheneum Antonianum, Rome, M.Div. from Catholic Theological Union and M.A. from Incarnate Word University. A former pastor and youth evangelizer, Cavazos-González brings a wealth of ministerial experience to his studies and teaching. A particular concern to him is the relationship of Christian spirituality, pastoral ministry, and culture. He is regular presenter at conferences, workshops, and retreats in the areas of Franciscan or Hispanic Spirituality, the Enneagram, Latin@ Pastoral Ministry and the Christian Spiritual Life. He is a member and Treasurer of ACTHUS and a member of both CTSA and AAR.

Cavazos-González publications include the book, Greater than a Mother’s Love: Kinship in the Spirituality of Francis and Clare of Assisi. Pars Dissertationis. Facultas Theologiae – Sectio Spiritualitas Thesis ad Lauream 383. Romae: Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 2001. His most recent articles include: “The Five Pillars of Liberation Spirituality” New Theology Review (Nov 2005) 82-85; “Tradiciones de Nuestra Fe” in Bulletin Building Blocks, 2006-2007 Michael E. Novak and Eduardo Rivera [Eds] ((Franklin Pk, IL: World Library Publications 2006); “The Spirituality of Study” New Theology Review (May 2007) 70-77; “Tradiciones de Nuestra Fe” in Bulletin Building Blocks, 2007-2008 Michael E. Novak and Eduardo Rivera [Eds] (Franklin Pk, IL: World Library Publications 2007); and “La Cotidianidad Divina: A Latin@ Method of Spirituality” in Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology Sept 2007 (accessed 12 September 2008).

Gemma Tulud Cruz, a native of the Philippines, is a visiting assistant professor in the Program in Catholic Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois and an assistant professor in theology at Saint Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.

She earned a Ph.D in Intercultural Theology from Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Her publications include “Between Identity and Security: Theological Implications of Migration in the Context of Globalization,” in Theological Studies 69 (2008) and “Asian Women and Dialogue” to be published by Continuum at the end of the year in Prophetic Witness: Catholic Women’s Strategies for the Church, a book edited by Colleen Griffith.

José M. de Mesa, a married Filipino lay theologian, is University Fellow and professor of systematic theology at the Inter-Congregational Theological Center (Quezon City, Philippines). A former dean at Maryhill School of Theology and a former resident faculty at the East Asian Pastoral Institute, he holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Dr. de Mesa is also a member of the Asian Communication Network, an ecumenical and inter-faith group of communicators. Currently, the Visiting Luzbetak Professor of Mission and Culture at the Catholic Theological Union, he has authored a number of books including Following the Way of the Disciples, In Solidarity with the Culture, Why Theology is Never Far from Home, The Prayer Our Lord Taught Us and Bakas: Retrieving the Sense of Sacramentality of the Ordinary.

Orlando Espín is professor of systematic theology at the University of San Diego. Espín earned a dual doctorate in systematic and practical theologies from the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1984), specializing on the theological study of popular religions. He is the author or editor of eight books and over two hundred articles published in scholarly journals. Among his more recent (authored or edited) books are Grace and Humanness: Theological Reflections Because of Culture (2007), Building Bridges and Doing Justice: Constructing a Latino/a Ecumenical Theology (forthcoming 2009), Futuring Our Past: Explorations in the Theology of Tradition, ed. with G. Macy (2006), and An Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies, ed. with J. Nickoloff (2007).

Espín founded the Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology and was its first editor-in-chief. He has twice been president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the U.S., and was the first Latino ever elected to the board of directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America. He currently serves on the board of representatives of the national and ecumenical Hispanic Summer Program, and for the last ten years he has been mentoring Latino/a doctoral grantees of the Hispanic Theological Initiative. In 1994 he founded the research-oriented Center for the Study of Latino/a Catholicism and was its director to 2007.

Espín has received several national and international awards for his theological work. He holds one honorary doctorate (from Chicago's Catholic Theological Union), one honorary professorship (from the Universidad del Zulia, Venezuela), and in 2001 Germany’s Institute of Missiology formally recognized his work on popular Catholicism as one of the most important contributions to Catholic theology anywhere in the world today.

Daniel Finn is Professor of Theology and Clemens Professor of Economics at St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota where he teaches moral theology and economics. He is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Association for Social Economics. He is president-elect of the Society of Christian Ethics and co-director of the True Wealth of Nations research project at the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies. His most recent book is The Moral Ecology of Markets: Assessing Claims about Markets and Justice (Cambridge, 2006).

His Eminence Francis Eugene Cardinal George, O.M.I., eighth Archbishop of Chicago. He is the first native Chicagoan to serve as Archbishop of Chicago. He entered the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate on August 14, 1957. After which, he studied theology at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and was ordained a priest on December 21, 1963. Cardinal George earned a master’s degree in philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1965 and a doctorate in American philosophy at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1970. In 1971, he received a master’s degree in theology from the University of Ottawa in Canada. During those years, he also taught philosophy at the Oblate Seminary, Pass Christian, Mississippi (1964-69), Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana (1968) and at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska (1969-1973).

He became coordinator of the Circle of Fellows for the Cambridge Center for the Study of Faith and Culture in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1987-1990). During that time, he obtained a Doctorate of Sacred Theology in ecclesiology from the Pontifical Urban University, Rome, Italy (1989).

Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Yakima on July 10, 1990. He served there for five and a half years before being appointed Archbishop of Portland in Oregon by Pope John Paul II on April 30, 1996. Less than a year later, on April 8, 1997, Pope John Paul II named him the eighth Archbishop of Chicago.

On January 18, 1998, Pope John Paul II announced Archbishop George’s elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals. After the Consistory of February 21, 1998, Cardinal George was also appointed a member of the Holy See’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life, and the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum.” In 1999, Pope John Paul II appointed Cardinal George to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church. In 2001, the Pope appointed him to the Congregation for Oriental Churches and, in 2004, he appointed Cardinal George to the Pontifical Council for Culture.

He was a papal appointee to the 1994 World Synod of Bishops on Consecrated Life and a delegate and one of two special secretaries at the Synod of Bishops for America in 1997. He was a delegate of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to the 2001 World Synod of Bishops and was also elected to the Council for the World Synod of Bishops in 2001. He will serve as a delegate of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the 2008 World Synod of Bishops on “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.”

He is President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and a member of the USCCB Committee on Liturgy and the ad hoc Committee on Shrines. He also serves as consultant to the USCCB Committees on Doctrine and Pro-Life Activities and the Subcommittee on Lay Ministry. He was Vice-President of the USCCB from 2004-2007. He has also served on USCCB Committees on Doctrine, on Latin America, on Missions, on Religious Life, the American Board of Catholic Missions, and on World Missions; on the ad hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism and the Subcommittee on Campus Ministry.

He is publisher of The Catholic New World, Chicago Catolico, and Katolik, the official newspapers of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and writes a column for these newspapers. He is also interviewed monthly on “Catholic Community of Faith,” a radio program sponsored by the Archdiocese on WSCN 820-AM, and he is on the Chicago Loop Cable Ch. 25 program “The Church, The Cardinal and You.”

As Archbishop of Chicago, he has issued two pastoral letters: on evangelization, “Becoming an Evangelizing People,” (November 21, 1997) and on racism, “Dwell in My Love” (April 4, 2001). He is a member of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the American Society of Missiologists and the Catholic Commission on Intellectual and Cultural Affairs. In addition to English, he speaks French, Italian, Spanish and some German.

Roberto S. Goizueta is the Margaret O'Brien Flatley Professor of Catholic Theology at Boston College. He has served as President of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States. His book “Caminemos con Jesús: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment” received a Catholic Press Association Book Award.

Michelle A. Gonzalez (Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado) is assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. Prior to her position at UM she spent the past two years working with the Roman Catholic Mission in the Mayan community of San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala. She received her Ph.D. in Systematic and Philosophical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California in 2001. Her research and teaching interests include Latino/a, Latin American, and Feminist Theologies, as well as inter-disciplinary work in Afro-Caribbean Studies.

Gonzalez is the author of Sor Juana: Beauty and Justice in the Americas (Orbis Books, 2003), Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture and Identity (University Press of Florida, 2006), and Created in God’s Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology (Orbis Books, 2007); Caribbean Religious History (co-authored with Ennis Edmonds, forthcoming New York University Press).

Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P. is the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Theology, Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He holds a B.S. from the National University, Lima, Peru and an S.T.L. and Ph.D. from Universite Catholique de Lyon.

Gutierrez is best known for his foundational work in Latin American liberation theology, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation. His other major books touch as well on issues of spirituality and Latin American history, and include, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent, The Truth Shall Make You Free, The God of Life, and Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ. His essays have appeared in Concilium, Theological Studies, La Revista Latinoamericana de Teología, and Págans. He has been a principal professor at the Pontifical University of Peru, and has been visiting professor at many major universities in North America and Europe. He is a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language, and in 1993 he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government for his tireless work for human dignity and life, and against oppression, in Latin America and the Third World. He is currently working on a book exploring the historical background and continuing theological relevance of the preferential option for the poor. Gutierrez holds honorary degrees from some 20 universities.

Biography courtesy University of Notre Dame

Kenneth R. Himes, O.F.M. is a native of Brooklyn, NY and a Franciscan friar. He teaches theological ethics and serves as chairman of the Theology Department at Boston College. Fr. Himes is the author of two books (Fullness of Faith: the public significant of theology and Responses to 101 Questions on Catholic Social Teaching) and co-editor of two other books (Introduction to Christian Ethics: a reader and Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations); he also served as editor of the journal New Theology Review for five years. Fr. Himes is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and a regular contributor to the prestigious “Notes on Moral Theology” published annually in Theological Studies. He has published over seventy-five essays in journals, magazines and chapters in books. At present he is writing a book on Christianity and Politics to be published by Orbis Books next year. His areas of interest include fundamental moral theology, Catholic social teaching, and issues of war and peace.

Bryan Massingale is associate professor of theology at Marquette University. He received his doctorate from the Pontifical Institute for Moral Theology in Rome. As a Catholic moral theologian, he focuses upon Catholic social thought, liberation theologies, African American religious ethics, and racial justice. Massingale is the president-elect of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and Convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium.

He has authored more than sixty articles, book chapters, and book reviews which have been published in journals such as Theological Studies, Journal of Religion and Society, New Theology Review, Philosophy and Theology, Horizons, Origins, the National Catholic Reporter, U.S. Catholic, and Catholic Peace Voice. He also authored a major document for Catholic Charities USA entitled, Poverty and Racism: Overlapping Threats to the Common Good (January 2008). Currently, Massingale is finishing a book on racial justice and the Catholic response (forthcoming, Orbis Books). He has also authored an award-winning column for the Catholic Press examining contemporary social issues from a faith perspective.

Patrick McCormick is professor of Christian Ethics at Gonzaga University in Spokane Washington. He received his doctorate in Moral Theology from the Gregorian University (Rome) and is the co-author of Facing Ethical Issues (Paulist:2003) and the author of The Banqueter’s Guide to the All Night Soup Kitchen of the Kingdom of God (Liturgical Press: 2004). He has also written chapters and essays on capital punishment, the wars on crime, drugs and terror, violence and the media, and Catholic Social Teaching; and for the past fourteen years had authored a monthly column in US Catholic on culture and Christianity.

LaReine-Marie Mosely, S.N.D. is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Loyola University Chicago, where she teaches on the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her areas of specialization include Christology, soteriology, black theology, black Catholic theology, and womanist theology. In her recent work Dr. Mosely engages the christological projects of Edward Schillebeeckx, Delores S. Williams, and M. Shawn Copeland, and the manner in which their soteriological premises speak meaningfully to late modern people, acknowledge difference, and attend to excessive human suffering and cosmic abuse. Further, Dr. Mosely argues that by putting these theologians in conversation, productive insight will emerge that can contribute to a critical Christian soteriology informed by the experiences of African American women. Dr. Mosely earned the Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame, and her present research interests include the role of race in the project of junior theologians, liberation movements and their corresponding theologies, African American theologies in the United States, and Black Catholic Chicago.

James B. Nickoloff is associate professor of religious studies at College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts where he has been teaching systematic theology for twenty years. A native of Los Angeles, he has also lived and worked for extended periods of time in Andong, Korea; Kingston, Jamaica; and Lima, Peru. These experiences outside his own country have shaped his approach to theology. He is the editor of "Gustavo Gutierrez: Essential Writings" and the co-editor (with Orlando Espin) of "An Introductory Dictionary of Religious Studies and Theology."

Dawn M. Nothwehr, O.S.F. is associate professor of Ethics and chair of Historical and Doctrinal Studies Department at Catholic Theological Union. Nothwehr’s current research interests are in the areas of global climate change, environmental ethics and ecotheology in our globalized, terrorized, ecologically threatened world. Her ongoing interest in mutuality as a formal norm, the feminist ethics of power, and the relationship of ethics and spirituality informs her study. The ethics of power and racial justice are of equal interest. Additional involvements include: empowerment of the poor and vulnerable, human / environmental relations, and relations in moral disagreement. Her research has also involved the moral “Other” and how Franciscan theology shapes ecotheology and ecological ethics.

In addition to book chapters and several articles, Nothwehr has authored the following books: That They All May Be One: Catholic Social Teaching on Racism Tribalism and Xenophobia is forthcoming from Orbis Books, November 2008; Mutuality: A Formal Norm For Christian Social Ethics, San Francisco: Catholic Scholars Press, 1998 [Reprinted: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2005]; A Franciscan View of the Human Person: Some Central Elements. The Franciscan Heritage Series, Vol. III, St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2005; [With Sylvia Hood Washington], Struggles for Environmental Justice and Health in Chicago: An African American Perspective, Chicago: The DePaul University John J. Eagan Urban Center, 2004; and Franciscan Theology of the Environment: An Introductory Reader. (ed. Dawn M. Nothwehr) Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 2002.

Carolina Pardo, O.S.F is a Rochester Franciscan Religious and a teacher and psychologist at Fundación Universitaria San Alfonso Bogotá- Colombia. She holds a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work from Loyola University, Chicago. Her experience includes more than 14 years of work in Human Rights in war contexts in Colombia and with torture survivors in Colombia and the US. She also has experience in education and community development. Among her many honors, in 2006 in Germany she was the recipient of the Bremen’s Senate Solidarity Human Rights Award. She currently teaches at the Universidad San Alfonso in Bogotá, Colombia and accompanies communities in resistance.

Milagros Peña is professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies and director of the Center for Women's Studies at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She received her doctorate in Sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Peña is the author of Latina Activists Across Borders: Grassroots Women’s Organizing in Mexico and Texas published by Duke University Press in 2007. The book was awarded the 2008 Distinguished Book Award by the Latino/a section of the American Sociological Association. In the last five years, she also was involved in collaborative research projects with Edwin I. Hernández at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame that led to the 2006 publication of Emerging Voices, Urgent Choices: Latino-a Leadership Development from the Pew to the Plaza with Brill Academic Publishing. Previously, she was known for work published in several articles and in a book titled Theologies and Liberation in Peru: The Role of Ideas in Social Movements published by Temple University Press in 1995.

Miguel Pickard is a founding member of CIEPAC (Center for Economic and Political Investigations for Community Action) in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, a non-governmental organization that accompanies grassroots groups that are building alternatives to global corporativism, through workshops and the dissemination of alternative information and analysis. He has worked at similar organizations both in Chiapas and in Mexico City for the past 20 years. He has written and collaborated in drawing up educational materials such as multilingual videos and booklets for use among campesinos and indigenous peoples on topics such as the WTO, the International Financial Institutions, the Plan Puebla Panama, the Free Trade Agreements and, most recently, on the SPPNA (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America). He has also written for a wider public on the effects of neoliberalism in the global South, particularly in terms of South-North emigration. Pickard holds a B.A. from Cornell University and a Masters in Economic Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Barbara E. Reid, O.P. is a professor of New Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A Dominican Sister of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Reid holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and has been teaching at Catholic Theological Union since 1988. Prior to that, she taught Spanish and Religion at St. Mary Cathedral High School in Saginaw, Michigan. Reid is the author of Taking Up the Cross: New Testament Interpretations Through Latina and Feminist Eyes (Fortress Press, 2007), The Gospel According to Matthew. New Collegeville Bible Commentary Series (Liturgical Press, 2005), Parables for Preachers (3 volumes; Liturgical Press, 1999, 2000, 2001), Las Parábolas: Predicándolas y Viviéndolas (Liturgical Press, 2008, 2009, 2010), Choosing the Better Part? Women in the Gospel of Luke (Liturgical Press, 1996), A Retreat With St. Luke (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2000), and many journal articles. She has led many of CTU's Israel Study Programs and Retreats. Currently she is writing Sophia’s Table: An Introduction to Feminist Interpretation of the Scriptures (forthcoming from Eerdman’s Press) and is General Editor for a new multi-volume feminist commentary on the Bible (forthcoming from Liturgical Press).

Jean-Pierre Ruiz is associate professor of Biblical Studies at St. John’s University in New York, where he is also director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies and a senior research fellow of the Vincentian Center for Church and Society. Ruiz earned his doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and his areas of research specialization include prophetic and apocalyptic literature. A past-president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, he is editor of the electronic Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology. He also serves on the editorial board of Teaching Theology and Religion, the journal sponsored by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. Active in interfaith and ecumenical discussions, he is a member of the Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish relations.

Some recent publications include: “Abram and Sarai Cross the Border: Reading Genesis 12:10-20 with People on the Move,” In Border Crossings: Cross-Cultural Hermeneutics, ed D. N. Premnath (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007); as well as “An Exile’s Baggage: Toward a Postcolonial Reading of Ezekiel.” In Approaching Yehud: New Approaches to the Study of the Persian Period, ed. Jon L. Berquist (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007).

Robert Schreiter, C.PP.S. is Vatican Council II Professor of Theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He has written extensively on the impact of globalization on theology and the mission of the Church. Among his books are The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local (1998) and Global Christianity: Contested Claims (2007). He recently co-edited a special issue (June 2008) of "Theological Studies" on globalization and theology. He is past president of the American Society of Missiology and the Catholic Theological Society of America.

Karen Scott is an associate professor of history at DePaul University. For the past six years she has also directed the university's Catholic Studies Program where she teaches courses in church history, Medieval intellectual history, Medieval mysticism, Renaissance Italy, Reformation Europe, and gender history.

Some of her many published articles include: "Le langage mystique de Marie de l'Incarnation." In Raymond Brodeur, ed., Femme, mystique et missionnaire: Marie Guyart de l'Incarnation. Tours, 1599-Quebec, 1672. Actes du Colloque Marie de l'Incarnation, Québec, 22-25 septembre 1999. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 2001. 169-177; "Catherine of Siena and Lay Sanctity in Fourteenth-Century Italy." In Ann W. Astell, ed., Lay Sanctity, Medieval and Modern: The Search for Models. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000; "Mystical Death, Bodily Death: Catherine of Siena and Raymond of Capua on the Mystic's Encounter with God, in Catherine Mooney, ed., Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and their Interpreters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). 136-167, 238-244; "Candied Oranges, Vinegar, and Dawn: The Imagery of Conversion in the Letters of Caterina of Siena" in Dino S. Cervigni, Annali D'Italianistica 13 (1995): Women Mystic Writers, pp. 91-108; "Urban Spaces, Women's Networks, and the Lay Apostolate in the Siena of Catherine Benincasa" in E. Ann Matter and John Coakley, Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 105-119; and “'Io Caterina': Ecclesiastical Politics and Oral Culture in the Letters of Catherine of Siena", in Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus, Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), pp. 87-138.

Laura Vargas is the adjunct executive secretary for CEAS (Comisión Episcopal de Acción Social): Peruvian Bishops’ Social Action Commission. She is a Peruvian lay theologian with studies in theology and education and with a specialization in the social sciences. During 17 years she worked with poor women in literacy programs in the northern section of Lima, and at the same time she was pastoral coordinator (Gemeindereferant) in several parishes.

Since 1989 she has been working in CEAS: for the first two years as the head of the human rights program, and then for 16 years as Executive Secretary of the institution. Since August of last year she occupies the position of Adjunct Executive Director and is head of the Church social teaching program.

Since leaving her position as Executive Director of CEAS, she has gone on to be the general coordinator of the whole Social Area of the Peruvian Catholic Bishops’ Conference (CEP). She is a member of two teams run by the Department of Justice and Solidarity of the Latin American Bishops’ Council (CELAM) in Bogotá: the Human Rights Team and the Church social teaching Team.

Laura Vargas is also the executive secretary of the Peruvian Inter-religious Council, which is the Peruvian Chapter of the international Religions for Peace. She is part of the team which carries out Schools for Pardon and Reconciliation (ESPERE) sponsored in Peru by the Jesuit University, Antonio Ruiz de Montoya.

Finally, Laura is vice-president of Pax Christi International whose headquarters are in Brussels.

James Weisgerber was born on May 1, 1938 in Vibank, Saskatchewan. Following his schooling at Vibank, he attended St. Peter’s College at Muenster and then St. Paul’s University in Ottawa where he obtained licence degrees in Philosophy and Theology.

He was ordained a priest at Holy Rosary Cathedral in Regina on June 1, 1963 and named a Monsignor (Prelate of Honour) on October 16, 1991.

Archbishop Weisgerber was Dean of Arts at Notre Dame College (now Athol Murray College) in Wilcox, Saskatchewan where he taught philosophy, religious studies and French. He worked several years in the Regina Archbishop's Office serving as the director of the pastoral and social justice offices. He served as Rector of Holy Rosary Cathedral and Pastor of Holy Trinity Parish, both in Regina, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Fort Qu’Appelle, which included pastoral ministry with neighboring aboriginal communities.

In 1990 he was elected General Secretary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, a position he held until his ordination as the Bishop of Saskatoon. He was appointed the fifth Bishop of Saskatoon by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II on March 7, 1996. He was named the sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Winnipeg by Pope John Paul II on June 7, 2000. He was installed on August 24, 2000 at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Archbishop Weisgerber is currently the Vice-President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB).