Reimagining the Moral Life

David Quigley, Ph.D.

David Quigley was named Provost and Dean of Faculties for Boston College in 2014. A distinguished historian, teacher, and scholar, Quigley demonstrated strong academic leadership since arriving at BC in 1998, serving as the dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

He was credited with recruiting an outstanding cohort of young faculty, enhancing academic opportunities for undergraduate students, and developing new interdisciplinary majors in environmental studies and Islamic civilization and societies.

Quigley also played a significant role in the conceptualization and design of Stokes Hall, the center of the humanities at Boston College, and in the ongoing effort to renew the undergraduate core curriculum.

A graduate of Amherst College with an M.A. and Ph.D. from New York University, Quigley’s research and writing on 19th-century American history have earned him several prestigious academic fellowships, and he was recognized by Boston College with the University-wide Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007.

His research to date has explored the history of race and democracy between the American Revolution and Reconstruction in the local political cultures of New York.

Gregory A. Kalscheur, S.J., J.D., LL.M.

Gregory Kalscheur is Dean of the Morrissey College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Boston College. He joined the Boston College Law faculty in 2003. He received his A.B. in 1985 from Georgetown University, and his J.D. in 1988 from the University of Michigan, where he served on the editorial board of the journal Michigan Law Review. After law school, he clerked for Judge Kenneth F. Ripple, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and worked as a litigator at Hogan & Hartson in Washington, D.C.

Previously, he served as Adjunct Professor of Political Science and Assistant to the Director of the Center for Values and Service at Loyola College in Maryland and as Associate Pastor at St. Raphael the Archangel Church in Raleigh, N.C.

His primary teaching and research interests include law and religion, constitutional law, civil procedure, Catholic social thought and the law, and the contributions of Ignatian spirituality to the character of legal education at a Jesuit law school.

Richard R. Gaillardetz, Ph.D.

Richard Gaillardetz is the Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College and the current chair of the Theology department. Previously, he taught at the University of Toledo (2001-2011) as the Thomas and Margaret Murray and James J. Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies and at the University of St. Thomas Graduate School of Theology in Houston (1991-2001). He received a B.A. in Humanities from the University of Texas, an M.A. in Biblical Theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, and both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame in Systematic Theology. He has published numerous articles and has authored or edited thirteen books. In 2013-2014 he was president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. He received numerous awards from both the Catholic Press Association and the Association of Catholic publishers and is a past recipient of the Sophia Award (2000), offered annually by the faculty of the Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C.

Thomas D. Stegman, S.J., Ph.D.

Thomas Stegman is Dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, professor of New Testament, and professor Ordinarius. A member of the USA Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Stegman was raised in Holdrege, Nebraska. He is a graduate of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philadelphia (B.A., Philosophy). He holds an M.A. (Philosophy) from Marquette University, and both an M.Div. and S.T.L. (Hebrew Bible) from Weston Jesuit School of Theology. He earned his Ph.D. in New Testament studies at Emory University, under the direction of Dr. Luke Timothy Johnson.

Charles E. Curran, S.T.D.

Charles Curran is Elizabeth Scurlock University Professor of Human Values at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Rochester, NY, he earned an S.T.D., at the Academia Alfonsiana and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. The list of his authored and edited volumes, articles, and lectures is impressive and it highlights how he shaped the scholarly field of theological ethics in the U.S.A. and internationally. He was president of three national academic societies: the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Society of Christian Ethics, and the American Theological Society. He was the first recipient of the John Courtney Murray Award of the Catholic Theological Society of America for distinguished achievement in theology and winner of the American Publishers Award for Professional Scholarly Excellence in Theology and Religious Studies (PROSE) for his 2008 book Catholic Moral Theology in the United States: A History. He has been member of the editorial boards of the Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, The Ecumenist, Horizons, the Journal of Religious Ethics, and Theoforum.

James F. Keenan, S.J., S.T.D.

At Boston College, James Keenan is Vice Provost for Global Engagement, Canisius Professor in the Theology Department, and Director of Jesuit Institute. He earned his doctorate from the Gregorian University in Rome and taught at Fordham University and at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. He held the Gasson Chair at Boston College and then the Founders Professorship in Theology.

He authored and edited over a dozen of books, hundreds of articles and book chapters, and founded and directed the Moral Traditions Series of volumes in theological ethics published by Georgetown University Press.

Globally, he was the founder and co-chair of the network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church and contributed to organize regional and global conferences and two book series. Member of numerous boards, he was also consultor of the National Catholic Conference of Bishops for the Revision of the Ethical Guidelines for Catholic Health Care Institutions, the New York State Transplant Council, and was Group Leader of the Surgeon General’s Task Force on Responsible Sexual Conduct.

Maureen H. O’Connell, Ph.D.

Maureen H. O’Connell is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion and Theology at LaSalle University. She authored Compassion: Loving Our Neighbor in an Age of Globalization (2009) and If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice (2012), which won the College Theology Book of the Year Award in 2012 and the Catholic Press Association’s first place for books in theology in 2012.

She serves on the board of the Society for the Arts in Religious and the journal Theological Studies and is a member of St. Vincent De Paul parish in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. She is also a member of Philadelphians Organizing to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild (POWER), an interfaith federation of 90 faith communities committed to making Philadelphia the city of “just love” through faith-based community organizing to promote a more just wage for workers, fair funding for public schools, immigration reform, and decarceration.

Her research explores racial identity formation, racism, and racial justice in Catholic institutions of higher education.

Sarah Moses, Ph.D.

Sarah Moses is Associate Professor of Religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion and director of the Society and Health program at the University of Mississippi where she teaches courses in biomedical ethics, aging, and comparative religious ethics. She is also a Berkley Center research fellow. Her book Ethics and the Elderly: The Challenge of Long-Term Care (2015) was awarded “Best First Book” by the Society of Christian Ethics in 2018. She published articles in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics and Journal of Religious Ethics. She serves on the ethics committee of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi and previously served on the board of Memory Makers (a day program for seniors with dementia). Sarah is an ordained priest in The Episcopal Church and co-convenes the Anglican Theological Ethics Interest Group of the Society of Christian Ethics. She holds a Ph.D. from Boston College and a M.Div. from Harvard University.

Kenneth R. Himes, O.F.M., Ph.D.

Ken Himes is Professor in the Department of Theology at Boston College. Previously, he held positions at the Washington Theological Union. He has also been a visiting Professor at University of Virginia, Howard University Divinity School, and St. John’s University. He received a Ph.D. in religion and public policy from Duke University.

He was on the Editorial Board of the Catholic Social Tradition series and University of Notre Dame Press, as well as on the Board of Consultants for the Center for the Study of Catholic Social Thought at Duquesne University and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Catholic Social Thought. He was also on the Board of Directors for the Ecclesiastical Faculty of the Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry and a member of the Board of Trustees at Siena College.

Former President of the Catholic Theological Society of America, his teaching, research, and awarded publications focus on Catholic social teaching, the role of religion in public life and politics, and the ethics of warfare.

Katherine A. Jackson-Meyer, Ph.D.

Kate Jackson-Meyer currently teaches part-time in the Theology Department at Boston College. In 2018, she earned her Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College. Her dissertation, Tragic Dilemmas and Virtue: A Christian Feminist View, discusses tragic dilemmas in theology. Her research interests are virtue ethics, fundamental moral theology, feminist theory, and she applies them to war ethics and bioethics. She received an M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School and a B.A. in biology and religion from the University of Southern California. She lives in Acton, MA, with her husband and daughters.

Leocadie Wabo Lushombo, I.T., Ph.D.

Leo Lushombo graduated in 2020 from Boston College, with her dissertation “Imagining an Ethics of Women’s Political Participation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Sophialogical Hermeneutic,” where she refashions Christian ethics to empower women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, employing biblical hermeneutics, African traditions and theologies, Catholic social teaching, liberation theology, and the ‘solidaristic anger’ of survivors of rape as a weapon of war. Prolific writer and lecturer, she teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University, Berkeley, CA.

Stephen J. Pope, Ph.D.

Stephen Pope is a Professor in the Department of Theology at Boston College, where he teaches courses on social justice, the virtues, and the intersection of science and theology. He received his B.A. in philosophy from Gonzaga University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in theological ethics from the University of Chicago. His publications include Human Evolution and Christian Ethics (2007), and A Step Along the Way: Models of Christian Service (2015). He is currently working on a book project entitled, God’s Love and Ours: A Christian Ethic of Forgiveness. He has worked for over ten years as a volunteer for Catholic chaplaincies in several Massachusetts prisons, and presented in a variety of workshops focused on the contribution of faith communities to restorative justice and political reconciliation for Catholic Relief Services and the Jesuit Refugee Service.

Mary Jo Iozzio, Ph.D.

Mary Jo Iozzio is Professor of Moral Theology and Professora Ordinaria at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry (STM). She earned her doctorate in Systematic Theology with a focus on Moral Theology and an M.A. in the History of Religions from Fordham University; an M.A. in Biblical Studies from Providence College; and an S.T.L. from Boston College. Before coming to the STM, she was Professor of Moral Theology at Barry University, Miami Shores, FL, and adjunct instructor at Fordham University, Providence College, and the University of Rhode Island.

She is the series editor of Content and Context in Theological Ethics, published by Palgrave Macmillan. She was also coordinator of and contributor to the North American Forum of The First (newsletter of the network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church); co-editor of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics; and guest editor of the Journal of Religion, Disability and Health and of the Journal of Moral Theology.

She served as inaugural member on the American Academy of Religion, Committee on the Status of People with Disabilities in the Profession and as co-chair of its Religion and Disability Studies Group; as member on the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Board of Directors; and as member of the Bon Secours Health System Inc., Ethics Advisory Group; and as board member of the Catholic Theological Society of America and of the Society of Christian Ethics, Professional Conduct Committee.

Mary M. Doyle Roche, Ph.D.

Mary M. Doyle Roche is associate professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, where she teaches courses in Christian ethics, medical ethics, and the ethics of work and family life. Her research and writing focus on the rights and moral agency of children and young people, and she strives to be a worthy ally of LGBTQ+ persons.

M. Cathleen Kaveny, J.D., Ph.D.

Cathleen Kaveny, a scholar who focuses on the relationship of law, religion, and morality, joined the Boston College faculty in 2014 as the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor, a position that includes appointments in both the department of theology and the law school. She is the first faculty member to hold such a joint appointment. A member of the Massachusetts Bar since 1993, Prof. Kaveny clerked for the Honorable John T. Noonan Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked as an associate at the Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray in its health law group.

Prof. Kaveny published four books and over a hundred articles and essays, in journals and books specializing in law, ethics, and medical ethics. She serves on the masthead of Commonweal as a regular columnist and she is the chair of the board of trustees of the Journal of Religious Ethics as well as on a number of editorial boards. She has been the president of the Society of Christian Ethics.

She has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, Yale University, and Georgetown University, and a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago’s Martin Marty Center. In Fall 2018 she was awarded the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. Before joining Boston College, she taught law and theology at the University of Notre Dame, where she was John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law.

Hoa Trung Dinh, S.J., M.D., Ph.D.

Hoa Dinh lectures in bioethics and sexual ethics at Catholic Theological College of the University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia. A trained and practicing physician, he is graduate of the University of Melbourne (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery), earned a Diploma in Obstetrics and Gynecology from the Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a Master of Bioethics from Monash University, a Master of Theological Studies from the University of Divinity, an S.T.L. from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and a Ph.D. from Boston College. He serves on the ethics committee of the Mercy Hospital for Women, and in the advisory committee for the Catholic AIDS Ministry of the Archdiocese of Melbourne. His main academic interests include virtue ethics, biomedical ethics, scripture and ethics, narrative ethics, and ethical issues related to HIV/AIDS.

Virginia M. Ryan, Ph.D.

Virginia Ryan has been at the College of the Holy Cross since 2012. From 1998-2012, she taught at Rivier College (now University). She received her M.Div. from Andover Newton Theological School, an M.A. in Special Education from Assumption College, and her Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College. Her particular areas of research and interest are bioethics, theological social ethics, and environmental theology and ethics.

Jonathan Cahill, Ph.D. candidate

Jonathan Cahill is a doctoral candidate under prof. Lisa Sowle Cahill. His dissertation explores the relations of moral formation, social structures, and emotion in conversation with Karl Barth’s theological ethic. Prior to entering theological studies, Jonathan directed the Boston Healthcare Fellowship, a ministry to healthcare students and professionals in the Boston area. He is a co-founder of The Addis Clinic, a telemedicine nonprofit that supports frontline healthcare workers in medically underserved areas through connections with volunteer physicians. He currently resides in Nashville with his wife Katie and their two daughters.

Kristin Heyer, Ph.D.

Kristin Heyer is professor of theological ethics and Director of Graduate Studies in the Theology Department at Boston College. She serves as co-chair of the network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church and vice president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. Her research focuses on migration ethics, moral agency, the common good tradition, and political and social ethics. She received her B.A. from Brown University and her Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College. She taught at Loyola Marymount University and Santa Clara University prior to returning to Boston College.

Nichole M. Flores, Ph.D.

Nichole Flores is assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA. She researches the constructive contributions of Catholic and Latinx theologies to notions of justice and aesthetics as applied in public life. She teaches courses on Latinx religion, Catholic theology and ethics, religion and democracy, and bioethics. She has published essays in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, the Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of Religion and Society, and Modern Theology. She is a contributing author on the masthead at America: The Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture. In 2015, she was honored with the Catherine Mowry LaCugna Award for best essay in academic theology by a junior scholar from the Catholic Theological Society of America. She earned an A.B. in government from Smith College, an M.Div. from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College. In 2021, she authored The Aesthetics of Solidarity: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy (Georgetown University Press).

Her research in practical ethics addresses issues of democracy, migration, family, gender, economics (labor and consumption), race and ethnicity, and ecology.

Joseph Loic Mben, S.J., Ph.D.

Joseph Mben is a lecturer at the Jesuit Institute of Theology in Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire) where he teaches bioethics and social ethics. He did his doctoral studies at Boston College. He published articles on gender, sexual ethics, and social ethics in Hekima Review and Asian Horizons. He published A Gendered African Perspective on Christian Social Ethics: Empowering Working Women in Cameroon (2021) and edited a volume on the African theologian Jean-Marc Ela, Jean-Marc Ela et la Recreation de l’Afrique (2019).

Angela Senander, Ph.D.

Angela Senander is a social ethicist focused on Catholic social thought informing corporate social responsibility. Prior to beginning her career as an associate professor at the University of St. Thomas, her research focused on the Catholic Church in public life. As a faculty member at Washington Theological Union, she wrote Scandal: The Catholic Church and Public Life.

Linda Hogan, Ph.D.

Linda Hogan holds the Chair of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin. A distinguished scholar of international standing, she is a dynamic educator and an academic leader. As an ethicist and ecumenist, she published extensively on religion, gender, and human rights.

A leader in interdisciplinary ethics, she works with academic and industry partners in the social sciences, life and data sciences and health, to help resolve the ethical challenges they encounter in their research and innovation.

Between 2011-2016 she served as Vice-Provost/Chief Academic Officer and Deputy President of Trinity College Dublin. She was Chair of the Board of the Marino Institute of Education; board member for the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital, the Irish Council for Bioethics, and Science Gallery; and as Head of School, and Director of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. She is also the Founder of Trinity College’s EthicsLab and has extensive engagement with industry, NGOs and international organizations for which she provides pro bono consultancy on ethics.

In 2017, she was elected to the International Women’s Forum, the global network of the world’s most high-achieving women across 33 countries.

Accomplished author and lecturer, she was founding member and co-chair of the global network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church. Her service on the editorial boards of prestigious journals includes: Concilium, the Journal of Religious Ethics (a second term), Soundings, Studies in Christian Ethics, and the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. Her research interests include feminist, womanist, and mujerista ethics; fundamental moral theology; gender and sexual ethics; human rights; inculturation theologies; political ethics; postcolonial theories; social ethics; virtue ethics; war, peace, and peacebuilding.

Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, S.J., Ph.D.

Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator is a Nigerian Jesuit currently serving as the President of the Conference of Jesuit Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar. An author and editor, he was lecturer at Hekima College Jesuit School of Theology in Nairobi, Kenya, and he specializes in ethics and theology in the church and religion in African society. He completed his doctorate in theology and religious studies in 2004 at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Among his most recent works are: The Pope and the Pandemic: Lessons in Leadership in a Time of Crisis (2021), Religion and Faith in Africa: Confessions of an Animist (2018) and the edited volumes: AIDS 30 Years Down the Line: Faith based Reflections about the Epidemic in Africa (2019); The Church We Want: African Catholics Look to Vatican III (2016); Reconciliation, Justice, and Peace: The Second African Synod (2015); Feminism: Conversations in the World Church (2014, coedited with Linda Hogan); Practising Reconciliation, Doing Justice, Building Peace: Conversations n Catholic Theological Ethics in Africa (2013).

Agnes M. Brazal, S.T.D./Ph.D.

Agnes Brazal is Professor of Theology at the De la Salle University, Manila, Philippines. She was also past President and founding member of the DaKaTeo (Catholic Theological Society of the Philippines) and one of the first coordinators and “mothers” of the Ecclesia of Women in Asia (association of Catholic women theologians in Asia). She has been a planning committee member of the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church; editorial board member of the journals Theological Studies, Asian Christian Review, and Budhi; and international advisory board member of Louvain Studies. She obtained her S.T.L./M.A. and S.T.D./Ph.D. in Theology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Among her various publications are her co-authored book on Intercultural Church: Bridge of Solidarity in the Migration Context (2015) and co-edited books Feminist Cyberethics in Asia: Religious Discourses on Human Connectivity (2014), Transformative Theological Ethics: East Asian Contexts (2010), Faith on the Move: Toward a Theology of Migration in Asia (2008), and Body and Sexuality: Theological-Pastoral Reflections of Women in Asia (2007). She has published articles in Theological Studies, Concilium, Questions Liturgiques, Asian Christian Review, Asian Horizons, Hapag, and others.

Her awards include the 2003 MWI (Institute of Missiology, Missio, Aachen) prize for the international academic essay contest on Contextual Theology and Philosophy on the theme “Religious Identity and Migration.” The book Body and Sexuality was a finalist in the 2007 National Book Award granted by the Manila Critics Circle and the National Book Development Board. Her research interests include feminist, postcolonial-intercultural, and Filipino-Asian theology; migration; and cyber theologies/ethics.

Lisa Sowle Cahill, Ph.D.

Lisa Cahill received her B.A. in Theology from Santa Clara University in 1970, followed by M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she wrote her dissertation under the supervision of James Gustafson. She is J. Donald Monan Professor in the Department of Theology at Boston College, where she has taught since 1976. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Yale University, and Dharmaram University in Bangalore, India.

Dr. Cahill is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has held office in the American Academy of Religion. She was president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Society of Christian Ethics. She served as an editor, or on the editorial boards of many prestigious journals. In addition, she has been a member of the Catholic Health Association Theology and Ethics Advisory Committee, the National Advisory Board for Ethics in Reproduction, and served on the March of Dimes National Bioethics Committee. She has given testimony to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on fetal tissue research and on cloning.

Her areas of interest and expertise, and very extensive publications, comprise the whole field of theological ethics. She has written or edited sixteen books and she is the author of over 200 essays that appeared in books or journals.