Moral Theology of Pope Francis

Lisa Sowle Cahill, Ph.D.

Lisa Sowle Cahill is the J. Donald Monan, S.J., Professor, Boston College.  Dr. Cahill is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America (1992-93) and the Society of Christian Ethics (1997-98).  She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Her works include Blessed Are the Peacemakers:  Pacifism, Just War and Peacebuilding (Fortress, 2019); A Theology and Praxis of Gender Equality  (Bangalore:  Dharmaram Publications, 2018); Global Justice, Christology and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

María Teresa (MT) Dávila, Ph.D.

María Teresa (MT) Dávila, visiting associate professor of practice at Merrimack College, is a scholar focusing on racial and migrant justice, public theology, and the ethics of the use of force. With Agnes Brazal, she is co-editor of Living With(out) Borders: Theological Ethics and Peoples on the Move (Orbis Press, 2016). She is a regular contributor to “Theology en la Plaza”, National Catholic Reporter, the first Latin@ column in a national Catholic newspaper. Her work also appears in Syndicate and Political Theology Today. Since 2016 she has been a consultant for the Science for Seminaries program, and now the Dialogue on Ethics Science and Religion, initiatives that enable seminaries to include sciences in the training of pastors and faith leaders.

María Teresa (MT) Dávila es profesora asociada de la práctica (visitante) en el departamento de Estudios Religiosos y Teológicos en Merrimack College, en Massachusetts. Pertenece a la iglesia Católica como mujer laica. Sus estudios y escritos se concentran en las áreas de justicia racial y migratoria, teología pública, y la ética del uso de armas y la guerra justa. Junto a Agnes Brazal (de las Filipinas), MT es co-editora de la colección de ensayos Living With(out) Borders: Theological Ethics and Peoples on the Move (Orbis Press, 2016). Contribuye regularmente a la columna “Teología en la Plaza” en el periódico National Catholic Reporter, la primera columna dedicada al ángulo latino en un periódico Católico estadounidense. Desde el 2016 trabaja en la junta de consultores para el proyecto de las ciencias en los seminarios, una iniciativa que trata de facilitar el uso de las ciencias en la educación teológica de los pastores y líderes de fe. MT lleva unos cinco años estudiando de cerca el fenómeno de las “guerras culturales” en los EEUU, y la manera en que las mismas interfieren con la misión de las iglesias cristianas en la nación.

Daniel R. DiLeo, Ph.D.

Daniel R. DiLeo is associate professor and director of the Justice and Peace Studies Program at Creighton University. His research focuses on Catholic social teaching, climate change, and Laudato Si’. He recently co-authored “U.S. Catholic bishops’ silence and denialism on climate change” (Environmental Research Letters) and is the editor of All Creation Is Connected: Voices in Response to Pope Francis’s Encyclical on Ecology (Anselm Academic, 2018). Since 2009, he has been a consultant with Catholic Climate Covenant. He earned his PhD in theological ethics from Boston College.

Kristin Heyer, Ph.D.

Kristin E. Heyer is professor of theological ethics in the theology department at Boston College. Book publications related to this conference include Christianity and the Law of Migration (Routledge, 2021); Building Bridges in Sarajevo: The Plenary Papers from CTEWC 2018 (Orbis Books, 2019); and Kinship Across Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration (Georgetown University Press, 2012). She holds degrees from Brown University and Boston College and serves as co-chair of the planning committee for Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church and President-Elect of Catholic Theological Society of America. She is currently at work on Moral Agency and the Promise of Freedom.

Laurie Johnston, Ph.D.

Laurie Johnston, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Emmanuel College in Boston. A social ethicist, she has written and edited works on just war theory, peacebuilding, Catholic-Muslim relations, and political theology, including The Surprise of Reconciliation in the Catholic Tradition, with J.J. Carney, and Can War be Just in the 21st Century? with Tobias Winright. She has been a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio for more than 20 years and serves as Academic Associate of the Sant’Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia, Harvard Divinity School, and Boston College.

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

James F. Keenan, S.J., is the Canisius Chair, Director of the Jesuit Institute and Vice Provost of Global Engagement at Boston College. A Jesuit priest since 1982, he received a licentiate and a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has edited or written 25 books and published over 300 essays, articles, and reviews in over twenty-five international journals. His most recent book is A History of Catholic Theological Ethics (Paulist Press) and he has just finished Preparing for the Moral Life: The D’Arcy Lectures that Georgetown University Press will publish in 2023.  Keenan is the founder of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC).

Conor M. Kelly, Ph.D.

Conor M. Kelly, Ph.D. is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology at Marquette University. His teaching and research focus on moral discernment in ordinary life. His publications include The Fullness of Free Time: A Theological Account of Leisure and Recreation in the Moral Life (Georgetown University Press, 2020), the co-edited volume Poverty: Responding Like Jesus (Paraclete, 2018 with Kenneth R. Himes), and, especially relevant for this conference, “The Role of the Moral Theologian in the Church: A Proposal in Light of Amoris Laetitia,” “From John Paul II to Francis: The Widening Trajectory of the Catholic Theology of Family,” and “Everyday Solidarity: A Framework for Incorporating Theological Ethics and Ordinary Life.” 

Megan McCabe, Ph.D.

Megan McCabe is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University. Her work is in the fields of moral theology, feminist theologies, social ethics, and liberation theologies. Her current research engages questions of sexual violence, gender, and moral responsibility for social change. She was the co-chair of Gonzaga University’s Commission on University Response to Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis and continues to oversee the implementation of the commission’s recommendations. She is currently co-chairing a five-year seminar at AAR, “Contextualizing the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis,” and co-founded and co-chaired for three years an interest group at the CTSA, “Theology, Sexuality, and Justice: New Frontiers.”  

Thomas Massaro, S.J., Ph.D.

Thomas Massaro, S.J., is Professor of Moral Theology at Fordham University. A Jesuit priest of the United States East Province, he has taught as professor of moral theology at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Boston College, and at Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, where he also served as Dean. Father Massaro holds a doctorate in Christian social ethics from Emory University. His nine books and over one hundred published articles treat Catholic social teaching and its recommendations for public policies oriented to social justice, peace, worker rights and poverty alleviation. A former columnist for America magazine, he writes and lectures frequently on such topics as the ethics of globalization, peacemaking, environmental concern, the role of conscience in religious participation in public life, and developing a spirituality of justice. His most recent book is Mercy in Action: The Social Teachings of Pope Francis (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2018). 

Bryan N. Massingale, S.T.D.

Bryan N. Massingale is Professor of Theological and Social Ethics and holds the James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics at Fordham University. A priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, he is the current President of the Society of Christian Ethics, a past Convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium, and a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. Massingale has authored two books and more than 170 articles, book chapters, and book reviews.  His monograph, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, received a First Place Book Award from the Catholic Press Association of the U.S. and Canada.  He frequently addresses issues of racial and sexual justice in venues such as National Public Radio (NPR), ABC News, the PBS NewsHour, the Huffington Post, Canadian Public Radio, the South African Times, and the Associated Press.  He is an active participant in a network of Catholic thought leaders advocating the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in both society and the faith community.

Maureen H. O’Connell, Ph.D.

Maureen H. O’Connell is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics in the Department of Religion and Theology at La Salle University. She authored Compassion: Loving Our Neighbor in an Age of Globalization (Orbis Books, 2009) and If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice (The Liturgical Press, 2012). Her newest book, Undoing the Knots: Five Generations of American Catholic Anti-Blackness (Beacon Press 2021) explores the interplay of her Catholic and racial identities across her family’s history in the City of Philadelphia. She is a member of POWER (Philadelphians Organizing to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild), an interfaith coalition of more than 50 congregations committed to making Philadelphia the city of “just love” through faith-based community organizing and serves on the Boards of Cranaleith Spiritual Center, a ministry of the Religious Sisters of Mercy. She is also a member of the President’s Commission on the Legacy of Slavery at Rosemont College. 

Elyse Raby, Ph.D.

Elyse Raby is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University. Her research focuses on the intersections of ecclesiology, embodiment, and gender. She has written on metaphor in ecclesiology (Horizons, 2022), on theologies of the diaconate (Ecumenical Trends, 2022) and on priesthood and ministry (U.S. Catholic, April 2019), and on intersex and theologies of creation (Theology & Sexuality, 2018). Her first book will analyze the metaphor of the church as a body in nineteenth and twentieth-century Catholic theology and, in particular, how different understandings of embodiment shape our understandings of the church, its ministry, and its relationship to the world. She holds a Ph.D. from Boston College.

Andrea Vicini, S.J., M.D., Ph.D., S.T.D.

Andrea Vicini, S.J. (MD, PhD, STD) is Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics and Professor of Theological Ethics in the Boston College Theology Department (Boston, MA). Recent publications include two co-edited volumes–Reimagining the Moral Life: On Lisa Sowle Cahill’s Contributions to Christian Ethics (2020); Ethics of Global Public Health: Climate Change, Pollution, and the Health of the Poor (2021)–and, among the articles: “COVID-19: A Crisis and a Tragedy–What’s Next?,” Theological Studies (2021); “Healthcare Practice at the End of Life: Addressing Opposite Attitudes and Diverse Contexts,” Concilium (2021); “Posthumanism in Popular Culture: Ongoing Challenges,” Concilium (2021); “Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Bioethical Challenges and Approaches,” Asian Horizons (2020); “Preserving the Earth and Promoting Health: Challenges for the Common Good,” Studia Moralia (2020).