Bothering to Love: James F. Keenan’s Retrieval and Reinvention of Catholic Ethics
Friday, September 13, 2024 - Saturday, September 14, 2024 | Gasson Hall and Simboli Hall | Register to Attend
Friday's opening session will be available on zoom.
“Bothering to Love: James F. Keenan’s Retrieval and Reinvention of Catholic Ethics,” will be held at Boston College on Friday, September 13, 2024 and Saturday, September 14, 2024. The conference will celebrate the scholarship and the legacy of Fr. James F. Keenan, S.J., Vice Provost for Global Engagement, Canisius Professor, and Director of the Jesuit Institute at Boston College. Fr. Keenan has taught at BC for more than 20 years and 2024 marks his tenth year as Canisius Professor and Director of the Jesuit Institute at Boston College.
Fr. Keenan is one of the most productive, influential, and well-known Catholic moral theologians working today. He has directed over thirty doctoral dissertations, is the author of more than 27 books and edited volumes, has written more than 225 professional essays, and over 150 essays for online outlets and the popular press. As a founder of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC), he has influenced the direction of the field of Catholic theological ethics and fostered the growth of theological dialogue and collaboration around the globe.
In light of his work, the conference's goal is to consider Keenan's contributions to the development of Catholic ethics and how new generations of theologians are building on his work at the growing edges of theology as a global discipline. Conference speakers will consider what it means to flourish and live Christian discipleship in various areas of human experience. In addition, speakers will engage with Keenan’s work on pressing questions in bioethics, gender, and empowering traditionally marginalized communities from a variety of global and disciplinary perspectives.
The conference is made possible by generous funding and support from the Institute of Liberal Arts, the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, the Provost’s Office, the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, and the Theology Department.
Schedule and RegistrationFriday, September 13, 2024 | Gasson Hall, Room 100 | Open to the Public | |
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| 4:00-4:20 PM | Welcome and Opening RemarksConveners: Daniel J. Daly and Mary Jo Iozzio, Clough School of Theology and Ministry Conference welcome:
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| 4:20-5:35 PM | Keynote AddressIntroduction: Mary Jo Iozzio Linda Hogan, Professor of Ecumenics, School of Religion, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland |
| 5:35-5:40 PM | Presentation and Guest Speaker to be announced |
| 5:45-7:00 PM | Reception | Gasson 112 |
Saturday, September 14, 2024 | Simboli Hall, Room 100 | Registration Required | |
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| 8:30-9:00 AM | Light Continental Breakfast | Simboli Hall LobbyWelcome to the CSTM: Mick McCarthy, S.J., Dean of Clough School ofTheology and Ministry |
| 9:00-10:00 AM | Roundtable 1: Fundamental Moral TheologyConvener:
Questions and Answers (15’) |
| 10:00-10:20 AM | coffee break | simboli hall lobby |
| 10:20-11:20 AM | roundtable 2: virtue and the virtuesConvener:
Questions and Answers (15’) |
| 11:20-11:25 AM | remembrance: lúcás (yiu sing luke) chan, by conor kelly |
| 11:30 AM-12:15 PM | roundtable 3: bioethicsConvener:
Questions and Answers (15') |
| 12:15-1:00 PM | lunch break | simboli hall lobby |
| 1:00-2:00 PM | roundtable 4: ethics attentive to marginalized perspectivesConvener:
Questions and Answers (15’) |
| 2:15-2:20 PM | remembrance: jacquineau azétsop, by kathryn getek soltis |
| 2:20-3:20 PM | roundtable 5: ethics of sex and genderConvener:
Questions and Answers (15’) |
| 3:20-3:40 PM | coffee break | simboli hall lobby |
| 3:40-4:40 PM | roundtable 6: Pastoral, Practical and Pedagogical PerspectivesConvener:
Questions and Answers (15’) |
| 4:50-5:40 PM | Final ReflectionsIntroduction: Lisa Sowle Cahill, Boston College (10')James F. Keenan, S.J. (25’) |
| 6:00-6:45 PM | Closing Liturgy | Simboli ChapelCelebrant: Andrea Vicini, S.J., Boston College Readers: Margaret (Maggie) Hines, Gabelli Presidential Scholar, and Brett O’Neill, S.J., doctoral advisee |
| 7:00-8:30 PM | Dinner | Cadigan Hall | By Invitation Only |
Speakers
Maria Cimperman
Maria Cimperman, RSCJ, is both Professor of Theological Ethics and Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and Synodality Coordinator at UISG (International Union of Superiors General) in Rome. Author of several books, she participated in the Synod on Synodality as a non-voting expert.
Federico Cinocca
Federico Cinocca is a Diocesan priest from Milan. He is also chaplain and a faculty member at Emmanuel College where he teaches Ethics. After studying at the Theological Faculty of Milan, he earned his Licentiate at the Gregorian University in Rome and his Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry. His dissertation, directed by professor James Keenan, explored the intersection between ethics and liturgy, examining power dynamics in liturgical celebrations.
Daniel J. Daly Ph.D.
Daniel J. Daly Ph.D. (Boston College), is the founding Executive Director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health. He is also Associate Professor of Moral Theology, at Boston College’s Clough School of Theology and Ministry. His monograph, The Structures of Virtue and Vice, was published in 2021 by Georgetown University and Press and was awarded First Place in the Theological and Philosophical Studies category by the Catholic Media Association in July of 2022. His scholarship focuses on health care ethics, organizational ethics, virtue ethics, and the ethics of social structures, and has been published in journals such as Theological Studies, The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, the Journal of Medical Ethics, Christian Bioethics, and Health Progress.
Craig A. Ford Jr.
Craig A. Ford Jr. Ph.D., (Boston College) is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at St. Norbert College (De Pere, WI), where he serves as Director of the Peace and Justice Interdisciplinary Minor. He is also on the faculty at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana (New Orleans, LA). Dr. Ford writes on topics at the intersection of the Catholic moral tradition, queer theology/queer theory, and Black studies. He is the author of a number of widely-cited essays, including "Transgender Bodies, Catholic Schools, and a Queer Natural Law Theology of Exploration" (Journal of Moral Theology, 2018), and "Our New Galileo Affair" (Horizons, 2023), which received the Catherine Mowry LaCugna Award for Best Essay by a young scholar from the Catholic Theological Society of America in 2022. This upcoming academic year, Dr. Ford will serve as the Lund-Gill Chair at Dominican University (Chicago, IL).
Glenn Gaudette, Ph.D.
Glenn Gaudette, Ph.D., is the inaugural John W. Kozarich Chair of the Department of Engineering at Boston College and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Working together with his colleagues, they developed the first Engineering program in the history of BC. His research has pioneered the use of spinach and other plants as scaffolds for heart regeneration and more recently, for lab-grown meat. His work has featured throughout the world including on Bill Nye Saves the World (on Netflix), live interview on the BBC, Popular Science and at the Centre Pompidou (Paris). Dr. Gaudette also enjoys teaching engineering mechanics, design and innovation, biomechanics and physiology.
Eric Marcelo O. Genilo
Eric Marcelo O. Genilo, SJ, STD, is an ordained minister and a member of the Society of Jesus, Philippine Province. He is a professor of moral theology at the Loyola School of Theology at Ateneo de Manila University and a formator of diocesan seminarians at San Jose Seminary in Quezon City, Philippines. He earned his licentiate and doctoral degrees at Weston Jesuit School of Theology (Cambridge, Massachusetts). He is the author of John Cuthbert Ford: Moral Theologian at the End of the Manualist Era (Georgetown University Press, 2007).
Linda Hogan
Linda Hogan is a theological ethicist whose primary research interests lie in the fields of social and political ethics, human rights and gender. Her current work is focused on the Christian human rights tradition and its capacity to address the intersecting ecological, technological, economic and political crises with which we are contending. Recent essays include `Human Rights and the Vulnerabilities of Gender in a Climate Emergency', in Hilda Koster & Celia Deane-Drummond, (eds.) "In Solidarity with the Earth", Bloomsbury, 2024, and `Justifying Human Rights: Plural Foundations, Embedded Universalism" in Michael Krennerick, et al (eds.) "The Freedom of Human Rights: Subjects, Institutional Guarantees, Democracy" Wochenschau Verlag, 2023. She represented the Irish Government at the UNESCO Intergovernmental negotiations that delivered the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, Paris 2021. She was Co-chair, with Professor Keenan of the Catholic Theological Ethics Network. (2008-2019) . Professor Hogan served as Vice-Provost/Chief Academic Officer and Deputy President at Trinity College Dublin (2011-16) and Head of Irish School of Ecumenics (20062010) She was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2023.
Mary Jo Iozzio
Mary Jo Iozzio, Ph.D, STL, is Professor of Moral Theology at Boston College, Clough School of Theology and Ministry since 2013 (previously at Barry University, North Miami, FL, 1993-2013). She studied at Pennsylvania State University (BA), Providence College (MA), Fordham University (MA and PhD), and Boston College (STL). She teaches, lectures and writes extensively on disability at the intersections of theological ethics, anthropology, and justice. She is an active member of the American Academy of Religion, Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, the Catholic Theological Society of America, and the Society of Christian Ethics. She is the author of Self-Determination and the Moral Act (Peeters, 1995), Disability Ethics/Preferential Justice (Georgetown, 2023), and Radical Dependence: A Theological Ethics in the Key of Disability (Baylor, 2024). She has edited or co-edited single issues of the Journal of Religion, Disability & Health, Journal of Moral Theology, and the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.
Michael Jaycox
Michael Jaycox holds a Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College. His research and teaching address theological questions and perspectives on race, racism, and racial justice; bioethics; the ethics of gender and sexuality; and the role of emotions in ethical judgment and collective action. His publications can be found in Political Theology, Religions, Horizons, Health Progress, Developing World Bioethics, and The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. He has been a member of the faculty at Seattle University since 2014, where he received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2020. In addition to his faculty appointment, he is Special Assistant to the Vice President for Faculty Development in the Division of Mission Integration.
John Karuvelil, S.J.
John Karuvelil, S.J. is a Jesuit Priest and a Professor of Moral Theology at Pontifical Athenaeum, Jnana Deepa Institute of Philosophy and Theology, in Pune, India. At present he is the Dean of the Faculty of Theology. He specializes in biomedical ethics.
Conor M. Kelly
Conor M. Kelly is an associate professor in the Department of Theology at Marquette University. His research and teaching address moral discernment in ordinary life with an applied ethics focus on health care and Catholic social thought. His publications include The Fullness of Free Time (Georgetown University Press, 2020), Racism and Structural Sin (Liturgical Press, 2023), and the co-edited volumes Poverty: Responding Like Jesus (Paraclete, 2018 with Kenneth R. Himes) and The Moral Vision of Pope Francis (Georgetown University Press, 2024). He completed his dissertation in theological ethics at Boston College under the direction of Fr. Jim Keenan in 2015.
Philip J. Landrigan
Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP, is a pediatrician and epidemiologist, who is a Professor at Boston College and Director of BC’s Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good. Dr. Landrigan’s research examines the impacts on human health, especially children’s health, of hazardous exposures in the global environment – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. From 2015-2018, Dr. Landrigan co-chaired the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, which found that pollution causes 9 million deaths per year. He currently leads the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health, which finds that plastics cause disease, disability and premature death at every stage of their life cycle; that these harms fall disproportionately on the poor and the vulnerable; and that they result in economic losses exceeding $1.2 trillion per year. Dr. Landrigan is deeply committed to translating science to public policy to protect health, prevent disease, save lives, and advance the common good.
Vincent Leclercq
Vincent Leclercq is a physician and Assumptionist priest. He lives in Rome, where he oversees formation for his Order. After a thesis on the ethics of vulnerability in a time of HIV/AIDS with James Keenan, he was a teacher-researcher at the Institut catholique de Paris in moral theology (2008-2014). In 2014, he went to the Democratic Republic of Congo as a missionary to practice medicine and teach at several universities. He regularly teaches at Al Mowafaqa (IOTAM of Rabat in Marocco) and Nice (France). He has published Blessed are the Vulnerable: Reaching Out to Those with AIDS (New London, Twenty-Third Publications, 2010) and Fin de vie: Pourquoi les chrétiens ne peuvent pas se taire (Paris, L'Atelier, 2013). He is currently visiting professor at The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome.
Lindsay Marcellus
Lindsay Marcellus is the Communications Specialist for the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology. She earned a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Boston College, and was awarded the 2023 Donald and Hélène White Dissertation Award in the Humanities for her dissertation, Perfecting Ecological Relationality: Acknowledging Sin and the Cardinal Virtue of Humility. She holds a Master of Theological Studies as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.
Marilyn Martone
Marilyn Martone is a retired associate professor of moral theology at St. John’s University in Jamaica, NY. She taught healthcare ethics for many years on both graduate and undergraduate levels as well as courses in fundamental moral theology, feminist ethics, gender and social justice, sexuality, and business ethics. For seven years she represented the Holy See at the United Nations on women’s issues. She also served on various hospital ethics committees. In 2002 she was the recipient of an NEH grant on “Justice, Equality and the Challenge of Disability.” In 2007 she was one of two recipients of a fellowship on disability ethics at Weill-Cornell Medical College and the Hospital for Special Surgery.
Xavier M. Montecel
Xavier M. Montecel is Assistant Professor of Catholic Theological and Social Ethics and Graduate Program Director at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, TX. His research examines the relationship between liturgy and the moral life from the standpoint of virtue ethics. He is particularly interested in issues of collective agency, vice, and sin in the context of liturgical practices. He writes and teaches on subjects including LGBTQ+ issues in the Catholic Church, synodality and Eucharistic theology, AI ethics, and ecology. His most recent publications have appeared in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Religions, Worship, and Commonweal.
Monica Jalandoni Nalupta
Monica Jalandoni Nalupta has a Ph.D. in Theology from Boston College. Her dissertation was on Filipino Fortitude and her research interests include virtue ethics and narrative theology. She is an assistant professor at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines where she teaches a course on moral theology.
Kathryn Getek Soltis
Kathryn Getek Soltis is Director of the Center for Peace and Justice Education and Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. Her research areas include mass incarceration, Catholic Social Thought, and family ethics. Kathryn previously served as a lay Catholic prison chaplain in Boston and currently volunteers as a lay minister in the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. She is also one of the founding members of SCHEAP (Synodality in Catholic Higher Education in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia). Kathryn and her remarkable husband are raising three also-remarkable children in Havertown, PA.
Jaime Vidaurrazaga
Jaime Vidaurrazaga is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Emmanuel College in Boston, where he is also the chair of his department. He teaches courses in Ethics, Bible, History of Christianity and Liberation Theology. Jaime's teaching and research is influenced by his experiences growing up in Peru and studying in Brazil before coming to the U.S., where he had Jim Keenan as his advisor both for his S.T.L. at Weston Jesuit School of Theology and for his Ph.D. at Boston College.
Christopher Vogt
Christopher Vogt is Professor of Moral Theology at St. John’s University in New York. His recent publications include “Death and Dying” in The T & T Clark Handbook of Christian Ethics, “Catholic Social Teaching and Ecological Ethics,” for the revised edition of Green Discipleship (ed., Tobias Winright; Forthcoming from Cascade), and “Mercy, Solidarity, and Hope: Essential Personal and Political Virtues in Troubled Times,” which appeared in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought. Currently, he is writing a book on Catholic higher education and the common good.
Kate Ward
Kate Ward is Associate Professor in the theology department at Marquette University, specializing in economic ethics, virtue ethics and Catholic social thought. She is the author of Wealth, Virtue and Moral Luck: Christian Ethics in an Age of Inequality (Georgetown, 2021) and is completing a book on work in Catholic social thought for Rowman & Littlefield.
Katharine Young
Katharine Young is Professor and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at Boston College Law School. Her research focuses on comparative constitutional law, international human rights law, economic and social rights, and law and gender. Professor Young’s publications include: “Human Rights Originalism” (Georgetown Law Journal), “Rights and Queues: Distributive Contests in the Modern State” (Columbia Journal of Transnational Law), and “The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights: A Concept in Search of Content” (Yale Journal of International Law). Her monograph, Constituting Economic and Social Rights (Oxford University Press, 2012), is published in the Oxford Constitutional Theory series. She has also edited The Future of Economic and Social Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2019) with a foreword by Amartya Sen, and The Public Law of Gender with Kim Rubenstein (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Before joining Boston College, Young was an Associate Professor at the Australian National University and completed fellowships with Harvard University’s Project on Justice, Welfare, and Economics, and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and earned her B.A. and LL.B. (Hons) from the University of Melbourne and LL.M. studies and S.J.D. degree from Harvard University as a Knox Scholar.
Campus Map and Parking
Campus Map and Parking:
Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages.
Boston College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - Boston College).
Boston College strongly encourages conference participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccination before attending events on campus.