'Bothering to Love'
Nearly two dozen scholars from the United States and abroad have contributed to a new book that recognizes the influence of Boston College Vice Provost for Global Engagement and Canisius Professor of Theology James F. Keenan, S.J. Bothering to Love: James F. Keenan's Retrieval and Reinvention of Catholic Ethics (Orbis Books) is an edited volume of essays from many of Fr. Keenan’s 42 former doctoral students who explore the realm of Catholic ethics through Fr. Keenan’s body of work as a moral theologian.
The Festschrift pays tribute to Fr. Keenan’s “many and distinguished contributions to the Church and the academy” and also seeks to carry his work forward by advancing the future of Catholic moral theology. The volume is co-edited by BC alumni Christopher P. Vogt, an associate professor of theology and religious studies and a senior fellow of the Vincentian Center for Church and Society at St. John’s University in New York, and Kate Ward, an associate professor of theological ethics at Marquette University.
'Bothering to Love' features 21 original essays from an international group of scholars.
The book’s title is drawn from Fr. Keenan’s definition of sin, which appears in his book Moral Wisdom: Lessons and Texts from the Catholic Tradition: “Sin is the failure to bother to love.” The co-editors note that the book’s subtitle is connected to what they say are “fundamental, interrelated dynamics” that recur in Fr. Keenan’s scholarship: retrieval and reinvention.
Fr. Keenan, author of the book A History of Catholic Theological Ethics, studied the Catholic moral tradition at Gregorian University in Rome. “I went because I thought some people used the tradition to halt any developments, while others thought of the tradition as a stumbling block. Instead, I found the tradition most successful when it helped stimulate moral progress and thus used it toward that end.”
Bothering to Love was formally unveiled at a conference of the same name held at Boston College last month and attended by many of Fr. Keenan’s former students as well as colleagues from BC and around the world. Reflecting afterwards, Fr. Keenan called the conference “a real blessing.”
Left to right: Conference co-convener Mary Jo Iozzio (Clough School of Theology and Ministry); book co-editor Kate Ward (Marquette University); book co-editor Christopher Vogt (St. John's University); James Keenan, S.J.; conference keynote speaker Linda Hogan (Trinity College, Dublin); and conference co-convener Daniel Daly (Clough School). Photo by Lee Pellegrini
In remarks at the conference, Ward shared that the volume celebrates the ways Fr. Keenan has contributed to retrieving and growing the Catholic theological tradition, directly in his own work and indirectly through his students. “In our writing, teaching, and presence in our communities, we too are a part of Jim's legacy.
“Following Jim's lead,” she said, “our authors are engaging with traditional moral categories like conscience, virtue, and scandal, breaking new ground in fields including bioethics, spirituality, and fundamental moral theology, and introducing new terms into the ethical lexicon, including culpable chaos, himpathy, and the ‘be but don't do’ theory. Their essays mirror Jim's attentiveness to the importance of spirituality and pastoral practice and to lifting up the voices and the perspectives of traditionally marginalized persons.”
Vogt noted the volume’s contributing authors are men and women, lay, religious, and ordained, representing every continent (except Antarctica). Though diverse, he said, the authors are united in “their deep commitment in following Jim to a theological ethics that is responsive to the realities of everyday life, rigorous and honest in its use of Catholic tradition and those scholars who have come before us.”
Presenting the book to Fr. Keenan, Vogt thanked his former professor "for your mentoring, encouragement, and support that did not end when we left BC but has continued these many years. And, most of all, for your example of how to be a moral theologian who not only writes about, but practices, vulnerability, mercy, and love.”
Fr. Keenan says the book’s contributors recognize how much the virtue of mercy, which he defines as “the willingness to enter into the chaos of another,” provides the catalyst for moral progress. Over the course of his own career, Fr. Keenan has used the tradition of mercy in his writings on HIV/AIDS. He has also written extensively about the need for greater transparency and accountability in the Catholic Church and the persistence of economic classism, racism, and sexism in the academy, among other topics.
In his most recent book, The Moral Life, based on the D'Arcy Lectures he delivered at the University of Oxford in 2022, Fr. Keenan explores the foundation for contemporary ethics. In that vein, he continues to focus his writing on the topics of grief, vulnerability, recognition, moral agency, and conscience.
The strong affection between Fr. Keenan and his former doctoral students, now his friends and colleagues, was palpable at the conference’s opening session. Fr. Keenan described how years ago he had written down on a sheet of paper the names of every one of his doctoral advisees. He carried that sheet of paper with him for months while receiving treatment for cancer. “That was transformative for me,” he said.
In addition to Vogt and Ward, Clough School of Theology and Ministry Professor Mary Jo Iozzio and Associate Professor Daniel J. Daly contributed chapters to Bothering to Love. Other contributors (all BC alumni) are: Maria Cimperman, RSCJ (Catholic Theological Union in Chicago); Craig A. Ford, Jr. (Saint Norbert College); Eric Marcelo O. Genilo, S.J. (Loyola School of Theology, Philippines); Mark Graham (Villanova University); Michael P. Jaycox (Seattle University); John Karuvelil, S.J. (Pontifical Athenaeum, India); Conor M. Kelly (Marquette University); Vincent Leclercq, A.A. (Pontifical John Paul II Institute, Rome); Xavier M. Montecel (St. Mary’s University, San Antonio); Joseph J. Kotva, Jr. (Indiana University School of Medicine); Megan K. McCabe (Gonzaga University); Ai Pham, S.J. (Australian Catholic University); Cristina Richie (University of Edinburgh); Kathryn Getek Soltis (Villanova University); Osamu Takeuchi, S.J. (Sophia University, Tokyo); Edwin Vásquez Ghersi, S.J. (San José High School, Peru); and Ronaldo Zacharias (Salesian University Center, Brazil).