A Quick Update
Upcoming Topics and Unlocked Articles
I’m a bit overwhelmed and haven’t been feeling well this weekend, so I hope readers will be patient with the fact that there haven’t been any new issues of the newsletter since early last week. That being said, there have been some recent and noteworthy publications that I want to analyze here in the newsletter very soon.
First, last week the United States Conference of Bishops (USCCB) released a new pastoral framework for ministry with Native and indigenous peoples, Keeping Christ’s Sacred Promise: A Pastoral Framework for Indigenous Ministry, drafted by the USCCB’s Subcommittee on Native American Affairs. I read through the document over the weekend, and I think it is theologically and historically significant. For one, it treats the U.S. Catholic Church’s ministry to indigenous peoples as a “tainted legacy”—the fundamental good of bringing the Gospel to the Native populations of North America has been historically marred by the serious injustices committed against those populations, sometimes with the complicity of the Church. The Pastoral Framework insists that the Catholic Church’s ministry to indigenous peoples today must include a response to that tainted legacy. In an upcoming article, I hope to analyze the new document in light of Karen Guth’s criteria for responding to a tainted legacy, briefly summarized in the interview cited above.
Second, also last week the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity published the document The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogue and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint, which looks at the role of the papacy in light of both ecumenism and synodality. In his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint, Pope John Paul II asked non-Catholic Christians to offer their feedback on how the ministry of the Bishop of Rome could be exercised in a way that might serve as a source of unity. This new document summarizes some of these responses, but also reflects on the papal role in light of synodality, that is, a renewed emphasis on diversity in unity within the Church and the baptismal call of all the faithful to participate in the ministries of the Church. I haven’t had a chance to delve into this new document yet, and given the complexity of the topic, it may be a while before I can analyze it, but I hope to get to it soon!
Since I won’t have any new material in Window Light until later this week, I thought I could open up to all readers a couple of articles that were previously only available to paid subscribers.
The first is an essay I wrote after participating as a panelist at a virtual event hosted by the Catholic Theological Society of America on the future of the theological profession. One of the themes that emerged from the conversation was what a theological vocation might look like for someone working in a profession outside of academia, or at least outside of theological education. This article includes my reflections on this topic:
The second is a more recent article in which I shared sneak previews of some upcoming publications of mine, on some quite different topics:
I hope these articles tide you over until later this week!