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Introduction

Jean-François Roussel

Introducción

Jean-François Roussel

Introdução

Jean-François Roussel

Introduction

Jean-François Roussel

Feminists Birthing a New Way of Being Church

Kochurani Abraham
This text delves into the intersection of feminist theology and ecclesiological transformation, using Sisters in Solidarity (SIS) as a case study. It explores how feminist perspectives challenge gendered hierarchies within religious institutions, focusing on birthing change and fostering feminist solidarity. The narrative unfolds with a critical analysis of the Church’s historical and contemporary treatment of women, especially in light of clergy sexual abuse scandals. It discusses the emergence of SIS as a proactive force, advocating for justice, healing and empowerment for marginalised individuals within the Church. The text also delves into theological underpinnings, emphasising the embodiment of the divine in female experiences and the importance of solidarity as a catalyst for transformative actions. Ultimately, it calls for a reimagining of ecclesiastical structures towards inclusivity, equality and a deeper engagement with feminist principles for a more just and compassionate Church.

Mujeres que cruzan fronteras: espiritualidad en la migración femenina

Yolanda Chavez
This work has been elaborated as a personal and ministerial process from the perspective of a lay woman, a believer, inspired by her own identity introspection, for whom spirituality is a fundamental identifying characteristic in this search. This theme has been a responsibility acquired as a leader, guide and companion in the personal search of persons of faith, catechists and pastoral agents in the Latino communities studying for certification in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. In my two decades of experience in this field, I have seen that these communities are largely made up of immigrant women, in whom lie the elements needed to strive for a transformative presence in a country foreign to their own.

Rendering Christian Symbols Fluid: Regarding the Anti-Oppressive Practices of the Feminist Collective L’autre Parole

Denise Couture
The purpose of this text is to establish connections between the anti-oppressive practices of the feminist and Christian collective L’autre Parole (“the Other Word”), based in Quebec (Canada), and the orientations of liberation theologies on the global stage. The text highlights how Christian feminists from a local community bend, forge, change and rewrite the symbols of domination within the Christian tradition to restore their liberating thread. In this text, we study, in particular, the symbols of Dieue and of Christa. L’autre Parole’s feminism unfolds as a way of living. It posits the hypothesis of a systemic subordination of women to men as a group and it is encapsulated by two key slogans: “The personal is political” and “A woman will not be liberated until all women are liberated.” The article emphasises how the group can challenge its own complicity with forces of domination or collaboration. While possessing a local and temporary character, the anti-oppressive (re)interpretations of Christian symbols proposed by a local group contribute to a global momentum, hence, the interest in analysing such local creations in order to consider the process of global solidarity in action regarding liberation theologies.

Le groupe Maria’M : une pratique de dialogue entre féministes chrétiennes et musulmanes

Florence Ollivry
This article examines the interfaith and feminist dialogue within the Maria’M group of Christian and Muslim women in Quebec. It highlights the diversity of feminist and religious perspectives within the group and the efforts to reconcile these multiple identities. Discussions touch on issues such as social justice, feminism, the place of women in religious traditions and the decolonisation of feminism. Group members also reflect on how their faith informs their feminist commitments and their vision of a more just world. The study highlights the crucial role of inter-religious dialogue in building solidarity between women from different traditions, fostering mutual understanding and promoting diversity as a core value of their commitment.

Potential Responses to the Coloniality of Human Rights and “Man” in Light of Animal Rights Talk: To Imagine What Never Was

César “CJ” Baldelomar
Presented as a thought experiment, this essay urges readers to (re)consider how critiques of the colonial concept of man (as a rational being) can disrupt and expand dominant ontologies to birth creative reimaginings of rights talk and protections, especially since rights discourses privilege rationality as the marker of full humanity. The same claims used to debunk animal rights can also be used to debunk human rights, especially for humans lacking a certain cognitive capacity or will. As evident throughout history and in the present, not all flesh and bodies (including hominine ones) are worth the same, notwithstanding aspirational and humanist rhetoric and rights bolstered by colonial and theological concepts. Some “humans” have been and continue to be equated with the savage and with animality — casting doubt on the universal applicability of rights talk as currently framed and deployed. Discussing the potential for animal rights would reconstitute and strengthen human rights — for it would force scholars, activists, judges, lawyers, students and professors to rethink the basis for global and local human rights regimes in light of creative jurisprudences and ontologies not based exclusively on Judeo-Christian or Western paradigms and worldviews. Such project also challenges coloniality and colonialism — the foundational paradigms of “modernity” and existing rights talk. The essay ends with some notes and suggestions on reimagining the human as an important step in demystifying human rights as a universal, eternal paradigm that protects all flesh equally, if at all.

Sentipensares que se tejen en la Comunidad de Sabias y Teólogas indígenas de Abya Yala

Sofía Nicolasa Chipana Quispe
I share the journey of the Community of Indigenous Wise Women and Theologians of Abya Yala in the arduous task of taking on the challenge of drinking from our millennia-old ancestral wells, each one from the spaces to which she belongs and with which she forms community in the different territories. From our convocation, we embarked on the path of connecting with the healing memories that allow us to dignify the lives of our peoples and, through them, our lives; recognising their epistemologies and relational spiritualities, which they have not ceased to cultivate despite the ungrateful memory of more than five hundred years of conquest and colonial invasion. In the thread of the time we are passing through, we place ourselves in the sense of the integrality of life that allows us to unlearn the dualism of modern thought and of the monotheistic religions, which divide life into opposing and incompatible realities. From the totality of life, we live an encounter with the cosmic and human ancestry, from which we recognise the wisdom that offers us healing for the territories and bodies of the different forms of life and heal our wounded, violated lineages in order to harmonise life. On the other hand, in the path that we share with the wise women, in the healing processes we start from the need to balance the predominance of masculine energy that takes hold in societies and the dominant religion (Christianity), which creates a series of ruptures in relationships. This leads us to recognise that the feminine energy still flows in many of our peoples and that it is necessary to make it more evident in order to harmonise and create balance in the relationships between all forms of life. We are grateful for the opportunity to express our feeling that the knowledge and spirituality of our peoples seek to dignify life, as opposed to those ways of life which, in the name of development, civilisation and even Christianity, seek to go against life itself. Let the word flow...

La décolonisation des savoirs théologiques francophones en Afrique : perspectives d’une théologie africaine interculturée et libératrice

Ignace Ndongala Maduku
This article explores the potential of decolonial thinking by looking back at the theology of inculturation circulating in the French-speaking world, particularly that practised at the Catholic University of Congo. Critiquing the hints of coloniality that serve as a matrix for the structures, subjects and research programmes of the Faculty of Theology of this university, the author calls for an epistemological break with the survivals of a Eurocentric vision and the dominant theologies that downplay knowledge from the margins. He describes this break by outlining a decolonial theology based on the work of three African theologians : Boka Londi di Mpasi, Jean-Marc Ela and Oscar Bimwenyi Kweshi. Following in their footsteps, he develops the liberating character of an intercultural theology.

Los bienes comunes, el cuidado de la casa común y la ecodemocracia: Una lectura teológica interdisciplinar

Afonso Murad and Leopoldo Santiago Pastrana Mazón
In the socio-environmental crisis we are experiencing globally, the emergence of care for the commons is linked to the struggle against the predatory rationality of the neoliberal capitalist system. It is a system that, in its globalisation, has produced a hegemonic paradigm of civilisation. However, the management of the commons expresses an alternative set of practices and values; a different way of life. In other words, the commons express a different rationality because they are managed on the basis of cooperation, reciprocity and co- responsibility. The commons are political (struggle and resistance) and alternative (contribution) to the current paradigm of civilisation. Therefore, through bibliographical research, our aim is to carry out a comprehensive and interdisciplinary reading of the commons and its relation to the care of the earth, our common home. First, we will address the concept of the commons and its relevance. Secondly, we will explore the possibility of relating this notion of the commons to the principle of the common good as developed by the Church’s Magisterium. Finally, on the basis of eco-theology, we propose a theological-pastoral reading of the theme, highlighting both its contribution and its implications or challenges for life.

A Just and Green Recovery: Reflections on Catholic Social Teaching in Light of the Pandemic

Gareth L. M. Rowe
The paper poses the question: What would lead to a better and greener post-Covid world in terms of livelihoods and economics? Is this consistent with Catholic social teaching (CST) or a challenge to CST? The paper provides the first external report on a project currently being undertaken by CAFOD (part of Caritas Internationalis) with Durham University. The project undertakes an exploration of one of CAFOD’s priority themes: “a just, green global recovery.” It aims to reflect theologically on the pandemic and how it disrupted economic enabling environments and exacerbated structural inequalities and to suggest some ways forward as and when we begin to emerge from the pandemic. The overall aim of the project is to contribute towards advancing the vision of progress and agenda for change in CAFOD’s strategic framework: Our Common Home (OCH), which was itself inspired by Laudato Si’ and Pope Francis’s insight that “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.” Methodologically, the project aims at a multi-layered approach. A grassroots approach is central, building theology up from the voices of CAFOD’s partners. Discussions are being held with partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America to find out what kind of economic enabling environment would improve their lives. This approach is being supplemented by discussions with supporter groups in the UK. The insights from partners will be reflected upon in the light of CST in its widest sense. This includes the papal magisterium, regional episcopal conferences and the insights of liberation theologians.

A base Bíblica do Conceito de Justiça redistributiva em Mt 5,6

Marta Luzie de Oliveira Frecheiras and Luiz Albertus Sleutjes
This article begins by examining the biblical concept of distributive justice in Mt 5:6 and Mt 5:45. The grammar of divine ethics present in the common home (LS, n. 94) inspires conversion and a new, just praxis. There are two meanings of the Greek term dikaiosýne (justice) in the New Testament: redistributive and relational justice. The first meaning is essential for the Jewish people to care for the orphan, the widow, and the destitute. The second is more pragmatic and personal. Moreover, the criterion for the justice of our actions is the impact of our actions on other people. Therefore, without a proper understanding of the two meanings of justice, it is virtually impossible to achieve fraternity in the world and the effective common good. Mercy is the “practical” key to justice because it triggers new processes of reintegration, in a systemic conversion of ecological sin.

No se fueron, se lo los llevaron: narrativas de la esperanza en medio de la catástrofe

Laura Isabel Matamala Lienlaf
The reality of disappearances in Mexico challenges the structures that shape and give meaning to social life. The aim of this study is to show how the phenomenon of forced disappearance and the experience of relatives searching for the disappeared affect the work of the theologian. In a country with more than 100,000 disappeared, the question of God’s place in the midst of the horror becomes central, so that turning our gaze to the hope of the relatives becomes an evangelical demand.

¿A Orbán la gloria? Una actualización subversiva del evangelio de Marcos desde la comunidad luterana en Casa de Mándak

Veronika Maria Thaller
This sociotheological reflection examines the authoritarian government of Viktor Orbán, which invokes Christianity to justify marginalizing policies, and contrasts it with the Lutheran community of Mándak House in Budapest. Led by Pastor Martá Bolba, Mándak House embodies a praxis inspired by Jesus through initiatives supporting refugees, homeless people, and the Romani community. Analyzing passages from the Gospel of Mark, this study identifies actions such as social healing, confrontation with systemic oppression, and the rebuilding of inclusive communities as forms of resistance. Thus, Mándak House serves as a model for faith-based resistance, offering a subversive response to the nationalist misuse of religious discourse.