Ethics

rourken@canisius.edu

Kari-Shane Davis Zimmerman, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University (Minnesota)
kdavis@csbsju.edu

This year’s convention theme, “All the Ends of the Earth:” Challenges and Celebrations of Global Catholicism, offers an opportunity for globally attuned explorations and applications of theological ethics and moral theology. The Ethics Section calls for paper proposals that thoughtfully and creatively engage this theme and for high quality proposals in any other area of theological ethics and moral theology. Proposals which centrally engage the convention theme or the related theme of global Christianity beyond Catholicism will receive primary consideration.

As the convention’s theme correctly notes, Christianity “(f)rom its beginnings…has had a ‘global’ orientation” and that the history of our faith “has been one of sin and of grace, fraught with miracles and missteps, with triumphs and tragedies, from which we all need to learn, so as to work out a more hopeful future together.” The Ethics section seeks papers that engage this mission in new ways. The co-chairs also acknowledge the participation of some of our members at the CTEWC (Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church) conference in Sarajevo in July 2018 and welcomes proposals of differing formats (e.g., a panel discussion) to bring insights from that deliberately international network of 

Catholic ethicists to the CTS meeting.

The ethics section encourages papers that consider:

-the realities of today’s waves of refugee movement and life

-borders and boundaries: creating, avoiding, crossing, straddling and otherwise living with them

-migration, immigration, emigration, settlement, “roots,” mobilities

-the interplay between the “local” and the “global”

-relationships between the broader authorities and local prerogatives of the global Roman Catholic Church

-implications of the theme’s focus for theological anthropology as a central consideration of moral theology

-the moral contours of the Church’s own global mission

-moral issues related to non-human forms of life in/on this globe

-moral issues related to how Christianity or Catholicism mixes with or encounters other religions

Papers might delve into questions like: What do we learn about moral theology from globally Catholic perspectives or observation? How does a globally attuned Catholic ethics uniquely describe or evaluate moral issues? How does Catholic ethics uniquely describe or address global issues (like climate change, transnational corporations, human trafficking, public health or food systems)? Where and how does the moral agency of inter/national entities manifest within families? In what ways ought a people of faith in an incarnate God think about the globe, or in what ways might a particularly global people think about the incarnate God? In what ways might the roles of the Pope, Bishops, religious superiors, priests or laity change or need to change, with a greater awareness of the global Church?

Finally, the ethics section invites proposals that attend to the interdisciplinary, ecumenical, or interreligious context of a contemporary ethical inquiry into this theme.

Please note: Conference presenters must be members of the College Theology Society, and Ph.D. candidates must be ABD in order to submit a proposal.