Near and Far

::: Photo © Las Hermanas Collection, Center for Mexican American Studies & Research, Our Lady of the Lake University :::

Our director, Bill Cavanaugh, chats with University of Notre Dame doctoral student Amirah Orozco, about the group of Latina women known as "Las Hermanas." Organized in the wake of Vatican II as the Chicano Movement was taking shape in the U.S, these women forged an identity as Latinas, Catholics, and feminists. They took seriously their roles as baptized Catholics to advocate for Latine voices to be heard, both in and outside of the Church.

Amirah Orozco holds a Master of Theological Studies from Boston College and is pursuing a PhD in theology at the University of Notre Dame. She works with questions of liberation and emancipation of the poor and marginalized, focusing on feminist as well as decolonial theologies. She has written various articles on topics of Latine theology that have been published in Commonweal Magazine, Theological Studies, Perspectivas:

Journal of the Hispanic Theological Institute, and the Journal of Interreligious Studies. (Learn more about her work at https://theology.nd.edu/people/amirah-orozco.)

CWCIT's director Bill Cavanaugh sits down with Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican-American author, translator, and immigrant justice advocate, to explore the connections between faith, language, and migration, which she writes about in her 2023 book "Rivermouth" and which she understands on a personal level through her family history, asylum cases she has worked on since 2016, and accompaniment work she did at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019.

Alejandra Oliva holds a master of theological studies (MTS) from Harvard Divinity School and was the Spring 2022 Franke Visiting Fellow at Yale University's Whitney Humanities Center. Her writing has been included in Best American Travel Writing 2020 and was honored with an Aspen Summer Words Emerging Writers Fellowship. Her book "Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration," was published by Astra House and received a Whiting Nonfiction Grant. Kirkus Reviews named it as among the best nonfiction of 2023, and The Boston Globe called it "one of the most thoughtful meditations on our nation's immigrant policy in recent memory."

CWCIT's director Bill Cavanaugh sits down with historian Sergio González to unpack the connections between faith, the ethic of hospitality, and social justice movements in Latino communities in the 20th-century Midwest, especially Sergio's home state of Wisconsin.

A historian of 20th-century U.S. migration, labor, and religion, Sergio is assistant professor of history at Marquette University. His most recent book is "Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin" (University of Illinois Press, 2024).

As an idea and practice, sanctuary has a long, vexed presence in American politics and social movements. In her recent book, "Sanctuary People," Gina Pérez, PhD, looks at how activists, service providers, and faith leaders and congregations in Ohio (where she lives and teaches) tapped into the long histories of faith-based and secular organizing to help the Latina/o immigrant and migrant communities that were increasingly vulnerable from 2016-2020. During the 2024 presidential election, the attacks on Ohio immigrants only reaffirm the critical need to challenge anti-immigrant rhetoric and nurture sanctuary practices and people.

Gina discusses all of this and more in this podcast with CWCIT director, Bill Cavanaugh. A cultural anthropologist, Gina is also professor and chair of the Department of Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH). She is the author of two award-winning books: "The Near Northwest Side Story: Gender, Migration, and Puerto Rican Families" and "Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC and the American Dream." Her latest book, "Sanctuary People: Faith-Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities," explores sanctuary movements and practices with and among Latinas/os in Ohio from 2016-2020.

The World Cup, the Super Bowl, the Olympic Games—arguably, these and other sporting events are among the most "sacred" events on the calendar for people around the world. But how should Catholics and other Christians think about the role of sports in society, communities, churches, and families? In this interview with CWCIT's Michael L. Budde, J. J. (Jay) Carney thinks through such timely questions, offering wide-ranging and challenging thoughts on Catholicism and sport—the good and the not-so-good.

Jay teaches theology and African studies at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska (USA), where he also serves as director of the Contemporary Spirituality Program. He has written extensively on Catholicism and society in Africa, and most recently has co-authored "On the Eighth Day: A Catholic Theology of Sport."

Jodi Mikalachki is associate professor of English at the University of Burundi’s Institute of Applied Pedagogy in Bujumbura. She has written extensively on gender and nationalism. Her current project focuses on nonviolent responses to grief and loss in post–independence Burundi. Her essay, “Narrating Violence in Burundian Genocide and Civil War Literature: Pacifique Irankunda’s Playing at Violence,” appeared in ~Emerging Trends in Eastern African Literatures and Cultures~ (Galda Verlag, 2020). She has also translated two Burundian works engaging with the nation’s cycles of political violence: Zacharie Bukuru’s ~We Are All Children of God: The Forty Young Martyrs of Buta—Burundi~ (Paulines Africa, 2015) and Antoine Kaburahe, ~Hutsi: In the Name of Us All~ (Iwacu, 2019).

Jakob Egeris Thorsen joins CWCIT's Bill Cavanaugh to talk about the complex relationships among traditional Mayan Catholics, mainstream Catholics, and Protestants in the Guatemalan town of Santiago Atitlán. A Catholic theologian at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, Prof. Thorsen is married to a Guatemalan woman and has spent years in Guatemala researching the effects of modernization on traditional cultures there. He is particularly interested in the tensions between Catholics who maintain many traditional Mayan practices and other Catholics and Protestants who consider those practices heterodox, syncretistic, and pagan. Prof. Thorsen is interested in approaches to inculturation that respect and preserve local indigenous culture, which is threatened by modernization, while also maintaining the integrity of the Catholic theological tradition.

In this podcast, CWCIT's Karen Kraft speaks with Sr. Dr. Maria Vasantha about her life as both a religious sister and medical doctor who is skilled in both Western and traditional Indian medicine. Sr. Dr. Vasantha discusses her involvement with the Sister Doctors Forum of India, her medical work in the impoverished Tamil Nadu state, and the Catholic Church in India's support and promotion of traditional Indian medicine, through the Catholic Health Association of India (CHAI), for example. Drawing on her own personal experience as well as what she has seen in her patients, she also describes specific instances in which Indian traditional medicine has succeeded where Western medicine has not.

Sr. Maria Vasantha, MD (or Sr. Dr. Maria Vasantha) belongs to the Congregation of the Sisters of the Cross of Chavanod, popularly known as the Holy Cross Sisters, and holds numerous positions at Leonard Hospital in the town of Batlagundu in India’s Tamil Nadu State including that of director, consultant, and surgeon within the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Proficient in the practice of contemplative and Zen meditation, she is also certified in Bach flower medicine, reflexology, and yoga. She follows an integrative approach to women’s health, using a balance of Western science and alternative and spiritual therapies of Eastern science. Her passion is to bring the healing touch of Christ to everyone she meets, particularly the indigenous poor.

CWCIT director Bill Cavanaugh speaks with Paul Gifford, emeritus professor of the study of religions at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London, about contemporary Catholicism on the African continent. Among the topics they cover are the Catholic Church in Africa's huge involvement with development, its relative lack of interest in ecumenism, and its vulnerability in the face of the recent “Pentecostal” explosion.

Paul Gifford is CWCIT's fall 2021 visiting research fellow. He has been living on the African continent for several decades and is the author of numerous books, including "Christianity, Modernity, and Development in Africa" (Hurst, 2015) and "Ghana's New Christianity: Pentecostalism in a Globalizing African Economy" (Hurst, 2003).

In this podcast with CWCIT's Stan Chu Ilo, Dr. Kochurani Abraham discusses her advocacy for gender equality in India and her ecumenical leadership in holding churches to account in India in the fight against rape, and other forms of gender violence against women. She also speaks of where she sees signs of hope for women and her prophetic witnessing in bringing about signs of hope in the lives of wounded and broken women in the Church and the wider society in India.

Dr. Abraham is a feminist theologian, gender researcher, and trainer from Kerala, India. She has a masters in child development from Kerala University, a licentiate in systematic theology from Pontifical University of Comillas, Madrid, and a PhD in feminist theology from the University of Madras, India. Currently, she serves as regional coordinator of the Indian Christian Women’s Movement for Kerala and vice president of the Indian Theological Association.