Author: Emily Reimer-Barry

Last night, James F. Keenan, SJ, was awarded the John Courtney Murray Award by the Catholic Theological Society of America. Named for one of its early Board members who was a major theologian in the American Catholic Church, the award honors a CTSA member for a lifetime of distinguished theological achievement. Jim is very deserving of this award. Through his writing, teaching, speaking engagements, organizing of conferences and networks of scholars, mentoring, and editing work, he has shaped the field of Catholic moral theology in huge and significant ways. His academic CV is 54 pages long, and would be impossible to summarize quickly given that it demonstrates the breadth of his work in shaping scholarship in virtue ethics, natural law, casuistry, the history of moral theology, biblical hermeneutics and ethical method, and ethics in the university context. I’m exhausted just looking at his CV. I have no idea how he did as much as he did. And he’s not done. In his acceptance speech, Jim talked about how his brother helped him to find his own voice at the age of four years old, and how he has tried to help others find their voices through his work as a teacher and a mentor. I’m one of Jim’s students and want to express my gratitude. “Call me Jim.” I was twenty-two years old. In my application to Weston Jesuit...

I reached out last week to my colleagues at this blog, and in the email thread that followed, it was suggested that we make our conversation more public by developing a series of posts. I agreed to start us off. The views expressed in this post are my own and do not reflect the positions of anyone else. **** I had been asked in January to serve as a panelist at an event for Catholics in my local area, and accepted the invitation with enthusiasm. My contact at the organization, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit national organization with local chapters, told me that I would be asked to speak about a virtue and how that virtue applied to my life of Christian discipleship. Other panelists would speak from their experience about this same virtue, and there would also be time for networking and prayer. It sounded great. I was asked to send my bio and a picture for the marketing materials; I did. I made arrangements to have child care coverage for that evening and set aside time to prepare my remarks. Some time went by, and then I received an email asking me to sign the statement below, to make sure “that those who speak at our events are committed to Church teaching.” Unsure exactly what that meant, I opened the attachment. FAITHFULNESS TO CHURCH TEACHING In order...