Event Details
Date & Time
Tuesday, Feb 25, 2020 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Event Link
Department
Department of Religious Studies
Cost
Free and open to all!
Location
Hemmingson Center Ballroom
Contact/Registration
(509) 313-6782
About This Event
The Flannery Lecture in Catholic Theology welcomes Dr. Jennifer Beste, Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture and Professor of Theology, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University.
In this lecture, Dr. Beste will argue that Catholic communities seeking justice and healing in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis must prioritize action on three issues that remain overlooked in dominant discourse on this crisis. First, as a body of Christ, we have not yet fully understood and acknowledged the severe traumatic effects of clergy sexual abuse on youths’ sense of self, their capacity for freedom, and their capacity to relate constructively to God, others, and themselves. Such understanding is needed to motivate the Church to make the global eradication of such abuse a top priority. Second, recognizing the ways in which survivors continue to suffer from traumatization, we need to forge an authentic way of being in solidarity with clergy sexual abuse survivors and supporting them in their pursuit of justice and healing. Third, we need to examine how Catholic assumptions about children and norms requiring children’s passivity and obedience contributed to the phenomenon of clergy sexual abuse. We need to reassess contemporary norms and practices concerning children and develop a revised account of what constitutes justice for children.
About the Speaker
Jennifer Beste is College of Saint Benedict Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture and Professor of Theology at the College of Saint Benedict and St. John’s University. She received her Master’s Divinity degree from Vanderbilt Divinity School and her Ph.D. in Religious Ethics from Yale University. She is author of College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics: The Lives and Longings of Emerging Adults (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) and God and the Victim: Traumatic Intrusions on Grace and Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Her research interests include trauma theory and Christian theology; ethnography and Christian ethics; sexual ethics; feminist ethics; and children, justice, and Catholicism.
About the Lecture Series
The Flannery Chair of Roman Catholic Theology is an endowed Chair gift of the late Maud and Milo Flannery of Spokane, to further excellence of theological study and teaching at Gonzaga University. An outstanding theologian is invited twice per year to deliver The Flannery Lecture in Catholic Theology.