STM Faculty News

John Baldovin, S.J., professor of historical and liturgical theology, gave a keynote lecture titled “Singing the Lord’s Song in Time of Trouble: How Can the Eucharist be a Celebration of Reconciliation, Hope and Joy?” at the annual convention of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians in New Orleans. At the same meeting, he received the association’s Jubilate Deo award for contributions to the field of liturgy.

André Brouillette, S.J., associate professor of systematic and spiritual theology, holds the Anna and Donald Waite Endowed Chair in Jesuit Education at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska this year. The English translation of his first book was just published by Paulist Press under the title Teresa of Avila, the Holy Spirit, and the Place of Salvation. He also published an article in pilgrimage studies, “(Re)creating a Pilgrimage: A Century of Pilgrimage Reports from Jesuit Novices in Canada (1864-1968)” (International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage 9, no 2 (2021) Article 9, 63-72), and another one on the pneumatology of an important 17th-century Jesuit formator “Embracing the Spirit: The Ignatian Pneumatology of Louis Lallemant” (Perspectiva Teológica 53 (2021): 397-417).

Daniel J. Daly, associate professor of moral theology, published an article titled “How Many Heart Valves Is One Person Owed? The Ethics of Multiple Value Transplants for Patients with IVDU-Induced Endocarditis” in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 40 (2021): 149-167. He also published a chapter titled “Social Structures and Public Health Ethics” in Ethical Challenges in Global Public Health: Climate Change, Pollution, and the Health of the Poor (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2021), pages 84-95. The volume emerged from the Global Public Health conference held at Boston College in September 2019, and was edited by BC faculty members Philip J. Landrigan and Andrea Vicini, S.J. In July, Daly was interviewed about his new book, The Structures of Virtue and Vice (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2021). The interview was part of the Books for a Better World series sponsored by Georgetown University Press.

Thomas H. Groome, professor of theology and religious education, wrote an essay, “What Faith and How to Educate for It,” in the collection Together Along the Way: Conversations Inspired by the Directory for Catechesis, edited by Hosffman Ospino and Theresa O’Keefe.

Associate Professor of New Testament Angela Kim Harkins’s essay “The Imaginative Experiencing of Psalms of Solomon 8” was recently published in the volume The Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts (SBL Press). Her essay “Mourning in Second Temple/Hellenistic Judaism” was published in De Gruyter’s Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Harkins was invited to deliver one of the Simultaneous Sessions at the Annual Meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association in July. She also gave a paper at the annual meeting of the Italian Centre for Advanced Studies on Religions (CISSR) in early October. Both papers deal with different aspects of her forthcoming monograph on the visions in the Shepherd of Hermas, an early catechetical text from the collection known as the Apostolic Fathers.

Callid Keefe-Perry, assistant professor of contextual education and public theology, joined the Board of Directors for the Religious Education Association on September 1, 2021. He now serves as the chair of the Committee on Religious Education in Academic Disciplines & Institutions, where he will help to deepen connections to other professional organizations and communities, allowing the work of RE scholars to have greater scholarly impact.

Richard Lennan, professor of systematic theology, published “The Ecclesiology of The Light from the Southern Cross” in The Australasian Catholic Record 98 (July 2021): 284-97. He also presented at a webinar for Catholic Religious Australia on The Light from the Southern Cross and was a keynote speaker presenting “The Church and the Dynamism of the Spirit” and “The Spirit of the Past, Present, and Future” at the Alive in the Spirit Conference in August 2021. He will be a theological advisor (peritus) for the Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in Australia during the first week of October 2021 and in 2022.

Theresa O’Keefe was promoted to Professor of the Practice, Religious Education and is on a faculty fellowship, for the academic year.

Hosffman Ospino, associate professor of Hispanic ministry and religious education, published two books recently: Reflexiones: Hispanic Ministry (Paulist Press), co-authored with Timothy Matovina; and Together Along the Way: Conversations Inspired by the Directory for Catechesis (Crossroad), co-edited with Theresa O’Keefe. He also published a book chapter, “You Too Go Out Into the Vineyard: Ministerial Formation in a Culturally Diverse Church,” in Transforming Ministry Formation (Paulist Press). His interview with Rafael Luciani, “A Closer Look at Synodality and its Promise for a More Inclusive Church,” was published in the National Catholic Reporter. He was a responder during the opening plenary session of the 2021 annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America. In September, he delivered the 2021 Escobedo Lecture at Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX, gave a keynote presentation on Hispanic Catholicism for the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Directors of Hispanic Ministry (NACDDHM), and was a member of a panel on “Synodality and the Laity,” sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth and the Catholic Apostolate Center in Washington, D.C. Ospino became chair of the editorial team for the HORIZONS Series in Religious Education, sponsored by the Religious Education Association. He and Colleen Griffith, professor of the practice of theology, received a grant from Boston College’s Office of the Provost to advance research on Formative Theological Education, leading to a book on this topic.

Thomas D. Stegman, S.J., dean and professor of New Testament, gave the inaugural lecture for the 2021–22 academic year for Hekima College and University, Nairobi, Kenya, via Zoom on August 14. The lecture was titled “Learning from St. Paul as We Begin the Academic Year,” and was followed by a Q&A. He also gave a presentation based on a chapter of his book Opening the Door of Faith to the Ignatian Legacy Fellows during their visit to the STM on September 23.

While attending his high school class reunion in June, Fr. Stegman learned that his high school baseball team, which he co-captained, has been enshrined in the Phelps County (NE) Hall of Fame to honor the state championship they won in 1979.

Andrea Vicini, S.J., professor of moral theology, the Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics, and an affiliate member of the ecclesiastical faculty, published two peer-reviewed articles: “Posthumanismus in der Populärkultur: Anhaltende Herausforderungen (Posthumanism in Popular Culture: Ongoing Challenges),” in the journal Concilium: Inkarnation im post/humanen Zeitalter; “Correggere il Genoma con CRISPR: Sfide Etiche (Correcting the Genome with CRISPR: Ethical Challenges),” in the journal La Civiltà Cattolica. He also published a book review of John Hart’s Third Displacement: Cosmobiology, Cosmolocality, Cosmosocioecology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020) in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. 

Vicini also received a grant from the Boston College Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society for the research project “Telehealth Beyond the Pandemic: The Human Work of Primary Healthcare. Communication, Relationships, and the Value of the Human in Primary Care” (together with Ashley Duggan and Monica O’Reilly-Jacob). His 2020 article “Reflecting on CRISPR Gene Editing,” published in the journal Health Progress received the honorable mention for Best Writing–Analysis in the magazine division of the 2021 Catholic Press Awards. He co-organized two international conferences at Boston College: Reimagining the Moral Life: On Lisa Sowle Cahill’s Contributions to Christian Ethics (September 10–11, 2021) and The Rising Global Cancer Pandemic: Health, Ethics, and Social Justice (October 2, 2021). He gave three lectures: “The Ethical Lessons of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in the Virtual Lecture Series (Vilnius, Lithuania); “Global Bioethics Today,” at the Boston College Bioethics Society Lunch with a Professor Series; and “Cancer in the Context of Global Inequities and Disparities in Post-COVID Times: An Ethical Reflection,” at the conference The Rising Global Cancer Pandemic: Health, Ethics, and Social Justice.