The Ferree Chair offers an opportunity for faculty, staff and students to meet for lunch and discuss topics related to Catholic social tradition in the news. Additional information is available in Porches.
Join us Oct. 22 at 5 p.m. in Sears Recital Hall where Bishop Edouard Sinayobye of the Diocese of Cyangugu in Rwanda will speak about his peacebuilding, in light of his devotion to Our Lady of Kibeho, the Rwandan apparition of Mary that has been authenticated by the Vatican and his participation in the 2024 Synod on Synodality.
Learn about programs and initiatives that help to form the Catholic approach to social justice at local, national and international levels.
How can we promote the common good when we live in spaces that divide us? Brother Ray Fitz, S.M., the former president of the University of Dayton, civic leader and scholar of Catholic social teaching, raises pointed questions about the common good and our cities. In light of the Marianist charism of building local communities, Brother Ray asks, how can the church, itself so divided, be a catalyst and partner in building the regional common good? Is regional solidarity possible?
Explore conference materials in the archive.
Panelists David Ragland, co-founder of the Truth Telling Project in St. Louis, MO, Tabatha Thompson from the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Eli McCarthy, co-founder of the DC Peace Team discussed several types of nonviolent activism, particularly those currently challenging racial injustice and building new models of community security. This was the first event in an ongoing initiative to encourage engagement with traditions of nonviolent activism, especially among Catholics.
"Fr. William J. Ferree was a Marianist scholar of Catholic social thought who held that the work of social justice is building networks of people who can together change unjust systems. He spent years training Marianists to think about social structures as matters of the faith, to recognize the profoundly spiritual character of work for the common good.
"I think Fr. Ferree would be excited about this event. Our speaker this evening, Ms. Gloria Purvis, stands, with grace and boldness and in a spirit of prayer in the midst of powerful crosscurrents within the U.S. and the U.S. Catholic community. That someone who advocates for the dignity of all life would speak eloquently, thoughtfully, and powerfully about white supremacy and the beauty of blackness shouldn't be surprising. And yet, for many of us, it is. She has that rare voice that speaks the faith not as an abstraction but as a saving truth, here and now, that calls people toward full life."
Ms. Purvis began her presentation with the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.
Gloria Purvis is a graduate of Cornell University. She worked for nearly two decades in the mortgage industry before becoming a risk management director at a major financial services company. She served on the National Black Catholic Congress' Leadership Commission on Social Justice, and as an Advisory Board Member on the Maryland Catholic Conference's Respect for Life Department as well as the Archdiocese of Washington's Pastoral Council. Gloria also taught Natural Family Planning and helped prepare engaged couples for marriage as a member of a Pre-Cana team in the Archdiocese of Washington.
She has appeared in various media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, PBS Newshour, Catholic Answers Live, and EWTN News Nightly and hosted "Morning Glory," an international radio show. Her strong on-air support for Black lives opened up controversy among many of her listeners. She is Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic of the Year for 2020. Currently, Gloria is a full-time stay-at-home mother and consultant for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Religious Liberty. Listen to Ms. Purvis' podcast with America Media.
We stand at a moment of significant opportunity to make constructive social change. In particular, this summer, we've seen renewed energy in campaigns around the country for racial justice. In our first session, we focused on nonviolent action that disrupts and challenges the violence of racism.
In this second, we talk with Catholic activists. The tradition and global network of Catholic Nonviolence offers creative, spiritual paths for making constructive social change. Join us to learn from black Catholics in the U.S. and Kenya on how their Catholic faith shapes and inspires their nonviolent activism for racial justice. We will also learn about the global Catholic Nonviolence Initiative accompanying BIPOC voices from violent conflict zones, engaging the Vatican, and working to develop Catholic Social Teaching to focus more on nonviolence.
Finally, we will learn about how a U.S. Catholic peace organization, Pax Christi USA, integrates an anti-racism lens to their work.
Eliane Lakam is an experienced community organizer and trainer who believes in the power of education in nonviolent peacebuilding and reconciliation processes. Her training sessions offer ways to cultivate daily practices for living a nonviolent life and are rooted in practices that restore the dignity and humanity of those affected by violence. She is a recent graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard University.
Teresa Wamũyũ Wachira (IBVM) is a Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at St. Paul's University, Nairobi, Kenya. She specializes in the education of young women and training them for nonviolent peacemaking and reconciliation work. She is a contributor to the book Just Peace Ethic Primer: Building Sustainable Peace and Breaking Cycles of Violence.
Marie Dennis is on the Executive Committee of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative and former co-President of Pax Christi International. She edited the book Choosing Peace: The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence.
Johnny Zokovitch is the Executive Director of Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace and justice movement. Previously, he lived at and co-directed the Gainesville (FL) Catholic Worker House. He holds an M.A. in theology with a concentration in biblical studies from the University of Notre Dame.
Four faculty from Religious Studies discussed petitionary prayer with students in a far-ranging conversation about the relationship between prayer and work for justice, human freedom and God's action, and providence and history, with a special shout-out to Doctor Who mixed in.
Among others the following questions were touched upon: What is the point of praying for those who are sick or suffering, for an end to injustice or for safety on the road? Promises that "our thoughts and prayers are with them" may ring hollow, but believers continue the traditional practice of praying for each other's needs. Why? What do Christians think they are doing when they pray that God does good for us?
Fr. William J. Ferree, S.M. was born in 1905 in Dayton, Ohio. He professed first vows in 1925, graduated from the University of Dayton and pursued graduate studies at the Catholic University in Washington, DC where he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1942 with his dissertation "On the Act of Social Justice." He was the director of the Marianist Scholasticate at Mt. St. John in 1947, where he was a strong presence in the classroom and beyond.
Read the biography of Fr. Ferree (pdf) written by Sr. Gabrielle Bibeau, nFMI.
A basic theme of Fr. Ferree's life work is described as the act of social justice — that we have a moral responsibility to continually reorganize society for the common good. His theory states that society has only recently understood this concept of social responsibility — as opposed to individual responsibility — and, now knowing this, we all have a responsibility to work toward solving the disparities and social injustices that exist in the world.