Invitation to March 30 Vincentian Chair of Social Justice Lecture

M. Shawn Copeland, Ph.D., is the 2022–23 Vincentian Chair of Social Justice. She is a Professor Emerita of Boston College. In 2003–04, Dr. Copeland was the first African American and first African American woman to serve as President of the Catholic Theological Society of America. In 2018, she became the first African American theologian honored with the prestigious John Courtney Murray Award, the Catholic Theological Society of America’s highest honor.

A Catholic womanist theologian, Dr. Copeland exercises a particular expertise in theological anthropology, as well as political theology. At St. John’s, has been delivering a series of talks on Visions of Freedom: A Political Theology for Our Time.

You are invited to attend the fourth presentation in her series, “Prophetic Faith and Social Freedom,” on Thursday, March 30, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the D’Angelo Center Ballroom.

The representative democracy that is the United States has compromised non-White populations within its expanding borders. Each time, religion, legal doctrine, and myth were used to rationalize and justify the decision and the resulting actions.

The final lecture considers the role and function of religion in the US social matrix. It specifically reminds Catholic Christianity of its prophetic responsibility to repudiate enmeshment in any form of socially constructed idolatry and to work intelligently, responsibly, vigorously, and lovingly with all people of good will for the common human good.

Registration is required. For more information, please visit the Vincentian Center for Church and Society webpage. This event is open to all students, faculty, administrators, and staff, as well as the general public.