Bryan Massingale, STD, one of the world’s leading Catholic social ethicists and scholars of African-American theological ethics, racial justice, and liberation theology, will join the Fordham theology faculty in the fall of 2016.
Father Massingale comes to Fordham from Marquette University, where in 2009 he received that institution’s highest award for excellence in teaching.
He has served as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium, and holds two honorary doctorates.
He has written over 80 articles, book chapters, and book reviews for publications, including Theological Studies, New Theology Review, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Philosophy and Theology, Journal of Religion and Society, The National Catholic Reporter, and Catholic Peace Voice. His book, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Orbis Books, 2010) won a first place book award from the Catholic Press Association.
J. Patrick Hornbeck, PhD, chair of Fordham’s theology department, said it’s difficult to move around the realm of progressive Catholic theology without coming across Father Massingale’s contributions.
“His work on advocacy for both racial justice and justice in the realm of sexual ethics is incredibly well known all around the country. Many Fordham colleagues assign his work in their classes, and several Fordham doctoral students draw heavily on his work in their dissertations,” he said.
Hornbeck noted that Racial Justice, which challenged and encouraged the Catholic Church to welcome people of all different racial and ethnic identities, epitomizes the kind of scholarship that the department promotes today. Ethics, justice, and social change have been paramount in faculty scholarship.
“It became clear to us in the theology department that what we were lacking was someone who could speak both out of deep experience and out of deep scholarship about the experience of racial justice in the United States,” he said.
“There really is no person in the Catholic theological academy who excels at doing such work in a creative and intersectional way than Father Massingale.”
Father Massingale will present “Beyond ‘Authentically Black and Truly Catholic’: Black Catholic Identity for a New Time” on Monday, Feb. 22 at 6 p.m. at the Lincoln Center campus. For more information, visit the Curran Center event page.
