The 2023 Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas

Of Pride & Freedom Dreams, Or Why Stay Catholic in a World Full of Oppression?

In a world where forces of injustice and oppression abound, both inside and outside of religious institutions, one might greet the prospect of formal affiliation with the Catholic Church as counterproductive or worse, morally problematic. In this lecture, Dr. Craig A. Ford attempts to offer a new narrative, based in queer and black liberationist thought, for why the Catholic tradition remains a generative place from which to imagine a liberating vision for US society.

Meet our 2023 Joyce McMahon Hank Aquinas Scholar in Residence
Dr. Craig A. Ford, Jr. is assistant professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Saint Norbert College, where he teaches courses in Christian Ethics; Race, Gender and Sexuality; and Ecclesiology while also serving as co-director for the Peace and Justice interdisciplinary minor. He is also on the faculty at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies—hosted at Xavier University of Louisiana, the nation’s only Catholic HBCU—where he teaches courses on Black Theology as well as on topics in moral theology from a Black perspective. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Yale Divinity School, and Boston College, Dr. Ford writes on topics at the intersection of queer theory, critical race theory and the Catholic moral tradition. His current book project, titled Works of Art: Sexuality, Gender, Race and a New Theology of Embodiment, is currently under contract with Fortress Press, and he is working on an edited work, funded by a grant from the Louisville Institute, that will go on to represent perspectives on the future of theology told exclusively from the perspectives of queer Catholic theologians of color.

Watch the Livestream Here!