2014 Colloquium Schedule

Robyn Henderson-Espinoza (University of Denver-Iliff School of Theology): ‘Queering Mestizaje: Toward a MezQueerTaje Reality’

Mestizaje is a central theoretical concept for Latin@ religious reflection, shaping notions of ethno-racial identity, difference, and multiplicity in Latin@ communities. This paper undertakes a rethinking and expansion of the notions of mestizaje developed in U.S. Latino/a theology, considering its potential as a trope for a queering of theology. When we step away from racial or biological categories, in which the discourse of mestizaje paradoxically tends to stabilize and reify social identities, mestizaje also signifies a queer reality — materially queer essences without stable identities. Mestizaje is disruptive when figured as a gerund: becoming different and multiplying in its becomingness. This disruption allows for mestizaje to be analyzed from an ethico-onto-epistemological standpoint that is always becoming different as a result of mestizaje’s analytical retorcer and volverse. These two terms help illustrate and elucidate my attempts to queer mestizaje in that it twists and turns (retorcer) and it is also a process in its becoming/ness (volverse). Key to this interpretation is the discourse of in-betweeness in mestizaje when it comes to queer Latin@ identities. In a way analogous to the ways mestizaje figures racial/ethnic identities, I argue that the in-between space of mestizaje, or Nepantla, is a creatively generative space where new becoming is central. Queering mestizaje opens to recognition of a MezQueerTaje reality, a reality that every nepantler@ engages when s/he choose to become something other in the in-between space that mestizaje creates. Engaging in the creative space of in-betweeness casts a new light on issues of futurity for queer Latin@s.

Jeannette ‘Lil Milagro’ Henríquez (Graduate Theological Union): ‘Queering the ‘Crucified People’: Ignacio Ellacuría and Violence Against LGBTQIQQ Communities’

Despite recent gains made by the marriage equality movement in the United States including two large national victories (the Supreme Court rulings against California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act) and ten smaller state victories (through state recognition of the right of same-sex people to marriage), queer communities continue to face heavy violence/persecution at an individual and societal level. A recent report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs shows increased levels of hate-crimes against queer people, particularly people of color. Notwithstanding Pope Francis’ seminal interview on the humanity and respectful treatment of same-sex individuals, the Catholic Church has remained largely silent on the rights of LGBTQIQQ individuals. Historically understood as existing as the vanguard of social justice issues, liberation theologians have followed the example of the mainstream church by remaining voiceless on the issue of queer rights, often at the expense of the lives of those populations. Liberation theologians have been criticized for the way their limited notions of the ‘preferential option for the poor’ have silenced those who live on sexual borderlands. This presentation seeks to end that silence through a selective re-reading of one of the seminal authors on liberation theology — Ignacio Ellacuría. Using Ellacuría’s framework of the ‘crucified people,’ I seek to queer concepts of who is defined as the crucified people and who, as such, bear the weight of the often ignored social sin of homophobia. In doing so I hope to blur and expand the notion of the crucified people within Catholic liberation theology through Ellacuría’s three-fold notion of reality. In laying out the realities of queer communities as the manifestation of Christ’s crucified people en lo cotidiano, it is my hope that we can build towards a queerer understanding of a liberative future.

‘Holy Orders or Wholly Other? Gender and Authority in Catholicism’

This panel considers the engendered exclusion of women from formal ministerial roles in the Roman Catholic Church. Following an overview presentation on post-conciliar women’s activism and the Womenpriest movement, we hear from three women whose lives were steeped in the spiritualities and traditions of Roman Catholicism, but who eventually sought to fulfill their vocations to ordained ministry in other Christian denominations. This panel seeks to promote critical reflection on the historical claims of institutional Catholicism and its magisterium on the fitness of women for the Church’s ministerial function.

Theresa Yugar (Claremont Graduate University): ‘Roman Catholic Women in North America: A New Model of Ordained Ministry’

It is an exciting time for Roman Catholic woman called to the sacramental rite of priesthood. After more than thirty years of challenging the Church’s preclusion of women from ordination, with no success, women are being ordained — albeit under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Womenpriest movement, thanks to bishops in good standing who have  taken extraordinary risks to support women’s ordination. It is a sacred time in history — a Kairos moment for Catholic women who have been waiting and longing to be ordained since the early seventies. This paper surveys the Womanpriest movement in the U.S., in a larger context of Catholic women’s activism during the last thirty years. I assess (1) the movement’s response to arguments proffered by the church to justify women’s exclusion from the deaconate and/or ordained ministry; and (2) the mission, values, and visions of the Womenpriest movement, both internationally and within the United States.