Alumni talks highlight Clough School of Theology and Ministry's fall events
Among a full slate of fall events, the Clough School of Theology of Ministry will host a talk by Boston College alumnus Sam Sawyer, S.J., editor in chief of America Media, and present its Alumni Distinguished Service Award to Elsie Miranda M.A. ’95, director of diversities at The Association of Theological Schools (ATS).
Fr. Sawyer’s talk, titled “From Polarization to Communion,” will take place on October 10 at 5:30 p.m. in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons, cosponsored by the Church in the 21st Century Center. In the face of growing polarization in the United States and in the Catholic Church, nationally and globally, Fr. Sawyer will call for a vision to work for something better. He says the mystery of communion—being bound together into the larger life of the Church—provides a starting point.
Sam Sawyer, S.J.
A Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program member who graduated from BC in 2000, Fr. Sawyer began working at America Media in 2015 and served as a senior editor and director of digital strategy before taking on his current role in 2022. He entered the Jesuits in 2004 and was ordained a priest in 2014. The same year as his ordination, he earned a M.Div. from the Clough School. A resident of New York City, he assists at St. Francis Xavier Church, a Roman Catholic parish in the Jesuit tradition. Â
On October 24, Miranda will give the annual Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., Lecture on “Bridging Empire and Barrio: The Here and Not Yet of the Kin-dom,” at 5:30 p.m. in the Heights Room. As a Cuban American and practical theologian, she has focused her research interests on the intersection of faith and how socio-culture and socio-political realities impact both human formation and efforts toward peace and justice at local and global levels. Miranda’s lecture will invite attendees to discern their own personal and collective responsibilities to be gente puente (to be the bridge) between empire and barrio that makes manifest the kin-dom of God in the here and now.
Her address is cosponsored by ATS, which provides programs, services, research, and other resources to support the work of administrators and faculty at the more than 270 graduate schools of theology in the U.S. and Canada in its membership.
Elsie Miranda
That evening, Miranda will receive CSTM’s Alumni Distinguished Service Award. Miranda—who holds a master’s degree in pastoral ministry with a concentration in religious education—was named director of accreditation for ATS in 2018, and transitioned to director of diversities in 2023. She previously served on the ATS Committee for the Revision of the Standards from 2012 to 2014, and has served on many evaluation teams and as a member of a peer group examining programs for the ATS Educational Models and Practices project. Prior to joining ATS, she was on the faculty at Barry University, most recently serving as associate professor of practical theology and as director of ministerial formation.
Past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians in the United States, she serves on the Formation and Religious Education Committee for the V Encuentro, a national conference on Hispanic ministry in the U.S. coordinated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She is also a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Association of Practical Theology. Her scholarship includes contributions to the edited volumes Hispanic Ministry in the 21st Century: Urgent Matters and Hispanic Ministry in the 21st Century: Present and Future. She is a coeditor and contributor to Calling for Justice Throughout the World, Catholic Women Theologians on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic.
Both lectures are organized by CSTM’s Continuing Education program and are being presented in a hybrid format. To register to attend in person or virtually, go to the Clough School's Continuing Education webpage.