An exquisite example of kinship between women is in Luke 1:39-45 when Elizabeth, pregnant through miraculous means, greets Mary, also miraculously blest with child. This encounter is replayed today as homeless women and their caretakers are greeted and welcomed into a room where they listen to scripture of God’s love for them and a reflection of daily hope. We provide an environment of comfort and trust as a setting for these women to share their life’s stories. This is the foundation of a new ministry at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. The theologies of Edward P. Hahnenberg, Maria Harris, Michael Horan and Rosemary Radford Ruether provide foundational evidence that support the development of this ministry and provision of ministerial leadership. Establishing a ministry for women can be challenging due to the male only construct of the Church hierarchy to include the pastor and parish priest. The theologies of Augustine, Aquinas and Balthasar are rooted in human dualism favoring men over women. This view does not favor equality for women within the confines of church structure but rather views them using classical Christian theology. Protestant theologian Paul Tillich envisioned a practical scrutiny that theology is most effective if viewed within a contemporary context. It is evident to me as a Pastoral Associate candidate for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, that the theology of Paul Tillich would allow women to become Pastoral Associates and Parish Life Directors unlike classical Christian Theologians.

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As the most well-known modern Japanese philosopher around the world, Nishida Kitarō’s (西田幾多郎) (1870–1945) Buddhist-inspired synthesis of Western philosophy into a mature and sophisticated non-dualism has been studied from a variety of angles. As the main focus of his works tends to be on the expansion of true self-awareness, less attention has been paid to his account of human relations, especially as developed in his essay “I and Thou” (Watashi to nanji, 私と汝). This dissertation aims to address this with a thorough analysis of this essay, including comparisons with other thinkers such as Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, and his own student Nishitani Keiji. The pair of “I” and “thou” will be examined through the lens of temporality, alterity, and ethics as it emerges in this text and connects with his other works. These analyses will be bookended with an overview of Nishida’s early philosophy on one side and his entry into political thought late in his life, with an eye to how persons and their relation to the world and each other was theorized at these points. Although much has been made of the significant changes in Nishida’s philosophy over time, I conclude with some thoughts on his relative unity on the nature of the true individual personality, which is established within a complex dialectic of oppositions to others grounded in the non-dual foundation of absolute nothingness. / Religion

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