with Michael J. Himes / McGuinn Hall 121

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Thesis advisor: Mary Ann Hinsdale / This dissertation explicates and evaluates the theological anthropology of David Tracy. Through a reading of the whole of Tracy's published theological corpus, it argues that Tracy's work on theological method, hermeneutics, public theology, and otherness rests on an implicit and evolving understanding of the human person. This anthropology is rooted in four key characteristics or "anthropological constants": finitude, relationality, sin, and grace. The methodological approach of the dissertation is genealogical and hermeneutical. Each of these four constants is taken as an interpretive lens through which the dissertation considers the development of Tracy's thought. This approach will demonstrate first how finitude, relationality, sin, and grace are interwoven in Tracy's work, and second how the development of his core theological loci of method, interpretation, public-ness, pluralism, and otherness are rooted in these four constants. The text concludes with an evaluation of Tracy's theology anthropology in light of his context as a North American, late 20th century, Catholic theologian. Tracy's work provides insight into the interdependence of theological method and anthropology. However, while he attends to the importance of how historical, linguistic, and social context shape human persons, his conceptual approach to context tends to ignore particularity and embodiment. Nevertheless, the four "constants" of Tracy's theological anthropology could fruitfully engage contemporary currents such as ecotheology and disability theology. This dissertation is the most thorough and sustained foray into the question of David Tracy's theological anthropology to date, and as such provides a significant contribution to the field of 20th/21st century North American Catholic theology. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Liberation, womanist, and feminist theologians re-imagine hope in light of suffering in a variety of communities, via the narratives of cross and resurrection. They insist that hope is shaped by its context and always practiced in response to particular suffering. This dissertation takes the experiences of women who have lived through domestic violence as the locus theologicus in which to investigate the question: “What constitutes hope after domestic violence?” A Catholic practical theological examination of House of Peace, a Latina domestic violence shelter, recasts hope after domestic violence as the practiced communal embodiment of an open and ambiguous future. The first chapter presents domestic violence as a theological problem, tracking the past half century of feminist and trauma theologies’ questions and concerns in regards to domestic violence. Chapter two provides a survey of liberation theologies of hope (Metz, Moltmann, Sobrino, Isasi-Díaz, Haight, Johnson) and highlights the importance of hope as a communally embodied practice profoundly shaped by its context. The third chapter turns to the insights of womanist theologians (Williams, Terrell, Copeland, and Crawford) who conceptualize hope in the midst of Black women’s experiences of race- and gender-based violence. The fourth chapter investigates Latina theologians, Ivone Gebara and Nancy Pineda-Madrid, who present hope as what emerges through embodied practices of resistance. Their vision of fragile redemption yields insights for a constructive feminist reading of the Gospel of Mark’s “Empty Tomb” resurrection account. Chapter five re-imagines the “Empty Tomb” narrative and hope through the healing narratives and practices of the House of Peace, highlighting the possibility for everyday practices and relationships to mediate hope. The community at House of Peace practices the biblical story differently, thus challenging a singular, extrinsic understanding of the crucifixion and resurrection. They renew the concept and practice of hope—emphasizing embodiment and imagination—in alignment with both Latina and Catholic commitments. This examination of contextual communal practices and narrations of hope after domestic violence contributes to the fields of Catholic practical theology, feminist theology, and trauma theology.

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With Dr. Ph Josef Čeněk of Wartenberk, auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Hradec Králové, later of Salzburg, we find ourselves in the Austrian Empire, at the time of Josephinism, in a turbulent era of the first half of the nineteenth century. Josef Čeněk enters actively into the era of national revival, when it is possible for him to publish several volumes of his Sermons in Czech language, in order to shape believers and bring them to deeper knowledge of the Catholic faith. In this work, we follow his concept of Christology and Soteriology, how he understands the person of Jesus Christ and how he presents him to believers. Keywords: Josef Čeněk of Wartenberk; Christology; Soteriology; Jesus Christ; Sermons

Title: The Poet of the Word: Christology in the Work of T.S. Eliot The thesis focuses on the Christological analysis of the work of T. S. Eliot, a poet, dramatist and critic. The thesis is divided into two chapters. The first chapter describes historical and cultural background of Eliot's work, basic facts about his life and his literary and critical input. The first chapter is concluded by a reflection about the reception of T. S. Eliot in the Czech Republic and about the translation of his work to Czech. The second chapter contains the Christological analysis of Eliot's poetry and plays. The chapter starts with an analysis of Christological titles in individual poems. The second part of the chapter deals with the important moments of Jesus' life mentioned in Eliot's poems and dramas. The chapter also simultaneously contains references to particular places in the Scripture, which are relevant for given poems. Keywords Christology, T. S. Eliot, Catholic Theology, English Literature

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In the writings of the Vatican, the United States and Latin American bishops, and various theologians since the 1950s, Catholic social thought has generally failed to understand the pernicious depth of the system of racial classification, discrimination, and violence in the Americas. Catholic social thought still sees racism as based on the pre-existing, valid category of "race," requiring individual conversion and social effort. What is required instead is seeing the very concept of " race" as what must be rejected as the product of a racist ideology of politico-economic oppression and developing an anti-racist theological response that overcomes and eliminates this deadly ideology. It involves a re-imagining of the Imago Dei as the image of Jesus on the cross, of Mary and the women at the foot of the cross, as a direct confrontation with the principalities and powers that are invested in racist ideology, where the human and divine are connected through the cross and affirmed in the resurrection. It invokes a re-imagining of Laudato Si' as an anti-racist teaching, using many of the same ideas Pope Francis uses for his integral ecology to overcome the racist ideology that is inextricably tied up with modern capitalism and environmental despoliation.