Near and Far

::: Photo © Las Hermanas Collection, Center for Mexican American Studies & Research, Our Lady of the Lake University ::: Our director, Bill Cavanaugh, chats with University of Notre Dame doctoral student Amirah Orozco, about the group of Latina women known as "Las Hermanas." Organized in the wake of Vatican II as the Chicano Movement was taking shape in the U.S, these women forged an identity as L...

CWCIT's director Bill Cavanaugh sits down with Alejandra Oliva, a Mexican-American author, translator, and immigrant justice advocate, to explore the connections between faith, language, and migration, which she writes about in her 2023 book "Rivermouth" and which she understands on a personal level through her family history, asylum cases she has worked on since 2016, and accompaniment work she d...

CWCIT's director Bill Cavanaugh sits down with historian Sergio González to unpack the connections between faith, the ethic of hospitality, and social justice movements in Latino communities in the 20th-century Midwest, especially Sergio's home state of Wisconsin. A historian of 20th-century U.S. migration, labor, and religion, Sergio is assistant professor of history at Marquette University. His...

As an idea and practice, sanctuary has a long, vexed presence in American politics and social movements. In her recent book, "Sanctuary People," Gina Pérez, PhD, looks at how activists, service providers, and faith leaders and congregations in Ohio (where she lives and teaches) tapped into the long histories of faith-based and secular organizing to help the Latina/o immigrant and migrant communiti...

The World Cup, the Super Bowl, the Olympic Games—arguably, these and other sporting events are among the most "sacred" events on the calendar for people around the world. But how should Catholics and other Christians think about the role of sports in society, communities, churches, and families? In this interview with CWCIT's Michael L. Budde, J. J. (Jay) Carney thinks through such timely question...

Jodi Mikalachki is associate professor of English at the University of Burundi’s Institute of Applied Pedagogy in Bujumbura. She has written extensively on gender and nationalism. Her current project focuses on nonviolent responses to grief and loss in post–independence Burundi. Her essay, “Narrating Violence in Burundian Genocide and Civil War Literature: Pacifique Irankunda’s Playing at Violence...

Jakob Egeris Thorsen joins CWCIT's Bill Cavanaugh to talk about the complex relationships among traditional Mayan Catholics, mainstream Catholics, and Protestants in the Guatemalan town of Santiago Atitlán. A Catholic theologian at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, Prof. Thorsen is married to a Guatemalan woman and has spent years in Guatemala researching the effects of modernization on traditi...

In this podcast, CWCIT's Karen Kraft speaks with Sr. Dr. Maria Vasantha about her life as both a religious sister and medical doctor who is skilled in both Western and traditional Indian medicine. Sr. Dr. Vasantha discusses her involvement with the Sister Doctors Forum of India, her medical work in the impoverished Tamil Nadu state, and the Catholic Church in India's support and promotion of tradi...

CWCIT director Bill Cavanaugh speaks with Paul Gifford, emeritus professor of the study of religions at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London, about contemporary Catholicism on the African continent. Among the topics they cover are the Catholic Church in Africa's huge involvement with development, its relative lack of interest in ecumenism, and its vulnerability in...

In this podcast with CWCIT's Stan Chu Ilo, Dr. Kochurani Abraham discusses her advocacy for gender equality in India and her ecumenical leadership in holding churches to account in India in the fight against rape, and other forms of gender violence against women. She also speaks of where she sees signs of hope for women and her prophetic witnessing in bringing about signs of hope in the lives of w...

Sr. Joan Mumaw, IHM, joins CWCIT's Stan Chu Ilo to talk about her advocacy work for South Sudan, especially through the nonprofit that she directs, Friends in Solidarity. They discuss the nonprofit's many accomplishments, the various violent situations and challenges that women religious face in South Sudan, and how the Church can aid in the complex political situation with de-escalation efforts a...

CWCIT’s Bill Cavanaugh talks to David Cayley about Ivan Illich, the brilliant, idiosyncratic, and revolutionary Catholic priest and cultural critic. Cayley is an award-winning journalist and author who became good friends with Illich and has written several important books with and about him. In this interview, David and Bill concentrate on Illich's critique of the Western medical establishment an...

Alexandre Martins is a young theologian and bioethicist from Brazil who teaches at Marquette University. In this interview, Alex and CWCIT's Bill Cavanaugh discuss his work bringing together liberation theology and health care ethics, examining the way that medicine for profit distorts the true care of the body and soul. Among other topics, they discuss Dr. Martins work with indigenous communities...

A CWCIT interview with Sr. Catherine Mulligan, DC, regional coordinator for 13 years of the Daughters of Charity’s Kenya mission, which includes projects like Project DREAM. An extraordinarily successful, innovative health care model launched in Nairobi, DREAM now provides free state-of-the-art, holistic treatment for HIV/AIDS in 6 sub-Saharan countries: Mozambique, Nigeria, Congo, Cameroon, Tanza...

A CWCIT interview with Fr. Joseph Fitzgerald, CM, a Vincentian priest who has served in Panama since 2005, shortly after being ordained. In 2007, he began serving at the Vincentian mission in Soloy, traveling to 50+ villages throughout the mountains, often on foot or horseback, to work with and minister to the Ngäbe people, who are Panama's largest indigenous group and among the poorest. In additi...

A CWCIT interview with Yasmine Cajuste, project development manager for the FamVin Homeless Alliance (FHA) and former education coordinator for the Vincentian Haiti Initiative. A native Haitian who has been active in the International Vincentian Family since high school, Yasmine is also a wife, mom, and graduate of DePaul University where she earned her MA in educational leadership. (Learn more ab...

A CWCIT interview with Andrés McKinley, a mining and water specialist at San Salvador's Central American University (UCA). In March 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban metal mining, safeguarding its natural resources and its people's health. Leading the push was the Catholic Church and key to the effort was McKinley. Born in the U.S., McKinley has lived in Central Americ...

A CWCIT interview with Fr. Bernhard Udelhoven, MAfr, a longtime missionary in Zambia. Fr. Udelhoven holds an MA in social anthropology (SOAS University of London) and has 20 years' experience in mediating witchcraft-related disputes in Zambia. For CWCIT's 2018-19 Spiritual Works of Mercy lecture series, Fr. Udelhoven gave a talk at DePaul University on the topic of this podcast's title. In the Wes...

A CWCIT interview with Fr. Patrick Chibuko, professor of sacred liturgy at the Catholic Institute of West Africa in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He discusses Pope Francis’ ecclesiological paradigm, or model, of the Church as a “field hospital.” And he argues that this new model needs to be ritualized and cemented into the sacramental and pastoral life of parishes through appropriate, corresponding litu...

A CWCIT interview with Fr. Emmanuel Katongole, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a co-founder of the Bethany Land Institute (BLI) in Uganda. BLI was inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’, and born as a response to three interrelated problems: food insecurity, deforestation, and land depletion in Uganda. BLI is an educational program dedicated to forming the poor and exclu...

A CWCIT interview with David Gaus, MD, an American physician and public health expert who is the founder/CEO of Andean Health & Development (AHD), a nonprofit that provides high-quality, sustainable health care in rural Ecuador and operates a residency program for local family physicians. For CWCIT's 2017-18 Corporal Works of Mercy lecture series, Dr. Gaus gave a talk at DePaul University on "visi...

A CWCIT interview with Chris Herlinger, author of "Food Fight: Struggling for Justice in a Hungry World" and an international correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report, covering the U.N. and humanitarian challenges in South Sudan, Bangladesh, Haiti, and the Middle East. For CWCIT's 2017-19 Corporal Works of Mercy series, Herlinger gave a talk at DePaul University on...

A CWCIT interview with Fr. Amado Picardal, CSsR, a Filipino Catholic priest, human rights & peace advocate, and former spokesperson for the Coalition Against Summary Execution (Davao, Philippines) and for the Network Against Killings in the Philippines. For CWCIT's 2017-18 Corporal Works of Mercy lecture series, Fr. Picardal gave a talk at DePaul University related to the work of mercy that is "bu...

A CWCIT interview with Kevin Clarke, senior editor & chief correspondent for "America" magazine. For CWCIT's 2017-18 Corporal Works of Mercy series, Clarke gave a talk at DePaul University on the international refugee crisis and the Catholic response, particularly in the U.S.; this interview addresses that topic and related aspects of his work.