Contributions: María Teresa Dávila
María Teresa (MT) Dávila is Associate Professor of Practice and Chair of the Department of Religious and Theological Studies at Merrimack College, North Andover MA. Her work focuses on the areas of migrant and racial justice, the option for the poor and Catholic social teaching, the ethics of the use of force, and public theology. With Agnes Brazal, she is co editor of Living With(out) Borders: Theological Ethics and Peoples on the Move (Orbis, 2016). Her work appears regularly in the Theology en la Plaza column in the National Catholic Reporter, Syndicate, and Political Theology Today. She is a Roman Catholic laywoman.
Contributions: Miguel H. Díaz
Miguel H. Díaz is the John Courtney Murray, SJ, University Chair in Public Service at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Díaz served under President Barack Obama as the ninth U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. He is a co-editor of the series Disruptive Cartographers: Doing Theology Latinamente and author of the third volume in the series, Queer God de Amor (Fordham). As a public theologian, Professor Díaz regularly engages print, radio, and television media. He is a contributor to the “Theology en la Plaza” column for the National Catholic Reporter. As part of his ongoing commitment to advance human rights globally, he participates in several diplomatic initiatives in Washington, D.C., including being a member of the Atlantic Council, a member of the Ambassadors Circle at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and a member of the Board and Senior Fellow for Religion and Peacebuilding for the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP).
Contributions: Néstor Medina
Néstor Medina is a Guatemalan-Canadian Scholar and associate professor of Religious Ethics and Culture at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto. He engages the field of ethics from contextual, liberationist, intercultural, and post and decolonial perspectives. He studies the intersections between people’s cultures, histories, ethnoracial relations, and forms of knowledge in religious and theoethical traditions. He also studies Pentecostalism in the Americas. Among his publications, Medina is the author of Christianity, Empire and the Spirit (Brill, 2018), On the Doctrine of Discovery (CCC, 2017), a booklet, and Mestizaje: (Re)Mapping ‘Race,’ Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism (Orbis, 2009), which was the winner of the 2012 Hispanic Theological Initiative book award.
Contributions: Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández
Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández is Professor of Hispanic Theology and Ministry and the director of the Hispanic Theology and Ministry Program at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A Latin@ theologian, her publications include the book Theologizing en Espanglish (Orbis, 2010), as well as numerous chapters, scholarly and pastoral articles on Latin@ theologies, theological education, lo popular, sport and theology—with particular focus on béisbol/baseball and Pope Francis on sports. She created, coordinates, and is an author for the Theology en la Plaza column in the National Catholic Reporter and her writing has appeared in Commonweal. The founding co- editor of the multivolume series Disruptive Cartographers: Doing Theology Latinamente, she is also completing her book ¿El Santo? Baseball and the Canonization of Roberto Clemente (Mercer University Press). A past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), she received their Virgilio Elizondo Award for distinguished achievement in theology.
Foreword: Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi is President emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Culture and President of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology. A professor of exegesis of the Old Testament, he taught in Milan at Facoltà Teologica dell’Italia Settentrionale and from 1989 to 2007 he served as prefect of the Ambrosian Library. Since March 2012 he has been president of the cultural association Casa di Dante in Rome, dedicated to making the works of Dante known throughout Italy and abroad. In 2011, he inaugurated the initiative, “The Court of the Gentiles, which earned him international acclaim. This initiative sought to bridge Christian faith and reason by engaging in critical conversations with a wide range of publics. He is a prolific writer who has authored some 150 volumes, mostly in biblical studies, as well as numerous popular publications.
Contributions: Jean-Pierre Ruiz
Jean-Pierre Ruiz teaches on the faculty of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at St. John’s University in New York, where he is also a senior research fellow of the Vincentian Center for Church and Society. He is a noted Nuyorican biblical scholar and theologian, and his publications include the Catholic Press Association Award–winning book Readings from the Edges: The Bible and People on the Move. A past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the U.S. (ACHTUS), he received their Virgilio Elizondo Award for distinguished achievement in theology. During the Obama administration, Ruiz served as a member of the U.S. Department of State’s Working Group on Religion and Foreign Policy. Ruiz’s research interests include the Apocalypse of John, the place of the Bible in the colonization of the Americas, the Bible and migration, and interreligious dialogue (especially Jewish- Christian dialogue).
