Catholic Afterlives: What Identities and Practices Persist When Catholics Leave the Church?
Abstract
A documentary by renowned German filmmaker Wim Wenders,听Pope Francis: A Man of His Word聽offers a candid and unconventional look at the Catholic pope, who has captivated the world, and continues to invigorate the role and vision of the modern Catholic church. The film offers the opportunity to hear Francis discuss his papacy in his own words, in an intimate format: if the viewer suspends disbelief for even a moment, it is as though he or she were sitting in the same room as the pope. The Boisi Center is proud to offer a screening of this compelling documentary, with a panel discussion to follow.聽
Speaker Bio
Mara Willard聽is an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, where she also is affiliated with聽Jewish Studies and Women's and Gender Studies.聽A board-appointed member of the American Academy of Religion's Committee on the Public Understanding of Religion, her research focuses on聽the intersection of religion, ethics, and politics in the twentieth聽century. Her first book,听Politics after the Death of God聽(currently under review by Oxford University Press), presents a fresh reading of Hannah Arendt, demonstrating that Arendt's聽diagnoses and聽proposed cures for modern state violence聽made creative use of intra-and post-Christian聽theological debates.聽
While at Boston College, Willard will also advance her research on聽the so-called "Crisis in the Church" of 2002. This book project considers how聽lay聽and clerical initiatives for ecclesial reform in聽response to the clergy sex abuse scandal聽were conditioned by Catholic practices and priorities as well as聽class and cultural shifts of post-war Catholicism.
Willard聽received a B.A. with distinction from Swarthmore College, holds an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School聽and聽Ph.D. from聽Harvard Graduate School of聽Arts and Sciences. She grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and has vivid childhood memories of sitting in traffic on Boston College game days. She is living for the year in the town of Arlington, with her spouse Chris Railey and their two boys, ages 9 and 6.
Event Photos
Mara Willard, assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, presented her research on the cultural identities, preferences, and affiliations of those who no longer claim a relationship to the Roman Catholic Church.
Photos by MTS Photography
Event Recap
Mara Willard, assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, delivered a luncheon colloquium at the Boisi Center on the topic of 鈥淐atholic Afterlives.鈥� Dr. Willard is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Boisi Center, where she has been advancing her research on the so-called 鈥淐risis in the Church鈥� of 2002. The latter is a book project that considers how initiatives for ecclesial reform in response to the clergy sex abuse scandal were conditioned by the practices and cultural shifts of post-war Catholicism. Her March 23 lecture, which served as a forum for scholars to deliberate the paradigmatic prospects and challenges of her scholarly enterprise, addressed one principal query: What cultural identities, social affiliations, and aesthetic preferences persist among Catholics who leave the Church? 聽
Willard began by foregrounding the theological origins of her study as well as defining terminologies related to her project. One such origin is the outdated framework in the study of religion. Sociologists and anthropologists have customarily evaluated the growing body of Catholics that no longer claim a connection to the Roman Catholic Church through a lens of 鈥渋nstitutional loss.鈥� This understanding, Willard stressed, neglects post-affiliative roles (e.g., 鈥渁lumni鈥� and 鈥渧eteran鈥�) and effaces 鈥淐atholic afterlives.鈥� Another origin is the post-Vatican II biblical encyclicals on birth control. However, Dr. Willard dates her personal i