The Just Word

"The Necessity of Nonhuman Life for Life" with Alex Moore

Today Alex Moore invites us to explore the necessity of nonhuman life for human life, with the help of Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai; engages Catholic Social Teaching in its use of water for ritual and life; and helps us embody our reliance on nonhuman life with an exercise in the backyard, or wherever we find a patch of grass.

"For baptism, our watery environment brings us to God. The water is clean, not laced with industrial waste, and kept and cared for by our religious leaders. Here, through God’s creation, we are provided with a key to experience God more intimately and fully. By holding baptism as a tenet of our faith, we hold that water is essential to this life, even if we do not profess it in a creed."

Alex Moore is a professional writer based in the Greater Cleveland region. He enjoys writing poetry, technical content, and nonfiction essays. In his spare time, Alex loves to be outdoors and visit thrift stores.

Catholic Women Preach

"Being Present to One Another" with Bridget McDermott Flood

Preaching for the Third Sunday of Advent, Bridget McDermott Flood offers a reflection on being present to one another:

"Our faith and the presence of God within us takes our joy to another level, and also requires another level of generosity...This Advent, it is not enough to experience the joy of the Season embodied in Christmas trees and holiday lights. True joy comes from taking time with those whom we love, with those who are lonely, and with those who are in need."

Bridget McDermott Flood has been the executive director of the Incarnate Word Foundation since its inception in 1998. Her passion is bringing the Sisters' Incarnational Spirituality to the Foundation's work in neighborhoods and community. She is the author of "Blue Hole Wisdom: My Journey with the Sisters." She is a life-long South St. Louisan and also a ceramic artist at Carondelet Pottery, her studio in South St. Louis, as well as a beekeeper and quilter.

January 23 at 7pm ET

How Everyday Americans (Don’t) Talk About Abortion with Tricia C. Bruce, Ph.D.

Using data from in-depth interviews with hundreds of everyday Americans, Sociologist Dr. Tricia Bruce underscores the imperative of productive conversations about abortion in a post Roe v. Wade era. Her research exposes the limitations of available labels, assumptions, and boundaries separating Americans' moral and legal views. Study insights help to forge pathways beyond polarization, making room for greater complexity, ambiguity, understanding, and cross-cutting collaborations.


Tricia C. Bruce, Ph.D. (University of California Santa Barbara) is a sociologist of religion with expertise in organizational, attitudinal, and generational change. Her award-winning books and reports include Parish and Place; Faithful Revolution; American Parishes; Polarization in the US Catholic Church; and How Americans Understand Abortion. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal; Time Magazine; Science Advances; Review of Religious Research; U.S. Catholic Historian; and more. She is President-Elect of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Past-Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Sociology of Religion Section, and an affiliate of the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Religion and Society.

February 20 at 7pm ET

Co-Creating Beauty: Queer Bodies and Queer Loves Beyond the Anathemas with Craig Ford, Ph.D.

Dr. Ford's presentation, "Co-Creating Beauty: Queer Bodies and Queer Loves Beyond the Anathemas" explores how our roles as co-creators with God allows for new ways to understand the truth revealed by sexuality and gender identity beyond the boundaries of heteronormativity. Such redeployment of this theological status as co-creator, Ford argues, may provide a pathway beyond the impasse currently experienced at the level of official church teaching with respect to these topics.

Craig A. Ford, Jr., is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Saint Norbert College, where he teaches courses in Christian Ethics, Ecclesiology, and on Race, Gender and Sexuality while also serving as Co-Director for the Peace and Justice Interdisciplinary Minor. He is also on the faculty at the Institute for Black Catholic Studies—hosted at Xavier University of Louisiana, the nation’s only Catholic HBCU— where he teaches courses on Black Theology as well as on Topics in Moral Theology from a Black Perspective. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Yale Divinity School, and Boston College, Dr. Ford writes on topics at the intersection of queer theory, blac studies, and the Catholic moral tradition. His most recent book project, All of Us: The Future of Catholic Theology From the Perspectives of Queer Theologians of Color is a co-edited volume with Bryan Massingale and Miguel Diaz, drawing scholars and activists from North and South America, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and Europe who seek to chart new directions for Catholic theology when the oppressive realities of racism, heteronormativity, and sexism within church and world are engaged equally and fiercely. This volume is currently under contract with Fortress Press.

February 29 at 7pm ET

Lenten Fasting and Body Hatred: A Feminist Critique with Jessica Coblentz, Ph.D.

Join us as Jessica Coblentz presents on her article “Catholic Fasting Literature in a Context of Body Hatred: A Feminist Critique” in which she argues that the social conditions of misogynistic body hatred and the culture of fasting during Lent perpetuates disordered eating.

Jessica Coblentz, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Theology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, where her research and teaching focuses on Catholic systematic theology, feminist theologies, and mental health in theological perspective. She is a graduate of Santa Clara University and Harvard Divinity School, and received her PhD from Boston College. She was previously a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute in Collegeville, Minnesota, and has taught at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California.

March 28 at 7pm ET

Consent in the Context of the Annunciation with Megan McCabe, Ph.D.

Join us as Megan McCabe, Ph.D. discusses building a culture of consent in the context of the Feast of the Annunciation. Dr. McCabe will speak on her work on sexual justice and social sin in the United States with a special emphasis on consent in the context of the Assumption.

Megan K. McCabe, Ph.D. is assistant professor of religious studies at Gonzaga Univeristy. She works in the areas of Catholic moral theology, theological ethics, and feminist theologies. Her research and teaching respond to questions of human responsibility for suffering and the correlative duties to work for social transformation. She engages questions at the intersection of moral theology, social ethics, liberation and political theologies, feminist theologies and ethics, and issues of gender and sexuality. Her current research develops an understanding of “cultures of sin,” specifically in the context of an examination of the problem of the cultural foundation of sexual violence.