Saint Paul University, Ottawa
CNWE National Conference 2009
Ateliers - Workshops
Women, Sacrifice, and Embodiment
Kelley Raab
Room 1103
Drawing from her book, When Women Become Priests: The Catholic Women's Ordination Debate (Columbia University Press, 2000), and later research on Catholic women who have been ordained, Kelley Raab examines the issue of sacrifice in the context of the Eucharist. Questions explored include: How do women priests embody a different way of 'making sacrifice' at the altar? How is their 'being' as priests perceived by their congregants? And how is change in the whole idea of priesthood expressed when women are admitted?
In 2000, Kelley Raab published When Women Become Priests: The Catholic Women's Ordination Debate with Columbia University Press. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Ottawa, with a specialization in psychology of religion. In 2005 she was ordained a minister in the United Church of Christ, expanding her research into the area of pastoral theology in a mental health context. Her book Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health: Exploring Connections will be published later this year by Ashgate Press.
La spiritualité du désir et intégration de soi
Flavie Beaudet
Local 105
Le désir est un voyage intérieur en vue de connaître le souffle qui nous rend libre. L’atelier propose à chaque participante d’explorer sa valeur fondamentale, la mettre en dialogue avec sa propre histoire pour se mettre à l’écoute du Dieu d’Alliance et ainsi devenir le changement que nous cherchons au cœur de l’avenir du monde.
L’atelier se déroulera selon les approches phénoménologique et expérientielle.
Flavie Beaudet, M.A., CCC- Flavie possède une maîtrise en Counselling et spiritualité et y œuvre en pratique privée. Elle est professeure à la leçon à la Faculté de théologie de l’université Saint-Paul. Au sein de cette université, Flavie travaille aussi au Centre de formation aux ministères où elle cumule les fonctions de mentor et de coordination des stages pastoraux pour les membres étudiants du Centre.
Flavie met à profit sa formation en Beaux-Arts et en musique pour inviter les individus et les groupes qu’elle rencontre à découvrir et à explorer leur pouvoir créateur afin qu'ils œuvrent activement à l’avenir du monde dans leurs milieux propres.
Birthing Justice: Maternal Mortality as a Theological Issue of Injustice
Eileen Kerwin-Jones
Room 1140
Pregnancy is neither a disease nor an illness. Nonetheless what should be a positive, defining moment in a woman's life is often a time of profound fear, intense suffering and untimely death. According to the WHO, at least 1600 pregnant women die every day in our global community. Those women who die are often the most impoverished. Using a feminist liberation analysis, we explore maternal mortality as a global issue of economic and gender injustice. We ask why maternal mortality is often invisible economically, despite the essential contributions of women to all economies. We reflect on the reasons why minimal theological reflection, even within liberation theology, has been given to the qualitatively different poverty experienced by women and the problem of maternal death and disability. We consider the multiple 'jeopardies' of women's lives that structure their vulnerability to maternal mortality, including their lack of reproductive health and autonomy. Finally, we draw on the insights of the Christian feminist liberation ethicist, Beverly Harrison, to seek resources for liberating change.
Eileen Kerwin Jones has a background in public health and midwifery. Eileen has a doctorate in theological ethics from Saint Paul University. She is an independent scholar and activist with teaching and work experiences in Canada, England, Africa and India. Her areas of interest are liberation theological ethics, feminist studies, globalization, international health and economics. She is a founding member of PACT-Ottawa, an NGO concerned about the problem of human trafficking.
Women as Peacemakers: Being the Change
Mary-Ellen Francoeur
Room C8
As women, we carry the sacred potential to be peacemakers in our world. We will ground ourselves in the life and energy of women ancestors who have been extraordinary agents of healing, of "shalom". We will reflect on some such women of our own day and their lives as call to our courage and faith. Remembering moments in our own lives which revealed to us directions for conversion and growth, we will consider personal commitments to inner change, and new behaviour. Our explorations will be strengthened by body experience and felt-sense.
Sr. Mary-Ellen Francoeur is a Sister of Service now living in Montreal. Earning her doctorate in clinical psychology at the U. of Ottawa in 1976, she has lived most of her life in Ontario involved in healing ministries integrating mind-body-spirit. She is a trained spiritual director, and also offers Reiki and Shibashi. Working with aboriginal people in northern Ontario for many years, she was drawn into the ministry of peace and nonviolence with persons of all faiths. She served as President of Religions for Peace Canada for several years and is now Past-President.
Being the Resurrection
Susan Roll
Room 1141
Easter is traditionally about the risen Christ, and women's involvement is limited to that of witnesses who saw the empty tomb. In this workshop participants will be invited to identify and share instances in their own lives in which they have come close to "death" in some way, and then have "risen to new life." Out of these lived experiences we will develop together a vocabulary and new natural and artistic symbols to help us reflect fully the image of the risen Christ. We will explore what it means for women to embody the risen Christ and to claim our Christic identity.
Susan Roll is a professor of liturgy and sacraments in the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, and former director of the Centre for Women and Christian Traditions. Originally from Buffalo, New York, she served as a college chaplain for nine years before embarking on graduate studies in theology at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, where she received a Ph.D. in 1993 with a dissertation on the origins of Christmas. Susan gave a workshop at CNWE's 1999 meeting in Kemptville and has been a member since 2003.
Being the Change We Seek: The Role of Ecofeminist Knowing
Jessica Fraser
Room 1110
This workshop explores the nature of ecofeminist knowing as it is described by Ivone Gebara in her book Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation. Participants will learn about the relationship between and how and what we know, and the implications of such knowing. Through individual exercises and group sharing, we will explore the possibilities of ecofeminist knowing for becoming the change we seek in the world.
Jessica Fraser is a PhD candidate at Saint Paul University. Her research explores the relationship between knowledge and change in response to the ecological crisis. She is influenced by the work of Sallie McFague, Ivone Gebara and Thomas Berry, among others. Jessica teaches and facilitates workshops on ecology, feminism, and theology. She is also active in the Green Party of Ontario and Canada.
Becoming the Body of ChristSophia: seeking embodied personhood, community and understandings of God
Michele Birch-Connery and Monica Kilburn Smith
Room C4
Through reflection, dialogue, and gentle movement, Michele and Monica will explore our experiences as women, using the language of the body and embodied language to open insights into who we are, what we experience, and what we long for and need in our spiritual, pastoral and community lives.
Michele will explore embodied word and the idea of coming upon our theology from lived pastoral and sacramental realities. She will show the way language and participatory liturgy can lead us into this by sharing written experiences from the first in an envisioned series of essays in her collection Church in the Rough. Monica will lead us in gentle movement, breath awareness, song and circle dance, awaken to the wisdom, beauty and sacramentality of our bodies. Together, we'll explore how a pastoral approach to the body and an embodied approach to the pastoral might help us create a world and church of compassion and justice for all -- including ourselves.
Monica Kilburn-Smith, B.A. Fine Arts, Grad Dip Dance Therapy, MTS, is a certified professional chaplain, dance therapy practitioner, Reiki master and certified spiritual director. She has been facilitating movement workshops (and other kinds of spirituality groups) for over twenty years. Her passion lies in exploring the intersections of spirituality, ritual and the arts; creating community; and helping one another to awaken to the sacredness of our bodies, our true selves, and Creation.
Michele Birch-Conery Is Canadian first, born in Vancouver in 1939 and American 2nd having become a Naturalized American citizen in 1979 and a dual citizen of Canada/USA after returning home in 1985. How did I become a Canadian American and then Canadian again? I joined the Sisters of the Holy Names in 1963, left in 1974 due to intellectual quandaries and stayed in the US to work and obtain a Masters in Creative Writing and a Doctorate in English Literature. I went into this disciplining study with important questions about why we could not get at the truth of ourselves as women in Roman Catholicism. Now I am prepared to share from that knowledge by listening to and interating with others who must have discovered how we stand in the truth of ourselves now.
Michele and Monica are both ordained Roman Catholic Womenpriests.
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CNWE National Conference 2009
Friday June 12 ~ Sunday June 14, 2009
Saint Paul University, Ottawa
With Keynote Speaker, Ivone Gebara,
Professor at the Theological Institute of Recife,
Brazilian Sister of our Lady
A leading eco-feminist and liberation theologian
who lives with and advocates for poor women
Ivone Gebara
The Conference will also host performers“ Women of the Well”
and facilitate workshops, dialogue and vibrant liturgies!
~ All on the scenic Saint Paul campus close to downtown Ottawa!
See link to "CNWE National Conference" for registration form.
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