Notes and Comments
- Notes and Comments
Association News
In light of the continuing public health crisis, the American Catholic Historical Association has regretfully cancelled the in-person annual conference originally scheduled for Seattle, January 2021. The ACHA earlier cancelled its Spring Meeting at the University of Scranton, originally scheduled for April 17–18, 2020. The public health emergency presented by COVID-19 closed the University of Scranton campus until at least April 12 and made holding any gathering impractical and inadvisable. As an alternative to the Annual Meeting, the Program Committee and Executive Council have planned a series of four webinars drawn from accepted panels for the Annual Meeting. The ACHA Annual Business Meeting will take place virtually after the January webinar. See the ACHA website for further details.
Annual elections of ACHA leadership have been suspended for one year and the new President and Executive Council will be inaugurated in New Orleans in January 2022. Given limited opportunities to meet this year, and the cancellation of the annual meeting, the Executive Council seeks additional time to manage our delayed and/or cancelled ACHA activities.
The ACHA'S Executive Council has approved the following statement on Racism and Complicity:
"As a scholarly association dedicated to promoting a deep and widespread knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church broadly considered, the American Catholic Historical Association reaffirms our condemnation of racism, and acknowledges the Catholic Church's troubled history of complicity in white supremacy as a participant in imperial projects in the Americas, and the United States specifically. We recognize Catholic pasts of slave holding, segregation, and policing, among other parts of this history. The ACHA further recognizes the importance of non-violent protest to a democratic society and the long history of Catholic participation in it, and celebrates the centrality of witness to the Catholic tradition. While each of these has been the subject of crucial study by scholars of Catholicism, we recognize that the work of history is ongoing, and calls us to reflect, to engage in work of companionship, solidarity, and discernment, and to seek [End Page 662] wisdom in how to talk with one another about difficult issues tearing at our nation. We honor knowledge produced within the Black community and other marginalized communities, and seek to center it across this work.
"Our corollary mission is the advancement of historical scholarship through the support of our diverse membership. This means providing the resources that we need to learn, educate, and reflect on the past in service of the present and the future. To that end, we invite all ACHA members who are able and interested to share resources that illuminate racial violence and expropriation from the perspective of Catholic history, along with the voices and experiences of Black Catholics that have often been omitted from narratives of the Catholic past.
"The Executive Committee therefore solicits the membership to think about recommended books or articles, primary source documents or texts from your research, or links to a recorded talk or oral history. Please share those resources and your reflections on them with us via social media with the hashtag #achahistory and tag @achahistory, e-mail them to us at acha@achahistory.org, or send them to us using the form below. We will repost them for the education and edification of our membership on our social media and here on achahistory.org."
In partnership with the University of Notre Dame's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, the American Catholic Historical Association will launch the Cyprian Davis, O.S.B., Prize. It celebrates the life and legacy of Father Cyprian Davis, O.S.B. (1930–2015), a Benedictine monk of Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana, respected academic, and beloved teacher and lecturer who pioneered the study of the history of Black Catholic in America. The prize recognizes outstanding research on the Black Catholic experience. Please submit an application form with the following documents attached: current curriculum vitae; 1,000-word project description, including plans for publication. Applications must be submitted with required materials by December 31, 2020. Applicants will be notified by early March and will be invited to the annual meeting of the...
