Dr. C. Vanessa White, assistant professor of spirituality and ministry at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, will deliver the inaugural Cyprian Davis Lecture at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, St. Meinrad, IN.
Her lecture, “Journeying with the Saints: Black Catholics on the Road to Sainthood,” will be held on Tuesday, February 11, at 7 p.m. Central Time in St. Bede Theater.
White is also director of the Certificate in Pastoral Studies and the Certificate in Black Theology and Ministry at Catholic Theological Union. She is a member of the summer faculty of Xavier University of Louisiana’s Institute for Black Catholic Studies in New Orleans.
She has a Bachelor of Science degree (Northern Illinois University, 1978), Master in Theological Studies (Catholic Theological Union, 1991) and a Doctor of Ministry (Catholic Theological Union, 2005).
White is co-editor of a book of prayers (with Dr. Cecilia Moore and Fr. Paul Marshall, SM), Songs of the Heart and Meditations of the Soul, and contributing author for Amoris Laetitia: A New Momentum for Moral and Pastoral Formation. She is also a regular contributor to the daily prayer journal Give Us This Day, as well as inaugural contributor to the web-based Catholic Women Preach series.
A former convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium, an interdisciplinary association of Black Catholic theologians and scholars, and a member of the board of directors of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, White works with Bishop Joseph N. Perry (postulator for the cause) promoting the cause of Venerable Augustus Tolton.
She has received the F. Sadlier Dinger Award from the National Conference of Catechetical Leadership, the Juan Diego Award for Service to Lay Ministry in the Church from the National Association of Lay Ministry, the Augustus Tolton Award from the Archdiocese of Chicago, and Doctorate of Humane Letters from Franciscan University.
Fr. Cyprian Davis, OSB, was a professor of Church history at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. His award-winning book, The History of Black Catholics in the United States, is regarded as the essential study of the American Black Catholic experience. He was a founding member of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus and a contributor to Brothers and Sisters to Us, the 1979 pastoral letter on racism published by the United States Catholic bishops. He died in 2015.
The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available at St. Bede Hall and in the Guest House and student parking lots. For more information, call Mary Jeanne Schumacher at (812) 357-6501 during business hours.
