- We seek articles from theologians working in health care and those in academics.
- Papers should respond to the questions and ideas of this prompt:
This issue calls for papers that examine the current professional landscape, roles, and responsibilities of academic theologians and Catholic health care mission/ethics leaders as well as their relationship to one another. While both groups face challenges, there are significant opportunities for collaboration, support, and professional mobility. While academic jobs can be highly competitive, they play a critical role in the life of the church, the development of the Catholic moral tradition, and the responses of people and the church to practical moral matters. Jobs in Catholic health ministries are also important, considering that they contribute to the decisions and strategies of a significant church ministry, guideactions involving complex ethical issues as they unfold, and form leaders with the knowledge and skills necessary to lead a ministry of the church. Nevertheless, there is a surprising disconnect between academic theologians and Catholic health ministry leaders, both in terms of employment crossover as well as scholarly engagement. Academia and Catholic health ministries would both benefit from strategic efforts to put the realms of scholarship and ministry in conversation, collaboration within the process of educating people and sharing information about career opportunities, dialogue about rising moral matters that require scholarly and practical attention, and the sharedresponsibility to prepare the next generation of people who are trained to support the scholarly and ministerial dimensions of the moral tradition.
- We invite people to respond to one or more of the following questions: Why areseeminglyso few theologians interested in making a move into Catholic health care, where opportunities are plentiful and salaries high? Is the current theological literaturedealing with traditional, but especially, emerging ethical issues in health caresufficient given the practical and specific challenges faced by Catholic health ministries?Are there new thinkers and resources addressing these issues and supplementing the works of those likeMay, O'Rourke, and McCormick, onwhich Catholic health care ethics classes still rely heavily in preparing theologians and ethicists?What needs to be added to the "canon"? Whyis it important to interject new voices into contemporary ethical debates in health careand what is needed to develop such literature? To what degree should Catholic ministries forgo theology training as an essential qualification for rising mission and ethics leaders, and what ought to be done about the difficulty in findingqualifiedcandidates for open positions? Are theologians adequately supporting the ministry of Catholic health care? Is Catholic health care adequately supporting the work of theologians and theological education? Is there sufficient communication from Catholic health ministries to theologians about moral challenges that require scholarly attention? What is the role of theologians with respect to high-profile, controversial ethical questions pertaining to health care, and does this role differ from mission or ethics leaders working in Catholic health ministries?Do and should ethicists and theologians working in universities and Catholic health care have the same level of academicfreedom?What roles do academic theologians and Catholic health care leaders play in negotiating ecclesial elements of controversial moral matters? What should be the relationship between theologians, Catholic health care ethics, and Catholic health ministries, and how can we make manifest such a relationship?
- Submissions accepted throughMay 15,2018, with earlier submissions preferred. Email papers in Word to Rachelle Barina, Tobias Winright, and Nathanial Hibner at ,, and . All papers will be subject to peer review, with ample time for revision before publication. The volume will be published in January 2019.
- Submissions should conform to the standards and style of the Journal of Moral Theology.
- More information on the Journal and previous issues available at: