Father Groody publishes two new books on spirituality, justice and poverty

Author: Shannon Roddel

Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, is the author ofGlobalization, Spirituality and Justice: Navigating the Path to Peaceand editor ofThe Option for the Poor in Christian Theology,both released this month.

* * Globalization, Spirituality and Justice,published by Orbis Books, offers a critical, yet inspiring vision of justice as an integral part of Christian spirituality in a complex, globalized world. At the same time, Father Groodys analysis draws on the conviction that faith and spirituality have an integral role in the struggle to achieve a more just social order.The book offers both a theological reading of globalization and a global reading of theology.Highlighting the values from which a just world must be fashioned, it introduces readers to the core of the biblical world view, the Christian message on justice and human liberation in its historical context, and the challenge of Catholic social teaching.

Published by Notre Dame Press,The Option for the Poor in Christian Theologydraws on leading international scholarsreflections on liberation theology and its central premise of a preferential option for the poor.It explores how the Christian tradition can help us understand the theological foundations for the option for the poor. The books central focus revolves around one question: How can one live a Christian life in a world of destitution?The contributors are concerned not only with a social, economic or political understanding of poverty, but with the option for the poor as a theological concept.

Father Groody, director of the Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture in Notre Dames Institute for Latino Studies, also is the author ofBorder of Death, Valley of

Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit.He has been studying Mexican immigration for almost 20 years and recently released two film documentaries,Dying to Live: A Migrants Journey,which aired on PBS, andStrangers No Longer,which was produced for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and their Justice for Immigrants Campaign.Both seek to present thehuman faceof the immigrant, and Catholic social teaching on migration.

Father Groody recently received a fellowship to the Refugee Centre atOxfordUniversity, where he will conduct further research on theology and immigration during the coming academic year.

* Contact: * Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., 574-631-5096, _ dgroody@nd.edu
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