Bishop Robert W. McElroy published "A Church for the Poor" in America Magazine on Oct. 21, 2013. Following conversations with colleagues at Santa Clara University, the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, and Faith in Public Life, the Lane Center pulled together a roundtable of scholars, activists, and religious leaders to meet with Bishop McElroy and discuss how best to support his challenge, engage the Catholic intellectual tradition, and transform the public political co...

Through an ethnographically driven study of expressions of sanctuary in San Francisco, Church as Field Hospital constructs an ecclesiology that expands notions of public engagement and sacred space in Christian theology. Sanctuary practices that create spaces for those who have been marginalized—immigrants, refugees, and unhoused people—reflect the field hospital church Pope Francis has envisioned and enacted.This book investigates sanctuary as a way of being church, one m...

What is unity and how does it serve as a goal for ecumenical dialogue? How can churches, ecumenical organizations, ministers, and theologians effectively approach this goal in the twenty-first century? Sustaining the Hope for Unity offers a methodological reflection on these questions using insights of contemporary critical theory.With particular attention to the work of Jürgen Habermas, the book develops a framework for exchanging religious narratives in a postmodern cont...

2026 Catholic Media Association Third Place Award, Morality and Ethics2026 Catholic Media Association Honorable Mention, Catholic Social Teaching2026 Catholic Media Association Honorable Mention, Pastoral Ministry – Parish LifeA useful and enriching resource for empowering organizers rooted in Catholic Social Thought to engage the church on all levels and mobilize Catholics and other people of faith to enact...

Begin a dialogue on racial justice, reconciliation, and transformation.In April of 2017, the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought at the University of San Francisco sponsored a roundtable discussion on race and incarceration. The event brought together the wisdom of formerly incarcerated activists and leaders with artists, ministers and scholars of various disciplines--law, sociology, theology, critical race theory, and pastoral ministry. Participants i...

The Church in the Modern World: Fifty Years after Gaudium et Spes commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Featuring scholars from the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought, this book offers a future-orientated analysis by highlighting contemporary social issues through the lens of Gaudium et Spes. In part I, authors examine the historical, political, and social significance o...

An Ignatian Educator's Response to Supporting Immigrants and RefugeesOur broken immigration system is much more than just a daily headline in the news. It has contributed to injustices that intimately affect people worldwide. From family separation at the U.S. southern border, to the detention and deportation of loved ones, to the widespread challenges that undocumented communities face, immigrants and refugees have repeatedly responded with resilience and resistance.In thi...

The Catholic Social Tradition has concentrated on the labor of white males and assumes a patriarchal structure. But where are women in most papal documents and commentaries on them? Where is the home? Where are women of color, and where are women who toil in non-unionized sectors such as domestic work? Where are the women in the teachings aimed at achieving justice for migrants? These essays, written for this collection, examine these issues and use the framework of Catholic Social teachin...

With more than 1,400 species, bats are an incredibly diverse and successful group of mammals that can serve as model systems for many unique evolutionary adaptations. Flight has allowed them to master the sky, while echolocation enables them to navigate in the dark. Being small, secretive, nocturnal creatures has made bats a challenge to study, but over the past 50 years, innovative research has made it possible to dispel some of the mystery and myth surrounding them to give us a better un...