Mujerista Theology’s Divine Resistance

podcastOPTalks
Written By Open Plaza

Scholars Amanda Bolaños and Amirah Orozco discuss mujerista theology, pneumatological ecclesiology and lo cotidiano

Réplica de la Señora de Cao, Cultura Moche [Replica of the Lady of Cao, Moche Culture], Departamento de La Libertad, Peru, 2007. Photo: Manuel González Olaechea y Franco

 
 

In this episode of OP Talks, Amanda Bolaños talks with fellow graduate student Amirah Orozco about mujerista theology, pneumatological ecclesiology and lo cotidiano (the everyday). Bolaños asks Orozco to imagine a conversation with late activist and theologian Ada María Isasi-Diaz for whom lo cotidiano was central to her work. Bolaños and Orozco are close friends and theology doctoral students at Duke Divinity School and the University of Notre Dame, respectively. Orozco credits the work of Isasi-Diaz as part of the foundation that led her to ”understand what mujerista theology was more directly and become sort of aware of the different style and the different flavor that mujerista theology gives us.” 

If she could talk with the late Isasi-Diaz, Bolaños asks Orozco, what would she ask? “I think that my big conversation with her would be [about] Pope Francis,” said Orozco. “I think it is a real tragedy that we don't have her around to be thinking with us in this moment where the [Roman Catholic] church is opening up in a new way.”

 
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Amanda Bolaños

Amanda Bolaños is the Stanley Hauerwas Scholar and a ThD candidate of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Her research interests include offering a real, pastoral, and critical perspective in the systematic success and harm of religion in communities through the praxis of Latinx liberation theology, feminist theology, Catholic Social Teaching, and virtue ethics. Bolaños was born in Palm Springs, California to a Guatemalan father and an Italian-Canadian mother. She is a Roman Catholic who aspires to converse about the present effects of a diaspora space, to offer a critical perspective of euro-centered aestheticism, and to shed light on those who have complex, beautiful, and multifaceted identities. She holds an MTS degree from Duke Divinity School (2022), an MA in Theology from the University of Notre Dame (2020) and BA in Political Science and Perspectives (Theology/Philosophy) from Boston College (2018) where she received the George F. and Jean M. Bemis Award. Bolaños currently serves as the Young Adult Minister at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, NC.

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Amirah Orozco

Amirah Orozco is a theology doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame in the area of Systematic Theology, with a minor in Gender Studies. She is also a Doctoral Student Affiliate with the Kellogg Institute of International Affairs. Her interests center on mujerista and feminista latine thought as well as Catholic ecclesiology. Orozco’s scholarship pursues liberation and emancipation of the poor and marginalized, focusing on decolonial theologies and feminist movements in the Catholic Church. Her work is anchored in how social movements relate outside of the Church and why those relationships are important to understanding the role of the Church in public life. Orozco originates from the Border between El Paso,Texas and Juárez, Chihuahua, has worked with Latine immigrants in Boston and Chicago, and conducted research in Zacatecas about the legacy of San Luis Batiz Saenz and Mexico’s post-revolutionary church-state relations. She holds a Master's of Theological Studies from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry (2021) and a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston College (2019).

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