Clough School of Theology and Ministry honors Elsie Miranda
Elsie Miranda, director of diversities at the Association of Theological Schools, (ATS) was presented with the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry’s Alumni Distinguished Service Award at an October 24 event on the Brighton Campus. She is the fifth recipient of the award, which was established in 2018.
Miranda earned a master’s degree in pastoral ministry with a concentration in religious education from Boston College in 1995. Prior to joining ATS, she spent 22 years at Barry University’s Department of Theology and Philosophy, most recently as associate professor of practical theology and director of ministerial formation. A member of the board of the Catholic Theological Society of America, she is a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States.
She has contributed to the edited volumes Hispanic Ministry in the 21st Century: Urgent Matters and Hispanic Ministry in the 21st Century: Present and Future. She is co-editor and contributor to Calling for Justice throughout the World: Catholic Women Theologians on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic. She is co-editor of the forthcoming book The Meaning of Being Human, Synodal Considerations. In her research and teaching, she explores contemporary theological issues at the intersections of science, culture, and the Church in the modern world.
“We are thrilled to honor you as you, have embodied the mission of the Clough School of Theology of Ministry in your own work,” said Clough School Dean Michael C. McCarthy, S.J., who presented Miranda with the award. “The good work that you are doing in your many ministries will have lasting positive effects in the Church and the world.”
Honoree Elsie Miranda presented the Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. Lecture on October 24. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
Reflecting on the legacy of her Boston College education, Miranda said, “What I learned in my time at Boston College is that whatever work we do in theology we must do for the greater glory of God. From Melbourne to Miami and all the places in between, friends and family of Boston College have our hearts seared with that motto.”
Prior to the award presentation, Miranda delivered the Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. Lecture, titled “Bridging Empire and Barrio: The Here and Not Yet of the Kin-dom of God.” Fr. Harrington, the lecture’s namesake, was a Clough School of Theology and Ministry professor and renowned New Testament scholar who died in 2014.
Miranda’s lecture was about how empire and barrio need to find their way to be mutually inclusive and not mutually exclusive. She said there should not be a kingdom, where power is exerted from above for obedient sheep to be docilely controlled, but rather a kin-dom, a relational, inclusive community that comes together because of a love of God and faithfulness to the Word.
In her talk she recalled a transformative experience she had in 2014 when she traveled to Cuba to teach a summer continuing education class in the Archdiocese of Santiago. It was her first visit to the country her parents had left in 1961. Cuba had no internet and was, in her words, "a disaster” in terms of infrastructure, health care, and opportunity, but the kindness of the people moved her. Her encounter with people she said “who had lost a future because of a political regime that limited every single possibility they had as human beings” led her to question “what has happened to our Christianity that we have not been able to transform the losses, the suffering, the dead, the denial, and the lies that continue to be told in this place?”
Upon her return to the U.S., Miranda founded the Cuban Evolution Foundation, a charitable organization that promoted critical consciousness and human dignity through education, the arts, and Christian ministerial praxis.
As she closed her lecture, Miranda used the work of award-winning architect and structural engineer Santiago Calatrava—notably the Oculus in New York City and harp-shaped Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin—to evoke a visualization that promoted innovation and imagination as means to envision a new way forward where barrio and empire work together to manifest the kin-dom of God in the here and now.
“It is time for us to engage our imagination with generosity of mind and heart, and to reconsider the audacity of Christ Jesus, who as a faithful Jew challenged the laws that oppressed and ostracized and diminished value. Do we have the audacity, the chutzpah, to challenge the oppressive laws of institutions who don't listen, who don't see, and who say, wait, give us some more time?"
She added: “We must be willing to be present to the lonely. We must be willing to listen to the brokenhearted, to heal the wounds that lie beneath the surface of our skin. Because to be a bridge between empire and barrio, you must be a lover of Christ. So my friends, fall in love and be the kind of bridge that manifests the kin-dom of God in the here and now.”