Catherine M. Mooney

Catherine Mooney teaches church history and the history of Christian spirituality and theology at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry. She has a Master’s in Theological Studies (M.T.S.) from Harvard Divinity School, and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in medieval history from Yale University. She has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA. Mooney lectures in the United States and internationally in both scholarly and religious venues. Her research has been supported by awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Harvard Divinity School, and the Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University, NY. Mooney’s next book explores how the historical Clare of Assisi’s image was refashioned after her death to suit the differing agendas of popes, Franciscans, and others.

Besides her scholarly work, Mooney remains active in a variety of human rights efforts. While living in rural Argentina during its military dictatorship and “Dirty War” during which thousands of Argentines were disappeared, tortured, and killed in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, she advocated for an exploited indigenous group in whose struggle for justice she remains involved today. For almost thirty years, she has worked for the Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights (www.martinbarofund.org), a fund named for one of the Jesuits assassinated in El Salvador. The Fund has raised and distributed well over a million dollars to grassroots groups around the world working to counter the effects of institutionalized or state-sponsored violence.