Conferences/Workshops

JAAZ  Lecture Series 2009-2010


We have a great venue this season: Shadow Rock, a beautiful UCC Church on 8th Avenue just south of Thunderbird Road. Pastor Ken Heintzelman and his congregation are delighted to host JAAZ this season -- and our high-profile guests.
 
All of our speakers will start making us laugh at 7 p.m., Shadow Rock United Church of Christ, 12861 North 8th Avenue, Phoenix, 85029.

TICKET PRICES: $10 in advance or at the door. Students: FREE. We are encouraging you to bring your friends by setting a price of $5 each for groups of four or more (phone two days before each event. Call 623-388-6627). Click here to sign up for the whole series, (at a discount) or for individual events, and pay with a credit card, Season subscription: $40, saving 20 percent  if you can make up your mind right now.

JAAZ's Fall/Winter Celebrity Series

Mark these 7 p.m. dates for our fall-winter celebrity season:

Tuesday, Oct. 6 - Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois.
Saturday, Nov. 14 - Sister Dianna Ortiz, on how a tortured nun survived her ordeal in Guatemala.
Sunday, Dec. 13 - Christmas Party at St. Francis Xavier's Callanan Hall.
Saturday, Jan. 16 - Dakin Mathews does a reading of his play "The Cardinal of L.A."
Saturday Feb. 13 - Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (eldest of Robert Kennedy's children and former lt. gov. of Maryland) "On Becoming a Thinking Catholic in America."
Saturday  March 13 - Jesuit Father Greg Boyle tells the story of his nationally hailed work with Mexican-American kids in East Los Angeles.


Maryknoller Roy Bourgeois Leads off Oct. 6, Asking a Courageous Question: Why Don't We Give First Class Citizenship to Our Women? JAAZ members in Tucson: Fr. Roy will be speaking at noon and at 7 p.m. at the First Christian Church, 740 E. Speedway, Tucson 85719. Noon talk on his work at the School of Americas, evening talk, "Shattering the Stained Glass Ceiling," on women's ordination.

On Oct. 21, 2008, the Vatican gave Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois 30 days to recant his public declarations that the time had come for the Church to give its women first class citizenship -- yes, even ordain them. Otherwise, he would incur automatic excommunication. Roy, who has distinguished himself in the Catholic firmament for leading annual demonstrations outside Ft. Benning, Georgia, demanding the U.S. Army close its notorious School of the Americas, has shifted gears to go after the Vatican's still-medieval stance on women. After his excommunication,he wrote a note to the Holy Office in Rome, asking the Vatican to reconsider its action. So far, he has received no reply. But he was heartened by a recent news story out of Rome that quoted a spokesman for the Holy Office who said the Bourgeois case was "pending," this because of the thousands of letters of support for Father Roy that have landed in the Holy Office. This tells us that the hierarchical Church isn't entirely immune to public opinion -- and that the excommunication was not so automatic after all. As result, he has felt free enough to respond to dozens of speaking requests around the nation.In fact, he has had to turn down a number of U.S. cities because his schedule is filled. JAAZ got to Father Roy just in time.

 

 
SATURDAY, NOV. 14- Ursuline Sister Dianna Ortiz

Sister Dianna Ortiz was an American Ursuline nun/missionary in Guatemala who was abducted one day in 1989 by security forces and taken to a secret torture center where the military goons did to her what military goons tend to do to priests and nuns seeking bread and justice.She lived to write a bestseller about her "disappearance," fulfulling her promise to tell the world what she had seen and heard. Her book, "The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth," has gone through at least four printings. JAAZ feels very privileged to bring her to Phoenix.
 


 
Sunday December 13 - 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Christmas Party
We will supply the wine, you guys surprise us with Christmas cookies and fruit (or fruit cake?) A great time, we hope, to mingle and meet our many new members.
 
SATURDAY JAN. 16 - A Bit of Broadway with Dakin Mathews

Dakin Mathews, a noted character actor on the Broadway stage (most recently, he starred in a NYC revival of "A Man for All Seasons") and on network television, will come to town to present a work of his own, "The Cardinal of L.A." Like "Doubt," the prize winning play on Broadway (and, later, movie with Meryl Streep) the play is not a polemic, but a drama that makes us think deep thoughts about a bishop and one of his sexually troubled priests. Mathews got pretty close to being ordained a priest in Rome before he turned to academe (and then the theatre) in California. He is himself very much a man for all seasons. After the play, he'd like to take questions from our audience.

 

 
SATURDAY FEB. 13 - A Lively Member of the Kennedy Clan
We've given Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, eldest daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, a kind of carte blanche to come and speak about whatever is most compelling to her in mid-February 2010. Now retired from politics (she is a former lieutenant governor of Maryland), she's most sought after on Catholic college campuses, and will stop in Phoenix on her way to Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California. Current credits: she's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Inter-American Dialogue, as well as an adjunct Professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, a Visiting Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Senior Nitze Fellow at St. Mary's College of Maryland
 

 
SATURDAY MARCH 13, JESUIT FATHER GREG BOYLE
Father Boyle has been doing some trailblazing work with young Mexican-Americans in East Los Angeles, and he has agreed to take time to come and speak to us (and, if we can get newsmedia coverage, to all of Phoenix) on a subject -- what to do with our Hispanic brothers and sisters-- that compels the interest of everyone across the political spectrum in Arizona. A few years ago, we heard him speak at a seven a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Francis Xavier. Parishioners actually clapped him when he was finished. It was the only time I ever saw that happen, and I have been a member of the parish (on and off) since 1944.
 

 
Other events in the Valley this season

Father Vernon Meyer has an all-star cast of scholars and theologians helping him present a fall/winter series on scripture and spirituality. For complete details, email him here: info@azcts.org or call 602-944-1704.

 Maureen Sullivan, one of our JAAZ members, has started an organization to bring educated Catholic professionals together for networking, socializing and fun. Next event: getting together at 6 p.m. Wednesday Sept. 9 at the Half Moon Grill, 2121 East Highland (near Biltmore Fashion Square). Go to her website www.arizonacatholicprofessionals.com or email her here: arizonacatholicprofessionals@yahoo.com or phone 720-291-9971

An organization called Single Young Adult Catholics (for ages 21-40) is planning a trip over Labor Day weekend to northern Arizona. Leave Saturday morning, return Monday afternoon. Carpools and overnight accommodations provided. For more information or to reserve your spot, contact John at 480.213.7492 or email john.villapudua@cox.net.

Finally, must report on all the events being planned this year by Penny Davis and the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology. ACFCT has theologian Robin Meyers booked for Sunday/Monday, October 18--19, at Shadow Rock United Church of Christ 12861 N. 8th Ave. Phoenix 85029. His talk (co-sponsored by Shadow Rock) has the provocative title: Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus. Keep up with all of AZFCT's activities by signing up for Penny's newsletter (which will contain news about the coming to the Valley of Marcus Borg and Matthew Fox, among others). You can email her at azfct@cox.net





























JESUIT ALUMNI IN ARIZONA (JAAZ)

 

presents a symposium on

 

CULTURE AND THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS

 

Keynote Speaker:  Professor GARY L. CHAMBERLAIN of Seattle University

                                 (author of "Troubled Waters: Religion, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis")

 

Panelists:  KATHY JACOBS, Director of the Arizona Water Institute

                   RICHARD N. MORRISON, Arizona water rights attorney and clergyman

                   SANDY BAHR, Conservation Outreach Director of the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club

 

Saturday, November 1, 2008, 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, 1401 East Jefferson St., Phoenix, AZ (parking off 15th St.)

 

1:00 p.m.:  Reception with exhibit tables and book  signing

2:00 to 5:00 p.m.:  Speaker, panel, Q & A

5:00 p.m.:  Reception with exhibit tables and book signing

 

Registration will begin on September 8, 2008.

Adults:  $15 at the door, $10 in advance

Seniors (over 65): $10 at door, $5 in advance

Students: $5 (waivers available if space available)

Group of four or more: $5 each

Mail in check (payable to JAAZ) with E-mail address to

Robert Lutz, 3020 East Thunderhill Place, Phoenix, AZ 85048.

Ticker/receipt will be E-mailed to registrant.

 

PURPOSE of the symposium:

1.  To inform the general public of the scope of the global water crisis, in Arizona and elsewhere.

2.  To make the public, including civic groups, environmental organizations, faith traditions,  teachers, and students, more aware of the part culture and religion have played in causing the crisis and what can be done to help citizens become good stewards of the earth's water.

3.  To show students and other young people that diverse communities are working together to do something about the water crisis.

 

 

 

 

CO-SPONSORS (with exhibits):

1.  Jesuit Alumni in Arizona (JAAZ)

2.  Earth Care Commission of the Arizona Ecumenical Council (aecunity.net)

3.  Arizona State University Center for Study of Religion and Conflict (csrc.asu.edu)

4.  Arizona Water Institute (azwaterinstitute.org)

 

SUPPORTERS (with exhibits):

1.  Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (azdeq.gov)

2.  Arizona Water Resources Research Center (ag.arizona.edu/azwater)

3.  Arizona Water Sustainability Office (cals.arizona.edu/arizonawet)

4.  Arizona Project WET (cals.arizona.edu/arizonawet)

5.  Arizona State Univ. Global Institute of Sustainability (sustainability.edu)

6.  Arizona State Univ. School of Sustainability (schoolofsustainability.asu.edu)

7.  Arizona State Univ. School of Global Studies (asu.edu/clas/globalstudies)

8.  Arizona Riparian Council (azriparian.org)

9.  Arizona Municipal Water Users Association (amwua.org)

10. Arizona Interfaith Movement (interfaitharizona.com)

11. Arizona Center for Theological Studies (azcts.org)

12. Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology (azfct.org)

13. Center for Biological Diversity (biologicaldiversity.org)

14. Central Arizona Project (cap-az.com)

15. Citizens Water Advisory Group (cwagaz.org)

16. Green Summit (greensummit.net)

17. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (itcaonline.com)

18. Keep Sedona Beautiful (keepsedonabeautiful.org)

19. The Nature Conservancy (tnc.org)

20. Northern Arizona Univ. Center for Sustainable Environment (environment.nau.edu)

21. North Country Conservancy (daisymountain.org)

22. Pax Christi (paxchristiusa.org)

23. The Sierra Club (sierraclub.org)

24. The Sonoran Institute (sonoran.org)

25. Sustainable Arizona Resource & Education Council (sustainablearizona.org)

26. Verde River Basin Partnership (vrpartnership.com)

 

Questions, comments, and/or suggestions welcome to

JOE WILLY at 602-971-9536 or fjosephwilly@yahoo.com