JournalTOCs

Vincentian Heritage Journal
Number of Followers: 1

This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 0277-2205
Published by DePaul University

[4 journals]

About Vincentian Heritage
- PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:28 PST
Additional Contributors
- PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:25 PST
C-Void
- Authors: Amaris Casiano-Zoko
  Abstract: Poetry.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:23 PST
Pandemic, Poverty, and Power: Biosocial Ethics of Global Solidarity for
Health
- Authors: Stan Chu Ilo Ph.D.
  Abstract: Stan Chu Ilo takes a detailed look at the vulnerabilities of the poor within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and of global inequities in general, with a special focus on marginalized people in Africa. Because of its impact on the social determinants of health, which are explained, racism has exacerbated the pandemic’s effects. For this reason, Chu Ilo explores different definitions of power. He advocates a biosocial ethical approach to health—one that considers how people’s living conditions and behavior on both the global and individual levels affect health care decision-making and health outcomes. He discusses the need for the Church and the world to commit to a “prophetic praxis of hope”—“a change in mindsets, change in our ecclesial priorities and practices, and change in the Church’s teachings, institutional culture, and hierarchy of power and privilege.” He calls Catholic universities like DePaul to be “laborator[ies] for creating a new global vision of justice that is built on the power of love.”
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:20 PST
Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Race as Exposure to Early Death
- Authors: Traci Schlesinger Ph.D.
  Abstract: A majority of the largest, single-site outbreaks of COVID-19 infections in the United States have been in prisons and jails since the beginning of the pandemic. These outbreaks threaten the lives and well-being of incarcerated people, correctional staff, and people who live in the communities to which incarcerated people return. This study employs both linear and logistic multivariate regression models to examine data from the UCLA’s COVID Prison Data Project, IPUMS CPS, the National Center for Health Statistics, and the Prison Policy Initiative to better understand the facility, county, and state-level predictors of COVID-19 infections and deaths in correctional facilities. The study finds that while some facility-level characteristics are associated with infections and deaths, county-level racial and economic characteristics matter more. In particular, facilities in counties with more Latinx and Indigenous people and lower average incomes have higher infection rates. Likewise, the odds that someone in a facility has died from COVID-19 are higher in counties with more Latinx people, lower average incomes, more college graduates, and fewer people who never married. Moreover, state-level policy changes to address this crisis have failed to do so effectively. While this study is unable to access how county-level characteristics influence these facility-level outcomes, it does demonstrate a clear connection between racialization and exposure to early death.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:16 PST
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Homelessness: Depaul International Responds
- Authors: J. Patrick Murphy C.M; Ph.D.
  Abstract: A member of the Vincentian Family, the nonprofit Depaul International serves people who are homeless throughout Europe and the US, a mission which became much more difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic. After giving some of the organization’s history, J. Patrick Murphy describes the challenges that staff and service users faced and how both groups (and donors) responded in extraordinary ways. He offers specific stories from different countries that illustrate how “staff shared common Vincentian values, provided leadership, increased communication, and shared resources and best practices across boundaries.” Depaul International members were asked what Vincent de Paul would say of their work, and their reflections are presented in their original words.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:14 PST
“Learning Not to Despair of Our Own Age”: The Society of Saint Vincent
de Paul in This Time of Pandemic
- Authors: Timothy P. Williams
  Abstract: In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul marked the 175th anniversary of its founding in the United States. The Society’s usual works are described. Timothy Williams explains how the organization adapted to continue them during the pandemic, and particularly how it substituted for the home visits that have been the Society’s signature work since its founding. The Vincentian Family and the Society were created in times of political strife, widespread illness, and economic catastrophe, so the words and actions of their founders can inspire and comfort us now. The Society took special action in response to George Floyd’s murder. As Williams writes, “Our response began with self-examination, grounded in our spirituality and in our obligations to each other as Christians. To understand the faults we perceive in society, we must have the humility to examine and accept our own faults.” A webinar series allowed members to share their stories related to social issues, such as economic discrimination, crime, and violence. After the webinars, paired groups of members of different races shared more of their experiences. This strengthened their understanding of each other and equipped them to better serve their neighbors.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:11 PST
The Graces of 2020: Catholic Campus Ministry Students Seek Out Blessings
Amid a Tumultuous Year
- Authors: Amanda Thompson MDiv et al.
  Abstract: Two staff members at DePaul University’s Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM), Amanda Thompson and Dan Paul Borlik, CM, offer their thoughts and those of CCM student leaders on the COVID-19 pandemic and other societal issues facing the US in 2020. The article relates how these issues affected the DePaul community. It also discusses how the students were formed in the practice of critical theological reflection and how they applied it as they experienced and responded to the crises of this terrible year. The authors note the particular relevance of the Exodus story in coping with 2020’s crises.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:08 PST
Online Community Engagement Enhances Service Learning
- Authors: Dan Baron et al.
  Abstract: DePaul University’s Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning created a program called Online Community Engagement (OCE) to safely connect students with communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. As this article says, “OCE provided self- directed modules including reading materials and videos for students focused on issues such as mental health, immigration, community organizing, police accountability, and gentrification. The modules culminated with a live online events on Fridays featuring guests from DePaul and Chicago communities.” OCE proved highly successful, especially because it provided a way for students to meet community organizers. The article profiles some of the most salient lessons featured in OCE as well as student feedback about them. OCE will remain part of the post-pandemic curriculum.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:06 PST
Critical Perspectives on Our Current Moment: An Experiment in Teaching for
2020
- Authors: Jane Eva Baxter Ph.D. et al.
  Abstract: During the summer of 2020, the DePaul College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (LAS) offered twenty-two incoming students a special interdisciplinary online course, giving them the opportunity to learn and reflect on the crises of 2020 with faculty, staff, and one another. This article’s authors (who are the class’s faculty and students) describe the construction and execution of this course and reflect on the experience. Course topics included “the social contract; equity and justice; historical, cultural, and artistic responses to upheaval; global interconnections; and the way forward.” The course fulfilled DePaul’s mission to help students “engage questions of intellect and ethics in our contemporary world.” Students created reflective maps that connected what they were learning to their own lives and feelings, and they submitted videos explaining the project. Five appear in this article, illustrating how students learned to think differently and embark on new kinds of action.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 10:06:03 PST
Creativity Can’t Be Canceled: DePaul Students Express Their Pandemic
Experience Through Art
- Authors: Lin Batsheva Kahn
  Abstract: This is an online exhibition of undergraduate students’ art in a variety of media, created as a response to their own experiences of the pandemic. As non-art majors, the students “discovered their untapped creative resources while learning creativity can’t be canceled.”
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 09:43:26 PST
A Vincentian Reading of the Pandemic: Hope Beyond All Reasonable
Expectation
- Authors: Guillermo Campuzano C.M.
  Abstract: Guillermo Campuzano, vice president of DePaul University’s Office of Mission and Ministry, reflects on the inequities and societal and environmental fragility that the COVID-19 pandemic reveals. Vincentian spirituality and theology have always been attuned to what is happening in the world and finding God’s call to action within current events. They can be used to maintain hope and a sense of God’s presence in the midst of the world disaster and can shape our response to the problems we are facing. Campuzano describes the pandemic’s effects on the university community and how the university’s leadership responded, drawing lessons that can be applied to society as a whole. As he writes, “God is calling us. We are being asked not only to respond adequately to the emergency, but to transform our way of life, and to relate to nature, to others, and to God in a more humane way as Jesus showed us in the gospels. . . . God is found not in the virus, but in the strength to respond to it with wisdom, solidarity, intelligence, and compassion.”
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 09:43:23 PST
The Guiding Principles of Leading and Living Through a Pandemic
- Authors: A. Gabriel Esteban Ph.D.
  Abstract: DePaul University’s president, A. Gabriel Esteban, outlines the guiding principles that the school’s leadership followed to care for its students, faculty, and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. He gives specific examples of how these principles were put into practice and explains how they reflected Vincentian values and made it possible to continue the Vincentian mission, both during the pandemic and beyond. He also describes how the teaching innovations and policies put in place during 2020 will change the DePaul’s approach to the future.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 09:43:20 PST
Introduction. 2020: DePaul University’s Community Responds to Crises
- Authors: Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée Ph.D.
  Abstract: Dr. Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée, who is DePaul University’s Dennis H. Holtschneider Endowed Chair in Vincentian Studies, introduces this special issue of Vincentian Heritage. He reflects on what it was like living through 2020 and explains the thinking behind the creation of this issue and the selection of its component parts.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 09:43:17 PST
Opening Image Essay
- Authors: Olga Rozenbaum et al.
  Abstract: Two members of the DePaul University community each supply and reflect on one image that was emblematic of their experience early in the pandemic.
  PubDate: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 09:43:14 PST