ROMAN CATHOLIC CAUCUS -
LESBIAN & GAY CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT
PO BOX 24632, LONDON E9 6XF -
www.rccaucuslgcm.co.uk - lgcm_rccaucus@hotmail.com
MEDIA RELEASE - THE 5TH ALAN BRAY MEMORIAL LECTURE - IMMEDIATE CIRCULATION - 30 JUNE 2008
The Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement is pleased to announce that The 5th Alan Bray Memorial Lecture will take place on Saturday, 18 April 2009 at St. Anne's Church, 55 Dean Street, Soho, London W1D 6AF.
The 2009 Lecture will be delivered by Professor Emerita Margaret Farley RSM, who has held the The Gilbert Stark Chair in Christian Ethics at YaleDivinitySchool and Yale University Department of Religious Studies, USA.
Professor Farley's theme will be Sacrament of Desire through which she will explore ethical issues regarding same sex relationships, and the nature of marriage as sacrament.
A Sister of Mercy, Margaret Farley is a leading moral theologian in the English-speaking Catholic world. She is a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and the Catholic Theological Society of America. She has also co-founded the All-Africa Conference, a project bringing together African women religious to develop strategies for responding to the HIV pandemic, particularly in Africa.
Professor Farley has published over 80 articles or chapters of books on medical and sexual ethics, social and feminist ethics, as well as six books. Her latest book, Just Love: a framework for Christian Sexual Ethics is published by Continuum, and
recently appeared in paperback.
As on previous occasions there will be a response to the Lecture, and the Roman Catholic Caucus is delighted to welcome Terry Prendergast, Chief Executive of Marriage Care, whose speaking, writing, and pastoral support in the field of marriage and
human relationships has been so significant in the UK.
The Alan Bray Memorial Lecture was established in 2002 to honour one of the foremost social historians of the time. Alan Bray died in 2001, just one year before his final work, The Friend, was posthumously published by the University of Chicago Press. As with his first book, Homosexuality in Renaissance England, Bray challenged the prevailing silence of social and religious institutions as they sought to bury the histroical and spiritual realities of lesbian and gay people.
A founder-member of the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement and its Roman Catholic Caucus, he was received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 1985. An obituary described him as: A ground-breaking historian whose first book created a new field for an entire generation of literary critics, historians, and gay activists. A second book, The Friend, seems likely to do the same 20 years on.
The Alan Bray Memorial Lectures, sponsored by the Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement, seek to explore the historical, social, political, and theological questions raised by Alan Bray's commitments. Previous speakers have included Professors Elizabeth Stuart, Mark Jordan, Conor Gearty, Robert Wintemute, Gerard Loughlin and James Keenan SJ, along with Aidan O'Neill QC and Dr. Julie Clague.