Outreach is delighted to announce the appointment of four gifted Jesuits to serve on our first Jesuit Board of Advisors. Even though we operate under the auspices of America Media (whose editors and staff offer us their wisdom, resources and prayers), we have long hoped to have a more “formal” board of Jesuit advisors. We hope to rely on our Board of Advisors to offer advice on our various ministries (including our website, conferences and regional events), suggest possible contributors and perhaps write articles themselves, as well as, of course, support us with their prayers.
Our Jesuit Board of Advisors is another visible sign that Outreach is not simply a ministry of America Media (far less of just the Outreach staff), but a ministry of the Society of Jesus. It is a pastoral ministry for LGBTQ Catholics—and their families, friends and allies—that seeks to follow the “Universal Apostolic Preferences” of the Society of Jesus, especially that of “Walking with the Excluded.”
Sam Sawyer, S.J., editor in chief of America Media, said, “I am grateful for our Jesuit brothers’ availability to help Outreach, Father James Martin, Michael O’Loughlin and myself in ongoing discernment about how to serve LGBTQ Catholics and the church in this ministry and excited to learn from their perspectives and experience in ministry.”
Our new Jesuit Advisory Board members are (in alphabetical order).
James F. Keenan, S.J.
Father Keenan is the Canisius Chair, Director of the Jesuit Institute and Vice Provost of Global Engagement at Boston College. A Jesuit priest since 1982, he received a licentiate and a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has edited or written over 25 books and published over 400 essays, articles and reviews worldwide. In 2003, he founded Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (C.T.E.W.C.), an international network of ethicists, and subsequently hosted three international and six regional conferences. Today C.T.E.W.C. has its own book series and is a live network of over 1,000 Catholic ethicists.
In 2015, Father Keenan wrote University Ethics: How Colleges Can Build and Benefit from a Culture of Ethics (Rowman and Littlefield) and in 2022, A History of Catholic Theological Ethics (Paulist Press). In 2023, Georgetown University Press published The Moral Life: The Martin D’Arcy Memorial Lectures.
In 2019, he received the John Courtney Murray Lifetime Achievement Award from the Catholic Theological Society of America and from 2020–2021, he was President of the Society of Christian Ethics. Father Keenan entered the New York Province of the Society of Jesus in 1970.
Recently, nearly two dozen scholars from the United States and abroad have contributed to a new book that recognizes the influence of Father Keenan’s work. Bothering to Love: James F. Keenan’s Retrieval and Reinvention of Catholic Ethics (Orbis Books) is an edited volume of essays from many of Father Keenan’s 42 former doctoral students who explore the realm of Catholic ethics through Father Keenan’s body of work as a moral theologian. The Festschrift pays tribute to Father Keenan’s “many and distinguished contributions to the Church and the academy” and also seeks to carry his work forward by advancing the future of Catholic moral theology.
Father Keenan has written four articles for Outreach: on “Dignitas Infinita,” the Synod of Bishops, the German theologian Stephen Goertz and Outreach’s own ministry.
Timothy Kesicki, S.J.
Father Kesicki is the Rector of the Bellarmine House of Studies, a community of Jesuits in formation at St. Louis University. He was formerly the President of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Jesuit Conference promotes common goals and oversees international projects for the Society of Jesus. He also serves the Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Trust and Foundation, a ministry that responds to Jesuit slaveholding in the United States. As Conference President, Father Kesicki worked with the Jesuit Provincials of the United States and Canada in implementing various programs, representing the Conference internationally, and serving as the religious superior of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry and the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California. He now serves on the boards of Loyola University of Chicago,and Red Cloud Indian School.
Prior to leading the Jesuit Conference, Father Kesicki served from 2008 through 2014 as the Provincial of the Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus.
In 1984, Father Kesicki entered the Society of Jesus at Loyola House Jesuit Novitiate in Berkley, Michigan, after graduating from John Carroll University. His formation as a Jesuit included philosophy studies at Loyola University Chicago, theology studies at the Jesuit School of Theology and studies in educational administration at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. From 2000-2008 he served as president of Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland. He served Jesuit Refugee Service in Adjumani, Uganda, after his ordination to priesthood in 1994.
Father Kesicki served the Board of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (C.M.S.M.) from 2014–2021. He also served as a consultant for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (U.S.C.C.B.) Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations.
Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, S.J.
Father Orobator is Dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in California. He joined the Jesuits in 1986 and was ordained in 1998. Fluent in four languages, Father Orobator received his Ph.D. in theology and religious studies from the University of Leeds in England, his M.B.A. from Georgetown University, and his licentiate in sacred theology from the Jesuit School of Theology, from which he also received an honorary doctorate in 2012. He received a bachelor’s degree in theology from Hekima University College in Nairobi, Kenya, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Institut de Philosophie Saint Pierre Canisius in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Father Orobator was previously provincial superior of the Jesuits of the Eastern Africa Province and President of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar. He has taught theology and religious studies at Hekima University College, St. Augustine College of South Africa in Johannesburg and Marquette University in Milwaukee. He serves on the board of directors of Theological Studies and the board of directors of Loyola Marymount University.
He is author of the books Theology Brewed in an African Pot, Religion and Faith in Africa: Confessions of an Animist, based on Duffy Lectures he delivered at Boston College; and The Pope and the Pandemic: Lessons in Leadership in a Time of Crisis, a Catholic Media Association award winner. He is the editor of The Church We Want: African Catholics Look to Vatican III, co-editor of Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics: Conversations in the World Church, and a member of the editorial board of the journal Marriage, Families & Spirituality.
Father Orobator recently wrote for Outreach on how to address questions of identity and sexuality raised by the Synod of Bishops.
Michael Zampelli, S.J.
Father Zampelli is associate professor of theater history at Fordham University and also the Academic Director of the First Studies Program at Ciszek Hall, the Jesuit community for men in formation studying at Fordham.
Father Zampelli joined the full-time faculty of Fordham in Fall 2020 and teaches in the theatre history sequence. In addition to his work with Fordham Theatre, he serves as the Director of the Master of Arts in Philosophy and Society (G.S.A.S.) at the Rose Hill Campus. His major research and teaching interests include gender and sexuality in performance, performance studies, Jesuit performance history, religious antitheatricality, the spiritual functions of theatre, and early modern Italian professional theatre.
His scholarly work has appeared in journals such as Theatre Survey, Text and Presentation; and Religion and Theatre. He has also contributed essays on pre- and early modern performance to several book volumes, including From Rome to Eternity: Catholicism and the Arts in Italy, 1550-1650 (Brill); The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773 (University of Toronto Press), Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Contexts, Identities, Affinities, and Performances (University of Toronto Press), Catholic Theatre and Drama: Critical Essays (McFarland and Company), A Companion to Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (Brill), and Music as Cultural Mission (St. Joseph’s University Press). Most recently, he has published several entries in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits, edited by Thomas Worcester, S.J. (Cambridge University Press).
Prior to his arrival at Fordham, Father Zampelli was the Paul L. Locatelli, S.J. University Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Santa Clara University, where he taught and directed for 22 years. He received his Ph.D. in Drama from Tufts University.
We are grateful to these talented (and very busy) Jesuits for contributing to our ministry to LGBTQ Catholics, their families and friends and allies. Please keep our new Jesuit Board of Advisors and Outreach in your prayers.
