Click here to join this online CLGS Catholic Roundtable Event via Zoom!
Join us for a conversation on how LGBTQIA2S+ Catholics shape synodal life through grassroots ministries, organizing, digital spaces, and wherever else the Spirit is already at work.
Our Presenters
Emma Cieslik (she/they) is a queer, disabled public historian and museum worker based in Washington, DC. She is the founder and director of the Queer and Catholic Oral History Project and investigates histories at the intersection of gender and sexuality, religion and spirituality, and liberation. Emma works at a major research institution and museum in Washington DC.
Chris Damian is an attorney and writer who manages the Mezzo platform, exploring questions of faith, sexuality, law, politics, religious trauma and abuse, and religious deconstruction and reconstruction. His work has been featured in both scholarly and popular publications such as The National Catholic Reporter, Logos Journal, Commonweal, Church Life Journal, and The Atlantic.
Nicholas Hayes-Mota is Assistant Professor of Social & Theological Ethics at Santa Clara University. He received his Ph.D. in theology from Boston College, where he also served as Assistant Director of the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy. Prof. Hayes-Mota’s primary research explores the role of religion in public life, the ethics of democratic citizenship, and the possibility of a “politics of the common good” in today’s highly pluralistic and often contentious societies. This last topic is the subject of Prof. Hayes-Mota’s doctoral dissertation and first book (now in preparation), which synthesizes insights from Catholic social thought and community organizing traditions to advance a prudential account of common good politics that takes the role of power, coercion, conflict, and self-interest seriously. His additional research interests include the theology and history of community organizing, Catholic social thought and practice, Latin American and U.S. Latine theology, contemporary virtue ethics, and AI ethics. Prof-Hayes-Mota’s scholarly work draws on 17 years of experience as a practitioner of community organizing.
Maxwell Kuzma is a writer, advocate, and podcast host whose work focuses on queer and transgender Catholic liberation theology. Max is the first transgender columnist at the National Catholic Reporter, a board member of DignityUSA, and host of the Whiplash with Maxwell Kuzma podcast. He has been interviewed by outlets including The New York Times and the BBC, commenting on the experiences of transgender people in the Catholic Church, and has spoken at places such as the Outreach Conference. Through his writing, podcasting, and advocacy, Max explores the lives and experiences of LGBTQ+ Catholics and the questions they raise for the church today.
Michael Prendergast, MTS, MA is a seasoned pastoral musician and liturgist, an adjunct instructor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Portland and the founder of Sacred Liturgy Ministries.
Jason Steidl Jack is a Catholic theologian and senior teaching professor of religious studies at St. Joseph’s University, New York. His research and advocacy focus on the LGBTQ Catholic struggle for affirmation, inclusion, and representation in the Roman Catholic Church.