As part of the official opening of the 2021-2023 synod, Pope Francis reminded those present that every encounter calls for openness, and a willingness to let ourselves be challenged by the presence and stories of others. In continuity with the Boston College commitment to a liberal arts education in the Jesuit tradition, The Art of Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins conference seeks to build on the Jesuit ideal of “seeing God in all things” and “training men and women for others” by responding to this call from Francis’ to undertake “encounter” as an approach to others. As Francis has argued, “the experience of encounter changes us; frequently it opens up new and unexpected possibilities.” 

The Art of Encounter conference seeks to respond to Francis’ call to “widen the tent” in order to welcome individuals and groups marginalized within the Catholic community because of gender, sexual identity, and ecclesiastical political identities, through encountering the stories told by poets and writers. With particular attention to listening to those creative voices that have not always been fully heard within the Catholic community, we have selected keynote speakers that integrate and wrestle with Catholic faith, speaking from the margins of the Catholic community towards its center. The first keynote and Saturday’s Workshop will be led by Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of the On Being associate podcast Poetry Unbound and author of several poetry collections including his most recent, Feed the Beast. Pádraig writes as both a poet and a theologian, an LGBTQ+ activist, and was the leader of the Corrymeela Community—Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization—for five years. Our second keynote speaker is Alice McDermott, Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and author of eight novels, including several that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and a founder of a group that seeks to engage all of the faithful in renewing the Church. A frequent visitor to Boston College, Alice has been profiled in Boston College Magazine on her Catholic faith. 

In addition to the two keynotes, there will be a presentation by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, writer, poet, and professor at Fordham University and associate director of its Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Kim Garcia, poet and teacher in BC’s English department and Allison Adair, associate professor of the practice (BC English), will host a panel on “Identity and the Catholic Imagination” with trans author R/B Mertz. Alongside the presentations will be substantial time for an afternoon reception and book signings in Burns Library. 

Our hope is that students and other conference participants will have the opportunity of encountering both the authors themselves and their powerful ideas and stories, and in the process glimpse and contribute to a more capacious understanding of what the Catholic community might be, standing close to the heart of BC’s liberal arts education goal: to broaden our understanding of how encountering “the other” might be rich and fulfilling, opening up new possibilities of the richness and multiplicity of the real world—in a word, to finding God in all things.

Free and Open to the Public. Please Register to Attend.