Spring/Summer 2023
Léonard Katchekpele
Assistant Pastor, Holy Trinity Parish (Frankenthal, Germany)
Visiting Professor, Catholic University of West Africa (Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire)
Originally from Togo, Fr. Léonard Katchekpele holds ThM degrees in canon law and theological ethics, as well as a PhD in Catholic theology from the University of Strasbourg. His dissertation was titled "The Political Challenges of the Church in Africa" and received the university's 2015 Prix de la Fondation for the best dissertation in the social sciences. His research and teaching interests include political theology; theology and postscolonial theory; ethics, politics, and violence after René Girard; and African theology. In French, Fr. Katchekpele has published
Research while at CWCIT ~ Fr. Katchekpele's research project is titled Masking and Un-Masking Original Violence: William Cavanaugh and the Possibilities of Ecclesiology after René Girard."
Winter/Spring 2023
Ludovic Lado, SJ
Director, Center for Studies & Training for Development (N'Djamena, Chad)
A Jesuit priest from Cameroon, Fr. Ludovic Lado holds a doctorate in social and cultural anthropology from Oxford University, UK. He specializes in the anthropology of religion, focusing on current trends in African Catholicism. Currently, he serves as director of both the Centre d'Etude et de Formation pour le Développement (CEFOD—Center for Studies & Training for Devleopment) and of the CEFOD Business School in N'Djamena, Chad. His publications include several journal articles as well as Catholic Pentecostalism and the Paradoxes of Africanization (Brill, 2009) and, in French, Le pluralisme religieux en Afrique (Yaoundé: Catholic University of Central Africa Press, 2013). He is currently working on two book manuscripts:
Research while at CWCIT ~ Fr. Lado's CWCIT research project is titled “Towards an Anthropology of African Catholicism" and furthered his ongoing research on the relationship between social sciences and African Catholicism.