2022-23 Research Fellows
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." Intended to become a book in three parts of two chapters each, this work's first section focuses on violence as understood by Cavanaugh and Girard, and then turns to Cavanaugh and Henri Lubac on the Eucharistic means of overcoming violence; the last section centers on hospitality and politics in Africa.
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 will further his ongoing research on the relationship between social sciences and African Catholicism. Catholicism in Africa is more than a century old and is now almost entirely in the hands of the Africans laity and clergy. The transition from Western missionaries to the local clergy is drawing to a close. African Catholics will henceforth assume total responsibility of their Church. What are the implications of this shift for social sciences, especially the anthropology and sociology of Catholicism in Africa?
Summer 2022
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Petrus Lakonawa
PhD candidate, St. Vincent School of Theology
(Manila, Philippines)
Lecturer, Bina Nusantara University
(Jakarta, Indonesia)
Research while at CWCIT
Petrus Lakonawa's CWCIT research focuses on the metaphor of
rechem (womb), the root metaphor of Mother (Shekinah, Lady Wisdom,
Hokmah,
Sophia), and the concept of
rachamim (mercy and compassion) in talking about the relational with God. His exploration revolves around the issues of feminist symbols, analogies, and metaphors in theological discourses to promote more inclusive and emancipatory God-talks, positive regard for woman, body, and ecology as well as to inspire a more compassionate and egalitarian world.