Thur, Feb 5th, 2015, 12:00pm-1:20pm (Swift 200):
“Interpreting Pope Francis: David Tracy, Ignacio Ellacuría, and the Method of Critical Correlation” – Raúl Zegarra

This paper aims to provide a theological hermeneutics of Pope Francis’ papacy, putting the emphasis on his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium. In order to do so I will try to reconstruct what in my view is the hidden method operating in the document, namely, what we may call a “Latin American method of critical correlation.” I claim that Francis’ text is a representative of what David Tracy calls in his foundational Blessed Rage for Order a “method of critical correlation,” but I also maintain that such a method is somehow qualified and expanded by Francis while using something very much like Ellacuría’s understanding of the “Latin American method,” i. e., the method of liberation theology. The goal of the paper is to suggest that the best way to read Francis’ papacy and first important magisterial document, then, is by means of a combination of Tracy’s and Ellacuría’s methodological proposals.

Co-sponsored by the Theology and Ethics Workshop.