The Indian Theological Association (ITA) has elected Sister Evelyn Monteiro, a member of the Sisters of the Cross of Chavanod, as its president, the second woman to head the 49-year-old association. The election took place during the association’s 47th annual meeting at Ishvani Kendra in Pune, western India. Sister Monteiro was the association’s vice president during the past three years. The first woman president of the association was Presentation Sister Shalini Mulackal.
The meeting also elected Jesuit Fathers Thomas Kuriackose as the ITA vice-president and Joseph Victor Edwin, the secretary. The new executive members are Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, a lay woman theologian from Mumbai, Father Jacob Parapally MSFS, Father Jacob Naluparayil MCBS, and Father Xavier Francis Tharamel SJ.
Sister Monteiro, who has a doctorate in systematic theology from the Centre Sèvres, Facultés jésuites de Paris, France, teaches the same subject in a number of theoretical institutions in India and overseas. She is the co-founder of Ecclesia of Women in Asia (EWA), an association of Catholic women theologians in Asia.
In 2004, she authored the “Church and Culture: Communion in Pluralism,” besides editing several books and publishing a number of articles in national and international theological journals. Her research addresses ecclesiology, particularly in situating the conciliar and post-conciliar understanding of the Church in the pluri-religious and socio-cultural context of Asia and India, and contextual and liberation theologies.
The September 26-28 gathering explored Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes, two key documents from the Second Vatican Council. The meeting reaffirmed the vocation of theologians in India is to be deeply rooted and dialogical. An Indian theologian is called to be grounded in the Catholic tradition while engaging in dialogue with the diverse religious and cultural landscape of India.
