Praying for Freedom: Racism and Ignatian Spirituality in America

Why do the Spiritual Exercises not change us as deeply as we hope? This is the haunting question that was raised at the recent general congregation of the Jesuits about Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises and the question the contributors to this book explore and attempt to answer in the context of ongoing racial injustice in the United States. All of us who love and are engaged in Ignatian spirituality must also ask ourselves this same question. Contributors explore this question by examining how ＂color-blindness racism＂ determines our interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises in the United States. Animated by the grace of Ignatius’s conversion experience these spiritual directors, theologians, and leaders in Jesuit ministries offer insightful scholarly and creative pastoral engagement of the Spiritual Exercises for the ongoing journey of conversion from racism and white supremacy in the United States.

Contributors Include:
- Maka Black Elk (Oglala Lakota)
- Laurie Cassidy
- Matthew J. Cressler
- Paulina Delgadillo
- Elise Gower
- Armando Guerrero Estrada
- Jeannine Hill Fletcher
- Ken Homan, SJ
- Alex Mikulich
- Maria Teresa Morgan
- Marilyn L. Nash
- Maureen H. O’Connell
- Hung T. Pham, SJ
- Christopher Pramuk
- Andrew Prevot
- Patrick Saint-Jean, SJ
- Justin T. White

Laurie Cassidy, PhD, currently teaches in the Christian Spirituality Program at Creighton University and was associate professor in the religious studies department at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. An award-winning author and editor, her latest book, Desire, Darkness, and Hope: Theology in a Time of Impasse, was edited with M. Shawn Copeland. Cassidy has been engaged in the ministry of spiritual direction for over thirty years, giving directed retreats around the United States. Raised in Massachusetts, she now makes her home in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, traditional homeland of the Mouche band of the Nuche (today known as the Ute) in Colorado.