Proceeding Through Friendship in the Workplace
5 May 2025
What happens when a Catholic goes to work in a Mennonite institution or vice versa? This was the topic of conversation among four persons who have done just that. Bridgefolk board Co-chair Phil Waite moderated a conversation with Jeff Gingerich, president of St. Bonaventure University, located in Olean, New York; Judith Davis, Professor Emerita of French and Humanities at Goshen College, Indiana; Shuji Moriichi, Director of the Pastoral Care Department at Mercy Medical Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Karla Cuca Vásquez, a nonprofit leader who serves as Ambassador of SEMILLA, the Latin American Anabaptist Seminary in Guatemala. The conversation explored how these experiences have shaped each person’s spiritual practices and deepened their understanding of both Mennonite and Catholic institutional cultures.
Dr. Jennifer Otto
2025: Remembering Zurich and Nicaea
27 January 2025
The year 2025 marked 500 years since the first adult believers’ baptisms of the Anabaptist movement took place in Zurich, Switzerland. It also marked 1700 years since the Council of Nicaea, where the Nicene Creed was established as the first ecumenical statement of “catholic” Christian faith. In this webinar, Bridgefolk Board Member Jennifer Otto, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Lethbridge, provided a brief historical introduction to the events of both Nicaea and Zurich and invited participants into conversation about unity and division within the Church.
- How should we, as Mennonites and as Catholics, commemorate these two events?
- How do these anniversaries impact the way we think about “proceeding in friendship” together?
- Can we celebrate the Nicene Creed and the beginnings of Anabaptism while acknowledging the pain caused by the ruptures in the Body of Christ that both events embody?
Br. Denys Janiga OSB:
“War, technology, acceleration:
Responding to the cries of the earth through stability and contemplation”
8 October 2024
In this presentation, Bridgefolk Board Member Br. Denys Janiga OSB talked about the relationship between war, ecology, and society, with a focus on technology. He discussed some of the recent technologies being deployed in modern conflicts, including Ukraine and Russia, Gaza and Israel, and Azerbaijan and Armenia. He then moved into a discussion of the notion of the “technocratic paradigm,” which Pope Francis has critiqued in his encyclical Laudato Si’. Building on the pope’s encyclical, Br. Denys used the work of Hartmut Rosa to better understand the temporal dimension of modern societies that he refers to as acceleration. The presentation concluded with a Benedictine response through the vow of stability and contemplation.
Introducing the Bridgefolk board
11 April 2024
Bridgefolk board members shared “how and why” they became involved in Bridgefolk and what they have learned in the process.
