AUSCP 2024 Assembly

Thomas J. Reese, SJ is an American Catholic Jesuit priest, author, and journalist. He is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. His column for Religion News Service, “Signs of the Times,” appears regularly at National Catholic Reporter

July 2023 Recent articles:

• Why the synod on synodality is confusing to American Catholics
• Supreme Court’s conservative majority is making new rules for minorities
• Pope Francis appoints men and women to build a synodal church

Michael Driscoll is a priest of the diocese of Helena, Montana. Ordained in 1977, he has spent the majority of his years in priesthood teaching — first at Carroll College, the diocesan college in Helena from 1981-1994, and then at the University of Notre Dame since 1994 to the present. He entered into emeritus status in January of 2016 and still teaches the occasional course usually in the Fall semester.

Driscoll is an active member of several professional groups having served in the leadership of each: North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL), the Societas Liturgica, and the Catholic Academy of Liturgy (CAL).

He is the founding director of the Masters program in Sacred Music (MSM) and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Liturgical Music Ministry at Notre Dame since 2005. Fr. Driscoll’s writings on the liturgy have brought him into the area of social justice as the lived experience of faith flowing from the Eucharist, as seen in Sacraments and Justice (Liturgical Press, 2014). He is very interested in making the connection between liturgy and life, between the Eucharist and ethics.

Selected Publications

• The Order of Mass: A Roman Missal Study Edition and Workbook, co-authored with J. Michael Joncas, Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 2011.
• Alcuin et la pénitence à l’époque carolingienne, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen 81, Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 1999.
• “Comment Prier? : L’euchologie dans les sacramentaires romains et romano- francs,” Actes de la Journée d’études du 11 mai 2012, Institute Catholique de Paris, Hélèn Bricout & Martin Kloeckener, eds., Paris: Editions Vrin, 2017.
• “New Wine in Old Wineskins: Reflections on Liturgical Reform of Vatican II (the 50th Anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium),” Mission for Diversity: Exploring Christian Mission in the Contemporary World, Elochukwu Uzukwu C.S.Sp., ed. Zurich: LIT Verlag, 2016.
• “Reconstructing Liturgical History Before the Libri Ordinarii: The Role of Medieval Women in Death and Burial Practices,” in Ordinarii als Quelle für die Kulturgeschichte / Libri ordinarii as a Source for Cultural History (nr. 103 in series Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen), Louis van Tongeron, ed., Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2015.

Dr. Kim R. Harris is the Assistant Professor of African American Thought and Practice in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

In addition to teaching courses on Black liberation and Womanist theologies, Harris leads music in a variety of liturgical and academic settings. She is a liturgist, composer and recording artist, presenting lectures on the music of the Black Catholic experience, the spirituals of the Underground Railroad and the freedom song of modern Civil Rights Movement. Harris is a member of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium and the North American Academy of Liturgy. She is an academic member of the African American Catholic Center for Evangelization in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as well as a liturgical consultant for the Archdiocese of New York Office of Black Ministry.

A gifted cantor, leader of song and a passionate cultural advocate, Harris earned a PhD in worship and the arts from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. In fulfillment of her degree, she composed Welcome Table: A Mass of Spirituals, one of the complete Mass settings included in the Lead Me Guide Black Catholic hymnal second edition (GIA Publications Inc).