Cyprian Davis Lecture: “Equal to Us: The Church Responds to Racism”
Thursday February 8
St. Bede Theater
7:00 p.m. CST
Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre, will be the featured presenter at the Cyprian Davis Lecture at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, St. Meinrad, IN.
His talk, “Equal to Us: The Church Responds to Racism,” will be held on Thursday, February 8, at 7 p.m. Central Time in St. Bede Theater.
Archbishop Fabre attended Saint Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, LA, graduating with a Bachelor of History degree in 1985. He then went to the American College of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium, for additional priestly formation while studying at the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven. He was awarded a Bachelor of Religious Studies degree in 1987 and a Master of Religious Studies degree in 1989 from Katholieke Universiteit.
Archbishop Fabre was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, LA, on August 5, 1989. After his ordination, he served as associate pastor of St. Alphonsus Liguori Church in Greenwell Springs, St. George Church in Baton Rouge, St. Isidore the Farmer Church in Baker, and St. Joseph Cathedral in Baton Rouge. He served as pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Grosse Tete and Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Maringouin, and Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Baton Rouge.
On March 30, 2022, Archbishop Fabre was installed as the tenth Bishop and fifth Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Louisville, KY. Previously he served as Bishop of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, LA, from 2013-2022 and as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans from 2007-2013.
The public is welcome to join the lecture live by clicking below:
From 2018 to 2023, Archbishop Fabre served as the chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism and led the writing of the U.S. Bishops’ most recent pastoral letter on racism, Open Wide Our Hearts – The Enduring Call to Love, which was approved and published in 2018. He currently is a bishop-consultor on the USCCB Committee of Domestic Justice and Human Development and is a member of the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, and Family Life. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Catholic Relief Services, on the Board of Trustees of the National Black Catholic Congress, and on the Board of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.
Fr. Cyprian Davis, OSB, for whom the lecture is named, was a professor of Church history at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. His award-winning book, The History of Black Catholics in the United States, is regarded as the essential study of the American Black Catholic experience.
He was a founding member of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus and a contributor to Brothers and Sisters to Us, the 1979 pastoral letter on racism published by the United States Catholic bishops. He died in 2015.
The lecture is free and open to the public. Parking is available at St. Bede Hall and in the Guest House and student parking lots. For more information, call Krista Hall at 812-357-6501 during business hours.