In Memory of Susan Broaddus

Susan Broaddus and the Rev. Bisoke Balikenga

Susan Broaddus and I worked together for many years on the Congo Network, a project of the worldwide Anglican and Episcopal churches to support the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She passed away on 3 December 2021 after a lifetime of faithful activism, including twelve years as an Episcopalian missionary in the Congo. This is to honor and remember her. May Susan rest in peace and rise in glory.

Susan Broaddus and Archbishop Henri Isingoma

Susan Broaddus and Archbishop Henri Isingoma

Susan’s obituary was published by The Virginian-Pilot from 8 December – 10 December 2021. A longer version was published on Facebook by Women to Women for Congo on 8 December 2021:

It is with great sadness that we are sharing the news of the death  of Susan Broaddus, founder of the Women to Women for Congo and primary moderator of this page.

Susan Broaddus

Susan Broaddus succumbed to cancer on December 3, 2021, in Norfolk, Va., where she was born in 1946.

Her life’s greatest passion centered on The Democratic Republic of Congo, where she served as an Episcopalian missionary for over 12 years, dedicated to improving the lives of the people in that lawless and war-torn region.

She was especially concerned for the women and children there, because many militias continually attacked the towns and villages. The militias often kidnapped or killed the men, sexually attacked the women, and left the children orphaned.

About a decade ago, Susan revisited the Congo and was inspired to do more by raising awareness and money in the United States to help her beloved Congolese people. She founded a group called Women-to-Women for Congo, which joined her mission to pray for and financially assist the people there. She also supported the Anglican seminary in the Congo, both through individual scholarships and by supporting the seminary’s capital projects.

She was at the forefront locally of assisting with the immigration of the Sudanese “Lost Boys,” personally assisting many of them with tutoring, housing, bureaucracy, and more. 

Susan was a lifelong Francophile. Before retiring, she taught high school French in several school systems throughout the greater Hampton Roads area.

Her fluency in French enabled her to stay in touch with her friends and contacts in the Congo. When Susan’s health was declining rapidly from her second battle with cancer, the Most Rev. Henri Isingoma, who was the Archbishop of the Congo while she served there and is now retired, e-mailed a letter to Susan, which captured Susan’s spirit. It reads, in part (roughly translated): “I have no other words but to congratulate you for having led a life consecrated to the holy ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am convinced that you do not fear anything because, together, we have worked in the direction of ensuring the continuity of his mission to proclaim the Eternal Kingdom of God. Knowing that our human capacities have time limits, we had trained others among us and for subsequent generations. The mission continues.”

In addition to her work with the Congo, Susan was an avid reader and member of a book club. Shelves and stacks of books on many subjects filled her home. She also was active in her church, Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

Susan was preceded in death by her parents, John and Margaret Broaddus, and her sisters, Margaret (Midge) Hutchison, and Ann Broaddus. She is survived by her nephew, Jason Nowell, and extended family and hometown friends….

If you would like to remember Susan in a meaningful way, please contribute to Episcopal Church Women, designating “Broaddus/Congo” in the memo line (mail to: ECW, Christ & St. Luke’s Church, P.O. Box 11499, Norfolk, VA 23517)

Graduations

GTU Commencement 7 May 2022

Spring is graduation season and this year, I joyfully walked the stage in-person for my Graduate Theological Union – Master’s – Theology degree, as well as graduating three of my own student-mentees from the University of the South – School of Theology – Education for Ministry (EfM) extension program.

My GTU – MA and Master’s hood were officially presented online last year* but GTU offered the 2020 and 2021 pandemic-years graduates an opportunity to walk in-person this year. I was hooded by Associate Dean of Students, Dr. Wendy Arce in a ceremony at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley. I was also awarded the Interreligious Chaplaincy Certificate, as only the second person to complete the new GTU – ICP program. Part of ICP is completing a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), which for me meant working part-time as a Chaplain Intern for five months at Stanford Hospital during a pandemic surge. Several of us from Stanford Hospital – Spiritual Care Services graduated from GTU together this year. I was happy that my family which lovingly supported me during my long educational journey was present for my graduation.

Co-Mentor Karen LeBlanc, with whom I have led EfM seminars together for over twelve years, celebrated with me the graduations of Joel Martinez (graduated 2020, diploma presented 2022) and Beth Hopf at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, CA), and Mark LeBlanc (Karen’s husband) at St. Jude’s Episcopal Church (Cupertino, CA). Joel, Beth, and Mark faithfully completed four years of EfM study and theological reflection on the Bible, church history, theology, and ethics.

*Read my thesis here: “Range of Chaplain Engagement with Prisoners”

Katy Dickinson GTU – Master’s diploma 2021, tassel 2022

GTU Commencement 7 May 2022

GTU Commencement 7 May 2022

GTU Commencement 7 May 2022

GTU Commencement 7 May 2022

GTU Commencement 7 May 2022

Education for Ministry graduation, 12 June 2022

Education for Ministry graduation, 12 June 2022

Education for Ministry graduation, 26 June 2022

Education for Ministry graduation, 26 June 2022

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Measure for Measure, Double-Effect, and Cooperation with Evil

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and Aquinas’ Treatise on Law

Associate Professor of Philosophy Justin Gable, OP, Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology, taught our Spring class called “Biomedical Ethics.” My final paper was “Measure for Measure, Double-Effect, and Cooperation with Evil.” The paper starts:

This ethics paper is structured around William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure in the context of cooperation with evil and the principle of double-effect as a way of understanding both the principles and the play’s ethical circumstances. The first example of the principal of double-effect was given by St. Thomas Aquinas in his 1485 Summa Theologica. He writes about the lawfulness of killing in self-defense, “Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention.” Wellesley College Professor of Philosophy, Alison McIntyre summarizes current understanding of double-effect as, “the distinction between causing a morally grave harm as a side effect of pursuing a good end and causing a morally grave harm as a means of pursuing a good end.” I will analyze five instances of double-effect, considering whether harm is a side effect or a means to the end.

Recently, while reading the part of Angelo in Measure for Measure with my Shakespeare group, I noticed instances of the double-effect morality. I was intrigued that Shakespeare’s last comedy, Measure for Measure, was written in 1603, just 115 years after St. Thomas describes double-effect (although I found no indication that Shakespeare read St. Thomas). The moral principles of cooperation with evil and double-effect do not seem to have been extensively examined in analyses of Measure for Measure. In addition to considering morality, this paper asserts that great storytelling can more effectively support ethical understanding and teaching.

For more, read the entire paper

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TechWomen Volunteer Day in the Garden

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

Today was TechWomen Volunteer Day and twenty-three of us gathered at St. Stephen’s-in-the-Field Episcopal Church – Community Garden in San Jose, California, to work together. We divided into three groups: the Hunters (looking for oak seedlings to pot), the Killers (taking down an oleander hedge), and the Diggers (making an accessible path for elder gardeners). We included technical leaders from the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia, some of whom were novices and others who had deep gardening experience, as well as two regular community garden volunteers and four TechWomen mentors. My daughter, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, manages the community garden but she was managing another TechWomen volunteer group today, so I was in charge. It was a fun and productive day!

Launched in 2011, TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

Lizard, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

TechWomen Volunteer Day, St.Stephens-in-the-Fields, San Jose, California, 18 Mar 2022

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Privilege, Punishment, and Vision

This semester, I am taking a class at the Graduate Theological Union called “Christian Ethics: Radical Love Embodied” from Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Professor of Theological and Social Ethics. One of the texts for this class is Dr. Moe-Lobeda’s own 2013 book, Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation. Chapter 4, “Unmasking Evil that Parades as Good,” has caused me to think deeply on how background social and cultural understandings perpetuate and affirm the way things are, even if those understandings are destructive or evil. The author characterizes this as “‘hegemonic vision’… the constellation of socially constructed perceptions and assumptions about ‘what is,’ ‘what could be,’ and ‘what ought to be’ that maintain the power or privilege of some people over others, and ‘blind’ the former to that privilege” (Moe-Lobeda, 88).

Dr. Matthew Clair, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, uses the word hegemony with regard to U.S. law, but does not use the phrase hegemonic vision in his 2020 book Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court. He presents similar concepts, writing of how racism and classism intersect, “I found that the working class and poor, especially racial minorities, often sought to learn their legal rights, contest their defense lawyer’s expertise, and advocate for themselves in court. Meanwhile, the middle-class people I got to know found themselves in trusting relationships with lawyers and thus were more likely to defer to their lawyers and the court. Privileged people were rewarded for their deference, whereas the disadvantaged were punished for their resistance and demands for justice” (Clair, xv). That is, Dr. Clair reports that the U.S. justice system has a vision of how people should behave that is based in middle-class assumptions and communication patterns. He finds that those who are poor or working class who do not communicate as expected are disproportionately penalized.

The Prison Policy Initiative affirmed what Dr. Clair has written in their “Mass Incarceration: the Whole Pie 2020” in which Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner write, “People in prison and jail are disproportionately poor compared to the overall U.S. population. The criminal justice system punishes poverty… Poverty is not only a predictor of incarceration; it is also frequently the outcome.”

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Doctor of Ministry Project

My Doctor of Ministry program started in August 2021 with a week-long online class in which our new DMin cohort got to know each other and our two leaders, Dr. Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins, III and Dr. Ronald D. Burris at the Berkeley School of Theology. BST is in the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. My final paper starts:

“In this paper, I begin the discussion of my Doctor of Ministry project and dissertation for the Berkeley School of Theology. In the first section, I present the problem of creating a theological study program for use in jail and my vision for its solution. The second section considers my theological basis, including three inspiring scriptures that have influenced my thinking. These are followed by a summary and conclusion. My theological basis and the proposed project and dissertation are informed by my experience as a Santa Clara County, California, jail chaplain since 2015.” The three Bible scriptures are Matthew 25:31-46, Genesis 39-41, and Acts 16:22-40. Read the whole paper here.

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Thesis Published

ProQuest has just published my Master’s thesis, “Range of Chaplain Engagement with Prisoners” – Hooray! I am still waiting for the 158 page document to appear in the Graduate Theological Union Library catalogue, which will be more easily referenced. I have been waiting since my thesis was signed off in February 2021 for the GTU and ProQuest to make my thesis available so I am very happy that this process is (mostly) complete.

Abstract

Most congregations interested in jail or prison ministry start slowly, with a desire to act righteously, with moral correctness and integrity but without a strategic plan, goals, or structure. The range of chaplain engagement with prisoners reflects aspects of both sociology and theology. This thesis presents data and a novel tool to extend ministry participation and best practices to benefit prisoners and those reentering society after incarceration.

Key Terms: Jail, Prison, Chaplain, Chaplaincy, Christian, Reentry, Ministry

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