M. Shawn Copeland

Mary Shawn Copeland (born August 24, 1947), known professionally as M. Shawn Copeland, is a retired American womanist and Black Catholic theologian, and a former religious sister. She is professor emerita of systematic theology at Boston College and is known for her work in theological anthropology, political theology, and African American Catholicism.

Biography An only child, Copeland grew up in Detroit, Michigan, where she attended parochial elementary and secondary schools. She received her B.A. in English in 1969 from Madonna College in Michigan before becoming a Felician religious sister and teaching in a high school. After working for the National Black Sisters' Conference and then Theology in the Americas, she began a doctoral program at Boston College to study with Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan. She completed her PhD in systematic theology in 1991, with a dissertation titled "A Genetic Study of the Idea of the Human Good in the Thought of Bernard Lonergan," and she left religious life in 1994. She worked as an adjunct professor in the Department of Theology at Boston College for a number of years, and joined in 2003 as associate professor of Systematic Theology. She became a full professor at Boston College in 2013, retiring and becoming Professor Emerita of Systematic Theology in 2019.

From 2003 to 2004, Copeland served as the first African American president of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA). From 2001 to 2005, Copeland was also the convenor of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium (BCTS).

In October 2019, she delivered the Cunningham Lectures in New College, University of Edinburgh, on the topic "Theology as Political: The Weight, the Yearning, the Urgency of Life." In 2020, she began a one-year term as the Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and Their Impact on Culture at Emory University. As part of her term, she delivered public lectures in fall 2020 and spring 2021.

Scholarship Copeland's work spans the fields of systematic theology, political theology, public theology, Christology, theological anthropology, and African American Catholicism. Her work centers the lived experiences of people experiencing oppression, violence, and injustice. Copeland has been active in struggles for justice. At the 2021 Black Catholic Theological Symposium at the University of Notre Dame, she delivered a lecture in which she argued, "Black Lives Matter is what theology looks like."

She delivered a plenary address entitled An Imperative to Act as part of the Plenary Panel The CTSA at 75: Looking Back, Around, and Forward at the CTSA gathering 2021.

Honors In 2018, Copeland became the first African American theologian honored with the prestigious John Courtney Murray Award, the Catholic Theological Society of America's highest honor. In the citation for this award, Copeland was described in the following way: "Our honoree is a prolific, profound and pioneering scholar whose work places suffering humanity at its center, particularly those suffering from the persistent racism, sexism and heterosexism pervasive in our church and society. For our honoree this experience of suffering leads to the cross of Jesus of Nazareth which is at the heart of her theology."

A festschrift was also produced that year in honor of Copeland, entitled Enfleshing Theology: Embodiment, Discipleship, and Politics in the Work of M. Shawn Copeland. Additionally, Copeland has received the Marianist Award, the Yves Congar Award, the Elizabeth Seton Award, and Villanova University's Civitas Dei Medal. Copeland has received six honorary degrees. In her book Enfleshing Freedom, Copeland wrote: "On Easter, God made Jesus queer in His solidarity with us. In other words, Jesus ‘came out of the closet’ and became the ‘queer’ Christ."

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