L.A. Bound

In a few days, I head out to the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, a grand carnival of Catholic spirit: people, ideas, books, and prayers that span (and exceed) the various confessional, ecclesiological, political spectrums of North American Catholicism. It is the only annual Catholic gathering I know of that so well represents the diversity of and within the Church. (Not that there isn’t always room for more.) This year, I’ll be giving a talk on spirituality and sexuality in college student life, and on lesbian and gay Catholic identities and spiritualities. It is my eighth year at the conference, which has become one of a few stops during the year (along with, for me, the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Academy of Religion annual meetings) where I can reconnect with friends and colleagues from around the country, to catch up personally on currents in Catholic theology, and on the many interesting and compelling ways in which a theological life can be lived. (And at last year’s Congress, there was also the happy coincidence that I also got to see Winger in Los Angeles--that’s for all you fellow ’80s rock fans, which Catholic theology contains not a few.) I’ll try to check in from Congress... and will no doubt see many of you readers among the 40,000-ish assembled... Tom Beaudoin