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published on February 11, 2020
Jeffrey S. Mayer
“To Educate for the Practice of Freedom”
The Emergence of Mutuality in the Liminal Space of the Academy
Sounding the call for an integral human development, CST invites considering the subsidiary nature of relationships at multiple levels of society as a spiritual matter. Drawing from diverse sources in theology, relational sociology, and evolutionary biology, this essay explores Catholic educational institutions and their role in fostering the moral agency of students and faculty. In the face of epidemiological evidence of the social ills of economic inequality, the question becomes: Do we have the freedom to imagine an alternative to current trends in the commodification of education? The partnership of Catholic Relief Services and the university offers hope as a relational subject from which emerges the good of mutuality. Integrating student experiences from the classroom to the field, this essay advances the development of a “pedagogy of liminal mutuality” in the reciprocal practices of solidarity-building at and from the margins.