CTS Book, Article, and Graduate Graduate Student Essay Awards

Compiled by Bill Collinge, 2019

The book and article awards were established in 1970, to be awarded first in 1971. The graduate student essay contest was instituted in 1979, to be awarded first in 1980. In 2012 the graduate student essay contest was named in honor of Susan G. Perry, longtime CTS editor. Information available varies from year to year; I have standardized somewhat and made some corrections but mostly left things as I found them. There are gaps for 1993, 1996, and 1997. If you know who won the awards in those years, or if you have any other corrections, please contact Bill Collinge at collinge@msmary.edu.

1971[1]

Book: William H. Shannon, The Lively Debate (Sheed and Ward, 1970)

Article: Edward G. Bozzo, “Theology and Religious Experience,” Theological Studies 31, no. 3 (September 1970)

1972

Book: William E. May, Christ in Contemporary Thought (Pflaum, 1970)

Article: William Cenkner, “Religious Experience and Teaching World Religions,” Religious Education, 1971

1973

Book: Larry Rasmussen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance (Abingdon, 1972)

Article: Tom Wangler, “The Birth of Americanism: Westward the Apocalyptic Candlestick,” Harvard Theological Review 65 (July 1972)

1974

Book: Sonya Quitslund, Beauduin: A Prophet Vindicated (Newman, 1973)

Article: Roderick Hindery, “Pluralism in Moral Theology: Reconstructing Universal Ethical Pluralism,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America, 1973

1975

Book: T. Patrick Burke, The Reluctant Vision: An Essay in the Philosophy of Religion (Fortress, 1974)

Article: Robert Faricy, “La Perfection Chretienne selon le Pere Teilhard de Chardin,” Gregorianum 55, no. 2 (1974)

1976

Book: Robert Kress, Whither Womankind: The Humanity of Woman (Abbey Press, 1975)

Article: Norbert Rigali, “Christian Ethics and Perfection,” Chicago Studies 14 (1975)

1977

Book: none listed by Rodgers

Article: Bernard Prusak, “Hospitality Extended or Denied: Koinonia Incarnate from Jesus to Augustine,” Jurist (1976)

1978

Book: Daniel C. Maguire, The Moral Choice (Doubleday, 1978)

Article: William O. Walker, Jr., “Jesus and the Tax Collectors,” Journal of Biblical Literature 97, no. 2 (1978).

1979

Book: Co-honored: Gerard S. Sloyan, Is Christ the End of the Law? (Westminster, 1978)

John Haught, Religion and Self-Acceptance (Paulist, 1976)

Article: Walter Conn, “Moral Development and Self-Transcendence,” Horizons 4, no. 2 (1977)

1980

Book: Patrick Granfield, The Papacy in Transition (Doubleday, 1980)

Article: John Apczynski, “Integrative Theology: A Polanyian Proposal for Theological Foundations,” Theological Studies 40, no. 1 (1979)

Graduate Student Essay: Theodore Pulcini (The Catholic University of America), “Toward an Acceptable Byzantine Catholic Ecclesiology”[2]

1981

Book: Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism (Winston Press, 1980)

Article: Gerard S. Sloyan, “’Come, Lord Jesus’: The View of the Post-Resurrection Community,” in Who Do People Say I Am? ed. Francis A. Eigo, O.S.A. (Villanova University Press, 1980)

Graduate Student Essay:  John McCarthy (University of Chicago), “Toward a Phenomenology of Death”

1982

Book: Walter E. Conn, Conscience: Development and Self-Transcendence (Religious Education Press, 1981)

Article: William M. Shea, “The Subjectivity of the Theologian,” The Thomist, April 1981

Graduate Student Essay: Jeanne Evans, “The Function of Myth in Isa. 14:4b-20b as Disclosed by Paul Ricoeur’s Notion of Metaphoric Process”

1983[3]

Book: Suzanne C. Toton, World Hunger: The Responsibility of Christian Education (Orbis Books, 1982)

Article: Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Church’s Religious Identity and its Social and Political Mission,” Theological Studies 43 (1982): 197-225.

Graduate Student Essay: Joyce A. Little, “Creation and Crisis: A Literary Analysis of Space, Time and Transcendence in Deutero-Isaiah”

1984

Book: Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (Crossroad)

Article: Ted Peters, “Methode und System in der heutiger amerikanische Theologie,” Kerygma und Dogma 29 (1983): 2–46

Graduate Student Essay: M. Francis Mannion (Catholic University of America),”Stipends and Eucharistic Practice,” Worship 57 (1983): 194–214

1985[4]

Book: Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (Crossroad)

Article: Philip Rossi, “The Foundation of the Philosophical Concept of Autonomy by Kant and its Historical Consequences,” Concilium 172 (1984)

Graduate Student Essay: Thomas Head (Harvard Divinity School), “I Vow Myself to be Your Servant: An Eleventh-Century Pilgrim, His Chronicler and His Saint”

1986

Book: Terrence W. Tilley (St. Michael’s College), Story Theology (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1985)

Article: James S. Cutsinger (University of South Carolina), “Toward a Method of Knowing Spirit,” Sciences Religieuses/Studies in Religion, Spring 1985

Graduate Student Essay: Leander Harding (Boston College), “The Atonement and Family Therapy”

1987

Book: James Dallen, The Reconciling Community: The Rite of Penance (New York: Pueblo, 1986)

Article: William E. Murnion, “The American Catholic Bishops’ Peace Pastoral: A Critique of Its Logic,” Horizons 13, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 67–89

Graduate Student Essay: Daniel J. Finucane (St. Louis University), “Hermeneutics in Karl Rahner’s Christology”

1988

Book: Mary Jo Leddy, N.D.S., and Mary Ann Hinsdale, I.H.M., eds., Faith That Transforms: Essays in Honor of Gregory Baum (Paulist, 1987)

Article: Susan Wood, S.C.L., “The Marriage of Baptized Nonbelievers: Faith, Contract and Sacrament,” Theological Studies 48 (1987): 279–301

Graduate Student Essay: Helen Czosnyka (St. Louis University), “Paul Tillich’s Religious Socialism and Walter Rauschenbusch’s Social Gospel Movement Compared and Contrasted with Particular Emphasis on the ‘Kingdom of God’”

1989[5]

Book: Peter C. Phan, Eternity in Time (Associated University Presses)

Article: William E. Murnion, “The Preferential Option for the Poor,” in Economic Justice for All: Theology or Ideology

Graduate Student Essay: Brenda Schildgen (University of San Francisco), “Habits of the Mind: Prejudice and Ideology in the Reading of the Gospel of Mark”

1990

Book: Wilkie Au, S.J., By Way of the Heart: Toward a Holistic Christian Spirituality

Article: William L. Portier, “Church Unity and National Traditions: The Challenge to the Modern Papacy,” in Bernard Cooke, ed., The Papacy and the Church in the United States, 1989

No Graduate Student Essay award given

1991

Book: Jay B. McDaniel (Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas), Earth, Sky, Gods, and Mortals (Twenty-Third Publications

Article: William French (Loyola University of Chicago), “Subject-centered amd Creation-centered Paradigms in Recent Catholic Thought,” Journal of Religion 70 (January 1990): 48–72.

No Graduate Student Essay award given

1992[6]

Book: Paul Misner, Social Catholicism in Europe: From the Onset of Industrialization to the First World War (Crossroad, 1991)

Article: Michael G. Lawler, “Faith, Contract, and Sacrament in Christian Marriage”

Graduate Student Essay: Norma J. DaCrema, “History, Questions, and Bridge-Building”

1993 (information not complete)

Book: Gary Macy, The Banquet's Wisdom:  A Short History of the Theologies of the Lord's Supper(Paulist, 1992)[7]

Article: Cynthia S. W. Crysdale, “Lonergan and Feminism,” Theological Studies 53 (1992): 234–256[8]

1994

Book: Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert

Article: Peter Phan, “Experience and Theology: An Asian Liberation Perspective,” Zeitschrift für Missions-wissenschaft und Religions-wissenschaft

Graduate Student Essay co-winners:  Stuart Chandler (Harvard University), “When the World Falls Apart, Methodology for Employing Chaos and Emptiness as Theological Constructs”

Paul R. Eddy (Marquette University), “Religious Pluralism and the Divine: An Examination of John Hick’s Neo-Kantian Proposal”

1995

Book: Ronald Modras (St. Louis University), The Catholic Church and Antisemitism: Poland, 1933–1939

Article: Anne M. Clifford, “Postmodern Scientific Cosmology and the Christian God of Creation”

Graduate Student Essay: Michael J. Baxter (Duke University), “History Writing in a World without Ends: An Evangelical Catholic Critique of U.S. Catholic History”

1996 (information not complete)

Article: Gary Macy, “Demythologizing ‘the Church’ in the Middle Ages,” Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology, 3 (1995): 23-41[9]

Graduate Student Essay: Vincent J. Miller, “An Abyss at the Heart of Mediation: Louis-Marie Chauvet's Fundamental Theology of Sacramentality”[10]

1997(no information available)

 

1998[11]

Book: Mary Ann Donovan, S.C. (Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley), One Right Reading? A Guide to Irenaeus

Article: Dennis Doyle (University of Dayton), “Journet, Congar and the Roots of Communion Ecclesiology,” Theological Studies, September 1997

Graduate Student Essay: Reid B. Locklin, Boston College, "From Education to Election: The Development of Augustine's Ecclesiology up to the Donatist Controversy" [12]

1999

Book: Susan Ross, Extravagant Affections: A Feminist Sacramental Theology (Continuum)

Article: Norbert Rigali, “On the Humanae Vitae Process: Ethics of Teaching Morality,” Louvain Studies 23

Graduate Student Essay: Diane Tompkinson (Fordham University), “The Confession of Na Prous Boneta: A Female Incarnation of the Holy Spirit”

2000

Book: Frederick McLeod, S.J. (St. Louis University), The Image of God in the Antiochene Tradition (The Catholic University of America Press, 1999)

Article: Anthony Godzieba (Villanova University), “Prolegomena to a Catholic Theology of God: Between Heidegger and Postmodernism,” Heythrop Journal 40 (1999): 319–39

Graduate Student Essay: Alison Osterhout (Duquesne University), “Creating Meaning from Human Suffering”

2001

Book: Michael H. Barnes (University of Dayton), Stages of Thought: The Co-evolution of Religious Thought and Science (Oxford University Press, 2000)

Article: Vincent J. Miller (Georgetown University), “Taking Consumer Culture Seriously,” Horizons 27, no.2 (2000): 276–95

Graduate Student Essay: Michael E. Lee (University of Notre Dame), “Liberation Theology’s Transcendental Moment: Xavier Zubiri and Ignacio Ellacuría’s Non-contrastive Discourse”

 

2002

Book: Phyllis Zagano, Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Roman Catholic Church (Crossroad, 2000)

Article: Mary Ann Hinsdale, I.H.M. (Boston College), “‘Infinite Openness to the Infinite’: Karl Rahner’s Contribution to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child,” in The Child in Christian Thought, edited by Marcia Bunge (Eerdmans, 2001), 406–88

Graduate Student Essay: Gloria Schaab (Fordham University), “The Power of Presence: Toward a Shekinah Christology”

2003

Book: Christopher Steck, The Ethical Thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar

Article: Theodore W. Nunez, “The Sustainable Development of Catholic Social Teaching in World Risk Society”

Graduate Student Essay: Harold E. Ernst, “The Theological Notes and the Interpretation of Doctrine”

2004

Book: Elizabeth A. Johnson, Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of Saints

Article: Dennis Hamm, “The Tamid Service in Luke-Acts: The Cultic Background behind Luke’s Theology of Worship (Luke 1:5-25; 18:9-14; 24:50-53; Acts 3:1; 10:3, 30),” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, April 2003

Graduate Student Essay: Franklin T. A. Harkins, “Nuancing Augustine’s Hermeneutical Jew: Allegory and Actual Jews in the Bishop’s Sermons”

2005

Book: William M. Shea, The Lion and Lamb: Evangelicals and Catholics in America

Article: William L. Portier, “Here Come the Evangelical Catholics”

Graduate Student Essay: Sharon K. Perkins, “The Correlational Christology of Peter C. Phan”

2006

Book: Frederick McLeod, S.J., The Role of Christ’s Humanity in Salvation: Insights from Theodore of Mopsuestia

Article: Colleen Mallon, “Globalization at Large: Approaching the Ecclesial Question of Tradition in the Twenty-First Century”

Graduate Student Essay: Karen Enriquez, “From Hiya to Dangal: A Critique of John Paul II’s Theological Anthropology in Light of the Experience of Filipino Women”

2007

Book: Kristen E. Heyer (Loyola Marymount University), Prophetic and Public: The Social Witness of U.S. Catholicism (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006)

Article: James T. Bretzke, S.J. (University of San Francisco), “A Burden of Means: Interpreting Recent Magisterial Teaching on End-of-Life Issues,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 26, no. 2 (2006)

No graduate student essay award listed in report

2008

Book: Laurie Cassidy and Alex Mikulich, Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence (Orbis Books, 2007)

Article: Norbert Rigali, S.J., “Moral Theology and Church Responses to Sexual Abuse,” Horizons 34, no. 2 (2007)

Graduate Student Essay: Christiaan Jacobs-Vandegeer (Salve Regina University), “Sanctifying Grace in a Methodological Theology”

2009

Book: Mark J. Allman, Who Would Jesus Kill? War, Peace, and the Christian Tradition (St. Mary’s Press, 2008)

Article: John Sniegocki, “Implementing Catholic Social Teaching,” in Faith in Public Life, ed. William J. Collinge, The Annual Publication of the College Theology Society 53 (Orbis Books, 2008), 39–61

Graduate Student Essay: Donna R. Reinhard, “Engaging in the Debates from the Periphery: The Contribution of Neglected Oxford Movement Converts in the Infallibility Debates,” in Authority, Dogma, and History: The Role of the Oxford Movement in the Papal Infallibility Debates, ed. Kenneth L. Parker and Michael J. G. Pahls (Bethesda, MD: Academica Press, 2008), 157–194

2010

Book: Brian D. Robinette, Grammars of Resurrection: A Christian Theology of Presence and Absence (Crossroad, 2009)

Article: Christopher Denny, “Iconoclasm, Byzantine and Postmodern: Implications for Contemporary Theological Anthropology,” Horizons 36, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 187-214.

Graduate Student Essay: John Sehorn, “Trinity, Economy, and the Bride of Christ: Trinitarian Appropriations in John of the Cross”

2011

Book: Patrick W. Carey, Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ: A Model Theologian, 1918–2008 (Paulist, 2010)

Article: J. Matthew Ashley, “Reading the Universe Story Theologically: The Contribution of a Biblical Narrative Imagination,” Theological Studies 71, no. 4 (December 2010): 870–902

Graduate Student Essay: Jill Brennan O’Brien (Boston College), “The Inclusive Embrace of Christ: Envisioning the Redemption of All of Creation”

2012

Book: Timothy Matovina, Latino Catholicism: Transformation of America’s Largest Church (Princeton, 2011)

Article: Anne M. Clifford, “Creation,” in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, second edition, ed. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin (Fortress, 2011)

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Clair Mesick (University of Notre Dame), “The Unfinished Christ: Sickness and Healing in the Apocryphal Acts”

 

2013[13]

Book: Joint winners: Maureen O’Connell, If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice (Liturgical Press, 2012) AND Kenneth Garcia, Academic Freedom and the Telos of the Catholic University (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Article: Anthony J. Godzieba,"Question Disputata: The Magisterium in an Age of Digital Reproduction" in Richard R. Gaillardetz, ed., When the Magisterium Intervenes: The Magisterium and Theologians in Today's Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 140-153. 

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Lisa Hickman (Duquesne University), "Bonhoeffer's Eighth Day: The Orders of Preservation and a Theology of Natural Ability."

2014

Book: Christina Astorga (University of Portland), Catholic Moral Theology and Social Ethics: A New Method (Orbis Books, 2014)

Article: Elizabeth Gandolfo (Furman University), “Mary Kept These Things, Pondering Them in Her Heart: Breastfeeding as Contemplative Practice and Source for Theology,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 13, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 163-186

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Rachelle Barina (St. Louis University), “Sacramental Practice and the Practice of Medicine: The Importance of Formation for the Clinical Encounter”

2015

Book: Robert Masson, Without Metaphor, No Saving God: Theology after Cognitive Linguistics (Leuven: Peeters)

Article: Co-winners: Bernard P. Prusak, “Explaining Eucharistic ‘Real Presence’: Moving Beyond a Medieval Conundrum,” Theological Studies 72, no. 2 (Fall 2014)

Jennifer Reed-Bouley and Eric Kyle, “Challenging Racism and White Privilege in Undergraduate Theology Courses: Teaching and Learning Strategies for Maximizing the Promise of Community Service-Learning,” Theology & Religion 18, no. 1 (January 2015)

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: No award given

2016

Book: Andrew Prevot (Boston College), Thinking Prayer: Theology and Spirituality amid the Crises of Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press)

Article: Gerald J. Beyer, “Labor Unions, Adjuncts, and the Mission and Identity of Catholic Institutions,” Horizons 43, no. 1 (June 2015)

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Nicholas Blair Munhofen III (University of Dayton), “The Philosophical Categories of John Henry Newman Applied to The Idea of a University”

2017

Book: Julie Hanlon Rubio, Hope for Common Ground: Mediating the Personal and Political in a Divided Church (Georgetown University Press, 2016)

Article: Christopher Pramuk, “Theodicy and the Feminine Divine: Thomas Merton’s ‘Hagia Sophia’ in Dialogue with Western Theology,” Theological Studies 77, no. 1 (March 2016)

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: No award given

2018

Book: Paul Lakeland, The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination (Liturgical Press, 2017)

Article: Elisabeth Vasko, “’Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers’: Resisting Stigma and Embracing Grace as Dis-ease,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 37, no. 1 (2017)

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Michael Romero, “The Male-Female Polarity in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Reading of Genesis 1–2: Critique and New Analysis”

2019

Book: Patrick W. Carey (Marquette University), Confession: Catholics, Repentance, and Forgiveness in America (Oxford University Press, 2018)

Article: Karen Teel (University of San Diego), “White Supremacy and Christian Theology,” in Enfleshing Theology: Embodiment, Discipleship, and Politics in the Work of M. Shawn Copeland, ed. Michele Saracino and Robert J. Rivera (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018)

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: John Sampson, “The Light of Christ and Revelation: Towards a Theological Anthropology in Dialogue with Classical Confucianism”

2020

Book: Daniel P. Castillo (Loyola University of Maryland), An Ecological Theology of Liberation: Salvation and Political Ecology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2019).

Article: Joseph S. Flipper, "The Ressourcement of Black Catholicism in Cyprian Davis, OSB," Modern Theology (Nov 2019).

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Deepan Rajaratnam, “An Integrated Model of Congar’s Communion Ecclesiology: A Resource for Interpreting Pope Francis’s Language of Center and Periphery”

2021

Book: Ryan G. Duns, SJ, Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age: Desmond and the Quest for God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020). 

Article: Lucas Briola, “Praise Rather Than Solving Problems: Understanding the Doxological Turn of Laudato Si' through Lonergan” (Theological Studies 81, no. 3, September 2020). 

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Trevor B. Williams (Villanova University), “Trinitarian Animality.”

2022

Book: Sarah Shortall (Notre Dame), Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and Twentieth-Century French Politics (Harvard University Press, 2021)

Article: Katharine E. Harmon (Marian University), "'Guitar-totin' Nuns and Hand-Clappin' Love Songs': How the Implementation of the Vernacular Transformed American Catholic Church Music," The Catholic Historian 39, no. 3 (Summer 2021): 79-103.

Susan G. Perry Award for Graduate Student Essay: Jordan Mason (St. Louis University), "Bodies and Belief: Hildegard of Bingen's Body-Soul Participation in Part One of Liber Divinorum Operum"

2023

Book: Jessica Coblentz (St. Mary's, IN), Dust in the Blood: A Theology of Life with Depression (Liturgical Press, 2022)

Article: William Portier (Dayton), "Unintended Ultramontanism," Theological Studies 83, no. 1 (Mar. 2022): 54-69.

Susan G. Perry Award for Graduate Student Essay: Céire Kealty (Villanova), "Knit to the Cross: A Theological Engagement of Garment Workers"

2024

Book: Susan Bigelow Reynolds, People Get Ready: Ritual Solidarity and Lived Ecclesiology in Catholic Roxbury (NY: Fordham University Press), 2023.

Article: Stephen Okey, "Reconsidering David Tracy's Public Theology in a Digital Age," International Journal of Public Theology, 17 (2024). 

Susan G. Perry Award for Best Graduate Student Essay: Trevor B. Williams, "St. Joseph, the Roman Canon, and the Redemptive Union of Liturgical Devotion," Logos 26:3 (2023). 

[1] Winners of book and article awards from 1971 to 1982 are listed in Rosemary Rodgers, O.P., A History of the College Theology Society (College Theology Society, 1983), pp. 44–45.

[2] Graduate student essay winners from 1980 to 1982 are listed in Rodgers, page 83.

[3] Information for 1983–1984 is taken from Bulletin of the Council for the Study of Religion (CSR).

[4] Information for 1985-88 has been supplied by John Shepherd, CTS Archivist and University Archivist at The Catholic University of America.

[5] Information for 1989–90 is from the Bulletin of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, which began publication in 1988 as a successor to CSR Bulletin.

[6] Information for 1991, 1993, and 1994 has been supplied by John Shepherd.

[7] Information supplied by Gary Macy.

[8] Indicated by material for 1994 in CTS archives, confirmed by curriculum vitae for Cynthia S. W. Crysdale, https://theology.sewanee.edu/media/school-of-theology/faculty/CV-Crysdale.pdf.

[9] Information supplied by Gary Macy.

[10] Information supplied by Vincent Miller.

[11] From 1998 to 2012 and 2014 onward, the award winners are listed in the “Report of the College Theology Society,” published annually in Horizons.  The information given about the award winners and their award-winning writing varies from year to year.

[12] Title supplied from memory by Reid Locklin in email, July 21, 2019.

[13] Award winners for 2013 are listed in a President’s Letter from Sandra Yocum, July 16, 2013.