An upcoming event — a Teach-In for Justice on Monday, Oct. 19 — aims to encourage students, faculty and staff at The University of Scranton to be attentive to inequities that occur in their daily lives and consider ways they can promote hope and effect change.
Christian Krokus, Ph.D., shown, a professor of the Theology/Religious Studies Department at The University of Scranton, coordinates The Ellacuría Initiative, which presents the Teach-In annually. He offers insight on the initiative and this year’s focus: “Journeying With Youth, Accompanying Young People in the Creation of a Hope-Filled Future,” Jesuit Universal Apostolic Preference #3.
“The Teach-In for Justice, which is sponsored by The University of Scranton’s Ellacuría Initiative, is inspired by the witness of the Jesuit martyrs of El Salvador, who not only refused to look away from the injustice their students and neighbors were facing but committed themselves to studying the underlying causes and promoting solutions for that injustice. In our own small way, we aim to pay attention to the injustices our neighbors are suffering here and now,” Dr. Krokus said.
The initiative draws inspiration from the late Rev. Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., a Spanish-born El Salvadoran theologian and human rights activist, who was one of eight people, including five other priests —Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J., Segundo Montes, S.J., Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J., Joaquín López y López, S.J., and Amando López, S.J. — who were assassinated on Nov. 16, 1989, by the Salvadoran military during the country’s civil war.