News & Resources

April 26, 2024

8:30-2:30pm (Central)

Hybrid offering: Online and In-Person at Perkins School of Theology, Dallas, TX

(Free online for CPE students; $10 online otherwise; $30 in person registration)

 

The ACPE International Relations Committee is one of the sponsors for this upcoming Healing from Racism and Oppression Conference taking place at Perkins School of Theology and offered online on Friday, April 26th from 8:30-2:30pm (Central).  One of the two speakers is Fr. Michael Lapsley, Director for the Institute for Healing of Memories in Cape Town, S. Africa, and he was a plenary speaker at the International Congress for Pastoral Care and Counseling in S. Africa in July 2023.  Four ACPE educators were present at the congress and we all were deeply moved and inspired by him and thought at the time how much we’d love for the rest of ACPE to hear him, too. We are so pleased that he has agreed to come to Dallas and be a part of this incredible conference along with Sandy Ovalle, Director of Campaigns and Mobilizing for Sojourners in Washington, D.C.  Both of these folks are incredible social justice leaders in our world today.  We hope you will attend and bring your CPE students.

The conference is free online for CPE students; $10 for other online attendees; and $30 in-person.

Here is more information about the speakers from Mark Grace, retired ACPE Certified Educator:

There are relatively few of us in this world who can speak with the kind of moral authority that comes from having confronted extreme suffering and of having grown through experiences that few of us will ever have to confront.  Father Michael Lapsley is one of those people. 

On April 26, Father Lapsley will be conducting a special seminar in dialogue with director of campaigns and mobilization for Sojourners, Sandy Ovalle. Ovalle is described by the organization she works for as a “table-setter and space-curator, rooting her work in the deep faith and strength of Chicanx and Latinx spiritual teachers. She is a native of Mexico City. A mujerista theologian and an organizer, she currently leads SojoAction, the mobilizing arm of Sojourners.

This day of proclamation, reflection and dialogue promises to be alive with relevance, wisdom, and inspiration for those who feel called to serve humanity at its deepest points of need. Read on to encounter Father Lapsley writing in his own words about his experience, faith and hope.

“Three months after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, I received a letter bomb hidden inside the pages of two religious magazines that had been posted from South Africa. In the bomb blast I lost both hands, one eye and had my eardrums shattered.

For the first three months I was as helpless as a newborn baby. People have asked me how I survived, and my only answer is that somehow, in the midst of the bombing, I felt that God was present. I also received so many messages of love and support from around the world that I was able to make my bombing redemptive – to bring life out of death, good out of evil.

Quite early on after the bomb I realized that if I was filled with hatred and desire for revenge, I’d be a victim forever... To become a victor is to move from being an object of history to becoming a subject once more. That is not to say that I will not always grieve what I’ve lost, because I will permanently bear the marks of disfigurement. Yet I believe I’ve gained through this experience. I realize that I can be more of a priest with no hands than with two hands.”

REGISTER HERE