Ignatian Network Speakers

Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice 2019

Chloe Becker

Magnificat High School

Chloe is a senior at Magnificat High School in Cleveland, Ohio. This past year, she painted a mural in her school for a semester-long project in her junior theology class. She was inspired by the call we have as Catholics defined in Catholic Social Teaching to dismantle racism, so she created my mural with the intent to strengthen the Catholic Church’s voice against racism. The mural displays three African saints and two African American Catholic leaders who have causes for canonization. In addition, above the saints she painted constellations which each represent a specific area of systemic racism (housing, education, wealth, criminal justice, and healthcare). Her overall aim for the mural was to educate my school on the lives of these saints that aren’t widely known, and also raise school-wide awareness of the systemic racism that African Americans currently face in the United States. She is now currently continuing to create art that strives to bring our Church and our country closer to racial justice through representation and education about often underrepresented saints of color.

Ben Campion

Gonzaga College High School

Ben Campion is a senior at Gonzaga College High School in Washington DC. He is an active member of the Peace Club and helped lead Gonzaga’s participation in the Climate Strike on Sept. 20th.

Emma Menchaca-Chavez and Regi Worles

Regis Univeristy

Regi Worles is originally from Memphis, Tenessee. He is currently a Senior at Regis University double majoring in Philosophy, and Peace and Justice, with a minor in Community Food Systems and Women and Gender Studies. He serves as the Vice President of Social Justice and Diversity for the Regis University Student Government Association (RUSGA). Emma Menchaca-Chavez is from Denver, Colorado. She is a sophomore at Regis, majoring in Politics with minors in Spanish and Peace and Justice. She serves as the Director of the RUSGA Social Justice and Diversity Committee and is Co-Chair of the IgnatianQ 2020 conference.

Vrushangi Shah

Saint Louis University

Vrushangi Shah is a senior studying health management and public health at Saint Louis University. She attended the conference as a delegate and then student leader for the last two years, gaining so much insight on social justice from a Catholic Social Teaching perspective. As a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar, a South Asian immigrant, and a woman, she is passionate about continuing her journey in advocating and amplifying the voices of those who do not share the same privileges as her. She hopes to bring to light to her Hindu beliefs, and join hands with those who identify in a different religious/spiritual medium. She believes, no matter how different, if we come together, we can achieve liberation of those oppressed.

Arlin Téllez Martinez

Trinity Washington University

Arlin Téllez Martinez is a sophomore at Trinity Washington University, where she is a recipient of TheDream.US scholarship, created to give undocumented students access to higher education. She is double majoring in international relations and political science. As an undocumented immigrant from Hidalgo, Mexico, Arlin is passionate about her community and has held various leadership positions advocating and organizing from criminal justice and immigrant rights. She hopes to become an attorney and further her work around immigrant rights and prison abolition.

Danny Gustafson, SJ

Boston College

Danny Gustafson, S.J., is a Jesuit scholastic studying theology at Boston College. He entered the Jesuits after graduating from Georgetown University in 2011. In college, he worked in the U.S. House of Representatives and at a political consulting firm. Jesuit life has taken him to Loyola University Chicago for philosophy studies, Fordham Preparatory School to teach religion, and now to B.C. He is editor emeritus of The Jesuit Post and is delighted to be attending his eighth Teach-In.

Policy Briefings

José Aguto

Catholic Climate Covenant

José is blessed to participate in the Covenant’s mission to advance the Catholic
Church’s call for us to love and care for God’s creation, especially for our most
vulnerable neighbors. He tries to affirm the moral, spiritual and non-partisan foundations of this appeal, so that we can build bridges through divisions and generate lasting, compassionate and cooperative solutions for the climate crisis. Before the Covenant, he served with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the National Congress of American Indians, EPA’s American Indian Environmental Office, and the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army. José is a graduate of Brown
University and Villanova Law School.

Joanna Williams

Kino Border Initiative

Joanna Williams has been the Director of Education and Advocacy at the Kino Border Initiative (KBI) in Nogales, Arizona and Sonora since 2015. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Science from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and received a Master’s in Public Policy from Arizona State University. Prior to her current position, she has journeyed with immigrants in a variety of contexts. She volunteered at a shelter in Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, conducted Fulbright research on the reintegration of deported and return migrants, and worked as a coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Border Litigation Project.