SR./DR JAMIE T. PHELPS, O.P.
Director and Professor of Systematic Theology
Institute for Black Catholic Studies (IBCS)

Xavier University has appointed of Dr. Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., Ph.D., a Roman Catholic sister who has been a member of the Adrian Dominican Congregation since 1959, as Director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies (IBCS) and Professor of Systematic Theology, effective August 1, 2003. Dr. Phelps has been associated with the IBCS since its inception in 1980 when she served as a major consultant to the Reverend Dr. Thaddeus Posey, O.F.M., Cap. who was the founding Director of IBCS. Since 1989 she has been a member of the Th. M. Degree faculty, and from 1994-2000 and served as Associate Director for the Institute’s graduate degree program.

Professional Academic Background

Dr. Phelps came to Xavier from a tenured appointment in Systematic and Constructive Theology at Loyola University Chicago, prior to which she completed a 12-year term as tenured Professor of Doctrinal and Mission Theology and Director of the Augustus Tolton Lay Ministry Program at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois. During the Spring Term of the 2002-2003 academic year, Dr. Phelps has served as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Theology at the University of Dayton.

Public Ministry

Dr. Phelps brings to the IBCS more than forty (40) years of public ministry in the Roman Catholic Church and in the wider community as a theologian, scholar, author, educator, pastoral minister, consultant, lecturer, liturgist, preacher, spiritual and retreat director, social worker, and administrator. As a theological scholar, her primary research and teaching areas are in the discipline of Systematic Theology. Over the past 17 years, she has offered courses in Ecclesiology, the Doctrine of God and Trinitarian Theology, Christology, Theology of Grace, Pneumatology, Faith and Revelation, and Liberation Theologies. Her secondary research and teaching areas are in American Catholic History, Cultural Studies and Race Theory.

Publications

Dr. Phelps is the editor of Black and Catholic: The Challenge and Gift of Black Folk, now in its second edition. In addition, she has published more than 50 theological articles on issues of the mission of the Church, evangelization, inculturation, Christology, and spirituality. These have appeared in scholarly books and journals including The Bible Today, Missiology, New Theology Review, Theological Studies, U. S. Catholic Historian, Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church edited by Gabriel O’Donnell and Robin Mass, A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Reflections on Evil and Suffering edited by Emilie M. Townes, Taking Down Our Harps: Black Catholics in the United States edited by Diana Hayes and Cyprian Davis, and Black Faith and Public Talk, edited by Dwight N. Hopkins. Her seminal work establishes Phelps as a major contributor to the development of Black Catholic Theology. Currently she is working on a book on Communion and Trinitarian Theology and its Significance for Social Transformation; in addition, she and historian Cyprian Davis are co-editing a documentary volume entitled Stamped with the Image of God: African Americans as God's Image in Black which is a part of a series American Identities:A Documentary History on American Catholicism edited by Christopher Kaufman.

Institutional Development

A woman deeply committed to systemic change for social justice, Dr. Phelps has inaugurated or participated in the creation of several institutional programs and conferences focused to ensure the on-going growth and development of theology and ministry in and for the Black Catholic Community. She is a founding member of the Washington-based National Black Catholic Sisters’ Conference (NBSC) which was organized in 1968, and played a major role in the launch of the IBCS in 1980. In 1990 she founded the Augustus Tolton Lay Ministry Program at Catholic Theological Union to prepare Black Catholic women and men for ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago. The following year, 1991, she re-founded the Black Catholic Theological Symposium (BCTS) which was first convened in 1978 by Father Posey as an occasional conference for Black Catholic ministerial scholars and leaders. Phelps re-oriented the BCTS as a national learned and professional society for Black-Catholics holding doctoral degrees in theology and related fields. Dr. Phelps’ scholarship, ministry, and activism on behalf of social justice have been awarded by various universities, and church-related and civic groups including the Fund for Theological Education (FTE), Barry University, the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Association of Chicago Priests, the Knights and Ladies of St. Peter Claver, the Urban League, the Hispanic Leadership Committee (Lenawee County, Michigan), and the National Black Sisters’ Conference.

Family and Educational Background

Born in Pritchard, Alabama, Jamie T. Phelps moved to Chicago, Illinois, as a very young child with her parents, Alfred Joseph (deceased) and Emma Josephine (nee Brown) Phelps, and four siblings. A cradle-Catholic, Phelps was educated in elementary and secondary parochial schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. She entered the Adrian Dominican Sisters in 1959, and following the period of religious training or formation, she was professed in 1961. Phelps received a B. A. in sociology from Siena Heights College, Adrian Michigan in 1969; a M. S. W. (Masters of Social Work) from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1972; and a M. A. in theology from Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota in 1975. She completed the Ph. D. in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America in 1989, with a specialization in Ecclesiology and a dissertation written under the direction of the noted ecclesiologist and historian of the Second Vatican Council, the Reverend Dr. Joseph Komonchak. This formal education has been augmented by her active participation in national and international seminars and conferences throughout the United States as well as in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Canada, and Rome.

Professional Affiliations

Dr. Phelps has served on the boards of several national church-related organizations including the National Blacks Sisters Conference; the board of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) from 1990-1992 ( She was the inspiration and a co-chair of the CTSA’s Committee for Under-represented Ethnic-Racial Groups); and the board of the Washington-based Center for Research in the Apostolate (CARA). She holds membership in several other professional and learned societies among these are The American Society of Missiology (ASM), the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the Society for the Study of Black Religion (SSBR), and the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT). She is Past-Convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium (BCTS) having served as the Convenor from 1991-2001.

My Temporary University Address & Contact Information
(December 2005 to August 2006 )

Sr. Dr. Jamie T. Phelps, O.P.
Professor of Theology and Director of
Xavier's Institute for Black Catholic Studies
University of Notre Dame
Department of Theology
130 Malloy Hall
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556-4619

Phone: 574-631-5366 (office)
574-631-3609 (campus residence)
504-913-4309 (cell)

E-mail(s): IBCS@xula.edu, (Institute Business)
jphelps@nd.edu, (Notre Dame office)
jamie50918@aol.com (Personal)