Faith and Politics: Reflections of a Catholic Legislator
Ignacio WalkerKellogg Institute for International Studies
Open to current university students and faculty. Lunch will be served.
Join the Lumen Christi Institute and the Center for Latin American Studies for a lunch discussion with Ignacio Walker, academic and former Chilean Secretary of State (2004-2006), on his current project entitled "Faith and Politics.” He will share reflections from his experience on negotiating faith commitments as a Catholic politician in a modern, secular, democratic, pluralistic society.
Ignacio Walker, the Kellogg Institute’s Hewlett Fellow for Public Policy at the University of Notre Dame in the fall 2018, is an academic and former politician. Both a scholar and practitioner of politics in Latin America, Walker is the senior research fellow at Corporación de Estudios para Latinoamérica (CIEPLAN), a center for the study of Latin America in Santiago. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Princeton University and previously served as a senator of the Republic of Chile (2010-18), Chilean secretary of state (2004-06), and president of the Christian Democratic Party (2010-15). After graduating from the University of Chile in 1978, Walker became a lawyer for the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, defending people against human rights violations committed by the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. After leaving to study politics, Walker returned to Chile in the late 1980s to do research at CIEPLAN. With brief interruptions, he has served in the Chilean government in various capacities since 1990. During his fellowship at the Kellogg Institute, Walker will work on a project entitled "Faith and Politics," which explores how a Catholic legislator can live in accordance with his own religious faith in a modern, secular, democratic, and pluralistic society.
