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From ESG to Impact Investing: Catholic reflections from the field

Booth School of Business 5807 S Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL
Terrence Keeley, Nanovic Institute | Luigi Zingales, University of Chicago, Booth

Registration required. Open to students and faculty only. Email info@lumenchristi.org to inquire about registration. Should business and finance play larger roles in resolving the great social and environmental challenges of our time? Proponents of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing say yes. They argue that ESG financial strategies can help reverse runaway carbon emissions and fix income and gender inequalities, among other ills. ESG-integrated investments already encompass more than $120 trillion in financial assets. Are they working as promised? If not, how can they be improved? In his new book Sustainable, Terrence Keeley, a finance-industry veteran offers an insider’s look at the promises, prospects,...

Magis Lecture | Evil and the God of Love

Loyola Academy McGrath Family Performing Arts Center 3455 Illinois Rd, Wilmette, IL
Stephen Fields, Georgetown University

Free and open to the public, but advance registration is required. For more information, contact info@lumenchristi.org. "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” So the philosopher David Hume presents the classic 'problem of evil.' For Christians, this is no mere logical puzzle. It is a challenge to our relationship with a God who we are convinced is not only all-powerful, but all-loving. How can we love God, and know ourselves to be loved by God,...

Lunch Discussion on “Vatican II after 60 Years: The Legacy of Benedict XVI”

Calvert House 5735 S University Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, Chicago, IL
Stephen Fields, Georgetown University

Free and open to the public. Registration required. Contact info@lumenchristi.org with any questions about this event. This event is co-presented with Calvert House and co-sponsored by the graduate and undergradate Catholic Students Organization. A Mass will precede the event. Lunch will be provided. Vatican II was the landmark event in the life of the 20th century Church. But opinions are divided over the extent to which the council was a decisive rupture with past life and practice in the Church.  Amid a variety of interpretations in the decades following the council, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI sought to integrate Vatican II within the...

Are You Becoming Obsolete?

Breasted Hall, Oriental Institute 1155 E 58th St. Chicago, IL 60637, Hyde Park, IL
Norman Wirzba, Duke Divinity School | Ben Zhao, University of Chicago | Emily Wenger, University of Chicago

Free and open to the public. No registration required. This event is presented by the Veritas Forum and co-sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute.  We find ourselves on the cusp of a revolution. In the realm of language, image, and voice, AI technologies showcasing incredible potential, such that distinguishing the work of humans from computers is becoming nearly impossible. What does this mean for human identity and purpose? What might this mean for our future? Join us for the University of Chicago Veritas Forum as we bring computer science into conversation with theology, philosophy, and ethics. Duke theologian and ethicist...

Still Mining the Forgotten: Black Catholic Women’s History in the 21st Century with Shannen Dee Williams

Gavin House 1220 E 58th St., Chicago, IL
Shannen D. Williams, University of Dayton

Open to current students and faculty. Box lunches will be served. Texts will be provided. This event is co-sponsored by the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion.  Despite being the world's oldest and most popular Black Christian tradition, studies of Black Catholicism remain underrepresented both within popular discourse and academic study. This is especially true in the United States. Shannen Dee Williams is one contemporary scholar working to change this. In Subversive Habits, the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, Williams sheds light on a too-often overlooked group of Black American churchwomen and freedom fighters....

America’s Real Sister Act: The Hidden History of Black Catholic Nuns in the United States

Swift Hall, 3rd Floor Lecture 1025 E 58th St. Chicago, IL 60637, Hyde Park, IL
Shannen D. Williams, University of Dayton

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact info@lumenchristi.org.  This event is co-presented by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion. Cosponsored by St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Chicago, America Media, the Center for Gender Studies, the Center for Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, the History Department at the University of Chicago, the Thea Bowman Foundation, and the Catholic Theological Union.  For most people, Whoopi Goldberg's performance as Sister Mary Clarence in Sister Act is the dominant interpretation of an African American nun and the desegregation of white Catholic sisterhood in the United States. In this presentation, Dr. Shannen...

Catholic Lawyers Guild Speaker Series | Luncheon with Sr. Helen Prejean

University Club of Chicago 76 E Monroe St Chicago, IL 60603, Downtown, IL
Sr. Helen Prajean, CSJ, Congregation of St. Joseph

Registration required. This event is presented by the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago and co-sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Hank Center of Loyola University Chicago. To find out more, visit https://www.clgchicago.org/events. Sister Helen Prejean, who is known around the world for her tireless work against the death penalty, will be joining Catholic Lawyers Guild this Spring for a community event. Sr. Helen has been instrumental in sparking national dialogue on capital punishment and in shaping the Catholic Church’s vigorous opposition to all executions. We look forward to welcoming her and invite you to join us for what is...

Lust, Friendship, and Eternity in the Epic of Gilgamesh

Gavin House 1220 E 58th St., Chicago, IL
Daniel Wasserman-Soler, Lumen Christi Institute

Open to current undergraduate students at the University of Chicago. Registration is capped at 20. Students who register after capacity has been reached will be put on a waitlist. All registrants will be provided with a free copy of the text. The Epic of Gilgamesh has been called the oldest surviving book in the history of Earth. Originating thousands of years ago, the story continues to offer profound insights for modern readers about essential human desires for love, power, and everlasting life. Whether you are encountering the book for the first time or re-visiting it, the tale of Gilgamesh promises to teach you...

Graduate Reading Group on “The Short Stories of Tolstoy”

Gavin House 1220 E 58th St., Chicago, IL

Open to current graduate students at the University of Chicago. Participants can come to whichever sessions they choose. Others interested in participating should contact nbeacom@uchicago.edu. Books, food, and beverages will be provided.  Does life have a meaning in the face of unavoidable suffering and impending death? What does it mean to be good, to be authentic, to follow one's conscience? Questions like these, which still knock at our hearts and minds today, are at the heart of the writing of Leo Tolstoy, widely considered one of the greatest novelists in the history of literature. In this reading group, we’ll read through...

Retribution and St. Thomas Aquinas’s Teaching on Justice

Gavin House 1220 E 58th St., Chicago, IL
Stephen Brock, University of Chicago

Open to current students and faculty. This event is co-sponsored by the St. Thomas More Society at the University of Chicago Law School. Others interested in participating should contact info@lumenchristi.org. This event is in-person only. All registrants will receive pdfs of the selected readings, which should be read in advance of the class. An optional wine and cheese reception will follow.  Thomas Aquinas assigns two functions to punishment, retributive and medicinal. He sees the retributive function as the primary one, pertaining to the very idea of punishment, and it will be the focus of this master class. The aim will...

ONLINE

The Vocation of a Theologian: The Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI

ONLINE World Wide Web, INTERNET
Tracey Rowland, University of Notre Dame (Australia) | Fr. Thomas Esposito, O.Cist., University of Dallas | Russell Hittinger, Catholic University of America

Copresented with The Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture, First Things, and The Portsmouth Institute for Faith and Culture. This online-only event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. For more information, please contact info@lumenchristi.org From his role as a key peritus at the Second Vatican Council, a professor in Germany, to his tenure as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger was a part of almost every Catholic theological conversation in the latter half of the 20th century. As pope, he brought his lifetime of learning to bear on his preaching, encyclicals,...

Catholic Culture Series on “A Catholic Vision of the Person and the World”

Ruth Lake Country Club 6200 South Madison Street, Hinsdale, IL

The Lumen Christi Institute's West Suburban Catholic Culture Series returns in 2023 with a monthly series on the theme of "A Catholic Vision of the Person and the World." REGISTER HERE THEME | In a 1965 address to the United Nations General Assembly, Pope Paul VI described the Catholic Church as “an expert in humanity.”  The Church could teach the U.N. because the Church understood human hearts and human institutions. Bishop Robert Barron has explained the pope’s words in the following manner: "The Church has two thousand years of watching the human condition unfold – two thousand years of saints and sinners,...