Our Events

Due to unforeseen personal reasons, Carol Zaleski’s visit has been postponed. We hope to reschedule this event for a future date. At this luncheon event, students will read and discuss J.R.R. Tolkein’s essay “On Fairy-Stories” and C.S. Lewis’s essay “Transposition” with Carol & Philip Zaleski (co-authors ofThe Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings) REGISTER HERE This event is open to current University of Chicago students. Lunch will be served. Space is limited and offered on a first-come first-serve basis. PDFs of the readings will be provided.

REGISTER HERE This master class is open to graduate and undergraduate students, including non-University of Chicago students. Space is limited and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Copies of the readings will be provided. Pope Benedict’s 2009 Encyclical-Letter, Caritas in veritate, breaks new ground in the tradition of Catholic social teaching by explicitly calling for a new theory of economic exchange. Whereas the traditional scholastic theory of the “just price” was focused on “the principle of the equivalence in value of exchanged goods” (par. 35), a new theory of exchange must focus instead on “a metaphysical understanding of the relations between persons”...

cosponsored by the Theology and Religious Ethics Workshop This lecture will address the potential changes in the Catholic Church’s approach to marriage and family life to result from the Extraordinary Synod on the Family convened by Pope Francis this month. It will examine what this synod reveals about the relationship between the doctrinal and the pastoral and the papacy and the episcopate.

When St. Augustine innocuously yet infamously stole some pears in his youth, he confessed that he did it simply because he was in love with his own ruin.  Have you ever looked at your sins as the way you destroy that which you do not like about yourself?  Fr. Meconi’s talk will draw from this Augustinian insight that sin is really a form of self-sabotage, a way of keeping ourselves away from an intimacy and a love we all know we in no way deserve.

Join us for a reception to celebrate the recently released book A Godly Humanism: Clarifying the Hope that Lies Within (CUA Press, 2015) by the late Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I. on the one-year anniversary of his passing. Finished by Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I. nine days before his death, A Godly Humanismoffers an account of the Catholic intellectual life by one of the most gifted thinkers to serve as bishop in the American Church. It draws on figures such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI to express a vision of the Church as a communion built...

The Inquisition is a subject of much cultural fascination, invoking images of book burnings and gruesome executions. Yet these were only a small part of the activities of a vast and complex organization, involved in many subtler aspects of society, from the regulation of prostitution and homosexuality, to the development of copyright, to prescribing differences between elite and lower class education.  This panel of experts on the history of the Inquisition will discuss the realities behind the myths about this vast effort at information control, torn between many different goals and powers, and staffed by members who were often scholars...

Free and open to the public Part of an annual lecture series hosted by St. Procopius Abbey and Benedictine University on the Documents of Vatican II commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. Contact Fr. Becket Franks, OSB with any questions at bfranks (at) procopius.org or 630-829-9253.

REGISTER HERE Free and open to the public a panel discussion with James Q. Whitman, Yale University Law School Respondents Hon. Tom Dart,Cook County Sheriff Hon. Colleen Sheehan, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Kim Foxx, Former Assistant State’s Attorney, Juvenile Justice Division, and Former Chief of Staff to President of Cook County Board, Toni Preckwinkle Hon. Ann M. Burke (moderator), Illinois Supreme Court Justice Cosponsored by The Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago and The John Howard Association Criminal punishment in America has become harsh and degrading–more so than any other western democracy. Executions and long prison terms are commonplace in America. Countries like France...

In the wake of a synodal process that reflected on “the vocation and mission of the family today,” (RF 1) Pope Francis recently released a sweeping and rich post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia on love in the family, in which he invites Christian families to “value the gifts of marriage and the family, and to persevere in a love strengthened by the virtues of generosity, commitment, fidelity and patience” and invites everyone to “be a sign of mercy and closeness wherever family life remains imperfect or lacks peace and joy” (AL 5). Spouses Anna and Michael Moreland will consider how the themes and...

Modernity and post-modernity share an evolving notion of autonomy, conceived along nominalist lines, that runs counter to earlier concepts of human freedom developed by the likes of Irenaeus and Anselm. Persona creatus is today displacing homo gratus, both culturally and politically. What is at stake in this evolution? Fundamental theology, obviously, and anthropology too. Perception of the body as well, together with the legislation or policies by which we try to reinforce our sense of autonomy and our claims to ‘dignity’ in the sphere of the body. So what if this sense is mistaken? What if we have autonomy wrong?...