Tag: Catholic Social Thought

Polarization, Social Cohesion, and the Economy: Celebrating 10 Conferences on Economics and Social Thought

On March 27, the Lumen Christi Institute hosted “Polarization, Social Cohesion, and the Economy,” its 10th Conference on Economics and Catholic Social Thought. This continues an initiative running since 2008 that interrogates economic thought and the contemporary market with the principles of Catholic teaching concerning justice on the human, political, and societal levels. Originally envisioned by Thomas Levergood, Cardinal Francis George, and Joseph Kaboski, for nearly two decades the project has carved out a distinctive space where economic inquiry meets moral and theological reflection. This year’s conference coincided with the fifth anniversary of Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis’s encyclical on fraternity…

Master Class on Augustine’s City of God

For the positivist political scientist, focused on polls, percentages, and prognostications, Augustine’s sprawling masterpiece—City of God (De civitate Dei)—is apt to seem a morass of mythology and otherworldly speculation. For the first 90 minute session, we will focus on two stories of the fall, the dual invention of sin, and Augustine’s struggle not to have to concede to the impossibility of perfection, here or above. For the second session, we will turn more directly to political matters and especially to the “twilight” perspective that Augustine takes us all inescapably to have on true peace.

Eros, Order, and the Human Person: Dostoevsky and Plato on the Soul

Perhaps the most fundamental themes in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov are the struggle to disclose the truth of human nature and the way in which social life must be rooted in the truth of what it is to be a person. In this master class, we will show that the members of the Karamazov family can be understood as incarnations of the various “parts” of the human soul. Thus, their family drama represents the struggle to unify the desires of the soul in pursuit of truth and the social consequences of succeeding or failing to achieve this unity. By structuring the novel around the mystery of the human person as fundamental for political life, Dostoevsky gives a Christian recapitulation of the deepest themes in Plato’s Gorgias, where Socrates and his triad of interlocutors similarly present the dimensions of human nature and show the individual and social drama inherent in the education of the soul’s eros. Further, by presenting the truth of the human person as the foundation of a healthy society, Dostoevsky anticipates one of the most important themes in the work of Pope St. John Paul II.  

Applications Open for the 2025 Summer Seminars

In their seventeenth year, the Lumen Christi Institute Summer Seminars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition introduce participants to central themes, figures, and texts from the Catholic tradition. Please see the Event Calendar for details and application requirements. Please direct any questions to seminars@lumenchristi.org The Thought of René Girard – University of Southern California, June 15 to June 21, (Cynthia Haven, Grant Kaplan, Trevor Merrill) Catholic Social Thought in Business Education – University of Notre Dame, June 16 to June 19, (Jim Otteson, Lloyd Sandelands, Martin Schlag, Andreas Widmer) Dionysius the Areopagite: The Corpus and Legacy – University of Toronto, June 22 to…

REVIEW: F. Russell Hittinger, On the Dignity of Society

K.T. Brizek, PhD student in intellectual and Church history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, reviews “On the Dignity of Society: Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Law,” a novel presented at the University of Chicago by author Russell Hittinger.

Symposium on Timothy Matovina’s new book, “Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church”

Cosponsored by The American Religious History Workshop and The Center for Latin American Studies Finely researched, engagingly written, and more comprehensive than any other book on the subject, Timothy Matovina’s Latino Catholicism is a scholarly labor of love that does justice to the historic presence of Latino Catholics in America….His book raises the bar for studies of U.S. religion and society. -Allan Figueroa Deck, S.J. Timothy Matovina (University of Notre Dame) with responses from: Peter Casarella (DePaul University) Kathleen Conzen (University of Chicago)

Toward a Moral Economy: Policies and Values for the 21st Century

Toward a Moral Economy: Policies and Values for the 21st Century

Keynote Address: Reinhard Cardinal Marx, Archbishop of Munich Presentations: Roger Myerson, University of Chicago, Kevin M. Murphy, University of Chicago, and Russell Hittinger, University of Tulsa This event opens the Fourth Lumen Christi Institute Conference on Economics and Catholic Social Thought and inaugurates the Institute Collaboration with the German-American Colloquium of the Katholische Sozialwissenschaftliche Zentralstelle. Co-sponsored by the Katholische Sozialwissenschaftliche Zentralstelle and The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought As the United States and the global economy continue to reel from the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, we face several questions: What went wrong? How to prevent another such…

“Religious Freedom in America Today”

“Religious Freedom in America Today”

As President Clinton observed, “religious freedom is . . . our first freedom.” It was central to the Founders’ vision for the American political community. They did not always agree about what religious freedom means or requires, but they knew that it matters, and that it should be respected in policy and protected by law. James Madison, the Father of our Constitution, hoped that America’s religious-liberty experiment promised a lustre to our country. This lecture will take stock of this experiment and consider the rights of religious believers and institutions and their roles and voices in American public life today. Co-sponsored…