Race and Justice in America
This event is part of the Lumen Christi Institute’s Catholic Criminal Justice Reform Network. National conversation about racial bias in law enforcement has become increasingly polarized over the last year. Some deny the existence of any widespread discrimination, while others see systemic racism as an inextricable part of American criminal justice, and call for defunding or even abolishing police forces. Professor Brandon Vaidyanathan says that racial bias in the criminal justice system is more complicated. A number of factors, including personal prejudice, laws and policies with racist origins, and broader cultural disparities that reflect the history of American racial discrimination,…
Jacques Maritain’s Integral Humanism
THIS IS AN IN-PERSON EVENT. Open to current graduate students and University of Chicago Undergraduates. Others who are interested in participating should contact us. Copies of “Integral Humanism” from The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain XI (Notre Dame Press, 1996) will be provided for registrants. Integral Humanism (1936) is Maritain’s masterwork at mid-career. Having separated himself from the Catholic political integralism in France during the 1920s he needed to put forth his own position – his own integralism, in a manner of speaking. His thesis is that the options of political modernity are shaped by incomplete and reductive humanisms, which need the correction…
Promoting Integral Human Development: Challenges and Opportunities for the Church and Catholic Organizations
Free and open to the public. This event was held online over Zoom. This event was presented by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Catholic Research Economists Discussion Organization (CREDO), and was cosponsored by Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Education (GRACE), the International Office of Catholic Education (OIEC), the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), the World Organization of Former Students of Catholic Education (OMAEC), the World Union of Catholic Teachers (UMEC-WUTC), the International Catholic Child Bureau (BICE), the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, America Media, the Collegium Institute, the Harvard Catholic Forum, the Nova Forum, the Saint Anselm Institute, and the Saint Benedict Institute. The concept of…
Ecumenical Panel on “For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church”
Free and open to the public. This program will be held as a hybrid, in-person and online event. Presented by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Fordham Orthodox Christian Studies Center. Cosponsored by the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion and the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies. “As we make this journey towards full communion, we already have the duty to offer common witness to the love of God for all people by working together in the service of humanity” —Common Declaration of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis, May 2014. This panel will examine the recent social document For the Life…
Symposium on “The Future of Natural Law”
Natural law theory has long been a central tenet of Christian philosophical and theological reflection on the relationship between God, the moral life, and society, and it has played an important historical role in shaping the political life of the United States and many other nations. The topic of natural law has also been the subject of many disputes and disagreements, both in the contemplative and practical orders. It is therefore important to take stock of this rich and complex history if we are to understand the current state of natural law thinking so as to ascertain what role it…
Reconciling Justice: A Community Conversation on Criminal Justice Reform
This event is by invitation only. For more information, contact ccjrn@lumenchristi.org. An event for lawyers, legal scholars, judges, ministry leaders, social workers, clergy, and people who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system to unite for dinner, plenary panel conversation, and round-table dialogue around criminal justice reform. The evening’s purpose is to inspire hope, healing, and ideas on how to improve the legal system informed by religious wisdom and the experience of those directly affected by our criminal justice system. A mass preceding the program will be celebrated by Cardinal Blase Cupich. This event will begin with a plenary conversation…
On the Dignity of Society: Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Law
Russell Hittinger has long been one of the world’s leading scholars of Catholic social teaching and natural law theory. His most recent book, On the Dignity of Society, presents the fruit of his mature thinking on fundamental issues in Catholic political thought. Rooted in Thomistic philosophy and natural law theory, but also animated by his study of St. Augustine and thus sensitive to historical contexts and arenas for moral and theological disputation, Hittinger articulates the deepest principles of the Church’s social teaching and sheds considerable light on their historical applications. At this event, Profs. Mary Hirschfeld and R. H. Helmholz will discuss Hittinger’s latest work, and the event will conclude with a response from Prof. Hittinger.
What Is a Society? On the Coherence of Catholic Social Thought from Pope Leo XIII to Pope Francis
REGISTER HERE Open to current graduate students and faculty. Advanced undergraduates and others interested in participating should contact dstrobach@lumenchristi.org. This event is in-person only. All registrants will receive copies of the selected readings, which should be read in advance of the class. An optional wine and cheese reception will follow. In this masterclass, we will discuss one of the most fundamental questions in Catholic social teaching: What is a society? We will track the various ways this question has been raised and answered in papal teaching from Leo XIII through the current pontificate of Pope Francis. We will see that tracing…
Economics and Catholic Social Thought Virtual Workshop, 2023-2024
In partnership with CREDO, the Lumen Christi Institute is cosponsoring a monthly Economics and Catholic Social Thought Virtual Workshop. The interdisciplinary workshop will take place online the second Friday of each month and feature papers addressing the intersecting domains of Economics and Catholic Social Thought. We welcome all papers on this interdisciplinary boundary. Since the primary audience for the seminar is economists interested in exploring these questions, we give somewhat greater weight to papers written or co-written by economists, and to papers written by scholars of any discipline with an audience of economists in mind. The seminar is open to…
Forming the Leaders of Tomorrow at Booth School of Business
Financial markets have an outsized role in shaping the world in which we live. With so much at stake, how can investors integrate morals and economics? What are the creative solutions Catholic business leaders can apply to the problems of today’s world, to do good? To confront these questions, the Lumen Christi Institute brought top thought leaders from around the country to the Booth School of Business at the heart of the University of Chicago’s campus. Business ethics has become a major focus in recent years, in large part due to growing concern over unethical practices and contemporary critiques…