Pondering Hiroshima
Cosponsored by America Media, the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. Free and open to the public. The event will be held online over Zoom and will be livestreamed on YouTube. Registrants will also get a specially created booklet drawing on the archives of America Magazine’s coverage of Hiroshima from the past 75 years. On August 6th and 9th, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs destroyed the cities in a flash, and ultimately killed approximately 200,000 people. The Second World…
Healing the Wounds of Racism: A Discussion with Members of Chicago’s “Back of the Yards” Community
Free and open to the public. Online registration required. This event is organized by the Catholic Lawyer’s Guild of Chicago, and co-sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute “Compassion isn’t just about feeling the pain of others; it’s about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased.” – Father Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart (2010) “I have never seen – even in Mississippi and Alabama – mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I’ve seen here in Chicago.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1966) Our country is in a moment of…
Integral Bioethics in the Anthropocene
Free and open to the public. This event is being co-presented with the International Academy for Bioethical Inquiry, and co-sponsored by the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics. This event will be held on Zoom (registration required) and live-streamed on YouTube. In 2000, scientists argued that human impact on the Earth reached levels meriting the creation of a new geological epoch, naming it the Anthropocene. The challenge of the Anthropocene is more than just an acknowledgement of changes to our planet, but also a challenge to humanity, pressing us to reconsider human health, action, and ethics. Can theological insights, ranging from early…
Fratelli Tutti: Engaging Pope Francis’s New Encyclical on Social Friendship
Free and open to the public. Cosponsored by the Institute for Human Ecology at Catholic University of America and America Media. The event will take place online over Zoom and YouTube livestream. Who is my neighbor? Who is my brother and sister? Drawing on central gospel themes found in the Good Samaritan narrative, Pope Francis applies them to the whole “human family,” proposing that the logic of social friendship and neighborly love move beyond the personal to touch on every major social sphere. Join as this panel of experts in Catholic Social Thought discuss Pope Francis’s latest social encyclical, Fratelli Tutti.
Master Class on Yves Simon on Natural Law
A FOLLOW UP MASTER CLASS ON PART 2 OF THE BOOK WILL BE HELD ON JANUARY 15. Open to current graduate students. It will take place online on Zoom. Copies of the readings will be provided. Others interested in participating should contact us. Join us for a master class on Yves Simon’s The Tradition of Natural Law: A Philosopher’s Reflections (Fordham University Press, 1999). You can watch Professor Hittinger’s lecture on Part 1 of the book here. ABOUT THE BOOK The tradition of natural law is one of the foundations of Western civilization. At its heart is the conviction that there is an…
COVID-19 and the Worldwide Church
Free and open to the public. This event is organized by the Harvard Catholic Forum, co-presented with the Lumen Christi Institute, and co-sponsored by the Saint Benedict Institute, the Collegium Institute, the Institute for Faith and Culture, the Nova Forum, and St. Paul’s University Catholic Center. This event will be held on Zoom (registration required) and live-streamed to the Harvard Catholic Forum’s YouTube page. The pandemic of 2020 has disrupted the sacraments and public worship, scattered communities, and put local churches into new, sometimes strained, relationships with civil authorities. The Church has also been a significant actor in the crisis, offering relief services and…
Master Class on Yves Simon on Natural Law, Part 2
Open to current graduate students. It will take place online on Zoom. Copies of the readings will be provided. Others interested in participating should contact us. Join us for a master class on part II of Yves Simon’s The Tradition of Natural Law: A Philosopher’s Reflections (Fordham University Press, 1999). ABOUT THE BOOK The tradition of natural law is one of the foundations of Western civilization. At its heart is the conviction that there is an objective and universal justice which transcends humanity’s particular expressions of justice. It asserts that there are certain ways of behaving which are appropriate to humanity simply by virtue…
Themes in Catholic Social Thought: Three Necessary Societies
Open to current graduate students. This master class will take place online on Zoom. Copies of the readings will be provided. Others interested in participating should contact us. The modern social magisterium, which emerged during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), held that the dignity of human society exemplified in three necessary societies. By nature or grace, human beings are domestic (marriage-family), political, and ecclesial animals. Each has an origin in some kind of necessity, but the necessities are paths to human excellence and happiness. In the first master class we will consider the political and documentary history of the teachings…
Pierre Manent on Natural Law and Human Rights
This event is cosponsored by University of Notre Dame Press and the de Nicola Center for Ethics & Culture. Shortly after the promulgation of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, Jacques Maritain wrote, “With regard to Human Rights, what matters most to a philosopher is the question of their rational foundations. The philosophical foundation of the Rights of man is Natural Law. Sorry that we cannot find another word!” In his recent book Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason (Notre Dame Press, 2020), leading Catholic political philosopher Pierre Manent takes a different and decidedly more critical approach…
Master Class on “Toward an Adequate Anthropology: Social Aspects of Imago Dei”
Open to current graduate students. This master class will take place online on Zoom. Copies of the readings will be provided. Others interested in participating should contact us. This master class is a follow-up to the March 26 session on Three Necessary Societies. The first master class considered pontifical teachings about the three societies necessary for human eudaimonia: domestic, political, and ecclesial. Having discussed how that theme evolved in Catholic social teaching, the second master class moves to a deeper metaphysical and theological consideration of social orders. The question is whether social unions are made unto the image and likeness of God….