Renewing Catholic thought, nurturing the next generation
Fostering Engagement with Social Teachings and the Sources of Catholic Social and Political Thought.
This program fosters engagement with official social teachings found in papal and conciliar documents, as well as the sources of Catholic social and political thought and the rich history of scholarly deliberations and social movements. This inquiry equips us to address the social, economic, and political problems facing both our national and global societies.
Three Initiative to Aid Future Scholars, Clergy and Civic Leaders Carry Out Their Roles in Light of the Faith
The Catholic Criminal Justice Reform Network
The Catholic Criminal Justice Reform Network (CCJRN) connects legal scholars, attorneys, judges, clergy, law enforcement, people who have been impacted personally by incarceration, and others who are committed to seeing reform in the American criminal justice system.
Arising in response to the debates over criminal justice and motivated by the principles of Catholic Social Thought, CCJRN’s programming takes place in two tracks. In keeping with our University of Chicago heritage, we host workshops, lectures and panel discussions that draw Catholic Social Teaching into conversations with academic legal theories and their philosophical and theological underpinnings.
These activities are informed and complemented by dialogues. In keeping with Pope Francis’s call to hear those on the margins, the dialogues aim to give people who have been impacted by the criminal justice system–returning citizens, victims/survivors of crime, and family members–a place to speak about their experiences and to be listened to by those with power in court rooms and classrooms.
Economics & Catholic Social Thought
To many, the study of economics is a form of applied math, and the practice, an indulgence in unbridled self-interest. Instead, Catholic Social Thought presents economic life as embedded within a variety of social forms that together enable a good life. The task for Catholics scholars has been to integrate the power of modern economic analysis within the broader philosophical and theological framework of CST to promote human flourishing.
Launched in the wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis, the Program in Economics and Catholic Social Thought was created to harness the resources of Catholic Social Thought and the rich tradition of political and economic thought at the University of Chicago to address both theoretical and practical challenges in economic life.
The core of the program is an annual conference, which has addressed themes like the human person, economics and family life, the environment, globalization, and over-financialization.
We also host regular lectures and seminars, as well as several summer seminars for graduate students and early career faculty.
An outgrowth of the program has been the formation of CREDO, an association of over 1,000 Catholic research economists worldwide committed to exploring the relationship between the Catholic faith and economics as it applies to the economy, the Church, and the broader society.
