Rev. Msgr. Anthony Onyemuche Ekpo is the undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. He will join the Keough School of Global Affairs during the Nanovic Institute for European Studies' Keeley Vatican Lecture, the latest in this series that seeks to connect the University of Notre Dame with the Vatican. His message, titled "The Reform of the Roman Curia and the Promotion of Integral Human Development," will focus on integral human development, a critical component of Catholic Social Teaching that emphasizes supporting the growth of each person as a holistic human being. This powerful calling inspires the mission of the Keough School of Global Affairs. We invite all students, faculty, staff, and the general public to attend this timely event. Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., will introduce Rev. Msgr. Ekpo.About the Keeley Vatican Lecture series The Keeley Vatican Lecture, facilitated annually by the Nanovic Institute, provides a way to deepen Notre Dame’s connection to the Holy See by bringing distinguished representatives from the Vatican to explore questions surrounding the University’s Catholic mission. Established in 2005 through the generous support of alumnus Terrence R. Keeley ’81, lecturers typically spend several days on campus, joining classes, celebrating Mass with students, and conversing with faculty members. Past Keeley Vatican Lectures have included Sister Raffaella Petrini (secretary-general of the Vatican City State), Rev. Fr. Hans Zollner, Dr. Barbara Jatta, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, and Ukrainian Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak. Originally published at nanovic.nd.edu.

Register here Nathan Hatch served as the president of Wake Forest University for 16 years and previously served as provost at the University of Notre Dame. He recently published The Gift of Transformative Leaders(link is external). We will discuss this book and his lifelong commitment to making character central in higher education. We hope you will join the Institute for Social Concerns each month for the Virtues & Vocations lunchtime webinar series, Conversations on Character & the Common Good. There is always time for audience questions. Virtues & Vocations is a national forum for scholars and practitioners across disciplines to consider how best to cultivate character in pre-professional and professional education. Virtues & Vocations hosts faculty workshops, an annual conference, and monthly webinars, and engages issues of character, professional identity, and moral purpose through our publications.

Learn more and register here Signs of the Times: Interdisciplinary Responses to Religious Nationalism March 20-22, 2025   This 2025 CST conference will remember the 60th anniversary of two significant Vatican II texts, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) and Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). Released on the final day of Vatican II, these texts together invited serious consideration of the role of the church and other religious communities in relation to the state. This year’s CST conference takes up Vatican II’s invitation to discern “the signs of the times” and to attend to the roles of church and state within civil society with a view toward the common good. These central CST themes warrant further exploration as Christian and other forms of religious nationalism represent a significant sign of the current time in particular national and international contexts. This interdisciplinary conference invites historical, constructive, and comparative approaches as we consider the ecumenical, interfaith, and transdisciplinary challenges of religious nationalism. For example, what is the history of Christian nationalism in the United States and how is it related to similar movements in other parts of the world? What are the scriptural and theological resources available to analyze these expressions of Christian and national identity? To what degree and under what forms are the academy and the Christian churches complicit with the history and recent expressions of white Christian nationalism? What are the possible connections between the reemergence of various forms of religious nationalism with economic changes, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation? How has the rise of these political ideologies been facilitated by changes in laws and institutional structures? What are the implications of Christian and other forms of religious nationalism for the relationship of religious bodies and the state in civil society? What are the pedagogical challenges across the disciplines in addressing the significance of Christian and religious nationalism? Normatively, what options for constructive engagement and responses emerge from our shared consideration of these questions?

The Kroc Institute has selected The Honorable Emilce Cuda as the featured speaker for the 26th Annual Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace. As Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America at the Holy See, Cuda is a renowned international speaker who has published extensively on moral social theology, democracy and Catholicism in liberal contexts, theology of the people and culture in a Latin American context, economic migration, the socio-environmental ecological crisis, and more. Cuda is a member of the research team, “The future work of labor after Laudato si,” at the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) and the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC). She received a Ph.D. in theology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and specializes in social moral theology. Lunch and conversation will follow this lecture in C103, Hesburgh Center for International Studies. The Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace, which began in 1999, were established through a gift to the Kroc Institute from Mrs. Anne Marie Yoder and her family. Each year, the Kroc Institute invites a leading thinker, writer, scholar, and/or peace advocate to deliver a lecture related to nonviolence, religion, and peace. Following the lecture, audience members join in informal dialogue and discussion with the speaker and with each other. Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

Learn more and register here 2025 Catholic Social Tradition Conference Signs of the Times: Interdisciplinary Responses to Religious Nationalism March 20-22, 2025 This 2025 CST conference will remember the 60th anniversary of two significant Vatican II texts, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) and Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). Released on the final day of Vatican II, these texts together invited serious consideration of the role of the church and other religious communities in relation to the state. This year’s CST conference takes up Vatican II’s invitation to discern “the signs of the times” and to attend to the roles of church and state within civil society with a view toward the common good. These central CST themes warrant further exploration as Christian and other forms of religious nationalism represent a significant sign of the current time in particular national and international contexts. This interdisciplinary conference invites historical, constructive, and comparative approaches as we consider the ecumenical, interfaith, and transdisciplinary challenges of religious nationalism. For example, what is the history of Christian nationalism in the United States and how is it related to similar movements in other parts of the world? What are the scriptural and theological resources available to analyze these expressions of Christian and national identity? To what degree and under what forms are the academy and the Christian churches complicit with the history and recent expressions of white Christian nationalism? What are the possible connections between the reemergence of various forms of religious nationalism with economic changes, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation? How has the rise of these political ideologies been facilitated by changes in laws and institutional structures? What are the implications of Christian and other forms of religious nationalism for the relationship of religious bodies and the state in civil society? What are the pedagogical challenges across the disciplines in addressing the significance of Christian and religious nationalism? Normatively, what options for constructive engagement and responses emerge from our shared consideration of these questions?

Learn more and register here 2025 Catholic Social Tradition Conference Signs of the Times: Interdisciplinary Responses to Religious Nationalism March 20-22, 2025 This 2025 CST conference will remember the 60th anniversary of two significant Vatican II texts, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) and Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). Released on the final day of Vatican II, these texts together invited serious consideration of the role of the church and other religious communities in relation to the state. This year’s CST conference takes up Vatican II’s invitation to discern “the signs of the times” and to attend to the roles of church and state within civil society with a view toward the common good. These central CST themes warrant further exploration as Christian and other forms of religious nationalism represent a significant sign of the current time in particular national and international contexts. This interdisciplinary conference invites historical, constructive, and comparative approaches as we consider the ecumenical, interfaith, and transdisciplinary challenges of religious nationalism. For example, what is the history of Christian nationalism in the United States and how is it related to similar movements in other parts of the world? What are the scriptural and theological resources available to analyze these expressions of Christian and national identity? To what degree and under what forms are the academy and the Christian churches complicit with the history and recent expressions of white Christian nationalism? What are the possible connections between the reemergence of various forms of religious nationalism with economic changes, poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation? How has the rise of these political ideologies been facilitated by changes in laws and institutional structures? What are the implications of Christian and other forms of religious nationalism for the relationship of religious bodies and the state in civil society? What are the pedagogical challenges across the disciplines in addressing the significance of Christian and religious nationalism? Normatively, what options for constructive engagement and responses emerge from our shared consideration of these questions?