The de Nicola Center is proud to host the second installment of an international project on “Benedict XVI’s Legacy: Unfinished Debates on Faith, Culture, and Politics” at the University of Notre Dame, April 7–9, 2024. Hosted in partnership with the Ratzinger Foundation and the Benedict XVI Institute, and launched in November 2023 with a conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University, this initiative invites scholars and experts from around the globe to engage select texts from Benedict XVI’s pontificate, consider their enduring and intergenerational import, and to reflect on the legacy they point toward today. (Watch video from the November 2023 session at the Pontifical Gregorian University's YouTube page: introductory remarks, lecture and responses.) The full schedule is on the conference homepage. Featured speakers include:Rémi Brague (Sorbonne, Paris; Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich) Tracey Rowland (University of Notre Dame, Australia) Chantal Delsol (University of Marne-la-Valée) Lorenza Violini (Universitá Statale, Milano) Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J. (Fondazione Joseph Ratzinger) Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna (Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Rome)Registration has ended, but ND/SMC/HCC community members are welcome to attend conference sessions as space allows. Originally published at ethicscenter.nd.edu.

Register here The EnPAx Transitional Justice Interest Group is hosting a webinar open to the public on transitional justice and the environment in the context of Colombia’s transitional justice process. This webinar is co-sponsored by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The signing of the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement formally ended the more than 50-year conflict between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Government of the Republic of Colombia. However, in the years since the signing of the agreement, environmental issues have arisen, highlighting new challenges and innovations for the practice and study of the field of environmental peacebuilding, transitional justice, and conservation. Understanding how the environment factors into transitioning to peace serves as a formal and informal vehicle; transitional justice is critical to peacebuilding. The case and contexts of Colombia offer a novel and still unfolding opportunity to explore questions and draw out lessons for facilitating sustainable peace. This webinar is comprised of two separate panels: Panel 1 (9:30 - 10:40 a.m.) Speakers include Angela María Amaya-Arias (director of research in the department of environmental law, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Colombia), Gloria Amparo Rodriguez (professor of law and director of the Public Law Research Group, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia and adjunct judge of the constitutional court of Colombia), and Josefina Echavarría Alvarez (professor of the practice, Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, and director of the Peace Accords Matrix, a research initiative of the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies) and Tatiana Menjura Roldán (researcher, Peace Accords Matrix’s Barometer Initiative in Colombia). Panel 2 (10:50 a.m. - noon ) Speakers include Maria Paula Prada Ramírez (former permanent advisor to the president of the Truth, Reconciliation and Non-Repetition Commission in Colombia and visiting research fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies), Juan Fernando Lucio (director of PASO Colombia, One Earth Future), and Natalia Jiménez Galindo (environmental peacebuilding consultant). Register here Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

In 1994, Rwanda suffered a genocide and civil war that devasted the country, leaving lasting harms that continue to reverberate today. Since then, Rwandans have worked to rebuild their communities and lives in the aftermath of the violence. Join us for a conversation with ​​Angélique Gakoko Pitteloud, a Rwandan genocide survivor, filmmaker and human rights advocate, and Jacques Pitteloud, Swiss Ambassador to the United States, who has extensive experience in diplomacy to advance human rights. Together, they will address the legacies of violence and the ongoing healing and reconstruction efforts in Rwanda over the past 30 years. Emmanuel Katongole, professor of theology and peace studies, and Ernesto Verdeja, associate professor of peace studies and global politics, will participate as respondents. This event is cosponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.  Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

In 1910, the British Consul General in Rio de Janeiro, Roger Casement, undertook an investigation into allegations of crimes against indigenous communities committed by the British-registered Peruvian Amazon Company. Secrets from Putumayo recounts the horrific treatment he uncovered there: an industrial-extractive system based on killings and slave labor in the midst of the Amazon rainforest. Casement was determined to bring awareness to the British of their own colonial atrocities by revealing the appalling human cost of the rubber industry. Blending passages from his journal with archival images, the film makes space for the Indigenous relatives of the survivors to share the oral stories passed down by the family members, who also recount current struggles for self-determination against today's multinational corporations, just as fixated on extracting the resources of the Amazon. Casement's pursuit of justice continued when he returned to his native Ireland where he became an active Irish nationalist, to be executed for treason during World War I by the British government. RESERVE TICKETS