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As part of the 2024-25 Notre Dame Forum, Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, S.J., of Peru and Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana will visit the University of Notre Dame to participate in a conversation with President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., at 11:30 a.m. April 25 in the Smith Ballroom of the Morris Inn. The conversation is open to the public and will also be livestreamed for both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking audiences.

Titled “10 Years After Laudato si’: Faith, Anthropocene, and Justice in the Global South,” the event will reflect on Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on care for our common home in the context of this year’s Notre Dame Forum theme, “What do we owe each other?” In recent years, during speeches and in Laudate Deum, a 2023 addendum to Laudato si’, Pope Francis has discussed a growing concern about the increasing impact of human activities on God’s creation and the climate, signs of what some earth system scientists have described as a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene.

Cardinal Barreto and Cardinal Turkson will discuss the outsized impact of climate change on communities in the Global South, how those communities are developing strategies for resilience and how the Anthropocene epoch affects the way we think about justice, the planet and the Church.

Cardinal Barreto, the archbishop emeritus of Huancayo, Peru, currently serves as president of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, a new international body linked to the Holy See. In this role, he promotes the recognition and appreciation of the charisms of all members of the people of God with an Amazonian identity, fostering a more participatory and synodal Church. He was named a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2018, after serving as archbishop of Huancayo since 2004. A Jesuit priest since his ordination in 1971, Cardinal Barreto has dedicated his life to pastoral care, promotion of integral ecology and protection of Indigenous communities.

Cardinal Turkson has served as the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences since 2022. He was ordained a priest in 1975 and consecrated as archbishop of Cape Coast in 1992 by Pope John Paul II, who also made him the first cardinal archbishop of Ghana in 2003. The Holy Father has appointed him to numerous roles, including president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 2009 to 2017 and prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development from 2017 to 2021. Cardinal Turkson, a champion of human rights and sustainable human development, has served as a religious peacebuilder in numerous politically volatile situations on the African continent.

The event will also serve as the culmination of a conference titled “Anthropocene ND conference,” organized by Julia Adeney Thomas, a professor of history, and Brad Gregory, the Henkels Family College Professor of History.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220, c.gates@nd.edu