Every semester since Spring 2009, the Center has hosted Bread of Life dinner discussions. The event is designed to provide an opportunity for Notre Dame undergraduates and faculty to meet, reflect on, and discuss their attitudes toward beginning-of-life issues. Bread of Life is especially meant to attract students who might not already be strongly committed to the Church’s teachings on these issues but who are open to exploring them. This semester's dinner will feature Professor Ernest Morrell, speaking on "Fighting for Life in the Digital Age: Media, Literacy, and the New Evangelization."

The format for the evening is a brief fifteen-minute reflection offered by a member of the faculty or staff on a topic related to beginning-of-life ethical issues. Following the reflection, professors, university staff, and students discuss the issue together and reflect on their own attitudes toward life issues over dinner. All participants receive a copy of Pope St. John Paul II's encyclical "on the Value and Inviolability of Human Life," Evangelium Vitae.

Ernest Morrell is the Coyle Professor of Literacy Education and Director of the Center for Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame. He is an elected Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), an elected member of the AERA Council, a past-president of the National Council of Teachers of English, an appointed member of the International Literacy Association’s Research Panel, and convener of the African Diaspora International Research Network. His areas of interest include: the teaching of English, the African diaspora, postcolonial studies, media and popular culture, and literature for children.