The leading center for scholarly reflection within the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition
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Evangelium Vitae Medal
The dCEC will present the 2023 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University at a Mass and dinner on April 29.
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Building a Civilization of Love
The dCEC hosted an expert roundtable discussion on how best to care for and protect mothers, babies, and families in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision.
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March For Life 2023
More than 750 students, faculty, and staff participated in the 2023 March For Life in Washington, D.C., part of a weekend filled with events celebrating the dignity of all human life.
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Fall Conference 2022
Recorded sessions from our 22nd annual Fall Conference, 'And It Was Very Good': On Creation, are now available on our YouTube channel.
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Ethics and Culture Cast
The Center's podcast series, Ethics and Culture Cast, features lively conversations with fellows, scholars, and friends of the dCEC.
News 
dCEC Hosts Expert Roundtable Discussion on Caring for Women and Children in a post–Roe World
On Thursday, January 19, the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame marked the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in Washington, DC, with an expert roundtable discussion on how best to care for and protect mothers, babies, and families in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision.
“Building a Civilization of Love” brought together experts in law, medicine, social science, public health, and social service to discuss the most important opportunities for and challenges to protecting the intrinsic equal dignity of every member of the human family following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Dobbs. Video of the discussion is available on the dCEC's YouTube channel.
The de Nicola Center’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (and its recent reversal) also included support for the more than 700 students, faculty, and staff from Notre Dame, St. Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College who traveled to Washington, DC, to participate in the annual March for Life on Friday, January 20—one of the largest single contingents to participate in the event, year after year.
dCEC Hosts 22nd Annual Fall Conference, "And It Was Very Good: On Creation"
The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture welcomed more than 1,000 scholars, students, and friends to its 22nd annual Fall Conference, hosted at the University of Notre Dame, November 10–12. Entitled “And It Was Very Good: On Creation,” and presented in collaboration with Stanford University’s “Boundaries of Humanity” project, the conference featured 147 speakers from a wide range of disciplines who explored the many facets of the created world and the act of creation.
Plenary keynote talks were presented by Robert Pogue Harrison (Stanford University), Alasdair MacIntyre (de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture), Simon Conway Morris (University of Cambridge), and Elizabeth Lev (Duquesne University). Recordings of these are available at https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/fall-conference/streamfc/. Additional featured speakers included Jacqueline Rivers (Harvard University), Kristin Collier (University of Michigan Medical School), Thomas Hibbs (Baylor University), and Charles Camosy (Creighton University).
Video recordings of many of the presentations will be posted to the dCEC's YouTube channel in the coming weeks. For more infomation about the conference including paper abstracts and speaker bios, visit the 2022 Fall Conference homepage.
dCEC to Present the 2023 ND Evangelium Vitae Medal to Robert P. George
Acclaimed legal philosopher and constitutional and political theorist Robert P. George will receive the University of Notre Dame’s 2023 Evangelium Vitae Medal—the nation’s most important award for heroes of the pro-life movement—at a celebration to be hosted by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture on April 29, 2023.
George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the founding director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
"Robby George is a brilliant legal philosopher and one of the most eminent public intellectuals in America today," said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. "Over more than 40 years of service as a professor, author, and mentor (including to me), George has been the most important and influential exponent of the philosophical argument for the intrinsic equal dignity of the unborn child, with a combination of intellectual excellence, civility, and aplomb that is simply not paralleled in his generation.”
Read the full story here.
dCEC Co-presents Webinar Series on Caring for Women and Children after Dobbs
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the University of Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Notre Dame Office of Life and Human Dignity at the McGrath Institute for Church Life offered a multipart panel discussion series addressing questions facing women, physicians, and policy makers entitled “Caring for Women and Children: Navigating Medicine, Law, and Policy After Dobbs.”
The first session discussed widespread myths faced by patients and physicians, and the second discussed challenges and questions faced by medical practitioners; recordings of both sessions are available on our YouTube channel. The final discussion in the series took place on October 28, exploring "A Blueprint for the Future." The recording of the final session is forthcoming.
This series was part of the dCEC's Women and Children First Initiative.
dCEC Director Carter Snead's Statement on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
"Those who have worked tirelessly to support unborn children and their mothers have reason to rejoice today, as they now redouble the efforts they have long pursued for the intrinsic equal dignity and value of every human life and to create a society where every child (born and unborn), mother, and family is welcomed into a network of support and protection, and loved unconditionally, from conception throughout the human lifespan."
"The University of Notre Dame is institutionally committed to 'to the defense of human life in all its stages,' recognizing and upholding the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death (cf., https://news.nd.edu/news/notre-dame-adopts-new-statement-and-principles-in-support-of-life/). For our part, the de Nicola Center is proud to advance that commitment through our own efforts and programming, particularly our recently launched 'Women and Children First' initiative. This initiative is our signal contribution to the ongoing effort to care for women, children (born and unborn), and families in need through research, teaching, service, public engagement, and witness across a variety of disciplines and contexts, including such complex issues as health care, housing, education, employment, poverty, racial justice, criminal justice reform, adoption and foster care, religious liberty, and international human rights."
Support the de Nicola Center's Mission
All of our work at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is aimed at one goal: to share the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition through teaching, research, and dialogue, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines. In so doing, we enrich Notre Dame’s distinctive intellectual ecology—and we bring the university’s voice into the academic and public conversations concerning the most vital and complex matters of ethics, literature, art, music, social sciences, philosophy, theology, history, political theory, applied and theoretical science, public policy, and law. For more information on how to support the work of the de Nicola Center, visit our support page.
Ethics and Culture Cast
Our podcast features lively conversations with fellows, scholars, and friends of the de Nicola Center. Episodes released every other Thursday during the academic year. Suggestions and feedback welcome at cecpodcast@nd.edu.
Podcast Episode List
