Laura Nash, Center for Ethics and Culture Event Planning Program Manager, has been promoted to Associate Director for Operations. In the newly created position, she will oversee the Center's day-to-day operations and finances, execute strategic planning, oversee the staff, and ensure Center initiatives operate at the highest-level. Laura will work with Director, Carter Snead, and Center staff to implement the mission and vision of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture to share the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition through teaching, research, and public engagement across a variety of disciplines.…

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Current and future pro-life advocates and leaders from around the world gathered on the campus of the University of Notre Dame for a week-long "pro-life boot camp" at the Center for Ethics and Culture's annual Notre Dame Vita Institute, June 9-17, 2017. Participants studied the fundamentals of life issues with leading scholars across a wide range of disciplines including social science, biology, philosophy, theology, law, neonatology, and reproductive health.…

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From May 31–June 2, Carter Snead, director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, participated in an exclusive meeting of the directors of the leading US university centers and institutes whose work focuses on Catholic Social Thought. The convocation was hosted at Georgetown University and featured invited representatives from 30 of the leading Catholic institutions of higher learning in the United States, with the goal of establishing a closer collaboration among the Vatican and premier Catholic educational institutions in order to "deepen the social doctrine of the Church and attempt to make it widely known and applied."…

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The Center for Ethics and Culture mourns the death of Peter Augustine Lawler of Berry College, who passed away on May 23, 2017. Lawler had been a frequent speaker and guest at Notre Dame events over the years, most recently in March 2016 when he presented on Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book…

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The Center for Ethics and Culture is proud to salute the Sorin Fellows of the Class of 2017! Through their affiliation with the Center, these students have had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition and examine the many ways they can be brought to bear on pressing ethical issues in culture and public policy today. As they graduate and head out to "make prayers of their educations" (Bl. Basil Moreau), we promise our prayers and good wishes!…

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The Center for Ethics and Culture is co-hosting a colloquium "On Secularization" at the Law School of the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, May 12–13, 2017. This colloquium marks the beginning of a new scholarly research collaboration on Christianity and the West organized in collaboration with the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, the Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy), and the Centre d’études du Saulchoir (France).…

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The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture awarded the 2017 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation at a Mass and banquet on April 29, 2017, attended by more than 400 guests, including persons with Down syndrome and other genetic disorders and their families.…

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In a letter to the editor published by the ND-SMC Observer, director Carter Snead described the vision that informs the work of the Center for Ethics and Culture. Writing in response to a previously published op-ed penned by a Notre Dame alumnus, Professor Snead wrote,

The Center for Ethics and Culture takes seriously the capacious nature of Catholic social teaching across the spectrum of human issues. We understand that all our work and thinking should be animated by a commitment to radical hospitality, human dignity, solidarity and the common good. We know that this calls us to speak out in defense of the unborn child, the refugee, the undocumented immigrant, the poor and the disabled. We believe that our work reflects this commitment.

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February 24, 2017 -- The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture is excited to announce the 2017 CEC Polking Family Fellow, which results in a full tuition fellowship for three years of study at Notre Dame Law School. Hope Steffensen will begin studies in Fall 2017, joining the inaugural Polking Fellow, Margo Borders.
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The Center for Ethics and Culture lost a great friend upon the death of author, journalist, diplomat, and philosopher Michael Novak on February 17, 2017. "Michael was a kind man and influential Catholic thinker whom our undergraduate and graduate Sorin Fellows loved to be around," said CEC Director Carter Snead. "We are grateful for his support and encouragement over the years. May he rest in peace."…

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In a featured article in the January 2017 issue of Columbia Magazine, CEC Director Carter Snead profiled the late US Representative Henry Hyde, a bipartisan lawmaker and pro-life champion who represented the state of Illinois from 1975-2007. "It is no exaggeration to say that the late U.S. Representative Henry J. Hyde was the greatest American champion in the most important human rights struggle of our time – namely, the fight for equal justice under law for the unborn child," writes Snead. The namesake of the landmark Hyde Amendment, which has severely restricted federal funding of abortion since 1976, Representative Hyde "grasped that a society is to be judged by how well (or poorly) it cares for and protects the least among us, and that Roe v. Wade…

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As the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's 17th Annual Fall Conference came to a close, William P. and Hazel B. White Director O. Carter Snead announced the establishment of a $1.25 million endowed graduate student fellowship honoring the Center's founding director, David Solomon. "Professor Solomon is the visionary who had the will, the creativity, the insight, the judgment, and the energy to create the Center for Ethics and Culture so many years ago," said Snead. "We are very pleased that, in perpetuity, there will be a David Solomon Fellow in the College of Arts and Letters who will share David's passion for the Catholic mission of the University of Notre Dame."…

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CEC Director Carter Snead was quoted in a widely-published Associated Press article about Pope Francis' Apostolic Letter Misericordia et misera…

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Ave Maria University's "Academics at AMU" blog recently featured an article about the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture sponsoring 11 undergraduate students to take part in the CEC's 17th Annual Fall Conference, "You Are Beauty: Exploring the Catholic Imagination."…

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More than 750 scholars and artists will gather at the University of Notre Dame for the Center for Ethics and Culture’s interdisciplinary Fall Conference, “You Are Beauty: Exploring the Catholic Imagination,” November 10-12. The conference will feature 90 presentations, including the keynote lecture “Beauty Is Part of God’s Creation” by Etsuro Sotoo, the lead sculptor of Barcelona’s Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, and a closing lecture on the poetry of Wallace Stevens by Mary Ann Glendon, former Ambassador to the Holy See. Additional invited speakers include author and philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, art historian Elizabeth Lev, James Beard Award-winning chef John Besh, Center for Ethics and Culture Senior Distinguished Research Fellow Alasdair MacIntyre, producer of Academy Award winning films Steve McEveety, and the director of Florence’s Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Monsignor Timothy Verdon.…

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The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture will award the 2017 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to the Jerome Lejeune Foundation at a Mass and Banquet on April 29, 2017.

“Professor Lejeune was a man of great faith, a brilliant geneticist, and a prophetic voice on behalf of people who suffer from intellectual disabilties,” said O. Carter Snead, William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. “He spent his professional life engaged in cutting-edge scientific research into the genetic causes of disabilities like Down syndrome and trisomy 18. He was motivated by deep compassion and an abiding love for disabled people, born and unborn. Today, the Jerome Lejeune Foundation carries on Professor Lejeune’s work by sponsoring ethically-conducted genetic research, securing healthcare for those with disabilities, and performing advocacy on behalf of the disabled in light of our shared human dignity.” Snead concluded, “The Jerome Lejeune Foundation perfectly embodies the spirit of the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae…

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Carter Snead, Director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, and Mary O'Callaghan, CEC Public Policy Fellow, delivered presentations on the theme "Disability as a Resource" at the 37th annual Meeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples in Rimini, Italy, on August 22. More than 350 attendees from around the world gathered for Sunday's keynote session, which also included a special video interview with Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche movement, conducted by noted Italian journalist Maurizo Vitali.…

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Carter Snead, director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and professor of law at Notre Dame Law School, has written a featured op-ed published on CNN's homepage about Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Kaine…

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On July 22 & 23, the Center for Ethics and Culture presented a special Notre Dame Vita Institute for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the invitation of Archbishop José H. Gomez. More than 100 participants from across Southern California took part in the weekend at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, which was co-sponsored by the Archdiocesan Office of Life, Justice, and Peace. Sessions included presentations on the biological development of the unborn child from his or her earliest stages, legal issues surrounding abortion, physician-assisted suicide, federal policies toward embryonic stem cell research, analysis of popular philosophical arguments in support of abortion, and how to communicate the pro-life message across generations. Participants included nurses, doctors, college professors, priests, religious sisters, parish ministers, and pro-life advocates of all ages.…

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CEC Public Policy Fellow Richard Doerflinger published an op-ed decrying the Obama Administration for its failure to protect conscience rights for health care providers in accordance with its legal responsibility per the Weldon Amendment. Doerflinger writes,

Yet through a mangled interpretation of the statute—one that ignores its plain text and inserts qualifiers and exceptions nowhere found in that text—the administration manages to neutralize the statute. For good measure, it announces that this law, which was repeatedly signed and praised by President Obama, is probably unconstitutional—echoing an argument long advanced by pro-abortionists, but not accepted by any court.

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Carter Snead, director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and professor in the Notre Dame Law School, issued the following response to Thursday's decision by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt to issue a preliminary injunction against Indiana House Bill 1337, which prohibits abortion based on a diagnosis of disability, sex, race, or national origin. Professor Snead's statement follows:…

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Current and future pro-life advocates and leaders from North America, South America, and Europe gathered on the campus of the University of Notre Dame for a week-long "pro-life boot camp" at the Center for Ethics and Culture's annual Vita Institute, June 18-25. Participants studied the fundamentals of life issues with world-renowned scholars across a wide range of disciplines including social science, biology, philosophy, theology, law, neonatology, and fertility counseling.…

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CNN has published an op-ed by CEC director Carter Snead in which he responds to the Supreme Court's decision striking down key provisions of Texas House Bill 2, which he had provided expert testimony in support of. "The Supreme Court's decision in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt…

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The ND Center for Ethics and Culture is partnering with the Thomistic Institute and the Catholic & Dominican Institute to cosponsor the 6th Annual Philosophy Workshop, "Aquinas on Politics" at Mount Saint Mary College, June 2-5. Workshop faculty include regular CEC Fall Conference presenters Fr. Thomas Joseph White OP and Fr. Michael Sherwin OP, who will explore the thought of the Universal Doctor on civic life including the common good, the human family, natural rights, and the nature of justice. Participants will discuss St. Thomas's commentary on Aristotle's Politics…

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On Monday, May 30, Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture Director and Professor of Law Carter Snead will deliver the inaugural University of Florence “Law and Justice Lecture” in Florence, Italy. The lectureship was established to provide the opportunity for internationally renowned scholars to engage in university-wide interdisciplinary dialogue on pressing matters of law and public policy. The honor also includes appointment as a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Florence.…

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Fifteen junior faculty and graduate students from international institutions are gathering at the University of Notre Dame May 23-25 for an intensive seminar on "Economics and Catholic Social Thought." The ND Center for Ethics and Culture is cosponsoring the seminar in collaboration with the Lumen Christi Institute…

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The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and the Jacques Maritain Center at Notre Dame, in collaboration with the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, are hosting a two-day colloquium on disability and mercy to take place in Rome, June 5–6, 2016. The colloquium will bring together theologians, scholars, historians, persons with disabilities, families, and intentional Christian communities for shared discussion about disability and the ways in which mercy, properly understood, requires friendship, communion, and a shared life with those who have disabilities.

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Congratulations to the 13 Sorin Fellows who graduated this weekend as members of the Class of 2016! Through their affiliation with the Center for Ethics and Culture, these superb young alumni received mentorship, internships, and opportunities to deepen their understanding of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition and examine the many ways they can be brought to bear on pressing ethical issues in culture and public policy today.…

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The Center for Ethics and Culture invites scholars and artists to submit proposals for our Fall Conference, entitled "You Are Beauty: Exploring the Catholic Imagination." The 17th Annual Fall Conference will consider “aesthetic contemplation sublimated in faith” (“Letter to Artists,” Pope St. John Paul II), exploring the relationship between the imagination, beauty, truth, and religion in a variety of contexts, particularly the arts, philosophy, theology, political theory, and the sciences. The conference will take place at the University of Notre Dame, November 10 - 12, 2016.…

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Richard Doerflinger, a Public Policy Fellow of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, retired at the end of April after 36 years as the associate director for pro-life activities and policy for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). In recognition of his role as a lifelong champion in defense of human life, Doerflinger was honored in 2011 with the first ever Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, and as a Public Policy Felllow he continues to serve as an expert on bioethical issues.

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