Over at First Things, Center Faculty Advisory Committee member Francesca Murphy has published a piece regarding Notre Dame's current curriculum review and the perils of goal-based education.
"Faculty often quarrel over curricula. That’s as it should be. A curriculum, especially its core courses required of all students, is an educational institution’s constitution. To tell a young person he must take this or that course announces a university’s highest priorities. This makes a curriculum review a battlefield. At the University of Notre Dame we are presently conducting such a review, and a hot point for debate is whether the university should maintain its requirement of two theology and two philosophy courses. This requirement has long been thought essential to the Catholic mission of Notre Dame. But the “two theology, two philosophy” requirement may not survive this round of curriculum revision."
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Frank Bruni’s column on the Catholic Church’s treatment of women could inspire two masters theses in two disciplines. The journalism thesis would take on the shallowness to which opinion writing sinks when the subject matter is religion and women. The pastoral theology thesis would treat women in the Catholic Church today.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The last time the House considered this bill, Center Public Policy Fellow Maureen Condic testified before Congress that a fetus can feel pain even before 20 weeks. You can read an excerpt from her testimony below.…
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” —Goethe
The University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture is pleased to announce its sixteenth annual Fall Conference, "For Freedom Set Free," to be held November 19–21, 2015…
The Center for Ethics and Culture was pleased to bestow the 2015 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal on Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus at the fifth annual Evangelium Vitae Medal banquet Sunday evening, April 26.
The following article was written by Center Sorin Fellow Lauren Saunee, who participated in the Center's Medical Ethics Conference in Rome over Spring Break. Lauren is a freshman majoring in science preprofessional studies with a minor in Catholic Social Teaching. She plans to attend medical school after her graduation. This piece originally appeared in the ND campus newspaper, the Irish Rover…
Below is a piece by Center Director Carter Snead. It was originally published on Public Discourse.
One of the most iconic images from Notre Dame’s storied history is a July 1964 photograph of Father President Theodore Hesburgh standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rev. Martin Luther King at Chicago’s Soldier Field, singing “We Shall Overcome.” The photograph perfectly captures what Notre Dame aspires to be—not merely a world-class community of learning and research, but also, as its founder Father Sorin wrote, “a great force for good in the world” animated by the truths affirmed by the Catholic Church regarding the inalienable and equal dignity of every member of the human family. The image is so powerful because it shows that on that summer day in 1964 it was not merely Father Hesburgh (formidable though he was and continues to be) but the University of Notre Dame—the most important Catholic university in the world—standing in solidarity with our oppressed and marginalized brothers and sisters in their struggle for civil rights.…
A Nobel laureate and the Vatican’s leader on Church doctrine were just two of the more than 60 distinguished scholars and 600 guests who gathered at Notre Dame for the Center for Ethics and Culture’s 15th Annual Fall Conference (October 30–November 1), an event that opened with a personal greeting from Pope Francis.…
The University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture will award the 2015 Evangelium Vitae Medal to Carl A. Anderson and the Knights of Columbus…
The Catholic Press Association has awarded a Book Award in the area of faith and science to Christopher Kaczor's A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience. Grounded in the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, A Defense of Dignity…
Below is a statement from O. Carter Snead, Director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, regarding today's Supreme Court ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.
"Today’s Supreme Court opinion in Hobby Lobby is a strong and welcome affirmation that the faithful do not lose the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act simply because they choose to exercise their religion through a closely held for-profit business. …
Come hear Center Director Carter Snead's plenary address on the first day of the National Right to Life's Annual Convention this week at the historic Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky! The convention will take place from Thursday, June 26, through Saturday, June 28.
On June 26, at 12:45 p.m., Professor Snead will give a featured presentation entitled "The Lessons of Fetal Pain and the Duty to Protect Unborn Children." Read his related remarks…
On Thursday, June 26th, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) handed down its decision in McCullen v. Coakley, unanimously striking down a Massachusetts law that created 35-foot "buffer zones" around abortion clinic entrances. The Court ruled that the law violated the First Amendment.
In today's L.A. Times, ND Law Prof. Richard Garnett discusses the merits of Hobby Lobby's lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services. The company is suing HHS over a rule in the Affordable Care which will require it to provide insurance coverage for contraception and some drugs that many believe can cause abortions.
Angela Miceli, the Center's former Edith Stein Fellow, has penned a piece focusing on authentic Feminine Excellence over at Public Discourse. In the piece, Miceli, who is now an instructor at the University of Navarre, responds to recent articles by Princeton University's Anne-Marie Slaughter and Elizabeth Corey about whether women can "have it all."
Center Director Carter Snead will be delivering several lectures in Oklahoma this week as a part of the A. Kurt Weiss Lectureship. The main event will take place on Friday Sept 13, 2013 at noon in the East Lecture Hall at Oklahoma University. Professor Snead will give a presentation to OU medical students. The presentation is entitled "The Limits of Science for Public Bioethics."…
Testimony of Professor O. Carter Snead, William P. and Hazel B. White Director, Center for Ethics and Culture, and Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
Regarding the Constitutionality of SB1, SUBCHAPTER C. ABORTION PROHIBITED AT OR AFTER 20 WEEKS POST-FERTILIZATION.
Before the Texas State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services…
The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture is happy to announce that O. Carter Snead, William P. and Hazel B. White Director and Professor of Law will deliver the keynote address at the 43rd annual National Right to Life Convention in Dallas, Texas.
Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, long-time Center friend and Clarke Lecturer, has died. Below is a short tribute to a great man.
The Passing of an Icon
Prof. Edmund D. Pellegrino MD, Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Bioethics, and founding director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA, died on 13. June 2013. He was 92 years old.
…The Center is happy to announce that its 2013 Fall Conference Call for Papers has been released! This year's theme will be Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: The Body and Human Identity.…
