The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture mourns the passing of its founding director, W. David Solomon, associate professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, on February 26, 2025. He was 81.
The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture hosted Notre Dame philosopher Therese Cory, director of the Jacques Maritain Center and…
On January 24, nearly 500 students, faculty, staff, and graduate students from the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross College, and St.…
Representatives from the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture traveled to Rome to celebrate the 2024 Ratzinger Prize and this year's winner, Cyril O’Regan, the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. The ceremony was held at the Sala Regia at the Vatican on November 22, 2024, and was live streamed to a worldwide audience via Vatican News.
Thanks in part to an international partnership undertaken by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI presented O'Regan the 2024 Ratzinger Prize in Theology, which is awarded annually to "scholars who have distinguished themselves with particular merit in the activity of publication and/or scientific research."
More than 1,200 scholars, students, and guests from around the world gathered at Notre Dame for the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture’s 24th annual Fall Conference, “Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination,” October 31–November 2, 2024. The conference featured more than 175 papers, panels, film screenings, and performances highlighting the enduring and inexhaustible nature of the Catholic imagination.
More than 1,200 scholars, students, and guests from around the world registered to attend the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture’s 24th annual Fall Conference, “Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination.” The conference, which begins Thursday, October 31, and concludes on November 2, will feature more than 175 papers, panels, and performances across three days of conversation on the enduring and inexhaustible nature of the Catholic imagination.
Gary A. Anderson, the Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought at the University of Notre Dame and Faculty Fellow at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, has been awarded a 2024 Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters. The academy conferred the prize Wednesday (Oct. 23) in a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture will award the 2025 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal—the nation’s most important award for heroes of the pro-life movement—to Anthony J. and Phyllis W. Lauinger of Tulsa, Oklahoma, at a Mass and dinner on May 3, 2025, at the University of Notre Dame.
“Tony and Phyllis Lauinger have worked side-by-side for more than 60 years to defend the inherent equal dignity of all members of the human family, born and unborn,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, John J. Cavanaugh Associate Professor of the Program of Liberal Studies, associate professor in the Department of Theology, and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “Through their professional efforts and personal witness, especially in their local community and in their home state of Oklahoma, Tony and Phyllis have consistently modeled the self-emptying love that the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal was created to honor and celebrate.”
A collaboration between the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation has helped the University of Notre Dame secure its second-ever winner of the prestigious Ratzinger Prize.
Cyril O’Regan, Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, will receive the award in a private audience with Pope Francis in the Vatican on November 22, 2024. Professor O’Regan offered the opening keynote address at the de Nicola Center’s April 2024 conference on the intellectual legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, hosted in partnership with the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation and the Benedict XVI Institute.
The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is pleased to welcome its newest Mission Faculty members to the University of Notre Dame: Paul Scherz has joined the Department of Theology as the Our Lady of Guadalupe Professor, and China Scherz will serve as the Kristin Yudt Professor of Global Affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs.
Through generous support from de Nicola Center benefactors, and working in close collaboration with University faculty and administration, the dCEC’s Mission Stewardship Initiative funds the hiring and retention of elite scholars who augment the mission of Notre Dame, enrich the University’s engagement with the Catholic tradition, and contribute to her reputation for unparalleled academic excellence.
University of Notre Dame rising senior Bobby Spence secured $50,000 in funding for Corvilla, a nonprofit that provides life-enhancing services to people with disabilities, at the Philanthropy Lab’s 2024 Ambassadors Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, in June.
The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, in partnership with the Vatican’s Foundation Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and the Benedict XVI Institute, hosted the second part of an international conference at the University of Notre Dame April 7–9, 2024, reflecting on the intellectual legacy of Pope Benedict XVI.
The conference, one of the first to focus on the late pontiff's legacy following his passing in December 2022, included contributions from both emeritus and emerging scholars from around the world who discussed six of the most influential addresses delivered by the Holy Father during the course of his papacy.
O. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, offered expert testimony on Wednesday (June 12) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on “Crossing the Line: Abortion Bans and Interstate Travel for Care After Dobbs.”
The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture presented the 2024 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal—the nation’s most important award for heroes of the pro-life movement—to Dr. Elvira Parravicini, founding director of the Neonatal Comfort Care Program and professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center, at a Mass and dinner attended by more than 500 guests on April 27, 2024, at the University of Notre Dame.
Note: The following piece by dCEC director O. Carter Snead and director-elect Jennifer Newsome Martin was published in the Irish Rover on April 25, 2024.
Given the recent discussion of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture in various public fora in tandem with the recently announced transition in its leadership, we are grateful for the opportunity to clear up some persistent misimpressions concerning its work and to offer some thoughts about the relationship between Catholic identity and serious, rigorous, and excellent academic research and teaching.
The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture welcomed singer-songwriter Colin Cutler for a concert and conversation in front of a standing-room-only…
O. Carter Snead, Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and…
