U.S. Catholics widely believe that the “enduring wounds” from the sex abuse crisis are foremost among wounds in the Church. This was one of the main conclusions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ synthesis of U.S. Catholics’ views in its recent report for the global synodal process.

“Salving the Wounds That Remain: Where the Catholic Church Can Find Healing for its Sex Abuse Crisis” is the name of a lecture that I delivered at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 15th.

The lecture can be viewed here and the written transcript is here. It runs about 35-40 minutes, followed by a lively question and answer session that brought out heartfelt testimonies and views of survivors, for which I am grateful.

Here is the description:

The St. Thomas Office for Mission and School of Law’s Initiative on Restorative Justice and Healing invite you to their co-sponsored event featuring Professor Daniel Philpott.

Twenty years after sex abuse in the Catholic Church became a headline, vast wounds remain, not least the unacknowledged suffering of survivors. The dominant remedies, the logics of the journalist, the lawyer, and the therapist, have been secular. While these have achieved important results, true and widespread healing comes from looking to God’s own response to evil at the foundation of the Church: the cross and the resurrection of Jesus.

This talk, echoing nineteenth century Catholic philosopher Antonio Rosmini’s Five Wounds of the Church, will explore how God’s reconciliation of the world yields a restorative response to sex abuse that promises healing for survivors, perhaps surprisingly, abusers, the Catholic faithful, and the credibility of the Church.

LSU’S CONSTITUTION DAY LECTURE ON SEPT. 9: “GIVING JUSTICE MORE THAN ITS DUE”

Constitution Day

Daniel Philpott of the University of Notre Dame will deliver LSU’s Constitution Day Lecture on Friday, Sept. 9.

To register to watch this lecture by zoom, go here:

BATON ROUGE – Daniel Philpott of the University of Notre Dame will deliver LSU’s Constitution Day Lecture on Friday, Sept. 9, from 12:40-1:40 p.m. “Giving Justice More Than Its Due” is his topic, and Ray Diamond of the LSU Law School will serve as discussant.

The program will be held in the McKernan Auditorium at the LSU Law Center. This event is sponsored by the Eric Voegelin Institute, the George W. and Jean H. Pugh Institute for Justice at the Law Center and the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Philpott is professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his Ph.D. in 1996 from Harvard University and specializes in religion and global politics, focusing on religious freedom, reconciliation, the political behavior of religious actors, and Christian political theology. The author of “Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation,” as well as several other books, Philpott has promoted reconciliation in the aftermath of massacres and civil wars in Kashmir and the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

Commenting on Philpott’s remarks will be Professor Ray Diamond of the LSU Law School. Diamond holds the James Carville Alumni Professorship and the Jules F. & Francis L. Landry Professorship and is the Director of the Pugh Institute. He received his education from Yale College and Law School.

“Reflecting upon my experience studying and being involved in countries that are seeking reconciliation in the wake of the past injustices of war and dictatorship, I noticed that religious leaders operated out of a different paradigm than secular ‘international community’ figures,” said Philpott. “I ultimately concluded that they had a different way of thinking about justice, which I call the justice of right relationship, which contrasts with the classical notion of the constant will to render another his due. The justice of right relationship can be applied not only to the context of countries dealing with past injustices but also to other contemporary issues in a liberal democracy such as race.”

The Voegelin Institute, named for one of LSU’s original Boyd Professors and a scholar of international acclaim and located in the Department of Political Science at LSU, is a humanities and social sciences research institute dedicated to exploring the ideas and questions that animated Eric Voegelin’s thought.

The Pugh Institute provides support for research and educational activities that promote justice for individuals in the administration of the criminal and civil justice systems in Louisiana and elsewhere.

From its founding in 1906, LSU Law has offered its students a legal education recognized for its high standards of academic excellence, an outstanding teaching and research faculty, and integrated programs in Louisiana civil law and Anglo-American common law. The Jack Miller Center, located in Philadelphia, supports Constitution Day programs and civic education initiatives nation-wide.

For more information, contact James Stoner, Hermann Moyse, Jr. Professor and director of The Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies, at 225-578-2538 or poston@lsu.edu. Contact

ERNIE BALLARD

LSU Media Relations
225-578-5685eballa1@lsu.edu

Month: September 2022

Salving the Wounds That Remain: On the Sex Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church

Religion, Reconciliation and Race

LSU’S CONSTITUTION DAY LECTURE ON SEPT. 9: “GIVING JUSTICE MORE THAN ITS DUE”

ERNIE BALLARD