Edith Stein Project registration open

Registration is now open for this year's Edith Stein Project conference. The sixth annual Edith Stein Project conference is entitled "Irreplaceable You: Vocation, Identity, and the Pursuit of Happiness." It will be held February 11-12 in McKenna Hall on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. Registration is now open through the Notre Dame Conference Center. The Edith Stein Project is organized by the Identity Project of Notre Dame (IDND), a student club formed in 2006, and co-sponsored by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. This year's conference explores Pope John Paul II's declaration that "every life is a vocation." It takes up the thesis that each one of us is called to perform an irreplaceable role in the Body of Christ that only we can perform, simply by the virtue of being ourselves in our own distinctive situation. Proceeding from a hylomorphic view of men and women, the conference will feature plenary speakers and panelists reflecting on how to live out personal vocation in the contemporary world. Registration is now open; it is requested but not required. You can read more about the history of the conference and the vision of this year's project at the Edith Stein Project's website. The full schedule for the weekend is available here.

ND faculty, staff, students March for Life

Yesterday 380 students and 40 Notre Dame faculty and staff members (including all the staff of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture) marched in our nation's capitol to demonstrate against legal abortion in the United States and to witness to the sanctity of all human life. It was incredible to see the spirit and optimism of the hundreds of thousands of marchers from all over the United States (plus Canada and Germany, judging by the flags). We marched peacefully from the National Mall to the Supreme Court to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that opened the doors to permissive abortion laws for all fifty states. People of all ages and religious commitments participated in the march, and the Notre Dame contingent included undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, professors from several different departments and colleges, staff members, and University President, Fr. John Jenkins, CSC. Here are some pictures from the March for Life.

Welcome back Mass for Integritas

Last night the Integritas group re-convened after Christmas break for the first time, for a Mass and welcome back dinner. The timing was fortuitous, since yesterday at Notre Dame we were celebrating Blessed Basil Moreau's feast day. Fr. Moreau founded the Congregation of Holy Cross, the order that founded and runs Notre Dame. Fr. Moreau's vision was for Holy Cross to be an order structured like a family, with priests, brothers, and sisters all working together to address the challenges of the modern world, especially through education. Fr. Moreau's conviction that "the mind will not be cultivated at the expense of the heart," inspired the genesis of the Integritas group, so we were delighted to be able to celebrate his feast day together, with Fr. Bill Miscamble, CSC, presiding at Mass in Our Lady of Mercy Chapel in Geddes Hall. After Mass, we crossed the hall to have dinner in the coffeehouse, and there were many stories to tell and plenty to catch up on after our month-long break for Christmas. We look forward to another seminar next week.

March for Life schedule

Notre Dame has just announced its schedule of events for the March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Monday, January 24.

Friday, January 21^st  

            5:15 p.m.                     Send-off Mass; Sacred Heart Basilica

            8:00 p.m.                     Buses for the long trip depart from Book Store parking lot

           

Sunday, January 23^rd

3:00 p.m.                     Mass for the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend celebrated by Bishop Kevin Rhoades at the Cathedral of St. Matthew, 1725 Rhode Island Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20036  http://www.stmatthewscathedral.org/

4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Alumni Association Reception: The Notre Dame Club of Washington, D.C., and the Notre Dame Alumni Association invite alumni and current students 21 and over to a reception at:

Smith & Wollensky

1112 19th Street NW in Washington, D.C.

RSVP:  There is no cost for the reception.  However, registration is required.  Please register at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Y8MQWVW by Thursday, January 20

6:30 p.m.         Vigil Mass for Life at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
http://www.nationalshrine.com/site/c.osJRKVPBJnH/b.6344383/k.2EC4/National_Prayer_Vigil_for_Life.htm

8:00 p.m.         Buses for short trip depart campus from the Book Store parking lot

Monday, January 24^th

7/7:30 a.m.      Short Trip buses arrive at St. Agnes

10:00 a.m.       Mass for the Notre Dame contingent celebrated by Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C. at St. Agnes Church, 1910 N. Randolph St., Arlington, VA 22207 http://www.saintagnes.org/

           

            11:15/30 a.m.  Notre Dame contingent to meet to the “right” of the March for Life Rally stage, along Jefferson Drive between the Hishorn Museum and the Arts and Industries Building (on the opposite side of Jefferson).  Students will be carrying a banner reading “Notre Dame Right to Life”  (Please see attached map.)

             

12:00 p.m.       Rally for Life; D.C. Mall

1:00 p.m.         March for Life

8:00 p.m.         Buses depart from St. Agnes for overnight return trip to campus

Oxford Conference on the Principle of Double Effect

If you're in the UK, you should check out the Anscombe Bioethics Center's conference "Exploring Double Effect" on Feb. 19 at Blackfriars Permanent Private Hall, Oxford. It features Timothy Chappell, Joseph Boyle, John Wyatt, Joseph Shaw, John Finnis, Helen Watt, and Sir Anthony Kenny.

"A preeminent and international line up of philosophers, bioethicists, legal philosophers and moral theologians
discuss Double Effect Reasoning (DER). DER is a way of dealing with the problem of whether
and in what circumstances we may knowingly cause bad side effects. This reasoning has huge significance
both for theoreticians and decision makers in fields which take side effects seriously, such as
medicine, warfare, law and politics."

To register, contact s.barrie@bioethics.org.uk

If you are not in the UK, the proceedings will also be broadcast live as a video webcast. Online participants will also be invited to submit questions ‘live’ via email/IM. If you would like further information about this broadcast, please contact s.barrie@bioethics.org.uk

March for Life sign-up deadline approaching

Notre Dame, Saint Mary's College and Holy Cross College students, faculty and staff who are planning on traveling to Washington, D.C. for the January 24 Annual March for Life should note that the deadline to sign up with Notre Dame's group is approaching. Registration to travel with the Notre Dame Right to Life club closes on January 12. The registration form can be found here. There are two trip options (longer and shorter), and class absences due to the March are officially excused by the University. Assistance funds are available for both students and staff/faculty: students should e-mail prolife@nd.edu, and staff and faculty should contact Angela Pfister of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture at Pfister.5@nd.edu to apply for one of the forty $250 grants for March expenses, sponsored by the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life. Come and march with us for life!

For Undergrads: Holy Land Lenten Pilgrimage

During Spring Break 2011, Notre Dame’s Department of Theology and Office of Campus Ministry will be co-leading a HOLY LAND LENTEN PILGRIMAGE for a small group of undergraduate students, and we hope you will consider applying!  The dates for the pilgrimage will be Friday-Sunday, March 11-20, and pilgrimage sites will include:


·         Jerusalem: Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Mount of Olives and Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, the Way of the Cross, & Temple Mount

·         Bethlehem: Church of the Nativity & the Shepherds' Fields

·         The Galilee: Nazareth, Capernaum, the Mount of the Beatitudes, Caesarea Philippi, the Mount of Transfiguration, & the Sea of Galilee


Students will be hosted by Notre Dame at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies, which is located just outside of Jerusalem.  More information on Tantur can be found at http://tantur.org.


The coordinators of this pilgrimage will be Layla Karst (Rector, Lewis Hall), Brett Perkins (Campus Ministry), and Hannah Hemphill (Theology).


We hope you consider this unique opportunity to visit the places where Our Lord walked as we prepare now to celebrate with great joy the sacred time of His Birth!


In Christ and Notre Dame,
Layla Karst, Brett Perkins, & Hannah Hemphill


(See below for more information)
----------------------------


APPLICATIONS:

Applications are required for interested students, and students will be informed of their selection by the end of January. Selected students will receive one course credit in Theology and will be required to attend four preparatory sessions before departure. The preparatory sessions will be hosted on four consecutive Wednesday evenings from February 9 to March 2, from 5:00-7:00pm.  Before applying, please make sure these dates would fit in your schedule.


COSTS:

The estimated cost of the pilgrimage will be no higher than $2100, which includes airfare and ground transportation, lodging, and two meals per day (but which is not inclusive of spending money nor of funds for midday meals.)  We are currently working to identify resources to help subsidize this amount so as to make the trip more affordable.  Other avenues for financial assistance and/or grants may be available to students (e.g., “Learning Beyond the Classroom” grants) that might also help make this pilgrimage a reality for you.


SAFETY:

We understand that safety may be a concern for you and your family as you consider applying for this pilgrimage.  You can be confident that every effort will be made to ensure the safety and security of our trip.  Safety is our top priority, and we will continue to work closely with local staff at Tantur as well as University officials here at Notre Dame to ensure the security of this pilgrimage.  Depending on these as well as U.S. State Department recommendations, portions of the trip may be subject to change depending on daily assessments of the situation on the ground in the various areas where we would be visiting.  For more information regarding safety in the Holy Land and at Tantur, please visit http://tantur.org/about/safety.


READY TO APPLY?

Applications are now available and can be accessed from the Campus Ministry homepage at http://campusministry.nd.edu.

The deadline for applying is Wednesday, January 20, 2011, and applications must be turned in to the Office of Campus Ministry (114 Coleman-Morse) by 5:00 pm on that day.


QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Layla Karst (Karst.1@nd.edu) or Brett Perkins (Perkins.26@nd.edu).

New Videos Posted!

We have now posted all of the videos from our Fall events, including last week's Schmitt Lecture and the Fall Conference. We will be featuring a new video on the homepage every week. Enjoy!

Integritas Seminar II

T-shirt back design

Last night our Integritas group had its second seminar of the year, on "The Dialogue Between Faith and Reason," led by guest Professor John Cavadini. The group read part of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles and much of Pope John Paul the Great's encyclical Fides et Ratio. They explored such questions as: "Why should we believe truths that cannot be known by reason? Why should truths that can be known by reason also be known by faith? Can truths known by reason ever contradict truths known by faith? What is faith? Why can we have confidence in human reason? From where does the contemporary tension between faith and reason spring? What are the consequences of reason becoming estranged from faith?"

Prof. Cavadini explained that truths that can be known only by faith are not simply "higher" or more difficult to grasp than truths that can be known by reason; instead, they are a wholly different kind of truth. The truths that can be known only by faith are those that pertain to God's character, such as His Trinitarian life and His self-emptying love for His creation. They can be known only by faith because they involve a free decision on God's part to reveal Himself to His creatures. The fullest self-disclosure of God comes in the Incarnation of Christ; Christ shows us the face of God. Prof. Cavadini used an analogy to explain that the difference between what faith and reason can attain is like the difference between studying relationship-building and communication skills in a psychology class, versus actually entering into a relationship. Taking a psychology class can't give you a relationship; you can only have a relationship if another person chooses to enter into relationship with you. Human reason can come to understand many things about the beauty and order of creation, but some truths can only be known by entering into relationship with God.

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Under this understanding, there is a dynamic illumination between faith and reason, such that holding the truths about God that can be known only through faith directs and purifies reason to enter the mysteries of God and the created world more deeply. For example, human reason guided by the light of faith was necessary to develop the Church's statement of the doctrine of the Trinity and and creeds over the course of decades. The light of faith illuminates the whole world and gives a new perspective on all knowledge. Many fundamental truths seem groundless or meaningless without the foundation of faith, such as the belief in the fundamental dignity of all human persons, which Steven Pinkers at Harvard calls 'almost a useless concept'. Faith expands our notion of reason: as wise as Socrates was, he could not imagine that the Logos he worshiped would become food for men in the Eucharist.

While many would lump the Scriptures into the same category as all the great pagan myths of the Greeks, the Norsemen, or the Babylonians, they are completely different in character. The pagan gods disclose themselves as petty, manipulative, and fickle, and even when they enter into the mortal realm, they do so only capriciously and contingently, exercising their full powers and holding a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card. When God becomes incarnate in Christ, it is as an infant in a lowly stable, to suffer and to die amongst us. Only the God of the Christians sends His own Son to invite His creatures into friendship with Him.

These ideas made the students wonder why so many very intelligent people, especially philosophers, struggle so much to have faith in anything other than the power of their own reason. One suggested that the trouble lies in our modern notion of reason, which thinks that something is reasonable only if it can be reduced to a logical proof with mathematical certainty. Modern man has lost the understanding that "through the centuries, philosophers have sought to discover and articulate such a truth, giving rise to various systems and schools of thought. But beyond philosophical systems, people seek in different ways to shape a "philosophy" of their own--in personal convictions and experiences, in traditions of family and culture, or in journeys in search of life's meaning under the guidance of a master," as John Paul said. Our culture, our traditions, our practices, the authorities in our lives, our families, the witness of those who have gone before us, especially the martyrs, all reveal that belief in the Christian God is reasonable. While people may think that they want and need a proof for God that has mathematical certainty, in reality, if such a proof could be provided, it would not satisfy the deepest desires of the human heart: a mathematical proof does not invite a response of love, does not draw man into friendship with God. An understanding of human reason that excludes faith also excludes happiness and love, because it precludes the possibility of a free response.

Again, from Pope John Paul: "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth--in a word, to know Himself--so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves."

That was the last meeting of Integritas before Christmas break; the group will meet again in January and will begin the second semester with Mass and dinner in Geddes Hall on Thursday, Jan. 20. They went home proudly sporting their new club T-shirts, seen above!

Abuses of the Public by Psychiatry

Dr. Paul McHugh delivered a terrific lecture last night on the subject of "Abuses of the Public by Psychiatry," in honor of Notre Dame's Schmitt Fellows in the colleges of science and engineering. He recounted the rise of multiple personality disorder diagnoses, and the accompanying fad of repressed memories emerging in middle age of childhood sexual abuse. The phenomenon in psychiatry was at its peak in the late 1980's and early 1990's, and he said it affected over a million Americans, tearing apart families with false accusations. Dr. McHugh was careful to point out that child sexual abuse is a travesty and happens all too often, and that certainly in many cases such abuse is forgotten or repressed until the memories return later in life. The cases he dismissed as fabrications and inducements by psychiatrists to remember events that never happened are cases in which the memories were wildly improbable, such as remembering abuse as an infant. Psychiatrists have been recklessly irresponsible in encouraging this fad and creating discord in once harmonious families. He wrote a book on the subject, called Try to Remember: Psychiatry's Clash over Meaning, Memory and Mind.

His more devastating charge against psychiatry, however, is that it has gotten mired in an excessive concern for classification and description, embodied in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which acts as a sort of field guide for psychiatry while failing to systematically explore the causes and cures for mental ill health. He believes psychiatry has hit a dead end as it prepares to publish the fifth edition of the DSM, and a reversal of course is needed.

Look for the video of Dr. McHugh's lecture on our homepage soon!