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In memoriam: W. David Solomon, founding director of the Center for Ethics and Culture

2025-02-28T15:00:00-05:00

W. David Solomon, associate professor of philosophy emeritus and founding director of what became known as the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, died on February 26, 2025. He was 81.

Solomon received his bachelor’s degree from Baylor University and his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Texas before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 1968, where his teaching and research focused on virtue ethics, ethical theory and medical ethics. In 1999, Solomon founded the Center for Ethics and Culture, where he served as director until 2012. He retired from teaching in 2016 after almost 50 years at the University.

“It is difficult to overstate the impact of David Solomon’s legacy at the University of Notre Dame,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, current director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “His entire life was a cheerful testament not only to the pursuit of knowledge but also of wisdom and virtue. Those of us who hold dear the lively witness of the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition at Notre Dame — and beyond — remain ever in his debt.”

Solomon envisioned the Center for Ethics and Culture as an institution that would draw on the rich Catholic moral and intellectual tradition to adjudicate complex questions in the field of contemporary ethics. “Normative teaching and inquiry at Notre Dame should be distinguished by fidelity to the core convictions of the tradition of thought Notre Dame has inherited,” its early Task Force on Ethics stated, “that human beings are created in the image of a God who loves us and calls us to eternal life; that we therefore have a dignity which cannot be alienated, overridden or ignored; and that the most vulnerable among us have the most urgent claim on the consciences of us all.”

In 2012, Solomon passed the directorship of the Center for Ethics and Culture to O. Carter Snead, Charles E. Rice Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.

“David Solomon was, of course, one of Notre Dame’s most beloved and dedicated teachers, a shining light of creativity and dynamism in its philosophy department, and the visionary founder of what is now called the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture,” Snead said. “And he was a tireless and courageous voice at Notre Dame on behalf of the intrinsic equal dignity of all members of the human family, born and unborn. But his greatest gift to us was as an exemplar and witness of life most fully lived — as a faithful son of the Church, devoted husband to his beloved Lou, loving father and grandfather, and unfailingly generous friend to us all.”

During his 13 years as director of the Center for Ethics and Culture, Solomon established the annual fall conference, now the University’s largest interdisciplinary academic conference, which gathers more than 1,200 guests and 150 speakers — both Catholic and those from other faith traditions — for three days of conversation and exchange on the most vexed questions of ethics, culture and public policy today. Speakers have included Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Charles Taylor, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Michael Sandel and Mary Ann Glendon. Under his guidance, the Center for Ethics and Culture also administered the University’s annual medical ethics conference and established the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, awarded annually on behalf of the University to heroic individuals whose life work has served to proclaim the gospel of life.

An excellent academic administrator, Solomon’s passion for teaching and mentoring students quickly endeared him to undergraduate and graduate students alike. During his tenure at the University, Solomon served as the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Philosophy, founded and directed the Arts & Letters/Science Honors Program and directed the Notre Dame London Program.

At the graduate level, Solomon directed 36 doctoral dissertations in the Department of Philosophy, the most of any professor in the department’s history, and taught the entry-level course 20th Century Ethical Theory. Later in his career, more than 200 undergraduates each spring semester would take his signature ethics course, Morality and Modernity, based on MacIntyre’s seminal work “After Virtue.” He also taught medical ethics to more than 250 undergraduate students each year, as well as upper-division courses in contemporary ethics and special topics in ethics.

Following his retirement, Solomon continued to remain actively involved in the work of the center, introducing MacIntyre’s popular keynote address at every Fall Conference and joining in the annual celebration of the Evangelium Vitae Medal. In 2016, through the generosity of its benefactors, the Center for Ethics and Culture established the graduate Solomon Fellowship, awarded each year to an outstanding doctoral student who shares his passion for Notre Dame’s distinctive Catholic character and mission. In 2019, the Center for Ethics and Culture was renamed the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, following a transformative gift from Anthony and Christie de Nicola.

A conference in Solomon’s honor at Notre Dame in 2014 led to the publication of “Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture,” with contributions from many of his graduate students and collaborators in the revival of virtue ethics.

“Some scholars as they move towards the end stages of their careers worry about whether what they have done for decades has mattered or made a difference,” wrote Rev. Bill Miscamble, C.S.C., in a 2016 essay in the Irish Rover on the occasion of Solomon's retirement. “But the good women and men gathered at that conference in 2014 are irrefutable evidence of David Solomon’s enduring and substantial contribution to philosophy at Notre Dame. … He has given of himself for his students, his colleagues and his friends, and Notre Dame is a much better place because of him.”

Born and raised a Southern Baptist, Solomon and his wife were received into the Catholic Church in May 2024. A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Friday, March 7, at 2:30 p.m. in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame; visitation will be held at Kaniewski Funeral Homes in South Bend on Thursday, March 6, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on February 27, 2025.

Nearly 500 students, faculty and staff to attend 2025 March for Life in Washington, D.C.

2025-01-23T15:30:00-05:00

On January 24, nearly 500 undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff from the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross College and Saint Mary’s College will participate in the 2025 March for Life in Washington, D.C., now in its 52nd year.

The University consistently sends one of the largest single contingents to the annual event through the support of the Notre Dame Right to Life student club and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

“The University of Notre Dame proudly joins in this joyful public witness to the inherent dignity of every human life, especially the most vulnerable among us,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center. “We gather with thousands from around the nation to peacefully proclaim that unborn children in the womb, their mothers and their families deserve our love, support and the full protection of law.”

Phil Tran, program coordinator at the de Nicola Center and staff advisor to the Notre Dame Right to Life Club, said: “Once again, Notre Dame will be well represented in our nation's capital. In addition to the hundreds of students that will ride the buses to join in the march, the de Nicola Center is delighted to support the participation of 65 professors, staff and graduate students, many of whom have attended this event for decades. Marching together, they proclaim the University's enduring institutional commitment to the God-given dignity of all human life.”

Students, faculty and staff traveling to Washington for the march will celebrate a Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration followed by a Mass for Life at St. Charles Catholic Church in Arlington, Virginia, beginning at 8 a.m. on Friday.

The center also offers the annual Notre Dame Vita Institute, an intensive intellectual formation program for senior and emerging leaders working in all vocations of the pro-life movement around the globe. Through its Women and Children First initiative, the de Nicola Center sponsors research and publications for academic, general and policy expert audiences; academic conferences both in the U.S. and abroad; support for faculty, students and visiting scholars; and expert advice for governmental, private sector and nonprofit audiences around the many interlocking questions at the heart of building a culture of life.

For details about Notre Dame's participation in the 2025 March for Life, visit https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/events/2025/01/24/march-for-life-2025/

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on January 22, 2025.

de Nicola Center presents 24th annual Fall Conference, ‘Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination’

2024-10-31T10:28:00-04:00

More than 1,200 scholars, students and guests from around the world will attend the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture’s 24th annual Fall Conference, “Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination.” The conference, which began Thursday (Oct. 31) and concludes Saturday (Nov. 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. The full schedule is available at ethicscenter.nd.edu/fc24.

The de Nicola Center collaborated with the Biennial Catholic Imagination Conference on the theme for this year’s gathering. Established by Dana Gioia, an internationally acclaimed poet and author and the recipient of the 2010 Notre Dame Laetare Medal, the Biennial Catholic Imagination Conference aims to enhance the understanding and appreciation of the richness and variety of contributions by Catholic artists; explore the critical and theoretical foundations of the Catholic imagination; and foster community and collaboration among writers and readers who share a knowledge of and respect for the Catholic tradition.

Gioia, former California state poet laureate and chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts from 2003 to 2009, will open the conference with a talk and reading titled “Becoming a Catholic Writer,” at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Downes Club of Corbett Family Hall.

Judith Wolfe, professor of philosophical theology at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, will offer a Friday evening plenary keynote titled “The Theological Imagination,” reflecting on how Christian faith gives believers courage to shape the world creatively in the face of ambiguity, contradiction and clashing viewpoints. The conference will conclude with a roundtable discussion of “The Future of the Catholic Imagination,” featuring author Ron Hansen and poets James Matthew Wilson and Sally Thomas, in conversation with Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

Other featured speakers include Cyril O’Regan, the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology at Notre Dame and recipient of the 2024 Ratzinger Prize in Theology; Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, writer, poet and professor, Fordham University; Irish poet and novelist John F. Deane; Robin Jensen, the Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology and concurrent professor of the history of art at Notre Dame; Academy Award-nominated animator and director Timothy Reckart; and more than 150 additional speakers and performers.

Conference sessions this year include author readings, poetry recitals, staged play readings, film screenings and musical performances from The Saint Hildegard Project, Colin Cutler and Hot Pepper Jam, and J.J. Wright.

The Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening keynotes will be livestreamed at ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/fall-conference/streamfc/. Many other sessions will be recorded and posted to the de Nicola Center’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/ndethics after the conference concludes.

Walk-up registration is available at the check-in desk in the McKenna Hall Conference Center from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.

Since 2000, the de Nicola Center’s annual Fall Conference has brought together the world’s leading Catholic thinkers, as well as those from other traditions, in fruitful discourse and exchange on the most pressing and vexed questions of ethics, culture and public policy today. The Fall Conference has since become one of the most important academic fora for wide-ranging conversations that engage the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition from a variety of disciplinary points of departure, including theology, philosophy, political theory, law, history, economics and the social sciences, as well as the natural sciences, literature and the arts. Recent past speakers include Nobel Laureate James Heckman, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Mary Ann Glendon, Rémi Brague, Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel and Etsuro Sotoo.

More information is available on the de Nicola Center’s website, ethicscenter.nd.edu.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Oct. 31.

de Nicola Center to award 2025 Evangelium Vitae Medal to Anthony and Phyllis Lauinger

2024-10-07T13:31:00-04:00

Phyllis and Anthony Lauinger

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 50 years to defend the inherent equal dignity of all members of the human family, born and unborn,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, the John J. Cavanaugh Associate Professor of the Program of Liberal 91��Ƶ, 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.”

Tony and Phyllis Lauinger, together with a small group of close friends, co-founded Tulsans for Life in 1973. Tony has served as state chairman of Oklahomans for Life since 1978 and vice president of the National Right to Life Committee since 1995, which seeks to defend human life through education, legislation and public policy. As a physician, Phyllis has dedicated her medical expertise to providing free health care to Tulsa’s uninsured through Xavier Medical Clinic and has delivered pro-life lectures to various audiences. They are the parents of eight children and grandparents to 19.

“The Lauingers are a witness to the power of love to transform the world,” said Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame. “In their married life together, as parents and grandparents, and in their professional work to promote care and protection for the unborn, their mothers and their families, they model Pope St. John Paul II’s teaching in Evangelium Vitae that ‘the family is summoned to proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life.’”

Tony is a native of Tulsa and graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. After meeting Phyllis during her medical studies at Columbia University Medical 91��Ƶ in New York, the couple married in 1971. A few months after their first daughter, Elizabeth, was born, the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade expanded abortion access across the United States. As parents of a newborn, Tony and Phyllis were galvanized into action by the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“Not long after that tragic day in 1973, Phyllis, by then a physician, and I were asked to give a talk at our church about abortion,” Tony wrote in a 1995 essay for National Right to Life News. “We didn’t know much about it, except that it was terribly, tragically wrong, but we hurriedly got some materials and started to learn.”

Tony and Phyllis soon gathered a group of friends in their living room to discuss what they might do to support women and families through both direct action and the democratic process. The group they started, Tulsans For Life, eventually became part of Oklahomans for Life.

Tony and Phyllis have been part of the Notre Dame family since 1990, when their daughter Elizabeth enrolled in the 91��Ƶ of Architecture. All eight of their children have graduated from Notre Dame, and Tony and Phyllis have served on the executive advisory committee of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture since 2012.

“Elizabeth, who used to play on the living room floor during our Tulsans For Life meetings, graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1995,” wrote Tony. “I can’t help but be grateful that the same daughter whose timely birth led her parents into the right-to-life movement later charted a course that led her brothers and sisters to the school named for, in the words of the alma mater, ‘Notre Dame, our Mother.’”

The Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, named after Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, is the nation’s most important lifetime achievement award for heroes of the pro-life movement, honoring individuals whose efforts have advanced the Gospel of Life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages.

Previous recipients of the medal include Dr. Elvira Parravicini, founder of the Neonatal Comfort Care Program at Columbia University Medical Center; Robert P. George, legal philosopher and political theorist; Dr. John Bruchalski, founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN; Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel post-abortion healing ministry; the Women’s Care Center Foundation; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan and the Sisters of Life; Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife, Marie Smith, director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues; Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus; the Little Sisters of the Poor; the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation; Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Emerita, at Harvard University; Helen Alvaré, Robert A. Levy Endowed Chair in Law and Liberty at the Antonin Scalia 91��Ƶ of Law, George Mason University; and Richard Doerflinger, former associate director of the secretariat for pro-life activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae award consists of a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize presented at a banquet following a celebratory Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. For more information about the medal, visit ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/culture-of-life/evangelium-vitae-medal/.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Oct. 6.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture presents Evangelium Vitae Medal to Dr. Elvira Parravicini

2024-05-01T11:30:00-04:00

From left: O. Carter Snead; Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C., Dr. Elvira Parravicini, and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades

The University of Notre Dame’s 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 Saturday (April 27) at the University of Notre Dame.

“In her life’s work providing state-of-the-art medical attention, holistic comfort care, and emotional, psychological and spiritual support to families who receive life-limiting diagnoses, Dr. Parravicini has fought consistently, courageously and with love to heal our vision of these children in the womb — to restore to them the dignity that is their due as icons of the living Christ,” said O. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law at Notre Dame and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

Click to view a video profile of Dr. Parravicini

Parravicini established the Neonatal Comfort Care Program (NCCP) at Columbia University Medical Center in 2008 to address the complex medical and non-medical needs of infants affected by life-limiting or life-threatening conditions. Today, the NCCP connects families with medical professionals, speech pathologists, lactation consultants, child life specialists, psychologists and chaplains who work together to provide comfort, support and specialized medical care for babies and their families in a compassionate environment.

“I humbly accept [the Evangelium Vitae Medal] in the name of babies and families that I serve, and in the name of my great team here present as well,” Parravicini said in her remarks. “As I always say to parents when I meet them prenatally, my mission is to save your baby’s life, but no matter what, I am walking with your baby, you and your family. I will not abandon you, and I will make sure that we walk together towards your baby’s destiny.”

Prior to establishing the NCCP, Parravicini noted that there was no standard of care for babies who “may not live longer than a few minutes or a few hours after birth.” In such cases, mothers are often counseled to terminate their pregnancy through abortion. Parravicini was inspired to provide another option for the “significant number of parents who want to continue the pregnancy, desire to see their babies, to hold them and enjoy as much as possible their brief but precious lives.” The NCCP provides each child with an individualized plan to create “a safe and loving space for bonding, attachment, comfort and joy for them and their families.”

“Dr. Parravicini’s rootedness in a radical love of Christ allows her to pour herself out in an overflowing gift to her patients — an act of love that suffers with another, making their burdens, joys and sorrows our own,” Snead said in his remarks. “[She] models what it means to be a true servant of life, to love without condition or exception, without limit or boundary.”

Parravicini is also actively involved with the Center for Prenatal Pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center, where she provides prenatal counseling and coordinates postnatal care plans for high-risk pregnancies. She works closely with specialists from maternal-fetal medicine, cardiology, pediatric surgery and other disciplines to provide evidence-based, comprehensive care to infants with complex medical problems.

Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend celebrated Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart prior to the medal ceremony and dinner. “We are called to have and to show reverence and love for every human life, entrusted to us by God, the Lord of life,” he said in his homily. “Thank you, Dr. Parravicini, for your witness to the Gospel of Life through your professional service motivated by your faith, your love for God and your love for the little ones!”

University President-elect Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C., offered the blessing before dinner, thanking Snead for his 12 years of service as director of the de Nicola Center, and welcomed dCEC director-elect Professor Jennifer Newsome Martin, saying, “The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is really an important part of the fabric of Notre Dame. The future is bright, and we couldn’t be more excited.”

Evangelium Vitae Medal

Previous recipients of the medal include Robert P. George, legal philosopher and political theorist; Dr. John Bruchalski, founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN; Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel; the Women’s Care Center Foundation; Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law 91��Ƶ professor emerita; the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation; the Little Sisters of the Poor; Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus; and Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife, Marie Smith, director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues.

Announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae award consists of a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize presented at a banquet following a celebratory Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Visit the de Nicola Center’s website for more information about the Evangelium Vitae Medal.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on April 30, 2024.

Carter Snead testifies before US Senate Judiciary Committee

2024-03-22T08:00:00-04:00

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 (March 20) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the current legal landscape following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Snead is one of the world’s leading experts on public bioethics — the governance of science, medicine and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods. His research explores issues relating to neuroethics, enhancement, human embryo research, assisted reproduction, abortion and end-of-life decision-making.

In his remarks at the hearing, Snead first explained that the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs — which overturned Roe v. Wade — restored the authority of the people to address the issue of abortion through their elected representatives, thus bringing the United States into “alignment with most nations around the world, who have always addressed the issue through the political process.” He noted that the majority of countries around the world “restrict purely elective abortion to the first 10 to 14 weeks of pregnancy.”

Snead offered the committee “three suggestions for good governance in this difficult area.”

First, he argued that to govern ourselves wisely, justly and humanely, the issue of abortion must be discussed in its full complexity. Those who support abortion rights, he said, must squarely acknowledge that it is not simply a matter involving the importance of women’s equality and autonomy in the face of difficult circumstances, but it also involves the life of the unborn child — a whole, living member of the human species, who “is not a trespassing stranger; she is the biological child of this particular mother.” On the other hand, pro-life elected officials must “acknowledge and work to alleviate the sometimes crushing burdens of unplanned pregnancy and parenthood.”

Second, Snead said, discussions about abortion and reproductive technologies must “fairly and accurately characterize the legal landscape.” He discussed recent reporting surrounding a legal case about in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Alabama that “has been widely misdescribed as a theocratic power grab heralding the demise” of the procedure. “In fact, the victorious plaintiffs there were IVF patients suing a clinic for the negligent destruction of their embryos, using a civil statute [pre-dating Dobbs] that already allowed such claims for the death of embryos in the womb. The Alabama Supreme Court decision did not depend on and had nothing to do with Dobbs.”

Similarly, Snead provided additional context to recent highly publicized cases from Texas involving the interpretation of its post-Dobbs abortion laws and the scope of their exceptions intended to protect mothers from threats to their lives or of substantial bodily impairment. In particular, he noted that the Texas legislature recently enacted bipartisan legislation clarifying that certain conditions were covered by such exceptions, the Texas Supreme Court recently held that such threats need not be imminent, and the Texas Medical Board would be meeting this week to offer clinical guidelines. He also observed that the standard of “reasonable medical judgment” for such exceptions had proven workable since first adopted in the state’s 2013 law banning abortions after 20 weeks. Since then, the state has recorded 238 abortions performed at 20 weeks or later in pregnancy and zero prosecutions.

Concluding his remarks with a theme that animates the de Nicola Center’s Women and Children First Initiative, Snead invited the committee members “to reimagine the framing of the human context in which the question of abortion arises. Instead of a zero-sum conflict among strangers over the permissible use of lethal force, think of it instead as a crisis facing a mother and her child. Then ask how we can work together across our differences to come to their aid, not just during pregnancy, but throughout life’s journey.”

Snead is the author of “What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics” (Harvard University Press, 2020), which was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2020”; in 2022, it was listed in the New York Times as one of “Ten Books to Understand the Abortion Debate in the United States.” Snead also received the 2021 Expanded Reason Award, given by Francisco de Vitoria University, Madrid, and the Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, in recognition of his work. Prior to joining the law faculty at Notre Dame, Snead served as general counsel to the President’s Council on Bioethics, where he was the primary drafter of the 2004 report “Reproduction and Responsibility: The Regulation of New Biotechnologies.”

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on March 21.

Jennifer Newsome Martin to succeed O. Carter Snead as director of de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture

2024-02-02T09:00:00-05:00

Jennifer Newsome Martin

I.A. O'Shaughnessy Dean of Arts and Letters Sarah Mustillo has appointed Notre Dame theologian Jennifer Newsome Martin to be the next director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. She will succeed O. Carter Snead, Charles E. Rice Professor of Law, who will conclude 12 years of service in this role on June 30, 2024.

“Serving as director of the de Nicola Center has been one of the greatest professional privileges and blessings of my life,” Snead said. “I can think of no one better to lead the Center into the future than my friend and dCEC faculty fellow Jenny Martin. She has a heart for the dCEC’s mission in all its dimensions, is a brilliant scholar, a beloved teacher and a dynamic and inspiring leader. Simply put, Jenny is one of the most exciting Catholic intellectuals in academia today.”

Snead was appointed director of the Center for Ethics and Culture in 2012, taking over from founding director David Solomon, professor emeritus of philosophy at Notre Dame. Renamed the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture following a $10 million endowment gift from the de Nicola family in 2019, the dCEC has become the world’s foremost center for interdisciplinary research, teaching and discourse within the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition.

“Professor Snead’s efforts on behalf of the de Nicola Center over the last 12 years have helped deepen the conversation on campus about questions of lasting import and have raised Notre Dame’s profile as the place for serious discussion and research rooted in the Catholic tradition,” said Dean Mustillo. “What’s more, no one is better suited to expand and carry forward that vital mission than Professor Martin. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Jenny and the de Nicola Center to project the University’s important voice in the public square in the years to come.”

Professor Snead will remain involved with the dCEC’s nascent interdisciplinary bioethics initiative, which will include teaching, research, service and public engagement.

Twelve Years of Unprecedented Growth

O. Carter Snead

Since the beginning of Snead’s directorship in 2012, the de Nicola Center has launched or expanded a number of initiatives that sought to deepen conversation surrounding the most vexed questions of ethics, culture, and public policy today. Its annual Fall Conference — the largest interdisciplinary academic event at Notre Dame — now routinely draws more than 1,000 attendees and 150 speakers from around the world, including Nobel Laureates, Academy Award winners, scientists, theologians, philosophers, artists, poets, journalists, legal scholars, social scientists and other thought leaders for three days of conversation as participants grapple with broad questions of enduring import, including poverty, beauty, good and evil, friendship and creation.

Recently, the de Nicola Center has partnered with the Boundaries of Humanity project at Stanford University, with the support of the John Templeton Foundation, to broaden and continue these conversations with other top institutions around the world.

The de Nicola Center has also revised and expanded four book series with University of Notre Dame Press, publishing 28 award-winning volumes since 2016, including the previously untranslated and unpublished works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn by special arrangement with the Solzhenitsyn family. Alongside its publications, the de Nicola Center has hosted an array of renowned senior visiting scholars who have conducted important writing and research during their residency with the Center, including John Keown (Georgetown), James Hankins (Harvard) and Zena Hitz (St. John’s College).

The de Nicola Center continues to support academic life on campus through its Sorin Fellows student formation program, which has grown from 17 students in 2014 to an active cohort of close to 600 undergraduate, graduate and professional students today who receive mentoring, dedicated academic programming, research support, pilgrimage opportunities and funded summer internships all over the world. Through the generosity of its benefactors, the de Nicola Center also created two endowed fellowships, the Polking and Solomon fellowships, offering financial support, mentorship and guidance for excellent law and graduate students who are passionate about the Center’s mission.

de Nicola Center staff at March for Life

For the past 12 years, the de Nicola Center has enthusiastically embraced its role as the key operational arm of Notre Dame’s institutional commitment to building a culture of life for every member of the human family, born and unborn. During this period, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal has become the most important award for heroes of the pro-life movement; the Vita Institute has grown into the most sophisticated and effective interdisciplinary educational program for leaders working to build a culture of life around the world; and Notre Dame’s student contingent attending the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., became the largest of any university in America.

Following the landmark 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the de Nicola Center emerged as the most important resource in academia and the global public square for illuminating the background, meaning and import of the decision. Most recently, media commentators and public policy experts from across the ideological spectrum have widely praised the de Nicola Center’s nascent post–Roe “Women and Children’s First Initiative,” an interdisciplinary program of teaching, research, service and public engagement aimed at building a world in which mothers, babies and families are welcomed, protected and supported throughout life’s journey.

In addition to its scholarly research and student programming, the de Nicola Center has sought to support the University’s goal of attracting and retaining elite faculty in any field who are passionate about Notre Dame’s distinctive mission. Under its mission stewardship initiative, the de Nicola Center raised funds to create seven new professorships at the University — four entry-level, one lateral and two university chairs. In addition, the de Nicola Center funds two outstanding faculty members in the College of Science and has provided additional funding to support the salary and benefits for three faculty members in the College of Arts and Letters.

The de Nicola Center currently rests on the strongest financial foundation in its history. Since 2012, due to new gifts from its large and diverse array of generous benefactors, the endowed funds associated with the Center have increased twelvefold, allowing the dCEC to grow and project its impact on a scale never before possible.

The de Nicola Center has also been a unique countercultural beacon in higher academia and the global public square for its unfailing commitment to exploring the full spectrum of the Catholic tradition, engaging in civil discourse across disciplinary and normative divides, while avoiding the ideological balkanization that has bedeviled many academic centers and institutes, including at Catholic universities.

Welcoming Professor Martin

Martin — a Notre Dame associate professor with joint appointments in both the Program of Liberal 91��Ƶ and the Department of Theology, as well as a longtime faculty fellow of the de Nicola Center — expressed her gratitude for the contributions of the de Nicola Center to the life of the University over more than 20 years, as well as her enthusiasm to continue building upon its important work.

“Thanks to the extraordinary leadership of Professor Snead, and Professor Solomon before him, the de Nicola Center is today in the unique position of engaging and representing Catholic identity and culture not only within the larger University but also within the global public sphere,” Martin said. “Building on that strong foundation, I believe the Center can continue its mission of being a constructive witness to the enormous cultural, intellectual and moral riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition, and to present such things compellingly, winsomely and generously, carrying within themselves their own credibility and attractiveness.”

Professor Martin’s research interests and expertise span 19th- and 20th-century Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox thought, trinitarian theology, theological aesthetics, religion and literature, French feminism, ressourcement theology and the nature of religious tradition. Her first book, “Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Critical Appropriation of Russian Religious Thought” (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), was one of 10 winners internationally of the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise.

“Professor Martin has a clear and demonstrated commitment to preserving, sustaining and advancing the distinctive Catholic mission and character of the University of Notre Dame and to the mission, character and work of the de Nicola Center,” Dean Mustillo said. “I have every confidence that she will continue the great work of the de Nicola Center and elevate it to even higher levels of excellence and impact.”

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on January 23, 2024.

Notre Dame students, faculty, staff to participate in 2024 March for Life

2024-01-19T09:00:00-05:00

On Friday (Jan. 19), more than 400 students, faculty, staff and graduate students from the University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross College and Saint Mary’s College will participate in the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. The University consistently sends one of the largest single contingents to the annual event, now in its 51st year, through the support of the the Notre Dame Right to Life student club and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

“Year after year, the University of Notre Dame is proud to join in this joyful public witness to the inherent dignity of every human life,” said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center. “It is so encouraging to see our amazing students joining the hundreds of thousands at the march to peacefully proclaim that our brothers and sisters in the womb deserve our love and respect and the equal protection of the law.”

“Thanks to the generosity of its friends and benefactors, Notre Dame is well represented at this important national event,” said Petra Farrell, the dCEC’s culture of life program manager. “In addition to the hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students, we are delighted to support the participation of so many professors and staff, many of whom have attended this event for decades. Marching together, they underscore the University’s steadfast institutional commitment to proclaiming the dignity of all human life, at all stages and in all circumstances.”

The Notre Dame Right to Life student club was established in 1972, the year before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade. Today, the club is the largest pro-life student group in the United States, as well as the largest student club at Notre Dame. Club president Kylie Gallegos, a Sorin Fellow at the de Nicola Center and a senior American studies and theology major from Stillwater, Oklahoma, will be featured as a student panelist at the 25th annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life on Saturday (Jan. 20).

Students, faculty and staff traveling to Washington for the march will celebrate a Mass for Life together in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception at 9:30 a.m. Saturday (Jan. 20). The de Nicola Center will close out the weekend’s offerings with “Art for Life,” a guided tour at noon at the National Gallery of Art focusing on pieces that engage with themes evoking the culture of life.

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is the primary locus and engine of pro-life research, teaching, service and public witness at the University of Notre Dame. In addition to sponsoring the University’s annual participation in the March for Life, the dCEC administers the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, the nation’s preeminent lifetime achievement award for individuals whose efforts have significantly advanced a culture of life around the world. The dCEC also offers the annual Notre Dame Vita Institute, an intensive intellectual formation program for senior and emerging leaders working in all vocations of the pro-life movement around the globe. Director Carter Snead and the center’s public policy fellows regularly provide testimony and offer their expertise to legislators and policy makers on life issues, both at the domestic and international level.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Jan. 18.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture co-sponsors conference on legacy of Pope Benedict XVI

2023-11-28T09:00:00-05:00

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, in partnership with the Ratzinger Foundation and the Benedict XVI Institute, is hosting a series of academic panels discussing “Benedict XVI’s Legacy: Unfinished Debates on Faith, Culture, and Politics,” with the first event to be held Wednesday (Nov. 29) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

The intellectual legacy of Pope Benedict XVI continues to animate discussions spanning the foundation of human rights and the nature of law to the relationship between faith and reason. To further explore the intergenerational conversation surrounding Pope Benedict’s crucial interventions on these topics, both emeritus and emerging scholars from around the world will engage six of the most influential addresses delivered by Pope Benedict during the course of his papacy.

The series launch on Nov. 29 will feature a presentation by Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard University, on the impact of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 speech to the United Nations. Professors Jean-Pierre Schouppe (Pontifical University of Santa Croce) and Laurent Trigeaud (Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas) will offer responses to Glendon’s remarks.

The panel discussion will take place from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Eastern time in the Aula Magna of the Pontifical Gregorian University (Piazza della Pilotta 4). A livestream of the event will be available at youtube.com/unigregoriana.

Participants in the Benedict XVI Legacy Conference will also take part in the ceremony awarding the 2023 Ratzinger Prize on Thursday (Nov. 30) at the Apostolic Palace in Rome. Professors Francesc Torralba Roselló and Pablo Blanco Sarto, winners of the 2023 Ratzinger Prize, will speak on “The Legacy of Joseph Ratzinger Benedict XVI.”

The series will continue with a conference to be held April 8-9 at the University of Notre Dame. Speaker information and registration details will be posted in early 2024 to ethicscenter.nd.edu.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Nov. 27.

de Nicola Center presents 23rd annual fall conference, ‘Dust of the Earth: On Persons’

2023-11-02T08:00:00-04:00

More than 1,100 scholars, students and guests from around the world registered to attend the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture’s fall conference, “Dust of the Earth: On Persons,” at the University of Notre Dame. The 23rd annual fall conference begins today (Nov. 2) and concludes on Saturday (Nov. 4), featuring nearly 150 presentations across three days of conversation on questions relating to the concept of persons.

The 2023 conference is being hosted in partnership with Stanford University’s Boundaries of Humanity project, which seeks to advance dialogue on “human place and purpose in the cosmos.” The conference and project are supported in part by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The full conference schedule is available at ethicscenter.nd.edu/fc23.

Featured speakers at this year’s conference include Craig Calhoun, the University Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University, who will open the conference with a keynote address titled “Persons: Created, Artificial, and Natural,” at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Morris Inn Ballroom.

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, director of Jewish studies, the Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism and professor of history at Arizona State University, will speak Friday evening, reflecting on personhood in the thought of Jewish philosophers Martin Buber, Hans Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in a talk titled “Personhood, Relationality, and Responsibility: Jewish Philosophers on Contemporary Technology.” John O’Callaghan, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, will close the conference by reflecting on the question, “Are There Failed Persons? Are You One of Them?”

Other featured speakers include Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, professor emerita of English and bioethics at Emory University; Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard University; and Craig Finn, lead singer of the indie band The Hold Steady, in conversation with James McFetridge Wilson, lead singer of the band Sons of Bill.

The Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening keynotes will be livestreamed at https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/fall-conference/streamfc/. Many other sessions will be recorded and posted to the de Nicola Center’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/ndethics after the conference concludes.

Walk-up registration is available at the check-in desk in the McKenna Hall Conference Center from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.

Since 2000, the de Nicola Center’s annual fall conference has brought together the world’s leading Catholic thinkers, as well as those from other traditions, in fruitful discourse and exchange on the most pressing and vexed questions of ethics, culture and public policy today. The fall conference has since become one of the most important academic fora for wide-ranging conversations that engage the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition from a variety of disciplinary points of departure, including theology, philosophy, political theory, law, history, economics and the social sciences, as well as the natural sciences, literature and the arts. Recent past speakers include Nobel laureate James Heckman, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Mary Ann Glendon, Rémi Brague, Charles Taylor and Michael Sandel.

More information is available on the de Nicola Center’s website, ethicscenter.nd.edu.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Nov. 2.

de Nicola Center to award 2024 ND Evangelium Vitae Medal to Elvira Parravicini

2023-10-02T15:30:00-04:00

Dr. Elvira Parravicini, founding director of the Neonatal Comfort Care Program and professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center, will receive the University of Notre Dame’s 2024 Evangelium Vitae Medal — the nation’s most important award for heroes of the pro-life movement — at a Mass and dinner on April 27 at Notre Dame.

“Dr. Parravicini’s work perfectly embodies the goods of unconditional love, radical hospitality and misericordia (taking on the suffering of another as your own) that constitutes the foundation of a culture of life,” said O. Carter Snead, professor of law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “Her care for mothers, babies (born and unborn) and families is a prophetic witness to the self-emptying love that the Evangelium Vitae Medal was created to honor and celebrate.”

“Dr. Parravicini’s care for children affected by life-limiting conditions reflects her steadfast commitment to cherishing every human life,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame. “The Neonatal Comfort Care Program that she founded is a model of compassionate accompaniment that can inspire all who witness to hope and the sanctity of human life.”

Parravicini has dedicated her medical career to caring for pre-born and newborn children. A native of Milan, Italy, she completed her pediatric residency and neonatal fellowship at the University of Milan, as well as a certification in palliative medicine at Harvard University. After moving to the United States in 1994, she established the Neonatal Comfort Care Program (NCCP) at Columbia University Medical Center in 2008 to address the complex medical and non-medical needs of infants affected by life-limiting or life-threatening conditions.

Today, the interdisciplinary program connects families with medical professionals, speech pathologists, lactation consultants, child life specialists, psychologists and chaplains who work together to provide comfort, support and specialized medical care for babies and their families in a compassionate environment.

Prior to establishing the NCCP, Parravicini noted that there was not a standard of care for babies who “may not live longer than a few minutes or a few hours after birth.” In such cases, mothers are often counseled to terminate their pregnancy through abortion. Parravicini was inspired to provide another option for the “significant number of parents who want to continue the pregnancy, desire to see their babies, to hold them and enjoy as much as possible their brief but precious lives.”

The NCCP provides each child with an individualized plan to create “a safe and loving space for bonding, attachment, comfort and joy for them and their families.” Aspects of care typically include a medical evaluation and plan to alleviate pain; comfort measures such as holding, skin-to-skin contact and feeding; memory-making activities such as handprints, footprints, photographs and personalized keepsakes; and emotional, psychological and spiritual care, including both short- and long-term bereavement support.

Previous recipients of the medal include Robert P. George, legal philosopher and political theorist; Dr. John Bruchalski, founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN; Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel post-abortion healing ministry; the Women’s Care Center Foundation; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan and the Sisters of Life; Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife, Marie Smith, director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues; Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus; the Little Sisters of the Poor; the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation; Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law 91��Ƶ professor emerita; Helen Alvaré, the Robert A. Levy Endowed Chair in Law and Liberty at the Antonin Scalia 91��Ƶ of Law, George Mason University; and Richard Doerflinger, former associate director of the secretariat for pro-life activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae award consists of a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize presented at a banquet following a celebratory Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. For more information about the Evangelium Vitae Medal, visit https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/culture-of-life/evangelium-vitae-medal/.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Oct. 1.

de Nicola Center presents Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to Robert P. George

2023-05-01T13:45:00-04:00

Click for a video profile of Robert P. George

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture presented the 2023 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal — the nation’s most important award for heroes of the pro-life movement — to acclaimed legal philosopher and constitutional and political theorist Robert P. George at a celebration attended by more than 500 guests on April 29.

George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the founding director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

“In his lifetime of work, study, writing and teaching, Professor George has insisted, valiantly and joyfully — over and again — on the essential dignity of the human person, the role of the law in defending it and the possibility of our reasoning together in charity to promote it,” said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center. “Professor George’s patient, persistent demonstration of the right relationship between the civil and moral law has helped to lay the groundwork for a renewed appreciation of the rights of the unborn and an understanding of the proper role of law in defending those rights, following decades of profound injustice.”

Professor George receives a standing ovation. (click to enlarge)

“For 49 years, five months and two days, our law taught a gross moral untruth,” said George in his remarks at the dinner. “It taught generations of our people that the choice to destroy a child in utero is a basic liberty, indeed a fundamental right; it taught that the child himself or herself is as nothing — a blob of tissue, a meaningless mass, a mere object, a piece of property rather than a person with dignity and a right to life. That is a false lesson that it is our job to help people to unlearn.”

Rev. Bob Dowd, C.S.C., Robert P. George,
Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades and O. Carter Snead at the Evangelium Vitae Mass
(click to enlarge)

In his homily at the Evangelium Vitae Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend noted that George “has been an eloquent witness to the Gospel of life, teaching and defending the truth about the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, a truth that can be recognized in the natural law written in the human heart, known by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace.”

George is a renowned teacher, having taught nearly 8,000 students who have themselves gone on to distinguished careers as scholars, lawyers, judges, politicians, leaders of nonprofits and journalists. “The public that knows about Robby George knows about his voluminous writings, they know about his advocacy, about his speaking on the lecture circuit. They don’t know what an extraordinary teacher and mentor he is to thousands of students who have passed through Princeton,” said Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ Associate Professor Sherif Girgis, himself a former student of George’s. "That’s something that I learned from him, the kind of complete generosity with time and resources to mentor people, whatever perspective they come from."

George has authored, co-authored or edited 18 books, including “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life” (2nd edition, Doubleday, 2011), “In Defense of Natural Law” (Oxford University Press, 1999) and “Making Men Moral” (Oxford University Press, 1993). His articles and essays have appeared in popular and scholarly journals, from the Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, First Things and the Times Literary Supplement. George has spoken throughout the United States and around the world on a wide range of issues in philosophy, law and politics, including in honorific lectures at Harvard, Yale, the University of St. Andrews and Cornell University.

George has also had a long career of public service. He has served on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (2012-16), which he also chaired (2013-16); the President’s Council on Bioethics (2002-09); the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1993-98); and as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (2008-12).

A graduate of Swarthmore College, Harvard Law 91��Ƶ and the University of Oxford, George has received honors and awards that include the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

He holds honorary doctorates of law, ethics, science, letters, divinity, humanities, law and moral values, civil law, humane letters and juridical science.

The Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, named after Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, honors individuals whose efforts have advanced the gospel of life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages.

Previous medal recipients Dr. John Bruchalski, Robert George, Mary Ann Glendon and Richard Doerflinger with O. Carter Snead (click to enlarge)

Previous recipients of the medal include Dr. John Bruchalski, founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN and Divine Mercy Care; Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel post-abortion healing ministry; the Women’s Care Center Foundation; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan and the Sisters of Life; Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife, Marie Smith, director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues; Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus; the Little Sisters of the Poor; the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation; and Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law 91��Ƶ professor emerita.

Announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae award consists of a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize presented at a banquet following a celebratory Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. For more information about the Evangelium Vitae Medal, visit ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/culture-of-life/evangelium-vitae-medal.

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is the leading center for scholarly reflection within the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition. The center is committed to sharing the richness of this tradition through teaching, research and dialogue, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on May 1.

Catholicism panel discusses the Church in the 21st century Global South

2023-03-16T15:52:00-04:00

Provost John T. McGreevy

“Most of my life, to my amazement, has been spent studying in, teaching at, writing about, and administering now, Catholic institutions. On an almost daily basis, I get asked, ‘How did we get here?’ And so I became interested in that long sweep of the 19th-century Catholic revival,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost and Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, during a March 6 panel discussion titled “Global Catholicism: The Past, Present, and Future of the Church.”

The panel drew upon McGreevy’s book “Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis” (W. W. Norton, 2022) and featured comments from Jeremy Adelman, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History and director of the Global History Lab at Princeton University, and Rev. Stan Chu Ilo, research professor of world Christianity and African studies at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University. The event was moderated by Anna Bonta Moreland, the Anne Quinn Welsh Endowed Chair and Director of the University Honors Program at Villanova University, and included a response by McGreevy. The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Nanovic Institute for European 91��Ƶ sponsored the afternoon’s conversation, which drew a crowd of 150 attendees.

“[Provost McGreevy’s] book ‘Catholicism’ has deservedly received a great deal of attention and praise, and several events have been organized to celebrate its publication and explore its many layers,” said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “We chose to dedicate the entirety of this conversation to matters concerning the Church in the Global South, first, because there has not yet been an academic event on John’s book with such a singular focus, and second, because the subject deserves its own treatment, given the complexity and importance of this particular history, both for understanding the current moment as well as the future of the Church more broadly.”

Panelists discussed questions about missionary activity in the Global South, the subsequent decolonization movement of the 20th century, inculturation, the relationship between the Church and emerging democratic nation-states, ultramontanism, the Second Vatican Council and the historian’s challenge of telling the story of a global institution composed of local communities.

“The book is a story of the ways in which the Church has wrestled with the challenge of modernity, and in so doing, has shaped the modern world,” said Adelman. “I take it as a book that invites a conversation among Catholics, with and among non-Catholics, about the Church itself.”

“John has a nose for sifting what matters from what is inconsequential in both the minor and the major history of global Catholicism,” said Father Ilo. “He has an extraordinary ability to present this complex history with a hermeneutic of generosity, telling the story in a way that allows the events to speak for themselves, without interposing the judgment of the historian on the account.”

Reflecting on the panel’s comments, Clemens Sedmak, the director of the Nanovic Institute for European 91��Ƶ, added: “Pope Francis said that ‘every event is both harvest and occasion for sowing seeds.’ There’s no question about the harvest. The seeds sown today are seeds for hope in the future of a colorful and wide Church.”

McGreevy concluded the conversation by reflecting on Notre Dame’s role in the 21st-century Church. “I think Catholicism as an institution will be reimagined in the 21st century much as it was after the French Revolution in the 19th century, and much as it was, courageously, at the Second Vatican Council. Notre Dame, maybe some of the people in this room, will play an important role in that reimagining. If this book, and some of the commentary that’s been provided today, provides a savvy baseline as that reimagining occurs, it will have certainly served its purpose.”

A recording of the panel can be viewed at https://youtu.be/Bb9BLqDqASI.

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is committed to sharing the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition through teaching, research and public engagement, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines – both on campus at the University of Notre Dame, and as Notre Dame in the public square. The center publishes four book series with the University of Notre Dame Press, which each feature first-rate scholarship that brings a distinctive voice to the most important conversations in elite academia, including Catholic Ideas for a Secular World, the Center for Ethics and Culture Solzhenitsyn Series, 91��Ƶ in African Theology and 91��Ƶ in Medical Ethics and Bioethics. For more information, visit ethicscenter.nd.edu

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on March 16.

de Nicola Center hosts roundtable on caring for women, children in a post-Roe world

2023-01-17T09:05:00-05:00

On Thursday (Jan. 19), the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame will mark the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in Washington, D.C., with an expert roundtable discussion on how best to care for and protect mothers, babies and families in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision.

“Building a Civilization of Love” will bring together experts in law, medicine, social science, public health and social service to discuss the most important opportunities for and challenges to protecting the intrinsic equal dignity of every member of the human family following the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Dobbs.

The roundtable features experts including Sen. Katrina Jackson, a Democrat representing Louisiana’s 34th district and the sponsor of groundbreaking pro-life legislation; Heather Hacker, partner at Hacker Stephens and former assistant solicitor general of Texas; Mary Hallan FioRito, former vice chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal George Fellow of the de Nicola Center; Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, former faculty member of Duke University’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, former senior official in Global Health at USAID and fellow of the de Nicola Center; and Leah Libresco Sargeant, feminist, author and policy expert.

The roundtable will serve as the latest entry in the de Nicola Center’s Women and Children First Initiative, a comprehensive interdisciplinary program of teaching, research, service and public engagement that aims to help create a post-Roe future in which mothers, babies (born and unborn) and families receive the protection and support necessary to flourish. The discussion is being held in conjunction with the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Conference on “The Age of Roe: The Past, Present and Future of Abortion in America.”

“As the principal engine of Notre Dame’s institutional commitment to building a culture of life, it is incumbent upon us in this post-Roe moment to convene an array of brilliant leaders from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints who share our commitment to building a world in which mothers, babies and families are cared for and protected as they deserve,” said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and professor of law at Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ.

The de Nicola Center’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (and its recent reversal) will also include support for the more than 700 students, faculty and staff from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College and Holy Cross College who will travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual March for Life on Friday (Jan. 20) — one of the largest single contingents to participate in the event, year after year.

“This year’s March for Life marks the first time that pro-life supporters from around the nation will gather together to celebrate the end of Roe v. Wade, clearing the way for a future in which all people of goodwill can work together to find new ways to support mothers, children and families,” said Petra Farrell, culture of life program manager at the de Nicola Center. “We are proud to represent Notre Dame at the national march and to give voice to the University’s commitment to proclaiming the dignity of all human life, at all stages and in all circumstances.”

Following the March, the de Nicola Center will again co-sponsor a reception with the Notre Dame Alumni Association, gathering alumni, faculty, staff, families and students in a celebration of the University’s public witness to the sanctity of human life. The de Nicola Center will close out the weekend’s offerings with “Art for Life,” a guided tour at the National Gallery of Art focusing on pieces that engage with themes evoking the culture of life.

“Building a Civilization of Love” will be held at the National Press Club at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 19) with a reception to follow. For more information and to register for the roundtable, reception and guided tour, visit ethicscenter.nd.edu/M4L.

The Notre Dame de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is the leading center for scholarly reflection within the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition. The center is committed to sharing the richness of this tradition through teaching, research and dialogue, at the highest level and across a range of disciplines.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Jan. 13.

dCEC to Award 2023 ND Evangelium Vitae Medal to Robert P. George

2022-10-03T10:01:51-04:00

Acclaimed legal philosopher and constitutional and political theorist Robert P. George will receive the University of Notre Dame’s 2023 Evangelium Vitae Medal—the nation’s most important award for heroes of the pro-life movement—at a celebration hosted by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture on April 29, 2023.

George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the founding director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

"Robby George is a brilliant legal philosopher and one of the most eminent public intellectuals in America today," said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. "Over more than 40 years of service as a professor, author, and mentor (including to me), George has been the most important and influential exponent of the philosophical argument for the intrinsic equal dignity of the unborn child, with a combination of intellectual excellence, civility, and aplomb that is simply not paralleled in his generation.”

University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. (himself a former classmate of George’s at Oxford), added, "Robby is admirable not just for his eloquent defense of life but for his commitment to respectful and civil dialogue, including with those with whom he strongly disagrees."

Professor George is a renowned teacher, having taught nearly eight thousand students, who have themselves gone on to distinguished careers as scholars, lawyers, judges, politicians, leaders of nonprofits, and journalists. “As a teacher, Professor George set the highest standards for intellectual rigor, moral courage, and devotion to truth and the common good while modeling a cheerful generosity toward every one of his intellectual opponents that often blossomed into genuine friendships,” said Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ Associate Professor Sherif Girgis, himself a former student of George’s at Princeton.

Professor George has authored, co-authored, or edited more than 13 books, including Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (2nd edition, Doubleday, 2011), In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 1999), and Making Men Moral (Oxford University Press, 1993). His articles and essays have appeared in popular and scholarly journals, from the Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, First Things, and the Times Literary Supplement. George has spoken throughout the United States and around the world on a wide range of issues in philosophy, law, and politics, including in honorific lectures at Harvard, Yale, University of St. Andrews, and Cornell University.

George has also had a long career of public service. He has served on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (2012–16), of which he was also chair (2013–16); the President's Council on Bioethics (2002–09); the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1993–98); and as the U.S. member of UNESCO's World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (2008–12).

A graduate of Swarthmore College, Harvard Law 91��Ƶ, and the University of Oxford, George has received honors and awards including the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

He holds honorary doctorates of law, ethics, science, letters, divinity, humanities, law and moral values, civil law, humane letters, and juridical science.

The Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, named after Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical, is the nation’s most important lifetime achievement award for heroes of the pro-life movement, honoring individuals whose efforts have advanced the Gospel of Life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages.

Previous recipients of the medal include Dr. John Bruchalski, founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN; Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel post-abortion healing ministry; the Women’s Care Center Foundation; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan and the Sisters of Life; Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife, Marie Smith, director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues; Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus; the Little Sisters of the Poor; the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation; and Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law 91��Ƶ professor emerita.

Announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae award consists of a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize presented at a banquet following a celebratory Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. For more information about the Evangelium Vitae Medal, visit https://ethicscenter.nd.edu/programs/culture-of-life/evangelium-vitae-medal/.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on October 02, 2022.

de Nicola Center, McGrath Institute to host webinar series on caring for women and children after Dobbs

2022-08-09T16:23:00-04:00

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the University of Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and McGrath Institute for Church Life will co-host a webinar discussion series addressing questions facing women, physicians and policymakers titled “Caring for Women and Children: Navigating Medicine, Law, and Policy After Dobbs.” The webinar series is part of the de Nicola Center’s Women and Children First initiative and the McGrath Institute’s Conversations That Matter series.

The first panel in the series will take place at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 16, and will address common questions facing women and doctors about protecting the life of the mother and managing health care for both children and women in light of the Dobbs decision. Panelists include:

Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB/GYN in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and CEO-elect of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Dr. Byron Calhoun, a board-certified high-risk OB/GYN specializing in maternal/fetal health and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at West Virginia University.
Leah Libresco Sargeant, an author who has written about her experience with ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage.
Dr. Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, an OB/GYN with expertise in international health and a senior public policy fellow at the de Nicola Center.

The webinar will be co-moderated by O. Carter Snead, professor of law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, and Jessica Keating Floyd, program director of the Notre Dame Office of Life and Human Dignity at the McGrath Institute for Church Life.

Register for the webinar and submit advance questions for the panelists at mcgrath.nd.edu/dobbs. A recording of the event will be available at ethicscenter.nd.edu/news/videos/ and mcgrath.nd.edu/dobbs after the conclusion. Additional webinar discussions in the series will follow in September and October.

The McGrath Institute for Church Life partners with Catholic dioceses, parishes and schools to address pastoral challenges with theological depth and rigor. It connects the Catholic intellectual life to the life of the Church to form faithful Catholic leaders for service to the Church and the world.

de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture presents Evangelium Vitae Medal to John Bruchalski

2022-05-05T14:15:00-04:00

The University of Notre Dame de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture presented the 11th annual Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to Dr. John T. Bruchalski, founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN, one of the largest pro-life clinics in the United States, at a Mass and dinner attended by more than 450 guests and friends on April 23.

The Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, named for Pope St. John Paul II's 1995 encyclical on life issues, is the nation’s most important lifetime achievement award for heroes of the pro-life movement, honoring individuals who have proclaimed the Gospel of Life through their work by steadfastly affirming and defending its sanctity from its earliest stages.

O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, commented on the great success of Tepeyac OB/GYN, which Bruchalski founded in 1994 to provide direct care for patients regardless of their ability to pay, calling it “the gold standard for truly holistic pro-life health care.” “Rather than treating women’s fertility as a disease to be managed, and their children as threats to be resisted, Tepeyac welcomes mother and child into a network of support and love that carries them into true fullness of life, where 'the divine image is restored, renewed, and brought to perfection in them'” (Evangelium Vitae 2).

Click to watch a video profile of Dr. Bruchalski

Bruchalski began his career in obstetrics and gynecology in 1987, practicing the full range of reproductive medicine, including sterilizations, artificial reproduction, embryo destruction and late-term abortions. Bruchalski experienced a profound conversion following a live birth during a late-term abortion procedure and thereafter resolved to practice exclusively pro-life medicine that supported women, children and their families. Today, Tepeyac OB/GYN offers fertility counseling, natural family planning and support for families that have received an adverse prenatal diagnosis for their child.

“Through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, a radical conversion was worked within the young doctor,” Snead continued. “John Bruchalski came to see that true health care for women is not about rights, but relationships — not about limits, but love.”

In 2000, Bruchalski established Divine Mercy Care, a nonprofit foundation to fund charity care at Tepeyac OB/GYN, to educate and support pro-life medical professionals, and to connect pro-life clinics in a network of mutual support. Over the past 28 years, Tepeyac OB/GYN has delivered more than 10,000 children, with nearly 30 percent of their mothers receiving financial aid from Divine Mercy Care.

“Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday,” said Bruchalski in his remarks after receiving the medal. “And divine mercy has been a central aspect of my recovery and my life. It's people like you who have prayed for people like me. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

Dr. Bruchalski with Sorin Fellows delivered at Tepeyac OB/GYN

In his homily during Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart prior to the medal presentation (available on the dCEC's YouTube channel), dCEC chaplain Rev. Terry Ehrman, C.S.C., underscored the gift of divine mercy in Bruchalski's own life, noting that he is “one who received the very mercy of God and has himself become, through his medicine and his practice of healing, an agent of mercy in the world, [having] a heartfelt compassion for the sufferings of others.” He continued, “We look to Dr. Bruchalski and his wife and their ministry at Tepeyac OB/GYN and Divine Mercy Care, and how it brings life and healing to others. May his work inspire us, that we too can be agents of mercy.”

Announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae award consists of a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize.

Previous medal recipients include Vicki Thorn, founder of the post-abortion healing ministry Project Rachel; Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the USCCB’s Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities; Mary Ann Glendon, emeritus Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law 91��Ƶ; Helen M. Alvaré, professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law 91��Ƶ; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan and the Sisters of Life; Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife, Marie Smith, director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues; the Jerome Lejeune Foundation; Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus; and the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on May 3.

Hundreds gather to observe Notre Dame Day for Life

2022-01-25T17:00:00-05:00

More than 700 students, faculty, administrators, alumni and friends gathered on a seasonably cold day at the University of Notre Dame for a Day for Life on Jan. 21 to bear joyful witness to the inalienable and equal dignity of every member of the human family, born and unborn.

The observance began at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart with a Mass for Life, celebrated by University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

“Our march will be a witness to the love that conquers all things,” Father Jenkins said in his remarks at the end of Mass. “Let our march begin, then, and let us walk together in love, compassion and confidence in the ultimate victory of Christ over sin and death.”

After Mass, Father Jenkins joined the assembled crowd in front of the Main Building for the march, led by Notre Dame Right to Life, the University’s largest student club. Walking peacefully through campus, the ND Day for Life concluded with a rally on the Hesburgh Library Quad, where speakers from throughout the University community urged the marchers to continue their work to build a culture of life.

“We see and follow the thread that connects our commitments to antiracism, care for the poor, healing the sick, welcoming the refugee and the immigrant, educating students and, the cause that brings us here today, protecting the unborn child,” said Ernest Morrell, associate dean for the humanities and equity in the College of Arts and Letters and director of the Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education.

“Notre Dame’s continuing witness is thus an important beacon and a voice needed not just in this country, but in the global public square and international academe,” said Diane Desierto, professor of law and global affairs with a joint appointment at Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ and the Keough 91��Ƶ of Global Affairs. “Its leadership, faculty and students — as we see today — are inspiring examples of embracing authentic human dignity that draws in every member of the human family, without distinction or discrimination.”

“We are building a culture of life by embracing and bearing witness to what grounds and animates it — love,” concluded O. Carter Snead, professor of law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “The culture of life leads to the creation of a civilization of love, where everyone counts and no one is left behind, as Pope Francis has reminded us many times. That is what we are doing. And what better place to do it than at the Blessed Mother’s University!”

Other speakers at the rally included senior Francine Shaft, president of Notre Dame Right to Life, and Dolly Duffy, executive director of the Alumni Association.

Co-sponsors of the ND Day for Life included Notre Dame Right to Life, University Faculty for Life, Campus Ministry, the Notre Dame Alumni Association and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

The University’s travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in the national 2022 March for Life was canceled due to concerns about the highly transmissible COVID-19 omicron variant. Each year, Notre Dame Right to Life partners with the de Nicola Center to send one of the largest undergraduate contingents to the march. Dozens of professors, staff and graduate students also receive travel grants from the de Nicola Center to participate, thanks to the generosity of the center’s donors and benefactors.

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture is the locus of pro-life witness and formation at Notre Dame. In addition to sponsoring the University’s annual participation in the March for Life, the de Nicola Center administers the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, the nation's preeminent award for heroes of the pro-life movement. The de Nicola Center also offers the annual Notre Dame Vita Institute, an intensive intellectual formation program for current and emerging leaders working in all aspects of the pro-life movement. More than 300 alumni of the ND Vita Institute constitute the leadership of the most prominent pro-life organizations and programs around the globe.

More information about the pro-life programs of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture are at ethicscenter.nd.edu/prolife.

2022 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal awarded to John Bruchalski

2021-10-04T16:00:00-04:00

The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame will present the 2022 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to Dr. John T. Bruchalski, founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN, one of the largest pro-life clinics in the nation, at a celebration on April 23.

"Dr. Bruchalski is a shining example of the Church's untiring commitment to directly serving mothers, children and families," said O. Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. "His personal conversion story is a compelling example of the power of God's grace to transform hearts, and his visionary work at Tepeyac OB/GYN over the past 27 years is an invitation to each of us to employ our talents in service to building a civilization of life and love."

"Dr. Bruchalski's lifetime of dedication to providing pro-life care for vulnerable women and children — especially those in poverty — reflects Pope Francis’ injunction to care for the least among us (born and unborn) and to resist a throwaway culture," said University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. "I thank Dr. Bruchalski for his inspiring example of service to women, families and the Gospel of Life."

In 1994, Bruchalski and his wife, Carolyn, began Tepeyac Family Center (now Tepeyac OB/GYN), providing direct care for patients regardless of their ability to pay, including fertility counseling, natural family planning and support for families that have received an adverse prenatal diagnosis for their child.

In 2000, Bruchalski established Divine Mercy Care, a nonprofit umbrella organization to support Tepeyac OB/GYN's uninsured patients, to educate and form the next generation of pro-life medical practitioners, and to unify the pro-life movement. Divine Mercy Care provides more than $600,000 annually to underwrite pro-life care for women and families through Tepeyac OB/GYN.

The Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, named after Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical on life issues, is the nation’s most important lifetime achievement award for heroes of the pro-life movement, honoring individuals whose efforts have served to proclaim the Gospel of Life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages.

Previous recipients of the medal include Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel post-abortion healing ministry; the Women’s Care Center Foundation; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan and the Sisters of Life; Congressman Chris Smith, co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and his wife, Marie Smith, director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues; Supreme Knight Carl Anderson and the Knights of Columbus; the Little Sisters of the Poor; the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation; and Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law at Harvard Law 91��Ƶ.

Announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae award consists of a specially commissioned medal and $10,000 prize, to be presented at a Mass and banquet. For more information about the Evangelium Vitae Medal, visit ethicscenter.nd.edu/ev2022.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on Oct. 3.

Carter Snead to receive Expanded Reason Award

2021-07-14T09:30:00-04:00

O. Carter Snead, professor of law at Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, will receive the 2021 Expanded Reason Award in Research for his book “What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics” (Harvard University Press, 2020).

Now in its fifth year, the Expanded Reason Award is administered by the University Francisco de Vitoria, in conjunction with the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, and recognizes excellence in efforts to “broaden the horizons of rationality, based on the dialogue of sciences and disciplines with philosophy and theology.” Four recipients of the Expanded Reason Award, three in the area of research and one in teaching, will share a 100,000 Euro prize and attend a special audience with Pope Francis to receive the award later this year.

“I am incredibly humbled and grateful to receive this award from the Expanded Reason Institute,” said Snead following the announcement. “'What It Means to Be Human’ aims to explore precisely those questions most fundamental to our human existence, and to broaden the public conversation around pressing issues in public bioethics today. It is an honor to receive this recognition for that work.”

“What It Means to Be Human” proposes a vision of human identity and flourishing that rejects the “expressive individualism” underlying much of American public policy today, arguing instead that the human person is an embodied, dependent being who relies on and participates in networks of care in order to thrive. The book, published by Harvard University Press in October 2020, was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of “The Ten Best Books of 2020”; in his review for the same paper, Yuval Levin called it “among the most important works of moral philosophy produced so far in this century.”

“'What It Means to Be Human’ explores difficult and vital questions at the intersection of law, public policy, biotechnology, philosophy and ethics — generating significant conversations within and beyond the academy,” said Sarah Mustillo, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean and professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Letters. “This award demonstrates the impact of Professor Snead's interdisciplinary work in the college's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture."

“Professor Snead’s research sets him apart as one of the world’s leading experts in the field of public bioethics — the governance of biotechnology, medicine and the biosciences in the name of ethical goods,” added G. Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ. “His contributions as a scholar and mentor to our students and the Law 91��Ƶ community have been incalculable, and we are proud that the synthesis of his work in 'What It Means to Be Human’ has received this prestigious international recognition.”

More information about the Expanded Reason Institute may be found at its website.

Originally published by Kenneth Hallenius at ethicscenter.nd.edu on July 13.