Those of us who teach ethics to contemporary undergraduates

do so with considerable fear and trembling. After all, in classes in ethics we challenge students to think seriously—and critically—about the

most fundamental question we human beings can ask—“What is the best kind of life for me to lead?”

In contemporary philosophy, ethics has become a techni-cal discipline, governed by a dense and difficult literature and practiced by brilliant academics elaborating and defending complicated theories of correct human conduct. There are academic superstars—John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin and our own Alasdair MacIntyre, for example—whose ethical views are widely celebrated and studied in graduate seminars wherever genuine philosophy goes on. All of this technical literature, however, is mere huffing and puffing if it doesn’t make contact eventually with the question of how best hu-man beings should live.

For college students this question is pressing. They are at a particularly critical stage in the process of growing into the people they will be. Real reflection on ethics must always begin by bringing students to realize that their own lives already embody some answer to this question. Genuine skepticism is not a possible response to it. The attempt to reject the question on the grounds that we can’t give an answer to it (or that any answer is just “a matter of opinion”) is, at the same time, to give an answer to it. One can’t escape the question by pleading ignorance. Skepticism is, after all, a way of life, too--and most people have thought not the best way.

It is with the recognition of this truth that genuine eth-ics was born in the thought of our philosophical forefathers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The beginning of ethics was just the recognition that since our lives will embody an answer to this question no matter what, we should try to determine

Director

2011

issue

the newsletter of the notre dame center for ethics & culture

Winter

From the Director ............................................................... 111th Annual Fall Conference ............................................... 2Integritas ............................................................................. 6Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life ........................... 7Bread of Life Fall 2010 ........................................................ 9Catholic Culture Literature Series...................................... 10Schmitt Lecture ................................................................. 12Stratford Caldecott Lecture ............................................... 13G.K. Chesterton: 80 years Later ........................................ 14Nine Days that Changed the World .................................. 15Tailgates ............................................................................ 18We’ve moved ..................................................................... 19Welcome Angela Pfister ..................................................... 19Upcoming Events: 2011 .................................................... 20

4 2 4 g e d d e s h a l l • n o t r e d a m e , i n 4 6 5 5 6 • t e l : 5 7 4 6 3 1 9 6 5 6 •

c u l t u r ee t h i c s

f a x : 5 7 4 6 3 1 6 2 9 0 • e - m a i l : n d e t h i c s @ n d . e d u • w e b : h t t p : / / e t h i c s c e n t e r. n d . e d u

in This

From the

David Solomon

Continued on page 17

the best answer to it and shape our lives, insofar as possible, to conform to that answer. It also seemed clear that we should use our highest capacities—according to the great Greek philosophers, our reason-to determine what that answer is. As Socrates said, since it is the most important question we can ask, it should command our full attention.

In encouraging students in the ethics classroom to reflect on this question and to confront the radically different responses given to it by the towering figures in the history of philosophy (Augus-tine, Aquinas, Hume, Kant, Mill and Nietzche, just to name a few) we risk bringing instability into their lives. The primary fear is that critical reflection will lead to undermining the positive views students bring to the classroom without helping them to adopt a more adequate view. Experience in teaching ethics shows that it is easier to tear down than to build up. It is easier to bring students to reject their present views than to help them to embody in their lives more comprehensive views, views that are better based in what we know about human nature and what it takes for human beings to truly flourish.

These issues about teaching ethics are real ones that confront anyone presuming to introduce students to the critical methods and the substantive theories in our ethical tradition. They particularly

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 2

Our annual fall conference was again a marvelous success. This year entitled, “Younger Than Sin: Retrieving Simplicity

Through the Virtues of Humil-ity, Wonder, and Joy,” it covered a wide array of topics. From November 18th-20th, scholars, artists, professionals, laymen and students gathered in McKenna Hall to reflect on the cultivation of virtue for authentic Christian freedom. Taking Pope Benedict XVI’s notion of simplicity of soul as the wellspring of humil-ity, wonder and joy as its theme, the conference sought to explore

virtue’s contribution to human flourishing through the lenses of

philosophy, theology, literature, art, law, history and other per-spectives of intellectual inquiry.

The conference opened with the Joseph Pieper Keynote lecture given by Reverend John Saward of St. Gregory and St. Augustine’s Church in Oxford, England. His talk: “‘Giving wisdom to little ones’ (Psalm 18: 8): St. Thomas Aquinas - Doctor of the Little Way,” was clear, concise, and anything but

simpleminded. This was the first time in the history of the Fall Conference that the opening lecture was given on Thomas

Aquinas. Aquinas’ thought and “little way” seemed to permeate the rest of the conference.

Saward took an unusual ap-proach to this angelic doctor of the church. Saward emphasized Thomas’ childlike personality, which is surprising to some, given his intellectual prowess. He called this seeming contra-diction nothing other than the paradox of Christianity and the Cross. He ended his talk by say-ing that Aquinas was someone who was “always young, always humble, childlike, younger than deceit, younger than error, giv-ing wisdom to little ones.” For

many, it recollected Ralph McIn-erny, the Thomist and great friend of the Center who passed away in January and who would have so much enjoyed Fr. Saward’s address.

The next morning started with nine colloquium sessions, followed by a lecture by former President of St. Vincent College and

11th AnnuAl FAll conFerence 2010

Conference participants enjoy conversation and light refreshments between sessions

Decisions, decisions—it’s hard to choose between sessions

Conference participants pack the auditorium

A rapt audience listens and takes notes

Rev. Saward with Kathryn and Jordan Wales

Rev. John Saward delivers the Josef Pieper keynote address

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 3

founder of Aging with Dignity, Jim Towey. His lecture, “Mother Teresa of Calcutta at 100 and Why Her Influence is Just Begin-ning,” was inspired by his friendship with Mother Teresa as her lawyer. Since our long time friend Dr. Paul Wright was able to attend the conference, it must have been the only occasion

when both Mother Teresa’s law-yer and her doctor were in the same room together! It made for a very engaging Q&A session. At the same time Notre Dame’s own Professor David W. Fagerberg gave a talk on “Humility without

Humiliation: A Capacitation for Life in Elfland in the Thought of G. K. Chesterton.” The talk was

particularly well attended by students. In fact, this year’s confer-ence had the best representation of undergraduate students to date; large contingents came from as far away as Baylor and St. Thomas in Minnesota. Our conference participants seem to be getting younger and younger each year, and the irony was in no

way lost in that at this year’s conference on spiritual youthfulness, the presence of youth was felt so keenly.

After lunch, Professor Anthony Esolen of Providence Col-lege spoke on “The Mighty Child: Visions of Youth in Dante and Shakespeare.” He sought to inspire participants through these classical literary figures not to give in to the secular culture of con-sumerism. He warned, “for materialism both as an ontology and

a guide for life is not simple but simplistic, not humble, but humiliating, its characteristic adverb is only, as it seeks not to instill wonder, not to cause the heart to leap before the lovely earth… but as it boasts its object is to disillusion and to dishearten. Does it breed works of beauty? It cannot even breed children sufficient to replace one generation with the next.” The students in the audience laughed and cheered during the question and answer pe-riod as Esolen suggested ways to respond to Machiavellian Materialism: “Laugh at them,” he shouted. “Be a kid, fall in love, get married, have fun, enjoy life!”

“Younger thAn sin: retrieving simplicitY through the virtues oF humilitY, WonDer, AnD JoY”

Fr. Bill Miscamble engages Silva Schuster in spirited

conversationEven philosophers can be sharp dressers

David with Bill and Peggy Dotterweich

Phil Bess moderates for presenters Erik van Versendaal and

Michael and Paul Camacho

David Solomon has these sisters in stitches

Old Center friends Mary Daly, Peter Wicks, David, Greer, and Elliot Argue meet again at the conference

The Dominicans have made a habit of attending the Fall Conference

Continued on page 4

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 4

Daniel McInerny, now of Baylor University, certainly took the cake for catchy titles with “Sucking the Life from Our Children: Hollywood and the Romance of the Living Dead.” McInerny led us in a riveting discussion of the vampire phenomenon that has swept contemporary literature and film. His presentation included clips from the popular “Twilight” film, which he considered within the historical context of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and other early vampire-themed literature. He showed how an already dark image has taken on even more disturbing implications in our culture, and he gave us a sense of how inexplicably vast the vampire phenomenon has recently be-come, particularly among teenagers. His address quickly became the talk of the conference, with participants asking follow-up questions for more than an hour afterwards.

Friday night’s Jack Schuster Memorial Lecture was given by Professor Lawrence Cunningham of Notre Dame, who very fittingly chose to talk about Br. Andre Bes-sette, the Congregation of Holy Cross’ first saint, who was canon-ized in October of this year. In “The Humility of the Door Keeper: The Case of Andre Bessette, CSC,” Cunningham presented the voca-tion of being a porter as an over-looked road to holiness. The most touching moment of the confer-ence came at the end of his address, when the whole assembly stood to give an ovation to the Holy Cross brothers and priests who filled the front rows of the audi-torium. Notre Dame would not exist today were it not for their devotion and diligent service.

Another highlight of the conference was Ralph Wood’s address on “The Lady Who Looks on Gladiators in Grapple: Chesterton’s Marian Poems.” It was beautiful and humbling for all of us at Notre Dame to hear a devout Baptist from Baylor speak so eloquently about Our Lady. He said, among other things, that we cannot truly understand Christ without understanding his mother.John O’Callaghan

introduced Ralph Wood

FAll conFerence continueD

Baby Alice participates in her first Fall Conference with her proud parents, Bill and Elizabeth Kirk

Tris Engelhardt engages in spirited discussion with Rev. Nicholas Lombardo, OP

Advisory Board members Tom Hibbs and Bill and Julie McGurn

Lawrence Cunningham, this year’s Jack Schuster Memorial Lecturer

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 5

Other featured speakers included Sr. Ann Astell, Tris Engelhardt, and Margaret Monahan Hogan, who made ex-cellent contributions. We were glad once again to have a high school student present a paper among over a hundred papers presented in 36 colloquium sessions throughout the conference. This year that student was Caitlin Ronan of Montrose School in Massachusetts.

We concluded with Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, celebrated by the Most Rev. Kevin C. Rhoades, Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, fittingly on the Feast of Christ the King. Mass was followed by a banquet where both the wine and the conversation flowed freely. Be sure to mark your calendars now for next year’s conference, to be held November 10-12, 2011!

A happy book merchant selling her wares

Tris Engelhardt always has the last word

Jeff Langan, Kelly Mason, and Catherine Sims celebrate after presenting their papersDavid with Silva Schuster and

her daughter, Nicole

FAll conFerence continueD

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 6

the Theology Department. November’s seminar addressed the subject of the value of a liberal arts education, with readings from Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Stanley Hauerwas’ “Go with God,” and David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement address to Kenyon

College, This is Water. The readings were chosen to address the questions: What is the enduring value of a liberal arts educa-tion? What sort of preparation for living do the liberal arts provide? What does it mean to learn “how to think?” How is a Christian education unique? What vision of the integration of scholarship, spirituality and service does Pope John Paul II offer us?

December’s seminar explored the dialogue between faith and reason, tak-ing St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles and the encyclical Fides et Ratio as its central texts. Through those texts

and with John Cavadini’s great insight, we explored the ques-tions: Why should we believe truths that cannot be known by reason? Why should truths that can be known by reason also be known by faith? Can truths known by reason ever contradict truths known by faith? What is faith? Why can we have confidence in human reason? From where does the contemporary tension between faith and reason spring? What are the consequences of reason becoming estranged from faith?

The students attended our Fall Conference as a group, taking in Fr. John Saward’s keynote address, “ ‘Giving wisdom to little ones’ (Psalm 18: 8): St. Thomas Aquinas - Doctor of the Little Way.” After returning from Thanksgiving, the group spent an evening Christmas caroling in the neighborhood around

Continued on page 17

This semester the Center launched a new undergraduate formation program called Integritas. The program seeks

to help students integrate the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in their lives at Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. While Notre Dame has a multitude of student clubs and associations devoted to a wide variety of interests, there are few organizations in the University that aim to integrate student life in its intellectual, spiritual, and charitable dimensions. Through its weekly meetings, Integritas offers students a unique opportunity to engage in a wide variety of activities together, reflecting on fundamental questions of metaphysics, ethics, and justice in seminars and through the experiential components of the program.

Under the direction of Greer Han-nan, the inaugural Integritas group has thirteen participants and a graduate student men-tor, Kristen Drahos. Guest professors lead the monthly seminars, which creates a sense of community and common endeavor between the faculty and students. Student partici-pants are majoring in a variety of subjects, including archi-tecture, engineering, business, philosophy, theology, and po-litical science. The group meets every Thursday with a different activity each week, including seminars, service opportunities, and liturgies.

We opened with a Mass and dinner in Geddes Hall’s beau-tiful Our Lady of Mercy chapel at the beginning of November. Our first two seminars were held in November and December, the first led by Greer, and the second led by John Cavadini of

integritAs

The carolers smile in spite of the cold

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 7

It has been an exciting and eventful start to the academic year for the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life as it

continues in its efforts to educate the Notre Dame community, and support initiatives that promote the sanctity of human life. Among those efforts have been supporting the Notre Dame University Faculty for Life chapter, announcing the inaugural Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, planning the Notre Dame Vita Institute, hosting the Bread of Life dinner, the launching of the Fund website, and supporting a host of other events. These activities have been made possible through the generous support of benefactors around the country who have partnered with us to enhance the University’s institutional involvement as the educational leader dedicated to building a culture of life.

universitY FAcultY For liFe chApter

The Fund to Protect Human Life has continued with its efforts to build a community of prolife faculty and staff at Notre Dame. To that end, the Fund sponsored the opening reception of the academic year for the Notre Dame University Faculty for Life chapter. Nearly 60 faculty and staff attended the reception at the Coleman Morse lounge. Fr. Bill Miscamble, C.S.C., provided a report on the status of the Notre Dame University Faculty for Life chapter and presented a moving tribute to Bill Kirk for his steadfast commitment to the University and his unfailing witness on behalf of life to the University community and beyond. Fr. Miscamble proudly announced that the national board of directors of the University Faculty for Life (“UFL”) has approved the formation of the Notre Dame chapter of UFL. Officers heading the Notre Dame chapter are Fr. Miscamble, president; Daniel Philpott, associate professor of political science and peace studies and Fund Committee member, vice president; and Walter Nicgorski, professor in the Program of Liberal Stud-ies, secretary-treasurer. The chapter’s executive board members are Elizabeth Kirk, Research Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Culture and Fund Committee member, and Craig Lent,

Freimann Professor of Engineering. In addition to his service as president of the Notre Dame chapter, Father Miscamble also

has been elected to a two-year term on the UFL national board of directors.

Notre Dame UFL is one of the largest chapters in the country with over 30 formal members and reaches out to a listserv of over 200 faculty and staff members who are committed to Notre Dame’s efforts on behalf of life. The Notre Dame UFL is a dynamic part of these growing efforts for life by providing spiritual, academic, and social endeavors for faculty and staff to meet and share ideas about these most important of issues. In addition, Notre Dame UFL is committed to providing support to the many vibrant Notre Dame students who are engaged in efforts to defend human life from its earliest stages.

In conjunction with the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life, Notre Dame UFL is proud to be hosting the 2011 annual UFL conference June 10-11. The UFL conference will be a unique opportunity to bring together pro-life faculty and staff from around the country and to advance pro-life principles and scholarship at Notre Dame, the effect of which we hope will be long-lasting and far-reaching.

notre DAme evAngelium vitAe meDAl

In October, the Fund to Protect Human Life proudly an-nounced that Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Secre-tariat for Pro Life Activities, will receive the inaugural University of Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal. The Fund to Protect Human Life established the annual Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal in order to honor individuals whose outstanding efforts have served to proclaim the Gospel of Life by steadfastly affirming and defending the sanctity of human life from its earliest stages. The Evangelium Vitae Medal will be announced annually on Respect Life Sunday, the first Sunday of October, and consists of a specially commissioned medal and a $10,000 prize to be presented at a spring banquet.

Richard Doerflinger, inaugural Notre Dame Evangelium

Vitae medal recipient

Continued on page 8

notre DAme FunD to protect humAn liFe

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 8

With his steadfast commitment and heroic witness to life on Capitol Hill and beyond, Mr. Doerflinger is the perfect first recipient of the Evangelium Vitae Medal. Mr. Doerflinger has been a leader in the pro-life movement for more than thirty years and has been involved in every life issue, including embryo research, abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia, at the highest levels of federal and state governments. His efforts were integral to the conception, passage, and continued vitality of parental notification and consent, unborn victims of violence, and born-alive infant protection laws, partial birth abortion bans, conscience protections, the Weldon Amendment (which prevents patenting of human embryos), and abortion funding restrictions, such as the Hyde Amendment and the Mexico City Policy. He was instrumental in the (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign to protect the unborn in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We look forward to having Mr. Doerflinger visit Notre Dame and to presenting him with the inaugural Evangelium Vitae Medal on April 28, 2011.

BreAD oF liFe Dinner

The Fund to Protect Human Life once again sponsored its successful Bread of Life dinner on November 9th. Hosted again in the beautiful Oak Room, Elizabeth Kirk, associate director at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and Fund Committee member, provided the evening’s reflection, “An Ex-change of Gifts: Celebrating Adoption in the Culture of Life.” To read more about this insightful reflection and the discussion it engendered, please read the full-length article on page 9.

proJect guADAlupe

Thanks to generous contributions, the activities of Proj-ect Guadalupe are fully underway. In the Spring 2010, stage one of Project Guadalupe, curricular development, got underway with the Gospel of Life course co-taught by David Solomon and John Cavadini, cross-listed between philosophy and theology. Stage two, the two-week interdisciplinary summer institute, the Notre Dame Vita Institute, will be held June 12-24, 2011, here at Notre Dame. Incorporating Project Guadalupe’s interdisci-plinary focus, the Vita Institute will consist of an intensive two-week course of study in biology, law, philosophy, theology, and

social sciences through instruction by noted experts. Through formal class sessions, evening lectures by individuals engaged in the pro-life cause in various arenas, daily Mass, and social gatherings, we look forward to building a strong community environment in which Vita Institute participants will be educated and inspired to build a culture of life. In keeping with Notre Dame’s Catholic character, the Vita Institute will be a distinctly Catholic program and is open to persons of all faith traditions. We look forward to welcoming the first class of Vita Institute participants here next summer.

Vita Institute applicants are expected to have a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent, and applications are welcome from those of any age or level of professional development. It is our hope to have participants from around the country and with varied backgrounds and professional experience who are energetically committed to the cause of life. Application forms are available on the Fund to Protect Human Life’s website, and the application deadline for the inaugural year is March 1, 2011.

The Vita Institute is an important step in laying the ground-work for stage three of Project Guadalupe, the interdisciplinary masters program. Plans are underway for the development of the masters program, which we hope to launch in 2012. Please follow the Center’s and Fund’s websites for additional informa-tion and updates as these exciting initiatives move forward.

other sponsoreD Activities

The Fund to Protect Human Life has continued in its sup-port of various lectures and events that educate members of the Notre Dame community about the different facets of life issues today. In the Fall 2010, these events included co-sponsoring a webinar entitled, “Poor Prenatal Diagnosis of Lethal or Non-Lethal Conditions and Disability”, a lecture by Erika Bachiochi, pro-life lawyer, theologian, and mother, titled “Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching”; and a lecture by Dr. Michael Parker, “NaPro Technology: Revolutionizing Women’s Health.” The Fund to Protect Human Life was also pleased to host a lecture in October by Michael New, PhD, political science professor at the University of Alabama, on the positive impact of state laws restricting abortion.

FunD to protect humAn liFe continueD

Continued on page 16

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 9

BreAD oF liFe FAll 2010

An exchAnge oF giFts: celeBrAting ADoption in the culture oF liFe

Sponsored by the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life, Bread of Life provides an intimate setting in which those

with a variety of views on beginning of life ethical issues can come together for dinner and discussion. The event especially encourages those students who are unfamiliar with Church teaching to attend in order to learn more. This fall marked the fourth edition of the semi-annual event, and Associate Director of the Center for Ethics and Culture Elizabeth Kirk reflected on the theme of adoption to forty students and professors. Addressing the important issue of whether adoption can function as a “common ground” for pro-life and pro-choice camps, Elizabeth elaborated on the barriers which prevent the widespread promotion of adoption in the United States.

Elizabeth presented the situation in which our society finds itself: every year one million abortions take place as two million couples seek to adopt from a pool of only 7,000 infants who are available for adoption annual-ly. She cited the alarming statistic that only two percent of women considering abortion actually choose adoption for their child. The gap in these numbers, she explained, is due to a mismatch between theoretical support for adoption and practical encourage-ment for it in our society.

The widespread availabil-ity of abortion coupled with the popular media’s promotion of single parenthood produces an unwarranted negative stigma associated with adoption. Elizabeth claimed that adoption should be presented as a viable parenting option that is coequal with natural parenting. To discourage

the general opinion that sees abortion as the only real option, Elizabeth emphasized the importance of viewing adoption as a loving choice.

As a parent of three adopted children with her husband Bill, Elizabeth pointed to the admiration she has for the teen birth mother of one of her children. Most often, society views a woman’s decision to choose others who are more prepared to raise her child as cowardly, when in fact, it is an honorable and loving decision that requires humility and maturity. The unselfishness of the act is due to its being rooted in love.

The difficulties surrounding this issue arise from widespread misconceptions about the process. Many mothers believe that choosing adoption for their child is tantamount to abandon-ment, and fear that their child will be placed in foster care as a result. Elizabeth challenged the pro-life community to see it as a priority to educate our surrounding culture about adoption in order for it to be seen as a positive and practical option. This initiative can be as simple as explaining the process to women considering abortion in order to dispel their worries about hav-ing no involvement in their child’s future life.

Mrs. Kirk closed her informative and moving reflection with John Paul II’s thoughts on adoption that inspired the title of her lecture – “To adopt a child is a great work of love. When it is done, much is given, but much is also received. It is a true

exchange of gifts.” Student response to the lecture

was enthusiastic. For many, it pro-vided a wonderful opportunity to learn more about adoption due to lack of exposure to the issues involved, even in the pro-life community. One student commented on the rousing discussion at her table given the variety of dif-ferent viewpoints represented. Since the audience was divided into tables of five or six students and a professor, everyone had the chance to share their

opinion. Lively debate and meaningful dialogue is precisely what Bread of Life was created to foster!

Bread of Life attendees listen with rapt attention despite the distraction of desserts on the table

Elizabeth Kirk addresses the dinner guests

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 10

cAtholic culture literAture series FAll 2010

The annual Catholic Culture Series originated in the Center’s desire to expose Notre Dame undergraduate students, as

well as the entire Notre Dame community, to the richness of the Catholic literary heritage. We are living in a time when names such as Chesterton, Waugh, and O’Connor have little or no meaning to most educated people, much less to undergraduate students. This year, we chose to highlight Catholic American writers whose work is under-represented in the corpus of American literature classes.

Entitled “Strangers in a Strange Land,” our series featured four influ-ential Catholic American authors – Ralph Mc-Inerny, Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor, and J.F. Powers – who poi-gnantly engage American culture through their writing while standing at a distance from it. With these lectures, we hoped to examine their complex commitments to Church and country, and to inspire Notre Dame undergraduates to read the works of these authors and to appreciate them as invaluable instruments in their Catholic formation.

David Solomon delivered the lecture on his dear friend Ralph McInerny. Solomon identified McInerny as a fitting subject for this year’s theme because of his unique identity as a prolific writer of literature with a razor sharp philosophical intellect. “Ralph McInerny was sort of the inspiration for the Center,” Solomon said, “for those of us who think ethics at a Catholic university should be carried by a rich understanding of Catholic culture.” Solomon described his long friendship with the intellectual giant, beginning when Solomon was hired at Notre Dame in 1968 as part of the philosophy department’s effort to “shake off Thomism,” as Solomon commented. In an

ironic twist of fate, the two hit it off immediately due to their shared love of literature, Aristotle, and wine.

As one of the primary figures in the neo-Scholastic revival of the 20th century, McInerny wrote 22 philosophical works and nearly 100 novels, including the popular Father Dowling, Sister Mary Theresa, and Rosary Chronicles mystery series (the last a response to the popular and controversial Da Vinci Code). McInerny saw Thomism as a means of reclaiming the ground lost

to modern philosophy and as especially relevant to the crisis of modernity. He served as director of both Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute and the Jacques Maritain Center and was president of both the American Catholic Philosophical Association and the Metaphysical Society. He directed more dissertations for the philosophy department than any professor in Notre Dame’s history. Solomon noted McInerny’s prolific output, including 28 books in his last decade alone. “One of the most remark-able features of Ralph’s life was the continuity of religious belief, philosophical orientation and moral commitment throughout his life,” Solomon said, “His philosophical and literary works shared a view of the contemporary world that combines a deep pessimism about the way things are with a sublime optimism about how things will turn out.”

Ralph Wood

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 11

A former student of McInerny, John O’Callaghan, As-sociate Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame and current director of the Jacques Maritain Center, presented the next lecture on Walker Percy, philosophical novelist and convert to Catholicism. O’Callaghan highlighted Percy’s exploration of man’s attempt to be in the world but not of it, a central theme throughout his work. This attempt is bracketed by two extremes: living like angels and constantly trying to escape the world, or beasts descending into the world. Rejecting both of these op-tions, Percy aimed to find an authentic Christian humanism, which contributes to Percy’s “universal appeal,” O’Callaghan remarked. Percy’s unpleasant childhood was tinged with the Stoicism of the South, made manifest in his family with the suicides of his father and grandfather and mysterious death of his mother. Percy mocked the love of death and indifference to the world inherent in Stoic philosophy, and instead identified a Socratic way of life as a Christian way to prepare for death. One should not view Death as an “acceptable exit,” as did the Stoics, but as an end to a lifetime spent learning to prepare for death in the way Socrates did. O’Callaghan briefly referenced several of Percy’s novels, The Last Gentleman, The Moviegoer, and The Second Coming, stating that Percy “placed his literature in the great tradition of faith seeking understanding.” Ultimately for Percy, to live in the world is to suffer with it, a quest that we travel not alone, but with others.

Ralph Wood, professor of theology and literature at Bay-lor University and visiting professor at Providence College this year, delivered the third lecture on the catechesis of Catholic southern writer Flannery O’Connor. Her irony and gravitas has particularly inspired young people as they search for mean-ing in a disenchanted world; fittingly, Wood’s lecture attracted our biggest audience of undergraduates. Wood explained that O’Connor saw catechesis as a “bottom-up” solution to the end of a Christian age, often manifesting in “small Christian com-munities very deep in faith, and winning people in by witness.” A self-proclaimed “hillbilly Thomist,” O’Connor was a prodigy who read Aquinas in high school and outlined his five arguments proving the existence of God at 17. Wood walked the audience through three of O’Connor’s works which explored different forms of catechesis: Protestant catechesis “at its best” in The

Violent Bear It Away, Catholic catechesis “at its worst” in her short story “The Enduring Chill,” and good Catholic catechesis in another short story, “Temple of the Holy Ghost.” Wood’s examination of these incredible works highlighted the almost “grotesque” nature of the spiritual transformation of her charac-ters, an often discussed aspect of O’Connor’s works among her readers. O’Connor’s literary artistry demonstrates the way she catechized – not by preaching Christian truth but by living it.

The final lecture on literary giant J.F. Powers was delivered by Father Marvin O’Connell, professor emeritus of Notre Dame’s history department. Powers, an unsung writer of short-stories, wrote about Midwestern Catholic priests and skillfully depicted the subtleties and isolation of their spiritual life. The protagonists in his two novels were both priests. Fr. O’Connell brought Power’s work to life through his own experience as a diocesan priest in the Midwest. He described Powers, a disciple of Dorothy Day and a pacifist suspicious of capitalism, as an elusive figure who spent most of his life at St. John’s Abbey in Min-nesota, a holdout against the turbulent changes in post-WWII American Catholicism. Powers gives a detailed and eloquent account of the clerical culture in the Midwest, a culture that largely disappeared after the Second Vatican Council. The force of his fiction comes from “the contrast between the little foibles of priestly life and what the priest actually does in the sacraments,” Fr. O’Connell said. As a layman, Powers was nevertheless able to grasp the sights, sounds and smells of Catholic rectories in the 1940s, while giving due respect to the presence of grace. Fr. O’Connell explained that although Powers had relatively little output, he was, “a master of his craft,” and Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor were among his great admirers.

The success of the Catholic Culture Literature Series is evi-dent through its diverse attendance of undergraduates, professors, and other interested members of the community. After every lecture, audience members approached Center staff members to comment on interesting points of the lecture, or simply to express how much they enjoyed it. The Center would like to thank Clarence and Frieda Bayer, whose generosity makes this wonderful series possible.

strAngers in A strAnge lAnD

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 12

schmittlecture

On Tuesday December 7, 2010, at 4:00 in McKenna Hall, Dr. Paul McHugh of The Johns Hopkins University

delivered the semi-annual Schmitt lecture. This is a series of lectures made possible by the generosity of the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to promoting reflection on the ethical, political, and religious dimensions of science and technology. The Foundation sponsors the Notre Dame Schmitt Fellows, graduate students in the Schools of Science and Engineering.

After a warm welcome and introduction by Professor Carter Snead of the Notre Dame Law School, Dr. McHugh delivered his lecture, “An Occasion of Abuse of the Public by Psychiatry and What it Teaches.” Dr. McHugh said of his presentation that it was “the story of a remarkable misdirection in psy-chiatry.” This is a story McHugh also tells in his book, Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash over Meaning, Memory, and Mind. By way of introduction to the topic, he explained the history of Twentieth Century psychiatry in terms of three epochs. The first epoch, named the Meyerian epoch after Adolph Meyer of Johns Hopkins University, is characterized by very detailed and lengthy patient histories. The second, the psychoanalytic epoch, dismissed the need for such lengthy histories and focused on the Freudian notion that the unconscious mind withers under the demands for conformity by our culture. The unconscious mind represses selfish thoughts and desires, especially in the infant or child mind. So, while society and family civilize the individual with these demands, it comes at a price. This repression leads to depression, anxiety, and disrupts life plans and relationships. This approach eventually gave way in 1970 to the third epoch, the empirical epoch. He spoke of the rise and peak of multiple

personality disorder diagnoses during this third epoch. Whi le Freudian ideas had d ied away and

lost energy in Psychiatry, McHugh explained that a

“Freudian Heresy” arose in the empirical era among the increasing occurrences of diagnoses of multiple personality disorder. In explaining the disorders of their patients, practitioners ef-fectively inverted Freudian notions of repression by arguing that, instead of the subject restraining

his own selfish impulses as he tries to make his way in the world, it is the opposite. That is, the view took

hold among practitioners that such individuals are crushed from without by paternal authority. This became the explanation for so-called multiple personality disorder. In recognition of the intolerable cruelty of life, the unconscious breaks itself up into multiple personalities, to escape this cruel reality. Moral authority victimizes the individual rather than shaping one’s character.

McHugh pointed to the book Sybill which recounts the story of a woman who, as a result of being physically and emo-tionally abused by her mother, developed multiple personalities. That abuse as a child by the parents leads to a fractured personal-ity was one of the “crazes and myths of deception” that were the heart of the problem that was destroying many families. There was an epidemic of accusations of abuse and lawsuits. Things “went wild” with stories of satanic cults and alien abductions as the cause of the trauma that was causing multiple personality disorders.

Carter Snead welcomes Dr. Paul McHugh

Dr. McHugh delivers his lecture

Continued on page 16

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strAtForD cAlDecottlecture

We supported the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy’s “Beauty for Truth’s Sake” lecture by Stratford Caldecott in

November. Caldecott has published a book of that title, and he edits the journal Second Spring, a British journal of faith and culture. He spoke on the need for a return to the transcendentals (unity, truth, goodness and beauty) as the foundation for education at all levels.

In reflecting on the transcendentals, we exercise our special gift of human reason. As Caldecott said, “the other animals seem lost in being themselves,” while we can reflect upon our existence, and give names to the other animals. Our experience of existence shows that from the beginning, Being reveals itself in love. Caldecott spoke movingly of a baby’s first experience of her mother’s smile and her natural impulse to return that smile. This constitutes the beginning of metaphysics.

This experience of Being as an expression of Love is the foundation of an education in the humanities. When seen with a spiritual vision, all of creation becomes a window to God, and we ourselves become transparent to the glory of God so that it shines through us. Without this vision, everything appears indi-vidualized and related in only mechanical ways. With a spiritual vision, we can see how central truths in every discipline illuminate one another and reveal God’s glory to us.

The response to such a vision is a transcendent joy pierced through with insatiable longing for the eternal. In the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, joy is conveyed as having a sense of a transcendent home to which we are always striving to return. Although not explicitly Christian, Tolkien’s tales of Middle Earth are suffused with the light of the glory of God and inspire a longing for Heaven. Both Tolkien and Lewis loved

language, especially poetry, and they often used poetry to try to convey this joy and longing for God. “Poetry is the purest form of speech because it is the most pregnant with meaning, and song or music is perhaps purer than speech,” Caldecott ex-plained. Reading literature like Tolkien and Lewis wrote forms the imagination and capacitates us for metaphysical reflection.

The beauty of wisdom draws us to our true end, which is participation in the life of the Trinity. The liberal arts are the chil-dren of wisdom, since they are all expressions of the same spirit. Without losing their interior unity, they all belong to wisdom. Caldecott said, “Within each discipline, there is a point of unity with the whole. It’s not that you need to artificially force things together. You just have to go deeper.”

Caldecott’s lecture culminated with a reflection on the practical question of how we should educate our children in a way that develops their imaginations, makes them open to the thrill of transcendent joy, and helps them to recognize what is true, good, and beautiful, and what has unity. The liberal arts are essential in education because they ask these sorts of questions: Does this poem present a true picture of the world? Does this approach to politics have the common good as its chief concern? What makes a painting or a piece of music beautiful? How do all of these ideas hang together? The liberal arts should fire the imagination. As Caldecott reminded us, “If it’s boring and dull then there’s something wrong with it- it’s not about truth; it’s not about God.”

We are grateful to David Fagerberg of Notre Dame’s In-stitute for Church Life for inviting Caldecott to campus and we hope for a return visit in the future.

the center’s neW WeBsite BY the numBers:

48 Number of countries generating visitors to the new site

156 Number of videos of past events uploaded to the site

49 Number of videos viewed the day the 2011 Fall Conference videos were posted

224 Average number of times videos are viewed each month

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g.K. chesterton At notre DAme: 80 YeArs lAter

On October 4, 1930, G.K. Chesterton arrived at the University of Notre Dame to deliver a series of lectures

and receive an honorary doctorate. To celebrate the eightieth anniversary of Chesterton’s visit, the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, Notre Dame Vision, and the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism sponsored two lectures.

Fr. Ian Boyd, C.S.B., who is founder and editor of The Chesterton Review, gave the first lecture. His talk, “Chesterton at Notre Dame,” detailed Chesterton’s six-week long visit to the University in the 1930s. The University received him very enthusiastically; indeed, the stadium of twenty thousand people stood up to greet and cheer for Chesterton as he arrived for the football game against Navy. He gave two lecture series that were very well attended by the students, and spoke on the subjects of English history and letters.

During his month-and-a-half long residence in South Bend, Chesterton lived with a local family in the so-called “Dogpatch”–– the humble neighborhood north-east of the campus with rural roots. Chesterton particularly treasured their hospitality among all his memories of his time at Notre Dame. Fr. Boyd reflected on the historical importance of Chesterton’s visit to Notre Dame and lightened the mood with a few humor-ous anecdotes.

The second lecture of the series was given by Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society, on October 11, and was entitled “What’s Wrong with the World: A Chesterton Economic Solution.” This year marks the 100th anniversary of Chesterton’s work, What’s Wrong with the World, in which he outlined his economic solution to many of the problems faced by modern nations. He wrote, “Property is merely the art of

the democracy. It means that every man should have something that he can shape in his own image, as he is shaped in the image of heaven. But because he is not God, but only a graven image of God, his self-expression must deal with limits; properly with limits that are strict and even small.”

Ahlquist touched on a variety of the problems Chesterton found with the world, as well as the solutions he offered. Ches-terton was a main proponent of the distributist theory, which is based heavily on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, primarily subsidiarity. He was a strong defender of the family, local government, and a stable, distributist society. Chesterton focused on the importance of the family as the primary unit of society; the family should not be replaced by government, but instead play an active role in the government. Therefore, local government needs to become more responsible and should make the higher orders of government more accountable.

Ahlquist made the connection between our modern eco-nomic problems and the loss of the importance of the family in society. The dignity and value of the family is under attack from many sources today, mainly the “contraceptive mentality [that] is raping the earth.” “[Traditional] doctrine and discipline are walls—but they are walls for the playground,” allowing us to be wild, but safe, within their confines, he continued. “A world that breaks down these walls and exalts lust but forbids fertility can never be satisfied,” said Ahlquist.

This two-part lecture series was well attended and the audi-ence agreed that the speakers captured the spirit of Chesterton’s impact on the Notre Dame community as well as the broader community of the twentieth century.

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 15

nine DAYs thAt chAngeD the WorlD

On a warm September night, nearly four hundred people packed Washington Hall for a special screening of the

documentary Nine Days that Changed the World, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich. Their film chronicles Pope John Paul the Great’s historic nine day pilgrimage to his native Poland in 1979, which was a catalyst for the Solidarity worker’s rights movement in Poland, and which shook Soviet Communism at its foundations. His visit created a revolution of conscience that transformed Poland and fundamentally reshaped the spiritual and political landscape of the twentieth century.

The film was beautifully made, with vintage footage from the Pope’s trip and interviews with historians, theologians, and people who knew him personally. It was deeply moving to see John Paul youthful and energetic again, facing the fearful and suppressive environment of Soviet-era Poland with the strength and courage of Christian hope. The documentary also situated the events of 1979 in the larger narrative of John Paul’s papacy and in the political struggles of the time, illuminating their significance for both.

We were happy to be able to host former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista on campus for the day, and after introducing their film, they greeted many members of the audience at the end of the screening before heading to the

Main Building for a recep-tion in the Rotunda under the Dome. They shared with us that they were very happy to be visiting Notre Dame for the first time; Speaker Gingrich converted to Catholicism in 2009 and his wife sings in the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

The warmth with which the screening met was overwhelming; we had excellent participation from both the student body and the local com-munity, but we also met alumni who drove several hours to get to Notre Dame for the event. It was one of the most successful events in the Center’s history, and we relished the opportunity to pay tribute to Pope John Paul the Great, who inspired the work of the Center. We are grateful to the Nanovic Institute for European Studies for their support of the event.

Dan Philpott in conversation with Newt Gingrich in the Main Building

The screening was well attended by Notre Dame’s College Republicans club (Credit: Britt Burgeson, Dome Yearbook)

The Center staff pose for a photo with the Gingriches

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 16

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Once it was decided that a patient had multiple personali-ties, there followed an assumption of prior abuse, even if it was not remembered by the patient. Patients were then encouraged to imagine themselves as having been abused, and then once they had, to imagine who could have been doing the abusing. These “recovered memories” caused accusations to arise in over one million families where there had never been any cause of suspicion before. A flood of malpractice suits against therapists helped put an end to the crisis. Insurance companies were taking notice. Psychiatric patients were uniquely vulnerable to this sort of malpractice. They came to the psychiatrist seeking help and they are inclined to fully entrust themselves to the doctor’s help, which was actually grounds for a malpractice suit.

In his lecture and in response to a question posed by a member of the audience, Dr. McHugh acknowledged that certainly abuse does happen, and it is a terrible tragedy when it occurs. He also stated that most abuse is remembered, and that these symptoms alone were not enough to make accusations.

In his remarks, Dr. McHugh also criticized contempo-rary psychology for its single-minded emphasis on merely de-scribing the symptoms of psychiatric disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM). McHugh criticized the DSM as a mere “field guide,” including only clusters of symptoms, without exploring underlying causes. Moreover,

As noted above, the Fund to Protect Human life now has a separate presence on the worldwide web. The Fund to Pro-tect Human Life will continue to be featured on the Center’s webpage, but in order to provide a direct and more expansive virtual forum to showcase the Fund’s activities and events we have launched the Fund’s own website. Please visit us directly at www.nd.edu/~lifefund/ or through the link on the Center’s homepage at ethicscenter.nd.edu. In addition to visiting our website, if you have any questions or would like more infor-

mation about the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life or any of its initiatives, please contact David Solomon or An-gela Pfister, Center for Ethics and Culture, 424 Geddes Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, telephone 574-631-9656, e-mail lifefund@nd.edu, website www.nd.edu/~lifefund/. If you are interested in making a donation to the Fund, please contact the Department of Development, 1100 Grace Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, telephone 574-631-7164, e-mail develop@nd.edu.

the DSM is not static—disorders appear and are discarded over time based on the changeable opinions of the experts who au-thor it. Thus treatment of psychiatric patients operates mostly by “rule of thumb.” Therapeutic practices “deal with poorly grasped phenomena, and have haphazard outcomes.” He believes psychiatry has hit a dead end as it prepares to publish the fifth edition of the DSM, and a reversal of course is needed. Psy-chotherapy needs more than a field guide, it should be handled like any other area of medicine. To this end, he noted (but did not discuss) his seminal work, Perspectives on Psychiatry, which is meant to offer much-needed analytic rigor.

Following the lecture, many individuals in the audience participated enthusiastically in the question and answer period. The lively discussion continued over glasses of wine and hors d’oeuvres at the reception in McKenna Hall.

After the reception there was an intimate dinner hosted by Center Director David Solomon in honor of Dr. McHugh at the Morris Inn. The dinner was attended by about thirty guests, including some of the Schmitt Fellows and Joan and Peter Wrenn, members of the Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation Board of Directors. After the meal, Dr. McHugh was so generous as to answer even more questions, the first of which was asked by one of the Schmitt Fellows, as is tradition. Guests especially ap-preciated Dr. McHugh’s direct, honest manner and passion for the conscientious practice of psychiatry.

schmittlecture continueD

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DirectorFrom the

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prey upon the minds of instructors who fear that in requiring just two courses in philosophy, we give our students just enough rope with which to hang themselves. Academic ethics centers encounter slightly different problems and typically have different goals from ethics classrooms. They have an opportunity to expose students in a broader and deeper way to the fruits of taking up a particular ethical commitment.

The Center for Ethics and Culture proceeds from this thought: Answers to the fundamental questions in ethics are usually embodied in traditions of thought and living that are historically dense and interwoven in complicated ways with the ethical theories we critically examine in the ethics classroom. The Center has an allegiance to the tradition in ethics at the heart of the Catholic intellectual tradition, a complicated tradition that embodies the virtues and the natural law and has, as it seems to many of us, its finest contemporary expression in the central ethical encyclicals of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

As an academic center we have attempted to make this tradition more available to the Notre Dame community through sponsoring conferences, workshops, lecture series and educa-tional programs that focus on it. We also support, through our visiting scholars program, research on the many disputes that constitute this tradition.

Traditions, of course, are not constituted simply by philo-

sophical arguments and theories. Rather, they also find expres-sion in literature and the arts generally, and in practices that range across the whole of human culture. That is why we do not confine our activities just to the exploration of philosophical questions. Our Catholic literature series, our film series and the many discussion groups that we sponsor are a measure of the depth and richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition that is the focus of our attention.

Our new Integritas program (which you can read about in this issue of our newsletter), conceived and directed by Greer Hannan, is perhaps the best embodiment of our commitment to the breadth of ethical traditions. Our new Project Guadalupe is perhaps the best embodiment of our commitment to draw on that tradition to change the culture.

As Notre Dame students explore in the ethics classroom their own answer to the question, “What is the best life for me?”, we want to make sure that the full richness of the ethical tradition out of which this university grew is on display for them. In this way, we hope to reduce the fear and trembling that we all feel when introducing students to the ethical question.

In this newsletter, we recount some of our activities of the past semester and look forward to some future programs. As always, we welcome your comments on what we are up to and solicit your suggestions on how we can extend and improve our programs.

We are now moved into our new offices on the fourth floor of Geddes Hall and invite everyone to drop by for a visit.

Notre Dame and asking for nonperishable food donations from our neighbors for South Bend’s Catholic Worker House, which we’ll be visiting in January after our seminar on the corporal works of mercy and addressing issues of justice in society. Our neighbors were very generous, donating nearly fifty pounds of food for the Catholic Worker, and we had a lot of fun seeing their faces light up with smiles as they discovered Christmas carolers on their doorstep.

We are looking forward to the spring semester, especially our fieldtrip to Chicago in February to visit the Art Institute

lecture continueD continueD

and see As You Like It at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier, and our retreat to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky. The students’ enthusiasm and dedication has quickly made Integritas one of the Center’s most exciting programs. You can read weekly updates about our activities on the Center’s events blog at http://ndcecevents.blogspot.com/

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Young at heart: Simone hanging with the undergrads

John O’Callaghan threatens the photographer while Nora and Angela are happy to pose

The babies are on the hunt for tailgate munchies,

with Kathryn and Gregory leading the charge

David, Elizabeth and Bill with Simone Scumpia of the Center’s advisory board

Worthy grillmaster Chris Westlake keeps the burgers and brats coming

Elizabeth Kirk introduces her daughter Alice to the Center’s

tailgating tradition

tAilgAtes

Bishop Rhoades braves the rain to come to our tailgate

&e t h i c s c u l t u r e 19

Welcome AngelA pFister, AssistAnt Director

The Center is pleased to announce the addition of Angela Pfister,

who is serving as the Center’s assistant director. Angela comes to the Center after practicing law in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she focused primarily in civil litigation. She began her law career in 2004, serving as a law clerk for the Honorable William J. Zloch of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida from 2004-2006. She then clerked for the Honorable

Daniel A. Manion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2006-2008. Angela holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics with high honors from Christendom College and a Juris Doctor with high honors from Ave Maria School of Law, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Ave Maria Law Review. Bringing her legal experience and her life-long commitment to pro-life issues, Angela’s main focus at the Center is developing, implementing, and managing a wide range of activities and initiatives focused on life issues, including the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life’s exciting new educational initiative, Project Guadalupe.

Angela Pfister

The hallway to the director’s office

We’ve moveD!

After spending ten years on the tenth floor of Flanner Hall, over Fall Break we moved into our new home on the

fourth floor of Geddes Hall, which opened in 2009 to house the Institute for Church Life and the Center for Social Concerns. Geddes became Notre Dame’s first certified “green” building, and it boasts a beautiful chapel named for Our Lady of Mercy, a coffeehouse, an auditorium, classrooms, offices and meeting rooms. We are especially happy to have offices for all of our fellows, a fantastic project center for our students to work in, and a room for our Marian Short Library. Come visit us in our new diggs! Our new mailing address is:

Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture424 Geddes HallNotre Dame, IN 46556

Our new conference room

Geddes Hall

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Upcoming Events

Mark your calendars for our spring events, and check our website for updates and details!February 11-12 Edith Stein Project Conference “Irreplaceable You: Vocation, Identity, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” McKenna HallFebruary 17 Schmitt Lecture by Dr. Carl Elliott, “A Clinical

Trial, A Suicide, and the Strange Recent History of Anti-Psychotic Drugs” 4 p.m., McKenna Hall

February 22 Bread of Life dinner and discussion, with a reflec-tion by Prof. Michael Baxter, 6 p.m., Oak Room of South Dining Hall

&c u l t u r ee t h i c s

V I T A • D U L C E D O • S P E S

Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture424 Geddes HallNotre Dame, IN 46556

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NOTRE DAME, IN 46556

upcoming events:March 18-20 Medical Ethics Conference, McKenna HallApril 28 Evangelium Vitae Medal CeremonyMay 5 Telling Stories That Matter: A Conference in Honor of

Rev. Marvin R. O’Connell, McKenna HallMay 7 An Evening of Angelus award winning films screened on

campus, 7 p.m., DPACJune 9-11 University Faculty for Life national conference,

McKenna HallJune 12-24 Inaugural Notre Dame Vita Institute, Geddes Hall