Religious Life Lecture Series: The Second Vatican Council’s Concern for Christian Unity and Inter-religious Relations

February 9, 2012
7:30 p.m.

The Religious Life Lecture Series is pleased to welcome  Reverend James Puglisi, SA (Minister General of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement,Professor of Theology, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas “Angelicum,” Rome, Italy) to present The Second Vatican Council’s Concern for Christian Unity and Inter-religious Relations:  Hopes and Challenges for the Continual Renewal of the Catholic Church.

This lecture will illustrate the innovative teaching of the Second Vatican Council concerning the search for Christian unity, and for a positive relationship with other religions.  We will look at the relationship between theory and practice in the process of reception of the Council.  As applied to the area of inter-religious relations, one may observe that, while at the universal level of the Catholic Church, it appears that the church has been actively engaged in interreligious dialogue, especially with the publication of a number of important documents, the work of interreligious relations on the level of the local churches is quite lacking.  The lack of education about religion, and the ignorance among the faithful, may be seen especially in the reactions of the faithful to other religions after 9/11.  Finally, we look at some practical challenges in terms of education, especially on the level of higher education for improving the reception of the Council’s teaching.

Sponsored by the Centre for Jewish-Catholic-Muslim Learning

Bio

Professor James F. Puglisi, SA is the Fellow and Francis Joseph Cardinal Spellman Professor of Catholic Theology.  He holds a BA in Sociology and an MA/STL in Liturgical Theology from the Catholic University of America, a PhD in the History of Religion and Religious Anthropology from the Université de Paris IV Sorbonne, an STD in Systematic Theology from the Institute Catholique de Paris, and a certificate of Ecumenical Studies from Boston University.  He currently teaches on the ecumenical faculty of both the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) and the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm.  He holds the chair of Ecumenical Theology at the Pontifical University “Antonianum,” and is the Director of “Centro Pro Unione,” a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement where he is the Minister General.

Location

Elizabeth A. "Bessie" Labatt Hall  (King's University College, London)

For more information about the Religious Life Lecture Series please visit www.kings.uwo.ca/campus-ministry/religious-life-lecture-series/