Since 2000, the Center has sponsored a conference each fall intended to bring people of all ages and professions together to consider some of the great cultural and moral issues of our time. But beyond merely discussing the issues, these conferences are structured to foster a friendly atmosphere and a sense of community, with shared meals and time to chat between papers. The websites for each of the conferences may be found below. Papers from the conferences may be found on these sites or in our archives.
The tenth annual fall conference was held November 12-14, 2009. The inspiration for the conference's title came from the remarks made on the South Lawn of the White House by Pope Benedict XVI during his 2008 apostolic visit to the United States: “Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility.” Here Pope Benedict underscored that freedom is both gift and summons, a call toward a particular “cultivation” or cultural formation in the virtues—virtues that always demand sacrifice—and sometimes even the total sacrifice of one’s life—for the sake of common goods higher than merely private goods.
The Center's ninth annual fall conference took place November 6 through 8, 2008. The title comes from Pope John Paul II's 1994 Letter to Families: "The contemporary family, like families in every age, is searching for "fairest love". It is widely accepted, however, that the modern family is suffering a multi-dimensional crisis - economic, legal, political, demographic, biological, structural, cultural, and metaphysical. This conference gathered to together scholars to examine the family, its origins, its status in society and under civil law, to discuss the challenges the family faces in the modern world and to offer hope for the future of the family. It also celebrated, in a special way, the anniversaries of two important papal documents. In 2008, Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter, Mulieris Dignitatem, enjoyed its 20th anniversary, and Pope Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae, celebrated its 40th anniversary.
The eighth annual fall conference was held November 29 through December 1, 2007. Concerned by the deep cultural divides that characterize so much of our world, the Center has found inspiration in Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address for its conference topic: The Dialogue of Cultures.
The Center's seventh annual fall conference held in fall of 2006, Modernity: Yearning for the Infinite, brought together a large number of respected scholars representing all the main academic fields, from Catholic, non-Catholic, and secular institutions, to provide spirited discussion of the underlying causes of the intellectual epoch we have come to call modernity; of the relationship between the main theses of modernity and the Magisterium of the Church in the last century; and the impact of modernity upon work in philosophy, theology, law, literature, the arts, as well as other fields of intellectual inquiry and endeavor.
The Center's sixth annual conference held in fall of 2005, Joy in the Truth: The Catholic University in the New Millennium, considered a broad range of issues relating to the way in which the Catholic university as a whole, as well as the particular disciplines which comprise it, can best respond to Pope John Paul II's call for a renewal of Catholic institutions of higher learning.
Our 2004 conference, Epiphanies of Beauty: The Arts in a Post-Christian Culture, was a consideration of the arts and their contributions to a culture of life. The conference featured artwork and performances by working artists from around the country.
At our 2003 conference on Formation and Renewal, sponsored by the Maas Family Excellence Fund, we reflected on the sources of moral and spiritual renewal, reform and formation available to individuals and institutions in a culture marked by the loss of meaning and direction.
The Center's first triennial conference series, sponsored by the Maas Family Excellence Fund, was dedicated to examining the moral and political ideas of Pope John Paul II, operating on the conviction that he is the most radical and most inspiring contemporary commentator on current culture.
The annual series started with a conference on a diagnosis of cultural problems entitled A Culture of Death in 2000, followed by A Culture of Life in 2001, where we reflected on what a true culture of life would look like. In the fall of 2002, the series concluded with a discussion of the practical ways in which to build this culture of life in a conference entitled From Death to Life: Agendas for Reform.
