Holy Cross Lecture Looks to Catholic Social Teaching to Find Political Common Ground

Addressing the divisive political climate, Julie Hanlon Rubio, professor of Christian ethics at St. Louis University, will present a lecture, “Dare We Hope for Common Ground?” at the College of the Holy Cross on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at 4:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library. The event is free and open to the public.

In her talk, Rubio will draw upon Catholic Social Teaching to begin a conversation that gets beyond the current political impasse. Author of “Hope for Common Ground: Mediating the Personal and the Political in a Divided Church” (Georgetown University Press, 2016), Rubio argues that if those on different sides focus on what can be done to solve social problems in “the space between” or local communities, opposing sides will see they are not so far apart as they think. “Hope for Common Ground” is the winner of the 2017 College Theology Society Book Award and the 2017 Catholic Press Association Book Award for Faithful Citizenship.

Rubio’s research focuses on family, feminism, and religion and public life. Her current project is titled “Catholicism, Gender, and the Family.” Her most recent published book is “Reading, Praying, Living Pope Francis's The Joy of Love” (Liturgical Press, 2017).

Rubio’s talk is one of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity and sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at Holy Cross. To learn more and watch past lectures online, visit holycross.edu/mcfarlandcenter.