Solidarity, Catholicism, and Our Post-Pandemic Future: Pope Francis’s New Call for a Radical Reordering of Society’s Priorities

The Vatican is releasing Pope Francis’s latest encyclical on Oct. 4, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, and his encyclical is expected to call for a radical commitment to genuine solidarity and economic and social justice. While grounded in Catholic social teaching, the encyclical will be addressed to “the whole of humanity”—and it will land just weeks before a historic U.S. presidential election that features Catholic candidate Joe Biden squaring off against President Donald Trump. The issues raised by the encyclical are at the heart of the campaign, and they are central to the intense debate over America’s core values and identity. The contrast could not be starker. The stakes could not be higher.

In this hour-long webinar, three experts on Catholic social teaching and the Vatican will analyze the new encyclical—the most authoritative document a pope can issue—in the context of the Church’s new course under the pope, the polarized dynamics of American politics, and American Catholicism.

Panelists
MT Dávila is an associate professor of practice at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts, and a leading expert in Christian ethics. Her work focuses on immigration, racism and racial justice, and class and inequality. She is a past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States.

Christopher Lamb is the Rome correspondent for The Tablet and author of The Outsider: Pope Francis and His Battle to Reform the Church (2020). His book explores the ministry of the pope and investigates the opposition that has mobilized against him, and what it portends for the Catholic Church.

The Rev. Bryan Massingale is a professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham. He is a past convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium and a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

David Gibson, director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture, will moderate the discussion, and take questions from the online audience.

This webinar is presented in collaboration with Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies.