The 24th Annual Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace

Religion(s) in the Ruins of the Temples

Featuring Robert Orsi, professor of religious studies at Northwestern University. Orsi will discuss the urgency of climate theorists and activists to turn to religion as a source of hope in this time of hastening climate catastrophe. Mostly, they have in mind Indigenous religions. But one prominent commentator, Amitav Ghosh, looks specifically to the Catholic Church as potentially a powerful ally in the struggle to save the planet and all that lives and breathes on it. How reasonable is such a hope, however, after four decades of revelations about the sexual crimes and misdemeanors of clergy and prelates and the official denial of them by church officials? And if it is not reasonable, then what becomes of Ghosh's hope?

Lunch and conversation will follow this lecture in C103, Hesburgh Center for International Studies.

The Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace, which began in 1999, were established through a gift to the Kroc Institute from Mrs. Anne Marie Yoder and her family. Each year, the Kroc Institute invites a leading thinker, writer, scholar, and/or peace advocate to deliver a lecture related to nonviolence, religion, and peace. Following the lecture, audience members join in informal dialogue and discussion with the speaker and with each other.