Nov. 4, 2009

Cardinal Francis George and Author Charles Taylor to Discuss “Faith in a Secular Age”

Public Forum Will Kick Off 15-Month Research Project

Cardinal Francis George

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and author Charles Taylor will lead a public forum at Catholic University on Thursday, Nov. 19, to kick off a 15-month research project that will re-examine religion and faith for both the spiritual seeker and all the faithful in this secular age.

Sponsored by CUA’s Center for the Study of Culture and Values, and the international Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, the forum will take place from 4 to 8 p.m. in the Great Room of the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center. (Watch it live at http://live.cua.edu.) Cardinal George is archbishop of Chicago and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Taylor is the Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Philosophy at Northwestern University and author of A Secular Age.

Following the discussion, the audience will be invited to share their insights on how the research project can be best carried out. This project builds upon the findings of a recent Pew Foundation report, which found that young people who leave the Church do not so much abandon their beliefs as reflect them in an attitude of “personal search” rather than of institutional commitment.

“As a cooperative effort in and for the Church this project will be launched by a public conversation of two of its key dimensions — Cardinal Francis George as head of the USCCB and Professor Charles Taylor who has written the thus far definitive study of the process of secularization: A Secular Age,” says Rev. George McLean, director of the Center for the Study of Culture and Values and professor emeritus of philosophy.

Charles Taylor

Taylor is winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize, a more than $1.5 million prize that honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension — whether through insight, discovery, or practical works. In his 2007 book, Taylor examines how a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God has become one in which faith is one human possibility among others.. The book is both a history of this transformation and a philosophical look at its implications.

The research project following the forum will involve two teams of scholars from across the country studying at CUA’s Center for the Study of Culture and Values and the Jesuit Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

One team will work with Rev. John Haughey, S.J., research fellow at the Jesuit Woodstock Theological Center, and study the individual search for meaning. The other team will work with William Barbieri, associate professor of theology and religious studies at Catholic University, and study the role of the spirit in the socio-political global order.

The goal of the project, Rev. McLean says, is to “make ‘belief more believable,’ for both the contemporary ‘seeker’ and indeed for all the faithful, and thereby to render all of personal and social life more fully human and thereby more expressive of the divine.”

The forum is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. To register, visit www.crvp.org. For more information, e-mail cua-cscv@cua.edu or call 202-319-6089.

SPONSOR:   Center for the Study of Culture and Values/Council for Research in Values and Philosophy

MEDIA:  To cover the forum or arrange for interviews, contact Katie Lee or Mary McCarthy in the Office of Public Affairs at 202-319-6972.

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