Home > Our Mission > Justice Education
Education for justice is both a commitment and theme embedded in courses, programming, and work with faculty of the Center for Social Concerns. The Center sponsors and cosponsors events for the campus and local community that serve to educate and to encourage action on behalf of justice and peace. Where possible, we wish to provide various forums for members of our campus and local community to consider and analyze pressing social problems and to draw “principles of reflection, norms of judgment and directives for action from the social teaching of the Church” (Octogesima Adveniens, 4).
The Center was founded upon the themes of Vatican Council II appealing to the faithful to be “artisans of a new humanity” and is a symbolic and living commitment to the Paul VI directives that action for justice is a personal and institutional responsibility involving both the effort to bear witness to the principles of justice...and acting to give those principles life in society. (Octogesima Adveniens, 1971) The Center takes seriously our role in educating for justice as that which distinguishes Catholic colleges and universities.
The Center's justice education range of events, initiatives, and issues have included farmworkers and workers rights, fair trade coffee, anti-death penalty, globalization, children's rights, international conflicts, racism, domestic and international poverty, AIDS/HIV, advocacy, human rights, and hunger.
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CATHOLIC SOCIAL TRADITION ANNUAL THEMES
Since 2007 the Justice Education team of the Center, comprised of staff members and students, has selected an annual theme from Catholic Social Tradition to serve as a focus for programming and courses. The theme is drawn from a Papal encyclical or Bishops’ statement. The original document, along with other commentary and related resources provide context and background for analysis of pressing social issues.
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For the 2012–13 academic year, the theme will be “Pacem in Terris: Raising Voices.” Selected on the 50th anniversary of its publication by Pope John XXIII, the encyclical Pacem in Terris urges the promotion of right and respectful relationships among individuals, societies, and nations. It also urges active participation in civil society according to individual talents, gifts, and vocations in order to build the common good. The vision of the encyclical is expansive: “… to establish with truth, justice, charity, and liberty new methods of relationships in human society” (# 163 PT).
In selecting this theme we seek to encourage active civic participation, including (and beyond) voting in November, while calling for civil dialogue—especially on the difficult topics that often divide people into opposing ideological camps. We have seen recent examples of this on our own campus, across the country, and around the globe.
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CATHOLIC SOCIAL TRADITION CONFERENCE
Celebration of the Pacem in Terris theme will culminate in an international conference in March 2013
hosted by the Center for Social Concerns.
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Peace Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow CELEBRATING 50 YEARS SINCE PACEM IN TERRIS March 21–23, 2013 † University of Notre Dame |
