J. Matthew Ashley, Ph.D., the Chair of Department of Theology, will address the topic “A Pope on the Margins: Pope Francis’ Vision for the Church” on Tuesday, November 15 at 7:00 PM in the JPII Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
The talk is part of the University of Notre Dame’s prestigious Hesburgh Lecture Series and is being sponsored by the Notre Dame Club of Cape Cod. For the last 30 years, the Hesburgh lecture series has drawn on the inspiration provided by the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., to engage the Notre Dame family and their communities around the world in the lifelong pursuit of learning.
In the first years of his pontificate Pope Francis has defied easy categorization in terms of the divisions that have plagued the Church over the past three decades.
The first Pope from the global south, his pontificate marks an important turning point for the Catholic Church in more ways than one.
This talk examines Francis’s pontificate by looking at how his experience as a Jesuit and as Archbishop in Argentina has shaped his vision of the Church as a principal sign and instrument of God’s mercy in the world, especially “on the margins.”