You Tube Theology

This video is from the event "Catholic Perspectives on Religious Liberty," a symposium hosted by Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs. The event was held as part of the Religious Freedom Project, which is an interdisciplinary research project sponsored by the Luce Foundation.

For more on this event, visit: http://bit.ly/MPgbtB
For more on the Berkley Center, visit: http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu
For more on the Religious Freedom Project: http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/rfp

September 13, 2012 | Since the Second Vatican Council the Church has placed considerable emphasis on the importance of religious freedom as a matter of human dignity and individual flourishing, and as central to a just and democratic society. Abroad, the persecution of Christians and others has reached significant, perhaps even crisis, proportions. At home, issues involving same-sex marriage, abortion, and contraception have sparked sharp controversy about threats to religious freedom, leading the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to establish its own committee to begin engaging these issues.

The Maryland Catholic Bishops Conference and the Religious Freedom Project of Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs brought together leading Catholic scholars to address these questions from different perspectives. Cardinal Donald Wuerl gave the symposium keynote address.

Participant Bios:

MARC DeGIROLAMI is Assistant Professor of Law at St. John's University School of Law where he is the assistant director of the Center for Law and Religion. His scholarly and teaching interests are in the areas of constitutional law, criminal law, and law and religion. Professor DeGirolami has been an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School and a Visiting Assistant Professor and Scholar in Residence at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law. He also worked as an Assistant District Attorney in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a clerk in a number of federal courts.

M. CATHLEEN KAVENY is John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and studies issues at the intersection of law, religion, and morality. Her research has appeared in scholarly journals such as the Wake Forest Law Review, and she serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Jurisprudence, The Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of Law and Religion, and The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. Kaveny has written for the Catholic magazine Commonweal since 2004 and contributes to The Washington Post/Newsweek site "On Faith."

MARK L. RIENZI is an assistant professor at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, where he teaches courses on constitutional law, religious liberty, torts, and evidence. His scholarly research and interests center on the Fourteenth Amendment, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech. Professor Rienzi has been invited to lecture at Harvard Law School, Columbia University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Notre Dame Law School, the National Press Club, and the U.S. Capitol.

THOMAS BANCHOFF (moderator) is Director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and Professor in the Government Department and the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. His research centers on religious and ethical issues in world politics. He recently published Embryo Politics: Ethics and Policy in Atlantic Democracies (Cornell University Press, 2011). He is also the editor of Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism, Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics, and Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights.