Today’s diverse public policy issues, ranging from immigration to proxy wars, raise many ethical issues and religious considerations. Father J. Bryan Hehir will discuss the role of religion in world politics in an increasingly polarized and combative world.

Father Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also is the Secretary for Health and Social Services for the Archdiocese of Boston. He served on the faculty at Georgetown University from 1984 – 1992 and as Professor of the Practice in Religion and Society at Harvard Divinity School starting in 1993 where he also served as Interim Dean and Dean of the Divinity School from 1998 - 2001. Subsequently, Father Hehir served as President and CEO of Catholic Charities USA from 2001 through 2003. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1984 and is the recipient of over thirty honorary degrees from American colleges and universities.

His research and writing focus on issues of ethics and foreign policy, Catholic social ethics and the role of religion in world politics and in American society. Publications include: “The Moral Measurement of War: A Tradition of Continuity and Change”; Military Intervention and National Sovereignty”; “Catholicism and Democracy”; “Social Values and Public Policy: A Contribution from a Religious Tradition”; and “The Moral Dimension in the Use of Force”.

Tickets $35 (heavy hors d'oeuvres); cash bar.