Salve Regina hosting “Faithful Citizenship” lecture, debate watch Oct. 16
Salve Regina is planning two events to coincide with the highly anticipated second debate between President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney on Tuesday, Oct. 16. Both will be presented in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall.
The events are sponsored by the Department of Religious and Theological Studies, the Mercy Center for Spiritual Life and the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. Those interested in attending should contact the Pell Center at (401) 341-2927 or pellcenter@salve.edu.
Peter Steinfels lecture, 7:30 p.m.
Peter Steinfels – author, former religion columnist for the New York Times, professor at Fordham University and founder of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture – will discuss “Faithful Citizenship in a Partisan World.”
Every four years since the 1970s, Catholics have been urged by church leaders to be “faithful citizens” and to shape the nation’s future by making moral choices in voting. People of faith should bring their moral convictions into public life – and into the voting booth.
This requires more than blind partisan loyalties or simple self-interest. It requires carefully formed consciences, courage and, as the Catholic bishops declare, “the virtue of prudence.” But citizenship doesn’t begin and end on Election Day. Morality means more than many people assume. And prudence often leaves them confused.
How can we make sense of these crucially important ideas amid the clamor of campaigns, the blitz of negative ads, and the fog and fireworks of political spin?
Steinfels’ best-selling book, “A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America,” was published in 2003 by Simon & Schuster and is now in paperback. After serving as senior religion correspondent for the New York Times from 1988-1997, he continued to write “Beliefs,” a biweekly column on religion and ethics that he had created for The Times, until 2010.
The rematch: Obama vs. Romney, 9 p.m.
Will Obama be able to rebound from what was widely viewed as a disastrous first debate? Or will Romney maintain his momentum? Settle in with some popcorn and watch the debate with your Pell Center friends.
