September 20, 2022

Written by ICTC
September 20, 2022

Dear friends and colleagues,

Greetings of peace and welcome back to another quarter at Seattle University. We at ICTC have set a wonderful calendar of programming for the coming academic year!

Our theme for our new two-year series is "A Journey Towards Healing and Reconciliation." At this moment in history we are mindful that our world and our communities are impacted by wars, violence, hostility, and anxiety. These community and global challenges affect us and lead us away from our call as Christians and people of goodwill to respond to violence and hatred in love as Scripture and Sacred texts teaches.

This year’s theme is further inspired by General Congregation 36, Decree 1 – “Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice" (2016). In the section “On mission with Christ the Reconciler,” we are called to share God’s work of reconciliation in our broken world. There is an urgency to the three dimensions of this ministry of reconciliation, namely, reconciliation with God, with one another, and with creation.

This reconciliation is always a work of justice, a justice discerned and enacted in local communities and contexts (paragraph 21). Additionally, educational apostolates and centers for communication and social research, such as ICTC, should help form people committed to reconciliation, confront obstacles to reconciliation, propose solutions, and to help in the transformation of our cultures and societies (paragraph 34).

To that end we invited Dr. Cecilia Titizano (Santa Clara University) to offer a reading of Laudato Si' through the lens of Querida Amazonia on October 27 and Dr. Peter Phan (Georgetown University) leading off the Catholic Heritage Series with a lecture on the current challenges to the Catholic Church, especially in the United States, and the ways to meet them through a process of reconciliation on November 1. Learn more and register for both events below!

Best wishes for the beginning of a new academic year,
Dr. Jeanette Rodriguez, Executive Director
Jessica Palmer, Associate Director
Estefania Kendall, Senior Administrative Assistant

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