Master Calendar

 The Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought is proud to welcome Dr. Kristin E. Heyer as the 2013 Summer Scholar-in-Residence.

Kristin E. Heyer is Bernard J. Hanley Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University. She is the author of Prophetic and Public: The Social Witness of US Catholicism, which won the College Theology Society’s Best Book Award, and coeditor of Catholics and Politics: Dynamic Tensions between Faith and Power.

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM, Maraschi Room Fromm Hall  

Wednesday July 10: The Politics of Immigration and the Christian Counternarrative

Wednesday July 17: Immigration and "Family Values:" Catholic Moral Perspectives

Wednesday July 24: A Pilgrim Church: from Charity to Kinship

2013 marks a watershed year for renewed efforts toward enacting immigration reform in the United States.  In this summer's lecture series Kristin Heyer will draw upon her scholarly research on immigration and Catholic social ethics together with her recent experiences with migrants and legislative advocates. She will analyze prevailing immigration frameworks in light of Catholic social thought, suggesting ways in which fundamental Christian commitments challenge dominant instrumentalist approaches.  Whereas immigration is often framed as an economic or criminal justice issue alone,  families confront and channel the impact of immigration.  Threats immigrant families face are sharply contested by Catholic values, but such experiences also pose challenges to dominant forms of Christian family ethics.  Finally, a Christian ethic of immigration calls for not only outreach or hospitality to immigrants but for a kinship that crosses borders. The treatment of migrants raises new questions surrounding what it means to be church in an age of migration.