Amid a very busy season, I attended the University of Notre Dame’s Catholic Social Tradition Conference. This biennial conference attends to themes grounded in Catholic Social Tradition (CST).
The conference, themed Justice Sown in Peace, recognized the 60th anniversary of the seminal Catholic social tradition encyclical, Pacem in Terris. Among the notable keynoters were Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ and Marie Dennis of Pax Christi International.
I presented a paper entitled “Investing in Swords or Plowshares?” The paper explores how Catholic institutions may apply faith-consistent investing, drawing inspiration and guidance from CST, to attend to issues of conflict and peace in their investment portfolios. While the conference is immersed in CST, for the actual presentation of the paper, I was delighted to be joined by Mark Regier of Everence Financial, ministry of the Mennonite Church USA. Mark has also served as governing board chairman for ICCR. Additionally, two ICCR members were in attendance.
Focusing on the “preferential option for the poor,” Ann Roberts of Dana Asset Advisors and I presented at the 2019 conference., and in 2025, SGI hopes to return to the conference as it attends to the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’.
The slides used in the oral delivery of the presentation are available here.
Seventh Generation Interfaith Coalition for Responsible Investing 