Lecture: Dr. John Rist on Catholic Social Teaching

Dr. John M. Rist

Caritas in Veritate:
Philosophical Foundations and Future Prospects

A lecture on the development of Catholic social teaching

November 5, 2009
Knott Auditorium
2:00PM

Professor Rist is a convert to Catholicism and has written extensively on the history of philosophy and Catholic teaching.  He is an internationally recognized scholar in Classics and Philosophy and known for his refreshing, straight-forward style. His latest book, What is Truth? From the Academy to the Vatican discusses the development of Catholic teaching on human nature, politics and society.  He is the Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto and visiting professor at the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome.

“After all the temptations to earthly power that the Church was offered by Constantine and his successors, it has returned to a position more like that of its Founder. Jesus distinguished what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God, fully aware that left him unable to enjoy the congenial lifestyles of the successful power-broker. It is appropriate for an image of God to follow his or her spiritual Master rather than political master – though this leaves one facing the Augustinian question: what should my attitude be to political structures and to society?”

 
Other Books by Rist:

Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized
Real Ethics: Reconsidering the foundations of Morality
The Mind of Aristotle