This week's Robert George lecture is not to be missed

The next time someone questions whether faith and reason can enrich each other, or even “coexist,” you might steer them to this man’s resume:

He served on the President’s Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

Educated at Swarthmore, Harvard and Oxford, currently he serves on UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He is the author of “In Defense of Natural Law,” “Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality,” and “The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis.”  He is a recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal.  He was the 2007 John Dewey Lecturer in Philosophy of Law at Harvard University and the 2008 Judge Guido Calabresi Lecturer at Yale University.

He is the co-author, with Chuck Colson and Dr. Timothy George (no relation), of the 2009 “Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” which now has nearly 500,000 signatures across the country.  He directs Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, and he is a nationally recognized scholar in issues of constitutional law, philosophy of law and political philosophy. 

All of these facts about Prof. Robert George are true and impressive by any secular standard.  But they’re also secondary to the central theme of his life.  Robert George is a committed, believing Christian, and one of the leading—if not the leading—Catholic public intellectuals in the United States. 

Robert George will speak here in Denver to Catholics of the archdiocese, and other interested persons, this Thursday evening, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m.

The Manhattan Declaration he helped craft reads in part:

“While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

“Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.”

It concludes with this challenge:

“Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

The focus of Professor George’s presentation will be “Political Obligations, Conscience and Human Life.”  As a theme, its urgency speaks for itself.  No issues could be more important for the future direction of our nation.  If you can make time for only one evening lecture this year—this is the one not to miss. 

I look forward to seeing you Thursday evening.

For more information on Thursday's lecture, call 303-715-3123 or e-mail info@archden.org. Advance sign-up is not required.

Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M., Cap. is the Archbishop of Denver. To read more from Archbishop Chaput, click here.