The purpose of our work is to present the social, economic and cultural changes that have taken place in the Central European region over the past 30 years, seeking moral responses in the light of the Catholic Church’s social teaching. Our investigation specifically addresses the problems of the so-called Visegrad countries: Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, including other former Soviet-dominated eastern bloc countries.
The most important topics of the conference: anomalies of privatization, corruption in the region, difficulties and losses deriving from the transition to a market economy, difficulties in self-interpretation in a state of anomie, the virtual iron curtain (cultural and economic) that separates us from western countries and dynamic migration of the youth of the region to the West after joining the EU. To analyse deeper the problem, we invited some experts from Western European Countries, so from France, Germany and Italy as well. So, we would like to give a wider perspective for the region, and we want offer concrete proposals for the future.
We are convinced that, in the light of the traditional social teaching of the Church, we can provide new answers to these emerging problems that can help consolidate the region’s self-understanding and formulate our place and our commitment in Europe.
The Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI is a Vatican foundation founded on March 1, 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI, on the basis of the Canon Law and the Basic Law of the Vatican City.
The current President of the Foundation is Father Federico Lombardi SJ, the former spokesman of the Holy See from 2006 to 2016. The purpose of the Foundation is to study and promote the writings and theology of Joseph Ratzinger, which includes support for various research, conferences, publications and scholarships. Each year, the Foundation awards the so-called Joseph Ratzinger Prize, which recognizes experts of theology and public life who have testified to the Catholic faith in their area. The prize is awarded each year by the Pope in Rome.
The organization of high-quality conferences plays a particularly important role in the Foundation’s activities. Also outstanding at the Foundation’s annual conferences was the gathering in Costa Rica in 2017, titled Laudato ‘si – The Care of the Common House, a Necessary Conversion to Human Ecology, and last year – on the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the meeting in Rome with the title Fundamental Rights and the Conflicts among Rights.
Deputy Prime Minister of Hungary
Jesuit priest, president of the Fondazione Vaticana Joseph Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI, former spokesman of the Holy See (2006-2016)
Bishop of Győr, President of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference
Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Theology of Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest
Primate of Hungary, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest. Judge of Signatura Apostolica, member of The Congregation for Catholic Education, member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and member of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. President of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Grand Chancellor of the Péter Pázmány Catholic University (2005-2015) and President of the Council of Bishops’ Conferences in Europe (2006-2016). Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2013–). Motto: Initio non erat nisi gratia - In the beginning there was nothing but grace.
Archbishop of Dijon (France), church historian, archbishop of Dijon (2004-). Chairman of the Committee on Theology of the French Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Pope Francis appointed him to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is a member of the Papal Academy of Social Sciences and a member of the International Religious Liberty Association. Motto: Maior autem caritas - The greatest is love.
Former Polish Prime Minister, Poznań, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland. Polish Catholic politician and lawyer. Head of the Constitutional Law Department at Adam Mickiewicz University. First Vice-President and then Honorary President of the Venice Commission. Between 1992 and 1993 she was Poland's first female Prime Minister under Lech Wałęsa. Ambassador of the Vatican to Poland (2001-2013). She is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
Senior research fellow at the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Church History Theme Group. Associate professor at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Humanities. He specializes in the history of the Hungarian Church in the second half of the 20th century.
Professor of International Studies at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Humanities. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the secretary of the Economic Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, since 2017 she is vice chairman. Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Among other subjects she teaches Research Methodology, European Union Studies, International Finance and Comparative Economics.
Jesuit priest, professor of Sociology at Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Roma (Italy). He was born in Croatia. He teaches social teaching, Sociology and Social Ethics at Gregoriana University, where he was the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences between 2004 and 2010.
Senior research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, associate professor at Corvinus University. He is doing research at the Department of Democracy and Political Theory at the Academy's Institute of Political Science. His research interests include Political Theory, Political Philosophy, Moral Philosophy - power, values, literature and politics.
Professor of Religious Sociology, Humboldt Universität, Berlin (Germany), Ernts Troeltsch Professor in the Department of Religious Sociology. Director of the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies at the University of Erfurt (2002-2011). Full member of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. His research interests include Social Philosophy, especially American Pragmatism and Historicism, Religious Sociology, war and violence, and the change of values in modern societies.
Catholic priest, Dean of the Faculty of Theology in the Pázmány Péter Catholic University. Head of the Department of Fundamental Theology in the Faculty of Theology. Member of Esztergom Cathedral Chapter. Research area: Fundamental Theology, the Theology of Church, Second Vatican Council and Ecumenism. Former Vice-Rector of the Catholic University, President of the Alumni Association of the Catholic University (2001-05), Member of the Theological Committee of the Council of Episcopal Conferences of the European Union (2002-05), Chairman of the Ut Unum Sint Ecumenical Institute (2006-), chief editor of the theological review Teológia.
Italian economist, professor of Political Economy at the University of Bologna. From 2019 President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in the Vatican. Frequent guest in Hungary. He co-authored the book Civil Economy with Lugino Bruni. Research areas: welfare economics and consumer behaviour theory, social decision theory, economics, ethics, history of economics and civil economics.
Dominican priest, II. John Paul Pontifical University, Krakow (Poland). Philosopher and theologian, former Polish Dominican provincial. He is one of the most authentic interpreters of Pope John Paul II’s teaching. Co-founder of the Tertio Millennio Institute for Social Affairs alongside Michael Novak, Rocco Buttiglione, Richard Neuhaus and George Weigel. One of the key objectives of the Institute is to examine the prevalence of the Church's social teaching in new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe.
Catholic priest, associate professor of the Faculty of Sociology, II. John Paul Catholic University, Lublin (Poland). His research interests include the Church's Social Teaching, patriotism and cosmopolitanism. In 2015, he published a major volume, Patria as Biography, an argument for biographical patriotism.
Dominican monastic nurse, economist and pastoral associate. Associate professor at Sapientia Theological Institute, leader of the postgraduate training in cooperation with Corvinus University of Budapest. Specialist in Christian Social Principles in Economics (KETEG, 2010-). Member of the National Council for Sustainable Development - Professional Committee, Hungarian Parliament (2009-2010), presenter of the program Money and Life in Radio Maria (2007-2012), member of the Naphimnusz Working Group on Protection of the Creation (since 2008).
Budapest, Head of the Comunitá di Sant’ Egidio in Hungary
Pontifical Faculty of Theology – Bobolanum, Warsaw (Poland), visiting professor of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv
Faculty of Theology, Bratislava (Slovakia)
Professor of Pastoral and Spiritual Theology at the Sts Cyrill and Methodius Faculty of Theology, Olomouc (Czech Republic)
Members of the Scientific Committee of the Conference:
Members of the Organizing Committee of the Conference:
Tickets (including lunch and coffee breaks) are free of charge. The language of the conference is English and Hungarian (we provide simultaneous interpretation).
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