On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter. And the Lord will become king over all the earth.
Christ the King of Creation: Catholic Social Teaching and the Theology of Creation
On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter. And the Lord will become king over all the earth.
Pope Leo XIV has said that his pontificate will be looking back to the papacy of Leo XIII to renew Catholic Social Teaching for our day.
One of the principles which Leo XIII and later popes constantly returned to was the importance of the theology of creation as the foundation for the Church’s social teaching.
In line with the vision of the magisterium, this conference will look back at the history of Catholic Social Teaching to see the vital need for the theology of creation today.
Early bird pricing lasts until August 31.
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. is a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Stift Heiligenkreuz in Austria, lecturer in moral theology at the Phil.-Theol. Hochschule Benedikt XVI., the Abbey’s theological institute, director of the János-Brenner-Haus for vocational discernment, and a guest instructor at the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria. Born in Italy and raised in the United States and Austria, he studied at Thomas Aquinas College in California, the Hochschule Benedikt XVI in Heiligenkreuz, and the University of Vienna, where he was promoted doctor of theology in 2019. His research has focused on eudemonism, the common good, Catholic Social Teaching, integralism, the theology and philosophy of nature, and theological readings of literary fiction.
Jennifer S. Bryson is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Catholic Women’s Forum. Dr. Bryson has a BA from Stanford University in Political Science, an MA from Yale University in History, and a PhD from Yale in Greco-Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She is currently translating works by the Catholic writer Ida Friederike Görres from German to English. She is a contributor to Creation Theology Fellowship, where readers can find her Marvel, Believe, Care Creation Coloring Book and her puppet show, The Days of Creation. More about Dr. Bryson and links to her articles may be found on her website. She lives in Lincoln, NE.
Dr. Doyen Nguyen was born in Paris, France. She is from a Vietnamese family and grew up in a multicultural and multireligious environment. At the age of 15, she was baptized into the Catholic Church, and became a Lay Dominican in 2021. Dr. Nguyen is proficient in multiple languages, including English, French, Italian, and German, and she is learning Portuguese. She recieved an MD at Temple University School of Medicine in 1981 and an STD in moral theology at the Angelicum, graduating magna cum laude, in 2017. Her dissertation was entitled The New Paradigms of Death for Organ Transplantation: A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of Christian Ethics. She has published countless other books and articles in both medicine and theology, which can found in her CV. Apart from her academic and religious pursuits, Dr. Nguyen enjoys various hobbies that nourish her mind and body. She has a profound appreciation for classical European culture and classical music, with a particular fondness for composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky. Additionally, she finds solace in mountain walking, often exploring the scenic beauty of the Austrian Alps. Dr. Nguyen lives by a personal motto that reflects her approach to life: “Be childlike with critical thinking, be transparent and coherent.”
Jared Isaac Goff is a professor in theology at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary. He received his Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Saint Louis University in 2013. He is the author of Caritas in Primo: A Study of Bonaventure’s Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity (2015), an editor of The Theologian of Auschwitz: St. Maximilian M. Kolbe on the Immaculate Conception in the Life of the Church (2020), and co-editor of A Companion to Bonaventure (2014) and The Spirit and the Church: Peter Damian Fehlner’s Franciscan Development of Vatican II on the Themes of the Holy Spirit, Mary, and the Church—Festschrift (2018). He recently completed an English translation with Wayne Hellman of Bonaventure’s Sentence Commentary writings on the theological virtues and finished editing the Collected Essays of Peter Damian Fehlner, O.F.M. Conv. He is currently working on a book on the doctrine of creation.
Fr. Daniel G. Dozier is the Executive Chairman of God With Us Eastern Catholic Formation, the catechetical training and publishing arm for the Eastern Catholic bishops in the United States and the USCCB. He is an Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA, and is an Adjunct Instructor in Eastern Liturgy at the Liturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, IL. He is the son of a Ukrainian deacon and a pastor of three Byzantine Catholic communities in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. He is married to Pani Karen Dozier, and they have three adult children and one grandchild.
Gideon Lazar received a BA in Classics and Medieval/Byzantine Studies from the Catholic University of America. Having grown up in a Jewish family, he was baptized in 2018 and received into the Catholic Church in 2019. He is currently an MA Theology student at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary. He is the institute coordinator for the St. Basil Institute, as well as the editor for the Creation Theology Fellowship. He also creates YouTube videos on his channel The Byzantine Scotist and writes articles on his Substack. He has published articles in New Polity magazine, The Josias, and The American Postliberal. He currently lives near Seattle with his wife and two kids.
| Speaker | Talk Name | Time in Rome (CET) | Time in New York (EST) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome | 15:30 | 9:30am | |
| Pater Edmund Waldstein | Creation in the Political and Juridical Teachings of Pope Leo XIII | 15:45 | 9:45am |
| Jennifer Bryson | Creation in Political and Social Order during an Era of Conflict, Pius XI and XII (1937–1939) | 16:45 | 10:45am |
| Doyen Nguyen | Creation: The Foundation of John Paul II's Social Teaching | 17:45 | 11:45am |
| Break | 18:40 | 12:40am | |
| Jared Goff | The Primacy of Jesus Christ: Nuptial Metaphysics and Catholic Social Teaching | 19:00 | 1:00pm |
| Fr. Daniel Dozier | The World of Work: Human Labor and Creation in Catholic Social Teaching | 20:00 | 2:00pm |
| Gideon Lazar | Prophets of Modernity: Catholic Social Teaching and the Need for Creation Today | 21:00 | 3:00pm |
| Closing | 22:00 | 4:00pm |
Studies in the Theology of Creation is a new series of collected essays. Each volume contains various essays, both from our symposia and other submissions.
This first volumes contains essays on historical and speculative topics, Catholic Social Teaching, and the spiritual life. The essays are from a wide variety of authors, such as Thomas Storck, Gideon Lazar, Lance Gracy, Vito Čapeta, Shawn and Beth Dougherty, and David Valerio.
Papers at this upcoming symposium may be eligible for publication in future volumes.
“A much-needed and erudite volume illuminating the frequently neglected doctrine of creation from a catechetical and theological perspective. Anchored in the theology of creation, the authors profoundly explore the interplay between nature and the divine, the doctrine of original sin, the role of animals in creation, and creation theology’s influence on Catholic Social Teaching, with nuanced discussions on bioethics. What does dominion over nature signify? This seminal inaugural volume by St. Basil Institute Press is a most welcome contribution.” – Jan Bentz, DPhil, Lecturer at Blackfriars, Oxford
