Holy Cross Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture to Sponsor April Series of Public Events

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross is sponsoring a number of lectures by noted experts in the next month. The talks, which are free and open to the public, will take place in Rehm Library in Smith Hall on the campus.

April 3 at 7:30 p.m. — Rev. George Williams, S.J., and Peg Newman will give a talk titled “Ministry and Service to Those in Prison.” Fr. Williams, founder of Jesuit Prison Ministries, Inc., is chaplain at the MCI-Concord prison and has worked as Catholic Chaplain at Suffolk County House of Correction and Nashua Street Jail, and as a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor for ex-offenders at The Bridge House. Newman has worked as a chaplain at Bridgewater Treatment Center for Sexual Offenders, Pondville Minimum Security Prison, Old Colony Maximum Security Prison, and currently ministers at Bridgewater State Hospital to persons who are criminally insane, incompetent to stand trial, or are undergoing evaluations.

April 11 at 4 p.m. — Damon Linker, author of The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (Doubleday, 2006), will give a talk titled “The End of the Religious Right.”

April 17 at 4 p.m. — Bill Roorbach, Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters in the English department at Holy Cross, will give a talk as part of the Faculty Book Discussion series on his book, Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey (The Dial Press, 2006). Robert Bertin, professor of biology, will review the book, Roorbach will respond with his own remarks and an open floor discussion will follow.

April 18 at 4 p.m. — George Weigel, William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies and senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., will give a talk titled “Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church.”

April 24 at 4 p.m. — Lisa Anderson, dean of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, will give a talk titled “The Bush Administration and the Middle East: What Went Wrong?” [This event has been canceled.]