[Chronicle]

April 15, 1999
Vol. 18 No. 14

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    Poland’s Archbishop Zycinski to participate in April 22 symposium on the Pope’s encyclical

    By Theresa Carson
    News Office

    A scholar of science and religion, the Most Rev. Joseph Zycinski, archbishop of Lublin, Poland, will visit the University as a participant in Faith and Reason: A Symposium on John Paul II’s Encyclical Fides et Ratio Thursday, April 22.

    A protégé of the pope, Zycinski explained and defended the pontiff’s document at a Vatican press conference last year, referring to the encyclical as an antidote for the pessimism he believes is prevalent as the end of the 20th century approaches.

    During the University symposium, the 35,000-word text will be discussed by Francis Cardinal George, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago; and University Professors Daniel Garber, the Lawrence Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy; Jean-Luc Marion, Visiting Professor in the Divinity School and Philosophy and a member of the Committee on Social Thought; and Paul Griffiths, Professor in the Divinity School and South Asian Languages & Civilizations.

    “We are concerned about the present vision of intellectual life as it relates to the practice of Catholic Christianity,” said Griffiths, an organizer of the archbishop’s visit and a founder of the Lumen Christi Institute, which sponsors public lectures as well as ongoing workshops for Chicago undergraduate and graduate students.

    Griffiths, who estimates that 30 percent of undergraduates and an increasing number of graduate students are Roman Catholic, said university students sometimes separate their intellectual lives from their religious lives. He said he views this symposium as an opportunity for students to reconnect the two.

    During his week in Chicago, the archbishop will meet with representatives of Chicago’s Jewish communities, the Jewish Studies Committee of the Bernardin Center of the Catholic Theological Union, and the Polish Consulate.

    Zycinski is grand chancellor of the Catholic University in Lublin and is a member of the philosophical committee at the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw, the European Academy of Science and Art in Salzburg and the Russian Academy of the Natural Sciences. He holds doctorates in philosophy, theology and the philosophy of science and has studied cosmology. In addition, the archbishop has published 27 books and more than 200 papers in Polish, English, German, French, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian.

    George holds a doctorate in philosophy from Tulane University and a doctorate in ecclesiology from Pontifical University Urbaniana in Rome. The cardinal also has taught at Tulane, Creighton University and Gonzaga University.

    In addition to his participation in the symposium, Zycinski will speak on “Science and Religion in Interdisciplinary Dialogue” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 21, in Room 120 of the Kent Chemical Laboratory, 1020 E. 58th St. The lecture is cosponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute, the Chicago Center for Religion and Science and the Committee on General Studies in the Humanities.

    The symposium, which is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday, April 22, will take place in Breasted Hall in the Oriental Institute, 1155 E. 58th St. It is cosponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Divinity School.

    Both Zycinski’s lecture and the symposium are open to the public.