John Allen Jr., who covers the Vatican and Catholic Church as an associate editor at the Boston Globe, will discuss “On Human and Natural Ecology: Anticipating Pope Francis’ New Encyclical on the Environment” at a 7:30 p.m. lecture Wednesday, June 3, in James B. Woulfe Alumni Hall on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.
Free and open to the public, the lecture is part of a three-day seminar of theologians and scholars who are gathering to discuss the implications of the encyclical. The document is now being translated into many languages in preparation for its release, which is expected to be in June or July.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, St. Thomas’ Center for Catholic Studies and the Center for Theological Formation at the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity of the University of St. Thomas.
In addition to his work for the Boston Globe, Allen serves as a senior Vatican analyst for CNN and for 16 years was a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter newspaper. He is the author of nine books on the Vatican and Catholic Church and is a popular speaker in the United States and internationally.
Kenneth Woodward, a religion writer for Newsweek, once described Allen as “the journalist other reporters – and not a few cardinals – look to for the inside story on how all the pope’s men direct the world’s largest church.”
For more information about the June 3 talk, call the Center for Catholic Studies at (651) 962-5700.
