DC Young Adults
The Thomistic Institute and Catholic Information Center present a lecture by Prof. Catherine Pakaluk of the Catholic University of America titled “Freedom and Principles of Catholic Social Thought.”
Catholic Information Center | 1501 K Street NW, Suite 175, Washington, DC 20005
Wednesday, Oct. 16
6:00 PM
This event is free and open to all.
About the event:
This talk first sketches a “Catholic constitution of liberty” drawing on the paradoxical assertion in Centesimus Annus §41 that liberty is predicated on a dependent, obedient posture that is proper to rational creatures. I argue that the principles of a free society, antecedently cherished by classical liberals, with some variation, can be derived from this liberty of dependence. This lecture secondly develops a thesis about the possibility of a natural alliance between Catholic thought and classical liberalism, especially in regard to contemporary threats to the common good rooted in both collectivist and individualist attacks on the family and constituting a new formulation of the social question.
About the speaker:
Catherine Ruth Pakaluk (Ph.D, 2010) joined the faculty at the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America in the summer of 2016 and is Assistant Professor of Social Research and Economic Thought. Formerly, she was Assistant Professor and Chair of the Economics Department at Ave Maria University. Her primary areas of research include economics of education and religion, family studies and demography, Catholic social thought and political economy. Dr. Pakaluk is the 2015 recipient of the Acton Institute’s Novak Award, a prize given for “significant contributions to the study of the relationship between religion and economic liberty.”
Pakaluk did her doctoral work at Harvard University under Caroline Hoxby, David Cutler, and 2016 Nobel-laureate Oliver Hart. Her dissertation, “Essays in Applied Microeconomics,” examined the relationship between religious ‘fit' and educational outcomes, the role of parental effort in observed peer effects and school quality, and theoretical aspects of the contraceptive revolution as regards twentieth century demographic trends.
Beyond her formal training in economics, Dr. Pakaluk studied Catholic social thought under the mentorship of F. Russell Hittinger, and various aspects of Thomistic thought with Steven A. Long. She is a widely-admired writer and sought-after speaker on matters of culture, gender, social science, the vocation of women, and the work of Edith Stein. She lives in Maryland with her husband Michael Pakaluk and eight children.