This conference will commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), with a special focus on the commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Patrick F. Healy Conference on “Freedom and Man.” Held at Georgetown University on December 2, 1964, the conference on “Freedom and Man” took place in commemoration of the one hundred seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of Georgetown University. Among those participating were prominent Catholic theologians—including Rev. John Courtney Murray, S.J.; Rev. Karl Rahner, S.J.; Rev. Ives Calvez, S.J.; and Hans Küng—and the Lebanese Orthodox Christian theologian Charles Malik, a member of the UDHR drafting committee. The Georgetown conference was attended by 5,000 people. The proceedings were published in Freedom and Man (1965, ed. John Courtney Murray) and had a wide impact on the discussions of religious freedom at the Second Vatican Council, including the drafting of Dignitatis Humanae.

This two-day conference will open with a contextualization of the original 1964 conference and provide the historical and theological links to the UDHR and Catholic human rights thinking. It will highlight the key themes of the 1964 conference that remain pressing today, with particular attention to the underlying theology of freedom at play in human rights discourse. Cathleen Kaveny will provide a keynote address as part of the Berkley Center Lectures, and three panels will explore the contributions of the original conference to the development of human rights, the contributions of religions to advancing human rights, and contemporary challenges to the human rights agenda.

SCHEDULE

October 21

1:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT | Introduction and Welcome Session: An Overview of the Themes and Implications of the 1964 Conference

Peter Petkoff, University of Oxford

1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. EDT | Revisiting “Freedom and Man”

Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Volos Academy for Theological Studies
Rev. David Hollenbach, S.J., Georgetown University
Meghan Clark, St. John’s University
David Little, Georgetown University

2:45 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. EDT | Break

3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. EDT | Keynote and 2024 Berkley Center Lecture

Cathleen Kaveny, Boston College

4:15 p.m.- 5:00 p.m. EDT | Reception

October 22

9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. EDT | Coffee and Tea

9:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. EDT | Contributions of Other Religions to Human Rights Discourse

Erin Cline, Georgetown University
David Saperstein, Georgetown University
Nader Hashemi, Georgetown University
Linda Hogan, Trinity-Dublin College

10:45 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. EDT | Break​

11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. EDT | Internal Debates Among Contemporary Churches about Religious Freedom and Human Rights

José Casanova, Georgetown University
Aristotle “Telly” Papanikolaou, Fordham University
Maryann Cusimano Love, Catholic University of America
Mary Doak, University of San Diego

12:15 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. EDT | Boxed Lunch