Academic Events, Community, Religious/Spiritual, Social Justice, Special Events

Responses to Forced Displacement – Taking Action on Catholic Social Teaching: Ukraine as One Case in Point

Name: Responses to Forced Displacement – Taking Action on Catholic Social Teaching: Ukraine as One Case in Point
Start: 2022-09-21T15:00:00-04:00
End: 2022-09-21T16:30:00-04:00
Location: Copley Formal Lounge

Presently over 100 million people have fled their homes because of conflict, persecution, and violence, and forced displacement seems to have become a permanent feature of our global landscape. Monsignor Robert J. Vitillo is secretary general of the International Catholic Migration Commission. A trained social worker, Msgr. Vitillo has years of experience working with refugees, including positions with Catholic Charities, Caritas Internationalis, and the United Nations. Vitillo currently chairs a Working Group of Global Catholic Humanitarian agencies responding to Ukraine.

This event will discuss what Catholic social teaching means for responding to refugees and other displaced people, with a particular focus on Ukraine. Berkley Center Senior Fellow Rev. David Hollenbach, S.J., who is also Pedro Arrupe Professor in the School of Foreign Service (SFS), will moderate the discussion. The event will be introduced by Elizabeth Ferris, director of the SFS Institute for the Study of International Migration.

This event is co-sponsored by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Center for Faith and Justice, Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, and Institute for the Study of International Migration.

Public Health Policy: To protect the health and safety of the Georgetown community, visitors must follow the University’s protocol for verifying their COVID-19 vaccination status, which will be outlined in your confirmation email. All Georgetown community members will be asked to present their GU ID. Masks will be required indoors. Zoom attendance is available upon request.

Please email sfsevents@georgetown.edu by 9/19 with any accessibility requests. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill all requests made after this date.

About the Speaker:

Msgr. Robert Vitillo has many years of experience working with refugees people, including positions with Catholic Charities, Caritas Internationalis, and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. In 2016, he took up the position as Secretary General of the International Catholic Migration Commission, a global network of Catholic Bishops Conferences engaged in capacity building and service to migrants and refugees. He also serves as an Attaché for the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the UN in Geneva, as a Member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, and as the Ecclesiastical Advisor to the International Catholic Child Bureau. He also presently chairs a Working Group of Global Catholic Humanitarian agencies responding to Ukraine and visited Ukraine last month.