I’m excited to participate in an online dialogue featuring Matthew Dowd (chief strategist for the the 2004 Bush campaign and an ABC News political analyst, author, candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) (longest-serving woman in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives), and Vincent Rougeau (president of the College of the Holy Cross), sponsored by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.

Here’s what to expect:

This online dialogue will lift up the neglected principle of the common good; explore how it has been undermined in the United States’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as through political combat and religious divisions; and look for ways forward to advance the common good and meet our national challenges.

The United States has lost a sense of the common good as our politics have become more polarized and dysfunctional. Our capacity to come together to overcome a pandemic and other challenges has been overwhelmed by bitter political and ideological disputes. Religious faith, which should lift up the common good, has instead often been politicized and misused to advance narrow partisan and ideological agendas.

A senior member of Congress, a political analyst who has worked for Democrats and Republicans, a sociologist who has studied what unites and divides us, and the new president of the College of the Holy Cross will assess how this has happened, its costs, and how can we recover a sense of the common good in these times of division and anger. They will also explore how Catholic social thought offers a path to the pursuit of the common good.

John Carr, co-director of the Initiative, will moderate the conversation. He served for more than 25 years as director of the justice and peace efforts of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The panel will take place Tuesday, December 7, 12:30-1:30pm EST via live stream.

RVSP here to attend.