St Mary’s to Co-host Lecture on The Place of Religion

St Mary’s University, Twickenham is to co-host the second lecture in a new series in conjunction with the Von Hügel Institute (VHI), St Edmund's College, Cambridge next Tuesday 4^th November. The lecture, ‘The Place of Religion in the European Public Square’ will be delivered by Prof Joseph Weiler, President of the European University Institute and is part of a series of free public lectures on “Ethical Standards in Public Life”. The place of religion in the 'public squares' in Europe has become an increasingly contentious matter. It is a result of many factors, among them a deepening cleavage between religious and secular world views on a variety of social issues, the presence of large minority communities of different faiths and a more general breakdown of social consensus and 'sociality' in our polities. Prof Weiler will address these issues and suggest different ways of both conceptualizing and managing the cleavages. The VHI is an interdisciplinary research institute founded to preserve the Roman Catholic heritage of St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Before his appointment at the EUI, Weiler was the holder of the European Union Jean Monnet Chair at New York University School of Law. He served for many years as a member of the Committee of Jurists of the Institutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and has an abiding interest in religion. The lecture, which is free and open to members of the public, will be held at Cambridge University from 11am on Tuesday 4^th November. For further details please visit: http://www.vhi.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/events/vhi-lecture/VHI-lecture2014.