26 April 2024
Spirit Unbounded speaker Dr. Maria Exall will be presenting next month at the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice on Thursday 16 May – 5pm in the Aula, Blackfriars Hall. There is a pressing need to address the lack of dignity and respect in the current world of work. Issues of low pay, working poverty and precarious work can be tackled by strengthening rights at the workplace. This will lead to greater human flourishing in our communities and our country. The event is sponsored by the Oxford Consortium for Human Rights (OCHR) and the Las Casas Institute. Open to all. For more information and registration please follow the link.
Also see the start of an online discussion group on Catholic Social Teaching for the new millennium: Centesimus Annus, led by Edward Hadas taking place over nine weeks, starting on Tuesdays from 23 April – 5pm. Open to all. Registration is required. For more information and registration please follow the link. Contact edward.hadas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk for more information.
Subsidiarity in Action was an in-person workshop led by Lorraine Krall McCrary held yesterday. She noted that small communities and associations have a political component. Not only do they offer an opportunity for political participation at a small scale, but they also relate politically to other communities. She explored the politics among communities by looking at three different places where people with and without disabilities live together in intentional community—Geel, Belgium; L’Arche; and Camphill, finding that these grassroots communities are nested in a complicated relationship to both the society around them and the local and national governments that fund and support them—relationships of support, oversight, and regulation. By looking at subsidiarity in action, we get a picture of subsidiarity as more overlapping interwoven than some abstract theories of subsidiarity admit. She brought these sociological insights into conversation with canonical political thinkers including Althusius and Tocqueville.
The Las Casas Institute quotes George Orwell: “To think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration” – George Orwell
Why does a passion for social justice mean asking hard questions?
Much is obviously wrong at every level in society, locally, nationally, and globally, but advancing social justice requires hard thought about difficult problems. Nor is thinking well best done in isolation.
What does a Dominican Institute bring to today’s problems? Present-day Dominicans take inspiration from the 16th-century friar Bartolomé de Las Casas who championed the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas in part by drawing on the academic fire-power and support of fellow friars at the University of Salamanca.
The Las Casas Institute brings together a growing academic family or community of scholars, mainly lay women and men, who draw on the rich tradition of Catholic social thought, teaching, and practice. Focusing on climate justice, human rights education, dignity in various religious contexts, women religious, re-thinking economics, and more.
Human rights education is essential to equip each new generation in our ever-changing world.
Las Casas is the Oxford base for the Oxford Consortium for Human Rights – a network of fifteen US universities and colleges that delivers regular workshops on human rights activism on a variety of different topics. The Consortium delivers two workshops in Oxford every year as well as a variety of online webinars and workshops. It is also now expanding its university network into Brazil and Ghana. Workshops specialize on particular topics, for example: like human rights and conflict; human rights and migration; human rights, racism and minorities, and human rights and the climate crisis. In its tenth anniversary year, the Consortium already has an alumni of over a thousand students. See https://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/study/online-resources/ and youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lascasasinstitute6093/videos
LAS CASAS ANNUAL LECTURE 2024: Human rights after Gaza
The Institute’s 2024 Annual Lecture is given by Prof Conor Gearty, Professor of Human Rights Law at LSE Law School, on Thursday, 2 May – 5pm in the Aula, Blackfriars Hall and online. Open to all. For more information and registration please follow the link.
2024 HUMAN RIGHTS LECTURE: Worker’s Rights as Human Rights will be a hybrid form lecture given by Dr Maria Exall, Durham, on Thursday 16 May – 5pm in the Aula, Blackfriars Hall. The event is sponsored by the Oxford Consortium for Human Rights (OCHR) and the Las Casas Institute. Open to all. For more information and registration please follow the link.