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The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies will convene a gathering of theologians and other scholars in Havana Oct. 16-18 to discuss the impact of Pope Francis’ visits to Latin America and the United States. The colloquium, to be held in the Casa Sacerdotal (Priests’ House) of the Archdiocese of Havana, will include participants from throughout Latin America and the United States — among them, a group of Notre Dame undergraduate students enrolled in one of the institute’s theology courses.

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Rev. Marvin R. O’Connell, professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame, died early Friday morning, August 19, at Dujarie House in Holy Cross Village. He was 86.

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Peter Casarella, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and interim director of Latin American/North American Church Concerns (LANACC), is a scholar of Latino theology. Before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 2013, he served as professor of Catholic studies at DePaul University where he was director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology. In an interview, he discusses his research, Pope Francis, and the future of Latin American/North American Church Concerns, of which he is interim director.

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The three-volume memoir of the University of Notre Dame’s president emeritus, Rev. Edward A.“Monk” Malloy, C.S.C., will be completed next month with the publication of Monk’s Tale: The Presidential Years: 1987-2005 by the University of Notre Dame Press.

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A member of the University of Notre Dame political science faculty since 2012, Patrick Deneen is the David A. Potenziani Memorial Associate Professor of Constitutional Studies. He teaches and writes about the history of political thought, American political thought, religion and politics, and literature and politics. Books he has published on these subjects include The Odyssey of Political Theory, Democratic Faith, Democracy’s Literature, The Democratic Soul, and Redeeming Democracy in America.

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Bernard E. Doering, professor emeritus of Romance languages and literatures at the University of Notre Dame, died July 9. He was 91. A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1965, Doering became a popular and affectionately regarded teacher and mentor. Among the pioneers of the University’s international studies programs, he played an indispensable role in establishing and developing the Notre Dame program in Angers, France.

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This summer the 2016 Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival is continuing its celebration of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death with numerous theatrical events. Shakespearean actors of all ages from throughout the Michiana area will take the Washington Hall stage for performances of “ShakeScenes” July 16 and July 17. From July 17 through August 22, the Festival’s Young Company will perform Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre at outdoor venues throughout Michiana. And 14 performances of Shakespeare’s The Tempest will take place August 16-28 at Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.

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Christina Wolbrecht, associate professor of political science, C. Robert and Margaret Hanley Family Director of the Notre Dame Washington Program, and director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame, teaches and writes about American politics, political parties, women and politics, and American political development. Now at work on a study of the first 100 years of women as voters in American politics, she is co-author, with J. Kevin Corder, of the recently published book Counting Women’s Ballots: Female Voters from Suffrage through the New Deal.

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Twenty-four members of the Class of 2016 who study in the College of Arts and Letters have won major national and international fellowships and scholarships, from prestigious institutions such as the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program and the National Science Foundation.

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Notre Dame and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, or Vatican Library, formalized a unique agreement of collaboration and exchange in a ceremony May 9 in the Hesburgh Room of the Morris Inn, where Notre Dame president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès, O.P., archivist and librarian of the Holy Roman Church, together signed a memorandum of understanding.

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Eleven faculty members from the College of Arts and Letters have won 2016 Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and two have been honored with Dockweiler Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising. The awards are presented by the Office of the Provost, and the recipients are selected through a process that includes peer and student nominations.

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George Marsden, the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected a member of the 2016 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He will be formally inducted at a ceremony at the AAAS headquarters Oct. 8 in Cambridge, Mass.

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Pope Francis released his apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”) in Rome on April 8. The document addresses such areas of Catholic Church doctrine as the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to the sacrament of the Eucharist, same-sex relationships and cohabitation, all issues that arose, often controversially, during the Synod of Bishops in Rome in October. Here is what some people on the Notre Dame faculty are saying and thinking about “Amoris Laetitia.”

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Carter Snead, William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the University of Notre Dame’s "Center for Ethics and Culture and professor of law, has been appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life, the pope’s principal advisory group on the promotion of the consistent ethic of life in the Catholic Church.Founded in 1994 by Saint Pope John Paul II, the academy meets annually, holds conferences, publishes reports and collaborates with partners in the Vatican Curia and worldwide.

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The gala premiere of 1916: The Irish Rebellion, a three-part documentary produced by the University of Notre Dame’s Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, will be held March 3 in Notre Dame’s DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. Narrated by Liam Neeson, who will attend the gala premiere, the film was conceived, written, and co-produced by Briona Nic Dhiarmada, Thomas J. & Kathleen M. O’Donnell Chair of Irish Language and Literature. The first documentary to give a comprehensive account of the 1916 Rising in Dublin, the film has been made a centerpiece of the Irish government’s global centenary commemoration of the Easter Rising, and will air on 255 U.S. public television stations.

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Fourteen University of Notre Dame students have been awarded Fulbright grants in the 2015-16 program, placing the University among the top-producing universities in the nation. The Fulbright program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. It awards a one-year postgraduate fellowship for research, study or teaching English abroad. During their fellowship, scholars will work, live and learn in their host country.

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When Pope Francis travels to Mexico Feb. 12-17, he will visit six cities—including two in the state of Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state—and will celebrate a Mass in Ciudad Juárez across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. The first pope from Latin America, where 40 percent of the world’s Catholics live, he will be touring the country that’s home to the second largest Catholic population in the world.

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Notre Dame’s John S. Marten Program for Homiletics and Liturgics has embarked on a unique project specifically designed to strengthen Catholic preaching. The Rev. William A. Toohey, C.S.C., Notre Dame Preaching Academy, a five-year initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis, has enrolled its first cohort of 23 priest-participants from Notre Dame’s founding religious order, the Congregation of Holy Cross, as well as from the archdioceses of Indianapolis and Louisville, Kentucky; and the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana.

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How should a concerned mother discuss issues of diet and weight with her daughter? Very carefully, according to Erin Hillard, a developmental psychology doctoral student at the University of Notre Dame. In an article recently published in the journal Body Image, Hillard and her colleagues reported on results from their study of a representative group of sixth- through eighth-grade girls and their mothers.

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Ballot initiatives, those petition-driven public votes on contested issues, are often disparaged by liberals and conservatives alike for their avoidance of conventional representative democratic processes and their vulnerability to manipulation by well-financed and organized special interest groups. Nevertheless, according to Benjamin Radcliff, professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, people in states that rely more heavily on such initiatives are, on average, happier than people in other states.

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Science and folklore alike have long suggested that high levels of testosterone can facilitate the sorts of attitudes and behavior that make for, well, a less than ideal male parent. It has long been known that among humans (and some other species as well), males who cooperate amicably with their female mates in raising and nurturing offspring often have lower testosterone levels than their more aggressive and occasionally grumpy counterparts. But two University of Notre Dame anthropologists are looking beyond the nuclear family for such effects.

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Rev. Robert Dowd, C.S.C., assistant professor of political science, is a fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and director of its Ford Family Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity. A popular teacher and scholar of religion’s impact on development and political institutions, he has conducted extensive research on communities and societies throughout Africa. His recently published book, Christianity, Islam and Liberal Democracy: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa, provocatively argues that religious diversity in Nigeria and other African countries actually encourages, rather than inhibits, religious tolerance.

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Five theologians will discuss the life and work of Blessed Óscar Romero of El Salvador in a presentation titled “Archbishop Romero and Spiritual Leadership in the Modern World” at 4 p.m. Sept. 17 in the Hesburgh Center for International Studies Auditorium.

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When Pope Francis lands at Andrews Air Force Base on September 22, it will be the first time in a short pontificate and a long life that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of Argentina, has ever set foot in the United States. His visit promises to be unprecedented in numerous other ways, and several University of Notre Dame scholars have been speculating on how.

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Pope Francis is due to arrive in America Sept. 22, his first trip to North America. He’s expected to address the growing influx of Latinos in the U.S. Catholic church while he’s here, including delivering several talks in Spanish. Timothy Matovina, professor of theology and co-director of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies, says Latinos have much to offer in the Church. Matovina teaches and studies Latino theology and Catholic history in America.

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A public conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be held from 7 to 8:15 p.m. Sept. 2, an event co-sponsored by the Institute for Latino Studies. The event, also sponsored by the Office of the President and Notre Dame Law School, is free and open to the public. Doors open one hour before the event.

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Notre Dame theologian Gabriel Said Reynolds studies the Quran and the interactions between Christians and Muslims. Academic courses taught by Reynolds include Foundations of Theology, Islam and Christian Theology, The Qur’an and Its Relation to the Bible, The Holy Land, and Islamic Origins. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Qurʾan in Conversation with the Bible: The Qurʾan Translation of Ali Quli Qaraʾi Annotated with Biblical Texts and Commentary.

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A White House Council of Economic Advisers report released July 14 includes an account of Reading for Life, a local juvenile diversion program that is being evaluated by the University of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities. The report, “Economic Costs of Youth Disadvantage and High-Return Opportunities for Change,” features the RFL program, which has been used at the St. Joseph County Juvenile Justice Center since 2007.

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Pope Francis’ July 5-13 journey to South America will take him through countries and among people who already knew him well before he became the leader of all the world’s Catholics, according to Peter J. Casarella, an associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame who just returned from a year sabbatical in Chile at the Pontifical Catholic University of Santiago.

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University of Notre Dame faculty members continue to comment on the new encyclical Laudato Si, issued by Pope Francis in Rome on June 18. In an op-ed in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune, Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., writes that, “It is characteristic of this pope to speak as the Catholic leader but to seek to build bridges to all people who promote friendship and cooperation serving the good of all.”

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