Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway to host Vatican meeting on finance and technology

A Vatican conference titled “An Ethical Debate on Finance and Technology” will take place Thursday and Friday (Jan. 31 and Feb. 1) at the University of Notre Dame’s London Global Gateway.

Convened by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice (CAPP), a Pontifical foundation founded by St. Pope John Paul II, the conference will be led by Lord Daniel Brennan and Domingo Sugranyes Bickel, chairman of the CAPP Foundation. Rev. James M. Lies, C.S.C., director for Catholic initiatives and a faculty member in the Notre Dame London Global Gateway, will participate and offer the welcome address.

The meeting will include a Mass at the London Global Gateway celebrated by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of the Archdiocese of Dublin. A dinner at the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster will feature a keynote address by Lord Christopher Patten, chancellor of the University of Oxford and 2015 Notre Dame commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient.

The meeting aims to affirm the position of the Holy See on ethical issues in finance in relation to Catholic Social Teaching on the economy. Seeking to advance the position of the Church in relation to economic and financial ethics in the digital age, attendees will address such topics as the ethical challenges raised by developments in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics and neuroscience, and the role of the Church in applying the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in these areas. Speakers and participants include prominent clergy, moral theologians, economists, and leaders in education, finance and technology.

“As Notre Dame’s mission statement says, the University strives ‘to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions and every other area of human scholarship and creativity,’” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president. “It is therefore a great privilege for Notre Dame to welcome this conference, as those involved take up the critical themes associated with the ethics of finance and technology.”

The conference is organized jointly with the London Global Gateway and is co-sponsored by Saint Mary’s University, the Centre for Catholic Studies at Durham University, the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, and Campion Hall, University of Oxford.