The University of Notre Dame and Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, are set to launch a new academic forum in Jerusalem, the university announced in a press release on September 1.
“Within Your Gates: The Forum for the Universal Vocation of Jerusalem” will be hosted in partnership with Notre Dame Jerusalem, the school’s academic centre in Jerusalem. The forum will be officially launched on September 7, said the university.
The forum will be an “interdisciplinary research initiative” consisting of scholars and practitioners from a variety of faiths, to “engage with Jerusalem’s universal mission and its significance for those who reside within the Holy Land and beyond”, said the University of Notre Dame.
“One of our most important responsibilities as Christians is to discern God’s call for us and to use our talents and gifts to serve Him and the world,” said Rev Gregory Haake, CSC, vice president for mission engagement and church affairs, in Tuesday’s press release.
He continued: “This forum creates a space for us to discern Jerusalem’s unique vocation of bringing together peoples of many faiths to build bridges and to receive God’s call to be peacemakers. I am proud that Notre Dame is working with Cardinal Pizzaballa to realize this vision of how discovering Jerusalem’s vocation can lead us to knowledge of our own.”
Daniel Schwake, the director of Notre Dame Jerusalem, will lead the new forum. Cardinal Pizzaballa will chair the Board of Promoters.
“The mission of earthly Jerusalem is to become the image and mirror of heavenly Jerusalem, a prophecy and promise of that universal reconciliation and peace which God desires for the whole human family,” said Cardinal Pizzaballa. “It is to this mission that we must return.”
The forum aims to produce “applied interdisciplinary research” that is rooted in the “particular realities” of the city of Jerusalem, said the press release. Research will be “oriented towards questions of daily life that resonate beyond the city and the surrounding region, exploring themes such as the theological significance of Jerusalem, the city’s universal vocation, the language of conflict and reconciliation, and agency under conditions of constraint”.
