A new Catholic conference in Toronto is set to explore what its organisers describe as one of the defining crises of modern public life: the breakdown of the social covenant and the erosion of a shared sense of human dignity. The inaugural gathering, titled “Restoring the Covenant: Catholic Social Teaching as Common Social Ground”, will take place on May 30 at De La Salle Oaklands College.

The event is being launched by the Canadian organisation Catholic Conscience as the first in a planned annual series under the wider theme “Building a Culture of Life and Dignity”. Its stated aim is to recover Catholic social teaching not as a private body of devotional reflection, but as a public grammar for civic renewal in a society increasingly marked by fragmentation, moral uncertainty and a weakening of common purpose.

Matthew Marquardt, executive director of Catholic Conscience, has framed the project explicitly in the tradition of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, arguing that a society flourishes only when it is ordered towards virtue and the common good. In his account, Catholic social doctrine offers more than a set of principles for believers: it provides a serious framework for rebuilding public life amid growing cultural dislocation.

The conference is open not only to Catholics but to all “people of goodwill”, and is intended to combine prayer and liturgy with plenary addresses and themed breakout sessions. Organisers say they hope it will also create practical links between young professionals, donors, volunteers and Catholic apostolates in need of support.

Among the speakers scheduled to appear are Bishop Mark Hagemoen of Saskatoon, Peter Copeland of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Tucker Sigourney of Harvard, Moira McQueen, formerly of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, and Kathleen Muggeridge of Young Professional Catholics of Toronto and the Archdiocese of Montreal’s Office of Social Action. Peter Stockland, publisher of the Catholic Register, is due to lead a session on the influence of news and media in shaping public values.

In a culture they describe as marked by radical individualism and moral relativism, they argue that Catholic social teaching can serve as a unifying point of reference, helping to restore the bonds of solidarity that make a people more than an assortment of competing interests. The conference will also consider public policy questions, including how Catholic teaching might illuminate frameworks such as the Canadian government’s Quality of Life index.

Behind the event lies a wider diagnosis about Catholic life in Canada itself. Marquardt says the conference grew out of conversations about the fragility of small Catholic apostolates, many of which face burdensome regulatory demands and the ordinary pressures of operating with minimal staff and resources. At the same time, he says, there is growing appetite among younger Catholics for more serious engagement, particularly in Toronto, where post-pandemic Mass attendance has reportedly been strengthened by a noticeable influx of committed young adults.

The Toronto gathering is not simply another conference on ideas, its organisers appear to see it as an attempt to turn Catholic social teaching back into a living force: not only a subject for discussion, but a source of common action in a society they believe has lost sight of what binds people to God and to one another.