Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture fall lecture to feature Catholic scholar

Kristin Heyer, a Catholic scholar on immigration, will present the Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture fall lecture at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 6 in the Gorecki Center, room 204, College of Saint Benedict.

The lecture, entitled "The Politics of Immigration and a Catholic Counternarrative," is free and open to the public.

Heyer will discuss immigration paradigms as well as explore the resources the Catholic intellectual tradition brings to bear on this moral issue. She will also acknowledge the threats particular to migrant women and families.

After receiving her bachelor's degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Heyer went on to receive her doctorate in theological ethics from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, in 2003. She currently serves as Bernard J. Hanley Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California.

Heyer has authored numerous books, including "Kinship Across Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration," "Prophetic and Public: the Social Witness of U.S. Catholicism" (for which she won the College Theology Society's "Best Book Award") and the edited volume "Catholics and Politics: Dynamic Tensions between Faith and Power."

Her articles have been published in Theological Studies, The Journal of Catholic Social Thought; The Journal of Peace and Justice Studies; and Political Theology and America.

Heyer serves on the boards of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church and the Seminar on Jesuit Higher Education, and is an editor for Georgetown University Press' Moral Traditions series.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the theology, Latino/Latin American studies, sociology and peace studies, gender studies, and political science departments at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University.

The Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture at the College of Saint Benedict was established in 2002 with a gift from former CSB Board of Trustees member Barbara "Babs" Gray Koch and her husband, David Koch of Wayzata, Minnesota

The intention of the Koch Chair is to provide opportunities for faculty, staff and students at CSB and SJU, and the general public, to gain an enriched understanding of the heritage of Catholic thought that has shaped not only the faith tradition of CSB and SJU but also the pursuit of knowledge across disciplines.