Catholic Social Tradition Conference | Institute for Social Concerns

cst conference

Biennial Catholic Social Tradition Conference

The CST Conference, hosted biennially by the institute since 2011, brings scholars and practitioners from around the world to the campus of Notre Dame to work together to understand and apply CST to the challenges we face. Each conference takes its theme from seminal CST texts.

2025 CST Conference

This 2025 CST conference, SIGNS OF THE TIMES—Interdisciplinary Responses to Religious Nationalism, remembered the 60th anniversary of two significant Vatican II texts, Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) and Dignitatis humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom). Released on the final day of Vatican II, these texts together invited serious consideration of the role of the church and other religious communities in relation to the state.

The conference took up the Church’s invitation to discern “the signs of the times” and to attend to the roles of church and state within civil society with a view toward the common good. Scholars explored Christian and other forms of religious nationalism as a significant sign of the current time in particular national and international contexts.