Dr Anna Rowlands (Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University):

Pope Pius XII’s Christmas Messages: A Dialogue in Mid-Century Catholic Social Thought

This lecture explores Pius XII’s wartime Christmas messages, offering a reading of them in the context of wider Catholic attempts to rethink social teaching in a context of crisis in 1940s. Drawing on the work of Simone Weil and Joseph Pieper, the lecture concludes with some thoughts on potential ways we might engage and develop such mid-century thought in our own context.