The leader of the Irish Catholic Church, Archbishop Eamon Martin, will be a keynote speaker at the Kennedy Summer School in County Wexford on the opening evening of the 2019 Kennedy Summer School, Thursday, September 5th. The Archbishop of Armagh and Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Dromore, Primate of All Ireland, President of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and Chancellor of the Pontifical University, Maynooth will deliver the Edward M. Kennedy lecture on the role of faith in politics.
More than 50 years after his inauguration, John F Kennedy remains the only successful Catholic candidate for US presidency. His 1960 presidential win was a milestone moment for both Irish Americans and Catholics in the United States.
Thomas H. Groome, who is a senior Professor of Theology and Religious Education at Boston College and is the long-serving Director of its PhD programme in Theology and Education will set the Archbishop’s lecture in context discussing the role which Kennedy’s Catholicism and the faith of politicians has been an issue in political campaigns. Archbishop Eamon Martin will deliver the keynote lecture. Archbishop Martin is Archbishop of Armagh and Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Dromore, Primate of All Ireland, President of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and Chancellor of the Pontifical University, Maynooth. He is also chair of the Council for Communications of the Bishops’ Conference. Replies to the lecture will come from Senator Ivana Bacik, Professor of Law in Trinity College and Michael Kelly, Editor of The Irish Catholic and an award-winning writer and broadcaster specialising in religious and social affairs. The event will be moderated by Dr Robert M. Mauro.
The annual Kennedy Summer School is set to host a number of expert discussions and is billed as ‘A Festival of Irish and American, History, Politics and Culture’. There will be over 50 guest speakers participating over three days on a wide range of different subjects and organisers say that Brexit and Ireland’s relationship with the U.S. will feature prominently.
There will be a series of public interviews including an audience with An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, distinguished New York Times columnist, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer
Prize and author of three New York Times bestsellers, Maureen Dowd, Former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Seamus Mallon, Archbishop Eamon Martin, former Congressman and classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton Bruce Morrison, Micheál Martin TD, Stefanie Preissner, Dick Spring, Mick Wallace, Joan Burton, Michael McDowell and more Politicians, News correspondents, authors and leading global academics and many more will all partake in the 2019 Kennedy Summer School.
