On April 30, we hosted distinguished guest Mary Ann Glendon for a lecture entitled, “Can the Universal Human Rights Project Be Saved?”
Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law emerita at Harvard University, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, and a leading authority in the field of human rights, began her lecture by tracing the course of the international human rights project from its origins to its impressive achievements of the late 20th century. She underscored that global support for the project is eroding and concluded with some hopeful thoughts about how the movement might be reinvigorated. Stephen Macedo, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics at Princeton University, offered a thoughtful response to Glendon’s remarks, after which both speakers proceeded in charitable dialogue and took questions from an engaged audience.
The event concluded Aquinas’ Spring 2025 Faith and Culture speaker series, which earlier this semester featured lectures on literature and medicine from a Catholic perspective.
For more on Glendon’s lecture, see “Can the International Human-Rights Project Be Saved?” in the National Catholic Register.
