The Second Vatican Council and Pope John XXIII's Commitment to Religious Unity

In 1959 Pope John XXIII called an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, the first in nearly a century. Anne Clifford, the Msgr. James Supple Chair in Catholic Studies at Iowa State, will examine Pope John's life with a focus on how his years as a Vatican diplomat in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and France contributed to his vision for the Second Vatican Council and the resulting commitment of the Roman Catholic Church to cultivate relations not only with other Christian churches but also with other religions, especially Judaism and Islam. Anne Clifford earned a PhD in theology from the Catholic University of America and has held faculty positions at Duquesne University and John Carroll University. She is the author of Introducing Feminist Theology and coeditor of Christology: Memory, Inquiry. Supple Lecture Series