February 7, 2020 –Benedict XVI Endowed Chair at Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU), Dr. Edward Alam, has had his 5-year term as Consultor on the Pontifical Council for Culture renewed. The Council serves as a focal point of dialogue between the Church and other cultures around the world. Comprised of both Catholic laity and members of the clergy, Consultors are nominated for a five-year term by the Pope and are invited to offer their outlook and add to the Council’s work.
In his letter to Dr. Alam, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology, Ginafranco Cardinal Ravasi, congratulated him on his appointment saying, “In rejoicing with you on this appointment, and thanking you for what you have done so far, I express my hope there will be many more years of intense collaboration and constant dialogue to promote in the whole Church the evangelization of culture.”
“This appointment is an important step in strengthening the catholicity of the Church by recognizing Lebanon and the Eastern Church as essential,” said Dr. Alam. “It is an opportunity to implement the unique significance of the Eastern Churches’ irreplaceable witness to the Church’s unity, apostolicity, and catholicity put forward by Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Orientalium Dignitas (On the Dignity of the Eastern Churches) and developed by the Church in the Extraordinary Magisterium at Vatican II: Orientalium Ecclesiarum (On the Eastern Churches).” Dr. Alam is preparing a reflection on Catholicity in Asia, which will be published in the Council’s journal Culture e Fede (Cultures and Faith) before their first meeting in October of this year.