The fourth meeting of the HEST cluster of economics, poverty and ethics took place on 31 September and 1 October 2019. It was held in the new headquarters of the Loyola Andalucía University in Dos Hermanas. We are grateful for the hospitality of the university, and in particular that of its Principal, who hosted us with a succulent lunch upon arrival.

On this occasion, the meeting was divided into two very different moments: on Monday 31 September in the afternoon we had a workshop entitled "the future of work" with two panels. The first consisted of a presentation by Professor Raúl González Fabre, who gave us a very interesting overview of the job market in the digital age and its possible evolution in the coming years.

The second panel consisted of a presentation by the members of the cluster where partial results of the research were presented. Kevin Hargaden, Darius Dankowsky and Ricardo Aguado were in charge of doing it.

In the following LINK you can see the videos of the two sessions.

Read more: Workshop on "the future of work" by the cluster on Economy, Poverty and Ethics

After almost three years of the existence, the Science and Religion Cluster of HEST reached the highest point of its activities, the conference: “A Powerful Universe – Levels of Powers: Dispositions and Their Applications in Science, Metaphysics, and Theology”. It was a fully academic event which took place 8-9th of October 2019 in Centre Sèvres Jesuit Theological Faculty in Paris. The planning of the conference and our preparations to it took almost two years. The conference was prepared by the survey among the members, the formulation of the research programme, two workshops (in Kraków and Braga) as well as almost 15 skype meetings.

During the conference we had a great privilege to host prof. Stephen Mumford (Durham University / GB), the most renowned scholar on the question of dispositions and powers in metaphysics. He was very kind to accept our invitation and was very actively involved in the discussions sharing his deep knowledge of the topic as we presented our own papers. We hosted also prof. Douglas Porpora (Drexel University / USA), a sociologist, prof. William Abraham (Southern Methodist University / USA), a theologian, prof. Alvaro Moreno (University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian / Spain), a biologist. On Skype joined us prof. Ruth Groff (Saint Louis University / USA), a political scientist.

Read more: “A Powerful Universe – Levels of Powers”. A S&R Conference in Paris

Four scholars of the Catholic social teaching (CST) - Dariusz Dańkowski SJ, Jesuit University Ignatianum, Kraków (Poland); Stanislav Košč, Catholic University in Ružomberok (Slovakia) & Jesuit University Ignatianum, Kraków (Poland); Andrzej Sarnacki SJ, Jesuit University Ignatianum, Kraków (Poland); Robert Wawer SJ, Collegium Bobolanum - Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw (Poland) - prepared the 20-pages expert opinion: Catholic Social Teaching as a framework for new business structures. This report was further discussed within the first group of the cluster “Economy, Poverty, Ethics” and distributed to all members of the cluster.

The paper starts with the introduction to the basic principles of social life (the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, human dignity), the basic framework of social justice, intrinsic link between economic issues and ecological ones; this part of the elaboration refers mostly to the encyclical letters. Next, the authors present some pastoral guidelines of the General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, especially those which call for a new culture of dialogue and reconciliation (reconciliation with God, with one another, and with creation) and for intersectoral cooperation. Another section of the report presents the foundations of the Jesuit way of leadership (spirituality, innovation, holistic education). All of them can help us to redefine the notion of “success” and “failure” in business and influence a corporative culture. Ignatian spirituality stresses such values as deepest convictions, desires and knowledge. The final part of the report is focused on the practical problems which occurred in the economic crisis of 2008: state intervention (crisis of trust to the economic system) and corporate culture (problems of social responsibility in business).

Read more: Catholic Social Teaching as a framework for new business structures

The core group met in Braga, Portugal, between 26-29^th of April 2019. Five of us turned up for the meeting in person (Bruno Nobre, Francois Euvé, Ulf Jonsson, Josef Quitterer, Jacek Poznański) and Georg Gasser from Innsbruck joined us on Skype at Saturday’s evening session.

We were guests of the Jesuit Community of the scholastics (Jesuits in formation) in Braga. We spend two nice days with them, celebrating masses, eating together and discussing philosophical, theological and everyday questions.

Saturday we dedicated to the organizational issues. We started with discussion on our conference which is to take place in Centre Sèvres in Paris, 8^th-9^th of October 2019. The title of the conference is “A Powerful Universe – Levels of Powers. Dispositions and their applications in Science, Metaphysics, and Theology”. It is the final event of the three years of existence of the Science and Religion Cluster of the HEST Programme. We invited for the conference a number of key scholars on powers and dispositions. We will try to enter in dialogue with them on the important issues concerning metaphysics, anthropology, sciences and God.

Read more: The Science and Religion Cluster’s workshop in Braga