Woodstock's host for the evening, Washington Jesuit Academy, recently graduated its first class of 8th graders and were featured on the local news.  Congratulations to the graduates!

Woodstock Visiting Fellow Phil Rossi, S.J., has published a book entitled The Social Authority of Reason: Kant's Critique, Radical Evil, and the Destiny of Humankind, which is available through SUNY Press.

As his time at Woodstock draws to a close, Phil will be returning to Marquette University where he will assume the post of Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs on July 1, 2005.

Dolores Leckey spoke on "The Laity as Seen through the Lens of the Second Vatican Council" at the bi-annual assembly of the Diocese of Joliet.  She also received mention in a recent Washington Post story on the changing role of the laity in church.

In April, Dolores attended a board meeting of the Center for the Study of Religious Life; she is their lay representative.

John was a frequent commentator in news stories on the papal succession in publications including the Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, and US News & World Report.

In June, Woodstock Director Gap Lo Biondo, S.J., traveled to Leuven, Belgium for a sub-group meeting of the Jesuit Task Force on Globalization and Marginalization.  They are now preparing the final documentation for their final meeting in November.  The documents will then be presented to Father General.

You can read more about the Task Force on the Social Justice Secretariat webpage (click on "interest areas").

Other recent speaking engagements include:
a talk entitled "The Poverty of the Risen Christ and the People of God's Ignorance of its Priesthood" to the Order of Malta at the Washington Theological Union; a talk on "Why Confirmation?" at St. Mark's in Arlington, Virginia; presentations at two consultations at Loyola University Chicago: one on the "Vocation Project" and another on its proposed "Center for Catholic Intellectual Tradition"; and three presentations at Seton Hall University's Core Curriculum Conference on "The Teleology of Learning."

Woodstock's Brown Bag lunch series has concluded for the year with three more presentations:

International Visiting Fellow Margaret Scott, ACI, spoke on "The Eucharist and the Impoverished."  Margaret has recently give talks on the Eucharist in local churches, including Annunciation in Washington, D.C. and St. Charles Borromeo in Arlington, Virginia.

Joseph Runzo, visiting fellow at Cambridge University, gave a presentation entitled "Revisiting Just War Theory: Terrorism, Humanitarian Intervention and Private Military Companies."  He is the executive director of the Global Ethics and Religion Forum.

Visiting Fellow Phil Rossi, S.J., spoke on "Evil & Intelligibility: A Conversation on Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought."

In January, Woodstock Associate Fellows Jim Redington, S.J., and Ted Arroyo, S.J., led a group of students from Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley on a three week theological immersion course in India.  You can read one student's account of the trip in the JSTB newsletter, Bridge (page 3).