Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, will join Holy Cross Father Robert A. Dowd, the president of the University of Notre Dame, for a public conversation on how faith can help heal America’s fractured political and civic life. The dialogue, titled “Healing Our National Dialogue and Political Life,” will take place at 4 p.m. on Friday Oct. 17 in McKenna Hall at the University of Notre Dame. The event is part of the 2025–26 Notre Dame Forum series on the theme “Cultivating Hope.”
The Notre Dame Forum, now in its 20th year, invites speakers from diverse fields to address pressing moral and social questions through the lens of faith. This year’s focus on hope comes at a time when national conversations about politics and civic life have become increasingly contentious.
Cardinal McElroy is expected to draw from both his pastoral experience and his background in theology, American history and political science to reflect on how Americans might rebuild trust across deep ideological divides. The cardinal earned a doctorate in political science from Stanford University and a doctorate in moral theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and he earlier earned a bachelor’s degree in American history from Harvard University and a master’s degree in American history from Stanford.
Cardinal McElroy has long been a leading voice in the U.S. Church on issues of social justice, poverty, and migration. A member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, he has emphasized dialogue and discernment as central to the Church’s mission in a polarized society.
Elevated to the College of Cardinals in 2022, he has written widely on the intersection of morality and public policy, including two books — “The Search for an American Public Theology” and “Morality and American Foreign Policy.”
The discussion between Cardinal McElroy and Notre Dame president Father Dowd, will be livestreamed for the public and will examine the practical and spiritual foundations of civic renewal in the context of national dialogue.
