June 01, 2017

Stephen Schneck, former director of Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies (IPR), was featured in Crux on May 31 for his years of work promoting research from a distinctly Catholic perspective.

Schneck, who retired from IPR and the University in April, was first appointed to the director position at the University think tank in 2005, when it was still known as the Life Cycle Institute. The institute was renamed in 2009 and Schneck was given a new mission: “to focus on issues of policy most directly concerned with the social teachings of the Church.” With that in mind, the institute adopted economics, immigration, and poverty as its three pillars.

“Our reason in doing this was that we thought there were already many organizations focusing on the Church’s moral teachings, issues like abortion and same sex-marriage. We consciously decided to focus the institute on the Church’s social teachings and policies that had some bearing on them,” Schneck said.

Schneck also spoke about Catholic University’s potential for public engagement.

“I think the potential of this university in the public square is to interject that message of Pope Francis and the traditional messages of the Church that so well answer the needs of our contemporary world and to echo those in our public life.”

Read more about Schneck and IPR.