Jim Wallis, founding director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice will discuss “Peace as a Response to Violence,” during the 2024 Sister Mary Schmidt Lecture at Seton Hill University presented by Seton Hill and the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill. The lecture will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, 2024 in Cecilian Hall in the Administration Building. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Jim Wallis is a New York Times bestselling author, public theologian, renowned preacher and commentator on ethics and public life. 

He is the inaugural holder of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Chair in Faith and Justice at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the founding Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice. In 2022, Washingtonian magazine named Wallis one of the 500 most influential people shaping policy in DC. 

Raised in a Midwestern evangelical family, as a teenager Wallis questioned the racial segregation in his church and community, which led him to the Black churches and neighborhoods of inner-city Detroit. He spent his student years involved in the civil rights and antiwar movements at Michigan State University. 

He is the founder of Sojourners and is the author of 13 books, including one released on April 2. Wallis also hosts the popular podcast The Soul of the Nation. 

He served on President Barack Obama’s White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and has taught faith and public life courses at Harvard and Georgetown University. He also serves as a Research Fellow at the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Wallis previously taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Georgetown in 2007 when he gave the college commencement address. 

The Sister Mary Schmidt Lecture Series is sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill and Seton Hill University in order to support the Catholic identity of Seton Hill University; engage the Sisters of Charity and Seton Hill University in learning and dialogue on timely topics of social and environmental justice with global impact; and develop an understanding of Catholic Social Teachings and how they pertain to this dialogue. 

Sister Mary Schmidt, SC, served as president of Seton Hill from 1971 through 1977. She also taught in the English Department at the University for more than 20 years and served as executive vice president and the director of Alumnae Relations.