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Peter Phan

Faculty Fellow

Department of Theology and Religious Studies

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February 9, 2023

The Good Samaritan and the Culture of Encounter

Writing in America, Berkley Center Faculty Fellow Peter Phan reflects on how in the encyclical Fratelli Tutti Pope Francis points to the good Samaritan as the parable for our times because it highlights the unexpected marvel of the culture of encounter: It changes the victims of injustice into protectors of their persecutors.

Profile

Peter C. Phan is the inaugural holder of the Ignacio Ellacuria Chair of Catholic Social Thought in the Georgetown University Department of Theology and Religious Studies and a faculty fellow at the Berkley Center. His research deals with the theology of icons in Orthodox theology, patristic theology, eschatology, the history of Christian missions in Asia, and liberation, inculturation, and interreligious dialogue. He is the author and editor of over 30 books and has published over 300 essays. His writings have been translated into Arabic, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Vietnamese, and have received many awards from learned societies. He is the first non-Anglo to be elected president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and president of the American Theological Society. In 2010 he received the John Courtney Murray Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Catholic Theological Society of America for outstanding achievement in theology. Phan has earned three doctorates.

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