Why Creation Needs the Church: Laudato Sí and Its Relevance Today
Thursday, June 18, 2026, at 7:00 pm | Stievenard Hall, St. Bernadette
Speaker: Dr. Richard Gallenstein, Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Master of Public Policy program at The Catholic University of America
In this talk, we seek to break through the noise about environmentalism and explore an authentically Catholic response to the environmental challenges of our day. We will discuss how public dialogue on the right, left, and middle miss the mark on the environmental question and how the Church can lead us to a better response. We will consider scripture, Church teaching such as Laudato Si’, and some of the most pressing environmental topics. By the end, we will see how the world needs the Catholic Church’s response to environmental crises.
Dr. Richard Anthony Gallenstein is an Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Master of Public Policy program at The Catholic University of America. He joined the faculty at CUA in the fall of 2017 after finishing his Ph.D. in Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at The Ohio State University. Dr. Gallenstein’s focus areas include development economics, behavioral economics, and public policy. His research includes work on the topics of microfinance, microinsurance, and the behavioral impacts of economic inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. While at CUA, Dr. Gallenstein has taught courses for the undergraduate and graduate programs in Economics and the graduate program in Public Policy. These courses include Principles of Microeconomics, Statistics for Business and Economics, Advanced Microeconomics, Econometrics, Experimental Economics, Big Data for Economics, and Public Policy for the Common Good.
