Posted September 22, 2015

A panel discussion titled “Family: The Home of Holy Anarchy,” will be presented at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22 in Room 119 A/B of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, also the site of the week-long World Meeting of Families. The event is free and open to the public, and registration with the World Meeting is not required to attend.

Described in promotional materials as a discussion on the “nature of the family in an age of scientific control” and exploring the “family as guardian of human freedom and dignity,” the event features four notable Catholic figures.

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The main presenter is Fabrice Hadjadj, a French philosopher and author. Formerly a self-described atheists and anarchist, he entered the Catholic faith in 1998 and has become recognized as one of Europe’s leading catholic scholars. He is married and has six children. Last year Pope Francis appointed Hadjadj a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

The “respondents” to the presenter are Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, currently the prefect of the Congregation of the Faith at the Vatican, and Anna Moreland, a professor at Villanova University specializing in comparative theology, especially between Christianity and Islam. She is a married mother of four children, residing in Bryn Mawr.

Moderating the event is the panel chair, Mary Beth Yount. A theology professor at Neumann University and currently the program director for the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, Yount also is married with four children and lives in Aston.