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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is the second of four publications to emerge from a research project carried out by the Centre for Catholic Social Thought of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven during the years 2005 to 2009. The research project investigated the potential for a dialogue between the Church Fathers and Catholic social thought, and this volume reflects an important stage in that research. Specifically, the contributions for this volume emerged out of an expert seminar on the theme of the Church Fathers and Catholic social thought held in Leuven in 2007. Our aim was to tease out the contours of a dialogue between scholars both of patristics and of Catholic social thought. At the seminar’s conclusion we expressed to those who attended our deep thanks not only for their contributions, but also—and perhaps more importantly —for their time. Time is a precious resource in our day. For nearly twenty scholars to give of their time to travel to Leuven and to discuss this admittedly strange confluence of subjects, we are immensely grateful. Those who contributed papers for this volume deserve further thanks, for this required of each one the setting aside of additional time to prepare new drafts of papers or to revise earlier remarks. Together, their papers represent such a wide array of expertise that this volume opens many more doors of inquiry than anything we could have written by ourselves. Naturally, the expert seminar itself could not have taken place without the financial support of others. Principally, we wish to thank the Flemish government ’s Fund for Scientific Research, which funded the entirety of the research project spanning the academic years 2005 to 2009. In addition, we thank the Porticus Foundation for their funding of the expert seminar. The seminar was held in the recently renovated buildings and grounds of vii viii Acknowledgments the Irish College in Leuven. We wish to thank Orla Kelly and her staff at the college for her tremendous help from the earliest planning stages of the seminar through to the seminar itself. Finally, we reserve for the end the extension of our deepest thanks to Lucrèce de Becker. She was the administrative engine behind the entire expert seminar. There were literally hundreds of details and financial arrangements, but Lucrèce knew exactly what to do in every situation, knew whom to contact to fix problems, and was extremely well-organized. Not only this book, but also we would be the poorer were it not for her contributions. ...

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