The Carlyle Lectures 2027 | The Art of Governing in Post-Reformation Catholicism: Governing the Conscience

Professor Stefania Tutino (UCLA)

The Church claimed the right to guide consciences, but Catholic theology also insisted that the conscience was free. This lecture examines confession, doubt, and moral reasoning to show how pastoral authority could produce individual judgment even as it sought to govern it.

Location: South School, Examination Schools

Date and Time: Tuesday, 9 February 2027, from 5–6pm

About the series 

The Art of Governing in Post-Reformation Catholicism: Rethinking Questions of Authority, Conscience, and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

How did the Catholic Church govern after the Reformation? This lecture series examines that question through a series of studies on authority, conscience, memory, and truth in early modern Europe. Moving between theology and administration, political theory and archival sources, Rome and the localities, it traces the institutions and practices through which the Church sought to guide conduct and regulate its flock. What emerges is a world of overlapping jurisdictions and competing authorities, where governing depended as much on negotiation and adaptation as on command.