Sacred Heart University will mark the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the upcoming golden anniversary of the University’s founding with a two-day conference April 23-24, 2012.

The conference, which is co-sponsored by the Paulist Press, will feature several notable scholars and theologians from throughout the United States, including Sacred Heart’s Rev. Anthony Ciorra who serves as the University’s assistant vice president of Mission and Catholic Identity; Michael W. Higgins, also of Sacred Heart; Roberto Goizueta of Boston College; Rev. David Dwyer, director of the Catholic radio program Busted Halo ; Diana Hayes, of Georgetown University; Massimo Faggioli of the University of St. Thomas; Scott Appleby, of Notre Dame University and Rev. Michael Himes of Boston College.

The conference, entitled A Universal Call to Holiness, will focus on a way forward for the Church and will pick up where the Second Vatican Council left off with the seven closing speeches given by the cardinals on the last day of the Council in 1965. Their topics remain relevant today youth, church and politics, art and beauty, suffering, labor and immigration, religion and science and the role of women.