Faith & Reason Event: Guest Speaker, Anthony Annett, Ph.D.

"The main tenets of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those who it would seem meant to benefit, and is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind; "once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, the rest that one owns belongs to the poor, and “based on a purely economic conception of man, the system of neoliberalism considers profit and the law of the market as its only parameters, to the detriment of the dignity of and the respect due to individuals and peoples.” From the beginnings of Catholic Social Teaching to today, the church has never shied away from criticizing the failings of economic and environmental ideologies, from socialism to capitalism, and others that lie in between. In this Faith & Reason event, economist, and advisor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Anthony Annett, will share the richness of Catholic social thought on economics and the environment, showing how it transcends the secular ideologies that surround us. Moderated by Peter Copeland of Catholic Conscience and the St. Monica’s Institute, on behalf of the Newman Centre at the University of Toronto."

“Anthony Annett is a Climate Change and Sustainable Development Advisor at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Working closely with Religions for Peace, he leads the Earth Institute's initiative to strengthen the engagement of the world's religious communities in the climate change and sustainable development agenda.

Trained as an economist, Annett has a keen interest in Catholic social teaching and in the intersection of ethics and economics more broadly. He has acted as an informal consultant to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and co-authored the remarks delivered by Dr. Carolyn Woo at the launch of the encyclical, Laudato Si'.

Annett spent sixteen years at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, with stints in the European, Fiscal Affairs, and Communications departments. In this role, he worked as an economist in a variety of countries and regions. Most recently, he worked for five years as a speechwriter to two successive Managing Directors, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Christine Lagarde.”