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The International Diaconate Centre Study Conference are offering a free Digital Conference, open to all who are interested, from September 15-18 this year. The conference will take place as a “virtual event” with an opportunity to reflect on some of the various crises facing the Church and the world - and how we might build a diaconal Church that responds to these ongoing crises.

Key speakers include Dr Celia Deanna-Drummond, Director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Oxford; Dr Francesc Torralba Rosello, professor at Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona; Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay (Mumbai); Fr Primin Spiegel, Director of Miseror (German CAFOD); Dr Sr Beena SMI, Deputy Director Holy Family Hospital, Mumbai, India; Deacon Alfred Banya, Head of Chaplaincy, King’ College Hospital, London and Rev Dr Joan Torra, Dean of the Theology Faculty, Ateneo Universitario Sant Pacia, Barcelona plus many more.

The Conference will run from 2pm - 5.15pm each day in English, Spanish and German with the key talks recorded and available to view online. To access the conference and the talks please register your interest at www.diaconia-idc.org or on the alternate page www.idz-intern.de/en. The registration process is straightforward: you “buy” a free entrance ticket. When you do so, you can choose whether you wish to participate in the Conference only or in the General Assembly as well (the latter option being available only to IDC members).

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Participation in the virtual event

In order to ensure that the participants have the best possible experience of the Conference, we will use “Whova” software. You can download this software as an app on your smartphone or tablet as well as on your PC. The address of our conference is: https://whova.com/portal/webapp/icdst_202108/.

Apart from the video contributions of the lecturers, you will also have the possibility to talk to each other. You will be able to both comment on the lectures and send in questions which will be subsequently considered in language groups, as well as organize your own small chat rooms. We hope that with this platform we will facilitate the greatest possible number of virtual meetings.