The Dean's Forum with Pádraig Ó Tuama: Conflict Engagement as a Spiritual Practice (Oct 19, 2025)

We welcome Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama to the Dean’s Forum this Sunday, following his presentation at the Spirituality Conference on Saturday. We all live in situations of conflict: from the everyday tensions with your beloveds to arguments with yourself, then on to local and political and national issues that escalate feelings, loyalties and demands. How can we engage with these realities through the lens of the gospels? Will that help? If so, how? This session will explore some dynamics of conflict in gospel accounts, and then consider whether there’s wisdom for our contemporary lives.

Pádraig Ó Tuama (b. 1975 Cork, Ireland) is a poet with interests in conflict, language and religion. He presents Poetry Unbound from On Being Studios, and has published two anthologies (2022, 2025, both with WW Norton) from that podcast. In early 2025 Copper Canyon Press published Kitchen Hymns, his fourth poetry collection. A freelance artist, one of Ó Tuama’s projects is poet-in-residence with the Cooperation and Conflict Resolution Center at Columbia University. 

For Ó Tuama, religion, conflict, power and poetry all circle around language, that original sacrament. Working fluently on the page and in public, Ó Tuama is a compelling poet, teacher, and group worker, and a profoundly engaging public speaker.