Hope and Healing

“I wanted to go to college, do my four years, get out, and start making a bunch of money,” Dr. Tom Catena told a capacity crowd in November 2025 at the Institute for Social Concerns’ 2025 Rev. Bernie Clark, C.S.C., Distinguished Catholic Social Tradition Lecture, part of this year’s Notre Dame Forum exploring the theme “Cultivating Hope.” “So what did I do? I went to school for the rest of my life, and I don’t make anything.”

Now having worked for 17 years as the only full-time physician at Mother of Mercy Hospital that serves over three million people in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan, Catena shared that he has no regrets. Listen in to his conversation with Suzanne Shanahan, the Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of Institute for Social Concerns, to hear Dr. Tom Catena reveal how he finds hope and joy each day amidst the challenges of serving others at “the end of the world.”

To read a recap of the event, click here.

Since its establishment in 2005, each year the Notre Dame Forum invites campus-wide dialogue about issues of importance to the University, the nation, and the larger world.

This year’s theme is Cultivating Hope. In a world where hope is too often in short supply, our goal is to invite reflection about how each of us can be “seekers of truth, sustainers of hope, and builders of bridges.”

To learn more about the Notre Dame Forum 2025-26, please visit the Forum website.