Dr. Montserrat Gas, the Director of the Institute of Advanced Family Studies (IESF) and a professor in the UIC Faculty of Law, did research at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., from July to September 2014.
Her aim was to study US Supreme Court jurisprudence on conscientious objection.
Dr. Gas also gave a conference at the University of Illinois School of Law on the influence of matrimonial canon law on civil marriage in Western society. She participated in different academic activities organized by the University of Illinois Law School and met with members of the teaching staff.
Dr. Gas also read a paper at the 15th International Congress on Canon Law held at the Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.) on the compatibility between the existence of the crime of apostasy and religious freedom in the structure of the Catholic Church.
In these two months, Dr. Gas visited two institutions with headquarters in Washington, D.C., that work to defend family rights in the United States: the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation. The IESF maintains close relations with both institutions on different projects, such as MARRI, an online encyclopaedia on the family that the IESF will develop in collaboration with the Family Research Council.
