The Thomistic Institute

Professor Christopher Baglow explores the compatibility of evolutionary science with Catholic faith, focusing on the role of chance and divine providence, and defending the unique creation of the human soul.This lecture was given on October 28th, 2024, at University of Texas at Austin.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Dr. Baglow is Professor of the Practice of Theology and the Director of the Science and Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. His work is the culmination of 19 years of faith and science scholarship and educational program creation, as well as a lengthy career in Catholic theological education spanning high-school, undergraduate, graduate and seminary teaching. For this work, he was co-recipient of an Expanded Reason Award in Teaching from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid) and the Vatican Joseph Ratzinger Foundation (Rome).Baglow is the author of Faith, Science and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (2nd edition, Midwest Theological Forum, 2019) and Creation: A Catholic’s Guide to God and the Universe (Ave Maria Press, 2021). He serves as theological advisor to the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists and as a contributor to the JTF-funded science and religion programming of the Word on Fire Institute. Most recently, he authored the transcripts for Wonder: The Harmony of Faith and Science, a Word on Fire film series directed by Manny Marquez and narrated by Jonathan Roumie. His work has appeared in That Man is You, Crux, Church Life Journal, Culture and Evangelization, and Joie de Vivre Quarterly Journal.Keywords: Chance, Darwinism, Divine Providence, Evolution, Faith and Science, Humani Generis, John Henry Newman, Pope Pius XII, Primary and Secondary Causality, Soul

Fr. Andrew Hofer connects the themes of Lent and love, explaining how God's sacrificial love, as revealed in Christ, calls us to a deeper, more authentic love that purifies our affections and strengthens us for sacrifice, particularly within the context of marriage.This lecture was given on February 13th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Originally from a farm in Kansas, Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., is a priest in the Dominican Province of St. Joseph who teaches on the pontifical faculty of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC where he is editor-in-chief of The Thomist. He has authored Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus and The Power of Patristic Preaching: The Word in Our Flesh . He is editor or co-editor of several volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Deification, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons, Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers, Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology, and Thomas Aquinas as Spiritual Teacher.Keywords: Ash Wednesday, Catherine of Siena, Friendship, Lent, Love, Marriage, Sacrament of Charity, Sacrifice, Saint Valentine's Day, Theology of the Body

Professor Michael Foley discusses dating as an art, addressing the challenges posed by the sexual revolution and social media, and offering advice for men and women to approach relationships with virtue and integrity. This lecture was given on October 4th, 2024, at The Ohio State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Michael Foley is a Catholic theologian, a Professor of Patristics at Baylor University, and the author of over 400 articles and seventeen books, including the Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity, Drinking with the Saints, and Dining with the Saints. He can speak on a wide variety of topics touching upon Catholicism, culture, and liturgy.Keywords: Courtship, Dating, Ethics, Marriage, Pornography, Romantic Relationships, Sexual Revolution, Social Media, Virtue

Professor Joshua Hochschild connects Theology of the Body with Aristotelian philosophy, arguing that it supports the concept of marriage as a natural community amidst modern challenges from social contract theory and technology.This lecture was given on March 23rd, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.Keywords: Aristotle, Catholic Social Teaching, Humanae Vitae, John Paul II, Marriage, Natural Community, Social Contract Theory, Technology, Theology of the Body, Thomas Aquinas

Professor Jennifer Herdt examines the cognitive dimensions and ethical significance of anger, distinguishing human anger, linked to justice and reason, from animal anger, within an Aristotelian-Thomistic framework.This lecture was given on September 7th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Jennifer A. Herdt is Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale University’s Divinity School. She is the author, most recently, of Assuming Responsibility: Ecstatic Eudaimonism and the Call to Live Well (link is external). Her 2019 book, Forming Humanity: Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition, was supported by a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She is also the author of Putting On Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices, and of Religion and Faction in Hume’s Moral Philosophy (link is external), and has published widely on virtue ethics, early modern and modern moral thought, and political theology. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Christian Ethics, Studies in Christian Ethics, and the Journal of Religion, and served as the 2020 President of the Society of Christian Ethics. Her current research project on more-than-human creaturely agency flows from a $3.9M, 3-year collaborative grant from the Templeton Foundation (link is external) supporting projects in science-informed theological anthropology. From 2013-2021, she served as the academic dean of Yale Divinity School, and is now Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs. Keywords: AI, Anger, Aristotelianism, Ethics, Justice, Passions, Peter Strawson, Reactive Emotions, Responsibility, Thomistic Thought

Fr. Thomas Petri provides a historical overview of the evolving understanding of marriage as a path to holiness within the Catholic Church, set against the backdrop of societal changes, medical advancements, and challenges to traditional Christian views on procreation and contraception in the 20th century. This lecture was given on March 22nd, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Father Thomas Petri, O.P. is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, where he also serves as an assistant professor of moral theology and pastoral studies. Ordained a priest in 2009, he holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from The Catholic University of America.Keywords: Alice Von Hildebrand, Anglican Communion, Christian Marriage, Conjugal Act, Contraception, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Humanae Vitae, St. John Paul the Second, Vatican II, Theology of the Body

Does the Big Bang prove God? In this lecture, Prof. William E. Carroll explores how cosmological arguments for and against a creator often get it wrong by confusing creation with a temporal beginning, a mistake that Thomas Aquinas can help us avoid.This lecture was given on October 14th, 2024, at Mount Saint Mary College. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Professor William E. Carroll has recently retired from research and teaching at the Aquinas Institute of Blackfriars in the University of Oxford.  For the past two years he has been a Visiting Professor at the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (Wuhan, China), and at the Hongyi Honor College of Wuhan University. He is a European intellectual historian and historian of science whose research and teaching concern: 1) the reception of Aristotelian science in mediaeval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and the development of the doctrine of creation, and 2) the encounter between Galileo and the Inquisition.  He has also written extensively on the ways in which mediaeval discussions of the relationship among the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology can be useful in contemporary questions arising from developments in biology and cosmology. He is the author of four books: Aquinas on Creation; La Creación y las Ciencias Naturales: Actualidad de Santo Tomás de Aquino; Galileo: Science and Faith; and Creation and Science (with translations in Slovak, Spanish, and Chinese).  His published work has appeared in 12 languages. Over many years he has written more than 25 op-ed pieces for Public Discourse, the web site of the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton.Keywords: Beginning of the Universe, Big Bang Theory, Causation, Cosmology, Cosmological Apologetics, Creation, Quantum Mechanics, Stephen Hawking, Thomas Aquinas, William Lane Craig

What role do the sacraments play in human flourishing? Why do we need them? How can they change your life? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Fr. Dominic Langevin, O.P. about the role of sacraments in human experience, how the sacraments can transform our lives, why we should have a deeper sacramental life, and more!You can watch this interview on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmzv3rBZ64kAbout the speaker: Fr. Dominic Langevin, O.P. is Dean and Assistant Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, where he teaches courses principally in sacramental theology and liturgiology. He is the secretary/treasurer of the Academy of Catholic Theology. He did his undergraduate degree at Yale University. He entered the Dominican Order in 1998 and was ordained a priest in 2005. He earned his doctorate from the University of Fribourg while working as the assistant to the chair of dogmatic theology for ecclesiology and the sacraments. He is the author of From Passion to Paschal Mystery and was editor of the journal The Thomist from 2018 to 2021.Keywords: Body Positivity, Dei Veritate, Grace, Incarnation, Liturgical Life, Sacramental Theology, Sacraments, St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

Fr. Stephen Brock explains Aquinas's Fifth Way, focusing on the governance of things and how natural bodies without cognition display goal-oriented activity, ultimately placing the Fifth Way into dialogue with Darwinism. This lecture was given on September 5th, 2024, at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Stephen L. Brock is a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei (ordained 1992). He is Ordinary Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, where he began teaching in 1990. Since 2008 he has been an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Since 2017 he has been a visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy of the University of Chicago. He is the author of Action & Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (T&T Clark, 1998); The Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas: A Sketch (Wipf & Stock, 2015); The Light that Binds: a Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of Natural Law (Wipf & Stock, 2020); and numerous articles on various aspects of Aquinas’s thought.Keywords: Aquinas' Fifth Way, Darwinism, Divine Governance, Natural Bodies, Natural Inclinations, Purposeful Activity, Regularity in Nature, St. Thomas Aquinas, Teleology

Professor John O'Callaghan argues that atheism is not inherently irrational, exploring its varied historical meanings and proposing that, while not necessarily true, it can be a rational pursuit driven by a desire for truth. This lecture was given on November 21st, 2024, at Michigan State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Prof. John O'Callaghan is the Director Emeritus of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame as well as a permanent member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. He served as the past President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. His areas of scholarly interest include medieval philosophy, the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Thomistic metaphysics and ethics.Keywords: Atheism, Benedict XVI, Descartes, Faith, Irrationality, Nietzsche, Rationalism, Truth

Professor Joshua Hochschild argues that Aquinas' proofs for God's existence, specifically the first way, are simple, accessible, and not merely spiritual exercises, but rather starting points for a deeper understanding of God and the relationship between faith and reason. This lecture was given on November 4th, 2024, at University of Texas at Austin.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.Keywords: Aristotelianism, Causality, David Hume, Empirical Fact, First Cause, Natural Theology, Proof of God's Existence, Reason, Skepticism, Unmoved Mover

Professor W. Matthews Grant examines the traditional Christian doctrine of divine universal causality, exploring how God can be the cause of all things, including human free acts, and how this relates to our understanding of freedom and responsibility. This lecture was given on November 7th, 2024, at University of Scranton.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:W. Matthews Grant is Professor and Chair in the Department of Philosophy at University of St. Thomas (MN), and Associate Editor of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. His articles have focused on Aquinas and the Philosophy of God, particularly issues having to do with the divine nature and God’s relationship to human freedom.Keywords: Alvin Plantinga, Anthropomorphism, Divine Causality, Freedom, God, Responsibility, St. Anselm, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas

Dr. Medi Volpe explores God's response to the problem of evil by contrasting modern theodicy against the approach of early Christians, emphasizing the Incarnation and human action as integral to God's response. This lecture was given on October 24th, 2024, at University of Edinburgh.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Medi Ann Volpe is a Catholic moral theologian and mother of four children, including a daughter with Down Syndrome. She is the Director of Research at Wesley House, Cambridge and teaches theology and ethics at Durham University (UK) . Her first book, Rethinking Christian Identity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), brings contemporary theological themes into conversation with voices from the classical Christian tradition. More recently, her work has explored the intersection of ecclesiology and spiritual formation, with a special interest in discipleship and Christian identity of children as well as people with intellectual disabilities. She has published in journals and handbooks, including the International Journal of Systematic Theology, Modern Theology, and the Oxford Handbook of Catholic Theology (which she co-edited with Lewis Ayres). She also serves on the board of the Journal of Disability and Religion. For the last several years, Volpe has been writing and speaking about the kind of Church we must be if we are truly to honour the weaker members. Her current book project (Living as the Body of Christ) considers ecclesiology from the perspective of disability.Keywords: Augustine, Evil, Gustavo Gutierrez, Hume, James Cone, Incarnation, Irenaeus, Problem of Evil, Tolkien, Theodicy, Theology

Professor John O'Callaghan delves into St. Thomas Aquinas's understanding of God's mercy in creation, addressing the apparent paradox of extending mercy to non-existent beings by examining the transition from non-being to being. This lecture was given on October 19th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.Keywords: Being, Creation, God's Mercy, Justice, Metaphysics, Misericordia, Non-being, Suffering, Thomas AquinasAbout the Speaker:Dr. John Callaghan is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame University. He is a permanent member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas and he was the President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (2012-2013). He is the author of Thomistic Realism and the Linguistic Turn: Toward a More Perfect Form of Existence and the editor, with Prof. Thomas Hibbs, of Recovering Nature: Essays in Honor of Ralph McInerny.

Fr. Andrew Hofer explores St. Thomas Aquinas's understanding of God's Justice as revealed in the Gospel and the writings of St. Paul, emphasizing its connection to grace, truth, and the conformity of creation to God's intellect. This lecture was given on October 19th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., (Ph.D. Notre Dame) is professor of patristics and ancient languages at the Pontifical Faculty of the Dominican House of Studies where he serves as the director of the doctoral program. He authored Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Power of Patristic Preaching: The Word in Our Flesh (Catholic University of America, 2023). He co-authored A Living Sacrifice: Guidance for Men Discerning Religious Life (Vianney Vocations, 2019). Editor-in-chief of the academic journal The Thomist, Hofer is editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Oxford Handbook of Deification, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons, and Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. He enjoys speaking with students about their theological and spiritual questions.Keywords: Aquinas, Dikaussune, God's Justice, Gospel, Grace, Justification, Romans, St. Paul, Truth

Fr. Andrew Hofer explores St. Thomas Aquinas's understanding of God's mercy in the writings of St. Paul, paying particular attention to Mercy's relationship to Divine justice and its transformative activity in Christian life. This lecture was given on October 19th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., (Ph.D. Notre Dame) is professor of patristics and ancient languages at the Pontifical Faculty of the Dominican House of Studies where he serves as the director of the doctoral program. He authored Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Power of Patristic Preaching: The Word in Our Flesh (Catholic University of America, 2023). He co-authored A Living Sacrifice: Guidance for Men Discerning Religious Life (Vianney Vocations, 2019). Editor-in-chief of the academic journal The Thomist, Hofer is editor or co-editor of several volumes including The Oxford Handbook of Deification, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons, and Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. He enjoys speaking with students about their theological and spiritual questions.

In this lecture, Erika Bachiochi discusses Catholic feminism, her encounter with St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body and her subsequent intellectual journey, and the historical roots of feminism in Christian thought, particularly focusing on the views of early feminists on abortion and chastity.This lecture was given on October 29th, 2024, at Benedictine College.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:EPPC Fellow Erika Bachiochi is a legal scholar who works at the intersection of constitutional law, political theory, women’s history, and Catholic social teaching. She is also the editor-in-chief of Fairer Disputations, the online journal of the Mercy Otis Warren Initiative for Women in Civic Life and Thought at the School for Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at ASU.Keywords: Abortion, Catholic Feminism, Chastity, Christian Feminism, Elizabeth Blackwell, Evangelium Vitae, First Wave Feminism, John Paul II, Rights Of Women, Theology Of The Body

Fr. Gregory Pine discusses the virtue of courage, exploring its complexities, its relationship to the passions, and its importance in living a complete and virtuous life.This lecture was given on October 24th, 2024, at Georgetown University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. is an adjunct professor of dogmatic theology at the Dominican House of Studies and an Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He is the author of a few books including Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly. His writing also appears in Ascension’s Catholic Classics, Magnificat, and Aleteia. He is a regular contributor to the podcasts Pints with Aquinas, Catholic Classics, The Thomistic Institute, and Godsplaining.Keywords: Courage, Daring, Emotions, Fear, Fortitude, Passions, St. Thomas Aquinas, Sensitive Appetite, Virtue

Professor Daniel De Haan explores the Thomistic debate surrounding the nature of the separated human soul after death, contrasting survivalism, corruptionism, and incompletionism to understand whether the soul retains personhood after death.This lecture was given on October 10th, 2024, at University of Edinburgh.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Daniel D. De Haan is the Frederick Copleston Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer in Philosophy and Theology in the Catholic Tradition at Campion Hall and Blackfriars at the University of Oxford. Before to coming to Oxford, De Haan was a postdoctoral fellow on the neuroscience strand of the Theology, Philosophy of Religion, and the Sciences project at the University of Cambridge. He has a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven and University of St Thomas in Texas. His research focuses on philosophical anthropology, hylomorphism and the sciences, moral psychology, philosophical theology, and the thought of Thomas Aquinas.Keywords: Corruptionism, Eschatology, Hylomorphism, Incompletionism, Joseph Ratzinger, Personhood, Separated Soul, Survivalism, Thomas Aquinas

Professor Jeffrey Brower explores Aquinas's view of human nature, contrasting it with materialism and substance dualism, focusing on the relationship between body and soul and what happens at death.This lecture was given on November 8th, 2023, at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Jeffrey E. Brower is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University, where he serves as the faculty advisor for the Thomistic Institute. He specializes in medieval philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophical theology and especially enjoys working at the intersection of all three areas. He is the author of Aquinas’s Ontology of the Material World: Change, Hylomorphism, and Material Objects (Oxford University Press, 2014) and a contributor to The Oxford Handbook on Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2012). His recent articles include “Aquinas on the Individuation of Substances,” Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy (2017) and “Aquinas on the Problem of Universals,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2016).Keywords: Aquinas, Cartesian Dualism, Death, Human Nature, Materialism, Naturalism, Soul, Substance Dualism, Trialism

Professor Brad Lewis discusses the concept of the common good in politics, contrasting contemporary Catholic social teaching with Aquinas's view and addressing criticisms of both.This lecture was given on October 1st, 2024, at Indiana University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Bradley Lewis is associate professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America. He specializes in political and legal philosophy, especially in classical Greek political thought and in the theory of natural law. He holds a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He has published scholarly articles in Polity, History of Political Thought, the Southern Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Communio, the Josephinum Journal of Theology, the Pepperdine Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, and the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, as well as chapters in a number of books. He is currently working on a book project provisionally titled The Common Good and the Modern State. He is also a fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology and serves as associate editor of the American Journal of Jurisprudence.Keywords: American Founding, Aristotle, Catholic Social Teaching, Common Good, Gaudium Et Spes, Hillary Clinton, Mater Et Magistra, Political Philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas

Fr. Stewart Clem examines the concept of boredom ("taedium vitae") through the lens of Thomistic moral theology, defining it, exploring its subjective and objective dimensions, and distinguishing it from related concepts like sloth (acedia).This lecture was given on September 7th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Dr. Clem's research interests include the thought of Thomas Aquinas, the Anglican intellectual tradition, virtue ethics, health care ethics, and the intersection of religion and morality. Before joining the faculty at Aquinas Institute, he was Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University. He is a priest in The Episcopal Church.Dr. Clem is a member of the Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Anglican Theological Review and The Living Church Foundation.Keywords: Acedia, Boredom, Emotions, Moral Theology, Passions, Sloth, Taedium Vitae, Virtue

Professor Timothy Pawl explores the seven deadly sins according to Thomistic tradition, outlining what they are, what makes them deadly, how they are often misunderstood, their subdivisions, traditional ordering, and how to avoid them.For a copy of the slide deck, click here.This lecture was given on September 19th, 2024, at Indiana University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Timothy J. Pawl is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and holds a Ph.D. from Saint Louis University in philosophy.  He specializes in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, Thomistic philosophy, analytic theology, and moral psychology. His books include In Defense of Conciliar Christology (Oxford, 2016), In Defense of Extended Conciliar Christology (Oxford, 2019), The Incarnation (Cambridge, 2020), and Jesus and the Genome: The Intersection of Christology and biology (Cambridge, 2024), co-authored with a philosopher of science and an evolutionary biologist. He has published more than forty academic articles in his areas of expertise and given more than 100 academic or popular-level talks or interviews about his work, including a series of interviews for the PBS show Closer to Truth.  He is the husband of another philosopher, Faith Glavey Pawl, and the proud father of one son and four daughters.Keywords: Avarice, Dante's Purgatory, Deadly Sins, Eleanor Stump, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Theology, Vice, Wrath

Prof. Michael Foley explores Saint Augustine's lifelong pursuit of self-knowledge, dividing it into intellectual, moral, and religious dimensions, each achieved through conversion and hindered by specific obstacles.This lecture was given on September 19th, 2024, at University of Tulsa.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Michael Foley is a Catholic theologian, a Professor of Patristics at Baylor University, and the author of over 400 articles and seventeen books, including the Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity, Drinking with the Saints, and Dining with the Saints. He can speak on a wide variety of topics touching upon Catholicism, culture, and liturgy.Keywords: Augustine, Conversion, Ethics, God, Intellectual Self-Knowledge, Moral Self-Knowledge, Philosophy, Plato, Religious Self-Knowledge, The Confessions

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy discusses the fragmentation of the modern secular university and proposes that integrating one's spiritual life on campus involves rediscovering the meaningfulness of being, while cautioning against the disintegrating approaches of fideism, scientism, and nihilism.This lecture was given on October 26th, 2024, at University of South Carolina.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, OP is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance and the use of metaphor in Scripture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy. Keywords: Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Fideism, Fragmentation, John Paul II, Nihilism, Reason, Scientism, Spiritual Life, Truth, University

Professor Michael Krom discusses Aquinas's approach to the moral life, emphasizing the pursuit of the good and the integration of faith, hope, and charity, while also addressing moral relativism and the importance of objective moral principles.This lecture was given on October 26th, 2024, at University of South Carolina.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Prof. Michael Krom started reading Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae shortly after his conversion at the end of college. Upon learning about Flannery O’Connor’s “hillbilly Thomist” habit of reading Aquinas every night, he started studying two articles a day and completed the Summa while in graduate school at Emory University. As a professor at Saint Vincent College, he saw the urgent need for collegians and seminarians to receive a solid foundation in Aquinas’s philosophical theology. In 2020, he published Justice and Charity: An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought (Baker Academic Press), and teaches a Thomistic philosophy course each fall. In addition to continuing work on the moral, economic, and political topics covered in the book, his current research is on the influence of monastic spirituality on Aquinas; he is working on a monograph tentatively entitled Aquinas Among the Benedictines.Keywords: Augustine, Beauty, Good, Moral Life, Moral Relativism, Natural Law, Objectivity, Prudence, Subjectivity, Truth

Professor Matthew Thomas examines the theology of St. Justin Martyr, arguing that Justin viewed Christianity as the culmination of both Greek philosophy and Jewish scripture, with Christ as the fulfillment of both.This lecture was given on January 24th, 2024, at University of California, Berkeley.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Matthew J. Thomas is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA, and an Instructor in Theology at Regent College, Vancouver. He holds a D.Phil in New Testament and Patristics from the University of Oxford, and is the author of Paul's 'Works of the Law' in the Perspective of Second-Century Reception (Mohr Siebeck, 2018; IVP, 2020), which received the Jesus Creed "Book of the Year" award for 2018. Matthew and his wife Leeanne live in the Bay Area with their children Camille, Raphael, Michael and Agnes, who are also aspiring theologians.Keywords: Apologetics, Dialogue With Trypho, Early Church Fathers, First Apology, Greek Philosophy, Judaism, Logos, Platonism, Saint Justin Martyr, Socrates

Professor William Carroll explores the philosophical and theological implications of cosmological claims about the beginning of the universe, emphasizing the distinction between creation and scientific explanations and cautioning against the "error of beginnings."This lecture was given on August 29th, 2024, at Brown University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Professor William E. Carroll has recently retired from research and teaching at the Aquinas Institute of Blackfriars in the University of Oxford.  For the past two years he has been a Visiting Professor at the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (Wuhan, China), and at the Hongyi Honor College of Wuhan University. He is a European intellectual historian and historian of science whose research and teaching concern: 1) the reception of Aristotelian science in mediaeval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and the development of the doctrine of creation, and 2) the encounter between Galileo and the Inquisition.  He has also written extensively on the ways in which mediaeval discussions of the relationship among the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology can be useful in contemporary questions arising from developments in biology and cosmology. He is the author of four books: Aquinas on Creation; La Creación y las Ciencias Naturales: Actualidad de Santo Tomás de Aquino; Galileo: Science and Faith; and Creation and Science (with translations in Slovak, Spanish, and Chinese).  His published work has appeared in 12 languages.Over many years he has written more than 25 op-ed pieces for Public Discourse, the web site of the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton.Keywords: Big Bang, Causality, Cosmology, Creation, Ex Nihilo, Hawking, Nothing, Quantum Mechanics, The Grand Design, Vilenkin

Professor Christopher Baglow critiques the conflict model of science and religion, tracing its origins to the late 19th century and arguing that the Catholic intellectual tradition offers a more harmonious approach by keeping faith and reason together and honoring the integrity of nature.This lecture was given on September 26th, 2024, at Brown University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Dr. Baglow is Professor of the Practice of Theology and the Director of the Science and Religion Initiative of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. His work is the culmination of 19 years of faith and science scholarship and educational program creation, as well as a lengthy career in Catholic theological education spanning high-school, undergraduate, graduate and seminary teaching. For this work, he was co-recipient of an Expanded Reason Award in Teaching from the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid) and the Vatican Joseph Ratzinger Foundation (Rome).Baglow is the author of Faith, Science and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (2nd edition, Midwest Theological Forum, 2019) and Creation: A Catholic’s Guide to God and the Universe (Ave Maria Press, 2021). He serves as theological advisor to the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists and as a contributor to the JTF-funded science and religion programming of the Word on Fire Institute. Most recently, he authored the transcripts for Wonder: The Harmony of Faith and Science, a Word on Fire film series directed by Manny Marquez and narrated by Jonathan Roumie. His work has appeared in That Man is You, Crux, Church Life Journal, Culture and Evangelization, and Joie de Vivre Quarterly Journal.Keywords: Andrew Dixon White, Catholicism, Conflict Thesis, Draper, Faith, History, John William Draper, Reason, Religion, Science

Professor Joshua Hochschild explores Aquinas's understanding of analogy in relation to divine simplicity, distinguishing between analogy as a likeness between things and analogy as a relation between the significations of terms, and argues that the former, rather than the latter, is more fundamental to addressing the challenges posed by divine simplicity.This lecture was given on May 31st, 2024, at Mount Saint Mary College.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.Keywords: Analogy, Aristotle, Divine Simplicity, Language, Meaning, Metaphysics, Proportionality, Semantics, Theology

Professor Joseph Trabbic explores the rationality of belief in God by first defining belief, distinguishing it from knowledge, and then examining what makes belief rational both subjectively and objectively, before finally addressing the nature of God according to Christian doctrine.This lecture was given on November 15th, 2024, at University of Georgia.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Dr. Trabbic is an associate professor of philosophy at Ave Maria University in Florida where he has taught since 2006. His areas of interest include metaphysics, moral philosophy, philosophy of religion, the relationship between religion and politics, Aquinas, Heidegger, and postmodern philosophy. He has published articles on these topics in various academic and popular journals.Keywords: Belief, Evidence, God, Knowledge, Nicene Creed, Objective Rationality, Reason, Subjective Rationality, Theology, Trinity

Professor Thomas Hibbs discusses the importance of beauty in contemporary culture, drawing upon Emily Dickinson, Charles Taylor, Iris Murdoch, and Jacques Maritain to explore how beauty can unself us, enhance our understanding of truth, and connect us to something transcendent.This lecture was given on September 12th, 2024, at University of Pittsburgh.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Thomas Hibbs is currently J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy at Baylor where he is also Dean Emeritus, having served for 16 years as the inaugural Dean of the Honors College.  At Baylor he was also the inaugural director of Baylor in Washington, D.C. where he currently runs a summer program on Religion and Social Life.   He has served as department chair at Boston College and as president of the University of Dallas.Hibbs has published more than thirty scholarly articles, the most recent of which is “Aquinas and Black Natural Law.” He has published eight books, the most recent of which is Theology of Creation: Ecology, Art, and Laudato Si’ (University of Notre Dame Press, 2023).  He has also published two books on film and philosophy and one book on art. He has published more than 100 reviews and discussion articles on film, theater, art, and higher education in a variety of venues including First Things, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Wall Street Journal, and National Review.  He writes regularly for The Dallas Morning News. Hibbs’ lectures have been protested by nihilists at Boston University and by communists in Palermo, Sicily.Keywords: Aesthetics, Anscombe, Beauty, Charles Taylor, Emily Dickinson, Iris Murdoch, Jacques Maritain, Maritain, Murdoch, Thomas Aquinas

Why do human beings desire knowledge? Why should YOU care about philosophy? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Therese Cory about the role of wonder in philosophy, the right temperament with which to approach philosophy, how philosophy educators can awaken the desire to understand in their students, how to create space for healthy discourse, and what the future of philosophical conversations could look like.You can watch this interview on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfCuyMjWa2Q.About the speaker:Therese Scarpelli Cory is the John and Jean Oesterle Associate Professor of Thomistic Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her work focuses on medieval theories of mind, cognition, and personhood, with special focus on the thought of Thomas Aquinas and his thirteenth-century interlocutors. She serves on the executive committee of the "Aquinas and the Arabs Project" and is also a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, appointed by Pope Francis in 2019.This project/publication was made possible through the support of Grant 63391 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.Keywords: Aristotle, Curiositas, Desire To Know, Intellect, Philosophy, Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Therese Cory, Wonder

This lecture was Fr. Philip Neri Reese explores truth and goodness in fantasy literature through a Thomistic lens, paying special attention to the difference between classical fantasy and the "grimdark" subgenre (epitomized by Game of Thrones).This lecture was given on November 2nd, 2024, at Thomistic Institute in Limerick.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Philip-Neri Reese, O.P. is a Dominican Friar of the Province of St. Joseph and a professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (the Angelicum), where he also serves as the assistant director of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. Though his scholarly research mainly focuses on metaphysics (especially the scholastic metaphysics of St. Thomas and his later interpreters), he has also published on ethics, economics, Christology, and philosophical anthropology.Keywords: Fantasy Literature, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, Glenn Cook, Goodness, Grimdark, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature Subgenres, Thomistic Philosophy, Truth

This lecture was given on October 22nd, 2024, at University of North Texas.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Thomas Hibbs is currently J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy at Baylor where he is also Dean Emeritus, having served for 16 years as the inaugural Dean of the Honors College.  At Baylor he was also the inaugural director of Baylor in Washington, D.C. where he currently runs a summer program on Religion and Social Life.   He has served as department chair at Boston College and as president of the University of Dallas.Hibbs has published more than thirty scholarly articles, the most recent of which is “Aquinas and Black Natural Law.” He has published eight books, the most recent of which is Theology of Creation: Ecology, Art, and Laudato Si’ (University of Notre Dame Press, 2023).  He has also published two books on film and philosophy and one book on art. He has published more than 100 reviews and discussion articles on film, theater, art, and higher education in a variety of venues including First Things, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Wall Street Journal, and National Review.  He writes regularly for The Dallas Morning News. Hibbs’ lectures have been protested by nihilists at Boston University and by communists in Palermo, Sicily.

This lecture was given on February 24th, 2024, at The Dominican House of Studies.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Michael Gorman is professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America. He has doctorates in philosophy and theology. He has authored over thirty academic papers and a book entitled Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union (Cambridge University Press, 2017). His main interests are metaphysics, human nature, and ethics.

This lecture was given on April 20th, 2024, St. Albert's Priory.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Raphael Mary Salzillo, O.P. is a Dominican friar of the Western Province. Originally from Oregon, he converted to the Catholic faith in high school. He went on to study applied physics for seven years before joining the Dominican Order. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2009, and was then sent by the Order to study philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. In 2019 he moved to Houston and now teaches philosophy at the University of St. Thomas.

This lecture was given on March 21st, 2024, at University of Virginia.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Kevin Hart is the Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Virginia. He has given the Gifford Lectures at Glasgow University (2019-23), the Gilson Lectures at the Institut Catholique de Paris (2019), and the Thomas Aquinas Lecture at the University of Dallas (2019). Among his many books are Kingdoms of God (Indiana UP, 2014) and Poetry and Revelation (Bloomsbury, 2017), Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation (Chicago UP, 2023) and Contemplation: The Movements of the Soul (Columbia UP, 2024). He is the editor of The Bible and Western Christian Literature, vol. 5 (T. and T. Clark, 2024).

This lecture was given on April 30th, 2024, at University of Oxford.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. (Dominican House of Studies) is from Pennsylvania and graduated from Franciscan University of Steubenville. He previously served as the Assistant Director of Campus Outreach for the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC, and associate pastor of St. Louis Bertrand Catholic Church in Louisville, KY where he also taught at Bellarmine University. He currently serves as an adjunct professor of dogmatic theology at the Dominican House of Studies and an Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He is a contributor on the Pints with Aquinas show and a co-host of the Catholic Classics podcast.Fr. Gregory is the author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly (Our Sunday Visitor, 2022) and co-author with Matt Fradd of Marian Consecration With Aquinas: A Nine Day Path for Growing Closer to the Mother of God (TAN Books, 2020).

This lecture was given on April 4th, 2024, at United States Military Academy.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Dominic Legge is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

This lecture was given on September 23rd, 2024, at University of Edinburgh.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Dominic Legge is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

This lecture was given on April 26th, 2024, at University of California, Berkeley.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Tomás Bogardus earned his BS in biology at UC San Diego, his MA in philosophy at Biola University, and his PhD in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He works mainly in metaphysics and epistemology, and is most interested in the mind-body problem, the rationality of religious belief, and the nature of gender.

This lecture was given on October 11th, 2024, at Thomistic Institute in New York City.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. Gabriel Torretta was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, the youngest of four children. He was raised Presbyterian and converted to Catholicism in high school. He attended Arizona State University, where he earned a B.A. in Japanese, after which he entered a PhD program at Columbia University in pre-modern Japanese literature. He joined the Dominicans after three years there, having earned an M.A. and an M.Phil. “I entered the Order of Preachers because of Dominicans I met at Columbia University, who showed me the face of Christ as I had never known Him; ever since then I have believed that God is calling me to do the same for others.”

This lecture was given on October 15th, 2024, at Mississippi State University.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker:Fr. John Mark Solitario is from St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in West Springfield, MA and the eldest of four children. After attending Catholic schools through high school, he earned his bachelor of arts from Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. Desiring to contribute to Catholic education, he was admitted to the PACT (Providence Alliance of Catholic Teachers) Program at Providence College where he completed a Masters of Education and taught high school in Lowell, MA for two years. He credits his growth in the Catholic Faith and inspiration to live it fully to outstanding teachers and role models, among them not a few Dominicans—priests, sisters, and lay. “From the time I met the Order, I aspired to the Dominican ideal of contemplation followed by a generous sharing of the fruits of that encounter with God. I have found this ideal realized and sustained within the fraternal life of the Province of St. Joseph.”

This lecture was given on October 9th, 2024, at Universidad Panamericana Campus Mixcoac.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Robert C. (“Rob”) Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, M. A. Oxford, Ph.D. UCLA. He is the author or co-author of five books, including The Atlas of Reality with Timothy H. Pickavance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017) and Is Thomas’s Aristotelian Philosophy of Nature Obsolete? (St. Augustine Press, 2022). He is the co-editor of four anthologies, including The Waning of Materialism (OUP, 2010) and Classical Theism (Routledge 2023).  He has been working recently on an Aristotelian interpretation of quantum theory, on defending and articulating hylomorphism in contemporary terms, and on interpreting and defending Thomas's Five Ways.

This lecture was given on April 11th, 2024, at University of North Texas.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Raymond Hain is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Humanities Program at Providence College in Providence, RI. Educated at Christendom College, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Oxford, he is the founder of the PC Humanities Forum and Humanities Reading Seminars and is responsible for the strategic development of the Humanities Program into a vibrant, world class center of teaching, research, and cultural life dedicated to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. His scholarly interests include the history of ethics (especially St. Thomas Aquinas), applied ethics (especially medical ethics and the ethics of architecture), Alexis de Tocqueville, and philosophy and literature (especially Catholic aesthetics). His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Templeton Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Charles Koch Foundation. His essays have appeared in various journals and collections including The Thomist, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and The Anthem Companion to Tocqueville. He is the editor of Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture and is currently working on a monograph titled The Lover and the Prophet: An Essay in Catholic Aesthetics. He joined Providence College in 2011 and lives just across the street with his wife Dominique and their five children.

This lecture was given on November 2nd, 2024, at St. Albert's Priority.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Dr. Heereman was born and raised in Germany. Originally trained to become a lawyer and after completing her bar exam, she experienced a deep encounter with the Lord which led her to consecrate her life to the study and teaching of the Word of God. She subsequently attended the ICPE school of Evangelization in India, Banglore, and studied theology in Frankfurt and Rome. She received an STB from the Pontifical Gregorian University, an SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the SSD from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and the Université de Fribourg. She has taught as a visiting professor at the Collège des Bernhardins in Paris, the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, the DSPT in Berkley, and is currently Associate Professor for Sacred Scripture at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University. Her scholarly interests include a reintegration of Exegesis with Systematic and Spiritual Theology. She is the author of Behold King Solomon on the Day of His Wedding (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), and Athirst for the Spirit (Steubenville: Emmaus Press, 2023).

Fr. Jordan Schmidt discusses the importance of embodying wisdom according to Proverbs and Sirach, emphasizing that wisdom is not an individual pursuit but a communal endeavor that involves sharing and disseminating wisdom within the community.This lecture was given on November 2nd, 2024, at St. Albert's Priority.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-eventsAbout the Speaker:Fr. Jordan Schmidt graduated with a BA in English and Philosophy from St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN in 2002. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2005 and after completing his theological studies (STL and Mdiv), he was ordained a priest in 2012. Fr. Jordan initially served as associate pastor of St Mary’s parish in New Haven, CT, and subsequently returned to the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC to pursue doctoral studies at CUA, ultimately earning his PhD in biblical studies in 2018. He is currently an assistant professor of Sacred Scripture at the PFIC where he teaches various Old Testament courses, including survey courses on the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Wisdom literature as well as seminar courses on biblical inspiration, eschatology and apocalyptic literature, theological history, and creation theology.

Father Jordan Schmidt discusses the concept of wisdom in Catholic theology, focusing on its definition, its relationship to knowledge, and how it can be acquired and exercised through the study of scripture, particularly wisdom literature in the Bible.This lecture was given on November 1st, 2024, at St. Albert's Priority.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Fr. Jordan Schmidt graduated with a BA in English and Philosophy from St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN in 2002.  He entered the Order of Preachers in 2005 and after completing his theological studies (STL and Mdiv), he was ordained a priest in 2012. Fr. Jordan initially served as associate pastor of St Mary’s parish in New Haven, CT,  and subsequently returned to the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC to pursue doctoral studies at CUA, ultimately earning his PhD in biblical studies in 2018.  He is currently an assistant professor of Sacred Scripture at the PFIC where he teaches various Old Testament courses, including survey courses on the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Wisdom literature as well as seminar courses on biblical inspiration, eschatology and apocalyptic literature, theological history, and creation theology. 

Professor Nina Sophie Heereman explores the tradition of using wisdom texts, such as Proverbs 8 and Sirach 24, in Marian devotion, tracing this practice back to the patristic age. She argues that these texts, which describe wisdom as a pre-existent figure closely associated with God, are applied to Mary because she is seen as embodying the virtues and attributes of divine wisdom.This lecture was given on November 2nd, 2024, at St. Albert's Priority.For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.About the Speaker: Dr. Heereman was born and raised in Germany. Originally trained to become a lawyer and after completing her bar exam, she experienced a deep encounter with the Lord which led her to consecrate her life to the study and teaching of the Word of God. She subsequently attended the ICPE school of Evangelization in India, Banglore, and studied theology in Frankfurt and Rome.  She received an STB from the Pontifical Gregorian University, an SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the SSD from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and the Université de Fribourg. She has taught as a visiting professor at the Collège des Bernhardins in Paris, the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, the DSPT in Berkley, and is currently Associate Professor for Sacred Scripture at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University. Her scholarly interests include a reintegration of Exegesis with Systematic and Spiritual Theology. She is the author of Behold King Solomon on the Day of His Wedding (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), and Athirst for the Spirit (Steubenville: Emmaus Press, 2023).