The Lumen Christi Institute’s West Suburban Catholic Culture Series returns in 2023 with a monthly series on the theme of “A Catholic Vision of the Person and the World.” REGISTER HERE
THEME | In a 1965 address to the United Nations General Assembly, Pope Paul VI described the Catholic Church as “an expert in humanity.” The Church could teach the U.N. because the Church understood human hearts and human institutions. Bishop Robert Barron has explained the pope’s words in the following manner:
“The Church has two thousand years of watching the human condition unfold – two thousand years of saints and sinners, two thousand years of confessions, two thousand years of great artists, mystics, and scholars. The Church is an expert in humanity. It understands the human heart, what gives it joy and how it get off the rails. That’s something the Church brings to the wider world, this great expertise in humanity.” – Bishop Robert Barron
A Catholic vision of the world is not cramped or cordoned-off, with “religion” over here and the vast secular world over there. For humans to be made “in the image of God,” all creation—all activities and acts—must look in some way back to its Creator. The 2022-2023 West Suburban Catholic Culture Series will explore The Catholic Vision of the Person and the World.
Each month, participants will gather at Ruth Lake Country Club. Over dinner, they will listen to a sophisticated yet accessible lecture offered by accomplished academics. The lectures will introduce insights from the treasure house of the Church’s intellectual tradition and their bearing on contemporary themes and issues, presenting faithful Catholic teaching in a way that avoids the acrimony of the culture wars.
Coming May 10: Gender in the Catholic Cosmos
Abigail Favale (Writer and Professor at the McGrath Institute for Church Life; University of Notre Dame)
What is “gender” when viewed from within the Catholic cosmos? How does this understanding of gender compare with the popular theories of our time? In this talk, Dr. Favale will elucidate the Catholic perspective and show its consonance and dissonance with contemporary gender theory.
SPRING 2023 SEMESTER SCHEDULE
6:30 p.m. cocktails | 7:00 p.m. dinner, lecture, & Q&A | 8:30 p.m. end
March 15: Persons, Divine, Created and Artificial: Living Humanely with Sociable AI
Jordan Wales (Associate Professor and Chair of Theology; Hillsdale College)
April 12: “Everything Will Live Where the River Goes” (Ez 47:9): A Catholic Vision of Ecology
Rev. Terrence Ehrman, CSC (Assistant Professor, Department of Theology; University of Notre Dame)
May 10: Gender in the Catholic Cosmos
Abigail Favale (Writer and Professor at the McGrath Institute for Church Life; University of Notre Dame)
FALL 2022 SEMESTER SCHEDULE
6:30 p.m. cocktails | 7:00 p.m. dinner, lecture, & Q&A | 8:30 p.m. end
SEP 14: Theological Anthropology: Man and Woman in the image of God
Fr. Thomas Loya, S.T.B, M.A. (Director of the Tabor Life Institute; Pastor of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church)
OCT 5: Rerum Novarum and New Approaches to Old Things: The Tradition of Catholic Social Thought
John Buchmann, Ph.D. (Director of Development, Lumen Christi Institute and Former Executive Director of the Beatrice Institute & Theologian in Residence at the Collegium Institute)
NOV 2: Doing Evil that Good May Come? Catholic Teaching on Justice in War
John Schwenkler (Humboldt Fellow, University of Leipzig; Institute for Advanced Study, Notre Dame; Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University)