Lumen Christi Institute receives $3.65M from John Templeton Foundation
Grant to fund national network of Catholic institutes, science and religion programming
CHICAGO — The Lumen Christi Institute has been awarded $3,648,000 from the John Templeton Foundation in support of its new three-year project that will create the first-ever national network of independent institutes of Catholic thought, located at some of the country’s top universities.
The project is called “In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide.” The grant was announced Feb. 1.
The In Lumine Network will include six initial members:
- Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago
- Nova Forum at the University of Southern California
- Collegium Institute at the University of Pennsylvania
- Saint Anselm Institute at the University of Virginia
- COLLIS at Cornell University
- Harvard Catholic Forum at Harvard University.
In Lumine will provide members with resources to grow their institutes organizationally and sustainably, as well as to develop programming and on-campus activities, focused specifically on the relationship between science and religion. The network will expand to welcome new members, including ecumenical partners, after its first year.
“The In Lumine Network sets a place at the table of the secular academy for the Catholic intellectual tradition,” says Michael Le Chevallier, acting Executive Director of the Lumen Christi Institute. “It will help established and nascent institutes for Catholic thought to scale up, deepen their engagement around faith and reason, share ideas, build on the successes of others, and amplify impact.
“Greater than the sum of its parts, In Lumine will provide enduring bonds of collaboration between institutes that will extend well past the duration of this grant,” adds Le Chevallier, who is a project lead on the grant, along with his colleague Peter Tierney.
David Albertson, director of the Nova Forum, notes the new grant will assist in opening up new dialogues between faith and the life sciences, social science, medicine and engineering on the USC campus.
Deacon Tim O’Donnell, program director of the Harvard Catholic Forum, says the grant will allow his institute to “enter with confidence into a new phase of growth, expanding our impact on present and future leaders in science, scholarship and the professions.”
For more information or media inquiries: Peter Tierney, project co-director of the In Lumine Project, inlumine@lumenchristi.org (773) 955-5887