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We sat down with for an interview with Peter Casarella, professor of theology at Duke Divinity School and longtime friend of the Lumen Christi Institute.  Casarella has been involved with the Lumen Christi Institute (LCI) since its founding over twenty-five years ago. We asked him more about LCI’s history, as well as where thinks institutes for Catholic thought at non-Catholic universities need to go in the future.

LCI: You’ve been involved with the Lumen Christi Institute for a long time. What’s the history of your involvement with LCI?

PC: I first became involved in the early stages when I helped Thomas Levergood organize a panel on theology that included Cardinal George and David Tracy. I think that event took place almost twenty-five years ago. After that I consulted with Thomas, and he consulted with me about events, figures, and ideas. From 2007-2013 I taught at DePaul University in Chicago while living in Hyde Park and had more opportunities to attend events sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute (LCI). In sum, LCI has had a big influence on me both as an organizer of events (especially when the pivot to on-line events took place during COVID) and as a participant. During all those diverse activities, I never lost sight of the fact that Thomas and Paul Griffiths began Lumen Christi with a simple invitation to graduate students at the Divinity School to participate in the liturgy of the hours. At its core, LCI is a fellowship that includes equal measures of friendship, intellectual debate, and prayer.

LCI: Why did you found Fons Vitae and how has LCI’s model of a Catholic intellectual institute served as an inspiration?

PC: I came to Duke in 2020 and began shortly after that to discuss the idea with Reinhard Hütter since he lives in Durham and likes to take long walks. About two weeks before Thomas passed, I told him that Reinhard and I were drafting a vision statement for a Catholic institute at Duke modeled on LCI. He was very pleased. Reinhard, Janet Martin Soskice (the Warren Chair in Catholic Theology at Duke Divinity), and Edgardo Colón-Emeric, the Dean of Duke Divinity, saw the need to build up Catholic intellectual life at this historically Methodist institution. Most students who come to Duke are either STEM or trying hard to incorporate some aspect of STEM into their curriculum. In this context there is a burning need to counter technocratic narrowness with genuine wisdom about human persons and the cosmos while still fostering a scientifically-grounded, open-ended, and broadly humanistic dialogue between religion and science.

Our first summer seminar was made possible through the generosity of the In Lumine network. We focused on Engineering because it is a common discipline for Duke students and because we were fortunate to be able to work with Sr. Damien Marie Savino, F.S.E. as the co-instructor. We learned a lot, shared daily Mass, shoveled manure on a farm, and cooked and shared a meal on the last night. It was an amazing experience. 

LCI: What are significant accomplishments in the founding of Fons Vitae, and where do you see the institute going in the future?

PC: Troy Kassien, program coordinator for Fons Vitae, came to us from the Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. He has lots of experience at what we are doing and has been a real gift. My colleagues at Duke and Duke Divinity have also offered their encouragement. We hope to launch a Certificate in Catholic Studies for Duke Divinity students in the fall of 2024.

This coming semester will be busy. We will host a short non-credit, virtual seminar on Newman’s Idea of a University, reading groups on Augustine’s Confessions and Hirschfeld’s Aquinas and the Market, a webinar on global food scarcity, and a screening of The Shroud: Face to Face with a conversation with the Director. Andrew Davison, a scientist/theologian from Cambridge University, will also visit to speak about extraterrestrials and theology. Thomas Pfau is a hosting a major symposium on European Theology and Poetry since 1800, and we are working with the Theology, Medicine, and Culture initiative at Duke Divinity to co-host Daniel Sulmasy, MD from Georgetown University. 

In five years, I would like to see us reach a larger audience with events that speak to the presence of the Church in the local region and in the global South of Roman Catholicism. While still working with In Lumine and its partners, I would also like to partner with Catholic institutions in the South of the U.S. like Belmont Abbey University and the Catholic Studies program at Emory because Catholic education in this part of the country, where Catholicism is still growing, needs vital support and basic intellectual nourishment. We have untapped resources here at Duke, not just in myriad technical fields, but also in the arts, in ecumenism, and in interreligious dialogue. As we bring in new supporters and friends, we would love to offer more programs that serve these diverse communities and partners.

LCI: Where do you think institutes for Catholic thought at non-catholic universities need to go next? What’s the future? What roles do you see these institutes playing for the secular academy and/ or for the Church? 

PC: There have been radical changes on college campuses in the last fifty years but some of the needs for young people have not and will not change. The original vision of the Newman Centers for the United States was in some ways very close to the humanistic vision of Cardinal Newman himself, as he articulated that vision in his The Idea of a University. After the Second Vatican Council, a more pastoral focus dominated, which led to getting lay Catholics on campus more involved in liturgy, music ministry, retreats, and small groups. The intellectual component unfortunately got shunted to the side. Those developments were in some ways necessary and reflect the growing pains of the U.S. Catholic Church right after the Council. The reaction to that has been new efforts that focus more on apologetics, discernment of a vocation, and the much neglected ground floor of faith formation. FOCUS, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Word on Fire, and many other digital platforms now occupy this new space that were completely absent when I was in college. The face of the U.S. Catholic Church is also more diverse than it was immediately after the Council, and the challenges that we face are greater and more threatening. Non-Catholic universities still need a strong, pastorally-oriented, and hospitable chaplaincy. A Catholic Institute is never a substitute for that. But they also need an intellectual component that goes beyond an occasional lecturer coming from the outside. Fons Vitae is tethering faculty, staff, and students from diverse disciplines to a common vision that promotes within the Duke community the intellectual traditions found in Catholicism while also engaging burning contemporary issues like the ethics of Artificial Intelligence and the War in Israel and Gaza. 

LCI: You have an interesting journey. You were trained at Yale University, taught at a Catholic University (University of Notre Dame) for years, and now you’ve returned to the secular university, at Duke. Who are some of the mentors and scholars who have inspired your founding Fons Vitae?

PC: I was blessed in college to have mentors like Louis Dupré, Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, Karsten Harries, John Smith, Kathryn Tanner, and Jaroslav Pelikan. I took courses in the Department of Philosophy that introduced me to Plato, Descartes, Kant, existentialism, and poststructuralism. I never thought that Catholicism suffered when it was subjected to critique by secular or nihilistic streams of thought. In fact, my Catholicism eventually came out stronger and more luminous after it passed through these dark nights. 

The Lumen Christi Institute is pleased to share the Annual Report for its 2022 – 2023 fiscal year.  

Read the 2023 Annual Report here. 

Thank you once again to all the generous supporters and organizational partners who have played a crucial role in making these life-changing programs possible. If you would like to make a gift to support our work, you can donate here. 

Seeking Graduate Reading Groups for the Winter Quarter

The University of Chicago is famous for its graduate student reading groups, in which students pursue their own intellectual interests among friends in an informal setting. The Lumen Christi Institute supports this endeavor by sponsoring a number of graduate student reading groups each quarter. LCI provides space, hospitality, and books. The Institute also provides a modest stipend for the graduate student who leads and organizes the group. 

Reading groups cover the whole spectrum of ideas. Texts do not need to be explicitly Catholic, though we follow St. Paul’s injunction to attend to whatever is true, noble, right, admirable, and lovely (Phil 4:8). Groups must follow LCI’s guiding principles, which may be found below.

Previous groups have studied and discussed:

• Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana

• Early Modern Utopias

• A Confederacy of Dunces

• Medieval Romances

• The Book of Genesis

• The short stories of Leo Tolstoy

• The stories of Franz Kafka

If you are interested in leading a reading group, please write a description (maximum of 300 words) of what you would like to read, your vision for the group (why you chose the work, ideal format and time slot) and how it fits the mission of the Lumen Christi Institute.

Our best practices guide may be an aid to you as you think about your prospective group.

Guiding Principles

Program proposals should…

• Affirm the intellectual life as good in itself

• Ask questions animated by the principle that “all knowledge forms one whole”

• Transcend the ideological / political divide (i.e., programs should not be partisan in nature)

• Welcome religious perspectives as part of the intellectual life (i.e., programs need not be theological in nature but conversations should be open to religious insights) 

• Nurture friendships, to support the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness (i.e., programs should have a social component)

Send an email to dstrobach@lumenchristi.org, cc’ing awalker@lumenchristi.org with your proposal.

Announcing the Nicklin Fellows Program for Undergraduates 

The Nicklin Fellows are the recipients of a competitive, application based fellowship for  undergraduate students. Nicklin Fellows are granted exclusive access to research and development grant funds to pursue their intellectual interests. Grants can be used to pursue projects like the following:

• Organize a reading group
• Bring a speaker to campus
• Organize a movie night
• Develop and plan future Fundamental Questions seminars
• Write a paper for a journal
• And more

The purpose of the Nicklin Fellows is to support undergraduate students in the pursuit of their personal academic & intellectual interests, especially those related to existential questions of being. The Nicklin Fellowship cultivates robust intellectual friendships rooted in a common love of truth, beauty, and goodness.  Student projects should adhere to the guiding principles (see below) of the Lumen Christi Institute.

Nicklin Fellow Prerequisites

• attend three sessions of a Fundamental Questions seminar in Fall 2023
• attend one other Lumen Christi event per academic year
• be an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago

Nicklin Fellows Application Process

Send an email to dstrobach@lumenchristi.org, cc’ing awalker@lumenchristi.org. Include a one-page cover letter that explains:

• Who you are
• What LCI programs you have attended
• Why you want to become a Nicklin Fellow

Also include a CV/resume, and responses to the following questions (a maximum of 150 words per response):

• Which Fundamental Questions seminar did you attend? What did you get out of it?
• What do you think is worth thinking about?
• Give us a couple ideas for how you might spend your Nicklin fellowship money. (This is not a test, nor are you obliged to use these ideas when you receive your fellowship). Please remember to calibrate these suggestions to the guiding principles of the Lumen Christi Institute. 

Applications should be submitted by the end of the day on December 15th.

Guiding Principles

Program proposals should…

• Affirm the intellectual life as good in itself

• Ask questions animated by the principle that “all knowledge forms one whole”

• Transcend the ideological / political divide (i.e., programs should not be partisan in nature)

• Welcome religious perspectives as part of the intellectual life (i.e., programs need not be theological in nature but conversations should be open to religious insights) 

• Nurture friendships, to support the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness (i.e., programs should have a social component)