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For the past 10 years, the Lumen Christi Institute’s summer programming has become a gold-standard for intensive doctoral seminars. These week-long summer seminars for graduate students are designed to help improve the pipeline of future higher education by providing students from top research universities with a rich engagement with texts from the Catholic intellectual tradition. Each seminar is led by a senior scholar and provides important fellowship opportunities for students who often feel isolated at their own institutions. For the past several years, our summer programming has included seminars in Oxford on Saint John Henry Newman led by Fr. Ian Ker; in Rome and Chicago on Saint Thomas Aquinas led by Fr. Stephen Brock; at Notre Dame, Rome, and Jerusalem on Economics and Catholic Social Thought led by a team that includes Joseph Kaboski and Martijn Cremers, and in Berkeley on Catholic Social Thought led by Russell Hittinger. Students frequently identify these seminars as highlights of their academic career and often apply again to different seminars. This past summer, the Lumen Christi Institute dramatically expanded its summer offerings, moving from four to nine seminars, including two new seminars open to undergraduate students.
The Thought of René Girard
This summer, for the first time, the Lumen Christi Institute held a seminar for graduate students on one of the most influential 20th century Catholic thinkers, René Girard. Held at the picturesque Premonstratensian Abbey of Saint-Michel de Frigolet near Avignon, France—Girard’s birthplace—the seminar brought in fifteen students for a week of seminar discussions and fellowship. The seminar was led by Grant Kaplan, Professor of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University, and Wolfgang Palaver, Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the University of Innsbruck. Through an intensive reading of his major works of literary analysis, religious anthropology, and Biblical exegesis, the five-day seminar explored Girard’s key insights into the imitation of desire, conflict, and scapegoating, connecting them to central themes of Christian theology. Students were also able to participate in the abbey’s singing of the office.
Chelsea King, a doctoral student in Theology at Notre Dame and participant in the seminar, said that “This was one of the best experiences I have had as a student. I found that the syllabus was structured well, and I really appreciated studying Girard’s thought from a variety of angles. It was great to have such diverse fields represented in the group and made for a great discussion. There was never a dull moment! I also couldn’t believe how delicious the food was, and how hospitable the monks at the Abby were. I also found that it was a good balance between social activities and academic work. It was great that we had a chance to establish community and friendship outside of the context of a formal seminar. Overall, this was fantastic; an experience I will always remember.”
It was great that we had a chance to establish community and friendship outside of the context of a formal seminar. Overall, this was fantastic; an experience I will always remember.”
Business & Catholic Social Thought: A Primer
This summer, the Lumen Christi Institute hosted its fourth annual summer seminar titled “Economics and Catholic Social Thought: A Primer.” This seminar is designed as an introduction and immersion into Catholic social thought for graduate students and junior faculty in economics, finance, or related fields. Following the success of this seminar, two of its leaders, Martijn Cremers and Fr. Martin Schlag, asked Lumen Christi to help coordinate a similar seminar designed expressly and exclusively for doctoral students and faculty in the field of business. Led by Schlag, Cremers, Andreas Widmer, and Lloyd Sandelands, “Business and Catholic Social Thought: A Primer” convened for the first time, at the University of Notre Dame, from June 2 to 5.
Guided by leading scholars of business and Catholic social teaching, the seminar gathered 20 faculty and students from fields ranging from business ethics to accounting for ten sessions of lectures, presentations, and discussion at the Mendoza College of Business. Sessions were designed by the seminar faculty to widen epistemological preconceptions and show practical implications of Catholic social teaching for business in a way that affirms the goodness of business directed toward the common good. Multiple institutions came together to coordinate this seminar: the John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought at the University of St. Thomas (MN); the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame; the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at the Catholic University of America; the Lumen Christi Institute; and the Markets, Culture and Ethics Research Centre at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome. A second seminar will be held again at Notre Dame in the summer of 2020.
Modern Science and Catholic Faith: Graduate and Undergraduate seminars
A grant received this past year from the John Templeton Foundation has dramatically extended the Lumen Christi Institute’s programming in Science and Religion. This summer, for the first time, the Lumen Christi Institute held two seminars for students in STEM fields, Philosophy, and Theology, on “Modern Science and Catholic Faith,” one for graduate students, and a second one aimed at undergraduates. The graduate seminar was led by microbiologist, Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. and physicist and president of Society of Catholic Scientists, Stephen Barr. It took place at Providence College, in Rhode Island, and brought in seventeen students for a week of seminar discussions and fellowship. The undergraduate seminar was also led by Barr, along with theologian Chris Baglow, and took place at the Saint Joseph Abbey and Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana. Both seminars provided participants with the background knowledge and conceptual tools necessary to understand and think clearly about the tensions between and integration of science and faith.
Providence Seminar participant and Graduate student in Psychology at the University of Toronto Vanessa Chan said that she “found the seminar very informative and provided a solid framework for understanding not only philosophical foundations, but also the perspectives from which secular thinkers are approaching the same questions. It was a lot of fun for someone who hasn’t had much philosophy background, and to be able to share in the viewpoints that scientists, philosophers, and theologians brought to the table. The week was intellectually, spiritually, and socially edifying, and I don’t normally get all three at once, so it was great”.
Monastic Wisdom Seminar
Last June, the Lumen Christi Institute held a seminar for undergraduate and graduate students in various disciplines on the tradition of monastic wisdom, discipline, and theological reflection. Hosted in partnership with the community of Trappist monks living at New Melleray Abbey, the seminar brought twelve male students to Iowa for a week of seminar discussions, communal prayer, fellowship, and manual labor on the Abbey’s grounds. As such, the seminar introduced students not only to the monastic wisdom tradition as it can be encountered in classic works of spirituality and devotion, but also to that tradition as a living and shared patrimony appropriated communally and liturgically.
The seminar was led by the monks of New Melleray, including New Melleray’s Abbot, Fr. Mark Scott, OSCO. Students read works by St. Benedict of Nursia—founder of western monasticism and the patron saint of Europe—St. John Cassian, St. Athanasius, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. They also prayed communally with the monks, participating in the prayerful rhythm of monastic life cadenced by the divine office, which the monks gather together seven times daily to pray.
Charles Ducey, PhD student in German at the University of Chicago (and currently a postulant with the Congregation of the Holy Cross), said “I greatly appreciated the chance to attend the monastic wisdom study retreat at New Melleray. I didn’t imagine that I would be able to wake up at 3:15 each morning for vigil prayer, but all of the participants managed to rise for the start of the divine office every day during the retreat. The time with the monks was invaluable—they are very wise and holy men. In addition to the seminar meetings that they led, several of the monks, including the abbot, also joined us for dinner on several occasions and shared about their vocations. Brother Juan Diego, a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, spoke with great conviction about his call to the monastery and gave me some advice about my own spiritual discernment. I speak for all the participants in saying that Lumen Christi ought to repeat and expand seminars of this kind next summer”.
Future Seminars
Over the last 10 years, the Lumen Christi Institute’s summer seminars have become a gold-standard for graduate-level summer programming. These latest expansions have allowed the Institute to not only increase the breadth of our offerings, but to also make them available to undergraduate students. We are actively fundraising to support our existing primary seminars, and to continue making available new offerings. Plans for future seminars include a program in the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, in Ireland, that brings together undergraduate and recent graduates from America and Ireland; a monastic wisdom seminar for women taking place at a Benedictine monastery; a seminar for African American college students that bring in dialogue the African American and Catholic intellectual traditions; and large “democratic seminars” in Chicago and Paris open to all qualified doctoral students, featuring our top senior scholars, on topics like the mystical theology tradition.
In a late April episode of his popular Word on Fire podcast, Bishop Robert Barron, a founding board member of the Lumen Christi Institute, discussed a then-recent New York Times op-ed article in which a philosophy professor argued for the non-existence of God. Toward the end of the episode, titled “A God Problem in The New York Times,” Barron is asked by his host whether he thinks Catholic college students would be equipped to challenge arguments against the faith made in the classroom by professors and peers.
Barron replied that his nephew, an undergraduate student at MIT, had recently shared with him that he felt completely prepared to take upper-level courses in mathematics on account of his high-school formation in the subject. That remark caused Barron to question whether Catholic high schools are preparing their students to deal with attacks against the faith in College. He concluded that the “vast majority” of such students would not be able to rebut the sort of argument aired in the Times. Many Catholic high schools “seem not to care,” Barron opined, about preparing students to understand at the highest level what is most important: the faith. “I think it’s a disaster, pastorally,” he lamented.
Austin Walker, a University of Chicago doctoral candidate and 8th grade religion teacher at St. Vincent Ferrer who works with the Lumen Christi Institute, was through his teaching and Confirmation preparation courses beginning to see the same need.
The problem, Walker believed, was that very little catechetical and intellectual instruction was available for Catholic students at Chicagoland public schools and even, to some degree, at Catholic schools, between their Confirmation and their college matriculation. Yet these are the years during which many students begin to critically search their faith, he noted, examining its cogency and questioning its compatibility with science and the worldview of many of their peers.
Archdiocese of Chicago COO Betsy Bohlen, whose daughter was entering high school, had arrived at the same conclusion. In late 2018 she spoke with Lumen Christi executive director Thomas Levergood about providing formation to Chicagoland Catholic high-school students. Levergood tapped Walker to take the planning lead. Walker began collaborating with Fr. Tim Monahan, Director of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Vocations Office, and other Archdiocesan personnel. The fruit of their collaboration is the newly christened Lumen Christi Institute Newman Forum.
The goal of the Newman Forum is to introduce Catholic high-school students to the Catholic vision of intellectual life, culture, and liturgy, and to foster community among Catholic students. It aims to show them that the Catholic faith is a distinctive intellectual, humanistic, and liturgical way of living. Participants will attend Mass together, receive classic works of theology and philosophy when they attend events, and learn how to better discern their personal vocations.
“this is the sort of event I wish had existed when I was a high-schooler…this program exists because there is no reason for the Church to cede the intellectual formation of its high-schoolers to a secular culture.”
Although in the early stages of its formation, Lumen Christi aspires to implement the Newman Forum in three phases. Initially Lumen Christi will sponsor three annual events for students: two daylong conferences and one multi-day summer seminar. The first daylong conference launched on February 23 of this year.
Titled “Science, Creation, and the Catholic Imagination,” it brought together 80 students from 24 schools and four states, along with two dozen parents, teachers, and chaperones, at the University of Chicago. It was cosponsored by the Archdiocese of Chicago Vocations Office, the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, Saint Ignatius College Prep, Fenwick High School, Northridge Preparatory School, and Relevant Radio. Sister Mary Elizabeth of Saint Ignatius opened the day with a meditation and prayer. After a brief welcome by Walker, students were treated to a trio of presentations by leading scholars.
Meghan Sullivan, the Rev. John A. O’Brien Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame, delivered an engaging interactive presentation on “Faith and Reason.” She invited students to consider the responsibility they have for shaping their beliefs, how to determine what makes life meaningful, and how to think about faith’s rational basis.
Father John Kartje, Rector of Mundelein Seminary and a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Chicago, presented on “Creation and Cosmology.” He explained scientific perspectives on the origin of the cosmos and invited students to cultivate a more sophisticated understanding of what science is and what its conclusions are, especially on matters that intersect Catholic doctrine on creation and the material order.
The final presentation was delivered by Michael Murphy, Director of Catholic Studies and Director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, both at Loyola University of Chicago, who spoke on “The Catholic Imagination.”
Following Fr. Kartje’s presentation, students broke up into small discussion groups on the first two presentations. These were led by University of Chicago graduate students whom Walker had selected. Students then embarked upon a scavenger hunt on campus, with a copy of works of the 20th century British journalist and writer G.K. Chesterton going to the winners. The day concluded with a second discussion group on C.S. Lewis’ classic work The Screwtape Letters, which the students had located on the hunt.
Walker visited various classrooms during the discussion groups and heard conversations on evolution, on liturgical beauty, on how God’s existence can be known, and on whether aliens would need baptism. A Mass celebrated by Fr. Monahan in Swift Hall’s Bond Chapel and a pizza dinner concluded the day. Additionally, parents and chaperones were invited to attend either a lunchtime presentation by the McGrath Institute for Church’s Life’s Christopher Baglow, Director of the Science & Religion Initiative, who spoke about Catholic higher education, or to a discussion session led by Sr. Mary Elizabeth that would tackle topics raised in the presentations.
Students who filled out a post-event survey administered by Lumen Christi stated that the conference helped them understand the compatibility of faith and reason, the harmony between faith and science, and helped them appreciate how Catholic thought can inform secular debates.
Walker said of “Science, Creation, and the Catholic Imagination: “this is the sort of event I wish had existed when I was a high-schooler.” Of the Newman Forum he said: “this program exists because there is no reason for the Church to cede the intellectual formation of its high-schoolers to a secular culture.”
Though not widely celebrated today in the American Church, the feast of Candlemas is a longstanding part of the Church’s rich liturgical tradition. Candlemas, or the Presentation of the Lord, occurs 40 days after Christmas day and commemorates Mary’s visitation to the temple in Jerusalem (recounted in chapter 2 of Luke’s Gospel) in fulfillment of the Mosaic law’s prescriptions for new mothers and firstborn children. This winter the Lumen Christi Institute partnered with Calvert House Catholic Center to host a Mass for Candlemas and the symposium “Sacred Music in Context and Practice.”
The Mass and symposium honored the memory of Fr. Willard Jabusch (1930 – 2018), former chaplain of Calvert House and priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Thomas Levergood, executive director of the Lumen Christi Institute, recalled Jabusch’s influence on Lumen Christi’s early years.
“Fr. Jabusch help initiate the formation of the Lumen Christi Institute during his tenure as chaplain when he asked Catholic scholars to figure out how the Church could ‘do something intellectual’ on campus and present the Catholic tradition of faith and culture in its full integrity,” Levergood said. “His consistent support of the Lumen Christi Institute was essential to its existence and early success.”
Fr. Peter Funk, OSB—a graduate of the University of Chicago and prior of Bridgeport’s Monastery of the Holy Cross—led a chanted liturgical procession from the atrium of Swift Hall, home of the university’s Divinity School, into nearby Bond Chapel, where he celebrated Mass. Candles were lit for the procession and the Mass; this tradition originated in the early Church on account of Simeon’s proclamation during the presentation in the temple that the newborn Jesus would be “a light to reveal [God] to the nations” (Lk 2:32).
The procession and Mass were chanted by Schola Antiqua of Chicago, a professional vocal ensemble dedicated to western liturgical chant and polyphonic music before the year 1600 and, since 2008, artists-in-residence of the Lumen Christi Institute.
The symposium followed a post-Mass breakfast in Swift Hall’s Common Room and drew 80 audience members to hear the thoughts of scholars and practitioners of sacred music. Michael Anderson, Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music and director of Schola Antiqua, introduced the speakers and moderated the discussion. First to speak was Margot Fassler, the Keough-Hesburgh Director of the Program of Sacred Music and Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Notre Dame. Fassler displayed images of medieval celebrations of Candlemas and explained the historical roots and iconography of the feast.
Next to speak was Robert Kendrick, the William Colvin Professor in Music, Romance Languages and Literatures, and the College at the University of Chicago. Kendrick discussed devotional meanings of the feast and explained the chants sung by Schola Antiqua during the Mass that morning.
Peter Jeffery, the Michael P. Grace Chair in Medieval Studies and Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Notre Dame, spoke about how Notre Dame’s sacred music program prepares its students for lives in ministry in light of the Church’s history of sacred music.
Finally, Fr. Funk discussed the role of sacred music in modern practice from his monastic perspective and his experience of the sacred through music.
Video, audio, and photos of the symposium are available at the event webpage.
