News & Media

From 2012 to 2020, Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ delivered hundreds of lectures and master classes at the Lumen Christi Institute. Seeking to share the depth of his scholarship, this podcast offers many of his lectures (edited for coherence and quality) to the public in digital format for the first time. The first season will feature a course that Fr. Mankowski gave on Joseph Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth and dozens of lectures centered around the books of the Bible (including Genesis, many of the prophets, the Gospel of Matthew, and St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans). Episodes will be released on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from September through December. To conclude the season, we’ll offer one or two interviews with people who knew Fr. Mankowski well and can offer an entry point to his person and scholarship.

Media
March 27, 2025

Polarization, Social Cohesion, and the Economy

With polarization on the rise around the globe, scholars have pointed to a broader fragmentation of social cohesion. Economics, sociology, theology and philosophy offer different entry points for exploring these problems. How might we better understand this global moment? This
A Catholic Vision of Culture in the 21st Century | West Suburban Catholic Culture Series
Media
March 20, 2025

A Philosophy of Work, Leisure, and Catholic Culture – A Catholic Vision of Culture in the 21st Century | West Suburban Catholic Culture Series

In his well-known and influential essay, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper claims that we in modern western society have come to inhabit a “world of total work,” and that an essential precondition for escape is recapturing a more
News
March 11, 2025

From the Director | The Beacon, Winter 2025

A message from the Lumen Christi Institute's Executive Director, Daniel Wasserman-Soler, featured in the Winter 2025 edition of The Beacon newsletter.
Newsletter
March 10, 2025

Winter 2025

News
March 1, 2025

What Really Happens When… You Attend the High School Newman Forum?

What really happens when you baptize a baby? When you protest nonviolently? When you remember? On March 1, over 250 high school students gathered to explore these questions and more as part of the annual Winter Newman Forum Conference.
Media
February 27, 2025

Gender, The Body, and Holiness in the Middle Ages

A symposium on Rachel Smith's (Villanova University) book, Excessive Saints: Gender, Narrative, and Theological Invention in Thomas of Cantimpré’s Mystical Hagiographies. Rachel Smith will outline the major themes of her work. Then, Willemien Otten (University of Chicago), Bernard McGinn (University
News
February 27, 2025

The Body and Holiness: A Scholarly Look at Gender in Medieval Hagiography

How does the gendering of images in medieval hagiography render holy women vivid, compelling, and desirable? On February 27, five scholars set out to answer this question. Rachel Smith (Villanova University) opened the conversation.
Video
February 11, 2025

Magis Lecture | Faith, Belief, and Knowledge

"Believers are also thinkers: in believing, they think and in thinking, they believe." So said St. Augustine of Hippo, in contrast to our typical assumption that belief and knowledge are opposites, with belief associated with religious faith and knowledge with
Economics and Catholic Social Thought: A Primer
News
February 6, 2025

Extended Application Deadline (03/16/25) for two Summer Seminars

Please click on the link to apply: Catholic Social Thought in Business Education | Economics and Catholic Social Though: A Primer.
News
January 31, 2025

Multi-year Study Unveils Key Insights on Virtue Formation in Secular and Faith-Based Higher Education

The Lumen Christi Institute participated in a two-year study with researchers and experts from Baylor University, to examine virtue formation in higher education moral communities, both secular and faith-based.
Media
January 30, 2025

The Human Person and Biotechnology: Artificial Intelligence and its Limitations

Artificial intelligence is increasingly interfacing with all aspects of human life, raising particular ethical challenges in medicine and biotechnology. The ethical challenges of AI must be grounded in the limits of the discipline it is applied to. Medicine has seen