Beginning on April 2, 2020, the Newman Forum has held a series of online seminars to address high school students' intellectual development in their faith.  Held every other Thursday, these seminars have brought together close to sixty students to discuss some of the following topics:

April 2: How NOT to Get Away with Murder

Cain seems to move very quickly from being angry with his brother­ to murdering him. And Eve appears awfully easy for the snake to tempt. What is happening in these stories of the first four humans, and what are we to make of their interactions with God? In this seminar, students were taught how to "close-read" Genesis 3 and 4, and discovered that God was not only merciful and just, but also a very perceptive observer of human psychology.


April 16: Answering your Atheist Philosophy Professor

Could God create a stone so heavy He couldn't lift it? Could God make a square circle, or is He "limited" by the rules of geometry? Can God be all-knowing if he hasn't "experienced" what it is like to sin?  These and other arguments were used by a philosophy professor in a New York Times op-ed published in April 2019. This seminar helped students see that they could answer these arguments by relying on the very tools of philosophy that the professor tried to wield.  They could beat him at his own game.

In a time in which very few students are able to participate in the liturgy, and many are troubled by intellectual difficulties that their current religious education struggles to address, the Newman Forum is helping them to discover the light of Christ, together, through online programming.

For more information on this and other Newman Forum programming, see the Newman Forum webpage HERE.