This August marks the fifth anniversary of the death of Thomas Levergood, the founder of Lumen Christi. Thomas believed that the Catholic intellectual tradition had the power to transform minds, shape culture, and renew the Church. That conviction was the animating force behind everything he built at Lumen Christi and the reason this Institute exists today.
As we reflect on his life, we find it providential that Lumen Christi is hosting its post-doctoral seminar for Catholic scholars during the week of his anniversary, August 2-8. The seminar, “Catholic Social Thought: A Critical Investigation,” is led by Professors Russell Hittinger and Scott Roniger. Participants, recent PhDs with a deep interest in the Catholic intellectual tradition, are spending a week at Gavin House reading, analyzing, and discussing the great social encyclicals of the Church, from Rerum novarum (1892) through Caritas in veritate (2009) and Evangelii Gaudium (2013). Drawing on political science, philosophy, law, economics, theology, and history, it is exactly the kind of multi-disciplinary, intellectually serious formation Thomas championed throughout his life.