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 ancient notion of “leisure” (in Greek: scholê, in Latin: otium). While much has been said in support of this claim, especially in Catholic intellectual circles, the focus has typically centered on the nature of leisure, which much of this dialogue takes as the starting point. In this lecture, Prof. Blaschko, who studies the philosophy of work at Notre Dame, will proceed in a different direction, asking “What kind of culture, and what kind of work culture, would we create if we wanted to incorporate genuine leisure into our lives?”
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 ancient notion of “leisure” (in Greek: scholê, in Latin: otium). While much has been said in support of this claim, especially in Catholic intellectual circles, the focus has typically centered on the nature of leisure, which much of this dialogue takes as the starting point. In this lecture, Prof. Blaschko, who studies the philosophy of work at Notre Dame, will proceed in a different direction, asking “What kind of culture, and what kind of work culture, would we create if we wanted to incorporate genuine leisure into our lives?”
CANCELLED FEBRUARY 27th: A Catholic Vision of Culture in the 21st Century | West Suburban Catholic Culture Series
As the Church has faced struggles in recent years, Pope Francis has repeatedly emphasized the role that journalists can play in the reform and renewal of the Church. But the mission of Catholics journalists is not always clear: they face the prophetic call of truth, and, at the same time, the common Christian vocation of the Great Commission. Can those work together? Can journalism be a form of evangelization? And can the Catholic Church teach the press something about the vocation of truth-telling in a polarized world? Reflecting on the work of Catholic journalism amid the Church’s challenges, Pillar editor JD Flynn considers those questions.
Reason & Regensburg: Pope Benedict and the Dialogue of Cultures
To bridge the cultural rift between Islam and the West, there is an urgent need to reestablish the mutually reinforcing dialogue between faith and reason in the West, and to support moderate Muslim scholars attempting to retrieve a non-voluntarist interpretation of Islam, often at risk to their own lives.
Thomas Aquinas, Scientist: How Might He Approach 21st Century Biotechnology
Despite flaws in his biology, Aquinas’ writings offer us guidance in our approach to 21st century biotechnology. Aquinas’ notion of a Just War provides us with a way for thinking about biotechnology, since both use morally ambiguous means to address evils in an imperfect world. A comparison of these two disparate issues can yield criteria for an ethics of biotechnology.
Sketch of a Phenomenological Concept of Sacrifice
In this lecture, Jean-Luc Marion advances a phenomenological notion of sacrifice that is distinct from the notion of sacrifice typically discussed in Sociology or even Religious Studies. He argues that sacrifice restores the gift from the side of the givee, much as he has argued previously that forgiveness restores the gift from the side of the giver. He develops both notions within the framework of a phenomenology of givenness, advancing the thesis that sacrifice requires neither destruction, nor restitution, nor even exchange, and still less contract. Sacrifice surpasses all this because sacrifice does not arise as an economic notion (one…
The Solzhenitzyn Question
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn left a vast body of work, an inestimable influence on Russian culture, and a deeply divided public opinion. He documented the Soviet prison system, developed forms of literary representation for describing the experiences of prisoners, and was courageous in the face of repression. But doubts linger about him as artist, thinker and person, and thus prompt us to raise the Solzhenitsyn question.
Against Nostalgia: Catholicism, History and Modernity
Deeply ingrained assumptions about the nature of historical change prevent an adequate comprehension of the transformations that have created the contemporary Western world over the past half-millennium. Departures from traditional Christianity since the sixteenth century, and related attempts to ground truth claims in scripture or reason alone yielded unintended pluralisms via Protestantism and modern philosophy that remain pervasively influential today. Catholicism continues to offer an intellectually viable alternative–provided one does not subscribe to inadequate views of how the past became the present. You can subscribe to the Lumen Christi Institute Podcast via our Soundcloud page, iTunes channel, or by searching for our…
The Authority of Law in Recent Catholic Political Philosophy
Cosponsored by the Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values This lecture considers several recent attempts by Catholic political philosophers working in the natural law tradition to give an account of law’s authority, and their success in answering some recent criticism. The difficulties in providing a successful natural law account of law’s authority gives us reason to rethink the sort of explanatory ambitions of new natural law theorists.
Are Catholics Unreliable from a Democratic Point of View? Reflections on the 60th Anniversary of Paul Blanchard’s American Freedom and Catholic Power
Published in 1949, Paul Blanshard’s American Freedom and Catholic Power captured the attention of American intelligentsia with its claim that American Catholic citizens had to choose “between a church hostile to fundamentals of democracy and a state where contrary views are implicit under our Constitution.” John F. Kennedy’s famous speech to Protestant ministers in Houston on Sept. 12, 1960 was in many respects a response to Blanshard’s thesis. Today Blanshard’s bigotry may not be explicitly defended in educated circles, but questions remain about what made his book so compelling. Patrick Brennan considers whether Blanshard was onto something about the incompatibility of Catholic…