Master Class on Newman’s Oxford University Sermons
REGISTER HERE This event will be held online over Zoom. Open to current graduate students and faculty. Others interested in participating should contact us. More info TBA. Fr. Fields will also lead a summer seminar for graduate students on the thought of John Henry Newman at Merton College, Oxford this summer. More information can be found here.
Ecumenical Panel on “For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church”
Free and open to the public. This program will be held as a hybrid, in-person and online event. Presented by the Lumen Christi Institute and the Fordham Orthodox Christian Studies Center. Cosponsored by the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion and the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies. “As we make this journey towards full communion, we already have the duty to offer common witness to the love of God for all people by working together in the service of humanity” —Common Declaration of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis, May 2014. This panel will examine the recent social document For the Life…
Catholic Culture Series on “Catholic Literary Heritage”
The Lumen Christi Institute’s West Suburban Catholic Culture Series returns in 2021-22 with a monthly series on the theme of Catholic literary heritage. We will survey the history of literature written by Catholics from the early middle ages to the late twentieth century. What is Catholic literature? What is our Catholic literary heritage? St. John Henry Newman has informed us that Catholic literature is more than “religious literature” or “the literature of religious men.” Rather, Catholic literature is literature of “all subjects whatever, treated as a Catholic would treat them, and as he only can treat them.” Not only doctrine,…
Magis Series on Faith and Reason
Free and open to the public. Presented by the Lumen Christi Institute and Saint Ignatius College Prep. What does it mean to believe? Does one believe because of evidence? In spite of evidence? Is belief the beginning of wisdom or the opposite of science? For over two thousand years, the Catholic Church has defended the rich interrelation between faith and reason. As Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical, Fides et Ratio, “Faith and reason are like the two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” Faith without reason leads to superstition. Reason without…
Master Class: “Adventures of a Primary Care Theologian” with Fr. Roch Kereszty
Open to current students and faculty. Others interested in participating should contact info@lumenchristi.org. Registrants will receive copies of the prepared reading. An Online Master Class with Fr. Roch Kereszty, O. Cist For over 40 years, Fr. Roch Kereszty has taught and published in nearly every area of theology—Christology, ecclesiology, and interreligious dialogue to name a few. During this master class, Fr. Kereszty will discuss selected texts from his own work and discuss his life and vocation: a clandestine novice in Communist Hungary, a student during the years of the Second Vatican Council, long-time professor at the University of Dallas and form…
Magis Lecture | Pro and Con: Does Faith Ignore Reason?
Free and open to the public. Every Sunday, Christian worshipers profess the Nicene Creed. The Creed formulates and supports our belief in one God, but there appears to be scant empirical evidence for many of its claims that we acknowledge to be true. We don’t profess the Creed because we’ve been persuaded by overwhelming evidence. Is it reasonable, then, to believe that the Creed’s claims are true? Or does our profession of faith shove our reason into exile? So says Sam Harris, a recent “popular atheist,” who argues that faith is by nature unreasonable. But William James, the 19th-century American psychologist,…
Master Class: Clashing over Mysticism: Balthasar and Rahner on Bonaventure
Open to current students and faculty. Others interested in participating should contact info@lumenchristi.org. Registrants will receive copies of the prepared reading. In an era of outstanding theologians who made the teachings of Vatican II possible, Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-88) and Karl Rahner (1904-84) emerge as titans. Both were German speaking: Rahner came from Baden and Balthasar from Switzerland. Rahner died as a Jesuit, having taught in Innsbruck, Munich, and Muenster. Balthasar left the order in mid-life to serve as chaplain to a secular institute in Basel. Both were prolific writers. Rahner’s chief works are Spirit in the World (1957),…
Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact info@lumenchristi.org. This event is co-sponsored by the History Department at the University of Chicago. The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic upheavals and internal divisions shaping the most multicultural, multilingual, and global institution in the world. In his latest book, John McGreevy gives a magisterial history…
Symposium on “The Future of Natural Law”
Natural law theory has long been a central tenet of Christian philosophical and theological reflection on the relationship between God, the moral life, and society, and it has played an important historical role in shaping the political life of the United States and many other nations. The topic of natural law has also been the subject of many disputes and disagreements, both in the contemplative and practical orders. It is therefore important to take stock of this rich and complex history if we are to understand the current state of natural law thinking so as to ascertain what role it…
Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact info@lumenchristi.org. This event is co-sponsored by the History Department at the University of Chicago. The story of Roman Catholicism has never followed a singular path. In no time period has this been more true than over the last two centuries. Beginning with the French Revolution, extending to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and concluding with present-day crises, John T. McGreevy chronicles the dramatic upheavals and internal divisions shaping the most multicultural, multilingual, and global institution in the world. In his latest book, John McGreevy gives a magisterial history…