The St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought seeks to promote a Catholic intellectual presence and community at the University of Virginia, to make the richness of the Catholic tradition of thought and action available for public consideration by all, and to contribute to Catholic intellectual and cultural life in Virginia and the United States.
John Miller, Classics, President John Bunch, School of Education
Mary Katherine Burke, Drama
Joseph E. Davis, IASC/Sociology
Gerald Fogarty, S.J.,Religious Studies
Alfredo Garcia, Engineering
Kevin Hart, Religious Studies, Vice President
Charles Kromkowski, Politics/Library, Exec.Director Kant Lin, Medical School Robert Ribando, Engineering
Jorge Secada, Philosophy Kathryn Sharpe, Darden
Rebecca Stangl, Philosophy
Ed Stelow, Medical School
W. Bradford Wilcox, Sociology
William M. Wilson, Religious Studies
April 18, 2013 (5:30pm)
4th Annual Robert Louis Wilken Lecture
Fr. Sidney Griffith Catholic University of America
"Christianity in the World of Islam: In the Shadow of the Mosque"
Thursday, April 18, 2013/
UVA Minor Hall Auditorium Audio recording now available
Contemporary discourses, most especially in the West, often presume a stark Christian-Muslim divide.
Christianity, however, has always been at home in the Middle East. Indeed, long before the emergence of a European-centered Church, nearly half of all Christians not only lived and worshipped under Muslim rule, but beginning in the seventh century they would continue to do so for the next four hundred years. These Arabic-speaking Christians not only reflect the deep and organic diversity of the Church's rich history, they also made major contributions to Islamic culture, authoring significant philosophical, theological, and scientific texts, and translating much of their several ecclesiastical traditions from Greek, Syriac, and Coptic into Arabic.
The St. Anselm Institute is both honored and pleased to welcome the widely esteemed Fr. Sidney Griffith, Catholic University of America Professor of Semitic Languages, for the Fourth Annual Robert Louis Wilken Lecture at the University of Virginia.
All are welcomed and encouraged to attend this final lecture in our 2012-2013 Public Lecture Series.
March 22, 2013 (6:00pm)
Robert Louis Wilken
THE FIRST THOUSAND YEARS:
A Global History of Christianity
Friday, March 22 (6:00pm)
UVA Harrison Institute Auditorium If you missed this lecture, watch it here.
Cosponsored by Virginia Festival of the Book, St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought, St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, and the Center for Christian Study
How did a once small, marginal, and largely invisible community in the first two centuries of its existence go on to remake the cultural, intellectual and political characteristics of the civilizations it encountered and inhabited? Beginning with the life of Jesus, Professor Wilken tells the underappreciated story of Christianity's global development over its first thousand years. This is not simply the Roman imperial coattails story of Constantine's conversion, but a much needed, fuller account that includes the early formation of Christianity's beliefs, practices and institutions, as well as Christianity's most remarkable embrace of and appeals to the Latin West, the Byzantine and Slavic East, the Middle East, Ethiopia, Nubia, Armenia, Georgia, Persia, Central Asia, India, and China.
Robert Louis Wilken is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity Emeritus at the University of Virginia. He is the author, editor, and translator of numerous books and articles, including Isaiah: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators (Eerdmans, 2007); The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (Yale, 2003); On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: selected writings of St. Maximus the Confessor (St. Vladimir's Press, 2003); Remembering the Christian Past (Eerdmans, 1995); The Land Called Holy (Yale, 1992); and Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Yale, 1984).
FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES!
March 1, 2013 - 7:30pm
Nau Auditorium
Free Admission
February 6, 2013 (6:30pm)
Fr. Peter Funk, O.S.B. Monastery of the Holy Cross "What Makes Sacred Music Sacred?"
Sacred objects are 'set apart' by human agents and reserved for use in sacred contexts. This notion of the sacred might seem to suggest that any type of music could be deemed fitting for use in the liturgy. The Church, however, has singled out specific styles as particularly suited to worship. Is there really something intrinsically 'sacred' about Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony? Or is this a kind of cultural imperialism? Fr. Peter Funk will argue for the former, taking into account the specific rhythmic, acoustic and formal qualities of the styles recognized as 'sacred' in the Catholic tradition.
All are invited and welcomed to attend this public lecture, which will begin at 6:30pm in Minor Hall Auditorium at the University of Virginia.
Aren't we all called by name to a larger purpose? Come hear how a UVA alum came to understand that his path of contemplation also included a very unexpected place: an urban Benedictine monastery in Chicago!
All are invited and welcomed to attend this public lecture, which will take place at 7:00pm in St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Hall, 401 Alderman Rd. (1 block from O-Hill Dining Hall). Free evening parking available.
The St. Anselm Institute and the UVA Catholic Student Ministry are pleased to cosponsor this event.
Dante!!
Students & Faculty (and Friends of the Institute): Divine Comedy Reading Group!
Interested in reading Dante's Inferno for the first time? Or, perhaps, in rereading it at a very leisurely pace with other UVA Students and Faculty? The St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought invites you to join our new bi-monthly Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy Reading Group, which will meet for the first time on Friday, February 1, 2013 (1:30-2:30pm). No prior experience or training required. As Dante had Virgil as his guide, our group will be guided by several faculty, including William Wilson, Professor Emeritus Religious Studies; now Director, Graduate Fellows Program at the Jefferson Scholars Foundation.
When?: 2 Fridays per month, 1:30-2:30pm
First Meeting?: Friday, Feb. 1, 2013; but if you can't attend this day, then attend all or some of the other meetings.
Where?: UVA Central Grounds location (Monroe Hall 116)
What else?: Free copies of the Inferno will be provided. We'll read approximately 20-pages per meeting. Interested?: Contact the St. Anselm Institute (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
) to express your interest in joining this reading group.
January 17, 2013 (5:30pm)
"The Problem of Suffering:
A Thomistic Defense"
Eleonore Stump
Professor of Philosophy,
St. Louis University
January 17 / 5:30pm / Minor Hall Auditorium If you missed this lecture, here's the video.
Why do bad things--evil, heartbreaking, devastating things--happen to good (and even not so good) persons? Is it possible to defend belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God in spite of the terrible human suffering in the world? For many, these questions have been great stumbling blocks, but philosopher Eleonore Stump draws upon contemporary psychological findings and the philosophical insights of Thomas Aquinas to argue that an extended Thomistic theodicy constitutes a cogent response to the problem of suffering.
The Second Vatican Council and Communism Symposium
Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012/ UVA Nau Hall 101
Melissa Wilde (9:15am) Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania “The Major Debates at Vatican II”
Gerald Fogarty, S.J. (10:45am) William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the History of Christianity, University of Virginia “Vatican II and the Cold War”
-Lunch-
James Ramon Felak (1:00pm) Professor of History, University of Washington “Communist Czechoslovakia and Vatican II”
Árpád von Klimó (2:15pm) Associate Professor of History, Catholic University of America “Communist Hungary and Vatican II”
Piotr H. Kosicki (3:45pm) ACLS New Faculty Fellow and Lecturer in History, University of Virginia “Communist Poland and Vatican II”
Organized by the UVA Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies as part of the UVa Polish Lecture Series. Made possible by the Rosenstiel Foundation and the American Institute of Polish Culture. Co-sponsors: Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures; St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought; Virginia Center for the Study of Religion; Department of History; Slavic Department.
November 17, 2012, 3:30pm (St. Thomas Hall/401 Alderman Road)
"VATICAN II: 50 Years Later"
Fr. Joseph Komonchak
Professor Emeritus of the School of Theology,
The Catholic University of America
If you missed the lecture, watch it here.
Fifty years ago, on October 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the twenty-first Ecumenical (or universal) Council in the Church's history. Ever wonder what Vatican II was all about? Why it was called? Who attended? What was accomplished? And how its various documents not only revived and redirected the Church's thinking about both the Liturgy and its dogmatic constitution, but also how the Church views and engages the modern world? In this golden anniversary year of Vatican II, make plans now to attend this very special public lecture by one of the most highly regarded historians of Vatican II.
November 16, 2012 (6:30pm): St. Thomas Hall, 401 Alderman Road
Departures
The next film in our 2012-13 Series is Departures (2008),a Japanese film (with English subtitles). This Academy Award-winning, internationally acclaimed film includes no Doctors of the Church, no Saints or Popes, or even any explicitly Catholic or Christian characters. And yet,this deeply engaging and transformative story of an unemployed
intrinsically 'sacred' about Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony? Or is this a kind of cultural imperialism? Fr. Peter Funk will argue for the former, taking into account the specific rhythmic, acoustic and formal qualities of the styles recognized as 'sacred' in the Catholic tradition. 
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Fifty years ago, on October 11, 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the twenty-first Ecumenical (or universal) Council in the Church's history. Ever wonder what Vatican II was all about? Why it was called? Who attended? What was accomplished? And how its various documents not only revived and redirected the Church's thinking about both the Liturgy and its dogmatic constitution, but also how the Church views and engages the modern world? In this golden anniversary year of Vatican II, make plans now to attend this very special public lecture by one of the most highly regarded historians of Vatican II.
The next film in our 2012-13 Series is Departures (2008), a Japanese film (with English subtitles). This Academy Award-winning, internationally acclaimed film includes no Doctors of the Church, no Saints or Popes, or even any explicitly Catholic or Christian characters. And yet,