"How to Make a Church 'Look Like' a Church: Architecture as An Image of Heaven"

Missed this lecture?: Watch it here.

How is the architectural design of a church related to what happens within a church? For some reason, Catholics and others often find themselves without a good answer to this obvious question. Is a church simply the functional equivalent of a people warehouse, or could the materiality of a church be understood more fully in some sacramental way as a built form of theology that offers due honor and reverence to the liturgical rites celebrated by the Church?
Please join us this Thursday evening (@ 6:30pm) as we welcome back Dr. Denis McNamara, a 1997 UVA Architectural History Ph.D. Dr. McNamara is an Associate Professor at Benedictine College in Kansas, where he is founding Executive Director of the College's new Center for Beauty and Culture. Dr. McNamara is the author of many scholarly works and he will call us to rethink and deepen our understanding of the purposes of Church architecture as a visible, material means that attracts and directs our minds and bodies toward an invisible yet fuller Heavenly reality.
This free public lecture is jointly sponsored by the Thomistic Institute and the St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought, and all are invited to attend so bring a friend or colleague.

Robert Louis Wilken

UVA William R. Kenan Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity
 
Friday, April 26, 2019 (5:00pm)
UVA Minor Hall Auditorium
Watch this lecture here.
 
Once upon a time, it was thought the sweet fruits of religious freedom and liberty of conscience were the great achievements of secular Enlightenment reformers, but we now know these ideas first emerged in and were cared for by a different set of workers who labored in the great fields of a different tradition. Join us for Professor Wilken's lecture and launch of his latest and most provocative book, Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom (Yale, April 2019).
 
In chronicling the history of the struggle for religious freedom from the early Christian movement through the seventeenth century, Robert Louis Wilken shows that the origins of religious freedom and liberty of conscience are not political in origin, but due, in fact, to the hard labors and authentic commitments of men and women of faith who earnestly believed there could be no justice in society without liberty in the things of God. All are invited to attend.
 
Books will be available for purchase from the UVA Bookstore, as well as 30 minutes before and after the lecture in the Minor Hall Lobby. 
 
Cosponsored with the UVA Department of Religious Studies

Richard Kearney

Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy
Boston College

St. Teresa of Ávila's Many Mansions

Friday, April 5, 2019 (5:15pm)
UVA Minor Hall Auditorium
Missed the lecture? Watch it here.
 

Image result for st. teresa of avilaSt. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), a Spanish Carmelite reformer, mystical writer, and the first female Doctor of the Church, was one of the greatest advocates of humility, prayer, and the development of a robust, thoughtful interior life. "Anyone who has not begun to pray," she begged, please do not miss so great a blessing." For if you persevere, you "will gradually gain a knowledge of the road to Heaven." In The Interior Castle, St. Teresa describes the great journey that awaits all who engage a life of prayer coupled with a life of "the pots and pans."

All are invited to attend what promises to be a very interesting and delightful public lecture.

MEDITATION, PRAYER, CONTEMPLATION

All are invited to attend.

Missed the lecture? Watch it here.

Sr. Prudence Allen, RSM

"Newman and a Proof for the Integral Complementarity of Woman and Man" 

Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019
(5:15pm, UVA Minor Hall)
Missed the lecture? Watch it here.
Download the lecture handout.
 

Sr. Prudence Allen is the leading Catholic philosopher on gender issues, an appointed member of the Vatican's International Theological Commission, the author of many scholarly works including an unrivaled and widely acclaimed, 3-volume intellectual history on The Concept of Woman, and a bright and learned light on widespread contemporary confusions about the accidents and essences of gender differences and complementaries. All are invited to attend what promises to be a very interesting and clarifying public lecture.

"St. Gregory of Narek:

The Newest Doctor of the Church!"

Prof. Roberta Ervine

St. Nersess Armenian Seminary

Thursday, November 29, 2019, 5:15pm
UVA Minor Hall Auditorium
Missed the Lecture? Watch it here.

Many holy men and women aid and sustain the Church in her thinking, but in her Wisdom the Church has officially recognized only a few dozen with its most esteemed title of "Doctor of the Church." In 2015, the Catholic Church startled many--including a fair number of academics--by bestowing the title Doctor of the Church on St. Gregory of Narek (c. 945-1003 A.D.), a 10th century Armenian poet, mystic, philosopher and theologian. This decision, however, did not surprise Armenian Christians, who long have revered and look to the powerful and poetic insights of a man whose writings speak "with God from the depths of the Heart." St. Gregory of Narek, a cherished teacher of the Armenian people, can now be shared with the rest of the world, and we have invited Prof. Ervine, one of the world's experts on this new Doctor, to be our special teacher so that we, too, may delight in his works. All are invited to attend this free public lecture.

A Special UVA Family Weekend Dinner

Voices of Truth in an Age of Corruption

St. Hildegard of Bingen and St. Catherine of Siena

With Special Guest Lecturer Rachel Grabowski
Medieval Studies, Cornell University
English/Georgetown University

Join us for dinner and a faculty-led discussion on St. Hildegard of Bingen and St. Catherine of Siena--two holy but too often forgotten teachers of the Church who spoke against clerical and secular abuses of their times. UVA Students and visiting parents and siblings are invited to attend. Reservations not required, but greatly appreciated: email Dr. Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

The Wealth of Persons:

Rethinking Economics in Light of the Human Person

John McNerney

Thursday, November 8, 2018
5:15pm /Location: UVA Minor Hall
Missed the lecture?: Watch it now.
 
Christians are called to love one’s neighbor as oneself, but how are we to think about and act with others in a complex, impersonal modern economy? John McNerney, an Irish scholar in residence at The Catholic University of America, offers a powerful and accessible philosophical critique of modern economic thought that refocuses our attention upon the human person. Beyond the hidden hand of Adam Smith, the alienation from our work identified by Marx, and conceptions of utility maximization that dominate present discourses, McNerney demonstrates why economics as the science of human action and exchange requires a new foundation that recognizes the unique intentional and relational capacities of the human person. From this new reference point, profit and production are by no means banished, but they instead are balanced by a fuller appreciation of the creative qualities of work and entrepreneurial action, the deep purposes of human freedom, and the real possibility that the transcendent, Trinitarian logic of gift frees human persons to interact with others in ways that allow us and others to become far more than we presently are.

Newman, the University, and Its Counterfeit

A Roundtable Discussion with Prof. Reinhard Huetter

April 6, 2018 (12:00-2:00pm)
Watson Manor, 3 University Circle, Charlottesville
Missed this event? Watch it here.
 
Please join us for lunch and a roundtable discussion with Professor Reinhard Huetter of the Catholic University of America on his provocative paper, “Newman, the University, and Its Counterfeit.”  After introductory remarks by Prof. Huetter, we'll have short responses from a distinguished panel of UVA faculty, which includes Tal Brewer (Philosophy), Alison Weber (Spanish), and Joseph Davis (IASC). All are invited to join this special discussion.  RSVP appreciated to assist us with the lunch count.

This event is jointly cosponsored by The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, The Thomistic Institute, and the St. Anselm Institute for Catholic Thought.

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