Prof. Robert Louis Wilken
"The Catholic Roots of Religious Freedom"
2012 St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture
St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish
Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, 7:30pm
Robert Louis Wilken is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity Emeritus at the University of Virginia. Prof. Wilken initiated and nurtured the early development of the St. Anselm Institute and he remains the Chairman of its Board. His scholarly accomplishment are extensive, widely known and highly respected. 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). Prof. Wilken presently is the Rev. Robert J. Randall Professor in Christian Culture at Providence College and he also serves as chairman of the board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life.
In his public lecture, Prof. Wilken clarified that the roots of modern ideas of religious freedom are as much religious as they are political and philosophical. In fact, the American political leaders who first championed these ideas were well aware of the religious--indeed deeply Catholic--sources supporting their views. The greatest of these champions James Madison--who ended state support for Virginia's churches and drafted the Bill of Rights--not only recommended that a long list of these intellectual sources be included in the University of Virginia Library, but he openly spoke about “the duty which we owe to our Creator” and that religion can only be governed “by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” Prof. Wilken's lecture explored how early Christian thinkers developed a theological understanding of religious freedom. See the full video of this lecture: here.
2011-12: Lecture III (Joas/Secularization)
Prof. Hans Joas University of Chicago/Committee on Social Thought
Waves of Secularization:
An Alternative Explanation of "Religious Decline"
Over the last two decades, a virtual mountain of empirical evidence has convinced social scientists that the longstanding secularization thesis is untenable--i.e., the presumption that economic modernization and scientific progress leads automatically to religious decline. Abandonment of this conventional theoretical frame should make questions concerning the causes and consequences of secularization even more acute. Studies of the rise of a secular option remain important for understanding the preconditions for secularization, but they cannot explain the observable variations of this option for social organization. University of Chicago Professor Hans Joas offered a reevaluation that demonstrates that secularization is not a unitary, linear, continuous process at all.Rather, three
2011-12: Friday Night at the Movies: The Tree of Life
The St. Anselm Institute and UVA Catholic Student Ministry invite you to join us at Friday Night at the Movies on October 21 at 7:30pm in Nau Auditorium, located on the new South Lawn of the University of Virginia. This event is free and open to all, so bring a friend or family member to see the 2011 Cannes Film Festival Palme D'or Award winner: The Tree of Life (2011). Written and directed by Terrence Malik, this critically acclaimed, unconventional, and visually rich narrative of a 1950s Catholic family in Waco, TX offers us an opportunity to reconsider the cosmic significance of the Act of Creation and our place within this larger, Grace filled Divine Narrative.
Nau Auditorium is part of the new South Lawn at the University of Virginia. Free evening parking is available in a Brandon Ave parking lot adjacent to Nau and Gibson Halls. For a map and directions, click here.
2011-12: Lecture II (Sullivan/St. Edith Stein)
"The Academic Saint and
the Science of the Cross:
The Life and Works of Edith Stein/
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross"
Fr. John Sullivan, O.C.D.
Friar and Provincial for the Washington Province of the Discalced Carmelites
Beatified in 1987 for her 1942 martyrdom at Auschwitz, canonized as a saint in 1998, and named Co-Patroness of Europe by Pope John Paul II in 1999, the formal legacy of St. Edith Stein/Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942) could not be more widely identified and secured within the Church. But despite the trumpet blasts heralding her import, her extensive writings and the story of her all too human and later truly exemplary saintly life are only now beginning to peak and command the interest and serious intellectual time of inquisitive academic audiences. And rightly so, for the intellectual weight and inspiring narrative of Edith Stein's journey does not disappoint. It includes not only the hardships of her father's death when she was a young child, the abandonment of her Jewish faith for a rebellious but self-proclaimed atheism in her teenage years, her educational pursuits of, first,
"The Lost Edges of the Modern Research University: A Catholic Philosophical Critique" Reinhard Hütter
Professor of Theology
Duke Divinity School
We attend, work at, participate in, and carry deep and enduring affinities for our universities. But why do universities exist? What purpose have they, do they, and ought they to serve? What types of good do they aim to effect? What are the best means to bring about these ends?
Clearly, each academic discipline that constitutes the modern research university is defined by and dedicated to the rigorous study of the nature of its particular objects of interest. But what is the nature of the University that houses each of these disciplines? and what is the nature of the relationship of the University to its external culture?
What could the Catholic intellectual tradition disclose about the past, present, and future of the university as a unique place and activity dedicated to the fulfillment of a more audacious universal purpose? Duke University Professor Reinhard Hütter advanced these largely unspoken but essential questions, challenging us to consider and to think through the possibility that the modern university's depth and trajectory is unwittingly and precariously insufficient to maintain itself as the foundation for or the most compelling edges of a flourishing human culture. If you missed this fascinating talk, please view it here.
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Beatified in 1987 for her 1942 martyrdom at Auschwitz, canonized as a saint in 1998, and named Co-Patroness of Europe by Pope John Paul II in 1999, the formal legacy of St. Edith Stein/Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942) could not be more widely identified and secured within the Church. But despite the trumpet blasts heralding her import, her extensive writings and the story of her all too human and later truly exemplary saintly life are only now beginning to peak and command the interest and serious intellectual time of inquisitive academic audiences. And rightly so, for the intellectual weight and inspiring narrative of Edith Stein's journey does not disappoint. It includes not only the hardships of her father's death when she was a young child, the abandonment of her Jewish faith for a rebellious but self-proclaimed atheism in her teenage years, her educational pursuits of, first, 