The Thomistic Institute

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explains marriage as a lifelong covenant of self-giving love between a man and a woman that images Christ’s union with the Church, ordered to the spouses’ sanctification and the procreation and education of children .

This lecture was given on October 15th, 2025, at Iowa State University.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

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For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Michael A. Dauphinais, Ph.D., serves as the Fr. Matthew Lamb Professor of Catholic Theology and the co-director of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida. He has co-authored with Matthew Levering Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible; and The Wisdom of the Word: Biblical Answers to Ten Questions about Catholicism. He specializes in C.S. Lewis, the Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks frequently in both academic and popular settings, and particularly enjoys visiting Thomistic Institute student chapters. Dr. Dauphinais hosts The Catholic Theology Show podcast to help a wide audience discover the richness of coming to know and love God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

Keywords: Catholic Theology of Marriage, Covenant and Sacrament, Christ and the Church as Spousal Model, Family and Vocation, Fidelity and Indissolubility, Openness to Life and Children, Self-Giving Love and Freedom, Spousal Sanctification, Vocation of Husband and Wife, Wedding and Lifelong Commitment

Prof. Thomas Ward explains Scotus’s bold claim that the Incarnation is not primarily a response to human sin, but the centerpiece of God’s eternal plan for creation, so that Christ would have become incarnate even if Adam had never fallen .

This lecture was given on March 4th, 2025, at Universidad Panamericana.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Thomas M. Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin, in the School of Civic Leadership. He specializes in the history of philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages. Ward is the author of After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher (Word on Fire, 2024), Ordered by Love: An Introduction to John Duns Scotus (Angelico, 2022), Divine Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and has translated, with commentary, John Duns Scotus’s Treatise on the First Principle (Hackett, 2024). He has been a NEH Fellow (2022) and Harvey Fellow (2009-2011), and is a past winner of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy Founder's Award (2013) and the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Rising Scholar Essay Contest (2018). He studied philosophy at Biola University (BA 2004) and theology at Oxford University (M.Phil 2006), where he was Head Resident at the Kilns, the former residence of C.S. Lewis. His PhD in philosophy is from UCLA (2011). Ward is married with six children and is a member of St. Peter Catholic Student Center in Waco.

Keywords: Absolute Primacy of Christ, Blessed Duns Scotus and Incarnation, Christ as Head of Creation, Divine Freedom and Predestination, Incarnation and Fall of Adam, Primacy of Christ in Salvation History, Sin and Redemptive Suffering, Thomism vs. Scotism, Why God Became Man

Fr. Gregory Pine explains that, according to Aquinas, Christians are called to true divinization or theosis: by grace and the sacraments they really come to share in God’s own life without becoming God by nature, growing into intimate communion with the Triune God through Christ in whom this transformation is perfectly realized.

This lecture was given on October 3rd, 2025, at Duke University.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., is an instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and the Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He holds a doctorate from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He is the author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly and Your Eucharistic Identity: A Sacramental Guide to the Fullness of Life, and is co-author of Credo: An RCIA Program and Marian Consecration with Aquinas.



His writing also appears in Aleteia, Magnificat, and Ascension’s Catholic Classics series. In addition to the TI podcast, he regularly contributes to the podcasts Godsplaining and Pints with Aquinas, and Catholic Classics.

Keywords: Divinization and Theosis, Grace and Participation in God, Holy Spirit and Sanctification, Incarnation and Salvation, Life of Virtue and Holiness, Participation in the Divine Nature, Sacraments and Spiritual Transformation, Trinity and Divine Life, Union with God in Christ, Western and Eastern Christian Spirituality

Fr. Terence Crotty argues that Christianity spread so rapidly because it uniquely answered the human search for truth and happiness while transforming social life through charity, dignity for slaves and women, and a compelling vision of a good and loving God that pagan religion and philosophy could not provide.​

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Terence Crotty is the Regent of Studies in the Irish Province of the Dominican Order. Since graduating with his doctorate from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland in 2011 he has been mainly involved in formation and in teaching Scripture Studies to the Dominican students in the Studium of the Irish Province in his community in Dublin and to the lay faithful in the Priory Institute, Tallaght. His first monograph is about to appear, The Irish Dominicans: 800 Years and he has also published various articles in reviews and journals, including a chapter in The Glenstal Companion to the Easter Vigil.

Keywords: Caritas and Christian Charity, Conversion of the Roman Empire, Dignity of Slaves and Women, Greek and Roman Pagan Religion, Irish Conversion and St. Patrick, Letter to Diognetus and Early Apologetics, Pagan Philosophy and Stoicism, Roman Empire and Early Christianity, St. Brigid and Irish Monasticism, Truth, Happiness, and Human Desire​

Dr. Paul LaPenna uses the dramatic case of a man in a coma from autoimmune brain disease to show that personal identity endures despite severe loss of abilities, arguing from neurology and Thomistic philosophy that a human person is a unified body–soul substance whose soul grounds changing traits over time.

This lecture was given on October 17th, 2025, at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched. This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Paul LaPenna is a neurologist based in Greenville, South Carolina, specializing in the care of patients with neurological emergencies. He is also an award-winning professor at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he teaches neuroscience and has been recognized as the Professor of the Neuroscience Block from 2019 to 2025.

Dr. LaPenna’s professional and academic work is deeply informed by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, particularly regarding the integration of faith and reason, science and religion, and the Thomistic understanding of the human person. Through his lectures and writings, he explores how modern neuroscience complements classical philosophy and theology, offering insights into human cognition, virtue formation, and the relationship between mind, brain, and soul.

Dr. LaPenna lives in Greenville with his wife Nicole and their three daughters, Catherine, Susanna, and Lucia, who daily remind him of life’s greatest joys and deepest blessings.

Keywords: Body–Soul Unity, Catholic Anthropology, Consciousness and Brain, Human Person, Identity and Memory, Neuroscience and Philosophy, Personal Identity, Rational Soul, Thomistic Metaphysics, Trauma and Coma​

Prof. Mats Wahlberg argues that “necessitarian universalism”—the claim that hell is metaphysically impossible and that God must save all rational creatures—is incompatible with core Christian metaphysical commitments, and he develops three Thomistic arguments to show that the possibility of eternal damnation follows from God’s wisdom, respect for created natures, and desire for truly free self-gift.

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Mats Wahlberg, Ph.D., is docent and associate professor of systematic theology, a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology, and a research fellow in the Discipline Group of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology at the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In 2021, he was the Aquinas Chair at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome.

He has published two monographs, Reshaping Natural Theology: Seeing Nature as Creation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Revelation as Testimony: A Philosophical-Theological Study (Eerdmans, 2014), as well as many articles in journals such as Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, and First Things.

His research interests include arguments for God’s existence, the problem of evil, the doctrine of revelation, theology and science (especially the theological implications of evolution) and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Wahlberg's research about the problem of evil and evolution has been funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Keywords: Beatific Vision, Catholic Doctrine of Hell and Damnation, Creator–Creature Distinction, David Bentley Hart and Universal Salvation, Divine Goodness, Divine Providence, Necessitarian Universalism and Possible Worlds, Permanent Separation from God, Thomistic Account of Debitum Naturae, Thomistic Defense of the Possibility of Hell, Universalism​

Prof. Thomas Osborne explains reprobation and the permission of sin in Thomas Aquinas as the asymmetrical counterpart to predestination, where God positively causes the grace and merits leading the elect to glory but only permits the sins of the reprobate without ever willing or causing moral evil, thus safeguarding both divine justice and human responsibility.​

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. (Ph.D, Duke University, 2001) is the Frank A. Rudman Endowed Chair in Philosophy and the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas.  He has published widely on Thomas Aquinas, Thomism, and medieval and late scholastic philosophy.  His interests cover moral psychology, ethics, political philosophy, and metaphysics. His latest book is Thomas Aquinas on Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Keywords: Augustinian Theology of Grace, Calvinist Double Predestination, Divine Justice and Eternal Punishment, Divine Providence and Human Freedom, Grace, Negative and Positive Reprobation, Predestination and Foreseen Merits, Salvation, Sin

Fr. Piotr Roszak shows how Thomas Aquinas interprets predestination through a deeply biblical lens, reading predestination as God’s merciful, Christ-centered plan to lead creation freely to a supernatural end and insisting that scriptural context is essential for avoiding deterministic distortions of the doctrine.

This lecture was given on September 5th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Piotr Roszak is an adjunct professor of Fundamental Theology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland; associated professor of Systematic Theology at University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, where he obtained his PhD in 2009. Member of Pontifical Academy of St Thomas Aquinas; editor-in-Chief of the journal ‘Scientia et Fides’ dedicated to science-religion debate and director of the series ‘Scholastica Thoruniensia’, where the polish translations of medieval biblical commentaries are published. Together with Mateusz Przanowski OP is leading the project of “Opera Omnia” of St. Thomas Aquinas in Poland. In 2021 he received Medal for Excellence in Christian Philosphy awared by International Étienne Gilson Society. He obtained several grants from the Templeton Foundation, National Science Centre in Poland and in Spain. He is a honorary member of Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis and Comite de Expertos del Camino de Santiago in Spain. He published recently (with Jörgen Vijgen): Reading the Church Fathers with St. Thomas Aquinas Historical and Systematical Perspectives (Brepols: Turnhout 2021).

Keywords: Biblical Thomism, Christocentric Predestination, Divine Providence and Human Freedom, Election, Ephesians 1, Pauline Theology of Predestination, Potter Clay Metaphor, Romans 8, Scripture and Systematic Theology in Summa Theologiae, Trinitarian Missions

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy explains that Thomism is “fixated” on predestination because this doctrine lies at the speculative and practical center of the Thomistic vision of reality, uniting its key philosophical principles and theological convictions about God, creation, grace, and salvation in a single, coherent account.

This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., is a priest of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. He serves as the general editor of the Thomist Tradition Series, and he is co-author of Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. He has written for numerous publications on the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition.

Keywords: Blaise Pascal Provincial Letters, Contingency, Creator Creature Distinction, Divine Providence, Divine Causality, Grace and Human Freedom, Jean Baptiste Gonet Clippius Theologiae Thomisticae, Physical Premotion and Sacramental Causality, Predestination, Pure Nature, Universal Causality

Fr. Dominic Legge explains predestination as a profoundly hopeful Catholic doctrine rooted in God’s eternal, loving plan to give grace and lead rational creatures freely to the supernatural end of the beatific vision, drawing especially on Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine.

This lecture was given on September 5th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

Through your gift to the Thomistic Institute, you will send the best scholars in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition directly to college campuses, bringing the light of Christ to students longing for answers. 

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every dollar you send up to $150,000 before December 31 will be matched.  This means that your gift will touch twice as many souls!

To make your gift today, visit https://thomisticinstitute.org/donate-podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Dominic Legge is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Keywords: Actual Grace, Augustine On the Predestination of the Saints, Divine Providence, Exitus Reditus and Final End, Grace and Human Free Will, Human Freedom, Predestination and Eternal Life, Problem of Evil, Rational Creatures and Beatific Vision, Saint Catherine of Siena

Prof. Raymond Hain examines whether nature “makes” laws by exploring classical and contemporary accounts of natural law, arguing that human moral norms arise from our rational participation in the ordered structure of life and the universe as understood in both philosophy and Catholic thought.

This lecture was given on September 8th, 2025, at United States Military Academy.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Raymond Hain is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Humanities Program at Providence College in Providence, RI. Educated at Christendom College, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Oxford, he is the founder of the PC Humanities Forum and Humanities Reading Seminars and is responsible for the strategic development of the Humanities Program into a vibrant, world class center of teaching, research, and cultural life dedicated to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. His scholarly interests include the history of ethics (especially St. Thomas Aquinas), applied ethics (especially medical ethics and the ethics of architecture), Alexis de Tocqueville, and philosophy and literature (especially Catholic aesthetics). His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Templeton Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Charles Koch Foundation. His essays have appeared in various journals and collections including The Thomist, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and The Anthem Companion to Tocqueville. He is the editor of Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture and is currently working on a monograph titled The Lover and the Prophet: An Essay in Catholic Aesthetics. He joined Providence College in 2011 and lives just across the street with his wife Dominique and their five children.

Keywords: Aristotelian Ethics, Catholic Moral Theology, Darwinian Evolution, Evolutionary Biology, Human Flourishing, Human Sexuality, John Finnis Natural Law and Natural Rights, Michael Thompson, Natural Law, Philosophy of Biology, Steven Jensen

Prof. Matthew Thomas explains why justification—God’s transformative act of making sinners righteous in Christ by grace through faith and incorporation into the Church—is, for Aquinas, greater even than creation, and explores how Catholic teaching on faith, works, and grace can address Reformation-era controversies and open paths toward Protestant–Catholic reconciliation.

This lecture was given on April 6th, 2025, at Stanford University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Matthew J. Thomas is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology Department Chair at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, CA. His research areas include Pauline theology, patristics (particularly the ante-Nicene period), and early Christian interpretation of Scripture. His writings include Paul's 'Works of the Law' in the Perspective of Second Century Reception, Christian Theology: An Introduction with Alister McGrath, "Justification" in the St. Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology, and the 1 and 2 Maccabees commentaries in the Ignatius Study Bible with his wife Leeanne.

Keywords: Augustinian Theology Of Grace, Catholic–Protestant Dialogue, C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity, Divine–Human Causality, Justification By Grace Through Faith, Martin Luther On Justification, Primary And Secondary Causality, Union With Christ, Works Of The Law In Paul, Summa Theologiae On Justification

Prof. Carlos A. Casanova argues that a properly understood Aristotelian–Platonic metaphysics of form, final causality, and nature allows human reason, without biblical revelation, to infer a governing divine intellect that orders the cosmos and human history in a providential way.​

This lecture was given on October 22nd, 2025, at Clemson University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

A native of Venezuela, Carlos Casanova holds a law degree from the Catholic University Andrés Bello and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Navarre, Spain. He is now a lecturer at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center.

He is a native of Venezuela. There he served as an attorney for the Office of the Attorney General of Venezuela and for the Venezuelan Congress, and as an assistant to a Justice of the Venezuelan Supreme Court in the early 90s. Afterward he was a professor of the Graduate Studies in Philosophy at the Universidad Simón Bolívar and Chair of the Program. In 2002, threatened by the Chavista regime, he was forced to leave the country. During his first stay in the USA, professor Casanova was a visiting scholar at Boston University and a senior research associate at the Jacques Maritain Center, University of Notre Dame, where he worked with Ralph McInerny. During this time he married Laura Ternan with whom he has 5 children.

In 2005 he went to Chile, to work at the International Academy of Philosophy with professor Josef Seifert. Afterward he taught at Universidad Santo Tomás in Chile, and at the School of Law of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. In 2020-2022 he opposed the abortionist movement and the attempts to introduce comprehensive sexual education during the early years of basic school. These efforts led to him receiving in 2022 the National Award bestowed by the “Network for Life and the Family.” Due to the Marxist turn of the country, the Casanova family decided to leave Chile and migrate again, back to the United States in 2022.

Professor Casanova’s work focuses on metaphysics, political and social philosophy, ethics, and classical Greek philosophy. He has endeavored to dismantle the black legend that hides the achievements of Christianity in the Spanish American empire and in the Latin Christendom (so called “Middle Ages”). His scholarly competence also includes philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, medieval philosophy, and contemporary European philosophy. He has published nine books and numerous scholarly papers.

Keywords: Aristotelian Teleology, Divine Governance Of Nature, Final Causes And Natural Law, Hume On Miracles, Natural Theology And Providence, Newman’s Critique Of Hume, Plato's Timaeus And Phaedo, Powers And Dispositions In Nature, Teleology Versus Mechanism, Thomistic Fifth Way

Fr. John Langlois presents Saint Louis de Montfort’s Marian spirituality of “total consecration” as the surest, easiest, and most secure way to live Mary’s maternal mediation and grow in intimate union with Jesus by entrusting one’s whole life to her.

This lecture was given on December 14th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Born in Berlin, NH, Father John Langlois, O.P. entered the Dominican Order in 1985 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1991. He holds a doctorate in Church History, and has spent most of his priestly life teaching, both at Providence College and at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Immediately before coming to St. Gertrude, he served as President of the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies for seven years.

Keywords: Marian Consecration, Mary As Mediatrix, Personal Vocation Story, Secret Of The Rosary, Saint Louis de Montfort, Spiritual Warfare And Temptation, True Devotion To Mary, Union With Christ, Virgin Mary As Mother, To Jesus Through Mary

Fr. John Langlois traces how Marian doctrine and devotion—from Scripture and the early Fathers through medieval councils, liturgy, and architecture—culminate in the rosary as a Christ-centered, biblically rooted prayer that brings believers to Jesus through Mary’s maternal intercession.

This lecture was given on December 14th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Born in Berlin, NH, Father John Langlois, O.P. entered the Dominican Order in 1985 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1991. He holds a doctorate in Church History, and has spent most of his priestly life teaching, both at Providence College and at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Immediately before coming to St. Gertrude, he served as President of the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies for seven years.

Keywords: Annunciation And Incarnation, Council Of Ephesus, Marian Intercession, Mary As New Eve, Medieval Marian Spirituality, Mystery Plays, New Adam Christology, Rosary Devotion, Sub Tuum Praesidium, To Jesus Through Mary

Prof. Joshua Hochschild argues that free will is not an illusion but a real, rational power by which human beings participate in God’s causality, and that the supposed “problem of free will” arises from a reductive modern picture of causation and human nature rather than from the classical Aristotelian–Thomistic framework.

This lecture was given on October 10th, 2025, at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

Keywords: Augustinian Free Choice, Classical Causality, Dante’s Purgatorio, Imago Dei, Participated Theodeterminism, Rational Appetite, Responsibility And Moral Agency, Sam Harris Determinism, Thomistic Psychology Of Choice, Will And Divine Providence

Prof. Thomas Osborne argues that, on an Aristotelian–Thomistic account of human nature, it is never truly good for you to be bad, because vice damages your very being as a rational, social creature ordered to common goods and ultimately to God.

This lecture was given on October 29th, 2025, at University of Pittsburgh.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. (Ph.D, Duke University, 2001) is the Frank A. Rudman Endowed Chair in Philosophy and the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas.  He has published widely on Thomas Aquinas, Thomism, and medieval and late scholastic philosophy.  His interests cover moral psychology, ethics, political philosophy, and metaphysics. His latest book is Thomas Aquinas on Virtue (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

Keywords: Aristotelian Natural Law, Common Good, Human Dignity, Justice And Self-Interest, Moral Rectitude, Natural Law Theory, Plato’s Republic, Political Community, Prudence And Charity, Vice And Human Defectiveness

Dr. David McPherson argues that human beings are “meaning-seeking animals” and that an adequate neo-Aristotelian ethics must see the virtues as constitutive of a meaningful life ordered to strong goods such as the noble, the sacred, and love of God and neighbor.​

This lecture was given on October 16th, 2025, at University of Florida.

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About the Speakers:

David McPherson is Professor of Philosophy in the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida as well as Affiliate Professor in the Department of Philosophy. Previously, he was Associate Professor of Philosophy at Creighton University, and during academic year 2021-22 he was Visiting Research Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. McPherson works in the areas of ethics (especially virtue ethics), political philosophy, meaning in life, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of The Virtues of Limits (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Virtue and Meaning: A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2020), as well as the editor of Spirituality and the Good Life: Philosophical Approaches (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Keywords: Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Constitutive View Of Happiness, Meaning-Seeking Animal, Nicomachean Ethics, Religious Hope, Stoicism And Loss, Strong Evaluative Meaning, Theological Virtues, Virtue And Happiness, Wartime Martyrdom

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy presents Aquinas as a medieval theologian whose love of Scripture, clear metaphysics of happiness, integrated view of body and soul, and profound Eucharistic devotion offer urgently needed guidance for Christians facing modern confusion about truth, identity, and God.

This lecture was given on October 30th, 2025, at Southern Methodist University.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, OP is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance, loving God with the mind, and the intersection of theology and architecture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy.

Keywords: Analogical Predication, Beatitude And Happiness, Benedictine Spirituality, Corpus Christi Liturgy, Four Senses Of Scripture, Mendicant Controversies, Philosophical Anthropology, Real Presence Of Christ, Summa Theologiae, Unicity Of The Intellect Debate

Prof. Adam Eitel argues that God’s divine pedagogy makes the examples of the saints indispensable for our salvation, since their concrete, imperfect yet graced lives teach us how to endure sorrow, grow in virtue, and imitate Christ in the real circumstances of our own time.

This lecture was given on October 6th, 2025, at Brown University.

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About the Speakers:

Professor Eitel is an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Dallas. Before joining the UD faculty in 2023, he taught for eight years at Yale University, holding appointments in the Divinity School, the Program in Medieval Studies, and the Humanities Program. A specialist in medieval scholasticism, his research interests include doctrinal and moral theology, with a particular focus on the works of Thomas Aquinas and his contemporaries. His teaching and research bring historical Christian theology into dialogue with contemporary moral and political issues.

Keywords: Augustine On Virtue, Cardinal Virtues In Scripture, Communion Of Saints, Divine Pedagogy, Exemplarity And Moral Formation, Imitation Of Christ, Job’s Patience, Moral Theology, Summa Theologiae, Thomistic Biblical Commentary

Dr. John-Paul Heil critiques modern marketing’s implicit anthropology, explaining that marketing driven by manipulation, simulation, and quantity undermines human dignity, authentic friendship, and the pursuit of truth, advocating for a vision of marketing grounded in transparency, service, and the intrinsic value of persons.

This lecture was given on October 7th, 2025, at Washington and Lee University/Virginia Military Institute.

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About the Speakers:

John-Paul Heil is a Core Fellow in history, philosophy, Catholic anthropology, English, and theology at Mount St. Mary's University. He received his PhD in history from the University of Chicago and is pursuing an MBA in marketing. He has received multiple awards from the U.S. and Italian Fulbright commissions. His writing has appeared in Time, Smithsonian, The Week, and Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the books editor at the University of Pennsylvania's Dappled Things.

Keywords: Abusive Language, Anthropological Reductionism, Aristotle, Authentic Friendship, Cicero, Empathy In Marketing, Joseph Pieper, Regenerative Agriculture, Simulation And Dissimulation, Wendell Berry

Prof. Carl Vennerstrom explores how perseverance, prayer, ordered work, and thanksgiving transform boredom and the temptation to acedia into opportunities for deep spiritual growth, joy, and resilient virtue in an age of digital distraction.

This lecture was given on April 12th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speakers:

Dr. Vennerstrom specializes in eastern patristic theology. Of particular interest are monasticism, scriptural interpretation, and the writings of Evagrius of Pontus. He earned his PhD in Early Christian Studies at the Catholic University of America and teaches courses in church history, theology, and Greek at the Augustine Institute Graduate School in St. Louis, Missouri.

Keywords: Acedia And Boredom, Desert Monasticism, Digital Distraction, Evagrius Of Pontus, Liturgical Order, Patience And Perseverance, Prayer And Scripture, Spiritual Growth, Stillness, Thanksgiving And Joy

Prof. Paige Hochschild analyzes John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, contrasting the Catholic vision of bodily integration, purity, and vocation with both contemporary purity culture and philosophical dualism to reveal how grace, self-gift, and resurrection ground true human flourishing.

This lecture was given on October 6th, 2025, at University of South Florida.

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About the speaker:

Dr. Paige Hochschild is a professor of historical and systematic theology at Mount St. Mary's University (MD), specializing in Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and the early Church.  She also teaches philosophy courses at the Seminary at Mount St. Mary's.  She has written a book on the place of memory in Augustine's theological anthropology, and publishes on the Church, education, tradition, and 20th Century theological debates within the Church (scripture, history, marriage).

Keywords: Bodily Integration, Charity, Dualism And Gnosticism, Grace And Transformation, Human Sexuality, John Paul II, Marriage And Celibacy, Phenomenology, Purity Culture, Theology Of The Body

Prof. Jacob Wood contrasts Aquinas’s account of nature, cause, and purpose with modern identity theory, showing that human nature—created and ordered by God—grounds authentic freedom and common purpose in contrast to the fragmentation of expressive individualism.

This lecture was given on September 10th, 2025, at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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About the speaker:

Jacob W. Wood was born and raised in the New York City area, where he grew up in the Episcopal Church, learning to contemplate the love of the Lord in the beauty of the liturgy. After an initial period of theological study at the University of Saint Andrews, he followed the path of St. John Henry Newman into full communion with the Catholic Church in 2008. Since earning a doctorate in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America in 2014, he has served as a theologian at Franciscan University of Steubenville, focusing his teaching and research on the theology of creation, sin, and grace. He lives with his family in the Ohio countryside, where he continues to cultivate the love of the Lord through liturgical beauty, and has followed the call that many a young Catholic family has answered to sanctify Creation through the work of homesteading. Visit his website at www.wisdomoftradition.com.

Keywords: Aristotelian Causes, Divine Creation, Expressive Individualism, Freedom For Excellence, Gender Theory, Heidegger, Judith Butler, Nature And Identity, Order Of Creation, Shared Human Nature

Fr. Innocent Smith explores how beauty in art, architecture, and liturgy forms the soul, elevates worship, and points to God, showing that the Church’s cultivation of beauty is essential for evangelization, spiritual maturity, and experiencing the divine.​

This lecture was given on October 6th, 2025, at University of Virginia.

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About the speaker:

Innocent Smith, O.P., is Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. After undergraduate studies in music and philosophy at Notre Dame, he entered the Order of Preachers in 2008 and was ordained priest in 2015. Fr. Innocent served in parish ministry for several years before completing a doctorate in liturgical studies at the University of Regensburg in 2021. After teaching for several years in Baltimore and Washington, DC, he joined the Department of Theology in 2025. His research focuses on the material and musical aspects of medieval liturgical books as well as the relationship between liturgy and theology. His monograph Bible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy explores medieval manuscripts of the Bible that also contain liturgical texts for the celebration of Mass.

Keywords: Beauty, Evangelization, Eucharistic Worship, Goodness Truth And Beauty, Incarnation, Liturgical Architecture, Liturgical Diversity, Religious Art History, Sacred Music, Virtue Of Religion

Fr. James Brent presents a systematic introduction to Mariology, demonstrating that all Marian titles and attributes find their source and unity in her primary dogmatic role as Mother of God, which shapes her graces, virtues, and mission in salvation history.

This lecture was given on December 8th, 2024, at an Intellectual Retreat at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C.

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About the speaker:

Fr. James Dominic Brent is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Chaplain to Commuter Students at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC. He has articles in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Natural Theology, in the Oxford Handbook of Thomas Aquinas on “God’s Knowledge and Will”, and an article forthcoming on “Thomas Aquinas” in the Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology.

Keywords: Assumption, Divine Maternity, Immaculate Conception, Liturgical Tradition, Marian Dogmas, Mariology, Mother Of God, Perpetual Virginity, Queenship Of Mary, Spiritual Motherhood

Dr. Robert McNamara explores the problem of meaninglessness and chaos in contemporary life, showing how wonder, intellectual attention, and the cultivation of virtue empower individuals to find purpose and resilience in the face of suffering and cultural fragmentation.

This lecture was given on September 30th, 2025, at University of Galway.

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About the Speakers:

Dr. Robert McNamara is lecturer in philosophy at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, Ireland, associate series editor of Edith Stein Studies, associate scholar of the Hildebrand Project, associate member of faculty at the International Theological Institute and the Maryvale Institute, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland (currently suspended). Robert researches anthropological and metaphysical questions in medieval and phenomenological thinkers, especially as both bear reference to philosophical personalism. He has studied physics and computing, philosophy and theology, and received his Ph.D. for research in the thought of Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas. Robert is originally from Galway, Ireland and now lives in Carlow with his wife, Caroline, and their four children, Vivian, John, Catherine, and Oran.

Keywords: Absurdism, Attentive Engagement, Cultural Fragmentation, Intelligibility Of Reality, Meaning And Suffering, Nihilism, Practical Habits, Purpose In Life, Viktor Frankl, Wonder And Virtue

Prof. Carl Vennerstrom explores personal and social forms of acedia, tracing its origins from ancient monasticism to contemporary life and illuminating how distraction, restlessness, and identity crisis threaten fulfillment and virtue in the digital age.

This lecture was given on April 11th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speakers:

Dr. Vennerstrom specializes in eastern patristic theology. Of particular interest are monasticism, scriptural interpretation, and the writings of Evagrius of Pontus. He earned his PhD in Early Christian Studies at the Catholic University of America and teaches courses in church history, theology, and Greek at the Augustine Institute Graduate School in St. Louis, Missouri.

Keywords: Acedia, Desert Monasticism, Digital Distraction, Ennui, Evagrius Of Pontus, Existentialism, Frenzied Activity, Identity Crisis, Noonday Demon, Restlessness In Modernity

Fr. Gregory Pine explores the Eucharist as the foundation of Catholic identity, showing how sacramental worship unites the past, present, and future of salvation history and invites believers into personal transformation, unity, and divine love.

This lecture was given on November 3rd, 2025, at University of Pennsylvania.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. is an instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and an Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He holds a doctorate from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He is the co-author of Credo: An RCIA Program and Marian Consecration with Aquinas as well as the author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly. His writing also appears in Aleteia, Magnificat, and Ascension’s Catholic Classics series. He is a regular contributor to the podcasts Pints with Aquinas, Catholic Classics, The Thomistic Institute, and Godsplaining.

Keywords: Charity, Christian Identity, Divine Condescension, Eucharistic Worship, Graces Of Christian Life, Mystical Body, Personal Belonging, Sacramental Signs, Salvation History, Unity Through Communion

Prof. Jennifer Frey’s lecture compares Aquinas and Newman on the pursuit of wisdom and happiness, showing how a true liberal education cultivates philosophical habits and interior freedom by uniting the quest for knowledge, meaning, and the common good.

This lecture was given on September 18th, 2025, at University of Tulsa.

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About the Speakers:

Jennifer A. Frey is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa. She previously served as the inaugural Dean of the Honors College. Before coming to Oklahoma, she was an Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, where she was also a Peter and Bonnie McCausland Faculty Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences. Prior to her tenure at Carolina, she was a Collegiate Assistant Professor the Humanities at the University of Chicago, and a junior fellow of the Society for the Liberal Arts. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and her B.A. in philosophy and medieval studies (with a classics minor) at Indiana University-Bloomington. In 2015, she was awarded a multi-million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation, titled “Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life.” She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology, and she has edited three academic volumes on virtue and human action: Self Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology; Practical Truth; and Practical Wisdom (OUP, forthcoming 2025). Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, First Things, Image, Law and Liberty, The NewYork Times, The Point, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal.  She lives with her husband and six children in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Keywords: Aristotelian Liberal Arts, Cardinal Newman, Habits Of Mind, Interior Freedom, Liberal Education, Max Weber, Philosophical Tradition, Pursuit Of Happiness, Unity Of Knowledge, Wisdom

Dr. Michael Krom uses Catholic social teaching and Thomistic ethics to explain the difference between minimum wage and just wage, emphasizing that justice, moral duty, and human need—not just legal or economic policy—should guide compensation for workers.

This lecture was given on September 25th, 2025, at Louisiana State University.

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About the Speakers:

Michael Krom started reading Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae shortly after his conversion at the end of college. Upon learning about Flannery O’Connor’s “hillbilly Thomist” habit of reading Aquinas every night, he started studying two articles a day and completed the Summa while in graduate school at Emory University. As a professor at Saint Vincent College, he saw the urgent need for collegians and seminarians to receive a solid foundation in Aquinas’s philosophical theology. In 2020, he published Justice and Charity:  An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought (Baker Academic Press), and teaches a Thomistic philosophy course each fall. In addition to continuing work on the moral, economic, and political topics covered in the book, his current research is on the influence of monastic spirituality on Aquinas; he is working on a monograph tentatively entitled Aquinas Among the Benedictines.

Keywords: Catholic Social Teaching, Commutative Justice, Distributive Justice, Economic Policy, Just Wage, Minimum Wage, Moral Duty, Preference For The Poor, Property Rights, Subsidiarity Principle

Dr. Edmund Lazzari uses Thomistic philosophy and sacramental theology to analyze whether extraterrestrial intelligences could be baptized, exploring questions of nature, the soul, salvation, and God’s freedom to grant grace beyond the human species.​

This lecture was given on September 10th, 2025, at North Dakota State University.

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About the Speakers:

Edmund Lazzari is Teaching Fellow in the Department of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University. Dr. Lazzari is also a member of the Aquinas and 'the Arabs' International Working Group and affiliated faculty of the Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law. A former Basselin Fellow, he earned an ecclesiastical licentiate degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of America, as well as a doctorate in systematic theology and ethics from Marquette University. He has previously taught philosophy and theology at Mount St. Mary's University, Marquette University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other universities not starting with the letter "M." Dr. Lazzari has published on a wide variety of topics in theology, such as theology and science, the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Catholic-Muslim dialogue, liturgical theology, machine learning/AI, Catholic ethics, and extraterrestrial intelligence. He is the author of two books: Why Nature Matters: Unlocking Catholic Doctrine through Commonsense Philosophy (2022) and Miracles in Said Nursi and Thomas Aquinas (Routledge, 2024).

Keywords: Astrobiology, Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Grace And Salvation, Hylomorphism, Immortal Soul, Incarnation Theology, Intellectual Nature, Mystical Body, Particularity Scandal, Sacramental Participation

Prof. Jonathan Lunine tells the story of Georges Lemaître—the Catholic priest and physicist who proposed the Big Bang theory—showing how his pioneering science, deep faith, and personal humility revolutionized modern cosmology and bridged the perceived gap between religion and science.

This lecture was given on October 5th, 2023, at the Thomistic Institute in Limerick, Ireland.

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About the Speakers:

Jonathan Lunine is the Chief Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Professor of Planetary Science at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Beforehand, he was the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University. Lunine is interested in how planets form and evolve, what processes maintain and establish habitability, and what kinds of exotic environments (methane lakes, etc.) might host a kind of chemistry sophisticated enough to be called "life".  He pursues these interests through theoretical modeling and participation in spacecraft missions.  He is co-investigator on the Juno mission now in orbit at Jupiter, using data from several instruments on the spacecraft, and on the MISE and gravity science teams for the Europa Clipper mission. He was on the Science Working Group for the James Webb Space Telescope, focusing on characterization of extrasolar planets and Kuiper Belt objects.  Lunine has contributed to concept studies for a wide range of planetary and exoplanetary missions. Lunine is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has participated in or chaired a number of advisory and strategic planning committees for the Academy and for NASA.

Keywords: Astronomical Observation, Big Bang Theory, Cosmological Constant, Georges Lemaître, Hubble–Lemaître Law, Humility, Primeval Atom, Religious Science Dialogue, Scientific Legacy, Steady State Model

Dr. Edmund Lazzari’s lecture critically assesses claims that artificial intelligence systems might possess souls, arguing from Thomistic philosophy and computational neuroscience that AI lacks genuine abstraction, intentionality, and the ontological requirements for immaterial intelligence.

This lecture was given on October 2nd, 2025, at University of Houston.

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About the Speakers:

Edmund Lazzari is Teaching Fellow in the Department of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University. Dr. Lazzari is also a member of the Aquinas and 'the Arabs' International Working Group and affiliated faculty of the Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law. A former Basselin Fellow, he earned an ecclesiastical licentiate degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of America, as well as a doctorate in systematic theology and ethics from Marquette University. He has previously taught philosophy and theology at Mount St. Mary's University, Marquette University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other universities not starting with the letter "M." Dr. Lazzari has published on a wide variety of topics in theology, such as theology and science, the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Catholic-Muslim dialogue, liturgical theology, machine learning/AI, Catholic ethics, and extraterrestrial intelligence. He is the author of two books: Why Nature Matters: Unlocking Catholic Doctrine through Commonsense Philosophy (2022) and Miracles in Said Nursi and Thomas Aquinas (Routledge, 2024).

Keywords: Abstraction And Universals, Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Neuroscience, Intentionality, LaMDA Case, Language Models, Ontological Requirements, Predication, Sentience Debate, Thomistic Analysis

Dr. William Hurlbut explores the profound questions raised by neuroscience, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, emphasizing that the human soul—understood as the organizing principle of embodied, personal, and purposeful life—remains irreducibly distinct from animal, mechanical, and computational processes.

This lecture was given on October 7th, 2025, at The Ohio State University.

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About the Speakers:

William B. Hurlbut is a physician and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University Medical Center.  After receiving his undergraduate and medical training at Stanford, he completed postdoctoral studies in theology and medical ethics, studying with Robert Hamerton-Kelly, the Dean of the Chapel at Stanford, and subsequently with the Rev. Louis Bouyer of the Institut Catholique de Paris. 

His primary areas of interest involve the ethical issues associated with advancing biomedical technology, the biological basis of moral awareness, and studies in the integration of theology and philosophy of biology.  He was instrumental in establishing the first course in biomedical ethics at Stanford Medical Center and subsequently taught bioethics to over six thousand Stanford undergraduate students in the Program in Human Biology.

Dr. Hurlbut is the author of numerous publications on science and ethics including the co-edited volume Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (2002, Oxford University Press), and “Science, Religion and the Human Spirit” in the Oxford Handbook of Science and Religion.  He has organized and co-chaired three multi-year interdisciplinary faculty projects at Stanford University, “Becoming Human: The Evolutionary Origins of Spiritual, Religious and Moral Awareness,” “Brain Mind and Emergence,” and the ongoing “The Boundaries of Humanity: Human, Animals, and Machines in the Age of Biotechnology.”  In addition, he was Co-leader, together with U.C. Berkeley professor Jennifer Doudna of  “The challenge and opportunity of gene editing: a project for reflection, deliberation and education.”

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology, Embodied Cognition, Human Dignity, Imago Dei, Neurobiology, Personal Identity, Rational Soul, Reductionism, Transhumanism

Fr. Ambrose Little’s lecture explains why medieval philosophers studied astrology as part of natural science, showing how its connection to astronomy, cosmology, and causal mechanisms shaped intellectual inquiry, yet warns that modern astrology lacks scientific legitimacy and poses spiritual risks.

This lecture was given on September 19th, 2025, at University of Michigan

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Ambrose Little is the director of the Thomistic Institute.  He is originally from Connecticut and entered the Dominican Order in 2007 and was ordained a priest in 2013. Before entering the Dominican Order, he graduated from The Catholic University of America with a BA in philosophy. After ordination, he completed a Licentiate in Philosophy at The Catholic University of America and then taught for two years at Providence College. After completing his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Virginia in the summer of 2021, he started teaching at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception. He specializes in the philosophies of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, with an emphasis on their study of nature and the soul. He also studies topics at the intersection between philosophy and science.

Keywords: Albert The Great, Aristotelian Cosmology, Augustine’s Critique, Causal Mechanisms, Geocentrism, Horoscopes, Medieval Natural Philosophy, Natural Science, Spiritual Risk, Subalternation Of Sciences

Prof. Christopher Malloy argues that theology, properly understood as a classical science, involves intellectual habits of certain knowledge through causes grounded in faith, integrating poetry and philosophy to guide believers toward truth and beatific union with God.

This lecture was given on September 25th, 2025, at University of Pittsburgh.

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About the Speakers:

Christopher J. Malloy is married to Flory with whom he has seven children. He earned his B.A. in Theology (second major in Philosophy) from the University of Notre Dame in 1992. He earned his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology (minor in Philosophy) from The Catholic University of America in 2001. Since then he has taught at The University of Dallas, where he currently serves as Professor and Chair of Theology. He has published three books: Engrafted into Christ: A Critique of the Joint Declaration [on Justification], Aquinas on Beatific Charity and the Problem of Love, and False Mercy: Recent Heresies Distorting Catholic Truth. He has published numerous blind peer-reviewed articles for journals such as The Thomist, Nova et Vetera, Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, Josephinum, Angelicum, etc. He loves academia, especially publishing and teaching systematic theology, but he has always been fired up to give popular presentations highlighting the intelligibility and beauty of the Catholic faith, since that was the reason he got into Theology in the first place.

Keywords: Classical Science, Divine Illumination, Faith And Reason, Intellectual Habits, Mystical Theology, Poetry In Theology, Proper And Improper Statements, Sacred Doctrine, Theological Epistemology, Truth And Beatific Union

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explores how Thomas Aquinas integrates philosophical wisdom and divine revelation, showing that genuine knowledge of God arises from both reason and the transformative experience of Christ’s incarnation and the Holy Spirit.

This lecture was given on June 28th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speakers:

Michael A. Dauphinais, Ph.D., serves as the Fr. Matthew Lamb Professor of Catholic Theology and the co-director of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida.  He has co-authored with Matthew Levering Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible; and The Wisdom of the Word: Biblical Answers to Ten Questions about Catholicism.  He specializes in C.S. Lewis, the Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks frequently in both academic and popular settings, and particularly enjoys visiting Thomistic Institute student chapters.  Dr. Dauphinais hosts The Catholic Theology Show podcast to help a wide audience discover the richness of coming to know and love God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

Keywords: Christian Wisdom, Divine Revelation, Faith And Reason, Fulton Sheen, Idolatry, Incarnation, Sacred Doctrine, Spiritual Union, Theological Study

Fr. Gregory Pine explains Nicene Trinitarian theology and Chalcedonian Christology through key councils and controversies, showing how Christ’s incarnation and union with humanity unveil the path to salvation and divine participation.​

This lecture was given on September 11th, 2025, at University of Dallas.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., is an instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and the Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He holds a doctorate from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). He is the author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly and Your Eucharistic Identity: A Sacramental Guide to the Fullness of Life, and is co-author of Credo: An RCIA Program and Marian Consecration with Aquinas. His writing also appears in Aleteia, Magnificat, and Ascension’s Catholic Classics series. In addition to the TI podcast, he regularly contributes to the podcasts Godsplaining and Pints with Aquinas, and Catholic Classics.

Keywords: Chalcedonian Christology, Council Of Chalcedon, Divine Participation, Ecumenical Councils, Exemplar Cause, Homoousios, Hypostatic Union, Incarnational Solidarity, Nicene Theology, Soteriology

Fr. Philip-Neri Reese examines Thomas Aquinas’s theory of intellectual memory, tracing how Aquinas navigates conflicting authorities and ultimately defends the preservation of intelligible species in the possible intellect.

This lecture was given on June 17th, 2025, at Schloss St. Emmeram.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Philip-Neri Reese, O.P. is a Dominican Friar of the Province of St. Joseph and a professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (the Angelicum), where he also serves as the assistant director of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. Though his scholarly research mainly focuses on metaphysics (especially the scholastic metaphysics of St. Thomas and his later interpreters), he has also published on ethics, economics, Christology, and philosophical anthropology.

Keywords: Aristotelian Anthropology, Avicennian Epistemology, Habitual Knowledge, Imago Dei, Intellectual Memory, Intelligible Species, Memory, Possible Intellect, Verbal Dispute, Voluntary Cognition

Fr. Reginald Lynch’s lecture explores Augustine’s account of the Trinitarian image and its reception by Aquinas, illuminating how the development of grace, human anthropology, and sacramental life shape the Christian journey toward likeness with God.

This lecture was given on June 17th, 2025, at Schloss St. Emmeram.

Will you hand on the Faith to those who need it the most? Give by October 31st to film the next season of Aquinas 101! https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/oct25podcast

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Reginald Lynch is a Dominican priest of the Province of St. Joseph and a faculty member at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC (USA). His research focuses on a range of issues in the History of Christianity area, especially medieval and early modern theology. His most recent work has focused on Aquinas’ reception history in the early-modern West. He has recently completed the book, Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae and Eucharistic Sacrifice in the Early Modern Period (Oxford University Press, 2023), which focuses on Dominican and Jesuit receptions of Aquinas in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He is also the author of The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition (Catholic University of America Press, 2017).

Keywords: Aristotelian Categories, De Trinitate, Divine Likeness, Essence And Powers, Habitual Grace, Human Anthropology, Liturgical Virtue, Sacramental Character, Sanctification, Threefold Image

Fr. Dominic Legge’s lecture traces the theological development of the concept of the Word through Augustine, Aristotle, and Aquinas, illuminating the evolution of Trinitarian analogy and the nature of human understanding in medieval philosophy.

This lecture was given on June 16th, 2025, at Schloss St. Emmeram.

Will you hand on the Faith to those who need it the most? Give by October 31st to film the next season of Aquinas 101! https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/oct25podcast

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Dominic Legge is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Keywords: Albert The Great, Aristotelian Abstraction, Bonaventure, Illumination, Intellectual Procession, Inner Word, Marius Victorinus, Medieval Trinitarian Debates, Philosophical Cognition, Plotinus

Dr. Albert von Thurn und Taxis explores the 13th-century reception of Augustine’s account of memory, intellect, and will, analyzing how medieval philosophers navigated the tension between Augustinian and Aristotelian models of the rational soul.

This lecture was given on June 15th, 2025, at Schloss St. Emmeram.

Will you hand on the Faith to those who need it the most? Give by October 31st to film the next season of Aquinas 101! https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/oct25podcast

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About the Speakers:

Dr. Albert von Thurn und Taxis is the twelfth Prince of Thurn und Taxis and the current head of the Princely House. Born in Regensburg in 1983, his academic career reflects a diverse range of studies across economics, theology, and philosophy.

Prince Albert completed his early education in Regensburg and at the German School in Rome. He went on to study economics and theology at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a Master of Arts in 2008. He further honed his financial expertise by training as a chartered financial analyst in Zurich from 2008 to 2010. He later returned to Rome to pursue philosophy, earning a doctorate in 2022 from the Pontificia Universitas Studiorum a Sancto Thoma Aquinate in Urbe (Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas). His research interests touch on morality and agency, evident in his publication, "John Stuart Mill and the Criterion of Morality: The Good, the Self and the Other" (2011), and his Licentiate Thesis, "Triumph of the Will? Rationality and Freedom in Aquinas' Theory of Agency" (2014).

He is also a member of several other noble and religious orders, including the Royal Order of Saint George for the Defence of the Immaculate Conception (2005) and an honorary knight of the Sovereign Order of Malta (2010).

Keywords:

Albert The Great, Aristotelian Anthropology, Augustinian Triad, Faculty Psychology, Human Rationality, Imago Dei, Medieval Controversies, Memory Intellect And Will, Philosophical Anthropology, Trinitarian Psychology

Prof. Patrick Callahan explores the living tradition of Catholic culture, using Tolkien’s life and imagination to demonstrate how the Mass, community, and cultivation of virtue form a unified Christian identity resilient amidst modern challenges.

This lecture was given on January 18th, 2024, at University of Washington.

Will you hand on the Faith to those who need it the most? Give by October 31st to film the next season of Aquinas 101! https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/oct25podcast

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About the Speakers:

Prof. Patrick Callahan is director of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture as well as Assistant Professor of English and Humanities at St. Gregory the Great Seminary. There he directs and teaches in a Great Books Catholic program for students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other regional colleges. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Dallas and his graduate work at Fordham University in Classics. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife and 5 children.

Keywords: Catholic Culture, Community Tradition, Cultural Standardization, Evelyn Waugh, Incarnational Liturgy, Intellectual Virtue, Justice And Temperance, Letters Of Tolkien, Mustard Seed Metaphor, Sacramental Imagination

Dr. Jerome Foss uses Flannery O’Connor’s stories to warn against the pitfalls of governing by abstract tenderness, advocating for a vision rooted in faith, realism, and the transformative power of suffering.

This lecture was given on February 12th, 2025, at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Jerome C. Foss is Professor of Politics, Endowed Director of the Center for Catholic Thought and Culture, and Director of the SVC Core Curriculum at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Foss earned his BA from the University of Dallas and his MA and PhD from Baylor University. His research focuses on Catholic political thought, American political thought, and literature and political philosophy. His most recent book, Flannery O'Connor and the Perils of Governing by Tenderness, brings these interests together. He has also published on the history of political philosophy, the U.S. Constitution, Constitutional Law, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln. He is currently working on a scholarly book on the first ten amendments to the Constitution (commonly known as the Bill of Rights) and a book for a more general Catholic audience on the Declaration of Independence. Foss enjoys teaching a variety of courses, including courses on the Constitutional Convention and Shakespeare as a political thinker. As Director of the CCTC, Foss helps administer the college's Benedictine Leadership Studies Program, has developed and led the colleges summer program in Rome, founded and edits an academic journal entitled Conversatio, and organizes conferences, seminars, and other events.

Keywords: Abstract Tenderness, Alexis De Tocqueville, Christian Vision, Evil And Suffering, Flannery O’Connor, Moral Clarity, Nihilism, Real Presence, Storytelling Vocation, Theological Realism

Prof. Giuseppe Pezzini explores the biographical and spiritual connections between Newman and Tolkien, revealing how their shared organic vision of historical development and renewal challenges modern tensions between nostalgia, progress, and Christian identity.

This lecture was given on March 27th, 2025, at University of Edinburgh.

Will you hand on the Faith to those who need it the most? Give by October 31st to film the next season of Aquinas 101! https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/oct25podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Giuseppe Pezzini is Associate Professor in Latin at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, which he joined in 2021, after five beautiful years of teaching in St Andrews (2016–2021), and research fellowships at Magdalen College Oxford (2013–2015) and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2016). He worked as an assistant editor for the Oxford Dictionary of Medieval Latin, and has published especially on Latin language and literature, philosophy of language, and the theory of fiction, ancient and modern. He is the Tolkien Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies, one the founders of the Oxford Tolkien Network, and the author of many publications on Tolkien, including a forthcoming monograph on Tolkien’s literary theory (Cambridge University Press). He is also a member of the Young Academy of Europe, an Associate Member at the Institute of Theology, Imagination and the Arts at the University of St Andrews, and has published and curated exhibitions on John Henry Newman (2011, 2014) and Oscar Wilde (2015).

Keywords: Birmingham Oratory, Decline And Renewal, Historical Change, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Henry Newman, Organic Vision Of History, Sacred Memory, Seed And Tree Symbolism, Spiritual Influence, Vatican II

Fr. Innocent Smith’s lecture illuminates how Gregorian Chant, rooted in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, enriches Catholic liturgy by shaping Christian spirituality and expressing the deep joy of the Gospel through sung prayer.

This lecture was given on April 10th, 2025, at Clemson University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Innocent Smith, O.P., is Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. After undergraduate studies in music and philosophy at Notre Dame, he entered the Order of Preachers in 2008 and was ordained priest in 2015. Fr. Innocent served in parish ministry for several years before completing a doctorate in liturgical studies at the University of Regensburg in 2021. After teaching for several years in Baltimore and Washington, DC, he joined the Department of Theology in 2025. His research focuses on the material and musical aspects of medieval liturgical books as well as the relationship between liturgy and theology. His monograph Bible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy explores medieval manuscripts of the Bible that also contain liturgical texts for the celebration of Mass.

Keywords: Biblical Canticles, Christian Liturgy, Ecclesiastical Music, Eucharistic Thanksgiving, Gregorian Chant, Liturgical Solemnity, Psalms Of David, Sacramental Joy, St. Augustine, Sung Prayer

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy's lecture contrasts the incarnational vision of Fra Angelico with Le Corbusier’s machine aesthetic, revealing how Christian art and architecture communicate spiritual beauty, theological wisdom, and the presence of Christ through the transformation of physical space.

This lecture was given on March 14th, 2025, at Rhode Island School of Design.

Will you hand on the Faith to those who need it the most? Give by October 31st to film the next season of Aquinas 101! https://aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/oct25podcast

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, O.P. is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance, loving God with the mind, and the intersection of theology and architecture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy.

Keywords: Art And Spirituality, Beauty And Incarnation, Christian Architecture, Conceptual Art, Letter To Artists, Marie-Alain Couturier, Minimalism, Religious Pedagogy, Sacramental Presence, San Marco Frescoes

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy explores the relationship between grace and nature, demonstrating how grace perfects, transforms, and preserves the continuity of human nature without destroying its fundamental reality.

This lecture was given on July 20th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

Will you hand on the Faith to those who need it the most? Give by October 31st to film the next season of Aquinas 101! Visit aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/oct25podcast.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., is a priest of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph. He serves as the general editor of the Thomist Tradition Series, and he is co-author of Thomas and the Thomists: The Achievement of St. Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters. He has written for numerous publications on the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition.

Keywords: Accident and Substance, Divine Revelation, Grace and Nature, Human Nature, Obediential Potency, Original Justice, Philosophy and Theology, Prime Matter, Salvation, Supernatural Finality

Fr. Thomas Davenport examines the philosophical and scientific boundaries between the inanimate and the living, highlighting how Thomistic principles, spontaneous generation, and structured homogeneity offer new ways to understand life’s emergence and complexity.

This lecture was given on July 19th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P., is professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, where he teaches philosophy of nature and epistemology. He has written and spoken on the relationship of faith and science in a variety of venues, including being a main contributor to the Thomistic Evolution project. He was ordained to the priesthood in 2017 and is working on his second PhD in philosophy.

Keywords: Abiogenesis, Aristotle’s Four Elements, Biological Complexity, David Oderberg, Emergence, Homogeneity, Integral Parts, Scala Natura, Spontaneous Generation, Structured Elementarity