Abstract: What does it mean to make a place for God in our lives? What can the created world and its cycles teach us about who God is and who He created us to be? Join theologian and master gardener Dr. Vigen Guroian as he explores the meaning of beauty, and its relationship to virtue, the spiritual life and living out the Easter mysteries.

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BIO: Dr. Vigen Guroian is Professor of Religious Studies in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia, the same  school from which he received his B.A. in 1970. In 1978 he  received his PhD from Drew University. He is the author of nine books including the noted Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classical Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination and Rallying the Really Human Things: Moral Imagination in Politics, Literature, and Everyday Life.

He has contributed over … Read More »

BIO: Mr. Bermúdez received his training in Social Communications from the University of Lima.  In addition to serving as head of CNA and ACI Prensa, he has been published in the New York Times and is the Latin American correspondent for Our Sunday Visitor, the National Catholic Register, the Spanish magazine Razón y Fe and hosts numerous spanish language programs on EWTN.

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With increased unemployment and poverty in the United States, caring for the poor has become a greater concern than in recent history.  How best can this country assuage the pains of poverty? Can a Free Market such as ours adequately care for the poor or does it lead to more poverty and a greater polarization between economic classes? Join Fr. Robert Sirico and Mr. Michael Sean Winters as they go head-to-head debating on the Free Market’s capacity to care for the marginalized.

The Aquinas Institute for Catholic Thought is proud to announce that our Sixth Annual Great Debate will be held on Monday, January 28th at 7:00pm on the University of Colorado Boulder campus in Chemistry 140. All college students will have free admittance but must obtain a ticket from one of our ticket distribution venues (see below for more information on how … Read More »

What does it mean to be a faithful Catholic and a faithful citizen in today’s confusing political climate? In this lecture, Monsignor Swetland will discuss the Catholic duty to participate in the political process, the formation of a good conscience in light of the Gospel message and Catholic Social Teaching, and why Catholics should feel homeless in today’s American political structure.

BIO: Msgr. Stuart W. Swetland, S.T.D., was ordained a priest in 1991 for the Diocese of Peoria, IL. He received his undergraduate degree in Physics from the United States Naval Academy. Elected a Rhodes Scholar in 1981, he entered the Catholic Church while studying at Oxford. He has a B.A. and M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford; a M.Div. and M.A. from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary; and his S.T.L. and S.T.D. from the Pontifical Lateran University having studied at … Read More »

In this lecture, Catholic commentator and blogger Michael Sean Winters asks how Catholics - bishops, clergy and laity - can and should involve themselves and their ideas in America’s raucous political life. He will focus not only on recent dust-ups like the Obama administration’s contraception mandate, but at the deeper trends in American politics that should worry Catholics, as well as some trends within the Church that should worry everyone.

The Text of the Lecture

BIO: Michael Sean Winters writes for the National Catholic Reporter. His blog at NCR, “Distinctly Catholic,” was awarded first prize as the best individual blog by the National Catholic Press Association this year, the first time that category had been awarded. He is the author of two books, “Left at the Altar; How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Democrats” (2008) and “God’s Right Hand: … Read More »

The Catholic Church has led opposition to the HHS mandate that employers facilitate insurance coverage for contraceptives, abortion-causing drugs, and sterilizations even when such coverage violates deeply-held religious beliefs.  Some have argued that opponents of this mandate are waging a “war on women.”  In fact, the mandate violates religious liberty protections that until recently have enjoyed broad, bipartisan support, and Catholic women are not fair-weather believers willing to trade away limits on their religious freedom.

The Text of the Lecture

BIO: Kim Daniels is coordinator of Catholic Voices USA and an attorney whose practice has focused on religious liberty issues, particularly rights of conscience in health care.  Kim and her husband have six school-age children and are active members of their parish in Bethesda, Maryland.  She’s a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Chicago Law School. 

The Catholic Church has lived under and survived many forms of totalitarianism. Now, however, the Church faces a new, more subtle problem: what Benedict XVI calls “the dictatorship of relativism.” What does this mean? How does it manifest itself? How can Catholics address this new form of oppression?

BIO:  Dr. Samuel Gregg is Research Director at the Acton Institute. He has written and spoken extensively on subjects ranging from political economy, natural law theory, to the Catholic Church. He has a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oxford. He is the author of many books, including Morality, Law, and Public Policy (2000), On Ordered Liberty (2003), his prize-winning The Commercial Society (2007), The Modern Papacy (2009), and Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy (2010) as well as monographs such as A Theory of Corruption (2004), and Banking, Justice, and the Common … Read More »

Non-Catholics often ask, “Where in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the Mass?” This talk is designed to enable Catholics to answer this question and others about the Scriptural basis of the Eucharist.

BIO: Dr. Scott Hahn was born in 1957, has been married to Kimberly since 1979, and has six children—and five grandchildren. An exceptionally popular speaker and teacher, Dr. Hahn has delivered numerous talks nationally and internationally on a wide variety of topics talks related to Scripture and the Catholic faith.

He is currently a Professor of Theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990, and is the founder and president of the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology. From 2005 to 2011, he held the Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Biblical Theology and Liturgical Proclamation at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, … Read More »

The moral and legal issues of abortion are distinct though related.  Should abortion be illegal?  Would making abortion illegal violate the rights of women?  Does the legalization of abortion violate the dignity of unborn human beings?  Do the major Supreme Court cases on abortion square with reasonable interpretation of the Constitution?  How should Catholics make the legal and Constitutional cases on this crucial debate, and do Christians have a special responsibility on this issue?

BIO: Dr. Patrick Lee holds the John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Chair of Bioethics, and is the Director of the Institute of Bioethics, at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is known nationally as a speaker and author on contemporary ethics, especially on such hot-button bioethical issues as abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, sexual morality, and same-sex unions. He is the co-author (with Robert P. George) of Body-Self Dualism … Read More »

Dr. Smith’s Followup Remarks (Dr. Gudorf declined our invitation for a followup)

About Dr. Janet Smith (Answering in the Affirmative): Dr. Janet E. Smith holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.

She is the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and of the Right to Privacy. Editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader. She has coauthored Life Issues, Medical Choices, Questions and Answers for Catholics, with Chris Kaczor.  She has been published in The Thomist, The Irish Theological Quarterly, Nova et Vetera, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, The National Catholic Bioethics Journal, among other publications.

She speaks nationally and internationally on the Catholic teachings on sexuality and on bioethics.

She is serving a third term as a consulter to the Pontifical Council on the Family and she serves the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian … Read More »