Institute of Catholic Culture

The Institute of Catholic Culture is an adult catechetical organization, faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and dedicated to the Church’s call for a new evangelization.

The Institute of Catholic Culture is an adult catechetical organization, faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and dedicated to the Church’s call for a new evangelization.

In Matthew 18, Jesus teaches that unless we become like children, we will never enter the kingdom of heaven. This lecture explores what it means to have a “child-like” faith. Msgr. Pope also examines the modern challenges to living a life of faith and the vices which make such a life difficult.

Using the words of St. Thomas the Apostle in John 11:16 as a starting point, Prof. Garland examines what it means to “die to self” by exploring the history and theology of the season of Lent, providing practical ways in which our penitential practices can prepare us to live for Christ.

This talk gives an exciting overview of the central, although misunderstood or simply ignored, Christian doctrine that God the Father, through the Incarnation of the Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, transforms our humanity so as to allow us to share in divinity. Grave objections that challenge the notion of deification as un-Christian are considered, and answers given from Scripture, holy witnesses to Tradition from both East and West, and the Magisterium.

Millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day every year, but few know the man who is the reason for the feast. Join us as we cut through the legends to meet the real Saint Patrick in his own writings, and see the working of God's grace in the most unlikely of places.

We are all called to be martyrs, that is, witnesses of the faith. Yes, we may face “red martyrdom,” by which we shed our blood for the faith. Most of us, however, are challenged to embrace a “white martyrdom,” which means striving to live a genuinely Christian life in an age of secularism and relativism. Martyrs, however, are the seed of the Church, as the Church Father Tertullian stated. Therefore, our lived life-whether at home, work or school-must be a witness that plants the seeds of faith and builds up the Church.

Hypocrisy is a word and concept that is often misunderstood today. We tend to use the word merely to condemn people who say one thing and do another. But Jesus, when he uses the word has something richer and more subtle in mind as we look to the 6th Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It is a rich and powerful instruction from the Lord. Let’s sit as his feet and listen.

Our Lord consistently used imagery of the natural world in order to convey fundamental truths. The Church’s liturgy and calendar is similarly rooted in the realities of the material created order and of human husbandry. This lecture addresses how we can reconnect to those images and realities in order to deepen our lives as Christians.

“That anyone could doubt the right of the holy Virgin to be called the Mother of God fills me with astonishment. Surely she must be the Mother of God if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and she gave birth to him!” — Saint Cyril of Alexandria