The Thomistic Institute

This lecture was given on March 14, 2022 at Yale University. The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/u74wk4hb. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Carlos Eire, who received his PhD from Yale in 1979, specializes in the social, intellectual, religious, and cultural history of late medieval and early modern Europe, with a focus on both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations; the history of popular piety; and the history of the supernatural, and the history of death. Before joining the Yale faculty in 1996, he taught at St. John’s University in Minnesota and the University of Virginia, and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for two years. He is the author of War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin (1986); From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth Century Spain (1995); A Very Brief History of Eternity (2010); Reformations: The Early Modern World (2016); and The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila: A Biography (2019). And he is co-author of Jews, Christians, Muslims: An Introduction to Monotheistic Religions (1997). He has also ventured into the twentieth century and the Cuban Revolution in the memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana (2003), which won the National Book Award in Nonfiction in the United States and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. His second memoir, Learning to Die in Miami (2010), explores the exile experience. A past president of the Society for Reformation Research, he is currently researching attitudes toward miracles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His recent book Reformations won the R.R.Hawkins Prize for Best Book of the Year from the American Publishers Association, as well as the award for Best Book in the Humanities. It was also awarded the Jaroslav Pelikan Prize by Yale University Press. All of his books are banned in Cuba, where he has been proclaimed an enemy of the state – a distinction he regards as the highest of all honors.

This lecture was given on April 5, 2022 at Cairn University. The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8psrnj. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Patrick Callahan is director of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as well as Assistant Professor of English & Humanities at St. Gregory the Great Seminary. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Dallas and his graduate work at Fordham University in Classical Philology. While his doctoral work focused on ancient Greek commentaries to the lyric poet Pindar, his recent work focuses on early Jesuit Latin texts.

This lecture was given on April 6, 2022 at Trinity College Dublin. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Alan O’Sullivan OP is an Irish Dominican. Ordained a priest in 2000 he studied at Blackfriars House of Studies, Oxford, where he obtained a Lectorate in Sacred Theology. His area of research focussed on “New Movements and Communities, Vatican II, and the Ecclesiology of Communion.” Having worked as a curate in a parish in Dublin for two years he went to study at the Angelicum, Rome, where he obtained a Licence in Sacred Theology. In 2012 he obtained his doctorate from Fribourg University, Switzerland. He specialises in moral theology, and lectures at the Dominican House of Studies, Dublin. He is currently Chaplain to Trinity College Dublin and Spiritual Director to Pure in Heart, Ireland. His book Self-Giving, Self-Mastery was published by Peter Lang in 2017.

This lecture was given on March 26, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Joining the Dominicans of the Western Province in 1960, Fr. Cole was ordained to the priesthood in 1966. He finished his theological studies at Le Saulchoir in Etiolles, France earning the lectorate and licentiate degrees in 1968. He later received the doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the Angelicum). After teaching theology and philosophy at Pilarica College for the Notre Dame Sisters (1968-69), Fr. Cole was elected prior of St. Dominic’s in San Francisco, where he also served as parish priest, a member of the provincial council and lecturer at various institutions (1970-1975). Elected prior of Daniel Murphy High School community in Los Angeles he became a member of the Western Dominican preaching band and preached throughout the American West. Fr. Cole was an invited professor at the Angelicum from 1985-97, and has taught moral, spiritual and dogmatic theology at the Dominican House of Studies since 1997. Fr. Cole has authored: Music and Morals, Alba House, Staten Island, New York, 1993; co-authored with Paul Connor, O.P.; Christian Totality: Theology of Consecrated Life, published by St. Paul’s editions in Bombay, India 1990, revised in 1997 Alba House, Staten Island, New York. He has written for The Priest, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Faith and Reason, and Angelicum. He has also been a long time collaborator for Germain Grisez’s four volume series of moral theology, The Way of the Lord Jesus.

This lecture was given on March 26, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Father Gavin earned his B.A. from Boston College, his M.A. from Fordham University, and his M.Div. from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkley. He received his Sacred Theology Doctorate in Rome and was a lecturer at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Gregorian University for three years. Fr. Gavin entered the Society of Jesus in 1991 and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 2002. He is the author of 'They are like the angels in the heavens': Angelology and Anthropology in the Thought of Maximus the Confessor (Augustinianum, 2009) and A Celtic Christology: The Incarnation According to John Scottus Eriugena (Cascade, 2014).

This lecture was given on March 26, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr Oliver is the Director of the Aquinas Institute and a member of the Theology Faculty at the University of Oxford. As Fellow and Lector, Fr Oliver teaches Systematic Theology at Blackfriars. As Director of the Aquinas Institute, he has responsibility for coordinating its research programme and for organising its annual programme of reading classes, seminars, lectures and colloquia. He completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford (under the supervision of Professor Graham Ward). His doctoral work outlined a semantic ontology for Christian dogmatics, in dialogue with the philosophy of Michael Polanyi. He specialises in theological ontology, theological epistemology, and twentieth-century dogmatics, particularly Catholic receptions of Karl Barth. Together with Dr Daniel De Haan, he is leading a two-year Templeton-funded project on ‘Truth, Aquinas, and the Theological Turn in Continental Philosophy‘. In addition to his work at Blackfriars, he is a Translation Fellow of the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary; an Associate Lecturer at the Maryvale Institute; Trustee of the Eckhart Society; a member of the Editorial Board of New Blackfriars; and the Master of Students for the English Dominicans.

This lecture was given on March 25, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Heereman was born and raised in a devout Catholic family in Germany. Originally trained to become a lawyer, she experienced a deep encounter with the Lord which led her to discern a vocation as a lay woman celibate for the sake of the kingdom. She received two years of spiritual formation and attended the ICPE school of Evangelization in India, Banglore, which eventually led her to theological studies so as to consecrate her life to the study and teaching of the Word of God. She received an STB from the Pontifical Gregorian University, an SSL from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and the SSD from the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem on and the Université de Fribourg. During and after her doctoral studies she lectured at the Collège des Bernhardins, Paris, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome as a visiting professor. Explaining her discernment to join St. Patrick’s faculty, Dr. Heereman writes: “In particular, I desire to open up the treasures of the Scriptures to future priests so that their ministry might be rooted in the Word of God as the living source of their life and preaching. I am deeply committed to the Church’s desire to make ‘the study of the sacred page the very soul of theology’ (DV 24).”

Access Fr. Ku's handout here: https://tinyurl.com/a37v477v This lecture was given on March 25, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies as part of the Thomistic Institute's Annual Spring Thomistic Circles Conference: "Our Father: Prayer and Theology." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. John Baptist Ku was born in Manhattan (1965) and grew up in Fairfax, Virginia. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he worked at AT&T for five years before entering the Dominican Order in 1992. After serving for three years in St. Pius V Parish in Providence, Rhode Island, he completed his doctoral studies in dogmatic theology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and began teaching for the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in 2009.

This lecture was given on March 9, 2022 at Texas A&M University. The slides for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/5bv6865r. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Paul LaPenna is a neurologist in Greenville, SC and Associate Professor of Neurology at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, Carolinas Campus. Dr. LaPenna completed his neurology residency at Indiana University School of Medicine in 2018. As a neurohospitalist, Dr. LaPenna’s skill set is focused on treatment of neurological emergencies and performing and interpreting electrophysiological studies of the brain and peripheral nervous system. As an Associate Professor of Neurology, Dr. LaPenna has won numerous teaching awards, including Clinical Medicine Professor of the neuroscience curriculum in 2019, 2020, and 2021. For the 2020-2021 academic year, Dr. LaPenna was awarded the Preceptor of the Year. For his care towards patients, he was elected to the Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society in 2016. Dr. LaPenna has an interest in the relationship between science and faith—in particular, the relationship between neuroscience and the soul, the overreaching claims of science, and the dignity of the human person, to name a few. Saint Thomas Aquinas has been a major influence in Dr. LaPenna’s intellectual and faith journey. Dr. LaPenna was previously a collegiate runner and now enjoys running recreationally, hiking, and spending time outdoors. Most of all, he loves his wife Nicole and their two daughters, Catherine and Susanna.

You can view Fr. Hofer's handout here: https://tinyurl.com/2p9c8h72 This lecture was given on February 3, 2022 at Queens University. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Andrew Hofer, O.P., is Associate Professor and Director of the Doctoral Program at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. His research appears in Augustinianum, The Journal of the History of Ideas, Nova et Vetera, Pro Ecclesia, Studia Patristica, The Thomist, Vigiliae Christianae, and other journals and volume collections. He is the author of Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (Oxford University Press); the editor of Divinization: Becoming Icons of Christ through the Liturgy (Hillenbrand Books); co-author of A Living Sacrifice: Guidance for Men Discerning Religious Life (Vianney Publications), and co-editor of Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers (Sapientia Press) and Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology (Sapientia Press). He is presently co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Deification and The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Sermons, and he is finishing his book funded by a Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Teacher-Scholar grant, The Word in Our Flesh: The Power of Patristic Preaching.