Season 12

Dec. 12, 2025

Does Nature Make Laws? – Prof. Raymond Hain

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.

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Dec. 11, 2025

'The greatest of all God's works': Justification in Catholic Theology…

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-…

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Dec. 10, 2025

Can Divine Providence Be Known Through Natural Reason? The Classics' …

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.​

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Dec. 9, 2025

Living Mary's Mediation through De Montfort’s 'Total Consecration' – …

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.

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Dec. 8, 2025

The History of Devotion to Mary: She Who Leads Us to Jesus – Fr. John…

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.

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Dec. 6, 2025

Is Free Will an Illusion? – Prof. Joshua Hochschild

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 Aristote…

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Dec. 4, 2025

Happiness and Virtue: Can it be Good for You to Be Bad? – Prof. Thom…

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.

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Dec. 3, 2025

Virtue and the Meaningful Life – Dr. David McPherson

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.​

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Dec. 2, 2025

St. Thomas Aquinas: His Life, Wisdom, and Relevance Today – Fr. Irena…

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.

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Dec. 1, 2025

Why We Need the Saints – Prof. Adam Eitel

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.

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Nov. 28, 2025

Does Marketing Make Us Less Human? – Dr. John-Paul Heil

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, advoc...

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Nov. 27, 2025

A Breastplate of Stillness and a Book of Thanksgiving: The Fruits of …

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 digi...

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Nov. 26, 2025

Theology of the Body – Prof. Paige Hochschild

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 gr...

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Nov. 25, 2025

Identity vs. Nature: Aquinas on Who Creates Me – Prof. Jacob Wood

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 frag...

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Nov. 24, 2025

The Way of Beauty: The Church and the Arts – Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P.

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...

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Nov. 21, 2025

Mariology 101: Part 1 – Fr. James Brent, O.P.

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,...

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Nov. 20, 2025

Finding Meaning Amidst the Chaos Or: Why Get Out of Bed in the Mornin…

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 f...

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Nov. 18, 2025

Your Eucharistic Identity – Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

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.

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Nov. 17, 2025

Aquinas and Newman on the Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness – Prof. Jen…

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.

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Nov. 14, 2025

Minimum Wage vs. Just Wage: A Thomistic Clarification of Catholic Soc…

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.

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Nov. 13, 2025

Would St. Thomas Baptize and Extraterrestrial? – Dr. Edmund Lazzari

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.​

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Nov. 12, 2025

George Lemaitre: The Catholic Priest Who Proposed the Big Bang Theory…

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.

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Nov. 11, 2025

Does AI Have a Soul? – Dr. Edmund Lazzari

Dr. Edmund Lazzari 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.

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Nov. 10, 2025

Neuroscience and the Soul – Dr. William Hurlbut

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 computa…

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