Summer Conferences

Christendom College held a one-day conference on Catholic bioethics featuring renowned speakers including Francis Cardinal Arinze, Bishop Robert Morlino, Dr. Janet Smith, and Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk. The conference, held on July 9, 2012, drew close to 300 attendees who enjoyed presentations on the full range of life issues–from reproductive health to embryonic stem cell research. Bishop Robert Mor...

Popular apologist and author of Nuts & Bolts: A Practical Guide for Explaining and Defending the Catholic Faith , Tim Staples delivered an address on St. Paul and justification. Staples highlighted the importance of context when reading Scripture, saying that a lack of context can produce bad theology. “Folks, context! Tradition brings to us a context out of which the Scriptures arise and have...

Convert and author of many books, including By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition , Mark Shea brought the conference to a close examining St. Paul and his influence on evangelization and apologetics. “When it comes to evangelism there is one commandment of Christ that all Christians are ready and eager to obey: Mark 1:44, ‘Go and tell no one.’” Shea quipped. Shea explaine...

Sebastian Carnazzo, Ph. D., a professor of theology at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, explained that it was essential to read the Acts of the Apostles in order to understand the epistles of St. Paul. “Acts tells you the story behind the Pauline epistles,” he said. “If you want to understand the epistle to the Romans, you have to understand the history of the Church in Rome. You have to understand...

Following a break for lunch, Christendom College Professor of Theology Eric Jenislawski spoke on the challenges facing modern Biblical interpretation. “Modern methods of interpretation often yield results that either cannot be reconciled to the Catholic faith or are spiritually sterile, not so much heterodox, but useless for preaching, spiritual meditation, or theology,” he said. “Biblical studies...

Bishop Loverde offered Mass and delivered the homily. “There is a fundamental two-fold dynamic underlying our identity and mission as those who belong unconditionally to God in Christ Jesus and to his Church. This twofold dynamic is to be with the Lord Jesus and to be sent out in his name to proclaim the Gospel,” he said. Loverde explained that St. Paul embodied this two-fold dynamic, and encourag...

“The phenomenon of cafeteria Catholics is real, widely accepted, and practiced,” Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde told over 200 attendees at Christendom College’s 2-day conference entitled St. Paul: His Spiritual and Scriptural Contributions to the Church and held June 26-27. “We hear all the time, ‘I personally believe that abortion is wrong, but why should the Church tell me that my vote should be...

The conference welcomed attendees from as far as Seattle, Wash., to hear not only Bishop Loverde, but also sought-after speakers Tim Staples, Mark Shea, and Timothy O’Donnell, as well as theology professors Eric Jenislawski and Sebastian Carnazzo. Holding advanced degrees in both history and theology, O’Donnell explained that Paul had an ardent desire, as Apostle to the Gentiles, to visit Rome. In...

Christendom College’s annual Summer Institute was held on Saturday, July 12, 2008, at its Front Royal, Va., campus. The one-day conference, entitled “The Role of the Laity in the Catholic Church,” featured speakers from various professional fields. Congressman Chris Smith, film producer Steve McEveety, medical doctor John Bruchalski, Rev. Thomas Dubay, journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell, and Chri...

Christendom College’s annual Summer Institute was held on Saturday, July 12, 2008, at its Front Royal, Va., campus. The one-day conference, entitled “The Role of the Laity in the Catholic Church,” featured speakers from various professional fields. Congressman Chris Smith, film producer Steve McEveety, medical doctor John Bruchalski, Rev. Thomas Dubay, journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell, and Chri...

Christendom College’s annual Summer Institute was held on Saturday, July 12, 2008, at its Front Royal, Va., campus. The one-day conference, entitled “The Role of the Laity in the Catholic Church,” featured speakers from various professional fields. Congressman Chris Smith, film producer Steve McEveety, medical doctor John Bruchalski, Rev. Thomas Dubay, journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell, and Chri...

Christendom College’s annual Summer Institute was held on Saturday, July 12, 2008, at its Front Royal, Va., campus. The one-day conference, entitled “The Role of the Laity in the Catholic Church,” featured speakers from various professional fields. Congressman Chris Smith, film producer Steve McEveety, medical doctor John Bruchalski, Rev. Thomas Dubay, journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell, and Chri...

Christendom College’s annual Summer Institute was held on Saturday, July 12, 2008, at its Front Royal, Va., campus. The one-day conference, entitled “The Role of the Laity in the Catholic Church,” featured speakers from various professional fields. Congressman Chris Smith, film producer Steve McEveety, medical doctor John Bruchalski, Rev. Thomas Dubay, journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell, and Chri...

College President Dr. Timothy O’Donnell spoke on the family as a Domestic Church. “There is no doubt that the family, as we know it, is under attack. Everyone has an obligation to prayerfully read Familiaris Consortio , such an important and beautiful Church document on marriage and the family. “In the first world today there has been almost a total failure in communicating the saving truths found...

Providing a unique political perspective, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) spoke of the importance of the family in keeping America’s founding values and vision strong. “The family is under attack,” he said. “No fault divorce laws increase the divorce rate in states by 10-80%; the government does have a role to play. The policies of the left do make a difference. Government support of unma...

Following Stanford’s talk, conference attendees filled Christ the King Chapel where retired Bishop Thomas Welsh of Allentown, Pennsylvania celebrated a votive Mass for the family. “The idea of covenant helps us to recall the original covenant that was with God and mankind, and so the marriage covenant should remind us that God is very much a part of this agreement,” Bishop Welsh said in his homily...

Acclaimed professor of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body Mary Stanford discussed authority in marriage. She said that our modern culture has a misconception of what marriage is. “Our modern age operates as though the family were a collection of people whose communal life mirrors the dynamic of a small business,” she said. “Given the prevailing cultural materialism the objective of the so-called...

“The family is under attack and we must take action to defend it” was the ringing theme at Christendom College’s 18th Annual Summer Institute on Marriage and the Family attended by 350 people at its Front Royal, Virginia campus on July 21. Speakers at the day-long conference included Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Bishop Robert Morlino, Sen. Rick Santorum, Timothy O’Donnell and Mary Stanford. Mass was ce...

Dr. Pia de Solenni, who holds a doctorate in Sacred Theology from Holy Cross University in Rome, discussed “Benedict XVI and the Role of Women in the Church.” “The Church’s view on women transcends categories of liberal and conservative, left and right. Rather, it represents a dynamic reality to which John Paul II dedicated a good portion of his pontificate and which Benedict XVI shows every inten...

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, the internationally loved speaker and writer, presented a lecture on “Benedict XVI and Biblical Exegesis.” Fr. Groeschel decried modern biblical exegesis that does not deal with Scripture on a theological plane. He cited the source of improper biblical exegesis as rationalism, which uses mathematical methods in philosophy, holding that only that which can be observed by the...

Helen Hull Hitchcock delivered an address entitled “Pope Benedict XVI and the Reform of the Reform,” in which she stated that Pope Benedict is emphatic that the Council did not represent a rupture, but expressed continuity with the Church’s history. There is no pre- or post- Conciliar Church, he writes, there is but one, unique Church that walks the path toward the Lord. She continued by explainin...

Cardinal Arinze explained that the Pope has much to say about the question of the formation of liturgical rites and of their change or reform. “Real liturgy implies that God responds and reveals to us how we are to worship him. Liturgy cannot spring from our imagination, from our own creativity, for then it would remain just a cry in the dark or mere self-affirmation,” he said. “The pope’s authori...

Fr. William Saunders, speaking on “Benedict XVI and the Compendium of the Catechism,” informed the audience that the current pope was very much responsible for the success of both the Catechism and the newly released Compendium of the Catechism. “The Compendium is a beautiful summary, if you will, of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The truths of the Faith are laid out in the traditional ques...

In his talk, Dr. Timothy O’Donnell analyzed the Pope’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est . “The Pope points out that the love of Christ is not only demonstrated in Scripture but also later in Church History where Our Lord is encountered in His Word, in the Sacraments, and especially ‘in the Eucharist, where in the Church’s liturgy and her prayer, the followers experience the love of God and His presenc...