The Lumen Christi Institute

Joseph Vukov and Michael Murphy on May 13, 2026 at Ruth Lake Country Club. Pope Leo XIV has already spoken movingly about the isolation and stress, especially for the young, of modern life. In a different format from our normal West Suburban Catholic Culture Series lecture, philosophers Joe Vukov and Mike Murphy dialogue as they consider the prospects for the future as the Church confronts challen...

Marc DeGirolami, Darrell Miller, Judge Martha Pacold, Richard W. Garnett, and Samuel Bray on April 23, 2026 at the University of Chicago Law School. The American experiment depends on the people holding something in common. But what was once taken for granted is now up for debate, as all sorts of norms and established beliefs are under attack. Is this the result of an improper intrusion of politic...

Marc DeGirolami, Richard W. Garnett, and Jennifer Newsome Martin on April 22, 2026 at Jenner & Block Law. This American moment is one of alienation and dislocation. In personal relations, an “epidemic of loneliness” has emerged as in-person friendships dwindle. Politically and morally, what once seemed to be long-held convictions seem suddenly up for debate. Is there still a “We the People,” as th...

David Cloutier on April 8, 2026 at Ruth Lake Country Club. In this lecture, David Cloutier traces the development of Catholic social teaching (CST) from Rerum Novarum through Quadragesimo Anno to Centesimus Annus and beyond. Through many papacies and much change in the world, CST develops a unique and distinctive social vision that speaks to both the hopes and the perils of the contemporary world.

Scott Roniger on March 18, 2026 at Ruth Lake Country Club. In this lecture, Prof. Scott Roniger outlines the historical context that instigated the development of modern Catholic social doctrine during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903). He discusses some of Leo’s most important contributions to Magisterial teaching on social issues, contributions that illuminate perennial principles tha...

Martin Shaw on February 4, 2026 at the Lumen Christi Institute. Drawing on his experience as a professor, mythographer, and widely respected storyteller, Martin Shaw locates us in the deeper dimensions of how a modern person approaches an ancient story through the telling of "The Birth of Ossian," an Irish fairy tale. This story is the second part of Shaw's event titled "Mythopoetics and Faerie St...

Martin Shaw on February 4, 2026 at the Lumen Christi Institute. In his newly published "Liturgies of the Wild," acclaimed mythographer and storyteller Martin Shaw argues that we live in a myth-impoverished age and that such poverty has left us vulnerable to stories that may not wish us well. Drawing on the “ancient technologies” of myths and initiatory rites, Shaw provides a road to wholeness, mat...

Dr. Martin Shaw on February 5, 2026 at the Graduate by Hilton Evanston Hotel. There’s an old Irish belief that if you aren’t wrapped in a cloak of story you will be unprepared for what the world will hurl at you. You remain adolescent at just the moment a culture worth its salt requires you to become a real, grown, human being. Myths from antiquity are vivid in describing the conditions of life. C...

Erika Kidd on November 12, 2025 at Ruth Lake Country Club. Doctor of the Church, Saint Augustine of Hippo, has a lot to say about teaching. He writes memorably about the way his early teachers failed him, teaching him to love praise and worldly success. He writes too about the vocation of the teacher, a vocation he lived in many different ways as rhetorician, father, priest, and bishop. In his ear...

Season Finale - Special Episode by The Lumen Christi Institute

Carlos Eire on October 30, 2025 at Saint Ignatius College Prep. Two of the most significant features of Catholic Christianity are its focus on holy men and women and the miracles ascribed to them. What is it that makes saints and miracles so significant? What difference does this characteristic of Catholicism make, not just for its history, but for us, here and now? Asking such questions is absolu...

Carlos Eire and Kirsten Macfarlane on October 29, 2025 at the University of Chicago's Swift Hall. Levitation. Bilocation. Witchcraft. Demonic Possession. Europe in the early modern era was simultaneously the site of Kepler, Newton, Copernicus–and of eyewitness accounts of levitating saints and nocturnal witches’ sabbats. In his history of the impossible, award-winning historian Carlos Eire mines t...

Romans (Episode 3/3) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Romans (Episode 2/3) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Romans (Episode 1/3) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Matthew (Episode 5/5) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Matthew (Episode 4/5) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Prof. Scott Moringiello on October 15, 2025 at Ruth Lake Country Club. The twentieth century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said that Augustine’s "Confessions" was possibly the most serious book ever written. There’s good reason to think he was right. In the book – equal parts memoir, prayer, philosophical treatise, and theological masterpiece – Augustine explores the nature of goodness, the puzz...

Matthew (Episode 3/5) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Matthew (Episode 2/5) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Matthew (Episode 1/5) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Jeremiah (Episode 1/1) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Isaiah (Episode 2/2) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Isaiah (Episode 1/2) by The Lumen Christi Institute

Amos and Hosea (Episode 1/1) by The Lumen Christi Institute