The Thomistic Institute

Latest Episodes:

Do We Really Have a Bill of Rights? – Prof. Jerome Foss Feb 16, 2026

Show notes

Prof. Jerome Foss argues that what Americans call the “Bill of Rights” is not a true bill of rights but a set of constitutional amendments best understood within a Federalist—and broadly Thomistic—vision of law, liberty, and the common good that resists reducing politics to individual rights talk.

This lecture was given on November 4th, 2025, at Washington & Lee University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Jerome C. Foss is Professor of Politics, Endowed Director of the Center for Catholic Thought and Culture, and Director of the SVC Core Curriculum at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Foss earned his BA from the University of Dallas and his MA and PhD from Baylor University. His research focuses on Catholic political thought, American political thought, and literature and political philosophy. His most recent book, Flannery O'Connor and the Perils of Governing by Tenderness, brings these interests together. He has also published on the history of political philosophy, the U.S. Constitution, Constitutional Law, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln. He is currently working on a scholarly book on the first ten amendments to the Constitution (commonly known as the Bill of Rights) and a book for a more general Catholic audience on the Declaration of Independence. Foss enjoys teaching a variety of courses, including courses on the Constitutional Convention and Shakespeare as a political thinker. As Director of the CCTC, Foss helps administer the college's Benedictine Leadership Studies Program, has developed and led the colleges summer program in Rome, founded and edits an academic journal entitled Conversatio, and organizes conferences, seminars, and other events.

Keywords: American Constitutionalism, Anti Federalists And Rights, Bill Of Rights, Federalist Political Theory, James Madison, Natural Law And Natural Rights, Republican Government Thomistic Political Thought, United States Constitution

John Henry Newman's Critique of Liberalism: Lessons from the Aristotelian Tradition – Prof. Joshua Hochschild Feb 13, 2026

Show notes

Prof. Joshua Hochschild shows how St. John Henry Newman’s lifelong “struggle against liberalism” is best understood as an Aristotelian critique of false views of knowledge, in which liberalism reduces religion to private sentiment and denies the knowability of first principles, rather than as a merely political or ecclesiastical stance.

This lecture was given on October 9th, 2025, at University of Michigan.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Joshua Hochschild is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, where he also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

Keywords: Aristotelian Epistemology, Conscience And First Principles, Development Of Doctrine, Intellectual Virtue And Noûs, John Henry Newman, Liberalism In Religion, Newman’s Grammar Of Assent, Newman’s Idea Of A University, Reason Faith And Dogma

The Types of Miracles and the Possibilty of Demonic Miracles – Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P. Feb 11, 2026

Show notes

Fr. Anselm Ramelow explains how, in a Thomistic framework, miracles are graded by how they surpass nature and why only God can perform the highest-level miracles of creation and resurrection, while finite spirits—including demons—can produce lesser “signs” that must be carefully discerned.

This lecture was given on April 5th, 2025, at St. Albert's Priory.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Fr. Anselm Ramelow, O.P., a native of Germany, teaches philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, where he is also currently the chair of the philosophy department. He is also a member of the Core Doctoral Faculty at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and the Academy of Catholic Theology. He obtained his doctorate under Robert Spaemann in Munich on Leibniz and the Spanish Jesuits (Gott, Freiheit, Weltenwahl, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997) and did theological work on George Lindbeck and the question of a Thomist philosophy and theology of language (Beyond Modernism? - George Lindbeck and the Linguistic Turn in Theology, Neuried: Ars Una 2005). Other works include Thomas Aquinas: De veritate Q. 21-24; Translation and Commentary (Hamburg: Meiner, 2013) and God: Reason and Reality (Basic Philosophical Concepts) (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2014), as editor and contributor. Articles appeared in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte, Nova et Vetera, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly and Angelicum. Areas of research and teaching include Free Will, the History of Philosophy and Philosophical Aesthetics. He has worked on a philosophical approach to Miracles and other topics of the philosophy of religion, and more recently the philosophy of technology.

Keywords: Aquinas On Miracles, Demonic Signs And Wonders, Discernment Of Spirits, Finite Spiritual Causes, Levels Of Miracles, Natural Law And Suspension, Omnipotence And Creation, Possibility Of Demonic Miracles, Thomistic Philosophy Of Miracles

Fire on the Altar: A Lecture on St. Augustine – Prof. Chad Pecknold Feb 10, 2026

Show notes

Prof. Chad Pecknold shows how St. Augustine’s Confessions should be read as a Catholic, sacramental account of conversion in which the “altar of the heart” is turned toward God and united to Christ’s Eucharistic sacrifice, rather than as a merely emotional, garden-conversion memoir.

This lecture was given on October 7th, 2025, at Vanderbilt University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Chad C. Pecknold earned his PhD in Systematic Theology at the University of Cambridge in England. He is a Catholic theologian and for the last 16 years he has been a professor of theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC, teaching in the areas of fundamental theology, Christian anthropology and political theology. Since 2022, he has been named by The Catholic Herald as one of the most influential Catholic thought leaders and authors in the United States.

An internationally recognized scholar of Augustine’s theological and political thought, Pecknold has authored or edited five books — including Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History and The T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology —and authored dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles. He edits the Sacra Doctrina series for CUA Press with Fr. Thomas Joseph White O.P. He has served the public by educating thousands of students at the Institute of Catholic Culture, and also through his many columns at First Things, National Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and The Catholic Herald. He has been an invited guest on NPR's "All Things Considered," Fox News, ABC News, and has been a frequent guest on EWTN News Nightly, World Over Live with Raymond Arroyo, and various other EWTN programs, such as the celebrated series on Heresies.

Pecknold has also led institutions, serving as Chair of the American Academy of Catholic Theology from 2015-2020, expanding and professionalizing a guild of theologians faithful to the Magisterium. He also serves in non-profit board leadership as Board Director for Americans United for Life, Board Member for Pro-Life Partners, Board Member for the Classical Learning Test, Fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology, and as Resident Theologian at the Institute for Faith and Public Culture at the Basilica of Saint Mary — the oldest Catholic Church in the Commonwealth of Virginia. While currently finishing a short book on the Catholic understanding of Augustine’s Confessions, Pecknold continues to work on a long term project on Augustine’s City of God and the Christian order of things.

He and his wife Dr. Sara Pecknold (who teaches Music History at Christendom College) have five children, including adorably identical twin toddler girls whose names they frequently confuse!

Keywords: Altar Of The Heart, Augustine’s Confessions, Bad And Good Sacrifice, Eucharistic Conversion, Fire On The Altar, Platonic Ascent And Christ, Prof. Chad Pecknold, Restless Heart And Worship, St. Augustine And Monica, Sacramental Reading Of Augustine

Dominican Mystics of the Rhineland – Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, O.P. Feb 09, 2026

Show notes

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy introduces the medieval Dominican mystics of the Rhineland and, in dialogue with Aquinas and Pseudo-Dionysius, shows how their often strikingly apophatic language about abyss, detachment, and “ground” can be critically integrated into a Trinitarian, Eucharistic vision of Christian mystical union.

This lecture was given on May 3rd, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, O.P. is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance, loving God with the mind, and the intersection of theology and architecture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy.

Keywords: Apophatic Theology, Dominican Mysticism, Eucharistic Devotion, Meister Eckhart, Mystical Union With God, Pseudo-Dionysius, Rhineland Dominican Mystics, Thomas Aquinas, Trinity And The Soul

Catholic Women in the Arts & Sciences: An Underappreciated Tradition – Dr. Bronwen McShea Feb 06, 2026

Show notes

Dr. Bronwen McShea uncovers the rich but often forgotten history of Catholic women in the arts and sciences, showing how figures from late antiquity through the early modern period—nuns, scholars, patrons, and university professors—have long made serious intellectual and cultural contributions within the Catholic tradition.

This lecture was given on October 16th, 2025, at The United States Naval Academy.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Bronwen McShea is a historian of Catholicism from medieval to modern times and is the author of three books: Women of the Church: What Every Catholic Should Know (Ignatius Press, 2024); La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu's Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France (Pegasus Books, 2023); and Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France (Nebraska Press, 2019). Her reviews, articles, and essays have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, First Things, America Magazine, The Journal of Religious History, and many other popular and academic periodicals. She has held research and teaching positions at Columbia University, Princeton University, Loyola University Chicago, and several other institutions. She holds a Ph.D. in Early Modern History from Yale University and both an M.T.S. in the History of Christianity and B.A. in Intellectual History from Harvard University.

Keywords: Catholic Women And Scholarship, Catholic Women In Science, Early Modern Catholic Women, Hildegard Of Bingen, Laura Bassi And Bologna, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Medieval Nuns And Learning, Renaissance Humanism, Women Of The Church

The Natural Law Ethics of Killing – Prof. Christopher Tollefsen Feb 05, 2026

Show notes

Prof. Christopher Tollefsen argues from a Thomistic natural law perspective that it is always morally wrong to intend the death of an innocent human being, contending that this absolute norm binds both private individuals and public authorities alike.

This lecture was given on November 15th, 2025, at University of Florida

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Christopher Tollefsen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. He has published over 100 articles in journals and edited collections, and a similar number of popular essays in venues such as Public Discourse, First Things, and National Review. He is the author of Lying and Christian Ethics and the forthcoming Killing and Christian Ethics, and is co-author of The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession (with Dr. Farr Curlin) and Embryo: A Defense of Human Life (with Robert P. George). In 2019-20, he served as a Commissioner on the State Department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights. He has twice been a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University, and in 2024-25 was a Visiting Fellow at the DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.

Keywords: Absolute Prohibition Of Killing, Augustine And Aquinas, Double Effect Principle, Ethics Of Self-Defense, Human Dignity And Life, Natural Law Theory, Public Authority And Violence, Thomistic Moral Theology, War And Capital Punishment

Catholic Ethics in the Modern World – Prof. Marshall Bierson Feb 04, 2026

Show notes

Prof. Marshall Bierson contrasts Thomistic Catholic ethics with utilitarian and Kantian moral theories by arguing that the good is fundamentally an activity of loving persons rather than a state of affairs like aggregate happiness or an abstract form of rational nature.

This lecture was given on January 23rd, 2026, at Washington & Lee University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Marshall Bierson is an assistant professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America. His research centers on the intersection of ethics and philosophical anthropology. He is particularly focused on the work of Elizabeth Anscombe and in exploring how her Thomisticly inflected philosophical psychology clarifies moral absolutes.

Keywords: Aristotelian Thomism, Catholic Ethics, Catholic Moral Philosophy, Intrinsic And Extrinsic Value, Kantian Rational Nature, Love And The Good, Pleasure And Moral Value, Thomistic Axiology, Utilitarianism And Happiness

The Scopes Trial & the Myth of Warfare between Science & Religion – Prof. Kenneth Kemp Feb 03, 2026

Show notes

Prof. Kenneth Kemp reexamines the Scopes “Monkey Trial” to show that it has been mythologized into evidence of a supposed war between science and religion, arguing instead that the real conflicts concerned constitutional law, educational policy, and competing theological and philosophical visions within Christianity.

This lecture was given on October 4th, 2023, at John Hopkins University .

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Kenneth W. Kemp is an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. After receiving an MA in the History and Philosophy of Science and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame, he taught philosophy, first at the US Air Force Academy and last for many years at the University of St. Thomas. His research interests have included ethics as well as historical and philosophical aspects of the relation between science and religion. His published works include The War That Never Was: Evolution & Christian Theology (Cascade, 2020) and The Origins of Catholic Evolutionism, 1831–1950 (Catholic University of America Press, 2025).

Keywords: Anti-Evolution Laws, Catholic Responses To Evolution, Clarence Darrow,Constitutional Law, Myth Of Warfare Thesis, Public School Education, Scopes Monkey Trial, Science And Religion, Tennessee Butler Act, William Jennings Bryan

My Life Exploring the Solar System and Worlds Beyond – Prof. Jonathan I. Lunine Feb 02, 2026

Show notes

Prof. Jonathan I. Lunine recounts his life as a planetary scientist, tracing how early inspirations from Carl Sagan and the space race led to his work on major NASA missions exploring the solar system and distant worlds, from Voyager and Cassini to Juno and Europa Clipper.

This lecture was given on January 14th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speakers:

Jonathan Lunine is the Chief Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Professor of Planetary Science at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Beforehand, he was the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University. Lunine is interested in how planets form and evolve, what processes maintain and establish habitability, and what kinds of exotic environments (methane lakes, etc.) might host a kind of chemistry sophisticated enough to be called "life". He pursues these interests through theoretical modeling and participation in spacecraft missions. He is co-investigator on the Juno mission now in orbit at Jupiter, using data from several instruments on the spacecraft, and on the MISE and gravity science teams for the Europa Clipper mission. He was on the Science Working Group for the James Webb Space Telescope, focusing on characterization of extrasolar planets and Kuiper Belt objects. Lunine has contributed to concept studies for a wide range of planetary and exoplanetary missions. Lunine is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has participated in or chaired a number of advisory and strategic planning committees for the Academy and for NASA.

Keywords: Apollo Program, Carl Sagan, Cassini–Huygens Mission, Europa Clipper, Juno Mission, Planetary Science, Titan And Saturn System, Voyager Missions, Worlds With Subsurface Oceans

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