Saint Vincent College has provided scholars and students a setting for academic inquiry since 1846 when Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., established the first Benedictine monastery and college in North America. Building on Wimmer’s mission to America, the Saint Vincent Center for Catholic Thought and Culture (CCTC) serves the college as an interdisciplinary institute that engages today’s intellectual climate through sustained reflection upon liberal education guided by the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and the Benedictine Wisdom Tradition. It promotes learning in areas such as theology, philosophy, marriage and family, politics, economics, rhetoric, art, and science. The CCTC offers a variety of formative academic programs for students, faculty, and the public designed to demonstrate the intellectual rigor of Catholic thought and its ability to improve the lives of individuals and the health of their communities.
The center hosts several exciting opportunities for students, such as the Benedictine Leadership Studies Program, the SVC Summer Institute in Rome, the Faith and Reason Program for high schoolers, along with reading groups, colloquia and lectures.
For faculty, the center sponsors annual summer seminars, reading groups, and other opportunities to gather and discuss the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and its relationship to liberal education. The center also seeks to support the scholarly efforts of faculty who are actively pursuing research that particularly engages the College's mission.
The CCTC was honored with the 2022 Projektenmacher Award for its excellence in programming at the college. Click on the following link to hear Jerome Foss's remarks on receiving the award.
The SVC Summer Institute in Rome was launched in the summer of 2022. Students spend a full month living in the historic and beautiful Benedictine monastery Sant’ Anselmo, which sits atop the famous Aventine Hill. Course offerings fulfill SVC core requirements, and include such classes as:
The CCTC offers Saint Vincent faculty and students multiple opportunities to gather and discuss ideas, and to listen to the ideas of others. We host a variety of seminars, conferences, reading groups, speakers, and much else. The programing changes from year to year, but recent events have included:
Reading Group – The Eucharist Through History
On June 8, 2022, the Feast of Corpus Christi, the US Bishops launched a three-year ‘Eucharistic Revival,’ meant to recover and promote Catholic devotion to the Eucharist. This effort spans to parishes, dioceses, and Catholic universities.
Starting September 12, 2022, all will gather every other Monday from 4:20 pm to 5:20 pm in Sis and Hermon Dupre Science Pavilion, E-102.
Come to any session you would like to! If you are interested in the group, contact Dr. Lucas Briola to receive the readings.
Character and Mission
Benedictine communities have been nourishing intellectual growth for more than 1,500 years. Working within this heritage and following St. Peter’s encouragement to sharpen our minds and hearts to be obedient to the truth (1 Peter 5:22), Saint Vincent College has provided a setting for reflection and study to scholars and students since 1846 when Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., established the first Benedictine monastery and college in North America. To continue and strengthen this legacy, the Saint Vincent Center for Catholic Thought and Culture supports the college’s mission by providing faculty, students, and the local community with the resources to better understand and participate in the Catholic Intellectual and Benedictine Wisdom Traditions.
The center is thus guided by the following principles:
The character of the Center is shaped by The Rule of Saint Benedict, which begins with the word Obsculta, an appeal to listen carefully.1 In a world that is busy and noisy, Pope Francis reminds us that monasteries are “like oases, where men and women of all ages, backgrounds, cultures and religions can discover the beauty of silence and rediscover themselves, in harmony with creation, allowing God to restore proper order in their lives.”2 What better setting is there today for the type of education that the Church has always encouraged and cultivated? What better place is there for what St. Anselm refers to as a quaerere Deum — a “setting out in search of God”?
Carefully listening and ceaselessly seeking to better understand all things in light of revelation, the center is animated by the confident position that truth exists and is worth discovering, and that once discovered should be communicated to others. The desire to know the truth must be genuine, and therefore the highest standards of scholarly excellence must be maintained. The center thus follows St. John Paul the Great in holding that the “boldness of faith must be matched by the boldness of reason.”3 Furthermore, the center seeks to provide avenues for collaborative efforts with those prompted by something other than Catholic doctrine to understand the created order, for as St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Every truth, no matter who utters it, is of the Holy Spirit."4
As such, the center welcomes opportunities to foster discussion with a broad array of interlocutors, both religious and secular. All our inquiries and conversations, however, will be rooted in the Obsculta and the quarerere Deum — careful listening and sincere searching.
[1] The opening sentence of The Rule of Saint Benedict: “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to tem with the ear of your heart” (Liturgical Press, 1981).
[2] Audience with the Monks of the Benedictine Confederation, April 19, 2018.
[3] Fides et Ratio, par. 48.
[4] Summa Theologiae, I-II, 109.
The Bishops of the United States remind us that the “purpose of a Catholic university is education and academic research proper to the disciplines of the university,” and academic freedom is thus “an essential component of a Catholic university.” Catholic institutions of higher learning are therefore admonished to ensure that all professors are accorded “a lawful freedom of inquiry and of thought, and of freedom to express their minds humbly and courageously about those matters in which they enjoy competence.”1 Lawful freedom entails the responsible pursuit of knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
Accordingly, the center will courageously defend the principle of academic freedom, not as an end simply, but as a necessary prerequisite for fostering the environment in which the Hallmarks of Benedictine education can take their proper place. These hallmarks include community, love, prayer, stability, conversatio morum, obedience, discipline, humility, stewardship and hospitality. When practiced with an orientation toward truth and with the protection of free inquiry, the Benedictine Hallmarks provide scholars and students with the opportunity for meaningful reflection and study in whatever discipline they choose to concentrate.
[1] The opening sentence of The Rule of Saint Benedict: “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to tem with the ear of your heart” (Liturgical Press, 1981).
[1] Audience with the Monks of the Benedictine Confederation, April 19, 2018.
[1] Fides et Ratio, par. 48.
[1] Summa Theologiae, I-II, 109.
[1] Application of Ex corde ecclesiae for the United States, Part II, Art. 2, sections 1-2.
This liberating environment fostered at Saint Vincent College should be a source of happiness directed by caritas. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI spoke to this effect when he said that “charity calls the educator to recognize that the profound responsibility to lead the young to truth is nothing less than an act of love.” He continued: “Indeed, the dignity of education lies in fostering the true perfection and happiness of those to be educated. In practice ‘intellectual charity’ upholds the essential unity of knowledge against the fragmentation which ensues when reason is detached from the pursuit of truth. It guides the young towards the deep satisfaction of exercising freedom in relation to truth, and it strives to articulate the relationship between faith and all aspects of family and civic life. Once their passion for the fullness and unity of truth has been awakened, young people will surely relish the discovery that the question of what they can know opens up the vast adventure of what they ought to do.”1
Novelist Flannery O’Connor spoke similarly when she said, “I write the way I do because and only because I am a Catholic. I feel that if I were not a Catholic, I would have no reason to write, no reason to see, no reason ever to feel horrified or even to enjoy anything … I have never had the sense that being a Catholic is a limit to the freedom of the writer, but just the reverse.”2 The same faith, freedom and joy can and should be found in other vocations, including teaching and scholarly writing.
The center follows Benedict XVI’s call for intellectual charity and sees in writers like O’Connor an example worth emulating. All center programs and activities will therefore be directed by caritas. We hope too that all our endeavors will be occasions for the growth of friendship on campus, for truth is most joyfully pursued with fellow travelers.
The Catholic Intellectual Tradition contains a vast treasury of works that have guided our thinking for centuries. The Rule of St. Benedict is among the most prominent examples of the influence a single work can have. Added to this are the seminal works of Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas in the West, while the East is home to the books John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and Athanasius of Alexandria. Diversity of approach is evident in the different religious orders, from the intensity of Ignatius of Loyola to the humility of Thérèse of Lisieux. Diversity is also found in academic interests. Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato sí, for example, reminds us of the importance of St. Francis of Assisi’s orientation toward creation and our duty to be good stewards of God’s gifts. That same orientation, when coupled with confidence in the rational order of the universe (Wisdom 11:21) explains the large number of scientific discoveries that have been made by Catholics animated by their faith, such as the father of genetics Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk.
In addition to Saint Benedict, many Benedictines have contributed to this tradition. The importance of Gregory the Great and Anselm can hardly be overstated in theology and philosophy. Benedictines have also thrived in the sciences. Benedetto Castelli, a student of Galileo Galilei, contributed to the world’s understanding of fluids in motion; Placidus Fixlmillner was the first astronomer to compute the orbit of Venus; Andrew Gordon developed the first electric motor — these and countless other scientists were Benedictines, as was Stanley Jaki, who spent much of his scholarly career writing about the relationship between theology and science.
In order to preserve and further develop this inheritance, the center promotes understanding of and encourages participation in the Catholic Intellectual and Benedictine wisdom traditions for all associated with the college and the local community. The center is interdisciplinary in nature and hopes to attract faculty and students from every academic department. To this end, the center will be a resource for the college and sponsor seminars, lectures, and other activities so that the works and riches of Catholic thought, particularly the Benedictine contributions to this body of thought, will continue to be known and cherished.
Jerome C. Foss, PhD
Center Director
Association Professor of Politics
Rev. Thomas Hart, OSB
Faculty Seminar Leader
Assistant for Mission
Michael Krom, PhD
BLS Director and Fellow in Philosophy
Professor of Philosophy
Lucas Briola
Fellow of Theology
lucas.briola@stvincent.edu
Rev. Rene Kollar, OSB
Boniface Wimmer Chair in Monastic Studies
Professor of History
John Smetanka, PhD
Fellow in Science and Religion
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean
Jennifer White, PhD
Fellow in Logic
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Samantha Firestone
Center Coordinator
BLS Coordinator
Named in honor of the late Mrs. Irene S. Taylor, mother of Saint Vincent College president Father Paul R. Taylor, O.S.B., a devout Catholic, an accomplished and respected nurse, and a loving mother, the Irene S. Taylor Endowed Chair for Catholic and Family Studies was established to support and advance Catholic values to strengthen families in response to the challenges of contemporary society. When asked about the keys to raising a strong and loving family, she was confident in saying: “Love them. Feed them. And want them around.” That commitment lives on through this professorship and is reflective of the mission of Saint Vincent College. A member of the Saint Vincent College faculty since 2005, Jason King, Ph.D., teaches a full complement of courses in Catholic and family studies, including Catholic Marriage, Ethics of Aquinas, Theology of Children and God, Work and Money. King, the 2020 recipient of Saint Vincent College’s Thoburn Excellence in Teaching Award, is also the author of two books, “Faith with Benefits: Hookup Culture on Catholic Campuses” and God has Begun a Great Work in Us: The Embodiment of Love in Contemporary Consecrated Life and Ecclesial Movements,” and serves as editor of the Journal of Moral Theology and a frequent contributor to the Journal of Catholic Higher Education.