

The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities, in the Church, and in the wider public square. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, is our touchstone.
The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more.
Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more.
Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 19, 2023 • 1h
Joyful Resistance | Dr. R.J. Snell
This talk was given on December 4, 2022, at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., as part of the intellectual retreat entitled, "Avoiding Acedia."
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
R.J. Snell is Editor-in-Chief of Public Discourse and Director of Academic Programs at the Witherspoon Institute. Previously, he was for many years Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Philosophy Program at Eastern University and the Templeton Honors College, where he founded and directed the Agora Institute for Civic Virtue and the Common Good.
He earned his M.A. in philosophy at Boston College, and his Ph.D. in philosophy at Marquette University. His research interests include the liberal arts, ethics, natural law theory, Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and the work of Bernard Lonergan, SJ.
Snell is the author of Through a Glass Darkly: Bernard Lonergan and Richard Rorty on Knowing without a God’s-eye View (Marquette, 2006), Authentic Cosmopolitanism (with Steve Cone, Pickwick, 2013), The Perspective of Love: Natural Law in a New Mode (Pickwick, 2014), Acedia and Its Discontents (Angelico, 2015), and co-editor of Subjectivity: Ancient and Modern (Lexington, 2016) and Nature: Ancient and Modern (Lexington), as well as articles, chapters, and essays in a variety of scholarly and popular venues. He and his family reside in the Princeton area.

Jan 18, 2023 • 58min
Acedia II: Human Sorrow, Divine Mercy: An Exploration in Catholic Art | Prof. Thomas Hibbs
Prof. Hibbs' slides can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/5xnw4dv8
This talk was given on December 3, 2022, at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., as part of the intellectual retreat entitled, "Avoiding Acedia."
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Thomas Hibbs is currently President of the University of Dallas, his alma mater.
With degrees from the University of Dallas and the University of Notre Dame, Hibbs taught at Boston College (BC) for 13 years, where he was full professor and department chair in philosophy. At BC, he also served on the Steering Committee for BC's Initiative for the Future of the Church and on the Sub-Committee on Catholic Sexual Teaching. For 16 years, Hibbs was Distinguished Professor of Ethics & Culture and Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University.
Hibbs has written scholarly books on Aquinas, including Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the Summa Contra Gentiles, and a book on popular culture entitled Shows About Nothing. Hibbs has recently published scholarly articles on MacIntyre and Aquinas (Review of Politics), on Anselm (Anselm Studies), and on Pascal (International Philosophical Quarterly). He also has written on film, culture, books and higher education in Books and Culture, Christianity Today, First Things, New Atlantis, The Dallas Morning News, The National Review, The Weekly Standard, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, for which his latest piece is a study of the ethical implications of the films of the Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski.

Jan 17, 2023 • 56min
Acedia I: How Our Sorrows Determine the State of Our Souls | Prof. Thomas Hibbs
This talk was given on December 3, 2022, at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., as part of the intellectual retreat entitled, "Avoiding Acedia."
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Thomas Hibbs is currently President of the University of Dallas, his alma mater.
With degrees from the University of Dallas and the University of Notre Dame, Hibbs taught at Boston College (BC) for 13 years, where he was full professor and department chair in philosophy. At BC, he also served on the Steering Committee for BC's Initiative for the Future of the Church and on the Sub-Committee on Catholic Sexual Teaching. For 16 years, Hibbs was Distinguished Professor of Ethics & Culture and Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University.
Hibbs has written scholarly books on Aquinas, including Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the Summa Contra Gentiles, and a book on popular culture entitled Shows About Nothing. Hibbs has recently published scholarly articles on MacIntyre and Aquinas (Review of Politics), on Anselm (Anselm Studies), and on Pascal (International Philosophical Quarterly). He also has written on film, culture, books and higher education in Books and Culture, Christianity Today, First Things, New Atlantis, The Dallas Morning News, The National Review, The Weekly Standard, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, for which his latest piece is a study of the ethical implications of the films of the Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski.

Jan 16, 2023 • 1h 2min
Acedia and the Bleaching of Being | Dr. R.J. Snell
This talk was given on December 2, 2022, at the Dominican House of Studies as part of "Avoiding Acedia: An Intellectual Retreat."
For more information, please visit thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
R.J. Snell is Editor-in-Chief of Public Discourse and Director of Academic Programs at the Witherspoon Institute. Previously, he was for many years Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Philosophy Program at Eastern University and the Templeton Honors College, where he founded and directed the Agora Institute for Civic Virtue and the Common Good.
He earned his M.A. in philosophy at Boston College, and his Ph.D. in philosophy at Marquette University. His research interests include the liberal arts, ethics, natural law theory, Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and the work of Bernard Lonergan, SJ.
Snell is the author of Through a Glass Darkly: Bernard Lonergan and Richard Rorty on Knowing without a God’s-eye View (Marquette, 2006), Authentic Cosmopolitanism (with Steve Cone, Pickwick, 2013), The Perspective of Love: Natural Law in a New Mode (Pickwick, 2014), Acedia and Its Discontents (Angelico, 2015), and co-editor of Subjectivity: Ancient and Modern (Lexington, 2016) and Nature: Ancient and Modern (Lexington), as well as articles, chapters, and essays in a variety of scholarly and popular venues. He and his family reside in the Princeton area.

Jan 13, 2023 • 1h 25min
Image and Likeness: Grace as a Participation in Divine Life | Fr. Reginald Lynch, O.P.
This talk was given on November 5, 2022, at the University of Oregon.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Fr. Reginald Lynch, O.P. is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Historical Theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Born in New Hampshire, Fr. Lynch entered the Dominican Province of St. Joseph in 2007 and was ordained a priest in 2013. After ordination, he served at St. Patrick Parish in Columbus, Ohio and taught at the Pontifical College Josephinum, before going on to complete a PhD in theology at the University of Notre Dame, with a major concentration in medieval theology and minor concentrations in patristics and philosophical theology. He has written on a variety of topics in sacramental, systematic and historical theology in journals like The Thomist and Nova et Vetera. His book, The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2017) received the Charles Cardinal Journet Prize in 2018. Currently, he is working on a book on the reception of Aquinas’ Eucharistic theology in the early modern period.

4 snips
Jan 13, 2023 • 40min
'How to Inherit a Kingdom' w/ Prof. Russell Hittinger | Off-Campus Conversations, Ep. 013
Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Dr. Russell Hittinger about his latest Thomistic Institute/IHE lecture, "How to Inherit a Kingdom: Reflections on the Situation of Catholic Political Thought."
How to Inherit a Kingdom w/ Dr. Russell Hittinger (Off-Campus Conversations)
You can listen to the original lecture here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm8FGGq7838
Subscribe to our channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheThomisticInstitute?sub_confirmation=1
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Russell Hittinger is a leading scholar of Catholic political and social thought. From 1996-2019, Dr. Hittinger was the incumbent of the William K. Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he was also a Research Professor in the School of Law. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, Princeton University, New York University, Providence College, and Charles University in Prague. In January 2020, Dr. Hittinger gave the Aquinas Lecture at Blackfriars, Oxford.
Since 2001, he is a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, to which he was elected a full member (ordinarius) in 2004, and appointed to the consilium or governing board from 2006-2018. On 8 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Dr. Hittinger as an ordinarius in the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, in which he finished his ten-year term in 2019.
He is currently a Fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America, where he also serves as the inaugural co-Director of the Program in Catholic Political Thought.

Jan 11, 2023 • 59min
The Image of God in the Writings of the Apostolic Fathers | Fr. Taras Khomych
Fr. Khomych's handout can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/mezrz8pr
This talk was given on November 15th, 2022, at the University of Oxford.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Fr. Khomych is a Lecturer in Early Christian Literature and Byzantine Theology at Liverpool Hope University. After the fall of communism, he began my theological education in Ukraine and entered the Lviv Theological Academy (later on transformed into the Ukrainian Catholic University) at the moment when the theological tradition had just been revived. Shortly thereafter, he continued his studies at the Faculty of Theology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), where he obtained his Master in Religious Studies as well as his Master and Doctoral Degree in Theology. His research interests lie mostly in early Christian literature, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (1st & 2nd centuries) in particular, as well as later Patristic writings of the Byzantine period, including Old Slavonic transmission of early Christian literature. As a Catholic priest, he is involved in pastoral care of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in the UK and in chaplaincy at St Edward's College in Liverpool.

Jan 9, 2023 • 1h 17min
My Flesh Indeed: On the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist | Fr. Dominic Langevin, O.P.
The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/mwpshtnw
This lecture was given on November 10, 2022, at Fordham University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Fr. Dominic Langevin is vice president and dean of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, where he also serves as an assistant professor of systematic theology, specializing in sacramental theology. He did his undergraduate studies at Yale University and his doctoral studies at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He was formerly assigned as a parochial vicar at St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish in Charlottesville, Virginia, serving the University of Virginia.

Jan 4, 2023 • 1h 9min
Catholic Social Teaching: Toward a More Humane Economy | Prof. Andrew Abela
This talk was given on November 3, 2022, at Texas A&M University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Andrew Abela is the founding dean of the Busch School of Business and Ordinary Professor of Marketing at The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. His research on the integrity of the marketing process, including marketing ethics, Catholic Social Doctrine, and internal communication, has been published in several academic journals, including the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Business Ethics, and the Journal of Markets & Morality, and in two books. He is the co-editor of A Catechism for Business, from Catholic University Press, and winner of the 2009 Novak Award, a $10,000 prize given by the Acton Institute for “significant contributions to the study of the relationship between religion and economic liberty.” Dr. Abela also provides consulting and training in internal communications; recent clients of his include Microsoft Corporation, JPMorganChase, and the Corporate Executive Board. Prior to his academic career, he spent several years in industry as brand manager at Procter & Gamble, management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and Managing Director of the Marketing Leadership Council of the Corporate Executive Board. He holds a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto, an MBA from the Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland, and a Ph.D. in Marketing and Ethics from the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia. He and his wife, Kathleen, live in Great Falls, Virginia with their six children.

Dec 30, 2022 • 1h 24min
The Search for Happiness: Wisdom from Aquinas and the Classical Tradition | Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P.
This talk was given on November 4, 2022, at the University of Washington.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Assistant Professor in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2016).


