This lecture was given on October 20th, 2025, at The Catholic University of America.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Dominic Legge is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and 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, 2017).

This lecture was given on January 15th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speakers:

Professor Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Caltech and her Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Leiden. She has taught at Harvard since 2013, where she is the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences. Her scholarship aims to uncover how chemical processes impact the outcome of planet formation, with special attention to the possible habitability of nascent planets. She has published over 250 refereed articles, including in Nature and Science. Professor Öberg has been awarded the Barry Prize by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters (2024), the Harnack Lectureship by the Max Planck Society (2022), a Simons Investigator Award (2019), the American Astronomical Society's Newton Lacy Pierce Prize (2016), a Packard Fellowship (2014), and a Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2014). She is the Vice President of the Angelicum Board, a Board Member of the Society of Catholic Scientists, a member of the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists, and a frequent public speaker on questions of science and faith.

Prof. Michael Dauphinais explains what contemporary culture needs to learn from Thomas Aquinas, arguing for a metaphysics of communion in which God, family, Church, and society are not locked in competition but share common goods that make each more fully alive.

This lecture was given on September 22nd, 2025, at University of Florida.

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About the Speakers:

Michael A. Dauphinais, Ph.D., serves as the Fr. Matthew Lamb Professor of Catholic Theology and the co-director of the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida. He has co-authored with Matthew Levering Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas; Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible; and The Wisdom of the Word: Biblical Answers to Ten Questions about Catholicism. He specializes in C.S. Lewis, the Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinas. He speaks frequently in both academic and popular settings, and particularly enjoys visiting Thomistic Institute student chapters. Dr. Dauphinais hosts The Catholic Theology Show podcast to help a wide audience discover the richness of coming to know and love God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

Keywords: Common Good, Common Good versus Zero-Sum Competition, God’s Non-Competitive Action, Human Community, Metaphysics of Communion, Natural Law, Original Sin and False Image of God, Participated Goods in Family and Society, Thomistic View of Marriage and Family, Vision of God in Evangelium Vitae

Fr. Alan O’Sullivan unpacks Aquinas on the good life, explaining why wealth, power, fame, and pleasure cannot be our ultimate happiness and how true beatitude is found in virtuous activity ordered to God.

This lecture was given on October 23rd, 2025, at Trinity College Dublin.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Alan O’Sullivan, O.P. (Trinity College) is currently the chaplain of Trinity College, Dublin. He is a member of the Irish province of the Order of Preachers who studied at Blackfriars, Oxford.

Keywords: Aquinas on the Good Life, Beatitude and True Happiness, Epicureanism, Limits of Wealth Power and Fame, Pleasure and the Highest Good, Restlessness and Desire for More, Virtue and Ordered Pleasure, Worldly Goods, Ultimate Happiness

This lecture was given on May 8th, 2025, at North Dakota State University.

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About the Speakers:

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.

Prof. Christopher Tollefsen explains John Paul II on euthanasia, showing how the Pope’s vision of human life as a sacred gift, bearing God’s image and destined for eternal friendship with Him, rules out any claim to a right to kill oneself or others.

This lecture was given on September 23rd, 2025, at University of South Carolina.

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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: Euthanasia, Evangelium Vitae, Gift of Life, Human Destiny, Human Dignity, Imago Dei, Inviolability of Human Life, John Paul II, Life and Death, Lordship of God over Life, Sacredness of Human Life, Usurping God’s Role in Life and Death

Fr. Anton ten Klooster explores St. Thomas Aquinas on the Beatitudes, showing how they map an ordered, grace‑filled path of virtues and gifts that lead from imperfect happiness in this life to perfect union with God in the next.

This lecture was given on November 3rd, 2025, at Oxford University.

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About the Speakers:

Fr. Anton is an assistant professor of theology at Tilburg University. His primary focus is on fundamental moral theology. He is currently working on a book on the development of moral teaching (e.g. How did the church come to oppose slavery, and how can we then hold a continuity in teaching?). He studied theology in Utrecht and Fribourg, and did part of the doctoral research as a visiting scholar at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. In 2018, he was awarded the doctoral degree cum laude for 'Thomas Aquinas on the Beatitudes'. The dissertation was awarded the international 'Veritas et Amor' award by the Circolo San Tommaso. He has been published in journals such as Nova et Vetera, Angelicum, Journal of Moral Theology and Incontri.

Keywords: Aquinas on Happiness and Man's Final End, Beatitudes, Beatitudes as Path to Union with God, False Views of Happiness, Grace and the Beatitudes, Gifts of the Spirit, Imperfect versus Perfect Happiness, Virtue and the Beatitudes, Vocation of Preaching

Fr. Jan Bentz explores what it means to engage politics as a Catholic, calling believers to critical thinking rooted in truth, a both‑and logic that resists polarization, and a discerning love of nation that remains ordered to the common good and eternal beatitude.

This lecture was given on November 19th, 2025, at Thomistic Institute in London.

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About the Speakers:

Dr. Jan C. Bentz was born and raised in Germany and graduated high school in St Louis, Missouri, where he attended as a foreign exchange student. Dr Bentz holds a doctorate in Philosophy from the Roman Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, a Masters in Sacred Art, Architecture, and Liturgy and a Masters in Church, Ecumenism, and Religious Studies. His dissertation was published in German on Gustav Siewerth (1903-1963) and his work on Thomas Aquinas and G.W.F. Hegel. His fields of expertise include Metaphysics, History of Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, Thomism, and Philosophy of Art. Dr Bentz lectures at Blackfriars’ Studium on History of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Philosophy of History. He taught Philosophy of Art (Aesthetics) for The Catholic University of America, Rome Campus, History of Medieval Philosophy at Christendom College, Rome Campus, and Apologetics for IES Study Abroad also in Rome. His journalistic career included the production of weekly TV coverage in German and English for EWTN Global; interviews and commentary for Catholic News Agency, Inside the Vatican; and for The Catholic Herald in English and Jüdische Rundschau in German. His current format is called Reality Check, a series of video interviews also published on YouTube with the European Conservative.

Keywords: Analogy of Being and Politics, Catholic Both-And Logic, Catholic Engagement in Public Life, Christian and Secular Nationalism, Common Good and Beatitude, Critical Thinking as a Catholic, National Identity and Faith, Polarization and Either-Or Thinking, Testing Everything Holding Fast to the Good, Voting as a Catholic Conscience