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.

  1. What do you seek? Study and the Moral Life in St Thomas Aquinas - Fr. Thomas Aquinas Pickett

    5 hr ago

    What do you seek? Study and the Moral Life in St Thomas Aquinas - Fr. Thomas Aquinas Pickett

    Fr. Thomas Pickett explores what Aquinas means by study and argues that study is not just academic work but a morally formative pursuit that shapes charity, virtue, and the Christian path to happiness. This lecture was given on August 29th, 2025, at University of California Berkeley. To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod. About the Speaker: Fr Thomas Aquinas Pickett is a son of Ellensburg, Washington and a member of the Western Dominican Province. Apart from running, board games, and coffee, he enjoys studying his namesake, St Thomas Aquinas. Having received his BA in Philosophy at Gonzaga University (where he was NOT a member of the basketball team), his MDiv and MA in theology from the DSPT, his STB from l’Institut Catholique de Toulouse, and his STL and STD from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, he is now a professor of theology at the DSPT, assigned to St Albert the Great Priory. Baglow is the author of Faith, Science and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge (2nd edition, Midwest Theological Forum, 2019) and Creation: A Catholic’s Guide to God and the Universe (Ave Maria Press, 2021). He serves as theological advisor to the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists. He authored the transcripts for Wonder: The Harmony of Faith and Science, a Word on Fire film series directed by Manny Marquez and narrated by Jonathan Roumie. His work has appeared in Church Life Journal, Culture and Evangelization, and Joie de Vivre Quarterly Journal. Keywords: Aquinas, Beatitude, Charity, Christian Life, Moral Life, Studiousness, Study, Virtue, Wisdom

    49 min
  2. Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin: Aquinas on the Limits of Charity - Prof. Michael Krom

    1 day ago

    Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin: Aquinas on the Limits of Charity - Prof. Michael Krom

    Prof. Michael Krom presents Aquinas’s account of charity and asks what it really means to love the sinner without affirming the sin, showing how true Christian love can require both mercy and moral clarity. This lecture was given on August 18th, 2025, at Universidad Panamericana. To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod. About the Speaker: Michael Krom started reading Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae shortly after his conversion at the end of college. Upon learning about Flannery O’Connor’s “hillbilly Thomist” habit of reading Aquinas every night, he started studying two articles a day and completed the Summa while in graduate school at Emory University. As a professor at Saint Vincent College, he saw the urgent need for collegians and seminarians to receive a solid foundation in Aquinas’s philosophical theology. In 2020, he published Justice and Charity:  An Introduction to Aquinas’s Moral, Economic, and Political Thought (Baker Academic Press), and teaches a Thomistic philosophy course each fall. In addition to continuing work on the moral, economic, and political topics covered in the book, his current research is on the influence of monastic spirituality on Aquinas; he is working on a monograph tentatively entitled Aquinas Among the Benedictines. Keywords: Aquinas, Charity, Christian Love, Common Good, Limits Of Charity, Sin, Tough Love, Virtue

    39 min
  3. Historical Arguments for God's Existence: Anselm, Aquinas, and Scotus - Prof. Thomas Ward

    3 days ago

    Historical Arguments for God's Existence: Anselm, Aquinas, and Scotus - Prof. Thomas Ward

    Prof. Thomas Ward examines medieval arguments for God’s existence in Anselm, Aquinas, and Scotus, showing how each thinker approaches the question from a different starting point and why their arguments still matter for faith and reason. This lecture was given on April 21st, 2025, at Saint Vincent College. To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod. About the Speaker: Thomas M. Ward is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin, in the School of Civic Leadership. He specializes in the history of philosophy and theology of the Middle Ages. Ward is the author of After Stoicism: Last Words of the Last Roman Philosopher (Word on Fire, 2024), Ordered by Love: An Introduction to John Duns Scotus (Angelico, 2022), Divine Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and has translated, with commentary, John Duns Scotus’s Treatise on the First Principle (Hackett, 2024). He has been a NEH Fellow (2022) and Harvey Fellow (2009-2011), and is a past winner of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy Founder's Award (2013) and the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Rising Scholar Essay Contest (2018). He studied philosophy at Biola University (BA 2004) and theology at Oxford University (M.Phil 2006), where he was Head Resident at the Kilns, the former residence of C.S. Lewis. His PhD in philosophy is from UCLA (2011). Ward is married with six children and is a member of St. Peter Catholic Student Center in Waco. Keywords: Anselm, Aquinas, Arguments For God, Cosmological Argument, Faith And Reason, John Duns Scotus, Ontological Argument, Philosophy, Theology

    44 min
  4. Secularism and the Modern World - Prof. Brad Gregory

    2 Jul

    Secularism and the Modern World - Prof. Brad Gregory

    Prof. Brad Gregory argues that the Protestant Reformation set off a chain of unintended consequences that helped produce the secular, fragmented modern world, ultimately showing why and how that history still shapes how we live, believe, and consume today. This lecture was given on February 27th, 2025, at West Virginia University. To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod. About the Speaker: Brad S. Gregory is Henkels Family College Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, where he has taught since 2003.  From 1996-2003 he taught and received early tenure at Stanford University; prior to that he was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton as well as two degrees in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.  His first book, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Harvard, 1999) received six book awards, and he has won teaching awards at both Stanford and Notre Dame.  In 2005, he was named the inaugural winner of the first annual Hiett Prize in the Humanities, a $50,000 award from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture given to the outstanding mid-career humanities scholar in the United States.  His book The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Belknap, 2012) garnered over 100 reviews internationally and has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Arabic, with forthcoming translations into Chinese and Romanian.  The working title of his current book project is The Way of the World: Power, Wealth, and Civilization from the Last Ice Age to the Anthropocene. Keywords: Consumerism, Modernity, Pluralism, Protestant Reformation, Reformation, Religion And Politics, Secularism, Secularization, Western Christianity

    58 min
  5. Are All Religions Different Paths Up the Same Mountain? – Prof. Christopher Kaczor

    1 Jul

    Are All Religions Different Paths Up the Same Mountain? – Prof. Christopher Kaczor

    Prof. Christopher Kaczor argues that the common claim that all religions are just different paths to the same destination collapses under scrutiny, and that Christianity uniquely holds together truth, toleration, and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This lecture was given on February 9th, 2026, at University of Florida. To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod. About the Speaker: Dr. Christopher Kaczor (rhymes with razor) graduated from the Honors Program of Boston College and earned a Ph.D. four years later from the University of Notre Dame. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Kaczor is a former Federal Chancellor Fellow at the University of Cologne and William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University and Honorary Professor in Bishop Barron's Word on Fire Institute. His eighteen books include Is Belief Believable? The Gospel of Happiness, The Seven Big Myths about Marriage, A Defense of Dignity, The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, The Ethics of Abortion, O Rare Ralph McInerny: Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor, Thomas Aquinas on the Cardinal Virtues; Life Issues-Medical Choices; Thomas Aquinas on Faith, Hope, and Love; The Edge of Life, and Proportionalism and the Natural Law Tradition. Dr. Kaczor’s views have been in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, National Review, NPR, BBC, EWTN, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, TEDx, and The Today Show. Keywords: Christianity, Faith and Reason, Hiddenness of God, Jesus Christ, Religious Pluralism, Tolerance, Truth

    32 min
  6. How John Paul II Used the Saints Against the Communists – Prof. James Felak

    30 Jun

    How John Paul II Used the Saints Against the Communists – Prof. James Felak

    Prof. James Felak argues that John Paul II used Polish saints as powerful symbols of faith, moral courage, and national identity to inspire resistance against communism and affirm the Church’s role in Poland’s history. This lecture was given on October 31st, 2026, at St. Albert's Priory. To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod. About the Speaker: James Felak is a Professor of History and current holder of the Newman Center Term Professorship in Catholic Christianity at the University of Washington. He specializes in Catholicism in East Central Europe and has authored two books on Catholic politics in Slovakia, and a book on Pope John Paul II and his visits to his native Poland during and after Communist rule there. This latter work is based on hundreds of pages of papal speeches and sermons, and the records of the Communist government and secret police as they monitored the Pope during his visits.  Besides courses on modern Europe, Felak teaches “The History of Christianity” and “Catholic Classics in Historical Context.” The latter course covers the major Catholic writers and thinkers from St. Augustine and St. Benedict through G. K. Chesterton and Flannery O’Connor. Felak is from southwestern Pennsylvania, received his doctorate from Indiana University, and has resided in Seattle since 1989. Keywords: Catholic Identity, Communion Of Saints, Communism, John Paul II, Poland, Sacred Space, Saints, Soviet Bloc, St Maximilian Kolbe

    46 min

About

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.

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