The Two Wings

Special Guest Presentation by Patrick Flynn: "Does Morality Affirm the Existence of God?" Nearly all of us live according to a sense of right and wrong. But what are we to make of this? Where does this sense come from? Can it be explained by evolution or culture? Or does morality hint at something more?

The great current exhibition "Heavenly Bodies" of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is having a strong impact in the Catholic world and outside the Catholic world both for what concerns the Theme - Fashion totally inspired by the Catholic Worshiped and Liturgical Tradition - and a sort of silent message : the every-day challenge of Catholicism in a Contemporary World which needs to recover the binding with the sphere of the "Sacred".

While we cannot achieve salvation on our own merits, there are things we can do to prepare ourselves to receive God’s grace, which is his activity within us, and this is how we are called to live our Lenten Season. Such gifts of grace are described by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy, the centerpiece of which is Mount Purgatory, the ladder that enables our return to God. The seven stories of the mountain deal with pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust in light of their corresponding virtues of, respectively, humility, caritas, meekness, zeal, liberality, abstinence and chastity. This presentation will lead participants through a discussion of the Purgatorio and engage them in a spiritual exercise dealing with these seven virtues. (Scheduled to be Recorded and Aired on Thursday, March 15, 2018, at 4:00 pm Eastern / 3:00 pm Central)Dr. Mahfood earned his PhD in Literature at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO, and has written and taught on Dante's Divine Comedy for over twenty years an

How are the saints represented? What typologies have artists throughout the history of art used to represent each of them? Dr. Michela Beatrice Ferri will explain the reasons for the representation of the saints from their origins to the present day. All those who listen to the broadcast should have in front of them a way to access the Internet. Dr. Michela Ferri will show which images to search in Google Images while she analyzes them. Those works that for our ancestors (in United States or in Europe) were so eloquent, small and great masterpieces of sacred art that decorate churches or are shown off in museums, today strike us for their artistic value, but the endless plot of messages in the story often escapes us. A large part of the way saints are represented is in fact characterized by specific attributes or symbols. In the first part of the conference, Dr. Michela Ferri will explain the correspondence between the individual saints and the iconographic typologies from ancient sources that are recurrent i

On Pope St. John Paul II's theology of suffering. (Aired on Thursday, March 1, 2018)Dr. Goldstein received her Doctorate in Sacred Theology, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of St. Mary of the Lake. She holds the distinction of being the first woman ever to be awarded that degree from St. Mary’s. She holds her STL, Magna Cum Laude, from the Pontifical Institute of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies. ​

Too often in our world we look at disability as “other,” something needing to be fixed. But what happens when we look through a different lens and approach disability from a social perspective? Join us to learn more about cultural competencies surrounding disability and how small shifts in perspective can make a big impact to those with disabilities, both visible and invisible. (Recorded and aired on Friday, February 16, 2018.)Universal Design:The Center for Universal Design: https://projects.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/index.htmDo IT at University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu/doit/Web Accessibility:Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/Alt Tags:How to add alt tags in a Word document: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvu7DLJEIagCaptioning:How to add accurate captions to a video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJGiS83eQLkAntaya Lee is the Disability Access Coordinator at Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut. She earned her undergraduate degrees fr

A Greek- and Arabic-speaking Syrian Christian, St. John Damascene was massively influential on Aquinas’ thought, especially on the issue of the worship of religious images. Aquinas borrows Damascene’s account of the use of externals in worship as grounded on the hylemorphic nature of human beings, and on the nature of human knowledge, which begins with the senses and only thereby reaches intelligible and spiritual realities. Hence, physical religious practices such as eastward prayer, ‘adoration’—bodily postures such as bowing, kneeling, prostrations, etc.—as well as the offering of sacrifices and the use of icons or religious images are means whereby the human mind is led by the senses to the contemplation of higher realities. Within this context Aquinas defends Damascene’s theory of the proper type of worship due to icons of Christ in particular, offering philosophical grounds for the bold claim that images of Christ are deserving of the worship of latria. We offer latria to these icons, not because they ar

Following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI and synthesizing insights from his book on the subject, in this lecture Dr. Matthew Ramage will set out to answer these above questions by wedding the historical-critical approach with a theological reading of Scripture based in the patristic-medieval tradition. Whereas these two approaches are often viewed as mutually exclusive or even contradictory, Ramage will insist that the two are mutually enriching and necessary for doing justice to the Bible's most challenging texts. (Recorded and aired on Friday, February 2, 2018.)Dr. Matthew Ramage is Adjunct Professor of Theology at HACS and Associate Professor of Theology at Benedictine College. He is author, contributing author, or co-translator of several books, including the monographs Dark Passages of the Bible: Engaging Scripture with Benedict XVI and Thomas Aquinas and Jesus, Interpreted: Benedict XVI, Bart Ehrman, and the Historical Truth of the Gospels. Dr. Ramage's work has appeared in a number of scholarly journals

The issue of accessibility in online learning has been waiting for attention. Until recently, however, the urgency for action has been largely absent or deferred. Intentions were good, but few formal implementation deadlines demanded immediate action. The passage of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act in 2005 led to the 2008 b adoption of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The Ontario Government has set a time limit of 1 January 2021 for compliance with this standard. This presentation will consider the changing concept of disability and accessibility in online learning. It will then provide a case study of Tyndale University College Seminary in Ontario, Canada, as it prepares to implement accessibility requirements for the 2021 deadline. Recorded and aired on Friday, January 26, 2018. The audio below plays the entire webinar with the Q/A session at the end. The YouTube video provides a subtitled, visual background to the 30-minu

International priests have served the Roman Catholic Church in the United States since its inception. With congregations consisting largely of immigrants or Spanish and French speaking Catholics absorbed by the expansion of US territory, it was only natural that the clergy reflected the remarkable mixture of ethnicities in the Church. New communities lacked the ‘home-grown’ vocations of more established communities, and the nascent Church needed to recruit or welcome priests and religious from other countries and cultures. Each missionary priest and seminarian (and missionary religious sister and nun) brings with him (or her) graces and challenges for the receiving community and for himself (for more on this, see the Guidelines for Receiving Pastoral Ministers in the United States, 3rd Edition, 2014). This presentation is part of the Intercultural Competencies work in which Holy Apostles has been involved this academic year. (Recorded and Aired on Friday, January 19, 2018.)​Dr. Mahfood earned his PhD in Lite

Fr. Gregory Lockwood will speak about the married Catholic priesthood and the wisdom/experience of thirty years (out of forty-five years of marriage) of being a married Catholic priest. (Recorded and Aired on Friday, December 15, 2017.)Fr. Gregory Lockwood is a priest of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph's in the state of Missouri. He has served on the faculties of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, Benedictine College, Donnelly College, and Holy Apostles College & Seminary where he teaches in the master of arts in theology program.

Dr. Rex speaks about the awesome and wondrous reality of God’s immense Gift of Participation – of Co-Creation – that the Blessed Trinity has entrusted to Man, male and female, who has been created in His own image and likeness. (Recorded and Aired on Friday, December 8, 2017.)Dr. Rex earned her PhD in Thomistic Ethics at the University of Navarra in Spain and has taught Catholic Bioethics at Holy Apostles College & Seminary since 2011. She is the Assistant Director of the St. John Paul II Bioethics Center that was founded in 1982 at Holy Apostles College & Seminary to articulate authentic Catholic teaching with respect to bioethical issues from technological reproduction to end-of-life decisions. She is a regular contributor to the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly.

Dr. Mahfood will speak about Dante's Divine Comedy as an epic work of art that narrativizes the Aristotelian-Thomistic Synthesis from the moment Dante finds himself lost in a Dark Wood to the moment he becomes one with the mind of God and finds himself back at his writing desk. A prezi of the presentation may be found here. (Recorded and aired on Friday, December 1, 2017.)Dr. Mahfood earned his PhD in Literature at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO, and has written and taught on Dante's Divine Comedy for over twenty years and in 2016 created a CD series on the Comedy for Now You Know Media. He is Vice-President of External Affairs and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He is the founder and CEO of En Route Books and Media and WCAT Radio.

Dr. Bequette speaks on how the Christian tradition inherited and transformed the Classical (Greco-Roman) understanding of friendship and provide some brief reflections on the relevance of the tradition for today. (Recorded and aired on Friday, November 10, 2017.)​Dr. Bequette earned his PhD in historical theology at Saint Louis University, specializing in medieval thought. He has published numerous articles and several books, the most recent being A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanism, published in 2016.

Dr. Ferri inquires about the themes of "Sacred Art" and "Religious Art." She brings the messages to the artists delivered by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II together with the Thomistic Perspective and the phenomenological point of view to begin a pioneer study on Contemporary Art in our Churches, in our Sacred Places, and in every visual representation we have with us. (Recorded and aired on Friday, November 3, 2017. )Dr. Ferri is recognized as one of the leading experts in the field of Sacred Art, and she is the Author of a volume dedicated to the dialogue between Catholic Faith and Art, devoted to an inquiry concerning Contemporary Sacred Art entitled Sacro Contemporaneo. Dialoghi sull’arte, published in 2016 by the Roman Catholic publishing house Áncora Editrice based in Milan, Italy, and scheduled for publication in winter 2017-2018 by En Route Books and Media.

Who is it that we worship? Is it, as Pascal declares, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or is it the God of the philosophers? In my presentation, I will be discussing precisely that question as it relates to the ongoing debate between classical theists, informed by Thomas Aquinas, and theistic personalists influenced by analytic philosophy. See for reference Dr. Edward Feser's blog post entitled "Classical Theism."(Recorded and Aired on Friday, October 27, 2017.)Prof. Christopher Apodaca teaches philosophy, both on campus and online, at his alma mater, Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He graduated in 2014 with an MA in philosophy and plans to complete the requirements for an advanced graduate certificate in the fall of 2017. Christopher also worked in secondary education for thirteen years as a mathematics teacher, counselor, and school administrator. He presently teaches courses in ethics, philosophical anthropology, natural theology, and the history of philosophy.

On Oct. 31, 2017, we mark the 500th anniversary of Luther posting his 95 Theses. Caricatures about Luther and Ignatius abound: did they elevate reason so far as to discount faith...or were they stalwart captives to blind faith....how did their spirituality try to strike a balance? join us as we explore these two important figures from the 16th century who still impact Christianity and the world today. (Recorded and Aired on Friday, October 20, 2017.)Dr. Bellitto is the author of ten books, including most recently Ageless Wisdom: Lifetime Lessons from the Bible (Paulist Press, 2016), 101 Questions and Answers on Popes and the Papacy (Paulist Press, 2008), The Living Church and Church History 101 (Liguori Publications, 2011, 2008), and the companion volumes, The General Councils: A History of the 21 Church Councils from Nicaea to Vatican II and Renewing Christianity: A History of Church Reform from Day One to Vatican II (Paulist Press 2001-2002). ​