Dr. Pat Fagan, the Director of the Marriage And Religion Research Institute, explained how, from a sociological viewpoint, the married intact heterosexual family that worships God weekly has the most positive effect on children and society.

He encouraged the students to live chaste, virtuous, and loving lives. Like the early Christians who lived amongst dark pagan times, the witness of strong loving families will save our culture, he told them.

At the Family Research Council (FRC), Dr. Pat Fagan directs the work of the Marriage And Religion Research Institute (MARRI), a branch of the Council that focuses on studying the effects of the relationship between marriage and religion on society. Fagan has worked for the Free Congress Foundation, assisted Indiana Senator Dan Coats, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under George H. W. Bush, and was a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation for thirteen years before joining the FRC.

“How does an angel get it wrong?” Rev. John D. Corbett asked during his lecture to students and faculty on January 27 at Christendom College. Rev. Corbett’s talk discussed the nature of angels and how such high beings could have fallen from God’s grace. A moral theologian currently teaching at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Rev. Corbett explained that the fall of the angels is “a bit of a theological conundrum.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. Dixie Lane delivered a lecture to students and faculty entitled “Homeschooling Since 1950: A Historical Perspective.” Lane delved into the roots of the homeschooling movement and some of the key legal battles that ensured the parents’ right to educate their child.

Lane is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Notre Dame. Her dissertation,”Skipping School: Homeschooling and the United States, 1950-2010,” examines nationwide trends in education, family, religion and politics by studying the exponential growth of an unpredictable educational movement. Lane lives in Front Royal with her husband, Christendom history professor Christopher J. Lane, and their two children.

On November 19, Fr. Zieba gave a talk to Christendom students and faculty entitled “Papal Economics”. He discussed the development of Catholic social doctrine, as well of the theological dynamics of politics and economics.

Fr. Maciej Zięba, O.P., was a close associate of Pope John Paul II and a strong activist in Poland’s Solidarity movement in the Communist era. A physicist by training, he became a Dominican priest and a major thinker on the theological dynamics of politics and economics, closely tied to intellectuals like George Weigel, Michael Novak, and of course, John Paul II. From 1991 to the present day he has lectured at the Tertio Millenio Institute for the Free Society’s summer seminar, guiding students from Central Europe and America in a thorough, contextualized reading of John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus — a document he sees as the Church’s definitive statement on social thought. He is in America touring to promote the new English edition of his work on the subject.

On November 14, Dr. Kurt Poterack gave a lecture as part of the Beato Fra Angelico Fine Arts Series. Entitled “Artistic Patronage and the Common Good: The Case of Johann Sebastian Bach,” he spoke on the value of music, and how music itself has changed.

Dr. Poterack also emphasized the impact and importance of Johann Sebastian Bach. He spoke of how Bach had been the end of an amazing era of music that has sadly not been returned to by society today.

An exceptionally popular speaker and teacher, Dr. Scott Hahn delves into the famous Bible passage of The Road to Emmaus, discussing the continuity of the scriptures, and how the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament. By understanding the liturgical context of the Scriptures the sacramental quality of the written text is revealed.

A profound author of many books, Hahn received his Bachelor of Arts degree with a triple-major in Theology, Philosophy, and Economics from Grove City College, Penn., in 1979, his Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1982, and his Ph.D. in Biblical Theology from Marquette University in 1995.  He has ten years of youth and pastoral ministry experience in Protestant congregations (in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, Kansas and Virginia) and is a former Professor of Theology at Chesapeake Theological Seminary.  He was ordained in 1982 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Va.  He entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil, 1986.

On September 16, world-renowned Bible scholar and theology professor Dr. Scott Hahn launched Christendom College’s Major Speaker Program, delivering a lecture on “The Bible, the Eucharist, and the New Evangelization.”

Hahn explained that just as human love and relationships lead to a sacrament—Matrimony—so too does our love and relationship with God lead to a sacrament—the Eucharist. He noted that it was Blessed Pope John Paul who first called for the new evangelization to be based on the Eucharist and, citing a paper by Francis Cardinal George of Chicago, said, “all evangelizers proclaim Christ, but Catholic evangelizers proclaim a Eucharistic Christ.”

An exceptionally popular speaker and teacher, Dr. Scott Hahn has delivered numerous talks nationally and internationally on a wide variety of topics related to Scripture and the Catholic faith.  Over 500 of these talks have been produced in audio and video formats by St. Joseph Communications.  These talks have been effective in helping thousands of Protestants and fallen-away Catholics to embrace the Catholic faith.

Fr. John Wauck, a communications professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, delivered a talk entitled “Communication in the Age of Pope Francis” to students and faculty on September 6. Wauck examined the different communication styles of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI as well as the media’s approach to each papacy.

Fr. Wauck is an American priest of Opus Dei. A native of Chicago, he studied Renaissance history and literature at Harvard University and philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, where he has lived for the last nineteen years. He teaches a course on literature and Christian faith at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (in 2005, this course was aired as a 13-part television series, called Mirror of the Soul on EWTN) and organizes an international seminar entitled Poetics and Christianity. He has written for many publications, including The American Scholar, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New Criterion, and appeared frequently as a television commentator on matters dealing with the Catholic Church.

Dr. Ken Grasso, a professor of political science at Texas State University, delivered a lecture entitled “The Freedom of the Church and the Taming of the State.” Grass examines the role of Christianity in the development and the future of modern democracy. He argues that Christianity transformed western political life, and that liberal modernity is attempting to set form a purely secular understanding of freedom. 

Dr. Harry Veryser, author and professor of economics at the University of Detroit Mercy, delivered a lecture at Christendom College entitled “Thomism and Austrian Economics” on March 18. Veryser discussed how the foundational principles of the Austrian school of economics capture St. Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of the nature of man.

Dr. Veryser graduated from the University of Detroit, where he received his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Economics and two Master of Arts degrees in Economics and Religious Studies.  He is the author of the book Our Economic Crisis: Sources and Solutions, as well as numerous other articles that have been published in such magazines as The Detroit News, and Intercollegiate Review.