Author and Professor of Literature Dr. Michael Mack delivered a lecture entitled “Hamlet: Shakespeare’s Mousetrap?” to students and faculty at Christendom College on February 7. The talk was the first in the College’s new Faith & Reason Lecture Series.

In his lecture, Mack reveals how Shakespeare uses one of his most famous plays to cause the audience to examine their own conscience. In the play itself, Hamlet uses a play,The Mousetrap, to cause the villain, Claudius, to examine his conscience.

Mack is an Associate Professor of English and the Dean of the Undergraduate Program at The Catholic University of America. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. His research interests include Shakespeare, sixteenth and seventeenth-century English poetry, and Renaissance literary theory. In 2005, CUA Press published Mack’s book, Sidney’s Poetics: Imitating Creation. He is currently working on a book on Shakespeare.

Renowned Dominican priest and Thomistic philosopher, Reverend Lawrence Dewan, O.P., delivered a lecture entitled “Being a Disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Pursuit of Wisdom” as the keynote speaker at Christendom College’s annual St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture on January 28, 2011. Fr. Dewan discusses how St. Thomas Aquinas serves as a witness to wisdom.

A member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Dewan studied philosophy at the University of Toronto, the University of Paris, and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. He has taught at the University of Ottawa, Saint Mary’s University, the University of Toronto, Université Laval of Québec, and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is author of three books: Form and Being: Studies in Thomistic Metaphysics; St. Thomas and Form as Something Divine in Things; and Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics.

“There is only one reason to be Catholic—not because you love father’s homilies, not because they have great youth groups, not because the cutest girl in the world sits in that third pew—it’s because it’s true,” clinical psychologist and radio personality Dr. Ray Guarendi told students at Christendom College on November 8. “If it’s not true, get out of it. Go do what you want. But if it is true, it is everything.”

His talk entitled “Why Be Catholic?” exposed the common fallacies in the Protestant system that he discovered during his journey from evangelicalism to Catholicism.

Guarendi, a father of 10, is host for the radio show The Doctor Is In, which is featured on Ave Maria and EWTN Radio. He has been a regular guest on national radio and television, including Oprah, 700 Club, and CBS This Morning. He is the author of several books, including Discipline That Lasts a Lifetime, You’re a Better Parent Than You Think!, now in its twenty-fifth printing, and his newest book, Good Discipline, Great Teens.

On November 4, Professor Mary Stanford gave a talk entitled “Life in the Single Years” to the Christendom College community. Discussing the single life as a vocation in her talk, she encourages young women to look at this time in their lives as a time of growth and preparation for the rest of their lives.

Professor Mary Stanford received her Master of Theological Studies degree from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, DC.  A married homeschooling mother of six children, Professor Stanford occasionally moonlights as an adjunct instructor for the Theology Department of Christendom College, and has spoken in dioceses around the country on the topics of marriage, femininity, contraception, and Christian anthropology.

On September 27, 2010, Frank Hanna gave his talk entitled “Defending the Faith, Defending the Word of God”, relating how he established the Mater Verbi/Hanna Papyrus Trust, which sought to acquire for the Vatican sections 14 and 15 of the Bodmer Papyrus from the Martin Bodmer Foundation. The Bodmer Papyrus is a set of papyri which were discovered in 1952 at Pabau, Egypt. Dating back to A.D. 175, the papyri contain the oldest copy of the Gospel of Luke—and the oldest copy of the Lord’s Prayer—in the world.

Hanna, CEO of Hanna Capital in Atlanta, Ga., and author of the best seller What Your Money Means, told students that his efforts to acquire the papyri for the Vatican were the beginning of “a defense of the Faith” for him.

Paul Voss’ talk, entitled “To Hell and Back: Catholicism, Liberal Arts, and Business Ethics,” explains how the wisdom and ethics of the Catholic intellectual tradition has the ability to shape the future of business for the better.

Voss is the President of Ethikos, an ethics consulting group, and an Associate Professor at Georgia State University. A gifted public speaker and award-winning teacher, his clients include the FBI Labs, General Electric Energy, British Petroleum, the Home Depot, Visa, the Federal Railroad Administration, and many others.

On March 2, the Christendom College Republican Leaders invited Bob Marshall and Kate Obenshain to speak to the students body.

Delegate Bob Marshall (R), representing Virginia’s 13th District since 1991, addressed students and reinforced Obenshain’s charge to be active in politics while sharing a number of personal experiences in politics.

On March 2, the Christendom College Republican Leaders invited Bob Marshall and Kate Obenshain to speak to the students body.

Obenshain remarked that truly conservative colleges like Christendom were a rarity and was enthused by what she experienced on campus. She encouraged students to run for office, citing a need for good conservative men and women, now more than ever.

Susan Conroy, author and friend to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, gave an address to the students and faculty of Christendom College on Monday, February 15, 2010.

Conroy made her first trip to Calcutta to work with Blessed Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in 1986. In 1987, at the request of Blessed Teresa herself, Conroy stayed in the Order’s convent in the South Bronx, New York, in contemplation of the religious life. While Conroy did not enter the Order, she calls her stay there “the most profoundly meaningful experience of my life.”

Conroy has made numerous television appearances for local as well as worldwide audiences. On EWTN’s global television network, she hosted a 5 part mini-series of shows which began airing in June of 2008 and again in February 2009 and March 2010, called “Speaking of Saints.”

Fr. Daniel Gee delves into the depths of spiritual life which is part of married life.  Marriage is a journey of offering and acceptance, involving sacrifice.