On November 19, Dr. Kurt Poterack, Adjunct Professor at Christendom College, delivered a talk entitled “The Uniqueness of Music in the Western Civilization”.

Dr. Kurt Poterack is the Director of the Christendom College Choir and is the Schola Gregoriana Coordinator, Beato Fra Angelico Fine Arts Program. Specializing in Gregorian and Renaissance polyphony, he received both his M.A and Ph.D. from Michigan State University.

Dr. Doug Flippen discusses the four types of Temperaments, how they effect our life, and what we can do to shape and correct the weakness of our temperament. 

Entrepreneur and former Swiss Guard Andreas Widmer delivered a talk entitled “Seven Things I Learned from Pope John Paul II on Being a Catholic Business Person” to students and faculty at Christendom College on October 5.

Widmer served as a Pontifical Swiss Guard from 1986-1988, protecting Pope John Paul II. He is a co-founder of the SEVEN Fund, a non-profit organization that seeks to encourage entrepreneurship in impoverished regions of the world. Holding numerous degrees from Switzerland and the U.S., Widmer is also an author who recently contributed two chapters to the book In the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. He has written articles featured in various business and general interest media including the Financial Times, Bloomberg News, Sky TV, and Catholic Digest.

 Dr. Patrick Divietri refutes the idea that religion makes no difference in divorce rates in marriage. In reality, the statistics show that religion plays a significant role a happy and stable marital relationship. 

On May 24, Professor Mary Stanford gave a talk entitled “Friendship, Femininity & Fickleness” to the women of the Christendom community.

She summarizes the essence of femininity by discussing the “3 Cs”—care, conversation, and community.

 Professor Stanford explains how women should use their natural God-endowed gifts as strengths, rather than allow them to become weaknesses.

Professor 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, Mary 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.

Understanding finance is crucial to prepare for the future and achieve personal success.

“All my life I’ve heard spirited advocacy for the dialogue between the Church and the wider culture, but this call has come, almost exclusively, from the Church and not from the culture,” Fr. Robert Barron said in his talk entitled “From Correlation to Assimilation: A New Model for the Church-Culture Dialogue” given to the students and faculty of Christendom College on April 20. “It is this one-way quality of the conversation that is, I submit to you, problematic.”

Fr. Robert Barron, a prominent theologian and podcasting priest, is one of the world’s great and most innovative teachers of Catholicism. His global media ministry called Word on Fire has a simple but revolutionary mission—to evangelize the culture. His numerous books and essays serve as critical educational and inspirational tools for seminarians, priests, parishioners and young people worldwide.

Barron highlights problems within American culture as well its redeemable strengths. Problems which the Church encounters in communicating with American culture include an Hobbesian individualism, the notion of freedom as choice, and the privatization of religion.

Fr. Ben. J. Cameron discusses the tragedy and grief abortion inflicts on women, and the process of healing. By understanding the emotional and psychological pain abortion causes, we are more able to support and help women who have had an abortion. 

Fr. Chris Pollard discusses the value and significance of activities done in silence. Certain intense activities, such as prayer, study, or hunting demands silence. 

Fr. Joseph Mary Brown discusses the difficult and often complex matter of discerning vocations. 

Father was born in Bardstown, KY, the third of seven children. He graduated from Christendom College in 1985 with a B.A. in Philosophy. In 1991, he joined the Congregation of St. John (an active-contemplative Community founded in France in 1975) in Laredo, TX, where he did his Novitiate. From there, he was sent to France to continue his formation, and in 1996, he was sent to their house in Peoria, IL.

Ordained in 1997, Father currently serves as the Superior of the Community’s English-speaking Novitiate House in Princeville, IL.