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.

On February 17, Andy Day delivered a talk to the Christendom faculty and students entitled “Evangelization: That Which We Have Seen and Heard”.

Andy Day is the Southeast Regional Director for FOCUS, the Fellowship Of Catholic University Students, one of the fastest growing programs in the Catholic Church. Andy graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics from Christendom College. As a campus missionary with FOCUS, Andy served at Seton Hall University before establishing the southeast region, where he leads evangelization efforts on 21 college campuses who serve nearly 3,000 college students. Andy has spoken across the country on topics such as leadership, outreach, and evangelization training.

“You are among the last young people who recognize that the love of learning and desire for God goes together,” Rev. Romanus Cessario, O.P. told students at his lecture held on November 14.  “Now that is a remarkable gift. You must think of yourselves as inheritors of a long tradition. What you’ve got is not some pious Catholic thing.”

Rev. Cessario is a professor at St. John’s Monastery in Boston and a fellow of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. In addition to numerous articles and reviews, he has authored, coauthored, or edited several books, including The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics and Introduction to Moral Theology.

His lecture aimed “to defend a controversial thesis by Benedictine monk Dom Jean Lecercq: that every authentic Christian approach of knowledge remains monastic in character,” he said.

Rev. Cessario explained that by studying the liberal arts in a monastic-like society such as Christendom, the love of truth is infused into everyday life. This link to monasticism has been all but lost in modern western society, making places like Christendom rare.

Well-known Catholic author and journalist Russell Shaw delivered a talk entitled “Secrecy vs. Communio in the Catholic Church” at Christendom College on Monday November 3, 2008.

Shaw is author or coauthor of 20 books and a contributor to and/or editor of several others. His most recent book is Nothing To Hide: Secrecy, Communication, and Communion in the Catholic Church.

Shaw has published thousands of magazine and newspaper articles, columns, and reviews in U.S. and foreign periodicals. He is: a contributing editor of Our Sunday Visitor national Catholic newspaper; a columnist for Catholic Exchange, Inside Catholic, and several diocesan newspapers; American correspondent of Palabra, a newsmagazine published in Madrid; and a contributor to several encyclopedias. Currently, he is serving his third five-year term as a consultor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications. He is a member of the faculties of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and the Catholic Distance University, Hamilton, Va.