In this conversation, Dr. John Hittinger explores the sources of John Paul II’s vision of education, taking up his historically rooted and deeply cultural, Thomistic Personalism as the foundation of that vision. Ranging over a wide variety of works—including music and poetry—Prof. Hittinger considers the relation between faith and reason, a relation in which the former acts as a “force multiplier” of the latter. He also considers the confidence that should mark Catholic higher education and the role of literature and the imagination in liberal learning.

Links of potential interest:

John Paul II Institute

George Weigel’s John Paul II Trilogy

The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II--The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy

Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II

Pope Saint John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (“Faith and Reason”)

Pope Saint John Paul II, Ex corde ecclesiae (On Catholic Universities/From the Heart of the Church)

Pope Saint John Paul II, “Letter to Artists”

Karol Wojtyła (Pope Saint John Paul II) The Jeweler's Shop: A Meditation on the Sacrament of Matrimony Passing on Occasion Into a Drama

Henryk Górecki, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”

Pope Saint John Paul II, Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium