All the first universities were—St. Thomas Aquinas would tell us—Catholic ones. But in this modern day, it takes intentionality to maintain the rich tradition of Catholic education.

In a talk recorded for HeightsCast, Dr. Peter Kilpatrick, president of The Catholic University of America, spoke to families at The Heights about what it means to be a Catholic university. He first consults the experts: Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, John Paul the Great, and Pope Benedict XVI. He then offers examples from his own career in school leadership, and how to put the exhortations of popes and saints into action on campus.

6:14 Universities: a Catholic inheritance

8:06 Newman and Aquinas on universities

11:58 Papal directives for Catholic universities

15:56 Theodrama vs. egodrama

19:16 Getting these ideas on campus

19:36 Mission-enthusiastic faculty

21:26 Mission-integrated curricula

24:12 Counseling with a Christian anthropology

25:01  Teaching a professional call to holiness

26:21 Campus ministry

28:15 The distinctive value of Catholic education

31:10 Q1: Technology and the next 50 years

36:13 Q2: College affordability and value

The Idea of a University by St. John Henry Newman

Ex Corde Ecclesiae by Pope St. John Paul II

Regensburg Address on Faith, Reason, and the University by Pope Benedict XVI

“The Real Cost of College Education—for Students, Families, and the Nation” by Jamie Merisotis

Superhabits: The Universal System for a Successful Life by Andrew Abela

Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth by Catherine Pakaluk

Receiving Beauty: A Liberal Arts Education featuring Dr. George Harne

Considerations for the College-Bound Student featuring Dr. Peter Kilpatrick

The Idea of the Liberal Arts University, Part I featuring Dr. Thomas Hibbs

Rethinking College: Why go? How? When? featuring Arthur Brooks

Advent invites us to reflect on our Christian disposition, oriented towards peace, hope, joy, and love. St. Josemaría Escrivá was known to summarize that disposition by calling it, simply… “simple.” In The Way, he praises the apostles and St. Joseph for imitating Jesus himself in being simple. And then he exhorts us: “May you not lack simplicity.”

Heights faculty Joe Cardenas and Nate Gadiano join us this week to explore the Christian meaning of “simplicity,” beginning with the ways that God is simple: unified, sincere, essential, and wholly true. As we strive to reflect his example, how do we find that interior disposition of simplicity? And how can we help our boys find it too?

3:07 A Catholic sense of simplicity

10:13 Moving beyond “minimalism”

18:38 Simplicity in Scripture

20:43 Social simplicity

24:12 As opposed to duplicity

26:08 How spiritual direction simplifies you

30:36 A unity of purpose

32:39 Distinct from feelings-based “honesty”

39:02 Helping our boys as parents, mentors

41:41 A boy’s insecurity, overcome by trust

47:38 Secure in divine filiation

The Way, Furrow, and The Forge by St. Josemaría Escrivá

The Virtues Playlist on The Heights Forum

“The air of Narnia had been working upon him … and all his old battles came back to him, and his arms and fingers remembered their old skill. He was King Edmund once more.”

In this week’s wide-ranging discussion, Dr. Jason Baxter talks about fellow Medievalist C. S. Lewis’s ideas of story and history—and how those ideas matter for the education and formation of a thoroughly modern people. What can today’s “classical revival movements” learn from Lewis?

3:56 C. S. Lewis’s library

6:31 His theory of stories: mining ancient jewels

14:49 His theory of history: a post-Christian world

17:14 Modern man’s trouble with pre-modern texts

20:09 Embracing modernity and tradition

25:45 Making virtue attractive

33:49 How to “teach” a passion

42:45 Why a new translation of Dante

49:51 Wounded by beauty

jasonmbaxter.com featuring articles and lectures

Beauty Matters, Substack for Jason Baxter

The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind by Jason Baxter

The Divine Comedy: Inferno translated by Jason Baxter

Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College

A Doctor, a Lawyer, and a Cop Walk into a Boys School, episode two of Heights Forum Faculty Podcast

What Fiction Is For featuring Joe Breslin

Inferno or Paradiso? On Introducing Students to the Divine Comedy featuring Jason Baxter