Description: Dr. Squires discusses Sacred Music — not contemporary or popular Christian music — focusing on composers including Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, James MacMillan, and Henryk Górecki, and drawing on ideas from Jeremy Begbie. The evening included live music.

Speaker: Dr. David Squires is Interim Dean of the School of the Arts, Media + Culture.

Bio: Dr. Hans Boersma (PhD, University of Utrecht) holds the St. Benedict Servants of Christ Chair in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House in Wisconsin. His books include Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Eerdmans, 2018), Scripture as Real Presence (Baker Academic, 2017), and Heavenly Participation (Eerdmans, 2011). His theological interests include Catholic thought, the Church Fathers, and spiritual interpretation of Scripture.

This lecture presents Joseph Ratzinger’s Christocentric theology of creation as a counter to the increasingly popular naturalist movement of anti-natalism. Anti-natalism positions humans antagonistically against the created order — humans are seen as a blight on the planet. However, as Ratzinger sets out, affirmation of the cosmos requires affirmation of the human person.

This talk brings together aspects of the thought of Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins to explore “inscape” — a word he coined meaning “design, pattern,” constituting “the very soul of art.” Hopkins was brought into the Church by St. John Cardinal Newman.

Description: Karol Wojtyla, who would later become St. John Paul II, was a champion of human dignity and a defender of human freedom. He discovered through his suffering, pilgrimage of faith, and intellectual work that only Jesus Christ ensures and protects the meaning and dignity of the human person. To understand his unique approach to anthropology, we must first understand what he means when he teaches that the human person “cannot live without love” and can only discover himself by drawing near to Christ (Redemptor Hominis, no. 10).

Bio: Dr. Carly Henderson earned her BA in English Literature at Saint Mary’s College at Notre Dame, and her MA and PhD in Theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, DC. Her theological interests centre on Mariology, the theology of St. John Paul II, and anthropological questions concerning existence, sexual difference, and feminism.

Both Alexander Schmemann and Joseph Ratzinger insist that the human person remains shrouded in mystery without God’s self-disclosure in the person of Jesus Christ. Sacramentality, though innate, is often ignored or unknown — yet it is an essential lens through which we understand the world and our purpose in it. Fr. Ayre shows how modernism is pervasive in our culture, even among Catholics, and why recovering the sacramental imagination is essential.

Archbishop Miller begins in Scripture and discusses the nature of the Church’s authority: who has authority, who has infallibility, and how the faithful should respond to various levels of Church teaching. Delivered on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

In the Republic, Plato views the city as the human soul writ large. Is the Church similarly the human soul writ large? If so, what can be learned about the human person in light of the Church? By looking at what the Church is, this talk explores how the Church in herself provides an image and symbol that illuminates the importance of our embodied, sexed condition as man and woman.

Despite the formation of a Western secular society, researchers have observed a surge in paranormal beliefs and practices. This lecture examines the psychoanalytic geographies of UFO conferences, ghost investigations, and Sasquatch expeditions to consider how these spaces have proliferated not because of the oft-proclaimed death of God, but because — following Jacques Lacan — “God is unconscious.”

This lecture draws attention to the radically novel account of the “nature” of the Bible that rose to prominence in the 17th century. Contrasting modern and pre-modern readings, it argues that a “sacramental” reading of Scripture encourages us to read the Bible not just as a story about past events of redemption, but as itself an “Incarnation” — a manifestation of redemption in the very midst of our lives.

The doctrine of Mary’s mediation has been with the Church since the earliest centuries, yet its meaning remains unclear for many Catholics today. Less than one hundred years ago, there was a considerable movement petitioning the Holy Father to declare Mary “Mediatrix of All Graces.” That proposal remained unmet not because Mary’s mediation was passé, but because the language used to communicate its mystery was insufficient. This lecture explores what John Paul II’s theology reveals about that mystery.

Jordan Peterson, more than most, has played a prominent role in public debates since 2016. Many demonise him; many uncritically genuflect before him. This lecture reflects on the genuine contributions Peterson makes to the culture and also on some of his limits — taking seriously both what he offers and where the Catholic tradition diverges from him.

Description: Dr. Baird discusses the ‘what, why, and how’ of Catholic doctrine concerning Our Lady’s preservation from sin from the moment of her conception.

Bio: Dr. Baird’s research focuses on theology and culture, with particular interests in Christianity’s intersections with story and film. His projects include the early writings of G.K. Chesterton, the theology of Holy Saturday, and the theological significance of postapocalyptic zombie fiction.

Description: The Bible cannot be read apart from its spiritual end, which is the heavenly contemplation of God in Christ. Contemporary biblical scholarship runs the danger of forgetting both Scripture’s final cause (the heavenly presence of God) and its divine character. It is contemplative reading that puts us in tune with the purposes of God — and contemplation (love of God) is our final end, driving the active life and our reading of Scripture.

Bio: Dr. Hans Boersma (PhD, University of Utrecht) holds the St. Benedict Servants of Christ Chair in Ascetical Theology at Nashotah House, Wisconsin. His books include Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Eerdmans, 2018), Scripture as Real Presence (Baker Academic, 2017), and Heavenly Participation (Eerdmans, 2011).

A book-release lecture format: Fr. Bellusci presented his book Love Deformed, Love Transformed, responded to by CPC Academic Dean Dr. Andrew Kaethler and CPC student Dominic Lindl. Copies available at Holy Family Catholic Bookstore or Amazon.ca.

Dr. Kaethler spoke on the place of “Church” in Christian life: Is it essential, part of the very nature of being a Christian? Or is it merely external — and potentially onerous — to Christian life?

Description: This lecture introduces a common teaching among native Elders about a genocide carried out at the founding of British Columbia through the intentional distribution of smallpox. Several native peoples lost 75 percent or more of their entire number within one year. The lecture features evidence from the written record in the Nuxalk and Tsilhqot’in territories, showing how local activity fits into the larger colonial context of 1862.

Bio: Tom Swanky, J.D., was awarded an eagle feather during the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings and was a keynote speaker at the ceremonies where the BC Government exonerated the Chilcotin Chiefs who were hanged for defending their communities. Panel respondents included Peter Tallio, M.Ed. (Nuxalk Nation Health Director) and Deacon Rennie Nahanee (First Nations Ministry Coordinator, Archdiocese of Vancouver).

The founding lecture of the CPC³ Public Lecture Series, delivered at Trinity Western University. Archbishop Miller explored the pontificate of Pope Francis and what his papacy means for the universal Church — Catholic and non-Catholic alike.