Thomas More College was pleased to welcome Mr. Christopher Check, the president of Catholic Answers, back to campus from April 20–24. On his third visit to the College, Mr. Check remarked, “Every time I have visited, I have been impressed by the school’s joyful Christian atmosphere. I believe the breadth of the reading list, the emphasis on learning classical languages, and especially the strong bonds of fraternity and sorority among the students here all contribute to this atmosphere. It’s truly a delight to see.”
Throughout the visit, Mr. Check offered lecture opportunities for Thomas More College students, the general public, and members of local parishes. On Wednesday, April 20, Mr. Check spoke to a gathering of writers, politicians, policy analysts, lawyers, publishers, and school administrators at a College-sponsored dinner at the Hanover Chop House in Manchester, NH. “Our meeting was reminiscent of G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Last Crusade’ meeting,” remarked President Fahey, “a wonderful group openly discussing how Christian culture can be made even more vibrant against the forces of ‘gloom and doom’. Mr. Check provided us with serious words for the beginning of what I suspect will be a sustained conversation in the Granite State.” On Thursday, April 21, Mr. Check gave a lecture at the Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture on the Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory the Great, a collection of ghost stories told in an attempt to create a new martyrology for Christian Italy.
The following day, April 22, Mr. Check addressed the College on the Galileo Affair. Torrey Culbertson ’22 said, “Mr. Check’s lecture was incredibly informative and offered an intelligent and sensible refutation of the modern stance on the Church and science, explaining to us what really happened in the Galileo Affair.” For Mr. Check, this opportunity to “be at the front of a classroom of bright young people” was a pleasure, especially because the students had already encountered Galileo’s writings in their Natural History course—which brings learning out of the classroom and into the surrounding woods and bogs—as well as the Modern Scientific Thinking upper tutorial. “I have always been struck by the joy of the students here and the sense of balance they display in all elements of their lives. I think this balance has to do a lot with the amount of time that Thomas More students spend exploring and studying the natural world,” Mr. Check stated. “Everybody in attendance was engaged and intellectually curious, and such a lively conversation followed.”
For some, there was a personal significance to the visit beyond its educational aspects. Jonathan Wright ’23 is an adult convert to the Catholic faith, and his “conversion was profoundly influenced by Catholic Answers.” For him, it was a remarkable chance to spend time with the president of an organization that had so impacted his life: “Not only did Mr. Check engage the College intellectually, he also engaged the student body personally, making himself approachable for conversation throughout his entire visit. For this, we profoundly thank him and commend him.”
Mr. Check’s time here was brought to a close with the annual Easter banquet and pig roast. This celebration is an expression of the primacy of the liturgical year in the life of Thomas More College; a sign of its fidelity to tradition that, for Mr. Check, sets the College apart. “While you’re learning in one of these environments, you realize that the tradition you’re receiving is actually countercultural. At one point in the Christian age, however, it wasn’t countercultural, it was the culture,” he reflected. “Nevertheless, it is now countercultural. When you find out that what you received is true and good and beautiful, you can be tempted to a kind of spiritual and intellectual arrogance. I detect none of that here at Thomas More. Rather—in addition to the joy, the fraternity, and the sorority—there’s a humility about the place that just draws me to it.”
