Join other graduate students to experience England’s Catholic roots, delve into the backgrounds of saints and martyrs, and learn more about the revival of Catholicism in England. The program will begin in Oxford where you will experience the Catholic history of the area and see the places where saints lived, worked, and prayed. Oxford highlights include a look at the life and conversion of Saint John Henry Newman.

Seminars will focus on the turn from Catholicism that England experienced under and following the reign of Henry VIII giving special attention to Thomas More and Edmund Campion, as well as examining how Shakespeare’s work subtly highlights the religious tensions of the time. The latter half of the program will take place in London with visits to sights of historic martyrdoms, including a day trip to Canterbury, the place of Saint Thomas Becket’s martyrdom.

Thomas More College is pleased to partner with the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America and Second Spring to offer the 2023 program. Learn more here.

The Western Pilgrimage is a semester-long experience created by Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and Altum L’alto Pilgrimages (ALP). The semester is open to male students not currently enrolled at a Catholic “Great Books” college.

Students will complete fifteen academic credit hours (in five classes) as they explore the western states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. The final destination is El Santuario de Chimayo, also known as the Lourdes of America. Students will be guided by traveling faculty and staff for the entire trip and visited by other faculty who journey out to the base camps. Students will have the chance to explore thirteen national parks and to participate in many adventure activities which include hiking, horseback riding, rafting, biking, sandboarding, and rock climbing. Learn more here.