This tutorial will explore the historical emergence of Catholic education in Western civilization. There is no understanding of Catholic education without a basic understanding of the history of Western liberal education. Therefore, the course will survey the entire history of liberal learning in the West. This tutorial is not mainly a history or a survey. It is rather an attempt amongst students and a teacher to learn and understand the deepest principles of what may be called Catholic educational theory and practice. Catholics have been called in different ways at different times to respond to the longings of crises of man. We do so from a privileged position, having been given the gift of revelation and the responsibility of sharing the truth with all nations. What roles does education (especially non-catechetical education) have in the Church’s mission? Are there flaws within the Western tradition that impede good education? Is there such a thing as a correct form of education? If not, what are the core principles of a Catholic Educational Theory and Practice? What informs pedagogy? What are the arts and sciences of a curriculum? Should a Catholic education feature exclusively certain arts and science? Which one and at what point in a person’s development? Does education require formal institutions? Always? What are the particular challenges to effective and wholesome education that have arisen in Modernity?

Readings will be drawn from classical and Christian authors that help the student consider the end of the education, and how teachers in classical and Christian society expressed their aims, established their curricular canons, mentored their students, and articulated what can be called “the Philosophy of Catholic Education.” A variety of ancient, medieval, and modern authors will be studied, and special attention will be given to the life and works of St. John Henry Newman.  The Catholic intellectual tradition is not a tradition that removes itself from the world, nor rejects out of hand the developments of society or the academy. Quite the contrary, it studies, weighs, and evaluates. For this reason, the course readings will not be limited only to Catholic authors or only authors from “the Age of Faith,” but will consider especially issues and movements that have arisen in the last centuries: the hardened distinction between the arts (liberal, fine, and manual); the relationship of the humanities to science; the forms of educational institutions; the homeschooling and unschooling movements; and the debates over the relationship between an education and the moral or political life of a person.

The Western and Catholic educational tradition has always set in balance contemplation and action. Since the office of teacher is central to learning and since most participants in this tutorial are discerning their own professional vocation, time will be given over to a consideration of the life and qualities of the teacher. Finally, in addition to the seminar discussions, individual presentations, and writing assignments, the students will engage in a form of academic “field work.” Each student must make at least one visit to another institution of learning and instruction (possibilities will be offered on the primary, secondary, collegiate, and seminary levels).

This course studies Polish philosopher and theologian Karol Wojtyła’s (later St. John Paul II) major philosophical works, The Lublin Lectures (1954-57) and Person and Act (1969).  It examines the sources of Wojtyła’s personalism, identifies his principal interlocutors (Immanuel Kant, Max Scheler, St. John of the Cross), and explores Wojtyła’s response to their ideas about the human person and moral agency. The course centers on Wojtyła’s own account of human nature, personal subjectivity, and moral responsibility (or human freedom). This course engages these works as a kind of philosophical prologue. Wojtyła’s philosophical inquiry into the natural truths about the human person is preparatory for the theological truth about human fulfillment in love, of the “gift of self” in love. 

Hence, this course wants to expand students’ exposure to moral or ethical thought and thus deepen their knowledge and understanding of moral realities. As we shall see, of particular relevance will be the question of the nature of the human person seen in the light of human action. This joins our inquiries immediately to the question of the good, or the end of human life or happiness. 

This course will directly contribute to students’ understanding of what is meant by “happiness”, one of Thomas More College’s articulated “learning outcomes.” Likewise, this course contributes to the student’s familiarity with the principal figures of Western civilization.

This tutorial aims to better acquaint upperclassmen of Thomas More College with two rich periods of English literary history: the Recusant literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the wave of Catholic literature that followed the “Second Spring” of which John Henry Cardinal Newman spoke in his famous sermon on July 13, 1852. In addition to the poetry of several Recusant martyrs, St. Robert Southwell, Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, and Alice Meynell, students will read the following works in their entirety:

• Robert Hugh Benson, Come Rack, Come Rope
• Evelyn Waugh, Edmund Campion: A Life
• St. John Henry, Cardinal Newman, Apologia pro vita sua
• Maurice Baring, The Lonely Lady of Dulwich
• Hilaire Belloc, The Four Men
• G.K. Chesterton, Chaucer
• Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
• Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

Students will also read several shorter essays, historical sketches, and other primary source material. 

“Verbum Domini,” we hear, after the liturgical reading of Sacred Scripture; “Deo gratias,” we respond.

In what sense is Sacred Scripture—both as written and as read or proclaimed—the word of the Lord? How is that word related to other words—the words spoken by the Lord, whether immediately or through others, recorded in Scripture; what those words spoken or written (and the deeds that accompany them) communicate or make known; the person himself of the Word, who was in the beginning with God and who became flesh, suffered, died, and was raised for our salvation?

In this tutorial, we will pursue the theology of Sacred Scripture, the Inspired Word of God. We will first examine the nature of Scripture, its origin, purpose, subject, addressee, and truth. We will then inquire how, given its nature, Scripture must be interpreted so as to be understood.

Readings will be drawn from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church (Origen, Augustine, and Aquinas), Magisterial teaching (both papal and conciliar), Enlightenment critics of the Church and their modern heirs (Spinoza, Troeltsch, etc.), and faithful contemporary theologians (Ratzinger, Holmes).

The major requirement of the course will be a research paper on an episode from the Gospel of John referencing select examples of patristic, medieval, and modern exegesis.

Students of Advanced Readings in Greek will read approximately fourteen hundred (1400) lines from Homer’s Odyssey in the original language. This course is for students who wish to exercise their reading knowledge of Ancient Greek beyond the intermediate level. It is also an opportunity for both students and teacher to explore how Homer communicates his insights into the human condition via the form of epic poetry. Regular class meetings with the teacher in addition to a final translation project are the means for evaluating the course grade.

Between the English-speaking world and the Spanish, there exists a latticed
barrier through which we glimpse what seems a fairytale world, impenetrable to the modern mindset. For the English-speaking Catholic, Spain generates both nostalgia and embarrassment—and yet, through its trials and tribulations, this quixotic land of mystics and matadors, saints and sinners, priests and poets, stirs essential questions that will push our understanding of the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith and our place in history plus ultra.

The course will be structured around some of Spain’s most notable achievements
and most significant saints, starting with its patron, Santiago the Apostle. A comprehensive scope of readings and in-depth research presentations will seek to provide both a broad and deep understanding of “the spirit of Spain” and what it means for the Catholic today.

This class examines one of the most famous and long-lasting genres to emerge from the Middle Ages: the Romance. Romances were written or translated into almost every Medieval vernacular language, and throughout the semester we will read in translation romances from the principal medieval linguistic traditions: French, German, Welsh, and Italian; additionally, we will read English romances in the original Middle English.

The readings will trace the development of “courtly love” and cover the three great subjects of medieval romantic literature: the Matter of Troy, the Matter of France, and the Matter of Britain. Finally, the course will culminate with examining how the tradition was consolidated and refined during the “Italian Renaissance” with considerations of the continuing legacy and influence of Romance on modern culture.

The revelation of God in Christ radically deepened our understanding of God, and consequently, deepened our understanding of man. As the Fathers of the early Church recognized, the Christological controversies—particularly of the fourth century—have wide-reaching implications. This tutorial will focus on the questions that preoccupied the Church in the Nicene and post-Nicene periods, and the unique contributions of the Greek Church Fathers who aided the Church in safeguarding the truth of revelation.

We will concentrate on some of the most theologically significant writings of several Greek Church Fathers, including St. Athanasius, the Cappadocians, St. Maximus the Confessor, and others. The major topics to be considered include: the Nicene Creed/Trinity, prayer and liturgy, civic life, the vocations of marriage and priesthood, as well as theological reflection and argument in the philosophical and poetic modes.

The purpose and goal of the tutorial is to give the student exposure to significant writings of the Greek Church Fathers to see their unique contributions to the Church, especially as she navigated the difficulties of combating error. In addition, by taking the work of the Fathers as a model, it is the hope that the student will begin to acquire certain habits of mind that allow him to think with the Church through theological issues of our own day.

This course will be dedicated to a deeper exploration of the shorter narrative in Western literature. Shorter narratives have been a central feature of Western pagan and Christian consciousness since the time of the ancient Greeks. From beast fables to medieval saints’ lives, from tales of tricksters, adventurers and pilgrims to modern literary explorations of alienation, suffering, charity and self-knowledge, the short narrative has played a central role in man’s comprehension of truth, goodness, and beauty.

In this course, we will begin by chronicling the shift from oral to written storytelling and outlining the artistic and thematic effects of that transformation. We will consider shorter narratives in relation to the dramatic pattern set out by the first literary critic of the Western world, Aristotle, in the Poetics. We will also consider the formal elements which go into the crafting of a short story—elements like setting, plot, foreshadowing and characterization—and discuss the way in which these contribute to the rich meaning of a great short narrative.

Students will explore the stylistic, spiritual, moral, social, and cultural preoccupations of particular authors and their works, identifying and discussing, for instance, the naturalism of Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat,” the minimalism of Hemingway, or the use of the grotesque in Flannery O’Connor’s writings. Authors will include masters of the genre like Joyce, Turgenev, Chekhov, Hawthorne, Melville, Welty, and O’Connor, but will also include lesser-known storytellers like Muriel Spark, Neil Gunn, George Mackay Brown, Raymond Carver, and Peter Taylor. By becoming attentive listeners and readers of well-crafted narratives, and by learning and applying the critical vocabulary of the craft of short fiction, students will come to know the masterful equipoise between delight and instruction that lies at the heart of every great short story.

In an effort not only to study but to carry on the art of storytelling, all students will have the option of crafting their own short narrative.

According to Aristotle, “man is by nature a political animal,” above all because he possesses reasoned speech (λόγος), “which serves to reveal the helpful and the harmful, the just and the unjust…. For it is peculiar to man as compared to the other animals that he has a perception of good and bad and just and unjust and other things; and sharing (κοινωνία) in these makes a household and a city” (Pol I.2).

Being rational (and so free), human beings govern themselves by law—by recognized rules of action grounded in their shared perceptions of what is good and just in their common life. In this tutorial, we will consider three alternative accounts of the relationship between law, morality, and politics. We will begin with St. Thomas’ classical, Christian account of the nature, kinds, extent, and limits of law. We will then consider two quite radically different liberal accounts of the same.

Questions we will pursue include: What is law? What is its purpose and scope? How should law be if it is to serve its purpose? How can law fail to be what it should be? Who has the authority to make law? Who has the duty to obey law? From what does law derive its obligatory character? What are the limits of the legislator’s authority and the subjects’ obedience?

“Thou Shalt Not Kill.” The words of Decalogue are clear; the prohibition seems absolute. But the Catholic Church has always recognized the individual’s moral right to self-defense, and the nation’s right to wage war under certain circumstances. What are the conditions that justify warfare, and what limits can be placed on the legitimate use of lethal force? Can the classic principles of just-war theory apply to the realities of twenty-first century conflicts? This tutorial will explore those questions; students will read both classic texts and modern strategic analyses.

This tutorial will involve discussion and debate on the application of just-war principles. Students will become conversant with the tradition of Catholic moral teaching on the topic, with the major challenges to that teaching, and with the ways in which moral questions shape strategic and diplomatic alternatives.

Readings for the course will include classic works of the Catholic tradition (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas), works by authors who are at least sympathetic to that tradition (Hugo Grotius, Michael Walzer), and works by authors who are hostile to it (Frantz Fanon, Leon Trotsky). Students should develop the ability to answer critics of just-war theory. Readings on military history and strategy may be added as needed for clarity, and students will be encouraged to explore other sources in connection with individual projects.

This course is designed to introduce the student to the three major Latin poets of the “Golden Age” of Latin poetry, c.70-18 BC: Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BC), Publius Ovidius Naso (43-17/18 BC), and Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BC). The student will become familiar with poetic interpretation and analysis, several poetic meters, and the basics of poetic scansion, as well as producing three philological essays, one on each of our poets.

Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia are among the most influential texts in the history of political philosophy. They are also among the most enigmatic. Indeed, few texts have been subject to such disparate interpretations down the ages.

It was More who coined the term, “Utopia”—a play on words meaning either “not a place (ou topos)” or “a good place (eu topos)” (or both). The complete title of More’s work is, “On the Best State of a Commonwealth and on the New Island of Utopia.”

In his inquiry into the best state of a commonwealth, More is following in a tradition inaugurated by Plato. In his Republic, Socrates and his interlocutors construct a “city in speech”—indeed, several cities—the last of which Socrates calls, “Kallipolis”—“the beautiful city.” That city has been taken to represent Plato’s “ideal,” a political community maximally desirable yet unlikely of realization. The Republic, in other words, has been taken to present Plato’s own vision of Utopia.

Still, neither work is immediately or solely about the cities they present in word (and image). Indeed, both somehow consider everything involved in a worthy human life.

The two works share not only a theme, but also a literary form. Neither Plato nor More offers a treatise on the best state of a commonwealth, but a certain kind of drama—a dialogue. In addition to the difficulties of their subject matter, their literary form is one reason for the diversity of interpretations to which the two works have been subjected.

In this tutorial, we will undertake a close reading of these two seminal political-philosophical dialogues, attending, in particular, to the consequences of their literary form for their proper interpretation. We will also consider a representative sample of the diversity of interpretations of both texts.

Joseph Ratzinger was one of the most significant and prolific theologians of the twentieth century. His clarity of thought and deep love of Christ’s Church makes him an exemplary model of the vocation of the theologian. Today, his works remain an indispensable theological guide, even as they challenge and deepen the frameworks implicit in our own thinking.

This tutorial seeks to engage key texts of Joseph Ratzinger and explore several important themes in his theological oeuvre. The readings will necessarily be highly selective and will be covered thematically (vs.chronologically). The course will begin with a brief introduction to his life and historical context. We will then move on to his theology proper, including Christology; Revelation and Scripture; Liturgy, etc.

The purpose and goal of the tutorial is to give students a broad exposure to Ratzinger’s texts and draw out some of his key hermeneutical principles that highlight the task of theology (and the theologian). The hope for students is that they begin to acquire certain habits of mind that allow them to actively engage and think with the Church through various theological issues.

This course will be dedicated to a deeper exploration of the art of storytelling in Western literature. From Scripture to ancient philosophy, from beast fables to medieval saints’ lives, narrative has played a central role in man’s comprehension of himself, his Creator, and his place in creation. Shorter narratives are a central feature of pre-Christian and Christian consciousness throughout Western history, and these roots are evident in the great modern Russian, Celtic, and American short story traditions.

In this course, we will examine the narrative pattern set out by the first literary critic of the Western world, Aristotle, in his Poetics. We will also consider the formal elements which go into the crafting of a short story—elements like setting, plot, foreshadowing and characterization—and discuss the way in which these contribute to the rich artistry and meaning of the best short narratives. Finally, we will discuss the way in which modern short story writers explore the complexities of faith, culture, and history in their narratives.

Readings for the course will include excerpts from ancient and medieval writings—Aesop’s Fables, the Golden Legend of Jacobus, the Gesta Romanorum, The Canterbury Tales—and fuller explorations of modern masters of the short story like Gogol, Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov, Joyce, Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner, Hemingway, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor.

Students of Advanced Readings in Latin will read Cicero’s In Verrem in the orator’s original language. This course is intended for students who wish to exercise their reading knowledge of Latin beyond the intermediate level. It is also an opportunity for both students and teacher to access Cicero’s insights into the human condition via the form of forensic oratory. The completion of course assignments, including a philological paper, and participation in the course are the basis for determining the course grade.

There will be no required text for this tutorial. Handouts will be provided, to give students examples of different sorts of journalistic presentation. Students may be asked to bring to the class some of their own favorite newspaper or magazine articles.

Catholic teaching on Creation, from the simplicity of St. Francis to the profundity of St. Thomas Aquinas, is marked by the dual insight that it is truly a gift: the created world is both separate from God, with its own nature and integrity, and also hides God present within it. While cautioning us against the presumption that we can fully decipher and control every aspect of the natural world, the Catholic tradition also instructs us on our covenantal responsibility towards all of Creation. The appreciation of the ontological dimension gives Catholic thought profound insights into every dimension of Creation—humankind’s role within it, as well as the challenges its rightful stewardship presents—from the technical, to the economic, the political and social, through to the ethical dimension of our everyday actions and our most intimate relations of marriage and family.

This course will consider three interwoven themes: 1) deepening an appreciation for the natural ecology of New England, from its fisheries to its mammals and birds; 2) comprehending the meaning of Creation from a Catholic philosophical and theological perspective, over and above modern science’s technocratic paradigm and the post-modern holism promoted by many environmentalists; 3) formulating a unified vision of man’s ethical, political, and liturgical life from the perspective of his role as the pinnacle and steward of Creation. We will draw our readings from Benedict XVI, Thomas Aquinas, Wendell Berry, Stratford Caldecott, among others. Classes will be based on the discussion of assigned readings that will span topics from the sense of wonder, to natural ecology, modern science, technology, philosophy, and ethics. 

This course will cover the major political events of the 20th century: the two world wars, the rise and fall of the Soviet empire, the collapse of empires and emergence of new nations. We will look beyond these events to examine their causes, and the development of the “isms”— Communism, Naziism, racism, atheism—that cost so many lives in this bloodiest of centuries. 

But the tutorial will also explore the dramatic changes of the 20th century that changed the way we live: the impact of scientific discoveries, the spectacular economic growth, the technological advances, the new trends in the arts.

Through their study, students should gain a better understanding of how different their lives are from those of their parents and grandparents (to say nothing of previous generations), and an ability to recognize how ideas that were introduced in the 20th century still govern our lives today—for good or for ill.  

The main text for the course will be Paul Johnson’s sweeping history, Modern Times. A long list of supplementary readings will be offered, from which students may make their own selections. Each student will be required to research a particular 20th-century development (from a list supplied by the instructor) and make a presentation on that topic to the class.

“Quid enim Hinieldus cum Christo?” Alcuin asks this famous question of the bishop of Lindisfarne after receiving news of the monks’ interest in hearing pagan stories, accompanied by the harp, during mealtimes. “Let the words of God be read at dinner.  It is proper for a reader to be heard there, not a harpist, the discourse of the fathers, not the song of the heathens. What has Ingeld to do with Christ? Your house is narrow and cannot contain both.”

This course will engage Alcuin’s question by examining the heathen literature of the pre-Christian north and its formative influence on subsequent Christian writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Sigrid Undset, and George Mackay Brown. We will read both the prose Edda and poetic Edda (the repositories of Norse mythology, cosmogony, and heroic legend); Tolkien’s translation of Sigurd and Gudrun; representative works from the Icelandic and Norwegian saga tradition, including the masterful and moving Njal’s Saga; the Divine Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden (the saint whom Marin Luther called die tolle Brigit—“the crazy Bridget”—and whom John Paul II in 1999 declared “Co-patroness of Europe”); George Mackay Brown’s novel of the twelfth-century Earl of Orkney, Magnus, and Sigrid Undset’s epic trilogy, Kristin Lavransdatter. 

Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead. 

And through the misty air 

Passed the mournful cry 

Of sunward sailing cranes.  

In Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis recounts his childhood introduction to northern literature through his reading of Longfellow’s Tenger’s Drapa, which tells of the death of the Norse god Balder, the fair-haired beloved son of Odin and Frigg. He famously describes his reaction to the lines above as one of “Northernness”: “I knew nothing about Balder; but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky. I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale and remote) and then . . . found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it.” Sigrid Undset experienced something similar after reading Njal’s Saga at the age of thirteen; Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown’s conversion to Catholicism came about primarily not only through his reading of Newman and T.S. Eliot, but through his introduction to the Orkneyinga Saga. And the debt Tolkien paid to Germanic Literature can hardly be overstated. 

For Tolkien, the literature of “Northernness” conveys both “unyielding heroism” and a “sense of impending doom.” What is it about these qualities of northern literature which resonate in the hearts and minds of modern Christian writers? In attempting to answer such questions, this course will introduce students to a rich, influential, and varied body of literature all-too-frequently neglected in the Catholic literary tradition. 

Readings will include the prose and poetic Eddas; Sigurd and Gudrun (trans. Tolkien); Egil’s Saga; The Saga of Hrafnkel, Frey’s Godi; Njal’s Saga; Medieval Scandinavian ballads; St. Bridget of Sweden, Divine Revelations; George Mackay Brown, Magnus; Knut Hamsun, Growth of the Soil (excerpts); Sigrid Undset, Saga of Saints (selections), Kristin Lavransdatter.

“A republic, if you can keep it,” Benjamin Franklin replied, when he was asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention had devised. To keep the American republic strong requires a citizenry that understands the nature of limited constitutional government. Sadly, that understanding is rare in the United States today. This tutorial will prepare students to recognize—and educate others about—the meaning and purpose of republican government, and the institutions that make it possible.

Our course will begin with the Declaration of Independence: the “birth announcement” of the United States as an independent nation. We will then trace the lineage of this new republic: the historical and philosophical influences that produced it. Students will follow the debates of the Constitutional Convention, and read the US Constitution itself with care.

In the last weeks of the term, we shall discuss what makes the American experiment unique, and the claims of “American exceptionalism.”

What makes the person a person? What do we mean, what do we “see,” when we call human beings “persons”? What reality does the word “person” signify? What distinguishes the human person from other beings? This course pursues these questions and turns principally to the Christian personalism of Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II), the personalist thought of the German Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, and the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain.

We will approach the reality of the human person and these thinkers’ teachings from within the Catholic intellectual tradition, that is, through an awareness of the classical definitions of the human person as recognized and passed down in that tradition, especially that of Boethius, “persona est naturae rationalis individua substantia”; that of Aristotle, πολιτικὸν ζῷον, the human being is a political animal or an animal meant to live in a city; and that of St Thomas Aquinas of man as imago Dei, that is, as a being who is the principle of his own actions, having free will and control (“potestas”) over his actions.

In thus considering the reality of the human person, we will engage in the act of reflection on ourselves, as well as on others, on community and the different kinds of communities. We will reflect on the kinds of acts and experiences and modalities of human beings. In short, we will engage in an exercise and pursuit of self-knowledge.

Unsurprisingly, we will discuss the consequences of a given account of the human person, for example, the consequences for the person’s relation to our ultimate end, i.e., to God, as well as to the Church and to the political community, and we will equally consider the effects on our notions of morality, freedom, natural law, culture, the body, etc. To this end we will particularly examine French-Canadian philosopher and theologian Charles de Koninck’s critique of the possible (or endemic?) dangers of personalist propositions.