A Message from Our Executive Director As we enjoy the final month of summer and begin the rush of activity for the new academic year, it is a particularly important moment to hear a message of simplicity.
A wonderful example of holiness and simplicity of life is Saint John Mary Vianney (August 4), the parish priest from a small town in France who captivated a nation with his piety and humility. The Curé d'Ars did not receive praise from his parishioners for erudite sermons or scholarly theological works. In fact, he famously struggled with his studies, never mastering Latin and once being sent back down to presbytery school from his seminary at Lyons.
He excelled, however, in his duties as a parish priest, in which his unwavering focus on the sacraments brought thousands back to the Faith. He spent up to eighteen hours a day in his confessional in Ars, working to bring back an awareness of religion to a people who had lived through the severe anticlericalism of the French Revolution.
Saint John Vianney once said in a homily to these same people that "we do not have to talk very much to pray well . . . we know that God is there in His holy tabernacle. Let us open our hearts to Him, let us rejoice in His sacred presence." He instructed his parishioners and the countless others who came to Ars to find God in the sacraments and in their prayer. And while he may have lacked a detailed knowledge of the Summa Theologiae and the works of Augustine, he made up for this with extraordinary faith in the sacraments and childlike trust in God's will. Saint John Vianney, patron saint of priests, pray for us to have a simple, steady faith as the academic year begins. – Joseph Capizzi, Ph.D.
Executive Director
The Institute for Human Ecology | | Attention, Moral Perception, and Contemplation:
An IHE Graduate Seminar with Jennifer Frey | | | At the end of June, IHE Fellow and University of South Carolina Professor Jennifer Frey led the first IHE graduate student seminar on attention, moral perception, and contemplation. Participants read texts from thinkers like Aquinas, Aristotle, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch, and toured the National Gallery of Art, led by local painter Andrew de Sa.
Read Jennifer's reflection on the fruits of the seminar here. | | |  | Poverty, Education, and Families
In a research brief for the Institute for Family Studies, IHE Fellow Brad Wilcox presents a statistics-based argument for why growing up in a two-parent home is crucial for a child's future success.
Read more here. | |  | Faith and the Intellectual Life
IHE Fellow Zena Hitz gave an interview with Angelus News reporter Mike Aquilina on her book Lost in Thought, which examines the pleasures of a life rich in contemplation.
Read more here. | |  | | Contraception and Fatherhood
In a column for The Catholic Thing, IHE Fellow Michael Pakaluk argues that the use of contraception is undermining true fatherhood across every aspect of our culture.
Read more here. | |  | | Aquinas and the Problem of Pagan Virtue
In a Thomistic Institute lecture at the University of Texas, IHE Fellow Angela Knobel uses the works of Thomas Aquinas to discuss whether humans are capable of reaching true goodness without God.
Listen here. | |  | | America, Liberalism, and Catholicism
Looking at people who disagree with you about the Church's proper relationship to American liberalism as enemies, IHE Fellow Ryan Anderson writes, is detrimental to seeking the truth in community.
Read more here. | |  | | Patriotic Education
In a piece for The New York Times, IHE Fellow Ross Douthat contends that if we do not first teach our children what is inspiring about our country, we risk leaving them with a sense of apathy for their homeland and a dangerous disinterest in the past.
Read more here. | |  | | The Fulfillment of Natural Womanhood
In a piece for The Federalist, IHE Fellow Carrie Gress writes that the feminist march toward androgyny cuts women off from the very things that lead to flourishing and happiness.
Read more here. | | |  | Saint Joseph and the Meaning of Work
In this event from April 2021, the IHE and The Lamp magazine collaborated to host a panel moderated by IHE Director Joe Capizzi and featuring Eve Tushnet, Rob Wyllie, Nick Cotta, and IHE Fellow Adrian Walker. The panel discussed the meaning and definition of work and its relationship to the natural law and to the saints.
Watch here.
| |  | Prayer for Beginners
In this episode of the Saint Benedict Institute podcast, IHE Fellow Kevin Kambo explains how we can look to Christ, His saints, and the liturgy of the Church to guide our souls to God. Listen here. | |  | Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy
by IHE Fellow Mary Hirschfeld
Economists and theologians are used to inhabiting different intellectual worlds. Economists investigate the workings of markets and set ethical questions aside, while theologians, anxious to take up concerns raised by market outcomes, often dismiss economics and lose insights into the influence of market incentives on individual behavior. Mary Hirschfeld, a professor of economics for fifteen years before training as a theologian, seeks to bridge these two fields in this work about economics and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.
In a Thomistic approach, she writes, ethics and economics cannot be reconciled if we begin with narrow questions about fair wages or the acceptability of usury. Rather, we must begin with an understanding of how economic life serves human happiness. The key point is that material wealth is an instrumental good, valuable only to the extent that it allows people to flourish. Hirschfeld uses that insight to develop an account of a genuinely humane economy in which pragmatic and material concerns matter but the pursuit of wealth for its own sake is not the ultimate goal.
Read more here.
| |  | Ordinary Times
"On Ordinary Times" is a biweekly column by IHE Fellow Lucia Silecchia reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. In her latest piece, she reminds the reader of his duty to care for the elderly with love and tenderness.
Read more here. | | | |  | | To bring clarity and truth to a world in need, the Institute for Human Ecology secures a free space of inquiry where scholars plumb the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition. The IHE sponsors multidisciplinary collaboration to tackle key contemporary issues and to unlock the fullest realization of human dignity in society.
Your support will help the IHE promote greater freedom and prosperity for all.
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