Tonight, I'm looking forward to attending a lecture sponsored by Georgetown University's Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy, to which the general public is invited:
“There Was a Man! On Learning to Be Free”The invitation includes McInerny's summary of what he plans to say about Father Schall:
A lecture in conjunction with the conferral of the First Annual Rev. James V. Schall, S.J. Award for Teaching and Humane Letters upon Ralph M. McInerny, Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies, University of Notre Dame
Thursday, April 10, 2008
6:00-7:45 p.m.
Georgetown University Conference Center
Georgetown University
3800 Reservoir Road, NW 20057
RSVP requested: tocquevilleforum@georgetown.edu
"I want to cast a sweeping eye over the career of this remarkable priest, a career that is informed by the fact that he is first and foremost a priest, a Jesuit, a worthy son of St. Ignatius. He is also a teacher in a Jesuit University, Georgetown, in what is called the Government Department, but of course Father Schall is a political philosopher. The whole cast of his mind makes it impossible to confine him to one of the pieces of the fractured university. He must have read the ratio studiorum early and often, and its gathering of the liberal arts under philosophy and preeminently under theology obviously influenced him and explains the range and depth of his work. It is not for me to comment on Father Schall the priest or Father Schall the student. It is Schall the writer I propose to discuss: the journalist, the essayist, the philosopher, the wise assimilator of the magisterial works of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He has written books on his beloved Chesterton as well as on Jacques Maritain. He has....Well he has done much, and I hope to draw attention to his major achievements in the categories I have mentioned."
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Speaking of Catholic literary lectures, the other night, when I spoke to the Wilmington, Del., chapter of Legatus, I met the group's chaplain, Father Joseph Cocucci, who, in addition to being the diocese's vocations director, is rector of its beautiful Cathedral of St. Peter, where, starting this Sunday, he is hosting "The Rector's Library," a series of talks by Catholic authors. The series debuts this Sunday, April 13, at 2 p.m., with Fox News Faith and Values Correspondent Father Jonathan Morris discussing his current book, The Promise: God’s Purpose and Plan for When Life Hurts.
Father Cocucci told me that upcoming guests in the series will include George Weigel and Father's good friend Anne Rice, who just posted the latest of several video clips of him interviewing her.
