The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities, in the Church, and in the wider public square. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, is our touchstone. The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more. Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
Episodes
Prof. James Felak shows how John Paul II used the saints in his pilgrimages to communist Poland to challenge atheistic rule, strengthen Catholic identity, and encourage resistance and hope.
This lecture was given on October 31st, 2025, at St. Albert's Priory.
To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod.
About the Speakers:
.css-1t8gq41{border:none;background-image:none;background-color:transparent;box-shadow:none;color:#2F3133;cursor:pointer;font-size:inherit;padding:0;-webkit-text-decoration:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;width:-webkit-max-content;width:-moz-max-content;width:max-content;}.css-1t8gq41:hover,.css-1t8gq41:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;}
Sr. Anna Wray argues that many people are caught in a “musical dependence” that uses music to make ordinary life merely tolerable, a mere toleration which can transformed into true enjoyment by means of asceticism and an education in genuine enjoyment.
This lecture was given on November 12th, 2025, at Catholic University of America.
To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod.
About the Sp...
Fr. Ephrem Reese argues that silence is not mere absence but a fertile, hidden potency through which contemplation, devotion, and the word of God can come to life.
This lecture was given on November 8th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod.
About the Speakers:
Fr. Ephrem Reese was born in Harrisburg, PA, and has family in Philadelphia, New Je...
Fr. Ephrem Reese argues that boredom can be read both as a modern opening onto time and wonder and, more importantly, as a spiritual problem that must be disciplined by the virtues.
This lecture was given on November 7th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod.
About the Speaker:
Fr. Ephrem Reese was born in Harrisburg, PA, and has family in Phi...
Dr. Jan Bentz argues that utopias are dangerous because they promise a perfected society by denying human fallenness, replacing Christian hope and grace with man-made salvation, and turning politics into a counterfeit religion.
This lecture was given on November 1st, 2025, at Thomistic Institute in Limerick.
To make a gift this June, visit https://truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod.
About the Speakers:
Dr. Jan C. Ben...
Professor James Felak argues that Catholic social teaching presents a holistic vision of the human person and society, insisting that rights and duties belong together, the market must serve the common good, and neither socialism nor unchecked capitalism can satisfy human dignity.
This lecture was given on November 1st, 2025, at St. Albert's Priory.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/u...
Joe Grabowski presents Chesterton’s philosophy as a disciplined recovery of wonder, arguing that reality is not exhausted by habit, utility, or material explanation but should be seen with childlike astonishment and gratitude.
This lecture was given on March 30th, 2026, at the University of Kansas.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Joe Grabow...
Fr. Jordan Schmidt says that vocation is a grace-filled cooperation with God’s kingdom, where renewed discernment helps us choose our way of life and embrace suffering with Christ for the salvation of ourselves and others.
This lecture was given on March 28th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Fr. Gregory Pine teaches that discernment is less about forcing certainty and more about entering the way Christ reveals himself: gradually, trustingly, and through prayerful relationship.
This lecture was given on March 28th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Read more
This lecture was given on March 28th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., is an instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and the Assistant Director of the Thomistic Institute. He holds a ...
Sr. Mary Madeline Todd argues that Christ calls us not merely to survive but to thrive, and that “life to the full” comes through meaning, suffering united to love, disciplined commitment, wonder, prayer, and sacramental life.
This lecture was given on March 27th, 2026, at University of South Alabama.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Prof. Alexander Pruss argues that science is powerful but limited, because it depends on presuppositions about logic, rationality, uniformity of nature, and value judgments that science itself cannot justify, and because human fulfillment ultimately points beyond reason to faith in an infinite being.
This lecture was given on April 14th, 2026, at Florida State University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at t...
Prof. Gaven Kerr argues that Aquinas is central to Catholic theology because Thomas provides the systematic, deductive, and scripturally grounded framework needed to articulate doctrine about God, Trinity, and salvation.
This lecture was given on March 26th, 2026, at Maynooth University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speakers:
Gaven Kerr is a marri...
Prof. Paul Scherz argues that AI-driven precision medicine and genetic risk prediction can undermine human dignity by turning health into an endless management of risk, increasing anxiety, weakening prudence, and subordinating both patients and clinicians to institutional control.
This lecture was given on March 26th, 2026, at New York University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upc...
Prof. Raymond Hain presents John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University as a powerful defense of liberal education, arguing that a university should include theology because all knowledge forms one interconnected whole, yet also insisting that intellectual excellence is not the same as moral holiness.
This lecture was given on March 26th, 2026, at University of Alabama.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomis...
Prof. Christopher Malloy argues that Vatican II does not permit a hermeneutic of rupture but demands one of continuity and reform, as Benedict XVI taught, rejecting both progressive over-spiritualization and traditionalist rejection of post-conciliar developments.
This lecture was given on March 24th, 2026, at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/up...
Fr. Brad Elliott traces the Church's evolving use of the soul-body metaphor for her relation to the state, purifying it in modern social teaching to affirm the Church as a distinct perfect society ordered to supernatural ends while leavening the temporal order.
This lecture was given on March 24th, 2026, at Cornell University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
Abou...
Prof. James Nolan argues that Tocqueville, Weber, and Chesterton offer contrasting foreign views on American secularism, with Tocqueville and Chesterton seeing religion as essential to democracy and predicting its persistence, while Weber views Protestantism as inevitably fueling disenchantment.
This lecture was given on March 23rd, 2026, at New York University.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticin...
Prof. Giuseppe Pezzini argues that Oscar Wilde's aestheticism and life journey reveal a Catholic imagination, where art confronts suffering and beauty leads to embracing the full reality of pain, culminating in his final reconciliation with faith.
This lecture was given on March 23rd, 2026, at University of Galway.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speake...
Prof. James Felak traces Catholic social teaching from Leo XIII to Francis, showing how the popes defend human dignity, a just wage, solidarity with the poor, subsidiarity, and the balance between rights and duties against both unchecked capitalism and collectivist ideologies.
This lecture was given on March 5th, 2026, at University of Washington.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upc...
Popular Podcasts
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Fear thrives in silence and confusion. Ana Navarro rejects both. Her voice is an antidote to today’s chaos. Her new podcast, Bleep! with Ana Navarro, takes on today’s most pressing issues with the voices most connected to it: decision-makers, political leaders, cultural shapers, and people on the frontlines of the story. The conversations acknowledge the emotions we all feel—despair, sadness, fear— but emerge with knowledge, perspective, and hope. The belief is simple: fearless dialogue can transform fear into courage, and courage into change. When fear dominates the headlines, this show digs deeper. Because information, debate, and conversation don’t just ease fear, they give us power to shape the future.
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Thanks Dad with Ego Nwodim is back! And this time, she's sitting down with not just dads, but anyone with a dad...so everyone! Raised by a single mom, Ego Nwodim may have daddy issues, but she suspects you might too. This season, Ego has funny, heartfelt conversations with actors, comedians, musicians and athletes about life and their experiences with their own fathers. Each episode starts with a simple question: “who do you want to say thanks to?” and ends with a listener asking Ego and the guest for some personal advice. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
A weekly podcast where host, Robert Smigel, and a rotating panel, his friends, assist callers seeking help in making something in their real life funnier. Anything. A best man speech, a eulogy, a breakup letter, a cover letter, an apology, a Tinder profile - Robert, with a panel of professional comedy writers and comedians, will punch it up and get results. Want help with your writing assignment? Submit it to: speakpipe.com/humorme