HARVARD CATHOLIC FORUM

How do Catholics understand the relationship between the soul & the body? What implications does this relationship have for how we approach bioethical issues? This course will explore these questions, applying them especially to recent developments in biotechnology and medical practice. Readings distributed at meetings. Participants are also invited to the 5:00PM Mass followed by a casual dinner.

Join us in reading & discussing Josef Pieper's ground-breaking book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Pieper traces the true meaning of leisure and its relationship to work, and the crucial difference between leisure and idleness. He reveals how leisure properly understood drastically impacts philosophy, religion, and economics. Reading materials & dinner provided.

This group will read and discuss Jane Austen’s first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, a classic story about family, love, moral character, and social expectations. Various themes including aesthetic ideals, realism, and moral reflection will be explored. Dinner provided.

This reading and discussion group explores key insights found in Catholic Social Thought and examines how these ideas can shape how we respond to contemporary social and political challenges. Reading materials & light refreshments provided.

This course will read in translation and discuss the second part, Purgatorio, of Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece, Divine Comedy. The instructor will pay particular attention to Dante’s conception of the relationship between theology, literature, and the spiritual life. Lunch provided.

For those of any ability or skill level, including beginners. Because musical skills are learned. not innate, the workshop offers that learning in a way that is fun, rewarding, and community-building. Each week, learn techniques, drill fundamentals, and master one hymn or chant that can be sung with the choir and Schola at the 5pm Mass. Attend regularly and become a functional singer in less than one semester, and musically literate in one year - building a lifelong skill that is liturgically useful and personally edifying.

Participants should have completed and have some recollection of one year or more of Latin. Read and translate selected passages from this seminal work of world literature and of the Catholic tradition, while reading the full text in English.  Readings distributed for each class; notes and study aids provided. Primary focus is on translation, but theology, history, and rhetoric will be touched on as well.

Participants should have completed and have some recollection of one year or more of Classical or Koine Greek. Fall semester: concluding section from the Acts of the Apostles; Ch. 24-28 (continuing from last year). Spring: Selections from 1 Corinthians in Greek; full letter covered in English. Readings distributed for each class; extensive study aids are available online. Primary focus is on translation, but theology, history, and rhetoric will be touched on as well.

The Ratzinger Memorial Society is rooted in the conviction that theology should form the center of a liberal arts education. The Society runs a discussion group every Saturday at 11:00AM during the academic term, co-presented with the Harvard Catholic Forum. It hosts talks, reading groups, and fellowship that support an intellectually rigorous exploration of the Catholic tradition. Refreshments provided. 

Sigrid Undset gives us a gripping four-volume tale of guilt and redemption, love and suffering, violence and divine Providence, centering on the life, times, and family of Olav Audunsson in medieval Norway. The group will discuss one volume at each session, using Tiina Nunnally’s translation. Registration required.