Faculty Publications

I write with the exciting news that the Saint Vincent Center for Catholic Thought and Culture has published its first volume of Conversatio: A Journal in the Tradition of Catholic, Benedictine, and Liberal Education.

The idea of the journal is to provide a venue for Saint Vincent faculty to write for our community. The journal includes essays, poetry, and book reviews. As you can see from the contents below, the entries are academically serious and largely interdisciplinary in nature. They are the sorts of things one would expect a liberally educated person at a Catholic, Benedictine college in Latrobe to find informative, enriching, and—well—fun.  Authors come from all parts of campus. This has truly been a collaborative endeavor full of SVC charm. The journals contents include:

              Essays

Nathan Munsch, OSB – “Conversatio Morum: Hallmark of Benedictine Education or Invitation to a Way of Life

Jason Jividen – “Reading Xenophon’s Cyropaedia”

Robert Bufalini – “A Commemoration of Dante Alighiere: Dante’s Encounter with Saint Benedict in Paradiso XXII”

Aaron J. Sams and Kelsey S. Sams – “The Mind of Dorothy Sayers”

Michael Robinson – “Beyond Strength: The Cosmology of C.S. Lewis”

Daniel J. Heisey – “Mister Rogers’ Miniature Neighborhood”

Symposium on E. F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful

Lucas Briola – “A New Society within the Shell of the Old: Reflections on Small is Beautiful and an Integral Ecology”

Justin Petrovich – “Uncertainty is Beautiful”

Zachary G. Davis – “Of Course People Matter: A Response to Small is Beautiful from a ‘Modern’ Economist”

Book Reviews

Patricia Sharbaugh – Leon R. Kass, Founding God’s Nation

Matthew A. Fisher – Luigi Gioia, O.S.B., Saint Benedict’s Wisdom: Monastic Spirituality and the Life of the Church

Edward Mazich, O.S.B. – John Henry Newman, A Benedictine Education: The Mission of Saint Benedict and the Benedictine Schools

Daniel Vanden Berk – Stephen M. Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith

Reviews of Faculty Books

Steven Gravelle – Joseph Ogbonnaya and Lucas Briola, Everything is Interconnected: Towards a Globalization with a Human Face and an Integral Ecology

Sara Lindey – Jerome C. Foss, Flannery O’Connor and the Perils of Governing by Tenderness

Daniele Arcara – Michael P. Krom, Justice and Charity

Dana Winters – Eric J. Mohr and Holly k. Mohr, Mister Rogers and Philosophy: Wondering through the Neighborhood

Stacy Birmingham – Patricia Sharbaugh, Irrepressible Light: The Women of the New Testament

Ben Schachter – Bradley C.S. Watson, Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea

Poetry

Selected Poetry of Julia Snyder

Isabel Sicree, Nicole Fratrich, and Elizabeth Elin -  Winners of the 2021 Martin Luther King, Jr. Poetry Contest

No other encyclical has generated as much conversation—both Catholic and non-Catholic—as Laudato si’. Often forgotten in these conversations is the theological heart and eucharistic vision of the encyclical and its integral ecology. Even the title of Laudato si’—"Praised be!"—signals the centrality of right praise in caring for our common home. Using Bernard Lonergan’s theology of history, this book unearths the doxological, eucharistic vision that shapes the encyclical’s integral presentation of social and ecological conversion. It offers the first book-length study that recovers the eucharistic nature of Laudato si’.

In drawing out the eucharistic vision of Laudato si’, the book accomplishes several feats for the reader. It roots the eucharistic dimensions of the encyclical in the writings of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, showing how Pope Francis develops their thought in notable ways. It introduces Bernard Lonergan’s theology of history, showing how his framework can capture the eucharistic contours of caring for our common home; so too, in light of Laudato si’, does the book expand his theology of history to incorporate both ecological concern and the doxological, eucharistic essence of the church. The book assembles a liturgically shaped, systematic account of the church’s social mission. It joins poles otherwise sundered in a polarized church and world: between worship and justice, between concerns for human life and concerns for the natural world. Realizing the eucharistic vision of Laudato si’ promises much for our contemporary moment.

Pope Francis recently observed that the integral ecology of Laudato si’ holds the key for the world’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Catholic Bishops recently launched a Eucharistic Revival that aims to rekindle eucharistic devotion and praxis. The Eucharistic Vision of Laudato Si’ : Praise, Conversion, and Integral Ecology supplies a timely study that helps fulfill these intertwined calls.