Intellectual Formation
Catholic Speaker Series
There is a need to witness to Hope’s Catholic students, and the wider campus, on what it means to be a robust Catholic Christian in the 21st century. The primary purpose of the Catholic Speaker Series is to engage the culture from a position of Catholic intellectual integrity and to support the faith life of students. Dynamic Catholic speakers are invited to campus to speak at chapel, have lunch with students, speak on timely themes, give mini-retreats, and, for the priests among them, celebrate Mass, hear confessions, and lead adoration. The series is designed to help students enter more deeply into the intellectual and spiritual riches of the Catholic faith.
Saint Benedict Seminars
The Saint Benedict Institute invites students to participate in three-week seminars about various questions and issues related to the Catholic faith. Led by Catholic professors, professionals, and priests, the purpose of these seminars is to facilitate the intellectual life of students and cultivate friendships on campus. Students meet weekly for a warm meal, a short lecture, and a long discussion in an event that feeds both body and soul.
Catholic-Reformed Dialogue
The Saint Benedict Institute brings the distinctive witness of the Catholic Church to an ecumenical conversation already underway at Hope College. Within the wider Christian community, the ecumenical movement is a movement toward the unity for which Christ himself prayed (John 17:22). The goal of the Catholic-Reformed Dialogue is to bring together Catholic and Reformed scholars to model and deepen a “dialogue of love” in which each tradition brings its own distinctive gifts to help each other pursue the truth and grow in the love of God and neighbor. This dialogue advances Hope College’s unique identity as an institution rooted in the Reformed tradition and ecumenical in character.
Day of Study
The Saint Benedict Institute is committed to nurturing intellectual work done from the heart of the Catholic Church as well as fostering a serious ecumenical community of scholars committed to thinking deeply about the most important things. The Day of Study is designed to bring regional scholars together for a day of leisure and fellowship in order to think together about a common topic. Some participants are invited to present informal papers, while others are invited to be thoughtful interlocutors in the extended discussion periods following each paper.
The Institute has hosted days of study committed to exploring topics such as Fundamental Issues in the Western Understanding of Deification, Homosexuality and Anthropology, and Restorative Justice.