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The First Adeodatus Conference
on Catholic Education and Culture
Major Sources of Catholic Education and its Renewal
A Gathering for Anyone Interested
in the Ongoing Renewal of Catholic
Primary & Secondary Education
June 21 – 24, 2023 | Pasadena, California
All Educators & Students:
Please Use this Promotional Code to Attend for Half-Price:
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Speakers
Schedule
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Testimonials
Speakers
Pater Edmund Waldstein
Ron McArthur & The Berquists
Fr. Robert Spitzer
St. Ignatius Loyola & the Ratio Studiorum
Michael Naughton
Don briel & Catholic Studies
David P. Deavel
St. Benedict
Dale Ahlquist
G.K. Chesterton
Fabio Reali
St. Francis
Margarita Mooney Clayton
Jacques Maritian &.Luigi Giussani
Andrew T. Seeley
Christopher Dawson
Paul Shrimpton
St. John Henry Newman
David M. Whalen
John Senior
Deal W. Hudson
Mortimer Adler & Jacques Barzun
R. J. Snell
Bernard Lonergan
Fr. Sebastian Walshe
Charles De Koninck
Josef Froula
St. Dominic & St. Thomas Aquinas
R. Jared Staudt
Education in the Bible
James Matthew Wilson
Plato
Michael Waldstein
Jesus the Teacher & The Holy Spirit, Advocate
Andrew Kern
Homer and Virgil
Edward Feser
Aristotle
Michael P. Foley
St. Augustine
Arthur Hippler
The Church’s Teaching on Education
Joe Heschmeyer
St. John Baptist de la Salle & St. John Bosco
David Clayton
SACRED ARTS
PRE-CONFERENCE PROGRAM TO BENEFIT THE FOUNDING OF GAUDI ACADEMY
(SEPARATE $50 ADMISSION)
Brandon Cook
About Adeodatus
Adeodatus is an educational nonprofit organized to support the ongoing renewal of Catholic liberal education through conferences, community-building, publication, consulting, and due diligence.
Our first major project is a three-year cycle of conferences on the sources, methods, curricula, and cultures of American Catholic liberal education.
In 2023, we will trace the major sources of Catholic liberal education and celebrate the key figures in its renewal in America over recent decades. Each talk will focus on the practical importance of a major source in the Catholic educational tradition for teachers and school leaders today.
In 2024, we will again take up Catholic educational principles (have already seen their place in the educational philosophies and practices of our major figures), and reflect on themes, curricula, pedagogy, and culture.
And in 2025, we will gather dozens of educators, leaders, and creators – teachers, headmasters, superintendents, pastors, artists, writers, and philosophers of education – for wide-ranging conversations to share their wisdom and advice for the future of Catholic education and culture.
We will be staging cultural events at each conference, including concerts, plays, and newly commissioned artworks.
In addition to a stellar lineup of keynote speakers for the 2023 conference, we are thrilled to partner with artist, author, and iconographer David Clayton for a fundraising talk/demonstration to support the creation of a Catholic Sacred Arts Academy by Brandon Cook here in Los Angeles.
Mass will be celebrated each day at Saint Andrew Church, one of the sacred art and architecture treasures of Southern California, and we are very pleased to announce that our closing Mass will mark the Los Angeles premiere of Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas. Frank will be joining us for the Mass and will say a few introductory words.
We will expand on the live contributions of each conference with additional contributions and supplemental resources, and produce one volume of the Adeodatus Handbook on Catholic Education & Culture for each year.
Having gathered the collective wisdom of hundreds of educators by the end of our conference cycle, we will then publish a manifesto on the future of Catholic education in America.
And all along the way, we will foster a live and online community of educators sharing their love of Catholic liberal education and culture with one another.
We will support that online community of friends with many new resources each year, building a substantial library of resources over time.
We hope you will join us in this great renewal!
Please contact Alex@Adeodatus.com with any questions.
Our Sponsors
St. Augustine Sponsors
St. Monica Sponsors
Adeodatus Sponsors
Registration: $749 before 3/31/23 – $997 thereafter
ONLY 150 SEATS AVAILABLE
In-Person Conference
$749
Streaming for Individuals
$225
Streaming for Schools
$749
Conference Schedule
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Your donation of $1,500 will cover the entire cost of attendance for one attendee. All levels of donation welcome!
Attendees such as these will benefit from your generosity:
The Very Reverend Dom Elias Carr
Catherine Neumayr, Head of School, St. Joseph Catholic Academy, St. Joseph, MO.
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Adeodatus supports the ongoing renewal of Catholic education & culture
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Pater Edmund Waldstein
Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. is a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Stift Heiligenkreuz in Austria, lecturer in moral theology at the Phil.-Theol. Hochschule Benedikt XVI., the Abbey’s theological institute, and director of the János-Brenner-Haus. He is a fellow of the Dialogos Institute in Norcia, Italy, and a guest instructor at the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria. Born in Italy and raised in the United States and Austria, he studied at Thomas Aquinas College in California, the Hochschule Benedikt XVI in Heiligenkreuz, and the University of Vienna, where he was promoted doctor of theology in 2019. His research has focused on eudemonism, the common good, Catholic integralism, and theological readings of literary fiction (especially of David Foster Wallace).
Fr. Robert Spitzer
Fr. Robert Spitzer is a Jesuit, and is currently the President of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith (www.magiscenter.com) and the Spitzer Center for Ethical Leadership (www.spitzercenter.org). He is the host of a weekly international EWTN television program – Father Spitzer’s Universe. Fr. Spitzer was President of Gonzaga University from 1998 to 2009. He serves on multiple boards including as board chair for Reell Precision Manufacturing, which has plants and offices in the US, Europe and Asia and the board of trustees at the University of Mary and Catholic Eldercare.
Dr. Michael Naughton
Dr. Michael Naughton is the director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota, US) where he holds the Koch Chair in Catholic Studies and is a full professor in the department of Catholic Studies. He also taught in the College of Business for over 20 years. Author, co-author and co-editor of 12 books and monographs and over 60 articles, his two most recent books are Getting Work Right: Labor and Leisure in a Fragmented World (2019) and What We Hold in Trust: Rediscovering the Purpose of Catholic Higher Education (2021, coauthors Don Briel and Ken Goodpaster).
David P. Deavel
David P. Deavel is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. He holds a PhD from Fordham, is a winner of the Acton Institute’s Novak Award, is a former Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, and is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. With Jessica Hooten Wilson he edited Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West (Notre Dame, 2020).
Dr. Dale Ahlquist
Dr. Dale Ahlquist is President of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, creator and host of the EWTN series “G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense,” and Publisher of Gilbert Magazine. The author of six books in addition to hundreds of published articles and speeches, he has been called “probably the greatest living authority on the life and work of G.K. Chesterton.”
He is also the co-founder of Chesterton Academy, a top-rated Catholic classical high school in Minnesota, which is the flagship school of the Chesterton Schools Network, which now includes over sixty schools in five countries.
He is also the co-founder of Chesterton Academy, a top-rated Catholic classical high school in Minnesota, which is the flagship school of the Chesterton Schools Network, which now includes over sixty schools in five countries.
Fabio Reali
Fabio Reali is married to Patrizia and lives in Cicero’s hometown of Arpino, in the province of Frosinone (Italy). He is currently a professor of Law and Economics at IIS “Martino Filetico” and a PhD at “Sophia” University Institute (Loppiano, Florence) in Economic and Political Science. He is also the director of the publishing house “L’Altro”, as well as an advisor to the “Center for Research in Politics and Human Rights” (PHR) of the “Sophia” University Institute. He is on the editorial board of the scientific journal on the social doctrine of the Church “La Società”.
Margarita Mooney Clayton
Margarita Mooney Clayton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she teaches on topics such as philosophy of social science, Christianity and the Liberal Arts Tradition, and Aesthetics and Christian Education. In 2016, she founded Scala Foundation and continues to serve as Scala’s Executive Director. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Yale University and her M.A and Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University. She has also been on the faculty at Yale University, Princeton University, Pepperdine University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Yale University.
Andrew T. Seeley
After 30 years as a Tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California, Dr. Andrew Seeley is devoting himself to promoting the renewal of liberal arts education through the work of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education and the St. Ambrose Center for Catholic Liberal Education and Culture. Dr. Seeley received a Licentiate from the Pontifical Institute in Medieval Studies (Toronto) and a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto (1995).
Dr. Paul Shrimpton
Dr Paul Shrimpton is a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, and has taught at Magdalen College School, Oxford for nearly forty years. He has given many talks and lectures on Newman and education, and is the author of A Catholic Eton? Newman’s Oratory School (2005) and The ‘Making of Men’: the Idea and Reality of Newman’s University in Oxford and Dublin (2015). He has also written about the influence of Newman on the students of the White Rose resistance in Nazi Germany in Conscience before Conformity (2018). Recently he brought out two volumes of Newman’s unpublished university papers, My Campaign in Ireland, Parts I & II, both of which are critical editions, as well as editing a festschrift for the leading Newman scholar Ian Ker.
David M. Whalen
David M. Whalen is Associate Vice President for Curriculum and a Professor of English at Hillsdale College in Michigan. He received his BA, MA, and Ph.D. from the University of Kansas (1992), where he studied with Dennis Quinn, John Senior, and Frank Nelick. He has taught at the University of Kansas, Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, and, since 1994, at Hillsdale where he has served as Provost, Associate Provost, and Dean of Faculty. Dr. Whalen’s research and publications address topics such as the Great Books, Renaissance Poetry, Victorian Literature, and the writings of John Henry Newman. Dr. Whalen and his wife, Janet, have eleven children.
Deal W. Hudson
Deal W. Hudson is presently Arts Editor of the Catholic Herald (UK), host of the radio show “Church and Culture” on the Ave Maria Radio Network, and editor of http://www.thechristianreview.com. Dr. Hudson, born in 1949, graduated with a B.A. from the University of Texas-Austin, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University. He taught philosophy as an associate professor at Mercer University in Atlanta from 1980-89, Fordham University from 1989 to 1995. While at Fordham, Dr. Hudson also taught Medieval Studies at New York University. In 1984, Dr. Hudson, a former Baptist minister, was received into the Catholic Church.
R. J. Snell
R. J. Snell is Editor-in-Chief of Public Discourse and Director of Academic Programs at the Witherspoon Institute. Previously, he was Professor of Philosophy at Eastern University and the Templeton Honors College, where he founded and directed the Agora Institute for Civic Virtue and the Common Good. He earned his M.A. in philosophy at Boston College, and his Ph.D. in philosophy at Marquette University. His research interests include the liberal arts, ethics, natural law theory, Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and the work of Bernard Lonergan, SJ. Snell is the author of Through a Glass Darkly: Bernard Lonergan and Richard Rorty on Knowing without a God’s-eye View (Marquette, 2006), among other books, articles, chapters, and essays in a variety of scholarly and popular venues. He and his family reside in the Princeton area.
Fr. Sebastian Walshe
Fr. Sebastian Walshe, O. Praem, is a Norbertine canon of the Abbey of St. Michael in the Diocese of Orange, California. After earning a degree in electrical engineering, Fr. Sebastian worked at an intellectual property firm before pursuing further education at Thomas Aquinas College. Graduating in 1994, he continued studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., receiving a license in philosophy. Later, while in the seminary, he attended the Pontifical University of St. Thomas at Rome (the Angelicum) where he received a master’s degree in sacred theology and a doctorate in philosophy. Since 2006, Fr. Sebastian has been a professor of philosophy in the seminary program at St. Michael’s Abbey, where he is the dean of studies. Fr. Sebastian also serves as Chaplain to Adeodatus.
Dr. Josef Froula
Dr. Josef Froula is a 1992 graduate of Thomas Aquinas College. He went on to teach at an all-boys prep school for five years. Then, for over twenty years, he taught the liberal arts and theology at two seminaries: The Legion of Christ College of Humanities and Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He has earned graduate degrees in literature, theology, and education. In 2018 he accepted a position as a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College and now teaches at the campus in Northfield, MA. The title of his doctoral dissertation is “St. Thomas on the Nature and Purpose of Education: The Importance of Aristotelian-Thomistic Principles for Educational Leaders.”
R. Jared Staudt
R. Jared Staudt, PhD serves as Associate Superintendent for Mission and Formation for the Archdiocese of Denver and Visiting Associate Professor for the Augustine Institute. He also teaches for the lay division of St. John Vianney Seminary and the Institute of Catholic Culture. He earned his BA and MA in Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN and his PhD in Systematic Theology from Ave Maria University in Florida. He is author of The Primacy of God: The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology (Emmaus Academic) and Restoring Humanity: Essays on the Evangelization of Culture (Divine Providence Press). He and his wife Anne have six children and he is a Benedictine oblate. Jared also serves on the board of Adeodatus.
James Matthew Wilson
James Matthew Wilson is the Cullen Foundation Chair in English Literature and the founding director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas. The author of eleven books, his most recent book of poems, The Strangeness of the Good, won the poetry book of the year award from the Catholic Media Awards. The Dallas Institute of Humanities awarded him the Hiett Prize in 2017. He serves as poet-in-residence of the Benedict XVI Institue, editor of Colosseum Books, and poetry editor of Modern Age magazine.
Michael Waldstein
Michael Maria Waldstein is Professor of New Testament at Franciscan University (2019-) and Senior Faculty Fellow at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology (2018-2019). He holds a B.A. from Thomas Aquinas College (1977), a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Dallas (1981), an S.S.L. summa cum laude from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome (1984), and a Th.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins from Harvard University (1990). From 1988 to 1996 he was assistant professor of New Testament at the University of Notre Dame, where he received tenure in 1996. From 1996 to 2006 he served as the founding president of the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, and as the St. Francis of Assisi Chair of New Testament (to 2008). From 2008 to 2017 he was Max Seckler Chair of Theology at Ave Maria University. He served as a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family (2003-2009), the Board of Trustees of the University of Eichstätt, Germany (2007-2011), and as an Ordinary Academician of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome (2011-).
Andrew Kern
Conferences, institutions: Andrew Kern is the founder and president of the CiRCE Institute (Center for Independent Research on Classical Education), the husband of Karen, the father of five grown adults, and the grandfather of (so far) nine grandchildren. He has been researching, speaking, teaching, and consulting in the Christian classical renewal since 1993, during which he has been instrumental in the founding of three schools, consulted with over 100 schools and co-ops, and served as Director of Classical Instruction, Academic Dean, and Headmaster. Andrew speaks regularly at home school and classical conferences. In addition, he is the co-author with Dr. Gene Edward Veith of Classical Education, The Movement Sweeping America and, with Andrea Lipinski, of The CiRCE Guide to Reading. He also led the development of CiRCE’s classical rhetoric program, The Lost Tools of Writing, and he loves Homer, Shakespeare, Anne of Green Gables, and Endeavour. Like Shakespeare, he knows a little Latin and less Greek. Except a lot less than Shakespeare.
Edward Feser
Edward Feser is Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College. He is the author of many academic articles and books, including Aquinas, Scholastic Metaphysics, and Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science.
Michael P. Foley
Michael P. Foley is a Catholic theologian, a Professor of Patristics in the Great Texts Program at Baylor University, and the author of over 400 articles and sixteen books ranging from the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo to Catholic food and drink.
Arthur Hippler
Arthur Hippler is Chairman of the Religion Department at Providence Academy, where he has taught since 2006. He also teaches as an Adjunct Professor in St. Paul School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas and as an instructor in the Harry Flynn Catechetical Institute for the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College in California, he received his Doctorate in Philosophy from Boston College. He is the author of two books on Catholic social teaching and two iBooks on C. S. Lewis. He is married with five children.
Joe Heschmeyer
Kansas City native Joe Heschmeyer is a staff apologist for Catholic Answers. A popular author, speaker, blogger, and podcaster, he joined the apostolate in March 2021 after three years as an instructor at Holy Family School of Faith in Overland Park, Kan.
While at School of Faith, Joe focused primarily on formation for the Kansas City Archdiocese’s elementary and high school teachers. He also spent a year helping to manage the Catholic Spiritual Mentorship program.
Prior to his work at Holy Family, he discerned the priesthood from 2012-17 for the Archdiocese of Kansas City. During that time, he earned both a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis and a degree in sacred theology (S.T.B.) from Rome’s Pontifical North American College.
A regular contributor to Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Answers Focus, and Catholic Answers Magazine (print and online) even before joining the apostolate, Joe has blogged at his own “Shameless Popery” website and co-hosted a weekly show called “The Catholic Podcast.”
To date, he has authored three books, including Pope Peter for Catholic Answers Press.
A former practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., Joe received his Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University in 2010 after earning a bachelor’s degree in history from Topeka’s Washburn University.
Joe and his wife, Anna, and along with their children reside in the Kansas City area. In his free time, Joe enjoys reading, listening to podcasts, and tormenting his loved ones with terrible puns.
While at School of Faith, Joe focused primarily on formation for the Kansas City Archdiocese’s elementary and high school teachers. He also spent a year helping to manage the Catholic Spiritual Mentorship program.
Prior to his work at Holy Family, he discerned the priesthood from 2012-17 for the Archdiocese of Kansas City. During that time, he earned both a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis and a degree in sacred theology (S.T.B.) from Rome’s Pontifical North American College.
A regular contributor to Catholic Answers Live, Catholic Answers Focus, and Catholic Answers Magazine (print and online) even before joining the apostolate, Joe has blogged at his own “Shameless Popery” website and co-hosted a weekly show called “The Catholic Podcast.”
To date, he has authored three books, including Pope Peter for Catholic Answers Press.
A former practicing attorney in Washington, D.C., Joe received his Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University in 2010 after earning a bachelor’s degree in history from Topeka’s Washburn University.
Joe and his wife, Anna, and along with their children reside in the Kansas City area. In his free time, Joe enjoys reading, listening to podcasts, and tormenting his loved ones with terrible puns.
David Clayton
David Clayton is an internationally known artist, teacher, author, composer, and broadcaster. He is Provost of Pontifex University, a canonically approved Catholic university faithful to the Magisterium, which offers online programs including a Master of Sacred Arts and Doctorate in Theology. His blog and podcast can be found at thewayofbeauty.org. Trained in both the sacred art tradition of Byzantine iconography and as a portrait painter in the style of Western classical naturalism, he has had many prominent commissions in both the UK the US. Prof. Clayton has published four books: The Little Oratory; The Way of Beauty – Liturgy, Education and Inspiration for Family, School, and College; and his latest, The Vision for You, How to Discover the Life You Were Made For, published in 2018.
Brandon Cook
The son of a diplomat, Brandon Cook was born in Washington, D.C. and spent his high school years abroad. After his conversion to the Catholic faith, his love for the arts, history, and culture led him to pursue graduate studies in Art History and Medieval Studies. Dr. Cook has an M.A. from UW-Madison and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He is also a graduate of Yale University and is currently an educator in the L.A. area with over ten years of teaching experience.
The Very Reverend Dom Elias Carr
A Canon Regular of Saint Augustine of Stift Klosterneuburg, Austria, the Very Reverend Dom Elias Carr co-founded the Canonry of Saint Leopold in 2011 in Glen Cove, NY, and assists in the Gold Coast parishes of Saint Hyacinth, Saint Patrick, and Saint Rocco. He loves serving as the President of the Schools of Saint Mary (nursery-12th grade) in Manhasset, NY, where with an exceptional team of Catholic educators on site and a network of innovative Catholic thinkers around the world, they together work to engage imaginatively the anthropological challenges of the day. He defended his dissertation on the life and early works of Raymund Schwager, SJ, at the John Paul II Pontifical University in Krakow, Poland, in June 2022.
Catherine Neumayr, Head of School, St. Joseph Catholic Academy, St. Joseph, MO.
Catherine Neumayr is a California native, born in San Francisco and raised in southern California. Part of the 2nd generation of the Catholic educational renewal, her father and mother were both college professors specializing in philosophy and English literature, respectively. Their love of learning and fidelity to the Faith deeply influenced Miss Neumayr’s upbringing.
Miss Neumayr graduated from the St. Ignatius Institute of the University of San Francisco after spending her junior year abroad at Oxford University studying theology, philosophy, and literature under the Dominicans. She earned a Master’s in Education from Pepperdine University, and taught at La Reina in Thousand Oaks, California before guiding Holy Rosary Academy in Anchorage, Alaska as principal and now serving as head of school at St. Joseph Catholic Academy in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Miss Neumayr graduated from the St. Ignatius Institute of the University of San Francisco after spending her junior year abroad at Oxford University studying theology, philosophy, and literature under the Dominicans. She earned a Master’s in Education from Pepperdine University, and taught at La Reina in Thousand Oaks, California before guiding Holy Rosary Academy in Anchorage, Alaska as principal and now serving as head of school at St. Joseph Catholic Academy in St. Joseph, Missouri.