FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saint Mary’s College Announces 2011 Aquinas Symposium Speaker 
Media contact:
Gwen O’Brien
Director of Media Relations
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(574) 284-4579
January 3, 2011 (Notre Dame, Ind.)—Saint Mary's College is pleased to announce that the Rev. Robert Barron, a prominent theologian and Catholic evangelist, is the speaker for the 14th Annual Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas. He will give his lecture, titled “Thomas Aquinas and Why the Atheists are Right”, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 25 in the Student Center Lounge. The public is invited to attend this free event.
Barron explained his lecture this way: “‘New atheists have emerged as strident critics of religion. I have found that more often than not I agree with them, for the God they deny is one that I would deny as well. I want to explore this curious situation with the help of St. Thomas Aquinas. I will look especially at Thomas’ treatment of the non-competitive relationship between God and the world.”
Barron reaches millions of people through his global media evangelization called Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. According to the website, Word on Fire’s purpose is to draw people into or back to the Catholic faith using advanced and emerging technologies. Posted on the website are Barron’s weekly video clips, commentaries, and radio sermons and an audio archive of over 300 homilies. In addition to the website, Barron appears on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), national radio, and YouTube. He has also published numerous books, essays, and DVDs.
“Father Robert Barron is the preeminent Thomist of the digital age. Together with his theological mentor and self-described ‘personal hero,’ St. Thomas Aquinas, Father Barron enthusiastically engages the best resources available to him to, in Aquinas’s words, ‘bring every understanding into the service of Christ.’ We are delighted to have him at Saint Mary’s,” said Joseph Incandela, the Joyce McMahon Hank Aquinas Chair in Catholic Theology at Saint Mary's College. Incandela is also a professor of religious studies and the associate dean of faculty.
Barron, who lectures extensively in the U.S. and abroad, is the Francis Cardinal George Chair of Faith and Culture at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois—the nation’s largest Catholic seminary. He has taught Systematic Theology at the seminary since 1992. He was a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame in 2002. Fr. Barron received a Master's Degree in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America in 1982 and was ordained an Archdiocesan priest in Chicago in 1986. He received a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1992.
The Aquinas Symposium is held each year to honor St. Thomas Aquinas on or around his feast day (January 28) and is sponsored by the Joyce McMahon Hank Aquinas Chair in Catholic Theology. Click for more information on the event, or call Barb Westra, staff assistant in religious studies, at (574) 284-4534. Click for a campus map.
About Saint Mary’s College: Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind., is a four-year, Catholic, women’s institution offering five bachelor’s degrees and more than 30 major areas of study. Saint Mary’s College has six nationally accredited academic programs: social work, art, music, teacher education, chemistry and nursing. Saint Mary's College ranks among the top 100 “Best National Liberal Arts Colleges” in the U.S. News & World Report 2011 College Guide. Founded in 1844, Saint Mary’s is a pioneer in the education of women, and is sponsored by the Sisters of the Holy Cross.