The Thomistic Institute

Dr. Sarah E. Maple asks how we acquire an organic vision of beauty that is not merely material or visual, arguing from Aquinas's formal criteria of beauty (proportion, integrity, clarity) and Hans Urs von Balthasar's theological aesthetics (form and splendor, beholding and enrapture) that beauty belongs first to the human person, and that the artist's vocation is grounded in wonder, self-gift, and the sincerity of the body, culminating in a spirituality of artistic service.

This lecture was given on April 21st, 2026, at University of Georgia.

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About the Speaker:

Dr. Sarah E. Maple is a Visiting Research Scholar at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, within the University’s Centre for Theology and the Arts. She is a painter, theologian, and professor whose work emphasizes the intersection of creative bodily expression, the sacred imagination, and the interior life of the artist. Sarah wrote her doctoral dissertation at the University of St. Andrews’ Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts (2017), and read for her MTS at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute. She lectures graduate students in theology and art at both the University of Notre Dame and St Joseph’s Seminary. She is also a Visiting Research Scholar at The William G. Congdon Foundation.

Keywords: Aquinas, Balthasar, Clarity, Formal Criteria Of Beauty, Integrity, John Paul II, Proportion, Self Gift, Theology Of The Body, Wonder

Fr. Gabriel Torretta argues that beauty has become a "forbidden word" for our age due to the effects of German Idealism and Modernism; as a remedy, he proposes a recovery grounded in the Christian metaphysical tradition (Eriugena, Aquinas, Augustine), in which beauty is the attractive power by which God draws all things to himself and which requires an asceticism of the gaze.

This lecture was given on April 28th, 2026, at University of Washington.

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About the Speaker:

Gabriel Torretta, O.P., is assistant professor of Theology at Providence College. He is a church historian whose work focuses on the history of Christian ideas of beauty and art, with a particular focus on the eighth and ninth centuries. He recently completed his PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School, with a dissertation entitled “‘Beautiful as the Moon’: Discourses of Beauty in the Carolingian Era.” His current projects explore the cultural and theological legacy of ninth-century thinkers like Theodulf of Orléans, Hrabanus Maurus, and John Scottus Eriugena.

Keywords: Adorno, Aquinas, Asceticism Of The Gaze, Augustine, Bouguereau, Divine Beauty, Eriugena, Lucian Freud, Roger Scruton, Worship Of Beauty

Fr. Alan O'Sullivan provides an introduction to Pope Benedict XVI's thought on the "via pulchritudinis" — the way of beauty — arguing that authentic beauty wounds the heart and draws it toward the transcendent Logos, is inseparable from truth, goodness, and prayer, and is indispensable for the Church's liturgy and evangelization against a false, self-absorbing beauty.

This lecture was given on July 18th, 2026, at Glencomeragh House.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. Alan O’Sullivan, O.P. (Trinity College) is currently the chaplain of Trinity College, Dublin. He is a member of the Irish province of the Order of Preachers who studied at Blackfriars, Oxford.

Keywords: Beauty, Benedict XVI, Dostoevsky, Logos, Magnificat, Paul Claudel, Prayer, Saints, Via Pulchritudinis, Wound Of Beauty

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy argues that the Exodus prohibition on graven images was a purification of Israel's imagination from false imaginings of the invisible God, and that the Incarnation opens a new, positive use of sacred images — the face of Christ and the icons of his saints — by which the imagination is fed and purified for contemplation, a truth vindicated by Saint John Damascene and the Second Council of Nicaea against the iconoclasts.

This lecture was given on July 19th, 2026, at Glencomeragh House.

Support the Thomistic Institute Campus Chapter Program here: truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod

About the Speaker:

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, OP is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance, loving God with the mind, and the intersection of theology and architecture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy.

Keywords: Aquinas, Dulia, Iconoclasm, Incarnation, John Damascene, Latria, Purification Of The Imagination, Sacred Images, Second Council Of Nicaea, Veneration Of Images

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy argues that church architecture is "incarnational" when it corresponds to a true cosmological vision of reality ordered through and toward the Logos and embodies the principles revealed to Moses on Sinai, and "iconoclastic" when, in its modernist self-referentiality, it rejects that order and fails to communicate the body and head of Christ made present in the liturgy.

This lecture was given on July 19th, 2026, at Glencomeragh House.

Support the Thomistic Institute Campus Chapter Program here: truth.thomisticinstitute.org/pod

About the Speaker:

Fr. Irenaeus Dunlevy, OP is a Coordinator for Campus Outreach at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC. He has served as a parochial vicar at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI, as well as an adjunct professor and assistant chaplain at Providence College. He originates from Columbus, OH, studied architecture in Virginia and Switzerland, and practiced in the DC area before entering the Order of Preachers in 2013. He was ordained a priest in 2020 at the Dominican House of Studies during the quarantine. In his work with the Thomistic Institute, he has given talks on the virtue of penance, loving God with the mind, and the intersection of theology and architecture. He often travels the country visiting Thomistic Institute Campus Chapters, leading seminars that help students grasp Thomistic concepts. Additionally, he coordinates the TI's intellectual retreat programming, which affords students time to pray and integrate into their lives Thomistic theology and philosophy.

Keywords: Aquinas, Cosmological View, Hermeneutic Of Fracture, Iconoclasm, Incarnational Architecture, Le Corbusier, Logos, Maximus The Confessor, Pantheon, Sacred Architecture