The Newman Institute

Dr. R. Jared Staudt is Associate Superintendent for Mission and Formation for the Archdiocese of Denver and Visiting Associate Professor for the Augustine Institute.  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.  He is author of The Primacy of God: The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology (from Emmaus Academic), Restoring Humanity: Essays on the Evangelization of Culture (Divine Providence Press), and The Beer Option: Brewing a Catholic Culture Yesterday & Today. He is editor of Renewing Catholic Schools: How to Regain a Catholic Vision in a Secular Age (Catholic Education Press) and The University and the Church: Don J. Briel’s Essays on Education (Cluny Media). He and his wife Anne have six children and he is a Benedictine oblate at Clear Creek Abbey.  His lecture is titled, “Why the Church Educates: Recovering Mission in a Secular Age”

Our guest today is Dr. Joseph Arias. Dr. Arias is Assistant Professor of Theology and Dean of Students at Christendom College's Graduate School of Theology. He has presented scholarly papers at meetings of The Research Center for Biblical Thomism in Poland the Thomas Instituut in the Netherlands, the Mariological Society of America, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, and the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, among others. Dr. Arias has published articles in the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Linacre Quarterly: The Journal of the Catholic Medical Association, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, and Crisis Magazine. His talk today is titled “Why Devotion to St. Joseph?”

Fr. Peter Funk, OSB, is the Prior of the Monastery of the Holy Cross, a contemplative Benedictine monastery in the South Side neighborhood of Bridgeport. Fr. Peter received his B.A. in music from the University of Chicago. After graduating, he was a choral conductor at St. Thomas the Apostle parish and the University of Chicago. He entered monastic life in 1997. Fr. Peter received a Master’s degree in Theology at St. John’s School of Theology in Collegeville, Minnesota, where he majored in Scripture. In 2012, he helped to found the choir Schola Laudis, whose mission is to reintroduce the Catholic tradition of polyphony at the monastery's celebration of Vespers. Fr. Peter has composed numerous motets and four a cappella settings of the Mass. He has also been working as an author for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, with articles on the reception of the Bible in medieval, Reformation, and monastic contexts.