The After Dinner Scholar

“Dumb but Disciplined: Why You Should Wake Up to Your Alarm” with Mr. Aidan Wood

“As a modern man,” wrote Wyoming Catholic College senior, Aidan Wood,” the paths to happiness are seemingly endless, and endlessly confusing. However, there is one simple path that guarantees man’s mission: the path of discipline.”

We all know the feeling: While trying to lose some weight, you pass the donuts someone put in the break room. Just one won’t hurt. Reading St. Thomas Aquinas is a great idea, but I’m tired in the evening and TV is an easier option. The alarm goes off, but well… there’s a snooze button. 

Our guest, Mr. Aidan Wood, wrote his senior thesis and oration on the topic of discipline. Clear here to hear his presentation.

The Age of Gnosticism: Transgenderism, Transhumanism, and Human Identity in the Digital Age with Miss Abigail O’Brien

Last week was orations week at Wyoming Catholic College, a highlight of our life together as a college. In the fall, our seniors write a thesis. Then in the spring semester, each senior presents his or her thesis in a half-hour oration before fielding a half hour of questions.

Senior Abigail O’Brien’s thesis title was: “The Age of Gnosticism: Transgenderism, Transhumanism, and Human Identity in the Digital Age.” Miss O’Brien is our guest this week.

Click here to hear Miss O'Brien's oration.

Augustine’s Confessions with Dr. Daniel Shields

St. Augustine was a prominent teacher of rhetoric in Roman North Africa and in Italy. Despite his success, he was restless, constantly casting about for what was true until he found his rest through faith in Christ. A great sinner, we learn in his Confessions who became a great saint.

Dr. Daniel Shields is attending sophomore humanities this semester and has been reading through Confessions with our students and he shares with us what he finds so compelling about the book.

Wyoming Catholic College and Technology with Dr. Kent Lasnoski

Lola Shub and a group of her friends at Essex Street Academy in Manhattan read Into the Wild about an adventurer who died while trying to live off the land in the Alaskan wilderness. As a result, she told The New York Times, “We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And that guy was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life.”

Lola Shub is a member of the Luddite Club, students who eschew technology—including smart phones—for the sake of other, better pursuits such as meeting together in a park, drawing, painting, and reading books included Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius.” 

Whether or not “Luddite Clubs” will become a social trend among teens has yet to be seen, but it does seem that the Wyoming Catholic College technology policy is, in fact, a good that’s ahead of its time.

As technologies and the needs of our students change, we update the policy and Dr. Kent Lasnoski has been at the center of recent revisions.

Pro-Life After Dobbs 2: The Arguments for Abortion Rights with Dr. Michael Bolin

“Usually when I debate on this topic,” said pro-life advocate Helen Alvare, “I feel like I’m behind a podium speaking French and the other person is behind a podium speaking Finnish. There’s no common ground.”

Part of the reason there is no common ground in the abortion debate is that our pro-abortion family and friends don’t understand our arguments and we don’t understand theirs.

Wyoming Catholic College philosopher, Dr. Michael Bolin allows his students to puzzle over what might be the best philosophical argument for abortion rights: Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” published in the journal Philosophy & Public Affairs in 1971—about 18 months before Roe v. Wade was decided.

Pro-Life After Dobbs 1: Humanae Vitae with Dr. Jeremy Holmes

At a banquet for a local pregnancy care center the speaker noted the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade. It’s true and thanks be to God. But, the speaker suggested, quoting Winston Churchill, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” That is, the battle rages on and could be uglier than ever.

With that in mind, this week and next will focus on the theology and philosophy of life beginning this week as theologian, Dr. Jeremy Holmes, discusses the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

Jesus Baptism and Ours with Prof. Kyle Washut

All of Lander including our Wyoming Catholic College Students love Sinks Canyon. The natural beauty is breathtaking and on any given day regardless of the season, you can meet people hiking, rock climbing, fishing, camping, birding, and mountain biking. Once a year, however, you’ll be able to see another unexpected activity: processing, worshipping, and the blessing of the waters.

Our guest this week, Wyoming Catholic College Professor Kyle Washut, reflects on this great feast. 

”Nativity” by John Donne with Dr. Glenn Arbery

After a month of “The Christmas Season” which was actually Advent, it’s finally the Christmas Season allowing us the leisure to reflect on the Nativity of Christ.

Poet, novelist, and Wyoming Catholic College president, Dr. Glenn Arbery helps us reflect on the birth of Christ using the poem "Nativity" by John Donne.

Christmas Poems with Izzy Ecoff, Gregory Bowman, Catherine Stancliffe, Elizabeth Shepherd, and Jonathan Alllen

Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” may be the best-known poem in America today. For many it may be the only-known poem besides lyrics to one pop song or another. We are not a poetic people though that was not always true. Americans in the past had a huge appetite for poetry—an appetite we can recover.

Of course, Moore’s paean to St. Nick is hardly the only Christmas poetry in the world. Christians have been writing poems about the First Coming of Christ as a babe in Bethlehem for two thousand years.

As a Christmas gift to you, our listeners, on this podcast Wyoming Catholic College students share from that treasury of Christmas poetry.

Caesar, Virgil, and The Aeneid with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos

When Aeneas visits the underworld in Virgil's Aeneid, he sees great heroes who have died and great heroes yet to be born.

Here is Caesar, and all the offspring

of Julus destined to live under the pole of heaven.

This is the man, this is him, whom you so often hear

promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified,

who will make a Golden Age again in the fields

where Saturn once reigned, and extend the empire beyond

the Libyans and the Indians....”

It’s no surprise that Virgil wrote such extravagant praise of Caesar Augustus into his epic. After all, Caesar Augustus gave him the job of creating the founding myth of the Roman Empire that had supplanted the Roman Republic.

As he has been teaching The Aeneid to our Wyoming Catholic College sophomores, Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos has been thinking a great deal about that transition.