According to Lunine, his faith doesn’t “change the way I do science, but maybe it changes the way I look at the results.”
At the University of Southern California, professor of religion David Albertson founded the Nova Forum in 2020.
USC is already home to the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies, which funds research fellowships for faculty. There’s also a Catholic campus ministry, which offers retreats and programming on spiritual life and formation.
At the Nova Forum, student fellows focus on programming around an annual theme. So far, they’ve delved into Catholic thinking about utopia and dystopia to go with their theme of “Future Hopes.”
Students have read “Utopia,” by Thomas More, a Catholic saint and martyr, as well as portions of “The City of God,” a book by Augustine of Hippo, who, Albertson says, is regarded as one of the most important ancient Catholic authors. They’ve studied medieval art and Orthodox Christian understandings of divination.
“A lot of times, students leave for college and they view their Catholic identity, their Catholic faith tradition, as something that they’re kind of graduating out of,” Albertson says. “It seems to belong more to high school and family than it does to university studies and their future career.”
With the Nova Forum, Albertson is trying to counter that notion by making it known that Catholicism is not just family and sacramental life, “but it’s also this other really fascinating and useful intellectual tradition to draw upon.”
This article originally appeared here.Â
