The Collegium Institute invites you to apply for the Fall 2025 Catholic Humanism Fellowship. This program explores the Catholic intellectual tradition as a reality lived out in the pilgrimage of our life. Centering our reflection on the human person fully alive, we will take up consideration of how Catholicism can be understood through four ideas, dedicating one semester to each: the Good, the True, the Beautiful, and faith & politics.
This semester we will explore the haunting dictum of the great Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky, which was then taken up and sifted by the likes of John Paul II and Benedict XVI: “Beauty will save the world.” But will it really? And what does that even mean? Isn’t beauty just “in the eye of the beholder”, ultimately subjective, and as likely to mislead as it might be to save? Even if not, why is beauty something that should matter — and matter a lot -- to all of us rather than remain a luxury and the preserve of a specialized artistic caste? In this module we will plumb the Catholic tradition for answers to these questions and for clues about what it means to embrace a beautiful life. And we will see how the development of our capacities for perceiving and participating in beauty ultimately returns us to the Divine Beauty that is the source of all existence.
The program welcomes a cohort of student fellows each semester to participate in a six-session lunch discussion series held at the Penn Newman Center. The series culminates with a practicum based on our seminar discussions.
Dates: Fridays, 12:45 - 1:45pm. Lunch will be provided for all participants.
Session 1 (September 12): Beauty & the Bible: Scriptural Touchstones
Session 2 (September 19): What is Beauty?
Session 3 (September 26): Why Beauty Matters?
Session 4 (October 3): God is Beauty
Session 5 (October 3): Seeing & Living Beauty
Session 6 (October 24): Practicum: Making Beauty
Location: Penn Newman Center (111 S 38th St, University City)
Click the button below to register. This fellowship is open to students at the University of Pennsylvania and other Philadelphia colleges.
Application deadline: Friday, September 5
This program is made possible by the Ambassador’s Fund for Catholic Education.