By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-03-06 19:55:56 | Updated at 2025-03-07 00:33:29
4 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Benedictine College is hosting its 14th annual Symposium on Transforming Culture in America March 21 and 22, with this year’s focus on understanding marriage as a key component of culture and Western civilization.
According to the Symposium’s website, today’s culture has “re-defined and, ultimately, de-defined” marriage.
“Tragically, the loss of the Christian perspective on marriage has and continues to cause great harm,” the website states. “Often those most impacted are those at the ‘peripheries.’ The 2025 Symposium seeks to speak to the gift of the Catholic Church’s teachings on marriage and propose solutions to the challenges facing married couples and families in the contemporary environment.”
Benedictine will host the conference on its campus in Atchison, Kansas. The college’s current mission and strategic plan is to “transform culture in America,” which it undertakes through the formation of its students and community-building events like the Symposium. Hosted each spring, the conference is an opportunity for scholars, business leaders, field professionals, and students to come together for “fellowship, reflection, and dialogue concerning topics integral to the Catholic Faith and its transformative role in our society, culture and business,” according to the website.
The conference will begin Friday evening with breakout talks given by Catholic thinkers and professionals from around the country, followed by a keynote address by JP de Gance, founder and president of the marriage ministry Communio.
Saturday will feature a keynote from Tim Carney of the American Enterprise Institute, additional breakout sessions and presentations on marriage and the family, another keynote talk by Professor Catherine Pakaluk from the Catholic University of America, and an on-campus vigil Mass celebrated by Archbishop Joseph Naumann.
The conference will conclude Saturday evening with a final keynote from Professor Brad Wilcox, who is the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, a Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
