Atlantis was formed in 2004 to examine, through monthly talks, the impact of the Catholic faith on the lives and works of key thinkers, artists and leaders who have shaped our world.
All meetings from 1.05pm to 1.55pm in room C110, in the John Henry Newman Building, UCD, Dublin
Thursday 10 NovemberMette Lebech, Faculty of Philosophy, NUI, Maynooth
The Life and Thought of Edith Stein (St.Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)
Born at Breslau on 12th October 1891, on the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur, the youngest of seven children, she did her first studies in philosophy in her native city. Later she moved to Gottingen to follow Edmund Husserl, philosophical genius and father of phenomenology. At his school Edith was to take no further interest in religion, retaining only the moral stamp of her Jewish upbringing. Through the study of phenomenology, however, she began gradually to discover the religious world and Christianity, later becoming a Catholic. A turning point in her life was her reading of the autobiography of St Teresa of Avila. On a mysterious June night in 1921, finding herself a guest in the house of a philosopher friend, she received a profound intuition of God-Truth. All became light for her: she was baptised on January 1st 1922, receiving at the same time a vocation to Carmel.
Despite family opposition Edith became a Carmelite nun, taking the name of Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was quickly to feel the weight of the "cross" on her shoulders. Following the discovery by the authorities of her non-Aryan origins, she was no longer safe behind monastery walls; so in the early hours of New Year's Day 1939 she was taken to Holland, to the Carmel of Echt. It seemed a tranquil place, yet she had a premonition that she should not escape the destiny of her people. In fact while she was writing her book on the doctrine of St John of the Cross, significantly entitled The Science of the Cross, two officials of the occupation forces came to the monastery. She had to go with them, together with her sister Rose, also a convert, who had joined her in Echt.
Before being deported to Auschwitz, Edith was able to send a message to Carmel. Then with the convoy which brought them to Auschwitz, the Stein sisters entered the shadow of death. On August 9th, 1942, the holocaust of Edith reached its consummation in the gas chambers. Pope John Paul II who already in 1987 had publicly proclaimed the sanctity of this daughter of St Teresa, and the martyrdom of this Jewess returned to the bosom of the Church, on 11th October 1998 solemnly canonized her at Rome.
Thursday 1 DecemberDr Thomas Kelly, Faculty of Philosophy, NUI, Maynooth
Anselm of Aosta (St. Anselm of Canterbury)
Anselm was born in 1033/34, in Aosta, Lombardy. He entered the Benedictine monastery at Bec (in Normandy) in 1057 and became abbot in 1078. In 1077 he wrote the Monologium to demonstrate God's existence and attributes by reason alone. He then wrote Proslogium, which established the ontological argument for the existence of God. In 1093, he became archbishop of Canterbury and soon became involved in disputes with William II over the independence of the church and the right to appeal to the pope, arguments that led to Anselm's exile. Although invited back by Henry I, Anselm again argued with the king over lay investiture (see Investiture Controversy). In 1099 he completed Cur Deus homo? (“Why Did God Become Man?”), which provided a new understanding of Jesus' redemption of humankind and revealed the increasing focus on the humanity of Jesus. He died on April 21, 1109, possibly at Canterbury, Kent, England. His feast day is April 21. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1720.
Thursday 19 JanuaryDr Gerard Casey
School of Philosophy, UCD
Walker Percy
Walker Percy was born on May 28, 1916, Birmingham, Alabama and was orphaned in late childhood and was raised by a cousin in Mississippi. While working as a pathologist he contracted tuberculosis; during his recuperation he decided on a writing career and converted to Roman Catholicism. His first and best-known novel, The Moviegoer (1961), introduced his concept of malaise, a sense of spiritual emptiness characteristic of the rootless modern world. His other works, often about the search for faith and love in a New South transformed by industry and technology, include Love in the Ruins (1971), The Second Coming (1980), and The Thanatos Syndrome (1987) He died in May 10, 1990.
Thursday 9 FebruaryDr Vincent Twomey, Faculty of Theology, St.Patrick’s College, Maynooth
Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger) was born April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, Germany, He was ordained in 1951 and received a doctorate in theology at the University of Munich in 1953. Thereafter he pursued a brilliant career as a theologian and teacher at various universities. During the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) he served as an expert adviser and an advocate of reform. In 1977 he was appointed archbishop of Munich; three months later he was made a cardinal. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005, he enforced doctrinal uniformity in the church and served as a close adviser of Pope John Paul II. He has been termed ‘the Mozart of theology’.
Thursday 16 MarchDonal MacManus, Sculptor
Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, born Dec. 7, 1598, in Naples, began his career working for his father, a sculptor. Among his early sculptures are Apollo and Daphne (1622–24) and an active David (1623–24). Under the patronage of Urban VIII, the first of eight popes he was to serve, he created the baldachin over the tomb of St. Peter in Rome. Bernini's architectural duties increased after 1629, when he was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica and the Palazzo Barberini. His works often represent a fusion of architecture and sculpture, as in the Cornaro Chapel, in Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, with its celebrated theatrical sculpture, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (1645–52). His greatest architectural achievement is the colonnade enclosing the piazza before St. Peter's. Among his many other contributions to Rome are his Triton Fountain and Fountain of the Four Rivers, noted for their architectural composition and detail.
Thursday 6 AprilJohn Waters, The Irish Times
Vaclav Havel
Vaclav Havel, was born on Oct. 5, 1936, in Prague, Czech. He worked in a Prague theatre from 1959 and became resident playwright by 1968. His plays, including The Memorandum (1965), are absurdist, satirical examinations of bureaucratic routines that explore the moral compromises made by those living under totalitarianism. They were banned by the communist authorities, and Havel was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned in the 1970s and '80s. During antigovernment demonstrations in 1989, he became the leading figure in the Civic Forum, a coalition of groups pressing for democratic reforms. The Communist Party capitulated (in the bloodless “Velvet Revolution”) and formed a coalition government with the Civic Forum, and Havel was elected president in 1989. In 1993 he was elected president of the new Czech Republic.
