The first After-Dinner Scholar podcast on February 1, 2017 began: The 16th century English philosopher, statesman and scientist Francis Bacon famously stated, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is,” he went on to explain, “some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but…

Last week Dr. Tiffany Schubert discussed Inferno, the first book of Dante’s Comedy. Our friend and former colleague Jason Baxter remarked that in Inferno, “Dante’s poetic violence is meant to melt down the hard heart so that it can be reforged into something new.” Purgatorio is the place where that melted down and malleable heart finds the forge, t…

Midway in the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard it is to tell the nature of that wood, savage, dense and harsh— the very thought of it renews my fear! It is so bitter death is hardly more so. (Inferno 1.1-7) During Lent and now during Easter, our sophomores, under the guidance of Dr. Ti…

Pope Benedict XVI wrote, "At Easter we rejoice because Christ did not remain in the tomb, his body did not see corruption; he belongs to the world of the living, not to the world of the dead; we rejoice because he is the Alpha and also the Omega, as we proclaim in the rite of the Paschal Candle; he lives not only yesterday, but today and for eterni…

Saint Ephrem the Syrian said, “We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living.” The cross is the bridge from death to life, from Hell to Heaven, from the judgment we deserve to the grace we can never deserve, from eternal ca…

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (159) declares Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. During their final spring sem…

Observing the French Revolution, British Member of Parliament, Edmund Burke, noted, “But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” Over the past few weeks, our Wyoming Catholic College juniors have been considering the French Revolu…

It’s been a strange winter here in Lander, Wyoming beginning with nearly two feet of snow on Thanksgiving—of which about fourteen inches fell between four and eight PM. Another foot or so just before Christmas and nothing but dribs and drabs after that. And now—a bit early—what’s left of that snow is melting in warm, early spring weather. Not that …

The new Apple Vision Pro headset, we’re told, “delivers fun and rewarding gameplay for players of all skill levels. Players can dive into games on the App Store that transform the space around them, use an Environment for a more immersive experience, or play compatible games on a screen as large as they want.” What do we make of video games whether…

January 31 to February 2 the Wyoming Catholic College community enjoyed days packed with senior orations. Each senior, having written a thesis in the fall, presents his or her findings in a 30-minute lecture followed by questions from a faculty panel and the audience. It is a wonderful celebration of all our students accomplish in their years at Wy…

This podcasts is "about the Great Books and the liberal arts," something that sets The After-Dinner Scholar apart from other audio blogs from Wyoming Catholic Collage. Case in point, the college has launched a new podcast entitled “The Eucharist with Wyoming Catholic College” inspired by conversations about the National Eucharistic Revival. The pod…

The number of integers (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on) is infinite. And oddly enough so is the number of even integers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and beyond). Meaning that the number of even integers is equal to the number of all integers, both odd and even. Welcome to infinity. While it’s still winter, it’s not too early to think about Wyoming Catholic College’s su…

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures,” remarks Anne Eliot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. “None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” It is always a great pleasure on the After-Dinner Scholar to introduce you to books written by our faculty and Dr. Tiffany Schubert’s book, Jane Au…

While you and I sit by a delightful fire—or at least (assuming you live in a cool climate)—delightful central heating, our Wyoming Catholic College freshmen are spending a few nights in their Quinzees: giant mounds of snow, hollowed out to form shelters. That seems an odd way to prepare for a rigorous second semester of Latin, theology, philosophy,…

“Social connection,” wrote U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in his May 2023 “Advisory on our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” “is a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter. Throughout history, our ability to rely on one another has been crucial to survival.” That may come as news to many modern Americ…

This podcast was posted on December 26, the day after Christmas. It was the commemoration of St. Stephen’s martyrdom described in Acts chapter 7. On the 27th, we remember St. John, the only apostle who was not martyred. The 28th is the memorial of the Holy Innocents who were murdered by King Herod in his attempt to kill Jesus. And finally on Friday…

During the first weeks of Advent, the Church directs our attention to the second advent of Christ, that day when he will come again in glory to gather his people into his resurrection, remake this tired, sinful world, and set all wrongs right. When he “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mou…

The music coming over the air—for those who still listen to the radio—and in various Christmas mixes from Pandora, Apple Music, Spotify, and so on tends to be a wild and wooly mix including everything from “O Holy Night” to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” It’s a mishmash of worship, good theology, horrible theology, family, home, childhood, g…

Virgil's Aeneid tells us about the founding of Rome and begins with the destruction of Troy at the end of the Trojan War, the war recounted in The Iliad. As the Greeks burn and sack Troy, Aeneas escapes with his father, his son, his household gods, and a small band of fellow refugees to found a new Troy—greater, more powerful, and more magnificent …

Last Sunday was the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe which was instituted by Pope Pius XI with his 1925 encyclical Quas Primas (In the First) as a response to “those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spir…

The great Roman statesman and orator, Marcus Tulius Cicero said: In truth… while I wish to be adorned with every virtue, yet there is nothing which I can esteem more highly than being and appearing grateful. For this one virtue is not only the greatest, but is also the parent of all the other virtues. The ancients understood—as most moderns don’t—t…

In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, we meet Captain Ahab for the first time long after the Pequod has left Nantucket. “There was,” says Melville’s Ishmael, “an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him…

The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The thronèd monarch better than his crown. Those are the words of Portia, heroine of William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice as she de…

Once every semester at Wyoming Catholic College, we hold an All-School Seminar. For the fall seminar, a week ago, all of our students and faculty read and discussed Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Pieper wrote in 1947 in what was a devastated Germany. Everything was damaged or destroyed and workers were a vital necessity at all levels of th…

We're regularly told that the only kind of knowing of which we can be certain is "scientific" knowing. What does that mean? How does it apply to the world and our everyday lives. Mathematician Dr. Scott Olsson has thought and taught a great deal about the questions surrounding science and what it can--and can't--tell us about the world around us. H…

The theology curricular track at Wyoming Catholic College begins with "Salvation History in the Old Testament." The course is, for the most part, reading the narrative portions of the Old Testament from Genesis to Maccabees. Dr. Jim Tonkowich has been teaching this freshman course this semester and shares some of the course's content and his own ex…

“Reading,” said Sir Francis Bacon, “maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” Student academic life at Wyoming Catholic College mirrors Bacon’s comment. Our students read the Great and Good books of our civilization and come to class prepared for what Bacon called “conference.” We would say conversation. And while writin…

The Iliad, first of Homer’s great epics, tells the tale of the war between Greece and Troy as it unfolded on the plains outside that ancient city. And the focus of the tale is Achilleus, the greatest warrior on either side who, for most of the book, sits on the sidelines. Dr. Glenn Arbery is both a scholar and teacher of The Iliad who, once again, …

To graduate from Wyoming Catholic College, students need to spend at least ten weeks in the wilderness. That includes their three-week freshman expedition, a one-week freshman winter trip just after Christmas and six additional weeks over the next three years. This week is Fall Outdoor Week at the college. Students are rafting, rock climbing, backp…

“Every art and every investigation, and similarly every action and pursuit,” wrote Aristotle at the beginning of his book on ethics, “is considered to aim at some good. Hence the good has rightly been defined as ‘that at which all things aim’.” We all, Aristotle contends, aim at what we believe is the good. But how do we know what is truly good? An…

Wyoming Catholic College has a new president, Kyle Washut. It seems fully appropriate that Prof. Washut, a native of Wyoming who has been part of the Wyoming Catholic College project since before the beginning of the college, should now take the helm. In this podcast, President Washut tells us about the earliest days at the college as well as his h…

The college year at Wyoming Catholic College ends with the formality and pomp of graduation as we award degrees and bid another class farewell. The year begins with another, largely-forgotten ceremony equally formal, meaningful, and full of academic pomp: Matriculation in which each new freshmen adds his or her signature to the matricula, the large…

Nathaniel Hawthorne begins his 1843 short story “The Birthmark,” “In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one.” That is, he married a beautiful wo…

“A number of people, by now,” wrote Wendell Berry, “have told me that I could greatly improve things by buying a computer. My answer is that I am not going to do it.” As the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought considered the topic “The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology” this past June, we thought we end not only Martin Heidegger, but with …

If you ask any philosophy student which philosopher is the most challenging to understand and read, chances are she’ll say, “Martin Heidegger.” Despite the difficulties inherent in reading Heidegger, as this year’s Wyoming School of Catholic Thought considered issues surrounding technology, we read his 1953 essay “The Question Concerning Technology…

As Robert Walton and his ship attempted to find a route to the North Pole, they discovered on a small ice flow a dog sled with an exhausted passenger, a man named Viktor Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus tells a cautionary story about technology. Using all the scientific learning and technology he could …

In addition to being an Anglican priest, Jonathan Swift had a special gift for satire. "Satire," he wrote “is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.” Writing amid the scientific an…

Francis Bacon famously noted that, “Knowledge is power.” And the knowledge of science that then leads to the knowledge of technology brings enormous power. In his book The New Atlantis, published in 1627, the year after his death, Francis Bacon imagines being lost in the Pacific Ocean and landing in an unknown country, one filled with scientific an…

…[W]hatever is in motion must be put in motion by another,” wrote St. Thomas Aquinas at the beginning of his Summa Theologiae, “If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover,…

In the early 1990s—a mere thirty years ago— America Online was launched into cyberspace and the Hubble Telescope was launched into outer space. These have changed our lives. And it’s an odd parallel to two technological advancements from the Middle Ages—one from 1436 and another from 1608. In 1436, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented a pri…

Genesis 1 tells us, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” As the college’s 2023 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought considered “The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology,” the Scriptures proved a vital guide to invention and evaluation. At the school, Dr. Tonkowich gave this in…

Now have we journeyed to a spot of earth Remote-the Scythian wild, a waste untrod. And now, Hephaestus, thou must execute The task our father laid on thee, and fetter This malefactor to the jagged rocks In adamantine bonds infrangible; For thine own blossom of all forging fire He stole and gave to mortals; trespass grave For which the Gods have cal…

In the Phaedrus, Plato wrote about writing that, “it will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories, they will trust to external written characters and not remember of themselves.” It seems almost beyond believing that as we worry about technologies such as artificial intelligence and smart phones, Plato …

Hephaestus was the Greek god of technology. Unlike Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and the others who were unspeakably beautiful and strong, Hephaistos talks in Homer’s Iliad about “my own brazen-faced mother, who wanted to hid me, for being lame.” Wyoming Catholic College recently held our adult learning week, The Wyoming School of Catholic Thought. Our top…

Like all graduating seniors, Wyoming Catholic College seniors look forward to baccalaureate robes, degrees, and moving their mortarboards tassels from, right to left. But much more than the typical academic regalia, our seniors look forward to being awarded that most coveted graduation emblem, a black Wyoming Catholic College Stetson. Those cowboy …

The 2023 Wyoming Catholic College graduation speaker and recipient of the college Sedes Sapientiae award was Most Reverend Samuel J. Aquila, the archbishop for the Archdiocese of Denver. His words were realistic about the challenges we face as a culture and as a Church, but there were nonetheless words filled with hope. After the graduation ceremon…

Each year the Wyoming Catholic College senior class chooses one of its members to deliver a speech at graduation. The Class of 2023 chose Miss Emma Hermanson. Before coming to Wyoming Catholic College, Emma Hermanson spent her high school years at a classical school in Colorado. At Wyoming Catholic, her favorite part of the curriculum was the human…

This past Saturday, May 13 began what we’ve come to call our graduation triduum, three days of celebrating the achievements of ther Wyoming Catholic College Class of 2023. Graduation weekend begins with the senior dinner on Saturday evening—seniors, faculty, and staff only. Monday was Commencement. And Sunday, after Baccalaureate Mass we held The P…

BENEDICK But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark…

There was a time not too long ago when every church had a church choir. Ordinary people knew how to sing parts and often tackled difficult pieces of music with wonderful results. At Wyoming Catholic College, the choir loft in our oratory and, during special masses such as our upcoming graduation mass, the choir loft at Holy Rosary Church here in La…