For the past several years, The Portsmouth Institute has offered a symposium in Providence dedicated to covering current topics of interest. This year’s gathering features Robert Royal, author and editor-in-chief, The Catholic Thing, in discussion with James Matthew Wilson, poet, Professor of Humanities and Founding Director of the MFA in Creative Writing, University of Saint Thomas, Houston. The title of the discussion is, “Reclaiming the Catholic Imagination.” It is a bit of a homecoming for Dr. Royal, who received his B.A. and M.A. from Brown university, later returning to teach there. He is currently head of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., and was named in 2020 the first St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair in Catholic Studies at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. His interlocutor for the evening, James Matthew Wilson, “has authored dozens of essays, articles, and reviews on all manner of subjects secular and divine, and especially on those where we see the two in their intrinsic relation, as truth, goodness, beauty, and being disclose themselves in art and culture, in the political and intellectual life, in our quest for self knowledge and the contemplation of God. His scholarly work especially focuses on the meeting of aesthetic and ontological form, where the craftsmanship of art-work discloses the truth about being.” (see his website).

The evening is coming up soon, being held Thursday, October 7, at 5:30pm, at the Hope Club, 6 Benevolent Street, Providence. Those interested should register promptly, as the Symposium has a history of filling up. Also, please note that in conjunction with the symposium, a Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary will be held at 4:30pm at the Manning Chapel at Brown University (10 min. walk from Hope Club).