Aquinas Lecture – Stephan Van Erp

On Monday January 27, 2025, Professor Stephan van Erp (KU Leuven) presented the annual Aquinas Lecture at Regis St. Michael’s College, at the invitation of the Dominican Institute of Toronto. The title of the lecture was “A Temple for a Complex World: the Dominican Institute of Toronto”. According to Van Erp, universities can be seen as temples where openness to truth is practiced, and where plurality and openness in research and education are protected. He described Catholic universities as laboratories where different disciplines, cultures and traditions engage and interact. In this way, universities are spaces where the catholicity of reality is contemplated, enabling them to become communities in search of their Catholic identity.