Upcoming Events

2025 Stillman Lecture Series at the Basilica

2025 Stillman Lecture Four

Rupture or Reform?: From Trent to Vatican II

Speaker: Dr. Eric DeMeuse

Thursday, November 20, 2025

The relationship between “Tridentine/traditional” versus “Vatican II” Catholicism has grown increasingly fraught in the last decade. Dr. Eric DeMeuse’s lecture will explore the historical roots of this tension from Trent to Vatican II and examine:

- What does the authority of the Church entail?

- How should the Church worship in her liturgy?

- How should the Church relate to the modern state?

Eric J. DeMeuse, PhD, is the headmaster of Chesterton Academy of Milwaukee where he has taught theology for seven years. He received a PhD in theology from Marquette University, a masters in theology from Villanova University, and a bachelors degree in history from Hillsdale College. He recently published a book with Oxford University Press entitled Unity and Catholicity in Christ: The Ecclesiology of Francisco Suárez, SJ,(2022) and has published numerous articles and book chapters on ecclesiology and on Catholicism between Trent and Vatican II with Brill, Oxford, Routledge, and The Journal of Theological Studies, among others. He lives in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, with his wife and six children.

Past Events

Stillman Lecture Series at the Basilica

2025 Stillman Lecture Three

Councils for Christendom and Beyond: Governing Perfection in the Central Middle Ages

Speaker: Donald Prudlo

Thursday, September 11, 2025

The Councils of the Medieval period (1000-1500) represent the Church maturing in her self-understanding while refining her relationships to the broader world. This lecture will be a thematic (rather than a specifically chronological) examination of four key areas: ecclesiastical reform, the constitution of the Church, the healing of the rift between eastern and western Christianity, and the struggle against medieval heresies. It was the councils of this period that outlined the Church that we know today in her institutions, practices, and offices; to know them is to know who we are as Catholics better.

2025 Stillman Lecture Two

Hymning the Icon of the Invisible God: How the Later Christological Councils Show Us the Christ

Speaker: Fr, Andrew Summerson

Thursday, June 12, 2025

“Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks a heavy question. To get this question wrong, risks getting Christianity itself wrong. In the second half of the first millennium, this query from the gospel still echoed. Christians labored over the right responses to Jesus’s words in their theology, prayer, and preaching to draw others more deeply into the mystery of Christ. In this lecture, Fr. Andrew will give an overview of the councils, contexts, and figures that shaped this language and how we are to look upon Christ—God’s human face—and praise him with the words and traditions formed in this period from Chalcedon to Nicaea II.

2025 Stillman Lecture One

Why Sunday's Creed is More Than Words: Orthodoxy, the Integrity of Christian Identity, and the Earliest Ecumenical Councils

Dr. Jim Papandrea led us through the drama of the first four Ecumenical Councils (325-451 A.D.) that fought over and answered the fundamental, life-shaping questions: Who — and what — is Jesus Christ? Who — and what — is God, the Trinity? What is Christianity? What is a Christian?

2024 Stillman Lecture Three:

Liturgical Prayer: Let Us Go into God’s Presence Singing for Joy

Speaker: Fr. Brad Krawczyk

Thursday, November 21st

Vespers: 6:00pm (optional)

Talk: 6:30pm

Refreshments and Q&A to follow in the Undercroft

2024 Stillman Lecture Two:

Raising the Mind and Heart to God: Prayer in the Catholic Tradition

Speaker: Bishop James T. Schuerman

Tuesday, September 17th

Vespers: 6:00pm (optional)

Talk: 6:30pm

Refreshments and Q&A to follow in the Undercroft

2024 Stillman Lecture One:

20 Centuries in 20 Objects: The History of the Church through the Art and Architecture of the Basilica of St. Josaphat

Speaker: Dr. Paul Monson

Wednesday, June 5th

Vespers: 6:00pm (optional)

Talk: 6:30pm

Refreshments and Q&A to follow in the Undercroft

The Church and the Land:
A Practical Symposium

Wethersfield Institute is honored to co-sponsor this event at the Catholic Ecology Center with the St. Irenaeus Institute for Catholic Thought and the CEC.

Celebrate the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi at the CEC in a family-friendly setting as we consider how cultivating the earth through gardening and homesteading enriches the life of Catholic faith, with special guests Shawn and Beth Dougherty. All ages and experiences are welcome!

Where: Catholic Ecology Center - W1468 County Road NN Neosho, WI 53059

First Annual: Saturday, October 5th, 2024

Second Annual: Saturday, September 27th, 2025

Rooted: an Interview with Jamie Blackett

Rooted: an Interview with Sophie Scruton

Rooted: Cultivating a Green Philosophy

The Wethersfield Institute is honored to partner with The Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation in hosting a series of virtual interviews led by Grace Olmstead. Throughout the series, Grace and her guests will cover a wide variety of topics that relate back to Scruton's love of home - what he referred to as Oikophilia.