Christendom College Bulletin

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Summer Programs

• High School Summer Program
• Summer Institutes
• Study Abroad Program
  

High School Summer Program for Rising Seniors

Each summer Christendom College opens its doors to senior high school students so they can get a taste of Christendom's liberal arts program and campus life. Choosing between a one-week or a two-week session, students take courses in Theology, Philosophy, Literature, and History which leads them to explore and strive to answer such questions as, What is the relationship between faith and reason? What is the "good" and why must we choose it? In what ways do noble characters in literature convey transcendent truths by their actions? How can we work to restore all things in Christ? How can one man make a difference?

Not only will students enjoy the pastoral tranquility of the Christendom campus, they will also paddle down the glorious Shenandoah River and explore picturesque Blue Ridge Mountain trails. In addition to the sylvan beauty of the Shenandoah Valley, the students will be treated to the rich cultural and historic fare offered by nearby Washington, DC. They will visit the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the John Paul II Center, and national museums such as the National Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, and the National Gallery of Art. There also will be time for pick-up volleyball and basketball games and for pool-side relaxation. Mass and Confession are available daily. For further information contact the Admissions Office, 800-877-5456 or admissions@christendom.edu.

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Summer Institutes

G. K. Chesterton once said that the problem with modern man was not that he believed in nothing, but that he would believe in anything. Today a widespread hunger for vital religious experience–whether through cults, New Age movements, or more traditional religious forms–bears witness to the exhaustion of modern secular humanism. The ever-present danger, as Chesterton suggests, is that men will subscribe to the easy answers of the cults or a liberalized "Christianity" that merely baptizes current cultural suppositions, rather than accept the challenge of Christ and His Church. In Christefideles Laici, the late Pope John Paul II wrote:

The situation today points to an ever-increasing urgency for a doctrinal formation of the lay faithful, not simply a better understanding which is natural to faith's dynamism, but also enabling them to "give a reason for their hope" in view of the world and its grave and complex problems.

If the crisis of modernity is to be addressed, Catholics must return to their theological, philosophical, historical, cultural, and aesthetic roots. The Christendom College Summer Institutes were established to address the challenges of secular modernity and the urgent need to present anew the riches of the Catholic intellectual and spiritual tradition to a society hungering for the Truth. Students in the summer institutes form a community of minds and hearts in search of an integrated understanding of the richness of the Catholic Faith.

The Summer Institutes have included the following topics: Natural Theology: Metaphysics and Philosophy of God (1987), The Catholic Artist in the Modern World & The Classic Tradition of Catholic Spirituality (1988), The Incarnation and the Dynamics of Western Culture (1989), Apologetics for the '90s: Defending the Faith in the Post-Modern Age (1990-1992), Evangelization Within the Church (1993), Defending the Faith: The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), Holy Scripture: Restoring the Catholic Tradition (1995), The Wisdom of St. Thomas: The Perennial Philosophy for the Third Millennium (1996), Patristics and the Catholic Tradition (1997), The Gospel of Jesus Christ (2000), A Spiritual Odyssey (2001), Building the Civilization of Love (2002), and John Paul II's Prophetic Vision for the Renewal of Christian Culture (2004), The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church (2005), and Pope Benedict XVI: A New Pontificate (2006).

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Christendom Study Abroad Program
Also see Junior Semester in Rome

The vision of the Study Abroad Program is inspired by the seminal work of the Catholic historian, Christopher Dawson, who wrote this in The Historic Reality of Christian Culture:

The tradition [of Christian culture] exists today, for though the Church no longer inspires and dominates the external culture of the modern world, it still remains the guardian of all the riches of its own inner life. . . . If society were once again Christian . . . this sacred tradition would once more flow out into the world and fertilize the culture of societies yet unborn. Thus the movement toward Christian culture is at one and the same time a voyage into the unknown, in the course of which new worlds of human experience will be discovered, and a return to our own fatherland–to the sacred tradition of the Christian past which flows underneath the streets and cinemas and skyscrapers of the new Babylon as the tradition of patriarchs and prophets flowed beneath the palaces and amphitheaters of Imperial Rome.

Inaugurated in 1992, the Christendom College Summer Study Abroad Program offers three weeks of intensive study during which students achieve an integrated understanding of Catholic culture in the Catholic regions of Europe. As part of the program, two courses totaling six semester hours of college credit are offered. The program begins with one week of introductory orientation lectures on the Christendom College campus at Front Royal, followed by two weeks of travel and immersion in the European Catholic culture. The Summer Study Abroad Program offerings include

a) Christendom in Ireland The Summer Study Abroad program offers three weeks of intensive study of the Catholic culture and history of Ireland. Travels include visits to early monastic sites highlighting Ireland's contribution to Western Civilization. Emphasis is placed upon how the living Catholic Faith can deeply form a people's identity. Six hours of college credit are offered in Irish history and literature.

b) Christendom in Europe The Summer Study Abroad Program plans to add additional summer programs in Europe, perhaps in Spain, France, Bohemia and the Catholic Alpine regions of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Italy. Christendom in Europe will examine the development of Catholic culture in Western Europe, with special emphasis on the monastic foundations of the Catholic Faith in the early Middle Ages, the flowering of Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture before the Protestant Revolt, and of Baroque art and architecture following the Counter-Reformation, as well as the continuity of a Catholic musical culture from Gregorian Chant to Renaissance Polyphony, Baroque, Classical, and Modern sacred music.

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