Annual Symposium to Discuss Aquinas on Marriage

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Symposium: Did Aquinas See Love as Essential in Marriage?

Saint Mary’s College Hosts 13th Annual Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas

Contact:
Gwen O’Brien
Director of Media Relations
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, Ind.
(574) 284-4579

January 6, 2010 (Notre Dame, Ind.)—Saint Mary's College will host its 13th annual Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas on Thursday, January 28, at 7 p.m. in the Student Center Lounge. The event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture.

This year’s speaker is Angela McKay Knobel, an assistant professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America. Knobel, who received her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, will speak on “Aquinas and Marriage as Friendship.”

Knobel will share Aquinas’ thoughts and their contemporary relevance. “While recent Catholic thinkers have claimed that the central purpose of marriage is the love between man and woman, Aquinas's discussions of marriage often appear to disregard love entirely,” Knobel says. “In this talk, I want to ask whether and how St. Thomas thought love was important in a marriage.”  But what can this 13th-century friar possibly have to say to 21st-century women and men on the subject of marriage?

The Aquinas symposium occurs each year to honor St. Thomas Aquinas on his feast day and is sponsored by the Joyce McMahon Hank Aquinas Chair in Catholic Theology, held by Dr. Joseph Incandela, professor of religious studies and associate dean of faculty at Saint Mary's College. For more information on the event, call (574) 284-4584. Click here for a campus map.

About Saint Mary’s College: Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind., is a four-year, Catholic, women’s institution offering five bachelor’s degrees and more than 30 major areas of study. Saint Mary’s College has six nationally accredited academic programs: social work, art, music, teacher education, chemistry and nursing. Saint Mary's College ranks among the nation's top 100 liberal arts colleges in U.S. News & World Report's 2010 annual survey. Founded in 1844, Saint Mary’s is a pioneer in the education of women, and is sponsored by the Sisters of the Holy Cross.