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The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tomistic Institute chapters around the world.

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visit us at to mystic institute.org. But it's a real privilege for me to be here in St. Andrew's with you, a place where so much good, really good theological research and teaching is happening

in what seems to be, as far as I can tell, a very healthily ecumenical atmosphere.

Of course, we know things weren't always so, and this town and region were marked by religious

violence in the wake of the Reformation, violence in both directions.

One of the first names I saw on a plaque when I arrived here in St. Andrews was Patrick Hamilton, right?

One of the first martyrs of the Scottish Reformation. So in bringing Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin into conversation,

I'm not attempting to stir up all that strife, to restage the wrestling match of confessional debates.

Rather, I'm convinced as a Catholic theologian that it is a good

and fruitful thing to read classic Protestant writings serenely and charitably, seeking to understand

the reformation on its own terms. And the more time I've spent reading John Calvin, the more I appreciate

the diligence and majesty of his whole theological enterprise, even if I don't subscribe to it.

I'll be ultimately pointing to something that I find lacking in Calden tonight, so I want to make that basic appreciation clear from the start.

In fact, as I was flying into Scotland today, another conflict altogether came to mind, not Catholic-Protisan conflict, but intra-Catholic. So I was

recently doing a bit of research on Irish-Dominican friars, sent on mission to the Outer Hebrides in the 1760s.

And the Catholic prelate who was responsible for the area, Hugh MacDonald, wrote a letter to the

Dominicans about how great the mission would be.

He said the islands of Eust and Barra were pleasant, comfortable places where destitution is unknown,

where nothing is lacking to make life agreeable.

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