I was asked to speak tonight about the need for Catholic intellectuals today, which begs of several questions that are very simple, but perhaps because they're simple, they're challenging.

What do we mean when we talk about being an intellectual? Why is that a useful or important facet of culture?

Is being a Catholic compatible with being an intellectual?

What does a Catholic intellectual have to offer culture?

More generally, and the church in a specific way.

So I'm going to spend the first part of the talk simply exploring those very fundamental questions.

And then the second part of the talk I'm going to really try to focus in on what I take

to be three, you might say, extremely important challenging zones or areas where I think

Catholic intellectual life can make a massive impact on our contemporary culture if we accept

a challenge and if we move forward with a kind of courage,

insight, and serenity.

So let me begin by just trying to accept the definition of what it is to be an intellectual

as a question or a problem.

When you read ancient philosophers,

they don't necessarily talk about the task of the philosophers

to be an intellectual.

It's a kind of contemporary parlance word.

But I think what we mean by it, most especially,

is a person who tries to achieve an integrated

and insightful vision of reality

that integrates facets of learning from various disciplines

and allows us to achieve a kind of orientation on what the purpose of human existence is

...