Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Dr. Matthew Patrusick, Senior Director of the

Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire show. Thank you, as always, for joining us.

Friends, in honor of St. John Henry Newman's recently being named a doctor of the church,

we're bringing you Bishop Barron's entire Word on Fire Institute lecture series on John Henry Newman.

Throughout these next several weeks, we'll dive deep into one of Bishop Barron's spiritual and intellectual heroes.

As always, enjoy.

So we're continuing our study of the idea of university, Newman's great analysis of how to make a university both a university and Catholic.

He's putting a great stress on his Oxford background. What he took in as a student and then a teacher as well at Oxford,

the beauty of this intellectual city, the structure of what he finds compelling. But he's

trying to think now together the religious and the academic. What role does religion play

within the circle of university disciplines?

And we've seen a very interesting progression.

Some have been urging, let's get theology out of the circle of university sciences.

Religion's a private matter.

It's a matter of subjective conviction.

Newman's saying, first of all, no, if it's a universitas, it's about the universe of knowledge. Of course, it belongs. But then he's pressing it, it seems to me.

Not only does it belong around the table, it belongs in many ways at the center of things.

Now, keep in mind, go back to the Middle Ages. Theology was called the Regina Sancerum.

It was called the Queen of the Sciences.

First of all, it was clearly a science.

Read Thomas Aquinas on that.

But more to it, it wasn't just one among many.

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