The Way of Beauty: The Church and the Arts

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The Thomistic Institute

1798 episodes

1 day ago

The Thomistic Institute exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities, in the Church, and in the wider public square. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, is our touchstone. The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more. Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.

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Philosophy

Society & Culture,

Christianity

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The Way of Beauty: The Church and the Arts – Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

34 minutes 29 seconds

5 days ago

The Way of Beauty: The Church and the Arts – Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P.

Fr. Innocent Smith explores how beauty in art, architecture, and liturgy forms the soul, elevates worship, and points to God, showing that the Church’s cultivation of beauty is essential for evangelization, spiritual maturity, and experiencing the divine.

This lecture was given on October 6th, 2025, at University of Virginia.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the speaker:

Innocent Smith, O.P., is Assistant Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. After undergraduate studies in music and philosophy at Notre Dame, he entered the Order of Preachers in 2008 and was ordained priest in 2015. Fr. Innocent served in parish ministry for several years before completing a doctorate in liturgical studies at the University of Regensburg in 2021. After teaching for several years in Baltimore and Washington, DC, he joined the Department of Theology in 2025. His research focuses on the material and musical aspects of medieval liturgical books as well as the relationship between liturgy and theology. His monograph Bible Missals and the Medieval Dominican Liturgy explores medieval manuscripts of the Bible that also contain liturgical texts for the celebration of Mass.

Keywords: Beauty, Evangelization, Eucharistic Worship, Goodness Truth And Beauty, Incarnation, Liturgical Architecture, Liturgical Diversity, Religious Art History, Sacred Music, Virtue Of Religion