The Lay Centre community held, on Nov. 30, the “Dies Academicus 2024,” an open day in which they welcome visitors and engage in fruitful intellectual dialogue.
Five Lay Centre residents presented topics they have been studying and discussed them with those present in the audience. This is an annual event organized by The Lay Centre to encourage our residential scholars to share the fruit of their research with our friends in Rome.
- ‘Do we need to build bridges?,’ by Karina Gandur
- ‘Community as a Heritage,’ by Luiza Della Giustina Da Correggio
- ‘Prevention: a way to build a safer Church,’ by Sara Staiano
- ‘The Catholic Church and International Law,’ by Lourdes Spossito
After the sessions, guests joined the community for lunch. The presentations were very diverse and included topics in history, culture, psychology, theology, and spirituality. The third speaker was Joshua Pyle, an undergraduate student from Canada. He spoke about “The Consequences of Not Rhyming.”
His presentation was a reflection on the essential definition of poetry, drawing some inspiration from Aristotle. It focused on free verse poetry and explored why this genre does not fit into the essential definition. Some possible philosophical and moral consequences of free verse were be explored. Joshua also discussed some Catholic poets who, in his view, were true to their art.
Joshua Pyle was born and raised in Saskatchewan, Canada. After high school, he spent a brief period of time studying Physics at the University of Alberta. But the focus of his studies quickly changed, and he subsequently moved to Rome to study Philosophy. He is currently studying in the Baccalaureate of Philosophy program at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum).