On Oct. 3 and 4, the Gregory the Great Institute launches with the first annual Renewing Culture Conference at the Mount Carmel Spirituality Centre in Parkland Village, Alta.

Education for Virtue is the theme for this event, inviting the lay Catholics and clergy in attendance to reflect upon C.S. Lewis’ defence of classical education and morality, The Abolition of Man. The groundwork for a fruitful discussion was laid over the summer as the institute supported 30 different reading groups — “inkling clubs" — across the country that convened to examine Lewis’ book.

Toronto Cardinal Emeritus Thomas Collins, David Hunt, research director of the Aristotle Foundation, and Dr. Ryan Topping, founder and executive director of the new institute, are among the individuals presenting at the conference. Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, United Conservative Party MLA Dan Williams and Catherine Renneberg, the organization’s director of programs, are the emcees.

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As for the non-profit’s overarching mission, the aspiration is to “equip Christians to renew culture in the light of faith and reason through formation programs, short courses and research that focuses on Catholic life in Canada.”

During an interview with The Catholic Register, Topping, a Catholic educator, author, speaker and researcher, shared why St. Gregory the Great (540-604) — Pope Gregory I — was a natural choice as the institute’s namesake.

“Gregory taught the West to love God in a time of great upheaval,” said Topping. “That was the chief reason why we thought Gregory would be a fantastic model for us. He combines, uniquely, the intellectual apostolate, the love for liturgy and a turn towards the political and the common good. Those are three thrusts we're quite interested in.”

St. Gregory’s Guilds for men aged 16-26 is one of the key formation endeavours offered by the institute out of the gate. These clubs will help young men develop conducts to achieve “physical and intellectual self-mastery” through courses on leadership and manhood, learning to pray in Latin and being sharpened through fellowship and mentorship.

A folk music camp for youth (aged 10-16), inspired by the famed von Trapp Family Music Camp, is expected to be a summertime staple. This three-day event will provide instruction in rounds, reels and other dimensions of Canadian and European folk music.

The Gregory the Great Institute’s intellectual apostolate includes a faith and reason seminar for leaders. This three-day summit is a forum for invited attendees to immerse themselves into rigorous discussion and contemplation about some of the defining books of the Catholic intellectual tradition.

The organization will also offer a slate of online and in-person short courses about the great Catholic tradition. The full slate for the 2025-26 academic year is yet to be announced, but potential topics include the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, Christian beauty and art, virtuous leadership and classical education for teachers.

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As for the research stream of the institute, Topping and a team of research fellows will expand on the work he has already done on the state of vocations in Canada. He and his colleagues will also study how to revive classical education and encourage Catholic life in Canada.

Topping senses the moment is ripe to, as Lewis wrote, “irrigate the desert.”

“I would say that secularism as a cultural project is running out of gas,” said Topping. “It's largely a failed project in that it's shown itself incapable of meeting the deep needs that human beings have for transcendence, for love, for community and for fellowship. It's understandable that there are these signs and markers among various, especially the young, groups of people who are looking for more than what an arid, secular and materialistic approach to life can offer.”

The markers Topping alluded to are the well-documented positive trendlines of young people returning to the pews and leading a noticeable uptick around the world of people reading the Bible.

While potential is apparent for the institute, Topping recognizes the difficulties of the contemporary Canadian landscape.

“When you sever yourself off from the transcendental goods — truth, goodness, beauty — there is a pattern throughout history that one of two, and sometimes both at the same time, responses tend to rise up,” said Topping. “One is resignation. The other is rage. One is a kind of overweening apathy. The other is a death wish to tear down, to pull apart. They can both be understood and they're both evident.

“Practically speaking, internally within the Church, there is a great deal of apathy, even while there's a great deal of interest in renewal and revival,” continued Topping. “And outside of the Church, there's a great deal of both resignation and apathy. These cultural forces are both present and alive within and without.”

Ideally, if the Gregory the Great Institute flowers, Topping envisions this community “planting a flag of joy in the midst of these deserts” and declaring, “no, there is goodness, there is truth and there is beauty. We’re going to participate in it.”

The launch event signals the start of “phase two” for the Gregory the Great Institute, the proof-of-concept experimentation stage. Phase one in late 2024 and early 2025 was centred on securing the seed funding. 

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Phase three, likely in 2027, will be seen as the major liftoff as the team will have greater clarity over what programs and initiatives to carry forward and multiple other major undertakings will be unveiled. A major Canadian Catholic think tank and a formation program for Catholic men in the trades are under development.

Visit https://www.gregorythegreat.ca/ to learn more.