Aquinas Lecture to feature Bishop Oscar A. Solis
SALT LAKE CITY — The Most Rev. Oscar A. Solis, tenth Bishop of Salt Lake City, will present the 2019 Aquinas Lecture at St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center.
The title of Bishop Solis’ talk will be “40 Years in the Lord’s Field: Serving God’s People in Five Dioceses on Two Continents.”
Bishop Solis, who was born in San Jose City, the Philippines, was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Manila on April 28, 1979. After pastoral assignments in his home country, he came to the United States and served in the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J. from 1984 to 1988. From 1993 to 2003 he was a parish priest in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, La. He then was appointed an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he also served as the vicar for ethnic ministry.
On Jan. 10, 2017 he was appointed Bishop of Salt Lake City; he was installed on March 7 of that year.
The Aquinas Lecture “has a rich history,” said Dominican Father Lukasz Misko, the parish’s director of campus ministry. In recent years, speakers have included Edwina Gateley, founder of the Volunteer Missionary Movement; author and journalist Jesuit Father Thomas Reese; Franciscan Sister Florence Deacon, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious; and Peter Kreeft, author of many books of philosophy, theology and apologetics.
Several of the speakers addressed current controversial national topics. In considering the 2018 Aquinas Lecture, the parish leadership opted to skip the year as they changed focus. Now, the intent is for the Aquinas Lecture to be the intellectual highlight of the parish’s university ministry, Fr. Lukasz said.
The parish serves the University of Utah and Westminster College, and “we want to be even deeper connected to what’s called the ministry of thinking – it’s a challenge and responsibility that perhaps local parishes can’t tackle,” Fr. Lukasz said.
Bishop Solis said he will speak about some of the significant Church issues during the years from Vatican II to the present, and how these impacted the faith life of the people he has served. In addition, he will discuss “highlights of my pastoral ministry as a pastor and then as a bishop in this context,” he said.
Prior to the lecture, Bishop Solis will preside at the parish’s regular 10:45 a.m. Sunday Mass. The Aquinas Lecture will take about an hour and will include a question-and-answer session. It will be followed by a reception.
In the future, the Aquinas Lecture would like to invite writers and theologians and intellectuals who can show from different angles the Catholic tradition, which is ever ancient, ever new, said Fr. Lukasz, paraphrasing the famous quote from St. Augustine.
The annual Aquinas Lecture is named after St. Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican theological scholar, and is intended to carry on his teaching of the Catholic faith, Fr. Lukasz said.
WHAT: Aquinas Lecture
WHEN: Sunday, Feb. 10, noon
WHERE: St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center, 170 University St., Salt Lake City
Free and open to the public.
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