St. Albert’s Priory | Oakland, CA
Join other students of the Thomistic Institute for an Intellectual Retreat!
Students will have the opportunity to attend talks about how the saints and their role in Catholic Social Teaching, participate in Mass, attend Eucharistic Adoration, pray the Divine Office with the Dominican community, and attend socials with students and friars throughout the weekend.
Thanks to the generosity of our benefactors, meals and housing will be provided free for accepted applicants.
Limited travel scholarships are available upon request.
Schedule:
Begins with check-in from 3:00 - 4:00 pm on Friday, October 31
Concludes with check-out at 1:30 pm on Sunday, November 2
Speakers:
Fr. Brad Elliott, O.P., Fr. Brad Elliott was raised in Dayton Ohio and studied Jazz percussion at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. After being raised as a Missouri Synod Lutheran he entered the Catholic Church in 2002. After ten years as a professional drum set player and feeling a call to commit himself entirely to Jesus Christ, Fr. Brad chose to leave the music industry and become a Dominican friar within Western Dominican Province. After completing theological studies, he was ordained to the priesthood of Jesus Christ on June, 22nd 2018 at St. Dominic’s Church in San Francisco, CA.
In 2014 Fr. Brad received an MA in philosophy from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley CA. In 2021 he received a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC. In 2025 he completed a Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC focusing on the role of human craft and participatory governance in the social doctrine of the Church. He is currently a professor of Moral Theology at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California. He authored the book The Shape of the Artistic Mind published by Pontifex University Press in 2023.
Prof. James Felak (University of Washington) is a Professor of History and current holder of the Newman Center Term Professorship in Catholic Christianity at the University of Washington. He specializes in Catholicism in East Central Europe and has authored two books on Catholic politics in Slovakia, and a book on Pope John Paul II and his visits to his native Poland during and after Communist rule there. This latter work is based on hundreds of pages of papal speeches and sermons, and the records of the Communist government and secret police as they monitored the Pope during his visits. Besides courses on modern Europe, Felak teaches “The History of Christianity” and “Catholic Classics in Historical Context.” The latter course covers the major Catholic writers and thinkers from St. Augustine and St. Benedict through G. K. Chesterton and Flannery O’Connor. Felak is from southwestern Pennsylvania, received his doctorate from Indiana University, and has resided in Seattle since 1989.
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Questions? Contact Ms. Bridget Arbuckle at barbuckle@dhs.edu.