Papal Knight to Speak at Saint Benedict Center Conference

Sir Charles

[Saint Benedict Center] The Saint Benedict Center, administered by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, will hold its fifteenth annual conference on October 7-8, 2011. The conference will be held on the monastery grounds in Richmond, New Hampshire. Call 603-239-6485, email bam@catholicism.org, or visit cat.catholicism.org for registration information.

The theme of this year’s conference will be Right and Freedom: Catholic Considerations on Misused Concepts. Included in the list of speakers is author, papal historian, and lecturer, Charles A. Coulombe, K.C.S.S. By order of Pope John Paul II, Mr. Coulombe was created a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Sylvester for his services rendered to the Holy See. Author of the chart-climbing The Pope's Legion, and Puritan’s Empire: A Catholic Perspective on American History, Coulombe is recognized internationally for his in-depth knowledge of Vatican politics and the influence of Catholicism in America and Europe. His audiences regularly range from graduate students at Oxford University, England to the New Mexico Military Institute, from which he graduated. His international articles have appeared in the New Oxford Review, National Catholic Register, American Thinker, Los Angeles Catholic Mission, Monarchy Canada, and The Irish Democrat.

The list of speakers also includes retired U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer Dr. Robert Hickson, a former professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Defense Intelligence College, and former Chairman of the Literature and Latin Department at Christendom College. Joining Dr. Hickson will be the celebrated Catholic writer and chronicler of the traditionalist movement in the Church, Gary Potter, the founding editor of Triumph magazine and the author of After the Boston Heresy Case.

Other speakers include Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M., Prior of the Saint Benedict Center since 2002, and lecturer in the fields of apologetics, ecclesiology, church history and devotional practices; Boston’s veteran culture warrior and noted defender of the Faith, C.J. Doyle, Executive Director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts; and noted Catholic psychotherapist and lecturer, G.C. Dilsaver, PsyD, MTS, author of Imago Dei Psychotherapy: A Catholic Conceptualization and The Three Marks of Manhood: How to Be Priest, Prophet and King of Your Family.

Brother André Marie made the following comment: “This year, our conference will explore two very maltreated concepts, both of which are necessary for an orderly natural society, and both of which are elevated by God in the real life, the life of grace, which we live in God’s true Church. In these days when increasing governmental hubris both asserts non-extant 'rights,' (e.g., 'gay marriage') and denies fundamental human freedom (e.g., abortion), Catholics must recover and safeguard the proper notions of right and freedom. As usual, our fine panel of speakers will treat their subject in a way that is both illuminating and motivating, informative and practical. They will show how the solutions to the ills of society, the family, and the individual soul are to be found in Catholic tradition.”

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered according to the traditional Roman Rite (“Extraordinary Form”) during the conference, as it always is offered at Saint Benedict Center.