Academic Presentations
“Reassessing Civil and Religious Liberties in the U.S. Constitution,” Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
2024
Catholic University of America
Institute for Human Ecology
“Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America” [watch]
Symposium Thomisticum
Vienna, Austria
“History and Some Philosophers: Toward a Thomistic Philosophy of History”
2023
Princeton University
Department of Politics, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions
“Catholic Influences on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding” [watch]
Catholic University of America
Columbus School of Law
Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
“The Catholic Foundations of the Establishment Clause” [watch]
Ave Maria University
The Pursuit of Wisdom Online Course
“The Rise of American Politics” [watch]
Federalist Society
“Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America” [watch]
2022
Princeton University
Alpheus T. Mason Lecture on Constitutional Law and Political Thought
Department of Politics, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions
“Our Dear-Bought Liberty” [watch]
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame Law School, Religious Liberty Initiative
“Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America” [watch]
Collegium Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture
Penn Club of New York
“How Catholics Became American”
2021
University of Notre Dame
Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and Rome Global Gateway
Book discussion on Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America [watch]
Ave Maria University
Ave Maria Lecture Series Inaugural Address
“The Catholic Quest for Religious Liberty in America”
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Honors Program
“Recovering the Sources of Religious Liberty in the American Founding” [watch]
St. Mary’s County Historical Society, St. Mary’s City, MD
Book talk on Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America [watch]
Catholic Information Center, Washington, DC
Book talk on Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America [watch]
University of Colorado—Colorado Springs
Center for the Study of Government and the Individual
Book talk on Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America [watch]
Fr. Louis Querbes Scholars Program, Saint Viator High School, IL
“Founding Catholic Fathers: Religious Liberty in American History”
Ave Maria University
Honors Program
Book talk on Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America
2020
University of Pennsylvania Law School
“Christian Perspectives on Civil and Religious Identities”
Villanova University
Matthew J. Ryan Center
”How Catholics Became American”
2019
Harvard University
Our Dear-Bought Liberty manuscript workshop
University of Notre Dame
de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture Center
“Oaths, Loyalty, and Friendship in Early American Catholicism”
University of Oxford
Faculty of Law
The Programme for the Foundations of Law and Constitutional Government
“Reassessing Civil and Religious Liberties in the U.S. Constitution”
University of Oxford
Rothermere American Institute
Oxford Early American Republic Seminar
“Sovereign Jealousies: The Quebec Act, Declaration of Independence, and Immigration in the New Republic”
2018
Washington University in St. Louis
Kinder Institute, Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, and Society of Early Americanists
Religion and Politics in Early America Conference
“Maryland’s Church Disestablishment”
2017
Ave Maria University
Faculty Colloquium
“The Conciliar Option: Martin Luther and Church Reform”
George Washington University
Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom
“The Pope's Republic: Liberties and Loyalties in America”
University of Notre Dame
Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism“Lord Baltimore’s Oaths of Allegiance: Catholic Loyalty in Early America”
Oxford Brookes University
Annual Ecclesiastical History Colloquium
“Republican Bishops in the Atlantic World”
University of London
School of Advanced Study
“‘This Damnable Doctrine’: Liberties and Loyalties in Seventeenth-Century Maryland”
2016
Arizona State University
New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
“The Origins of Religious Liberty”
American Maritain Association
Annual Meeting, Fordham University, New York City
“Jacques Maritain and Leo XIII on Church and State”
2015
University of Oxford
Rothermere American Institute Seminar in Constitutional Thought and History
“Conciliar Constitutional Theory in the American Founding”
Ave Maria University
“Dignitatis Humanae and American Religious Liberty”
2014
Villanova University Law School
Law and Religion Colloquium
“The First Amendment in Catholic Historical Context”
American Political Science Association
Annual Meeting, Washington, DC
“Catholic Conscience and Papal Authority in American History”
American Political Science Association
Annual Meeting, Washington, DC
“Anti-Papist Catholics in Early America”
Princeton University
James Madison Program, Department of Politics
“The Historical Origins of John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism”
Princeton University
James Madison Program, Department of Politics
“Conciliarism and Early American Catholicism”
Public Presentations
Photo courtesy of Ave Maria University
“Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America,” St. Mary’s County Historical Society, Maryland [video]
“The Constitution or a Confessional State: What Governance is Best Suited to Man’s Nature?” Constitution Day, Ave Maria University, 2018 (panelist)
“Beauty: Art History and the Aesthetics of Everyday Life,” Leadership Forum of South Florida, 2018 (co-talk with Janice Chik Breidenbach)
“Liberties and Loyalties: Challenges for American Catholics,” Tampa Bay Leadership Conference, 2018
"The Art of Wine," In Vino Sanitas Wine Society, Ave Maria University, 2017
“Church and State: The Challenges for American Catholics,” Leadership Forum of South Florida, 2017
“Columbus and the Confederates,” Ave Maria University, 2017
“Michael Novak and Religious Liberty," Ave Maria University, 2017
“‘This Damnable Doctrine’: Lord Baltimore and Catholic Loyalty in Seventeenth-Century Maryland,” Ave Maria University, 2016
“Liberties and Loyalties in the Age of Trump,” Ave Maria University, 2016
“American and Catholic at the Founding: Dual Citizenship?” Ave Maria University, 2015
"Is History Gossip?" Ave Maria University, 2015
Public Conferences ORganized
“Religious Liberty: 50 Years After Vatican II”
Ave Maria University, 2015
Video of conference on YouTube
Media coverage at the Ave Herald
Participants: Thomas Pink (King’s College, London), Michael Novak (Catholic University of America), David L. Schindler (Pontifical John Paul II Institute at Catholic University of America), Michael Pakaluk (Catholic University of America), Fr. Matthew Lamb (Ave Maria University), Steven Long (Ave Maria University), William McCormick, S.J. (St. Louis University), Joseph Trabbic (Ave Maria University), and Seana Sugrue (Ave Maria University)
“British Christianity and American Religious Liberty”
Princeton University, 2014
Participants: Lord Nicholas Windsor, Lord David Alton (House of Lords/Liverpool John Moores University), and Jan Graffius (Stonyhurst College)
Lord David Alton and Michael Breidenbach at Princeton University