The Valor Institute
for Studies in Person and Community
The Valor Institute for Studies in Person and Community exists to promote a capacious vision of the human person flourishing in community. Our work is a creative response to the defining crises of our time — spiritual and intellectual pathologies rooted in impoverished and reductive understandings of what it means to be human, of what constitutes authentic community, and of our proper relationship to the created world. The Valor Institute seeks to manifest John Paul II’s affirmation of the “inviolable mystery and dignity of the human person.”
Through our study of the entire Western historical, philosophical, theological, and literary tradition, we deepen our understanding of the human person as a unity of body and soul, capable of truth, love, and moral transformation, opposed to ideologies that see human beings as consumers, workers, or biological machines. Further, we promote a vision for authentic community rooted in a broad vision of the common good, beyond a view of transactional community that exists only to serve individual preference and desire. Finally, we cultivate a metaphysics of gift, which approaches all of creation first with wonder and gratitude, against the technological ontology that sees the material world as something merely to be used.
In the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar, we are “guardians of metaphysical wonder,” called to encounter the deepest realities and affirm what is true, good, and beautiful in the person, community, and creation.
“Life is hunger, thirst, and passion for an ultimate object, which looms over the horizon, and yet always lies beyond it. When this is recognized, man becomes a tireless searcher.”
— Luigi Giussani
Recent Speakers & Retreat Leaders
Dr. Jonathan J. Sanford
UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS
Dr. D. C. Schindler
JOHN PAUL II INSTITUTE
Dr. Glenn Arbery
WYOMING CATHOLIC COLLEGE
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
— Gerard Manley Hopkins
Academic Retreats
Our multi-day academic retreats are small gatherings focused on great texts, thoughtful conversations, and intellectual friendship. Each retreat is led by a professor and focuses on a specific thinker, theme, topic, or text. The heart of the retreat is a robust academic program consisting of twelve one-hour sessions.
Our Programs
Symposia
Our symposia are large gatherings that celebrate the intellectual life among friends. With opportunities for seminar, lecture, and fellowship, participants are invited into authentic community. These days seek to deepen our understanding of a full human life by integrating timely reflections with timeless truths.
College Student Retreats
Our week-long college student retreats bring together thoughtful undergraduates from across the country to develop authentic community and intellectual friendship. Led by a professor and focused on a specific thinker, theme, topic, or text, these retreats have time for seminar, lecture, fellowship, and encounters the natural world.
“I devote my very rare free moments to a work that is close to my heart and devoted to the metaphysical significance and the mystery of the person. It seems to me that the debate today is being played on that level. The evil of our times consists in the first place in a kind of degradation, indeed in a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person. This evil is even much more of the metaphysical than of the moral order. To this disintegration, planned at times by atheistic ideologies, we must oppose, rather than sterile polemics, a kind of ‘recapitulation’ of the mystery of the person.”
— Karol Wojtyla
Recent Lectures & Addresses
“No one can obtain felicity by pursuit. This explains why one of the elements of being happy is the feeling that a debt of gratitude is owed, a debt impossible to pay. Now, we do not owe gratitude to ourselves. To be conscious of gratitude is to acknowledge a gift.”
— Josef Pieper
Contact the Valor Institute
The Valor Institute exists to promote an adequate philosophical anthropology, and we’d love to work with you to further our mission. Let us know if you’re interested in leading or attending an event, partnering with us, or donating to support our work.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
