About the Lonergan Workshop
*Please note, scroll down for this year's registration link and schedule.*
Bernard Lonergan hoped that his work would yield 鈥渙ngoing collaboration鈥� among intelligent and faithful people. For more than fifty years, the Lonergan Workshop at Boston College has brought thousands of people into that cooperative project.
The Lonergan Workshop was founded in 1972 by Emeritus Prof. Fred Lawrence and his wife, Sue Lawrence. For fifty years, Fred and Sue welcomed artists, psychologists, philosophers, theologians, sociologists, people in the worlds of business, law, and medicine, educators, physicists, social workers, biologists, and many others to the Workshop, publishing the proceedings in the Lonergan Workshop Journal. Fred and Sue made it a priority that the Workshop be financially accessible to everyone who wanted to attend, and cultivated the cooperative spirit which made that possible.
At the Workshop, scholars deeply engaged in Lonergan studies come together with practitioners and experts on the year's theme; presentations are followed by ample time for conversation; and friendship and hospitality animate the whole proceeding in the spirit of its founders.
Everyone is welcome.
LW 53, 2026: Progress, Decline, Redemption
June 15-18, Boston College Connors Center
Registration available via the link below! (Schedule forthcoming)
Registration Logistics
The 2026 Lonergan Workshop will be held at the听Boston College Connors Center听from Monday, June 15 at 4 PM to Thursday, June 18 at 11 AM. The full conference "Schedule of Probabilities" will be available soon.
The conference registration fee is $75 per full day (Tuesday and Wednesday), or $35 per half day (Monday and Thursday), or $200 for all four days. This fee covers all meals and drinks (including beer and wine).Rooms at the Connors Center are available for $80 per night.听All rooms are private; some rooms include private bathrooms and others have a shared hall bathroom.听
Scholarships are available (you can note this at the end of the registration form). Registration is free for BC faculty, staff, and students.Registering via the form听below confirms your registration and housing; you can pay via credit card after June 1st (we will contact the email听you list here听and provide that link, which will also be available here on our website听after June 1st).听You can pay either before or听for up to two weeks after the conference.
If you have any questions, please email us at听bclonergan@gmail.com.
Conference Logistics
The 2026 Lonergan Workshop will be held Monday, June 16th through Thursday, June 18th at the Boston College Connors Center听at 20 Glen Street, Dover, MA 02030. Programming will run all day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. If you are planning to stay overnight at the Connors Center, you are welcome to book a room for Sunday evening as the first session on Monday will begin at 8:30 AM; similarly, please plan to depart on Thursday morning as the final dinner will be Wednesday evening.
Some of the Workshop conference sessions will be livestreamed via Zoom; for the Zoom link and information, please email bclonergan@gmail.com.
Check-in for those staying at the Connors Center is available anytime during the conference, starting at 3:00 PM on Sunday. There is a registration table right when you enter the Connors Center, where our graduate students will have your registration packet and room key. If you plan to arrive and check-in after 9 PM or before 8:45 AM, please email Mary Elliot at听 bclonergan@gmail.com to let us know your anticipated arrival time, so we can make sure someone is there to greet you.
The Workshop is free for BC faculty, staff, and students; in addition, scholarships cover many participants whose institutions cannot contribute. If you or your institution are able to contribute financially to the Workshop, you can do so after June 1st via a link on this website. We appreciate it!
Travel
There is ample parking at the Connors Center; no permit is required.
For guests flying into Boston, you can take a Lyft/Uber directly to the Connors Center (address: 20 Glen Street, Dover, MA 02030), or, for a more affordable option, we recommend the following:
- From Boston-Logan Airport, take the Silver Line train to South Station.
- Follow signs for the "Commuter Rail" (about a four minute walk).
- You have two commuter rail options from South Station, you can choose whichever train is more convenient: 1) you can take the Framingham/Worcester Line; 2) you can take the Needham Line.
- If you take the Framingham/Worcester Line, get off at the Natick Center T Station.
- If you take the Needham Line, get off at the Needham Junction station.
- Take an Uber/Lyft from either the Natick Center T Station or the Needham Junction T Station to the Connors Center (address: 20 Glen Street, Dover, MA 02030), about a 10-13 minute drive.
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Monday, June 15th
| |
|---|---|
| 3:00 PM | Check-in to rooms available in Entry Hall. (3:00 PM onward, coffee provided) |
| 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM | Session 1: (all conference sessions will be in the Main Parlor) 鉂� Joseph Markey, "Reframing Marginalizaton through the Law of the Cross: Bernard Lonergan and Silicon Valley's Ethos." 鉂� Giadio di Biasio, "Antichrist and Techno-Redemption in Peter Theil: from the Technocratic Paradigm to Cosmopolis." |
| 5:00 PM | Reception (Dover Parlor) |
| 5:30 PM | Dinner; welcome by Gregory Floyd, announcing the inaugural Sue Lawrence Graduate Scholarship听Recipients听(Estate Room) |
| 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM | Session 2 鉂� Donna Perry, "Emergent Patterns of the Good in Human-Wildlife Interaction: Caring for Didelphis virginiana" 鉂� Robert Eliot, "Social Evil: A Category Between Natural and Moral Evil?" 鉂� Patrick Byrne, "Laudato si' , Creation and Emergent Probability." |
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM | Evening reception (Dover Parlor) |
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Tuesday, June 16th
| |
|---|---|
| 7:30 AM | Breakfast (available until 8:30 AM 鈥� Entry Hall) |
| 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM | 听 听Session 3听 鉂� John Steichen, 鈥淭he Question of God and Conversion鈥檚 Fundamental Options.鈥� 鉂� Jen Sanders, 鈥淐hrist鈥檚 Prayer and the Religious Dialectic.鈥� 鉂� James Greenaway, "Belonging and Conversion: Communion as Horizon." |
| 10:00 AM | Coffee and refreshments |
| 10:30 AM - 12 Noon | Session 4 鉂� Marc Rugani, 鈥淭he Grace of Attention: Lonergan and Vocational Awareness for the 21st-Century Student.鈥� 鉂� Geoffrey Brodie, 鈥淢apping the Terrain: Towards a Final Relevant Question for Catholic Educators.鈥澨� 鉂� Peter Nguyen, 鈥淐onversion Under Pressure: Conscience, Truth, and the White Rose amid Decline.鈥� |
| 12:15 PM | Mass (Garden Terrace Room)鈥� Sign-up for intentions available at registration |
12:45 PM | Lunch (Estate Room) |
| 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Session 5 鉂柼齁effrey Dill, 鈥淭he Limits of Progress: On Thermostats and the Culture of Modernity.鈥� 鉂� Kevin Vander Schel, 鈥溾�楪od鈥檚 Course Among the Nations鈥�: The Problem of Progress in the works of Herder and Kant.鈥� 鉂� Christopher Krall, 鈥溾�極ne Heart and Mind鈥�: the Decline, Healing, and Progress of the Good of Order in a Lonely World.鈥澨� |
| 3:30 PM | Coffee and refreshments |
| 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Session 6 鉂� Paul LaChance, 鈥淎ttention and Embodied Horizons.鈥� 鉂柼鼴rian Himes, 鈥淢cGilchrist and Lonergan on Hemispheric Functional Asymmetry and Sublation.鈥� 鉂� Matthew Vale, 鈥淧ure Awareness Experiences (PAE),Minimal Phenomenal Experiencing (MPE), and the Epistemology of Mystical States.鈥澨� 听听 |
| 5:30 PM | Reception and dinner (Dover Parlor and Estate Room) |
| 6:30 PM - 7:15 PM | 鈥淚nsight Studies: A Conversation鈥� with Ken Melchin, Roberto De La Noval, and Paul LaChance (Panel). |
| 7:15 PM | Compline (Main Parlor) |
| 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM | Evening Reception (Dover Parlor) |
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Wednesday, June 17th
| |
|---|---|
| 7:30 AM | Breakfast (available until 8:30 AM 鈥� Entry Hall) |
| 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM | 听 听Session 7 鉂柼齌imothy Muldoon,鈥淐osmopolis and Redemption.鈥� 鉂柼齊ichard Grallo, 鈥淚n What World Do I Live?鈥� 鉂� Reid Locklin, 鈥淭he Heuristic of Progress as 鈥楲ocal Time鈥�: Re-Reading Lonergan through Indigenous Philosophies.鈥� |
| 10:00 AM | Coffee and refreshments |
| 10:30 AM - 12 Noon | Session 8 鉂柼鼳ndr茅s P茅rez-Carrasco, 鈥淭he Fragility of Empathy.鈥� 鉂� Robert De La Noval, 鈥淧ity the 'Pitiers'? The Role of Feelings in Christian Debates about Hell.鈥� 鉂� Ligita Ryliskyte, 鈥淗istorical-Mindedness in Lonergan's Latin Soteriology: Expanding the Scope of the Manuals.鈥澨� 听 听听 |
| 12:15 PM | Mass听鈥� offered for Sue Lawrence (Garden Terrace Room) |
12:45 PM | Lunch (Estate Room) |
| 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Session 9 鉂柼齈atrick Byrne, 鈥淟audato si鈥�, Creation and Emergent Probability.鈥� 鉂� Rodrigo听Gonzalez, 鈥淒ecline of Judgment: AI, Cognitive Colonialism, and Self-Appropriation.鈥� 鉂� Edgar Valdez, 鈥淯nintentional Consciousness: Cognitive Offloading in the Technocratic Paradigm.鈥� |
| 3:30 PM | Coffee and refreshments |
| 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM | Session 10 鉂� Elisabeth Nicholson, 鈥淎nalogical Participation in Triune Being: Aquinas and Lonergan on Intellectual Procession.鈥澨� 鉂� Nick DiSalvatore, 鈥淲hat is Inspiration (of Scripture)?鈥� 鉂� Jeremy Wilkins, 鈥淐orad cor loquitur: the Word of the Heart in the Transmission of the Gospel.鈥澨� 听 听 听 听听 |
| 5:30 PM | Reception (Dover Parlor) |
| 6:00 PM | Banquet Dinner (Estate Room) |
| 7:30 PM | Compline (Main Parlor) |
| 7:45 PM - 9:30 PM | Evening reception (Dover Parlor) |
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Thursday, June 18th
| |
|---|---|
| 7:30 AM | Breakfast (available until 8:30 AM 鈥� Entry Hall) |
| 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM | 听 听Session 11 鉂柼齏illiam Harrison, 鈥淭ransformation and the Shrinking Church.鈥� 鉂� Thomas Hughson, 鈥淕eneral Bias in the Crisis of U.S. Democracy.鈥� 鉂� Charles Tackney, 鈥淓mployment-at-Will and the Crisis of Legal Reasoning for Democratic Order.鈥� |
| 10:00 AM | Coffee and refreshments |
| 10:30 AM - 12 Noon | Session 12 鉂柼齈atrick Daly, 鈥淯nraveling the Generic Levels of Human Living.鈥� 鉂柼鼵ecille Medina-Maldonado, 鈥淐onscientized Cotidiano and Human Authenticity: Lonergan and Isasi-Diaz in Conversation.鈥� 鉂柼鼵yrus Olsen, 鈥淭he Saints鈥� Road as Spiritual Exercise: Pilgrimage, Decision, and an Archipelagic Cosmopolis.鈥� |
| 12:15 PM | Lunch and Departure (Estate Room) |
"Schedule of Probabilities" Forthcoming
LW 2025: Consciousness
鈥淪chedule of Probabilities鈥�
In memory of Glenn "Chip" Hughes and David Tracy, among others.
All times listed are in Eastern Standard Time (EST).
听
Sunday, June 15th
| |
|---|---|
| 3:00 PM | Check-in to rooms available from 3:00 PM onward at the Connors Center, Dover, MA (coffee available) |
| 4:00 PM | Mass (Garden Terrace Room) |
| 4:45 PM | Conference registration opens in Entry Hall (drinks and hors d'oeuvres provided) |
| 5:15 PM | Dinner; Welcome by Jeremy Wilkins (Estate Room) |
| 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM | Keynote (Main Parlor): Neil Ormerod, "Lonergan on Prime Potency: Energy or Action?" |
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM | Evening reception (Dover Parlor) |
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Monday, June 16th
| |
|---|---|
| 7:30 AM | Breakfast (available until 8:45 AM 鈥� Entry Hall) |
| 8:45 AM | Jeremy Wilkins, Welcome and Opening Remarks (Main Parlor) |
| 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM | Session 1 (all conference sessions will be in the Main Parlor)
|
| 10:45 AM | Coffee break |
11:00 AM - 12:00 Noon | Session 2
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| 12:00 Noon | Mass (Garden Terrace room) |
| 12:30 PM | Lunch (Estate Room) |
| 2:00 PM - 3:45 PM | Session 3
|
| 3:45 PM | Coffee break |
| 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM | Session 4
|
| 5:00 PM | Reception (Dover Parlor) |
| 5:30 PM | Dinner (Estate Room) |
| 6:15 PM - 7:15 PM | Session 5
|
| 7:15 PM | Compline (Garden Terrace Room) |
| 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM | Evening reception (Dover Parlor) |
听
Tuesday, June 17th
| |
|---|---|
| 7:30 AM | Breakfast (available until 8:45 AM 鈥� Entry Hall) |
| 8:45 AM - 10:30 AM | Session 6
|
| 10:30 AM | Coffee break听(light refreshments provided) |
10:45 AM - 12:30 PM | Session 7
|
| 12:30 PM | Mass (Garden Terrace Room) |
| 1:00 PM | Lunch (Estate Room) |
| 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM | Case-Study Panel: Cyrus Olsen, Ian Corbin, and Jude Buyondo,听鈥淐onsciousness, Health, and Belonging in Uganda and the U.S.A.鈥� |
| 3:30 PM | Coffee break |
| 3:45 PM - 5:00 PM | Keynote Conversation: Consciousness and Neuroscience
|
| 5:00 PM | Reception (Dover Parlor) |
| 6:00 PM | Banquet dinner (Estate Room) |
| 7:15 PM | Compline (Garden Terrace Room) |
| 7:30 PM | Evening reception (Dover Parlor) |
| 9:00 PM - 10:00 PM | Art as 鈥渢he fundamental element in the freedom of consciousness鈥� (Main Parlor) |
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Wednesday, June 18th
| |
|---|---|
| 7:30 AM | Breakfast (available until 9:00 AM 鈥� Entry Hall) |
| 9:00 AM - 10:45 AM | Session 8
|
| 10:45 AM | Coffee break |
11:00 AM - 12:00 Noon | Session 9
|
| 12:00 Noon | Mass (Garden Terrace Room) |
| 12:30 PM | Lunch (Estate Room) |
| 2:00 PM - 3:45 PM | Session 10
|
| 3:45 PM | Coffee break |
| 4:00 PM - 5:45 PM | Session 11
|
| 5:45 PM | Reception and BBQ dinner (Dover Parlor / Estate Room) |
| 7:00 PM | Compline (Garden Terrace Room) |
| 7:15 PM - 9:00 PM | Evening reception (Dover Parlor) |
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Thursday, June 19th (Juneteenth)
| |
|---|---|
| 8:00 AM | Early check-out by 8:00 AM due to Juneteenth holiday |
| 听 | 听 |
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Group photo of some of the 2024 Lonergan Workshop participants.
“ The speakers in the Lonergan Workshop were, in their different ways, describing how their personal appropriation of these processes enabled them to make certain advances. Fr. Whelan and I concluded that the reason Lonergan's influence on them was hard to discern was that what they had learned from him was how to make better use of their own minds, to become conscious of what they were doing when they were knowing, to think in terms of development and schemes of recurrence, to notice what is going forward in their various disciplines and to become more aware of the biases that can distort one's perceptions and analyses. ”
Director of the Workshop, Jeremy Wilkins (left) with Director Emeritus, Fred Lawrence.
“ There is bound to be formed a solid right that is determined to live in a world that no longer exists. There is bound to be formed a scattered left, captivated by now this, now that new development . . . But what will count is a perhaps not numerous center, big enough to be at home in both the old and the new, painstaking enough to work out one by one the transitions to be made, strong enough to refuse half measures and insist on complete solutions even though it has to wait. ”