“A parent calls me and says, ‘Maureen, I don’t know what to do. I am at the end of my rope. I have been called to the school three times this week. They’re suspending my child. What am I going to do?’”

Within the last 18 months, Rev. Jacob ( Joseph ’06) Hsieh, O.Praem., has had the honor of singing at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and at the Papal Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica.

On April 25, 1970, almost 18 months before Thomas Aquinas College opened for its first academic year, its founders staged a major promotional dinner at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel. Some 450 guests attended the event, at which the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen served as the keynote speaker.

Below is the audio of the remarks that the College’s founding president, Dr. Ronald P. McArthur, gave that evening:

“I am not a great decision-maker,” admits Dr. Samuel Caughron (’96). “My approach to big life decisions is to pray a lot, to get as much information as I can, to wait until the last minute — and then to make a decision and go with it.”

Reflecting on 25 Years of
the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter

In a recent editorial bemoaning the high level of indebtedness that plagues so many of today’s college graduates, the New York Post notes that “higher education doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive.” The newspaper cites a few select schools — Thomas Aquinas College among them — that are “addressing the rising student-debt issue with an innovative use of an old-fashioned concept: work.”

Essays

• The Formation of the Catholic Mind
• Liberal Education & the Preservation of the Political Order
• The Roots of Modern Education
• The Study of St.

June 1, 1928 – February 8, 2013

Leslie Hidley of Ojai, California, is a writer, and a funny one at that. She finds humor where one might least expect it, in subjects ranging from the sublime to the mundane. “I write about my family, friends — and raccoons in the backyard,” she says.

The YouTube video below shows her reading one of her essays — a harrowing tale of getting her finger stuck in the gas tank of an SUV, then praying to avoid immolation as firefighters saw through the tank to cut her loose. Frightening, yes, but the way she tells it in stoic deadpan, uproariously funny.

Note: Four graduates of Thomas Aquinas College have been ordained this past year, bringing to 50 the number of alumni priests in the College’s first 40 years. Below is the second in a series of profiles of the College’s newest ordained alumni.