What is friendship? How do I make friends? How do I tell a flatterer from a friend? How do I befriend people who do not share my values? Is it ever appropriate to dissolve a friendship, and if so, how? Can men and women be friends? Is marriage a type of friendship or is it a different kind of relationship? How does friendship relate to politics? Can I be friends with my superiors—parents, teachers, bosses, God—or does friendship require equality? Is friendship necessary for happiness? 

For millennia, philosophers and poets, saints and artists have puzzled over these myriad questions regarding friendship. To address these questions, the Collegium Institute's Young Catholic Leaders Initiative invites high school students to register for our 5th annual summer seminar, The Art of Friendship, taking place June 16-18 at the Penn Newman Center. This seminar aims to treat friendship not as a theory but as an art, identifying the particular set of practices and actions associated with the classical ideal of friendship and seeking to embody them in our own lives. Over the course of three days, students will engage in lively seminar discussions, art museum visits, scavenger hunts, pilgrimages, plays, and feasts as they think through and live out friendship. Ultimately this seminar aims to form and foster friendships among students, with Plato and Aristotle, Virgil and Dante, Cicero and Aelred, Rosalind and Celia, Chesterton and Shaw, Francis and Clare, Raymond of Capua and Catherine of Siena, and many more as guides in the art of friendship. 

Click the button below to apply.

Questions? Please contact Joe Perez-Benzo (jperezbenzo@collegiuminstitute.org).