New Cluny Institute aims to foster dialogue between academia, tech and religion
December 12, 2024 at 1:39 p.m.
OSV News – The Catholic University of America in Washington recently launched a new program that seeks to foster dialogue between academia, religion and the tech industry through hosting events, retreats and creating multimedia projects.
Founder Luke Burgis, a former Wall Street entrepreneur, then seminarian and now associate professor of business at Catholic University, sees firsthand the lack of dialogue between leaders in religion, the tech industry and academia.
"Everything seems very fragmented. Education is hyper-specialized. There's a lot of great Catholic organizations and Catholic ministries, Christian ministries, but they often only involve other Christians," Burgis told OSV News. "The Cluny Institute allows us to encourage conversations and collaborations between people that normally might not engage with one another."
Named after the famed Cluny Abbey in France, the institute hopes to follow the abbey's famed legacy of cultivating a culture that integrates the sects of religion, technology and philosophy.
"The Cluny Abbey was totally politically independent, which I think is the reason for its success: It allowed the monks there to focus on the spiritual life and renewal," Burgis said. "The Abbey of Cluny became the center of intellectual life, because it predated the modern university. It became the center of spiritual renewal, especially liturgical renewal, and it was the center of innovation as the abbey was the largest building in the world until St. Peter's Basilica."
Burgis hopes to create a new "Cluny Abbey," a center of culture that will bring together entrepreneurs and leaders. To accomplish this, the institute focuses on four pillars – a media pillar, an educational pillar, grant making and hosting what they call "Cluny encounters."
"The encounters are events, such as hosting a dinner, that we are trying to get people that normally wouldn't be at the same table at the same table," he said. "And the dinners are usually organized around some animating theme or some question, like, 'What is generative AI?' or discussing the nature of knowledge and the human person."
The Cluny Institute received a $2.5 million grant from the Templeton Foundation. With that money, Burgis hopes to create a dynamic staff that can engage the culture through the institute's new online journal, the Cluny Journal (clunyjournal.com), which features authors from a variety of religious and professional backgrounds, and by hosting retreats and events to bring leaders together.
"In the online journal, we try to feature some of the best writers of our day. You'll notice at Cluny Journal that you're not going to find a lot of 'think pieces' on there; we feel like there's enough of that stuff," Burgis said. "You're going to find things that prompt people to ask existential, metaphysical questions about their lives, about their heart, about the spiritual life – even if it's not explicitly catechetical in nature. A lot of the stories discuss very personal things – we think that's missing in society."
In October, the Cluny Institute hosted its first encounter night at the Pontifical North American College in Rome included leaders such as Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, who is known for his intellectual engagement with audiences over digital media. These evenings, Burgis said, help leaders and thinkers contemplate controversial issues on a deeper level.
"The whole motto of Cluny is out of the shadows and into the deep," Burgis said. "There are seeds of the Divine Word in a lot of these worldly things and topics; but we have to take them deeper, and we can't settle for the way that they are spoken about normally in relatively superficial ways."
"We're trying to take these things and help people drop down and understand them at a deeper, foundational level."
At the heart of the Cluny Institute is a desire to foster entrepreneurship within the Church, an area where Burgis believes the Church needs to grow in order to engage with modern society.
"Entrepreneurship is an expression of creativity – we're all called to be creators," Burgis said. "Entrepreneurship is finding creative ways to solve problems and to create real value in the world – not just economic value, but spiritual values – and not to see a 'zero sum game' or a fixed pie, but to always be thinking about ways to kind of expand magnanimously the situation that we're in."
By promoting entrepreneurship and dialogue through the journal, its encounter nights and eventual retreats, Burgis hopes the Cluny Institute will help the Church to engage with the world, instead of running from the culture.
"We have to be involved in the culture. Especially now when the technology and the things that are being created have such a profound effect on our daily lives. Completely opting out of society is not an option for everybody," Burgis said. "People would go and come into contact with the Cluny monastery and the monks would say, 'Go out!' Today, the message is not stay here: We always have to go out and do something to engage the culture."
Jack Figge writes for OSV News from Kansas.
NOTES: For more information about the Cluny Institute and its related work, visit https://cluny.org.
The Church needs quality Catholic journalism now more than ever. Please consider supporting this work by signing up for a SUBSCRIPTION (click HERE) or making a DONATION to The Monitor (click HERE). Thank you for your support.
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OSV News – The Catholic University of America in Washington recently launched a new program that seeks to foster dialogue between academia, religion and the tech industry through hosting events, retreats and creating multimedia projects.
Founder Luke Burgis, a former Wall Street entrepreneur, then seminarian and now associate professor of business at Catholic University, sees firsthand the lack of dialogue between leaders in religion, the tech industry and academia.
"Everything seems very fragmented. Education is hyper-specialized. There's a lot of great Catholic organizations and Catholic ministries, Christian ministries, but they often only involve other Christians," Burgis told OSV News. "The Cluny Institute allows us to encourage conversations and collaborations between people that normally might not engage with one another."
Named after the famed Cluny Abbey in France, the institute hopes to follow the abbey's famed legacy of cultivating a culture that integrates the sects of religion, technology and philosophy.
"The Cluny Abbey was totally politically independent, which I think is the reason for its success: It allowed the monks there to focus on the spiritual life and renewal," Burgis said. "The Abbey of Cluny became the center of intellectual life, because it predated the modern university. It became the center of spiritual renewal, especially liturgical renewal, and it was the center of innovation as the abbey was the largest building in the world until St. Peter's Basilica."
Burgis hopes to create a new "Cluny Abbey," a center of culture that will bring together entrepreneurs and leaders. To accomplish this, the institute focuses on four pillars – a media pillar, an educational pillar, grant making and hosting what they call "Cluny encounters."
"The encounters are events, such as hosting a dinner, that we are trying to get people that normally wouldn't be at the same table at the same table," he said. "And the dinners are usually organized around some animating theme or some question, like, 'What is generative AI?' or discussing the nature of knowledge and the human person."
The Cluny Institute received a $2.5 million grant from the Templeton Foundation. With that money, Burgis hopes to create a dynamic staff that can engage the culture through the institute's new online journal, the Cluny Journal (clunyjournal.com), which features authors from a variety of religious and professional backgrounds, and by hosting retreats and events to bring leaders together.
"In the online journal, we try to feature some of the best writers of our day. You'll notice at Cluny Journal that you're not going to find a lot of 'think pieces' on there; we feel like there's enough of that stuff," Burgis said. "You're going to find things that prompt people to ask existential, metaphysical questions about their lives, about their heart, about the spiritual life – even if it's not explicitly catechetical in nature. A lot of the stories discuss very personal things – we think that's missing in society."
In October, the Cluny Institute hosted its first encounter night at the Pontifical North American College in Rome included leaders such as Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, who is known for his intellectual engagement with audiences over digital media. These evenings, Burgis said, help leaders and thinkers contemplate controversial issues on a deeper level.
"The whole motto of Cluny is out of the shadows and into the deep," Burgis said. "There are seeds of the Divine Word in a lot of these worldly things and topics; but we have to take them deeper, and we can't settle for the way that they are spoken about normally in relatively superficial ways."
"We're trying to take these things and help people drop down and understand them at a deeper, foundational level."
At the heart of the Cluny Institute is a desire to foster entrepreneurship within the Church, an area where Burgis believes the Church needs to grow in order to engage with modern society.
"Entrepreneurship is an expression of creativity – we're all called to be creators," Burgis said. "Entrepreneurship is finding creative ways to solve problems and to create real value in the world – not just economic value, but spiritual values – and not to see a 'zero sum game' or a fixed pie, but to always be thinking about ways to kind of expand magnanimously the situation that we're in."
By promoting entrepreneurship and dialogue through the journal, its encounter nights and eventual retreats, Burgis hopes the Cluny Institute will help the Church to engage with the world, instead of running from the culture.
"We have to be involved in the culture. Especially now when the technology and the things that are being created have such a profound effect on our daily lives. Completely opting out of society is not an option for everybody," Burgis said. "People would go and come into contact with the Cluny monastery and the monks would say, 'Go out!' Today, the message is not stay here: We always have to go out and do something to engage the culture."
Jack Figge writes for OSV News from Kansas.
NOTES: For more information about the Cluny Institute and its related work, visit https://cluny.org.
The Church needs quality Catholic journalism now more than ever. Please consider supporting this work by signing up for a SUBSCRIPTION (click HERE) or making a DONATION to The Monitor (click HERE). Thank you for your support.