By Matthew Gambino • Posted December 5, 2012

A year-long lecture series sponsored by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Office for Family, Life and Laity will launch Thursday, Dec. 13 with a talk by nationally renowned speaker Dr. Timothy Gray on the topic of “Advent, a Season of Hope.”

Gray, president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, will speak from 7 to 9 p.m. at St. Charles Seminary’s Vianney Hall, 100 East Wynnewood Road, Wynnewood.

The lecture series is an event for the Year of Faith celebrated through next fall in the universal Catholic Church as a time for Catholics to reflect upon and renew their encounter with Jesus Christ.

The series concludes with a talk by Archbishop Charles Chaput next November. (Read his current column on CatholicPhilly.com that invites Catholics to Gray’s lecture.)

Lectures by other speakers in the series, all of which will take place at St. Charles Seminary from 7-9 p.m. on tha dates listed below, include:

May 16, 2013: Dr. Helen Alvare, assosciate professor of law at George Mason University, will speak on “Women’s Freedom  and Religious Freedom: Collaboration or Clash?”

Sept. 12: Dr. Brad Gregory, professor of early modern European history at the University of Notre Dame, will speak on “The Unintended Revolution: How a Religious Reformation Secularized Society.”

Sept. 19: Ross Douthat, columnist for the New York Times, will speak on “Bad Religion: How we Became a Nation of Hertics.”

Oct. 1: Archbishop Charles Chaput will speak on “Fire Upon the Earth: A Call to Conversion and the New Evangelization.”

To register for any lecture in the series, visit the registration page here, and learn more about events for the Year of Faith in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia here.