The Catholic Faith and Golf - Prof. Michael Pakaluk

Prof. Michael Pakaluk compares Catholicism and golf in order to show how a game often dismissed as “useless” can become a surprisingly rich school of virtue, shaping humility, patience, prudence, honesty, and love of tradition.

This lecture was given on April 17th, 2026, at Ohio State University.

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About the Speaker:

Michael Pakaluk is Professor of Political Economy at The Catholic University of America. An accomplished Aristotle scholar and expert in St. Thomas Aquinas, in 2011 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas by Pope Benedict XIV. His most recent books include: The Company We Keep: True Friendship and Why It Matters (Scepter, 2025); The Shock of Holiness (Ignatius, 2025); Be Good Bankers: The Economic Interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel (Regnery Gateway, 2025); Natural Law: Five Views (Zondervan, 2025), for which he contributed the essays on classical natural law, and Walk in the Good Path: Essays in Natural Law and Civic Friendship, forthcoming (2026) with CUA Press. He studied philosophy at Harvard under W.V. Quine, Hilary Putnam, Burton Dreben, and John Rawls, who supervised his dissertation. Pakaluk is a regular contributor to The Catholic Thing, and his essays have appeared in Crisis, Our Sunday Visitor, Crux, and other venues. He lives in Hyattsville, Maryland, with his wife, Catherine, a professor of economics, and their youngest children.

Keywords: Catholicism, Charity, Golf, Honesty, Humility, Prudence, Study, Tradition, Virtue, Wonder