Since 2012, {Tolle lege} has brought community to cleveland.
OUR MISSION.
The mission of the {Tolle Lege} Summer Institute is to provide young Catholic men and women with an opportunity to learn more about their faith and its relevance in the modern world. Through an academic focus on philosophy and theology, which is balanced by spiritual and cultural components, the camp serves to instruct the hearts and minds of students who are preparing to enter their senior year of high school. The students are not only able to encounter notable theologians, philosophers, and saints of past ages, but to study them through the perspective of the rich Catholic faith and under the instruction of professors from both Borromeo and St. Mary Seminaries in the Diocese of Cleveland. The high intellectual purpose of the institute is balanced by its goal of increasing cultural awareness and providing its participants with an appreciation for the cultural and Catholic sites and events of the Cleveland area.
OUR HISTORY.
The Tolle Lege Summer Institute owes its origin to the initiative of Fr. Damian Ference, a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Cleveland and a professor of philosophy at Borromeo Seminary, the college seminary of the Diocese of Cleveland. Fr. Damian’s vision was to provide teens with a Catholic, intellectual foundation for their faith before they set out into their college years and later their professional lives. He received support for his idea from the diocese and the seminary, and in the summer of 2011 work was begun to establish the Tolle Lege Summer Institute at Borromeo Seminary. With the help of seminary faculty, staff, and students, and under the direction of Fr. Damian, the first two sessions of the Tolle Lege Summer Institute were held in the summer of 2012 on the campus of Borromeo Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio. Twenty-four teenagers from all around the diocese participated in the weeklong camp during two different sessions in the last two weeks of June. The teenagers represented 17 different parishes in the Diocese of Cleveland, seven different Catholic high schools, and multiple public schools in the Cleveland area. The thirteenth summer of operation for Tolle Lege is the summer of 2025. Through its history, {Tolle Lege} has served more than 400 teens from 81 parishes, and 70 high schools.
