Church Life Today

We live toward what we assume to be our ends. Some of us hold such assumptions consciously, others do not, but either way the ends we seek shape the lives we live and the societies we build. The Christian eschatological imagination is concerned with the end of all things in the consummate glory of God, in our union with God. The way there is through judgment. And what is judged is, oftentimes, the other ends we have desired and built our worlds around. But to glimpse––just glimpse––the beauty and fullness of the final end God gives even now is a light for hope, while at the same time the bestowal of a mission to return to––rather than flee from––the concrete and historical lives we live now, in this world, such as it is. That is the tension of Christian eschatology, which literature often times powerfully, stunningly, even hauntingly presents to us in images and experiences.On our episode today we plunge into such considerations with Judith Wolfe, who recently delivered the annual Religion and Literature Lect

“O God, who in your inexpressible providence were pleased to choose Saint Joseph as spouse of the most holy Mother of your Son, grant, we pray, that we, who revere him as our protector on earth, may be worthy of his heavenly intercession. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”So concludes the litany of Saint Joseph. This litany leads us to contemplate the titles and honors of Joseph, husband of Mary and custodian of the Incarnate Word. To contemplate Joseph requires that we contemplate the mysteries of God, because Joseph, from whom Scripture records no words spoken, is directed by and responsive to the Word who speaks our salvation. But it takes time, attention, and a patient, longing devotion to turn a prayer like the litany of Saint Joseph into something that allows us to contemplate such subtle and sweeping beauties. And so, for today’s episode, especially in honor of the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, I want to offer you some reflections on a few of these titles and honors of Joseph, to help us, together, to marvel

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade, a wide array of commentators bemoaned how much more support would now be needed for women who become pregnant when abortion is no longer available, or less readily available. What that implies, of course, is that abortion is a substitute for other supportive measures for pregnant and parenting women, or even more to that point, that those other forms of support are substitutes for the perceived cure-all of abortion. My guest today calls out this implicit assumption in an essay she wrote that specifically focuses on the ways in which institutions of higher education do or do not adequately support women as women, with their distinctive reproductive capacities in view.Angela Franks is Professor of Theology at St. John’s Seminary in Boston. She is no stranger to our own McGrath Institute for Church Life as she currently serves as a Life and Human Dignity Writing Fellow for our Church Life Journal, and she has joined me on our show before to talk about gender, bodies, and the sp

You may remember in the last couple years the listening sessions that took place in dioceses and parishes as a first step in the Church’s “synod on synodality.” Maybe you participated in one of these listening sessions, or even helped to host one, as I did. By Fall of 2022, reports from those parish listening sessions were gathered at the diocesan level, then at the national level by bishops’ conferences, and eventually sent to an organizing committee at the Vatican. At that point, a group gathered to review the reports and write a Document on the Continental Phase, which was meant to synthesize the local and national reports, and prepare for the next stage in the synodal process. When my guest today started to look more closely at the methodology of this process, though, he, as a social scientist, started to question the authenticity of the process itself, at least in terms of what it was purported to be. Are we really hearing the voice of the faithful here?My guest is Mark Regnerus, professor of sociology a

In his high priestly prayer, Jesus prayed to his Father that “they may all be one.” He meant us, his disciples. As he entered into his passion, Jesus began to offer himself for our unity in him, with him, through him––sharing in his union with the Father by the Holy Spirit. And yet, if we look around the Church today, disunity may be more apparent than unity.In his new book, acclaimed author and moral theologian Charlie Camosy seeks to help Catholics––especially Catholics in the US––to rediscover our call to unity and to begin engaging with each other in a way that does not cancel out disagreements, but rather allows us to find unity in diversity. The book is One Church: How to Rekindle Trust, Negotiate Difference, and Reclaim Catholic Unity, from Ave Maria Press. Dr. Camosy joins me to talk about the sources of disunion, the pathways toward reunion, and the importance of reclaiming our unity in Christ.Follow-up Resources: ●     One Church: How to Rekindle Trust, Negotiate Difference, and Reclaim Catholic Uni

Scott Weeman wants to help empower the body of Christ to heal the body of Christ. His organization, Catholic in Recovery, intentionally brings together the Twelve Steps recovery process with the sacramental life of the Catholic Church. This work is an exercise in grace building on nature, where the holistic healing of mind, body, spirit, relationships, and all the rest that is necessary for those who have suffered from addiction and other compulsive behaviors opens up to the fulfillment that only the Lord can provide.In addition to founding Catholic in Recovery, Scott is also the author of two books: The Twelve Steps and the Sacraments, and more recently, The Catholic in Recovery Workbook, both published by Ave Maria Press.He joins me today to talk about this mission to foster communities of healing, helping people to find new life out of addiction, and in Christ with one another. Follow-up Resources:Learn more about Catholic in RecoveryThe Twelve Steps and the Sacraments by Scott WeemanThe Catholic in Recove

In 2011, Steve Pokorny founded Freedom Coaching: a one-to-one mentoring system aimed at helping those with an attraction or compulsion to pornography. This isn’t merely about learning how to avoid pornography; it is even more about reclaiming true health in the mind, the heart, and the body. It is about reclaiming our humanity. Freedom Coaching operates from the conviction that the reason most people with an attachment to pornography don’t experience sustained, lasting freedom is they’ve never learned how to attain healthy forms of intimacy. And attaining healthy forms of intimacy is only possible through receiving a redeemed view of the human body.In addition to founding and leading Freedom Coaching, Steve is also the author of Redeemed Vision: Setting the Blind Free from the Pornified Culture. He joins me today to not only talk about his work, but especially about the hope for redemption for those for whom new life has seemed otherwise unattainable.Follow up Resources:Learn more about Freedom Coaching websi

“We had compassion for those left behind but thought that our job was to provide them an opportunity (no matter how small) to get where we were. We didn’t think about changing our definition of success.” Those words come from Chris Arnade. His definition of success had been tied to upward mobility, ascending socially and professionally to the point of becoming a well-compensated Wall Street investor, who happened to pick up PhD in theoretical physics on the way. But eventually he went searching for something else––for other places and indeed for other people. He walked. He walked right into the kinds of towns and abandoned cities that most of successful Americans turned away from, even ridiculed. He paid attention to the people in these places, learned their stories, entered––as much as could––into their lives, discovering the ways in which they searched for meaning or sought community. The result of these immersions is his book, Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America.Church Life Today is a partnership

Choose life. Building a pro-life culture means, among other things, making it easier for women who are pregnant to choose life. But is it easy to choose life if you are a college student, even a Catholic college student, maybe even at a Catholic school? FemCatholic recently conducted a study around questions just like that. In an article presenting their findings, they ask, “Are Catholic colleges designed for women?” One of the authors of that article is my guest today. Renée Roden is a journalist and playwright, who currently lives and serves in a Catholic Worker community in Chicago. She holds a bachelor’s degree in theology and theater, along with a Master of Theological Studies degree from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master of Science dual degree in journalism and religion from Columbia University. Her articles have appeared in publications like America Magazine, Commonweal, and the Church Life Journal. In this report for FemCatholic, she and her co-author don’t ask whether college students should

“There is much in life we can’t control, such as when we are born and where––the family, country, and history we inherit as time-and-place-bound beings. We enter the story of the world in media res. We don’t choose our sex or the path of development it takes. We don’t choose our unique amalgam of qualities and traits, those threads that form the tapestry of personality. We cannot choose when illness and trauma will strike; we can only know that they will. Yet there is one thing we can freely choose––free only because the gentle fingers of God have loosed what binds and blinds us. We can choose to receive all these things as gift.”So begins the very end of the Genesis of Gender, the new book by Professor Abigail Favale. In this book she teases out the hidden assumptions of the gender paradigm and exposes its effects, but only in light of the Christian understanding of reality, which she opens up as a holistic paradigm that proclaims the dignity of the body, the sacramental meaning of sexual difference, and the

The first Mexican American Saint may very well end up being the man they called the Bishop of the Barrio. The cause for canonization of Alphonse Gallegos was opened in 2005, and in 2016 Pope Francis authorized the bishops and cardinals of the Congregation of Saints to grant him the title of Venerable. In this special episode of Church Life Today, Meg Hunter-Kilmer introduces us to Venerable Alphonse Gallegos through the memories and stories of people who knew him.  Meg Hunter-Kilmer is the inaugural fellow of the Sullivan Family Saints Initiative here in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. This special episode was funded by the Sullivan Family Saints Initiative, which seeks to renew scholarship on the saints and increase devotion to the saints.Follow up Resources:●      “Bishop of the Barrio: Venerable Alphonse Gallegos” byMeg Hunter-Kilmerin the Church Life Journal.●      “Sullivan Family Saints Initiative welcomes inaugural fellow”Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Churc

Fiat. So spoke the Virgin Mary to the angel Gabriel. This is a word of creation––“let it be”––one that echoes the command of the Creator, who said Fiat lux, “let there be light”. With her fiat, Mary gave all she had to bear and share the Word of God.In Mary is the mission of the Church––from and for that mission comes a new program here at the McGrath Institute for Church Life with a name given in Mary’s voice. The Fiat Program of Faith and Mental Health seeks to form Catholic leaders to better care for and accompany persons with mental health challenges and their loved ones. This effort comes from the heart of the Church’s mission to bear and share the Body of Christ, caring for each member within the communion of his love. In practice, Fiat generates research, teaching, and formation opportunities to inform and strengthen sacramental and pastoral care that uplifts the dignity and goodness of each person. Fiat assists dioceses, parishes, and communities in fostering a culture of communion wherein the whole p

By royal charter, St. Edmund’s College at the University of Cambridge is to take on the mission of advancing education, religion, learning and research in the University of Cambridge and “to promote and facilitate contributions from the Catholic Church and from members of the Catholic Church in carrying out” its endeavors. What is so remarkable about that mission is that St. Edmund’s was the first and still the only college with a Catholic founding since the Reformation. St. Edmund’s is also a global college, with students coming from all across the world and graduates going to serve and lead everywhere. Today I welcome the Master of St. Edmund’s College, who leads this distinctive institution of higher education in its service to the common good.   Catherine Arnold is the 15th Master of St. Edmund’s College, having assumed the office in October 2019. Prior to her role at St. Edmund’s, she served as the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Mongolia. Ambassador Arnold’s diplomatic career has also included service in

Are priests and bishops in the United States flourishing? How well do priests trusts bishops, or, more to the point, their own bishop? To whom do priests turn for support?––on whom do they rely? What are priests’ views of the policies and procedures surrounding accusations of abuse? Do priests worry about false accusations being brought against them? Are priests burned out? If so, which priests?These are all questions which a national survey of over 3500 priests and 160 bishops sought to answer. The National Study of Catholic Priests was conducted by sociologists at the Catholic University of America, and specifically through The Catholic Project: an initiative that seeks to foster effective collaboration between the laity and clergy in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis. My guest today is the Executive Director of The Catholic Project, and he will share with us some of the most important results of their study.Stephen White has served in his current role leading The Catholic Project at CUA since 2019. Previ

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The Lord Jesus proclaimed this mission of his in the midst of a mixed crowed, surrounded by both skeptics and his disciples. To know this gift of life that he brings is to encounter in him the fullness of life. It is a life not of convenience nor a life measured strictly by accomplishments, but a life of joy. When Jesus encountered the rich young man who undervalued his own life and the life of others, Jesus looked upon that young man and loved him. That look of love was an invitation to open up to joy. For those who rediscover themselves in the Lord’s look of love, life begins anew, abundantly. My guest today has not only found herself in the Lord’s look of love, but also is hoping to spend her life reflecting that look of love toward others. Maggie Garnett is a 2022 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, who will soon enter postulancy with the Sisters of Life, a religious community that vows to protect and enhance the sacredness of life. The Siste

As you may have heard on recent episodes of Church Life Today, Ignatius Press just released a new volume called The Chronicles of Transformation: A Spiritual Journey with C. S. Lewis. I am the editor of that volume, for which seven other scholars in theology, literature, and the arts joined me to write contemplative, spiritual essays on Lewis’ Chronicles. We also brought in the original illustrations of an incredible visual artist and an original poem cycle from a remarkable poet. The idea of The Chronicles of Transformation is to help adult and young adult readers to rediscover (or discover for the first time) the joy of entering into Narnia, except this time to be even more mindful about the deep and abiding moral and spiritual transformation that can take place there for those of us who dare to become childlike. In previous weeks we’ve shared interviews with some of the contributors to the volume––and maybe we will have some more of the contributors join us soon––but today we want to bring back an intervie

What you read goes a long way toward shaping the kind of person you become. At the same time, the kind of person you have become goes a long way toward determining how you read what you read, what you think about and how, and the ways in which you interpret the world around you. This mutual shaping of what and how you read, and the kind of person you become is fundamental to C. S. Lewis’ theory of education, especially but not only in regard to the education of children. His classic philosophical work on education and moral formation is The Abolition of Man, but my guest on this episode also wants to show us how Lewis’ understanding of a truly human education forms and animates especially one of his seven Chronicles of Narnia –– namely, The Silver Chair.Dr. Rebekah Lamb is a lecturer in theology and the arts at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland. She is one of the four principal faculty members in the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts. She is also a contributo

Fr. Michael Ward is a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. He is the author or editor of several books, including Heresies and How to Avoid Them, The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis, and After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’ ‘Abolition of Man’. But it was another one of his books that Walter Hooper, the esteemed literary advisor to the Estate of C. S. Lewis, lauded as “unsurpassed in showing a comprehensive knowledge of and depth of insight into C. S. Lewis’ works.” That book is the groundbreaking and persuasive Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis.Fr. Ward brought his world-class expertise on the works of C. S. Lewis to a new volume recently released from Ignatius Press, for which I myself happened to serve as editor. This book is The Chronicles of Transformation: A Spiritual Journey with C. S. Lewis. In the book we take Narnia seriously as a place where the choices and actions, the desires and dispositions of children affect their own

C. S. Lewis published the first of the Chronicles of Narnia in 1950, followed by six others. Over the decades since, parents have read these books to their children as bedtime stories, and children have read them for themselves when they got a little older. That is a very profitable way to explore Narnia. But can grown-ups return to Narnia, finding meaning and wonder there for themselves? To this I say, emphatically: YES.That emphatic YES motivates a new book we just released with Ignatius Press called The Chronicles of Transformation: A Spiritual Journey with C. S. Lewis. I am actually the editor of the volume, in which we challenge adult readers to contemplate Lewis’ chronicles as profound, meaningful, and delightful immersions into a pilgrimage toward moral and spiritual growth. In the volume you will find one essay for each of the seven chronicles, with each one written by a different scholar of theology, literature, and the arts. There are also seven original illustrations in the volume––again, one for e

Salvation comes from the Latin word “salus”, which means “health” and “well-being”. Illness and sin are therefore both, in different ways, a lack of the health and well-being that is intended for us. We might even say that we are created for wholeness just as we are created for holiness, and that growing in one means growing in the other. Salvation is both a matter of wholeness and holiness. The Martin Center for Integration seeks to bring together what is all too often kept apart: mental health and faith development. It is common for either one or the other of those two to be emphasized, but far too rare for both sanity and sanctity to be cared for and promoted together, in their own distinctive but coordinate ways. Today I welcome the husband and wife founders of the Martin Center to talk with us about this mission of integration, the needs that they are responding to, and how we become really whole, really healthy, really holy. Pat Millea is Formation and Operations Director for the Martin Center for Integ