The Open Door

This week on The Open Door we travel to Sweden! The American Solidarity Party draws on the Christian Democracy movement. Our guest this Wednesday is Lennart Sacrédeus. Representing the Sweden's Christian Democrats (KD), he has served as a Member of Parliament in Sweden and as a Member of the European Parliament. Currently he is Speaker/Mayor of the city of Mora. We will pose the following question...

This week on The Open Door we discuss political extremism and its sources. Our guest is Patrick Tomassi. He teaches math and science at Trinity Academy in Portland, Oregon, and his work has appeared in Public Discourse and America. Tomassi is also a contributing editor at Veritas Journal and helps organize the annual New York Encounter. Of special interest to some listeners: he was off and on home...

This week on The Open Door we help launch a new book, The Glory of the Cosmos: A Catholic Approach to the Natural World (Arouca Press, 2020.) It’s edited by the distributist thinker Thomas Storck, and our panelist Christopher Zehnder is a contributor. Along with another contributor, the historian Christopher Shannon, they will lead our discussion. Together they will argue that the natural environm...

In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder discuss, the day after, the November 3rd election. The regular panel (to wit, Hanink and Ramos-Reyes and Zehnder), also known as “The Irregulars,” will consider the following questions. Feel free to suggest others. Remember: we’re card-carrying members of the American Solidarity Party. That is, we would be if...

In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder focus on the deadly Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict with Prof. Siobhan Nash-Marshall, Professor of Philosophy at Manhattanville College. The Sins of the Fathers is her first book-length treatment of genocide and genocide negationism. After the outbreak of war in Syria, Nash-Marshall and some friends founded CINF,...

This week on The Open Door we discuss fresh developments in the American Solidarity Party’s 2020 presidential and vice-presidential campaign. How fares the Brian Carroll/Amar Patel ticket? Our welcome and returning guest is California’s Skylar Covich, a long-serving member of the ASP National Committee. Among the questions that we’ll ask him are the following. As always, please don’t hesitate to s...

This coming week on The Open Door we discuss Catholic journalism and publishing. We’re keen to explore, as well, the media landscape in a time of cultural confusion. Our welcome guest is Greg Erlandson. In 2016 he became Editor in Chief of Catholic News Service. CNS serves Catholic publications and dioceses throughout the United States and around the world. For 15 years Erlandson was President and...

This week on The Open Door James E. Hartley, Professor of Economics at Mount Holyoke College, will be our special guest. Last week we pointed him in the direction of the woodshed. This week he aims to show us the errors of our anti-capitalist ways. For more on our game and gracious guest, please visit his informative web site, https://jamesehartley.com As always, we welcome comments and questions!

This week on The Open Door, Catholic philosophers Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder discuss James E. Hartley’s provocative “Revisiting Chesterton and The Mystery of Capital.” This provocation, and we take it to be such, recently appeared in Public Discourse. Our special guest is the author and distributist Tom Storck. He’ll lead us in examining Hartley’s claims that “Allowing...

This week The Open Door explores our current cultural convulsions. Dr. Curtis Hancock, long of Rockhurst University, is our welcome returning guest. He has close ties to Poland’s Lublin School of Thomism and is currently the Coordinator of the History of Philosophy Concentration at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. And, yes, he’s been known to write mystery fiction! Among the questions we’ll discu...

In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes and Christopher Zehnder discuss the New Evangelization. Our special guest is Douglas Bushman, S.T.L., Professor of Theology at the Augustine Institute (Denver). He serves there as the Pope John Paul II Chair of Theology for the New Evangelization. He is the author of The Theology of Renewal for His Church: The Logic of Vatican II’s Re...

This week on The Open Door we will discuss the vocation of the Christian artist. We will consider, as well, the place of the beautiful in art and life. Our special guest, joining us once again, is the renowned sculptor Timothy Schmalz. He is currently at work on a series of pieces inspired by Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Among the questions we will ask are the following. As always, please feel free...

This week on The Open Door we’ll talk about “just how bad things are.” We’ll also discuss what to do if “they are really, really bad.” Our special guest is our friend Joe Shriner, a political activist par excellence. Joe has joined us before, and he merits our close attention. Among the questions we’ll ask are the following. Please don’t hesitate to send us more! 1. Could you recount for us the bi...

This week on The Open Door we will discuss core ethical considerations. Our special guest, in absentia, is the late and decidedly great Mortimer Adler, who is represented by Elaine Weissman of the Center of the Great Ideas. Adler's short, and perhaps surprising, sermon on The Golden Rule is the context of our discussion. Adler delivered it in 1991 at Christ Church in Aspen, Colorado. We plan on ad...

This week on The Open Door we’ll talk about the busy and sometimes polemical intersection of the pastoral and the political. Our special guest, who will help us “stay real,” is Pastor Ken Walters of Summit Christian Fellowship in Big Bear, California. He’s an alumnus of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He also serves as a member of the California State Committee of the American...

In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder focus on the trials and triumphs of contemporary education. Our special guest will help us “stay real.” Larry Carstens has taught English at the high school and college levels for thirty years. His observations have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, First Things, and the New...

In this episode of The Open Door, Catholic philosophers Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes and Christopher Zehnder interview Dr. Randall Smith of the University of St. Thomas (Houston) on the vexed topics of nationalism, statism, and sovereignty--in light of the common good. Among the questions we'll discuss, and you are free to add to the list, are the following. 1. Is nationalism a virtue or a vice?...

In this episode of The Open Door, co-hosts Jim Hanink and Mario Ramos-Reyes interview Lawrence Feingold concerning the Association of Hebrew Catholics. 1. Can you please help us understand the significance of Vatican Council II’s Nostra Aetate? 2. What is the Scriptural context for speaking of the irrevocable calling of the people of Israel? 3. What is the Association of Hebrew Catholics? 4. Is th...

In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink and Mario Ramos y Reyes interview Fr. Patrick Bergin, a missionary priest from the United States on his way to his first assignment in the Archdiocese of Tabora in Western Tanzania. 1) What was your Peace Corps experience in Tanzania like? Among the many questions we might consider are the following: 2) How should Christians evaluate the various and som...

In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder discuss Vatican Council II and its legacy. Their special guest is Douglas Bushman, S.T.L., Professor of Theology at the Augustine Institute (Denver). He serves there as the Pope John Paul II Chair of Theology for the New Evangelization. He is the author of The Theology of Renewal for His Church: The...

This week on The Open Door we will discuss a pair of studies that compare participants in the Novus Ordo Mass with participants in the Traditional Latin Mass. Rev. Donald Kloster, the author of these studies, will be our special guest. He is a priest of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Our questions will include the following. Please feel free to suggest others! Fr. Kloster, could you pleas...

Welcome to The Open Door! This week we’ll discuss matters theological. Our special guest is Prof. Lawrence Feingold. He teaches at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis. A prolific author, his most recent book is The Eucharist: Mystery of Presence, Sacrifice, and Communion. Prof. Feingold is also an active member of the Association of Hebrew Catholics. Among the questions we’ll ask him are the fol...

In this episode of The Open Door, Catholic philosophers Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder interview educator Lee Shulman concerning his work and philosophy of life. (June 26, 2020)

In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder focus on the Armenian Genocide and its on-going consequences. Our guest is Siobhan Nash-Marshall, Professor of Philosophy at Manhattanville College and prolific author. The *Sins of the Fathers* is her first book-length treatment of genocide and genocide negationism. After the breakout of the war in Syria, Nas...

In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, Christopher Zehnder and Skylar Covich interview Annabelle Moseley on her new book Sacred Braille: The Rosary as Masterpiece through Art, Poetry, and Reflections. https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/sacredbraille/ (June 5, 2020)