Church Life Today

We welcome John Carr, Director of the initiative on Catholic Social thought and public life at Georgetown University. He also serves as the Washington correspondent for America Magazine, and as an adjunct professor in Georgetown's Theology Department. For 20 years Mr. Carr was the Director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the United States Conference of Catholic Bi...

Samantha Povlock doesn't believe you have to choose between being Catholic and being a feminist. She's even got a popular blog to prove it. After earning degrees in In Theology and Business and now as a full-time working mom, Samantha launched FemCatholic. FemCatholic has been not so modest mission of working to promote truth about women in the Church and in the world. She'll talk w...

It was Fyodor Dostoevsky who famously said "Beauty will save the world", but do we take time to notice beauty? Will we create beauty? Will we seek it? Our guest is deeply invested in seeing, creating and pursuing beauty. Joy Clarkson is a doctoral candidate in Theology and the arts at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom. She hosts a fantastic podcast called 'Speaking...

We welcome Chris White, national correspondent for Crux and The Tablet. In addition to his regular writing for those publications, Chris' work has also appeared in places like the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, First Things and Forbes. As someone who covers news and trends in the Catholic Church, especially here in the United States, there have been many hard and troubling things t...

"Morning Glory" is getting revamped so that it can be focused on more serious topics and less on the news. Then Lenny and Gloria chat about social justice in the church. Today’s guest, Gloria Purvis, has been working in the arena of social justice for many years and is currently co-host of Morning Glory on EWTN and a member of the Commission of Social Justice for the Black Catholic Congr...

What is the mission of the laity in the Church and the world? How ought lay Catholics to be formed for that mission? These are questions for the whole church. Today’s guest, Fr. Michael Sweeney, has been working for decades to push these questions to the forefront. But, rather then just advocating for their importance, or merely thinking about them, he’s been doing things. Lots of things, includin...

We need more leaders in the church. In fact we need the best leadership for The Church, but where will these leaders be found? And how will we prepare them for giving a creditable witness to the Gospel? These kind of questions are not foreign to Elise Italiano, Who serves as Executive Director ofThe Given Institute. Host, Leonard DeLorenzo talks with her about leadership in the Church, and the mis...

Does Jesus know us? Do we know Him? That is the provocative and somewhat disturbing title of a short book by the 20th Century swish theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. We won't talk about that book today, nor will we talk about that theologian. But we will talk about Jesus. About knowing Him, about Him knowing us, and about the crisis of forgetting Jesus, and the urgency of rediscovering Him i...

Shortly after the close of the second Vatican council, a young theologian, who had been influential at the council, was invited to give a series of lectures at the University of Tubigidan, partially as a way to begin to interpret and receive the work of the council. That theologian’s name was Joseph Ratzinger. Who would become, as we know, Pope Benedict XVI nearly four decades later. The series of...

Dorothy Day was a lot of things, but is she a Saint? By her own words, we should save her from the honor. She once bluntly said, 'don't call me a Saint!'. Maybe to spite her own wishes, Dr. John Cavadini, Director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, is delivering a public lecture on the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day, as part of our Institute's Sa...

Dr. Chris Baglow, directs the science and religion initative in our Institute, and he also teaches in our department of theology. He is the author of a textbook on science and religion, entitled “Faith Science and Reason: Theology on the cutting edge”. Dr. Baglow holds a BA from Franciscan University of Steubenville, an MA from the University of Dallas, and Ph. D. in Theology from Duquesne Univers...

Especially with the Synod of Bishops focusing on young people, the faith, and vocational discernment, there is an increasing focus on what is going on in the lives of young people today, personally and culturally. If the church is asking about vocational discernment for our young people, we are really thinking about their freedom to hear and respond to God’s call to take on the responsibility and...

In his 2018 World Communications address, Pope Francis spoke to the importance and dignity of journalism, and the now widespread much talked about the problem of fake news. Against that backdrop, the Holy Father recalled the promise of Jesus that the truth will set us free. Wouldn’t we all like a little more truth in the world? Over our airwaves? And online? But, how do we find the truth that we s...

To write music about God, or to God, how much do you have to believe in God? Can you doubt? Can you struggle? And it is music that comes from that spiritual restlessness, perhaps the most authentic of all? These questions are questions that very much pertain to today’s guest. Both as a singer/songwriter and as a person of Faith. Audrey Assad, is an award-winning Catholic recording artist, whose al...

How important is beauty to Catholic life? What about the physical spaces where we worship? Engage in the liturgy and encounter the sacrificial love of God? On today’s show we talk with someone who has not only given a lot of thought, but also a lot of hands on work to answering these questions. Geoffrey Keating is the owner of Keating Woodworks, after a decade of producing handcrafted furnishings...

Eric Buell, a Catholic educator from the Diocese of San Jose. Eric is a theology teacher at an all-girls Catholic High School, Where he recently completed a term as Department Chair of Theology and continues to serve as the Director of the school's liturgical choir. He was recently appointed to the newly created position of Director of Catholic Identity for his High School. Buell talks with s...

Technology certainly never stands still, the moment we get comfortable with one thing it seems like the next thing is coming along. How do we prepare ourselves, especially as Catholics, to engage with technology as it develops? Today we will be talking to Dr. Luis Vera, of Mount Saint Mary's University, a Moral Theologian, who pays attention to media studies, and the development of technology...

Dr. Susan Reynolds is an Assistant Professor of Catholic Studies at Emory University. An experienced teacher and parish minister, Dr. Reynolds is now closely following transformations in the US Catholic Church, in terms of ethnic makeup, geographic shifts, and migration. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, as well as Boston College, Dr. Reynolds makes space in the halls of higher education...

We continue our conversation with Dr. Karin Öberg, professor of Astronomy at Harvard University, and head of the Oberg Astrochemistry group. A member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Catholic Scientists, Dr. Öberg has been a featured presenter at the McGrath Institute annual science and religion summer seminar. where we bring together teachers of science with teachers of theology from C...

These days when most of us look at the night sky, we don't see very much. Sure, there may be a few hundred visible if we are outside the reach of the light pollution of cities, we see more. Even the faint white band of the Milky Ways billions of stars. We may pick out a constellation or two, while those who study a bit of astronomy see patterns all over the place. Now and again you may look u...

There are some things that just don’t go together. And it is something like a generally accepted fact that science and religion belong on that list. They don’t mix. In a recent study of both practicing Catholic Young Adult between the ages of 20-30 and former Catholic Young Adults of the same age, one thing that they all had in common: is that they believe science and religion ultimately conflict...

Have you ever felt in between not quite sure where to fit? Today's guest on our show, she gets that. Except that, for her, the point has not been to fit somewhere rather than another place, but instead to creatively, and faithfully, abide in between. Medi Volpe describes herself as a contemplative theologian, called to the work of motherhood. She is a lecturer in theology and ethics in Durham...

What if you could teach children to entrust themselves to the love of God throughout their entire lives? no matter what life might throw at them. That would be a kind of religious formation for the whole of life, right through adulthood. Mary Mirrione, National Director of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in the United States talks about the Relationship between God and Children and the importa...

Abbot Austin Murphy, OSB, a Benedictine monk & superior of his religious community, talks on the Benedictines, Life Balance, Human Ecology.------Resources:http://www.procopius.orgAbbot Austin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Abbot-Austin-G-Murphy-OSB-132033710170075/------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute...

Andrew Hyatt, director of Paul, Apostle of Christ talks with Host, Leonard DeLorenzo. Andrew Hyatt discusses writing and directing a Christian movie.------Resources:http://www.paulmovie.com/site/------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:...