Kresta in the Afternoon

This Sunday’s Gospel calls us to reflect on several spiritual needs: recognition of Jesus’ divinity, the need for persistence in prayer, the power of great faith and God’s response to humility. Peggy Stanton joins us.

Christ’s pilgrim Church has suddenly found itself in the late innings of, perhaps, transformation and schism, and few are around anymore to help save the day. But there is a Catholic Way forward.

Many atheists say they reject Christianity because they prefer the idea of being food for worms to the possibility of an eternal Hell. This preference for extinction is relevant to a popular apologetic issue—namely, that many people embrace Christianity because (only because) it is comforting. But can’t the notion of permanent extinction be comforting also? Especially given the difficulties of thi...

One of the major casualties of the rampaging sexual revolution is a proper sense of shame. Sexual relations are the exclusive privilege of heterosexual marital love. But many people engage in errant sexual activities purely for pleasure without the slightest hint of shame or regret. Dr. Rich Spinello joins us.

Is Catholicism in America doomed when the vast majority of the baptized—the 80% who stay home on Sunday—are unchurched? David Bonagura joins us.

The Enlightenment’s misreading of man and history has led to a reductionist understanding of human society. This, in turn, has led to the reduction of the human person to that of being a mere subject, or dare we say, guinea pig. The consequences of such a bad idea are clear enough. It leads and has led already to the crushing of humans in the name of humanity. We’ll talk more about it with Joseph...

The gospel of John has been recognized as unique from the other Synoptic Gospels – but why? Michael Pakaluk looks for the answer by examining the subtle but powerful influence of our Blessed Mother within John’s Gospel, drawing out the deeper meaning of what happened when the beloved disciple took her into his home.

Marian devotion plays a special role in Catholic life. She appears in countless works of art, is the subject of hundreds of books, and is a central character in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion. But the Scriptures don’t often mention her. Do we overemphasize Mary? Al discusses.

Whatever one thinks of Jesus, it is impossible to be neutral about Mary's place in Christian doctrine and devotion. Either Mary is essential to the faith as the Mother of God, or she is a mere woman, or (perhaps) she is a quasi-pagan goddess who endangers the dignity and prerogatives of her son as Creator and Lord. There is no middle ground, no shared pronunciation by which Mary might be both...

During the rise of the Radical Feminist movement, there was one element that held many ideologies together: abortion. Millions of women were convinced that the most precious and natural bond on earth, that of mother and child, was no longer important, and in fact was actually an impediment to a woman’s happiness. How is it that this lie could spread so quickly and so resoundingly? We talk with Car...

David Sanborn grew up in a family of missionaries, and from an early age was taught to have a personal relationship with Jesus. As he pursued a career in theater he found a passion for Biblical roles but felt God was calling him to something more. He eventually became a minister, where his studies of John 6 showed him where the Spirit was guiding him. He joins us.

Are Christians today prepared to deliver persuasive arguments for the existence of God without using Scripture? Can they defend their beliefs against the onslaught of modern-day atheism? Ed Feser joins us with a look at arguments for the existence of God from history's greatest philosophers, broken down in a way that anyone can understand.

Is Hell irrational? Are actions made by finite creatures really worthy of infinite punishment? Al responds to these questions, as well as the claim that religion causes more violence.

In Mel Gibson’s The Passion, Pilate famously asks Jesus “What is Truth?” Humans have long been skeptical about our ability to know Truth, but Christianity has always insisted we can find it through Faith and Reason. Steven Long joins us with more.

Before they became Catholic, Dr Dave Anders and his wife had just one thing in common – their contempt for eachother. Today they are extremely happy together – thanks to their embrace of the Church’s teachings. Dave joins us with the story of how the Church saved his marriage – and possibly even his life.

We are born with an inherent understanding of right and wrong - it's one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of Creation. But the world we live in - one that no longer acknowledges even something as basic as the nature of gender - constantly interferes with this understanding. How can we regain our moral compass? We talk with Gerard Verschuuren about reacquainting our moral judgemen...

What's the difference between a fact and an opinion? Many of us took quizzes in elementary school asking us to identify the two - "football is better than basketball," "Mars is the fourth planet from the sun," and so on. But this creates the false impression that things are either true - or are neither true nor false, the first step toward relativistic thinking. Matthew D&#...

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein. She deeply understood that vocation is comprised of a call and a response – the call comes from God, and with his help we are able to respond. We talk more about it with Donald Wallenfang.

Today's Gospel comes from Matthew 15, when a woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter possessed by a demon. At first, Jesus seems almost reluctant to heal her. What's going on? Al takes a look.

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki on this day in 1945. In 1974 Archbishop Fulton Sheen reflected on the bombing of Hiroshima, observing that when the boundary between military and civilian targets was broken down, many other societal boundaries followed suit. Christopher Shannon joins us with more.

August 8 is the Feast of St. Dominic. Unlike many of our great saints, Dominic did not leave a deposit of writings to be examined and built upon. Yet this medieval Spaniard still has much to teach us today, and we see this in the way of life he left to the Church. Fr. Patrick Briscoe joins us.

Although most Catholic priests are devout men who have sincerely committed their lives to Christ and His Church, they are also human beings with faults and failings. In our day, thousands of priests have been exposed for committing the gravest of sins: abusing those who have been entrusted to their care. Fr. Mitch Pacwa joins us to talk about this and his book “Wheat and Tares.”

In today’s political debate, it is easy for conservatives to point the moral finger at those who espouse willfully and destructive views. Yet, much of how society has declined is owed to how those on the conservative side have failed to uphold core truths of the human person, marriage, and the family. Clement Harrold joins us.

The Eucharist isn’t just a foundational and core doctrine of the Catholic faith, It is central to our understanding of many other doctrines in the Christian faith. Much of our work in apologetics can sometimes center around making a case for the Eucharist, Joe Heschmeyer takes a big picture approach, explaining how all Catholic doctrines are foundationally Eucharistic.

The narrative of the so-called “Great Apostasy” goes like this: just a few centuries after Christ’s death, around the time the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, the true Faith suffered a catastrophic falling-away. The simple truths of the gospel became so obscured by worldliness and pagan idolatry that Christianity required a complete reboot. Millions today profess a faith built on the assum...