The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday, marking two and a half centuries since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That a country as expansive and diverse as ours has remained united under a single Con...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. Bishop Robert Barron has long defended religious freedom as a universal human right. As part of his ongoing advocacy—which includes a new book on how to confront persecution against Christians—he has recently completed serving...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. A wave of fresh converts has entered the Catholic Church in the United States, Australia, and parts of Europe. The evidence for this surge is far from anecdotal; even secular media outlets that are historically inclined to dow...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. Although not widely reported in legacy media outlets, Christianity is, by far, the most persecuted religion in the world. From the Middle East and Africa to India, China, North Korea, and elsewhere, Christian communities regul...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. The faithful recently rejoiced at the news that Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the great American evangelist who lived from 1895 to 1979, has moved forward in the canonization process. The Vatican recently announced that he will soo...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. The Old Testament is about three-quarters of the Bible. It is theologically and morally impossible for Christians to understand God's relationship with the world, the nature and purpose of human beings, original sin, salvation...

Welcome back to the  Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the  Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. Hollywood is not known for being friendly to Christianity in general or Catholicism in particular, especially nowadays; unfortunately, there is no shortage of storylines and characters that mock and even demonize believers....

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. Marxism, unfortunately, seems to be making a comeback. Despite its economically disastrous, politically oppressive, and horrifically inhumane track record, the atheistic philosophy that produced the Communist revolution and ev...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. For the last two episodes, Evangelization & Culture Podcast host Tod Worner has been having a conversation with Word on Fire's founders about social media—a phenomenon that has certainly played a prominent role in the life of...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show . I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show . Thank you for joining us. In our last episode, Evangelization & Culture Podcast host Tod Worner began a conversation with Word on Fire's founders about social media, in which they explored the art and means of communication. In this next segment, we'll...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. Today, we're bringing you a special episode—a conversation from our very own Evangelization & Culture Podcast, hosted by Dr. Tod Worner. Recently, Dr. Tod, as we like to call him, sat down with Word on Fire CEO Fr. Steve Grunow...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. As we continue this second half of a conversation from last year's Good News Conference in Orlando with Bishop Barron and Word on Fire CEO Fr. Steve Grunow, we'll discover the ministry's patron saints, as well as some of the les...

The Enlightenment believed reason was its own authority. Heteronomous authority was anathema. Autonomy was the ideal. Thus, the Church's hierarchical structure was viewed as enslaving. In light of this critique, Newman offered an insightful defense of freedom and truth in the Catholic Church.  Topics Covered: Consulting the faithful in matter of doctrine  Conscience  Reason and authority  Bishops...

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. In 2025, Word on Fire Catholic Ministries celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. And in October of that same year, Bishop Barron and Word on Fire CEO Fr. Steve Grunow gave a presentation at the Good News Conference in Orlando...

Since the mind can infer truths of which it does not have certainty, what judges the validity of an inference in concrete matters? The Illative Sense. It is the power of judging and concluding when not having apodictic certainty. Bishop Barron explores Newman's analysis of the Illative Sense, explaining why it is an essential element in religious conversion.  Topics Covered: The Illative Sense  Th...

In a recent episode of the Joe Rogan show, evolutionary biologist and public intellectual Bret Weinstein observed that two emerging features of contemporary societies, especially, though not exclusively in the West, are challenging the very meaning and purpose of human life: 1) the decoupling of human sexuality from human reproduction—defining sex primarily as recreational and 2) with the rise of...

An   Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent was Newman's most difficult work. While not a formal epistemology (theory of knowledge), Newman prompted a movement away from modern epistemology, stressing certainty that is best found in logic and mathematics, to common sense epistemology, affirming truth that is not absolutely certain. Bishop Barron explains why this epistemology is proper to religious k...

St. Pope John Paul the II memorably observed that the Catholic Church comes from the eucharist and that the eucharist, in turn, comes from priests. As Bishop Barron noted in a recent letter to his diocese, "by an inescapable logic [therefore] no priests, no Church." We should add, however, that priests come from bishops, which expands the ecclesial logic to this: no bishops, no priests; no priests...

Newman believed that a liberal arts education would instill a philosophical habit of mind in students, helping students reason to the foundational principles of every discipline and see how everything fits together. The philosophical habit of mind distinguishes between significance and triviality, helping society and individuals order everything to the Good.  Topics Covered: Pattern recognition  S...

Religious freedom, especially for Christians, is under attack across the globe, including in the West–including right here in the United States. Whether insidiously in the form of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that block Christians from employment and advancement opportunities, or, overtly, like vandalism against churches, or, in some parts of the world, murderous violence against Chri...

Theology is the queen of the sciences. It is not just one science among many but the principal organizing science. If it is taken out of this central organizing place, something else will take its place. In this lesson, Bishop Barron helps us understand why Newman thought theology was of crucial importance in education.  Topics Covered: Theology as the queen of the sciences  Consequences of suppla...

Poverty is not only a complex problem to address economically–not to mention sociologically, psychologically, and culturally; it is also often caught up in political and ideological currents, both domestically and internationally, that run counter to a Catholic understanding of human dignity and the common good. So what, then, is the authentically Catholic way of caring for the poor? What does it...

Newman's articulation of the nature of university education in his ​ The Idea of a University ​ is crucial today in that a polytechnic model has replaced classical liberal education and theology has been exiled from most institutions.  Topics Covered: Why theology is a science  Why secularism destroys the university  Oxford ideal Links: Read: Fifteen Sermons by John Henry Newman Word on Fire Insti...

Charlie Kirk's assassination revealed a disturbing new cultural and political reality for those who share any of Kirk's views: it is possible, in our day and age, to be shot for speaking your mind. How can we recover from this dark event, whose effects have reverberated across the globe? How can we reclaim the possibility of disagreement with each other without resorting to violence? What conditio...

In this lesson, Bishop Barron explains how Newman distinguishes between doctrinal development and corruption. A thorough explanation of this crucial issue requires a robust presentation of Newman's seven notes. Bishop Barron does just that! Topics Covered: Doctrinal development and corruption  The Seven Notes  Examples of doctrinal development and corruption  Links: Article: Henri de Lubac on the...