Catholic Education Month continues on Thinking Faith with part two of our conversation with Brett Fawcett, graduate from Newman Theological Colledge in Alberta and an educator currently teaching Social Studies in Guangzhou, China discussing how to teach Social Studies as a Catholic. Show Snippet: "I think Christianity actually allows us to teach...an appreciative understanding of Canadian history that can instill a kind of legitimate patriotism that is also very self-critical."
May 18, 2021•53 min•Ep. 245
We continue Catholic Education Month on the Thinking Faith Catholic Podcast with a visit from Brett Fawcett, graduate from Newman Theological Colledge in Alberta and an educator currently teaching Social Studies in Guangzhou, China discussing how to teach Social Studies as a Catholic. Show Snippet: "There's lots of good examples of saints in our history, actually, who I would encourage Catholic listeners to study. There's Elizabeth Ann Seaton...a great American Saint who has a really interesting...
May 11, 2021•49 min•Ep. 244
This week on the Thinking Faith Catholic Podcast, Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett begin a multi-part series for Catholic Education Month starting with Dr. Denise Donohue of the Cardinal Newman Society and a look at ways to infuse our Catholic Faith throughout the curriculum. Show Snippet: "David Clayton wrote this book, it's called "The Way of Beauty" and he does two or three chapters just on proportion, and symmetry, and harmony...that's a very Catholic perspective." Find out more about the Cardinal ...
May 04, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 243
Deacon Eric Gurash discusses the healing grace in speaking our pain out loud and the role the Psalms can play in helping us to do this. Show Snippet: "God understands what the UCLA study and others like it indicate; speaking our feelings of abandonment, powerlessness, fear, and even anger out loud can be the exact antidote we need."
Apr 27, 2021•36 min•Ep. 242
What does it mean that Christians proclaim belief in the resurrection of the body and what connection does this have to the end of human history. Join the discussion in this part 2 of 2, this week on the Thinking Faith Catholic Podcast! Show Snippet: "John takes all these things which we imagine in the indefinite future; judgment, exaltation, whatever, and he makes them happen right now...and its the same thing when Jesus says 'I'm the Resurrection' - yeah we know our brother will be raised some...
Apr 20, 2021•39 min•Ep. 241
In this part 1 of a two-part conversation on the Resurrection, Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett discuss the intricacies of that most unusual of Christian claims, belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of our own lives. Show Snippet: "If your eternity doesn't transcend this reality if it's just an extension of this reality, then even 'heaven' becomes hell..."
Apr 13, 2021•32 min•Ep. 240
Guest Fredric Heidemann discusses his written work with Word on Fire ministries on modernity, secular humanism, and the pitfalls inherent in breaking with a Judeo-Christian worldview. Show Snippet: "You're assuming all sorts of things about the moral life. You're assuming that morals can be properly grounded, which of course, as we discussed earlier, you can't really do from an atheistic perspective. You're assuming that there's free will, which pop-atheists deny...all these things and it's like...
Apr 06, 2021•41 min•Ep. 239
In this part 2 of 3, We continue our visit with Fredric Heidemann of Word on Fire discussing his conversion from staunch atheist to Catholic writer for Bishop Robert Barron's global evangelization apostolate. Show Snippet: "The Catholic Church was the patron of all these arts, the Catholic Church was doing all this...and the Universities, and sponsoring all this education; and I think "man, I can't seem to get away from the Catholic Church!"...and I was reading through my history course, I took ...
Mar 30, 2021•39 min•Ep. 238
This week we welcome Fredric Heidemann, writer for Bishop Robert Barron's Word on Fire blog for a three-part series of discussions on his conversion from atheism to Catholicism. Show Snippet: "It's not like I read the Lord of the Rings and became Catholic overnight...but it made me recognize, and it was a kind of re-cognition, a re-understanding of something buried deep in the depth of every human soul, that the world is just fundamentally more enchanted than this sort of materialistic, reductio...
Mar 23, 2021•32 min•Ep. 237
This week we reflect on the invitation to allow our hearts to be pierced by the crosses of the world through the lens of another of Flannery O'Connor's characters, Mrs. Greenleaf, as encountered in the story named after her - "Greenleaf". Show Snippet: "We are called to be open to God's own heart, and God's own vision of the world...to be Mrs. Greenleafs by vocation; to roll in the dirt of all of the horror, injustice, sadness, and absurdity of the world and cry out with God that our hearts migh...
Mar 16, 2021•18 min•Ep. 236
This week we begin a two-part Lenten retreat on Flannery O'Connor and the suffering Gospel. We'll reflect on this call to take up our cross and the essential role of grace in shaking up our world-view and stripping away those things which hamper our journey into sainthood. Show Snippet: "O'Connor...recognizes that this desire and calling to a life of sainthood is both the only calling that matters, that indeed contains all other callings in life, but is also unattainable save by grace."...
Mar 09, 2021•23 min•Ep. 235
In this part 2 of 2, we continue our conversation around faith and mental health, discussing what is helpful, what is not, and some practical ideas for building more mental health-related resiliency into our daily lives. Show Snippet: "It's extremely dangerous when we imagine that what's going on with mental health is simply a matter of someone's spiritual life not being in order, and so what they need to do is just pray more, offer it up and do all of the pius Catholic things you're supposed to...
Mar 02, 2021•49 min•Ep. 234
Wherein Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett chat about the intersection of faith and mental health. Sharing personal stories, new mental health-based ministries, and the consolations and support our Catholic faith can bring. Show Snippet: "The ministry that Melissa and I are involved in outside of the parish is called Emmaus Family Support. It's primarily a peer-led support group for people who are caregivers...they are the primary caregivers for someone who is close to them, who suffers from mental healt...
Feb 23, 2021•38 min•Ep. 233
This week Eric and Brett discuss the highs and lows of writing as they look at what is involved in taking the ideas of your head and heart, putting them to paper, and convincing someone to publish them. Show Snippet: "My email inbox is a lot more up to date when I'm trying to write a book...you know how you get the house really clean when you don't want to be doing something? I get my email up to date."
Feb 16, 2021•55 min
Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett Salkeld continue to wrestle with the morality of vaccinations in this part 2 of 2, digging deeper into the categories and arguments prevalent in recent weeks. Warning: These episodes may cause irritation and inflammation at the injection site, and a closer alignment with the consistent moral teachings of the Pope and teaching office of the Church. Show Snippet: "The same people who say that it's extremely unlikely...to die from COVID, also are pulling out single inciden...
Feb 09, 2021•41 min•Ep. 231
As vaccines begin to roll out promising protection from COVID-19 and a slow return to normal life, there remain some questions regarding the morality of some vaccines which may have connections with ethically questionable cell-lines. Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett navigate the waters in this two-part look at the morality of vaccination. Warning: These episodes may cause irritation and inflammation at the injection site, and a closer alignment with the consistent moral teachings of the Pope and teachi...
Feb 02, 2021•43 min•Ep. 231
In this part 2 of 2, we continue our conversation with Brendan Steven of www.catholicconscience.org regarding his journey from young atheist to leading a lay apostolate discussing false idols and the deepest desires of our souls this week on Thinking Faith! Show Snippet: "I look back on my life on how obsessed I was with 'the cause' when politics was my idol. To me, it was a perversion of the desire to give of self, like irrevocable, committed, total self-giving..."
Jan 26, 2021•41 min
Who doesn't like a great conversion story? Brendan Steven of catholicconscience.org shares his journey from young atheist to leading a lay apostolate and God's relentless, loving pursuit of his soul this week on Thinking Faith! Show Snippet: "A lot of normal human beings would have given up on me, would not have waited ten years, and would not have spent that relentless kind of nudging, and pushing and gentle cajoling towards the outcome that they desired, but God di that for me."...
Jan 19, 2021•47 min•Ep. 228
Brendan Steven of catholicconscience.org discusses how his former work in Canadian politics led him to assist Catholics in discerning the relationship between Catholic social teaching and the role of our faith in deciding how our votes might be cast. Show Snippet: "We often like to use this phrase, and I love this phrase, "God meets us where we are." We have to meet our politicians where they are. Even with folks that, from our perspective, are supporting really unsupportable policies, we have t...
Jan 12, 2021•35 min•Ep. 227
Catholicconscience.org founder Matthew Marquardt discusses what led an American police officer to create a Canadian Catholic lay apostolate whose mission is to assist Catholic voters in forming their voting consciences based on the social teachings of the Catholic Church. Show Snippet: "The whole problem here is that Catholics aren't involved the way we should be...we should be trying to bring the whole political and civic conversation closer to the Gospel and the social teachings of the Church....
Jan 05, 2021•39 min•Ep. 226
This week we begin a three-part visit with Matthew Marquardt and Brendan Steven of catholicconscinece.org to discuss the origins of this organization whose mission is to assist Catholics in discerning their own conscience as voters and build the Kingdom of God through Catholic social teaching. Show snippet: "Out of love of neighbour we have an enormous responsibility as Catholics to form ourselves and discern how we vote and the ways we think about our vote in ways that are intentional and refle...
Dec 29, 2020•37 min•Ep. 225
Join us for a special Advent retreat episode of Thinking Faith. This week Deacon Eric reflects on the Annunciation from the Fourth Sunday's Gospel and the invitation of the angel Gabriel to see our gifts and others, through God's own eyes. Show Snippet: "This is the God who sees within the world as it is, a space where he might come to dwell among us, a space sacred and holy enough to make his home among us. He sees a life filled with promise; he sees our lives filled with possibility; He sees o...
Dec 22, 2020•31 min•Ep. 224
The discussion on faith and politics continues as guests Brendan Hodge and Charles Camosy examine the potential that exists in both left and right political ideologies for a radical coming together on a variety of important issues. Show Snippet: "Why do we have to choose between protecting pre-natal children from being dismembered in the womb, or people with massive brain injuries from being starved and dehydrated to death, and actually supporting nursing homes and long-term care facilities...wi...
Dec 15, 2020•37 min•Ep. 223
With the election cycle in Saskatchewan complete and our neighbours to the south wrapping up their own contentious presidential vote, we thought it would be great fun to invite two faithful US Catholics to the show to discuss the fallout. Charlie Camosy, a former member of Democrats for Life, and Brendan Hodge, card-carrying Republican, go head to head talking faith and politics this week on Thinking Faith! Show Snippet: "There's sort of a line you can't cross over and we understand as Catholics...
Dec 08, 2020•36 min•Ep. 222
Wherein a dialogue between St. Ignatius of Loyola and Rene Descartes provides a moral to our cautionary tale, and an old friend from NET Ministries Canada 'podcast bombs' the show. Show Snippet: "Ignatius knows to have a healthy suspicion of his own capacity for self-deception at the expense of his neighbour...and this is the key, Ignatius is thinking of the other, whereas Descartes' focus is on the self..."
Dec 01, 2020•35 min•Ep. 221
Wherein we discuss the interesting exchanges that can take place in email inboxes and the need for charity in our virtual conversations. Show Snippet: "I got a little assertive at this point, I don't think unjustly, but I got a little assertive, I said, If you decline to show me the error, I need to stop responding to your email...not everyone who attacks you on the internet deserves your time."
Nov 24, 2020•24 min•Ep. 220
We wrap up our five-part series with Catholic author, speaker, and apologist, Mark Shea on his newest book "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching." Show Snippet: "Faith without works is dead, says James, and so this aspect of Catholic teaching, more than any other, has to be lived. It must be practiced or...it's like looking in a mirror and then walking away and forgetting what you look like, says James." Get a signed copy of "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer...
Nov 17, 2020•33 min•Ep. 219
Continuing our discussion with Catholic author, speaker, and apologist, Mark Shea on his newest book "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching" examining, among other topics, structures of sin. Show Snippet: "We make stuff all the time. We don't just make little tchotchkes, we also make giant, world-spanning, socio-economic, and political systems. These are what are known as 'structures of sin' and what structures of sin do is that they make it hard to be good and make...
Nov 10, 2020•22 min•Ep. 218
In this multipart series, we sit down with Catholic writer, speaker, and apologist, Mark Shea to discuss his newest book "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching". Show Snippet: "This is part of our heavily libertarian way of looking at things; that I can be personally generous, but why do I need the state to put a gun to my head and tell me that I have to give to pay for somebody else's healthcare?" Get a signed copy of "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Cat...
Nov 03, 2020•34 min•Ep. 217
We continue our multi-part discussion with Catholic author, blogger, and speaker Mark Shea on his latest book The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching. We dig into the various pillars of Catholic social teaching, and their connections to the Gospel and our lives. Show Snippet: "It's really important to understand; the Gospels are underground literature written to the Church...they are not literature written to Christians in order to give them the right to say "I thank ...
Oct 27, 2020•35 min•Ep. 216
