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Coffin Nation— The Community of Culture Builders

Canada has many private colleges and universities. It almost had a Christian law school. The number of these will remain zero for the foreseeable future thanks for a stunning 7-2 decision by Canada’s Supreme Court that forbids the establishment of the Trinity Western Law School in Langley, BC.

The reason?

Because Trinity Western is an evangelical institution that holds to the traditional biblical view of sexuality, and because prospective students must sign a Covenant Agreement in which they agree to avoid drunkenness, gossip, plagiarism, any form of hazing or intimidation, with emphasis (I’m quoting now) the Christian “virtues of honesty, civility, truthfulness, generosity and integrity.” Trinity Western make no bones about the fact that its “community life are formed by a firm commitment to the person and work of Jesus Christ as declared in the Bible.”

So far so good. Except that the Agreement also says the following:

• observe modesty, purity and appropriate intimacy in all relationships, reserve sexual expressions of intimacy for marriage, and within marriage take every reasonable step to resolve conflict and avoid divorce
• sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman

No explicit reference to homosexuality, but that is exactly what triggered the legal battle, starting with the Law Societies of B.C., Ontario, and Nova Scotia, that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Bruce Pardy, professor of law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (who was introduced to me by Dr. Jordan Peterson) thinks this decision is a cruel joke on all Canadians. In my interview, he explains exactly why. Professor Pardy has a libertarian-style view of the definition of marriage, and the TWU Covenant Agreement is not his cup of tea. But that’s not the point. What happened to good old Canadian diversity? Is there really no room for even one Christian Law School that upholds the traditional biblical view of marriage (which is shared, one notes, by the Catholic Church, many conservative Christian bodies, as well as Orthodox Jewish and Muslim organizations (the non-polygamous ones at any rate)?

If someone is offended by the rules of a private school, he or she should refuse to go. But that’s not enough for the LGBTQS2 (lesbian gay bisexual transgender questioning two spirited) activists who opposed the school’s plans from the get go. Backed by powerful legal interests across Canada and a broadly accepted presupposition about the redefinition of marriage and “evolving Canadian Charter values,” their fight ended last month with this decision.

In this episode you will learn:

• How the shift from Charter rights (which are concrete, verbally explicit things) to Charter values (which are ephemeral, fleeting things) softened the ground for the high Court’s reasoning
• How the interests of a tiny minority became the tail that currently wags the Canadian dog
• Why the Court’s reasoning unwittingly promotes very unjust discrimination the Justices opine they oppose
• The eerie similarity between “the vibe of the thing” (a comedy reference that will make sense once you hear the interview) and the “penumbra” of the 1965 Griswold v Connecticut, which paved the way for Roe v Wade via an alleged “right to privacy” in the U.S. Constitution
• How this disastrous decision is a wake-up call for those who have been lulled into thinking reasonable accommodations will be made going forward for private educational institutions that go against the grain of PC culture.
• Why it may signal the death knell of the much-vaunted pluralism that has characterized Canadian society since the Quebec Act of 1774
• Why it should matter to Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, the Salvation Army, Mormons, or any group that assumes they can freely form communities with their own self-regulating rules

Resources recommended in this episode:

• Professor Pardy’s presence, writing, and contact information on the Queen’s University website
• Pardy’s essay on the decision in The National Post newspaper.
• Australian classic comedy The Castle
• The implications of the decision in The National Post by Ray Pennings of the faith-based think tank Cardus.

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A few minutes into my conversation with Bishop Gracida, bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi, TX, it becomes obvious that he is direct and to the point, evidently allergic to beating around the bush. Yet, he’s kindly and thoughtful. At 95, he is hale and hearty, and is one of the very few bishops who regularly blog. His remarks, sometimes trenchant, always readable, are found at www.abyssum.org Abyssus Abyssum Invocat, Latin for “deep calls to deep” (from Psalm 42:7).

 If you feel somewhat disoriented by some of the utterances and writings of Pope Francis, you’re not alone. If the thought of criticizing the Pope makes you uncomfortable (there are plenty of nasty professional Francis Haters online), that’s a good sign of filial devotion to the Holy Father and to the Church he visibly leads. Sometimes, though, the faithful have “the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful” (Canon 212.3).

In this regards, Bishop Gracida has some questions that fearlessly “go there.” What do I mean? The authorized biography of disgraced Godfried Cardinal Daneels of Belgium describes activities between and among cardinal electors, such as Cardinal Carlo Martini, Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, and Cardinals Karl Lehmann and Walter Kasper—dubbed the St. Galen Mafia. These activities, verified by Austin Ivereigh in his hagiographic biography of Pope Francis, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making Of a Radical Pope involve canvassing other electors to elect Jorge Cardinal Bergolio.

Well…

Bishop Rene Gracida believes, as do others, that this activity is canonically illegal under the promulgated laws in the 1996 Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, by St. John Paul II. If this is true, then the validity of the papal election may be in doubt. You read that right.

To state the obvious, I am not a canonist nor was I at the Conclave. What I know is that know that the reaction of most Catholic pundits to the notion that the 2013 election may have been invalid is met with a guffaw or a “that’s crazy talk.” It’s a gorilla in the room whose existence needs to be acknowledged before it can be dismissed as harmless.

In this interview you will learn:

• Have a sense of appreciation for what Ordinaries are called to as shepherds of souls
• Understand the difference between true episcopal authority as it resides in the individual bishop and the largely administrative authority of a national bishops’ conference
• Get a clear picture of a self-described “one crisis after another” life lived to the full
• See more reasons to renew your prayers for the life and health of the Church
• Understand why the sacraments must never be politicized no matter who does it
• Maybe be shaken up

Resources recommended in this episode:

• An Ordinary’s Not So Ordinary Life by Bishop Rene Henry Gracida
• Follow Bishop Gracida on his blog here:  www.abbysum.org 

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Motion pictures have been called the ultimate form of art because they incorporate all previous forms: dance, music, theater, and mime, all in one. They are powerful drivers of, and reflections of, culture.

Movie lines become iconic and hence memorable:

“We’re going to need a bigger boat.” Jaws

“ET phone home.” E.T. the Extraterrestrial

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Gone with the Wind

“May the force be with you.” Star Wars

“You had me at hello.” Jerry McGuire

As Christians, we need to watch movies critically, not just for morality reasons, but for artistic ones. Should believers support poorly made movies because they bear a Christian message? Can Christians see rated R films with potty words, sexual content, and violence? Where’s the line?

This week’s guest has thought deeply about these questions and has some practical guidelines. He is Douglas Beaumont, a convert to the Faith and author of a book that’s due for a reboot, titled The Message Behind the Movie: How To Engage With a Film Without Disengaging With Your Faith. If you like movies, you’ll love this conversation in light of the gospel and the principles of effective storytelling.

In this interview you will learn:

• How some G rated films have bad messages and some rated R ones have good ones
• The difference between a Christian movie and a movie that is Christian
• Some tips for determining whether a story is told effectively on screen
• Why some heathen writers write the best “Christian scripts”
• Why the golden age movies still hold up
• How to notice when a film is selling an anti-Christian bias

Resources recommended in this episode:

• The Message Behind the Movie: How To Engage With a Film Without Disengaging With Your Faith by Douglas Beaumont
• Story: Substance, Style, and Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
• The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler
• Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field

Question of the week

In what way is Hollywood today’s most important missionary territory?

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This is fascinating. What is the nature of the great experiment called “America”? We say that Poland is a Catholic country, India is a Hindu country, and Turkey is a Muslim country, and so on.

We also say America is a Christian country. But in what sense? Because the majority are followers of Jesus? But Jesus isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the Bill of Rights—the Christian religion is nowhere endorsed as the state religion.

My guest this week unpacks the foundational source—the real thinkers and philosophical ingredients that went into the essentially American recipe. His name is Timothy Gordon and his provocative new book is titled Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome. https://amzn.to/2lcTB5M

He finds six crypto-Catholic elements present in the founding of America, and takes pains to show how the founders did not exactly cite the sources (like St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and St. Augustine) for these elements. Gordon says “America is wired Catholic, labeled Protestant, and currently functions as secular.”

Lots to chew on after this interview with Tim Gordon, to say the least.

In this interview you will learn:

• How anti-Catholic bias of 18th century America kept our Protestant and Enlightenment forefathers from admitting their dependence upon Catholic ideals
• How the signs of the decline of America (from abortion on demand to the redefinition of marriage to crushing debt to the paganized pop culture) do not signal the inevitable end of the republic
• Why America was never intended to be an empire and how international incursions have not been good for the nation’s health
• The way in which America can “become more Catholic” without becoming the dreaded bugaboo “theocracy”
• How relativism has been deliberately inserted into public life primarily through the Supreme Court
• Why truth can never be determined by a poll or nose count, and why it matters

Resources recommended in this episode:

• Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome by Timothy Gordon
• The U.S. Constitution: A Reader by the Hillsdale College staff
• American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll by Bradley Birzer
• Aristotle For Everybody by Mortimer Adler
• Why Liberalism Failed  by Patrick Deneen
• Dangerous Books website

Question of the week

Do you believe America is specifically biased against Catholics?

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The home of the free because of the brave is filled with many terrific people, who live a life (for the most part—the poor, Jesus said, will always be with us) of comfort and convenience.

America also comes with particular challenges for Christians who are engaged in evangelization. This week, I talked to one of the best in the biz, Peter Herbeck, vice president of Renewal Ministries and its director of mission. He has been speaking about the lordship of Jesus for over 30 years in scores of countries all over the world and he has special insights into the “isms” here at home that make it a challenge for missionaries. I loved this conversation!

In this interview, you will learn:

• How the failed sexual revolution has produced not only chaos but also countless hungry hearts for the truth about human sexuality
• How different the average American is compared to the average Chinese in terms of openness to Christ
• How the prison experience of a Lithuanian bishop provides a powerful lesson for us in the US
• Why relativism represents an obstacle to evangelizing, but not an insurmountable one
• The importance of praying with people on the spot when they ask you to pray for them
• How culture impacts the Christian life and vice versa
• Tips on how to stay calm when sharing the gospel with those who might be hostile

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• When the Spirit Comes In Power: Rediscovering the Charismatic Dimension of the Christian Life by Peter Herbeck
• When the Spirit Speaks: Touched By God’s Word by Peter and Debbie Herbeck
• The Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life  by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP
• The Fulfillment Of All Desire  by Ralph Martin

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Michael J. Knowles the a Yale-bred host of two-thirds of The Daily Wire platform begun by Ben Shapiro. He “wrote” a clever “book” titled Reasons To Vote Democrat: A Comprehensive Guide 

Very few commentators anywhere in the mediasphere are out of the closet Catholics who actually accept all the teachings of the Church, which is why Mr. Knowles caught my attention. (Everyone reading this can list a dozen faux Catholics in media.) His show is much more politically geared than mine, but his infectious enthusiasm for slaying liberal arguments and his no-apologies support for President Trump couched in millennial-speak, and his frequent references to his unabashed Catholicism, make him very watchable as a host.

In this interview, you will learn:

• How Knowles got the Daily Wire gig, and what his mission is
• How he uses his Stella Adler Studio acting skills to communicate
• His unsuccessful attempts at baptising Ben Shapiro in the office hallway
• How his faith informs his political conservatism
• The paradoxical similarities between President Trump and Pope Francis
• Why the digital media provides a strong counterweight to the hugely biased MSM
• My thoughts on marriage as he prepares to take the matrimonial plunge

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Reasons To Vote Democrat: A Comprehensive Guide  by Michael J. Knowles
• Poetic Diction: A Study In Meaning  by Owen Barfield
• Old Errors New Labels  by Bishop Fulton Sheen
• The Conservative Mind: From Burke To Eliot by Russell Kirk

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Ireland was once known and loved as the land of saints and scholars. Stout in its Catholicism and justly proud of its traditions of literature, of art and of Guinness—along with a veritable factory of holy missionaries to places like Africa—Ireland has taken a slow tumble into chaos.

The Irish have fled the church pews like rats from the Titanic in the last 30 years; Catholic leadership on the old sod has been badly hobbled by scandal and tepid leadership; and, corporately, the Irish media have been crafting an aggressively secularist narrative about the nature of the country and its venerable past.

Very few people understand the “before and after” better than John Waters, my guest this week. He’s an author, playwright, rock journalist, and social critic who has decades of observational experience of his homeland—the recent history of which is less than encouraging, with its historic redefinition of marriage in 2015, and now, with the May 25, 2018 Referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which guarantees the rights of all Irish citizens, including “the right to life of the unborn.”

If this Article is repealed, the Ireland of old, marked with the glories I mention above, is over. Done for.

I’m airing this interview to make it available to as many Irish listeners before the Referendum. Pray for Ireland.

In this interview, you will learn:

• The recent cultural and historical forces that have gotten Ireland to where she is today
• The deep meaning in Gaelic of the English word “unborn”
• How Ireland developed its current existential nihilism
• Signs of hope that Ireland can come back to her former glory
• Strategies for engaging a post-Christian culture with a new way of speaking the truth
• How therapeutic deism has replaced the Catholic Faith

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Lapsed Agnostic By John Waters
• Beyond Consolation: How We Became Too Clever for God and Our Own Good  by John Waters
• Persuasive Pro-life: How to Talk About Our Culture’s Toughest Issue  by Trent Horn
• John Waters in First Things magazine.

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Join the Conversation

Question of the week:

What is one concrete thing I can do to be an ambassador of hope for someone in my life who may be suffering depression or otherwise feeling despair?

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Ours is an age of social disruption, isolation, and atomization. Rates of suicide among young people, rich and poor, along with instances of clinical depression are on the sharp rise since 1999. A dark ennui—call it despair, or melancholia, or depression—has settled into the lives of millions of people.

Sources of community support that used to provide a bullwark against all this “apartness,” such as a vibrant parish at the center of family life and vice versa, mens’ and womens’ social clubs, and a culture that supported the ideals of monogamy, have withered or vanished.

Psychiatrist Dr. Aaron Kheriaty deals with the fall-out of these disruptions every day in his clinical practice and as an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California Irvine where he is also director of the bioethics program.

This is a fascinating exchange of ideas—from social science data, to poetry, to the life witness of the saints to the truths of Scripture—related to helping those suffering maladies that seem to cruelly evacuate hope from the human heart. Very few doctors see the interconnectedness between the order of nature (and nurture) and the order of grace. Aaron Kheriaty is one of them, and he’s downright evangelical about getting the word out about the urgently needed, good old-fashioned hope. He’s also a fine writer who is attuned to the mystery of suffering in a way that is wise and accessible.

The Hail Holy Queen prayer describes the location of our sojourn as “this vale of tears” for good reasons. If you or someone you know has had serious vicissitudes, trials, or setbacks in his or her life, this is a “don’t miss” interview.

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why the worlds of psychiatry and of faith have large areas of overlap and agreement
• A workable definition of despair and its antidote
• How the lives of some of the (mentally ill) saints can be a sign of great hope and consolation
• Why suicide, and examples of triumph over despair, can both be “contagious”
• The ways in which the Incarnation of God in Christ provides the direct proof of divine accompaniment and healing regarding mental illness and the loss of hope
• The difference between human hope and the supernatural virtue of hope

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Catholic Guide to Depression  by Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, with Monsignor John Cihak
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl
• People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by Dr. M. Scott Peck
• The Hound of Heaven and Other Poems  by Francis Thompson, Intro by G.K. Chesterton
• Dying of Despair essay in “First Things” by Dr Aaron Kheriaty
• University of California Irvine link to Dr. Kheriaty’s bio and contact info 

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You may have heard of 40 Days For Life, and you may have heard of its founder and former CEO David Bereit. This interview dives into his story, what inspired him to get directly involved in pro-life activism, and into the reasons why he entered the Catholic Church this past Easter. Bereit is a pro at communicating the pro-life message with reason, balance, and passion.

In this interview, you will learn:

• The secret ingredient in your approach that can mean the difference between an abortion and a life saved.
• The specific reasons why the timeless teachings of the Catholic Church won Bereit over.
• The originating incident that led to the founding of 40 Days For Life.
• Why abortion will never be defeated until we tell the truth about what it does to baby and mother.
• Why it’s vital that we link arms with people of other faiths, or no faith, to form a non-violent army of people committed to ending abortion and to healing moms and dads whos chose it.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• 40 Days for Life: Discover What God Has Done...Imagine What He Can Do  by David Bereit and Shawn Carney.   

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You may have seen Father Mike in one of his popular Ascension Presents video commentaries. His topics—delivered in his energetic and telegenic style—tend toward what’s currently trending but he always anchors his subject (living together, chastity, celebrity culture, movie and TV examples, etc.) in the timeless teachings of the Church. From what I can see, there is no topic territory that is off limits, including the teaching on homosexuality—the forbidden topic par excellence in today’s climate of political correctness and confusion.

Which brings me to this week’s episode, in which Father Mike and I talk about his new book, Made For Love: Same-Sex Attractions and the Catholic Church https://amzn.to/2J8Ikxj. It’s all about balance, understanding, and having the courage to put the focus where it belongs: on compassion that is yet unafraid to speak the truth.

The issue of homosexuality has been massively co-opted by the secular media and by so-called pro-gay factions with Christianity. The result is widespread confusion: what exactly is the Catholic teaching? Where is it in the Bible? How to respond to family members and friends who “come out”? Is it possible to be biblically faithful and pastorally attuned to peoples’ real needs?

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why the Church makes the careful distinction between inclination and behavior, or between unbidden temptation and chosen sin.
• How best to respond to a loved one who a loved one who “comes out” to you
• How our culture of relativism makes it doubly hard to have a conversation about objective morality, especially when it comes to something this emotion-charged
• The way in which Father Mike’s relationship with his same-sex attracted brother provides a model for imitation
• Why identifying as “gay” represents a terrible reduction of the dignity of the human person
• Why the legal reality of “gay marriage” is best understood as a matter of redefinition and has nothing to do with sexual behavior, per se.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Made For Love: Same-Sex Attractions and the Catholic Church  by Father Mike Schmitz
• Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi
• Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything  by Robert Reilly

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Are atheists uniformly dedicated to truth and evidence, to rational thought and logic? Might there be a hidden causal factor at play in more cases than one would imagine? Psychologist and researcher Dr. Paul Vitz thinks so. It’s fatherlessness.

His latest book, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, sets forth the case that abusive, absent, or weak fathers very often provide the psychological soil from which atheist weeds are more likely to fester. Using example after example of leading atheists (start the list with Nietzsche, Hume, Sartre, Russell, Camus, Freud, and the so-called New Atheists Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens), Vitz reviews the basic life biography and finds a “father wound” in one degree or another.

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Are atheists uniformly dedicated to truth and evidence, to rational thought and logic? Might there be a hidden causal factor at play in more cases than one would imagine? Psychologist and researcher Dr. Paul Vitz thinks so. It’s fatherlessness.

His latest book, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, sets forth the case that abusive, absent, or weak fathers very often provide the psychological soil from which atheist weeds are more likely to fester. Using example after example of leading atheists (start the list with Nietzsche, Hume, Sartre, Russell, Camus, Freud, and the so-called New Atheists Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens), Vitz reviews the basic life biography and finds a “father wound” in one degree or another.

He doesn’t reduce atheism to a pop psych theory (not all atheists share the same experience of an abusive father, and, besides, human beings are complex) but he carefully traces the atheists own words and the ways in which their respective intellectual journies led them to reject God—the Father.

It’s a fascinating read. And, as you’ll soon find out, Dr. Vitz is a fascinating guest.

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why Sigmund Freud was right in asserting that God is “an exalted father,” but not in the way Freud believed
• How the memories of even a long deceased father can influence your faith perspective
• Why Jesus called God Father and not Mother
• The reasons why Vitz did a control group comparison of philosophers and other writers of the same era and social backgrounds who had warm, close relationships with their father—and how their spiritual outlook differed from the atheist group
• Why “public atheists” (those devoted to writing and debating their atheism) is overwhelmingly a male phenomenon
• Why, when women leave a relationship with God they usually don’t become atheists, but they form a new relationship: yogi, guru, New Age community, goddess worship, etc.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, by Paul C. Vitz
• Surprised By Joy: The Shape Of My Early Life,  by C.S. Lewis
• The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser
• My Father, Bertrand Russell by Katherine Tait
• Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers  by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton

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I have been reading Rev. Dalbey’s books with great profit since the mid-90s. One of the first Christian leaders to address the crisis of masculinity, Dalbey has laid his hand on an urgent and increasingly obvious problem: men don’t know how to be men.

The source of the problem is multiform: the throwaway divorce culture, the failed Sexual Revolution, the epidemic of pornography, bad or non-existent modeling from one’s own father, and a sense of shame that gets covered over by excessive pride.

What is your relationship like with your father? How has it contributed to the man you are, for better or worse? Did your dad teach you how to pray? Talk to you about sex in a healthy way?

Do you struggle to be real—in all that that implies? How has a rules-based approach to religion insinuated itself into your relationship with Christ our Savior?

Gordon Dalbey has your back, and most probably understands your heart.

In this interview, you will learn:

• How the enemy likes to foment confusion about manhood and masculine identity.
• Why so many men fall for the false substitutes of portfolio size, power, and pornography, and how to find a way out
• What the Bible says about the meaning of “male and female He made them” (Gen 5:2)
• The ways in which the father, not the mother, instills and imparts male identity in young boys
• The source of the war over “gender” and how to recognize the error at the heart of it
• A way of renewing your faith in God as Father and Christ as divine Brother

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Healing the Masculine Soul: God’s Restoration of Men to Real Manhood by Gordon Dalbey
• Sons of the Father: Healing the Father-Wound in Men Today  by Gordon Dalbey
• Fight Like a Man: A New Manhood For a New Warfare  by Gordon Dalbey
• Rev. Dalbey’s website

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The emotional, some say spiritual, effect music has on us is notoriously difficult to put into words. It’s sort of like analyzing why something is funny. The reality ever exceeds our verbal grasp.

Why are minor chords sad and majors happy? Why, when you hear a song from your childhood is there a superglue of emotion attached, bringing you instantly to those moments long ago?

This week’s guest is one of the greats in the choral music world. If you enjoy music with a lush, cinematic sound created for multiple voices on the exquisite side, Morten Lauridsen is your man.

The most frequently performed American composer of choral music, Lauridsen is a National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale (1994–2001), and has been a professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than 50 years. His work has been recorded on over 200 CDs including five with Grammy nominations.

We’re talking serious musical gravitas here.

On November 11, 2018, a massive concert for international television is being held at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany to mark the centenary of the end of World War One. In addition to Welsh composer Karl Jenkins’ Mass for Peace, the other piece selected is Lauridsen’s beautiful Lux Aeterna. I predict not a dry eye on that night.

You can imagine my surprise when, during the interview, the great man spontaneously began playing a portion of his classic O Magnum Mysterium to explain why the notes for the word “Virgo” ground the piece in a special way!

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why every artist has to risk failure; as not trying guarantees failure
• How Lauridsen became a late bloomer as a composer, at age 50, and maybe how you can, too
• Why poetry deserves a massive revival
• The importance of stillness and quiet for human serenity and creativity
• The mysterious way in which music connects us to the divine

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• O Magnum Mysterium performance 
• Lux Aeterna performance
• Profound talk by director Karl Paulnack to music freshmen at Boston College Conservatory 
• CD album, Morten Lauridsen: Lux Aeterna; Madrigali; Ave Maria; Ubi Caritas 
• CD album streaming, Lauridsen: Mid-Winter Songs 
• Connect with Morten: www.mortenlauridsen.net

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Question of the week:

With only one life to live, if you feel like you have something to create, musically or otherwise, what is stopping you?

Christopher West has devoted his adult life to communicating the beauty of the Catholic Faith, particularly through the insights of what’s known everywhere as the Theology of the Body.

First in archdiocesan religious education, then with the Theology of the Body Institute, and now with The Cor Project, West has been out in front, pointing out the Source of Beauty, making connections between superficially disperate dots, and, of course, being the world’s most famous expositor of the thought of St. John Paul the Great’s Theology of the Body.

His life work of explaining and interpreting the five years’ worth of the great Pope’s General Audiences (1979-1984) has launched a whole cottage industry of books, DVDs, and seminars.

I have interviewed Christopher West more than once, but this conversation with him is my favorite. We talked films that fairly vibrate with low-density gospel ideas, pop music lyrics that point Upward, the sad misalignment that leads to giving into the siren song of porn (he calls it “aiming too low”), and why he thinks the Sexual Revolution is on its last lap.

You’ll find this conversation bracing, and maybe challenging, if I had to guess. West pulls insights whole cloth from unexpected places. I’m grateful for his endorsement of the upcoming revised and expanded edition of my first book, Sex Au Naturel.  (More about that exciting development down the road.)

In this interview, you will learn:

• The factors that led to the Sexual Revolution and why it is collapsing under its own weight
• Examples of pop music, from Bono to Bruce Springsteen, that reflect a deep yearning for the mystery, ultimately, of the divine
• How the insights of the Theology of the Body are not merely abstract ideas but concrete ways of personal transformation
• The hidden providential timing of the founding of Playboy magazine by Hugh Hefner, and the radical approach to sex promulgated by a young Polish priest around the same time named Father Karol Wojtyla (later John Paul II).
• The phenomenon of what West calls “twisted mystics,” otherwise secular artists who tap into universal longings and point in some dim but real way to the reality of the incarnation.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Theology of the Body For Beginners: Rediscovering the Meaning of Life, Love, Sex, and Gender by Christopher West
• Love Is Patient But I Am Not: Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist  by Christopher West
• Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, and the Universal Longing  by Christopher West
• The Cor Project website

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Question of the week:

Do I believe I have a human (body and soul) and not just a spiritual, nature?

She didn’t want to do it.

No way, no how.

Not becoming Catholic.

Lizzie was an established and very popular presence in the “young Protestant dispenses advice to the like-minded” space on YouTube; she grew up in the Church of Christ and imbibed the standard myths about Catholicism. She might pray for Catholics, but become one? Riiiiiight.

Attending Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA, Lizzie began to run into fellow Protestants who were either intensely interested in the Faith or had converted to full membership. Meanwhile, her YouTube channel began to really grow wings. (As of this writing, she has 34,808,077 total views.)

Perhaps wanting to be kind and informative, Lizzie ended up shooting some video commentaries with titles like “Seven Lies Protestants Believe About Catholicism,” and “Questions Protestants Have For Catholics.”

Then she discovered the Church fathers, and, in her revelatory video called (wait for it) “Why I Am Becoming Catholic,” she goes one to explain how the book Upon This Rock by Steve Ray was instrumental in her decision. I grinned audibly. My buddy Steve!

My interview with her, as you’ll see, was a delight. She is direct, candid, and very open about her diagnosis with bipolar disorder. Her journey is about to take a profound leap forward when she enters full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter, 2018.

Pray for this young leader. As an evangelist and content creator for Christ, Lizzie Estella Reezay is going places.

In this interview, you will learn:

• How her experience of being immersed in misconceptions of Catholicism led to acceptance of countless errors of fact
• Why you can’t be too careful which authors you read…
• The one book that supercharged Lizzie’s desire to get to the bottom of The Catholic Thing
• How her friends and family reacted to the news of her conversion
• Tools in how to, and how not to, reach out to our separated brethren

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church  by Steve Ray
• An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis De Sales
• Fundamentals of the Faith: Essays in Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft

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Is art just a luxury for the wealthy? Can there even be a definition for it? How did the Incarnation of the Logos change the world? What did Dostoyevsky mean by having one of his characters in The Idiot say, “in the future, man will be saved by beauty?”

Jonathan Pageau possesses a unique combination of gifts. He is an extraordinary artist, chiefly in the area of carving and iconography (feast your eyes and soul on his stunning work at www.pageaucarvings.com), and he is an articulate social critic, making important connections between the zeitgeist and trends in the world of art and public images. He is also a convert to Orthodoxy from a Protestant background, and serves as the editor of the Orthodox Arts Journal (www.orthodoxartsjournal.org).

Hire this man to speak at your next conference. You’re welcome.

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I keep having the same exchange with my seriously Catholic friends whenever Pope Francis comes up in conversation. It goes something like this: we were enthused about the initial days of the election (he was saying things about evangelization that needed saying, he encouraged us to get out of “mindset ruts” and bring the gospel to the peripheries since the periphery dwellers aren’t knocking on the church door) and then….something happened to the enthusiasm.

Troubling things were said during airplane interviews (which have become more frequent), homilies began to sound more and more political, then official documents began to contain ambiguities and it became increasingly hard to domesticate the problem by blaming “the media” for “misquoting the Pope again.”

Enter Philip Lawler. Lawler is known for his incisive, non-nonsense journalism. But Lawler is no muck-raking, axe-grinding ideologue. His work epitomizes the term, “seasoned veteran.” He was the first layman to edit The Pilot, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston; he’s a Harvard alumnus, and has covered Catholic affairs for 30 years. The year Pope Francis was elected, Lawler co-wrote a warm tribute book to the new Pontiff, A Call to Serve: Pope Francis and the Catholic Future http://amzn.to/2HhAroh

That was five years back.

A number of years ago, he wrote a book about a difficult topic—what happened to the Catholic Church in Boston before and after the 2002 scandals exploded—titled The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture http://amzn.to/2FpXuwm

He has a new book on an even more difficult topic: an extended attempt at contextualizing and understanding the doctrinal confusions have seeped into the way in which the Holy Father leads, teaches, promotes, and demotes. How to discuss them without disrespecting the person and the office of the Sovereign Pontiff? Of course, there are plenty of “rad Trads” who despise Pope Francis and have devoted themselves to attacking him since his election on March 13, 2013. That’s both unfortunate and predictable, since Pope Francis’s three predecessors didn’t pass muster with the (mercifully small) clique of anti-Vatican II activists, either.

Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis Is Misleading His Flock http://amzn.to/2tpGS6D, despite its provocative title, is a well-researched account of a papacy that, five years after it began, has untold numbers of orthodox Catholics scratching their heads.

In case you’re wondering, no, Lawler is not accusing the Pope of heresy nor does he think the Holy Father is an anti-pope. Like all serious Catholics, he prays daily for the pope and earnestly wants him to succeed as a teacher and spiritual leader. It’s not a book Lawler even wanted to write.

A recent Pew Center poll http://www.pewforum.org/2018/03/06/pope-francis-still-highly-regarded-in-u-s-but-signs-of-disenchantment-emerge/ reflect a troubling drop in favorability among Catholics polled since he was first elected. Not that the barque of Peter is sinking, at least not yet, but the winds have gotten stiffer and the waves bigger. Seems to be more like rudder damage.  

In the past few months, there has been a sea change in Catholic media regarding coverage of the Pope’s personnel decisions and the ambiguities within certain documents such as, perhaps the highest-profile example, the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, (“The Joy of Love”) the fruit of a seemingly rigged Synod.

The sense of unease is growing, and despite the lingering fear to even bring it up, mainstream outlets in the Catholic media world, from EWTN to the UK’s Catholic Herald, Catholic World Report, The Catholic Thing, and others have begun to speak up about this with greater boldness. As long as the tone and content is respectful, Catholics have the right and duty under Canon 212.3 to speak honestly about matters of leadership involving the good of the Church.

Interestingly, Catholics almost relish castigating popes of the past (start the list with the Borgia and Medici Popes) as “scoundrels” or worse. This is done to emphasize that the Holy Spirit protects the universal Church in a particular way through the office of the Successor of Peter, who is protected against teaching something contrary to faith and morals.

Today, there is an unhealthy papalolatry in the air that takes the form of taboo against saying even mildly critical things about what a modern pope has said or done, things, of course, that don’t rise to the level of infallibility. A kind of ultramontane loyalty is attached to everything a pope does no matter how troublesome or controversial.

It’s not helpful. Neither is staying silent.

You don’t have to agree with all of Lawler’s interpretations or conclusions to see that there is a massive amount of discord in the Church today and that her visible head on earth is not doing much to “confirm the faith of the brethren” as the invisible Head said to His first Vicar in Luke 22:32.

In this week’s interview—in a spirit of genuine concern for clarity and filial respect for the person and the office of the Pontiff, who is ever in our prayers—we “go there.”

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to understand that the human side of the papacy does not invalidate it
• A sense of balance and historical proportion when assessing Pope Francis’ leadership style
• Why comparing one pope with another is not a helpful exercise
• The major “upside” to the current papacy—and the opportunity it provides Catholics
• How Jesus is still faithful to His bride, the Church in the midst of every crisis
• Many examples of documented statements, pastoral priorities, and political biases that have characterized the management of the Holy See since 2013

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis Is Misleading His Flock  by Philip Lawler
• A Call to Serve: Pope Francis and the Catholic Future  by Philip Lawler and Stefan von Kempis
• The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture by Philip Lawler

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Dr. Ryan Anderson rounds out the final episode in our four-part series on transgenderism. I have been an admirer of Dr. Anderson for a few years now, since the appearance of his two previous books on marriage (What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense and Truth Overruled ).

In this no-holds-barred interview, Dr. Anderson gets specific about the origins of the “trans movement,” the medical and social ills brought about by the gender reassignment surgery, and what ordinary people can do when asked for their opinion. The social pressure to simply agree with the aims of the ideologues is quite strong today.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The suicide rate for those who go through with reassignment surgery
• What happens to a high percentage of children who are not pressured or encouraged to go through with the surgery (hint: it’s good news)
• Why the Obama Administration changed the definition of sex in the 1972 Title IX to “gender identity” and why it changed the debate altogether
• The heartbreaking, largely untold, fate of those who change their minds after transitioning
• How to counter the almost non-stop barrage of pro-trans propaganda in movies, TV, and network news
• The importance of speaking and acting civilly when it comes to speaking with those who support the transgender ideology.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment  by Ryan T. Anderson
• What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense  by Ryan Anderson, Sherif Gergis, and Robert George
• Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom  by Ryan T. Anderson

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Michelle Cretella, M.D., is president of the American College of Pediatricians, a national organization of pediatricians and other health care professionals dedicated to the health and well-being of children. She is also fed up with the nonstop lies perpetuated by the “trans community” on the world of medical professionals. Big Medicine has become as politicized as Big Oil and Big Tobacco.

As a pediatrician, Dr. Cretella has seen the New Normal up close and personal in the lives of young patients being put into gender transition protocols as early as toddler age. Yes, crazy. I spoke with her about what doctors, especially pediatricians, are facing when it comes to politicized peer pressure to go along with patients’ deep-seated gender confusions.

Very few doctors are willing to step out of the comfort zone and challenge the status quo, even when vulnerable lives are at put at risk. Dr. Cretella and her colleagues at the American College of Pediatricians deserve our support and our prayers.

In this episode, you will learn

• The correct number of sexes from a scientific, medical point of view
• The facts about suicide rates post-transgender operation
• Medical realities involved in the mutilation procedure (start the list with double mastectomy for girls and sterilization for boys)
• The reason the American College of Pediatricians was formed
• What twin studies show us about gender disorder
• The real reason why GID (Gender Identity Disorder) was officially renamed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (No 5) as Gender Identity Dysphoria
• A clear way to understand the difference between sex and gender

Recommended reading:

• Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything,  by Robert Reilly
• When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, by Ryan T. Anderson
• Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon,  by Walt Heyer

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Hudson lived through a long, dark season of shame and sexual confusion. Early exposure to pornography and often feeling inferior to his older brother, led Byblow along a path toward homosexuality, gender confusion, an ingrained porn habit, and self-loathing.  

Years of drifting brought him to a moment of truth, a fundamental choice: to choose love and its demands, or give in to the lawlessness of lust?

In response, God poured out His grace and Byblow was restored to the peace and lasting joy that chastity brings. In this courageously transparent interview, he recalls the sorrow and shame that kept him in invisible chains, but pointing also to the insistent way Christ began to move in his heart and mind.

Today, Hudson Byblow is a sought-after speaker and consultant. His approach to same-sex attraction is fully in line with the teachings of the Church but it emphasizes the dimension of personal testimony and the importance of the lost art of listening.

In this episode, you will learn

• Why the language we use when speaking with hurting or angry people with sexual wounds can make the difference between breakthrough and breakdown
• How loneliness and self-rejection can fuel porn addiction
• The psychological roots of cross-dressing and gender confusion
• How a robust Catholic life provides the security and support for those with backgrounds like this
• The power of telling your story, of being willing to summarize how God has worked in your life

Recommended reading:

• Theology of the Body in One Hour by Jason Evert
• If You Really Loved Me: 100 Questions on Dating, Relationships, and Sexual Purity,  by Jason Evert
• Courage International including En-Courage for loved ones of folks with same-sex attractions and the free documentary, Desire of the Everlasting Hills
• Why I Don't Call Myself Gay: How I Reclaimed My Sexual Reality and Found Peace,  by Daniel Mattson

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Question of the week: Why do we need to begin and end with kindness when it comes to speaking with people mired in gender confusion?

Comment below.

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Walt Heyer lived for seven years “with” a female identity named Laura Jensen, having undergone the full gender reassignment surgery as an adult male in his late 30s.

Full mutilation, hormone treatments, driver’s licence with legal name change. In other words, all in.

It took a few years, but the “Laura” persona cracked under the pressure of the real man beneath the mountain of lies, which induced alcoholism, and a suicide attempt. Walt underwent his second reassignment surgery over 15 years ago and has a profound cautionary tale and hard won wisdom to dispense for those with ears to hear.

In this episode, you will learn

• The common myths sold as truths regarding transgenderism
• Whether transgender surgery ever works in the long term
• The textbook childhood traumas that typically induce gender dysphoria
• How a secretive grandmother unwittingly helped destroy Walt’s life by dressing him in a purple chiffon dress at age four.
• The way in which divine Providence used Walt’s pain to be a source of hope to others
• How he left the dangerous confusions of the trans movement and found lasting peace.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• A Transgender’s Faith by Walt Heyer
• Sex Change—It's Suicide: A Whistleblower Speaks Out by Walt Heyer
• Check out his two websites for more information: www.sexchangeregret.com and www.waltheyer.com

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Comment below.

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Jordan Peterson has been called “the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now” by the New York Times, “the world’s most sought after psychologist” by Psychology Today, and “rock star” by most every other pundit—admiringly by fans, sarcastically by critics.

Whatever he is, Jordan Bernd Peterson is crushing it. As of this writing, his YouTube channel has close to 800,000 subscribers; his videoed lectures on the interface between psychology and the biblical narrative are virally shared; his Patreon account snags over $70,000 per month; and his live lectures and debates sell out everywhere.

But what recently supercharged his notoriety (?) was his patient take-down of England’s Channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman during a contentious interview about the so-called gender pay gap. If you missed that slow-motion car wreck, it’s here. As of this writing, it generated over six million views and pushed a worldwide audience in his direction very quickly—and providentially, just in time for the release of his new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

In this interview (my fourth with him, the first in person), I get into some of the questions I many of my listeners have had about his worldview. Is he a Christian? Agnostic seeker? Lapsed Catholic academic trying to climb back home? We go there.

Peterson’s Bible exegesis approaches the sacred text from surprising angles, mainly drawn from Jungian insights into archetypes and mythopoetic interpretations of the events and players of salvation history. He is a gifted storyteller with an intense way of getting to the inner truths of the outer stories.

If you’re looking for black and white answers that bear the whiff of complete certainty, try a dogmatic theologian. Peterson is acutely allergic to tossing out glib answers to questions he believes need to be deeply pondered before wading into premature answers. In sense, many of his lectures seem to be orally delivered first drafts of something he might write down later and polish. He clarifies his own thinking as he goes.

For people (especially mothers and fathers) who are concerned about the aggressive neo-Marxist social engineering on college campuses and about the rise of the dictatorship of relativism, Peterson’s courage and perseverance in the face of intense pushback from defenders of the academic status quo is downright inspiring.

12 Rules for Life is not short, and is not for everyone. His eponymous rules embody the kind of tough love messaging that was common in say, pre-1960s America. In a post-modern era of politically correct bromides beloved by feminists and their beta male cheerleader, Peterson offers strong lye, albeit peppered with an offbeat sense of humor. He knows that some medicine now and again needs a spoonful of sugar to go down.

In this episode, you will learn

• How his role in the battle for free speech in Canada with the passage of Bill C-16, which criminalized “misgendering” someone, ended up launching his new career as a social critic and surrogate father to millions of millennials.

• Why PTSD is as much about the realization of the evils of which one is capable as about life-threatening experiences one has had.

• His thought process in analyzing the foundational miracle of Christianity, the Resurrection of Christ.

• The ways in which the West is still in something of a hangover from Soviet Communism.

• How suffering can be an introduction to experiences of profound meaning and sensitivity to the pain of others.

• The enduring influence of his father (and former teacher) Walter Peterson.

• Why failing to speak up against evil is far more costly than actually doing so.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, by Dr. Jordan Peterson.

• He Leadeth Me, by Walter Ciszek, SJ.

• With God In Russia, by Father Walter Ciszek, SJ.

• Holy Bible, Ignatius Study Bible, Second Catholic Edition.

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