Church Life Today
Hosted by Dr. Leonard DeLorenzo, of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame (http://mcgrath.nd.edu), Church Life Today features conversations with pastoral leaders and scholars from around the country and covers issues that matter most to Church life today. Church Life Today is an OSV Podcasts partner.
Episodes
268 episodes
The Opportune Time for Catholic Education, with Matthew Vereecke
Catholic schools extend and make present the life of Christ in his Church. Yes, Catholic education serves the students who are nurtured in its classrooms, but as we know the parents and families of those students are also often nurtured and eve...
Into Life: Love Changes Everything, with Sr. Marie Veritas and Michael Campo
“A woman who knows she’s loved can do anything.” This fundamental belief animates the ministry of the Sisters of Life, who dedicate themselves to building up a culture of life and who work with the Lord to drive out the contempt for life in our...
Surgical Care for the Poor, with Kate Clitheroe
In countries with underfunded health systems, surgical care is often ignored and widely inaccessible to the poor. Local facilities lack appropriate supplies and equipment, medical professionals do not have the benefit of training in the latest ...
Purgatory, with Brett Salkeld
Does purgatory matter? Does it matter later, as in after we die? How about now? Does purgatory make a difference to who we are now as Christians, how we live now, what we are responsible for now, and our relationship to the dead now?My guest to...
Gender, Bodies, and the Space of Responsiveness, with Angela Franks
When people speak of “gender fluidity,” what is the understanding of the human body that is at play? When a researcher analyzes a dead body, are they seeing a still frame of what the body really is? How do we best conceive of––maybe even wonder...
Cultivating Catholic Feminism, with Corynne Staresinic and Abigail Favale
How would an authentically Catholic feminism both dialogue with and meaningfully differ from secular feminism? This is the focus of a new program from The Catholic Woman. The program is called “Cultivating Catholic Feminism.” It see...
Dementia, the Soul, and God, with Xavier Symons
Who am I when I’ve forgotten who I am? What does it mean to love God and be loved by God when I have forgotten who God is? These are the two main questions of John’s Swinton’s book on Living in the Memories of God, and these are the kind of que...
Pursuing Freedom in Exodus 90, with James Baxter
It was the strength of the Israelites that scared the Pharaoh. You learn that in the first several verses of the Book of Exodus. The rest of the Book is about the journey to freedom: first the liberation from Egypt, then the training in freedom...
Scivias: Know the Way of the Lord, with Fr. Michael Zimmerman
If you wait for certainty before acting, you will rarely ever act. More often, it is action that leads to certainty. We might expect to find a saying like that on an inspirational poster or as the takeaway from a motivational talk. But we might...
St. Bakhita Vocational Training Center, with Wendy Angst
More than 8,000 miles separate students at the University of Notre Dame from students at St. Bakhita Vocational Training School in Northern Uganda, but a course in innovation and design thinking brings them together. The creator of that course ...
Alone Among Friends, with Isaac Sullivan
On more than a few occasions on this show, we have hosted experts in media and technology, or education and family life, to talk about young people and the effects of digital and social media on their relationships and development. Today, I wan...
The Three Wisemen (Special Episode)
Today I’m doing a different kind of show to bridge Advent and Christmas. I’m calling this episode, “The Three Wisemen”. My three guests are not here in the studio, nor are they joining me by phone. Instead, they are with us in their preaching. ...
Carolyn Pirtle on Advent Music and Christmas Movies
There is nothing not to like about today’s episode. Advent music, Christmas movies, and obsessive concern with “progressive solemnity,” with both well-reasoned and unfounded opinions mixed in.Joining me today is Carolyn Pirtle, program director...
The Catholic Response to the Sin of Racism, with Gloria Purvis
The sin of racism disfigures and hides the truth of the human person. The healthy response to sin is conversion, and conversion begins with begging the Lord for healing. That healing, though, provokes and necessitates change.My guest today is c...
The Embodied Holiness of Sr. Thea Bowman, with Kayla August
“Catholic Christans came into my community and they helped us with education, they helped us with healthcare, they helped us to find our self-respect and to realize our capabilities when the world had told us for so long that we were nothing an...
Eucharist Means Thanksgiving (Special Episode)
It is Thanksgiving week and we want to celebrate that here on Church Life Today. I am going to do different kind of episode to mark the occasion. This episode is called “Eucharist Means Thanksgiving” and what I want to do is share with you quot...
Praying for the Dead, with John Cavadini
Praying for the dead. This is a spiritual work of mercy, but does it really do anything? Do our prayers matter to the dead? Do the dead matter to us?I wanted to find us some help in understanding this practice of the Christian faith, and so I h...
Unleashing Catholic Innovation, with Matt Smith
It is easy to bemoan the problems in the Church; it is harder to take the initiative to heal and renew the life of the Church, and to sacrifice for that renewal with all your own creativity and passion. But that is exactly what the Our Sunday V...
Saints, for Real, with Meg Hunter-Kilmer
Meg Hunter-Kilmer has no time for bland, stale stories of saints. She is too busy reveling in the wild and diverse beauty of holy people. When their stories have not been told well, she seeks after the heart of their story and waits to see the ...
Reclaiming Vatican II, with Fr. Blake Britton
There was a time before the Second Vatican Council, and there is a time after. The time before is old, outdated, stodgy, stale, and lifeless. The time after is modern, progressive, adaptive, active, and alive. Out with the old and in with the...
Forming Catholics for the Medical Professions, with Dr. Maggie Skoch Musso
A good number of the students I have taught in theology courses at Notre Dame have gone on to medical school. Many of these students feel called to the practice of medicine, and would even speak of their professional pursuits as a vocation. But...
Media, Polarization, and the Gospel, with Deacon Matthew Kuna
What happens online does not stay online. The borders between the digital world andthe flesh and blood world have become rather porous. The ways we think, speak,and act in the digital environment bears meaning for how we think, speak, andact of...
Bring back the imprecatory psalms, with Timothy Troutner
“O God, smash the teeth in their mouths!”“Make their eyes so dim they cannot see.”“May his children be fatherless, his wife, a widow.”Who prays like that? Well, we do: Christians. Those petitions––those curses––that I justrecited come from Ps...
Tolkien’s Creative Imagination, with Holly Ordway
What does it take to create a world? Well, you might think it requires you to be God. So why don’t we ask the question about a literary world, but nevertheless a complete world, with a comprehensive vision, an atmosphere and a history and langu...
The Parish and the Call to Communion, with Katherine Coolidge
When a Catholic parish is being what is called to be, what does that look like? What are the marks of healthy and vibrant parish life? If we really tended to questions like these, we might find ourselves changing our perceptions of what it is w...