Church Life Today

Each year the McGrath Institute for Church Life hosts a lecture series that runs through Lent and Easter. Which invites people from everywhere to join in a communal reading of a spiritual work for the liturgical season. Two years ago, we focused on Donte’s Divine comedy, last year it was the book of Exodus, and this year it will be C.S. Lewis’ beloved children’s stories the Chronicles of Narnia.As with Dante and the book of Exodus, the Chronicles of Narnia can become an occasion for making a spiritual journey through these seasons. Allowing your imagination, and really your kids’ imaginations, to move in a land where renunciation and trust, belief and bravery, hope and longing, are all prime themes surrounding characters that we come to know and love.Practically speaking these books work well because if you begin reading the first book of the series in the week of Ash Wednesday, and read one book every two weeks, you’re going to finish the last book by Pentecost. So, it is really from Lent through Easter. This really is, therefore, an opportunity to journey through these liturgical seasons with these timeless classics.The lecture series that the McGrath Institute is hosting will convene on four separate nights with two lectures each night. Each story in the series will receive its own lecture, plus an introductory lecture for the whole series. That first lecture will be delivered by today’s guest Professor David Fagerberg. Professor Fagerberg teaches in the field of Liturgical studies at Notre Dame’s Theology Department, he is especially noted for his work in liturgical asceticism and mysticism. Among many popular courses he has taught on the collegiate level over the years, perhaps the most popular of all is his class on Transfiguration in the fiction of C.S. Lewis. His lecture on the upcoming series will address what Lewis hopes for us to find in Narnia. ------RESOURCESMcGrath Series on the Chronicles of Narnia - https://mcgrath.nd.edu/events/chronicles-of-narnia/Chronicles of Narnia Book - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061969052/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_XrzzCbV50Q8KN------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

We welcome John Carr, Director of the initiative on Catholic Social thought and public life at Georgetown University. He also serves as the Washington correspondent for America Magazine, and as an adjunct professor in Georgetown's Theology Department. For 20 years Mr. Carr was the Director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Late last year Mr. Carr wrote an article in America names "Eight lessons to help us move forward from the sex abuse crisis". As the heads of all the Bishops' conferences from around the world meet at the Vatican soon to confront this crisis, we invited Mr. Carr to join us and offer us his insights, both about this crisis and in relation to its broader work in his initiative at Georgetown.------RESOURCESJohn Carr - Georgetown University - https://catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu/people/john-carrJohn Carr - America Magazine - https://www.americamagazine.org/voices/john-carrEight lessons to help us move forward from the sex abuse crisis - https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/09/25/eight-lessons-help-us-move-forward-sex-abuse-crisisJustice, Peace and Human Development USCCB - http://www.usccb.org/about/justice-peace-and-human-development/------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Samantha Povlock doesn't believe you have to choose between being Catholic and being a feminist. She's even got a popular blog to prove it. After earning degrees in In Theology and Business and now as a full-time working mom, Samantha launched FemCatholic. FemCatholic has been not so modest mission of working to promote truth about women in the Church and in the world. She'll talk with us her own vocation, her inspiration, her work, and her message. ------RESOURCESFemCatholic - http://www.femcatholic.com/------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

It was Fyodor Dostoevsky who famously said "Beauty will save the world", but do we take time to notice beauty? Will we create beauty? Will we seek it? Our guest is deeply invested in seeing, creating and pursuing beauty. Joy Clarkson is a doctoral candidate in Theology and the arts at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom. She hosts a fantastic podcast called 'Speaking with Joy', and her first book, which she co-wrote with her mom and her sister, is due out soon. It is called 'Girls Club: cultivating lasting friendship in a lonely world'.------RESOURCESSpeaking with Joy podcast - https://joyclarkson.com/podcast/Girls Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1496432150/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_I-WsCbETTVF0K ------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

We welcome Chris White, national correspondent for Crux and The Tablet. In addition to his regular writing for those publications, Chris' work has also appeared in places like the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, First Things and Forbes. As someone who covers news and trends in the Catholic Church, especially here in the United States, there have been many hard and troubling things that have become the focus of Chris' reporting. While it might seem inevitable for a reporter to continue to look at the darkest things in his coverage area, the articles that Chris publishes do show a wider verity. He has written recently on such topics as religious liberty in Australia, the 300 year Catholic history or New Orleans, and the importance of Art in the church. Show host, Leonard DeLorenzo, says that because today's conversation is going to focus on some of the more trying and troubling matters in the Church today, including Chris' three-part series on the less than amicable resignation of the US Bishop of late last year.------RESOURCESCrux - https://cruxnow.com/author/cwhite/Twitter -https://twitter.com/cwwhite------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

"Morning Glory" is getting revamped so that it can be focused on more serious topics and less on the news. Then Lenny and Gloria chat about social justice in the church. Today’s guest, Gloria Purvis, has been working in the arena of social justice for many years and is currently co-host of Morning Glory on EWTN and a member of the Commission of Social Justice for the Black Catholic Congress. Today she and Lenny chat about racism, social justice, and the Catholic Church.------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

What is the mission of the laity in the Church and the world? How ought lay Catholics to be formed for that mission?These are questions for the whole church. Today’s guest, Fr. Michael Sweeney, has been working for decades to push these questions to the forefront. But, rather then just advocating for their importance, or merely thinking about them, he’s been doing things. Lots of things, including founding a new lay mission project in the Diocese of Sacramento. You may know Father Sweeney as the co-founder of the Catherine of Siena Institute, or President of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Where he served from 2004 – 2015.He joins show host, Leonard DeLorenzo, as part of a swing through the Midwest where he is traveling to give talks related to the laity and rebuilding the Church in a time of crisis. ------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

We need more leaders in the church. In fact we need the best leadership for The Church, but where will these leaders be found? And how will we prepare them for giving a creditable witness to the Gospel? These kind of questions are not foreign to Elise Italiano, Who serves as Executive Director ofThe Given Institute. Host, Leonard DeLorenzo talks with her about leadership in the Church, and the mission of her institute, which is dedicated to activating the gifts of young women for the Church and for the world. ------Resources: The Given Institute - https://giveninstitute.com/------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Does Jesus know us? Do we know Him? That is the provocative and somewhat disturbing title of a short book by the 20th Century swish theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. We won't talk about that book today, nor will we talk about that theologian. But we will talk about Jesus. About knowing Him, about Him knowing us, and about the crisis of forgetting Jesus, and the urgency of rediscovering Him in the Church and for the world today. Host, Leonard DeLorenzo talks with Father Robert Imbelli. Father Imbelli is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, he studied in Rome during the years of the Second Vatican Council, and was ordained there in 1965. He received degrees from the Gregorian University in Rome, and his PhD in systematic theology from Yale. He has taught Theology at the New York Archdiocesan seminary and at the Marnier school of Theology. From 1986 to 2015 Father Imbelli taught systematic theology at Boston College and is currently Associate Professor of Theology Emeritus from there. He was visiting scholar at Seaton Hall University in Spring 2017, and at St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, Spring 2018. His numerous articles and reviews appeared in such journals as Theological Studies, Worship, First Things, Commonweal, and America. His book, "Rekindling the Christic Imagination: Theological Meditations on the New Evangelization", won a first-place award from the Catholic Publishers Association. ------Resources: Rekindling the Christic Imagination: Theological Meditations on the New Evangelization - http://a.co/d/2WN1nZH------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Shortly after the close of the second Vatican council, a young theologian, who had been influential at the council, was invited to give a series of lectures at the University of Tubigidan, partially as a way to begin to interpret and receive the work of the council. That theologian’s name was Joseph Ratzinger. Who would become, as we know, Pope Benedict XVI nearly four decades later. The series of lectures that he delivered were collected into a book published under the title: “Introduction to Christianity” in 1968. By one unscientific estimation, the way to deem if a book is indeed a classic if it is still in print and widely read 50 years after its publication. At a recent conference of the McGrath Institute for Church Life, we observed the 50th anniversary of this text. Today I talk with the key-note presenter from the conference, Fr. Richard Schenk. Father Schenk is a Dominican Priest, who is currently honorary professor of the philosophy of religion at the theological faculty of the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg and a member of the Roman Catholic chaplaincy there. He previously served as professor of philosophy and theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and concurrently as director of the Hannover Institute of Philosophical Research, as well as of the Intercultural Forum for Studies in Faith and Culture in Washington, D.C.. He was also President of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt from 2011 to 2014 and is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.------Resources: 'Introduction to Christianity' by Joseph Ratzinger - a.co/d/hRaQMLu------Live: www.redeemerradio.comFollow Redeemer Radio on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@RedeemerRadioFollow McGrath Institute for Church Life on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram:@McGrathNDSubscribe to the Podcast:iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloudChurch Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.