Almost Good Catholics

Theology Professor Jeremy Holmes of Wyoming Catholic College teaches a class called “Science and Theology,” which is about the Darwin’s theory of evolution and related topics, including the problems we encounter in the fossil record and our understanding of genetic change. I ask him about the discussions he has with his students and his colleagues and how where his investigations have led him.

Related Almost Good Catholics episode:

• Jay Richards on Almost Good Catholics, episode 73: Darwinian Accident or Divine Architect? The Debate between Natural Selection and Intelligent Design

Another Almost Good Catholics episode with Jeremy Holmes:

• Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 20: Words and the Word: How Scripture Brings Us into God’s Eternal Moment

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Father Piotr Żelazko is Vicar for the St. James Vicariate in Jerusalem and has been priest in Israel for fifteen years (he is a native of Poland and studied in Rome). He and I recorded our first talk about Catholicism in Israel in the fall, weeks before October 7 and the Gaza War. Since then, we have been periodically checking in to talk about War, Peace, the Holy Land and all of God’s children there. This is the third talk of that series.

The other Almost Good Catholics episodes with Father Piotr Żelazko:

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Peter Hess (Ph.D, FFT2) is a theologian, an environmental scientist, a wildland fire practitioner, and firefighter type two. I ask Peter about this work which is a collaboration of firefighters and indigenous communities, about the Catholic Theology, stewardship of the Earth, and Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudatus Si’.



Related Almost Good Catholics episode:

• Joseph Nagel and Heather Skinner, episode 8: It's Elementary! Catholic Education in the 21st Century.

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The 2006 Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto, takes us into a decadent Maya civilization in the Yucatan on the eve of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. It could be a commentary on ancient Rome or the present-day US, but, because it is a new world for both the viewer and the forest-dwelling protagonists, we get to see it through ‘new eyes’ and a ‘beginner’s mind.’ It’s a great movie, a cinematic masterpiece. It also allows us to ask how Mel Gibson, a devout Catholic and such a human sinner—as we all are, though when he does something terrible it’s in the news—should proclaim the Gospel after he has fallen from his moral pedestal a few times. We also ask about how the Church should proceed given her many painful scandals. It was a great discussion on the Missio Dei podcast on YouTube and I’m delighted to share it here.

Related Almost Good Catholics episodes:

Other Almost Good Catholics episodes with Jonathon Fessenden:

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“What is a man?” asks Hamlet. If all he does is “sleep and feed,” then “a beast, no more.” That’s not enough for Hamlet, and it’s not enough for Brant Hansen, who spreads the Gospel by radio and in print. He’s written a number of books, including his new one, The Men We Need, which asks and answers questions about men’s special role in our world, and the opportunity for joy and meaning. Hansen’s thesis is rooted in scripture and reflects what Catholics will recognize as the theology of the Body developed by St. John Paul II. It was a great book and our conversation was tremendously fun.

This is the seventy-fifth episode of Almost Good Catholics and starts off our third season and the year 2024. My discussion with Brant is 52 minutes long, but then I’ve added fifteen minutes of Christmas music from Josh and Margot of the Great Space Coaster Band to celebrate.

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It turns out that our familiar narrative of the Virgin of Guadalupe, when Mary appeared to Juan Diego in 1531 and left her image on his tilma, resembles an indigenous Mexican myth. And this myth of the Flower World in “Cuicapeuhcayotl” (“Origin of Songs”) has led some secular historians and anthropologists to conclude that the Catholic version must therefore be an imitation, a fabrication. 

Yet Joseph Julián and Monique González concluded that the opposite was true. They argue “that God had prepared the Mesoamerican people to receive Christianity” that this Nahua myth had been inserted into history to make Our Lady comprehensible to the Nahua people—leading to ten million conversions—at a time when Spanish conquistadores and encomenderos were making a mess of the New World with their slavery and greed, polluting the evangelical work of the humble friars preaching Gospel.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Jay Richards PhD, OP discusses the new book to which he contributed a chapter, God’s Grandeur: The Catholic Case for Intelligent Design (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), edited by Ann Gauger. We take on the insufficient explanations of Darwinian orthodoxy which insists that our world—from the vast cosmos to the also vast (in its complexity) genetic code in our cells.

At the end of this episode (at 55 minutes), we hear an update from Father Piotr Żelazko in Israel as we enter the second month of the Gaza War.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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In our talk about his book, More than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture (InterVarsity Press, 2023), and in addition to quoting Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, Paul Louis Metzger also quotes Indiana Jones. When seeking the Grail, he chooses the clay cup from among the gilded chalices, “that’s the cup of a carpenter,” is the metaphor of the inherent value of human beings, ends unto themselves, priceless and unrepeatable. So I ask him (Dr. Metzger, not Dr. Jones) how we keep this in our minds and hearts as we navigate a secular culture that prizes the exterior and utility. If we can figure that one out, then we’ve found our redemption in the poor baby shivering in a manger, and understood why ‘happy are the poor in spirit.’

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Father Piotr Zelazko is Vicar for the St. James Vicariate in Jerusalem and has been priest in Israel for fifteen years (he is a native of Poland and studied in Rome). He describes the Catholic Church in Israel today and also the broader Christian community. He discusses some of the challenges and many joys of the ecumenical work he does with Jews, Muslims, and the many other Christian denominations in the Holy Land. And he tells a lot of stories of pastoral work in Jerusalem and in the desert at Be’er Sheva.

The first 24 minutes of this recording are an update from Father Piotr about the current war between Israel and Hamas that began on October 7, 2023. The interview I recorded in August begins at 24 minutes.

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.

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Jane Sloan Peters remembers World Youth Day in Toronto back in 2002 when she was a teenager. She also talks about being a young mother and a teacher; she is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx. We also discuss her articles in America Magazine, her teaching philosophy, and the faith journey she has been on since her teenage conversion to the present day.

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