September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness month. Virtually all of us know someone who has been touched by this tragedy. Grief is coupled by confusion, shame and guilt. But there is hope. Deacon Ed Shoener joins us to talk more.

Further Reading

When a Loved One Dies by Suicide: Comfort, Hope, and Healing for Grieving Catholics

Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide Hotline at 988.

Guest Info

Deacon Ed Shoener was ordained a permanent deacon in 2004 and serves at St. Peter’s Cathedral in the Diocese of Scranton. He is a founding member of the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers, the Catholic Institute of Mental Health Ministry at the University of San Diego, and the Scranton Mental Health Ministry. He serves on the boards of the Council on Mental Illness, National Catholic Partnership on Disability, and Pathways to Promise. He earned a graduate certificate in spiritual direction from the Aquinas Institute of Theology. Shoener is president of Shoener Environmental Consulting. He has a bachelor of science degree in environmental research management from Penn State University, where he also earned a master’s degree in environmental protection control. Shoener’s family and friends founded The Katie Foundation after his daughter, Kathleen, died by suicide in 2016. The obituary he wrote for her went viral. The Shoeners live in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Pope Leo has invited Catholics to pray the Rosary every day for world peace. True peace is possible, and it begins when we pray together. Fr Fred Jenga is helping to organize a worldwide rosary for peace on October 22. He joins us with more.

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Guest Info

Father Fred Jenga, C.S.C., is the President of Holy Cross Family Ministries, a worldwide family of Catholic ministries founded by Venerable Patrick Peyton in 1942. Holy Cross Family Ministries (HCFM) is a family of Catholic ministries that inspires, promotes and fosters the prayer life and spiritual well-being of families. Father Fred, a native of Uganda, has multiple degrees, including in theology, philosophy and communications. His native language is Lusoga, and he speaks English, Luganda, Kiswahili, and Rutooro. He has been a teacher, researcher, author and family minister. Father Fred is committed to helping build God’s masterpiece one family at a time. He believes that Pope Francis’ bold statement in calling the family “God’s Masterpiece” echoes Venerable Patrick Peyton’s belief about the family as “our most prized possession.”

Preschool is no place to teach three- and four-year-olds to choose their own gender, but in Colorado, families choosing schools that share this belief are denied the state funding that all other families receive. Andrea Picciotti-Bayer has more.

Further Reading

Colorado Keeps Waging War On Religious Freedom. Now It’s Attacking Preschools.

Guest Info

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is a legal analyst for EWTN News. She also directs the Conscience Project. Follow her on Twitter @bayerpicciotti and visit conscience-project.org.

Some atheists think God’s existence and the presence of evil in the world are logically incompatible. The reasoning goes like this: if God were all-powerful and all-good, as classical theists say, then surely he would eliminate evil and not permit it. But evil is clearly present in the world… so God must not exist. Karlo Broussard has a response.

Further Reading

God Loves Us. He Doesn’t Owe Us.

Guest Info

Karlo Broussard, DPhil., a native of Southern Louisiana, left a promising musical career to devote himself full-time to the work of Catholic apologetics. As a staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and a member of the chancery evangelization team at the Diocese of Tulsa and Eastern Oklahoma, he travels the country and the diocese giving talks on apologetics, biblical studies, theology, and philosophy. Karlo is a regular guest on Catholic Answers Live and frequent contributor to Catholic Answers Magazine Online. He is an adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville as well as an adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.

Another poll finds that a disturbing number of survey respondents would justify, or even celebrate, the assassination of Donald Trump. The political violence and division we are experiencing is the natural result of a society that has lost eyes on God. CS Lewis warned us years ago in the Abolition of Man that once objective value disappears, moral formation eventually gives way to manipulation. Whoever has power, whoever controls sentiment, determines what society will praise and what society will condemn. What is the cure for this? In the words of Padre Pio, “Pray, Hope, and don’t worry!” Marcus has more.

Further Reading

Most Dems say they’d be fine with military coup to get rid of Trump, stunning survey shows

Today we celebrate the Feast of St Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio. In one of his letters, he writes that we are like stones destined for building an eternal edifice, but that the builder must first polish the stones to prepare them for use. In this way, the Lord allows suffering to prepare us for our mission in life. Marcus has more.

Religious freedom and academic freedom suffered a blow this past summer when Purdue sociologist Fenggang Yang was disinvited from delivering the keynote address at a conference in Texas. Dan Philpott tells the story.

Further Reading

A Setback for the U.S. Catholic Witness to Religious Freedom in China

China Pressured a US Catholic Group to Censor Its Keynote Speaker. They Complied.

Guest Info

Daniel Philpott is Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his Ph.D. in 1996 from Harvard University and specializes in religion and global politics, focusing on religious freedom, reconciliation, the political behavior of religious actors, and Christian political theology. His books include Revolutions in Sovereignty (Princeton, 2001), God’s Century: Resurgent Religion in Global Politics (Norton, 2011, coauthored with Monica Duffy Toft and Timothy Samuel Shah), Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation (Oxford, 2012) and Religious Freedom in Islam: The Fate of a Universal Human Right in the Muslim World (Oxford, 2019). Currently he is writing a book that sets forth a political theology based on a Christian concept of justice. He has revived his Arc of the Universe blog, which can be found on Substack

60 years ago, the Vatican II document Nostra aetate opened a new chapter in relations between Catholics and other faiths. Now, three Vatican Dicasteries have published a Note entitled “A Journey of Hope,” renewing the call to counter fundamentalism, protect religious freedom, and build coexistence founded on fraternity. Marcus takes a closer look.

The way we’re disciplined as kids tends to impact the way we handle interpersonal conflict as adults. Greg Popcak encourages parents to employ “Discipleship Discipline,” in which parents calmly work and pray with the child to identify the intention behind their actions and then teach more appropriate ways to meet those intentions – and this rolls over into conflict resolution in Marriage becomes Compassionate Problem Resolution in marriage. He tells us more about it.

Guest Info

Dr. Greg Popcak is the founder of CatholicCounselors.com Together with his wife Lisa, he’s the author of over 20 popular books, and the host of More2Life, heard each day at 10am E on EWTN radio. Greg and Lisa are also the founders of the CatholicHOM app that provides couples and parents with the coaching and resources they need to build strong domestic churches.

Fulton Sheen begins his book The Power of Love by observing that love is like liberty – it can be misused. Love has many shades of meaning and many layers of depth. We talk more about his work with Cheryl Hughes.

Further Reading

Fulton J. Sheen God’s Great Communicator

The Power of Love

Fulton Sheen: Convert Maker

Futher Reading

Cheryl Hughes holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from Durham University in England. She is the author of many books, including Fulton J. Sheen God’s Great Communicator and Archbishop Fulton Sheen: Convert Maker