How can Catholics become better students of the Catholic Heritage? In this episode, we discuss the importance of considering the genre of a document. Not all documents of the same. Authors in the Catholic heritage have composed letters, poems, theological treatises, conciliar statements and many other types of documents. A failure to consider the genre of the document can quickly lead to misinterpretation.

A recent trend has emerged among certain lay Catholics with substantial online internet followings. In their social media feeds and various media productions, they are making various claims about Pope Francis and US Catholic bishops on the authority of their unnamed “sources.” From claiming that Pope Francis, according to their sources, will resign in the year 2019 to claiming that US Catholic bishops are doing absolutely nothing to address the moral scandals within the clergy, these Catholic...

The month of February marks African American History month. I recently visited the Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, in order to better understand the history of the Civil Rights Movement (1950s-1960s) in the Southeast. In this episode, I briefly discuss the highlights of our recent trip to this museum which is dedicated to documenting the long struggle of African men and women in the US to obtain various rights from the nineteenth century to the present...

How does one properly interpret the records of the Catholic heritage? In this episode we discuss the aspect of examining the stated or unstated commitments of any author, especially secondary source authors such as contemporary scholars. What authors believe about the Life Questions, we believe, has an enormous impact on how they analyze their material. All scholars must be conscientious of their commitments in order to ensure that those commitments do not impact their scholarship negatively

What is the best translation of the Bible in the year 2019? In this episode, we briefly discuss some of the best translations of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament. Among other things, we note that students of the Bible should be very attentive to finding translations that make use of the best scholarship that has been done on the text of the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Bible. We note that among scholars, the most important critical edition of the Old Testament is the....

Did Catholicism exist before the reign of the Emperor Constantine (r. 306-337 AD)? Various historians and other scholars claim that Catholicism, as we would recognize it today, did not exist before the reign of either Constantine or his later successor, the Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379 -395). In this episode, we look at the critical components which go into the formation of Catholic identity such as canon law, the jurisdiction of the papacy beyond the city of Rome ....

Catholic laity have recently begun to use Gnostic rhetoric in their criticism's of Pope Francis. In this episode, we provide a brief overview on Gnosticism's origins, tenets and conflicts with the bishops of the early Church. We will show that some of the rhetorical strategies used by these lay critics of Francis has striking parallels to the ways Gnostics once criticized early Christian bishops of the first three centuries of the Church.

How does one properly interpret the records of the Catholic heritage? In this episode we discuss the aspect of expecting the unexpected from the sources. By expecting surprises, by not assuming the author's position and by avoiding assumptions, readers can obtain a more accurate sense of a given author’s meaning at the time of composition. To achieve this end, readers must pay very careful attention to the actual terminology, historical era and the positions of then contemporary authors. . .

Is media coverage of Pope Francis’s words fair? In this episode we discussed the various factors that go into the ways the media handles Pope Francis’s words. We consider such factors as the ability of journalist to grab an audience’s attention, the desire of media companies to keep viewers on their websites as long as possible and the inherent limits in any secondary source. These factors are critical when evaluating the statements left by any religious figure...

How does one properly interpret the records of the Catholic heritage? In this episode we discuss the aspect of considering the author’s objectives. By taking a closer look at the actual text, it central aims, context and purpose, readers can obtain a more accurate sense of the author’s meaning. To achieve this end, readers must pay very careful attention to language, word usage, and perhaps even consider parallel authors and works.