Chris is joined by Jeff Wald, a Minnesota-based lawyer and writer (but who is quick to tell us he’s a North Dakotan). Jeff shares about his and his wife Jackie’s journey with adoption and foster parenting, the result of a call they discerned together to give of themselves to the Read more…

Host Chris Motz is joined this week by Dr. Chad Pecknold, professor of theology at Catholic University of America (and prolific tweeter — @ccpecknold). Chris tosses a listener question to the good professor: What, according to the Church, is the purpose of government? What’s it’s aim, its end, its goal? Also, what are the Read more…

On this episode, Chris is joined by Christopher Dodson, J.D., executive director of the North Dakota Catholic Conference.  Christopher unpacks the development of Free Exercise clause cases in the 20th century, culminating in the Smith v. Employment Division decision in 1990.  Chris then gives a high-level overview of the recent Fulton v. Read more…

On this episode, Chris is joined by Nick Michels, a Catholic attorney in South Dakota, who is starting a St. Thomas More Society — an organization for Catholic lawyers and politicians. With the feast day of St. Thomas More approaching on June 22, Nick shares how the New Evangelization has Read more…

On this episode, Chris and regular guest Dr. Jon Schaff unpack an economic and social idea known as distributism. Rooted in the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius XI, and others, distributism contains critiques of both unfettered capitalism and socialism, and exhorts society to seek widespread (“distributed”) ownership Read more…

Chris Motz is joined by Greg Schleppenbach, the associate director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities at the USCCB to discuss current threats to the Hyde Amendment, which for 45 years has kept any taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions. Folks can go to NoTaxpayerAbortion.com to sign a Read more…

On this episode, Chris is joined by Doug Wilson, CEO of Catholic Benefits Association, an membership-based organization that facilitates health insurance for Catholic entities. Doug describes the birth of CBA in the wake of several of the Affordable Care Act’s (Obamacare) coercive provisions — such as forcing Catholic nuns to Read more…

On this episode, Chris is joined by Grace Melton, author of a recent article titled How Surrogacy Harms Women and Children, published at the National Interest.  After Chris recaps the recent history of surrogacy in South Dakota politics, Grace makes the case for why the political and cultural discourse on surrogacy is Read more…

On this episode, Chris is joined by Dan Denis, a Catholic father and farmer from the Saskatchewan prairie.  Inspired by the social teaching of the Church, including Laudato Si’, several years ago Dan felt a call to go “back to the land,” as he puts it, and began farming the land Read more…

On this episode Chris is joined by Prof. Joe Rutten, director of the Benedictine Leadership Institute at Mount Marty University. Chris and Joe discuss faith and reason, talking about hard topics with our fellow citizens, the necessity of citizens and politicians to have formation in reason, and good philosophy as Read more…