In this episode of I Thought You'd Like To Know This, Too, Robert Nicastro and Paul Segura discuss Astrophysics and Exotheology (February 13, 2023)

For the Time Dilation Video, click here: https://youtu.be/yuD34tEpRFw

WCAT TV is an en air wing of En Route Books and Media working with WCAT Radio to share the joys of the Catholic faith. To support the station, please visit our Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/wcatradio

Is science only another human intellectual achievement, as is music, literature, philosophy? Or is it something more? Are the techniques used in science—mathematics, experiment, and rational inquiry—given to humankind by God so that His creation be understood and glorified, as in Psalm 19A? What ethical constraints, if any, does God set on science? And why did science develop only with Christendom? And finally, why should we not worship the idol of Science? These questions will be addressed in this webinar.

WCAT TV is an en air wing of En Route Books and Media working with WCAT Radio to share the joys of the Catholic faith. To support the station, please visit our Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/wcatradio Linda Blosser-Medley, Thom Brucie, Grace Bourget, Ronda Chervin, and David Ross talk about their Catholic novels in this WCAT Radio webinar.

A Sword Will Pierce by Linda Blosser-Medley https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/aswordwillpierce/ This is a love story, showing the great love Mary has for God, always saying, “God’s will be done” and doing His will, always trusting fully in Him.

Vale of Hope by Grace Bourget https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/valeofhope/ In 15th-century Spain, a reckless youth finds himself grounded with the worst punishment he can imagine: volunteering in a leper camp.

Obsidian Mirth by Thom Brucie https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/obsidianmirth/ This is a heart-rending and beautiful story, and these characters will hover at the outskirts of your thoughts like whispering ghosts of past kinships.

The Messiah of the Metro Cafe by Ronda Chervin https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/metrocafe/ It was 9:00 A.M., October 24, 2022. The reporters of the Catholic Weekly of Los Angeles met in the chief editor’s office for their special assignments. “This cult leader is influencing some St. Mark’s seminarians from his throne in a nearby café.” “I’ll take that one,” Teresa grinned enthusiastically. And so began the conversion of Michael Kaufman.

Goat-Song and Other Stories by David Ross https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/goat-song/ “Goat-Song” concerns an exclusive theatrical production, and the two people involved, one alive, the other dead. “Gaps” concerns a recluse who wakes to find a growing hole in his backyard. “Poison” concerns a small-business owner who invents a product that produces the ability to manifest memories in reality.

In this episode of I Thought You'd Like to Know This, Too, ITEST presents a webinar with Dr. Gerard Verschuuren and Dr. Stacy Trasancos on Faith That Makes You Think (December 10, 2022)

Can faith ever make you think? For most people, thinking contradicts having faith. People who think do not have faith. And people who have faith do not think. That is the most common perception nowadays. But that perception is seriously flawed.

In fact, there is a strong connection between thinking and having faith. St. Augustine expressed this quite clearly saying, “Believers are also thinkers: in believing, they think and in thinking, they believe.… If faith does not think, it is nothing.” In the Catholic tradition, this connection has been known as “faith and reason.” Pope John Paul II even wrote an encyclical on this issue, making them two sides of the same coin.

https://faithscience.org/faith-think/

Masereka Wenceslaus Felix Cleto on the Virtue Orphanage in Kasese, Uganda (November 24, 2022)

To support the Virtue Orphanage, please visit https://gofund.me/b8ec0d57

In this episode of "I Thought You'd Like to Know This, Too," Dr. Craig Turczynski and Dr. Mary Anne Urlakis present an ITEST webinar entitled "In Vitro Fertilization and the Sanctity of Human Life."

Assisted Reproductive Technology Violates Natural Law and Causes Harm by Dr. Craig Turczynski

The leaders in the field of assisted reproductive technology (ART) are promoting the use of technology in an increasingly more radical direction. Separating the unitive and procreative purpose of marital intercourse is foremost, but there are many ways in which ART promotes evil that even non-Catholics can identify with. These share a common characteristic of violating natural law. The first principle of natural law is “the good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided.” This necessarily requires following an objective moral truth that can be ascertained using human reason. On the other hand, ART follows a subjective, relative interpretation of right and wrong. Application of the technology outside of objective moral boundaries often produces more complications and difficulty for the individual and society than the problem in which they intend to solve. This talk will summarize the 5 most undesirable consequences of ART’s disordered approach as experienced by an Embryologist who left the field after having a crisis of conscience.

Sanctity of Life: IVF: Science, the Church, & Bioethics by Dr. Mary Anne Urlakis

From the moment of conception, a profoundly unique and sacred relationship exists between every human person and Almighty God. Each and every person, bearing the image and likeness of God, is created with a vocation to fulfill an eternal destiny of divine beatitude. The Church teaches us: “Endowed with “a spiritual and immortal” soul, the human person is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake. From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1703, referencing Gaudium et Spes 14 §2; 24 §3).” In this presentation, we will examine the role of bioethics regarding In Vitro Fertilization and other Artificial Reproductive Technologies (ARTs). After a brief survey of the history and role of bioethics and the anthropology of the human person, this presentation will focus on both science and theology which underpins the Magisterial teaching regarding the sanctity of human life and the role of Artificial Reproductive Technology.

Dr. Thomas Sheahen and Dr. Stacy Trasancos present on How Science and Theology Read One Another (October 29, 2022)

Pope St. John Paul II began his famous encyclical, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” Dr. Thomas P. Sheahen, with a Ph.D. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examines truth from the wing of science. Scientists depend on empirical data for conclusions. Dr. Stacy A. Trasancos, with a Ph.D. in chemistry and M.A. in dogmatic theology, explains how we find truth from the wing of faith. Theologians derive formulations from divine revelation. Together they seek an understanding of the axiom, truth cannot contradict truth.

https://faithscience.org/two-wings/

In this episode of I Thought You'd Like to Know This, Too, ITEST board member Patrick Panozzo interviews Dr. David Roemer on his listing in Marquis' Who's Who in America (October 7, 2022)

https://spotlight.marquiswhoswho.com/david-roemer/

This webinar will develop essential American Constitutional law principles and their relationship to the most significant bioethical issues of the day. Without this knowledge, meaningful participation in ongoing debates related to bioethics is seriously compromised. Topics will include the judicial lens by which legislation and regulations are examined for their constitutionality, including the tests applied to determine the validity of a claim of fundamental liberty. The meaning and application of the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Constitution will be presented and applied to topics such as: end of life health care, advance medical directives, capital punishment, contraception, marriage, and abortion – with special attention to the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. If time permits, we will also examine government health care mandates and sexual orientation and gender identity laws and their relationship to constitutional and statutory rights to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech.

https://faithscience.org/catholic-bioethics/

In this episode of "I Thought You'd Like to Know This, Too," Dr. Kristina Olsen interviews Fr. Paul Pearson concerning his Dante Trilogy (September 5, 2022)

Spiritual Direction from Dante: Avoiding the Inferno (Volume 1)
https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Direction-Dante-Avoiding-Inferno/dp/150511232X/

Hell and how to avoid it are perennial topics of interest for believing Christians and others. With good reason. Entire libraries have been written on the subject. Most people, even those familiar with his classic, do not realize that Dante Aligheri’s Divine Comedy, chock-full as it is of history and politics, is a masterpiece of spiritual writing. The most famous of his three volumes is the Inferno, an account of Dante's journey through the underworld, where he sees the horror of sin firsthand. Join Dante and—guided by Oratorian Father Paul Pearson—with him . . .

learn that the sufferings of the souls in hell are the natural consequences of the spiritual disorder of their sinful actions.

develop a profound hatred for sin, not merely because it offends God, but because it will destroy your soul and thwart your happiness, both on earth and for eternity.
observe the horrible punishments of the damned and be shocked into a state of enlightened self-interest.

armed with the knowledge of what sin does to us, resolve to fight against it with all your strength.

realize that this literary journey through hell is intended to lead you to heaven.

A reading experience like no other, Spiritual Direction from Dante, will educate and entertain you, but most importantly, will help you avoid the inferno!

Spiritual Direction From Dante: Ascending Mount Purgatory (Volume 2)
https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Direction-Dante-Ascending-Purgatory/dp/1505117534/

Join Father Paul Pearson of the Oratory as he guides you on a spiritual journey through one of the great classics of Christian literature, Dante’s Purgatorio. Purgatory is the least understood of the three possible “destinations” when we die (though unlike heaven or hell it is not an eternal one) and is mysterious to many Christians and even to many Catholics today. As he did in his first volume in the Spiritual Direction from Dante trilogy, Avoiding the Inferno, Father Pearson adroitly draws out the great spiritual insights hidden in The Divine Comedy. Learn how and why:

Dante's presentation of Purgatory is something beautifully hopeful.

Freedom is the dominant theme here and the rejoicing of captives delivered from their prisons the dominant tone.

Purgatory is filled with good people, people well on their way to becoming saints. They are increasingly concerned for one another and generous, the more so the higher on the mountain they climb. They are interested in one another's well-being and rejoice in one another's victories as though they were their own.

The sufferings on Mount Purgatory are not something that happens to the souls there; they happen for them. This has all been designed for their benefit, and they are grateful to God for making it possible.

Purgatory is God's merciful plan for allowing us to rediscover the joy and freedom of being human, the joy for which we were created but which sin has smothered and distorted.

This is what we can be. This is what we can begin to be, even now, if only we will separate ourselves from sin. What are we waiting for? Join Father Pearson in Ascending Mount Purgatory.

Spiritual Direction from Dante: Yearning for Paradise (Volume 3)