Kresta in the Afternoon

Al celebrates tomorrow’s Feast of the Annunciation by looking to the writings of Fulton Sheen

Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst died by suicide earlier this year. In an essay last summer, she reflected on the pressure she felt from aging: "turning 30 feels like a cold reminder that I’m running out of time to matter in society’s eyes — and it’s infuriating." Al discusses.

President Biden was elected on the promise to “heal and unify” America, and just over a year into his presidency it’s pretty obvious that hasn’t worked out. As long as Christians are divided,  America will never be healed of its divisions. How can we come together to confront the issues facing the Church? That’s the focus of the next edition of the Familiaris Consortio conference. Joe Jordano joins us.

Late last year Sister Dede Byrne received an unexpected phone call telling her she had worked with the caller’s mother years ago in Afghanistan, and the mother now was in danger. She tells us what happened next and also shares her experience applying for a religious exemption to the Covid vaccine mandates.

Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State, died today at age 84. Unlike many diplomats and politicians, she understood the importance of religion in public life and foreign policy. Al discusses.

A popular figure in literature is the “strong, silent man,” – a man of few words but great deeds. This certainly describes St. Joseph, whose feast we celebrated on Saturday. He’s one of our most popular saints today, but for centuries artists virtually ignored him. The artwork we do have of St Joseph show him in a wide variety of styles, but always as a man we can turn to. We look at some examples with Liz Lev.

We look to the Gospels to learn of the events of Jesus’ life, the most important of which we will be celebrating in a few weeks. But how do we know these accounts are reliable? Jimmy Akin will be debating this question tomorrow with New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman – he joins us.

If there are only a few figures in history worthy of the title “Great,” one would be the 4th-century emperor Constantine. What made him so great? Al discusses.

On March 22, 1606, St. Nicholas Owen, the Jesuit lay brother and carpenter extraordinaire, died under torture in the Tower of London. Stephanie Mann tells us his story.

Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price its oil sales to China in yuan rather than in US dollars. Robert Whaples gives us a look at what this could mean for the US Dollar on a global scale.