PastoralQuotient

Vince Nyman is a priest for the archdiocese of St Louis with almost twenty years of ministry in several parishes plus a stint as a missionary in Bolivia. He has earned several graduate degrees including an MFA from Washington University and, more recently, a doctorate in preaching from the Aquinas School of Theology. He is also a gifted artist and, now, a published children's author.

Fr Nyman began ministering in urban St Louis a few years ago just as the Michael Brown incident was going down in Ferguson. Troubled by his first-hand experience of the manifest volatility of deep racial wounds and divisions, he began wondering how he, a white priest, could preach to a mixed race congregation in such a context. This led him to pursue doctoral studies in preaching, with a focus on the reconciliation circle as a tool for the encounter with and empowerment of suffering, voiceless, and marginalized people, such as he often encounters in his inner city community of Baden in St Louis.

In this conversation, we talk about the culture of encounter as facilitated by the reconciliation circle and how it can contribute to a renewal of preaching, restorative justice, and the new evangelization.

My guest on this episode is a physician, an OBGYN who has cared for thousands of women and delivered thousands of their babies during her twenty years of practice. In many ways, she is a typical obstetrician. But there is a significant twist. Dr Karla Polaschek decided twenty years ago that she would not do tubal ligations or, perhaps more surprisingly, prescribe the Pill.

For the he 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, I thought, rather than rehashing arguments about contraception, why not find someone who actually has rigorously thought through and accepted HV and its implications, someone who is operating at a very high professional level, and specializes in caring for women and their fertility, and who in fact is a woman herself? So that’s what I did.

In this interview, I speak with Karla about her journey towards medicine, her return to the faith after a lukewarm adolescence and young adulthood, her growth as a maturing disciple of Jesus, and her decision to opt out of prescribing the pill in favor of a more holistic approach to fertility awareness.

'Women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy deserve to experience unplanned joy.' I first heard this powerful statement from Serrin Foster, the former director of Feminists for Life of America. I think it perfectly sums up this episode. Vicki Tyler is the outgoing executive director for the Women's Choice Center in Bettendorf, Iowa - a crisis pregnancy center intentionally positioned across the street from the local Planned Parenthood clinic. Vicki tells her story and explains what moved her to retire early, take a huge pay cut, and work the front lines of the battle for the Gospel of Life for the past decade. Under her leadership, the Women's Choice Center has blossomed into a powerful culture of life, a true "field hospital" for those wounded in the volatile culture of death all around us today. If you are looking for a refreshing approach to pro-life that is light on culture wars and heavy on hope, this episode is for you.

Leonard DeLorenzo is a theology professor and director of Notre Dame Vision, a program which helps youth and young adults tell their faith stories and live their call to be and make disciples. He is addressing a key piece of the evangelistic puzzle too often missing in Catholic circles - the art of telling the stories of grace that define one’s identity as a disciple and child of God. 'Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you.' (1 Pet 3:15) Telling the wonders God has done for us, telling our grace stories, is is a key competency of a missionary disciple. Unfortunately, while the need has never been greater, there has been little guidance offered to believers on how to do this well. Thankfully, that is changing, thanks to resources like “Witness: Learning to Tell the Stories of Grace That Illumine our Lives.” In this fascinating conversation, Leonard gives the context for his book and delivers the goods on the how and why of telling the stories of God's amazing grace in our lives.

Who are you...to God? Who does He say you are? That is THE question. At stake is our identity. Is anything more important?? It's the question answered for Jesus as he began his public ministry and was baptized. The Father publicly endorsed him: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." God says the same thing thing to us. Have we heard it? REALLY heard it? Too often, Christians lack the "first conversion" which must even precede morality. This is the conversion of our minds. Orphan thinking is the enemy's insidious plan to sabotage or peace, joy and freedom. Too many are ensnared. This podcast is the complete 4-homily series I preached that shared the hard-learned truth I discovered: that I am not an orphan, but a beloved Son of the Father. This security has changed my life, and can change yours too.

Have you ever groaned under bad leadership? Have you ever burned with righteous indignation because you perceived how much good and growth was being thwarted due to cluelessness at the top? Has this ever happened to you...in CHURCH?! Ouch... Everything Fr Mallon wrote so beautifully about in preceding chapters requires strong leadership to implement and enact. For various reasons, which we discuss in the episode, leadership training and excellence has not been a priority in many church cultures. This has to change if parishes are to become thriving growth environments forming disciples and reaching the lost. This chapter - and episode - examines how to move forward.

The sacraments are privileged moments of grace where the majority of Catholics interface with the Church. And yet...too often, the sacraments have become one more casualty of the "throwaway culture" to be received mechanically, with little intentionality or commitment on the part of the recipients, only to be soon neglected or forgotten. This episode features a discussion of why this happens, and how to respond - so that concerns for fruitfulness might supplement preoccupations with validity; and greater concerns for the subjectivity of the receiver might accompany traditional preoccupations with objectivity. The goal is to re-position sacraments to their rightful, God-intended context of a lived relationship with Jesus and the church.

Ten Values of a Healthy Parish Culture

We have all seen stagnant, moribund parishes. We also know parishes whose beautiful mission statements profess 'values' that never make it off the paper they are written on. A healthy parish culture forms disciples and reaches the lost. This is our God-given goal. Fr Mallon describes ten values that will be evident in such a parish. In this episode, Fr Charles and Fr Anthony begin with a discussion on how to deal with the frequent gap between the values of Jesus and a parish. Then, they discuss each value with reflections on their own experience in ministry.

Have you ever been in discussions about the church where it feels as if God is presumed absent? That it's all up to us? Have you ever seen the Christian faith reduced to law, morality, or dogma - as if "try harder" or "be a nice person" or "just be more orthodox!" were all it really comes down to? This is the Pelagian influence - among the 'junk' that Fr Mallon insists has to go if we are to move forward as the Church on mission that Jesus founded.

Have you ever perceived an unhealthy emphasis on the ordained ministry, as if the clergy and/or religious professionals were the only ones with any real calling or responsibility to evangelize and advance the Kingdom in meaningful and impactful ways? This is the clericalist influence - again: junk that has to go. In this episode, Fr Anthony and Fr Charles go in depth discussing the twin scourges of Pelagian moralism and clericalism, and - more importantly - how to neutralize these with authentic Gospel responses stemming from the Encounter with Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

We all know people who have left the church. This can be painful for those who believe and stay, especially when the ones leaving did not feel loved, fed, or welcomed in the church. In this episode, we discuss some pain points that thwart the saving mission of Jesus and cause grief within the Body. In order to move forward, a reckoning is needed...and an honest owning-up to our complicity in these failures. The goal is to repent, lament, and then move forward - as we strive anew towards fidelity to our true identity as the church of Jesus called to make disciples and reach the lost.