Sunday School with Pat Flynn

In this episode of Sunday School, Pat Flynn talks about the Fourth Commandment in his series on the Ten Commandments. (December 30, 2018)

Pat Flynn is joined by bio-ethicist Peter Koch of Villanova University to discuss some of the deepest and most important questions of life, including:

– How to think about death.

– How to make ethical decisions.

– Whether or not there is an afterlife.

– What to make of utilitarianism? Or deontology?

– Where do moral values and duties come from?

– And more!

This is a deep episode, folks. Please share and enjoy!

In this episode of Sunday School, Pat talks about the 5 most important questions in life, and why everybody should be engaged in trying to answer them. (December 16, 2018)

Quoting from What We Can’t Not Know: “A paraphrase of the Second Commamdment might be “You shall not use empty speech in connection with God.” … To say this is one of the things we can’t not know–that it belongs not only to biblical injunction but to natural law–is to say that we naturally understand certain things about the relation of speech to reality, a theme to which we return in the Eighth Commandment. Even a liar’s speech expressing something true; it may not tell us the state of the world, but it tells us the state of his heart. What empty God-talk tells us is that where there ought to be God, there is emptiness.”

In this episode of Sunday School, Pat Flynn engages the #1 question he's gotten (by far) since starting Sunday School: Why Catholicism? Pat finally starts to answer that question–in a serious and inviting way–with his very special guest Patrick Madrid. (December 2, 2018)

Pat introduces his new series for Sunday School: The 10 Commandments in 10 Minutes. In this episode, Pat gives a brief overview of moral philosophy, natural law theory, and special revelation, and how they all come together to provide us with a blueprint for how to flourish and how to get along with others. Then, Pat covers the 1st Commandment in 10 minutes. In this episode:

– What the 1st Commandment is really saying about what we owe to God.

– Why the 1st Commandment is giving us what WE need, not what God needs.

– Why the 1st Commandment is a specific (and high) example of the basic moral obligations of fair playing and giving each their due.

– Some all-too-common ways the 1st Commandment is violated. (Sin, ruh-roh!)

In this episode of Sunday School, Patrick Flynn interviews Professor Rachel Fulton Brown, a professor of medieval European history at the University of Chicago, who specializes in the study of devotion and prayer, along with the works of J.R.R Tolkien.

In this conversation, Professor Brown, a lifelong Christian, and recent convert to Catholicism, discloses much of her spiritual journey, talks about how to develop spiritual discipline in a largely secular age (an analogy she ties beautifully into fencing), and how a proper understanding of the Virgin Mary is necessary to save the soul of Western Civilization–a statement which has gotten her into some recent controversy!

In this episode, we also discuss: How to step inside the beam of devotion to gain a greater understanding of God; how to think about–and respond to–corruption in the church; and her recent work with a rather interesting–and indeed, controversial–figure!

A deep and, at times, provocative interview, that comes with more than a few surprises, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Professor Rachel Fulton Brown.

In this episode of Sunday School, Pat Flynn asks a professional bio-ethicist a bunch of hard moral questions, including:

- What does it mean to have a "good" life

- How should we think about euthanasia/assisted suicide?

- If everybody is lying to you, and you "think" you life is going well, is it really?

- Is it wrong to impose moral

In this episode of Sunday School, Pat Flynn explores an age old question--some would say an age old myth--but let's be fair in asking it: Are science and religion fundamentally at odds? Well, I suppose that depends on who you ask. But at least one theoretical physicist (enter Stephen Barr) says no--no they most certainly are not. Not only are religion and science. (November 4, 2011)

Fr. Thomas Joseph White, a philosopher, theologian, author, and Dominican who teaches at the Angelicum in Rome, joins Pat to discuss many of the common (and often difficult) questions people have about religion in the modern age. How can we know that God exists? Is there a conflict between religion and science? Are there any objective moral norms? What about scandals in the church? And, how can we know if any one particular religion has gotten everything right. These are fundamental questions which deserve a fundamental answer, and Fr. White takes on the challenge of discussing them all. (October 29, 2018)