In this part one of two episodes, Dr. Brett Salkeld visits with high school theology teacher, Tommy Kostielney of South Bend, Indiana to discuss ways that Tommy has introduced the idea of curriculum permeation to fellow teachers.

Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett continue to delve into the pile of questions sent to them from the Conquest Boys Club at St. Anne's parish in Regina, Saskatchewan. This week we discuss the cross, baseball bats, and creationism.

Archbishop Don Bolen joins the podcast for a special pre-Christmas episode of Thinking Faith. We'll discuss Pope Francis' new book on the Nativity, Bishop Don's nativity collection, and the impact of the Incarnation on our broken world.

Show Snippet: "The incarnation is ultimately not a book and it's not a word spoken in writing, it's spoken in flesh. And so, incarnational faithfulness, in the first instance, is not a verbal witness, but a presence, a walking with, and that's probably what people will value and appreciate, because I think people in grief, people in time of loss and time of deep suffering, often find words that used to be meaningful crashing against the hard waves or wall of suffering and of brokenness and the words lie flat on the ground whereas your presence, you're showing up, matters."

Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett continue to delve into the pile of questions sent to them from the Conquest Boys Club at St. Anne's parish in Regina, Saskatchewan. This week we discuss Jesus' mistakes in the woodshop and altar serving.

Show Snippet: "Think of a carpenter shop. How do you learn to make some furniture with Dad in the shop without making mistakes? What do you do when you're teaching your kids about the family business? You hand them a chisel and a mallet and a saw, right?"

In this part two of two episodes, Dr. Brett Salkeld visits Dr. Joseph Vukov of Loyola University in Chicago to discuss the transhumanism movement and promise and the perils of utilizing science and technology to improve human life.

"I think a great little pushback to the Luddite who would say, these new technologies are necessarily going to undermine human relationships, are necessarily going to undermine, our capacity to give praise to God appropriately. And I would say the Exsultet and the Mass pushback on that just a little bit in saying, no, no, no, we can actually use technology in cooperation with nature, as long as we have the right views of ourselves and right views of nature to give glory back to God."

Learn more in Joseph Vukov's latest book "The Perils of Perfection"

In this part one of two episodes, Dr. Brett Salkeld visits Dr. Joseph Vukov of Loyola University in Chicago to discuss the transhumanism movement and promise and the perils of utilizing science and technology to improve human life.

"Roughly what transhumanism is is the idea that human existence as we experience it is Messy, it involves a lot of suffering, it is not all that it could be, and that what our goal should be is to transcend, hence the transhumanism, our own humanity. So how do we do this? We do this by life extension. We do this by making our memories better. We do this by making our IQs higher. We do this by becoming more efficient. We do this by incorporating technology into our lives."

Learn more in Joseph Vukov's latest book "The Perils of Perfection" 

In this part two of two, Dr. Brett Salkeld and Dr. Brett Fawcett discuss interdisciplinary collaboration and the role of theology teachers in curriculum permeation.

In this part one of two, Dr. Brett Salkeld and Dr. Brett Fawcett discuss interdisciplinary collaboration and the role of theology teachers in curriculum permeation.

This week, Deacon Eric examines four more biblical figures as models for navigating mental health challenges. He discusses Leah, Hannah, Jeremiah, and Naomi and how their experiences can provide guidance and support for our own challenges today.

Show Snippet: "Naomi’s story underscores the importance of social support and of opening ourselves to being a support for others.  In spite of her grieving, she recognizes God’s hand in sending the right people into her life at the right time and encourages her daughter-in-law, Ruth to do the same..."

In this part two of two episodes, Dr. Brett Salkeld and returning guest, Brett Fawcett sit down to discuss the implications Bonavanture's examination of the arts and theology might have on Catholic education.

Show Snippet: "The third day is the exterior light. And that's the light of mechanical art. The production of artifacts. So the liberal arts are the arts of a free man, as they call them. These are the servile arts which Bonaventure does not seem to look down on. I mean, he puts them lower than maybe internal philosophy or internal light, but he still sees them as reducing to theology."