Thinking Faith With Eric Gurash And Dr. Brett Salkeld

This week we begin a two-part Lenten retreat on Flannery O'Connor and the suffering Gospel.  We'll reflect on this call to take up our cross and the essential role of grace in shaking up our world-view and stripping away those things which hamper our journey into sainthood. Show Snippet: "O'Connor...recognizes that this desire and calling to a life of sainthood is both the only calling that matters, that indeed contains all other callings in life, but is also unattainable save by grace."  

In this part 2 of 2, we continue our conversation around faith and mental health, discussing what is helpful, what is not, and some practical ideas for building more mental health-related resiliency into our daily lives. Show Snippet: "It's extremely dangerous when we imagine that what's going on with mental health is simply a matter of someone's spiritual life not being in order, and so what they need to do is just pray more, offer it up and do all of the pius Catholic things you're supposed to do..." Learn more about Emmaus Family Support: https://emmaussupport.wordpress.com/ 

Wherein Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett chat about the intersection of faith and mental health. Sharing personal stories, new mental health-based ministries, and the consolations and support our Catholic faith can bring. Show Snippet: "The ministry that Melissa and I are involved in outside of the parish is called Emmaus Family Support. It's primarily a peer-led support group for people who are caregivers...they are the primary caregivers for someone who is close to them, who suffers from mental health challenges. " To learn more about the Emmaus Family Support ministry mentioned in today's podcast, please visit: https://emmaussupport.wordpress.com/ 

This week Eric and Brett discuss the highs and lows of writing as they look at what is involved in taking the ideas of your head and heart, putting them to paper, and convincing someone to publish them. Show Snippet: "My email inbox is a lot more up to date when I'm trying to write a book...you know how you get the house really clean when you don't want to be doing something? I get my email up to date."

Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett Salkeld continue to wrestle with the morality of vaccinations in this part 2 of 2, digging deeper into the categories and arguments prevalent in recent weeks. Warning: These episodes may cause irritation and inflammation at the injection site, and a closer alignment with the consistent moral teachings of the Pope and teaching office of the Church. Show Snippet: "The same people who say that it's extremely unlikely...to die from COVID, also are pulling out single incidences of adverse reactions to vaccines..."

As vaccines begin to roll out promising protection from COVID-19 and a slow return to normal life, there remain some questions regarding the morality of some vaccines which may have connections with ethically questionable cell-lines. Deacon Eric and Dr. Brett navigate the waters in this two-part look at the morality of vaccination. Warning: These episodes may cause irritation and inflammation at the injection site, and a closer alignment with the consistent moral teachings of the Pope and teaching office of the Church. Show Snippet: "The one kind of cooperation with evil which is permissible, in part because it's often unavoidable, but even if it is avoidable, sometimes it can be justified if avoiding it will cause other problem...this is called proportionate reasons..."

In this part 2 of 2, we continue our conversation with Brendan Steven of www.catholicconscience.org regarding his journey from young atheist to leading a lay apostolate discussing false idols and the deepest desires of our souls this week on Thinking Faith! Show Snippet: "I look back on my life on how obsessed I was with 'the cause' when politics was my idol. To me, it was a perversion of the desire to give of self, like irrevocable, committed, total self-giving..."

Who doesn't like a great conversion story? Brendan Steven of catholicconscience.org shares his journey from young atheist to leading a lay apostolate and God's relentless, loving pursuit of his soul this week on Thinking Faith! Show Snippet: "A lot of normal human beings would have given up on me, would not have waited ten years, and would not have spent that relentless kind of nudging, and pushing and gentle cajoling towards the outcome that they desired, but God di that for me."

Brendan Steven of catholicconscience.org discusses how his former work in Canadian politics led him to assist Catholics in discerning the relationship between Catholic social teaching and the role of our faith in deciding how our votes might be cast. Show Snippet: "We often like to use this phrase, and I love this phrase, "God meets us where we are." We have to meet our politicians where they are. Even with folks that, from our perspective, are supporting really unsupportable policies, we have to treat them like children of God."

Catholicconscience.org founder Matthew Marquardt discusses what led an American police officer to create a Canadian Catholic lay apostolate whose mission is to assist Catholic voters in forming their voting consciences based on the social teachings of the Catholic Church. Show Snippet: "The whole problem here is that Catholics aren't involved the way we should be...we should be trying to bring the whole political and civic conversation closer to the Gospel and the social teachings of the Church."

This week we begin a three-part visit with Matthew Marquardt and Brendan Steven of catholicconscinece.org to discuss the origins of this organization whose mission is to assist Catholics in discerning their own conscience as voters and build the Kingdom of God through Catholic social teaching. Show snippet: "Out of love of neighbour we have an enormous responsibility as Catholics to form ourselves and discern how we vote and the ways we think about our vote in ways that are intentional and reflective of our faith."

Join us for a special Advent retreat episode of Thinking Faith. This week Deacon Eric reflects on the Annunciation from the Fourth Sunday's Gospel and the invitation of the angel Gabriel to see our gifts and others, through God's own eyes. Show Snippet: "This is the God who sees within the world as it is, a space where he might come to dwell among us, a space sacred and holy enough to make his home among us. He sees a life filled with promise; he sees our lives filled with possibility; He sees our lives filled with grace..."

The discussion on faith and politics continues as guests Brendan Hodge and Charles Camosy examine the potential that exists in both left and right political ideologies for a radical coming together on a variety of important issues. Show Snippet: "Why do we have to choose between protecting pre-natal children from being dismembered in the womb, or people with massive brain injuries from being starved and dehydrated to death, and actually supporting nursing homes and long-term care facilities...with adequate resources?"

With the election cycle in Saskatchewan complete and our neighbours to the south wrapping up their own contentious presidential vote, we thought it would be great fun to invite two faithful US Catholics to the show to discuss the fallout. Charlie Camosy, a former member of Democrats for Life, and Brendan Hodge, card-carrying Republican, go head to head talking faith and politics this week on Thinking Faith! Show Snippet: "There's sort of a line you can't cross over and we understand as Catholics that we do owe support to the vulnerable and that the right to property is not absolute..."

Wherein a dialogue between St. Ignatius of Loyola and Rene Descartes provides a moral to our cautionary tale, and an old friend from NET Ministries Canada 'podcast bombs' the show. Show Snippet: "Ignatius knows to have a healthy suspicion of his own capacity for self-deception at the expense of his neighbour...and this is the key, Ignatius is thinking of the other, whereas Descartes' focus is on the self..."

Wherein we discuss the interesting exchanges that can take place in email inboxes and the need for charity in our virtual conversations. Show Snippet: "I got a little assertive at this point, I don't think unjustly, but I got a little assertive, I said, If you decline to show me the error, I need to stop responding to your email...not everyone who attacks you on the internet deserves your time."

We wrap up our five-part series with Catholic author, speaker, and apologist, Mark Shea on his newest book "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching." Show Snippet: "Faith without works is dead, says James, and so this aspect of Catholic teaching, more than any other, has to be lived. It must be practiced or...it's like looking in a mirror and then walking away and forgetting what you look like, says James." Get a signed copy of "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching." Buy direct from Mark at https://markpshea.com/mark-shea-shop/.

Continuing our discussion with Catholic author, speaker, and apologist, Mark Shea on his newest book "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching" examining, among other topics, structures of sin. Show Snippet: "We make stuff all the time. We don't just make little tchotchkes, we also make giant, world-spanning, socio-economic, and political systems. These are what are known as 'structures of sin' and what structures of sin do is that they make it hard to be good and make it easy to be bad..." Get a signed copy of "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching." Buy direct from Mark at https://markpshea.com/mark-shea-shop/.

In this multipart series, we sit down with Catholic writer, speaker, and apologist, Mark Shea to discuss his newest book "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching". Show Snippet: "This is part of our heavily libertarian way of looking at things; that I can be personally generous, but why do I need the state to put a gun to my head and tell me that I have to give to pay for somebody else's healthcare?" Get a signed copy of "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching." Buy direct from Mark at https://markpshea.com/mark-shea-shop/.

We continue our multi-part discussion with Catholic author, blogger, and speaker Mark Shea on his latest book The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching. We dig into the various pillars of Catholic social teaching, and their connections to the Gospel and our lives. Show Snippet: "It's really important to understand; the Gospels are underground literature written to the Church...they are not literature written to Christians in order to give them the right to say "I thank you O God that I am not like other men." Get a signed copy of "The Church's Best Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching." Buy direct from Mark at https://markpshea.com/mark-shea-shop/.