Respect Life Radio

“I hope that these colleges that are coming from a Christian worldview are teaching the goodness and the beauty and the truth of Western civilization. And the freedom that you experience when you conform your life to the will of God. These are the kind of people that we want coming out of Christian institutions and going into the public school system; to be a witness of that truth. And it's sorely needed. It's desperately needed. And we see that need when we see the videos on sites like Libs of TikTok, the kind of agenda that some of the teachers are leaving college with,” said Meg Kilgannon, a senior fellow for education studies at Family Research Council. Kilgannon was recently quoted in an article, "'Center for Grooming Children': CDC Site Steers Minors to Facilitated LGBT Chat Forum," in The Washington Stand, a new FRC online "outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview." Hear a previous Respect Life Radio interview with Kilgannon, "Is God calling you to run for school board?" Follow Kilgannon @meg_kilgannon on Twitter. 

"In some ways it's sad to see people identifying as Catholics but then pushing these issues — not just as things they think are good — but they talk about the language of rights: a right to contraception, a right to same-sex marriage,” said Lauretta Brown, Washington-based staff writer for the National Catholic Register. “In the years that I've covered politics, though, unfortunately I've gotten quite used to seeing this: people being Catholic, talking about their faith, but turning around and disregarding some central Church teachings.” See Brown's recent article, “Democrats’ Proposal to Codify Same-Sex Civil Marriage Poses Religious-Freedom Issues, Critics Say" and follow her @LaurettaBrown6 on Twitter.

“We are living in a new age of tyranny...of relativism, the dictatorship of secular modernity,” said Derek Rotty, who wrote a recent column for the National Catholic Register, titled, “Natural Law and Moral Virtues Bring Independence From Tyranny.” “What America has lost is its understanding, and its foundation, on the natural law.” Rotty, the director of evangelization and discipleship at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Jackson, Tenn., is the author of the 2019 book, “A Life of Conversion: Meeting Christ in the Gospels” (Our Sunday Visitor). Follow him @derekrotty on Twitter.

“We call women together to study important documents of the Catholic Church,” said Simone Rizkallah, director of program growth for Endow. “We help women organize themselves into small group communities, whether that's in their homes or in their parishes. We create study guides to help them study the rich and important documents of the Church.” Endow, founded in 2003, stands for Educating on the Natural and Dignity of Women. It has “grown into an international apostolate in over 130 dioceses, reaching over 40,000 women all over the world,” according to its website, endowgroups.org. “I'm getting a lot of moms and women who are seeing what's happening to our young girls and they're desperate: Can you please help us get this started?” said Rizkallah. “It's much more a sense of mission and urgency for what's going on in this culture.” Follow Endow @endowgroup on Instagram.

“The most important thing for any Catholic — right now and frankly, at any time in history — is to focus on your spiritual life. That is what's going to give us the wisdom to deal with the culture and all the problems that beset us. It's going to give us the understanding, the knowledge, the counsel and the piety that we need today,” said Charlie McKinney, president of Sophia Institute Press for the past decade. “We really focus on producing books and producing content that helps people to deepen their spiritual life.” McKinney told his story in 2014 on "The Journey Home" of converting to the Catholic faith from being a Southern Baptist. Sophia Institute Press, based in Nashua, N.H., publishes books and Crisis Magazine, as well as the Catholic Exchange website and other initiatives. Follow @SophiaPress on Twitter.

In the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion issue to the people in each state, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively said, “'We've got to play fair. We need to obey the terms of the Constitution and nobody gets an unfair judicial advantage in these policy fights,'” said GianCarlo Canaparo, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “Dobbs is the most pro-democracy decision the Supreme Court has handed down in several generations.” Follow @heritage on Twitter.

"I realize that 90 percent of what I did that I regret would come from an emotional surge... Emotion doesn't last very long unless you feed it. If I can shut my mouth for...15 seconds and not say what I most had the urge to say, 15 seconds later the emotional surge will be probably cut in half. And then I will be able to control it," said Dr. Ray Guarendi. Guarendi is "a Catholic father of ten adopted children, a clinical psychologist, author, professional speaker, and national radio and television host," according to his website, DrRay.com. He is the author of books, including the recently published, "Living Calm: Mastering Anger and Frustration" (EWTN Publishing). Follow him on Facebook and listen to previous appearances on Respect Life Radio: "On what it takes to be married and raise 'upright kids'" and "Listening to Jesus, the master psychologist."

"I always try to write as simply as possible, whether I'm writing for adults or children. My whole goal of my writing career is to simplify complicated spiritual, theological concepts — without watering down or compromising the faith. It's really easy to simplify things if you want to water them down. The trick is to keep them orthodox and traditional, but at the same time make them easier to understand," said Anthony DeStefano, author of "How the Angels Got Their Wings" (Sophia Institute Press).  DeStefano, based in New Jersey, "is the bestselling author of over twenty-five Christian books for adults and children," according to his website, anthonydestefano.com.

Since the days of Saint Pope John XXIII, we were told “that we have entered — with Vatican II — a new time of the Church, a kind of new Pentecost and springtime. But everyone could state that it was really not a springtime. And now we are seeing that the churches are evermore empty and parishes are closed...convents are closed evermore and then the other aspects of the life within the Church, especially the great crisis of the clergy...the sexual abuses cases...and so on. In this sense, we cannot continue to speak about the springtime of the church,” said Bishop Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C., the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, and author of "The Springtime that Never Came: In conversation with Paweł Lisicki" (Sophia Institute Press). Hear a previous Respect Life Radio interview with Bishop Schneider: Restoring Catholic liturgy among the ruins. Follow him at his website, Gloria Dei, and @BishopAthanas1 on Twitter.

"Whenever people ask me, 'Give me the short answer of why you reverted to the Catholic Church?' I tell them I discovered two things. Number one, I discovered sola Scriptura [Scripture alone] is false. The other one I discovered: apostolic succession is true. Apostolic succession is that process of the handing down of the truths of the Church through the Church Fathers. When you read the Church Fathers, you finally realize — wait a second — the early Church is Catholic," said Jim Papandrea, Ph.D., a professor at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and the author of books, including "Reading the Church Fathers: A History of the Early Church and the Development of Doctrine" (Sophia Institute Press).   Papandrea, a former Methodist, told his reversion story in 2013 on "The Journey Home" on EWTN. Find out more at jimpapandrea.com.