Reasonably Catholic: Keeping the Faith

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Franco Liseo, whose DJ name is Francaccio di Roma, hosts Avanti Tutta, an Italian news and radio show. Franco has been on the air at WESU for 30 years and has fans all over the world! In our chat, we cover his Italian Catholic background and his life on both sides of the Atlantic. Clockwise from top left: Franco on the air; at the station’s monthly staff meeting’; with a placque commemorating his years of service; the cake he brought to the staff meeting; and posing with WESU General Manager Ben Michael. Below, Pope Paul VI confirms young Franco (praying in lower lefthand corner) at a hospital for children in Rome. Ad multos annos, Franco! 

Do you enjoy “Reasonably Catholic: Keeping the Faith”? A donation of any amount with a five in it will mark the program’s fifth birthday and help keep WESU going strong! Please give what you can at http://www.wesufm.org/pledge. Mille grazie!

Even more bang for your donated buck:  “Reasonably Catholic” will air every week during the Wesleyan summer break!

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Father Richard G. Rento, a priest of the Diocese of Paterson, NJ, is the author of It’s Not Necessarily So: A senior priest separates faith from fiction and makes sense of belief (Caritas Communications). In our hour together, he takes up such hot-button issues as the place of women and LGBTQ Catholics in the Church; how the Church misunderstands Jesus’ teaching on divorce; when abortion can be a moral choice; and the many meanings of”the Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. Along the way, he tells of having recently been called on the carpet by his bishop to explain, among other things, why he won’t lead the faithful in the Creed.

If you appreciate long-form journalism on topics rarely explored anywhere else, please donate to http://www.wesufm.org during our spring pledge drive. To mark “Reasonably Catholic: Keeping the Faith”‘s fifth birthday, I’m hitting up all my peeps for any donation with a five in it! Thanks for supporting independent community radio, needed now more than ever!

Writer, musician and life coach Janet Ettele is the author of a series of books on Buddhism — How Generosity Works; How Patience Works, and How the Root of Kindness Works (Karuna Publications) — based on the teachings of the 8th century monk Shantideva.

Sharing the episode is her teacher Geshe Lobsang Dhargey at the Do Ngak Kunphen Ling – DNKL for short — Tibetan Buddhist temple in Redding, CT. The music punctuating the episode is by Janet, from her CD Piano Mandalas.

Here is a list of upcoming events at the temple and surrounding area:

May 12th 11AM-12:30PM – Janet on “Inner Peace as a Way of Life” DNKL, 30 Putnam Park Road, Redding, CT

May 18th: 1-1:30PM Wilton Rotary Club at Marley’s –  “Inner Peace as a Way of Life,” 101 Old Ridgefield Rd, Wilton, CT 06897

May 19th: the annual Animal Blessing 1-3:00PM at DNKL

May 20th – 9AM-4PM Prayer Flag Ceremony at DNKL

Here’s a link to DNKL’s calendar:  https://www.dnkldharma.org/classes-events/complete-calendar.html

as well as a link to an article about Janet and the temple in the local paper:

https://arts.hersamacorn.com/2018/02/15/bethel-author-shares-buddhist-teachings/

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Producer Thada Catalon discusses “Created Equal,” available streaming and on DVD, which features Edy Ganem as a young nun suing the Catholic Church for the right to enter a seminary and become a priest. The film also stars Lou Diamond Phillips, Aaron Tveit, Gregory Alan Williams, Lauren Compton, Yohance Myles, John Newberg and Lauren Helling.

Commonweal writer Richard Alleva says of the new film “Paul: Apostle of Christ,” the book is better.

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Michael O’Loughlin, national correspondent for the Jesuit journal America, wrote “How the Catholic Church could help lead a gun control movement.” Find the article here: https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/02/21/how-catholic-church-could-help-lead-gun-control-movement

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Rome-based Kate McElwee, executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, praises the previously deferential-to-cardinals organization Voices of Faith for taking its annual International Women’s Day conference outside the Vatican walls after three planned speakers were rejected from the program. One of them is former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, an outspoken proponent of women’s ordination and the mother of a gay son. The March 8th event can be live-streamed at 8 a.m. EST at http://www.voicesoffaith.org and can also be accessed within the following week on YouTube and the organization’s Facebook page.

Rev. Richard Killmer, one of the organizers of the  March 14th Interfaith Conference on Drone Warfare, promotes the event, which will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hartford Seminary, 77 Sherman St., Hartford. The presenters include: Andrea Prasow, associate director of the Washington, DC, office of Human Rights Watch; Dr. Maryann Cusimano Love, of Catholic University; Rev. Dr. Chris Antal, a Unitarian Universalist minister who resigned as an army chaplain because of the US lethal drone policy; and Lt. Co. Shareda Hosein, US Army Reserves Ret’d., a Muslim chaplain. Registration is free but a free-will offering will be taken. Lunch will be provided. Register at http://www.bit.ly/DroneCTConference. Call 609-924-5022 for more information or visit http://www.interfaithdronenetwork.org.

Richard Alleva and Rand Richards Cooper, writers for the Catholic journal Commonweal, unite in WESU’s studio B for a rollicking look at this year’s Oscar nominees. There were no injuries.

[Notes from the cutting room floor: the interview was edited to fit the time slot. For the record, Richard recommends the Albert Finney portrayal of Winston Churchill in 2002’s The Gathering Storm. And Rand would like you to know that one of this year’s unfairly overlooked films is The Florida Project.]

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Stephen Mansfield, a center-right evangelical Christian historian and biographer, explores in Choosing Donald Trump: God, Anger, Hope and Why Christian Conservatives Supported Him, the reasons the right went wrong as well as the forces that made Trump Trump. Mansfield is also — perhaps presciently — the author of the 2011 book Where Has Oprah Taken Us?

Photos from two NYC marches:

Saturday, Jan. 20th’s women’s march in New York City, one of many all over the world, that drew an estimated 200,000 like-minded men, women, children (and yes, even like-minded pets) to the streets around Central Park. Note the wagging finger at one of the Trump properties we passed: the chant there was “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

And

Sunday, Jan. 21st’s  Feminism & Faith in Union march that gathered in Union Square and began with a blessing by several noted feminist women, then paraded along 16th St. to the wonderfully progressive St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church.

Gives one hope.

Today: the sound of women — and the men and children who love them — taking to the streets of New York City.

Along with people all over the world, on Jan. 20, 2018, people gathered on the streets around Central Park to march in solidarity against the policies and behavior of the Trump Administration.

The next day, downtown, Catholic feminists — including men and children — gathered in Union Square and marched to St. Francis Xavier Church on 16th St., in solidarity for women’s ordination.

To hear the episode, click below:

https://reasonablycatholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/reasonably-in-action04.mp3

Amazing photos from both marches to come tomorrow!