Today on Kresta - July 7, 2009

Talking about the "things that matter most" on July 7

3:00 – Kresta Comments

3:20 – Faith and Family Connect
More and more, moms are connecting on places like Twitter and Facebook, but communities like Faith & Family provide them with more intimate, meaningful connections and faith support through a gathering of like-minded moms. In a world where it can be difficult, especially for at-home moms raising small children, to find support and encouragement in their backyard as previous generations did, online social networking is filling a real need moms have to connect with others. Like it or not, social networking is here to stay. Places like Faith & Family Connect provide faith-based, family-friendly ways of using new media in support of traditional values. We talk with creator and editor Danielle Bean.

3:40 – Health Care Reform: A Catholic View
Reform of the American health care sector is urgent. The current trend of ever increasing health-care spending, superimposed upon technological advancement and an aging demographic, is unsustainable. Approximately 15 percent of Americans lack health insurance and millions are underinsured or struggling with medical bills. Employer based medical care is disintegrating. Leonard J. Nelson III is here to examine a Catholic approach to health care reform.

4:00 – Kresta Comments

4:20 – Caritatis in Veritate
The Vatican has released the text of Caritatis in Veritate, the long-awaited social encyclical in which Pope Benedict XVI calls for "a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise" and a global economic system that values the common good above private profits. Explaining the title of the encyclical, Pope Benedict writes that the social teachings of the Catholic Church offer a means of appraising the secular world, judging social and economic systems against a clear moral standard. The guiding principle of Catholic social teaching is charity, he says. The 144-page document, released on July 7 just as leaders of the G8 industrial nations gather in Italy for their discussions of the global economy, defies easy categorization. A story in the National Catholic Reporter carried an accurate descriptive subhead, noting that the encyclical "offers something for both the political left and right to cheer… and something to be grumpy about." We talk with Kishore Jayabalan of the Acton Institute.

4:40 – Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons
Boyhood used to be a time of freedom and fun--of catching bullfrogs, playing tackle football, and roaming the woods--but not anymore. Rambunctious, high-spirited boys--healthy boys--nowadays face an increasingly hostile world that doesn't value the unique gifts of boys, that discounts their masculine virtues, and that undermines what boys need to become mature, confident, and thoughtful men. Pediatrician Meg Meeker unlocks the secrets of what parents can do to restore some of the magic of boyhood and help their son become the man they want him to be.

5:00 – Caritatis in Veritate
The first round of stories on the Holy Father’s 3rd encyclical, Caritatis in Veritate, have sometimes oversimplified the Pope's message. A Reuters report, for example, conveys the impression that the encyclical calls for a centralized authority to govern the world economy. It is true that the Pope calls for reform of the UN to create "a true world political authority… with real teeth." But he does not suggest central economic planning, and in fact he devotes considerable stress to the importance of the subsidiarity principle, which he says is "the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state." We examine the encyclical with Kevin Schmeising of the Acton Institute and Dr. Harry Veryser of University of Detroit Mercy.