Today on Kresta - Oct. 14, 2009

Talking about the "things that matter most" on Oct. 14
Best of “Kresta in the Afternoon”

4:00 – Kresta Comments

4:20 – Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College: 2nd Edition
When Pope John Paul II issued Ex Corde Ecclesiae in 1990, he called for Catholic colleges and universities to renew their commitments to the doctrinal teachings and intellectual traditions of the Church. The response has been slow, leaving many Catholic families bewildered as to where to find the best of Catholic education. There are in fact a number of fine Catholic institutions of higher education in America—if one knows where, and how, to look for them. The recently updated Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College: What to Look For and Where to Find It is the first college guide to show students where they can learn and grow in a genuine Catholic environment without the nonsense that has overtaken even some of the most well-known Catholic universities. We discuss it. Patrick Reilly joins us.

4:40 – The Danger of Turning Religion into a “Toy”
Fr. Robert Barron is convinced that a very serious enemy to the Church is a current creeping take-it-or-leave-it indifference to religion. Not so much a hostility to religion as the weary, even bored, bracketing of those questions that, for centuries, have captivated the greatest minds and spirits of the human race. Where did the universe come from? What is the deepest purpose of my life? Where is reality ultimately tending? Is there a meaning inherent in the events of history and the movements of nature? We look at the danger of turning religion into a “toy”.

5:00 – Kresta Comments – Barak, the Bible, and the Nobel Prize
U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for offering the world hope and striving for nuclear disarmament in a surprise award that drew both warm praise and sharp criticism. The bestowal of one of the world's top accolades on a president less than nine months in office, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo. Al has a perspective as well.

5:20 – Can Catholics Solve the Middle East Conflict?
Morning headlines announce renewed violence and fresh calls for peace negotiations, while pundits on talk radio and cable TV shout conflicting opinions at anyone who will listen. Between perplexing contradictions and inflammatory rhetoric, it is often difficult to find out what’s really going on in the Middle East. Former TIME magazine Jerusalem bureau chief David Aikman, who has spent decades reporting on Mid-East issues, takes a sober, balanced look at a region aflame. He brings a journalist’s mind and a believer’s heart to his exploration of the political and religious factors in play, and goes beyond the media’s chronic over-simplification to carefully examine recent history and the leaders who have made that history. Discover the truth behind the headlines: God’s restoring hand is at work in a region of the world torn apart by centuries of strife.

5:40 – UNDER GOD: George Washington and the Question of Church and State
Candidate Barack Obama drew little attention during last year's presidential campaign when he ventured into the thorny territory of church and state. While President George W. Bush had expanded government contracts to faith-based groups, Obama promised to end that arrangement if the groups proselytized to the needy they served, or hired only members of that faith. According to our next guest, this perversion of the First Amendment would appall George Washington. Joseph Smith is the co-author of a ground-breaking book on Washington’s views on church and state show that the greatest Founding Father not only sanctioned the tax-payer support of religion, but he even permitted the federal funding of missionary efforts to Native Americans—what would the ACLU say to that!?