Today on Kresta - October 23, 2009

Talking about the "things that matter most" on Oct. 23
LIVE FROM THE STUDIOS OF KVSS IN OMAHA, NE

4:00 – Kresta Comments

4:20 – Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America
As late as Election Day, headlines across the county blared that the race was “too close to call.” Even on the verge of his historic triumph in the 1980 presidential election, political observers continued to underestimate Ronald Wilson Reagan. In Rendezvous with Destiny, the long-awaited follow-up to his widely praised account of Reagan’s insurgent campaign that nearly wrested the 1976 Republican nomination from President Gerald Ford, Craig Shirley tells the incredible behind-the-scenes story of Reagan’s improbable run to the White House in 1980—of how the “too close to call” election became a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter and independent candidate John Anderson. And this, Shirley shows, was no ordinary election. It dramatically altered the course of American—and world—history. Reagan’s victory gave rise to a new generation of conservatism, ended liberalism’s half-century reign of dominance, reversed the second-worst economic crisis in American history, and led to participation with Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II in the demise of the mighty Soviet Union.

4:40 – Reconnect: When Your Kids Are Connected To Everything But You!
Cell phones, laptops, Facebook, Myspace, IPods, YouTube, texting, instant message, and more. Kids today are growing up in a very different world than that baby boomers did. What happens when your kids are connected to everything but you? Al Menconi has some advice.

5:00 – Marriage in the Lord
Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., explores the theological and spiritual meaning of the sacrament of marriage. Using the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a touchstone, Deacon Keating challenges listeners to go to the depths of what it means to be married in the Lord. Learn that Catholic marriage offers much more than simply the “spiritualization” of what the state calls legal marriage; Understand this sacrament carries the force of divine love; Experience the adventure of man and wife dying-to-self in the face of faithful love; Discover how two hearts are formed and made holy in the self-sacrifice that is their mutual self-giving in Christ; And much more!

5:20 – Anglicans, Come Home: Vatican Throws The Doors Wide Open
Pope Benedict is promulgating an apostolic constitution that will permit Anglican communities whose members wish to be received into the Catholic Church to do so as communities. The papal document allows for the creation of "personal ordinariates" to be headed by formerly Anglican priests, providing a structure within the Catholic hierarchy to supervise the pastoral care of Anglicans who have become Catholics. These "personal ordinariates" would be integrated into national episcopal conferences, but encouraged to preserve the distinctive aspects of the Anglican tradition. The response continues to pour in from around the world, and Fr. Christopher Phillips, pastor of one of the first “personal parishes” in the US, established primarily for former Episcopalians who converted to the Catholic Church, is here to weigh in.

5:40 – Amelia / Pope John Paul II Film Festival
At a glance, the festival selections include many titles that would be at home at, say, the Creation Film Festival or the Heartland Film Festival. There’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a moral parable about the friendship of two boys on opposite sides of a Nazi camp fence. Bandslam, a Walden/Summit musical-comedy-romance. Bella, an award-winning tale about a crisis pregnancy produced by Catholics but popular with Christians of all stripes. But there’s also The 13th Day, a stylish Catholic-produced British indie about the 1917 Marian apparitions and “miracle of the sun” at Fatima, Portugal. It’s Miami’s brand-new John Paul II International Film Festival (October 27–November 7) and it aspires to be a festival with a difference. Film Critic Steven Greydanus is here to discuss it.