Congratulations to the Winner of today's ticket to the Catholic Charities' I-Cubs Game: Pam Murphy
Featured Local Guest: Fr. Chris Fontanini, Vocations Director for the Diocese of Des Moines
Featured National Guest: Mark Shea, author of the electronic resource "Answering Angels and Demons"
Father Chris Fontanini, the Vocations Director of the Diocese of Des Moines was speaking with Bill and Rich about GPS for the soul, an analogy that Bill created for KWKY. He added to this by saying that not only will KWKY keep you on track, but when you're off course it will help "recalculate" your path and keep you close to the Faith.
When asked how young people can be encouraged to listen for a call to a vocation, Father Chris encouraged prayer. There are so many distractions in our society and sometimes it is good to unplug and get away for a time of silence. Embracing silence helps us to regain our focus on the goal of being close to God. He also suggested Spiritual Direction as an avenue to pursue if you haven't already. A good way for families to foster vocations is to invite priests to supper with the family, so that the kids can see that they're real people who are doing great work and loving their job.
Don't forget to check out information on the Fareway Fathers Golf Outing, June 15 by going to: www.vocationsonline.com
Vs. 
Mark Shea, the author of the electronic book "Answering Angels and Demons," joined Bill and Rich as well. This resource is about both the book and the movie. Mark explained to us that Dan Brown's tendency in these books is to palm fictitional history off as the result of study and research. In fact he is known to tell readers that although he is telling a story, the facts about the Church and history are all true. He heralds it as gaining an education in Western History through his fictitional stories.
The anti-Catholic sentiments that run throughout his books pose a problem. Although "Angels and Demons" according to Mark Shea is "...not as toxic and stupid as the 'Da Vinci Code'..." Brown still tries to pass his fictitional history off as reality. In "Angels and Demons," Brown focuses on the Catholic Church's "centuries old battle with science." Within this story, not only does Brown misrepresent the Church, but also a group of Swiss scientists. In the story the bad guy is using anti-matter that he stole from these Swiss scientists to use as the future for a "clean renewable energy source." These Swiss scientists had to put up a website disclaiming Brown's information. In fact, the amount of anti-matter it would take to power a single lightbulb would take billions of years to accumulate.
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned and this claim that we are at war with the Sciences, Brown uses Capernicus as an example, saying that he was murdered by the Church when he began to theorize that the planets move around the sun. In reality, Capernicus was not murdered, he died of old age and in addition to that, was a Priest. The Catholic Church even used his research when they were refiguring the calendar.
Brown also uses the situation with Galileo as proof of this "centuries old war" between the Church and science. The question be why, when trying to prove this "centuries old war" exists, can he only come up with Galileo as an example? Mark explained the Galileo situation as having more to do with personalities, he compared Galileo to the TV show character, House. The incident with Galileo was isolated and remains unrepeated.
In reality, the Church has a long history of patronizing the sciences. The Christian culture of Europe actually fostered scientific study and discovery. Teh scientific revolution could not have began anywhere else because study of science was not fostered or cultivated anywhere else.
For more information on Mark Shea or to obtain "Answering Angels and Demons" go to:
www.markshea.blogspot.com
www.answeringangeslanddemons.com
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