ITEST Webinar entitled "Science, Reason, and Faith: Discovering the Bible" with Fr. Robert J. Spitzer, SJ, and Dr. Tom Sheahen (December 2, 2023) Built into our very nature is a desire to know about the world around us. The big questions of human existence are inescapable: Who am I? Why am I here, and where am I going? Why is there evil in the world? What is the meaning of life?This yearning for truth ultimately leads us to our Creator. God knows the longings of the human heart, and he reveals himself to us through creation, through Scripture, and ultimately through the Incarnation. Because God the Son became man, we have a person to look to in our pursuit of truth: Jesus Christ himself, who is Truth. Christ helps us see that truth is not just the object of science and reason, but what animates the mysterious and loving power of faith.In https://osvcatholicbookstore.com/product/science-reason-and-faith-discovering-the-bible, Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, explores in depth the Bible and the intersection of three realms that the secular world tells us are separate and incompatible. Fr. Spitzer draws the modern reader’s attention to the many seeming conflicts between science, reason, and Catholic teaching. By tackling these difficult questions, he shows that it is precisely through the integration of science, reason, and faith that we can truly discover ourselves, our world, and our God. Fr. Spitzer’s new book Science, Reason and Faith is subtitled Discovering the Bible because it displays the unity between science, the Biblical texts, and the presentation of the Christian faith contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. For the scientific reader, it is a reassuring surprise to discover how the elements of faith and science fit together so well.Matters such as finding compatibility between modern physics and cosmology and the text of Genesis 1, or the significance of Old Testament miracles, are explained carefully in a way that a reader without expertise in Biblical scholarship or science can understand. New Testament questions range from the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ miracles, through the full understanding of the real presence of the Eucharist, to the need for there to be an organized religion.Structured in question-and-answer form, multiple topics containing a scientific component are explored across both Old and New Testament. This format enables the reader to quickly locate a particular topic of interest; and thus, the book serves as a handbook or reference guidebook. Several hundred citations guide the reader pursuing greater depth.In my supplement to Fr. Spitzer’s presentation at this Webinar, I will develop some of these topics further, relating them to the principle of God’s omnipresence, which includes God’s supremacy over time, enunciated in my own book Everywhen: God, Symmetry and Time. Our independent approaches converge, which further shows the compatibility of faith and science. https://faithscience.org/science-reason-faith/

In this episode of I Thought You'd Like to Know This, Too, the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology presents Greg Miller and Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, in a webinar entitled Education and Evangelization in the Age of AI: Promise and Perils (November 18, 2023) his session will be led by a former Catholic principal and theology teacher, Greg Miller. Dive deep into the intersections of faith and technology, understanding how Artificial Intelligence can be harnessed for the greater glory of God while being vigilant of its challenges. Discover the potential of AI in enhancing Catholic education and evangelization and engage in meaningful discussions of its risks to the people of God. In a mediated world filled with dystopic science fiction that problematizes a transformative technology like AI, our culture is embracing its promise, perhaps forgetting Marshall McLuhan’s salient point that our technologies first ape us, then shape us. Our Christian faith is already a counter-cultural phenomenon, so authentic and integral human and spiritual formation has never been more important than it is today for the restoration of our human identity created as it was in the image and likeness of God.

In this webinar, D. Kristina Olsen, OCDS, talks about Principles of Change: Teresa of Avila’s Carmelite Reform and Insights from Change Management (November 4, 2023) Dr. Olsen's book draws from organizational change management principles to examine Teresa of Avila’s 16th-century reform of the Carmelite Order. During the last twenty years of her life, Teresa addressed the problems she saw in the Carmelite monasteries of her day, including ineffective administration, overcrowding, and laxity in spiritual practices. By returning to the original purpose and written Rule of the Carmelite founders, Teresa launched a reform of the Carmelite Order using principles similar to those used in change management and information technology (IT) adoption today. This book examines her reform in light of change management theory and practice, in order to shed light on what made her reform successful and how we might apply her approach to the management of change in spiritual and secular organizations today. https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/principlesofchange/

DR. PATRICK CASTLE LIFE Runners President & Founder REAL HEALTHCARE DEFENDS LIFE AT ALL STAGES ABSTRACT Did you know that Hippocratic Oath specifically forbids abortion and euthanasia? Did you know the American Medical Association in 1859 unanimously voted that life begins at conception and that abortion is criminal? Did you know that Google makes it more difficult for mothers to find pregnancy help centers online? Did you know that the FDA removed the warning that Plan B can cause an abortion? Did you know that the current administration is working to repeal conscience protections for healthcare workers? Did you know that running is optional for LIFE Runners? And much more! GEORGE DELGADO, M.D. President of Steno Institute ABORTION PILL REVERSAL: GIVING WOMEN A SECOND CHANCE AT LIFE ABSTRACT Mifepristone chemical abortions account for about 60% of all abortions in the United States. Some women, after starting the chemical abortion process, change their minds and want to continue their pregnancies. Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) utilizes supplemental progesterone, the maintenance hormone of pregnancy, to out-compete the abortion drug. APR offers women a second chance at life. Women offered the option of reversing their chemical abortions are very grateful.Mainstream medical organizations, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU have fought vigorously to discredit APR and make it less available. The evidence in the medical literature is very reassuring that Abortion Pill Reversal is safe and effective. DR. CYNTHIA TOOLIN-WILSON Academic Dean – Pontifex University SURVIVING ABORTION AS THE VICTIM ABSTRACT The most important event of my life occurred when I was eleven years old. That was when I found out that Ma and Grandpa tried to kill me, with the knowledge and agreement of many family members, including Pa.On a hot summer evening in her kitchen, Ma told me after several hesitations, that in 1949 Grandpa bought a chemical at the drugstore that would make her lose me. She was annoyed that I didn’t understand what that meant. So, she told me that she didn’t want a baby and the medicine would make me go away. I asked her why the medicine didn’t work, and she explained that when she started bleeding, she was afraid she might die too, so she stopped drinking it. The fact that she was afraid of dying was the second most important event of my life.I never felt the same about her or the family members. I suspect that her cousin, who had married a Catholic man, and had used medicines for years to prevent a pregnancy, had told Ma what medicine to buy.Here I am 62 years later (that is, I am now 73 years old). I am the age my mother was when she passed. My husband Jimmy Toolin, a devout Catholic, died of cancer; my second husband Bill Wilson, who I managed to bring back to being a practicing Catholic, died of heart, liver, and kidney failure. Between them, if I count all the way to great grandchildren, I have 38 descendants.

In this ITEST Webinar, "Science at the Doorstep to God," Fr. Robert Spitzer presents on his latest book, https://ignatius.com/science-at-the-doorstep-to-god-sdgp/, which is an especially important book at the present time because the realization that our universe had to be created by a super-intelligent Transcendent Being is emerging into the public domain. Dr. Thomas P. Sheahen, responding to Fr. Spitzer's presentation, says that Fr. Spitzer builds upon science to convincingly establish that God created the Universe, and mankind does have a soul, containing both intellect and free will. These are the points that well-informed Christians must be prepared to defend. The reader of Science at the Doorstep to God can be confident that there IS solid scientific evidence underpinning the theological statements we assert about mankind. We can promote a resurgence of faith, backed by reason and scientific evidence.Our religious leaders, both clergy and laity, need to be better informed about new scientific evidence and its implications. Several recent discoveries have strengthened the case for transcendent intelligence in the universe: - The unlikeliness problems of an infinite multiverse and eternal inflation, particularly in Stephen Hawking’s final article. - The narrowing of feasible naturalistic explanations of “fine-tuning for life” in our universe. Fr. Robert Spitzer will examine these new developments along with previous ones, showing that the most reasonable explanation is transcendent creative intelligence – akin to the God of Christian revelation.

Classical metaphysics is grounded in a philosophy of Being (States of Being) with God as the Supreme Being or Pure Actuality. Potentiality is seen in descending states of being: first, the order of angels, human beings, higher-order and lower-order animal species, plants, insects, minerals, their molecular and atomic components, prime matter. Process- or systems-ordered metaphysics is grounded in Stages of Becoming: Infinite Potentiality/Energy Source, subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, minerals, cells, plants, animal species, human beings, an all-encompassing network of relations between participants that continues to evolve in new and different ways through all its parts or members but especially its primordial components. Everything else depends upon the right choice in terms of these opposing world views. ​ Transformative learning theory, which explains the reframing of one’s worldview in light of a transformative experience, may assist in articulating the dynamic relationship between the One and the Many. Fr. Bracken’s explanation of a reciprocal causal relation among constituent parts and the whole to which they belong provides an opportunity to explore a process-oriented metaphysics in the understanding of an event-based efficient causality. The creative interplay among the relational paradigms through which an individual organism moves over the course of its existence demonstrates the interdependence of all things regardless of their material causes, and this seems to give a quantum meaning to any kind of final causality of adaptive systems.

ITEST Presents... CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION IN A CULTURE OF DEATH: CREATING THE WORLD’S MOST FAITHFUL CATHOLIC MEDICAL SCHOOL STEPHEN MINNIS, President of Benedictine College, JERE PALAZZOLO, President of Catholic Healthcare International, GEORGE MYCHASKIW, II, DO, President of the Saint Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering, School of Osteopathic Medicine Our society is declining in a culture of death and self-interest. Higher education is contributing to this cultural decline by renunciation of Western, Judeo-Christian values and ethics. This is particularly true in medical schools, which have advanced the causes of abortion, gender ideology, organ harvesting and in-vitro fertilization, without regard to Catholic and other religious ethical standards. https://www.chi-usa.com/ and https://benedictine.edu/ intend to reclaim the culture and change society by creating the world’s most faithful Catholic medical school, which will stand for the worth and dignity of every human life, from conception to natural death, as created in the image and likeness of God. This webinar will discuss the challenges of contemporary Catholic higher education, the charism of St. Padre Pio and the relief of human suffering, and the creation of a new, faithful Catholic medical school as an instrument to change the culture. https://faithscience.org/catholic-medical-school/

In this webinar we will discuss the work of Mary Kloska’s books in renewing and spreading the Catholic faith in Pakistan. Joined by Aqif Shahzad, her translator and a great missionary in his own right, the two will explain specifically the founding of Children’s Prayer Groups (named Children of the Cross) who are dedicated to meet at least once a month to pray for priests and persecuted Christians. Aqif will also share how he has used Mary’s writings for retreats, seminars, and personal one-on-one encounters with people, which in turn have become life-saving. How does one spread the faith in a primarily Muslim nation that persecutes Christians? It’s through becoming little, “meek and humble of heart” like Jesus. Join us and you will find out. https://faithscience.org/mission-in-pakistan/

The heinous scientific experiments performed on living human beings at the hands of Nazi doctors and researchers was internationally condemned and prohibited as “crimes against humanity” by the Nuremberg Code that was formulated seventy-five years ago in August 1947. In 1987, forty years later, the Magisterial Instruction Donum vitae added important new bioethical standards regarding the ethical and medical treatment of human embryos: – Are Therapeutic Procedures Carried Out on the Human Embryo Licit? – How is One Morally to Evaluate Research and Experimentation on Human Embryos? The Catechism of the Catholic Church 2274, also clearly teaches that “Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.” This webinar will discuss the moral imperative to “treat human embryos as human patients” and to protect them – “like any other human being” – from “heinous crimes against humanity.” ELIZABETH B. REX, MBA, PH.D., TH.D. (CANDIDATE) The Magisterial FAQS Regarding the Ethical Treatment – and the Legal Protection – of Human Embryos who are Human Beings Dr. Elizabeth Rex is the President of the The Children First Foundation, a charitable and educational organization dedicated to promoting Adoption as a positive and loving choice for unwanted unborn children, including unwanted frozen embryos. Dr. Rex has taught Bioethics at Holy Apostles College & Seminary and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University. Dr. Rex has spoken at major conferences and is a frequent contributor to National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly regarding the moral arguments in the embryo adoption debate. ABSTRACT My presentation will discuss the most important Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) regarding the teachings of the Catholic Church in Donum vitae (in 1987), Dignitas personae (in 2008), and the Catechism of the Catholic Church that magisterially define and defend the ethical treatment of human beings from the first moment of their conception. These major magisterial documents also call for the “intervention of political authorities and legislators” to establish civil laws that ensure the legal protection of “human beings, even at the embryonic stage.” (Donum vitae III: Conclusion). My presentation will conclude with a brief review of important international and national laws that have already been legislatively enacted to provide the legal protection of embryos as human beings, who must be treated as human persons and patients. GEORGE MYCHASKIW II, DO, FAAP, FACOP, FASA The Medical FAQS Regarding the Ethical and Therapeutic Healthcare of Human Embryos who are Human Patients Dr. George Mychaskiw is a founder and President of the Saint Padre Pio Institute School of Osteopathic Medicine (proposed), which will be co-located on the campus of Benedictine College, Atchison, Kansas. Dr. Mychaskiw is a thought leader in medical education and has developed four operating US osteopathic medical colleges and is in the process of developing four more. A practicing cardiac anesthesiologist, Dr. Mychaskiw is a graduate of the Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his residency and fellowships in pediatric and cardiothoracic anesthesiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. ABSTRACT In vitro fertilization (IVF) and the creation of human embryos are assisted reproductive technologies that have come into widespread use ahead of a structured foundation in medical ethics. As a result, the commercial applications of IVF have outpaced ethical restraint and consideration, such that millions of human lives are being created, without thought to their ultimate disposition. This presentation will discuss the biomedical aspects of IVF technology and illustrate the numerous unintended consequences of its proliferation. A case will be made for a prohibition or moratorium on IVF until legislation and regulations are enacted to protect these human lives and prevent further erosion of unborn human rights.

In this episode of I Thought You'd Like to Know This, Too, Archbishop Emeritus Alfred Hughes and Dcn. Larry Oney present on their book A Gospel Path to Racial Healing with (June 17, 2023) Racial eruptions continue to highlight our need for deeper racial healing. This book begins with two contrasting stories of a black deacon and a white bishop. They recapitulate the sad history of racial servitude and discrimination, while acknowledging the uneven history of the Church’s response. Drawing on the Church’s social teaching, they then propose a Gospel path to racial healing. This brief book can serve as a manual for teaching or discussion in parishes and schools. Archbishop Hughes - ahughes@arch-no.org Larry D Oney - larryoney@hopeandpurpose.org https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/gospelpathtoracialhealing/