The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture

The Enlightenment believed reason was its own authority. Heteronomous authority was anathema. Autonomy was the ideal. Thus, the Church's hierarchical structure was viewed as enslaving. In light of this critique, Newman offered an insightful defense of freedom and truth in the Catholic Church. 


Topics Covered:

Consulting the faithful in matter of doctrine 
Conscience 
Reason and authority 
Bishops and theologians 

Links:

Article: Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church
Video: John Henry Newman on the Laity
Read: On Consulting the Laity on Matters of Doctrine
Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/

 


NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a Word on Fire IGNITE member! Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners . . . like you! So become a part of this mission and join IGNITE today to become a Word on Fire insider and receive some special donor gifts for your generosity.

Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. In 2025, Word on Fire Catholic Ministries celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. And in October of that same year, Bishop Barron and Word on Fire CEO Fr. Steve Grunow gave a presentation at the Good News Conference in Orlando in which the two men took a deep dive into Word on Fire's origins. How did it begin? What were its animating principles? What were some of its earliest strategies? Where did the name "Word on Fire" even come from? Why, in short, did Word on Fire develop the way that it did? Here to discuss these roots with Fr. Steve Grunow, in this first half of an hour-long conversation, is Bishop Robert Barron.


Links:

Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/

 


NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a Word on Fire IGNITE member! Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners . . . like you! So become a part of this mission and join IGNITE today to become a Word on Fire insider and receive some special donor gifts for your generosity.

Since the mind can infer truths of which it does not have certainty, what judges the validity of an inference in concrete matters? The Illative Sense. It is the power of judging and concluding when not having apodictic certainty. Bishop Barron explores Newman's analysis of the Illative Sense, explaining why it is an essential element in religious conversion. 


Topics Covered:

The Illative Sense 
The nature of certainty 
Formal Inference 
Informal Inference

Links:

Read: The Illative Sense (from the Grammar of Assent)
Video: The Personalist Spirit of Newman's Thought
Video: The Freedom of Truth: The Nature of Conscience in Aquinas and Newman
Book: Communities of Informed Judgement
Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/

 


NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a Word on Fire IGNITE member! Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners . . . like you! So become a part of this mission and join IGNITE today to become a Word on Fire insider and receive some special donor gifts for your generosity.

In a recent episode of the Joe Rogan show, evolutionary biologist and public intellectual Bret Weinstein observed that two emerging features of contemporary societies, especially, though not exclusively in the West, are challenging the very meaning and purpose of human life: 1) the decoupling of human sexuality from human reproduction—defining sex primarily as recreational and 2) with the rise of AI and robotics, the real possibility that having a job will become entirely optional in the future. By secular standards, pursuing both of these goals seems entirely rational, if not laudable: raising children and going to work are, indeed, challenging, so why shouldn't we live in a world in which both become increasingly rare? Weinstein, however—who doesn't profess adherence to any religious tradition—suggests that humanity may lose something important, if not essential, if we continue down this path. Is he right to be concerned? Is it, in fact, wise to relegate having children and going to work—which defined how most people spent most of their adult lives throughout history—entirely to the realm of subjective preference? Or, in seeking ever greater freedom from these responsibilities, are we undermining what it means to live a fully human life?

A listener asks: How can I respond to "God loves me the way I am"?

Topics Covered:


00:00 | Introduction
01:39 | Bishop Barron's Christmas season
02:48 | Examining Bret Weinstein's grim assessment
06:36 | Procreation as a sign of the covenant
09:34 | Why not frame children through the lens of lifestyle choice?
13:23 | The valorization of personal choice
16:31 | What about celibate priests?
17:52 | Work and technology
23:42 | Can AI or robotics truly replace the human genius?
25:48 | Limitations for using AI
28:06 | The necessity of work in giving a gift
30:02 | Why can't technology help us create heaven on earth now?
33:01 | The active dimension of rest
37:03 | Join the Word on Fire Institute


Links:

Papal Encyclical, Humanae Vitae: Vatican website
Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/

 


NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a Word on Fire IGNITE member! Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners . . . like you! So become a part of this mission and join IGNITE today to become a Word on Fire insider and receive some special donor gifts for your generosity.

An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent was Newman's most difficult work. While not a formal epistemology (theory of knowledge), Newman prompted a movement away from modern epistemology, stressing certainty that is best found in logic and mathematics, to common sense epistemology, affirming truth that is not absolutely certain. Bishop Barron explains why this epistemology is proper to religious knowledge, which includes notional and real assent.  


Topics Covered:

Why assent is not certitude 
Religious Liberalism 
Notional and Real Assent 
Conscience 

Links:

Article: A Meditation on the Grammar of Assent
Video: Dr. Reinhard Huetter on Newman
Word on Fire Institute: https://institute.wordonfire.org/

 


NOTE: Do you like this podcast? Become a Word on Fire IGNITE member! Word on Fire is a non-profit ministry that depends on the support of our listeners . . . like you! So become a part of this mission and join IGNITE today to become a Word on Fire insider and receive some special donor gifts for your generosity.