7-01 A Contemporary Catholic Moral Apologetics

Many young people today are wondering why they should obey the Catholic Church's teaching on everything from abortion to transgender lifestyle to cohabitation to pornography. Fr. Spitzer will explain a method of moral apologetics that is based solely on secular studies of the emotional impact of these issues, particularly significantly increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal contemplation, and suicides. When the data is assembled, it shows that the moral teaching of the Catholic Church is very good for emotional health, spiritual health, and in some cases, marital health. Fr. Spitzer will also discuss why this correlation is attributable to Jesus' definition of love (covering, agapē, eros, and philia), which has guided the Church throughout Her history.

Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., is the president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith (MagisCenter.com, CredibleCatholic.com, and PurposefulUniverse.com) as well as the Spitzer Center (SpitzerCenter.org). He has published 13 books on various topics from "Faith and Science" to Ethics and Spirituality. He was the former president of Gonzaga University (1998-2009), and has appeared on many national television shows including , The Larry King Show, dialoguing with Stephen Hawking, The Today Show, The History Channel, and PBS. He has a weekly international television program on EWTN known as, "Fr. Spitzer's Universe."