#86: Natalia Imperatori-Lee - Was Mary an apostle?
Glad You Asked
Catholics are accustomed to thinking of the term apostle as referring exclusively to men: the Twelve who followed Jesus and were with him at the Last Supper, as well as the Apostle Paul. But the church also considers Mary Magdalene an apostle—the “apostle to the apostles,” to be precise. So clearly, being an apostle isn’t something only men can do. If women can be apostles, this opens a fascinating question: What about Mary, Jesus’ mother? Mary of Nazareth might not have preached Jesus’ teachings to crowds, or spread the news of his resurrection, but we see her proclaiming the...
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#85: Kat Armas - Was Mary a revolutionary?
Glad You Asked
Mary’s “Magnificat” is pretty revolutionary. It isn’t praising God for abstract blessings, but for real material events, all of which have to do with radical social justice. And this makes sense, given the world Mary lived in. She was a young Jewish woman, likely from a poor family, in a nation that was occupied by the Roman Empire. Since she was not a citizen, she lacked various protections and rights. Her son Jesus would eventually be executed by that Empire, on suspicion of revolution—and his execution would be in the brutal form of crucifixion, since he didn’t enjoy the...
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#84: Julie Hanlon Rubio - Was Mary a feminist?
Glad You Asked
“Look to Mary as a model of authentic womanhood.” That’s the message church leaders have directed at generations of Catholic women and girls. Often, latent in this message, is the notion that authentic womanhood means being docile, obedient, submissive, and innocent. So it’s no wonder that many people, both inside and outside the church, view feminism and Catholicism as incompatible. There are many different types of feminism but none are known for preaching docility. Nevertheless, Catholic feminists exist. They are scholars, religious sisters, activists, community leaders, workers,...
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#83: Eilis McCulloh - Does the church support universal health care?
Glad You Asked
According to several recent studies of health care systems across the globe, the U.S. health care system lags far behind those in other developed nations. The system is more expensive per person, but also for the nation as a whole. This high cost doesn’t translate into good access, high quality, or favorable outcomes. Many in the nation have no insurance at all, and many can’t find a primary care provider, or access much beyond basic emergency care. Our very expensive system does not do well at preventing death, either. Skyrocketing insurance costs are likely to make matters worse,...
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#82: Lorna Gold - What does the church really teach about climate change?
Glad You Asked
Recent years have seen increased climate-related natural disasters. In the United States, an inland hurricane brought catastrophic flooding to the mountains of North Carolina. Ash from wildfires in Canada has clouded the air for hundreds of miles. And across the globe, extreme climate catastrophes have destroyed lives and communities. We’re seeing wildfires in Australia, crop loss in Brazil, landslides in Italy, and famine-inducing drought in East Africa. And that’s just the start of the list. For some, climate disruptions happen on a level that looks apocalyptic, with lives lost and...
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#81: David Swanson - Is there such thing as a just war?
Glad You Asked
Catholic just war theory is a moral framework for evaluating warfare that dates back to St. Augustine but has its roots in older, pre-Christian ethical systems. Though the theory has been widely embraced not just by Catholic theorists but also by policymakers, it’s also been widely criticized. Some Christian pacifists, pointing to Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence and the early church’s radical rejection of war, argue that the very idea that a war could be just constitutes a betrayal of gospel values. Yet others argue that absolute nonviolence is an impossible ideal, and means putting the...
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#80: Stephen Schneck - What is the separation of church and state?
Glad You Asked
Here in the United States, the principle that church and state should be separate is so woven into the fabric of our culture, many take it for granted as a fact of American life. We understand that everyone in the nation is entitled to practice the religion of their choice and worship freely, but also that the nation does not have an official religion, and that civic spaces should be religiously neutral. Yet not everyone in the United States is committed to this long-standing idea. Both Christian nationalists and Catholic integralists dislike the idea that religion and statecraft should...
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#79: Ed Simon - Are we living in the end times?
Glad You Asked
In the Christian tradition, “apocalypse” simply means revelation, or unveiling. Yet somewhere along the line, the word came to be associated not just with prophecies about the end of the world, but with the end of the world itself—or at least with vast catastrophes and the fall of civilizations. And for some reason, people love stories about such catastrophes. This fascination with the apocalypse is not confined to fringe religious groups waiting for Jesus to return, or preppers hiding out in bunkers. It’s not even confined to people of faith. Apocalyptic themes can be found across the...
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#78: Renée Roden - Can Catholics be anarchists?
Glad You Asked
For many, the term “anarchy” connotes chaos, disorder, even violence. Yet some anarchists are pacifists. And some are even Christian. The earliest Christian communities, some scholars believe, had certain anarchist tendencies, such as making decisions through group consensus, versus top-down hierarchy. Later on, of course, the church became more structured and hierarchical. But those anti-institutional threads of tradition never quite went away. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the concept of anarchy became formalized, various groups explicitly identifying as Christian...
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#77: Luis Campos Ribeiro - Should Catholics consult their horoscopes?
Glad You Asked
The belief that the movement of heavenly bodies shapes or predicts events has been around for thousands of years and can be found in many ancient cultures. Even today, some people look to their horoscopes when seeking insight on life decisions. Others read their horoscopes just for fun, without really believing in astrology, or using it to make serious choices. Still others would never dream of reading their horoscopes, viewing this as a form of divination or witchcraft which could open the door to demonic forces. The Catechism of the Catholic Church among other divination practices...
info_outlineOften, Catholics refer to Mary with the various honorifics we have attached to her over the centuries: Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, or Queen of Heaven. When we imagine her, we may think of famous paintings representing her as a queen, crowned and throned, holding baby Jesus. While these titles all highlight important theological truths about Mary, and our religious art helps us venerate her as the most important saint of the church, we may sometimes lose sight of who Mary was historically. Long before the church developed our various doctrinal understandings about her, Mary was a Jewish woman born into a particular family, culture, and political situation. But compared with the vast amount of theological writing on Mary, the historical material we have about her is pretty scant.
Who was Mary of Nazareth, really? What was her life like? How did she dress, what did she eat, and what level of education did she have? On this episode of the Glad You Asked podcast, guest AJ Levine helps us get a clearer picture of the historical Mary, beneath the halo and beyond the holy cards.
Levine is the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. She was the first Jew to teach the New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies. Her books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperOne) and Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (HarperOne). Her most recent book is Jesus for Everyone: Not Just Christians (HarperOne).
Learn more about this topic, and read some of Levine’s writing, in these links.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,”
By Elizabeth Johnson
https://uscatholic.org/articles/201101/mary-mary-quite-contrary/
“It is time to free Mary and let God have her own maternal face,”
By Christine Schenk
https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/simply-spirit/it-time-free-mary-and-let-god-have-her-own-maternal-face
“All mothers stand at the cross with Mary,”
By Sister Laurie Brink, O.P.
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202005/all-mothers-stand-at-the-cross-with-mary/
“Why did God choose Mary?”
By LaRyssa Herrington
https://uscatholic.org/articles/202305/why-did-god-choose-mary/
“Witnesses, patrons, faithful disciples: The women at the cross and the tomb,”
By Amy-Jill Levine
https://www.abc.net.au/religion/amy-jill-levine-women-at-the-cross-and-the-tomb/13843886
“A Jewish take on Jesus: Amy-Jill Levine talks the gospels.”
A U.S. Catholic interview
https://uscatholic.org/articles/201209/a-jewish-take-on-jesus-amy-jill-levine-talks-the-gospels/
Glad You Asked is sponsored by the Claretian Missionaries USA, an order of Catholic priests and brothers who live and work with the most vulnerable among us. To learn more, visit claretians.org.