Fr. Rausch is a professor of Theological Studies and a T. Marie Chilton Professor of Catholic Theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A specialist in the areas of Christology, ecclesiology, and ecumenism, he has published 17 books and over 230 articles and reviews. Several of his most popular books will be available for purchase before and after the presentation in the chapel narthex.

From 1981 to 1985, Rausch served as director of Campus Ministry at LMU. In 1983-1984 he was appointed by the Secretariat for Christian Unity as Catholic Tutor to the Ecumenical Institute, the World Council of Churches study center at Bossey, Switzerland. He was rector of the Jesuit community at Loyola Marymount from 1988 to 1994 and chair of the department of Theological Studies from 1994 to 2002.

Rausch was a member of the U.S. Catholic/Southern Baptist Conversation 1994-2001 and one of the signatories of the Richard John Neuhaus/Charles Colson Evangelicals and Catholics Together 1997 document, “The Gift of Salvation.” In 2001 he was appointed to the Roman Catholic/World Evangelical Alliance Consultation and serves as co-chair of the Los Angeles Catholic-Evangelical Committee.

He is presently a member of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation, USA. He also co-chairs the Theological Commission of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and is a member of the Editorial Commission for The Tidings.

All of the lectures in the series are free and open to the public. For more information on the lectures, contact Sr. Peg Maloney at 303-964-5715 or pmaloney@regis.edu

The term “apologetics” literally means “to answer, account for or defend,” and through the 1950s even Catholic high school students were given specific training in responding to questions about Catholicism and challenges to church teaching.

At least in Northern Europe and North America, the effort mainly was a response to Protestantism. Today, while sects and fundamentalist groups challenge Catholics in many parts of the world, almost all Catholics face objections to the idea of belief in general, said Legionary of Christ Father Thomas D. Williams, a professor at Rome’s Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University.

Father Williams is author of “Greater Than You Think: A Theologian Answers the Atheists About God,” written in response to the late Christopher Hitchens’ book, “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” and similar works.

Over the past 50 years, apologetics lost its general appeal because “it was considered proselytism,” an aggressive attempt to win converts that was replaced by ecumenical dialogue, he said. It didn’t help that many Catholics started seeing all religions as equally valid paths to salvation, so they thought it was best to encourage people to live their own faith as best they could without trying to encourage them to consider Christianity.

Among the Regina Apostolorum students, he said, there is a renewed interest in apologetics — usually covered today under the heading of fundamental theology. “You can change the name, make it gentler and nicer, but you always have to give reasons for your hope and belief,” he said.

While there have been scattered attempts to train Catholics to explain their faith to others since Vatican II, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has asked for a more widespread effort to get apologetic material into the hands of Catholics.

In early January, the congregation issued a note on preparing for the Year of Faith, which will begin in October. Addressing national bishops’ conferences, the congregation said, “It would be useful to arrange for the preparation of pamphlets and leaflets of an apologetic nature” so that every Catholic could “respond better to the questions which arise in difficult contexts” from sects to moral relativism and from secularism to science and technology.

The congregation included a reference to the biblical admonition from the First Letter of Peter: “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.”

The passage continues by saying responses should be given “with gentleness and reverence,” which Jesuit Father Felix Korner said means taking the attitude that “the person talking to me has a real question; through the question I discover the deeper grounds of my hope and joy; I try to respond by making myself and our faith understood.”

The Jesuit, a theology professor at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and expert in Christian-Muslim relations, said, “Apologetics in the restricted, poor, primitive sense later became: ‘I learn some answers, and I respond to any question as if it were an attack by refuting the other.’”

To make apologetics part of a true Christian witness, he said, involves “being interested in the newness of the question” posed and “challenged by its rationality, daring to explore deeper my own tradition and hope.”

[Catholic News Service]

If, as common sense tells us, we should learn from our mistakes, Americans have many lessons to draw from our nine-year military engagement in Iraq. Here are three.

Beware politicians employing intelligence to persuade. A long-time, senior CIA official once told me that he never knew an administration to use intelligence to illuminate public discussion of an issue, but only to bend audiences to policies they had already decided on other grounds. The intelligence used to promote the invasion of Iraq, above all Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the UN, was fundamentally flawed.

Even those who have no formal acquaintance with the Just War tradition understand the legitimacy of a conflict depends on having a just cause. In the case of Iraq, serious consideration of the justice of the cause was impaired by erroneous intelligence and tactics of deception.

In the future, the public needs to be far more skeptical of official justifications for going to war.

Furthermore, after Judith Miller’s erroneous reporting in the New York Times, Americans must also be skeptical of major media outlets when armed conflict is in prospect They should test alleged evidence against alternative news sites and foreign sources. As the prospect of conflict grows, the mainstream media ought also to be more attentive to alternative sources, and experts outside government ought to work much harder to get a hearing with major outlets.

Those who employ the Just War need to have the courage of their convictions and condemn a war as unjust when that is where their thinking leads them. The Just War is too often used as an academic tool with no practical or pastoral force. In 1983, the U.S. Catholic bishops urged the public to “say ‘No’ to nuclear war.” In 2003, they warned President Bush that “resort to war would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for the use of military force.” Yet, once war came, they never condemned the war as unjust. As a political and pastoral tool, public use of the Just War tradition must move from analysis to judgment.

With the Iraq War a new category has entered the Just War vocabulary: ius post bellum (post-war justice). Victors are obligated to return the territory to conditions of peace and to make the victims of war whole again.

One outstanding post-bellum issue of the Iraq War, as of many contemporary conflicts, is the rights of refugees. In the case of Iraq, finding a homeland for Christian refugees who were driven from their homes is a major unfulfilled obligation. So far, the U.S. has failed to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christian refugees to safe asylum in the U.S. or third countries. Their re-settlement remains an unpaid cost of the war.

[Washington Post]

Jesuit Father Felix Raj, principal of St Xavier’s College in Kolkata, said they would like to extend more than 150 years of experience in higher education to Bangladeshi students, the report said.

The report added that the authorities are looking at either establishing a branch or a new college in Dhaka.

“I will meet the Bangladeshi prime minister next month to inform her of our willingness to start a St Xavier’s in Dhaka. If she agrees and promises to help us with necessary infrastructure, we will open a college there,” said Fr Raj.

He said if they can open a St Xavier’s college in Dhaka they have plans for curriculum, faculty and teacher exchanges between the Kolkata and Dhaka branches.

“The Jesuits’ Kolkata province is seeking to expand the services of our order in Bangladesh. We’ve already opened a training center and it will be really great to open a higher education center there,” Fr Raj continued.

[CathNews India]

I am writing to inform you that Father Ricardo J. Steinmetz, S.J., died January 27, 2012 at Juan Vergara Casas in Mexico City, Mexico. He was 86 years old and a Jesuit for 69 years. He was born in St. Louis on March 2, 1925, and entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri, on August 8, 1942. He taught mathematics as a scholastic at Regis High School in Denver, Colorado, and was ordained to the priesthood on June 16, 1955, at St. Mary’s College in Kansas.

Ricardo served at Immaculate Conception Parish and Muffles College in Orange Walk, Belize, from 1957 to 1966. He was then assigned to Mexico City where he served for the remainder of his life. For most of his time in Mexico, he heard confessions at a diocesan retreat house in Atotonilco, Guanajuato, where large groups gather for retreats. Ricardo would hear confessions for eight hours a day while the retreats were in session.

May this dedicated and holy man rest in peace.

These extraordinary individuals have made a significant impact on the students, families, and educators through Catholic schools and universities throughout America. Their innovative ideas and dedication to students and to the wider community, demonstrate the strong commitment to ensuring that every child has an opportunity for greatness.

“We are thrilled to recognize these extraordinary Champions in Catholic Education at the White House. Each of these nine leaders embody the values of education, innovation and service  through their stellar contributions to Catholic schools and the wider communities they serve,” said Alexia Kelley, Senior Policy Advisor White House Office of Faith-Based and  Neighborhood Partnerships. “These Champions, like their colleagues in Catholic education across the country, inspire all of us to build up our communities and our nation’s young people.”

The Champions of Change program was created as a part of President Obama’s Winning the Future initiative. Each week, a different sector is highlighted and groups of Champions, ranging from educators to entrepreneurs to community leaders, are recognized for the work they are doing to serve and strengthen their communities.

Produced by Loyola Productions Munich, and filmed over a period of seven days, In Spite of Darkness tells the story of five retreatants—among them, a Rabbi, an atheist, and a Catholic priest—and how they come face to face not only with their own vulnerabilities and complicity but with new strength, peace, and glimmers of hope. Viewers watch when descendants of victims meet descendants of perpetrators. Beliefs are undermined, old wounds torn open, but importantly, reconciliation begins. It is no longer they who come to Auschwitz, it is Auschwitz that comes to them. In silence they bear witness to what happened there.

The St. Ignatius of Loyola Foundation began a campaign Jan. 16 to raise money to buy corn, a staple in regional diets and a crop unable to be grown in an area that has received only 25 percent of its normal precipitation in 2011. The foundation estimated that 60,000 Tarahumara were impacted and 90 percent of the local bean crop had failed.

Mexico is experiencing drought in seven northern states, where the federal government says a lack of rain has caused the driest conditions in 71 years and negatively impacted 2.5 million residents.

The drought has hit the Tarahumara especially hard as the indigenous group inhabits an impoverished region of rugged natural beauty in the Sierra Madre that has attracted tourists and adventure seekers, but remains underdeveloped, impoverished and exploited by illegal logging and drug runners in recent decades.

Mexicans responded with generosity and outrage after an erroneous story was broadcast saying the Tarahumara were committing suicide after being unable to find food.

Jesuit Father Javier Avila said the suicide stories were false, but he described the situation as dire.

“The drought this year in the sierra is atypical … there wasn’t rain and now, in the winter, there wasn’t snow,” Father Avila told Catholic News Service.

He estimated the food produced in the region would run out during February, “When the problem will be worse.”

The Jesuits, who have served the Copper Canyon for decades, are working with the Chihuahua business community to deliver relief through its long-established networks.

The federal government said in a Jan. 17 press release it was sending in food and blankets and opening shelters to the area.

Father Avila said the government is welcome to join the relief efforts, but he said of past state efforts: “They’ll come in and give things away. We disagree with this because it creates dependence.” He added that disaster relief and social programs often are used for partisan political purposes in Mexico.

“We want to create a dialogue, get to know the problems … to solve them,” he said.

[Catholic News Service]