As the Family Goes, So Goes the Nation ~ Andrea Mrozek

11/12/22 • 46 min

Pope St. John Paul II once said: “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
What’s the state of marriage and family these days? Is public policy effectively safeguarding these fundamental human institutions? When it comes to things like government action on childcare, is the work of the home even being properly valued?
Our guest for this episode is Andrea Mrozek, Senior Fellow at Cardus Family. Cardus Family is an initiative of the Christian think tank, Cardus, based in Canada and dedicated to strengthening the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.
Andrea was previously Executive Director at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, and is widely recognized as a leading voice in Canada on marriage, child care and women’s issues.
Documents/Websites Referenced

Andrea Mrozek biography (Cardus)
Andrea Mrozek, “Child care solutions vital in post-Roe era” Catholic Register (July 2022)
Andrea Mrozek, Peter Jon Mitchell, Brian Dijkema, “Look Before You Leap: The Real Costs and Complexities of National Daycare” (2021)

[email protected]www.crownandcrozier.comtwitter.com/crownandcrozierPlease note that this podcast has been edited for length and clarity.

[email protected]www.crownandcrozier.comtwitter.com/crownandcrozierPlease note that this podcast has been edited for length and clarity.

Previous Episode

A Landlord State and Tenant Church Rebuild Notre Dame ~ Elizabeth Lev

On April 15, 2019, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was engulfed in fire. The conflagration was eventually extinguished - but it wasn’t long before flames were once again being fanned.
Plans for re-building the church have ignited controversy, with some critics arguing that the proposals are tantamount to the “Disney-fication” of the 900-year-old monument to Our Lady.
The debate is made all the more complex by the fact that the cathedral isn’t actually owned by the local Archdiocese. Like tens of thousands of churches in Europe, it’s owned by the State.
Our guest for this episode is one of the most well-known expatriate art historians in Europe. Dr. Elizabeth Lev has lived and worked as a tour guide in Rome for over 20 years. She teaches at Duquesne University’s Italian campus as well as the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. Dr. Lev is the author of multiple books, the most recent of which traces the history of St. Joseph’s depiction in art.

Documents/Websites Referenced
Dr. Elizabeth Lev’s official websiteDr. Elizabeth Lev, “Sorry, Internet: Notre Dame is not being ‘wreckovated’”, The Washington Post (December 8, 2021)
“France Approves Controversial Plan to Renovate Notre-Dame Cathedral”, Smithsonian Magazine (December 14, 2021)
“What is Notre Dame Cathedral for?” The Pillar (November 30, 2021)
“Notre Damned”, The Catholic Herald (January 27, 2022)
History of Notre-Dame de Paris, Britannica.com

[email protected]www.crownandcrozier.comtwitter.com/crownandcrozierPlease note that this podcast has been edited for length and clarity.

Next Episode

How America’s First Catholics Walked the Church-State Tightrope ~ Michael Breidenbach

U.S. President Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the First Amendment to the Constitution was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and state.”
It’s commonly asserted that the intellectual architecture underpinning Church-State separation and the First Amendment’s codification of religious freedom rested on a foundation of Protestant liberalism, coloured by the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment period.
But what if there’s more to the story? If we hold the magnifying glass a little closer, is it possible to examine the arc of religious freedom in colonial America and discover Catholic fingerprints?
In this episode, we aim to give a fair hearing to this idea.
Our guest is Dr. Michael Breidenbach, Associate Professor and Chair of History at Ave Maria University, and Senior Affiliate for Legal Humanities at the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Author of Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America, Dr. Breidenbach is an historian of politics, religion, law and culture in early America and the Atlantic World.
Websites / resources referenced
Dr. Michael Breidenbach biography
Michael Breidenbach, Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America (2021)
“Conciliarism” (definition courtesy of Catholic Culture)
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore
Inter Caetera (Pope Alexander VI, 1493)
Constitution of the United States, First Amendment