The Family Room (The Quest)
Join co-hosts Mari Cleveland from St. Jude the Apostle and John Gordon and Craig Wesemeyer from St. Peter Chanel as they speak with authors, theologians, and local priests and lay leaders to provide your family encouragement, resources, and hope. Enjoy heartfelt stories and engaging conversations with Catholics who are excited to share their life experiences and acquired wisdom to help your family continue to live out your faith with joy.
May 28, 2025
Evangelization and Ideology
Dr. Matthew Petrusek, author and professor of Catholic ethics
Dr. Matthew Petrusek considered himself an intellectual problem solver even in his teen years. Growing up in a small Catholic community in LeGrande, Oregon, surrounded by Mormons, he never considered any other religion but saw religion as an intellectual puzzle to be solved.
Both his Masters and PhD were in religious ethics, and his latest book, Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture, offers an antidote to ideological thinking by introducing the principles of Catholic social thought. Secular political ideologies attempt to provide a total view of reality without reference to God. Yet all of them are, at heart, forms of idolatry, leading them to the false gods of pleasure, self, tribe, or fortune. Petrusek shows how Catholic teaching, while respecting the genuine concerns of these worldviews, responds to their errors and deficiencies by providing a more rational and moral alternative.
With a genuinely hopeful view of the future, Dr. Petrusek is co-founder of advantageDES, a pioneering alternative to DEI programs built on the values of dignity, equality, and solidarity that assists companies in creating a workplace where everyone can thrive.
Biography: Matthew R. Petrusek, PhD is the Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and its Professor of Catholic Ethics. In addition to serving as a Word on Fire Professor, he has written and hosted the bilingual show, Reasons to Believe / Razones Para Creer at WordNet TV, co-authored Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity: The Search for a Meaningful Life (Word on Fire Institute), co-edited Ethics and Advocacy: Bridges and Boundaries (Cascade Books) and Value and Vulnerability: Contemporary Interfaith Dialogue on Human Dignity (University of Notre Dame Press), and is published in numerous academic journals. He received an MA (Yale University) and PhD (University of Chicago) in religious ethics. He specializes in Christian ethics and moral theology, though lectures broadly, in English and Spanish, on philosophy, theology, social issues, the new evangelization, and the Catholic intellectual tradition. Dr. Petrusek is the host of the Word on Fire Show with Bishop Barron. He lives with his wife and children in southern Minnesota.
Resources:
Dr. Matthew Petrusek considered himself an intellectual problem solver even in his teen years. Growing up in a small Catholic community in LeGrande, Oregon, surrounded by Mormons, he never considered any other religion but saw religion as an intellectual puzzle to be solved.
Both his Masters and PhD were in religious ethics, and his latest book, Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture, offers an antidote to ideological thinking by introducing the principles of Catholic social thought. Secular political ideologies attempt to provide a total view of reality without reference to God. Yet all of them are, at heart, forms of idolatry, leading them to the false gods of pleasure, self, tribe, or fortune. Petrusek shows how Catholic teaching, while respecting the genuine concerns of these worldviews, responds to their errors and deficiencies by providing a more rational and moral alternative.
With a genuinely hopeful view of the future, Dr. Petrusek is co-founder of advantageDES, a pioneering alternative to DEI programs built on the values of dignity, equality, and solidarity that assists companies in creating a workplace where everyone can thrive.
Biography: Matthew R. Petrusek, PhD is the Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and its Professor of Catholic Ethics. In addition to serving as a Word on Fire Professor, he has written and hosted the bilingual show, Reasons to Believe / Razones Para Creer at WordNet TV, co-authored Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity: The Search for a Meaningful Life (Word on Fire Institute), co-edited Ethics and Advocacy: Bridges and Boundaries (Cascade Books) and Value and Vulnerability: Contemporary Interfaith Dialogue on Human Dignity (University of Notre Dame Press), and is published in numerous academic journals. He received an MA (Yale University) and PhD (University of Chicago) in religious ethics. He specializes in Christian ethics and moral theology, though lectures broadly, in English and Spanish, on philosophy, theology, social issues, the new evangelization, and the Catholic intellectual tradition. Dr. Petrusek is the host of the Word on Fire Show with Bishop Barron. He lives with his wife and children in southern Minnesota.
Resources:
- Evangelization and Idealogy: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture
- Word on Fire Institute
- advantageDES - a pioneering alternative to DEI programs
