REFLECTIONS ON MY CHRISTIAN HERITAGE 

 

(See below for recent commentaries)

 

       This website contains drafts of chapters of a book tentatively entitled “Reflections of a Scientist on His Christian Heritage” being written by an 81 year-old physicist who is spending part of his time with his family, part of his time working on physics projects, part of his time serving as a deacon in the Catholic Church, and part of his time writing these chapters.   The sidebar on the left gives the main categories in which these chapters have been classified.  Clicking on a particular link brings up a list of the chapters in that category which are available for perusal by the viewer.  Some of these web pages, namely the ones entitled Catholicism, Religions, Scripture, Theology and Tradition, are devoted to religious topics. For example, the Religions page provides discussions of Islam, the schismatic Society of Pius X, and the main Protestant denominations.  The Cosmology page has chapters on scientific questions such as unacceptable  Intelligent Design, valid Providential Design, and the Big Bang Theory of Creation.  Theoscience and Human Life treat topics that involve the interaction of science and theology.  Finally the Autobiographical page contains personal background material that is pertinent to the book in preparation, and some of it is summarized in the next paragraph. 

 

The webmaster is a cradle Catholic who was Jesuit educated at Brooklyn Preparatory (1941-45) and Fordham University (BA 1950, MS 1952).  He spent seven months of his 18th year speaking Latin as a novice at the Jesuit Novitiate St. Andrew-on-Hudson, a campus which is now the Culinary Institute of America. A dominant experience in his spiritual life was the 30 day long silent retreat called the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius which he experienced while there.  In his secular career he spent a year doing radar research and development at Westinghouse, five years earning a doctorate in Physics at the University of Maryland, six years doing petrochemical/catalysis research at the Gulf Oil Company in a suburb of Pittsburgh, and 30 years on the Physics faculty at the University of South Carolina. His five children are grown up, and his 15 grandchildren were born between the years 1981 and 2000.  He and his wife Kathleen celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary on October 17, 2003, thirteen months before she passed to her eternal reward on November 10, 2004.  It would be appreciated it if you, the viewer, would pause for a moment and say a prayer for the repose of Kathleen’s soul.   

 

 

During February and March 2008 the webmaster gave five talks in his parish on the of the Second Vatican Council which was in session 1962 to 1965. These talks included a general introduction, a discussion of each of the sixteen proclamations (4 Constitutions of major importance, 9 significant Decrees, 3 less-solemn Declarations) and a discussion of the Implementation of the Council recommendations.  This material was posted on the present website on October 10, 2008.  To access it click on Catholicism on the sidebar on the left, and a new sidebar will appear which lists the 16 documents plus an Introduction to them, a discussion of their Implementation, and a listing of the dates and locations of the twenty Prior Ecumenical Councils.  

      

RECENTLY POSTED MATERIAL

(August   2009)

 

 

    During September/October 2007 the webmaster gave talks on the four Fathers of the Church Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome and Origen, and these can be accessed from the Tradition link on the sidebar at the left.  Then more recently during January/February  2009 he presented talks on the life and writings of St. Paul as part of the celebration of the Pauline year proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI.  These can be accessed from the Scripture link on the sidebar at the left.  All of these talks were delivered as part of the Adult Education program of his parish St. Joseph in Columbia SC.