Podcasts: Chris Arnade: The Open Door Program

“DIGNITY CHRIS ARNADE”

Our special guest on this podcast is Chris Arnade, the author of *Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America.
1. Would it be right to say that your book, *Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America*, is about accompanying those that have been left behind and listening to them?
2. How is it that MacDonald’s plays so great a role in your travels?
3. Why are storefront churches so vital to people “in the back row”?
4. What leads to widespread addiction among the people that you met?
5. How does prostitution tend to stem from abuse?
6. Do people “in the front row” and those “in the back row” often differ sharply in how they view family and home?
7. There are many rows on buses. Has your investigation prompted any special insight into the many people in the middle rows?
8. How would you evaluate St. John Paul II’s observation, in his encyclical Faith and Reason, that “the possibility of discovering the real meaning of life is cast into doubt,” and so “many people stumble through life to the very edge of the abyss without knowing where they are going.”
9. Early in your account, you introduce a young woman, Takeesha, who in defining herself says she is a “child of God.” How do you understand her words?
10. The lead editorial in Sunday’s L.A. Times rejects medical triage proposals that assign different values to different human beings as “an affront to human dignity.” What do you see as the foundation of that dignity?
Hoping that you will give us a listen!