For the past century or more, the left has put a high value on moral provocation, deliberately transgressing what they see as society's hypocritical or puritanical moral norms, whether in religion, sexuality, or public decorum in general. Now the right, too, is getting in on the fun, performatively violating the speech norms held sacred by liberals - which is sometimes good, but sometimes itself violates traditional morality, not just leftist ideology.

Matthew Schmitz joins the podcast to discuss his First Things article "Taming the Tongue", about the psychology of edginess, the problem with widespread profanity, and the need for restraint in speech.

Links

"Taming the Tongue" https://firstthings.com/taming-the-tongue/

Against the Grain podcast https://www.patreon.com/againstthepod

Compact Magazine https://www.compactmag.com/

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To Heaven's Rim is a new anthology of great Christian poetry translated from non-English languages, from the first 18 centuries of the Faith. Editor Burl Horniachek joins to discuss and read samples from poets from a variety of traditions, like St. Jacob of Serug (Syriac), St. Romanus the Melodist (Greek), an anonymous medieval Irish monk, the criminal Francois Villon (French), Michelangelo's friend Vittoria Colonna (Italian), and the Chinese Jesuit/painter/poet Wu Li.

To Heaven's Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry: Beginnings to 1800, in English Translation https://www.amazon.com/Heavens-Rim-Christian-Beginnings-Translation/dp/1666716820

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My other interview with Jane: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/147-world-is-falling-away-jane-greer/

 

This is a significantly truncated version of the original episode. Listen to the full episode here: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/126-how-charlie-parker-changed-my-life/

Thomas Mirus goes solo in this episode to talk about how his relationship to music was completely transformed in his late teens, by exposure to the music of alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. Before he had used music to stimulate an emotional response, but soon he found himself listening for the sake of musical beauty itself, regardless of emotions or lack thereof. This quickly opened up a whole world of contemplation (musical and otherwise).

After discussing this deeper way of listening to music, Thomas explains how to follow the musical form of a jazz performance, and introduces the music of Charlie Parker and the new form of jazz he pioneered in the 1940s and early 50s, known as bebop.

If you want to listen more extensively to the jazz artists heard in this episode, check out these albums (no links because these things are always going in and out of print in different compilations):

Charlie Parker, listen to the complete Savoy and Dial master takes in whatever compilation you can find

Bud Powell, Jazz Giant

Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street

Sonny Rollins Plus Four

Music heard in this episode:

Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Rising High Water Blues" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsFNi0ZVzj4

Charlie Parker, "Perhaps" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LOOvq1sJvw

Charlie Parker, "Blues for Alice" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7USMqAH8qk

Charlie Parker, "Parker's Mood" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wa7El-k3jQ

Charlie Parker, "Anthropology" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HkFBT4h190

Bud Powell, "So Sorry Please" from Jazz Giant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-IoDXFWr1c&list=PL9C4lRUjCkCt_oXThX81D3LhhRIUXVDqb&index=6

Clifford Brown and Max Roach, "Gertrude's Bounce" from At Basin Street https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ7TdrmmDkc&list=PLUJ7V33M1wR3yDePSuvG8W1LmV3uuPg-S&index=8

Sonny Rollins, "Pent-Up House" from Plus Four https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INeqyCTvm4s&list=OLAK5uy_k6jR4wR5XEIyRL95Ov95VXhkYkAKQZIfw

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Art historian Elizabeth Lev joins the show to discuss her new book, The Silent Knight: A History of St. Joseph as Depicted in Art.

The book offers not only a history of sixteen centuries of art featuring St. Joseph, but also an account of the development of devotion to St. Joseph over the past two thousand years -from the old man sitting overlooked in the corner of early Nativity scenes to the glorious Patron of the Univeral Church.

Links

Watch on YouTube to see the artworks discussed: https://youtu.be/LiPgnGAcu-s

Elizabeth Lev, The Silent Knight https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/the-silent-knight

Episode with Elizabeth on the history of St. Anthony Abbot in art https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/90-temptation-st-anthony-elizabeth-lev/

Episode with Elizabeth on the film Ben-Hur https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ben-hur-1959-w-elizabeth-lev/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

For two decades, Maggie Gallagher was a leading voice writing about the importance of permanent, monogamous marriage to society. At first, that included pointing out the problems with divorce, feminism and single parenthood. Then as same-sex marriage became the predominant issue, Gallagher became the public face of the movement against it.

A few years after the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal across the 50 states, Gallagher switched gears when Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco asked her to be Executive Director of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, which he founded in 2013. She says that to avoid despair, we have to build beautiful things.

In this interview Maggie discusses:

• How becoming a single mother in college led her to focus her career on the defense of marriage
• Her time in the pro-marriage movement, including co-founding the National Organization for Marriage
• Why the defenders of marriage were less effective than the pro-life movement
• Why certain critiques of the pro-life movement's political involvement are unfair
• American classical liberalism's inability to think about social institutions
• Meeting Archbishop Cordileone and getting involved in the BXVI Institute
• The BXVI Institute's patronage of the arts, especially the liturgical arts
• The Archbishop's campaign of prayer and fasting for the conversion of Nancy Pelosi

Links

www.BenedictInstitute.org

Benedict XVI Institute on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4a0pooErfPoWck0xc7WHGg

Maggie Gallagher, Enemies of Eros https://www.amazon.com/Enemies-Eros-Revolution-Killing-Marriage/dp/0929387007

Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite, The Case for Marriage https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/184776/the-case-for-marriage-by-linda-j-waite-and-maggie-gallagher/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Carl Hostetter, editor of a new volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's unpublished notes, The Nature of Middle-earth, joins the show.

Carl discusses:

• His collaboration with Christopher Tolkien leading to this new volume
• What other Tolkien writings we might expect to see published
• Why it may be good that Tolkien never finished the Silmarillion in his lifetime
• Tolkien's Thomistic reflections on elvish hylomorphism, and other revelations contained in the new book
• How Tolkien's obsession with consistency nearly destroyed his legendarium
• Potential problems with the theology of Middle-earth
• Anti-Catholic bias in contemporary Tolkien fandom and scholarship

Links

Carl Hostetter, The Nature of Middle-earth https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-nature-of-middle-earth-jrr-tolkien

Interview with Jonathan McIntosh about The Flame Imperishable https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-40-tolkien-and-aquinas-jonathan-s-mcintosh/

Other resources recommended:

J.R.R. Tolkien, Morgoth's Ring, vol. 10 of The History of Middle-earth, ed. Christopher Tolkien

Jonathan McIntosh, The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faërie

Tom Shippey, The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology

Verlyn Flieger, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World

Corey Olsen's seminars on The Nature of Middle-earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duNayhMrrJ8&list=PLasMbZ4s5vIXZtwVbmyh6sTE56uiI_t0C

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

T.C. Merrill's debut novel, Minor Indignities, is an evocative portrayal of the vanity of undergraduate life at an Ivy League university. Its protagonist, a freshman consumed with what others think of him intellectually, socially and sexually, only makes a fool of himself the more he strains to impress. The novel ultimately becomes a richness of embarrassments whose final catastrophe illustrates the saying of St. Bernard: "Humiliation is the way to humility."

Merrill joins the show to talk about his novel, his essay "The Situation of the Catholic Novelist", Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, how a fiction writer should approach depicting sexuality, the relation between art and emotion, and René Girard.

Watch interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xH1Fm6C9i7E

Links

Minor Indignities https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p103/minor-indignities-by-trevor-cribben-merrill.html

"The Situation of the Catholic Novelist" https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p116/The-Situation-of-the-Catholic-Novelist.html

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Originally published as episode 59 on December 21, 2019, this popular episode is being rerun in a slightly improved version.

This is a love letter to the great English Christmas carols, from "There Is No Rose" to "The Boar's Head".

Did you know that not just any Christmas song is a carol? The true carol, in all its earthy splendor, is a distinctive product of the Catholic middle ages. Yet our forefathers didn't limit caroling to Christmas: they wrote carols for every season of the year covering the entire story of our Redemption, not to mention secular topics at times.

This episode explores the origin of carols in England, their cultural meaning, and how they were suppressed by the Puritans and were revived in modern times. And of course, you'll hear a lot of great music throughout, ranging from historically informed performance to modern arrangements!

Links

Erik Routley, The English Carol https://www.amazon.com/English-Carol-Erik-Routley/dp/0837169895

Andrew Gant, The Carols of Christmas https://www.amazon.com/Carols-Christmas-Celebration-Surprising-Favorite/dp/0718031520

All music in this episode used with permission from the recording artist and/or label.

Agincourt Carol, Alamire https://www.amazon.com/Deo-Gracias-Anglia-Alamire/dp/B008L1GZUO

Nowell sing we both all and some, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2

Gabriel From Heaven's King, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2

A Virgin Most Pure, Stairwell Carolers https://www.stairwellcarollers.com/en/o-magnum-mysterium/

Coventry Carol, Harry Christophers and the Sixteen, available on the CORO record label at https://thesixteenshop.com/

Bedfordshire May Carol, Shirley Collins https://mainlynorfolk.info/shirley.collins/records/withinsound.html

Remember O Thou Man, The King's Singers https://www.amazon.com/Remember-O-Thou-Man/dp/B073JZN754

Wassail (Gloucestershire Wassail, arr. Vaughan Williams), Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland4

Green Growth the Holly, Early Music New York—Frederick Renz, Director https://www.earlymusicny.org/a-renaissance-christmas

My Dancing Day, Robert Shaw Chorale https://www.amazon.com/Songs-Angels-Christmas-Hymns-Carols/dp/B000003D0G

Drive the Cold Winter Away, Owain Phyfe and the New World Renaissance Band https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/nwrb

In the Bleak Midwinter, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2

Lullay My Liking (Holst), HSVPA Madrigal Singers (Houston, TX) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw81DCQ3HhI

A Hymn to the Virgin (Britten), VOCES8 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077GC4QVT/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp

There is no rose, Quire Cleveland https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/quirecleveland2

Thanks to all, but especially to Ross W. Duffin for his generosity with Quire Cleveland's back catalogue!

Also recommended:

A Waverly Consort Christmas: From East Anglia to Appalachia https://www.amazon.com/Waverly-Consort-Christmas-Anglia-Appalachia/dp/B000002SRK

Other non-famous carols mentioned: Seven Virgins (The Leaves of Life); This Endris Night; Tempus adest floridum (Good King Wenceslas); Kingsfold (I heard the voice of Jesus say); The Cherry Tree Carol; Masters In This Hall; The Golden Carol; Snow in the Street; New Prince, New Pomp

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Mary Lou Williams: one of the outstanding jazz pianists of all time, composer, Catholic convert, visionary, performer of works of mercy.

Because Williams's career lasted and her style adapted through many changes in jazz from the swing era to the early 1970s, and because she mentored two of jazz's most influential figures (Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk), this episode is an opportunity not only to dive into her life and music, but to learn a little about jazz history more generally.

Deanna Witkowski, herself a jazz pianist and Catholic convert, has written a new biography of Williams, Mary Lou Williams: Music for the Soul, and performs Williams's compositions on her forthcoming album, Force of Nature.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/B31PwFU-FrY

Links

Buy Deanna's book and album: https://www.deannawitkowski.com/store

Musical tracks heard in this episode:

Mary Lou Williams: "Waltz Boogie", "Walkin' and Swingin'", "Night Life", "Holy Ghost" (composed by Larry Gales), "Autumn Leaves" (composed by Joseph Kosma), "Aries", "Taurus", "Virgo", "Anima Christi", "St. Martin de Porres".

Excerpts from Bud Powell, "Cherokee" (composed by Ray Noble); Thelonious Monk "Monk's Dream"; Elmo Hope, "Eejah".

Deanna Witkowski, "Intermission", composed by Mary Lou Williams and Milton Suggs, used with permission. From Deanna Witkowski's album Force of Nature. 

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This episode contains clips of highlights from episodes 45 and 47-49 of the Catholic Culture Podcast.

Episode 45—Libertarianism vs. Natural Law on Private Property https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-45-libertarianism-vs-natural-law-on-private-property/

Episode 47—Our Lady's Habit: Wearing and Loving the Brown Scapular—Fr. Justin Cinnante, O.Carm. https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-47-our-ladys-habit-wearing-and-loving-brown-scapular-fr-justin-cinnante-ocarm/

Episode 48—Authority and Submission as Gift in Christian Marriage—Mary Stanford https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-48-authority-and-submission-as-gift-in-christian-marriage-mary-stanford/

Episode 49—A Catholic Composer in Queen Elizabeth's Court, Pt. I—Kerry McCarthy https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-49-catholic-composer-in-queen-elizabeths-court-pt-i-kerry-mccarthy/

Unlikely as it may sound, Catholic fiction has a certain amount of mainstream appeal in Japanese literature. Sono Ayako, one of Japan's most famous novelists, wrote a novel about St. Maximilian Kolbe called Miracles, which has just been translated into English.

Miracles is a semiautobiographical account of the author's personal investigation into the miracles approved by the Vatican for Kolbe's canonization. Her ambivalence towards her Catholic faith is challenged as she traces Kolbe's steps from his childhood to his self-sacrifice in Auschwitz, with his time in Japan standing in between as the ascetic crucible which made him a saint.

Ayako writes: "Before he died, this priest flung a tough question like a red-hot iron rod at the dried-up soul of modern Man. The question was, 'what does it mean for us to love one another?'"

Translator Kevin Doak joins the show to discuss Miracles, Catholic fiction in Japan (which extends far beyond Endo's Silence), and…Endo's Silence.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ne9Yz5lC7qI

Links

Miracles https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p114/miracles-sono-ayako.html

Kevin Doak, "Beyond Endo: The Hidden Renaissance of Japanese Catholic Novelists" https://benedictinstitute.org/2019/07/beyond-endo/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Etienne Gilson's Metamorphoses of the City of God traces the quest of philosophers for a universal human society, as it gradually degraded from the heavenly city of which Augustine wrote to modern-day secular humanist globalism. It began with well-intentioned medieval thinkers who were overconfident in the capability of natural reason to unite the whole world in the Catholic faith - but this led gradually to a turning away from the rationally irreducible Christian mysteries and the person of Jesus Christ.

Writing in 1952 as the European Union was beginning to emerge, Gilson also offered a critical assessment of various attempts to define Europe.

Peter Redpath, co-founder of the International Etienne Gilson Society, joins the podcast to discuss this newly translated work.

Links

The Metamorphoses of the City of God https://www.cuapress.org/9780813233253/the-metamorphoses-of-the-city-of-god/

Aquinas School of Leadership https://www.aquinasschoolofleadership.com/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Get free PDF of New Questions, Old Answers: Catholic Morals and Natural Family Planning https://profide.io/nfp/

Article on the marital debt https://christianrenaissancemovement.com/2023/02/23/thoughts-on-the-marital-debt/

The way Natural Family Planning is commonly taught does not adequately reflect the Church's perennial teachings on the purpose of marital relations, on sexual asceticism, and the good of continence. To be sure, critics of NFP are wrong when they say it is the same as contraception. The Church has deemed it legitimate to use under certain circumstances. Yet its typical presentation in marriage prep programs and by popular Catholic speakers has ended up, in practice, encouraging couples toward habitual venial sin.

Discussions of NFP often end up in confusion because they fail to distinguish two separate moral issues: that of avoiding marital relations during fertile periods, and that of engaging in them specifically during infertile periods. As to the first issue, the Church has said we need sufficient reason to deliberately avoid procreating for a long period of time. But the second issue involves a moral doctrine that is virtually never heard of today: that there are particular ends which must be intended in any act of marital relations, and in particular, that it is a venial sin for married couples to have relations purely for pleasure (solam voluptatem, in Pope Innocent XI's phrase). The latter is the teaching of all Fathers and Doctors of the Church without exception.

Given this moral doctrine, and given the Church's (and St. Paul's) traditional encouragement of asceticism within marriage, the question arises: may married couples engage in recreational relations specifically while trying to avoid conception? Answering this question involves questions about the intrinsic ends of sexual intercourse, questions about what "purely for pleasure" even means, etc.

The stakes of the question are low in the sense that this would generally be a matter of venial sin, but  high in the sense that it bears on our understanding of the very purpose of marriage and sex, and because habitual, deliberate venial sin is incompatible with a marriage's growth in holiness.

Moral theologian Eamonn Clark joins the podcast to discuss his groundbreaking book (the first on this topic since the 1940s), New Questions, Old Answers: Catholic Morals and Natural Family Planning. His conclusions occupy a middle ground between the extremely strict position of some great Catholic authorities of the past, and the laxity and sensualism presented by some well-regarded and well-meaning popular speakers today.

This discussion will be spiritually and perhaps emotionally challenging to many listeners, but I urge you to listen with an open heart, because even if you end up disagreeing with some of the specific conclusions, you will come away better informed about Church teaching, and equipped to consider for yourself how you can seek greater holiness in marriage. In particular, I highly recommend Eamonn's book to anyone who is involved in running marriage preparation programs.

Eamonn Clark is a licensed moral theologian of the Catholic Church – he has an STB and STL from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, where he is currently a lay doctoral student researching the social teaching of Pope Pius XI.

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Mark Christopher Brandt returns to the show to discuss his latest album, Joy, which is based on the structure of the Rosary. It features the family choir of Mark and his three daughters, accompanied by Mark on piano.

Mark began composing this music in the mid-1990s, not knowing who would sing it, when only his first daughter had been born. On the eve of the new millenium, he decided to take a hiatus from his career as a jazz pianist in order to focus on his family and his spiritual life. In 2021, by the most marvelous and unexpected Providence, Mark's selfless fidelity to God and family has been rewarded a hundredfold in making an album with his children!

In addition to the album itself (pieces of which you will hear in the episode), topics discussed include:

• Why artists should give credit to God for inspiration
• How Mark taught his daughters to be discerning about music
• Using music to reverence the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary
• A spiritual perspective on "artist's block"

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qjJz41Kdv60

Links

Buy CD copy of Joy (with free book of rosary meditations) and learn more about Mark https://markchristopherbrandt.com/

Buy Joy on Qobuz (CD-quality digital purchase) https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/joy-mark-christopher-brandt/l26w0ostksrca

Buy Joy on Amazon Music https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09J1Z534K/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp

Buy Joy on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/album/joy/1589547700

Thomas and Mark talk about working together on his album The Butterfly https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-68-what-i-learned-from-making-music-with-mark-christopher-brandt/

This is a crossover episode in which Thomas joins forces with Scott Hambrick and Karl Schudt from the Online Great Books Podcast,  to discuss the classic essay Art and Scholasticism by Jacques Maritain.

This episode covers beauty as a transcendental and its role in the fine arts, and intuition as the way we experience artistic beauty. The beauty of a work does not depend on the emotional effects it produces, nor can it be proven by analysis. We experience beauty intellectually, but by intuition rather than by thought.

The hosts also digress into arguments over photography as a fine art, Glenn Gould, and craft beers.

Links

Pt. 1 of this discussion https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/116-maritains-art-and-scholasticism-pt-1/

Buy Art and Scholasticism https://clunymedia.com/products/art-and-scholasticism

Read Art and Scholasticism for free online (inferior translation) https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/art.htm

Learn more about Online Great Books https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-27-always-wanted-to-study-great-books-heres-how-youll-actually-follow-through-scott-hambrick/

Join Online Great Books with 25% off your first three months via this link https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This is a crossover episode in which Thomas joins forces with Scott Hambrick and Karl Schudt from the Online Great Books Podcast,  to discuss the classic essay Art and Scholasticism by Jacques Maritain.

Maritain argues for an objective view of both art and the artist, bringing an orderly, scholastic, Thomistic approach to understanding aesthetics. Mirus says, "Maritain gets art better than any other philosopher who came before him in the Western Tradition."

For Maritain, art is "a virtue of the practical intellect that aims at making." The virtue or habitus of art, Maritain writes, is not simply an "interior growth of spontaneous life", but has an intellectual character and involves cultivation and practice.

The trio also talks about how fine arts and practical arts have been cloven off. How can we hold them both in esteem without denigrating the other?

Scott says, "If we really know what art is then we will be more connected to honest work— that will be a refuge from this intellectual confusion, this metaphysical disgustingness, around us."

Links

Buy Art and Scholasticism https://clunymedia.com/products/art-and-scholasticism

Read Art and Scholasticism for free online (inferior translation) https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/art.htm

Learn more about Online Great Books https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-27-always-wanted-to-study-great-books-heres-how-youll-actually-follow-through-scott-hambrick/

Join Online Great Books with 25% off your first three months via this link https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, recently issued "A Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology". The document takes a strong unequivocal stance against transgender ideology, down to practical specifics like telling the faithful we must not use transgender names and pronouns. Beyond that, it excels in showing how the Church's whole anthropology and theology are at stake in the transgender issue.

Today's guest, Fr. Stephen Schultz, was one of the Bishop's advisers in drafting the document. Fr. Schultz is the director of the EnCourage apostolate in the Diocese of Arlington, and chaplain at St. Paul VI Catholic High School.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Sf83zKx3XeI

Links

"A Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology" https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=12554

EnCourage https://couragerc.org/encourage/

David Crawford and Michael Hanby, "The Abolition of Man and Woman" https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-abolition-of-man-and-woman-11593017500

Acedia episode mentioned https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-18-acedia-forgotten-capital-sin-rj-snell/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Writer Matthew Mehan returns to the show to discuss his new children's book co-authored with painter John Folley, The Handsome Little Cygnet. This lovely tale about a family of swans in Central Park is a much simpler book than their previous outing, but introduces children to the idea of accepting one's God-given nature. That is no small matter in a world which tantalizes the young with offers of a more exciting new identity just around the corner. But we need to know what we are in order to properly shape who we will become.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oxAQpGxduCw

Links

The Handsome Little Cygnet https://tanbooks.com/kids/elementary-school/the-handsome-little-cygnet/

Previous episode with Mehan: Teaching Children Self-Knowledge through the Liberal Arts https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-43-teaching-children-self-knowledge-through-liberal-arts-matthew-mehan/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

In this outtake from episode 113, Thomas asks writer and editor Joshua Hren whether the turn to realism in modern fiction, a historical anomaly, is also a problem from a religious and philosophical point of view.

Episode 113, Can a Novelist "Create" a Saint? https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/113-can-novelist-create-saint-joshua-hren/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

In his new book How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic, fiction writer and editor Joshua Hren lays out an approach to Catholic literature that spans all the way from St. John Henry Newman called "a record of man in rebellion" to the other end of the continuum, which is a representation of the Beatific Vision. Topics discussed include:

• How important is beauty to fiction? Will beauty save the world?
• The importance of particularity; Carmelite vs. Ignatian views of imagination
• Newman and Augustine on the uses, limitations, and dangers of indulging sentiments about fictional characters
• Can the action of grace be dramatized? Can the life of holiness be fictionalized?
• The depiction of repentance, conversion and the lasting effects of sin in authors like Balzac and O'Connor

Joshua Hren is the founder and editor of Wiseblood Books as well as, with James Matthew Wilson, founder of a new creative writing MFA program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, which is also discussed in the episode.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ump3CRZ6GRY

Links

How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic https://tanbooks.com/liberal-arts/literature-and-theology/how-to-read-and-write-like-a-catholic/

MFA program https://www.stthom.edu/Academics/School-of-Arts-and-Sciences/Division-of-Liberal-Studies/Graduate/Master-of-Fine-Arts-in-Creative-Writing/

Wiseblood Books https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/

Listen to Newman's sermon "The Danger of Accomplishments" at Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-john-henry-newman-danger-accomplishments/

Read "The Danger of Accomplishments" https://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume2/sermon30.html

Previous interview with Joshua Hren, "The Flannery-Haunted World" https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-70-reviving-catholic-literary-tradition-joshua-hren-john-emmet-clarke/

Follow this link to join the Online Great Books VIP waiting list and get 25% off your first 3 months: https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Thomas Mirus apologizes for and retracts some things he said in Episode 106 of the Catholic Culture Podcast, a discussion of the morality of COVID vaccines.

 

"Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last?"

So wonders Dr. Tom More, a descendant of the great English martyr, in the first sentence of Walker Percy's third novel, Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at Time near the End of the World.

Written in 1971, this prophetic work presents a world startlingly like our own. Today's guest, literary scholar Jessica Hooten Wilson, joins the show to give a general introduction to Percy and discuss aspects of what is for many his most beloved novel, Love in the Ruins, which she describes as a "panoramic satire" indicating that modernity's "lost sense of self makes it impossible to live the good life".

Topics include:

• How Percy's Southernity informed his fiction
• His keen and ruthless observation of race relations
• His recurring commentary on the modern disjunction between mind and body, what protagonist Tom More calls oscillation between the angelic and the bestial
• His use of apocalyptic themes
• His treatment of love between men and women
• The lasting significance of his work

Links

Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins https://www.amazon.com/Love-Ruins-Walker-Percy/dp/0312243111

Jessica Hooten Wilson https://jessicahootenwilson.com/

JHW, Reading Walker Percy's Novels https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Walker-Percys-Novels-Jessica/dp/0807168777

JHW, Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Search for Influence https://www.amazon.com/Dostoevsky-Influence-Literature-Religion-Postsecular/dp/0814213499

Follow this link to join the Online Great Books VIP waiting list and get 25% off your first 3 months: https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Today we discuss one of the greatest Arthurian tales, told by one of the most virtuosic poets in the history of English, an anonymous priest of the 14th century. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells us a lot about courtesy, original sin, and grace, all bound up in an enormously entertaining story about a giant, decapitation-surviving green knight.

Poet and critic Anthony Esolen joins the show to discuss the poem, its Middle English dialect, and the tradition of alliterative verse.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8YKmYkklcuU

Links

Marie Boroff's translation of the complete works of the Gawain-poet https://www.amazon.com/Gawain-Poet-Complete-Cleanness-Erkenwald/dp/0393912353

Simon Armitage's facing-page translation including the original Middle English https://www.amazon.com/Gawain-Green-Knight-Verse-Translation/dp/0393334155

Dana Gioia essay, "Accentual Verse" https://danagioia.com/essays/writing-and-reading/accentual-verse/

Magdalen College, where Esolen teaches, still has spaces open in its 2021 freshman class! https://magdalen.edu/

Anthony Esolen, The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord https://www.ignatius.com/The-Hundredfold-P3358.aspx

Esolen on his poem The Hundredfold https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-55-hundredfold-anthony-esolen/

Esolen discusses Stagecoach on Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/stagecoach-1939/

Follow this link to join the Online Great Books VIP waiting list and get 25% off your first 3 months: https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This is the first in a series of episodes (accompanied by articles) surveying the most important encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII. His third encyclical, Aeterni Patris (1879), on the restoration of Christian philosophy, famously called for a revival of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Links

Thomas's article on Aeterni Patris, "Leo XIII and the restoration of Christian philosophy" https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/leo-xiii-on-restoration-christian-philosophy/

Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html

The Great Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII: Volume Two – The Spiritual Letters https://clunymedia.com/products/the-great-encyclicals-of-pope-leo-xiii-volume-two-the-spiritual-letters

Russell Hittinger, On the Dignity of Society: Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Law https://www.cuapress.org/9780813238234/on-the-dignity-of-society/

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This episode contains clips of highlights from episodes 38-41 and 44 of the Catholic Culture Podcast.

38 - Garrigou-Lagrange, The Sacred Monster of Thomism - Matthew Minerd https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-38-sacred-monster-matthew-k-minerd/

39 - Composing Liturgical Music That's Noble, Accessible...and Sacred - Paul Jernberg https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-39-composing-liturgical-music-thats-noble-accessible-and-sacred-paul-jernberg/

40 - Tolkien and Aquinas - Jonathan McIntosh https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-40-tolkien-and-aquinas-jonathan-s-mcintosh/

41 - The Neo-Colonial West Is Forcing Abortion on Africa - Obianuju Ekeocha https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-41-neo-colonial-west-is-forcing-abortion-on-africa-obianuju-ekeocha/

44 - Catholics Need Poetry. But Do We Want It? - Dana Gioia https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-44-catholics-need-poetry-but-do-we-want-it-dana-gioia/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

In this interview originally from Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast, Thomas Mirus and James Majewski interview Sixtine Leon-Dufour, writer of the new Lourdes documentary, one of the best religious films in recent years. She discusses:

-Her background caring for the sick at Lourdes

-How she convinced the Lourdes authorities to give secular filmmakers unprecedented shooting access to this holy place

-How a documentary about a Marian pilgrimage got the support of a large French secular film studio and became a big success

-Depicting the wide range of people at Lourdes

-How the filmmakers found sick people who would let them film intimate and painful parts of their life

-The role of the writer of a documentary

-Why people come to Lourdes even if they are not hoping for a miracle

Watch this interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Bywww0alMqw

Links

Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast www.catholicculture.org/criteria

Watch our review of Lourdes: https://youtu.be/hEsxNbajQ_s

Check here to find out where Lourdes is playing (including upcoming virtual screenings): https://www.distribfilmsus.com/portfolio/lourdes/

Want to bring LOURDES to your town? Contact Distrib Films (in Brooklyn). The contact is François Scippa- Kohn, who can be reached by email at fsk@distribfilms.com. www.distribfilmsus.com

Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tGC8lQOZuw

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Noelle Mering joins the show to discuss her new book Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology.

Topics discussed include:

• The core principles of woke ideology: group over person, will over reason, power over authority

• Proof that ideology is what really matters to the woke, more than membership in a victim group

•  

  How Frankfurt School thinkers, who combined neo-Marxism with neo-Freudianism, influenced the training of American schoolteachers

• The feedback loop between immorality, ensuing misery, and bad ideas

•  

  Why today's progressivism is driven to destroy innocence

•  

  Fundamental differences between woke ideology and Christianity

• Self-knowledge and self-accusation, antidotes to the woke worldview

Links

Buy Awake, Not Woke https://tanbooks.com/contemporary-issues/social-issues/awake-not-woke-a-christian-response-to-the-cult-of-progressive-ideology/

Noelle Mering https://www.noellemering.com/

Theology of Home https://theologyofhome.com/

Claire Kretzschmar, a dancer and soloist with the New York City Ballet, joins the show to discuss her path to becoming a professional dancer, the challenges and joys of being a Catholic in the ballet world, and the spiritual value of dance. She also discusses a beautiful dance film which she choreographed for the NYC Ballet this year, and the Catholic arts community she founded in New York City, of which Thomas is a part.

In the YouTube version of this interview, Claire's full dance film is shown at the 20:46 mark (used with permission of NYC Ballet). https://youtu.be/4jWhhAbS6pM

Links

Claire's dance film, "Rachmaninoff Suite" https://www.nycballet.com/discover/stories/from-the-nyci-marthas-vineyard-fall-2020/

New York Times profile of Claire, "Rehearse, Ice Feet, Repeat: The Life of a New York City Ballet Corps Dancer" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/arts/dance/rehearse-ice-feet-repeat-the-life-of-a-new-york-city-ballet-corps-dancer.html

Follow Claire on Instagram to keep up with her dance performances in NY and NC https://www.instagram.com/ckretz92/

Arthouse 2B - Catholic arts events in NYC https://www.instagram.com/arthouse2b/

Litany - ethical, modest Catholic fashion https://www.litanynyc.com/

This episode was filmed by Chris Amodio. https://www.amodiodop.com/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Thomas is joined by Catholic filmmaker Nathan Douglas to discuss Walker Percy's first novel, The Moviegoer. They examine the malaise-ridden protagonist Binx Bolling's "search" for meaning, which he ultimately finds through responsibility: not the responsibility urged by respectable "values", but that urged by love.

They also look at how Binx searches for a deeper connection with reality through his moviegoing habits. Percy has some interesting descriptions of his characters finding moments of transcendent beauty in film, given that this novel was written just before the notion of "cinephilia" developed by French critics made its way to the United States.

Watch episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yvW59H3tAHw

Links

Nathan Douglas's short films www.nwdouglas.com

Nathan's film writing www.vocationofcinema.substack.com

Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast www.catholicculture.org/criteria

Follow this link to join the Online Great Books VIP waiting list and get 25% off your first 3 months: https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This episode features clips from episodes 34-37 of the Catholic Culture Podcast, including some personal stories from Thomas.

Links

The Memoirs of St. Peter w/ Michael Pakaluk https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-34-memoirs-st-peter-michael-pakaluk/

Moral Blindness and Abortion w/ Abby Johnson https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-35-moral-blindness-and-abortion-abby-johnson/

Bridges to Hell or Heaven: "Toxic Femininity" and the Spirit of Anti-Mary w/ Carrie Gress https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-36-bridges-to-hell-or-heaven-toxic-femininity-and-spirit-anti-mary-carrie-gress/

Sculpting Two Benedicts w/ Jago https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-37-sculpting-two-benedicts-jago/

Join Online Great Books via this referral link https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This is a discussion of an interesting little book from 1967 that has re-entered the discourse, Prayer as a Political Problem by Jean Danielou, SJ, recently reprinted by Cluny Media. In this book which seems confoundingly ahead of its time, before its time, and (irksomely) of its time, Danielou insists that prayer forms a constitutive part of the temporal common good. Governments, therefore, have a responsibility to create conditions making it easy for the common people to conduct a spiritual life. Danielou's claim that religion and prayer are necessary even for the temporal good of civilizations is timely, and his reflections on the dangers of technological civilization are prescient. The book is not without its troublesome aspects, though, most notably Danielou's peculiar sociological definition of religion. Brandon McGinley, who has dealt with this subject matter in his own books, joins the show to discuss Danielou's work.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/95hjrIHO-aY

Links

Jean Danielou, Prayer as a Political Problem https://clunymedia.com/products/prayer-as-a-political-problem

Previous episode with Brandon McGinley on his book The Prodigal Church https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-82-habitual-counterculture-brandon-mcginley/

Brandon McGinley and Scott Hahn, It Is Right and Just https://stpaulcenter.com/product/it-is-right-and-just-why-the-future-of-civilization-depends-on-true-religion/

Other things mentioned:

Jacques Maritain, The Primacy of the Spiritual https://clunymedia.com/products/the-primacy-of-the-spiritual?_pos=7&_sid=66d0aa627&_ss=r

The Lord of Spirits podcast episode on the Nephilim, "A Land of Giants" https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/lordofspirits/land_of_giants

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Michael Pakaluk and Jay Richards join host Thomas V. Mirus for a discussion of the moral issues involved with the production and testing of vaccines using illicitly-obtained fetal cell lines, and the reasons for freedom of conscience for those who do not wish to take them.

Links

Read a full transcript of this discussion: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=12522

Thomas Mirus's apology and retractions  https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/apology-and-retractions-about-vaccine-episode/

Church documents discussed:

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas Personae (relevant paragraphs are 34-35) https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20081208_dignitas-personae_en.html

CDF, Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 Vaccines (2020) https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20201221_nota-vaccini-anticovid_en.html

The Pontifical Academy for Life's 2005 statement on vaccines, emphasizing freedom of conscience https://www.immunize.org/talking-about-vaccines/vaticandocument.htm

Commentary discussed:

"To Awaken Conscience" https://mailchi.mp/7742dd12483f/statement-of-conscience-to-awaken-conscience

Michael Pakaluk, "Why I Signed 'To Awaken Conscience'"  https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/why-i-signed-to-awaken-conscience

Jose Trasancos, "The Cell Lines Used for COVID-19 Vaccines Came from Carefully Planned Abortions, Not Miscarriages" https://stream.org/the-cell-lines-used-for-covid-19-vaccines-came-from-carefully-planned-abortions-not-miscarriages/

Bishops Schneider, Strickland, et al, "COVID Vaccines: 'The Ends Cannot Justify the Means'" https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/covid-vaccines-the-ends-cannot-justify-the-means

Ethics & Public Policy Center, "Statement from Pro-Life Catholic Scholars on the Moral Acceptability of Receiving COVID-19 Vaccines" https://eppc.org/news/statement-from-pro-life-catholic-scholars-on-the-moral-acceptability-of-receiving-covid-19-vaccines/

Roberto de Mattei, On the Moral Liceity of the Vaccination https://libri.edizionifiducia.it/on-the-moral-liceity-of-the-vaccination/

Richards, Briggs, and Axe; The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe https://www.regnery.com/9781684511419/the-price-of-panic/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Catholic Culture's own Phil Lawler has written a new book addressing what he sees as flaws in the response of Catholic leaders and laity to the pandemic and advocating a different approach - Contagious Faith: Why the Church Must Spread Hope, Not Fear, in a Pandemic.

Topics covered in this interview include:

• How the Church's behavior in this pandemic differs from the oft-cited response of St. Charles Borromeo to plague
• Why a confrontation with civil authorities must be forced to ameliorate the evil precedent set for future actions against the Church
• How the laity can encourage their priests and bishops to defy illegitimate restrictions on the Mass
• Is there a moral obligation to take extraordinary measures to protect one's neighbor from even the slightest risk of catching a disease?
• Catholics must be a witness to hope in the power of prayer and in eternal life

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aFxgWqp1J80

Links

Phil Lawler, Contagious Faith https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/contagious-faith

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Michael Pakaluk joins the show to discuss his new translation and commentary on St. John's gospel, making the case that this loftiest of gospels echoes the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the evangelist's adopted mother) in subtle but profound ways.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/G0PDD5Qyfh0

Links

Mary's Voice in the Gospel According to John https://www.regnery.com/9781684511198/marys-voice-in-the-gospel-according-to-john/

Episode 34 on Michael Pakaluk's translation of Mark's Gospel https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-34-memoirs-st-peter-michael-pakaluk/

Donate to support the show: www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

St. Hildegard of Bingen, 12th-century abbess, mystic, polymath, and Doctor of the Church, is best known to non-Catholics for something else – her music. We have more pieces of music by Hildegard than by any other medieval composer whose name we know. Her chants are beautiful, otherworldly, virtuosic and ahead of their time. Some of them were written for her morality play, the Ordo virtutum, which is also the first of its kind. Musicologist Margot Fassler joins the podcast to discuss what makes St. Hildegard's music so special.

This episode is a crossover with Way of the Fathers, where Dr. Jim Papandrea has done two episodes introducing St. Hildegard's life and writings. Make sure to listen to those for more context about St. Hildegard.

Links

Way of the Fathers episodes on St. Hildegard's life and works:

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/512-st-hildegard-bingen-multimedia-visionary/

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/513-st-hildegard-bingen-teutonic-prophetess/

St. Hildegard's letter to the Prelates of Mainz https://digfir-published.macmillanusa.com/mckay11eepages/mckay11eepages_ch9_4.html

Margot Fassler, Cosmos, Liturgy, and the Arts in the Twelfth Century: Hildegard's Illuminated Scivias https://www.pennpress.org/9781512823073/cosmos-liturgy-and-the-arts-in-the-twelfth-century/

All music used with permission from Benjamin Bagby & Sequentia, who have recorded her complete works. The specific pieces in this episode can be found on the albums Ordo Virtutum, Symphoniae, and Voice of the Blood. https://www.sequentia.org/projects/hildegard.html

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This episode features highlight clips from episodes 26-30 of the Catholic Culture Podcast.

Links

Online Great Books opens a new enrollment period approximately once a month. Get in there using discount code "catholicculture" for 25% off your first three months! Or use this referral link: https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth exhibition book https://www.amazon.com/Tolkien-Maker-Middle-earth-Catherine-McIlwaine/dp/1851244859/

29 - Catholic Feminism: Should We? - Abigail Rine Favale https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-29-catholic-feminism-should-we-abigail-rine-favale/

28 - An Introduction to Maritain's Poetic Philosophy - Samuel Hazo https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-28-introduction-to-maritains-poetic-philosophy-samuel-hazo/

26 - The Arts, Contemplation and Virtue - Basil Cole, OP https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-26-arts-contemplation-and-virtue-basil-cole-op/

27 - Always Wanted to Study the Great Books? Here's How You'll Actually Follow Through - Scott Hambrick https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-27-always-wanted-to-study-great-books-heres-how-youll-actually-follow-through-scott-hambrick/

30 - What Tolkien's Visual Art Tells Us About His Creative Mind - John McQuillen, Holly Ordway https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-30-what-tolkiens-visual-art-tells-us-about-his-creative-mind-john-mcquillen-and-holly-ordway/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Did you know there's a hotel in NYC named after Pope Leo XIII? The Leo House was founded in the 1880s as a boarding house for German Catholic immigrants, at the behest of the Holy Father, and is still operating today as a Catholic hotel providing charitable hospitality at a discount.

In this episode you'll learn from the Leo House's chairman and president, Michael Coneys, about the hotel's fascinating history. The story involves Pope Leo's special care for the Catholic Church in Germany as it was struggling under Protestant Prussian rule; as well as the St. Raphael Society, which helped political dissidents to escape Nazi Germany. It also involves a very providential visit from Mother Teresa! But this is also a very contemporary story story of one of many Catholic nonprofits struggling to survive the past year's lockdowns.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8888Qu0oonc

Links

Learn more: https://leohousenyc.com/

Donate to the Leo House: https://leohousenyc.com/donate/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Poet-philosopher James Matthew Wilson returns to the show to read poems from his new collection, The Strangeness of the Good, including his "Quarantine Notebook" series, and to discuss the decay and renewal of Catholic intellectual life.

Topics discussed include:

• The present narrowing of Catholic intellectual life in conservative/traditional circles

• How do you become cultured, in an authentic and non-pretentious way, when you're not participating in a culture?

• His ideal approach to reciting poetry

• The poets we most need to be reading now

• What needs to be done to build on the work in Catholic aesthetics done by figures like Maritain, Hildebrand, and Gilson

• What it's like to be an orthodox Catholic teaching at a merely nominally Catholic university
• Trying to get through to college freshmen who think they already know that there's no value in the Western patrimony, there's no truth, and life is meaningless

Watch this interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ip02uvHlvck

Note: This interview was recorded before James Matthew Wilson announced his appointment as founding director of a new MFA in Creative Writing, at the University of St. Thomas, Houston (in collaboration with multiple past Catholic Culture Podcast guests, particularly Joshua Hren of Wiseblood Books). Learn about the program here: https://www.stthom.edu/public/index.asp?AQ_Action=getPageByURL&AQ_URL=/Academics/School-of-Arts-and-Sciences/Division-of-Liberal-Studies/Graduate/Master-of-Fine-Arts-in-Creative-Writing/Index.aqf

Links

The Strangeness of the Good https://www.amazon.com/Strangeness-Good-Including-Quarantine-Notebook/dp/1621386325/

All interviews with James Matthew Wilson https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-tePYzIXOsQ2OgM0Bh-Nq1LUpYF2877q

J.R.R. Tolkien is commonly perceived as a reactionary who totally rejected the modern world, and whose literary influences began and ended with the Middle Ages. Holly Ordway's new book, Tolkien's Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages, debunks that view of Tolkien's life and work.

Ordway begins with an invaluable critique of the sources of this misconception, especially the official biography written by Humphrey Carpenter, who admitted his own bias and desire to portray Tolkien as an uptight fuddy-duddy.

She then proceeds to examine the works of modern literature we know Tolkien read, gleaning insights about how he may have been influenced either by acceptance or rejection of what he found in those works. In this interview we focus on Tolkien's reading of the father of modern fantasy, William Morris, the adventure writer H. Rider Haggard, the now-unknown religious romance John Inglesant, and even literary modernists like James Joyce and Roy Campbell, and realists like Sinclair Lewis.

Watch this conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0_J46A7QhhQ

Links

Tolkien's Modern Reading https://store.wordonfire.org/products/tmr

Daphne Castell interview with Tolkien https://fantasticmetropolis.com/i/tolkien

Diana Glyer's books on the Inklings:

The Company They Keep https://www.amazon.com/Company-They-Keep-Tolkien-Community/dp/0873389913

Bandersnatch https://www.amazon.com/Bandersnatch-Tolkien-Creative-Collaboration-Inklings/dp/1606352768

 

Some of the many books enjoyed by Tolkien mentioned in this episode:

William Morris, The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains

H. Rider Haggard, She

Joseph Henry Shorthouse, John Inglesant

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Andrew Lang's fairy tale collections

Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books

E.A. Wyke-Smith, The Marvellous Land of Snergs

John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps and the other Richard Hannay books

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

We celebrate our 100th episode with the return of a favorite Catholic Culture Podcast guest, former Pennsylvania Poet Laureate Samuel Hazo. At 92, Sam is still writing books, most recently a new collection of poems and a novel, published by Wiseblood Books.

In this episode Sam reads and discusses poems from his new collection, The Next Time We Saw Paris, a recurring theme of which is how each experience in time passes away, yet in passing away it becomes a singular whole which remains present as such in memory.

He discusses his founding of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh, which hosted public readings by many of the greatest contemporary poets, including W.H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, and Czeslaw Milosz. Other topics include the importance of hearing poetry read aloud, the development of Sam's poetic voice into something very like natural speech, and the hidden power of women.

Watch this discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mg4Ao-eTIwI

Links

The Next Time We Saw Paris https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p108/The-Next-Time-We-Saw-Paris.html

If Nobody Calls, I'm Not Home https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p98/If_Nobody_Calls%2C_I%27m_Not_Home%3A_The_Open_Letters_of_Bim_Nakely%2C_by_Samuel_Hazo.html

Sam Hazo's website https://www.samhazopoet.com

Catholic Culture Podcast interview with Hazo on Maritain https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-28-introduction-to-maritains-poetic-philosophy-samuel-hazo/

The Daily Poem podcast https://shows.acast.com/the-daily-poem

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

To celebrate the approach of Episode 100 of the Catholic Culture Podcast, here is the interview that started it all. Originally published on August 4, 2017, this interview turned out so well that we decided to launch a whole series of interviews on Catholic arts and culture. The podcast launched several months later, on May 1, 2018.

Catholic composer and pianist Mark Christopher Brandt joined Thomas Mirus to discuss his classical album and suite The Nightingale, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Emperor and the Nightingale". The discussion was a double delight as it covered not only the album itself, but also an extended exploration of the spiritual themes of Andersen's classic fairy tale, especially what it conveys about the true meaning of freedom.

Mark has been a guest on the Catholic Culture Podcast twice since this first interview. (Since then, too, Thomas has played on Mark's classical album The Butterfly, along with Katherine Colburn, the cellist whose skills are so highly praised in the Nightingale interview.)

All music used with permission from Mark Christopher Brandt and Lionheart Music East.

Links

Read: Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale "The Nightingale" http://hca.gilead.org.il/nighting.html

Mark Christopher Brandt's The Nightingale:

• Physical CD https://markchristopherbrandt.com/the-nightingale-album.html
• iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-nightingale/id1253776983
• Amazon MP3 https://www.amazon.com/Nightingale-Katherine-Colburn-Christopher-Brandt/dp/B073LJ96LV/

Score: The Nightingale sheet music https://markchristopherbrandt.com/the-nightingale-scores-and-parts-store.html

The artists:

• Pianist and composer Mark Christopher Brandt http://markchristopherbrandt.com/
• Flutist Yana Nikol http://yananikol.com/
• Cellist Katherine Colburn at Prince William String Academy https://pwstringacademy.com/
• Engineer Bill McElroy at Slipped Disc Audio https://www.slippeddiscaudio.com/billbio.htm

More: Round Trip: The Making of an Artist documentary https://markchristopherbrandt.com/round-trip-the-making-of-an-artist-dvd---store.html

Mark's appearances on the Catholic Culture Podcast:

33 - Structure and Freedom in Music and in Christ https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-33-structure-and-freedom-in-music-and-in-christ-mark-christopher-brandt/

68 - What I Learned From Making Music with Mark Christopher Brandt https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-68-what-i-learned-from-making-music-with-mark-christopher-brandt/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This Ash Wednesday, following a note from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, many American parishes did not distribute ashes in the customary way of smudging a cross on the forehead and saying one of two possible formulas to each recipient. Instead, as an ostensible anti-COVID precaution, they sprinkled ashes on the top of the head and said the formula once to the whole congregation.

Today's guest, Gail Finke, wrote a thought-provoking article, not so much on the appropriateness of changing the usual practice this year because of the pandemic, but on an attitude so often taken in discussing Ash Wednesday every year.

There is a certain spiritual elitism which regards concern for the external rite, including the rare opportunity to explicitly witness to the faith in a public way, as the province of those of little or superficial faith, or even of the vain. If someone objects to a seemingly unnecessary change, he is said to be overly concerned with the inessential. Yet the experience of the past several decades has shown us definitively that the elimination of "inessential" devotions has had catastrophic effects on the faith of Catholics.

External expressions of devotion are important. The little things which set Catholics apart are important. Constant change and disorientation are not good for the people of God. The assumption that those who object to it must have little faith is arrogant. The indifference to the reality that the large number who do have weak faith will easily fall away when denied the rites of the Church—"you don't need to go to Mass, just make a spiritual communion"—is callous and legalistic.

Links

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LYkXheSxHXs

Gail Finke, "Are We Going to Throw Out Ash Wednesday Too?" https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/are-we-going-to-throw-out-ash-wednesday-too

Thomas Humphries, "The Case of the Great Pandemic Liturgical Flip-Flop" https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-case-of-the-great-pandemic-liturgical-flip-flop/

Driving Home the Faith radio show produced by Gail www.sacredheartradio.com

Ep. 84, Disobey Lockdown Now w/ Douglas Farrow and Andrew Busch https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/84-disobey-lockdown-now-douglas-farrow-andrew-busch/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Famous for his chanted performances of Beowulf in the original Old English, Benjamin Bagby is the closest thing you'll find today to an Anglo-Saxon bard. Bagby joins the show to describe how he reconstructed Beowulf as a sung tale, giving a demonstration of his Anglo-Saxon harp which is modeled on harps found in burial sites from over a millennium ago. He also discusses the recordings of the complete works of St. Hildegard of Bingen made by his ensemble, Sequentia.

All music and video by Bagby and Sequentia used with permission.    Watch this interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uZLEM75RO_w   LINKS   Bagby's Beowulf site and DVD https://www.bagbybeowulf.com   Video of Bagby's full performance at 92Y https://youtu.be/2WcIK_8f7oQ    Sequentia https://www.sequentia.org   Featured piece by St. Hildegard, O Vis Aeternitatis, recorded by Sequentia from their album Canticles of Ecstasy https://youtu.be/_Vcv2HdApcs   This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BatWN05pP1I

Catholic geneticist Daniel Toma is the author of Vestige of Eden, Image of Eternity: Common Experience, the Hierarchy of Being, and Modern Science. He joins the podcast to discuss what natural science, including the fossil record, can teach us about the hierarchy of being and the liturgical structure of all creation, with deified man as rational head of the physical cosmos bringing all material creation into union with God.

Links

Daniel Toma, Vestige of Eden, Image of Eternity https://www.hfsbooks.com/books/vestige-of-eden-image-of-eternity-toma/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4Uv7MvEHixg

The Hillbilly Thomists, a bluegrass group entirely composed of Dominican friars, have just released their second album, Living for the Other Side. Percussionist Fr. Joseph Hagan, who happens to be a priest at Thomas's parish, joins the show to talk about the new album, the connections between bluegrass and the Apocalypse, and music as an expression of the Dominican mission of preaching.

All songs used with permission.

Links

https://www.hillbillythomists.com/

Music video, "Our Help Is in the Name of the Lord" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKDG9DF7mhA

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

We all know the secular world opposes the very idea of a person with same-sex attraction seeking any kind of therapy or spiritual counsel that might enable them to reach a state of healthy relations with the opposite sex. But what's odd is that many Catholics seem to have bought into this. Many assume that if someone is not currently attracted to the opposite sex, this is a static, lifelong condition and therefore they must be called to celibacy. But this view involves multiple misunderstandings – of the SSA experience, of anthropology, of the power of God's grace, and of the good of celibacy itself.

Today's guests know otherwise because they both have a background with same-sex attraction, and yet are each now married with children. Andrew Comiskey and Marco Casanova run Desert Stream and Living Waters Ministries, which for decades have offered help to Christians seeking healing from sexual disorders (including but not limited to SSA). This conversation offers solid, spiritually and psychologically sound, experience-based answers to some disputed questions about how the Church should be pastoring those with same-sex attraction.

It's not about "conversion therapy". It's about conversion in the Catholic sense – one day at a time.

--Can we really put a ceiling on God's ability to heal us psychologically?

--Does any attempt at such healing amount to the secular bugbear of "conversion therapy"?

--What does life look like for a person with a "gay" past who is now married to the opposite sex?

--Is it legitimate for Christians to embrace a gay identity as long as they don't act out sexually?

--Is there such a thing as a chaste same-sex romantic relationship?

Links

Thomas Mirus, "Your sexual pathology doesn't make you special" https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/your-sexual-pathology-doesnt-make-you-special/

Andrew Comiskey, Rediscovering Our Lost Fullness: A Guide to Sexual Integration https://sophiainstitute.com/product/rediscovering-our-lost-fullness/

Desert Stream Ministries http://www.desertstream.org/

Desert Stream on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJVUJQREephvIkJWlTuwXBg

DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

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Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zkfJ-gSMdUg

Today's Catholic culture is marked by a profound and settled religious indifferentism. Among many Catholics, to say what the Church has always taught—that Jesus Christ is the one way to salvation—is considered offensive, or at best, rash. In certain countries, the bishops' conferences have practically made a policy against seeking converts from other religions (or lack thereof). Catholics, ruled by fear of human respect and compromised by their own private sins, are finding more and more reasons not to proclaim Christ's moral teachings as well.

Ralph Martin, whose new book A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward is a comprehensive spiritual diagnosis of our present situation, joins the show to discuss the many factors contributing to religious indifferentism. These include theological doubts about whether anyone really goes to hell (thanks, Balthasar), the therapeutic culture which has lost any sense of sin and justice, the focus on legalistic analysis of culpability rather than the need to change, and fear of human respect.

Links

A Church in Crisis https://stpaulcenter.com/product/a-church-in-crisis-pathways-forward/

Jeff Mirus's review of A Church in Crisis https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/mapping-crisis-ralph-martins-blockbuster-book/

Renewal Ministries https://www.renewalministries.net/

 The Fulfillment of All Desire https://stpaulcenter.com/product/the-fulfillment-of-all-desire/

Newman sermon, "Christian Reverence" on Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-john-henry-newman-christian-reverence/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3Czyd0XSEso

The alarmists were right: ideas that were only a few years ago complacently dismissed as the perennial agitation of a few campus loonies are now pervasive in the corporate world, mass media and pop culture.

Critical race theory, transgender ideology, the obsessive search for oppressive power relations in every aspect of life and every feature of language, the demand for all to be activists, shutting down of dissenting speech as violence: common sense or the gift of a solid Catholic formation will suffice for most who reject these ideologies.

But some will want a more rigorous critique or a deeper understanding of the philosophical roots of radical leftist activism. To that end, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay have written Cynical Theories, a very helpful primer on the development of modern activism from 1960s postmodernist philosophy.

In this episode, Thomas and political philosopher Darel Paul discuss the book, which tracks how postcolonial theory, queer theory, women's/gender studies, critical race theory, and other activist fields have instantiated or adapted the following central principles and themes of postmodernism:

Postmodern principles:

1. Radical skepticism about the ability to know anything, cultural constructivism
2. Society is formed of systems of power and hierarchies which decide what and how things can be known

Postmodern themes: The blurring of boundaries, the power of language, cultural relativism, loss of the individual and the universal

The episode concludes with a critique of Pluckrose and Lindsay's prescription of a return to Enlightenment liberalism as a corrective to postmodernism.

Contents

[1:41] Reasons for discussing Cynical Theories

[4:36] Evidence of postmodernist activist movements reaching the mainstream

[10:58] What the book contributes to the discourse on woke ideology

[15:00] Similarities and differences between postmodernism and Marxism

[26:25] The core postmodern principles and themes

[38:53] Policing speech as a tool of power rather than a rational means of communicating truth

[47:58] The proliferation of postmodern principles into a number of activist fields

[49:47] Defining one's identity in terms of suffering and oppression

[55:07] Tension between postmodern rejection of categories and the need to have categories to critique power relations; the emergence of queer theory; deliberate incoherence as liberation

[1:01:06] Conundrum for LGBTQ activists: gain "normal" status or destroy idea of normality?

[1:06:40] Gender theory vs. critical race theory on categories

[1:18:50] Postmodernism as a class ideology?

[1:24:17] The postcolonial critique of science; epistemic relativism

[1:27:30] Critique of Pluckrose and Lindsay's advocacy of a return to Enlightenment liberalism

[1:32:51] Liberalism as an inherently negative and deconstructive philosophy

[1:40:04] Postmodernism as an extension and/or consequence of liberalism

[2:04:33] How to communicate truth to someone who believes language is merely power?

 Links

Pluckrose and Lindsay, Cynical Theories https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories-Scholarship-Everything-Identity_and/dp/1634312023

Darel Paul, "Against Racialism" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/against-racialism

Darel Paul, "Listening at the Great Awokening" https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/17/listening-at-the-great-awokening/

Darel Paul, "The Global Community Is a Fantasy" https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-global-community-is-a-fantasy/

Darel Paul, From Tolerance to Equality https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481306959/from-tolerance-to-equality/

Ep. 61 on liberalism as an anti-culture with James Matthew Wilson https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-61-liberal-anti-culture-vs-western-vision-soul-pt-i-james-matthew-wilson/

Ep. 18 on the vice of acedia manifested in our refusal to accept our given nature https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-18-acedia-forgotten-capital-sin-rj-snell/

Christmas episodes:

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) film discussion w/ Patrick Coffin https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/its-wonderful-life-1946-w-patrick-coffin/

CCP 59 – The Glorious English Carol https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-59-glorious-english-carol/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

All music by Thomas Tallis used with permission of the artists and labels listed below.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/i-oMO9qqzKA

As a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) composed sacred music for four successive English monarchs, starting with Henry VIII and ending with Elizabeth. Those were turbulent times in England, especially for a church musician.

Those were turbulent times in England, especially for a church musician. Like his colleague (and probable pupil) William Byrd, Tallis was able to adapt his compositional style to meet the constantly shifting ideological demands of the regimes under which he served. Unlike the combative Byrd, who in his later years removed himself from court life and made a point of his loyalty to Rome, Tallis may have simply gone with the flow.  We don't know for sure, because there is very little information about his life.

Here to tell us what we do know is singer and scholar Kerry McCarthy, author of a concise new book on Tallis's life and music in Oxford University Press's Master Musicians Series (which also includes her book on Byrd previously discussed on this podcast). She enthusiastically discusses his music, his times, the foundation of polyphony in plainchant which was obliterated by the Reformation, the various compositional techniques of the time, and the nature of the medieval modes with which these composers worked.

Links

Kerry McCarthy, Tallis https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tallis-9780190635213

Hear Kerry sing with Capella Romana in a groundbreaking recreation of the acoustics of a sixth-century Byzantine cathedral! Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia: Medieval Byzantine Chant https://cappellaromana.org/product/lost-voices-of-hagia-sophia-medieval-byzantine-chant/

Kerry McCarthy discusses Byrd on this podcast:

Pt. 1 https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-49-catholic-composer-in-queen-elizabeths-court-pt-i-kerry-mccarthy/

Pt. 2 https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-50a-catholic-composer-in-queen-elizabeths-court-pt-iikerry-mccarthy/

This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Music heard in this episode

Thomas Tallis:

"If ye love me" performed by The Gesualdo Six, c/o Hyperion https://www.amazon.com/English-Motets-Gesualdo-Six/dp/B078X98G4B/

Video from their YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/yHe2FDlHHa8

"Lesson Two Parts in One" performed by Matthieu Latreille https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EsptIeArHI

"Miserere nostri" (Tallis/Byrd), "In jejunio et fletu" performed by Alamire, c/o Obsidian https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H4OHXG/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp

"Puer natus est nobis: Agnus Dei", "Psalm Tunes from Archbishop Parker's Psalter", "Spem in alium" performed by Chapelle Du Roi, from their Complete Works of Tallis c/o Signum Records UK https://signumrecords.com

Chapelle's Du Roi's Complete Works of Tallis available affordably in the US here https://www.amazon.com/Tallis-Complete-Chapelle-Du-Roi/dp/B005JWXA1K/

Ralph Vaughan Williams: "Fantasia on a Theme from Thomas Tallis" performed by Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. Neville Mariner https://www.amazon.com/Williams-Greensleeves-Tallis-Neville-Marriner/dp/B000004CVM/