The Catholic Culture Podcast

One of the most important encyclicals we need to rediscover is Pope Leo XIII's Libertas (1888), on the true nature of human liberty. This encyclical explains what true liberty consists of, followed by a lengthy exposition of the Church's condemnation of liberalism, in the Enlightenment/classical sense rather than today's narrower use of the word. Most people who call themselves conservative now would, in certain ways, fall into the category of liberalism as defined by Leo.  Prophetically warning of the evil consequences of political liberalism, Leo also takes aim at various false liberties in which modern people take such pride: freedom of speech, writing, thought, and worship. In each of these instances, liberals fail to recognize that freedom is not the right to do and say what one wants, but to do justice and to speak truth. As starting as Leo's teaching may be to modern Catholics, his fundamental principle is the one that Pope St. John Paul II enunciated when he said that "freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."  Pope Leo XIII: "Man, by a necessity of his nature, is wholly subject to the most faithful and ever-enduring power of God; and that, as a consequence, any liberty, except that which consists in submission to God and in subjection to His will, is unintelligible. To deny the existence of this authority in God, or to refuse to submit to it, means to act, not as a free man, but as one who treasonably abuses his liberty; and in such a disposition of mind the chief and deadly vice of liberalism essentially consists. Thomas's article on Libertas: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/leo-xiiis-condemnation-liberalism/ Pope Leo XIII, Libertas https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4885  DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio  SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

A number of doctrinal ruptures occurred in Catholic life after Vatican II – not in the sense that the Church's magisterium contradicted its previous teachings, but that the vast majority of Catholics, even conservative ones, tend to get these topics wrong. One of the worst examples is how the Church's traditional teaching on the Jewish people has been forgotten, with many people under the false impression that Vatican II changed Catholic teaching. Gideon Lazar, theologian and Jewish convert to Catholicism, joins the podcast to discuss some widely misunderstood and controversial points about the relationship between the Church and the Jews. (The views Gideon expresses in this interview are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the St. Basil Institute, where he is institute coordinator.) Links Part 1 of Thomas's four-part essay, "The Church and the Jews: Beyond the Platitudes" https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/church-and-jews-1-beyond-platitudes/ Gideon Lazar on Substack (a good article to start with) https://gideonlazar.substack.com/p/rex-iudaeorum-st-john-the-evangelist Gideon on X https://x.com/ByzCat DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

Elisabeth Nguyen Thi Thu Hong joins the podcast to tell the inspiring story of her older brother, Venerable Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, the heroic Vietnamese Cardinal who was imprisoned by the Communists for 13 years, 8 of those in solitary confinement. Thuan was descended from a line of Vietnamese martyrs, and his uncle was the devout Catholic President and Prime Minister of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, who himself was something of a martyr. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan: Man of Joy and Hope https://ignatius.com/cardinal-nguyen-van-thuan-cfntp/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

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

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. DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

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/ SUBSCRIBE to the Catholic Culture Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-catholic-culture-podcast/id1377089807 DONATE to make this show possible! http://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 DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio  SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

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 SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

Fr. John Nepil, priest and mountaineer, joins the podcast to discuss his book To Heights and Unto Depths: Letters from the Colorado Trail. Topics discussed include: The modern view of "nature" vs. God's creation A morally responsible approach to risk-taking The modern origins of hiking as a secular activity "Wilderness" vs. "garden" - Catholic attitudes toward the wild places To Heights and Unto Depths https://ignatius.com/to-heights-and-unto-depths-thudp/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

The standard textbook of theology in medieval universities was the Sentences by Peter Lombard (1095-1160), bishop of Paris. This collection systematically arranged the theological judgments of Scripture and the Church Fathers on various topics. For almost four centuries, those seeking higher credentials in theology had to study, teach, and comment on Lombard's Sentences. It was formative for the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. Over time, the genre of commentaries on the Sentences became its own vehicle for new developments in theology. The Sentences was not replaced by Aquinas's Summa as a standard textbook until the 16th century. Philosopher Philipp Rosemann has written two books on the Sentences and its significance for the development of theology. The first, Peter Lombard (2004), is about Lombard and his book. The second, The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard's "Sentences" (2007), is about the commentary tradition on the Sentences. Rosemann gives fascinating insights into the development as theology as a systematic science, which had profound ramifications for Catholic spiritual life and the history of the West. DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

A great spiritual master of our time, Fr. Donald Haggerty, joins the podcast to discuss his important new book, The Hour of Testing: Spiritual Depth and Insight in a Time of Ecclesial Uncertainty. He offers profound reflections on the ongoing, and perhaps future, crisis within the Church, with an eye to arousing an appetite for the greater spiritual intensity God desires his faithful to live out in this time. It is essential that we see that our Lord Himself is reliving His Passion in His Mystical Body, when the Church suffers betrayal and humiliation at a high institutional level. It is also essential that we see the high stakes in the great loss of souls in this time, so that we may be spurred to a deeper and more sacrificial prayer life. Fr. Haggerty offers spiritual sobriety and counsels for holiness that should not be missed. Buy The Hour of Testing https://ignatius.com/the-hour-of-testing-htp/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

Mimetic desire, scapegoating: if you've been hearing these terms thrown around lately, it's because the French Catholic philosopher René Girard (1923-2015) is having a renaissance, with powerful people like J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel citing his influence on their thought. Trevor Cribben Merrill, producer of the new documentary Things Hidden: The Life and Legacy of René Girard, joins the podcast to discuss Girard's principal ideas, and reflect on aspects of his thought which seem difficult to reconcile with Catholic doctrine. Watch Things Hidden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-vB1HaBsog SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Ryan Hammill of the Ancient Language Institute joins Thomas for a practical discussion about how to learn Latin, as well as the central place of the classical languages (Latin and Greek) in classical Christian education, and the various schools of thought in today's classical Christian education movement. Links Thomas's article about learning Latin https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/dreamt-learning-latin-heres-how-youll-finally-do-it/ Ancient Language Institute https://ancientlanguage.com/ New Humanists Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-humanists/id1570296135 Jonathan Roberts, "Classical Schools Are Not Really Classical" https://ancientlanguage.com/classical-schools-not-classical/ Micah Meadowcroft, "Classical Education's Aristocracy of Anyone" https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/classical-educations-aristocracy-of-anyone DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio  SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years, by the great English musicologist Christopher Page, covers the development of Christian liturgical music from its origins as an elaboration of the role of the lector to its flourishing in the monastic and cathedral singing schools of France, as Roman chant was spread across Europe. One of the most important developments was the gradual development of a system of notation in the late first millennium, culminating in Guido d'Arezzo's invention of the musical staff which allowed singers to learn melodies they had never heard before. Guido was motivated by the desire to reform monastic singing and enable monks to fulfil their duties more easily. This went along with a the development of music theory far beyond anything that could be found in the classical sources. Christopher Page, The Christian West and Its Singers https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300112573/the-christian-west-and-its-singers/ Gothic Voices ensemble https://gothicvoices.co.uk/ Christopher Page playing Renaissance guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KW34ucTnhI&ab_channel=GreshamCollege DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio  SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

A new biography of Ven. Fulton Sheen gives special attention to his high-profile converts, but reveals many other interesting facets of his life as well. Author Cheryl Hughes joins to discuss Sheen's at times shockingly direct evangelization methods, his outstanding television presence, his lifelong struggle with vanity and ambition, and the mistreatment he suffered from his rival, Cardinal Spellman. Links Cheryl C.D. Hughes, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Convert Maker https://ignatius.com/archbishop-fulton-j-sheen-afsp/ Thomas's review of Cheryl's biography of St. Katharine Drexel https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-katharine-drexel-shows-how-spiritual-poverty-and-submission-to-providence-go-hand-in-hand/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters