R.I.P. Jane Greer (1953-2025)
The Catholic Culture Podcast
My other interview with Jane:
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200 - Moral Questions about NFP w/ Eamonn Clark
The Catholic Culture Podcast
Get free PDF of New Questions, Old Answers: Catholic Morals and Natural Family Planning Article 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,...
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Pope Leo XIII on the restoration of Christian philosophy
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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” Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris 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 SUBSCRIBE to...
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198 - The Music of St. Hildegard of Bingen - Margot Fassler
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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....
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197 - Same-Sex Attraction and Conversion w/ Andrew Comiskey & Marco Casanova
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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...
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196 - Theology of Hiking - Fr. John Nepil
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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 DONATE to make this show possible! SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter:
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195 - The Most Influential Theology Book Nobody Reads - Philipp Rosemann
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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...
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194 - The Church’s Hour of Testing – Fr. Donald Haggerty
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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...
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193 - On René Girard -Trevor Cribben Merrill
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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 SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's...
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192 - Latin learning and classical Christian education w/ Ryan Hammill
The Catholic Culture Podcast
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 Ancient Language Institute New Humanists Podcast Jonathan Roberts, “Classical Schools Are Not Really Classical” Micah Meadowcroft, “Classical Education’s Aristocracy of Anyone” DONATE to make this show possible! ...
info_outlineGregory Roper, a professor of literature at the University of Dallas, joins the podcast to discuss medieval “mystery plays” (also called “miracle plays”). In England these plays, often grouped together in cycles spanning all of salvation history, were performed by town guilds for the festival of Corpus Christi. This tradition, which developed out of the liturgy, could be said to represent the revival of drama in Europe, and was an important influence on the Elizabethan theatre. Shakespeare referenced this tradition a number of times in his plays.
The plays, which served a partly didactic purpose, are full of theological typology, but also delightful verse, earthy humor, and a thought-provoking use of anachronism.
Links
Episode on English carols https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-59-glorious-english-carol/
A.C. Cawley, Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays https://www.amazon.com/Everyman-Medieval-Miracle-Plays-Cawley/dp/046087280X
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