Keep The Faith's Podcast

Dr. John Rao deals with the internal Catholic debate over the program of the Roman School in the years 1918-1939. This debate involved theological methodology, missionary activity, political concerns, and liturgical matters. Catholic Action movements in Portugal, Austria, France, and Italy are examined. Taken from: The Church of Eugenio Pacelli - 2000 VonHildebrand Institute

Dr. John Rao deals with the internal Catholic debate over the program of the Roman School in the years 1918-1939. This debate involved theological methodology, missionary activity, political concerns, and liturgical matters. Catholic Action movements in Portugal, Austria, France, and Italy are examined. Taken from: The Church of Eugenio Pacelli - 2000 VonHildebrand Institute

The internal debate fed on the "vitalist" and "personalist" ideas described by Dr. John Rao in some detail. These claimed that in order to succeed in both the external missionary world and the internal Christianized world's fight for political domination and social justice, it was necessary for Catholics to tap into what was most "energetic" in modern life. That meant trying to understand Marxism,...

World War II placed the Church in an impossible position. It could not support a Nazi Europe. On the other hand, it could not rejoice over an Allied victory signifying the entry of Soviet Russia and Americanist concepts into the mainstream of European life. Dr. John Rao talks of Pius XII's difficulties in sailing through these troubled waters. Taken from: The Church of Eugenio Pacelli - 2000 VonHi...

Dr. John Rao's next three talks all take up the problem of the Church's struggle with a postwar world dominated by Marxism on the one hand and Americanist Pluralism on the other. Both of these forces insisted the Church join with them at the risk of otherwise being called Fascist and Nazi. Taken from: The Church of Eugenio Pacelli - 2000 VonHildebrand Institute

In the American dominated Pluralist world, Catholics were called upon to be anti-communist. This was no problem, as Dr. John Rao admits. Nevertheless, they were also urged not to be "divisive" and to "integrate" with all other pluralist forces. This could easily combine together with vitalist and personalist concepts in a way that caused Catholics to lose their identity. Taken from: The Church of...

The Spanish Civil War, in an intellectual sense, was the great political event of the Twentieth Century. Representatives of every possible political and social position produced by the modern world were all present and active contestants in the conflict raging from 1936-1939. So were the supporters of all groups that opposed them as well. Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro offers a detailed discussion of...

The Roman Catholic Church suffered badly at the hands of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro pays great attention to the heroic price paid by the clergy and the faithful laity; a price which has been ignored in recent decades. Taken from: The Church of Eugenio Pacelli - 2000 VonHildebrand Institute

Dr. David Allen White's talks on Catholicism and modern poetry and literature begins with this lecture on Hopkins. Hopkins' genius in using innovative means to relate eternal truths is underlined. Taken from: The Church of Eugenio Pacelli - 2000 VonHildebrand Institute

Dr. David Allen White continues his discussion of Hopkins on the combination of tradition with innovation by reading and commenting on selections of his various poems. Taken from: The Church of Eugenio Pacelli - 2000 VonHildebrand Institute

The Twentieth Century has witnessed the battle of all philosophies and anti-philosophies at one and the same time. Father Richard Munkelt presents a kaleidoscope of contemporary philosophical schools, ranging from those of Phenomenology and Existentialism to those which have given new life to older western approaches to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

Edith Stein was converted to Christianity through both her phenomenological studies and her inspiration by St. Teresa of Avila. Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand discusses her intellectual formation, her life as a Carmelite, her treatment of the female soul, and her tragic death.

Dietrich von Hildebrand was an inspiration for many traditionalist Catholics. Here, Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand discusses his formation, his conversion, his concern for phenomenology, his Christocentric vision, and his fight against everything that sought to disrupt the hierarchy of values by looking towards other models before that offered by the Word made flesh.

Dietrich Von Hildebrand was a hero in the battle for Catholic Tradition in the wake of the catastrophe following Second Vatican Council. But he was also a political hero in the fight against Nazism as well. Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand discusses both forms of his heroism in these two lectures.

Mr. Michael Davies gives the history of the Anglican Ordinal from Thomas Cranmer to Leo XIII. Even though prominent Catholic prelates treat Anglican ministers as if they were priests, Anglican orders are as invalid today as when Leo XIII condemned them. One of the first and most tempting ecumenical efforts of the modern world was that which sought to bring High Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism to...

Mr. Michael Davies gives a biography of the illustrious English convert John Henry Newman. Newman started the Tractarian Movement, later referred to as the Oxford Movement, which began a tide of English conversions to the True Faith. John Henry Newman's whole work involved a study of the way in which the unchanging Truth and developing knowledge interacted. Michael Davies discusses Newman's life a...

Mr. Michael Davies treats here in detail of the turn of the century Modernist movement. While he admits that some of the reaction to the Modernists struck at men and ideas which ought not to have been chastised, he nevertheless shows that real Modernism is a totally unacceptable and truly dangerous rejection of the very idea of the supernatural. He also recounts the battle of Pius X with Modernism...

Dr. David Allen White illuminates the fact that serious artists have always understood the role of both tragedy and comedy as the two essential sides of the dramatic coin. The twentieth century can sometimes seem to have little comic value to it. Nevertheless, Catholic writers have been able to see the comic and work with it in our age.

Dr. David Allen White explores the question of how this concept in general and the cinema in particular can help or hurt the search for the eternal Truth, incarnated by the Word. The twentieth century and twentieth century media have placed a tremendous emphasis upon "seeing things."

Mr. Michael Davies' talks deal with the relationship of Pius VII, Cardinal Consalvi, and Napoleon I. It begins with the tragic death of Pius VI, on the way to exile in France, and the difficulties surrounding the election of Pius VII in Venice at the very dawn of the nineteenth century. Davies tells of one of the most turbulent periods in the Papacy's history, the beginning of the 19th century. He...

Michael Davies describes the election of Pius VII, the signing of the concordat with France and the crowning of Napoleon. Napoleon, who was both a revolutionary and a man of order simultaneously, wished to restore a stability in Church and State that would support his own power. Hence, the negotiation of the Concordat and the establishment of a traditionalist/revolutionary "Empire".

Michael Davies recounts the showdown between Napoleon and Pius VII. Napoleon was finally excommunicated and Pius VII taken prisoner. Napoleon never wanted a truly independent Catholic Church, but he did want hegemony in Europe and a son. When both these goals got him into trouble with Pius VII, excommunication on the part of an independent-minded Pope ensued. Michael Davies describes the drama of...

Michael Davies describes the final battles of Napoleon and Pius VII are recounted with Napoleon's exile to Elbe and later St. Helena. Confrontation of the sort that Mr. Davies describes could not go on forever without Napoleon's prestige among Catholics suffering badly. The battle of Emperor and Pope had to be resolved. Who would give in? What machinations were involved to resolve the embittered r...

Dr. John Rao begins with a discussion of the ancient rhetorical dislike of Plato and his insistence that a knowledge of truth had to precede action. The entry of the Church onto the political and social scene brought this insistence down to the popular level and won for her an even greater hatred from "word merchants". All manner of lies had to be told about Christianity in order to bring this tru...

Already in the ancient world, a "Grand Coalition" of anti-Catholic forces had gathered together. This included not only the "word merchants", interested in selling recipes for "success", but also philosophers who did not want to deal with theology, men who loved power for power sake, and ordinary people who simply did not wish to be bothered with a call to sanctity and greatness. Dr. John Rao outl...