Keep The Faith's Podcast

The modern resurrection of the ancient world, with its bad as well as its good aspects, ultimately ended, after World War II, with the option to accept either Marxism or Americanist Pluralism. Dr. John Rao develops his discussion at the 2000 Symposium on the dilemma that this creates for Catholics who must reject both. They are condemned as Fascists or madmen for doing so.

Dr. John Rao discusses the so-called New Theology developed the modernist, vitalist, and personalist ideas that came from earlier in the century. Its concern to "dive into" and help fulfill energetic modern movements, and tailor the liturgy to each of them, was used for both Marxist and Pluralist purposes. Its influence came to be felt especially strongly by the time of the Council and its afterma...

Dr. John Rao shows how all the influences that combined together to shape the Council and the postconciliar Church were used to promote Liberation and Third World Theology. Both these theologies claimed to emerge from the vital, energetic desires and cultures of persecuted and non-Christian peoples. 

What do Liberation and Third World Theology entail? Dr. John Rao explains that they demand the submission of the Catholic missionary and social activist to what he finds expressed in non-Christian and revolutionary circles. But there is a catch. The Liberation and Third World theologians want to find certain ideas that actually were born in the modernist West. If they do not find them, they must "...

The whole postwar atmosphere, New Theology, the Council, and the postconciliar environment all pushed the Vatican to try to be more friendly with the Soviet Union. It is this that created the strategy which, taking its name from the work of Chancellor Brandt in Germany, is called Ostpolitik. Dr. John Rao discusses its rationale and the results of its application. 

Marxism-Leninism seems to have collapsed of its own contradictions inside the Christian world. Pluralism, however, has not. This has pressed the Church not only to come to terms with everything from abortion to homosexuality, but even to praise them. Dr. John Rao describes how Catholics can escape from the seductive call to a pragmatic tolerance. 

Dr. Jeffrey Bond discusses the city and political authority. He describes community life as a means to attain virtue and as a path to God. Dr. Bond continues with particular emphasis upon the city and political authority. Here, he illustrates a point that unites Greeks and Christians from Solon the Lawgiver through St. Thomas: the necessity of community life for the perfection of the individual an...

Dr. Jeffrey Bond discusses the city and political authority. He describes community life as a means to attain virtue and as a path to God. Dr. Bond continues with particular emphasis upon the city and political authority. Here, he illustrates a point that unites Greeks and Christians from Solon the Lawgiver through St. Thomas: the necessity of community life for the perfection of the individual an...

Dr. David Allen White presents a sympathetic critique of the role of the theater in the life of the Christian. While clearly favorable to the union of stage and Church, Dr. White indicates that the problems of "masquerade" and evocation of the reality of wickedness can cause difficulties for the theatrical audience. This talk is part of a three-part series given at a New York City Conference entit...

Dr. John Rao speaks about Tridentine "Baroque" Catholicism. The Catholic Church was given a particular flavor by the Tridentine reforms and Catholic civilization took on the characteristics that we associate with "Baroque" culture. Dr. John Rao argues that Tridentine, Baroque Catholicism, with its "Jesuit" emphasis upon raising nature to the greater glory of God, was an organic development of the...

Dr. John Rao explains how Regalism claimed control over many aspects of religious life in the 16th and 17th centuries. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a further growth in the power of centralized monarchies claiming a legal right to guide all of society redolent of Roman imperial authority. Insistence upon this power by kings is what is referred to historically as "regalism." Dr....

Dr. John Rao discusses Regalism, the Universal Church and the missions. Dr. Rao now discusses the precise ways in which Regalist demands involved many clashes of the French, Portuguese and Hapsburg monarchies with the Church, as well as confrontations between the innumerable German principalities and both Catholic and Protestant communities. The Papacy especially found itself in a hard and basical...

Dr. John Rao discusses the Teaching Authority Problems West and East (1648-1799) Trent called for solid teaching. There remained, however, problems for identifying whence that solid teaching would come. Dr. John Rao discusses here problems that continued to divide the East from the West regarding the papal role in teaching. He also notes the potential conflicts regarding identification of the fina...

Dr. John Rao discusses theological methodology, including whether it was influenced by Descartes and Newton, in the 1600s and 1700s. Another source of debate regarding teaching in the 1600's and 1700's which Dr. Rao tackles involves the question of methodology. How do you develop your theology? Through "speculative" theology, like that of St. Thomas, "positive" theology, with its focus on Scriptur...

Dr. John Rao discusses grace, free will, the Missions, Jansenism and Protestant Naturalism. Dr. Rao shows how Jansenism and the concerns of "pietist" Protestants who de-emphasized the importance of doctrine for a "common sense" approach towards religion combined together to create an atmosphere that pushed the Catholic world towards an attack on the Tridentine vision. Taken from Regalism, Revoluti...

Dr. John Rao discusses the confrontations between the Jesuits and the Jansenists over the relationship between grace and free will, as well as the value of spiritual and mystical ascents towards God as opposed to "practical" and "natural" ways of pleasing Him. Dr. Rao demonstrates how the attack on the Church became more and more politicized and helped to cause a desacralization of the French Mona...

Dr. John Rao discusses Protestant Naturalism. The problem of the Missions also was central to the developments tackled by Dr. Rao in these three lectures. China loomed especially large in the Jesuit-Jansenist-Naturalist debate. Did China prove that a non-religious society could prosper? Did China have to be conquered by a grace that ignored its local customs? Were the Jesuits "back-door" naturalis...

Dr. John Rao describes the "back to nature" movement called the Enlightenment. The "back to nature" movement called the Enlightenment is the final element that Dr. John Rao brings in to explain the revolutionary changes of the era. He shows that Enlightenment insistence upon "trusting nature" was fueled by Christian disputes, although productive of massive new disagreements as well. In turning men...

Dr. John Rao describes the assault on the Jesuits by the regalists, Jansenists and Enlightenment supporters in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Jesuits were the most clear representative of Tridentine, Baroque Catholicism. Their enemies in the intellectual, spiritual, educational, missionary, and political world were legion. Dr. John Rao shows that a Grand Coalition of regalists, Jansenists, and E...

Dr. John Rao describes the assault on the Church Universal over politics, society, education, and in internal affairs in the 17th and 18th centuries. Dr. Rao now explains that the same Grand Coalition, either as a whole, or through the actions of some of its specific members, struck at the power of the Church over politics, society, education, as well as her own internal affairs throughout Christe...

Dr. David Allen White discusses the life and works of John Milton and the problem of the two traditions. Is Milton a Protestant writer? Can his form of Christianity ultimately feed any form of Christian vision, Catholic or Protestant? Dr. David Allen White discusses the life, thought, and problem of Milton in this aesthetic treatment of his works. Taken from Regalism, Revolution, the Reign of Terr...

Dr. David Allen White explores the work of Corneille, Racine and Moliere and the French Neoclassical Drama. Seventeenth Century French culture reflects two major spiritual and intellectual themes: those of the Catholic Reformation and those of Renaissance neoclassicism. Can the two be reconciled? Dr. David Allen White explores this question in the literary world through a critical examination of t...

Dr. David Allen White explores Mozart's Catholic character through one of his greatest operas, Don Giovanni. Everyone knows that Mozart was a genius who worked both for Catholics and secularists, and utilized Christian and Masonic themes simultaneously. Dr. David Allen White explores Mozart's Catholic character through one of his greatest operas, Don Giovanni. Taken from Regalism, Revolution, the...

Dr. William Marra presents a friendly phenomenologically-based view of Descartes, whose life and work he describes. Descartes' influence, in fighting a magical view of nature, in turning inward to reach certitude, and in appealing to mathematical methodology as a guide for philosophy is critiqued. Taken from Regalism, Revolution, the Reign of Terror and the Assault on Catholicism (1648-1799) - 199...

Dr. William Marra discusses Spinoza and the Nature of God. A number of Christian believers like Descartes were working in the seventeenth century to desacralize nature in order to free Creation from esoteric and magical influences.. Others were desacralizing nature to separate it from all connection with a supernatural God, and to turn nature itself into something eternal and divine. Dr. William M...