Keep The Faith's Podcast

Dr. David Allen White continues the discussion of the life and work of William Shakespeare. Working with reference to various plays and poems, Dr. David Allen White evokes here the Catholic themes in Shakespeare, involving everything from an emphasis on the need for Good Works and Penance to an awareness of the reality of Purgatory. Shakespeare's artistic mastery and his Catholic spirit are shown...

Dr. David Allen White deals with one of the greatest Spanish writers of the era, Cervantes, and the genius of his major work, Don Quixote. Once again, the Catholic spirit of the work is evoked, and its relation with the late medieval world, its Renaissance critique, and the issues of the Catholic Reformation era noted. Taken from: Protestant Rebellion and Catholic Reform (1517-1648) - 1997 Von Hil...

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the Catholic Doctrine on the Holy Eucharist. Mr. Davies opens his treatment of heresy in the late Middle Ages by discussing the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. This, of course, had been tied by the 1200's with expressions that explained that doctrine with language taken from Aristotle. Taken from: Christianity in the Late Middle Ages-Early Renaissance - 1996 Von Hi...

Mr. Michael Davies describes John Wycliff and the first Protestants, the Lollards. John Wycliffe was, after the Catharists, perhaps the most clear cut heretic of the era. His whole approach to Faith and Reason led him to conclusions of the most blasphemous sort, attacking the very holiness of Christ as well as any proper understanding of the Eucharist. The heretical movement promoted by the Lollar...

Mr. Michael Davies provides a critique of the Dominican reformer, Girolamo Savonarola. Heresy found fertile soil wherever the Church was corrupt. This was due to the fact that a corrupt Church does not do its duty in fighting heresy, while its abuses discredit it in the eyes of the average man. Savonarola, the great Dominican reformer, was disgusted by the corruption of his own day, not just withi...

Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand discusses Plato's Philosophy of Education. The Renaissance era was that of the rediscovery of Plato. Much of Plato's work in dialogues like the "Republic" and in the "Laws" concerns education. Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand discusses his brilliance in this field, and the way in which the kind of serious education he describes must avoid obsession with immediate success and be ro...

Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand presents St. Augustine and man's true relationship to the created world. St. Augustine adds to and transforms Plato's understanding of God, nature, and man through his acceptance of the Catholic Faith. In doing so, Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand shows that he is able to place every aspect of life into the proper hierarchy of values and thereby understand man's proper relationshi...

Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand discusses the question, "What Is Beauty?" The only way that man can really understand the essence of the kind of beauty the Renaissance claimed to love is by understanding Truth and the proper hierarchy of values that flows from it. Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand demonstrates how this is immeasurably aided by the hunt for ever more divine light of the kind that Plato and Augusti...

Dr. William Marra discusses Divine Providence in the life of St. Augustine, including the roles of Monica and Ambrose. Plato talks of life involving divine surprises. Christianity speaks of Providence playing a central role in human existence. Dr. William Marra explores this theme by talking of the providential role of Monica and Ambrose in Augustine's conversion. Taken from: Early Christianity an...

Dr. William Marra explores the metaphysics in Plato and Aristotle. Christian theology in ancient and early medieval times was built more along Platonic lines. From the High Middle Ages onwards, Aristotle's influence became more pronounced. What are the metaphysical concepts of these two greatest of ancient philosophers? What differences would emerge from Christian reliance of one as opposed to the...

Dr. William Marra discusses the problem of evil. Gnostic influences, so strong at the time of the late Empire, led many men to presume that the evils of nature indicate its creation by an evil God or demigod. Augustine, the greatest of the Church Fathers, found the problem of evil to be one of the stumbling blocks to his conversion. Dr. William Marra discusses here the great "mystery of iniquity",...

Mr. Michael Davies begins with a treatment of the solid but parochially-minded Church in England before the Reformation. He then shows how Henry VIII, on personal and political grounds, aided by a small group of heretics and many not terribly spiritually-minded administrative collaborators, brought about a revolution in religion that Englishmen on their own would never have encouraged. All history...

Mr. Michael Davies speaks about the Bishop and martyr, St. John Fisher. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and the heroic defender of the Papacy under King Henry VIII, was the only bishop who remained united to Rome after the Anglican schism. He was slaughtered by Henry VIII for his fidelity and remains a witness to Romanism for England. He was the greatest and most saintly representative of the Ch...

Mr. Michael Davies speaks about the Western Rising of 1549. Mr. Davies gives a history of the Reformation in England under Queen Elizabeth and shows that the average Englishmen, while not an Ultramontanist, was a Catholic, and was especially upset when he sensed real or possible attacks on the Mass. The spirit of the England that had been shaped by the Benedictine and Irish monks was revealed in t...

Mr. Michael Davies speaks about how England lost the Faith under Elizabeth I. The Tudor Queen Mary restored Catholicism after the Calvinizing period under Edward. She did not live long enough to complete her work. No one really knew what her half-sister Elizabeth believed when she became monarch. It was she, however, Mr. Michael Davies explains, who was really to turn England Protestant. She did s...

Dr. David Allen White reads the moving eulogy delivered by St. John Fisher for the pious grandmother of Henry VIII. Here one gets a good sense of the learning and rhetorical genius of Fisher and the deep piety of late medieval Catholic England. Taken from: Protestant Rebellion and Catholic Reform (1517-1648) - 1997 Von Hildebrand Institute

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the life and work of Fr. Adrian Fortescue. The brilliant Fr. Adrian Fortescue contributed a great deal to 20th Century Catholic understanding of the liturgy. Mr. Michael Davies discusses his life and works introducing his series on the basic or "parent" rites of the Church. Taken from: The Church in the Early Middle Ages - 1994 Von Hildebrand Institute

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the Mass in the first three centuries. There are intervening periods of "light" and "darkness" regarding our knowledge of the development of the liturgy of the Mass in the first three hundred years of Church History. Mr. Michael Davies speaks here of what we know, do not know, and merely speculate about at the dawn of liturgical growth. Taken from: The Church in the Ea...

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the history of the Parent Rites, specifically the Antiochian Rite of the Mass. Syria, with the great metropolis of Antioch, from which emerged men like St. John Chrysostom, was one of the great early centers of Christianity. Mr. Michael Davies treats here of the liturgy coming from its midst. Taken from: The Church in the Early Middle Ages - 1994 Von Hildebrand Institu...

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the Alexandrian and Gallican rites. Two distinct centers of liturgical importance are examined in this lecture by Mr. Michael Davies: those of Alexandria in Egypt, with its "multicultural" Greek and Coptic Church, and of Merovingian/Carolingian Gaul, the "cauldron" of western medieval culture. Taken from: The Church in the Early Middle Ages - 1994 Von Hildebrand Instit...

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the history of the Parent Rites, specifically the Roman Rite of the Mass. Sources for the history of the Roman Rite of Mass are both complex and numerous. Mr. Michael Davies, a great expert on that Rite and modern distortions regarding its development, treats here of the reality of its birth and maturation. Taken from: The Church in the Early Middle Ages - 1994 Von Hil...

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the traditionalist character of the Tridentine reform, the liturgical movement, and modern developments and distortions of the Roman rite. Taken from: The Church in the Early Middle Ages - 1994 VonHildebrand Institute

Dr. William Marra speaks about God as known by Faith and Reason. The High Middle Ages provided the background for a variety of attempts to prove the existence of God through Reason and relate those proofs to the Faith. This was fueled, to begin with, by medieval familiarity with logic, but it was further stimulated by the rediscovery of the works of Aristotle. Dr. William Marra examines and critiq...

Dr. William Marra discusses St. Anselm's proof for the existence of God. Perhaps the greatest early scholastic mind using logic to prove the existence of God was St. Anselm of Canterbury, justly famous for his Ontological Argument. Dr. William Marra discusses the merits of this argument, objections to it, and its future historical fate. Taken from: Christianity in the High Middle Ages - 1995 Von H...

Dr. William Marra critiques the proofs of St. Thomas Aquinas. The most famous student of Aristotle in the medieval West was St. Thomas. He had to demonstrate if and how Aristotle could be used on behalf of the Faith, and whether this use was in union with or contrary to the comments on the Greek philosopher's work by Arabs like Averroes. Dr. William Marra contrasts St. Thomas's proofs for the exis...