The Catholic Culture Podcast

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, recently issued "A Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology". The document takes a strong unequivocal stance against transgender ideology, down to practical specifics like telling the faithful we must not use transgender names and pronouns. Beyond that, it excels in showing how the Church's whole anthropology and theology are at stake in th...

Writer Matthew Mehan returns to the show to discuss his new children's book co-authored with painter John Folley,  The Handsome Little Cygnet . This lovely tale about a family of swans in Central Park is a much simpler book than their previous outing, but introduces children to the idea of accepting one's God-given nature. That is no small matter in a world which tantalizes the young with offers o...

In this outtake from episode 113, Thomas asks writer and editor Joshua Hren whether the turn to realism in modern fiction, a historical anomaly, is also a problem from a religious and philosophical point of view. Episode 113, Can a Novelist "Create" a Saint? https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/113-can-novelist-create-saint-joshua-hren/ This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If...

In his new book How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic , fiction writer and editor Joshua Hren lays out an approach to Catholic literature that spans all the way from St. John Henry Newman called "a record of man in rebellion" to the other end of the continuum, which is a representation of the Beatific Vision. Topics discussed include: How important is beauty to fiction? Will beauty save the worl...

Thomas Mirus apologizes for and retracts some things he said in Episode 106 of the Catholic Culture Podcast, a discussion of the morality of COVID vaccines.  

"Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last?" So wonders Dr. Tom More, a descendant of the great English martyr, in the first sentence of Walker Percy's third novel, Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad C...

Today we discuss one of the greatest Arthurian tales, told by one of the most virtuosic poets in the history of English, an anonymous priest of the 14th century.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells us a lot about courtesy, original sin, and grace, all bound up in an enormously entertaining story about a giant, decapitation-surviving green knight. Poet and critic Anthony Esolen joins the show to...

This episode contains clips of highlights from episodes 38-41 and 44 of the Catholic Culture Podcast. 38 - Garrigou-Lagrange, The Sacred Monster of Thomism - Matthew Minerd https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-38-sacred-monster-matthew-k-minerd/ 39 - Composing Liturgical Music That's Noble, Accessible...and Sacred - Paul Jernberg https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-39-...

In this interview originally from Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast, Thomas Mirus and James Majewski interview Sixtine Leon-Dufour, writer of the new Lourdes documentary, one of the best religious films in recent years. She discusses: -Her background caring for the sick at Lourdes -How she convinced the Lourdes authorities to give secular filmmakers unprecedented shooting access to this holy pla...

Noelle Mering joins the show to discuss her new book  Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology . Topics discussed include: The core principles of woke ideology: group over person, will over reason, power over authority Proof that ideology is what really matters to the woke, more than membership in a victim group   How Frankfurt School thinkers, who combined neo-Mar...

Claire Kretzschmar, a dancer and soloist with the New York City Ballet, joins the show to discuss her path to becoming a professional dancer, the challenges and joys of being a Catholic in the ballet world, and the spiritual value of dance. She also discusses a beautiful dance film which she choreographed for the NYC Ballet this year, and the Catholic arts community she founded in New York City, o...

Thomas is joined by Catholic filmmaker Nathan Douglas to discuss Walker Percy's first novel, The Moviegoer . They examine the malaise-ridden protagonist Binx Bolling's "search" for meaning, which he ultimately finds through responsibility: not the responsibility urged by respectable "values", but that urged by love. They also look at how Binx searches for a deeper connection with reality through h...

This episode features clips from episodes 34-37 of the Catholic Culture Podcast, including some personal stories from Thomas. Links The Memoirs of St. Peter w/ Michael Pakaluk https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-34-memoirs-st-peter-michael-pakaluk/ Moral Blindness and Abortion w/ Abby Johnson https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-35-moral-blindness-and-abortion-abby-joh...

This is a discussion of an interesting little book from 1967 that has re-entered the discourse, Prayer as a Political Problem by Jean Danielou, SJ, recently reprinted by Cluny Media. In this book which seems confoundingly ahead of its time, before its time, and (irksomely) of its time, Danielou insists that prayer forms a constitutive part of the temporal common good. Governments, therefore, have...

Michael Pakaluk and Jay Richards join host Thomas V. Mirus for a discussion of the moral issues involved with the production and testing of vaccines using illicitly-obtained fetal cell lines, and the reasons for freedom of conscience for those who do not wish to take them. Links Read a full transcript of this discussion: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=12522 Thomas...

Catholic Culture's own Phil Lawler has written a new book addressing what he sees as flaws in the response of Catholic leaders and laity to the pandemic and advocating a different approach - Contagious Faith: Why the Church Must Spread Hope, Not Fear, in a Pandemic. Topics covered in this interview include: How the Church's behavior in this pandemic differs from the oft-cited response of St. Charl...

Michael Pakaluk joins the show to discuss his new translation and commentary on St. John's gospel, making the case that this loftiest of gospels echoes the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the evangelist's adopted mother) in subtle but profound ways. Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/G0PDD5Qyfh0 Links Mary's Voice in the Gospel According to John https://www.regnery.com/9781684511198/m...

This episode features highlight clips from episodes 26-30 of the Catholic Culture Podcast. Links Online Great Books opens a new enrollment period approximately once a month. Get in there using discount code "catholicculture" for 25% off your first three months! Or use this referral link: https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/ Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth exhibition book https://www....

Did you know there's a hotel in NYC named after Pope Leo XIII? The Leo House was founded in the 1880s as a boarding house for German Catholic immigrants, at the behest of the Holy Father, and is still operating today as a Catholic hotel providing charitable hospitality at a discount. In this episode you'll learn from the Leo House's chairman and president, Michael Coneys, about the hotel's fascina...

Poet-philosopher James Matthew Wilson returns to the show to read poems from his new collection, The Strangeness of the Good , including his "Quarantine Notebook" series, and to discuss the decay and renewal of Catholic intellectual life. Topics discussed include: The present narrowing of Catholic intellectual life in conservative/traditional circles How do you become cultured, in an authentic and...

J.R.R. Tolkien is commonly perceived as a reactionary who totally rejected the modern world, and whose literary influences began and ended with the Middle Ages. Holly Ordway's new book,  Tolkien's Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages,  debunks that view of Tolkien's life and work. Ordway begins with an invaluable critique of the sources of this misconception, especially the official...

We celebrate our 100th episode with the return of a favorite Catholic Culture Podcast guest, former Pennsylvania Poet Laureate Samuel Hazo. At 92, Sam is still writing books, most recently a new collection of poems and a novel, published by Wiseblood Books. In this episode Sam reads and discusses poems from his new collection, The Next Time We Saw Paris,  a recurring theme of which is how each exp...

To celebrate the approach of Episode 100 of the Catholic Culture Podcast, here is the interview that started it all. Originally published on August 4, 2017, this interview turned out so well that we decided to launch a whole series of interviews on Catholic arts and culture. The podcast launched several months later, on May 1, 2018. Catholic composer and pianist Mark Christopher Brandt joined Thom...

This Ash Wednesday, following a note from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, many American parishes did not distribute ashes in the customary way of smudging a cross on the forehead and saying one of two possible formulas to each recipient. Instead, as an ostensible anti-COVID precaution, they sprinkled ashes on the top of the head and said the formula once to the whole congre...

Famous for his chanted performances of Beowulf in the original Old English, Benjamin Bagby is the closest thing you'll find today to an Anglo-Saxon bard. Bagby joins the show to describe how he reconstructed Beowulf as a sung tale, giving a demonstration of his Anglo-Saxon harp which is modeled on harps found in burial sites from over a millennium ago. He also discusses the recordings of the compl...