The Catholic Culture Podcast
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A weekly podcast hosted by musician and writer Thomas V. Mirus, exploring everything Catholic, with a special focus on arts and culture.
The Catholic Culture Podcast
2w ago
Today’s guest is a man with two names and two careers. For decades he has been a distinguished poet and translator under the name of A.M. Juster. This is an acronym for his Christian name, Michael J. Astrue, who for many years was a lawyer, biotech executive, and public servant, most notably serving as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration from 2007 to 2013. During this time, his political enemies tried to dig up dirt on him – but all they could find was that he wrote poetry on the side!
Juster has published multiple books of his original poems, most recently Wonder & Wra ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
1M ago
Gregory 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 purpo ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
1M ago
Erik Varden, bishop of Trondheim, Norway as well as Trappist monk, joins the podcast to discuss his new book Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses.
Topics discussed include:
Recovering the true meaning of the word “chastity”
Continence and chastity are not the same thing
What the Desert Fathers can teach us about chastity
Why we need to meditate on the original vocation of man before the Fall rather than limiting our options to what our sinful nature is capable of
Why having a sense of dignity in one’s masculinity or femininity helps us to be chaste
The importance of friendship between men a ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
1M ago
The renowned English theologian Fr. John Saward makes his podcast debut to discuss his new book on angels, the role of art and beauty in his theological work, and his turn away from the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar after years of studying and translating his works.
Fr. Saward’s books named in this episode:
World Invisible: The Catholic Doctrine of the Angels https://angelicopress.com/products/world-invisible-john-saward
The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty: Art, Sanctity and the Truth of Catholicism https://angelicopress.com/products/the-beauty-of-holiness-and-the-holiness-o ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
2M ago
Is Jesus Christ God? Is he a man? Is he both? Spoiler alert: the mainstream Church answered with the both/and, but the factions on the fringes tended to choose one or the other. For our first heresy, we take a look at the Ebionites, and their New Testament-era predecessors, the so-called Judaizers. These concluded that Jesus Christ was a mere human. A human who became a prophet perhaps, but just a human.
This is season 4, episode 2 of Way of the Fathers. Subscribe to the podcast here: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/category/way-fathers ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
2M ago
This episode collects highlights from episodes 74-76 of the Catholic Culture Podcast. Links to full episodes:
Ep. 74—What Is Classical Christian Education?—Andrew Kern https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-74-what-is-classical-christian-education-andrew-kern/
Ep. 75—Don’t Scapegoat the Nouvelle Théologie—Richard DeClue https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-75-dont-scapegoat-nouvelle-thologie-richard-declue/
Ep. 76—Playing Jesus on The Chosen—Jonathan Roumie https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-76-playing-jesus-on-chosen-jonathan-roumie/
SIGN UP for Catholic C ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
3M ago
A new collection of letters shows the tender side of St. Jerome, as he writes to console various friends on the death of their loved ones. Translator and editor David G. Bonagura, Jr., joins the podcast to discuss Jerome's Tears: Letters to Friends in Mourning.
Topics include:
Jerome's Christian twist on the "consolatory epistle" genre practiced by many great pagan writers before him
The network of holy friends and disciples (like St. Paula) to whom and about whom he writes in these letters
Jerome's tactics for helping someone move out of an excessively long mourning period
How the death ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
4M ago
Fr. Bradley Elliott, a professional drummer turned Dominican friar, joins the podcast to discuss his book, The Shape of the Artistic Mind: A Search for the Metaphysical Link Between Art and Morals in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Themes include:
Man’s capacity to participate in God’s creative activity and governance of the world
How human artistic activity not only imitates but enhance nature
The combination of Aristotelian and neo-Platonic streams in St. Thomas’s theory of art
How Aristotle redeemed the notion of nature from Plato, and Plotinus redeemed the notion of imitation from Plato
Co ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
4M ago
Daniel McInerny joins the podcast to discuss his novel, The Good Death of Kate Montclair, the modern cult of authenticity, the desire for control that tempts people to euthanasia, and what it truly means to accept your death.
Publisher’s description for the novel:
Kate Montclair is dying. She has arrived at late middle age loveless, childless, and having failed to achieve the career dreams of her youth. Now diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, she sees the next fourteen months of suffering as an intolerable prospect. Kate is desperate—not only for a miracle cure, but for some sense that h ..read more
The Catholic Culture Podcast
4M ago
6:51 Franciscan Eyes
14:33 Forbearance
15:52 The Mourners
20:19 Spiritual Combat
25:56 Passage
Compositions and piano by Thomas Mirus; recorded spring 2018, Brooklyn.
Listen to this music on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/CVqC2ZukI9o
Download these tracks as lossless .wav files here: https://www.catholicculture.org/multimedia/thomas_mirus_2018.zip
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SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters ..read more