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Veteran Catholic journalist Phil Lawler recently retired as the editor of Catholic World News at CatholicCulture.org. Phil was the first lay editor of Boston's archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, but negative experiences trying to do real journalism while financially dependent on the Church hierarchy prompted him to move on to a career in independent Catholic journalism, with stints as editor of Crisis, Catholic World Report, and finally founding Catholic World News, which in 1995 was the first English-language Catholic news service operating on the internet. In the early 2000s, CWN merged with Catholic Culture. Phil joins the podcast to look back on his journalistic career, the problems with Church-run news agencies, the value of financially independent Catholic journalism, the current state of Catholic media, and his reporting on the clerical abuse crisis for years before most people found out about it in 2002. Links Phil Lawler's Substack https://pflawler.substack.com/   DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio  SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

Ida Friederieke Görres is little-known to English-speaking Catholics (except perhaps for her biography of St. Therese of Lisieux), but she was a major voice of the orthodox Catholic laity in mid-20th-century Germany, with Joseph Ratzinger giving her eulogy. Jennifer Bryson has translated Görres's 1970 essay collection, Bread Grows in Winter, which is a response to the crisis in the Church immediately following Vatican II. Görres's beautiful and profound writing gives a sense of what it was like to live in those troubling times, and how we (perhaps especially the laity) should respond to the troubles of our own times. Links "Trusting the Church" on Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ida-friederike-grres-trusting-church/  Ida Friederieke Görres, Bread Grows in Winter, trans. Jennifer S. Bryson https://ignatius.com/bread-grows-in-winter-bgwp/  Görres, The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Therese of Lisieux https://ignatius.com/the-hidden-face-hfsstp/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

Thomas Mirus discusses Leo XIII's 1880 encyclical Arcanum, on Christian marriage. This was "the first formal and synoptic teaching on marriage since the Council of Trent" – a gap of four centuries. Arcanum is focused on what the Church has done to uplift and protect marriage throughout history. Leo argues at length that the state has no right to usurp the Church's governance of marriage. LINKS  Thomas's article on Arcanum https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/leo-xiii-on-what-marriage-owes-to-church/ Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_10021880_arcanum.html  Audiobook of Pius XI's Casti Connubii https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/pope-pius-xi-casti-connubii-on-christian-marriage-full/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

For the past century or more, the left has put a high value on moral provocation, deliberately transgressing what they see as society's hypocritical or puritanical moral norms, whether in religion, sexuality, or public decorum in general. Now the right, too, is getting in on the fun, performatively violating the speech norms held sacred by liberals - which is sometimes good, but sometimes itself violates traditional morality, not just leftist ideology. Matthew Schmitz joins the podcast to discuss his First Things article "Taming the Tongue", about the psychology of edginess, the problem with widespread profanity, and the need for restraint in speech. Links "Taming the Tongue" https://firstthings.com/taming-the-tongue/ Against the Grain podcast https://www.patreon.com/againstthepod Compact Magazine https://www.compactmag.com/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

To Heaven's Rim is a new anthology of great Christian poetry translated from non-English languages, from the first 18 centuries of the Faith. Editor Burl Horniachek joins to discuss and read samples from poets from a variety of traditions, like St. Jacob of Serug (Syriac), St. Romanus the Melodist (Greek), an anonymous medieval Irish monk, the criminal Francois Villon (French), Michelangelo's friend Vittoria Colonna (Italian), and the Chinese Jesuit/painter/poet Wu Li. To Heaven's Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry: Beginnings to 1800, in English Translation https://www.amazon.com/Heavens-Rim-Christian-Beginnings-Translation/dp/1666716820 DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

Paul Shrimpton assisted in the process of making St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church. He joins the podcast to discuss his involvement in the process, and his new book from Word on Fire Academic, "The Most Dangerous Man in England": Newman and the Laity. During his lifetime, Newman was a controversial figure within the Catholic Church in large part due to his views on the laity and his advocacy for their role in running Catholic schools. Shrimpton's book gives us a picture of Newman's view of the laity not only through his ideas, but through his practical endeavors in the world of education, his pastoral activity, and his deep and abiding friendships with many laypeople. "The Most Dangerous Man in England": Newman and the Laity https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/the-most-dangerous-man-in-england SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters  DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Should mothers work outside the home? If you want an answer more solid than groundless internet opinion or conveniently vague appeals to personal discernment, this is the podcast for you. Margaret McCarthy joins the Catholic Culture Podcast to discuss her essay on why anti-sex-discrimination law's treatment of the sexes as abstract interchangeable units hurts real women, real men, and real children (and real workplaces!). Then we dive into the neglected teachings of John Paul II and earlier popes on the objectively different relationships that men and women have to the home and to work outside the home. Margaret Harper McCarthy is associate professor of theological anthropology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage & Family, at the Catholic University of America. She is the editor of Humanum: Issues in Family, Culture, and Science, serves on the editorial board of the English edition of Communio: International Catholic Review, is a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology, and is a consultant to the USCCB's Committee on Doctrine. 00:00 Introduction 2:30 Anti-discrimination law discriminates against real women, children, men, and workplaces 34:30 Sex difference: division of labor and customs 1:03:43 Catholic teaching on working mothers 1:33:08 Contraception and public life vs. the real feminine genius Links  Margaret H. McCarthy, "The Case for (Just) Sex Discrimination" https://newpolity.com/blog/sex-discrimination Thomas's article citing John Paul II and earlier popes on working mothers https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/why-young-catholics-are-rejecting-feminism-pt-2/ Humanum Review https://humanumreview.com/ Some other articles mentioned: Helen Andrews, "Lean Out" https://americanmind.org/features/rule-not-by-lies/lean-out/ Maria Baer, "Maybe Women Can Have It All—But Can Their Kids?" https://ifstudies.org/blog/maybe-women-can-have-it-all-but-can-their-kids  Matthew Mehan, "Wanted: Men of Purpose" https://americanmind.org/features/restoring-single-sex-education-at-vmi-and-beyond/wanted-men-of-purpose/  Magisterial texts mentioned: Rerum Novarum, Divini Illius Magistri, Quadragesimo Anno, Laborem Exercens, Familiaris Consortio Pope Pius XII's addresses to married couples, Dear Newlyweds https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=12716 Ratzinger/CDF, "On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World" https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040731_collaboration_en.html DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio  SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

An episode from Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast, too good not to share for Catholic Culture Podcast listeners! Anthony D'Ambrosio directed, wrote, and produced the outstanding new film Triumph of the Heart about St. Maximilian Kolbe. In this inspiring interview, he discusses the difficult path he and his team charted to produce this independent film with a low budget, high artistic standards, and deep Catholic spirituality. Film is an expensive medium. Since a high budget requires one to calculate mainstream appeal in order to make one's money back, a low budget can leave more room for artistic and spiritual integrity. Though the production faced many hardships, it was buoyed up by the hope that the project could break a new path for other Catholic filmmakers to follow. Triumph of the Heart is available to screen at your parish, and will start streaming on its official website November 1. Links Show Triumph of the Heart at your parish https://www.triumphoftheheart.com/ Our review of Triumph of the Heart https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/triumph-heart-is-film-worthy-its-subject-st-maximilian-kolbe/ SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters  DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com

Highlight clips from two episodes of the Catholic Culture Podcast and one episode of Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast – links to full episodes below. 83 The American Founding's Medieval Roots – Robert Reilly https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-83-american-foundings-medieval-roots-robert-reilly/ 85 Three-Fifths of Our Band Got Ordained - Luxury https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/85-three-fifths-our-band-got-ordained-luxury/ Are Heist Films Moral? The Lavender Hill Mob https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/lavender-hill-mob-1951/ SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/ newsletters DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Dappled Things: The Quarterly of Ideas, Art, and Faith is celebrating its 20th anniversary. In its 20 years it has contributed to the beginning of a Catholic literary revival, nurturing the talents of many Catholic writers and visual artists. In recent years especially, many exciting new initiatives, presses, and magazines have branched off from Dappled Things. Bernardo Aparicio Garcia (founder and publisher) and Rhonda Ortiz (editor-in-chief) join the podcast to discuss Dappled Things's mission and various topics to do with Catholic fiction. Links Dappled Things https://www.dappledthings.org/ See the winners of the Sacred Heart Art Competition https://www.dappledthings.org/deep-down-things/winners-of-the-sacred-heart-art-competition "The Off Season" by Ennis James Sheehan https://www.dappledthings.org/fiction/the-off-season Rhonda Ortiz https://rhondaortiz.com/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

One of the most important encyclicals we need to rediscover is Pope Leo XIII's Libertas (1888), on the true nature of human liberty. This encyclical explains what true liberty consists of, followed by a lengthy exposition of the Church's condemnation of liberalism, in the Enlightenment/classical sense rather than today's narrower use of the word. Most people who call themselves conservative now would, in certain ways, fall into the category of liberalism as defined by Leo.  Prophetically warning of the evil consequences of political liberalism, Leo also takes aim at various false liberties in which modern people take such pride: freedom of speech, writing, thought, and worship. In each of these instances, liberals fail to recognize that freedom is not the right to do and say what one wants, but to do justice and to speak truth. As starting as Leo's teaching may be to modern Catholics, his fundamental principle is the one that Pope St. John Paul II enunciated when he said that "freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."  Pope Leo XIII: "Man, by a necessity of his nature, is wholly subject to the most faithful and ever-enduring power of God; and that, as a consequence, any liberty, except that which consists in submission to God and in subjection to His will, is unintelligible. To deny the existence of this authority in God, or to refuse to submit to it, means to act, not as a free man, but as one who treasonably abuses his liberty; and in such a disposition of mind the chief and deadly vice of liberalism essentially consists. Thomas's article on Libertas: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/leo-xiiis-condemnation-liberalism/ Pope Leo XIII, Libertas https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4885  DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio  SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

A number of doctrinal ruptures occurred in Catholic life after Vatican II – not in the sense that the Church's magisterium contradicted its previous teachings, but that the vast majority of Catholics, even conservative ones, tend to get these topics wrong. One of the worst examples is how the Church's traditional teaching on the Jewish people has been forgotten, with many people under the false impression that Vatican II changed Catholic teaching. Gideon Lazar, theologian and Jewish convert to Catholicism, joins the podcast to discuss some widely misunderstood and controversial points about the relationship between the Church and the Jews. (The views Gideon expresses in this interview are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the St. Basil Institute, where he is institute coordinator.) Links Part 1 of Thomas's four-part essay, "The Church and the Jews: Beyond the Platitudes" https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/church-and-jews-1-beyond-platitudes/ Gideon Lazar on Substack (a good article to start with) https://gideonlazar.substack.com/p/rex-iudaeorum-st-john-the-evangelist Gideon on X https://x.com/ByzCat DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

Elisabeth Nguyen Thi Thu Hong joins the podcast to tell the inspiring story of her older brother, Venerable Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, the heroic Vietnamese Cardinal who was imprisoned by the Communists for 13 years, 8 of those in solitary confinement. Thuan was descended from a line of Vietnamese martyrs, and his uncle was the devout Catholic President and Prime Minister of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, who himself was something of a martyr. Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan: Man of Joy and Hope https://ignatius.com/cardinal-nguyen-van-thuan-cfntp/ DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters

My other interview with Jane: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/147-world-is-falling-away-jane-greer/  

Get free PDF of New Questions, Old Answers: Catholic Morals and Natural Family Planning https://profide.io/nfp/ Article on the marital debt https://christianrenaissancemovement.com/2023/02/23/thoughts-on-the-marital-debt/ The way Natural Family Planning is commonly taught does not adequately reflect the Church's perennial teachings on the purpose of marital relations, on sexual asceticism, and the good of continence. To be sure, critics of NFP are wrong when they say it is the same as contraception. The Church has deemed it legitimate to use under certain circumstances. Yet its typical presentation in marriage prep programs and by popular Catholic speakers has ended up, in practice, encouraging couples toward habitual venial sin. Discussions of NFP often end up in confusion because they fail to distinguish two separate moral issues: that of avoiding marital relations during fertile periods, and that of engaging in them specifically during infertile periods. As to the first issue, the Church has said we need sufficient reason to deliberately avoid procreating for a long period of time. But the second issue involves a moral doctrine that is virtually never heard of today: that there are particular ends which must be intended in any act of marital relations, and in particular, that it is a venial sin for married couples to have relations purely for pleasure (solam voluptatem, in Pope Innocent XI's phrase). The latter is the teaching of all Fathers and Doctors of the Church without exception. Given this moral doctrine, and given the Church's (and St. Paul's) traditional encouragement of asceticism within marriage, the question arises: may married couples engage in recreational relations specifically while trying to avoid conception? Answering this question involves questions about the intrinsic ends of sexual intercourse, questions about what "purely for pleasure" even means, etc. The stakes of the question are low in the sense that this would generally be a matter of venial sin, but  high in the sense that it bears on our understanding of the very purpose of marriage and sex, and because habitual, deliberate venial sin is incompatible with a marriage's growth in holiness. Moral theologian Eamonn Clark joins the podcast to discuss his groundbreaking book (the first on this topic since the 1940s), New Questions, Old Answers: Catholic Morals and Natural Family Planning. His conclusions occupy a middle ground between the extremely strict position of some great Catholic authorities of the past, and the laxity and sensualism presented by some well-regarded and well-meaning popular speakers today. This discussion will be spiritually and perhaps emotionally challenging to many listeners, but I urge you to listen with an open heart, because even if you end up disagreeing with some of the specific conclusions, you will come away better informed about Church teaching, and equipped to consider for yourself how you can seek greater holiness in marriage. In particular, I highly recommend Eamonn's book to anyone who is involved in running marriage preparation programs. Eamonn Clark is a licensed moral theologian of the Catholic Church – he has an STB and STL from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, where he is currently a lay doctoral student researching the social teaching of Pope Pius XI. DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters