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Michael Pakaluk is a father of 15 (not a typo—you can read the fascinating backstory in the memoir The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God about his late wife Ruth, who may one day be raised to the altars, but that’s another story). I mention that he’s the father of a sprawling passel of children because it is germane to this interview and to the essay he wrote in a recent edition of First Things magazine that got my attention.

Pakaluk connects to dots that don’t seem at first to have much in common: the change of phrasing in the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the death penalty and the passive or abhorrent handling of the priestly abuse scandal.

The basic connection is an inability to exercise fatherly authority when it come to imposing punishments that involve separation, vengeance, and isolation. All of which distinguish true justice from what he calls “regulatory compliance.”

Bad fatherhood leads to weak and passive men, which in turn leads to doctrinal innovations and policies that are weak and passive, and hence dangerous for the Church, not to mention the victims of homosexual predators and other criminally behaving priests and bishops. Both deficiencies have made it harder for non-Catholics to accept the truth claims of the Church, and harder for Catholics to continue to trust their leaders.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why vengeance is a virtue not a vice
• How vengeance is not opposed to Christian meekness
• How passivity in the face of evil is not a masculine trait and how this has wreaked havoc in the Church
• The reason why saying “punishment is never retributive, but only deterrent” is a grave error
• How the crisis of fatherhood in general helps explain the crisis among men who are called Father by their flock
• Why a new emphasis on chastity in preaching and teaching needs to take root
• How the weak passivity has influenced and been influenced by the theory of Hans Urs Von Balthasar of a possibly-empty hell

Resources recommended in this episode:

• The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God: The Story of Ruth Pakaluk - Convert, Mother & Pro-life Activist ed by Michael Pakaluk and Ruth Pakaluk
• Essay “Capital Punishment and the Priestly Abuse Crisis” by Michael Pakaluk, in First Things, August 22, 2018
• By Man Shall His Blood be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment by Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette

Question of the week

How has feminist ideology contributed to the crisis of masculinity in the Church and in the culture?

Join the conversation by leaving a comment below.

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This special episode is made from three sit-down interviews I did at the recent 50th Anniversary of Humanae Vitae conference in Ontario, CA. I spoke with three experts in diverse fields, all with one thing in common: the ability to clearly describe why contraception is wrong and how to communicate that truth to others.

Dr. Christopher Kaczor, PhD, is professor of philosophy at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles. He spoke to me about the child as good—a great good. Seems odd to have to say that out loud, but this is where we’re at as a society and a Church. Kaczor delivered on the moral philosophy aspect of Humanae Vitae.

Dr. George Delgado, MD, is medical director of Culture of Life Family Health Care in San Diego. He is also a Natural Family Planning Medical Consultant trained in NaProTECHNOLOGY and is board certified in family medicine as well as hospice and palliative medicine. Dr. Delgado also developed the abortion pill reversal medication. I’ve interviewed him many times on Catholic Answers Live. Our interview focused on the difference NFP makes in marriage.

Father Paul Check, former executive director of Courage International and now rector of St. John Fisher Seminary in Bridgeport, CT, spoke to me about a little-made connection: that between dissent from HV and the rise of the homosexualist movement. Where else are you going to hear this content?

In this episode you will learn:

• A simple way to explain why kids are the fruit and crown of marriage, which is true even if some couples are infertile
• How moral philosophy helps explain why contraception is wrong
• The difference between contraception and NFP (natural family planning)
• A family doctor’s perspective on the emotional and spiritual health benefits of NFP
• How the rejection of the Church’s teaching on contraception led to societal acceptance of homosexuality
• Why straight couples who contracept have no logical basis to reject “gay” “marriage”

Resources recommended in this episode:

• Life Issues, Medical Choices: Questions and Answers for Catholics by Christopher Kazcor and Janet Smith
• A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience by Dr. Christopher Kazcor
• Desire of the Everlasting Hills documentary movie (free to watch)

Question of the week

How can I grow in my understanding of the teaching on birth control and better share it with others?

Support this podcast here: www.patrickcoffin.media/donate.

Comment below or on our Facebook page

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Sign up to the waiting list for our upcoming premium site Coffin Nation. You'll be the first to be notified!

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This special episode is made from three sit-down interviews I did at the recent 50th Anniversary of Humanae Vitae conference in Ontario, CA. I spoke with three experts in diverse fields, all with one thing in common: the ability to clearly describe why contraception is wrong and how to communicate that truth to others.

Dr. Christopher Kaczor, PhD, is professor of philosophy at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles. He spoke to me about the child as good—a great good. Seems odd to have to say that out loud, but this is where we’re at as a society and a Church. Kaczor delivered on the moral philosophy aspect of Humanae Vitae.

Dr. George Delgado, MD, is medical director of Culture of Life Family Health Care in San Diego. He is also a Natural Family Planning Medical Consultant trained in NaProTECHNOLOGY and is board certified in family medicine as well as hospice and palliative medicine. Dr. Delgado also developed the abortion pill reversal medication. I’ve interviewed him many times on Catholic Answers Live. Our interview focused on the difference NFP makes in marriage.

Father Paul Check, former executive director of Courage International and now rector of St. John Fisher Seminary in Bridgeport, CT, spoke to me about a little-made connection: that between dissent from HV and the rise of the homosexualist movement. Where else are you going to hear this content?

In this episode you will learn:

• A simple way to explain why kids are the fruit and crown of marriage, which is true even if some couples are infertile
• How moral philosophy helps explain why contraception is wrong
• The difference between contraception and NFP (natural family planning)
• A family doctor’s perspective on the emotional and spiritual health benefits of NFP
• How the rejection of the Church’s teaching on contraception led to societal acceptance of homosexuality
• Why straight couples who contracept have no logical basis to reject “gay” “marriage”

Resources recommended in this episode:

• Life Issues, Medical Choices: Questions and Answers for Catholics by Christopher Kazcor and Janet Smith
• A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience by Dr. Christopher Kazcor
• Desire of the Everlasting Hills documentary movie (free to watch)

Question of the week

How can I grow in my understanding of the teaching on birth control and better share it with others?

Support this podcast: www.patrickcoffin.media/donate

"Like" us on Facebook HERE

Sign up to the waiting list for our upcoming premium site Coffin Nation. You'll be the first to be notified!

Tweet to Patrick HERE

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The Grand Jury Report, released on August 14, destroyed any residual belief that the “long Lent of 2002” was somehow “a thing of the past.” It is devastating, and essentially concludes that the Catholic Church is a criminal syndicate that exists to protect the predators who lead it. This on the heels of the Theodore “Uncle Ted” McCarrick scandal, and the Chilean bishop scandal (badly botched by Pope Francis), the collosal problem of homosexual corruption in Nicaragua under Cardinal Maradiaga, and sundry financial malfeasance.

Catholics everywhere are disgusted, demoralized, and prone to feelings of despair.

Enter Dr. Ralph Martin with a prescription of hope. He wrote a perceptive and, I believe, prophetic, Letter to fellow troubled Catholics in the newsletter put out by Renewal Ministries, of which he is the president. What is needed—badly—is a sense of perspective and hope. Not “optimism,” not “moving forward,” and certainly not “lamenting the tragedy.”

It’s not a tragedy. It’s a series of sexual crimes and sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. Where is the Lord Jesus in all this? Ralph Martin, seminary professor, writer, and TV/Radio host, and longtime renewal leader, cuts to the quick.

In this episode you will learn:

• How to frame the scandal in its historical context
• What the scandal is really about (hint: it’s not “pedophile priests”)
• The need to double-down on prayer and fasting for the Church
• Why we need to stop “protecting the Church’s image”
• Why this crisis resembles the way God punished faithless Israel
• The main reason for hope as we survey the wreckage

Resources recommended in this episode:

Dear Troubled Catholics letter from Ralph Martin

The Fulfillment of All Desire by Ralph Martin

Crisis of Truth: The Attack on Faith, Morality and Mission in the Catholic Church by Ralph Martin

Question of the week

Has this series of scandals led you to deepen your relationship with Christ? If not, why not?

Comment below or on our Facebook page

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Don’t forget to Subscribe to the show in YouTube, as well as the full length podcast available in iTunes and other podcast directories, while you are there, please leave an honest review.

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Sign up to the waiting list for our upcoming premium site Coffin Nation. You'll be the first to be notified!

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Don’t forget to Subscribe to the show in YouTube, as well as the full length podcast available in iTunes and other podcast directories, while you are there, please leave an honest review.

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Ever wonder about the origins of scary movies and disturbing novels? E. Michael Jones, founder and editor of Culture Wars www.culturewars.com magazine and the author of over a dozen books on Catholic faith and culture, locates the horror genre in the chaotic wake of the Enlightenment.

The first horror novel is considered to be Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus. Most people are unaware of the severely dysfunctional, occultic, and thoroughly Enlightenment family context in which Mary Shelley was raised and into which she married (her family history and that of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley’s read like a bad novella).

These people embraced the political and sexual revolution ignited by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Bad consequences were the result. Much of this trauma and chaos got internalized by writers and artists and the horror genre was born, beginning with Frankenstein and then extended by Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why the hidden history of horror in film and fiction is tied to revolution, first, the French, then the Russian, and then the Sexual Revolution
• How artists who rationalized their own sexual misbehavior told stories that covertly revealed the cost of disobeying the dictates of conscience
• The connection between The Creature of the Black Lagoon (1854) and The Shape of Water (2017)
• The role that abandonment from the Christian, hence reasonable, view of sexual expression played in the rise of the horror films of the 70s and 80s
• The way in which many horror films are actually highly moralistic
• How Dracula is a reworked version of Christianity (hint: it’s all about the meaning of blood—shedding vs sucking)

Resources recommended in this episode:

Monsters From the Id: The Rise of Horror in Film and Fiction by E. Michael Jones

Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control by E. Michael Jones

Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior by E. Michael Jones

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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The founding fathers of America never envisioned the secularist UCLU version to which we are conditioned to accept as normative. References to the Bible, to Jesus Christ, and to God the Father abound in presidential speeches and writings at the outset of the United States of America.

So how did we get here? Attorney Charles Limandri has some thought-provoking answers to that question. The founder of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund talked about Supreme Court decisions that have deformed the culture, from the 1957 Roth decision that redefined obscenity under the First Amendment right to free speech; to the 1963 demolition of prayer in public schools, to the Griswold v Connecticut decision that legalized the sale and advertising of contraception; on up to the 2018 Obergefel v Hodges case, which imposed gay marriage on the country.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why the founders anticipated the societal and institutional health of the country only in the context of a religious and moral people.
• How the law allowing contraception led to the 1973 Roe v Wade decision based on a made-up thing called “the right to privacy” as found in the U.S. Constitution.
• The true meaning and origin of the phrase “separation of Church and state” and how it’s used as a cudgel against Christian ideals in the public square.
• Why “freedom of religion” is a far broader and richer reality that “freedom of worship”
• Current threats to free speech in areas such as the wedding industry (and photography, and B&Bs, and bakeries) when it comes to refusing to advocate for the LGTB lobby.
• Strong motivations for continuing to support cultural sanity and common sense in the face of increasing persecution.

Resources recommended in this episode:

• After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90's by Hunter Madsen and Marshall Kirk.
• Good-bye Religious Liberty? How the Attacks on Marriage Are Threatening Your Religious Freedom audio CD by Charles LiMandri.
• The Naked Communist: Exposing Communism and Restoring Freedom by W. Cleon Skousen.
• How the US Became a Secular Nation article in The Wanderer by Charles LiMandri.

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Resources recommended in this episode:

• Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader ed by Janet Smith
• Why Humanae Vitae Is Still Right ed by Janet Smith
• Humanae Vitae A Generation Later by Janet Smith
• The Contraception Deception: Catholic Teaching on Birth Control by Patrick Coffin
• Sex Au Naturel by Patrick Coffin (On SALE at $8.99)

What is Humanae Vitae, you ask? It’s the 1968 papal Encyclical by Blessed Pope Paul VI (who will be canonized this fall). I can still remember walking into the Daughters of St, Paul Catholic bookstore in Toronto when I was teaching high school there. My glance fell to a book titled, Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later by someone called Janet E. Smith. It had a huge effect on me. I was already on board with the norms of the Encyclical, but this Janet Smith person broadened and deepened my appreciation of the teaching, from multiple angles of consideration.

Well, I ended up meeting her at a couple of conferences through the years, and I’m so happy to present this interview with her. She is courageous, articulate, and knows the teaching inside and out.

In this episode you will learn::

-The context in which Humanae Vitae was released and rejected.
-The level of authority with which the Encyclical is presented by the Church.
-A simple way to understand the why behind the what of the teaching.
-How soon-to-be-Saint Paul VI was vindicated as a prophet.
-How contraception paves the way for abortion.
-The moral difference between natural family planning (NFP) and contraception.
-Why NFP is good for marital longevity, happiness, and stability.

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THIS was a really fascinating conversation with the world’s best known expositor of the Theology of the Body by St. John Paul II. In his second appearance on The Patrick Coffin Show, Christopher West is in fine form connecting all manner of dots as we talk about the impact of dissent from Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical by soon-to-be-St. Paul VI, in light of West’s new ebook, Eclipse of the Body. If you use the code ECLIPSE you can get a copy free + shipping by clicking here. If you enjoy Christopher’s writing and speaking, you will love this.

After this interview you will know:

• How the “errors of Russia” in the message of Fatima have to do with the destruction of marriage and family
• The way in which the sexual revolution started with exalting the body, is now running its last lap because of debasing the body
• How the gender confusion in the world has affected the divine liturgy
• Why the transgenderism movement is an inevitable consequence of dissent from Humanae Vitae
• The deep influence of St. John Paul II in the writing and implementing of Humanae Vitae
• How profound is the connection between the small r real presence of Christ in the marital act is organically tied to the capital R of the Real Presence in the Eucharist

Resources recommended in this episode:

Eclipse of the Body: How We Lost the Meaning of Sex, Gender, marriage & the Family (and how to get it back) by Christopher West (Free + shipping if you use the code ECLIPSE).

Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body by St. John Paul II, translated by Michael Waldstein.

The Contraception Deception: Catholic Teaching on Birth Control by Patrick Coffin

Question of the week:

Do I really believe that the body, and not just the soul, is a visible reflection of God’s image and likeness? If not, why not?

This is a sample of our new segment called TransformU which is normally published on our NEW members-only website.

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Coffin Nation— The Community of Culture Builders

Canada has many private colleges and universities. It almost had a Christian law school. The number of these will remain zero for the foreseeable future thanks for a stunning 7-2 decision by Canada’s Supreme Court that forbids the establishment of the Trinity Western Law School in Langley, BC.

The reason?

Because Trinity Western is an evangelical institution that holds to the traditional biblical view of sexuality, and because prospective students must sign a Covenant Agreement in which they agree to avoid drunkenness, gossip, plagiarism, any form of hazing or intimidation, with emphasis (I’m quoting now) the Christian “virtues of honesty, civility, truthfulness, generosity and integrity.” Trinity Western make no bones about the fact that its “community life are formed by a firm commitment to the person and work of Jesus Christ as declared in the Bible.”

So far so good. Except that the Agreement also says the following:

• observe modesty, purity and appropriate intimacy in all relationships, reserve sexual expressions of intimacy for marriage, and within marriage take every reasonable step to resolve conflict and avoid divorce
• sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman

No explicit reference to homosexuality, but that is exactly what triggered the legal battle, starting with the Law Societies of B.C., Ontario, and Nova Scotia, that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Bruce Pardy, professor of law at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (who was introduced to me by Dr. Jordan Peterson) thinks this decision is a cruel joke on all Canadians. In my interview, he explains exactly why. Professor Pardy has a libertarian-style view of the definition of marriage, and the TWU Covenant Agreement is not his cup of tea. But that’s not the point. What happened to good old Canadian diversity? Is there really no room for even one Christian Law School that upholds the traditional biblical view of marriage (which is shared, one notes, by the Catholic Church, many conservative Christian bodies, as well as Orthodox Jewish and Muslim organizations (the non-polygamous ones at any rate)?

If someone is offended by the rules of a private school, he or she should refuse to go. But that’s not enough for the LGBTQS2 (lesbian gay bisexual transgender questioning two spirited) activists who opposed the school’s plans from the get go. Backed by powerful legal interests across Canada and a broadly accepted presupposition about the redefinition of marriage and “evolving Canadian Charter values,” their fight ended last month with this decision.

In this episode you will learn:

• How the shift from Charter rights (which are concrete, verbally explicit things) to Charter values (which are ephemeral, fleeting things) softened the ground for the high Court’s reasoning
• How the interests of a tiny minority became the tail that currently wags the Canadian dog
• Why the Court’s reasoning unwittingly promotes very unjust discrimination the Justices opine they oppose
• The eerie similarity between “the vibe of the thing” (a comedy reference that will make sense once you hear the interview) and the “penumbra” of the 1965 Griswold v Connecticut, which paved the way for Roe v Wade via an alleged “right to privacy” in the U.S. Constitution
• How this disastrous decision is a wake-up call for those who have been lulled into thinking reasonable accommodations will be made going forward for private educational institutions that go against the grain of PC culture.
• Why it may signal the death knell of the much-vaunted pluralism that has characterized Canadian society since the Quebec Act of 1774
• Why it should matter to Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, the Salvation Army, Mormons, or any group that assumes they can freely form communities with their own self-regulating rules

Resources recommended in this episode:

• Professor Pardy’s presence, writing, and contact information on the Queen’s University website
• Pardy’s essay on the decision in The National Post newspaper.
• Australian classic comedy The Castle
• The implications of the decision in The National Post by Ray Pennings of the faith-based think tank Cardus.

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A few minutes into my conversation with Bishop Gracida, bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi, TX, it becomes obvious that he is direct and to the point, evidently allergic to beating around the bush. Yet, he’s kindly and thoughtful. At 95, he is hale and hearty, and is one of the very few bishops who regularly blog. His remarks, sometimes trenchant, always readable, are found at www.abyssum.org Abyssus Abyssum Invocat, Latin for “deep calls to deep” (from Psalm 42:7).

 If you feel somewhat disoriented by some of the utterances and writings of Pope Francis, you’re not alone. If the thought of criticizing the Pope makes you uncomfortable (there are plenty of nasty professional Francis Haters online), that’s a good sign of filial devotion to the Holy Father and to the Church he visibly leads. Sometimes, though, the faithful have “the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful” (Canon 212.3).

In this regards, Bishop Gracida has some questions that fearlessly “go there.” What do I mean? The authorized biography of disgraced Godfried Cardinal Daneels of Belgium describes activities between and among cardinal electors, such as Cardinal Carlo Martini, Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, and Cardinals Karl Lehmann and Walter Kasper—dubbed the St. Galen Mafia. These activities, verified by Austin Ivereigh in his hagiographic biography of Pope Francis, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making Of a Radical Pope involve canvassing other electors to elect Jorge Cardinal Bergolio.

Well…

Bishop Rene Gracida believes, as do others, that this activity is canonically illegal under the promulgated laws in the 1996 Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, by St. John Paul II. If this is true, then the validity of the papal election may be in doubt. You read that right.

To state the obvious, I am not a canonist nor was I at the Conclave. What I know is that know that the reaction of most Catholic pundits to the notion that the 2013 election may have been invalid is met with a guffaw or a “that’s crazy talk.” It’s a gorilla in the room whose existence needs to be acknowledged before it can be dismissed as harmless.

In this interview you will learn:

• Have a sense of appreciation for what Ordinaries are called to as shepherds of souls
• Understand the difference between true episcopal authority as it resides in the individual bishop and the largely administrative authority of a national bishops’ conference
• Get a clear picture of a self-described “one crisis after another” life lived to the full
• See more reasons to renew your prayers for the life and health of the Church
• Understand why the sacraments must never be politicized no matter who does it
• Maybe be shaken up

Resources recommended in this episode:

• An Ordinary’s Not So Ordinary Life by Bishop Rene Henry Gracida
• Follow Bishop Gracida on his blog here:  www.abbysum.org 

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Motion pictures have been called the ultimate form of art because they incorporate all previous forms: dance, music, theater, and mime, all in one. They are powerful drivers of, and reflections of, culture.

Movie lines become iconic and hence memorable:

“We’re going to need a bigger boat.” Jaws

“ET phone home.” E.T. the Extraterrestrial

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Gone with the Wind

“May the force be with you.” Star Wars

“You had me at hello.” Jerry McGuire

As Christians, we need to watch movies critically, not just for morality reasons, but for artistic ones. Should believers support poorly made movies because they bear a Christian message? Can Christians see rated R films with potty words, sexual content, and violence? Where’s the line?

This week’s guest has thought deeply about these questions and has some practical guidelines. He is Douglas Beaumont, a convert to the Faith and author of a book that’s due for a reboot, titled The Message Behind the Movie: How To Engage With a Film Without Disengaging With Your Faith. If you like movies, you’ll love this conversation in light of the gospel and the principles of effective storytelling.

In this interview you will learn:

• How some G rated films have bad messages and some rated R ones have good ones
• The difference between a Christian movie and a movie that is Christian
• Some tips for determining whether a story is told effectively on screen
• Why some heathen writers write the best “Christian scripts”
• Why the golden age movies still hold up
• How to notice when a film is selling an anti-Christian bias

Resources recommended in this episode:

• The Message Behind the Movie: How To Engage With a Film Without Disengaging With Your Faith by Douglas Beaumont
• Story: Substance, Style, and Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
• The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler
• Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field

Question of the week

In what way is Hollywood today’s most important missionary territory?

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This is fascinating. What is the nature of the great experiment called “America”? We say that Poland is a Catholic country, India is a Hindu country, and Turkey is a Muslim country, and so on.

We also say America is a Christian country. But in what sense? Because the majority are followers of Jesus? But Jesus isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the Bill of Rights—the Christian religion is nowhere endorsed as the state religion.

My guest this week unpacks the foundational source—the real thinkers and philosophical ingredients that went into the essentially American recipe. His name is Timothy Gordon and his provocative new book is titled Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome. https://amzn.to/2lcTB5M

He finds six crypto-Catholic elements present in the founding of America, and takes pains to show how the founders did not exactly cite the sources (like St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and St. Augustine) for these elements. Gordon says “America is wired Catholic, labeled Protestant, and currently functions as secular.”

Lots to chew on after this interview with Tim Gordon, to say the least.

In this interview you will learn:

• How anti-Catholic bias of 18th century America kept our Protestant and Enlightenment forefathers from admitting their dependence upon Catholic ideals
• How the signs of the decline of America (from abortion on demand to the redefinition of marriage to crushing debt to the paganized pop culture) do not signal the inevitable end of the republic
• Why America was never intended to be an empire and how international incursions have not been good for the nation’s health
• The way in which America can “become more Catholic” without becoming the dreaded bugaboo “theocracy”
• How relativism has been deliberately inserted into public life primarily through the Supreme Court
• Why truth can never be determined by a poll or nose count, and why it matters

Resources recommended in this episode:

• Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome by Timothy Gordon
• The U.S. Constitution: A Reader by the Hillsdale College staff
• American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll by Bradley Birzer
• Aristotle For Everybody by Mortimer Adler
• Why Liberalism Failed  by Patrick Deneen
• Dangerous Books website

Question of the week

Do you believe America is specifically biased against Catholics?

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The home of the free because of the brave is filled with many terrific people, who live a life (for the most part—the poor, Jesus said, will always be with us) of comfort and convenience.

America also comes with particular challenges for Christians who are engaged in evangelization. This week, I talked to one of the best in the biz, Peter Herbeck, vice president of Renewal Ministries and its director of mission. He has been speaking about the lordship of Jesus for over 30 years in scores of countries all over the world and he has special insights into the “isms” here at home that make it a challenge for missionaries. I loved this conversation!

In this interview, you will learn:

• How the failed sexual revolution has produced not only chaos but also countless hungry hearts for the truth about human sexuality
• How different the average American is compared to the average Chinese in terms of openness to Christ
• How the prison experience of a Lithuanian bishop provides a powerful lesson for us in the US
• Why relativism represents an obstacle to evangelizing, but not an insurmountable one
• The importance of praying with people on the spot when they ask you to pray for them
• How culture impacts the Christian life and vice versa
• Tips on how to stay calm when sharing the gospel with those who might be hostile

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• When the Spirit Comes In Power: Rediscovering the Charismatic Dimension of the Christian Life by Peter Herbeck
• When the Spirit Speaks: Touched By God’s Word by Peter and Debbie Herbeck
• The Three Conversions of the Spiritual Life  by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP
• The Fulfillment Of All Desire  by Ralph Martin

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Michael J. Knowles the a Yale-bred host of two-thirds of The Daily Wire platform begun by Ben Shapiro. He “wrote” a clever “book” titled Reasons To Vote Democrat: A Comprehensive Guide 

Very few commentators anywhere in the mediasphere are out of the closet Catholics who actually accept all the teachings of the Church, which is why Mr. Knowles caught my attention. (Everyone reading this can list a dozen faux Catholics in media.) His show is much more politically geared than mine, but his infectious enthusiasm for slaying liberal arguments and his no-apologies support for President Trump couched in millennial-speak, and his frequent references to his unabashed Catholicism, make him very watchable as a host.

In this interview, you will learn:

• How Knowles got the Daily Wire gig, and what his mission is
• How he uses his Stella Adler Studio acting skills to communicate
• His unsuccessful attempts at baptising Ben Shapiro in the office hallway
• How his faith informs his political conservatism
• The paradoxical similarities between President Trump and Pope Francis
• Why the digital media provides a strong counterweight to the hugely biased MSM
• My thoughts on marriage as he prepares to take the matrimonial plunge

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Reasons To Vote Democrat: A Comprehensive Guide  by Michael J. Knowles
• Poetic Diction: A Study In Meaning  by Owen Barfield
• Old Errors New Labels  by Bishop Fulton Sheen
• The Conservative Mind: From Burke To Eliot by Russell Kirk

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Ireland was once known and loved as the land of saints and scholars. Stout in its Catholicism and justly proud of its traditions of literature, of art and of Guinness—along with a veritable factory of holy missionaries to places like Africa—Ireland has taken a slow tumble into chaos.

The Irish have fled the church pews like rats from the Titanic in the last 30 years; Catholic leadership on the old sod has been badly hobbled by scandal and tepid leadership; and, corporately, the Irish media have been crafting an aggressively secularist narrative about the nature of the country and its venerable past.

Very few people understand the “before and after” better than John Waters, my guest this week. He’s an author, playwright, rock journalist, and social critic who has decades of observational experience of his homeland—the recent history of which is less than encouraging, with its historic redefinition of marriage in 2015, and now, with the May 25, 2018 Referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which guarantees the rights of all Irish citizens, including “the right to life of the unborn.”

If this Article is repealed, the Ireland of old, marked with the glories I mention above, is over. Done for.

I’m airing this interview to make it available to as many Irish listeners before the Referendum. Pray for Ireland.

In this interview, you will learn:

• The recent cultural and historical forces that have gotten Ireland to where she is today
• The deep meaning in Gaelic of the English word “unborn”
• How Ireland developed its current existential nihilism
• Signs of hope that Ireland can come back to her former glory
• Strategies for engaging a post-Christian culture with a new way of speaking the truth
• How therapeutic deism has replaced the Catholic Faith

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Lapsed Agnostic By John Waters
• Beyond Consolation: How We Became Too Clever for God and Our Own Good  by John Waters
• Persuasive Pro-life: How to Talk About Our Culture’s Toughest Issue  by Trent Horn
• John Waters in First Things magazine.

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Question of the week:

What is one concrete thing I can do to be an ambassador of hope for someone in my life who may be suffering depression or otherwise feeling despair?

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Ours is an age of social disruption, isolation, and atomization. Rates of suicide among young people, rich and poor, along with instances of clinical depression are on the sharp rise since 1999. A dark ennui—call it despair, or melancholia, or depression—has settled into the lives of millions of people.

Sources of community support that used to provide a bullwark against all this “apartness,” such as a vibrant parish at the center of family life and vice versa, mens’ and womens’ social clubs, and a culture that supported the ideals of monogamy, have withered or vanished.

Psychiatrist Dr. Aaron Kheriaty deals with the fall-out of these disruptions every day in his clinical practice and as an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California Irvine where he is also director of the bioethics program.

This is a fascinating exchange of ideas—from social science data, to poetry, to the life witness of the saints to the truths of Scripture—related to helping those suffering maladies that seem to cruelly evacuate hope from the human heart. Very few doctors see the interconnectedness between the order of nature (and nurture) and the order of grace. Aaron Kheriaty is one of them, and he’s downright evangelical about getting the word out about the urgently needed, good old-fashioned hope. He’s also a fine writer who is attuned to the mystery of suffering in a way that is wise and accessible.

The Hail Holy Queen prayer describes the location of our sojourn as “this vale of tears” for good reasons. If you or someone you know has had serious vicissitudes, trials, or setbacks in his or her life, this is a “don’t miss” interview.

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why the worlds of psychiatry and of faith have large areas of overlap and agreement
• A workable definition of despair and its antidote
• How the lives of some of the (mentally ill) saints can be a sign of great hope and consolation
• Why suicide, and examples of triumph over despair, can both be “contagious”
• The ways in which the Incarnation of God in Christ provides the direct proof of divine accompaniment and healing regarding mental illness and the loss of hope
• The difference between human hope and the supernatural virtue of hope

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Catholic Guide to Depression  by Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, with Monsignor John Cihak
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl
• People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by Dr. M. Scott Peck
• The Hound of Heaven and Other Poems  by Francis Thompson, Intro by G.K. Chesterton
• Dying of Despair essay in “First Things” by Dr Aaron Kheriaty
• University of California Irvine link to Dr. Kheriaty’s bio and contact info 

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You may have heard of 40 Days For Life, and you may have heard of its founder and former CEO David Bereit. This interview dives into his story, what inspired him to get directly involved in pro-life activism, and into the reasons why he entered the Catholic Church this past Easter. Bereit is a pro at communicating the pro-life message with reason, balance, and passion.

In this interview, you will learn:

• The secret ingredient in your approach that can mean the difference between an abortion and a life saved.
• The specific reasons why the timeless teachings of the Catholic Church won Bereit over.
• The originating incident that led to the founding of 40 Days For Life.
• Why abortion will never be defeated until we tell the truth about what it does to baby and mother.
• Why it’s vital that we link arms with people of other faiths, or no faith, to form a non-violent army of people committed to ending abortion and to healing moms and dads whos chose it.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• 40 Days for Life: Discover What God Has Done...Imagine What He Can Do  by David Bereit and Shawn Carney.   

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You may have seen Father Mike in one of his popular Ascension Presents video commentaries. His topics—delivered in his energetic and telegenic style—tend toward what’s currently trending but he always anchors his subject (living together, chastity, celebrity culture, movie and TV examples, etc.) in the timeless teachings of the Church. From what I can see, there is no topic territory that is off limits, including the teaching on homosexuality—the forbidden topic par excellence in today’s climate of political correctness and confusion.

Which brings me to this week’s episode, in which Father Mike and I talk about his new book, Made For Love: Same-Sex Attractions and the Catholic Church https://amzn.to/2J8Ikxj. It’s all about balance, understanding, and having the courage to put the focus where it belongs: on compassion that is yet unafraid to speak the truth.

The issue of homosexuality has been massively co-opted by the secular media and by so-called pro-gay factions with Christianity. The result is widespread confusion: what exactly is the Catholic teaching? Where is it in the Bible? How to respond to family members and friends who “come out”? Is it possible to be biblically faithful and pastorally attuned to peoples’ real needs?

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why the Church makes the careful distinction between inclination and behavior, or between unbidden temptation and chosen sin.
• How best to respond to a loved one who a loved one who “comes out” to you
• How our culture of relativism makes it doubly hard to have a conversation about objective morality, especially when it comes to something this emotion-charged
• The way in which Father Mike’s relationship with his same-sex attracted brother provides a model for imitation
• Why identifying as “gay” represents a terrible reduction of the dignity of the human person
• Why the legal reality of “gay marriage” is best understood as a matter of redefinition and has nothing to do with sexual behavior, per se.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Made For Love: Same-Sex Attractions and the Catholic Church  by Father Mike Schmitz
• Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi
• Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything  by Robert Reilly

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Are atheists uniformly dedicated to truth and evidence, to rational thought and logic? Might there be a hidden causal factor at play in more cases than one would imagine? Psychologist and researcher Dr. Paul Vitz thinks so. It’s fatherlessness.

His latest book, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, sets forth the case that abusive, absent, or weak fathers very often provide the psychological soil from which atheist weeds are more likely to fester. Using example after example of leading atheists (start the list with Nietzsche, Hume, Sartre, Russell, Camus, Freud, and the so-called New Atheists Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens), Vitz reviews the basic life biography and finds a “father wound” in one degree or another.

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Are atheists uniformly dedicated to truth and evidence, to rational thought and logic? Might there be a hidden causal factor at play in more cases than one would imagine? Psychologist and researcher Dr. Paul Vitz thinks so. It’s fatherlessness.

His latest book, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, sets forth the case that abusive, absent, or weak fathers very often provide the psychological soil from which atheist weeds are more likely to fester. Using example after example of leading atheists (start the list with Nietzsche, Hume, Sartre, Russell, Camus, Freud, and the so-called New Atheists Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens), Vitz reviews the basic life biography and finds a “father wound” in one degree or another.

He doesn’t reduce atheism to a pop psych theory (not all atheists share the same experience of an abusive father, and, besides, human beings are complex) but he carefully traces the atheists own words and the ways in which their respective intellectual journies led them to reject God—the Father.

It’s a fascinating read. And, as you’ll soon find out, Dr. Vitz is a fascinating guest.

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why Sigmund Freud was right in asserting that God is “an exalted father,” but not in the way Freud believed
• How the memories of even a long deceased father can influence your faith perspective
• Why Jesus called God Father and not Mother
• The reasons why Vitz did a control group comparison of philosophers and other writers of the same era and social backgrounds who had warm, close relationships with their father—and how their spiritual outlook differed from the atheist group
• Why “public atheists” (those devoted to writing and debating their atheism) is overwhelmingly a male phenomenon
• Why, when women leave a relationship with God they usually don’t become atheists, but they form a new relationship: yogi, guru, New Age community, goddess worship, etc.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, by Paul C. Vitz
• Surprised By Joy: The Shape Of My Early Life,  by C.S. Lewis
• The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser
• My Father, Bertrand Russell by Katherine Tait
• Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers  by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton

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I have been reading Rev. Dalbey’s books with great profit since the mid-90s. One of the first Christian leaders to address the crisis of masculinity, Dalbey has laid his hand on an urgent and increasingly obvious problem: men don’t know how to be men.

The source of the problem is multiform: the throwaway divorce culture, the failed Sexual Revolution, the epidemic of pornography, bad or non-existent modeling from one’s own father, and a sense of shame that gets covered over by excessive pride.

What is your relationship like with your father? How has it contributed to the man you are, for better or worse? Did your dad teach you how to pray? Talk to you about sex in a healthy way?

Do you struggle to be real—in all that that implies? How has a rules-based approach to religion insinuated itself into your relationship with Christ our Savior?

Gordon Dalbey has your back, and most probably understands your heart.

In this interview, you will learn:

• How the enemy likes to foment confusion about manhood and masculine identity.
• Why so many men fall for the false substitutes of portfolio size, power, and pornography, and how to find a way out
• What the Bible says about the meaning of “male and female He made them” (Gen 5:2)
• The ways in which the father, not the mother, instills and imparts male identity in young boys
• The source of the war over “gender” and how to recognize the error at the heart of it
• A way of renewing your faith in God as Father and Christ as divine Brother

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Healing the Masculine Soul: God’s Restoration of Men to Real Manhood by Gordon Dalbey
• Sons of the Father: Healing the Father-Wound in Men Today  by Gordon Dalbey
• Fight Like a Man: A New Manhood For a New Warfare  by Gordon Dalbey
• Rev. Dalbey’s website

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The emotional, some say spiritual, effect music has on us is notoriously difficult to put into words. It’s sort of like analyzing why something is funny. The reality ever exceeds our verbal grasp.

Why are minor chords sad and majors happy? Why, when you hear a song from your childhood is there a superglue of emotion attached, bringing you instantly to those moments long ago?

This week’s guest is one of the greats in the choral music world. If you enjoy music with a lush, cinematic sound created for multiple voices on the exquisite side, Morten Lauridsen is your man.

The most frequently performed American composer of choral music, Lauridsen is a National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale (1994–2001), and has been a professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than 50 years. His work has been recorded on over 200 CDs including five with Grammy nominations.

We’re talking serious musical gravitas here.

On November 11, 2018, a massive concert for international television is being held at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany to mark the centenary of the end of World War One. In addition to Welsh composer Karl Jenkins’ Mass for Peace, the other piece selected is Lauridsen’s beautiful Lux Aeterna. I predict not a dry eye on that night.

You can imagine my surprise when, during the interview, the great man spontaneously began playing a portion of his classic O Magnum Mysterium to explain why the notes for the word “Virgo” ground the piece in a special way!

In this interview, you will learn:

• Why every artist has to risk failure; as not trying guarantees failure
• How Lauridsen became a late bloomer as a composer, at age 50, and maybe how you can, too
• Why poetry deserves a massive revival
• The importance of stillness and quiet for human serenity and creativity
• The mysterious way in which music connects us to the divine

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• O Magnum Mysterium performance 
• Lux Aeterna performance
• Profound talk by director Karl Paulnack to music freshmen at Boston College Conservatory 
• CD album, Morten Lauridsen: Lux Aeterna; Madrigali; Ave Maria; Ubi Caritas 
• CD album streaming, Lauridsen: Mid-Winter Songs 
• Connect with Morten: www.mortenlauridsen.net

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Question of the week:

With only one life to live, if you feel like you have something to create, musically or otherwise, what is stopping you?