The Catholic Culture Podcast

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Tolkien's Darkest Tale w/ Aaron Irber Mar 16, 2026

Show notes

The darkest, and perhaps most underrated, story J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote was the tale of Túrin Turambar, a great man of the First Age of Middle-Earth, whose life was ruined by the curse of Morgoth (Tolkien's Satan-figure) and by his own pride. The tale, which resembles a Greek tragedy, was given its longest and most satisfying version in the posthumously published book The Children of Hurin.

Aaron Irber, host of a podcast "about stories, myths, and Catholicism", joins Thomas to discuss this underappreciated work by Tolkien.

Aaron's podcast, I Might Believe in Faeries https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-might-believe-in-faeries/id1584838118

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Pope Leo XIII against Freemasonry Mar 05, 2026

Show notes

Pope Leo XIII's 1884 encyclical Humanum Genus is the Church's most comprehensive explanation of why, ever since 1738, she has forbidden Catholics to become Freemasons. Reading the encyclical today, one has the thought that its continued relevance has less to do with the present-day activities of Masonic organizations, and more to do with the fact that Masonic ideas have already come to pervade Western society.

Thomas's article about Humanum Genus https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/pope-leo-xiii-against-freemasonry/

Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus.html

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Seeking Beauty in the Old World w/ David Henrie Feb 10, 2026

Show notes

Actor, writer, and director David Henrie (Wizards of Waverly Place, How I Met Your Mother) joins the podcast to talk about his new EWTN travel series, Seeking Beauty with David Henrie - season 1 is a journey through Italy.

David and Thomas discuss what it is so many travelers still find so alluring about the heritage of Catholic Europe. They focus especially on Florence's Dominican convent of San Marco filled with masterpieces by Fra Angelico, how cities used to be built as dwelling places for men made in the image of God, and how David's show features Catholic artists and craftsmen working in Europe today.

Links

Seeking Beauty with David Henrie https://www.seekingbeauty.show/

Novo Inspire Studios https://www.novoinspirestudios.com/

John Byron Kuhner, "The Men Behind the Met" https://firstthings.com/the-men-behind-the-met/

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Phil Lawler on four decades of independent Catholic journalism Jan 27, 2026

Show notes

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/

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Resisting modernist "demolition troops": Ida Friederike Görres, w/ Jennifer Bryson Jan 15, 2026

Show notes

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/

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Leo XIII on what marriage owes to the Church Jan 02, 2026

Show notes

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/

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Edgelords, Profanity, & Taming the Tongue w/ Matthew Schmitz Dec 16, 2025

Show notes

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/

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Christian Poetry Around the Globe w/ Burl Horniachek Dec 12, 2025

Show notes

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

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The Most Dangerous Man in England: Newman and the Laity - Paul Shrimpton Nov 21, 2025

Show notes

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

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Should mothers work outside the home? w/ Margaret H. McCarthy Nov 14, 2025

Show notes

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

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