This episode is a special one, as I present you with a Controversies in Church History interview, normally reserved for patrons of the podcast. Here is our interview author and apologist Erick Ybarra. We discuss his book The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox, the state of the evidence for papal claims in the first millennium and much more. Enjoy!

Just a brief preview of some upcoming events I am involved in the next month or so, including the next Controversies in Church History interview. Cheers!

The latest episode of Controversies in Church History takes a look at the early 19th century writer and apologist Francois Rene Chateaubriand (1768-1848), and his work, The Genius of Christianity. Often considered one of the first "Romantic" authors, we will take a look at Chateaubriand's life and background and how it shaped his approach to arguing for the truth of the Catholic faith.

The latest episode of Controversies in Church History covers a curious topic and debate among academics. Why are modern Western societies so different from other civilizations? Why are they WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) when so much of the world is not? In this episode, we take a look at the thesis that the medieval Church's prohibitions on marriage paved the way for changes in social structure that account for the modern West's WEIRDness, and why the Church insisted on those prohibitions in the first place.

Hello everyone! The latest installment in our series on the Latinization of the Eastern Churches is now available to all of our listeners. In it, we discuss the conflict between the Latin rite bishops of the United States in the late nineteenth century and the immigrant clergy of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, which resulted in the defection of tens of thousands of Ruthenian Catholics to Orthodoxy.

The latest Catholic Lives episode, in which we look at notable non-saints in Catholic history, delves into the brief life of Baldwin IV, King of Jerusalem (1174-1185). Famous for contracting leprosy when he was a child, he fought multiple battles with the Muslim emir Saladin, and successfully protected the kingdom while he lived. Face with particularly difficult personal, political and diplomatic challenges, Baldwin IV earned the praise of contemporaries, and continues to fascinate today.

Hello! The latest episode of the podcast is now available. Last year I did a "what I've been reading episode" and the feedback was in favor of a repeat, so here we go. In this episode, I recount the ten best books I have read this year, from poetry to history and liturgy. Enjoy!

Books Covered:

1. John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther (1687), Poetry

2. Byung Chul-Han, The Disappearance of Rituals: a Topology of the Present (2019), Philosophy

3. Julian Jackson, A Certain Idea of France: the Life of Charles de Gaulle (2018), Biography

4. William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794), Poetry

5. Carlos Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin (1986), History

6. Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J., Christendom Lost and Found: Meditations for a Post-Post Christian World (2022), Religion

7. Yamen Manai, The Ardent Swarm (2017), Novel

8. Mike Yomer, Please Tell Me (2023) Novel

9. James Simpson, Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo-American Tradition (2010) Literature/Art

10. Michael Fiedrowicz, The Traditional Mass: History, Form and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite (2011/2021) Theology/Liturgy