Catholic Studies

Catholic Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Catholicism about their new books.

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Europe in the Eleventh Century: Beyond Revolution and Reform with Charles West (Oxford UP, 2025)

October 10, 2026

Europe in the Eleventh Century

Charles West
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Eleventh-century Europe was diverse and fast-changing. Historians have often debated this change through two sets of competing arguments, one about th…

Tyrants and Traders: Tintagel, Arthur and the Lost Kings with Ken Dark (Bloomsbury, 2026)

October 9, 2026

Tyrants and Traders

Ken Dark
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

How Roman Britain ended is one of the most controversial questions in British history. Unique among former Roman citizens in Western Europe, the Brito…

Resurrection on Trial (with Peter D. Martino, esq.): A Law Professor Weighs the Evidence with Peter D. Martino

October 8, 2026

Resurrection on Trial (with Peter D. Martino, esq.)

Peter D. Martino

Peter Dominic Martino is a trial lawyer, law professor, former CEO, and former nuclear submarine officer. He serves as Assistant Professor at St. Thom…

The Supernatural Public Square: On Religious Experience in the Modern Age with Dale C. Allison, Jr.

October 7, 2026

The Supernatural Public Square

Dale C. Allison, Jr.
Hosted by Ryan Shinkel

The old story in the academy was that as science and technology progressed, western society would grow more secular while the supernatural would disap…

Epiphanies of Nature and Grace: Twelve Meditations from a Life in Dialogue with Cyprian Consiglio (Orbis Books, 2025)

October 5, 2026

Epiphanies of Nature and Grace: Twelve Meditations from a Life in Dialogue

Cyprian Consiglio
Hosted by Lucas Tse

Tune in to this discussion of Epiphanies of Nature and Grace: Twelve Meditations from a Life in Dialogue (Orbis Books, 2025) These moving and eloquent…

Lee M. Panich and Gustavo Flores, "We Will Receive Justice: Native Histories of the Collapse of the California Missions" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

September 23, 2026

We Will Receive Justice

Lee M. Panich and Gustavo Flores
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

We Will Receive Justice: Native Histories of the Collapse of the California Missions (U Nebraska Press, 2026) by Dr. Lee M. Panich & Gustavo Flore…

178* What does the Pope have to teach us about AI? (JP, from Public Books)

September 17, 2026

What does the Pope have to teach us about AI?

When I heard that Leo XIV’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” was about “Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,”…

Unseen Existences (with Brian Zahnd): How to See the Divine Mystery Here and Now

September 10, 2026

Unseen Existences (with Brian Zahnd)

Brian Zahnd, a Christian leader and pastor of forty years and four-times pilgrim of the Camino de Santiago, completed this remarkable (and…

Francesca Sbardella, "Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister" (Berghahn Books, 2025)

September 7, 2026

Inhabiting Silence

Francesca Sbardella
Hosted by Armanc Yildiz

Monasteries are typically characterized by physical and symbolic limitations on access as they are usually known through written texts and accounts by…

Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "Bloodshed and Blessing: Stories of Sacrifice from Ancient Altars to the Holy Mass" (Sophia Institute Press, 2026)

August 30, 2026

Bloodshed and Blessing

Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Hosted by Daniel Moran

Something deep within you recognizes it–the instinct that sacrifice matters, that something must be offered, that violence and beauty are woven togeth…

Daniel Byman, "American Pogroms: How Forgotten Massacres Shape America" (Oxford UP, 2026)

August 14, 2026

American Pogroms

Daniel Byman
Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Amidst heightened rhetoric and increasing polarization in the United States, American Pogroms: How Forgotten Massacres Shape America (Oxford Universit…

Thomas F. Rzeznik, "A Monument of Charity: St. Vincent’s Hospital and Catholic Health Care in New York City" (NYU Press, 2026)

August 11, 2026

A Monument of Charity

Thomas F. Rzeznik
Hosted by Deidre Tyler

St. Vincent's Hospital began with a simple, but radical mission: to care for all those in need regardless of race, creed, or financial means. For more…

Discovering the Latin Mass (with Amb. Archd. Eduard Habsburg): A Travel Guide for the Curious

August 4, 2026

Discovering the Latin Mass (with Amb. Archd. Eduard Habsburg)

Amb. Archd. Eduard Habsburg

The reason Eduard Habsburg, Archduke of Austria and formerly Hungarian Ambassador to the Vatican, has written a ‘travel guide’ to the Trad…

Ambrogio Caiani, "Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation" (Apollo, 2026)

July 18, 2026

Flirting with Evil

Ambrogio Caiani
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

It's a shadowy, ornate world of cover-ups and hidden motives. In Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation (Ap…

Bradford A. Bouley, "The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

July 18, 2026

The Barberini Butchers

Bradford A. Bouley
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In 1644 four norcini or pork butchers were accused of killing not pigs, but seven of their fellow citizens, stripping the meat from the bones, the…

Thomas Smith, "The Fifth Crusade: A History of the Epic Campaign to Conquer Egypt" (Yale UP, 2026)

July 14, 2026

The Fifth Crusade

Thomas Smith
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In 1217, the crusader states were in a highly fragile condition. The Fourth Crusade had failed, and Jerusalem had not been recovered. The crusad…

Rod Phillips, "Cats: A History" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

July 13, 2026

Cats

Rod Phillips
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

For more than 10,000 years, cats have prowled at the edges of human life. But, starting only a few decades ago, hundreds of millions of them bec…

Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context

June 26, 2026

Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context

Why has the Catholic Church in India become so engaged in environmental initiatives? And what does the wider Indian political context defined by an as…

Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken (Sydney Anne Bennett): A Young Woman Facing A Neurological Disorder Is A Case Study In Theodicy

June 22, 2026

Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken (Sydney Anne Bennett)

At age 22, Sydney’s Bennett’s brain stopped communicating with her body correctly; she was suffering from Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a co…

Adrian Ciani, "Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American Catholics, and the Partition of Palestine" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

June 17, 2026

Contesting Zion

Adrian Ciani
Hosted by Roberto Mazza

The modern relationship between the Vatican and the State of Israel is rooted in a long history of hostility between Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Th…