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 ..read more

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! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/churchcontroversies/message ..read more

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/churchcontroversies/message ..read more

Hello! The latest episode in our series on the Latinization of the Eastern Catholic Churches is now available. In this episode, we take a broad look at the policy of the papacy toward the Eastern Churches--both Catholic and Orthodox--from the reign of Pius IX to the death of Pius XII. The episode discusses how the centralization of authority in the Vatican during the 19th century affected the Eastern Catholic Churches. I argue that though such centralization likely increased the tendency toward Latinization initially, it ultimately wound up benefiting the Eastern Churches in communion with Rom ..read more

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. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify ..read more

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.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/churchcontroversies/message ..read more

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.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/churchcontroversies/message ..read more

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 an ..read more

In this episode, we take a look at the Liturgical Movement of the early twentieth century in the Catholic Church. The Liturgical Movement's original aim was to make the Catholic faithful partake of the Church's liturgy more deeply and fruitfully.  However, it did not originally envision a radical revision of the liturgy as actually occurred after Vatican II. I try to answer the question of what might have changed between the early twentieth century and the Second Vatican Council in the Liturgical Movement that might account for this. Pax! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.s ..read more

In the final episode on the Early Modern Era, our series on Latinization covers the relations of the Latin Church with Eastern Christians in Eastern Europe, primarily the Ukrainians, as well as the sad tale of the Italo-Albanian Church and its struggles to maintain its heritage in Italy. Finally, we also take a look back at the Early Modern Period itself, and discuss the changes spurred the increasing insistence of the Western Church that its traditions and customs take precedence over those of Eastern Christians.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/churc ..read more