Episode 001 — "Freedom" (A Quiet Catechism)
In Episode 001 of A Quiet Catechism, Doug Tooke explores freedom as one of the most celebrated—and most misunderstood—words in modern life. Rather than treating freedom as limitless choice or emotional self-expression, the episode asks what happens when cultures and souls live without shared definitions of the good. Doug contrasts the exhausting modern ideal of constant self-invention with a Catholic vision of freedom as formation: the slow, disciplined shaping of desire until choosing the good becomes natural—even joyful. Drawing on Robert Barron, Josef Pieper, Servais Pinckaers, and John Paul II, the episode argues that limits are not insults but invitations, and that true freedom is not doing whatever we want, but learning to want what is worth doing—until virtue feels like breathing.
