Shows
Almost Good CatholicsDavid G. Bonagura Jr, "100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today" (Sophia Institute, 2025)David Bonagura teaches classical languages and theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York and Catholic International University; he also teaches high school kids. He invited them to ask their questions about the faith, which led to some exciting classroom discussions and David’s new book—100 Tough Questions for Catholics—which we are talking about today.
David Bonagura’s website.
David Bonagura’s new book, 100 Tough Questions for Catholics.
David Bonagura’s previous appearance on Almost Good Catholics, episode 86: Jerome’s Tears: Death and Mourning in Christian Late Antiquity
Chris Odyniec and Jonathon Fessenden take on the question o...
2025-05-231h 04Almost Good CatholicsThis is the Way (with Cristofer Pereyra)Cristofer Pereyra is the founder and CEO of the Tepeyac Leadership Initiative (TLI) and was a friend and follower of Bishop Thomas Olmsted (who was instrumental in restoring of Paul Zucarelli from the dead, the subject of our last two episodes). Cristofer talks about his collaboration with Bishop Olmsted, whom he considers a saint, and about the book he wrote about this holy man. He also talks about the Tepeyac Initiative and how we, lay Catholics, should serve Our Lord in our daily lives, how to sanctify our work, and how to approach the altar of our lay vocation...
2025-02-2837 minAlmost Good CatholicsTalking with a Man Who Returned from the Dead (with Paul Zucarelli)This is my second conversation with Paul Zucarelli who died in 2017 and returned from the dead through the intercessory prayer of Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix and the faith of his family. Since his resurrection, he has been serving God as a lay evangelist. In the earlier interview, we talked about his new book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church: An Inconvenient Truth, in which he made a strong case for the authority of the Roman Catholic church. This time we are talking about his first book, Faith Understood: An Ordinary Man's Journey to the Presence of God. He tel...
2024-11-281h 10Almost Good CatholicsHoly, Catholic, Apostolic (with Paul Zucarelli)Paul Zucarelli died in 2017 and returned from the dead through the intercessory prayer of Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix and the faith of his family. Since his resurrection, he has been serving God as a lay evangelist. His new book, One Lord, One Faith, One Church: An Inconvenient Truth, makes a strong apologetic case for the authority of the Roman Catholic church. He goes into supernatural evidence: Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions, uncorrupted bodies of the saints, and raising of the dead. He follows the history of the church from its foundation over the centuries with its schisms and fractures, do...
2024-11-071h 11Almost Good CatholicsMercy Ships (with Reanne Newquist)Reanne Newquist tells me about her voyage on Mercy Ships bringing healthcare to some of the poorest people in the world, a mission started by Don Stephens in the 1970s and encouraged by Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Reanne, her husband, and her kids left everything behind, sold their home and sailed off to adventure and service. Most people go back to normal life, but Reann stayed on with Mercy Ships as part of the communications staff, spreading the word by talking with people like me (and you). Here is her story.
Mercy Ships website.
Mercy Minute podcast.
Re...
2024-10-0155 minAlmost Good CatholicsA Letter from Jesus (with Dann Aungst)Dann Aungst was pretty far gone in his sexual addiction when Jesus grabbed him (figuratively) by the lapels and sent him (literally) messengers, a letter, and a locution during Adoration. He left the road of destruction and chaos and found himself on the road to purity. He then founded his apostolate (which he called The Road to Purity) after writing his inspired, From One Addict to Another. He talks about his story and also the roots of addiction in the human heart and how he helps seminarians advise us sinners in the confessional where they speak in persona Christi.
...
2024-09-1258 minAlmost Good CatholicsLocalism (with Dale Ahlquist)Dale Ahlquist is the founder the of the Society of G. K. Chesterton and Chesterton Schools, of which there are currently 70 and number is rising. He is also the editor of the book we are talking about today, Localism: Coming Home to Catholic Social Teaching, from Sophia Press, which explores the economic and social questions of how we should organize out society. It is a third way, I think, that departs from both the big government solutions offered by our progressive friends and yet also the big business capitalistic model that sometimes alienates us from our labor and communities. Dal...
2024-08-2952 minAlmost Good CatholicsA Hidden Life (with Brian Zahnd)What would you do in the place of Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter in 1943? Mumble your loyalty oath to Hitler like everyone else—or refuse and pay with your life? This martyr is a blessed in the Catholic Church and on the way to being canonized. He is also the subject of a transcendentally beautiful movie A Hidden life by Terrence Mallick in 2019. Pastor Brian Zahnd, author of the Wood Between the Worlds, talks about the man, the movie, and the martyrdom with me on Almost Good Catholics.There’s a moment in our discussion where I say to Br...
2024-08-151h 09Almost Good CatholicsLet My People Go (with Matt Osborne)LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED: The topic of today’s episode is human trafficking and crimes against children, usually sexual crimes, and sometimes ritual abuse and organ harvesting.Matt Osborne has worked with OUR Rescue (originally Operation Underground Railroad) for ten years; he left his CIA career to join this NGO and is now one of the longest-serving members of the team. Last year he was COO and president and these days he’s Global Ambassador for Operations and Education; as part of this new role, he hosts the Voices for Freedom podcast with his friend and colleague Jessica...
2024-08-011h 14Almost Good CatholicsWhat Would Jesus Say about Diversity and Inclusion? (with Pete Imperial)Pete Imperial has been principal of St. Mary’s Catholic High School in Berkeley, California, a Lasallian Catholic School of 160 years and going strong. Yet only 45% of the students are Catholics (though a similar number are Protestant Christians) and some of the kids have had no religious experience at all. How does a good Catholic school infuse the souls of its charges and the secular society at large with the Gospel and the teachings of the Holy Roman Catholic Church?Dr. Imperial has a BA from the University of California in Berkeley, an MA in history from Sa...
2024-07-1853 minAlmost Good CatholicsVerso l’Alto (with Christine Wohar)Christine Wohar talks about Finding Frassati: And Following His Path to Holiness (EWTN, 2021), her book about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. The book is a biography, hagiography, and delightful conversation about the participation of the Communion of Saints in our lives and how can join hands with them in our daily lives. Like many of us, Bl. Pier Giorgio was a normal guy with a comfortable life, and he did normal fun things available to him a young wealthy, Italian a hundred years ago, like mountain climbing, Alpine skiing, studying at university, and playing pool with his friends. But he al...
2024-07-041h 14Almost Good CatholicsWise as Serpents, Gentle as Doves (with Dorcas Oyelade and Kailea Barte)Dorcas Oyelade and Kailea Barté, two young women, still teenagers, organized a Christian club in a public at John Swett High School in Crockett, Northern California, where I am a teacher. The students worked with a Protestant NGO, Decision Point, which supported them even as they insisted on their First Amendment rights when there was opposition. The club has been an impressive success with many students joining them at lunch time, become interested in the Christian faith, and in some cases starting to go with them to church.Decision Point website and YouTube channel. Learn more...
2024-06-2046 minAlmost Good CatholicsLate Have I Loved You (with John Michael Talbot)John Michael Talbot is a tremendously successful musician and writer; he is also the founder of a monastery—the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage in Arkansas—where he is Minister General today. He started as a Methodist and a country rock musician in the seventies and the story of his journey is amazing, from the encounter with Jesus he had at seventeen to the intense mystical experiences that he had later in life during an illness that brought him into closer communion with Our Lord.
John Michael Talbot’s website.
John Michael Talbot’s Wikipedia...
2024-06-061h 04Almost Good CatholicsJerome’s Tears (with David Bonagura Jr.): Death and Mourning in Christian Late AntiquityProfessor David Bonagura, theologian and Latinist, has translated and edited seven of St. Jerome’s letters dealing with death and mourning. This doctor of the church consoles his friends in first centuries of Christendom, describing death as sleep, and dying as our journey back home to God. And though the Mediterranean is big and fourth-century travel was slow, we see that the Christian community is surprisingly close. The letters also reveal some of the material history and mentalities of daily life which allow us a priceless glimpse across the centuries.
Professor Bonagura’s website.
Professor Bonagura’s book Jerome...
2024-05-2445 minAlmost Good CatholicsKnocking at the Brothel Door (with Michael John Cusick)Michael John Cusick argues that our addictions and disordered sexual desires are really a misdirected effort to reach God and live in connection with Him. How can this be? The crude simulation is but at poor substitute for the real thing, for the Truth. Yet in this fallen world, sinners repeatedly fall into the snares. “I do not understand my own actions,”—Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans—"For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” But like the prodigal son in the pigpen, we cannot but lift our eyes from...
2024-05-0948 minAlmost Good CatholicsMaking Moves (and Making Movies) in the Mission Field (with Temeko Richardson)Temeko Ricardson grew up in the Protestant American tradition; she was a “GPK” (grand-pastor-kid) from a family of church leaders. She has been thinking about Christianity and social issues—failure to include God’s people into His Church, fractured families, homelessness—and how to weave out society together and spread the Gospel. She’s an entrepreneur, consultant, philanthropist, and filmmaker. Today we talk about her work and the content she had been making to “ensure people understand the greatness of having Christ at the center of their lives through entertaining content.”
Temeko Richardson’s YouTube channel.
Temeko Richardson’s IMDB page.
Temeko R...
2024-04-2550 minAlmost Good CatholicsCatholic in Palestine (with Fr Firas Abedrabbo)There have been Christians in the Holy Land for two thousand years; “we are the first church,” says Father Firas Abedrabbo who is from Bethlehem and works in Ramallah. He studied law in France and speaks excellent English and spoke with me about his experience as a priest in Palestine (the West Bank) during the Gaza War. We talk politics and history, but we also talk about how people in the middle of a war can see God’s love and His participation in our daily lives, even (or perhaps especially) in our darkest hours.I am gratef...
2024-04-1144 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Wood Between the Worlds (with Brian Zahnd)For Christians, the central event in history and in universe is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. This killing of God (or deicide) is so mysterious and terrible that it’s hard to even approach: what kind of a God would choose to be tortured and murdered by his rebellious creatures? Pastor Brian Zahnd’s poetic theology of the Cross (in The Wood between the Worlds) takes a kaleidoscopic approach, which turns this way and that, until that terrible cross reflects the light of God that dazzles with coruscating beauty.
Pastor Brian’s webpage.
Pastor...
2024-03-281h 05Almost Good CatholicsWoe to this Generation (with Colin Rahill)Colin Rahill dropped out of law school to become a Catholic writer; he just finished his first book, Castor & Pollux (Emerald Books, 2023), which is about the troubles facing Gen Z: the idolatrous snares of social media, health cults, self-manifesting, neopaganism, a kaleidoscope of prescription drugs, and pornified AI digital realities (to name a few). It’s also about his journey as an artist and, above all, his path to the Catholic Church. But it’s not a book about social angst, the domain of older faultfinders; it’s a novel and a youthful one. It’s an allegorical—sometimes satirical—adv...
2024-03-1455 minAlmost Good CatholicsMiracle Man (with Joe McGivney)Lifelong alcoholic Joe McGivney drank himself into brain damage and permanent disability. The day after being placed into the assisted care he would need for rest of his life, he sprang back to full recovery, restored health—it was a medical impossibility—for which he credits the intercession of Blessed Father Michael McGivney, his distant relative and the founder of the Knights of Columbus in the nineteenth-century Catholic charitable brotherhood and who is now being considered for canonization on the basis of the recorded intercessory miracles like the one Joe experience two years ago.
Joe and Nicole’s website...
2024-03-011h 03Almost Good CatholicsHomo sapiens catholicus (with Jeremy Holmes)Theology Professor Jeremy Holmes of Wyoming Catholic College teaches a class called “Science and Theology,” which is about the Darwin’s theory of evolution and related topics, including the problems we encounter in the fossil record and our understanding of genetic change. I ask him about the discussions he has with his students and his colleagues and how where his investigations have led him.
Jeremy Holmes’s faculty webpage at Wyoming Catholic College
Professor Holmes’s book, Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words (Ignatius Press, 2021).
“Confederate Evolution Debate” from Gettysburg (1993)
Related Almost Good Catholics episode:Jay Richards on Almost...
2024-02-151h 20Almost Good CatholicsThe Ground is Crying out to God (with Fr. Piotr Żelazko)Father Piotr Żelazko is Vicar for the St. James Vicariate in Jerusalem and has been priest in Israel for fifteen years (he is a native of Poland and studied in Rome). He and I recorded our first talk about Catholicism in Israel in the fall, weeks before October 7 and the Gaza War. Since then, we have been periodically checking in to talk about War, Peace, the Holy Land and all of God’s children there. This is the third talk of that series.
Website of the Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew-Speaking Catholics in Israel.
Father’ Piotr’s webpage.
The oth...
2024-02-0841 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Good Fire: Theology of Stewardship & Controlled Burning (with Peter Hess)Peter Hess (Ph.D, FFT2) is a theologian, an environmental scientist, a wildland fire practitioner, and firefighter type two. I ask Peter about this work which is a collaboration of firefighters and indigenous communities, about the Catholic Theology, stewardship of the Earth, and Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudatus Si’.
Peter Hess’s webpage at “Climate Abandoned.”
Peter Hess’s book, Catholicism and Science (Greenwood, 2008).
Laudatus Si’, Pope Francis’s encyclical letter (2015).
TERA website, the Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance.
‘Firefighter Type 2’ explained at the National Wildfire Coordinating Group.
Related Almost Good Catholics episode:Joseph Nagel and Heather Skinner, episode 8: It...
2024-02-0156 minAlmost Good Catholics"Apocalypto" and Mel Gibson (with Jonathon Fessenden)The 2006 Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto, takes us into a decadent Maya civilization in the Yucatan on the eve of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. It could be a commentary on ancient Rome or the present-day US, but, because it is a new world for both the viewer and the forest-dwelling protagonists, we get to see it through ‘new eyes’ and a ‘beginner’s mind.’ It’s a great movie, a cinematic masterpiece. It also allows us to ask how Mel Gibson, a devout Catholic and such a human sinner—as we all are, though when he does something terrible it’s in the new...
2024-01-181h 04Almost Good CatholicsThe Men We Need (with Brant Hansen)“What is a man?” asks Hamlet. If all he does is “sleep and feed,” then “a beast, no more.” That’s not enough for Hamlet, and it’s not enough for Brant Hansen, who spreads the Gospel by radio and in print. He’s written a number of books, including his new one, The Men We Need, which asks and answers questions about men’s special role in our world, and the opportunity for joy and meaning. Hansen’s thesis is rooted in scripture and reflects what Catholics will recognize as the theology of the Body developed by St. John Paul II. It was a g...
2024-01-081h 09Almost Good CatholicsOur Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True MythIt turns out that our familiar narrative of the Virgin of Guadalupe, when Mary appeared to Juan Diego in 1531 and left her image on his tilma, resembles an indigenous Mexican myth. And this myth of the Flower World in “Cuicapeuhcayotl” (“Origin of Songs”) has led some secular historians and anthropologists to conclude that the Catholic version must therefore be an imitation, a fabrication. Yet Joseph Julián and Monique González concluded that the opposite was true. They argue “that God had prepared the Mesoamerican people to receive Christianity” that this Nahua myth had been inserted into history to make...
2023-12-091h 08Almost Good CatholicsDarwinian Accident or Divine Architect? (with Jay Richards)Jay Richards PhD, OP discusses the new book to which he contributed a chapter, God’s Grandeur: The Catholic Case for Intelligent Design (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), edited by Ann Gauger. We take on the insufficient explanations of Darwinian orthodoxy which insists that our world—from the vast cosmos to the also vast (in its complexity) genetic code in our cells.At the end of this episode (at 55 minutes), we hear an update from Father Piotr Żelazko in Israel as we enter the second month of the Gaza War.
Here’s the book, God’s Grandeur: The Catholic Cas...
2023-11-231h 16Almost Good CatholicsLet Us Make Man in Our Image (with Paul Louis Metzger)In our talk about his book, More than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture (InterVarsity Press, 2023), and in addition to quoting Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, Paul Louis Metzger also quotes Indiana Jones. When seeking the Grail, he chooses the clay cup from among the gilded chalices, “that’s the cup of a carpenter,” is the metaphor of the inherent value of human beings, ends unto themselves, priceless and unrepeatable. So I ask him (Dr. Metzger, not Dr. Jones) how we keep this in our minds and hearts as we navigate a secular culture that prizes t...
2023-11-0958 minAlmost Good CatholicsLive from Israel (with Fr. Piotr Zelazko)Father Piotr Zelazko is Vicar for the St. James Vicariate in Jerusalem and has been priest in Israel for fifteen years (he is a native of Poland and studied in Rome). He describes the Catholic Church in Israel today and also the broader Christian community. He discusses some of the challenges and many joys of the ecumenical work he does with Jews, Muslims, and the many other Christian denominations in the Holy Land. And he tells a lot of stories of pastoral work in Jerusalem and in the desert at Be’er Sheva.The first 24 minutes of th...
2023-10-261h 24Almost Good CatholicsKids These Days (with Jane Sloan Peters)Jane Sloan Peters remembers World Youth Day in Toronto back in 2002 when she was a teenager. She also talks about being a young mother and a teacher; she is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx. We also discuss her articles in America Magazine, her teaching philosophy, and the faith journey she has been on since her teenage conversion to the present day.
Professor Peters’s faculty webpage at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx.
Jane Sloan Peters’s articles (several of which we discussed today) for America Ma...
2023-10-1957 minAlmost Good CatholicsHammertime and Hanukkah (with Matthew and Leeanne Thomas)Between 167 and 160 BC, Judas Maccabeus and his brothers led a revolt against the Greek tyrant who desecrated the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Miraculously victorious, the Jews rededicated the Temple in a festival of lights that became the first Hannukah. A bloody tale of oppression, war, and ancient diplomacy, these books (Maccabees 1 and 2) are a bridge between the Old and New Testaments and are the first places that the Jewish Bible speaks of life after death, intercessory prayer, and purgatory.Matthew and Leeanne Thomas edited and annotated these texts for the Ignatius Study Bible. Matthew is a theologian...
2023-09-281h 07Almost Good CatholicsBrides of Christ (with Sr Mary Josefa of the Eucharist)Sister Mary Josefa of the Eucharist is a Benedictine nun in Missouri; she and the sisters of her community recently wrote a charming children’s book, Brides of Christ (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), which invites the reader into the rhythms of their contemplative life through the course of the day and cycle of the year. She talks about this life with me and also the discernment that drew her into it.We also discuss the late Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster who founded their community who drew the attention of the world earlier this year when her exhumed body was mira...
2023-09-1448 minAlmost Good CatholicsWho’s Afraid of the Catholic Integralists? (with Kevin Vallier)Kevin Vallier is a philosophy professor and author of All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism (Oxford UP, 2023), a new book about Catholic Integralism, a mostly online intellectual movement that thinks the church should take over the state, something that made sense fifteen hundred years ago after the collapse of the Roman Empire, but not so much day in our pluralistic, democratic age. Professor Vallier’s goal is to help us all talk together with patience and grace (which includes really listening) to people we disagree with and regard as eccentric. So why not talk...
2023-08-3159 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Seven Deadly Sins (with Fr Chris Pietraszko)Father Chris Pietraszko has been thinking about sin and redemption for the last year and a half as he has been writing a series of articles that will become a book. Relying on the Gospel, Catholic Doctrine, Thomas Aquinas, and his experience in the confessional, Father Chris explains the mechanism of sin, how it works in our lives, and how it is to be defeated. He reflects on his experience as a confessor and explains the relationship between the deadly and venial sins.
Articles by Father Chris Pietraszko from Missio Dei (including all of the ones about the Seve...
2023-08-2459 minAlmost Good CatholicsIdolatry and Idle Hands (with Jacob Howland)Philosophy professor Jacob Howland applies the lessons of Greek classics and Jewish scripture to this our curious moment at the inception of Artificial intelligence when computers are doing more and more work for us, and we humans—like miniature Gods—can make up new simulated realities and even identities for ourselves. There’s a word for when people worship the things they create: idolatry. Looking to the Bible (from the Garden of Eden, the Fall, Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, and the Golden Calf) and literature (from Homer, Plato, and Hesiod, all the way to Milton), Professor Howlan...
2023-08-101h 10Almost Good CatholicsThe Fourth Wise Man (with Jonathon Fessenden)Jonathon Fessenden, theologian and editor of Missio Dei, invited me to talk about The Fourth Wise Man, the 1985 film based on the 1895 Henry van Dyke novella, The Other Wise Man. It was a tale I had known as a children’s story, but it was a delight to learn more about it, to watch this movie (a few times), and to share this discussion with Jonathon. Martin Sheen plays Artaban, a Persian astrologer, a magus (one of the magi), who is following the star to the birth of Christ. But he arrives too late and spends the next thirty years pur...
2023-08-0353 minAlmost Good CatholicsWhen Did We See You a Stranger and Welcome You? (with Ben Metcalf)The poor have always been with us, even in a rich country and a prosperous time. I ask Ben Metcalf, former Secretary of Housing and Community Development in California, about the challenges and successes of the government in providing shelter for its people. Our conversation recalls the question from Matthew 25:37-38, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?’ I was pleased to see that many of my assumptions about homelessness were mistaken and even more plea...
2023-07-2753 minAlmost Good CatholicsWhat Jesus Intended (with Bishop Todd Hunter)Bishop Todd Hunter is an Anglican Bishop in Tennessee and author of What Jesus Intended: Finding Faith in the Rubble of Bad Religion (IVP, 2023). He argues that, despite the troubles of the world and the messes we make, we should embrace Jesus’s invitation to follow him and live in his friendship and in his Kingdom right now. The goal is “being the cooperative friend of Jesus, seeking to live a life of constant creative goodness, for the sake of others, through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Bishop Hunter’s webpage on the Churches for the Sake of Others web...
2023-07-2057 minAlmost Good CatholicsMaster Craftsman, Broken Tools (with Fr. Chris Alar, MIC)Father Chris talks about his devotion to Our Lady, and what he has learned from St. Maria Faustyna Kowalska, the poor Polish country girl, whose visions of and friendship with Jesus gave us Divine Mercy Sunday. Father Chris calls it the “Extra Credit of Grace.” We also talk about suicide and intercessory prayer and why God choses to work with broken tools. Fr. Chris is Provincial Superior of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception in the United States and Argentina.
Father Chris’s page on the Marian Fathers’ website.
Father Chris’s video about St. Faustina.
St. Faustina’s Diar...
2023-07-1356 minAlmost Good CatholicsLove Them Both (with Kimberly Bird)Kimberly Bird is vice president of external relations of Live Action, an online media advocacy and education organization that works to shift public opinion on abortion and protect the lives of children between conception and birth. I ask her about the most effective ways she has found to change people’s minds, instead of just screaming at each other, or past each other. I also ask her who the women who are getting abortions and why (the answer surprised me), and about the places of agreement across the political spectrum on how we can support them.
Live Action webs...
2023-07-0648 minAlmost Good CatholicsLong Live the Empire! (with Amb. Archd. Eduard Habsburg)Eduard Habsburg is Archduke of Austria and Hungarian Ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta. He’s also a husband, a dad, and a regular guy. He talks about Star Wars and Dune, Harry Potter and James Bond. He is probably the first member of the Order of the Golden Fleece to have written the screenplay for a zombie movie. I ask him about his family—both his happy marriage and six children, and also the dynastic history of the House of Habsburg. I also ask him his work as a diplomat working with Victor Orbán and...
2023-06-2959 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Book of Job (with Jonathon Fessenden)Jonathon Fessenden, theologian and editor of Missio Dei, and I discussed this ancient and supremely interesting book on his podcast. The Book of Job is one of the oldest poems in our tradition. It is a joy to read and a puzzle to wonder about: why does God allow—even provoke—the Accuser to destroy Job’s life and test his faith? What does it mean for us when things are not going the way we hope? What is this troubled world, this vale of tears, for in the first place?
The video of our discussion of The Book of Job...
2023-06-2252 minAlmost Good CatholicsDown Deep in My Soul (with Fr. Maurice Nutt, C.Ss.R.)In his new book, Down Deep in My Soul: An African American Catholic Theology of Preaching (Orbis Books, 2023), Father Maurice Nutt, a doctor of preaching from the Aquinas Institute of Theology and a Redemptorist priest, teaches us about African American oratorical and homiletic tradition and shows how it can enrich preaching in every church. This is a discussion about history, cultural anthropology, and the Roman Catholic Church. As always, we ask how we got here and where do we go next. I also ask Father Maurice to respond to Pope Francis’s recommendation that homilies should be kept under ten m...
2023-06-1549 minAlmost Good CatholicsPurgatory (with Tim Staples)Tim Staples is Director of Apologetics and Evangelization at Catholic Answers. His piece, “What Happens in Purgatory?” is the most read article on the entire website. I ask him to explain what the Catholic Church says (and doesn’t say) about purgatory. How does purgatory work? ...and how about heaven and hell? How should we think about these ‘places’ and about eternity?
Tim Staple’s profile in Catholic Answers
Tim Staples’s article, “What Happens in Purgatory?,” in Catholic Answers, July 8, 2021.
What the Catechism teaches on the subject of purgatory (CCC #1030 – 1032)
1 Corinthians 3:11-15
Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of M...
2023-06-0947 minAlmost Good CatholicsYou Set a Table Before Me (with Sr. Maria Catherine, OP)Sr Maria Catherine was looking for Truth in the wrong places when she started practicing witchcraft as girl. But she found her way out of the darkness and into the Dominican Order; today she teaches theology and literature at JSerra High School in California. We talk about that journey and about the challenges facing young people today, the generation we are both teaching. In the second half of the program we talk about her favorite movie, which I just watched for the first time, Babette’s Feast.
Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987) on Wikipedia and IMDB.
Babette’s Feast trail...
2023-06-0145 minAlmost Good CatholicsDown to Earth (with Richard Foster and Brenda Quinn)Quaker theologian Richard J. Foster and charismatic pastor Brenda Quinn talk with me about Foster’s new book (which Quinn worked on with him), Learning Humility: A Year of Searching for a Vanishing Virtue (InterVarsity Press, 2022). Foster explains why we should and how we can cultivate this greatest of virtues. He also tells me about his Quaker foundations, his investigation of Lakota history and culture, and what he has learned from fire—something we have in common.
Richard Foster’s Learning Humility from IVP (InterVarsity Press)
Richard Foster’s Learning Humility on Amazon
Richard Foster’s Learning Humility excerpt on Renovaré
...
2023-05-2549 minAlmost Good CatholicsHere We Stand? (with Bishop Donald Hying)Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, Wisconsin, wrote a statement in his diocesan journal, the Madison Catholic Herald about the German Synodal Way. The German Bishops, in defiance of Pope Francis, have been promoting same sex unions and the ordination of women and transgender persons. I ask Bishop Hying what is going on and how these matters should be handled: is there a correct way for the brother bishops to disagree on social issues as they listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit to guide them and our Church in this time of accelerating change?
“Statement from Bishop Hying...
2023-05-1846 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Miraculous Mind (with Paul Bloom)Psychologist Paul Bloom and I talk about the human brain, morality, empathy, perversity, all the things—including Professor Bloom’s new book, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind (Ecco Press, 2023). Culturally Jewish but in practice an atheist, Paul Bloom comes at the recurring theological questions familiar to the Almost Good Catholics audience from the materialistic perspective of psychology.
Paul Bloom’s Yale faculty webpage
Paul Bloom’s Toronto faculty webpage
Paul Bloom’s Wikipedia page
Paul Bloom’s book, Psych
Paul Bloom and Dave Pizarro’s Psych podcast
Paul Bloom’s Introduction to Psychology on Yale Open Courses
Paul Bloom’s TED Ta...
2023-05-1159 minAlmost Good CatholicsPeople of the Book (with Munir Sheikh)I talk with a Muslim friend about the places that Islam and Christianity overlap, and also the places where they diverge. Of these subjects, none is more interesting than the role of Jesus Christ whom Muslims call the Prophet Issa (peace be upon him). Muslims hold him in high esteem but do not believe in his divinity or in the Trinity itself. Muslims believe in the Resurrection and Second Coming but interestingly not in the death of Jesus. They also revere Our Lady, the Virgin Mary.Munir Sheikh is a Sunni Muslim from Bangladesh. He’s a ma...
2023-05-041h 16Almost Good CatholicsRemember the Sabbath (with Senator Joe Lieberman)Today I talked with Senator Joe Lieberman—who ran for Vice President in 2000 with Al Gore, and for President in 2004 in the Democratic primary—about his book, The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath (2011). Senator Lieberman is a devout Jew and talks with me about the Sabbath tradition, a custom rooted in God’s day of rest at the end of creation (Genesis 2) and the Mosaic Law and the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). It is the shared practice of all Abrahamic monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.
Senator Lieberman’s book, The Gift of Rest
Senat...
2023-04-2745 minAlmost Good CatholicsCatholic Movies, Part 2 (with Jonathon Fessenden)Jonathon Fessenden and I talk about two movies, Roland Joffé’s The Mission (1986) and Fred Zinneman’s A Man for All Seasons (1966), both written by Robert Bolt, and both about men of Faith facing persecution and a sudden reversal of political fortune. These are themes that we began in our first discussion, Episode 37: Catholic Movies, Pt. 1.Jonathon Fessenden is a Catholic writer, composer, and teacher of theology. He has written about movies and worked in the industry as a composer, and continues to write music for film.
Jonathon Fessenden’s articles at Missio Dei.
The Mission (1986): Trailer, Wikiped...
2023-04-201h 10Almost Good CatholicsRevival (with Fr Norman Fischer): The Holy Spirit at Work in Kentucky . . . and Many Other PlacesFor three weeks in February of 2023, a spontaneous ‘Outpouring’ at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, set the hearts of American Christians aflame, reviving their faith and our spiritual conversation. Fr Norman Fischer, pastor of nearby St. Peter Claver Catholic Church and the chaplain at Lexington Catholic High School, in Lexington Kentucky, went over to Asbury to check it out. He tells us about the glorious events he witnessed there, in Wilmore. He also explains how, for Catholics, to feel the intercession of God is not unusual. God is in the Eucharist, in every miracle, in every saintly martyrdom, in ever...
2023-04-1347 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Gospel According to Dorothy (with Kathryn Wehr)In 1941, Dorothy Sayers, Christian apologist, author of The Mind of the Maker, and even more famous for her Peter Whimsey mystery novels, wrote a cycle of plays on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was produced by the BBC for the radio and was a great success, though Sayers got flak for it from all directions—from secular voices calling it religious propaganda, from conservative voices calling it blasphemy. She also broke an established prohibition against actors playing Jesus and made a number of editorial choices that were astonishing for the time and remain notable in the...
2023-04-061h 02Almost Good CatholicsGary Kulik: Conscientious Objector Who Served in VietnamGary Kulik was a Catholic Conscientious Objector (CO) during the Vietnam War, but when he was drafted he decided to go and serve as a medic. He tells me about this decision and how he arrived at it, about his journey to Vietnam, his experiences there, and his return. He also talks about how Americans often misrepresent the war in Hollywood and politics, which is the topic of his first book, War Stories: False Atrocity Tales, Swift Boaters, and Winter Soldiers—What Really Happened in Vietnam. (His second book, The Forgotten Medics of Vietnam, is forthcoming.)Gary Kulik...
2023-03-3058 minAlmost Good CatholicsEducation in the World not of the WorldRich Meyer, president of JSerra High School—named for St. Junípero Serra, the ‘Apostle of California’—in Southern California, discusses what is working in Catholic education today. He and I are both fathers and teachers; and I ask him about his philosophy and his school’s approach about social media and some of the contentious cultural issues of our day. How do we help our children find sure footing on the right path and what is the correct balance of order and freedom, of justice and grace?
JSerra High School website.
JSerra High School podcast: Unplugged.
Learn mor...
2023-03-2357 minAlmost Good CatholicsNed Bustard, "Saint Patrick the Forgiver: The History and Legends of Ireland's Bishop" (InterVarsity, 2023)Ned Bustard is the author of a new children’s book, Saint Patrick the Forgiver: The History and Legends of Ireland's Bishop (InterVarsity, 2023). We talked about the book, the life of St. Patrick, and the conversion of Ireland. The day after the interview, during his Ash Wednesday homily, Pope Francis said, “the Gospel is not an idea, the Gospel is not an ideology: the Gospel is a proclamation that touches your heart and makes you change your heart.” That’s exactly what St Patrick showed by returning to pagan Ireland where he’d been a slave for six years. When a slave...
2023-03-1652 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Exorcist: Angels, Demons, and the Cosmic Battle around UsI asked an exorcist, Monsignor Rosetti, about the spiritual world around us, the demons he fights, and the mischief they cause. He talks about his life and work as an exorcist, how people stumble into demonic ensnarement, and how we, in our daily practice and through the Sacraments and sacramentals, can steer clear of it.Monsignor Stephen Rossetti is the head of St. Michael’s Center for Spiritual Renewal and teaches at the Catholic University of America. He has a PhD in psychology and is the author of a number of books, including Diary of an American Exorci...
2023-03-0948 minAlmost Good CatholicsWho Do You Think You Are?: Thorny Questions about Sex, Identity, and Catholic DoctrineGarret Johnson works with Courage, the Catholic apostolate for people experience same-sex attractions. He describes his experience living the gay lifestyle and responds to my interview with Father Jim Martin, SJ, author of Building a Bridge, and several things Fr Jim said in that conversation that Garrett disagrees with. This is—please be warned—an honest, raw, and redeeming discussion about sex, gay culture, drugs, pornography, identity politics, Catholic doctrine, and the secular narrative.
Garrett’s website, brotherwithoutorder.com.
The websites for Courage and also Encourage. Courage serves people experiencing same sex attraction and Encourage is for the people—parent...
2023-03-021h 15Almost Good CatholicsDigging for Answers: The Archaeology of Jerusalem and the Politics of ArchaeologyKatharina Galor, an archaeology professor at the at the Program in Judaic Studies at Brown University who has done a lot of excavation in Israel, is the author of The Archaeology of Jerusalem: From the Origins to the Ottomans (2013). She takes us through the history of Jerusalem from its Canaanite beginnings to the capital of Israel today.We discuss the foundations and geography of this fortified city in the hills, the importance of water, and the lives of ordinary citizens. We talk about the First and Second Temples and the improvements made by Herod “the Great” whom Christ...
2023-02-231h 06Almost Good CatholicsO Death, Where is Your Sting? The Biblical Theology of ResurrectionIn his new book, The Hope of Life After Death: A Biblical Theology of Resurrection (Intervarsity Press, 2022), Professor Jeff Brannon traces Resurrection and Redemption from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, taking the Bible as a unified whole—not as a library of disparate sources. He is a Biblical scholar and a Protestant Christian in the Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) Tradition. I also asked him to explain our need for salvation and a savior in the first place (which is the same topic I took up in the previous episode with Catholic theologian David Basile).In his book and in our di...
2023-02-161h 02Almost Good CatholicsWhy a Savior? The Theology of Sacrifice and RedemptionAs we start the second year of Almost Good Catholics, I asked my old friend David Basile, the theology teacher (and our very first guest last year) to come back and explain the mystery of our redemption in the sacrifice of Christ crucified. What is more central to our Christian faith, and yet – at least for me – what is more difficult to understand?David Basile is Chair of Theology at Archbishop Rummel High School in Metarie, Louisiana. He explains how Paul’s verdict—“the wages of sin are death” (Roman 6:23)—is not the bad news it sounds like and how the...
2023-02-021h 20Almost Good Catholics“Quintessence of Dust?”: Friendly Argument about God and ManPeter Hall is my old friend, a once-atheist who now calls himself an agnostic; we’ve known each other for fifteen years since we both taught English literature at an international school in Egypt. He and I talk through our hopes and doubts about God and man. It’s an episode that departs from the Almost Good Catholics model and it begins with me explaining how and why the podcast was moving to the New Books Network: Academic Partners in December of 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2023-02-0132 minAlmost Good CatholicsWalking the Via Dolorosa: An Archaeologist Follows Jesus from His Trial to His CrucifixionArchaeologist Ilka Knüppel discusses her master's thesis—The Search for Jesus's Final Steps: How Archaeological and Literary Evidence Reroutes the Via Dolorosa—and how she came to write it. To use both ‘archaeological and literary evidence’ requires digging in both the earth and in books, and to ‘reroute’ the Via Dolorosa reveals that many of the traditional fixtures are pious inventions of later centuries.Ilka talks a bit about her life, how she became an archaeologist and what kind of projects she has been undertaking since wrote her master’s thesis.
Ilka Knüppel on Twitter
Ilka Knü...
2023-01-3147 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Mesopotamian Connection: Comparing the Bible to Other Literature of the Ancient Near EastProfessor Cathleen Chopra-McGowan examines some the incongruities of our Bible in the context of the Ancient Near East, showing how the stories and traditions of Israel resembled and borrowed from those of Babylon and Assyria. She compares the Genesis narrative to two others, the epics of Gilgamesh and Atra-Hasis, especially discussing the universal flood narrative and rationale for sacrifice to show the evolution of our ancestors’ religious practice and thinking about God.Professor Chopra-McGowan teaches courses in the Religious Studies Department at Santa Clara University, including Near Eastern languages, literatures, history, and archaeology, as well as uses of...
2023-01-301h 00Almost Good CatholicsApocalypse Past, Present, and Future: Thinking about the End in History and CultureHistorian John Jeffries Martin traces narratives of the Apocalypse over the last 500 years in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions in his new book, A Beautiful Ending. This discussion about the culture of Apocalypse follows (and is the second part of) an interview we began on the New Books in History Podcast which was a historical discussion.Professor Martin is an Early Modern Historian at Duke University. His earlier books include Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (1993), and Myths of Renaissance Individualism (2004). He is also editor of several books, including The Renaissance World (2007), wh...
2023-01-291h 02Almost Good CatholicsChatting with the Homeless: Looking for Jesus among the Least of Our BrothersDominican Friar John Vianney Russel has made a habit of talking with homeless people and shares what he has learned. He doesn’t have all the answers and, in fact, we agree we are not even clear on the problem; but we start to pull on some of the threads—spiritual, psychological, material, political—of this very tangled knot. Brother John Vianney also talks about his own vocation and how we might listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit.
The forum that Brother John Vianney refers to is Defenders of the Catholic Faith
Paul VI, Populorum Progression (1967)
Lee Oh...
2023-01-2858 minAlmost Good CatholicsWhat if You're Gay? Starting Conversations with and about LGBT CatholicsSince 2016, and with the blessing of Pope Francis, Father Jim Martin has been talking with LGBT Catholics about their relationship with their church. That’s the subject of his book, Building a Bridge, and also a documentary film by the same title; we talk about what the bridge is and where it might take us. He also reflects on his vocation as a Jesuit priest and editor-at-large at America Magazine: the Jesuit Review and about his travels in the Holy Land.In this episode we refer back to earlier conversations, including episode 16 with Colleen Dulle of America Me...
2023-01-2754 minAlmost Good CatholicsIn the Swiss Guards: Reflections on Two Years Guarding the PopeDavid Geisser was a Swiss Guard protecting Pope Francis and the Apostolic Palace between 2013 and 2015. He was following the footsteps of his father who had been in the service a generation earlier under Pope John Paul II, including on the dark day (May 13, 1981) when a would-be assassin shot the Holy Father. I ask him about his experiences in one of the oldest (est. 1506) and smallest (135 men) military organizations in history.
David Geisser’s YouTube channel, It’s Cooking Time
National Geographic, “Inside the Vatican,” 2021: Episode 1 and Episode 2
A Swiss public television documentary on the Swiss Guards (in German)
2023-01-2644 minAlmost Good CatholicsStabat Mater: A Sandy Hook Mom Stands with Mary at the Foot of the CrossOne morning in December of 2012, Laura Phelps’s little children went to school and lived through an attack by a madman who shot 20 of their classmates. Laura’s community was devastated and she became a ‘Sandy Hook Mom’ helping people find their way through trauma of this senseless violence. She describes her walk with Mary, who watched the execution of her innocent and perfect son, in her book, Sweet Cross: A Marian Guide to Suffering.
Laura Phelps’s website.
Stabat Mater, Pergolesi (1736)
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2023-01-251h 00Almost Good CatholicsFaithful Frontiers: A Turkish Scholar Describes How She Became a Catholic ApologistDerya Little has been a Muslim, an atheist, and a Protestant; today she is a Catholic writer and apologist. She tells the story of her conversion, talks about faith, family, Islam, history, the role of women in our Church. Since she and I are both fans of Star Trek and some other science fiction narratives, we riff about these as well (through a lens tinted by Dostoyevsky’s ‘Grand Inquisitor’).Derya Little is the author of From Islam to Christ (2017), At His Feet: Drawing Closer to Christ with the Women of the New Testament (2021), and A Beginner’s Guide to...
2023-01-241h 13Almost Good CatholicsCatholic in Karachi: Living as a Christian in an Islamic CountryAyyaz Gulzar, journalist and Catholic youth leader in Pakistan, describes the challenges and persecutions the Church faces in the Islamic Republic, which includes the county’s blasphemy laws. He also talks about the many successes and joys he has seen—and some surprises, for example Muslim women praying the ‘Hail Mary’ for Our Lady’s help during childbirth.We recorded this conversation during the floods of the summer of 2022 which have been described as the worst in the country’s history.
Articles by Ayyaz Gulzar in UCA News (Union of Catholic Asian News):
Caritas Pakistan
Jesus Youth, Pakis...
2023-01-2347 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Feminine Genius: Everyday Mysticism and How to Organize Your Life around ItDanielle Bean talks about everyday mysticism and learning to listen for God in her book, Whisper: Finding God in the Everyday. God is there in our daily tasks and especially in our daily relationships. She also talks about the special role that women play in the Catholic Church – the feminine genius – from the Virgin Mary to today’s busy moms. Both of these threads are a delightful continuation of our earlier discussion about St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Little Way (with Heather King and Lauren Nelson, on episodes 04 and 05, respectively).
Whisper: Finding God in the Everyday...
2023-01-2256 minAlmost Good CatholicsReflections of a Mormon who Became a Catholic: Understanding the Sacrament of ReconciliationJeremy Christiansen’s autobiography, From the Susquehanna to the Tiber, tells the story of his happy Mormon upbringing, the questioning of his faith, and his ultimate pilgrimage to the Catholic Church. The journey was a thorough investigation into 200 years of Mormon History and 2000 years of the foundations of the Christian Church. It was a long adventure and one that shook his family and marriage.
Jeremy Christiansen’s book (Sandman Books website): From the Susquehanna to the Tiber.
Jeremy Christiansen on Twitter.
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2023-01-211h 44Almost Good CatholicsBless Me, Father, for I have Sinned: Understanding the Sacrament of ReconciliationFather Joseph Horn explains the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where it comes from, how it works, and what many of us don’t know about it. At its inception, the Sacrament of Confession was offered only once in a lifetime! And even today it seems that some Catholics avoid the sacrament because of confusion about guilt; yet it is through Reconciliation that their guilt is entirely washed away. Fr Joe also explains mortal and venial sins, and how the Sacrament of the Eucharist removes the latter every week.
St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California
Father Joe’s talk about...
2023-01-2054 minAlmost Good CatholicsBetter Call Paul: How Did the Early Jewish Christians Understand “Works of the Law”?In his new book, theologian Matthew Thomas takes on the big question of what the Apostle Paul means when he talks about "Works of the Law" -- as opposed to Grace -- in terms of Justification, addressing a long-standing debate between biblical scholars and using second-century sources to adjudicate the question. The stakes of the faithful, and what it means to be a Christian for the first-century Jews who founded the religion, could not be higher, especially when St. Peter slid back into the observation of Mosaic custom.This is Matthew Thomas’s third appearance on AGC: yo...
2023-01-1956 minAlmost Good CatholicsWe Shall Overcome: Sister Thea Bowman and the Black Catholic ExperienceThough we are all one—“there is neither Jew nor Greek,” St. Paul wrote to the Galatians—each of us brings a particular heritage to the mosaic of God’s universal pilgrim church on Earth. Father Maurice Nutt helps us understand and celebrate the special contribution of African Americans in the Catholic Church. Father Maurice is a redemptorist priest and former director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans, an apostolate that celebrates and connects Black Catholicism in the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa. And, as fewer Americans are embracing the vocation of the pri...
2023-01-1858 minAlmost Good CatholicsWords and the Word: How Scripture Brings Us into God’s Eternal MomentJeremy Holmes, Theology Professor at Wyoming Catholic College, describes his study of scripture through the lenses of narrative criticism and theological exegesis, following the model of St. Matthew. he needed a master to show him how the Word used words, so he went to St. Matthew. Professor Holmes argues that we, modern people, tend to think of time as linear and two dimensional. But ancient Jews, including St. Matthew, saw time as both spread out and also gathered together, allowing us to participate in God’s eternity. St. Matthew saw scripture working simultaneously in the past and present: for Jes...
2023-01-1745 minAlmost Good CatholicsPray like a Mystic: Mystical Traditions and What to Do with ThemI asked Bishop Don Hying of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, about mysticism and evangelization. He describes Christianity as unique among the world’s religions because “the universal, mysterious, all-powerful, invisible God humbled himself to become one of his creatures,” a baby, in fact, shivering in the night; and so, paradoxically, the Christian experience of God as both transcendent and imminent. A mystic must go on the journey from our limited ideas about God to stand before Him in prayer. Bishop Hying draws on the experiences and teachings of mystics from long ago and also from the present day as he...
2023-01-1641 minAlmost Good CatholicsHoly Paradox and St. Teresa of Ávila: Mysticism in Sixteenth Century SpainCarlos Eire, author of The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila: A Biography (2019) and professor of medieval and early modern European history and religion at Yale University, discusses the life of St. Teresa and mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain. He also talks a bit about his immigration to the United States as a child refugee from Cuba in the 1960s; his commentary and scholarship has earned him the title of “enemy of the state” in today’s communist Cuba.· Here is Professor Eire’s faculty webpage at Yale University.· Here are books by Carlos Eire available from Amazon.com....
2023-01-1553 minAlmost Good CatholicsEternity Now: Talking about Mysticism with the Apostle to the Gangs of LAJesuit Father Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries in East LA, the world’s largest and most successful gang intervention and rehabilitation program. He talks about this ministry and his “therapeutic mysticism” which has trained him to see God and God’s people. Father Greg (“Father G”) has no interest in categories and the games of exclusion that we humans often play; he says, “gang violence is about a lethal absence of hope.” His mission to the homies, therefore, is filled with faith, hope, and love and brings “the God who is tender, the God who is too busy loving us...
2023-01-1448 minAlmost Good CatholicsMarxists and Mystics: A Vatican Journalist Discusses her Biography of Madeleine Delbrêl and the New Papal ConstitutionVatican journalist Colleen Dulle discusses her biography of the French Mystic Madeleine Delbrêl, author of The Marxist City as Mission Territory (1957), and Catholic evangelist among the urban poor of Ivry. Colleen calls Madeleine the “Dorothy Day of France.” Colleen and I also talk about her career reporting on the Vatican as part of America Media, Pope Francis’s new Apostolic Constitution, and her pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Fr. James Martin.
Inside the Vatican podcast
The Pope’s Voice podcast
Colleen Dulle’s 2018 article, “Who is Madeleine Delbrêl—the “French Dorothy Day” Pope Francis made venerable this weeke...
2023-01-1353 minAlmost Good CatholicsQueen of Heaven: How the Holy Spirit Works in the Catholic TraditionKeith Berube, professor of Mariology, theology, and literature, explains how the Holy Spirit is at work in the scripture, tradition, and magisterium in the Catholic Church; he also tells the story of his own faith journey and conversion and we talk about miraculous encounters—in our daily lives, in the lives of our friends, and in history (for example, at Lourdes). In addition, Keith discusses the historical context of Pope Francis’s consecration of Russia and Ukraine; along the way, he and I have a lively disagreement about Putin as we try to untangle the spiritual and political problems of t...
2023-01-121h 02Almost Good CatholicsRestless Pilgrims: About CS LewisDavid Bates, Catholic apologist and CS Lewis expert, reflects upon Lewis's conversion (how he was 'surprised by joy'), how his reason confirmed his feelings, how his theology stands on the authority of the Church and the Patristic Fathers) and his own experiences as a 'restless pilgrim.'
Pints with Jack (David's podcast about Lewis) is here.
Max McClean as CS Lewis in The Most Reluctant Convert is here.
David's conversation with Norman Stone, the director of the movie that follows this play (above) is here.
David's conversation with Joseph Pearce (who was the guest on Almost Good Catholics...
2023-01-1156 minAlmost Good CatholicsDid God Just Wink? Seeing the Numinous All Around UsAnabelle Mosely talks about living sacramentally, finding holiness in little things, and seeing the numinous in our daily lives. The Kingdom of God is at hand, apparent in the little affirmations or “signal graces,” as Anabelle says, and in metaphors which are “even truer” than the thing alone. She discusses her recent book, Sacred Braille (2019), about the Rosary, its history, and its sacramental power.Annabelle Mosely is a theology professor at St. Joseph’s College in New York, an author, a poet (she reads a couple of her poems at my request), a lay Carmelite, as well as a wife...
2023-01-1058 minAlmost Good CatholicsPray for us Sinners: Our Lady of Fátima and Pope Francis’s Consecration of Russia and UkraineProfessor William A. Thomas explains today's Consecration (March 25, 2022) by Pope Francis of Russia and Ukraine which is part of a century-long story, one that started in the Portuguese village of Fátima in 1917. Fátima, the Ultimate Mystery, which we discuss, is here. Dr. Thomas is a Mariologist, director of the St. John Paul II Institute of Marian Studies, and prolific apologetic writer. He explains Mary’s mediation between humans and God, the meaning of Marian apparitions, and what we can do to help our world and grow in holiness. Learn more about your ad choi...
2023-01-0944 minAlmost Good CatholicsWhat about Hell? CS Lewis and Theology of the AfterlifeJoseph Pearce, writer and literary scholar, leads us through CS Lewis’s theology on the afterlife and the meaning of eternity (and what Catholics say about his views). I ask him about Holy Saturday when Jesus descended in Hell, as described in the Apostles’ Creed, and what this event means us considering also the at Catechism of Catholic Church which calls Hell a “state of definitive self-exclusion”, a separation of “our own free choice” (CCC 1033). When, if ever, does it become too difficult for us, creatures with free will who are nonetheless transformed by our decisions, to just leave?Pearce’...
2023-01-0852 minAlmost Good CatholicsZen Buddhism, Mardi Gras, and the Metaphysics of Eternity: Talking about Buddhist and Christian MysticismDavid Basile (who was our guest in Episode 01) returns to talk about his ten years in as a Zen Buddhist monk at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Retreat Center in California. He tells the story of how he went from being a child in a lukewarm Catholic home, to a teenage atheist, to an ardent Buddhist at the monastery—where he encountered the Benedictine mystic, David Steindl-Rast—and finally back home to the Catholic Church. He and I discuss the commonalities and significant differences between Buddhism and Christianity. David also explains the radical departure that Buddhism took from Hinduism 2500 years ago...
2023-01-071h 19Almost Good CatholicsDo We Live in a Christian Country?I asked medieval historian Rachel Fulton Brown if we ought to still think of our nation (or any Western nation) as “a Christian country” in the twenty-first century. My reasoning was that I thought our Judeo-Christian inheritance is the foundation—if partially forgotten—of the democratic principles of our republic. The resulting discussion was lively, fruitful, and surprising.Professor Fulton Brown teaches Medieval European History at the University of Chicago, specializing on Religious, Cultural, and Intellectual History, the History of Christianity, Liturgy and Prayer, and Devotion to the Virgin Mary.
Professor Rachel Fulton Brown's faculty webpage at the U...
2023-01-0654 minAlmost Good CatholicsIt's Elementary! Catholic Education in the 21st CenturyJoseph Nagel and Heather Skinner are principal and vice-principal of the School of the Madeleine in Berkeley, California; Mrs. Skinner was also once Joseph’s teacher and mine (your host, Chris Odyniec) and has been at the school for 45 years. Over this time, the school population and broader community has changed significantly. Mrs. Skinner and Mr. Nagel reflect on their experience teaching and working at a beloved and successful Catholic school in a progressive town like Berkeley, California; they discuss the School of the Madeleine, its mission, politics, and role in forming the whole child with the love of Go...
2023-01-0545 minAlmost Good CatholicsMother of All Nations: Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth, Assumption, and Coronation of MaryRobert Fastiggi discusses Catholic doctrine about the Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth, Assumption, and Coronation of Mary, the Mother of God. He also reflects on his participation in ecumenical dialogues on these subjects and explains that many of these principles are shared by our Orthodox and our Protestant brothers and sisters—something many people don’t realize—and presents arguments from Scripture as well. Finally, Professor Fastiggi talks about some of the most famous Marian Apparitions—Guadalupe (1531), Lourdes (1858), and especially Fátima (1917)—and about how faith and reason are at work in our skeptical age.NB: This episode was recorde...
2023-01-0455 minAlmost Good CatholicsMary, Full of Grace: Catholic Beliefs about Mary and How We KnowChris Padgett explains Catholic doctrine about the Virgin Mary and how both Sacred Tradition and Scripture inform the Magisterium. He talks about his Baptist upbringing, his own journey to the Church, and how he then became a theologian and one of the most influential Catholic speakers—and musicians—in the United States today. He explains Catholic Mariology and how we radically venerate and love Mary (dulia or hyperdulia) but adore (latria) only God. Padgett also talks about how this conversion caused a rupture with his family of origin, but also how he met his wife and started his own rambu...
2023-01-0355 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Little Way: Making Friends with the SaintsLauren Nelson discusses St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Way, the communion of saints, which is really quite close. She also talks about her ministries and classes and what St. Thérèse has taught he about life and being a mother.
Lauren Nelson's classes are here.
The Coffee & Catholics podcast is here.
The Gathering Manna Facebook community is here.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux's The Story of a Soul is available here. An audio recording is here.
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2023-01-0240 minAlmost Good CatholicsDivine Intoxication: A Discussion about Alcoholism, Grace, Sainthood, and Women in the ChurchAuthor Heather King discusses her journey from the alcoholic abyss to redemption and new life (which she described in her book, Parched, 2006), St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Little Way (whom she wrote about in her book, Shirt of Flame, 20011), the Communion of Saints, literature, women in the Church. In this conversation, we talk over the “Little Ways” that we may look for in our lives to follow the Way of Jesus—as women, men, parents, clerics, lay-people, writers, teachers, workers, and every other kind of human—whether or not anyone see us doing it, except God. ...
2023-01-0157 minAlmost Good CatholicsThe Gospels in the Early Church: Evidence for the Chronology and Transmission of the Christian ScripturesProfessor Matthew Thomas returns to explain how we can place the Gospels in time and context using both internal clues (literary evidence) and the external ones (anthropological evidence). These are the first steps on a path of the many centuries of transmission toward the Bible we have today; Matthew Thomas tells why they are so important and where they have led us.The papyrus (P66) of the Gospel of John in the Bodmer Library, Switzerland, can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2022-12-3145 minAlmost Good CatholicsCatholic Movies, Part 1: "Silence" and "The Scarlet and the Black"Jonathon Fessenden and I talk about two movies, Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016) and Jerry London’s The Scarlet and the Black (1983) and what they say about how to confront evil in terrible times—seventeenth-century Tokugawa Japan in one film, and 1943 Nazi-occupied Rome in the other—how to face our shortcomings and lean on God even when He is hard to find. We also talk about Jonathon’s article about continuous prayer and his life and journey.Jonathon Fessenden is a Catholic writer, composer, and teacher of theology. He has written about movies and worked in the industry as a composer...
2022-12-301h 02Almost Good CatholicsThe Silence of God: The Meaning of Our Suffering and RedemptionMakoto Fujimura, world-famous contemporary painter with global cultural influence, talks about his art, his thinking and writing about Shūsaku Endō's novel Silence (1966), and his work on Martin Scorsese's film Silence (2016). I ask him about Scorsese’s long collaborative friendship with Akira Kurosawa and his participation in Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990).Mako also describes his work with his wife, Haejin Shim Fujimura, for Embers International and Kintsugi Academy, protecting and serving women and children in the brothels of Mumbai who are in danger of exploitation and trafficking.Both in the lives of the suffering poor and in the t...
2022-12-2958 minAlmost Good CatholicsQuo Vademus? The Pilgrim Church on the Road of SynodalityFor two years Sr Nathalie Becquart has been in charge of the Church’s Synod on Synodality, coordinating the responses of millions of Catholics from 112 out of 114 Episcopal Conferences and from all the 15 Oriental Catholic Churches. She and I talk about the spirit of this Synod, its progress and direction, and the recently published Working Document for the Continental Stage (DCS), Enlarge the Space of Your Tent.Sr Nathalie Becquart was appointed by Pope Francis to be Undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops. She's the first woman in church history to hold that office and to vote wit...
2022-12-2847 minAlmost Good CatholicsVery Short UpdateMerry Christmas, dear listeners! Here's a brief update about what will be happening on the podcast in the coming month as we join the New Books Network (NBN).
2022-12-2807 minAlmost Good CatholicsWho Wrote the Bible? Sorting out the History of the Bible We Have.Matthew Thomas, theologian and biblical scholar, explains how the Bible got to be the Bible, how confident we can be in its historicity, and on what authority we can trust such judgments. We talk about the languages of the Scripture and their transmission over time, and how we see the emergence of the documents that would later become the Bible already in first-century Christian communities.Professor Thomas teaches Biblical languages and the history of the Bible, Patristics, and Early Christian interpretation of the Scriptures, especially Pauline Theology, at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology at UC...
2022-12-2754 minAlmost Good CatholicsHow Do We Know There is a God? Rational Proofs for a Loving GodDavid Basile explains Thomas Aquinas's cosmological proofs for God. David is department chair of Theology at Archbishop Rummel High School in Metarie, Louisiana; he is also an old friend of mine so he was a natural choice to be the first guest of this new podcast. He talked about his own journey from atheism to Buddhism and finally to the Catholic Church. (He spent a decade as a Buddhist monk, where he first encountered Catholic contemplative mystics.)I asked David to explain how we know there is a God in the way he might make the case...
2022-12-2650 min