Beginning in the twelfth century, Jewish moneylenders increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs of European authorities, who denounced the evils of usury as they expelled Jews from their lands. Yet Jews were not alone in supplying coin and credit to needy borrowers. Across much of Western Europe, foreign Christians likewise engaged in professional moneylending, and they too faced repeated threats of expulsion from the communities in which they settled. No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers, a...
Feb 05, 2023•50 min•Ep. 58
Peter 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 me...
Feb 01, 2023•32 min•Ep. 35
Nicole Archambeau, associate professor of history at Colorado State University, talks about her book, Souls under Siege: Stories of War, Plague, and Confession in Fourteenth-Century Provence (Cornell University Press), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. The book explores how the inhabitants of southern France made sense of the ravages of successive waves of plague, the depredations of mercenary warfare, and the violence of royal succession. Many people, Archambeau finds, understood both...
Jan 31, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 23
A century after being expelled from Portugal, cryptoJews in Mexico, false converts to Christianity, could not speak of their beliefs for fear of becoming embroiled in the imprisonment, torture, and death in flames that characterized the Inquisition. Without written texts, the Jewish liturgy lost, clans of cryptoJews created a unique body of religious poetry, connecting them to the Laws of Moses, seeking redemption from sin, or hoping for an escape from their embittered lives. The Carvajal clan w...
Jan 30, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 365
Persecution of Christians in the Middle East has been a recurring theme since the middle of the nineteenth century. The topic has experienced a resurgence in the last few years, especially during the Trump era. Middle Eastern Christians are often portrayed as a homogeneous, helpless group ever at the mercy of their Muslim enemies, a situation that only Western powers can remedy. The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire (Baylor UP, 2021) revisits this narrative w...
Jan 29, 2023•48 min•Ep. 18
Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States: A History (Catholic University of America Press, 2022) provides a comprehensive history of Jesuit higher education in the United States, weaving together the stories of the fifty-four colleges and universities that the Jesuits have operated (successfully and unsuccessfully) since 1789. It emphasizes the connections among the institutions, exploring how certain Jesuit schools like Georgetown University gave birth to others like Boston College...
Jan 28, 2023•38 min•Ep. 27
Since 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 earlie...
Jan 27, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 30
David 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 Geogra...
Jan 26, 2023•45 min•Season 1Ep. 29
One 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) L...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Derya 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 ...
Jan 24, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Ayyaz 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. Artic...
Jan 23, 2023•48 min•Ep. 26
Danielle 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 Laur...
Jan 22, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Jeremy 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 Ch...
Jan 21, 2023•1 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Wolfgang Muller, Marriage Litigation in the Western Church, 1215- 1517 (Cambridge University Press, 2021). From the establishment of a coherent doctrine on sacramental marriage to the eve of the Reformation, late medieval church courts were used for marriage cases in a variety of ways. Ranging widely across Western Europe, including the Upper and Lower Rhine regions, England, Italy, Catalonia, and Castile, this study explores the stark discrepancies in practice between the North of Europe and th...
Jan 21, 2023•53 min•Ep. 23
Author L. M. Sacasas talks about the life, thought, and legacy of the Catholic priest, philosopher, and social critic Ivan Illich with Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel. Sacasas and Vinsel discuss Illich’s critiques of bureaucracy, technology, scale, and expertise and how these critiques apply to medicine, education, our credential society, and life with media technologies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jan 20, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 12
Father 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 ever...
Jan 20, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 23
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 obs...
Jan 19, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Though 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 ...
Jan 18, 2023•58 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Jeremy 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 par...
Jan 17, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 20
I 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 praye...
Jan 16, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Carlos 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 webpag...
Jan 15, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Jesuit 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,...
Jan 14, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Vatican 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 ...
Jan 13, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Keith 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 h...
Jan 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 15
David 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 (...
Jan 11, 2023•56 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Anabelle 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 p...
Jan 10, 2023•59 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Professor 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...
Jan 09, 2023•45 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Robin Vose (St. Thomas University) talks about his new monograph, The Index of Prohibited Books: Four Centuries of Struggle over Word and Image for the Greater Glory of God (Reaktion, 2022), censorship, and the Reformation.The first comprehensive history of the Catholic Church’s notorious Index, with resonance for ongoing debates over banned books, censorship, and free speech. For more than four hundred years, the Catholic Church’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum struck terror into the hearts of aut...
Jan 09, 2023•53 min•Ep. 25
Joseph 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...
Jan 08, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 10
David 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 Buddhi...
Jan 07, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 9
