The Catholic Culture Podcast CatholicCulture.org

Joshua Hren returns to discuss his debut novel, Infinite Regress.
"In the years since his graduation from St. Marquis University, Blake Yourrick has fled his family and Milwaukee, rotating from job to dead-end job—working the Bakken oilfields in Dakota and even signing on as the night caretaker of a rural abbey graveyard. Deep in student debt and estranged from his misanthropic, alcoholic father, Blake is haunted by the memory of his mother’s death—and by his relationship with his college mentor, a defrocked priest named Theo Hape, who is known for his adventurous theological ideas as well as for the uncanny, seductive power he wields over his students. When Hape, learning of his former charge’s desperate straits, proposes a perverse exchange of services, Blake finds himself tempted to test the professor’s radical theories in real life. What follows is a metaphysical duel reminiscent of the novels of Dostoevsky and Bernanos, pitting a modern-day anti-Christ against a reckless but resilient young man and his well-meaning, dysfunctional kin." (Publisher's description)
The book is particularly timely in its philosophical themes, as it touches on the subject of metaphysical deconstruction used as cover for sexual grooming in the world of education.
Thomas and Joshua discuss the novel's defrocked Jesuit villain, the protagonists' escape from a philosophy which makes good dependent on evil and so eliminates the boundaries between the two, the book's themes of monetary and metaphysical debt, its comic tone, and Hren's unusual associative prose style.
Links
Joshua Hren, Infinite Regress https://www.angelicopress.org/infinite-regress-joshua-hren
Wiseblood Books https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/
Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of St. Thomas https://www.stthom.edu/Academics/School-of-Arts-and-Sciences/Division-of-Liberal-Studies/Graduate/Master-of-Fine-Arts-in-Creative-Writing/Index.aqf?Aquifer_Source_URL=%2FMFA&PNF_Check=1
This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate

Historian Árpád von Klimó joins the podcast to give an introduction to József Cardinal Mindszenty (1892-1975), prince primate of Hungary. Mindszenty was not only the face of Hungarian resistance to fascism and communism, but ultimately a symbol Catholic resistance to communism worldwide. From 1948 to 1956 he was in a communist prison, from 1956 to 1971 he was isolated from the world as a refuge in the U.S. Legation in Hungary. He then spent the last 4 years of his life in exile from his country and in increasing tension with the Vatican's more conciliatory approach to diplomacy with Soviet nations.
Links
Victim of History: Cardinal Mindszenty, a Biography https://www.cuapress.org/9780813234991/victim-of-history/
Árpád von Klimó https://history.catholic.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/von-klimo-arpad/index.html

D. C. Schindler's book The Politics of the Real: The Church between Liberalism and Integralism is one of the richest entries in the ongoing Catholic debate over liberalism, political authority, the common good, and the relation between Church and State.
Schindler offers subtle, convincing arguments as to why liberalism is "the political form of evil", specifically consisting of a rejection of the Christian form - specifically, the Jewish-Greek-Roman synthesis embodied in the Catholic Church.
Liberalism creates a situation like that described by comedian Stephen Wright: "Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates." It adopts aspects of the Western tradition but only on radically different grounds, with a fragmented vision of reality. Even when liberalism claims to make room for religious tradition, it does so only by reconceiving religion as a mere object of individual choice - that is, precisely as non-traditional. 
But Schindler goes beyond criticizing liberalism, offering a profound and beautiful ontology of the social order and a somewhat different model of the relation between Church and State from the one proposed by Catholic integralists.
Schindler joins the podcast to discuss the book, including topics such as:
Why objecting to non-liberal philosophy as "impractical" is a rejection of man as a rational creature Liberalism's false claim of neutrality (or non-confessionalism) The "Christian form" and its fragmentation Why liberalism is “the political form of evil” The roots of liberalism in medieval nominalism The anti-Catholic meaning of the Declaration of Independence's “laws of nature and of nature’s God” How the "neutral public square" subverts every tradition it "makes room for" The problem with distinguishing "civil society" from the state Why property is central to understanding the relation between individuals and society Links
The Politics of the Real https://newpolity.com/new-polity-press-titles/the-politics-of-the-real
This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

In a wide-ranging and erudite interview, poet and translator Ryan Wilson joins the podcast to discuss how the poet makes use of the classical virtue of xenia or hospitality, what poets can learn from the work of translation, the "romantic turn" (inner vision) and the "classical turn" (communication/craft) in poetry, the great Latin poet Horace, and more. Ryan performs, in his dynamic style, classic poems by Horace and others, as well as his own poems.
Ryan Wilson is an adjunct professor of English at the Catholic University of America, editor of the journal Literary Matters, and a visiting professor of poetry in the MFA program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He is the author of three books: The Stranger World, a collection of original poems; How to Think Like a Poet; and Proteus Bound: Selected Translations, 2008-2020. Forthcoming are his anthology of contemporary Catholic poetry from Paraclete Press (spring 2023), and another book of original poems, The Ghostlight.
Timestamps
0:00 - Proteus Bound
13:09 - Hospitality as fundamental principle of community, thought, and poetry
28:05 - The romantic turn and the classical turn
46:22 - Ryan Wilson, “Xenia”
53:39 - Proteus, Hermes, and Orpheus as figures of the poet
1:03:35 - Translation as training for the poet
1:17:47 - The Latin poetry of Horace
2:07:55 - Charles Baudelaire, “The Voice”
2:20:00 - How Ryan relates as a Catholic to classical literature
2:27:10 - Ryan Wilson, “Philoctetes”
Links
Proteus Bound: Selected Translations, 2008-2020 https://www.cuapress.org/9781736656129/proteus-bound/
How to Think Like a Poet https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p97/How_to_Think_Like_a_Poet%2C_by_Ryan_Wilson.html
The Stranger World http://www.measurepress.com/measure/index.php/catalog/books/stranger-world/
Literary Matters https://www.literarymatters.org/
This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

"The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." - Glenn Gould
One of the greatest classical pianists of the 20th century, Glenn Gould, shocked the world at age thirty-one when he announced his permanent retirement from public performance. Denouncing the concert hall as a relative of the Roman Colosseum and audiences as a "force of evil", for the sake of his artistic integrity and personal sanity he committed the rest of his musical life to recording in the studio.
Gould's brilliant and sometimes provocative performances of classical masterworks are well known, especially his unequaled recordings of Bach. But he was also a prolific, articulate, and no less provocative critic. In essays like "The Prospects of Recording", he laid out his philosophy of performance, of the relation between technology and music.
He described his own experimentation with unconventional recording techniques, and made bold and often accurate predictions about how recording technology would change how the average person would relate to music. And he outright rejected many of the stagnant conventions of contemporary classical performance.
In this episode, Thomas discusses Gould's fascinating (and often entertaining) views on music and technology, and plays a number of his recordings. If you've never heard Gould play, you're missing out. If you have, you'll find this episode all the more interesting. 
Pieces played in this episode (all performed by Glenn Gould):
J. S. Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I: Prelude and Fugue no. 3 in C-sharp major, Fugue no. 20 in A major, Prelude no. 21 in B-flat major
Bach, Two- and Three-Part Inventions: Invention no. 12 in A major, Sinfonia no. 5 in E-flat major, Sinfonia no. 9 in F minor
Brahms, Intermezzo No. 2 in A major, op. 118
Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, IV. Allegro, piano transcription by Franz Liszt
Thomas Mirus's 2011 essay "Glenn Gould in the Studio" https://thomasmirus.com/2013/05/20/glenn-gould-in-the-studio
This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This episode contains clips of highlights from episodes 51 and 53-55 of the Catholic Culture Podcast.
Links (in order of clips)
The Hundredfold - Anthony Esolen https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-55-hundredfold-anthony-esolen/
Bringing Melody Back to Pop Music - The Duskwhales https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-51-bringing-melody-back-to-pop-music-duskwhales/
God Made Us for Order and Surprise - John-Mark Miravalle https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-53-god-made-us-for-order-and-surprise-john-mark-miravalle/
Fostering Responsible Elites - Jonah Bennett https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-54-fostering-responsible-elites-jonah-bennett/