Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined this week by the distinguished Canadian journalist Anna Farrow to discuss Canada’s hysterical grief over mass graves which never existed. Farrow, a Montreal based writer for the Catholic Register, describes how 96 churches came to be burned down after it was falsely claimed that the graves of 215 children had been discovered in the grounds of a former residential school in British Columbia that had been run by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Canadian government – but which years later failed to yield a single body. In this 72nd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Farrow explains how anti-Catholic sentiment played a part in creating perhaps the gravest moral panic since the fabricated Satanic abuses convulsed western societies in the late 20th century.

The horrendous chemical attack on a woman and two children by Abdul Ezedi, an Afghan received into Christianity by Baptists in Jarrow, has reopened debate about the authenticity of the claims of some people who seek asylum on the grounds of religious conversion. Monsignor Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican Bishop of Rochester who became a Catholic in 2021, discusses some of the contemporary problems with the system with Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 71st episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald. They also reflect on the Judaeo-Christian tradition of “welcoming and loving the stranger” and the theology that underpins it, and how such biblical injunctions should be interpreted in an age of the mass movements of populations.

Ferdi McDermott, the English headmaster and co-founder of Chavagnes International College, a Catholic school for boys in France, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 70th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald. They discuss the origins and success of the venture and some of the issues confronting Catholic secondary and higher education in the ideologically benighted UK and precisely what underpins the excellence of Chavagnes, an academy which has produced about twenty priestly vocations in just the last two decades.

Stefan Kaminski, the director of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst College, the Catholic independent school in Lancashire, is our guest for this 69th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald. He and presenter Dr Gavin Ashenden discuss the mission in a range of Christian leadership formation undertaken by the centre at Theodore House with the objective of preparing Catholics for a broad range of service in public life. Mr Kaminski also explains how the work of the centre continues the tradition of evangelisation of the great Jesuit college that occupies the same site.

Dr Joseph Shaw returns for this 68th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, for the second of a two-part broadcast examining the situation of Catholics under a Protestant monarch in the 21st century. He and Dr Gavin Ashenden explore the role of tradition, the monarchy as a model for papacy, the papacy as “the servant of tradition”, the evolution of the papacy and the significance of the innovations introduced by the reigning Pontiff and his predecessors. Dr Joseph Shaw is the chairman of the Latin Mass Society and a former member of the Philosophy faculty at Oxford University, and last month he published A Defence of Monarchy: Catholics Under a Protestant King, which includes contributions from such writers as Sohrab Ahmari, James Bogle, Charles Coulombe, Peter Day-Milne and Sebastian Morello.

The guest for this 67th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, is Dr Joseph Shaw, the chairman of the Latin Mass Society and a former member of the Philosophy faculty at Oxford University, to discuss his new book, A Defence of Monarchy: Catholics Under a Protestant King. In this first of a two-part broadcast, they discuss the meaning and function of a monarchy and rituals in the modern world and why this ancient institution may serve as a 21st century repository of Catholic tradition, a politically-neutral focus of unity, and a symbolic interface between the nation and God. A Defence of the Monarchy, which was published in December, includes contributions from Dr Shaw, as well as from such writers as Sohrab Ahmari, James Bogle, Charles Coulombe, Peter Day-Milne and Sebastian Morello.

Fr David Palmer, the Catholic chaplain to Nottingham University, returns to Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, to discuss Fiducia Supplicans, the new document from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that appears to open the gates to blessings for same-sex couples within the Catholic Church. In this 66th episode, Fr Palmer explains to Dr Gavin Ashenden why the British province of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, to which he and 500 other British priests belong, was compelled to publicly assert that such blessings remain “pastorally and practically inadmissible”.

Bianca Jagger, the president and chief executive of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to discuss the atrocious treatment of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa by the regime of President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. In this 65th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Ms Jagger reports disturbing new information about the deteriorating condition of the “prophetic” bishop since he was jailed in February for 26 years after he refused to go into exile in the United States, and about the “real, dangerous and serious” persecution of the Catholic Church in the land of her birth.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider is our guest for this 64th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald. The Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, talks about his new book, Credo: The Compendium of the Catholic Faith, a catechism commissioned by the US-based Sophia Institute Press, and why the bold and clear iteration of the truths of the Catholic Church is more vital than ever in these times of moral and doctrinal confusion.

Paul Coleman, the executive director of ADF International, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to discuss the appalling treatment by the Finnish state of Päivi Räsänen, an MP, former government minister for the interior and the wife of a Lutheran pastor, for alleged hate crimes after she publicly expressed the teaching of the Bible on human sexuality. In this 63rd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, they discuss the Räsänen case following her exoneration by the Helsinki Court of Appeal and explore how loosely-worded hate legislation poses mounting threats to such legitimate rights as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion throughout the Western world.