New Books in Catholic Studies

On 9th August 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Of the dead, approximately 8500 were Catholic Christians, representing over sixty percent of the community. In Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests, and Catholic Survivor Narratives (Routledge, 2019), Gwyn McClelland presents a collective biography, where nine Catholic survivors share personal and compelling stories about the aftermath of the bomb and their lives since that day. Examining the Catholic community’s interpretation of the A-bomb, this book not only uses memory to provide a greater understanding of the destruction of the bombing, but also links it to the past experiences of religious persecution, drawing comparisons with the ‘Secret Christian’ groups which survived in the Japanese countryside after the banning of Christianity. Through in-depth interviews, it emerges that the memory of the atomic bomb is viewed through the lens of a community which had experienced suffering and marginalisation for more than 400 years. Furthermore, it argues that their dangerous memory confronts Euro-American-centric narratives of the atomic bombings, whilst also challenging assumptions around a providential bomb. Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki presents the voices of Catholics, many of whom have not spoken of their losses within the framework of their faith before. As such, it will be invaluable to students and scholars of Japanese history, religion and war history.I asked Gwyn about three questions that we could face when reflecting on the complex survivor narratives provided by the Catholic victims of the nuclear Holocaust in Japan, or more precisely, what the book refers to as the "dangerous memory in Nagasaki."   Do Nagasaki Christians and their unique intercultural Mariology (i.e., Maria kannon and Maria with a keloid scar) present any issues to today's theology (especially with regard to their possible reception by the Vatican)? How was John Paul II's visit to Nagasaki, which put an emphasis on human responsibility regarding war atrocities, received among the survivors who embraced the traditional interpretation of their losses as a sacrificial hansai (a burnt offering) or a part of setsuri (providence)?  How can the nation of Japan (both Catholics and the rest of the country) move forward in light of the dangerous memory of Nagasaki?  The author's responses to these questions reflected his intellectual virtue as a patient witness to the extraordinary life stories of the war victims in Nagasaki. The interview ends with a note of undying hope, the future possibility of transformative reconciliations that can move the whole country forward, while doing justice to dangerous memories.   Gwyn McClelland holds a Master of Divinity from the University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Japanese history from Monash University. He is the winner of the 2019 John Legge prize for best thesis in Asian Studies, awarded by the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA).Takeshi Morisato is a philosopher and sometimes academic. He specializes in comparative and Japanese philosophy but he is also interested in making Japan and philosophy accessible to a wider audience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Good Catholics, episode 73: Darwinian Accident or Divine Architect? The Debate between Natural Selection and Intelligent Design Another Almost Good Catholics episode with Jeremy Holmes:Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 20: Words and the Word: How Scripture Brings Us into God’s Eternal Moment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Object Lessons is a Bloomsbury series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book, Relic, by Dr. Ed Simon was published in 2024.Every culture, every religion, every era has enshrined otherwise regular objects with a significance which stretches beyond their literal importance. Whether the bone of a Catholic martyr, the tooth of a Buddhist lama, or the cloak of a Sufi saint, relics are material conduits to the immaterial world. Yet relics aren't just a feature of religion. The exact same sense of the transcendent animates objects of political, historical, and cultural significance.From Abraham Lincoln's death mask to Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse, Emily Dickinson's envelopes to Jimi Hendrix's guitar pick, relics are the objects which the faithful understand as being more than just objects. Material things of sacred importance, relics are indicative of a culture's deepest values.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Though commonly used today to identify a polity that lasted for over a millennium, the label “Byzantine empire” is an anachronism imposed by more recent generations. As Anthony Kaldellis explains in Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Harvard University Press, 2019), this has contributed to the denial of the ethnic identity that most denizens of the empire had of themselves as Romans. Kaldellis traces the origins of this process of denial to the 8th century CE, with the papacy’s turn to the Franks as their protectors. The efforts by the Catholic Church to de-legitimize the Eastern Empire as the legatee of ancient Rome denied the self-identification of its residents as Romans, one that is reflected in much of the surviving literature from this era. This identity was so widely embraced by the residents of the empire as to make it a largely homogenous state ethnically throughout much of its existence, one that absorbed many of the bands of people from other ethnic groups who migrated to the empire over the centuries of its existence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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's Elementary! Catholic Education in the 21st Century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As per William Shakespeare, ‘all the world’s a stage’. But what if the human soul was a stage too? What if the stage of the world and the stage of the soul coincided? And what if the soul was also the main character of the play? These questions are at the core of Eugenio Refini's book Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Baroque Italy (Legenda, 2022), which explores pedagogical uses of allegorical drama in Italy in the decades around 1600, with a focus on the place of theatre in the education of female orphans in the hospitals of Venice. The consumption of morality plays is looked at as a form of spiritual practice modeled on long-lasting theatrical metaphors. In this context, tropes such as the theatrum mundi not only regained their literal meaning by being actually staged, but also turned into rhetorical devices able to promote the inner staging of the ‘world’ on the ‘spiritual’ stage of the soul.Kate Driscoll is Assistant Professor of Italian and Romance Studies at Duke University. She is a specialist of early modern Italian and European literary and cultural history, with interests in women’s and gender studies, performance history, and the cultures of diplomacy and reception. Email: kate.driscoll@duke.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nicholas Morton’s The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 (Oxford UP, 2020) explores the military history of the medieval Near East, piecing together the fault-lines of conflict which entangled this much-contested region. This was an area where ethnic, religious, dynastic, and commercial interests collided and the causes of war could be numerous. Conflicts persisted for decades and were fought out between many groups including Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, and the Crusaders themselves. Nic Morton recreates this world, exploring how each faction sought to advance its own interests by any means possible, adapting its warcraft to better respond to the threats posed by their rivals. Strategies and tactics employed by the pastoral societies of the Central Asian steppe were pitted against the armies of the agricultural societies of Western Christendom, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, galvanising commanders to adapt their practices in response to their foes. In this episode, Nic joins me again to discuss histories of nomadic peoples fighting with and against the Crusader armies; what military history can tell us about the economic, social, and cultural history of the medieval Near East; and why Crusader history is still relevant to us today.Maggie Freeman is a PhD candidate in the School of Architecture at MIT. She researches uses of architecture by nomadic peoples and historical interactions of nomads and empires, with a focus on the modern Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Empire and imperial frameworks, policies, practices, and cultures have shaped the history of the world for the last two millennia. It is nation states that are the blip on the historical horizon. Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer re-examines empire as process—and Ireland's role in it—through the lens of early modernity. It covers the two hundred years, between the mid-sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century, that equate roughly to the timespan of the First English Empire (c.1550-c.1770s).Ireland was England's oldest colony. How then did the English empire actually function in early modern Ireland and how did this change over time? What did access to European empires mean for people living in Ireland? This book answers these questions by interrogating four interconnected themes. First, that Ireland formed an integral part of the English imperial system, Second, that the Irish operated as agents of empire(s). Third, Ireland served as laboratory in and for the English empire. Finally, it examines the impact that empire(s) had on people living in early modern Ireland.What becomes clear is that colonisation was not a single occurrence but an iterative and durable process that impacted different parts of Ireland at different times and in different ways. That imperialism was about the exercise of power, violence, coercion and expropriation. Strategies about how best to turn conquest into profit, to mobilise and control Ireland's natural resources, especially land and labour, varied but the reality of everyday life did not change and provoked a wide variety of responses ranging from acceptance and assimilation to resistance.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 news—should proclaim the Gospel after he has fallen from his moral pedestal a few times. We also ask about how the Church should proceed given her many painful scandals. It was a great discussion on the Missio Dei podcast on YouTube and I’m delighted to share it here. Our original YouTube interview on Missio Dei (October 1, 2023) Apocalypto on the Best Pick podcast with John Dorney, Jessica Regan, Tom Salinsky and( guest) Joy Wilkinson (August 24, 2022) The Making of Apocalypto documentary with Mel Gibson.James Empires of death: Apocalypto (2006) on Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast with James Majewski History article by Richard Hansen: “Relativism, Revisionism, Aboriginalism, and Emic/Etic Truth: The Case Study of Apocalypto.” Related Almost Good Catholics episodes: Joseph González and Monique González on Almost Good Catholics, episode 74: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth: How the Flower World Bloomed into History in 1531 Brant Hansen on Almost Good Catholics, episode 75: The Men We Need: What Men Are Supposed to Be Doing Other Almost Good Catholics episodes with Jonathon Fessenden: Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 37: Catholic Movies, Pt. 1: Silence and The Scarlet and the Black Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 49: Catholic Movies, Pt. 2: The Mission and A Man for All Seasons Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 58: The Book of Job: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 64: The Fourth Wise Man: Follow Jesus—He’s Getting Away! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“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 great book and our conversation was tremendously fun.This is the seventy-fifth episode of Almost Good Catholics and starts off our third season and the year 2024. My discussion with Brant is 52 minutes long, but then I’ve added fifteen minutes of Christmas music from Josh and Margot of the Great Space Coaster Band to celebrate. Brant Hansen’s website and radio show. The Men We Need by Brant Hansen (2022) and all of his books. Brant Hansen’s page and CURE International’s page on Wikipedia. Trailer for Wall-E (Disney and Pixar, 2008). The ever-growing Josh and Margot Christmas Album and the Great Space Coaster band website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices