What We Can't Not Talk About

Let’s begin at the end... The first episode of this new season is an engaging and provocative conversation on one of the most serious events of our human life: its natural end. Join in to listen to Dr. Marianna Orlandi and Lydia Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (ethics), author of “The Lost Art of Dying”. Link to our guest's book: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Art-Dying-Reviving-Forgotten/dp/0062932632. More on Ars Moriendi: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ars-moriendi

Dr. Marianna Orlandi and Associate Professor of Philosophy Dr. Melissa Moschella discuss parental rights, school choice, critical race theory, and the meaning of education in today’s world. Melissa Moschella is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, where her research and teaching focus on natural law, bioethics and the moral and political status of the family and Fellow of the Austin Institute. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received her Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from Princeton University. Her book, To Whom Do Children Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Education and Children’s Autonomy was published in 2016 by Cambridge University Press. Dr. Moschella speaks and writes on a variety of contemporary issues, such as brain death, end-of-life ethics, parental rights, marriage, gender, reproductive technologies, and conscience rights. Her articles have been published in scholarly journals as well as popular media outlets, including Bioethics, The Journal of Medical Ethics, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, The American Journal of Jurisprudence, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Daily News, and The Public Discourse. Critical Race Theory, Public Schools, and Parental Rights https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2022/03/79866/ Chesterton and the Meaning of Education https://www.ncregister.com/blog/chesterton-and-meaning-of-education

How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how we respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman shows how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of “expressive individualism.” Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas on religion, free speech, and personal identity. For more, order Dr. Truman's book, "Strange New World" https://www.crossway.org/books/strange-new-world-tpb/

Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and Senior Fellow of the Austin Institute Mark Regnerus discusses the science behind current issues around gender identity, such as affirmative care and the rise of gender dysphoria among youth. Especially in the United States, medical research has been affected by external political pressure and predetermined conclusions. Dr. Regnerus challenges what so much of culture is telling us to believe and encourages us to talk about these issues. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1vetSl1rc

In this episode, we interview April Readlinger, Executive Director of CanaVox, on a recent article published in Public Discourse about the inclusion of gender ideology in K-12 public education in New Jersey. Mrs. Readlinger here discusses some of the troubles regarding the legislation that introduced this issue into the state’s public school curriculum and specifically explores the challenges it presents for teachers and parents alike in the instruction of their children. We hope that you find this podcast timely and useful when thinking about the education of your own children and the state of American public education in general.

Warsaw, Poland, May 18th, 2022: On the day that would have marked Karol Wojtyła's 102nd birthday and in the context of the international conference on John Paul II’s Natural Law Legacy & International Human Rights organized by Ave Maria School of Law, Dr. Marianna Orlandi delivered a talk focused on a play that the young Karol Wojtyła wrote long before becoming a Pope: "The Jeweler’s Shop." Tune in for some interesting insights and reflections on our age of no-fault divorce, on the beauty and true meaning of marriage, and on the way forward. Ave Maria Law website on the event: https://www.avemarialaw.edu/john-paul-iis-natural-law-legacy-international-human-rights/ YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/yAdX97aiKm0 Purchase the play via Ignatius Press: https://ignatius.com/the-jewelers-shop-jshh/

In this podcast, Dr. James Poulos discusses technology, media, and alternatives to the current technocratic-political order by a union between branding, patriotism, and an alternative theological vision, all the while exploring the link between modern gnosticism and transhumanism. Dr. James Poulos is the Executive Editor of The American Mind, the Claremont Institute's online publication devoted to driving the conversation about the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Dr. Poulos graduated from Duke University with distinction in Political Science and received his Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University. The author of The Art of Being Free (St. Martin's Press, 2017), a study of Tocqueville's Democracy in America, he is also the contributing editor of American Affairs and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Digital Life. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx_rQAkV_s0 Dr. Poulos's latest book: https://humanforever.us/

In today’s world, we talk of time as a possession. It is a commodity that can be gained, spent, or lost. But before the invention of the clock, people understood time as God’s time, something too big to own or use. Days, lunar cycles, and seasons marked the turning of a cosmos; they reflected a sometimes scary and mysterious universe whose time we inhabit rather than control. In a moment, the pandemic grounded to a halt the daily hum of our ordered sense of time. And even though much of daily life returned to normal, a sense of uncertainty hung over us like a cloud, or like a broken clock. Forces, in some cases too mysterious to name, are reducing certainties. These forces bring to a halt many of the myths that previously sustained our collective life. Organic farmer, Steven Hebbard, believes that good farming, like many traditional crafts, can reorient us to a larger sense of time: something we can humbly receive, embody, and even celebrate. Uncertain times demand a new orientation, or perhaps a very old one. "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16 This episode was recorded in the fall of 2021. Moving into a home a few blocks from one of Austin's most notorious intersections, Steven discovered a thriving community centered around a garden. Where the scene might have communicated hopelessness, on trips to his neighborhood community garden, Steven found a passion tending both the local culture and agriculture. After an internship up the road at the Austin's landmark, Boggy Creek Farm, Steven decided to take his new found knowledge of neighborliness and farming to create a program that actively knit the two together. In 2009 he founded Genesis Gardens, a program within Mobile Loaves & Fishes Inc. dedicated to providing meaningful work, a stable paycheck, and food for the largest community for the homeless in the country. He has since built a career farming with communities in poverty. He is a passionate advocate of local, organic, and dignified work, and continues to study the way agriculture and urban life can work together to create a humane and thriving environment for all people.

In this episode, Dr. Mark Regnerus, Professor of Sociology at UT Austin and Senior Fellow and founder of the Austin Institute, joins us to discuss a recent study he carried out concerning the approval and disapproval of medical-surgical interventions to treat gender dysphoria by Americans. The study uncovered some interesting information on links between the number of children one has, religiosity, and political alignment and one’s attitude toward these sorts of procedures related to gender transition. Dr. Regnerus also discusses here the legality of hormone treatment and the philosophical underpinnings of the problem of transgenderism. We hope you join us to find out more about this pressing and timely cultural issue.

In this episode, Alvino-Mario Fantini, Editor-in-Chief of "The European Conservative," joins us to discuss his quarterly journal which features news articles and reviews concerning the state of Europe and European conservatism, as well as essays on philosophy and the arts. Mr. Fantini here explores the status of the European conservative movement, his philosophy of conservatism as non-ideological, his background, and his influences in developing The European Conservative. We hope you join us in learning more about conservatism in Europe and invite you to look into "The European Conservative" as a source of news concerning what’s occurring now on the continent. The European Conservative: https://europeanconservative.com/