One of England's greatest composers, William Byrd is a fascinating and complicated figure of Catholic musical history. A musician in the Royal Chapel of Queen Elizabeth, he associated with the highest ranks of the Anglican establishment while writing music on the side for secret Catholic masses. In this first of two episodes on Byrd, singer and scholar Kerry McCarthy sets Byrd in the context of the musical and religious upheavals of post-Reformation England. She discusses how he navigated English court circles as well as his secret Catholic activities, including his three masses. In this episode you will hear the following pieces by Byrd (all used with kind permission from the groups named): Fantasia #2 for consort, performed by The Rose Consort of Viols on Byrd: Consort and Keyboard Music, Songs and Anthems https://www.amazon.com/Voces8-Tapestry-BRUCKNER-BYRD-MONTEVERDI/dp/B006UTDFE8 Rejoice Unto the Lord, performed by The Rose Consort of Viols with Tessa Bonner on the same album Agnus Dei from the Mass for four voices, performed by VOCES8 on A Choral Tapestry https://www.amazon.com/Voces8-Tapestry-BRUCKNER-BYRD-MONTEVERDI/dp/B006UTDFE8 Agnus Dei from the Mass for five voices (Gesualdo Six) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWFjvqNHgEY Links Kerry McCarthy, Byrd https://global.oup.com/academic/product/byrd-9780195388756?cc=us&lang=en& Interview with Barnaby Smith of VOCES8 https://www.catholicculture.org/podcast/index.cfm?id=24 VOCES8 http://www.voces8.com/ The Gesualdo Six https://www.thegesualdosix.co.uk/ The Rose Consort of Viols https://www.alisoncrum.myzen.co.uk/roseconsortweb/index.htm This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.” These words of St. Paul in Ephesians 5 have been a continual source of discomfort to modern Catholics, and most priests would rather explain this teaching away or avoid discussing it altogether. For the faithful Catholic, however, treating Scripture and Church teaching as something embarrassing is not an option, nor is relativizing and redefining it into oblivion. Ephesians 5 is the crucial source for how marriage, so badly damaged by the Fall, has been redeemed and supernaturalized in the Cross of Christ. In this episode, Mary Stanford explains how we can understand and even come to love this teaching which so repels our egalitarian age. She brings to the table her study of Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and the thought of Edith Stein, as well as decades of experience as a wife and mother.   Links Mary Stanford’s article “The Dynamic of the Gift: Authority and Submission in Christian Marriage” https://www.hprweb.com/2013/01/the-dynamic-of-the-gift-authority-and-submission-in-christian-marriage/   Some of the teaching sources mentioned in this episode: 1 Cor 11:3, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3:18-19, Timothy 2 and 3, Titus 2:5, 1 Peter 3:1-7 Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum divinae sapientiae, 1880 https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=4858&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=1947264 Pope Pius XI, Casti connubii, 1930 https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3370&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=1947266 Pope St. John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3381&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=1947268 This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Many Catholics have worn the Brown Scapular at some point in their lives. Some of those people stopped wearing it for one reason or another. Others have continued to wear it but perhaps don’t appreciate its true depth as a sign of consecration to Mary. Even less known is the fact that the Scapular is a miniature version of the Carmelite habit (which is itself Our Lady’s habit); those who wear it are part of the Carmelite family, right back to the Prophet Elijah! In this show Fr. Justin Cinnante, a Carmelite friar, explains the Marian and Carmelite origins and dimensions of the Scapular as well as the promises associated with it. Whether you wear the Scapular, used to but don’t anymore, or have never been enrolled in it, this episode will give you many reasons to love the Garment of Grace. Links Buy a Brown Scapular https://www.sistersofcarmel.com/brown-scapulars-brown-scapular-of-our-lady-of-mount-carmel/ Fr. Justin on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/fatherjustinocarm/

Emma and Cecilia Black grew up in a large family that sang together constantly. Now these two sisters from Grand Rapids, Michigan, have made an album of folk songs for children. They want people to know that any family can start singing together, without special training or equipment. Here Emma and Cecilia, who record under the name Roundabout, discuss the ethos of folk music, which is about participation rather than consumption. They amusingly disabuse us of the notion that folk music is always squeaky-clean and wholesome. Finally, they touch on the problems with commercial children’s music, in contrast to their album, Singsong Pennywhistle, which is engaging and accessible without being musically and lyrically dumbed-down. All songs used with permission from Roundabout. Links https://www.roundaboutfolk.com Buy Singsong Pennywhistle https://www.roundaboutfolk.com/music Folk music resources https://www.roundaboutfolk.com/why-folk

Thomas discusses his libertarian past, explains why he abandoned that political philosophy, and summarizes an article on the topic by the Catholic philosopher Edward Feser. Feser, himself an ex-libertarian who has written books on Hayek, Nozick and Locke, argues that the libertarian view of self-ownership and private property rights cannot be reconciled with classical natural law theory, and lays out a proper natural law theory of private property rights and taxation. Links The article https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-philosophy-and-policy/article/classical-natural-law-theory-property-rights-and-taxation/E5AF0E3F9E3B29FDFF940E4CAA728721 Feser’s collected writings on why he stopped being a libertarian http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-road-from-libertarianism.html Feser on Hayek https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/hayeks-tragic-capitalism/ Episode 7: Inflation Is a Sin—Guido Hülsmann https://www.catholicculture.org/podcast/index.cfm?id=7 This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Dana Gioia is one of the greatest Catholic poets working today. In this interview he discusses how Catholic attitudes toward the arts have changed in recent generations, and the revival of interest in poetry in the culture as a whole. Dana reads a few of his poems, discusses how Catholicism has made his poetry “simpler, more emotionally direct, and more unabashedly musical,” and even gives poets some tips on collaboration with musicians and composers. Dana and Thomas wrap up by discussing the role of the critic and highlighting a modern Catholic poet Dana thinks should be better known. Links The Catholic Writer Today and Other Essays https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/c4/Wiseblood_Essays_.html 99 Poems, New and Selected https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/99-poems Dana Gioia’s website www.danagioia.com Dana reads his poems on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6dDuuRPo6HXxn69LMLrwyw Jazz pianist Helen Sung and Dana Gioia discuss their album Sung With Words https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZWhKguBJGg This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals (M5) is a book of poems intended as an introduction to the liberal arts for children, helping them to grow in self-knowledge, virtue, and the art of charitable rhetoric. It is written in the ancient form of the beast fable, with each of Matthew Mehan’s twenty-six alphabetical poems accompanied by a beautiful oil painting by John Folley. In this interview Matthew discusses the book, the role of poetry in aesthetic, moral and spiritual education, and related topics such as the lost social art of memorizing and reciting poems. Links Sample and buy M5 https://www.mythicalmammals.com/ Online Great Books referral link (25% off first three months – use code catholicculture) https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/ Episode 27 with OGB founder Scott Hambrick https://www.catholicculture.org/podcast/index.cfm?id=27 Learn more about OGB https://onlinegreatbooks.com/

Stephen Auth is a highly successful investment manager on Wall Street. In his spare time, he hails down strangers on the streets of Manhattan and convinces them to go to confession. Links Steve Auth, The Missionary of Wall Street: From Managing Money to Saving Souls on the Streets of New York https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/missionary-of-wall-street

Western governments and NGOs are pushing the Sexual Revolution on Africa, using strings-attached development aid. Of all the funds from Western nations going to “development” in Africa, the majority are for population control. Obianuju Ekeocha is raising awareness about this form of neo-colonialism in which rich Westerners force their anti-culture on African peoples, because for them a better Africa is one with fewer Africans. One organization, Marie Stopes International, is even performing abortions in countries where they are illegal. Links Watch Strings Attached https://www.amazon.com/Strings-Attached-Obianuju-Ekeocha/dp/B07N5DSSN7 Target Africa: Ideological Neo-Colonialism in the Twenty-First Century https://www.ignatius.com/Target-Africa-P2384.aspx Culture of Life Africa http://cultureoflifeafrica.com/ Connect the Dots With Obianuju https://www.youtube.com/user/COLAfrica https://twitter.com/obianuju

Tolkien is well known to have been concerned with the internal consistency of his fictional world, from geography to history to language. But he was also concerned with another sort of consistency: metaphysical consistency, not only within the work but between his work and reality (because he did not see the storyteller's task as providing an alternative to reality but an extension of it). Scholars have debated the nature of Tolkien's metaphysics; Jonathan S. McIntosh contends that the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas provides the most fruitful metaphysical lens with which to examine Middle-Earth. Links The Flame Imperishable: Tolkien, St. Thomas, and the Metaphysics of Faërie https://angelicopress.org/product/the-flame-imperishable/ Jonathan's Flame Imperishable blog https://jonathansmcintosh.wordpress.com/ This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio