The Catholic Herald Podcast: Merely Catholic with Gavin Ashenden

Michael J. Knowles, the American broadcaster, political commentator, actor and author, is the guest of Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 75th episode for Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

They discuss the many “diverse and eccentric” identities of American conservativism in the twilight of the Biden presidency and Mr Knowles’ work for the Daily Wire, the popular US news website and media company, amid the shifting sands of the cultural revolutions of the last decade. They also talk about the vital role of the Catholic Church in upholding objective moral truth in the crisis of relativism gripping the West.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined this week by Dr Patricia Morgan, the distinguished sociologist and author of the 2023 book Banning Conversion Therapy: The Missing Evidence, amid impending legislation to criminalise counselling, discussion, prayer and teaching based on orthodox Christian doctrine in spite of such changes representing a serious attack upon free inquiry and freedom of speech.

In this 75th episode for Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Dr Morgan sets such changes in the prevailing anti-family and anti-marriage ideology that has convulsed the West for more than 50 years.

Madeline Page of Right to Life UK joins Dr Gavin Ashenden this week to discuss shocking scenes at Manchester University when a violent mob descended on a meeting of the students’ pro-life group with the aim of closing it down.

Hundreds converged on the venue where a group of students met peacefully to spit at the women taking part and to shout “get raped” in their faces, with the police forced to intervene to prevent violent attacks on participants.

Dr Ashenden, in this 74th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic, asks Madeline what this was all about and what it signifies.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined this week by John Zmirak, a senior editor of The Stream and author of the new Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism, to discuss the new novelties “gathering slime” in the West and within the Catholic Church.

Zmirak is the author, co-author, or editor of twelve books, including Wilhelm Ropke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist, The Grand Inquisitor (graphic novel) and The Race to Save Our Century and his essays, poems, and other works have appeared in First Things, The Weekly Standard, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today, FrontPage Magazine, The American Conservative, The South Carolina Review, Modern Age, The Intercollegiate Review, Commonweal, and The National Catholic Register. He has contributed to American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia and The Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought.

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.

Kathy Gyngell, the co-foundress and editor of The Conservative Woman: Defending Freedom website, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for the 62nd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald.

They discuss feminism, motherhood and the revolution in childcare, the growth of the state, the relationship between economic liberalism and social conservativism, rolling Islamist hate marches and the new phenomenon of two-tier policing, as well as intolerance, cancel culture and censorship, fake news, the “invidious” and stratospheric rise of the new ideologies and the sacking of Suella Braverman.

In the 61st episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Tim Dieppe about challenge of Islam to Western democracies and the values that underpin them following mass migration and radicalisation triggered by war.

Mr Dieppe is head of public policy at Christian Concern, which he joined in 2016, and has a special interest in Islamic affairs. He co-authored the book Questions to Ask Your Muslim Friends with Beth Peltola and also contributed two chapters to Beyond the Odds: Providence in Britain's Wars of the 20th Century by John Scriven.

The struggle between the family and the state has been “a feature of the relentless march of secularism” in the western world, notes Dr Gavin Ashenden in this 60th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, in which he speaks to Barbara Socha.

The deputy minister for family and social policy since 2019 with a specific responsibility for demographic policy, Mrs Socha, a mother-of-five, describes why Poland is willing to bravely buck the western trend by choosing to robustly take the side of marriage and the family and freedom of religion against insidious new ideologies with the aim of creating the “best conditions” in the world for married Catholic couples with children.

Can the Pope change the teaching of the Catholic Church by the stroke of a pen during the course of correspondence? In this 59th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Jules Gomes speaks to Dr Gavin Ashenden about the dubia submitted to the Pope by five cardinals concerned about the remit of the Synod on Synodality and the response of the Holy Father to the doubts they raise.

Dr Jules is a theologian, a journalist and a Catholic correspondent based in Rome. He has a Doctorate in Biblical Studies from Cambridge University and is the author of five books of Theology.

Mark Lambert, the author of a popular blog called De Omnibus Dubitandum Est and a regular on the Catholic Unscripted YouTube channel, returns to Merely Catholic to consider the plight of Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, who in the summer was subjected to visitation after his alleged criticism of the conduct of Pope Francis on social media.

In this 58th episode of the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Mr Lambert joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to together reflect upon the extent that Bishop Strickland might be either a blessing or a curse in a pontificate which is leaving many Catholics all over the world increasingly perplexed.

In a society obsessed with sex and increasingly confused about what it is to be a man or a woman, Megan Madden, an Oxford-based American author and mother, offers a radically different perspective about what fulfilled femininity might really be. Her new book, Mary, Teach Me to Be Your Daughter, is based on years of studies on marriage and the family and reading the works of such distinguished Catholic philosophers and theologians as St Edith Stein, Gertrude von le Fort, Alice von Hildebrand, St John Paul II, and St Teresa of Avila, asking herself all the time what it truly means to be a woman.

She shares her thoughts with Dr Gavin Ashenden in this 57th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald.

You can purchase a copy of Megan's book here.

The Catholic world has recently been rocked by the publication of a book that has been sent out to every one of the Catholic Church's bishops across the world.

In episode 56 of Merely Catholic, Gavin Ashenden interviews one of its authors, Julio Loredo. Part of the initial impact of the book lay in the powerful and dramatic preface which was authored by Cardinal Raymond Burke, a former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. He commended the book as providing a clear and accessible warning about the danger that the process of Synodality posed to the integrity and the existence of the Catholic Church.  

In a wide ranging conversation, Gavin Ashenden discusses the book and the issues that lie behind it with its author.

The Vatican’s precarious diplomatic relations with Communist China is the core subject of discussion in this fascinating 55th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

Presenter Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined by Benedict Rogers, a human rights activist and author of The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny. Rogers, a former Anglican who was received into the Catholic Church in Myanmar a decade ago, is also the co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong Watch and the Senior Analyst for East Asia at Christian Solidarity Worldwide. He has won two major international awards for his work in defending religious liberty.

The book is available on Amazon or you can order it through Waterstones or any good bookshop, or order directly from the publishers.

In the Bible, Jesus Christ teaches that God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but the Anglican Archbishop of York has now distanced himself from the language of divine revelation, declaring it to be “problematic”.

In this 54th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, former Anglicans Fr Dwight Longenecker and Dr Gavin Ashenden unpack the reasons why Our Lord chose to reveal the Persons and nature of the Holy Trinity in such terms as they confront what they describe as an “astonishing” redrafting of Christianity by one of the most senior leaders of the Church of England.

The veteran Rome correspondent Edward Pentin returns to Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, to discuss with Dr Gavin Ashenden the Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, of the forthcoming Synod on Synodality, which has been published by the Vatican ahead of the first of the sessions in October.

Together in this 53rd episode they consider the contents of the document and the extent to which it might be described as authentically Catholic. They also address concerns about whether the working document is in fact an exercise in political modernity which is starkly at odds with the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church.

In this 52nd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined by Justin Brierley, the freelance writer, speaker and broadcaster who has become known for creating dialogues between Christians and non-Christians.

They discuss Justin’s forthcoming book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, which will be published in September, and they also reflect on what Christians might need to do to rescue their culture from new and destructive ideologies moving into the vacuum in British social and political life that has been created by widespread apostasy.

Pre-order Justin's new book here!

In the 51st episode, Gavin Ashenden has joined by Kimberly Ells.

In 2013, she joined an international organization working to protect the interests of children and families at the United Nations. During her first exposure to UN proceedings in New York City, she was surprised to discover policies being adopted on the basis of the promotion of sexual rights for children.

Beyond the immediate astonishment, emerged the question, who was it that believed in the sexualisation of children, and why?

In her book, The Invincible Family, Kimberly Ells joins the dots, and offers an analysis of the ethics, politics, and ambitions of those who want to undermine the rights and privileges of biological parents to ‘get their hands on the kids’ and reshape our culture and morals. 

She discusses her conclusions in this, the  latest episode of Merely Catholic.

Ryan Christopher returns to Merely Catholic to discuss the highly motivated political lobby groups behind the swingeing changes to law and culture.

Mr Christopher, the director of ADF UK, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation defending fundamental freedoms and human dignity, tells Dr Gavin Ashenden in this 50th episode of the podcast series for the Catholic Herald that Western societies are now witnessing the “natural playing out of the death of the liberal moment”.

A new era is opening up, he says, in which essential and hard won freedoms and civil liberties are increasingly under threat. It is one in which Catholics must strive with greater urgency to become more involved in public life to protect and uphold so much of what they hold dear and, for now, take for granted.

In the 49th episode of Merely Catholic, Paul Kingsnorth joins Gavin Ashenden to talk about his journey from environmentalism, on an exploration through Buddhism and paganism which led him to Christ. 

Hailed as one of the most incisive and perceptive thinkers of his generation, Paul Kingsnorth examines the fragility of Western culture and the emergence of what he terms ‘the machine’ – the delegation to technology of the control and fulfilment of human desire. 

All choices are ‘religious’ now he suggests. It’s a choice between God and the archetypal path of rebellion with its inevitable consequences.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined for this episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, by Alexander Tschugguel, who in 2019 achieved global fame when he took an icon of a pachamama earth goddess from the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, near the Vatican, and threw it into the River Tiber.

A convert from Lutheranism, Mr Tschugguel explains why it was idolatrous to allow such pagan icons near the altar of a Catholic church, saying it was a direct contravention of the First Commandment and also an insult to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He also reflects on the sinister ideologies that he believes lay behind the decision to invite pagan fertility symbols into a church and what the objectives of such thinking might be.

The freelance journalist and commentator Georgia Gilholy joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 47th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

A writer for wide range of publications, including The Spectator, The Critic and the Catholic Herald, Miss Gilholy describes her personal journey into the Catholic faith from the certitudes of doctrinaire atheism.

She explains how it feels today to be both a young female professional and a convert and she offers a few insights about how Christians of her generation might find the language to speak to those who have yet to enter the light of truth.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined for this 46th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, by Ryan Christopher, the director of ADF UK, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation defending fundamental freedoms and human dignity.

They discuss the rapid erosion of freedom of speech and its causes and what might be done to reverse such a trend as well as how to defend and uphold other authentic human rights.

Mr Christopher, a former seminarian, also reflects on contemporary challenges to the priestly ministry and parish life and offers some insights on ways in which Christian life and culture might be renewed in the post-modern era.

On the eve of the coronation, as we enter a new Carolingian era, Gavin Ashenden reflects on the challenges posed to the absolutist claims of monarchy and faith, by the revolutionary forces of relativism and secularism.

On hearing the word Chicago, many people might think either of the dramatic musical of that name or else make associations with 1930s gangsters. In this latest edition of Merely Catholic, we go to Chicago to interview Fr Ryan Brady, a local downtown city priest. In the shadow of arguments, about sex, power, scandal, and money we hear from him a different but familiar vision for the future of the Church - the pursuit of holiness.

John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need, the international Catholic charity helping persecuted Christians, is the guest on this 43rd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

He tells Dr Gavin Ashenden of how the charity began with one priest reaching out in solidarity to Christians behind the Iron Curtain before enlarging and spreading to more than 130 countries. He describes the work undertaken by Aid to the Church in Need and he sets out how Christians are being persecuted today, including a shocking report from a recent visit to Pakistan, a country in which the Christian minority continues to live in fear of relentless harassment, discrimination and Islamist violence.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative MP for North East Somerset, discusses his strong Catholic faith with Dr Gavin Ashenden in this 42nd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald.

They also talk about such issues as the relationship of religion to politics, the “continual trajectory for anti-Christian values” present in public life, the campaign to decriminalise abortion and the ban on prayer near to clinics, as well as cancel culture, Covid, the family and child care, and the indoctrination of small children by increasingly lurid sex education.

Throughout their conversation, Mr Rees-Mogg refuses to succumb to pessimism, saying he sees signs of hope both within the Church and in wider society – and he also reveals his wishes to be made a cardinal.

Dr Gavin Ashenden this week talks to Eduard Habsburg, Hungary’s Ambassador to the Holy See, a member of the former ruling family of Austria-Hungary and a man still known today by his traditional title of Archduke Eduard of Austria.

They talk about the remarkable family which ruled over the Holy Roman Empire, shaping European politics for 800 years; about contemporary European politics, and perhaps most currently, about the archduke’s new book, The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times. Such principles include getting married, being Catholic, being brave in battle, standing for law and justice, and dying well. Archduke Eduard explains how these values can be implemented in the lives of people today.

The Rev. Dr Patrick Pullicino returns to “Merely Catholic”, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, to talk about the presence of science in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel.

Fr Pullicino, a retired NHS consultant neurologist who now serves as a priest for the Archdiocese of Southwark, speaks to Dr Gavin Ashenden, in this 40th episode, about his 218-page thesis on “The Science of Ezekiel’s Chariot of YHWH Vision as a Synthesis of Reason and Spirit”.

He reveals that “Fuzzy Epistemology”, a concept formulated by a 20th century philosopher and used today in digital household devices like Alexa and Siri, is present in one of the most puzzling and cryptic books of the Old Testament, reinforcing his view of the compatibility of science with religion, and faith with reason.

The guest for this 39th 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.

He tells Dr Gavin Ashenden that the reasons offered for the ongoing suppression of the Traditional Latin Mass just 15 years after its liberation were largely spurious and ideologically-motivated and are probably driven by actors not yet clearly in view.

They also discuss the recent ‘rescript’ issued by the Holy See that prevents parish churches celebrating the Old Rite Mass without a dispensation from Rome and they reflect on the reaction to such measures throughout the world.

Sherry Anne Weddell, the pioneering American Catholic evangeliser, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for the 38th episode of “Merely Catholic”, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, to discuss the renewal of the Catholic Church in an age of unbelief.

Weddell, a convert to the faith from a Southern Baptist background, is co-founder and co-director of the Catherine of Siena Institute and the creator of the first charism-discernment process designed for Catholics. She trains and leads an international team of teachers who have worked with more than 100,000 ordained, religious and lay Catholics in more than 120 dioceses in five continents and one of her books, Forming Intentional Disciples, has sold more than 100,000 copies.

She talks to Dr Ashenden about her journey of faith, the New Evangelisation and what the Church in the West must do to recover its missionary zeal.

Andrew Doyle, the comedian, broadcaster and writer, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for the 37th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, to discuss the rise of new ideologies broadly described as “wokery”.

Doyle, author of the 2022 book The New Puritans, compares the followers of destructive new ideologies with old school religious fundamentalists, particularly of the 17th century, noting such shared characteristics as social hysteria, uncompromising moral self-righteousness and the total refusal to tolerate any dissent.

He tells of how “vicious” activists, who “lack human empathy”, routinely use fear, intimidation, threats and the cancel culture to impose their world view and to gradually dismantle the apparatus of liberal democracy and Christian civilisation.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is the guest on this week’s episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

The pro-life counsellor was arrested and charged by police in December after she admitted to them that she “might be” praying silently in her head outside a closed abortion facility in Birmingham. The Crown Prosecution Services have since dropped the charges but Miss Vaughan-Spruce intends to apply for a court verdict on whether she was breaking any laws.

She talks to Dr Gavin Ashenden about her experience and about the chilling implications for such human rights as freedom of speech, expression, conscience, association and religion under new regulations which brook no public dissent from the culture of death.

In this 35th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Simon Johnson, the Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral and a man described as “one of the most versatile musicians of his generation”.

Mr Johnson is a virtuoso organist with extensive work in choral direction, composition and arrangement and for 13 years he also served as the Organist and Assistant Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral.

Together they explore what liturgical music is and what it does ahead of preparations by the world-famous Westminster Cathedral Choir and Orchester, for which Mr Johnson is responsible, for a mesmerising performance of St John Passion by J.S. Bach in the cathedral on Thursday March 16.

This week Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Steve Ray, the acclaimed American author of Crossing The Tiber and Upon This Rock, among other titles, and a man hailed as one of the most effective Catholic apologists of the present generation.

In this 34th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Mr Ray recalls how he left the Baptist faith of his youth to become a dedicated and highly-motivated Catholic after, like St John Henry Newman, he studied the writings of such Fathers as Ss Irenaeus of Lyon, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna and recognised that their sub-Apostolic faith was the same as that professed by the Church.

Mr Ray also offers some insight into new and emerging contemporary crises in the history of the Church and shares some opinions about what the future may hold.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined this week by Edward Pentin, the distinguished English Catholic journalist and veteran Rome correspondent, to discuss the triumphs and tribulations of Cardinal George Pell, a giant of the Catholic Church who died suddenly last week following routine surgery.

Cardinal Pell is recalled as a man of integrity, orthodoxy and compassion, a stalwart opponent of the “dictatorship of relativism” who dined with the poor and homeless, and a reformer who dared to sweep out an Augean Stables of corruption in the Vatican finances but whose work was interrupted by allegations of child abuse which the Australian High Court later dismissed as spurious.

In this 33rd episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Ashenden and Mr Pentin also discuss the legacy of man who fearlessly expressed some very controversial opinions while remaining an indisputably loyal son of the Church.

Ever since the misleading and fourth rate film The Two Popes appeared on our screens, the public has been understandably hungry to know what the relationship between the pope emeritus, Benedict 16th, and the current pope, Francis, was really like behind the scenes.

Somewhat to our surprise, Archbishop Ganswein, chaplain and secretary to the pope emeritus has written a book, Nothing But The Truth, set to be released immediately after the funeral of Benedict 16th.

Is this going to be a tell-all memoir revealing secrets thus far hidden by decorum, restraint and civility, now released onto a world stage? Or is it going to be a restrained memoir, telling us nothing we didn’t know already?

Dr Jules Gomes is a theologian, a journalist and a Catholic correspondent based in Rome. He has a Doctorate in Biblical Studies from Cambridge and is the author of 5 books of theology. 

As it happens, he found himself the recipient of an advance copy of Ganswein’s book sent to his email account by a friend. To save us from having to wait for both the publication date and an English translation of Ganswein’s memoirs, he has agreed to share his reflections on the contents of Archbishop Ganswein’s book and he joins me now.

In the first Merely Catholic podcast for 2023, Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined by Monsignor Andrew Burnham to discuss one particular aspect of the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI, who died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 95.

In this 31st episode, the former Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet pays tribute to the late Pontiff for establishing the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, an act which allowed the corporate reception of entire Anglican communities and permitted them also to bring with them much of the beauty of their liturgical patrimony.

Monsignor Burnham, one of five bishops who in 2010 resigned to join the ordinariate, reflects on what he now believes was miracle of creative ecumenism, an act of healing at the hands, and from the heart, of a deeply generous pope.

Dr Serenhedd James joins Gavin Ashenden for this 30th episode of Merely Catholic to talk about why it has been difficult to be both fully English and fully Catholic; whether it matters or not that the coronation of King Charles  is going to involve oaths that don’t reflect the reality of the social and religious context; and perhaps most importantly, has the time come for the Catholic Church to take responsibility for being the principal and most coherent Church in these islands as Anglicanism diminishes in numbers, coherence and conviction. 

Dr James is an  academic Historian, Deputy Editor of the Catholic Herald, arts columnist for The Critic, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and member of faculty at the University of Oxford.

Monsignor Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican Bishop of Rochester who became a Catholic in 2021, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 29th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

Now a member of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Nazir-Ali sets out his views of synodality and he answers some of the criticisms aimed at him by a minority of Catholic activists whose views about the 2021-2024 Synodal Process is somewhat different.

The pair also discuss the role and primacy of conscience and Monsignor Nazir-Ali reveals what he most likes about his newly-adopted spiritual home.

In this, the 28 episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Dr Scott Hahn, one of the foremost Biblical scholars in the Catholic world today.

Dr Hahn is based in the USA where he holds a number of prestigious academic posts. He has written a range of bestselling books including The Lamb’s Supper, Reasons to Believe and Rome Sweet Rome. In a wide ranging talk they look at Dr Hahn’s new book on “Holiness” and how ethics and belief are affected by the insights into the Biblical experiences we often take for granted or misunderstand.

In the 27th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden reflects on the gulf between the so-called “spirit of Vatican II” and the contents of the documentation agreed by the participating Church fathers.

He is joined by Catholic commentator Mark Lambert, author of a popular blog called De Omnibus Dubitandum Est and a regular with Dr Ashenden on the Catholic Unscripted YouTube channel, and together they try to “shed some light” on the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and what was actually intended by the documents emanating from the council itself. They consider whether the Second Vatican Council, convened 60 years ago last month, was a call to holiness and evangelisation or simply to conformity with the Zeitgeist, or the passing and quickly dated spirit of the age.

As the Anglican Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, makes the case for the Church of England allowing same-sex marriage, Father Dwight Longenecker, the acclaimed U.S. author and speaker, talks to Dr Gavin Ashenden about what is understood by marriage in the Catholic Church.

This 26th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, includes a searing sociological, philosophical and theological analysis of the problems inherent in trying to redefine an ancient institution and one which in the Catholic Church has been elevated to the status of a sacrament.
Their conclusions are stark and unambiguous and include the warning of the emergence of a “counterfeit faith”, even within the Catholic Church, which is intended to replace the Apostolic faith with something rather different.

Catholic author Joseph Pearce was strongly sceptical of claims that William Shakespeare was secretly a Catholic until he began to examine the evidence and followed where it led.

Now an author of three books in support of the Bard’s Catholicism, Pearce tells fellow convert Dr Gavin Ashenden, in this 25th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, that the evidence for Shakespeare’s faith is practically irrefutable.

He argues that the circumstances of Shakespeare’s life, the religion of his family and of his patrons and the texts and subjects of his plays all point in a single direction: that Shakespeare could be nothing but a loyal and believing Catholic who agitated for religious toleration in the face of totalitarianism. There is no evidence, says Pearce, that Shakespeare was remotely anything else.

Katherine Bennett, a South London school teacher of more than 20 years’ experience, lays bare the crisis of faith convulsing Catholic education as teachers increasingly capitulate to a radical secular consensus.

In this 24th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, she tells Dr Gavin Ashenden of how such new and destructive ideologies as Critical Race Theory, Third Wave Feminism and those underpinning the ever-expansive LGBT+ agenda are now finding their ways into the classrooms of Catholic schools. All who treasure the beauty of their faith should be deeply worried, she suggests, and she recommends that the time has come for conscientious Catholics to bear witness to truth with greater urgency and courage.

In this 23rd episode of Merely Catholic, Dr Gavin Ashenden speaks to former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe about the tectonic shifts in her (former) party's leadership. 

They also discuss the role that religion plays in modern politics, and whether the apparent drive for a more secular parliament is having a dampening effect on politicians who wish to express their spirituality. 

 JRR Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, is arguably the most read book in the world today. It is also a myth infused by the author’s deep Catholic understanding, imagination and faith.

In this 22nd episode of the Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Tolkien aficionado Ferdie Rous, the managing editor of same title, about the spirituality underpinning this great work of English literature.

In their conversation, they also discuss the limitations of The Rings of Power, the billion dollar extravaganza by Amazon, and explore why this series is leaving viewers and critics alike scratching their heads as to what they have just watched.

Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to the journalist Simon Caldwell about his debut novel, The Beast of Bethulia Park, in this 21st episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald.

The book, due to published by Gracewing later this month, has been described as a “wonderful” psychological thriller underpinned by Catholic themes. It tells the story of a young and idealist priest who is pitched into a dark world of sexual obsession, danger and death when he becomes embroiled in a campaign to unmask a murderous doctor.

Dr Ashenden speaks to S.P. Caldwell about some of his characters and they discuss literary inspirations and writing style. Caldwell also reads exclusively from the book for the first time in public.

Please follow this link to learn more about The Beast of Bethulia Park and to order your copy: http://www.gracewing.co.uk/page416.html

 Giorgia Meloni has stunned the liberal West by her election as Prime Minister of Italy after openly espousing the values of traditional marriage and the family, of Catholic Christianity and of womanhood and patriotism.

Should her election be seen as a sign of hope? Dr Gavin Ashenden thinks so. But in this 20th episode of Merely Catholic , the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, the veteran journalist Peter Hitchens explains the reasons why he is altogether more pessimistic about the prospects of any political movement successfully overcoming decades of corruption and the rise of the new ideologies. Now is a time for conscience, he says.

Can King Charles III continue the legacy of his mother by serving as an exemplary Christian monarch or will he find common cause with a secularist society against Christian values, particularly morality and the right to life?
In this 19th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Pierpaolo Finaldi, the chief executive of the Catholic Truth Society, about the pressures that the new King will inevitably face when he attempts to accommodate the powerful but contradictory and often conflicting factions struggling for influence in 21st century British society and culture.

Dr Gavin Ashenden, a former Royal Chaplain, offers his own insightful and extremely well-informed perspectives on the death of a Queen and the coming of a King in this 18th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

Queen Elizabeth II, recalls Dr Ashenden as he reflects on Her Majesty’s personal faith, was a perfectly discreet Christian monarch who was “full of the love of God” and whose gifts ensured the survival of the monarchy into the 21st century. Britain under King Charles III will bring new challenges, however, because of the divergent and conflicting parts of the body politic – the forces of secularism and Islam, and whatever remains of Christianity – and the demands each will inevitably make on the cultural and public life of the nation.

This is a fascinating conversation between Dr Gavin Ashenden and the Rev. Calvin Robinson, the mixed race Anglican cleric cancelled by his own bishop for expressing the opinion that the Church of England is not “institutionally racist”.
Rev. Robinson, now a popular GB News presenter, reveals in this 17th episode of the Catholic Herald’s Merely Catholic podcast series how destructive new ideologies are permeating parts of the Christian Church. He describes how such radical ideas are creating a new theology and a new religion in which ministers believe the Host is a racist emblem because it white, who worship the planet instead of God, and who portray Jesus simply as “nice” in what appears to be a concerted and enduring attempt to subvert tradition and teaching.

The Rt Rev. Mark Davies, the Bishop of Shrewsbury, talks to Dr Gavin Ashenden about the visit of the relics of St Bernadette of Lourdes to England, Scotland and Wales that runs from Friday September 2nd to Tuesday November 1st.
In this 16th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Bishop Davies explains precisely what is understood by a relic. He also observes that down the ages saints have always been great evangelisers who have revealed the raw power of Gospel and the authentic face of the Church. The visit of the relics of St Bernadette, suggests Bishop Davies, could be a key moment for the new evangelisation at time when Christian morality and the sanctity of human life in Britain is relentlessly under attack.

Opus Dei found unwelcome fame and undeserved notoriety at the hand of the infamous but hugely successful novelist Dan Brown. It has returned to the public stage this week, not in the form of the imaginative parody the Da Vinci Code presented, but because of the pope’s most recent letter.

Entitled ‘Ad charisma tuendum’ “For the safeguarding of the prelature of the charism of Opus Dei”, the pope has stipulated that whoever leads Opus Dei in future will never be a bishop. Does this papal initiative fall into the category of the sacred or the sinister?

In this the 15th episode of Merely Catholic, Jack Valero, the Head of Communications for Opus Dei in the UK,  joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to reflect on the prevalence of conspiracy theories and give his interpretation of what this really means; whilst also commenting on the prevalence of global and historic apologies as Pope Francis travels to Canada to engage with history, guilt and forgiveness.

Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister and MEP for the Brexit Party, speaks to fellow Catholic convert Dr Gavin Ashenden, in this 14th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald about the future of the Church of England to which they both once belonged.

Miss Widdecombe says Anglicanism is terminally afflicted by a tendency to imitate the mores of secular society, irrespective of how insufferably and hysterically “woke” such positions might be, leaving the Catholic Church – once considered the home of “Irish navvies and Italian waiters” – as the greatest hope for the survival of Christianity in the UK.

The actor and political activist Laurence Fox joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to discuss the sinister ideologies behind the seemingly relentless quest to destroy faith, family, freedom, marriage and the innocence of children in society today.

In this 13th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Fox sets out the reasons why he felt it was necessary for Reclaim, the political party he founded, to expose the shockingly lurid content of sex education programmes aimed even at children in a new film called Groomed: How Schools Sexualise Your Children. They identify a neo-Marxist ideological agenda which has among its objectives that of separating children from their parents and forcing them reject their Christian values.

In the 12th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to the highly distinguished European political scientist Professor John Loughlin, a Fellow at Blackfriars, Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow and former Tutor at St Edmund's College, former Director of the Von Hügel Institute, and a Senior Fellow and Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies, both at the University of Cambridge.

Professor Loughlin offers an illuminating vision of hope for humanity through the flourishing of Catholic education and of Catholic universities in particular – a powerful antidote to prevailing false anthropologies and to the misguided contemporary utopian beliefs that mankind can somehow be redeemed by information alone.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined from Chicago by Melissa Villalobos, the recipient of the miracle that led to the canonisation of Cardinal St John Henry Newman in 2019, for the 11th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

They discuss the possible ramifications of the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion up to birth a constitutional right, as well as the hysterical and sometimes violent response of some of those people who are opposed to the new judgement.

They also speak of the signs of hope for America in the midst of what Melissa say is essentially a great ‘spiritual battle’ between good and evil.

Father Dwight Longenecker returns to Merely Catholic for the tenth episode of the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, this time talking to Dr Gavin Ashenden about the English Catholic inheritance and what it means to both Britain and the world in the early 21st century.

In this fascinating conversation, Father Longenecker, fresh from a pilgrimage tour of England, offers the perspective of both an American and a former Anglican on the role and significance of the English martyrs and upon a distinguished Catholic literary tradition which includes such figures as Robert Hugh Benson, Evelyn Waugh, GK Chesterton, Grahame Greene, JRR Tolkien and Elizabeth Jennings. English Catholics, he says, should do more to treasure and conserve the riches that have been left to them.

Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to the multi-talented Edmund Adamus about his work with A Fertile Heart, an easy-to-follow Relationships and Sex Education programme which is faithful to the teachings of the Catholic faith, and about his forthcoming role with the Sovereign Order of Malta.

In this ninth episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, their wide-ranging discussion includes reflections on the Theology of the Body of Pope St John Paul II; how best to serve the poor and the needy in the early 21st century and the importance of underpinning the new evangelisation with a steady stream of prayer.

Dr Jules Gomes, the Rome correspondent of Church Militant, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for this eighth episode of our Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald. They reflect on the new appointments to the College of Cardinals which mean that almost two thirds of its members have now been appointed by Pope Francis.

Dr Gomes identifies the workings of a politically-radical reformist agenda in the appointments and says that the new generation of “clone” cardinals will seek the consolidation and advance of the changes of the Bergoglian era at any forthcoming conclave to elect Francis’s successor. That would be the time, he says, to “watch out for rainbow-coloured smoke”.

In the seventh podcast of the Merely Catholic series, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Ralph Martin about the ‘all-out civil war’ that has broken out in the Catholic Church largely between those who wish to accommodate contemporary mores and those who believe the Church must hold fast to the teaching of two millennia.

Dr Martin, an esteemed U.S. theologian and author of the 2020 book The Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward, predicts that the time is drawing near when bishops will increasingly conclude that they can no longer stay silent and will begin to take sides in a struggle which goes right to the heart of the Church’s mission and purpose.

The leak of a draft opinion that Roe vs Wade may be soon overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court has inflamed political tensions throughout America and led to attacks on Catholic churches and the disruption of Masses.

The judgement is not only controversial because it created the federal legal framework for the 62 million abortions in the United States performed since 1973 but also because of its apparent lack of legal coherence.

In this sixth episode of Merely Catholic, Dr Gavin Ashenden speaks to Richard Doerflinger, former associate director of the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-life Activities, about why Roe vs Wade has to go.

In the fifth of our Merely Catholic podcast series, Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined from Jerusalem by Father Dwight Longenecker, the acclaimed U.S. author and speaker.

They discuss Easter in the Holy Land as well as mounting tensions between Christians in the West and the increasingly secularised societies in which they find themselves.

The worldliness of a Church in which the sex appears to many Christians to be more important than the supernatural is brought into focus, along with the dynamic responses to contemporary challenges initiated by others who seem more determined to deliver the authentic fruits of the New Evangelisation.

Dr Gavin Ashenden speaks to Father David Palmer, chaplain to Nottingham University, about shocking sexual blasphemy in a children’s book which has divided staff at a Catholic school in south London.

Father Palmer, who was last year “cancelled” after he expressed forthright Catholic views over social media, discusses the decision by the Archdiocese of Southwark to stop author Simon James Green visiting The John Fisher School in Purley.

With Dr Ashenden, he explores some of the ideological, sociological and theological issues at the heart of this clash between Christianity and an overtly hostile secular culture in the fourth of our podcast series.

For the third podcast in our Merely Catholic series, Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined from Chicago by Melissa Villalobos, the mother whose inexplicable healing from a potentially fatal haemorrhage provided Pope Francis with the miracle required to recognise Cardinal John Henry Newman as a saint.

Melissa, the Catholic Herald 2019 “Catholic of the Year”, recalls her healing and reflects on the deep spiritual bond of friendship she forged with the first English saint since the Reformation era, and also speaks about the importance of his teachings to our secular times, particularly in the formation of consciences.

“What weight do we give to the teaching of Jesus Christ and the Apostles?” In the second episode of our Merely Catholic podcast series Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Cardinal George Pell about dangers inherent in conforming to contemporary fads and ideologies.

Bishops presiding over the German Synodal Path would be embarking on an “absolutely disastrous” experiment if they succumbed to the temptation to water down the faith and accept secular mores in its place, says the distinguished Australian cardinal.

Such bishops are “facing in the wrong direction”, Cardinal Pell asserts, and he predicts the intervention of the Pope.

“When they came to Jesus, they saw he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water.”

With these words, St John, a witness to the crucifixion, describes the effusion from the side of Jesus Christ on the first Good Friday.

In this inaugural episode of Merely Catholic our presenter Dr Gavin Ashenden speaks to the Reverend Professor Patrick Pullicino, a former consultant neurologist and now a Catholic priest, about a fascinating theory which might explain medically what happened that day.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

For the best spirited thinking on religious affairs today, join Gavin Ashenden and his guest on the Catholic Herald's podcast Merely Catholic.

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