Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P., joins the podcast to talk about his new book Training the Tongue and Growing Beyond Sins of Speech. He answers Thomas's questions about small talk, cheekiness, oversharing, the use of humor to avoid vulnerability, Millennial vs. Gen-Z irony, correcting others, and openness to pursuing truth.

Training the Tongue and Growing Beyond Sins of Speech https://stpaulcenter.com/store/training-the-tongue-and-growing-beyond-sins-of-speech

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This interview with Prof. Thomas Pink, originally published in 2020, is being republished as part of Thomas Mirus's ongoing series covering the major encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII.

Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, begins by noting that its discussion of religious liberty "has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society" and so "leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ." This episode is about discovering what that traditional doctrine was and is.

Our main source will be Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Immortale Dei, which is available in audiobook form on CatholicCulture.org. Thomas Pink guides us through a close reading of this document (with supplementary material from Libertas and Longuinqua). Here, and in the magisterium of other 19th-century Popes, we find a number of teachings on Church and State that have gone largely unmentioned since the Council, and which are sadly forgotten or even rejected by the majority of self-described conservative Catholics.

Links

Thomas Mirus's article summarizing the encyclical https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/leo-xiii-on-states-duties-toward-church/

Audiobook of Immortale Dei https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/pope-leo-xiii-immortale-dei-on-christian-constitution-states/

Text of Immortale Dei (On the Christian Constitution of States) https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=4916

Thomas Pink, "Conscience and Coercion" https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/08/conscience-and-coercion

Timestamps

[00:00] Introduction

[4:59] The historical and theological context of Immortale Dei

[9:42] An overview of points from Immortale Dei and Libertas

[12:28] The source and nature of authority; its directive and coercive functions

[20:30] The State's duty to profess, protect and foster the one true religion

[25:56] Reasons for toleration of other religions; coercion of the baptized

[36:05] Leo's analogy of Church and State with soul and body

[45:26] Separate sovereignties of Church and State interact; State can act as the "secular arm"

[51:31] Obligations twd. religion of the State properly speaking, not just rulers as individuals

[55:03] Consequences of the State neglecting God and religion

[1:02:40] Dignitatis Humanae: drafting, intended scope, legacy, compatibility with tradition

[1:10:30] Papal condemnations of freedom of speech and opinion

[1:31:10] The Church's move away from coercing baptized heretics

[1:36:13] The importance of docility in accepting difficult teachings

[1:41:29] Need for a synthesis of the whole magisterium on Church, State and religious liberty

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Lives of the Popes on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lives-of-the-popes/id1885968422

Lives of the Popes on CatholicCulture.org: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/category/lives-of-popes-podcast/

The darkest, and perhaps most underrated, story J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote was the tale of Túrin Turambar, a great man of the First Age of Middle-Earth, whose life was ruined by the curse of Morgoth (Tolkien's Satan-figure) and by his own pride. The tale, which resembles a Greek tragedy, was given its longest and most satisfying version in the posthumously published book The Children of Hurin.

Aaron Irber, host of a podcast "about stories, myths, and Catholicism", joins Thomas to discuss this underappreciated work by Tolkien.

Aaron's podcast, I Might Believe in Faeries https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-might-believe-in-faeries/id1584838118

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Pope Leo XIII's 1884 encyclical Humanum Genus is the Church's most comprehensive explanation of why, ever since 1738, she has forbidden Catholics to become Freemasons. Reading the encyclical today, one has the thought that its continued relevance has less to do with the present-day activities of Masonic organizations, and more to do with the fact that Masonic ideas have already come to pervade Western society.

Thomas's article about Humanum Genus https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/pope-leo-xiii-against-freemasonry/

Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus.html

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Actor, writer, and director David Henrie (Wizards of Waverly Place, How I Met Your Mother) joins the podcast to talk about his new EWTN travel series, Seeking Beauty with David Henrie - season 1 is a journey through Italy.

David and Thomas discuss what it is so many travelers still find so alluring about the heritage of Catholic Europe. They focus especially on Florence's Dominican convent of San Marco filled with masterpieces by Fra Angelico, how cities used to be built as dwelling places for men made in the image of God, and how David's show features Catholic artists and craftsmen working in Europe today.

Links

Seeking Beauty with David Henrie https://www.seekingbeauty.show/

Novo Inspire Studios https://www.novoinspirestudios.com/

John Byron Kuhner, "The Men Behind the Met" https://firstthings.com/the-men-behind-the-met/

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Veteran Catholic journalist Phil Lawler recently retired as the editor of Catholic World News at CatholicCulture.org. Phil was the first lay editor of Boston's archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, but negative experiences trying to do real journalism while financially dependent on the Church hierarchy prompted him to move on to a career in independent Catholic journalism, with stints as editor of Crisis, Catholic World Report, and finally founding Catholic World News, which in 1995 was the first English-language Catholic news service operating on the internet. In the early 2000s, CWN merged with Catholic Culture.

Phil joins the podcast to look back on his journalistic career, the problems with Church-run news agencies, the value of financially independent Catholic journalism, the current state of Catholic media, and his reporting on the clerical abuse crisis for years before most people found out about it in 2002.

Links

Phil Lawler's Substack https://pflawler.substack.com/

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Ida Friederieke Görres is little-known to English-speaking Catholics (except perhaps for her biography of St. Therese of Lisieux), but she was a major voice of the orthodox Catholic laity in mid-20th-century Germany, with Joseph Ratzinger giving her eulogy.

Jennifer Bryson has translated Görres's 1970 essay collection, Bread Grows in Winter, which is a response to the crisis in the Church immediately following Vatican II. Görres's beautiful and profound writing gives a sense of what it was like to live in those troubling times, and how we (perhaps especially the laity) should respond to the troubles of our own times.

Links

"Trusting the Church" on Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ida-friederike-grres-trusting-church/

Ida Friederieke Görres, Bread Grows in Winter, trans. Jennifer S. Bryson https://ignatius.com/bread-grows-in-winter-bgwp/

Görres, The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Therese of Lisieux https://ignatius.com/the-hidden-face-hfsstp/

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