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’ wo…

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 up…

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…

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 E…

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 discov…

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 Catho…

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 h…

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 …

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 servan…

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 d…

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 …

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…

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…

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 …

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 soc…

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, an…

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 r…

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 Synodali…

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 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 famil…

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 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 …

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 an…

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 epi…

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 w…

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…

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…

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 emergen…

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 Lutheran…

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 cert…

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 revers…

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.Merely Catholic által

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 dif…

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 en…

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 pu…

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;…

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 h…

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 afte…

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 th…

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 re…

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 …

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 arrange…

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 Ba…

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 c…

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 em…

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 Ordinari…

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…

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…

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 Suppe…

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 Dubita…