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

Banning conversion therapy, with Dr Patricia Morgan

1 month ago 38m 29s

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 a

University lynch mobs and the right to life, with Madeline Page

Mar 8th, 2024 36m 35s

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 converg

Politically-incorrect Catholicism, with John Zmirak

Feb 26th, 2024 1h 2m

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.Zm

Canada’s new ‘Satanic panic’, with Anna Farrow

Feb 16th, 2024 47m 41s

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 c

Asylum seekers and fake Christians, with Mgr Michael Nazir-Ali

Feb 9th, 2024 39m 31s

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 rel

A model for Catholic education, with Ferdi McDermott

Feb 2nd, 2024 50m 52s

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

Priming Catholics for public life, with Stefan Kaminski

Jan 26th, 2024 43m 18s

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 pres

Catholics under a Protestant King: Part II, with Joseph Shaw

Jan 22nd, 2024 23m 19s

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

Catholics under a Protestant King: Part I, with Joseph Shaw

Jan 12th, 2024 35m 22s

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 boo

Same-sex blessings and the Catholic Church, with Fr David Palmer

Dec 23rd, 2023 32m 7s

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

The martyrdom of Bishop Álvarez, with Bianca Jagger

Dec 18th, 2023 29m 37s

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 Nicarag

No-one dies a martyr for ambiguity, with Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Nov 30th, 2023 26m 10s

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

Finland’s woke pogrom, with Paul Coleman

Nov 21st, 2023 34m 44s

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, f

The crackdown on conservative contrarianism, with Kathy Gyngell

Nov 15th, 2023 36m 43s

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

Is Islam really a religion of peace? With Tim Dieppe

Oct 20th, 2023 35m 2s

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 radicalisat

Poland’s defence of the family, with Barbara Socha

Oct 11th, 2023 26m 19s

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

Doubts over the development of doctrine, with Dr Jules Gomes

Oct 5th, 2023 27m 53s

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

The strife over Strickland, with Mark Lambert

Sep 26th, 2023 43m 58s

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 summ

A radical vision of complete womanhood, with Megan Madden

Sep 14th, 2023 34m 1s

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

Is the Synod a Pandora’s Box, with Julio Loredo

Sep 1st, 2023 44m 20s

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, Ju

At what price a pact with China? With Benedict Rogers

Jul 20th, 2023 33m 1s

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 Bene

The hubris of changing the words of Jesus, with Fr Dwight Longenecker

Jul 13th, 2023 35m 15s

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 episod

The affirmation of sin, with Edward Pentin

Jul 6th, 2023 42m 50s

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

June, the Month of the Sacred Heart, with Justin Brierley

Jun 23rd, 2023 43m 56s

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 an