89: Re-enchanted Christianity, with Rod Dreher

Following the enforced resignation of Justice Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury, numerous assessments have been made about his role in the post. Today, Gavin Ashenden is joined by an authoritative Anglican commentator from America, Canon George Conger. George is both an Episcopalian clergyman and a journalist. He is the author some 6,000 articles . His work has appeared in the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph and the Washington Post. He was senior corespondent for the Church of England Newspaper for twenty years and a correspondent for the Jerusalem Post for nearly as long. He runs one of the most famous websites in the Anglican world,Anglican Ink, and has known personally most of the English Archbishops as well a the Primates of the Anglican Communion. Famous for his shrewd and perceptive assessments, he joins Merely Catholic today to make an assessment of Welby’s tenure. Trigger warning; Not for the delicate.

This week, Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined by Karen Anstiss, the service manager for Caritas Bakhita House, a safe house in London for trafficked and exploited women which is run by the Catholic Church. A former police officer, Miss Anstiss charts the origins of the project 10 years ago as part of a broader response to the “endemic and deeply embedded” global problem of an estimated 50 million people trapped in modern-day slavery, a scourge described by Pope Francis as a “wound in the body of humanity and therefore in the body of Christ himself” She goes on to describe the pioneering work of Bakhita House, which since 2015 has given sanctuary to 188 women, aged between 15 and 70, who are drawn from 49 countries and who are overwhelmingly the victims of sexual exploitation or serious sexual assault.

 The Catholic novelist Fiorella De Maria discusses Catholic literature for Christmas with Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 91st episode of Merely Catholic. Fiorella tells how she wrote her first book in the summer after graduating from university before she went on to publish about a dozen books with San Francisco-based Ignatius Press and to win the Book Prize of Malta. Her works include acclaimed murder mysteries, biographies of saintly and heroic figures and even a recent foray into horror with This Thing of Darkness, a story she co-authored with KV Turley. She and Dr Ashenden discuss her inspirations, her observations about what makes a Catholic novelist, the threat of cancel culture. Finally she offers a few suggestions for good stocking fillers this Christmas. Check out our sponsor: https://jpcatholic.edu/landingpages/c...

Ann Widdecombe, the former Conservative Party minister, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden in this 90th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, to discuss the resignation of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury and the future of the Church of England. Miss Widdecombe, who, like Dr Ashenden was a member of the Church of England before converting to the Catholic faith, charts the leadership difficulties and challenges which have split Anglicans in the last 30 years and discuss the prospects of reconciliation. She and Dr Ashenden consider the strong possibility that the next leader of the Church of England and the Worldwide Anglican Communion will, for the first time in history, be a woman.

In this 89th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Rod Dreher talks to Dr Gavin Ashenden about his new book, Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age. With increasing numbers of young people in the West seeking spirituality in esoteric religions or the Occult, Mr Dreher argues that the Church must act urgently to rediscover and better express the mysterious beauty of the Catholic faith that has animated and inspired the lives of so many saints. An American author who now lives in Budapest, Hungary, Mr Dreher is perhaps best known for The Benedict Option, his 2017 book about how Christians might prepare themselves for a new dark age. It was one of three New York Times best-sellers, with Live Not By Lives and The Little Way of Ruthie Leming.

Professor David Albert Jones, the director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, Oxford, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 88th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald. They discuss the rush to assisted suicide ahead of a crucial vote to legalise the practice in the House of Commons on November 29 and the horrible realities of what a change of the law will mean. Professor Jones is the winner of the Paul Ramsey Award for Excellence in Bioethics, and in 2017 he co-edited Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Lessons from Belgium with Chris Gastmans and Calum MacKellar.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined for this 87th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, by Andrew Jacoby, an American businessman and entrepreneur. Mr Jacoby, who converted to the Catholic faith from the Judaism of his youth and the “hedonistic lifestyle” of his later years when he travelled the world as a musician, explains how he was ultimately drawn to the Church by “the truth”. He tells of his dalliance with “New Age” and Eastern esotericism, which took him down “down some dark paths” until he rediscovered the stories of the Bible and found that his perspective on life had been altered profoundly.

Dom Alcuin Reid, the distinguished Australian Benedictine who founded the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Fréjus-Toulon, France, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 86th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald. Dom Alcuin is an internationally-recognised expert on the liturgy, having published and lectured on the subject extensively. Among his works are The Organic Development of the Liturgy, which included a preface by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described. He and Dr Ashenden discuss the liturgical revolutions that have taken place in the last half century, the “overt persecution of that which is good and of God”, and how the “ideology and politics of a passing generation” may be in their dying throes.

Dr Gavin Ashenden is joined on Merely Catholic this week by Dr Derry Connolly, the founding president of John Paul the Great Catholic University, California. Dr Connolly charts his journey from his youth in rural County Cork, Ireland, and a career in engineering and technology in Los Angeles to the moment when “God put it in my heart” to establish a “radically different” Catholic university in San Diego to harness the power of beauty to transform contemporary culture, and how he was able to realise his vision in spite of setting out with no funds. In this 85th episode of the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, Dr Connolly also discusses with Dr Ashenden what a Catholic university is, and how John Paul the Great might form Catholics for Hollywood.  To find out more about John Paul the Great Catholic University visit: https://jpcatholic.edu/landingpages/catholicherald/

The Rt Rev. Joseph Strickland, the former Bishop of Tyler, Texas, who was “relieved” of his duties by Pope Francis last year, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for this 84th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald They discuss his removal from office and the post-modern assault on truth in the Church and in the world, and other subjects including the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the Francis papacy and the Rupnik scandal. In the podcast, Bishop Strickland also explains why Christians have a fundamental duty to be heed and be obedient to the truth, warning the faithful that “false messages fall to dust”.