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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...