In this episode, Fr. John Strickland recounts the efforts of three Italian humanists of the quattrocento ("fourteen hundreds") to rescue the dignity of man from the pessimism of Western culture. Departing from traditional Christianity's dignification of man through communion with God, they looked instead to Neoplatonism and there found a model of the fully autonomous human being, Prometheus.

In this episode, Father John relates a case in which the early humanist Petrarch confronted one of the new Christendom's chief architects, Pope Innocent III. Applying his newly developed secular thinking, he rejected the pope's notorious treatise entitled On the Misery of the Human Condition.

Modern historians often bring attention to the effects of secularization on the West. Once traditional Christianity ceased to influence Western culture, the experience of the kingdom of heaven naturally diminished, something the famous German sociologist Max Weber called the "disenchantment of the world." In this episode, Fr. John describes how the concept of the saeculum, a kind of neutral cultural space cut off from the life of the Church, first appeared, and how, with Petrarch, it became a...

In this episode the "father of humanism," Francesco Petrarch, broods over his sense of guilt and despair, seeking a new path for Western Christendom known as the saeculum, or "secular."

In this anecdotal introduction to Reflection 21, Father John relates a remarkable but short-lived revolution in fourteenth-century Rome that served as a sign of what the age of utopia would bring. Listeners who enjoy the music of Richard Wagner will recognize the ill-fated revolutionary's name and understand why the turbulent nineteenth-century composer was attracted to him! And speaking of music, if you are wondering about the new closing sequence, it is a chorus from Mozart's utopian opera...

Father John welcomes listeners back to the podcast with the opening to its third part, the age of utopia. He also summarizes some of the main points of his recently released book The Age of Division, which tells the history of Christendom covered in the second part of the podcast.

Fr. John Strickland talks about the newly released book The Age of Paradise. The book is available at store.ancientfaith.com.

In this final episode of Part 2 of the podcast, Fr. John discusses the catastrophic wars that broke out in western Christendom during the Reformation age. These wars, along with other forces unleashed by developments in the Reformation and earlier, would ultimately result in the loss of Christianity's legitimacy, leading to the rise of a modern, secularized form of Christendom centered upon the experience of utopia.

In this final episode of Part 2 of the podcast, Fr. John discusses the catastrophic wars that broke out in western Christendom during the Reformation age. These wars, along with other forces unleashed by developments in the Reformation and earlier, would ultimately result in the loss of Christianity's legitimacy, leading to the rise of a modern, secularized form of Christendom centered upon the experience of utopia.

In this final episode of Part 2 of the podcast, Fr. John discusses the catastrophic wars that broke out in western Christendom during the Reformation age. These wars, along with other forces unleashed by developments in the Reformation and earlier, would ultimately result in the loss of Christianity's legitimacy, leading to the rise of a modern, secularized form of Christendom centered upon the experience of utopia.

In this episode Father John explores the way in which the loss of sacramental experience among Calvinists led to the rise of a political ideology that would unintentionally lay the foundation for utopia.

In this episode Father John explores the way in which the loss of sacramental experience among Calvinists led to the rise of a political ideology that would unintentionally lay the foundation for utopia.

In this episode Father John explores the way in which the loss of sacramental experience among Calvinists led to the rise of a political ideology that would unintentionally lay the foundation for utopia.

In this episode Fr. John discusses Reformed attitudes toward worship, and the ways in which western Christendom's liturgical and sacramental foundations were eroded when they were put into practice.

In this episode Fr. John discusses Reformed attitudes toward worship, and the ways in which western Christendom's liturgical and sacramental foundations were eroded when they were put into practice.

In this episode Fr. John discusses Reformed attitudes toward worship, and the ways in which western Christendom's liturgical and sacramental foundations were eroded when they were put into practice.

In this episode Fr. John discusses ways in which Reformed cosmology represented a shift from the heavenly immanence of paradisiacal Christendom toward the heavenly transcendence of utopian Christendom.

In this episode Fr. John discusses ways in which Reformed cosmology represented a shift from the heavenly immanence of paradisiacal Christendom toward the heavenly transcendence of utopian Christendom.