The Catholic Culture Podcast: 190 – Fulton Sheen, Convert Maker
Feb 11, 2025 A new biography of Ven. Fulton Sheen gives special attention to his high-profile converts, but reveals many other interesting facets of his life as well. Author Cheryl Hughes joins to discuss Sheen’s at times shockingly direct evangelization methods, his outstanding television presence, his lifelong struggle with vanity and ambition, and the mistreatment […]
Roman Statues Weren’t White; They Were Once Painted in Vivid, Bright Colors
The idea of the classical period—the time of ancient Greece and Rome—as an elegantly unified collection of superior aesthetic and philosophical cultural traits has its own history, one that comes in large part from the era of the Neoclassical. The rediscovery of antiquity took some time to reach the pitch it would during the 18th […]
How to (Actually) Burn Off Belly Fat—and Why It Matters
Of all the baseless fitness myths to have been peddled through ages of infomercials and influencers alike, the notion that you can “blast belly fat” is among the most audacious. Targeted fat loss, or spot reduction, is simply not a thing that our bodies are equipped to do. “You can’t spot reduce, no matter how […]
Death is Always Brutal: Reflections on Clair Obscur Expedition 33
This article contains potential spoilers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. We can’t hide from death even though our culture can often be accused of trying to do so. Our dreams of trans-humanism, systematic acceptance of nursing homes, and transition to “celebrations of life” rather than funerals do offer some validity to that claim. However, we […]
The Catholic Culture Podcast: 191 – How the Church Invented Musical Notation
Feb 21, 2025 The Christian West and Its Singers: The First Thousand Years, by the great English musicologist Christopher Page, covers the development of Christian liturgical music from its origins as an elaboration of the role of the lector to its flourishing in the monastic and cathedral singing schools of France, as Roman chant was […]
The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Oldest Surviving Animated Feature Film, Is Now in the Public Domain (1926)
Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, or The Adventures of Prince Achmed, lays fair claim to being the earliest animated feature film in existence. If we do grant it that title, it beats the next contender by more than a decade. While Prince Achmed came out a century ago, in 1926, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, whose production was presided […]
Sturgill Simpson Dropped the Johnny Blueskies Album Early on YouTube, and YouTube Commenters Are Stoked
Mutiny After Midnight—the new full-length from Sturgill Simpson’s alter ego Johnny Blueskies, an instant contender for Album of the Year as well as Somehow Audibly Greasiest Album of the Year—dropped ahead of schedule over the weekend, when Simpson (who’d promised this one would be a streaming-service-spurning physical-only release) threw the whole thing up on YouTube. […]
Radical Love: The Rise of the Kind Lead
Over the last few decades as film and television have evolved, audiences have largely come to expect certain qualities from their leading protagonists: bravery, intelligence, ambition, wit, even a slightly rebellious nature. However, as global, real-life media has invaded more and more of our everyday lives, the things which previously felt solidly black-and-white have instead […]
