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250 to 1.5K🎙 ~2x weekly·136 episodes·Last published 1w ago - Monthly Reach
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On the show
From 10 epsHosts
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Recent episodes
30 Years of the Vatican Film List – Catholic Cinema's Past and Future
Jun 17, 2026
Unknown duration
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Jun 2, 2026
Unknown duration
Speaking in L.A.
May 16, 2026
Unknown duration
Is Brideshead Revisited (1981) the perfect book-to-screen adaptation?
May 4, 2026
1h 11m 58s
Bishop Erik Varden on cinema
Apr 9, 2026
54m 46s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6/17/26 | 30 Years of the Vatican Film List – Catholic Cinema's Past and Future | Thomas Mirus, Nathan Douglas, and Andrew Petiprin gave this panel session at the 2024 Notre Dame Fall Conference, presented by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. The theme of the conference was "Ever Ancient, Ever New: On Catholic Imagination." 30 Years of the Vatican Film List – Catholic Cinema's Past and Future Thomas Mirus (Catholic Culture) – The Vatican Film List: Introduction and Reflections Nathan Douglas (Independent Scholar/Filmmaker) – The Filmmaker as Auteur Andrew Petiprin (Spe Salvi Institute; Word on Fire Institute) – Europe for Everyone: Yesterday's Vatican Film List and Catholic Imagination Today Chair: John O'Callaghan (University of Notre Dame) Video of the panel: https://youtu.be/-7oE8d6RcCw?si=x4cTzl847-A8bG5M | — | ||||||
| 6/2/26 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) | Paul Duda joins James and Thomas to discuss Steven Spielberg's first extant UFO movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and what it says about the kind of meaning and transcendence people are seeking in the current UFO obsession. Paul also talks about the film he is producing about St. Bernadette. Links Bernadette movie: www.10thhourproductions.org www.Bernadettemovie.com www.Instagram.com/bernadettemovie Frank and Lou Creative www.Frankandlou.co SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 5/16/26 | Speaking in L.A. | On May 30, Thomas is giving the keynote address at the first annual conference of the Thomistic Artists Guild at the parish of St. Vitus in Los Angeles, CA. Free to attend! https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/thomistic-artists-guild-2026-conference | — | ||||||
| 5/4/26 | Is Brideshead Revisited (1981) the perfect book-to-screen adaptation?✨ | book-to-screen adaptationCatholic literature+3 | James MajewskiNathan Douglas+1 | Brideshead RevisitedBrideshead Revisited (1981)+1 | — | Brideshead Revisited1981 miniseries+3 | Catholic Culture | 1h 11m 58s | |
| 4/9/26 | Bishop Erik Varden on cinema✨ | cinemaviolence in film+4 | Erik Varden | CatholicCulture.orgCoram Fratribus+1 | — | cinemaErik Varden+6 | — | 54m 46s | |
| 3/18/26 | New Lives of the Popes podcast✨ | popesCatholic Church+3 | — | Apple PodcastsCatholicCulture.org+1 | — | popesCatholic+3 | — | 6m 05s | |
| 3/3/26 | Into Great Silence (2005) w/ Manny Marquez✨ | documentaryCatholicism+4 | Manny Marquez | Grande ChartreusePBS+2 | — | Into Great SilenceManny Marquez+7 | — | 1h 19m 10s | |
| 1/22/26 | Bing Crosby plays a priest in Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary's✨ | Catholic filmBing Crosby+5 | — | New YorkerGoing My Way+1 | — | Bing CrosbyCatholic film+7 | — | 52m 11s | |
| 11/24/25 | Adoption drama: Secrets & Lies (1996)✨ | adoptionidentity+3 | Andrew Petiprin | Spe Salvi InstituteCatholicCulture.org+1 | London | Secrets & Liesadoption+5 | — | 1h 09m 31s | |
| 11/6/25 | Revisiting Malick's A Hidden Life (2019)✨ | Terrence MalickCatholicism+4 | — | CatholicCulture.orgNew Polity+2 | — | Terrence MalickA Hidden Life+4 | — | 1h 29m 14s | |
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| 10/22/25 | Triumph of the Heart director faced glorious trials making great Catholic art - w/ Anthony D'Ambrosio✨ | Catholic filmartistic integrity+3 | Anthony D'Ambrosio | CatholicCulture.orgThe Duskwhales+1 | — | Catholic artindependent film+5 | — | 54m 31s | |
| 10/7/25 | US army chaplain meets Italian monks in Paisan (1946)✨ | World War IICatholicism+4 | — | Franciscan monasteryPaisan | SicilyNaples+4 | PaisanRoberto Rossellini+5 | Catholic Culture | 1h 10m 17s | |
| 9/23/25 | He Who Gets Slapped (1924)✨ | silent filmmental health+3 | — | Victor SjöströmHe Who Gets Slapped | — | He Who Gets SlappedLon Chaney+3 | — | 35m 09s | |
| 9/2/25 | Triumph of the Heart is a film worthy of its subject, St. Maximilian Kolbe | James and Thomas review an outstanding and very intense new film about St. Maximilian Kolbe, directed and written by Anthony D'Ambrosio. Triumph of the Heart is set mostly in the starvation cell in Auschwitz as Kolbe and his companions try to find a way to die with hope and dignity. Don't miss it, in theaters Sept. 12. https://www.triumphoftheheart.com/ SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 7/16/25 | A hard world for little things: The Night of the Hunter (1955) | James and Thomas discuss one of their favorite films, The Night of the Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton. It's about the sacred innocence of children, and discerning true vs. false prophets. A unique mix of fairy tale, horror, and Southern gothic with expressionist visuals, The Night of the Hunter contains some of the most striking and poetic sequences ever filmed. SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 6/17/25 | Hitchcock's I Confess and the world's failure to understand priesthood | In Alfred Hitchcock's 1953 film I Confess, a young priest in Quebec City is suspected of murder because of his unwillingness to break the seal of confession. A major theme of the film is the incomprehension with which the world sees the priesthood, such that people project their own sins onto the priest, resulting in a kind of white martyrdom. SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. | — | ||||||
| 6/3/25 | The Ritual portrays exorcism accurately, but is stuck in genre cliches | The new exorcism film The Ritual, starring Al Pacino and Dan Stevens, is based on the famous 1928 exorcism of Emma Schmidt, which also partially inspired The Exorcist. The Ritual is touted as more realistic and meticulously researched than most exorcism films, and it does seem to portray the rite of exorcism accurately (as the title indicates, most of the film is focused on the ritual itself). The film avoids many of the worst pitfalls of exorcism movies, such as fascination with the glamor of evil, sadism, etc. It is a Catholic-approvable treatment of the subject in that it avoids theological error, the liturgy is accurate, and God is clearly shown to be more powerful than demons. However, the film is still sensationalistic, not because its extraordinary demonic manifestations are fabricated, but because they are excessively centered at the expense of more interesting and edifying aspects of the real-life case. Those details which would have made the treatment unique and thought-provoking are too often filed down to fit the genre's cliches or to avoid alienating a non-Catholic audience. The Ritual will be in theaters starting June 6. Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio | — | ||||||
| 5/15/25 | Fragmented sexuality in Malick's To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, & Song to Song | 00:00 Introduction 12:44 Form 1:04:15 Themes 1:28:17 Moral problems 1:52:00 Favorite sequences After the artistic triumph of his magnum opus The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick had an unwontedly prolific period, releasing To the Wonder (2012), Knight of Cups (2015), and Song to Song (2017). In these films, known informally as the "Weightless Trilogy", Malick took his previous formal experimentation even further, relying heavily on improvisation stitched together with a stream-of-consciousness editing style evoking the fragments of memory. The results are undeniably aesthetically exciting, but also critically divisive, as many viewers find the latter two films particularly to lack narrative substance. The films have been of special interest to many Christians because of their explicit allusions to faith and their depiction of the emptiness of worldly pleasures as the characters search for something more. To the Wonder in particular is noteworthy for its priest character played by Javier Bardem, and because it deals with the issue of contraception and how being closed off to children destroys a relationship (the importance of children being a theme in all three films). Across the trilogy, Malick deals with the topic of sexuality in a way seen nowhere else in modern Hollywood, consistently showing the breakdown of sexuality in excess, deviance, and using others as destructive and even sinful. In that and in other respects, the films are profoundly countercultural. However, this is dangerous material to handle in any medium, cinema above all. Malick is not always successful in threading the needle with moral purity in execution, however praiseworthy his thematic intentions. This makes it impossible to recommend these films for a wide viewership, or to anyone without caveats. Nonetheless, a discussion of these films, with all their strengths and weaknesses, is essential in considering the direction of religious cinema today - and in this episode Thomas Mirus, James Majewski, and Nathan Douglas do just that. Note: YouTube has censored versions (TV-14, blurred nudity and bleeped profanity) of Knight of Cups and Song to Song, for free with ads. SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 4/8/25 | Crucifixion darkness: Barabbas (1961) | Barabbas is an unusual specimen of the midcentury Hollywood Biblical epic, more spiritually searching (and edgier) than its peers. Starring Anthony Quinn as the criminal released by Pilate in place of Christ, Barabbas is based on a 1950 novel by Nobel winner Pär Lagerkvist (recently listed by Anthony Esolen among the greatest religious novels of the 20th century). It follows Barabbas through a long life in the shadow of the Cross, haunted and struggling to comprehend the meaning of having had his life exchanged for Christ's. He becomes almost an archetype of human resistance to grace – but in the end, does he nonetheless surrender himself to what he doesn't understand? Br. Joshua Vargas, Cong.Orat., returns to the show to discuss this intriguing film. SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 3/20/25 | A holy fool: The Island (2006) | James and Thomas discuss a minor classic of religious cinema, the spiritually edifying (and humorous!) Russian film The Island, about a fictional Orthodox monk and "holy fool" who has special spiritual gifts, but remains racked with guilt over a terrible crime he committed in his youth. The Island can be viewed on YouTube (the subtitles are a different translation from the ones on Amazon): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz-vegualMg&ab_channel=SergeyKorsakov SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 3/4/25 | Terrence Malick and the Knights of Columbus: Voyage of Time (2016) | The Criteria crew continues its series on the films of Terrence Malick, jumping ahead to the experimental documentary Voyage of Time, which was co-produced by the Knights of Columbus! Voyage of Time portrays the history of the cosmos, the Earth, and the living creatures on it from the beginning of the universe to its end. The main point of the film is simply to evoke wonder at creation with its gorgeous photography, sound design and music. The film exists in two versions: a 45-minute version narrated by Brad Pitt (Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience), and a 90-minute version narrated by Cate Blanchett (Voyage of Time: Life's Journey). James, Thomas, and Nathan Douglas all agree that the long version is generally superior. However, they debate over the content of the narration (which, in both films, is of an existential rather than scientific nature). Thomas contends that the narration in the long version, rather than inspiring the viewer to seek the truth about the meaning of the universe, seems to leave us swimming in a muddled and uninspiring metaphysical soup. James defends the narration as a "phenomenological" portrayal of primitive man's varying interpretations of the cosmos, rather than a set of consistent truth propositions. SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to make this show possible! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 2/18/25 | The Marx Brothers w/ James Matthew Wilson | Poet and philosopher James Matthew Wilson joins the podcast to discuss two films by the Marx Brothers (Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera). Wilson also reads one of his poems featuring allusions to the Marx Brothers, and talks about the letters written between Groucho Marx and T.S. Eliot. James Matthew Wilson, The Strangeness of the Good https://angelicopress.com/products/the-strangeness-of-the-good SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 2/4/25 | "I am a human being": The Elephant Man (1980), w/ Andrew Petiprin | On the latest episode of Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast, Andrew Petiprin joins James and Thomas to discuss the late David Lynch's most uplifting film, The Elephant Man. The film is based on the real Victorian-era life of Joseph Merrick, a man who suffered terrible abuse because of his extreme deformities, yet whose human dignity was ultimately recognized and allowed to flourish by those who rescued him and cared for him with Christian compassion. Panel on film at Notre Dame with Thomas Mirus, Andrew Petiprin, and Nathan Douglas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7oE8d6RcCw&ab_channel=deNicolaCenterforEthicsandCulture Andrew's book Popcorn with the Pope: A Guide to the Vatican Film List https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/popcorn-with-the-pope DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
| 1/20/25 | In a Lonely Place (1950) | James and Thomas discuss Nicholas Ray's thrilling 1950 film noir In a Lonely Place. In an outstanding, nuanced performance, Humphrey Bogart plays quick-tempered screenwriter Dixon Steele, who enters into a fast-moving relationship with Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) just as he is under suspicion for the murder of another young woman. The investigation puts a strain on their romance, revealing the problems of relationships without the requisite mutual trust. SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter: https://www.catholicculture.org/newsletters DONATE to keep this podcast going: https://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com | — | ||||||
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Chart Positions
1 placement across 1 market.
Chart Positions
1 placement across 1 market.