New Polity

Pope St. John Paul II claimed that "the 'new evangelization', which the modern world urgently needs must include among its essential elements a proclamation of the Church's social doctrine" (Centesimus Annus 5). In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Cy Kellett, host of Catholic Answers Live, discuss how proclaiming the social doctrine of the Church can lead people to Christ. We’re offering a Catholic Social Teaching masterclass June 22-25 in order to study and illuminate the Church's social doctrine: those grace-filled principles by which you fulfill your Christian vocation to transform the world into the kingdom of God. Come to Steubenville, Ohio for a week with leading teachers, philosophers, and theologians dedicated to sharing the Church's vision of a Christian social order and kindling our desire to be fruitful laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. Learn more and register here! Don't miss our last chance sale New Polity's 2026 conference "Man, Woman, Tyrant, Slave"! Get your ticket now.Subscribe to New Polity Magazine

Esther defeats the idolatrous god-king through the strange power of weakness. Join Marc and Maria’s discussion of monolithic and idolatrous power structures and their vulnerability to the particular vocation of women. Catch up with Episode 1: youtu.be/Glj3ojZERvw?si=G1CfeS7pD2cf9TxdYou can follow along with the Esther Rabah, a collection of rabbinic commentaries on Esther from the 6th and 11th centuries: https://www.sefaria.org/Esther_Rabbah Come meet Maria and Marc at New Polity's 2026 conference "Man, Woman, Tyrant, Slave"! Learn more and register at https://newpolity.com/2026If you’re fascinated by the topic of sexual difference, take a deep dive with New Polity Issue 7.1/2: articles from Slavoj Zizek, D.C. Schindler, Rocco Buttiglione and more: https://newpolity.com/single-issues/7-1/2 Get offline: subscribe to New Polity Magazine. https://newpolity.com/magazineRead our essays: https://newpolity.com/essaysPlease consider donating to help us make more: https://newpolity.com/donate

What do the matriarchs of the Old Testament teach us regarding the roles of men and women? In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Maria Brandell discuss the biblical story of Esther and how it reveals the specific vocation of women. We are two months away from New Polity's 2026 conference "Man, Woman, Tyrant, Slave"! Learn more and register at https://newpolity.com/2026Subscribe to New Polity Magazine! https://newpolity.com/magazineRead our essays: https://newpolity.com/essaysPlease consider donating to help us make more: https://newpolity.com/donate

In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Michael Boland discuss the upcoming New Polity magazine, Issue 7.1, on Man and Woman. Specifically, they discuss the philosophical and metaphysical problems of sexual difference, and how our understanding of man and woman impacts our view of politics. Subscribe to New Polity Magazine by March 1st to receive Issue 7.1! https://newpolity.com/magazineThe 2026 New Polity Conference is only three months away! Learn more and get your ticket at https://newpolity.com/2026Issue 7.1 of New Polity Magazine on Man and Woman:Margaret Harper McCarthy on the Feminist Roots of Transgenderism.Rocco Buttiglione on Wojtyła, Freud, and Edith Stein.Slavoj Zizek on Pluribus.D. C. Schindler on the Metaphysics of Gender. Michael Hanby on the Politics of Transgender Theory.Maria Brandell on the Meaning of Woman in Edith Stein. Christopher Dawson on Christianity and Sex. With Reviews, an Introduction to Tobit, and more.

What is the Catholic response to AI? Pope Leo XIV, in his recent message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, takes a critical look at AI: namely, how it is "encroach[ing] upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relationships." Pope Leo asserts that our faces and voices are sacred, a witness to the unique, singular dignity of each human person. With AI already mimicking persons in social media and through deepfakes, the Pope calls for overcoming the "anthropomorphizing tendencies of AI systems." In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Reuben Slife go line-by-line through the message of Pope Leo, and discuss it's implications for the Catholic approach to AI. "Message of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV for the 60th World Day of Social Communications" Register for New Polity's 2026 Conference! https://newpolity.com/2026 Subscribe to New Polity Magazine! Check out our books!Read more.

Happy New Year! In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Alex Denley discuss New Polity's 2025 year, the books and magazines published, and look ahead to the New Year. Thank you to everyone who read or listened to us this year. Check out our essays: https://newpolity.com/essaysSubscribe to New Polity Magazine! https://newpolity.com/magazineCheck out our 2026 Conference! https://newpolity.com/2026Please consider donating at https://newpolity.com/donate

We are excited to announce our next New Polity Magazine: Issue 6.4 on The Critique of America, featuring essays by Reuben Slife, David L. Schindler, Michael Hanby, John Byron Kuhner and more. Pre-order is now available! Visit: https://newpolity.com/single-issues/6-4In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Michael Boland discuss the critique of America, structures of sin, and the idea of the American people. Check out our essays: https://newpolity.com/essaysSubscribe to New Polity Magazine! https://newpolity.com/magazineHelp us make more: visit https://www.newpolity.com/donate

America was a place of untold wealth in the post-war period. But today, many small towns are faltering and facing financial collapse. In this podcast, Strong Towns founder and president Charles Marohn sits down with Marc Barnes and Jacob Hyman to discuss how this collapse came about, and how to rebuild the small town. Subscribe to New Polity Magazine! https://newpolity.com/magazine. Check out our books: https://newpolity.com/press Read our essays: https://newpolity.com/essays.

In honor of the new Pope Leo XIV, and in celebration of the 134th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Alex Denley and Andrew Willard Jones discuss the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII and the birth of modern Catholic Social Teaching. Our conference is two weeks away! Spots are still open: https://newpolity.com/events/2025You have money burning a hole in your pocket, and a mind yearning for knowledge. We have books. https://newpolity.com/pressSubscribe to the greatest magazine on Earth: https://newpolity.com/magazineJoin the conversation on our Discord: https://discord.gg/bNJ2uE7as6

At the 2024 New Polity conference, Matthew B. Crawford gave the keynote address in which he contrasted the view of man inherent in technocratic rationalism with that of a Christian view. Drawing from the work of Joseph Ratzinger and Michael Oakeshott, Crawford draws a distinction between an orientation toward receiving life as gift and cramped rationalism that views man as an object to be synthetically remade. The current push for technocratic control over every sphere of life collapses the vertical order of reality and aims to eliminate contingency, risk, and play. In contrast, one who affirms the inherent goodness of being is able to experience a real vitality of life in a meaningful world. Next conference is only a month and a half away. Make the trek out to God's own Steubenville! https://newpolity.com/events/2025

Are we headed to a grand and glorious technological future? In this talk, Andrew Willard Jones expects the opposite: "The Future is Always Worse Than You Think It Will Be." As he explains, there are two paths with the development on new technologies: one which leads to an extension of the humane world into greater areas, and another, the technocratic, which closes and mines the world from within. This talk was given at the 2024 New Polity Conference "Should We, Therefore, Destroy the Servers?" Registration is open now for New Polity's 2025 conference "Our Kind of People." The early bird price ends on January 31st. Register today at https://newpolity.com/events

Register here for New Polity 2025: Our Kind of People The fifth annual New Polity conference takes “the people” as its theme and object of wonder. Motivated by the apparent victory of populism in the United States’ 2024 election, and inspired by the Holy Roman Pontiff’s love for Latin America’s “theology of the people,” this meeting of theologians, philosophers (and, let’s face it, preachers) is devoted to thinking deeply about "the people." What makes us a people? Is it blood? Is it language? Is it love? Violent assertion? A shared history? Is the United States "a people"? How do "a people" get formed out of a mass, a crowd, a mob, a family, a village? And where does God enter into all of this? Does the Church, the universal People of God, negate or embrace the particular peoples that it liberates and saves? Can nationalism be redeemed? What about folk music? All of this is up for discussion and debate, the subject of our good humor and great conversation at New Polity 2025: Our Kind of People.