#12: DR. ANTHONY ESOLEN: WHO BURNED DOWN THE CULTURE, WHY, AND NOW WHAT?

Tony Esolen speaks with the urgency and verbal economy of a prophet. No words are wasted and the point of the conversation is ever before him. The professor of Renaissance English Literature and the Development of Western Civilization at Providence College in RI, is a translator and a sage of things cultural and authentically Catholic. He’s also a connoisseur of classic movies.

Following a strong series of articles and books on marriage, sexual sanity, and Catholic social teaching, his latest book is titled Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture.

And what a wallop it packs.

Our interview used the themes and arguments in the book as jumping off points for a discussion that ranged from the long journey from boy-to-manhood to the origins of the culture crisis, to the evergreen problem of Why Johnny Can’t Read. Few writers today combine erudition with humor, insight, and a Christian spirit.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE

Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture  by Anthony Esolen

Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolph Flesch

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#11: SEBASTIAN GORKA, PHD – ISIS AND THE REMOVAL OF OUR HEADS, FROM THE SAND

Dr. Sebastian Gorka’s family of origin knows all about oppression and persecution, having fled the Soviets during the 1956 Revolution in Hungary.

Educated in the UK, Sebastian eventually settled in the United States. Through his Congressional testimony, his work as a professor with expertise in irregular warfare, and his new book Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, he says America (and the west) since 9/11 has become very good at applying direct military force against terrorists and their camps, but has failed so far to confront the ideology behind ISIS and other Islamic radical groups.  Drone strikes and special ops raids can be highly effective as far as they go, but they don’t win the hearts and minds of non-radicalized Muslims, not to mention the further radicalization of onlookers.

In January, 2017, Dr. Gorka was named Special Deputy to the President of the United States. Don’t miss this riveting conversation about a topic few want to address, but which becomes more and more important as we go forward.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE

Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War by Dr. Sebastian Gorka

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#10: STEVEN GREYDANUS: 2016 MOVIES IN REVIEW – LITERALLY

Steven D. Greydanus (SDG) knows movies. He created DecentFilms.com in 2000, and he has penned untold hundreds of thoughtful reviews and essays on film criticism. Steven is the film critic for the National Catholic Register and, with his co-host David DiCerto, hosts the Gabriel Award–winning cable TV show “Reel Faith” for New Evangelization Television. He’s a longtime member of the Online Film Critics Society and a permanent deacon in the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark.

In this interview, we covered the Academy Award nominees in all the top-tier categories (gauged in terms of general audience interest), from Silence, Hacksaw Ridge, Moonlight, La La Land, Fences, Manchester By the Sea, for starters. We also talk about performances, story premises, and why the last scene can sometime make or break a film’s impact. Listen in!

BOOKS RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE

Christians in the Movies – by Peter Dans

Silence – by Shusaku Endo

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#09: TIM BUSCH: IS CATHOLICISM ANTI-CAPITALIST?

Catholic social teaching is rooted in the gospel. It was not developed into a systematic set of principles, however, until the pontificate of Leo XIII at the end of the 19th century. Since then, popes and magisterial documents have developed a body of teachings related to capital, labor, economics, and the dignity of work – all rooted in the dignity of the human person.

Orange County attorney and philanthropist Tim Busch is firmly rooted in the worlds of faith and finance, of evangelization and the entrepreneurial spirit. He is the founder of The Busch Firm in Irvine, CA, established in 1979, and he owns and operates eleven hotels throughout the United States. With Robert Spitzer, S.J., Tim and his wife Steph co-founded the Magis Institute, which administers the Reason and Faith Center using modern astrophysics to prove the existence of God. In 2016, the Busch School of Business and Economics was established at Catholic University of America, in recognition of Tim and Steph’s generous support of the school. He also spearheads the Napa Institute annual conference in Napa, CA each summer.

In this interview, we talk about the ways in which financial health and prosperity can be leveraged on behalf of real-world help for the poor – beyond charitable alms. In what sense is profit “good”? In what ways can the poor be liberated through entrepreneurism and programs of self-sustenance? And what about the charge that the Catholic Church supports socialism? Tim Busch digs into all of it.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE

A Catechism for Business: Tough Ethical Questions and Insights from Catholic Teaching, ed. by Andre Abela and Joseph Capizzi

Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching by Anthony Esolen

Saints and Social Justice: A Guide to Changing the World by Brandon Vogt

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#08: MIKE MILEY – RHYTHM, ROMANISM, AND REBELLION

What’s it like to step onto a stage in front of 60,000 raving fans? How does a family man stay sane and balanced when he lives and breathes the rarified air of a rock and roll lifestyle?

Mike Miley has found just that sane balance.

He is the drummer for one of the top rock bands in America, Rival Sons (www.rivalsons.com), currently supporting the final world tour of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath.

Rival Sons have opened act for the likes of Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, AC-DC, Kid Rock, and have appeared on The David Letterman Show, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. With the release of their fifth album, “Hollow Bones,” and their reputation for electrifying live shows, Rival Sons is coming into their own.

“Miley” (as he’s known) is a bit of a rock god himself. He adorns the covers of drummer’s trade magazines; he does drumming tutorials; Jason Bonham (son of the late John Bonham of Led Zeppelin) is a fan; and he was voted “Greatest Modern Rock/Indie Drummer In the World” in 2012 by readers of www.musicradar.com.

As a convert to the Catholic Faith, Mike’s also a bona fide rebel in a subculture built on rebellion.

In our interview, he not only shares anecdotes of witnessing to the Faith with unexpected people in an ethos that 99.9% of Christians never get to experience, the of surprising joys of being a dad, and his approach to the Big Questions like the effective seeking of truth.

As he found out, the Truth was seeking him all along.

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#07: FATHER ROBERT SPITZER, SJ, ON WHY MYTHS EXPLAIN HOLLYWOOD HITS

Did you ever wonder why certain movies resonate with audiences all over the world? Why some grab you for two hours in the dark, but then like so much cinematic MSG, you forget these flash-in-the-pans by the time you get to the car – while others hold you in their spell for years?

This is the mystery I explore with Father Robert Spitzer, SJ, president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith in Irvine, CA. Digging into a fascinating section of his book The Soul’s Upward Yearning: Clues to Our Transcendent Nature from Experience and Reason, Father Spitzer and I talk about the Power of Myth at work in four of the top movie franchises of Hollywood history: Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia films.

Turns out, these examples all share certain common elements that invite the viewer (or reader, if the book) into an adventure that forces a choice, a crisis, which leads ultimately a catharsis, or cleansing of the soul. But, as is his wont, the Jesuit scholar goes deeper than the platitudes about nice music and great dialogue. You’ll learn about Rudolf Otto and the numinous, Carl Jung and archetypes, Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey, and Mircea Eliade and mythical structure.

I know, I know, it this sounds too deep for mere mortals. Give it a chance. Stretching a bit mentally pays handsome dividends, including a new appreciation for what makes great movies great.

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#06: PHIL COOKE: BRANDED BY THE LIGHT

Christians are supposed to be intimately familiar with the Greatest Story Ever Told. We’re the protagonists of that story in the sense that we are the objects of the love of the Author.

God didn’t get anything out of it.

Yet we don’t act like it’s our personal story. We act like the rest of the world is supposed to figure the story out on their own. Eventually. Maybe.

Since around 1991, Phil Cooke, media guru and co-founder of Cooke Pictures, has been working in Hollywood against this attitudinal floodtide. In our interview, he talks about why Christians have stayed safely cocooned inside the “Christian media bubble.” Do TV and movies create culture or are they merely mirrors of culture? Why do so many Christian-themed movies fail to connect with the much larger audience outside the “believersphere”?

If you’re interested in leveraging media technology for evangelization, get Phil’s book The Last TV Evangelist: Why the Next Generation Couldn’t Care Less About Religious Media and Why It Matters.

When we ask why the world rejects our message, we need to be less shy about checking the mirror for the answer.

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#05: TOM LEOPOLD ON COMEDY AND THE PATH TO GOD

Some “comic types” are bitter, cynical human beings once they leave the stage.

Not Tom Leopold.

There’s an unutterable sweetness about the A-list comedy writer (Seinfeld, Will and Grace, Cheers, for starters) — a native kindness one doesn’t normally associate with those who inhabit New York City for any stretch of time. Leopold has collaborated with the funniest of funny Americans: Larry David, Christopher Guest, Chevy Chase, Billy Crystal, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, and Steve Allen.

In short, Tom Leopold is very very old man.

But he was kind enough to drop value bombs and insights in this interview. One thing I love about Tom’s m.o. as a scribe is he has written material for people across the political spectrum, from Democrat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to Republican Vice President Mike Pence.

Raised in a non-practicing Jewish home, Tom and his Catholic wife Barbara went through an exceedingly difficult time when one of their two daughters, Gussie for short, became seriously ill with an eating disorder. During her hospital stay in Arizona, things got real for Tom and he prayed from the heart for the first time.

He shares the main lines of the story in our interview, but let’s just say that Christ the Man of Sorrows—who understands all there is to know about the mystery of suffering—gave him the gift of faith and he became a Catholic. And yes, there are some bizarre, and funny, twists to the story.

As you might expect, that chapter in his life became fodder for his one-man show, A Comedy Writer Finds God, in which he extracts a ton of sweet out of the bitter while strumming ably on his guitar. (Owing to his severely advance age, he doesn’t dance; otherwise he’d be a triple threat.)

Too many believers are afraid to laugh at the things of faith—the human foible side of the Church, the at-times absurdity of life, and the incongruities that make you scratch your head.

Lucky for us, Tom Leopold begs to differ. Bring him to your next conference by clicking here www.tomleopold or on Facebook.

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#04: DR. JORDAN PETERSON VS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

We normally think of political correctness as a canon of words and attitudes that are arbitrarily forbidden in polite (read Left-liberal) company. It comes in many forms, but in Canada it’s more and more becoming codified in law.

As Dr. Jordan Peterson (and those observing his plight) have learned, the PC Game now has legal teeth and real-world consequences for those who don’t want to play.

Dr. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a clinical psychologist. He recently posted a series of lectures on his YouTube channel with titles like “Professor Against Political Correctness,” “Fear and the Law,” and “The University of Toronto Requests My Silence.” These lectures were delivered after the University’s HR department mandated that “trans people” be called by of the newfangled pronouns like zie, hir, ey, em, eir, they, co, xe, to name but a sample of the absurdist verbiage that has been coughed up by activists.

The good professor is not having any of it.

And he’s putting his job on the line—and whatever other punishments that may be in store if he is hauled before the Ontario Human Rights Commission (sounds cuddly, don’t it?). For if Bill C-16 is passed in Canada at the federal level, “gender identity” and “gender expression” join the List of the Prohibited and constitute actionable grounds of discrimination. New York City already has a similar law. Those guilty of “mis-gendering” must pay a $250,000 fine. The Big Apple recognizes 31 gender identities, by the way.

But this isn’t merely about pronouns. What’s at stake is whether the government or any other institution should be allowed to control and proscribe human speech, especially when the phrasing of the controllers are vague and impossible to interpret consistently, let alone police equitably. When Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini sought a more “virile language” for his machismo vision of the Italian nation, he required the comradely voi (the plural “y’all”) for Lei, the feminine form. Under his rule, voi was obligatory in schools, public offices, movie subtitles, radio shows, and public ceremonies. Not surprisingly, Italians dropped the fear-based nonsense and reverted to the traditional Lei when the hated dictator fell from power.

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#03: DR. RAY GUARENDI VS THE PARENTING EXPERTS

Dr. Ray Guarendi is what you can safely call a character. The clinical psychologist, author, TV and radio host and father of ten adopted children, brings a unique combination of wry humor, a love of hard social science data, and a healthy allergy to the clichés and half-truths of “pop psychobabble.”

Our interview on The Patrick Coffin Show covers a lot of ground that will be of immediate interest to parents struggling to do the best they can at their respective jobs of mothering and fathering.

Our culture has so redefined the very definitions of words like mother, father, family, and sex (in the sense of marital embrace and of gender) that many parents feel like they’ve entered a strange Twilight Zone of confusion and uncertainty when it comes to raising children. They become easier prey of The Experts who are all too willing to dispense their agenda on the unsuspecting.

Dr. Ray’s latest book, Advice Worth Ignoring: How Tuning Out the Experts Can Make You a Better Parent,  is addressed to anyone wanting to step up his or her game in the original Extreme Sport known as parenting. Along the way he explodes the major myths sold to parents. Start that list with “Thou Shalt Not Ever Spank,” “It’s the ‘terrible twos,’” and (one of my favorites) “It’s normal.”

You’ll enjoy our exchange while you catch some value bombs for parenting. I’ve also interviewed him many times on Catholic Answers Live and shared the dais with him at enough conferences, which easily qualifies me to say unflattering things about his sweater.

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#02: MICHAEL MEDVED: IS GOD A CO-FOUNDER?

Author and nationally syndicated radio host Michael Medved has an extra dollop of gratitude for America. He wears it on his sleeve. It fairly pours out of him when he speaks. It certainly animates his newest book, The American Miracle: Divine Providence In the Rise of the Republic. I’ll get to this fascinating book in a moment.

I won’t hide my admiration for the host of The Michael Medved Show, which is, in the words of its intro, “the number one show in America on politics and pop culture.” Been a listener for over 15 years. I know what gets under his skin, what he finds funny, annoying, and so on. Last year, with grace and resolve, he successfully fought back against what has to be a professional broadcaster’s worse nightmare: a diagnosis of throat cancer.

That fight seems to have intensified his love of God and country – two loves he acquired later in life. At Yale Law School he became friends with a young woman named Hillary Rodham, and his fellow boomer-era travelers seemed collectively destined for a liberal worldview, if not leadership.

But Medved’s moral conversion to an essentially conservative Republican point of view, and his spiritual return to Orthodox Judaism as a baal teshiva (reverts to orthodox Catholicism can relate to the concept) are unlikely twists to an otherwise “pre-set” story. His memoir Right Turns gives a fuller account.

In our conversation, Medved details an unusual sequence of what have been nicknamed God-incidences – winks of Providence – in the rise and flourishing of the United States. This Canadian ex-pat living in Southern California had never heard of most of them. The list of astounding military victories, date parallels, bizarre weather phenomena that helped the ragtag Colonists beat back the fearsome British naval machine point to a Someone behind this exceptional national experiment known as America.

The American Miracle is a good place to discover signs of God’s hand in secular history. It’s also a reminder to stop whining about “how divided we are.” The country has been far more roiled and riven in the past. Ever on the brink of disaster, the American ship keeps righting herself.

Maybe she has some help from a non-political Source…I interview, you decide.

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#01: BRADLEY BIRZER ON AMERICA YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

Dr. Bradley Birzer is a brainiac, a nerd, and a progressive rock aficionado. Good luck labeling his worldview! Birzer holds the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and is a professor of history at the renowned Hillsdale College in Michigan.  He’s also a Fellow with the Foundation for Economic Education, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the McConnell Center for Public Policy, the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, and the Center for Economic Personalism in Brazil.

He writes much-lauded books about major cultural influencers such J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Dawson, and Russell Kirk.

And he’s way into the Canadian rock band Rush, whose legendary drummer Neal Peart is the subject of another of his books.

The natural raconteur with the easy laugh sat down with me to talk about the building blocks of American culture, to survey the damage, and to offer some thoughts about what restoration might look like. You’ll learn a ton, as I did.

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#00: WHO IS PATRICK COFFIN, ANYWAY?

In this episode of The Patrick Coffin Show, I introduce myself, describe the mission and nature of the show, what you can expect and the frequency of the show, and sundry personal stuff.

Welcome aboard!

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