History of Western Civilization

Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590 A.D. – 654 A.D.) “Our Glorious Popes” is a ten-part series. Listening to Our Glorious Popes will refresh your appreciation of grace in the...

Dr. John Rao discusses the so-called New Theology developed the modernist, vitalist, and personalist ideas that came from earlier in the century. Its concern to “dive into” and help fulfill...

Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand describes how philosophical discussions of religion are ethical in character. Philosophical discussions of morality are “ethical” in character. Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand treats here of the...

Dr. John Rao describes the “back to nature” movement called the Enlightenment. The “back to nature” movement called the Enlightenment is the final element that Dr. John Rao brings in...

Father Mitch Pacwa explains the influence of Carl Jung on the Church. Why did Carl Jung believe in astrology? Father Mitch Pacwa explains what influenced him and how he has...

Father Richard Munkelt shows that the Islamic world had a rich philosophical history in the Middle Ages, including thinkers who worked with theologians and Sufi mystics and others who posed...

The Spanish Civil War, in an intellectual sense, was the great political event of the Twentieth Century. Representatives of every possible political and social position produced by the modern world...

Dr. Robert Royal explains the complexities and the problems of the works of Thomas Merton and his fascination with Eastern “mysticism.”

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Dr. John Rao explains that in the early Middle Ages, from the 500’s through the 900’s, the Church had a number of battles with Byzantine Emperors and pagan influenced men...

Dr. John Rao describes the intellect of Pope Pius IX. In this lecture, Dr. Rao presents a most enlightening and scholarly portrait of Pius IX, the total demeanor of the...

Mr. Michael Davies tells the riveting story of Thomas a Becket, the 12th Century Archbishop who was first the close friend and Chancellor of King Henry II of England, and...

Dr. John Rao discusses the reactions to Chalcedom and Monophysite Movement. This and the following two talks by Dr. John Rao cover the controversial Council of Chalcedon and reactions to...

Dr. John Rao discusses the reactions to Chalcedon and the Monophysite Movement. Monophysites were active in both Egypt and Syria. Eventually they developed a parallel hierarchy which split the Church...

David Hughes discusses the revival of traditional Church Music in the Post-French Revolutionary world and what it really entailed. He points out that the post French Revolutionary world saw a...

Christopher Ferrara, J.D. shows that the discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics undermine the materialist, Neo-Darwinian creation myth. Now discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics undermine the materialist,...

Dr. John Rao discusses early Christianity and the Greco-Roman world including the development of monasticism. One cannot understand the Fourth Century and the Church’s reaction both to the Constantinian program...

Archbishop Fulton Sheen gives an impressive eulogy for Bishop Cuthbert M. O’Gara – who heroically survived being imprisoned in China. “There he lies like a commando soldier who smashed the...

Dr. Gerald Bradley brilliantly traces the origins of the pervasive secularism and anti-Catholicism that we have today. American moral climate before 1943 was very different than it is now. He...

A discussion by Dr. John Rao of the different centers of early Christianity–Alexandria, Palestine, Antioch, Asia Minor, Rome, and Gaul–and the key Church Fathers and institutions through whose work Christian...

Visigothic, Irish, Benedictine, and Anglo-Saxon influences all came together in Frankish Gaul by the early 700’s. The Carolingian Family came to power in an alliance with the Papacy, which could...