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All Catholic commentary from October 2026
The Robber Council
"When I began to appeal to the throne of the Apostolic see of Peter, the prince of the Apostles...at once a crowd of soldiers surrounded me and barred the way when I wished to take refuge at the holy altar, as I desired, and tried to drag me out of the church. Then amid the utmost tumult I barely succeeded in reaching a certain part of the church, and there hid myself with my companions, not without being watched, however, to prevent my reporting to you all the wrongs which have been done me."
The Robber Council
"When I began to appeal to the throne of the Apostolic see of Peter, the prince of the Apostles...at once a crowd of soldiers surrounded me and barred the way when I wished to take refuge at the holy altar, as I desired, and tried to drag me out of the church. Then amid the utmost tumult I barely succeeded in reaching a certain part of the church, and there hid myself with my companions, not without being watched, however, to prevent my reporting to you all the wrongs which have been done me."
The Altar: One-On-One
The people do not need advanced theological training—or any theological training—to know that we should look at the person whom we are addressing. Every parent teaches his children that. In the same way, Holy Mother Church should remind us that when we call upon God, we should look His way. And when we do so together, priest and people alike, the latter will discover an ever ancient, ever new way to participate actively at Mass.
Russian Catholicism, Jazz, and AI Music w/ Timothy Flanders
Timothy Flanders rejoins the podcast for a freewheeling conversation in which he and Thomas interview each other. Timothy talks about his upcoming book on Catholicism in Russia, and then Thomas gives his thoughts on the place of jazz in the Western music tradition, improvisation as an analogy to the moral life, and the fundamental problem with AI music: AI has no song in its heart.
Could We Be Slaveholders?
Just as many Catholics of the Old South, including slaveholders, may have been unable to see the injustices of slavery, modern Catholics may be unable to see our own complicity in injustices rooted in the Godless ideologies of our time.
Pledge Against AI Catholic Content and Text (PAACCT)
The Pledge Against AI Catholic Content and Text (PAACCT) is an initiative inviting Catholic institutions, writers, editors, artists, and media producers to stand together in solidarity to uphold the essential human activities of thought and communication against the ongoing attempt to replace them with so-called artificial intelligence.
The New Right’s Antisemitism Problem Is Real. So Is the Old Right’s Agenda.
In fact, Oct. 7th—the biggest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust—was the moment a lot of people around the world decided, “Hey, Hamas has a point. I’m ticked at the Jews too.” That this would be the catalyst for an uptick in global Jew-hatred is one the strangest phenomena I have ever witnessed.
The dangerous myth of ‘conscious’ AI
No, Claude is not conscious, and never will be. No, an AI system cannot be a morally responsible actor. The fact that the creators of these systems are (or claim to be) uncertain about these issues is profoundly unsettling. They are offering us a very powerful tool—that much is unquestioned—and yet they are not sure whether in the long run we will use the tool or the tool will use us.
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