Stefan Kaminski, the director of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst College, the Catholic independent school in Lancashire, is our guest for this 69th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald.

He and presenter Dr Gavin Ashenden discuss the mission in a range of Christian leadership formation undertaken by the centre at Theodore House with the objective of preparing Catholics for a broad range of service in public life.

Mr Kaminski also explains how the work of the centre continues the tradition of evangelisation of the great Jesuit college that occupies the same site.

Dr Joseph Shaw returns for this 68th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, for the second of a two-part broadcast examining the situation of Catholics under a Protestant monarch in the 21st century.

He and Dr Gavin Ashenden explore the role of tradition, the monarchy as a model for papacy, the papacy as “the servant of tradition”, the evolution of the papacy and the significance of the innovations introduced by the reigning Pontiff and his predecessors.

Dr Joseph Shaw is the chairman of the Latin Mass Society and a former member of the Philosophy faculty at Oxford University, and last month he published A Defence of Monarchy: Catholics Under a Protestant King, which includes contributions from such writers as Sohrab Ahmari, James Bogle, Charles Coulombe, Peter Day-Milne and Sebastian Morello.

The guest for this 67th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, is Dr Joseph Shaw, the chairman of the Latin Mass Society and a former member of the Philosophy faculty at Oxford University, to discuss his new book, A Defence of Monarchy: Catholics Under a Protestant King.

In this first of a two-part broadcast, they discuss the meaning and function of a monarchy and rituals in the modern world and why this ancient institution may serve as a 21st century repository of Catholic tradition, a politically-neutral focus of unity, and a symbolic interface between the nation and God.

A Defence of the Monarchy, which was published in December, includes contributions from Dr Shaw, as well as from such writers as Sohrab Ahmari, James Bogle, Charles Coulombe, Peter Day-Milne and Sebastian Morello.

Fr David Palmer, the Catholic chaplain to Nottingham University, returns to Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, to discuss Fiducia Supplicans, the new document from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that appears to open the gates to blessings for same-sex couples within the Catholic Church.

In this 66th episode, Fr Palmer explains to Dr Gavin Ashenden why the British province of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, to which he and 500 other British priests belong, was compelled to publicly assert that such blessings remain “pastorally and practically inadmissible”.

Bianca Jagger, the president and chief executive of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to discuss the atrocious treatment of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa by the regime of President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

In this 65th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Ms Jagger reports disturbing new information about the deteriorating condition of the “prophetic” bishop since he was jailed in February for 26 years after he refused to go into exile in the United States, and about the “real, dangerous and serious” persecution of the Catholic Church in the land of her birth.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider is our guest for this 64th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald.

The Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, talks about his new book, Credo: The Compendium of the Catholic Faith, a catechism commissioned by the US-based Sophia Institute Press, and why the bold and clear iteration of the truths of the Catholic Church is more vital than ever in these times of moral and doctrinal confusion.

Paul Coleman, the executive director of ADF International, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden to discuss the appalling treatment by the Finnish state of Päivi Räsänen, an MP, former government minister for the interior and the wife of a Lutheran pastor, for alleged hate crimes after she publicly expressed the teaching of the Bible on human sexuality.

In this 63rd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, they discuss the Räsänen case following her exoneration by the Helsinki Court of Appeal and explore how loosely-worded hate legislation poses mounting threats to such legitimate rights as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion throughout the Western world.

Kathy Gyngell, the co-foundress and editor of The Conservative Woman: Defending Freedom website, joins Dr Gavin Ashenden for the 62nd episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald.

They discuss feminism, motherhood and the revolution in childcare, the growth of the state, the relationship between economic liberalism and social conservativism, rolling Islamist hate marches and the new phenomenon of two-tier policing, as well as intolerance, cancel culture and censorship, fake news, the “invidious” and stratospheric rise of the new ideologies and the sacking of Suella Braverman.

In the 61st episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Tim Dieppe about challenge of Islam to Western democracies and the values that underpin them following mass migration and radicalisation triggered by war.

Mr Dieppe is head of public policy at Christian Concern, which he joined in 2016, and has a special interest in Islamic affairs. He co-authored the book Questions to Ask Your Muslim Friends with Beth Peltola and also contributed two chapters to Beyond the Odds: Providence in Britain's Wars of the 20th Century by John Scriven.

The struggle between the family and the state has been “a feature of the relentless march of secularism” in the western world, notes Dr Gavin Ashenden in this 60th episode of Merely Catholic, the podcast series for The Catholic Herald, in which he speaks to Barbara Socha.

The deputy minister for family and social policy since 2019 with a specific responsibility for demographic policy, Mrs Socha, a mother-of-five, describes why Poland is willing to bravely buck the western trend by choosing to robustly take the side of marriage and the family and freedom of religion against insidious new ideologies with the aim of creating the “best conditions” in the world for married Catholic couples with children.