Sword&Spade

Jason Craig sits down with Stephen Crotts—illustrator of Malcolm Guite's Galahad and the Grail—to talk about what it means to be a maker in an age of AI slop, why creativity is a duty rooted in the Imago Dei, and how recovering a sense of place is essential to being human. 

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why AI can never bear the Imago Dei—and what that means for human art and expression
• The difference between dominion and domination, and how a Christian view of creation shapes an artist's work
• How building a home culture of making—music, art, and craft—forms children and families
• The ancient process of woodcut printmaking and why embodied craft matters in a disembodied age
• Why art belongs in its proper context and what we lose when it's pulled from worship into the museum

Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:23 AI and the Image of God
• 04:00 Growing up in a creative family
• 08:30 Dominion vs. domination: a Christian view of creation
• 16:30 Building a culture of music and making at home
• 24:15 The woodcut printmaking process
• 27:40 "It's not expression if it's not made by humans"
• 34:10 Art at its highest is devotional
• 38:40 What it means for art to have meaning
• 45:08 Finding local stories and images to focus on

Resources Mentioned:

• Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite, illustrated by Stephen Crotts
• Stephen Crotts' website
• "A British Eucharistic Odyssey: Galahad and the Grail Reviewed" by Theo Howard

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Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios.

Rick Seigmund spent two decades on the front lines of federal law enforcement fighting human trafficking and online predation — and came home with a message most men aren't ready to hear. Now a woodworker, finish carpenter, and founder of the Family Readiness Project, Rick joins Jason to connect what might seem like two very different callings: building something permanent, and protecting something priceless. 

In This Episode, We Cover:

• How an engaged, present father is the single greatest deterrent to online predators and groomers
• The tactics of online predators operating through gaming platforms, and what fathers need to know about the openly Satanic 764 group
• Why building trust and honest communication with your sons before the storm is the only real family readiness that matters
• The "enshittification" of the American home, what reclaiming craft actually looks like, and why the way forward is the way back
• Why historic wood windows outperform every modern replacement — and the class-action lawsuits that prove the industry lied

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction and Rick Seigmund's Background
• 05:01: Why Historic Wood Windows Beat Modern Replacements
• 11:08: Throwaway Homes and the Loss of Craft
• 16:50: The Way Forward Is the Way Back
• 24:00: Building Your Forever Home
• 36:57: From Craftsman to Defender: The Full Man
• 45:00: Law Enforcement, Human Trafficking, and the Birth of FRP
• 47:10: The Engaged Father Is a Predator's Worst Nightmare
• 01:04:52: Online Dangers: Gaming Platforms, Groomers, and the 764 Group
• 01:12:09: Culture Is the Best Defense

Resources Mentioned:

• Family Readiness Project
• Brent Hull — Historic Preservation
• Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

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David Russell Mosley—convert, poet, and teacher —joins Jason Craig to discuss the cultural heritage of the Church, the importance of aesthetic choices, and what it means to be present as a father. They explore how classical education should prepare children not to live in the past, but to make new things worthy of the tradition they've inherited.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• The "tweed-y pipe" aesthetic and why how we dress reflects what we aspire to be
• David's conversion journey from evangelical Christianity to Catholicism through beauty and liturgy
• Why classical education isn't about romanticizing the medieval past but equipping students to create the future
• The critical importance of fatherly presence—being there to discuss, encourage, and walk alongside your children
• How the father-son relationship mirrors the Trinitarian life and the doctrine of deification

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction to David Russell Mosley
• 01:16: Sword and Spade Magazine Explained
• 03:41: The Tweed-y Pipe Aesthetic and Cultivating Taste
• 08:59: David's Conversion to Christ and the Church
• 29:50: The Doctrine of Deification and Becoming Little Christs
• 42:50: Conversion to Catholicism in Nottingham
• 49:22: Teaching at a Chesterton Academy in Spokane
• 52:50: Understanding Myth as a Way of Engaging Truth
• 01:07:35: Myth, Household, and the Domestic Church
• 01:13:05: Fatherly Presence and the Filial Image

Resources Mentioned:

• Mosley's Marginalia — David Russell Mosley's Substack
• How Catholic liturgy helped a father through family tragedy

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Dr. Jacob Imam of The College of St. Joseph the Worker and New Polity joins Jason to talk about a school that refuses to choose between the life of the mind and the life of the hands. The College of St. Joseph the Worker trains men in both the Catholic intellectual tradition and the skilled trades, graduating students with two certifications and no debt.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Dr. Imam's origin story: raised by a lapsed Muslim father and an evangelical Protestant mother in Seattle, and the conversion that followed
• The founding vision of the College of St. Joseph the Worker
• The ancient pagan contempt for manual labor, from Aristotle's Politics to Cicero's On Duties, and how Christ's years at a carpenter's bench eradicated all of it
• Why the liberal arts and the manual arts don't compete but strengthen each other
• The crisis in American construction, the rootlessness at its root, and the debt every graduate carries back to the community that formed him

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction
• 01:29: Jacob Imam's Origin Story
• 13:09: What Is the College of St. Joseph the Worker?
• 16:41: How Higher Education Has Failed
• 19:56: The Ancient Case Against Manual Labor—and Why Christ Changed Everything
• 28:45: The Active and Contemplative Life
• 32:37: Students Arriving at the College
• 35:33: The Trades Crisis: Why Now
• 37:28: Why Modern Homes Are Built to Fail
• 49:42: Going Away to Come Back Better

Resources Mentioned:

• College of St. Joseph the Worker
• New Polity

JOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/

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Joe Heschmeyer has spent nearly two decades at the forefront of Catholic apologetics—first as a blogger and lawyer, now as an apologist for Catholic Answers. In this conversation with Jason Craig, Joe unpacks what the explosion of online apologetics has gotten right, where it  goes wrong, and what Catholic men most need to hear about bringing the faith from the internet into actual life.

In This Episode:

• How Catholic apologetics went from the fringes to a dominant force online—and what that shift has produced in the pews
• The ego trap inside apologetics culture: when defending the faith becomes about winning arguments rather than winning souls
• Pascal's method for correction: why understanding what someone gets right is the key to showing them where they err
• St. Thomas Aquinas's four marks of a man growing in wisdom, and how they apply to every conversation you'll have today
• What new converts most need after RCIA

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome & Jason's Conversion Story
• 02:22: The Rise of Catholic Apologetics Online
• 08:11: Church Architecture as Theology
• 14:28: Joe's Journey From Law to Apologetics
• 24:58: When Apologetics Becomes About Ego
• 32:57: Translating Online Zeal Into Real-Life Witness
• 35:43: Pascal's Method for Winning Hearts
• 45:40: St. Thomas Aquinas on Growing in Wisdom
• 01:10:39: Advice for New Converts
• 01:14:31: Rootedness, Community, and the Faith That Bakes

Resources Mentioned:

• Catholic Answers
• Shameless Popery Podcast
• Fraternus
• The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark
• Pensées by Blaise Pascal

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Gregory Wolfe has spent 40 years hunting for something most men assume doesn't exist anymore: serious, beautiful, Catholic literature written by people still alive. As the founder of Image journal and now publisher of Slant Books, he's found it—and he's here to make the case that the Church's artistic tradition isn't in a museum. It's being written right now by people you've never heard of. That's on us to fix.

What We Cover

• Why newness is not the enemy of tradition and never has been
• Why Waugh, Greene, and O'Connor were condemned by Catholics before they were celebrated by them
• How T.S. Eliot's conversion to the Church of England unlocked a new way of reading modernist poetry
• Why Michelangelo's Pietà caused riots in Rome — and what that tells us about art today
• The Catholic writers most Catholics have never heard of — and why that's a problem

Chapters

• 00:00: Who Is Gregory Wolfe?
• 04:29: From Mimeograph to Magazine: A Life in Publishing
• 10:23: The Church of What's Happening Now
• 14:21: Why Newness Matters in Art
• 19:46: T.S. Eliot and the Living Tradition
• 25:32: The Shock of the New (Even Michelangelo's Pietà)
• 31:24: Waugh, Greene, and O'Connor Were Condemned—Then Celebrated
• 39:01: The Still Small Voice: What Contemporary Fiction Whispers
• 44:36: Catholic Writers You've Never Heard Of (But Should Know)
• 49:51: Tell It Slant: The Mission of Slant Books

Resources Mentioned

• Slant Books
• Child of These Tears by Molly McNett
• We Shall Not All Sleep by Tony Woodlief
• Redeployment by Phil Klay
• Image Journal

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Ross Arlen Tieken is a writer, educator, and seventh-generation Texan whose path into the Church ran through paganism, medieval scholarship, and a profound encounter with beauty. In this conversation with Jason Craig, Ross traces how a childhood hunger for something worth worshiping—cultivated on a farm in Shiner, Texas—led him from neo-paganism and a grant-funded expedition to study druids in rural England to the sacramental universe of Catholicism.

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction and Ross's Texas Roots
• 07:11: Catholicism in the Family and the Wound of Rejection
• 09:58: A Search for Something Worth Worshiping
• 13:40: Studying Neo-Paganism in England
• 18:35: Medieval Magic, the Saints, and the Path to Conversion
• 31:51: Distinguishing Magic from Sorcery
• 37:55: The Sacramental World vs. the Technological Mindset
• 46:05: Agriculture, Liturgical Cycles, and Participating in Creation
• 51:37: The Occult, Spiritual Warfare, and Political Convictions
• 01:05:41: Rootedness, Wealth, and Parting Advice for Fathers

Resources Mentioned:

• Ross Arlen Tieken on Substack
• Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston

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Jason Craig sits down with Joshua Gibbs, a classical literature teacher of 19 years, author, and director of the Classical Teaching Institute at the Ambrose School to talk about what it actually takes to form young men and women. Drawing from his book A Parlay with Youth and his essay "Overgrown Adolescence," Gibbs offers hard-won wisdom on taste, discipline, coeducation, and what perpetual adolescence is costing the rising generation.

What We Cover:

• Why the sophomore year is the critical window for forming young men, and what happens if they miss it
• How consuming bad things dulls the mind, and what it looks like when a student finally wakes up
• The case for sex-segregated education and why coed classrooms make boys harder to form and discipline
• What the rise of the "18-to-34" demographic reveals about arrested development and perpetual adolescence
• Why over-praising children is more likely to stunt their growth than almost anything else a parent can do

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction
• 01:33: Gibbs' background and the making of A Parlay with Youth
• 09:35: How bad consumption creates dullness
• 12:23: The sophomore year awakening
• 17:28: The age of accountability and middle school
• 19:55: A second crack at life at age 26–27
• 26:53: The first rule: adults must genuinely like youth
• 34:24: The case for sex-segregated education
• 49:51: The rise of the 18-to-34 demographic
• 58:48: What perpetual adolescents are missing
• 01:12:31: Closing advice for fathers: on over-praise

Resources Mentioned:

• A Parlay with Youth by Joshua Gibbs
• Something They Will Not Forget by Joshua Gibbs
• Love What Lasts by Joshua Gibbs
• In the Trenches podcast
• Gibbs Classical
• Divini Illius Magistri by Pope Pius XI

JOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/

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Walker Larson is a writer, former classical school teacher, and the voice behind The Hazelnut Substack, a journal dedicated to the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful in literature and culture. In this conversation, Jason and Walker reflect on what it means to build rather than merely critique, the dangers of internet narratives, Wendell Berry's "age of divorce," and why every father owes it to his soul to pick up a great novel.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Walker's fertility journey, devotion to Our Lady of La Leche, and the hidden cross of infertility for Catholic men and their wives
• The temptation to critique and "get clicks" — and the harder, more necessary work of building culture
• How the "hermeneutics of suspicion" is rooted in Marxist literary theory and has leaked into internet discourse and conservative media
• Localism, medieval guilds, and what Rerum Novarum says about protecting communities from consolidating power
• Walker's case for why busy fathers need great literature—and what it does that no self-help book or YouTube video can

Chapters:

00:00: Welcome

01:22: Walker's Fertility Journey: Our Lady of La Leche and the Gift of Daughters

07:39: Infertility as a Hidden Cross

12:38: "Beyond Apocalypse": The Case for Cultural Restoration Over Critique

16:41: The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

28:06: Conspiracy Thinking, Victimhood, and the Work Only You Can Do

35:26: Localism, Guilds, and Rerum Novarum

58:16: Why Busy Fathers Need to Read Great Literature

01:03:39: Literature as a Trial Run for Life

01:17:56: Two Planes of Knowing: Abstract Facts vs. Lived Truth

Resources Mentioned:

• "Beyond Apocalypse: Believing in Cultural Restoration" by Walker Larson — Crisis Magazine
• The Hazelnut Substack — Walker Larson's writing on literature, culture, and the permanent things
• walkerlarsonwriting.com

JOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

Jason Craig sits down with longtime friend and fellow veteran of the Catholic men's online world, Sam Guzman, the founder of The Catholic Gentleman and now a practicing counselor. They take an unflinching look at where the Catholic Manosphere started, where it's gone wrong, and why resentment and pseudo-wisdom are poor substitutes for real masculine formation. 

In This Episode, We Cover:

• The rise and dark side of the Catholic Manosphere—resentment, red-pill Catholic opinions, and the problem of influencers without experience
• Sam's journey from communications work at Pro-Life Wisconsin and Covenant Eyes to becoming a Catholic counselor through Divine Mercy University
• The origins of therapeutic culture in the aftermath of the World Wars and the collapse of institutional meaning
• Self-knowledge as the essential foundation of holiness, drawing on Augustine, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Aquinas
• The two most common wounds counselors see in men—emotional numbness and emotional overwhelm—and what fathers can do about it now

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction and Origins of the Catholic Men's Online Space
• 09:25: The State of Catholic Men Online: From 2013 to Today
• 12:18: The Dark Side of the Manosphere — Resentment, Red Pill, and Bitterness
• 15:00: The Problem of Pseudo-Wisdom and Influencers Without Experience
• 32:39: Sam's Journey From Marketing to Counseling
• 37:29: The Therapeutic Society: Origins, Excesses, and Real Value
• 47:29: The Case for Counseling
• 54:09: Self-Knowledge, Augustine, and the Path to Holiness
• 59:10: Two Common Wounds Counselors See in Men
• 01:08:22: Aquinas on the Passions

Resources:

• The Catholic Gentleman
• Divine Mercy University
• JP2 Healing Center
• Covenant Eyes
• Leaving Boyhood Behind by Jason M. Craig
• Litanies of the Heart by Dr. Gerry Crete
• Transformation in Christ by Dietrich von Hildebrand

JOIN 2500+ MEN READING SERIOUS, YET ACCESSIBLE ESSAYS ON VIRTUE, CULTURE, AND LIVING WELL: https://fraternus.org/sword-and-spade/

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios