Catholic Casts

It's amazing how some posts come together. At the risk of creating one giant shaggy dog story, here's a quick look at the path of origination for this one.

After reading that Pope Benedict is preparing an encyclical that clarifies the difference between love and lust (as if I needed help there), I wandered over to the Catholic Report to see if Dave was onto the story. Cruising through his site, I read that the St. Louis Jesuits have reunited and released a new CD. (As a guitar-strumming, folk-mass-song-leading teen in the 70s, the St. Louis Jesuits dominated my religious repertoire.) Eager to hear what the SLJs were dishing out, I traveled over to OCP Publications, their publisher, and took a gander at some of the latest liturgical composers. Wanting to give some of these works a listen, I landed at iTunes. There I heard the music of Dan Schutte (one of the SLJs) and others. It was a nice little step back in time.

iTunes is still relatively new to me. As one of the 14 million people who purchased or were gifted an iPod in the 4th quarter of last year, I'm just beginning to explore this haven of audio creations. My most recent discovery is the podcast. At iTunes you can click on more podcasts than you could listen to in a lifetime. Most are free. Yes, they can be quite addictive.

As a curious cafeteria catholic podophile, I was ever-so-intrigued to see how Catholicism is showing up in the podosphere. I entered "Catholic" into the search box, then clicked on the podcasts tab. About 100 titles appeared, ready for me to subcribe...all for free.

It'll take awhile to check out these titles. I'm called to check out those with the most intriguing descriptions, like the Catholic Bar Fight Podcast:

Two faithful Catholics (one Vatican II and the other Traditionalist) have at it with each other. We have a seriously good time.

I'm also eager to check out the Catholic Mormon Podcast by Sarah and Rob:

The CMP looks at the trials of a Mormon girl and a Catholic guy as they evaluated both churches and ended up turning to Rome.

Some of these catholic casters are long-time bloggers, like the guys at BustedHalo. For me, I'll remain a loyal podcast listener, but not a producer. Maintaining this blog on a very irregular basis is enough for me. (Though, I could pull out my guitar, St. Louis Jesuits sheet music and digital audio recorder...Imagine!)

Interested in checking out these Catholic podcasts? Go to iTunes and see for yourself. Hear something that speaks to you, or doesn't? Please report back here and let us know. I'd love to hear your reviews!