Joseph Pearce - Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts

Joseph Pearce explores Dickens’ Great Expectations, revealing a powerful story of pride, conversion, and discovering true happiness beyond wealth. The post GWWL5 – Charles Dickens and Great Expectatio...

Joseph Pearce explores Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, revealing its powerful satire on pride, politics, scientism, and modern culture. The post GWWL4 – Jonathan Swift & Gulliver’s Tra...

Joseph Pearce explores Oscar Wilde’s life and The Picture of Dorian Gray, revealing a powerful story about vanity, conscience, sin, and the fate of the soul. The post GWWL3 – Oscar Wilde & The Pi...

Joseph Pearce and Kris McGregor explore Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, examining its moral vision, the consequences of unchecked scientific ambition, the novel’s cultural misreadings, and the enduring r...

Joseph Pearce and Kris McGregor explore Wuthering Heights as a profoundly Christian novel that critiques destructive passion rather than celebrating romantic obsession. Through the figures of Heathcli...

We continue our exploration of Robert Cardinal Sarah’s “The Day Is Now Far Spent”—a tour de force response to the present darkness in the Church. From the New York City skyline to th...

We begin our exploration of Robert Cardinal Sarah's "The Day Is Now Far Spent"—a tour de force response to the present darkness in the Church.  From the New York City skyline to the meaning of the wor...

We begin our exploration of Robert Cardinal Sarah's "The Day Is Now Far Spent"—a tour de force response to the present darkness in the Church. In this week's reading, the cardinal pays a special tribu...

We will be praying with and learning from Blessed John Henry Newman for many, many years to come. Joseph Pearce has been an excellent student, as well as an instructor of (or should I say “illum...

We discuss “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis. Four adventurous siblings—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie—step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narni...

Episode 10 – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce – William Shakespeare Though a staple in high school English classes, Julius Caesar is not a simple play. Seemingly irreco...

Arguably Shakespeare's finest and most important play, Hamlet is also one of the most misunderstood masterpieces of world literature. "To be or not to be", may be the question, but the answer has elud...

In this exciting novel set during the French Revolution, Charles Dickens expresses sympathy for the downtrodden poor and their outrage at the self-indulgent aristocracy. But Dickens is no friend of th...

Jane Austen is arguably the finest female novelist who ever lived and Pride and Prejudice is arguably the finest, and is certainly the most popular, of her novels. An undoubted classic of world litera...

"Eliot's place as a poet of the highest stature is assured. The Waste Land is the quintessential debunking of modernity and is also, simultaneously, a potent antidote to the poison of postmodernism.."...

The Confessions of Saint Augustine is considered one of the greatest Christian classics of all time. It is an extended poetic, passionate, intimate prayer that Augustine wrote as an autobiography some...

Episode 13 - Bram Stoker and "Dracula" on Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce When solicitor's clerk Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania on business to meet a mysterious Romania...

We discuss “The Pilgrim’s Regress:: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason, and Romanticism” by C. S. Lewis. The first book written by C. S. Lewis after his conversion, The ...

A key figure in the development of American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne was also profoundly influenced by his ancestors and the Christianity that underscored their Puritan heritage. A literary cla...

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is, according to many critics and fond readers, the great American novel. Full of vibrant American characters, intriguing regional dialects and folkways, an...

"In brief, however, the power of Tolkien lies in the way that he succeeds, through myth, in making the Tolkienunseen hand of providence felt by the reader. In his mythical creations, or sub-creations ...

G. K. Chesterton and “The Man Who Was Thursday” – "A powerful picture of the loneliness and bewilderment which each of us encounters in his single-handed struggle with the universe." --C. S. Lewis -- ...

Another phenomenal work by the prolific Joseph Pearce, this time bringing us the “Heroes of the Catholic Reformation: Saints Who Renewed the Church.” Our conversation covers a pivotal cent...

Episode 14 - Herman Melville and "Moby Dick" on Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce A sea adventure, a study of evil, and a cast of fascinating characters, including the crazed cap...

Episode 11 - Great Works in Modern Literature with Joseph Pearce - William Shakespeare part 2 The Merchant of Venice is probably the most controversial of all Shakespeare's plays. It is also one of th...

Harriet Beecher Stowe was appalled by slavery, and she took one of the few options open to nineteenth century women who wanted to affect public opinion: she wrote a novel, a huge, enthralling narrativ...

Episode 11 – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce – William Shakespeare part 2 The Merchant of Venice is probably the most controversial of all Shakespeare’s plays. I...

Another outstanding addition to the Joseph Pearce canon! "Shakespeare on Love: Seeing the Catholic Presence in Romeo and Juliet" is a terrific read. Once again Jospeh Pearce helps us to see that th...

Joseph Pearce is one of my all time favorite writers!!! What a joy to speak to him about "Candles in the Dark: The Authorized Biography of Fr. Richard Ho Lung and the Missionaries of the Poor". F...

The revised and updated version of what I think is a classic work, "Solzhentisyn: A Soulin Exile", is a tremendous gift to us all. With all of the impressive clarity and tender insight you have come...