Are you interested in growing in your Catholic faith? Or perhaps you have questions about what the Catholic Church teaches, but don't know where to find the answers? Or maybe you're interested in the Catholic perspective on cultural and societal issues? Well, if you're like most people, you probably don't have a whole lot of extra time to research, to read through entire books on the subject (if you even knew where to begin). So why not listen to a talk on audio, instead?
The advantage of a talk on audio is that you can get a summary of an entire topic in one sitting, usually an hour or less, by some of the top Catholic speakers and scholars in the country. And the amazing thing about it, is that it is free! These speakers make the audio version of their talks--sometimes from conferences, sometimes from university courses, even from television episodes--available for free so that the truth of Catholicism can be made available to anyone.
Moreover, you can download these talks to your portable mp3 player (like an iPod), or you can burn them to a CD.
Burning to a CD can be done in at least two ways. First, you can make an Audio CD. This will play on any kind of CD player, and it can contain perhaps up to 80 minutes of audio. The second way is to burn an MP3 CD. This is simply a data CD, with the files in mp3 format. MP3 is a compressed format for audio files that take up way less space than the same talk/song would on an Audio CD. So, instead of containing 80 minutes of audio, an MP3 CD can contain, say, 50 hours of audio (depending of course on the size of the audio files, which is a reflection of the audio quality used to convert the talk into mp3 format).
If there are a lot of talks on one site, you can use a simple tool to download them all at once, without having to do it individually. I use a Firefox extension called DownThemAll:
If what the Catholic Church teaches is true, then it makes all the difference in the world--and not just for now, in this life, but for all eternity in the next life! If it's all false, then at least you've increased in your understanding of the more than billion Catholics who inhabit this world with you.
Here are the sites where you can download free Catholic talks in mp3:
1. The entire Catechism of the Catholic Church, in both audio and text format! Find out what the Catholic Church really, officially teaches. You might be surprised! As the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, and I paraphrase, only 1 in 100 people actually hate the Catholic Church. But 99 in 100 hate what they think is the Catholic Church. Perhaps hate is too strong a word, but the point is, of course, that there is a lot of misinformation out there about what Catholics really believe. Why not go straight to the source, the Catechism (which makes reference to both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition) and find out for yourself?
http://www.thecatholiccatechism.com/
2. Christendom College on iTunes. On their iTunes site, this Catholic college offers free downloads of lectures given at their campus, as well as lectures by their professors who spoke at other universities. These are some of the best Catholic speakers in the country.
http://www.christendom.edu/itunes_u.shtml
3. Peter Kreeft's audio library. Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College, and a convert to Catholicism from Calvinism (if I recall--don't quote me on that). Kreeft is one of the best-known Catholic speakers in the country. If you haven't heard him speak, you're in for a real treat!
http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio.htm
4. The Bible Christian Society. This website offers free apologetics resources for Catholics--as well as those inquiring into the Catholic faith. Most of the talks have to do with answering common objections that Protestants have against the Catholic Church. Find out how a Catholic would answer their questions.
http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/
5. EWTN Podcasts. The Eternal Word Television Network, EWTN, has a number of ongoing programs which they make available as podcasts.
6. EWTN Audio Library. This is the archive of all the audio that EWTN makes available. Often these are the audio feeds for various television series that have aired on their network, covering innumerable topics. You have to see it to believe it! As of this writing, the archive has eight pages of links to different series, and each series usually has 10-20 talks!
http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/series_index.asp
7. Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. Why not add a little music to the mix? This site, hosted on the official Vatican website (itself a goldmine), offers free music downloads from "a selection of sacred and classical music in Mp3 played by teachers and students of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music."
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/sacmus/documents/rc_ic_sacmus_sound_en.html
8. Life is Worth Living, by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. This series is a classic. I listened to it years ago, on cassette tape, driving the streets of Austin, Texas. Now you can download it in mp3 format. The series has 50 half-hour talks, which go in order down the columns first, then to the next column, etc. (they aren't numbered on the site, but that's the correct order). This series is probably one of the best introductions to the Catholic faith I've ever listened to--and it's worth it, just to hear Sheen's amazing voice and dramatic delivery. I think his cause for canonization as a saint is in the works!
http://www.americancatholictruthsociety.com/articles/sheen.htm
9. Sonitus Sanctus. This is a HUGE site. I think they must collect free Catholic audio from around the internet and make it available here. The talks seem to be tagged by topic, as well as by speaker (many of whom will be familiar to Catholic listeners). It's not the most visually appealing site, but it accomplishes its goal.
http://catholicaudio.blogspot.com/
10. Catholic Planet. More music! This time by contemporary Christian artists. I haven't listened to any of the songs on this site, but it looks like they have a very large archive.
http://www.catholicplanet.com/mp3/
11. Dominican House of Studies. Listen to lectures by Dominican theologians at their House of Studies in Washington, D.C. I studied with the Dominicans in Rome, at the Angelicum, so I have a special place for them in my heart (and St. Thomas Aquinas is my Confirmation saint, too!).
http://priory.dhs.edu/preaching/audiopreaching.aspx
12. Catholic TV. I know this isn't audio, but it looks like such a good link, I couldn't pass it up. There seem to be a whole slew of regular, repeating series, as well as one-time videos.
http://www.catholictv.com/home.aspx
So, that wraps it up for now!
Send me links of sites that have free Catholic audio downloads (similar to the ones above), and I will collect them and post them in a new entry. Thank you!
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