3 Favorite Catholic Podcasts (SQPN)

• The Break with Father Roderick (website)|(rss)
• Catholic in a Small Town (website)|(rss)
• Catholic Weekend (website)|(rss)

3 Favorite Catholic Podcasts (Catholic Radio)

• Catholic Answers LIVE – This Week (website)|(rss)
• EWTN Audio Library (website)|(rss)
• The Catholics Next Door (website)|(rss)

3 Favorite Catholic Podcasts (Others)

• BustedHalo Cast (website)|(rss)
• pray-as-you-go (website)|(rss)
• Faith & Family Live! Podcast (website)|(rss)

3 Favorite Catholic Blogs

• JIMMY AKIN.ORG (website)|(rss)
• The Integrated Catholic Life (website)|(rss)
• Catholic Cartoon Blog (website)|(rss)

3 Favorite Catholic Apps (Android)

• Catholic One (AppBrain)|(Android Market)
• Evangelizo – Daily Gospel (AppBrain)|(Android Market)
• iBreviary (AppBrain)|(Android Market)

My current project is this blog, of course. I try to review podcasts, blogs, apps, etc, Catholic or otherwise, but I’m a little behind since work has been piling up. Still slowly trying to clean-up broken links and obsolete items.

Please note that you can only submit the nomination form ONCE. The same show is not to be nominated for multiple categories within the same submission. Get more details at Podcast.Awards.com.

P.S.: If you’re a supporter of SQPN, I suggest you wait for Father Roderick’s “official” suggested nominations list. Meanwhile, let’s work together to try and bring this to Father’s attention. The poor padre is so loaded with work that I think he missed my plurk last night.

ROSWELL, GA – To wrap up a summer of fun and gear up for the fall season of new activities, the Star Quest Production Network proudly announces the addition of three new podcasts to the SQPN family. Each show casts a unique spin on how Catholics live their lives. They serve the growing interest, not only in Catholic living, but in living well.

“In answer to the Church’s call for evangelization via the new media, SQPN is constantly searching for ways to reach out to new audiences,” says Fr. Roderick Vonhogen, founder and CEO of the Star Quest Production Network.

“The three new shows in our line-up do exactly that: Pat Gohn’s ‘Among Women’ reaches out to women, while Nick and Pat Padley cater to young adults with ‘In Between Sundays’, and Jeff Young, ‘the Catholic Foodie’ targets people that love to share faith and good food with friends and family.”

More details here.

And in case you were wondering, yes the Podcasts page has been updated accordingly.

Greg Willits, co-host of The Catholics Next Door program on Sirius/XM‘s The Catholic Channel cameos as the “Yoda” of CNMC hosting.

*drum roll* And the winners are …

• Grace Before Meals (rss) [Food and Drink]
• Healthy Catholic (rss) [Health / Fitness]
• Catholic Rockers (rss) [PodSafe Music]
• Daily Breakfast (rss) [Religion Inspiration]

Congratulations to Father Roderick, Father Leo, George Leite, and all the other folks involved in the production of the above AWARD WINNING podcasts! Let me make special mention here that Daily Breakfast has won the Religion Inspiration category for 3 years running, while Catholic Rockers has won the PodSafe Music category for 2 years in a row. Great job guys!

Cultural / Arts
Secrets of Harry Potter (rss)

Entertainment
Hands and Feet (rss)

Food and Drink
Grace Before Meals (rss)

Health / Fitness
Healthy Catholic (rss)
Phedippidations (rss)

PodSafe Music
Catholic Rockers (rss)

Religion Inspiration
Daily Breakfast (rss)
iPadre (rss)

Congratulations to a job well done!

Sadly, we did not make it to the People’s Choice Awards, but 8 nominations is still quite a feat!

Congratulations as well to our friends over at GSPN.tv for bagging 6 nominations! Well done Cliff!

Voting begins on October 23rd and closes on November 6th at 2359. (I believe it is PST) If the rules have not changed, I believe you are only allowed to submit one vote a day. So if you want to support your favorite podcasts, don’t forget to vote EVERYDAY!

In 2005, Father Roderick Vonhögen started the Catholic Insider podcast. That triggered an avalanche of podcasts with Catholic content, by Catholics, for Catholics. SQPN was founded soon after, and before one can say “SQPN, the BEST in Catholic New Media“, most of all our favorite Catholic podcasts were rounded up and have become part of the ever-growing SQPN family.

Then sometime last year, the “Rod Father” introduced us to the world of Twitter. Before one can count the number of wonderful podcasts featured on the SQPN website, almost all of SQPN fan community were tweet tweet Twittering away. I joined Twitter too, almost immediately after hearing Father Roderick talk about it on the Daily Breakfast. It was a calling I could not resist.

Next Father Roderick convinced us to embrace Facebook. I tried to resist, having heard unpleasant stuff about other social websites like MySpace, but resistance was futile. Before I knew it, all the friends I made on Twitter were on Facebook too! I had to go, I HAD.. to.. BELONG!

Father Roderick also taught us to uStream. His “live” stream has made most of us captives, including me. We were addicted. We threw away out TV sets and started to embrace our computer monitors, our eyes glued to video stream of our favorite podcasters.

Just when we were all content with following each other on Twitter and playing Scrabulous on Facebook. Father Roderick taught us the ways of FriendFeed. Almost all of us, including myself, swarmed over and started an account and added everybody we knew.

Less than a week later, Father Roderick invited us to Plurk. Now ALL of us are addicted to Plurk. At least I am. Even the most resistant among us have succumbed, one by one.

Meanwhile, Father Roderick continues to experiment with new Web 2.0 tools like Ping.fm, Last.fm, Britekite, etc. And just like the little children following the Pied Piper’s pipe, we all followed with reckless abandon.

The conclusion is obvious. Father Roderick may not be just the simple priest as he claims himself to be. He is.. the Pied Piper of the Web 2.0 era!

Many Catholics have now chosen to share their life with the rest of the world via podcasting. With the success of podcasts such as Catholic Insider, Daily Breakfast & Rosary Army, there has been a significant increase in the number of podcasts produced by Catholic clergy and/or lay individuals, friends and families, and non-profit organizations. Their topics of interest range anything from family life, technological gadgetry, movies, music and popular literature. Of course, there’s no running away from sharing their faith too. Today, I’ll like to share with you some of these new, up and coming Catholic podcasts.

The BustedHalo Cast is produced by the people behind BustedHalo.com, an online magazine for spiritual seekers in their 20s and 30s, and is hosted by Mike Hayes and Paulist Father Dave Dwyer. If you like learning the faith in a light-hearted, humorous way, the BustedHalo Cast is the way to go.You can also find some of Fr. Dave’s homilies in Father Dave Preaches, as well as a selection of segments and interviews from Fr. Dave’s Sirius Satellite Radio show in The Busted Halo Show with Father Dave Dwyer.

Catholic Exchange is a non-profit media organization that seeks to bring the good news of Jesus Christ as proclaimed by the Catholic Church to the world through the modern tools of mass communication. Catholic Exchange also carries 2 podcasts, Catholic Exchange’s Rock Solid with Mark Shea, as well as Catholic Exchange Today with John Morales

The Catholic Moments Podcast is produced by Lisa Hendey from CatholicMom.com, a website dedicated to sharing and learning about parenting and faith. The podcast contains news and chats with several of CatholicMom.com’s authors, columnists and musicians. If you are a Catholic mom, you’re sure to find the resources at CatholicMom.com useful and interesting.

On the topic of Catholic family living, another podcast worth checking out is Monster Cookies. Produced by Jon and Amber McInnis, a young couple from Canada, Monster Cookies is a little of everything. Daniel and Joshua , Jon and Amber’s older 2 sons have a regular segment in podcast as well, Andrew their youngest, occasionally “chips in”.

The Tupelo Catholic Podcast is another podcast hosted by a young Catholic couple, Rob and Kristen Williams from Tupelo, Mississippi. Rob and Kristen share their everyday lives and their comments on things happening around them.

Catholic Spotlight is produced by the The Catholic Company, and hosted by Chris Cash. It features interviews with various Catholic authors like Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins, Teresa Tomeo, etc. If you enjoy reading the brilliant works of these geniuses, you’ll definitely enjoy listening to these interviews.

The iPadre Catholic Podcast is produced by Father Jay Finelli. Fr. Jay shares his insights on things happening around him, as well as some of his homilies, and “sound-seeing” tours of places of interest while on religious pilgrimages. Fr. Jay also produces the iPadre Catholic Videocast, the ChantCast and the Voice of Mary podcast.

With the recent Motu Propio from Pope Benedict XVI, reinstating the common use of the traditional Latin mass, Latin has become almost everyone’s “must learn” language. LatinCast.org provides an online resource for learning, practicing and discussing Latin language. They even have a podcast which you can subscribe and listen to on your computer or portable MP3 player.

For more podcasts by Catholics, for Catholic or about Catholics, please check out the following podcast directories:

• CatholicPodcasts.info
• Disciples with Microphones
• Star Quest Production Network (SQPN)

Today, I’ll talk about Catholic podcasts, particular SQPN podcasts, which constitutes a LARGE part of my subscriptions and is what started me on my podcast-listening spree. These shows do not necessarily revolve around religious topics (though most are). Some of them are podcasts done by Catholic people, sharing their lives and views of things happening around them. Some are even about “secular” topics like movies and games. All are presented from a Catholic’s perspective.

What’s with my fascination with Catholic podcasts? Well for one, my family is Catholic. I personally like to introduce myself as an “unofficial” Catholic, since I’m yet to be baptized and thus unable to receive the sacraments. I studied for 10 years in Catholic schools (grammar school and high school), but was not “nourished” enough to enjoy and understand the fullness of the faith. That was until one fine morning, a Catholic colleague of mine introduced me to Catholic Insider, a podcast done by a Dutch priest, Father Roderick Vonhögen. That got me hooked. The Catholic Insider podcast started out as a very all-rounded show. It wasn’t the hardcore religious or preachy kind of show you’ll expect from a priest. Fr Roderick talked about a wide range of topics, from Star Wars to computer games to coffee to movies and TV shows and of course, religion. He also started the trend of doing “sound-seeing” tours of places he visits. Most notable was the sound-seeing shows he did at the funeral of the late Pope John Paul II, and the papal conclave and election of Pope Benedict XVI. Fr Roderick went on to produce more shows of varying natures, such as the Daily Breakfast, Secrets of Star Wars, Secrets of Harry Potter, and lots more “Secrets of” series. Catholic Insider was slowly refined and remodeled as Fr Roderick’s travelogue, where he shares his travels with the rest of the world. He eventually started the Star Quest Production Network (SQPN), where he slowly gathered more and more high-quality Catholic podcasts to form a network of “the best in Catholic podcasting”.

The Daily Breakfast podcast soon became my daily staple, and a must-listen in my playlist. As the name states, it is a daily morning show which was presented in the light-hearted/relaxed tradition of the Catholic Insider, discussing a variety of topics. It was like the original format of the Catholic Insider, except it’s more impromptu, more lively, and most importantly, it was released more often. Fr Roderick also started to explore different formats of podcasting and produced the likes of Catholic Minute (Fr Roderick’s first video podcast), Healthy Catholic (which charts Fr Roderick’s weight-loss journey), TWiCC (This Week in the Catholic Church, which was inspired by Leo Laporte’s TWiTT), and the most recent Godspeed (Fr Roderick’s “official” travel-cast)

Soon I began listening to podcasts by people OTHER than Fr Roderick. I started with the Rosary Army podcast, after hearing Fr Roderick’s review in Daily Breakfast. The Rosary Army podcast is produced by Greg and Jennifer Willits, a Catholic couple from Conyers, Georgia. They were probably the pioneers in Catholic “couple-casting”, where they podcast as a couple, talking about their lives, their family (they have 4 lovely sons and are currently expecting their 5th child), their faith, and much more. Greg and Jennifer also run a non-profit association by the same name, where they promote praying the Rosary, make and give away all-twine knotted rosaries for free. They also offer instructions on how to “make them, pray them, and give them away”, which by the way, is their motto. Soon, they joined Fr Roderick to be part of the SQPN family. Greg and Jennifer went on to produce the Rosary Army Videocast, the Total Consecration podcast which is about the Consecration to Jesus through Mary according to St. Louis De Montfort. They also recorded a set of audio rosaries in the RosaryCast. Their latest brain-child is the highly acclaimed That Catholic Show, a video podcast hosted by Jennifer which talks about various aspects of Catholic church life.

Next to join the SQPN, was The Hands and Feet Show by Javier Plumey and Gerard Bross. They were later joined by Jose Rojas and occasionally, Javier’s wife, Aneesa. This was a podcast targeted at teens and church youth groups. Though I’ve quite passed my teen years, I still found their show very enjoyable and entertaining. I especially like their “Bible Lotion” section, where they attempt to dissect and explain a passage of the Bible.

Soon, I came across the SaintCast and the Verbum Domini podcast while listening to Rosary Army. The SaintCast is produced by Dr Paul Camarata, a neurosurgeon by day, and podcaster by night. This podcast talks about the lives of various saints in the Catholic church, the weekly calendar of saints, as well as saint jokes and saint trivia. I learnt a lot about saints from Dr Paul, whom fans fondly refer to as the “Saint Doctor”. Verbum Domini, which means “word of God” in Latin, is a podcast of the daily scripture readings produced by Brian Noe, and read by various guess lectors. Both podcasts have since become part of the SPQN as well.

Before you know it, another Catholic couple jumped on the podcasting bandwagon, and was soon invited to join SQPN. Mac and Katherine Barron are a young Catholic couple living in the small town, hence their podcast is aptly named Catholic in a Small Town. Mac and Katherine were originally Protestants, who converted to the Catholic faith just around the time they were getting married. In the show, they share with listeners about their life, and their faith journey. The show is peppered with generous doses of humor and laughter.

Soon Father Bill Kessler joined SQPN as the organization’s spiritual director. Naturally, his TechnoPriest podcast joined the SQPN family of podcasts too. Fr Bill shares his weekly homilies on the show, and “rambles” about technology and religion.

Being an all-rounded family of podcasts, the network soon added Catholic Rockers and Catholic Praise Cast, both produced by George Leite, who also runs CatholicJukebox.com. While Catholic Rockers discusses contemporary Catholic music, Catholic Praise Cast shares with its listeners, beautiful contemporary Catholic music you can pray to. Just when you thought Catholic music was just Gregorian chant and the hymns you hear in church. George Leite has really “opened my ears” to the wonderful world of Catholic music.

Before long, another Catholic family joined SQPN. David and Allyson Sweeney produces the Catholic Family Podcast, where as the name suggests, they talk about their life as a Catholic family. Their 4 kids join them regularly and are an instant hit with the listeners. Kathryn, Austin, Hannah and Luke, soon produced their own show, the Catholic Family Kids podcast with the help of their daddy of course. Allyson also produced Proverbs podcast with readings from the book of Proverbs of the Bible.

The latest additions to the SQPN family are Catholic Under the Hood (CUTH) by Franciscan priest Father Seraphim Beshoner, and Into The Deep podcast by Mike Englesby, Michael Lee and Brent Brown. CUTH talks about “Catholic history and theology from a Franciscan perspective”, while Into The Deep takes listeners into the deeper aspects of the Catholic faith.

As I’ve said, Fr Roderick also produced several “Secrets of” podcasts, such as the previously mentioned Secrets of Star Wars, Secrets of Harry Potter. There’s also the Secrets of the Lord of the Rings, Secrets of the Caribbean and Secrets of Narnia. As you can see, these podcasts are related to popular literature and movies. In them, Fr Roderick talks about these books/movies and uncovers several religious themes hidden within. Some of these series have been stagnant for a while, due to Fr Roderick’s busy schedule (he’s in charge of 4 parishes), while Brother Jiles Baker is currently helping Father Roderick with the Secrets of Harry Potter series.

Another long-time member of SQPN was the Praystation Portable, which has the readings from the Liturgy of the Hours, which can be downloaded and prayed along with, anytime, anywhere.

Well, that was my “brief” review of my favorite SQPN podcasts, which seemed almost like ALL of them. Ha ha.

I hope you all will also enjoy SQPN’s podcast as much as I do. As you can see, there’s a wide variety to choose from to suit your every need. I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll enjoy, just like so many of the other SQPN fans I’ve found on Twitter and Facebook.

Meanwhile, I’m gonna start organizing my thoughts on the other podcasts on my subscription list. I hope I find time to post something soon. Hopefully next time, it won’t be so long.