Lumen gloriae imaginem Dei revelat (the light of glory reveals the image of God).

For more than a century, film has shaped the imagination of the world. It has built empires, inspired revolutions, and whispered to billions of hearts about who we are — and who we might become. Amid the spectacle and the noise, much of that whisper has been lost.

Catholica Cinematica is an invitation to listen again. The official podcast of the Catholic Film Institute, the show takes up the Great Conversation—the long inquiry that for centuries has piqued the minds of philosophers and pushed the pens of poets—and brings it to bear on the great films that have shaped the cinematic form.

What is Beauty? Is it inherently Good? Can something be beautiful if it is devoid of Truth? These are old questions, urgently new. The transcendentals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are not three answers but one: the trinity of qualities by which the world points back to its Maker. Honest cinema points there, too.

Each episode is a sustained engagement at the intersection of faith and film: theological readings of the great films, conversations with the filmmakers building the new Catholic cinema, and an unhurried recovery of the sacred language of beauty—the means by which art is reconnected with the one true Artist.

A podcast for viewers who believe the screen still has a vocation; for makers who refuse to apologize for the source; and for Catholics who hold that cinema can be a catalyst to reclaim the modern culture of death for Christ.

A joint venture of Beatific Vision and the Catholic Film Institute. New episodes monthly. Recorded in Saint Charles, Missouri.

Until next time: Wake. Watch. Witness.