What happened to Catholic Britain? In this episode of Into the Truth, Pierpaolo Finaldi speaks to author and academic Bonnie Lander Johnson about the Catholic world that existed before the Reformation, what was lost as Britain entered modernity and how we lost our connection to the natural world.

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📚 Vanishing Landscapes: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vanishing-Landscapes-Story-Plants-Lost/dp/1399731521

📚 Catholic Women Writers Series: https://www.cuapress.org/tag/catholic-women-writers-series/

Bonnie Lander Johnson is the author of Vanishing Landscapes, a fascinating exploration of land, plants, agriculture, the commons, monasteries and the changing relationship between human beings, nature and God. She explains how the Reformation transformed not only religious life, but also the way people understood land, property, work, community and the natural world.

The conversation explores the medieval commons, the dissolution of the monasteries, the enclosure of land, the rise of private property and the emergence of modern ideas about resources, measurement and ownership. Bonnie considers what happened when the land ceased to be understood primarily as a shared inheritance and increasingly became a commodity.

They also discuss the Catholic understanding of nature, the sacramental imagination, the relationship between God, humanity, animals and plants, and what Catholics today might recover from the older Christian vision of creation. In an age of environmental anxiety, digital technology and increasing separation from the natural world, the conversation asks whether the Catholic tradition offers a different way of thinking about our relationship with creation.

The conversation turns to the Catholic literary revival and the forgotten women writers who helped shape Catholic culture in Britain and beyond. Bonnie discusses writers including Josephine Ward and Carol Houselander and explains why Catholic fiction can help us encounter questions of faith, morality, grace and human nature in ways that theological writing alone cannot.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:45 What the Reformation Changed
6:47 The Commons & The Monasteries
12:53 The Loss of the Orchards
20:56 How Land Became Property
28:30 Nature & the Catholic Imagination
33:05 Can We Recover What’s Lost?
36:51 A Catholic Ecology
40:36 Rediscovering Catholic Women Writers
49:49 Why Catholic Fiction Matters

#Catholic #Reformation #CatholicBritain #CatholicHistory #CatholicImagination #CatholicLiterature #Nature