I’m delighted to announce that several of my talks are now being offered for sale. These talks are available for $8 each on compact disc from Matt Willkom: mwillkom@gmail.com. Below are short descriptions of four of these talks:
 
A Matter of Life and Death: The Battle for a True Education
 
We live in perilous times in which the culture of death threatens to destroy the last vestiges of western civilization. In this lecture, Professor Pearce explains why a true education is essential to the defeat of the culture of death and the resurrection of the culture of life.
 
Commencing with a reiteration of Pilate’s perennial question, quid est veritas? (what is truth?), Professor Pearce answers with the words of Christ: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” A true education is education as if truth itself matters, and, since Christ is the source of all truth, a true education must be an education as if Christ matters. An education that does not have Christ at its center is not a true education at all.
 
Having laid Christ as the foundation of a true education, Professor Pearce exposes the pernicious nature of modern secular education and illustrates the beauty of a true education rooted in the good, the true and the beautiful.
 
A Call to Catholic Responsibility in a Hostile Government
 
Commencing with a reiteration of the words of St. Thomas More that he was “the king’s good servant, but God’s first”, Professor Pearce argues that the saint’s words remain relevant to our own responsibilities as US citizens in the twenty-first century.
 
The lessons of history must be heeded if the momentous mistakes of the past are not to be repeated in the present or the future. Connecting the political philosophy of St Thomas More and Shakespeare to the papal encyclicals of Leo XIII, Pius XII, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, Professor Pearce examines the secularist tyranny of Shakespeare’s England and compares it to the secular fundamentalism of the twenty-first century. The choice facing Christians today in the face of attacks on the family and the freedom of religion is the same as the choice that St. Thomas More faced six hundred years ago. This represents a challenge that modern Christians cannot afford to ignore.

The Orthodoxy of Shakespeare
 
William Shakespeare is perhaps the greatest writer who has ever lived. His influence upon modern culture is greater than that of any other writer. Yet few people are aware that Shakespeare was a faithful Catholic at a time when Catholicism was illegal in England. Professor Pearce presents the overwhelming evidence for Shakespeare’s Catholicism, the fruits of his research for his two bestselling books, The Quest for Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome and Through Shakespeare’s Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays.
 
Professor Pearce shows how Shakespeare was brought up by a staunchly Catholic family, how he had to flee his home in order to escape the clutches of the anti-Catholic lord of the manor, how he retained his Catholic faith during the period in which he was writing the plays, how he knew the Jesuit martyr St. Robert Southwell, and how he purchased a house for the use of Catholic priests in spite of the anti-Catholic laws. These and many other exciting facts about Shakespeare’s life are given in this action-packed talk.
 
Personal Conversion Story
 
As an angry young man, Joseph Pearce was a radical activist who became involved with the Protestant terrorist organizations in Northern Ireland and served two prison sentences for publishing material likely to incite racial hatred. In this candidly heartfelt talk, Professor Pearce discusses his role as one of the leaders of a white supremacist organization in England, his two prison sentences, and his connection with the anti-Catholic terrorist organizations and secret societies in Northern Ireland. He also explains how discovering the works of great Catholic writers such as Chesterton, Newman and Tolkien helped him on the path from hatred to conversion. In this powerful talk, Professor Pearce confesses his race with the devil and his journey from the hell of hatred to the well of mercy.