Pints With Aquinas – Ep. 552

On Music, Art, and the Recovery of the Sacred – Dr. Peter Kwasniewski
Date: November 20, 2025
Host: Matt Fradd
Guest: Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

Episode Overview

This episode explores the interplay between technology, music, art, literature, and the loss and recovery of the sacred in modern life. Matt Fradd and Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (incorrectly identified throughout the transcript as Dr. Taylor Marshall) discuss how technology shapes our culture and spiritual life, the impact of music and art on our souls, and practical ways to reclaim a sense of the sacred, cultivate silence, and restore tradition in the face of an increasingly noisy, disconnected, and distracted society.

Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Technology: Definition, Benefits, and Dangers

• Definition & Purpose

  • Technology ("techne") as any art or invention serving human life, from writing and chariots to modern digital tools (03:06).
  • The intended purpose: to free us for higher pursuits—reading, music, contemplation, community, worship.

• Double-Edged Sword

  • Kwasniewski: "Every technological advance causes a loss of something... the fact is there is a loss." (05:04)
  • Examples: Writing reduced the need for memory; washing machines didn’t lead to more culture, just more leisure lost to TV.
  • Externalization of knowledge—Google, libraries—means little if nothing is "internalized".

• Community & Place

  • Loss of local identity and rootedness due to technological mobility (cars, interstates).
  • Matt Fradd: Observations of European localism; the shift in America to a placeless, car-dependent society (10:00).
  • Kwasniewski: "Culture comes from 'cultus'... True culture builds up to the divine cultus—worship—embodied perfectly in the European village centered on the church." (12:40)

• Despair & the Catholic Land Movement

  • Despair as a form of passivity; action, even small, counters it (15:36).
  • Catholic Land Movement—families returning to agrarian living for spiritual and practical goods.
  • Kwasniewski: "Despair is not the answer. People have to think outside the box." (18:03)

2. Modernity and Its Discontents

• Defining Modernity

  • Anti-traditional, relentless questioning and rejection of past wisdom. (25:21)
  • Traced through philosophical history, from Ockham to Descartes and Bacon, through the waves of Reformation, Enlightenment, and revolutions (French, Marxism).

• Cultural Unmooring

  • Successive rejection of tradition, natural law, and even basic realities (e.g., male/female), culminating in the confusion and instability of today’s culture.
  • Kwasniewski: Comparing the cultural decline to a "person going progressively insane" (29:16).

3. The Problem of Noise and the Loss of Silence

• Smartphones and Tech Addiction

  • Smartphones as "the ultimate Swiss army knife" and the "most addictive" technology to date (38:10).
  • Constant distraction—advertising, social media—erodes peace, focus, and prayer.
  • Pushback: Use minimalist devices (like the Light Phone), embrace inconvenience for peace (43:22).

• Silence and the Interior Life

  • Cardinal Sarah’s "The Power of Silence" highlighted.
  • Our "interior temple" should be filled with God, beauty, and holy thoughts—not noise and distraction.
  • Kwasniewski: "We're chasing out the still, small voice of God..." (46:24)

• Practicalities

  • Examples of simple practices: musical fasts, time without technology, especially on Sundays.
  • Use of traditional offices and daily routines to center the day (see below: Ritual and Liturgy).

4. Music: From the Sacred to the Sensual

• Sonic Pollution

  • The pervasiveness of loud, often low-quality music in every public space.
  • Kwasniewski: "Modern popular music...premised to excite the passions as much as possible." (68:41)

• Music and Morals

  • Ancient understanding (Plato, Aristotle): music should order passions and serve virtue.
  • Modern genres (rock, pop, techno) increasingly agitate rather than harmonize passions (anger, lust).
  • Even in restaurants, staff refuse to turn off music; silence is nearly extinct publicly.

• Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence

  • Medieval/Renaissance: Music as calming, opening one up to contemplation and divine truth.
  • Romantic/Modern: Music seeks to stir, sometimes to seduce or unmoor reason from emotion.
  • Kwasniewski: "The form of the music is a form of cultural rebellion against Christianity and Christendom and even against nature…” (85:01)
  • Critique of jazz: Playfulness and sensuousness contrasted with classical seriousness and order (87:33).

• Practical Advice

  • Recommendations for those wanting to begin listening to classical/sacred music:
    • Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (102:25, 103:22).
  • Musical fasts (e.g., 40 days of silence), gradually increasing exposure to high art.

5. Literature and Intellectual Formation

• Recovery of Deep Reading
  • "You cannot be an educated person without reading books. I don’t care how many podcasts you listen to." (50:42)
  • Suggestion: Start with novellas or short stories before tackling long classics; recommendations include Tolstoy’s "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," Dostoevsky's "A Gentle Creature," Solzhenitsyn’s "Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."
  • Attention spans are atrophied; need conscious effort to reclaim them (107:29).
  • Create reading spaces free from the distraction—even an off-phone in the room has negative effects.

6. Ritual, Liturgy, and the Cultivation of Prayer

• Daily Structure (Horarium) & Divine Office

  • Importance of a structured daily prayer life, guided by tradition (117:15+).
  • Kwasniewski’s Practice:
    • Coffee, candles at iconstand, Prime (psalms, prayers), Roman Martyrology, Rule of Saint Benedict—before any technology (121:09).
    • Benefits: Frames the day, puts first things first, cultivates peace and self-possession.
    • "People who pick up their phone first thing... Just flooded with all the angry messages... Why should that be the first thing?" (122:27)
  • Start small: even a kiss to a crucifix by the bed, or one prayer in the morning (123:17).

• On the Liturgy of the Hours (Breviary)

  • Preference for the pre-Vatican II arrangement—full psalter in one week, integrity of prayers retained (125:14+).
  • Critique of the post-1971 "Liturgy of the Hours" for omitting verses, diluting frequency, and losing discomfort with the harsher psalmic expressions—which are theologically important.

7. The Restoration of Sacred Culture

• Tradition in Liturgy and Art

  • Movement towards reverent, beautiful liturgy and sacred art/architecture, often despite opposition from church authorities ("autoimmune condition" of the modern Church) (171:24).
  • Internet enabling grassroots sharing, education, and affirmation of traditional forms.

• Handling Scandal and Corruption in the Church

  • The Church as a storm-battered but unsinkable "bark of St. Peter" (176:07).
  • Emphasis on realism about original sin and ecclesial imperfection, but faith in Christ’s guidance and strength in the sacraments and tradition.

8. Detachment from Vulgarity and Distraction

• On Cursing and Cultural Coarsening

  • Vulgarity diminishes the power and beauty of speech; reflects and produces a coarsened, animalized society (143:43+).
  • "Speech is ordered to the truth...and to beauty."
  • Parallels between the destruction of sacred boundaries in language and the iconoclasm in culture.

• Media, Memory, and Purity

  • What we watch and listen to embeds itself—indelibly—in memory; calls for vigilance and intentional selection, especially regarding sexualized or violent content (189:35).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Technological Gain and Loss:
  "Every technological advance causes a loss of something... the fact is there is a loss."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (05:04)

• Regarding Community:
  "The center of the village is the church...It's this coherent, centered life..."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (12:40)

• On Despair and Action:
  "Despair is fundamentally a form of passivity… if you can move your finger one inch towards a better answer… you've cured despair for that day."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (15:36)

• On Smartphones:
  "The smartphone...is the ultimate addictive technology. There's never been a form of technology more addictive."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (38:10)

• On Liturgy and Identity:
  "We are doing what we're doing right now for reasons right now that are completely meaningful and relevant and intelligible to us right now... living today from the wisdom of the past."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (22:22)

• On Music:
  "Music that excessively stirs up the passions...can occlude or cloud over reason...The sun is still there, but the clouds are blocking the sun."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (71:34)

• On Consumption and Memory:
  "We are what we eat, we are what we consume, we are what we watch and listen to."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (189:47)

• On Prayer and the Use of Time:
  "People have as much time for prayer as they make... any time that we don't give to prayer will simply be invaded by other things."
  — Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (138:02)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Technology’s Duality & Loss — 03:06–09:16
• Loss of Place & Community — 09:16–15:27
• Catholic Land Movement & Counter-Despair — 17:22–21:50
• Modernity, Rejection of Tradition — 25:21–31:30
• Cultural Insanity and Order — 29:16–36:39
• Smartphones as Distraction — 38:10–43:22
• Light Phone & Downshifting Tech — 43:22–48:03
• Power of Silence, Cultivating the Interior Life — 46:24–54:49
• Silence and the Avoidance of Noise — 62:08–64:21
• Music’s Role and Degradation — 68:41–87:15
• Jazz, Seriousness, and Order in Music — 87:33–91:02
• Detox from Distraction: Practical Steps — 98:15–106:27
• Reading, Literature, and Intellectual Muscle — 106:27–108:39
• Building a Prayer Rule: Horarium, Breviary — 117:12–124:14
• On the Psalms and Liturgy of the Hours — 125:14–137:48
• Confronting Church Scandal & Perseverance — 176:07–181:33
• Curiosity vs. Studiousness (Aquinas) — 183:16–184:10
• Guarded Media Consumption — 189:35–191:11

Actionable Takeaways

• Embrace inconvenience (reduce technology, entertain silence).
• Rebuild attention spans and contemplative life—start with small steps in prayer, reading, and music appreciation.
• Establish a structured daily prayer routine (even 15 minutes) before engaging with technology.
• Fast from non-essential music/media to "reset" interior peace and taste for beauty.
• Fill your day and imagination with the good, true, noble, and beautiful, as St. Paul exhorts.
• Be realistic about the imperfections of Church and culture, but possess hope and perseverance: "The bark of Peter" will not sink.

Resources & Further Reading

• Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence (Tan Books)
• Cardinal Robert Sarah, The Power of Silence
• Substack Recommendations:
  • After Babel (Jonathan Haidt)
  • The School of the Unconformed (Ruth & Pico Gavronsky)
• Communio Magazine: William Brownsberger on Silence
• Music Recommendations: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Fifth, Bach’s works

"We are the temple of the Holy Spirit... since music is a physical phenomenon and it affects us physically, it's like food and drink. It's like sex. I mean, it really is a physical phenomenon that moves us, changes us, affects us, molds us."
— Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (96:02)

Summary prepared for listeners seeking a rich, structured overview and practical inspiration from Pints With Aquinas, Ep. 552.