The Catholic Guide to Sustainable Living

Dr. Samuel Shephard talks with Dr. Joel Stroot about permaculture through a Catholic lens. Dr. Stroot explores how sustainable design principles connect to creation care, stewardship, and our relationship with the natural world.

Dr. Samuel Shephard talks with Dr. Adam Van Wart about the ethics of hunting and fishing in a modern world. Dr. Van Wart explores why these ancient practices matter for human flourishing, how they connect us to creation and our role as stewards, and what it means to take an animal's life with respect and gratitude.

Dr. Samuel Shephard talks with Brandon Sheard of Farmstead Meat Smith about raising, killing, and eating animals the right way. Brandon teaches people to slaughter and process pigs on the domestic scale—in the backyard, the old way—and argues that this work helps us develop virtue and understand what it means to be human.
The conversation covers why "doing what you love" is overrated, the structural impossibility of real community in our car-dependent world, and how prioritizing Mass and the sacraments might be the key to restoring authentic Catholic villages. Brandon makes the case that we're all naturally equipped to be "meat smiths"—we just need to activate that latent potential.