1. Dr. Paul Giesting and Bill Schmitt welcome listeners back for new episodes of our “legacy” podcast, “That’s So Second Millennium.” See below for biographies. Check out our archived episodes: That's So Second Millennium

2. Here’s a chronological list of popes. For context in this episode, start with Pope Leo XIII (#256) and look through the 20th century for Popes Pius X, XI, and XII. (Please forgive a couple of small historical and mathematical mistakes--at one point Paul says something amounting to 5+7 make 11 or 4+7 make 12.)

3. What’s in a name? Paul has developed a sports-inspired bracket for papal names and their likelihood, with 64 possibilities. We'll digitize it and post it in connection with the next episode.

4. Papal tiara logo borrowed from The Mad Monarchist.

5. Pope Leo XIV conforms with Paul’s bracket prediction of the “top seed”: With the passing of Pope Francis, Leo was the most likely name to be chosen.

6. Scholars have called the 1660-1836 period as “the long 18th century” in English literature. They point to a “long 19th century” between 1750 and 1914.

7. Here’s one take on why Cardinal Robert Prevost chose Leo as his papal name. Leo is now the fourth-most common papal name in history along with Clement. The only more popular names are John, Benedict, and Gregory.

8. Would you like to read the book—Their Name is Pius—that Paul read in his youth? Amazon says it doesn’t come cheap.

9. You can also read Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars.

10. Pope Leo XIV has called for a new Rerum Novarum, according to the Aleteia news site.

11. Here’s the bio of St. Francis Xavier, missionary and one of the original seven Jesuits.

12. Yes, there was a Pope Lando, reigning in the years 913-914.

13. Pope Julius I, a canonized saint, reigned in 337-352.

Updated bio of Bill Schmitt: Bill Schmitt is a journalist, educator, and marketing communications specialist who has been an adjunct professor of English and media at several schools, most recently Holy Cross College in Notre Dame, IN. He served on the communications staff of the University of Notre Dame from 2003 to 2017, managing many projects and joining in a wide range of multimedia, interdisciplinary collaborations. Since then, his freelance work has included feature-writing, editing, podcasting, and blogging, with much of his work centered on the Catholic faith. Bill holds a BA from Fordham University and an MPA from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Find his work at billschmitt.substack.com, OnWord.net, and billschmitt-onword on Linked-In.

Paul felt it was important to put Daniel's book title in the episode title, but Bill's suggested title is too good not to place somewhere:

TSSM: NEW BOOK EXPLORES MEANING IN MOTION

1. In this new episode of the “That’s So Second Millennium” podcast, your host Paul Giesting, assistant professor of mathematics and sciences at Wyoming Catholic College, interviews his faculty colleague, Dr. Daniel Shields, assistant professor of philosophy. Shields’s book, Nature and Nature’s God: A Philosophical and Scientific Defense of Aquinas’s Unmoved Mover Argument, has just been released by Catholic University of America Press and is available for purchase here.
2. This discussion is tailor-made for these two Catholic scholars who bring broad scientific and philosophical knowledge, plus fervor for conversations at the intersection of multiple disciplines, to their research and teaching. It is also tailor-made for the “TSSM” podcast, which seizes this golden opportunity for a curtain-call while remaining on official hiatus. The podcast generated about 150 episodes between 2018 and 2022, with co-host Bill Schmitt. They focused on the intersection, incorporating everyday life and the pursuit of virtuous wisdom—past, present, and future.
3. Shields makes reference to Dr. Robert C. Koons, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. Koons wrote a review of Nature and Nature’s God, praising its integration of natural philosophy and metaphysics. The book combines scientific knowledge with insights into the writing of St. Thomas Aquinas.
4. Shields and Giesting go into depth on Aquinas’s proofs for the existence of God, especially his favored “first way”—arguing our cosmos filled with motion needs an “unmoved mover” at its origin (and beyond). The discussion elaborates on the idea that God keeps everything in motion.
5. The book, Shields explains, goes on to apply natural philosophy and metaphysics to such subjects as statistical mechanics, contemporary cosmology, and even biology.
6. Through it all, Shields and Giesting make mention of many historical figures, from Aristotle to Copernicus to Newton to Maimonidesto Helmholtz. Present-day references include Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, known as the Pope’s Astronomer, and quantum physics scholar Sean Carroll.

1. The co-hosts announce that the TSSM podcast, now posting our 146th episode, will begin a hiatus, but all programs and show notes will continue to be archived and accessible.
2. This episode allows Dr. Paul Giesting and Bill Schmitt to look back on their four-and-a-half years of interviews and discussions seeking a greater synthesis of knowledge: an exploration of science and religion, philosophy and spirituality, neuroscience and quantum physics, policies and principles, history and the future, to better understand ourselves and the values and virtues in our lives. Our curiosity and concerns are grounded in our experiences as cradle Catholics, a confidence that faith and reason can grow together as essentials for problem-solving wisdom, and a desire to honor the Church a central source of guidance and continuing growth.
3. Our first episode was posted on April 2, 2018, more than four-and-a-half years ago. We have welcomed a long list of well-known guests with expertise in a variety of fields, seizing the opportunity for rigorous but highly accessible, interdisciplinary and inspirational, conversations that transcend silos of specialization. We are grateful for the grand adventure of pursuing truth and reality, both visible and invisible, with the scholars and thought-leaders who shared their insights.
4. That’s So Second Millennium was the first podcast to provide structured news coverage and commentary on the conferences and lectures of the Society of Catholic Scientists, and we interviewed a number of SCS members. Both Paul and Bill have been members of the growing, international organization.
5. Paul, who holds a PhD in Geology from the University of Notre Dame, presented a lecture on uranium and nuclear power at the SCS 2022 conference in Chicago.
6. In this episode, we made references to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and to “Sing God a Simple Song”—from Leonard Bernstein’s

• We talked about Wyoming Catholic College, where Paul is on the faculty, and we talked Holy Cross College, where Bill taught as an adjunct professor for three semesters before moving from South Bend, IN, to Troy, NY, in 2022. Both solidly Catholic colleges, we agreed, excel in their efforts to integrate the different aspects of our humanity and the various forms of knowledge within the hearts and minds of students.
• Paul and Bill are inveterate Catholic communicators and educators. Learn more about Paul’s background in teaching, consulting, and public service. Learn more about Bill’s life as writer-editor, broadcaster-blogger, and author.
• Here are some of the people we have been privileged to interview: SCS president Stephen Barr; planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine; astrophysicist and astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ; theologian Paul Seongh Chung; Magis Center president and EWTN series host Father Robert Spitzer, SJ; astrochemist Karin Oberg; neurobiologist Maureen Condic; speaker-evangelist Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers; pro-life experts Richard Doerflinger and Christopher Bell; geologist Anne Hofmeister; cybersecurity expert Michael Cloud; psychologist Darcia Narvaez; business professor-author Anjan Thakor; and soul and spiritual musician Micki Miller. Learn more about them in the show notes accompanying their TSSM episodes. Thanks also to our friend, composer and performer Vin Marquardt, for writing our podcast’s closing theme for a long time, “Igneous Grok.”