Speaker 1: Welcome to a Numbers game with Ryan Gurdusky. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys for being here. We are one week away from Christmas,
Speaker 1: and if you were like me, you are not ready
Speaker 1: at all. This weekend is going to be a marathon
Speaker 1: in the life of Ryan Gurdusky to try to get
Speaker 1: everything ready in the last few days and make it
Speaker 1: all seem pretty effortless. And so if you're by any
Speaker 1: stretch of the imagination seeing me running through a mall
Speaker 1: or store and a complete panic, just look, just know
Speaker 1: I don't always look like that. Before I get to
Speaker 1: my topic, I have some pretty funny gossip that I
Speaker 1: think you guys would like. I was invited to a
Speaker 1: cool Christmas party that I wanted to tell you about it.
Speaker 1: I was invited to the Mediaite Christmas party. Media I
Speaker 1: is kind of a lefty center left website that covers
Speaker 1: all things media. So I got the invitation last week
Speaker 1: and I immediately thought, Okay, this is either a mistake,
Speaker 1: which they follow up and said it was a mistake,
Speaker 1: or that it was going to be a very d
Speaker 1: list event, because you know, I know I was invited,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't have possibly been like a very cool thing.
Speaker 1: But I expectations Bernhei going in, I went thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a bunch of bloggers or whatnot. And
Speaker 1: I walk in the door and the first person, first
Speaker 1: two people I see is Joe and Mika from Morning Joe,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, uh, okay, and then Brian Stelter from
Speaker 1: CNN walks in right behind me, and I just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it dinged on me like it's not
Speaker 1: going to be a Dalist party. It's going to be
Speaker 1: a liberal party. And I am the token conservative that
Speaker 1: was invited. That's why I thought walking in, and I
Speaker 1: was immediate scrambling with like, okay, who on earth is
Speaker 1: going to talk to me for the next hour while
Speaker 1: I just have a glass of wine circle try to
Speaker 1: find the host of the party and thank them for
Speaker 1: inviting me, because I'm never really invited to a lot
Speaker 1: of events, so I wanted to at least thank them
Speaker 1: for inviting me with the hope that, you know, I
Speaker 1: would be invited to something else in the future. So
Speaker 1: I see Joe and Mika, who I saw actually at
Speaker 1: a party in twenty twelve. It was a Fox News
Speaker 1: MSNBC mixer in twenty twelve ahead of the New Hampshire
Speaker 1: Republic in primary and this is when Joe Meeka were
Speaker 1: just colleagues, even though that they very clearly in front
Speaker 1: of everybody else didn't seem to be colleagues anyway. So
Speaker 1: I'm circling the room and I'm trying to find somebody
Speaker 1: who will like maybe one other conservative or center right person,
Speaker 1: and I see Scott Jennings from CNN sitting down in
Speaker 1: the corner and he's talking to somebody. And I'm always
Speaker 1: under the assumption that no one knows who I am.
Speaker 1: I just feel like, you know, because I work so
Speaker 1: much by myself, and I don't you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: always like stopped or whatever. Once in a while happens.
Speaker 1: But I walk up to Scott Jennings and I just
Speaker 1: put up my hand. I go, hi, I'm Ryan gar Dusky.
Speaker 1: He just goes, yeah, I know, I know you are.
Speaker 1: You're kind of very well known on senn among scenen
Speaker 1: circles anyway. Could have been nicer, a little more subdued
Speaker 1: in real life than I thought he was, because some
Speaker 1: of these people who are very like show business y,
Speaker 1: even in the political media world, they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: they are very performative even in private, and he's not
Speaker 1: like that. He was very real, kind of just hung out,
Speaker 1: really real guy. And there was a guy saying next
Speaker 1: to him, and I was like, who is this person?
Speaker 1: Like why is this guy chatting his ear up? So
Speaker 1: when the guy got up, I go, who is that?
Speaker 1: He goes, Oh, it's you know, it's an agent and
Speaker 1: you know I was throwing his card at me or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I realized that almost all of the talent, or
Speaker 1: not all of them, I would say at least half
Speaker 1: of the talent was there with their agents, and the
Speaker 1: agents were like walking them around to meet certain people.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is like extremely this is
Speaker 1: like watching an owner of a prize horse, like showing
Speaker 1: them to different people is very weird. Anyway, I see
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly and she couldn't have been nicer. I was
Speaker 1: a complete horre and just asked her to come back
Speaker 1: on her show. I was like, ha, me back and
Speaker 1: people from the podcast where there to Vicky Ward. I
Speaker 1: had her on about Epstein. She was great. She's working
Speaker 1: on a new book about Luigi Menas, Scott Mangioni, Luvisy
Speaker 1: Mangioni The Killer, So we were talking about that for
Speaker 1: a little while and I saw Alex Thompson from Axios
Speaker 1: and we're talking about the Bidens and he's working on
Speaker 1: all these stories about the twenty twenty eight Democrat primary.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about Gavin Newsom, you know, sharing funny
Speaker 1: stories about what he's like. And then I run into
Speaker 1: a girl and she must have been like twenty five
Speaker 1: years old something like that, twenty five to thirty that range,
Speaker 1: and she just goes to me, you know, New York's
Speaker 1: not the scene that it used to be. And I
Speaker 1: was like, who are you like Frand label with so
Speaker 1: he used to hang out Andy Warhol in the seventies
Speaker 1: and now you're not. I'm like, when was the scene?
Speaker 1: And she's like twenty fifteen, and I'm like, I these
Speaker 1: people are just young people who think they've been through
Speaker 1: more than they have. Just exhausted me anyway, and then
Speaker 1: this is the kind of crazy thing. So I as
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, I see someone else who a journalist who
Speaker 1: I know I'm not gonna name his name because I
Speaker 1: don't want to give him, you know, publicity, but he
Speaker 1: was His company that he had worked for at the time,
Speaker 1: was ruthless to me when the whole scene in episode
Speaker 1: happened last year. So I just say hello briefly because
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, I'm not gonna be rude. And
Speaker 1: he was talking to Ari Mulber, who was just being
Speaker 1: He's just being someone very very interested in himself. And
Speaker 1: I said to him, I said, tom, oh, I've been
Speaker 1: on your I was on your show like ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And he was like, my show wasn't existed for ten years.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, it was twenty seventeen, whatever that math is,
Speaker 1: that's when I was on your show. Very very smart guy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the reporter who has been not very kind to me
Speaker 1: throughout the last year, his company has not been very
Speaker 1: kind to me. He ends the conversation by saying, if
Speaker 1: you have any scoops, please pass them my way. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I would never give you a scoop.
Speaker 1: Your outlet is left wing trash, and you've did nothing
Speaker 1: besides trash me.
Speaker 2: Why would I give you scoops?
Speaker 1: Which is just it is so commonplace for journalists who
Speaker 1: are so under the belief that yeah, I could trash you,
Speaker 1: but we're all friends, we're all kind of in the
Speaker 1: business together, or whatever whatever they believe. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is the worst kinds of people. So that was
Speaker 1: the really cool scoop of the entire story, and you know,
Speaker 1: the media and just the people who still work there.
Speaker 1: I thought it was really funny and my audience would
Speaker 1: enjoy it. But I wanted to so I want to
Speaker 1: tell you guys about that, and I wanted to take
Speaker 1: a second to talk to you about what is upcoming,
Speaker 1: which is Christmas. And you know, it's not just about
Speaker 1: Christmas parties and shopping and wrapping gifts and trying to
Speaker 1: take the season as much as possible. So I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the faith and about faith in particular.
Speaker 1: I know it's not a religious podcast, but it is
Speaker 1: I think appropriate given this season. I am Catholic. I
Speaker 1: put it in my bio in part because I got
Speaker 1: so tired of people calling me a fat Geo on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I thought that maybe they'll mix it up and call
Speaker 1: me a fat Italian, but it hasn't really worked out anyway.
Speaker 1: I am Catholic. I was born and raised in the faith.
Speaker 1: I briefly kind of walked away from it during college
Speaker 1: and the end of high school. I guess there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people do, and came back to on my
Speaker 1: own accord. And as I've continue to age and as
Speaker 1: I break down data a lot, I noticed how important
Speaker 1: matters of faith and religion are and how much they
Speaker 1: are Like religion is like a muscle, right, So if
Speaker 1: you only go to the gym two or three times
Speaker 1: a year and you quit every few months, this is
Speaker 1: someone like me. If you're not super diligent and you're
Speaker 1: not going to see gains. You may be able to
Speaker 1: put off some weight, but you're not going to see
Speaker 1: gains like you are. And if you're somebody who only
Speaker 1: typidly or randomly attends church and only praise really when
Speaker 1: the aeroplane is about to take off and the doors closed,
Speaker 1: you're probably not educating yourself that much on faith. You're
Speaker 1: probably not developing a deep relationship. You're probably not and
Speaker 1: I say this as a Catholic who both has done
Speaker 1: a lot of work on faith and still has a
Speaker 1: lot to do, so no judgment on it, but you're
Speaker 1: probably not getting to a place where you feel very
Speaker 1: strongly about it. And you can't get to a place
Speaker 1: of deep devotion, let alone exploring the really interesting things
Speaker 1: like mysticism or miracles or other stuff. If you don't
Speaker 1: put the work in and I know religion, it's a
Speaker 1: very bad rap. People make a lot of false claims
Speaker 1: about religion, that they're all the same, or that their
Speaker 1: response for all the history of all the wars in
Speaker 1: the world, and that you know, they've only been negative.
Speaker 1: It's only been a negative institute that has worked to
Speaker 1: divide people and break down people and use for powerful
Speaker 1: men to just kind of, you know, control everything. And
Speaker 1: I remember this a long time ago, and I've never
Speaker 1: told the story before. A long long time ago. I
Speaker 1: was campaigning for a candidate running for office, and as
Speaker 1: most of my life story has been, and there was
Speaker 1: a woman there and she had run in the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary and for I think city council or something like
Speaker 1: that lost and she was getting into it with like
Speaker 1: and this is a long time ago, so like one
Speaker 1: of the first purple haired you know, they thems I've
Speaker 1: ever seen before, and they were the they them, the
Speaker 1: super liberal was going aftim about religion. This woman, this
Speaker 1: Democrat who had run for office like owned and a
Speaker 1: very like in a very substantial way, owned this like,
Speaker 1: very progressive person who clearly hated religion. And she said
Speaker 1: she was just giving a brief history on the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church in New York City in the last thirty years,
Speaker 1: things that I did not know, things that people kind
Speaker 1: of bypass. She was specifically talking, and this was a
Speaker 1: gay person. She was talking about the AIDS epidemic, and
Speaker 1: she's like, the only places that would take AIDS patients
Speaker 1: was the Catholic Church, Catholic hospitals. She's like, it was
Speaker 1: the nuns who were doing the work that the government
Speaker 1: refused to do. And I don't remember every detail she
Speaker 1: laid because she laid it on one after the other. Failder.
Speaker 1: And this was, you know, over ten years ago. But
Speaker 1: I was, I was, I was very taken aback about
Speaker 1: how this woman, who is probably you know, central life,
Speaker 1: she was clearly a Democrat, was able to stand up
Speaker 1: for her faith and not interfere with her politics, and was
Speaker 1: able to sit there and stand up for it in
Speaker 1: the face of somebody where it would have been so
Speaker 1: convenient to join them and say no, this is a
Speaker 1: force for good. And I wanted to present my audience
Speaker 1: with some numbers that she want thinking about that. So
Speaker 1: here are some some numbers on why religion in your life,
Speaker 1: in your society is a force for good. Students who
Speaker 1: attend church as a high school senior more often are
Speaker 1: the most likely students to have as. This has been
Speaker 1: true since nineteen seventy six. Forty two percent of millennials
Speaker 1: who attend church weekly are reported to be very happy,
Speaker 1: compared to just twenty two percent who never attend church.
Speaker 1: The most likely to a person to attend church, by
Speaker 1: the way, is a college degree holder. According to the
Speaker 1: Manhattan Institute, they found that church attendance by Republicans is
Speaker 1: linked to lower levels a feeling of racism, anti semitism,
Speaker 1: and conspiracy theories. In other words, to attend church is
Speaker 1: to have a greater level of social trust than those
Speaker 1: who do not attend. Christians who attend mass cricuently are
Speaker 1: more likely to say it's good to be alive, that
Speaker 1: they are a person of worth, and the future doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like it's hopeless. Compared to zele At, atheists are
Speaker 1: not people who just fall away from religion. These are
Speaker 1: people who actively hate religion. Those people have significantly more
Speaker 1: likely to say that life is hopeless and that they
Speaker 1: aren't very youthful. You even see this in conversations with
Speaker 1: like zoomers and millennials about children, those who want to
Speaker 1: have children, and those who, you know, maybe they can't
Speaker 1: find a partner, maybe they put it off, but they
Speaker 1: want to have children, and they think that having children
Speaker 1: is important and good versus those who say the world's
Speaker 1: so bad, or that you know, it's it's a plague
Speaker 1: on the world and the environment and the earth or whatnot,
Speaker 1: it's you could That's a very clear dividing line. And
Speaker 1: while religion is often correlated with poverty, it's and that's
Speaker 1: true on a global scale for sure, But in America
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, those who earn one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year are more likely to attend mass than
Speaker 1: those who make less than fifty thousand years and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year, and people who attend church frequently
Speaker 1: are more likely to give at least two percent of
Speaker 1: their income to charity. They're more more likely to live longer,
Speaker 1: and until the last decade, across the board, they were
Speaker 1: more likely to have social trust. It's a little wonky
Speaker 1: in some data on social trust recently, but certainly before then,
Speaker 1: they were more likely to trust people who look differently
Speaker 1: than them and look the same as that so if
Speaker 1: religion has all these benefits, there's the benefits of society,
Speaker 1: these benefits to yourself. Why don't people participate more? And
Speaker 1: why are people doing it less and less? I think
Speaker 1: because it's difficult. You know, It's one it's easier to
Speaker 1: be lazy, which is why sloth is a sin. It's
Speaker 1: easier to you know, sleep in on a Sunday, or
Speaker 1: go to the park, or hang out with friends or
Speaker 1: watch the football game. It's it's difficult, it's time consuming.
Speaker 1: It's time to take out of yourself and put somewhere
Speaker 1: at like and put into someone else where you're not
Speaker 1: the center of attention, where you're not taking selfies, where
Speaker 1: you're not scrolling or doom scrolling or commenting snightly on
Speaker 1: Twitter like myself. You're placing your entire being in you know,
Speaker 1: in a different in a different realm, when you're really
Speaker 1: focused and you're really there and you're and you're you're
Speaker 1: in that place. I can't describe it anyone else. In
Speaker 1: that place, it's a special place where you're completely in
Speaker 1: tune with the mass, with the music, with lighting the
Speaker 1: candles and with deep, deep prayer. And you know, I
Speaker 1: get why it's hard and I get why people who
Speaker 1: have doubts say it's not for me, or I'll figure
Speaker 1: it out once I get older and once I have children,
Speaker 1: And a lot of people do, but some people don't.
Speaker 1: But if you're interested in, if you're curious, it is
Speaker 1: like going to the gym. You have to really put
Speaker 1: the work in. I've always believed that faith is a journey.
Speaker 1: It's not a guilt trip. Nothing that I'm going to
Speaker 1: say is going to make you want to do it
Speaker 1: if you don't. But society, we as a people and
Speaker 1: us individually are better even if you have doubts, even
Speaker 1: if you're sitting there and saying, I don't know if
Speaker 1: everything that my church says is true, is important to
Speaker 1: go because we as a community are better when we
Speaker 1: go together. And those countries that don't have high levels
Speaker 1: of social trust, like especially the non homogenous countries, not
Speaker 1: like Denmark or Norway, which is no religious attendance, but
Speaker 1: everyone is basically of the same cultural background that they're
Speaker 1: able to sit there and continue levels of high social
Speaker 1: capital if it's decreasing and create like incredibly incredibly fast
Speaker 1: rate because of immigration. But those who sit there and
Speaker 1: those people who have high levels of social trust is
Speaker 1: often oftentimes correlated with religion. So I just would say
Speaker 1: this to my listeners. If you're looking back at last
Speaker 1: year and saying, you know, I had a great year,
Speaker 1: but I could have done some things differently. I could
Speaker 1: have read more. This is my biggest gripe. Is I
Speaker 1: didn't read enough this year, Or you're saying to yourself,
Speaker 1: I didn't go to the gym enough. I gain too
Speaker 1: much weight, And look for a second in your spirituality,
Speaker 1: Look for a second where you've put faith this year.
Speaker 1: Look for a second how you've practiced and how you've
Speaker 1: shown yourself. Even if you say you're a Christian or
Speaker 1: you say you're proudly Jewish or whatnot, how did you
Speaker 1: display that to the world. How did you show that
Speaker 1: you are a leader of some sort in your everyday life?
Speaker 1: How did you push and promote that to other people?
Speaker 1: That maybe being preachy, but I know in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years about a lot of guys, young men
Speaker 1: who said to me I'm really thinking about being Catholic.
Speaker 1: And I've always said, like, I'm here, I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you. If you want to talk to me,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the ups the downs, things out I'm
Speaker 1: talking to one young guy right now who's twenty four
Speaker 1: and he's evangelical, and he said to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about becoming Catholic, and I say, let me,
Speaker 1: let's talk about it. Let me show you by example
Speaker 1: and let me talk to you about the bigger things
Speaker 1: and help point you in that way. If that's your
Speaker 1: place to be, So think about that and try to
Speaker 1: prioritize it for twenty twenty six. I think that is.
Speaker 1: I think that maybe if we're trying to move to
Speaker 1: a healthier place, both as individuals and as a society,
Speaker 1: I think religion plays a big part of that. So
Speaker 1: not to sound preachy, not to sound like I got
Speaker 1: it all figured out, because lord knows I don't. I
Speaker 1: think it's worth passing that message on as we're getting
Speaker 1: to the Christmas holiday and the Christmas season. So with that,
Speaker 1: I am having on as my very special guest for
Speaker 1: the first time I think he's ever done a podcast,
Speaker 1: is my priest. It's going to be great, it'll be
Speaker 1: very interesting. That's coming up next with me on today's
Speaker 1: episode is my priest father, Nick. Father Nick, thank you
Speaker 1: for being here. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome. Thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 1: So, Father Nick, you are You're the first priest I
Speaker 1: ever had who's actually younger than me. When did you
Speaker 1: become a priest? When did you get decide that this
Speaker 1: was your life's journey?
Speaker 3: Well, I think had I sensed a vocation to the
Speaker 3: priestood very very young. So I went to parochial school
Speaker 3: and I began to serve Mass when right after I.
Speaker 2: Received communion about seven years old.
Speaker 3: And I always felt very close to the church and
Speaker 3: very interested in what the church was doing, especially at Mass.
Speaker 3: And so after I graduated high school, I wanted to
Speaker 3: see if the seminary was something that was for me,
Speaker 3: and so I joined and it kind of went from there.
Speaker 3: So I was ordained ten years ago in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: And you studied for a long time in Rome.
Speaker 3: Correct, So, so I finished my philosophy studies at Think Johns.
Speaker 3: I went through the Pontifical North American College in Rome,
Speaker 3: which is the US bishop's seminary next to the Vatican,
Speaker 3: and I studied at the Gregorian University. I did another
Speaker 3: bachelor in theology, and then after that I studied for
Speaker 3: four more years at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. We seemed
Speaker 3: a graduate degree from there, and then after that I
Speaker 3: studied at Catholic University and I got another master's degree
Speaker 3: in Biblical languages, so Semitic languages.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I met Fathernick, he said that, he spoke,
Speaker 1: I get eight languages. But then he said, but seven
Speaker 1: of them are dead or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly, yes, most of them are dead.
Speaker 3: So that's not extremely useful, no, no, in my biblical
Speaker 3: stuff yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. And you know it's great because when
Speaker 1: Father Nick does his homilies a lot of times he
Speaker 1: will discuss the language used in the writings and how
Speaker 1: the English translation doesn't always manifest as accurately as it
Speaker 1: possibly should have or could have in the language.
Speaker 3: Sure, right, So obviously the Bible was originally written in
Speaker 3: various languages. So we know that the Old Testament was
Speaker 3: written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and then the original language
Speaker 3: of the New Testament was what we say coin a Greek,
Speaker 3: which is a dialect of ancient Greek. And so studying
Speaker 3: and being familiar with the ancient languages I think helps
Speaker 3: us to really approximate the meaning better of the scriptures
Speaker 3: than from just a translation, because there's an Italian saying
Speaker 3: that every translator is also a traitor, because when you
Speaker 3: translate something, you're sort of somewhat removed from the original text,
Speaker 3: and so learning the original languages kind of allows you
Speaker 3: to sort of get the original flavor of what the
Speaker 3: author wanted to convey to the audience. And so that's
Speaker 3: why it's helpful to know a little bit about the
Speaker 3: original languages of the scripture.
Speaker 1: And this not to be a Catholic supremacist for any
Speaker 1: product and phantomime, but this is why a priest is
Speaker 1: so much more important than private study groups with just
Speaker 1: a circle of friends who are already in the English dialects.
Speaker 3: Sure, so again, you know it's good I mean faith sharing.
Speaker 3: I mean the Scripture is the word of God, so
Speaker 3: it does have something to say to each and every
Speaker 3: one of us by virtue of our faith. But it's
Speaker 3: Bible study and really delving into the different meanings of
Speaker 3: scripture through knowledge of the original text brings you to
Speaker 3: a fuller knowledge. And so you know, there are only
Speaker 3: a very few people that are capable of doing that,
Speaker 3: and so I do feel somewhat privileged to be able
Speaker 3: to read the scriptures in their original but you know,
Speaker 3: that's the knowledge that I'm very happy to share with them.
Speaker 1: So my whole monologue was about the benefits of physical church, right.
Speaker 1: Why attending an actual mass, not just saying I'm a
Speaker 1: Christian or I'm a Catholic who never shows up, or
Speaker 1: maybe he just shows up once a year, The benefits
Speaker 1: to someone's personal life, the benefits to society. And I
Speaker 1: have family members even who have sat there and said
Speaker 1: to me, why is it so important just to go
Speaker 1: to a church? Why can I not be just a
Speaker 1: more fulfilled I guess, or a practicing Catholic who doesn't
Speaker 1: attend Mass. I could just read the Bible at home.
Speaker 1: Why is it imported?
Speaker 3: Well, I think you know that really gets Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I think that gets at the nature of what scripture
Speaker 3: is and what the church is, because when Jesus ascended
Speaker 3: into Heaven, he didn't leave us a Bible. He left
Speaker 3: us a church. He left us, for better or for worse,
Speaker 3: a juridical and hierarchical structure that we recognize even in
Speaker 3: extra biblical texts and from tradition. So as Catholics, you know,
Speaker 3: Protestants have Martin Luther was very famous for saying sola scriptua,
Speaker 3: which means only scripture. So his point of contention was,
Speaker 3: you know, there is is a lot of corruption in
Speaker 3: the church, and the church since perhaps the Middle Ages
Speaker 3: has lost its way, it's not as pristine as the
Speaker 3: church as Jesus left it. And so what they did
Speaker 3: was they sort of abandoned the church structure as it
Speaker 3: was and went directly and only to sacred scripture. But
Speaker 3: the problem with that, of course, is that like I said,
Speaker 3: Jesus did not leave us sacred scripture. He left us
Speaker 3: the church for better or for worse. And of course
Speaker 3: the Church is, you know, both human and divine, and
Speaker 3: so there are going to be problems. But the way
Speaker 3: we do that is not dispensing with church's trying to
Speaker 3: renew it with our own life. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: the scripture is something that the Church itself has produced
Speaker 3: and has declared authentic and inspired. And so you can't
Speaker 3: have a Bible without a church, and you can't really
Speaker 3: have a church without a Bible. And so for Catholics,
Speaker 3: it's about not only scripture, it's about scripture and tradition.
Speaker 3: Tradition meaning what the Lord left us in terms of
Speaker 3: liturgy and sacraments. And teachings. I mean, even at the
Speaker 3: end of the Gospel of John, he says, but there
Speaker 3: are also many other things which Jesus did. Were every
Speaker 3: one of them to be written, I suppose that the
Speaker 3: world itself would not contain the books that would have
Speaker 3: been written. And so again there's much more to our
Speaker 3: faith and scripture. I mean, obviously scripture is as countered revelation.
Speaker 3: It's very very important.
Speaker 2: But Christ calls us to.
Speaker 3: A communion, to a community of faith, and the community
Speaker 3: of faith is fully expressed in our common worship and
Speaker 3: in our common gathering on Sunday. It's a commandment. And
Speaker 3: so for people that say, you know, I just want
Speaker 3: to read scripture or pray by myself, well, that's not
Speaker 3: obeying the commandment to keep holy the Sabbath, because from
Speaker 3: the earliest times Christians prayed together. That was the whole point.
Speaker 3: And if you see even in the Acts of the Apostle,
Speaker 3: the way in which the first Christians live was in community,
Speaker 3: and they shared everything and they prayed together. And that's
Speaker 3: just a reflection of what we believe about who God
Speaker 3: is in himself, in the Holy Trinity. It's not just
Speaker 3: sort of a being that is turned in on himself.
Speaker 3: It is a communion, a community of persons that his
Speaker 3: Father's done and Holy stood. And so the communion or
Speaker 3: the community of believers expresses the fullness of our faith
Speaker 3: when we come together on Sunday and when we read scripture,
Speaker 3: and when we practice tradition as a community. And so
Speaker 3: that you know, there's an important ecclesiology fundamentally that somebody
Speaker 3: that would say, Okay, well I'm just going to you know,
Speaker 3: practice this by myself, that kind of goes against that ecclesiology.
Speaker 1: So we're coming on to the Christmas, coming up to
Speaker 1: Christmas faster than I am prepared for it. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people we go into math one of the
Speaker 1: two three times year they ever attend what and some
Speaker 1: will just not attend at all? Why is in this
Speaker 1: important season second most important, I guess to Easter in
Speaker 1: the faith? Why is it? Why is regular attendance into
Speaker 1: a mass I equated to working out?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: If you go to the gym three times a year,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get you know any kind as
Speaker 1: someone from experience who goes a little more than three
Speaker 1: times a year, but not much. The more you kind
Speaker 1: of can go and spend time in your faith in
Speaker 1: some capacity, you're going to be able to really kind
Speaker 1: of and as a man who studied a lot, kind
Speaker 1: of delve into the more the most interesting parts of
Speaker 1: the religion. If you're just getting the very basics of
Speaker 1: the life of Jesus and why it's important to do better,
Speaker 1: you can and really go and actually be a fully
Speaker 1: part of it and understand on a deeper level that
Speaker 1: sometimes it's above my head, but I know, but I
Speaker 1: can appreciate and try to learn as much as humanly possible.
Speaker 1: What what is it? What would you say to somebody
Speaker 1: who just sits there and says not to take people
Speaker 1: who are just lazy and they can't wake up on Sunday.
Speaker 1: But take people who sit there and say it's just
Speaker 1: not my thing. And I don't think that the church
Speaker 1: wants to accept people like me. There are people like that.
Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, well, you know again, the church is a
Speaker 3: mother that wants to embrace all of her children no
Speaker 3: matter what. And so people that might feel somewhat excluded
Speaker 3: or disenfranchised or a little shy about church for whatever reason.
Speaker 3: You know, church is there for people for everyone, you
Speaker 3: know who feels that there's some sort of lack or
Speaker 3: disorder or trouble in their interior life. I mean, the
Speaker 3: church is made for sinners, it's made for people that
Speaker 3: feel lost. It's made for people precisely about whom you're describing.
Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, this season reminds us
Speaker 3: that just as God came down into this world in
Speaker 3: a very kind of in the midst of chaos, in
Speaker 3: the midst of darkness, that's what the Lord does even today.
Speaker 3: He enters into our life, or he wants to at least,
Speaker 3: and he doesn't mind that our soul is a bit
Speaker 3: messy or chaotic or noisy or disordered, right, because that's
Speaker 3: how He entered the world to begin with.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: He was not born in a palace, He is not
Speaker 3: born in a hotel or you know, there was even
Speaker 3: no room for him in the end, and so he
Speaker 3: was born in the midst of you know, a manger
Speaker 3: with with noise and smells and all kind of chaos. Right,
Speaker 3: And so I think, you know, kind of maybe something
Speaker 3: to think about is the way in which Saint Luke
Speaker 3: presents the birth of Christ, because this is how the
Speaker 3: birth of Christ came about, and he describes the circumstances.
Speaker 3: I think as a spiritual exercise. Maybe that's something that
Speaker 3: we can think about. You know, how does the birth
Speaker 3: of Christ come about in my life? Where do I
Speaker 3: feel the need to be loved or to be embraced,
Speaker 3: or what's the brokenness in my life that needs to
Speaker 3: be healed or what's the chaos that needs Christ's peace?
Speaker 3: And so the Christmas season is a way or an
Speaker 3: invitation or a moment to really ponder that question. Because
Speaker 3: the Lord wants to enter into our lives. And again
Speaker 3: he does that through the sacraments of the Church. Because
Speaker 3: the sacraments aren't just a ritual. They're not just something
Speaker 3: that we do over and over them because it's a tradition.
Speaker 3: They actually impart something that's called thanktified and great, which
Speaker 3: means that it's God's life that wants to dwell within
Speaker 3: us and that changes us. And so that's why a
Speaker 3: regular practice of the faith is beneficial and I would
Speaker 3: say salubrious. It's healthy because it enables the natural virtues
Speaker 3: that we have to grow exponentially because you know, as
Speaker 3: human beings, we have so many limits. We're finite beings.
Speaker 3: But if we allow Christ to enter into our life,
Speaker 3: not just through our personal prayer. But through the sacraments
Speaker 3: and through the grace that God gives us through those sacraments,
Speaker 3: then we sort of are able to achieve the goal
Speaker 3: for which we are created, which is to live in
Speaker 3: peace with Christ.
Speaker 1: Something that I grapple with and say I think about
Speaker 1: is how to insert faith in not I mean not
Speaker 1: in every single area of my life, but in most
Speaker 1: areas where I can. So. I'm a boss, I have
Speaker 1: a bunch of employees. Being a leader and showing leadership
Speaker 1: in that faith and in that tradition is very, very
Speaker 1: important to me. Making sure that I represent someone who
Speaker 1: is honorable and leader and leadership and promoting things that
Speaker 1: I think that are important. To sit there, and you know,
Speaker 1: I will have rego conversations with people I don't know
Speaker 1: super well, kind of intrusive conversations about why if they're
Speaker 1: looking at this, why they should explore Cathos. And I've
Speaker 1: met probably like four or five young men, all young
Speaker 1: men who have converted to the faiths in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, and I'm basically begging at them at
Speaker 1: this point to be their sponsor, and no one's taking
Speaker 1: me up on the offer. But though, what are what
Speaker 1: are we called to aside from loving people, which I
Speaker 1: know is a big task and something that is I
Speaker 1: guess the whole entire picture. What are we called for
Speaker 1: in our daily life as practicing Catholics especially, but as
Speaker 1: Catholics to sit there and to do most where? Or
Speaker 1: can we fill this? Boy this not not philivoid, but
Speaker 1: show our faith in our daily life in some some avenue.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying it was a little slong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure so. I mean there is a book that
Speaker 3: was meant for this. It's called it's called The Imitation
Speaker 3: of Christ, and it was written in the Middle Ages,
Speaker 3: but if you read it, it sounds like something that
Speaker 3: was maybe written a week ago, because it addresses these
Speaker 3: very issues. How do I practice the faith day to day?
Speaker 3: And you know, I think one of the things is
Speaker 3: that we read the New Testament and we look at
Speaker 3: what Christ does and how he does it. How does
Speaker 3: he encounter, for example, a mother whose son has died.
Speaker 3: How does he relate to his disciples kind of maybe
Speaker 3: in his employees, right, how does he interact with them?
Speaker 3: What words does he use? What's his tenor in speaking?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And so we looked upon the person of Christ, we
Speaker 3: dwell with those images, we pray with them, and then
Speaker 3: we try to put them into practice ourselves. So I
Speaker 3: think to summarize the entire Christian life, we can say
Speaker 3: it's an imitation of Christ. How does Christ act in
Speaker 3: this situation or that? How does He speak to this
Speaker 3: person or that? And so the attitudes of Christ in
Speaker 3: some ways have to become our own, and we apply
Speaker 3: that in the different circumstances that come before us.
Speaker 1: What about when you feel like you've fallen shore, which
Speaker 1: I know everyone does in every capacity their life, whether
Speaker 1: they are a parent or a spouse or a priest,
Speaker 1: or they feel like, this is not my part. How
Speaker 1: do you how do you sit there and say it's
Speaker 1: not you know, kick like just kick it away and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, how do you how do you as
Speaker 1: a person to sit there and say I will try
Speaker 1: better tomorrow and this is not the end all be all?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I mean that's that's the entire story of
Speaker 2: the Old Testament, right.
Speaker 3: It's the fact that Israel, you know, makes a deal
Speaker 3: with God and says, you know, will will obey your
Speaker 3: commandments and will love you and this and that, and
Speaker 3: of course time and again they disobey. And there are
Speaker 3: some places leads through. God gets a little angry, but.
Speaker 2: For you know, it's kind of.
Speaker 3: An understatement, I suppose in some cases, but God does
Speaker 3: not abandon them. He's always there. And I think one
Speaker 3: of the most beautiful things about Christianity itself is that, yeah,
Speaker 3: God maybe get angry and pissed off, but he's still
Speaker 3: there for you.
Speaker 2: He's not.
Speaker 3: There's nothing, as Saint Paul says, that can separate us
Speaker 3: from the love of Christ. Even when we commit a sin,
Speaker 3: there's always the possibility of going back. I mean, look
Speaker 3: at the story of the prodigal son who distanced himself
Speaker 3: so far from his father but goes back and the
Speaker 3: father is not just you know, sitting there, but he's
Speaker 3: actively ways waiting for the son to come back. And again,
Speaker 3: what a beautiful image that is of Jesus who just
Speaker 3: is waiting for us to come back. And so it's
Speaker 3: not like God forgets about us. It's not like God,
Speaker 3: you know, if they're okay, well, you know, this happens
Speaker 3: all the time. So I'm just going to shut the door.
Speaker 3: The door is always open. And the Christian life is
Speaker 3: really about falling and getting back up again, and that actually.
Speaker 2: Is you know, one of the.
Speaker 3: What we call a Marian antiphon, which is a hymn
Speaker 3: to the Blessed Virgin Mary for Advent and Christmas, is
Speaker 3: called the Loving Mother of the Redeemer, and one of
Speaker 3: the lines says, loving Mother of the Redeemer, assist your
Speaker 3: people who have fallen. It's strives to rise again and again.
Speaker 3: That's the Christian life, you know, if we are attentive
Speaker 3: to what's going on inside, to our interior life, then
Speaker 3: we will recognize our faults, will ask God for strength
Speaker 3: and forgiveness and by his grave sweet wise again. And
Speaker 3: that just happens over and over and over again until
Speaker 3: we try to get a little better at it each
Speaker 3: and every time.
Speaker 1: So you're thirty five, I'm thirty eight. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of millennial men and gen Z men who didn't grow
Speaker 1: up with overly religious parents. I did, and my mother
Speaker 1: would have, like you know, she was a Shei Catholic.
Speaker 1: There was, But there are the people who don't. And
Speaker 1: if you're if this is something you're and I always say,
Speaker 1: faith's a journey. It's not a guilt. But I can't
Speaker 1: guilt you have a belief system, of course, But if
Speaker 1: you're interested in you're exploring, what are resources outside of
Speaker 1: just attending a mess that people could go to who
Speaker 1: are intellectually and intellectually available. They're not. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: you're not reading something. You're like, well, this is way
Speaker 1: above my head. I can't I can't deal with it.
Speaker 1: But what is something that somebody could go to and
Speaker 1: say this is worth just looking at. This is a
Speaker 1: you know, not seeing Thomas acquaintance, but you know someone
Speaker 1: on that level and say this is accessible to you
Speaker 1: in an intellectual way where you can feel like you're
Speaker 1: reaching into something that's innate in your heart because you
Speaker 1: want to look for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So two things come to mind immediately. The first
Speaker 3: is Introduction too Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict
Speaker 3: the sixteenth. And I would say that any of his books,
Speaker 3: which are all printed by a natious threats, are like
Speaker 3: they're easily accessible. So they've written a language that is
Speaker 3: I think palatable but also engages the intellect. And so somebody,
Speaker 3: I think just picking that up would be very delighted
Speaker 3: to read anything. But you know, one thing that comes
Speaker 3: to mind is is Introduction to the Politism, which you
Speaker 3: know that's just something that I read in high school
Speaker 3: because that's when he became pope, and there's an interest
Speaker 3: in that. The other thing I would kind of point
Speaker 3: to is Bishop Baron's Catholicism. It's a brief sort of
Speaker 3: introduction to what the Catholic faith is, and his approach
Speaker 3: is also using the entire Catholic tradition, so he introduces
Speaker 3: the person not just to the dogmas and the adoptrines
Speaker 3: of the faith, but the architecture, the art, the music
Speaker 3: that the faith has produced over two thousand years, the literature,
Speaker 3: because there's a whole section of American and European literature
Speaker 3: that is inspired by the Catholic Faith, and so Catholicism
Speaker 3: is very, very rich in its symbols, in its traditions,
Speaker 3: and I think this book by Bishop Baron, simply called Catholicism,
Speaker 3: is something that people might be interested in. And again,
Speaker 3: as I mentioned before, the Imitation of Christ by Thomas
Speaker 3: the Tempest is a medieval work, but it's the second
Speaker 3: most read book aside from the Bible, really in the
Speaker 3: history of literature, and it was the favorite book of
Speaker 3: several saints, one of them being Ignacious of Loyola, always
Speaker 3: had it on his debt and it served as an
Speaker 3: inspiration for generations of Catholics, saints included, and so that
Speaker 3: might be a place to start as well. But that's
Speaker 3: a little more on the spiritual side of things. That's
Speaker 3: so much on the academic side.
Speaker 1: So my last question to you, and this is a
Speaker 1: personal question, because I was talking to with my friends
Speaker 1: as a Protestant about this about the saints and ideology ideatry,
Speaker 1: and you know, our conversation about that, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: convince her, but it was okay, it was fine. Who
Speaker 1: are sayings that you asked to pray for you or
Speaker 1: you look to?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, So my favorite saying is Ignacious of Loyola.
Speaker 3: I have devoted to him because I went to a
Speaker 3: Jesuit high school and he is certainly somebody that I
Speaker 3: read about and admired his conversion story. He went from
Speaker 3: like this and its center to a saint because of
Speaker 3: an injury that he sustained in a battle.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3: And more recently, as a parish priest, Saint John Deanni,
Speaker 3: who is the patron saint of parish priests, who kind
Speaker 3: of dedicated his life to the ordinary and simple work
Speaker 3: of caring for souls in his parish. And I also
Speaker 3: have a particular devote to Edmund Campion, who was one
Speaker 3: of the English martyrs during the Elizabethan era. So the
Speaker 3: Catholic clergy were expelled from England in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 3: I wanted to play their sixteenth century. They did their
Speaker 3: seminary and studies in Europe in Cotton, continental Europe, and
Speaker 3: then they went back to England secretly to minister to
Speaker 3: Catholics and hiding. And I find his story very, very fascinating.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, evil and Law the English,
Speaker 3: the famous English author of the last century. I wrote
Speaker 3: a biography on Edmund Campion, which is another book that
Speaker 3: people might be interested in. Who are you know looking
Speaker 3: at hypolicies, And it just tells his story and how
Speaker 3: he went from an Anglican deacon to a Catholic priest
Speaker 3: who was eventually martyred for his faith in a very
Speaker 3: difficult time in history. So his you know, I always
Speaker 3: I have a picture of him in my room. I
Speaker 3: just find his story very heroic. And you know, he
Speaker 3: was a Jesuit as well, and so he was, you know,
Speaker 3: a man that was deeply spiritual, but also committed to
Speaker 3: the intellectual pursuit of this faith.
Speaker 1: You know, that's why I understand that because she's my
Speaker 1: birthday Sampinel. So she was a bit of a rebel
Speaker 1: who a lot of trouble and I relate to that
Speaker 1: quite a bit. So right, Yeah, there you go, persisted.
Speaker 1: So anyway, father, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 1: this podcast.
Speaker 2: Really really appreciate it. You're very welcome. There was a delight.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Ryan.
Speaker 1: Now it's time for the Asking Me Anything segment of
Speaker 1: this podcast. If you want a part of the Ask
Speaker 1: Me Anything segment, emil me Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Ryan at Numbers Gameplural podcast dot com. I love
Speaker 1: these questions. It makes the show so much interesting. I
Speaker 1: love getting to know my listeners. This question comes from Greg.
Speaker 1: Greg says, as a former member of the New Jersey
Speaker 1: Libertarian Party for fifteen years, I can say that the
Speaker 1: DSA and the Libertarian Party are very quite similar, except economically.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the rise of Bobby Kennedy, em
Speaker 1: and Donnie if they were form their own party to
Speaker 1: take the duopoly which always promised to destroy Do you
Speaker 1: think the rise of Bobby Kenny, Emmon Donnie if they
Speaker 1: were the front runner. I think he's met front runners
Speaker 1: of their own party to take the duopolity which they
Speaker 1: promised to destroy. I don't know about that. The Libertarian Party,
Speaker 1: I just think is useless. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: libertarians as a whole are useless. I think they've been
Speaker 1: very important prominently libertarians in this country. Like something like
Speaker 1: Gary Johnson, who was a libertarian. He was the governor
Speaker 1: of Mexico. He could have ran for US Senate, won
Speaker 1: the Senate seat as a Republican, and promoted libertarianism in
Speaker 1: the Senate and be an important player in the country
Speaker 1: the way that like Rampole is an important player in
Speaker 1: national discussions. But instead he decided to run as a
Speaker 1: libertarian twice, was a spoiler, was almost a spoiler for
Speaker 1: Trump in a couple of states, and then he ended
Speaker 1: up running for US Senate as a libertarian New Mexico
Speaker 1: lost there too, and now he's nowhere. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: a rich guy. I wish him well personally, but what
Speaker 1: a waste of time and effort. The DSA is at
Speaker 1: least smarter than they work within the Democratic Party to
Speaker 1: try to promote and promote their causes and promote their issues,
Speaker 1: and they've been enormously successful. They've really kind of figured
Speaker 1: out to work to get work successfully on immigrant groups,
Speaker 1: on populations of a lot of white yuppies, where they
Speaker 1: can win and where they can make you know, strength
Speaker 1: in in numbers, and that's why they've grown across the
Speaker 1: entire country. The DSA is, I think, much more organized
Speaker 1: than the Libertarian Party is. I don't think the Libertarian
Speaker 1: Party and organization really go hand in hand. I will say,
Speaker 1: when I was a young kid, I think I maybe
Speaker 1: mentioned this story before. But if I haven't, if I haven't,
Speaker 1: forgive me what if I have it? It's interesting. When
Speaker 1: I was like eighteen years old, I was I was
Speaker 1: a Democrat for a year because I was going to
Speaker 1: see Iraq war and I just thought, if you're if
Speaker 1: you're against the Raq war, you must be a Democrat.
Speaker 1: So I got to work as like a on the
Speaker 1: street fundraiser for a single day for uh the I
Speaker 1: think it was. It wasn't Code Pink. It was some
Speaker 1: one of those anti Bush organizations. I can't remember. Change changed,
Speaker 1: dot com, change dot orgs like that. I don't whatever
Speaker 1: it was, remember that was Obama. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: it was. It was move on dot org. That's it,
Speaker 1: move on dot org. I worked as as a person
Speaker 1: you walk on the street ask for money from random
Speaker 1: people from move on dot org. For one day. I
Speaker 1: was like eighteen years old, like I'm I'm doing change.
Speaker 1: And beforehand we went to like meet and all like
Speaker 1: the activists met, and I was just gonna say, iraq war.
Speaker 1: I didn't have like a ton of other issues I
Speaker 1: really even thought about or believed in. But I go
Speaker 1: to the meeting and everyone is like sitting on a
Speaker 1: beanbag chair and everything smells like cannabis and coffee and feet,
Speaker 1: and it was just disgusting. And they all start talking
Speaker 1: about their number one issues and it was like we
Speaker 1: should erase all borders, we should tax everyone at one
Speaker 1: hundred percent or whatever. I was like, these people are nuts,
Speaker 1: Like this is not where I belong at all. But
Speaker 1: the organizational ability was really kind of impressive to look
Speaker 1: at from the from like inside. I was only there
Speaker 1: for literally one day. I never went back to show
Speaker 1: up for work again, but that was very very impressive.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting how organized they are. On the right,
Speaker 1: we have some groups that are effective and like that
Speaker 1: like you know, Charlie Kirk was amazing at organization, and
Speaker 1: there's a few other ones that are affected. But I
Speaker 1: agree with you that the DSA is destructive. I don't
Speaker 1: know about Bobby Kennedy and Mondannie I. I don't know
Speaker 1: about that answer. And the Libertarian Party, I don't agree
Speaker 1: is like the DSA because I don't think that they
Speaker 1: are nearly as organized for us. Anyway, that's some podcasts.
Speaker 1: I hope you like it. I will see you guys
Speaker 1: on Monday. Please stay tuned and please like and subscribe
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, where I get this podcast,
Speaker 1: including our YouTube video. I appreciate you all, Thank you,
Speaker 1: and have a great weekend.