Podcasts about north american college

In the interview segment of Vatican Insider on this first weekend of June 2024, I reprise an earlier conversation with Fr. David Hulshof, director of Apostolic Formation at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. This weekend is Part II. Part I aired last weekend There are a number of apostolates that are mandatory for all seminarians during their formation years such as working with the poor and homeless, with refugees, visiting patients in hospitals, being a guide in St. Peter's Basilica and working in an Italian parish. Fr. David explains the apostolates offered at NAC, and you will revel in his passion and joy for the priesthood, the apostolates and especially for the current class of seminarians. And you will feel very positive about the future pastors of the Church in America! As the website of the North American College notes about these apostolates: In each of the five parishes, seminarians are teaching religious education, preparing children for the sacraments of the church, assisting at Mass, and some opportunities for preaching. St. Galla is an Italian speaking parish, St. Maria in Monserrato is the Spanish speaking parish, and St. Patrick's is the English language parish. Seminarians bring comfort to the elderly, sick and poor at four locations in the Eternal City. They serve in soup kitchens and visit with the poor on the streets. Others minister in a local prison and at a refugee center. Our men also evangelize by leading tours with pilgrims to St. Peter's Basilica and St. Paul's Outside the Walls. They assist the USCCB Visitor's Office in Rome and offer Scavi tours of the excavations beneath St. Peter's.

In the interview segment of Vatican Insider on this first weekend of June 2024, I reprise an earlier conversation with Fr. David Hulshof, director of Apostolic Formation at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. This weekend is Part II. Part I aired last weekend There are a number of apostolates that are mandatory for all seminarians during their formation years such as working with the poor and homeless, with refugees, visiting patients in hospitals, being a guide in St. Peter's Basilica and working in an Italian parish. Fr. David explains the apostolates offered at NAC, and you will revel in his passion and joy for the priesthood, the apostolates and especially for the current class of seminarians. And you will feel very positive about the future pastors of the Church in America! As the website of the North American College notes about these apostolates: In each of the five parishes, seminarians are teaching religious education, preparing children for the sacraments of the church, assisting at Mass, and some opportunities for preaching. St. Galla is an Italian speaking parish, St. Maria in Monserrato is the Spanish speaking parish, and St. Patrick's is the English language parish. Seminarians bring comfort to the elderly, sick and poor at four locations in the Eternal City. They serve in soup kitchens and visit with the poor on the streets. Others minister in a local prison and at a refugee center. Our men also evangelize by leading tours with pilgrims to St. Peter's Basilica and St. Paul's Outside the Walls. They assist the USCCB Visitor's Office in Rome and offer Scavi tours of the excavations beneath St. Peter's.

John 17:6-19 7th Sunday of Easter Ascension Mosaic, North American College in Rome. Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.

What are the special ways students at North American College experience Lent while in Rome? Deacon Justin Eschevaria tells us about his busy schedule during Lent.Subscribe to the Morning Blend on your favorite podcast platform.Find this show on the free Hail Mary Media App, along with a radio live-stream, prayers, news, and more.Look through past episodes or support this podcast.The Morning Blend is a production of Mater Dei Radio in Portland, Oregon.

Catholic priest and exorcist Fr. Vincent Lampert joins Tim to talk about his work as an exorcist, and we separate myth and fiction from reality. In 2005, Fr. Lampert was assigned to serve as an exorcist from his base in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. At the time, there were only 12 priests in America who were exorcists. Now, there are over 100.  https://traffic.libsyn.com/forcedn/shapingopinion/American_Exorcist_auphonic.mp3 You may not need anyone to explain to you what an exorcist is supposed to do. If you've watched certain movies or documentaries or read articles and books on the topic, it is pretty self-evident. Exorcists work to drive demons out of people. Not figurative demons but real ones. Now, the very idea of what I just said will put people into two camps. Those who believe demons are real, and those who believe demons are the stuff of Hollywood and fiction. Campfire stories. Tall tales. As with other episodes we've done on sensitive topics, nothing we say here is designed to change how you feel about the subject at hand. But we will seek a greater understanding of the issue from someone who is on the front lines. Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel Buechlein appointed Fr. Lampert to his ministry as an exorcist 18 years ago. To fulfill his responsibilities, he trained at the North American College in Rome and assisted with more than 40 exorcisms with longtime Italian exorcist Father Carmine De Filippi. While Fr. Lampert is based in Indiana, he travels around the globe, waging war against the devil himself. Links Fr. Lampert Bio (parish website) Exorcism: The Battle Between Satan and his Demons, by Fr. Vincent Lampert (Amazon) The World of the Occult, by Fr. Vincent Lampert (St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology) For Halloween, We Spoke with a Real-life Exorcist, The Georgetowner About this Episode's Guest Fr. Vincent Lampert Fr. Vincent P. Lampert is the Pastor of St. Michael and St. Peter Parishes in Brookville, Indiana. In 2005 he was appointed the Exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. He received his training in Rome and is a member of the International Association of Exorcists. He is the author of Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons.

Published: September 19, 2021 In December 2020, Dan Cellucci, CEO of the Catholic Leadership Institute, offered a compelling talk entitled “What If They Don't Come Back?” What if Catholics who have been away during this pandemic simply do not return to Mass after the restrictions have been lifted? Dan's predictions and the data collected by the Catholic Leadership Institute were correct. There is a growing apathy in our Church about the sacraments and returning to Mass and many parishioners have simply not returned. Dan's talk becomes the discussion starter for today's podcast. Dan offers ideas for identifying the issues and simple strategies to welcome and engage parishioners. The question we will tackle today is, “How Do We Bring them Back?” Changing Our World‘s Jim Friend hosts Dan for this compelling and informative discussion. About Dan Cellucci Dan Cellucci is CEO of Catholic Leadership Institute, an apostolate providing leadership training and consulting to more than 250 bishops, 3,500 priests, and over 25,000 deacons, religious and lay leaders in more than 100 dioceses. Prior to his election as CEO, Dan served as Senior Vice President for Catholic Leadership Institute, working as the primary liaison with bishops and overseeing the apostolate's marketing and services. Dan is a sought-after advisor, consultant, and presenter for the Church, playing a lead role in projects in the Archdioceses of Miami and Boston as well as the Diocese of Pittsburgh and at the North American College.Dan oversees research associated with Catholic Leadership Institute's Disciple Maker Index, a parish survey tool that seeks to help pastors and pastoral leaders focus their efforts toward evangelization. In just five short years, the Disciple Maker Index has reached over 400 parishes and 100,000 Catholics. Working with this incredible data and more than 25 years of field experience, Dan and the team have recently embarked on an ambitious plan to define what the Next Generation Parish looks like in the next ten years. Dan and his wife Tricia are the proud parents of four children and live in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Watch the video presentation of this discussion https://youtu.be/r89sGfzHaQo Recorded September 10, 2021 Don't miss Changing Our World's FORGING FORWARDDon't miss the webinar series FORGING FORWARD, a virtual philanthropic conference designed to bring you nonprofit experts from around the country who are leading through the COVID-19 crisis. Daily Spiritual Reflection and Prayers on “Kristin's Crosses” Join Jim and Kristin Friend and their family on Kristin's Crosses YouTube Channel for “Today's Catholic Prayers.” Jim and Kristin offer the daily Gospel and Reflection along with the Rosary and Catholic Prayers of the day. Click here to visit the YouTube Page and subscribe. If you would like to join the Kristin's Crosses prayer group on Facebook, click here to request to join.

This lecture was given at the Catholic University of America on May 16, 2023 as part of the Thomistic Institute symposium titled "Toward a Fundamental Theology of the Priesthood." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Father Carter Griffin is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. Raised Presbyterian, he converted to Catholicism while attending Princeton University. After graduating in 1994, he served for four years as a line officer in the United States Navy prior to entering the seminary. He attended Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland for two years of philosophy followed by the North American College in Rome for five years of theology. Father Griffin was ordained to the priesthood in 2004 and served as priest-secretary for three years before beginning doctoral studies in Rome in 2008. After completing his doctorate and serving as the parochial vicar of St. Peter's parish on Capitol Hill, in 2011 he was appointed Director of Priest Vocations for the Archdiocese of Washington and Vice-Rector of St. John Paul II Seminary, where he now serves as Rector. He is the author of Why Celibacy: Reclaiming the Fatherhood of the Priest, published in 2019 by Emmaus Road.

Father Michael Pratt is the current Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Tulsa and is the incoming Vice Rector of the North American College seminary in Rome. Father Pratt is a native of Stillwater, Oklahoma and attended Oklahoma State University. Halfway through college, he began discerning a call to the priesthood. He enrolled in the Seminary of St. John Vianney in Minnesota. He continued his post-secondary education at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., where he obtained a degree in philosophy. After graduation, Fr. Pratt to Rome to continue priestly studies for the next five years. There he earned a bachelor's degree in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas and a licentiate degree in theology from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Studies. Father Pratt developed a groundbreaking video series to help young men and women discern a call to religious life. This summer, he will become the Vice Rector of the prestigious North American College in Rome.

Platform Sports Management Founder Amrit Rai on their scholarship programme for young New Zealand athletes including tennis player so they can enter the North American College system and the pathways that opens up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guests this week in the interview segment of Vatican Insider are two of my dearest friends, two priests, two brothers, native Chicagoans, who were both in Rome at the same time: Msgr. Michael Boland, a consultant to Catholic Charities USA following 30 magnificent years as head of Catholic Charities in the archdiocese of Chicago, and his brother Fr. Jeremiah Boland, pastor of a parish I know and love, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview, Illinois. Fr. Jerry, a priest for 40 years, was in Rome on sabbatical at the North American College's Institute of Continuing Theological Education at the same time that Msgr. Michael, a priest for 35 years, had to attend some meetings. They are two of my most cherished friends and, as I note in our conversation, there are two things that bind us in friendship: celebration of Mass and meals! I know you will hear that friendship when we talk!

My guests this week in the interview segment of Vatican Insider are two of my dearest friends, two priests, two brothers, native Chicagoans, who were both in Rome at the same time: Msgr. Michael Boland, a consultant to Catholic Charities USA following 30 magnificent years as head of Catholic Charities in the archdiocese of Chicago, and his brother Fr. Jeremiah Boland, pastor of a parish I know and love, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview, Illinois. Fr. Jerry, a priest for 40 years, was in Rome on sabbatical at the North American College's Institute of Continuing Theological Education at the same time that Msgr. Michael, a priest for 35 years, had to attend some meetings. They are two of my most cherished friends and, as I note in our conversation, there are two things that bind us in friendship: celebration of Mass and meals! I know you will hear that friendship when we talk!

My guests this week in the interview segment of Vatican Insider are two of my dearest friends, two priests, two brothers, native Chicagoans, who were both in Rome at the same time: Msgr. Michael Boland, a consultant to Catholic Charities USA following 30 magnificent years as head of Catholic Charities in the archdiocese of Chicago, and his brother Fr. Jeremiah Boland, pastor of a parish I know and love, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview, Illinois. Fr. Jerry, a priest for 40 years, was in Rome on sabbatical at the North American College's Institute of Continuing Theological Education at the same time that Msgr. Michael, a priest for 35 years, had to attend some meetings. They are two of my most cherished friends and, as I note in our conversation, there are two things that bind us in friendship: celebration of Mass and meals! I know you will hear that friendship when we talk!

On "EWTN News Nightly" tonight: President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited Florida today, where just last week Hurricane Ian slammed the Sunshine State with immense ferocity. They saw up close the devastation and human suffering the giant storm and its 150 mile an hour winds left behind, while bringing with them the promise of rebuilding. Meanwhile, the public comments period ended earlier this week for a Biden Administration proposal that could force doctors to perform transition surgeries and abortions. President of the Catholic Health Care Leadership Association, Doctor Steven White, joins to tell us what this proposal says and why there is concern among pro-life and Catholic doctors and hospitals. And California's governor recently signed a dozen pro-abortion and gender related measures into law. Many pro-lifers say the new laws are illegal. Executive Director of Heritage Action for America, Jessica Anderson, joins to tell us more about these 12 new laws and which ones concern her the most. Finally this evening, twenty-three men from the North American College in Rome have been ordained to the diaconate in Saint Peter's Basilica. Deacon Daniel Sessions from the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama and Chairman of the Diaconate Planning Committee, joins to tell us more about the ordination and what it was like for him. Don't miss out on the latest news and analysis from a Catholic perspective. Get EWTN News Nightly delivered to your email: https://ewtn.com/enn

On this episode, Julia and Gino interview Father Leo Patalinghug. Born in the Philippines and raised in the Baltimore area, Fr. Leo actually developed his love for cooking while attending the seminary at the North American College in Rome. There, he became friendly with several Italian restaurant owners and would often invite them back to the student kitchen to trade cooking secrets. They would teach him about rigatoni and lasagna; he would show them how to make hamburgers and ribs. Today, he is a skilled cook who still enjoys learning how to make new dishes, and loves the process of preparing a meal, as much as he does sharing it with a table full of friends. Fr. Leo is the host and founder of Grace Before Meals, an apostolate to strengthen families and communities around the dinner table. He is a priest ordained for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, serving as a sacramental and pastoral minister on a part-time basis. Key Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 03:12 Elevating culture and family life with Plating Grace 07:44 Choosing vocation 10:30 Books authored by Father Leo 15:24 How eating can make you holy? 19:51 How to get people around dinner table and share ideas 27:22 How to handle emotions when conversations get heated 30:15 Wrap-up To know more about Father Leo Patalinghug, visit https://platinggrace.com/ In real estate, your network is your net worth, attend our Live Events and network with the fellow investors and professionals: https://jakeandgino.com/live-events/ About Jake & Gino Jake & Gino are multifamily investors, operators, and mentors who have created a vertically integrated real estate company that controls over $225,000,000 in assets under management. They have created the Jake & Gino community to teach others their three-step framework: Buy Right, Finance Right and Manage Right®, and to become multifamily entrepreneurs. Subscribe to this channel: https://ytube.io/3McA Sign up for free training: https://jakeandgino.mykajabi.com/freetraining The resources you need to succeed at every level of apartment investing: https://jakeandgino.com/resources/ Apply for Mentorship: https://jakeandgino.com/apply/ #realestate #multifamilyrealestate #multifamilyinvesting #investing #apartmentinvesting Jake & Gino Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jakeandgino/ Jake & Gino Twitter: https://twitter.com/JakeandGino Jake & Gino Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jake-and-gino-llc/ Jake & Gino Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jakeandgino/ More ways to engage with the Jake & Gino Investor Community: MM5: https://jakeandgino.com/mm5/ Rand Cares: https://jakeandgino.com/randcares/ The 100 Year Real Estate Investor: https://www.dualassetstrategy.com

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Monsignor James Shea, Steve Ray, and Marcellino D'Ambrosio on one episode http://www.patreon.com/thecatholicmanshow (Become a Patron! Over 40 interviews, a course with Karlo Broussard, a 10 part series on the domestic church, a course on fitness and virtue by Pat Flynn, and free thank you gifts for supporting the show!) https://selectinternationaltours.com/catholicmanshow/ () WE ARE PLANNING A TRIP TO IRELAND FOR 2022! WANT TO GO WITH US? WE ARE FINALIZING THE DETAILS. TO STAY UP-TO-DATE,  https://selectinternationaltours.com/catholicmanshow/ (Click here) About our drink: N/A About our gear: N/A About the Topic: These were originally scheduled for just our patrons, but we decided to combine the interviews and turn them into a podcast! About Msgr. James Shea Monsignor Shea was inaugurated in 2009 as the sixth president of the university and, at the age of 34, became the youngest college or university president in the United States. The oldest of eight children, Monsignor Shea grew up on a dairy and grain farm near Hazelton, North Dakota, just 38 miles from the University of Mary campus. He began his undergraduate work at Jamestown College, majoring in English and history. He then entered the seminary for the Diocese of Bismarck, earning a bachelor's degree and a pontifical master's degree (licentiate) in philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He studied classical Greek at the University of Texas at Austin and continued at the Vatican's North American College, studying theology at the Gregorian and Lateran universities in Rome. He has studied management at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business and is also an alumnus of the Institutes for Higher Education at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University. Monsignor Shea has worked with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity at the Gift of Peace AIDS Hospice while teaching religion at two inner-city elementary schools in Washington, D.C. In Rome, he served as chaplain for the Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital and also at the Rome campus of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of Saint Thomas. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 2002, he returned to North Dakota and served as an associate pastor in Bismarck and Mandan. During that time, he was also the chaplain and an instructor at Saint Mary's Central High School in Bismarck. He then served as pastor to parishes in Killdeer and Halliday (North Dakota), while teaching at Trinity High School in Dickinson. Deeply committed to the education and formation of young people, he has been an inspirational teacher and mentor for many students. About Steve Ray Steve Ray is a convert to the Catholic Church and the author of three best-selling Ignatius Press books (Crossing the Tiber, Upon this Rock, and St. John's Gospel). He speaks at conferences around the world.  He is a regular guest on The Journey Home and has appeared on many other radio and TV programs, including Fox News. He is writer, producer and host of the 10-part video/DVD series The Footprints of God: the Story of Salvation from Abraham to Augustine filmed entirely on location in the Holy Land and surrounding countries. Steve and his wife Janet and are certified guides to the Holy Land and lead pilgrimages throughout the Middle East and Rome. He and Janet live in Michigan. About Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio aka "Dr. Italy" Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio, also know as “Dr. Italy,” holds an MA and PhD in historical theology from Catholic University of America and is known for delivering profound Catholic truths in understandable and relevant terms.  In addition to teaching for CDU, Dr. D'Ambrosio is a professor at the International Catholic University. He has also taught pastoral theology at Ave Maria University and various theology courses at the University of Dallas and Loyola College in Baltimore. Dr. D'Ambrosio is the director of Crossroads

Jesus calls each of us into his arms of mercy and forgiveness. How you can not just image this, but experience it!   (Remember Your Love - Dameans, recording from the Contemporary Music Group from the North American College, Rome  1981 - Fr Steve on piano) 

Dina Marie with Seminarians Justin Echevarria and Brent Durschmidt: Traveling with our Shepherd! Join us as two seminarians studying in Rome at the North American College reflect upon their recent pilgrimage to Ireland with Archbishop Sample and their hopes as they continue preparation for the priesthood.  https://the-morning-blend.captivate.fm/ (Subscribe to the Morning Blend) on your favorite podcast platform. Find this show on the free https://materdeiradio.com/hail-mary-media-app/ (Hail Mary Media App), along with a radio live-stream, prayers, news, and more. Look through https://materdeiradio.com/category/morning-drive/ (past episodes) or https://forms.ministryforms.net/viewForm.aspx?formId=f861df13-50f6-4182-8712-b794ec287dfb (support this podcast). The Morning Blend is a production of https://materdeiradio.com/ (Mater Dei Radio) in Portland, Oregon.

Dina Marie with Seminarian Justin Echevarria: A Seminarian's Lenten Journey. Join us as Seminarian Justin Echevarria talks about what it is like to study at the North American College in Rome and how he is approaching the Lenten journey as he anticipates diaconate ordination in September. (Air anytime between March 9-12) For more http://www.archdpdxvocations.org/ (www.archdpdxvocations.org) and https://archdpdxvocations.org/our-seminarians/ (https://archdpdxvocations.org/our-seminarians/) https://the-morning-blend.captivate.fm/ (Subscribe to the Morning Blend) on your favorite podcast platform. Find this show on the free https://materdeiradio.com/hail-mary-media-app/ (Hail Mary Media App), along with a radio live-stream, prayers, news, and more. Look through https://materdeiradio.com/category/morning-drive/ (past episodes) or https://forms.ministryforms.net/viewForm.aspx?formId=f861df13-50f6-4182-8712-b794ec287dfb (support this podcast). The Morning Blend is a production of https://materdeiradio.com/ (Mater Dei Radio) in Portland, Oregon.

Dina Marie with Seminarian Brent Durschmidt: A Seminarian update from Rome. Join us as Seminarian Brent Durschmidt shares some insights of the Lenten journey while living in Rome at the North American College. Brent speaks about going to the Station Churches daily and the ancient churches he and his fellow seminarians are exploring during their time in Rome. (Air anytime between March 9-12) For more http://www.archdpdxvocations.org/ (www.archdpdxvocations.org) and https://archdpdxvocations.org/our-seminarians/ (https://archdpdxvocations.org/our-seminarians/) https://the-morning-blend.captivate.fm/ (Subscribe to the Morning Blend) on your favorite podcast platform. Find this show on the free https://materdeiradio.com/hail-mary-media-app/ (Hail Mary Media App), along with a radio live-stream, prayers, news, and more. Look through https://materdeiradio.com/category/morning-drive/ (past episodes) or https://forms.ministryforms.net/viewForm.aspx?formId=f861df13-50f6-4182-8712-b794ec287dfb (support this podcast). The Morning Blend is a production of https://materdeiradio.com/ (Mater Dei Radio) in Portland, Oregon.

Going to church is more than just another activity to fit into our calendars, it is the roots that lead us to the flowing waters of Christ.  (The Dameans: The Beatitudes. Contemporary Music Ministry at North American College in Rome, 1981. Fr. Steve on piano- again sorry for the "cassette quality!) 

The North American College of Pharmaceutical Technology has expressed interest in operating a training facility in Kahnawake. In this episode of the Iorì:wase Front Page Podcast, we talk to Tewatohnhi'saktha Executive Director Neil McComber and NACPT President Rathi Param about NACPT training programs, as well as a survey to gather community feedback on the idea.  

A daily news briefing from Catholic News Agency, powered by artificial intelligence. Ask your smart speaker to play “Catholic News,” or listen every morning wherever you get podcasts. www.catholicnewsagency.com - All Masses in the Extraordinary form will be permanently suspended at the North American College, the most important American Catholic institution in Rome. The college will also no longer teach the Extraordinary Form to seminarians. The rector of the college said the decision is in line with the pope's new regulations on the traditional liturgy. The Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon has said its Catholic schools will comply with a statewide vaccine mandate for school administrators. Oregon has mandated that all school teachers, staff and volunteers become fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by mid-October. The archdiocese said individual Catholics are free to seek religious exemptions, but clergy are not to write any letters supporting such exemptions. The pope will reportedly visit Cyprus in December. A local official told the Associated Press the visit will take place December 2-3. The Vatican has not confirmed the trip. The pope did express interest in visiting Cyprus in an interview broadcast today. Cyprus has a population of about 875,000 people, including approximately 10,000 Catholics. In his general audience Wednesday, Pope Francis said Catholics must reflect on how they live their faith. He said Christ must be at the center of everything in life. The pope warned that otherwise the faith can be reduced to mere formalities. Pope Francis based his reflections on a passage from Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians. In the passage, Saint Paul berates the Galatians for becoming distracted from the truth of the crucified Christ. Today is the feast of Saint Beatrice da Silva Meneses. The Portuguese saint abandoned her noble background in the mid-15th century to enter the convent, and eventually started a new religious order.

"I think what's most important [in prayer] is time with the Lord, a heart-to-heart with Jesus." Most Reverend Robert Gruss is the Bishop for the Diocese of Saginaw, in Michigan. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Davenport in 1994 and in 2011 was consecrated Bishop of Rapid City. Bishop Gruss attended Madison Area Technical College, in Madison, Wisconsin, and Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was a corporate pilot and flight instructor from 1980-1989 before entering seminary. He pursued seminary studies at St. Ambrose University, in Davenport 1989-1990; at North American College, Rome, 1990-1994; and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum, in Rome. He additionally earned a Master of Arts degree in Spiritual Theology at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in 1994. In 1999, he completed studies at the Institute of Priestly Formation (IPF) with an emphasis on Spiritual Direction training.

Justin Echevarria stopped by our office this week to give us an update on his studies at the North American College in Rome. Continued prayers for as you and your classmates prepare to go back for the new academic year. Support the show (http://stceciliachurch.org/donate)

Dan & Justin interview Dan Cellucci, CEO of Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI), an apostolate providing leadership training and consulting to more than 250 bishops, 3,500 priests, and over 25,000 deacons, religious and lay leaders in more than 100 dioceses. Hear about what makes CLI's approach unique, the impact it's had on the church, and Dan's personal story of discipleship and following Jesus. More on CLI at https://www.catholicleaders.org.Prior to his election as CEO, Dan served as Senior Vice President for Catholic Leadership Institute, working as the primary liaison with bishops and overseeing the apostolate’s marketing and services. Dan is a sought-after advisor, consultant, and presenter for the Church, playing a lead role in projects in the Archdioceses of Miami and Boston as well as the Diocese of Pittsburgh and at the North American College.Dan oversees research associated with Catholic Leadership Institute's Disciple Maker Index, a parish survey tool that seeks to help pastors and pastoral leaders focus their efforts toward evangelization. In just five short years, the Disciple Maker Index has reached over 400 parishes and 100,000 Catholics. Working with this incredible data and more than 25 years of field experience, Dan and the team have recently embarked on an ambitious plan to define what the Next Generation Parish looks like in the next 10 years.Dan and his wife Tricia are the proud parents of four children and live in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Fr. John Paul Kimes is an Associate Professor of the Practice at Notre Dame Law School and the Raymond of Peñafort Fellow in Canon Law at the de Nicola Center. After his undergraduate studies at Notre Dame, he studied for the priesthood at the North American College in Rome, where he earned his Licentiate in Canon Law and was ordained in 2000 for the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles. He subsequently earned his Doctorate in Canon Law and served for 11 years at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Special Guest: Fr. John Paul Kimes.

The Richard Spasoff Show Ep 74 is a unique blend of paranormal, spirituality and comedy.With Guest: Wolfman Jesse James Hale III (christian catholic prayer warrior i believe in forgiveness) and Jason Faust Founder and lead investigator for Heartland Paranormal. Father Rutler was ordained to the diaconate in Rome by His Eminence William Cardinal Baum in 1980 and received priestly ordination in St. Patrick's Cathedral at the hands of His Eminence Terence Cardinal Cooke in 1981. He served as Associate Pastor of St. Joseph's in Bronxville; Our Lady of Victory in the Wall Street area; and St. Agnes, in Manhattan. He was a university chaplain for the Archdiocese, and also chaplain to a general hospital and a psychiatric hospital. For ten years he was also National Chaplain of Legatus, the organization of Catholic business leaders and their families, engaged in spiritual formation and evangelization. A board member of several schools and colleges, he is Chaplain of the New York Guild of Catholic Lawyers, Regional Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary (New York and northern New Jersey) and has long been associated with the Missionaries of Charity, and other religious orders, as a retreat master. Since 1988 his weekly television program has been broadcast worldwide on EWTN. Father Rutler has lectured and given retreats in many nations, frequently in Ireland and Australia. Cardinal Egan appointed him Pastor of the Church of Our Saviour, effective September 17, 2001, and Cardinal Dolan appointed him pastor of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in 2013.Born in 1945 and reared in the Episcopal tradition in New Jersey and New York, Father Rutler was an Episcopal priest for nine years, and the youngest Episcopal rector in the country when he headed the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1979 and was sent to the North American College in Rome for seminary studies. His parents, Adolphe and Dorothy, both now deceased, were received into the Church in 1982 by Cardinal Cooke. Father Rutler graduated from Dartmouth, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar, and took advanced degrees at the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary. He holds several degrees from the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, including the Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. In England, in 1988, the University of Oxford awarded him the degree Master of Studies. From 1987 to 1988 he was regular preacher to the students, faculty, and townspeople of Oxford. Thomas More College and Christendom College awarded himhonorary doctorates, and in 1996 Governor George W. Bush made him an Honorary Texan. For his help at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 he was honored by the City Council of New York and was made an honorary firefighter by the City of Dallas. He is a knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and chaplain of the St. Andrew's Society of the State of New York, the Robert Burns Society of the City of New York, and the West Point Society of New York.Father Rutler has made documentary films in the United States and England, contributes to numerous scholarly and popular journals and has published 31 (and counting) books on theology, history, cultural issues, and the lives of the saints, and also one book on sports, as a member of the U.S. Squash Racquets Association.oin Psychic Medium and Comedian Richard Spasoff as he welcomes guests to discuss their personal experiences with the paranormal and journeys in spirituality. Everything from ghosts and profound truth, to celebrity interviews and more can all be found in every episode of the Richard Spasoff Show.The Richard Spasoff Show is a proud member of the HC Universal Network family of podcasts. Download the FREE HC Universal Network app for Android and iDevices or visit our LISTEN LIVE page and join the...

The Richard Spasoff Show Ep 74 is a unique blend of paranormal, spirituality and comedy.With Guest: Wolfman Jesse James Hale III (christian catholic prayer warrior i believe in forgiveness) and Jason Faust Founder and lead investigator for Heartland Paranormal. Father Rutler was ordained to the diaconate in Rome by His Eminence William Cardinal Baum in 1980 and received priestly ordination in St. Patrick's Cathedral at the hands of His Eminence Terence Cardinal Cooke in 1981. He served as Associate Pastor of St. Joseph's in Bronxville; Our Lady of Victory in the Wall Street area; and St. Agnes, in Manhattan. He was a university chaplain for the Archdiocese, and also chaplain to a general hospital and a psychiatric hospital. For ten years he was also National Chaplain of Legatus, the organization of Catholic business leaders and their families, engaged in spiritual formation and evangelization. A board member of several schools and colleges, he is Chaplain of the New York Guild of Catholic Lawyers, Regional Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary (New York and northern New Jersey) and has long been associated with the Missionaries of Charity, and other religious orders, as a retreat master. Since 1988 his weekly television program has been broadcast worldwide on EWTN. Father Rutler has lectured and given retreats in many nations, frequently in Ireland and Australia. Cardinal Egan appointed him Pastor of the Church of Our Saviour, effective September 17, 2001, and Cardinal Dolan appointed him pastor of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in 2013.Born in 1945 and reared in the Episcopal tradition in New Jersey and New York, Father Rutler was an Episcopal priest for nine years, and the youngest Episcopal rector in the country when he headed the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1979 and was sent to the North American College in Rome for seminary studies. His parents, Adolphe and Dorothy, both now deceased, were received into the Church in 1982 by Cardinal Cooke. Father Rutler graduated from Dartmouth, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar, and took advanced degrees at the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary. He holds several degrees from the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, including the Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. In England, in 1988, the University of Oxford awarded him the degree Master of Studies. From 1987 to 1988 he was regular preacher to the students, faculty, and townspeople of Oxford. Thomas More College and Christendom College awarded himhonorary doctorates, and in 1996 Governor George W. Bush made him an Honorary Texan. For his help at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 he was honored by the City Council of New York and was made an honorary firefighter by the City of Dallas. He is a knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and chaplain of the St. Andrew's Society of the State of New York, the Robert Burns Society of the City of New York, and the West Point Society of New York.Father Rutler has made documentary films in the United States and England, contributes to numerous scholarly and popular journals and has published 31 (and counting) books on theology, history, cultural issues, and the lives of the saints, and also one book on sports, as a member of the U.S. Squash Racquets Association.oin Psychic Medium and Comedian Richard Spasoff as he welcomes guests to discuss their personal experiences with the paranormal and journeys in spirituality. Everything from ghosts and profound truth, to celebrity interviews and more can all be found in every episode of the Richard Spasoff Show.The Richard Spasoff Show is a proud member of the HC Universal Network family of podcasts. Download the FREE HC Universal Network app for Android and iDevices or visit our LISTEN LIVE page and join the...

The Richard Spasoff Show Ep 74 is a unique blend of paranormal, spirituality and comedy.With Guest: Wolfman Jesse James Hale III (christian catholic prayer warrior i believe in forgiveness) and Jason Faust Founder and lead investigator for Heartland Paranormal. Father Rutler was ordained to the diaconate in Rome by His Eminence William Cardinal Baum in 1980 and received priestly ordination in St. Patrick's Cathedral at the hands of His Eminence Terence Cardinal Cooke in 1981. He served as Associate Pastor of St. Joseph's in Bronxville; Our Lady of Victory in the Wall Street area; and St. Agnes, in Manhattan. He was a university chaplain for the Archdiocese, and also chaplain to a general hospital and a psychiatric hospital. For ten years he was also National Chaplain of Legatus, the organization of Catholic business leaders and their families, engaged in spiritual formation and evangelization. A board member of several schools and colleges, he is Chaplain of the New York Guild of Catholic Lawyers, Regional Spiritual Director of the Legion of Mary (New York and northern New Jersey) and has long been associated with the Missionaries of Charity, and other religious orders, as a retreat master. Since 1988 his weekly television program has been broadcast worldwide on EWTN. Father Rutler has lectured and given retreats in many nations, frequently in Ireland and Australia. Cardinal Egan appointed him Pastor of the Church of Our Saviour, effective September 17, 2001, and Cardinal Dolan appointed him pastor of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in 2013.Born in 1945 and reared in the Episcopal tradition in New Jersey and New York, Father Rutler was an Episcopal priest for nine years, and the youngest Episcopal rector in the country when he headed the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1979 and was sent to the North American College in Rome for seminary studies. His parents, Adolphe and Dorothy, both now deceased, were received into the Church in 1982 by Cardinal Cooke. Father Rutler graduated from Dartmouth, where he was a Rufus Choate Scholar, and took advanced degrees at the Johns Hopkins University and the General Theological Seminary. He holds several degrees from the Gregorian and Angelicum Universities in Rome, including the Pontifical Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris. In England, in 1988, the University of Oxford awarded him the degree Master of Studies. From 1987 to 1988 he was regular preacher to the students, faculty, and townspeople of Oxford. Thomas More College and Christendom College awarded himhonorary doctorates, and in 1996 Governor George W. Bush made him an Honorary Texan. For his help at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 he was honored by the City Council of New York and was made an honorary firefighter by the City of Dallas. He is a knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and chaplain of the St. Andrew's Society of the State of New York, the Robert Burns Society of the City of New York, and the West Point Society of New York.Father Rutler has made documentary films in the United States and England, contributes to numerous scholarly and popular journals and has published 31 (and counting) books on theology, history, cultural issues, and the lives of the saints, and also one book on sports, as a member of the U.S. Squash Racquets Association.oin Psychic Medium and Comedian Richard Spasoff as he welcomes guests to discuss their personal experiences with the paranormal and journeys in spirituality. Everything from ghosts and profound truth, to celebrity interviews and more can all be found in every episode of the Richard Spasoff Show.The Richard Spasoff Show is a proud member of the HC Universal Network family of podcasts. Download the FREE HC Universal Network app for Android and iDevices or visit our LISTEN LIVE page and join the...

As Italy’s death toll rises and Catholics worldwide find their access to churches and the sacraments limited, the Vatican has taken two initiatives to grant the faithful forgiveness of their sins. One measure from the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican’s “tribunal of mercy,” grants an indulgence specially for those who are suffering from the coronavirus and anyone who cares for them, even simply through prayer. A second decree also allows for priests to absolve sins without hearing one-on-one confessions in certain grave cases. On this episode of “Inside the Vatican,” Rome correspondent Gerard O’Connell and producer Colleen Dulle unpack these measures along with two worldwide prayer initiatives Pope Francis announced this week. The hosts examine how the pope is using every spiritual and communications tool available to give people around the world a sense of consolation. Colleen also announces that “Inside the Vatican” will provide twice-weekly updates for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. Links from the show: Pope Francis authorizes plenary indulgences and general absolution as coronavirus crisis escalates Pope Francis calls on Christians worldwide to combat coronavirus pandemic with midday prayer on March 25 The North American College in Rome sends seminarians back to the United States

Nick Will, Director of Liturgical Music at the North American College in Rome, joins Bob Waruszewski to discuss chant and the whole treasure of sacred music. In addition, he explains the Saint Gregory Institute of Sacred Music.  

Fr. Chris Seith is a priest in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. He studied at the North American College in Rome and was ordained in 2014. We chatted about the feminine genius from a priestly perspective, particularly how the feminine gift of receptivity supports our priests. Midway in the show, the complementary role of femininity and masculinity was discussed as a great source of healing in the church today. We concluded with Fr. Chris sharing a profound example of sacrifice from his parent's marriage that has shaped his priestly mission in the church today. Very powerful!

Bishop Barron joins Word on Fire Producer, Joseph Gloor, at the North American College in Rome to discuss the Word on Fire Institute, the Word From Rome project, and the Canonization Mass of October 14, 2018.

5 Songs that made some big moves on the NACC 200 September 2017. Playing: Oh Sees, Dent May, Widowspeak, Ted Leo, The Safes. The North American College and Community Chart tabulates weekly airplay from College and Non-Commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. The NACC 200 is the primary chart with several genre specific charts that highlight specific styles.

5 Songs that made some big moves on the NACC 200 August 2017. Playing: Guided By Voices, Great Grandpa, Matt Pond PA, Rainer Maria, and She Sir. The North American College and Community Chart tabulates weekly airplay from College and Non-Commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. The NACC 200 is the primary chart with several genre specific charts that highlight specific styles.

The North American College and Community Chart tabulates weekly airplay from College and Non-Commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. The NACC 200 is the primary chart with several genre specific charts that highlight specific styles.

Featuring: Mass Readings from the Third Monday of Lent On Humility by St. Basil the Great Joe Heschmeyer, Seminarian in Rome at the North American College, talks about Mere Christianity and the Spirit of Docility G.K. Chesterton on Docility

FOOD MEETS FAITH IN THE HOLY LAND A unique pilgrimage experience combining food and faith in the Holy Land is set for February 2014. Jeff Young, "The Catholic Foodie," will lead the trip to Israel together with spiritual director, Fr. Michael Werkhoven of the Diocese of Memphis. The dates for the pilgrimage are February 5-15, 2014. Israel, referred to as the Holy Land, is the place where Jesus walked, talked, ate and drank with his companions over 2000 years ago. Pilgrims will get to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, visiting many of the significant locations of Jesus' life like Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem and Emmaus, celebrating Mass in most of those locations. A Unique Holy Land Pilgrimage Experience Combining Food & Faith Some of the traditional pilgrimage experiences will include: Renewal of marriage vows in Cana of Galilee, the site of Jesus’ first miracle where he turned water into wine Renewal of baptismal promises in the Jordan River Traveling to Nazareth to visit Mary’s Well and the Church of the Annunciation Celebrating Christmas Mass at the Church of the Nativity Traveling to the ancient city of Jericho to see the Mount of Temptation, and later going for a swim in the Dead Sea Visiting Jerusalem and praying the Stations of the Cross on the original Via Dolorosa, then celebrating Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Visiting the Mount of Olives, Mount Zion, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Empty Tomb of the Virgin at the Church of the Assumption In addition to the traditional pilgrimage experiences, pilgrims will also be treated to a deliciously “foodie” buffet of events that will include: Sailing on the Sea of Galilee before touring Kibbuz Kinnert, the famous shop with little dates (and date honey!) harvested on the kibbutz Visiting and touring the Bethlehem Winery, where pilgrims can sample the wine and also purchase bottles to bring home Learning about biblical foods and exploring the fascinating question, “What Would Jesus Eat?” with talks by Jeff Young, The Catholic Foodie Visiting a local family restaurant in Bethlehem where pilgrims will join The Catholic Foodie and local chefs in the preparation of the day’s meal  Sharing a celebratory meal in Bethlehem prepared by Chef Johnny Goric and Jeff Young, The Catholic Foodie, in an open kitchen, and learning about Chefs for Peace, an organization founded by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian chefs whose objective is peace through local cooperation, cooking and breaking bread together Shopping with local chefs in the most famous food market in Israel Attending cooking classes that will highlight Middle Eastern cooking styles Dining at a restaurant that reportedly has the best hummus in Israel (and pilgrims get a copy of the recipe!) Meeting local villagers from Taybeh, the only Catholic Village in the Holy Land, touring the local brewery and, later on, taking a cooking class with Jeff Young, The Catholic Foodie Journeying to Ein Kerem and Emmaus, where Jesus met the disciples on the road after his Resurrection, and enjoying a delicious farewell dinner with your fellow travelers Organized by Select International Tours, this unique once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage experience will put pilgrims in touch with the daily life of Jesus, as well as the locations associated with the main events of his life. Who is Jeff Young, The Catholic Foodie? A former seminarian and educator, Jeff Young is the founder of The Catholic Foodie, an apostolate to strengthen families through food and faith around the family table. Jeff firmly believes that God created us to seek communion – with himself and with others – and one of the primary ways we experience communion is around the table, both the table of the Eucharist at Mass and the family dinner table at home. Jeff notes that, from Genesis to Revelation, food plays an important role in God’s relationship with his people and in our relationship with each other. It’s all about communion. Born and raised in south Louisiana, it is in Jeff's blood to be passionate about both food and faith. With his unique down-home style, he shares recipes, reviews, and culinary inspiration through The Catholic Foodie blog and podcast, and through the weekly Around The Table Food Show on Catholic Community Radio (690AM in New Orleans, and 1380AM in Baton Rouge). He is currently working on a book that celebrates food and faith "around the table." Jeff is also a conference speaker who has spoken on various topics ranging from "growing in faith around the table" to "using social media to reach inactive Catholics." Who is Fr. Michael Werkhoven? Fr. Mike Werkhoven is a priest for the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee.  He is the pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit in east Memphis, and has been a priest for 11 years.  Before entering the seminary in 1994, Fr. Mike was an art major in college and worked many years as a professional artist.  He finished up his undergraduate studies in philosophy at St. Joseph Seminary College in Covington, LA.  Fr. Mike studied for one year in Rome at the North American College before coming back home to finish his studies at Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis, MO.  Besides the Catholic Church, Fr. Mike's two main loves are art and food, and his hobbies are creating both and tying them both into the divine life we share with Christ and our universal call to holiness. Just as there is "sacred art", Fr. Mike believes there is "sacred food" and it all starts with the "holy trinity" of onions, peppers, and celery.  Besides being a pastor, Fr. Mike also serves as the spiritual director for the diocesan SEARCH youth retreat and is the chaplain for "Fishers of Men" of the Diocese of Memphis. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Additional Resources: http://catholicfoodie.com http://catholicfoodie.com/holyland http://www.selectinternationaltours.com http://http://youtu.be/ZcZPVZEqNZY (promo video) Images of Jeff Young and Fr. Michael Werkhoven can be found at http://catholicfoodie.com/journey-to-the-holy-land-with-the-catholic-foodie

Summary of today's show: Cardinal Seán O'Malley started Holy Week with Palm Sunday Mass in which he declared we are all “Ashes and Palms Catholics”. Scot Landry, Fr. Mark O'Connell, and Michael Lavigne reflect on Cardinal Seán's homily and what it means to live the ashes of sacrifice and the palms of victory from Ash Wednesday to Easter and beyond. Cardinal Seán also reflects on the 30th anniversary of the murder of his friend, Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador and the significance of his sacrifice for today. Listen to the show: Watch the show via live video streaming or a recording later: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O'Connell Today's guest(s): Michael Lavigne Today's topics: Palm Sunday reflection on Cardinal Seán's homily 1st segment: Scot welcomed everyone to the show and noted that today begins Holy Week, which is the biggest week of the year. He said to imagine you have one week to live and how would you prepare and live that week? Today we will begin with hearing what Cardinal Seán at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross for Palm Sunday Mass. First, he welcomed Fr. Mark O'Connell to the show, who noted that he celebrated Mass with the cloistered Carmelite sisters in West Roxbury for a nearly two hour Mass. Fr. Mark said he preached two homilies in the Mass, the first on Christ riding into Jerusalem on a colt and the second on the image of Benedict and Francis praying before an icon that evokes John Paul II. He said that he said that John Paul showed us how to die, Benedict showed us how to let go and Francis shows us how to live. He also welcomed Michael Lavigne to the show and asked him what tonight's Catholic Faith Essentials at will be about at 7pm and Michael said it will be about the Easter Vigil and its place in our life of faith. Scot introduced Cardinal Seán's Palm Sunday homily. He started by referencing “A&P Catholics”, i.e. Ashes and Palm Catholics. He encouraged people to become frequent flyers at Sunday Mass because the rewards are out of this world. He noted the importance of the signs of ashes and palms to be signs of conversion and our mortality. He said that St. Luke organizes his whole gospel around a journey, of Jesus to Jerusalem. Scot stopped and spoke to any “A&P Catholics” who are listening to invite them to come home, no matter how long it's been. Fr. Mark said this is an opportunity for those who do go to Mass to practice our faith by evangelizing our neighbor. If we see someone in the church we haven't seen in a while, then say hello. Greet them. How much more likely are they to come back to Mass if they are treated with a smile. Scot compared it to a family reuniting over Easter dinner for the first time in many years. We shouldn't be like the jealous brother of the Prodigal Son if someone takes “our” seat in the pew on Sunday. Michael said people are going to looking for seats on Sunday. The churches will be jam-packed with people who haven't come for a while. He noted how difficult it is for people to find a seat. He encouraged people to slide in their pews, let people know there are seats available and welcome them in. Scot said Cardinal Seán talks of stones in the next section: He talks about the phrase: “The stones would cry out” Hosanna if the disciples did not. This occurred near the Mount of Olives where many Jews are buried and it is Jewish custom to place stones on a grave when visiting them. He talked about stones in the Scripture, like the stones used to kill St. Stephen. The stones might cry out for Jesus or be used to attack. Likewise, the people who were crying Hosanna on Palm Sunday would later either abandon Jesus or themselves be crying out for his death. Scot said as a church of living stones, where called to cry out Hosanna to Jesus as a witness to the world. Fr. Mark said the road of the Christian life is full of joy, but the cross is always at the end of it. He said so many like the triumphal entrance, but a lot of living the life of a Catholic is sacrificial and living the cross that leads to the ultimate joy of heaven. Michael said Pope Francis yesterday offered the three words of joy, the cross, and youth. We need to be people of joy who embrace the cross in our lives and thus we can be a source of hope for people struggling to pick up the cross in their lives. The New Evangelization is one person at a time or one little stone at a time. Scot noted that Cardinal Seán spoke of fair-weather friends of Jesus and we are often fair weather friends, especially when we have other things we'd rather do than be with Christ. Fr. Mark said we've been impressed by the faith and humility of Pope Francis and we have learned that he has not had an easy life in Argentina: politics, struggles within the Church, economics, and more. God calls us to be tested and the reward is peace. The next section of Cardinal Seán's homily concerns St. Peter and his denial of Christ. He said one of the principal tasks of the Petrine ministry is to unite us in faith. Jesus chooses Peter, a simple man, to lead his Church. He chronicles all of Peter's failings and then how he redeemed himself later in life. Scot said if we think we're unworthy or should be unwelcome in the church, all we have to do is think of St. Peter. If Jesus can build the Church on Peter, then there is so much than Jesus can do with us. Fr. Mark recalls Peter walking on water to Christ and how he began to sink when he took his eyes off of Jesus. We start on our faith life full of joy and hope, but then we realize that the life of faith is difficult and a struggle and that's when we could take our eyes off of Jesus. Michael said our faith is a real faith and gritty. God gets in the middle of the muddiness of the world. We often start Lent with great plans, but we can fall off of that plan. The beauty of Lent is getting back up and trying again. Fr. Mark took the opportunity to plug the Scavi tour in Rome. If you visit Rome, make a reservation ahead of time for a tour of the excavations under St. Peter's Basilica, which is an ancient cemetery in which St. Peter was buried. Scot said to go on the on the North American College's website and look for information there. Cardinal Seán then continued in talking about the election of Pope Francis. He talked about St. Francis of Assisi as a man of peace and a man who loved the poor. Scot said Cardinal Seán is moved by the choice of the name of Francis and how he has focused on calling us to serve the poor and live as brothers and sisters in Christ. Scot has been thinking more about how he should be doing more to serve the poor. Fr. Mark talked about Pope Francis celebrating Mass for the cleaners and gardeners in the Vatican in the other day and one of them said, “We are invisible, but he saw us.” We are called to seek out the invisible. Michael said we have to stop every once in a while, turn everything else, allow God to transform and convert us, in order to see the invisible around us. Scot said Cardinal Seán reflects on how the Spanish-speaking New World is giving the world its new pope. Scot noted that more than 50 percent of Catholics under the age of 25 in the US comes from a Spanish-speaking household or from a Spanish-speaking country. That indicates that God has a plan related to this fact. Cardinal Seán continued by speaking of ashes and palms. Ashes of repentance and palms of victory. Martyrs are depicted as carrying palms. Martyrs are witnesses to Jesus. He noted that yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, El Salvador, for opposing violence. His funeral was celebrated on Palm Sunday in the largest gathering ever in that country's history. The army opened fire on the crowd and people ran and all that was left behind in the plaza were shoes, sandals, and palm branches. Cardinal Seán also noted that today's palms will be burned for next year's ashes. We are on a journey always returning to the beginning. We can always start again. We relive the sacrifice of Calvary and we relive the joy of Easter, Jesus' victory over death. Scot talked about Cardinal Seán's emotion over the death of his friend, Romero. Fr. Mark said the movie “Romero” is incredibly powerful and especially at this time of year. Scot said Cardinal Seán tied that into Holy Week as we read of betrayal and faithfulness and as we come forward to venerate the cross. We call it Good Friday because, despite the death of Christ, Jesus proved how much He loves us and saved us. We may not be called to “red” martyrdom of death, but always to the “white” martyrdom of ridicule and rejection. Michael said he has distinct memories from childhood of the house on Good Friday to be completely silent. They would be called to reflect upon the gift of Christ on the cross out of love for all of us. Scot reflected on the many Christians around the world who today suffer red martyrdom for their faith. Fr. Mark said in his office there is a picture of a woman holding a palm branch and while he doesn't know her name, he knows she's a martyr because of that symbol. He added that Peter denied Christ, but that was before Pentecost, while after Pentecost, he did not deny Christ. We are all Pentecost Catholics. Scot noted Cardinal Seán said we should be recommitted to knowing our faith so we can be witnesses and evangelizers joyfully sharing our faith with those who do not know it. It's up to all of us to be the inviters, evangelizers, witnesses, those who joyfully welcome our brothers and sisters back to the Sunday liturgy. Michael said we must bring the Good News joyfully to others and preach truth with charity. He thinks of those in our lives who don't engage Holy Week at all, to pray for them to take advantage of that grace and to reach out to them. For many people it will be difficult to attend all the Holy Week services, so he went through the services of the week. On Tuesday, Cardinal Seán will celebrate the Chrism Mass. He said it's always one of Cardinal Seán's three best homilies of the year. It will be 11am at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. Thursday night will be the Mass of the Lord's Supper which is where Christ instituted the Eucharist and He taught us to serve one another through the washing of the feet. Afterward, the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in a separate chapel where people can spend time in prayer and adoration. On Friday is the Passion of the Lord in which we venerate the Christ and then have prayers for all of creation by name. Fr. Mark talked about the starkness of the church on that day which shows the profundity of the tomb. We enter with an emptiness and a craving for Jesus. Many parishes have services at 3pm and 7pm. Then on Saturday night is the Easter vigil with the liturgy of light in the beginning, the chanting of the Exsultet, readings, baptisms, and all the other joys of Easter. Michael said the Easter vigil is a pilgrimage through our faith in one Mass. Scot said it is his favorite liturgy of the year. They all encouraged everyone to get to that Mass if you can.

Summary of today's show: Events in Rome reached their penultimate phase as the cardinals celebrated the Mass for the Election of a New Pope and then entered the Sistine Chapel for their first vote. Scot Landry welcomed Fr. Roger Landry, Terry Donilon, and Jay Fadden to discuss the events of the day, including their experience of the beauty and universality of the Church during the Mass and the obvious gravity and focus with which the cardinal-electors are taking their duty. Terry also talked about Cardinal Seán and all the intense media focus on him in these day. George Martell then joined Scot to discuss some of his photos which have been gathering national interest. Listen to the show: Watch the show via live video streaming or a recording later: Today's host(s): Scot Landry Today's guest(s): Fr. Roger Landry, Terry Donilon, Jay Fadden, George Martell Links from today's show: Today's topics: LIVE from Rome: Mass for Election of a New Pope and the Conclave begins! 1st segment: Scot Landry welcomed Fr. Roger Landry to the show and they discussed the procession of the cardinal-electors to the Sistine Chapel. Fr. Roger said many of the cardinals know that this is one of the most significant acts of their lives. The show was recorded about an hour and a half prior to the procession into the chapel. Fr. Roger said the cardinals will be led in a meditation by an older cardinal on their responsibility. Today's vote is important to show after all the conversations behind the scenes who the first and best choice is. He predicts that the decision for most cardinals will be between best and better candidates. He said a lot of times the cardinal who comes out with the most votes first isn't the eventual winner and so they turn to their second choices on their lists. They discussed the selection of Cardinal Prosper Grech of Malta as the one to lead them in the meditation. The means by which he's chosen for this task isn't in law, just that there would be someone to lead them in this meditation. It's the second of two homilies they receive. Earlier this week, they heard from Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa. If there's no result after 14 votes they will hear from the senior member of the cardinal-deacons. After 7 more, from the senior cardinal-priest and 7 more from the senior cardinal-bishop. Scot said the cardinals swear an oath as they place their ballot in the receptacle and that process takes at least an hour. Fr. Roger said a cardinal told him that the rest of the cardinals pray their rosaries or pray the Divine Office. In 1978, during the election of John Paul I, Cardinal Wojtyla would be writing the first part of his Theology of the Body. However, today the rule is that all papers on the cardinals' desks must be burned as well. Scot said after the voting, three cardinal-scrutineers count the ballots to make sure there are 115. Then they read each one aloud. He asked Fr. Roger what it's like to hear their name announced, given the heaviness of the what they're called to. Fr. Roger said Pope Benedict said hearing his name called was like a guillotine falling on his neck. To hear your name mentioned would feel like a compliment. All the other votes would be overwhelming especially as the momentum tends to build. Most people are in elections to win it, but in an election like this, it would be the opposite. Relief would come from hearing someone else's name being announced. Scot said after the voting, the cardinals go back to the Domus Sancta Marta. What happens? Do they talk about it? Fr. Roger said some cardinals have said in 2005, they went to the chapel to pray and there are reports of finding cardinals in the chapel in the middle of the night. There's talk over dinner while others go back to their rooms to read and avoid the conversations. He thinks some will sleep better than normal and some who won't sleep at all. Fr. Roger said EWTN's coverage of the day's event will be repeated at 9pm and streamed online. 2nd segment: Scot said he is reporting from the top of the Augustinianem overlooking St. Peter's Square. He said the cardinals were gathering in the Pauline Chapel to prepare to process into the Sistine Chapel. Terry Donilon, Secretary for Communications for the Archdiocese of Boston, joins him now. Scot said they gathered for a sendoff of the American Cardinals at the North American College at 7am. He said some people think the next pope might have been on that bus. Terry said if we believe what's been in the Italian press, there's been a vigorous mention of Cardinal Seán. He said the cardinal was his natural quiet reserved self and Cardinal Dolan was his natural boisterous self. Scot said all of these cardinals have led their large archdioceses and they all say this is the most significant decision they've made. Thinking of all his biggest life decisions, it's amazing what the cardinals must be going through. Terry said their previous biggest decision was answering the call to become a priest. He said Cardinal Seán has consistently answered the call for difficult assignments throughout his life. Terry has been busy in Rome in recent days as international news organization want to know more about Cardinal Seán. Terry said it's rewarding to be able to explain this cardinal who is real. He is the same in private as he is in front of the camera. He said he's pleased there's so much attention of the media back home on this. It's nice to see the secular media showing the Church is relevant and important to the people. Scot noted that at 9:45 this morning, they started praying a rosary in many languages in St. Peter's Basilica for the cardinals. Terry noticed during the rosary that the Swiss Guard was praying during the rosary too. He said he also noticed the media following the cardinal at his titular church the other going to Mass as well, which he wasn't used to in the US. Scot said Cardinal Dolan was in a good mood and gestured to him while other cardinals looked very solemn. Scot said the congregation was the most diverse crowd he's ever been in and it represented the universal Church. Terry said the cardinals likewise represent the diversity of the Church. He said that's one of the reasons Cardinal Seán stands out, because of his Irish background but close association with Portuguese and Spanish-speaking people. Scot said during the Mass he gave thanks to God for being lucky enough to be in the room and praying for the prayer requests people are sending to . Terry said what stood out for him was the music and the Latin chant. He said it added a lot of energy that we're on the threshold of something important that is out of the ordinary experience. He loves music and loves the music of the Church. Every time he walks in the basilica he gives thanks for the those he loves and it's a spiritual experience. But to be there in person is remarkable. Scot said he and George Martell were sitting very tightly packed and they discussed how they would receive Communion. But even in that jungle to receive Communion, as disorganized as it was, it really worked. It was moving to him to see people of all ages and all origins to be patient and helpful to one another. Terry was struck by the great number of people who were just milling about in the sides and people were very respectful. Scot said the cardinals are in the silent period. Cardinal Seán left his iPhone with his cardinal secretary at the North American College. He asked what people will see in the local media. Terry said they will be reporting on all the various angles. The Church is a complicated story. Terry thinks Cardinal Seán is being celebrated at home for all his pastoral achievements. Everyone he's talked to on the national scene has said what a wonderful priest he is. He thinks they will also report on the rumor mills and unfortunately treat it a little bit like a political campaign. He hopes it shows that the Church is relevant with 1.2 billion Catholics and 1.8 million in Boston. Scot said many of the local Boston media are reporting that Cardinal Seán is thought to be a frontrunner, but it's not the Italian people doing the voting. He asked how do people who love and admire Cardinal Seán deal with it if he's not the one who comes out on the balcony later this week. Terry said selfishly we want him to come home. Nobody really wants the job of pope, but Cardinal Seán will do what's asked of him. He thinks perhaps now we've turned a corner of people getting to know him and that will help with his commitment to the New Evangelization back home. Scot said when the smoke comes from the chimney he's either going to be in the square waiting to see if it's black or white or he's going to be nearby and listen for the bells that signal white smoke. Terry said he's too stressed to wait and will be in the square. Terry said he thinks the final vote will be Thursday. Scot said he found out at lunch that Friday is the Ides of March and if the vote is that day, there will be a lot of headlines. Scot thinks it will be Thursday evening and then it's likely the Mass of Inauguration will be on the Feast of St. Joseph, Tuesday, March 19. He's the Patron of the Universal Church and it's a national holiday. Terry said he just hopes the sun shines on that day. 3rd segment: Scot welcomed Jay Fadden of CatholicTV and they noted they just heard Cardinal Seán take his oath in the conclave. Scot said the pageantry of the procession of the Litany of Saints and the praying of the Veni, Sancte Spiritus was beautiful. Jay said there was a change today at the moment of the procession. The weight of the decision these men will make was on them and they have become very focused. A man started to clap for the cardinals and one of them motioned for him to stop. He said in the Square, hundreds of people are standing in the pouring rain and watching the events on the giant monitors set up there. Scot said they show the universality of the Church. Scot said the Mass in the morning was beautiful. Jay said what stood out for him was the people in the basilica. There were so many young people, especially young nuns. He noted that during Communion people knelt on the stone floor until the cardinals had all received Communion. Scot said it's now pouring in the Square but people don't want to leave because it's an historic moment and the next time we see the cardinals, we will have a new pope. Jay said it's amazing to watch. One of those men will be the new leader of the Catholic Church. Scot said in the morning Jay was with them at the North American College to see the American cardinals boarding their bus for the conclave. He said they are supporting each other and preparing for this momentous decision together. Jay said the seminarians lined the street and clapped and cheered the cardinals as they left because they were recognizing the difficulty of this decision because of the enormity of what they will do. They're not electing a CEO, but a spiritual leader. Jay said CatholicTV in Rome is doing blogs and live Skype shots back to Boston. They're also filming many segments for other programs and interviewing people as well to make the trip worthwhile. Jay said he keeps bumping into people he knows. He bumped into Msgr. Connie McRae and other people from Boston, including those who have moved to Rome. He said they're friends because they're all part of this universal Church. Scot said the first ballot will be in an hour and then another hour for the smoke. He asked how long Jay thought how long the conclave will take. He guessed three days because it's been a long time since it's gone more than three days. The cardinals have the advantage of having been there eight to ten days talking to one another and thinking about it for at least a month. Scot repeated that he's been predicting Friday all week until he realized that Friday is the Ides of March and no cardinal wants to come out on the Ides of March, so he thinks it's Thursday. Jay said he hopes it's Thursday because he wants a new Holy Father. Scot asked Jay how people could watch CatholicTV. He said people can use SkyAngel, CatholicTV.com, Roku, or iPhone and Android apps. He is also blogging at . They both said they're blogging for the first time. 4th segment: Scot welcomed George Martell to the show. They discussed how bad the weather has been in Rome, unusually bad. George said it makes taking photos more difficult, to capture those faces and the emotion. Scot said other media are able to use George's photos in their publications. One of George's photos from yesterday, of the cardinals on the bus, has gotten very wide distribution. He had gone to the North American College to use their Internet. He noticed the bus outside and went out to a lobby where some of the cardinals were gathering. He acted like a fly on the wall and then chatted a bit with Cardinal Seán. Suddenly they all got on the bus, so George followed them on even though he wasn't sure. He asked Cardinal Seán if he thought it would be okay and he said sure. It turned out to be a great photo. Scot said it looked to him that Cardinal Dolan was joking in the back of the bus. Today, Scot said they had a group photo and George was able to take a photo of them before the very serious moments in the Sistine Chapel. George said Cardinal Dolan was very jovial and he thinks another man there was the cardinal's brother. Scot said the back story is that this man is wearing jeans because the cardinal's brother's luggage had been lost. Meanwhile Cardinal Seán was, if not serious, deeply in the moment because he understands the import of what he's doing. Scot described him as intense. It's an important day and a heavy vote. It will be a long day too. Scot said he also liked another photo of a man holding a homemade sign calling for Pope Francis I. He also captured photos of a Swiss Guard being playful with some kids. They talked about the beauty of the art and architecture and the beauty of the faith of the people praying in those buildings. It makes it easy to capture the intensity they're feeling in that moment.

Summary of today's show: Continuing our live coverage from Rome, Scot Landry welcomed Fr. Roger Landry to discuss how the cardinals will be discerning who they will choose to be the next pope; Fr. Chris O'Connor and Mary Jo Kriz to reflect on being pilgrims in Rome at this time and on their pilgrimage in honor of Blessed John Paul II; Fr. Dennis Gill on Pope Benedict's legacy through his emphasis on the liturgy as a catechism of our faith; and Lisa Hughes of WBZ-TV on how the Boston news station plans to cover the conclave. Also, a series of reflections from those involved in The Good Catholic Life on it's two-year anniversary. Listen to the show: Watch the show via live video streaming or a recording later: Today's host(s): Scot Landry Today's guest(s): Fr. Dennis Gill, Mary Jo Kriz, Fr. Chris O'Connor, Fr. Roger Landry, Lisa Hughes Links from today's show: Today's topics: LIVE from Rome: Conclave date set; In the Footsteps of John Paul II; Liturgy as Catechism; Two-Year Anniversary 1st segment: Scot Landry welcomed everyone to the show coming from Rome. It's our two-year anniversary show. He welcomed Fr. Roger Landry to the show. Scot said the Vatican press office had announced earlier today that the date for the conclave would be set today. Fr. Roger said that focuses the attention of the cardinals on their immediate preparations to whittle down their lists for who they will vote for on the first ballot. It helps us to expedite our own prayers to help them in their discernment. Every Catholic has a role to play in asking the Holy Spirit to guide them Scot said Cardinal Seán had said he'd hoped the cardinals would choose to spend as much time as they needed in the general congregations to discern who they would vote for. Fr. Roger said he thinks the cardinals will pray for a way to discern out of 115 potential candidates the one choice. They have to get beyond the acquaintance stage to really get to know one another so they are comfortable entrusting the future of the Catholic Church to one man. They're looking for someone to teach, to sanctify, and to govern. Fr. Roger has been in Rome for four days now. Scot asked him what he's been up to. Fr. Roger said for EWTN he was filming a lot of small segments connecting Church history with the present conclave. Much of the churches of Rome provide the context for the papacy. He shows the meaning of the things that we all see, like the obelisk in St. Peter's Square, the façade, the statue of Christ, the inscriptions regarding St. Peter in the building. He said the Altar of the Chair has an inscription that “You the Shepherd of the Sheep, Shepherd the Sheep of God,” which is actually directed to Jesus as the True Shepherd by the Pope. Fr. Roger asks listeners to pray that the Holy Spirit to give the cardinals the light whom they should choose and then to give them patience. The process is long and stressful with two votes in morning and then afternoon. We should also pray that whomever is elected that we can embrace as Peter's successor and Christ's Vicar, even if we don't really know him yet. Trust in God's work through the cardinals and follow him. Scot said a lot has been made in the media about the clash of cultures between the American cardinals sharing in the media versus the curial cardinals who didn't like it. Does that signal a long conclave? Fr. Roger thinks it will be a conclave. After the first few days of voting, they will pause for a day of meditation. He thinks no cardinal will get more than a handful of votes in the first few ballots and it will take time to whittle them down. But we can be assured that there will be a pope eventually on that balcony. Scot asked Fr. Roger what he would say about the importance of Catholic radio. Fr. Roger said Catholic radio helps us to live the good Catholic life. It's not enough just to know the truth, but how to live it. Each Thursday, when he's on the show, we look at the news headlines through Catholic lenses. Sometimes it's bad news, sometimes it's great news. Regardless when we look at the news with the eyes of faith, there's always hope. The Lord is always trying to bring good out of evil. It's been a great joy for him to examine current events through Catholic lenses on this show. 2nd segment: Scot welcomes Fr. Chris O'Connor back to the show. He said Fr. Chris celebrated a Mass at the tomb of Bl. John Paul II. He said he is half-Polish and he is full of joy to see the good that this native son of Poland has done for the world. To be at the tomb of this holy man is to be inspired. It makes you want to deepen your prayer life. Scot said more than half of the popes are buried in St. Peter's but John Paul's tomb is special to us. Fr. Chris said he called us to a greater sense of holiness and a greater respect for human life. He recalled an anecdote in which Mikhail Gorbachev called John Paul II the moral authority in the world today. Fr. Chris said he was stubborn in the best sense of the word and bulldozed through any obstacles placed in the way of freedom for his homeland. He had great confidence in Christ giving him the strength to overcome the scourge of communism. Scot noted that when John Paul was shot in St. Peter's Square, he turned to the Blessed Mother. He asked Fr. Chris what he saw in Poland that exemplified that devotion. He said the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa is a sign of the country's identity and devotion. The Poles are extremely devoted to her and every August millions of them walk dozens or hundreds of miles in pilgrimage to her shrine. In a period waiting for the conclave, Scot asked Fr. Chris about wanting to have the next pope be of such quality that he is called “The Great” immediately after he goes home to God someday, just like with John Paul in 2005. Fr. Chris said as they've walked around Rome the last few days, people have engaged in the guessing game, but his sense is that whoever walks out on the balcony we're all going to embrace and love. Scot asked Fr. Chris about his favorite moments participating in the show the past two years. He said he's impressed by the number of people who tell him they listen to the program and find it rewarding. He said he admires and respects the work Scot is doing to get the Catholic message out. Fr. Chris said it's like we're holding conferences every day with incredible topics. He said you're always hearing people share their faith and how it's impacted their lives. Scot said one of the moving moments for him was Fr. Chris sharing how he visits Norfolk state prison and hears how many men there listen to the show. Scot said he heard from a firefighter who plays the show in the firehouse and turns it up to help evangelize his brother and sister firefighters. Fr. Chris said of the men in Norfolk that many of them are saints. He hears from them that this is another resource for their faith. Christ said “when I was in prison, you visited me” and “when I was sick you visited with me” and Catholic media is a way of doing that. Scot asked Fr. Chris' hope for the Church with this opportunity to share with others in this media scrutiny. Fr. Chris said the Church has a long tradition and people will see that in the coming days, the grandiosity and beauty of Rome. In the midst of the chaos of the Church, we can witness that we are one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Jesus governs the Church through its visible head, the Pope. The Church can be seen to pray together in Masses. She is apostolic through the many trips of the pope throughout the world. We are catholic by the diversity of cardinals coming to Rome and the pilgrims see in the city. The media will focus on the power of the papacy, but we focus on the service of the papacy, which serves us in every way. Scot said we can see the disagreements in the Church and the different cultures, with an example in the different approaches to the media by the different groups of cardinals. Christ called us to love one another and we do see that love ultimately despite the differences. Fr. Chris said it's a blessing to be in Rome to see it all play out. The Church is like any human family, with strengths and weaknesses. He has the conviction that whomever walks out on that balcony, we will embrace him with great joy. We trust the decision is made by the cardinals with the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. 3rd segment: Scot welcomed Mary Jo Kriz, who's been part of the St. John Seminary Master of Arts in Ministry pilgrimage in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II. Mary Jo said it's been an amazing time. She said today they had a beautiful Mass at the altar of Bl. John Paul II with Fr. Chris O'Connor, Fr. Jonathan Gaspar and Fr. Eric Bennett. The message was to “be not afraid” in this time of transition. Scot said it was clear in Fr. Chris' homily how close he was to John Paul and many of us feel the same. Mary Jo said praying by the tomb made her feel like he was there. She met him in 1995 in Rome and she had the same feeling again. Scot said more than half of all the popes are buried in St. Peter's and that makes it awesome to pray in that place. John Paul leaves a great legacy for the Church. For those who haven't been to Rome, he asked her to sum up what it means to be in Rome. She said they had the opportunity to pray Vespers in Assisi and before that with the cardinals in St. Peter's. No matter where we go in the world, it's the same prayers and the same Mass. The Lord affirmed her faith. If you can get to Rome, you will feel at home. Scot asked Mary Jo about a story of a family member who was stunned to hear her voice on the radio yesterday. She's originally from Buffalo and a family member from the area sent her an email saying she turned on the Catholic radio station there and heard her voice. That's the power of Catholic radio. Scot said when people tell him they hear the show, he asks them how often they listen. Some heard it while surfing the dial and others don't miss it. He asked Mary Jo if she's disappointed that the election of the pope didn't occur while she was there and she agreed she was, but Providence provides. 4th segment: Scot welcomes Fr. Dennis Gill, a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and a former professor at the North American College. He said he is a professor of liturgy but is also an expert in the conclave. He said he has no idea when it will start, but it appears the cardinals are taking the preparation time very seriously. Scot asked if he thought it would be a short conclave. Fr. Gill said he thinks it will go quickly because the cardinals have had this lengthy preparation time and they will know early on the man they think should be the Vicar of Christ. Scot asked his hopes for the focus on liturgy. Fr. Gill said it will take years for us to assess the affect that Pope Benedict had on the liturgy. He has a profound understanding of the liturgy as a divine event. He brought new light to a reading of Sacrosanctum concilium and his writing has helped clarify and reorient the Sacred Liturgy and that will endure. He thinks the next Holy Father will have to continue what Pope Benedict has done, which is an ongoing presentation of what the Vatican Council did. He said much of what Pope Benedict said and did was not fully accepted worldwide and so he hopes the next Holy Father will be even more proactive. Scot said the liturgy teaches us so much about our faith. Fr. Gill said the liturgy is the principal catechism of the Church, in the way it's celebrated as well as its content in the prayers and Biblical content. It's important to highlight the liturgy in this Year of Faith. 5th segment: Scot welcomed Lisa Hughes of WBZ-TV to the show. He asked her how she got this assignment. She said she got very lucky. She was there when Cardinal Seán was made a cardinal. Scot asked what it's like to cover a story in Rome versus a story in Boston. She said the Internet connection isn't as good, the streets are a bit more mysterious to them, but there's something so exciting in being there, hearing the languages and the excitement. The Vatican is the epicenter of it all. Scot said it's like a journalist convention with more than 5,000 credentialed. Lisa said they see cameras everywhere they go. She said they went to , which is the tailor that makes the pope's vestments, and there were already many cameras there, and she's sure there will be many more wherever they go. It is such a big city that they're not on top of each other yet. Lisa said their reports will start airing Sunday night during the 6:30 broadcast, and when the conclave starts they will be on live on the 5 and 6pm shows Monday through Friday and live whenever the announcement comes. Scot said as we close the show that he is happy to relay the news that the date for the conclave has been set by the cardinals to begin on Tuesday, March 12. He asked everyone to redouble their prayers for them as a group and to pray for the man who is elected who is taking on a significant ministry of service. Scot reflected on being host of the show for the past two years.

Summary of today's show: On a day without much news from the College of Cardinals, Scot Landry took the opportunity to take part of the Station Church tradition and visit the Basilica of Ss. Cosmas and Damian for Mass and then to interview Worcester seminarian Donato Infante, Fr. Norman Tanner, SJ, and Br. Mark McBride, TOR, in which he learned about the twin doctors to whom the church is dedicated and the fact that Masses have been celebrated there every day since 525AD. Then Scot spoke to Terry Donilon, Cardinal Seán's spokesman, about how the media is covering the interregnum and especially letting the world get to know Cardinal Seán. And finally, he talks to a group of pilgrims from St. John's Seminary's Master of Arts in Ministry program who are following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II from Poland to Italy. Listen to the show: Watch the show via live video streaming or a recording later: Today's host(s): Scot Landry Today's guest(s): Donato Infante, Fr. Norman Tanner, Br. Mark McBride, Terry Donilon, Fr. Chris O'Connor, Mary Jo Kriz, Aldona Lingertat, Beth Joyce Links from today's show: Today's topics: LIVE from Rome: Station Church of Ss. Cosmas and Damian; Seminarian and Priest; Cardinal Seán's spokesman; Pilgrims from Boston 1st segment: Scot Landry welcomed everyone to the show. It's been a slow news day thus far in Rome as the cardinals are in a silent period. So instead Scot participated in the ancient Roman tradition during Lent of visiting the station churches. This practice dates to the fourth century and involves visiting 40 different churches in Rome during the 40 days of Lent. Each morning priests and seminarians from the North American College lead English-speaking pilgrims in Rome to the station church for Mass at 7am. George and Scot met with a group of about 50 seminarians at 6:15am at the bottom on the Janiculum hill and made the 35 minute walk to the basilica of Sts. Cosmas and Damian. It's next the Roman Forum. The journey along the streets is silent by rule of the seminary. It's moving to walk through the quiet streets of Rome at that hour and see most of the seminarians praying the Rosary. Today, there were about 40 concelebrating priests, 60 seminarians and 60 others in this small, but beautiful basilica, which was consecrated a church in the year 535. There has been a Mass there everyday since. Then played of the sounds of chant from the Mass. 2nd segment: Scot was joined by seminarian from the Diocese of Worcester, Donato Infante. Donato said the tradition of the station churches began in the early centuries of Christianity where the Bishop of Rome visited each of the churches of his diocese during Lent. Sometime in history the tradition stopped in the 1970s, the North American College revived tradition and other colleges in the city started doing the same. Scot noted that nobody spoke while walking from the NAC. Donato said the faculty explicitly encourages them to take the walk as a time to pray to make it a pilgrimage to the churches. Scot asked him what he likes about the station churches. Donato said many of the churches are beautiful and have the tombs of many of the saints in the Roman Canon of the Mass. To go to their tombs is a wonderful pilgrimage and a great way to celebrate Lent. Others who attend are priests on sabbatical at the Casa Santa Mariae and faculty and students at universities in Rome. Scot asked if he has a favorite church. Donato said San Clemente is his favorite because of the mosaic in the apse that is very old. He said a quarter of the seminarians go more than a couple of times per week, most go occasionally and they all go on Ash Wednesday to Santa Sabina as that's the required community Mass. More music and prayer from the Mass is now played. 3rd segment: Scot now welcomed Fr. Norman Tanner, a professor at the Gregorian University from Great Britain. Scot asked about the number of churches in Rome and their significance. Fr. Tanner said it's a very ancient custom and Rome has 40 ancient churches which are station churches. Fr. Tanner said the 7am Mass is a perfect time to get in before their first 8:30am Mass. Scot asked about Saints Cosmas and Damian. He said they were martyrs of the early church and are mentioned in the 1st Eucharistic Prayer. They were both medical doctors and surgeons. Scot asked about the Gregorian. Fr. Tanner said many of the NAC seminarians and newly ordained study there. It was founded in 1554, two years before the death of St. Ignatius and it's been a work of the Society of Jesus. There are about 2,500 students from almost all countries of the world. Fr. Tanner said as a church historian it's a unique privilege to be in Rome. The history of the Church helps in the study for the priesthood to understand the Christians of the past, like Cosmas and Damian. More prayer from the Mass. 4th segment: Scot welcomes Br. Mark McBride, who works at St. Cosmas and Damian Basilica. He asked him how today compared to the Sunday liturgies. Brother said it's not a parish church and so serve tourists and those with devotion to Cosmas and Damian. This day in Lent is special for the church. It has special Masses, including a special Mass in the evening with their titular cardinal. They have had English, German, and French groups come in for Mass and then their principal Mass would be in the evening at which the relics of the saints would be exposed for veneration. Scot said many people might not know much about those saints. Br. McBride said they were doctors in Syria and martyred in 313 AD. People who admired them had great devotion to them and built two major basilicas for them, one in Rome and one in Constantinople. When Constantinople fell, so did the church. So the one in Rome is the remaining sanctuary. The two were twin brothers and they received no money for their services. When questioned by the Romans why they didn't charge for their services, they said they did it for the Lord and so were martyred. In later centuries, people came to the basilica to pray for cures from their ailments. People from the East still come, many from Russia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and celebrate the Divine Liturgy in the crypt. The church was a part of a former Roman library built in 77 AD. It was used that way until 525 when the library was given to Pope Felix who converted it to a church. Pope Gregory the Great in the 600s had a major devotion to the saints there and to the Madonna della Salute, Our Lady of Good Health, which is also in the church. Mass has been said in the church every day since 525. Only a few other churches can boast such longevity. Scot said the relics of Ss. Cosmas and Damian are in the lower church. Br. McBride noted that the lower church or Crypt Church was not the lower level at first, but was ground level in the 6th century. In the 1600s, the basilica was cut horizontally which made it two churches. The lower church contained the relics of the saints as brought back to Rome by Pope Gregory. Scot said Br. McBride is originally from the San Francisco area. He asked him what led him to become a Franciscan and how did he come to Rome. Br. McBride said as a child he had a great devotion to the Franciscans, especially after studying the life of St. Francis. The pastor of his parish spoke of the TOR, Third Order Regular, Franciscans and he sought them out. He is not a priest, but a consecrated religious. From there he worked in their high school in the Philadelphia archdiocese for 20 years, then worked as provincial treasurer in the United States. From there he became general treasurer of the whole order which is headquartered at Ss. Cosmas and Damian. Since coming to Rome, he has been made superior of the friary which has friars from around the world. He said many Americans will know the TORs because they sponsor Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio and St. Francis College in Loreto, Pennsylvania. They also have parishes in Florida and Texas. Living in Rome is at times it's an incredible feeling to the point it's not even believable. To live at the church where St. Francis must have once prayed is incredible. The feeling of being in a room where millions of prayers have been offered is sometimes hard to even believe. You almost sense in the air that this is ancient. This is hard for Americans to grasp. The doorknobs of the church were made in 1400, centuries before America was founded. The choir stalls are from the 1600s. But because it looks so nice, it's hard to imagine they're so old. It makes him feel Catholic, a religion that knows no nationality, no single background. Scot asked how being situated right by the Colosseum and Forum impact the number of visitors who come to the church or the experience of praying there. Fr. McBride said they are in the Ancient District of Rome, at the feet of the Palatine Hill. That's where Rome was founded and became the center of the world for hundreds of years. Because it's ancient and you can see the development of peoples from all the oldest periods of Rome, all blending together. To be there at the church, you are at the point of convergence of all those periods of time. In the church it's the same, kneeling and praying in a place that goes back to a time before Christianity. When it was a library, it was a place dedicated to medicine and there is a sense of continuity, a sense of ever-old, ever-young. Today, they're looking at making the basilica a center for bioethics to continue that idea. Scot asked Br. McBride's perspective on the papal transition today. He said the ancient basilica reminds us that this isn't the first conclave. He describes this moment as a time of grace. Christ has promised us a Church. We believe what the cardinals are doing is no accident. We believe whoever the cardinals choose will be the successor of Peter. The Church isn't a museum. It lives and renews itself, renews itself with a new leader. Br. McBride said they don't have favorites in the conclave, but they would of course love to see a Franciscan pope. They're waiting to see how the Holy Spirit works through the choice that is made. The new Pope is elected for a reason. He compared the interregnum to Lent and awaiting Easter. More prayer from the Mass. 5th segment: Scot Landry, reporting now from the Borgo Pio near the Vatican, welcomes Terry Donilon, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, to the show. Scot asked Terry what Rome is like now in this anticipation. Terry said it feels like a celebration waiting to happen. There have been long lines waiting to get into St. Peter's, people milling about in the Square, attending the Holy Hour last night with the cardinals. He gets a sense that people are in an anticipatory state. Scot noted Cardinal Seán did a lot of media interviews earlier this week and the American cardinals gained praise from around the world for their transparency. But as of yesterday there won't be further press conferences as the cardinals decided not to speak. He asked Terry what the cardinal's key themes were. Terry said the cardinal felt it would be good to take the time in the Congregations to assess the other cardinals so when conclave began he knew who he would vote for. The cardinal was very aware of the immense decision he and the other cardinals would be about to make. The cardinal is in a deep prayerful state right now to prepare for that. Scot said more than 5,000 journalists have already been credentialed, including most from Boston. Why are they coming? Terry said Boston is a heavily Catholic community and the local news recognizes that this is important to the 1.8 million Catholics in the archdiocese. It's an opportunity to see this rare transition in the Church. All the major networks and affiliates and newspapers are present and have invaded Rome. Scot said many in the media were complimenting the American cardinals on how they were more open about process and other items they could talk about. That seems to be different from the culture of the Church in the rest of the world. Terry said the US Church believes in transparency. The cardinal finds an opportunity to talk to the people back in Boston. The rest of the world is slow to pick up on that. He also noted that the rest of the Church in the world hasn't reached the same level of the use of digital media and technology. There isn't a diocese in the world that brought the same level of expertise and assets to communicate back to the people in the archdiocese. The cardinal said before he left Boston that there is a responsibility to report back to the people what can be reported. It's unfortunate that the level of communication has changed but there were reports in the Italian press that made a lot of people take pause, although it wasn't anything that came from the American cardinals. Scot asked Terry his impression of the city, things you might not see elsewhere. Scot noted that the city rises late in the morning. He added that a lot of people come to visit St. Peter's and it's one of the best people-watching spots in the world. Terry said you see lots of priests and religious in great numbers walking the streets, seeing religious photos and items on display everywhere and clear signs that people are proud of their Catholic faith. He notes that many people speak English and he feels that more people speak English now than when he was in Rome in the late 90s. Terry said the story is building toward the conclave. The media is analyzing the top contenders for pope, although the college of cardinals has a way of surprising us. He said he's working to bring a Boston flair and focus top the coverage back home. It's a major story and recognition of the pope's influence on world affairs. Scot said the three main questions he gets from people when they know he's from Boston are: When's the conclave going to start? Who does he think the next pope will be? Does Cardinal Seán have a chance? What other questions are Terry getting? Terry said people want to know who Cardinal Seán really is. He's given the world a glimpse of who he really is. In Boston, he's well known, but the outside world is getting a glimpse of him and of the Archdiocese of Boston. Terry thinks the world is getting a chance to celebrate the hard work that has been done in Boston by the priests, religious, and laity of the archdiocese. People think Cardinal Seán is interesting because he stands out from the other cardinals and has had an influence through his work in the sexual abuse crisis but also his emphasis on the New Evangelization. Terry said no one realistically thinks Cardinal Seán will be elected despite his qualifications and when he returns home after being celebrated so much, it will be a little surreal. At the worst, it opens the eyes of the world that the cardinals and bishops in America are doing good work on behalf of the Church and may open the door for a future American cardinal being elected pope. 6th segment: Scot, reporting from outside St. Peter's Square, welcomed a pilgrimage group from the Master of Arts in Ministry program at St. John's Seminary, including Fr. Chris O'Connor, Mary Jo Kriz, and Beth Joyce. He asked Mary Jo about the first part of their trip in Poland and what people should see on a pilgrimage there. She said Our Lady of Czestochowa was great but everything there, especially the people whose faith shines through in their daily life. The Divine Mercy chapel was perhaps the best. Scot noted they are tracing the footsteps of Pope John Paul II. He asked Fr. Chris where else they have visited. Fr. Chris said they went to Auschwitz, where even there they saw a glimmer of hope in the tomb of St. Maximilian Kolbe. You feel John Paul's presence in the city of Krakow, where he was born. He said there are more than 6,000 public statues of John Paul throughout Poland. You can feel his presence in that country. Scot asked Beth about the great faith of the people of Poland under oppression. He asked her about these salt mines in which the people had carved cavernous churches underground complete with altars and statues. Beth said the common people went down deep in to the earth to carve these beautiful reminders of our Lord. She said it shows the faith that permeates Poland. Scot asked Aldona Lingertat about their itinerary in Rome for the days that they are there. She said today they were going on a walking tour of Rome, including Mass in St. Peter's. They walked throughout the basilica and in the afternoon for the Scavi tour. The next day they were to go to Assisi, ending with Vespers in the chapel of San Damiano. On Friday, they were to visit the basilicas and more of the city, plus Mass at the tomb of Pope John Paul II. She's been to Rome three times. Her favorite part is being steeped in the faith all around her in Rome. Scot noted that it's Beth's third trip to Rome, but the first time since her son started studying at the North American College. He asked her how it's different this time. She said came at Christmas to see her son and it's a great blessing that he's studying in Rome for the priesthood. Scot said Cardinal Seán says that vocations are everyone's business. He asked Beth what she did in her household that helped plant the seed for her son Kevin. When she realized her faith is a gift, she wanted to share it and wanted to communicate it to her child. She said the lives of the saints are great to share with them from a very early age because they were real people and they made it look possible to follow Jesus. Scot noted that originally the pilgrimage was to be at the General Audience, so he asked Aldona what it was like to be in Rome during the sede vacante. Aldona said the Vatican Post Office issues a special stamp during the sede vacante and she bought some for herself. These will be very rare. She was interviewed by Italian TV when she bought them. It's a unique moment in time and the Holy Spirit is at work. She said her hope is that the new pope will be holy, prayerful and humble like our two previous popes. Also someone who is strong and courageous. Scot asked Fr. Chris what he hopes people take away from these pilgrimages to Rome. He said the long tradition and history of preaching the Gospel and proclaiming Christ Jesus. There is a hopefulness in the sede vacante with the knowledge of the continuity of the Church.

Bishop Robert W. McElroy is auxiliary bishop of San Francisco and the author of "Morality and American Foreign Policy" (Princeton, 1992). He holds degrees in history, political science and moral theology from Harvard, Stanford and the North American College in Rome.

Summary of today's show: Deacon Thomas MacDonald found a calling to the priesthood while studying at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Since then he has studied at St. John Seminary and the Pontifical North American College in Rome. This summer he was ordained to the transitional diaconate by Cardinal Seán and has served at St. Paul's in Cambridge. He returns to Rome this fall for his final year before ordination. Deacon Tom joins Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor to talk about his journey to the priesthood and give listeners a brief tour of the Rome he has come to call home. Listen to the show: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor Today's guest(s): Deacon Tom MacDonald Links from today's show: Today's topics: Transitional Deacon Tom MacDonald 1st segment: Scot Landry welcomed Fr. Chris O'Connor back to the show and they announced that St. John's Seminary is completely filled and can take no more men. There are 27 new men coming to the seminary this fall. It's partly due to more men from Boston and more dioceses sending men to St. John's. Scot said we need many, many more men to answer the call to the priesthood. Fr. Chris said they are strategizing ways to accommodate even more men next year. Scot asked Fr. Chris what he attributes the growth in seminaries to. Fr. Chris said in parishes with Eucharistic adoration, there you find vocations coming out. Fr. Chris said particular priests inspire young men in their vocations as well. Today's guest is Deacon Tom McDonald, who was ordained a transitional deacon on June 30 this year and will, God willing, be ordained next spring. 2nd segment: Scot and Fr. Chris welcomed Deacon Tom to the show. He grew up in Westford, Mass. He was born in Concord, Mass. He is a lifelong parishioner of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Westford. Deacon Tom said the town of Westford boomed in his childhood and St. Catherine boomed as well. He attended public schools in Westford. He said the seeds of his priesthood were sown about the age of 16, around his confirmation. He had a reconversion as a young adult and became convinced of the truth of the faith and he and a group of friends grew together in faith. He attended University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Scot said UMass was known as a crazy school. Deacon Tom said the reputation was deserved in some places, but that's also the place where his faith grew to include a call to the priesthood. He saw the sadness of the life lived away from God that opened his eyes to the gift of faith and the privilege of sharing his faith. It was through sharing his faith that he came to appreciate how wonderful it was to do that. Thanks to the help of Fr. McGonagle at the Newman Center that he was steered to the priesthood. Fr. Chris asked what helps in his own spiritual growth he encountered, what advice he would give to college freshman. Deacon Eric told them to get plugged in to what's going on. Take the initiative and ask how to get involved. Stay close to young men and women who share your values and faith. The company you keep shapes your destiny over the next four years. He knew a number of students who faded away from campus ministry and took a tragic course. Much depends on those opening weeks, cultivating the right sort of friendships and getting involved in the right sort of activities. Deacon Tom said one of the advantages of going to a secular college was that there was a clear demarcation between the life of faith and the life of the world. All you had to do is wake up early on Saturday morning to see the “walks of shame” and the dazed looks. You can see that they are suffering from the lies of the world. On the positive side were the friendships built upon the fullness of the Church's teachings and a life lived there. The decision was crystal clear. The goodness of God was so attractive in comparison with the darkness beyond. Scot asked what it was about the campus ministry at UMass that led so many to a deeper faith. Deacon Tom said it was the quality of friendships. When people would come to the Newman Center and get connected they would find themselves attracted to the friendships. Deacon Tom said his first instinct when he heard the call to the priesthood was to run. He heard the call as a freshman, but as a senior he resigned himself to exploring the call. During that time, he went to daily Mass, frequent confession, adoration. The quiet silence attuned the heart to hear God's voice. After graduation he wanted to spend a year in service. He worked at Northampton High School working with kids with learning disabilities. Deacon Tom asked himself which hurt less: walking away from the possibility of marriage or walking away from the prospect of the priesthood. The priesthood won out slightly and he decided to give it a year. He was still very far from knowing he was called and it took a long time for him to stop going back and forth over the decision. Scot asked when it connected and he became settled about the question. He had asked to leave the seminary in February of his first year but the faculty had asked him to go to a priestly formation course in Nebraska. They asked him to go regardless. In the midst of the eight-day Ignatian retreat, he experienced incredible graces and all of his worries, concerns, and apprehensions were obliterated. Scot asked what he would say to young men listening who are wondering if they're really being called. Deacon Tom said there is nothing to lose by applying to the seminary. He would recommend giving it a shot. If there's a woman you're interested in, you have to ask her out to determine if she's the one for you. You can't figure that out from afar. The seminary is like a courtship. By giving it a shot and experiencing it, he answered questions that could only be answered inside. Deacon Tom was also sent to the Pontifical North American College in Rome by Cardinal Seán. He hadn't known anything about it beforehand and so he trusted the faculty to send him where he needed to go. He's not a big traveler and so the prospect was daunting. He also loved his time at St. John's, where he was with three friends from U. Mass, and where he felt at home. To leave for Rome was intimidating. He also had to study Italian. Fr. Chris asked what graces he received from studying at the NAC. The first major blessing was going into this unknown world and having to trust God outside the network of his friends and family, but in a more radical way. Being in the city of martyrs and churches is humbling. One can't help but feel the immense place of Rome in the Church when there. Attending the big papal liturgies was electrifying, especially to se the love of pilgrims for Pope Benedict. The Pope exudes peace, calm, and power. People from every corner of the world crowd into the Square just to see him. Scot asked his favorite churches. Deacon Tom said his favorite is St. Paul Outside-the-Walls, built in classic Roman basilica style. Fr. Chris asked Deacon Tom what would be the perfect day visiting Rome. He said it would have to begin in St. Peter's Square by the obelisk in the center, the some obelisk St. Peter saw as he was crucified upside down. Then they would go on the Scavi tour in the excavations under St. Peter's, where the cemetery that held the bones of St. Peter were buried. This is the heart of the city. Then he would take them on a tour of the basilica itself, seeing the great altars and statues and art and windows. Scot said his favorite time in St. Peter's is 7am where everyone is there to pray. Deacon Tom would then take people to the North American College for the best view of the city from it's sixth floor. From there they would take the “Greg” route, which is their path to the Gregorian University and along the way they would see the beautiful Piazza Navona. The Piazza has beautiful cafes and fountains and art. From there would be the Pantheon, originally a Roman temple converted to a beautiful church dedicated to Our Lady. It's a testament to the history of the Church. They would stop at the Gregorian University. Fr. Chris complained they haven't stopped for food yet. They would also see the Trevi fountain, which Deacon Tom says is a trust trap with pickpockets. So they would go to Santa Maria Maggiore, the first church in Christendom dedicated to Our Lady. They have a relic of the creche, the manger in which Christ was laid in Bethlehem. Deacon Tom said in the fifth century a young Roman patrician had a dream about the Virgin Mary sending snow in the middle of the summer. He told the bishop and he interpreted it as a desire of the Blessed Mother for a church in the city. Sure enough the snow fell in Rome in the middle of summer. Rome is extremely hot in the summer and it hardly even snows in winter. This is the Feast of St. Mary Major on August 3. Ever year they drop white rose petals on the congregation to remember this miracle. From there it's to the Colosseum and then St. John Lateran Basilica, the cathedral church of Rome. Scot said this is his favorite church in Rome. Fr. Chris disagrees and said St. Peter's is first for him, then St. Mary Major, then St. Paul's, and only then St. John's. Scot said the Popes lived at St. John Lateran until the 16th century. Fr. Chris said the Pope celebrates Holy Thursday at St. John Lateran instead of St. Peter's. Deacon Tom also recommends the neighborhood of Trastevere, which was the site of some of the first Christian communities in Rome. It was traditionally Jewish in the imperial time. It's a beautiful picturesque and artistic community with wonderful food. Fr. Chris said there's a Bohemian feel to the neighborhood. 3rd segment: Deacon Tom has been doing his summer pastoral assignment at St. Paul in Cambridge. He said it's very vibrant, with a lot going on, including the boys' choir school and campus ministry to Harvard. The parishioners are very active and involved. Fr. Chris asked Deacon Tom what is the basic message of his homilies. Deacon Tom said it's that God desperately wants to be a part of your life in many and varied ways. Be vigilant and generous in opening ourselves to him. Scot said he thinks St. Paul's is unique in the United States. He said people drive for more than an hour to come to St. Paul's on Sundays. There's a deep intellectual tradition that comes with the parish. Deacon Tom said he's encountered a number of young people who have come into contact with the faith and who have questions and want to know more. He's given a couple of talks at the parish on several topics and he's had a very varied group of attendees, from Protestant pastors to agnostic political science students. Fr. Chris asked Deacon Tom to explain his position. He said a transitional deacon transitions from the diaconate to the priesthood. He will become a priest. They also take a promise of celibacy. Permanent deacons who are married do not. the deacon is also meant to have a heart for the poor and needy. In the liturgy, the deacon assists the priest at Mass, including preaching at the discretion of the priest. They can also baptize and witness marriages. Scot said many young priest and transitional deacons don't have the opportunity to live in a full rectory like at St. Paul's. Deacon Tom said some of the priests are on vacation but they've also had visiting priests, including some studying at Harvard. There's been a wonderful fraternity and fellowship in the rectory. He's learned a lot from the experiences and stories from the older priests. Deacon Tom said the parish was kind of quiet during the summer, but still was busy. He was surprised by the number of young people coming to confession every day after Masses. Fr. Chris asked Deacon Tom's goals in Rome next year. He will be starting a new degree in theology and spending these months as a deacon and preparing for priestly ordination in May. His pastoral assignment will be teaching First Communion class at Santa Susannah in Rome, which is the American parish there. The students aren't always American but are there to be exposed to new cultures.

Summary of today's show: Fr. Joseph Scorzello has been a priest-secretary for two cardinals, a parochial vicar, a pastor, and now a seminary professor. He joins Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor to talk about attending seminary in Rome just after the Second Vatican Council closed; serving in several of Boston's Italian parishes; being asked to become a priest-secretary by Cardinal Humberto Medeiros and his successor, Cardinal Bernard Law; and ultimately ending up at St. John's Seminary where he teaches philosophy and imparts his decades of pastoral experience upon the young men who will follow him into the priesthood. Listen to the show: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor Today's guest(s): Fr. Joseph Scorzello Links from today's show: Today's topics: Priest Profile: Fr. Joseph Scorzello 1st segment: Scot Landry welcomed Fr. Chris O'Connor back to the show and notes that they are recording today at St. John Seminary. He noted that the seminary is called the heart of the Church and asked Fr. Chris what that means. Fr. Chris said this place and its purpose serves as the lifeblood of any diocese. As Cardinal Seán has said, without priests, there is no Eucharist and the Eucharist is at the heart of our Catholic existence. The seminary provides priests and those who will minister throughout the Archdiocese. While the principal purpose is to form priests, they also offer all sorts of programs to the laity as well, in order to shape and form them to be co-workers with the priests. The parish is only as good as the pastor who empowers the people around him to assist him in running the parish and in evangelization. Evangelization is a big part of our agenda. It involves every man, woman, and child in a parish so they offer programs to educate the laity in such a way that they know him in a deep and profound way and transmit that to others. Scot said The Theological Institute for the New Evangelization and St. John Seminary are able to do this work because of the great work of the faculty, including Fr. Joseph Scorzello. He asked Fr. Chris to tell listeners about Fr. Scorzello. Fr. Chris described Fr. Joe as a great mentor to him. He said he's a man of deep prayer and is always present in the seminary and values the work of seminary formation. He said when bishops from others dioceses ask why they should send their seminarians to St. John's, Fr. Chris notes it's a regional seminary forming men from around New England and building those relationships among the priests and it has a great faculty, who are all united on the right stuff and who value and treasure the priesthood. 2nd segment: Scot and Fr. Chris welcomed Fr. Joseph Scorzello. Scot said Fr. Joe has had an interesting priestly life. He asked him about his background. Fr. Joe said he was born and lived for 10 years in East Boston and attended Most Holy Redeemer Church. They moved to Hyde Park and went to Most Precious Blood Parish and attended St. Raphael's school. From there he went to Christopher Coilumbus High School in the North End and graduated from there in 1962 and entered Cardinal O'Connell college seminary in Jamaica Plain. After two years there, he came to St. John Seminary and studied Philosophy at St. Clement's Hall. After two years there, he received a bachelor's degree and was appointed by Cardinal Cushing to theological studies at the North American College in Rome and the Gregorian University. He was there for four years until 1970 and was ordained in Rome on December 19, 1969. They were ordained at the end of the first semester of the fourth year of theology which was unusual, but which was allowed for seminarians at the Gregorian University. He was ordained by Bishop Hickey, who became the cardinal archbishop of Washington, DC. Scot asked what it was like to be studying in Rome during Vatican II. He said it was exciting academically speaking. Many of the faculty were members of the commissions that put together the draft documents for the Council. Fr. Joe said it was all part of the course material he was studying. They would refer to the documents in their courses on Scripture and fundamental theology and more. He was there just a couple of years after the close of the council. Bishops came to visit who were members of the council. In 1968, Pope Paul VI wrote the important encyclical Humanae Vitae. Scot asked about the change in the liturgy and whether Fr. Joe was trained in both the old and new rites. Fr. Joe said at his ordination they had the new English translation of the Mass in a binder on the altar because it was so new. He also offered Mass in Italian. His first Christmas Eve Mass was in Italian with the workers at the North American College. Fr. Chris said there are two basic systems for seminary formation, the French system and the Italian system. St. John's follows the French system, having been founded by the Sulpician order, where the faculty live with the men. Fr. Joe explained the Italian system, in which the college is a living space. At the NAC, all the Americans from all over the states would live together, eat together, pray together, and do some formation together. Their intellectual formation was done at a university. Most went to the Gregorian University, but there were others as well, including the Angelicum. after ordination, during the second semester, the new priests celebrated Mass at the college, and during Lent they went out to the hospitals in Rome to hear confessions. Next to the college is a hospital for children, where the sickest children are sent. Many of them die there. He would go over to pray with the family at the death of their children. He never wanted to hear the phone ring. Scot asked whether the change in the liturgy was controversial among the seminarians or were they in favor of the change to vernacular. Fr. Joe said most of the men were happy to see the vernacular, but there was tension as well and its true in himself. It's difficult to leave what you were brought up with and familiar with. Now there was a new way of doing something. His concern, even now with teaching the Tridentine rite, we have to celebrate the Eucharist and it has to be prayerful. If we're doing it in a language we're not familiar with, it may not be as prayerful as it could be, especially as the priest-celebrant leading it. As the president of the assembly, the priest has to lead the assembly in prayer. He said some of the men in his class didn't have as much Latin as others and were happy to go into the vernacular. Certainly Gregorian chant was irreplaceable. Overall, everyone was happy with the change, if perhaps not as happy with all the translations. He said the new translation is a bit more reverent and using a language that is a bit different from regular day-to-day language so it lends itself to a prayerful environment. Scot noted that it often takes several generations after a Council for the Church to appropriate all aspects of it. Fr. Joe said he returned home to Boston in July 1970 and celebrated his first Mass here on July 19. His first assignment was St. Mary's Italian Church in Salem, which had a small Italian community. The monsignor who was there was a wonderful first pastor. He was very respectful of Fr. Joe. At one point, he was in charge of religious education and when concerns came up about the textbook, he accepted Fr. Joe's decisions on the matter. He was prayerful and concerned about his people as well. He was then assigned to Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton. They also had a large Italian community there. There were four priests there at the time. They had a grammar school and a high school, where he taught for a year. He also visited the grammar school often as well. He also taught religious education. He celebrated funerals and weddings in Italian and heard confessions in Italian and had Communion calls in Italian, about 20 or 30 per month. He was also on call at the hospital for the occasional Italian patient who didn't speak English well. After eight years he moved again to St. Anthony's in Revere, another strongly Italian parish. St. Anthony's had four priests as well. This was about 10 or 11 years in the priesthood for Fr. Joe so he was the senior curate in the house, that is the most senior of the priests not the pastor. Fr. Joe was put in charge of the parish band even though he's neither a musician or singer. He was there for about 2–1/2 years and one day got a call from Bishop Thomas Daily who asked him to come in. Cardinal Medeiros wanted him to come in and meet on Friday. The whole week from Monday to Friday he wondered what it was about. On Friday, the cardinal told him he wanted to appoint him as his secretary. Fr. Scorzello thought it was a mistake at first, but the cardinal insisted that it would be a good fit. The Cardinal asked if he needed time to think about it, but Fr. Joe said that if it was the wish of the archbishop then he didn't have to think about it. He was asked not to talk about it until he got the official appointment, except for his pastor. The next week, Fr. Joe got a call from the cardinal himself who told him to call his parents and tell them first. Scot said he can't recall any personal memories of Cardinal Medeiros. Fr. Joe said he's known many priests and bishops and says from his own judgment that he was a bishop who was holy, intelligent, and perceptive. He had them to a higher degree than anyone else he's known. He knew the diocese well, he loved the people and priests, he was intellectually acute. At the time, Fr. Joe was studying for his comprehensive exams in philosophy, and the cardinal was hospitalized for a week and every night the cardinal quizzed him on the work. Scot asked what the cardinal's legacy is in the Archdiocese. Fr. Joe said he stabilized the archdiocese's finances certainly, but his legacy is really his gentleness, his love of his priests, and the lasting memory of him among the people. He said the funeral Mass for the Cardinal was incredible. They celebrated memorial Masses for him all week and the cathedral was filled for all of those Masses. Fr. Chris said one of his earliest memories is of standing in the huge line at the cathedral for the wake. The line went out the cathedral doors and they had to wait more than an hour and a half to go by. He remembers the reverence and love and outpouring of the people. Bishop Daily was appointed administrator and then out of the blue a bishop from Missouri was being sent to Boston. Fr. Joe said Bishop Bernard Law was named in January 1984 and came up for the news conference and met with the auxiliary bishops of Boston, the secretaries, and the bishops of the metropolitan region. He asked Fr. Joe to return to Springfield-Cape Girardeau to help him transition to Boston. He stayed there for six weeks. Fr. Chris noted it was only supposed to be 10 days originally. When he was told he needed to stay for six weeks, Fr. Joe told Bishop Law that he'd have to make a few phone calls, to Bishop Daily, of course, but more importantly to his mother so she wouldn't worry. Fr. Joe said his mother was delighted to hear from him. Much later, after Cardinal Law had retired to Rome, after the death of Fr. Joe's sister, he called Fr. Joe's mother to extend his own sympathies to her. Scot said he has heard from many, many people about Cardinal Law that when somebody was ill or in the hospital or somebody had died that was close to one of his priests or to somebody that worked in the chancery, that the cardinal was tremendous in those moments. Scot said that for the archbishop, there is so much administration and so much ceremony that there isn't a lot of time for simple pastoral ministry of a priest. Fr. Joe said while he was with the cardinal as his secretary,one time as they traveled from Worcester, the cardinal wanted to go to Ipswich because there was a nun there who was dying that he wanted to visit. It was already after 8pm and the house was secluded and once they were there the cardinal gave the anointing and visited for a while and they didn't get home until after 11pm. The Cardinal came to Fr. Joe's dad's wake and funeral too. He continued the tradition set by Cardinal Medeiros. They both had a great deal of affection for the priests and the people. After his time as priest-secretary, Cardinal Law asked him to become administrator of Most Precious Blood in Hyde Park. Bishop Riley was the pastor there and was getting on in years so he had very much on his plate as auxiliary bishop and pastor of parish and school. This was after the cardinal's first year in Boston. It worked out for Fr. Joe very well to go back to his home parish. While Fr. Joe was there was when his own father got sick and died so it was a blessing to be close to home. After 5–1/2 years, he asked not to become pastor and asked for sabbatical for six months to write his dissertation. He went up to St. Anselms College abbey to live with the monks and wrote a rough draft of his dissertation. After that he was assigned to St. Mary's in Brookline with Fr. Jack Ahern and Fr. Richard Lennon, now the bishop of Cleveland, and Fr. Joseph Trainor, He taught school there again and religious education. He continued working on his doctoral dissertation and celebrated his 25th anniversary of his priesthood while there. He took his mother and sister to Rome to celebrate. They visited with friends in the city every night and had a wonderful time. Cardinal Law got them very good audience tickets to greet Pope John Paul II. The Friday of the week, December 17, he got a call from the Vatican inviting them to celebrate Mass in the private chapel with Pope John Paul on the following morning. They went to the early Mass with the Pope and met him afterward. He was at St. Mary's for another after that and then he was appointed Pastor of St. Francis of Assisi in Medford. Scot noted that you can see it from Route 93. After six years there, Fr. Joe was asked whether he wanted to stay or apply to another position. He wasn't happy with all the administrative work of the pastor so he asked to be made a parochial vicar. The cardinal asked him to come in and talk about it. The cardinal said he would respect his decision given that Fr. Joe had always been obedient and said yes to the bishop's requests. So he appointed him as parochial vicar at Our Lady of Lourdes in Brockton. after a couple of years, he got a call from Fr. John Farren, a Dominican priest he didn't know. Fr. Farren asked Fr. Joe to come and teach at the seminary. Fr. Joe said the first year, he came from Brockton twice per week to teach, which was a bit difficult. At the end of the year, he said he couldn't keep it up any longer at 60 years old doing two jobs. Fr. Joe asked Cardinal Seán to appoint him full-time to the seminary or to the parish. That was 7 years ago. Fr. joe said the great gift of working at the seminary is the priestly fraternity with the faculty. Most priests live alone in their rectories or with one other priest, but in the seminary there are many more priests. Then the young men in the seminary are very courageous and inspiring to dedicate themselves to Christ and His Church. Fr. Joe said he's always enjoyed being a priest, but the seminary is a very special assignment. Scot said it's unusual for a priest serving many years in parishes to come onto the seminary faculty as a professor late in life. Fr. Joe said that was one of the reasons Fr. Farren asked him to come to the seminary. He wanted him because of his pastoral experience. Most of the priest-faculty have only spent a limited amount of time in the parish, so in classes and at meals, the students are intent on talking about his pastoral experiences. Fr. Chris said Fr. Joe really shines in those lunches in which he imparts his wisdom in both the good and bad, the dangers and what to look out for and watch for as a priest.

Summary of today's show: From his school days at the Archdiocesan Choir School as a child, Fr. Bill Kelly has heard the Lord calling him to the priesthood. He just never thought it would take such interesting turns. In his 20+ years as a priest, Fr. Bill has studied in Rome, received a doctorate in theology, taught at the seminary, led the ongoing formation and support of priests, been a pastor, and co-hosted a movie review show on CatholicTV. Fr. Bill joins Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor to talk about his vocation and his priesthood. Listen to the show: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor Today's guest(s): Fr. Bill Kelly Links from today's show: Today's topics: Pastor Profile: Fr. Bill Kelly 1st segment: Scot and Fr. Chris talked about the busy seminary schedule interviewing prospective seminarians for next year. Fr. Chris said this could be the largest class in years, with close to 25 new men applying. He said he's going on vacation next week so he's hoping to wrap up the process this week. Scot noted that early in Cardinal Seán's tenure there was a total of 25 men at the seminary and there was talking about closing it. Now it's filled to capacity with 79 men in residence. Fr. Chris said it's the wisdom of the Church that men are brought together to be formed together. Today's guest is Fr. Bill Kelly, who has served in the archdiocese as head of the office that deals with ongoing clergy formation, as well as teaching at the seminary. Now he's pastor at St. Mary Parish in Dedham. 2nd segment: Scot and Fr. Chris welcome Fr. Bill Kelly. Fr. Chris recalled that Fr. Bill taught him how to drink wine in Rome. Fr. Bill said Fr. Chris didn't have a lot of experience with wine. On the other hand, Fr. Bill was introduced to gin and tonic by Fr. Chris and his family. Fr. Bill grew up in Sacred Heart in North Quincy. He said his parents still live there. The pastor who was there for most of his life exuded the life of the priest. Sadly, he died suddenly in 1996 and a book of essays about this priest by his brother priests was produced and Fr. Bill uses that as an example of the life of the diocesan priest. He was a gentle soul and a tremendous preacher. At his funeral, there were 250 priests and 15 bishops. Six thousand people came to his wake. Out of Sacred Heart, they've had 7 or 8 men who've gone on to priesthood. Fr. Bill said he is the oldest of six, two brothers and three sisters. They are a very musical family. His dad is a drummer and his mother sings. His grandmother had a radio show on which she played piano. They grew up singing around the piano. Fr. Bill attended the Archdiocesan Choir School in Cambridge which elevated his natural interest in music and was the seedbed of his vocation. Fr. Chris said Seiji Ozawa once threw Fr. Bill out of Symphony Hall. Fr. Bill said he was a sixth grader in the choir in a rehearsal and was chitchatting a bit with a friend. Ozawa lost his temper and threw him out. Scot asked why the school was the seedbed of his vocation. Fr. Bill said the first time he thought of the priesthood was in the fourth grade and remembered the priest going to the tabernacle and being in awe of that. Later at the choir school, Ted Marier, the founder and original headmaster was not just a great musician, but Fr. Bill also believes he authentically a saint. The faith of the headmaster and his wife was expressed in the work they did. The choir sang at Mass every day and on Sunday. It was by his devotion to the Church that came pouring out of him through his musical genius. He remembers that the entire school was confirmed every four years, all the kids in the school and the Mariers were the sponsors of all the boys. It was during the singing of one hymn that the ides of a vocation came to him most clearly. Fr. Bill attended Boston College High School. While some of the Jesuits encouraged him to consider the order, he was very interested in diocesan priesthood. He went right into the college seminary, which he loved, not least because they didn't have take any math courses. From there he went to the North American College in Rome for five years. When he left home, his youngest sister was in seventh grade and when came she was a senior in high school. He was home for three years and then returned for doctoral studies. His first assignment was Sacred Heart in East Boston for just three or four months. Then he went to St. Paul's in Hingham. He went to Rome for a doctoral degree in dogma with the plan that he would come back to be spiritual director at the seminary. He was there from 1995 to 2005. Every seminarian has to have a spiritual director. They would meet every two weeks to help him grow in sensitivity and understanding to how God was at work in their lives. It always comes back to how it fits in with how it helps him discern whether God is asking him to be a priest. At the seminary, he had 15 to 25 directees. He also directed a number of religious sisters and laypeople. He also helped design the spiritual life component of the Masters of Arts in Ministry program. All told, he was seeing about 40 people per year in spiritual direction. Scot asked what it's like to see many of the men he directed as priests now. Fr. Bill said it's great to see them later. Fr. Chris was one of the seminarians at the time. He recalls finding Fr. Chris doing an impression of Fr. Bill giving a lecture. Fr. Bill said his priesthood was transformed by the students, seeing their love for the Lord and their priesthood. Fr. Bill said his closest friends in the presbyterate are men who were students when he was there. After St. John's, he was put in charge of ongoing formation for priests. Fr. Bill said it was a natural transition in some ways. He did have to help priests of varying experiences from newly ordained to ordained for decades. It was just a few years after the abuse crisis began so there was a lot of need for providing support for the priests, including just having men come together. Fr. Bill said he is convinced the conversion of the priesthood will come through intellectual formation. Scot said one of the programs Fr. Bill brought to the archdiocese was Good Leaders, GoodShepherds from Catholic LEadership Institute. Fr. Bill said it's a program that helps priests look at leadership skills, especially for priests feeling burdened by administrative tasks. It's not just a time management course, but it truly was centered in the Church's teachings. It weds the best practices of leadership in the corporate world with Church teaching. More than 100 priests in Boston have gone through the program. Scot asked what it was like to travel a lot around the country, speaking and giving retreats for priests. Fr. Bill said he enjoyed speaking to varied groups. He loved to bring communities together in a different way. He's been fortunate in his life. He once lived with the great spiritual writer Henri Nouwen. He met Mother Teresa a number of times. He met Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger. He's been able to bring those experiences to his various talks. 3rd segment: Fr. Bill has been at St. Mary's in Dedham for two years. He was a priest for 20 year before becoming a pastor. He'd been living at Holy Family in Rockland for 15 years, helping out on the weekends. He was happy to get the new assignment. It was a significant change. It's phenomenal parish with wonderful leadership. Fr. Matt Williams and Fr. Bill Lohan were there as parochial vicars. Bishop Dooher was pastor there before becoming a bishop. Fr. Bill said their active youth group has a bunch of them in Nicaragua this week. Those who couldn't go have committed to going to the 7am daily Mass to pray for those who went. Fr. Chris asked what makes St. Mary's unique. Fr. Bill said it has a long and beautiful devotional tradition of care for the Blessed Sacrament. They have all-day/all-night adoration on Fridays. They have active prayer groups. The Mass is well attended and they have long and well-established music program. He remembers his first weekend singing with the choir. More recently, Life Teen is perhaps it's most well-known program. Fr. Chris Hickey created this program from almost nothing. Five men with connections to St. Mary's in the seminary with three more going next year. That's the fruit of LifeTeen and of the prayer of the parish for vocations. They also have wonderful participation in the Sacrament of Confession. Fr. Bill said they renovated the confessional and made it very beautiful. It's now a very large space with a great stained glass window. All the ancient traditional symbols of reconciliation have been incorporated into the confessional. They're hoping to increase the amount of time devoted to confession and he said you can't walk across the parking lot without being asked to hear a confession. It's a spirit-filled parish. Fr. Bill said LIft Ministries was founded by two parishioners. Scot said he first heard about St. Mary's because of the LifeTeen program. Scot said you don't see many parishes that have all the generations so active in parish life. Fr. Bill said a priest friend visited last summer and on a Thursday night it was so busy that his friend asked him if he realized how lucky he is. Fr. Bill said at least six groups meet regularly on Thursday nights. Scot asked what the root causes of this active parish are in addition to good priests and prayer. Fr. Bill said it's both the town of Dedham, which is the kind of place where people put down roots and always come home. It's also the families. Because they don't have a school, there is a little bit of a struggle to bring in young families, but they are seeing young families grow again and they are starting to see a growth of ethnic families in the area. Fr. Chris said each priest preaches one basic homily with variations. He asked what it is for Fr. Bill. He said because of his years as a spiritual director he thinks he's mostly attuned to people's friendship with Christ and their relationship with God. Then how does that get lived out. How is it that the Church is the surest way to grow in our relationship with Christ? The Church is the most abundant way that one's spiritual life is able to grow. He said he thinks he needs to ramp up on some of the issues of the day in his preaching. Scot said Fr. Bill also co-hosts a show on CatholicTV called Spotlight along with Fr. Chip Hines. Fr. Bill said he and Fr. Chip were at some gathering for priests and got into a conversation about movies. They got into such an intense discussion that somebody told them they should have their own show. Somehow Fr. Bob Reed heard about it and asked them to do the show. They just finished their third year and have reviewed over 300 movies. They approach it from the point of view of whether it's a good movie on a technical level, but also on what themes can be drawn from it on the basis of our Catholic faith. They will be upfront with people about the content if it's morally objectionable. He said they often hear from cloistered nuns who watch movies based on their reviews. They take a currently running movie and build a theme on it, whether topic or theme or the like. He said the funny thing is when people come up to him at a wedding in the Communion line and look at him with recognition. For the summer, he recommends the quirky movie Moonrise Kingdom. He did just see the Spiderman movie and thought it was terrific. He does agree with critics who said the action scenes are not as exciting as in the other Spiderman movies. He's very interested in seeing Woody Allen's To Rome With Love. The biggest movie of the summer will be The Dark Knight Rises. He thinks the previous installment in the Batman series is one of the best movies ever. He said he knows some seminary professors use it in their moral theology classes. At the top of his list would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy; the Wizard of Oz; Ordinary People because he loves family dramas and because it's when he fell in love with the movies. Scot asked Fr. Bill where he would recommend people look for family-appropriate movies. He said the Boston Globe has a family-friendly guide or search online. Fr. Bill said the old DIsney movies are great for kids. For children's movies, don't take them to the dumbed down movies. There are good movies with good messages and substantial messages. He recommended The Secret World of Arrietty.

Summary of today's show: Msgr. James Moroney will assume the mantle of rector of St. John's Seminary on July 1 and Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor talk with him about his background, his work at the US bishops conference and with the Vatican on liturgy, and what it takes to form a “Swiss Army” priest for today's Church. Listen to the show: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor Today's guest(s): Msgr. James Moroney, incoming rector of St. John Seminary Links from today's show: Today's topics: Msgr. James Moroney and Formation of Priests 1st segment: Scot welcomed Fr. Chris O'Connor to the show. There's been a lot going on over the last three days, starting with the Ordination Mass on Saturday an on up to the live, town hall on CatholicTV last night. Fr. Chris said the cathedral was filled with people celebrating thesis new priests. Fr. Chris preached the homily at Fr. Eric Cadin's first Mass on Sunday night at St. Mary's in Dedham. This was during the Life Teen Mass and he thought there will be some more vocations coming from among the teens who were there. Vocations come from families, from moms and dads, including asking them if God was calling to them to the priesthood or religious life. Fr. Chris said on Monday, the men went to Regina Cleri to celebrate Mass with the retired priests. They will also be with Cardinal Seán on Wednesday with their families and the faculty of St. John's Seminary for a luncheon. Last night was the live town hall meeting and CatholicTV will be re-broadcasting it several times, including tonight at 8pm. Scot encouraged everyone to get more involved. 2nd segment: Scot and Fr. Chris welcomed Msgr. James Moroney to the show. Scot said formation of future priests is one of the most important ministries in the Church. Msgr. Moroney has been involved in formation before, but now he will become rector of St. John's Seminary. It was a different perspective this year for him at the ordination Mass. He looked at the men and thought to himself how good how God is to us. Fr. Chris and Msgr. Moroney were both very moved during the Mass. They know how beauty it is, even in the cross that it comes with. Msgr. Moroney said Fr. Chris has taught him to survive in this new job. As the vice-rector he's the one the monsignor relies on. He said day to day you come to know these men like a pastor knows his people. Scot recalled that the greeting of the priests at the Mass to the newly ordained is a fraternal embrace, a brotherhood even if they have just met. Msgr. Moroney said we are not saved individually, but by being baptized into the body of Christ. In the same way, the presbyterate is all of the priests joined to the archbishop. The men were ordained into that presbyterate, now sharing the three part ministry of being shepherd, teacher, and sanctifier. Scot asked Msgr. Moroney about his background. He grew up in Milbury, Mass. in Our Lady of Lourdes parish and then St. Bridget's parish in the same town. He didn't go to Catholic school because one wasn't available. He recalls the town was 80 to 85% Catholic. He recalls his teacher leading the public school kids in prayer every day. As he walked home from school every day, he'd stop in the church to pray and he learned to listen to God, quieting all the problems in his own life. Msgr. Moroney said it's important that every young man listening pray for God to open up to him what his plan for him is. After high school, he went to a college seminary in Baltimore for one year until it closed. Then he stayed in Maryland for a year, working as a community organizer for the Quakers against the draft. He came back to Worcester and was sent to North American College in Rome. He's been a pastor in several different places. He's also worked for the US bishops conference for 13 years as director of the liturgy office. Scot said Msgr. Moroney has prepared two different series on the liturgy for EWTN and CatholicTV, as well as other media. Msgr. Moroney said he had been told that the Church needed someone to explain the liturgy for the average man and that's why he studied for it in order to promote it. Once he was pastor of two parishes separated by a parking lot and lots of old feelings. They used the promotion of beautiful liturgies and Eucharistic adoration to bring them together so that the two eventually became one parish. Msgr. Moroney was appointed by Pope John Paul II as a consulter to the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments. He's also executive secretary of Vox Clara, a committee of bishops who advise bishops' conference on English in the liturgy around the world. Fr. Chris noted that Msgr. Moroney is a priest of the Worcester diocese. Msgr. Moroney said Cardinal Seán has promoted St. John's as a regional diocese. They have seminarians from every diocese in New England and other countries too, including Saudi Arabia. He sees the role of rector as being pastor of the seminary, which is how John Paul II saw it in the document Pastores dos Vobis. Being a pastor of a flock of shepherds is one way to put it. Scot said he's the first diocesan priest not of Boston to be appointed rector. Scot recounted some of the other rectors over time. Msgr. Moroney said Bishop Arthur Kennedy, the outgoing rector, is an old friend from when they both worked at the US Bishops Conference. Bishop Kennedy working in the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. When Bishop Kennedy became rector in St. John's, he asked Msgr. Moroney to come teach there as well. He said Bishop Kennedy is the “second founder” of the seminary, expanding the seminary, not just in numbers, but in programs and quality of formation. 3rd segment: Scot asked the essential aspects of forming a priest today. Msgr. Moroney said it's centering on Christ, a personal relationship with Christ. The same Christ, Cardinal Seán prayed to in the ordination prayer. The same Christ the new priests prayed to on Sunday in their first Masses. Whether you're a newly ordained priest or a priest living in Regina Cleri, to know Christ personally, to be led deeper into the mystery of Christ. “That I may decrease, that Christ may increase,” is the heart of priestly formation. Msgr. Moroney said every generation faces particular challenges. The challenge we face is that all the demands made of me to look at this and that, to grab my attention, to be able to put that aside and center on Christ. The device and media might be able to help, but it's a challenge. He noted that book, “I Am Not A Gadget”, asks a lot of philosophical questions about living in a digital world with social media and everything. If Christ is not there, then all the digital stuff is a clanging symbol. Scot said 50 years ago we lived in a much stronger Catholic culture. We had 75% or higher Mass attendance then. Now the new priests will serve where the majority of Catholics don't attend Mass. Msgr. Moroney said the zeal and purity of vision is just the same as when he was was ordained. However, the men come from a different culture now. Msgr. Moroney came from an atmosphere where everyone was imbued with catechism and devotions were the norm. A few years ago, the US bishops acknowledged that we need two extra years of formation for priests because they're not getting that like they used to. Msgr. Moroney taught a course on homily preparation. About 5 years he played tapes of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and the seminarians were not that impressed. Msgr. Moroney realized he was speaking to a different culture and a different world. There's more skepticism about even the fact of ultimate truths. Fr. Reed of CatholicTV will teach a course next year on media and the new evangelization. Scot said Msgr. Moroney leads days of recollections across the country for priests and to teach in seminaries on many subjects. Scot asked if there's a vocations crisis. Msgr. Moroney said the crisis is in believing God will take care of us. When we say to young men, “Have you thought about becoming a priest?” the result is magnificent. God only asks us to pray and do a little work. He said he saw a young man at Fr. Cadin's Mass who looked particularly intent and so he went over asked him if he ever thought of becoming a priest. Scot said in the Archdiocese of Boston on a Sunday morning you can find a Mass every 30 minutes within a 15 minute drive. In other places in the country, you have to drive 1-1/2 hours to get to the next church. Msgr. Moroney said the numbers of priests in the 60s was a result of the baby boom. We are doing very well for priests in the United States today. Fr. Chris asked about the type of priest to ordain from St. John's. Msgr. Moroney said they want to form the Swiss Army priest. They want a priest who could go to a parish centered around the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Mass or a Life Teen parish or a Brazilian parish or whatever. The priest has such a pastor's heart and skills to go beyond himself, he'll be able to minister wherever he goes. Like St. Paul who was able to be all things to all men wherever he went. Scot said there's a pressure on young priests to be defined by their parishioners as a type of priest. Msgr, Moroney said the biggest obstacle to the Swiss Army priest is the self-confidence of the young man. The temptation is to compromise in order to get people to like you. We should preach Christ, not just tickle people's ears with what they want to hear. He said they should preach in kindness, but in truth. Fr. Chris said the Gospel is meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Scot noted that the age of new priests is creeping upward. In the past they would have to be 25 at least. Fr. Chris said most men coming into seminary are 23 to 24 or so. Fr. Chris said when men come in right from college, they often left soon after. Now men who have been out in the world are leaving something behind, and have already thought long and hard about this step, so they are less likely to leave. The men are generally ordained in late 20s/early 30s. Scot asked if it's easier or tougher to have men that are older who more experience as well as more habits to break. Msgr. Moroney recalled one of the first seminary classes he taught had a former doctor, a former lawyer, a former engineer. They were very accomplished and used to calling the shots. Now they are living a simple life and having to listen to others tell them how to grow and improve. Fr. Chris said seminary is meant to stretch and challenge the men because priesthood will do the same. Msgr. Moroney said during the ordination Mass the men lay flat on their face while the litany is prayed around them. In reality, they laid down on their face when they entered seminary by embracing the humility of openness to formation. Scot asked Msgr. Moroney how his background on liturgy will affect the formation of seminarians. Msgr. Moroney said over the last five years he's monied into a reflection on priestly spirituality. Without a conformity to Christ on the Cross, the people will see it as inauthentic. It is from hearts that hearts learn. He said we're on the cusp of a revival of spirituality among priests today. Msgr. Moroney asked people to pray for seminarians every day. Go to the St. John's website, pick a seminarian, and pray for him every day.

Summary of today's show: There are several living legends among the priests of the Archdiocese of Boston and Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O'Connell welcome one of them today. Fr. Walter Waldron has been a priest for 48 years and pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Roxbury for 29 years. Fr. Walter tells our listeners about seeing the Second Vatican Council firsthand, putting the lessons of the Council into practice in the inner-city in the 1970s, and then serving a parish that's like three parishes in one for nearly three decades in a neighborhood many have written off. Listen to the show: Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O'Connell Today's guest(s): Fr. Walter Waldron, Pastor of St. Patrick Parish, Roxbury Today's topics: Pastor Profile: Fr. Walter Waldron 1st segment: Scot welcomed everyone to the show and started with the startling news that Fr. Mark was taken by ambulance to the hospital from his rectory yesterday. He fell down a few steps and was taken to the hospital as a precaution.Fr. Mark said the neck brace they put on had four settings: tall, medium, short, and no neck. He was highly insulted that they had it on no neck. Last night, Fr. Mark was able to go to a special Mass at Regina Cleri, where Fr. Bob Oliver is also recovering from an accident and a broken hip. Scot said it's been a busy week preparing for the live, interactive town hall meeting on CatholicTV Monday night with Cardinal Seán. He said it's never been done before over all the different media: TV, radio, and the Internet. He encourages everyone to tune in via WQOM or CatholicTV. On Monday's The Good Catholic Life we will have one of the panelists, Kim Daniels, to talk about how we got to this point. The town hall meeting begins at 8pm. Scot said today's guest is one of the legends of the priesthood in Boston and he's been looking forward to this conversation. 2nd segment: Scot and Fr. Mark welcomed Fr. Walter Waldron. Fr. Walter said he grew up in Milton and went to school there. He had two brothers and two sisters. One of the gifts in his life has been his family and extended family. He realizes how much all those cousins mean to him and made him what he is today. His vocation came from his family and the community was very Catholic. He went to St. Agatha School. He wanted to be a lawyer, teacher or priest. He went to BC High and considered being a Jesuit. When Fr. Walter's father was at BC High in the 1920s and he considered becoming a Jesuit. His grandfather had a work accident that prevented him from working and so his father was counseled he should stay to support his family. So it comes full circle to him. Fr. Walter said Fr. Riley, who was a younger priest in charge of the altar servers at St. Agatha's, was an influence on his vocation too. He said there were no priests in his family. Fr. Walter said he ended up deciding he would end up encountering more people in the diocesan priesthood than if he joined the Jesuits, who at the time specialized in education. He went to Cardinal O'Connell Seminary for two years out of high school. He went to St. John's Seminary for two years and then went to the North American College and was ordained in St. Peter's. He was there in the early Sixties and was there during the death of Pope John XXIII and election of Pope Paul VI. Scot asked what it was like being in Rome during the Second Vatican Council? Fr. Walter said it was very exciting, partly because some of the US bishops stayed in the North American College and had interaction with the seminarians. Some seminarians were even able to sneak into the sessions in St. Peter's. He and his classmates were on the side of those who were most forward-looking. During his time in Rome, he wasn't able to come back from Rome, but his family did come visit once before ordination. He took a ship over with the other seminarians. He recalled how the seminarians were all seasick at first, but he loved it so much that he came back by boat rather than fly. Scot asked Fr. Walter is he learned the old and the new liturgies. He said he was trained in the older missal. There was no transition while he was there. Fr. Walter was ordained in 1964 and has had only three assignments in those 48 years. He was first assigned to St. Margaret in Beverly Farms. He remembers saying to the people that first Sunday, “I'm so glad to be here in Beverly Hills.” He was there for two years. Then he was a parochial vicar at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross for 18 years. He had asked Cardinal Cushing to be assigned to work in the city and to live in an apartment among the people. Cardinal Cushing said no, but offered him a position at the cathedral. He made many friendships and is still involved with some of the groups from them. He loved living in the city and came to learn the movement of the city. He has remained in the city, going to St. Patrick's parish in Roxbury in 1984. Fr. Walter wanted to live in the city because of the priests he knew in Roxbury at the time. He liked the life they lived and how they had freedom to interact with people. He talked about how he was mentored and affirmed by Msgr. Russ Collins. Fr. Mark said the monsignor was a real innovator in our archdiocese. He helped form a group called the Boston Urban Association of Priests. They were very vocal about public policy and even endorsed a candidate. They thought they were reading the signs of the times. Scot said it was a tumultuous time in Boston with the busing crisis. Fr. Walter said it gave him an identity with the people that were there. He came to understand their difficulties and pain and how far they felt from the mainstream of Boston. It was an eye-opener for him. Scot noted that the Boston Urban Priests helped the Pine Street Inn form itself. Fr. Walter said there was a place called the Dawes Hotel that was pulling out of the business of serving the poor, and no one wanted to take over the ministry. They took over the place and re-named it the Pine Street Inn. They didn't know they were supposed to ask the cardinal first. They had some advisors on how to help people who were addicted to alcohol. They had only one employee and each priest would take a night to be there. Scot perceives that time as a time for the Church asking herself what she was to be in this town and in this world. What do the condiments of Vatican II mean in practical matters? There was a lot of adjustment. Fr. Walter said there wasn't a model to follow. Fr. Walter at the time took on a foster kid and moved out of the rectory into an apartment. He was then called in by Cardinal Medeiros. He told Fr. Walter that he knows what he did and only wanted to know that he was taking good care of him. He had the foster kid for four years. Scot asked what it was like to move to St. Patrick's in 1984. He didn't want to move out of the cathedral after being there so long. In fact, he'd just been asked to be the chaplain at Walpole State Prison and he said no because it would be the same population day after day. So when St. Patrick came up, he took it. He's attracted to variety in his priestly ministry. Scot said you couldn't get more variety in St. Patrick's. Fr. Walter said they just celebrated their 175th anniversary. They had three languages: English, Spanish, and Portuguese Creole. He feels like he's already in charge of three parishes. In 1989, the Boston Globe did a big three-page article on him in the newspaper. It showed how he had a presence on the streets, a consistent presence over a period of time. After a while he wasn't a stranger there and people came to know he was interested in all communities. He showed how they could come together as one parish with three communities. Fr. Walter said for a long time they had three parish councils. He didn't think it made sense o he established a supercouncil. After a while they formed one parish pastoral councils for the last 5 to 10 years. It's helped him to learn better the other language groups, to know them on a personal and a professional Catholic level. Scot said half of the parish are newcomers to the country. 85% of all parishioners are from Cape Verde. He said much of the ministry must be helping people adjust. Fr. Walter said the question has been whether to focus on people's background and culture or do you try to acculturate them? They've found a balance. They've been able to do a lot of outreach in the native languages, mainly through a lot of sisters who spoke the language. There's a commonality between the pastoral staff and the people who came here. Cape Verde is traditionally Catholic and so there's no difficulty in attracting them to the Church. Like in the past, so much of their lives focus on the Church. Fr. Mark asked if the Church is sanctuary. Fr. Walter said “sanctuary” is a loaded word, but Fr. Mark said he didn't intend it that way. Fr. Walter said they've always had good relationships with civil authorities. He's never been faced with a person asking for sanctuary from immigration issues. Scot said growing up, Roxbury was never portrayed in a positive light in the news. He asked Fr. Walter to describe it. He said it is home for people. He tells priests that they have to come in recognizing that they are people just like you. People are sometimes afraid to come to Roxbury, but he encourages them to come. He said the safest part of the city on a Sunday morning is Roxbury because everybody's in church. It's hard to drive the image of the shootings in the street from people's minds. But it's not an everyday occurrence. There are people who are interested in raising their kids, keeping their homes neat, and living their lives. Fr. Mark said he regularly says Mass with the Carmelite Sisters in Dudley Square. Fr. Walter calls them the spiritual powerhouse. He'd never before met cloistered sisters, but he found them to be just like the rest of us. He said a number of religious orders work with St. Patrick's so they make a big deal in February for World Consecrated Life Day. Now they have the Franciscans of the Primitive Observance in the parish. Fr. Walter said their desire is to live a life as close as possible to St. Francis' life 800 years ago. They wear a rough habit, they sleep on the floor, they eat only what they've begged that day. They are very good at reaching out to others. They've only been there two year,s but everyone knows them. Fr. Walter said they are living in one of their buildings, but have a broader vision than the parish. Several of them have learned Creole in order to say Mass and do confessions in the language of the people. When they first came they came over the parish to offer to help. They've established a monthly holy hour for vocations to the priesthood. One of the brothers of the FPO is being ordained to the priesthood tomorrow. Br. Michael Sheehan will be ordained by Cardinal Seán at the Cathedral. After the Mass, they will have a reception at St. Patrick's. He will continue doing the work of the order in the community. Fr. Walter said they are like worker-priests whose work is for the advancement of the Church, being out where the people are and making sure there's a normal interaction with them. They are concerned the people are not only Catholic in name, but in practice too.They want the folks to see the Church as an essential part of their lives. Scot asked what is one of his biggest joys as a priest. Fr. Walter said being a priest and being fortunate to be in a life he just loves. He loves it as much today as he did the day he was ordained in St. Peter's. He said he's heard stories of priests burdened by the stress of their priesthood. He doesn't recall a moment he felt that way. He said it's the joy of being with the people and being astounded at how they take him into their homes and family. He remembers a couple of years ago after some surgery and seeing how concerned the people were for him. 3rd segment: Now as we do every week at this time, we will consider the Mass readings for this Sunday, specifically the Gospel reading. When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be?” For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel. Scot said we tend to think of John the Baptist as preparing for way of the Lord during Advent, but we should think of him at all times because he's always pointing us to Jesus. Fr. Walter said he was an evangelizer and it's believed to have belonged to a spiritual sect of Judaism that was looking to reinvigorate the faith for the coming of the Messiah. Fr. Walter said it is traditional in Judaism for a boy to be named after the father or an ancestor. But we don't know why Zecharaiah wanted to name him John. It shows the importance of names in Scripture. Jesus renamed Peter, Saul was renamed Paul. Fr. Walter said this is true today. It's common for recovering addicts to give up the name they used while they active, they went back to their real name or a nickname they had as a kid. Scot said Popes take on a new name. Cardinal Seán grew up as Patrick O'Malley, but took on the name Seán when he became a religious. Fr. Mark said he was struck that John is about humility and his birth, which references much of the Old Testament, has lots of triumphant images. In the Gospel, John says that he must decrease while Christ increases. He was humble and our Lord was heralded through humility. Scot related that Zechariah couldn't speak because he doubted the news from the angel Gabriel that he and his wife would have a son in their old age. Scot said the entirety of John's life pointed to Christ.

Today's host(s): Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O'Connell Links from today's show: Today's topics: Cardinal Dolan's address to the College of Cardinals Summary of today's show: Last week, the day before the consistory at which he was to be made a cardinal of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York was asked to address the College of Cardinals and Pope Benedict XVI on the topic of the New Evangelization. Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O'Connell walk the listeners step by step through the Cardinal's 7-step strategy for evangelization, which he peppered with many practical—and often witty—observations that itself demonstrates his call to be joyful, confident, and knowledgeable when witnessing to the beauty of a relationship with Jesus Christ in His Church. 1st segment: Scot and Fr. Mark discussed the week. Fr. Mark had an emergency last week that caused him to miss the show because he had to have a root canal. They discussed about three priests who have died recently. Fr. Mark said he went to the funeral today for Fr. Ed O'Flaherty, a Jesuit who worked for many years as director of the ecumenical office for the Archdiocese among other ministries. There were many priests and bishops at the funeral. Fr. Bill Burckhart also died this week. He was the founder of the permanent diaconate and also worked with Fr. Mark on the Clergy Funds. Fr. Jim Curtin also died, who Fr. Mark recalled him as someone who was always happy to see you. Today they will be discussing a talk given by Cardinal Timothy Dolan before the consistory in which Pope Benedict made new cardinals last week. It was highly unusual for the keynote address of the meeting to be given by one of the new cardinals. 2nd segment: Cardinal Dolan began his address: It is as old as the final mandate of Jesus, “Go, teach all nations!,” yet as fresh as God's Holy Word proclaimed at our own Mass this morning. I speak of the sacred duty of evangelization. It is “ever ancient, ever new.” The how of it, the when of it, the where of it, may change, but the charge remains constant, as does the message and inspiration, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” We gather in the caput mundi, evangelized by Peter and Paul themselves, in the city from where the successors of St. Peter “sent out” evangelizers to present the saving Person, message, and invitation that is at the heart of evangelization: throughout Europe, to the “new world” in the “era of discovery,” to Africa and Asia in recent centuries. We gather near the basilica where the evangelical fervor of the Church was expanded during the Second Vatican Council, and near the tomb of the Blessed Pontiff who made the New Evangelization a household word. We gather grateful for the fraternal company of a pastor who has made the challenge of the new evangelization almost a daily message. Yes, we gather as missionaries, as evangelizers. Fr. Mark said the Pope chose evangelization as the key topic for all the cardinals of the world. We are all called to remember that we are also evangelizers through our baptism. Scot said the cardinal then talks about the re-evangelization of Catholics as complementary to evangelization to non-Catholics. HE then continues after that: The acclaimed American missionary and TV evangelist, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, commented, “Our Lord's first word to His disciples was ‘come!' His last word was ‘go!' You can't ‘go' unless you've first ‘come' to Him.” A towering challenge to both the missio ad gentes and the New Evangalization today is what we call secularism. Listen to how our Pope describes it: Secularization, which presents itself in cultures by imposing a world and humanity without reference to Transcendence, is invading every aspect of daily life and developing a mentality in which God is effectively absent, wholly or partially, from human life and awareness. This secularization is not only an external threat to believers, but has been manifest for some time in the heart of the Church herself. It profoundly distorts the Christian faith from within, and consequently, the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers. They live in the world and are often marked, if not conditioned, by the cultural imagery that impresses contradictory and impelling models regarding the practical denial of God: there is no longer any need for God, to think of him or to return to him. Furthermore, the prevalent hedonistic and consumeristic mindset fosters in the faithful and in Pastors a tendency to superficiality and selfishness that is harmful to ecclesial life. (Benedict XVI, Address to Pontifical Council for Culture, 8.III.2008) Scot said to re-evangelize anybody we need to come to Jesus ourselves. Fr. Mark said Vatican II commissioned lay people especially to be evangelizers in the secular world. He said he spends most of his time with other Catholics. It's Catholics in the pews who meet non-Catholics in their daily life. But we can't keep our Catholic life separate from the rest of life. Scot said most people in our own country most people have heard of Jesus Christ, even if they don't believe in him or act on the belief in him. We need a re-evangelization, what the Church calls the New Evangelization. Cardinal Dolan said evangelization and re-evangelization are motivated by the same seven points he's about to describe. Actually, in graciously inviting me to speak on this topic, “The Announcement of the Gospel Today, between missio ad gentes and the new evangelization,” my new-brother-cardinal, His Eminence, the Secretary of State, asked me to put in into the context of secularism, hinting that my home archdiocese of New York might be the “capital of a secular culture.” As I trust my friend and new-brother-cardinal, Edwin O'Brien — who grew up in New York — will agree, New York — without denying its dramatic evidence of graphic secularism — is also a very religious city. There one finds, even among groups usually identified as materialistic — the media, entertainment, business, politics, artists, writers — an undeniable openness to the divine! The cardinals who serve Jesus and His Church universal on the Roman Curia may recall the address Pope Benedict gave them at Christmas two years ago when he celebrated this innate openness to the divine obvious even in those who boast of their secularism: We as believers, must have at heart even those people who consider themselves agnostics or atheists. When we speak of a new evangelization these people are perhaps taken aback. They do not want to see themselves as an object of mission or to give up their freedom of thought and will. Yet the question of God remains present even for them. As the first step of evangelization we must seek to keep this quest alive; we must be concerned that human beings do not set aside the question of God, but rather see it as an essential question for their lives. We must make sure that they are open to this question and to the yearning concealed within. I think that today too the Church should open a sort of “Court of the Gentiles” in which people might in some way latch on to God, without knowing him and before gaining access to his mystery, at whose service the inner life of the Church stands. This is my first point: we believe with the philosophers and poets of old, who never had the benefit of revelation, that even a person who brags about being secular and is dismissive of religion, has within an undeniable spark of interest in the beyond, and recognizes that humanity and creation is a dismal riddle without the concept of some kind of creator. A movie popular at home now is The Way, starring a popular actor, Martin Sheen. Perhaps you have seen it. He plays a grieving father whose estranged son dies while walking the Camino di Santiago di Compostella in Spain. The father decides, in his grief, to complete the pilgrimage in place of his dead son. He is an icon of a secular man: self-satisfied, dismissive of God and religion, calling himself a “former Catholic,” cynical about faith … but yet unable to deny within him an irrepressible interest in the transcendent, a thirst for something — no, Someone — more, which grows on the way. Yes, to borrow the report of the apostles to Jesus from last Sunday's gospel, “All the people are looking for you!” Fr. Mark said it's easier to ignore someone who's hostile to religion, but we have to want to reach out to them. Even the most hardened heart has a spark within them. This is what makes them curious, what makes them want to talk about it, even if they are completely opposed to the Church. We can use that spark to reach out to them. Scot said he knows people who are far from faith who were touched by the movie “The Way” that the cardinal gives a very strong endorsement to. Fr. Mark notes how the media is intrigued by and really likes Cardinal Dolan as the face of the Church in the US. … and, my second point, this fact gives us immense confidence and courage in the sacred task of mission and New Evangelization. “Be not afraid,” we're told, is the most repeated exhortation in the Bible. After the Council, the good news was that triumphalism in the Church was dead. The bad news was that, so was confidence! We are convinced, confident, and courageous in the New Evangelization because of the power of the Person sending us on mission — who happens to be the second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity – because of the truth of the message, and the deep down openness in even the most secularized of people to the divine. Confident, yes! Triumphant, never! What keeps us from the swagger and arrogance of triumphalism is a recognition of what Pope Paul VI taught in Evangelii Nuntiandi: the Church herself needs evangelization! This gives us humility as we confess that Nemo dat quod not habet, that the Church has a deep need for the interior conversion that is at the marrow of the call to evangelization. Scot said Cardinal Dolan gets his reservoir of confidence from the fact that he knows he's proclaiming truth, Jesus Christ. Fr. Mark said that in order to evangelize you have to be confident in the faith and in the message. A third necessary ingredient in the recipe of effective mission is that God does not satisfy the thirst of the human heart with a proposition, but with a Person, whose name is Jesus. The invitation implicit in the Missio ad gentes and the New Evangelization is not to a doctrine but to know, love, and serve — not a something, but a Someone. When you began your ministry as successor of St. Peter, Holy Father, you invited us to friendship with Jesus, which is the way you defined sanctity. There it is … love of a Person, a relationship at the root of out faith. As St. Augustine writes, “Ex una sane doctrina impressam fidem credentium cordibus singulorum qui hoc idem credunt verissime dicimus, sed aliud sunt ea quae creduntur, aliud fides qua creduntur” (De Trinitate, XIII, 2.5) Fr. Mark said some people come to religion looking for warm fuzzy feelings, but it only lasts so long. In the Catholic faith, we encounter God who became Man, who died on the cross, who chased coin changers, who was kind to Mary Magadalene and was a real human being, not a theory. 3rd segment: The cardinal's fourth point is that because Jesus is the truth, then catechesis is critically linked to evangelization. Yes, and here's my fourth point, but this Person, Jesus, tells us He is the truth. So, our mission has a substance, a content, and this twentieth anniversary of the Catechism, the approaching fiftieth anniversary of the Council, and the upcoming Year of Faith charge us to combat catechetical illiteracy. True enough, the New Evangalization is urgent because secularism has often choked the seed of faith; but that choking was sadly made easy because so many believers really had no adequate knowledge or grasp of the wisdom, beauty, and coherence of the Truth. Cardinal George Pell has observed that “it's not so much that our people have lost their faith, but that they barely had it to begin with; and, if they did, it was so vapid that it was easily taken away.” So did Cardinal Avery Dulles call for neo-apologetics, rooted not in dull polemics but in the Truth that has a name, Jesus. So did Blessed John Newman, upon reception of his own biglietto nominating him a cardinal warn again of what he constantly called a dangerous liberalism in religion: “… the belief that there is no objective truth in religion, that one creed is as good as another … Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment, a taste … ” And, just as Jesus tells us “I am the Truth,” He also describes Himself as “the Way, and the Life.” The Way of Jesus is in and through His Church, a holy mother who imparts to us His Life. “For what would I ever know of Him without her?” asks De Lubac, referring to the intimate identification of Jesus and His Church. Thus, our mission, the New Evangelization, has essential catechetical and ecclesial dimensions. This impels us to think about Church in a fresh way: to think of the Church as a mission. As John Paul II taught in Redemptoris Missio, the Church does not “have a mission,” as if “mission” were one of many things the Church does. No, the Church is a mission, and each of us who names Jesus as Lord and Savior should measure ourselves by our mission-effectiveness. Over the fifty years since the convocation of the Council, we have seen the Church pass through the last stages of the Counter-Reformation and rediscover itself as a missionary enterprise. In some venues, this has meant a new discovery of the Gospel. In once-catechized lands, it has meant a re-evangelization that sets out from the shallow waters of institutional maintenance, and as John Paul II instructed us in Novo Millennio Ineunte, puts out “into the deep” for a catch. In many of the countries represented in this college, the ambient public culture once transmitted the Gospel, but does so no more. In those circumstances, the proclamation of the Gospel — the deliberate invitation to enter into friendship with the Lord Jesus — must be at the very center of the Catholic life of all of our people. But in all circumstances, the Second Vatican Council and the two great popes who have given it an authoritative interpretation are urging us to call our people to think of themselves as missionaries and evangelists. Fr. Mark said he liked that the cardinal talks about being uncompromising about telling the truth. He makes a point to say to teens or RCIA candidates or anyone else he addresses that he's not afraid of their questions, that the Church can justify its teaching or it's not the truth. Then when he can back it up, that's real evangelization. Scot said we need to understand what evangelization is and God's gives us the tools to understand the faith. We are all called to be evangelizers to whomever God puts in our path. Fr. Mark said the message of Vatican II that opened the door to evangelization and to reading the Bible is still being taught today. Many people still don't feel comfortable reading the Bible or talking about the faith. Scot's personal favorite of these 7 strategies is the next. When I was a new seminarian at the North American College here in Rome, all the first-year men from all the Roman theological universities were invited to a Mass at St. Peter's with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal John Wright, as celebrant and homilist. We thought he would give us a cerebral homily. But he began by asking, “Seminarians: do me and the Church a big favor. When you walk the streets of Rome, smile!” So, point five: the missionary, the evangelist, must be a person of joy. “Joy is the infallible sign of God's presence,” claims Leon Bloy. When I became Archbishop of New York, a priest old me, “You better stop smiling when you walk the streets of Manhattan, or you'll be arrested!” A man dying of AIDS at the Gift of Peace Hospice, administered by the Missionaries of Charity in Cardinal Donald Wuerl's Archdiocese of Washington, asked for baptism. When the priest asked for an expression of faith, the dying man whispered, “All I know is that I'm unhappy, and these sisters are very happy, even when I curse them and spit on them. Yesterday I finally asked them why they were so happy. They replied ‘Jesus.' I want this Jesus so I can finally be happy. A genuine act of faith, right? The New Evangelization is accomplished with a smile, not a frown. The missio ad gentes is all about a yes to everything decent, good, true, beautiful and noble in the human person. The Church is about a yes!, not a no! Scot said this is a homily the cardinal could have given in a parish, but he was giving this to all the cardinals and the pope. Fr. Mark said he relates to the admonition to smile. He studied in Rome and a lot of priests and nuns he saw on the street were awfully grumpy. We have to have joy in our Christianity or no one will be attracted to it. Scot said he loves that the cardinal was very practical in just telling people to smile. Fr. Mark said his father has been telling him since the day he was ordained that he needs to smile wherever he speaks or celebrates Mass. And, next-to-last point, the New Evangelization is about love. Recently, our brother John Thomas Kattrukudiyil, the Bishop of Itanagar, in the northeast corner of India, was asked to explain the tremendous growth of the Church in his diocese, registering over 10,000 adult converts a year. “Because we present God as a loving father, and because people see the Church loving them.” he replied. Not a nebulous love, he went on, but a love incarnate in wonderful schools for all children, clinics for the sick, homes for the elderly, centers for orphans, food for the hungry. In New York, the heart of the most hardened secularist softens when visiting one of our inner-city Catholic schools. When one of our benefactors, who described himself as an agnostic, asked Sister Michelle why, at her age, with painful arthritic knees, she continued to serve at one of these struggling but excellent poor schools, she answered, “Because God loves me, and I love Him, and I want these children to discover this love.” Fr. Mark said at Fr. O'Flaherty's funeral this morning, it was recalled that Mother Teresa said when you spend your time judging, there is less time for loving. The way to love is service. How do you have an effective youth group? Teach them to serve. Show them the joy of someone who receives this service. Scot said in our actions we will converts to Christ. Words matter, but so do our acts. Fr. Mark said the lesson of the Missionaries of Charity is you never know who's watching us. Joy, love … and, last point … sorry to bring it up, … but blood. Tomorrow, twenty-two of us will hear what most of you have heard before: “To the praise of God, and the honor of the Apostolic See receive the red biretta, the sign of the cardinal's dignity; and know that you must be willing to conduct yourselves with fortitude even to the shedding of your blood: for the growth of the Christian faith, the peace and tranquility of the People of God, and the freedom and spread of the Holy Roman Church.” Holy Father, can you omit “to the shedding of your blood” when you present me with the biretta? Of course not! We are but “scarlet audio-visual aids” for all of our brothers and sisters also called to be ready to suffer and die for Jesus. It was Pope Paul VI who noted wisely that people today learn more from “witness than from words,” and the supreme witness is martyrdom. Sadly, today we have martyrs in abundance. Thank you, Holy Father, for so often reminding us of those today suffering persecution for their faith throughout the world. Thank you, Cardinal Koch, for calling the Church to an annual “day of solidarity” with those persecuted for the sake of the gospel, and for inviting our ecumenical and inter-religious partners to an “ecumenism of martyrdom.” While we cry for today's martyrs; while we love them, pray with and for them; while we vigorously advocate on their behalf; we are also very proud of them, brag about them, and trumpet their supreme witness to the world. They spark the missio ad gentes and New Evangelization. A young man in New York tells me he returned to the Catholic faith of his childhood, which he had jettisoned as a teenager, because he read The Monks of Tibhirine, about Trappists martyred in Algeria fifteen years ago, and after viewing the drama about them, the French film, Of Gods and Men. Tertullian would not be surprised. Thank you, Holy Father and brethren, for your patience with my primitive Italian. When Cardinal Bertone asked me to give this address in Italian, I worried, because I speak Italian like a child. But, then I recalled, that, as a newly-ordained parish priest, my first pastor said to me as I went over to school to teach the six-year old children their catechism, “Now we'll see if all your theology sunk in, and if you can speak of the faith like a child.” And maybe that's a fitting place to conclude: we need to speak again as a child the eternal truth, beauty, and simplicity of Jesus and His Church. Sia lodato Gesu Cristo! (May Jesus Christ always be praised.) Scot said it's interesting he ends with being willing to suffer and die for our faith and the cardinals need to lead in that. Fr. Mark said we hope that we don't have to die, but we always have to be ready, especially when God himself died on the cross. He liked how Cardinal Dolan plugged Of Gods and Men, which Fr. Mark also found inspiring. It's about monks in Algerian who have to decide whether to leave their monastery in a war-torn area. Scot said even in the presence of the College of Cardinals, Dolan cracked jokes and he's sure the cardinals enjoyed this address. Fr. Mark said he remembers as a child having a Jewish neighbor who asked him why he believes in Jesus and he said, “I don't know.” Since then he's had better answers, but at least they had the conversation. 4th segment: Now as we do every week at this time, we will consider the Mass readings for this Sunday, specifically the Gospel reading. This is the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent. Beloved: Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him. The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Fr. Mark said on Ash Wednesday we heard the priest say Repent and believe in the Gospel. It may be a short proclamation, but it's very true. It is everything. Scot said we have heard this many times so we shouldn't take it for granted. We need to internalize this in every way in our lives. We shouldn't put off acting now during this Lent to re-prioritize anything that separates us from God. We don't know when our death will come. How can we re-order our lives so we can have a closer relationship with God. Fr. Mark said even if you've already had a bad beginning to Lent, there's still time to start again. He added that it should be challenging. It it's too easy it may not be enough to really change us. Scot talked about the service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross this Sunday called the Rite of Election in which people who are preparing to enter the Church at Easter are welcomed.

Today's host(s): Scot Landry Today's guest(s): Msgr. Dennis Sheehan, parochial vicar of Our Lady, Help of Christians, Newton, and associate director of the Office of Worship and Spiritual Life Today's topics: Priest Profile: Msgr. Dennis Sheehan Summary of today's show: If there's a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston who's worn more hats than Msgr. Dennis Sheehan, we want to meet him. Scot and Fr. Chip talk with Msgr. Sheehan about his many assignments from the Pontifical North American Seminary in Rome to Blessed John XXIII National Seminary to the Pontifical Josephinum in Columbus. After his days leading his seminaries, he stays with the student theme in shepherding St. Paul's in Cambridge, which includes the Harvard Catholic Student Association. Today, Msgr. Sheehan provides leadership at the presbyteral council and in the archdiocesan Office for Worship. Also, on today's show, Scot andFr. Chip discuss this Sunday's Gospel reading and tell us why we can call our priests father. 1st segment: Scot welcomed Fr. Chip Hines back to the show as a substitute co-host for Fr. Mark O'Connell. Fr. Chip is often in the Pastoral Center on Fridays for meetings of the Clergy Personnel Board. He represents priests who were ordained in the 2000s. The board advises Cardinal Seán on appointments of priests. Scot and Fr. Chip talked about Game Six of the World Series, one of the best World Series games ever. Scot said he talked with his kids about what it was like as a Red Sox fan in 1986 to watch the ball roll through Bill Buckner's legs in that Game Six. Both agreed that the Cardinals will likely win tonight, although they're sympathetic to the Texas Rangers and their fans. 2nd segment: Scot welcomed Msgr. Sheehan to the show. He's know the monsignor since he was pastor at St. Paul's in Cambridge in the mid-1990s when Scot was graduating college. Msgr. said he was a parochial vicar at Sacred Heart in East Boston when he was first ordained. He also taught at Emmanuel College and was campus chaplain at Suffolk U at the same time. Msgr. said he studied at the North American College in Rome in Latin so he didn't have enough Italian to be fluent at Sacred Heart. He was actually present in St. Peter's during the opening of the Second Vatican Council. He went back to Rome on the seminary faculty in 1969. He was director of liturgy and went to San Anselmo at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute and studied nights while teaching the subject during the day. He taught at the seminary for four years. Scot said in that time, helping to form future priests in a liturgy they didn't grow up praying, must have been a challenge. Msgr. said the liturgy was for the first time in the vernacular and celebrating the liturgy was an art in the making in those days. There were no books to consult at the time. While there he oversaw the sabbatical program for priests at the North American College, soon after it had started. Msgr. said it was a post-Vatican II enterprise, that priests had to get caught in the areas that the Church was entering. He said it was a work in the making. It included 35 priests every spring and fall from all over the United States, including American missionaries who had returned home. Hearing all the lecturers who came in to address the priests was like getting a second graduate degree. Scot said the program continues today and our own former vicar general, Fr. Richard Erikson, is there now. Msgr. said the rule of thumb was that a priest would not be admitted until he had been ordained 15 years. He said being in Rome itself was part of the formational experience. They would visit not just ruins and museums, but also meet those running various Vatican offices. They even used to take the priests to Geneva for meetings at the World Council of Churches. Today, they take the priests to the Holy Land. Fr. Chip asked how his experience in the 60s with the liturgy is helping him with the revised translations of the Roman Missal coming up. Msgr. said people should listen as the English had adopted a new style of rhetoric. He said during November, the priests of the Archdiocese will have a series of programs where they will be introduced to the rhetorical styles and new emphases of the Roman Missal. He said the current emphasis is on text, but 40 years ago they would have talked more about presence and body language and leadership. Now, they can assume much of that is known. He said one of his current topics is making liturgy a prayer for the priest. Msgr. said he hopes that the preparation doesn't end with the First Sunday of Advent, that everyone will continue to use these revised texts as a basis for catechesis, and even richer still when people are using. 3rd segment: Scot said Msgr. has also been involved in other seminary formation. He was appointed as rector of Pope John XXIII National Seminary in Weston. At the time, he was younger than some of the seminarians he was helping prepare. (The seminary prepares men who are older and for whom the priesthood is generally a second vocation.) He said preparing men for priesthood is one of the most grace-filled experiences for every priest. Msgr. said back in the 1980s, the “older” priest was generally younger than today. They had a cut-off age of about 55, but now it's considerably older with men in their 70s studying. The seminary attracts men from all over the country. After about six years, he was asked to be rector of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. Msgr. said he thought by now that there was a plot to keep him out of the archdiocese. He said the Josephinum was founded in the 19th century forming primarily German-speaking or German-descent priests and he showed up on St. Patrick's Day as an Irish rector of the seminary. Up until the 1940s, the house language at the Josephinum was German, with the object of providing German priests. In the 1960s, the mission moved to providing priests for missionary dioceses, especially Spanish-speaking. It is called Pontifical because it is governed by the Vatican. He said the history of the relationship between German-speaking Catholics and the rest of the Church in US is very interesting. The governance by the Vatican was meant to protect and preserve the German character of the seminary. He returned to the archdiocese as director of the Office of Worship in Boston and was administrator of St. Jeanne Parish in Newton. Many of those people are now at his current parish of Our Lady Help of Christians. His work in the Office for Worship was mainly concerned with laypeople, especially musicians, for leadership roles in ministry, including lectors and Eucharistic ministers. From there, he was assigned to St. Paul's in Cambridge, which is a territorial parish, the Harvard-Radcliffe campus ministry, and the Archdiocesan Boys Choir School. Msgr. said it was probably the most interesting ministry in the archdiocese, but it was also tremendously challenging. He was there for 11 years. He said the ministry at Harvard alone included hundreds of Catholics. He said the choir school is a middle school that accepts musically and intellectually talented young people and it makes a singular impact on a young boy and can change the direction of his whole life. Scot said when he was a student at Harvard he bragged about the beauty of the liturgy at St. Paul's. He said the homilies were longer than at most places. He felt it was more instructional and people wanted good preaching. Fr. Chip remarked on the regimentation of the altar servers at St. Paul's with a quality he hasn't seen since his seminary days. Msgr. said everyone should experience a Sunday Mass at St. Paul's to see the full-range of how liturgy can be celebrated. Scot said being surrounded on all sides by Harvard university can be a great challenge. Msgr. said the students are amazingly responsible to outreach from the Church. Active Catholics at Harvard are committed and intelligent and they nourish and build up one another. Scot said Msgr. now wears many hats. One of his jobs is as chaplain of the Order of Malta. Msgr. said it is one of the oldest religious orders in the Church today and there are still 60 professed knights who live in religious life. The order in the Middle ages protected the Holy Land and took care of the sick. The charism of the order today is the care of the sick poor. A characteristic outreach of theirs was their response to the earthquake in Haiti a couple of years ago. For example, they took a small hospital they sponsor and enlarged it to accommodate many more patients. The American knights also take about 500 sick people to Lourdes on pilgrimage every year. It's not just a social group, but they are a working group that embraces both men and women in membership. Msgr. said he's been on the Lourdes pilgrimage about six times so far. He said you can see the heart of the order in the pilgrimage, but the work of the order is so much greater. Msgr. also works as moderator of the presbyteral council. His job is to keep the meeting on schedule and on topic. The council is a gathering of priests representative of the whole archdiocese with Cardinal Seán and the vicar general. Fr. Chip asked if it's like herding cats, but Msgr. said it's like watching cats get in line. Scot said his experience is that the feedback from the priests is extremely frank and open and helps shape the way we take initiatives forward. Most of the members will talk about the issues discussed with other priests and the people back in the vicariates to bring their concerns back with them. They also share the concerns of the council with the people they meet. Msgr. pointed out that the advisory board is more than just giving advice, but is very influential. 4th segment: Now as we do every week at this time, we will consider the Mass readings for this Sunday, specifically the Gospel reading. Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.' As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.' You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master'; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Scot said this is a strongly worded Gospel. We most often see Jesus get angry at those who practice hypocrisy, especially among the Pharisees and Scribes. When he tells the people to do as they tell you, but not what they do, he's saying they're hypocrites. Scot said hypocrisy in the way we live our faith turns people off. He saw the Pharisees leading people away from an authentic faith to a cultural faith. Fr. Chip said Jesus uses the style of exaggeration in Hebrew to make a point. He points a heavy emphasis to make it understood that hypocrisy is not to be tolerated at all. Scot said Fr. James Martin, SJ, just came out with a book related to the humor related to our faith and said a lot of Jesus' stories were meant to be funny through exaggeration. Fr. Chip said that people would have been laughing at the exaggerations of widening phylacteries and lengthening tassels. Fr. Chip said priests struggle with being authentic because they can't give the impression of hypocrisy. For example, he'd love to have a Cadillac Escalade, but it would give the wrong impression about the life of simplicity he needs to live as a priest. Scot said it applies to all of us. We should talk the talk and walk the walk. Fr. Chip said we have to look at Scripture through the eyes of our time, in addition to the times it was written. Scot said it is often misunderstood when Jesus says don't be called rabbi, master, or father. Is this saying priests shouldn't be called father? No. Jesus is telling the Pharisees not to be a cult of personality where people are making idols of the man, but they should be directing people to follow our Father in heaven. Fr. Chip said on the first day of seminary, they tell the seminarians that if they're in it for prestige and a cult of personality, they're in the wrong place. He thinks of priests who do good work, but get caught up in themselves and their own following. One of Scot's favorite authors today is Fr. Robert Barron with his new TV series and book, “Catholicism”. One thing he says is that people misunderstand Jesus as being meek. In this scene, think of how confrontational Jesus is in this situation and how shocking his words were.

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Susan Abbott **Today's guest(s):** Fr. Roger Landry, executive editor of The Anchor, the newspaper of the Fall River diocese; and Gregory Tracy, managing editor of The Pilot, the newspaper of the Boston archdiocese * [The Anchor](http://www.anchornews.org) * [The Pilot](http://www.pilotcatholicnews.com) * Some of the stories discussed on this show will be available on The Pilot's and The Anchor's websites on Friday morning. Please check those sites for the latest links. **Today's topics:** Archbishop Charles Chaput; Transitional deacon ordained; Chinese cardinal in Boston; study of Catholic parishes **Summary of today's show:** Our usual Thursday panel discussed the appointment of Archbishop Charles Chaput to Philadelphia, with Fr. Roger Landry's personal recollection of time spent with the archbishop recently; the unusual timing of the ordination of a transitional deacon for Boston; the visit of a Chinese cardinal to Boston as tensions between the Vatican and China reach an all-time high; and a study of parish life in the United States with some surprising results. **1st segment:** Scot welcomed Susan back to the show. The Pilot is back from summer hiatus and The Anchor is now on hiatus this week. The big non-Church news is the weather and specifically the heat. **2nd segment:** Scot and Susan welcome Gregory and Fr. Roger back to the show. The appointment of Archbishop Charles Chaput to Philadelphia is significant. Scot said it is traditionally seen as a cardinalatial see and one of the largest in the US. It's also significant because the archdiocese is in the midst of a major scandal due to revelations concerning clergy priest abuse. Audio excerpt from the press conference: >"Press conferences like this have a formula of humility and gratitude that can sometimes seem like theater. I'm a poor actor. What you see is pretty much what you get. Philadelphia is one of America's truly great cities, rich in history and achievement, with an extraordinary community of Catholic faith that goes back to saints like John Neumann and Katharine Drexel. Many of you will ask me this question, so I will answer it in advance. I don't know why the Holy Father sent me here. But I do trust his heart, and I do believe in his judgment. I know other bishops would have been smarter than I am, or more talented, or more connected to Philadelphia's past. I know that Cardinal Rigali is one of the great churchmen of my lifetime. He has served the Church in Rome, in St. Louis, and here with enormous dedication and in ways I will never be able to duplicate. > >"But I do promise that no bishop will love the people and priests of this local Church more than I will. No bishop will give more of himself than I will. And no bishop will try harder to help persons who have been hurt by the sins of the past, or work harder to strengthen and encourage our priests and renew the hearts of our people. > >There's a lot I *don't* know how to do. But over the years, a great many good people have shown me how to love and how to lead by the generosity of their witness. And everything I've learned, everything I know and have, I will give to this ministry, because all of you -- the people of God -- deserve at least that much." * ["Archbishop Chaput succeeds Cardinal Rigali; Savannah bishop retires", CNS, 7/19/11](http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1102854.htm) * [Cardinal Seán's statement on Archbishop Chaput's appointment](http://www.bostoncatholic.org/Utility/News-And-Press/Content.aspx?id=21004) * [Archdiocese of Philadelphia](http://archphila.org/home.php) * [Archdiocese of Denver](http://www.archden.org) Susan said his words were very moving. He reinforces his honesty and sincerity and passion with his words about how he will love and work for the people. If she were in Philadelphia, she would be thrilled. Scot said there's no hyperbole in this man, he is what he is. Gregory said the Archbishop is know for being a straight shooter. He was formed in the West: South Dakota and Colorado. So he's got that Western straight-talking manner. Fr. Roger spent some time in Denver recently when Archbishop Chaput invited him to lead a retreat for the priests of Denver. Fr. Roger said he's always been impressed by the archbishop publishing his email address and giving quick responses to people who would email him. Of the past 10 years, Fr. Roger has continued to receive emails from the Archbishop commenting on articles he'd written and encouraging him. At this retreat, he experienced a camaraderie he'd never seen before. Some of the priests told him that every priest knows where he stands with the archbishop. The archbishop is very responsive to requests by his priests, which is hugely important for priestly morale. He does that for anyone who emails him. He spends 10 minutes of every hour answering email. One of Archbishop Chaput's fears in going to Philadelphia is that he won't have the same amount of time for responding to people. Fr. Roger said the priests of Philadelphia are very excited, having heard him preach a clergy day in 2005 and having taught at the seminary in Philadelphia before becoming a bishop. * ["Rise of the Evangelical Catholic Bishops", George Weigel, National Review, 7/20/11](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/272258/rise-evangelical-catholic-bishops-george-weigel) Scot said George Weigel called the appointment is extremely significant for examining the Holy Father's heart for appointments in the US. Weigel said it is rumored that the Holy Father picked Archbishop Chaput himself rather than relying on the Congregation for Bishops' recommendations and sent the best bishop available to the very troubled Philadelphia archdiocese. Gregory said Chaput has a reputation as a great communicator with very strong leadership skills and who formulates the teachings of the Church in an accessible way. He has a similar charisma to that of Pope John Paul II. That charisma comes from speaking the truth in love. Weigel said: >With the appointment of Charles J. Chaput as archbishop of Philadelphia, the deep reform of the Catholic Church in the United States — the reform that is giving birth to Evangelical Catholicism even as it leaves the old post–Vatican II arguments fading into the rear-view mirror — has been accelerated. Susan said she is in favor of bishops standing up to preach the Gospel, which it seems is what Weigel means. Fr. Roger said John Paul II recognized that every part of the truth is part of the Good News and that the answer to every question is Jesus Christ. Chaput has a similar outlook. That type of boldness comes from a deep prayer life. During that retreat, he got together with Archbishop Chaput for breakfast and he asked him how his usual workday would go. Chaput gets up at 4:30 and prays, then works on various talks he needs to give. About 10am, he goes to his office and starts his meetings and other work for the archdiocese. He begins with prayer and that fuels all his other work. * [Archbishop Chaput talks to the "Denver Catholic Register" about his new appointment](http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/6469) **3rd segment:** This week, the Pilot has a story on the ordination of transitional deacon Eric Bennett at his home parish, St. Patrick, Natick. He is planning to be ordained to the priesthood next summer. Gregory said traditionally transitional deacons are traditionally ordained in January, about 4 months before priestly ordination. But Bennett is studying at the North American College in Rome, and it's normal for them to be ordained when they're home for the summer. He will be ordained with the rest of his classmates in 2012. He was recently featured in the Knights of Columbus magazine, "Columbia". He comes from a large, Catholic family. Susan said Deacon Bennett received a personalized homily from Cardinal Seán. He called Eric to be a "master of prayer, sharing the fruits of your contemplation with those entrusted to your pastoral care." She also noted a quote from his mother, who recalled during the moment when he lay prostrate before the altar that he used to lay on the floor as a toddler in a temper tantrum and how far he has come.  Fr. Roger was also a transitional deacon at the North American College in Rome. An advantage is that he could be a deacon for a papal Mass or other bishops in Rome. A disadvantage is that they don't get to serve in parishes every weekend like those in the seminary in the US. Fr. Roger knew Deacon Bennett his first few years in seminary. He admires his love for the priesthood and his docility. When Fr. Roger was at St. John's, he saw young men visiting the chapel in the mornings before their regular prayer time with everyone at the seminary and Bennett was among them. Scot noted that Fr. Kiely, Eric's pastor, said: "When I was watching the cardinal impose hands on Eric, I was thinking this is a great moment for him, but's also  terrific moment for the future of the Church in Boston." Eric also said he's receive wonderful support while in seminary. **4th segment:** Scot said earlier this week, Cardinal Joseph Zen visited the Pastoral Center and celebrated Mass. Gregory said he is the retired archbishop of Hong Kong. He's been touring the United States to visit Chinese Catholic communities. He also spread the word about the Church in China. On Monday, he gave an interview to the Pilot as well. He spoke at length about the situation of the Church in China. Gregory talked about the situation of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong and Macau as he experienced it after World Youth Day in Australia. The cardinal spoke about the illicit ordination of three bishops. The Communist Chinese government requires Christians to worship only in state-controlled associations, including the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which eschews any connections to the Vatican or the Pope. Many Catholics worship in illegal, underground churches, following only bishops appointed by the Pope, although the divisions are not hard and fast. Many priests and laypeople, and even bishops, are members of the patriotic association in public, and of the underground Church, in secret.  Recently, the association appointed three bishops without the Holy Father's approval. They were validly ordained by other bishops, but it was illicit because it was done without communion with the Pope. So the new bishops are successors of the apostles, but the Vatican said they are not leaders in the Catholic Church because of the illicit nature of the ordinations. * ["Vatican: Latest illicitly ordained Chinese bishop is excommunicated", CNS, 7/18/11](http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1102833.htm) It's almost unprecedented for the Chinese to take this step. In the past, the association would choose candidates for bishop and the Vatican would approve, but this time they did not ask the Vatican to approve. Fr. Roger said part of the Good Catholic Life is that every day is a day to pray for the Church in China. In other news, Scot said the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate did a study that found a decline of about 1,900 parishes in the past 15-20 years, resulting in larger parishes, more Masses, fewer priests, more languages at each parish, and more. Susan said the good news is that Catholic population is up, relying upon immigrants entering the Church in the US. * ["Report finds fewer priests celebrating more Masses at fewer parishes", CNS, 7/18/11](http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1102844.htm) * [The CARA study's website](http://emergingmodels.org/) * [CARA study press release and summary](http://cara.georgetown.edu/NewsandPress/PressReleases/PR071511.pdf) * ["The Changing Face of US Catholic PArishes"](http://www.emergingmodels.org/article.cfm?id=75) In the Archdiocese of Boston, about 40 percent of parishes don't have enough revenue to meet expenses, but that number across the US is about 30 percent. Gregory said he was interested to see that as a general trend Mass attendance has been declining since the 1960s, over the past decade that percentage has held steady. And as the population increases in the next decade, they see the total number of Catholics grow. Also the number of parishes in the US now is about equal to how many there were in 1968. Fr. Roger said he was happy to see this report done to help us with our pastoral planning. He said we have to confront the reality in the northeast that we don't have as much of a priest shortage as a parish surplus. He said a century ago, we thought ethnicity was more important than catholicity. We built parishes for every language group. Now, because of fewer priestly numbers, we need to consolidate those buildings. In the 1960s we had a baby boom of priests as well and we could build parishes for them to serve in, but now we need to consolidate those resources. He's compared his parish of St. Anthony in New Bedford to these average numbers in the report and he finds northeastern parishes fall very far short of the national numbers on realities such as parish revenues, weekly offertory, and parish staffs.

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor **Today's guest(s):** George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and biographer of Pope John Paul II * [Ethics and Public Policy Center](Ethics and Public Policy Center) * [Archive of George Weigel's syndicated columns](http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/342) * On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, WQOM and the Station of the Cross network are holding their [2011 Spring Fund Drive](https://www.thestationofthecross.com/wqom-spring-fund-drive-2011.html). All donors over $30 will receive a Station of the Cross "Benefactor Card" and are eligible to win great daily and hourly prizes. Consequently, the recorded shows for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as heard on this site and downloaded through iTunes will not include the Spring Fund Drive segments as heard live as they aired. **Today's topics:** Pope Blessed John Paul II from the "inside" **A summary of today's show:** George Weigel discusses with Scot and Fr. Chris the interior life of Bl. John Paul II, his courage, his Christian discipleship, and devotion to both the Divine Mercy and the Blessed Mother, as well as three surprising things that George learned when writing about the Pope. **1st segment:** Scot welcomes Fr. Chris to the show. Fr. Chris has known George a long time, dating back to when he was studying philosophy at Catholic University of America. He was one of Fr. Chris' parishioners. George is an incredible supporter of the priesthood and how the Church is a gift to the whole world. Scot is excited to get his insights on last month's beatification. Fr. Chris said he has written the definitive biography of John Paul II, showing how the Pope was a son, a factory worker, a priest, a skier, and the full gamut of the man. Scot said this is the 60th broadcast of The Good Catholic Life, and he reflects on the gift that 24/7 Catholic is in the Archdiocese of Boston. Fr. Chris hears about it from parishioners, seminarians, and his fellow faculty at St. John's. He also hears from the men at Norfolk prison where he ministers that it is a great gift to them as well. Scot said since his early days at the Archdiocese in 2006, Cardinal Seán has always talked about evangelization, but in particular on the radio in many languages, including English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Scot thanked WQOM and the Station of the Cross to make English-language Catholic radio possible in Boston. Fr. Chris said the Church has a wonderful message to proclaim and we have to find new ways to reach people constantly, including those who might not be going to church now. Some of Scot's favorite segments are those where he talks to priests and seminarians and he's looking forward to next week's shows where he will talk with the newly ordained priests who were just ordained for the Archdiocese of Boston. The day after the beatification, the radio studio was dedicated to Blessed John Paul II and so he's happy to learn more about Pope John Paul from George Weigel. **2nd segment:** Scot and Fr. Chris welcome George Weigel to the show. He is the definitive biographer of Blessed Pope John Paul II. John Paul's beatification has been a prime topic of conversation on The Good Catholic Life. One of the statements John Paul made to George was that people often know him only from the "outside". He could truly only be understood from the inside. Scot asked George what are the central aspects of his interior life that defined him as a heroic Christian disciple? George said you saw some of them displayed on the tapestry that was unveiled on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica during the beatification Mass. It was that twinkle in his eye, a wonderfully natural and warm human being, with a great natural capacity for love, which was amplified by supernatural charity. He had made himself into a kind of channel by which grace poured into the world. Literally millions if not tens of millions who saw and met him felt themselves ennobled by that. Another facet revealed in the tapestry is the white zuchetto (skullcap), which was slightly askew. He was a man of great humility who cared nothing for ecclesiastical finery, who was every bit as much at home in kayaking gear as in papal vestments, and yet who understood he was called to public role which led him to develop a great public voice. George has often said that John Paul II was not a man for whom raising his voice came naturally, but faced by Communist oppression he learned to raise his voice in a distinctive was as a Christian pastor. That's how he empowered people to take back control of their own lives from an oppressive regime under which they were living in Communist Poland. In terms of other human qualities, John Paul II was the most relentlessly curious man George has ever met. He was in no sense interested in looking in the rear-view mirror. He was always interested in looking forward to discern what the Holy Spirit was doing in the Church and the world. He had great pastoral instincts and remembered people and their problems over years and decades. His remarkable energy came out of his intense prayer life. On great public occasions, he would almost withdraw into himself to charge his spiritual batteries, by the power of his own distinctive dialogue with the Lord. The work of the grace of God was palpable in him, and that's why 1.5 million people came to Rome on May 1, to touch that again. Fr. Chris said speaking of those 1.5 million people, George has spent many a summer in Poland doing research for his book, educating the young of America and Europe, about John Paul II and Catholic social teaching. What was the sense from the Polish people who were present for this great event? George said this was in some sense a great validation of the Polish experience in the 20th century, which was very difficult, and in many Poles' minds was redeemed by having raised up this great son of Poland who became such an extraordinary figure in the Church and the world. The challenge for the Church in Poland today is to start looking forward. George published a piece in a Polish magazine the week after the beatification in which he suggested it is now time to internalize the teaching of John Paul II and to move forward and look forward, rather than look backward over their shoulders at this great figure. That's a good message for the Church in the US as well. There are many people who take daily inspiration from John Paul. What he would want us to do is to not look back, but ahead. **3rd segment:** Scot said one of Pope John Paul's virtues was that of courage and his first words as Pope were "Be not afraid." Where did his courage come from? Was it the way his father raised him? The circumstances he dealt with early in life? His deep prayer life? George said it's all of the above. One learns the virtues by imitating virtuous people and he was surrounded by men and women of courage. He had to manifest that courage during the Nazi occupation of Poland. But the courage he exhibited as Pope--and not just the courage to come back from an assassination attempt or to face the drumbeat of dissension and misapprehension, including from inside the Church--the courage to take the Gospel into the world. It took enormous courage to launch the World Youth Days. When he was elected Pope in 1978, 90% of bishops in the developed world were convinced that there was no sense speaking to young people. They lived on a different planet. John Paul believed you could take the Gospel to them.  It took courage to take the Gospel to Central and South American in the 1980s, when it was riven by all sorts of false gospels, including liberation theology and national-security states. It took great courage to announce and see through the Great Jubilee of 2000, which most of the Church's leadership was no interested in 1994. He had the insight and courage to see this as absolutely necessary. That's the courage that comes on the far side of Calvary, comes after Good Friday when the answer is given on Easter. It comes through the long pilgrimage of Christian conversion, through the experience of the Cross. It allows one to live not simply without fear, but beyond fear. Fr. Chris said part of the secular media when John Paul was ailing toward the end kept saying that he should retire. Instead he stayed on and taught us a great deal about suffering and death.  What would be the central messages from his remaining on as Pope? George said he wouldn't limit that to the secular media. Those at Commonweal, the National Catholic Reporter, and the Tablet were the echo chamber for the ambient culture and were eager to get rid of this guy that they didn't much like themselves. He had a wiser view, that this was an office of paternity and as long as he could exercise that in a distinctive way that's what he was called to do. What he did over the last two months is what George called in his book "The End and the Beginning" the last encyclical. It was his last great teaching moment. He led the world in the great experience of the mystery of the suffering and death of Christ. He showed how suffering can be ennobled by its conformity to the Cross. That was his last great priestly effort and teaching moment. The Church and the world are all the richer for it. There was a sense in Rome on May 1 of people saying thank you for many things, but one of them was that period. Thank you for lifting up the inalienable dignity of the human person. Thank you for confronting the notion that suffering has no meaning. It was a remarkable last pouring out of a priest's self and doing what priests do. **4th segment:** In his syndicated column, George said we can lose the sense that saints are people like us, who by the grace of God lived lives of heroic virtue, a truth of the faith which John Paul II never ceased to remind us. Then he hoped that the Catholic community would remember two things about him: First, that he was a radically converted Christian and disciple, and second, how fond he was of the Divine Mercy devotion. George said it's important to remember that while this man was someone richly given a wide range of natural gifts and while he was also given genuine mystical gifts, none of this would have been received had he not as a young adult made the fundamental decision to pour out his life in service to the truth that Jesus Christ is the answer to the question that is every human life. He was so seized by the truth of God in Christ as a young man, that he decided to pour out his life in that and everything he did from then on as a young priest, as a young scholar, university chaplain, philosopher, literary man, a bishop, father of the Second Vatican Council, statesman, and a Pope was done as a consequence of that discipleship. That's what made all that possible.  And while most of the rest of us are not going to be as gifted naturally and even supernaturally, at least in the mystical sense of that, we have all been baptized in the possibility of radical discipleship. That's the point of connection between his life and ours.  As far as Divine Mercy goes, John Paul II had a powerful existential sense of the terrible tears that had been torn in the moral fabric of humanity during the 20th century by grotesque and murderous ideologies, by World wars, by failure to understand the sanctity of the human person. All of it was like shredding a great tapestry. That's why he thought that spreading the devotion to Divine Mercy was not a gift for Poland in the mid-1930s alone. It was a gift *through* Poland to the rest of the world. This was the face of God that a guilt-ridden world most needed to see. It needed to see and experience the possibility of repentance, confession, and forgiveness. And that's why he was right to do so. Fr. Chris said both of the biographies are wonderful books. He asked how it is that he came to write them. George said the simple answer is that he decided to do it. In the spring of 1995, he proposed the possibility of a full-scale biography of the Pope to various people in the Holy See. John Paul II indicated in December that he thought it would be a good idea. George was following his own vocational sense, that it needed to be done, that he had a distinctive preparation for it, both in terms of experience and academic training. And it was a great ride for 15 years. He's very grateful for being given the opportunity to do this. Scot asked if he was surprised that the Holy Father wanted a definitive biography written about him and by an American versus by a Pole. George said he didn't think anyone thought it would be definitive until he delivered it. Other people had made attempts and there was a lot of frustration with them, that they just didn't get John Paul. A criticism of Tad Szulc's biography was that it was like someone writing a biography of Michael Jordan who didn't like basketball. You'll get something, but not going to get most of it. George thinks John Paul was interested in having the story told right and he was happy to be able to do it. Fr. Chris asked what surprised him the most in doing the research and writing the books that he never knew before. George said in the newer book, "The End and the Beginning", there was a treasure trove of materials from the Communist secret police that had not been available when researching the first book "Witness to Hope." Those files tell a remarkable story of the Communist war against John Paul II going back 40 years. That's all new material in English. In the broader scheme, the three things he really had no idea of going into the project in 1995 were (1) the importance of his father in his life, (2) the importance of this network of young lay friends that began to form around him in the late 1940s in the evolution of his priesthood and bishopric, people remained friends with him until the end of his life, and (3) the recognition of the absolute centrality of his experience in the Second World War in his life. That was the vocational and human crucible out of which this remarkable personality was formed. You can't get at Wojtyla unless you get at the Polish experience during the Second World War. **5th segment:** Scot recalled the virtues imparted to Karol Wojtyla by his father that stayed with him throughout his life. He asked George about some of Karol's father's virtues and whether he believed there might be a cause for canonization open for him someday. George said he thinks it would be difficult to find records for that now and there's been no cult that he's aware. We don't have beatify or canonize people to say that they are great souls. He thinks John Paul's father was manifestly a great-souled man. The most important thing that young Karol learned from elder Karol is that prayerfulness and manliness go together. They are not antinomies and not opposites. You're not wimpish when you get on your knees to pray or confess. You grow in humanity and your manliness.  That and the integrity of the man in raising him. Fr. Chris noted that John Paul's mother died at a young age and that he had a great love for the Blessed Mother. He has been impressed by the great devotion to her by John Paul and the whole Polish people themselves. George said in John Paul's case, while deeply appreciating simple Marian piety, he had a very sophisticated Marian piety. Attempts by various people to read this psychoanalytically, as if his Marian devotion was some sort of substitute for his mother are ridiculous. To try to read his Marian piety as if it's the same as peasants coming to Czestochowa is equally ridiculous. He had a very theologically sophisticated view of Mary's role in the economy of salvation. He learned some of this from the 17th-century French theologian St. Louis de Montfort and a lot of it from Hans Urs von Balthazar, the 20th century Swiss theologian, about Mary's discipleship being the paradigm of all Christian discipleship. That's what John Paul as Pope proposed to the world. That's why he wanted to give us the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, to anchor Marian piety ever more securely in the biblical tradition of the Church and in Christology. Mary's role in the Church is to point us to her Son and in pointing us to her Son, she points us to the Trinity. She's always pointing beyond herself: "Do whatever He tells you" are perhaps not accidentally the last recorded words of our Lady in the New Testament.  Fr. Chris said George is working on a new book, "The Station-Churches of Rome." He asked how it's coming and when expects it come out. George said he has just come back from two months in Rome making the entire station-church pilgrimage with his son Stephen and a colleague, Elizabeth Lev, daughter of Mary Ann Glendon, a familiar figure in New England. The book will be out in time for Lent 2013. It will include some marvelous photographs of the station-churches in Rome taken by Stephen; an introduction to the art and architecture of each of these churches, many of which are largely unknown and some of which are simply fabulous; and a commentary on the liturgical texts of the day, both Mass and the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours. The book will be a way to make the Roman station-church pilgrimage of Lent and Easter Octave in the comfort of your home. Scot said that it's a devotion that the North American College seminarians and priests like to get up for at a very cold 5:30am to get to the station-churches and it's a wonderful way to pray through the season of Lent. Scot thanked George for being on the show. Scot then said to Fr. Chris that it was wonderful to hear about Bl. John Paul II from someone who knows him so well. New today we are starting a new email list that will send a daily email with shownotes and a link to the show to subscribers. Go to the TheGoodCatholicLife.com and click on the link to subscribe or email us at LIVE@thegoodcatholiclife.com. The email will go out about 5:15 or 5:30pm each day.

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Fr. Matt Williams **Today's guest(s):** Fr. Jay Mello, parochial vicar of St. Patrick Parish in Falmouth and columnist for The Anchor newspaper * [St. Patrick Parish, Falmouth](http://www.stpatricksonline.org/) * [The Anchor, official newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River](http://www.anchornews.org/) * [Fr. Jay Mello's column, "Putting Into the Deep"](http://www.anchornews.org/columns/putting_into_deep_mello/) **Today's topics:** Fr. Jay Mello's vocation story; The Rosary and Marian devotion **A summary of today's show:** Fr. Jay Mello discusses with Scot and Fr. Matt the essential nature of Marian devotion for Catholics, the benefits of the Rosary for union with Christ, and pilgrimages to Marian apparition sites. Also the Scavi tour in St. Peter's Basilica and Where in Europe was Fr. Matt? **1st segment:** Scot welcomes back Fr. Matt to the program after his European pilgrimage and vacation. He traveled with his sister and parents and they prayed a lot for WQOM and its listeners. They only saw rain once on the trip and that was on the drive from Rome to Assisi. Scot sent a shout-out to the graduates of the MAster of Arts in Ministry program and George Martell is taking photos and posting them to the Archdiocese of Boston's Flickr site in real-time. Also in breaking news today, the Daughters of St. Paul and the Archdiocese have worked out an agreement to end a lawsuit over the pension funds held by the Archdiocese on behalf of the lay employees of the religious order. Scot said this topic will be discussed in more detail on tomorrow's The Good Catholic Life. * [Joint Statement from the Archdiocese of Boston and the Daughter of St. Paul](http://www.bostoncatholic.org/Utility/News-And-Press/Content.aspx?id=20602) * [Masters of Arts in Ministry at St. John's Seminary](http://www.tineboston.org/mam_index.html) * [Photos from today's MAM graduation](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bostoncatholic/sets/72157626805181396/) We've had several conversations about the Blessed Mother and the Rosary this month because May is dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Fr. Jay Mello, today's guest, has dedicated his columns in The Anchor newspaper this month to the Rosary and we'll discuss the Rosary on today's show. **2nd segment:** Scot and Fr. Matt welcome Fr. Jay to the show. Scot said he and Fr. Jay go way back. Jay was a teenager when Fr. Roger Landry, Scot's brother, was assigned to Fr. Jay's parish. Scot asked him about his vocational journey. Fr. Jay said Bishop Seán of Fall River (now-Cardinal Seán) assigned a series of seminarians to his parish and he was exposed to the idea of a vocation. His family was very involved with the parish and he became involved with the parish community itself. At the end of high school, he was praying on Holy Thursday in Adoration and on Easter Monday morning he met with his pastor to tell him he was ready. That fall he went to Franciscan University of Steubenville for his undergraduate work and then went to the North American College in Rome for his theology. It was in Steubenville that he really learned what it meant to be a Catholic and where he learned what it meant to live in a Christian community; where his faith became real to him. The friends and roommates in Steubenville were some of the best people he knew. Fr. Jay was ordained in 2007. After his ordination he went back to Rome to finish his degree. When he returned he was assigned to St. Julie's parish and then was assigned to Falmouth last year.Serving on Cape Cod is very different. In the summer, the Cape is hopping. There is a summer chapel a mile from the church. On the weekends, they go from 4 weekend Masses to eight. The retired priests from the Archdiocese of Boston living on the Cape give a lot of help. He's been writing the column "Put Out Into the Deep" for a little less than one year. He's inherited the column from Fr. Roger Landry, the current editor of The Anchor. He's dedicated his columns in May to the Rosary. The column itself is about re-awakening those parts of our faith that we have let become too casual, that we won't forget their importance. Many people have rosaries and know what they are, but often they're hanging from their neck or rearview mirror and not being prayed. There's a sentimental attachment to the Rosary or even treating it as a lucky charm. The Rosary provides a great opportunity to contemplate the life of our Lord through the eyes of the Blessed Mother. Fr. Matt said the rosary beads are like an umbilical cord to Mary and through the mysteries of the Rosary we are formed in the womb of Mary to become like her Son, to become like Him. The more you enter into praying the Rosary, the more she's able to help Christ be formed in you. Fr. Jay say we can get too focused on the prayers that we're saying--the Our Fathers and Hail Marys--that we can miss the opportunity to meditate on the mysteries of Christ. In his column, Fr. Jay describes the difference between devotion to Mary and adoration or worship. He said there's often a misconception of our relationship to the Blessed Mother. We worship God alone. The veneration toward our Blessed Mother can equal that. Yet the great role God chose for the Blessed mother is very important for us. Christ establishes a relationship between us and the Blessed Mother at the foot of the Cross. Fr. Matt asked Fr. Jay to share with us what he wrote about Bl. John Paul and his devotion to the Blessed Mother. For him, Mary is not just the first disciple of Christ, she is the most perfect disciple. In his motto, Totus Tuus, in giving ourselves to Mary, she leads us to her son. At the wedding feast at Cana, people who are struggling go to Mary and she doesn't solve the problem, but she sends them to her son. In 2002, the Holy Father gave us the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. For centuries we had the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries. He was courageous in adding these mysteries to focus on different moments of Christ's public life. The Joyful mysteries jump from His childhood to the Sorrowful mysteries of the Passion. The 5 Luminous mysteries allow us to see certain moments of Christ's life that help us to see who Christ really is. Scot said the Rosary was a simple way to pray the 150 Psalms and then morphed into praying the Our Father and Hail Marys. Fr. Matt said St. Dominic would preach the power of the Rosary against evil and to keep people united in Christ. The more you keep faithful to praying the Rosary, it keeps you faithful to Christ. One time when Padre Pio was suffering greatly, he asked a confrere to give him his "weapon", and when asked to explain, he said, "My rosary." John Paul II always had a rosary in his hands. The Rosary keeps us united in the life of Christ so as we live in this world we can live in union with Him. **3rd segment:** Fr. Matt said he was just in Rome last week with his family and they caught the overflow of Bl. John Paul's beatification. What stands out is that you can't look at the man without acknowledging his devotion to Mary. In preparing for the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, he looked at homily by Pope Benedict in 2009. He wrote that the Gospel tells us that from that hour, St. John took his mother Mary to his own home. But the Greek is far richer and could say, He took her into his inner life and his inner being.  Fr. Jay said Marian devotion is not an extra. It is an essential part of the Church. It is a way to live out our baptismal promises, by allowing Mary to enter the inner being of who we are. Fr. Matt said in the total consecration according to St. Louis de Montfort, we understand virtue by looking to Mary, who loved her Son perfectly. * ["Preparation for Total Consecration" by St. Louis de Montfort](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0910984107/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pilo0e-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0910984107) Scot asked Fr. Matt about the role of Mary in our lives in the present day, appearing in numerous apparitions, many of which have been approved by the Church. During this trip, Fr. Matt was able to go to Lourdes. He said it is a place steeped in prayer. Mary asked St. Bernadette for people to pray the Rosary and to adore the Eucharist and every day in Lourdes there is a Eucharistic procession and then a Rosary procession. Fr. Matt said there many people who come with disabilities seeking God's healing either physically or in giving them strength for their journey. It began when the Blessed Mother appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858 in Lourdes, France. *[Office site of the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France](http://www.lourdes-france.org/index.php?goto_centre=ru&contexte=en&id=405) There was a miraculous spring that spouted during the apparition and there have been 65 scientifically confirmed miraculous healings from those waters, but there have been thousands who claim a miraculous cure. In all this, the Blessed Mother encourages her children to pray the Rosary. Scot asked Fr. Jay why people should make pilgrimages to sites of Marian devotion. Fr. Jay said what he sees at these pilgrim sites are people who return to their faith and to the sacraments. He sees people return to Confession by the thousands. Pilgrimages have a longstanding history in the Church. It's not a vacation or sightseeing tour. It's a time to pray and allow  the Lord to workin our lives by visiting places where great saints have lived, worked, and died. **4th segment:** Welcome back. It's time to announce the winner of the weekly **WQOM Benefactor Raffle**. Our prize this week is a copy of Father Leo Patalinghug's cookbook “[Grace Before Meals](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307717216/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pilo0e-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0307717216).” The same Father Leo who defeated Bobby Flay on the Food Network show “Throwdown” helps you make family meals a way of life, showing that mealtime is the perfect setting for discussing the major issues all families face. This week's winner is Eileen Sheehan from Holliston, Massachusetts. Congratulations Eileen! If you would like to be eligible to win in an upcoming week, please visit WQOM.org.3  For a one-time $30 donation, you'll receive the Station of the Cross benefactor card and key tag, making you eligible for WQOM's weekly raffle of books, DVDs, CDs and religious items. We'll be announcing the winner each Wednesday during “The Good Catholic Life” program. **5th segment:** During his time at the North American College in Rome, Fr. Jay was a guide for the Scavi tour. St. Peter's Basilica was built over the tomb of St. Peter, which was actually discovered in 1939 during an excavation under the basilica. The bones of St. Peter were found in his tomb. The Scavi is not just a museum or an historical site. It's the story of St. Peter and that he gave the tour, by tracing the life of St. Peter in Scripture and then afterward when he traveled to Rome to spread the Gospel and eventually give his life. * [The Scavi](http://www.saintpetersbasilica.org/Necropolis/Scavi.htm) Fr. Matt said on this trip he was able to take a Scavi tour on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima on May 13. First, it is astonishing to realize that you are walking on the ground of a 1st century necropolis or cemetery of mausoleums. That necropolis was later filled in and Constantine built the first basilica over it. Fr. Jay said St. Peter was buried on the Vatican hillside and Christians would gather at the tomb to venerate his remains for three centuries. The Constantine basilica put a high altar directly above the tomb and over the next 1,500 years successive altars were placed on the same spot so that when the Pope celebrates Mass on that altar, he is doing so directly over the remains of St. Peter.  * ["The Bones of St. Peter," by John Evangelist Walsh](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385150393/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pilo0e-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0385150393) The best way to get tickets for the tour, go to the North American College's website. But you need to plan 3 to 4 months in advance to get tickets. The tours start about 9 am and occur every 15 minutes, but only 4 or 5 tours a day are in English and only about 15 people per tour. * [North American College's Scavi tour information](http://www.pnac.org/pilgrim-information/scavi-and-vatican-museum-information/) * [Vatican webpage on the Scavi tour](http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/uffscavi/documents/rc_ic_uffscavi_doc_gen-information_20040112_en.html) * [Virtual tour of the Scavi](http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/necropoli/scavi_english.html) **6th segment:** Scot asked Fr. Matt about his trip to Europe with his family. It was an aggressive itinerary that started in Lourdes for a couple of days and praying at the shrine, where they experienced the amazing baths that pilgrims can be immersed in as they pray. Groups from Boston go every year, including a group with the Order of Malta who take people who are ill who go to pray for healing. *[Order of Malta Lourdes pilgrimage](http://www.maltausa.org/lourdes.php) Fr. Matt also traveled to San Giovanni Rotondo where Padre Pio, a Capuchin saint, lived. He lived with the [Stigmata](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14294b.htm) of Christ. He had a great gift of prayer and of confession, being able to read people's hearts. Fr. Matt was able to celebrate Mass at the same altar where Padre Pio received the Stigmata in 1918. He said the crowds were relatively light. * [Shrine of Padre Pio, San Giovanni Rotondo](http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/san-giovanni-rotondo-padre-pio-shrine) He then traveled to [Assisi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisi) to visit the Basilicas of St. Francis and St. Clare. While the basilicas were heavily damaged in earthquakes about 10 years ago, you wouldn't know it today. He was able to pray at the tombs of St. Francis and St. Clare and the cross of San Damiano. Scot said Assisi is one of the most beautiful cities and an excellent example of an ancient European village. * [Basilica of St. Francis, Assisi](http://www.assisionline.com/assisi__162.html) He also went to Lanciano, Italy. It is the location of a Eucharistic miracle where a monk was struggling with his belief in the True Presence of the Lord. During the Mass the Host turned into real flesh and real blood. It remains as living flesh today. Scientists have typed the blood as AB. * [Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano](http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html) They also traveled to Venice, which was an opportunity for a little vacation time but also to visit the [Basilica of St. Mark](http://www.basilicasanmarco.it/eng/index.bsm), where the remains of St. Mark are in the high altar. That will conclude today's presentation of The Good Catholic Life. For recordings and photos of today's show and all previous shows, please visit our website: TheGoodCatholicLife.com. You can also download the app for your iPhone or Android device at WQOM.org to listen to the show wherever you may be. We thank our guest, Father Jay Mello. For our co-host, Father Matt Williams, our Production team of Rick Heil, Anna Johnson, Justin Bell, Dom Bettinelli, and George Martell, this is Scot Landry saying thank YOU for listening, God bless you and have a wonderful evening!

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor **Today's guest(s):** Fr. Robert Reed, president of the CatholicTV network * [CatholicTV](http://www.catholictv.com) * [CatholicTVjr](http://www.catholictvjr.com) * [iCatholic](http://icatholic.catholictv.com) * [Catholic TV Everywhere](http://www.catholictveverywhere.com) * [Carry Your Faith: CatholicTV iPhone app](http://www.carryyourfaith.com) * [CatholicTV Magazine](http://www.catholictv.com/catholic-magazine.aspx) * [VisitThePope.com](http://www.VisitThePope.com) **Today's topics:** CatholicTV, America's Catholic Broadband Network, and Fr. Robert Reed **A summary of today's show:** Fr. Robert Reed shares with Scot and Fr. Chris the roots of his call to the priesthood and how he came to be President of the CatholicTV network. Also, the history of CatholicTV, its dynamic and far-reaching present, and the bright future ahead. **1st segment:** Scot welcomes Fr. Chris O'Connor to the show. The Ordination Mass this past weekend was the high point of the year. Six men from St. John Seminary were ordained at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross by Cardinal Sean. Fr. Chris was at a diaconate ordination for one of his seminarians down in the Diocese of Providence. Scot was able to watch the Mass on CatholicTV, because he couldn't be present himself. Scot's 7-year-old daughter commented on how many hugs the new priests receive. All the priests in attendance give a holy embrace to each of the ordinandi during the ceremony and many of the priests in the Archdiocese were in attendance. When Cardinal Seán celebrates an ordination, you know an ordination has taken place after 3 hours! Cardinal Seán charges a "fee" to the new priests by requesting their first priestly blessing at the end of the Mass. Then he kissed their hands to show that these are priestly hands consecrated to the work of Christ. You can watch the ordination at CatholicTV.com. Click on "cathedral events." Fr. Chris said the only thing as special as the ordination Mass are the first Masses celebrated by the priests on Sunday. **2nd segment:** Scot and Fr. Chris welcome Fr. Bob Reed. Fr. Bob notes that Scot is prepared for heading out to coach his kids' baseball and soccer team this afternoon, and Scot said he thinks it's good for kids to see him and his wife outside the house helping them in other activities. Scot asked Fr. Reed how his vocation came about and what his influences led him to respond to the call. He was born in Boston and grew up in Swampscott. His parish was St. John the Evangelist, right there on the ocean. His vocation began in tragedy. He lost his dad in a tragic car accident when he was 7, just months before his First Communion. It caused him to think deeply about his Catholic faith and discover there was a lot there in his faith. His mother re-married a number of years later to a friend of his father. He also has 3 brothers and a sister. He also had marvelous priests in his parish and the Sisters of St. Joseph in the parochial school. It all developed this call that came from God. Scot asked when he knew he wanted to enter the seminary. Fr. Bob said he was always thinking of the priesthood. Even though he was encouraged to look at other options, he remained sure. He was accepted to other colleges, but he decided to go to St. John's and never regretted it. Fr. Chris asked which priests were most role models. Fr. John Carroll and Fr. Dick Little were in his parish and the greatest influences. Fr. Little was once the chancellor for the Archdiocese. Fr. Little brought a crucifix to Fr. Reed's home after his father's funeral and Fr. Bob thought to himself, "Those are the hands of a priest!" In 1985, at his ordination, as he emerged from the cathedral, a man fell to his knees in front of Fr. Bob and kissed his hands too. Fr. Reed studied at St. John's Seminary College and then at the North American College in Rome. Studying at the NAC gives a man a great experience of situating him at the center of the Church to experience the universality of the Church and meet men from the Church throughout the United States. Fr. Chris asked if he had a pivotal moment in Rome. Fr. Bob said the first few months were difficult because he'd never been away from home, realizing he couldn't come home for two years. On Pentecost Sunday in 1985, he was the deacon for Pope Bl. John Paul II and chant the Gospel in Latin at the Mass in St. Peter's Square. After ordination, he served in parishes in Malden, Norwood, Haverhill, and Whitman. At the time, Immaculate Conception, Malden, was the largest parish in the archdiocese and it was an experience of the Church in a bygone era. In Norwood at St. Catherine's was similar. In Boston at St. Matthew's was a different experience. All along the way, there have been great people he's met and he remains in contact with them to this day and they have taught him a wonderful lesson about what the priesthood is. Priests give, but they also receive so much. Scot said that he hears good things about Holy Ghost in Whitman and it all seems to stem from the Perpetual Adoration launched by Fr. Bob there and that continues to this day. Fr. Bob said he'd never been to Whitman before he was named pastor and he said the people there love that it's a small town off the beaten path. When he came to the parish, he wanted to find a way to keep the church open at all times to allow people a place to come and pray, to bring their struggles and fears before Jesus in the Eucharist. And that happened thanks to the generosity of some 200 people.  * [Holy Ghost, Whitman](http://www.holyghostwhitman.org/) Fr. Chris said that many parishes that have Perpetual Adoration are those that are producing vocations and it's both the prayers and the Eucharistic mindset of the parish. **3rd segment:** CatholicTV is the oldest Catholic network in the country founded on January 1, 1955 with a New Year's Day Mass with Cardinal Cushing. From that time, Sunday Mass has been celebrated on television. It started on Granby Street in Boston, right next to Boston University's Catholic center. After a fire, it moved to Newton and then Watertown. The Granby Street studio was on the second floor of a building originally owned by Cardinal O'Connell. While the technology was different, it was remarkably similar to today's setup. The then-Boston Catholic Television moved to a former Raytheon building in Newton. The vision had always been for CatholicTV to have its own home and not be constantly renting. So they purchased a former convent from St. Patrick, Watertown, and built the building out with all the new studios. He gives credit to General Manager Jay Fadden and Chief Engineer Mark Quella for converting a convent to a television studio. They managed to keep the convent chapel and it is now used to celebrate the daily Mass on Boston's channel 68 and on cable. Fr. Bob said it's also great to have a place to pray during the day with the Blessed Sacrament reserved there. Fr. Chris said it's a great place to celebrate Mass even with the cameras on you. Fr. Bob said St. Therese of Lisieux has always been a personal favorite of his and when he came to CatholicTV he promoted her as their patron. She is the patron saint of missionaries and he considers what they do to be missionary. Scot asked him how it's different to be a priest on television rather than in a parish. Fr. Bob said that Msgr. Frank McFarland called it the Parish of the Airwaves. Fr. Bob said he misses the intimacy with people in a community you come to live and come to know people's lives. He still helps out in a couple of parishes on the weekends. But the intimacy he experiences now is unique because when you're in front of a camera it's you and one other person, multiplied by thousands. For the person on the other end of the TV, they are listening to you.  Fr. Chris asked about CatholicTV's reach. Fr. Bob said it reaches beyond the Archdiocese of Boston to most of New England, on Comcast, Verizon, Charter, Sky Angel, RCN and a number of smaller cable outlets. Norwood Light and Braintree Light have cable systems for just those towns, for example. They also have unlimited video on demand on Verizon FIOS. They reach 10 million households. It's a responsibility to be creative and faithful. Scot said there's also lots of content available beyond the television, including CatholicTV.com, an iPhone app, and CatholicTVjr. CatholicTVjr is a widget that anyone can place on their own website or blog so that all of CatholicTV's videos and shows can be watched on those sites. Not only does it help people to learn about their faith, it also drives traffic to their own sites. Fr. Bob said Sean Ward is the guy at CatholicTV responsible for the website and CatholicTV magazine. **4th segment:** Scot said the Daily Mass and the Daily Rosary at the signature programs for CatholicTV because it appeals to many shut-ins and homebound. Fr. Bob said many priests and Eucharistic ministers tell him that the homebound they visit are watching the Daily Mass every day and they leave CatholicTV on all day as a constant companion. Scot asked how it works to schedule priests for every day for the Mass and they bring parishioners with them. Fr. Bob said it's becoming more and more difficult to get priests who are often alone in a parish and have funerals and the like, so he always says how grateful he is for the priests who come in. The Sunday Mass is celebrated at the studios of Channel 7 at 7 am. The more people the priests can bring with them, the more it seems like a real parish experience, which is important to Fr. Bob. Fr. Bob said he likes that the studios are at a parish in a neighborhood and wants to bring that feeling to their broadcast. Fr. Chris said Fr. Reed follows three great priests who led CatholicTV. Msgr. Walter Flaherty started it all after attending a symposium on the new technology of television. From the beginning, CatholicTV has been completely supported by its viewers, which was Msgr. Flaherty's vision. Msgr. Frank McFarland was beloved by staff and viewers alike and gave 27 years of his priesthood to Catholic television. He had a way, a gift to stand in front of a camera and make a connection one-on-one with people, particularly his deep love for the Blessed Mother and the Rosary. The Daily Rosary was the brainchild of Msgr. MacFarland. This summer will mark the 10th anniversary of his death. Msgr. Paul McInerny came in during a difficult time in the history of the Archdiocese and left the network in a good way when Fr. Reed came in six years ago.  Fr. Reed said he's always had a fascination with media in general. They've just completed an incredible upgrade to high definition at CatholicTV, which isn't just new cameras, but every bit of technology, which sets them up to bring their media to every platform and every device available and yet to be built. He hopes to leave the place set for the future so they can continue to bring the Gospel message of Jesus Christ in a difficult time in our society when the Gospel is not always welcome. Scot said other programs on CatholicTV include the Daily Rosary, which is recorded in many different places in the US and the world. Fr. Bob said whenever they go anywhere they take the occasion to record one or two rosaries. This past week they were in Washington DC with the St. Paul's Choir from Cambridge and they prayed the rosary with the boys singing some beautiful motets. Fr. Reed said when he prays the rosary, either personally or for the TV, he thinks of how blessed we are to have the Blessed Mother. He has a beautiful pair of rosary beads that he brought back from Medjugorje in 1990 and gave to his mother. They were used every day by his mother until she went into a surgery from which she didn't recover. Before the surgery she gave him the rosary beads and told him to pray them every day until she got better and as she did not, he is still praying them to this day. **5th segment:** Scot said there are 110 different programs at CatholicTV. Fr. Bob said Catholic Destinations premiered a new episode. Kevin Nelson takes us to various sacred places and shrines and churches all over the US, Canada, and Europe. This latest edition focused on [Bl. John XXIII National Seminary](http://www.blessedjohnxxiii.edu/). He's been to many pilgrimage sites. One of Scot's favorite kinds of episodes is when Kevin visits new cathedrals that are built and he liked the episode on the new cathedral in Los Angeles. Scot asked him about Wow, a Catholic quiz show for kids, mainly 3rd graders. Fr. Bob said our photographer George Martell took some great pictures of the shows recently and they are on our Flickr page. He said the kids are prepared ahead of time with the questions and answers. He tells the kids that they are teaching the audience about whatever the theme of the show is for the day. There is a large audience of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. There are other programs that highlight archdiocesan priests. Fr. Bill Kelly and Fr. Chip Hines review movies from a Catholic perspective on the show Spotlight. Going My Way with Fr. Chris Hickey and Fr. Paul Rouse sing songs and are interviewed by Fr. Hickey. Fr. Reed hosts House + Home, going into the homes of local Catholic families to see how they make their houses into homes. Fr. Bob said it comes out of his deep respect for families as the domestic church and put the focus on great Catholic families living out the challenge of making a home; to show the beauty and power of family life. They had a special episode about the Pope's home in the Apostolic Palace in Rome. The episode is at [VisitThePope.com](http://www.VisitThePope.com). Scot said people often ask what it's like to work with Cardinal Seán and how he lives and he thinks people are similarly curious about the Pope. Fr. Reed said for the future, CatholicTV is going to all high definition on July 1.

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor **Today's guest(s):** Fr. Wayne Belschner, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, East Boston * [Sacred Heart Parish, East Boston](http://www.rc.net/boston/sacredhearteast/) * [East Boston Central Catholic High School](http://www.ebccs.org/) **Today's topics:** Fr. Wayne Belschner's vocation story and the unique pastoral situation of Sacred Heart Parish, East Boston **A summary of today's show:** Scot and Fr. Chris welcome Fr. Wayne Belschner to discuss his journey to the priesthood, his seminary years in Rome, his first assignment in Woburn, and his present parish of Sacred Heart in East Boston, where he serves an ethnically diverse parish that comes together as one Catholic family. **1st segment:** Scot welcomes Fr. Chris O'Connor back to the show. This Saturday 5 men are preparing for ordination to the priesthood as well as a brother with the Franciscans of the Primitive Observance. This week they are on retreat at the retreat house in Milton run by the Oblate Fathers. The ordination on Saturday is at 9am. It's a busy time for the men and the Mass itself is 3 hours long. After, they will have a reception with family and friends where they offer their first priestly blessings. On Sunday, they have their first Mass celebrated throughout the diocese, typically in their home parishes. They will have a week off, but will typically return to the parishes they served as seminarians and celebrate Mass there. Usually during the month of July, Cardinal Sean's blog includes the new priests writing their stories. At their first Mass, the new priests typically ask another priest to preach the homily. It's usually a spiritual director or another priest who was instrumental in their vocation. This week's [Pilot](http://www.pilotcatholicnews.com) will have profiles of each of the men and [CatholicTV](http://www.catholictv.com) will show the Mass live. Everyone is welcome to the cathedral for the Mass. **2nd segment:** Scot and Fr. Chris welcome Fr. Wayne Belschner to the show. Fr. Wayne was the youngest of 11 children in his family. He one sister and 9 brothers. They lived in a small house with just 4 bedrooms for everyone. They all ate dinner at one table and this was family time where everyone shared their day. His whole family remains extremely close. Having nine brothers prepared him well for the fraternity of the priesthood. His parish growing up was St. Mary of the Assumption in Revere. His parish priest was an example and a mentor that had a tremendous impact on his vocation. He first had thoughts about a priestly vocation as a sophomore in high school. His pastor, Fr. Mahoney, took ill and he spent a lot of time helping him and saw how remarkable he was in how he worked in his ministry. He was a gentle person, but his example affected his life deeply. Fr. Mahoney's recommendation for his entrance into seminary was received on the day that Fr. Mahoney's funeral was celebrated. When Fr. Wayne first asked him for a letter of recommendation, Fr. Mahoney tore it up and said he would only sign it if he knew Fr. Wayne was not being pressured to enter the seminary. He studied for a time in Rome at the North American College. During the four years of college seminary, there 70-80 men there in the late 80's and early 90's. And as he was finishing, he was asked to go to Rome for the NAC. He made some close relationships with friends in Italy that he remains in touch with. His mother was Italian and she was very proud that her son was becoming a priest. His father was like Fr. Mahoney who wanted to be sure he was doing this not to prove something, but because it was what he really wanted. His parents came over to Rome to visit, which was their first trip overseas. His parents were very supportive. A highlight of studying in Rome was meeting Bl. John Paul II. They had many opportunities to go over for Mass with him and he served Mass with him in his private chapel. The classes, as well, showed him the universality of the Church. There were religious and lay people in the college. He studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Some of the professors were in fact many of the experts at Vatican II, who wrote some of the documents of the council. Fr. Wayne was ordained 16 years this week. His class of priests was 21 men, 18 from St. John's. The cathedral was completely silent as their names were called and as they approached the altar. It's an awesome feeling. They got an understanding of being part of something bigger. The priest who was supposed to preach at his Mass became ill and he had someone come in at the last minute. Like Fr. Chris, he remembers being so nervous. His mother said her favorite part of the Mass was the end when the deacon gave the dismissal because it was the first time in public they'd ever seen anyone get the last word over Fr. Wayne. **3rd segment:** In the past 16 years, he's had two assignments. His first assignment was at St. Charles Borromeo in Woburn, where he had two different pastors. After his first term of five years was up, he got two one-year extensions. He was going to go to work with the Military Archdiocese, but that fell through and he stayed for an eighth year. The parish was thriving and it seemed the lives of the people were centered on the church. The community allowed the church to be very active in the community and they valued the input of the church. Leaving after his eighth year was the most difficult transition for him. Then he went to Sacred Heart Parish in East Boston. He went to check out the parish ahead of time in street clothes and he tried to go into the church during First Communion practice and was literally pushed out the door by the religious education director. That was his introduction to his new parish. St. Charles in Woburn is known for producing many vocations, to the priesthood and religious life. Fr. Hank Garrity was a pastor there and was very strong working with the youth in the city and promoted vocations. The city is a very close-knit community that values faith and the input of the church. All of that is a recipe for vocations. It is a vocations factory. He learned by example also from a pastor, Fr. Paul Sughrue, on how to be a pastor. When the abuse scandal broke, Fr. Sughrue was proactive and provided good leadership. Fr. Timothy Shea came in and continued the momentum of the parish looking forward. He was very good at shoring up the finances of the parish, paying all of the parish's debts and the school was operating in the black as well with a full enrollment. His favorite part of being a priest is the opportunity to say Mass every day. It is at the table that families and friends exchange the intimate moments of our life and at God's table we share our moments, but also God's intimate moments. The Mass fuels everything that takes place. At his deacon assignment there was a sign over the chapel door: "This is the most important thing you will do all day." One of his favorite saints is St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. His spirituality was that you find God in the ordinary moments of the day, being with ordinary people. And then you come to the Mass you see that this is the most extraordinary thing that you'll be doing. He likes the movie "There Be Dragons" and it presents both the man and the message in a positive way. **4th segment:** Fr. Wayne describes Sacred Heart as unique and very diverse. Their weekend Masses are celebrated in English, Italian, and Vietnamese. When the parishes closing around them, they started to absorb different ethnic groups and they were intent on being one parish, not three different parishes. All holy day Masses are celebrated trilingually and they incorporate all the groups into the liturgies. This was done with very little effort. The people were very accommodating. In East Boston, they are characterized by their understanding of family. When someone comes to the door, they are brought right in to the table and they are the same way at church. When Fr. Wayne was in Woburn, he found it too quiet, but when he got to East Boston, he found the planes flying so low over the house, he heard the stewardesses telling *him* to sit down. But what he finds the most difficult part of being pastor is the language barrier with the Vietnamese community. He feels he could be doing more to minister to the elderly Vietnamese community. They have priests who come in on the weekend for Masses, but they have difficulty ministering and reaching out during the weekend. He has been learning Vietnamese from the young people in the parish, and he's trying to learn the prayers of the Mass in that language. He finds the community to be quite stable. Even though people may move out of the city, they come back to the parish for Mass on Sunday with their parents or grandparents. They may live in Saugus or Lynn or Randolph, but they come back for Mass. This is true for both the Italian and Vietnamese communities. The Vietnamese community has many activities for the whole group from about 1pm until 8pm at night. Fr. Chris notes that the communities all have their own special traditions that continue to live on, whether Italian or Portuguese or Vietnamese. Fr. Chris celebrates Masses on the weekends and the community has embraced him. It is very welcoming. In their diversity, there is a unity. Scot asked what lessons Fr. Wayne has learned about bringing together merging parish communities. Fr. Wayne said East Boston at one time had 9 parishes, 11 worship sites (including the Madonna shrine and the airport chapel) and 7 schools. But the demographics changed and some of the churches could not be maintained. People were tied to and identified with their parish. But the people of Sacred Heart were ready to welcome others from outside. Out of the 7 schools, four pastors closed their schools and opened East Boston Central Catholic School in 1972, one of the first regional consolidated schools in the archdiocese. When Star of the Sea school closed, the parents from that school were invited over the next day. They didn't join the school. They became part of the family as one group together. They also recognize that they don't have all the answers. They are open to having a dialogue. The spiritual life of Sacred Heart took off when they welcomed these other communities in. **5th segment:** In his spare time, Fr. Wayne is studying for a doctorate in church history, as if he doesn't have enough to do. He's studying at Boston College School of Ministry. He received a Licentiate degree (STL) (which is the ecclesiastical academic degree equivalent of being halfway between a Master's and Doctorate). He has now moved on to the doctoral thesis stage. Scot said the history of the Church in East Boston must be amazing. So many of the ethnic parishes in the archdiocese have been closed because they were no longer needed for the original purpose of ministering to people of a particular language because people now spoke English or have moved out to the suburbs. In East Boston, there were two parishes across the street from each other. Fr. Wayne said ethnic parishes were established with an eye toward the own closure when they had helped the immigrant assimilate into the wider Catholic community. Instead, the national parishes become closely identified with the people. In East Boston, there were Spanish, French, Italian, Irish parishes. Over time, those groups moved on and other parishes moved in who didn't need the Mass in those languages. That will conclude today's presentation of The Good Catholic Life. For recordings and photos of today's show and all previous shows, please visit our website: TheGoodCatholicLife.com. You can also download the app for your iPhone or Android device at WQOM.org to listen to the show wherever you may be. We thank our guest, Father Wayne Belschner. For our co-host, Father Chris O'Connor, our Production team of Rick Heil, Anna Johnson, Justin Bell, Dom Bettinelli, and George Martell, this is Scot Landry saying thank YOU for listening, God bless you and have a wonderful evening!

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O'Connell**Today's guest(s):** Msgr. Cornelius McRae, currently Pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Norwood* ["Norwood pastor going back to Rome" (The Pilot, 4/15/11)](http://pilotcatholicnews.com/article.asp?ID=13233)* [Casa Santa Maria](http://www.pnac.org/casa-santa-maria/about-casa-santa-maria/)* [St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Norwood](http://www.stcatherinenorwood.org/)**Today's topics:** Msgr. Connie McRae's reflections on 50 years in the priesthood, his current pastorate, and his impending return to ministry in Rome**1st segment:** Scot welcomes Fr. Mark O'Connell back the program. Last Friday, Fr. Mark was at the cathedral with Cardinal Sean for Good Friday. Fr. Mark said he is looking forward to seeing the beatification of Pope John Paul II this weekend.Msgr. McRae, our guest, was a spiritual director for Scot when Scot was a seminarian for a year at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. Fr. Mark said Msgr.McRae was a close friend of Fr. Mark's uncle, Fr. David Delaney. They owned a house together with two other priests many years ago. When Fr. Mark was in Rome for four years, he lived at Casa Santa Maria, where Msgr. McRae will be serving starting in June. Those four years coincided with Msgr. McRae's previous years in Rome.**2nd segment:** Scot and Fr. Mark welcome Msgr. McRae. He recalls the wonderful days he shared in Rome with Scot and Fr. Mark and he's not unhappy with the idea of returning to Rome. Msgr. McRae remebers Fr. Mark as a toddler visiting his uncle's house at the beach. He also remembers Fr. Mark's first day in Rome. He just came off the plane and was very nervous, saying that he wasn't going to venture out the door into Rome.Scot said the Casa Santa Maria is in the heart of Rome, right near the Trevi Fountain. He asked Fr. Mark how much of an affect these four priests he knew as a child on his vocation. He remembers that they were happy in their lives and that their house was a joyful house and that had an influence this summer.This summer will mark 50 years as a priest for Msgr. McRae. The last 11 have been spent at St. Catherine of Siena in Norwood, one of the largest and busiest in the archdiocese. Msgr. said it is a parish that welcomes priests. They've had a number of priest gatherings throughout the year. He said  the parish is unique and is about 120 years old. The church building celebrated its 100th anniversary this past Christmas. The people, even more than the building, are astonishing. They have two Masses during the day and they need four people distributing Communion at the morning Mass during Lent. He's trying to summarize in his own mind what it has been like. He believes there have been dramatic changes in his life as a priest. Fr. Mark said the past 10 years have been a time of great challenges in Boston and they correspond to his time in the parish. Msgr. said he recalls having to do a listening session in the parish at the beginning of the sex-abuse scandal. St. Catherine's was an island of peace where no abuse had occurred. They had a powerful experience of listening over the course of a night to the pain of the people who came to the session. He's learned that whatever shame or anger or frustration priests have felt is nothing to compared to that suffered by those who were abused.Fr. Mark said there's also been a decline in number of priests and closings of parishes in the past 10 years and he's had to guide the people in this time. Msgr. said he was aided by the people of the parish and the parishes that were closed.Scot asked what it's like to be pastor of such a large parish, where for example, there are so many first communions and so many weddings. Msgr. said once the parish had seven priests, but isn't that way now. He said it's important to have a clear vision of why they are there: They are there to assist in building and continuing to build a faith community. It's easy to create division. It's hard to build unity in the Lord. As pastor,m if you have a light schedule, you have a 12-14 hour day.One thing he will miss terribly is going out every day in the morning, meeting the schoolchildren and the parents in the yard and leading them into the school and leading them in morning prayer. This is the most important lesson: Forming a good habit of learning how to speak to God.Msgr. said the hardest part of leaving is leaving behind the people who he's come to love so much. Every Sunday, at every Mass he wasn't celebrating, he stood at the door of the church, greeting the people as they come into the church, rain or shine or snowstorm.He thinks it elementary and important to be greeting people, both enlisting their help, but also getting to know you and trust you, so they will talk to you. What kind of signal do parishes give when there is no welcome? We must be ambassadors, to be a welcoming faith community. It's not just the pastor, but everyone in the parish.He has a parishioner who runs hospitality for families after each morning Mass on Sundays. They invite families after Mass to welcome them. He also has a staff member to is working to encourage family Mass. Msgr. McRae also has a big staff to assist him in his parish.**3rd segment:** When Msgr. McRae first went to Rome in the late 90s, the rector of the seminary was then-Msgr. Timothy Dolan (now the Archbishop of New York). He was spiritual director at the North American College. It was a very lively time, but he wanted to come back to Boston to be a pastor. The last time he'd been in a parish was in 1969. From that time, he served on the faculty of St. John Seminary and as rector of Pope John XXIII Seminary in Weston and then as spiritual director in Rome.Scot asked what it's like to serve as priest in Rome, where so many saints and martyrs have walked and where one experiences the universality of the Church. Msgr. said all the online social networking with people all over the world that people do on Facebook today is just the modern version of the global village people have experienced in Rome for hundreds of years. He looks forward to working with priests doing graduate studies in Rome. In a parish, there hasn't been a lot of time to do much studying and engaging in the world of ideas. He's looking forward to engaging people in what they are studying. Fr. Mark said Msgr. has been thinking about the spirituality of diocesan priesthood. Among other things, he says  that involves in the willingness to do administration. If you are the head of a household with a family, your vocation includes taking care of the home. A priest who doesn't take care of his parish's facility and other material matters, then people won't feel comfortable and welcome. Our vicar general, Fr. Richard Erikson, often speaks of the ministry of administration, which has the word "ministry" right in the middle of it. Good administration allows the parish to be healthier and reinforce the good things people bring to the parish ministry.Msgr. said that with fewer priests, the demands are getting more and more piled on fewer people. In Rome, he will try to convince the younger priests of the need to help each other bear the burdens and joys of being priests. He says people don't have a fair sense of the priest's needs. If they have a spiritual need, they expect you to be there.Fr. Mark said the priests who arrive at the Casa in Rome are often shell-shocked at being out of a parish and back in studies, while the men who have been in Rome for a while are somewhat out of touch with being a diocesan priest. Msgr.'s role will be to keep them in touch with what it means to be a priest and to understand that their present assignment of study is as much a priestly role as being a parish priest.Msgr. said the priests in Rome have a time to pray and to think, building up a spiritual reservoir which will be tapped when they come back to do whatever the bishop is going to ask of them. That time to pray and think is not a luxury. The Church needs priests who will continue to be students to serve the people well. Scot believes we may have the most educated laity in Boston, priests need to be well-educated in order to preach effectively. Msgr. said the people of St. Catherine's are very varied and alert to what is going on around them, but at his previous parish in Belmont, he had nine Nobel Prize winners in the parish.Scot asked Msgr. what a spiritual director does. Msgr. said that every day as Christians we have to discern the Lord's will for us. To know what God wants and to do it is the source and peace of our life. He will be working with the men to look at their past and their future to know and do God's will.At St. Catherine's, he doesn't have the luxury to meet with every person, so the preaching has to help them to be able to do God's will in whatever their state in life they have now.**4th segment:** Considering the [readings for Sunday Mass](http://www.usccb.org/nab/050111.shtml) for May 1, the Second Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday* Gospel (John 20:19-31)>On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews,Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”>>When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”>>Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” >>Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”>>Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” >>Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.Scot said the Apostles were in the room, huddling in fear, but after this encounter with Christ they had the courage to proclaim the Gospel and eventually to be martyred.This was also mainly about Thomas who had a strong skepticism, despite the testimony of his 10 brothers in the Lord. Fr. Mark said to consider that Thomas was not in the community. Sometimes when we're not with the Church, not in the community, we can become more skeptical. But when we experience the Lord in the community, in the Church, then we no longer need that proof because we've already received all that we need.Scot said Thomas might have been thinking that Jesus had let him down, by not fulfilling Thomas' expectations. When we think of being let down by the Church at times, Christ comes to us and embraces us.Msgr. McRae said there is a lot of competition this weekend for people's attention. People will be thinking of the royal wedding and of the beatification of John Paul and other things. A homily must connect people's lives with what is revealed in the Readings. Msgr. McRae pointed out that today would normally be the feast of St. Catherine and the royal wedding was chosen on this date for that reason.Fr. Mark said he will never think of this Gospel in the same way after Cardinal Sean said in his first homily in Boston to the victims of abuse that they are the wounds in the Body of Christ. Msgr. said Thomas told the apostles he would not believe until he saw the wounds and now Fr. Mark has identified those wounds.Fr. Mark also said the Christ comes in His new glorified Body. Pope Benedict has said that the resurrected Body is a like a great leap forward in human evolution. Christ does not just pass through locked doors, but also through the locked door of Death. Msgr. said the children at his parish last week drew pictures for the Stations of the Cross and some wrote prayers for the Stations and he sees that they have seen the wounds of Christ and are prepared for this Gospel on the second Sunday of Easter.Scot said there's a certain amount of Thomas in all of us and a certain amount of the other apostles. While Thomas gets a bad rap, he is the one who responds to Christ with the Act of Faith, identifying Him as God.

TRANSCRIPT Much to the frustration of the U.S. bishops (not to mention the Vatican), Church Militant routinely shines a spotlight on the filth in the Church, meaning, largely, the hierarchy. But even for us, there are degrees of shock and disgust. Very near the top of that sordid list is the following story, which Church Militant has vetted completely. This Saturday, Bp. Robert McElroy of San Diego will be one of 20 new cardinals created by Pope Francis. However, along the way to the College of Cardinals, McElroy covered up for one of his priests, who desecrated the Blessed Sacrament, which was part of a satanic ritual in preparation for a black mass. And soon-to-be-cardinal McElroy knew every bit of this. Christine Niles has the entire story in a Special Report that will be airing tonight. Some of this is simply too disturbing to get into the details, and we don't want to put any pictures in people's imaginations that don't need to be there. What we will say is that the priest involved, Fr. Jacob Bertrand, desecrated the Blessed Sacrament in an aggressive sexual situation with Rachel, whom he had groomed for some time, stretching back to his days at the prestigious North American College in Rome (the NAC). Fr. Jacob Bertrand desecrated the Blessed Sacrament in an aggressive sexual situation. A black mass normally involves a mockery of the Holy Sacrifice, frequently accompanied by a desecration of the Blessed Sacrament, but also — and this is key — whenever possible, the abuse of a virgin. Normally, such a virgin is groomed and set up over a period of many months or years. After a naive "mark" is located, a process begins. In stages, various psychological boundaries are broken down, until complete spiritual trust is earned to such a degree that the victim will go along with anything, believing it to be the "Holy Spirit" who is guiding everything. The victim is lulled into such a belief because the groomer is a Catholic priest who has earned her trust. In this particular case, according to the victim, Rachel, the priest was able to get her to the brink of being victimized in the black mass. But it was during a discussion with a friend where she admitted all that was happening, that the scales fell from her eyes, and she reported Fr. Bertrand to Church authorities. That resulted in a confession by Bertrand to diocesan officials. The diocese suspended Bertrand but allowed him to lie publicly about the real reason, claiming he was under emotional duress because the parish had caught fire. Bertrand then informed parishioners that he would be taking a leave. About six months later, when McElroy had taken over as bishop of San Diego, he reinstated Bertrand as though nothing had happened. Frustrated, Rachel went to the police, and a criminal prosecution was launched. At the last minute, seeking to avoid further publicity about the whole sordid affair, the diocese confessed and threw Bertrand under the bus, revealing he had admitted his guilt to them two years earlier. As we said, McElroy was not the bishop when this occurred, but he was the bishop who actually reinstated Bertrand after the priest spent some months "at prayer." McElroy knew all about the case and then proceeded to lie to investigators, as well as the Catholics of the diocese of San Diego. So uncooperative was McElroy's diocese that the investigator actually called Rachel in shock. In fact, the cover-up for this satanic priest was a full-court press engaged in by the diocese from first to last. And at the top of the whole affair, was a man upon whose head Pope Francis will place the red hat this coming weekend. But hey, as they say, it's not like there's a crisis in the Church. That Special Report, "The Devil in Rome," airs tonight, immediately following Church Militant Evening News.

TRANSCRIPT Shortly after the news broke about Theodore McCarrick in June of 2018 that he was a serial homopredator, the modernist spin machine went into overdrive covering its tracks. In a stunningly audacious interview at the annual Knights of Columbus convention that summer, Cdl. Donald Wuerl, who turned out to be the frontman for the cover-up, totally attempted to deflect when questioned by another liar in a collar, Fr. Thomas Rosica. For the record, the truth of both these men has been fully revealed. Rosica being a serial plagiarist is now in "ecclesiastical Siberia," where he should have always been, and Wuerl was essentially embarrassed into stepping down after his role in the cover-up. But life being what it is, Rosica gets banished and Wuerl collects a couple of million dollars a year from the archdiocese of Washington, D.C. The interview, however, revealed a lot more because Wuerl signaled in that interview to his brother bishops to hold the party line and do or say nothing. When it came to homosexual bishops or cover-up bishops, all of this was to be kept "in-house." That summer was a total revealing of the corruption in the hierarchy — from McCarrick and the Pennsylvania grand jury report, to the original Vigano testimony where, for the first time, the presence of an active, wicked, homosexual cabal was outed as having a stranglehold on the Church. If knowledge were not king, the evil bishops and their cowardly counterparts would not go to such great lengths to deprive you of it. But to Wuerl, who had been a master of deceit his entire time in robes, this was just another opportunity to get control of the narrative by saying the issue went back "decades and decades" so there was no need for him to resign. Wuerl, with his serpentine demeanor, went on the secular media tour, continuing the cover-up not only of himself but of all the other bishops involved in this filth — just like so many other cardinals in the Church whose resumes are replete with degrees in lying, deceit, deflection and falsehoods. To dive a little deeper into the "decades and decades ago" fabrication, if that is the case, then why was a Brazilian bishop just relieved of his duties for pleasuring himself on a video feed? Why was a Michigan priest, trained at Sacred Heart Seminary here in Detroit just a few years ago and touted as a "model seminarian," just arrested and charged with child sex trafficking? Why was the highest-ranking priest in the United States, Msgr. Jeffrey "Grindr" Burrill, just caught making hundreds of hookups for homosexual activity? Why is the North American College in Rome currently being sued for homopredator behavior on the part of the vice rector who mysteriously just resigned out of the blue? Included in that suit are more than 30 U.S. bishops who, according to the suit, covered it all up and were completely nonresponsive to the pleas of a seminarian being railroaded by Cdl. Timothy Dolan of New York. And that Brazilain bishop, prior to his unfortunate video display, had been twice reported to the Vatican for theft and having a homosexual lover. Of course, nothing was ever pursued. It's becoming commonplace now in the Church that if you do not have electronic recordings of the actual crime or sin, the bishops investigate themselves and then clear themselves. For example, Bp. Richard Malone of Buffalo is no longer bishop not because he refused to answer questions we and others put to him about his cover-up of sex abuse by Buffalo clergy, but because he was secretly recorded on audio by one of his own priests admitting his scheming. Likewise, in Crookston, Minnesota, Bp. Michael Hoeppner is gone now because he was captured lying on video during a deposition. And while there wasn't specific video or audio evidence with Wuerl, there was a paperwork trail that came to light that proved he too, as Abp. Vigano said, was lying through his teeth. Civil suits, criminal charges or video/audio proof are the only things that the "transparent, always want to dialogue, apologetic" bishop crowd ever respond to because only then is their hand forced. Of course, all this begins with knowledge, meaning the Catholic faithful must first understand precisely who and what they are dealing with: The hierarchy is an international homosexual crime syndicate that destroys anyone and everyone it can to secure its money and cover its active homosexuality. The hierarchy has been aligning itself with the party of death, the communist Democrats, for decades because that party has been funneling them loads of cash every year to help destabilize America. The bishops steal the faithful's money from the collection basket each Sunday and steal it again from their taxes every year. It's quite the racket, in fact. You get zillions of dollars from people you have fooled into thinking you're trustworthy and then you owe an accounting to no one — until you die, of course. And even now, in light of all these revelations, a huge number of Catholics are still in the dark because so few people are actually telling you all this, least of all the Catholic establishment media who also profit from all this evil, however pious they may present themselves in matters strictly theological. Church Militant has been informing you of all this corruption way before it was fashionable. As we learned of the total depravity and depth of the evil the hierarchy engages in, we committed to exposing everything we can because, at the end of the day, it stands as a roadblock to innocent souls flailing about in an ocean of cultural wokeness engineered by the bishops in cooperation with the Marxist Democrats. The bottom line to this Vortex is that knowledge is king. If knowledge were not king, the evil bishops and their cowardly counterparts would not go to such great lengths to deprive you of it. They never reveal anything unless they are forced to by a judge or by other circumstances. What is needed right now is more knowledge on the part of the faithful so that they can spread the word and take action, demand change, look for opportunities to sue these monsters in miters, get the secular press to do stories on them, and just be relentless, pounding, and never stopping — just like the hierarchy has been with you for decades in covering up the truth. In other words, hound these men — but you need the knowledge to do that. That is why Church Militant is excited to announce that beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021, we will be expanding our nightly news coverage to now incorporate The Download discussion immediately following it. Secondly, we will be airing this all-new Catholic Info Hour each weeknight from 7 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET. (This is a change from the current 6:30 p.m. ET time where we bring you just Evening News live. Now it will be Evening News and The Download as a full one-hour live presentation beginning at 7 p.m. ET.) The Catholic world needs a single, reliable point of knowledge and information that has no constraints. The staff has been in meetings and planning sessions and deeper discussions for weeks now, and we are getting our final game on by rearranging shifts and personnel responsibilities to bring you the most informative, no-holds-barred, honest, trustworthy news and discussion show in the entire Catholic world. Sorry EWTN, CNA, Register, Relevant Radio, Ave Maria Radio and the like, but the rest of you are just not trustworthy in discussing the current crisis in the Church. You are personally invested in keeping your mouths shut. And, as we have said for years, that's the price you have to pay for your lack of independence. You are too closely tied to the criminals in the hierarchy, and, no matter how you slice it and dice it, you are compromised. Period. There are simply some subjects you are forbidden from covering, but the problem is that it is precisely those subjects that are at the heart of the crisis. The Catholic world needs a single, reliable point of knowledge and information that has no constraints. That, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow faithful Catholics, is the Catholic Info Hour, debuting live on Church Militant on Tuesday, Sept 7, 2021, at 7 p.m. ET. Thank you to all our Premium Members and supporters who make the ever-expanding Church Militant footprint possible. And, for the record, that's six million viewers per month. Thank you, and be sure to mark your calendars for the debut of the Catholic Info Hour.