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Author and journalist Sabrina Arena Ferrisi joins to discuss her new book, Blessed Carlo Acutis: The Amazing Discovery of a Teenager in Heaven, which celebrates his amazing life and possible canonization during the 2025 Jubilee. She recounts the way this remarkable teen exemplified how to live an intentional, faith-filled life while still being a “normal teenager” whose days were filled with friends, soccer games, and PlayStation. A computer whiz who learned coding at age eight, Carlo used his tech talents to create a “Eucharistic Miracles” website, which has since been translated into 17 languages and a photographic exhibit that continues to travel the world. His legacy inspires today’s youth to live holy lives within the context of our modern times.
Tania Geist joins us to discuss her book, Eucharist: The Real Presence of Christ about the mystery and miracle at the heart of all Catholic faith. Great for small group discussions, ladies book nights, or parish-wide studies, the guide features a twelve-step process to help readers truly understand the Body and Blood of the risen Christ in the bread and wine and how this connection provides a foretaste of our full union with God in Heaven as members of his body.
Father Roger Landry offers an inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday’s Gospel.
Bios
Mark Rienzi is the president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and a professor of law at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law. He teaches on the topics of constitutional law, religious liberty, torts, and evidence, and has been voted Teacher of the Year three times by the student bar association. He is a widely sought after speaker on constitutional issues and particularly on abortion and the First Amendment. Rienzi has represented high profile cases for clients such as Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters of the Poort, Wheaton College, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, among others.
Fr. Dave Tomaszycki was ordained a Catholic priest in 2016 and currently serves as Secretary to the Archbishop of Detroit and a priest at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Parish in Farmington, Michigan. In 2009 he began studying Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s writings and became an enthusiast. He discovered the Archbishop had intended to write a book about the demonic but wasn’t able to complete it before his death. Fr. Tomaszycki spent four years meticulously compiling Sheen’s writings on the topic and organizing them into chapters to achieve a book as if it were “written” by Sheen himself.
Father Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes for numerous Father Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and is the author of the book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God. A graduate of Harvard and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he served as Attaché to the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York. Father Landry recently completed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage, an event that coincided with his 25th year in the priesthood.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 279 Transcript
| Grazie | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. We are the radio show and podcast of the Catholic Association, where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to Conversations with Consequences on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network. We are also on Sirius XM Channel. One third, of course. Our radio show is always a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association Dawgs podcast or directly to wherever you listen to your podcast. I'm your host is Dr. Gracie Christy, joined now by my co-host is Ashley Maguire from the Catholic Association. Welcome, Ashley. Hey, Grace. We're going to welcome our guests now. And you used to work for for his outfit, which is the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. You have wonderful memories from that great work. And his name is Mark Rienzi. Welcome to the show, Mark. |
| Mark Rienzi | Happy to be here. |
| Grazie | Mark, The Becket Fund has been racking up wins for as long as it's existed. Some of them extremely important wins that have shaped American society and American history. I'm thinking of the Little Sisters of the Poor, for instance, that we've talked a lot about on on our show, and that the Catholic Association has been very focused on over the years as it keeps rearing its head. Right. They never seem to be finished with the poor, the poor little sisters of the poor. It's true. It's almost it's so cruel. The persecution. So the Becket Fund has had another great win, this time in federal district court in California. And it's a federal court ruling regarding the case against UCLA over anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protests on campus during the Great unrest that we saw after October 7th. That I'm sure is starting up all over again on campuses across the United States as as classes come back. Tell us about the case of Frankel versus Regents of the University of California, please. |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, it's really a terrible case and the kind of thing that never should have to be a lawsuit. But, you know, this is where we are. So the case arose out of the encampments and the anti-Semitic behavior at UCLA after October 7th and really culminating in the spring. And it's not a case just about somebody said something mean that I don't like. It's not a case of trying to shut down anyone else's speech. But what happened on UCLA's campus was the university itself helped exclude Jews from the heart of their campus for more than a week. So the people who hate Israel and the pro-Hamas pro-Palestinian folks gathered at UCLA, they set up an encampment. UCLA provided them with the barricades that were used to keep other unwelcome people, namely Jews, like my clients out of the central quad on campus. UCLA instructed its security guards not to help the Jewish students access the central parts of campus, but instead to send them away. Basically, the UCLA security guard said, You can only get in if the group in the middle of the quad chanting, Death to Israel, death. The Jews will say that you're acceptable. And they would actually issue wristband as to the acceptable people, but not to the Jews who have any beliefs about Israel. And so this is a situation where a public university was not just allowing, but actively participating in the exclusion of Jews from the heart of their campus. That's outrageous. At any time it's outrageous. At a public elite university in America in 2024 and last week, the judge issued a very strong ruling saying, you can. |
| Ashley | Mark, what effect does this have on any of the other colleges? I mean, for, you know, the last two months of the last year of school, we were just inundated with images of these encampments on pretty much every major elite university and all saw similar stories of Jewish students being harassed, being spit at. And it seems like in all of these cases, there's a similar entanglement with with other schools. Is this is this particular the details of this lawsuit the you know, them providing the barricades, not providing security to Jewish students, Is that unique to UCLA, or would you say it's just kind of a prototype case for what's been happening at all of the universities? And are they in any way bound by this decision as well? |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, the judge actually ruled on pretty broad grounds. He basically said, look, if you're UCLA, you can't run a university, you can't run a quad, you can't run a dining hall, you can't run a library that Jews can't go to. And so he actually, in his ruling, didn't rest on the barricades or some actual overt things. UCLA did so much as say, look, you're a public university. You can't have a part of the university that blacks can't get to. You can't have a part of the university Jews can't get to. You just can't have that. And I do think it will have you know, I think it'll have profound effects on other universities nationwide. They've now been told in crystal clear terms that you're violating civil rights laws when you allow this to happen to Jews on your campus. And what I think happened last spring is the university said, well, the only First Amendment rights I need to worry about are the rights of the people drawing the swastikas and saying death to Jews and death to Israel. And I don't think they gave any thought to the affirmative rights that the rest of their students have on campus. Well, now, since the federal judge has said it violates federal civil rights laws, I think they're all going to have to take that into account in their thinking. And I suspect they're going to be motivated to do a better job this fall. |
| Grazie | Mark, that's really good news. And congratulations again to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty for winning such an important case. And let's hope that it has a great effect all across the United States. Let me ask you, going back to the UCLA case in particular, how do you how do you suppose that the university got to this point? Because if they were actually asking students, well, what's your name? it's Rabinowitz. You know, are you do you support the state of Israel so these people can vet your entrance? That's that's really many, many, many steps down this this horrible road. What given if you took a charitable view of the university, What what how do you think they got there? |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, it's a great question because it's a place that I think a few years ago most of us would have predicted or hoped we wouldn't get to, and you wouldn't see that at a major university. I think they got there because they were too hesitant to enforce their own rules and they were honestly too afraid of the angry students in the encampment. So they were doing things, you know, a few weeks earlier they had a pinata of Benjamin Netanyahu that they beat while screaming beat that F-ing Jew, beat that F-ing Jew, beat that F-ing Jew. And the university's response was kind of timid. Right. And in a way that it's hard to imagine them being timid about other slurs and other attacks on other groups of people. And so I think the universities in the spring acted out of fear of offending or bothering the angry people in the encampment. What that meant was they were willing to sacrifice the rights of other people, and in this case, Jews on campus had their rights sacrificed while the university sat around and hoped it would get better. And they're legally not allowed to do that. |
| Grazie | I'm an alumna from Columbia University, which I think is ground zero for the worst kind of violence, the worst kind of demonstrations, the worst kind of anti-Semitism. And when I was at Columbia, it was a very Jewish campus in many ways. I used to eat dinner and lunch at the kosher cafeteria because my on inaugural floor, we were either all nice Catholic girls or Orthodox Jewish girls. Those are the only girls on the all girl floor in the freshman year. So I became very close to the Jewish community at Columbia. And I'm just that and I'm so amazed at the kind. How could anti-Semitism become so outrageously widespread? What do you think? Because even a column, you know, at Columbia, we saw even the administration making fun of the Jewish students and representatives on text. Right. They were outed, making fun, and they've lost their jobs. And how do you this is a big question. When did anti-Semitism become so socially acceptable? |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, I don't know. I think some of our Jewish friends would say it's always been so. You know, some folks may be less surprised then that than we are. But look, I don't know exactly when, except it's been clear it's a growing problem. The you know, the treatment of Israel and of religious Jews by the political left in this country lately has not been very charitable. And I think the more it festers and the more, you know, people in charge don't say something and don't do something and don't. Correct. And they just go along with it. The worse it gets. And that's why, you know, we were so heartened by this ruling from a federal judge in California saying that this is outrageous, this is abhorrent in our constitutional system, and we're not going to allow it. And so my hope is that big court wins like that can turn the tide back the other way, make the universities behave differently. And that may lead to better attitudes. But, you know, time will tell. |
| Ashley | Yeah, I was actually going to ask a similar question and and read the opening of the very powerful opinion that the court issued. They said in the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the state of California, in the city of Los Angeles, Jewish students were exclu IDed from portions of the UCLA, UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. And they said this fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitu tional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating. Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA ETI campus because they refused to denounce their faith. And I was struck when I read that by the fact that, you know, the Becket Fund, you know, I think like as Gracie was saying, it's so shocking to see this resurgence of of anti-Semitism. But the biggest one has been working on countless other cases with a similar thing where students groups are excluded or banned or censored for a similar reason that that they refuse to denounce their faith or central tenets of their faith. And, you know, would you say that this is a growing trend on college campuses? And, you know, what are some of the other cases that the Becket Fund has right now that deal with a similar theme of a, you can't be faithful to whatever your religion is and be a participant up an open participant in in the college quad. |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, it's a great point. And I think it's it's a it's a it's a fair high level point that intolerance unfortunately, has been on the upswing. Right. And so intolerance of people who are different and have different religious beliefs and try to live according to them is unfortunately in vogue right now. And we certainly have dealt with it. We've dealt with it on college campuses. We've dealt with it in high schools. So we've dealt with it in public high schools that really go on the warpath against Christian groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Right. We had one case in California where the teachers like the the supposed grown ups in the room, would write out the beliefs of the Christian kids from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and say this is B.S. although they they just went right out and said it because they're cool. This is B.S. and that basically harass them until they get off campus. And so we have seen that in many places. It's terrible and it's bad. And I think the antidote to it is two things. One, it's good people standing up and not being silent. Right. And I think far too many good people were cowered by the mobs this spring on our college campuses and didn't feel comfortable speaking up and didn't speak up. And that's a problem. But people must speak up. And then secondly, I think litigation has an important role. I think it is important to file lawsuits to have judges say that was illegal, to hold the administrators themselves accountable for violating the constitutional rights of these people. I think until you do that, people will continue to misbehave. |
| Grazie | Mark, many people now in the United States are secular and that trend is is growing. I think people are becoming more and more secular. Our country's becoming more secular and losing sight of the importance of religion. Can you articulate for us, which I know you can you do it very beautifully, why is religious liberty something that everybody, everybody should care about for American society, whether they're religious or not? |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, it's a great question. It's a timely question. I think if you don't have religious liberty, if you don't acknowledge that there is a special core of people and their ability to seek God and seek the truth that the government should not interfere with, then you just don't have any real freedom, right? If the government can control that, they can control everything. And it's important for everybody to learn to live with religious diversity. Right. One of the things about America is we have this wild religious diversity. Some people don't believe anything about God, and people believe all sorts of other things about God. And, you know, your neighbors can be anything. It's actually really important and valuable for us to learn, to acknowledge that and to then live together and get along in peace. And that was sort of the original American diversity thing to deal with. Right? Is a bunch of people with religious beliefs over which they were killing each other in Europe, coming together and starting a new country. And there were, of course, bumps in the road. And we we had horrible mistreatment of Native Americans and Latter day Saints and Jews and Catholics and all sorts of other groups along the way. But overall, respect for religious liberty has, I think, helped us learn to live together in peace with people who disagree with us about important things. And I think allowing people space for religion, allowing people space to disagree, is deeply, deeply important to having a well-functioning free society. One other bit of it is that religion gives people some some guide, some, some set of rules, some some rules to live by, some ways to think about things other than whatever that dominance social media narrative of the morning is. And I think that's one reason why religion is sometimes threatening to people. Right? If they if you want a country full of lemmings, you'd really like to stamp out all the religious people. |
| Ashley | Mark, bringing things back to the right here in the right now, do you think? I mean, schools are starting back up, you know, in some now, some in a few weeks. Do you think Jews can feel safe going back to campus? I know you don't have a crystal ball, but yeah, What do you think we're going to see in the next couple of weeks? |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic that the return to school is precisely why we asked for the judge to give a ruling before August 15th. So these students can go back to school and know that their university won't discriminate against them. Look, I've heard from Jewish students all across the country at all sorts of institutions about how wretched their lives were last semester. And so I really hope and pray they get something different. It's really disgusting and outrageous that that people are going through that these days. So I'm cautiously optimistic that we're making things a little bit better and that the universities are learning their lesson. But we're going to have to you know, people can have to get up in the morning and go to school and we're going to find out. |
| Grazie | Did UCLA receive some sort of punishment or was just admonished to no longer behave like that in the future? |
| Mark Rienzi | The case is not over. So all we were asking for is the order about what they do in the future. I'm sad to say UCLA appealed that ruling, right? So UCLA was told don't discriminate against Jews and UCLA, his answer was I appeal. And their further answer was that it would hamstring their ability to respond if they had to obey this injunction. That's outrageous and bad. And so to me, that signals that UCLA doesn't quite get it yet, that whatever they do to deal with their encampments discriminating against Jews is not one of the lawful choices. So eventually I do expect there will be punishment for UCLA. They violated clear constitutional law, but that's not the stage of the case. We're at just yet. |
| Grazie | Mark, we only have a minute, but I wonder if you could wrap us up by telling us about generally about the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and where our listeners can go to learn more about your very important organization and the good that it does. |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, happy to do that. So the Becket Fund was founded 30 years ago where a nonprofit public interest law firm and as the UCLA case will tell you, we represent people of all different religious faiths with their religious liberty cases. So we've got cases for Muslims and Native Americans and Catholics and Christians and so forth. We're named after a Catholic saint, and we're founded on Catholic principles about religious liberty from dignitaries, human. But we defend religious liberty for everybody. We've been very successful at that, where 11 and at the Supreme Court. And we win the vast majority of our cases and if anyone's interested in finding out more or supporting our work, we're at Becket. Lomborg. B. C. K. E. T only one t law dot org. And we'd love for more people to find out about our work and consider supporting it. |
| Grazie | Thank you, Mark. Always such a pleasure to have you on. |
| Mark Rienzi | Thank you both. |
| Grazie | It's really wonderful to hear about a win for religious liberty in the courts. And the reason for that is, as Mark Rienzi explained to us, that religion is a catalyst for all for good things in our society. I was thinking recently about how I became a grandmother five months ago. Our oldest son and his wife have a little baby girl who was born in April. I wrote a piece in Angela's recently about becoming an abuelita and ability as a grandmother, a little grandmotherly saying in Spanish. It's the term of endearment for abuela, which is grandmother. And I wrote this before I became a grandmother, but all of my hopes have come true. So I'm going to read it. And maybe some of you who are expecting to become grandparents or have already done so well will participate in my in my feelings about this great moment in a woman's life. Abuelita Lalita, my father's mother would give my sister and I a great treat every summer when we visited Miami from Mexico on Saturday mornings when she was not working at the gin factory. She would take us downtown a trip which consisted of two bus rides preceded and followed by a long walks and waits in the melting heat. Our destination was a Sears Department store, a veritable wonder house of goods in which a person could buy anything if they only had the money. Abuelita Lalita would make a modest purchase, something she had thought long and hard about, invariably accompanied by a carefully folded advertisement from the Nuevo Herald announcing a special low price that she pulled out of her purse. After that came our great moment a hotdog and soda lunch at the counter of the adjacent five and ten. It was a treat that we found absolutely glorious. Abuelita, Lalita has been on my mind a lot lately. My son's wife is expecting the very first child of the next generation of our family. A little girl who is making something new out of each of us. Father and mother. Uncle Abuelita. These are total transformations. Like the ones that nature accomplishes every time a swimming tadpole becomes a landlocked frog. It may be most remarkable in the case of the new mother and father, but my own becoming abuelita feels just as momentous to me. The child is granting me a whole new identity in the proper sense of the word. I'm taking on a novel role, forming a new permanent bond, moving up a generation, acquiring even a fresh title. I'm receiving at her little hands a whole new set of duties and responsibilities. It has made me reconsider the whole concept of identity, something we hear about constantly, usually attached to broad categories like sex, race or nationality. This entirely misses a real source of identity, which is relational and its nature, which is distinct. Human beings are not simply interchangeable members of a particular affinity group like checkers shifted around the board. We are unique persons who manifest our individuality more fully with each personal bond we make, whether chosen or chosen. We are, each of us, the unrepeatable center of a vast web of human connections, and in each strand, properly acknowledged and lived, is the source not only of individuality, but also of real fulfillment and meaning. We know this instinctively. When asked who we are, we respond. I am so-and-so's wife or that person's father or my sister. Sister. If we go to the deepest, most fundamental source of our identity, we can each answer interest. I am an irreplaceable child of God as He exists in a relationship of three persons creating eternity together. And as we are made in his image, we flourish exactly in the measure in which we love and are loved. This is why the saddest person imaginable is one who loves no one and is unaware of the great love God has for him or her. That kind of loneliness is not compatible with life. The rugged individualist who will not be beholden to anyone. The cynic who considers all human dealings transactional, the armchair Darwinist, who sees others chiefly as opponents in the struggle for existence. These are all the types who deny the relational essence of man. Perhaps at bottom is a rejection of the burdens that each human connection leaves upon us. To love someone is to act on their claims on us for companionship, tenderness, encouragement, correction, material assistance. The list goes on. And their claims cannot be set aside because they may be inconvenient or ill timed, or even for requiring some great sacrifice from us. I can't tell for sure what claims upon her. I little to Lalita was fulfilling when she took two little girls with her to Sears on those hot Saturday mornings. Maybe she was helping my mother a little by taking two of her children for a few hours. Perhaps she knew how hard it was for my sister and I to be all day cooped up in her little government apartment because it wasn't safe to play outside. I imagine she found our joy at the lunch counter with its red revolving stools, infectious and that the joy sustained her on our weary return journey. What I do know for certain is that she was the irreplaceable and unforgettable center of a complex web of loving relationships. And that is exactly what I'm hoping to be to when I become and I will need to. I was I. All these things have come true for me since I became an Irish leader in April. And what's beautiful about it is that when a new person comes into the family, every every other person in the family becomes something. There's there's an addition to each one of us, to our identities. We become something new and that comes from duties and responsibilities. And that those duties and responsibilities give our lives meaning. And it is meaning in our lives that makes lives bearable. Otherwise, things can get rather dark rather quickly. When you see people losing hope, when they go, when you see when you hear about people or, you know, people who take their own lives, it's it's a lack of meaning that leads to despair. Because when things are very, very, very sad and tragedies come to all of us. When we can transcend that sadness because we that because there's a meaning to our lives and of an overarching goal and a path that we are following, then I think in general, we are able to get through through those terrible times. Now, I've been thinking also about all this watching. Last night I was doomscrolling looking at news about the the Democratic National Convention, which is taking place in Chicago. And one of the things that has shocked me so deeply is the constant refrain at the convention, the celebration of abortion. It's coming from every every delegate. It comes from every every person who gets up on that stage. They celebrate abortion. Every abortion is the end of a life, but it's also the end of the duties and responsibilities that give our lives meaning because they make us A little child is born and she makes mothers and fathers with her presents. She makes our litters and litters and aunts and uncles and cousins. And it is those relationships which give our life meaning. That is how most of us achieve meaning in our lives through those loving relationships. Outside the Democratic National Convention is a van like like a taco truck, and they are offering free abortions and free vasectomies. What they're offering is no relationships. They're offering pure individuality, pure loneliness. And it is truly a culture of death, which is going on in Chicago right now. It's a celebration of a culture of death. It's really very sad. It's also said that Cardinal Blase Superior of Chicago, gave the convocation that I don't quite understand how that can happen. How can someone like that, like a cardinal, can can walk by the Planned Parenthood van offering abortion and and vasectomies and feel comfortable at a at a giant celebration of abortion? I wish that wasn't happening. The representative from Hawaii, when he was giving his his his vote no for the for the for the party's nominee, he said he was from the state of aloha loving kindness. And he immediately then said we were the first state to legalize abortion. There's nothing loving and kind about eliminating children and eliminating the duties and responsibilities and the beauties to our lives that come with those relationships, whether we're the mother and the father we were, that the way that that ripples outward, all that love and meaning that comes from the web of relationships that children bring us. I'm praying for good things for our country, for good resolutions in all our states. And then across across the country, in our in our federal choices in the voting booth that we're going to make soon. I hope that as a country, we we choose for life and not a death. Welcome back to Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host is Dr. Gracie Christie. And joining us now is Father Dave Thomas Hickey, who serves as priest secretary to the archbishop of Detroit, Archbishop Allen Vigneron, and he has just edited a collection of the writings on the Devil by Archbishop Fulton Sheen that's being released April and May as road publishing. And that book is called On the Demonic. I think it's a very important topic. So many of us are feeling assailed, even if even people who aren't religious or religiously inclined feel that there's a lot of malevolence in the world and it and it does. Our times are difficult and and heavy in many ways. Many people are feeling this. So what a wonderful topic and especially how wonderful that that you, father Dave welcome have been moved to collect the Archbishop Fulton Sheen's writings on such an important topic. |
| Fr. Dave | Thank you very much, Gracie. Thank you for having me on. And yeah, it was a ton of work. It took me three years just to put the book together, another year dealing with copyright and then another six months with the publisher. So it was it was four and a half years of really working on it. But then I actually kicked the idea around before. So you start counting things up and it's almost a decade long project, but it's all in Fulton Sheen's words. People keep asking, why isn't he dead? How do you write a new book? Yes, he is dead, but he intended to write a book on the demonic in 1974. He said he was going to write one. I went through all his all his notes, all his handwritten notes. I went through his books as talks. I went through everything, collected what he says about the demonic, put it in the book form, but it's all in his words. I compiled it, but it's all in his words. |
| Grazie | And tell us why Archbishop Fulton Sheen is important in Catholicism. |
| Fr. Dave | So he he was born in 1895. He always had just a tremendous gift for speaking for for giving the word of God. And he's also extremely intelligent. He has two or three doctorates, depending on who you ask and how you count. So so he can he can do the high level academia and break it down for the common man. He had his own TV show, The 1950s. He won an Emmy for that TV show. He was a rock star in the Catholic world in America, and he never lost his mind. He was very well grounded, very holy man. His cause is open right now. He's a venerable. His miracle has been approved to make him a blessed. So they are moving in that direction. But a very holy man, very wise man, always had his finger on the pulse of society, could see what people are dealing with, see what's coming down the tube. And 50 years ago, he was talking about the demonic like, hey, we're entering into demonic times here. And, you know, you fast forward 50 years and he was he was as right as ever. So so what a what a privilege It is to actually have his writings on this topic when he saw it coming through. |
| Grazie | Anyway, I've watched at home I if you go on YouTube, you can watch his his TV show. And I'm always struck by the idea that there was a time in America where someone of stature like that, an intellectual and also stature in the church, could have a TV show in America. And I'm sure many thousands tuned in and had real formation and real, real Christianity explained in ways that were not only understandable but also funny. Winsome He makes you laugh. He he raises the the hair on your arms. He he makes you weep sometimes. He had this tremendous flair for the dramatic. |
| Fr. Dave | He was very talented. Just just in the natural talents. Then you put on top of that His Holiness, his He prayed a holy hour every day throughout his priesthood. He was a priest for 60 years by the time he died. So, so very talented, backed up by an amazing intellect and all of that. More importantly, most importantly, is backed up by being rooted in God, by being truly a holy person. And yeah, he was on TV back when there were like four channels, so I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think his weekly program got millions of views. At one point they'll get about 10,000 letters a day, really firing up some things and whatnot. Yeah. So, so for example, for example, in the in the Catholic world to publish a book, if you can sell like 10,000 copies. that's like a bestseller in the Catholic world. In 1949, Fulton Sheen's book, Peace of Saw, in the first seven months they had printed like seven printings, a quarter million books now, and that's two years before his TV show. That was before the height of his fame. He was on the radio. Then he had some notoriety before the height of his fame in 1951. He gets his own TV show. He wins an Emmy for his on the air more or less for six years On and Off writes amazing books. He was absolutely huge. And I kind of compare him to a band like everyone has, like a band that they love and all that band. I just I never get tired of listening to that band. Well, for Sheen, for me and for many others, he just does it for me. He just he just has a way of taking me to Jesus Christ, which is really what it's all about. |
| Grazie | Yeah, he's and, and again, he, he, he deals with that the deepest concepts, the most complicated theology. But he delivers it in such a way that it's that it's understandable and it's palatable and it's attractive. And I think that that's a spectacular combination in in evangelism and doing apostolate with with the masses, especially as he did. |
| Fr. Dave | definitely. And he so in so he was a professor for 20 years at the of the Catholic University of America. And about the time he got his TV show, he's like, well, I can't do both. I just can't do both. And he actually liked academia. His his own preference was to stay in academia, but he felt the Lord calling him to, you know, the TV show and the more popular books and whatnot. So, yeah, he he has the mind for academia and the ability to break it down. And most people can't do that. Most academics can't break it down the way Fulton cheated, Fulton cheated. Here. He was very, very talented. |
| Grazie | So let's go to the demonic. What does what does Archbishop Fulton Sheen tell us about the demonic? I know that's a huge question that you've spent ten years on, but maybe you can give us the glimmers of it. |
| Fr. Dave | Yeah. So in the 1950s, he started saying, like, boy, I think the Antichrist is kind of on the horizon, like there's something going on. By the sixties, he was saying it even even stronger. And then by the early seventies, you're saying, you know, I think we're in a demonic era here. And by 1976 he was just saying he had no question about it. We are in a demonic era, but he says so. So God unites the devil divides the devil breaks apart. So death, division, decay, damnation, all those D words, that's the demonic and diabolic. It even comes from two Greek words meeting to renders under to break apart. So God unites and the devil divides. And then theologically he talks about the devil is Antichrist, because we're united to Jesus, to God through the cross. So so to break it down as much as we can, God unites, the devil divides, and the devil is anti cross. |
| Grazie | And how did he see that that division taking root in the fifties and then growing so powerfully into the seventies? What what was, what was the devil dividing exactly. |
| Fr. Dave | Yeah. So the the breakup of marriages, you know, the the the breakup in the church and and he was there too is a good thing inspired by the Holy Spirit. But he says when the Holy Spirit acts, the devil counters. So you see the silly season, as George Weigel calls it, after Vatican to and bishops splitting, bishops splitting with the pope. It was interesting. So when it came to Humanae Vitae, most bishops went against the pope. The pope actually went with the minority report. And who was in that minority report? John Paul Second and Fulton Sheen. They stayed strong. So so in the weeks after Humanae Vitae, they came out as bishops are dissenting. Fulton Sheen is defending the Holy Father at a cost, you know, so a lot of division there. He talks about the signs of a demonic. The first is love of nudity. And it's not it's not the good you know, the body's good at. That's not what it is. It's a twist. It's a perversion. It's the separation of the clothes from the person. And Then as you do that, you take away the mystery. You take away the deeper part of the person. So again, that's the vision. The second sign is violence, which which is always a violent splitting apart. The third sign is a schizophrenic mentality. He called the different things to different places, but it's the loss of identity. And when we lose our identity as God's children, we go off in all directions searching for something. But again, we're scattered, we're divided. So he just saw that more and more. The sexual revolution in the seventies and the sixties and whatnot. And yeah, the devil was getting a big foothold. |
| Grazie | Let's talk about identity, because that's the big buzz word of today, right? Everyone's expressing their identity and there are as many identities as there are people on the planet, I think, as it's working out too, that way right there. If we follow that, the logical conclusion of that kind of self-actualization, What do you think the archbishop would say about this, this moment we're living in now, this identitarian moment? |
| Fr. Dave | Yeah. it's an obvious sign of the demonic. So so there's so the demonic always twists, you know, like he tells lies. But the more often half lies. So yes, there is a uniqueness about every single person, no doubt about it. Like only you can love God the way you can love God and only God loves you the way God loves you. So like, yes, there's a uniqueness and a distinguishing characteristic about every single person, but in the end, remaining image and likeness of God. So when we split from that, then we lose our real identity and we go off in all directions. But yeah, I tell you what, and I get a lot of hate mail for this, but it's just true when you start looking at the whole LGBT plus plus plus agenda or love of nudity, big time eroticism, perversion. Yes, violence or the surgeries and everything else. Big time schizophrenic mentality. You know, there were two genders then. There are, you know, 20 genders now 150 genders. It just has the demonic in spades. Three. It's very, very dangerous. The devil is really having his way with God's children. And in the end, that's our identity as God's children. And the only way to get back is to go to our Lord. And I think Fortune writes very beautifully about. |
| Grazie | As Catholics, as Christians, we we have our idea of the demonic of the devil is a personal one, right? It's an it's invested in the person of the devil. How did how did Fulton Sheen address that? Because now I bring it up, because in the modern culture, there's this idea, well, there's you know, there's a tendency towards bad, but it's not a personal attack. There's not there's not a personal force that's that's attacking you and trying to to pervert you into acting bad ways like that seems like a spiritual bridge too far. What was his concept? |
| Fr. Dave | And that information actually talks about that, a very point that you're making, because, you know, when we domesticate the devil, making something funny always got these red ties. Like, you can't believe in that, can you? And you kind of laugh. No, no, of course not. And then the devil is strongest when he's denied. So that that in itself is a trick of the devil. But yes, I mean, we read about him in scripture. You know, our Lord saw him, saw him fall from heaven. We see in the Book of Revelation, we see in the Garden of Eden, he's there and he's personal and he's real. And he rebelled against God. And Michael cast him out of out of heaven. And actually, in in the book, there's a chapter on violence. And about a third of that chapter talks about that fight and having that violent struggle in heaven. And that's actually made up of handwritten notes I found in his archives the very, very beautiful section. But to answer your question, yes, the devil is real. He is personal. And when we in personalize him, when we actually he doesn't exist, we don't really believe that it's going on. That's actually a win in his favor. So, yes, he's real, but Jesus is more real. And that's where our eyes need to be. |
| Grazie | Well, that's a very that's a very powerful point that you make, that it's it's a win for the devil. Right. When we say that's exactly what he wants us to do, is to and personalize it and make it. Well, you know what? We make it nowadays. And I wonder if the archbishop got into this. We use a therapeutic mentality when we talk about we don't talk about good and evil very often anymore in the modern world. We talk about dysfunction, disorder, or just things that are that cause negative negative feelings and things like that. But we don't really talk very much about evil or just sin, right? The word sin has dropped out of have dropped out of common common usage. Did he talk about that kind of therapeutic therapeutic zation of the way we think so. |
| Fr. Dave | So going back to 1949, the book that I mentioned before, Peace of Soul. So so he was even writing that because, you know, people talking about, peace of mind, psychology will get you a peace of mind. And it will if you have peace of soul, there's something deeper going on. So we have to get to the root. So he's got a chapter. He gives three weapons against the demonic, and one of them is the Blood of Christ. And he talks about how when we deny guilt, you know, it'll just come out somewhere else. So, you know, you tell the story about someone who's guilty, gets stolen some money, and he starts having these abnormal manifestations of guilt. You think, he needs a psychologist. And yeah, there's something psychologically going on. Yes. But it stems from the guilt from his sin. And he talks about how, you know, so many people would be better off going to the confessional, laying their souls, their letting Jesus forgive them of their sins and heal them. And then they wouldn't be the psychoanalytical couch and not not that you never need that now that there's no place from that. But there has to be a foundation for it. And the foundation is peace of soul, our souls with the Lord in the right order. So yeah, he talks quite a bit about that in the book. |
| Grazie | And what about in your book? And on the demonic? Does he do you address does he address in any of these writings that kind of therapeutic nation of good in good and evil. |
| Fr. Dave | Yeah, yeah, yes. Particularly in the chapter on the blood. And then even at the very beginning of the book, he talks about about how like when we when we drop something, the world picks it up, you know, we drop sin and then the psychologist picks it up. |
| Grazie | yes, yes. |
| Fr. Dave | It's it's throughout the book. |
| Grazie | So, Father Dave, we're almost out of time. What who's who's this book intended for? |
| Fr. Dave | that's always a tough question. I've been asked that a few times. It's always a tough question. Catholics, honestly, anyone so so. So I'm sure some people will buy the book for the wrong reasons, like all of the to the devil. that's kind of cool. So that would be like a wrong reason to buy it. But Fulton Sheen, he has a great way. He's got a great balance. His eyes are really on Jesus. So so even if people buy it for the wrong reason, I think it will do them a lot of good. So I guess I would just say anyone I mean, Catholics would really love it. Fulton Sheen fans would really love it. But just anyone and I think it gives a lot of answers to what's going on, a lot of insight. So we can we can see what's going on around us. But it's not just about what's going on around us. Let's point fingers at them. It's about us, you know, how are we doing with the devil? As you were saying earlier, is he's a personal devil. Like he's really out to get each and every one of us there's oppression and whatnot that we can look out for. And I think Jean really covers it well in this book. It's meant for everyone. I think. I think anyone high school or older would really benefit from this book. |
| Grazie | Well, thank you so much, Father Dave Thomas Hickey. And thank you for compiling what I'm sure is a very important collection of writings and thoughts from Archbishop Fulton Sheen on the Demonic. That's the name of your book, and our readers can learn more about it at St Paul's Intercom forward slash sheen And can they buy your book at that website right now? |
| Fr. Dave | Yes. So honestly, we are having a hard time keeping it in stock. So so the last I heard, they were just a few hundred copies left at St Paul's Center. Amazon has sold out and might be back up on Amazon soon. We are working on another printing. The book's doing so well that we're having a hard time keeping up, but St Paul's Entercom is the place to go. You can check Amazon to. |
| Grazie | Well I'm glad for your sake is doing so love it. I think it indicates how needed it is. And this time right when the demonic seems to be gaining, gaining strength and not not waning unfortunately. So thank you so much Father. |
| Fr. Dave | you're very welcome. Thank you very much for having me on, Doctor. Grazie. |
| Grazie | Now, Father Roger Landry offers us, as is customary, a short and inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday's gospel. |
| Fr. Landry | Father, Roger Landry. It's privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the finale of the consequential conversation the original Jesus has been having with us over the course of the last month with regard to what is the most important reality in the entire world, his own presence in the Holy Eucharist, and what our reaction is to that awesome reality so far as the whole church in the United States has been having this conversation right after the close of the incredible national Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis last month. And as we have been launching the missionary phase of the national Eucharistic Revival, what Jesus been saying and our response to it are even more important than what he said and did. Three, six, nine, 12 or more years ago when Jesus attempts to give us this training Eucharistic upgrade. So let's listen to the dramatic conclusion of his words as if we're hearing them for the first time and ask his help to respond like the Saints would and have after having described that as flesh is real food in his blood, real drink after having encouraged us to work not for perishable food, but for this food that endures to eternal life after having indicated that this divine gift is far greater and more important for our survival than the man of God used to rain down each day for the Israelites in the desert was to their survival. Brings us this Sunday to the climax of his bread of Life discourse. It's just as personal for us as it was for his first listeners. Climax is the choice he wants us to make. The commitment he wants us to give in response to his great divine gift, which is not just to believe his words that he is a true man, that his body is real food in his blood, real drink, and that whoever gnaws on his flesh and drinks his blood is eternal life and will be raised on the last day. But to structure our life in accordance with that belief, he's asking us to live a truly Eucharistic life during our life from him in this supreme gift, he's asking us to make him the source summit, root and center of our existence. He's imploring us to choose him, was chosen us to commit to him, who made the ultimate commitment to us to be faithful to him as he is faithful to us in the new and eternal covenant sealed in his body and blood. But that's not easy. And it's certainly not a given in the Gospel. We read that many of the disciples who heard Jesus words said this teaching is difficult. Who can accept it? These are not strangers to Jesus. These were people who had been amazed and astonished by his teaching over the previous two years, who had heard him preach like no one before. These were people who had witnessed a make blind man see deaf men. He or cripples walk lepers restored to the skin of babies and possessed people liberated from their diabolic possession. These were people who the previous day had just seen Jesus feed a crowd of 5000 men, 5000 women and probably 15,000 kids on five buns and two sardines. They were now saying that Jesus was what Jesus was asking was too hard for them to stomach. We have to admit that they were right about Jesus teachings being hard at first glance. They're disgusting. To eat someone's flesh and drink someone's blood smacks of cannibalism. However, for a Jew, they couldn't even touch blood without becoming ritually impure. Now Jesus saying that they needed to drink blood, something that seems straight out of a sick vampire novel, even 2000 years after the Last Supper, when Jesus would show how he would fulfill these words by totally changing bread and wine into his body, blood, soul and divinity, the teaching is still hard. It's hard to believe that the creator of the whole world, the Savior, the human race, the miraculous carpenter from Nazareth, is actually hidden under the appearances of simple human food in the altar that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. The Eucharist is not bread or wine at all, but the second person of Blessed Trinity. Jesus Teaching is hard. But that shouldn't surprise us. Jesus never pretended that his teachings were easy when he talked about forgiving 70 times, seven times when he spoke about cutting off hands or plucking out eyes. If they lead us to sin. When he discussed turning the other cheek, denying ourselves, picking up our cross and following up when he described losing our lives in order to save them, when he conversed about loving him more than we love and mother, brother, sister, child worker property when he remarked about loving others just as he has loved us by sacrificing our life for them. All of this is hard. But with regard to the disciples question, who can accept it? The answer has to be one with faith in Jesus. That's what we see in Peter's response when after Jesus watch, most of his disciples abandoned him because they didn't want to accept his teaching and then turned to the 12 apostles and asked poignantly, Do you also want to leave? SIMON Peter stood forward and said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We've come to believe and know that you are the Holy one of God. The teaching wasn't any easier for Peter than for the thousands of disciples who had just abandoned Jesus, but only become fathomable a year later during the next Passover, when Jesus would take bread and wine into his hands and totally change them into himself. As he said, This is my body taken, eat, and this is the chalice of my blood. Take and drink. But Peter knew that she said the words of eternal life. So because of his faith in Jesus, he put his faith in Jesus words. Likewise, we need to have faith in Jesus Word. The great Eucharistic Hymn to Vote, written by Saint Thomas Aquinas. We sing, I believe, whatever the Son of God has said, nothing is truer than the word of truth. We believe in Jesus difficult teaching on the Eucharist because believe in Him and believing in him means basing our entire existence on what he reveals. And so the choice comes to us this Sunday, a choice we can't duck because to try to duck, the choice is to deny the Lord. Over the course of the last month, Cheese has been preparing us for this moment. He multiplied the loaves and fish, not only to show his compassion and power, but to foretell what he was planning to do with the multiplication. The Eucharist. He told us to labor for this food more than the hardest working parents trying to put food on their table. He told us that he was the true man and that the father wants to give us to sustain us in the desert of human life. The answer to the prairie put on our lips. Give us today our super substantial bread and give us this bread. Always. Jesus answers that prayer for us every day. But now we have to respond to his personal daily gift. Jesus wants us to draw our life from Him, to live a Eucharistic life, to experience a spousal union with him, consummated in one flesh loving communion that happens in the marriage. But at the altar, when we as the Bride of Christ, take within us the body of the bridegroom become one flesh with Him and are capacitated to be a fruit to make love with him in all our actions. Are we ready to make that commitment? It's easy to say yes, but do we really mean it? Response to Jesus Query. Do you also want to leave me many in our age, like the disciples of Capernaum, if wandered physically or spiritually away from Jesus in the Eucharist, we can think of so many of our beloved Protestant brothers and sisters who, despite believing that sacred Scripture is the authoritative Word of God to interpret sacred Scripture, literally try to pretend consciously or unconsciously that Jesus is just speaking symbolically about needing it. His flesh and drink is blood. We can think of so many of our Catholic brothers and sisters, five or six Catholics in, the U.S. who have wandered away from the practice of Sunday mass, serving some other God than the Lord on Sunday, whether it be work or sports or sleep or entertainment, we can think even of those who come to mass but who do not receive the Lord Jesus with faith, love and reverence, who basically behave as if they were only receiving consecrated bread rather than the very God who died for them in the cross, and who seem to be impatient to leave Jesus presence and go somewhere else. What is possible can also think of those who show up with their hearts and lives divided, who instead of making a total choice for God, live in some situation incompatible with God and who nevertheless come up to receive Him without converting in, going to receive Jesus forgiveness in the sacrament Confession. First, there's a poignant reality which Saint John pointed out there was only at the conclusion of Jesus talking Capernaum that Jesus quote knew the one who would betray unquote Jesus Jesus. First glimpse Judas's betrayal by Judas, his reaction to him in the Eucharist. And it's somehow tragically fitting that Judas betrayed Jesus by leaving the first mass a year later. But Jesus gave us his body and blood for the first time in the fulfillment of this Sunday's gospel. Sadly, some come to mass to receive Jesus, only to leave and continue to betray Jesus in their moral decision. At the end of this five week course Jesus, each of us. Do you also want to leave? He asks whether we want to live united with him in the Holy Eucharist or live in some other way. He queries whether we'll make him in the Eucharist, the source in the summit of our life, or whether we'll just try to keep him in the Eucharist part of our life and a small part at that. Something we do out of duty perhaps for an hour or so on Sunday. The response Jesus hoping for is for us to echo Saint Peter Lord, To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We've come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God, Peter, James, John, Andrew and the other apostles except Judas. It truly left everything to live with Jesus. They spent every day with Jesus who taught them, nourished them, helped them to pray and prepared them to take not just as gospel, but as very presence in the Holy Eucharist to the ends of the Earth. Unlike them, we don't have to leave our fishing boats, tax tables, homes and families in order to be with Jesus. He comes to our parish every day. The question for us is whether we really want to be with him or whether we want to leave him alone. And if we do want to be with him, that will change not only the way we look at Sunday Mass, but also the way we look at the awesome privilege of daily Mass and the way we approach Eucharistic adoration. The Eucharist really is Jesus, and we believe this truth and love Jesus. Then we will soon recognize that there's nothing more we want to do than to come to receive him as well as we can as often as we can. The Eucharist really is Jesus and we believe this truth and love Jesus. Then we will soon reprioritize everything so that we can come to spend more and more time with him and bring our family members and friends to experience this same treasure. That's what the Eucharistic revival is all about, and that's what Jesus has been trying to do himself in us over these last five weeks. God bless you. |
| Grazie | Thank you so much for another exceptional homily, Father Landry, to check out more from Father Roger Landry, make sure to read all of his writings at the National Catholic Register at NC Register dot com. We hope to have you back next week. And until then, you go with our prayers. |