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Episode Description
Becket Fund President Mark Rienzi joins to discuss a deeply moving letter sent by Pope Leo ahead of the firm’s 2026 Canterbury Medal Gala. Written as the nation prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, the Holy Father’s message praised religious liberty as “the cornerstone of any just society” and highlighted the connection between human dignity, conscience rights, and the American founding.
Catholic psychologist Dr. Gregory Popcak breaks down a viral moment from the Holy Father’s trip to Spain, as a female survivor of childhood trauma raised two powerful questions: how to forgive and how to reconcile suffering with God. Dr. Popcak also shares lessons from his book, BeDADitudes, filled with practical insights on how to be an awesome dad this Father’s Day and practice authentic leadership in our families.
Msgr. Roger Landry explains the history and symbolism of the World Mission Rosary – highlighting how women’s religious communities across the country have already pledged more than 50,000 handmade rosaries – and describes how Catholics from every continent will unite in prayer during the beatification celebrations. The effort serves as a tribute to Sheen’s missionary legacy, and a powerful witness to the enduring devotion of the faithful around the world.
Catch the show every Saturday at 7amET/5pmET on EWTN radio!
And don’t forget to subscribe to TCA’s daily media roundup for smart Catholic news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox.
Bios
Mark Rienzi is president and CEO of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and 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. A constitutional law expert and accomplished Supreme Court advocate, Rienzi has successfully represented clients in many of the most consequential religious freedom cases of the last decade, including landmark litigation involving conscience rights, religious schools, parental authority, and the free exercise of religion. He is a widely sought after speaker on constitutional issues, abortion, and the First Amendment. Rienzi has represented high profile clients such as Hobby Lobby, Little Sisters of the Poor, Wheaton College, and Our Lady of Guadalupe. He has secured numerous victories before the US Supreme Court and continues to defend the right to live out faith freely in the public square.
Dr. Gregory Popcak is founder and Executive Director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute and author of numerous books integrating Catholic theology, counseling and psychology, including BeDADitudes: 8 Ways to be an Awesome Dad. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, Board Certified Diplomate of the American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work, and Chair of the Marriage and Family Studies program at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He serves as adjunct professor in psychology and graduate theology at Franciscan University. His work has been featured on Fox News, in the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. He is co-host of the EWTN radio program More to Life, founder of CatholicCounselors.com, and co-creator of the CatholicHOM App, helping couples and families build stronger relationships rooted in Catholic teaching. He serves as consultant to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on marriage and family life.
Monsignor Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. 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. In 2024, he was appointed National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA by Pope Francis. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and served as executive editor for the Diocese of Fall River weekly paper. He is the author of Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God, and was an on-site commentator for EWTN’s during the 2013 papal conclave electing Pope Francis. He is national chaplain for Catholic Voices USA and New York Chaplain for the Leonine Forum. Msgr. Landry traversed the 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage in 2024, coinciding with his 25th year in the priesthood.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 374 Transcript
| Betsy | Welcome to conversations with consequences now on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Betty Fentress, and we are happy to have Dr. Gregory Popcak with us today. He's a familiar voice to EWTN with us with his long running show More to Life, that he co-host with his wife Lisa. He's a Catholic psychologist. And Greg, we really wanted to have you on given an exchange that went viral last week during the papal trek to Spain and the piece that you wrote in the National Catholic Register about it. Thanks for making time to join us today. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Well, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. |
| Betsy | So the piece that you wrote, which is called How Can I Forgive God, was about a woman named Desmarais who asked the Pope some really tough questions and just a little bit of background about her. When she was little, her father tried to kill her mother and a young man stepped in to protect her, and he was killed instead. Her father went to prison and her mother became addicted to drugs. And then she had a lot of tragedies unfold in her life. What moved you to write the story, and how does it relate to your daily life as a Catholic counselor? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Well, the two questions that she asked the Holy Father are questions that that we deal with every day at Catholic counselors.com because we work, we work almost exclusively with with faithful Catholics who are really trying to bring their faith into their daily lives. And when we go through difficult things, we ask the same questions that Desiree asked the Pope, Leo specifically, you know, how can I forgive the person who hurt me? In her case, her father. She was wondering what it would mean to be reconciled to her father, who's still in prison for the attempted murder of her mother. And the murder of the other man. But, then the second question she asked was even harder to answer, which is, how can I reconcile with God for what happened to me? You know, where was God when I was a child going through all of these things? You know, she she eventually found her faith, when she was in juvenile detention herself for different things that she had done. And, but but but she found a family to live with and was baptized in the church and and was growing in her faith. But one of the questions that she really struggled with is, how do I fit the fact that I believe that God loves me with my personal history and make sense of that? And so, those are two questions that I so that we get every day in the practice. And I think they're hard to answer. But but we've, we've come up with some good ways to help clients through that. So I wanted to share some of our insights with registered listeners, readers. |
| Betsy | And do you tailor your answers based on whether you're talking to a Catholic, a non-Catholic, the particular kind of trauma, or do you feel that, that when it comes to doing this through the lens of faith, there's certain tried and true stories that you can always go back to? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Yeah. So what what we find, you know, so everything we do is really rooted in both faith and science. And you, we work really hard to be able to articulate principles from the faith in ways that make sense to people with no faith. Because if we can do that, then, then we can translate what the church actually teaches to people at every different level of faith. For me. Right? So even though our clients, broadly speaking, are very faithful Catholics, they're not necessarily well formed or well, kind of that they there's a there's a lot of heart, but not necessarily the intellectual formation, that really helps them live that out. And so it's helpful to be able to explain, you know, why the church says what it says or what it thinks were the things in both using faith language but also scientific language and natural language. And so if we're talking to somebody who doesn't have a faith, let's say a spouse of somebody who is a Catholic or, who is an atheist or agnostic, or unchurched, you know, we we do a pretty good job of being able to explain why these things are true on a, on a natural level as well as on a faith level. |
| Betsy | Yeah. And I listen to your show a lot. And I think you have a lot of non-Catholics who listen to the show and can take away at least, like you say, the science part of that, that that makes sense on the natural level. So the Pope, Leo told her, and you write about this in your piece, we cannot attribute to God what has been entrusted to our responsibility. What does that mean? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Well, so basically what he's talking about is, is what the church calls subsidiarity, in the sense that the person who is God ordered the world and relationships, healthy relationships to to mean that the people who are closest to an issue have the greatest responsibility. For that issue and the greatest responsibility, you know, to take in that issue. And so God gives us free will. And so he, he because we need free will to love him. We have to be able to choose to love him. Otherwise we can't, you know, it's not it's not a it's not love. It's it's a command. Control. And so what he's saying is basically, God respects our free will. And although God does not will us to suffer or desire or suffering, he has to allow it because he has to allow us to choose to disobey him. And so but but but I think the larger point to take away from that is that, you know, God gives us a responsibility. But as parents, for example, God gives us an opportunity to love our children the way he loves us, the way he loves our children, and and if we reject that, you know, that's rejecting his plan for our lives. That's not doing God's will or that's not right. You know, it's it's really doing a disservice to the trust that God placed in us to share his love with our kids. So we can't hold God responsible for things that we that he's told us not to do, but we do anyway. |
| Betsy | You've written a lot about the theology of the body in your work and in your books that you've done with your wife, and so you bring in Pope Saint John Paul into one of the things that you say, where you write that the Pope's response to Desiree's question about forgiving her reminded you of what both Saint Augustine and Pope John Paul the second said about forgiveness, namely, that forgiveness is simply the decision to surrender or desire for revenge. That really hit me. Can you expand on that? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Yeah, yeah. In fact, you know, we we tend to make more out of forgiveness than we need to. And I'm not saying I mean forgiveness is that even doing that is hard, right? What you just described. But, sometimes we think that we have to pretend the thing didn't happen or that we weren't hurt by it, or everything's okay now, that's not really what forgiveness means. In fact, the Catechism 2843 says it is not within our power to not feel or forget an offense we can still forgive, but we might still feel the hurt, and we might still remember the pain, and we might still hold the person accountable. But forgiving somebody really just means I'm going to. I'm going to refuse to hurt you for having hurt me. And if I can get to the place where I'm not going to where I don't want to hurt you or I'm not going to hurt you for having hurt me, then I've forgiven you. Now reconciliation is a separate thing. It begins with forgiveness. But reconciliation requires that that that all the people involved in the problem are willing to work together to solve the problem. So I may I could forgive you for having hurt you. Hurt me? But I might not be able to reconcile with you if you're not sorry, or if you aren't changing, or if it's dangerous to be around you for some reason. And that's basically what the Holy Father said, that that reconciling with with Desiree's dad, who was in prison didn't necessarily mean putting herself back in contact with him or being around him, that she could forgive him but not be reconciled to him unless he was actually sorry and actually safe to be around. And so that's I think that's an important lesson for all of us, that forgiving somebody doesn't mean setting ourselves up to be hurt again by them. Mean, the flip side of that is it doesn't mean setting them up for us to be an occasion of sin. You know, if it's Catholics, we don't just avoid sin. We avoid near occasions of sin. And and if you can't be around me without being awful, I'm actually an occasion of sin for you. You know, I bring out the worst in you. And so if I try to work that out with you and we're not able to, the most loving thing I can do is set a boundary that prevents that from happening from that, that prevents me from setting myself up as a near occasion of sin for the person who is hurting me. |
| Betsy | And do you find in your work that that's the case? A lot of times that the reconciliation just doesn't happen? Maybe right away or maybe never. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Yes, that that that is true. Yeah. So so that's one of the reasons that people will contact us at Catholic counselors.com is because they, they feel like, you know, like I said, I've forgiven this person, but I can't, you know, I keep letting them back in and they keep hurting me and I don't know. And Jesus said, forgive 70 times seven and you know, and all of that. And there's just a lot of confusion about what forgiveness really requires of us. And so it tends to set us up for a lot of repeated hurts that God doesn't will for us. The church doesn't ask us to to take on. |
| Betsy | There's so many one liners in this article that I want to talk about. One is that you say or you're kind of have your head in the, in the mind of a person that you're counseling. How can I reconcile with God when the things I have suffered caused me to feel that he abandoned me, or worse? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Yeah, yeah, and that's really true because we tend to think that if God loves us, then we'll be spared from suffering. The important thing to keep in mind, though, is that that's not really how Christianity in general views the world. You know, it was God's desire in the very beginning of time and beginning of creation that we would not suffer. You know, he created a world without suffering. He created Paradise on earth. The garden of Paradise or Garden of Eden? But Adam and Eve actually demanded, in a sense, the right to know good and evil, the right to experience it. That's what the knowledge of good and evil is. And the intimate knowledge of I want to be wrapped. I want to be entwined with good and evil, is basically what the idea of eating from that tree means. And at that point, the, the, the perfect balance in order that God created to sustain that life without suffering was destroyed. It was it fell apart. But from that very first moment, God has been working to bring peace out of chaos. And healing, out of pain and goodness, out of, of evil. And that's how we experience God's presence. You know, when we go through something, when we suffer. The natural human response is to just kind of lie down and take it. You know, we we at some point we just give up in a way that there's nothing in our natural experience that says there should be more than this. But I make the point in the article and to my clients that that if there's any tiny voice in us, any tiny part that says this is wrong, that there should be more than this, that I ought to be able to heal from this. There must be something I could do about it. Or even more miraculously, there must be something I could make from it that none of those things are our voice. It might sound like us, but it's really the Holy Spirit whispering in our spiritual ear, saying that there is more that that I want to, I want to, I want to save you from this. Take my hand. Let me lead you out of it. We God, is immediately and imminently present to us in that suffering, in that pain, because he's trying to bring us out from behind the enemy lines, you know. Yeah, that suffering is just part of being in this world, that he wants to save us from that. And so that voice and the and the and the inspiration that comes along with that grace, is it an attempt to rescue us from behind those lines? |
| Betsy | And when you relate this, when you relate people suffering to Genesis, does it does it resonate with them when they can see themselves in this whole line of the history of salvation? How do they respond? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | I mean, I think it's it's it's it definitely requires some some sitting with it. Right? It's there isn't some kind of an immediate shift where people recognize there's, there's there's truth in this, you know, but but it's, it's, it brings about a kind of reordering, about the way I think and feel about what I've been through and where God was. And there's a temptation, I think, at first to say, well, no, that was really me. I was the one who pulled myself out of that God wasn't there. But as I encourage people to sit with it and pray with it, it starts to really make more sense. And and I think that's what the church means when it talks about how certain things are a mystery. And like even a little evil is a mystery, it doesn't mean that we can't know the answers. It means that we need to sit in God's presence and reflect on what the answers for us are. And so when people really take that insight to prayer and sit with it, it starts to become very real for them and very healing. |
| Betsy | When you brought up subsidiarity, I thought of the new encyclical where, magnifica humanitas, where Pope Leo talks about that is a really important, foundational, part of our society. And he also mentioned, Viktor Frankl's Man's search for meaning. And whenever I think about this discussion that we're having, I just go back to the Holocaust. I have been to two concentration camps in Europe and, I've been in, Kolbe's cell, Maximilian Kolbe cell. And you feel the presence of evil there? It's it's it's really scary. But I think that the way that people like Frankl have really strove to find meaning in suffering. Are there other are there books that you that you work in? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | I mean, because Frank Frankl was in the in the camps as well. In fact, that's that's right. Areas of, of of finding meaning in suffering. He he real he recognized that, some of the concentration camp prisoners, just didn't wake up, and where others seemed to thrive despite the horrible conditions. And he wanted to understand what made them thrive. And what he found was that they were able to find meaning in their pain and, and hold onto hope in the sense of their in the experience of their pain, you know, and I and I so I mean, honestly, I think his work is, is is seminal. I do think too, that, even though it doesn't really directly I think the theology of the body in the work of Saint John Paul and the Life of Saint John Paul, I mean, this is a man who who lost his mother, who lived through communism, who lived through Nazi ism, who was circulated an assassination attempt, that he was not a stranger to suffering. He wrote the encyclicals on, on on suffering, and finding meaning and suffering. And so I think his work, is particularly inspirational to Catholics and trying to understand the mystery of evil and and where God is in our pain. |
| Betsy | Are there any particular books that you have with Lisa have written on suffering that you would recommend to people? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Well thank you. So our you know, most of our books deal with different kinds of suffering. So whether you're talking about marriage, we have, for better forever how to heal your marriage and nurture lasting love. I have a book on anxiety called A Worry to Life Without Anxiety. And I guess the other book that I would recommend would be, our book on setting boundaries in relationships, which is God help me. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | The people are driving me nuts, making peace with difficult people. So depending on the kind of suffering you're struggling with, we we have several different resources for you. |
| Betsy | We were made for a world without suffering. Do people really understand that? And then we touched on it a little bit. But it's hard to believe that we were really made that way when from the minute we're born with Original Sin, it just seems to be everywhere. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Yeah. Well, I mean, I think when we think about it intellectually, there's a part of us that recognizes, well, that seems weird, but that because there's not there's nothing in our experience that supports that idea. Right. But but consciously, you know, look how outraged we get when something bad happens. You know, we we expect it to be good. We we, we take it for granted that life should be good. Where does it come from? Because doesn't come from experience. I mean, every day has a million different problems. And why should why should we expect that there should be anything good that happens and and the degree that we can do that, it's because God is bringing good out of all the chaos, right? Because of the fall, the Christian understanding of the world is it was supposed to be awful all the time. Nothing was ever supposed to be good again. And so the fact that there is that there is anything good, it's because God loves you and is making that good thing happen in your day to say, I love you. And and so there's no coincidence, right? There's no happy accident. It's God reaching out through creation to bring what good he can out of the suffering we're supposed to be experiencing. So you come back to your question though. So I think Saint John Paul would argue that what he called historical man or our sort of unconscious self, remembers that we were made to live in a perfect world. And that's where that outrage kind of comes from. And that's also where the inspiration comes from to work toward good and bring a healing out of suffering and and to bring growth out of pain. Because otherwise we would just sit in it and expect that this is the way life is supposed to be. |
| Betsy | How often do you talk about the sacrament of confession related to all of this in your work as a Catholic counselor? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Sure. That that's a really important part of of of our of our work and of healing, that we really encourage our clients to participate fully in all the sacraments and confession being a spirit, specifically a sacrament of healing. It gives clients the grace to do the work, I think and I and just to help kind of clarify the role here, I because we'll regularly get calls from clients or from people on the on more to life or say, you know, I, I, I pray I, I go to mass, I've gone to confession, I get the sacrament, you know, but but nothing's changing. You know, what's what's what's the point of, hey, if if I'm doing all this and that doesn't bear fruit and what? You know, what we like to think of as grace is like the gas in your tank, right? When you put up it. When you participate in the sacraments and spiritual practices, God is filling up your gas tank. But if you've got four flat tires or a cracked engine block, you still ain't going anywhere, right? And so so so we can pray and we can receive grace from the sacrament. But grace builds on nature. It doesn't replace it, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. |
| Betsy | Thomas. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | So we need to, you know, so, so counseling, for example, helps us to inflate those tires or fix that engine and, and help us to be able to cooperate more effectively with the grace. So we encourage people to participate fully in the sacraments. And we talk about spiritual resources that people can use to draw closer to God in, in their in their journey of healing. But ultimately, we have to learn some new skills to be able to cooperate with that grace more effectively. And get on down the road. |
| Betsy | So I imagine a lot of the conversations that you have relate around parents and maybe specifically fathers, and since we're heading into Father's Day, but maybe we could could talk about that. I just right before we went on air, I saw a little we'll start with the bad and move to the good. The Institute for Family Studies. I saw this tweet that said the share of men aged 25 to 45 who are dads has fallen from 66% in 1980 to just 53% today. So, and the graph is on fatherhood in decline. What have you witnessed in your work and and how are you building the people who have maybe had really difficult relationships with their own fathers to become good fathers? Now? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that that what's important for all of us to realize is that, you know, we can if we were, if we did have the benefit of, of a good and stable family life and, and a good dad, we can kind of say, well, you know, I, I, I turned out okay. I turned out to great just the way I am. Right. But but whether we had that experience or not, the truth is, we're not saints yet, right? And what we really need to be taking as our model is not our earthly dad, but our heavenly father. Right? If I didn't have whether I had a good dad or I didn't, my model is it doesn't change. My model is still the Heavenly Father. My my model is still how do I live the love that that God has for me as my father and to share that love with my wife and my kids, in fact, that that's that's basically the theme of my book, The Beatitudes eight Ways to Be an Awesome Dad. I was. |
| Betsy | Going to bring that up. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Where I look at it, each of the eight Beatitudes as a way of learning how to be a father after the Heavenly Father's own heart. And so it's it's really a matter of, you know, the very first be added to be the attitude is blessed are the dads who are poor in spirit. And the point I make in that is, being poor in spirit just basically means making peace with the fact that we don't know what we're doing, we don't know what we're doing, and that's okay, you know? Yeah, every day is a new day. We haven't lived it before. Every stage of our kids development is a new stage where there's, okay, we can't count on anything, but God wants to hold our hand and teach us how to do it. And if we can make peace with that fact that, you know, I don't know what I'm doing and I have to be present and respond in the moment to the needs that my child is presenting to me, or my wife is presenting to me and and think about how can I respond to those needs the most virtuous way possible. That's my model, right? I mean, and it's helpful if I've seen that in practice, but because I've seen my dad or other good, godly men living it out. But even if I didn't, I can still walk myself through that process and really think about, well, what would it look like to respond generously and be in the moment with with my wife or my my son or my daughter and, and ask God to kind of lead me through that because I don't know what I'm doing. And that's okay. It's only when we pretend that that we either know what we doing or that we should know what we're doing. That's when we get in trouble, because we start making stuff up and then getting married people when they don't play along. But if I can recognize that, that I need to be have that poverty of spirit that allows me to just really be present and really listen to what the Holy Spirit's saying to what my wife was saying, to what my kids are saying and make the first, most virtuous response I can to that I'm becoming the man that God wants me to be and really being a father. Imaging after the father's own heart. |
| Betsy | So this is anecdotal, but I feel like in church on Sundays I see a lot more men engaged with their children coming in with the diaper bag, helping their wives, taking the kids out. Do you feel like more men are calling into the show or coming for counseling? Say 20 versus 20 years ago? Do you see a shift at all? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | I do, I do think dads are working to be more involved. And and I think there's also a greater openness to kind of seeking help, in their role as husband and father than there used to be. In fact, so we have the Catholic home app as Catholic home stands for Households on Mission that that we created to provide coaching for couples and parents, to create a resources to build a domestic church. We get a lot of dads who become subscribers of the Catholic Home app and ask questions in the coaching section and, you know, just share their experience. It's really nice to see, the number of men who are on the app really kind of talking about their experience of being faithful dads and the struggles that they encounter as well. And I know that, the moms who are on the site really appreciate hearing from the dads there, too. So, yeah, it's been nice to see that kind of involvement because of course, you were mentioned earlier, the Institute for Family Studies, report, one of the findings they did say is that the dads are critical in passing the faith on to their kids, the, you know, and the metaphor I like to use, we've talked about this in, my book, Then Comes baby and discovered God together as well. That that, you know, when it comes to moms and dads, it's not that moms don't matter, it's that that moms pack their kids spiritual lunch, but it's dads that make sure the kids take it to school, you know, in the sense that it's great. Well, because babies, you know, if children think that they're I'm part of mom, right. So babies grew inside of moms. So it takes them a couple of years to learn that they're actually different people. So what mom does actually orders my personal and interior life. So if moms faithful that says faith should be a personal and interior thing, mom dad is the first other. He's the first, you know, not me. And so whatever dad does is how the world works. And so if dad's faithful that says, oh, I'm supposed to take my faith out into the world and let it make help me make my decisions and relate to other people? So when mom and dad are both working together, it helps me to develop an interior life that also is lived out loud as opposed to people who are, I say spiritual but not religious tend to be raised in households where mom is religious. But dad wasn't. |
| Betsy | Give us another buddy attitude for today's, Sundays celebration, I'm sure. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Well, you know, so. So, you know, blessed are the dads who are peacemakers, right? And and so that doesn't mean the smooth are over or, you know, an avoider of conflict or problems. Again, we're talking about Augustine. Earlier when we talked about, forgiveness, Saint Augustine said that peace is a tranquility. The results from right order. So as being a peacemaker as a father means I want to make sure that my family is living in right order. Right. So, for example, you know, am I am I the guy who's pushing my kids to be involved in 3000 activities in the travel sports team and everything else? That's not allowing any kind of family life to exist. Where am I the dad who's really looking at the big picture and saying, hey, let's make sure that we're prioritizing family time first, that we're getting time to work and play and talk and pray together as a family every day so that we can disciple our kids into what it means to live Christian lives. And then also, you know, we can figure out other activities and whatever goes around that. But but instead of leaving that to my wife, I want to be a peacemaker where I'm facilitating the right order in my home so that we can raised Christian disciples and live a home rooted in Christian love. |
| Betsy | So what are you doing for Father's Day? |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Oh gosh. Well, it would be like having everybody over to the house where we're finally opening the pool, and I'm going to do some grilling and kind of very, very stereotypical Father's Day. It's gonna be a lot of fun. So our, our, our, our adult kids and our grandchildren will be coming all over and will be a great time. |
| Betsy | So where can our listeners go to learn more about your work is not only just for dads, but for families and children and people who are trying to get over some really serious sub suffering issues, like Desiree. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Yeah, if anybody's struggling to, we like to say that we Catholic counselors.com is all about helping people's faith, life and relationships flourish. And so if you're struggling in any of those areas, you can reach out to us at Catholic Counselors, ABC.com, and we have 20 full time pastoral counselors on our team. And we're happy to work with Catholic couples, individuals and families really all over the world. |
| Betsy | And is that telehealth, or is it every call person, you. |
| Dr. Gregory Popcak | Know, it's all tele counseling. And we've been doing that since 1999. |
| Betsy | And you have 20 counselors all over the world. That's wonderful. Thank you. So much for joining us doctor Greg Public. We'd like to take a moment to thank all of our loyal listeners who tune in each week to conversations with consequences. As you all know, the Catholic Association is everywhere. We were on TV to cover the conclave and the election of the new pope. We're in print. We're online, and we're on social media. We've just launched a new Substack to expand our media presence and offer more great content. From a Catholic perspective. We're on ex, and now we're on Substack for Catholic Conversations with TCA. |
| Ashley | Welcome back to conversations with consequences, now on EWTN radio on your host, Ashley McGuire. And I'm glad to have back on the show, an old friend and former colleague, the one and only Mark Rienzi, the president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Welcome to the show, Mark. |
| Mark Rienzi | Happy to be here, Ashley. |
| Ashley | So Mark and I have just returned from Philadelphia, where we were at the Canterbury Metal Gala, the Becket Fund's annual event where they honor in particular one person, but often many of the people who have contributed to the many successes that the Becket Fund has had over the years in defense of religious liberty. But this year was, really special because it was in Philadelphia commemorating America's 250th anniversary, right in the shadows of Independence Hall, where the Constitution was signed. And it was just a really special night. But one of the things that made it so amazing was there was a surprise at the end, and it was a letter from Pope Leo. So I guess Mark, when did you find out when that the Pope was sending a letter, or did you find out while you were on the stage? |
| Mark Rienzi | No, I found out, maybe 72 hours beforehand. So we found out Monday afternoon, we we suddenly got the correspondence with a letter addressed to the participants in the 2026 Canterbury Medal gala. And so we basically said, Holy smokes, we're going to, revamp our plans because because there's a letter from the Pope to read to everybody. So it was terrific. |
| Ashley | Well, one of the things that struck me about the letter was that it seemed it didn't seem canned. It seemed like the true reflections of an American on the importance of religious freedom. And he wrote, that the religious freedom is, quote, the cornerstone of any just society. And he congratulated the Becket Fund on 30 years of great efforts to defend this. Right. He also wrote, that they have been ensuring that all men and women are free to act in conformity with the dictates of their conscience, and to practice their faith openly, without coercion or fear. You work to safeguard the inviolable dignity of the human person. So one of the things that I thought was so incredible about it is that, you know, for, for so much of American history, Catholics were really shunned. And there was this, sense that Catholics can't be loyal patriots because they are loyal to, a different nation state, to a church that's far away and to this foreign figure. So to have the pope, the pope, the American pope sending this letter, I mean, what were your thoughts on all of that? |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, it was it was overwhelming and just incredibly, cool. Seems like the wrong word. Awesome is maybe the better word. Awesome. To to have an American pope. Yeah. We were in Philadelphia to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America. Right. So we were we were there specifically because of this connection between the American approach to freedom, which, you know, as the Pope points out, the the language in the Declaration of Independence is very much language about human dignity and the and the truth of the human person. So to be there to celebrate the connection between that approach and religious liberty. And I'm Catholic and, you know, like hearing the Pope tie those things together and make clear that they are pointing in the same direction, pointing to the truth of the human person, and to have the Pope encourage all the participants there to to keep going and pursuing religious liberty and trying to protect religious liberty for all. It was just it was incredibly moving, incredibly powerful. It was I thought it was a great moment for Catholics in America and many others. |
| Ashley | Yeah. And I know many Catholics were disappointed that the Pope is not going to be coming to the United States, for the 250th. So I think it's pretty amazing that the Becket Fund got probably the next closest thing, which is a personal letter. I'm just going to read a little bit more from it. He said that, religious liberty is an integral part of upholding dignity and acquires particular significance as the United States of America prepares to celebrate the 200th anniversary of its foundation. And he continued, indeed, we can recognize in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence an expression of the truth regarding the human person, namely the innate dignity of every man and woman created by God in his own image and likeness, and the rights that stem therefrom. So yeah, just to echo your sentiment, I thought it was pretty incredible because, to have the the head of the Catholic Church who has probably, you know, the church has put forth the most profound articulation of why religious liberty and including for all people is is at the heart of human dignity, you know, in the shadows of the birthplace of the nation that quite possibly has done the best job of applying that in a legal way. It was just it was really something. But, the dinner also, it was honoring Bill Newman, an incredible man who has helped to pioneer and steer the Becket Fund through, many, many years forward, but also had remarks from Paul Clement, who's an incredible, attorney who's argued so many cases before the Supreme Court. But afterwards, many people were talking about, they found it interesting the way he pointed out the fact that, the, the proper application of the First Amendment is, has been developing for so many years and, and really still kind of is can you talk a little bit about about what he had to say about, the development of, litigation surrounding the First Amendment over, over the centuries? |
| Mark Rienzi | Sure. Yeah. Paul Clement is, is is the greatest Supreme Court lawyer, alive or maybe in our history. And it was a real honor to have him come, address the gala and give a keynote speech. Paul was talking about the development of the law of religious liberty under the First Amendment, particularly in the last 30 or so years, which is when Beckett's been active. But he was talking about how, the, the law has been improving. But at the same time, while the law's been improving, there's been some, some headwinds in the culture. So there's a little bit of kind of best of times, worst of times feel that, we're winning in court. But in the culture there's a lot of pushing. But but overall, I found it to be a very optimistic speech. And not surprising from Paul. Paul, somebody who knows the power of the law, who knows the power of strategic litigation to get things done and who who understands that we can look at the bad things that happen in the law, the attacks on religion and religious liberty. And, you know, you can either go home and cry in your coffee about him, or you can say, okay, there's a good thing worth fighting for and worth fighting about. And, these days when we stand and fight, for religious liberty, we tend to win, and we tend to be able to make things better by standing up for those rights in the First Amendment. So they're very important rights. You know, it's fantastic and beautiful that they are written in these wonderful founding documents. But that's not sufficient on its own. The documents really only come to life and really only do do the work of creating something when real flesh and blood people stand up and assert those rights and say, you know what, I get to exercise religion here. The government doesn't get to stop me. And so Paul talks about the importance of people doing that and the good things that have been achieved by people doing that. |
| Ashley | Well, as my husband pointed out, you know, the Becket Fund, as you said, also that Paul Clement pointed out the Beckett funds been at the vanguard of those advancements over the last 30 or so years. And this probably seems so simple to you. But for our listeners who who don't understand the significance of what makes the Beacon Fund unique, why is it so important to defend people of all faiths and not just our Judeo Christian values? And in those particular cases. |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, we think it's incredibly important, and it's part of the DNA of Beckett of how we approach it. I'll give you two reasons for it. One is it's it is the right thing to do. So if you believe if you actually really believe, in the dignity of every person, if you actually really believe that everyone's made in the image and likeness of God, well, then you have to give those free beings room to live out their faith and to figure things out and, you know, hopefully to seek and find God. But if you if you really believe those things and you can't, you can't be indifferent if the government takes away somebody else's right to practice their religion just because it's not yours. So we do it because we think it's the right thing to do. We think it's the part of the fundamental American commitment to rights as a Catholic. I also I think it's part of Catholic Church's teaching. But it's also the right thing to do because it's smart, because it would be foolish for me to look at the world and say, well, if the government takes away some Muslims, right, to practice his religion doesn't bother me because I'm not Muslim, like people can say things like that, but those are pretty foolish things to say, because the government that can take away the Muslims right to practice his religion can take away your Catholics right tomorrow. And so in in really important ways, our rights rise and fall and live and die together. And so it, to my mind, it would be foolish and shortsighted to say I only care about religious liberty when it's my group that's at stake. You know, you could spend a lifetime doing that and lose the whole war because you didn't protect somebody else. And then the law got changed, fighting some other less popular groups. So it just doesn't make sense. You know, even if even if I was only in it for me and only in it for my group, I would still say you should defend everybody, because that's where everyone's rights will be. Best, best taken care of. |
| Ashley | Well, you mentioned cultural headwinds, and, it certainly seems like one of the strongest cultural headwinds has been on the school choice front. I'm sorry. The, parental rights, the parental rights front in schools, and I am a, Montgomery County resident. And so I was so, grateful for the decision. I believe it was last year. I don't send my kids to public schools, in part because, you know, I can't, I can't risk having to deal with what was at stake in this case, which was whether or not parents had the right to opt their kids out of gender ideology lessons starting as young as four. And so the supreme Court thankfully ruled that that is a violation of the parental and religious rights of those parents to decide, you know, when and how they're going to educate their children on those on those matters. But I was stunned to hear at the Becket Fund gala, that there are that that issue is not resolved, that that was an important precedent, but something to the effect of there's a thousand school districts that have, policies about hiding their children's gender, transitioning from their parents. So can you talk about where we have this important Supreme Court precedent? But where is that issue going now? Because I was surprised to hear that it's not more resolved. |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah. Well, there's there's good news on that front too. So the case that the case for Montgomery County was about curriculum and it was about making students stay in the room while they do this gender ideology lessons, even for for kids before kindergarten. And the Supreme Court said, no, parents have rights. And let me just pause and say, that's incredibly important, right? Like, how terrible would it be to run an American public school system and say, but not for the religious people, right. Like, even if you don't agree with the parents who have these beliefs and want to opt their kids out, you should be offended and disgusted by the idea that we would run public schools. But tell religious families, yeah, you're not welcome here. So it's a it's a great, great decision. The Supreme Court reached in the Mahmood case last year on the secret transition policies. And that, you know, that that's where Johnny goes to school in the morning is a boy, but they give him a dress and call him Mary all day long, and then they take it back at the end of the day. And they never tell the parents what they're doing. They have rules to stop the teachers from telling the parents. Sadly, like that is the written policy of about a thousand school districts in the United States. That they will hide those things from parents and that's that's terrible. And that's a gross violation of parents rights. And and it's abusive to the children, frankly. The good news is that the Supreme Court recently in a case called Mirabelli, extended the Mahmood decision. So Mahmood is about the curriculum, but it extended the Mahmood decision and said, no. It also violates parental rights. If schools hide these things from the parents. And sometimes decisions take take a while to work their way through the system. But the current state of the law from the Supreme Court is that it is a violation of parental rights for schools to do that, and that instead they have to be talking to and working with the parents. That's an enormous change. And it's awful that so many school districts were doing that to children and doing that for parents. But I'm hoping this puts us on the better path. And, look, either school districts will get in line with what the Supreme Court has said, or they'll get sued and lose a lot of money and get in line. But but there's no escaping what the Supreme Court has now said. |
| Ashley | Well, another Supreme Court case that we're watching is the Saint Mary Catholic Parish with the Roy case. My understanding is that that case has been granted cert and has to do with a universal pre-K, funding program in my home state of Colorado. What can you give us an overview of what's at stake in that case? It's it's another school case, but it's not a well, maybe it is a parental rights case, but tell us about that case and what's at stake. |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah, it is a very important case. And it is it is a school case. It is a parental rights case. It is a religious liberty case. And this is another this is another Becket fund case. We represent, Saint Mary's and, the Archdiocese of Chicago and some parents out there, of Colorado and some parents out there. So Colorado enacted what they called a universal pre-K law that would give the benefit worth about $6,300 to parents of pre-K children for them to send their kids to, to preschool. And it was universal in that you're supposed to be able to use it, at any public or private school in Colorado. But it wasn't really universal because it excluded Catholic schools and any religious schools that had religious teachings and rules about sex and marriage and so forth. And so Colorado said that their system allows all sorts of other exceptions, because they want people to match up with a school that's good for them, just not Catholic school. So they actually said, you can have a school that is that is just for LGBT, families, but not one. That's for Catholic families. Right. So you could have other kinds of exceptions. You could be part of this program, just not Catholic. That's obviously a violation of the free exercise Clause of the First Amendment. It's not even a close question. It's another one of these cases that you'd have people shaking their head at the government of Colorado. I mean, they seem to go to the Supreme Court and lose one of these cases every single year. But the Supreme Court took the case, and I think it's it it's likely the court is going to look at this and see, what it is, which is it is a blatant violation of the First Amendment by Colorado. It is, unlawful discrimination against religious people in religious schools. No one saying that the government can't have schools that focus on this issue or that issue. They just can't exclude the religious people. And right now, Colorado's view is everybody but the religious schools can be in and our Constitution doesn't let them do that. |
| Ashley | Well, the two cases, I mean, they tie together in a sense, because there's so many families that feel like because of their religious values, they can't send their kids to public schools because of all these shenanigans that are going on, where you've got the administrations actively working to undermine what they are trying to inculcate with their children. So then they make these sacrifices and they want to send their children to religious schools and, you know, the $6,000 that they can get. I mean, that's that's a lot of money for a lot of families. And so many of these Catholic schools that, you know, with financial aid can almost be full tuition. So, |
| Mark Rienzi | Well, and and what's particularly awful about it, right, is Colorado is looking at the world saying, we've got views on these sex and gender issues that the Catholic Church has views on, but we think ours are better. So we're going to find you going to absolutely any school except the Catholic school. Right. And that's because those other places have views that Colorado likes. And the Catholics have views that Colorado doesn't. But that's a real First Amendment problem for the government to try to pick one set of religious beliefs that it dislikes and punish them by leaving them outside what is otherwise a generally available public program. So it really it is a way for the government to steer everybody to mold those children toward Colorado's approved views of sex and gender, because Colorado doesn't like the Catholic Church's views. And they they can't and won't succeed at that. |
| Ashley | Well, we just have a couple of minutes left. But the last time we had you on the show, we were talking about the antisemitism cases and, I'm curious to know where did those stand? It seems like the some of this has died down just a little bit. But on the other hand, antisemitism is clearly alive and well. So what is the status of the case that you were involved in in California? And more broadly, the issue of, discrimination against Jewish students on college campuses? |
| Mark Rienzi | Yeah. So, our case against UCLA ended in a final permanent injunction against UCLA, saying that they cannot allow for the exclusion of Jewish students from otherwise available campus areas and activities and functions. There's a little tale of it continuing where some people are trying to intervene to upend that result. But for the most part, that's the resolution of that case. And it came with UCLA paying significant amounts of money in damages and gifts to charity and so forth. So, we established the important principle that public universities cannot discriminate against Jewish students, cannot allow their university or parts of their university to be Jew free zones. Which UCLA had, had going on its campus for a while. Sadly, there are other cases in many other places that continued litigation could take a long time. So there are ongoing cases about this in a variety of courts. I think the the upshot of the spring of 2024, which is when a lot of this happened, was a lot of schools thought it was better to yield to the aggressive, people in the town square who were shouting death to the Jews and painting swastikas and doing all that. And I think the court cases are sending the message that schools are not allowed to do that. You can't just say to Jewish kids that you're collateral damage, because it's easier to yield to some other group. So I think we're seeing schools recognize their obligations a little bit better than they did a couple of years ago, and I hope that continues. |
| Ashley | Well, any time I talk about any back case, I say thank God for the Becket Fund. Where would we be without the Becket Fund? I don't want to know. But thankfully the Becket Fund is there and Mark Rienzi is leading it. So thank you so much, Mark, for joining. And to find out more about the wonderful work that he and the Becket Fund are doing, please check out Becket Lord Mark, thanks so much for coming on today. |
| Mark Rienzi | Thank you. Take care. |
| Betsy | We welcome back, Monsignor Roger Landry, to talk about yet another fascinating and inspiring initiative by Bishop Fulton Sheen regarding the Rosary. Monsignor, what was it that he started that is now going to be celebrated again in Saint Louis on September 24th? |
| Msgr Landry | So 75 years ago this year, Fulton J. Sheen, in his second year as the National director of Mission Societies, started to ask, how can I get people praying for the missions? And so he knew Americans great love for Our Lady, Queen of the apostles, great love for the Holy Rosary. And so what he designed was the World Mission Rosary. So it's a normal rosary, but there are five different colors in it. The first decade is all green for the green lands of Africa. And when we prayed, the first joyful or sorrowful or luminous or glorious mystery, we remember the missions in Africa. Second is blue for Oceania and all the Pacific islands, which we pray for them as we're meditating on whatever the second mystery that we're pondering. Third is white because the Pope is white, and the Pope's in Europe, in which we pray for the continue and deeper evangelization in Europe, especially today, in an age in which so many are growing up bathed in secularism. The fourth is red for America, both north, central and south, that, has given back to God so many martyrs as missionaries came to try to evangelize the indigenous and often preached by their blood. And then lastly, we've got yellow for Asia, the land of the rising sun in the East, in which, as we pray, whatever the fifth mystery is, we're praying for Asia. This is something that the diaspora absolutely wanted to have prayed during the time. In preparation for the beatification mass of Fulton J. Sheen this September 24th in Saint Louis. It's going to be the last thing right before everybody processes on in, so that we can unite ourselves around Mary and pray for the church throughout the world. In order to do that. Like we've needed 75,000 rosary beads. And like, if you're just trying to buy one set of World Mission Rosary, it's $1.99. And so that would be $150,000. We wouldn't possibly have that type of money to be able to give it out free. But one of the sisters on the organizing committee, Sister Jude Andrew of the Ann Arbor Dominicans of Mary, Mother Dukas, she said, why don't you reach out to women religious all across the country? They all know how to make rosary beads. And I think the women religious who always come through will come through again. And so I wrote letters a few weeks ago to the superiors of women's religious communities across the country. And boy, have they responded. 55,000 rosaries are already being made. And now we've just started to ask laypeople who love to make groceries to think about doing it. We'll reimburse people for supplies if they ask. But most of these women religious communities are just saying thanks for the offer reimbursement. This is going to be our participation and donation for the beatification of Jean. So it's a beautiful witness of our faith here in the U.S. many know how to pray the World Mission Rosary, especially from Sheen's dime. Every October I help to lead the World Mission Rosary for anybody who wants to join us, because October is Mission Month. But I'm not sure if people were following Pope Leo's recent trip to Africa. But when you travel to Asia and Africa, everybody who prays the Rosary prays the World Mission rosary. I mean, they have multicolored beads. It's phenomenal to me. And when Pope Leo got to the Central African Republic, the fourth of four countries he was visiting, they asked him to launch into the heavens a World Mission rosary made out of helium balloons in the five colors of the World Mission Rosary. And so Pope Leo was the one who sent the rosary beads into heaven. And that reminded me of something. If you ever go to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, when you look at the Last Judgment and over on the left side, from our perspective to Jesus, right, there's an angel lifting people up to heaven. And the lifeline that he is using to do that are rosary beads. If they grasp on to that chain of love of the rosary, if they grasp on to that connection or lady, they will be carried upward. And so when Pope Leo was launching these, 50, whatever it is, five balloons into heaven with some extra balloons made into a cross at the top of it. It was so moving to me, because that's precisely what the Rosary is meant to do. And as we were left in the World Mission rosary up to heaven, we were in a particular way, symbolically showing our parade to the harvest Master, to Our Lady, Queen of the apostles intercession for all those in missionary territories, all those bringing the gospel, all those receiving the gospel, all those resisting the gospel, everything, everyone for whom Jesus died in those beautiful 20 mysteries. We ponder. |
| Betsy | Well, thank you for to all the women religious who are making the rosaries, and I can't wait to get mine at the beatification. |
| Msgr Landry | It's going to be great and I can't wait for everybody to be able to pray it. And so the diaspora has asked me to organize that. And so we're going to have, as we pray for Africa, somebody from Africa who's coming over for the beatification, we've got national directors from all five continents of the mission who are going to be coming here. And so I'm going to put them to work in Saint Louis, and they're going to lead the praying of the decade, for which all 75,000 present in Saint Louis are going to be praying in unison with them. And so that's just a great joy that we're going to have a chance to do it. And I'm so grateful to the sisters across the country, as well as those laypeople who have started to say, the sisters are going to get us way more than halfway there, but we're going to support them and we're going to make these rosaries, too, so that everybody learns. In the 75th anniversary year of seeing how to pray the World Mission Rosary, and how to convince the Harvest Master to call more and more missionaries for his right and white harvest. |
| Betsy | Thank you Monsignor. |
| Msgr Landry | Every possession Betty. |