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Episode Description
Catholic writer and father of five Daniel Payne joins us to talk about the sacred chaos of feeding a big family—and why a 36-inch Blackstone griddle has become one of his favorite tools for getting dinner on the table. With his new book coming out this fall on the beauty of big families, Be Fruitful: Why More Catholics Should Get Married and Have Lots of Babies, he explains why the challenges of raising a large family shouldn’t keep couples from embracing the joys and fulfillment of family life.
While the Catholic dating app SacredSpark expands to live events in major cities across the country, co-founders Emily and Daniel Hussem discuss their mission to make Catholic dating more human and intentional. They share why so many young singles are starving for real-life connection in a culture dominated by endless swiping, and seeking communities that help them build relationships centered on Christ.
As we mark the beautification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, we revisit our conversation with Bishop Louis Tylka of the Diocese of Peoria. Bishop Tylka reflects on Sheen’s pioneering use of radio and TV to spread the Gospel, and what Catholics can learn today from his willingness to embrace new technology while communicating timeless truths of the faith.
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
Daniel Payne is a Catholic writer and senior editor for EWTN News, where he covers Church news, U.S. Catholic life, and related topics. He previously served as assistant editor of The College Fix (2017–2020) and a reporter at Just the News (2020–2023). A graduate with honors of Virginia Commonwealth University where he studied English literature and Italian, he lives in Virginia with his wife and five children. He is the author of the forthcoming book Be Fruitful: Why More Catholics Should Get Married and Have Lots of Babies, set for release this fall, which explores declining birth rates and the Church’s vision for marriage and family. He enjoys finding discarded Blackstone griddles, restoring them, and giving them to other large Catholic families. Payne sees preparing and sharing meals as an important part of his vocation as a husband and father, and emphasizes the value of bringing families together around the dinner table. His writing can be found through EWTN News and the National Catholic Register.
Emily and Daniel Hussem are prominent figures in the Catholic community known for their work in faith-based media and family life. They are husband and wife co-founders of Sacred Spark, a Catholic dating platform designed to bring faith, community, and intentionality back into modern dating. Emily is a speaker, author, and YouTuber sharing insights on femininity, faith and motherhood. She is author of Go Bravely: Becoming the Woman You Were Created to Be, and co-founded Marcam, a TV show aimed at Catholic children. She speaks in conferences and events globally. Daniel is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Marcam, with a background in marketing and product direction in the tech industry. The couple resides in southern California with their three children.
Bishop Louis Tylka is the ninth Bishop of Peoria, and serves as promoter of the Cause for Canonization of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and head of the Fulton Sheen Foundation. He was ordained a priest in Chicago in 1996 and co-adjutor bishop in Peoria in 2020. He became Bishop of Peoria in 2022. He is the youngest of six children who grew up in the Chicago area. He earned a Bachelor of Arts at Niles College Seminary of Loyola University Chicago and a Bachelor of Sacred Theology and Master of Divinity from University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary. He served as associate pastor at St. Michael Parish in Orland Park and Saints Faith, Hope and Charity Parish in Winnetka before becoming pastor of Mater Christi Parish in North Riverside and St. Julie Billiart Parish in Tinley Park. He formerly chaired the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Presbyterian Council. Archbishop Sheen’s cause is at the heart of his ministry, including Sheen’s priorities of evangelization, discipleship, vocations, and devotion to the Eucharist.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 388 Transcript
| Ashley | Welcome to conversations with consequences on TN radio. I'm your host, Ashley McGuire. |
| Betsy | And I'm Betsy Fentress. |
| Ashley | And joining us today is Daniel Payne, a writer and editor for TN news and a father of five. In addition to reporting on daily Catholic News, Daniel has developed an unusual and deeply appreciated superpower rescuing, restoring, and gifting. Free 36 inch Blackstone grills to large Catholic families. Today, he joins us to discuss the sacred chaos of big family dinners, his practical tips for stress free meal prep, and his forthcoming book, Be Fruitful Why More Catholics Should Get Married and Have Lots of Babies. Daniel, welcome to the show. |
| Daniel Payne | Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. |
| Ashley | So I got to start out with saying, and I'm a little embarrassed by this question. What is a 36 inch Blackstone griddle? I mean, I know what a grill is, but tell me why that specific one. |
| Daniel Payne | Yeah, that is that's kind of it's kind of the gold standard of a of a, you know, home griddle that a lot of cooks use on their, you know, back decks and on their patios. And, it's this, this massive outdoor contraption with four large burners that runs on propane. And it gives you essentially, you know, 36in across of, of cooking space. It's like a gigantic skillet. And, you know, we we we looked into getting one a few years ago as we were getting ready to have our fifth and, and I ended up, as you noted, I ended up finding a finding one for free that somebody was giving away. And we brought it home and just discovered that that, you know, cooking on this massive surface is gives these advantages at meal time for a family of our size that, that we just simply hadn't considered before. You know, at this point, we're cooking on, you know, large skillets, 12 inch skillets, and, you know, big baking trays. But when you have a meal that can be cooked on a stovetop and you have that kind of cooking space, it's it's absolutely transformative. And, and a lot of families that we know that are of similar size to ours also use these, for a lot of their cooking. So it's it's something that a lot of big families discover. |
| Betsy | I'm really intrigued by the fact that you, quote, find these who wants to get rid of them? And how many of these have you registered? |
| Daniel Payne | Yeah. This is this has been an expected skill. I found the first one, like I said, for free. My wife suggested we get one, and I said, all right, I'll keep an eye out for him on, you know, Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. And I ended up finding one that somebody was giving away just a couple days later. And I think for a lot of people, that would be that would be sort of a once in a lifetime, right? You know, great find because they're pretty expensive. But as time has gone on over the past, you know, a couple years or so, I, I have just found one after the other. It turns out I think people buy these things because, you know, they're they're fun. They're really they're great conversation pieces at parties certainly cook a lot of food on them at once. But I think a lot of people buy them. And, you know, they might not necessarily have 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 kids to cook for every night, and they realize they're just not using them as much as they thought they would, and they just throw it away. And so if you just keep an eye out for him, you can sort of snatch these up before before anybody else gets them. And that's what I've, I've become really good at probably over the past. Yeah. Year and a half or two years or so I found, I want to say 6 or 7 of them, give or take. Most of them the, the large 36 model and some smaller ones as well. But but they're all over the place if you know where to look. You just you just got to know which which corners to knock around and you'll find. |
| Ashley | And what does refurbishing one entail? And is this a skill that you had already, or did you kind of learn as you went? |
| Daniel Payne | Well, it's very similar to, to refurbishing like a cast iron skillet, for instance. These are actually they're not cast iron, they're steel. But if you get one that's really rusty, it's it's much of the same thing of, you know, getting off the surface rust, you know, cleaning it up and then receiving it with high heat and, you know, fat or bacon fat. So it's it's really a, you know, we live in an age where people love to watch that sort of thing on YouTube. They just love videos and people cleaning something up and making it look good and restoring it. And that has become sort of a very fun part of this, is that you you find these things that, that people clearly haven't used for months and months that have just been on their back decks gathering rust, and you take it home and make it look like it just came out of out of the box again. And it's very satisfying. It's fun. It's it's a nice skill to have that, that I, I flatter myself and say that gotten better at and, you know, you do it. You do it enough times as I have and, and you should get better at it. |
| Betsy | Well, it's really funny because I keep telling people I'm from a very large family, and I had a large family, and I keep telling people with my kids who have flown the coop, I just want to become the chuckwagon lady. So I really this really resonates with me. And I do have one of the carbon steel toppers that I place over my real grill. But you know, before the interview, I watched a guy and he just made pancakes the whole time. So I thought, okay, how? This doesn't look very like healthy switch of way of cooking. And I of course you think of Smash burgers, but what kind of palate are you suggesting for these big families, and how has the response been when you actually give give one of these to somebody? |
| Daniel Payne | Yeah. I mean, you know, you can there are a few things that people tend to tend to cook sort of a across the board on these types of these types of riddles, like you said, pancakes you can do, especially if you have a large family. You can do everybody's pancakes all at once. You can do, you know, maybe two dozen, maybe more across the entire surface of the griddle. You can do smash burgers really easily again, all at once. And as I wrote it, it does make you kind of feel like a fry cook, you know, one of those hats on, which is fun. It's a fun, fun thing to do. But we've, you know, we've really tried to utilize it, you know, across the board for, for just about everything that we, we might normally cook in batches on the stove top, we'll just take out to the Blackstone, which is right outside our back door. We'll do grilled cheeses. You can do grilled cheese all at once. We've done huge batches of fried rice on them as well. You know, various types of sandwiches, like, you know, Italian subs that you might like to grill. We'll do that. Big pork chops, you know, large steaks, that sort of thing. Pork steaks. So pretty much anything that you might do on a stovetop, you can, you can transfer to the Blackstone. And the sheer size of it just makes the sort of the cooking factor way easier. It takes way less time. It's a lot more fun. And so it's really just sort of a matter of, of, of whatever you're cooking to scale up on the Blackstone. And then it just makes sense to cook it out there. So it's, it's sort of a great tool in that regard. |
| Betsy | And you didn't mention the real bonuses, which is the cleanup is so much easier. Right. |
| Daniel Payne | Exactly. Yes. And I mean, and even the cooking in that respect is easier because, you know, if what you're cooking gets smoky, it doesn't matter. It just goes up, you know, into your backyard and floats away. So you're not smoking up your kitchen. You're also not heating up your kitchen, which is really, really nice. In the summer months. You can take it outside. It just doesn't add to the heat. And then yes, cooking, cleaning, excuse me, basically comes down to, you know, scraping it with a bench scraper, maybe wiping it down with a paper towel and then maybe heating it up for a few minutes to give it a little bit of a season. But, but it's it's so much easier than having to wipe down your stove, maybe wipe down your countertops if a little grease got everywhere. So it's it's sort of everything about it. Even if it's outside, it just ends up being a much easier cooking experience. It's just has a lot of advantages that way. |
| Ashley | You wrote an article about this for the National Catholic Register and something you wrote, and it stood out to me because last night, actually, my family didn't sit down for dinner until almost 8:00 because we had busy day with sports practices. But I've found myself increasingly trying to make sure that even on those nights, even if we eat it weird hours, we just sit down together. But you wrote amid a family life that can sometimes feel chaotic, it might be easy to let cooking fall by the wayside, but well cooked meals are among the more vital things a family can do for itself, particularly for small children whose developing palates need the broadest and most interesting range of flavors and textures and cuisines possible. Can you talk about this a little more? The importance of the family meal. And I especially intrigued by the idea that, you know, maybe this is a bit of an antidote to picky eating is is having family dinners? |
| Daniel Payne | Yeah, that's something that that my wife and I prioritized from the from the second we started having kids is sitting down together every night, every night possible and eating together and doing that very, very intentionally, not just as a means of, of, you know, consuming food that, makes us not hungry, but, but rather, you know, sharing a meal that's been cooked at home that, that we enjoy and that we, we, you know, we find appealing in taste and texture. We've really tried to make it this entire, sort of experience and not not in a way that's really self-conscious. It's not like, we have a manual or something about how to do it, but but simply that, that we recognize that, that sitting down together, you know, pretty much every, every chance that we can is really important for our family life. It's important for the health of our family. It's important for the health of our bodies to have good home cooked food. And we've also taken the approach very, very early with, with our kids of of ensuring that they really are exposed to a very broad, catalog of, of, you know, foods and cuisines and tastes and textures. And that is, that is a, a, you know, a pretty pervasive problem. I think today, if you read a lot of parenting literature and you listen to a lot of parents talk, is a is struggling to get their kids to to sort of eat maybe more broadly than, than they're, they're currently eating and and we found and we've, we've, we've had some of our kids have have struggled with the with learning to like certain things. We're no different in that regard. But but we have found that that really making mealtimes and and making food one of the, one of the central parts of our family life has sort of preempted a lot of that struggle. People are usually pretty impressed at how well our kids eat and how, you know, broadly and how easily. And that really seems to have come just from from starting them out pretty much when they start eating solid foods. On eating whatever we're eating on making sure it tastes good. It's well flavored and well seasoned. So it's that it hasn't been perfect. We've we've had plenty of battles at mealtime. If it's something new that that's not familiar, maybe they don't like the taste right away. But but we have really found that that again, being intentional about it and making mealtimes fun and interesting and, and appealing for them and for us has gone a long way towards making them just really interested in food and interested in trying new foods, and certainly interested in enjoying the foods that they already like. So it's it's been it's been a really wonderful journey seeing them develop their palates that way. |
| Betsy | One of the things I really love about this story is that men are usually thought of as, you know, the grill masters, if they're do anything related to the kitchen. And that just kind of means meat. And introducing the griddle into that means that, you know, dads can be on the hook for pancakes and eggs and bacon for breakfast. Grilled cheese panini, panini maker, whatever for lunch. How has this helped you maybe relate to some of your friends, maybe male friends who weren't maybe so good at helping in the kitchen? Have they kind of stepped up to the plate? |
| Daniel Payne | You know, I don't know. I haven't I haven't asked them as much. You know, a lot of the, a lot of the, the friends I have who were, who are fathers now themselves are, are pretty, are pretty good cooks. They, they can find their way around the kitchen. I have, I have become, I don't want to say obsessed with cooking. Maybe I could say obsessed with cooking. I might say that I, I love to cook. I, I it is it is a central vocation in my life as a husband and as a father and, and as somebody who sees good food, as, as a real gift from God who sees it as absolutely, you know, my wife will tell you that I, I like to say when thinking about food that it doesn't have to be this good, that God could have made us, you know, bottom feeders, like a like a horseshoe crab or something where we just eat dirt. Instead, he's given us this incredible bounty of, of meat and vegetables and, you know, grains, everything that isn't just good for us, but tastes good, too. That is that is really good to eat in every way. And, and I have found that, you know, taking food and cooking it and making it tastes really good is it's just very gratifying for me in just about every way, as you know, as a father and as a husband is a Christian, too, as a as a Catholic and somebody who, who, who really appreciates the gifts that God has given us. So, you know, I try and approach cooking that way. I do sometimes get carried away with it. Sometimes my wife will say, it doesn't have to be that complicated, but, but I enjoy, I enjoy, you know, very I enjoy simple stuff. I enjoy, you know, simple meals. I also enjoy getting really complex in the kitchen. So I really I really like the whole spectrum of what you can do at any one meal time. Yeah. |
| Ashley | A mutual friend of Betsey and ours once talked about how when cooking, mom or dad or whoever's doing the cooking, can and should include the boy their sons in the process because it's a great way to teach them to, you know, help their future wives in the kitchen. What are some of the ways? What are some of the different ways you try to approach cooking as like a family involved affair where you're passing on, you know, virtues or, you know, things that are elevating it beyond just the preparing food to consume experience. |
| Daniel Payne | Yeah, we've we've been very intentional about that too. And it really kind of mostly turns on, you know, when your kids come into the kitchen just talking to them about what you're doing. You know, if you're cutting onions, maybe you can show them the knife that you use and say in this and heat knife. You know, I got this from, you know, so and so, it's this brand. It's a style of knife. You can show them. Yeah. You know, I'm going to dice the onions here, and then we're going to cook them up with the spaghetti sauce. So here's how we have to cut them to make sure that they cook well in the sauce. You know, making it as, as natural and conversational as possible. Whatever you're doing in the kitchen that is really gotten our kids pretty keenly interested in, in, in cooking and, and preparing food. Just, just the other night, my, our seven year old was in the kitchen with me, helping me diced tomatoes. And he has his own little apron, and he has his own sort of child sized, knife that we got him for his birthday, but he's becoming, really good at using. And, he helped us. He helped me diced tomatoes and, salted them and helped prepare some other stuff. So he's he's sort of taken to it more than the others, but they're all at this point very familiar with sort of the rhythms and the language of cooking and, and sort of the approach to, to, you know, taking care of every ingredient and making sure you use it well. And all of that has come about just because, we make the kitchen pretty accessible to them. When they come in, we talk to them about what we're cooking, what we're doing. You know, how we're going to cook it, how we prepare it, and we'll talk about other stuff in the kitchen as well. It's really a center of our family life, but we really make sure that they are, you know, clued into to how their food is being prepared, how it goes from the grocery store to our kitchen to a, you know, a skillet or the Blackstone to their plate eventually. So so we really have have kept them informed. And they are, you know, really starting to get more and more interested in, in sort of taking care of the food themselves. And I think it set them up well for, for a lifetime of hopefully cooking well and appreciating the food that they have. |
| Betsy | Years ago, I saw a cartoon and a child is asking their mother, mom, what's for dinner? And there's a look of absolute terror on the woman's face. And I've I've never forgotten that. Excuse me? Because, this is something that you have to do, ostensibly 365 days a year. Somebody has to. And what do you do to plan so that you don't have this idea like, oh my gosh, what are we doing for dinner? What are kind of the thoughtful things that you, your wife, your kids do in preparation for this? The shopping and figuring out, okay, we had chicken last night. Let's do chicken tacos. Then the night after so that we don't have to cook from scratch every night. What do you do to reduce the stress of the whole process? |
| Daniel Payne | Yeah, we have we have a pretty a pretty regimented system for a for sort of, shopping and planning our meals. I planted out every week. I have a list, and it's, it's a very formal list that I keep on a, on a clipboard. So much so that when I'm, when I'm walking around the grocery store with my clipboard and checking off items on the list, I've had people come up to me thinking that I work at the grocery store and they'll say, oh, tell me where the jam is, and I'll say, I don't work that. Just carry clipboard. Well, I do come here. But we do that every, every week. Every single week. We we, we plan out the meals, we plan out seven dinners, and and we, you know. Right. The, the ingredients we're going to get. And then we have to go to a few different grocery stores, usually to get them, but from, from their youngest age, I've, I've, I've taken the kids, now five of them. Every time, every week we go to the grocery store, to get them to see, you know, how to shop, how to select something. Well, how to select for a deal, how to improvise. If if there's not something at the grocery store that you need, how to select for something else. And then, you know, at home we sort of we might map out when we're having one particular meal, a lot of them can go on any day. But if there's like a special feast day in the church that we want to have a special meal for, we'll make sure it's on that day. We have a little board. A little letter board that, that we, we map out the week's meals on just so we can kind of keep track of things. So, you know, there's, there's a we have a sort of this robust system in place to, to sort of. Yeah. Like you said, sort of plan out and map out what we're eating at a given week so that we don't really have to stress about it too much. What kind of decide in the morning, what we're having for dinner that night? I do I do sympathize with that one story in that, you know, my my kids will ask me sometimes 17 times a day. What are we having for dinner tonight? And I just I have already told you that, but, but we do. We do sort of carefully plan it out to. Yeah, like you said, to reduce stress and make sure that, the approach to it is as easy and as stress free as possible. |
| Ashley | I often joke that I should have gotten my degree in food preparation, because despite going to an elite college and having a, you know, job as a writer, I have five kids as well, and it's just unbelievable how much time I spent in the kitchen, but also how much mental bandwidth goes into making sure that all the humans in my life, I have a have at least all their meals accounted for three times a day. But, you know, I don't say that in a complaining way. And if anything, I sometimes read with sorrow these stories about the amount of money, for example, that the next generation spends on takeout and things like that, because much as I love an occasional takeout meal, I just I don't love it that much. And I think it's a real loss. And probably as less and less people are raised in a home like yours where they learn how to cook. It's it's something that has to be learned. But what? So you have a book coming out about big families, and I think, you know, for probably a lot of people on the outside looking in, they see big family. You know, I don't have the time. I don't have the I don't have the means. What is the message that you're hoping to communicate to people who see a big family and think, you know, you know, back to Betsy's the panicked woman, like, I can't even think about dinner for myself. How am I going to have two, three, four, five kids and make sure that they're even fed, let alone, you know, everything else, right? |
| Daniel Payne | You know, I think that's a great question. And I think that to answer it, you have to actually, almost take one step back because if you don't have a large family, if you don't have any kids at all. You can absolutely look at. Yeah, family like like ours, like mine. And, and say, how how am I expected to do that? How am I expected to do this? Bevin? People, every night. |
| Ashley | I still ask myself that question. |
| Daniel Payne | Yes, I do too. I say, how are all these children fed? I'm not quite sure, but I got to keep doing it. But, But no, it's it's it is absolutely a valid question. And, and I think a lot of people picture that and, and are sort of frightened away by the prospect of it, which is sort of understandable. I think that the, the place to start is that you, you have to actually just want that family to begin with, or at least be open to it. And I think the way to look at it is, in most other contexts, anything that that somebody might want that that might be a little difficult to get there, they're willing to go through that difficulty to get it. If you if somebody says, you know, I want to go to law school, be a lawyer. Well, law school is pretty hard. And most people know that most people are willing to go. Most people who want to be a lawyer are willing to go through the difficulty of law school to get it. And I think if you if you approach the family in that context, then then it can kind of fall in place there as well. Yeah. Cooking for a large family every night is a good bit of work and is a lot of work. It can be rather difficult many nights, but if you want that large family, if you are open to it, and if you are sort of willing to to undergo those trials, then suddenly that prospect seems a lot less daunting. You know, it might seem like you might wonder sometimes, how am I going to do that when you're in the thick of it? You might wonder, how am I doing it? But if if it is something that is important to you, if it is something that you value and that you actually want, then then suddenly all the questions about how you might do it, how, how, how logistics of it are going to fall into place, they suddenly seem less important because I think, you know, you're going to figure it out anyway. And so that's kind of what the purpose of, of my book is, is, is not to answer all the questions about how do you do this or how do you do that? Those are important questions, and you're going to have to answer them eventually. The purpose of the book is to to get people to want these families in the first place, to want any family, and very likely to want a large family as well. And once you have that desire, once you're open to it and willing to do it, eventually the other questions you'll answer. You might have to do a lot of work. You might have to cook a lot for a lot of people, but but it will seem less frightening and seem more like something that's absolutely within grasp, I think. |
| Ashley | Well, we just have minute or two left, but what is what is one tip that you can give people that's just baby step? Like, what's your you know, for example, someone once told me, and I still do this almost every day. Just start one thing for dinner before noon because it's like you got a toe in the door. Do you have just like, a little lightning round 1 or 2 tips that are some of your go to for staying sane? |
| Daniel Payne | Yes, I think there's there's two tips that I can think of at the top of my head. One would be to really plan your meals, in, in, in a pretty intentional way. And, and I feel like for a lot of people that might take the fun out of cooking. Maybe they like to be a little more spontaneous, which I do as well. And I don't think you have to plan your meals like an elementary school calendar where you have every day marked off for a month what you're going to have. But if you have the ingredients in your fridge at the beginning of the week for a certain number of things you want to make that week, I think that's going to make it a lot easier throughout the sometimes chaos of the week to to actually start prepping and actually cook your meal, you know, in a way that you want and, and have it on the table at the time that you want. And then the other thing I would suggest this might seem rather technical is for people to sharpen their knives. I feel like a lot of places that I, that I, you know, a lot of homes that I've been to, the knives aren't sharpened as much, and, you know, you can get really carried away. You can get these super expensive, you know, Japanese knives that are $800. And I don't think you really need to do that, but I think that having, you know, properly sharpened, decent kitchen knives actually makes the work of cooking a lot more easy and a lot more pleasant. I found that, you know, being able to slice through and prep things with a knife that is freshly sharpened makes things go faster, and it's just more enjoyable. It's almost like, putting air in the tires of your car. It just makes everything easy. Those are two places that I might start, you know, cooking for for seven people every night. You pick up a lot of tips. So I have a lot more if, if anybody is interested. But, but, you know, it's, it's that's a way to get started and I think make it a little easier. |
| Ashley | Well, to catch Daniel Payne's writing on all of this, check out EWTN news.com and NC register.com. And Daniel, we'll hope to have you back on in just a few weeks when your book comes out. But thank you so much for joining us today. |
| Daniel Payne | Thank you for having. It was a real pleasure. |
| Ashley | Welcome back to conversations with consequences now on teen radio on your host, Ashley McGuire. |
| Betsy | And I'm Betty Fentress. |
| Ashley | And we are thrilled to welcome Bishop Lewis of the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois with us. Your Excellency, it is a monumental year with the announcement of Venerable Fulton Sheen, soon to be blessed Fulton Sheen. Thank you so much for taking the time for us today. |
| Bishop Louis Tylka | I appreciate the invitation. It's good to be with you, Bishop. |
| Ashley | What does this long awaited. Milestone mean for you personally as the shepherd of the Diocese of Peoria? |
| Bishop Louis Tylka | Oh, that's a great question. You know, I, I would tend to answer that question first by saying, I think it's going to be a great moment for the church. You know, not just the Diocese of Peoria. In fact, in making the decision to move the beatification from Peoria down to Saint Louis. My contention with my team was, is that Sheen is not just for Peoria. He's for the world. And so we want to maximize people's participation. So, you know, my first response is, is that I think this is going to be a great moment of grace for the church. And I think we'll see Grace's flow from the event itself. Personally, obviously, it's a moment of great pride. And as we continue to make plans for such a large scale event, celebration, you know, a mass with, you know, God willing, will sell out of 74, 000 people. You know, I've realized more, more lately, folks have been saying, yeah, but this is your these were your choices. These were your decisions. And so, you know, I guess, this is all about Sheen and and how God works through him. But in some ways, you know, I guess taking a little bit of ownership, you know, and seeing this develop in the way that I envisioned it as a celebration is humbling, first and foremost, because I'm so grateful for all those who have stepped up and are helping to make all the arrangements and plans. But I also, I guess, feel a little bit like it's my my chance to make a little mark on on this much more important celebration of Sheen's life and how the church raises individuals up to be called blessed and soon to be, hopefully, saints. |
| Betsy | So Archbishop Shield was really a master communicator who used radio and television to reach millions and was kind of the pioneer of that, especially as a Catholic. How do you think his message and his method of evangelization speak to the digital age in our current cultural climate? |
| Bishop Louis Tylka | That's a great question. You know, I think one of the things I would say is, is that Sheen was not afraid to use the, you know, the new technology of his day, in particular TV. You know, which is kind of funny for us to say. I mean, we walk around with the device in our pocket that we can, you know, log on and watch. Yeah. Watch the original clip from from the 1950s on our phones. So I think what he would be saying to us today is don't be afraid to use the technology that is being developed. For the good of spreading the gospel, of bringing people to Christ. I think he would challenge us to make sure that we are using this technology for good. And, you know, we see how the how technology can bring ills to society. So we, we want to make sure that we're always using it for the good, especially the good of bringing people to Christ and spreading the gospel. I think the other thing that Sheen would be doing is, you know, his ability to communicate, I think is something that, you know, perhaps we struggle with today. And by that, I mean, you know, he was able to really masterfully engage people. You know, and and, you know, he would take the time if I could use that term to, you know, open his show with some humor and to, you know, begin, you know, he had a brilliant mind. He had a doctorate in one of the most prestigious doctorates in philosophy in the world. You know, but he would take the time to explain things in a way that everybody could understand. |
| Ashley | Wonderful. Well. This is just so exciting. Bishop. Thank you so much for joining us today. |
| Bishop Louis Tylka | It's great to be with you. Thank you. |
| Betsy | Welcome to conversations with consequences here on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Betty Fentress. Dating today isn't always easy, but today's guests are bringing joy, community, and real human connection back into the mix. Daniel and Emily Haysom are the creators of Sacred Spark, and today they're giving us the scoop on their life, on their live events, bringing Catholic singles together nationwide. Whether you're single yourself or holding out hope for a friend, you won't want to miss this conversation. Welcome to the show, Daniel and Emily. |
| Emily | Great to be with you. Thanks so much for having us. |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah, thanks for having us. |
| Betsy | Emily, we had you on the show a while back. Can you tell us, since we had you on about the growth of Sacred Spark? |
| Emily | The growth of Sacred Spark has been incredible. We over the sense that I spoke with you. We've had ten engaged couples, which is an incredible, just an incredible joy in the past year. Some people say only ten because we have tens of thousands of users. But discernment of marriage takes time. So we think ten is really beautiful. There's ten couples who said, you know what? When you know, you know, and we are moving forward with that. So the first Sacred Spark wedding will be in November. And then with many, many, many more to come. |
| Betsy | And then aren't there some babies on the way to. |
| Emily | So those babies have come from my matchmaking posts and that's where Sacred Spark first originated. So I made that first matchmaking post in August of 2023, and since then, from those matchmaking posts organically online, there have been over 30 married couples and five apart more than five babies on the way now. So that's where the idea the seed started and people started asking, hey, can you make a post for single Catholics in their 40s? Can you make one for a single Catholics in Italy? And we thought, why not make it official and create a more dedicated space than the clamor and craziness of social media? And that's why we created Sacred Spark. So there's marriages and babies everywhere, and we couldn't be more excited. |
| Betsy | So Emily and Daniel, you both spoken to and mentored mentored young Catholics for years. What are the biggest complaints or heartbreaks you hear from single Catholics today regarding modern dating apps and the swipe culture? |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah, so we think there's a couple of things that we see. And so part of it is dating has become difficult for a lot of people. Right. And so the swipe culture definitely is something that very much weighs into that. And so if you look at the secular dating space swiping is the norm right. And so secular dating apps, it's very superficial. And people are generally not looking for a long term relationship or something that actually leads towards marriage. And so for us, the starting point is really your Catholic faith and having something that leads towards marriage, but also to helping make online dating a lot more human than what the secular dating apps do. And that's what swiping culture really is, right? Like it's endless browsing. You think you can optimize and there's always somebody better. That might be the next. You know, on the next swipe and it becomes this romantic vending machine. Really. And so for us, it's like, how can we bring the human component back in this online sphere and make dating what was supposed to be an intentional process to seek out somebody that you can, you know, ideally spend the rest of your life with. And so for us, it's really about slowing that experience down, making it more human, personal and intentional. And that's what we're doing with Sacred Spark. We're bringing the community back into dating. That's your addition of matchmaking, which has been lost along the way. So that singles don't feel alone in that process. The community helps them. They can people, their best friends, people that know their hearts and they know them can help set them up and really make this a joyful, hopeful process instead of just, you know, a road of despair, which it is for a lot of singles these days. |
| Betsy | So explain how you bring that community element back in to the whole mix. Yeah. |
| Emily | There's a couple of different ways. I'll talk to the matchmaker and you can talk to the live events. Yeah. So you can as part of our options on Sacred Spark, you can have the option to have a matchmaker. So you can invite one of your best friends or family members to matchmaker you. I matchmaker for a very close friend and ask for matchmaker. I can go on Sacred Spark and I can look at all the men's profiles. I can watch their videos, I can listen to their audio introductions. I can read about them and see if they would be a good match for my friend. If I do think they're a great match, I can send that man a like on behalf of my friends matchmaker me and he can then respond to that. And it's been so great because my friend is the one who has tried many dating apps, and she was really tired of just the process and the swipe culture and all that stuff. And I said, can I support you and be your matchmaker? And so she doesn't have to do much quote unquote work at all. I get to be the one who looks at the men and texts her. I say, oh, Sarah, you got to see Joseph. Excuse me? You got to see Joseph in Wisconsin. He looks awesome. And he liked you back. So I get to support her in that way. And it's been really special. But we also did a very special live event recently that was very exciting. |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah. So what we're doing is we're really, again, bringing that tradition of matchmaking into the technical, you know, into the digital age, so to speak. And so now we're doing that on the app, like Emily explained. But we're also bringing that to life in person. And so we're doing these live events across America. We just had our most recent one in Charlotte, where we did a specific pitch event and we call it pitch, a Catholic single. And so what we do is we have people that obviously have their best friend or whoever it might be that they think this is a great catch for somebody and they'll pitch them, quote unquote, on a stage on a podium where they say they have three minutes to say, why is my friend such a great catch? And why should people? You know, ask this girl or my friend or this guy out on a date. And so it's a great, fun process again, where the single gets to sit, the friend has prepared a presentation for them. There's a whole crowd of hundreds of people that we'll have, and it's just a joyful process, which makes it a lot more light and fun and interactive. And again, it's the community helping out and saying, hey, this is my great friend. This is why she's a catch. This is why you should ask this person out on a date and and go from there. And then the single themselves, they get to interact with so many people afterwards that say, hey, oh my gosh, I just heard this pitch by your friend, you know, Jamie, who did this pitch for you, and you're amazing. And I'd love to get to know you and other people as well. Say, hey, actually, I have a single friend, you know, Bob or whoever it might be, he might be a great match for this person. And then the matchmaker can set them up. But again, at the singles events, we want the singles themselves to start interacting because again, overall, right. You don't date on an app, right? Sacred spark is not just a dating app because again, you don't date on an app you date in real life. It's really this place of connection. And how can we help Catholic singles connect and find another and start dating, discerning great relationships and get towards marriage? |
| Betsy | And how many people showed up for the Charlotte event? |
| Daniel Hussem | So the Charlotte event was a sold out event. We could only hold 250 people, and we had more than 50 other people on the waitlist that we couldn't bring in because the space just, you know, from a fire safety hazard, we couldn't bring more people in. And so there's a huge demand for that. |
| Emily | Yeah, it's sold out weeks before the event even went. Yes. A lot of events. You have to beg people to come to this. Everybody wanted to come and it was just such a special night of laughter and joy and a hope. It was really special. |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah. And now we have over 100 different ambassadors in different cities that want to help bring it to their city. And so now we're just obviously there's so many great things going on, but looking like how we can roll this out sooner than later to these different cities while keeping obviously everything intact and making it the best experience that it can be. So we're very excited for what the future will hold that component as well. |
| Betsy | Emily, the last time I spoke with you, I remember you talking about there's a little kind of vetting of people before they're on the app in terms of their religious beliefs. What does that entail? |
| Emily | Yeah, absolutely. So in the onboarding process, which my husband and I carefully walked through and set up, there are different questions about your religious beliefs, how often you pray, how often you go to mass, if you believe that sex is sacred and belongs solely within the bonds of marriage, if you say no to questions that are tenets of our faith, there's a prompt pop up that says, hey, this is a place for Catholics who are dedicated their faith singing in Catholic Spouse. We just want you to know that before going on. So it doesn't say we don't owe them off right away. We make clear from the very beginning this is an app for practicing Catholics. There are a few people who are in Osseo and they will be Catholic very soon. And they're just, you know, figuring out the field, which is amazing. We love how many people are in OCI, which I'm sure you talk about on your show. We want people to come on Sacred Spark and know that the people here, they go to mass every Sunday, if not more days a week. They believe in wholeheartedly in what the one holy, Catholic and apostolic church teaches. We want people to understand that sacred spark is a place for people who are on fire for their faith, who love the Lord and love the Catholic Church and all that it offers us. |
| Betsy | So I have to take a little break from Sacred Spark because the two of you are so cute. I need to know how you met. |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah, so we met in 2013 over in Europe. So I'm originally from the Netherlands, and Emily was speaking at an event in the Netherlands, and so that was going to be her first time ever leaving the United States to go abroad. And I was involved with that same event, and I was also tasked with picking her up from the airport, and she was going to be in Europe for four days. And so throughout those four days, we were at the event together. We got to know each other, and there was instantly this, this spark in this connection where we felt the Lord calling us to something more. So after those four days, I dropped her back off at the airport again and, I felt, you know, a burning in my heart, a longing to to pursue her. And so I sent her a message to say, hey, Emily, I know we've only met for four days, but, you know, I would. You know, I feel my heart that I would just love to pursue you if you're open to that. And she luckily felt the same. And then we started, yeah. Long distance dating across the world, 6000 miles apart. And we did that for two years. And then I came over to the US to finish up a graduate internship. And that's when we got engaged. And then we got married at the end of 2015. And so now we're married for ten years and have three beautiful children. |
| Emily | And that's why I think it's so special that we started Sacred Spark, because we are proof that God thinks outside of the box when it comes to bringing people together. There's so many people who think they'll I'll just meet Mr. Right in the produce section at the grocery store in my town right here, and we are living proof that you have to be open. Maybe that person lives a hundred miles away. Maybe they live thousands of miles away. And God is writing a story that's very unique. Long distance dating was very challenging, but most of the couples who are engaged off of Sacred Spark currently they live states away from each other. And they decided to broaden their horizons to say, you know what? I'm not just going to look in the 50 miles around me. I'm going to open the door for the Lord to see what could happen. We are living proof of that, and we see the people who are going on Sacred Spark saying, I know your story and I'm going to be open. And it's it's amazing to see what their openness has done in their lives. |
| Betsy | That's that's really cool. So you had a combination of meeting in person, but then the good part about long distance is you have to talk about things. You know, you have to share things without the benefit of being in person and seeing someone's eyes and, you know, body gestures. But because I did that too. So when I was in college, I was part of an organization and they had this dinner called computer dating, which is kind of a little bit like what you talked about, where you think, I think this person would be good for this person. So there was a dinner and the girls did not know who the guys were that were going to show up. And there there is, there were there was at least one marriage out of that. So do you go on to college campuses? Because I think that would be a perfect venue for Sacred Spark. |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah, yeah. So one of the things we have in the works and January of this year will do our first pilot out of college campus as well at the University of Kentucky. And so what we're doing there is like for us, for Sacred Spark, it's it's not just about helping people connect, right. But it's getting towards marriage. But you don't change the dating culture just by providing this other place for here's a place for singles to connect. It's also about providing the formation, because we feel a lot of the formation around dating itself has been lost. These traditions that we used to have of like, how do you ask somebody out? Or how do you have a conversation? Or how do you set boundaries in a relationship? All these things, what we see now in this younger generation, those are the things that weren't necessarily taught or passed down to them. And it's because of the digital age as well. And dating has become so different than what it was. A lot of that stuff has been lost, and so we want to bring that back into dating as well, really teaching them how should one date and again, these simple things, but a lot of them has been have been forgotten. And so what we're doing on these college campuses is providing a three night series where we go through our dating one on one resource, and so they go in the groups at the Newman Center. And these are different chapters that we'll have, and they can discuss them in person. How have they experienced that? How do they want to change it for themselves? How do they want to change it for that college campus? And how can they reinvigorate what healthy dating looks like on a college campus as well? And then how does that tie into Sacred Spark, too? Because obviously we want to help them connect, rather whether it is on Sacred Spark or whether it's on their campus or whatever it might be. But really overarching goal is like, how can we get holy marriages? So how can we help connect people to get there? But also, how can we help form people to discern these relationships and really know how to how to date? Again, if that makes sense. |
| Betsy | I know that when my kids were in high school, there was a culture of kind of group hanging out and not pairing off one on one. Is that still true? |
| Emily | Are it depends on where you go. There's different young adult communities. That's a fascinating thing that we've learned throughout this time is the differences in the young adult communities across America. So there are young adult communities where you go and they say, yeah, people feel really free to date here. A man feels really free to ask a woman on a date. And that happens really regularly here. And then you go to young adult communities where people say, the men are so afraid to ask a woman on a date because everybody will start talking and everybody will start gossiping, and everybody like, when are you sending out the wedding invitations? And just put way too much pressure? So we find its regional. It's sometimes by parish. Do we want people in groups, the men, to feel free to ask a woman out? Absolutely. We do. And not only can happen if this pressure thing is off the table, if people would stop making such a big deal out of a man asking one on a date, we want them to do that. We want them to use the word date. We want them to go for it in an official way, that if everybody could relax a little bit more about it, I think people in those groups would feel more free to just like, go on a date and see what happens. So there's a lot at play there. And boy oh boy, I've heard some just interesting stories. As we've immersed ourselves in the culture of single Catholics across America and the world. |
| Betsy | Can you share some examples of dating 101, and what are some of the things that you tell people who are just have really never done it? |
| Emily | So yeah, dating 101 is a resource that is entirely free through Sacred Spark. And there's different modules. So the first couple of modules I, I was the one that wrote this and I present it in dating 101. The first one is mindset and hard work before you date. So asking the question, first of all, am I ready to date helping you discern that? Look at your life. Look at your heart. Look at your addictions. Look at your sin. Look at your problems helping you do that. So because so many people aren't ready to date and they jump into the dating pool, and that causes a lot more hurt. So if we can elevate people self-awareness to ask these questions, to pray about these things, to build confidence in their trust of God's timing so they don't date out of desperation. They date out of true discernment. It will help the dating culture so much. We have a module on men pursuing, well, just just the basics of a how a man pursues so many young men we talk to say, I don't even know what to do. Can you help me? And we say, absolutely we can, because the crisis of fatherhood is real. Maybe their dad wasn't around. Maybe their parents aren't married. Maybe he's never seen a man pursue a woman ever in his life. We talk about receiving pursuit as women. How can women be more open? Women have been very hurt in a lot of different ways, so there are a lot more closed off than women were in years past. We talk about building the right kind of relationship. How do you do that together? How do you have our conversations? When do you have our conversations growing together or moving forward and discerning that you want to get married? We talk about some of the unique dynamics of dating, how you go on a dating app. Well, like how do you present yourself? Well, long distance dating and more. So that's a little snapshot of a big resource that has helped a lot of people. I was just in Colorado Springs and the director of Young Adult Ministry, she actually got a big group in the diocese together, and they did a month long journey through dating one on one, and they would listen to listen to a module and everybody got to talk about it. There's discussion questions and just have conversations about how we can make this better or date from a better place. If you're a single yourself. |
| Betsy | So do you actually talk about types of activities that are really compatible? Go to a baseball game, cook together because people are just used to being on their phones. |
| Emily | Yes, it's horrible, but it's so true. Yes, that's an encouragement we make through Sacred Spark Social media. At Sacred Spark App, we talk about a lot of different things in terms of dating, just just to go out and have fun and how it doesn't have to be this whole serious thing. Oh, we got to go to mass together every time we got to go to, you know, go to confession together. And these are wonderful things. But when we take it so seriously, we lose that spark and that joy that is so beautiful in dating, that was so natural for many years that our phones and screens have kind of diminished. I think those ideas of whatever, going to a cooking class or just going out, walking in the park, those things are so wonderful and important. And most of the young adults we talk to who are in the dating world, those are the days they go on and they enjoy them very much. |
| Betsy | Do you have any idea what percentage of people meet their spouses online? |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah, so there was a study that came out by, staffer I think was in 2023 and now over 62% of people today, in today's day and age, meet online. And that's only increasing. So 62% of people are meeting online. And again, that number is just, you know, going up and up where it used to be. People met, you know, at bars or through mutual friends or whatever it might be. The culture where we live in, in this digital age, it's just becoming more and more online and digital. And so for us, again, it's like where, where do we as Catholic also need, need to be in this digital space? But again, how can we bring the human component back into that? And most importantly, how can we bring Christ into that and have that be the center of it? And that's really the thesis of what we're doing, you know, is like, this is where the world is going. And then how can we be, |
| Emily | You know, world is long into it. |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was just increasingly more and more. Right. And it's not going away, obviously. And so what can we do both online and offline, right, with these in-person events as well to help the human component and have these singles flourish and find one another and, you know, get to the sacrament of marriage. |
| Betsy | This huge turnout in Charlotte with sold out in a waiting list. What does it reveal to you about the hunger that young people have, and what are they looking for in relationships? |
| Emily | They're starving for in-person connection. We know it. We all feel it. Every single one of us. No matter how old you are, we're starving for in-person connection. While they are, some of them have dating app fatigue, whatever it might be, they want to be together in community. There were people who showed up who aren't looking for anybody and just wanted to come and be a part of this community. Organized event. People long for community just as humans, but especially as Catholics. We want to be around people. So many people feel isolated in their workplace, in their families, for being people who believe, you know, in the teachings of the Catholic Church and that, you know, Jesus is present in the Eucharist. They want to be around others who share in the hope and the joy of our Catholic faith. So that hunger, you know, a lot of people say, oh, young people don't want to get married anymore. We see the exact opposite. They are longing for marriage. They are desiring that. And I think that the sold out nature and the massive response to that first event really speaks to that reality. |
| Daniel Hussem | Yeah, and I think it's also different. There are so many, you know, great parishes and young adult organizations that that host singles events. But what we've heard and seen as well is that there's not a stigma around that, but there's just a different nature of it. And so for us, with what we're doing with Take Us Forward, having it be very young, lively and modern that competes, so to speak, with what secular world is offering them. But having the Christ be at the center of that, and it just draws in so many people that just want that, right. They want a Christ centered relationship, and they're just looking for human connection and like community. And that's what we're offering them to come together and hopefully start something good. |
| Betsy | Daniel and Emily, what a joy to talk to you. And where can our listeners learn or sign up to be part of your dating world? |
| Emily | Yes. |
| Daniel Hussem | So you can go to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and look for Sacred Spark. Then you can download it from there, and then from there you'll have access to that dating one on one resource as well. And if you want to find out more about Chaco Spark, you can also visit our website, Sacred spark.com and yeah, learn more about all the things that we're doing, the different events that we're hosting, etc. you can find all that they're. |
| Emily | Word of mouth is very powerful. So if you're listening right now and you know, a Catholic single, I would love for you to tell them about Sacred Spark. Just tell them there's this new, wonderful app, you know, that that's really wants to connect people for the good of the Catholic Church. And there's all my goodness, these singles on Sacred Spark. We get to see them all. And there are incredible. They are talented, intelligent, funny. And you get to see all that on Sacred Spark. So anyone who can help us spread the word, because the more singles we find, the more Catholic marriages we can create. |
| Betsy | Thank you for joining us. |
| Daniel Hussem | Thank you for having us. |