The Megyn Kelly Show - 20220927_the-value-of-having-faith-heaven-and-hell-and-beli

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Sept. 27, 2022 - The Megyn Kelly Show

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Provocative Priest Confessions 00:14:21
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
	Today, we are thrilled to be speaking with one of the top podcasters in the world.
	His show has topped the Apple charts with 750,000 average daily downloads in 2022.
	That's huge.
	350 million total downloads and counting and 8 billion total listening minutes.
	Any guesses who it might be?
	It might surprise you to learn that it is a Catholic priest.
	Yes, Father Mike Schmitz is host of the wildly popular The Bible in a year.
	When he is not reaching his digital audience, he is busy serving as a chaplain for campus ministries at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
	We're going to talk about his podcast, but we'll also dive into his personal story, issues of faith, and divisive topics in the news.
	It's a conversation that is sure to enrich all of us.
	So excited to have Father Mike here.
	Father Mike, welcome to the show.
	Thank you a ton, Megan.
	Thank you for having me.
	I'm really, really grateful.
	You are also in the business of open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	I like that last word and provocative conversations.
	Yes.
	Every day, every conversation.
	Let's talk for a little bit about how you became a priest.
	I find this fascinating.
	About a year and a half ago, I had on my old priest, Father Jonathan, who I now used to call him FJ.
	And now I call him FFJ because he's formerly Father Jonathan.
	He left the church and he married a Good Morning America producer who's also a friend of mine, Caitlin.
	So Jonathan and Caitlin are now happily married and they have a little boy and life is grand.
	But learning his background of how he got into the priesthood would ultimately set the stage for how he got out of it.
	And I'm always interested in how somebody chooses to spend their life in the priesthood because it can be very enriching, but it's also limiting in some ways that many of us find totally foreign.
	So what first drew you to it?
	Yeah, that's funny.
	That's a great question because it kind of, if I were to give you the answer, which I will in a provocative way, that it kind of says maybe a lot about me.
	And so I guess I'll go back to, I grew up in northern Minnesota in a basically small town, 20,000 people.
	My dad was an Orthodox surgeon.
	My mom was a nurse, and then she was a stay-at-home mom for us.
	I have six or six total of us siblings, and I'm the middle.
	So I have two older sisters, older brother, me, then younger sister, younger brother.
	And, you know, we were basically, you know, as I said, Catholic and we had to go to Mass every Sunday.
	I hated it.
	We had to go to Catholic school.
	I didn't like it.
	I didn't get that.
	I didn't get it.
	I didn't see the point.
	And so, but the rule was that if you had to go to Mass and if you couldn't, or if you were too, the only way to get out of Mass is if you were too sick to do anything else.
	And so, but there were times, I mean, I didn't like Mass so much.
	I didn't like going to church so much that I thought, that's a good deal.
	I will pretend to be sick, get out of one hour of sitting there basically, and then sit in my room by myself for the entire rest of the day.
	And I'm like, yes, I'm winning.
	Like, so I really disliked it.
	But everything changed at one point.
	I was about 15 or 16 years old.
	And it was just kind of what I call a moment of grace, where it was just like, I just became aware personally of, like, I knew the 10 commandments.
	I knew what like sin was.
	But all of a sudden, it was one of those like, oh my gosh, that's what I've done.
	And it out of nowhere.
	I mean, there was, it was kind of out of, yeah, out of the blue, where I just was like, oh my gosh, that's what I've done.
	That's not, it's not just out there.
	That's in me.
	And I remember having this sense of, oh my gosh, I like, I can't just forgive myself.
	I need to be forgiven.
	I need a savior.
	And all of a sudden, it was like, bing, like, oh, everything they've been telling me this whole time, like, that makes sense.
	Okay.
	Because I've been saying, they've been saying, oh, Jesus is your savior.
	Like, oh, yeah.
	Okay.
	Now you've given me the answer.
	I never had the question.
	And so my first thought was, okay, I need to pray and I need to, I need to go to confession.
	And I didn't know how to pray.
	That's a whole nother story.
	But I knew where the priest lived.
	And so it was 10 o'clock, literally 10 o'clock on a Tuesday morning.
	And I got on my bike and I rode over across town to where the priest lived right next to the church.
	And I knocked on the door and he was there because as we know, priests only work one day a week.
	And he answers.
	And I said, Father, can I, can I go to confession?
	Sure.
	Come on in.
	Sat down on the couch.
	And I remember leaving that rectory, leaving that house.
	And I stepped off the front porch and I had three super, that's absolutely clear thoughts.
	My first thought was, God, I'm so grateful.
	Thank you so much.
	Cause I just, I was really interiorly weighed down.
	And I was like, but you've just forgiven me.
	I, I, I knew you made me new.
	My second thought was, um, God, if you want me to be a priest, I will hear anyone's confession anytime they ask.
	And I, and again, this is from someone who until like a day before didn't even care about going to mass.
	So like, but I'm thinking my second thought, my first thought, as I said, God, thank you so much.
	My second thought, if you want me to be a priest, I will hear anyone's confession anytime they ask.
	My third thought was, oh, she's really cute.
	Like, you know, so that began this like kind of, I don't want to say tortured because that's really dramatic, but it began a dramatic, you know, rise and fall over my high school years and college years of like, what is it that God wants me to do?
	And so kind of to wrap it up, I went to a Catholic college, but not to a seminary.
	I just wanted to study theology.
	There I met this incredible woman and I was planning on getting married to her.
	I graduated college and was a missionary in Central America for just one year.
	But when I was there, it just became very, very clear.
	I was excited, so excited to get back and to start a life with this woman.
	She's this incredible woman.
	But when I was there, it just became very clear that God was just inviting me to even just try to take that step to go to seminary.
	And I have to tell you that it was simultaneously one of the hardest moments in the sense of just a lot of sadness, like deep sadness at the same time, because I was in love with this woman.
	I'm just, I absolutely, you know, love her.
	But at the same time, there was a great spirit of joy of like, oh, yeah, this is what I've been praying for for the last 10 years, ever since I was 15.
	I've been praying every day.
	God, if you want me to be priest, just let me know.
	And here was the moment where he finally said, okay, take this next step.
	And so it was a great, it was, it was incredible because it was a moment of, again, sorrow, but also a moment of great peace and great joy of like, okay, this is the next step.
	No, there's more to the story.
	And sometimes when I tell that story, it sounds really bad for her.
	She was taken care of.
	We can talk about that if you want.
	And that's kind of no, it sounds heartbreaking for her.
	I can't imagine for our listening audience.
	Father Mike is a very attractive man.
	Forgive me, Lord.
	But I'm just saying, she must have been like, no, no, no, that's not what the Lord is saying at all.
	You've misread his messaging.
	Right.
	No, and this is really important because I've talked to so many young women and young men whose, you know, fiancés or girlfriends, whatever left for, you know, some other kind of pursuit like religious life, who have been, actually, I've talked to some people who have been mad at me because their boyfriend broke up with them to go to the seminary.
	And I'm like, it's not my fault.
	For this particular relationship, she, I remember the very moment when I told her, it was a Friday night.
	There was only one phone in the village that I was living in.
	And so it was seven o'clock at night.
	It was pitch black because the power had gone out except for the phones were still were still alive.
	And she knew something was up because we wrote to each other twice a day every day.
	I mean, just I just really, really loved her.
	She loved me back, which is amazing.
	But she could tell something was going on.
	And she said, let's talk on Friday.
	Here I am sitting in the dark and the phone rings.
	And I'm like, hey, she's like, what's so what's going on?
	And I said, I think I'm going to go to seminary next year.
	And her first thought, her first words were she said, she said, I knew that this was a possibility before we started dating.
	And just like, it's okay.
	I knew it was a possibility.
	And I'm just bawling.
	I'm literally just my tears.
	And I'm just like, but I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry.
	And she said, no, listen, if this is what God wants for you, then this is what God wants for me too.
	Like if he's calling you somewhere else, I know he's calling me somewhere else too.
	And that's one of the things that I've come to this conviction of whenever there's someone discerning anything, and there's the other person who's like maybe the casualty or the person who gets left behind or something like this.
	I've come to the conviction that whenever I'm talking to someone, I have to remind them, you are not an extra in someone else's discernment story.
	Like you're not an extra in the story of how God is calling someone else because he's, he is also in your life.
	He's also calling you somewhere.
	And she just, she, I remember at the time thinking, well, you could pretend to be a little bit sad.
	I mean, here I am falling, but she was, she was a strong one.
	And I'm really grateful that she was.
	Did she go on to get married?
	Like what happened to her?
	Yeah.
	She is married and she has at least one child, maybe two.
	And I think that I know that she is living a life that is really blessed.
	So, and it just is full.
	And so, yeah, it's because.
	All right.
	So let me ask you an indelicate question since I've already done this with FFJ.
	I feel like I can go there.
	Did you come to know her in a way that would help you understand what you are now missing as a priest with all the vows that you have to take, including abstinence?
	Yeah, no, I think that there I've learned so much in the course of like there are those relationships that I had before I went to seminary and that had just formed me so much when it comes to, okay, because I counsel couples all of the time, which on the surface seems very strange.
	When I do like marriage preparation classes, it's like, wait, you?
	Why?
	That's an interesting point.
	You can talk to the single guy and you do, you help people prepare.
	And one of the things is, is I get to stand on the outside and I get to encounter, I get to be brought into the inside of so many people's relationships, not just one relationship, but like dozens and dozens and hundreds.
	That's true.
	And so the part of that is like, oh, wow, I'm learning stuff all of the time.
	So yes, from her and others that I had dated previously, learned so much.
	And even since then, when I'm, I'm getting, when I, whenever I'm invited into couples' relationships, it's like, oh my gosh, I can see just another aspect of here's the human hearts, especially when it comes to romantic relationships, those human hearts that are just trying, they're trying to, they're trying to love each other.
	And how, how crazy is it that the person that you want to love the most sometimes can be the most difficult to love?
	And so just being brought into that has been really, really, I did not expect that.
	Yeah, helpful.
	Yeah, I can see that.
	I remember, so I'm, I'm married to Doug, but before there was Doug, there was Dan.
	And I was, so I had a first marriage and we had to go through pre-cana and we had counseling with our priest.
	And I remember him saying to me, so I was an aspiring, I was a lawyer actually when we got married and I had a successful career.
	And my, my fiancé, Dan, was in medical school and was going to become a successful doctor.
	And now the priest knew this.
	I was already a professional and my soon-to-be husband was going to be.
	And he looked at me and he said, this is, I don't know, year 2000.
	And he said, now listen, when he gets home from work, you have to make sure, you know, if you've been all day in the sweatpants and the t-shirt, like put on a little makeup, try to make yourself look a little nice.
	You know, you want to, and I remember thinking, my God, this is the most sexist advice ever.
	Can I tell you something, Father?
	And it is sexy, but he was 100% right.
	He was right.
	I'm sorry, but it's true.
	It applies to both parties.
	But like, you do have to, I think, now happily married to Doug for almost, well, 15 years now.
	Yeah, you do have to make an effort.
	He wasn't totally wrong in the sentiment.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Even if like, it was like, wait a second, I'm coming home and Doug's meeting or Dan's meeting me, like that kind of situation.
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	But there's an element there too.
	I just, I come back to this where how careless we can become with each other, especially again in families, whether that be the husband and wife or parents and their kids, vice versa, is there that sense of, I don't know if you've ever experienced this.
	I know I have, but sometimes the people that I've said the worst things to, the people I've treated the worst, are the people that I'm related to, the people that I share a roof with.
	And I just think, I remember my mom pointing this out when I was pretty young still.
	She was exasperated.
	She said, how is it that I get stopped all of the time by people saying, like, oh, your son, Michael, is so nice.
	He is so gracious.
	He's so kind to us, but you're so mean to us here at home.
	And I'm like, oh, man, that is true.
	Like, yeah, I just, I don't like it.
	So it's funny because I certainly can relate to that from my family of origin growing up as a kid, which is what you're referring to when you were a kid.
	As a mother, I cannot relate.
	And I'll tell you, just to distill it down into some one little pearl of wisdom, Dr. Phil back in the day said something that really resonated with me.
	And I think about it all the time when I'm having disagreements with my children or my husband.
	And that was, how can you win when the person you love is losing?
	Yeah.
	That's so right on.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Because you know, you're not just, you're not just playing this game for today.
	It's this is, you're here tomorrow and you're here next week and you're here next month.
	And those little, those little cracks that you don't actually just like, let's meet each other.
	But like, no, I won.
	Here's my, my point.
	They just, they build up.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Especially with your spouse because, you know, with your kids, you can get frustrated, but true anger, at least so far for me, has been rare.
	With your spouse, you know, of course, they can get under it.
	They can get on your last nerve.
	But if you just remember that, like, I'm not winning if I'm hurting this person I love more than anybody.
	How is that a win for me?
	You know, it's like a temporary moment of victory, but it's empty and it's meaningless.
	And it actually is very self-sabotaging.
Setting Boundaries in Ministry 00:14:10
	So anyway, I like your point of like, you were out there and you did some dating and you kind of understand going into it.
	So since you become a priest, let me just, I'm going to get off of this weirdness, I promise.
	But since you become a priest, since I know I've got this FFJ situation in my life, not to mention I'm obsessed with the Thornbirds.
	I've got to imagine there's been some women in your life who have been like, yo, Father Mike, I'm back again for yet another confession.
	You're like, you were just here four times yesterday.
	Have you ever felt that from any young women?
	You know, it's funny because I maybe, I don't think that I'm dense.
	Like, I think that I, I have a pretty good sense of people and a pretty good sense of, I have to say, though, at the same time, I think that I also relatively good with boundaries in that sense of, I mean, from the beginning, it seems like that hasn't ever really been a, I haven't been, I would like to say like this, you're making it sound like, you know, have you been pursued by someone only by strange people on the internet?
	I will say that.
	But otherwise, in person, in person, there are some really clear boundaries that I think it's just like, oh, here's healthy.
	And if someone is kind of like interested, the boundaries are so clear that I think it's like, I think it's shot down pretty quick.
	Again, I could be dense.
	I could just miss it.
	But also, one of the things that I've noticed is this is right now.
	So I've been, I've been on campus for 18 years.
	This is my 18th year of being on a college campus.
	And so people, you know, ask like you just did, Megan, where it's like, so how about, you know, these, these young women coming up.
	And I'm like, here is something I realized two years ago.
	I, it was in the middle of pandemic summer or something like this.
	And I got an email from a dad and he had said, hey, can we, my, my son's a junior in high school wants to take a look at UMD.
	Can he come up?
	Like, absolutely.
	We had this interchange back and forth.
	And so we arranged to have them come to the Newman house to kind of check it out.
	So they pull into the, into the parking lot outside and he and his wife and three of their sons get out and they walk into the house.
	I'm like, well, here it is.
	You know, it's a pretty small place and just this and this.
	At one point, he says, well, we were going to pass through by St. John's University, which is where I went to school and pick up some, what they call Johnny bread.
	So the monks there bake bread and it's kind of a big deal in Minnesota.
	And I said, oh my gosh, that would be great.
	But I went there.
	And this guy looks at me and he says, I know we were in the same class.
	I was like, oh, well, and I had two thoughts.
	My first thought was, you could have told me in this email exchange that we were in the same class.
	Give me a heads up here.
	And his wife, he's like, yeah, my wife and I, we were in the same, you and I, the three of us took the same senior thesis class, essentially.
	Like, what?
	And then I'm looking at the two of them.
	My only thought was, huh?
	So this is what we look like.
	Because I'm around 18 to 24 year olds all of the time.
	And I can, in my head, start, keep just thinking like, yeah, yeah, I'm kind of roughly that same age.
	And like looking at them going, no, we're the same age.
	I look like you.
	And it was like, okay, there's a pretty big gap between me and the students that I serve.
	And it's a good thing.
	Maybe I'm more dense than I knew.
	Well, I guarantee you, you are a little bit more dense than you knew because you, the, the student-professor relationship is fraught with sexual tension.
	It just is.
	And I've told the story before, but when I was in law school, I had this mad crush on this weeby little professor.
	He must have been about 115 pounds soaking wet.
	He had no hair and he wore a sweater vest, Argyle sweater vest.
	Okay.
	In no other world on earth would I have been attracted to this man, but he was an authority figure and he was brilliant and he lectured so well.
	And there's just no, no chance that this hasn't happened to you.
	It doesn't mean these ladies have acted on it, but I'm just saying, beware.
	And if you haven't seen the Thornbirds, you need to go watch it.
	What you're saying is, Megan, you have a type.
	It's the sweater vest.
	Hell, no, no longer.
	Now my husband will never take off his Mickey Mouse shirt for some reason.
	And I don't find that particularly attractive, but the guy inside of it works for me, definitely.
	Okay.
	So you decide to become a priest.
	And how do you, were you always in Minnesota where you're from?
	Did you ever have to move around and go to other places?
	Yeah, that's pretty much all in Minnesota.
	Yep.
	So I went to a seminary in St. Paul and then I got ordained and then moved up to actually my bishop had assigned me here to the campus right away.
	And I'm really grateful what happened.
	This sounds bad now.
	About two weeks into it, one of our priests in our diocese unexpectedly died.
	And so they had to shift a bunch of guys around.
	And I was one of the shiftees.
	So I got shifted up to Hibbing, Minnesota, home of Bob Dylan and Kevin McHale.
	And so I got to be up there right down the street from Judy Garland's birthplace.
	Those are our three famous people.
	And so I was up in Hibbing for two years, northern Minnesota, Iron Range.
	And that was so good for me to be in a parish because I looked at my life and I was, I realized I've been in school ever since I was preschool.
	And then through I took one year off to be a missionary.
	That was it.
	But I taught in a school.
	And it was so helpful for me to actually be in a parish where there's people from infants to the end of life.
	And that just, that grew me a lot.
	And so I'm really grateful for that.
	But as soon as the bishop could, he moved me back after two years, moved me back down to University of Minnesota Duluth.
	And so I've been here ever since.
	Does does anybody go to Catholic Mass in on campus?
	You know, it seems like young people are more disaffected than ever when it comes to religion.
	So does anybody show up?
	That's a good question.
	Because the statistics are pretty bad in the sense of I think it's 80 to 90% of those raised Catholic abandon the faith as adults.
	And so on campus, that's one of the reasons why I have such a love for being on campus is because What I've found is those who have been raised Catholic don't necessarily have any anger toward the church.
	They don't necessarily have anything they really, really disagree with if they ask the questions.
	What I found is that they just haven't either had a chance to ask the questions or they haven't had a chance to have someone who's actually going to be willing to like take the time and walk with them.
	Because yeah, we have hundreds and hundreds of students every week who join us every single week, every day.
	And that's, I love being here.
	And I know that at some point when they move me away to go to a parish, I will have to let go of that.
	But this is, I can't think of a better place to be doing ministry because I just, it's such a crucial time.
	Maybe I'm crazy, but I have to tell you, I, and I am, I don't know how to describe it.
	I don't want to call myself a lame Catholic, but I wouldn't exactly say I'm on the road to sainthood either.
	But I do go to church every Sunday with my kids and my husband.
	And I have noticed an uptick in attendance over the past year plus.
	I mean, at both my church in Connecticut and where we go on the Jersey Shore in the summer, it is standing room only.
	And I tell you, five years ago, it was definitely not this way.
	And I just, I wonder whether there's any backup for that on a larger basis.
	I think there is because one of the things, again, the statistics are from a couple of years ago where it's, you know, these, this kind of being disaffected.
	And there are, there is, I can't argue with the rise of the nuns, right?
	N-O-N-E S's, those people who are no longer religiously affiliated.
	That's a real thing.
	And so that's one of the things that I think we've been trying to address.
	But at the same time, I think slowly, and I don't want to be too rosy about it, but I think slowly we've been we've been addressing some things.
	And I also think you noticed in the last few years, I, I mean, you take, for example, the podcast.
	I can't tell you how many people, not just young people, but people who are writing to me seven.
	Father Mike, I'm 84 years old and I've been Catholic my whole life.
	I never understood the Bible until I listened to the podcast or I never realized here's what's with the depth that we have been given.
	I've been going to Mass every Sunday in my life.
	I never realized the depth of what I've been given until now.
	And I think there's this combination of renewed interest and longing for something more meaningful and more substantial with an opportunity like this.
	I think you're so right.
	That's actually what I get out of it too.
	And I don't know whether I just wasn't paying attention when I went to CCD as a kid or whether I learned it all and I just forgot it.
	But I don't remember really learning scripture as a young Catholic.
	And when you go to Mass, you know, some is read and they do, you get the homily, but like, I just feel like maybe evangelical Christians immerse themselves in the Bible more than Catholics do.
	I'm not sure.
	What is it?
	That's a good question because there is that stereotype, you might say, or there's the cliche of like, I'm Catholic, I don't need to know the Bible, which actually, if you go back to the beginning, one of the early church fathers named Saint Jerome, he had said this phrase that is very convicting for anyone who's ever said, listen, I'm Catholic.
	I don't need the Bible.
	He said, ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ.
	So that's essentially the equivalent of saying, I'm Catholic.
	I don't need to know Jesus, which is completely not what any of us will want to say.
	And so, and so I, but I think, though, that there is a potential.
	I mean, if you go to Mass every Sunday, at the end of a three-year cycle, you will have heard something like 70% of the Bible.
	And so, so we do hear scripture as Catholics.
	The problem is I think we show up for mass during the week or during the weekend.
	And all of a sudden, here's a reading from the book of the prophet Amos.
	Like, great.
	Who's that?
	Who's that?
	And all of a sudden, he's saying these words.
	And we're like, I have no idea what he's talking about.
	We might get something out of the gospel because kind of maybe more familiar with that.
	We kind of know the context that has something to do with Jesus.
	But if we had the opportunity to do something like this, where we listen to the whole story and we kind of get the story, even if I don't know exactly who Amos is, I could say, oh, yeah, but he was a prophet to the southern kingdom.
	I remember there was like two divided kingdoms and okay, he's telling them this.
	And we get a little more context.
	Then all of a sudden, it's the phrase, you know, the saying, it comes alive.
	And I think that's one of the things that can happen.
	But until that moment, it's like, man, it can seem a little dead and dry.
	I really feel like the priesthood would benefit from the lesson I learned early on in my broadcasting career, which is the people who know the backstory will forgive you a line or two of explanation before you deliver the story.
	The people who don't know the backstory will be forever grateful that you didn't assume they knew it before you started your reading.
	Completely.
	Oh my gosh.
	I'm so glad you said it like that too, because there are times when I feel, okay, I don't want to have to recover this or I don't want to bore you, but here is the backstory.
	But just like you said, and you know, actually, Megan, when it comes to like, even like you said, being raised Catholic, I was talking with some people from the Archdiocese of Chicago last week because they were, they just wanted to, they're trying to do this initiative there where they're improving, trying to improve preaching.
	And so they said, well, what are some things that preachers need to know?
	And what do they need to do?
	Or what did they, they basically asked me and said, what do you do?
	And I said, well, again, I, I don't claim to be an expert, but here's what I do.
	The first thing is I never assume that I have the congregation on my side.
	That, that, you know, sometimes, I don't know if you've ever been to Mass and all of a sudden the priest gets up and he just starts basically kind of starting from all these assumptions.
	First, the assumption is that we think you have something to say.
	Well, I don't, I don't assume that they think I have something to say.
	Second assumption is that you're assuming we believe all the same things you believe, or we're at the same place that you're at, or that we see it the same way you do.
	And that sense of, okay, I don't even assume that they trust me.
	And so there's a sense of, okay, I can't assume in any way, shape or form that they're on my side.
	And so to start from there is to be able to say, okay, if I don't know that you're on my side, how do I, how do we get to a place where we're having some common ground and then going somewhere?
	And I think taking that kind of time, and I think I try to do it as a way to offer like respect.
	If you're going to listen to me for the next 20 minutes, because my homilies go a little long, if you're going to listen to me for the next 20 minutes, then I need to respect you.
	And I'm going to earn your trust.
	Yeah, because I've listened to your YouTube, your weekly masses online at YouTube as well.
	And you have a separate podcast, which will give just the homily.
	And I've listened to those too.
	And I appreciate it because you do, you do the thing.
	My brother's Pete Kelly, and he has a very good rule of conversation, which he unleashed on our stepsister shortly after we were introduced to her.
	And she was rambling on in some pointless story.
	And he interrupted her.
	He's five years older and said in the middle of it, why are you telling me this story?
	And you always tell us why you are about to tell us this story.
	Like why what I'm about to tell you matters.
	And now, here, let me read to you from the Bible.
	And now, I'm going to tell you what you just heard and how it translates into your life.
	That's such a simple formula.
	More priests need to do that.
	It is, except at the same time.
	So, I got a call from my older brother once and he left a message.
	And he was, he was, my brother.
	So, I have a very driven set of siblings.
	Um, three of them are doctors.
	Uh, the other two are in other fields that just involve a lot of drive.
	So, this is the he's in the military and is incredible, incredible man.
	So, he, um, he called me and he was hemming and hawing, which is very unusual for him.
	He leaves this message.
	He's like, So, um, just coming back from mass.
	And I just, I just, I was thinking that Father was he was preaching and at school, do they teach you how to preach?
Invoking Guardian Angels 00:04:46
	You're just so frustrated.
	It's important.
	I'm like, oh, okay.
	Um, so here's my brother.
	So, I always think of my siblings whenever I'm preaching, whenever I'm trying to get ready for a sermon or a homily, a talk, I think, okay, what would Mark think here?
	What would Matthew think about this?
	If he, if they showed up, um, they'd be like, because he, I know, and you know, that we have to repeat things.
	If we don't repeat things, people will forget them automatically.
	And so, one of the things I try to do is have something that's repeated throughout that it's not overly redundant.
	Like, I'm not just saying the same point, I'm making a new point.
	Anyways, and he's like, Why do you say the same thing over and over again?
	I'm like, Well, do you remember what it was?
	Maybe that was effective.
	I don't know.
	I'm just gonna, I rest my case.
	So, you got Mark, you got Matthew, you got Michael.
	I'm sensing a theme here with your parents.
	Clearly, you only with the boys.
	Okay, the girls are Beth, Amy, and Sarah.
	So, okay.
	No, you'll appreciate this because we go to a parish, St. Michael's, and one of the things they do at the end is they read, and I've never seen this at another parish where you're named after one of the saints and you read, we read the prayer to Saint Michael, which I have to say is the most exciting part of the mass for my kids.
	And I have it here, I don't know it by heart, but for the audience members, you're going to see why my kids love it.
	Here it is: Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
	May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.
	Oh, do thou, oh, Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who roam about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
	Amen.
	Father Mike, it gets dark.
	It's kind of exciting.
	And my kids really look forward to it.
	Yeah, you know, that we pray that prayer every at the end of every Mass as well.
	And that prayer actually comes from, I think it was Pope Leo XIII.
	At one point, the story is that he had just gotten done saying, maybe you know the story already.
	So I don't want to.
	No, I guarantee you I don't.
	So he had just gotten done saying Mass as the Pope.
	And he leaves and he leaves the sanctuary.
	He's going into this room off to the side called the sacristy where you take all the vestments off and stuff.
	And he's in that space between the sanctuary and the sacristy and he and he collapses.
	And in this collapse, he has this vision.
	And this vision is something along the lines.
	He tried to put it into words.
	He said that it was this vision of that for the next hundred years, Satan would have reign over the world, would have some kind of sense of unique form of dominion over the world.
	And he came out of this vision, came out of this trance kind of thing, and he walks over to this piece of paper and he just starts writing down this prayer, knowing that, okay, if this is what's going to happen, we have to invoke the help of the Lord.
	We have to invoke the help of our guardian angels, including especially Saint Michael, the archangel.
	And what's fascinating in a tragic way is that was the last century of all the destruction that had happened, not only in Europe, in Asia, throughout the entire world.
	And so it's just kind of, it seems to line up a bit.
	And so I like, I resonate with your kids in that sense of, okay, it reminds us like, okay, this is the world is like one of the things we believe as Catholic Christians is the world is good, but also it's been broken.
	And the world is good, but it's not, it's not a playground.
	It's more like a battlefield than anything.
	And so I like to back up.
	I want to talk to you about the devil.
	I want to talk to you about the devil in hell.
	I've read some of what you said on that.
	And so we may very much need to be saying that.
	that prayer a lot more than we do.
	Much much more to discuss with Father Mike, including some of the hot topics dividing our nation today, including abortion.
	And what about all these attacks we've been seeing on these pro-life clinics?
	Who attacks a pro-life clinic?
	I'm sorry, but it's insane.
	Before we do, though, I want to bring you another of our memorable moments from the first two years.
	We're in our two-year anniversary week of the Megan Kelly Show.
	This one comes from almost exactly one year ago when my pal Tucker Carlson came on in episode 167.
	Tucker opened up about his mom in a way he rarely has.
	Listen.
	Criticism from people who hate me doesn't really mean anything to me, I think.
	It really doesn't.
	I care what the people I love think.
	I care deeply.
	If my wife is upset with me, I can't even function because I care so much about what she thinks.
	And my children, same thing.
	My close friends, I have a bunch of lifelong friends.
	The people I work with, I feel that way about them too.
	But like some random, you know, the ADL doesn't like me or something, the partisan who runs it, like, I don't care.
	Why would I care?
	I'm not giving those people emotional control over me.
The Bible Is Not Hallmark 00:07:05
	I've been through that.
	I lived through that as a child.
	I'm not doing that again.
	I got this call.
	Like she's dying and in this weird little town on a farm that she lived on in southwestern France.
	And she was basically French at this point, spent her life there.
	You should go visit her.
	And so I called my brother and he's like, what?
	No.
	You know, my son's got a soccer game.
	And I said, I feel the same way.
	I don't know this person.
	And actually, this sounds cold or whatever, but I had already kind of made my peace with this over many decades, over 35 years, and I didn't fall apart at all.
	It was a fascinating episode.
	If you want to go back and listen to that one, worth your time.
	If you haven't been downloading the Bible in a year, it's well worth your time.
	And Father Mike actually has a new podcast that he's getting ready to release as well, which we'll get to in just a little bit.
	It's about the catechism.
	I got to confess something to you right here, Father Mike.
	I didn't even know what that was.
	I said to Abby, my assistant, can you Google Catechism?
	I don't know what that is.
	I gather it's a book about religion in general, but I guess you'll be doing the one that's about the Catholic faith.
	Is there one?
	Is there one catechism about Catholicism?
	Right.
	You are correct.
	It is a book.
	And it is, yeah, so it is a summary of what we believe as Catholics.
	So there have been a number of catechisms over the course of the last 2,000 years.
	The most recent one was actually the big, this is the most recent universal catechism.
	What I mean by that is where the whole church comes together and they say, okay, this is for the whole world.
	And it becomes, it's really broad.
	It's really deep.
	The one previous was the Catechism of the Council of Trent.
	So in the 1500s.
	And from that, they made like, maybe you've heard the term the Baltimore Catechism.
	No.
	So that was, that was, that was a term.
	A Baltimore Catechism was a book that was came out of Baltimore in, I think, early 1900s, where they took the teachings from Council of Trent and made them more accessible so that you could teach from it.
	In fact, but this one came out, I think, in 1991, 1992, somewhere in there.
	And it's beautiful, but it's a summary of all that Catholics believe.
	And so is it like the Bible for dummies?
	Like, what is it?
	How does it differ from the Bible?
	Right.
	So the Bible is amazing.
	So, okay, let me just share a little bit.
	Begun recording the catechism because I have to get a kind of a lead on it because it's dense.
	And the Bible was so easy.
	I mean, in comparison, because the Bible's a story.
	And yes, there's all the names and yes, there's some of the things like, wait, what's going on here in this kind of situation?
	Trying to make sense of things.
	The catechism is not a story.
	The catechism is, here's what we believe about going down the line, right?
	So here's what we believe about how God reveals himself.
	Here's what we believe about our response to God called faith.
	Here's what we believe about the Trinity.
	And it gets good, but it starts really dry at first, I have to say.
	So you liven it up.
	I hope so.
	But it's been a learning process for me because, again, with the Bible, I'm like, well, especially if you, the first few episodes of the Bible are, you know, the first chapter, a couple of chapters of Genesis and Job, which are things that I have been reading and praying about for years and years and years.
	With the catechism, the first couple of paragraphs, a couple of days are like, oh, here's the introduction to the catechism, which I'm like, okay, awesome.
	I'm just hoping that people stick around to like day 20 because that by that point, we're like, then we take off and then it gets really, really good.
	But unlike the Bible, it's a little bit to warm up to.
	Well, I have to tell you, I mean, I didn't know what to expect on the Bible in a year because I really wasn't that familiar with scripture.
	You know, I couldn't quote it.
	I'm not somebody who does a lot of Bible studying, but I found it fascinating.
	And I've said, I've told the story on the air before.
	I love crime podcasts.
	I'm, you know, one of those women who I'm into crime and I love Dateline.
	And I can have Dateline in, Dateline on playing when my children walk in the room, but Father Mike and Bible in a year, we're on Sodom and Gomorrah.
	I'm like, mute, mute, mute, mute.
	When the kids walk, there's some R-rated chapters in there.
	Did you?
	I don't know if someone asked me about this last week.
	They said, when did you start putting in like the like disclaimers at the beginning that, by the way, if there's children present, you because we had so many people writing, writing to us saying, okay, we were listening as a family in the car and you start talking about, and I was like, oh, shoot.
	So the Bible is like for kids.
	A lot of incest.
	Yeah.
	And you're like, oh, gosh.
	That's, and that's the thing that takes so many people by surprise is because think about even the story of Noah.
	And I mean, that's, that's in virtually every children's, you know, picture Bible, every children's whatever, like, oh, yeah, Noah and the Ark and the flood and the, and the, and the rainbow.
	Okay.
	And the flood right in there, like where everyone died.
	Yeah, that's part of the story.
	And it's one of those where I think sometimes as adults, we're like, I remember hearing these stories as a kid where I just kind of passed by as opposed to, wow, I really have to engage with the Bible's not a Hallmark.
	I always say, like, it's not the Hallmark channel.
	It is.
	Right.
	No, it's not.
	It's HBO.
	Especially the Old Testament.
	The Old Testament was like, okay, buckle in, get ready.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And I think it treats us like people who actually live in the world, which is one of the things that I found has been that when people, so I get a letter from this man, maybe two months into when the podcast first aired.
	And he had said that he was a committed atheist and that he had raised his children as committed atheists.
	And that he read the Bible a couple of times.
	But he said he started listening to the podcast.
	And he said, I don't know what it was.
	Maybe it's the explanations.
	Maybe it's the context that you're offering.
	But he said, I know, I come to believe.
	Like, I've come to, I can actually profess faith in this God and in Jesus.
	And I'm like, this is incredible.
	But one, I think part of that is, I think part of that is the Bible's written with the real world in mind.
	But oftentimes we approach it as if the Bible is like a magical book or as if the Bible, again, is a children's book and doesn't actually have anything to say to my brokenness or my broken family or the fact that, okay, I thought I was called at one point, like, you know, to be belong to God, to be great.
	But then I've got all these wounds.
	I've got all this failure, this string of failure in my history.
	And you realize when you read the Bible, oh, that's, that's what all our history is.
	All of our history is this promise, but then the string of failures.
	But in the middle of it is a God who doesn't take back his promise.
	And I think that when people begin to approach that and realize, internalize it, then it's like, wait, this is actually about me.
	This, this isn't a foreign book entirely, at least not the way I thought it would be.
	No, you always end feeling a little bit more hopeful, a little bit better about yourself, about your time here.
	That's one of the things I love about it is you learn a little bit and just always feel a little better.
Navigating Abortion Rights 00:06:51
	I wouldn't say it's exactly the same as when you walk out of Mass on Sunday, but it's in that same general field.
	And we need a little hope in today's day and age, given the news cycle, and especially as Catholics.
	I want to ask you about what we've seen since, I guess we went back and looked.
	It wasn't just since the Dobbs decision was released that overturned Roe versus Wade.
	It's actually been since the release of the draft of the Dobbs opinion, which happened on May 2nd, about a month plus before the actual decision was released.
	Since then, there have been criminal attacks on 63 pro-life organizations in 26 states in the District of Columbia, including on June 7th when arsonists firebombed and vandalized Compass Care Pregnancy Services Medical Office in Buffalo.
	Also, more than 30 Catholic churches attacked since the Dobbs leak.
	This is so crazy.
	And in 17 of those, they made clear it was about abortion.
	What have you made of this?
	And of sadly, the media has ignored it for the most part.
	Right.
	That's the part.
	That's the part that is shocking to me.
	That's the, is if I, if I step back, I get it.
	And in the sense that if you feel under attack, then you want to lash out.
	So, so that part of it is, I'm, again, obviously not condoning and not even saying like, this makes sense.
	But I can understand how someone, if they're in the place where, wait a second, I've had this, what I consider to be a right to have an abortion and now it's being taken away, a right's being taken away from me.
	I get the idea that you want to lash out.
	At the same time, I don't get the, don't get the reality that you've, this might be for many people, the first time they've heard of that is when you just mentioned it.
	And that part of it makes no sense to me because here is clearly something that's clearly illegal, that's clearly violent, that is what's going on in our world and in our country and our culture, that that should be something that I would say is newsworthy and noteworthy.
	And to not report on that is a, I think is, is there being dereliction of duty is, I think, what that would be ultimately.
	You know, when I say I understand it, I want to clarify.
	I don't know if you've seen like the Louis C.K. has this bit about abortion.
	And he kind of goes this line where he says, you know, either, I'll say it in my paraphrase.
	He says, either, either it's no, it's just like going to the bathroom or it's a baby.
	Like it's one of those two.
	It's either just, no, it's a procedure, like going to the bed, no, no more morally significant than going to the bathroom, or it's a baby.
	So he says, those people who are outside of an abortion clinic who are praying or who are, you know, holding signs.
	Now, of course, I think virtually every Christian, I know of a Catholic Christian, disavows those people who would resort to violence.
	That's absolutely.
	But those people who are praying outside abortion clinics would say like, you know, I don't want this to happen.
	Why?
	Because I believe it's a baby.
	He has this bit about, you know, people are so like, why are they so intent out there?
	Why are they so passionate about out there?
	He says, because they believe that it's a baby.
	And you would expect them to be a little passionate and not just kind of like, you know, whatever, whatever, do what you want.
	And I think there's something about that I can understand on the other side if someone were to say, I believe that I have this right and I believe this right is being stripped from me.
	So I'm going to react.
	Now, of course, does it make sense?
	I mean, I don't want to be circular.
	Yeah, I don't, it's because I think that there's something, there's something about seeking to understand when you see this, I don't say crazy behavior.
	We see this behavior that is, I would say, is clearly wrong.
	You'd say, but these are real people who are doing this behavior.
	So that means I could do this if like the circumstances were right and I was convinced of something that I know that whatever I've seen anyone do, that would be wrong, would be evil.
	I have the same kind of heart.
	And I'm not maybe inclined toward that kind of thing.
	But I always have to step back and say, okay, what would the circumstances be that would lead me to do something like this?
	And unless I really investigate myself, I will never be able to talk with someone who would think that this would be the right thing.
	That's the good thing about you.
	You're the least judgy priest I've ever heard.
	I mean, I thought that judgment came with becoming a Catholic priest, that that's part of like the deal.
	And you are the least judgy priest.
	You have, you know, your moral principles and you'll espouse sort of what you think those principles are as taught by the Bible, as handed down by God.
	But you are always looking for a way to be gracious to people, even in this circumstance we're talking about right now.
	I mean, what's so crazy to me about the bombing of the pro-life clinics is, again, to say what you said, it's not that I understand the desire to go assassinate Sam Alito.
	It's not like I support it, but at least logically, I see the line.
	Okay.
	Like he's the guy who was, it was Kavanaugh, but Kavanaugh was part of the majority.
	But like a pro-life clinic, they're probably not in favor of Roe versus Wade, but they're actually just helping pregnant women who have chosen to have their babies.
	So what is even controversial about them?
	You know, like who, what kind of sick, twisted person?
	It's not just a one-off, as I say, it's, you know, 63 of these places got attacked in the past couple of months.
	Who?
	Like, it still makes no sense.
	Right.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Because I, and I think that we can look at this and say, the, what has been the, I want to say demonization because that's very dramatic.
	At the same time, it might be the only appropriate word when it comes to people who are.
	So I would, I consider myself pro-life.
	Shock.
	And I would say that what that means is, of course, I, I'm pro the life of the baby.
	I'm also pro the life of the mother.
	I'm also pro like post-birth help and assistance of whatever we can do as a church and we can do as Christians to help people who are helpless.
	I mean, if you read the Bible, once again, it's who do you take care of?
	Okay, the poor, the widows, orphans.
	Why?
	Because they need the help.
	And that's one of the things that is so important for us is like, why do we help?
	Because someone needs it.
	And that's why I love the definition of mercy being mercy is the love that we need the most and we deserve the least.
	And that just, that's for everybody.
	It's like, you don't qualify for my love.
	You just need it.
	I like that.
	All right, stand by.
	I'm going to squeeze in another commercial break and then there's much more to discuss.
	Like, I really want to get into, yes, heaven, but also hell.
	On the subject of heaven, do all good people go there?
	Is that, is that all you need to do?
	Just be a good person.
Mercy for the Unworthy 00:15:10
	What does the Bible actually say?
	And what about end times?
	There are more and more people believing we may be close.
	So we'll pick that up in just a couple of minutes.
	And don't forget, folks, you can find the Megan Kelly Show live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon East and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.
	If you prefer an audio podcast, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast for free.
	Find our 325 shows there as well.
	All right, Father, let me do me a favor.
	Okay.
	Can I just ask a few dumb Catholic questions, stuff I've always wanted to know the answers to, but I'm too embarrassed to ask my actual priest.
	I'd rather do it here in front of, you know, many, many, many more people.
	Absolutely.
	There are no such thing as dumb questions, only dumb answers.
	Okay.
	Well, this is going to show you what a lame again to use that Catholic I've been.
	Quick answers, if you can.
	Why did Mass change?
	I grew up understanding, you know, and also with you.
	And now it's and with your spirit.
	They changed all the language.
	If you, you know, I didn't go to mass for like 10 years.
	Then I resumed again.
	I'm like, everything's changed.
	Great question.
	So in the 1960s, they made Mass in the vernacular, right?
	In the language of whatever, wherever you were.
	And the translation they did was what you might call like a dynamic equivalent translation.
	So it's kind of sort of what the original language said.
	And then they said, okay, that was the first translation or the update.
	And so maybe 10 years ago or maybe less than 10 years ago, they said, but actually a more accurate translation of the original Mass is this.
	And that's when they changed it.
	They said, we need to update these things.
	They just, they kind of hastily translated in the 60s.
	And so they went through and took their time and more accurately translated in the 2000s.
	Okay.
	I did not appreciate that, but I'm got most of it.
	Consubstantial.
	Yes.
	When did we start putting our hands out to the side when we started saying the Our Father?
	That's another thing.
	Like I, I never put my hands out.
	We said the Our Father.
	Now everybody does that.
	Yep.
	Don't get me started, Megan.
	So we're not supposed to do that.
	That's a whole thing that just kind of, it just, it was kind of invented in the last, I don't know, we'll say 10 to 40 years where it's, that's actually, it's not, it's not a thing, but some people do it.
	And it's, uh, it's actually, if you want to be like liturgically proper, meaning like proper when it comes to like the mass and stuff is that you can do that when you pray, like not in the mass, but in the mass, that's like the posture the priest prays in.
	And people pray in a different posture.
	So if you don't like that, you are actually your, your instinct is correct.
	You're already, see, you're more Catholic than you think.
	I feel better.
	All right.
	Now I've noticed it, um, like when we go to church over the summer at our shore, at the New Jersey shore, you know how you put the kneeler down when the priest is doing the communion rites and getting communion ready?
	And you kneel and you stand and, you know, we all just follow the old lady in the front and do what she does, but except for there, except for there, where they, everybody stands the whole time.
	And so some of us who are, you know, we kneel, I can still kind of remember when to kneel and when to stand, except nobody else is kneeling.
	They're all standing through the whole thing.
	When did that happen?
	Why are people doing that?
	Once again, this is what they call it like a liturgical accretion.
	So an accretion is like a barnacle on the side of the boat.
	It's not part of the boat.
	It's not supposed to be there, but it just over time, people start doing this kind of thing.
	And so there was a time, again, following the 1960s where people said, well, rightly so, here as the people of God, we are actually, we share in what I call the kingdom priesthood, meaning when you're baptized, you're anointed a priest, prophet, and king.
	So every baptized Christian is anointed priest, prophet, and king.
	So you're meant to like participate in the mass by like offering the sacrifice with the ministerial priest at the altar.
	And so they said, well, in that case, we should be standing while he's doing his part because we're showing that we're doing our part too.
	But that is not what the church asks us to do.
	The church asks that if we're in the congregation that during from the technically from the holy, holy, holy to the uh, behold the lamb of God, we're supposed to be or we're supposed to be kneeling.
	So, you're once again, you are right.
	Uh, this is the thing.
	Megan, you're already two for two.
	Amazing.
	There's an imprint made that I didn't even know about.
	All right.
	Now, what about when we show the sign of the peace?
	You know, we do the peace sign to everybody.
	And we used to actually shake hands and it was nice.
	And then COVID came, we got rid of shaking hands.
	I got to admit, I'm surprised because I don't generally like people, but I miss shaking hands.
	I do.
	Are you thinking it's ever going to come back?
	Yeah.
	Oh, we do it.
	Yeah.
	We started doing it again like a year and a half ago.
	So I think it was.
	Is it up to each parish or what?
	Yeah.
	Usually the diocese has a policy.
	So our diocese, we said, yep, handshaking, whatever can happen however long ago it was.
	And I think they even might have said something along the lines of distribution from both sacred body and the precious blood.
	Okay.
	That was my next question.
	Okay.
	I was listening to you talk about how to get into heaven, which is our next topic.
	And you listed four things that everybody must do.
	And on the list was you have to take communion and you have to take the blood of Christ, the body, Christ, and the blood of Christ.
	And I know no one's taken the blood of Christ in two years now, thanks to COVID.
	It's not even offered.
	You can't get it even if you want it.
	So are we all going to hell?
	Wow.
	I love.
	Okay.
	You said quick answers.
	So let me back up.
	The four things were the scripture says very clearly, you must be born of water in the spirit.
	So baptism, that's John chapter three.
	John chapter six says, Jesus says, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you do not have eternal life.
	So be Eucharist.
	Also, if you profess with your lips and believe with your heart, Jesus is Lord, you'll be saved.
	And then that's St. Paul.
	And then Jesus also says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven.
	And so those are four very clear things in the New Testament for, they seem like conditions, right?
	Now, a couple of things, couple caveats.
	One is the church has, over the course of 2000 years, has recognized that, of course, Jesus' words are completely true.
	So it's not like we're kind of equivocating on this, but we also recognize that 1 Timothy says, St. Paul's writing to Timothy and he says, we know that God wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.
	So God doesn't just like make some people and just discard them.
	Like, we don't really care about you.
	Oh, you didn't, you didn't become a Christian or you didn't get to, you know, even hear about Jesus.
	Too bad.
	No, we believe that God wills all people to be saved.
	We also know that at some point, though, there are some people who, through no fault of their own, don't know, or even through no fault of their own, they may have heard, but never had the actual possibility of actually saying yes to this invitation.
	You know, we can think of people in far off countries.
	We can also think of people in our own country, in our own town, who've never even considered the reality of Jesus because of any number of reasons.
	So, what happens to them?
	The church has said that we believe that it is possible.
	We hold out hope.
	This is the thing.
	We hold out hope that those who, through no fault of their own, do not know of Jesus or his church, but who, by the promptings of grace, because we can only get to heaven through grace, do the best they can, essentially, assisted by God.
	We hold out hope that they too may enter heaven.
	And so, there's this sense that the church says, okay, here's what we know.
	Jesus said these things are the kind of requirements for heaven.
	We also know this, that there's people who had no chance of ever meeting these conditions.
	We also know God, God's nature.
	We know God's goodness.
	We know that he wants everyone to come to the knowledge of truth.
	Therefore, we knowing that God is good and just, he will never punish a person or let them experience a consequence that they didn't actually choose that was no fault of their own because he's good.
	Therefore, we hold out hope that in a way unbeknownst to us, uh, they too can be saved.
	Does that make some sense?
	So, it doesn't sound like he would hold the absence of blood of Christ against us, given that we couldn't get it during going back to that.
	That's the short answer.
	We would say that the full, the entirety of Jesus, body, blood, soul, and divinity is contained in even one crumb of the Eucharist, even one drop of the precious blood.
	So, you actually technically are receiving body and blood, soul, and divinity in every every time you only receive the body of Christ.
	It's the full Jesus.
	You'll appreciate this.
	I told the audience a couple of weeks ago, we have a little guy, we have three kids, and the little guy just made his first communion last spring.
	And he's still very excited to go up there and get the communion.
	And he came back to the pew afterward a couple of weeks ago, and he goes, I really think it'd be better with a little sea salt.
	Yes, that was, yeah, I do appreciate that very much.
	I'm like, wait, why not?
	Why stop there?
	Why not just have like some guacamole or some hummus you can dip it in on your way back to the pew?
	I actually, that was that was a big thing for me because after I had that encounter and went to confession, I talked about last hour.
	Um, the next thing was I was reading a book that my mom had had in that in the house, and one of the chapters was on Holy Communion, it was on the Eucharist.
	And I don't know if I was sick that day, but I did not realize that what we realized is Jesus, the Eucharist is really Jesus.
	It's like it's fully him.
	And I was so blown away by this.
	And I remember going down to the kitchen where my siblings were.
	I'm like, You guys, did you know that that's really Jesus?
	They're like, Yeah.
	And they're like, No, no, no, you guys, it's really him.
	They're like, We know.
	I'm like, No, you don't understand.
	Like, moron, we all went to Catholic school.
	You did too.
	What's and I just, it blew me away.
	So then next time I went to Mass, I was, I remember being like, Okay, you're in body of Christ, amen.
	I'm so excited.
	And then received Holy Communion.
	I was like, Hmm, it's a little dry kind of a thing.
	And I was so disappointed because I thought, I don't know what I thought.
	I think I thought that it would be like pop rocks, like, this is really God, you know, kind of a thing.
	And it wasn't.
	And it took me a while to kind of process what is that where this, we really believe this.
	And yet, here's my experience.
	And then I, I, it was a moment of another moment of grace where I was thinking, I realized that when I would imagine if I were living 2,000 years ago and I was walking the streets of Nazareth, if I were to see Jesus, I always just imagined that he would obviously be God.
	Like, you know, he'd be floating six inches off the ground, light would be coming out of his hair.
	He says your name and you fall down.
	But if I remember thinking, like, wait a second, if I met Jesus and saw him, he wouldn't look like God.
	He would just look like some guy, but he wasn't just some guy.
	He was fully God and fully man.
	And realized that's what the Eucharist is: is like, this is God, but he's hidden.
	And that just, that just gave a lot of consolation to me because I was, I wanted some fireworks.
	You know, that may be some questions I have about, I have about, about Jesus.
	And, you know, my Jewish friends who one of my very good friends who is Jewish, I managed to drag her to Christmas Eve Mass one day and she was staying with me.
	He brought her.
	I'm like, it's beautiful.
	You'll love it, even though you might not totally believe everything you hear.
	And they were, of course, they were talking about baby Jesus being born and so on and so on and so forth.
	Anyway, she said, it's not that we don't believe.
	It's just, he was just a man.
	He was just a man.
	You know, we don't see him as Christ.
	I said, I get it.
	I get it.
	But it does make me wonder because Jesus was a historical figure.
	Obviously, he actually did, by anybody's estimation, roam the earth and his behavior was documented and it was written down and it's all laid out in the New Testament.
	But my Jewish friends don't follow the New Testament.
	They kind of stop with the Old Testament.
	And I don't, I don't fully know how it goes from there.
	Do they reject the stories about Christ, about Jesus Christ's behavior, about like the miracles he performed?
	Like, how, how does it get reconciled?
	Because he really was someone who was here.
	So it's, it's kind of knowable.
	I mean, for a long time, there were people on the earth who had borne witness to what he did.
	Right.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And so I think every person, it's, and this goes back to like the heaven hell question, too.
	Every person has their own story.
	They have the, we have our own biases.
	We have our own like reasons why we either accept or reasons why we reject.
	And so I think what's one fascinating thing is years ago, there was a rabbi, just like, I can't remember his name.
	I wish I could.
	This isn't a joke.
	There was a real rabbi.
	And he was saying that the reason why he reached, he, he, I think it was called The Rabbi Examines the Case for Jesus.
	He wrote a book.
	And he said, yeah, Jesus, he ticks all the boxes.
	He ticks all the boxes for the Messiah, ticks all the boxes for even actually maybe he is who he said he was, which is not just the Messiah, but actually God.
	But then he got to this point.
	He said, but there's one thing Messiah was supposed to do.
	And he was supposed to establish the kingdom, supposed to establish a kingdom that would last forever.
	And he said, I look around and I don't see the kingdom.
	In response to this, there was a guy named Cardinal Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote a book called Jesus of Nazareth, where he says, I mean, because he respects this rabbi a lot.
	He said, okay, here's, here's my response.
	Response is he did establish a kingdom, and that kingdom is the church.
	And it does exist everywhere on every continent, in every country around the world.
	And so there's that sense of like, for this rabbi, he was like, yeah, Jesus ticks all of the boxes except this one.
	And I don't know, I don't know if he's ever responded to Pope Benedict's book, but yeah, there's a lot of, yeah, it's pretty compelling.
	Yeah, I know, it's like, to me, that's what's comforting to me about Jesus is they were eyewitnesses to, you know, his time here on earth.
	They wrote it down and it was, I don't, I guess you can't say it was uniformly accepted based on the premise that I just offered, but it's one of the things that makes me believe, you know, that there's a historical record of what he did when he was here because I'm a lawyer and I'm a linear thinker and I like my facts and I like evidence.
	And then, you know, faith can be, can play a role and must play a role, but I also like there to be a strong basis in fact.
	Yeah, I think I would say without the because Jesus is historical, Christianity is an historical religion by its very nature.
	And even like you mentioned, there's a moment in St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians where he basically says he's writing to these people.
	These are people in history, right?
	In the first century.
	And he's saying, okay, here's what happened.
	Jesus was killed.
	Three days later, he rose.
	He appeared to Cephas.
	He appeared to the 12.
	He appeared to me.
	He actually even says he appeared at one point to 500 people all at once.
	And he even says this line: he says, some of whom have fallen asleep, some have died, but most are still alive.
	And the reason why he's saying this is because he's saying, go ask them, leave here in Corinth, just travel down to the area of Jerusalem.
	You can talk to these people because they actually saw him.
	Because the only reason we believe in the resurrection is because it was verified, right?
	It was, there were witnesses who actually witnessed this and then went on to testify to what they had actually seen.
	And that's one of the proofs I think.
	When I say proof, I don't mean like a chemical proof, but I mean like a logical proof when it comes to the claim that Jesus is who he says he is.
Suffering and Divine Love 00:12:56
	We talked about heaven a little bit and how one gets in.
	And it's, you know, we ticked through it quickly, but the tough part is, you know, living, doing God's work on earth as a human, not just being a good person, not just being kind to people who you like.
	There's a greater challenge.
	And it's tougher than you'd think.
	I mean, I, the way you put it was, I think you were quoting the Bible, but it was like a wide road to bad things and narrow, narrow path to redemption.
	You can put it in the proper terms, but it's tougher than you'd think, which was kind of disappointing, but also promising because I'm still here and I can still work on it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And also, I would say, too, Catholics get a get a kind of a bad rap for thinking that we earn our way or work our way to heaven, which we don't believe.
	All of this is in the context of God wants to help us and God is helping us.
	It's called grace, right?
	And we can't even do these things without his help.
	And the great news is he is helping.
	He wants to help.
	Again, 1 Timothy, God desires all men and women to be saved.
	He wants you.
	And that's one of the big messages of Christianity, I think, that even Jesus is saying.
	What's he say?
	He says, Do you think, do you think that he would ever forget you?
	Do you think that God would ever ignore your, I mean, if you're suffering, you're hurting.
	Do you think that he doesn't care?
	And Jesus goes on to say what he says, consider the lilies of the field, right?
	Consider the birds.
	He says, not one of them falls to the ground without your father knowing about it, without your father caring about it.
	And you are worth more than many birds.
	You're worth more than many sparrows.
	There's something about the context of this whole thing that is, okay, first of all, God wants you to exist and he loves you.
	He wants to help and he is helping.
	Now, along those lines, here's this thing he's given, a tool called baptism.
	So enter into that.
	He's given this tool, Eucharist.
	You could do this.
	His will, he's saying yes to him.
	But that's the big key, right?
	Is that every one of us is free to say yes with God's help.
	We're also free to say no.
	We're also free to be indifferent.
	And that's, that's the thing that I just, I wrestle with so much, so much, even as someone who like fully, fully believes.
	But we can live such a comfortable life sometimes that it's almost easier sometimes to be indifferent to the big questions than it is to be like really preoccupied with the big questions and saying, am I saying yes to God or not?
	I remember hearing the definition of a saint was a saint is someone who says yes to God and then just never stops saying yes.
	And that seems doable to me.
	The opposite is, you know, hell.
	And I think I know many people who don't believe in hell, though.
	I think they're in the minority because I think the polls show the majority of people do believe in yes, heaven and actually hell as well.
	Can I ask you what your idea is of those two places?
	My kids ask me all the time, what does heaven look like?
	Will we be together?
	Will we really, will we get to see you?
	Will we get to meet our grandfathers?
	You know, and of course, we all take a shot at our ideas, but what's your idea of heaven?
	Yeah, no, that's see, I, uh, Dante, right?
	He writes these three poems, the, sorry, Inferno, the Purgatorio, and Paradiso, right?
	The hell, purgatory, and heaven, uh, paradise.
	And everyone loves the inferno and purgatorio, right?
	Everyone loves purgatory and hell because it's just so fascinating.
	But the goal is to stay away from those.
	The goal is actually heaven.
	And yet, how often do we actually meditate on what would, what is heaven like?
	Because we actually, God has given us some insight into what heaven will be like.
	I think a lot of us imagine that it's like where you float around on the cloud.
	And I remember, remember the far side by Gary Larson?
	So there was one, one of my favorite little cartoons was, it was a split panel one and it was heaven and hell.
	And it was, hey, welcome to heaven.
	Here's your harp.
	And the one in hell was, welcome to hell.
	Here's your accordion.
	And it just always struck me as funny.
	But that's good.
	But heaven, we picture it as just kind of floating around, right?
	Bouncing from cloud to cloud.
	Maybe you have your harp.
	Maybe you're in a place of peace, which sounds great for maybe a day and a half or maybe less than that.
	And so I don't know that we're passionate about what God has actually revealed to us that heaven will be like.
	And here's a couple of things.
	One, God has revealed that we believe in this thing.
	We say it every Sunday in the Nicene Creed.
	We say, I believe in the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of the body, that ultimately we get our bodies back.
	And so in eternity, we have resurrected redeemed bodies.
	And we actually know what those will kind of sort of look like because we have pictures of Jesus.
	His resurrected body is what?
	It's agile, right?
	It can go from Emmaus, 12 miles away from Jerusalem, to Jerusalem in a moment.
	So that's what your body will be like.
	It can pass through walls.
	So that's what your body will be like.
	It doesn't get sick or break down.
	That's what your body will be like.
	There's all these like incredible power that comes from him.
	That's that's what St. Paul says.
	He's the first fruits of like what he has already, we will have.
	But those bodies then have to occupy space and time.
	And so the idea behind this is: okay, if you love this planet, if you love the idea of the solar system and the billions upon billions of galaxies that exist and the creative mind of God that can create so much beauty, that's just this world.
	What St. Paul says is, he says, but all creation is groaning because it too will be redeemed.
	What that means is those bodies, those resurrected bodies that God wants us to have back in eternity, they will take up, occupy space, not just floating around from cloud to cloud, but in a earth, on an earth, in a world or worlds that are just as real and even maybe even more real than the one we're in now.
	And so that's even just a glimpse, right?
	Here's what we believe when we say that one phrase every Sunday, the resurrection of the body, a resurrection of the dead.
	What we're saying is ultimately heaven will be, I don't want to say earth on steroids, but like this, this amplified reality that I think just like scripture says, we, I has not seen and hear has not heard, we have not even has not so much as entered into the mind of man what God has in store for us.
	Instead, we think, oh, clouds, floating, robes, harps.
	Right.
	It's not really what we want, what we aspire to exactly.
	And before we go to the dark side, can I ask you?
	I had my friends on last Monday, and it was a sad story, but ultimately one of redemption and one of hope.
	They lost their 17-year-old boy to myocarditis, and it was sudden and it was unexpected.
	They struggled for weeks and months to figure out what it actually was.
	No signs of illness, just died suddenly.
	And, you know, events like that have many of us asking, why, would God allow it?
	Why, why?
	And why when I pray every week to God to look over my children, or I light a candle for somebody who's suffering, you know, why do I do that?
	Because I believe there, there's the possibility of intervention, there's the possibility of help, there's a possibility of steerage, you know, that steering where you could design a good outcome.
	So there's that piece of it.
	But the other piece of it is we talk to them about all the signs they've been getting from Blake.
	What's the name of their boy?
	And I totally believe in the signs.
	I, having lost my father at a young age, I believe if you ask for a sign, you get one.
	You could make the argument that you're inventing them.
	I don't believe that.
	There's just too many in their case, in my case, and so many cases of people who have lost someone and who believe in something more, you know, in heaven.
	So do you believe in those signs?
	Are they coming from our lost loved ones?
	Is that God's hand making it?
	Like, what is that?
	And that's a great.
	And then let's speak to the, you know, what happened?
	Why, why did tragedies happen to begin with?
	Man, yeah.
	So there's two big questions.
	The big one is, is, um, is God God or not, right?
	And is he good or not?
	Which is it's a really big question we have to wrestle with.
	In fact, I think St. Thomas Aquinas had said, um, the only real argument against God's existence is that is the reality of suffering, the reality of evil.
	Because if God is all good and he's all powerful, then why is there suffering?
	He's either not all good, meaning he doesn't care, or he's not all powerful, meaning he can't do anything about it.
	And unless there's another option.
	And I just think about, I go all the way back to the very beginning of the Bible, all the way to the very end and realize, okay, so the very first, the very first sin, essentially, well, no, okay, eating an apple or eating the fruit, right?
	And we think, well, that's kind of silly.
	That was, you know, everything gets broken because we ate a piece of fruit.
	But it wasn't that.
	It was the big challenge was, do you trust him?
	Like, here's this God who's made this world.
	He made it good.
	He made you good.
	He is good.
	He's revealed himself as being good.
	And he's asked you, don't do this thing.
	But he's also given you freedom.
	And in that freedom, we say, I'm going to do the thing.
	I know what you've said.
	I know what you want.
	I don't care.
	I want what I want.
	Rather than trusting God.
	And this is one of those pieces that just is, that's what marks has marked our heart ever since then, which is, okay, God, if you're good, then you want me to have the thing.
	And then, and if you don't want me to have the thing, then you must be holding out on me.
	And so it's this, it's this wound of trust.
	Beyond that, is you think, like, wait, wait, God, you could have just stopped them.
	Why don't you just stop Adam and Eve from choosing this?
	Why don't you just stop me from making that stupid decision?
	Why don't you just stop the illness from progressing?
	And we recognize that God doesn't stop us from making choices.
	He doesn't stop us from saying no, because for whatever reason, God has made it clear that it's more important that we become people who are able to love than people who are simply safe.
	And if I'm going to love, if I'm going to say yes with all my heart, I have to also be able to say no with all my heart.
	But also, that's not really, also not really free.
	And so here's God who doesn't want robots and he doesn't want a bunch of pets.
	He ultimately reveals, no, I want sons and daughters who can live and love like me.
	And that means you have to be able to do it freely.
	And you also have to be able to risk something.
	And so we keep going back to this place of like, God, why don't you just take it away?
	Like, take away the suffering, take away the pain.
	And turns out that in the Christian revelation, is God does something even more, even more profound than removing the pain.
	He redeems the pain.
	Now, that is one thing for you and I to talk about this right now in the middle of a Tuesday, where it's just like we might be free of some serious suffering.
	It's a whole nother thing to talk with your friends who are in the midst of grief.
	But that sense of like, what do you mean, redeem the pain?
	Well, what is the central image of Christianity?
	It is a cross.
	And on that cross is a body.
	And it's not just the body of a human being.
	It's the body of God himself who took on a human body, who took on human nature.
	And in that body, he, what did he do?
	He lived and he suffered.
	He let death overwhelm him.
	He let the feeling of abandonment overwhelm him.
	He let it crush him.
	He actually let it kill him.
	And then he rose from the dead.
	And so there's no way, I mean, even though our hearts can be breaking and our hearts do break still, they still break up, obviously.
	But even though that happens, one of the things we recognize is we can never say, God, you have no idea what I'm going through.
	We can never say that.
	We can never say, God, you have no idea what it feels like to fill in the blank.
	Because here's God who's entered into the worst that human beings can go through, abandonment, betrayal, and suffering and death.
	And he said, I still choose you.
	And if he did it for any reason, well, I think for redemption, obviously, but he also did it so that we could trust him.
	And that's the thing is like, I just keep coming back to this place of in that place of grief.
	It's so hard to say what you would do.
	But right now, I can say the reason why what God has done with suffering is he's entered into it.
	So I can say, God, when in my suffering, when I'm on the cross, I know that I'm not by myself.
	You're with me.
	It's so hard to keep reminding yourself of that when tragedies come, you know?
	And it's one of the reasons why, like I was saying, signs mean so much.
	It's like, because we can't see God.
	We can't see heaven.
	We can't see Jesus.
	And so it's like, well, we can, we can see pictures, but, you know, it just seems like a reminder.
	It seems like a reach out.
	It just seems like a tap on the shoulder.
	It seems like a warm embrace.
God Entering Our Pain 00:15:09
	Yeah.
	And so that's why I, sorry, to go back to that, that, that point, I, yeah, they're kind of like winks, you know, my colleague, like you said, tap on the shoulder or embrace or a wink from heaven, that sense of those little reminders that I know this is all you see, but there's more.
	I, that this life is good, but broken, but there's more to this life than just this life.
	And yeah, so I, I mean, you know, people talk about ghosts or people talk about, you know, again, like you mentioned, your father or, or this young man.
	Blake.
	Yeah.
	Blake.
	And we're like, yeah, that makes sense.
	Why?
	Because we, we assert that they're not dead.
	Like we assert that, yes, here, their life on earth is over, but we know that they still exist.
	Like we know that they're still alive.
	We know that their spirit, their soul is alive.
	And so if we're going to assert that, then we also have to be open to the reality that, yeah, that, and there can be times when God allows those people to reach out in some way, shape or form.
	Wow.
	This is so, it's so good to hear, frankly.
	It's just so good to hear.
	There is, of course, a dark side, and it's not just hell.
	Father Mike is warning against the Ouija board.
	I'm dying to talk to you about this.
	That's as good a tease as we're going to get.
	I'll pause it there.
	We're going to pick it up there right after this break.
	Before we go to break, though, we are bringing you a memorable moment from February of this year, episode 270.
	Dakota Meyer joined by Rob O'Neill, two genuine American heroes.
	And Dakota told us the hilarious story of the time he received, oh, the Medal of Honor at the White House while intoxicated.
	The White House ran out of beer.
	They ran out of beer at the ceremony and they had to find a way to get more in, which it's not just going down to the 7-Eleven on the corner.
	That was very risky by you.
	Speaking of your big risks, I mean, can you imagine if you had like thrown up in the middle of the Medal of Honor ceremony?
	It would have been awful.
	You know, sometimes I don't really think about those things.
	You know, I, but I'll never forget, I didn't realize how, so everybody went in to sit down.
	I didn't realize how drunk I was until, you know, me, the president and, you know, Michelle, we walked in after everybody was in there together.
	And I'll remember walking in and I'm like, I am wasted.
	It was so fun talking to those guys.
	Another great episode.
	Check out those archives.
	I think you'll enjoy it.
	I would see things behind the curtain that the public had no clue about.
	And I was shocked that the general public does not have any clue of how certain things go.
	Now, people's business is people's business.
	But what I can't, what would drive me nuts is like, you know, people magazine, couple of the year.
	You're like, they're not a couple.
	He doesn't even like women.
	What a sham.
	What a, what a, oh, you know, this, this one, it's just, you would see things.
	Certain people would come in and they'd be it was disturbing.
	And if it was my brother or a friend of mine with some of the people, I'd go, Are you, is there something wrong with you?
	Like, there's something really disturbing wrong with you.
	But no one would say anything because, oh, well, you know, this one's a star.
	So good.
	So good.
	That was comedian Jim Brewer back in November of last year and episode 202.
	In an interview so compelling, it was one of the few we had to keep going even after we were off the air at Sirius XM.
	We just had to.
	We kept talking for another 30 minutes.
	Every single one of them is worth your time.
	You can find it on all podcast platforms and YouTube as well.
	This is one of those two.
	I could talk to Father Mike Schmitz all day long.
	We were just saying that during the break, Father, and we were also questioning your assertion that no one's ever come on to you.
	I think three of the women on this show are ready to do it before you sign off.
	Okay.
	But I digress.
	All right, let's go back to hell.
	None of us wants to go there.
	We know it's paved with the road.
	The road is paved with good intentions, but it may also be paved with your introduction of demons and evil spirits into your life.
	And this is easier to do than the average Joe or Jane may realize.
	Hence, the Ouija board discussion.
	What is it?
	I have one of these.
	I bought it last Halloween.
	I've never opened it.
	It's still got the saran wrap, you know, the plastic wrap around it.
	And I think you're going to tell me not to do it.
	I, you, see, you keep, you're, you're right on every single time you bring up like, I'm not sure if I'm a good Catholic.
	I don't know stuff.
	You know, all this stuff.
	This is great.
	You know exactly what I was going to say.
	So yeah, it's really fascinating.
	Now, obviously, um, I am not someone who would say that, you know, a demon looks around every corner or in everything that people could say.
	I was going to bring up, I, I think this weekend, I was, I was wondering, am I going to bring up Harry Potter when I, you know, preaching?
	Because I, I keep reading the books.
	They're just really well written and a great story.
	So I'm not one of those people who says like everything that looks like, you know, it could be demonic is at the same time.
	The motivation behind the Ouija board is actually something where I'm trying to contact spirits.
	And someone could say, well, I'm trying to contact nice spirits or good spirits.
	And the unfortunate thing we know about is that, yes, when God created angels, he created angels.
	They're good.
	They're beautiful.
	They're in harmony with him.
	But also we know that a number of those said no to God.
	And so like we mentioned in the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, they prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
	And there is an element where there's a danger.
	Now, I, so a person who's reasonable would say, but I'm just playing.
	And I would say, I completely understand that.
	And then I would say, at the same time, at the same time.
	You remember the movie The Exorcist?
	Of course.
	Yeah.
	How can you forget it?
	So that story is based off of two true stories.
	And one of the true stories is, I believe, about, if I can get the details right, is about a young man who was at, you know, kind of like a birthday party, some kind of celebration of some sort with kids.
	And they just busted out the Ouija board and just played for fun.
	But that was an entry point for what ultimately became a possession.
	And so I'm no expert when it comes to exorcism.
	I'm no expert when it comes to possession.
	But when you hear stories like that enough, you realize, okay, there's some danger.
	Maybe I don't play with it.
	Don't go there.
	So do you believe that there is a hell?
	And what would get you there?
	You know, if we understand how you get into heaven now, but what would get you into hell as opposed to just being resigned to purgatory?
	Yeah, that's a great question.
	So purgatory is the doorway to heaven.
	So keep that in mind.
	If you make it to purgatory, one more step, you're in heaven.
	And that's a whole nother discussion that I think is worth having, but hell.
	So one of the things we have to recognize is that Jesus, the one who loves us, the one who died for us, the one who we know is patient with us and compassionate, he is mercy himself.
	Jesus talks about hell more than any other figure in the Bible.
	And so we have to understand that this is not just something that we've made up.
	It's not something that is like some Christians believe this.
	This, if we are paying attention to Jesus and taking his him at his word, then we realize that it is possible for us to choose.
	He's made it possible for us to choose God, which is awesome.
	But it also is possible for us to say, no, I'd rather not.
	And so a couple of things that we, that we, I mean, I love my buddy C.S. Lewis and C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, as well as in the book, The Screwtype Letters.
	Have you ever read either of those books, either of those books?
	I read Mere Christianity after Spencer Clavin came on and was singing its praises.
	It's amazing.
	It was life-changing.
	I learned so much.
	And of course, his writing is just spectacular anyway.
	Oh, it is.
	It's so good.
	He's so clear.
	And that's one of the things I love to, he takes complex ideas and he can make them completely accessible to a normal human being like us.
	And so C.S. Lewis talks about this and he says, okay, based on what we know about God and based on what we know about sin is, okay, so my definition of sin is always, okay, it's never an accident because I can't sin accidentally.
	It's always a choice.
	It's ever a mistake.
	It's something I know.
	I actually decided to do this.
	So sin, I would define it like this.
	It's when we say, God, I know what you want.
	I don't care.
	I want what I want.
	And so it doesn't have to mean like someone got hurt.
	It doesn't have to mean like it was really violent or really nasty.
	It can simply be, yeah, no, no, no, God, I know what you want.
	I just want what I want.
	And so you go all the way back to that first sin, you know, in Genesis chapter three.
	They were, it was very clear.
	They knew exactly what God wanted.
	Hey, just, you want to stay in a relationship with me, just don't eat this piece of fruit.
	And that's why it can, that summarizes for all of us, like, that is what happens every single time that I sin.
	Ultimately, I might not think of it this way, but ultimately what I'm doing is I'm saying, God, I know what you want.
	I just don't care.
	I want what I want.
	Because of that, because God has given us freedom, he actually gives us the, it's radical freedom.
	He gives us the capacity to get what we've chosen.
	And if I choose anything other than God, then I get it.
	And that sense of, or if I say this, God, I don't choose you.
	I choose something else.
	I choose myself.
	I choose whatever.
	Then we have the freedom that he actually respects our decision so fully that he's okay.
	I mean, again, not like he's like, okay, fine, as if he's impassioned or disparate, impartial to this because he loves us.
	He's established that.
	But that's why C.S. Lewis says that hell is a door locked from the inside.
	That we sometimes imagine like, here's, we stand before the judgment seat of God, you know, those some of those phrases.
	And like, as if God's saying, go to hell.
	And we're saying, no, please not that.
	C.S. Lewis reframes that.
	And I really, I think he reframes it according to the Christian tradition.
	And he says that it'd be God.
	Essentially, he could be begging for us.
	Just say yes to me.
	Just let that lay down your pride.
	Lay down whatever it is that's holding you back from me and come into my presence.
	And we're like, no, I'd rather not.
	And we see this, right?
	And he describes this.
	We've seen this in ourselves as children.
	We've seen this in other children who would rather lock themselves in their room rather than just say they're sorry and come down and have dinner.
	That sense of like, but that, but being fixed in that place of saying, I'd rather be miserable.
	That doesn't seem like something that could get you into hell.
	Like I think about the people who don't go to confession, like me.
	I mean, I've gone, but I had a very negative confessional experience.
	My oldest child is 12.
	On his first communion, you know, the kids have to go to their first confession first.
	And I've told this story before.
	It's a crazy story.
	Not to you, but to most people.
	I sat, it was face to face.
	Now, here is my mistake, father.
	I was with a Franciscan.
	I later found out I should have been with a Jesuit, but I sat in there and he asked me about my history.
	I had been 10 years since my last confession.
	And I told him I had been married once and got a divorce and I didn't have an annulment.
	And that I got remarried.
	Now I am the mother of three children and they're raising them to be Catholic.
	And that's why we're here for my son's first communion, blah, blah, blah.
	So he's chatting and chatting, chatting, going on.
	And finally, I'm kind of like, Father, you got to kind of wrap it up.
	Can I have my penance?
	Like, how many our fathers?
	How many hair male hair men?
	I got to get out of here.
	And he says, well, it's complicated.
	Like, what do you mean?
	He's like, well, you got married in a Catholic church.
	You didn't get an annulment.
	And so technically, the church views you as living in sin.
	And I can't absolve you because you didn't get an annulment and you don't plan on leaving your husband.
	Right.
	I'm like, right.
	And he said, well, I said, well, what are my options?
	And he said, well, a lot of people choose to live as brother and sister in this relationship, which is just absurd.
	I'm like, okay, so you want me to ruin a good marriage where we have a lovely, you know, and faith-driven marriage and, you know, family?
	You want me to ruin it by treating him as my brother, which I do still use on Doug Sunday mornings or Saturday mornings.
	He rolls over.
	I'm too tired of my brother.
	Anyway, the long story to say, he kicked me out without absolving me.
	I'm like, can't we just table the big sin over here?
	Just give me the absolution for all the others.
	He's like, nope, that's not how it works.
	Anyway, I remain unabsolved.
	So I'm upset about that.
	So I'm a sinner.
	So if I die tomorrow, according to this guy, I'm going to hell.
	And maybe according to you, I'm not sure.
	I don't believe it.
	Right.
	No, that makes sense.
	I mean, it makes sense that that would be like a horrible.
	There are times where, okay, to back up, I would say that to have that experience is just the worst because here you are going in like, okay, I'm approaching the throne of mercy, right?
	I'm approaching the seat of mercy.
	I'm approaching this God who I've been told and I do believe that he loves me and he loves me and my brokenness 100%.
	Absolutely.
	But then to have that heartbreak, I really do mean it like this heartbreak.
	I did cry.
	Yeah, I can't, I can't imagine.
	I can't imagine how hard it would be for anybody.
	But to be able to say, okay, here I am.
	And because I imagine, Megan, that there's an element to of just, I feel rejected.
	Yeah.
	And even the fact that you are still saying, no, but I'm still raising my kids Catholic.
	I'm still going to Mass.
	I'm still, you know, striving.
	I'm still doing my best.
	That's incredible.
	And I would say that that is, that is a sign of what we would call like lively faith.
	That's a sign of a faith that's alive is that, okay, because I had this bad experience and because, okay, I was told some things that I really am wrestling with right now, but I'm still coming back.
	I cannot commend you enough because that is, that's remarkable.
	I can't imagine going through that heartbreak and then still saying, well, here we are on Sunday, you know?
	But I imagine it, yeah, I can't imagine how much it must have pierced, broken your heart.
	The other option essentially would be, maybe you mentioned this, would be to apply for a declaration of nullity for that first marriage.
	I have looked into that.
	It is the most intrusive document.
	I don't know if you looked at these things, but it's like, how many times did you former partner have said?
	It was like, it was so much information.
	I'm like, oh my God, I'm not giving all this information to a total stranger.
Healing Through Annulment 00:04:11
	Yeah.
	And that makes sense too, because On the flip side, while it is very, uh, every person who participates in it has to go through like a really big uh kind of examination of what was our married life like that in that first marriage.
	I've spoken with a lot of couples who have, you know, individuals who have gone through the process and said, That was more healing than I thought it would be, because that's part of what the annulment process is meant to be.
	It's meant to say, Okay, let me go back, you know, as painful as it could be.
	Let me go back there and like, let's walk through this story again.
	Let me just get a Jesuit to absolve me.
	So then, easygoing priests because then the ultimately, the story would be this: the story is, um, the Lord, here's what I would say, and this is not to uh here's what I know about you, Megan.
	I know I know that God loves you very much.
	I know that.
	I know that He's given you the gift of faith, and I know you have a story.
	We all have stories, that's the thing.
	We all have a history, but here's what I know: that God is a part of that story, and your story isn't over yet.
	There is this obstacle, but you have an incredible marriage now and incredible kids, and that is real.
	And that's part of the story.
	That's again, it's not like saying it's not part of the story, it's 100% part of the story.
	And the invitation is not again to have a marriage where you're brother and sister.
	I think that part of that story would be able to say, Okay, can I, can I apply for this declaration of nullity?
	Can I address this issue of this wound?
	I'm going to imagine the divorce was a wounding thing too.
	I can imagine having so much hope in that first marriage when it starts out, and then how much having so much heartbreak when it ended.
	But I do believe this: I do believe that the God who has loved you still loves you, and the one who you have faith in right now, I don't think this is the end of your story.
	I think this would be a really good next step.
	Um, at the same time, I know that that's not um, it's not quick, it's not easy, but here's where I don't jump.
	Um, we know that there are objective things for all of us that, like, okay, this is a no, you have to always not do this.
	Here's a yes, you have to always do this, and we fail at that.
	But I can never jump and say, Well, Jack, you did X, therefore you're going to hell because I don't know the story, I only know the surface of the story, and I hardly even know that.
	I know some details you just shared with me.
	Um, so I know there's some, okay, objectively, here's what, here's where we're at right now, but also that's one of the reasons why Jesus makes it very, very clear.
	He says, Do not judge lest you be judged, you cannot condemn lest you be condemned.
	Um, because you never, we never know someone's full story.
	And I would say that, um, again, going back to this place, and I just, I really mean this, Megan, your story isn't over, and I believe that God wants to continue blessing you and your family.
	And I think maybe one of maybe one of those ways he can continue blessing you and your family is that next step of the declaration of nullity.
	And again, I don't mean to be intrusive right now.
	I'm so sorry that I'm like, I feel like I'm preaching, but I just, I, you brought it up.
	So, so I feel, I feel like he blessed me today with this interview and just getting to meet you and hear your thoughts and your explanations.
	And Abby, get those forms and you start filling them out.
	You know what happened in the first marriage.
	Father Mike, thank you so much.
	Would you please come back?
	I would love to continue the conversation.
	I would love to.
	I would love to.
	Awesome.
	All right.
	And we'll make sure we'll promote the catechism in a year.
	It hasn't yet launched, but it's going to soon.
	All the best to you.
	And to be continued.
	Really, really enjoyed that.
	I hope you did as well.
	I think it's for everybody.
	You don't have to be Catholic to enjoy that.
	Just, you know, his thoughts on the afterlife and so on.
	The vast majority of people do believe.
Closing with Gratitude 00:00:30
	Tomorrow, we'll be joined by somebody who left his quote religion altogether, and that is Mike Rinder, who was a Scientologist and he was high up in Scientology.
	He was part of Sea Org, which is like the grand poobah section of Scientology.
	He's out with a new book called A Billion Years.
	It's about his life in the church, why he left.
	He dishes on celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and much, much more.
	Don't miss that tomorrow.
	See you then.
	Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no

Chapters

00:00:00 Provocative Priest Confessions
00:14:22 Setting Boundaries in Ministry
00:28:33 Invoking Guardian Angels
00:33:20 The Bible Is Not Hallmark
00:40:25 Navigating Abortion Rights
00:47:17 Mercy for the Unworthy
01:02:28 Suffering and Divine Love
01:15:24 God Entering Our Pain
01:30:34 Healing Through Annulment
01:34:46 Closing with Gratitude