December 18, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of It’s a Numbers Game, Ryan sits down with Father Nick Colalella to explore the deeper meaning of Catholic faith, scripture, and daily spiritual practice. Father Nick shares his personal journey to the priesthood and explains why understanding the Bible in its original languages can transform how Catholics read and live the Word of God. The conversation dives into the importance of regular Mass attendance, the reality of God’s forgiveness, and the essential role the Church plays in shaping a faithful and meaningful life. Father Nick also offers practical, accessible resources for those curious about Catholicism and reflects on the saints who continue to inspire his vocation. Whether you’re a lifelong Catholic or simply exploring questions of faith, this thoughtful discussion offers insight into living out belief with purpose, discipline, and community.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to a Numbers game with Ryan Gurdusky. Thank you
guys for being here. We are one week away from Christmas,
and if you were like me, you are not ready
at all. This weekend is going to be a marathon
in the life of Ryan Gurdusky to try to get
everything ready in the last few days and make it
all seem pretty effortless. And so if you're by any
(00:22):
stretch of the imagination seeing me running through a mall
or store and a complete panic, just look, just know
I don't always look like that. Before I get to
my topic, I have some pretty funny gossip that I
think you guys would like. I was invited to a
cool Christmas party that I wanted to tell you about it.
I was invited to the Mediaite Christmas party. Media I
is kind of a lefty center left website that covers
(00:44):
all things media. So I got the invitation last week
and I immediately thought, Okay, this is either a mistake,
which they follow up and said it was a mistake,
or that it was going to be a very d
list event, because you know, I know I was invited,
so I couldn't have possibly been like a very cool thing.
But I expectations Bernhei going in, I went thinking, Okay,
it's gonna be a bunch of bloggers or whatnot. And
(01:05):
I walk in the door and the first person, first
two people I see is Joe and Mika from Morning Joe,
and I'm like, uh, okay, and then Brian Stelter from
CNN walks in right behind me, and I just all
of a sudden it dinged on me like it's not
going to be a Dalist party. It's going to be
a liberal party. And I am the token conservative that
(01:27):
was invited. That's why I thought walking in, and I
was immediate scrambling with like, okay, who on earth is
going to talk to me for the next hour while
I just have a glass of wine circle try to
find the host of the party and thank them for
inviting me, because I'm never really invited to a lot
of events, so I wanted to at least thank them
for inviting me with the hope that, you know, I
would be invited to something else in the future. So
(01:48):
I see Joe and Mika, who I saw actually at
a party in twenty twelve. It was a Fox News
MSNBC mixer in twenty twelve ahead of the New Hampshire
Republic in primary and this is when Joe Meeka were
just colleagues, even though that they very clearly in front
of everybody else didn't seem to be colleagues anyway. So
(02:09):
I'm circling the room and I'm trying to find somebody
who will like maybe one other conservative or center right person,
and I see Scott Jennings from CNN sitting down in
the corner and he's talking to somebody. And I'm always
under the assumption that no one knows who I am.
I just feel like, you know, because I work so
much by myself, and I don't you know, I'm not
always like stopped or whatever. Once in a while happens.
(02:31):
But I walk up to Scott Jennings and I just
put up my hand. I go, hi, I'm Ryan gar Dusky.
He just goes, yeah, I know, I know you are.
You're kind of very well known on senn among scenen
circles anyway. Could have been nicer, a little more subdued
in real life than I thought he was, because some
of these people who are very like show business y,
(02:52):
even in the political media world, they're like, you know,
they are very performative even in private, and he's not
like that. He was very real, kind of just hung out,
really real guy. And there was a guy saying next
to him, and I was like, who is this person?
Like why is this guy chatting his ear up? So
when the guy got up, I go, who is that?
He goes, Oh, it's you know, it's an agent and
you know I was throwing his card at me or whatever.
(03:14):
And I realized that almost all of the talent, or
not all of them, I would say at least half
of the talent was there with their agents, and the
agents were like walking them around to meet certain people.
And I was like, this is like extremely this is
like watching an owner of a prize horse, like showing
them to different people is very weird. Anyway, I see
Megan Kelly and she couldn't have been nicer. I was
(03:36):
a complete horre and just asked her to come back
on her show. I was like, ha, me back and
people from the podcast where there to Vicky Ward. I
had her on about Epstein. She was great. She's working
on a new book about Luigi Menas, Scott Mangioni, Luvisy
Mangioni The Killer, So we were talking about that for
a little while and I saw Alex Thompson from Axios
and we're talking about the Bidens and he's working on
(03:58):
all these stories about the twenty twenty eight Democrat primary.
So we're talking about Gavin Newsom, you know, sharing funny
stories about what he's like. And then I run into
a girl and she must have been like twenty five
years old something like that, twenty five to thirty that range,
and she just goes to me, you know, New York's
not the scene that it used to be. And I
was like, who are you like Frand label with so
(04:19):
he used to hang out Andy Warhol in the seventies
and now you're not. I'm like, when was the scene?
And she's like twenty fifteen, and I'm like, I these
people are just young people who think they've been through
more than they have. Just exhausted me anyway, and then
this is the kind of crazy thing. So I as
I'm leaving, I see someone else who a journalist who
I know I'm not gonna name his name because I
don't want to give him, you know, publicity, but he
(04:42):
was His company that he had worked for at the time,
was ruthless to me when the whole scene in episode
happened last year. So I just say hello briefly because
I'm like, you know, I'm not gonna be rude. And
he was talking to Ari Mulber, who was just being
He's just being someone very very interested in himself. And
I said to him, I said, tom, oh, I've been
on your I was on your show like ten years ago.
(05:03):
And he was like, my show wasn't existed for ten years.
I'm like, okay, it was twenty seventeen, whatever that math is,
that's when I was on your show. Very very smart guy. Anyway,
the reporter who has been not very kind to me
throughout the last year, his company has not been very
kind to me. He ends the conversation by saying, if
you have any scoops, please pass them my way. And
(05:25):
I was like, I would never give you a scoop.
Your outlet is left wing trash, and you've did nothing
besides trash me.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Why would I give you scoops?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Which is just it is so commonplace for journalists who
are so under the belief that yeah, I could trash you,
but we're all friends, we're all kind of in the
business together, or whatever whatever they believe. I was like,
this is the worst kinds of people. So that was
the really cool scoop of the entire story, and you know,
(05:54):
the media and just the people who still work there.
I thought it was really funny and my audience would
enjoy it. But I wanted to so I want to
tell you guys about that, and I wanted to take
a second to talk to you about what is upcoming,
which is Christmas. And you know, it's not just about
Christmas parties and shopping and wrapping gifts and trying to
take the season as much as possible. So I want
to talk about the faith and about faith in particular.
(06:16):
I know it's not a religious podcast, but it is
I think appropriate given this season. I am Catholic. I
put it in my bio in part because I got
so tired of people calling me a fat Geo on Twitter.
I thought that maybe they'll mix it up and call
me a fat Italian, but it hasn't really worked out anyway.
I am Catholic. I was born and raised in the faith.
I briefly kind of walked away from it during college
(06:36):
and the end of high school. I guess there's a
lot of people do, and came back to on my
own accord. And as I've continue to age and as
I break down data a lot, I noticed how important
matters of faith and religion are and how much they
are Like religion is like a muscle, right, So if
you only go to the gym two or three times
a year and you quit every few months, this is
(06:58):
someone like me. If you're not super diligent and you're
not going to see gains. You may be able to
put off some weight, but you're not going to see
gains like you are. And if you're somebody who only
typidly or randomly attends church and only praise really when
the aeroplane is about to take off and the doors closed,
you're probably not educating yourself that much on faith. You're
probably not developing a deep relationship. You're probably not and
(07:22):
I say this as a Catholic who both has done
a lot of work on faith and still has a
lot to do, so no judgment on it, but you're
probably not getting to a place where you feel very
strongly about it. And you can't get to a place
of deep devotion, let alone exploring the really interesting things
like mysticism or miracles or other stuff. If you don't
(07:45):
put the work in and I know religion, it's a
very bad rap. People make a lot of false claims
about religion, that they're all the same, or that their
response for all the history of all the wars in
the world, and that you know, they've only been negative.
It's only been a negative institute that has worked to
divide people and break down people and use for powerful
(08:07):
men to just kind of, you know, control everything. And
I remember this a long time ago, and I've never
told the story before. A long long time ago. I
was campaigning for a candidate running for office, and as
most of my life story has been, and there was
a woman there and she had run in the Democratic
primary and for I think city council or something like
(08:29):
that lost and she was getting into it with like
and this is a long time ago, so like one
of the first purple haired you know, they thems I've
ever seen before, and they were the they them, the
super liberal was going aftim about religion. This woman, this
Democrat who had run for office like owned and a
(08:50):
very like in a very substantial way, owned this like,
very progressive person who clearly hated religion. And she said
she was just giving a brief history on the Catholic
Church in New York City in the last thirty years,
things that I did not know, things that people kind
of bypass. She was specifically talking, and this was a
(09:12):
gay person. She was talking about the AIDS epidemic, and
she's like, the only places that would take AIDS patients
was the Catholic Church, Catholic hospitals. She's like, it was
the nuns who were doing the work that the government
refused to do. And I don't remember every detail she
laid because she laid it on one after the other. Failder.
And this was, you know, over ten years ago. But
I was, I was, I was very taken aback about
(09:34):
how this woman, who is probably you know, central life,
she was clearly a Democrat, was able to stand up
for her faith and not interfere with her politics, and was
able to sit there and stand up for it in
the face of somebody where it would have been so
convenient to join them and say no, this is a
force for good. And I wanted to present my audience
(09:55):
with some numbers that she want thinking about that. So
here are some some numbers on why religion in your life,
in your society is a force for good. Students who
attend church as a high school senior more often are
the most likely students to have as. This has been
true since nineteen seventy six. Forty two percent of millennials
(10:16):
who attend church weekly are reported to be very happy,
compared to just twenty two percent who never attend church.
The most likely to a person to attend church, by
the way, is a college degree holder. According to the
Manhattan Institute, they found that church attendance by Republicans is
linked to lower levels a feeling of racism, anti semitism,
and conspiracy theories. In other words, to attend church is
(10:38):
to have a greater level of social trust than those
who do not attend. Christians who attend mass cricuently are
more likely to say it's good to be alive, that
they are a person of worth, and the future doesn't
seem like it's hopeless. Compared to zele At, atheists are
not people who just fall away from religion. These are
people who actively hate religion. Those people have significantly more
likely to say that life is hopeless and that they
(10:59):
aren't very youthful. You even see this in conversations with
like zoomers and millennials about children, those who want to
have children, and those who, you know, maybe they can't
find a partner, maybe they put it off, but they
want to have children, and they think that having children
is important and good versus those who say the world's
so bad, or that you know, it's it's a plague
on the world and the environment and the earth or whatnot,
(11:21):
it's you could That's a very clear dividing line. And
while religion is often correlated with poverty, it's and that's
true on a global scale for sure, But in America
in twenty twenty five, those who earn one hundred thousand
dollars a year are more likely to attend mass than
those who make less than fifty thousand years and fifty
thousand dollars a year, and people who attend church frequently
(11:41):
are more likely to give at least two percent of
their income to charity. They're more more likely to live longer,
and until the last decade, across the board, they were
more likely to have social trust. It's a little wonky
in some data on social trust recently, but certainly before then,
they were more likely to trust people who look differently
than them and look the same as that so if
religion has all these benefits, there's the benefits of society,
(12:04):
these benefits to yourself. Why don't people participate more? And
why are people doing it less and less? I think
because it's difficult. You know, It's one it's easier to
be lazy, which is why sloth is a sin. It's
easier to you know, sleep in on a Sunday, or
go to the park, or hang out with friends or
watch the football game. It's it's difficult, it's time consuming.
It's time to take out of yourself and put somewhere
(12:27):
at like and put into someone else where you're not
the center of attention, where you're not taking selfies, where
you're not scrolling or doom scrolling or commenting snightly on
Twitter like myself. You're placing your entire being in you know,
in a different in a different realm, when you're really
focused and you're really there and you're and you're you're
(12:48):
in that place. I can't describe it anyone else. In
that place, it's a special place where you're completely in
tune with the mass, with the music, with lighting the
candles and with deep, deep prayer. And you know, I
get why it's hard and I get why people who
have doubts say it's not for me, or I'll figure
it out once I get older and once I have children,
(13:09):
And a lot of people do, but some people don't.
But if you're interested in, if you're curious, it is
like going to the gym. You have to really put
the work in. I've always believed that faith is a journey.
It's not a guilt trip. Nothing that I'm going to
say is going to make you want to do it
if you don't. But society, we as a people and
us individually are better even if you have doubts, even
(13:30):
if you're sitting there and saying, I don't know if
everything that my church says is true, is important to
go because we as a community are better when we
go together. And those countries that don't have high levels
of social trust, like especially the non homogenous countries, not
like Denmark or Norway, which is no religious attendance, but
(13:52):
everyone is basically of the same cultural background that they're
able to sit there and continue levels of high social
capital if it's decreasing and create like incredibly incredibly fast
rate because of immigration. But those who sit there and
those people who have high levels of social trust is
often oftentimes correlated with religion. So I just would say
(14:14):
this to my listeners. If you're looking back at last
year and saying, you know, I had a great year,
but I could have done some things differently. I could
have read more. This is my biggest gripe. Is I
didn't read enough this year, Or you're saying to yourself,
I didn't go to the gym enough. I gain too
much weight, And look for a second in your spirituality,
Look for a second where you've put faith this year.
(14:35):
Look for a second how you've practiced and how you've
shown yourself. Even if you say you're a Christian or
you say you're proudly Jewish or whatnot, how did you
display that to the world. How did you show that
you are a leader of some sort in your everyday life?
How did you push and promote that to other people?
That maybe being preachy, but I know in the last
(14:56):
couple of years about a lot of guys, young men
who said to me I'm really thinking about being Catholic.
And I've always said, like, I'm here, I want to
talk to you. If you want to talk to me,
I'll tell you the ups the downs, things out I'm
talking to one young guy right now who's twenty four
and he's evangelical, and he said to me, you know,
I'm thinking about becoming Catholic, and I say, let me,
let's talk about it. Let me show you by example
(15:18):
and let me talk to you about the bigger things
and help point you in that way. If that's your
place to be, So think about that and try to
prioritize it for twenty twenty six. I think that is.
I think that maybe if we're trying to move to
a healthier place, both as individuals and as a society,
I think religion plays a big part of that. So
not to sound preachy, not to sound like I got
it all figured out, because lord knows I don't. I
(15:40):
think it's worth passing that message on as we're getting
to the Christmas holiday and the Christmas season. So with that,
I am having on as my very special guest for
the first time I think he's ever done a podcast,
is my priest. It's going to be great, it'll be
very interesting. That's coming up next with me on today's
episode is my priest father, Nick. Father Nick, thank you
(16:03):
for being here. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
You're very welcome. Thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So, Father Nick, you are You're the first priest I
ever had who's actually younger than me. When did you
become a priest? When did you get decide that this
was your life's journey?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Well, I think had I sensed a vocation to the
priestood very very young. So I went to parochial school
and I began to serve Mass when right after I.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Received communion about seven years old.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And I always felt very close to the church and
very interested in what the church was doing, especially at Mass.
And so after I graduated high school, I wanted to
see if the seminary was something that was for me,
and so I joined and it kind of went from there.
So I was ordained ten years ago in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And you studied for a long time in Rome.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Correct, So, so I finished my philosophy studies at Think Johns.
I went through the Pontifical North American College in Rome,
which is the US bishop's seminary next to the Vatican,
and I studied at the Gregorian University. I did another
bachelor in theology, and then after that I studied for
four more years at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. We seemed
(17:20):
a graduate degree from there, and then after that I
studied at Catholic University and I got another master's degree
in Biblical languages, so Semitic languages.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, when I met Fathernick, he said that, he spoke,
I get eight languages. But then he said, but seven
of them are dead or something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yes, yes, exactly, yes, most of them are dead.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So that's not extremely useful, no, no, in my biblical
stuff yet.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, of course. And you know it's great because when
Father Nick does his homilies a lot of times he
will discuss the language used in the writings and how
the English translation doesn't always manifest as accurately as it
possibly should have or could have in the language.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Sure, right, So obviously the Bible was originally written in
various languages. So we know that the Old Testament was
written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and then the original language
of the New Testament was what we say coin a Greek,
which is a dialect of ancient Greek. And so studying
and being familiar with the ancient languages I think helps
(18:24):
us to really approximate the meaning better of the scriptures
than from just a translation, because there's an Italian saying
that every translator is also a traitor, because when you
translate something, you're sort of somewhat removed from the original text,
and so learning the original languages kind of allows you
to sort of get the original flavor of what the
(18:48):
author wanted to convey to the audience. And so that's
why it's helpful to know a little bit about the
original languages of the scripture.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And this not to be a Catholic supremacist for any
product and phantomime, but this is why a priest is
so much more important than private study groups with just
a circle of friends who are already in the English dialects.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Sure, so again, you know it's good I mean faith sharing.
I mean the Scripture is the word of God, so
it does have something to say to each and every
one of us by virtue of our faith. But it's
Bible study and really delving into the different meanings of
scripture through knowledge of the original text brings you to
(19:32):
a fuller knowledge. And so you know, there are only
a very few people that are capable of doing that,
and so I do feel somewhat privileged to be able
to read the scriptures in their original but you know,
that's the knowledge that I'm very happy to share with them.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So my whole monologue was about the benefits of physical church, right.
Why attending an actual mass, not just saying I'm a
Christian or I'm a Catholic who never shows up, or
maybe he just shows up once a year, The benefits
to someone's personal life, the benefits to society. And I
have family members even who have sat there and said
(20:08):
to me, why is it so important just to go
to a church? Why can I not be just a
more fulfilled I guess, or a practicing Catholic who doesn't
attend Mass. I could just read the Bible at home.
Why is it imported?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Well, I think you know that really gets Yeah, no,
I think that gets at the nature of what scripture
is and what the church is, because when Jesus ascended
into Heaven, he didn't leave us a Bible. He left
us a church. He left us, for better or for worse,
a juridical and hierarchical structure that we recognize even in
(20:44):
extra biblical texts and from tradition. So as Catholics, you know,
Protestants have Martin Luther was very famous for saying sola scriptua,
which means only scripture. So his point of contention was,
you know, there is is a lot of corruption in
the church, and the church since perhaps the Middle Ages
(21:04):
has lost its way, it's not as pristine as the
church as Jesus left it. And so what they did
was they sort of abandoned the church structure as it
was and went directly and only to sacred scripture. But
the problem with that, of course, is that like I said,
Jesus did not leave us sacred scripture. He left us
the church for better or for worse. And of course
(21:27):
the Church is, you know, both human and divine, and
so there are going to be problems. But the way
we do that is not dispensing with church's trying to
renew it with our own life. And so, you know,
the scripture is something that the Church itself has produced
and has declared authentic and inspired. And so you can't
(21:49):
have a Bible without a church, and you can't really
have a church without a Bible. And so for Catholics,
it's about not only scripture, it's about scripture and tradition.
Tradition meaning what the Lord left us in terms of
liturgy and sacraments. And teachings. I mean, even at the
(22:10):
end of the Gospel of John, he says, but there
are also many other things which Jesus did. Were every
one of them to be written, I suppose that the
world itself would not contain the books that would have
been written. And so again there's much more to our
faith and scripture. I mean, obviously scripture is as countered revelation.
It's very very important.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
But Christ calls us to.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
A communion, to a community of faith, and the community
of faith is fully expressed in our common worship and
in our common gathering on Sunday. It's a commandment. And
so for people that say, you know, I just want
to read scripture or pray by myself, well, that's not
obeying the commandment to keep holy the Sabbath, because from
(22:54):
the earliest times Christians prayed together. That was the whole point.
And if you see even in the Acts of the Apostle,
the way in which the first Christians live was in community,
and they shared everything and they prayed together. And that's
just a reflection of what we believe about who God
is in himself, in the Holy Trinity. It's not just
(23:15):
sort of a being that is turned in on himself.
It is a communion, a community of persons that his
Father's done and Holy stood. And so the communion or
the community of believers expresses the fullness of our faith
when we come together on Sunday and when we read scripture,
and when we practice tradition as a community. And so
(23:38):
that you know, there's an important ecclesiology fundamentally that somebody
that would say, Okay, well I'm just going to you know,
practice this by myself, that kind of goes against that ecclesiology.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So we're coming on to the Christmas, coming up to
Christmas faster than I am prepared for it. And a
lot of people we go into math one of the
two three times year they ever attend what and some
will just not attend at all? Why is in this
important season second most important, I guess to Easter in
(24:13):
the faith? Why is it? Why is regular attendance into
a mass I equated to working out?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
If you go to the gym three times a year,
you're not going to get you know any kind as
someone from experience who goes a little more than three
times a year, but not much. The more you kind
of can go and spend time in your faith in
some capacity, you're going to be able to really kind
(24:45):
of and as a man who studied a lot, kind
of delve into the more the most interesting parts of
the religion. If you're just getting the very basics of
the life of Jesus and why it's important to do better,
you can and really go and actually be a fully
part of it and understand on a deeper level that
sometimes it's above my head, but I know, but I
(25:07):
can appreciate and try to learn as much as humanly possible.
What what is it? What would you say to somebody
who just sits there and says not to take people
who are just lazy and they can't wake up on Sunday.
But take people who sit there and say it's just
not my thing. And I don't think that the church
wants to accept people like me. There are people like that.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Sure, Yeah, well, you know again, the church is a
mother that wants to embrace all of her children no
matter what. And so people that might feel somewhat excluded
or disenfranchised or a little shy about church for whatever reason.
You know, church is there for people for everyone, you
(25:52):
know who feels that there's some sort of lack or
disorder or trouble in their interior life. I mean, the
church is made for sinners, it's made for people that
feel lost. It's made for people precisely about whom you're describing.
And I think that, you know, this season reminds us
(26:13):
that just as God came down into this world in
a very kind of in the midst of chaos, in
the midst of darkness, that's what the Lord does even today.
He enters into our life, or he wants to at least,
and he doesn't mind that our soul is a bit
messy or chaotic or noisy or disordered, right, because that's
(26:35):
how He entered the world to begin with.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
He was not born in a palace, He is not
born in a hotel or you know, there was even
no room for him in the end, and so he
was born in the midst of you know, a manger
with with noise and smells and all kind of chaos. Right,
And so I think, you know, kind of maybe something
(26:59):
to think about is the way in which Saint Luke
presents the birth of Christ, because this is how the
birth of Christ came about, and he describes the circumstances.
I think as a spiritual exercise. Maybe that's something that
we can think about. You know, how does the birth
of Christ come about in my life? Where do I
(27:22):
feel the need to be loved or to be embraced,
or what's the brokenness in my life that needs to
be healed or what's the chaos that needs Christ's peace?
And so the Christmas season is a way or an
invitation or a moment to really ponder that question. Because
(27:44):
the Lord wants to enter into our lives. And again
he does that through the sacraments of the Church. Because
the sacraments aren't just a ritual. They're not just something
that we do over and over them because it's a tradition.
They actually impart something that's called thanktified and great, which
means that it's God's life that wants to dwell within
(28:04):
us and that changes us. And so that's why a
regular practice of the faith is beneficial and I would
say salubrious. It's healthy because it enables the natural virtues
that we have to grow exponentially because you know, as
human beings, we have so many limits. We're finite beings.
(28:27):
But if we allow Christ to enter into our life,
not just through our personal prayer. But through the sacraments
and through the grace that God gives us through those sacraments,
then we sort of are able to achieve the goal
for which we are created, which is to live in
peace with Christ.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Something that I grapple with and say I think about
is how to insert faith in not I mean not
in every single area of my life, but in most
areas where I can. So. I'm a boss, I have
a bunch of employees. Being a leader and showing leadership
in that faith and in that tradition is very, very
(29:07):
important to me. Making sure that I represent someone who
is honorable and leader and leadership and promoting things that
I think that are important. To sit there, and you know,
I will have rego conversations with people I don't know
super well, kind of intrusive conversations about why if they're
looking at this, why they should explore Cathos. And I've
(29:30):
met probably like four or five young men, all young
men who have converted to the faiths in the last
couple of years, and I'm basically begging at them at
this point to be their sponsor, and no one's taking
me up on the offer. But though, what are what
are we called to aside from loving people, which I
know is a big task and something that is I
(29:50):
guess the whole entire picture. What are we called for
in our daily life as practicing Catholics especially, but as
Catholics to sit there and to do most where? Or
can we fill this? Boy this not not philivoid, but
show our faith in our daily life in some some avenue.
What I'm saying it was a little slong.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, sure so. I mean there is a book that
was meant for this. It's called it's called The Imitation
of Christ, and it was written in the Middle Ages,
but if you read it, it sounds like something that
was maybe written a week ago, because it addresses these
very issues. How do I practice the faith day to day?
(30:29):
And you know, I think one of the things is
that we read the New Testament and we look at
what Christ does and how he does it. How does
he encounter, for example, a mother whose son has died.
How does he relate to his disciples kind of maybe
in his employees, right, how does he interact with them?
(30:52):
What words does he use? What's his tenor in speaking?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And so we looked upon the person of Christ, we
dwell with those images, we pray with them, and then
we try to put them into practice ourselves. So I
think to summarize the entire Christian life, we can say
it's an imitation of Christ. How does Christ act in
this situation or that? How does He speak to this
(31:18):
person or that? And so the attitudes of Christ in
some ways have to become our own, and we apply
that in the different circumstances that come before us.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
What about when you feel like you've fallen shore, which
I know everyone does in every capacity their life, whether
they are a parent or a spouse or a priest,
or they feel like, this is not my part. How
do you how do you sit there and say it's
not you know, kick like just kick it away and say,
you know what, how do you how do you as
a person to sit there and say I will try
better tomorrow and this is not the end all be all?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah? Well, I mean that's that's the entire story of
the Old Testament, right.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
It's the fact that Israel, you know, makes a deal
with God and says, you know, will will obey your
commandments and will love you and this and that, and
of course time and again they disobey. And there are
some places leads through. God gets a little angry, but.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
For you know, it's kind of.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
An understatement, I suppose in some cases, but God does
not abandon them. He's always there. And I think one
of the most beautiful things about Christianity itself is that, yeah,
God maybe get angry and pissed off, but he's still
there for you.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
He's not.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
There's nothing, as Saint Paul says, that can separate us
from the love of Christ. Even when we commit a sin,
there's always the possibility of going back. I mean, look
at the story of the prodigal son who distanced himself
so far from his father but goes back and the
father is not just you know, sitting there, but he's
(32:59):
actively ways waiting for the son to come back. And again,
what a beautiful image that is of Jesus who just
is waiting for us to come back. And so it's
not like God forgets about us. It's not like God,
you know, if they're okay, well, you know, this happens
all the time. So I'm just going to shut the door.
The door is always open. And the Christian life is
really about falling and getting back up again, and that actually.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Is you know, one of the.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
What we call a Marian antiphon, which is a hymn
to the Blessed Virgin Mary for Advent and Christmas, is
called the Loving Mother of the Redeemer, and one of
the lines says, loving Mother of the Redeemer, assist your
people who have fallen. It's strives to rise again and again.
(33:47):
That's the Christian life, you know, if we are attentive
to what's going on inside, to our interior life, then
we will recognize our faults, will ask God for strength
and forgiveness and by his grave sweet wise again. And
that just happens over and over and over again until
we try to get a little better at it each
(34:07):
and every time.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So you're thirty five, I'm thirty eight. There's a lot
of millennial men and gen Z men who didn't grow
up with overly religious parents. I did, and my mother
would have, like you know, she was a Shei Catholic.
There was, But there are the people who don't. And
if you're if this is something you're and I always say,
faith's a journey. It's not a guilt. But I can't
(34:30):
guilt you have a belief system, of course, But if
you're interested in you're exploring, what are resources outside of
just attending a mess that people could go to who
are intellectually and intellectually available. They're not. It's not you know,
you're not reading something. You're like, well, this is way
above my head. I can't I can't deal with it.
But what is something that somebody could go to and
(34:51):
say this is worth just looking at. This is a
you know, not seeing Thomas acquaintance, but you know someone
on that level and say this is accessible to you
in an intellectual way where you can feel like you're
reaching into something that's innate in your heart because you
want to look for it.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah, So two things come to mind immediately. The first
is Introduction too Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict
the sixteenth. And I would say that any of his books,
which are all printed by a natious threats, are like
they're easily accessible. So they've written a language that is
(35:32):
I think palatable but also engages the intellect. And so somebody,
I think just picking that up would be very delighted
to read anything. But you know, one thing that comes
to mind is is Introduction to the Politism, which you
know that's just something that I read in high school
because that's when he became pope, and there's an interest
(35:54):
in that. The other thing I would kind of point
to is Bishop Baron's Catholicism. It's a brief sort of
introduction to what the Catholic faith is, and his approach
is also using the entire Catholic tradition, so he introduces
the person not just to the dogmas and the adoptrines
(36:14):
of the faith, but the architecture, the art, the music
that the faith has produced over two thousand years, the literature,
because there's a whole section of American and European literature
that is inspired by the Catholic Faith, and so Catholicism
is very, very rich in its symbols, in its traditions,
(36:34):
and I think this book by Bishop Baron, simply called Catholicism,
is something that people might be interested in. And again,
as I mentioned before, the Imitation of Christ by Thomas
the Tempest is a medieval work, but it's the second
most read book aside from the Bible, really in the
(36:58):
history of literature, and it was the favorite book of
several saints, one of them being Ignacious of Loyola, always
had it on his debt and it served as an
inspiration for generations of Catholics, saints included, and so that
might be a place to start as well. But that's
a little more on the spiritual side of things. That's
(37:20):
so much on the academic side.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
So my last question to you, and this is a
personal question, because I was talking to with my friends
as a Protestant about this about the saints and ideology ideatry,
and you know, our conversation about that, and I couldn't
convince her, but it was okay, it was fine. Who
are sayings that you asked to pray for you or
(37:43):
you look to?
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh? Sure, So my favorite saying is Ignacious of Loyola.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
I have devoted to him because I went to a
Jesuit high school and he is certainly somebody that I
read about and admired his conversion story. He went from
like this and its center to a saint because of
an injury that he sustained in a battle.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
And more recently, as a parish priest, Saint John Deanni,
who is the patron saint of parish priests, who kind
of dedicated his life to the ordinary and simple work
of caring for souls in his parish. And I also
have a particular devote to Edmund Campion, who was one
of the English martyrs during the Elizabethan era. So the
(38:32):
Catholic clergy were expelled from England in the seventeenth century.
I wanted to play their sixteenth century. They did their
seminary and studies in Europe in Cotton, continental Europe, and
then they went back to England secretly to minister to
Catholics and hiding. And I find his story very, very fascinating.
(38:56):
As a matter of fact, evil and Law the English,
the famous English author of the last century. I wrote
a biography on Edmund Campion, which is another book that
people might be interested in. Who are you know looking
at hypolicies, And it just tells his story and how
he went from an Anglican deacon to a Catholic priest
(39:18):
who was eventually martyred for his faith in a very
difficult time in history. So his you know, I always
I have a picture of him in my room. I
just find his story very heroic. And you know, he
was a Jesuit as well, and so he was, you know,
a man that was deeply spiritual, but also committed to
(39:40):
the intellectual pursuit of this faith.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
You know, that's why I understand that because she's my
birthday Sampinel. So she was a bit of a rebel
who a lot of trouble and I relate to that
quite a bit. So right, Yeah, there you go, persisted.
So anyway, father, thank you so much for coming on
this podcast.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Really really appreciate it. You're very welcome. There was a delight.
Thank you. Ryan.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Now it's time for the Asking Me Anything segment of
this podcast. If you want a part of the Ask
Me Anything segment, emil me Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com.
That's Ryan at Numbers Gameplural podcast dot com. I love
these questions. It makes the show so much interesting. I
love getting to know my listeners. This question comes from Greg.
Greg says, as a former member of the New Jersey
Libertarian Party for fifteen years, I can say that the
(40:28):
DSA and the Libertarian Party are very quite similar, except economically.
Do you think that the rise of Bobby Kennedy, em
and Donnie if they were form their own party to
take the duopoly which always promised to destroy Do you
think the rise of Bobby Kenny, Emmon Donnie if they
were the front runner. I think he's met front runners
of their own party to take the duopolity which they
(40:48):
promised to destroy. I don't know about that. The Libertarian Party,
I just think is useless. I mean, I don't think
libertarians as a whole are useless. I think they've been
very important prominently libertarians in this country. Like something like
Gary Johnson, who was a libertarian. He was the governor
of Mexico. He could have ran for US Senate, won
(41:08):
the Senate seat as a Republican, and promoted libertarianism in
the Senate and be an important player in the country
the way that like Rampole is an important player in
national discussions. But instead he decided to run as a
libertarian twice, was a spoiler, was almost a spoiler for
Trump in a couple of states, and then he ended
up running for US Senate as a libertarian New Mexico
(41:30):
lost there too, and now he's nowhere. I mean, he's
a rich guy. I wish him well personally, but what
a waste of time and effort. The DSA is at
least smarter than they work within the Democratic Party to
try to promote and promote their causes and promote their issues,
and they've been enormously successful. They've really kind of figured
(41:51):
out to work to get work successfully on immigrant groups,
on populations of a lot of white yuppies, where they
can win and where they can make you know, strength
in in numbers, and that's why they've grown across the
entire country. The DSA is, I think, much more organized
than the Libertarian Party is. I don't think the Libertarian
Party and organization really go hand in hand. I will say,
(42:12):
when I was a young kid, I think I maybe
mentioned this story before. But if I haven't, if I haven't,
forgive me what if I have it? It's interesting. When
I was like eighteen years old, I was I was
a Democrat for a year because I was going to
see Iraq war and I just thought, if you're if
you're against the Raq war, you must be a Democrat.
So I got to work as like a on the
(42:34):
street fundraiser for a single day for uh the I
think it was. It wasn't Code Pink. It was some
one of those anti Bush organizations. I can't remember. Change changed,
dot com, change dot orgs like that. I don't whatever
it was, remember that was Obama. It doesn't matter what
it was. It was move on dot org. That's it,
move on dot org. I worked as as a person
you walk on the street ask for money from random
(42:56):
people from move on dot org. For one day. I
was like eighteen years old, like I'm I'm doing change.
And beforehand we went to like meet and all like
the activists met, and I was just gonna say, iraq war.
I didn't have like a ton of other issues I
really even thought about or believed in. But I go
to the meeting and everyone is like sitting on a
beanbag chair and everything smells like cannabis and coffee and feet,
(43:19):
and it was just disgusting. And they all start talking
about their number one issues and it was like we
should erase all borders, we should tax everyone at one
hundred percent or whatever. I was like, these people are nuts,
Like this is not where I belong at all. But
the organizational ability was really kind of impressive to look
at from the from like inside. I was only there
(43:41):
for literally one day. I never went back to show
up for work again, but that was very very impressive.
It's very interesting how organized they are. On the right,
we have some groups that are effective and like that
like you know, Charlie Kirk was amazing at organization, and
there's a few other ones that are affected. But I
agree with you that the DSA is destructive. I don't
know about Bobby Kennedy and Mondannie I. I don't know
(44:03):
about that answer. And the Libertarian Party, I don't agree
is like the DSA because I don't think that they
are nearly as organized for us. Anyway, that's some podcasts.
I hope you like it. I will see you guys
on Monday. Please stay tuned and please like and subscribe
on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, where I get this podcast,
including our YouTube video. I appreciate you all, Thank you,
and have a great weekend.
Welcome to a Numbers game with Ryan Gurdusky. Thank you
guys for being here. We are one week away from Christmas,
and if you were like me, you are not ready
at all. This weekend is going to be a marathon
in the life of Ryan Gurdusky to try to get
everything ready in the last few days and make it
all seem pretty effortless. And so if you're by any
(00:22):
stretch of the imagination seeing me running through a mall
or store and a complete panic, just look, just know
I don't always look like that. Before I get to
my topic, I have some pretty funny gossip that I
think you guys would like. I was invited to a
cool Christmas party that I wanted to tell you about it.
I was invited to the Mediaite Christmas party. Media I
is kind of a lefty center left website that covers
(00:44):
all things media. So I got the invitation last week
and I immediately thought, Okay, this is either a mistake,
which they follow up and said it was a mistake,
or that it was going to be a very d
list event, because you know, I know I was invited,
so I couldn't have possibly been like a very cool thing.
But I expectations Bernhei going in, I went thinking, Okay,
it's gonna be a bunch of bloggers or whatnot. And
(01:05):
I walk in the door and the first person, first
two people I see is Joe and Mika from Morning Joe,
and I'm like, uh, okay, and then Brian Stelter from
CNN walks in right behind me, and I just all
of a sudden it dinged on me like it's not
going to be a Dalist party. It's going to be
a liberal party. And I am the token conservative that
(01:27):
was invited. That's why I thought walking in, and I
was immediate scrambling with like, okay, who on earth is
going to talk to me for the next hour while
I just have a glass of wine circle try to
find the host of the party and thank them for
inviting me, because I'm never really invited to a lot
of events, so I wanted to at least thank them
for inviting me with the hope that, you know, I
would be invited to something else in the future. So
(01:48):
I see Joe and Mika, who I saw actually at
a party in twenty twelve. It was a Fox News
MSNBC mixer in twenty twelve ahead of the New Hampshire
Republic in primary and this is when Joe Meeka were
just colleagues, even though that they very clearly in front
of everybody else didn't seem to be colleagues anyway. So
(02:09):
I'm circling the room and I'm trying to find somebody
who will like maybe one other conservative or center right person,
and I see Scott Jennings from CNN sitting down in
the corner and he's talking to somebody. And I'm always
under the assumption that no one knows who I am.
I just feel like, you know, because I work so
much by myself, and I don't you know, I'm not
always like stopped or whatever. Once in a while happens.
(02:31):
But I walk up to Scott Jennings and I just
put up my hand. I go, hi, I'm Ryan gar Dusky.
He just goes, yeah, I know, I know you are.
You're kind of very well known on senn among scenen
circles anyway. Could have been nicer, a little more subdued
in real life than I thought he was, because some
of these people who are very like show business y,
(02:52):
even in the political media world, they're like, you know,
they are very performative even in private, and he's not
like that. He was very real, kind of just hung out,
really real guy. And there was a guy saying next
to him, and I was like, who is this person?
Like why is this guy chatting his ear up? So
when the guy got up, I go, who is that?
He goes, Oh, it's you know, it's an agent and
you know I was throwing his card at me or whatever.
(03:14):
And I realized that almost all of the talent, or
not all of them, I would say at least half
of the talent was there with their agents, and the
agents were like walking them around to meet certain people.
And I was like, this is like extremely this is
like watching an owner of a prize horse, like showing
them to different people is very weird. Anyway, I see
Megan Kelly and she couldn't have been nicer. I was
(03:36):
a complete horre and just asked her to come back
on her show. I was like, ha, me back and
people from the podcast where there to Vicky Ward. I
had her on about Epstein. She was great. She's working
on a new book about Luigi Menas, Scott Mangioni, Luvisy
Mangioni The Killer, So we were talking about that for
a little while and I saw Alex Thompson from Axios
and we're talking about the Bidens and he's working on
(03:58):
all these stories about the twenty twenty eight Democrat primary.
So we're talking about Gavin Newsom, you know, sharing funny
stories about what he's like. And then I run into
a girl and she must have been like twenty five
years old something like that, twenty five to thirty that range,
and she just goes to me, you know, New York's
not the scene that it used to be. And I
was like, who are you like Frand label with so
(04:19):
he used to hang out Andy Warhol in the seventies
and now you're not. I'm like, when was the scene?
And she's like twenty fifteen, and I'm like, I these
people are just young people who think they've been through
more than they have. Just exhausted me anyway, and then
this is the kind of crazy thing. So I as
I'm leaving, I see someone else who a journalist who
I know I'm not gonna name his name because I
don't want to give him, you know, publicity, but he
(04:42):
was His company that he had worked for at the time,
was ruthless to me when the whole scene in episode
happened last year. So I just say hello briefly because
I'm like, you know, I'm not gonna be rude. And
he was talking to Ari Mulber, who was just being
He's just being someone very very interested in himself. And
I said to him, I said, tom, oh, I've been
on your I was on your show like ten years ago.
(05:03):
And he was like, my show wasn't existed for ten years.
I'm like, okay, it was twenty seventeen, whatever that math is,
that's when I was on your show. Very very smart guy. Anyway,
the reporter who has been not very kind to me
throughout the last year, his company has not been very
kind to me. He ends the conversation by saying, if
you have any scoops, please pass them my way. And
(05:25):
I was like, I would never give you a scoop.
Your outlet is left wing trash, and you've did nothing
besides trash me.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Why would I give you scoops?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Which is just it is so commonplace for journalists who
are so under the belief that yeah, I could trash you,
but we're all friends, we're all kind of in the
business together, or whatever whatever they believe. I was like,
this is the worst kinds of people. So that was
the really cool scoop of the entire story, and you know,
(05:54):
the media and just the people who still work there.
I thought it was really funny and my audience would
enjoy it. But I wanted to so I want to
tell you guys about that, and I wanted to take
a second to talk to you about what is upcoming,
which is Christmas. And you know, it's not just about
Christmas parties and shopping and wrapping gifts and trying to
take the season as much as possible. So I want
to talk about the faith and about faith in particular.
(06:16):
I know it's not a religious podcast, but it is
I think appropriate given this season. I am Catholic. I
put it in my bio in part because I got
so tired of people calling me a fat Geo on Twitter.
I thought that maybe they'll mix it up and call
me a fat Italian, but it hasn't really worked out anyway.
I am Catholic. I was born and raised in the faith.
I briefly kind of walked away from it during college
(06:36):
and the end of high school. I guess there's a
lot of people do, and came back to on my
own accord. And as I've continue to age and as
I break down data a lot, I noticed how important
matters of faith and religion are and how much they
are Like religion is like a muscle, right, So if
you only go to the gym two or three times
a year and you quit every few months, this is
(06:58):
someone like me. If you're not super diligent and you're
not going to see gains. You may be able to
put off some weight, but you're not going to see
gains like you are. And if you're somebody who only
typidly or randomly attends church and only praise really when
the aeroplane is about to take off and the doors closed,
you're probably not educating yourself that much on faith. You're
probably not developing a deep relationship. You're probably not and
(07:22):
I say this as a Catholic who both has done
a lot of work on faith and still has a
lot to do, so no judgment on it, but you're
probably not getting to a place where you feel very
strongly about it. And you can't get to a place
of deep devotion, let alone exploring the really interesting things
like mysticism or miracles or other stuff. If you don't
(07:45):
put the work in and I know religion, it's a
very bad rap. People make a lot of false claims
about religion, that they're all the same, or that their
response for all the history of all the wars in
the world, and that you know, they've only been negative.
It's only been a negative institute that has worked to
divide people and break down people and use for powerful
(08:07):
men to just kind of, you know, control everything. And
I remember this a long time ago, and I've never
told the story before. A long long time ago. I
was campaigning for a candidate running for office, and as
most of my life story has been, and there was
a woman there and she had run in the Democratic
primary and for I think city council or something like
(08:29):
that lost and she was getting into it with like
and this is a long time ago, so like one
of the first purple haired you know, they thems I've
ever seen before, and they were the they them, the
super liberal was going aftim about religion. This woman, this
Democrat who had run for office like owned and a
(08:50):
very like in a very substantial way, owned this like,
very progressive person who clearly hated religion. And she said
she was just giving a brief history on the Catholic
Church in New York City in the last thirty years,
things that I did not know, things that people kind
of bypass. She was specifically talking, and this was a
(09:12):
gay person. She was talking about the AIDS epidemic, and
she's like, the only places that would take AIDS patients
was the Catholic Church, Catholic hospitals. She's like, it was
the nuns who were doing the work that the government
refused to do. And I don't remember every detail she
laid because she laid it on one after the other. Failder.
And this was, you know, over ten years ago. But
I was, I was, I was very taken aback about
(09:34):
how this woman, who is probably you know, central life,
she was clearly a Democrat, was able to stand up
for her faith and not interfere with her politics, and was
able to sit there and stand up for it in
the face of somebody where it would have been so
convenient to join them and say no, this is a
force for good. And I wanted to present my audience
(09:55):
with some numbers that she want thinking about that. So
here are some some numbers on why religion in your life,
in your society is a force for good. Students who
attend church as a high school senior more often are
the most likely students to have as. This has been
true since nineteen seventy six. Forty two percent of millennials
(10:16):
who attend church weekly are reported to be very happy,
compared to just twenty two percent who never attend church.
The most likely to a person to attend church, by
the way, is a college degree holder. According to the
Manhattan Institute, they found that church attendance by Republicans is
linked to lower levels a feeling of racism, anti semitism,
and conspiracy theories. In other words, to attend church is
(10:38):
to have a greater level of social trust than those
who do not attend. Christians who attend mass cricuently are
more likely to say it's good to be alive, that
they are a person of worth, and the future doesn't
seem like it's hopeless. Compared to zele At, atheists are
not people who just fall away from religion. These are
people who actively hate religion. Those people have significantly more
likely to say that life is hopeless and that they
(10:59):
aren't very youthful. You even see this in conversations with
like zoomers and millennials about children, those who want to
have children, and those who, you know, maybe they can't
find a partner, maybe they put it off, but they
want to have children, and they think that having children
is important and good versus those who say the world's
so bad, or that you know, it's it's a plague
on the world and the environment and the earth or whatnot,
(11:21):
it's you could That's a very clear dividing line. And
while religion is often correlated with poverty, it's and that's
true on a global scale for sure, But in America
in twenty twenty five, those who earn one hundred thousand
dollars a year are more likely to attend mass than
those who make less than fifty thousand years and fifty
thousand dollars a year, and people who attend church frequently
(11:41):
are more likely to give at least two percent of
their income to charity. They're more more likely to live longer,
and until the last decade, across the board, they were
more likely to have social trust. It's a little wonky
in some data on social trust recently, but certainly before then,
they were more likely to trust people who look differently
than them and look the same as that so if
religion has all these benefits, there's the benefits of society,
(12:04):
these benefits to yourself. Why don't people participate more? And
why are people doing it less and less? I think
because it's difficult. You know, It's one it's easier to
be lazy, which is why sloth is a sin. It's
easier to you know, sleep in on a Sunday, or
go to the park, or hang out with friends or
watch the football game. It's it's difficult, it's time consuming.
It's time to take out of yourself and put somewhere
(12:27):
at like and put into someone else where you're not
the center of attention, where you're not taking selfies, where
you're not scrolling or doom scrolling or commenting snightly on
Twitter like myself. You're placing your entire being in you know,
in a different in a different realm, when you're really
focused and you're really there and you're and you're you're
(12:48):
in that place. I can't describe it anyone else. In
that place, it's a special place where you're completely in
tune with the mass, with the music, with lighting the
candles and with deep, deep prayer. And you know, I
get why it's hard and I get why people who
have doubts say it's not for me, or I'll figure
it out once I get older and once I have children,
(13:09):
And a lot of people do, but some people don't.
But if you're interested in, if you're curious, it is
like going to the gym. You have to really put
the work in. I've always believed that faith is a journey.
It's not a guilt trip. Nothing that I'm going to
say is going to make you want to do it
if you don't. But society, we as a people and
us individually are better even if you have doubts, even
(13:30):
if you're sitting there and saying, I don't know if
everything that my church says is true, is important to
go because we as a community are better when we
go together. And those countries that don't have high levels
of social trust, like especially the non homogenous countries, not
like Denmark or Norway, which is no religious attendance, but
(13:52):
everyone is basically of the same cultural background that they're
able to sit there and continue levels of high social
capital if it's decreasing and create like incredibly incredibly fast
rate because of immigration. But those who sit there and
those people who have high levels of social trust is
often oftentimes correlated with religion. So I just would say
(14:14):
this to my listeners. If you're looking back at last
year and saying, you know, I had a great year,
but I could have done some things differently. I could
have read more. This is my biggest gripe. Is I
didn't read enough this year, Or you're saying to yourself,
I didn't go to the gym enough. I gain too
much weight, And look for a second in your spirituality,
Look for a second where you've put faith this year.
(14:35):
Look for a second how you've practiced and how you've
shown yourself. Even if you say you're a Christian or
you say you're proudly Jewish or whatnot, how did you
display that to the world. How did you show that
you are a leader of some sort in your everyday life?
How did you push and promote that to other people?
That maybe being preachy, but I know in the last
(14:56):
couple of years about a lot of guys, young men
who said to me I'm really thinking about being Catholic.
And I've always said, like, I'm here, I want to
talk to you. If you want to talk to me,
I'll tell you the ups the downs, things out I'm
talking to one young guy right now who's twenty four
and he's evangelical, and he said to me, you know,
I'm thinking about becoming Catholic, and I say, let me,
let's talk about it. Let me show you by example
(15:18):
and let me talk to you about the bigger things
and help point you in that way. If that's your
place to be, So think about that and try to
prioritize it for twenty twenty six. I think that is.
I think that maybe if we're trying to move to
a healthier place, both as individuals and as a society,
I think religion plays a big part of that. So
not to sound preachy, not to sound like I got
it all figured out, because lord knows I don't. I
(15:40):
think it's worth passing that message on as we're getting
to the Christmas holiday and the Christmas season. So with that,
I am having on as my very special guest for
the first time I think he's ever done a podcast,
is my priest. It's going to be great, it'll be
very interesting. That's coming up next with me on today's
episode is my priest father, Nick. Father Nick, thank you
(16:03):
for being here. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
You're very welcome. Thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So, Father Nick, you are You're the first priest I
ever had who's actually younger than me. When did you
become a priest? When did you get decide that this
was your life's journey?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Well, I think had I sensed a vocation to the
priestood very very young. So I went to parochial school
and I began to serve Mass when right after I.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Received communion about seven years old.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And I always felt very close to the church and
very interested in what the church was doing, especially at Mass.
And so after I graduated high school, I wanted to
see if the seminary was something that was for me,
and so I joined and it kind of went from there.
So I was ordained ten years ago in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And you studied for a long time in Rome.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Correct, So, so I finished my philosophy studies at Think Johns.
I went through the Pontifical North American College in Rome,
which is the US bishop's seminary next to the Vatican,
and I studied at the Gregorian University. I did another
bachelor in theology, and then after that I studied for
four more years at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. We seemed
(17:20):
a graduate degree from there, and then after that I
studied at Catholic University and I got another master's degree
in Biblical languages, so Semitic languages.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, when I met Fathernick, he said that, he spoke,
I get eight languages. But then he said, but seven
of them are dead or something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yes, yes, exactly, yes, most of them are dead.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So that's not extremely useful, no, no, in my biblical
stuff yet.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, of course. And you know it's great because when
Father Nick does his homilies a lot of times he
will discuss the language used in the writings and how
the English translation doesn't always manifest as accurately as it
possibly should have or could have in the language.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Sure, right, So obviously the Bible was originally written in
various languages. So we know that the Old Testament was
written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and then the original language
of the New Testament was what we say coin a Greek,
which is a dialect of ancient Greek. And so studying
and being familiar with the ancient languages I think helps
(18:24):
us to really approximate the meaning better of the scriptures
than from just a translation, because there's an Italian saying
that every translator is also a traitor, because when you
translate something, you're sort of somewhat removed from the original text,
and so learning the original languages kind of allows you
to sort of get the original flavor of what the
(18:48):
author wanted to convey to the audience. And so that's
why it's helpful to know a little bit about the
original languages of the scripture.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And this not to be a Catholic supremacist for any
product and phantomime, but this is why a priest is
so much more important than private study groups with just
a circle of friends who are already in the English dialects.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Sure, so again, you know it's good I mean faith sharing.
I mean the Scripture is the word of God, so
it does have something to say to each and every
one of us by virtue of our faith. But it's
Bible study and really delving into the different meanings of
scripture through knowledge of the original text brings you to
(19:32):
a fuller knowledge. And so you know, there are only
a very few people that are capable of doing that,
and so I do feel somewhat privileged to be able
to read the scriptures in their original but you know,
that's the knowledge that I'm very happy to share with them.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So my whole monologue was about the benefits of physical church, right.
Why attending an actual mass, not just saying I'm a
Christian or I'm a Catholic who never shows up, or
maybe he just shows up once a year, The benefits
to someone's personal life, the benefits to society. And I
have family members even who have sat there and said
(20:08):
to me, why is it so important just to go
to a church? Why can I not be just a
more fulfilled I guess, or a practicing Catholic who doesn't
attend Mass. I could just read the Bible at home.
Why is it imported?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Well, I think you know that really gets Yeah, no,
I think that gets at the nature of what scripture
is and what the church is, because when Jesus ascended
into Heaven, he didn't leave us a Bible. He left
us a church. He left us, for better or for worse,
a juridical and hierarchical structure that we recognize even in
(20:44):
extra biblical texts and from tradition. So as Catholics, you know,
Protestants have Martin Luther was very famous for saying sola scriptua,
which means only scripture. So his point of contention was,
you know, there is is a lot of corruption in
the church, and the church since perhaps the Middle Ages
(21:04):
has lost its way, it's not as pristine as the
church as Jesus left it. And so what they did
was they sort of abandoned the church structure as it
was and went directly and only to sacred scripture. But
the problem with that, of course, is that like I said,
Jesus did not leave us sacred scripture. He left us
the church for better or for worse. And of course
(21:27):
the Church is, you know, both human and divine, and
so there are going to be problems. But the way
we do that is not dispensing with church's trying to
renew it with our own life. And so, you know,
the scripture is something that the Church itself has produced
and has declared authentic and inspired. And so you can't
(21:49):
have a Bible without a church, and you can't really
have a church without a Bible. And so for Catholics,
it's about not only scripture, it's about scripture and tradition.
Tradition meaning what the Lord left us in terms of
liturgy and sacraments. And teachings. I mean, even at the
(22:10):
end of the Gospel of John, he says, but there
are also many other things which Jesus did. Were every
one of them to be written, I suppose that the
world itself would not contain the books that would have
been written. And so again there's much more to our
faith and scripture. I mean, obviously scripture is as countered revelation.
It's very very important.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
But Christ calls us to.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
A communion, to a community of faith, and the community
of faith is fully expressed in our common worship and
in our common gathering on Sunday. It's a commandment. And
so for people that say, you know, I just want
to read scripture or pray by myself, well, that's not
obeying the commandment to keep holy the Sabbath, because from
(22:54):
the earliest times Christians prayed together. That was the whole point.
And if you see even in the Acts of the Apostle,
the way in which the first Christians live was in community,
and they shared everything and they prayed together. And that's
just a reflection of what we believe about who God
is in himself, in the Holy Trinity. It's not just
(23:15):
sort of a being that is turned in on himself.
It is a communion, a community of persons that his
Father's done and Holy stood. And so the communion or
the community of believers expresses the fullness of our faith
when we come together on Sunday and when we read scripture,
and when we practice tradition as a community. And so
(23:38):
that you know, there's an important ecclesiology fundamentally that somebody
that would say, Okay, well I'm just going to you know,
practice this by myself, that kind of goes against that ecclesiology.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So we're coming on to the Christmas, coming up to
Christmas faster than I am prepared for it. And a
lot of people we go into math one of the
two three times year they ever attend what and some
will just not attend at all? Why is in this
important season second most important, I guess to Easter in
(24:13):
the faith? Why is it? Why is regular attendance into
a mass I equated to working out?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
If you go to the gym three times a year,
you're not going to get you know any kind as
someone from experience who goes a little more than three
times a year, but not much. The more you kind
of can go and spend time in your faith in
some capacity, you're going to be able to really kind
(24:45):
of and as a man who studied a lot, kind
of delve into the more the most interesting parts of
the religion. If you're just getting the very basics of
the life of Jesus and why it's important to do better,
you can and really go and actually be a fully
part of it and understand on a deeper level that
sometimes it's above my head, but I know, but I
(25:07):
can appreciate and try to learn as much as humanly possible.
What what is it? What would you say to somebody
who just sits there and says not to take people
who are just lazy and they can't wake up on Sunday.
But take people who sit there and say it's just
not my thing. And I don't think that the church
wants to accept people like me. There are people like that.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Sure, Yeah, well, you know again, the church is a
mother that wants to embrace all of her children no
matter what. And so people that might feel somewhat excluded
or disenfranchised or a little shy about church for whatever reason.
You know, church is there for people for everyone, you
(25:52):
know who feels that there's some sort of lack or
disorder or trouble in their interior life. I mean, the
church is made for sinners, it's made for people that
feel lost. It's made for people precisely about whom you're describing.
And I think that, you know, this season reminds us
(26:13):
that just as God came down into this world in
a very kind of in the midst of chaos, in
the midst of darkness, that's what the Lord does even today.
He enters into our life, or he wants to at least,
and he doesn't mind that our soul is a bit
messy or chaotic or noisy or disordered, right, because that's
(26:35):
how He entered the world to begin with.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
He was not born in a palace, He is not
born in a hotel or you know, there was even
no room for him in the end, and so he
was born in the midst of you know, a manger
with with noise and smells and all kind of chaos. Right,
And so I think, you know, kind of maybe something
(26:59):
to think about is the way in which Saint Luke
presents the birth of Christ, because this is how the
birth of Christ came about, and he describes the circumstances.
I think as a spiritual exercise. Maybe that's something that
we can think about. You know, how does the birth
of Christ come about in my life? Where do I
(27:22):
feel the need to be loved or to be embraced,
or what's the brokenness in my life that needs to
be healed or what's the chaos that needs Christ's peace?
And so the Christmas season is a way or an
invitation or a moment to really ponder that question. Because
(27:44):
the Lord wants to enter into our lives. And again
he does that through the sacraments of the Church. Because
the sacraments aren't just a ritual. They're not just something
that we do over and over them because it's a tradition.
They actually impart something that's called thanktified and great, which
means that it's God's life that wants to dwell within
(28:04):
us and that changes us. And so that's why a
regular practice of the faith is beneficial and I would
say salubrious. It's healthy because it enables the natural virtues
that we have to grow exponentially because you know, as
human beings, we have so many limits. We're finite beings.
(28:27):
But if we allow Christ to enter into our life,
not just through our personal prayer. But through the sacraments
and through the grace that God gives us through those sacraments,
then we sort of are able to achieve the goal
for which we are created, which is to live in
peace with Christ.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Something that I grapple with and say I think about
is how to insert faith in not I mean not
in every single area of my life, but in most
areas where I can. So. I'm a boss, I have
a bunch of employees. Being a leader and showing leadership
in that faith and in that tradition is very, very
(29:07):
important to me. Making sure that I represent someone who
is honorable and leader and leadership and promoting things that
I think that are important. To sit there, and you know,
I will have rego conversations with people I don't know
super well, kind of intrusive conversations about why if they're
looking at this, why they should explore Cathos. And I've
(29:30):
met probably like four or five young men, all young
men who have converted to the faiths in the last
couple of years, and I'm basically begging at them at
this point to be their sponsor, and no one's taking
me up on the offer. But though, what are what
are we called to aside from loving people, which I
know is a big task and something that is I
(29:50):
guess the whole entire picture. What are we called for
in our daily life as practicing Catholics especially, but as
Catholics to sit there and to do most where? Or
can we fill this? Boy this not not philivoid, but
show our faith in our daily life in some some avenue.
What I'm saying it was a little slong.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, sure so. I mean there is a book that
was meant for this. It's called it's called The Imitation
of Christ, and it was written in the Middle Ages,
but if you read it, it sounds like something that
was maybe written a week ago, because it addresses these
very issues. How do I practice the faith day to day?
(30:29):
And you know, I think one of the things is
that we read the New Testament and we look at
what Christ does and how he does it. How does
he encounter, for example, a mother whose son has died.
How does he relate to his disciples kind of maybe
in his employees, right, how does he interact with them?
(30:52):
What words does he use? What's his tenor in speaking?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (30:56):
And so we looked upon the person of Christ, we
dwell with those images, we pray with them, and then
we try to put them into practice ourselves. So I
think to summarize the entire Christian life, we can say
it's an imitation of Christ. How does Christ act in
this situation or that? How does He speak to this
(31:18):
person or that? And so the attitudes of Christ in
some ways have to become our own, and we apply
that in the different circumstances that come before us.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
What about when you feel like you've fallen shore, which
I know everyone does in every capacity their life, whether
they are a parent or a spouse or a priest,
or they feel like, this is not my part. How
do you how do you sit there and say it's
not you know, kick like just kick it away and say,
you know what, how do you how do you as
a person to sit there and say I will try
better tomorrow and this is not the end all be all?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah? Well, I mean that's that's the entire story of
the Old Testament, right.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
It's the fact that Israel, you know, makes a deal
with God and says, you know, will will obey your
commandments and will love you and this and that, and
of course time and again they disobey. And there are
some places leads through. God gets a little angry, but.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
For you know, it's kind of.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
An understatement, I suppose in some cases, but God does
not abandon them. He's always there. And I think one
of the most beautiful things about Christianity itself is that, yeah,
God maybe get angry and pissed off, but he's still
there for you.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
He's not.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
There's nothing, as Saint Paul says, that can separate us
from the love of Christ. Even when we commit a sin,
there's always the possibility of going back. I mean, look
at the story of the prodigal son who distanced himself
so far from his father but goes back and the
father is not just you know, sitting there, but he's
(32:59):
actively ways waiting for the son to come back. And again,
what a beautiful image that is of Jesus who just
is waiting for us to come back. And so it's
not like God forgets about us. It's not like God,
you know, if they're okay, well, you know, this happens
all the time. So I'm just going to shut the door.
The door is always open. And the Christian life is
really about falling and getting back up again, and that actually.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Is you know, one of the.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
What we call a Marian antiphon, which is a hymn
to the Blessed Virgin Mary for Advent and Christmas, is
called the Loving Mother of the Redeemer, and one of
the lines says, loving Mother of the Redeemer, assist your
people who have fallen. It's strives to rise again and again.
(33:47):
That's the Christian life, you know, if we are attentive
to what's going on inside, to our interior life, then
we will recognize our faults, will ask God for strength
and forgiveness and by his grave sweet wise again. And
that just happens over and over and over again until
we try to get a little better at it each
(34:07):
and every time.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So you're thirty five, I'm thirty eight. There's a lot
of millennial men and gen Z men who didn't grow
up with overly religious parents. I did, and my mother
would have, like you know, she was a Shei Catholic.
There was, But there are the people who don't. And
if you're if this is something you're and I always say,
faith's a journey. It's not a guilt. But I can't
(34:30):
guilt you have a belief system, of course, But if
you're interested in you're exploring, what are resources outside of
just attending a mess that people could go to who
are intellectually and intellectually available. They're not. It's not you know,
you're not reading something. You're like, well, this is way
above my head. I can't I can't deal with it.
But what is something that somebody could go to and
(34:51):
say this is worth just looking at. This is a
you know, not seeing Thomas acquaintance, but you know someone
on that level and say this is accessible to you
in an intellectual way where you can feel like you're
reaching into something that's innate in your heart because you
want to look for it.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah, So two things come to mind immediately. The first
is Introduction too Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict
the sixteenth. And I would say that any of his books,
which are all printed by a natious threats, are like
they're easily accessible. So they've written a language that is
(35:32):
I think palatable but also engages the intellect. And so somebody,
I think just picking that up would be very delighted
to read anything. But you know, one thing that comes
to mind is is Introduction to the Politism, which you
know that's just something that I read in high school
because that's when he became pope, and there's an interest
(35:54):
in that. The other thing I would kind of point
to is Bishop Baron's Catholicism. It's a brief sort of
introduction to what the Catholic faith is, and his approach
is also using the entire Catholic tradition, so he introduces
the person not just to the dogmas and the adoptrines
(36:14):
of the faith, but the architecture, the art, the music
that the faith has produced over two thousand years, the literature,
because there's a whole section of American and European literature
that is inspired by the Catholic Faith, and so Catholicism
is very, very rich in its symbols, in its traditions,
(36:34):
and I think this book by Bishop Baron, simply called Catholicism,
is something that people might be interested in. And again,
as I mentioned before, the Imitation of Christ by Thomas
the Tempest is a medieval work, but it's the second
most read book aside from the Bible, really in the
(36:58):
history of literature, and it was the favorite book of
several saints, one of them being Ignacious of Loyola, always
had it on his debt and it served as an
inspiration for generations of Catholics, saints included, and so that
might be a place to start as well. But that's
a little more on the spiritual side of things. That's
(37:20):
so much on the academic side.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
So my last question to you, and this is a
personal question, because I was talking to with my friends
as a Protestant about this about the saints and ideology ideatry,
and you know, our conversation about that, and I couldn't
convince her, but it was okay, it was fine. Who
are sayings that you asked to pray for you or
(37:43):
you look to?
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh? Sure, So my favorite saying is Ignacious of Loyola.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
I have devoted to him because I went to a
Jesuit high school and he is certainly somebody that I
read about and admired his conversion story. He went from
like this and its center to a saint because of
an injury that he sustained in a battle.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
So I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
And more recently, as a parish priest, Saint John Deanni,
who is the patron saint of parish priests, who kind
of dedicated his life to the ordinary and simple work
of caring for souls in his parish. And I also
have a particular devote to Edmund Campion, who was one
of the English martyrs during the Elizabethan era. So the
(38:32):
Catholic clergy were expelled from England in the seventeenth century.
I wanted to play their sixteenth century. They did their
seminary and studies in Europe in Cotton, continental Europe, and
then they went back to England secretly to minister to
Catholics and hiding. And I find his story very, very fascinating.
(38:56):
As a matter of fact, evil and Law the English,
the famous English author of the last century. I wrote
a biography on Edmund Campion, which is another book that
people might be interested in. Who are you know looking
at hypolicies, And it just tells his story and how
he went from an Anglican deacon to a Catholic priest
(39:18):
who was eventually martyred for his faith in a very
difficult time in history. So his you know, I always
I have a picture of him in my room. I
just find his story very heroic. And you know, he
was a Jesuit as well, and so he was, you know,
a man that was deeply spiritual, but also committed to
(39:40):
the intellectual pursuit of this faith.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
You know, that's why I understand that because she's my
birthday Sampinel. So she was a bit of a rebel
who a lot of trouble and I relate to that
quite a bit. So right, Yeah, there you go, persisted.
So anyway, father, thank you so much for coming on
this podcast.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Really really appreciate it. You're very welcome. There was a delight.
Thank you. Ryan.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Now it's time for the Asking Me Anything segment of
this podcast. If you want a part of the Ask
Me Anything segment, emil me Ryan at Numbers gamepodcast dot com.
That's Ryan at Numbers Gameplural podcast dot com. I love
these questions. It makes the show so much interesting. I
love getting to know my listeners. This question comes from Greg.
Greg says, as a former member of the New Jersey
Libertarian Party for fifteen years, I can say that the
(40:28):
DSA and the Libertarian Party are very quite similar, except economically.
Do you think that the rise of Bobby Kennedy, em
and Donnie if they were form their own party to
take the duopoly which always promised to destroy Do you
think the rise of Bobby Kenny, Emmon Donnie if they
were the front runner. I think he's met front runners
of their own party to take the duopolity which they
(40:48):
promised to destroy. I don't know about that. The Libertarian Party,
I just think is useless. I mean, I don't think
libertarians as a whole are useless. I think they've been
very important prominently libertarians in this country. Like something like
Gary Johnson, who was a libertarian. He was the governor
of Mexico. He could have ran for US Senate, won
(41:08):
the Senate seat as a Republican, and promoted libertarianism in
the Senate and be an important player in the country
the way that like Rampole is an important player in
national discussions. But instead he decided to run as a
libertarian twice, was a spoiler, was almost a spoiler for
Trump in a couple of states, and then he ended
up running for US Senate as a libertarian New Mexico
(41:30):
lost there too, and now he's nowhere. I mean, he's
a rich guy. I wish him well personally, but what
a waste of time and effort. The DSA is at
least smarter than they work within the Democratic Party to
try to promote and promote their causes and promote their issues,
and they've been enormously successful. They've really kind of figured
(41:51):
out to work to get work successfully on immigrant groups,
on populations of a lot of white yuppies, where they
can win and where they can make you know, strength
in in numbers, and that's why they've grown across the
entire country. The DSA is, I think, much more organized
than the Libertarian Party is. I don't think the Libertarian
Party and organization really go hand in hand. I will say,
(42:12):
when I was a young kid, I think I maybe
mentioned this story before. But if I haven't, if I haven't,
forgive me what if I have it? It's interesting. When
I was like eighteen years old, I was I was
a Democrat for a year because I was going to
see Iraq war and I just thought, if you're if
you're against the Raq war, you must be a Democrat.
So I got to work as like a on the
(42:34):
street fundraiser for a single day for uh the I
think it was. It wasn't Code Pink. It was some
one of those anti Bush organizations. I can't remember. Change changed,
dot com, change dot orgs like that. I don't whatever
it was, remember that was Obama. It doesn't matter what
it was. It was move on dot org. That's it,
move on dot org. I worked as as a person
you walk on the street ask for money from random
(42:56):
people from move on dot org. For one day. I
was like eighteen years old, like I'm I'm doing change.
And beforehand we went to like meet and all like
the activists met, and I was just gonna say, iraq war.
I didn't have like a ton of other issues I
really even thought about or believed in. But I go
to the meeting and everyone is like sitting on a
beanbag chair and everything smells like cannabis and coffee and feet,
(43:19):
and it was just disgusting. And they all start talking
about their number one issues and it was like we
should erase all borders, we should tax everyone at one
hundred percent or whatever. I was like, these people are nuts,
Like this is not where I belong at all. But
the organizational ability was really kind of impressive to look
at from the from like inside. I was only there
(43:41):
for literally one day. I never went back to show
up for work again, but that was very very impressive.
It's very interesting how organized they are. On the right,
we have some groups that are effective and like that
like you know, Charlie Kirk was amazing at organization, and
there's a few other ones that are affected. But I
agree with you that the DSA is destructive. I don't
know about Bobby Kennedy and Mondannie I. I don't know
(44:03):
about that answer. And the Libertarian Party, I don't agree
is like the DSA because I don't think that they
are nearly as organized for us. Anyway, that's some podcasts.
I hope you like it. I will see you guys
on Monday. Please stay tuned and please like and subscribe
on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, where I get this podcast,
including our YouTube video. I appreciate you all, Thank you,
and have a great weekend.
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