September 9, 2025 • 21 mins
Here's 81-year-old Father Ron Knott in a wide ranging conversation with Terry Meiners on Heaven, humor, the impact of prayers, sin, loneliness, and living life as a Catholic priest.
bio from his website at fatherknott.com
I am a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky. Ordained May 16, 1970, I have served as a home missionary, college teacher, campus minister, pastor, cathedral rector, traveling evangelist, homiletics instructor, archdiocesan vocation director, founding director of the Saint Meinrad Seminary Institute for Priests and Presbyterates and a weekly columnist for 15 years.I have given major addresses at national conventions on church renovation, parish revitalization, homiletics, presbyteral unity and vocations. I have presented more than 80 parish missions and retreats and led more than 150 presbyteral convocations around the US and nine countries abroad.I have a Master of Divinity degree from Saint Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana and a Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Presbyterian Seminary in Chicago. I have authored several books for clergy and published several collections of my homilies and fifteen volumes of my For the Record book series. A few of my books for clergy are available in Spanish, Vietnamese and Swahili.In my retirement, besides the things listed above, I had been volunteering in the Diocese of Kingstown in the island country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and serving as the founder of the Catholic Second Wind Guild (a volunteer organization for retired priests and lay people wanting to volunteer their time, expertise, connections in the Caribbean missions). After six years and twelve trips, I recently ended that organization due to COVID and travel restriction. With a major volcano eruption, it has become obvious that I need to make a wise and timely decision to find a cause closer to home. Long distance travels seem to be a “thing of the past” at least for the foreseeable future.In April of 2021, I decided to focus my attention on my home parish of Saint Theresa of Avila an hour away from where I now live. I have the dream of turning my old grade school building, Saint Theresa School which was closed in 1993, into a new Saint Theresa Family Life Center to serve the whole area. My third cousin, Father Bob Ray, another priest from the same parish, is partnering with me by founding the Saint Theresa Heritage Partners, an alumni organization of the parish and school, to support this effort. I will lead the remodeling project of the Saint Theresa Family Life Center. Click on St. Theresa Heritage Partners and St. Theresa Family Life Center in the menu bar for more information.
bio from his website at fatherknott.com
I am a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky. Ordained May 16, 1970, I have served as a home missionary, college teacher, campus minister, pastor, cathedral rector, traveling evangelist, homiletics instructor, archdiocesan vocation director, founding director of the Saint Meinrad Seminary Institute for Priests and Presbyterates and a weekly columnist for 15 years.I have given major addresses at national conventions on church renovation, parish revitalization, homiletics, presbyteral unity and vocations. I have presented more than 80 parish missions and retreats and led more than 150 presbyteral convocations around the US and nine countries abroad.I have a Master of Divinity degree from Saint Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana and a Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Presbyterian Seminary in Chicago. I have authored several books for clergy and published several collections of my homilies and fifteen volumes of my For the Record book series. A few of my books for clergy are available in Spanish, Vietnamese and Swahili.In my retirement, besides the things listed above, I had been volunteering in the Diocese of Kingstown in the island country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and serving as the founder of the Catholic Second Wind Guild (a volunteer organization for retired priests and lay people wanting to volunteer their time, expertise, connections in the Caribbean missions). After six years and twelve trips, I recently ended that organization due to COVID and travel restriction. With a major volcano eruption, it has become obvious that I need to make a wise and timely decision to find a cause closer to home. Long distance travels seem to be a “thing of the past” at least for the foreseeable future.In April of 2021, I decided to focus my attention on my home parish of Saint Theresa of Avila an hour away from where I now live. I have the dream of turning my old grade school building, Saint Theresa School which was closed in 1993, into a new Saint Theresa Family Life Center to serve the whole area. My third cousin, Father Bob Ray, another priest from the same parish, is partnering with me by founding the Saint Theresa Heritage Partners, an alumni organization of the parish and school, to support this effort. I will lead the remodeling project of the Saint Theresa Family Life Center. Click on St. Theresa Heritage Partners and St. Theresa Family Life Center in the menu bar for more information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are so thoughtful. Father. I appreciate that. Father ron
Not is in the studio with me. Good to see you,
Glad to see you, Terry. You turned off your phone.
That very rarely happens on this show. Whether I'm on
radio or TV. People come in and they'll be talking
to me and all of a sudden their phone will
(00:23):
go whatever you thought of that right away?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes I looked crazy, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
But a priest would think of that, because how many
times have you been giving a sermon and someone's phone
goes off and they don't know how to shut the
noise off.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, it's been mostly Yes, that's happened. Lots of times.
They don't turn it off.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Like you'll be at a funeral and someone's up there
giving a eulogy and then they start playing you know,
bon Jovi or whatever.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
They answer it right there in front of them.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's hilarious. Good to have you here, Father Not. By
the way, his website is indeed Father not Knott dot com.
That takes you to a blog. You've written a ton
of books over the years, Yes, quite a few. So
what do you do? You just have these various thoughts
about these impressions in your life and you think I'm
(01:19):
going to jot that down and then you later compile them.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, I have no kids, no wife, nothing else to do,
so I have to think of something.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
How many books have you written? Forty? That's kind of astounding.
You're quite prolific.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Then, well, I wrote an weekly column for the dioces
and paper of the Record for fourteen years. So that's
fourteen books.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Some of the books have been translated into Swahili, Spanish
and Vietnamese. Wow, and so you know, and they're all
published on Amazon books dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So you've done a lot of work around the globe.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yes, yes, I've done priest retreats in ten countries England, Ireland, Wales,
all over the Caribbean, all over Canada, and all over
the US.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
What do you mean a priest retreat? You all come
together priest from whatever locale, and then you pray together.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
We pray a little bit together, but it's I give
lectures in the morning, lectures in the afternoon basically on
how to work together as a team with the bishop.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I say my prayers at night, good for you. I
think about my parents and my family and how lucky
I am to have such a great infrastructure, you know,
a family support system, and I think about my friends
that are gone and classmates, that sort of thing, and
I pray that they're in heaven and that they're happy.
(02:52):
Do your prayers have much more impact because you're a priest?
I mean, do you think mine even get heard? Or
they're just like butterflies on the piffery there's just like, yeah, no,
God probably listens to yours better than my. But you
went to study.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, that doesn't mean I'm smarter.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Tell me about the part in your life where you
felt this calling, because that's what it is. I mean,
at some point, you know, kids say I want to
be an astronaut, I want to be a fireman, I
want to be a nurse, And you said, I want
to be a priest.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, well, nobody ever presented the idea to me. I
had no family members. The priest didn't, the sisters didn't
bring it up other than I think I was six
years old. I went to this I was raised in
the country, so I went to this farmer to get
my hair cut. And while I was there, his wife's
(03:49):
brother had just been ordained and he was in the
kitchen and I was in the middle room, and I
noticed that he laid his collar Roman collar on the bay.
At six years old, I went into the bedroom, picked
it up, put it around my neck, tiptoed and looked
at myself in the mirror. And that was my first
(04:10):
experience of even thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Isn't that fascinating?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
But then I proceeded to announce it in the second grade,
and when sister was asking everybody what they wanted to
be when they grew up, I could mention priests and
everybody laugh. But I decided to say it anyway. So
I said it anyway. Nobody laughed.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That's bold for somebody, that is yes.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And then I proceeded to flunk the altar boy test
three times.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
In the row. I don't remember taking a test. I
just remember them saying you going to there was a
funeral going there, and remember it was in Latin in
those days.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
But anyways, this sister I did her funeral. We stayed
friends all She said, Ronnie, you're a good kid, but
I don't think you'll ever be any good around the altar.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Story of my life is Eckhamspiry tow two oh. Is
that the Pope's phone number? Yes? It is I remember
hearing that, Yes, Joe, that's that's the only Latin I remember.
But your book is this one that I read. It's fascinating.
It's called you Just Can't make this Stuff up Life
(05:21):
Lessons from fifty five years of priestly ministry. There's a
lot of funny stuff in here that you you make
note of, just little vignettes, these little windows into your life,
and it's it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Huh, well it uh. I write a lot of stuff
down and as things happen, because you never know when
you can use them for a sermon or blog post
or something. So I journal almost every day. Not what
I did today, but ideas that I might use.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, well, you mean, like you meet someone and there's
an interaction and you think I can get an idea
to include in a sermon. Yes, yeah, it could be.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
It could be something very hurtful, or it could be
something wonderful. But I you know, I would say my life.
I would describe my life as the tragedies have always
turned out for the better, including this cracked Uh, the
story about you in the in the book. You can
(06:19):
tell them about it.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh, it's something I said on the radio.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yes, you said on the radio it was when the
cathedral cracked, Yes, when we were doing the uh renovation. Yes,
And I was stressed out that day. And on the
radio I heard you say.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
What's this?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I hear about them doing crack behind the cathedral, and
that relieved a lot of stress.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Just making a joke, that's all. You have a couple
of sisters, a couple of brothers, and the several sisters.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Brothers, four sisters. One died, but the others there are
still a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And then, so how did they feel about their brother
leaving the nests to become a priest. They went on
to their lives whatever, you know, whatever their pursuits were.
Did they feel like you'd been shipped off to the army,
that you were gone? I mean, what that had to
be kind of It's tough because you're a kid when
you go off to the seminary.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Well, they probably jealous.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
They got out of the farmer. I'm still trying to
picture the farmer cutting your hair with what a weed
whacker or something.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, anyway, I don't think they paid that much attention
to me leaving. They just said, well, he'll be home
by Christmas, or he'll be you know, last a year.
It was a phase he's going through. And I spent
twelve years in the seminary from.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Is that an inordinate amount of time?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, in those days at fourteen and I was twenty
six when I got out of this.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh wow, you know, and a lot of people I'm Catholic,
so they don't understand a lot of our things that
we do. In fact, I took a friend into Saint
Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and he thought that
we worshiped statues. He was serious. He thought that we
look at statues and that's what we're worshiping, like worshiping
(08:14):
an idol, a false idol or what. I was like, No, no, no, no,
Well he couldn't understand. He'd see people walk in and
there's Mary holding Jesus, you know, after his crucifixion, and
people going up and crying and touching the foot and
you know, and just it was. It was mind expanding
for my friend. But it's like other people don't understand us.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well you should have had. My first assignment was on
the Tennessee border. I was the first Catholic priest to
live in Wayne County and work in mccrarry County, and
they they believed we worshiped statues. They believe all of
those old try things from the past were very alive
(08:56):
when I was down there.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And I've had people say to me like, oh, so
you can go kill somebody and then go to confession
and it's all good Now. I said, no, no, no, no,
no no, no, all right, you have you have a
little more time to hang around with your father. We're
gonna talk more Father ron Not. It's k n O
t T. The website is father not dot com. But
he's written a lot of books and there's a lot
(09:18):
of little funny stories in here. But we're gonna talk
more about your life and and uh, where you're headed next,
because that's the important part of where you're headed next. Right, Well,
it's getting close. Back in a few you're on news
radio A forty w H A S. And I'm getting
(09:41):
you're on news radio eight forty w h S. Terry
Miners here continuing my conversation with Reverend ron Not, Catholic
priest from here in the area. His website is father
Nott dot com. It's k n O T T. You've written,
you said, forty books. I mean, that's that's a st
I mean, do you ever lie? Father? Do you ever
(10:02):
lie just to preserve someone's feelings.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Only to cover up another live?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Just kidding, but I mean a lot of us do
little lies in life when we just tell somebody you
look great, and we don't really mean it, because somebody
has been through some kind of a challenge or whatever,
and you just want to make that you want to
be supportive. Yes, yes, I mean, Am I going to
go to hell for that?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Well?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I hope not? All right, So all your study over
all these years, is there a hell? Is there a heaven?
Is their purgatory? What are you supposed to impart to
your followers, your Catholic parishioners and other folks with whom
(10:49):
you converse?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
My God, if you held, we'll be here all night.
First of all, I think people's understanding of heaven, hell,
and purgatory are very primitive.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
You know, you.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Explain it to kids in kids language, you know, like
bottles of milk or you know, that kind of thing.
But it's I believe that all those exist, but not
in the way most people think it does. For instance,
I believe that purgatory, if there is a place It's
(11:26):
not a prace of suffering. It's a momentary to me,
it's a momentary experience of realizing how good God is
and how short you feil and you go you sort
of melt into the goodness of God.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Is it a time for reflection, maybe to see what
hell you could have?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It's it's really yeah, you experience how far you you
lived your life away from the ideal, and I think
it's it's a it's a it's an awareness, not a
place that you go to suffer and make up for
what you did. It's a place of realization or an
experience of realization of how good God is and how
(12:11):
short you came in the process. Uh, you know people, kids,
you have to explain it to kids, But I mean fire,
burning and torturing. It's not the God I believe in
heaven is uh you know do you see the people?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
You know?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Do you you know all of those things are it's
you know, the more theology you learn and the more
adult that you get. Our experience, my experience is a
lot of Catholics quit growing in their understanding when they
left grade school Catechism.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You think, like people go to Mass and they do
the rituals of saying prayers and they're really thinking about
the grocery list.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And well, I think most people go to church are
giving it their best. But I don't think religious education
was a continuous an understanding even in high school. You know,
it's not as important as it used to be. But
you know, and I've also got a a doctorate from
(13:23):
a Presbyterian seminary, and I've worked for the United Church
of Christ, so I've got a broad view vision and
I think a more adult I believe in God's great goodness.
And let me tell you about my dream. This is
a dream, okay, and that really changed my understanding of
(13:44):
God and all these concepts.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
That you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Is I dreamed one night. I was on a mountain,
almost like a golf green, except it was a mountain,
and I was sitting in a lawn chair. God was
sitting in another lawn chair, and we were smoking King
Edward cigars.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I like this picture so far.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Anyway, he wasn't speaking and I wasn't speaking, and I
was you know, I knew it was I knew who
it was, but I was afraid to move. And towards
the end, he leaned over and said to me, Ron,
isn't this wonderful? And I woke up and I realized
that I had been taught, and I had been focusing
(14:28):
on all of the condemning messages of the Bible and
never read the real positiveness, like the parables the vineyard workers,
where everybody gets a full day's pay, no matter when
they started working, the lost sheep, the ninety nine are
left in the desert, and he goes after this one
(14:52):
that got in trouble. All of those great parables are
the ones that's and that's that started my preaching career
on the good news.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
And to me, all religions have a message of something
that they're trying to pump positive. Remember we used to
the Festival of faiths here, Yes, and that was like,
oh my gosh, you mean other people have voices? Yes, yes,
Whereas when I was a child it was all I
was like, I didn't even understand that other religions, so
I mean, what are they doing? Are they speaking in tongues? No,
(15:27):
it was just a different messaging. But most religions that
we're aware of, organized religions seem to be offering a
positive message. Yes. And so I've had people say to
me before, you're not going to heaven terry because you
are not in the Christian Church and you haven't given
your soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm like, well,
(15:50):
first off, who are you to take my inventory? But
for people to say it's either my way or you
get nothing after death, it's like that seems very arrogance
and dismissive of people. God made seven billion people on
this planet. Are you telling me that seventy five percent
(16:10):
of them that it gave birth to have no shot
at heaven? That makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well, I people ask me what religion, I says, I
am consciously Christian, deliberately Catholic, and unapologetically ecumenical and enter
faith all at the same time.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
What do you think about here? You are, at your
stage in life. Do you before you go to sleep
at night? So you think, if this is it, I've
done the best I can.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Do, yes, and I think it's going to be good enough.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And that's what people need to focus on, is the
positive things that they've done with their lives. Instead of
so many people fret and they're depressed and they're, oh
my gosh, why did I Well, you can't change the
past Yes, a rear view mirror is worthless. Yes, yes,
it's what's in the windshield. But yeah, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And you know, when I was pastor of the cathedral
next door, we grew from one hundred and ten people
to twenty one hundred members from sixty seven zip codes
without any advertising. It was word of mouth, and I
spent my time focusing on the parables, the good News
(17:29):
and God's love for all. And I was also part
of the Festival of Faiths Foundation with Christy Brown because
I cathedrals in the Middle Ages were open, you know,
they were open to the whole community, and we're known
for that. But also from my experience, Vatican Council too
(17:54):
says that we talks positively about our relationship to Jews.
We can learn something from Protestants and a respect for Muslims.
All in the official teaching of the church.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Our church right, we take a lot of abuse of
Catholics to about our immigration policies because we're welcoming to
people from and a lot of people don't understand that.
And also for abortion. My parents raised me a certain way.
I know how I feel about that, but I have
to be limited in what I do as a public person,
(18:28):
but still I know who I am inside, and a
lot of people really are. They rain down a lot
of damnation and condemnation because they don't give you the
latitude to have your own beliefs, and I find that
really sad.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
When I was in Monticello, we would mail out a
letter every week to all the neighboring churches saying that
we're praying for you this week.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I love that, and.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
We pray that you will be successful. Uh, we're not
competing with you. We are you know we're all here. Yes, Yes,
elevate and immigration. I mean, you asked me what I'm
going to do next. I've been working in the Caribbean missions.
(19:19):
I made twelve trips down there until the volcano were
erupted and COVID found. Now I'm working. I've just built
a church in Kenya in Africa, just finished it. And
this week I finally got the money all together to
build a house for a single parent mother with one
(19:41):
daughter living in a rented one room hovel, and this
is the first time she's ever going to have a house.
It's a three bedroom house. Of course, things are cheaper
over there. The new house, fully furnished, with a lot
big enough to have a guard garden and twenty five
thousand dollars feed yourself. Good for you, a life well lived. Father, Not, Well,
(20:06):
that's I'm doing the best I can. That's the that's
the goal. Everybody needs to think that way before they
close their eyes.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It's nice. I appreciate you. We got to talk upon
some serious subjects. I mean we were laughing in the beginning,
but that's important too. They that people hear about you know,
your real mission in life. Reverend Ron not knot fathernot
dot com. His most recent book is you just can't
make this stuff up. There's a lot of funny stuff
in here. I appreciate you, thanks for your friendship.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Father, you too, and I remember your dad?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well, oh thanks, that's nice.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He was a wonderful guy.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, he was a wonderful guy. A lot of discipline
put a lot of us in great positions in life
because we were led by strong parents. Yes, yes, yes,
I got thirteen brothers and sisters, and not one of
them is a sad person. Who's who sits back and
says I wish I'd done this instead. Everybody's kind of
on their own path, blazed.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
They say. One last time. I don't know how families
do it. I admire families, especially in the old days
when they were raising so many children. They sacrifice so much.
And last of all, if I had to be a
priest again, I would do it. I am a consciously Christian,
(21:19):
deliberately Catholic, and unapologetically ecumenical and inner faith.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Good man, father, good talk to you back in a
minute on news radio WAD forty WHS
You are so thoughtful. Father. I appreciate that. Father ron
Not is in the studio with me. Good to see you,
Glad to see you, Terry. You turned off your phone.
That very rarely happens on this show. Whether I'm on
radio or TV. People come in and they'll be talking
to me and all of a sudden their phone will
(00:23):
go whatever you thought of that right away?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes I looked crazy, but I'm not.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
But a priest would think of that, because how many
times have you been giving a sermon and someone's phone
goes off and they don't know how to shut the
noise off.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, it's been mostly Yes, that's happened. Lots of times.
They don't turn it off.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Like you'll be at a funeral and someone's up there
giving a eulogy and then they start playing you know,
bon Jovi or whatever.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
They answer it right there in front of them.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's hilarious. Good to have you here, Father Not. By
the way, his website is indeed Father not Knott dot com.
That takes you to a blog. You've written a ton
of books over the years, Yes, quite a few. So
what do you do? You just have these various thoughts
about these impressions in your life and you think I'm
(01:19):
going to jot that down and then you later compile them.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, I have no kids, no wife, nothing else to do,
so I have to think of something.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
How many books have you written? Forty? That's kind of astounding.
You're quite prolific.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Then, well, I wrote an weekly column for the dioces
and paper of the Record for fourteen years. So that's
fourteen books.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Some of the books have been translated into Swahili, Spanish
and Vietnamese. Wow, and so you know, and they're all
published on Amazon books dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So you've done a lot of work around the globe.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yes, yes, I've done priest retreats in ten countries England, Ireland, Wales,
all over the Caribbean, all over Canada, and all over
the US.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
What do you mean a priest retreat? You all come
together priest from whatever locale, and then you pray together.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
We pray a little bit together, but it's I give
lectures in the morning, lectures in the afternoon basically on
how to work together as a team with the bishop.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I say my prayers at night, good for you. I
think about my parents and my family and how lucky
I am to have such a great infrastructure, you know,
a family support system, and I think about my friends
that are gone and classmates, that sort of thing, and
I pray that they're in heaven and that they're happy.
(02:52):
Do your prayers have much more impact because you're a priest?
I mean, do you think mine even get heard? Or
they're just like butterflies on the piffery there's just like, yeah, no,
God probably listens to yours better than my. But you
went to study.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Well, that doesn't mean I'm smarter.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Tell me about the part in your life where you
felt this calling, because that's what it is. I mean,
at some point, you know, kids say I want to
be an astronaut, I want to be a fireman, I
want to be a nurse, And you said, I want
to be a priest.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yes, well, nobody ever presented the idea to me. I
had no family members. The priest didn't, the sisters didn't
bring it up other than I think I was six
years old. I went to this I was raised in
the country, so I went to this farmer to get
my hair cut. And while I was there, his wife's
(03:49):
brother had just been ordained and he was in the
kitchen and I was in the middle room, and I
noticed that he laid his collar Roman collar on the bay.
At six years old, I went into the bedroom, picked
it up, put it around my neck, tiptoed and looked
at myself in the mirror. And that was my first
(04:10):
experience of even thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Isn't that fascinating?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
But then I proceeded to announce it in the second grade,
and when sister was asking everybody what they wanted to
be when they grew up, I could mention priests and
everybody laugh. But I decided to say it anyway. So
I said it anyway. Nobody laughed.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That's bold for somebody, that is yes.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
And then I proceeded to flunk the altar boy test
three times.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
In the row. I don't remember taking a test. I
just remember them saying you going to there was a
funeral going there, and remember it was in Latin in
those days.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
But anyways, this sister I did her funeral. We stayed
friends all She said, Ronnie, you're a good kid, but
I don't think you'll ever be any good around the altar.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Story of my life is Eckhamspiry tow two oh. Is
that the Pope's phone number? Yes? It is I remember
hearing that, Yes, Joe, that's that's the only Latin I remember.
But your book is this one that I read. It's fascinating.
It's called you Just Can't make this Stuff up Life
(05:21):
Lessons from fifty five years of priestly ministry. There's a
lot of funny stuff in here that you you make
note of, just little vignettes, these little windows into your life,
and it's it's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Huh, well it uh. I write a lot of stuff
down and as things happen, because you never know when
you can use them for a sermon or blog post
or something. So I journal almost every day. Not what
I did today, but ideas that I might use.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, well, you mean, like you meet someone and there's
an interaction and you think I can get an idea
to include in a sermon. Yes, yeah, it could be.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
It could be something very hurtful, or it could be
something wonderful. But I you know, I would say my life.
I would describe my life as the tragedies have always
turned out for the better, including this cracked Uh, the
story about you in the in the book. You can
(06:19):
tell them about it.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh, it's something I said on the radio.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yes, you said on the radio it was when the
cathedral cracked, Yes, when we were doing the uh renovation. Yes,
And I was stressed out that day. And on the
radio I heard you say.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
What's this?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I hear about them doing crack behind the cathedral, and
that relieved a lot of stress.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Just making a joke, that's all. You have a couple
of sisters, a couple of brothers, and the several sisters.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Brothers, four sisters. One died, but the others there are
still a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And then, so how did they feel about their brother
leaving the nests to become a priest. They went on
to their lives whatever, you know, whatever their pursuits were.
Did they feel like you'd been shipped off to the army,
that you were gone? I mean, what that had to
be kind of It's tough because you're a kid when
you go off to the seminary.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Well, they probably jealous.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
They got out of the farmer. I'm still trying to
picture the farmer cutting your hair with what a weed
whacker or something.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, anyway, I don't think they paid that much attention
to me leaving. They just said, well, he'll be home
by Christmas, or he'll be you know, last a year.
It was a phase he's going through. And I spent
twelve years in the seminary from.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Is that an inordinate amount of time?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
No, in those days at fourteen and I was twenty
six when I got out of this.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oh wow, you know, and a lot of people I'm Catholic,
so they don't understand a lot of our things that
we do. In fact, I took a friend into Saint
Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and he thought that
we worshiped statues. He was serious. He thought that we
look at statues and that's what we're worshiping, like worshiping
(08:14):
an idol, a false idol or what. I was like, No, no, no, no,
Well he couldn't understand. He'd see people walk in and
there's Mary holding Jesus, you know, after his crucifixion, and
people going up and crying and touching the foot and
you know, and just it was. It was mind expanding
for my friend. But it's like other people don't understand us.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Well you should have had. My first assignment was on
the Tennessee border. I was the first Catholic priest to
live in Wayne County and work in mccrarry County, and
they they believed we worshiped statues. They believe all of
those old try things from the past were very alive
(08:56):
when I was down there.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And I've had people say to me like, oh, so
you can go kill somebody and then go to confession
and it's all good Now. I said, no, no, no, no,
no no, no, all right, you have you have a
little more time to hang around with your father. We're
gonna talk more Father ron Not. It's k n O
t T. The website is father not dot com. But
he's written a lot of books and there's a lot
(09:18):
of little funny stories in here. But we're gonna talk
more about your life and and uh, where you're headed next,
because that's the important part of where you're headed next. Right, Well,
it's getting close. Back in a few you're on news
radio A forty w H A S. And I'm getting
(09:41):
you're on news radio eight forty w h S. Terry
Miners here continuing my conversation with Reverend ron Not, Catholic
priest from here in the area. His website is father
Nott dot com. It's k n O T T. You've written,
you said, forty books. I mean, that's that's a st
I mean, do you ever lie? Father? Do you ever
(10:02):
lie just to preserve someone's feelings.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Only to cover up another live?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Just kidding, but I mean a lot of us do
little lies in life when we just tell somebody you
look great, and we don't really mean it, because somebody
has been through some kind of a challenge or whatever,
and you just want to make that you want to
be supportive. Yes, yes, I mean, Am I going to
go to hell for that?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Well?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I hope not? All right, So all your study over
all these years, is there a hell? Is there a heaven?
Is their purgatory? What are you supposed to impart to
your followers, your Catholic parishioners and other folks with whom
(10:49):
you converse?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
My God, if you held, we'll be here all night.
First of all, I think people's understanding of heaven, hell,
and purgatory are very primitive.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
You know, you.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Explain it to kids in kids language, you know, like
bottles of milk or you know, that kind of thing.
But it's I believe that all those exist, but not
in the way most people think it does. For instance,
I believe that purgatory, if there is a place It's
(11:26):
not a prace of suffering. It's a momentary to me,
it's a momentary experience of realizing how good God is
and how short you feil and you go you sort
of melt into the goodness of God.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Is it a time for reflection, maybe to see what
hell you could have?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It's it's really yeah, you experience how far you you
lived your life away from the ideal, and I think
it's it's a it's a it's an awareness, not a
place that you go to suffer and make up for
what you did. It's a place of realization or an
experience of realization of how good God is and how
(12:11):
short you came in the process. Uh, you know people, kids,
you have to explain it to kids, But I mean fire,
burning and torturing. It's not the God I believe in
heaven is uh you know do you see the people?
Speaker 1 (12:31):
You know?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Do you you know all of those things are it's
you know, the more theology you learn and the more
adult that you get. Our experience, my experience is a
lot of Catholics quit growing in their understanding when they
left grade school Catechism.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You think, like people go to Mass and they do
the rituals of saying prayers and they're really thinking about
the grocery list.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And well, I think most people go to church are
giving it their best. But I don't think religious education
was a continuous an understanding even in high school. You know,
it's not as important as it used to be. But
you know, and I've also got a a doctorate from
(13:23):
a Presbyterian seminary, and I've worked for the United Church
of Christ, so I've got a broad view vision and
I think a more adult I believe in God's great goodness.
And let me tell you about my dream. This is
a dream, okay, and that really changed my understanding of
(13:44):
God and all these concepts.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
That you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Is I dreamed one night. I was on a mountain,
almost like a golf green, except it was a mountain,
and I was sitting in a lawn chair. God was
sitting in another lawn chair, and we were smoking King
Edward cigars.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I like this picture so far.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Anyway, he wasn't speaking and I wasn't speaking, and I
was you know, I knew it was I knew who
it was, but I was afraid to move. And towards
the end, he leaned over and said to me, Ron,
isn't this wonderful? And I woke up and I realized
that I had been taught, and I had been focusing
(14:28):
on all of the condemning messages of the Bible and
never read the real positiveness, like the parables the vineyard workers,
where everybody gets a full day's pay, no matter when
they started working, the lost sheep, the ninety nine are
left in the desert, and he goes after this one
(14:52):
that got in trouble. All of those great parables are
the ones that's and that's that started my preaching career
on the good news.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
And to me, all religions have a message of something
that they're trying to pump positive. Remember we used to
the Festival of faiths here, Yes, and that was like,
oh my gosh, you mean other people have voices? Yes, yes,
Whereas when I was a child it was all I
was like, I didn't even understand that other religions, so
I mean, what are they doing? Are they speaking in tongues? No,
(15:27):
it was just a different messaging. But most religions that
we're aware of, organized religions seem to be offering a
positive message. Yes. And so I've had people say to
me before, you're not going to heaven terry because you
are not in the Christian Church and you haven't given
your soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm like, well,
(15:50):
first off, who are you to take my inventory? But
for people to say it's either my way or you
get nothing after death, it's like that seems very arrogance
and dismissive of people. God made seven billion people on
this planet. Are you telling me that seventy five percent
(16:10):
of them that it gave birth to have no shot
at heaven? That makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well, I people ask me what religion, I says, I
am consciously Christian, deliberately Catholic, and unapologetically ecumenical and enter
faith all at the same time.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
What do you think about here? You are, at your
stage in life. Do you before you go to sleep
at night? So you think, if this is it, I've
done the best I can.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Do, yes, and I think it's going to be good enough.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And that's what people need to focus on, is the
positive things that they've done with their lives. Instead of
so many people fret and they're depressed and they're, oh
my gosh, why did I Well, you can't change the
past Yes, a rear view mirror is worthless. Yes, yes,
it's what's in the windshield. But yeah, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And you know, when I was pastor of the cathedral
next door, we grew from one hundred and ten people
to twenty one hundred members from sixty seven zip codes
without any advertising. It was word of mouth, and I
spent my time focusing on the parables, the good News
(17:29):
and God's love for all. And I was also part
of the Festival of Faiths Foundation with Christy Brown because
I cathedrals in the Middle Ages were open, you know,
they were open to the whole community, and we're known
for that. But also from my experience, Vatican Council too
(17:54):
says that we talks positively about our relationship to Jews.
We can learn something from Protestants and a respect for Muslims.
All in the official teaching of the church.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Our church right, we take a lot of abuse of
Catholics to about our immigration policies because we're welcoming to
people from and a lot of people don't understand that.
And also for abortion. My parents raised me a certain way.
I know how I feel about that, but I have
to be limited in what I do as a public person,
(18:28):
but still I know who I am inside, and a
lot of people really are. They rain down a lot
of damnation and condemnation because they don't give you the
latitude to have your own beliefs, and I find that
really sad.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
When I was in Monticello, we would mail out a
letter every week to all the neighboring churches saying that
we're praying for you this week.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I love that, and.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
We pray that you will be successful. Uh, we're not
competing with you. We are you know we're all here. Yes, Yes,
elevate and immigration. I mean, you asked me what I'm
going to do next. I've been working in the Caribbean missions.
(19:19):
I made twelve trips down there until the volcano were
erupted and COVID found. Now I'm working. I've just built
a church in Kenya in Africa, just finished it. And
this week I finally got the money all together to
build a house for a single parent mother with one
(19:41):
daughter living in a rented one room hovel, and this
is the first time she's ever going to have a house.
It's a three bedroom house. Of course, things are cheaper
over there. The new house, fully furnished, with a lot
big enough to have a guard garden and twenty five
thousand dollars feed yourself. Good for you, a life well lived. Father, Not, Well,
(20:06):
that's I'm doing the best I can. That's the that's
the goal. Everybody needs to think that way before they
close their eyes.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
It's nice. I appreciate you. We got to talk upon
some serious subjects. I mean we were laughing in the beginning,
but that's important too. They that people hear about you know,
your real mission in life. Reverend Ron not knot fathernot
dot com. His most recent book is you just can't
make this stuff up. There's a lot of funny stuff
in here. I appreciate you, thanks for your friendship.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Father, you too, and I remember your dad?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well, oh thanks, that's nice.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
He was a wonderful guy.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, he was a wonderful guy. A lot of discipline
put a lot of us in great positions in life
because we were led by strong parents. Yes, yes, yes,
I got thirteen brothers and sisters, and not one of
them is a sad person. Who's who sits back and
says I wish I'd done this instead. Everybody's kind of
on their own path, blazed.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
They say. One last time. I don't know how families
do it. I admire families, especially in the old days
when they were raising so many children. They sacrifice so much.
And last of all, if I had to be a
priest again, I would do it. I am a consciously Christian,
(21:19):
deliberately Catholic, and unapologetically ecumenical and inner faith.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Good man, father, good talk to you back in a
minute on news radio WAD forty WHS
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