Episode 293: JonMarc Grodi of the Coming Home Network (November 20, 2024)

In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Thomas Storck and Andrew Sorokowski interview JonMarc Grodi of the Coming Home Network. 

Some of the questions asked include the following:

1.  What is the Coming Home Network and how did it begin?
2. How successful has it been? Do you have statistics on home many non-Catholics you've helped bring into the Church?
3. What are the chief obstacles in your experience that prevent Protestants, and perhaps especially Protestant ministers, from considering the claims of the Church?
4. Have these obstacles changed in any important way during the existence of the CHN?
5. Most Protestant clergy have some theological or biblical formation that can be helpful in pointing them toward the Catholic Church? But what about Protestant laymen? How can they be reached best if they've never even thought about these matters, e.g., about where we get the Bible or why it is authoritative?
6. What is the best way for Catholics to engage their friends and neighbors who belong to other Christian bodies with the claims of the Catholic Church?
7. Given that many in the Catholic Church no longer promote evangelization and conversion of non-Catholic Christians, has the CHN run into criticism from Catholics regarding your apostolate?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to the Open Door with Thomas Stork and co
hosts Andrews Sorokowski and Christia Risandro, who unfortunately cannot be
with us today. Our guest today is John Mark Roadie,
the executive director of the Coming Home Network, very important
Catholic apostle focusing on helping Protestant ministers and others to

(00:30):
return home to the Catholic Church. Let us begin as
usual with our prayer and even Father Sun the Louis Spirit. Amen, come,
Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your faithful, and
enkindle them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit,
and they shall be created, and you shall renew the
face of the earth. Let us spray, Oh God, who
has taught the hearts of the faithful by the light

(00:52):
of the Holy Spirit, grant that in the same spirit
may be truly wise and ever rejoiced in this consolation
through Christ, our Lord in it. Well, thank you very much, John,
Mary for being with us today. We're delighted to have you.
And maybe for any of our visitors or viewers rather

(01:13):
that are not familiar, you can explain what to come
homework network is how your father can to start it
and so on.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Sure, well, thanks so much, Tom and Andrew. It's great
to be here. It's really a privilege and honor. Yeah,
the Coming Home Network, you know, in brief, to begin
with again, our mission is to share the truth and
beauty of the Catholic faith and to help people come
home with the Catholic Church. And as you noted, one
of our core demographics that from the beginning we've focused

(01:42):
on helping in particular are Protestant pastors and ministers. My
father was a Presbyterian pastor for many years, and then
due to his own intellectual struggles with things like the
authority to preach from scripture and the interpretation of scripture,
he started out on a journey that led him to
consider coming home to the Catholic Church. And when he
did so, he began to discover that there were others

(02:04):
who had made a similar journey and were on that journey.
But recognizing that, you know, it's difficult for someone to
become Catholic, but particularly for a minister or a pastor
who is given you know, many years to study and
learning and preaching the Gospel. When they discovered that the
Catholic Church is who she claims to be and has
this conviction to become Catholic. Well, they they they give

(02:26):
up a lot, right, they give up there, not just
their ministry, but in cases the their source of income,
you know, the stability of their family, and disruption of
their relationships. And so it's a difficult journey. And so
originally the Coming Home Network was started as kind of
a network of support amongst clergy converts to the Catholic
Church and those who are considering becoming Catholic. And my

(02:47):
father started a newsletter and then shortly after that he
was invited by Mother Angelica to host the Journey Home
Program in EWTN, where he was helping these converts and others,
you know, pastors but also converts to Catholic Church to
share their stories. And then since then, you know, thirty
years later, the ministry has continued to blossom. We help

(03:07):
all sorts of people come home to the Catholic Church
through kind of counseling and mentoring and newsletters and videos
and the Journey Home Program and retreats and lots of
other things. But we always retain that core focus on
particularly helping pastors as they discern and they make this
difficult journey to prepare to become the Catholic.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Do you have statistics on how many you've helped into
the church.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, I can give a sense of that now. You know,
it's difficult because we meet people at all different places
of their journey, right, and obviously not everybody is working
directly with us. Many thousands and thousands, of course are
reached by the Journey Home program and our other media,
but on our roles. For example, we have about three
thousand clergy converts and journeyers in our database. About eighteen

(03:55):
hundred are converts, about twelve hundred are still on the journey,
hundred of them. One hundred new pastors on the journey
we've heard from this past year, and you know, twenty
to thirty of those convert per year, right, of the
people that we're working with. In terms of laity late
lay people on the journey, it's many, many times more.

(04:16):
It's more like eleven thousand or so converts and journeyers
in our database, six hundred new people on the journey
this year that we're working with on about sixty to
one hundred of the people that were working directly with
become Catholic each year. But again that doesn't take into
account the many people that we don't hear from who
are watching the programs and the videos and articles and that.

(04:37):
So it's a big it's a big circle. But the
people that we work with directly, they come to us
because you know, there oftentimes are the harder cases, the
pastors who are really giving up a lot. There was
a gentleman I worked with myself. I don't usually work
with people on the journey. I'm kind of managing the team.
But there was a gentleman locally, a Lutheran pastor a
few years ago, and he had basically read his way

(04:58):
into the church, but he hadn't really he told his
wife yet, and he hadn't really met any Catholics yet,
and he didn't really know where to start, you know,
how to restart his life as a Catholic. And so,
you know, helping him to connect with the bishop, connect
with other priests in the diocese, to have friends to
help him walk this journey. And now he and his
family are a Catholic and serving at a parish. And

(05:18):
doesn't always happen like that sometimes, you know, it takes
time to really find the place in the church. But
that's our goal, is to help especially these pastors to
become Catholic and discern kind of the next step for
God to use them to preach the gospel. Not all
of them are called to priests. Very few of them
are called to go on to the priest, so that
that door is open to some. But they're alsto called

(05:39):
to preach the gospel as all of us are right,
and God gave them a particular keroism, a love for scripture,
a love for study and discipleship, and so helping them
to stay kind of encouraged and focused and to discern
where God's calling them to use the gifts in the
Catholic Church. That's a a big focus of our mission.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
And cont in any time with your own questions or
any of the other ones. Can I maybe start with
one now and yeah, do something later. You know, here
and here on the left coast in California, you know,
this is almost you know, in Mamelia, almost unheard of.
I mean, most of the traffic seems to be going
in other directions. Most Catholics I've met have left the church.

(06:19):
Most Protestants I know are nominal Protestants, A few are serious.

Speaker 5 (06:25):
You have occasionally a Catholic becoming an Evangelical. But you know,
and I'm just wondering, I mean, this is a very
specific melia here in northern California. But what is there
any particular social media where this happens, where this is
more likely to happen or is it kind of all
over the place?

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, it's all over the place, I would say. You know,
twenty thirty years ago, there was a big spike, partly
I think in terms of caused by just the cultural
situation the time period, partially by the popes of that
time period, partially by the kind of the boom and
apologetic and Scott Han's conversion story tape and a lot
of the conferences that were happening in the time. We

(07:04):
had a real boom in very intellectual clergy, you know,
minister convert the church, and we had you know, a
lot of them, you know in the church who are
now you know, head of big ministries, bic apostolates. We
still we still get some of those. I think the
cultural situation has changed a bit in the sense that
many of the mainline Christian denominations have crumbled. You know,

(07:29):
increasingly in so many ways morally and and doctrinally and
split off more and more. So I think we're getting
a lot more we still have, you know, received those
those very you know, well read, well studied clergy converts
who kind of read their way in you know, reading Newman,
reading the old Church Fathers. I think we're receiving a
much wider group of people now who they're kind of

(07:52):
coming from almost from a post Protestant world where even
though they maybe they grew up Evangelical, they've gone to
some megachurch. They love Jesus, but they don't have a
deep theology, they don't even have a deep attachment to
a particular you know, denomination, and they don't really have
a sense. They wouldn't really identify with the sense of
Protestant right, they wouldn't have a sense of the Reformation.

(08:13):
And therefore, you know, there's also an opportunity there because
they don't really have the same kind of anti Catholicism
or the same baggage. They're just kind of coming at
it fresh and so when they're presented with, oh, there's more, right,
there's more to this Christian faith. There's more to the
history than I've received there they're actually more open to it.
So yeah, there's more of a variety that we're seeing.

Speaker 5 (08:34):
Now.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Some of those in recent usion missions gone on. And
I know I think it was Francis Beckman, Yeah, who
came into the church, some other high profile because they
have much influence on bringing other Protestants when they say, hey,
there's some of the smartest guys in our church, and
they became kase, maybe I should look into it too.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, I think a lot of that has happened over
the years, you know. I mean there's so many conversion stories,
you know, like my father's you know, where you know,
a turning point was discovering, yes that this this man
or woman that I knew I loved Jesus preach the
gospel would never ever become Catholic. Well now they've become Catholic.
How I have to understand why that happened. Yeah, many

(09:16):
many stories have begun that way for sure.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
And what what do you what are they in your
experience on your experience of the coming home network? What
are the chief obstacles? I mean are they intellectual? Are
they familial? Job related? And how how do people solve this?

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, my dad has always summarized the main reasons why
people Catholic or they are the obstacles for them becoming
Catholic as ignorance, prejudice, and bad Catholics, and ignorance being
just what what people don't know? Right what They just
they don't know what they don't know, and that's not
that's not a criticism. You just don't know what you
don't know. And so there's there's certainly a lack of

(09:59):
information many people about the Catholic Church actually teaches, and
of course in some circles there's there's certainly prejudice against
the Catholic Church in the sense of people believing things
that aren't true. Many people believe the Catholic Church to
be one thing, but it's simply not. They have a
lot of ill informed beliefs about the church's teaching or
its history. And then you know, certainly the a bigger

(10:21):
one this past twenty years in particular, although it's always
been the case, is just the bad example of Catholics, right,
scandals in the church, infighting in the church. You know,
we've had to wrestle a lot with amongst the people
that we're working with the past ten fifteen years with
them reading their way into this church and kind of
reading this very pure, beautiful vision of what the church is,

(10:42):
and of course encountering in the church, you know, lots
of confusion and infighting and tribalism and you know, different
flavors of Catholics, and we try to steer people through
that and just you know, focus on the essentials, you know,
stay close to your catechism, take close to the scriptures.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
What about the person, no obstacles like well, I know
I read in the Coming Home that We're newsletter. You
see some really hard felt please from clergymen and clergyman
who say, my wife isn't on board with this. Yes,
I haven't shared it with my wife yet, and I
don't know what she'll think, and so on and so on. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, those barriers are especially in the case of of clergy. Uh,
there are a lot of them.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Right.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
We have many guys who come to us and again
they've they've practically read their way into the church, but
they they haven't really told their wife yet, Right, you
should I tell my wife. Yes, that's a big piece
of the journey there, and and they that can go
many different ways. Sometimes you have a spouse who's kind
of open to that spiritual journey and other times they're not.
And in our case, in terms of how how we

(11:44):
encourage people, you know, we we encourage oftentimes them to
kind of slow down and be patient and to work
on that marriage, work on those relationships. You know, God,
God is patient with us. You know, our ca is
nine months long. I mean, the church recognizes that we
you have to pack your bags and prepare and that
just part of the process and God understands that. There's
also just you know, the the social circle and circumstances.

(12:08):
Right Oftentimes you have people that when they consider becoming Catholic,
they're oftentimes leaving very close knit communities of kind of excited,
charged up believers. You know, these some of these evangelical communities,
there's a lot of zeal, there's a lot of fervor there,
and they what they encounter in the Catholic Church is
often you know, sometimes you know parishes where they're a

(12:30):
little sleepy and there's not much going on, there's not
much hospitality, and that's a that's a real culture shock,
that's a big one. And then certainly again for pastors
and ministers, if their ministry was also their their profession,
their source of income for their family, you know, their
their identity, their vocation, and their way to support their family.
Then they become Catholic without any any certainty at all

(12:52):
that they might find a similar ministry in the Catholic Church.
They really have to lay that down and kind of
pack their parachute, so to speak, and be prepared to
perhaps have to go into secular work, which is again
a big kind of identity crisis for many of these
these men for whom their whole life had been given
to Christ to preach the Gospel and to serve him,
and they still want to do that.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
Somewhere of a case of a woman clergy woman, I
don't know the denomination, who actually became a Catholic and
of course you know how to kind of give that up,
do you do you ever have those cases?

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, we've had a few women over the years, and
that's some of them. When they come to us, they've
already sort of worked through that reality that you know,
in the Catholic Church, priests priests are men, right, That's
bound up with the meaning of priesthood is that father
that fatherhood, and so we, you know, we help them
with that recognizing that there's One of the things we

(13:47):
do try to emphasize is that while people are becoming
Catholic and they're they're studying kind of on the intellectual side,
the doctrines of the church, the teachings of the Church,
we try to emphasize that, you know, your journey to
the Catholic Church, which needs to be a spiritual journey
as well. You need to be going deeper in prayer
and deeper in your relationship with Christ through this journey.
We don't put pause on that until you get into

(14:09):
the Catholic Church. The journey itself, the discernment, the prayer,
the struggle, you know, working through the difficulties that should
be a sanctifying process. And you know what goes along
with that too is recognizing that we have maybe a
different understanding of calling and vocation and preaching the Gospel
then they might have experienced in the church they came from.
You know, we have this great spirituality from Saint trez

(14:31):
and many of the other great saints and doctors of
the Church of the little way of recognizing that there's
not really any big or little things in Christ. There's
what God's calling you to do, right there's many ways
to serve God. There's many ways to preach the gospel,
not just being up in the pulpit you know in
your church. There are many ways to serve. There are
many ways to preach, there are many ways to teach.

(14:52):
And again there's no big and small there. It's just
what God's calling you to do. So it's helping people
catch that vision of holiness, of being faithful in the
li calling that God's calling you to do and recognizing
that you know, through that fidelity, Guy can bring great fruit.
That's true, and not just for the with the women,
but all the people that are coming to the church.
Helping that catch that vision that the fruitfulness will come

(15:13):
to fidelity to your vocation.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Now, the longer I live, the more I am impressed
by how Protestant American culture is and how so many
things that we take for granted are really Protestant ideas.
But people who don't know much about Christianity or about
the history of Christianity will just sort of take these

(15:40):
things as the norm. And I can imagine, well, for example,
if you take a if you take its course in
a secular college on scripture, they will use the Protestant canon,
the President will Testament canon and it never entered into
their minds. Well, you know, the majority of Christians in
the world use another can use a wider carant, a

(16:03):
larger cant. So why is it that as seculars, we're
allowing Protestants to set the tone for our investigations in
our studies. So, uh, can you comment on on just
this Protestant bill you that we're in. I remember you
remember of Cardinal George of a number of years ago
of Chicago always said that most American contacts are cultural

(16:25):
Protestants cultural counts, and I think that we've been influenced
a lot by this Protestant miliu that we're into.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah, yeah, you probably know that some of the historical
factors in that better than I do. I know that's
something my dad has been very interested in studying. But
it's certainly there. And you know, I think one way
that I've I've even seen it in our work is
just recognizing that even those we have a lot of
Protestantism within the Church in the sense of an attitude

(16:53):
towards truth and attitude towards authority. I mean, we often
you know, you know, in the in the Catholic Protestant apologetics.
You know, we might criticize Protestants for having got a
solo scripture of belief that itself is not biblically founded,
you know, proof texting different scriptures to try to prove
theologies and doctrines that are a historical that have not

(17:15):
been part of the Christian faith from the beginning. But
then sometimes you step into the Catholic Church and what
do you have. You have many Catholics who are proof
texting papal encyclicals and obscure councils and this, that and
the other to prove their own kind of novel or
particular interpretation of what Catholics really believe contra Vatican two
or contra the Catechism that we have. And so a

(17:35):
big part of that backing up for a moment is
sort of the paradigm of truth, the paradigm of authority,
of how the Church works, the paradigm of what it
means to approach Christ and approach his church and to
approach the question of truth. We can have a very
Protestant attitude toward that, and certainly in America, I think
that it's sort of baked into baked into our ethos

(17:58):
kind of this very independent, you know, self assertive, you know,
personal interpretation that you know, you have to work on
a little. It takes some humility, it takes some conversion
to really begin to approach truth, the questions of truth.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
As a Catholic, now, Andrews, as an Eastern Catholic, do
you have any particular have you seen converts or one
way or the other in the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
Well, there is a there's an interesting book that came
out in Canada by Christopher Gooley, a journalist, Canadian journalist
about people who joined the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Canada.
And it's it's a series of interviews or biographies, and
I recall which it is. Now, what's very interesting there is, Yes,

(18:46):
you do get some people from a Protestant background who
are very well versed in you know, in scripture and
so on theology. And then you get people who are
just you know, kind of nuns I suppose you know,
n O n E. That is right, who were just
became curious. What's what's interesting there is some people were

(19:07):
attracted by simply the ritual itself, the right, the singing,
you know, the ceremony inside the aesthetics, right, and it
occurs to me. I mean, there's one of the problems
of the Roman Catholic Church in the US is again
this Protestant influence which was pared down the culture and
made it very minimalist, you might say. And yet we

(19:30):
know that the tradition is, among other things, baroque and
very you know, very florid sort of aesthetic. I wonder
whether you have cases of people who are you attracted
to the church through culture.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
For sure, and we have many many conversion stories, you know,
begin with an encounter with beauty. You know, someone who
comes into the mass, you know, someone invites them to
the Mass, and they don't they don't necessarily know what
they're seeing or hearing, but they are struck by the
beauty of of the mass, or of the architecture, or
of the the statues, the smells and the bells, you know,

(20:08):
or they're you know, studying abroad and they go to
to an ancient, an ancient church, you know, they go
to Rome, or they go to some of these ancient
sites and they're they're they're hit by the beauty. And
we have a difficulty nowadays where we've we kind of
have to. We have We've gone a couple of different
directions with this. Obviously, we have some Catholic churches obviously

(20:30):
who that that have been built in this kind of
minimalist aesthetic and sort of done away with a lot
of our cultural heritage there that that had a purpose.
We have other people who are sort of clinging to
that merely on a surface level esthetic. Nowadays we have
this kind of this even a secular sort of return
to tradition, which has some good roots and some good intentions,

(20:51):
but can remain very esthetic.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
The beauty can be this this portal into into more,
but it has to obviously has to penetrate and become
the occasion for for real conversion, for real chain, for
something internal. But yeah, we I think we do ourselves
a real disservice. We do the gospel of real disservice.
When we don't give it, we don't clothe it beautifully
in the way that Christianity always has.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
You know, I remember Newman in the Loogia mentions one
of the priests of the Order of his Oratory who
had been first attracted to Council Church by architecture. Yeah,
but obviously he didn't starts architecture.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Right, right, Yeah, And there's different elements of beauty too, right,
It's I mean one is that sort of external the
architecture of the beauty, the painting. You know, that's one
way we do it. But you know, certainly in like
I was just reading the other day, one of my
favorite books is Father Thomas Dubay's Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer,

(21:52):
and he uh was writing about, you know, the beauty
of holiness, right, the beauty when when you when you
counter someone who's who has you know, committed themselves to
this deep prayer communion with God, there's a beauty of
their of their holiness that goes beyond the esthetic, goes
beyond the external. And many many converts, you know, when

(22:14):
they finally encounter the saints, when they finally read them,
when they finally listen to their words, their writings, they
encounter it again, this beauty. It's partly intellectual, it's partly truth,
but it's deeper than that. It's that the person communicating
to them is a person who obviously has been touched
deeply by our Lord and been changed and transformed by
that encounter. There's a quote from that book. We're actually

(22:37):
doing a book study on this in the network online
community recently, and for the debate rights to bring people
closer to God. Competency and clarity are important, but they
are not enough of themselves. They do not touch hearts
deeply personal sanctity and goodness. Do It is the saints
who light fires.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
I like that. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah, which, and
as you said before, the spiritual temperature in many Cathlic
parishes is not really high. Now the obstacle you alluded
to this earlier, John, about the obstacles that prevent Cathic

(23:21):
Protestants rather even from beginning to investigate the church.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
And you alluded to this second part of this question
a little bit too. It. Oh, it has changed in
the in the thirty years that the Coming Home Network
has been in existence, is it it was a at
one time? Was it more intellectual? And you kind of
suggest that maybe that now it's it's less.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
So, Yeah, But one of the big changes was that,
you know, thirty forty years ago, the internet was still
very young, and so if you were a Protestant lay
person or a pastor and you know, you encountered a problem,
you know, an issue with authority or coognizing different interpretations
of scripture. Something sets you off to reconsider your claims,

(24:05):
to reconsider your paradigm, to maybe ask these bigger questions
about Christianity and why I'm a Protestant.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
You know, and all that.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Well, back then, I mean, the difficulty would be, like
you have to go to the library and get books, right,
You couldn't necessarily go right to the internet and have
a whole world of information to you, So you had
to the study was very private. You didn't really necessarily
to talk to There weren't very many outlets for that,
so it was often a very private, lonely journey, and
so getting information was more the issue. And so of

(24:33):
course that was the era of you know again Scott
Hand's cassette tape going you know, making the rounds. Having
good information was still the issue, you know, twenty thirty
years later, we all have access to so much information
at our fingertips all the time, right, anyone can have
the whole world, you know, the world histories, information at

(24:56):
their fingertips at any moment from their phone. Right, So
it's not really an information issue anymore. In some sense,
we've got we've swung a little bit in the other direction,
where now we're almost in information overload. We're oversaturated with
information and opinions. And that's true even about the church.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
Right.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Certainly there's access to good apologetics and to the Catechism
and the history of the church, and that's been a
huge benefit to many people to have that access. But
then of course there's also an exponential increase in accessibility
to all the infighting in the church and the tribalism
and people arguing about the pope, and of course you know,

(25:34):
getting the Pope's interview on the airplane before it's been
even properly translated, and now everybody's got an opinion on
it five minutes later. So that comes with its own
set of issues, where it's not access to information, it's
almost too much information and sifting through it. One of
my big focuses academically has been the cardinal virtues, right,
And in the Middle Ages, there was this distinction between

(25:55):
studiocatas and curiositas right, virtuous and vicious study. Right, and
we have an information media before us that trains us
in vicious study to always be you know, on our phones, scrolling,
chasing things down rabbit holes, looking at the latest gossip,
looking at the latest news. And so it's very easy

(26:16):
for the information rather than becoming something that helps us
grow in holiness and get closer to truth, something that
just kind of spins us out into distraction and indulging
our curiosity. And so all that is to say, you know,
some of the struggle nowadays more is helping to kind
of pear down that information, keep help people to keep
their eyes on what's most important, kind of stay out
of the noise, to stay deep in prayer and not deepen,

(26:39):
you know, in the noise, and to remain encouraged, to
help them, you know, stay encouraged and hopeful, and to
just take the journey one step at a time. It's
it's more focusing on the spiritual aspect of it, the
discipleship aspect of it, the virtue aspect of it, rather
than the information aspect of it. That's still important, but
there's tons of information. It's more about the human journey

(27:01):
of studying and discerning and making a decision and then
and then moving forward in your faith.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, earlier, earlier, you said, John Mark, that you don't
know what you don't know. It just uh sounds like
a trivial remark, but it's really quite profound. So when
I think about the people that I just you know,
encounter and earlier weekly days is or to see I think,

(27:29):
how you know, most of them their their their world,
if you will, is as really, at least as far
as I can perceive, as no spiritual dimension, no dimension
even might even historical dimensions. Now, Protestant clergy usually have
some well I shouldn't They usually almost always have some

(27:52):
theological or biblical or historical information that can be helpful
in raising somebody's questions. But uh uh, Layman, either Protestants
or non nuns, how do you even get them to
begin to be interested in transcendental religion and let a
lull the claims with the Godtherm church?

Speaker 3 (28:14):
Right, Yeah, in terms of the court of our work,
this is stepping you know, a little bit outside of
it because we primarily were pastoring. You know, we're working
with people who that spark has already occurred. They're coming
to us now. That said, though, you know, one of
the reasons why the conversion story the testimony has always
been a key aspect of our outreach is precisely because

(28:36):
it has the power sometimes to to kind of switch
a person on, even when they don't necessarily have that
intellectual background or they're not really pursuing their really thinking.
But to encounter the story of someone you know who
has had this awakening, you know, from a similar background,
a similar vocation, a similar vice or issue that someone's

(28:56):
dealing with, to to encounter that testimony that hey, I
came to know Christ and this is what happened to me.
You know, I was there and now I'm here. Right,
it's almost when someone shares a conversion testimony, it's almost
like a personal lord, liar, lunatic trilemma. You know that
old apologetic formulation. Right, Christ must either be a liar,

(29:17):
he must be a lunatic or lord. But he can't
just be It's got to be one of those three, Right,
you can't just be a nice guy. No, He's either
got to be a liar, a lunatic, or lord. Those
are the only options that make sense of the data. Well,
when you share your own conversion testimony, you're kind of
doing the same thing when you encounter someone and say, listen,
I could be a liar. That's a possibility. Here, I
could be crazy. That's a possibility as well. But I'm

(29:38):
telling you this is how I was living, this is
what I was experiencing. This is the confusion, This is
the destruction that my habits caused my life. And then
I encountered Christ, encountered as Church. I encountered this truth
and this wisdom. I received the sacraments, and this is
what's changed. Right, This is where I am now. And
that's a powerful thing. Right, That's that kind of goes

(30:00):
a little bit beyond or beneath the intellect, at at
the heart, at the experience. Another side of this, you know,
as a kind of more general cultural commentary, we're certainly
in a time nowadays where people have been conditioned again
by their by their experiences, by their living, to just
not care that much about about truth as as having

(30:24):
something that that holds a claim on you. In fact,
it's so interesting I think people I don't think most
people on an experiential level really know the difference between
truth and ideology. In other words, truth truth lays claims
on you, It demands something of you, right, you submit
to it. It doesn't submit to you. Well, an ideology
is the opposite. Like a narrative serves you. You hold

(30:45):
on to a narrative because it serves what you already
want to believe about the world. But to desire truth
means to desire something that you're going to submit to
and accept the claims it makes on you for change,
for you know, for the ways that you have to
think and act differently. You know, at the at the
beginning of the Gospel of Mark, in some of Christ's
first words in his public ministry, he says, repent and

(31:09):
believe the Gospel. Right can repent and accept the Gospel?
And this is this is Father Dubai's point he makes
in his book that I've just been reading lately. But
Debay points out that what's interesting, we would expect it
to be the other way around. Right, accept the gospel,
accept the truth, and then that'll convert you. But he
actually switches it around. Christ says, no, repent, convert, and

(31:29):
then accept the gospel. In other words, there's something that
has to happen in your heart first before you can
even accept truth, Like you have to want truth, you
have to want to surrender. You have to have this
humility that says, and I don't want my lies, I
don't want ideology, I don't want narrative. I want to
know what is true, and if I encounter what is true,
I will submit to I will receive it and accept

(31:50):
the implications of it. And so that's a big issue
we have in our world nowadays, is that we I
don't think people have that distinction. We certainly haven't practiced
being people of true truth, and so we're we're often
in that situation where we encounter people who they don't
have that sparked that interest in truth. And that's what
you're trying to long before you get the question of

(32:11):
inviting them to mass or having them consider these truth questions,
it's just trying to draw out of them this desire
to want something more than narrative, wants something more than ideology,
to want truth to be, to be philosophers in that deepest,
grandest sense, to love truth and to love the implications
of it.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
One of the difficulties I see in sort of American
culture is that, you know, the bumper sticker question authority.
It's the I think, deep seated suspicion of any authority.
And this goes back to, of course, the way the
country started in the first place as a rebellion against
authority of course, secular authority, but it's an attitude that

(32:51):
seems to be very common, and that anyone who purports
to be telling you the truth is immediately, you know,
comes under suspicion someone who wants to control you. And
you see this very much. I think in the youth culture,
authority figures are for most people suspicious. I'm just wondering,
you know. On the other hand, there are people who understand,

(33:13):
I mean more deep thinking people who understand that there
is a kind of authority that one actually needs, and
I'm just wondering how that, how that works out and
the people you've.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Been dealing with.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, well again, I think one thing that we we recognize,
and this is what I was getting out a little
bit previously, but that there's this connection between there's a
connection between your intellectual but we say intellectual virtue and
moral virtue, and sometimes we think that those as two
separate words worlds. In other words, my ability to see

(33:46):
and comprehend truth is purely this intellectual, logical thing, and
it doesn't really bear any connection to my moral life,
like whether I'm a good person, whether I'm trying, you know,
whether I'm honest or courageous or whatever those are the
kind of two set things. It'd be nice if I
if I had both. But I can comprehend and work
through the truth kind of regardless of whether I'm a jerk.

(34:07):
But they're they're fundamentally connected. Right, Our ability to see
the truth and submit to it and accept its implications.
That's bound up with our moral life, with our with again,
whether or not we have courage and prudence and justice.
They're they're connected. And so this question of again two,
if you desire truth, you have to desire to be
the kind of person who could accept the implications of it.

(34:32):
Else I was going to say, but I forgot that
the rest of it.

Speaker 5 (34:36):
You know, I'll ask you more about sort of the
probable authority. I mean, people right, sort of rebel against
the idea, you know, the Pope tells beyond can't do A,
B and C. You know, I'm sure you just don't
want to accept that. And I'm just wondering that.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yeah, And so in some sense, some of those sentiments
that are out there, they could be good in the
right context, with the right trajectory. Right to you should
question your own assumptions, right, You should desire more truth.
You should assume that your own understanding is limited, and
desire to know more. The problem with so many of

(35:09):
those those slogans is that they they sound really deep
and and and and courageous, but of course they're they're
so limited in in what which which authorities that they're
going to question.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
In other words, they mean question you know, authority A
and B, but not all these other authorities that you
accept wholeheartedly.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Right.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
It's like that old quip about you know, the first
the first sip of the flagon of science makes the
person an atheist, but that they get down to the
bottom of the glass, of course they find God. And
that's true in many of these things. You know. We
it's not that there's an issue in in asking questions
and seeking truth that's good. It's that you have to
be you have to have the courage and the honesty
to follow that all the way through. It's also not

(35:49):
purely you know this again, this gets back to the
intellectual and moral thing that there is. There is this
this humility element to it that if you, uh, if
you demand truth on your own terms, you're you're going
to miss some of the implications of it.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Right.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
You have you have to submit to it and not
try to fit truth into your own box. Certainly, for
so many people we work with, you know, Protestant pastors
and lay people on the journey, the authority issue, the
authority of the church is a big deal.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
You know.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
They come from a background where there was sort of
a paradigm of authority that they recognized didn't make sense
simply just going to the scriptures, that it's not self interpreting,
and that many people have different interpretations of scripture, and
that always begs the question of, well, how do we
decide what was the mechanism that Christ gave us to
ask him what's true? And we believe that's in the

(36:43):
Catholic Church. But even then, though, like we we as Catholics,
have to be careful not to oversimplify how that authority
works and what it looks like. Again, we certainly have
many Catholics in the church today who who exemplify a
very Protestant attitude words even that authority in the sense
of they have their own particular interpretation of the Church

(37:06):
and the Pope and the Vatican too, and the liturgy,
and how do they approach that question by doubling down
on well, I have all these sources and this and
cyclical and that, this, this doctor of the Church and
that guy, and that's the reason rather than no, no, no, Like,
what this means is that we before we solve the
intellectual issue, we have to humble ourselves, you know, and
approach this, this these questions with with reverence and care

(37:30):
and prayer and and yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
No, I've noticed in more than one Catholic comment sometimes
from said, well, well, when they're talking about they might
they might, they might have some kind of initiative for
bringing they say, we want to bring non church people

(38:00):
or former Catholics into the church. To be embarrassed by
the idea of well, you know, we really want to
convert everybody. Yeah, have you run into criticism from our
all Catholics to the Coming Home Network's mission and in disrespect.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yeah, yeah, we get it from both sides, you know,
not in not in big ways, just because we're not
we're not a provocative organization. We're not out making you know,
that's our our work is primarily with individuals. But you know,
there are certainly Catholics who think that we that we
are too nice to Protestants. And there are certainly Catholics

(38:37):
and others who think that we don't have any business
sharing the truth and beauty of the Catholic Church in
a way that implies that people should become Catholic. And again,
we try to do both as as a network of
converts to the Catholic Church. You know, we share this
is what we've found, This is what we've discovered. You know,
we loved Christ. This is the more that we've discovered.
This is the fullness that we've discovered, and we want

(38:59):
to share it with you, right and we believe it's true.
We want to have that conversation. We want to invite
you to it the same token again, precisely because all
of these stories derive, or the vast majority of them,
derived from people who came to know Christ long before
they encountered the Catholic Church. All of our converts speak
of their background, of their previous denomination with gratitude and

(39:22):
with you know, conviction that you know the Holy Spirit
was working there. The Holy Spirit works despite our division.
The division in the church, the division of the body
of the Christ, is a result of sin, not just
that guy's sin, but my sin, all of our sin,
and the Holy Spirit continues to work even amidst that,
and so you know, the Holy Spirit is working. He
raises up men and women of God to preach the

(39:42):
gospel even outside the church. That doesn't change the fact
that He gave us the Church, and that's where the
fullness of truth resides, and that He wants to give
all those people more so we can hold those things
intention and again it's all right there in the Catechism,
and Catechism points out that this division comes from sin.
That people who have been born into these these non
Catholic denominations, they we don't lay the charge of schism

(40:06):
against them. They just they were just born into the
situation and they followed Christ as best they can, and
so we pray for them. We try to share the
truth of them, but we don't cast any judgment about,
you know, the state of their souls. And so the
Coming On network has always maintained this, I think this
right nuanced balance of No, we do believe the Church
is true, that the fullness subsists in the Catholic Church.

(40:27):
The Holy Spirit works, you know, as He wills in
a variety of different ways, and when someone when their
heart is open to the Catholic Church, we're happy to
help them make the make the way home.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Now Andrews ahead, no place.

Speaker 5 (40:41):
Yeah, I was going to ask, I mean, is your
approach that you basically make yourself available and let people
know that you're available, or is it a little more affirmative?
I mean, yeah, what's the contact point there?

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (40:54):
So, I mean, we we have kind of our outreach
side of the organization, and that really is you know,
the Journey Home program, and we have programs on YouTube,
and we have articles and written conversion stories and really
the story either the story itself, the conversion story, or
apologetics that are very narrative driven. In other words, not

(41:15):
this in the objective sense this topic, but how I
came to discover the truth of the church's authority, or
how I came to wrestle with Mary and the eucharst
and came to accept those things. That's really the core
of our outreach. We put that out there, and that's
how people come to know about the Coming Home network.
That's how people kind of hear the message. And then

(41:35):
but then the point of those things is to invite
them into conversation, invite them into dialogue so that we
can accompany them on their journey and help them become Catholic.

Speaker 5 (41:45):
Another thing I went about, do you ever deal with
people who have sort of dabbled in other religions altogether?

Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yeah, yeah, we've had all sorts of people. Again, while
Protestant pastors and people was kind of the core and
the origin, you know, we have people from all all
different faiths and no faith, you know, people from a
Jewish background and Hindu and and some Muslims here and there,
and certainly many people who were secular, atheist or agnostic,

(42:17):
you know, and that many many of them they there
their first stop in Christianity is not in the Catholic
Church for many of them, you know, they have land
and evangelical church as where they first come to know Christ.
But yeah, we we help them when they're and they're
investigating the Catholic Church.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
And I know that the focus of your work is
in the United States and probably Canada, But do you
have much many contacts in say, in Europe or Asia
Africa back in America.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Yeah, we have a few around the world. We have
a good number of people that we've worked with in Europe.
We don't necessarily have an international uh staff, so are
we're limited by language? Some of the time, but we
do work with you know, helping to connect people with
a converts from a similar background or from a similar
language to help them connect the letter. But we've we

(43:12):
worked with people in Germany and England, and we have
a call every Friday kind of just a fellowship call
here on Zoom with members of the network and we'll
have people from you know, a few people around Europe
mixed in with the Americans and Canadians we're talking to.
So it is truly an international apostle.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
So do do you know, are the issues that people
in Europe's say raised are they different from the ones
that Americans tend to raise.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
M Well, like, we've had a few people in Germany
and that's of course, the local situation in Germany is
its own beast, you know, with with the bishops there
and the confusion about but the teachings of the church.
You know, it's it's a stranger journey there for someone
to become awakened to the truth of the Catholic Church

(44:06):
and to want to leave, you know, their their Lutheran
background to become Catholic, when in many cases, the the
hierarchy in Germany you know, themselves aren't very clear or
forthright about what the Catholic Church teaches. So that that
adds obviously different different tension, different difficult of that situation
because they're they're sort of going against the going against

(44:28):
the stream and into in multiple ways.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
But yeah, and now, what would you suggest to our
viewers and listeners, what is the if they want to
if they want to spark an interest in the church
in their neighbors, people they run into aside from obviously
simply being trying to live as good a life as

(44:53):
we gan in pray, what would you do you have
these suggestions as to how you could initiate conversations or yeah,
and so on.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, well, as you said, you know that the first
step has to be the first step in the sense
that there's nothing more attractive, more beautiful than holiness, and
so we have to always double down on our commitment
to prayer and to personal conversion. But then you know,
above and beyond that, you know, we have to address
this cultural situation where we don't seek the truth together

(45:23):
the way that we might have in an earlier time period,
where we don't have conversations about both what we agree
with and we disagree with. One of my favorite passages
from GK. Chesterton's works are from his book What's Wrong
with the World, And I think the third chapter the
new Hypocrite of the chapter is called but he talks
about how you know, there's there's two things he says

(45:45):
for the human mind. Actually I have the quote here.
He writes, some people do not like the word dogma.
Fortunately they are free, and there is an alternative for them.
There are two things, and two things only for the
human mind, a dogma and a prejudice. The Middle Ages
where a rational epoch and the age of doctrine. Our
age is at best a poetical epoch, an age of prejudice.
A doctrine is a definite point. A prejudice is a

(46:07):
general direction that an ox may be eaten, while a
man should not be eaten, as a doctrine that as
little as possible, if anything, should be eaten, is a prejudice.
And the point that he makes there in the general
the bigger passes is that we had the sense in
the modern world that if we kind of round it
off the sharp edges of our beliefs and kind of
watered them down, then we get along better with people.

(46:30):
And as he points out, the opposite occurs, right when
I don't clearly, when I don't have clear propositional understanding
of what I actually believe, and I don't understand what
you believe, then rather than bringing us closer together, it
makes us stay far apart from each other because we
don't know what We don't know where our agreement, you know,
what our common ground is, or what our disagreement actually is.

(46:52):
So we're in the situation nowadays where we actually I
think we need to do a lot of kind of
socratic drawing people out, like what do you really believe?
And even helping them to steal man their arguments, right,
rather than straw man to steal man their arguments, help
them clarify what they actually believe, get it down to
propositional points, because it's only then that we can productively disagree.

(47:13):
We can seek the truth together. If the impediment to
even inviting people into conversation is both that they don't
know what they believe at all in a way that
they could clearly articulate it and put it into propositions
that you could actually agree or disagree with, but also
we have this cultural situation where we're very afraid to
talk about anything that's important. Right, We're very afraid to

(47:34):
talk about politics, We're very afraid to talk about religion
or morality because it only comes to us in these
sound bites, in these you know, very emotional, you know, messages.
So we need to help people clarify what they actually believe,
you know, and do that in a very gentle and inviting,
socratic sort of way. Ask a lot of questions, you know,

(47:55):
restate people's beliefs. You know, see if they sounds like
you believe X, y and Z, does that about right,
Allow them to clarify, help them to clarify, I get
to something solid, because then you can introduce into that,
you know, the difference. Right, we agree all the way
up to this point. And here's where we actually disagree.
Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the reasons for that,
and let's do it in this sense of, hey, we're

(48:15):
seeking truth together. You know, we both want to be
people of truth. We want to know what's actually true
and submit to that. That's this, this this type of dialogue,
this type of quest of the mind that we need
to invite other people into. And that's again that goes
far beyond this narrow question of the Coming Home network
and the Catholic Church, the Protestant that's a much bigger
cultural situation. We have to invite people to be truth seekers.

Speaker 5 (48:37):
Again, Well, this is I mean, this is I think
a wonderful approach. How does that actually happen? Does it happen.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
Online or in person or some other way? I mean
this this dialogue the truth. Yeah, yeah, and it really
depends on I think good friendships. We have to you know,
and this this runs counter to again a lot of
our instincts, which which is a it's a good thing.
We recognize sometimes we want to jump to the conclusion,
We want to rush to to the end of the

(49:03):
point when we really need to start with friendship. We
need to start with the hospitality. We need to start
with with loving the person and creating that space for
inviting them into this, into this conversation. Online can certainly
be an opportunity to this, but the difficulty online is
that it, you know, the social media algorithms and the
interactions tend to train us in doing this the exact

(49:24):
wrong way. You know, we speak in generalities, we speak
to the whole crowd rather than to the person. We
always result to mockery, or sarcasm, some some way to
kind of dress up the truth so that it's stronger
or softer than it actually is, rather than speaking plainly
what we believe. You know, My personal policy for years

(49:44):
is that I don't I mean, I don't generally get
into arguments online, but whenever I encounter a disagreement or
somebody critiquing me or having an issue, I immediately take
it to private message because people talk differently when they're
talking to the imagined audience rather than when we're talking
to each other. Right, once it's just me and you
having coffee, Well, then yeah, tell me what you I

(50:05):
want to hear it.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
And what are you what do you?

Speaker 3 (50:06):
What do you mean by this word or that word? Oh,
you actually mean something very different than I mean from
that word. That's the crux of our disagreement. So taking
it private, keeping the relationship, you know, at the center,
and proceeding gently and playing the long game with people,
just like God plays the long game with us, I
think is really important.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah, I really like that idea. You might help somebody, actually,
Stage's believes more clearly eligably than that he can do himself.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, have them, have them know what do
you believe? Have them say it, get it all out
there and don't jump in, and then try to restate
it in a simplified, clarified manner. Propositionally, you believe this
and that and the other, and then see if they
agree with that. Did I did I restate your belief?
You know, honestly and clearly?

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Have I?

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Have I characterized you properly? Because it's only at that point,
once you you both agree on what this person actually believes,
then you can say that's great, Okay, I agree with
you on this, this, this, this, and this, and then
it's on this point that we disagree, Well let's talk
about that and we and again, it doesn't need to
be this this scorched earth, you know, zero some game
like we can we can both be seeking greater understanding

(51:18):
in this. That's another aspect of this too, is that
on the one hand, we do believe as Catholics that
this is this is truth is revealed by God, that
by the you know, through the authority of the Church
that we do have access to. It is true. But
we don't want to ever make the mistake of thinking
that the truth out there is the same as the
truth in here. My understanding is always just a pale

(51:38):
copy of that. Right, Like we I love a doctor
truth talking about the Hamlet principle. Right, there's there's greater
things in heaven and earth than you've dreamt of in
all your philosophy and theology, Horatio. Right, we only always
need to have that attitude that even even I believe
Catholic isn't to be true. Right, I profess that in
the Creed every Mass of Sunday. But I don't confuse
the truth out there with my, you know, faltering understanding

(52:02):
of it. And so even when I entered into a
conversation about something where I do believe that the Catholic
Church is true, I'm still I'm seeking understanding. I'm seeking clarification.
I'm seeking to understand how to communicate it better, and
even the ways in which I haven't fully received and
engaged the truth.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah, that's sort of true. A few years ago I
took over a meetup that actually an atheist that started.
He was calling I think it was called something like
Atheists Discussion or something, and he had not done much
with it, but I was interested in trying to develop
it a little bit. And I'm a friend that I
didn't do that great a job as the moderator of

(52:41):
the meet up, so eventually I let it go and
it slip. But maybe part of the problem was that
instead of having one one conversation with people, it was
a forum. It was a group, and so it wasn't
as it wasn't the kind of intimate heart discussion that
you were talking about a minute ago, but it was

(53:02):
it was more like a public discussion. And I'm not
always that good of thinking on my feet, and I
think I think it would be better if it had
just been one on one.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Yeah, it becomes a performance, you know that. It's not
that I don't think group discussions or group you know,
debates can't work. In theory, it's that all of our
worst our worst vices come out in that scenario because
of pride, you know, because of vanity, and so all
of our weaknesses come out and all of our insecurities,
and so we resort to just things that we wouldn't

(53:36):
typically resort to when we're talking one on one over
a cup of coffee with an individual. And so again
it's nothing that can't work. But I think that just
as as a whole society and are and we Catholics
are are are not really any better at this. We
just don't have the virtues, the habits of truth seeking
and good conversation and humility and even hunity. I mean

(53:58):
you read Christ's you know, prayer for unity there there
in scripture and recognizing this is not just an intellectual issue,
like you have to desire unity, right, you have to
work for unity. Like when you're talking to someone, when
you're having a discussion or an argument with your wife
or your friend or your coworker, do you really want
unity or do you want to win?

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Right?

Speaker 3 (54:21):
And we discover, if we're honest with ourselves, oftentimes no,
I want to win. I don't want to be unified.
I don't want to actually solve this problem, make this
person feel heard, come to a real understanding on both
of us so that we can return to real authentic unity.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
I just want to win.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
I just want this person to surrender. Right. And so,
like we have to challenge that in ourselves because we
have to desire unity in the church. That unity doesn't
just happen because we wish. It doesn't just happen because
we have a catechism, we have to work at it.
We have to work at having the difficult conversations and
drawing people in and building you know, building connection and

(54:59):
rec conciling with those who are different. Like we have
to we have to work at it. It's not just
an intellectual issue. It's a moral issue. It's an issue
of virtue. It's an issue of habit.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Andrew, I would you like to ed anything, Well, just
comment that.

Speaker 5 (55:14):
Yeah, I mean it occurs to me where we are
always being asked, you know, to be evangelical, to you know,
to evangelize in the Catholic Church. But I don't think
we're often told or instructed on how best to go
about it, and I think many people go about it
the wrong way. I think, you know, your approach is
really very very good. I would hope that there would

(55:37):
be some way that it could be communicated, you know,
taught really to the broader public, because if every Catholic
is supposed to evangelize, I would hope that that we
would all kind of learn something from your experience, and
perhaps there's some way you can share that experience more broadly.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Well, I guess the couple things I'll say find that
I do think again, my personal passion of mine, I
really think we need to we rediscover the doctrine of
the virtues in the Catholic Church, because I think we
have the intellectual side, but we don't have the side
of actually training ourselves in habits of intellect and will.
So you can learn a lot of information, but you

(56:14):
can be a very spiritually immature person who doesn't know
how to use that information, who doesn't know how to
be in a relationship, who doesn't know how to carry
out the work. That's a really important piece of that.
But another aspect of the virtues is that it sets
the metric for how we're actually trying to help another person.
I mean, think about the difference between evangelization and prosialization.

(56:35):
Much has been made of those terms, and of course
the Pope's talked about it, and people argue about it
and they're suspicious about it. But you know, if we
give it the benefit of the doubt, what's the difference
between those two things. Well, when we evangelize, we are
trying to help that person approach the truth and make
their own free choice to step forward in faith and
to accept the truth.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Right.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
The freedom is important there, right, because if they don't
do it freely, if they don't do it because they
believe it's true and they believe it's right, Then they're
doing it for some other reason, not a good reason, right,
just because of the esthetics, or just because everybody else
is doing it, or just because I'm kind of been
browbeaten into it, right, no other reason other than like,
we want this person to honestly and sincerely and freely

(57:18):
see the truth and make their own choice to step
forward into it, because that's that's true, and that's also
that's an active virtue. It makes them a better person.
They become the kind of person who is more in
love with the truth and more able to follow it.
If we pressure someone for any other reason to accept
the truth, we've made them a worse person. Even if

(57:38):
they intellectually accept something temporarily, we've made them a worse person,
a person who is less able to hold onto the truth,
less able to seek the truth, less able to carry
it out. And so when we think about evangelization or
about parenting, or about helping our spouse get to heaven,
or about being a good leader at work or whatever
organization we're in, recognizing that what we're trying to help
those people do is make their own free che choice

(58:00):
is a virtue and nothing else apart from that, that's
what we're helping them do. It kind of it narrows
the scope of what we're actually trying to do here.
I'm trying to help this person make their own free
choice to step towards the good, and so that really
rules out a lot of things that sometimes we try
to do, you know, yelling or browbeating, or being sarcastic

(58:21):
or making people feel bad or all the other things
we might do. It really narrows the scope. No, there's
there's actually a very small scope within which we are
trying to help this person see what is true to
freely accept it and to freely make their own choice
to step forward in faith and to accept Christ.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Now, how how can people find out more information about
coming home?

Speaker 4 (58:44):
Network?

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Sure thing?

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Our website, Yeah, what is your website? Website is thchnetwork
dot org. And again, certainly if someone is not Catholic,
but considering the claims of the Catholic Church, we want
to pray with them and for them, we have all
kinds of resources for them. Again, on the intellectual side,
the learning side, the studying side, we've got that, but
we also have got a newsletter, We've got retreats that

(59:06):
they can attend. We have an online community of converts
and journeyers who'd love to be encouraging with them. Again,
not pressuring them, as my dad would say. We're not
here to push, pull or prod, but to just be
alongside them to make this journey of truth together, and
especially along with that if there are converts or Catholics listening. Again,
we have a great newsletter, we have the Journey Home Program,

(59:28):
lots of really encouraging resources for your own continuing journey
of faith. And that's all at h network.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Dot Orgnetwork dot org. Okay, thank you. I wish I
could put it up on the screen, but I don't
know how to do that. Why do we end by
commanding the work of becoming Home Network and are over
work to our lady a Hill Mary, So Hill Mary,
full of grace to learners with the blessed. Blessed is

(59:58):
the fruit of Jesus. Only Mary, Mother of God, Pray
for us sinners all of our death. Amen, name of
the Father, So whisper Amen. Well, next I'll come on
open door. Joe will be on December eleventh, when we
will have as our guest Christopher Villers, who is an
English Catholic poet, which is a little bit of an

(01:00:21):
unusual volgation in today's world. And I hope that all
of you listeners will be with us. Then, John Mark,
thank you so much for taking the time and being
our guest this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Thank you, Tom was an honor.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Good Bye to all of you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
Hello, God's beloved. I'm Annabel Mosley, author, professor of theology
and host of them Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood
on WCAT Radio. I invite you to listen in and
find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling together to
make our lives a masterpiece and end with God's grace

(01:01:01):
become saints. Join me Annabel Moseley for then sings My
Soul and Destination Sainthood on WCAT Radio. God bless you.
Remember you are never alone. God is always with you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
Please join us in our mission of evangelization, and don't
forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.