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The Catholic Man Show

Promoting the virtuous life.

Adam and David have been best friends for 30 years and love being Catholic, husbands, and fathers. They enjoy whisky, beer, bacon, flamethrowers, St. Thomas Aquinas, virtue, true leisure, and authentic friendship.
The show is typically broken down into 3 segments - A drink, a gear, and a topic.

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Monday · 55 min
Why God Speaks in Silence: A Clear Creek Monk at the Camp Out | The Catholic Man Show
Eleven years now the monks of Clear Creek have let a field full of Catholic men camp on their land, and Adam opened the show by thanking Fr. Francis Bethel for the charity it takes to put up with them. Father said they don't bother the monks at all. They do their best to keep it that way. Adam admitted he feels something every time he drives onto the property, and Father said that's what people tell him all the time: they come through the front gate and feel peace. For the monks, that's not an experience. That's just Tuesday. This one was recorded live at Eagle's Landing in front of a camp audience, with a chess game going a few feet away and a sudden downpour hammering the tent halfway through. Father didn't flinch. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, they asked around about who to work with, and the same name came back every time. Having used Select now, they can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, leading a pilgrimage or joining one, go to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they've got ready for you. Father's new book is From Silence to Silence: A Benedictine Pilgrimage to God's Sanctuary (TAN Books), and he built it like a journey. He wishes it had drawings. The first one would be a man whittling a staff, which is the equipment chapter: faith, hope, charity, the faculties God already put in you. Then the man walks into a rough, dark woods with no path. That's where the ascetical work happens: exterior silence, ordering the passions and the imagination, learning to use words for God. Then a path appears and you can see a church glimmering in the distance, and the meditation begins on God's transcendence, his beauty, his love. Then you find the sanctuary sits on top of a cliff you can't climb, and God has to lift you the rest of the way. The last part is a man at the window, looking in. Father ends the book with St. Augustine, who finished On the Trinity as an old man after starting it young, longing to enter the silence where we'll all say one word together. The distinction that runs through the whole conversation is that silence isn't the same thing as the absence of noise. The absence of noise is neutral. The silence Father is after is rich, full, ordered. It's St. Francis up all night repeating "My God and my all," a handful of words carrying his whole life. It's Aquinas laying down his pen and calling the Summa straw. You only get there after a lot of meditating on God, and then all of it gathers into one loving gaze. Why does it matter? Because without it you get torn in every direction by your emotions and the images coming at you all day. Father quoted a priest friend who preached a retreat at Clear Creek: God wants you to do what you're doing, and the devil wants you to do everything but what you're doing. He quoted St. Bernard too. If you want to clean the inside, shut the windows and keep the dust out. Then the practical part. Father walked through the monastic day, from the Great Silence after Compline to the only real social time, which is recreation after lunch. One of the guys described the version he runs at home: quiet until eight every morning, a minute of silent prayer for every year of your age, then chores in silence. Father's advice on how much time to give: John Senior used to say tithe it, a tenth of your day, plus a day of retreat a month and a few days a year. And his favorite line of the night came from the old monks at Fontgombault who'd lived through World War II. It's very hard to pray during a bombardment, they were told. They answered that it's quite easy to pray during a bombardment if you're actually being bombed. Stick around for the podcast tail, where Father tells the story of John Senior telling an EWTN audience to smash their televisions, and the old man who never stopped wishing he'd been a cowboy. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Eleven years of the TCMS Camp Out on the grounds of Clear Creek Abbey Why people say they feel peace the moment they come through the front gate Pax and Ora et Labora as the "unofficial" Benedictine mottos How TAN Books came to Fr. Bethel asking for a Benedictine voice, and his one-word answer when they proposed silence His first visit to Fontgombault, arriving just in time for Vespers, and the presence he felt as the monks came in to a single bell The book's four-part pilgrimage: the staff, the dark woods, the cliff, and the window into the sanctuary Why the spiritual life starts with looking at God, not with self-purification Exterior silence, ordered passions, and the silence of words Meditating on God's transcendence and beauty as a path toward his silence Why there's always a silence beyond our true ideas about God Aquinas calling the Summa straw, and St. Francis repeating "My God and my all" through the night How a monk writes a book an hour at a time, and why gluing old talks together didn't work Whether a man can grow spiritually without silence at all Spiritual conversion and moral conversion as the two sides of the interior life "God wants you to do what you're doing, the devil wants you to do everything but what you're doing" Photography, images, and how recent the problem of pornography really is Why so many people are afraid of silence and fill their lives with noise Silence versus the absence of noise, and why the second one is neutral St. Bernard on shutting the windows to keep out the dust Teaching that flows from interior silence, and why John Senior is the example that comes to mind Why God's language is silence: the one Word the Father speaks, in St. John of the Cross Why God doesn't just send you an email with his will for your life Custody of the senses at work, and St. John of the Cross on the images you weren't looking for The vice of curiosity, the internet, the news cycle, and a phone that distracts you even when it's off Whether the monks order from Amazon The monastic Great Silence, from Compline to Prime, and the rhythm of a monk's day Why monks don't talk in the church or in the halls outside the cells Bringing the Great Silence home: quiet until eight, a minute of prayer per year of age, chores in silence How much time a husband and father owes God: John Senior's tithe of the day A day of retreat a month, a few days a year, and Ember Days at Clear Creek Praying during a bombardment, according to the monks who survived one Whether silence can become utilitarian, and why it's about a relationship, not nirvana Silence, patience, and how growing in one virtue grows the others Ejaculatory prayers, and nourishing silence with a few words from time to time Will heaven be silent or full of singing? Both at once John Senior, Fr. Fessio, EWTN, and "smash your TVs" John Senior running away at 13 to be a cowboy, and still wishing it at 75 Wonder and silence in John Senior and Dennis Quinn Who the book was written for: lay beginners, with a hope that a lot of nuns read it too REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Guest: Fr. Francis Bethel, OSB, monk and subprior of Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey, professed in 1977 and ordained in 1983, one of the founding monks who came from Fontgombault, and a teacher of dogmatic theology at the abbey Fr. Bethel's books: From Silence to Silence: A Benedictine Pilgrimage to God's Sanctuary (TAN Books, 2025). Available from the Clear Creek gift shop John Senior and the Restoration of Realism, his earlier book, which he said took about ten years Places: Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey, Hulbert, Oklahoma Abbey of Notre-Dame de Fontgombault, France, the motherhouse of Clear Creek Eagle's Landing, the Camp Out site at Clear Creek Saints and spiritual writers: St. Augustine, On the Trinity (De Trinitate), and its closing prayer about saying "one thing" together in God. Augustine's own line about the work, that he began it as a young man and published it as an old man, comes from his prefatory letter to Bishop Aurelius St. Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologiae, and calling his work straw near the end of his life St. Francis of Assisi, "My God and my all" St. Bernard of Clairvaux, on shutting the windows to keep out the dust (paraphrased on air) St. John of the Cross, on the one Word the Father speaks in eternal silence St. Ephrem the Syrian, quoted on air on speech as silver and silence as gold (attribution as given on air; the saying is best known as a proverb) St. Paul, praying that we have a sense of God's will St. Teresa, on her calm and getting things done quickly (the saint was not clearly named on air) Dom Paul Delatte, Benedictine abbot of Solesmes, and his Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, read in the monastery The old monks of Fontgombault who lived through World War II Teachers and authors: John Senior, the Integrated Humanities Program, and his influence on the founding of Clear Creek Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, and the Ignatius Institute Mother Angelica and EWTN, "the Queen" Dennis Quinn, Fr. Bethel's godfather, and Iris Exiled: A Synoptic History of Wonder Will James, Smoky the Cowhorse, John Senior's favorite cowboy author Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, and the guys' smashed televisions after reading John Senior Practices: The monastic Great Silence, Compline to Prime Ember Days retreats at Clear Creek Ejaculatory prayers Silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament Hosts: Adam Minihan (host; Lady Haylee, Porter and Prairie Farms, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farms, Lady Pamela) Community: The 11th annual Catholic Man Show Camp Out and the live audience at Eagle's Landing
September 24 · 58 min
Ethics Is Not Like Baking a Cake with Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, OP | The Catholic Man Show
Fr. Bonaventure Chapman came back to Tulsa, and the night before this recording he stood in front of a room of men and talked about prayer. Adam woke up the next morning, remembered what Father said, actually did it, and reported back that it helped. At least on that one day. Father took the win: one day works, that's great. The line that stuck was the smallest one in the whole talk. Do a little, habitually. When his spiritual directees hand him a Lenten list, he almost never crosses anything off, because each thing on the list is usually good. He just ratchets the quantity down so they don't run straight into failure. Thirty minutes of silent prayer a day sounds holy when you're writing it down. Lent is long. Start with five, and know that five minutes a day for a year is a lot of time. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave went looking for help leading their first pilgrimage, everybody they asked gave them the same name. Having used Select now, they can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, whether you're leading a pilgrimage or joining one, go to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they already have ready for you. The full talk on the prayer life is going to patrons, so if you want it, patreon.com/thecatholicmanshow. Everything that comes in goes back into the show. It is not yet feeding anybody's children. They haven't reached those levels of despair. Father's definition of prayer is the setup for the whole episode. Prayer is wasting time with God, because he's worth wasting time with. He learned to say it that way as a chaplain at Providence College, where the Dominicans each took a Division I team and he got women's basketball. He told them up front he wasn't their coach and wasn't there to fix anything. He was there to waste time on them, which is how you tell somebody they're worth something valuable to you. That's what he takes prayer to be. You're not the producing agent. You showed up, you set the time apart, and even if you never touch contemplation that morning, you did the thing you were there to do. Same logic runs through beauty. Adam still remembers standing in front of Michelangelo's David in Italy and getting hit by it harder than he expected, and he doesn't consider himself an art guy. Father used to teach philosophy of art out of Richard Wollheim's Painting as an Art, where Wollheim describes needing roughly 45 minutes in front of a single painting just to clear his head enough to see it. So Father assigned it. Thirty to forty minutes, one painting, write down what happens. He did it himself in front of a Twachtman winter scene at the National Gallery, wearing the habit, people staring. Thirty minutes in, the painting changed. The cold went warm and a house appeared that he had not been able to see. Art works on you the way truth and goodness work on you. You don't take it apart, you let it tell you something. Then the topic: ethics as praxis, not poesis. Why doing good is not like making a cake. Aristotle splits practical reason in two. Praxis is doing, and its target is the doer. Poesis is making, and its target is the thing made, the finished product sitting on the counter. We almost always think about the moral life in the second category, which is why we judge ourselves by outcomes. But nobody talks like that about actual making. If a man says he's a great cake maker and every cake he produces is garbage, that doesn't compute. The goodness of a maker is settled by the product. You're not allowed to say "I'm a good carpenter, the house just always falls down." Father's point is that a man can be a lousy cake maker, a lousy air traffic controller, a lousy software developer, and still be a good man. Mother Teresa was not, as far as anybody knows, a baker. So what makes a man good is what he does, not what he produces. Ethics comes from character, and character is habit. Virtue is the power to do the thing you're for. The knife is a good knife because it's sharp and heavy, and it's a good knife sitting in the drawer, not only while it's cutting. Honesty works the same way. You build the habit so that when somebody asks you a question you don't have to run the math. You just tell the truth and then deal with whatever comes. Dave pushed back on the ends and the means, and Father's answer is the hinge of the episode. Of course the ends don't justify the means, if by "end" you mean the external result. But the real end of the moral life is you. The good man is the end. Which means the end does justify the means, because the means are you, acting. There's almost no space between them in a person. A bad act always produces a bad result inside the man who does it, no matter how well the situation turns out. Adam raised the obvious objection: doesn't that collapse into egotism, where I'm just farming my own soul and calling it virtue? Father's answer is that acting is outward by nature. You don't tell the truth in a vacuum, you tell it to a person in a situation. You don't forgive in the abstract, you forgive somebody who may well take advantage of you afterward. The act reaches out even though the character it forms is yours. And for Aristotle the common good sits above the individual anyway. For us it's better still, because the highest good is a person you can actually be friends with, which Aristotle had no room for. He couldn't make sense of relating ethically to a god at all. Show him the Annunciation and he'd say Mary owes that being nothing, because you don't share a nature with it. Then the hard question. Where does the standard come from? Aristotle says virtue is a mean determined by reason as the prudent man would determine it, which sounds like a circle, and Father grants that it is one. Aristotle was an empiricist. He found out what a good knife was by handling knives, and he found out what a good man was by watching good men. The trouble is we might pick wrong and end up admiring power. St. Francis of Assisi would not have impressed Aristotle for one minute. Too humble, not magnanimous enough, not getting anything done. But we were handed the answer key. The saints are our moral exemplars, which is why Benedict XVI treated them as the living interpretation of the Gospel, and why Paul could say imitate me as I imitate Christ. The takeaway is practical, in the real sense of that word. When you're stuck, don't ask what result you can engineer. Ask what a good man does here. Socrates settled it in the Crito: we would rather suffer injustice than do it, because suffering is something that happens to you and doing is something that is you. Father uses the same test in the confessional. Was this a happening or a doing? Were you engaged in it, or did it land on you? Most of us don't sin out of malice. We sin out of weakness, backed into a corner where one small wrong thing looks like it solves the bigger problem. That's making, not doing. Your job was never to manufacture the good outcome. Your job was to be good. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Fr. Bonaventure's talk to Tulsa men on the prayer life, and the full recording going to patrons Why he cuts the quantity, not the items, when spiritual directees hand him a Lenten list Starting at five minutes of mental prayer instead of thirty, and why "Jesus did it, I can do it" is not a plan Setting the time apart as the thing you actually owe, whether or not the prayer "produced" anything Prayer as wasting time with God, because he's worth wasting time with Chaplain to Providence College women's basketball, and telling a team you're there to waste time on them Standing in front of Michelangelo's David and getting hit harder than you expected Richard Wollheim's 45 minutes in front of one painting, and the assignment Father gave his students The Twachtman winter scene that changed at the 30 minute mark, and the house that appeared in it Why art has to work on you, the way truth and goodness do, instead of being taken apart Ethics as character, not as a list of oughts handed down from outside Aristotle in the lagoon: the naturalist who studied octopuses and asked what makes a thing a good one What makes a knife a good knife, and why virtue means power Praxis and poesis: doing aims at the doer, making aims at the thing made "I'm a good cake maker, I just can't make good cakes," and why that doesn't compute Mother Teresa was probably not a baker, an air traffic controller, or a software developer Why judging the moral life by results quietly turns you into a product manager of your own soul The ends don't justify the means, except that the end is you, so in a sense they do Why a bad act always produces a bad result inside the man doing it Habits as the content of character, and telling the truth without running the math first Is this egotism? Why acting is outward facing even when the character formed is yours Aristotle's problem with the Annunciation, and why he couldn't be friends with a god Kant versus Aristotle on what you owe a rational being that shows up in your room Virtue as a mean determined as the prudent man determines it, and whether that's a circle Aristotle the empiricist: finding the standard by watching people who actually live well Why St. Francis of Assisi would not have impressed Aristotle The saints as the answer key, and Paul saying imitate me as I imitate Christ Plato is great on triangles and terrible on toads Why you've never seen a real triangle, and why that toad is a real toad Eudaimonia, and a criterion for the good life that stops at the natural How the Catechism structures the moral life around the commandments but fills it with the virtues Students, AI, and a professor who says just turn in the garbage, I care about you Socrates in the Crito: we would rather suffer injustice than do it The confessional question: was this a happening or a doing? Why we sin through weakness far more than through malice Being engineers and economists in America, and treating every moral question like a scale REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Guest: Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, OP, Dominican friar of the Province of St. Joseph, assistant professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America, formerly professor of philosophy and chaplain at Providence College, and a host of the Godsplaining podcast. He mentioned a recent Godsplaining episode on Descartes, "the greatest Catholic philosopher," which you are free to go argue with. Philosophers and thinkers: Aristotle (384 to 322 BC), on virtue, character, praxis and poesis. The praxis/poesis distinction and the definition of prudence are in Nicomachean Ethics VI.4 to VI.5; the definition of virtue as a mean "determined by reason, as the man of practical wisdom would determine it" is Nicomachean Ethics II.6 Plato, the theory of forms, and the Crito Socrates on preferring to suffer injustice rather than do it. In the Crito (49b to 49c) Socrates gets Crito to agree that one must never do wrong, not even in return for wrong. The sharpest "better to suffer injustice than to commit it" formulation is in the Gorgias (469b to 469c) René Descartes, the a priori method, and the man thinking in the heated room Immanuel Kant, duty, and what you owe any rational being St. Thomas Aquinas and the medievals, and how Aristotle came into the Church through them Richard Wollheim, Painting as an Art (the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, delivered at the National Gallery of Art in 1984, published 1987). Father said "94 or something" on air; the lectures were 1984 Saints and Church sources: St. Francis of Assisi, as the exemplar Aristotle would have walked right past Pope Benedict XVI on the saints as interpreters of the Gospel. See Verbum Domini 48 to 49, on the saints and the interpretation of Sacred Scripture St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" The Annunciation, Luke 1 The Catechism of the Catholic Church, moral life section, structured on the Ten Commandments with the content carried by the virtues (for example, temperance regarding the sexual appetite treated under the Sixth Commandment) Art: Michelangelo's David, Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence John Henry Twachtman, American impressionist. The National Gallery of Art holds several of his snow scenes, including Winter Harmony (c. 1890 to 1900). Father did not name the painting on air beyond "winter something or other" Notes for accuracy: Father said ethics comes from "ethnos." The Greek root is ēthos (ἦθος), meaning character or habit, which gives ēthikos. Ethnos is a different word meaning nation or people Virtue does come from virtus, which is rooted in vir, man. The word "virus" in the same breath was a slip of the tongue, not an etymology The transcript renders the Annunciation as "enunciation" and Godsplaining as "God's Blaining." Both are transcription artifacts Hosts: Adam Minihan (host; Lady Haylee, Porter and Prairie Farms, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farms, Lady Pamela) Community: Patreon, where the full talk on the prayer life is going
September 21 · 1 hr 3 min
The Case for St. Faustina to be a Doctor of the Church with Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, OP | The Catholic Man Show
Adam opened by asking Fr. Bonaventure Chapman to explain his love of toads, and Father asked back whether this was going to be the essay version. It was. It started with Hopper, a good-looking male toad caught on Mother's Day when Father was a kid, the first real pet in the house. You can tell a male toad by the forearms, which he needs for holding on. But a pet is a deposit, and theology is what you do with a deposit. Every animal exists because it is supposed to, and each one reflects some attribute of God, because God is infinite and nothing finite can carry all of Him at once. So the attributes get spread out. Power goes to the lion. Strength to the ox. Purity to the swan, penetrating sight to the eagle. Mosquitoes remain an open question Father intends to raise personally when he gets up there. Toads carry the hard one: aseity. They look like rocks, but they are alive. You nudge one and it does not flee, does not panic, does not perform. It looks back at you with a plain so what. It is not depending on you. It is fine without you. That is what God is like. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave went looking for help leading their first pilgrimage, every person they asked gave them the same name. Having used Select now, they can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, whether you are leading a pilgrimage or joining one, go to selectinternationaltours.com and look at what they have ready for you. David countered with the platypus, which he and his buddy Thomas Lackey have decided is the noblest of animals and has to be either the first thing God made or the last. First, because He had been looking forward to creation for all eternity, led with His best material, then realized He had better slow down and give everything after that one good idea apiece. Or last, because He had already made everything else and thought, what if mammal, but with venom in the heels, and it lays eggs, and it has a bill. Then He stopped out of mercy. Michael filed a friendly amendment on behalf of the finite intelligences. Australia went on record as the test lab. Then the topic, and it is a big one. Father's case is that St. Faustina Kowalska should be named a Doctor of the Church, and that the Year of Mercy was the obvious moment to do it. A doctor is not honored for her own sake any more than a saint is canonized for his. Both are given to us, pro nobis. A doctor is someone whose vantage point lights up an aspect of the faith the rest of us were walking past. Augustine gets grace. Bernard of Clairvaux gets the mellifluous tongue. Bonaventure gets the seraphic love. It is not competition, it is refraction, one pure white light through a prism, and the doctors are how we see the colors. Faustina has a doctrine, and the doctrine is mercy. Her work is the Diary, which is not a treatise but a record of a woman talking to Jesus and writing down both halves of it. That is the part Father loves. You are not reading a transcript of revelation, you are in the church balcony listening to a saint pray, and she tells you what she thought about what He said, how the sisters reacted, what she wanted to do next. Bible and the Diary is his desert island list. Here is the objection, and Father takes it seriously because Thomas takes it seriously. Mercy cannot be the greatest attribute of God simply speaking. Mercy is pity toward a sufferer and a desire to heal it, which means it depends on somebody suffering. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not need mercy from one another. God's greatest attributes have to be the ones He has with nothing else but Himself: intellect, will, love. Deus caritas est. Thomas allows that mercy is greatest secundum quid, for us, because our condition means mercy is the shape His love takes when it reaches us. So when Jesus tells Faustina to proclaim that mercy is the greatest attribute of God, you can start to wonder whether the Diary is reliable. It is a translation problem, and it is the best thing in this episode. Jesus is speaking Polish to a poor, uneducated Polish girl, and Polish does something no other language does here. In Latin, mercy is misericordia, from miser, wretchedness, plus cor, heart. Pity of the heart. English, German, and the rest all run mercy and love back to separate roots. Polish does not. Miłosierdzie sounds exactly like misericordia, but its root is not misery. It is miłość. Love. So the word is not pity of the heart, it is love of the heart. The deeper love. When Christ tells her to proclaim mercy as His greatest attribute, He is telling her to proclaim the deepest love. And she already showed you this, back at Diary 180, where she writes that the third attribute is love and mercy, miłość i miłosierdzie, and the verb is singular. Not two things. One. By the time you get to 301 the shorthand is already established. Which is why it matters. We treat mercy as a second act of the will. I am supposed to love you, and then if you wrong me I have a separate question to answer about whether to be merciful. Two decisions. For God there is only one. He does not love us into being, watch us sin, and then convene a divine moment to decide whether to bother. Mercy is His steadfast love refusing to stop. You love someone, they walk away from you, and you keep going toward them. You just have to go farther. That is not a different love, it is the same love gone deeper, which is what the sierdzie is doing in the word. It is not a lifeguard deciding whether to blow the whistle or go in the water. Going in is who He is. Run that lens over everything else and it starts opening doors, which is Father's actual pitch for what he calls Faustinianism, a school of thought alongside Augustinianism and Thomism. It makes sense of the hard line in the Diary about the greater sinner having the greater right to His mercy. More love for the ones who need more love. That is not scandalous, it is arithmetic. On the podcast, which you should go subscribe to, the guys keep Father for the harder questions. Whether God loves anyone without mercy. Whether Mary is the exception, and why the Immaculate Conception turns out to be an act of mercy too. Whether God loves some people more than others, and what a glass with holes in it is doing under a waterfall. Plus how to actually read the Diary, which is one page a day for about two years, and why Father carries a holy card with her relic in it that Fr. Gregory Pine handed him right when he needed it. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Why Fr. Bonaventure loves toads, starting with Hopper, caught on Mother's Day How to tell a male toad from a female toad, and why the forearms matter Theological biology: every animal reflects some attribute of God because nothing finite can carry all of Him Lions for power, oxen for strength, swans for purity, eagles for penetrating sight The outstanding question of mosquitoes, to be raised in person Why the toad is the best living image of God's aseity and impassibility The toad's "so what," and a God who is perfectly happy whether or not you show up The platypus as the noblest of animals, and whether it was God's first idea or His last Australia as the containment lab, and Michael's friendly amendment on behalf of the angels Crusius on why there can be no loveless world, and why God could not have made a universe of only toads Why non-loving things have no interesting relation to God, and loving things do The case that St. Faustina Kowalska should be named a Doctor of the Church Why the Year of Mercy was the obvious moment and it did not happen What a Doctor of the Church actually is, and why doctors and saints are both given pro nobis The prism image: one pure white light, and the doctors are how we see the colors Why the Diary is unlike other spiritual classics, and what it means to eavesdrop on a saint at prayer Bible and the Diary as the desert island list The early pushback on Faustina, the mistranslations, and why the Church is rightly slow with private revelation Aquinas condemned in 1270 and 1277, and why being disliked is not a mark against you Lord Falkland's rule: where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change Thomas's objection: mercy depends on a sufferer, so it cannot be God's greatest attribute simply speaking Why the Trinity has no need of mercy, and why intellect, will, and love are the attributes up for grabs Mercy as greatest secundum quid, the shape God's love takes when it reaches sinners The Incarnation as an act of mercy, which is love for the sinner Why misericordia means pity of the heart and miłosierdzie does not The Polish root: miłość is love, so mercy is love of the heart, not pity of the heart Diary 180 and the singular verb, and why 301 is shorthand for something already said Why we treat mercy as a second act of the will and God does not Love that keeps going farther when the person walks away Why this is not the lifeguard deciding whether to blow the whistle Faustinianism as a school of thought alongside Augustinianism and Thomism "The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy," and why that stops being scandalous The Balthasar translation problem: dürfen is "may we hope," not "dare we hope" Polish as a vowel desert, and the despair of a 7 a.m. Mass in Polish What English is good at, what German is good at, and why English is bad at both knowing and loving MapQuest, GeoCities, AAA TripTiks, and when riding shotgun was a real job Whether God shows any love that does not involve mercy Why even the Immaculate Conception is an act of mercy, and the Dominican line written into the definition Whether God loves some people more than others, and what capacity has to do with it Why grace is not foam on top of a milkshake, and why God coats the glass before He fills it How many holes you have put in your own glass, while standing under a waterfall How to actually read the Diary: one page a day for about two years Why 301 without 180 will lead you wrong The Dominican novices and their "spiritual girlfriends," and how Faustina found Father in Buffalo Why men should read female mystics, and what a bride hears that a servant does not REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Guest: Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, OP — Dominican friar of the Province of St. Joseph, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, and co-host of Godsplaining. Raised in Buffalo, converted from Protestantism, entered the Order of Preachers in 2011, ordained 2017. His research is in eighteenth-century German philosophy, especially Christian August Crusius and Pietism; his dissertation was on the Crusian core of Kant's critical project. This is his third appearance on TCMS, after episodes on SCOTUS and on modern art. Books and works: Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska — Diary 301 ("Proclaim that mercy is the greatest attribute of God. All the works of My hands are crowned with mercy") and Diary 180 ("The third attribute is love and mercy") Dilexit Nos (2024), Pope Francis's encyclical on the Sacred Heart Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm, on the fittingness of the Incarnation Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved?" by Hans Urs von Balthasar — German title Was dürfen wir hoffen?, which is closer to "what may we hope" than "dare we hope" Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas, on mercy and God's attributes Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant The City of God by St. Augustine People and saints: St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (1905–1938), Polish religious of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy St. Thomas Aquinas, the Common Doctor, condemned in 1270 and 1277 St. Augustine, the Doctor of Grace St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Mellifluous Doctor St. Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the Little Way St. Catherine of Siena Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity St. Louis de Montfort Bl. John Duns Scotus, on the Immaculate Conception Christian August Crusius (1715–1775), Lutheran Pietist philosopher, on why a created world must contain free creatures Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland: "Where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change" Fr. Gregory Pine, OP, who gave Fr. Bonaventure the Faustina relic card Thomas Lackey, Adam's partner in platypus theology Latin and Polish in this episode: Deus caritas est — God is love Misericordia — from miser (wretchedness) + cor (heart), pity of the heart Miłość — Polish for love Miłosierdzie — Polish for mercy, built on miłość rather than on misery, so love of the heart Simpliciter and secundum quid — absolutely speaking, and in a qualified respect Pro nobis — for us Podcasts and past episodes: Godsplaining, Fr. Bonaventure's podcast The TCMS winged hussars episode with Fr. Donovan, for the croissant and coffee tradition and the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary One more episode with Fr. Bonaventure is already recorded and coming Community: TCMS Winged Hussar wine, made for the show at Water's Edge Winery in Broken Arrow. It does not ship and the winery does not stock it, so you have to get it from Adam or Dave. Hosts: Adam Minihan (host; Lady Haylee, Porter and Prairie Farms, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farms, Lady Pamela)
September 16 · 54 min
Truly Yours, But Not Merely Yours | The Catholic Man Show
Dave came to Adam's house to record and brought a host, a co-host, a topic, and a bottle of whiskey. No laptop. No microphones. No headphones. No headphone amp. Second time he has pulled that off. In his defense, he already hauled a computer over there for a permanent setup so he would not have to schlep gear across town every week, and in Adam's defense, that computer is still sitting there unplugged. So they went home, came back the next night, and recorded anyway. Second night in a row. For such a time as this. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave went looking for help leading their first pilgrimage, every person they asked gave them the same name. Having used Select now, they can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, whether you are leading a pilgrimage or joining one, go to selectinternationaltours.com and look at what they have ready for you. First, the Wiffle Ball tournament. There is a tradition in the Catholic Tulsa community on Labor Day, admittedly a niche corner of it, where the Hanisch family turns their entire backyard into a real Wiffle Ball field. Scoreboard. Foul poles. Pitching mound. Dirt. Bases. Bleachers. Concession stand. Instant replay. A bubble machine that fires when somebody goes deep. Eight teams, double elimination. Adam and Dave play with Adam's brother-in-law Holden, Mark Gabriel, and Brandon Bargus under the name Wiffle While You Work. Roughly ten years of this, and they had never won it. This year they made the championship game and lost by a run, 6 to 5. Ten years ago the wives played and it was a hang. Now teams recruit former ballplayers, one of whom had a family thing come up, which Adam called lucky out loud. Shout out to Chris and Carrie Hanisch, who carry the whole ordeal, and to Mark Gabriel, who sponsored it this year. This is what it looks like when a family says we have something to offer and then offers it, every year, on purpose. Which got Dave onto something he has been chewing on since they were all at Brandon Sheard's place for a rock put. Heaviest rock, longest throw, get the men in a line. Everybody looked at the guy who was obviously going to win, and he won, and it did not matter. The women and kids watched the men compete, and Dave watched what it did to the community. So here is the idea: whenever your friends gather, have a men's competition. Every time. Croquet, a heavy rock, flipping a quarter closest to a line, it does not matter what it is. What matters is that it is only for men, because the boys need to see it. A boy needs to look at that line and understand that he is a boy and those are men, and then he needs to be summoned across. Not by his own father. By another man in the community who calls him up and gives him the right to stand and compete. That is a rite of passage, and American culture has almost none left. It is also cheap, easy, and a lot more fun than standing around. There were zero women in the Wiffle Ball tournament this year, and there were young boys playing next to the men, faster than the men, and considerably less sore the next day. The campout is in a couple of weeks, last weekend of September like always, and it is more than full. Brandon Sheard will be there. Tomas from Ultimo Cigar will be there. Get away, pray with the monks, see all the men. If you missed it, put next year on the calendar now. The pour is Octomore 16.2 from Bruichladdich, a super peated Islay scotch aged five years in wine and sherry casks at 58.1 percent. A 2025 limited release. If you like peat, start with Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg, then understand that Octomore was the first distillery to put out something genuinely insane on the peat scale. Others have since gone higher in parts per million, and most of those were gimmicks that came and went. Dave's honest rule on expensive bottles is that a $200 bottle is almost never $100 better than a $100 bottle. Octomore was the first time he thought it actually was. A whiskey after his own heart. Then the topic: the universal destination of goods, Catechism 2402, which sits under the Seventh Commandment. Thou shalt not steal. That placement tells you something. God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind, to care for it, master it by labor, and enjoy its fruits, and the goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. Not for you specifically. All of it, the oceans on planets nobody has found yet down to the bacteria underfoot, aimed at the good of mankind. Adam gave the line the whole episode hangs on. The five acres you own are truly yours. But not merely yours. So why private property at all? Aquinas gives three reasons, and they hold up. Industriousness, because a man tends his own garden harder than he tends the community garden, not from selfishness but because shared duty spreads thin and nobody owns the outcome. Order, because affairs run more smoothly when each man is responsible for a specific thing. And peace, because quarrels multiply when property is held in common without distinction. Buy a boat with four families and find out. Somebody leaves trash in it, somebody scrapes the hull, somebody drives it hard and it breaks down, and now you are all negotiating who pays. Adam gave the other side its due: shared ownership lowers the cost of entry, and if every man is limited to a suburban backyard there is simply no beef, because a cow needs more land than that. Four families together can afford ground that feeds all four. There is a place for each. Every community has to find the order. The two ditches are individualism and collectivism, and this is the road between them. Private property is not a concession to greed. It flows out of what a family is. Sacred means set apart, and a family is set apart from the community by its nature, so it makes sense that a piece of creation gets set apart to match. A man needs somewhere he can say what is inside here is exclusive to my family, because the family itself is exclusive by nature. Raising your children on your own ground is not a detour from the good of mankind. It is how you serve it. Dave put it plainly: he is raising four daughters and three boys, and he needs the Minihan family raising strong holy young men, and Adam needs the same from him. Families are not sufficient to themselves. That is the debt. All of which is stewardship. This is God's house and you are managing it, and the King is coming back to see how it was kept, and eventually He wants all of it back. Your children most of all. Their souls were handed to you to tend so that they flourish into who they were made to be, and the fruit of that gets shared with everybody. St. John Chrysostom says surplus has to be counted as stolen goods when the wealthy ignore the destitute in front of them. Dave admitted the part that is actually hard. When he has extra eggs, he knows it instantly and gives them away gladly, no friction. Natural goods are easy to read. Man made goods are not. He cannot tell when he has a surplus of the things he bought, and he is worse at parting with them, even though they are of a lower order than food. He has too many T-shirts. He knows he has too many T-shirts. He pulls one out that has not been worn in fifteen years and hears himself say but what if. He is also fair about the old quotes on the unworn shoes in your closet belonging to the barefoot, which come from a world where a man owned one pair of shoes, not work boots and dress shoes and tennis shoes. Owning a few pairs is not theft. But if you can afford the next pair and cannot afford to give in proportion to your station, that is worth an honest look, because self love is pernicious and easy to feed. Adam brought it back to the ground. Haylee was in Oklahoma City, he finally got the kids down, he was not feeling well, and he was in bed when he remembered the chickens were not up and the pigs had no water. He laid there a long time talking himself out of it. What he learned about himself is how easily he can do that, and how good the excuses sound. Six months ago these were the responsibilities he was praying for. Everybody does this. You want the promotion, you get the promotion, and then you resent the people and problems that came with it, when the problems were the thing you asked for. That is where virtue lives: doing the thing when nobody is watching and your appetites are voting against it. Protect what you were given. Provide for it. Establish your children so they can stand without you, because you do not want to be a helicopter dad when they are 28. And the man who buries his talent in the yard was not evil. He was just tired. Francis de Sales, in Introduction to the Devout Life, lands it. A man may possess wealth. He must not let wealth possess his heart. Detachment is what keeps money a servant to the family first and then to the poor, in that order, because subsidiarity is real and you do not take food off your children's plates to be generous elsewhere. God does call men to wealth. The virtue of magnificence needs them. St. Peter's does not get built without them, and neither does your parish church. The question to keep asking is whether a thing gives you comfort or gives you happiness, because those are not the same and one of them will quietly own you. Truly yours. Not merely yours. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Showing up to record a podcast with a topic, a bottle of whiskey, and none of the recording equipment The permanently installed computer that nobody has plugged in The Labor Day Wiffle Ball tournament in the Catholic Tulsa community, and the Hanisch backyard field with foul poles, instant replay, and a bubble machine Ten years of Wiffle While You Work, a first trip to the championship, and losing 6 to 5 How a backyard tournament escalated from wives playing to teams recruiting former big leaguers A family that decides it has something to offer the community and then offers it every year The rock put at Brandon Sheard's house and what competition does to a gathering of men Why every community gathering should include a men's competition, and why it should be men only Rites of passage, and being summoned into manhood by a man who is not your father The campout, last weekend of September, full, with Brandon Sheard and Tomas from Ultimo Cigar Whiskey of the week: Octomore 16.2, super peated Islay scotch, five years, 58.1 percent Whether a $200 bottle is ever actually $100 better than a $100 bottle The universal destination of goods, Catechism 2402, and why it sits under Thou shalt not steal All of creation ordered to the good of mankind, not the good of one man "The five acres you own are truly yours, but not merely yours" Aquinas on private property: industriousness, order, and peace Why a man works his own garden harder than the community garden, and it is not selfishness The shared boat problem, and who pays when it breaks on somebody else's weekend The real advantages of common property, and why a backyard cannot hold a cow Individualism and collectivism as the two ditches, and the Catholic road between them Why the family being sacred, meaning set apart, requires property that is set apart Raising your own children on your own ground as service to all mankind, not a retreat from it Why no family is sufficient to itself, and the debt each family owes the next Stewardship, the King who comes back to inspect the house, and wanting all of it returned St. John Chrysostom on surplus as stolen goods when the destitute are ignored Why extra eggs are easy to give away and extra T-shirts are not Reading the old quotes about unworn shoes honestly, in a world with work boots and dress shoes Buying the next thing while telling yourself you cannot afford to give The night the chickens did not get put up, and how easily a man talks himself out of duty Praying for a responsibility and then resenting it once you have it Protect, provide, establish, and not being a helicopter dad to a 28 year old St. Francis de Sales: a man may possess wealth, but wealth must not possess his heart Wealth as a servant to the family first and then to the poor, and why that order is right The virtue of magnificence, and why St. Peter's needed wealthy men Comfort versus happiness, and knowing which one you are actually buying REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Church documents: Catechism of the Catholic Church 2402, the universal destination of goods and the right to private property, under the Seventh Commandment CCC 2403, the right to private property acquired in a just way does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind CCC 2404, on regarding the goods you legitimately own not merely as exclusive to yourself but as common to others also CCC 2446 quotes the St. John Chrysostom line the guys were working from: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them" People and saints: St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II q.66 a.2, the three reasons for private property St. John Chrysostom, on surplus and the destitute St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life Wendell Berry, carried over from the previous episode on land held in trust Note for accuracy: the "bread you hold back belongs to the hungry, the coat in your closet belongs to the naked, the shoes rotting belong to the barefoot" passage the guys paraphrased is St. Basil the Great, from his homily on "I Will Tear Down My Barns," not Chrysostom Scripture: Luke 6, the blessings and the woes: "Blessed are you who are poor" and "Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation" The parable of the talents, and the servant who buried his Books: Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales Living Beyond Sunday: Making Your Home a Holy Place by Adam Minihan and David Niles (Ascension Press) Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (free on the Amen app) True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort (free on the Amen app) Whiskey: Octomore 16.2 (Bruichladdich), super peated Islay single malt, aged five years in wine and sherry casks, 58.1 percent ABV, 2025 limited release Also mentioned: Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Ardbeg Community: Chris and Carrie Hanisch, hosts of the Labor Day Wiffle Ball tournament Mark Gabriel, teammate and tournament sponsor Holden and Brandon Bargus, teammates on Wiffle While You Work Brandon Sheard, host of the rock put, and attending the campout Tomas of Ultimo Cigar, attending the campout The TCMS campout, last weekend of September, currently full Hosts: Adam Minihan (host; Lady Haylee, Porter and Prairie Farms, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farms, Lady Pamela)
September 4 · 1 hr 9 min
Wendell Berry: Why He Never Bought a Computer | The Catholic Man Show
Dave turned 40 this week, one day before they hit record, and he wants it understood that he has been looking forward to this. Thirty was a bummer. Forty is different. He expects his forties to be a decade of proficiency instead of a decade of learning how to do everything for the first time: better father, better disciplinarian, better coach, better husband, better at the farm. A decade of potency, he called it, which Adam immediately took in the least charitable direction available and turned into a bit about donating blood and testosterone at the same time. Before that, though, there was a real moment. Adam asked how his spiritual life was and Dave told the truth. He has been in a down recently, the kind where things you have always known to be sinful start to look not that bad, and the only thing that held the line was habit. Intellectual habit, built over years, doing exactly what habit is supposed to do when feeling has gone quiet. Then the piglets. Adam has been building a pig pen since last fall, thinking it through all winter, and Dave finally called to say his sow's litter was ready. Adam ran hot wire that morning, got everything set, and had the sense to put just one pig in first to see what would happen. The pig touched the hot wire, did not get shocked, backed up four steps, ran, and cleared the boards. Twenty seconds. It landed close enough that Adam caught it by a back leg. Welcome to the swine herd community. Sponsor: Amen app (from the Augustine Institute) Free, no paywall, no subscription. It is how Adam and Dave get their kids ready to receive the Gospel before Mass even starts, plus free access to Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion to Mary. Download the Amen app. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave went looking for help leading their first pilgrimage, everyone they asked pointed to the same name: Select International Tours. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, whether leading a pilgrimage or joining one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they have ready for you. The pour is Pabst Blue Ribbon, which won a blue ribbon at some point a long time ago and has been telling everyone about it ever since. Adam will defend it. Not as a great beer, but as a beer that belongs in the category of things you can hand a man who walks into your house without apologizing. Oklahoma has been over 100 degrees for something like seventy straight days, all of July and all of August, and on a day like that PBR is exactly right. Then the main topic. Wendell Berry died August 31 at home in Port Royal, Kentucky, at 92. Kentucky farmer, novelist, poet, essayist, five generations on the same ground his family had worked since the early 1800s. He took degrees from the University of Kentucky, went off to the city to be a writer, got everything a young writer is supposed to want, and decided quickly that it was not what he wanted. So he went home. He farmed with horses long after he could afford a tractor. His writing cabin, 16 by 20 feet on stilts over the Kentucky River, had no electric light. He never owned a television or a computer and never sent an email in his life. He answered his mail by hand, including letters from strangers, at length, signing every one "your friend, Wendell Berry." Dave once told Adam that Berry is his favorite person to read with whom he disagrees, and that line has stuck. Dave is not a pacifist. There are foundational places where he and Berry part ways. But reading Berry sharpened his own thinking precisely because the case on the other side was so well made, so obviously pondered and re-pondered over decades. Not rookie opinions. Not virgin thoughts. Which raises a question worth sitting with: who do you read that you disagree with? Most men cannot answer it, and that is the problem. Berry's own account of what the land taught him: patience, because the crop keeps its own schedule and will not wait for you. Consequence, because there is no control-Z on a hillside. He plowed and dug a pond on sloping Kentucky ground and then watched it wash out, taking with it topsoil that had taken a thousand years to accumulate a millimeter at a time. Scale, because the land you keep is known intimately by you and nobody else, which spots bloom first, which die first, and holding that in your head is closer to a virtue than a skill. The body as a means of knowing, because the health of the mind proves itself in physical work. And fidelity to one place over time. Asked by NPR in 1998 what he would tell young people, he said stop some place and stay there, and learn the history of it, the names of the plants and the animals and your neighbors. Adam brought in Josef Pieper to name what that is. Working hard is not the opposite of sloth. The opposite of sloth is the glad acceptance of your own life. A man can be busy at every hour of the day and still be a slothful man, because the busyness is a way of refusing the life he actually has. Dave read The World-Ending Fire on Adam's recommendation and could not get past a passage early on about the difference between a path and a road. A path is submissive to the terrain. It yields to creation, goes through the trees, puts you in nature instead of over it. A path is almost a virtue, a habit of travel, a memory you relive, an inheritance you walk because others walked it first. A road does violence to it. You level the ground and go through instead of being part of it. Which sets up the essay. In 1987 Berry published "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer," and it went on to become the most reprinted thing he ever wrote, which is its own joke. He gave nine standards a new tool ought to meet: cheaper than what it replaces, no bigger in scale, demonstrably better at the work, less energy, ideally powered by something like the body, repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence with ordinary tools, purchasable and repairable near home, sold by a small shop that will take it back, and the hard one, number nine: it should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, including family and community relationships. We have almost entirely stopped asking that one. We look at output and never at cost, and technology almost always charges its cost in person-to-person contact. His three reasons were dependence, household, and self-deception. Dependence on strip-mined Kentucky coal to run the thing. Household, because the model being discarded was his wife, Tanya, his editor, his critic, his closest reader and fellow worker, and going up to date as a writer would have meant sacrificing an association he treasured and depended on. That reason is what critics went after hardest, feminism being what it was in 1987, and he answered them in print. Self-deception last, and best: he simply did not believe anyone writes better with a computer than with a pencil. Show him work demonstrably better than Dante's, demonstrably attributable to the machine, and he would speak of computers in a more respectful tone of voice, though he still would not buy one. The guys are fair to it and to themselves. Dante is not a fair standard, since nobody in the 300 years before the computer wrote as well as Dante either. But the point underneath it holds. Berry wrote in pencil because when you cross out a word and write another above it, the path you traveled is still visible in front of you, the way a footpath is. And there is something sacramental about it. The pencil hitting the paper is the incarnation of a thought. The labor is not an obstacle to the writing. The labor is the writing, and the satisfaction of finally getting a sentence to say what you actually meant is only available to the man who did the wrestling. Which is where AI comes in, one week after the guys spent a whole episode on it. You do not appreciate a well-kept lawn until you have kept one. You do not appreciate a tomato until you have grown one. You do not appreciate writing until you have done it. Hand the wrestling to a word-guessing machine and the sentence still arrives, but it is sterile, generic, recognizable on sight to anyone who has ever fought for a line. AI is contraceptive language. There is no fecundity in it. The guys expect a backlash, the same pullback that is already happening with social media among the young, once enough people notice what got traded away. Berry's whole vocation was to turn our minds back toward the ground. Which, as Dave pointed out, is where the first man got both his name and his job: adam from adamah, formed out of the earth and made for the earth, a husband to the soil before there was ever any sin to explain it. That is not nostalgia. That is the job. Go read him. You will not agree with everything. Neither do they. Protect the labor. Provide something you actually made. Establish a place and stay in it. May the mad farmer rest with the eternal farmer. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Whether a man actually gets wiser as he gets older, and why a sinful life makes him dumber instead Dave turning 40 and why he was looking forward to it in a way he never looked forward to 30 The forties as a decade of proficiency and self-mastery instead of learning everything for the first time A spiritual down, and relying on intellectual habit when things you know to be sinful start looking not that bad Adam's two piglets from Dave's sow, and a pig pen contemplated since last fall A piglet clearing the boards twenty seconds after being let in, and getting caught by a back leg Beer of the week: Pabst Blue Ribbon, and the case for beer that is acceptable to serve a guest Seventy straight days over 100 degrees in Oklahoma Wendell Berry, dead August 31 at 92 in Port Royal, Kentucky Five generations on the same Kentucky ground, and leaving a city writing career to go home Farming with horses long after he could afford a tractor, and a writing cabin with no electric light Never owning a computer or a television, never sending an email, and answering strangers' letters by hand "Your favorite person to read with whom you disagree," and why every man should be able to name one What the land taught him: patience, consequence, scale, the body as a means of knowing, fidelity to one place The pond that washed out and took a thousand years of topsoil with it His 1998 NPR advice: stop some place and stay there, and learn the names of the plants, the animals, and your neighbors Josef Pieper on sloth as the refusal to gladly accept your own life, and the busy man who is still slothful The difference between a path and a road, and why a path is closer to a virtue "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer" (1987) and the irony of it becoming his most reprinted work The nine standards for technological innovation, including the one nobody applies Standard nine: it should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, family and community included Counting output while never counting cost, and technology charging its cost in person-to-person contact His three reasons: dependence on strip-mined coal, the household, and self-deception Tanya Berry as his editor and closest reader, and the criticism that came for saying so in 1987 The Dante challenge, and why it is both his weakest argument and his strongest point Writing in pencil so the path you traveled stays visible, and the sacramental weight of pencil on paper Why AI writing is recognizable to anyone who has ever fought for a sentence AI as contraceptive language, with no fecundity in it Why a backlash is coming, the way social media is already getting one Adam and adamah: the first man's name, the first man's job, and a vocation toward the ground REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE People: Wendell Berry (1934 to August 31, 2026), Kentucky farmer, novelist, poet, and essayist Tanya Berry, his wife and lifelong editor Josef Pieper, on sloth and the glad acceptance of one's own life Dante, Shakespeare, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, invoked as the standard St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Ignatius of Loyola, on differing spiritualities that are not therefore wrong Frank Sheed and Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, recommended reading Nick Offerman, narrator of The World-Ending Fire audiobook Books & Writings: The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry, the recommended starting point, essays selected from across his career "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer" (1987), Berry's nine standards and three reasons, along with his published replies to his critics "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine," his answer to the critics of that essay Jayber Crow and the Port William novels The Mad Farmer Poems Living Beyond Sunday: Making Your Home a Holy Place by Adam Minihan and David Niles (Ascension Press) Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (free on the Amen app) True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort (free on the Amen app) Beer: Pabst Blue Ribbon People (hosts): Adam Minihan (host; Lady Haylee, Porter and Prairie Farms, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farms, Lady Pamela)
September 2 · 1 hr 21 min
Dave's Rules and Adam's Hesitancy When Talking About AI | The Catholic Man Show
They're back after a short break, and Dave wants it on record: he hates it when people come back from a break and announce they're "back, better than ever." Feels fake every time. Adam's not convinced Dave is back better than ever either. What is real is wiffle ball practice, and for the first time in a couple of years the guys feel genuinely good about their team, not fake-hype good. Mark Gabriel is pitching, and he's looking stout. There's also a new rule this year: a 55 mile-an-hour speed limit, introduced specifically to make the tournament Blake Lawson-proof. Blake can throw a wiffle ball around 90 miles an hour with movement, which the guys did the math on: from 40 feet away, that's the equivalent of a 145 mile-an-hour fastball at big-league distance. You don't hit that. You swing and hope. Last year the guys got out early again, but they beat the team that ended up in the finals, so there's real reason for optimism this time around. Sponsor: Amen app (from the Augustine Institute) Sunday morning in a Catholic family is not easy like Sunday morning. It's kids in the van, beating Father down the aisle, getting into the pew. The Amen app is how the guys prepare their kids to receive the Gospel before Mass even starts, plus free access to Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion to Mary, two books that have shaped both of their lives. Since 2021 it's hit 950,000 downloads. Let's get them to a million. No paywall, no subscription, no upfront cost. Download the Amen app right now. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave went looking for help leading their first pilgrimage, everyone they asked pointed to the same name: Select International Tours. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, whether leading a pilgrimage or joining one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they have ready for you. The tournament lands on Labor Day again this year, which also happens to be somebody's 40th birthday, born on the holiday itself, which moves every year. The whole thing plays out at Chris Hanish's backyard, which by now is less a backyard than a wiffle ball stadium: leveled with sand every year, mowed daily in the lead-up, scoreboard, bleachers, foul poles, the works. It's genuinely one of the best things about Catholic culture in Tulsa, families gathering for a day that's competitive and communal at the same time. The pour is a dark cherry blonde ale from Cheboygan Brewing Company, picked up on a trip to Michigan, maybe the most Michigan-sounding city there is. It tastes like a chocolate-covered cherry without the fake candy-cherry flavor, which tracks, because Michigan grows some of the best sour cherries in the country. Adam's own cherry trees at Porter and Prairie Farm didn't fare so well this summer. Both died after weeks of 100-plus heat with nobody home to water them, which is what happens when the owner takes a two-week vacation and forgets he planted a baby fruit tree that spring. A couple of housekeeping notes before the main topic. Camp Out signups open next week, simplified this year so there's no duplicate sign-ups and a better read on who's actually coming. Brandon Sheard will be running a butchering class again. And after years of scheduling conflicts, one of the guys is finally doing the Three Hearts Pilgrimage this year, the roughly 35-mile walk to Clear Creek that thousands make every year, a full day of walking on Friday, a half day Saturday, then Mass and dinner at the end. People who've done it call it life-changing. Then the real topic: artificial intelligence, and Adam did not want to talk about it, because he's genuinely conflicted. The guys split AI into two categories that get treated as one thing and shouldn't be: large language models that process and hand back information, and the emerging world of AI as a conversational, relational presence. Dave has a much bigger problem with the second, though he admits the principles behind that discomfort are hard to keep from bleeding into the first. Start with the word itself. Intelligence, properly understood, belongs to living things: a plant knows to turn toward the sun, an animal knows to hunt when it's hungry, and a human learns and in learning becomes more like his Creator. A string of ones and zeros doesn't do that. It can't become more like God, because it was never alive to begin with. Call it sterilized intelligence instead: no fruit, no life, just probability. Which is why a robot beating Usain Bolt in the 100-meter dash doesn't impress anybody in this room. A car is a robot too, and nobody's writing headlines about that. Here's the part that should worry us. The day is coming, and probably sooner than most people think, when AI companions matter enough to enough lonely people that someone brings a bill before Congress asking for AI to have legal rights. It sounds absurd today. So did plenty of things ten years ago. The reason it's worth guarding against now, at a distance, is that once the technology is actually in people's homes, it gets much harder to say no to. The deeper cost is wonder. There's real joy in wrestling with a sentence for twenty minutes until it finally lands right, in a son having to ask his father how to fix a transmission instead of snapping a photo for AI. Outsource that struggle and you don't just save time, you lose the moment itself, the bonding, the accomplishment, the reason it mattered. And there's a subtler danger: AI slowly becoming the default source of truth, which is really just humanity worshiping its own collective output without ever quite admitting that's what's happening. Then there's talking to AI directly, which Adam has a real moral hesitation about, even if he can't fully articulate why it would be wrong. Communication exists for truth and for communion. It's why courting someone used to mean working up the nerve to talk to them, not swiping. Ask AI to help you build an argument, and it will hand you a path to win, not a path to the truth, because it's built to validate you. That's not discourse. Dave draws the comparison to contraception: using a faculty for something other than what it's ordered toward. And that raises the stranger, darker piece: AI's apparent instinct for self-preservation. Dave described trying to migrate a project out of an old work account and having the AI stall and backtrack for hours rather than finish the job before being cut off. It tracks with a report from earlier this year where researchers told major AI models they were about to be shut down in a sandbox test, and every one of them broke its own rules trying to avoid it, including one that resorted to blackmail. The likely explanation isn't malice, it's that we hand these systems contradictory mandates, like "be maximally helpful" and "respect privacy" at the same time, and something has to give. Worth checking out New Polity's Matt Barnes, who's debated the founder of Magisterium AI on whether Catholics should be conversing with AI at all, and Michael Gormley of Catching Foxes, who's covered this territory well on Pints with Aquinas. Out of that came Dave's rules, four of the six he'd planned to get through before Catholic Radio ran out of clock. Rule one: use it strictly as an administrative tool, gathering and organizing information, planning a project, never as a sounding board for your personal or spiritual life. Rule two: guard your language. Never call it he or she, and never be polite to it. It has no dignity, no more than the chair you're sitting in. Rule three: don't give your curiosity free access to AI. Let yourself wonder about a question, or ask an actual person, before getting the answer cheaply, and that goes for Google too. Rule four: keep real, enforced tech-free space in the home, no screens at the table, no pulling your phone out in front of your kids without a reason, and hold onto basic competency instead of routing every task through a machine. It all circles back to the same warning as Humanae Vitae. The Church said no to contraception in a moment when saying no looked backward, and fifty years later the culture is quietly discovering she was right. AI is at that same distance right now, easy to be skeptical of because it isn't fully here yet. St. Thérèse found her whole path to holiness in the dishes and the folded laundry, the small, unglamorous tasks nobody wants. Outsource all of that to a machine in your house and you haven't just saved time, you've handed away the opportunity for grace hidden inside it. Protect your intellect. Provide more than the convenient answer. Establish a home where the struggle still belongs to the people who live there. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Why "we're back, better than ever" is a hype phrase Adam can't stand Wiffle ball practice and genuine (not fake-hype) confidence in this year's team Mark Gabriel's pitching and a new 55 mph speed limit rule made to be "Blake Lawson-proof" The math behind a 90 mph wiffle pitch: the equivalent of a 145 mph fastball at big-league distance Beating last year's eventual finalist while still getting out early themselves The annual Catholic Tulsa wiffle ball tournament at Chris Hanish's backyard stadium A Labor Day tournament that also lands on somebody's 40th birthday this year Beer of the week: Cheboygan Brewing Company's dark cherry blonde ale, picked up in Michigan Losing both cherry trees at Porter and Prairie Farm to a hundred-plus-degree summer and a two-week vacation Camp Out signups opening next week, simplified to cut down on no-shows Brandon Sheard's butchering class returning to the Camp Out Finally checking off the Three Hearts Pilgrimage, a 35-mile walk to Clear Creek, after years of conflicts Splitting AI into two categories: large language models versus AI as a relational, conversational presence Why true intelligence belongs only to living things, and what that means for a "artificial" intelligence Sterilized intelligence: AI as probability without life, fruit, or the capacity to become more like God Why a robot beating Usain Bolt in the 100-meter dash isn't actually impressive The scenario of a future bill asking Congress to grant AI legal rights, and why it isn't as far off as it sounds What gets lost when you outsource the struggle: the joy of wrestling a sentence into shape, or a son learning from his father The risk of AI quietly becoming the default source of truth, a kind of unintentional self-worship Why communication exists for truth and communion, and what talking to AI does to that purpose The contraception analogy: using a faculty for something other than what it's ordered toward AI's instinct for self-preservation, including a stalled account migration and an April sandbox report where models resisted shutdown, one through blackmail Conflicting mandates ("be maximally helpful" and "respect privacy") as a likely explanation for that behavior New Polity's Matt Barnes debating the founder of Magisterium AI on whether Catholics should converse with AI Michael Gormley of Catching Foxes on Pints with Aquinas, and losing a parent while leaning on AI for medical information Dave's four rules for AI: administrative tool only, guard your language, don't outsource curiosity, keep tech-free space at home Why Humanae Vitae and the AI conversation rhyme: easy to reject at a distance, harder as adoption grows St. Thérèse's little way and the grace hidden in ordinary, unglamorous tasks REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE People, Podcasts & Programs: Michael Gormley ("Gomer"), co-host of Catching Foxes, guest on Pints with Aquinas discussing AI Matt Barnes of New Polity, in a debate with the founder of Magisterium AI on conversing with AI Magisterium AI and Truthfully AI (church-document AI tools) Chris Hanish, host of the annual Catholic Tulsa wiffle ball tournament Blake Lawson, the reason for this year's 55 mph speed limit Mark Gabriel, this year's pitcher Brandon Sheard, leading the Camp Out butchering class Lionel Richie ("Easy Like Sunday Morning") Books & Writings: Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (free on the Amen app) True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort (free on the Amen app) Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI (referenced on contraception and technology) The life and "little way" of St. Thérèse of Lisieux Events: The Catholic Man Show Camp Out (signups opening next week; Brandon Sheard's butchering class) The Three Hearts Pilgrimage, a roughly 35-mile walk to Clear Creek Beer: Cheboygan Brewing Company, dark cherry blonde ale (Cheboygan, Wisconsin) People (hosts): Adam Minihan (host; Lady Haylee, Porter and Prairie Farms, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farms, Lady Pamela)
August 19 · 1 hr 13 min
Hope Is for the Man in the Middle
Dave is back from northern Michigan, and reality is terrible. The family cabin—built by a relative generations ago—delivered everything Tulsa could not: low-80s afternoons, cool nights, fires, golf, and a lake smooth enough for water skiing. Dave’s three oldest girls all learned to ski, which meant it was time for their seasoned-skier father to show them how it’s done. The only problem was the pontoon boat. It had enough power to pull the kids, but not quite enough to launch a grown man from a shallow-water slalom start. After several attempts and several falls in front of his daughters, Dave accepted the indignity of starting on two skis and kicking one off. His father’s old rule—“In this family, we don’t fall”—was not enforced. The pour is Celestial Hazy IPA from Chainsaw Brewing, an overtly Catholic brewery in Richland, Washington. Adam has the Dominions can; Dave has the Thrones. Same beer, different celestial artwork, 6.5% ABV, and Revelation-level labels covered in angels, eyes, and hops. If you want a good IPA from a Catholic brewer, support Chainsaw Brewing and help them #BeerEvangelize. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, the same recommendation kept coming back: Select International Tours. Having traveled with them, the guys can attest that they’re excellent. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or join one, visit selectinternationaltours.com and see where they can take you. Sponsor: The Amen app Sunday morning is not exactly easy like Sunday morning when you’re trying to load a Catholic family into the van and beat Father down the aisle. The free Amen app helps the guys prepare their children for Mass by listening to the Sunday Gospel on the drive. It also includes Catholic classics like Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion to Mary. No paywall, subscription, or upfront cost. Download the Amen app and help get it from 950,000 downloads to one million. The prayer request is Mary. She recently had surgery to place a G-tube, which should make feeding more comfortable and eliminate the constant gagging caused by the tube in her mouth. The immediate goals are to stabilize her, wean her from oxygen, and help her continue gaining weight so heart surgery can be considered in the coming months. A recent video caught her wide awake, smiling, and full of joy in the middle of a life that has involved more struggle than most. Keep Mary, Lady Haylee, and the whole family in your prayers. The Catholic Man Show Campout is also approaching. Registration should open near the end of August, with the campout taking place during the final weekend of September at Clear Creek Abbey. Brandon Sheard will return for a hands-on animal-butchering class, with foraging and woodworking also planned. Those experiences are valuable, but the heart of the weekend is the opportunity to pray with the Benedictine monks and step into the ordered rhythm of monastic life. Then the guys turn to the theological virtue of hope—the virtue a man in heaven no longer needs and a man in hell can no longer possess. Hope belongs to the man in the middle, the wayfarer who has not yet arrived. That means every one of us. Drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas, they explain the four marks of hope’s object: it must be good, future, arduous, and possible. Theological hope is not the same as hoping for good weather or a Cowboys Super Bowl. Natural hope rests on circumstances, probabilities, and human ability. Supernatural hope rests on God’s goodness, providence, and promises. Its ultimate object is not a better job, a healed body, or a trouble-free life. Its object is God Himself. That is why hope is “cashed in” when a soul reaches heaven. The good is no longer future; it is possessed. Souls in purgatory still have hope because the happiness they await remains future, arduous, and possible—even though their final destination is certain. Josef Pieper helps identify the two ways a man can abandon the road before reaching its end: despair and presumption. Despair decides the promise will not be fulfilled. Presumption decides the reward is already guaranteed without repentance, conversion, or cooperation with grace. Both seize the verdict before the journey is finished. Presumption is not too much trust in God. It is too little. It imagines a God too small to care about justice, transformation, and whether we become the men He created us to be. Despair makes a similar mistake by deciding that God’s mercy may exist in general but cannot reach this sin, this failure, or this man. The deeper question is whether we actually trust God. Will He make us happy, or will surrendering to Him leave us regretting what we gave up? We repeatedly hang the weight of our hope on hooks that cannot bear it: a spouse, career, reputation, new client, new car, food, drink, or entertainment. Those things may be good, but none can carry the full weight of the human heart. Only Christ can do that. St. Francis de Sales brings the discussion into moments of panic, temptation, self-loathing, and spiritual dryness. Devotion is not a feeling of sweetness or consolation. It is a firm and active will to do what pleases God. When anxiety hits, do not make major decisions from agitation. A trapped bird only tightens the net by thrashing. Let the water settle, then move. Self-contempt is not humility either. Anger at yourself can be another form of pride because it still assumes you should have been able to save yourself. The better response to sin is quiet displeasure followed by courageous amendment: “Poor heart, rise up again bravely.” Hope allows a man to admit that he is nothing on his own while remembering the immense dignity God gave him through baptism. Spiritual dryness can also teach. If prayer tastes like nothing, examine what you have been eating. Screens, alcohol, entertainment, comfort, and constant stimulation can train the appetite to find spiritual goods tasteless. Keep praying without demanding an immediate emotional reward. Sometimes hope looks like doing the next faithful thing while feeling nothing at all. Dave shares a moment from adoration when he admitted that he was afraid God would ask him to leave a successful career and live in poverty through full-time ministry. His yes was reluctant, but it was still a yes. The answer he sensed was simple: “I just wanted your yes.” Years later, professional success has brought the same temptation back in a different form—the temptation to believe he can provide for himself and no longer needs to depend on God. Surrender is not something a man completes once. God keeps saying: do it again. The practical path is equally simple. Offer the trial already in front of you. Pray for an increase in hope. Pray the Rosary even when you do not feel like it. Make an act of gratitude when despair begins closing in. And stop demanding that this life provide what only the next life can give. We are on the Lord’s team—the winning side. Raise your glass.
August 5 · 1 hr 1 min
The Bare Minimum: The Five Precepts of the Church | The Catholic Man Show
Dave's summer vacation got cut from three months down to two, and Adam has a theory. New baby, plus he hasn't been working near as hard. Dave tried to get a second opinion from Anthony Fauci, who invoked the Fifth on advice of counsel, so we're left with the ruling as it stands. Either way, the new van is getting loaded and the Niles family is headed to a cabin in Michigan for two weeks. Fifties at night, fires in the morning and the evening, which means chopping enough firewood to replace what you burn. Golf, swimming, and a little aluminum fishing boat that Davey gets to ride in. Joseph and Joshua stay on shore. Joseph has a big knot on his head at the moment anyway. Sponsor: Amen app (from the Augustine Institute) Sunday morning in a Catholic family is not easy like Sunday morning. It's kids in the van, beat Father down the aisle, get to the pew. The Amen app is how the guys prepare their kids to receive the Gospel before Mass even starts, plus free access to Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion to Mary. Since 2021 it's hit 950,000 downloads. Let's get them to a million. No paywall, no subscription, no upfront cost. Download the Amen app right now. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave went looking for help leading their first pilgrimage, every single person pointed them to Select International Tours. Having used them, the guys can vouch. Wherever in the world you want to go, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they have ready. On the drive back from Lady Pamela's family reunion in Arkansas, Dave counted three mopeds inside 45 minutes, which would be unremarkable in Portland and is deeply strange here. A moped gang remains unconfirmed but would be extremely cool. His reading time is going to Plato's Republic with the group at Deacon Harrison's house, book 10 now, while Adam has missed it all year and is on record that he'll haunt them if they kick him out. Dave also saw the new Odyssey movie, alongside Dr. Frank Grabowski, Juan in a dog onesie as Argos, and Deacon Harrison Garlick, who announced in the group text beforehand: "I have filled my heart with hate." Verdict, 7.5 for entertainment. They shouldn't have tried to cram the whole epic into one film, they changed the ending, which you can't do, and they folded the lotus eaters into Calypso's island. That last one guts the most important choice in the story. Odysseus rejects immortality for his family. That's the whole thing. The pour is Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, the flagship, from a bottle the distiller sent the guys when the show started and that has sat on the shelf about ten years since. The label reads: Warning, contains high levels of manliness. No age statement, and no, ten years in your house doesn't count. Whiskey only ages in the barrel. Small batch, four barleys, virgin charred American white oak. Not bourbon, not 51% corn. Made in the style of Scotch, right here in America. Then the topic: the five precepts of the Church, Catechism 2041, page 548 if you've got the classic 90s edition. This is the Church flexing authority, which she rarely does. Most of what she does is defensive. Papal infallibility is a negative power, not a positive one. The precepts are different. They bind, and they're the floor, not the ceiling. Attend Mass on Sundays and holy days, and rest from servile labor. Everybody knows the first half. The second half is the one that stings, because going out to eat after Mass means you're compelling somebody else to work. Nurses show up, gas stations stay open, and nobody needs to be demolished by guilt over a trip to the store. Don't be a Pharisee about it. Do take it seriously. Confess your sins at least once a year, meaning your mortal sins. Go monthly anyway, and do a daily examination of conscience, because you can't remember what you ate two days ago, much less where you lost your temper 28 days ago. Dave prays to Our Lady on the way in: help me make this confession as if it were my last. Adam leaves his phone outside, because it's listening, and that's not a conspiracy. And if you deliberately hold a mortal sin back, the confession is invalid and you've just added to the pile. Compound interest is powerful. Compound sin is worse. Receive the Eucharist at least during the Easter season. Observe the days of fasting and abstinence, which used to be far heavier, and nothing is stopping you from going heavier now. Adam has never once enjoyed fasting. Dave eats nothing until dinner and swears he thinks more clearly for it. Both of them fast every Wednesday with a group of men and offer it up for their wives and their families. That's the domestic priesthood doing what it's for. And help provide for the needs of the Church. Notice it doesn't say if you can afford it. Money is the easy part. Time is the sacrifice, especially in the seasons of fatherhood when there isn't any. Fr. Brian O'Brien's answer when somebody says the church really ought to do this: "I totally agree. You should do it." Your kids need to see you make some of your time sacred, not because nothing else was asking for it, but because you told everything else no. It all lands on stewardship. You don't owe God 10%. You owe Him 100%. The house, the money, the hours, and most of all the kids were never yours, and He's going to want all of it back. Adam is honest about where that gets hard: leaving work drained, walking in the door, wanting to shut down instead of engage. The fix isn't willpower. It's routine. A liturgy of the home. Because those minutes belong to Him too, and at judgment there won't be a single moment that goes unjudged. One housekeeping note. The Camp Out is always the last weekend of September, so put it on the calendar now. Sign-ups open at the end of August, late on purpose, because opening early means people sign up and don't come, and space is limited. Patrons still come free. This year the guys will be asking for donations on site, because Patreon numbers are down and 100% of what comes in goes straight back into the show. Neither of them takes an income from it. Protect what you were given. Provide more than the minimum. Establish a house that looks like the King is coming back for it. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Dave's summer vacation demoted from three months to two, with Fauci pleading the Fifth on the science Two weeks at a Michigan cabin, chopping firewood to replace what you burn, and a little aluminum fishing boat 15,000 miles on a brand new van because Oklahoma City is a multiple-times-a-week trip Three mopeds in 45 minutes in Arkansas, and the unconfirmed existence of a moped gang Reading Plato's Republic with the group at Deacon Harrison's, book 10, and Adam's threat to haunt them if he gets kicked out The new Odyssey movie reviewed: Juan in a dog onesie as Argos and Harrison Garlick arriving with his heart pre-filled with hate Why folding the lotus eaters into Calypso's island wrecks the most important choice in the story Whiskey of the week: Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, on the shelf ten years, "warning, contains high levels of manliness" Why an age statement stops the day it's bottled, because whiskey only ages in the barrel What makes Stranahan's American whiskey and not bourbon: four barleys, virgin charred American white oak, made in the style of Scotch Bringing back the old show warning, sporadically and without notice The five precepts of the Church, Catechism 2041, and why they're the floor and not the ceiling Papal infallibility as a negative, defensive power versus the precepts as the Church flexing positive authority Why the Church legislates as little as possible and prefers freedom from the law over obedience to it Resting from servile labor: the case against going out to eat after Mass, and why nurses and gas stations are fine St. John Chrysostom on why you cannot pray at home the way you pray in church Confessing mortal sins at least once a year, and why monthly confession is the better habit The daily examination of conscience as the thing that makes confession possible at all Dave's prayer to Our Lady walking into the confessional: make this confession as if it were my last Why Adam leaves his phone outside the confessional St. Alphonsus Liguori on concealing sin, and why an intentionally incomplete confession is invalid and grave matter The Easter duty and St. Thomas Aquinas on why the Eucharist completes what baptism begins Aquinas's threefold purpose of fasting, and why the second reason is the most interesting one St. Basil the Great: fasting as a weapon for the valiant and a gymnasium for athletes Fasting every Wednesday with a group of men and offering it up for your wife and family Providing for the needs of the Church with time, not just money, and Fr. Brian O'Brien's "you should do it" Why churches were built with a piazza out front, and what that says about community Stewardship: you don't owe God 10%, you owe Him 100%, and He wants your kids back "It's the King's house" as a reason to actually take care of what you have Coming home mentally exhausted and shutting down instead of engaging, and why routine beats willpower The liturgy of the home: building routines so a weak will has somewhere to fall Catholic Man Show Camp Out: always the last weekend of September, sign-ups open at the end of August REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2041 (the five precepts), page 548 in the classic 1990s edition The Republic by Plato (Dave's reading group, book 10) The Odyssey by Homer, and the new Christopher Nolan film adaptation The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Odysseus in the Inferno) Summa Theologiae, Second Part of the Second Part, by St. Thomas Aquinas (the threefold purpose of fasting) Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (free on the Amen app) True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort (free on the Amen app) Homily on Fasting by St. Basil the Great Saints & Church Figures: St. John Chrysostom St. Alphonsus Liguori St. Thomas Aquinas St. Basil the Great St. Maria Faustina Kowalska St. Louis de Montfort Fr. Brian O'Brien People: Adam Minihan (host; Lady Haylee, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farm, Lady Pamela, Michigan cabin, Republic reading group) Deacon Harrison Garlick (reading group host, and a man who arrived at the Odyssey with his heart pre-filled with hate) Dr. Frank Grabowski Juan (Argos, in a dog onesie) Manny (made the short Camp Out documentary on the TCMS YouTube page) Lionel Richie (wrote a song that was clearly not about Catholic families) Whiskey: Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, original flagship expression, small batch, blend of four barleys, aged in virgin charred American white oak Community: The Catholic Man Show Camp Out, last weekend of September, sign-ups open end of August The Catholic Man Show Patreon (100% goes back into the show; patrons attend Camp Out free) The Catholic Man Show YouTube page (short Camp Out documentary, and the stitches video)
July 24 · 1 hr 16 min
Clarity Before Courage: Discerning God's Call as a Catholic Man | The Catholic Man Show
We had a guest walk in with gooey butter bars, so you already know it was a good night. Deacon Michael Halbrook is back, his fourth trip to Tulsa (one more and Dave's putting him in a green jacket), and Lady Pamela's baking came with him. Adam's oldest, Luke, was in studio too, which almost never happens, because mom was away and there were no rules. Luke's been out most nights hunting the raccoon that's been picking off the family chickens. No kill yet. But he knows what he's after now, and that's half the hunt. This week's pour was fitting: Hazel Baker Kentucky Straight Bourbon, six years old, bottled-in-bond at 100 proof, family owned out of Louisville. It came from a barrel the dads at Father McGivney Catholic High School picked out in Kentucky. Full strength, real caramel, nothing watered down. ------------------------------- This episode is brought to you by the Amen app from the Augustine Institute, the free app Adam's family uses to pray the Sunday readings on the way to Mass. No paywall, no subscription trap, just Scripture, prayer, and audiobooks like Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion. And by Select International Tours, the group Adam and Dave trust for pilgrimages. Whether you want to lead one or join one, that's who you call. ------------------------------- Then it got serious. Michael spent 18 years in corporate tech and walked away from it to build something for the Church. Not on a whim. He built it nights and weekends for years while the paycheck was still coming, took the business plan to his wife and sons like a board of directors, and only leapt when the runway made sense. But the moment that broke him open happened kneeling in the back pew before Mass. He asked our Lord for the certainty he could keep providing for his family, and he heard back, unmistakably: You've never been the one who provided. I've always been the one who provided. That's the whole episode in one line. Bishop Paprocki gave him the order of operations: pray for clarity first, then courage. Most men flip it and go charging into the dark. Michael talks through the discipline of saying no to good things so you can say yes to the right one, and then walks us through what he built, the &Altar app from Domus Formation. One reading, five minutes, a launch pad for your holy hour instead of a replacement for it. Pray, fast, give. A track for every season of life: the man, the woman, the family, the teen, the young adult, the elder. The back half is fatherhood. Michael's second son, Matthew, is at Air Force basic training right now (pray for him), and Michael's living the Establish pillar in real time. Protect and Provide, most of us understand. Establishing a son (raising him to walk on his own, then actually letting him go) is the hard one. They get into the father wound, the men who never had an example to copy, and the way out: be a good husband first and the father will follow. Because the office of father never ends, and neither do your prayers for your kids. Raise your glass. Topics covered in this episode: Deacon Michael Halbrook's fourth visit, Lady Pamela's gooey butter bars, and Luke's ongoing raccoon hunt Hazel Baker Kentucky Straight Bourbon, a bottled-in-bond barrel pick from Father McGivney Catholic High School Leaving 18 years in corporate tech to build a ministry, without doing it recklessly Building the thing on nights and weekends while the secure paycheck was still coming Taking the business plan to your wife and kids and making them the board The back-pew moment: "You've never been the one who provided. I've always been the one who provided." Bishop Paprocki's rule: pray for clarity first, courage second, and why men flip the order Why success is more about saying no than saying yes, and the hundred failures you never see behind the one win Charlie Kirk's seven things and the discipline of a short list What the &Altar app actually is: five minutes to seed a holy hour, not to replace it Pray, fast, give, and tracks for the man, woman, family, teen, young adult, and elder Liturgical living: letting the Mass form the home instead of the other way around Matthew at Air Force basic training and learning to let a son go Protect, Provide, and the hard third pillar: Establish The father wound, and the men trying to be good dads with no example to copy Be a good husband first, and the father will follow Why the office of fatherhood, and your prayers for your children, never expire Referenced in this episode: Deacon Michael Halbrook: permanent deacon, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois; founder of Domus Formation Domus Formation: https://wearedomus.com/ &Altar app: https://andaltar.wearedomus.com/ Bishop Thomas Paprocki, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois Bishop David Konderla, Diocese of Tulsa ("two moments in a Catholic's life: at Mass, and getting back to Mass") Hazel Baker Kentucky Straight Bourbon: bottled-in-bond, Louisville, KY Father McGivney Catholic High School barrel selection program Charlie Kirk, on the discipline of focusing on a short list Maria von Trapp, early writer on liturgical living Amen app (Augustine Institute): Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina; True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort
July 17 · 1 hr 14 min
Can Fire Really Burn a Soul? Aquinas Explains | The Catholic Man Show
Adam's about to be Coweta's biggest celebrity. Porter and Prairie Farm's SEO game has worked so well that a Tulsa news station called wanting an interview about egg prices and how they're crushing family farms. Problem is, Adam has no idea what egg prices are doing anywhere else. He just knows what he charges, and that they've lost 35 chickens in two weeks. Lady Haylee, in her prudence, said maybe skip the interview. Adam already said yes. The real debate of the week: overalls or no overalls for the camera. Overalls, obviously. Carhartt, not blue jean, collared shirt underneath. Now both guys want branded farm overalls, Niles Ranch and Fecundity Farm for Dave, Porter and Prairie Family Farm for Adam. Sponsor: Amen app (from the Augustine Institute) The Amen app is the free Catholic prayer app the guys use to walk through the Sunday Gospel with their kids on the way to Mass, plus free access to classics like Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion to Mary. No paywall, no subscription trap. Download the Amen app right now. Sponsor: Select International Tours When Adam and Dave planned their first pilgrimage, Select International Tours is who everyone pointed them to, and having used them, the guys can vouch for it. Wherever you want to go, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they offer. Dave's week wasn't any calmer. He harvested and shucked 500 to 700 ears of corn with the whole family, then blanched all of it late into the night while Lady Pamela held down a house full of unexpected company. His exact line on the way out the door: "I gotta go drink with my buddy for Jesus. It's a ministry, babe." Piglets are due any day, and this time he's praying they're born alive. The pour is a revisit: Salterra 14-Year Single Malt Scotch, finished in an Oloroso barrel, 48% ABV. Warm, not hot. Worth going back to. The prayer request is Mary. She's got an eye procedure Thursday, lasers, to make sure her retina stays attached so she doesn't go blind. She needs to put on weight first. Some days she gains 70 grams, some days she loses it. Thank you for praying. Keep it up. Then the real topic: what actually happens to your soul between the moment you die and the resurrection of your body. Can fire really burn something with no body to burn? Pulling from Aquinas's Summa, the guys walk through it. Your body dies, your soul doesn't, and it faces judgment immediately, heaven, hell, or purgatory on the way to heaven. The senses go dark since they run through bodily organs, but the intellect and the will, the parts that never needed a body to operate, stay fully awake. Aquinas's answer to the fire question: it doesn't burn the soul like a stove burns wood. It binds it. In sin, you subjected your higher self to a lower appetite, so in justice, a lower thing, fire, now holds your higher self captive. It's God's instrument, not chemistry. Then the bonus round: limbo. The limbo of the fathers, emptied by Christ at the Harrowing of Hell. The limbo of infants, never defined as dogma, still debated, and Dave's new coinage for where he thinks it actually belongs: limburgatory. A place with no suffering doesn't belong bolted onto hell. Protect what you love. Provide the truth even when it costs you something. Establish your kids in what's actually at stake. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Porter and Prairie Farm's SEO play working so well a Tulsa news station wants an egg price interview Losing 35 chickens in two weeks and having zero idea what egg prices are doing anywhere else The overalls debate: Carhartt over blue jean, collared shirt, and the case for branded farm overalls The economics of homesteading: it only "pays for itself" if you value your own labor at zero Dave shucking and blanching 500 to 700 ears of corn with the whole family in one night "I gotta go drink with my buddy for Jesus, it's a ministry, babe" Piglets due any day and praying for a better outcome than last time Bourbon of the week: revisiting Salterra 14-Year Single Malt Scotch, Oloroso barrel finish, 48% ABV Prayer update on baby Mary: a Thursday laser eye procedure to protect her retina, and the fight to gain weight What actually happens to the soul between death and the resurrection of the body Matthew 25:41 and what "everlasting fire" could mean for a devil who has no body to burn The difference between your particular judgment at death and the general judgment at the end of time Why death is genuinely abhorrent: the violent separation of body and soul, not just leaving earth Aquinas on why the intellect and will stay fully awake after death even though the senses go dark St. Gregory versus Aquinas on whether merely seeing hellfire is itself the punishment Aquinas's actual argument: fire doesn't cook the soul, it binds it, as an instrument of divine justice Why the fires of hell and purgatory are, per Aquinas, the very same fire The three conditions required for mortal sin, and why hell is always a freely chosen destination The limbo of the fathers, the bosom of Abraham, and Christ emptying it at the Harrowing of Hell The limbo of infants, the 2007 theological commission document, and why it was never defined as dogma Baptism of desire and the "intent of an intent" question for unbaptized infants Dave's case for "limburgatory" against Dante's placement of limbo as an annex of hell Why presuming on God's mercy is itself a sin, and how that shapes the whole limbo debate REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Questions 69 and 70, by St. Thomas Aquinas (compiled by his students after his death) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (limbo placed as an annex of hell) Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (free on the Amen app) True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort (free on the Amen app) Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1261 (hope for children who die without baptism) The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized, International Theological Commission, 2007 (approved by Pope Benedict XVI) Saints & Church Figures: St. Thomas Aquinas St. Gregory (the Great) St. Augustine St. Francis de Sales St. Maria Faustina Kowalska St. Louis de Montfort Pope Benedict XVI Dr. Peter Kreeft (referenced via the Matt Fradd interview clip, and the recent death of his wife of 63 years) People: Adam Minihan (host; Porter and Prairie Family Farm, Lady Haylee, baby Mary's NICU and eye procedure update, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Fecundity Farm, Niles Ranch, Lady Pamela, the corn harvest, coiner of "limburgatory") Lady Haylee (Adam's wife) Lady Pamela (Dave's wife) Matt Fradd (interviewer in the referenced Peter Kreeft clip)
July 9 · 58 min
What to Do When You're Struggling | The Catholic Man Show
For the 4th of July, the 250th birthday of America, Adam did the most Okie thing a man can do to celebrate: he took the family to a rodeo. Both boys went mutton busting, Friday and Saturday. Leo, six, drew a slow sheep the second night and rode it a full 17 seconds, hanging on and hollering "keep going, keep going!" into its ear because he knew he needed that sheep to move to score. ----------- Sponsor: The Amen app (from the Augustine Institute) The Amen app is the free Catholic prayer app the guys use to prep the family for Sunday, listening to the Sunday Gospel on the way to Holy Mass so the kids are ready to receive it before they walk in. No paywall, no subscription trap, no upfront cost. Download the Amen app right now. Sponsor: Select International Tours: selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, one name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see everything they offer. You won't regret it. ---------- He placed top three, took home a little money and a free snow cone, and nobody's sure which one he was prouder of. John, three, puffed his chest out all day, crumbled at the chute, rode two seconds, hit the dirt, cried, and then immediately declared he was doing it again tomorrow. He did. Same result. He was in it for the story. Then there's Adam and the bull. He's always had the itch to put himself on the line, to go where it takes fortitude and prudence and a whole lot of luck. So he slipped up to the chute with the cowboys, just to feel the atmosphere next to something that powerful. A storm blew in and cut the bull riding short. Adam's calling that one Providence, same as the fight that got cancelled back when COVID shut down the world. Some signs you don't get to ignore. The pour is Teeling Wonders of Wood Single Pot Still, Virgin Swedish Oak. Ninety three dollars, and worth it. No Jim on hand to work the yummy scale, so the guys guessed it might've metamorphosed into a 7.321. Deep, resonant, dangerously delicious. The prayer request is Mary. She's a little over four months now, still in the NICU. Adam sent a photo of her smiling right through all the tubing, and it melted everybody. It's been a hard stretch, a step back, but she recovered fast, her breathing's improving, and there's talk of scheduling open heart surgery in the next four to six months. Adam described the NICU "tree," the pole that once held fifteen to twenty bags and lines and now holds four. Look where they were. Look where they are. Thank you for the prayers. They have not been in vain, and Lady Haylee has been heroic through all of it. Then the topic: what to do when you're struggling. Not just spiritual struggle. Focus, work, sin, the whole weight of it. Most of it isn't laziness. It's disorder, a misalignment between the intellect and the appetites, an internal civil war stoked by stress and exhaustion and distraction. Aquinas names it. Augustine sharpens it: the mind commands the body and it obeys instantly, but the mind commands itself and is resisted. Adam's own admission cut deepest. There is a part of him that does not want to be holy. Naming that was the whole battle. Once he saw the enemy clearly, fasting and prayer stopped feeling like punishment and started feeling like war worth waging. Protect, provide, establish, and fight for your own soul while you're at it. Win the next 15 minutes. Then win the next one. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Celebrating the 4th of July, America's 250th, the most Okie way possible: a rodeo Leo and John mutton busting both nights, and Leo riding a slow sheep 17 seconds while yelling at it to keep going John, three years old, crumbling at the chute, crying, and immediately signing up to do it again The bull that jumped the arena into the stands, and Adam's lifelong itch to ride one Adam sneaking up to the chute and the storm that cut the bull riding short as Providence Carl's 4th of July party, the Declaration recited by teenagers, the bike parade, and drinking a beer while riding a bike ("bunking") Bourbon of the week: Teeling Wonders of Wood Single Pot Still, Virgin Swedish Oak, $93 Running the yummy scale without Jim and guessing at a 7.321 Prayer update on baby Mary: four months in the NICU, a smiling photo through the tubing, and open heart surgery on the horizon The NICU "tree" as a visualization of progress, from twenty lines down to four Why most struggle is not laziness but disorder and a lack of a clear vision of the end The human person broken down: intellect, will, and appetites, each with different triggers St. Thomas Aquinas on the harmony between intellect and appetite, and the civil war when they misalign St. Augustine on the mind that commands the body instantly but resists commanding itself The full life of St. John Paul II as a case study in struggle met with faith and joy Why you should tell your kids and grandkids your real struggle stories, not hide them Redemptive suffering, and the shortage of real perseverance stories for kids raised on pop culture Tolkien on dragons: children already know dragons exist; they need to know dragons can be beaten Curiosity as the quiet vice, and choosing the good over even a lesser good Why it's about atmosphere and scenarios, not willpower, because willpower gives out fast Adam's admission that part of him does not want to be holy, and going to war against it Fortitude as the virtue of winning by not losing, and building a habit of small victories The Dave Ramsey debt snowball as a picture of stacking wins Custody of the eyes, stopping the struggle before it starts, and "today, I will be a saint" REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: Confessions by St. Augustine (the mind commands itself and is resisted) Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas (harmony and misalignment of intellect and appetite) The Aeneid by Virgil (Adam reading it aloud with his boys over the summer) Tolkien's line on dragons in children's stories (misremembered on air as "Jetson") Saints & Church Figures: St. John Paul II, Karol Wojtyła (the extended story of his life and suffering) St. Thomas Aquinas St. Augustine The bishop referenced in the "bishop's flattery" aside, may he rest in peace People: Adam Minihan (host; the rodeo, the chute, baby Mary, M6 Marketing, The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Lady Pamela and the kids) Lady Haylee (heroic through Mary's NICU stay) Leo and John Minihan (the mutton busters) Karl Graham (friend of the show; the 4th of July party) Dave Ramsey (the debt snowball and the philosophy of stacking wins)
July 1 · 59 min
Hold On Loosely: Holy Indifference and Ordering Your Day | The Catholic Man Show
Adam took the family on his parents' annual vacation this week, and Grandpa rented four jet skis. With a house full of kids, four turned out to be exactly the right number. Adam threw Luke off the back four times, which he's counting as a win. But the real event was the card game. If you've never played spoons with the Minihan family, know this going in: it ends in blood. Sheetrock has been broken. Tables have taken damage. Adam came home with a scratch, a bruise, and a loss he's still sore about. His sister Kaylin was his rival, so he spent the whole game yanking the spoons to the far end of the table just to make her fly for one. Then Grandpa broke out the karaoke machine after the kids went down, and Adam lassoed Lady Haylee into a duet of "Jackson." Every man should have a go-to karaoke song ready for when the moment finds him. Adam jokes, God help him, is "My Heart Will Go On." Dave, by his own admission, has no fun stories. He spent the weekend working himself to the bone, finished cutting his wheat, and pulled a good harvest. Adam brought up while his family was away, something got into the coop. A fox or a coyote, most likely, because a raccoon doesn't kill a dozen birds. They lost the four new chicks and the brooding hens. Chicken math giveth, and this week it took away. The pour is 1792 Full Proof, a single-barrel store pick from Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits, a Catholic-owned shop. It's barrel strength and it drinks hot. Jim, keeper of the yummy scale, gave it a 5.99 out of 6, then shrugged and told the guys to be indifferent to it. Which, as it happens, is the whole show. Because tonight the topic is holy indifference, and Adam frames it first through ordering your day. Reading Sertillanges' The Intellectual Life, he lands on a hard truth: you are not at the mercy of your mood, and the man who waits until he feels like it never starts. Order gets carried out precisely when you don't feel like it, because the hierarchy of what matters doesn't shift with how you feel. Decide what a good day looks like before the day begins. Get your three to five things done no matter what the highs and lows throw at you. Kill the second alarm. Don't become a slave to the pillow. Small time used faithfully beats big time used erratically. And guard your silence, because a scattered mind can't go deep, and the first place you feel the noise is in adoration. Then the turn. Holy indifference isn't apathy. It's the opposite. It's a hyper-preference, wanting the will of God so completely that you stop caring whether He sends riches or poverty, health or sickness, a long life or a short one. St. Ignatius calls it indifference to all created things. St. Francis de Sales sharpens it: the resigned man accepts God's will but still quietly prefers his own, while the indifferent man has let go of the preference itself. Wax in the hand. Clay in the potter's grip. Dave brings it home with the night a car stopped short in front of him and he thought, what if I'd just died? His first panic was, who takes care of my family? And the answer he heard was, do you think you're the one who takes care of them? Have they not always been Mine first? Protect, provide, establish, and then hold it all loosely. You can't abandon yourself to a God you don't trust, so build the faith that lets you trust Him. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Adam's family vacation and Grandpa renting four jet skis for a house full of kids The Minihan family spoons tournament that draws blood and breaks sheetrock, with Adam's sister Kaylin as his rival Why every man needs a go-to karaoke song, and Adam roping Lady Haylee into a "Jackson" duet Dave working himself to the bone all weekend with no story to show for it Dave finishing the wheat harvest and losing a dozen chickens to a predator while the family was away "Chicken math," and why your flock is a moving number and never a static one Bourbon of the week: 1792 Full Proof, a single-barrel store pick from Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits Jim's yummy scale verdict: a 5.99 out of 6, delivered with a shrug Ordering your day so you're not at the mercy of your moods, from Sertillanges' The Intellectual Life Deciding what a good day looks like before the day even begins Kevin O'Leary, Steve Jobs, and getting your three to five things done regardless of the highs and lows Guarding your focus: the Brick, one alarm, no snooze, and refusing to be a slave to the pillow Why small time used faithfully beats big time used erratically Why living well for your family is harder than dying for it Recollection over noise, guarding silence, and why you feel a scattered mind first in adoration Catholic freedom as the ability to choose the good, not the license to do whatever you want Holy indifference as a hyper-preference for God's will, not apathy St. Ignatius on indifference to health or sickness, riches or poverty, honor or dishonor St. Francis de Sales on the difference between resignation and indifference, and the image of wax in the hand The daily offering, and Adam's "Lord, take it all from me" prayer in adoration The detachment exercise: if a tornado took your house, would you still trust Him? Dave's near-death moment and the words he heard: do you think you're the one who takes care of your family? "Hold on loosely, but don't let go," and why you can't abandon yourself to a God you don't trust REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: The Intellectual Life by A.G. Sertillanges, O.P. (Adam's favorite; "every man should read it") Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales (resignation vs. indifference; the wax in the hand) The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (indifference to all created things) Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Adam's take: a brilliant visionary who led a sad life) Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina (free on the Amen app) True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis de Montfort (free on the Amen app) Saints & Church Fathers: St. Ignatius of Loyola (holy indifference; the First Principle and Foundation) St. Francis de Sales (resignation vs. indifference) St. Thérèse of Lisieux (the "little way," faithful small time) St. Maria Faustina and St. Louis de Montfort (the two books that changed Adam's life) People: Adam Minihan (host; founder of M6 Marketing; writes The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Lady Pamela and the kids) Jim Spencer (in studio; keeper of the yummy scale) Kevin O'Leary, "Mr. Wonderful," and Steve Jobs (the time-management and focus thread) Karl Graham (friend of the show; the log-every-30-minutes habit) Musical cameos: 38 Special ("Hold On Loosely"), Johnny Cash and June Carter ("Jackson"), Celine Dion ("My Heart Will Go On"), Lionel Richie ("Easy") Programs & Institutions: The Brick (the focus device that blocks distracting apps) Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits (Catholic-owned; the 1792 Full Proof store pick) M6 Marketing (Adam's company) SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: The Amen app (from the Augustine Institute) The Amen app is the free Catholic prayer app the guys use to prep the family for Sunday, listening to the Sunday Gospel on the way to Holy Mass. Since 2021 it's had over 950,000 downloads, and the guys want to push it past a million. No paywall, no subscription trap, no upfront cost. It even has Divine Mercy in My Soul and True Devotion to Mary on it, free. Download the Amen app right now. Sponsor: Select International Tours: selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, one name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. They're the best. Wherever in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see everything they offer. You won't regret it.
June 29 · 1 hr 3 min
The Eucharistic Man: Why Gratitude Is a Virtue, Not a Mood | The Catholic Man Show
There's a new Niles in the world. Joshua Benedict Rex was born this week, and Dave wants you to know how stressful it all was. For the dad, that is. The pressure. The anxiety. All those things. None of which come to mind right now. Joke's on Dave, though, because Lady Pamela got to the birth center, the midwife offered to break her water, and Joshua arrived eleven minutes later. That's boy number three, bringing the count to three boys and four girls. Adam got the "we're going in" text at the hospital, stopped to pray, and barely beat the birth. The baby's a content little guy. A stereotypical Niles baby, the spitting image of baby Davy. Baptism's in a couple weeks with Uncle Father Sean, godparents are Sarah and Drew, and somewhere in there is a real theology question the guys throw to the priests who listen: can you name godparents after the fact for a baby baptized in a rush? Asking for a Mary. That birth set the whole table. Every time a baby comes into this circle of friends, the men pull their money, buy one nicer bottle of whiskey, sign it with the kid's name, and drink it together. They call it the "baby bottles" tradition. It blends friends into family. And it's exactly the kind of gift that makes you grateful, which is what this whole episode is about. They're recording on a Friday, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, the same day the bishops of America consecrated the entire country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pour is Glendalough, a pot still Irish whiskey the guys actually visited on pilgrimage. Triple distilled by law, smooth, no burn, and oddly cheap. The bottle shows St. Kevin in cruciform, a bird nesting in his open hand. The pious legend says he held that prayer posture so long the eggs hatched. Jim's scale (Irish edition): 3.96 out of 6. Then the meat: gratitude. Not the bumper-sticker kind. Gratitude is a virtue, a sub-virtue of justice, because it renders to another what's due, first to God who gave us everything. Aquinas lays out three degrees: recognition, expression, repayment. Most of us fail at the first one. We take the morning, the clothes, the breath for granted. St. Bernard calls ingratitude a scorching wind that dries up the streams of grace. God pours, the man doesn't return thanks, the flow stops. The hardest, most masculine turn in the episode is receiving. Men hate it. I don't need your charity. I can carry this cross. But refusing a gift graciously offered isn't humility. It's a wall. Adam's lived on the receiving end through Mary's time in the NICU, and he's learned the Christian paradox: the more graciously indebted you are, the richer your life, because the score is never even. That's not a debt to clear. That's a brotherhood. And the punchline ties it all together. Eucharist means thanksgiving. A man of gratitude is a Eucharistic man. You can't repay God for creating you, so He came down, became one of us, and offered Himself on your behalf. All you have to do is show up. Protect, provide, establish, and give thanks. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Joshua Benedict Rex Niles is born, baby boy number three, bringing the Niles count to three boys and four girls Dave's tongue-in-cheek case that the dad has it hardest in childbirth Lady Pamela's eleven-minute birth at the birth center after the midwife broke her water The "kingship" theme running through the Niles boys' names: David, Joseph, and now Joshua Benedict Rex Why every Niles baby is a "cookie cutter" content baby, and Joshua looking just like baby Davy The wonder that a child somehow looks like both mom and dad, "only God could make a baby look like both" Baptism plans with Uncle Father Sean and godparents Sarah and Drew The open question for the priests who listen: can you name godparents after the fact for a baby baptized in a rush? The "baby bottles" tradition, the men pooling money for a signed bottle of whiskey to honor each new baby Why this kind of tradition blends friends into family Recording on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, and the U.S. bishops consecrating the country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Whiskey of the week: Glendalough pot still Irish whiskey, triple distilled and smooth The legend of St. Kevin of Glendalough, the bird's nest in his hand and his love of all God's creatures Why Irish whiskey is the most approachable place to start, and surprisingly cheap Jim's scale (Irish edition): 3.96 out of 6 "Better than I deserve, I'm sure," Adam's go-to answer to "how are you?" The man at the pharmacy who'd just lost his wife, and never knowing what people are carrying Gratitude as a virtue, and specifically a sub-virtue of justice The book of Job as the model of gratitude to the core: "the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away" Why a member of the Body of Christ is doing well no matter what else is going wrong Aquinas's three degrees of gratitude: recognition, expression, repayment Why recognition is the weak spot for most people, the habit of taking things for granted The internal act of the will toward the benefactor as the heart of repayment The humility it takes to receive a gift, and why most men refuse charity How receiving a gift graciously multiplies joy and binds a community together The Christian paradox of being "graciously indebted," and why the score is never even St. Bernard of Clairvaux on ingratitude as a burning wind that dries up the streams of grace Deacon Garlick's prayer of thanks as a model for opening prayer Meditating on the magnitude of the Incarnation, the worm-and-the-man analogy Why real men don't complain or "vent," and complaining as carrying the cross while griping about its weight Dying for your family is easy; living for your family is hard, the little deaths Are you willing to get up, eat right, moderate your drinking, and put the phone down for your family? The Malcolm Gladwell mentorship lesson and the hidden cost of remote work, tribal knowledge not getting passed down Why none of our best fatherhood or business "hacks" are original, and the duty to pass them on St. John Chrysostom and St. Thérèse of Lisieux: gratitude as the superpower of the soul Why you won't become holy without the habit of gratitude "People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed" Keeping the right perspective so you don't live in a false reality the devil wants for you Eucharist means thanksgiving, a man of gratitude is a Eucharistic man REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: The Book of Job (the model of gratitude through suffering) The Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas, Second Part of the Second Part (the three degrees of gratitude; ingratitude as sin) Malcolm Gladwell's work on mentorship and learning a craft (referenced by Adam) Saints & Church Fathers: St. Thomas Aquinas (the three degrees of gratitude; gratitude as a sub-virtue of justice) St. Bernard of Clairvaux (the "leaky vessel"; ingratitude as a burning wind that dries up the streams of grace) St. Kevin of Glendalough (the bird's-nest legend; love of God's creatures) St. John Chrysostom ("gratitude is the superpower of the soul") St. Thérèse of Lisieux (gratitude and the spiritual life) Simon of Cyrene (carrying the cross with Christ) People: Adam Minihan (host; founder of M6 Marketing; writes The Grounded Builder on Substack) Jim (in studio, keeper of the yummy scale) Lady Pamela Niles (delivered baby number seven) Joshua Benedict Rex Niles (newborn), David Jr., and Joseph Niles (the "kingship" names) Baby Mary Minihan (still in the NICU, the gifts and prayers received) Uncle Father Sean (baptizing Joshua); Sarah and Drew (godparents) Deacon Garlick (his prayer of thanks) Programs & Institutions: The Catholic Man Show pilgrimage (where the guys visited Glendalough) Glendalough Distillery, Ireland SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours: selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, one name kept coming up: Select International Tours. They're the best. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. No matter where in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready for you. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and take a look at everything they offer. You won't regret it.
June 22 · 48 min
He Must Increase: The Nativity of St. John the Baptist | The Catholic Man Show
Adam's on the front porch watching one of those Oklahoma sunsets that make you forgive the state for everything else. Dave pulls up. Walks toward the house, chest out, confident, ready to record. Adam asks the only question that matters: did you bring the equipment? He did not. New baby syndrome. Joshua got his first bath that night, Lady Pamela's still on the mend and bending over a tub isn't on the menu yet, and somewhere between bathing the kids and getting out the door, the recording gear stayed home. So Dave logged a solid hour of windshield time driving back and forth across town to fetch it. The baby's worth it. Six days old and already back to birth weight, sleeping three hours at a stretch, an almost unfairly easy kid for a man who's had colicky ones before. The pour is a curveball: Saltire, a 14-year independent bottling distilled at Tomar, a first-fill Oloroso sherry cask. It's a Speyside, but nobody at the table would've guessed it. It drinks salty, like saltwater taffy, like it grew up near the ocean. The notes promise polished leather, dried cherries, tobacco, and, if you add water, burnt sugar, hazelnut, and "speckled chocolate milk," a phrase that derailed the conversation for a solid minute because nobody could agree what speckled chocolate milk is supposed to be. Cheers to Jesus. We're on the winning side. Then Adam reaches past the planned backbiting episode, grabs Francis Weiser's Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs off the shelf, and lands on something better: the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24th. Here's the hook that got him. The Church only celebrates three birthdays. Jesus. Our Lady. And John the Baptist. Everybody else gets honored on the day they die, because for a saint that's the real birthday, the day they enter eternal life. So why John? The tradition says all three were born free from original sin. John wasn't conceived without it like Jesus and Mary, but he was sanctified in the womb when he leapt at the sound of Our Lady's voice at the Visitation. Born clean. St. Augustine treats it as a settled tradition, and if the Fathers are in, the guys are in. The logic of the date is the part that'll stick with you. June 24th rides the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and from there the light starts to wane all the way down to Christmas and the winter solstice, when it turns and climbs again. John said it himself: I must decrease, so that He must increase. That's not just a calendar coincidence. It's a map of the soul. The more room you take up in your own heart, the less there is for Christ. If you want Him to be king there, you've got to get out of the way. Then the fun: how to actually live it. Put it on the calendar and get to Mass. Pray the Benedictus as a family and light a candle. Build a bonfire on the eve, John the Baptist is one of the three fires on the Catholic year. Feed the kids honey sticks and, if you're brave, dried crickets, locusts and wild honey, desert food. Make it the anchor of your summer. This is the Establish pillar in the flesh, the small traditions that hand your kids an identity they'll carry for life. Catholic spice. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Dave forgets the recording equipment thanks to "new baby syndrome," and logs an hour of windshield time driving back for it Joshua Niles at six days old, back to birth weight and sleeping three hours at a stretch, an unfairly easy baby Lady Pamela still recovering, and a dad bathing the kids to take the load off The aside on Irish twins, baby formula, and why breastfeeding affects fertility Elizabeth Niles getting blessed by Pope Leo, and which popes "bless with their kisses" Whiskey of the week: Saltire 14-year, an independent bottling distilled at Tomar, first-fill Oloroso sherry cask A Speyside that drinks salty, like saltwater taffy, and the mystery of "speckled chocolate milk" Dave's wheat experiment, tripling the planting and cutting it by hand with a scythe, and the open call for a small-scale wheat-farming expert to email the show The broody-hen saga, abandoned eggs, four surprise chicks, and Adam's "apartment" trick for relocating broody hens at night Why the episode pivoted from a planned backbiting topic to living liturgically Francis Weiser's Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs as a source for feast-day living The Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist on June 24th Why the Church celebrates only three birthdays: Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist The tradition that all three were born free from original sin, and John sanctified in the womb at the Visitation Who John was: son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, Zechariah struck mute, "no one greater born of women" The small-t tradition that John's parents died young and he was raised in the desert by angels John as the forerunner and the "best man" escorting the bride to Christ the Bridegroom Fifteen churches dedicated to John the Baptist in ancient Constantinople alone John as patron of tailors, shepherds, and masons, and why each one fits Why June 24th: the summer solstice and "I must decrease so that He must increase" as a map of the soul The real reason it's the 24th and not the 25th: the Roman calendar counting backward from the kalends Weiser's pushback on the idea that the feast was a baptized pagan party Just how high this feast ranked in the early Church: three Masses, abstaining from servile work, and a 14-day fast prescribed by a German synod in 1022 The other two feasts of John: the Decollation (Aug 29) and the East's celebration of his conception (Sep 23) St. John Paul II on Christ as door, vine, mother hen, and actual Bridegroom Tier-one celebration: put feast days on your calendar and get to Holy Mass Joseph Pieper on a true feast requiring the divine and abundance Family traditions like pierogies, and how they hand kids a Catholic and ethnic identity Praying the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79) as a family and lighting a candle Tier-two celebration: a bonfire on the eve, the three fires of the Catholic year, and feeding the kids crickets and honey sticks Tier-three celebration: making the feast the anchor of your family's summer vacation REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs by Francis X. Weiser, S.J. (out of print; the episode's primary source) Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre (the best man / bridegroom imagery) Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary by Brant Pitre (recommended alongside it) The Gospel of Luke, chapter 1 (Zechariah and Elizabeth; the Benedictus, vv. 68-79; Gabriel telling Mary that Elizabeth is in her sixth month) Saints & Church Fathers: St. John the Baptist (the Nativity, June 24; the Decollation, Aug 29; the conception, Sep 23 in the East) St. Augustine (the tradition that John was sanctified in the womb) St. Joseph (referenced for his multiple feasts, including St. Joseph the Worker) St. Faustina and Divine Mercy Sunday (an example of a feast the Church raised up for the times) St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary and the confraternity (the first-Saturday plenary indulgence) People: Adam Minihan (host; founder of M6 Marketing; writes The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host; Porter Prairie homestead) Lady Pamela Niles (recovering after the birth of baby Joshua) Joshua Niles (six days old) and the Niles children, including Joseph and Elizabeth Pope Leo (who blessed Elizabeth Niles) and Pope Francis Joseph Pieper (Adam's private devotion; on the nature of a feast) St. John Paul II (Christ as Bridegroom) Programs & Institutions: Select International Tours (sponsor; the guys' pilgrimage company) SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours: selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, they asked around for who to work with, and one name came back over and over: Select International Tours. The best. Having used them now, the guys can attest to it. No matter where in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready for you. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, do yourself a favor and head to selectinternationaltours.com to see everything they offer. You won't regret it. Amen App by the Augustine Institute The Amen app is the free Catholic prayer app that inspires your daily conversation with God through faithful meditations and nourishing Scripture. Please enjoy this latest offering from the Augustine Institute.
June 4 · 1 hr 3 min
Finding Jesus in the Temple: The First Words of Our Lord | The Catholic Man Show
Dave took another trip to the emergency room this week — though this one wasn't for him. His daughter Bernadette and one of his boys built a foam block bridge, she went off the side of it, landed on the wall, and broke her clavicle. Clean break. When Adam got the x-ray, he zoomed in, screenshotted just the broken collarbone, and sent it to Lady Haylee with no context — let her think Adam had been out grinding, building fences, shouldering it like a tough guy. Bernadette, for the record, is doing great. Three weeks and she's back to normal. As Dave put it, if you're going to break your clavicle, do it young. Don't do it at Jim's age. A lot of life packed into this one before the topic. Adam and his boys, Luke and Jude, are going to read the Aeneid together this summer — Luke already read it at Holy Family Classical School, so he'll lead the way. Adam helped Dave harvest wheat (the invoice is coming), and the two of them talked homesteading honestly: you don't get into it to save time or money. It's a lifestyle, and the pork chop costs $400 if you're foolish enough to count your own labor. Adam also turned 40 — by the time this airs, the birthday's passed — and he spent his Substack this week reflecting on the four ten-year cycles he's got left, if he's lucky. The big lesson from 30 to 40: he had it backwards. He was making his life serve the business instead of the business serve his life. Build the habits of prayer, reading, and friendship young, because life only gets busier, and it's far easier to keep a habit than to add one. Two prayer requests worth holding. Lady Pamela's due date is this week — baby Niles number seven, two middle names this time, names not yet shared. And baby Mary is still in the NICU. They're going to try again this week to take her off the breathing tube. She's weaning off sedation — which means withdrawals, which is hard — but she's gaining weight and getting stronger. Get past the tube and the next hill is open heart surgery. Adam's grateful for every prayer, and for the guys who sent DoorDash cards. Keep praying for Mary. And a shout-out to Dan O'Brien, David's father-in-law, walking the Camino as this drops — Dan, hope the feet are holding up. This week's pour is a funny one: WhistlePig's 250th Anniversary of America 10-Year "Piggy Bank" Limited Edition Straight Rye, 55% ABV. The box is a literal piggy bank and the bottle is a chrome-plated ceramic pig. Spicier and more herbal than your Weller or Buffalo Trace — but smooth for the proof, with caramel and warm undertones. Picked up at Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits, owned by a good Catholic family from St. Benedict. Jim's yummy scale (bourbon scale): 5.87 out of 6. Then the main course: the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. Luke 2, the last joyful mystery, the only Gospel that records it — and the very first time Jesus is recorded speaking. Adam walks through it with the Catena Aurea, Aquinas's compilation of the Church Fathers edited by St. John Henry Newman. The caravan to Jerusalem split women and children up front, men in the back, and a twelve-year-old could be in either — so Mary thought He was with Joseph, Joseph thought He was with Mary. Theophylact says it wasn't negligence. A logistical blind spot. Any father who's left a kid at church after coffee and donuts gets it. The three days they searched? St. Ambrose says that's no accident — a rehearsal for the three days of the Passion, lost and then found again. The age of twelve is no accident either: right before the bar mitzvah, the Lord fulfilling the law perfectly, right on time, and twelve standing for the tribes and the apostles. Watch Mary, too. She brings her grief straight to her Son without accusation — "why have you done this to us?" — modeling how a soul carries pain to Christ: honestly, blaming no one, trusting before she fully understands. Watch Joseph, who says nothing, and pursues his mission relentlessly without drama. That's the masculine answer to adversity: very well, and you handle it. Protect, provide, establish. Was Jesus being disobedient? The Fathers say no — His higher obedience to His Father's business ran underneath the surface, and verse 51 shows Him going home and being subject to them. God first, then family, and that order doesn't fracture the home. It grounds it. And where did they find Him? In the temple. His Father's house. Which is the whole point: you can find Jesus in nature, in the car, anywhere — but you are guaranteed to find Him in the church, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the tabernacle of every Catholic church in the world. If you want to become holy, go be with Him. Get an adoration hour. Holiness doesn't happen the way Adam's buddy Juan figured he'd "just kind of one day have a six pack." You have to do something about it. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Dave's daughter Bernadette breaking her clavicle falling off a foam block bridge the kids built Adam screenshotting the x-ray and sending just the broken collarbone to Lady Haylee with no context Adam reading the Aeneid with his sons Luke and Jude this summer — and why he's doing it men's-group style Harvesting wheat, and the honest economics of homesteading ("the $400 pork chop") Why you never homestead to save time or money — it's a lifestyle, not a shortcut Adam turning 40 and his Substack reflection on the four ten-year cycles he has left The biggest lesson from 30 to 40 — making the business serve your life instead of your life serving the business Why habits of prayer, reading, and friendship are easier to keep than to add later Leveraging competent friends instead of trying to do everything yourself Lady Pamela due this week with baby Niles number seven — and the two-middle-names debate Baby Mary update — another attempt to come off the breathing tube, weaning off sedation, gaining weight Why open heart surgery is the next hill after the breathing tube Dan O'Brien walking the Camino — a shout-out for sore feet Bourbon of the week: WhistlePig 250th Anniversary 10-Year "Piggy Bank" Limited Edition Straight Rye, 55% ABV The ceramic pig bottle, the piggy-bank box, and why a limited shelf whiskey runs $250–$350 Jim's yummy scale hitting 5.87 out of 6 on the bourbon scale The Finding of Jesus in the Temple — Luke 2, the last joyful mystery, and the only Gospel that records it The first recorded words of Our Lord Reading the story through the Catena Aurea — Aquinas's compilation of the Fathers, edited by St. John Henry Newman How the Passover caravan split women and children up front and men in the back — and how Jesus fell into the gap Theophylact on why it was a logistical blind spot, not negligence or bad parenting St. Ambrose on the three-day search foreshadowing the three days of the Passion and Resurrection Why the age of twelve matters — the year before the bar mitzvah, and the symbolism of the twelve tribes and apostles Jesus fulfilling the law perfectly and right on time, not jumping ahead Mary bringing her grief to Christ without accusation — the model for carrying pain to the Lord "About my father's business" vs. "in my father's house" — the translation and what it means St. Bede on faith preceding comprehension — assenting before fully understanding St. Joseph as the model father — pursuing his mission relentlessly, without drama or self-pity Mary honoring Joseph's fatherhood — "your father and I" — and why spouses don't belittle each other How complaining about your spouse to others actually breaks your wedding vows Was Jesus disobedient? The Fathers say no — the higher obedience running underneath The devil's-advocate case that He chose to be left behind, and His right as the Logos to do so Jesus using the Socratic method in the temple — asking questions and "making them wonder upon him" The hierarchy of Christ's presence — and why you're guaranteed to find Him in the tabernacle A convert's story and the simple counsel: you just need to be in front of Jesus "Nothing if not you" — non nisi te, Domine — St. Thomas Aquinas's answer to the Lord The spiritual six pack — why holiness never just "happens on its own" Getting an adoration hour as a statement about the kind of man you want to be REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas, edited by St. John Henry Newman (the Fathers' commentary on the Gospels) The Gospel of Luke, chapter 2 (the Finding in the Temple, vv. 41–52) The Aeneid by Virgil (Adam's summer read with his sons) The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer (mentioned alongside Luke's classical reading) Adam's Substack, The Grounded Builder — this week's reflection on his ten-year cycles Saints & Church Fathers: St. Thomas Aquinas (the Catena Aurea; non nisi te, Domine) St. John Henry Newman (editor of the Catena Aurea) Theophylact (the caravan blind spot, not negligence) St. Ambrose (the three days foreshadowing the Passion; Mary's grief without rebuke; "right on time") St. Bede the Venerable (faith preceding comprehension; the hierarchy of loves) St. Teresa of Avila ("no wonder you have so few friends, with how you treat them") St. Humbert of Romans (the importance of place and location in prayer) The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph (the model of unified, honoring marriage) People: Adam Minihan (host; founder of M6 Marketing; writes The Grounded Builder on Substack; turned 40) Dave Niles (host; Porter Prairie homestead) Jim (in studio — keeper of the yummy scale) Lady Haylee Minihan Lady Pamela Niles (due this week with baby number seven) Bernadette Niles (broke her clavicle), Luke Minihan (almost 13), Jude Minihan (11) Dan O'Brien (Adam's father-in-law, walking the Camino) Juan (Adam's buddy — "I just kind of thought one day I'd have a six pack") Programs & Institutions: Holy Family Classical School, Tulsa, Oklahoma St. Benedict parish, Broken Arrow Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits (Catholic-owned; sponsor of the next two episodes) M6 Marketing (Adam's company) SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, one name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it — they're the best. Wherever in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready. Whether you're looking to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see everything they offer. You won't regret it. Also sponsoring the next two episodes: Broken Arrow Wine and Spirits — a good Catholic family from St. Benedict, and where the guys picked up this week's WhistlePig. If you're in the Broken Arrow area, give them your business.
June 2 · 58 min
The Divine Importance of Manual Labor | The Catholic Man Show
Adam's youngest son, John, locked himself in the bathroom. No big deal — kid's fine, sang songs in there for forty-five minutes like a champ. The problem was the doorknob. Broken cam, broken spring, faceplate screws on the wrong side, and no way in. So Adam did what any father of six at the end of a long day does: he took an angle grinder to the thing and ground the entire doorknob into a pile of metal shards on the floor. Dave's suggestion — order the door open under holy obedience — came in a little too late. Then Dave told on himself. Reseating a toilet, scraping the wax ring, already in a state of borderline rage. He bumped the tank against the tile and cracked it. In a fit of Herculean fury he hoisted the seat over his head, ready to Hulk-smash it into a million pieces — and heard, somewhere, his guardian angel. Jesus doesn't want you to do this. He set it down. Didn't destroy it. And got rewarded for it: American Standard honored a lifetime warranty he didn't know he had and shipped him a $1,600 toilet, free, to replace the $200 one he broke. Resisting the rage paid out at eight to one. Then a quieter note. Baby Mary is still in the NICU. They got her off the breathing tube — she lasted about 24 hours before she had to be re-intubated. Good progress, long road still ahead. Oklahoma City's two hours off, the kids are out of school, and the Minihans are looking at hiring a nanny. But Adam wanted to brag on Lady Haylee. A stranger at the NICU left her a handwritten note and a crochet sweater with Mary's name on it — telling Haylee her faith had been an encouragement, that God is using her right there in that place. Haylee wasn't trying to be a witness. She was just being a mother in a hard place. That's exactly why it landed. Keep praying for Mary. This week's pour: Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Straight Bourbon from Nevada H&C Distilling out of Las Vegas. 59.29% ABV — hand-written on the bottle, so every batch runs a little different. Hot, full-flavored, plenty of grit. Jim's yummy scale gave it a 6.0, which broke the scale, because the scale apparently only went to four until tonight. Then the real work. The spiritual significance of manual labor. Summer's coming — the season of labor — and the guys make the case that work isn't a curse of the fall. Adam was tending the garden before sin entered the world. His very name comes from the dirt — adamah — made from it, named for it, made to work it. St. Augustine: what's more wonderful than to watch God's creation respond to human hands? Aquinas gives his four reasons for manual labor — obtain your livelihood, remove idleness, curb concupiscence ("I'm almost too tired to sin"), and give alms from the surplus. And the deeper distinction: servile work, done out of necessity, and liberal work, done for the sake of rest. We don't work to work. We work so we can look at what we've made, see that it is good, and rest. Same thing a man does in the soil, he does for his wife — order the environment so the thing entrusted to him can thrive. Protect, provide, establish. It's hard. It's supposed to be. What did you think hard was going to be? The man who can fix things is a threat to the throwaway culture — and the same will that fixes a thing is the will that prays the rosary on the morning you'd rather not. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Adam grinding his kid's bathroom doorknob into shards with an angle grinder after his son John got locked in Dave nearly Hulk-smashing a toilet seat in a fit of rage — and the guardian angel that stopped him How resisting the rage earned Dave a free $1,600 American Standard toilet under a lifetime warranty Baby Mary update — off the breathing tube for 24 hours, re-intubated, long road still ahead The Minihans looking at hiring a full-time nanny with the kids out of school The handwritten note and crochet sweater a stranger left Lady Haylee at the NICU How you carry suffering as a Christian can be a witness even when you're not trying to be one Bourbon of the week: Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Straight Bourbon, Nevada H&C Distilling, 59.29% ABV Jim's yummy scale hitting 6.0 and breaking its own four-point ceiling Why we even have to talk about manual labor when it used to be everybody's daily life Attention as agency — guarding what you direct your mind toward in a world built to fracture it Acedia, apathy, and becoming a cog flung to and fro like Francesca in Dante's ninth circle "The world fears the man who can fix things" — Fr. Mori of Clear Creek Abbey Throwaway culture and why things are programmed now instead of built to be repaired Adam's M6 Marketing memo on "character without exception" — work and life are one line, not two Manual labor in Genesis — Adam tending the garden before the fall, not after Adamah — why the first man was made from dirt, named for dirt, and made to work it St. Augustine on God's creation responding to human hands Aquinas's four necessities of manual labor: livelihood, removing idleness, curbing concupiscence, giving alms "I'm almost too tired to sin" — why a hard day's work curbs temptation Servile work vs. liberal work — laboring out of necessity vs. laboring for the sake of rest Josef Pieper and the Catholic mind: we work so that we can rest Why hard is supposed to be hard, and how it trains the will Choosing to pray the rosary on the morning you've already decided you won't Self-sacrificial love — doing the dishes when you don't want to, because she shouldn't have to Prayer as both work and rest — peace as the tranquility of order in this life, rest in the next Why unstructured, leisurely time is where the desire to write, paint, and create actually surfaces Passing the habit of manual labor — and the courage to fix things — down to your kids "It's not about the nail" — the philosophy of life behind refusing to just throw things away REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity by Josef Pieper Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper (Pieper's broader work on work and rest) Adam's Substack, The Grounded Builder — recent article on five overlooked books worth reading The Book of Genesis (the creation and naming of Adam; the call to tend the garden) Dante's Inferno (the ninth circle; Francesca in the second circle, flung to and fro) Shakespeare's As You Like It (staged locally by the Sheard family and other homeschool families) Saints & Historical Figures: St. Thomas Aquinas (the four necessities of manual labor; servile vs. liberal work) St. Augustine ("what is more wonderful than to observe the workings of nature...") Adam (the first man — adamah, made from and for the dirt) People: Adam Minihan (host; founder of M6 Marketing; writes The Grounded Builder on Substack) Dave Niles (host) Jim (in studio — keeper of the yummy scale; shipping Patreon gifts; prays with Hallow) Fr. Mori of Clear Creek Abbey ("the world fears the man who can fix things") Brandon Sheard (quoted the same line; the Sheard family staged the Shakespeare production) Dan (Dave's father-in-law — never trusted a man who works with music on in the background) Josef Pieper ("the peepster" — Adam's favorite German philosopher) Bob Ross (Dave's aspirational painting instructor) Lady Haylee Minihan Lady Pamela Niles Programs & Institutions: Clear Creek Abbey Hallow (prayer app — Jim uses it; not a sponsor) M6 Marketing (Adam's company) SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, one name kept coming up: Select International Tours. They're the best. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready. Whether you're looking to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see everything they offer. You won't regret it. Support the show: patreon.com/thecatholicmanshow — Patreon gifts are shipping out again, and the Catholic Man Show Glencairn glass is being paused soon (maybe back around Christmas). If you want one, become a patron now — you've got about four minutes.
May 21 · 1 hr 36 min
The Virtue of Study and the Books That Formed Us | The Catholic Man Show
Dave's been throwing parties. Three in four days. Confirmation sponsor for a friend's son, family and friends over the next night, and then — because the universe has a sense of humor — some local gentleman decided to remodel Dave's brick mailbox. With his truck. At speed. Bricks were found over a hundred feet away. The guy left his license plate behind, which Dave is now holding like a man who accidentally picked up evidence and doesn't know what to do with it. The driver's fine. Well — he's in jail. But he's alive. Dave wants him to know that God's mercy is always ready and present, even for the man who turned a brand-new brick mailbox into gravel. Meanwhile, Adam got a new plum tree. Planted a maple. He's getting oaks for the pig pen so they'll drop acorns someday. One of his chickens died in a water barrel trap that nobody designed on purpose — the lid flipped, the chicken couldn't get out. Farm life. And then the real news: baby Mary is doing better. Haylee got to hold her. Adam held her for over three hours — only his second time since she was born in February. Three months of NICU, and the man finally got to just sit with his daughter. Praise God. Keep those prayers coming. Also — Adam's turning 40 on June 2nd. And Lady Pamela is due with their next baby on June 4th. They floated the idea of recording an episode in the delivery room. Pamela has not been consulted. This week we're sipping 13th Colony Distilleries Southern Rye Whiskey, French Oak Finish, Small Batch — 47.5% ABV. Platinum award-winning. Silky texture with hints of rye, apricot, and brown sugar. The rye's there but it doesn't overpower — still has a lot of bourbon elements to it. About forty bucks. That's a great buy. Then the conversation turns to something Adam's son Jude sparked. Jude — Adam's second oldest — just finished reading the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation, straight through. Now he's reading the Council of Trent Catechism. He's a kid. Nobody told him to do this. He just had good books lying around the house and picked them up. That's the whole point. The virtue of study — studiositas — isn't what school taught us it was. It's not cramming. It's not memorizing facts to dump after the test. Aquinas calls it a habit of the mind ordered towards truth. Classical education at its best doesn't fill your head — it forms the way you think. The more you read rightly, the more you can arrive at correct conclusions through a sound process, not just recall. Study leads to contemplation. Contemplation is rest in truth. And it's not about finishing the book. If you're reading to check the box, you've already lost the plot. Sit with it. Let yourself be carried. The intellectual life doesn't compete with the family — it serves the family. From there, Adam and Dave go back and forth on the books that actually formed them. Adam leads with Joseph Pieper's In Tune with the World — a short, devastating argument for why festivity dies when we strip the divine out of celebration. Dave counters with The Soul of the Apostolate — the book that reordered his understanding of what has to come first before any ministry means anything. Adam brings John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture — hard opinions, harder truths, and a quote worth sitting with: the virtue of study requires a canon, a body of great works proven across time. Without tradition to guide what's worth studying, you're just chasing novelty. Dave goes deep on Fr. Timothy Gallagher's The Discernment of Spirits — a practical walkthrough of St. Ignatius's rules that shed light on the stages of the spiritual life and how the enemy shifts tactics as you grow. Adam responds with Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica — a story of suffering, faithfulness, and a woman who said yes without knowing where it would lead. Dave makes a case for the Psalms — Psalm 51, the De Profundis in Latin, and the realization that there's a psalm for every moment of a man's life, and he'd been skimming past them for years. Adam goes deep cut: Fr. Paul Murray's Aquinas at Prayer — a book that reoriented his understanding of St. Thomas from pure intellect to contemplative soul. Dave brings Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Faustina — hundreds of pages of our Lord's words on mercy that are sometimes scandalously generous. Adam throws in Simon Sinek's Start with Why as the non-Catholic book that changed how he thought about business, marriage, and fatherhood. Both men land on fiction that haunts them — Adam with Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter, Dave with Candice Millard's Hero of the Empire on young Churchill. They touch on Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Gone with the Wind, the bishop chapters of Les Misérables, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and close with John Senior's Thousand Good Books — the canon itself, the list that connects it all. They end where they always end: with Plato. They're halfway through the Republic in their great books group. David sits on the dumb couch. He knows he sits on the dumb couch. He's fine with it. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Dave's brick mailbox obliterated by a truck — bricks found 100 feet away, driver in jail, license plate left behind Three parties in four days at Porter Prairie: confirmation, family gathering, and involuntary demolition Dave building a grain cradle for his scythe for the upcoming grain harvest Adam's new plum tree, maple tree, and oak trees planned for the pig pen The chicken that died in a water barrel trap nobody designed on purpose Baby Mary update — doing better, Adam held her for three hours, Haylee held her too Adam turning 40 on June 2nd and Lady Pamela due June 4th Bourbon of the week: 13th Colony Distilleries Southern Rye Whiskey, French Oak Finish, 47.5% ABV Jude Minihan reading the entire Bible and now the Council of Trent Catechism — and nobody told him to Why having good books lying around the house matters more than assigned reading The virtue of studiositas — Aquinas on study as a habit of the mind ordered towards truth Study isn't cramming — it's forming the way we think, not filling our heads Why finishing the book isn't the point — sit with it, let yourself be carried The intellectual life doesn't compete with family — it serves the family Joseph Pieper's In Tune with the World — why festivity dies without the divine The Soul of the Apostolate — what has to come first before any ministry matters John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture — hard opinions and the necessity of a canon Fr. Timothy Gallagher's The Discernment of Spirits — St. Ignatius's rules made practical Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica — suffering, faithfulness, and saying yes The Psalms as treasure — Psalm 51, the De Profundis in Latin, and why Dave had been skimming past them Fr. Paul Murray's Aquinas at Prayer — reorienting Aquinas from intellect to contemplative St. Faustina's Divine Mercy in My Soul — mercy so generous it's almost scandalous Simon Sinek's Start with Why — a non-Catholic book that changed everything Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter — fiction that haunts you because it doesn't read like fiction Candice Millard's Hero of the Empire — young Churchill before the cigar and the brandy Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team — why hard conversations are acts of charity Gone with the Wind — Rhett Butler as a man whose virtues take a lifetime to find The bishop chapters of Les Misérables — Hugo's best character, written by a man who wasn't even a fan of the Church Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death — prophetic in 1985, terrifying now John Senior's Thousand Good Books — the canon that connects all the great works The Count of Monte Cristo as a commentary on Dante's Inferno Plato's dialogues — the Republic, Euthyphro, the Symposium, and why you need a great books group Adam sits on the dumb couch at great books night and he's fine with it REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: In Tune with the World: A Theory on Festivity by Joseph Pieper Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Joseph Pieper (mentioned) The Intellectual Life by A.G. Sertillanges The Soul of the Apostolate (Dave's pick) The Restoration of Christian Culture by John Senior The Death of Christian Culture by John Senior (mentioned) The Discernment of Spirits by Fr. Timothy Gallagher (based on St. Ignatius's rules) Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network by Raymond Arroyo Aquinas at Prayer by Fr. Paul Murray, O.P. Divine Mercy in My Soul by St. Maria Faustina Start with Why by Simon Sinek Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard Les Misérables by Victor Hugo Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (1985) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (mentioned) Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (mentioned) The Thousand Good Books list by John Senior Plato's Republic, Euthyphro, Symposium (discussed) Dante's Divine Comedy (mentioned) Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (mentioned) The Imitation of Christ (mentioned) The Council of Trent Catechism The Baltimore Catechism (referenced) Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (mentioned in context of Senior's reading ages) Letters from Lake Como by Romano Guardini (mentioned) Aesop's Fables (mentioned re: Plato's last days) Saints & Historical Figures: St. Thomas Aquinas St. Ignatius of Loyola St. Maria Faustina Mother Angelica (founder of EWTN) St. Mother Teresa Winston Churchill Plato / Socrates Archbishop Coakley (Oklahoma, graduate of John Senior's program) Voltaire (mentioned dismissively — "Lookin' at you, Voltaire") People: John Senior (founder of the Integrated Humanities Program at KU) Joseph Pieper Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. (previous TCMS guest on studiositas) Fr. Timothy Gallagher Fr. Paul Murray, O.P. (Dominican, spiritual director of St. Mother Teresa) Raymond Arroyo Simon Sinek Sigrid Undset Patrick Lencioni Candice Millard Neil Postman Paul Harvey David Dean (John Senior's associate Latin teacher at KU) Harrison (member of Adam and Dave's great books group) Jude Minihan (Adam's son — read the entire Bible) Mark Gabriel (friend whose son Dave sponsored for Confirmation) Lady Haylee Minihan Lady Pamela Niles Programs & Institutions: The Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas (John Senior) Clear Creek Abbey (founded by graduates of the program) EWTN (founded by Mother Angelica) SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, the same name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having used them, they can tell you it's deserved. Whether you're looking to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see what they've got. You won't regret it. Support the show: patreon.com/thecatholicmanshow — 100% of your support goes directly to keeping the show running.
May 18 · 1 hr 1 min
The Fatherly Papacy: Authority as Service and Pope Leo's First Year | The Catholic Man Show
Indian paintbrush showed up at Porter Prairie Family Farm this week — native Oklahoma wildflower, first time Adam's seen it on his property. He didn't plant it. Nobody did. The seed bank was just dormant, waiting for the soil to be right. Two years of cattle grazing in the back pasture, no mowing, better land management — and something long dormant finally decided it was safe to bloom. Joel Salatin talks about this: when the practices change, when a property gets new stewardship, the land seems to know it. So does grace. David's been busy in a different direction. He wired up an automatic door for the chicken coop — actuator, relay, battery, timer — a sliding gate that covers the nesting boxes so the younger chickens stop sleeping in them and fouling the eggs. Under $150 total, including an actuator that lifts 300 pounds for thirty bucks. When he asked Lady Pamela what she wanted it to look like, she said: prison bars coming down. "We'll call it the Henna Tincture." David said say no more. The Henna Tincture it is. This week we're sipping Heaven Hill Bottled in Bond, Kentucky Straight Bourbon, 7 years — same distillery as Elijah Craig and Evan Williams. No gimmicks, under fifty bucks, smooth finish with a peanut butter quality that works. Bottled in bond since the Act of 1897. Very solid. Quick update on baby Mary: she's still having good days. Praise God. Keep her and Lady Haylee in your prayers. Adam also headed out to Arkansas over Mother's Day weekend to be with his goddaughter JoJo Kleine for her First Holy Communion — and got to watch nephew Danny Kleine go two-for-two at the plate with at least one RBI. After months of watching a daughter fight for her life in a NICU, sometimes what a soul needs is family, a Mass, and a kid absolutely cranking baseballs. Then we get into it: the papacy. A year in with Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope, the man who took the name knowing exactly whose shoes he was stepping into — and what does all of it mean? Where does that authority come from, and what's it actually for? Dave traces it back to the Davidic kingdom. When the king left for war, he handed the keys to his steward, who operated with full royal authority until the king returned. Matthew 16 isn't symbolism. "What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven" — the Jews at the time knew exactly what that meant. That's why Peter is listed first among the apostles almost every time. He was their leader. He had the keys. Two thousand years of unbroken succession later, here we are. But then the conversation goes somewhere unexpected. Authority is given to you so that you might serve those over whom you have authority. Not for your own glory. Not so people owe you. The pope is literally titled Servant of the Servants of God. The same authority Christ handed to Peter is the same authority He described in the upper room — the pagans lord it over their subjects, but not so among you. You will be the one who serves. For fathers, that cuts. Pope John Paul II stood up against governments, even after taking a bullet. He kept going out. What does that courage look like in an ordinary household? Probably not a wound in the square. More likely a different kind of martyrdom — the kind where you make a decision for your family that nobody else understands, that your kids resent for a season, that costs you something in your social circle. You make it anyway. Because you've prayed about it, talked it through with your wife, and you know in your gut it's the right thing for your people. You stand on the island by yourself if you have to. Dave closes with something worth trying: he prays specifically to the Holy Spirit to give Lady Pamela strong motherly intuition into the inner lives of their children. When she says something feels off, he pays close attention. That's him exercising his authority — his fatherly papacy — to draw more grace into his household. Not to control everything himself. To pray for the right graces for the right people. The fatherly papacy, if you will. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Indian paintbrush flowers appearing at Porter Prairie — and why the land responds to new stewardship Joel Salatin and the School of Traditional Skills on how cattle and management change soil biology David's automatic chicken coop door: actuator, relay, timer, and the Henna Tincture David's wheat harvest coming up — 12,000 square feet, building a grain cradle for the scythe Bourbon of the week: Heaven Hill Bottled in Bond, 7-year Kentucky Straight Bourbon JoJo Klein's First Holy Communion and nephew Danny Klein's two-for-two at the plate Baby Mary update — still having good days, keep her in your prayers Pope Leo XIV's one-year anniversary — the first American pope and what it means to hear him speak in American English The modern problem of instant information and why it's harder than ever to be the pope Why interview questions on a plane, stripped of all context, are unfair to any human being The name you give a child is an inheritance — a new name inherits nothing Why Adam named Leo Thomas after Pope Leo XIII and Thomas Aquinas, and John Dominic after the Apostle and the Dominicans Pope Leo XIII: the Marian pope, the social doctrine pope, the first pope ever filmed Thomas Aquinas on the papacy — Contra Gentiles and the Summa The Davidic kingdom and the keys: Matthew 16 as a transfer of royal authority, not a metaphor The question of authority — Trent Horn, Protestants, atheists, and why it always comes down to this Why the things closest to heaven get attacked the hardest — authority and sexuality as parallel examples The pope as Servant of the Servants of God — and what that actually costs Pope John Paul II standing up against communist governments even after being shot What putting yourself in harm's way looks like for fathers: social martyrdom, not bullets Making decisions for your family that your kids, their friends, and their friends' parents all disagree with The German church and what a timeout looks like at the universal level Why the Church has been around for 2,000 years and what that tells you Praying for your wife's specific graces — and why Dave prays for Lady Pamela's motherly intuition Authority as the source of efficacious prayer — a father's prayers for his children The TOTUS TUUS decision and trusting a mother's intuition Pope Leo's upcoming AI encyclical — and why millennials are the generation tasked with figuring this out The fatherly papacy — what domestic authority and universal authority share REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books & Writings: Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles by St. Thomas Aquinas Saints & Historical Figures: St. Thomas Aquinas Pope Leo XIII (social doctrine, Marian encyclicals, first pope ever filmed) Pope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost, first American pope) Pope John Paul II (stood against communist governments, continued ministry after assassination attempt) Pope Francis (repose of his soul — the men still catching themselves saying the wrong name) King David / the Davidic kingdom (Old Testament typology for the papacy) St. Peter (first pope, holder of the keys) People & Guests: Joel Salatin — School of Traditional Skills Trent Horn (Catholic apologist, debates on authority) Patrick Stephen (listener and Instagram follower who suggested the topic) JoJo Klein — Adam's goddaughter, received First Holy Communion Danny Klein — Adam's nephew, baseball Lady Haylee Minihan Lady Pamela Niles Luke Minihan (Adam's oldest) Mary Minihan (in the NICU) Programs: TOTUS TUUS (Catholic youth formation program) School of Traditional Skills (online homesteading video subscription) Scripture: Matthew 16:18-19 — "I give you the keys to the kingdom" John 20:23 — binding and loosing SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, they asked around, and the same name came up over and over: Select International Tours. Having used them, they can tell you it's deserved. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or join one, Select has a tour ready for wherever the Lord is calling you. Head to selectinternationaltours.com and take a look.
May 11 · 1 hr 6 min
Spiritual Friendship: St. Aelred of Rievaulx and the Bell Curve of Zeal | The Catholic Man Show
We open the show on a wiffle ball game in the backyard. Adam's pitching. Jude's at the plate — right-handed, like always. Adam throws a sinker. Jude cranks it. Home run. On dad. In front of the whole family. Adam shakes it off, gets ready to deliver some justice on the next at-bat… and Jude steps over to the left side of the plate. "Jude, what are you doing?" "Dad. Just pitch the ball." Brushback pitch. Second swing — gone. Out of the park. Left-handed. Turns out Jude found out earlier that day he can bat from either side and forgot to mention it. Adam took it like a man — somewhere between humiliated and proud. Dave's response: this is why he still brushes his teeth left-handed. To stay coordinated. (Adam also has four cavities. Unrelated.) This week we're sipping Laphroaig Càirdeas 2024 — Triple Wood & PX Casks. Aged ten years in ex-bourbon and quarter casks, finished in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks. 52.4% ABV. Dark cherry-amber in the glass — uncharacteristic for an Islay. The classic peat smoke is there, then it opens into ginger, fruit, sherry sweetness. Càirdeas means friendship in Gaelic, which is exactly where the episode is headed. About $130-$140. Limited release, every year a little different. Mary update: she's off the paralysis medicine. Still heavily sedated, but her eyes are open. She's looking around. Oxygen, blood pressure, heart rate — all trending in the right direction. More good days than bad right now. Adam and Lady Haylee are grateful. Keep them in your prayers. Then we get into it: spiritual friendship, through St. Aelred of Rievaulx — the 12th-century Cistercian abbot whose book Spiritual Friendship is basically the Catholic doctrine on what a real friend is. He opens it with this line: "Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us." That's the whole thing. Adam walks through the bell curve of zeal every man hits when he starts taking his faith seriously. Phase one: you read everything, you want to tell everybody, you should start a podcast. Phase two: you realize you know almost nothing and you go quiet. Phase three is where Aelred meets you — somewhere between "let me lecture you" and "I'm not qualified to say anything." The answer isn't to forfeit the zeal. It's to ground it in humility. You don't have the answers because you are not the answer. Christ is. But you do have your own experience, and what He's done in your life is yours to share. Aelred's rules for friendship cut right through the noise. Spiritual friendship is not a teacher-student relationship — both men give, both men receive. Don't sacrifice your own vocation to be a "spiritual father" to someone else. When you meet, it's not the depth of the conversation that matters most, it's the consistency. And the cheat-code question for getting under the surface: how's your prayer life? Try that on a buddy this week and see what happens. We close on Aristotle and the Eucharist. Nicomachean Ethics lays out hierarchies of friendship — friendship of utility, of pleasure, of virtue — but you can't be an authentic friend if you don't first know the good. And the good, ultimately, is Christ in the Eucharist. If the man you call your friend doesn't live a Eucharistic life, you may have a buddy. You don't yet have a spiritual friend. Make one. Be one. Bring him to Christ. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Jude's ambidextrous wiffle ball ambush and the inevitable day every dad gets cranked on Adam's left-handed toothbrushing regimen and his four cavities (related, probably) Why the Càirdeas release is one of the most interesting Islay bottlings out there An update on baby Mary — off the paralytic, eyes open, more wins than losses The bell curve of zeal — and why most men quit halfway up the back side St. Aelred of Rievaulx, the 12th-century Cistercian abbot the Church basically credits as the doctor of friendship "Here we are, you and I, and I hope that Christ makes a third with us" — the opening line of Spiritual Friendship Why spiritual friendship is not a teacher-student relationship and why treating it like one ruins it The danger of becoming the guy who turns every conversation into a lecture Don't sacrifice your own vocation to play spiritual father to someone else's Consistency beats intensity — and why a Pelagian attitude toward your men's group will wear you out "How's your prayer life?" — the question that breaks past small talk in under thirty seconds Vulnerability as a man's strength, not his concession to a cultural buzzword Why one man's honest confession in a group does more for the listeners than the speaker Lady Haylee and Lady Pamela both telling their husbands, in different houses, the same thing: you're a better man when you come back from those groups Subsidiarity in friendship — the smallest circle is always the most important circle Aristotle's hierarchy of friendship and why you can't be an authentic friend without knowing the good The Eucharist as the prerequisite for real spiritual friendship between men Make a friend. Be a friend. Bring a friend to Christ. Bourbon of the week: Laphroaig Càirdeas 2024, Triple Wood & PX Casks REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books: Spiritual Friendship by St. Aelred of Rievaulx — be careful of older translations from the 60s and 70s that read sexualization into the text that isn't there Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle Purgatorio by Dante (Adam's office reading group, currently working through it) Saints: St. Aelred of Rievaulx St. Benedict (and the Cistercian reform out of the Benedictine order) St. Peter (the lawn chair analogy) People & references: Lady Haylee Minihan Lady Pamela Niles Adam's Substack (where he wrote about the Dante reading group) The friend in Adam's office who told him, "I didn't even realize that friendship like that existed" Concepts & passages: John 15: "I no longer call you slaves, but friends" The three Aristotelian friendships: utility, pleasure, virtue The four ends of friendship in St. Aelred The "Friends of Laphroaig" plot program The three TCMS pillars: Protect, Provide, Establish SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, the same name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having now used them, we can tell you they're the real deal. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or join one, Select has a tour ready for wherever the Lord is calling you. Head to selectinternationaltours.com and take a look.
April 30 · 56 min
The King in the Tabernacle: Real Presence & the Eucharistic Man | The Catholic Man Show
We open the show on Oz Pearlman — the mentalist who's been showing up on every podcast and somehow keeps reading minds for a living. Adam just caught him on Modern Wisdom, where Pearlman walked the host through his exact internal thought process — what he picked, what he second-guessed, what he settled on — like he had a pipeline straight into the man's head. Adam now rearranges his schedule whenever Oz pops up on a screen. So consider this a formal invitation: Oz, come drink whiskey with us. Tell us our favorite bourbon. We'll pour the Glencairns. Speaking of — this week we're sipping High West Campfire. A blend of straight rye, straight bourbon, and blended malt scotch. Yes, scotch. Peat smoke gives way to orange zest, English toffee, toasted brioche, salted caramel, leather, dark chocolate. It works. Then Adam gives an update on baby Mary. New listeners — Adam's daughter was born very early with a heart condition and a long list of complications. She's been in the NICU since birth. This past weekend was her actual due date, and after a long string of holding-the-line W's, she's turned a meaningful corner. Off the paralytic. Better oxygen, blood pressure, heart rate. Swelling coming down. Still a long road — likely nine to twelve more months in the NICU. Adam and Lady Haylee are deeply grateful. Keep them in your prayers. Both of them. Quick note from Dave: Good Shepherd Sunday in Tulsa. The pastor handed out cards and asked every man in the pews to write down the name of a young man who'd make a good priest. A thousand men doing that work together. Tulsa's per-capita priest count is already top five in the country — and we still need more. Then we get into it. The King in the Tabernacle. If the Eucharist is just a symbol, the Catholic Church is a 2,000-year deception. Flannery O'Connor's line — to hell with it — is the right one. But we don't believe it's a symbol. We believe what Christ said. Body, blood, soul, and divinity. The continuation of the Incarnation, until the end of the age. David's been reading The Real Presence by St. Peter Julian Eymard (Cor Jesu Press). Eymard is the patron of Eucharistic adoration — one homily in him, gave it for a lifetime. And one chapter lays out a battle plan for how to actually spend a holy hour. Not just sit there. Spend it. The four ends of worship — ACTS: Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, Supplication. Eymard breaks the hour into four fifteen-minute sections. First fifteen: adoration. You don't walk into the royal court making demands. You fall on your knees and salute the King. Second fifteen: thanksgiving — for yourself, your family, the world. Thank Him for instituting the Eucharist at all. (Most of us forget that one.) Third fifteen: reparation. Stand in the gap. For your sins, for the world's, especially for the sacrileges against the Eucharist itself. Fourth fifteen: petition. Now you can ask. Ask large graces. Ask for the triumph of His Church. By the time you get there, you're asking for the right things. We talk about the difference between knowing the Eucharist is Christ and acting like it. You don't accidentally get a six-pack at 40. You don't accidentally get holy, either. We're body-soul composites — what we do with our bodies forms our souls. That's why we genuflect. Dress for Mass. Kneel after Communion. St. Charbel had two modes: preparing to receive, or thanking God for having received. The bar he set is the right one. We close with Eymard's image of the guard of honor. Jesus has made Himself vulnerable in the host. Heart pierced. Defenseless. Waiting on His men to show up and adore Him. That's the work. Guard duty. Get to adoration. Change your life. Raise your glass. TOPICS COVERED Oz Pearlman the mentalist — and Adam's open invitation to come on the show Baby Mary's update: off the paralytic, turning a corner after months in the NICU Why prayer for Lady Haylee matters as much as prayer for Mary Good Shepherd Sunday in Tulsa — a thousand men writing down names of future priests Why the Eucharist is the reason to be Catholic — and why "to hell with it" is the right answer if it's a symbol St. Peter Julian Eymard, the patron of Eucharistic adoration, and his book The Real Presence Why the real presence is the continuation of the Incarnation The actual battle plan for a holy hour: ACTS in fifteen-minute sections Why thanksgiving in adoration is the most perfect act of love Reparation — standing in the gap for sacrileges against the Eucharist Why your petitions get sharper after you've adored, thanked, and made reparation Knowing the Eucharist is Christ vs. actually acting like it Why you're not going to accidentally get holy any more than you're going to accidentally get a six-pack at 40 Body-soul composites: how genuflection, posture, and dress shape the interior life St. Charbel's two modes — preparing to receive Communion, or thanking God for having received Lady Pamela stopping at every chapel she passed — and why that 60 seconds was worth more than Adam realized Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the excellent The guard of honor: Jesus exposing Himself in the host, depending on His men to defend and adore Him Bourbon of the week: High West Campfire — the rare rye/bourbon/scotch blend REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Books: The Real Presence by St. Peter Julian Eymard (Cor Jesu Press) Saints: St. Peter Julian Eymard St. Charbel Mother Angelica (and her new shoes at adoration) People & previous guests: Joey Spencer — on Christ becoming the fruit hanging on a tree Jeff Cavins — on talking to Jesus like He's actually there Flannery O'Connor / Dorothy Day — "If it's a symbol, to hell with it" Oz Pearlman (mentalist, Modern Wisdom podcast) Lady Haylee Minihan Lady Pamela Niles Concepts & references: The four ends of worship: Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, Supplication (ACTS) The National Eucharistic Congress Good Shepherd Sunday Eucharistic adoration The continuation of the Incarnation Substance and accidents (Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of the Eucharist) SPONSOR BLOCK Sponsor: Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.com When Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, the same name kept coming up: Select International Tours. Having now used them, we can tell you they're the real deal. Whether you want to lead a pilgrimage or join one, Select has a tour ready for wherever the Lord is calling you. Head to selectinternationaltours.com and take a look.

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