Pints With Aquinas - Battling Wokeism in Higher Education w/ Franciscan University President, Father Dave Pivonka, TOR

Episode Date: October 2, 2022

The Body Matters: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2022/04/28/transgender-athletes-conversations-university-president/7217994001/?gnt-cfr=1 Pro-Life Op-Ed: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/03/unpregnant-film-trying-turn-abortion-into-humor-column/5674006002/ Dr. Dave's Book "Breath of Life:" https://www.amazon.com/Breath-God-Living-Life-Spirit/dp/1594715807 Franciscan University: https://franciscan.edu Steubenville Conferences: https://steubenvilleconferences.com OUR COMMUNITY Locals: https://mattfradd.locals.com/support Special thanks to all our supporters for your continued support! You don't have to give anything, yet you do. THANK YOU! SPONSORS Hallow: https://hallow.com/matt Exodus90: https://exodus90.com/matt-home/ MERCH PWA Swag: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com SOCIAL Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/312eXMI31liKUHSx6U5p1H Parler: https://parler.com/mattfradd Website: https://www.pintswithaquinas.com

I realize we're live. You can find these old type, not typewriters, like they have little screens. Yeah. But I think they came up before the Internet and they're now selling them as distraction free. That's really that's when the first typewriter I had when I came to the university was it typed one line at a time and that was cutting edge. Right. And what was that on a typewriter? No, it was a typewriter. But did it have a little screen?

Yeah, yeah, very little screen. You could see a line in a time you type it down and yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. But now it's kind of remarketing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How crazy is that? No, I mean, that's, that's one thing about this. If you go to the ads, it's like, it's just you and what it says.

So for those at home, Father Dave has something called Remarkable? Remarkable, right. When did this come out? This is the second version, so maybe three years, I guess. Tell the people about it while I play with it. Yeah, yeah, so it's just little things. One of the, I take notes all the time in meetings and homilies and somebody said, oh, you should look at the Remarkable. I said, never even heard of it. But one of the selling points is its simplicity.

You can't go online with it. You can upload documents and you can write on the documents, but it has a feel, you feel it has a feel like a paper. It actually has even the sound, almost the sound of it. Yeah. I think it's made in maybe Norway. Where's the eraser? That box right here down there. That, that, that, that thing. Yeah. That. And then you can just, whatever you want, no surrounding it, it'll cut it all out or the thing above it. This is going to be the most boring. This is fantastic. People are going to love out. War, the thing above it. This has got to be the most boring segment. This is fantastic. People are going to love this.

They're going to love it. It's like we should have Father Dave come back more often. See, but I forget that you're a podcast pro because you and Dr. Deacon, Mr. Overachiever, Bob have your own podcast. What's it called? I'll give you this back soon. They That Hope.

They That Hope. Yeah, it was funny the way I just got back from leading that hope. They that hope. Yeah. It was funny way. Just got back from leading a pilgrimage and somebody that never been a part of the university, but they went to the day that hope. And I said, I'm not sure that's the best place to try to find out, but it worked out. All right. Actually, I think it's more fun for us than it may be for anyone else, but that's always a cool thing. That's what makes podcasts fun. Yeah, it really is.

It really is. If people have fun. We started it in the middle of COVID when there wasn't a lot of hope. And that was really, so we need to just bring some hope into this. So it's, it's just talking life. And sports, apparently, we start with sports. Yeah. We say saving marriages, one marriage at a time, because a woman came up to me, she was, you know, I know nothing about sports, but now it allows me to have some kind of a conversation with my husband. So

they've got this deal that she has to listen to the sports part and he has to listen to the part that's more of, it's really in some ways a commentary on culture and try to bring faith and hope in the midst of kind of a craziness right now. Now, but this is really great because I was telling you before we went on air that I like to write, but it's, who's that comedian? Louis CK was recently on Joe Rogan's show

and said that he has a computer that doesn't have the internet So he can do his work. Yeah, cuz yeah, you have these illusions of multitasking But then you try to get on and you're distracted by videos and then you're screwed Well for me, honestly when I go to the chapel in the morning and you know, I'm praying Sometimes I want something that I can write down on or some notes that I have or a homily book But if I have my phone, there's just too many distractions. So this allows me, it doesn't, it doesn't provide me any access to any of that, but allows me to write and pray and think. But you were saying, cause I was trying to think like, why would I want to get this? And you take notes, you can,

as you say, upload PDFs and then kind of write on the PDFs. That's also that, that doesn't sound like enough for me to want to get this. So what's the selling point? Not that you're here to sell it, but but yeah, I can't answer that question for you What is it gonna take for you to do that something you're enough to search your own heart? I think Do that now? Why should I think if If you could translate if it would translate to they translate to text it will translate to text right right? How neat does your handwriting have to be?

Well my handwriting is more like how the Griffiths. I mean you can you cannot understand it so Yet you push translated it comes up and says are you kidding me? So Very cool very cool. You were just in Germany. Yeah, I did actually is really awesome. I took a group We did pilgrimage to the Passion Play in Oberamago, which was just really, really beautiful. I'm sure you're aware of it. I heard of it. I know nothing about it.

Passion Play has been going for? For 450 years, it started in the middle of the plague. See you later. And they had this. Just don't knock that camera. Nice job. They had, they, middle of the plague, they made this deal that if the Lord

would free them from the plague, they would offer this passion play. So it's a small community. They've been doing it every 10 years for 450 years. It's really cool. It's about maybe 500 people in this little community. They gather together. You have to have lived in the community for 10 years to be a part of it. Wow. The cast is about 350 people, two and a half hours, and then you break for dinner and you go to dinner in this little village. Some of the people in the cast are actually serving you.

It's really quite beautiful. And then you've got the second two and a half hours. Just a really beautiful thing. I must say, it was somewhat ironic. We were supposed to go in 2020, but they canceled it because of the plague. So we're thinking, ah, the reason, the sole reason they did this was try to free them from the plague. So we're thinking, ah, the reason, the sole reason they did this was trying to free them

from the plague. So we're in the middle of a pandemic and they say, we're not going to do this, which is another story, but yeah, it was great. And then we went from there, we went to Prague, visited Prague first. Who's we? A group of about 45 pilgrims that traveled with me,

went to Prague, beautiful, beautiful city. I'm not sure if you've been, it's beautiful, infinite Prague, had devotion there. Then we went from there to Bratislava, and then Bratislava to Budapest, and then I got home there before yesterday. I got a good Infant of Prague joke. All right, let's hear it. I don't believe I know any Infant of Prague jokes.

There's not many, this might be the only one. So the Infant of Prague walks into St. Joseph's workshop, and St. Joseph says, I don't care what your mother says, you're not going out dressed like that. I like that. I like that. That's one thing that I jokingly said to the people. It's, you know, we can look at that actually. There was somewhat of a, I don't know, the first religious article, one of the first religious articles I remember getting was from my parish priest. And it was of a little medal of the Infant of Prague. And honestly, Matt, I had that for 30 years. It just kind of showed up every move I made. So there was kind of a devotion that I have

to the Infant of Prague. But I shared with my group that we can look at this and we can say as Catholics, we can look at this, and this is a little weird, right? That we dress this up every couple days and change its outfit. And we can admit that if somebody else, like if a Protestant brother or sister says that we're going to be offended, it's like, what are you talking about? But we can, we're okay with it. Well, I think it shows the universality of the church. I don't have to get every devotion. Not every. You don't have to be a part of it. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. Right. And people ought

not be offended by that. So where'd you grow up? Southwest Colorado. Yeah. How did you, how did you end up in Steubenville? Go the long route. How did you become a friend? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah. It is so often so many things in my life

I blame it on my parents. Mom and dad prayed every day of their married life that one of their kids would become a religious, a priest or a sister, and there are five boys in the family, five boys and one girl in my family. So I joked that said we pulled straws. It's like somebody's got to take one for the team, and we pulled straws, and I got the short or the long one, depending on how my nieces and nephews are behaving. But the reality is, is honestly there was never a time in my life that I didn't consider being a priest. It was always kind of in the back of my mind.

Wrestled with it, tried to figure out what it is that the Lord wants me to do. Remember, we were up in the, I'm from the small town in the middle of the mountains. We were up in a cabin and a priest had joined my family, which was very common, very commonplace to have a priest around the dinner table or on vacation with us. But he says to me, what do you want to do when I grow up? And I said, well, I want to be a priest.

Now, my parents would say, if you would have been a doctor, I'd have said, I won't be a doctor if you want to be a, so that's why I was studying law for a while. Okay. So I was a polypsi pre-law major at the local college in my hometown, but always really wrestling and struggling with maybe the Lord was calling me to be a priest and felt like I needed to just kind of get away from my small town, get away from yeah, girlfriend. I've been dating for a while, get away from school. So I spent a year on NET, of which I think you have a fun. I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

NET USA, what year? 85, 86. Yeah. I was two, keep going. I don't think anyone asked. Anyone else here asked how old that was? No, not anyone. No, I don't think so.

Bueller? Anyone? No, so, you know, but, you know know, in just to that end, NET was one of the greatest experience of my life. I mean, it was difficult. But my guess is maybe it's fair to say you wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for NET. I would not be sitting here if it wasn't for NET,

just the role that it played in my life. So I will be forever grateful for that. But it was wonderful. It was a wonderful opportunity to just get away from everything and discern Lord, what do you want me to do? Because I was really at a place where I think that the Lord breaks into that I was actually going to do it. I was really a place that whatever He wanted me to do, I wanted to do. Faith was always important in my life. There was

never a time that I was like this. That's not to say I wasn't perfect, but when I fell, I went to confession. So there was never a time that the Lord was totally absent from my life or it didn't matter. I mean, I'd go on vacation with my buddies and I would go to Mass. They wouldn't, but I would go to Mass. So Mass was just liturgy, prayer was always a very important part of my life. Really one of the graces from Net was really the baptism of the Holy Spirit for me. I was raised, mom and dad were involved in Cursio. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

Yeah, yeah. And that was really, really in many ways, my mom were always faithful Catholics, but Cursio really made the sacraments more personal, Christ more personal, their faith came alive with that. And so when I went on Net, again, was active in the church, but this experience of the Holy Spirit becoming more present in my life, the Pentecost wasn't merely something that happened 2,000 years ago, but the Holy Spirit is to envelop us and to continue to be present to us.

And that was just a very transformative experience in my life. And it was actually, I was going down, it was at the CYC, the CYC was long gone. When did you on net? I was on net in Canada and then in Ireland. So I never did it in the States. That's up north of us. That's just above us. Yeah, yeah.

The communist Republic of Canada. So they say, yeah. I'd never heard of Franciscan University in my life. At the end it was the College of Student Bill. And I went in this little meeting and they talked about Franciscan University. And I thought, yeah, maybe then I would transfer and go to school there. And I jokingly say that I haven't gone very far because I'm still in student below Ohio.

What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit for those who are unfamiliar with the term? Well, which is really, really great that you say that because I was unfamiliar with the term. I remember being around these people that they were singing and they were raising their hands and they were praying in the Spirit and this was all very new to me.

And I remember I found someone that I thought was somewhat normal, right? And I said, what is going on? I lost them. Yeah, yeah, seriously. I literally wrote my letter, my dad a letter. If you're familiar with the letter, you write on a piece of paper,

you put an envelope and send it. Like on Muramaku? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. But I said, dad, these people are so strange. But there was something about them that was alive. I was kind of a loner in the sense that there were not a lot of people of faith in my. We didn't have a Catholic high school.

We went to a public high school. There just weren't a lot of people in my faith. And to be around a group of people that actually seemed alive, there's something really cool about it. So I asked this person what's going on with them. and she said, well, it's just Pentecost. Did you ask this question at net or before? Yeah, at net. Yeah, at net. Yeah. It showed up and you didn't know what you were getting into. No, I didn't know what I was getting

at. Now, now we've only been around for two years. So it's only the third year. So I'm sure it was uber charismatic back then. Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber, Uber. Well, like no holds barred. And just real quick, when my mom came and visited Net Canada from Australia, she flew in for the decommissioning mass or whatever they call it. That's not what they call it. We called it deep brainwashing, but that's okay. Well, my mom's like, yeah,

cause she was a bit worried about me going. She went, yeah, no, it was good. I still think it's a bit of a cult, but you know. Like a throwaway land. Bit of a cult, what? No, it throw away a little bit of a cult. What? Yeah. No, it's funny when my mom dropped me off, my mom was from the twin cities.

So she came with me and spent some time with family. And when she dropped me off, she says, you know, Dave, these, these people might be charismatic. And, and again, I was very active in my faith. I said, well, what does that, what does that mean? I said, am I charismatic? And she goes, well, you are, but maybe not like them and never has a true word been said.

But honestly, again, there was something really, really attractive about it. And I spoke to this woman, I was the eighth grade Catechism B champion. I don't know, have you ever had an eighth grade Catechism B champion at your table? Never. Here we go. Honored. We're going to call this Pines with Pivanka after this, right? But it was really, I'd never heard the baptism of the Holy Spirit, because this one

guy says, comes up to me and he says, have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit? And I really, it was really foreign to me. In the light of that, it's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts of the Apostles. There are a few things, a few phrases that are in all these gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, and baptism of the Holy Spirit is one of them. Really? Baptism of the Holy Spirit, that phrase is in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. I had no idea.

I thought it was in Acts. No, it's in all of them, yeah. So I asked this woman, I said, you know, what's this all about? And she said, it's just Pentecost. And then what she went on to say is that Pentecost isn't something that merely happened 2000 years ago, but it's this continued outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

I mean, John Paul, Francis, Benedict, all called for this renewal of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I mean, John Paul, Francis, Benedict, all called for this renewal of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I remember, it didn't make any sense to me that the raising of the hands, the praying in tongues, all that kind of stuff was really foreign to me. But I was by myself in the chapel, which was in the old Catholic, St. Paul Catholic CYC, Catholic Youth Center. And I was just being honest with the Lord. You know, I said, I don't understand all this. It doesn't make sense to me. I was a little frustrated because I was going to say I was born and raised.

Nobody is born Catholic. Everybody is born pagan, but we get baptized and we become Catholic. And I said, I don't understand this, but if you want this for me, I want it. And honestly, Matt, I can look to that moment. Literally at that moment moment the presence of God comes upon me and and My life I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for that. What does that mean? This is where it came upon me. What's that? What does that mean? The presence of God?

In a subjective. Yeah Yeah, so Have you read Ralph Martin's article on baptism of the Holy Spirit? No, I haven't. I noted, but I haven't. Okay. He talks about this and he actually quotes, I forget the name of the priest, he was actually quoting Aquinas. And he speaks of this idea of Aquinas would say a resending or a second sending or a new sending of the Holy Spirit. And he said that there would

be two kind of elements or markers that would go with that. One is a sense of an inhabitation, that God was in the outside and now He's present, I'm being inhabited by Him. And that's what my experience was, is that there was just this presence of God that I knew. It was, you know, we'll take a look at Luke, overshadowed. What does that look like? What does it mean to be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit? Well, this sense of God was just present to me. And so often when we speak of the Lord, it's ineffable. We try to use words, but there was this closeness, there was this proximity, there was this God wasn't out there, He was present to me. And I also began to pray in

tongues. And again, nobody ever walked me through this talk about what is this and what does it look like. It was just in Romans 8 it says, �In our weakness we don't know how to pray, and the Spirit's praise through us.� And I couldn't explain it at the time, but it just prayed. It just happened. But then the other thing that Aquinas would go on to say is this, that in habitation and – it's not innovation, it's authority uses – newness. Something becomes new. The word will come to me.

But that – and that was the other part of it, is that I had this experience and then there was a newness to my spirituality. The Scriptures came alive. I mean, it wasn't just words on a page. They came alive to me. Again, mass was always important to me, but there was something that I saw it differently. It's the road to Emmaus. My eyes were open.

I just saw the Eucharist. I saw the sacraments differently than I did. Innovation, yeah, it is an inhabitation, innovation that there was this newness from this experience that I had. They changed me. I mean, it just changed me. I don't know if it was Chesterton, but since he's the repository of all good quotations, someone said, let your faith be more of a, well, less of a syllogism, more of a love

affair, something like that. That's what it was like for me as well. I think. Was that new to you when you went on that renewal? Actually, you know, it's funny. It's funny I say that. I don't know if I mean that. That's what it was like for me as well. I think. Was that new to you when you went on that? Actually, you know, it's funny. It's funny. I say that. I don't know if I mean that. I guess I mean there are times in my life, in my life even now where I'll get really into apologetics because I'm very, I, it feeds my soul and I find it very helpful in my spiritual life.

But then I have to remember like this is about a living love affair with the God who apparently likes me, even if I don't like me. He does. No, no, no, no, that's absolutely right. And a danger is that we kind of get lost in some of those things and we forget at the heart of this is about the relationship. It's safer to have a syllogism than to be vulnerable for the living God. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

I've been reflecting on that. I've been doing some work on God as Father and what does that look like, that He's our Father and He reveals Himself, the Christian revelation that God is Father. And take a look at the Catechism, it speaks of that and it's easier to think of this God as a power, because that doesn't necessarily demand a response. But if God is a Father, then that by its very nature is relational and it demands a response from us. And that makes us uncomfortable sometimes. Yeah, that's right. Like if God were a merely a slave driver,

they wouldn't be the level of intimacy that would require a sort of, yeah, response in the same way as if in a filial way. Yeah, you know, I I had a conversion. I was kind of agnostic. I don't think I ever use what I didn't ever use use what atheist because that hadn't become a shorthand way of saying I'm more intelligent than you back in 2000. But I was agnostic. And I like that term because it sort of left me open to kind of explore

spiritual things, meditation and all these different religions without having to commit. But I went to World Youth Day in 2000 in Rome and I came back and I'm a sufferably happy Christian. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about it? What was what happened there that changed you? You know what this is like when you've told your story a thousand times and then someone

asks you again and you really, you really want to say it as it happened. You don't want to embellish. I was first struck by the joy, openness, and authenticity of the people on my flight from Sydney to Rome. That's cool. I was just like, these people don't cut each other down. They're not sarcastic. I mean, you got a long time to talk if you fly from Sydney to Rome. So we got into everything, you know, how they were saving sex to a marriage, these people

I was sitting with. How old? Seventeen. Okay. And they were just normal, well marriage these people I was sitting with and your how old? 17 okay, and they were just normal well-rounded good-looking cool people And I just was like I did not get this because the only Christians I'd met in my hometown were Assemblies of God very very Enthusiastic maybe like the net people and that kind of just turned me off It probably says more about me than them. I'm sure they were very good people, but it did. So I was just, I started to pray for the first time in my life. Jesus, if you're real,

and this isn't just some story that old women believe because they're about to die, like cover their bases, it would be the ducks nuts if you'd tell me, cause I'd love to know that and please reveal yourself to me in a way that I'd understand, you know, and there was just several experiences where I don't at this point you run headlong into cliches and it's tough, but it was like I've encountered someone who exists, who knows me, who wants a relationship with me, who loves

me and life isn't meaningless. And it was just like you were saying, it was like this, oh my gosh, like he's present to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. And only grace can do that because I think world youth day is a great example of somebody needed to tell Pope John Paul, this may not be a great idea.

I mean, think about this. Here's, here's my pitch. Let's get 2 million people together. Let's put them all outdoors. They can all sleep together that night. We'll just young people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With raging hormones.

What could go wrong? What could go wrong? And yet the Lord really works. I probably gonna maybe half a dozen World Youth Days. Did you go to Rome? I did. You didn't say hello. Yeah, yeah.

I looked for you, but you just kind of walked off. No, I said I love everything about World Youth Day except World Youth Day. Yeah, but it's great. No, it's so true. Like it is easy to get cynical about everything. It's just it's an easy response. Hope's so true. Like it is easy to get cynical about everything. It's just, it's an easy response. Hope is difficult. Cynicism is easy.

Yeah. And I can imagine that a lot of the kind of poo pooing of world youth, that just comes from the cynicism, you know, you know, these bloody kids, they're just there for a trip. They're not there for Jesus. Yeah, I wasn't for any of it. You're right. That is exactly true. And I would have hooked up with someone if I could have. But no, I was interested.

So I encountered the Lord instead and my life changed forever. When I first came to the university, when I was ordained, I taught for a couple of years. And one of the things I had them do is basically do a timeline of their faith, just to think back and reflect on these markers. I think it's important for us to be able

to have these markers of, and this would have been in 96, I was amazed at the number of people at World Youth Day Denver was that marker for them. And it was often as much as you stated, it was the relationships, it was the people that really stirred something in them. So again, I've participated in many World Youth Days and where I was this far from an absolute disaster and people come about it and they're converted and they come to the Lord. Yeah. I mean,

I've been to big theme parks and Metallica concerts and all sorts of things. And maybe people were happy there, but the kind of joy that radiated the selflessness, all that, it's unlike anything, you know, it's the largest gathering of human beings in European history. I'm told. Well, do they roam 2000? It was terrific. Yeah. I was, was it just European history, I'm told. Yeah. Well, do you stay Rome 2000? It's terrific. Yeah, I was. Was it just European history was?

Well, I think Manila was the largest because that was seven million. OK. Isn't that insane? Seven. Like I remember walking home after that World Youth Day in Rome. And actually, the best was Australia. Were you? I was sitting in a freezing, cold Irish office where I used to watching it on YouTube.

It was really fantastic. It really was. But I think honestly, cause it was a little smaller, honestly, it's a long way to go. Yeah, exactly. And the weather was beautiful. They had organized it very well. Yeah. But I walking back from Rome, everything was so crowded. We ended up going into a McDonald's. There was a group, maybe I think we took, I know where it took, we took over 500 people and it was crazy. So, but with me, there was maybe 30 in that particular group. We went to the basement, the ground where all the kids play in a McDonald's and we stayed there for

three hours. We slept, they fed us. It was phenomenal. Yeah. And I remember world youth day in Toronto. I went there and I remember reading these articles in the newspaper. There was this, I wish I still had this article. It was a journalist who was saying that up until now he's been a closet Catholic and everyone was expecting this to be a negative experience for the city. But there just was all this positive feedback, even from non-Christians who are like the joy of these people. It's hard to remain angry with them. That's absolutely right.

Just watching people on the streets and them watching us, it's really, it's a great, yeah, it's a great experience. Yeah. So you became a priest in what year? When did you join the Franciscans and why was it the Franciscans in particular? I transferred to Franciscan University from NET, so I was, came in as a sophomore, middle of sophomore year, and it was honestly, when I came here, I was pretty sure that this was the Lord one. Now forgive me, what year? I'm not trying to tell you how old you are again, but what year did you come?

What year was that? Yeah. I came in in 80, 86. 86. And so I never went to Franciscan, so I'm probably gonna ask some pretty ignorant questions here. But the prior, who was the guy who got everything

back on track? The president at the time was Father Mike Scanlon. That's right, Father Mike Scanlon, forgive me, yeah. I heard that Franciscan was once on Playboy's top 10 party universities. Party list, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're making different lists now, but yeah. Thank God. Yeah, yeah.

But now that I've thrown that out, you gotta tell us what happened at Franciscan? Yeah, it was really crazy. I mean, this was when early 70s, when small across the country, small schools, particularly small private schools were trying to find their way. Enrollment was low. Tommy Moore, which was the largest dorm at the time, was basically empty. And yeah, there's this was across board across all, not that it's not fair, lots of schools at the time. Franciscan University was, yeah, party school, small school.

I was one of the top 10 schools in Ohio to close and that kind of thing. There just was not a lot uniqueness or anything different about it. So when they hired Father Mike, Father Mike had a couple pretty simple elements or plans about what he wanted to do. Jesus was gonna be the center of our life.

The center of the life of the university was going to be Christ. A Catholic school should be faithful to Christ as their savior. And so that the academics were important, obviously, formation of the student, their intellect was important, essential. But to do that apart from the formation of their life and a formation of creating men and women that were going to become holy and become saints, those two things had to come together so that there was not a separation between faith and reason.

The two actually can illuminate one another. And then the other was that we were going to be faithful to the teachings of the Church. Late 60s, Catholic universities wanted to kind of create a separation sense of autonomy from the church. And Father Mike said, no, it seems to me a Catholic university should be close. And so the teaching of the church faithfulness to the Magisterium was going to be key. So those were the two principles. I mean, Father Mike would always say that there wasn't this great plan. You know, how did you do this, Father Mike? I worked with Father Mike his last years as president, and he said, I didn't have this

great plan. What I knew is that we're going to be faithful to the Lord and we're going to be faithful to the church. And he said to the board, he said, if this doesn't work, okay, but at least we're going to give it a shot. We're going to try. Did Father, well, did people around Father Mike just expect that he was going to see Franciscan into the night, that it would be done shortly over the next few years? Some of them, Father Mike would say some of the board members, yeah, he was going to see Franciscan into the night, that it would be done shortly over the next few years?

Some of them, Father Mike would say some of the board members, yeah, he was going to kind of be the one who's going to close the doors, turn out the lights. Wow. But the other part of it, and it was back to some of our conversation earlier, Father Mike was one of the first and most influential people in the renewal. And he firmly believed that this was a work of the Holy Spirit and God was gonna bless this and we're sitting here because of Mike's faithfulness. But the other part that he thought was important, he would always speak at the beginning of the year. Studies have shown that the loneliest person in the world is a college freshman.

And Father Mike experienced through the renewal and the other friars of the community he lived with, the necessity for relationship and communion and accountability. So he installed what was called household systems. At the beginning, it's like a wing of the residents would be a small faith group. So at the beginning, everybody had to be a part of a household.

When Father Mike initiated this, you had to be a part of the household, small faith groups that would pray together, intramural sports together, go to mass together, celebrate faith together, devotions together. And that was really one of the, I think, the unique, remarkable things that Father Mike brought was this idea of household. So then now we have about 60 households on campus, small faith community, small faith groups that support one another's faith. So the kind of the peer pressure on campus is more towards a life of virtue rather

than a life of vice, which is not what it is at most college campuses. Yeah, I actually asked a couple of university students about what it was like and they said, like, if you want to grow as a Christian, it's easy. If you want to party, it's actually more difficult. Right, right. So the peer pressure, as you say, it's easy. Yeah. If you want to party, it's actually more difficult. Right, right. That's fair. So the peer pressure, as you say, leans that way. That's fair. It's not a utopia.

I mean, everything is not perfect, but we've got it. I would say there's no university across the board that's like Francis' universities. Yeah. So how did Francis can turn around then? I mean, there were these things, making Christ the center and things like that. But I mean. Well, one of the things Father Mike did is that he felt that philosophy and theology

needed to be center. If we're going to be an academic institution that's Catholic, we needed to focus on that. So Father Mike went after some really good theologians. Dr. Alan Shrek, I don't know if you know. Yeah, Alan, I think Alan is really under appreciated. I mean, Alan just in my life, he's been a great blessing, but also to the, to the university and the theology department. A couple of the friars got theology. Obviously Father Mike was the one who hired Scott Hahn. When was that? I want to say 92.

OK, it was after I had left. So I graduated in 89 and was this short. Was he teaching at a Catholic school prior to being hired? I don't Forgive me. I'm not positive. I think he was just finishing up at Marquette. Well is my yeah I'm not sure. Yeah, so that was really a part of it Is is that creation of the theology and philosophy departments that would be key and then also creating a culture? It's interesting since I've been back at the university a lot of people have come to me and they said, you know, what would it look like for us to do what you've done, whether it be a high school or another college

yourself? And what they often do is that they focus on the students, which obviously is important, but you also have to surround yourself. You have to have a team of faculty and staff that want to be a part of this. So that's what Father Mike did, is he surrounded himself with people that had the same desire, the same vision, the same goals, the same desire to put the Lord in the center of their life and be faithful to the church. And then the Lord just built on that.

Wow. You know, even when I came, I came in 96 or 86, Tommy Moore was still largely empty. What is Tommy Moore? St. Thomas Moore is the largest residence hall, sorry about that, Tommy Moore. It is the largest residence hall. Sorry about that, Tommy Moore. It's the largest residence hall that we have. It was still largely empty.

Today we have, we've added two, since then we've had two new residence halls and we're this largest class we've ever had. Yeah, this is the largest incoming freshman class ever. In our history, right? Why is that? I don't know. I mean, I like to think that we're trying to do

the same thing that Fr. Mike did, and that's just be faithful to Jesus and faithful to what he's asking of us. I think one of the things that had a really great impact right now where we are now was in the midst of COVID, we had what we call the step in faith. And so this would have been obviously in March of 20, everybody, everything closed down,

the whole world closed down. And I was with my team and just wrestling like, what are we gonna do? Because already people, you know, Harvard was already laying people off and telling the students that they couldn't come back in the fall. And that just didn't seem the path for me.

I sensed that that wasn't what we were supposed the fall. And that just didn't seem the path for me. I sense that that wasn't what we're supposed to do. And I remember I would continually say, I think the Lord's just asking us to take a step in faith. I don't know what that's going to look like. So I got from a friend of mine who was related to the university, he sent me an email, he said, you know, what if we just gave free tuition to everyone? And I'm thinking like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Who said that? A friend? A friend, yeah. Does he have it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, out of the blue.

Now his thing was to give it to everybody and all that. And I thought, so I just ignored it. It's like, all right, that's just funny. But I couldn't shake it. I go to prayer and it's like, step in faith, what would that look like? So it was funny, I went to our finance person and I said, What if?

Hear me out. Yeah, I said, what I said is, what if we just provided free tuition to all, because the question was, are new students going to come? Are freshmen going to come with everything going on? And I said, what if we just said, all right, this first semester, because they're so, it's scary. I mean, you remember what that was. It was just, yes, so what if we just said they didn't have to pay tuition, we just let them come. And he looked and goes, well, that could be a really good idea. Maybe that's, maybe that's what we're supposed to do.

So I kept on finding somebody to tell me, but I mean, honestly, Matt, this speaks to the type of people that we've got in the university. If your finance officer is like, great idea, let's not take money. And I took it to the board and one of our board members said, uh, he goes, this is a no brainer. I think this is exactly what the Lord. Why is it a no brainer? What would have happened if you hadn't? What, what, what was the benefit of it? I mean other not doing influx of yeah freshmen, but well, and that's just well, we didn't know we didn't know Or were kids gonna come were students gonna come and by students. Do you mean freshmen or?

Free tuition. What we did is all new students got free tuition and All year for the semester. Okay., and all returning students got a free semester of graduate school if they choose to do that. And part of it was, again, a step in faith. I remember because it was a fairly substantial investment from our board of trustees approving that, right? And saying, okay. But honestly, people were interested.

Fox News, they ended up doing a piece on this. No, why? And they were like, what are you doing? When schools were literally doing exactly the opposite, saying, you can't come, you can't come, you're saying, you can come. Right. And for free. It was funny. It was the guy who was talking. He goes, he goes, honestly, father, this is just a shot at the Jesuits, isn't it? No, no, but what I ultimately said was that near Francis's death he said, I have done what is mine to do. May the Lord show you what is yours. And I said, this is what the Lord has for us to do, right? So honestly, one of the markers, yeah, there's just a lot. There was a lot around this that one of

the faculty members came and he got emotional and he said, Father Dave, I've been here for 12 years This is the first time I really felt like we bet on ourselves We're betting on herself that the thought was that we're gonna do this and they're gonna come and they're gonna experience what we have at The university and they'll stay yeah, what would have been a train wreck is if everybody would have come and said, okay I've got my semester now we're going on and we're not gonna come back that really would have been but that's not what happened That's not what happened. So a couple of things. One, my goal was if we invited to be people

to be a part of it, we said, if you like what's going on, you think this is cool, help support us. I was in my office one afternoon and I hear my secretary, she's going through the mail and she goes, oh my, oh no, Father Dave, you need to see this. Well, this guy wrote a check out of his checkbook for a million dollars.

No way! He said, I heard what you're doing. He goes, I've never seen anything like this. But what it spoke to me is, when people see individuals or institutions operating in faith, they wanna be a part of that. So we got $3.4 million of donations in a little over a year to this program.

That is remarkable. People saw that and they said, I want to be a part of that. And I think part of what's going on now is still a grace of that. And I would share with the faculty and staff that this isn't a one and done, that this is how we as Christians are called to operate. This getting out of the boat and walking on water. I mean, imagine what Peter must have felt like the first step or two. It's like, dude, this is crazy. I'm literally walking on water. I mean, I imagine what Peter must have felt like the first step or two. It's like, dude, this is crazy. I'm literally walking on water. It's not a bad place to be. A bad place to be.

That says, Lord, if you don't come through, I'm going to drown. I mean, I mean, I pray this. I said, Lord, if this doesn't work out, this is going to be the shortest presidency in the history, because I'd only been there for seven months and, um, but the Lord's blessed. Yeah, he's really blessed. That is what we said earlier. Let my faith be less of a syllogism, more of a love affair. I mean, that's an active faith that really believes in a real Jesus Christ who really blesses people and works.

Yeah. So it was cool. So I think part of it is, is the grace to that. Yeah. Um, I want to, I want to talk about, uh, the kind of encroaching wave of wokeism upon universities and see what you guys are doing. I want to preface that by saying this. We live in a sexually broken, confused society. We don't know what men are. Apparently we don't know what women are.

Apparently we don't know what marriage is. We're not even really sure what sex is. And so the people coming out of this are people like me and Neil and you and others. So obviously, we want to minister to those who are confused or in sin. We want to love them and welcome them. But so where's that balance between loving and welcoming people who are coming into universities now and also putting the foot down and saying, no, men can't become women. And I don't know, I actually don't know what Franciscan has done about

this. I'm looking forward to learning. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the balance. So where is that balance? And I think the balance is truth is that we're living in a world that is just, I mean, the word truth is to some it's, to the woke, right? Well, what do you mean by truth? Your truth, they get nervous just about that word that I'm trying to put upon them, truth and what is truth. I mean, Pilate said, what is truth, right?

And the world is saying the same thing as what is truth, is that ultimately we live in a world that has totally rejected any sense of objective truth. It's funny, again, this could be a tangent, but during COVID it was all follow the silence, follow the science, follow the science. But let's not follow the science on this. I mean, the whole idea of what is male and what is female,

I mean, that's an objective reality, that one can determine that through science. And yet we now are being invited to just ignore that, to close your eyes towards that. And I think, honestly, that we as a university, particularly as a university, have something to say to this, that we've got the different sciences,

so we can ask the question of what is male, what is female from a theological point of view. We can ask it from a philosophical point of view. We can ask it from a biological point of view. And what we find when we find that is that it brings us to the same place, right? But we live in a world that wants to separate all that and separate the truth and the reality from what an individual feels. And that's, I think, again, as a universe, we have this particular voice that we can give to the chaos that we find ourselves in right now But you're absolutely right Matt is that we've got more and more young people that are I used to say that that they were questioning

You know, who am I who am I who am I now? It's what am I and that's a fundamentally different question I mean one of the questions that we're dealing with in the university is one of the individuals kind of an older professor was talking about the whole gay and lesbian issue and that issue and how we wrestle with that, but why is it that the transgendered seems to be even so deeper and more difficult? And one of our theology persons said, because it's a philosophical question, this is a metaphysical question. It's what, who am I?

It's not merely about sexual morality. Right, right, or sexual attraction. Right, right, but this gets to the very fundamental identity of the human person. And the idea that the woke-ism, the woke culture says is that I'm the determining factor. I get to determine what that is. Where we as Catholic Christians, no, no, no, no, that's been determined. It's very part of our DNA. It's been determined by creation from the very beginning. So that's why I love this discussion. I love this conversation because I think

Franciscan University stands in contrast to again, other schools, other Catholic schools, I pray that they're being faithful. But what I know is that we're going to be faithful in that the light of God, the light of the Church, the light of the Scriptures is going to help illuminate that discussion with us. So how do you guide your professors in this? Is there any, because I'm sure people are confused. I don't know what it's like. Have you had people? Because I know it's obviously you probably have an influx of conservative kids or kids who are faithful Christians. But are you also having people who are living LGBTQ lifestyles who are telling you I'm actually a woman when they're a man? Is that happening yet? And what kind of advice do you give to your professors? How do they deal with that? Yeah, we actually talked quite a bit about it. Is, is that happening? Not a lot. Now,

part of that could be people are choosing not to come because they know what we represent. Um, as you and I were talking later, uh, I wrote a piece for USA Today when this whole situation was taking place with a swimmer at Penn. I'm sure you're familiar with this. Is it the Leah Thomas? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he wants to I mean, he literally is swimming for the men's team because we're in COVID and comes back and he's now swimming for the women's team. And it's being applauded and celebrated and courageous.

You're calling him good for you for doing that. We mean no disrespect to this. No, not at all. But I think it's great that you're doing that because not at all. Yeah, it really bothers me. Even the words biological male, that bothers me. That feels like a concession. Let me tell my story.

Thank you very much. So I was just praying one morning and actually watching that morning, we had an athlete at the university. She's about five foot nothing, just tough as nails. She's all American runner. And I was just watching and thinking about her and very simply, what's fair? You know, that if an individual, quote-unquote, identifies as a woman

and now races against her, she doesn't have a chance. So I wrote a piece called The Body Matters. I mean, it wasn't, it didn't, the first draft was more, a little bit theological, but what we finally came to was just pretty simple. The body matters, you know, that the human person is flesh and bone and that matters, right? And I said that it's simply, I said I look at a president, I look at one of my students who trains hard and works hard, it's not right, it's not fair that she should have to compete against an individual that has a male body and the male muscular, in all of this.

I said, scientifically, there's a reason why we have categories and weights and men's and women's sports and all that. And so I submitted it to USA Today, which was, I didn't, honestly, I didn't figure they would accept it. I wouldn't think so either. But they did, with a couple of stipulations. And actually we went back and forth

on whether or not we wanted to go ahead and let them print it. One of them was the use of biological male or female. Oh, I see. They wouldn't allow you, an individual, their editorial board won't allow you to use that term. So they said, if you're gonna do this, we're gonna have to not use that language. So honestly, myself and

my team, we came back and we prayed about it. And we thought about it, we said, Do we still want to go with this? And obviously, we chose to go with it to allow that change to be made, partly because there was no sense of reason anywhere in this conversation, everything was was pro what was going on. And I said, at least it provides a voice that is the other side. And then what was the other thing that they changed? I forget what it was.

Why was USA Today your first pick? I would have thought. Well, we put it out in lots of various ways. I think that we as Catholic Christians have a duty, if we have a God platform, have a duty and obligation to enter into that arena is that we need, I mean there are Catholic publications that would have printed it exactly the way I wanted, but I think we need to dialogue with the world, the unbelieving world, we need to dialogue

with that, we need to be a voice of reason, a voice of sensibilities, a voice of truth ultimately. So have you got much pushback for that? Well, it's interesting Catholics. And because whenever I speak about this, I'll have a good deal of Catholics sort of write to me even privately and say, don't get into these issues. Just talk about the beauty of the Catholic faith. No need to get into these sort of thornier things. What do you did you get any of that?

And what was your response? I mean, you get the typical, I mean, Franciscan University just got voted in Ohio, one of the worst places to go to school if you're LGBT and you wanna live in that activism world, which- You need to make that a badge. Which is, okay, I mean, that doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it was interesting and we had this another situation

that yeah, that we're just not going to buy into that. We're not going to buy into that world. We're not going to buy into the wokeism world. The whole cancer, this is something that I've think about the whole being canceled, all that. So I was praying about this one morning and when I wrote that article and then we had a situation with an individual who pulled out a pride flag. I saw that. Yeah. On stage, right?

On stage, right. She was accepting her. Right. And we cut that out of the video of the graduation. Yeah, right. Right. And we just got from one contingent of the population, we got a lot of crap about that, and how could you do this, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, again, Franciscan University is going to be faithful to the teachings of the church. We're going to be faithful to the gospel, and that's just inconsistent. And the other is rude. I mean, it's just rude. That's just civility. In the middle of this... Yeah, we're awarding you something. Right, right, right. In the middle of this. And it was a graduate student. There's a whole thing went through. Well, so an individual wrote me with a check and said, Father Dave, you continue to do things that make me proud.

And he said, I wanna support what you're doing. And I think, yes, we get pushback and yes, we get people, but to that end, somebody said to me, aren't you afraid that you're gonna be canceled? That's a good question. Yeah, well. Because if this this continues and it is when, when does this become a civil rights issue? Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a big question. But the whole cancel,

I found myself thinking reflecting on that, that, um, you can't cancel somebody who hasn't subscribed, right? So if you've got a subscription to something, you can cancel it. I don't subscribe to that world. I don't subscribe to the worldview that says there is no difference between men and women. I don't subscribe to the worldview that truth can't be known.

I don't subscribe to the worldview that says human person determines what is the human person. I don't subscribe to the worldview of what is marriage. And so from that perspective, what does it look like to be canceled? I don't know. Now there are other legal issues that are going on in the culture in the world today that we need to be attentive to. I

mean, there is a part of me that gets a little anxious, I don't want to draw undue attention to the university because there are organizations out there that are looking for institutions and people to sue, you know, that's just the world that we live in. I'm aware of that. I'm attentive to that. I'm not going to be stupid, but I'm also not going to hide. And I think that the nature of the incarnation is a God who in becomes a part of the messiness of the world. He doesn't hide from it.

He doesn't run away from it. He doesn't build a wall around, but he enters that and we need to be able to do that. And now I always say at the university, what we're going to do is we're going to do that in truth. We're going to do that in charity and we're going to do that in humility. Take any three of those away. You've got a problem, but continuing to engage the world, the brokenness of the world, individuals in the world with truth, charity and humility.

We'll throw the dice on that. So how does, like what freedom does somebody have if they come to Franciscan is and then they identify as gay? You know, can they be, uh, flying around a rainbow flag? Is that an acceptable thing or where do you draw the line? Cause you want to avoid being sensorial, presumably. Right, right, right. No, absolutely. Yeah.

Well, one of the things is that the reality is, do we have students on campus that struggle with that? And I get it, absolutely. One of the things I'm really proud of is, about two years ago, some students came and they wanted to start a program called Integratus. Integracy, integration. And what they wanted was a place where young men and women who are struggling with these

questions and with these issues can come together and be disciples and be community together, but be faithful to the teaching of the church and be faithful to the gospel. And this was a student initiative and we worked with them and they worked with a couple of the people from the theology department and from the student life department. And I really would, I hope we're just, actually we just came in publicly, I just said came out that sounds like a good, but publicly with this because I really wanted them to have a couple of years of working through this and what is, I wanted to clear, I don't want a support group.

You know, they are not, it is not a support group for being gay. It is a support group for being a disciple of Jesus. That's what it is. And it's men and women who are asking questions and wrestling with these issues and struggling with it. But they want to be faithful to the gospel. They want to be faithful to the teachings of the church. So I'm really, really proud of our students that are doing this and in a program that they're getting with of our students that are doing this and in a program that they're getting with direction from the friars and direction from some of the faculty and staff, but it was student initiated and student led.

And it's really an exciting program. Are these some of the top questions that parents ask when they're calling Franciscan today? Honestly, not a lot, Matt, because I think people, more and more people know who we are. And that's the that's the thing about it that the you know, when I wrote this piece that the USA Today, USA Today picked another op-ed piece that I wrote on on the abortion issue. On the abortion issue or transgender issue?

Well, I've written USA Today's picked up two pieces that I've written op-ed pieces. One was on the abortion issue, and then one was on the transgender issue. People expect that. I mean, that's a good problem to have, right? People expect us to be faithful. So there's actually, that's quite liberating, that when I did this, it wasn't like,

oh, I'm surprised Franciscan University did this. I'm surprised. It's like, yeah, we would expect Franciscan University, we would expect Father Dave to speak on this, to speak to this. Yeah. But I think, you know, you said earlier, people know who we are, but sometimes we think we know who people are and they start changing because of pressure. I think that's, that's where my questions are coming from. Like at what point does the pressure grow so much that Francis can start making small allowances here and there until they're a wash in wokeism. But it sounds like it's not happening.

There's there's a, I'm sure you know who Vince Lombardi is. You do? I know the name. Oh, good, good, good. So he was obviously, I think they won two or three sewer bowls in a row. And, and then over a couple of years, their team was horrible. And they asked him what happened. And he said it was death by inches. Yeah. He said it was a lot of smaller decisions that they made that individually didn't seem like such a big deal, but when they look back on it. So that's, that's the thing is we, we try to continue to ask the question. We want to continue to, to be faithful to the teaching of the church. And yeah, I mean, we're continually doing the best that we can.

Now with that being said, your initial question is, we have more and more young people that are being deeply impacted by the culture today. And we've got really good students, really smart kids that want to love God and want to be faithful to the church. But there's no way, depending on in some ways what their upbringing is, that they can't be impacted by this. You know, so we have to recognize that and see that that we can't do ministry, we can't treat them the same that we did 25 years ago, because the world that they're coming out of is substantially different. I mean honestly

some of the things that quote-unquote the finds normal today, 25 years ago would have been, I was just going to say that. Can you imagine going back in time and telling father Michael Scanlon what sort of things you're going to have to wrestle with in 2022? No, I mean, just, I mean, some of these, what is the man? I mean, that's, that's ridiculous. The fact that we even have to have this conversation and discussion. So, so they're being impacted by that. So we want to be really intentional

about the formation. One of the lines that maybe they get tired of me saying is that what does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul, right? So that we've got a student who's been well quote unquote educated, that's great, formed for a career, that's fantastic. But if they're not being formed to be a saint as well, then we're doing something wrong as a Catholic university so that we wanna see the young people are being formed, educated and sent out, right?

This is the Franciscan sent out on a mission, whatever it is, business person, doctor, lawyer, teacher, and that they wanna love the Lord, be faithful to the Lord. I just had a friend, Tony Foy. Did you meet him? He just came in from Ireland. Good mate of mine.

He was some faculty. He's the head of now Ireland, actually. Okay. And he was sitting across the table from me here and he just got back from noon mass at Franciscan and his mouth is a jar like, this is incredible. And it really is. That is the experience. People like me from Australia or these other countries,

they come to America to these faithful pockets and they're just blown away. Yeah, because you guys are packed to the gills. Yeah, no, it's really we have four masses a day. Four masses a day. It's really cool. One of the times we had somebody was, you know, mother came out, she was visiting with her daughter and she was crying. And she said, I've never seen anything like that.

Yeah. I mean, there's something about being with a community that gets it, that worships, that loves the Lord, that loves the sacraments, that recognizes Jesus' presence. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I love it. I just, side note, love living in Steubenville. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I really, really do. I think for a while in the beginning, I kept telling myself that because I wanted to kind of like, it's like when your intellect has to lead the emotions, come on. But the more I'm here, I just love it. So last night, was it last night? Yeah.

Last night, the Newtons had a praise and worship at their house. My kids like, can we please go to praise them worship? And I didn't want them to cause it's been, we've had several late nights, so we need to go to bed. But fine. You can get the praise. All right, all right. Yeah, and just-

It's funny, when I was, so I was ordained, I graduated from the university, I got ordained here. You had asked why the Franciscans. Yeah. I, partly probably because Five Brothers, you know, brotherhood has been really, really important to me.

I knew that I couldn't do this by myself. You know, I think, again, God bless the diocese and liturgy, and that's really heroic. And I just, I maybe I'm not strong enough, I don't know, but I knew that I needed accountability. I knew that I needed brothers. I knew that I need guys that could kick me in the butt, but then also that I could journey with.

But the other is the main charism of my community is metanoia, which is that constant continual conversion. The first time I heard that word was on net. So that when I was looking at this particular Franciscan community, the two hours and saw that their main charism was metanoia, there was something that just resonated in that. So that's why I joined this community. But so was ordained worked here for a number of years left for and then came back left. You said I was at the university I left. I was reassigned from the university for about 11 years, but I was driving through Steubenville in February of 2019.

February in Steubenville is not the most beautiful place in the world, not the most beautiful place in the world. And I'm driving through, I was invited to come and give a talk on campus in February and the Lord was already speaking and just some sense of change and so I'm going through I'm looking at the town and I said to myself you know student feels kind of charming and as soon as I said that I said oh crap I said something's going on in about maybe four weeks later there was a change at the University of the President and and my provincial called and asked if I would be open to being nominated to be the President. It's like oh Lord you duped me and I let myself be duped but the rest is

history. So how did that go down? Oh yeah yeah yeah so um well it was funny because I was traveling full-time doing kind of itinerant preaching and meditation preaching and my provincial calls me and he said Dave you, you know, the university is going to be looking for a new president. And I'm wondering if you'd be open to allowing me to submit your name because that's how that works with obedience and all that. Yeah. And honestly, what I said to him, I said, I said, fellow Malachi, I've not been in a

meeting for eight years. And he said, I do not intend to start now. He said, your life's about to change. So I mean, it's interesting because I worked with Father Mike for his last two years as president and he was, is one of those things that the people had talked to over the year, gee, I wonder if Father David would be president, but they were almost, they came to this point where maybe that wasn't mine to do. I was involved in some ministry that I'd been working on and with a wild goose and traveling

and all that. But I remember just praying about it and ultimately Lord, your will be done. That's one of the things that I love about my life is that rarely does an individual discern something by themselves, but that we've got my province, my community, and then with this, the board of trustees and the university that discerned this and came to that place where, yeah, they felt that it's what God wanted me to do. So.

I know we don't want to base our success on other people's opinions. That's a really bad idea, especially if you're on YouTube, it's not rated in the comment section. I don't do that anymore, but everybody is so thrilled who I talk to, like everybody who works the university just, Oh, I'll say how it was like a breath of fresh air when you came in. It's been a great blessing. Yeah. Wow.

So did the TORs, I don't know much about this particular order. When I was discerning, pretty soon I was looking in the Capuchins and I looked at the CFRs because they seem super hardcore. Yeah. And I probably would have lasted there a week. But did the TORs go through a sort of crazy period in the 70s or whatever? Or? Yeah. Well, first off, just to maybe shed some light on that, that Francis started three orders. So I like to joke that it took Francis

three times to get it right. So he did? Yeah. What does that mean? That's what I'm gonna tell you. Okay. Patience, my brother. So Francis has the conversion,

and then he becomes a part of what's kind of like a RCIA group, the Order of Penitence. So if you've had notorious sinners in the early churches, who've been in the late 1100s, is part of this group called the Order of Penitence, and it was a time of reparation and penance and that kind of thing. So then Francis, since we all know the story, he's in front of the San Domenico Cross, rebuild my church, so he begins to rebuild the church. He sends, the Lord sends him brothers

that begin to do that. Then he started the second order, which is the poor clerics. And then what he was seeing is that the first order is largely mendicant moving around, and he wants to start a community that's gonna stay kind of settled in where they are and bring about transformation.

I didn't realize that. Yeah. So what he did is he went back to that, those group of friends that he had that were the Order of Penitence, and he started the Franciscan Frasier Third Order, Regular of Penance. So our full name is Franciscan Frasier Third Order, Regular of Penance. No way. But the thought was, and it's really one of those, there's a couple of distinguishing things between the Third Order and the First Order, and that is, one of them is actually

the way we view poverty, is that the first order is without property, the third order would be the right use of property. Because Franciscan third order were always involved in healthcare, hospitals, and education. So it wasn't realistic of you being able to do your ministry without things, without stuff, without books. I mean, there's a huge debate in the early Franciscan should you have books. Well, the third order, if you're gonna be educators, you've got to have books.

So what you see, and again, this is so simplistic, but what you see in the first order over the centuries is one of splitting. And it's largely, not always, but largely about poverty. What does it look like to live poverty in the 1100s, in the 1200s, the 1400s, the 1800s? So you see these multiple splits. So in the late part of the 18, around 1890 something, seven maybe, there was all

kinds of first order Franciscans just, and they have what's now called the Leonine Union that all the friars had to come about. You have to be either OFM and OFM conventional or OFM Capuchin. But even in that, so the CFRs was a split from the OFM Capuchins about what does it look like to live poverty and live, be faithful to the gospel, be faithful. So whereas the first order you see more of that, you don't see a lot of that in the third order. There's just kind of a difference of the focus of the ministry and how we live our life. Now back to you, honestly, my community's always been, I mean, it's been pretty straight down the middle.

I mean, it's not extreme on necessarily the liberal side or not extreme, less so the conservative side. And it's actually one of the reasons I was drawn to the community was one of my concerns was I able to be myself, right? I visited some groups, it was kind of cookie cutter. They all look the same They all kind of the same and that just that's just not Cindy Wilker said if you've met one you probably heard this You've met one Francis conti. Why you've met one friend That's true, I appreciate that and my thought was

Yeah, that's true. But I appreciate that. That's good. And my thought was they were seeking to be holy, but that doesn't always look exactly the same. So I felt that I could live the life that Lord was calling me to, and I could be faithful to that. And it's been a good fit for me. And has your order been influenced by the renewal,

or is it just this order in this part of the country around Franciscan? Yeah, I would say across the board that percentage wise, my community has been more impacted by the renewal, partly because of Franciscan University. I mean, a lot of our vocations come through the university. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say probably more than some. I wanted to ask you about having Jordan Peterson on campus, how that came about. And.

Yeah, it was really, it was really a wonderful experience. How it came about was an individual who was a supporter of the university said, is this something you would even be open to? I said, sure I would. I would be open to that. But I also knew that it would be difficult to get in, to find a schedule that would work. It's expensive. A lot that went into that. So I said, let's just begin to look and see what, if it's possible. And honestly, Matt, everything just kind of fell into place. And there was a, the process of us being vetted,

like was he willing to come to us was fairly extensive. Really? I had asked him about that because he basically doesn't visit college campuses anymore. He says, it's just a minefield. In fact, it's interesting, he would state that when you take a look at the whole world of wokeism and what's going on in the culture, he would lay that at the feet of higher education. He said it's just such a train wreck and we're not about educating the higher education, it's largely about creating

activists. But they vetted us and they looked at us and they said, okay, there seems to be something different about this school. So obviously he ended up coming. It was funny though, cause when we, we were told ahead of time that he was going to come to the university, but as soon as he came to town, we picked him up at around eight 30 in the morning, he's going to go directly to his hotel. He must have a private plane. There's no way he's boarding. Yeah, this was a private plan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah. No, I can't. No, I can't.

Like you're, you're the president of Francisco and I'm sure you get stopped at airports occasionally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't know how we always flies, but again, we had a donor who, who helped out with that, which I thought was profoundly grateful, but we pick him up and he said, okay, well, what's the plan? I said, well, we were told you want to go back to your hotel. It goes, he goes, no, it goes, if I go back to my hotel, I'm just going to sleep the whole time.

So I said, we'd love to show you around the university. And it was fantastic. He walked around with us for about an hour and a half. It was all, it was just really beautiful. And that like we walked by one of our residence hall is Colby Claire, and he'd never heard the story of Maximillian Colby. So it was really, really cool to tell,

I had this experience when I worked in China a number of times with the underground church. And to be able to tell the story of Maximill Kolbe. So it was really, really cool to tell, I had this experience when I worked in China a number of times with the underground church and to be able to tell the story of Maximilian Kolbe to somebody who's never heard the story of Maximilian Kolbe was really cool. And it was really very moved by that. Took him to the Port Sianculo, which in Port Sianculo is a small chapel on campus.

You're probably about to, but please, I really want you to focus on this point. Oh, okay. Because this is one of the best responses to. Okay. Now, now I feel like I'm going to mess it up. Okay. Just don't. Okay. Don't. Yeah. Just don't mess it up. All right. Correct me if, correct me. If I don't know. I only know it because I heard you tell it in a homily. Yeah, no, but I'm so we were going down and I was trying to explain to him what he was going to see. And I said, okay, that we as Catholics believe that we have adoration, you're going to see a monster.

I tried to put it in his mind what he was going to see. I said, you're going to see kids kneeling down. And I said, we believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist and it's not just a symbol. And he said, well, what's wrong with the symbol? And I said, well, I would rather have you with me here than just a symbol. And he said, ah, that makes sense. Yeah. What a great answer. Yeah. And it was just, it was just one of those. You know how buggy, you know how angry I would be if I finally went to see Jordan Peterson and it was a hologram?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right. Right. Word video or something like that. Exactly. Yeah. So you said what's wrong with the symbol? Wouldn't be happy. Yeah. Yeah. He he said, oh, that makes sense. So he went into the blessings. He went into the puts young class Yeah, yeah, he said, oh, that makes sense. So he went into the blessings, he went into the Puertsiankla, and he said that he said there's a sense of peace, there's a sense of calm there. We invited him to liturgy. I think you were at Mass that

day? I wasn't, but my understanding is this was the very first holy Mass he has ever attended at Franciscan University. Right, right. No, ever appeared, obviously, and he attended at Franciscan University, right? He'd never been to mass before. And he's actually spoke of it several times. People have reached out to me. He was at a, he went up to Akron a couple of days later, probably three or four or five times over the last many months. He's talked about his experience at Francis University, but he was, it was remarkable. He sat in the front row. I mean, it was really, as you know, were you celebrating? I was, I was,

was everybody more interested in Jordan than the blessed Eucharist or no, no brother. There are more interest in the Eucharist. That's why we're there. People were like whispering. It's like, cause he sounded front row. And he's like, I guess this is what happens at Holy mass. People just whisper a lot and look at you. You know, though he, he watched with an intensity and paid attention with intensity that was just really moving. We try not to stare. Well, I mean, he was right in my face. We try not to direct your homily at him about converting.

Maybe slipped in a word or two, but let me just say a point to that point, Matt. It was really interesting because we talked about this ahead of time. He shared with me, I mean, in essence, he shared it's hard being me. It's, you know, he said, I said, what's this like? He said, I want my life back, you know? And the other thing he shared is that he feels like a piece of meat, like who's going to win the prize? Like we just won everyone out team. We don't really care about the truth, but just, right. And that's exactly what I said to my team here. I said, our job is to welcome him to care for him,

to be hospitable to him and let the Lord work out the rest. You know, and you said the Muslim community wants me to evangelical community wants me, the Catholic community wants me. But, but now we also knew that, that his wife, that their Lord is doing something, his wife, and she has a devotion to the Rosary. Big thanks to, shout out to Bishop Robert Barron. He's been open about that. That it's his, Bishop Robert Barron's videos that have inspired her to pray the David Rosary.

So it was interesting when he was on the phone talking with his wife and said, you need to come and see this place. He said that there's just something different about this place. And it was really, really beautiful. And I actually, I must say, I appreciate your text at the end of the night. I was gonna bring that up. Yeah, I really did appreciate that.

It was funny, because going into it, everyone's saying, are you nervous or are you scared? Because he gave a talk for about an hour and then he and I talked for about an hour and they said, are you nervous or are you scared? It's like, well, I wasn't until everybody started saying. But yeah, I thought it until everybody started saying, you know, but yeah, I thought it went, I thought it went quite beautifully. Yeah.

I'm going to see if I can pull up that, uh, that text message that I sent you here. Goodness knows. No, I don't know if I have it's cause I keep changing phones, but I'll tell you what I loved about it right now. Well, you have it. I don't know if I do or not. Let's look it up. Yeah. That interview is in my opinion, way better. Did you go Neil? No, I don't have it. I've got here. I've got Matt Fred too. So you must have had several different phone numbers.

No, here's what I loved about it. All right. If I was in your shoes, whoof, here's the mistake, all the mistakes I would have made, I think. I would have tried to match his psycho babble jargon. I'm not- See, I knew I couldn't do that. I'm not saying it's jargon, I'm not saying he's a windbag. He's terrific and insightful and intelligent and wonderful. But I, you know, number one,

I could say that would be one flaw. You just try to match him with that and impress him. Number two, you just let him talk the whole time or you just you talk too much or you just get too preachy and kind of it gets weird. You did the perfect balance. You just you you proclaim the gospel to him simply and beautifully. Thank you, man. And it never got weird. It never got cringe at all. That's cool. I was so proud of you. You, you proclaim the gospel to him simply and beautifully. Thank you, man. And it never got weird. It never got cringe at all. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Yeah. I was so proud of you. That's cool. Thank you so much. Yeah. I enjoyed it. I appreciate it. But it does speak to, like when I was hired at the university, part of the interview process, I said, you're hiring a priest, you're hiring a shepherd, you're hiring a father, you're hiring a pastor. And I said, if you want the best administrator, that's probably not me.

But if you want to hire somebody who wants to shepherd a community, who wants to care for a community, who wants to challenge a community, I said one of the first things I said is the father, any father is going to say some things that the kids don't want to hear. And I said, but I'm going to try to love you enough that I'm going to continue to do that. So that's what I tried to do. I just tried to have a conversation as somebody who cared for him. And so that's great.

Thanks. How did it, how did it wrap up? Cause I mean, he waves and people cheer and go off the stage. Did he head back that night or? Yeah, he did. He did. Yeah. He actually spent the night and then he left the next morning and we're at,

we're having a little bit more dialogue to see if there's something more that we could do to work together. And, uh, but again, his world is... Why is he so popular right now? That's a great question. And it's interesting. I need to nuance this. One of the things that I appreciated when I first started listening to him, honestly, and again, I'll nuance this, was that it wasn't necessarily from a faith perspective. It was from a psychological perspective that I thought was good.

It was balanced. It was common sense. It was reasoned. It was articulate. It was passionate. Now, obviously I want him to come to faith. I want that for him and for the goodness of him. But sometimes people will say,

well, you believe that because you're Catholic. You believe that. But so I actually appreciated that. But I think he speaks common sense. I don't know. He also speaks to a light in the Christian world. Maybe why is popular is he's saying a lot of the things that we believe that we've forgotten about. But he says them differently enough that you're like, oh, yeah, like, for for example I did a video recently on what Jordan Peterson has to say about cohabitation

And I was like kind of angry because we've been saying this forever. Yeah listens to us and Really down on cohabitation and the way he explains it is just so fresh and beautiful. I Also heard somebody say that maybe what Christians are receiving today is a spiritual formation, but not a human formation That's a maybe they're kind of stunned by those two things. That's a good insight. Neil. Do we have Do we have that video for a break and then we can come back and take some questions or is that? Yeah, okay All right, I will do the ad reads right now. Is that okay?

Yeah. Number one, hello is the best meditation and prayer app on the web today. Have you heard of hello? I have. It's really good. Yeah. He's going to be with us. Alex, Alex, Alex in studio.

He's amazing. Yeah. So he's a convert from, I don't know about Buddhism, but new age stuff. And he was listening to new age apps on how to meditate. And when he became Catholic to, so I know, you know this, I'm telling them. I can tell you too. But yeah, he's like, we need to have something. I'll tell you right now, Hallow is way better than the other apps

he referred me to, like Calm and these other ones. So I want to recommend people go right now, click the link in the description below, Hallow.com slash Matt Fradd, Hallow. com slash Matt Fradd. Hello dot com slash Matt Fradd. You can have Scott Hahn read to you at night and then you see him in the morning and feel very awkward. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, they'll lead you through the rosary. They've got beautiful books system.

Miriam James, do you have anything on there? We're actually recording next week. Are you coming in here? HALLOW dot com slash Matt Fradd. Go and check them out. University is one of the corporate sponsors with them. on there. We're actually recording next week. Are you? How's it coming in? Yeah. H-A-L-L-O-W.com slash Matt Fragg. Go and check them out. Yeah, to that end, Franciscan University is one of the corporate sponsors with them. We, I love what HALO is doing and we've been part of that for a while. Yeah. They're really faithful to the church. In fact, Jordan Peterson just interviewed Peter Craeft, like I told you, and about 15 minutes in. I want to see that. I need to go watch that.

You know, 15 minutes in, HALO starts getting advertised. I need to charge them more minutes in to go watch that. You know, 15 minutes in. Hello starts getting advertised. I need to charge them more because that must not. But then I do not have the reach he does. But anyway, hello.com slash Matt Frago and down. But here's the thing. If you go to that URL instead of just downloading it from their website,

you'll get three months for free. So you can try to have three months if you really like it. It's so funny, like you go into the Adoration Chapel today and you see people with earphones and you know what they're doing. Yeah. Listening to the Led Zeppelin. All right. Second thing I want to tell people about is Exodus 90 Exodus 90 correct me, Neil dot com

slash Matt. You don't exist. It's brutal. Yeah. I hate it so much. You know, advertising it probably won't do it again, but they have a 21 day challenge, which is a little bit doable. Yeah.

And there's different things to it. For example, you have to fast until three o'clock every day on all weekdays. So there's different, different elements in it. They've got a really sophisticated app that connects you with a brotherhood. So Exodus 90 is an ascetical program for men. Check them out. Exodus90.com slash Matt. Is it it?

Yeah. In the description, click the link in the description below and check it out. If you want to jump start your spiritual life, if you're feeling sluggish, if you want to, you know, you know that there's more and you've just been dragging your feet, go look at their website and see the different programs they offer, because it's bloody hard. But people who've done it say it's really great. Cold showers. Yep. You know, you know, I found I was doing, I'd no, no,

not the, not the 21 days. Okay. 21 days. You can have alcohol. You can have marijuana. You can never specify, but I'm just joking. But, um, that was a bad joke. Sorry. Uh, you, you, but yeah, you, you, you can have warm showers, alcohol, but there's a lot of other things that make it difficult, but doable. Um, but I found the cold shower was difficult when I did Exodus 90 and I would actually find them like, it's been two days and I haven't had a shower. This is good. Well, I'd be in the shower, just shouting out the names of people I was offering it up.

Yeah, that's great. That's awesome. Anyway, cool Terrific we want to go break. No The real is the only reason I ever have a break is I have a video that plays those ads So I'd have to read them awkwardly in front of my guests. Okay Let's keep going. Yeah, so what's on the horizon for you? What's on the horizon? Well, yeah, you meant we talked a little bit about the Wild Goose, but I'm really excited about it. Well, tell me about that. Just what that is. Wild Goose was, I wrote a book on what I call Breath of God.

Okay. And my, yeah, what really motivated that again was back to the conversation we had about Pentecost and the Holy Spirit and baptism of the Holy Spirit is that if I believe that if we're going to grow in the spiritual life, we need the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life. It's just not an option. Now one of the things that make this distinction is that we need the Spirit of Jesus. Whether or not a person's involved in the Charismatic Renewal is a movement, whatever, fine. If you want to be part of that, great. But, well, and this is interesting, because one of the things that I see is that there are some people who dismiss relationship with the Holy Spirit because they say, oh, that's charismatic,

I don't want to have anything to do with that, which is ludicrous. Jesus literally says that I have come to baptize you in the Holy Spirit. I mean, John says, I've come to baptize you in water, one will come greater than I will baptize you in the Holy Spirit. And Jesus says, go to Jerusalem, wait for the promise of the Father, you'll see the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So we need that Holy Spirit. But what I was finding is I was traveling all the time is, is looking around and it's the same story that Aquinas, Aquinas is looking out at his students. He says, how is it possible that that they've been baptized and confirmed and receive Eucharist, but they don't

seem to be living a dynamic faith life? And he talks about that the spirit is in one sense it's dormant, it's asleep in essence, something needs to awaken that. So yeah, I did a book called Breath of God, but I also was highly cognizant of the reality that some people aren't going to read, so I wanted to create something that would be more visual, that would be more artistic, that would be beautiful, and we did the wild goose. The wild goose was a term for the Holy Spirit

by the ancient Celts. I love the image, I love the image, right? It's not a domesticated dove that you put in a cage, but there's a wildness to a goose that I thought was, and if you pay attention, when you hear that and you look at some of the art in various churches, you'll see these images that you weren't even aware of it. How does that relate to, I want to be careful here, but Wild Goose Chase, is that completely

separate? Yeah. Is the website or? There is a phrase, the Wild Goose Chase. Oh, I don't know. That's a good question. Find out. Google that.

Yeah, I'll Google it. When did you do this program, these videos? Yeah, 2016. Because I saw some of them was really impressed at the quality. Yeah, they'll Google it. When did you do this program, these videos? Yeah, 2016. Because I saw some of them was really impressed at the quality. Yeah, they're really, really beautiful. Who did that? 4PM Media, Dan Johnson, graduated of the university

and married Hina's wife. But that's one of the things we wanted, honestly, is a couple of things we wanted to do. One, we wanted to make it beautiful. You know, too often times we just kind of put up a camera and film something. We wanted it make it beautiful. You know, too often times we just kind of put up a camera and film something. We wanted it to be beautiful. The beauty of what you're seeing and experiencing.

We also wanted to make it available for free. You know, that we didn't, we wanted to make it available to as many people as possible. So that was our marketing plan. People came in and said, oh, you guys marketing plan was genius. It's like, we didn't have a marketing plan, right?

But yeah, from that then we did a follow up to that called Metanoia, and what we're working, which is really focusing on Jesus, and what we're working on now is, through that is the Father. Just over the last couple of years, just really being convinced that we've got a struggle in the church today with men and women really believing

that they've got a father that loves them, and a father that wants to father them and be present to them. And again, I think it goes to some of the issues we have earlier that one of the tactics of the evil one is to break down the family, break down fatherhood, and that needs to be highlighted and restored. So on a personal, that's working on some of that and then the university we are celebrating our seventy fifth anniversary which has been.

Fantastic one thing i've noticed and i want you think about this is it seems like the charismatic so becoming more traditional of the years and maybe i'm wrong in that assessment but it would just seem to me. Let me just gonna play this out i get a few thoughts on this right so it's like. to me. Let me just kind of play this out. I got a few thoughts on this, right? So it's like, um, I know that's kind of true of me. I know that's true of many others and it's not as if they've left the charismatic thing behind, but there just seems to be this new love and appreciation of the liturgy and of, um, yeah, yeah. Kind of traditional prayer and in general. And I don't know. Maybe it's that the kind of charismatic era within the church was unfairly associated with some of the.

Unfortunate innovations that took place. So our cigar lounge that was starting down here on Fourth Street, we had to rip through dumb dry drop ceiling and shag carpet. And someone's like, who would do this? And I said, I guess the same guy who came up with liturgical abuse. They thought this would be fun. And it really, really, really wasn't.

So I guess that might be one question. Yeah, I think I think there is some truth to that is is that there has been seeing that and seeing some of the individuals that I know that have moved towards that. But one of the things that I would say, I remember having this conversation that I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive. I don't think that there's, I think the evil one. How could they possibly be? A beautiful liturgy and like worshipping in the Holy Spirit? Yeah, yeah, no. And the evil one would desire it. Today is the feast of the archangels and talks about the evil one being the liar and the

device of an obviously Michael comes in and kicks his butt. So I think that's something that's important. But somebody said to me one time, I was doing an interview and they said, is it possible that Franciscan University could be a place where you can pray in Latin and pray in tongues. Is that, is actually, is it possible that those worlds could actually live together? And I think it is, it is possible for that. And part of it is, you're right. I think, uh, uh, along you for the, the, the transcendent, um, for the beauty. Yeah. I think in a time of kind of what do they call it?

Like liquid modernity where we have no history and we don't belong to anything. There's this desire to recover the beauty of Catholicism. But no, it is, it is really cool. Like I never went. Well, what's more traditional than Pentecost? Right? Right. We celebrate the birthday of the church is Pentecost. Is it not? And I think that there needs to be an awareness of that and a recognition of that. Having not been from here, I don't know the history of the place, as I said earlier, but one thing I found really interesting is, yeah, you have these Yeah, recognition of that having not been from here. I don't know the history of the place as I said earlier

But one thing I found really interesting is yeah, you have these beautiful praise and worship nights But then when I go to daily mass, you also see these sheilas and mantias and kneeling down to receive Eucharist and Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's it's a church again. My my concern is that when The the evil one and we we unfortunately too often in times to participate with that, we create these divisions that don't need to exist. Yeah. Amen. Amen. So we've got some questions here, which I haven't gone, haven't read through yet. So we'll see. Come from our local supporters. So, okay. People are watching this live.

Yeah. We have 427 people watching right now. What's the- Before we do that, the wild goose chase, Googling was inconclusive. So, there you go. It's unclear where the term comes from. And the wild goose, Holy Spirit is from the early church.

And also there was a sacking of Rome. That was attempted, I think it was Rome, where as the gulls were coming in, the geese were making a lot of noise. So it woke all the soldiers up. Oh, how cool. It's like a vigilance thing. Yeah. Do you concur? I do. I do. That's absolutely right. The ancient cults. Now some people confuse it with gray goose. The vodka. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Graceful Catholic says,

what's the best way to encourage our children to discern religious life versus technical college versus mainstream college? That's a good question. Um, well, I guess the just, yeah, the big question is it relates to discernment. Authentic discernment is always between two goods. And that's important that we recognize that, that, that I don't have to discern between whether or not I should be a priest or I should be a drug dealer in Vegas, right? So it's always between two goods.

And to that end, the Lord desires to fulfill the deepest desire of our hearts. The Psalms speak of it. Interesting. St. John Vianney said, the Lord delights in doing the will of those who love Him, which seems to be opposite of what we would think. So part of that is, what is the deepest desire of the heart of your son or daughter, and really being able to help them walk through that and discover that. Now for me, that takes a while. As I mentioned earlier, as a fairly young age, I thought about maybe the Lord was calling me to be a priest, but

I also dated, you know, I had girlfriends, and so the heart is fickle. I remember being back at the university as a student writing in my journal, you know, Lord, I'm so grateful that now I understand that I'm called to get married. Well, I also had this huge crush on this girl, right? So the discernment takes time because our heart is, there's secrets of our heart that we don't know. So I think that's part of it is, what is the deepest desire of the heart of the individual? And that needs to be with spiritual direction

and with counsel because if we merely follow our heart and it's like whatever my heart says, that's not what I'm saying. It's that deepest desire because the deepest desire of my heart is where the Lord dwells. So to be able to discover that. So that's the first point is that the Lord is inviting us to follow him and be faithful to him. You know, and again, part of it is

I'm going to probably pay for this, but I don't think necessarily everybody's called to university. You know, I don't think everybody's called to get a degree. And what is it that they ultimately are going to be about being the person that God created them to be, be about participating in the kingdom and the building of the kingdom of God and something that's life-giving. So for some, that's gonna be university,

for others, it's not gonna be university. Now, as it relates to, and she didn't necessarily, it's a she, was it she? Yes. She didn't necessarily say this, but I think that one of the things that, having dealt with young people for a lot when they're discerning whether or not to be a religious or discerning to be married, it's this, but I think that one of the things that, having dealt with young people for a lot when they're discerning whether or not to be a religious

or discerning to be married, it's interesting because I think sometimes they focus more on the ends rather than the process of getting there. And so the one piece of advice I always give is, is first off, discern whether or not you're called to be celibate. Because if you're not called to be celibate, you're not called to be a priest, right?

So if you sense that you're being called to be celibate, okay, not called to be a priest. Right. So if you're, if you sense that you're being called to be celibate, okay, Lord, how am I supposed to live that celibacy out? And that's a whole nother. Yeah. I was going to ask you that question where, I mean, there's, there's a lot of people today who are like, why, why would I send my kids to university? Not just because of the woke influence, but just cause there are other things that they could be doing and it feels like America has, it feels like in America, people think if I don't go to

university, then there's something wrong with me, which in Australia, it's not like that. People go get a trade, they go do something useful with their lives. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's actually important. Well, first off, there's, there's the education and the degree, depending on what a person's called to as far as the work in the ministry that they're involved in there's also the

Which for me was so important was just the formation the human formation the spiritual formation the social Formation that takes place in those four years from 18 It's interesting studies say that from these are kids that are actively going to church by the time when they're 18 by the time they're 23, 70% are not going to church anymore. Those years are profoundly important. And I think that choosing no matter where you do, but being very intentional about that choosing an area in a place in transition that's going to help support your faith, you know, I think is no, you're exactly right. I mean, the formation that you get at a school like Franciscan is huge. We already talked about that, the peer pressure to be a saint. Emma asks, how can late 21st century Americans better imitate St. Francis's example?

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, one of the things Francis would go on to say, he said, the Lord invited me to live penance and to preach penance. So if you read Francis's text, he's often talking about penance. But for him, we think of penance is like a singular thing. We go to confession, we do our penance for pen for Francis, it was it was a way of life. It was a way of living. So what does that look like for the person today? Francis would say there were five elements to it.

First off, love God. Love Him and give your heart to Him. Put Him in the center of your life. Next, he said, would love your neighbor. Love that individual, love the leper, the person that just drives you crazy and baddie. The next he would say is there needs to be hatred of sin. We live in a world today that largely doesn't talk about sin

and to our demise, honestly. So Francis said there needs to be hatred of sin. The next he said frequent reception of the sacraments, particularly Eucharist and confession and participating that and live in that. And then the last, the fifth element of living penance that Francis would say was living a life worthy of producing a penance of works of penance,

works of mercy, outreach to the poor, evangelization, catechesis, those things. So those five elements are in the life of the individual. Yeah, it's great. But the other thing that's really important, and again, Francis, have you been to Sisi? I have. Okay, so the Umbrian Valley,

you're standing up looking over the valley. This was back in 2000, and I wasn't yet really a Christian, at least a practicing one, so I don't remember a lot of it. It's beautiful. So, C.C.'s kind of built up on a hill and he's overlooking the Imbrian Valley. And this is, religious life is fundamentally different

after the time of Francis. And he said, the world is gonna be my cloister. And he said, I'm not gonna build a wall around the friars that separates us from the people. And that's the nature of the incarnation incarnation is that God enters the messiness. And that's what that's key for Franciscan, Franciscan university is that we want to engage the world. We want to graduate men and women that are going to go and they're going to

become incarnational to the world. So that was key for Francis as well, is that you need to be able to engage the world to bring about transformation. Transformation is going to happen happen from the inside. Yeah. Jonah Peace says, what's the best way that young Catholic families can interact with Franciscan university and the student built community from other parts of the country? My husband and I are in Alaska raising young children. We are not alumni,

but have watched father Dave's interviews and classes. It's interesting. I don't know what's going on in Alaska. I think we have got five or six freshmen from Alaska. They say it's crazy. Yeah. Well, first off, yeah, we do a lot that's offered online, but one of the great outreaches of the university is our conferences. So every summer we've got for youth conferences, we've got about 25 conferences around the country. You've spoke for us, obviously. How many people go to these 25 youth conferences, we've got about 25 conferences around the country you've spoke for us, obviously. How many people go to these 25 youth conferences? Bullpark.

BC before COVID, about 60,000. Remarkable. Yeah, yeah. So the other is that coming to near you is, but the other thing that we're doing that's really exciting, this could actually be something that could be possible for someone in Alaska is we're providing parish missions.

And you would appreciate this, that there is a really, I think, important ministry, it's called them, event-type ministry where we come to a parish in a community and we put on a mission. So if that's something you're interested in, you could reach out to our outreach office and we'd love to be able to do something like that for you. With that being said, Alaska is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I've heard that. It's just stunningly beautiful.

Interior Castle One says, where in the UK do you know of any way my daughter can get a Catholic University education in the UK, Europe without having to move to the US? I went to Marivale Institute in Birmingham, England. Is that graduate school or is it an undergraduate? That's both. Is it? Yeah, that's both. So I did a lot of my undergraduate there and that Cardinal John Henry Newman, Cardinal Saint John Henry Newman.

Yeah, his his room was right above the chapel there. His kneeler is there. And so that's one. Yeah, honestly, I'm not that familiar. That's certainly one I'm not familiar with a lot of others. We do offer an online program in a couple of areas, theology, philosophy, business, undergrad or both. Undergraduate and both.

Oh, do you? Can someone get a theology degree at undergrad? They can. Distance? Yeah, our preference is that because education is formation, so it's not the area that we necessarily wanna go as full board you know I think education especially 18 to 20 and 18 25 being together being around each other is really really important but that's

something that's available to the students fact I think we've got 1100 online students this year that's more people are taking an opportunity for that you tell me you gotta go okay I don't want to Yeah. Patrick Lord says fully embracing their Catholic identity has been beneficial for Franciscans. So why don't more Catholic universities do the same? I can't speak to that. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I could make up some reasons, but I don't know. We've touched this, but if you want to take another swing at it, feel free. Comes from Mary Beth. Hi, Matt.

Curious if the university has faced has been faced with any woke students who We've touched this, but if you want to take another swing at it, feel free. Comes from Mary Beth. Hi, Matt. Curious if the university has faced, has been faced with any woke students who push transgender and critical race ideologies. I realize the students there are primarily conservative, but have they dealt with this? What is their stand on these topics? Yeah, I mean, we do. We've got young people that are wrestling with that. We've got, yeah, I mean, it's foolish to say

that the kids aren't there. But again, and we honestly, I don't think we necessarily answer the question well. I mean, my same desire for them, for kids who are struggling with that is the same that I have for anybody. And that that's that they come to know Jesus and they come to know his love and come to know his healing

and come to know his mercy and his freedom. So that's how I wanna treat all of our kids. I would like to say that if you're struggling with these that Franciscan University is the best place because there you're going to find a community that's going to love you, but love you in truth. Love isn't just, one of the things that drives me crazy, Matt, is this love is love. All love is is the same. All love is not the same.

I've had too many people come into my office that have been forced to do things in the name of love, right? All love is not the same. And I've been loved by the Lord and I've been loved by other people and I know it's not the same. But my hope and my desire is that we can have an environment where young people can wrestle with this and really ask honest questions. I think the reality is that maybe sometimes at the university it's the opposite, is kids

are afraid to admit that. They're afraid to say, you know, I struggle with this. Kids will come to me and they'll say, you know, again, because everything they've been told for 18 years is one thing that they say, Father David, I just don't understand what the Church is saying. It doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't seem nice. It says Jesus is loving what he really asks.

I remember somebody said to me, actually, this was a really beautiful encounter I had with a young man at the university. He went to the movie Lord of the Rings. And you're going to have to forgive me. I'm not a huge student of Lord of the Rings. Frodo. Frodo. Frodo. Thank you. He's the one with the ring. Correct. I tons of judgment coming.

I didn't think I was going to judge you as harshly as I currently am. I felt it. I felt it coming across right now. As soon as I said this, I know this is not good. So the young guy was in my office and he struggled with, with same sexsex attractions. And he said, Father Dave, I watched this movie and I was just like weeping. It's like, what's going on?

And he said, the ring. He said, I know what that's like. He said, I didn't ask for this. I didn't want it. Wow, bless him. Yeah, it was so good for, I think for him to admit that and to talk about it, but also for me to hear that because there's a way sometimes, and it's because of the activism we had this idea of what somebody looks like this right?

But this was this was a 19 year old kid that was so honest and so real and said I didn't ask for this I don't want this. I can't seem to get rid of it, right? But the reality is and honestly Matt amongst people with faith on is that they're not going to come because they've experienced judgment. Like you just judged me for the record. That's right. You don't want to go watch Lord of the Rings now. Seriously. But yeah, so my hope is, and that's one of the things I'm really proud of the Inegratis program is that is that we create an environment where where young people can ask the question and without condemnation, without judgment and saying, I just need, and that's what I hope we're doing. We have Orlando.

I see that super chat there, which I want to read, but I got a story. One of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me at these Franciscan youth conferences, if you don't mind, I was giving a talk on pornography. I guess that was one of the main themes of this particular conference a few years ago. And I've made, I've been speaking about this for so long and I always make a deal, make a point in saying that, you know, men struggle with pornography, women struggle with pornography. You know, for women it's so difficult. Audrey Assad once said that men struggle, but at least they're all in the same prison cell together. That's what it's like. She said for us women, it's like we're in solitary confinement and we don't

believe anybody else has ever struck with this. So I gave this talk, right? And it's Saturday night and it's the beautiful prayer thing. It's beautiful. And all I want to do is go back to the hotel and go to bed because I'm tired. And I wasn't feeling any of the nice things that you should feel or do not should feel, but sometimes feel. And so I was standing there wondering if I should just duck out for the night and this woman comes up to me in the dark, you know, hey, what's up? And I could tell that something was up because she'd been crying.

So I was going to try to redirect her to one of the female team members, but she wanted to speak to me and I knew what was up already. Right. And she she said, I've been coming to these youth conferences for years. I think she was like 21 at this point. And I've I've always struggled with something and I've never told anybody about it. And of course I've been through all the safety training. I'm terrified of this conversation. So at this point I'm like, well, you don't have to tell me, you can tell somebody else, but I, I'll respect.

What do you think? It's like such a weirdo. Um, but then she said, like, I've been, I've been looking at porn ever since I was, I forget what she said, eight or nine. And I gave that girl the most affectionate side hug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I've been I did. I just said to her, you beautiful thing. I said, I love you. You're good. You're good. You're beautiful.

And you're not a freak and you're not the ugly things. You tell yourself that you are. And that's the thing is, and just real quick. And then I said to her, but I need you to go to confession. And then I need you to come and tell me what you've done. Yeah next morning She looked like a totally different person. She was skipping up to me with the most beautiful smile on her face She said confession was so beautiful and I think there is a special place in heaven for priests who are kind in confession Yeah, cuz you know he could have he could have you know

I'm sure you're cognizant of this as a confessor people come bring this stuff to you that if you're If you're harsh with them, even maybe unintentionally, you can really do some damage when people are in that vulnerable state. So God bless that priest. In fact, I actually, I mentioned when I'm at the conferences, I always pull the priest aside on Friday night before we get started and said, you know,

some of these kids, it's gonna take everything they have to come up and just to do our best to be as compassionate. But again, I always go back to the woman caught in the act of adultery, you know, is there no one here to condemn you? And yeah, we need to, we need to speak in truth and charity and humility, but there are kids that are really, really suffering and we can be dismissive about that. And again, I've had enough.

You can get heart into it when you encounter the same thing again and again and again and again and again and you forget that this is the first time this person's bringing this thing to you. Yeah, exactly. I remember one, another, this was actually a friend of mine and I honestly, I kind of thought maybe he struggled with being gay. And we were just having a conversation and he said, I need to talk to you. I said, okay. And he said, it's about the worst thing you can imagine. And this was a moment. Patricide? I said, I need to talk to you. I said, okay. And he said, it's about the worst thing you can imagine.

And this was a moment. Patricide? This was a moment of grace. And I said, you're dying. He said, and he said, no. I said, oh, that's the worst thing I could imagine. And then he just shared with me that he was struggling with same sex attractions. And, but again, there, and I'm sure you've experienced it.

When you're walking and you see somebody in front of you, it reminds us it's a person. It's a person who's afraid, who's struggling, and we just need to be able to be present. And that's their lives, I think, the balance. I mean, yeah. I mean, you can go to the other extreme. Yeah. And so, there's a chance. Well, here's another story. And I think it may have been the Holy Spirit who guided this conversation because what I'm about To say might sound really harsh to people and I wouldn't ever use this as like a blanket statement to anyone who came up to me

But this fella comes up to me and he's really having a difficult time telling me that he has same-sex attraction and for whatever reason I'm like, you know, you're not special right? Yeah, you don't think I struggle with crap all the time Yeah, like it's not us versus you You don't think I struggle with crap all the time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it's not us versus you. Why is your crap so different? We're just all in this together. Exactly, exactly. But he ended up writing a book for Life Teen on on Same Sex Attraction. Yeah.

And he mentions that encounter at that Franciscan conference. Anyway, before I forget, we have a question here from Orlando. Any chance that university grows and there are satellite campuses throughout the country, Texas. And when could that happen? That's a great question. We're actually talking a lot about that and what does that look like for us to grow and what is that for us to have a bigger tent?

One of the, one of the things that I struggle with is that at times people say you should just do what you do at student bill here. I firmly believe there's a particular anointing and there's a particular grace and that can't necessarily be replicated. It's, you know, the friars are part of that. You can't just go and create something. So we're asking that question. You know, we're looking at perhaps having pods in, you know, some major cities where maybe connect to a large parish or community that we can have some of the outreach there. So stay tuned. That's one of the things that we're really questioning with right now. What does it look like for us to be able to reach out to a broader population? Two things I want to hit before you leave.

I'll ask you, Neil, to put links in the description below. One is if there's parents or like teenagers watching right now and they want to learn more about Franciscan because maybe they want to come here next year and do life with us. Yeah. How do they do that? Franciscan.edu. And what like what, can they just, what do they do? I don't understand, do they just write and do they send them a package or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you're interested, right.

If you go to the website and there's all kinds of information that tells our story. And first off, yeah, it just tells the story of the university and then if they're a student who wants information, perspective information, we make all that available to them. Okay, franciscan.edu. And then the other question I have is,

we have these beautiful Steubenville, isn't that funny? They called Steubenville youth conferences in other cities. Well, it started because we were doing conferences before they changed the name to Francis university in the late eighties and we were already doing these student conferences. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah. Okay. That makes more sense. We kind of wish we would have done it differently, but what do you do? Okay. Cause there's such a name brand right now. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So if people wanted to attend a student bill youth conference or Franciscan, what do they do?

The same thing that they went to Franciscan EDU. They can find the conferences. I'm I should know this. If you just find the link for Franciscan conferences, they're everywhere now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All across the country and at least busing distance. So you can just put a link in there. See, Bob and I don't do links in our podcast, but you guys do links because we don't know what that you don't have a Neil. Yeah, that's right. He crushes it. There you go.

He asks questions like it's already in there. And he's all, and he's also like, what's a wild goose chase? Feels like you should have known that. Judgment all around. I just started reading the Lord of the Rings to my son last night. Yeah. Just last night. You know, it's funny. Okay. Can I just forgive me? I just, I the Lord of the Rings to my son last night. Yeah. Just last night. Can I just forgive me? I just, I don't know what I'm about to say. Maybe you don't have to like it. Maybe heresy. Okay. I'll tell you. Okay.

Thanks. Um, I, okay. This is, I'm about to make a confession here. Here we go. Is this still recorded? Is this still recorded? It is. You sure you want us to cut to black? Okay. I never read Chronicles of Narnia. Yes. Who cares? They're gorgeous. They're okay. No, they're beautiful. My niece and I, a number of years ago, read them. She lives in Cleveland. I was in DC at the time. I love them. Have you read Lord of the ranks? I just said this is confession. No. Okay.

If you think Narnia is good really realms of pleasure. It's like a cigarette versus a thick Cuban. What are you doing? You got to do it. You got to invest. I promise you. Here's the thing. So in the movies again, I'm so beautiful, but it just some of the fight scenes go on forever.

You know what goes on forever is Tolkien's description of trees. Forests. Yeah, I mean, can I can I go back to this? Did you OK? I appreciate that you love Tolkien's. Did you like Lord of Chronicles? And I didn't really like it. I read the line, the witch in the wardrobe.

I read them all. I tried. Coming, coming, coming, coming, coming. I'm getting line the witch in the wardrobe read them all I Know I read a couple of the other ones I read what was one with Diggory Magicians nephew I read and I also read the last battle, but I didn't like either of them that much I loved him. I just thought they were I just thought the allegories he laid on too thick and I would like to read him to Myself, I'm glad that you love them. And maybe maybe you shouldn't read the rings. I don't know. Maybe I should. But you know, you're not the first person to tell me that. Put down the Bible, Father, and pick up the Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, that's a good idea. But I'm trying. I'm wondering how to get how to get into it. Like how would because it's like there's other authors. I love Dostoevsky and he's got some lovely short stories and novellas that I'd say to someone. If you're not sure if you could like Dostoevsky or Tolstoy read this. Sorry. Read the death of Ivan Ilyich or something and if you like it then you can.

Well some people have said to me that yeah it was a gateway drug that Chronicles and Arnie was a gateway into that so maybe I just need to give it a shot. Tolkien's like Aquinas it's an it's Everest how do you come at it? Yeah yeah yeah. It's just it's worth it though. All right all right. Me and Mike Welker read the books last year June, July. I'm sure. Actually, just as you said that, when Mike and I and Cindy lived together in Austria and on Thanksgiving day,

they would show all three movies the same day, the extended. They are big nerds. Unbelievable. Some of the most beautiful people I've ever met. I'm so glad we live three doors down from them. They are just delightful. Good people. I texted Cindy. This is one of the beautiful things about living in Catholic community.

It's walking distance. I texted Cindy last night and I said, do you guys have any Kahlua? Hashtag not alcoholic. And she's like, I've left it on the table. I'm heading out. I'm headed out. Come get it. And I know which doors always go into a house. Yeah, no, that's I mean, Catholic communities do other things. That's free. Free Kahlua.

I mean, you're mixing it with cream. What were you doing with it? Oh, white Russians are the best. What's your favorite drink? I probably a single malt. I mean, just straight up. What's your favorite Scotch? Go to his Belvani, the Belvani Caribbean cask.

You've not had the Belvani Caribbean cask. It's maybe not had Belveni at all. No, I don't think so. Oh, Belveni is a really, really, that's my favorite. Lagervillen. Lagervillen is really, really good. It's, it's, uh, I kind of feel about that. I do about IPAs. Um, it's, it's really smoky and I like to have it every now and then. Like just kind of a day to day, uh Balvenie 12, Balvenie Caribbean cask is just really, really nice. Good.

Father Dave, thank you so much for coming on the show. God bless you. My pleasure. God bless you.