Question of Faith
A weekly question of faith answered by Cleveland Catholics. Fr. Damian Ference, Vicar of Evangelization and Deacon Mike Hayes Director of Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Cleveland co-host with frequent guests from the Diocesan Office who join in the conversation. Sponsored by Briefcase Marketing--check them out at https://www.Briefcase.marketing
Question of Faith
Is It OK to Be A Man?
Is it okay to be a man in today's world? Join us as we disucss "Professor G's" thoughts on "aspirational masculinity" and how it stands in stark contrast to the often criticized "toxic masculinity." We explore the perceptions young men face, feeling sidelined in political and social realms, while celebrating their distinct attributes from a Catholic perspective. How might men and women move towards cooperation rather than competition.
Is gender-specific programming a good thing? We reflect on both media and spiritual outreach and share the dynamic ways to engage men spiritually, drawing inspiration from nature-based activities and father-son retreats. Discover how targeted approaches can foster more profound connections, illustrated by personal anecdotes and strategies that reveal the diverse interests of different genders. St. Charles Borromeo Parish's men's choir is a great example here.
Church Search visits St. John Neumann and their vibrant music ministry. We discuss the power of complementary voices and the playful dynamics that arise from our contrasting tastes in celebrations.
Readings for this week can be found here.
On today's Question of Faith. Is it okay to be a man? Hey everybody, this is Question of Faith. I am Deacon Mike Hayes. I'm the Director of Young Adult Ministry here in the Diocese of Cleveland.
Speaker 2:And I'm Father Damian Ferencz, the Vicar for Evangelization.
Speaker 3:And I'm Maria Wankata, Marriage and Family Ministry Specialist.
Speaker 1:Is it okay to be a man?
Speaker 2:I almost started laughing as you asked the question, even though I proposed it. I thought it was funny hearing you say it.
Speaker 1:We should have Maria say it. That's funny. So we're talking a little bit. We don't talk about politics much on this show and we're trying to broaden this out a little bit, but you and I both saw the same story on CNN about so-called aspirational masculinity. Professor G, if you listen to his podcast, that's what he talks about all the time. It's this sort of one-note wonder there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never heard of it before aspirational masculinity, or did I hear of Professor G, but it sounds like he's been saying this for a little while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for a number of years for sure, and I think that with the current election we've seen that men and especially younger men in particular, I think, kind of came out and kind of pushed all the votes over towards Trump's side because they feel left out in society, according to Professor G's theory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things that he said that I thought was very interesting was and again, we're going to talk politics, but it's not a political show but there's a lot that's interesting to the Catholic, that can be gleaned from current events and political situations, and one of these things is that for some time, young men have felt neglected or ostracized or put down. We've heard the term over and over again, toxic masculinity, which I understand as men at their worst, but it seems like some streams of feminism see that is what men are they're toxic by nature, which obviously is not part of our Catholic tradition.
Speaker 2:Our Catholic teaching is we're made in God's image and likeness. We're made for each other. We work best together. Men and women complement each other, but because of history and because of wounds and because of hurt and heartache, of men at times hurting women or whether it's fathers or boyfriends or husband, whatever oftentimes and all men are seen in this light of toxicity, this guy, professor G, proposed a new or it's new to me anyway, this new term, which is Aspirational masculinity. Aspirational masculinity. So, you want to contrast? Well, yeah.
Speaker 1:So like we like to make distinctions right, so I would say a couple things. I love that. See, you've rubbed off on me here, it's your philosophy stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the yeah. The art of philosophy is the art of making helpful distinctions. When you can make a distinction, you know more, so go on.
Speaker 1:Well, so like aspirational masculinity, according to Professor G, would be feeling good about being a man period. And then I think the thing that people are feeling neglected by is that there are certain groups that will say, yeah, men should not feel good about being men and that for women, in order for women to kind of boost themselves forward, men have to be sublimated in some way. You know it's not putting people on equal fields. Now we have to pile on and you know and some people will say, it's about men losing power, right, which is disorienting. True, but that's not what this is about. I don't think.
Speaker 1:I think this is what Professor G is saying. It's like, no, no, men are okay with losing power and giving more power to women. That's a problem, but I don't have to feel like crap in order for you to feel good. There's a big difference there. And then you know, let's go the other way. Now. You know, toxic masculinity is sort of that in reverse. You know where men have to push women down in order to feel good about themselves or, you know, have some sense of control or domination over another group of people, not just women, I would say the children and everybody else.
Speaker 2:So I think a distinction that's helpful is complementarity versus competitiveness. Yeah, that's a good point, and so when men and women are competing with each other, they're actually not at their best, and one then has to win. When we're complementary, we bring our own gifts to the table and bless each other with those gifts. Now, maria, you do a lot of work in this regard, so what do you have to say?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So in watching that clip from the interview on CNN with Scott Galloway he was talking about, yeah, that aspirational masculinity was like feeling good about being a man, but then he also more contextualized it in the realm of economic opportunity that you know, because you're a man, you know you don't deserve or you are privileged in this way and we need to elevate women or other people beyond, beyond men, and I think that passiveness in masculinity, but then also the toxic masculinity and dominating are both effects of the fall and men, in both ways, can either overemphasize by being dominating or can seek to be passive and be walked over because they feel guilty about being a man, when, as to your point, Father Damien there's a complementarity in understanding the nature of masculinity and the nature of femininity and how the both can complement and should work together.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I like the passivity part. I hadn't heard that before.
Speaker 2:But you've talked about that, deacon Mike on the show.
Speaker 1:You're right.
Speaker 2:In that you've often recognized that the culture, when it holds up men, it's the Homer Simpsons, it's the Peter Griffiths.
Speaker 1:Archie Bunker. Let's go way back. Archie Bunker Right, which failed. Failed, by the way, because I became a lovable bigot. People loved Archie Bunker.
Speaker 2:I. That was before my time. I also don't know if I was allowed to watch it or watched it but I had limitations on that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah but we do not have many great examples of what I would call a healthy masculinity in in the culture. And so I think, because of well, because of hurts and wounds, then that's when the guys are like, all right, we're going to back up, we're not going to do anything and we're just but, but then they lose themselves. And women need men to be good and they need men to be strong. They need men to be strong and use their gifts to bless the world and to bless society and civilization. But those gifts are never in order to dominate. They're actually to serve and to protect. And that may sound like, you know, the police force or something. But men, our bodies, are stronger and they are bigger. The muscle mass, all those sorts of things. This isn't a blanket statement. There are certainly strong women, that one woman who played in the Olympics. What was she? Rugby was she playing. You know who I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Yes, she was just on Dancing with the Stars and she's going to be on the Bachelorette and her name is escaping me as well. But I'll get it.
Speaker 2:In'll get it, but she's a beautiful woman but a very strong frame. But that's not. That's not typical. So you know. Anyway, this gets into all other, a whole other issues, but the point is that men and women are both created in God's image and likeness. Edith Stein does a lot of work on on this and she shows how they compliment each other. They have different gifts that they bring to the table, and different doesn't mean unequal. It means that they complement each other in ways. Alona Mars name of that woman Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say, like with masculinity, it's the initiation. So there's this essence to initiate and give externally and be selfless, and I think that's the messaging. Just to go back to the election, and messaging was I think that's what resonated with men, like this inherent desire to want to be selfless and give of themselves and contribute to society and just uphold the dignity of men overall. And the way that men do that is lived out in different ways. We're not talking stereotypes, but just this essence of masculinity.
Speaker 2:The other interesting point in that CNN interview that I did not realize and I sent you this stat was they said that the Trump campaign went to these podcasts that are the Rogan's podcast. When he interviewed Trump had 55 million listeners. The average age was 34 and the average listener is male. And then they compared that to MSNBC, where the average viewer or listener is 1.1 million people, 70-year-old, women, and so in the targeting of their audiences, the GOP was able to reach an audience that the DNC wasn't able to reach this time around and that Professor Gee even said. When he went on the website he noted that the different categories of person, the different demographics men weren't listed in there and he wrote he said you don't list men in there and he thought that was a lacuna. That was a mistake to make, huge yeah no, a huge mistake.
Speaker 1:What I was noticing, too, is two things, as someone who listens to Joe Rogan and MSNBC and a bunch of other things, right, Cultural research at its best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, love it.
Speaker 1:No, but I mean, and as a media expert, right in some way Like.
Speaker 1:I worked in this business for a long time when we worked at the All Sports Station and when I worked at a station that was more female-oriented, the All Sports Station was always after men 25 to 54 straight up. Right, that was the. That was the only demo they even cared about for the most part, where the other station was more female and cared about everything, but they were. When they went solely after women, the station started to go into the tank and then they got a couple political shows to be on the talk format for a while and slowly the ratings started to climb and I was like, yeah, you alien. You know men aren't going to listen to shows that are just about women. Some women will listen to shows that are just about men, but it doesn't work the other way and I don't know when suddenly someone in the Democratic Party thought that shifted.
Speaker 2:What's interesting is in the church. We've done the same thing Because when I got here.
Speaker 2:What's interesting is, in the church we've done the same thing, because when I got here, we were doing the evening of confession campaign and we were using radio stations that mothers listened to because the thought was that they have the influence over their husbands and their children to get them to mass and to go to confession. But I came in as a at that time a 45 year old man and I said look where, why aren't we going after the guys? So then we started taking out ads on sports, talk radio and other other radio stations that were predominantly listened to by our male audience. We didn't get rid of the female audience, but it was. We were making sure we were reaching both the male and the female audiences, and you go to different places for that. Interestingly, if you read the scriptures, when men have encounters with God, most of those encounters actually happen outside the home and in the wilderness, in the desert around the mountain, around the sea, and we've forgotten that as a church.
Speaker 2:So sometimes, even as we're planning retreats, sometimes it's good to take guys out in nature and to get them to do stuff. I know at the seminary when we would do activities. If we took the guys out and we're like we're cutting down bushes and chopping down trees, they would actually start talking and sharing as they're working, doing those things. So that's different. Men share more naturally that way, correct, yeah, when they're doing and being and even at like family parties. Oftentimes it happens and this isn't a blanket statement and these are not stereotypes, but they're recognizing the unique gifts that men and women bring. A lot of times women will gather and chat among themselves and guys will chat among themselves, and that's okay. And sometimes you have a woman who wants to be part of a conversation or a man, that's fine. But there are unique gifts that each bring to the table.
Speaker 1:Here's a great example of that, like last night I went out with my classmates after class we have our preaching class a couple times a month, or a couple times a semester, I should say and we got to this bar and we all ordered a beer and we were all putting our chairs together and I took a chair and just moved it in and they were like, oh, you can't see the game. And they immediately, like, moved the chair over and so we're all sort of facing the TV. We didn't stop talking and we talked about some pretty heavy stuff as well, but we did it while we were watching the ball game. You know, go Cavs, by the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can see this, so I have a daughter and a son and they're very close in age, they're only 19 months apart and, as much as I mean, they're in the same, being raised in the same family, but they're just very different. Just the way my son moves and what interests him and how I can motivate him and connect with him is totally different than my daughter. And he is go, go, go and he's like sports and tackling and you know, last night he was just watching Marvel movies all night. But just like there's just that, I think, just that inherent wanting to go and protect. He is a mama's boy, like it always protects mom first if anyone is ganging up or teasing on me and stuff. And just so different, um, different as being like a girl and a boy, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you've done, Maria, this. Behold retreat which you're going to do again March 25th in the spring right, and that's a mother and daughter retreat. Have you done or hosted or do you know of father-son retreats, and are those going on so?
Speaker 3:we are trying. We're attempting to launch one. We tried to do one this fall. That wasn't too successful. There is a. There is a trick in trying to get men interested in retreat um. We are teaming up with theology of the body, cleveland, and a planning team that I had for the father son retreat to um. Try to host another one in may. Um, but trying to get it off campus or placed with nature to do stuff outside and really getting men involved in the planning too. My intellect as a woman can only go so far in trying to appeal to men too.
Speaker 2:How have you done that? Because you've been part of ministry for a long time.
Speaker 1:A lot of initiation ritual kind of stuff I think think does speak to men every once in a while. Um, you know when, when I started at kinesias, the one thing I noticed when I first got there was that there were, that there weren't, a lot of guys that there was. You know, we would get the athletes to do community service, but that was pretty much it, and so I intentionally said no, no, we need to go after guys here. And they had the hardest time like trying to get guys involved. And I didn't understand it at all and I said you know, look, if you're just approachable. So I just kind of got involved in the things that guys were getting involved in on campus.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the more famous stories was that we had a really great campus minister who was really active with the athletes. He wasn't very organized, he didn't have a lot of those kinds of gifts, but he'd go out to the athletes. He'd say jump. They'd say how high, right. And someone on the staff made fun of him one day because he wasn't very organized. I made the point hey, how many people know your name on this campus? And it was a woman who did it right.
Speaker 1:And I said, because everybody knows him, you know, I was like, and you complain that no men are involved, I said, but you're not getting any men involved, you know. So let's go. You know, let's try to include everybody here. It's really hard.
Speaker 1:Men don't naturally sit around and talk, so, like you know, the retreats often weren't things that spoke to them, so you'd have to really intentionally invite them and get other guys to come who benefited from this and who talked about it and who weren't, who weren't kind of soft, right, you know, like the guys who were the athletes, the guys who were involved in I don't know any number of things that were on campus, that were um, the guys did. You know the fraternity we had one fraternity on campus, um, and you know, and you have to be careful because you know that you can go the other way too and become, you know, like, sometimes people get co-op professor g talked about this too is that sometimes thinly veiled, misogynist co-op? These groups. They say, oh yeah, here's all these guys. Now let's push them over the other way super bro group, yeah, yeah right and so we had to watch that.
Speaker 1:Um, that then here that's. That's something that we're watching here now is like you know, or some or some of these young adult groups to super bro groups you know and and? Do women feel welcome in them, or do they feel like as soon as they go in they get hit on? You know?
Speaker 3:I would say like two things. Mike is like the young adult softball has been really good for men. And then another initiative I have not been too involved with but I've heard is Exodus 90, like in the beginning of the year that just the practices that are held in that like really appeal to men, like the cold showers.
Speaker 2:Speaking of cold showers, the water is out in the rectory across the street, so I got the last of like lukewarm, annoyingly lukewarm water yesterday, but now it's cold. But guys like that, they want a challenge, a lot of times a physical challenge. They do it together because there's competition. So they like that. I've not done Exodus 90, but I know groups who have done it and who have enjoyed it. That's 90. It's a long time, but to do something together with a group in competition, I think some guys like that. So there's a lot of ways in. And yeah, it's important that the men are not ignored or that we're not using the same approaches with all sorts of people, because, as Aristotle says, that which is received is received according to the mode of the receiver. So know how people listen to things, what attracts them, and then bring them in that way. And that's true for all ages and all demographics.
Speaker 1:Know your audience. Yeah, it's really that simple. I mean it's how do you appeal to guys, do guy things, but then you know, don't go over the top. So here's a great example. So my friend was a campus minister at Portland, the University of Portland, which is a Catholic school right the same group that does Notre Dame, the Holy Cross Fathers and he started doing all kinds of like bro-y things Like he did. You know, he did a gathering, he did a cigar club, he did a Super Bowl party, he did a meat.
Speaker 2:Wrestling a bear.
Speaker 1:He did a meat roast. I would pay good money to see you wrestle a bear.
Speaker 2:I'll wrestle a bear, as long as it's like a newborn. Kill that thing.
Speaker 3:Not literally.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll pin it, though Just three seconds. Send your cards and letters, don't tell.
Speaker 1:PETA, right, exactly, darn it. But so he started doing all these things and none of the guys were going to them Zero, and I mean zero, like no one was showing up to this. And he was like, okay, I'm wasting time and money. So he took three guys on campus that he saw were like involved in a bunch of things, and he sat them down and he said, all right, look, I'm doing all this stuff, why are you not coming? Can I, can I buy you lunch just to pay for your time? And they said, well, because, like, the things that you're doing are things that we're already doing, and to do those with with church quote unquote is kind of lame. You know, they're like like we don't, we don't expect you guys to do that, do what you do. And so with church quote unquote is kind of lame, you know, they're like we don't expect you guys to do that, do what you do.
Speaker 1:And so he started a group called the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and did like it was like L-E-X it was like the little acronym and made like a little almost like a fraternity symbol, and he brought them in and what they did that he had to meet enough time. It was a small group, right, and he made several small groups of men who would meet for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever it was, whatever they wanted to do, and you had to meet often enough so that everybody could have a chance to lead at least once. And the first year all they did was they talked about um, who, who am I and what inspires me. That was it, and they only talked about that for the first year. So he was trying to get people to do this for four years during college, and so in the second year he hadn't go a little bit deeper. Who inspires me in my life? Who? Who are my heroes? Who are the people who you know, who I aspire to be or who've touched me in some way, right. And then they did that for a year.
Speaker 1:And then the third year, now they're ready to talk a little bit, to get a little more vulnerable with each other. And so he pushed him and said but you can't talk to guys about that, right? You can't say well, how are you vulnerable, father David, right? So he said how have you had to be resilient in your life? And that brought all kinds of stories out of the guys.
Speaker 1:And then the last year was and what am I going to do when I leave this place? You know, what do I look forward to in life when I've gone through this? And so he tracked it and he kept those guys together for four years. It was like six different groups and they all stayed together the whole four years. There were very few people dropped out and so he kind of led with his strength, right, you know, like you know nothing wrong with leading with the Paschal Mystery, right. And he kind of led with the four weeks of the exercises right, you know, those definitely have, you know, some correlation to the spiritual exercises. And the guys really responded to it, you know.
Speaker 1:And he had, you know, good things for them to eat and things like that at the meetings. You know that was fine, but he didn't kind of go over the top with it.
Speaker 2:Go on, I was going to say.
Speaker 3:that sounds really interesting because I think, in cultivating and forming masculinity, is that deeper identity of men being fatherhood, expressing fatherhood spiritually, physically, and that through that, men image the Father, god, the Father to all of us in the world. I was with a group of women recently and it's asking them about their relationship with the Father, and many of them spoke about their fathers or uncles, or even, you know, other men or brothers that they've encountered in their lives. Yeah, priests that helped form an image their relationship with God, the Father.
Speaker 1:Did you see how that was competitive with us? That's a guy there. Yeah, it is Well two, the generative nature.
Speaker 2:So I don't have any biological children. Neither does Deacon.
Speaker 1:Mike.
Speaker 2:But we have to be generative in our masculinity and that looks different than your generativity as a woman, you know. So I was also thinking as you were speaking. There's a new men's choir at St Charles Borromeo Parish in Parma. Our friend, mark Gorsuch, has been posting on it recently, I think. They sing once a month, maybe at the 10 o'clock or 1030 mass, but Father Carlin wasn't sure how this would go and it turns out there's 40 guys who wanted to be part of this group and of course, like softball, it's not just about softball, so this isn't just about choir, but they're getting together. I think they go out after and they're building up friendships, and the guys like being with other guys and sharing their faith, and so that's a great thing too. You say you want to start something at your parish. Maybe you do a men's choir and you sing once a month. That could be cool.
Speaker 1:That's the idea. We're talking about this at St Chris now. It's like how do we get guys more involved? Try a men's choir, I might bring that up. That's a good idea.
Speaker 3:I think it speaks to the value of men's only spaces and women's only spaces I know with far out survive women. It's always, it's always rough getting women to come out and making sure you have enough, but there's always guys willing to play and the men's only leagues like thrive.
Speaker 2:When I was in high school, my junior year, I remember, the choir at Holy Name was always all girls and I needed some credits. My senior year I'm like there's all girls in there. That'd be pretty cool. So it was me, pat Butler, who currently does like the traffic for 1100, rob Luski, I think there were three of us. There were 72 girls and three guys. It was awesome. And then the year after, because other guys saw us in there, the choir went up about like 15 guys and it rounded out the choir too, because you had bass voices there and tenors, I suppose. Sure, but it was really cool. So there's even something in the complementarity of the sexes that plays out when men and women sing together or pray together. When I was a parish priest in Hudson, I'd pray night prayer with my teens and we'd go back and forth the guys and the girls, we'd go stanza to stanza and it was just really beautiful harmony and complementarity of voices. That takes place too. I love it.
Speaker 1:So cool. Yeah, I mean think about all these a cappella groups that are out there too, and some of them are all men and some of them are all women.
Speaker 2:Or how about some of these duets with a man and a woman singing together like I Got you Babe with Sonny and Cher?
Speaker 1:Lady Gaga and Tony.
Speaker 2:Bennett or Lady Gaga and the guy who sang in the the Shallow. What's the guy's name? Cooper?
Speaker 1:Bradley Cooper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. Or Iggy Pop and Kate Pearson from B-52 singing Candy. That's one of my favorite songs. Love to link it. Maybe not Anyway, but yeah, there's so much when men and women sing together, it's good. Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow would probably not sing together today, but they did that song Photograph back in the day. Picture Picture, not photograph. Picture Photograph is nickel, it's country, I know it. Photograph is who? Jeff Leppard? No, not Creed, the other one, nickelback. Oh, okay. Look at this photograph. Every time I do it, it makes me laugh.
Speaker 1:Whatever, maria, you have to sing that around.
Speaker 2:No, come on, maria sing, do you sing even?
Speaker 3:In the car with the music up way loud, so I don't hurt myself All right, that's great, all right.
Speaker 1:So church search Maria. All right, that's great, all right. So church search Maria. You're now at St John Newman, correct, yeah?
Speaker 3:we were just visiting. We had some friends James' friend that we went to Mass with on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Your son.
Speaker 3:St John Newman yes, my son.
Speaker 2:And I will be there this Sunday at 5 pm Mass. I hope to see some of our Tole Legge friends there who I met this summer. Father Barry Gearing is the pastor. He did some nice renovations in the church, recently added some statuary, redid the sanctuary, pulled out a section. They have one of the best music ministries in the diocese. It's beautiful, they do contemporary music and they also work in traditional hymns, kind of like Matt Maher does, and then sure gives them little twists and wrinkles, um, that are that are nice, aesthetically pleasing and uh yeah, it's a pretty packed mass. I like it there a lot, so it's right off 42. The only thing I I don't like about strongsville is the traffic and you live in strongsville, man, I know they're fighting to get a new exit off um 71 there, but boy it's. Yeah, the traffic on 82 and 42 can be nuts, but not on a Sunday evening.
Speaker 3:Not on a Sunday evening, sunday middle of the day, saturday middle of the day. Yeah, you want to avoid 82 and 42.
Speaker 1:That's great, all right, and then readings for this coming Sunday, for the 33rd Sunday in ordinary time. Oh boy, if you've got to preach on this. In those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky and the powers in the heavens will be shaken and they will see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the end of the sky. Apocalyptic, are you preaching?
Speaker 2:this weekend. I am preaching, I am preaching this weekend.
Speaker 1:So I looked at this and I was like yeah, well, father Klebo clearly looked ahead at the readings and said let's give this one to the deacon and yeah, but I think you know, a lot of these things are about the end of the world, you know, and so what I think the task I'm going to take is, you know, worlds end all the time you know, people have tragedies in their life all the time and they think that there's nothing, there's nothing left, and they fall into despair.
Speaker 1:And so you know where are you going to be when your world ends. What will you depend on when your world ends, and then maybe give some examples to that?
Speaker 2:I was going to say chin, like, be not afraid when the Lord comes again. That's not bad news. That's actually good news, because he's doing what he promised to do and we're waiting on that. How about you, Maria?
Speaker 3:I think you know we're getting close to Advent, so where we prepare for the birth of Jesus but also prepare for the second coming, and I think this is getting us ready for that next season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's nice to live in this part of the country where the seasons tie in with the liturgical season. The leaves are almost all off the trees now, or getting close, and there's the dying, and then the following week will be Christ the King, and then, as Maria says, we're into Advent.
Speaker 1:Speaking of Christ the King and Christ the King, Sunday we will be having our young adult mass and we'll be at St John Bosco this year, where we played softball. So softball reunion, if you're, if you're, out there come on out. Um, and we'll have. Uh, bruno's will be doing the catering. So we'll have that in the bell tower afterwards. So come on by. And so it's four o'clock on a Saturday. What day, what day of the month is that the?
Speaker 2:23rd.
Speaker 1:Yes, the 23rd. Saturday, the 23rd St John Bosco Young Adult Mass, which is our yearly gathering for the global celebration of young people.
Speaker 2:You know I am sad that I won't be there, but one of my dear friends from my first youth group, who I met when she was 16, is getting married that day, christy Fleming. So she and Mike are going to be celebrating and I have to be there for that.
Speaker 1:She's one of my dearest friends. Yeah, congrats to them.
Speaker 2:They're young adults.
Speaker 1:Next week, on the 19th and the 20th respectively. On the 19th, theology on Tap West will be having Bishop Woos as their speaker. On the 20th, theology on Tap East, at Bar Louis, we'll put all this information in the show notes, but at Bar Louis Bishop Molesik will be the speaker, so it's a bishop-filled weekend.
Speaker 2:They're at the USCCB conference right now in Baltimore, so pray for our bishops.
Speaker 1:Yes, I watched the opening mass the other day on livestream Really, which was nice.
Speaker 2:That's something I would never think of doing. Maybe I should.
Speaker 1:I kind of like watching large liturgical celebrations every once in a while. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the difference between us.
Speaker 1:So would you like small, intimate celebrations?
Speaker 2:I just don't want to watch any liturgical celebrations. I don't know, I don't know. I want to watch Dr Steve Bruhl videos but whatever. Anyway, we should end this podcast before I say something really dumb.
Speaker 1:Too late?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's too late it is too late, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1:All right. So aspirational masculinity, look it up. We'll put Professor G's stuff in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2:Not Ali G.
Speaker 1:Professor G, respect, we'll have this and a whole lot more next on the Push to Fake you.
