Catholic vs. Catholic - 2018-08-14 - Adam Minihan
There are 45 episodes in the Versus:Catholic series.
Adam Minihan is a family man and co-founder of The Catholic Man Show, along with David Niles. I discovered them through a recent Catholic guest, Steve Pokorny. Adam and I discuss his faith journey and his Catholic Media projects. I enjoyed our chat. • Support the CVS Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/CVS • Be a guest on a livestream: https://calendly.com/cvs-podcast
Under Construction
Under Construction
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hey this is Adam and Hannah and you are listening to Catholic versus Catholic if you would please just tell the listeners a little bit about yourself who you are what you believe and how you came to believe it sure I am at a minute hand I have a beautiful bride Haley and three awesome kids Luke Michael Jude Timothy and Ana Faustina five years old three year old and one year old so there is never a dull moment in the minute-hand house I am Catholic I became Catholic June 22nd 1986 my parents have been Catholic their whole lives my grandparents have been Catholic their whole lives my family is from Cork Ireland and basically Minahan is the Irish name and we've been Catholic as as far as I can trace back at least can you touch briefly on some of the most memorable moments just the impressions that you got from this idea of religion the idea that there's a church there's a God how did these ideas seep into your mind as a young very young person it's funny you ask that because one of the things that I've been contemplating recently is the most profound moments that I've had in my life and what they are and when they came and one of the most profound moments that I can recall is I was about 6 or 7 years old and I was vacuuming the downstairs in my parents home and I remember thinking if I died right now what would happen it was my first real examination of conscience I remember thinking okay this is the things that I've done bad these are the things that I've done good the things that I've done good I think Jesus would be very happy and the things that I've done bad I don't think Jesus would be very happy it was a true examination of conscience I feel like I truly knew where I was spiritually at 6 or 7 years old and that is probably the most profound moment that I can recollect at the youngest agent like 6 or 7 years old and you've been chasing that dragon ever since trying to get that pure high that you had at age 6 yeah sure yeah absolutely I mean it's and it's tough to achieve right but I grew up in a solid Catholic family you know my parents are very involved in the church we had small faith groups I attended Catholic education in high school I even taught or I was an assistant you know in high school for Catholic religious education for my church I was involved about as much as you could be as a Catholic family when I got to college is when I kind of went from a Trinitarian worship to a new Trinitarian worship was like me myself and I like I was just exposed to all this these worldly things you know drink and women and you know all these things that I just was not used to at all and about maybe the second or third week of college was the first time that I missed Mass that I couldn't recall like ever maybe it ever in my outside of like being deathly sick or you know throwing up or something like that it was the first time that I had ever deliberately missed Mass and that was a tough road once I got into that because once you get off the train once you make exceptions the next week it sure makes it easier to miss and then next week after that and that makes we got for that so I I fell away like you hear all too often in college and then I came back after college can you just talk about one sort of example of piety devotion that struck you that really touched something in you and made a strong impression on you sure both my father and my grandfather were monumental my faith you know there's a ministerial priesthood and there's a domestic priesthood and the domestic priesthood is very similar in the fact that was a priest do a priest offers blessings and sacrifices and my father was a great example of what a domestic priest should look like he offered sacrifices habitually for our family and blessings for our family and the fact that he made sure that we went to Mass every single Sunday like I said we went to confession once a month we memorized all the books of the Bible we prayed you know a family rosary at night I mean he was the spiritual leader in our family and that is something that probably too in this day and age is lacking there's not a whole lot of spiritual leaders in the domestic church and so it's kind of an anomaly and he learned that from his grandfather and he made sure to implement these traditions one example would be every other year my grandfather my father and I would would make a trip to the University of Notre Dame and we would go see a football game and we would go to the Basilica and we would just have a guy's weekend and that's something that's always stuck with me I mean it we've done it you know over ten times and my grandfather has now passed and but it's something that I will always treasure it's something that as I grew in my faith I realized and I appreciated it more and more because I realized what they were doing and maybe at the time I didn't appreciate it as much as what I realized I would later on mm-hmm can you talk a little bit about some of the influential women just briefly your mother your grandmother's the flavor might have been a little bit different so if you could just talk a little bit about that yeah I think we need to make sure that you know that were different yet equal my mother is a perfect example of what I'm so love is it was me and my two younger sisters and the family and I can just remember constantly my mother was always either taxing us around in the next sporting events she had eight loads of laundry she was doing she wanted to make sure that the the meal was was prepared by the time our Father got home she always greeted my father immediately when my father walked in from work with a kiss and an affection of saying I love you which I thought was very very good I mean it was something that I learned and realized okay that's what a marital love looks like so my mom she's an amazing example of what selfless love is because she always put her family first ahead of I can remember coming home after football practice I was reviewing tape and it's so super late in high school you know maybe coming in at 10:00 10:30 yet on a weekday and she was still up finishing the dishes and she had three loads of laundry day before she got up at 5:45 in the morning to get us all ready for school the next day you know and so I just remember thinking like man she's doing a lot like she she has a lot to do but she never complained she always did it and she kind of regulated how the household was supposed to operate and again I think that's something that is not appreciated in this day and age as much as what it probably should be that it's an honorable job actually and she did a wonderful job doing it so I think that's something that should be acknowledged more often I in a way feel sorry for you that you had such a good childhood because then you have to go out and experience reality many of the people that you've met probably come from broken homes divorced single parents can you talk a little bit about your perspective and what is it like for someone like you to move around in this world yes okay so I remember having a conversation with my buddy in college and listening to him talk about how his family what his family life was like and I was thinking like oh man you and I we did not live the same lives and he was talking about how frustrating it was with his family and how he didn't really want to go back after college and be close to his family and I could remember thinking like that is just such an abstract thing to me because after college I thought I would just go back you know close to my family and like we'd all get together on Sundays and it would all be this one joyous happy family you know I thought that just kind of everybody did and it wasn't really until college that I realized like there's a lot of brokenness out and so I have like this this soft spot in my heart for for people who didn't have the example of that like I had like a great example st. Faustina talks about in her diary how much reverence she has for Saint Michael the Archangel because he had nobody as an example to go off of when he stood up to Lucifer at the time to cast him down this to hell you know st. Michael the Archangel had no example to go off of he just added the virtue that he had stood up for what he believed and that takes a lot more guts and takes a lot more courage than somebody who knows what's right because they've been shown what's right but I remember thinking me in college it because my junior year I remember thing like man I'm just not that happy and it wasn't until after I got out of college and I moved in with my best friend so I had I had a best friend all growing up since kindergarten our families were best friends his name is David Niles and he actually does the Catholic man show with me he's my coast and actually we now live across the street from each other I mean our kids now grow up together and stuff so we didn't go to the same college but once we got out of college it was just kind of a natural thing of like hey let's live together let's let's move in together after college and we'll get a house and you know start our lives and one Sunday morning Dave and I said you know it'd be a crazy idea what fool would to mast and it was like there's novelty ideas like this like what whoa that is a crazy idea you know what a what a weird far-out idea that is it was kind of the beginning of challenging each other to be better to be a better Catholic to be a better man in general to be a better businessman to be a better friend to be a better boy friends at the time you know we were both dating women and so you know we were challenging each other to be virtuous men towards the people who we were dating and it was at that point in time that we really started to let not be Catholic like there's a lot of people who say I am Catholic but we went from being Catholic to like I love being Catholic like I love being Catholic and a lot of that had to do with Catholic radio we started listening to Catholic radio quite a bit and Dave and I ended up having the opportunity to run a Catholic radio station here in Tulsa and we have four I guess four years now that's our side gig we have day jobs and families and everything else but we just kind of do that as for fun we don't make any money doing it but we run the Catholic radio here in Tulsa and that's kind of what also spurred our show the Catholic man show some of the Saints have defined friendship as helping each other get to heaven what's your definition of friendship yeah I think that's it that's a good definition I think you can go off of what st. Thomas Aquinas says love is willing the good of the other so I think that friendship is very similar you want to will the good for them regardless of what you know kind of that means for you you still will did good for them also you know I think it's imperative in our faith life the world is always attacking us and as proverb says the iron sharpens iron that everybody uses but but remember in that that example that the iron sharpens iron it's not until the iron actually touches each other that actually gets sharpened so I think that you have to be you have to come together and which Christ sent out his apostles to buy two for a reason I think that that friendship is imperative because we're built to be in communion we're built to be in community so a friendship is a part obviously of communion and so I think that that's imperative to the Christian life and to making it in this day and age with this kind of culture that we live in is so from here I guess we can talk about world peace why do we choose to do what selfish and what will never ever bear any fruit why don't we all do God's will sin Hey original sinking Cuba cents would be probably the answer but I think I mean that's kind of the the obvious answer but I think that you know I think there's a lot of people who who looked up to Mother Teresa right whether you're Catholic you're Christian you're atheist you're agnostic whoever you are I think that for the most part most people who looked up and saw a beauty in mother Teresa because she she died to herself for others she laid down her life for the goodness of others and every time that we had that parallel of laying down your life for the goodness of other like Christ lay down his life for all of us you become more fulfilled you become more joyful you obviously take over a block more crosses just like Jesus did you know when he laid down his life it wasn't an easy road up to Golgotha and he was it wasn't it wasn't easy she had to carry a lot of crosses and and even fell a couple times I mean as humans we he's a divine person but as a human person we we have our crosses and sometimes we fall a lot of times either from the world the flesh of the devil but it's by carrying our cross and laying down our life for the goodness of others that people are attracted that people are drawn towards what that lifestyle is like I think that's why you also get you know you can see sold-out concerts of these big bands like Queen and Wembley Stadium had 80,000 people or a hundred thousand people there at their concert yet you know back World Youth Day with John Paul the second he had you know three hundred four hundred five hundred thousand people there well because people are attracted I think in inherently to holiness people are attracted to people who are willing to lay their life down for other people hmm so what I'm really interested in is this idea of holiness that's a good thing to be interested in in the specific context not only of my own life is a faithless sinner but also and more importantly in the life of the church how can we say that the church is indeed holy in spite of the unholiness that runs rampant in the pews and even in the hierarchy hmm that is a good question I mean in our Creed we talk about the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church what that doesn't mean that the people inside it are not sinners I mean the church can still be holy with unholy people in it just as the group of apostles are holy even though there was a Judas you don't leave Peter because of what Judas did similarly like you don't leave the Catholic Church just because there's a bunch of priests they're doing unholy things or there's a bunch of people who are sitting in the pews that are not living moral lives because there's no church here on earth that is a perfect Church and if there was such a church when you entered it you would make it unholy because you're not perfect you know with one body of Christ so it's not like there's a body of Christ up in heaven and there's a body of Christ down here on earth we're all one body of Christ so we know that there's a holy church that's in heaven that's all good all holy that is in heaven and they're praying for us as in Revelation it talks about you know praying that we we also fulfill our role here on earth to get to heaven to know him to love him and serve him in this life so that we may have eternal life with him and the next and so I think that when you live this when you strive to live this holy life and you you're attempting to make sure that you evangelize and fulfill your obligations fulfill your vocations that's when you are you are quote-unquote perfect because you are doing what God has made you for and I think that's also whenever you finally start getting a sense of fulfillment in life in a sense of understanding of what this life is made for that you're only going here for a short period of time we're all called to be as holy as God wills us and in the state of life that we're in but we're being perfect in the sense of when we're doing exactly what God created us to do are you aware that there's a big movement in the men's rights and all that sort of thing no even among Catholics yeah I think that people are realizing that men are initiators like we give and women receive like you look at our bodies that's how we are paid right like we're givers and women are receivers that doesn't mean that you know we aren't equal we're just different but they realize that men has to to take initiative in family life they have to take initiative in what they care about with what they are working on in order to flourish in order I mean we got to have both men and women in society to flourish to be a successful society so yeah there is this the kind of grassroots movement of men's programs and men's retreats and things like that because they realized that there's not a lot of that going out there and if there's not then what are we doing like what kind of men are we raising and men thrive on tradition we thrive on goals they thrive on at a competition we thrive on being the best that we can if we don't have people that are pushing us to do that then sometimes as men where we become like celexa days achill and st. Thomas Aquinas talks about a feminist see it's very similar to sloth but effeminacy is not willing to do the arduous for the sake of pleasure sloth is just not willing to do the arduous you know so in feminists he's not like I don't want to do the hard because I'm enjoying being comfortable where I am now I don't want to push myself to do something better and we realize that well you know I'm in pushing each other we don't have been trying to to be better than we're gonna become stagnant in society just like women like if we didn't have women pushing each other to be holy or women to be better women we'd also be stagnant in society we got to have both of them working in unison to flourish what was the basic idea behind having a show called catholic man show what are the basic principles your goals your objectives and what have you discovered along the way and then you can talk about what you're excited about for the future sure so like I mentioned earlier that Dave and I we started the Catholic radio station here in Tulsa right so we have mainly EWTN programming a little bit of local programming we're kind of Catholic radio junkies and capital media junkies in general we both kind of consume a lot of Catholic media well because we own a Catholic radio station we were listening to Catholic agree all the time and we realized there's just not there's just not a program that's geared towards me and so we decided to start a radio show that's geared towards Catholic men that's geared towards guys getting together and talking about virtue and talking about their faith and philosophy and the things that matter in life and so he's decided that like Dave and I were not like super creative people we're both men we're both Catholic so hey let's call it the Catholic man show and we have a very strict format in the show because we like structure that's mainly like structure and so we stick to this structure every episode we do three things we open review and enjoy what we call a man beverage and this is like a whiskey a beer coffee you know during Lent we do not alcoholic drinks but we we talk about where this drink came from you know the history behind this distillery the history behind this brewery why it started we we extras you know we we always talk about the exercising the virtue of moderation also the virtue of temperance which you know moderation is kind of a sub virtue of temperance so we realize that in society today we don't have a lot of examples of what moderation looks like the culture today is all about extremes right it's either have as much sex as you possibly can or don't eat any meat whatsoever be completely gluten free or you know whatever I mean there's like these two huge extremes like that you know and the verse you kind of realize and that meat and so it gives us an opportunity to enjoy a drink together and yet practice the virtue of moderation and say okay it's okay they're like God made the things of this earth good and we should enjoy them for their goodness and by drinking in moderation drinking alcoholic beverages in moderation you're enjoying it for what it's what the purpose is so we so that's the first thing we do the second thing we do is we highlight what we call a man gear and a man gear is anything that a guy wants needs desires in the in his day-to-day life so it's an ting from a pocket knife to rosary to you know different types of tools we kind of go even as far as like one episode we talk about like a flamethrower because fire is fun so we just highlight you know this this this gear every week that guys like to have an intent to talk about what the virtue is behind that now sometimes it's so far-fetched sometimes we have to really stretch it to get there but we try to under you know try to incorporate this idea of why this is a virtuous thing or why this is a manly thing and then the last the last segment is is is there a long segment that we have it's 24 like it's 12 minute 12 minutes and the 24 minutes of ecologist a man topic and that ranges from really anything that Dave and I want to talk about it goes from you know how to have little kids in math to practicing the NFP to what does it mean to be a king you know when we're back to this priest prophet and King what is it King mean you know what how do we fulfill that to you know what does it look like to live out a liturgical life in the household we have stall different types of conversations really it's about like what he and I experience throughout our lives we and we're both the same age we have kids the same age and so we just kind of figure out what what affected us this week and that's what we talk about can you without aggravating any sore points that exists between you two can you sort of characterize the roles if you play sure yeah so Davis is typically the he's very funny he's a storyteller in general he's a funny guy but he's very insightful he's very he's a very logical guy but he has very systematic way of thinking and it's a very logical way of thinking and so he brings a lot to the table in that in that aspect yet still is very he the storyteller and he's very funny and you know I just kind of make sure that we stay on topic because at you know as a storyteller if Davis the storyteller you know you can get off onto a lot of rabbit trails as a storyteller so if I try to keep things on on track keep things moving forward and keep things going can you talk about some of the bloopers that no one knows about well it's really funny because if you want bloopers just start listening because there's plenty of them out there I mean because we don't we don't do in all honesty we don't do any editing whatsoever we just like hit record and then what we say is what you get so have you regretted anything that you've said I mean I think that you probably understand this doing a podcast and a lot of people don't understand they take for granted a lot of this the high quality Catholic programming that we have out there that there's a seasoned apologist there's the seasoned guys who are on the radio all the time well Dave night we're not we're just we're just a couple guys in our 30s that are raising families and you know trying to do our best and so there's a lot of times where we we say things that are like we don't articulate it the best we wanted to we didn't get to the topic as well as we wanted to we mess up all the time and but I think that that is kind of relatable to some guys because they realize that we're just two regular dudes hitting the record and talking in a microphone and it's pretty relatable I think cuz there's a lot of guys out there who are just like they we're just all we're doing as we're trying to grow a brotherhood to do to grow you know live in virtue and to try to be the best husband that we can to our wives to be the best father we can to our kids and to live live a life for God and there's a lot of guys out there that just you don't hear about until you start doing it and then people come in be like man I feel the exact same way you do I didn't know there was another guy feeling that way so that's pretty cool too to get those opportunities to talk to other guys but I realized that I have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable the whole Christian faith is all about being uncomfortable like we're supposed to pick up our cross and carry it daily well that's not comfort and we're not made for comfort were made for greatness and a lot of times that means being uncomfortable so the sooner that you can figure out like I just have to be okay with being uncomfortable the better I think are the more productive you can be so I have a lot more questions but I'll ask them to your partner David tomorrow night whatever he says about me is not true by the way whatever he says okay with a grain of salt is there anything in particular that you want me to ask him tomorrow ask him who's the funny one and ask him who's won every single basketball game that we've ever played against each other okay on a more serious note what are three things that I can do to be a better Catholic sure I think the first thing is it about your vocation know what your vocation is and live it out to the fullest you can do a lot of great things but if you fail at your main vocation that's a huge problem the second thing I would say is is limit liturgical life you know that we have beautiful saints of the church the church is given us so much to celebrate there's so much joy in in our church live it out let's see occasion and then liturgically obviously stayed close to the sacraments and things like that but I think the third one is know thyself knowing thyself and knowing where you fall and knowing where you what you're good at that is like true humility right it's not thinking more of yours always thinking of yourself less so knowing thyself I think that you can do that by having a daily examination of conscience recollecting what you do throughout the day where you fell or you didn't and having a journal I carry a little brown journal about everywhere I go so that way if I have a good thought or I have a thought in general I write it down and I think that's a that's something that I'd like to see a tradition come back for men because I think that's a valuable thing that we can give on to the next generation of the generation after that the lot of guys aren't doing excellent thank you so much for that it was really well thought out and I can't believe you came up with three excellent things so quickly but at the end of my interviews I always ask my guests to give a little closing thought just a little message of hope for the listener and the listener maybe a theist maybe Buddhist he may be Hindu and maybe Catholic we don't know but what could you say to someone that might be out there listening though I would say we were all made for a purpose to not necessarily be successful but to be faithful to be faithful to at least what you believe but to continue striving to learn more to always ask questions and to find a good group of people a good group of friends that you can rely on and they can rely on you I think that one of the main problems that we have in today's society is specifically for man I don't like to talk necessarily about women as much because I don't claim my man's I can I can relate to that a lot better than I can women but for men the idea of authentic friendship to have an intimate friendship is an abstract thing to be vulnerable to another man is an abstract thought and almost kind of like one of those like who that doesn't sound right to be vulnerable to another man but it's through our vulnerability that we learn from others and and then you find out who you really are and what your what your fears are we're all we all here we all have we all struggle with different things but there's great there's such thing as grace there's such thing as friendship a true friendship surround yourself with with people who challenge you the people who who truly love you for who you are and to to remember that to make a difference in the world doesn't mean you have to do something crazy big but if you could do one small thing every day that is a good start so smile at somebody put your phone down in the elevator and try to make contact with somebody else look at your neighbors that are live across the street from you and learn who they are be open to to other people if you do that you can learn you can find out that you can learn a lot from other people and you can find opportunities to to serve other people when you do that when you serve other people that is a cure for despair