The Cordial Catholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic Podcast, I'm joined by the former editor of the evangelical flagship Christianity Today, Mark Galli, to talk about his conversion to the Catholic Church. Mark spent 10 years as a Protestant pastor, 20 years editing the world's largest evangelical publication, and has recently come into full communion with the Catholic Church. We unpack his journey, the reasons behind his decision, and some of the questions, challenges, and problems he faced in his Protestant faith which ultimately led him into Catholicism. It was an absolute privilege to talk to Mark and I hope you enjoy our conversation!For more from Mark visit his website.For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests.To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by Father Jeffrey Kirby, STD to unpack the Catholic view of evil and suffering. We dig deeply into a topic that is maybe the biggest struggle for believers – and a barriers for those who don't believe: suffering. With Father Kirby's help and expertise, we discuss where suffering comes from, why we suffer, why God allows certain sufferings to take place, and how we should respond as Catholics, in a long tradition of suffering – and growing spiritually! It's an incredible conversation. For more from Father Kirby visit his website and be sure to check out Manual for Suffering from Tan Books.Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests.To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by Dr. John Bergsma, biblical theologian, professor, author, and Catholic convert, to talk about how to read the Bible like a Catholic, from the heart of the Church. We begin by digging into Dr. Bergma's wonderful conversion journey – as a Protestant pastor and biblical theologian, he decided to become Catholic – and, from there, discuss how the Catholic Church understands, interprets, and makes use of the Bible. And how it was originally meant to be used. We contrast this with how Dr. Bergsma understood and taught from the Bible as a Protestant pastor – and we dig into how we, as Catholic, can understand it's place in the Liturgy and the Church today!For more from Dr. Bergsma visit his website.To purchase any of John's fine books visit the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests.To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by author, podcaster, and Catholic convert Haley Stewart to talk about her experience converting to Catholicism. On a search for a liturgically minded church, and through reading the Early Church Fathers, Haley and her husband Daniel, became interested and then deeply immersed in the Catholic Church. Their story is one of starting a family, finding a new faith, and the challenges and graces that come as a result of trusting in Christ, and the journey!For more from Haley check out her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by Father Nathan Caswell, an Evangelical convert to Catholicism with an incredible conversion story to share. Father Nathan was raised Charismatic Evangelical, converted to Catholicism with his family on an Indigenous Reservation in Northern Canada, and spent the next several years wandering and soul-searching in the Canadian wilderness while he shrugged off religion – before ultimately becoming the Prodigal Son and returning home to his family, his faith, and eventually a vocation in the Catholic priesthood. It's an incredible story featuring mushroom hunting, treehouse living, and the discovery of God in the power of the ocean.To learn more about the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius visit their website. For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by my good friend, YouTuber Austin Suggs from the wildly popular Gospel Simplicity channel to talk about why he isn't Catholic – after a year of asking questions about the Catholic faith. Austin stumbled into a world of digging deeply into questions of the ancient Christian faiths. From his experience of going to a Catholic Bible study, and then a Catholic Mass, he began to ask questions about Catholicism (and later, Orthodoxy). When I first had him on my show over a year ago, we talked about some of his misconceptions and misunderstandings – and questions he still had. Now, a year later, he's back, as a good friend, to unpack his journey so far. It's a fantastic conversation as we unpack liturgy, the papacy, apostolic succession, the Eucharist, and what exactly Austin is thinking after spending the last year asking some of the most brilliant minds in religion, some really great questions! For more from Austin visit his YouTube channel Gospel Simplicity.For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by author, and professor of Catholic history, and popular guest on this program Steve Weidenkopf. We talk about Steve's latest book Light from Darkness and discuss times when the Catholic Church was in complete turmoil, morally bankrupt, failing, and near collapse – and how each and every time it came back from the brink, stronger than before! We talk about this and what lessons we, Catholics living today, can take from the pages of history to carry out reform, renewal, and spur a move towards holiness in our own lives and communities. It's a great discussion; Steve is a wonderful storyteller!For more from Steve visit his website, and check out the Catholic Answers shop.For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined once again by renown patristics scholar Mike Aquilina to talk about how the Early Church – the very first Christians following the apostles – evangelized, how they spread the Christian faith. Through this conversation we dig into the early Christian sources like no one else can, expertly guided by Mike Aquilina, an author, podcaster, and popular guest on this show, we look into some incredible sources to undercover exactly how and why the faith spread – and, most importantly – what lessons we can learn for today. It's a fantastic conversation. Be sure to check out Mike's fantastic new book Friendship and the Fathers: How the Early Church Evangelized from the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and Emmaus Road Press.For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm re-joined by Father Blake Britton, the author of the fantastic new book Reclaiming Vatican II: What It (Really) Said, What It Means, and How It Calls Us to Renew the Church.Fr. Blake was a guest on this show exactly 100 episodes ago when we discussed Vatican II and what would, eventually, become this fantastic book. A book which has been sent, we learn, to every single bishop in the USA – it's really a mis-read book. Fr. Blake unpacks exactly what happened at the Second Vatican Council, how the agenda of the Council has been misunderstood and misapplied in the subsequent decades, and what we can do to truly live out the intentions of Vatican II as a movement of the Holy Spirit for the whole Church. It's an incredible conversation!For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by author, podcaster, and Catholic convert Tsh Oxenreider to unpack her incredible journey into the Catholic Church. Tsh and her husband Kyle met as missionary church planters, served and travelled with their family around the world, and eventually landed in the Anglican Church where they found the beauty and truth they were looking for in their Protestant Christianity. But, it wasn't enough. Questions of, "Says who?" and "By whose authority?" kept coming up and, after digging into the roots of their faith during the pandemic, they decided to come into full communion with the Catholic Church.It's a fantastic story!For more from Tsh visit her website.For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on  episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!A very special thanks to our Patreon co-producers who make this show possible: Amanda, Elli and Tom, Fr. Larry, Gina, Heather, James, Jorg, Michelle, Noah, Robert, Shelby, Susanne and Victor, and William.Support the showFind and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic