Modern Man

Two campus missionaries, two conversions, and one question under the whole hour: what is this actually costing you. Noah Gilchrist and BradPierson sit down for Modern Man — College Edition, recorded in the St. Thomas More Student Center at Ohio State with Blake Madsen ofFOCUS and Gavin Gunkel of St. Paul's Outreach. Life is not about the return. It is about the cost. That is the sentence the hour...

Three Catholic men on prayer: what it actually is, why most men quit, and the one question that decides whether any of it is working. Sam Halligan, Brad Piersonand Noah Gilchrist sit down for Modern Man. No guest. Personal prayer, mental prayer, family prayer, and an hour of disagreement about the Mass. Prayer is the exchange of hearts. That is Brad's definition, borrowed from the patristic so...

Three Catholic men on the present moment, numbing, and what fatherhood actually asks of a man. Sam Halligan, Brad Pierson and Noah Gilchrist sit down for Modern Man's monthly after action report — the September review of what four weeks of conversation did to the three of them. No guest this cycle. Three hosts, three confessions, and one Latin phrase that turns out to be the argument. Age quod...

Catholic priest Fr. Pat Schultz on masculinity, receptivity and spiritual fatherhood. Pastor of St. Bartholomew Parish in the Diocese ofCleveland — one priest to roughly 2,000 families — he sits down with Modern Man in a closed coffee shop in Centerburg, Ohio, for the fullconversion story, the seminary discernment, the altar servers, the Holy Name Society, and the argument that most men's mini...

Twenty-five years after September 11th, and one year after the assassination of Charlie Kirk — three Catholic men ask what a man is supposed to do with a tragedy he watched from a distance. Three hosts, no guests: where each of them was on both days, what constant tragedy in the news cycle actually costs, conspiracy theories as a search for meaning, and the virtues that hold when nothing else does...

Apologetics or evangelization, truth or connection — Christian men online have split into two camps, and neither one seems able to do it with love. Three hosts, no guests: parasocial relationships, comment-section culture, digital minimalism, and the question underneath all of it. Why do we love to watch conflict? Brad opens the split and asks how a Christian man is supposed to stand between the c...

Three men, no guests, and a month to account for. Modern Man's August after-action report looks back at three episodes — the hero draft, the long-form argument with Gabe Gessler and Conall Hughes about screens and real life, and the Sophie Cunningham conversation — and finds the same thing running under all three: a man burning as brightly as he was actually made to. Sam asks what it looks lik...

Welcome to Modern Man, a podcast that seeks to rediscover and redeem the heart of man in the modern world. In this episode, the guys answer one simple question – why Modern Man? And they lay out a vision for the future of the podcast. Enjoy!

Two guests, five men, and an argument nobody wins. Conall Hughes and Gabe Gessler join Noah, Brad and Sam for aconversation that splits the table inside thirty minutes: is ministry that happens on a screen actually ministry, or ispresence the only thing that counts? Gabe makes the case from Hallow — reach the parish every day of the week, notjust Sunday. Sam draws the hard line at the dinner table...

Hero Draft, Part 1 — Football. Three men each draft one football hero and defend the pick. Noah takes Tom Brady and argues for the man who said no to everything else for one thing. Sam takes Pat Tillman, who walked away from a $3.6 million contract and never came back. Brad takes Peyton Manning and makes the case for the integrated life — the man who was excellent without letting the rest of it fa...

Part 1 of 3 — Ministry in the Modern World. Brad, Sam and Noah have thirty years of Catholic missionary workbetween them, and they still don't agree on who should do it. This one starts with how each of them got called —a retreat at sixteen, a chapel in St. Paul, a college house with an interview before the lease — and endssomewhere sharper: whether ‘professional missionary’ should be a thing...

Every month Sam, Brad, and Noah tie a bow on the last three episodes with an After Action Report: what was the plan, what actually happened, and what we’ll do differently. July covered masculine maturity, a long-form with Fr. Joseph Rowling, and the SSPX schism — but the AAR goes somewhere the episodes didn’t. Peter Kreeft seeing his dying wife as a bride again. Tyler Lang’s ‘don’t waste a day.’ W...

The SSPX has formally entered schism — four bishops ordained illicitly, excommunications declared, and Catholics everywhere wrestling with what it means. Brad, Sam, and Noah steel-man the strongest arguments for the SSPX (China, the state of emergency, Trent vs. Vatican II), then answer them: reform vs. revolt, what authority actually costs, why ‘I don't understand’ usually means ‘I don't...

His game-winner made ESPN's Top 10. A year into a college basketball scholarship, he was on his knees in a chapel, calling his coach to say he wasn't coming back — he was going to become a priest. Fr. Joseph Rolwing (Diocese of Columbus, co-host of the Logos Podcast) joins Brad, Sam, and Noah for the whole arc: the agnostic girlfriend whose arguments left him lying in the grass staring int...

Puberty happens to every man. Maturity doesn't. This week Brad, Noah, and Sam wrestle with what masculine maturity actually is — and why it has nothing to do with certainty, competence, or age, and everything to do with two trainable traits. What you'll get: • The two-trait test one of America's largest missionary organizations uses to screen candidates — coachability and resilience —...

What does it actually mean to provide for your family? In this After Action Report, Sam, Brad, and Noah reopen a month of episodes — and a debate none of them can let go of. Sam reconsiders his own take on the man on food stamps. Noah argues that calling someone a ‘failed provider’ smuggles in a charge of wrongdoing. Brad reframes provision as a Venn diagram of presence, provision, and purpose. Al...

Brad, Sam, and Noah sit with the question every men’s conference dodges: if everyone’s called to be a leader, what does the word even mean — and why do the men we follow keep being the ones who do what they said? What you’ll get: • If everyone’s a leader, no one is — the Incredibles problem • Jelly Roll in the rain — leadership starts the day you stop lying to yourself • “Something came up” is a l...

Dominic Schlueter joins Brad, Sam, and Noah for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with podcasting and ends with one of the most honest disagreements we've recorded. What you'll get: • Why 90% of podcasts (and most things men start) quit at episode three • The difference between process goals and outcome goals — and why one breaks you • Magnanimity vs. pride — the Catholic virtue most...

Brad, Sam, and Noah sit with a reminder Brad reads every night — remember the fallen giants — and thequestion it keeps asking: why do the men we look up to keep falling, and is any man ever really safe? What you’ll get:• Why “the devil attacked him” is often a way to dodge responsibility• When you’re squeezed, what’s inside comes out — pressure reveals, it doesn’t build• Reality is pain — and why...

Modern Man's first After Action Report — a monthly episode where Brad, Sam, and Noah react to their own podcast. What did they say last month that they want to defend? What did they say that they want to take back? What did they say that they're still chewing on weeks later? This first AAR landed almost entirely on one thread: the "bad guys" debate from Ep 19. A month later, Sam...

Henry and Harrison Schertzinger return for the second long-form Modern Man interview — and this one goes places Part 1 didn't. They tell the full story of their conversion to Catholicism (including a moment at Damascus that Harrison says he'd never shared publicly), then sit through a long, honest wrestle with the question Sam puts to them directly: is the emotional ministry style they came out of...

Three Catholic men sit down to talk about the three biggest active conflicts in the world — Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Hamas in Gaza, and the U.S. and Israel's confrontation with Iran — and the harder question underneath all of it: how is a serious Catholic man supposed to think about war, the news cycle, and the gap between what the Pope is saying and what the President is doing? Brad Bursa, Sam...

Two brothers, twin lacrosse players from Cincinnati who walked on at UNC, built and broke a dozen businesses by age 28 — and converted to Catholicism on the way. This is the first long-form interview on the new Modern Man, and Henry and Harrison Schertzinger don't pull punches on what it actually takes to become a man worth respecting. They cover the seasons of brutal self-doubt, the rock-bottom m...

Modern Man is back. After a major life move and a long pause, Brad, Sam, and Noah reunite to talk aboutthe four-stage progression every man is called to live — son, brother, father, patriarch — and why mostmen never make it past stage two. This episode covers:• The reframe that changes everything: discover, sharpen, give, multiply• Why fatherhood reveals sonship in a way nothing else can• Bishop B...

Welcome to Modern Man, a podcast that seeks to rediscover and redeem the heart of man in the modern world. In this episode, the guys answer one simple question – why Modern Man? And they lay out a vision for the future of the podcast. Enjoy!