The Art of Catholic with Matthew Leonard

What should we do? That's the question that keeps coming up in my conversations and email exchanges. What is the appropriate response of faithful Catholics to this ongoing crisis? While some are leaving and others are all-out attacking, most of us are caught somewhere in the middle. We've always thought of ourselves as faithful Catholics. We've always honored our priests and bishops. We've always...

These are not easy times for Catholics. I've received a lot of emails from people, and had a lot of conversations over the last several weeks with Catholics on the brink of despair. How could this happen? What is going on? What are we going to do? I share your pain and confusion...deeply. And while I'm horrified by daily revelations about the cancer that is eating our Church alive, I also know tha...

There's a lot of confusion about love these days. That needs to change. On this episode of the Art of Catholic, we'll peel back some of the deeper layers of love. In fact, we'll get to the heart of Christian love. My guest wears spectacles and dark socks with his tennis shoes, but can still drain 3's in a pickup game. His name is Dr. Michael Healy and he's the former Academic Dean at Franciscan Un...

Parts of it should actually scare you. All of it should inspire you. The Our Father is the most famous of all prayers, taught to us by God himself. And while you've probably droned through it a few thousand times, have you ever really dug into what you're saying? For a long time, I hadn't. And my guess is it's the same for many of you. So in celebration of the upcoming (at least in many countries)...

You may think you've heard it all when it comes to Mary. Think again. I'm betting that my buddy Curtis Mitch is going to lay some new thoughts on you about Our Lady as we continue to celebrate May, the month of Mary, on this episode of the Art of Catholic. Curtis, as many of you know, has been writing the commentary on the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible for about 20 years. I've never met anyone wit...

It's the book quoted by God the Father. It's the book quoted by Christ on the Cross. It's the one book we read at almost every Mass. It's the Psalms. While many view the Psalms as merely a collection of beautiful poetry (which it is), there's a whole more going on in this amazing book of the Bible. In fact, it's no exaggeration to say it's one of the most important in all of Sacred Scripture. Yes,...

Ever felt yourself sinking? St. Peter certainly did when after he briefly walked toward our Lord on the surging waves of the Sea of Galilee. And you have to hand it to Peter. He jumped out of the boat during a raging storm. All because Christ said, "Come." That's exactly what Jesus says to us every day…"Come." No matter what storm is raging in your life, you can walk over the crashing waves toward...

How about if we do it differently this time? I don't know about you, but it seems like every year Ash Wednesday just sneaks up on me and I'm left scrambling trying to figure out what I'm going to do for Lent. I'm guessing I'm not the only one. But let's make a change. Let's make this Lent the best one ever. How? I'm glad you asked. In this episode of the Art of Catholic podcast we're going to disc...

There are several questions every Christian needs to ask themselves on a regular basis. The problem is that the world has warped most of our minds to the point that even if we answer them, we're not answering correctly. And there are consequences. (More on the questions themselves later...) In our last episode, Number 72, we began our rediscovery of St. John Paul II's theological time bomb known a...

Tick...tick...tick... Famous Catholic author, George Weigel, said Pope St. John Paul's Theology of the Body is  a "theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences sometime in the third millennium of the Church." That time has come. In fact, we're practically past time. Unless you've been under a rock for the last few weeks, you've surely heard about the ever-increasing number of fam...

We're not supposed to talk about them. They're supposed to be like that embarrassing uncle no one mentions by name at family functions. But that's crazy. In this episode of the Art of Catholic podcast we're going to unveil the beautiful theology and practice of indulgences. Far from being an indefensible leftover we'd rather sweep under the medieval rug, indulgences are a powerful witness to God's...

Have we lost? Because a lot of people think so. Earlier this year a book came out called The Benedict Option. It's a runaway bestseller written by a famous former Evangelical named Rod Dreher. He basically says we've lost the culture war and radical change in lifestyle is needed if Christianity is going to survive in the West. And he's right...most of the time. While Dreher's call for a retreat in...

Twenty years ago, I lost my faith. I didn't lose my belief in or about faith, but I officially gave up the certainty that I had enough of it to be saved. It was Easter Vigil, 1998. That's when I became Catholic. 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Rebell…I mean, Reformation. It's been a catastrophe. There are now more than 40,000 Protestant denominations…and counting. As a result, Chri...

By now you've come to expect this. And by "this", I mean challenging topics. Well, this one is a doozy. We're going to talk about nature. And by that I don't just mean forests and rivers and cute little squirrels. I also mean human nature. My guest is the brilliant Dr. Ben Wiker, author of an incredible new book titled, "In Defense of Nature: The Catholic Unity of Environmental, Economic, and Mora...

I'm tired of people asking, "Where have all the good men gone?" It's not really all that hard to figure out. They've gone where they've been told to...out. Men are meant to play a God-given, pivotal role in the family, in the Church, and in culture at large. It's a role that's too often abandoned or belittled...to dire effect. We lack children. We lack vocations. We lack men. We are in a crisis th...

Ever wonder how we got into the mess we're in? Why is the modern world so opposed to the Christian faith? What went wrong and how do we get back on track? These are pretty tough questions, which is fine because I've got a pretty smart guest. Today on the Art of Catholic I brought in Dr. Andrew Jones. He's got a PhD in Medieval History and is an expert on the Church in the High Middle Ages. He's al...

It's one of the most overlooked miracles in Scripture. All too often we focus so much on the Passion, death and Resurrection of Our Lord that we breeze right over a pivotal event in our eternal pilgrimage - the Ascension. That would be a huge mistake. Not long ago I picked up one of my many books by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Not a good idea if you have a lot of items on your "to-do" list. He's s...

Holy Week is upon us. Hasn't Lent flown by? It seems like Ash Wednesday was just a couple weeks ago. And oftentimes we get to this point thinking we could have done a lot more...So let's do something about it. In this episode of the Art of Catholic, we're not going to just talk about theology. We're going to enter into it. How? By meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary as a kind of pr...

It might seem a bit odd to discuss beauty at the beginning of Lent. Actually, I find it totally appropriate. After all, this is a season of stripping away the outer layers of this world and conforming ourselves to Him who is beauty. If God is the Beatific Vision, then beauty matters all the time...perhaps especially in Lent. The topic of beauty is something I've wanted to address for a long time b...

Make no mistake, this episode is going to challenge you. But it can also dramatically transform your relationships with other people...and God. It's full of deep and practical wisdom that you can start to practice immediately. Our topic is kindness - real kindness - the kindness identified by St. Paul in Galatians. In other words, this is way beyond the "be nice to one another" stuff we learned in...

It sounds like a wild exaggeration. But according to best-selling author Mike Aquilina (a generally trustworthy source), it was music that saved the ancient world from its descent into despair. My first thought was "Seriously?" Yep. He's not kidding.  It's all in his book "How the Choir Converted the Word: Through Hymns, With Hymns, And In Hymns" from Emmaus Road Publishing. (The book is worth a l...

A little bit of knowledge goes a long way...especially when it comes to prayer and Scripture. In fact, you don't need to have any hardcore theological training or lots of letters after your name to get a lot out of prayer. That said, actually studying the Bible - what Pope Benedict XVI calls the "soul of theology" - will put your prayer life on steroids (which is still legal). And a key to underst...

In case you hadn't noticed, we're at war. We need a weapon. A powerful one. One feared by the Devil. Most of us already have one. It's called the rosary. And if wielded properly it cuts through the darkness like a light saber (especially if it's glow-in-the-dark:). In this special episode of The Art of Catholic, I interview Fr. Donald Calloway, author, speaker, and Vicar Provincial of the Marian F...

I've heard it. You've heard it. I used to even say it! "The Catholic priesthood isn't biblical."...Wrong! If you were to boil the (so-called) Protestant  Reformation down to its essence, it basically did away with the priesthood. Most Protestants have no sacramental life because there are no priests to give them the sacraments. (Most don't believe in the sacraments at all.) They believe (and I rea...

Why do Catholics exalt Mary? I don't mean in general. I mean specifically.  The answer may surprise you.  Is it because she's perfect? Kind of. But there's a deeper reason. So in this "brief" episode, I'll dig in a little to the underlying, foundational reason we venerate Our Lady. In this episode we'll discuss: Why the Immaculate Conception is demanded by Mary's divine maternity The vital role of...