The Best of the Week

During the Family Rosary Across America hosted live at the SEEK conference, Fr. Rocky welcomed a young woman wearing a veil she’d received from her aunt for Christmas. Then he asked the question that opens so many holy moments: “What’s your prayer intention?” She didn’t offer something vague. She offered people. With names on her lips and gratitude in her voice, she p...

It’s one thing to work hard for your family. It’s another to feel dismissed while you’re doing it. Maria from Chicago called in to Marriage Unhindered after a holiday where she tried her best to cook for her family and extended family, only to feel irritated by her spouse and misunderstood by others. “I just need peace and respect,” she said, describing the sting of f...

On Fr. Simon Says , Fr. Simon introduced St. John Henry Newman , the missionary priest who came to America to serve German Catholics who had no priests, and eventually became bishop of Philadelphia. Newman’s heart shows in what he said after baptizing his first baby: “It’s worth a million times more if this baby dies in the grace of the sacrament.” For him, a lifetime of st...

On Morning Air , John Morales spoke with Curtis Martin, founder of Focus, the Fellowship of Catholic University students. Martin shared that “God shows up every year,” and described thousands encountering Christ through Eucharistic Adoration, confession, and fellowship—“almost 17,000 last night” alone. After nearly 30 years as CEO, Martin is stepping down while contin...

During the Family Rosary Across America on Relevant Radio, Fr. Rocky and Maggie received a call from Ann from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, who brought prayer intentions that carried both heavy suffering and quiet wonder. Ann asked for prayers for “our beloved Lonnie, a married mother of three, diagnosed with a bleeding brain tumor.” Anne shared that Lonnie is losing function on the right...

6-year-old Wyatt from Buena Park, California called into The Patrick Madrid Show with one of the biggest questions a child can ask: “Why did God sacrifice himself for us?” Patrick answered by starting from the beginning: Adam and Eve. When they disobeyed God, Patrick explained, they lost the ability to have a perfect relationship with God, and that break carried down to all of us. Like...

In a culture that hands us identity labels like name tags, walking away from an errant and immoral lifestyle can feel impossible. On Trending with Timmerie , Timmerie sits down with Taylor Fogarty, who grew up in a nonreligious home and once identified as a “self-proclaimed atheist and lesbian.” Through the grace of God, Taylor later graduated from Columbia University, became a mother,...

On Father Simon Says , Kathy called Father Simon with a Christmas dilemma: her stepson and his girlfriend live together, and the couple has invited the family over for Christmas Eve. Kathy says that she feels like she should take a stand and not attend, but she also doesn't want to cause a rift in the family. Father Simon didn’t recommend pretending. “A lie is not good either,” h...

On Morning Air , John Morales highlighted a ministry that brings the light of Christ into a place many would rather forget: abortion clinics. For the last five years, pro-life leader Abby Johnson says religious sisters have been hand-writing Christmas cards and sending them directly to abortion clinic workers. Before she was Catholic, Johnson remembered the day a Franciscan nun, Sister Marie Berna...

A young adult woman wrote to Doug Hinderer on the Marriage Unhindered show with a painful tension: she has begun discerning the consecrated life—specifically, becoming a consecrated virgin living in the world—while still living at home. Her Catholic mom reacted poorly, kept pushing marriage, and even told her she was “stupid” for mentioning the vocation so early. Doug&rsquo...

Standardized testing might sound like a dry topic to most, but Classic Learning Test (CLT) founder Jeremy Tate joined Drew Mariani to discuss the newest developments that aim to cultivate much more than students' future job skills. Standardized testing matters because it shapes what students learn. “Teachers inevitably teach towards the test,” he said, and that’s why he helped la...

NOTE: This article features some sensitive topics that may not be suitable for younger readers. Please use discretion. Rosa called in to Patrick Conley and guest Father John Paul Erickson on The Inner Life with a fear no grandparent wants: she had discovered her granddaughter had been cutting herself. A nurse for 20 years, Rosa knew the marks weren’t “cat scratches,” and she worr...

Inside an NFL stadium late last month, the Church marked a new kind of digital encounter. Pope Leo joined the National Catholic Youth Conference at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis by live video, speaking to young Americans in their own Midwestern accent. Filmmaker Rob Kaczmark of Spirit Juice Studios, whose team was on-site capturing the moment, said it felt special even then, and he believes th...

On Marriage Unhindered , Doug Hinderer sits down with clinical psychologist Dr. Johann D'Souza to explore “optimal work,” a practical approach he learned from his mentor, Harvard psychiatrist Kevin Majors. Optimal Work, he explains, is about working at your best so you can live at your best – using modern neuroscience to bring your highest ideals into each hour of the day, especi...

On Trending with Timmerie , host Timmerie looks at a surprising Gen Z shift: women saying no to casual sex and stepping away from hookup culture. A 2025 national study on modern love and dating, conducted with datingadvice.com and the Kinsey Institute, points to a quiet revolution: fewer one-night stands, fewer no-commitment relationships, and a growing share of Gen Z calling themselves “cel...

On The Patrick Madrid Show , a caller named Tom from San Diego phoned back with an update that had Patrick – and listeners – breathing a sigh of relief. Two weeks earlier, he had admitted on air that he was too ashamed to go to the priest with what he’d done. Lying awake one night, Tom replayed Patrick’s words and finally asked himself, “what would I rather do? Confes...

On The Drew Mariani Show , Drew Mariani and Dr. Susan Hanssen step into a remarkable 50–year window of American history, from 1776 to 1826, when the men we call the Founding Fathers were also the nation’s presidents. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe—and “honorary founder” John Quincy Adams—did not just shape documents;...

Zoe from Jacksonville, Florida, called to thank Fr. Rocky and Maggie for displaying a picture of Venerable Augustus Tolton during the Family Rosary Across America . Her father, who passed away earlier this year, began praying with his parish to Tolton last July for her husband to become Catholic; now, her husband is preparing to enter the Church.  Fr. Rocky marveled at how quickly those praye...

On the show Father Simon Says , a listener named Jordan asked whether Galatians 4:7 supports infant Baptism: “You are no longer a slave but a child of God… and an heir.” Fr. Richard Simon unpacked the Greek word doulos , meaning “slave,” and St. Paul’s insistence that in Christ we are not just servants but heirs. That opened the deeper question: why baptize som...

On The Inner Life , Patrick Conley introduced a call from Mark, a catechist walking with a mother and her almost‑13‑year‑old son in OCIA. The boy has begun using explicit material online in a compulsive way and, with no real religious background, is asking a blunt question: “What’s wrong with it?” Mark wants to answer in a way that is truthful, gentle, and age‑appropriate. Father...

A caller who has struggled with scrupulosity for 20 years—and now sees the same patterns in her daughter—asked Father Simon what true holiness looks like. She fears that her obsessive perfectionism has harmed her family and wonders how to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” without becoming perfectionist. Father Simon turned to the Greek word for “perfect,...

An 8-year-old boy named Joey called into Relevant Radio from San Jose, California during a Best of the Week segment. Fr. Rocky warmly greeted him, and Joey shared that he wanted to pray for his sister Rose, his brother, and someone named Howe. He also wanted to sing “Happy Birthday” for Maggie and for his mom, whose birthday had passed on November 7th. Joey said he had tried calling ea...

Fear crawls in quietly. A sudden headache spirals into thoughts of a brain bleed. A chest flutter becomes a heart-attack alarm. A strange noise in traffic, and suddenly you imagine catastrophic endings. Lauren’s email captured what so many Catholics carry silently: How do I live without being consumed by fear of death, tragedy, or suffering? Father Matthew didn’t dismiss these fears. I...

The week’s brightest news for the Church came from Baltimore before anything dark showed up. Bishop Thomas Paprocki joined Morning Air with a hopeful report from the USCCB’s Fall Assembly: a new president and vice president elected, a revised set of ethical directives for Catholic healthcare, a national consecration of the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2026, and approva...

The question was straightforward: why do Catholics say “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof” before Communion? Patrick Madrid explained that the line comes directly from the Gospel story of the Roman centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant. Though a pagan, the centurion recognized Christ’s authority and declared that Jesus didn’t need to enter hi...