Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor and Company. WMAL It's 7.07 on this Good Friday in your nation's capital and all around the world. Thank you for joining us here on our morning conversation, known as O'Connor and Company. It's Larry O'Connor with Alex Swayer of the Washington Times joining us this morning and a Good Friday to you, Alex Swayer. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's always a good morning, especially on Good Friday. Coming up in 30 minutes, we're going to hear from a priest, Father Paul Scaliia, one of the more popular priests in the area, as one can imagine with that last name. He, of course, is with the St. James Catholic Church in Falls Church, Virginia, and we'll have him reflect on the meaning of today and, of course, the incredible miracle of the resurrection on Easter Sunday. And then at 805 Al Corby, he's the president and founder of SAFE. They make doomsday bunkers. We want to get his perspective on what we're learning about the bunker under the White House, specifically under the new ballroom. And then at 835, we've got the curator of the Apollo Collection over at the Air and Space Museum talk about Artemis II and how it fits in history. So that's all coming up right now. There are stories everywhere we talked about in the last hour about the resurgence in the Catholic Church this year. It's been a growing trend. And for a couple of years, I've been seeing Catholic podcasters that I listened to another analyst, I don't just listen to Catholic podcasts, I listen to Christian podcasts, podcasts of faith across the board. They've all noticed this thing. But for a couple of years now, Dr. Ryan Hanning, I think a lot of observers thought this was just sort of a regularity, a blip, maybe a quick reaction from COVID. But now the numbers seem pretty firm and it's not just a leveling off. We're actually seeing a growth now in people either former Catholics who have been disaffected by the church coming back to the faith, or you're seeing Christians convert from other denominations into the Catholic Church. So from your perspective, at Catholics come home, what's at play here? Yeah, great, great question. We're still trying to figure this out. But from our perspective, what we've seen is. I mean, other than the Holy Spirit, of course, I don't want to make sure I get that on the record. All right, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. That's important. Yeah. Obviously, as we look at this, we know this is the work of the Lord and the Holy Spirit, and we praise God for it. We know it's not just through our efforts, though we like to participate as much as we can. Our prayer is, Lord, work through us, and if you have to work in spite of us, right? But what we've seen over the last really five years is this increase in faith, this sort of steady growth. And this year is really incredible. And what's unique about this year specifically is how many young adults are coming into the faith, you know, a generation that just previously was said to be the lowest religious faith on record now is actually the generation that's attending church the most. And this is across the board. And so we've been watching this and then really, you know, trying to understand really two things is one, why they why they're coming back now. And what do we need to do to keep them? How do we keep them engaged in the faith? And the first and foremost thing is we want them to really have a deeper relationship with Christ. And so one of the things that struck us over the last several months, we've interviewed people coming home, interviewed people who had no faith, no faith background coming, coming to the church. Well, we find really a deep commitment to studying the faith, which is also something unique. This is not just a cultural pressure. This seems to be, you know, across the board of social reality, people want meaning. They want answers. They want to be able to take a deeper look into things. They want to have more purpose in their life and they're finding it beautifully in the tradition of the church. And I had a question for you. I you talked about over the past year, especially with young people, do previously I was like, I wonder if, you know, the, the, all the coverage that Turning Point USA got people like, you know, Erica Kirk, Charlie Kirk, once he passed, if it's not sparking young people to go back to their church or back to find their faith. Have you seen any sort of correlation with numbers since, I mean, like, I guess they got so much press coverage since September with his death? Yeah, great question. And now, say two things. One, we've seen some direct evidence of what you might call the Charlie Kirk effect, right? That young people were kind of shocked at the level of discord and they, they want to turn back and sort of get back to basics and they want to look to be anchored in some place that's stable and real and authentic and anchors them back to tradition in a beautiful way. But we've been kind of amazed that it's not just that group too. It's really a wide variety. Concrete of this is that if you look at the percentage growth across the diocese in the U.S., it is large cities, small cities, large parishes, small parishes. It really seems to be that everything is rising together. So while there's definitely some, some direct evidence, we've seen of the youth who are more interested in faith as a result of all the media coverage. We also just see there's a natural resurgence and we think more or less this is a reaction against secularization, right? People, you want to have, like I said, you know, more purpose and when we interview people coming back to the church, what we found at Catholics come home is that very often the reasons that they left or the reasons they haven't been involved is really just detachment. You know, we live in a very secular society. The number one reason a Catholic leaves their faith is they move for work. That was the number one response we've gotten over thousands and thousands of conversations and surveys. That one and sports on Sunday, right? My son started playing soccer on Sunday. We fell out of habit. We couldn't find a mass time that worked for us and over the years, they just kind of fell away, which is surprising in some ways to us because we thought that when we reach out to former Catholics, following Catholics, what they need was a theologian and what they need was, you know, an apologetic for the faith and really they just needed an invite. They just needed an opportunity to get reconnected. Well, let's talk about that for a moment. Again, the organization is called Catholics Come Home, CatholicsComeHome.org and, you know, all of the statistics that we're looking at have to do with people who are entering the church, getting baptized, you know, they've gone through O CIA and all of the process to become a member of the church. But someone like me, I was born into a Catholic family. I was baptized. I had my first communion and then starting at eight years old, I, my family did not take me to church anymore and I went 20 years until I came back to the church. Now, I'm not going to show up in any of those statistics and I'll tell you the problem I have getting a parking spot right now on Sunday morning is way bigger than just the percentage increase that we're seeing in converts. So I think there's a lot of people like me who have been away and are now coming back. What's that like and what is the barrier there? You just said they just needed an invitation. Well, let's make that invitation now. This is the perfect time to come home this weekend. What is drawing Catholics back now suddenly if who have been away for a while? Yeah. And again, give full credit to the Holy Spirit, but we're also seeing this across the board. You know, every, every October, most parishes throughout the U.S. 15,000 parishes do their October mass count. And we have that data over the last 25 years and you can really track this trend layers really, really incredible to see the growth. Like you said, even in our little small parish fighting for a parking space, praise God, we're happy. It's full at the same time. I wish I had a better space, right? Yeah. So what we're seeing in the conversations we're having and our data really comes from these conversations we have with Catholics who are coming home because we want to make sure that there really is a personal invitation and reception and the parishes we work with, the diocese we work with to help them make that invitation. And what we're seeing and hearing is that a lot of people who have been disconnected are recognizing the role that religion ought to play in their life. They're recognizing the role that religion provides in terms of anchoring them, giving them meaning and purpose. And really going back, you know, sounds not to over spiritualize, but really it really is an act of the Holy Spirit. I can't tell you how many people we've encountered over the year to say, I just woke up in morning and I knew I needed to fall back in love with Jesus. Well, I woke up that morning and I smelled the incense. I remembered the child and I wanted that again. Oh, that was me. That was me. Oh, right. Having your sister. You're just about it. That was my story. When I came back, I said, you know what? I need God back in my life. I'm not sure where I'm going to end up, but I'll start where I began, which was a Catholic church. And I went into mass and the first whiff of that incense, there was something that happened in my body. Some warmth that I felt that I realized this is where I belong. This is home. This is where I can you stay there? I want to talk more about this, especially about conversions as well. If you don't mind, can you hang with us for a second? Absolutely. And in this Holy Week, this Good Friday leading into this amazing Easter Sunday, we're speaking with Dr. Ryan Hanning, Executive Vice President of Catholics, come home and I know we're getting all Catholicy on everyone. And I appreciate the tolerance of our, our Protestant Christian friends who are listening to we are brothers in Christ. And but listen, you know what? We Catholics, we have to live in a pretty Protestant dominant society here. So, you know, when we're in the news and, and, you know, there's a big story about us, you know, give us a minute, show us some grace, give us some tolerance. Come to Mass with us. I was, and by the way, I'm married to a Southern Baptist. So, you know, I dot the I's and cross the T's across the board here. Dr. I was, I was speaking to a recent convert to Catholicism who, who was raised as a reform Baptist. And what brought him to convert to the Catholic Church and come home was it was an intellectual exercise. He was already a Christian. He was already moved by the Holy Spirit. He already accepted Jesus Christ. But then when he started reading and studying and he started reading Thomas Aquinas and he started reading the fathers, he was blown away by the intellectual heft and weight of the church. And it just convinced me. He said, but all of these incredible, brilliant theologians of centuries gone by, they were all Catholic and it's impossible to read them and understand their incredible, you know, vision of an interpretation of scripture and not recognize, oh, they're Catholic. That's where this is. That's where we came from. Is that a part of this too? Because I know that there's a huge apologetic podcast movement now in, in new media with, with Pints with Aquinas, Matt Fred now being picked up and amplified on the Daily Wire podcast. Catholic Answers and their work with their podcast and Joe Heschmeyer and Trent Horne. These are big names on YouTube. Is that part? Hey there. I'm Paula Pan. I help people make the smartest money decisions possible. Do not ever worry about your salary. You need enough to make sure that you aren't in a bad financial position. Once you have that, your salary becomes moot. What matters from that point forward upside gains, any type of ownership stake or ownership potential, that's the money. Remember, you can afford anything, just not everything. Afford anything. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. A participant in what we're seeing here in the numbers. You know, absolutely. So, you know, John Paul II called us to a new evangelization, right? Same message, same unchanging truth, but, but new methodology to share that faith. And we've seen really an explosion of resources and we really come out of that, right? We've been around for 30 years. Catholic from home has been using new media to reach out, but the, the current environment, like you mentioned, Pints with Aquinas and Matt Fred, Catholic Answers, a council of Trent with Trent Horne. I mean, you, you name the list of these really incredible intellects who have a very, very beautiful way of sharing the faith and being intellectual without being boring. Right? They've made the faith rich in all its depth, all its proclamation of the good news, but at the same time, you really made it consumable for your average person. So absolutely. I think there's been sort of an intellectual renewal and we see really kind of two tracks for many people back into the faith, whether they're returning, whether they're converting or whether they're, they're coming to a relationship with Christ for the first time. One is very much inspired by the heart, right? They, they feel loneliness, they feel an emptiness, they feel a heaviness and by God's grace, they encounter somebody who introduces them to Christ, introduces them to this church. That's one track and then we love that we see that and it's so incredible when they, when they show up and just a few nights or tomorrow night of Easter vigil, you know, literally hundreds of thousands of people will be baptized and it'll be just incredible to watch that transformation, right? And so we see that we're going to recognize our, become new creation in Christ. But there's another track too, which is this very much intellectual track and this is my story, right? I kind of studied myself back into the faith and with all the resources and to encounter really, you know, the beautiful history and encounter the church fathers. And we do see this. I'm shocked at how many times we'll be meeting with somebody who came back to the faith, who wants to reach out, share their story, and they'll describe just what you said. And they're not critical of their Christian. They love what was provided in the Reform Baptist tradition or another tradition. We are very much in union with our pros and brothers and sisters. We want to save the world for Christ, right? We're all in this together in a lot of ways. But, you know, they yearned for a complete picture and by studying the church fathers, by studying the tradition, they studied their way back to the church. And then also that the fact that church is really unchanged. And we've seen if I live in Nashville, so I'm in the Bible Belt as well. And we've seen in the last just 10 years a rapid amount of change in a lot of your pros and brothers, sisters, denominations. And that unsettles a lot of people. So we have a lot of converts coming in because they just want that stability tradition and that continuity that goes back all the way 2000 years. That's true. I was going to say too, I don't know if you said you were in Nashville, but I didn't know if you journeyed up to Washington, D.C. for the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. I guess like in mid March. But one of the things I noticed is we're talking about the growing trends. Well, it's expanded. It's huge. It's been like maybe two years since I had gone before and I was going like almost every year. They had to change locations because of how many people I think I don't know if it was that was the cause, but like the ballroom size like quadrupled. And it just seems like there's just so much more attendance and focus. And one of the things Larry and I were talking about earlier is are people turning back to the church, especially young, the younger folks because of you. I think you alluded to technology earlier. But is that also helping because I think the hollow app was something I had brought up earlier and that was like a focus at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. They talked a lot about it and even had some of the founders speak and they're pretty young. I think they look like they're what are they in their 30s? They they kind of look. Then that seems like a good a good guy. Folks to to folk. Oh, and then Larry says that guys want to meet girlfriends. There's that. No, no, but I know, but I was going to say, let's not forget Father Mike and the Bible in a year podcast for three years running was the number one downloaded podcast in the world where people were through the guidance of a Catholic priest. People heard the scripture throughout the year and completed the Bible in one year. All of these things are just just adding to the list there, Alex. It's like the technology is piggybacking what you guys were saying about the educational aspect. Absolutely. And we've seen this, you know, if we are to cite kind of the four trends that we see right now that's unique about OCI and unique about the growth in the church. Very much as the youth very much. It's sort of the level of intellectual conversion. But it's also the fact that a lot of the youth, the very devices they've grown up on, right, that we call it their digital natives. They they have never been in a time in their life where they haven't had a device either in front of them or nearby. And they're using those very devices to ask questions, not just about clothes or what to buy or who to date. But they're also asking those questions about where did I come from? Why am I here? What's the purpose of life? Can God love me? Can I be forgiven? And we track all that really amazing for last 15 years on social media. We have almost a million followers on Facebook. We interact with people almost day in and day out and so many people, especially the youth have the Hallow app or their following father Mike Schmidt and Bible in a year. And really, absolutely, there's no dialogues. These resources have made the church more available in a really beautiful way. And our hope then is that when somebody gets inspired to actually walk in the door that that they're welcomed and received and really brought along that journey so that they the relationship with price is not just an isolation, but it's really found within the community. And Catholics come home. This is what we've been working so hard after the last 30 years. So cool. Catholicscomehome.org is the website. If you're hearing this and it's touching you and you're curious and you're thinking that maybe it's time, then go to Catholicscomehome.org. Oh, listen, we've had the era of the mega church and all of the lights and rock concerts and all the things that go on. And I understand the draw of that. But when you start looking into it, you're going to realize that there are mega churches and then there's the mega church and we're waiting for you. Catholicscomehome.org. What a great conversation, Dr. Hanning. Thank you so much for joining us and Happy Easter. Of course, first, a very solemn and reflective Good Friday today and enjoy your Sunday this weekend. Thanks for joining us. All right, likewise. God bless. It's 724. Vince Collin A's is redefining news talk. I'm Vince Collin A's host of the Vince podcast. I'm bringing you the truth beneath the headlines of all of the nation's top stories in depth interviews. We feature newsmaking interviews with the top guests on the whole planet. And I'll ask the questions you only dream of other interviewers asking and a front row seat to the most important conversations of the day. It's a show with an obsessive focus on what's good for America. You are going to love Vince. The Vince show. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Hey there. I'm Paula Pan. I help people make the smartest money decisions possible. Joe, you know what's been great about being a saver for money to make? And that money over the past couple of years has made a pretty good yield. Pre-pandemic money was making zero. Now it's actually making something, but that's starting to go down, down, down. I love how we can play the fact that inflation has been really high as a positive. But if you're a saver, you know what that means? Cha-ching. Silver lining, Joe. Silver lining. 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