Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Catholic Conversations #182: Saving Souls with Every Call: The Story of iCatholic Mobile

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Catholic Conversations #182: Saving Souls with Every Call: The Story of iCatholic Mobile · Catholic Spirit Radio

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Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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I'm your host, Paul Garcia, and today we've got a very special guest joining us.
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But before we get into that, I want to introduce someone else who's very special,
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my friend, a great man of faith, and a fantastic co-host with a great voice,
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who will soon be taking over this show entirely, and his name is Will Tetreault.
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Will, take it away. Thanks so much, Paul. It's an honor to be here today.
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Our guest today is David John, the founder of iCatholic Mobile,
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a phone service that helps fund Catholic ministries, including Catholic Spirit Radio.
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A devout and traditional Catholic, David is passionate about using technology
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to support the church and living faithfully in today's digital world.
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We're excited to dive into that and more.
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David, thank you very much for joining us today.
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Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. It's a blessing to join you.
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Yeah, the pleasure is all ours.
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So, David John, real quick, for people that don't already know,
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and who couldn't already know at this point, what is iCatholic Mobile and how did it get started?
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ICatholic Mobile is a mobile phone company, not too dissimilar than the big
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ones that you know, AT&T or Verizon or T-Mobile.
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The only difference from a service perspective is that I think we have better
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speeds and better quality services, but that's to be judged by the customers.
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At the end of the day, the company was founded partly based on what you guys
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do over there and that's to save souls.
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And what do I mean by that? You know, I came late into my Catholic life into
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the doctrine of extra-eclaseanolosalus.
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There's no salvation outside of the church. And that's a tough one for a lot of folks.
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But as Catholics, we can't pick and choose, you know, what part of doctrine,
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what part of Christ's church that we accept and what is less convenient.
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So as I really thought about this and thought about all the beautiful people
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I know and I see walking across the street, it's our obligation to save souls, all of us.
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And nobody does that better than Catholic radio. I mean, Mother Angelica laid
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it out. You save one soul, and it's worth it all.
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And I think by now, Catholic radio saved a few more than one.
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You know, what's the 35% of the people that listen to Catholic radio came into
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the church or came back to the faith, all the way up to 90% being able to better
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equip their children or reform their children in the Catholic faith.
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So coming myself and four or five other of us from years working in the telecommunications industry,
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we felt that we could do something to contribute to that by creating a mobile
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phone company that gives all of its profits back to supporting the evangelization
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of our faith through Catholic media.
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We expanded that recently to maybe about a year ago to supporting our priests
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and providing free services to priests, monasteries, seminarians.
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$800,000 a year could be significant coming out of their stipends.
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And so they're forming our children and you folks are bringing them back if they stray.
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Awesome. David, so iCatholic Mobile is great. I'd like to ask,
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so you were talking about the children's exposure a little bit.
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I would like to hit on that a little bit more.
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So many parents worry about their children's exposure once they have a cell
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phone. How does your platform address this without becoming overbearing?
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Well, you know, it is difficult. There are a lot of ways to address this from
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a technology perspective.
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Filters, either app-based or network-based, that limit or restrict or allow
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monitoring of what they access, they being the younger ones,
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from a mobile phone, a tablet, computer, those kind of things.
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None of them are fail-safe. And these kids, they're smarter than we are.
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So, you know, at the end of the day, although there are technology answers to
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being able to really control this with the kids, there's no better answer, unfortunately,
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at least from a technology perspective, than the behavior that the parents encourage,
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and the parameters, the boundaries that they set for the children of when they
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get a phone, what they can do with the phone, how long they can spend on the
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phone. I mean, if you kind of jump forward to adulthood.
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The most addictive thing in world human history are mobile phones.
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Everybody's got one in their pocket. And if you look at the addictive nature
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of it, it is the most pervasive addiction in human history,
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fueling a global addiction that is evident in the rise of mental health crisis
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in both genders across all ages, driving a wide range of depression,
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anxiety, and suicide, especially with young girls.
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There are 3,000 deaths a year in the United States for impairment while using
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a mobile phone while driving.
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So it starts really with the parents, the way they use a mobile phone.
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I mean, I was going to the grocery store the other day, and I got about 10 feet
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out of the driveway, and I almost turned around because I forgot my phone.
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I'm 62 years old. I mean, I lived most of my life without a phone,
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and I certainly didn't need to get out tomatoes.
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So, you know, there really is something that we need to look at as adults and
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then setting those parameters, those boundaries, and setting the right example for our kids.
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So although the technologies are there and our mobile services,
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you know, parental controls and filters, you know, I really still believe,
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you know, how long does that go on? You start 12, 13, 14.
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How long do you keep those on? How long before they get around them?
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You know, when they're 16, 17, 18.
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Really, it's about the behavior you create or the expectations around that behavior
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that you create when they're young.
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And it starts with, you know, the adult behavior. But how many of us can't imagine
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leaving our phone behind when we do go out for a simple task?
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How many did you see bringing their phone into mats every Sunday?
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Right. That one really kind of gets me, especially, you know,
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we're getting ready for communion and I'm looking around and I see some young people on their phone.
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And look, I don't discriminate against age either. There's people on their 60s,
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70s, all ages getting on their phone at mass.
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I thought 10 years ago you would ask me that that was reserved for the Protestant
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denominations, but I'm seeing it at Catholic mass, the holy sacrifice of the
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mass. And that is, it's a little aggravating, I'll be honest,
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and I know a lot of our listeners will agree.
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On that note, I wanted to ask you, David, why was it important to you that this
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company be distinctly Catholic in its mission, that it helps Catholic causes
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and not just vaguely Christian?
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I mean, there are a lot of, there's even commercials that play during the Super
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Bowl that are Christian and broadly Christian.
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Why did you want to go strictly Catholic with this company, iCatholic Mobile?
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Well, we certainly limited our potential from a growth perspective or what have
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you, but it's not why we did this.
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You know, we did this for God. We did this for Christ. This company is consecrated
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to the Blessed Mother Mary.
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Now, if a Protestant would like to join us and accepts that,
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or doesn't have to accept it, they can just pay us and use the service.
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And then we use our prophets and give them the Catholic causes.
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But at the end of the day, we target Catholics because we have a common belief
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in the one Catholic church formed by Jesus Christ, the only church,
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and that we're very Marian.
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We're very Marian. If you ever looked at our logos or our website or anything
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else like that, I mean, the entire company consecrates themselves to Mary every morning at 6 a.m.
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So from a targeting perspective, our values are better communicated to those
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that understand those values.
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Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, we really, I mean, it is such a great organization
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that iCatholic Mobile is, and what they do is so important.
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And I also think it's great how you are a regular guest on this show.
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We always love having you and all the good that you do.
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That's a question where my son is. It's really you guys doing all the work. I mean that.
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Oh, that's very, very kind of you to say. But, Will, I know you had a question.
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Yeah, so you brought up you supporting Catholic Spirit Radio.
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We're just kind of wondering why else is Catholic media today so important?
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You're talking about making it strictly Catholic, and I find that to be very
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brave and outgoing of you, and I appreciate that a lot.
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Well, thank you. You know, radio is a little different because,
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you know, you're bringing people in.
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We're trying to support organizations like yours. And that support comes from
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the folks that are already in.
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Yeah. And hey, you know, on the topic of media, I was wondering if we were going
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to get to this, and I guess it's kind of in my hands to do it.
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But speaking of devout Christianity, devout Christians in media,
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of course, we all know about Charlie Kirk and that tragic news. He was assassinated.
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This devout Christian man, there's a lot of talk about him. You know,
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some people think given a couple more years, he would have become Catholic.
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He's been seen at Catholic mass. His wife is Catholic.
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What do you, does that say anything to you? Does that send any message,
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what happened to Charlie Kirk, maybe the response to Charlie Kirk,
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just about the importance of spreading the gospel message, Christianity,
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specifically even Catholicism in a secular world such as the United States.
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Does that tell you anything?
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I don't know if you've been keeping up with the news and all that,
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but what does that say to you? That's a big question.
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That's a lot of questions. I mean, at the end of the day, we need to return to Christendom.
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Everything revolved around the church. So the shoemaker and the butcher and
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the baker and the candlestick maker all saw each other at Mass.
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So you don't rip off Mary, because you're going to have to face Mr.
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Jones after Mass. You're going to have to face your priest.
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A father may come up to you. There was a certain level of morality that existed
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when we had a Christian culture, and Catholics specifically to go back 800 years
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to really when Christendom was thriving.
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So I believe that one of the messages is that we really do need to become a
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Christian nation again. And I didn't say Judeo-Christian.
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We are the inheritors of that covenant. So we need a Christian nation,
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i.e. Catholic, you know, ideally.
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As far as, there's a lot of things. There's so many messages in Charlie Kirk,
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you know, to all of us out there that are doing whatever we're doing and trying
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to stay in sanctifying grace but struggling to do it, the end can come suddenly.
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All of us. And that's, you know, maybe a grim message, but if nothing else, get with it.
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But you look at these very influential, talented, and blessed people,
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and Charlie's not the only one. Look at Candace Allen.
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There's a lot of them that have switched over and become Catholic.
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And I think the deeper you get into morality, the morality of society,
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the more you realize that that is best defined, best regulated.
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If it be obedience in the law and justice, as well as mercy and forgiveness,
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we've got it all here and only in the Catholic Church.
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Absolutely. I could not agree more. Couldn't agree more. And yeah,
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it was really quite an extreme event.
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And I love that his wife did a talk just a couple days after that.
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And she said, if you think that this was going to silence anybody, you're dead wrong.
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I'm going to be the loudest widow for this cause, for the things that Charlie
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stood for, which is family, God, country.
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And yeah, this was just definitely not a step in the right direction for the
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enemy, for the evil one. I think he really screwed up here.
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And Will, I know you had something for David John. We probably got one more
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question here before we go to the break. But yeah, Will, I'll turn it over to you.
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Yeah, so we had actually talked a little bit about Charlie Kirk before we got
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on the day. And we were talking about the horrific videos we had seen.
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And so unfortunately, we're able to see that in today's day and age.
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With so many phones being out and about in every single aspect of everybody's life.
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And I was just kind of wondering, does your iCatholic Mobile help families guard
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their eyes and their hearts online with so much impure content and disgusting
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content out there nowadays?
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We have a purity browser. It's an application.
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We're moving to a network-based filter by the end of the year,
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which will be a lot easier to manage and operate where the parents can set controls
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of what can be seen, what can't be seen on the internet, both by just general
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terms like apps, social media,
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internet, and then a more granular sense, like the bad stuff,
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the keyword, and whatever else.
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And then you can set that in a way where it kind of goes into some of the gray
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areas that could be near occasions of sin and that start to lead you.
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These days, the bad stuff on the internet finds you. You don't need to be out
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there looking for it with intent.
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And it just takes a couple of accidental clicks, and now you are going down
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the road of liking something.
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And we have these parental controls. They allow the parent to set by phone what the parents can see.
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And they are like any current control, if it be a Covenant Eyes or something
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better, some of the Kapersky products, Apple's products. Google has a good free product out there.
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They work, but there's always a trade-off.
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There'll be trade-offs. And sometimes things that they should be able to access
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for researching homework or whatever may not be available.
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Whenever you start filtering the internet, it's not a perfect science.
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No doubt about that. And I think that's something that's all too familiar with myself for sure.
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And I'm sure a lot of our listeners is you don't need to go looking for the
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bad stuff. The bad stuff finds you. I've been with my wife's parents.
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We're looking up stuff on YouTube. Sometimes it's my mother-in-law looking up
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something pretty innocent.
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And you might just look up a football game, you know, best football hits of the past decade.
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And all of a sudden you see some crazy thumbnails with some cheerleaders not
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wearing hardly anything.
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And it's like, boom, just right in your face. You don't have to go looking for
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it. You can be a sweet, innocent mother of many children, and you're still going to see it.
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So it's really, really interesting times we're living in.
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I'm grateful for forces for good, like iCatholicMobile, that at least try to
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tackle this situation. Other great organizations like Covenant Eyes and all
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the other ones, it's certainly, these are forces for good.
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But this is a great conversation so far. We'll be right back in just one moment.
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Listeners, stick around. You are listening to Catholic Conversations.
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I'm Paul Garcia with Will Tatro, the co-host.
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He's doing great. And David John, the founder of iCatholic Mobile.
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We'll be right back in just one moment after these short messages.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit
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Radio. This is segment number two of three.
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I'm Paul Garcia here with Will Tatro. He is co-hosting and doing a phenomenal job.
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And we are also joined via the phone by David John, the founder of iCatholic Mobile.
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David, we were just talking during the break a little bit about something interesting
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you were saying about smartphones and apps, a wise priest, and the near occasion of sin.
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Can you just go ahead and take the mic and tell the listeners a little more about that?
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Thank you very much. There was a priest that, well, it's an FSPX priory in Chicago
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that we do some work with.
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And the priest there, or the head of the priory, said he'd like to put us out
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of business. He wants to put iCatholic Mobile out of business.
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And I paused and said, you know, okay, sorry, Father, for I have sinned.
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And he said, you know, I don't even understand why people need to carry around
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a near occasion of sin in their pocket.
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And he's a flip phone user, so that, you know, he's at least,
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you know, walking to talk.
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But it's true. When you look at the most addictive nature of mobile phones and
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how they affect the brain, at least if you talk to psychologists or, you know, I believe Dr.
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Ray Grendick covers this in one of his books quite a lot.
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Father McCag, which is on your station, by the way, talks about this as well.
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We really need to look at apps used to social media in context of an addiction.
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You know, if we look at it from that perspective, you know, it will help us
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govern our own behavior, that own behavior that observed by the children,
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especially the young children before they're really needing a phone from a peer pressure perspective.
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If they grew up seeing parents living a life with intent, putting that phone
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down during certain hours, having phone free times, phone free zones in the house.
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I remember once several years ago, I was running up when I was in the secular
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world, you know, I was on my phone all the time.
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And I remember I sat down, I was on my phone and I looked at it at the dinner
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table and my wife turned to me and said, the world is not going to end because
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you didn't pick up your phone.
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And it got me thinking, I'm looking at my kids, they're looking at me,
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but they're all adults now, but they were smaller at the time.
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And it really was like a knife through my heart. It really made me realize,
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A, with my own view of self-importance, if nothing else, but certainly that
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nothing is so important that it can't stop for a meal with the family.
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And then I started creating some other habits around that, where you can talk
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about if you'd like later on.
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But certainly there is, the father kind of woke me up. He gave me kind of a
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refresher after my wife woke me up, and I think we've all been there.
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Right, right. And I love that, what you're talking about. I'm going to be a
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father here in, shoot, just a few weeks, really.
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And it's, oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's wonderful. And we're so excited.
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You got a little boy on the way.
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But these things are so important, especially when there's such an impressionable
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new soul in your life that you are responsible for.
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I mean, all those little things, putting down my phone at dinner,
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not only is that polite, not only is that good manners, but it shows love and
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appreciation to my wife, first and foremost, and then also my son and the children to come.
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So I love talking about all things related to that. And you're so great talking about that.
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Thank you well you know there are you know if you you
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don't remember probably but but when
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i was a kid you know my my grandfather would say get get away
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from the boob tube right you know you sit in
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front of t if you go back to the 50s and the 60s and the 70s you know your parents
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used to limit the amount of time you watch tv and why do you have don't they
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limit the amount of time they look at the smaller screen and so you know it
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it's because they're participating as well but among and other things,
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it's so easy to overlook and it's so normalized.
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And if you look at all the woke culture, you look at all the sin in this country
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now, it's because we have anesthetized ourselves,
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looking at everything outside of Sunday and outside of mass and outside our
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home and our children, you know, with some sort of, you know,
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acceptance or been sanitized to it all.
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So I, you know, there are things that take effort, but I believe that if everybody
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did what, you know, I know my parents did back in the 70s, and,
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you know, the first thing you do in the morning is do your chores. You don't turn on the TV.
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The last thing you do at night is say your prayers or, you know,
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lay out your clothes for the next day.
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You don't get on your phone. So taking that similar approach.
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You know, I've seen people recommend this, and, you know, I've tried to adopt
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it, is that last five minutes and the first five minutes of the day,
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don't be the first thing you do to reach out to the phone.
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I think a lot of your listeners probably already are, you know,
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waking up and the first thing you do is thank God and say Hail Mary or three Hail Marys.
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But, you know, then you extend that to 15 minutes, 60 minutes.
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I've gotten it up to the first two hours and the last at least hour.
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And it's a game changer. It really is. It's about controlling that concupiscence.
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I've always had a hard time with that word, right? The control of our lower
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faculties and they'll extend that to something as innocuous as a phone.
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And the other thing I would always suggest is the hardest thing to do,
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you know, Nancy Reagan, just say no.
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There's no reason they need a phone. Parents tell me now it's a safety issue,
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and there's a lot of good arguments for that.
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But at the end of the day, we survived thousands of years, and only in the last
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15 years, literally if that long, 15 years, 20, or probably 15,
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is it now where everybody's got to have a phone.
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And I don't believe that's the case. I really, really don't.
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I think that we can say no, and the longer you can say no to screens to your
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kids, the more of a life intent they will live and the better chance they have
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of becoming a saint. That's my opinion.
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I completely agree. And it's not really good for business. It's like,
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you know, do you really need those two bones for the kid?
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You don't, most of the time. There's always, there's going to be an exception.
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I would say that 99% of the time, somebody's going to have an exception.
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But I really think that there needs to be more of an effort amongst us as a
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community to limit that the best
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parental controls and not have a phone at all. Social media, for sure.
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And I agree. I'm super glad you're talking about the seriousness of this addiction
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nowadays. And, yeah, you're extremely right.
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We need to acknowledge what is important in our lives, and that is our faith,
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I believe. And it seems that we are extremely becoming slaves to smartphones.
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As you were saying, you said, we wake up, we look at our smartphone,
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we go to bed, we look at our smartphone.
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So like, at what point does it become worshiping a false idol?
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What do you think about that?
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Wow. That's a good perspective. I didn't think of it that way,
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but I think I'd agree immediately.
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You should get a pre-thought to talk about that one because that is really smart.
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I think that you're correct that, yeah, anything that we're giving our time
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to. How many times are we looking at things that are okay?
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There's nothing wrong with the subject of what we're looking at, the content itself.
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Most of us are like that. 98% of us or whatever, we're just using it for checking our email.
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And, you know, we do check social media for whatever purposes.
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There's a lot of great Catholic stuff out there. But next thing you know,
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you're swiping and 20 minutes have gone by.
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20 minutes more than we thought we had, but we can't say a rosary.
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So, and there, to your point, if you don't have time to say the rosary and you
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have time to spend any time swiping, you put that false idol right up there.
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Right, right, right And I know one of my favorite people Favorite voices to
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listen to Favorite minds on the planet Is Jordan Peterson And he's spoken a
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lot about He's always getting And for people that don't know Who Jordan Peterson
22:58
is He is a former Harvard psychology professor He is now a very,
23:02
very large voice With the company The Daily Wire Conservative media platform
23:06
Or company rather And he's talking about all things psychology And he is His
23:11
wife is a devout Catholic now She was kind of miraculously saved by the power of the rosary.
23:16
And I believe he will soon be Catholic. He's spotted at Catholic masses all the time.
23:21
And one of the things he says is people all the time, they'll say to him,
23:24
you know, Jordan, we love what you say.
23:26
Are you, do you believe in God? Do you believe in God? Are you Christian?
23:30
All the time. And he always gives some type of answer that makes people upset.
23:34
And he's like, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to play that game.
23:37
I think that's a silly game to play, not to believe in God is silly,
23:41
but to answer your question, how you want me to answer is, I don't know. I don't know.
23:45
I mean, do you worship God? Do you believe in God? Because everyone says they believe in God.
23:52
But if you really believed, your life would revolve around it.
23:56
If you want to know what someone really worships, look at what's at the center of their life.
23:59
Look what everything revolves around. Look what's most important to them,
24:03
what's most constantly with them, how they make decisions, what the first thing
24:07
is that they're considering.
24:08
And, I mean, Will, you beautifully said it.
24:11
At what point does it become a false idol, our cell phones?
24:16
And I'd say maybe at the point that that is the first thing we reach for in
24:21
the morning. That's one of the things that we consider when we're making our decisions.
24:25
One of the first things, hey, you want to go out to dinner?
24:27
Oh, got to, I don't know, check my phone, whatever.
24:31
Once it starts intruding on the things that God told us to put first and foremost,
24:35
our family, our faith, shoot, looks like that's the thing that's at the center
24:39
of your life, that that's the thing of most importance. Maybe that is a false idol.
24:43
I don't know. Did you have any thoughts on what I just said?
24:46
Maybe it said I was completely out of line there.
24:49
No, that was brilliant. I mean, really brilliant. And it gets me thinking and
24:53
making notes to plagiarize.
24:57
It is so well stated. At the end of the day, you start thinking about why we
25:01
call it a phone to begin with.
25:02
You know, a phone is something you talk on. Let's extend that to texting.
25:06
Is it a camera? Is it a TV for podcast? How much time do we spend on it?
25:12
And what are we doing with it? If we really need it just in case somebody needs
25:15
to get me for emergencies or to communicate or say I'm running late or say,
25:20
hi, honey, I love you or is there anything you need from the store?
25:23
You don't need a smartphone. That's for sure. You don't need an $800 phone.
25:26
You can get away with a flip phone because that's a phone.
25:30
These things really aren't even phones anymore, right? They're computing devices. And I...
25:36
So love that part that, you know, look at what you spend your time with,
25:41
and that's what you worship, what you believe it.
25:45
And that is just beautiful. That is really well stated.
25:50
Yeah. And hey, I can't take any credit for it. That's Dr. Jordan Peterson for
25:54
you. And you mentioned, yeah, these are computers.
25:58
They're not just computers. They're supercomputers with more processing power,
26:01
far multitudes more processing power and computing power than Apollo 11.
26:06
So these are not just little phones. These are advanced software and hardware
26:10
designed to make you addicted. We could talk plenty more about that.
26:15
But, Will, I know you got some. They are designed that way. There's no question about it.
26:20
They're designed to addict and are designed to take, you know,
26:23
if you go to an Apple iPhone, you go to, you know, privacy and security scroll
26:26
all the way down to the bottom system settings, you're going to see 30 or 40
26:30
little things that have a green
26:31
light on them. You could turn them all off and it makes it sound bad.
26:34
It says, oh, if I turn that off, I won't be able to make an emergency call.
26:37
I won't be able to find my phone.
26:39
I won't be able to have a list of things. And it's all an absolute lie.
26:43
Everything on an iPhone in that area of the settings is there strictly for them
26:48
to take data ostensibly so they can improve that service, so they can learn
26:53
better about how you use the phone to make a better product.
26:56
That's what they're saying but the data is sold, the
26:59
data is used and the data is yours and they're taking it so they're extracting
27:03
everything about you so they can learn how to turn that around to come up with
27:07
more and more addictive things that are more personalized that are more likely
27:12
to appear useful to you than they actually need to be So you're talking about instant gratification,
27:19
and we're just clinging to these things that continuously give us this instant
27:23
gratification and that comes from us poorly prioritizing our lives.
27:29
So maybe we can bring a solution to this. How can we bring balance in our lives
27:33
considering all these things that give us this gratification?
27:38
Yeah, you know, it's hard. It really depends on your view of addiction.
27:42
And do you do home turkey? Do you do methadone?
27:45
I mean, you know, I think that by setting small attainable goals in how boundaries
27:51
are established in the home and personally,
27:54
that's night mode, leaving, you know, putting the phones in a basket or not
27:58
bringing them to the bedroom, to the kitchen table, to screen-free zones,
28:02
no phones during family time, whatever that may be, if it be if you're playing
28:05
Monopoly together or something like that.
28:07
Certainly during prayer, there, and the restrictions of that few minutes at
28:13
the beginning and the end of the day and slowly increasing and increasing the amount,
28:17
phone-free time that you set the right example.
28:20
I've seen too many 22, 30-year-old people in that range that their lives are
28:27
different, their work ethic's different. They have their phone on all the time,
28:31
in the warehouse, in the car, everywhere.
28:34
And if we, the ones of us or the ones of you that have smaller kids,
28:38
now's the time to tackle this.
28:40
With example and with discipline, our kids aren't our friends, right?
28:45
They're our kids, and we have an obligation to make the tough calls.
28:49
And I think people need to make them now.
28:51
It's hard to go to your 17-year-old who's been on Facebook for five years and
28:54
TikTok to say, oh, it's over.
28:58
I agree. And sometimes we have to face those hard things as adults.
29:02
And before we head any further, we're talking all things cell phone abuse and misuse in adults.
29:07
You are listening to Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio,
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30:31
You are listening to Catholic Conversations. We have David John on the show
30:34
today, a devout Catholic and the founder of iCatholic Mobile,
30:37
a phone service that helps fund Catholic ministries.
30:39
We are talking about cell phone abuse and misuse in adults today.
30:43
It seems the devil's been hard at work, unfortunately, in today's age.
30:47
And Paul, I know you've got a good question for David, and I'll point that back
30:51
over to you. Absolutely.
30:52
Yeah, when you say the devil's hard at work, oh my goodness.
30:54
That's an understatement. He's not only hard at work, but he's signing his work
30:58
like the terrible artist, but artist nonetheless that he is.
31:02
Something that I've learned, and I'm going on a little bit of a rant here before
31:05
I turn it back over to David John, but I've talked to an exorcist on this show,
31:10
actually, and he said it's crazy, and he's a demonologist, PhD,
31:13
having individuals, psychologist, he's big time.
31:16
He's saying that the devil signs his work.
31:19
One of the first things that God does in his creation of man is to make woman,
31:24
man and woman, he created them, and it was good.
31:27
And one of the early things he does in the Old Testament is he floods the earth
31:30
because it is purely evil, but he will not flood it again. He signs that agreement with a rainbow.
31:35
And not only that, but way before any of this, it is said, I know Fulton Sheen
31:39
has even talked about this, but the first sin committed by the angels was very likely pride.
31:45
That's what casts the first ones out of heaven. So I say all this because the
31:50
exorcist talked about the devil signing his work.
31:52
The only group that's saying, hey, a man can be a woman and a woman can be a
31:56
man, it's not so distinct. It's not so good necessarily. You can be whichever one you want.
32:00
What is this about God creating you this way and it being good?
32:02
No way. You can be whatever you want.
32:04
That same group, their logo is a rainbow, just like that one that was shown
32:11
to Noah saying, I will not flood the earth, even though there are a lot of evil people.
32:15
So think about that. that you can be a man or a woman. It's not what God created you.
32:20
We're going to have our logo be a rainbow. Also, we're going to have a whole
32:23
month dedicated to all these things and more sacrilegious things.
32:26
We'll call it Pride Month, the same deadly sin that cast the angels out of heaven.
32:31
I say all that because yes, the devil is in full view, just like you said, Will.
32:36
And on that note, I want to ask you, David, we're talking about,
32:41
of course, how evil comes through the phone.
32:43
I mean, for Pete's sake, you talk about the first sin Adam
32:46
eating the apple on the back of my phone maybe on the
32:49
back of a lot of our listeners phones I'm sure is an apple
32:52
with a bite out of it is that a coincidence I don't know some say that there's
32:55
no coincidences but I just want to ask you David John what are what are some
33:01
of the other ways that the devil is coming into our lives into society and how
33:06
can we put a stop to maybe one or two of them,
33:10
Wow, that's a lot packed in there, and it's all poignant.
33:14
You know, at the end of the day, starting with the pride, you start with the
33:17
little things, right? You know, when you try to say, well, I'm an exception.
33:22
You know, I need to have this always near my side.
33:26
And are you a trauma surgeon or are you a firefighter?
33:29
We all have to—I was one of them. I probably still am when it comes to,
33:34
you know, the sin of pride, and the pride is the root of all sin.
33:36
And if you, you know, according to Thomas Aquinas, and of course,
33:38
I think a lot of great theologians, right, everything flows from that.
33:42
And so it starts with, OK, can we limit and control the phone use of ourselves
33:47
and the example we set in our families? And a lot of times that pride will get in the way.
33:51
But if you take it all the way out to look at the last shooting,
33:55
Charlie Kirk radicalized where?
33:58
Online, in social media, and he was on his phone. I mean, so many of these things, so many of the.
34:05
Where people, where folks are, you know, we're all young ones in school and,
34:10
you know, we're picked on or whatever it is, you know, now you can find acceptance
34:14
by joining one of these groups.
34:16
A lot of times it's really just where, you know, they're having a rough time,
34:19
they're adolescent, it's not an easy time for the human species.
34:22
And they're turning to those support groups turning away from engaging real
34:27
people and engaging in social media groups.
34:29
And that's where the radicalization happens. That's where the devil creeps in.
34:33
Well, maybe this is you. Oh, yeah, that is me.
34:35
So certainly he's all over social media. Social media is consumed almost entirely on mobile phones.
34:42
And that's where the radicalization is happening. And I don't want to call it the left or the right.
34:48
I want to call it evil, as you said. And there's evil on every side,
34:52
But certainly you see it more on one side than the other insofar as these behaviors
34:57
that are clearly wrong, clearly against natural law and against God's law.
35:03
And, you know, we also have people signing their work, like you said,
35:06
like Rupnik, signing their art, even within our own church.
35:11
Right, right, right. Yep. Evil is certainly afoot. It's all too easy to access
35:15
regardless of the age that you are. It's unbelievable.
35:19
Some of the things that we can see online just so easily and all the mediums
35:24
through which evil can flow into our lives.
35:26
You know, it's easy to get all distraught about that type of stuff,
35:28
but also there's channels through which grace can flow.
35:31
We pray that we can be a conduit through which God's grace can flow into the world.
35:35
And a conduit, if I use that word a lot, like a lot of people know what it is,
35:39
it's just think like a rain gutter or something.
35:42
That's what I always think of, just a thing through which anything can flow
35:45
into the world. So God's grace through us into the world.
35:49
You're saying a lot of great things. I wish we had even more time here,
35:53
but Will, I know you got something for David John as well.
35:56
Yeah, and we're just talking about, you know, people letting the devil win the
35:59
interior battle in their lives and all this spiritual warfare.
36:03
And talking about pride, you know, pride is all about me and I,
36:06
and that's something that I truly appreciate about the Catholic Church is,
36:09
it's so reverent and it's so about worshiping God and more about God and pleasing
36:14
God than it is about pleasing ourselves. Do you have anything to say on that?
36:18
Yeah, it's sad I have something to say about anything.
36:25
But it is all about us these days. I mean, that's the whole idea of social media is it's about us.
36:32
Years ago, I was working with all the major carriers really around the world
36:35
when content was first coming down the phones.
36:37
It started with ring back tones and ringtones, then downloadable music,
36:42
and then streaming music, and streaming video.
36:44
It was only 14 years ago that social
36:47
media was able to show pictures on a phone. It wasn't that long ago.
36:51
And what we were trying to convince the carriers of doing when I was working
36:54
for, I would say the dark side now, was that you need to get more into user-generated
36:59
content. You need to control your ecosystem. You can monetize this.
37:03
And being old, stodgy bell companies, they didn't do that. and the other big
37:07
companies that we know today social media just went what they call over the top.
37:11
We don't need AT&T to deliver this to the phone. Well, it's an internet connection
37:15
so we can deliver it over the top
37:16
and the phone companies only monetize it through data plans. But what...
37:21
We used to say, well, maybe 15%. They said, well, from a revenue forecasting
37:25
perspective, what percentage of the content is going to be somebody taking their
37:28
own content and sharing it?
37:30
And we were run out of room thinking we're crazy when we said 15% is going to be user generated.
37:37
Now, what is that percentage? I don't know, but it's huge.
37:40
It's huge. How many people's hamburgers are you seeing on there?
37:44
How many of these TikToks and dances and all of these things of yourself,
37:48
of your prideful self? And you don't look at it that way.
37:50
Sometimes it's well-intended. You know, it's my grandkids and me,
37:53
and we're at Disneyland in front of Mickey Mouse.
37:55
But, you know, it's all slippery slope. At the end of the day,
37:58
it's about us and not about God.
38:01
And if we can maybe even just adopt some habit with that phone that are Catholic.
38:06
There's a lot of great Catholic content. That's the upside of it all.
38:09
There's a lot of great Catholic content.
38:11
Unsubscribe from anything in every group that's not Catholic.
38:14
Start there. You'd find that you will not be at a loss or content to fill your day.
38:19
And fill your screen. There's a Fulton Sheen app, you know, and it's free.
38:23
There's a lot of great apps out there that are Catholic, prayer apps,
38:28
Latin apps, you know, mass apps.
38:30
Obviously, we all know Holo, and that's great. It's a good app.
38:32
They're doing great work, but it's a paid app.
38:35
So there's a lot of great free content out there that's Catholic.
38:37
So when you turn on your phone, you see a whole screen of apps.
38:40
You should only see maybe your email, your text, and lots of Catholic stuff.
38:46
And that's how I started to mortify myself against the world.
38:49
EWTN for everything. Catholic Spirit Radio has a great app. You can listen to this show on an app.
38:56
So that's a really great start. If you want to make it about what you stand
39:00
for, make your phone. If somebody picks up your phone, all I see is Catholic stuff.
39:03
And that's exactly right. Fill your lives with good content and the Catholic Spirit Radio app.
39:08
And I'd like to talk a little more about iCatholic Mobile. So with that,
39:12
you're also, when you're a member of iCatholic Mobile, you're also supporting
39:16
many Catholic ministries. Is that correct?
39:20
Yes. We are the Benedictine Abbey, the Sisters of the Holy Cross,
39:26
Opus Sanctificum Angelorum, the Holy Work of the Angels, the Lazarus Healing
39:32
Center out in the Boston area.
39:34
We have a lot of convents, a lot of monasteries. several religious orders are
39:39
with us, particularly the FSSP and many of those.
39:43
Not that the order is with us or endorses us or anything like that,
39:46
but we try to help them out as best we can because they're forming our children
39:50
and they're leading our masses.
39:53
And one thing that's nice is that every member of iCatholic Mobile has mass
39:56
set for them every single day by a holy priest.
40:00
So we deliver great data, great text, great voice and phone calls,
40:05
and the Holy Spirit with every plant.
40:07
That's so amazing to hear. We're glad to hear that, and I'll pass it back over to Paul.
40:12
Yeah, so David, I know we're kind of running out of time here a little bit for
40:17
this big conversation, but of course, we talk about family.
40:20
You're a family man. You love talking about family, as do I.
40:25
This is Fulton Sheen, and we were talking a little more about Fulton Sheen during the break.
40:29
He spoke about if the devil were attacking a nation, he would first attacked the family.
40:35
And family is what grows everyone.
40:39
You know, if we have problems in society today, it's from individuals,
40:43
number of them acting wrongly, and they act wrongly largely because of their
40:47
upbringing in their household, in their family.
40:50
I think this is so interesting. The best way to predict if someone will go on
40:54
to live a life of poverty and or live a life of incarceration,
40:58
there's no better predictor than did this person have both parents or not.
41:02
That is the best predictor. And it's incredible to go to figure out if they're
41:05
going to be poor when they grow up, if they're going to go to jail,
41:08
if they're going to get addicted to drugs.
41:10
The biggest predictor of that is do they have both parents or not?
41:14
Because if they don't, yeah, much, much, much more likely that all those things
41:18
are going to plague their life.
41:21
And I just think that's so interesting. You even talked about briefly,
41:25
you mentioned a line, your kids, right? They're your kids. They're not your friends.
41:28
I know we have a responsibility as parents to bring up our kids in the right
41:33
way, to be functioning members of society, to be good Catholics as well.
41:38
I just didn't know, is there anything that's been on your mind regarding parenting.
41:43
Familial life maybe, that you think people need to hear?
41:46
Sometimes there's trends of maybe gentle parenting or friendship parenting.
41:52
I don't know, is there anything that you want to say regarding family before
41:56
we wind down this episode?
41:58
You know, there's a lot of shows on your program and other EW Tennis stuff that have more.
42:06
A cadre of folks that are more expert than I am. I actually let my kids slip
42:11
a little bit because they're older.
42:13
So, I mean, they were high school when smartphones were really coming out compared to now.
42:18
But when you're driving, I think it goes right back again to that time when you're together.
42:22
How often are we driving down the road and mom's talking on the phone and you
42:26
look in the mirror and both kids, they're not talking to each other.
42:29
They're not needling each other, you know, and that's why we're happy.
42:33
We let them just sit there and stare at their phones with their headsets on.
42:35
You're all within a foot of each other in a car, sometimes for hours,
42:40
if you're driving far, going to see grandma or what have you,
42:43
and everybody's on the phone and not talking to each other.
42:46
I mean, I think that's the first indicator that you need to make a change in
42:49
your life. And you look in the rearview mirror, what your kid's doing.
42:51
And if they're on the phone and not talking to you, or if you're on the phone
42:54
trying to make that business call while you're taking them to school,
42:58
you need to find a way to adjust. It's possible.
43:01
And if we start there, It's really important that we start somewhere because
43:06
that habit, you don't see what they're looking at. You see the back of the phone,
43:10
not the front of the phone.
43:11
And it may not be bad, but the fact that they're staring at it and scrolling
43:17
or touching it or laughing but
43:19
not communicating with their brother and sister or in one way or another.
43:23
When you have a few kids, you know what I'm talking about.
43:26
That's a trouble sign right there. It's going to be a trouble sign. Right.
43:30
Absolutely. And one thing I'm so glad I've been able to do, it's really been
43:34
an honor to be on Catholic Spirit Radio and hosting this show,
43:37
Catholic Conversations, because now that I have a son on the way,
43:41
I really feel like I've got a head start in terms of morality in regards to
43:45
parenting and bringing up this child, especially regarding the phone,
43:49
because, man, what a portal to a whole lot of bad stuff.
43:53
Yes, you can access some good stuff as well, but for the most part, there's more bad stuff.
43:57
And the risk does not outweigh the reward or wait, the risk is it's not worth
44:03
it, basically, is what I'm saying here.
44:05
But David, I really always enjoy talking to you. It's been an honor speaking with you.
44:10
We'll have you on again very soon and talk about many more things,
44:13
solve the world's problems.
44:14
But I just want to say thank you. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
44:17
No, no, I just was chuckling. Oh, hey, it's been great speaking with you.
44:23
Thank you for joining us today and sharing your mission. It's always encouraging
44:27
to see Catholic values lived out and spoken about in such practical and meaningful ways.
44:33
Yes, thank you, David. If you'd like to learn more about iCatholic Mobile or
44:36
how you can support Catholic ministries through your phone plan,
44:39
visit iCatholicMobile.com.
44:41
And David John, just thank you so much again for joining us on Catholic Conversations.
44:45
We really appreciate your time.
44:47
No, we appreciate what you're doing, Saving Souls. Thank you.
44:50
Thank all the listeners. Stay listening.
44:52
And it's been a real blessing and an honor to speak to both of you.
44:55
Well, thank you very much. And yes, to all of our listeners,
44:58
thank you for listening.
44:59
Thank you for tuning in to Catholic Spirit Radio and, of course,
45:02
Catholic Conversations. That was David John, a founder, the founder of iCatholic Mobile.
45:07
Until next weekend, may God bless you all with a great week.
45:11
You've been listening to Catholic Conversations. Download our podcasts at catholicspirit.com.
45:15
Music.