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No more excuses.
Church Militant is now the most-talked-about Catholic website on the planet.
From atheists to leftist Marxists (including but not limited to members of the hierarchy) to politicians who pose as conservatives to faithful Catholics who are sick and tired of the constant downward spiral, Church Militant has risen to be a leader — perhaps the leader — in this area. Even the Vatican Secretariat of State monitors us every day, as well as multiple dioceses throughout the country, including our own here in Detroit.
First, we'd like to thank all of you who have propelled this apostolate to the heights it has reached. None of it would be possible without you. But there is something more basic I'd like to address and get a little personal about in the process, if I may.
What Church Militant has become today owes to one moment in the temporal order. Of course, without the spiritual order of my mom's prayers for my return to the Faith and the multitude of graces they afforded us, the temporal order would amount to nothing. That being said, the temporal order does matter, a lot.
When I returned to the Faith (the One True Faith), I had a deep yearning to do something for the Faith that would be a "thank you" to God as well as a "share the joy of the truth" to others.
From the time of my reversion in June 2004 until the first "inspiration" or idea in late 2005, I used to talk with my dad constantly about what I could do. I had zero ideas really — all kinds of stuff, but nothing taking solid form. I was doing very well financially in my career at the time, but just increasing donation amounts to various Catholic outfits didn't seem like enough.
At that time of my life, in fall 2005, my job was taking me around the world on various production shoots, and the book The Da Vinci Code was everywhere. Written by Dan Brown, it was another one of those "death by a thousand cuts" approaches to destroying people's faith.
The book, which calls itself a novel but is treated as history, is little else than a denial of Our Lord’s divinity. It also insisted He and Mary Magdalene were an "item" and had a child, and the Catholic Church was part of a 2,000-year-long conspiracy trying to hide this from the world.
The book (and subsequent movie starring Tom Hanks) was the sole impetus in the temporal order for the launching of this apostolate — nothing more.
I was infuriated by the proposals the book and movie put forward and said to myself, "I have to do something!" So I told my dad that I had finally figured out what to do and began producing a documentary debunking the ridiculous claims of Dan Brown.
I never got around to producing that documentary because several days later, after severe writer's block, I said, "Dad, The Da Vinci Code isn't the problem. The problem is that people believe all this crap because they don't know the Faith. What we need is some kind of regular media presentation of the truths of Catholicism." A few weeks later, I was renting building space, converting it into a studio and getting down to business.
That first effort was and remains our flagship show, The One True Faith, with more than 100 hour-long episodes. Premium members can still view those. The host looks a little younger, but the content is great because it's Catholic truth. The point is, I did something. When staff members joined me in those early days, none of us had the slightest idea that it would become all this. That was God's doing.
He did what He did because we did something. We had no guarantee of success. We didn't plan or even think of all this. We almost crashed and burned twice. But because we kept praying and fighting and doing, here we are.
I'm saying all this to encourage you to do something meaningful. Put some skin in the game — your skin. It must hurt to count. It must be a sacrifice to be meaningful. The world is going to hell and you must do something.
Primary Video source and transcript continues here: https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vortex-do-something
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