Fr. Mike Schmitz is the chaplain for the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and director of the Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the Diocese of Duluth — but you may know him best as the number one Catholic podcaster in the world. He’s host of the The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)™ podcast, which has been #1 on Apple Podcasts several times since its launch in January 2021, and currently has 350 million all-time downloads, according to Ascension Press.
The New York Times Magazine recently interviewed Fr. Mike, which was published digitally on August 30, 2022 (in print on September 4, 2022), and while the whole interview is worth your time, here are a few stand-out quotes from the conversation he had with writer David Marchese.
On why young people are among the least likely to identify as Catholic
“I’m a Catholic because I believe it’s true. I think that goes a long way, but, gosh, the state of our engaging people in a way that’s compelling is not very great.”
On engaging people on tough issues
“Someone might say, ‘I want to know why the Church teaches this.’ Someone else might say, ‘I want to know if there’s hope for me, because this is part of my story.’ I hopefully won’t just launch into the answer that makes the most sense to me. I want to hear where the questions are coming from, what someone is really asking.”
On the way he shares the Catholic faith with others
“So with some of these hot-button issues, if I haven’t changed your mind, that’s fine. But if you can now have this thing you hold onto, which is true — that God cares about you — then that’s a win.”
On the pro-choice argument for a woman’s bodily autonomy
“Not that a woman does not have bodily autonomy or rights over her own life. It’s, I have rights over my own body, but I don’t have rights over someone else’s life or body. The Catholic Church’s position, and the Judeo-Christian position for millennia, has been that the rights of this unborn baby are the same as the rights of the mom.”
On what’s behind hard teachings those related to sexuality
“The Christian message in all this is: You are good. You matter. God knows your name, and he’s entered into the brokenness so that you don’t have to be there alone.”
On his biggest struggle or concern in his own life
“The thing that matters the most is being a spiritual father. Are the students sitting here thinking, ‘Yeah, Father Mike’s not around because he’s doing this other stuff, he’s kind of an absentee spiritual father?’ That keeps me awake at night. I don’t want to fail these people who have been entrusted to me. I want to be there for them.”
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Next up for Fr. Mike Schmitz will be the new 2023 daily podcast The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz), which will “guide listeners through the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church, providing explanation, insight, and encouragement along the way.” The podcast will be free on all major podcast platforms as well as the Hallow app.
Available this fall, Ascension will offer a brand new print edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This edition will include the full text of the Catechism with a completely new guide that will help make the Catechism easy to learn and a joy to remember.
