Forte Catholic Podcast: Making Catholicism Fun Again

Jon Blevins cohosts! He and Taylor talk about the 100th NFL season kicking off, our fight or flight mentalities and how that bleeds into our spiritual lives. Katie Prejean McGrady rejoins the show to talk about one of her and Taylor's favorite books, Ready Player One. This dystopian future(which may not be too far off) sheds light on our connections to technology and how to avoid those pitfalls. In the final segment, Jon and Taylor discuss Christian Leadership by focusing on an unsung hero in the Early Church, Barnabas. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon 
Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show, access to receiving some sweet Forte Catholic swag/saint cards and a great way to help Taylor feed his three hungry children. Deals
 Catholic Balm Co. ForteCatholic.com/bea

Shaun McAfee cohosts as Taylor shares controversial takes on this past weekend's Gospel and his thoughts on the movie Rocky. Jesus tries to tell a parable this week but it's actually just a veil to give advice. Taylor started his binge watch of the Rocky movies and has strong takes on the first two installments. Our guest this week is Rachel Bulman(@rachelbulman) to share her tremendous life story of being born in the Philippines, adopted by an Assembly of God pastor and eventually her journey into the Catholic Church. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon
 Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show, access to receiving some sweet Forte Catholic swag/saint cards and a great way to help Taylor feed his three hungry children. Deals
 Catholic Balm Co. ForteCatholic.com/bear

We made it 150 episodes! Fr. Anthony and Taylor celebrate by looking back at some of the best memories of the show with the help of many of our listeners who submitted their answers on social media. The guys are also joined by two fan favorites returning to the show after long last to reminisce, laugh, talk odd Scriptures and more. We also have someone, who has been influential to the show before it even began, make their debut on the air. We finish off the show with Taylor and Fr. Anthony dueling in a game of Biblical City or Sith Lord, hosted by the most insane game host of all time. We hope you enjoy this episode that was an absolute blast to create. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for listening. Whether you've been on the train for years or are new to the show, I truly thank you for sticking with us. In Christ, Taylor Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few

Allison Sullivan cohosts as Taylor shares about his crazy week of starting school, working a retreat and the Encounter Texas conference all in the span of five days! Even through the sleep deprivation, he had some really cool moments in prayer, including crying(again…yep…) It was a beautiful reminder of some of the most basic truths of the Gospel. Our guest this week is Mary Lenaburg, one of Allison’s favorite people on the planet! She is a leading speaker and author with a profound story of walking with God through some very difficult situations. She shares the story behind her new book, “Being Brave in the Scared: How I Learned to Trust God in the Most Difficult Days of My Life.” Her’s is one of the most powerful stories of leaning into God within the depths of despair, frustration, anger and loss. In the final segment, Taylor and Allison talk about a new ministry they helped created with their local parish all for evangelization and the often forgotten pre-evangelization. They talk about why they saw a ne

Liv Harrison guest cohosts this week!. Taylor gives an update on the crying, shares about spiritual direction and how it led to him watching Friends on Netflix instead of praying(dang it!) and locking his keys in his car...again. Our guest this week is Catholic Magician Giancarlo Bernini. He is a college senior who is using his love and passion for illusions as an avenue to talk about the transcendentals(truth, beauty, and goodness). He was recently on the hit TV show Penn and Teller Fool Us! This young man is already doing great things to evangelization by reaching a crowd Catholics are not often found in and it's only going to continue to grow! Liv and Taylor finish up the show by switching from sharing about Taylor's struggles to Liv's. They also discuss the hilarity and difficulty of working in teams and how that mirrors the Body of Christ. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain

Jon Blevins co-hosts on his one year anniversary of first appearing on the show! Taylor shares why he's been crying while listening to podcasts in the woods and wonders if he's progressing or digressing as a human. In the second segment, we're joined by Brian Montfort of the Work To Game YouTube channel. With two of the biggest names in Catholic gaming, the guys chat about some of the pitfalls of gaming, how to avoid them and ultimately while they still play. Taylor tries to make strange comparisons between video games and the Church. Does it work? That's up to you to decide. In the final segment(recorded three hours later), Taylor shares that his deepest recent spiritual insight is that Jesus is a millennial which leads "seamlessly" into a conversation of a conference Jon went to recently about how to engage youth culture. This leads to a more broad conversation about how we live our lives between action and inaction. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe but

Everyone loves it when Taylor gets thrown off, and cohost Shaun McAfee delivers! In an episode building towards a conversation on what real integrity is and how we may have been setting ridiculous standards for ourselves, Shaun instead wants to start the show by peeling back the curtain on some updates to the intro Taylor has had to implement. We also talk about our failures as parents, scary Churches, share the most insane promotion ever and are joined by the host of Catholic Sports Radio, Bruce Wawrzyniak, to talk about...well...Catholicism, sports and radio. Tune in for a lighthearted and fun conversation that gets real real fast. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon
 Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great way to help Taylor feed his three hungry child

Taylor and Allison Sullivan discuss their recent travel, share stories including her getting tackled in an airport and him being better than her lol. This leads to a conversation on Catholic Social Teaching and how it gets a bad rap. Our guest this week is Dave Neeson, a youth minister who's side hustle is cooler than anyone else's. He works with Catholic Athletes for Christ, an organization that makes sure every Catholic in the NFL has access to the faith, especially the Sacraments, throughout the season. His stories involving some of our favorite sports heroes being die-hard Catholics are really inspiring.(catholicathletesforchrist.org) In the final segment, Taylor and Allison face off in a duel of the Forte Five segment! They countdown their top five bible verses that they would yell in public! There's a point to all this madness....we promise! Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAga

Fr. Anthony co-hosts as he and Taylor start the show looking back at crappy situations and realizing how they actually helped us. It gives us insight into how we handle these difficult situations. Then in the second segment, we welcome back(to Fr. Anthony's surprise) Kaitlyn Facista, lovingly known as Tea with Tolkien! With the King and Queen of Catholic Twitter united, our goal is to break the internet, and challenge Matt Fradd's kingdom! We talk the video game versions of Tolkien, uncover how little Taylor actually knows about LOTR and Kaitlyn saves a sinking ship by taking over and showing us how Catholic thought is immersed in the Silmarillion. In the final segment, college freshmen Blaine Tamez rejoins the show to talk about some of the issues he's been seeing in our social media culture and makes Fr. Anthony do layman things. It's beautiful. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAg

The Return of the King! Co-host Jonathan "Bearded" Blevins is back after a two month hiatus(cuz he's too cool traveling the world sharing the Gospel smh). We catch up by talking about his trips across the world, including eating hot wings on stage while being interviewed and his trip to Germany. I also yell at him, so there's that. In the second segment, we're joined by Leo Gallegos to hear his story about how improving his physical wellness did wonders for his personal life, faith and family. The three of us have a conversation about the interconnectedness of mind, body and spirit. Find out everything Leo has going on at libertasalive.com. In the final segment, Jon and Taylor play a "guess that saint" game with the help of new saint cards from Andy "Shaggy" Korty. These cards are beautiful! They're much better than Jon and Taylor are at this game, that's for sure. Enjoy them both epically fail but one of them, in particular, gets slaughtered at the game. Then head over to Patreon.com/fortecatholic to join as

“Let's talk about Jesus and by that I mean the movie Aladdin” -Taylor Shaun McAfee cohosts to talk about the theme of trust with Taylor and this week's guest, Adrian from the Dude Catholic podcast. The conversation starts with comparing Aladdin to The Fall with deep insights Taylor stole from Old Producer Sam. The guys also dive into a conversation about the different spirituality types, put them up against each other and decide once and for all, which one is the best! Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon
 Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great way to help Taylor feed his three hungry children. Deals
 Catholic Balm Co. ForteCatholic.com/beard for 11% off your next order of anything you've ever need for your beard, lips or skin. Sock Religious ForteCathol

Allison Sullivan cohosts and talks with Taylor about the recent Harry Potter game that was released this weekend, what that has to do with friendship and ultimately our relationship with God. Our guest this week is DJ Bernal. He works full-time as a leadership consultant at a hospital. He also travels to share the Gospel and biblical principles of leadership. During our conversation, DJ takes us through the story of David, how he faltered as a leader and how we can avoid the same pitfalls. In the final segment, Taylor and Allison face off in a game of trivia hosted by ProjectYM's Michael Marchand. Hilarious to see how wrong Taylor was... To get everything you need for this fun and easy to use trivia fundraiser, head to ForteCatholic.com/trivia. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon 
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Fr. Anthony co-hosts and Taylor has been saving a story for a month just for this moment with Padre. He shares a story of attending a Mass that had some odd quirks and made him think about the relationship between reverence and familiarity with Christ and how the two can sometimes feel at odds. This week’s guest is Sam Guzman of the Catholic Gentleman to explain to Taylor what toxic masculinity actually is and how to change it. Sam has been doing great stuff for Catholic men for years. Be sure to check out his website with all kinds of resources for Catholic dudes. (catholicgentleman.net) In the final segment, the guys talk about imaginative prayer, Taylor’s struggles with it and we laugh at/with Peter(what’s new?). This is a new style of prayer for Taylor and Fr. Anthony is quite encouraging(yep, you read that right). Enjoy! #MakeCatholicismFunAgain Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFu

Allison Sullivan joins Taylor as this week's cohost! They kick off the show by making fun of each other for quite some time and then Allison reacts to a ridiculous and funny cemetery story(weird right?) Then we're joined by one of Allison's good friends, Chris Field. We were honored to be in the studio with this man! He holds four Guinness World records, author of "Disrupting for Good," has given two TedX talks and founded the Mercy Project(mercyproject.net) which literally frees people from slavery. He's an amazing man and he comes to talk about the One Hope Movement(onehopemovement.com) that is happening in Central Texas, focused on unity and evangelization. Allison and Taylor finish the show by discussing how to deal with haters. They turn to the story of the Alabaster Jar to be encouraged not to hide our specific gifts from others. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking

Liv Harrison is back as guest co-host! Her and Taylor start the show by sharing their odd confession/adoration experience minutes before the show started. It was wild and sparks a discussion on distractions when trying to be holy. The rest of the show, we talk about community & friendship. These are topics we've all heard about ad nauseam but with some new wrinkles that we new to the hosts and made for an interesting conversation. It gave us great insight into some issues we have had before in relationships and tiffs. Tune in to laugh, learn a bit about yourself & your friends and....uh...laugh again. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon
 Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great way to help Taylor feed his three hungry children. Deals
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At long last, our Italian cohost Shaun McAfee returns! He and Taylor catch up on everything that's happened since they last spoke, including Taylor's recent retreat WHERE HE WAS SILENT! WHAT!?!?! The guys talk about the importance of silence, breaking out of our normal routines, intercessory prayer, selfishness, our gifts...as well as Canadian football(you know, the important things). Tune in for a conversation about the spiritual life, a good laugh or seven & because it will make you feel better about yourself. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon
 Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great way to help Taylor feed his three hungry children. Deals
 Catholic Balm Co. ForteCatholic.com/beard for 11% off your next order of anything you've ever need for your bear

Allison Sullivan cohosts for conversations on when we do our best but it wasn't good enough and how to deal with that. How do we play to our strengths and approach our weaknesses? In the second segment, Dustin Bertrand joins the show to discuss how "God made, self driven" has motivated his life. This conversation is a perfect Forte Catholic balance of intense laughter and deep, thoughtful insights. Dustin truly shares his heart in a powerful way that you don't want to miss. In the final segment, the discussion revolves around the question of why God doesn't give us all the answers when we ask what He wants us to do with our lives. The answer may surprise you. Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon 
Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great way to help Taylor fe

Fr. Anthony co-hosts as he and Taylor dive deep into Jesus as the Good Shepherd and it's implications on us today. Taylor shares a cartoon that wrecked him(weird right?), the importance of scary sheep dogs and Jesus breaking your legs(what!?!?!) This episode also makes Fr. Anthony tell Taylor "You're broken and you're not special," so that's fun. In the second segment, Ali Hoffman rejoins the show to talk Oodles of Doodles, Taylor's terrible handwriting and life skills, praying and much more. She's an absolute delight to talk to! You're going to enjoy this episode. And when you do, PLEASE share it with your friends on social media or force them to listen to it w/ you. Thaaaankss! Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon 
Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great

We recorded this show through a tornado warning! That's how much we love y'all! Liv Harrison is welcomed back into the studio to guest co-host. We catch up on life, spoiler free Avengers thoughts & finish last week's discussion on the book of Revelation(the thunder, lightning and tornado were a perfect background.) We also play a game perfectly suited for this dreary day called Job or Eeyore where Liv and Taylor face off by guessing who said each phrase. We hope you enjoy this hilarious episode! If you do, please share it with your crew on social media. We appreciate ya helping the show continue to grow :) Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon
 Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great way to help Taylor feed his three hungry children. Deals
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Fr. Anthony co-hosts as we discuss the ridiculously insane weekend with the Avengers endgame premiere, largest battle in television/movie history on GOT & more! NO SPOILERS! Fr. Anthony gets on the biggest soap box he ever has…and he promises not to spoil anything. In the second segment, we’re joined by one of the coolest dudes in the ministry world, Ennie Hickman. We talk about preaching, actually loving your neighbors and all his work at Del Rey Collective. In the final segment, the guys debunk some of the common misconceptions about the book of Revelation. BONUS: The commercials on this episode are all brand new and are honestly Taylor's pride and joy :) Subscribe/Rate Never miss out on the craziness of each episode by hitting the subscribe button RIGHT NOW! Help other people find the show and #MakeCatholicismFunAgain by taking a few moments to leave a review in your podcasting app. Thanks! Patreon
Exclusive bonus content at Patreon.com/ForteCatholic. Hours of more show and a great way to help Taylor feed