A Catholic Take

November 3rd, 2026 - We welcome exorcist Fr. Carlos Martins to discuss Netflix’s new Catholic horror series, which follows "a group of Catholic schoolgirls involved in a drug-fueled initiation ritual that may summon the devil." What are the spiritual dangers of portraying demonic activity as entertainment, and what responsibility do filmmakers bear for the influence their work may have on young viewers? Plus, Michael Haynes of The Catholic Herald joins us to examine growing tensions among German bishops over their relationship with Pope Leo XIV. While former bishops’ conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing publicly criticizes the Pope, his successor, Bishop Heiner Wilmer, calls for full communion with Rome and rejects a separate German path. Which direction is the German Church really heading?
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November 2nd, 2026 - A Learjet 60 fell from 35,000 feet to a Palm Beach County road in about a minute on Sunday. Nine people died. In the final seconds of the air-traffic audio, under the mayday calls, a man's voice is praying the Our Father. On All Souls' Day, Fr. John Brancich, FSSP, on what a Catholic can do with sixty seconds – and what you should be doing now. First, one day before the midterms: Mike Koeniger on the House and Senate map, the polling fight, and Tucker Carlson's late-Sunday post claiming the Trump administration "may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran." What he actually said, what nobody has confirmed, and what the Catechism says about it.
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October 30th, 2026 - Dr. Anthony Stine (Return to Tradition) joins Joe to take the whole week apart: the cardinal who won't convert, the Vatican worship office that calls kneeling for Communion "extremism," and the new Pewreport that says there's no clear evidence of a youth revival — even as 41% of 18-to-22-year-olds say they're in church every month. Also today: the Vatican confirms Pope Leo XIV mailed in a ballot for Tuesday's U.S. midterms from New Lenox, Illinois — the first pope in history to vote in a secular election. Plus, a new installment of "Their Catholic Story": "The Man in the Garden."
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October 29th, 2026 - A cardinal says the Church is "not there to convert." The Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith admits nobody read his document. And Pope Leo XIV tells an interfaith meeting at Assisi that "there is no such thing as a holy war" — three weeks after the feast of Our Lady of Victory. Fr. Gerald Murray joins Joe McClane to take all three. Plus, Nick Cavazos on the midterms five days out: Democrats +9 on the generic ballot, Texas a toss-up, and abortion on the ballot in four states.
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October 28th, 2026 - Edward Clancy, Director of Outreach for Aid to the Church in Need USA, walks through “Persecuted and Forgotten? 2024–2026” — the Yelewata massacre in Nigeria (200 killed in one night), girls abducted and forcibly married in Pakistan and Egypt, North Korea’s prison camps, China’s crackdown on the underground Church, and why 56% of the 18 countries surveyed got worse. Plus, Joe tells the story of Constantine: the sign in the sky, the Chi-Rho on the shields, the bridge that collapsed under Maxentius, the Edict of Milan, St. Helena, Nicaea, and a deathbed baptism.
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October 27th, 2026 - The Russian Orthodox Church says a Ukrainian Orthodox baptism is not a baptism. Fr. Jason Charron, a Ukrainian Catholic priest, joins Joe on what Moscow just decreed. What it means for “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” — and for the Catholics of Ukraine who live next door to it.
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October 23rd, 2026 - The DDF's new document is titled Come to Me. One day after it dropped, the Vatican told the Latin Mass pilgrimage: not you. Dr. Anthony Stine of Return to Tradition joins the show on Venite ad Me, the St. Peter's ban, and what this week tells us about where Rome is headed under Pope Leo.
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October 22nd, 2026 - Rome's new document says "God does not bless division." Today's Gospel has Our Lord saying He came to bring it. Which is it? Joe reads "Venite ad Me - Considerations on the Transmission of the Faith in an Epochal Change" - the last document Pope Francis asked for, approved by Pope Leo XIV on August 21, 2026, and signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández - against the Gospel for Thursday, October 22: Luke 12:49-53. Fire on the earth. Division in the house. And a text that quotes the fire twice (¶30, ¶77) and warns catechists off anything "scholastic," "dogmatic," or "moralistic" (¶80). The red flags, with paragraph numbers so you can read them yourself. And the good in it, because there is some - the family as "the first and most essential place" for handing on the faith (¶31), parents as "our first catechists" (¶36), and the honest admission that automatic transmission of the faith inside Catholic homes is ending (¶38).
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