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Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Going Big with Fr. Robert Sirico: Faith, Freedom, and the Formation of a Life’s Calling
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- [00:02]
Father Robert Sirico
My resistance to seeking mentors is that it can easily become formulaic, you know, and I wouldn't want to give anybody a checklist. That's why I see it, at least for me. I don't know that when I listened to these people when I was younger that I thought when I befriended Michael Novak, I didn't know I was looking for a mentor. I knew that I read his books and was excited by the idea of a theologian dealing with these kinds of questions that I had dealt with much more ineptly when I was younger. But I would start with your passion and then find somebody who exemplifies that passion. If you want to call that a mentor, fine. You want to call them a friend or an uncle or an aunt or whatever, fine.
- [01:05]
Kevin Gentry
Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership and pursue your passion or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to life. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big.
- [01:49]
Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and I'm so grateful to have as my guest today Father Robert Siricco, who has been a tremendous friend for more than 25 years and he's such an important leader in so many respects and perfect for the theme and objectives of the Going bit. Going Big Podcast. As you may know, Father Sirico is a Catholic priest. He's a publican of intellectual and he's the co founder of the Acton Institute, which has reached millions of people and more than 140 countries around the world, bringing together ideas about faith, freedom and entrepreneurship. And it's just extraordinary the consequential impact that he has had in individual lives as a priest, all the way to reaching so many mass audiences with his views on faith and freedom. So, Father Sirico, it's such a privilege to have you as a guest day. Thanks for joining us, Kevin.
- [02:49]
Father Robert Sirico
Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted.
- [02:52]
Kevin Gentry
Well, it's always great to be with you and I always learn so much and you always inspire me a good bit too. So let's just start with the central core theme that you've taken in terms of the combination of faith and freedom. How do you see that sort of central premise as something that you wanted to devote so much of your life to?
- [03:15]
Father Robert Sirico
You know, it's really interesting. In one sense, it's terribly simple, and in another sense, it's rich and pregnant in its application. So the core idea is that in order for people to be virtuous, they have to be free. You have to be able to choose virtue. It doesn't just happen automatically or by mistake. And that if you coerce people, if you try to make them be good, they may have the pretense of it, the external pretense of it, but the radicality of virtue is absent because it's not chosen. So that would be one of the kind of core ideas that animated the founding of the Acton Institute. And then the other thing would be, and I say this from a Christian perspective, the incarnation of Christ, where the divine inhabits the human, where heaven comes to earth. Now, there are other ways of articulating that philosophy. You could say that simple piety or good intentions is not sufficient. You have to have the right ideas so the Word and the flesh are brought together. And that's another part of what we've done through the Acton Institute, helping religious leaders understand the necessity of human freedom in the economic realm.
- [04:48]
Kevin Gentry
All right. Well, I want to, as always, I'd like to really get to know our guests more. I know a bit about you, but not that much. And I don't know that many of our listeners know all that much. I know that you've been based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and western Michigan, both as a parish priest and at the Acton Institute for a long time. But I believe you grew up in Brooklyn, New York, a very different circumstance than Western Michigan. Give us a sense for what it was like growing up and when you decided you wanted to go into the priesthood.
- [05:20]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, you know, Brooklyn is an unusual place. And the fact of the matter is, I didn't realize that it was so unusual because, you know, when you grow up in an environment, you know, you grow up in the most cosmopolitan city in the world. You just think everything else is like that. I remember not long after I was kind of in my late teens, I went to another large city. I think it was Seattle. And I said, oh, yeah, this is a nice little city. And that's your perspective. Brooklyn, in a lot of ways, certainly geographically, in terms of the urban experience, prepared me never to be intimidated by any other city. In the world. And that's been the case, whether it's Rome or Beijing or Seattle. But also, I've come to understand that Brooklyn is a unique place, literarily and intellectually, because some of the greatest writers in America have come out of New York and in particular out of Brooklyn. And I suppose that's.
- [06:31]
Kevin Gentry
The.
- [06:33]
Father Robert Sirico
Experience of such a variety of ethnicities that exist in Brooklyn. I myself grew up in a largely Jewish and Italian area, but we had our sprinkling of Puerto Ricans and Irish and African Americans who weren't African American at that time growing up. But that gives you a kind of experience of various cultures and accents and smells in the kitchen, as it were. So I think it was a good preparation for life, at least. I see it so well.
- [07:09]
Kevin Gentry
It's funny, you know, this documentary has come out recently about Mel Brooks, and he talks about growing up in Brooklyn, and in his apartment where they lived, everybody was Jewish. And he just talked about. He talked about Brooklyn, everybody. He thought everybody was Jewish.
- [07:26]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, you know, I thought I was Jewish for the longest time, except that I knew that our kitchen smelt differently. And you also pick up little dialects. It's kind of like this. I don't know this Esperanto, this kind of Brooklyn. So I remember my father once talking, and I thought it was something he learned from Italian. So how's by you, the family? And I thought this was something he picked up, you know, from. From the Italian language that he spoke. But it's a very Jewish phrase, you know, how's bayou the family? But it just kind of all meshes together. And I certainly. I can still keep a kosher kitchen, by the way.
- [08:11]
Kevin Gentry
Wow. Well, speaking of growing up and things differently, I don't know how well known, it's people to people listening, that your brother, Tony Sirico, the actor in television and movies, most famously Paulie Walnuts on the Sopranos. I didn't know this until he introduced you at a tribute dinner to you many years ago. What was it like growing up with him? I mean, how can a priest and he be in the same family?
- [08:41]
Father Robert Sirico
You know, you may remember that that introduction he gave that was at the 20th anniversary of the Acton Institute. I think he captured it very well because he said his favorite movie was the movie with James Cagney and Pat o', Brien, Angels With Dirty Faces.
- [09:01]
Kevin Gentry
Right?
- [09:02]
Father Robert Sirico
And you know, where. Where the Cagney character eventually will become a gangster, whereas the Pat o' Brien eventually becomes a priest. And in his mind, it epitomized our own growing up. And it really was different. I mean, culturally. We grew up in the same Italian American working class family, but grew up very culturally different. He was out on the streets. He was 10 years my senior. He was out on the streets when I was born, you know, at 10 years old. He was out there and he was a tough kid. I mean, and he was always in trouble. But it was nice having a bully for a brother because nobody bothered you. Nobody. If they did, they heard about it. So I could tell stories about that. But. And yet we. We related. I mean, I really related to him in an odd sort of way. He was insane. I mean, he really. The character that he played was very much him. They fed him lines, but that was. He was, I think the, the genius of the creator of the Sopranos was that he. He would pay attention to the character who was the. Take some of those features of the character, the actor, and blend them into the character who is the fictitious character. And I think he did it brilliantly with my brother and the Sopranos. And it's hard for me to understand what an incredibly historically significant series that was. And his own contribution to that series.
- [10:44]
Kevin Gentry
Agreed on both counts. It's extraordinary, and it has weathered so well over the last 20 years. Five years. But I didn't appreciate.
- [10:52]
Father Robert Sirico
I think the audience is larger now than it was when it was originally on hbo.
- [10:56]
Kevin Gentry
Amazing. Well, I did not appreciate. I thought your brother was, though, just an actor. I didn't realize that in many ways, art was imitating life.
- [11:04]
Father Robert Sirico
Right. Well, as my mother said, he ain't acting.
- [11:10]
Kevin Gentry
Well. Okay. More about your growing up. My recollection is, I think this is correct. You were engaged in a lot of political activism and, and, and movements at a particular time of your later youth. What was going on then? That. And, and, and was there a conversion? How did, how did you become a Catholic priest?
- [11:32]
Father Robert Sirico
Oh, good, Good Lord, yes. I mean, the, the story is so complicated. I, I'll be writing a memoir on it in due course. But.
- [11:40]
Kevin Gentry
Well, we want to know this because it influences, in my judgment, how you think about taking risks and about standing up, which are many of the hallmarks of your character.
- [11:53]
Father Robert Sirico
I guess it is, yeah. I mean, I grew up in, you know, my father was Archie Bunker. We used to joke with him when that series came out. So, you know, a kind of blend between the Honeymooners and Archie Bunker. That was our home life. And when I was growing up, a lot of the civil rights stuff was going on. And I remember my friends, families, their, Their, Their parents were very often Holocaust survivors. So the sense of what political injustice could mean in people's lives was very palpable to me. And having had no real intellectual training, you know, I was, I was an intellectual, but when you're a little too bright and too advanced in school, you become a troublemaker. And that's what I was. I wasn't the kind of troublemaker my brother was, but I was of a different sort, a sarcastic sort. And eventually, owing to my own dysfunctions and incomprehensible existence, living in this home that was so visceral and working class, and I was more sensitive and intellectual. I eventually became involved with the political left in California. I had moved to California, this is my early twenties, and found myself on the forefront of a lot of the social change movements that were just beginning at that time. The feminist movement, the gay movement. I was involved with the last days of the anti war movement. And my intellectual formation then was from friends of mine who were ranging from orthodox Trotskyists to New Left. And I adopted this stuff not because I had read my way into it, but because it was in the air and it seemed so important that people be defended for their own dignity. And then after a few years of, of being involved in that in, in California and Hollywood largely, I met a friend, a friend of a friend of mine actually, who gave me some books to read. And it began to systematize the way I would think about things. Prior to this, I was an activist. I would respond to things emotionally viscerally. But now I was thinking about things and if I'm going to, if I asserted in the presence of this, this guy who became a kind of mentor to me, I would say, well, people have rights or there's justice. He would always say, well, what do you mean by that? What are rights? What do you mean by how do you define justice? This kind of thing. And I began to read and then went to college. I hadn't been to college yet, so I'm in my 20s and among the books I read were Hayek's the Road to Serfdom and Tried to Struggle Through Socialism by Mises. That really woke me up because I realized I needed to do a whole lot of reading before I did deep reading. And that's what brought me to college. Rand. Of course it usually begins with Ein Rand, you know, as people said. And at this point in my life where I'm describing it right now, I had kind of abandoned my faith.
- [15:59]
Kevin Gentry
Well, that was my next question too. I've got so many follow up questions already, but sure, sure, Go ahead. I was wondering where you were in your faith journey when you're reading Ayn Rand, because, you know, an aspect of her objectivism is, in my judgment, a focus ultimately on atheism. So where were you in that?
- [16:17]
Father Robert Sirico
Rand is an interesting figure. She's a downright evangelical atheist, if I may coin the phrase. But what is interesting about Rand, and I know this, gets a lot of her disciples uncomfortable, is that the kind of architecture Rand would say she was inspired by? Aristotle? A lot of the architecture of her writing is natural law. It's Aristotelian, it's Thomistic. And that was familiar to me from catechism and even the iconography of something like Atlas Shrugged, I kind of innately was recognizing something. And I'll just give you 30 seconds of my take on it, and this would invite a much longer discussion and debate. But, you know, when you think of the perfect man who comes into the world to help the world understand itself and is rejected by the world, even persecuted by the world, even at one point toward the end of the book, has five wounds inflicted upon his body and even the persecutors themselves can't manage the persecution, so he has to tell them how to do it. And then he is captured and taken away with his bride and his disciples and comes to paradise. Gold skulch. And watching the destruction of the world, Armageddon hit and stands over it and presides over it in benediction with tracing not the sign of the cross, but the sign of the dollar. All of this is Christian iconography. Who is John Galt? As I jokingly say to people, Ayn Rand now knows who John Galt is. He was the perfect man she was searching for all of her life. And in an innate way, I kind of understood this. Now, that's not to say that I think that Rand was in any way a Christian evangelist. Absolutely not. And I find her, particularly her attitude to be odious. But a lot of what she says is worth looking at and refining and filtering. And that's what I began to do as I began to read beyond Rand and began to read history and then read Aquinas for myself and come to understand justice and compassion and mercy. Mercy and what she would sneer at, altruism and self sacrifice.
- [18:54]
Kevin Gentry
Well, let's talk about compassion and mercy. There's again, you've provided me so many areas for follow up, but on the point about compassion and mercy, you were, you know, started as a priest, but I believe you're also a hospital chaplain. You're dealing with People who have, you know, dealing with great suffering and pain and loss. How did that continue to influence you and your journey about the world and the role that you might play?
- [19:29]
Father Robert Sirico
Yeah, that was during my formation when I was in seminary. My dad was dying of cancer at the time, and each seminarian would be asked to serve in some kind of capacity, the poor or something like that. And I asked to work with the dying because I thought it would be a good way to kind of enter into my own father's illness and eventual death. And I was assigned to work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, in the pediatric oncology area. And AIDS. I worked with the first 20 patients who were receiving an experimental treatment, which later became azt, which was the AIDS drug. And coincidentally enough, worked with Anthony Fauci and his wife, Christine Fauci, who was a nurse at the time. I think she's since become a medical doctor. And this human vulnerability, this fragility of the human condition, combined with my understanding of anthropology, which I derived from Christian notion of human dignity as being an innate part of who human beings are, combined with the whole insight of the American experiment that rights are not given by government or by society, but are innate to the person itself. That is the American experiment, deriving that from natural law thinking and combined with human frailty, it brought together this kind of synthesis of being gentle with people always everywhere, and ruthless with the truth that we have to hold to the truth. And I think this is where people get themselves in trouble. They separate truth from compassion. And I think this is a deadly notion, because this is where you get. I mean, the claim of the socialist is essentially a moral claim that people should be treated justly and equally and have all their rights protected and have the things that they need for life. And that's true. I believe all of that. But the truth is that you don't have any of these things if you don't have the right to private property, if you don't have free markets operating that enable us to understand what needs exist in society and how we can coordinate the various forces of the economy and society to meet those needs. And I think you have, on the one hand, Ayn Rand, who's just profits and selfishness, and you have the socialists who keep talking in this language of brotherhood and fraternity and never the twain shall meet. But I think the twain does meet and can meet when one has a proper understanding both of compassion, of love, and of human freedom, particularly as it's expressed in a free market.
- [22:51]
Kevin Gentry
Well, when you and Chris Moran founded the Acton Institute. What was the problem you were working to solve? What was the vision for the future that you hope to bring about through the Acton Institute as a vehicle?
- [23:07]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, in many ways, it's what I describe, but I wouldn't have been able to describe it back then. That's more than 36 years ago now in the language that I just described it, because that's 36 years of articulating this and reading about it. So the occasion at the time, in the 1980s, that I was experiencing at seminary, remember, now I come to a Catholic seminary in a relatively progressive religious order at the time. And liberation theology, which was a Latin American attempt to baptize Karl Marx, to put it simply, was all the rage. And it was in the discussions and in the debates both internationally and in. In our own seminary in Washington, D.C. at Catholic University. And I said, no, this isn't tenable. And I began reading the corpus of the Liberation theologians. And then also I was in D.C. so I was getting to know a lot of different people in the Beltway, including Michael Novak, and working with or attending meetings at various think tanks. And what we wanted to do was replicate my own experience of coming to a synthesis between faith and freedom, to put it simply, and enable other religious leaders, seminarians, in my mind at the time. But it's much broader now. And it's not just Catholic. We work obviously, with all denominations, and that's what we organized ourselves to do. And I was blessed to have met Chris, who was studying, you know, an hour away at Johns Hopkins University in international business. And I'm studying theology at Catholic University. I'm ordained a priest. He graduates. And I have this idea to form this institute to replicate this experience, to basically teach these ideas to the future religious leaders or the formers of the moral consensus, as we described it, the people who are going to form the consensus in society. And we wanted to move the prejudice away from the socialist option to the option for freedom. And I was blessed because this guy, Chris Mauren, is an organizing genius. He, you know, aptly studied business. And this combination of friendship and shared vision produced, eventually produced, once I was ordained, once he was out of university, the Acton Institute.
- [26:09]
Kevin Gentry
Well, it's an. It's a great example, I think, of a very successful partnership. Our friend Charles Koch has said that the definition of partnership is shared values, shared principles, shared vision, and then complementary capabilities. And you all clearly have complementary capabilities in line with the vision that you. That you had.
- [26:32]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, division of labor.
- [26:34]
Kevin Gentry
Division of labor by comparative advantage. Terms. Right. Well, so clearly, even going back to your youth, you've been willing to. You have a sense of justice and you want to stand up, and you've taken risks. What were some of the sort of reputational or other risks at that time to do what you're doing? I mean, now looking back, it's like, oh, great. This was. This actin's been wonderful. But it was sort of a radical thought at the time, bringing that together, that moment in history.
- [27:10]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, it was in many respects, because it's so easy to caricature a defense of the free market because it sounds like you're defending greed, profit making. These are evil concepts to many seminarians. And it was a reputational risk. And. And without going into the gory details, you know, I was called in many times by my religious superiors. And, you know, when you are a Catholic seminarian, when you are a priest, you're a man under authority, and so you have an accountability and an obedience that you owe and that I intended to remain faithful to. So there was a risk. I think it came to a head at some point when my superiors. This is now after I'm ordained. I was writing. I had written an article on the minimum wage law, questioning its justice and its advantage to the poor. And one of my superiors called me in and said, you know, you're dissenting from the church's teaching. And I said, I'm sorry, what is the Church's official teaching on what the minimum wage should be? And he said, don't get snarky with me. He said, you know, you're causing us trouble because you represent not just yourself, but the Church and our order. And I said, okay, then what I would suggest you do is silence me. This is an act on the part of your religious superior to say you will not write or you will not write on this topic or something along those lines. And being a good progressive. He said, well, we don't do that. I said, so you're asking me to censor myself? And I said, I can't do that. I said, I will obey if you tell me that I am to be silent about these matters. I will obey. I said, but I will not pretend to believe something that I don't believe and to not say something when I think there's a serious error. And that began a whole process of finding a different ecclesiastical legal apparatus under which I could operate. And that's. So it was. You know, I knew that I'd never be a bishop. I knew that I'd never. And by the Way, as I look at it retrospectively now, I don't have the temperament to be a bishop, you know.
- [30:18]
Kevin Gentry
Well, I'm so glad that God chose the path for you that he did, because you had a far. The consequential impact of your leadership is enormous. And I don't want to question the consequential impact of a bishop, but I think you've just reached, reaching 140 countries in the manner that you do is just exceptional.
- [30:38]
Father Robert Sirico
But Kevin, I have to say my fundamental vocation is to be a Catholic priest. That's what I'm called to be. And if I had to sacrifice everything else, I would have. And there's been examples of that in the history of the church. I feel very fortunate that I was able to maneuver in such a way as to maintain the integrity of my vocation and to do what you're describing. And I don't think I am the best person in the world to assess the success of what I've achieved through the Acton Institute, you know, because I'm too close to it. You know, it's kind of like my brother, you know, he's still my brother, and yet he became this world renowned actor. So I'm just a little too close to it.
- [31:29]
Kevin Gentry
Well, all right, well, we'll just take my word for it that it's exceptional.
- [31:33]
Father Robert Sirico
Thank you. Thank you.
- [31:34]
Kevin Gentry
Let's move on to a related topic because so oftentimes in these going big conversations, people talk about the influence of mentors. Clearly, as a leader, an organizational, institutional leader, and as a Catholic priest, you have mentored many others, but you have been mentored, I would suspect, at points in your life that helped you develop into the person that you became. Could you tell us a little bit about how you see the importance of mentors and maybe even a few tips on how we might think of being mentored, how we might look for mentors, how we might consider the role of being the mentee.
- [32:14]
Father Robert Sirico
Yeah, those are all very important questions and, and they're intricate. And I think the mentoring starts early on. I, I think, you know, I, I enjoy preaching. I enjoy, as, as your viewers will know, I like to tell a story. I think I got that from my mom. My mom was a great storyteller, and I remember that. And she knew timing. So in a sense, she was one of the early mentors. My dad, of course, in his work ethic, he was really quite incredible. And then later in school, different television characters, different ideals or characters in books. But then when I was in seminary, I got to know Michael Novak, who was at the American Enterprise Institute at the time, and through him met a whole network of very interesting people in Washington, D.C. where I'd sit and watch raconteurs go at one another. I knew Bill Buckley, who was a great inspiration to me, both in terms of the intellectual impact, but the generosity of his spirit in creating a movement. That was his thing. Another name a lot of people wouldn't know, but I hold him in great esteem, was Leonard Ligio, who was a fascinating connector. He would walk around in this extraordinary ability to connect people, wasn't he? He'd wear this brown polyester suit that I don't know he ever washed, and people would come up to him and he'd begin. If you wanted to talk to him about the Vietnam War, he'd begin, well, if we're going to discuss how, we must begin with the Peloponnesian War. And then he'd go into this, and somebody else would come up and say, well, I have this research idea. And he'd reach into his pocket and he'd pull out some note. He said, well, this is a person you must contact at this university because he's doing something on this, and I think he will, you know. And he'd give out connections and make connections for people. He was an incredibly generous man in this regard.
- [34:34]
Kevin Gentry
Generous and humble and so very humble.
- [34:38]
Father Robert Sirico
Very humble. And, you know, he should be remembered and revered for generations. Also at that time, a theologian that I had in class was Father, then Father Avery Dulles, who later became Cardinal Avery Dulles. This is John Foster Dulles, son. And talk about a humble man. He was a kind of Ichabod Crane, kind of thin character, bony person who had this very deep voice and a corny laugh, and he would just spend if he knew you were interested in something. He was world renowned. He didn't care about any of that. He cared about the ideas and the integrity of ideas and taking your opponent's ideas respectfully and seriously. I remember that and other people who you wouldn't know. But again, these are people who taught me how to think, how to reason, how to laugh, how to be convivial. I think especially in this moment on the landscape, people are no longer convivial. They're absolutely either combative or they are transactional. And that's just not the culture that I was formed.
- [36:05]
Kevin Gentry
Well, just. I mean, you. You're very well positioned, I think, to help answer this question or these questions as follow up from all of those experiences. My goodness. Michael Novak, what a consequential Figure himself. How would you advise people listening to look for, maybe seek out a mentor and how to receive a mentor's wisdom?
- [36:35]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, I was going to mention something about that before. To seek out is to play off of your own interests. What are your natural inclinations? Where are you going? It's remarkable how many kids that you meet once they get through the phase of thinking they're going to be a fireman or an astronaut or something. When they begin to settle in to studying and thinking, the germs of who they will be as an adult are very often right there at the time. Even if they choose a different profession, you'll find similar trajectory, similar constants in their trajectory. So I would say, first of all, good mentoring takes place from good meditation on who you are. That is, you could have a brilliant mentor who does nothing for you because you don't know what you need from that person. And it takes a certain amount of humility. You have to listen and be corrected. And then it takes a certain amount of backbone because at some point you may have to stand up to your mentor and a good mentor. And not all mentors who benefit you are good mentors. You know, some of them have their own inconsistencies and foibles. But a good mentor would be honored by being challenged by a mentee. So I think that all of this forms a call to honesty and inquiry and open inquiry into the truth of things.
- [38:25]
Kevin Gentry
How important are mentors? I mean, for anyone listening, should we just be earnestly thinking about making this a priority in our lives, about how to think about seeking or learning from mentors, and then also how to be a mentor?
- [38:43]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, you know, my, my resistance to seeking mentors is that it can easily become formulaic, you know, and, and I, I wouldn't want to give anybody a checklist. That's why I, I, I see it, at least for me, I, I don't know that when I listened to these people when I was in younger that I thought, when I befriended Michael Novak, I didn't know I was looking for a mentor. I knew that I read his books and was excited by the idea of a theologian dealing with these kinds of questions that I had dealt with much more ineptly when I was younger. But I would, I would start with your passion and then find somebody who exemplifies that passion. If you want to call that a mentor, fine. You want to call them a friend or an uncle or an aunt or whatever, fine. And I think on the other side of it, to be a mentor, I don't think of myself as a mentor. I guess I am. I mean, objectively have been. But I don't go looking for mentees. I go looking for people who are interested in ideas and have potential and want to encourage them. That was what Leonard Ligio was so good at. He would find somebody and encourage them and put practical things in their path, whether it's grants or contacts or ideas or books. You yourself, if you're going to help other people, and I guess both as, you know, leader of a think tank kind of thing, but also as a priest, I want to be there to encourage people to become more than they are and to actualize their potential. And then it takes some humility on your part to let them exceed you. You know, sometimes just given the calendar, they don't, you know, you don't get. Michael didn't get to see the full scope of what I. Or Dulles didn't get to see the full scope of what I've been able to do at Acton. So I think you have to have some humility in the process of it.
- [41:22]
Kevin Gentry
Sirica, would you define humility for us? I say, I mean, we could look it up. I think we all have our own sense, but I don't know whether it's an accurate sense. But I actually think that you are especially well positioned as someone who believes in the free market and is a faithful Catholic priest to have a particularly strong perspective on what is humility.
- [41:47]
Father Robert Sirico
If I have it, I got it from St. Thomas Aquinas. You know, people think of humility as obsequiousness, as being a doormat. And that is not what humility is. Humility is the love of the truth above everything else. That's what humility is. So that means if you say to a good looking person, you're good looking, they're acknowledging that because they know the truth of it. But also, if a scientist, I remember the story of one scientist, I forget exactly who it was, but a scientist had this great theory and had written books about this. And then some punk kid comes into the classroom and demonstrates mathematically the falsity of the premise. And the scientist, after taking it under consideration, everything came back and said, you're absolutely right. And as a scientist, I have to be very grateful that everything I did contributed to the advancement of knowledge. Now we're closer to the truth that we know that this was not correct. And I think that's what humility is. Love the truth above everything. Certainly in the marketplace. That's what a good entrepreneur does. He reads, he or she reads the cues and then responds to the cues.
- [43:17]
Kevin Gentry
Well, this gives me a great path forward to begin to wrap this up, because I just. I mean, you've done all of this in just, I think, a very holistic, comprehensive manner. It's very integrated. Everything is. Just brings together. I really applaud you at the one point you could say, people say, how to. I don't understand this confluence of faith and freedom. How can you bring those things together? But you've done much, much more than that. What is what, as you look back now, What. What do you think?
- [43:57]
Father Robert Sirico
That it went quick?
- [43:58]
Kevin Gentry
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, I actually have two questions related to that. One is, what is it now, looking back, you think you have done in a positive manner, with all humility, Tell me honestly, tell me truthfully, how do you see what you've tried to do has been a function of who you are?
- [44:24]
Father Robert Sirico
Well, I do think it was a function of who I am. And I think, you know, it is that what we started with this combination of experiences that I had and much more detailed and frankly, embarrassing than I've alluded to in this conversation, because it's a limited conversation. And it was at each stage, attempting to work through the truth of who I am. And it's this integrated nature of reality that all truth is one truth. And I hope that with the Acton Institute, we've moved the moral question. It seems to me that we have. I'm concerned at this particular moment in history that there are forces trying to pull it apart again, because there's this constant. You know, the word devil means the dissembler. He's the liar. And so I think that the tug of error, the denial of truth is perennially in our midst, and we must struggle against that. And, you know, this is a battle that now has to be handed on to the next generation. And if I've helped to move the ball down the court a little bit more with Chris and the collaborators that I have at Acton, then at least we know the direction a little more clearly, the direction that we need to go.
- [46:16]
Kevin Gentry
All right, well, looking back now at a younger version of yourself and say, we don't have to go into all those details. People can. You've written about this, you've spoken about this. But looking back on a younger version of yourself, what would you have told that younger version of yourself to have done differently? Now, knowing what you know, you should.
- [46:37]
Father Robert Sirico
Have asked that question at the beginning of this discussion, not at the end. I mean, oh, there are any number of things I would have that I would tell myself now, don't. Don't do this. Don't take this path. Take this path. I would have. If there was one thing I would have done, it would have been boy. I needed a mentor to show me the importance of how to integrate education. Because even to this day, I'm 74 years old. I'll be 75 in June. I always feel like I'm catching up on what I need to read. I tend to read very heavy books because I feel like I've got to catch up because I didn't do it when I was a kid. I wasted time as a kid. So that's one of the things I would tell myself, find somebody to help you to integrate. And not necessarily you'd go to college, although I. I should have. I really wish that I had. We didn't have money in our family, so. And there was no expectation. None of my family went to, to college or high school or stayed in high school anyway. So I think that would be one of the things that I would have said and, and I'll try to think a few more things too.
- [48:09]
Kevin Gentry
Well, I have a big kind of closing out question to ask you that kind of brings a lot of this together. But actually just before that, I want to take you back to your being a Catholic priest. And we're approaching the season of Lent soon and celebrating Ash Wednesday and than Easter. If you would put your keep. You've got. You've got your collar on. Keep your collar on. Give us your sense for why from. From your approach to applying your gifts in life to help others. What does this season particularly mean and how is it of relevance to those.
- [48:52]
Father Robert Sirico
Listening, I think in Lent in a particular way. And Lent needs to be taken in conjunction obviously with Easter, because it's the whole preparation for Easter. It's what we call fasting and feasting. And it goes back to this integration that I've been talking about throughout our conversation. So that the great period of sandblasting, spiritual sandblasting that is Lent, it removes a lot of the color from our season liturgically, it removes the frivolity, all of the passion of leading up to as Wednesday, which is called Mardi Gras, is to get it all in before it all goes out. And I think that period of Lenten reflection is so important because especially in our culture right now where there's so much distraction, what Lent can do is turn down the volume. This Lent, I'm. I'm going to be going off various social platforms and just kind of just get my head, let, let the dust settle a bit. And I think that can help us to better prepare for what the victory over sin means to us in the paschal mystery, Good Friday, which is the heart of darkness, and then, of course, the resurrection, which is light within light. So I think, you know, in a lot of ways, the Jewish Sabbath is like this. The Sabbath is not an anti work message. It is contemplate the work you've done. That's the message of the Sabbath. God makes things for six days and then contemplates what he has made. And I think this is contemplation and then mission.
- [51:04]
Kevin Gentry
All right. Well, here's the going out going big question. Father Sirico. Folks listening, I'm sure, span the range of those who have known you for a while. They're big folks, fans, big admirers. Maybe many of those have been beneficiaries of the Acton Institute's educational programs and media efforts, or maybe they've been mentored by you in some way or heard you speak at a conference. But they're also going to be people who are listening right now who are not very familiar with you and Acton and what you've done. So here's the challenge I put for you. What advice would you Dr. Father Robert Sirico, what advice would you offer to us as we continue to try to find our gifts, how we can contribute most effectively? Based on all that you've done and seen, what, what, what words of wisdom would you give us or words of encouragement to think about how we might go big in our lives?
- [52:04]
Father Robert Sirico
I think going big, this really kind of goes to the previous question you asked. I think to build something great, you have to have a solid foundation. And I think in the same way that Lent gives us this period of quiet, I think any life worth living needs to be a life that has a dimension of contemplation associated with it. Because the contemplation, the quiet, gives us perspective and enables us to see beyond the distractions. And that's where I would begin. I would begin with some form of quiet, periods of quiet, being able to tolerate boredom. You know, that's one of the things I think kids need so desperately today. I'm always upset when I see a family at a dining, in a dining room, give a kid an iPad. They should be involved in the conversation somehow, as annoying as it can be. I understand that. So I think that's where you begin to build an authentic future. And then the other thing I would say is some kind of accountability. You have to trust someone or some group of people well enough to be able to confess to them your deepest flaws. I'm grateful that in the tradition of the Catholic Church, we have the sacrament of reconciliation, penance, confession. And it's there that I can really be ruthless with myself in order to really be authentically compassionate with myself. So I think some dimension of accountability in our lives is so important.
- [54:11]
Kevin Gentry
Well, Father Sirico, what a pleasure. Just as I expected it would be to have you today in this conversation. Folks want to listen and learn more. They can certainly check out the Acton Institute. They can check out you and just your works, your books over time. Thank you. Thank you for everything you've done. Happy birthday. Coming up in June, a special birthday.
- [54:33]
Father Robert Sirico
Thank you. Thank you.
- [54:34]
Kevin Gentry
We'll look forward to having you on again in a few years to talk about the next thing that you're doing in your life to impact the lives.
- [54:39]
Father Robert Sirico
Of others, God willing. Thank you so much. God bless you and your whole audience.
- [54:44]
Kevin Gentry
Thank you. Thank you so much.
- [54:46]
Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big Podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website, goingbigpodcast.com Remember, the only limits are are the ones you don't challenge the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep going big. See you next time on the Going Big Podcast.