#194 Father Stephen Gadberry - The Unconventional Priest

Summary

Shawn Ryan Show Episode #194: Father Stephen Gadberry - The Unconventional Priest

Host: Shawn Ryan
Guest: Father Stephen Gadberry
Release Date: April 24, 2025

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Introduction

In episode #194 of the "Shawn Ryan Show," host Shawn Ryan engages in a deep and candid conversation with Father Stephen Gadberry, an unconventional Catholic priest known for his blend of spirituality, masculinity, and diverse hobbies such as hunting, fitness, and knife-making. Father Gadberry challenges traditional perceptions of priesthood by embodying traits often associated with raw masculinity, making him a relatable and inspiring figure for listeners from all walks of life.

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Early Life and Personal Tragedy

Father Gadberry shares his humble beginnings, growing up on a family farm in the Arkansas Delta. His early life was marked by significant trauma when, at the age of eight, he lost both his father and older sister, Courtney, in a devastating car accident. This profound loss thrust him into a role of responsibility from a young age, helping his mother raise his younger siblings.

Father Stephen Gadberry [09:56]: "I was an eight-year-old boy, so I didn't get a childhood. So one of the ways that I'm struggling with it now is like all the. It's kind of like the shrapnel of the bomb. I didn't get a childhood, so I had to grow up like overnight almost."

This early adversity instilled in him a strong work ethic and resilience, shaping his character and future path.

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Military Service and Its Impact

Seeking adventure and a means to explore beyond his immediate environment, Father Gadberry enlisted in the United States Air Force in 2004, serving in logistics roles across Texas, Germany, and central Iraq. His military journey was not without challenges. He attempted to undergo Sear training, a rigorous program, but was washed out due to mental fortitude issues despite his physical readiness.

Father Stephen Gadberry [10:44]: "I got washed out. It was really deflating. So I was really excited about it. I was physically strong, ready to go. But mentally, I wasn't strong enough."

His deployment to Iraq in 2007 provided him with profound spiritual experiences, including recurring signs and a pivotal encounter with a fellow Catholic priest, Joaquin, who affirmed his calling to the priesthood.

Father Stephen Gadberry [13:56]: "He was a very holy guy. So I knew it was like The Lord put it on his heart."

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Discovering and Embracing Priesthood

While stationed in Iraq, Father Gadberry began sensing a divine calling towards priesthood. Signs such as recurring numbers (e.g., 444) and significant interactions led him to explore this path further. Upon his return, he pursued seminary education, culminating in advanced theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Father Stephen Gadberry [160:43]: "We believe with Peter. Right, Peter and the disciples. Yeah. So Jesus Christ. The short answer."

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Seminary Education and Formation

Father Gadberry's seminary education was transformative, providing him with a deep understanding of Catholic theology, philosophy, and the importance of apostolic succession—the unbroken line of spiritual authority from the apostles to present-day bishops and priests.

Father Stephen Gadberry [144:07]: "The Second Vatican Council was a gathering of the bishops and the cardinals and some representatives of Catholics from all over the world that come together for a number of years and with the goal of identifying the needs of the times and essentially kind of laying out what's gonna be the next steps forward..."

This education not only fortified his faith but also equipped him to lead a large, diverse congregation.

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Current Role as Pastor of St. Teresa Catholic Church

Ordained in 2016, Father Gadberry now serves as the pastor of St. Teresa Catholic Church and School in Little Rock, Arkansas—a bustling parish with over 10,000 members, 95% of whom are Hispanic. Managing such a large community requires a delicate balance of spiritual leadership and administrative oversight, akin to a CEO managing a major organization.

Father Stephen Gadberry [10:54]: "I'm essentially in charge of all the operations for the community, for all the members of the parish..."

He emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries and maintaining personal well-being while fulfilling his duties to ensure he can effectively support his congregation.

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Balancing Work, Boundaries, and Personal Growth

Father Gadberry candidly discusses his struggles with setting boundaries, a challenge rooted in his early responsibility as a child. This often leads him to take on more than he can handle, resulting in resentment and burnout. Through therapy and conscious effort, he is learning to say no and prioritize his mental health and relationships.

Father Stephen Gadberry [82:43]: "Whenever I see a problem. I feel like I gotta fix it for people."

He advises others, especially those who have experienced similar traumas, to seek out positive role models and surround themselves with supportive individuals.

Father Stephen Gadberry [74:50]: "You know, find some good examples, some good role models, and ask them to take you under their wing."

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Spiritual Warfare and Modern Challenges

A significant portion of the discussion delves into Father Gadberry's views on spiritual warfare—the ongoing battle between good and evil forces affecting individuals and society. He highlights how Satan targets families, relationships, and societal structures to lead people away from God.

Father Stephen Gadberry [26:05]: "The sword that is the word of God is like a two-edged knife. So I thought it was kind of fitting."

He also touches upon contemporary issues such as artificial intelligence, psychedelics, and remote viewing, offering a spiritual perspective on their ethical and moral implications.

Father Stephen Gadberry [40:21]: "Freedom is. That's ultimately what. When God made Adam and Eve, he made them perfectly free..."

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Personal Struggles and Ministry

Father Gadberry opens up about his personal battles with anger, loss, and the immense pressure of leading a large congregation. He emphasizes the importance of authenticity and reality in faith, advocating for a life that confronts challenges head-on rather than seeking distractions.

Father Stephen Gadberry [12:11]: "We're all on this journey and it's rough. It's a tough life..."

His approach to ministry is deeply personal, aiming to connect with individuals on a profound level, especially those grappling with trauma and loss.

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Engaging with the Community and Media

In an unconventional move, Father Gadberry participates in popular platforms like "American Ninja Warrior," challenging the stereotypical image of priests. This participation fosters greater connection with his community, allowing him to reach individuals who might otherwise feel distant from the church.

Father Stephen Gadberry [42:53]: "The priest is doing something that they don't see a priest doing."

This blending of spirituality with everyday activities humanizes him, making him more approachable and relatable to a broader audience.

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Conclusion: Insights and Takeaways

Father Stephen Gadberry's journey from a trauma-stricken childhood to becoming a dynamic and unconventional priest offers profound insights into resilience, faith, and the human spirit. His unique blend of spirituality and masculinity challenges traditional notions of priesthood, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, boundary-setting, and active community engagement.

Listeners are left with a deeper understanding of how personal struggles and modern challenges intersect with faith, and how embracing one's true self can lead to a more fulfilling and impactful life.

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Notable Quotes:

• On preparing for a good death:
  Father Stephen Gadberry [01:16]: "The life of faith is really preparing for a good death."

• On authenticity and confronting reality:
  Father Stephen Gadberry [12:49]: "If we want the fullest life, I mean, you gotta be real. And that requires like, like, don't be fake."

• On freedom and predestination:
  Father Stephen Gadberry [42:53]: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you mentioned psychedelics..."

• On boundaries and saying no:
  Father Stephen Gadberry [86:53]: "Whenever I would be in these situations... I'm thinking like a kid."

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Key Topics Covered:

1. Early Life and Personal Tragedy: Overcoming loss and early responsibilities.
2. Military Service: Lessons from the Air Force and deployment experiences.
3. Discovering Priesthood: Signs, calling, and transitioning from military to faith.
4. Seminary Education: Deepening theological understanding and apostolic succession.
5. Current Role: Managing a large, diverse parish and balancing leadership with personal life.
6. Spiritual Warfare: Understanding the battle between good and evil in modern society.
7. Personal Growth: Addressing boundaries, resentment, and mental health.
8. Community Engagement: Breaking stereotypes through media participation.
9. Modern Challenges: Navigating issues like AI and psychedelics from a spiritual perspective.

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Father Stephen Gadberry's story is a testament to the power of faith, resilience, and the importance of living authentically. His unconventional approach serves as an inspiration for both clergy and laypeople, demonstrating that spirituality can coexist with diverse interests and modern lifestyles.

Transcript

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

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[Sean Ryan]

What advice would you have for kids who have lost parents?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

All this angst that we have is wrestling with the death question. We don't know when it's coming. We know it's coming and we can't control that, you know, and so that, that terrifies us. And so we do all these things that distract us from that. The life of faith is really preparing for a good death.

[Sean Ryan]

Father Stephen Gadbury, welcome to the show, man.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Thanks a lot.

[Sean Ryan]

Happy to have you here.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Thanks.

[Sean Ryan]

But, yeah, you know, I found you. Actually, I don't remember how I found you, but I ran across your Instagram profile one way or another and I just, I saw what you're posting, working out on your cycle. Lots of hunting, shooting your bow. And I just, I think that's. I don't want to sound offensive. I think it's really cool that you're a priest displaying like raw masculinity like that and making it cool. And I mean, I think that masculinity has. Masculinity has damn near disappeared in the world over the past 10 to 15 years. And we just spoke, we think it's making a comeback. But on top of that, you just don't see priests doing that kind of stuff. And I think everybody, I mean, I grew up Catholic and you just don't, you don't think of a priest out hunting big game or doing grueling workouts or shooting their bow or cycling or really any of that. Everybody kind of thinks of them as what do they do, pray all the time and do the rosary. So I just, I thought that was really cool and that's what drew my attention to you. And so I think I've been following you for about a year, maybe a little longer. And so, yeah, I just wanted to get you on the show. We had my friend Father Dan Rehill on and that was a fascinating interview. And so, yeah, I kind of want to do a little bit of a life story on you and then dive into some of the stuff with the Catholic Church. I got a ton of questions, but yeah, thanks for coming.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, thanks for the invite. I only work on Sunday, so I got all the time you need. Not really. Yeah, no, it's, you know, in the Catholic church, the pastor, the leader is called Father because, you know, like being the spiritual father, you know, Father is one that generates life. And if you're going to, if you're going to generate life, you got to have some energy in you. And I think we have a lot of men out there who aren't fathers because they're not generating energy. They're just, they're stale, they're stagnant. They're too closed in on themselves. But I mean, we got a fire in us and God just wants us to spread that thing, you know. So, yeah, I just try to do that through the social media stuff. And day to day life, I crash and burn all the time, but that's part of the fun.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, it's pretty cool, man. It's really cool to see it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Thanks.

[Sean Ryan]

But yeah, so everybody starts out here with an intro. Actually, you want to kick it off with some prayer?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, sure.

[Sean Ryan]

All right.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Good and gracious God, we give you thanks for this day and the gift of life. Just pray that you send your spirit upon us. Give us a double portion of your spirit that we may open our heart to you and be faithful disciples. Help us to follow your word, follow your voice, to be men after the image and likeness of Jesus Christ that we may follow his example and be willing to die to make sacrifices for the love of others. Amen.

[Sean Ryan]

Amen. And everybody gets a gift. But I'll give you your main of your gifts later. But this will be pretty fitting. So that is my friend Dom Razo. I think he Collabs with a company to make these, but he calls it the Warriors Rosary. And so Dom is a former Seal Team 6 sniper. Good friend of mine. We were at Seal Team 2 for a long time. And he's a very devout Catholic and has been a spiritual mentor of mine. And so I gave. I gave Jim Caviezel, he. I used to only have one and then I gave it to Jim Caviezel when he came on. We talked about Jesus and, and the movie the Passion and stuff. And so he sent me a couple more and I just thought. I thought you'd like that.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

This is cool, man. Thanks. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. You're welcome. Welcome.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Thank you.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I did bring some old toys for you if you want them now or later.

[Sean Ryan]

I love toys. Let's do it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

First one is actually Bible, but I do a lot of stuff with Bishop Robert Barron and Word on Fire. I don't know if you've heard of him. Does a ton of stuff in evangelization. We started this project a number of years ago with Word on Fire to create a series of the Bible. And the goal in this is not just to read the word of God, but to experience the word of God. And so through it's of course the scriptures. This is the Gospels, the four gospels. And then it's got commentary from the church, fathers from saints from Bishop Barron. Just a beautiful text.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you. Wow.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Thank you. And then this is. This is. I think you like that. Hopefully.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, man.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I just got into making knives.

[Sean Ryan]

And you're making knives now?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. So I made that one for you. It's kind of sharp from scratch. I got the blade already like pre forged and treated and everything. Heat treated. But I shaped it and did the handle. There's two engravings on there. Aji quote Ajis. We may talk about this later. It's like a motto that I go by. Fermentations Loyola. It means like do what you're doing. That's the literal translation. But the sense of it is don't half ass it. Like whatever you're going to do, just give it hell. Like don't half ass it.

[Sean Ryan]

Go all in.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. And then the other side of that is Hebrews, I think 4:12. I don't remember the verse exactly, but it's the word of God. Sharper than a two edged sword piercing the heart and soul, bones and marrow. That's a two edged knife. So I thought it was kind of fitting.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh man, that's. I'm framing this.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Enjoy it. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I'll make you another One you can use.

[Sean Ryan]

Right. Right on.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Got some shirts here, too. We can, you know, you always need more gear. Hats from our hunt group, Mayhem Hunt, but so.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, thank you.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

You never have too many T shirts.

[Sean Ryan]

That's one of very cool shirts.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Awareness, though. I appreciate it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Well, thanks, man. Yeah, Enjoy it.

[Sean Ryan]

Those are the Bible and the knife are really cool, man. Yeah. So is the gear, but.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Well, nothing really good.

[Sean Ryan]

There you go. That's the main. Everybody gets these except doctors. Sometimes they don't give them to doctors because I'm self conscious. Vigilance League. Gummy Bears. Made here in the usa. They taste amazing. You're going to pass your drug test. There's no funny business in there, but.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I'm going to eat some later.

[Sean Ryan]

Cool. Cool. But, yeah, I feel really.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

They feel good. Like, they feel.

[Sean Ryan]

Go ahead, rip them open. Try them. Try them.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

They smell darn good. It's good. It's a good gummy bear. I never thought I'd say that in my life. That's a good gummy bear.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you know who Vivek is, by chance? Vivek Ramaswamy? Yeah. He came in here and ripped him open. Yeah. Yeah, he ripped him open before I could tell him anything. And I said, yeah, so the effects of those will kick in at about 30 minutes. He was like, oh, God, it was hilarious.

[Unknown]

But.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, shit. But everybody, everybody starts off with a introduction. So here we go. Father Stephen Gadbury, you're raised on a family farm in the Arkansas Delta. After graduating high school in 2004, you enlisted in the United States Air Force and worked in logistics in Texas, Germany and central Iraq. You entered seminary in 2008 and majored in philosophy and liberal arts at St. Joseph's Seminary College in Louisiana.

[Unknown]

You completed your graduate and postgraduate theological.

[Sean Ryan]

Studies at the Pontiff. How am I. How do I say this?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Pontifical.

[Sean Ryan]

Pontifical Gregorgian University and Pontifical Augustinianum.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That's a big one.

[Sean Ryan]

University. You have to have masters just to read that. In Rome, Italy. You were ordained in 2016 and are currently the pastor of St. Teresa Catholic Church and School in Little Rock, Arkansas, which is a 10,000 member church in pre K through 8th grade school. 10,000.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That's big.

[Sean Ryan]

95% of your conjugation is Hispanic. That's interesting.

[Unknown]

You are an avid hunter and outdoorsman.

[Sean Ryan]

As we covered earlier. You're an accomplished athlete and were on seasons 10 and 12 of American Ninja Warrior and recently completed the Leadville 100. Is that Leadville?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

You're a part of Reading's not my strong suit, obviously. You're a part of the Mayhem hunt.

[Unknown]

Crew led by Rich Frowning, where the.

[Sean Ryan]

Team has combined their love for hunting.

[Unknown]

And fitness to develop a hunting in.

[Sean Ryan]

Backcountry specific fitness training program. Additionally, you have two dogs, you play the harmonica, and you recently started making knives as we just saw. And like I said, I, I ran across your IG profile. I thought it was really cool, like all the stuff that you're doing in addition to being a priest and kind of spreading, you know, in a. It's just a good way to spread masculinity, man. You just have cool hobbies. It's cool that you're, that you're doing that as a priest. You're not like, you're not like a lot of these guys who like ramming masculinity down people's throats because I think that stuff is stupid. And you, you're just a good example. And, and I like you just you, you seem to lead by example. And I think, I think that in itself is also becoming a lost art. So thanks, man. Thank you for being there.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Thanks. A lot of good examples in my life and just try to, yeah, we're all on this journey and it's rough, it's a, it's a tough. You know, life is brutal and you know, if, if we're going to get through it, we gotta like, put the nose of the grindstone. But to have the fullest life as we're going through it, like, you've gotta, you gotta confront reality. You know, it's, you know, you only find God in reality, not in fantasy. And by finding God, you find the fullness of life. And so if you want the fullest life, I mean, you gotta be real. And that requires like, like, don't be fake, you know, And I like, be real, be authentic, you know. So, yeah, try to share that.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, you know, we, we were talking about hunting and, and downstairs and yeah, I killed my first deer. And then we started talking about going on an elk hunt. And I'd have a, a couple of invites to go elk hunting and I'd love to do it, but we were talking, I was like, man, I can't. I have a real problem leaving business, especially for a week. I get super anxious. I feel like I have to be working. I think it goes back to my time in the seal teams. If you're not, if you're not training, if you're out playing grab ass, the enemy's training to kill you, right? And they'll be advancing While you're over here around and, and I've kind of carried that through the rest of my adult life. But you had mentioned that, that you also have, you know, one pace.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And it's, and it's all in. And I'll just let you pick it up from there. You had some good stuff to say about that.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Just like a dog chasing the ball. That's what I do. I wake up and just chase it and you know, too fast and asleep are my two speeds. Yeah. You know, we live in such a fast paced life world and that's good, that's a good thing. God made us to be creative. He gives us this energy and you know, this productivity is a, and this desire to work is a blessing. It's a superpower from God. God made you to be fruitful, to multiply, to have a family. And have a family requires you to take care of them. So like the hustle here, the work that you do every day is providing for the family. So that's like, that's good. The most primal way of providing for the family is going out killing an animal. Like, and so that's just, you know, you can provide now, but you know, getting a check and buying the stuff you need another way to do that is like go out and get an animal, put some food on the table. But it's, there's so many studies out here. You got a bunch of really cool friends and I'm sure like they, they could chime in on this. Like I'm thinking of Huberman. I'm sure he could. There's some science behind this. But of like disconnecting for a second for the sake of productivity. We can get so zeroed in on the stuff that we're doing this tunnel vision, it can, can shut us off of a lot of stuff. And so when you rest it like you rest for a little bit, it just allows the brain and the heart to breathe a little bit. Those. When I go hunting, for example, because that's what we were talking about, I'll go out for a couple weeks at a time every fall. And it's, it's a nice disconnect. It's terrifying. I mean, you're out there alone in the elements, maybe with a couple friends. But you know, I do a lot of it alone too. And so you just, you go into those dark places that you've been, you know, putting aside for the last year, two years, the rest, you know, your whole life, whatever. Yeah, you gotta wrestle with that stuff. But the silence is a sacred Thing, man. And our culture is terrified of it. I'm scared of it. Yeah. You know, but. But because it's in the silence that you. You wrestle with your demons. But beyond that, it's in the silence that you hear the voice of God. And while demons, like, will scare us, and rightly so they should, something even more terrifying is the voice of God. And what I mean is, like, in that silence, God can ask you to do anything. You know, drop your nets and follow me. And it could reveal itself. He could ask you to do anything, move across the world and do this project or whatever it may be. And, like, then the ball's in our court. And that scares us because if we truly open our heart up to the Lord, man, we don't know what he's going to ask, lose control. But, like, we don't really have the control to begin with anyhow. So many different ways we can take this. But the silence.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, hold on. So where I was going in the beginning, as you had mentioned, Satan. Satan can use that against us. Yeah, that. Basically, that drive. And that's kind of where I was going. But you're talking about. And I can disconnect. It's hard for me to make time, but I will make time. And I make time for my wife, I make time for my kids. You know, stuff like that. Making time a week to go out west, that's. That's a little hard. I'd like to ask you about psychedelics, too, but you're talking about opening up in grounding and being in the elements and hearing the voice of God. And so I think a lot.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I mean.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm always. My relationship with Christ and God has been growing at a exponential rate. It's growing so fast. And I'm really learning to lean into my gut. And to me, that's My gut. Is that. Is God telling me? Yes. And I feel like he gives me these little affirmations like, that's right. That's what I'm telling you to do. And so I'll give you an example. I talked about. I don't want to go into the whole story for time's sake, because I've told it a bunch of times, but I had this really big experience in Sedona, and that's kind of what brought me back to Christ. And like I said, I had grown up Catholic, joined the SEAL teams, contracted for the CIA, acted like a total bachelor idiot for 20 years, and then, you know, basically pushed God and Christ. It just pushed him aside. And not that I didn't believe, but I just didn't care.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Sure.

[Sean Ryan]

And anyways, so had this really profound experience. Basically, it was God smacking me in the face, like, three times, right. In a row. Totally different experiences, but all within about 15 minutes. And then I started seeing these number. These reoccurring numbers all the time. And the first one was 444. It was everywhere I looked. And sometimes multiple times. Three, three. Three times at once. Like, first time it happened to me, it was 4:44 on the clock, 444 miles left to empty. And 4 hours and 44 minutes after a conversation that I just had with a very good friend of mine about how guardian angels are watching over me. And I was like, whoa, okay. It just happened again. And so now, if I'm iffy about something, or here's an example, I just went and I interviewed this guy, Colleen Georgescu, in Romania. He's running for president of Romania. They basically shut the election down. There's a possibility that he's under Russian influence. There's a possibility that they're just using Russian influence to not get him elected. Really confusing, complicated situation. And I wanted to. I was like, man, am I. Am I doing the right thing by giving this guy a voice? All I'm doing is giving him a voice. And I start seeing the reoccurring numbers everywhere I look. And to me, I'm like, I'm doing the right thing. And I had sent this tweet out, and it was. The truth is like a lion. Set it free and it'll defend itself. Right as I did that, this woman comes around the corner in the airport, and she has a big glittery lion head on her shirt. And I was just like, okay. Like, that's to me. To me, that's God's voice. Or that's God telling me, you're doing the right thing, Sean. Just lean into it like I'm showing you. Yes. I mean, so I'm curious. When you say you get out there and you're hearing the voice of God and he's telling you to do different things, what is that? Like, what is that to you?

[Unknown]

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[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, for me one of the way that it comes about is just like clarity from all the stuff I've been going through before. So it's almost like a retrospective, like just time to reflect. So going back to like the, the, the work stuff is a superpower that God's given us like men in particular to provide. Like we're the providers and we got to do stuff and if you don't, your family dies, the village dies, society dies, the world dies. Right? So we gotta, we gotta put stuff out, we got, we gotta be producers. You know Satan likes to use that because if we can be so task, if we get too task oriented then we forget about like making time for the, for the main things, for the important things. So you're talking about These different little signs or affirmations that God would give you. Whenever you're just working, like too fast or too much, like you're gonna miss them. I'm sure there's 444s that are, that you walked by, you know, before. Like when you're just on a mission, just going. They were there the whole time. But what's going on now is like you're more aware of it. And the more aware of it you become, the more you'll see them and you'll really, really realize like how present God is in your life. Setting time aside to like, to slow down, to be still and know that God is God is like, it's a sacred moment. If you think about Sunday, like the Lord says, keep holy the Sabbath, don't do a bunch of serve all labor. Doesn't mean like sit up, you know, you can't do work. But it's first day of the week. It's like a proper orientation to God. If we can set aside work for a moment. It's not laziness, but it's actually an act of faith. Because what we're doing is saying, God, I can bust my ass, but if I take this hour, this day, this week, to be with you, be with my family, to do whatever, like, I'm recognizing that you're God and I'm not and so capable of doing this work, capable of doing this stuff, but you know, you could end my life right now. Like, I exist because you're holding me in existence. And so whenever we take these little breaks, it's like a profession of faith that God is going to take care of us. And so for me to bring it back to the last question that you made was like, when I'm out in the woods, out in the mountains, it's just time for me to stop and like, let the dust settle from the rat race that I'm always running and then just get clarity. And for me, it doesn't take long. I mean, it could be an afternoon hunt, like going out to hunt whitetails. It could be a drive in the truck when I had the radio off, you know, nothing at all. A 20 minute drive could be working out just for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or whatever, but a little bit of space to decompress and let the thoughts fall in line. That for me, that's kind of how the Lord speaks. Like he'll. I got all these puzzle pieces that I've been picking up. And whenever I take that time of silence, I can put all those Little puzzle pieces in order. And then, then I get the big picture. So I don't know if that makes sense, but.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, makes sense. It's, it's. I think what you're saying is clarity.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, Mindfulness, it's all this stuff. It's, it's, it's all over pop culture, you know, it's all over the place because there's something behind it. Definitely the clarity.

[Sean Ryan]

What were you saying? How does Satan take advantage of this?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, so most simply put is like, he'll allow us to fall so deep into our own endeavors that we begin to believe that we're God of our own life, that we can save ourselves. If I can work this hard and make this kind of income and do all these things, whether it doesn't even have to be an income, it could be productivity of any sort, could be whatever you're doing. But whenever that becomes the main thing, we end up worshiping that, an idol. And then the lie that we begin to believe is that we're self sustaining. I can take care of it. I don't need God. We begin to believe that we're in control of everything. Like we're God. So that's the way that Satan will do it. It's a very tactical way of him to get us off path. Because if he knocks on the door, Satan appears in a way that you can't deny that it's Satan. You're gonna say like, no, get behind me. In the name of Jesus, be gone. Because it's gonna be so obvious. So therefore he likes to hit us where we're strong. He goes to our talents. And then from there he starts up in the pride and the ego. And that's the root of all sins, pride, you know. And so that's kind of, kind of a simple way of putting how he manipulates it.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, how can people keep a balance? How do they know when they're going too far?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I'd say look for the fruits of the spirits. I mean, if your marriage is crumbling, what's the most basic things? If you're not doing the most basic things, then you need to put stuff in order. So marriage, if your marriage is falling apart because this thing is now your wife, if the work that I'm doing becomes my wife, or if I'm a dad or mom and I got kids, but I'm never with them this time. I'm always on the guys at the church. Got some hardworking people in my church and they'll be gone Monday through Friday and then be home Saturday and then have to leave again on Sunday, Sunday evening, so they can go to their Monday through Friday job way out of town. They're spending the whole day Saturday sleeping and recovering. And then they got basically Sunday to be with the family. Like, yeah, you're working to provide a. Provide stuff for your family, but at the end of the day, your kid just wants to be with you. Hey, dad, will you play with me? You know, like, so what do the relationships look like? Is the work that you're doing supporting those relationships or is it getting in the way of them? That's kind of a simple way. Also, another way would be, like. Like, look at your own vices and sins or, you know, addictions, for example. Yeah. So I'd say look at those. Those secondary signs, relationships, and then just your own. Your own virtues or lack thereof.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you have any vices?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I got a bunch.

[Sean Ryan]

What are some of your vices, man?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Work.

[Sean Ryan]

Work.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

It's hard to. Hard to stop. Because I love going. I love going. That's one.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you do for work? Other. I mean, what does your work consist of outside of Sunday mass?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, so outside the Sunday mass is, you know, got this large community. So it's. I'm essentially in charge of all the operations for the. For the. For the community, for the. All the members of the parish, but then also all the buildings, the structures. So it's a little bit of everything. It could be, of course, preparing for Sunday services, preparing people for marriages, doing marriage counseling, doing funerals, going to the prisons, hiring contractors to do work. We're starting a lot of development at our school right now. We're just. The school is exploding, and so that's cool, but it's making some problems, like, some good problems. But we got to do construction, so I'm talking to contractors and doing building plans and calls to the hospital finances. Got to oversee all the books and everything. I have a bookkeeper who does that, but, I mean, I'm over her, so I got to make sure that she does that.

[Sean Ryan]

You're a CEO, essentially.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of how we operate. All the. All the pastors, all the. The Catholic priests at their churches are. It's their little village.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting. You got. You have over 10,000 members.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

It's wild. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Where at in Arkansas again?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Little Rock, man.

[Sean Ryan]

That's a. That's a. That's a lot of people.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

It's cool, man.

[Sean Ryan]

95% Hispanic. Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you give the mass in.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Spanish and in English? We have seven masses over the weekend, two of those are in English and the other five are in Spanish. Wow. Yeah. And it's still growing, man. People still come in. The community's growing.

[Sean Ryan]

What's bringing them in?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Work. A lot of it's work. I mean, Little Rock, just like so many other cities in the US Are growing, especially these conservative states. You know, people are leaving the more liberal states to go to these conservative places. And Arkansas is, you know, very conservative state. And so that just requires the growth and developments.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, that's not exactly what I meant. I meant, I didn't realize Arkansas was growing. I heard Bentonville is going crazy. But. But it seems to be this wave of Christianity, of people coming to Christ.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So not moving while they come to church.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you. Are you seeing that?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. Okay, I get your question now.

[Sean Ryan]

What happened to me happened to a bunch of people. I know.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. We're at the point now where, like, we realize that the juice that the world's given us doesn't satisfy our thirst. It doesn't quench our thirst. And so, like, we're going deeper. We're realizing that, like, the passing things of this world, as good as they are, they're not the best thing. We can use them as long as they take us to something higher, something greater, something outside ourselves, and people are aware of that. We live in a world now, it's so divided. Everything is so polemical. Or is that the word political? Like, it's. It's on these extremes that, I mean, everyone's on edge all the time, you know, and that's exhausting. It's so exhausting. And so people are just wanting some time to breathe. And so that naturally opens up this spiritual side of people, which then leads them to ask big life questions. And whenever you slow down in this crazy life, like, you realize after all the work, after all the stuff I do, after this life that I live, I'm gonna die. And ultimately, like, all this angst that we have is wrestling with the death question. We don't know when it's coming. We know it's coming, but we don't know when. And we can't control that, you know? And so that terrifies us. And so we do all these things that distract us from that. So the life of faith is really preparing for a good death. Memento mori. I don't know if you've heard that before. I'm sure you have. Like, remember your death. Memento mori. It's a Latin phrase, and it's just an ancient Christian reflection. A lot of times you'll See Christian art and there'll be a skull like in the corner of the painting or on the table or something. And it's a reminder that you're going to be six feet under someday. And so we have to live every day like, so that we prepare for a good death, basically. When we go to meet the maker and give that final account, do you.

[Sean Ryan]

See a lot of spiritual warfare?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Mm, yeah, it's pretty hidden. It's not like the movie. The stuff that I see isn't like you see in the movies. It's pretty hidden. A lot of it's marriages. Satan is going after families. That's where he's going. And I see that all the time. So many broken families. I've been to three funerals over the last month, the last few months, two of them within a week and one back in November of a 17 year old, 19 year old and a 24 year old that got shot. You know, they were just violence, gangs or drug stuff or whatever. The reason, like, I see that I see marriages falling apart. I see infidelity, I see kids just losing their mind because they don't have good parents. And the parents are just lost and confused. And so that's how Satan, he can't destroy the world or I mean, he could, but like he'll do it one family at a time if he's gonna do it. And to take it back to the whole work thing, like he goes after dads, you know, if a dad is not there, then it's. He's the cornerstone of the family. You know, moms are necessary, of course the women are necessary. So is dad, the men. But so when it comes to warfare, spiritual warfare, I see it like that. That's the biggest place where I see it, families being broken apart.

[Sean Ryan]

I think I see a. I never really thought of that as being spiritual warfare, to be honest with you. But I think that there's a lot of things happening in the world that are coming to light that are grabbing people's attention. Like, I'll bring something up like, like that. Like the Last Supper skid at the Olympics. Did you see that? Yeah, I mean, I. I feel like people see something like that and they're like me in particular, and they look at that and they think, holy shit, okay, that is satanic. If there is. If satanic is that shit, is that prevalent?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Then that means the other's real. Yeah. And so, you know, and a lot of this stuff was really making me angry. Like, like last year, Easter, you know, the White House did the the trans visibility day thing. Yeah, which, which whatever they said they put that in long time ago or something and then it just happened to fall on that day.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Conveniently fell on the day.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. And. But then you look at the letterhead and it had little Easter bunnies and all this other shit on there. And, and to me I'm like, wait a minute, they're perverting the day of the Resurrection, right? And so as much as that upsets me and seeing things like the Olympics and, and mutilating kids and all these other things, you know, you could, we could line them all up here. But it, it almost, in a weird way it gives me it, it's almost proof that God exists. Because if it's that bad and it is satanic and that's where it's coming from, then that means that the other, that the good side exists as well. And so now when I see stuff like that, it actually, it actually strengths and strengthens my faith. Does that make any sense?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Totally, totally.

[Sean Ryan]

Does this stuff fall under spiritual warfare?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

100%. It's all disordered, you know, it's all disordered. Yeah. And most simply put, and God created universe, the universe and everything in it. Like in a proper ordered way. Like logic is like, people don't argue with numbers. 2 +2 is 4. Like there's some objective truths. Like that's a simple thing for that. But like evil comes in and Satan, he can't make stuff. He doesn't create things, he just distorts what's already there. So he'll manipulate the truth. He'll manipulate what is real. So he'll manipulate like the way that we see identity or gender. Say, you know, this is what for all of humanity, male and female. But now, now it's like, no, it can be whatever you want it to be. It's like, no, you're, you're turning something that's good into something that's bad. You're distorting it. You know it's a lie. He just flips all this stuff on its head. So one of the words that you use, like just these perversions, that's a, that's a good word for it. It's just perverting the truth. It's twisting it around and saying two plus two is five and it's all over.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, how much? How much? So that's another. This is something I think about all the time, you know, especially with, with the, the growing existence of AI stuff like neuralink. I mean, then you, and then you, you know, I brought on you, Father Dan Rehill, Lee Strobel, John Burke. Like, I'm. I'm super interested in the subject. But, you know, everybody talks about how Satan is the. Is the master of deceit. He's the master liar. He can manipulate things and make it appear something else. And so I'm just curious, I mean, how much. So this makes me think how much of everything we know today is a complete lie? How much is a lie? Are we even. You know, you hear people talk about, oh, are we in a simulation? Is this a false reality? AI we talk. I talked to Huberman about neuralink, and he had. He had. I said, well, he was talking about how they. It could help blind people see. And I said, well, if it can help blind people see, then could they create an entire false reality inside of your head? And he said, oh, yeah. If they can make blind see, they can manipulate all the other senses. Taste, smell, touch, emotion. It's wild, all of that stuff. And so it just makes me wonder, you know, how much of what we know today or what we think we know is a lie. And will this all get revealed at death?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Good question. How much? It's a lot. I would bet there. It seems like there's a lot around it, man. I just kept going back to freedom. Freedom, like, that's all. This stuff is bad inasmuch as it takes our freedom away. God wants us to be free, to be a saint. To be is to be in the presence of God, and that's perfect freedom. That's the fullness of life. Anything that takes away our freedom, our free will, our consciousness, like, is. It gets us away from that, you know? But freedom is. That's ultimately what. When God made Adam and Eve, he made them perfectly free until they started doubting and questioning and then kind of not thinking that they were free enough, so they tried to make their own freedoms. The forbidden fruit, like the scripture will tell us that. Just the image of the forbidden fruit, but it's about freedom. All these other things are bad in as much as they take our free will away from us. So AI is a good thing, man. It's here, you know, it's not going to go away. So how do we move forward with it, ethically and morally? Like, in as much as it helps us with productivity and to be more free, that's great. But if it takes away our freedom, what I mean is, like, if we rely on it so much that we're not creatively thinking and making decisions on our own, then it's bad because Ultimately, that's what it's all about. Like God wants us to be, to be free. And what's the ultimate freedom? Like this radical creativity. So going back to the work conversation, work that's done like freely and properly ordered is, is a creative act. That's what work is. It's, you're, you're creating stuff, you're, you're cooperating in the creation of the, of the world. So there's a lot of dignity at work. But yeah, just freedom. So in any way that all this stuff around us takes away our freedom, it's not from God. What is the freedom? The freedom is to do the right thing, to do what's right. Not the freedom to do whatever the hell you want. It's the freedom to do what's right. I'm not free to go out and rob 15 banks today if I want to. Like, because that's not right. I'm not free to go out and just drink a 30 pack of beer and then drive around town. Like, that's not good. You know, I'm not free to kill somebody like just out of cold blooded murder. Like, that's not, that's not freedom. If there's a, you know.

[Sean Ryan]

You'Re saying you have freedom to make the choice. Yeah, that's. Is that, that's kind of what your definition of free will is?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, yeah. To make the, to make the, to make the right choice. We're free to make the right choice.

[Sean Ryan]

You have, you have the free will of whether to choose good or to choose evil.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then so you mentioned psychedelics. Just in passing, we jump into that a little bit later or whenever you want. But like something with that, or alcohol or drugs or like anything like this is like, it would be bad in as much as it takes our free will. Thomas Aquinas talks about alcohol, for example. And like, you know, how much can you drink? He says to the point of hilarity. That's kind of like the way he, like, just because to the point of hilarity means that like, you still have full use of your reason, but as soon as something takes away your faculties, then you're not free in that. And that's where Satan wants to come in. Because if we don't maintain the proper use of our faculties and reason, then that's because we've surrendered it to someone else. So anytime that we surrender that, like if we're under the influence of something to the point where it takes away our faculties completely, we've surrendered that free will. To somebody else. And at that point they're free to make decisions for in our name. I mean, to really simplify it, like think of a parent raising a kid. The parents are going to make decisions for the kids because it's their proper, you know, like it's the right thing to do. You know, a power of attorney is another example. You give someone else the, the freedom to make decisions in your name. But that can be a slippery slope. If you give the freedom to the wrong person, they can abuse that power of eternally and just screw you. And then if you take another step further into the spiritual realm, if you, if you give your freedom to some spiritual being that's not God, then that's how Satan makes his way in.

[Sean Ryan]

Is our destiny chosen for us?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I don't think it's chosen.

[Sean Ryan]

So if God knows everything that's going to happen, then how is it not so?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

God's knowledge doesn't necessarily predetermine, you know, where we'll end up. He may know where we're going to end up. That's not because he's predestined. It's because, like, he just, he knows all things. God's outside of space and time. God's all knowing. The foreknowledge of God is, I guess, kind of a simple way of understanding this. St. Augustine, or St. Augustine, depending on how you say his name. He talks about this free will and predestination and everything. And it's like God's foreknowledge is that which guarantees us the freedom to choose rightly in that moment in the future. So it's like if he knows all this stuff, but it's just like a parent leading their kid through something in life. And you walk with the kid and you say, okay, we're here now, let's make the decision. I've taught you all this stuff up to this point. Now you're gonna make the decision. What do you make if it's a wrong decision? You help your kid learn from it and then move on. If it's the right decision, they keep going. So God's foreknowledge is kind of like a parent walking with, with a kid. So yeah, it's kind of simplest way I could put it for. I get too theological with it.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think he knows if we're going to wind up a believer or a non believer?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

He wouldn't. Yeah, I mean, God would know. He knows all things, so he would know that. But for him to know if we're going to be A believer or non believer if we're going to be in heaven or hell does not mean that he would have predestined that God cannot predestine or like it's not in God's nature to, to will something bad for somebody. God is love. And so God would not create any of us like with the plan of sending us to hell. It would be the choice that we freely make in that regard.

[Sean Ryan]

What are your thoughts on psychedelics? You know, I just, I found a lot of healing through them. A lot of my friends have.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That.

[Sean Ryan]

Have been to war and you know, it's always a very, very controversial subject within Catholic Christian world. A lot of people say it's demonic. A lot of people say it opens up. People are trying to open up their third eye and that's how demons come in. It's like a window. A lot of people say that it's a false reality that you experience. But I've seen a lot more good than bad come from this stuff. Way more good. And so I've heard that some people use psychedelics to open people up before exorcisms. I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on psychedelics?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

This initial thing is how much of your free will can be maintained in that and if it is surrendered in the use of that, who is rightly going to be your guardian during that moment? That's kind of one thing, that's kind of a high, like a high thought or whatever. But they're doing a lot more studies. I think with more of these studies, like will have a clear understanding of the morality of it and the ethics of it and everything, which is good. So we have to do the studies and everything and figure out more. Big thing is like, can it be like, how can you control the consistency of it? Like if like in a beer, you know how much alcohol is in there now? Like with. Yeah. Do you know how much is in it? And then if you can measure it and know how much is in it, then you can control how much you take, which can control the effects.

[Sean Ryan]

And what about, what about from a spiritual standpoint? You know, a lot like with, with people that saying it's, it's demonic, it's demonic forces. You're opening yourself up to the spiritual realm. I mean, what, what are your, what are your thoughts on that? Is it, is it spiritual suicide?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That's a good question, man. I'm still learning more about it myself, you know. Now if you compare psychedelics to crystal meth or something, I think those are two totally different creatures. You know, or cocaine or whatever. Like some, like a. Like one of these man made drug or something versus like something that is naturally derived. I think that in itself is an argument that needs to be explored more to answer your question. Like does it open you up to the demonic stuff? I think, I think it can. I think it can just in the shortest answer. Yeah, it gives me the jibbies. I don't want to. I don't know if I'd want to do it.

[Sean Ryan]

Have you ever done it?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I've done psychedelics.

[Sean Ryan]

No. Is the spiritual realm right here amongst us?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Always. Huh? We can't. There's so much more in this world, in this universe, in this life than what we can just sense. You know what would be an example? I mean, you can look up something on Wikipedia and you can read one article, but there's still all the rest of Wikipedia that's still there and exists even though you haven't read it. We have our senses that allow us to take information in. But think of those senses as just experiencing like one Wikipedia page of what this life is all about. That's kind of like the horizontal kind of way of understanding. But if you take that vertically, like to the spiritual realm. Yeah, I mean it's all, it's all around us just today, like life experiences will reveal. Life experiences will reveal that there's more to this life than just the things we can touch and see and smell. I mean, every human being has had a good day and a bad day. You know, we've all done stuff that has changed our mood and making us happier or sad, mad or angry, whatever it may be. We've all had people say something to us that. It's a word that we hear in our head, but it does something inside us. It can piss us off or it can make us feel loved and consoled. It's all around us. It's all around us. We gotta be aware of it, respect it, but at the same time we can't get hung up on it. What I mean is like God wants us to live, live life like be in reality.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think there's ways to access it?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Prayer? It's like that initially comes to mind. I don't know, like a short. I'm just, I'm a little. I'm a redneck from, from the farm.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Sure, yeah, there's. There's definitely ways to access it. Okay, there's definitely ways to access it.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, let's dig into your life story. So real quick, one thing I forgot, sorry about this. So I Have a Patreon account. It's a subscription account. And they've been with me since the beginning. We've grown quite the community in there. And one of the things I offer them, the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. And so it's a long question, so I'm going to summarize it. It's from Brian Duff. But Brian was born and raised Catholic. And basically he's a paramedic combat veteran. Experienced a lot of trauma, a lot of evil, a lot of inhumane stuff. He's lost a lot of friends to suicide. And he says after a long description, while I believe in God, I guess what I'm asking is, how do I not be angry with him? Because I'm pissed at him? If he is all powerful as we're taught, why would he allow such things to happen?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Fantastic question, Mr. Duff. Brian. Was that his name? Brian or Brian? Yeah, good question. Brian, man. First thing I would say is, like, be pissed at God. He's a big boy. If you're mad at God, the only way to encounter God is in reality. I mentioned that earlier. I think I did. If not, I was thinking it, but yeah, like, the only way to encounter God is in reality, not in fantasy. So if you're pissed at God, tell him. I mean, he already knows what you're feeling and thinking. He knows what's in your mind. He knows what's in your heart. He knows all the stuff that you saw. He was there with you. And that's the beauty of Christianity, that God is. I miss the message of the cross. Like, God doesn't sit on some, you know, crystal throne and gaze on us like a, you know, somebody watching fish in a tank. He was crucified. Like he's been to the depths of hell. He knows better than us what that is. And so first thing is meet God at that spot. Because it's only through reality and in reality that you're going to encounter God. So start with that stuff, man. And then from there, everything else just kind of snowballs. What was the second part? So why the last question that he.

[Sean Ryan]

Said, how do I not be angry with him because I'm pissed at him.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Okay.

[Sean Ryan]

If he is all powerful as we're taught, why would he allow such things to happen?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Okay, yeah. So, yeah, just. It's okay to be mad at God. I think a lot of people have never been given that freedom to be mad at God. Some of the best prayers that I've had, I chewed him out. And then afterwards, he, like, he brings Some light to it and meaning to it. So start there. And then he's so good. Like, why do these things happen? That's the. That's the typical question of suffering. If God is so good, why is there evil in the world? And it's because of. Because of his love. And I'll explain that because it doesn't make sense. Like, if God loves us, then how can that be the reason for the evil? Like, love is always proposed, and it's never imposed. God doesn't spiritually rape us. He always intimately invites us to a deeper relationship. He gives us the full free will to respond however we want to respond. Because love, again, is not forced on somebody. It's an offer. It's an invitation that's given, and then we respond to that. We're broken people, man. And so therefore, we make dumb decisions. And those dumb decisions can be here and now, or they could be generational things that you could. I don't want to make it more than what it is. Or, like, kind of like. But, like, you could do something now. I'm thinking, like, the butterfly effect. Like, it's not really the butterfly effect, but you can do something now that's gonna, like, cause, like, something evil 50 years or 100 years down the road.

[Unknown]

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[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So just an image that would come to mind. Let's say I'm a father, got some kids. Let's say I had a long work week. I come home, just hammer some beers and then I'd get in a fight with my wife and I punch her in front of my kids. And then the kids start crying. And then I kick them and tell them to shut the hell up. And then like the next day, like, everyone's quiet, we get through the week and then like there's some reconciliation, wife didn't leave, I apologize and all this stuff. The kid had some Trauma, then the kid's going to grow up, go through their stuff, and they may see something, you know, when they're in their 50s, let's say they're. They're in their 60s. They got their kids now. And then some little. They got their first grandkids. And then maybe it's the guy's daughter just had their first grandkid. And then the guy hears that from his daughter that the husband was abusing him or something, and he goes home and shoots him. Goes to the house and shoots him or something like that would be an evil act, murder and kind of like a seed was planted years before. Does that kind of make sense so we can do things now that have effects in the future?

[Sean Ryan]

You're talking about creating generational trauma through poor decision making.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, yeah. And if that happens at the physical level, it also happens at the spiritual level, too. And so the. Yeah, the free will stuff is. It's like that. You know, it's. But it's here now. Like, it doesn't have to be a generational thing. I can make a bad decision. I've made a ton of them. I'm going to make more of them in the future. I don't want to. It's not like I plan on it, but I know I'm a broken human being. And so, you know, emotions can get the better of us. And then we just do stupid stuff. And that's why. And to bring it, like, back to the God thing is like, it's because he gave us free will. We're just. We're getting malinformed or we follow our emotions instead of using our reason, instead of thinking stuff through, we say stuff we don't want to say. We do stuff we don't want to do, shouldn't do. And it's because God loves us and he gives us that free will. And whenever we make dumb decisions, it affects the whole community. So that would be kind of the answer I'd give Brian. Like, kind of twofold. First of all, the first part wasn't a question, but I would just directly respond to the anger thing. Be mad at God. Whatever emotion you got, bring it to God. And then two, not to make it just too easy of an answer, but like, bad stuff happens because we do dumb stuff, and we do dumb stuff because God has given us free will to, you know, ultimately do the good. But whenever we don't choose the right, there's consequences.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, let's dig into your story a little bit here. So there's A lot of hard questions.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

There, but like, I got punched in the face. I don't know if any of that made sense. No, I've been some heavy stuff. All those.

[Sean Ryan]

Did I come too hard at you?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No, it's good. Like, I like the shock and awe, catch my breath. So if I'm mumbling or stumbling, knock the wind out of me. I'm getting warmed up, though.

[Sean Ryan]

So you grew up in small town in Arkansas, Correct?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Wynn is the name of the town. Little bitty old town around. It was around 9,000, 8,000 people growing up, which is kind of wild. Going back to the church thing. I'm leading a church now at 39 years old. That's bigger than the hometown I grew up in. Basically like the mayor of that town, y'all. That's kind of weird. Yeah. I grew up in Wynn, Arkansas. It's a farming community. I grew up on a family farm. We got rice, soybeans, wheat, 200 acres or so. Just a German family. Grew from this German family. Hard working family. We're a poor family. Everyone in the family's poor. Just. But hard work, hard workers. So I didn't. Although I didn't inherit wealth or anything from my family, I damn sure inherited a work ethic and just put the nose of the grindstone and get stuff done. And that's something I learned growing up. Do that work. I'm the second oldest of five kids and I'm 39. I mentioned that earlier. I was born in 85. When I was eight years old, my dad and older sister died in a car wreck. And I was in the truck with him. My little sister was in the truck with us. It was a one car accident. We stayed at my dad's parents house the night before and we were driving back to the house the next day to get ready for school. Dad was gonna go to work, take us to school and everything. And it was about a mile and a half down the road from our house. We were coming through a curve. Dad had a dish bowl, like on the dashboard of the truck. And we took this curve and the dish started sliding across the dashboard. So he leaned over to grab it. When he did, yanked the steering wheel and went in the ditch and cut a culvert and started doing cartwheels. My older sister Courtney, she was 11. The truck landed on her. She died immediately. My dad, he was 32, which is wild, you know, Think that he. I think he died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Punctured lungs, stuff like that. I had just some cuts and scrapes, a broken ankle. My little sister, she was three, I was eight. Little sister was three, she just got crushed. She was sitting on my dad's lap. None of us were wearing seat belts and she was sitting on my dad's lap. And so whenever we hit the culvert, she just got crushed between my dad and the steering wheel. So everything like from the waist down was just crushed. Collarbone also. And her arm, she was in a body cast. I remember that. Mom, you know, pulling her around in a little wagon for that. But I remember, you know, dad was there just kind of breathing heavy and remember sitting on his chest and I him groaning about it. Now I know why, you know, punctured lungs. You wouldn't want someone sitting on your chest if you had a punctured lung. And then. Yeah, you know, for an eight year old, let some.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you remember that?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. May 5th, 1994. Probably around, I don't know, six or so. 5:45, 6:15, somewhere around there. Maybe later than that. Probably around 6, 6:15, 6:45 in the morning. It'll screws a little kid's brain, you know. So talking about little signs from God, I remember just the week before, run up on the. So we're on the farm. My uncle who ran the farm, he just a week before, he was saying, hey, Stephen, if you ever. I'm on the tractor and you need to stop me, just, you know, come out, just wave your hands and I'll know to come, you know, come check on you. Come see what you need because I won't hear your voice. So just wave your arm. So like I realized like shit wasn't good. Like trucks upside down. It's like something out of a movie scene, you know, and a war zone. And so I'd hobble my way up to the side of the road and little cars coming. So I flag them down and I say, yeah, here's the phone number. And then they went up to. I don't know if he called. I guess he called and Mom. Yeah, I answered the phone and we live, you know, on the. We live on the farm. My grandparents lived on the farm as well. Still, you know, they're deceased now, but. So mom calls my grandpa and says, you know, they were in a. They were in a wreck. So she turns the corner and picks him up and then they come to the scene. They wouldn't let her up there though. I mean a small town. My dad worked at the radio station. Big personality, everybody knew him. So he's well known in the community. Mom too because of him. And the cops wouldn't let her come up just because they knew how bad it was. And so, I mean you can just imagine what would go through a mom's mine, you know, with that stuff and my sister's airlifted to, to Memphis. It was about 45 minutes away, an hour away. And I was taken to the hospital there and then taken by ambulance to the children's hospital in Memphis and. Yeah, man.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. I remember being at the children's hospital and they were listening, everyone was there. The, the priest came, drove over from, from, you know, where we lived. And there was a nun who was at the other church. She was there too. Family. And I remember them telling me like, you know, your dad and sister died and like I didn't know what that meant, but I just remember kind of being a little mad at that, like angry and like hitting the. Hit my hands on the, on the hospital bed. But.

[Sean Ryan]

Eight years old, huh?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Man.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Mom was pregnant. She had, she was pregnant. She knew that she, her and dad knew that they knew they were pregnant. She goes to the doctor a couple weeks later, you know, week later, whatever for a checkup. It's a lot of trauma. Didn't know checkup for the baby and for her. And the doctor was like, you know, I got some news for you. And she's, you know, did I lose a baby or what is it? And the doctor said no, you got twins. So she was pregnant with twins, man. So then basically helped mom raise the, raise my siblings and everything. So little 8 year old boy I remember carrying. Felt like a strong kid. Whenever I cuz to, to be able to carry both of the little baby. What do you call them? Baby carrier, baby bucket, whatever you put the little thing in carry baby. What do you call it? I don't have kids. No wife. Yeah, baby carrier.

[Sean Ryan]

Maybe a bassinet.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I don't, maybe, I don't know, whatever. Whatever. You carry a baby around.

[Sean Ryan]

Something like that.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So. Yeah, so that was childhood. That was a big, big thing.

[Sean Ryan]

How long after, after your dad and your sister died, were the twins born later that year? Just a couple months. I mean.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, no, it was, it was still very. They just found out they were pregnant. All of us were like, I think we're April.

[Sean Ryan]

So about March or.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

April is whenever. I guess it's a really fertile time. We were all born in November. December. They were born in December. My brother.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Wow. I don't know what to say to that.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Not much. You can. Yeah, it's like, damn, I still don't know what to say. You know, it's kind of cool. Like, we were talking about different things for ministry and suffering, and that's been a. Like a. Like, it's cool how God uses that. Because whenever people come to me after the shit hits the fan in their lives, and they're like, father, like, I need an answer. There's not an answer. And so it's given me the ability just to sit with them. So, like, sometimes, like, not an answer is okay. You don't have to have a reason, and it's a cause. I don't know. I'll never understand why, you know? And I go through waves of just, like, being angry or indifferent or mad at God, but.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, who took over that role for you? Who did you look up to?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Good question. My grandpa. My mom's. My mom's dad was probably the biggest one. Quiet man. His name was Herman. Herman Joseph. He's deceased now. Quiet, hardworking guy. He smoked cigarettes. Then he had a heart attack, so he had to quit. But he was one of those guys. I quit, but he kept smoking. So he'd go in the bathroom every night and smoke cigarettes with the bathroom open. Think that we couldn't smell it in the rest of the house. It's kind of funny, but, yeah, so he did it. A couple of uncles also stepped in and kind of took me under their wings different. They all fathered me in different ways. No one can replace a father, you know. I had a lot of good examples, but I never had a dad. One uncle taught me just a lot about just hard work, physical labor, just kind of being raw. He was the farmer. The other one, just a lot about, like, humor and just living life, having fun, you know? There were some other good people, too, that kind of took me under their wings. Friends, parents, you know, Boy Scouts. There was a scout leader, a couple Scout leaders that. That took care of me and. And helped me a lot, too, so took the village to raise me.

[Sean Ryan]

How. How long did it. Is there anything in particular. In particular that helped you. That helped you deal with that situation, or was it just time?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I think just time. And even now, like, I'm still working through a lot of this stuff, you know, and going back to the work subject, I'm a typical dude. Like, just bottle it up, do work, and that'll distract me from it. So I'm still processing it, to be honest with you. I started doing, like, some counseling stuff in January, and that's been really phenomenal, working through it. Just working through a lot of different stuff. And that's been helpful. But yeah, I just put my nose to the grindstone and just. Just kept going. That's kind of what's. That's what. It's what's got me through life. It's kind of like fake it till you make it kind of thing work until you figure something out.

[Sean Ryan]

How's your mom?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Good. We're hellraisers, but she's good. She lives by herself. She never remarried, gave herself, just completed us doing everything she could to raise us. She lives in the same house that we grew up in. And it was a house that my grandfather built when he was in high school in the 40s. She still lives in it. Old, old house. She still lives there.

[Sean Ryan]

And how are the twins?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

They're knuckleheads, man. One is in Washington state. Not much contact with him. The other one is in Arkansas. He is a mechanic. He works in guidance systems on farm equipment.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, okay.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Sister. She lives in Detroit, just outside of Detroit. I think Southgate's the name of the little area. She's got a few kids.

[Sean Ryan]

You guys grew up Catholic?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Mm, yeah, born and raised. That was always. That was a non negotiable. There was something good about that. Now that I'm older, I'll hear challenges from people like saying, oh, well, you know, it's not right for your parents to impose that on you. Or, you know, they should have given you the choice. Well, like little kid shits in their diaper, like, mom's gonna change the diaper. You don't ask the kid, hey, you want me to change your diaper? You know, same thing with the food. There's some basic human needs that, that other people who are rightly in charge of, you're responsible for. You make decisions on your behalf for your good, your well being. And our spiritual well being is same thing, you know, which would include like virtue, you know, being a virtuous person. But we grew up, all the farmers went to this little Catholic church there. We were, we were a faithful family. We weren't like super holy. Like, we didn't pray all the time. I mean, we would always pray before meals. We try to pray the rosary every now and then, but it usually would end up with us falling asleep or the, you know, us fighting, the siblings fight, and then mom or grandma yelling at us. And it just kind of unravels quickly, you know, kind of real life prayer. Went to mass every Sunday. That was a non negotiable. It was just a simple, steady presence is what it was. And that that's one of the graces that I took from it. Just a point of stability and all the stuff around us that was always changing, ebbing and flowing. It was a point of stability. And so it set that foundation for my life. Like even now, faith is that bedrock. It's that place of encounter where I encounter the Lord in the midst of the storm. So, yeah. Grew up Catholic.

[Sean Ryan]

What advice would you have for kids who have lost parents?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

You know, find some good examples, some good role models, and ask them to take you under their wing. You know, you don't have to explicitly ask them, but surround yourself with good people. You know, you're going to do the stuff that you see other people do. So find a good role model. That's the simplest thing.

[Sean Ryan]

So moving on, would you. What'd you like doing as you got older?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Just playing stuff. I love playing. I'm a. I'm just a boy now. I'm a big boy and a grown man's body. So grew up. We were very poor. We didn't have Internet or TV or. We had TV but didn't have Internet. Didn't have cable tv, didn't have video games or anything. But we had big farm. So I just go out and play with stuff. Shoot a little BB gun, you know, shoot Robinson Cardinals and stuff. You know, the typical boy hunting outside. I would just play. I loved. I played a sandbox in the backyard and I go out and play with that. I had a bunch of Legos. They were my dad's, so I'd play with Legos a lot. Just creative stuff. I was a good kid. I wasn't bad. Had a lot of energy, but I was a good kid in class. Good kid in school. Was respectful. I did Boy Scouts. I was in Boy Scouts my whole life. From Tiger Cubs. I think that starts at first grade or whatever. To Eagle Scout, which was in high school. So did that. Did sports. Played sports, football, football, track and golf. I wasn't really good at because I was small. I've always been a small guy and. But I had some grit. Could just go to some dark places and just like on the football team. I wasn't good enough to start, but I had enough grit to like. I was like coaches always calling me in to run the plays, like against the starting offense or defense. They knock the tar out of me and I'd get right back up and. Which is kind of fun. We would always. Friday night football in Arkansas is like a religion. Well, it's like Tennessee here too, I think. But Mondays we would Always watch the film of the Friday football game. And I remember one time in particular, I was on kickoff team. I was flying down the field, and one of the guys on the other team, I didn't see him. He knocked the tar out of me, just knocked me off the side. I was right on the right at the sideline anyways, and he hits me so hard that I go into, like, all of my teammates and I just disappear. Then I reappear, like 15 yards down the field chasing after the ball. It was just kind of funny. Yeah. Football, track. I did golf. We didn't have a membership at the country club. We were too poor for that. But I had a big farm, so I was always out hitting golf balls.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. Had a little green in the front yard that I mowed.

[Sean Ryan]

So what got you interested in the military?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I just wanted. I don't know. At the time, there was no reason. I went to college for a year, and I hated that. So I didn't go to the military for college. It wasn't to leave home because I loved being at home. There was just. There was an itch in me to go explore. I just wanted to go explore. Had some cousins and some friends that joined in the military. And. Yeah, so I went into the Air force. It was 2005. When I went in there, I was pretty pumped. I wanted to go as fast as I could. So I went to the recruiter, and this was height of oif. And so I was like, what can get me out of here the fastest? And they needed ser instructors to survival, evasion, resistance, and escape, guys. So I was like, okay, yeah, I'll do that. So I did all the prep for that, the pre training and pre test and everything. Go to basic training. Long story short, I get washed out of that and then get put into a logistics job. We can unpack all that. But it was fun. The military was really, really fun. So basic training. I would love to go back through it now. I don't know about you, but yeah, just being, like, older and knowing the mind game that it is, it was so fun. Part of, like, my coping mechanism is humor, and it was. Yeah, that got me in so much trouble in basic. I remember our instructor, Terry Shirley. We had a lady. There was our flight, and we had a sister flight. We did a lot of training together, and she did a lot of instructors with us. She had a chip on her shoulder, man. She was just like every instructor, but she. I was like one of her favorite ones, which made it bad for me because she was Just picking on me non stop. She like, jackass was the name that she gave me. And so anytime we were training, she just said, jackass. Like, everyone's like, gadbear, she's calling you go, you gotta go. But she was always just on me, always. I did so many push ups. It was one of the fittest guys in the, in the flight at the graduation. She also knew I was wanting to do this, this sear job. And so she knew I had to be in good shape. So she was helping me with that. She was trying to help me like with mental toughness as well. I was the guide bearer or the guide on bear, carrying the flag and everything and up front marching. I remember one day we were on the, on the drill pad training, and it was just a bad day, like nothing was working. And I was just, it just was. I kept getting, I kept messing up. And of course, you know, you're in the front of the group, so if you take a wrong step, everyone behind you is off too. And she man over and over and over, kept messing up. And then she got in my face and she's like, damn it. When we go like, we're start marching and we're gonna turn left. We're gonna start marching and we're gonna turn left. All right? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Forward march. Left face. Marge, you know, so we're going. My dumb ass went right, right after she told me that. And golly, she flipped a switch and it wasn't good there. But that was, that was kind of a fun thing. I just wanted an adventure. You asked about military. I went down that little bunny hole. I just wanted an adventure. I found it. There was a lot to do there. I'm going.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm sorry, I'm backtracking. But you know, you had mentioned you're still struggling with the loss of your father and your sister. What are you struggling with?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So when that happens, like immediately I had to start providing for the family. I was an eight year old boy, so I didn't get a childhood. So one of the ways that I'm struggling with it now is like all the. It's kind of like the shrapnel of the bomb. I didn't get a childhood, so I had to grow up like overnight almost. My mom has zero income, like a very little income. She didn't have a college education, so she doesn't make a lot of money. So as soon as I start working or as soon as I could start working, I had to start working to make Money for the family. I just had to provide as a kid. Little kid, you can't do much to provide. But I babysat, helped mom a lot of stuff in a lot of ways. As I got older and started working, I helped a lot financially and doing more to take care of the family. The way it's messed with me is, like. Is currently now with boundaries, like, not telling people no. It's hard to say no. It's hard to stop working. It's hard to turn off because I didn't really have a choice as a kid. And.

[Sean Ryan]

How does that. How does that affect your ability to say no? I struggle with that too.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

I've gotten a lot better at it, but it's tough. It is.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

How does it affect my bill to say no? Like, I'm not naive to the tight situation that we grew up in, and, like, the fact that mom couldn't do it, and so someone had to help her. We had family that would help. But, like, in my mind, I was like, well, that's. It's my job to do. I gotta stand up and do it. And so anytime I see a problem.

[Sean Ryan]

Now, you feel responsible.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. Yeah. And so I feel like I gotta fix it for people. And I'm good at it. Like, I'm really good at what I do, and that's part of, like, the superpower. But then one of the ways that it is not good is, like, people come to me just for an easy solution, and I'll fix it. Man. I just started this therapy stuff in January, so I'm working through all this right now. It's tough. Why do I do it, though? So as a child, there were a lot of moments whenever, like, I didn't have a voice, like, I would want to go play or something, but I couldn't go play, or the answer would always be no, or I just felt like if I wanted something, I just had to do it. Want something done, I had to get it done. If there was something fun that I wanted to do, like, I didn't ask. I learned pretty quick to not ask to do much stuff because most time I couldn't. I don't know. That's just trickled in now to what we're doing.

[Sean Ryan]

So when you say, you know, it's really hard for you to say no, and that's becoming a problem. Is that building resentment?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, man. That's big. Yeah, the resentment can be big. That's something that was this last month. It's been good to work on that in the way that. So, like, if someone comes and, like, want help with something, I can get the resentment in there because it's like, whenever they ask me, I feel like I have to say yes. I feel like I can't say no. So I feel like I don't have this freedom to say what I need to say. And also there's some resentment there because it's like, I had to figure out life, and I'm still figuring it out on my own now. I'm getting a lot better with, like, doing it with friends and other people, you know? But as a child, I had to figure it all out on my own, and that taught me a lot. But I get the resentment because I can. I judge people for being lazy or not motivated. I just want to say, figure it out, like, wrestle with a little bit, struggle with it. There's. I love the struggle of life. I think a lot of people don't. And so I get the resentment there whenever, like, they're not willing to struggle a little bit.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you real. Do you feel resentment for the time that it takes?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. Yeah. In a way, it's like going back to the work stuff. We were talking about this earlier. Like, it's a. Like, it gets in the way of my other projects, or it's like, if I do stuff, I want it to be efficient. Let's get it done. Let's be productive. Let's do it efficiently. So therefore, like, it can be harder for me to do some of the stuff that just takes time with people. Some of these counseling sessions or times I'll be with meeting with the family or something. For them, the healing that they need is going to come through them just kind of telling their whole story. But in my brain, I'm just like, what are the main points? Give it to me in a minute and a half. Let's get it done.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So, yeah, the time thing is a big thing.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I mean, I can relate to that big time. I've really struggled with that. And I'll tell you, the one thing that's helped me is somebody told me, when you say yes to somebody, you're saying no to somebody else.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Sean Ryan]

And so the way I took that is same thing. I think you've listened to the show. You know how deep we get, and I can't help everybody, and it's okay to say no. And, you know, but I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't fucking say no.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And then somebody told me that, and I realized every time I'm Saying yes to all these people. I'm saying no to my wife, to my son, to my daughter, to my mom and dad, to everybody that I really, really love. And you know, when you kind of paint it in that perspective, that helped me a lot.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That's a good. Yeah, I like that. It's interesting. Whenever I would be in these situations, whenever I feel like I'm, for example, like if someone asks me a question, I feel like I have to say what they want to hear. And so I'm not free in that. And so what happens is like psychologically and emotionally I go back to the eight year old Stephen, and like in my mind and my heart, my brain, I'm just thinking like, I'm thinking like a kid. And so now what I'm trying to do is like rationally think through the thing and say what needs to be said as a mature Stephen instead of the little boy Stephen. And so that's hard to say what needs to be said, but I know that's the right thing. So, for example, it's like instead of saying yes to somebody that's saying no. What's interesting though is that whenever I do that, a lot of times I'll see them like almost flip a switch and they'll start acting out of their child. So like the no that they hear takes them back to a childhood trauma, you know, whatever sort. And then they'll start acting a certain way or getting defensive or this excuse or whatever it may be, but it's almost like a switch being flipped. And then they'll start acting a different way to me out of that childhood trauma. But the neat thing now is with ministry is that I can then love them in that situation. The response that they're giving is out of a trauma that they have from whenever someone didn't love them properly. And so then they respond to me out of that childhood mentality and then I can love them in it. And there's some healing that the Lord does through that, if that makes sense. So it's just kind of neat to like by me having healthy boundaries, like the Lord is healing people, people through me, you know, because it forces them to bring to light stuff that they're struggling with and then let the Lord into that.

[Unknown]

I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Elite Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show and their support allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month, live zoom calls with me, exclusive merch and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com vigilance elite. That's patreon.com vigilance elite. I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Shawn Ryan show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign Superbad. She's made two different appearances here on the Sean Ryan show, and some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind blowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's gonna be all things terrorists. How terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part. The newsletter is actually free. We're not gonna spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two shows. The only other thing that's gonna be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up link's in the description or in the comments.

[Sean Ryan]

We'll see you in the newsletter. All right, we're back from the break, and I think we're at. I think we're at sear training. Had a good, good chat downstairs about kind of diving in a little bit deeper about saying no and which morphed into psychedelics. But I don't know. I feel weird, like, advocating for psychedelics to a priest.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No. Makes sense. It makes sense. I, like, I don't want to give definitive answers on. On it either way just because I don't have all the knowledge yet.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

And also, I know that I'm like, an authority figure when it comes to, like, religious things. So, like, this isn't a religious thing. But people would see me as an Authority figure. So if I give an answer on something, they'll take it as, as the gospel. You know, sort of like if you spoke about self defense, you know, you know, arms training or whatever it may be, like people are going to listen to what you say, like, you know, what you're doing. So, so if I, if I, I understand.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, you, you have a, a tremendous amount of responsibility for the people that, that, that are listening to this and, and 10,000 people that go to your, go to your church. And I mean, I feel, I feel the same thing doing this. I mean, we have a massive audience and I never want to lead them in the wrong way. But also, you know, I don't know. I mean, to me people have to be, won't, you know, they have to be. How do I say this? So many people are trained to just be told what to think nowadays.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And you know, on this show, I like to leave it up to them. Like, here's all these different things we're talking about and it's up to you to like decipher, you know, what, what, what, what aligns with your values and your beliefs. And, and I'm not here to tell you how to think, you know, I'm here to explore my own curiosity and take my audience with me. But, but I do understand what you're saying.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I would, there's more to explore there. Like, I want to know more about the psychedelics. I mean, the reality is, like, they're here, more people are opening up to them, they're starting to do studies and everything with it. I think it's going to be good to get some objective data, you know, to make those choices. But then it's, it's a natural thing. Like, it's, it's a fruit of the earth. I'm just ignorant about it. I'm curious about it. I want to learn more. I wouldn't be opposed to trying them sometime, but like, it, like it would be a specific context, a time and place. And I mean, we, we.

[Sean Ryan]

It's very obvious that, that your father and your sister that have passed in the car accident. Did you really struggle with that? And you know, I went through a lot of example, a couple examples downstairs of what it, what it's done for friends of mine, a lot of friends of mine, what it's done for me personally. And you know, I mentioned, I see way more good than bad that comes out of it. And I don't, I just, you know, it has the ability to, I don't know what exactly it does in these traumatic experiences. And some people, some people re experience them. I don't really re experience them. I might think about them while I'm there. But it, I think what it does is, you know, you, you can get to this point where they call it an ego death and your ego leaps.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That's a good thing.

[Sean Ryan]

It is, but it's.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

If you lose your drive though, it could be bad.

[Sean Ryan]

I wouldn't say that. So, so I did that when I did the ibogaine experience. That was one thing and basically that was like brain maintenance. And then I did this other thing that's like a 12 hour thing. And then I did this other thing called 5 Meo DMT. It's a toad venom that you smoke and it's a, it's a death experience. You die like in your mind. If you allow it to. A lot of people fight it and that's terrifying in the first, I don't know, 15 to 30 seconds, ish. You are 100% certain in your mind that you are going to die and you will fight that with every, I mean you will fight it. And then it's the most anxiety, it's the most fear, it is the most horrible. It's the most horrible 15 to 30 seconds of your life. Because when I say an ego death, I mean you're letting everything go, just.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Go fast or slow. This 15 it goes.

[Sean Ryan]

It seems, I don't know how to describe that. It's almost like time isn't a thing. But first you feel like you're gonna die and then all these thoughts, all of your attachments to Earth or the world that we live in now start coming into place. So for me it was like, okay, I'm gonna die. This is scary. Scary as fuck, but all right. But then it's, oh shit, I'm leaving my son behind, I'm leaving my wife behind. Who's gonna take care of them? And you're having these conversations that. These conversations in your head that are going in like milliseconds, you know, like full conversations that are like milliseconds. And by that. And that's, that's like, for me, that's the last part of my ego. I am comfortable with death. I am not comfortable with leaving my wife and my kids behind without a provider. Does that make sense?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Total sense.

[Sean Ryan]

And so you let that. You eventually, if you want to do the crossover thing, which is the, the bliss part of this, you have to let that go. And like I said, you are 100% sure that you're Dying. And then you do this crossover. And that's where it seems like it's like this spiritual realm. It's like. It's like a sixth sense. You are just so intuitive with. It just seems like a spiritual world, man. You can feel the presence of maybe people that have passed. You can feel the presence of God. You can feel this energy. But anyways, it is the most healing thing we have ever done.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. I don't have the objective, like, to make a. Like, a definitive answer on it, but it sounds like such a sacred experience and putting everything in perspective. Like you said, it starts with death, and pretty much from there it's like, okay, well, I've died, so can't get much worse than that. And so everything else falls into line. Earlier, I was talking about this whole thing of memento mori, like, remember your death. It's the exact same principle. Like, we would pray or go on a retreat or something like that. And you could come to one of these points. This is like a medicinal way to come to that same point. And so I think, again, I can't make the definitive answer, but I think there could be an argument in the future, once we get more information or more data on it, to where we could say there may be a place for it in people's daily life. I don't know if you'd want to do it daily, once, or whatever. But there could be a place for it to take us to that point of putting everything in perspective. Because I'm thinking, like, when someone's sick, they take medicine to get better physically. Right. Whereas, you know, could say, well, if they were just healthy, if they ate healthy and worked out before, they may not have gotten sick. But you get to a point where, okay, you need medicine to break this sick cycle, like, psychologically, it sounds like the exact same thing happening. Like, it's just. You're. It's. It's in this. I think you mentioned, like, that, like, just this. This circuit that's just. Yeah. And so like a defibrillator, like, it's. It stops the heart so that then it can go back into rhythm and everything. That's. You know, we would do that physically for the body, with the heart, with medicines. So I think there could be a place for this in the future.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm not. I'm not trying to, like, push this on you or anything. I just.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I'm curious. I want. I want to learn more. I just don't.

[Sean Ryan]

You know, it's. It's it's so kind of what I'm getting at is it would. It might take you back to the accident, but it would remove your ego and the attachment to your. It would potentially not say this is what would happen, but it would potentially remove your ego from that day. And it would shift your perspective into a way that you can look at it from. From an angle where you're completely detached emotionally from the situation. And it makes it. In a weird up way, it makes it okay. And it brings. It brings like, this certain understanding as to why it happened, or it's okay that it happened. It was supposed to happen. Everything that has happened to you is what was supposed to happen. And it brings a certain piece to things like that. At least it does for me and it does for a lot of my friends. The argument is some very good friends of mine think this, who are also SEALs, who've seen the benefits that it does. And some of them say it's spiritual suicide. Some people say that this is the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate, because what did they say it was like it gave him a certain knowledge or something? Well, I mean, that's kind of maybe what I'm describing. I don't know. I struggle with it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

But I, you know, I'm like, is this good? I mean, I feel like it's good. It's doing a lot of good things. I don't think God would have put it here if it weren't. It's natural. It's a natural occurring substance that grows in fungus. I mean, or. Or the root of a tree. I don't know why. And then there's other people that say that, you know, some of the prophets, there's. There's parts of the Bible where they talk about, you know, I don't know it, but I've heard people say, you know, that that's maybe the burning bush. He ate something before he saw that and, and kind of opened the mind up to be able to. I keep mentioning it's. It's almost like another realm. And I don't know. I don't know what to think of it. That's kind of what I'm more curious on your thoughts of. Of the spiritual side of it and less on the, Less on the, the studies. Studies are there.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. On the spiritual side, man, I, If I'm in doubt, I don't mess with it. Like, it's, you know, I hate to play like Russian roulette, you know. You'd hate to. You'd hate to get the bullet. You Know, it's like, well, you may. You may get a bunch of clicks, but if you get the bang, then you're screwed. And it's. So this could be a similar thing. Like, man. Maybe not, but at this point in the future it may be different. But at this point there's just no definitive answer of saying yes, it is demonic or no, it's not. So therefore my advice on that is always just going with caution. I'm not saying do it or don't do it. I'm just saying just with caution and prudence. I'm really curious about it, though.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think about. Have you ever heard of remote viewing?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Like a. Remote viewing, like on a computer screen or something?

[Sean Ryan]

No, no, remote viewing is. It's. It's almost like psychic type stuff. It is psychic, like stuff.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

You ever seen like the. The TV show where the. The guy's like thinking and he's like, oh, it happened over in the room over there and it was with a pair of scissors and he threw it in the dumpster.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And they go in the dumps. They're like, holy shit, here's the scissors with the blood on it. That's kind of like what remote viewing is. And I've. So that's a real thing and like documented. It's real. I mean, I use these. It's called Project Stargate and it's a fascinating subject. I've had a lot of those type people on and handful of them. And once again, it's like, is it demonic? I don't know. I mean, the Christian crowd sure as hell doesn't like it. I get blasted every time I talk about it. But you have. I guess if you haven't heard from it, you don't have an opinion on it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, no.

[Sean Ryan]

Anyways, let's get back to Sears School. So you went to Sears school?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, Finished basic, went to Sears School. I didn't even make it to the whole course. It was just doing the indoc. Before they send you off to Seattle or wherever, the training. Somewhere in Washington state. Fairchild. Is that Alaska or Washington? It doesn't matter. So before they send you off to the. To the actual school, which is about a year and a half for that. It's a long training. You have an indoc course. It's for like buds, you know, it's not that long, but it's just two weeks of getting kicked in the face. So I started that and got to the second to last day. I got. Got washed out. It's for multiple demerits.

[Sean Ryan]

Just.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

It was really deflating. So I was really excited about it. I was physically strong, ready to go. But mentally, I wasn't strong enough. Not because I was trying to be weak, but because I hadn't. I just hadn't gone to that spot mentally before, like, to that dark of a spot. I mean, I grew up with some dark stuff, but they were all kind of exterior things. But that internal drive to push into the point of. To the point of discomfort, even though I'd worked hard my whole life, and I still do. Like, at that time, I didn't understand what it meant to, like, to push a little bit deeper, go past that point of comfort. It's got multiple demers. Like, you know, for example, we had to. One night we had to make tent steaks. I don't know, it's, like, for buds. But you do. You're doing PT all day long, and then they give us projects to do at night. So you're getting sleep deprived, you know, so you're. Or if you do sleep, you'll come refresh, but you're. You don't. Didn't get your work done, so they're. You know, it's. You're gonna. You're gonna pay for it somehow. So one night, we had to make tent stakes, and I didn't make them long enough. I think they had to be, like, 16 inches long or something. Mine were 14 and 15. So that had a shovel. One of my shovels was. Had dirt on it for the morning inspection. So that was another one. We had to make sleeping bags out of pieces of parachute. We had to, you know, sew it up at night. Had to have six to eight stitches per inch. And if there was more or less, it would be another demerit. And so I had some spots on there where it was, you know, didn't meet that criteria. And it sucked because. So if you had this little window of stitches, let's say I had 10 of them in this inch space, and I was only supposed to have eight. They would measure it and say, oh, you got 10. And then they would go, like, every little stitch in that inch and count another stitch and say, oh, you got 10 demerits on this. Whatever. So that.

[Sean Ryan]

What else was.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I think. I think those were good. The shovel, the sewing. So where'd you go.

[Sean Ryan]

Where'd you go when you left.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Government class? Into another job? We took.

[Sean Ryan]

Maybe you went to Iraq.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. So after that, I had to wait two weeks to get another job. That was about three weeks. You just put it on cleaning Detail until they put you in another school so that I did logistics. They put me in a school to learn logistic planning so people and stuff had to move it. Did cargo. Most of that time was. Was cargo movement, which is really fun. The. That time in the middle after I got washed out of sear, which sucked, man. But it was a good kick in the face because I. I wanted to do it so, so bad. And I thought that I was prepared for it, but it was. It broke me in a good way because now it's one of the things I took out of that was like, the need to like, dig even deeper, be more alert, pay more attention, get put in that logistics job. While we're waiting, we're just cleaning every day. You probably remember that, like, I mean, like, if you don't just sit around and do nothing, they'd make you do something. So. Way to clean every day, same barracks over and over and over. But dude, idle time is like a bad thing when it comes to the troops. Like, you can just do some dumb stuff, like you don't need booze or drugs if it's just a bunch of, you know, meatheads together. We would, like, overnight, we'd stay up all night just being dumb asses. We would do like demolition derby. We'd put guys on office chairs, one on one end of the hallway, one on the other, and just. You'd run them and crash them into each other. Just stupid stuff like that. One guy had a bowling ball one day, and I don't know where the hell he got a bowling ball from, but it was in the dorms. And so the guys were just rolling it up and down the hallway. So I picked it up my time and I threw it. And they all got out of the way and it hit the emergency exit and the fire alarm went off. So I had to call them and like, make up a story. Like, I was talking to my mom and I leaned against the door, set it off. I was scared, man. Did logistics, did that training. That was down in Lackland. I got assigned to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. That was cool. That was the. That was my first time out in the real world. You know, growing up, I was always in the family. Then the military, they're always watching you. But at Ramstein, I was like, on my own, you know, of course you got the bass, got your work. But I was making decisions on my own. And that was one of the first times I really feel some autonomy and like, making free choices for myself. People are big advocates of that. And that's good. We do need to make our own choices, but sometimes it's to the detriment of family and community life. Like, so growing up, the family was so close. I didn't have a lot of freedoms because, well, this is what the family's doing. So that's what you're going to do. And it sucked as a kid, but one of the good things that it taught me is, like, how to be a team player. There's a lot of be. There's going to be a lot of stuff in life that you're not going to want to do, but you got to do it because that's what love requires. So just do it, you know? So then in the military, Germany, I get that freedom. It's really cool. Just right out of training, I got a car and I did quality control. When people were PCSing, I would go and be the liaison between the German moving company and the troops just to make sure everything was. Was going well. That was cool. Got to drive all over Germany, meet all kinds of people from E1s to, you know, O10s and everything in between. So it was fun. That gave me a lot of time alone, a lot of time in the car. I'd pray, just drive in silence. Just think, you know, God really started working on me. Then how? Silence. I just shut the hell up. And then like 444, I became aware of all these little bitty things around me. And it would be little. Little affirmations. I can't even think of a concrete example right now. But it was just peace. I experienced a peace. You shut the chaos off around you, and my soul could breathe a little bit. And I fell in love with that. So I wanted to do it more and more and more, spend more time in silence. Eventually got transferred out of that into the cargo side of this office. And that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that because I drove a big forklift every day, worked in the warehouse. We were knuckleheads. There was a big tire that we were shipping. One day my dumb ass got into it and convinced the other guys to roll me around the warehouse. I was rolling around, the chief comes out, just choose us out. It was one of those things where, like, he could. Like, we were good troops, we worked hard, but we just did. Just did that stuff. So he. He yelled at us, but he wasn't too mad. I remember one time we. This kind of guy. Chief was like, I got in a box and he called this emergency meeting for the whole flight, and they all Came down. I was in this cargo box. No, you know, nobody. No, he did. And so in the middle of his briefing, I, I jumped out and scared everybody. That was kind of. We would, sometimes we would have cargo to take to the, to the airport and it would be like we'd have to take it on the forklift as one of these big center pivot, you know, 10, 10K, 10,000 pound forklift. So we drive across the base to drop the cargo off. But me and my buddies, we would have a competition to see who could take the longest route back. So we would be driving back through the housing area of the base on the big forklift.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice. Just doing stinks.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, so, so that was fine. While I was in that cargo unit, that's when I deployed. I was at Balad Air Base. It was smaller compound on Anaconda lsa, Anaconda Bilad, Iraq. Huge base, basically the logistic hub. You, you, you may have passed through there. I'm sure you did. That was fun. That was one of the funnest times in my life. Like I wasn't, I wasn't kicking indoors. So in that way I was like, like I was blessed, you know, because that's a, that's a big thing to carry, you know, and that, you know, being out there, that being said, man, rockets and mortars were coming in every single day. I remember the one day I walked out of the office, you know, we got those, the concrete like walls or barriers or whatever that around all the buildings and stuff. And I come out the front door of the office and right there beside the door is a, is a bullet, you know, to hit the concrete. You know, it's not a big deal. But for me as a, you know, 19 year old kid, I see that bullet for the first time and I'm like, oh, wow. Like this is real, real stuff, you know, and then so many of our guys are experiencing that. You know, 19 years old, I'll preach in choir. You, you know, most of the people listening, they get it. I think most of society doesn't though. And I think that's it. I had a great experience in the military up to the day I left. I loved it. But one thing I'm really frustrated with is like the way that a lot of veterans are treated. I mean 19, 20, 25 year olds, the brain is still being formed and the stuff that they're doing, and they're doing it proudly and they do a good job and then they'll get their discharge, dishonor, honorable discharge, you know, finish their enlistment or whatever. And that's kind of like, well, you're on your own now. I mean like the addictions and so many veterans, just the struggles that they have. It's kind of like a lot of promises fed to them that aren't delivered after the fact. That kind of frustrates me so like the bullet that I find doesn't compare at all to like what so many other guys and girls have done.

[Sean Ryan]

You know, I remember watching an 18 year old kid kill his first man and cheering him on. But we all wanted to kill over there. But Mr.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I've never been in that position in ministry. I've been with a lot of people who've been in that position. Not either, whether it be military troops or murderers, you know, in prisons or murderers who are, you know, maybe not caught yet even. But this in the military, I think it's a different, you know, you mentioned cheering them on. Like it's, I think a lot of people don't understand that like what that means. It's something that is done for duty, for duty's sake. And there's like not a, I don't know, I'm not in this situation, but I really don't think there's like a lot of joy in like, like the individual life that was taken, like the person, you know, the name. But more so like the actions that have been stopped, that they were doing, you know, and that's, I think a lot of people miss that distinction. It's no small thing.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So, yeah, so I was over there in Iraq. It was, it was, it was a good experience for me and I don't take it lightly. We were shot at a lot. But again what I went through doesn't compare to at all anything other guys. And so it's just like a walk in the park. But like when it came to work it was just, we didn't stop. It was just logistics, moving stuff all day long. And so that was a neat experience. But then also to support, support you guys like the ones that were out there. I mean because we would get all the cargo came through our office and we would get. If a shipment came and it was wrapped in all black plastic, we knew like it went to the guys that didn't, like they didn't have a name, like some guys across the flight, well as y'all, you know, the different special ops guys and like it would come in and there was no questions asked, like you, you just call them, say hey, we got a package and they would come over and get it, like, it was. It was, you know, mission critical stuff. A lot of it was like really big, intense stuff, you know, weapons of different sorts, gear. I remember one time though, like, we got this big ship, man, and I was wondering, I was like, what is in there? Like, I'm curious. I was always wondering. They bring the big flatbed truck over and they. We load it all up, and then all the guys climb onto the trailer, start cutting open the boxes. And it was, it was like a. It was pallets of gummy bears and. And wasn't chocolates, but it was a bunch of candy. And they just drove all over the base, just like Christmas to throw the stuff out. And I was like, you gotta be kidding me. But it was a lot of fun. So, yeah, I was over there. That was 07. It was just one short deployment.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I want to go back to Iraq.

[Sean Ryan]

You want to go back to Iraq?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Not, not for the sake of war, but like.

[Sean Ryan]

I just love.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I love people. I want to hear people's story here. We might get into this a little bit later, but this puts it in perspective. Like, so when I. Later on, you know, years down the road, when I'm in seminary in Rome, I had a classmate who was living just miles from the base where I was at over there. He was a Chaldean Catholic, I think it was Chaldean Catholic. It's, you know, part of the Catholic Church. One of the, the, the. The lines in there. But he was from. He was from central Iraq. And we're sitting in class learning about God, talking about putting things in perspective. Like, we're sitting beside each other when. Eight years before. Like, we were within miles of each other. Isn't that wild?

[Sean Ryan]

That is crazy.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

It's wild. And so, like, when I say I want to go back to Iraq, it's like I, I just want to, like, see people and like, like their lives. Like the good people. There's. There's some good ones over there. Like, there's like the, the farmers that had the, The. The best fruit I've ever had in my life was when I would. When I was in Iraq, the melon, some cantaloupes or watermelon, something.

[Sean Ryan]

Why do you want to go back, though? You want to go back for curiosity. You want to. You want to go back to talk to who?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

See the people? No one in particular. There's no individual person that I, That I met, but just.

[Sean Ryan]

I just want to experience the culture there.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Hear stories. Yeah. And hear. Experience the culture. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think you'll do it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I don't know. I'd be open to it, but I don't know. Probably not, but yeah. So it was. That was 07. Quick deployment. This whole time I'm growing a lot in my faith and praying a lot more. And this idea of priesthood comes.

[Sean Ryan]

How did the idea of priesthood come?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Started as just a random idea. Like when I'd be in the car driving around, doing the quality control stuff around the forklift, working or in the warehouse, be at the gym, be doing other stuff out of nowhere, you know, like, this idea of being a priest would come to my mind. Where'd that come from? It's kind of random and just like, wouldn't think much about it. And I'd go back to what I was doing, and a few days later it would happen again. I'm like, that's kind of random. You know, I would be doing. I wouldn't be doing anything that would trigger a thought like that. It wasn't like I wasn't reading the Bible. I wasn't at church or anything. I was, you know, loading up munitions. I was driving a forklift, whatever it may be. And then this thought would come. Then it's sort of like the whole 444 thing. Like, it just happened more and more often. And I was like, okay, I got to pay attention to this. Once I started paying more attention, I started getting more signs, more affirmations. Like one thing, for example, when I was in Iraq, I went to mass one day. It's one of the first days I was there. Finished up mass. There was a guy who came. His name was Joaquin. And he comes up to me after mass. Never met him. He's never met me. Didn't know each other. And he didn't say, hi, I'm Joaquin. Good to meet you. What's your name? He just came up and said, you're thinking about being a. Thinking about being a priest, aren't you? And I was like, what? Yeah, just out of the blue, complete stranger. And that was little things like that, you know, people making comments.

[Sean Ryan]

That's not a little thing.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, it's. It's a big.

[Sean Ryan]

Some random person.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. Wow.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think that was?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That's the Holy Spirit working through him and. Yeah. So putting all those different.

[Sean Ryan]

Did that freak you out at all? Have you told anybody?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, I've shared it. Shared it with you?

[Sean Ryan]

No, I mean, have you told anybody before? Anybody around that person?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No, no. There's no reason why he would have known it. I just got in there. I Was the only one from my unit that was deployed at that time to that, to the, you know, so everyone else was new to me. I didn't know anybody, they didn't know me.

[Sean Ryan]

And that guy didn't know. You see, this is what happened to me in Sedona.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Really?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. I mean, they didn't tell me to be a priest.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Make gummy bears.

[Sean Ryan]

This guy? No, this guy. So, so this, a lot of stuff was really bothering me. I had, I had a rough slew of interviews that were some of the heaviest ones I ever did. I interviewed this guy, Tyler Andrew Vargas. He was blown up at Abigail. 24 years old. Watch him hobble up my stairs. One leg, one arm. And the interview before that was this, this hacker, Brian Montgomery, who had uncovered a big, like a big pedophile website and could have saved, tried to save a 12 year old girl, but FBI blew him off and she got gang raped. And, and, and yeah, and a really good friend of mine died here in Franklin that week. And it was, it was, and then all the, the butchering, whatever you want to call it, the trans stuff with the kids, the gender surgeries, it was like really bothering me. And so it was like all this stuff happened at once anyways. I, like, I couldn't get the shit out of my head. I smoked a joint, told my wife, let's go for a hike. Tried to get it out, just tried to like get it out. And, and I felt like I was like surrendering. I was like, Sean, why do you even give a shit about this stuff? Nobody else cares. You're the only one speaking out about this stuff. I wasn't, but that's how I felt. I felt very alone. Like I was the only one that was trying to fight against a lot of the shit that's, you know, the sex trafficking and the pedophilia and the gender surgeries that were taking place for 8 year old kids and the state taking people's kids if they don't do it. And from the parents. And it was just like, what's happening? And anyways, I had like gone on this hike and I felt like I was surrendering. I was like, why do you even give a shit about this anymore? Nobody cares. You're the only one fighting for this stuff. Like you're the only one speaking out against. It just doesn't even affect you. Just let it go. And I felt like I was surrendering my soul to the devil or something. But, but, and I walked through this gate, this gate and I'd been there for A week. And you know, a lot of the gate guards knew who knew who I was from my show. They're big fans, a lot of them prior military, da da, da, da. And so I would stop and talk to all of them and, and have converse, short conversations. And I walk through. This is the last night I'm here. This guy comes out the guard shack and. And I pay attention to this kind of stuff too. Like who's watching over the. This just because of what I used to do. This old guy comes out, starts trying to talk to me. I don't want to talk to him. I'm obviously in a shit mood, right? And kind of like talking to him over my shoulder like this because I don't want to give him the body language that's like, oh yeah, let's have a full blown conversation like, hey, leave me alone. I'm not trying to be rude, but leave me alone. My wife starts talking to him. So then I turn and square up to him and he, he read my mind from front to back. And it's like all this stuff with the, all this stuff with China that you're worried about, that's not your fight. All this stuff with gender stuff that you're worried about, that's not your fight. And it freaked me out. Then he went through my whole. Everything that I was thinking about on that entire hike and told me that wasn't my fight. I need to let that shit go. I don't even remember the rest of the stuff he had because I was thinking, holy shit, how the fuck is this guy inside my head right now? I've never even seen this dude. I've been here for a week. I know every gay guard that's been in here, except this random guy that just comes up and, and that was the first. I told you, I got slapped in the face like three times. That was the first one. So, I mean, sounds like you. It reminds me of that.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What happened to you?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, it's cool.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think that is? Is that an angel? Is that God? What is that?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Have you ever seen that person again?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, I've seen him again. We've been in contact, actually.

[Sean Ryan]

Really?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Afterwards? Yeah. Yeah. Because this is the very beginning of the deployment. So as the deployment went on, we talked more and, you know, established a friendship and everything. But he lives in Oregon.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, did you ask him how he knew that?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Excuse me?

[Sean Ryan]

No, you never asked him how he knew you were thinking about becoming a priest?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

He was a very holy guy. So I knew it was like The Lord put it on his heart.

[Sean Ryan]

Was he a Catholic too?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Uh huh, yeah. This was right after church on one day, one of the first days I went there was, I went to mass and he was there.

[Sean Ryan]

And so the first words out of his mouth are, you're thinking about being.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

A priest, aren't you? Wow. Yeah. You know, I think that there's this stuff happens all the time, but we're just not paying attention to it. We're all in our own little worlds. God's still working, man. Like he's all around. We just gotta open our eyes, get out of our little bubble. We also gotta be bold. You know, I think at the very beginning we talked about boundaries and saying no. We've talked about it outside too. Whenever we say that, whenever we speak the truth, like God works through that. So I think not only do we need to be more aware of how God is working around us, we need to be aware of how he's working in us and like be bold in the way we talk. Like, you can say some stuff that's going to be awkward, it's going to hurt, it's going to be. Not going to be comfortable, but it's what needs to be said. That's a terrifying thing. So yeah, so he, that was, that was an example of like all these. I say little things, they were big things, but they just kept adding up one after another. And then eventually I contact the diocese of Little Rock, which is where I live. The Catholic Church we got, if you think of it like a state, the geographical region of a group of churches would be called a diocese, which is what we call it. So I contact the area where I live in Little Rock and tell them, hey, I'm interested in being a priest. Can I come visit, talk to you guys? So I flew back and just visited with them, went to visit the seminary and that kind of sealed the deal. Once I came and met with the bishop and everything and then visited the seminaries, I was like, this is cool. As much fun as I was having in the military, I had so, so much fun. You know, I enjoy going back in. It'd be fun to do it again, you know. But as much fun as I was having, there was a different kind of joy that I experienced whenever I came back for that meeting. It was just like a deeper peace. Like I was having fun before, but then I experienced a peace. Sometimes I'll have peace in the fun that I'm having. But fun, being happy is just a passing emotion. But the peace and that joy that's a deeper thing. And I experienced it. And I was like, okay, this is it. And I went into seminary. That was 2008.

[Sean Ryan]

No hesitations?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No, not really. I mean, once I connected all the little dots and all the little. The little invitations became the big invitation from God. Like, I was like, why wait? You know, get off the pot, you know, Like. Like, okay, well, God, if you're this clear with me, like, why would I. Why would I wait? Like, no need to sit around and say, you know, he's. He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. Like, he's called you, Stephen, so go drop my nets and. And went.

[Sean Ryan]

That's fun. Was there any hesitation that you could not have a intimate relationship with a woman?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, it was there. Yeah, definitely. And it's.

[Sean Ryan]

So.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, so we don't get married. We give our life completely to the church. Also. Part of that is, like, intentionally to prefigure to live now what life will be like in heaven. Like, it's just us and the Lord. Like, that radical, intimate relationship with the Lord alone, you know? But, yeah, no, that thought definitely went through my mind, and it's probably harder now than it was then. I don't mean hard, like, in a way that's creating a crisis. But, like, all of my buddies have kids and kids and stuff, you know, and so, like, I'll see them, and part of my brain will think, like, what would it be like to have a wife and kids? You know, it's never in a way where I'm thinking, like, oh, I want to go find a wife. You know, I want to go make babies or something. But it's just, like, it's written on the heart. It's. It's. We were made for that, which is why, like, the desire is there. So it's good. Yeah. So, yeah, that's your question. It definitely came, but, you know, it'll still come, but the same. It's kind of like any other commitment. Like, if someone is. Once they get married or something, like, they. They say their I dos doesn't mean you stop seeing beautiful women, like, for the men or for the ladies. It doesn't mean that she won't see other handsome guys. But, like, you can say, wow, like, she's pretty, like, he's a handsome guy, but the commitment's been made. So that's kind of what it's like for me now. Like, I've made the commitments, and there's a lot of freedom in that. There's a lot of freedom. So While I may see a pretty lady or something, or see a family and think, oh, I wonder what it'd be like to be a family. It doesn't register as an option because it's not. It would be the same if I was married and then saw other beautiful women, like, well, no, I already made my free yes to her.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What was. What was seminary school like?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That was some of the best years of my life. My whole life has been fun. It's been a kick in the face every day.

[Sean Ryan]

What's the. What's the average age of the. Of the student body?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, so we were. Some guys were 18 right out of high school. Some guys.

[Sean Ryan]

18?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, right out of high school, just going straight into seminary. Some guys like me, you know, early 20s, in the military. But as you know, I mean, it doesn't matter what job you do. Like, you grew up fast in the military, so, you know, a lot of life experience there in the military up to 40s. Some guys in their early 40s, late 30s. They're. Every now and then you'll get some guys that are older, in their 50s or something, go to seminary. But most of the guys were between, I'd say 18 out of high school up to late 30s. So it's an eight year process. Four years of philosophy and four years of theology. I did my philosophy in Louisiana. You read that at the beginning. I was at St. Joseph Seminary in Covington, Louisiana, with the Benedictine monks. That was a cool place. Cajun country. Have you been to southern Louisiana?

[Sean Ryan]

Only once.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Some cool people.

[Sean Ryan]

There's some fishing down there.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, that's fine. I went alligator hunting there a year ago. You need to go. It's so fun.

[Sean Ryan]

How do you alligator hunt?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I use my bow. What, put an arrow, like at the base of their skull Or a pistol. You can use a pistol if you want. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Those things are mean. They're like. They have. They just wake up pissed. They're dinosaurs. But yeah. So southern Louisiana. That's where Theo Vaughn's from.

[Sean Ryan]

He's from southern Louisiana.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

He, like, I think from Mandeville or Covington, Louisiana. But that's where the seminary was. I didn't know it. He just. Yeah. So we were talking about him earlier. He seems like a cool dude.

[Sean Ryan]

He is a cool dude.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Maybe we'll all. Let's all go alligator hunting together.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's do it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That would be fun down there with the Benedictine monks, you know. So cool. They had this big old monastery, you know, they're walking around in Their black robes and everything. We would just wear, you know, we had a uniform, like suits. We'd wear a suit every day to class. But that was fun, man. Studying philosophy was fun. I fell in love with education. I fell in love with learning. So it was fun to study the philosophy, fun to be with those guys, but it was fun to be at that place, you know, with the monks. The motto for the Benedictines is ora et labora, pray and work. And that was really ingrained into me growing up. And there it was really clarified. Just work and pray, work and pray. If you do that, God will provide. So bust your ass and do everything you can to stay holy, to be holy and work hard and toe the line. It makes sense. It makes sense. And there's a lot of freedom in that. Then you don't get lost in this other. This one of the good people, too. Most of the guys there were from Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Just good old boys, a bunch of farm boys and stuff. We would do a. Every year we'd have a big football game around Thanksgiving, and we would have a big bonfire, and that was always a lot of fun. I was in charge of building the bonfire. Me and a buddy of mine, Brian Phillips, he's a priest. And Austin, Texas, we were in charge of building it. Every year we'd rent. We. We go out, scout for trees, cut the trees down, haul the wood up, and then start building it. The last year we did, it was 33ft tall. It's 20 by 20 foot. 33ft tall. Massive, dude. So. So the day starts. We have. We have mass. All of us have mass together at midday. Then we go out and play a football game. And then after that, we just have a big meal and light the fire. It's really cool. The seniors are the ones that light the fire. We all go out. The seniors. When you're a senior, you. Everyone marches out in this line with these big torches, and then you put it in and just hang out until the next morning.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you learn the history of the Catholic Church?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Where did it start?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

We believe with Peter. Right, Peter and the disciples. Yeah. So Jesus Christ. The short answer.

[Sean Ryan]

Can you go into the long answer?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, yeah. So the. The beautiful thing about the. The Catholic Church is, is the important thing that we really focus on is apostolic succession, meaning, like coming from the apostles. So Jesus comes. He loved everyone, he healed everyone. But he also called a very specific group of people to follow him, to learn from him, and then to continue the mission that he started. And he gave them Gifts, anointing to continue all the things that he did. That was the, you know, the apostles, the twelve disciples, and then. But we've got, you know, we can follow apostolic succession From Christ to St. Peter through all the popes up to Pope Francis right now. So we've got the genealogy of it. Am I saying that all of them are good? No, they were like corrupt times in the church. That doesn't take away from the fact that people can be corrupt while the institution still maintains its dignity. And so although we've had some good popes, we've had some bad popes, we've had good Christians and bad Christians, everything in between. But so it comes back to apostolic succession, you know, just that line of popes and then the people who were in.

[Sean Ryan]

So Peter was the first pope, the apostle.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. And then now, like, apostolic union. It's like the connection to the Holy Father and not so much him. We don't worship him, but we recognize him as the father figure of the Church, who he followed Pope Benedict, who followed John Paul ii, who followed John Paul I and then Paul VI and then John XXIII and all the way back. And so we go back to that, to the lineage of the popes. And then under them would be all the bishops who are in communion with the pope, and then under the popes or the bishops would be all the priests who take care of all the faithful around the world. There's not every. Every square inch of the world is delegated to some Catholic diocese, which is kind of cool.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, it's like for the sake of salvation of the souls, like, there's somebody spiritually designated to. Somebody designated to have spiritual authority over every soul on this earth. So although there's 10,000 people in my parish, I am a pastor of a general area. My parish is not just my church. My parish is the whole area, the whole geographical area where I'm at. So I'm, of course, responsible for taking. Responsible for taking care of the Catholics at the church, but also every other soul that lives in my area. Whenever I die and I meet the Lord, one of the things that I've got to answer is, like, how did I serve all the sheep in my. In my area? And so it's like this spiritual authority. We pray and make sacrifices for them and try to bring them to Jesus Christ. Interesting. Yeah, that was one of the things that really opened my eyes up to the universality of the Church. That's a big thing. Catholic in the small C, like the big capital C. Catholic refers to, like, The Catholic Church. But means universal. It's like, worldwide. You say that and. But what does that mean? My theology. After I finished seminary in Louisiana, I went to Rome. I was in Rome for four years, which was a phenomenal experience. I really had a universal experience or an experience of the universal church. People from all over the world. I did my graduate studies in theology at the Gregorian University. It's a university that was founded in 1551 by Saint Ignatius of Loyola. So to go to a seminary that's, you know, that old, 500 years old.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Was, like, really cool. And the people in my class, there's around 120 students, men and women from all over the world. As I mentioned earlier, like the. The classmate. One of my classmates was from. From Iraq. Just miles. We were miles apart, and then we were sitting inches apart a little bit later. Yeah. And like, little things like that. I keep saying little things. That's a very big thing. But it's those things that really shows the greatness of our God and, like, the plan of all this. Like, it's. There's so much. So much to unpack. You know, it's a big deal.

[Sean Ryan]

When did the. So the. So the first pope was Peter the Apostle.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Mm.

[Sean Ryan]

One of the. When did the Bible come in?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So, like, the canon as we have it, that's what. That's what we would call it, the Canon of Scriptures, like one of the official books of the Bible. It wasn't until around probably the three and four hundreds. Christianity wasn't legalized until 313. So even before then, it was illegal to be a Christian. So they were killing people left and right. They didn't even have the battle before then. So it was around the three and really into the four hundreds, not until the four hundreds, that the actual canon of scripture as we have it now was. Was established. And so that in itself points out, like, apostolic succession. You know, a lot of people talk about just scripture only, like, yeah, of course we need the Scripture, but I can't be the only thing because, like, that was the fruit of the community's relationship with God. And so that would. That calls in tradition. So Catholics, for our authority, we don't just refer to the Bible. We also refer to or make reference to tradition as well. Scripture and tradition is how we, you know, where we go to for authority. So. Yeah. So Bible 400 or so.

[Sean Ryan]

Does the Bible mention the Catholic Church at all?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No, there's no reference to any of them. There wasn't. There really wasn't an understanding of the Catholic church as it is now. I mean, like, there was, but it wasn't until the Protestant Reformation that there were, there were other sects that, that, that then broke off, you know, Protestantism, then all the different churches that, that flow out of Protestantism.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. So up until then, like if you were a Christian, you were Catholic.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. And even.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, okay.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Up until the 1500s. So if you were a Christian, that's. That's what you were.

[Sean Ryan]

So one of the, one of the big questions I have about the Catholic Church is kind of like the middleman. And, you know, I'm no biblical scholar, so it's just questions. But, you know, when Jesus roamed the earth, it seemed like everybody had direct line into him. He didn't really have to go through anybody. And it seemed to me that it was preaching that everybody has a direct relationship with God. And so everything seemed very against the Pharisees. Right, which is what, like a rank structure of humans to God? Correct. Would that be fair to say? And so it seems like to me it's very similar to the Catholic Church, the Pharisees, Yes.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Okay.

[Sean Ryan]

Am I wrong?

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[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, I would. I would say so. I would argue against that. So I would agree. We do need a direct relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead. How do we have that physical relationship with Jesus Christ now? It's through the church that he established, the church that he established and instituted with the apostles, that he gave all authority to continue the ministry that he did, to carry on the preaching of the Good News, salvation, eternal life through him, only through Him. So how do we maintain this physical relationship with Jesus Christ? It's through the church that he established in particular through the sacraments that are administered through that church. So whenever the Catholic Church, one of the things that we talk about all the time, it's the meat and potatoes. It's what it is, it's the sacraments. So to celebrate the sacraments, to celebrate the Eucharist, for example, you have to be a validly ordained priest, the priest that was validly ordained by a valid bishop who is in communion with the pope. And he would be in communion with all the popes before him, which take us back to the lineage of on the line back to Jesus Christ. So what he handed on, they handed on. Jesus walked and talked with the apostles, spend time with them, touch them. They called their successors, spent time with them, walked with them, put their hands on them for the ordinations. That's continued for all the ordinations to the priesthood and the episcopacy to be a bishop to. Now, all validly ordained bishops have been consecrated by a bishop that came before them. All priests are validly ordained by a bishop that was validly ordained. And so there's an actual physical touch, like when the bishop put his hands on my head and anointed my hands in ordination. There's an actual concrete physical touch that like one hand to the next 2,000 years. That's pretty cool. And so how do we have this personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Yeah, we can talk to the Lord in prayer, but that's a spiritual relationship with him. If you're. Earlier, we talked about, like, going to the mountains and how that would be hard for you to go for a week. You know, you mentioned getting away from work, but I think more than that, I don't think you want to be away from your wife and your kids for more than a week. You want to be with them. So if you were around the world, you could call her every day. You could do FaceTime with your kids. But it's not like walking through that door and picking them up and hugging. There has to be physical touch, which is why God became man. Because to save us completely, God's not. He's not removed from this experience that we have. It's a physical thing. It's raw, man. It's raw. Which makes it so real. Which goes back to the question that Brian had at the beginning. Yeah, you're mad at God. Okay, be mad at God. Like, let him have it. Like, it's only in reality that we encounter God, which includes everything that we live day in and day out. So for me, like, that's one of the most convicting things of the church. Yeah, I've studied all the theology. You know, it's just there's so much there. I can remember a lot of it. What I don't remember, I can easily look up. Like, the reason I'm sticking with it is because it's so damn real. There's a physical touch to Jesus Christ through this faith that I'm living.

[Sean Ryan]

What is the physical touch?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Through the sacraments and the sacraments, Jesus Christ is truly present in the sacraments. The sacraments, those celebrations, are those rituals that we'll do in which Jesus Christ becomes truly present in a supernatural and sacred way. It's like the Holy Eucharist. We believe and we live around the fact that that's the body and blood, the soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. And it's the Eucharist can only be celebrated again through a priest who's been ordained. And the whole line that I pointed out a second ago can't just be Joe Schmo. That does it. You know, it's got to be someone who is in communion with the Church. So that's the kind of the tradition element, like it's handed on. I don't know if that makes sense.

[Sean Ryan]

What are all the sacraments?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

You got seven of them. First is baptism. That's what washes us of original sin makes us beloved sons and daughters of God. We're no longer just a creature of God, but we're a son and daughter that's greatly loved, welcome into his family. After that, you've got the, you know, if you take the sacraments of initiation, you've got baptism, you got the Holy Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. We just talked about that. John six, you know, we can go and read about that. The Bread of Life discourse. Jesus says over and over and over, I am the bread of life. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. Like a. At no point does he say, I'm just the image of, you know, the bread and the wine is an image of me. He says, I am the bread of life. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. And so, like, what he ended on was the Eucharist in that Paul speaks of that. Take this, this is my body. Take this, this is my blood. Take and eat, take and drink. So it would be asinine for Jesus to say, you have no life in me unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. He doesn't make that possible. So we got the Eucharist. That's the second one. The third one is confirmation. It's where we receive the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In baptism, we receive God's love, God's life in the Father. But confirmation is kind of like what really opens up the full use of those sacraments. It's like having a bunch of firearms. You get them at baptism, but then after all your training, then you know how to actually shoot them. You know how to use them. So confirmation is that supernatural sacrament that God gives us to unlock all those. You know, it's the magazines he gives us, so to actually use the weapons, you know. So then you have the sacrament of reconciliation, through which our sins are forgiven. There's a lot of people argue with this one. They're saying, like, well, I can just go to God and tell God I'm sorry. Like, yeah, you can. You should. We should do that every night. But our sins also have a communal effect. No sin that we commit is just between me and God because we are people of community. There is necessarily, like, the healing for any wrong that we do. Sin must have a communal element to it because it affects the community. And so that's where the sacrament of reconciliation comes in, where on behalf of Jesus Christ, like, the priest speaks those words of forgiveness, of absolution I absolve you the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you know, so it's the very minister of God's sacraments in the name of Christ on behalf of the community, like grants that pardon for the communal elements. So that's the sacrament of reconciliation. We got the sacrament of anointing of the sick. So whenever people are sick, physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, there's an anointing that will give them, with some sacred oils, pray some prayers over them. James talks about that letter, James, of sending the elders to anoint them with oil to the sick. And what that does is allows us to unite our suffering to the cross of Christ. It gives meaning to it. So you're not just suffering, you know, of depression or physical ailment or whatever, but now through that suffering, you're united to Christ. So therefore your suffering is saving souls. Like it's a prayer that's offered up to God. You're united to the pains of Christ on the cross, and he works through that for the sake of sanctifying the world. So then you don't become a burden to society. You become a beacon of hope and a blessing through which the Lord comes through your brokenness. That's anointing of the sick. Then the last two, and this isn't. They're not in order, numerical order like this, but the last two I'd mentioned would be the sacraments of marriage or holy orders or what Holy orders, priesthood.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. So both of those are sacraments of a vocation. They're calling. What they do is commit us to a way of life. It gives us a vow. And so we all have free will, and God wants us to love most fully with that. And the best way to love is, is to love perfectly, which would be a love till death. And a civil contract does not bind that. You know, there. There is a binding element within that, but it's through the sacrament that it becomes a supernatural, supernaturally bound vow. Okay, so husband and wife, for example, or a priest, I guess, you know, till death do his part. So the sacraments you mentioned, through all those, this is going to bring it back to how this started was like, that allows us to have a true, actual physical contact with Christ, because in all of those, we receive Christ himself in a very distinct way, through the baptism, the anointing of the sick, through confirmation, through the holy orders, priesthood and ordination. But there's an interesting thing with the Eucharist, these other ones, you receive it once and it's like something that happened, kind of like it Unlocks God's grace in those moments, then you move forward with the Eucharist. The presence remains in the bread, the presence remains in the wine it's been consecrated, becomes the body and blood of Christ. Which is why all churches, Catholic churches, keep a tabernacle where we keep the Eucharist kept over like a lock and key, because it's a sacred thing. We don't want people to, you know, do anything with it, you know, anything sacrilegious with it or anything like that. That presence remains. And yeah, interesting sacraments.

[Sean Ryan]

So when somebody wants forgiveness, why do they have to go through a priest to get that forgiveness?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, good question. It would be what I referenced earlier, the, for the one, for the communal element. Like the sin that's been done is it affects the whole family, even if it's a private sin. But then also just the surety of hearing the forgiveness, of knowing that it's. That the Lord's forgiven, forgiven us. And wish I could explain it better in that regard.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you think God forgives if they are truly sorry and they don't go through a priest?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. Nothing prevents God from forgiving us then like, how would you know though? Like, that's, that's a very simple answer. And it's not like I'm not trying to make a cop out answer or something, but like, what's the surety of it that it's been forgiven? You know, we can pray it and we can believe it. Like how do we know it? Of course we could have faith that we're forgiven, but what's the actual physical guarantee, I guess, to bring it back to the flesh? What's the actual physical guarantee that's been forgiven? Because you can pray about it and it still kind of will linger in your head like, well, what if I wasn't? Or maybe. But through the words of the priest, like we're physically forgiven because God comes to. Like he wants to save all of us, not just our soul. Like he wants to save. At the end of, end of time, we'll, we'll be raised up body and soul.

[Sean Ryan]

But aren't we already free from. I mean, aren't we already forgiven before we even commit them? I mean that's, isn't that the whole reason that Jesus died on the cross?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, but we still have free will too. So we, we're still capable of messing up again. That's the, the mystery of salvation on the cross. Like it's one definitive moment when we're all forgiven. It's been done. It was a concrete moment in space and time 2000 years ago. It's also a supernatural reality that's still being played out Every. Every moment we are being forgiven. Like, the very fact that we're being held into existence is by God's sheer act of mercy and love. It's his grace that keeps us alive. So we have been forgiven. That actual event 2000 years ago. We are being forgiven, like, constantly because we're not worthy to live. Like, it's God's grace that's making it possible. So that could be equated to forgiveness, like, actually here and now. And then we pray to be forgiven, like, at the final judgment. So it's like all three can be true. Which then just reveals to us, like, layers. You were asking earlier about angels and stuff like that. There's a lot of layers. There's a lot of layers. We can compartmentalize a lot of things in life, but you can't. Compartmentalize.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you mean, layers?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I mean, like. Like angels. So we got the physical realm around us, but also there's like a supernatural element around us. Like, there's angels and demons around us. There's so much stuff going on. And, like, what, Spiritual warfare? Satan and all of his angels and all of our angels. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of forces at play. We're not just. We're not just roaming around this earth doing our own little jobs and living our own little lives. Everyone doing their own little thing on this. This big ball, you know, there's like. There's gotta be something more. There has to be something more than us just living our 80 years and then dying after 80 or 90, you know, whatever, 60. And that gives meaning to life. That's why we struggle. That's why.

[Sean Ryan]

What are they doing in this room?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I don't know.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think they're doing? How do you envision it? I mean, are they just sitting there chilling?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No, envision, like, all the. The demons, like, just trying to get us off path. Anything that they can do to get us off track, to create us to sin, to create more doubt in who God is, to have more pride, to be more independent. And what I mean is not depending on God. So they're doing everything they can to distract us and separate us from God. So the angels are doing everything they can to help us stay focused on God. It's all about ordering everything to God. That's what it means to live a virtuous life and struggle for holiness every day.

[Sean Ryan]

Are they interacting with each other? Angels and demons That's a.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

It's a battle. I mean, we would see them, but also, like, you know, I don't know. I don't see angels. I don't see demons. I know they're real, but they exist in a different realm than us. Like, it's. It's. They're not bound by space and time, and so they don't, like, sit around a desk and try to negotiate. We can't even fathom what that battle looks like. Sparks going against each other, I don't know. But it's just like there's two forces pulling this world and everything in it. Two different directions, good and bad, light and dark, heaven or hell, whatever you want to call it. There's two forces that are at play. Even for someone that doesn't believe in God or doesn't want to believe in anything, any kind of higher power, like, if you are, like, somewhat conscious and somewhat aware of life in the world, like, you would agree that there's, like, there's a tension here. There's got to be something. There's got to be more than what we're just seeing there. There's a constant pull between, you know, just good and bad. So I wish I could explain it better.

[Sean Ryan]

How was the Pope chosen?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Through. It's the. At a conclave. That's what it's called. And all the cardinals from around the world will come together and they'll pray, and then they'll. They'll cast ballots, and then when a certain number of those votes are passed, then the Pope is determined, but it's through the voting process of the different cardinals. I was there in 2013, whenever Pope Benedict stepped down and Pope Francis was elected. That was a cool experience, man. There were, I don't know, 20,000 people, 30,000 people there, St. Peter's Square, probably maybe more than that, but there were so many people. It was the most energetic thing I've experienced in my life. It was so cool. We're all out there and, you know, whenever the Pope is elected, they're on the Sistine Chapel. There's a bunch of movies out there. Some. A lot of it's just, like, Hollywood stuff, but they do go in the Sistine Chapel, they vote, and then the smoke will come out, either the black or the white smoke. Whenever the white smoke comes, it means a Pope has been elected. So we're all out there, everyone hanging around, just waiting, because they meet in the morning and then they meet in the evening, and they continue to meet and vote until the Pope is elected, and then the white smoke will come when they choose one. So when they were meeting that evening and it went late, so we're like, something's going on. And finally white smoke comes, and it just went crazy. And I mean, so much energy. He comes out, he gives his initial greeting. This is a really cool thing. And he said, you know, like, something along these lines, you know, I'm your Holy Father, like, I'm the new Pope. But, like, I'm just paraphrasing it, basically, if you want me to, like, I need your prayers. So before I can even start this ministry to pray for you and lead you, you got to pray for me. So we'll just do this. Do this right now. And so, like, there was dead silence. You could hear a pin drop. It was crazy. Everyone was just praying. And, yeah, so I was there for that. But. But it's through that. The process of the cardinals coming together from all over the world, and they'll cast their ballots until the. A number is a number, like, till one is chosen. I don't know. It's 50 plus one, or if there's going to be a percentage, 80% or something. I don't. I don't know. That's not my pay grade.

[Sean Ryan]

What was Vatican II?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

That was the Second Vatican Council was in the 60s.

[Sean Ryan]

The whole.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

In the church, because it is a human institution, just like anything else can be politicized. But the Second Vatican Council was a gathering of the bishops and the cardinals and some representatives, labor representatives of Catholics from all over the world that come together for a number of years and with the goal of identifying the needs of the times and essentially kind of laying out what's gonna be the next steps forward, realizing that scripture and tradition going through that again, we have to follow the word of God. Nothing that we can do that we do can contradict the word of God. But also the way that we're living is not the way that we were living 2,000 years ago. So Peter and Andrew, James and John, when they were fishing at the Sea of Galilee, they weren't saying, hey, which AI do you use? Do you use Google? Do you use Gemini? Or do you use Copilot or Claude? What do you use? Like, AI wasn't even on their radar. They weren't talking about in vitro fertilization. They weren't talking about ibogaine. Actually, I would. I would bet that they'd be talking about ibogaine before. Before AI or anything like that, because it. That could have. That could have been around. But the point I'm making Is like, we have to address things now that weren't issues a thousand years ago. That weren't an issue 20 years ago. No. So this was. This was in the 60s. So they were addressing. Calling out the issues that needed to be addressed that had not been addressed before so that we can gain some understanding from Sacred Scripture how to live in this world that we're living in. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah. So it was a gathering of what.

[Sean Ryan]

Were some of those issues?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Let's see. There were. Trying to think. There were all sorts of stuff. One of it was, like, the role of the people in the church. One of the problems that we noticed was like, in some ways, like, too many priests were getting a big head, getting power hungry. And so it's like, well, hold on, you are the priest. You have been ordained for this. This is true. But also, you gotta recognize that your flock have a voice as well. So recognizing the role of the faithful, that was one of the biggest things from Second Vatican Council. There's a million different. I say million, not a million. There were a bunch of different things that came up. But the shortest, most concise way of putting it is like, it was interesting how priests need to be more pastoral in the preaching of the gospel. And whenever I say that, I don't mean like, watering the gospel down to make people feel good. What I mean is like, recognizing that we have a job to preach the gospel to all people. So it was calling us, telling us to do our work. And it was also pointing out the fact that the lay faithful, that means the people that aren't priests or deacons, like, they have a voice and they have to go out and preach the gospel too. That's kind of the shortest way of putting it, but it recognizes the needs of the time. That's kind of a simple way of putting it. Some other things were like liturgical reforms. The Mass used to always be completely in Latin. Part of the. Some of the changes we're doing, some of the stuff in the vernacular, which means the language that the people speak and so doesn't mean getting rid of Latin completely. That's a beautiful thing. A lot of churches still use a lot of Latin, but it wouldn't make sense for me to preach to my people in Latin if they don't understand it. I need to preach to them in English or Spanish, you know, whatever language they understand. Yeah, it's basically coming to the times with the gospel. The gospel. That doesn't change, bringing that gospel to the people today and the questions that they have.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think about some of the traditions that are changing in the Catholic Church?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Can you.

[Sean Ryan]

Are they taking kneelers out?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Some are. You know what's really cool is like, there's a resurgence in those. Part of. There was a. One of the unfortunate things, Second Vatican Council is there were some people who were out there who took it and just did what they wanted to with it. They interpreted it the way that they wanted to. So they stripped their churches, like, got rid of all the. All these traditions, like the kneelers, for example, that. Or music or art, to terrible liberties to interpret the stuff that they wanted to the way they wanted to interpret it. And it went to an extreme. So what we're seeing now is like, so, for example, with the liturgies, it was just like, take the kneelers out, take the sacredness out of it, and make it more like a social gathering is how a lot of people responded to it. What we're seeing now, though, is like, more people are coming back to those traditions of saying, like, there is a social element, but it's gotta be a sacred moment. If we want to hang out and just listen to fun music, we can put on itunes or something, or Spotify or we can. We want to hear fun. Like, we can go to concert, we can go out to a restaurant, go to Pizza Hut or something. But if we want to encounter God, there has to be a sacred element. So people are putting the kneelers back in, bringing sacred music back.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, who's making these decisions in. If this goes all the way back to Peter the apostle and he set the traditions and he was next to Jesus, then who are these new people 2000 years later that are making up their own rules, going, oh, we don't need this anymore. Yeah, get rid of that.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Well, that would be some of the priests or the bishops that they were just doing what they wanted and not following the tradition. So they weren't doing what the church was teaching in those moments. It was just disobedience. There's really no other answer to it other than that. Just like they. Like, they weren't doing what they were told to do.

[Sean Ryan]

Are there evil forces at play within the church to take those traditions?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Oh, I think so. I think so. I mean, we're. We're all sinners. We're all broken people. Some people are intentionally. Some people, all of us mess up. Some people are, like, intentionally acting badly, you know, against those. I don't have a lot of experience, you know, with that like that. You know, let me. So, like, I was in Rome for four years. I was at the Vatican all the time. Got to meet the Pope a number of times. A bunch of cardinals and bishops from all over the world and stuff. So, like, I know a lot of people in power, and I've never met anyone that's like, intentionally trying to burn the place down. Okay, there are. But there, there are, you know, who are they? I don't know who they are, but I'm not going to be naive and say they don't exist. Yeah, but they're coming to light. They're, they're. They're. Everything comes to the light. So they exist, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Scripture says.

[Sean Ryan]

Not to change the subject, but I forgot. When did you wind up on the Ninja Warrior show?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

For complicing or what?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

So I did it twice. 2018. 2020. I didn't. I didn't make it through the first round. They just invited me on. I was like, well, sure, why not? I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but just. I gave it a shot. It was fun. One of them was in Dallas. The other one was in St. Louis. You know, cool thing about that, like, you mentioned the Instagram page earlier. I don't put a lot of ministry stuff on there. And it's not like I'm hiding the priesthood. It's actually, like, quite the opposite. I don't put a lot of pastoral ministry out there because the souls of the people that I'm with are sacred. Like, people. Your soul is sacred, John. Like mine is. The human soul is a sacred thing. God dwells within that. And whenever I'm privileged to have an encounter with a soul in my church, a sheep of my flock, I take that seriously. And so I don't put that stuff on social media. I'll share some stuff every now, and some school stuff. I'll share some things with the school, other things in ministry, but it's not a. It's not a lot, because that's such a sacred thing. I share a lot of my own personal life. I don't hesitate to share my soul with people. So the neat thing, with the Ninja Warrior, I did that. I got a lot of pushback from people.

[Sean Ryan]

A whole bunch of pushback from who?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Priests, some other priests. Why? For life. Also some of the people in the church as well. Because it wasn't a holy thing. Like, you should be doing holy stuff like praying or, you know, studying or stuff like this. You shouldn't be wasting your time going on TV and doing The Ninja Warrior thing. But you know what was really cool about it was to bring it back full circle. Like this connected the. The Vatican II stuff. We got to be in the world, but not of it. We have to go out and preach the gospel boldly. So I did the. I ran the course of my clerics just like this. They had a little clip on there that told a little bit of my story. You know, I crashed and burned, you know, so that was. Whatever that. That doesn't matter. But people saw a priest doing something that they don't see a priest doing. And you would not believe how many phone calls and emails I got. Not people to say, hey, congratulations, good job, or like, oh, you're a loser. You fell in the water. But calling to say, like, calling, sending emails, sending letters in the regular mail. Hey, Father, I saw you on Ninja Warrior. That was cool, but my marriage is falling apart. Could, you know, this, this, and this and this. What advice would you give me? Hey, Father, saw you on tv. You know, that was neat. My kid's on dope. What's the way that I can be with him? Or like, hey, I was abused as a kid. It's fun watching Ninja Warrior with. With my kids. But I'm always thinking about this trauma from my childhood, like, how can I get healing from that? And so by me doing that, it opened up a lot of avenues of communication with people, which is really cool.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Same thing with, like, fitness and the hunting stuff. Those are two things. I love CrossFit, love hunting, and I share those stories, and it's exact same thing.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I mean, I think what's cool is. I mean, we talked about the masculinity stuff a little bit, but I think what's cool is you're showing that you're. You're. You're a regular person and you're with the people. You're competing, you're working out, you're hunting, you're doing all these things. And you just mentioned a lot of the priests that put themselves on a pedestal. And I think that. I don't think. I know. That kind of stuff turns a lot of people away. And when you see somebody who is out there in the community with people doing that people like to do.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, makes you. It humanizes you. Makes you an approachable person. It's. It makes you somebody that people can relate to something strike up a conversation about something other than the Catholic Church. And I think that's important.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And I mean, you don't have. I mean, you just said it it works.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, Jesus was out with the people, right?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Exactly.

[Sean Ryan]

So why are not. Why aren't the rest of the priests out with the people or pastors or ministers or anybody?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. I mean, we can't sit in our little palaces, you know, we got to get in the trenches with the people, you know, and. And if I'm going to preach effectively, like, I got to know what they're living. I got to be with them out there, you know, like you just said, that's what Jesus Christ did. This God who is beyond all things, this God who made space and time, is beyond space and time, entered into the confines of space and time to be with us. Like he was. He did miracles. Yeah. But also he walked and talked with him. He had to have cut up, you know, with him. Jonathan Roumie, he does the Chosen. Have you seen the TV series? Heard of that?

[Sean Ryan]

Yes.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. And, like, there's a lot of stuff in that show that's not in the Bible but is plausible. Like, you could. He's joking around with them. That stuff, I think, really happened, even if it's not in Scripture. Jesus, they had to cut up. They had to joke around, you know. Sure. They got, you know, ate some, you know, I don't know, roasted lamb or something, got heartburn or, you know, wasn't cooked enough and diarrhea or something. I don't know. But, like, we're humans, you know, and we just got to continue that with. In ministry, you know.

[Sean Ryan]

What are your thoughts on. We have a huge veteran audience. There's a suicide epidemic going on. It's like up to 40 something a day.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What are your thoughts on suicide?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, it's. I got a lot of thoughts. Like, there's a lot to unpack here. First of all, no one commits suicide because things are going all right. No one does that because life is worth living. So they're broken. There's a lot going on there internally. There's also problems externally. Support systems that are not in place that should be. So, like, I recognize that element of it, but also, like. And this is, like, I'm not saying this lightly, and I don't want any listener to take it lightly or anything, but, like, I think it's a. A cowardly thing to do. They've got so many burdens that are pushing them into the grave, and they want to, like, it's just almost too much to bear, so they'll end their life, but in doing that, that burden is handed over to someone else to sort out or figure out you know, and I don't know, like, it. It's just a. It's a complicated thing to unpack. I've had, you know, people at the church commit suicide or family members, things like that. Not my own family members, but, like, family members, church people, done funerals and stuff like that. It's tough, man. Like, I wish I could give an answer. It's just. It's a messy thing.

[Sean Ryan]

Do they go to heaven?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

God's grace is big. God's grace is big. God can get anyone to heaven that he wants to get to heaven, you know, and in those situations, you know, in years past, this is kind of like a thing from Second Vatican Council. You asked him about that. Like, it was. Somebody committed suicide. It was immediately, like, there was a teaching for a long time that they were just immediately condemned to hell because it was murder. You're murdering yourself. Thou shalt not kill. And you've killed yourself. But the act of murder happened. You committed that act of murder, even though it was yourself. Now the church recognizes, like, it's a lot more complicated than that. Now we understand psychology and the human mind and everything, and so we recognize how, like, God sees the brokenness in that person. That's God's desire to save, you know, broken people. You know, it's kind of hard to say that, like, yeah, short answer. Can they go to heaven? Yeah, they can definitely go to heaven. Does it definitely mean they're going to heaven? No, I don't know. I don't know who goes to heaven or who goes to hell. It's up to God. I don't want to sit here, though, and make it an easy out for somebody, you know, and that's, in some ways, like, I don't. This is something I'm struggling with. This may have come up on one of your recent episodes on this subject of, like, how do we talk about it? Like, in a way that doesn't give it a blessing, but, like, actually addresses the cause, you know, and in a way that doesn't create, like, a heroism in it, does that? I don't know if that makes sense, man.

[Sean Ryan]

I don't ever think anybody thinks there's heroism in it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. No. Yeah. And this is just a lack of words. Like, so I think you.

[Sean Ryan]

You talk about the burden that's been passed on.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Because I think a lot of people do it because they feel like they are the burden.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. And that's. That's what needs to be addressed. Like, they're not. So how do we get to the heart of that.

[Sean Ryan]

Like, it's a bigger burden.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Kill yourself.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah. But even in my own life, like, this is not to the point of suicide, but, like, one of the reasons we were talking earlier about boundaries and stuff, it's hard for me to ask for help because I don't want to be a burden. I grew up in a poor family. Everything, like, it was hard to get by with everything, and I didn't want to be another burden. And so that's so ingrained in me that it's hard for me to ask for help. So, like, I can understand what it's like to, like, not want to burden somebody. So how do we tell them, like, you're not a burden, buddy. Like, you're not a burden. You may be screwed up. That doesn't mean you're a burden. You still got dignity, man. We're all screwed up. We all, like, fight with stuff. We wrestle with stuff. Not say screwed up in a loose way. It's just a tough thing. People just want to be loved, man. We just need to walk with people, you know, how do you. This goes a lot of the stuff we were talking about earlier, man, I'm just. I'm trying to figure this thing out myself. I've been to a lot of school. I have a lot of experiences that don't mean I know what I'm doing. I'm just a lost fool in this thing called life. Every day, waking up saying, God help me to not be, as, like, a little bit less of a loser today than I was yesterday. And any way that I can help other people around me be a little bit less of a loser today than they were yesterday. Like, I'm doing what God's called me to do, and that just means, like, I have to be willing to sit with uncomfortable stuff. So then how do we. I think that's where the. Where we can improve of sitting with people in those moments when we don't have an answer because we want an answer, we want something to fix it. We want a treatment. And unfortunately, a bullet or a pill is, like, often, like, where the mind goes to. And, gosh, I think it. I think it may. I don't know if it was one of your episodes or not, just a recent one. I was just listening to it on the drive over here. But how, like, somebody can be under the influence of something and you're not thinking clearly in that moment, you know, and it's so easy to make a permanent decision in that split second, you know, and. But how do you sit with somebody in that moment and say, listen, I don't have an answer for you. I can't imagine how much it sucks for you, but I want to sit with you right now. Whatever we got to do, I will do it. And that's hard because it requires us to surrender control, because we want to fix it, especially for guys. We like to fix stuff. We don't want to be a burden. We want to get it done now. We don't like to ride things out. So there's so many things that go against the way that we're built, so many things that are pushing against our own DNA, the way we operate as men, just. But for us to just sit there in that and that. In that tension and those crosshairs, like, they're. That crossroads is not having an answer. I think that's where we start. Like, what does that look like? I don't know, but it's a. It's a messy thing. I wish we didn't have it. I wish this wasn't a thing.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

But it is. And it's hurting a lot of people.

[Sean Ryan]

Yes, it is.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Anyway. Yeah. Anyone? Like, if there's any way I can help anyone, you know, I know a ton of people listen to this.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Reach out. You know, Like I just said, I can't answer anything. I can't be a savior, but I'll. I got some grit, and I'll just sit it out with you.

[Sean Ryan]

Have you ever. Do you think that your. How do I. Do you feel that your father or your sister has ever reached out spiritually to you?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No.

[Sean Ryan]

Have they ever tried to make contact?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No, but I haven't paid attention that. Someone asked me a similar question a few weeks ago before. I'd never thought of that until they asked it, and I kind of forgot about it until just now. You asked, so. Short answer is no. I'm sure they have, and I just wasn't paying attention. Or maybe they have, and I was. I didn't know it was them.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, we're kind of wrapping up the interview here, But I want to. I want to. I want to end on mayhem. Hunt. What is it?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

It's. It's a group of us, just knuckleheads that like to work out and hunt. So Rich Froning, one of my best friends. He's big in the CrossFit world. Just lives up the road.

[Sean Ryan]

He big in the CrossFit? No.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

That's good.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Who's he? He's older. He's old and washed up now. No, I'm joking. He's still a fit, fit guy. Super strong. Him and a few of our best friends. Like, we started hunting a number of years ago. We've always been passionate in fitness, and from that, like, we just wanted to get more people ready to hunt. Hunting, it's a tough thing physically. And so just creating a training program to do that. And it's still new. We're still getting it off and everything, but, yeah, training program to get people ready to hunt. Mayhem, hunt. It's fun.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. You getting ready to do any big hunts?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, this. Hoping to do a bear hunt this late summer or late spring. Then this fall, I'll go elk hunting again. September, probably Montana this year maybe. Nice. I want to take you an alligator hunting. We're going to go alligator hunt.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's do it.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

You and me and Theo Vaughn.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's. Let's do it. Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

The suicide thing, that's a tough one, man.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Like, I see it from both sides. Like, I understand that. I don't understand any of it because I'm not in a situation, but from, like, my perspective, I can see the broke. I should have mentioned this in the talk or just a second ago. Like, I can see the side of the individual and their brokenness. Like, no one does that because things are fun, you know? But also, I've been with the victims or the family, the families afterwards, and I see all the. Everything that they go through, too, so. And I see that, and it's like, so much pain all around, you know?

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think about him? What is purgatory?

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, so purgatory is, like, we would believe whenever we die, before we have the full beatific vision that's heaven. Seeing God face to face. Like, we're still not worthy to be in the presence of God because we still have imperfections from this own life that have to be worked out. We have to be purified of. And so purgatory would be like that time that would. That final purification that would make us fit to see the face of God and not die, not be overwhelmed, but be free from anything that. That could hold us back.

[Sean Ryan]

So what happens there? Do they. Do they don't talk about it at all or.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No. Like. No, it do.

[Sean Ryan]

It's just.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

I don't know, time of purification for any wrongdoing. I don't know. There's no. No, like, formal teaching of saying, like, well, here's the protocols, or here, the things that happen there. I don't know.

[Sean Ryan]

Is it, like, time limits or.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

No. Yeah, because then you'd be out outside of time. Like, it wouldn't be like the same time constraints that we have now.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Yeah, yeah. I feel like a complete. I've had a bunch of schooling, I promise, but, like, I like, revert to farm boy. I wish I could give some better answers for a lot of this stuff. Like, I don't know, Mama just said go and I'm doing it. She just said work. And so I'm working, working.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Well, Father, I appreciate you coming. And it was, it was, it was an honor to interview and get your story. And I just want to say God bless.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Thanks, Sean. God bless you too, man.

[Unknown]

NBA veteran Jim Jackson takes you on the court.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

You get a chance to dig into my 14 year career in the NBA.

[Sean Ryan]

And also get the input from the.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

People that will be joining. Charles Barkley.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm excited to be on your podcast, man. It's an honor.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Like the entrepreneur, filmmaker, Academy award winner, Nixon. Now you see I got you. But also how sports, brings life, passion, music, all of this together.

[Unknown]

The Jim Jackson show, part of the.

[Father Stephen Gadbury]

Rich Eisen Podcast Network.

[Unknown]

Follow and listen on your favorite platform.