Bo Bonner and Deacon Mark Campbell mark the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows and wish Pope Leo XIV a happy 71st birthday, spent fittingly in the Vatican Library. Author Mike Aquilina joins to talk about Ignatius Press bringing Fulton Sheen's The Power of Love back into print ahead of Sheen's September 24 beatification in St. Louis, explaining why the book went missing for decades and why it's the clearest introduction to Sheen you can hand someone. The hosts then ask who among today's Catholic voices might one day be canonized — with a genuinely surprising Mister Rogers revelation — plus Tuesday news, MLB and NFL scores, college football upsets, and the central Iowa forecast.
Bo Bonner and Deacon Mark Campbell open Tuesday on the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, with Mass today at 8 a.m. at Saint Patrick's in Melrose (105.3 FM). The hosts also send birthday wishes to Pope Leo XIV, who turned 71 on Monday and spent the day at the Vatican Apostolic Library — opening a new exhibit, ordering an expansion of the Vatican Apostolic Archive and Library, and speaking about libraries as places of relationship and exchange, not just books. Bo notes the personal connection: the Holy Father's mother was a librarian.
Author Mike Aquilina joins the show to discuss Ignatius Press's rerelease of Archbishop Fulton Sheen's The Power of Love, for which he wrote the foreword. Mike explains why the book had fallen out of print, how Sheen traces love from the Greek philosophers to Christian charity and then applies it to family life, midlife, and every ordinary circumstance, and why Sheen's chapter on "little things" — including a story about Oscar Wilde and a tipped hat — captures the whole argument. He also shares how Sheen's books catechized him in his twenties, and how a room full of twenty-something archdiocesan employees watching old Sheen episodes over lunch led to the foreword assignment. Find The Power of Love at your local Catholic bookstore or from Ignatius Press. Archbishop Sheen will be beatified Thursday, September 24 at 2 p.m. Central at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis, with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle presiding — ticket and event details at CelebrateSheen.com.
In the show's final segment, Bo and Deacon Mark ask a question Sheen's cause raises for everyone: what does it mean to have watched a saint on television? They talk through how causes for canonization actually work, why Mother Teresa and Pope Saint John Paul II were recognized differently in their lifetimes, whether Mother Angelica or Fr. Mike Schmitz might one day be canonized, and why celebrity culture and permanent public scrutiny make holiness harder, not easier. Bo closes with a curveball: Fred Rogers, a lifelong Presbyterian minister, received Catholic last rites from his close friend Archabbot Douglas Nowicki of Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania — the abbey that houses the Fred Rogers archives.
Also in this episode: Deacon Mark and Bo swap college football takes after Oklahoma State's upset of No. 6 Oregon and Iowa's 16-13 comeback over Iowa State, with a shoutout to producer Ayden Pugh for watching his first game; and a reminder that the Christ Our Life Catholic Conference brings Bishop Joseph Espaillat and Fr. Robert Spitzer to Des Moines September 26–27 at Casey's Center — details at ChristOurLifeIowa.com.
Listen live weekdays at 7 a.m. Central on Iowa Catholic Radio, or catch up anytime at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
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