Transcript

Edmund: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Real+True podcast. I’m your host Edmund Mitchell.

Emily: And I’m your host, Emily Mentock. 

Edmund: And this podcast is for us to discuss the unit of videos in more detail, to dive deeper into the content and to share a bit of the behind the scenes of the mission and vision of Real+True. Emily, how are you doing?

Emily: I’m doing great. Edmund, happy to be here. Talking about the forgiveness of sins. How are you doing?

Edmund: Yeah, very great. I’m excited for another unit, more episodes or for more videos for us to talk about. So give us a little overview of, uh, what we got this time.

Emily: Yeah. So the unifying concept for this unit was that “Jesus gave the apostles and the Church  the power to forgive sins.” Um, so this, for those following along at home, this covers CCC 976 to 987,. And now two podcasts in a row I’ve said, this is our shortest unit in terms of paragraphs. So two in a row, keeping it just kind of nice and focused, but really important concepts here that we’re pulling out of the profession of faith. Um, and so the, the videos that, if you haven’t watched, we would highly recommend you watch them before listening to this podcast at realtrue.org or on YouTube. Uh, the Proclamation video is, um, asking the question, “is there room for mercy in the justice system?” So we have a justice system, it keeps us safe, but you know, where is there room for mercy in that? Like our faith calls us to mercy. Explanation video: how does the Catholic church forgive sins? Just how can the Church forgive sins? Why do we think the Church can do that? And then the Connection video is about how to forgive, you know, just how do we forgive others and why is that important? Um, especially to our spiritual lives. So if you haven’t checked these out, highly recommend it.

Edmund: Yeah. And I always love reminding us about where we are in the Catechism, like the, the context and the broader picture. Yeah. So we’re in the first pillar of the four pillars, first pillars on the creed, what we believe, and we’re going line by line through the creed, we’re unpacking the articles of belief. And this is really important. Like this is what we believe. We say at the beginning of the creed, “I believe” not “I behave or I, you know, I have an opinion,” I believe this. And what’s interesting. And for me, especially going through this content of the Catechism, like, do I believe in the forgiveness of sins? Do I actually believe in it not do I take it for granted or it’s a thing, do I actually believe in the forgiveness of sins we’re coming to the end of the creed. And it’s also interesting, especially when you’re talking to people about what we believe as Catholics and talking about forgiveness. This is in that area of the creed where we’ve been talking, remember last units about the Church, the Holy Spirit, like this is all in the age of the Church that we’re in. Now we believe in the forgiveness of sins and it’s practical for us today.

Emily: Yes. And I think this is, I mean, this is such an important concept of our faith. That’s why it’s sort of called out specifically in the creative, like we believe in the forgiveness of sins and how that ties into the life of the Church, because, you know, what would the Church be without forgiven people, right?

Edmund: Yeah. Yeah. A thousand percent like, um, in Catechism 976, it says the apostles creed associates faith and the forgiveness of sins, not only with faith in the Holy Spirit, but also faith in the Church and the community of saints. Like we believe in forgiveness of sins because of what we believe about the Holy Spirit, what we believe about us as a community of Church, people like it has a practical implication. And as we go into these videos, we really tried to put a little bit of that spin on it. That it’s not just about God forgiving me, but like, how do, how do I need to act now too? Like, I need to forgive others if I believe this.

Emily: Um, right. Like, do you, do you believe that not just that God has the power to forgive sins, but like that you can be forgiven that, you know, God forgives others who have hurt you, you can pray for forgiveness, all those things. And I think that automatically a lot of us, especially who grew up Catholic associate forgiveness of sins with probably confession, you know, maybe baptism, maybe going to Eucharist, but like probably confession is what you associate with. And we, we will, of course, like have a whole unit on confession and we get to pillar two of the Catechism on the sacraments. But even before that, before even, you know, we need to, to tackle the sacraments, we need to just understand like, what, what does it mean to be forgiven? How does that fit into God’s plan of love and goodness for our lives?

Edmund: Yeah. And think about, think about the opposite. Like, think about what it could have said in the creed. Like I believe in, you know, what goes around comes around or I believe in karma, or I believe that there are consequences for your actions, you know, like, like we believe in the forgiveness of sins. It’s very interesting. It’s it’s, uh, now definitely there are consequences for our actions, but like, like it’s interesting that forgiveness is front and center in this part, on the creed, on the Holy Spirit and what we believe as a Church. Um, so I think that’s, it’s worth noting, like, like it’s so important. We should focus on this.

Emily: Yeah. That leads right into, I think the Proclamation video. So talk about consequences for our actions, right? Like we have, you know, in pretty much every society, there is a, some sort of justice system. How do you enforce consequences on those who hurt others? And, um, so it’s really interesting to explore in this video, you know, what does, um, what does forgiveness or consequences or justice really look like in our secular world as well? Um, so, you know, what is your sense of sort of forgiveness and justice been in your life so far?

Edmund: Yeah. This is a great question. Um, yeah, I think my dad was always very quick to forgive, especially if you admitted guilt, if now, sometimes you don’t admit guilt for hours and hours or days and days, but like, if you’re, if you admit like, man, I, I did something wrong, my dad was very quick to show mercy and I think I’ve also really wrestled with this too. And we even see this in the Old Testament versus the New Testament, you know, like how do we reconcile justice? Like someone deserves a consequence for an evil action with mercy. Like cuz mercy, oftentimes, especially when we’re talking to people that aren’t familiar with God’s version of mercy, we feel like, well, we don’t wanna just like, let someone off Scott free. We don’t wanna just like, let people walk all over us. We don’t wanna just let people, uh, continue to hurt us. So how do we, how do we reconcile those things? So I’ve really wrestled with that. Uh, and to be honest in my life, it’s been difficult sometimes to forgive people because it feels like, well, no, I don’t wanna let them off the hook. Um, yeah. So I, I don’t know what your experience of like justice and mercy has been in your life.

Emily: So, my dad is a lawyer and so I feel that I grew up with a strong sense of justice and yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned like, you know, sort of that enforcing consequences, like it wasn’t, you know, like punishment or like, you know, in, in the bad sense of the word, but like, I think he really brought to my childhood, this like presentation of like actions have consequences. And I’m gonna really like, you know, in a parenting responsibility sort of way, like enforce those consequences, um, to kind of teach the concept of justice. Like I felt like sometimes I got ‘prosecutor dad’ coming home being like, okay, you did this, explain yourself here is the consequences of your actions like you would do, um, at work, but it was it. So I, I feel, I always had a strong sense of that and I kind of leaned into it too.

Like that totally formed how I approached others. Like, oh, well you did this to me. So there’s consequences. And like, now I’m gonna take space from you or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Um, or, um, uh, it like my relationships with my siblings and things like that, but it, it, all of that changed a little bit when, um, when I was a kid, my dad got this grant to go and study a concept called Restorative Justice that we explore in the video where, um, he was starting to do research on  legal systems where instead of the, uh, justice system, just meaning more of like, uh, the consequence being a punishment where like, okay, you have to go to jail or pay a fine or things like that. It actually was, the sense of justice, meaning to restore the system that was hurt, you know, restore the relationship that was broken and things like that. And I remember, um, as a child really that changing my perspective on like what my dad’s role in society could be, you know, because it went from just like, okay, putting bad guys in jail to like, oh, the justice system actually could potentially have this more restorative angle to it, which is really interesting to me.

Edmund: Yeah. It’s a fascinating concept. I had no idea about it till you, you know, told me about it. And we started making this video. I had, I had no idea. Uh, and I think it’s interesting too, like what we’re trying to accomplish, if people remember in this video is to, to kind of stir up people’s curiosity to make them examine maybe unexamined beliefs. And, you know, I feel like most people, if you’re religious or not, you have a general sense of justice, right and wrong and forgiveness. You probably want forgiveness, or you’ve been in a situation where you’ve desired forgiveness or someone’s asked for forgiveness. But then we ask ourselves like, who deserves forgiveness? Who’s responsible for giving forgiveness and then the same of justice, like who deserves justice and who’s responsible for justice. Is it individual people? Is it the government? Is it God himself? And that, that’s interesting cuz like there are examples some people are not everyone. It’s not as obvious what we should do in situations like serial killers or war criminals or pedophiles like, like who does the community have a right to not extend mercy to certain individuals in order to protect others. Um, it’s fascinating. And it really starts, you can start seeing how you might be able to open up a conversation with someone. Like what do you believe about forgiveness and in particular forgiveness of sins.

Emily: Right. And I think that, um, something that’s really at the core of the novel concept of restorative justice, is that not just how it can help restore the otherwise criminals like back into society. But um, actually also the founder of restorative, restorative justice as a concept really felt that victims, in many situations, were not getting to have a say, not getting to take part in that sort of justice system and legal system. And so he thought that this could be a way to sort of like bring about like, not just benefits to those who had sort of like committed the crimes, but also those who had been hurt by them so that it really does sort of move towards that like restoration and healing of those relationships in society.

Edmund: Yeah. And what I love that we didn’t get to necessarily cover in the video, but I, what I love is the founder of restorative justice had values, things he believed about the legal system. And often I just take the legal sus system for granted like, oh, I guess this is how, this is how it is. But he, he had some beliefs about reconciliation or, or a more productive justice and then tried to enact change, like tried to influence the system. And I think that’s right. That’s really cool. I think whether you’re religious or not, you can get behind this idea of like, wow, really honing in on what my values and what I believe about some of these words is important and can change our legal system.

Emily: Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s, it’s, it’s a really good way to get people. I mean, we all live in society. We all see and like, know about the, sort of like the effects of the legal system, the justice system that we live in, um, around us all the time. So I think this was a great way to sort of like open up people to start asking questions about what do I believe about forgiveness? What do I believe about mercy? Is this thing that I believe in my faith or that I’ve been taught, that is a key aspect of my faith. Do I see that playing out in real life and you know, where do I stand on that? Or how am I called to believe that? So it was, I thought it was a really good way to sort of open up the conversation about the forgiveness of sins.

Edmund: So that brings us to our favorite, uh, game in the middle of the show, which is, or not game, I guess, activity, which is standout…

Emily: Can you guess our favorite? That’s true. Yeah.

Edmund: Can you guess the favorite standout Catechism paragraph, um, would you like to go first Emily, in this, we encourage people to, you know, follow along in the unit and the passage of the Catechism and find one that really resonates with you, uh, and take some time really sitting with one paragraph, maybe over a course of a couple days is kind of returning to it and thinking on it. Um, would you like to go with yours first or should I?

Emily: You go first? Cuz I it’s what I would’ve chosen if you hadn’t marked it already. Okay.

Edmund: Okay. Uh, mine is paragraph 982 and it says “There is no offense, however serious that the Church cannot forgive. There is no one, however, wicked and guilty who may not confidently hope for forgiveness provided his repentance is honest. Christ, who died for all men, desires that in his Church, the gates of forgiveness should always be open to anyone who turns away from sin.” Um, I love this because first of all, sometimes this isn’t something people know that there is no offense, however serious the Church cannot forgive. Uh, and then also sometimes it’s hard for us to extend that belief onto others. I mean, I know in my life it’s hard, it’s hard. Like there are people in my life that I’m like, well really, as long as they repent, that’s it, they just get forgiven. Like shouldn’t there be more. Um, and I love this idea that the gates of forgiveness should always be open to anyone who turns away from sin.

Like what a beautiful image of the Church as gates of forgiveness that anyone who desires to, to change, to ask for forgiveness. And again, I’m really thankful for my dad, like how my dad modeled this. Like as soon as I asked for forgiveness, my dad would just rush in. Like there was no more angry dad, as soon as I like admitted my fault. So, I mean, I guess there’s sometimes that’s bad, you know, but anyways, but like as soon as I admitted fault, it was like, he would just rush in with forgiveness. Okay. Fine. Then it’s behind us and I forgive you. Um, so yeah, I really, really love that paragraph.

Emily: Yeah. It’s such a powerful line that there’s no offense, however serious that the Church cannot forgive. And I think that’s just one of those, uh, one of those lines of the Catechism that totally should be memorized, but, there is that distinction that like, it doesn’t say that there’s no offense that the Church doesn’t forgive, you know, like it’s not like the Church goes around. It’s not like you go around automatically getting forgiveness. You can do what you want and you move on past it. It’s just that there’s no offense that the Church cannot forgive. 

Edmund: Almost, it’s almost like it’s saying the only offense that can’t be forgiven is the one that’s not repented of. 

Emily: Exactly. But the only one that can’t be forgiven of, that’s a great, great way to put it. So I, I just think it’s such a powerful thing and something that yeah, we think it’s important to make sure that that all people everywhere know that that’s how the Catholic Church approaches it. 

Edmund: What about you Emily?

Emily: Um, so mine is sort of like the follow up to that. It’s from 979 and it says “If the Church has the power to forgive sins, then baptism cannot be her only means of using the keys and keys of the kingdom of heaven received from Jesus. The Church must be able to forgive all penitent their offenses, even if they should sin until the last moment of their lives.” Hmm. Um, so just kind of what we were talking on ear earlier about, you know, like, you know, you can repent and then you get the forgiveness and it’s there. And we touched on in the videos and this section really of the Catechism opens up that like, okay, the beginning of the forgiveness of sin starts with the sacrament, you know, of baptism in our, in our lives, but it can’t end there. We’re gonna sin again. Yeah. And so praise God that there is, uh, the other means that’s not the only means of starting with baptism to forgive sins and that we do have confession and the Eucharist to continue being forgiven, to turn back to those gates of forgiveness that are always open in the Church,

Edmund: Man, I just am reminded of, I’m pretty sure it was, St. Therese of Lisieux who, even on her deathbed. I mean, she’s such a saintly woman, but even on her deathbed, she was, I think, I think I’m pretty sure it was her, but she was being a little short with one of her Sisters and she got chided by one of her Sisters as like, “Hey, like you’re being. You’re being mean,” Essentially. Right. St. Therese of Lisieux like instead of just like, “oh my gosh, like here I am on my deathbed and I’m like committing a sin.” She was thankful that she was still in need of and like, um, like still in need of God’s mercy. Like even on her death bed was like thankful that she still needed, like God’s mercy. And I, I think it’s really beautiful and it’s crazy. It’s crazy that God’s still extends that mercy up until the last moment of your life.

Emily: Yes, definitely a great gift.

Edmund: Okay. Do we have any shoutouts?

Emily: Yeah. I wanna do a shoutout a little differently. We’ve been shouting out to some of the people who have been commenting on our videos and we’re so grateful for the people who, um, had just continued to stay engaged and help share them, help, you know, unlock the beauty and truth of the Catechism for others by sharing our content. Um, but I wanted to give a shout out, uh, this week or this month to our amazing animation team. Um, so the team of people who help create the videos and really bring the scripts and the Catechism, like the way we’re trying to unlock it to life. Um, we had an opportunity, uh, to meet with them, to sort of plan, uh, pillar two of the Catechism and our content for that. So this is unit 11, there’s unit 12. And that’s the end of the first pillar, which is crazy that a year has gone by, it’s so wild. It is. So I, it was really exciting just to have a chance to meet with them and say, okay, everything that we’ve learned from these videos, you know, what works, where do we wanna see improvements? You know, like really just taking all that creativity to make the videos beautiful and captivating and shareable to the next level. Um, so I just wanna give a shout out to everyone who, uh, is on the team and, uh, hopefully get the audience excited for things to come, even better.

Edmund: And people can see the animation team, but there’s like a photo and a video, I think, on our social media.

Emily: Right? Yeah. We did post a video of the team, which we haven’t really done before, but it was kind of fun to get together and, um, hopefully just get people excited that we’re, uh, dreaming and opening, you know, our plans to the guidance of the holy Spirit to see where this project takes us.

Edmund: That’s awesome. Well, cool. We’re moving on to the Explanation video and the Connection video, the Explanation video on how does the Catholic Church forgive sins? And then connection trying to be more practical. How can we forgive? and why it’s important. So maybe we talk a little bit about the Explanation video. We kind of dive deeper into like, oh, we start with this, we start with a story, right?

Emily: The story. Yeah. So this is a story, my sister, uh, we interviewed in the last unit reminded me of this story. Um, this is a great example of how consequences were enforced of my sister and I were little and we, um, we were excited to play with scissors, but we cut our hair instead of the construction paper. And, uh, the consequence was my mom like took away scissors. We couldn’t play with those for a while. But the beautiful part of that story is actually like that, you know, we, we also said sorry, we moved on and we kind of laugh about it now, which I think, I mean, that’s a small incident, you know, it’s just kind of a fun anecdote, but I think it shows that like forgiveness is possible and you can, you can move on and it can become this like kind of beautiful thing and about a gift to be able to forgive in relationships. So we kind of started with that. Um, but points to like leading into that, we believe in forgiveness as sense, not only for ourselves, but in forgiving others too.

Edmund: Yeah. And I think it’s important too, to, to note that, you know, we can look around the world at the natural world at some of these, these hidden, um, these hidden clues for God. Like we can experience forgiveness between, you know, our parents or our siblings. Um, but then God reveals a different type of forgiveness. Like something that, that transcends any type of human forgiveness we might experience. And so the Church, like we talked about before the Church is the gates of forgiveness. The Church has sacraments of forgiveness and the Church offers a deep, deep type of forgiveness, uh, supernatural forgiveness, um, through the sacraments of the Church. Um, and we have here, we’ve talked a little bit about the secular understanding of forgiveness that maybe some people don’t need it or not, but I wonder if you’ve had, um, difficulty forgiving someone, I almost feel like we should talk about that in the connection video, but like, have you ever had that experience of having difficulty forgiving someone?

Emily: Um, yes.

Edmund: Yeah. I think everyone, everyone can relate with that. 

Emily: Those lines in the Our Father that really get you where you’re like, uh, and “forgive us our trespass as we, as we forgive those,” I know they’ll always get you. Um, yeah, but I think that what you touched on, like that, that it’s something when God forgive us, when the Church extends like extends God’s forgiveness to us, um, through the sacraments, it is something that transcends. Yeah. And that it’s not just, okay, do I need to be a good person by saying sorry, or move on. Um, the secular understanding, I think a lot of time is, you know, that you moving on for yourself. Um, but I think that, you know, what the explanation, what the Catechism explains in this section is that like, it’s, it is God’s plan to forgive us that he heals in a different way.

And it’s through the sacraments that we receive this, but it’s so important to point back to that, it’s God who is offering the forgiveness to us, because even our sins against others, while they may hurt them physically, or, you know, emotionally or hurt ourselves and how that damage kind of comes back to us like that secular understanding, um, really it’s a sin against God, even to hurt another person. And so, um, what’s so important to take away from this section of the Catechism is that, you know, when we say like, Jesus gave the power to the apostles and the Church to forgive sins, it’s God’s power, that’s being extended through the Church because our sins are always against God.

Edmund: Yeah. This might be too much of a stretch of an example, but I was listening to some of the trials of during the era of McCarthy McCarthyism, and McCarthy’s doing all these investigations into like potential communists and all this stuff. And he starts, he kind of really, his downfall was when he starts casting suspicion towards the very United States Army that there might be communists, and at this very pivotal moment, um, this, uh, general or something says, “have you no decency, sir?” And, and McCarthy says, “well, I’m sorry, my line of questioning, I’m sorry, this, this investigation is hurting you.” And the guy says, “it’s hurting you, too.” And I just got this sense of, oh my gosh. Like, like that, that by it, not only isn’t it offense against other people, but it’s hurting himself, like his suspicion and his paranoia is hurting himself.

And it’s so true. Like you say, like these things hurt us too. It hurt our relationship with God. And, um, the secular understanding often forgiveness is like, okay, well maybe we just forget about something, but the forgiveness that Jesus offers us is really radical. First of all, because it’s for all sinners. But then secondly, because it restores this relationship that is supernatural and divine and, and like changes us. Like my relationship with my family, it’s definitely changes me and has an impact on me. But my relationship with God when it’s, when it’s rectified and restored, I mean, it changes me. It changes my capacity for love, my capacity for virtue. I mean, it changes me when that’s restored and that’s a type of forgiveness. That’s really, really powerful.

Emily: Yeah. It, it really is. And I think that’s when you can almost like, you know, almost feel it, right? Yeah. That inner turmoil, when you are in need of forgiveness or you need to offer forgiveness because of that relationship with God, because of our, of our souls and the way that it impacts our souls too. And I think that, yeah, you’re right. Jesus was so radical in his forgiveness. I mean, so many in his ministry, he didn’t just go around and do miracles. Like he was forgiving sins. That was like the greatest miracle that he offered. Yeah. Um,

Edmund: Exactly your spot. We should have brought that up earlier cuz you’re so that’s part of  this section of the paragraph is that people thought people were looking for the physical miracles and Jesus was saying he forgives someone’s sins. And people were like, ah, and he’s like, no, no, this is crazier than a physical miracle. Like it’s crazier than a miraculous healing. Like the fact that I can forgive sins. Um, it is, it is crazy. And yeah, we, it, it’s hard because it’s not as tangible. Right. It’s hard to, to believe in the power of that forgiveness of sins.

Emily: Yeah. I think it’s hard. But, um, the Catechism in this section, especially since it’s so short, so I just really encourage people, you know, if you, if you’ve ever struggled with this or trying to understand, you know, or if you’ve just been asked the question that I think so many Catholics have been asked by other people, like, why do you have to confess your sins to a priest or things like that. And I think that getting this foundational understanding of what it means to believe in the forgiveness of sins, um, can really equip you to kind of answer that question and share your faith to others.

Edmund: So now we’re moving on to how to forgive and why it’s important. Yes. And we’re talk, we’ve talked about this a little bit, but really that it’s important to forgive and, and we kind of offer some yeah. Some practical applications. I I’ve found myself throughout us working on this unit, walking around, going, do I believe in the forgiveness sense or something happens that frustrates me. I’m like, man, “do I believe in the forgiveness of  sins?” This is because of being called to really apply this in my everyday life.

Emily: Yeah. I think that this is one of the things that like, like you said, it comes up all the time, whether someone’s like cutting you off on the road or someone really hurts you, you know, or you like hurt someone else and like forgiveness, it is such an important part of all relationships. And so I think it was important in this Connection video to lay out in a very practical way,  if we believe in the forgiveness of sins, what does that look like in life? And it gives kind of a basic, but I think really important, um, breakdown of like, what does asking for forgiveness and responding to that, asking for forgiveness, look like, what do you say, how do you offer to repair that? And it’s so important to do that and to do it well when we are trying to live our lives in a way that like also models the forgiveness we hope to receive from God.

Edmund: Yeah. And, and again, we’re talking to people who hopefully are, you know, interested in sharing these videos with others or walking with others on their, you know, journey of discipleship. And it’s important for us to really go into these weeds with people, like what would our forgiveness of  sin, what, or to meditate on Jesus’s type of forgiveness I’m called to imitate, right. Or try to imitate. And so what would that change? And throughout our lives, the journey of becoming holier and the journey of becoming more like Christ is to look at what in my life, what are my beliefs or my actions, or the ways I handle things, what are, uh, how Jesus would handle it and what, what are things that maybe Jesus wouldn’t handle it that way? I know, um, I’ve often in my life, there’s been times where people have asked me for forgiveness and instead of giving them like actually forgiving them in a, in a way that validates their emotions and like is healthy.

I’ve just kind of like, ah, don’t worry about it. Like I just wanna move on. Right. But Jesus, you know, in, in the way that he forgives, like he really sees these people, he really acknowledges like go and send no more. Like with Peter, he spent time with him acknowledging, getting into the messiness of like, I forgive you. Um, so you know, more than necessarily, I guess the details of this video is like this idea that we, we walk with others and help them understand, like what does this forgiveness in Jesus look like practically in my life? How could I imitate it better? Not just God forgiving me, but me forgiving others.

Emily: Definitely. And I think the last thing that I’ll just say about it is like the video is called and sort of titled everywhere in the webpage and video and everything like how to forgive and why it’s important. And I just, my, my hope would be that maybe people who are struggling to forgive or struggling to  forgive in that complete way, like you said, not just kind of shrugging it off and saying, you know, don’t worry about it. Um, will find this video and not only experience, you know, just the piece that comes with learning how to forgive, but also be opened up to understanding how Jesus can forgive them as well.

Edmund: Yeah. One thing, one thing we didn’t get a chance to maybe emphasize too much. I, I guess, which I feel like we can’t emphasize enough is that forgiveness is hard. Like, like in my own life, like in other people I know it’s really struggle with forgiveness. So I hope this video doesn’t come across as like, oh, it’s just easy. Just, you know, forgive people. Um, but it is difficult. And when we’re walking with others to really acknowledge that, that it’s not as easy as like, ah, just forgive them and that we really need to turn  to Jesus and say, Hey, Jesus, like help me to forgive as you forgive. Um, because it’s, it’s not easy.

Cool. Well, do we have any updates or anything we’d like to share with people as we’re closing out this, our unit 11 podcast episode?

Emily: Yeah. So one little, one little update. So in September when this podcast comes out some of our team, some of our advisors will be in Rome to present Real+True at the International Congress for Catechesis in Rome. So it’s a third annual event for bringing Catechists together from all over the world. And we were just so blessed with the opportunity to be invited to speak and present for 15 minutes and really show, our dream for evangelizing catechesis, catechesis through digital media, but very sound catechesis to do that and sort of like the power of storytelling and how we’re trying to unlock the Catechism for this next generation. Um, so really excited would appreciate just everyone’s prayers for that. Um, I think one of the things I’m most excited about it is that because, you know, Real+True is a free resource and, and it’s in four languages, we’ve always seen it as, you know, being a gift to the Church. We just want people to know about it, to share the videos, to use them,  if they’re helpful as a resource to them. And so I think this event will, you know, God willing be a really great opportunity to present that to people all over the world who will hopefully  get something out of it, be inspired and maybe share the videos with their communities as well.

Edmund: That’s so exciting. So you’re gonna have some gelato too while you’re there, right? 

Emily: Hopefully, hopefully. 

Edmund: Well, thanks everyone for listening. Uh, like, like we always say, we believe the Catechism is the faithful echo of a God who desires to reveal himself to us. And we’re just re transforming this into a living voice that people can hear. And our mission is to do that. We’re creating these videos and animations and podcasts. These are free and in multiple languages. So we thank you so much for supporting us and joining us. Um, please go check out all the videos and the unit guides too, at realtrue.org.

Emily: Thank you so much.