Catholic Answers Live tapes show in St. George

IC photo/Marie Mischel

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Tim Staples, an apologist with Catholic Answers Live radio show, takes a question from the audience during a taping of the radio show at St. George Catholic Church in St. George.

ST. GEORGE — On May 20, St. George parishioners had the chance to participate in the taping of an episode of the radio show Catholic Answers Live.

The show’s host, Cy Kellett, and Tim Staples, one of the show’s senior apologists, sat in St. George Parish’s Kuzy Hall for more than two hours, fielding questions from the audience for a show that will be broadcast at a later date.

Doing a live format is unusual for the show, Kellett said, though they have done it when they visited Australia. Staples said they also experimented with a live show at least 10 years ago in Texas, but for various reasons it was put on the shelf until now.

“We’ve been wanting to take the show on the road, and we’ve been looking for opportunities to do it, and we’re very grateful that we got to come here to Utah to be able to do that,” Kellett said during the taping, adding that perhaps in the future they will regularly visit parishes for the show.

In an interview afterward, Kellett said it’s good for the cast “to get out and share the show, and there’s a lot of people we’ll run in to, a lot of questions we’ll run in to, that we won’t get on the phone. I think it’s wonderful exposure for us to get out and do.”

Staples said the live show was invigorating. Although he likes speaking to large groups, “the small group or a parish community – to me it’s just so much more intimate. … The Q and A, to have them asking the questions directly to me is light years better than sitting in the studio in California and talking to people through a microphone.”

Staples is the author of a number of books and DVDs, including Jimmy Swaggart Made Me Catholic, the story of his conversion from Southern Baptist to Catholic. In St. George, Staples was asked to talk about his conversion, which began when he was in the Marine Corps and met Sergeant Matt Dula.

“For the first time in my life, I had met a Catholic who knew his Bible, he knew his catechism, and he also loved Jesus,” Staples said of Dula.

He went on to describe how he would confront Dula with various questions about the Catholic faith, and how the sergeant answered them all. Staples converted to Catholicism in 1988 and began to study for the priesthood, earning a degree in philosophy from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Pennsylvania and going on to study graduate-level theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. Then, realizing he was not called to be a priest, he left the seminary in 1994. He now lives in the San Diego area, is married and has seven children.

During the show, Staples answered a variety of questions, from an explanation of the term “whore of Babylon” is mis-applied to the Church to how to deal with adult children who do not practice the faith.

The show was taped on Friday afternoon. The next day, Staples presented two talks on the Eucharist, and Kellett gave one.

“When the Eucharist is at the center of a Catholic mission or ministry of any kind, that’s where … the light and life come from,” Kellett said during the Friday taping.

“Staying close to Christ in the Eucharist is the key to Catholic mission. I don’t think there is any other key,” he added.

Catholics believe that the Eucharist “is the source and summit of our Catholic faith,” said Staples, quoting the catechism. “We are a Eucharistic people.”

Having the Catholic Answers show come to St. George was an initiative of the parish council as a way to implement the diocesan Pastoral Plan, which has the Eucharist as one of its priorities, said Father David Bittmenn, pastor.

The event was wonderful, Fr. Bittmenn said, because Staples presented information about the Eucharist in a way that touched the heart as well as the mind.

Tim Kockler, the immediate past president of the parish council, was instrumental in the effort. Kockler, who said he has been “a lifelong listener of Catholic Answers,” said it was a way to evangelize, energize and deepen the faith in the parish. He also saw the talks on the Eucharist as a way to educate those people “who go through the motions but probably don’t appreciate that our Lord is truly present in the Eucharist.”

Kockler said he had fallen away from the faith, but in 2012 “the Lord called me back home, and so this has been my mission, to reach out to our brethren … because I want them to know the faith. The Lord has given us the Church, a visible church to come to the fullness of truth, and I just want the 1.3 billion Catholics around the world to appreciate what we have.”