Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast. In today's pre-launch episode, I have Bishop Andrew Cousins with me who's going to be our special guest that introduces the second pillar of the Catechism later on. Now, he's pre-introducing the second pillar of the Catechism. Today we had Jeff Cavens. We have others who will be after Bishop Cousins. Jeff talked about the creed, and now the second pillar of the Catechism is the sacraments. That third pillar is life in Christ, the moral life. The fourth pillar is, of course, prayer. But today in this first episode, the Catechism will start on January first. But in this first pre-episode, I guess I'll say it like this, he's going to be sharing with us a little bit about his background as a bishop, his involvement in the Catechism in a year. He'll also offer us some guidance as we prepare to learn about the authority and the mission of the church, which are so critically important, especially as we launch into this whole year of studying the Catechism, what God has to say through his church to us in our day and age.

Without anything further, I am so grateful Father... Sorry, Father Bishop, I remember when you were Father, cousins, but I'm so grateful to have you, Bishop, cousins.

Delighted to be with you, Father, Mike. It's an honor to be on your podcast.

Oh, it's just... This is such an incredible... It really is a gift. When we asked who could be the person to introduce that second pillar? I was like, Well, I don't know. What about, Bishop, cousins? Because when you taught at the seminary, the seminary that I also had gone to, I was already gone, unfortunately, because everyone that I talked to who had your sacraments class, in particular, your class on the Eucrist, they were just raving about this class. I'm like, Why did I get ordained so early? Is my question. Why didn't I get to have Father Cousins, now Bishop Cousins, as my seminary professor. But I'm so grateful for this. Could you give us... There are some people who might be listening to this podcast who don't know of your story. Would you mind just sharing with us how you got to be where you're at right now?

Yeah, I'm very happy to share. I grew up in a good Catholic family and had the blessing of a family that shared the faith with me. Actually, I wanted to be a priest from a very young age. I had my first communion in first grade. My parish priest pulled me out of the other first grade class and for some reason chose me to make my first communion early so I could serve Mass with him. I made my first communion in first grade and then began to serve Holy Mass with him in first grade. Right from the beginning of serving Mass, I think I said, I want to be a priest like Monsignor Barry, who was my parish priest and was a mentor for me all growing up. But I also grew up in that time period in the church when we didn't always have great catechesis. Although I loved the church, I always believed in the real presence of Jesus in the blessed sacrament. We didn't always have a good understanding of the fullness of the faith and all the richness of the faith. It wasn't really until I went to college when I met some people who were taking their faith more seriously.

Actually, I met some NET missionaries, the National Evangelization teams. These were missionaries who were traveling the country sharing their Catholic faith, and they happened to come near me. One of them happened to be my sister, which was the reason I went on the retreat that they were giving. But when I saw people who were on fire with their faith, I really had a desire then to learn more about my faith and to study it more as a young adult. That's also really when my thoughts about priesthood began to be much more serious. It had been a childhood dream, but it was in college when I really began to study my faith that I became much more convinced that God might be calling me to the priesthood. I ended up having a couple of years after college where I did serve as a missionary myself, both with Net Ministries, the National Evangelation teams, and with another assistant ministry called St. Paul's Outreach. Then after that, I decided it was time to go to seminary. Actually, it connects to this podcast because when I was in seminary is when the Catechism came out. John Paul II was my hero.

He was just the man I wanted to be like. He was so alive and so full of energy. When his magisterium, his teaching, produced the Catechism, it was such a great gift, and we devoured the thing in seminary. We were seminarians. We had time on our hands, and so we devoured the Catechism because it was such a great gift when it came out, and to have the fullness of breadth of it and all that it was. I really always loved the Catechism right from the very beginning. Then as you grow in your own faith journey, and you begin to realize the importance of things like the Catechism and things like study, and I had the opportunity to do a doctorate in sacred theology with a focus on sacraments and then had the opportunity to teach sacraments in the seminary where I had gone. I really treasured that opportunity to study the faith more deeply. But I can tell you honestly, yeah, I have a doctorate degree in theology, but I still use the catechism when I want to teach on certain topics because it's such a practical and actually really deep tool. It's actually still a very helpful thing.

Then, of course, I taught at the seminary for about eight years, and eventually I was made a bishop, an auxiliary bishop in the Twin Cities. A bishop is a teacher. It's one of the things that a bishop is called to do. Teaching, which is something I loved to do in the seminary and I found great fulfillment in doing, it became a part of my broader ministry that I was called to do all the time. Again, I found the Catechism to be a great reference. What was interesting is that eventually I was elected as a bishop to be the Chair of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechiesis in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which I've now been serving in for the past couple of years, and I've got one more year left on that term. But as the chair of the committee that oversees the Catechism, the church owns the Catechism, we would say. My committee is in job. Part of our job is to oversee the Catechism. For example, we ensure that when people write textbooks for religion, that those religious textbooks are in according with the Catechism, and they actually teach what the Catechism says to have some credibility.

I actually remember hearing about this idea, the podcast coming up, because it came out through the committee when Ascension and Father Mike Smith's want to do that. I said, We have to do that. That is a great idea to have this opportunity just for the average person to go through it every day by day throughout the year. I just thought that was a great idea. Then, of course, the other thing I've been doing as part of my work with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or as part of my work with the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, I've been charged with leading a national Ecclesistic revival. This is one of the most exciting and largest projects that the US bishops have taken on, I think, and a real work of the Holy Spirit. It's also exciting for me to be able to talk a little bit with you about part two of the Catechism when that time comes, because that's the part of the sacraments. Not only did I study the sacraments and I taught the sacraments, especially the Euchrist course, for me, I've just come to understand the importance of the Euchrist in our life as Catholics.

I'm so excited by this National Euchistic Revival to see the church herself say, no, we need to actually renew the heart of our church through the Euchrist and through our faith in the Euchrist. I think the fact that all this comes together is a very exciting prospect for me.

This is incredible. I just love hearing the background. I had just been confirmed in high school, and it was the next year the Catechism came out. You got to be in seminary when the Catechism came out. I remember being so... Well, I was interested at that point. At that point, I had already had a conversion toward the Lord. I remember because it was such a big deal for me that the Catechism was published because in your section or section on sacraments, on confirmation, and it labels the five effects of confirmation. I remember thinking, I wish I would have known this before I got confirmed, but I know it now, and I'm very grateful for that. But it's so clear. I love the fact that you are saying that as someone who has a doctorate, you use the Catechism, and as someone who's a bishop, that you use the Catechism because think about all of the people who are going to be journeying with us. But maybe with doctorates, maybe without them, maybe some bishops, maybe some non-bishops might be joining us. But this is for the faithful. I think I remember hearing a story. Maybe you heard this too.

I think it was someone had written to Pope Benedict, or at least he got back some flack from maybe some German bishops who were saying, Why would you use a catechism? No one's going to buy it. No one's going to read it at all. Then I think he writes this forward to one of the, an ancillarya very supplementary book of the catechism saying, Well, maybe no one's going to read it, but it's on the best seller list in multiple languages. But you've been reading it for a long time.

Yeah, I've been reading the Catechism for a long time, and I actually use it. I keep it right by my little place where I pray every morning. I don't read it every day, not even close to that. But I might actually start doing that when the podcast starts because I'm excited to follow along. It's nice to have that ability to go through something just a little bit every day and really get the consistency down. But I think what happened when the Catechism came out is people were surprised by the impact that it had. I was surprised by the beauty of it. It's just such a beautifully put-together document. Those very first paragraphs where it just talks about the God that we have and how God loves us and how he's always drawn near to us, and then this whole understanding that everything that we have in the church flows from one source, which is the Trinity. The whole pedagogy of the Catechism is just a beautifully put-together document. I still find when I read it, it actually helps my prayer. It's an interesting thing because people think of dogma or teaching. The Greek word for teaching is dogma.

They think of dogma as hard, cold facts. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, it's beautiful because it's telling us about infinite truth and infinite goodness and infinite beauty. Your prayer gets enriched by dogma and needs to be enriched by dogma because dogma is actually putting you in direct contact with God, and that helps you to experience and know God, and you can't love what you don't know. It really actually is a document that can strengthen your relationship, not just your intellect, but your heart.

I'm so glad you said that because one of the goals behind this... One of the goals behind the Bible in a year was to recapture a Biblical worldview and to be able to say, Actually, one of the opening lines is to see life through the lens of scripture. That's what we mean by the Biblical worldview. But as you're describing the Catechism as well, you realize, like you said, you can't love what you don't know. Here is not just information, but it's an invitation to transformation. It's not just here's data, but here's God himself and Father's son, Holy Spirit, three persons revealing himself and revealing ourselves to us through not just the sacred scripture, but also through sacred tradition. I think one of the big questions people can have is, what's the authority of sacred tradition? Or even a way to say it like this, what does church authority mean? Because we're going to say, okay, this is what the church teaches. Here's the Catechism, what the church teaches. What does that mean? Where does it come from?

Yeah. All the authority in the church comes from Christ, and the church gets her authority from the person of Jesus Christ. The Church is the body of Christ. The Church is the continuation of the presence of Christ in the world. And so all the authority of the Church comes from Christ. Really, the teaching authority of the church is an attempt to be faithfulful to Christ's teaching and to his revelation. When you begin to think about it, Colonel Newman, he has a wonderful way of speaking about the need for infallibility in the church. Infallibility is a big word, and people are like, What does that mean? Who actually thinks that anyone's infallible? But we know that God is infallible. God is not capable of making an error because He's God. Therefore, Jesus is also, because He's God, He's infallible, isn't capable of making an error. Jesus, He gives us a truth that is a essential for salvation. It's essential to know this truth in order to get to heaven. It's the truth of His word, it's the truth of His teaching, it's the truth of His moral life, all those things. Now, God would not give us a truth that we need to get to heaven and not also give us a way to keep that truth safe throughout all of time.

That's why He gives us the authority of the church. It's the church's job to protect this truth of revelation, which is essential for salvation because we know it's capable of being corrupted. When you look at the history of the world, sometimes that teaching can get corrupted, and we could lose the saving teaching if we didn't have the infallibility of the church. Now, the infallibility of the church is, of course, the Holy Spirit. It's God himself, God who is leading the church and guiding the church. Of course, the Catechism is beautiful about this because it explains that there are different levels of authority. Not everything that a Pope or a bishop or somebody like that says is infallible, that's for sure. I'm wrong all the time. But when it comes to Revelation, which is what God has revealed, which is necessary for salvation. God guarantees that that saving truth won't be lost throughout time, and he gives this authority, which is God's own authority to the church. There's another aspect of it that's actually beautiful, which is... Because authority is not very well liked today. It's a tough thing. We were taught to question authority. By what authority do you have to teach?

We're taught to question it. But actually, authority is a great gift because it allows us to be obedient. What is it that saved us? It was Jesus's obedience. By the obedience of one man, St. Paul says, salvation was won from the disobedience. By the disobedience of one man, salvation was lost, Adam. By the obedience of one man, salvation comes to us. The same thing has to come in the life of every Christian. I have to be obedient to the truth of who God is and His revelation. That obedience is what unites me to Jesus' obedience, which unites me to God Himself.

Wow. I love that you're able to make the connection, not just make the leap. It's not a leap. It is a direct connection between this recognition of we need authority in order to have obedience, because it is the love of God in Jesus Christ, obeying his father that brought about the salvation of the world. It is then our subsequent obedience that allows us to participate in that saving action and allow it to change our lives. We couldn't do that without authority. Wow, I'd never heard it articulated like that, Bishop. I love that.

St. Paul calls it the obedience of faith, right?

Yes.

And so... We know, for example, when the Catechism makes this point in the creed, the creeds, they predate the scriptures, right? They were creeds that predated the scriptures. In that sense, they're summaries of what was revealed in the scriptures. So the obedience of faith is to say, Yeah, I believe that what is revealed in this creed is true, and that's what leads to salvation. It's helpful to approach authority that way rather than the prove it to me mindset. Like, No, I actually want to be set free in obedience, and I want to know the truth, rather than this needs to be proven before I accept it.

That's fascinating. I like that distinction also between, Here's an openness and just teach me versus to prove it to me. One of the things I found is that the scriptures themselves, they don't often make an argument. They simply just really reveal that this God's revelation of himself. He's not arguing for his existence. He's not arguing for his goodness. He's just revealing himself. Something similar is I'll talk to some people who will say, Well, does the Catechism offer a proof for X, Y, or Z? It's like, Well, actually, the Catechism just teaches. It gives a reason, a lot of times, for the teaching, but it's not trying to convince you of saying that. I love that. Teach it to me versus prove it to me. The Catechism, it really almost, I don't want to say requires, but you can go a lot further in the Catechism when you are saying, teach me rather than prove it to me.

Yeah. When you understand that, as Jesus says, it's the truth which sets us free. Especially with the Catechism, because one of the gifts of the Catechism is we're dealing with it. This Catechism... This poem was published in 1988 or '89 is when it first comes out, The New Catechism. We're dealing with 1988 years of experience. This is the gift of the tradition of the church. It's the wisdom of the saints. It's the wisdom of all the teachers that go before us. It's the wisdom of all of the ecumenical councils. The bishops of the world gathered together and they discussed and debated and decided things. We bring that. It's like this long stream that begins with Jesus. As it goes, it actually grows with all this incredible wisdom, still from the same source. But it becomes more understood, more able to be received. Or another way sometimes the Father that you're talking about is a tree. Jesus plants this seed, but then it grows and that tree begins to develop all these other branches that were already present in the seed, but we can fully understand them now because of the beautiful teaching of St. Leo the Great in the fourth century, or St.

Augustine, or St. Thomas Aquinas. These are some of the most brilliant, wise persons in the history of the world, and they have enriched and strengthened this whole tradition, which now we get to receive in the Catechism. It's all summarized for you and ordered for you, saying you can receive tastes and parts of this whole tradition all the way along the way. One of the things people are surprised by the Catechism is how much it quotes the saints. Oh, yeah. Not to mention, of course, scripture.

It's so much scripture, so many saints. Like you said, it's the accumulation not only here of the data of scripture, but also this resource of these people who lived it out and lived lives of discipleship, of holiness. Their words have weight to them now because they lived it. They interiorized it and actually transformed their lives. That's full.

Yeah, we stand taller because we stand on their shoulders, as the famous saying is. The beauty of the Catechism, it presents that all to you in such an easy way to grasp.

Well, you are on the committee for evangelization and catechiesis. The catechism, obviously, catechiesis, but also evangelization.

What would.

You say is the connection or maybe even the mission between the Catechism and evangelization? Or maybe there isn't one or is there one?

No, they're essentially united. The purpose of the Catechism is for evangelization, because the purpose of the church is for evangelization. The reason we have a church is to share the saving love of Jesus Christ, the good news, the saving love of Jesus Christ, so that more people can come to experience salvation, the great gift of salvation. The Catechism is at the service of that mission. It's meant to be, in that sense, an evangelizing document, as everything we do in the church is meant to be evangelizing. That is sharing the truth and the beauty and the goodness of our faith so that others might be saved. In fact, this is one of the important things about the Catechism to understand it, that it's not just simply a list of teachings, but it's alive. The teaching of the church is alive because it's the teaching of Jesus, and Jesus is alive. In that sense, we speak about a living tradition that we're all a part of and we're experiencing. When we receive it, it creates new life in us, new insights, new ways to live the gospel. It creates salvation in that sense because it's connected to divine revelation, which is the source of salvation.

In this sense, it's meant to be an evangelizing document. It's also part of the reason that Catechism uses saints and other people is because of the witness factor, right? Right. Because all evangelization comes from witness. Again, it's the beauty of the Catechism. It's the witness of almost 2,000 years that's coming to us now, the witness of all those who've lived the faith and the various aspects of the faith throughout these 2,000 years. That becomes a very evangelizing thing for us, and people who study the Catechism find their faith being increased.

Well, that makes sense. The more, like you mentioned before, how can you love what you don't know? The more you come to know the Lord, the more you know you can trust him, the more you can have the capacity to love because you know what you're loving. But also, whenever it comes to faith and growth in faith, one of the things that I'm a simple guy in some ways. When it comes down to there's so many incredible ways to try to communicate what is faith. Sometimes it just seems to me that faith isn't just, Oh, I believe these propositions. It doesn't stop here, but I think there's a really incredible essential part of faith that is trust. That's the sense of it's relational, that I trust you because I know you. There's that sense of with the Lord as well, where in some ways I have to approach him without skepticism, but with a disposition of trust. I guess when we're approaching the Catechism, there might be the temptation we already talked about, teach me versus prove it to me. That skepticism versus, okay, I'm going to trust here. I guess, I don't know. How would you invite people to approach the Catechism with that disposition of trust and openness?

Yeah. Faith, you're exactly right. It's always a relational act. Actually, I always have faith in a person, not faith in a thing. I often talk about natural faith. When I come up to a four-way stop and I'm stopped and the other car is coming, I go before that car stops because I basically have faith that the other guy is going to stop at that stop sign.

But I don't have faith in the stop sign. It's worked every time.

Yeah, almost. I don't have faith in the stop sign. I have faith in that person. It's a relational act. It's the same thing with every paragraph of the Catechism. Why do I believe it? Because I have faith that Jesus is God and what God says is true and that the church is the body of Christ and it's essentially connected to Jesus and that the church, which is this community of believers that God founded, that Jesus Christ founded, and that He then founded so that we could carry His teaching and His saving mysteries throughout the time of the world, that she is a guardian of that truth. I have faith in the person of Jesus and in the Holy Spirit guiding the church, which is why I believe all the paragraphs of the Catechism. You're right, though, it's always an act of trust in a person. Now, the beauty is, even if you're a douber and all of us struggle with doubts at certain times, and so it's okay to doubt, you can test it, and it works. In other words, it's proven truth. Proven, not in a sense of provable, because we're talking about divine revelation, things that are beyond our own mind, but it's proven that it works.

You can read about the lives of the saints and look at the people who have tried to live this faith and you see that it works. It's the line from GK Chesterton. Christianity has never been tried and found wanting. It's been found too difficult and left untried. When you try it, you discover that it does actually help you understand the way the world is and the way your life is, and it actually does also lead to fulfillment.

Yeah, that is. That requires a sense of trust first. Like that sense of I'm not just testing it out in that sense of I'll dabble, I'll stick my toe in and see if I'm blessed or if I'm less blessed, as opposed to, okay, I'm going to trust you and move forward and realize that sometimes we can only come to faith once we've started moving in that sense. Once I've started trusting, there's that element. I have just two quick last things, if you don't mind. One is, I know when we talk about the authority of the church, and we recognize that, okay, so here is I trust in the church because I trust Jesus, and I know that Jesus has established his church, and he's promised that he's given all authority and heaven and earth to his church to guide and to all truth. Yet one of the things people will come back with is, well, yeah, but there's so much brokenness in the church. Look at history and history demonstrates. You want to talk about proof? Well, history proves, in our current experience proves that, as you mentioned, the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, but also there's a bunch of broken people in it, too.

How would we reconcile that? What do we do with that?

Yeah, one Catholic writer, he said, Original sin is the only Catholic dogma we can prove. You don't have to go far to prove it. You just read the newspaper and you just look into your own heart. You can prove it. We know that we're fallen, broken human beings. That's the point. All of the brokenness of the church can be accredited to fallen, broken human beings. Human beings have not lived up to the Gospel that Jesus left us. Because of that brokenness, lots of damage has been done at different times in the world. But that's actually, oddly enough, it's a proof of... It's an evidence for why the church can be trusted, because despite all those airs and brokenness throughout 2,000 years and all the ways that the leaders of the church have often messed up, and some of them have done very sinful and terrible things, the fact is the truth has been maintained. There's the famous story of Napoleon when he had one of the cardinals of Rome in prison, and he said to the cardinal, he said, We're going to destroy your church. The cardinal said, You can't destroy the church. We priests have been trying to do it for 1,500 years.

We can't do it. Because the Holy Spirit is guiding the church, she has continued to remain faithful and always will to the truths that God has revealed, even though there's a lot of brokenness and sin and will continue to be, sadly, in her members and even in her leaders sometimes. It is important to make that distinction between the brokenness and the sinful actions of individuals and the teaching of the church, which continues to come down to us through the ages.

I'm glad you said that too, because there's a sense of all of the things people point to and say here is the reasons why you wouldn't be able to trust the church all come from a failure of its members to live up to the teaching. Every one of those people we point to actually are failing to live up to the consistent and beautiful and entire teaching of the church. The teaching itself isn't wanting, it's us living up to that that is wanting. I think that's important probably to keep in mind. One last question, just as we conclude this, and we're going to get to talk again before we introduce the second pillar. In roughly a quarter of a year, give or take however long that's going to be. But any last words for the people listening to this podcast as they are getting geared up for January first, as they're getting ready to press play on day one? Any last words that you'd like to share with our listeners?

I would just say that if you spend time studying and reading the Catechism, you're going to find practical help, deeper understanding, deeper inspiration, deeper love, incredibly interesting facts. You're going to find that what's rolled out before you is, in fact, the most beautiful thing in the world because it's actually a study of God. All the Catechism is a study of God himself and his revelation, and it all flows from God and leads back to God. The Trinity is the source of it all. The more you study baptism, or the more you study the more you study, the more you're actually seeing a part of the beauty of God, and that's going to change your life. It's a beautiful thing when it happens. In all of us, I discover it too. When I read the Catechism, I discover something new that helps me understand more deeply who God is. Hopefully, it will push you even deeper into your own study and relationship beyond, because we will never tire of studying God.

That is great. Yes. Practical help, deeper understanding, deeper love. We'll never tire of having come into a deeper understanding of God. I love that. Thank you, Bishop. Thank you so much for joining us today. A couple of things for those listening to this podcast and getting ready to press play. If you're interested in getting your copy of the reading plan for the Catechism in the Air, you can visit ascensionpress. Com/cyy. So, cyy standing for Catechism in the Year. So, ascensionpress. Com/cyy. Or if you want to get speed up the process, you can text the letters, CIY to the number 33777. Very Biblical, very Trinitarian, very Sabbath. So CIY to the number 33777. Also, you can subscribe already. You can already click on Follow in your podcast app to make sure you don't miss any episodes. Maybe you can't find it, but it will find you, I promise you. But if you can track it down, you can subscribe or follow in your podcast app to receive daily updates and daily notifications. Let me say a quick prayer, and then we'll conclude this time, Father in heaven, we give you thanks and praise because you have revealed yourself to us.

You have given us your son, who lived for us, who died for us, who rose from the dead for us, who sent the Holy Spirit with you, Father, to us and gave us your church. You established that body of Christ so that we could be led into all truth. We ask you to please continue to fill us with your Holy Spirit, continue to guide the church, continue to help us to overcome skepticism, to overcome discouragement, to overcome doubt, and to learn what it is to trust in you, to learn what it is to hope in you, and to learn what it is to allow ourselves to be loved and led by you. Thank you for this opportunity to talk with Bishop Cousins. Thank you for every person who's joining us on these pre-episodes as we begin to prepare our hearts and our minds to listen to the Catechism in here. We thank you for every one of them. Ask you, Father, to bless every one of them right now in this moment. You know their needs. You love them in their need. Come to us all in this moment. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Bishop, once again, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

Thank you, Father Mike. God bless you.

You too.