Why NFL Fans Have More Zeal Than Catholics (And Yes… I’m Calling Us Out)

Why is it that the guy at the football stadium will take his shirt off, paint his chest, scream like a lunatic for four hours… but we Catholics can barely stay awake for a 55-minute Mass where JESUS CHRIST is literally present?

Yeah. I’m calling us out. And I’m calling myself out. 

Because for years I treated Catholicism like a spiritual DMV appointment—get in, get my hour, get out.

In this video, I dive into:
 🏈 Why sports fans have more zeal than most Catholics
 📚 How decades of awful catechesis left many of us lukewarm
 😬 Why so many of us grew up in Catholic homes that barely acted Catholic
 🔥 Why knowing the faith is the ONLY way to fall in love with it
 😑 How modern Catholic leadership often seems embarrassed to be… Catholic
 💥 And why maybe God is calling ordinary “crappy Catholics” like us to actually become the heroes we wish we had

If you’ve ever wondered why being Catholic sometimes feels like a chore… or why you’re not “on fire” the way the saints were… this one’s for you.

No guilt trips. No theologian-speak.
 Just a fellow Crappy Catholic trying to figure out how not to be so… crappy.

Transcript

 Isn't it kind of exciting to see those, uh, soccer games on TV or football games, or you've probably, you, you've probably been to 'em where the people in the crowd are going nuts for their favorite sports team. In fact, a lot of the, um, the soccer games, the international soccer games, you know, you see the people with their, uh, all the chants and they're going crazy in the stands.

And if you look at American football, there's a lot of times where even, even some of the guys will take off their shirts and they paint their bodies and they're doing chants and they'll, they'll do. Uh, what's before the game? The, the tailgate. They'll get in a tailgate party before the football game. So they'll spend hours before the game.

They'll spend hours at the game and then whatever hours afterwards, and they spend their whole entire day being excited about some sports event. And then you see us Catholics go into mass where we have the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. And it's kind of like, ho-hum. Yeah. Better get this over with.

Gotta get that hour. Gotta get my hour with Jesus in this week. And you just have to wonder why so many of us, and, and sometimes I'll include myself in this, we just, we are not that excited about what we have. And I, I think, I can't say I've come, it's a conclusion, but it's, it's a thought of mine and, and let me know what you think that, I think a lot of Catholics don't get excited or fall in love with our faith because we don't know what it is.

A lot of us. We had really bad or no catechism growing up, bad catechesis. Like you'd go to classes and you'd usually get, you know, somebody's mom or dad teaching the class or you know, some of you maybe went through the RCIA when you came into, came into the church. And you just kind of heard kind of, I don't know, kind of milk toast kind of.

Yeah. We believe this. We kind of believe that. And, and then you've got those, those people who are like, well, you can believe this. You can believe that. So you got all this mishmash of stuff, and I'm just amazed at the people who come into the Catholic church and they go through some of this stuff and they, they're still Catholic.

It's, it, it blows my mind, but I just remember when I was growing up, I went to public school and so I, we went to catechism classes after school. And when you're a, a fairly young boy and you know not quite well, it was, yeah, it was before teenager hood, but you don't go to those classes to learn about God and about the faith and everything.

You go out to hang out with your friends, Hey, we're all together. It's nighttime. This is cool. Let's, let's have fun with his. And so we did. And what did we learn? Duly Jack, nothing. Not, not a thing. And it didn't help that a, a lot of the people who were teaching, like I said, or even when the priest would come in once in a while just to see how we were doing or the nuns, nobody seemed to be really just so convicted about what we believe and, and you know, what, what we're all about and everything.

So if, if you're struggling to be. You know, a better Catholic or be more excited about your faith, or you wanna be more excited about your faith, it may be that you're not or struggling with it because you know so many people who are, were teaching or trying to teach you didn't really pass that fire on.

You know, another thing too is you, you may have come from kind of a lukewarm or even a cold Catholic family where you didn't, you know, maybe you didn't pray together. You didn't pray A rosary I've mentioned before, I don't think I even learned, I don't think I even prayed a rosary till I was in my twenties.

So, you know, if you weren't praying, if your parents weren't leading you in the faith in terms of prayers and spirituality and morals and, and growing in virtue and becoming a better person, I mean, why would you as an adult come out as this, you know, a, a more, a don't know, a more a rabid Catholic, right? I mean, if you came from a family where it wasn't that big of a deal, then chances are didn't get passed on to you.

So. Between that and really bad catechesis or no catechesis, you may have come out, you know, like, eh, okay. And by the time you got confirmed, you're like, okay, it's all done. Right? I'm done. I've, I've done my, my thing. I have the, you know, I had the certificate on the wall. I'm a confirmed Catholic. Good for me.

But you didn't know anything. I, I mean, I, I think our generation, let me take that back. Probably generations or, or at least the last, you know, 60 plus years. I think we got screwed. I think we got the short end of the stick because so many people who are teaching us and and carrying on the Catholic faith we're that whole hum or weren't that on fire about it, or weren't that ex, you know, just excited about what we have about the truth of everything.

In fact, in my experience, a lot of it has been like Catholics who are just. Know, it's like, it's like trying to, it, it, it's like when kids get dressed up in a suit, in a towel, a boy will get dressed up in a suit and a tie, right? And you see him fidgeting and he's trying to remove the tie and he is trying to get all this stuff off and everything, and he can't wait to get it off.

Just, just can't wait. Of course, I know a lot of adults we're kind of the same way too, and we have to wear, you know, have to wear a suit and we don't want to, and it's like, oh, I can't get wait to get out of this. And I, I think a lot of times the people that were around us teaching us were the same way.

They couldn't wait to just, ew, get outta these yucky, yucky clothes. It's Catholic stuff. It's like, I don't even want, you know, oh, let's not even go there. And your experience may have been different. You may have been around people who were fired up about it. But I have to say there is just this, there's such a malaise of, of people who are passing on the Catholic faith, but they seem to want to.

I don't know, want something else. Like you hear a lot of things about, you know, a lot of stuff today about, oh, all religions get you to God. And, you know, all these people, the Pagans and the, and the Muslims and the Buddhists and all these, they're all, you know, they're all good people. And you hear about a lot of Catholic studying Eastern mysticism and spirituality and, and all this stuff.

But we're studying everything about what, except what being Catholic is and what, and you know, what is so exciting about the Catholic faith? I mean, go back in history at the people who are fighting for us, who are fighting for the faith, who are going up against pagans and emperors and all these bad people and they're, you know, that's where the age and the martyrs where they all came through, but they're fired up.

Can you imagine that kind of stuff going on today where people are, Catholics are so on fire for love of of Jesus, they're gonna fight and die for him. So that's the kind of zeal I'm talking about. That's the same kind of zeal these people at a football stadium have. We're like, oh, kill that guy. You know?

Oh, he made a bad play. Whatever, you know, they're on fire. So I, I, I think as we look at ourselves today in the mirror, if you, if you're wondering why you're not that excited about being Catholic, perhaps, or it's not a big part of your life, or it's not something you're, you know, you're working on every day, maybe, maybe.

It's that you just don't know what you have. I mean, I know I've been that way for a long time. For, for decades. I, I didn't know it was, it was, it was a cultural badge. Right. When I was in the Army, they'd talk, when they made your dog tags, they'd ask you your religion. Catholic. Okay. Roman Catholic. I'm Catholic.

Okay, good. It looks good on a piece of paper, but in actual living and life and everything, it didn't really play out at all. I think we've been. I think we've been given the short end of the stick too, since probably around the sixties. And I will say Vatican two, after all that stuff came out and you know, all these, I don't know, priests and nuns, they're all just like, you know, leaving and getting married and I don't know.

It was just the most bizarre time. And I think we, we, we've been screwed. We got a bunch of people it seems like. Who just aren't that excited about passing on the glory of being Catholic for, you know, since its inception. I think sadly too, we've got a lot of bad examples in priests and nuns and bishops and cardinals, and even popes.

I know. Don't say that Mark. Don't criticize all these people. I don't know how else to put it. Look at our faith, look at, look at around us. Uh, name a good example of a priest or a bishop or a cardinal. Again, or even a pope who's just like, just a zeal for the faith. We're Catholic. Catholic. Being Catholic is the, is the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ, ordained by God Almighty and how he wants to be worshiped.

When was the last time you heard that? I, I don't know. I, I haven't heard anytime recently. Everyone's trying to be a good boy or good girl. Let's fit in. Let's not make waves. Let's be quiet. Let's just get along with everybody. You know, there are Muslim countries, there are, uh, I, I don't know, you know, like buddhist com countries and everything.

Where, where are the Catholic countries? Where are the people who are excited about, I don't wanna say excited, excited zealous for the faith? It's like, yes, we want our population to be Catholic. Yes, we believe in, in our Catholic faith. So. I think for the most part, and I would say even within the clergy, even within, you know, the, uh, the, the priests and the hierarchy and everything, just, you know, bad catechesis for them, or worse, the scarier part is they reject it.

They reject what's always been true. I mean, there are so many heroes in the, in the church, you know, our, our saints. And if you look on a traditional calendar, not, not the new one from the sixties, but a regular, traditional Catholic, Catholic calendar of the saints, and you read any of their stories about how they're on fire for souls, how they love their faith, they love Mary, the mother of God, they love the church.

Many holy popes, many holy priests, many holy lay people who, who had died for the faith. And here we are in 2025 and it just seems like. I get the impression that, that even in our hierarchy, they're just, they're embarrassed to be Catholic. They're embarrassed for what it stands for. They're embarrassed for our past, uh, the glories of so many just wonderful things that the church has done for the world.

So, I'm getting a little excited here, but I just, I think for a lot of us, we, we, we struggle and I hope you're struggling. I hope you're struggling, struggling to be a better Catholic. You know, I use the moniker crappy Catholic. Because I know I can do better and I know I keep trying to do better and I fall every day.

And uh, a lot of days I have a really hard time with it. But it's to keep struggling, it's to keep learning, it's to keep growing. So, you know, being, being Catholic, we're not just, you know, and it's embarrassing quite honestly when you're told that we're just one religion of many, all religions get you to to heaven.

All paths lead to God. We're all the same. Do you think that, um, a fan of like the Chicago Bears would say, oh, we're all the same. Our team is just as good as any other team? Yeah, we're all the same. It's no big deal. Do you think if you worked for a company that, you know, you made a certain product and you had, you had competitors and you said, eh, the competitors, they're just as good as we are.

We don't, we don't do anything special, anything like that? My family, eh, my family. You know, just as good as any other I you, you know, you wanna be in that family or that family? My, my family's Okay. I don't think there's anywhere else in life where we are so lackadaisical as we are about being Catholic, like not proud to be Catholic.

Like not shouting it from the rooftops about being Catholic, but not about not wearing it on our sleeves. I think a lot of people are, again, we've been, we've almost been taught to be embarrassed about being Catholic. Like going out, going out for meals, going out to a restaurant, making the sign of the cross saying Grace before and after meals.

Oh, we can't do that. People are gonna see us. Oh, what do they think of us? And everything. When you think about the early martyrs who were having their, their heads cut off and they're being eaten alive by beasts, or they're being skinned alive or burned, or whatever it was. And here we are in the 21st century.

We're afraid to make the sign of the cross in public. We're afraid to pray in public. We're afraid to pray our rosaries in public, or have our beads hang out from our hands. And I, like I said, it's just, it, it's frustrating because you wanna be proud of your faith and you look around, you look at all these other Catholics really just like either, you know, again, just lukewarm or don't care, or I, you know, just they don't wanna win May, maybe that's the thing that, that can bug me the most is that how come Catholics don't wanna win?

I mean. They talk about, I don't know, there's, there's been a lot of talk about, well, we don't wanna talk about, oh, there's a word for it being superior. There being, um, oh, except exceptionalism. You know, even like in this, this whole, you know, America first movement and everything like that. Well, we don't talk about the, you know, United States being, you know, the exceptionalism of United States.

I think that's the same thing that's going on in the church today, is the, the people leading us don't want to shout this, this exceptionalism that we have of being the one true religion of Jesus Christ and being excited about it, and they don't pass it on to the rest of us. And it makes it a lot harder.

It makes it a lot harder when you are around other Catholics or you're around, you know, the, you know, the priest, the bishop, the Pope, and you want, you wanna hear them say something like, yes. Yes. Say something, you know, it is like, you know, talk about sin, tell, you know, talk about, you know, give it to 'em, you know, they're being bad, they're being amoral, and we hear about things like the environment and let's take care of the environment and, you know, let's, let's bless an iceberg and let's talk about, you know, all these people coming over the border and everything like that.

But we're all trying to get to heaven. So. I guess we're, you know, for me, I don't know about you. We're, we're looking for heroes again, and maybe God's calling us to be those heroes. Maybe God is calling us to know our faith so well and to stand for our faith so much that people will look at us and say, wow, that's a Catholic, that dude's on fire that, that he is really, he's really, you know, proud of it, or he is really, you know, excited about it.

I have to laugh because when I use that crappy Catholic name online, um, I know I made some, some comments on Twitter and you know, there's a lot of people that are like, oh, crappy Catholic. Well that really fits, or, you know, on YouTube or thing like that. But it's kind of putting yourself out there. It's kind of saying, look, I'm, I'm a Catholic, I'm a sinner.

I am working really hard. I'm trying, I fall every day, but I get up again. How do you get up again when you don't know your faith? If you don't know your catechism, if you don't know what it is the church teaches or what we are to believe, I'm convinced that if Catholics really knew what we believe they would be on fire.

And so this gets around to the point of like, okay, whatever, boohoo, you didn't have a good catechism, boohoo, you didn't have a family that attached you to be, you know, Catholic or you know, whatever, and boohoo all the clergy around you. They're not, they're not being good examples. So it's, it's up to us.

It's up to us to pick up a catechism and study. It's up to us to learn about our faith and learn about our religion and when we go to mass to pay attention to. Really, really be part of, of the mass, to be part of our Lord, to be part of our faith. So it's, you know, it's, God gives us free will so you can do whatever you want with it.

Okay. He, he presents it to you. Here is the, the, the faith that I want to be worshiped and this is the religion. This is how I want to be worshiped. You can take it or leave it. And I think a lot of people sadly are, are leaving it. For the world and for, I don't know, the day-to-day concerns for something better or maybe for your favorite NFL team?

I think I've, I've said it before, I, I remember years ago, uh, I had a neighbor, I talked to him about, you know, being Catholic, I think he was Catholic, or falling away Catholic, and he, um, he says, well, I, I belong to the church of the NFL. And every, every Sunday without fail, he'd be at the bar or at the pub.

Sitting in front of the TV with a beer watching, watching the game. So I would like to think that as Catholics, we have at least as much excitement as those people who are in the church of the NFL, for those people who are just, you know, kind of getting through life skating by whatever, living any way they want to live.

But it's a, it is a challenge. It's a challenge to make being Catholic part of your everyday life. And if. You're not on fire for it. And let just regress for a second and say, you know, I, I've run into so many people who are former Catholics, used to be Catholic, and they've, they've left the church and I scratch my head and I have to wonder if they really knew what they were leaving, what they have left it.

If you, you know, if you're out there, if you're digging for gold, digging for gold, you never find it. Only to find out that you leave it, you walk away from it that you are only five feet away from hitting the biggest vein of gold that the world has ever known, but you keep, you know. To me, that's what, what leaving the Catholic faith is, is like you're leaving, you're leaving the richest vein of gold, of eternal gold when you walk away from it.

And usually it's because you didn't get what you wanted because some, some part of the human element upset you. Um, you know, you just, or, or you are taught something that. Like, it just didn't jive with you. It's like, well, I don't know. I don't really believe this stuff and everything. And then you got, you got hit by people who are very strong in their convictions, very strong in their beliefs, very zealous about their beliefs.

That's why a lot of Catholics go to the, you know, the Bible churches or the, the praise you who, churches and everything, because it's so exciting. The and, and the, the feelings are strong and it's all that zeal for everything. So again, regardless of where you are with being a Catholic, you can never study your faith too much.

You can never pray too much. You can never learn too much about what it takes to get to heaven. So, you know, read your Bible every day. Find a book from a great saint and, and, and read it. Uh, study a catechism. And of course, pray. Pray every day. I've talked about this before. When you wake up in the morning, pray at night before you go to bed.

Pray. Don't forget God. God never forgets you. He's with you all the time. Your angel is with you all the time. So it to me, it's about being zealous about what you have. And if you're not excited about being Catholic, maybe ask yourself why, but then take steps. To know it and study it and to love it and make and make up for all the things you may or may not have had, you know, growing up in your life in terms of being taught in education and everything, and start to get excited about being on the best team in the world.

This is the part that excites me. It's like, why would you wanna be on a, on a, on a losing team or on a fourth place team or any other team, but the, the winning Super Bowl championship team. Who goes to training camp, you know, and for football thinking, well, we'll, we'll probably come in forth, let's not try that hard, you know?

Or the Olympian who trains for a half hour a day and eats, you know, eats donuts the rest of the day, well I probably won't win anything. And you know, what's the point? So don't be that person. Be the one who's like, you know what, I'm on the best team in the world. I'm on team Catholic. I'm on my way to heaven.

I'm not doing what the rest of the world is doing. Get excited about what you have and find out why you're excited about it. Learn, study, read, look at history. It's amazing. It's a great team to be on, but don't give your excuse to be a crappy Catholic, and then just be crappy for the rest of your life because you know, at the end, the the end of this journey is heaven or hell.

So you're either practicing to get into heaven. You're practicing to get into hell, and I think a lot of people are practicing to get into hell. They don't think about God. They don't think about eternity. They don't think about their eternal soul and their eternal salvation. But by being a better Catholic, by reading, studying, praying, participating in the sacraments, you get stronger.

You're gonna be that big linebacker on the team. It's like nothing can stop you. You're not afraid of anybody. The only thing you're afraid of is of displeasing God, because at the end of the day, what else? What else really matters? What are you studying so hard for right now? What are you working so hard for right now?

You know that the whole term of workaholic, people who go to work all the time, and they're, they're doing the best for the employer to get what? Oh, we're downsizing. You're fired, you're gone. Sorry. We don't, we don't like the work you're doing. You're fired. What are you really working for? Look at in your life, what you're, what you're spending the most time on and working hardest at, and then ask yourself why.

What's more important than eternity?

If you ever wanna wake up, call, go grab a newspaper and look at the obituary page of all the people of all ages who have died that day, that week. You know, nobody gets up in the morning and says, well, I'm gonna die today at 1:52 PM except maybe for the guy on death row who's got that definite time picked out.

Okay, I stand corrected. But you know what I'm trying to say? You don't get up in the morning and think, you know, I, I, this is it. I'm gonna die today. You have no idea. So are you ready? And you can't, when you know, when you die and you're, you know, before the judgment scene of Almighty God. You can't say, well, the priest didn't teach me.

My mom and dad didn't teach me, I didn't learn any of this stuff. I didn't know any of this stuff. You know, the, the, the excuse of ignorance in the 21st century is really, I think it's a really hard one to hold onto, but when you're standing before God, you're alone and you, you have to give an account for what you did or didn't do.

And, and hopefully, hopefully you make the most of whatever time you have, and I hope you'll take that time to know your faith, grab a catechism, find out what it is to that, that you can be so excited about, because it is exciting. It's, it's, it's amazing because when you look at the rest of the world and all the things going on, there's very little to be excited about.

Look in the news. Look at your favorite sports team. Oh, okay. I was cheering for 'em and then they lost at the last minute at, at the end of the year. And then what do you have? God is everything. Our Catholic faith is everything. So get, get zealous, light, a fire under your fanny. And if you're not excited, it's time to get excited.

This is a good time to do that. If the world's falling apart, we need more Catholics. Be the best one you can be. All right. We'll talk to you later. God bless.