teachers – United Yam

Texas boys school establishes policy to destroy smartphones

unitedyam October 4, 2025

Boys swing on a rope during recess at Western Academy in Houston, Texas. / Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

Houston, Texas, Oct 4, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

After years of boys (and their parents) repeatedly ignoring the rules, a private boys school in Houston is taking a novel approach to its smartphone and digital device policy: Bring it to school, and “we will destroy it.”

Western Academy, an independent, liberal arts school that states its goal is to educate young men “in the good, the true, and the beautiful,” has never allowed students to bring electronic devices to school.

In the past, if a boy was caught with a phone or other device at the school or a school-sponsored event, faculty would confiscate the device, which would be returned to the parents only after they had met with headmaster Jason Hebert. He would explain the harms to boys caused by smartphone use and why parents “should not put the phone back into your son’s hands.”

Boys look for toads in a pond during recess. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

Under the new policy, which Hebert laid out in a four-page letter to parents last month, after the device is discovered and destroyed, the boy will be suspended. If it happens again, the boy will be automatically expelled.

Along with its singular smartphone policy, the school, which has 230 students in third through eighth grade, takes a unique approach to education. The boys are free to play throughout the park-like, rambling grounds, where they climb and swing from trees, build forts, shoot Nerf guns, and care for (or chase) chickens before and after school and multiple times throughout the school day.

The all-male faculty expects respect and responsibility from the boys at a young age, according to Hebert. The teachers have the boys rise when an adult visits a classroom and encourage parents to let their sons learn to endure hardship and experience natural consequences when they forget their homework or their lunch at home.

Jason Hebert, headmaster at Western Academy in Houston. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

A Catholic priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei serves as chaplain to the school, which was founded in 2010, and oversees the religious education program.

The model is popular: Even with middle-school tuition close to $28,000 a year, every grade has extensive waitlists, and the school may start wait-listing boys beginning as early as kindergarten.

At the beginning of each school year, the boys are sorted into one of four houses that compete throughout the year in games such as capture the flag and “The Hero’s Race,” where the boys in each house choose one boy to race across campus, climbing over obstacles and crawling through mud. There is also a poetry recitation competition known as “The Bard.” One mother, Stephanie Creech, told CNA her sons are so happy at the school they “beg to get to school early and to stay afterward to play.”

Hebert sat down with CNA and discussed what brought about the change in the smartphone policy, saying he chose the words in his letter very carefully.

Hebert speaks to the boys on the first day of school as the faculty looks on. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

Witnessing the damage

“Smartphones are causing significant, unimagined damage to the students who have them,” Hebert wrote in his letter to parents, “as well as to the sons of those parents who have chosen not to give phones to their sons.”

“The damage these phones have caused to our children,” he told CNA in the interview, “it literally has never been imagined.”

“It’s not just pornography,” Hebert continued. “YouTube actors and other characters just trying to get clicks perform the most shameless actions on video. They just have zero respect for the dignity of their bodies and for life, zero. And these boys want to emulate these people.”

Hebert said the last straw came after a mother called him complaining her son saw a graphic, violent video on a smartphone at a school event.

After that, Hebert said he and the other administrators agreed: “That’s it. We’re done.”

Asked why the school did not just consider automatic expulsion after the first offense rather than the destruction of the devices, Hebert said with a laugh: “To be perfectly candid, I want to destroy the phone. I want to give the boys an opportunity to have life without it.”

He ordered a metal grinder for the purpose.

“Look, I am not an alarmist. I am not reactionary. But the bottom line is this: These devices are not neutral. The research is definitive: They are bad for our kids. I have dealt with hundreds and hundreds of boys over two decades in education and I have yet to see an exception to this,” he said.

Hebert said that over the years, he has noticed a degradation in the quality of the boys’ conversation. “You can’t imagine the level of shamelessness” among some of the boys,” many of whom are generally considered “good kids.”

“This type of behavior is unprecedented in my tenure as an educator, and even as a professional athlete,” he said.

Boys cheer their teammates on as the houses compete in a game of "Thud," in which two boys throw a medicine ball at one another as hard as they can until one of them drops it or gives up. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy — Boys cheer their teammates on as the houses compete in a game of “Thud,” in which two boys throw a medicine ball at one another as hard as they can until one of them drops it or gives up. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

In the early 2000s, before beginning his teaching career, which included teaching at The Heights School in Maryland, he spent one year as a professional football player on practice squads for three NFL teams: the Chargers, the Titans, and the Raiders.

“I never played in a regular-season game. This is what I tell people: I made it to the NFL. I did not make it in the NFL,” he said, laughing.

“Let me make it clear: I was an athlete around some of the most earthy human beings on the planet,” he said. “These men were not ashamed to say anything in the locker room. Yet these same men would have blushed if they heard some of the things these boys talk about! This is so unimaginable. Yet it is becoming more common now, thanks to these devices.”

Parents on board

Asked if he was worried parents would leave over the school’s new policy, Hebert said if parents are not on board with the school’s values, it might be better if they left and one of the many others on the waitlist could take their spot.

In his letter to parents, Hebert wrote that the “school is a true partnership with parents. We say this not for poetic effect, but because it must be so for the authentic growth of your sons to become a reality.”

He told CNA parents should ask themselves: “How valuable is the phone to you? Are you willing to leave this place for it? This place where your son is so abundantly happy? Is your phone worth that? And if it is, well, it’s a mismatch of vision.”

Since the change in policy, however, Hebert said parental response has been “100% positive.”

After hearing about the school’s new policy, a mother whose son graduated from the school several years ago dropped off a financial donation at the front desk recently “for the phone grinder.”

“Everybody just knows it’s right. Parents might be frustrated because saying no to their sons makes their lives harder, but they know it’s right,” he said.

Hebert, a father of seven, said he and his wife do not allow their children to have smartphones or social media. “My children may not know a lot of the lingo or some of the jokes or about all the parties. They’re on the outside, to a degree.”

“And even though that’s a big deal,” he continued, “the alternative overrides that. It’s a bigger deal.”

“The alternative is not worth it,” he said.

“We all want the truth,” he said, “and the truth is these devices are severely hurting kids. I’m not a doomsday guy, but some day these kids will be in charge of society. Think about that.”

Religious Liberty Commission hears from teachers, coaches, school leaders

unitedyam September 29, 2025

President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission meets on Sept. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA

Washington, D.C., Sep 29, 2025 / 19:13 pm (CNA).

Teachers, coaches, and other public and private school leaders said their religious liberty was threatened in American schools at a hearing conducted by President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission on Sept. 29.

Speakers said there must be a fight for schools to bring back the “truth” to protect students and religious liberty. Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach; Monica Gill, a high school teacher; Marisol Arroyo-Castro, a seventh grade teacher; and Keisha Russell, a lawyer for First Liberty Institute, addressed the commission led by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“There has to be a call to action,” commission member Dr. Phil McGraw said. “The most common way to lose power is to think you don’t have it to begin with. We do have power, and we need to rally with that power.”

Teachers and coaches describe experiences

Kennedy said he was suspended — and later fired — from his position as a football coach at Bremerton High School in Washington for praying a brief and quiet prayer after football games.

“After the game, I took a knee to say thanks,” Kennedy explained. “That’s all. If that could be turned into a national controversy, it says more about the confusion in our country than the conduct of the person performing it.”

Kennedy told the commission the law is “cloudy and muddy” and they “have the power to clarify it.” Kennedy also said some lawyers “need to be held accountable” for actions taken in religious liberty cases.

Kennedy said: “I don’t know a lot about law and liberty, but I know that you’re supposed to advise people on the truth and the facts, and they’re not. They have an agenda, and their agenda is well set and in place and is working very well, keeping prayer out of the public square. They’re still doing it. That needs to be exposed.”

“Being a teacher has been one of the greatest blessings of my life,” Gill said to the committee. “God really gave my heart a mission … to show all of my students every day that they are loved. No matter what they’re going through, no matter what their grades are, no matter what their status is with their peers, I love them.”

“But in the summer of 2021 … Loudoun County Public Schools adopted a policy that forced teachers to deny the foundational truth of what it means to be human, created as male and female,” Gill said.

“This policy forced teachers to affirm all transgender students,” Gill said. “My employer gave teachers a choice: deny truth or risk everything … I knew that I could not stand in front of my Father in heaven one day and say: ‘My pension plan was more important than your truth.’ I also knew that if I say that I love my students, the only right choice would be to stand in love and truth for them.”

To combat the policy, Gill joined a lawsuit by Alliance Defending Freedom after a fellow Virginia teacher was fired for speaking out against the same policy. The lawsuit “resulted in victory for all teachers to freely speak truth and love when Loudoun County finally agreed not to require teachers to use pronouns in accordance with the student’s sex,” Gill said.

Arroyo-Castro testified that she was punished for displaying a cross in her private workspace in her seventh grade classroom in a New Britain School District school in Connecticut.

“I share this with you to help you understand why the crucifix is so significant to me and why I will never hide it from anyone’s view,” Arroyo-Castro said. “The vice principal told me that the crucifix was of a religious nature, so against the Constitution of the United States, and that it had to be taken down by the end of the day.”

If she did not take it down it would be considered “insubordination and could lead to termination,” Arroyo-Castro said. She asked if she could have time to pray on it, and was told she could, but “it wouldn’t change anything.”

“I was later called to a meeting with the district chief of staff, the principal, the vice principal, [and a] union representative. The chief of staff suggested that I put the crucifix in a drawer. I knew I couldn’t do that since my grandmother has instilled in me the meaning of the crucifix and how it should be treated with respect. But the chief of staff said that the Constitution says that I had to take it down,” Arroyo-Castro said.

After she refused to remove it, Arroyo-Castro was released from school with an unpaid suspension. She was offered legal defense by lawyers at First Liberty, which sued the school for violating the Constitution. While the lawsuit is ongoing she works in the administrative building “far from the students.”

Arroyo-Castro said: “Every day, I wonder how they’re doing.”

“Please do what you can to educate the districts in American schools about the true meaning of the establishment clause and the free exercise clause,” Arroyo-Castro advised the commission members. “How can we do our jobs well when many education leaders today don’t understand the Constitution themselves? We must understand as Americans that freedom of religion is a right that benefits all Americans.”

Suggestions from faith leaders

Leaders at Jewish, Catholic, and Christian schools also recounted religious freedom issues facing faith-based schools across the nation and what the country can do.

The leaders highlighted the need to protect the financial aid faith-based institutions receive and stop any threats of losing money if certain values are not enforced. Todd J. Williams, provost at Cairn University, said: “Schools will begin to cave because they’re worried about the millions of dollars that will go out the door.”

Father Robert Sirico, a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said he was recently affected by a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court that redefined sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

“While presented as a matter of fairness, this reinterpretation proposes grave dangers, grave risks for all religious institutions, even those like Sacred Heart that receive absolutely no public support,” he said.

Sacred Heart has filed a lawsuit to combat the issue, but Sirico said what needs to be done “exceeds the competency of [the] commission and the competency of this administration.”

“We have to think of this in existential terms, and we have to come at this project with the understanding that this is going to take years to transform. This is why religious people can transform the world: We believe in something that’s greater than our politics. We can reenvision.”

Catholic schools add security, including armed staff, after Minneapolis school shooting

unitedyam September 11, 2025

Police gather at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Aug. 27, 2025, following a mass shooting that killed two children and injured 17 others, 14 of them children. / Credit: Chad Davis, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Sep 11, 2025 / 17:27 pm (CNA).

After two children died and more than 20 people were injured by a transgender-identifying man in Minneapolis in August, Catholic schools around the country have been evaluating their security measures, with some hiring security guards and others allowing teachers and staff to be armed.

The Diocese of Buffalo this week announced it has hired armed security guards for the 29 Catholic elementary schools in its jurisdiction and has also engaged a “security consultant” to help create “comprehensive safety plans tailored to each school community.”

Catholic schools superintendent Joleen Dimitroff sent a letter to parents informing them of the decisions, which she said are “a reflection of our shared belief that the safety of our children is priceless and must be protected with the highest level of care.”

Parents’ reactions have been mixed. Marc Bruno, a longtime Buffalo public school teacher, called the move “a necessary step.”

“No one wants to see guns in the schools,” he told local ABC news station WKBW. However, he continued, “if you look at some of the previous shootings, principals have thrown their bodies at the gunman, and you know, our bodies don’t stand a chance against a bullet.”

One mother opposed the move, saying having armed security guards will put “children’s lives in danger.” She said she will not continue sending her child to school with armed guards present, emphasizing that her child “isn’t allowed to have peanut butter in his classroom to protect kids, but you want a stranger strolling the halls with a gun?”

Arming teachers

A less-talked-about solution among Catholic schools is the practice of arming school staff, including teachers.

In Ohio, nearly 100 public school districts — and even some private Christian schools — have anonymous armed staff this year, up from 67 the year before, according to a roster released by the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

Hametown Christian Academy, a private school in Norton, Ohio, allows armed staff.

Associate pastor and head of school safety at the school Rick Wright told the Akron Beacon Journal on Aug. 25 that the school board decided it was “prudent to arm teachers and staff members” due to the increase in school shootings in recent years.

“A gun is not evil,” Wright said. “It is a tool, and the fact that some of our staff may be armed is a deterrent.”

The names and numbers of teachers and other school staff carrying guns are not publicly available, nor are the total number of armed staff in each district. All armed staff are trained to use their weapons, according to Wright.

Schools post signs alerting visitors of the gun policy, hoping the knowledge that staff are armed will serve as “a deterrent,” Wright said.

If you “put up a no gun zone sign,” Wright said, “you’re telling somebody you can come in here and shoot all you want.”

“It works the opposite (of the intent); you’ve made yourself a soft target,” he said.

An independent Catholic school in the South that wishes to remain unnamed told CNA that after extensive discussion about campus security, administrators arrived at an “informal” security policy that involves armed staff.

“We’re pretty sure some of the teachers have guns in their cars,” an administrator told CNA.

When asked whether teachers were also carrying concealed weapons, the administrator said he does not know, and the school has “never said yes or no” to the practice.

Because of the “high quality of the teachers” at the school, the administrator said the leadership “came to the conclusion that the teachers would go after a guy with a gun rather than run away.” The school would “call the police and then the teachers with weapons would use … deadly force” if necessary to protect students.

“We’re willing to bet that would be a sufficient response,” he said.

Funding for security measures

Funding for the new security measures in the Buffalo Diocese for the 2025-2026 school year has been provided by the Foundation for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, according to Dimitroff. Tuition will increase in subsequent years to cover the cost, which might also be covered by public funding.

James Cultrara, the director for education for the New York State Catholic Conference, told CNA after the 2012 school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, that New York state lawmakers had instituted two funding streams to address school security: one for public schools and one for private schools.

The private school funding program has expanded tenfold, from $7 million initially to more than $70 million. Schools can use the funds to address anything related to “health, safety, and security.” Environmental hazard mitigation as well as security cameras, security guards, and remote door locks are covered by the funding, Cultrara said.

The Minnesota Catholic Conference released a statement on Sept. 5 saying it “welcomes a broader legislative discussion about preventing gun violence” and asking the state Legislature to address security funding disparities between public and private schools.

Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, noted that while the Catholic Church in Minnesota “has long supported commonsense gun regulations, such as protective orders and expanded background checks,” neither of those measures prevented “the Annunciation tragedy.”

Adkins noted that while “Americans have a right to possess firearms,” that right comes with responsibilities, including that of public officials to address the “deeper causes of violence — mental health struggles, family breakdown, and a growing despair often worsened by harmful ideologies, substance abuse, and the effects of the absence of God in people’s lives.”

Adkins urged the Legislature to reconsider recently-enacted laws that loosen restrictions on THC (a cannabis plant derivative) and “the widely debated treatment of young people experiencing gender dysphoria.”

A controversial Minnesota law prohibits mental health counselors from practicing so-called conversion therapy on LGBT youth, which in practice means that therapists who want to help people who do not want to embrace a LGBT identity are fearful of doing so, according to Christian therapist Dr. David Kirby, who testified against the legislation before it passed.

Amid debate over arming teachers, what does the Catholic Church teach about self-defense?

unitedyam September 10, 2025

CNA Staff, Sep 10, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“It would have to be studied.” That was President Donald Trump’s take on the proposal to arm teachers in schools in order to counteract mass shooters.

The president made those remarks on Sept. 2, nearly a week after the deadly mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. That attack claimed the lives of two children, injured many others, and once again raised the question of whether or not teachers should be permitted to carry guns in schools.

Policymakers will likely debate the matter for some time. In some cases it has already been decided: A handful of states, including Florida, Idaho, and Texas, allow for public school teachers to carry guns in some circumstances.

Whether or not it will be adopted broadly in Catholic schools is another question. Although the debate is deeply, and at times bitterly, contentious, Catholic Church teaching would appear to allow it.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has never pronounced directly on the morality of carrying firearms, much less in a school environment. But the text does stipulate that “legitimate defense” can include the act of a “lethal blow,” though it must be done in defense of one’s life and not as an end to itself.

Perhaps most notably, the catechism stipulates that “legitimate defense” can “be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life” (No. 2265).

“[T]hose holding legitimate authority have the right to repel by armed force aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their charge,” it states.

This would seem to at least allow for the possibility of arming teachers to counteract mass shooters. But whether or not this is a good or defensible idea is another matter.

“I’m not convinced we are in a social situation where arming teachers is justifiable,” Professor Jacob Kohlhaas told CNA.

Kohlhaas is a professor of moral theology at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. He described himself as “not absolutely pacifist” but said the proposal to arm teachers is “profoundly misguided” and that it “utilizes some parts of the Catholic moral tradition while neglecting others.”

“I can actually imagine scenarios where armed teachers might be justifiable, but I can only imagine this in the context of widespread security issues or civil unrest,” he said.

“In a functioning democracy, increasing the capability for deadly response without questioning why such force is needed runs contrary to our obligations to the common good,” he said.

Kohlhaas said his own state has lately made gun ownership much more accessible, rendering it “more difficult to remove [firearms] from potentially violent individuals.”

“It is hard for me to imagine how a drastic response is justified when we are actively creating an environment that is more conducive to the underlying problem,” he said.

In contrast, Patrick Toner, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University, has argued that it is “not a bad idea” to put guns in the hands of teachers.

Following the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers, Toner wrote that laws prohibiting lawful gun carrying on school campuses means shooters can “generally assume that schools are truly gun-free zones,” making them “soft targets” for would-be killers.

“It’s unsettling to write about hardening up our schools. Don’t we wish there were no crazed murderers … looking to massacre harmless children?” Toner said. “And yet, in our depraved culture, unsurprisingly, we find no shortage of hopeful murderers.”

Toner told CNA that his beliefs on the matter “lie mainly in the realm of prudential judgment rather than in the direct application of any Church teachings.”

Still, he said, the Church does clearly state that Catholics “do indeed have a right to defend ourselves and a profound obligation to protect the helpless.”

Whether or not that obligation extends to carrying guns in schools is, of course, a matter of debate.

The catechism quotes St. Thomas Aquinas in saying that any self-defense that incorporates “more than necessary violence” is “unlawful” but that repelling an attack with “moderation” is appropriate (No. 2264).

Yet Aquinas further stipulates that in acts of self-defense it is not necessary to moderate one’s response solely “to avoid killing,” since “one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.”

The saint further writes that those with “public authority” have more latitude to use lethal defense insofar as they “refer [the killing] to the public good.”

Though Church authorities in the U.S. have not explicitly weighed in on the question, some have expressed misgivings about the proposal to arm teachers.

Following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement that the “idea of arming teachers seems to raise more concerns than it addresses.”

“We must always remember what is at stake as we take actions to safeguard our communities and honor human life,” the bishops said at the time.

Unsurprisingly, no pope has ever commented directly on the question, but popes have regularly spoken out against the proliferation of firearms.

Pope Francis was a consistent critic of the arms industry, though mostly in the context of war; following the Minneapolis shooting, meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV prayed for God “to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.”

Kohlhaas, meanwhile, acknowledged that there are “people charged with protecting society who should possess and responsibly use firearms,” but he argued that “extending that to teachers without seriously asking why and how we got to this point is a problem.”

Gun violence, he said, is not inevitable, and humans have “an obligation to craft and adapt human products towards the common good.”

“[W]hen we simply give up and think that a particular form of violence that occurs in a very particular type of society is somehow beyond our control, we profoundly fail to acknowledge our responsibilities for assessing and reshaping that society,” he said.

Minnesota Catholic leader: ‘All of the above’ needed for school safety in wake of shooting

unitedyam September 6, 2025

Jason Adkins, the executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, speaks to “EWTN News In Depth” anchor Catherine Hadro on the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. “Almost everyone … in our Catholic community has a connection to Annunciation,” he said. / Credit: “EWTN News In Depth.”/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Sep 6, 2025 / 11:30 am (CNA).

A leading Catholic advocate in Minnesota is calling for an “all-of-the-above” approach to school safety and security in the wake of the Aug. 27 mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis that claimed the lives of two children and injured more than 20 children and adults.

Jason Adkins, the executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, told “EWTN News In Depth” anchor Catherine Hadro on Friday that “nonpublic school students” should have access to the same levels of security as those in public schools.

“We’ve been consistent advocates for [security] policies that include, and are nondiscriminatory against, nonpublic school students,” he said.

“We think that when the state makes a commitment to protecting students and to promote public safety, [that it’s] a basic public safety issue that should be available to all students, irrespective of where they go to school,” he argued further.

Adkins noted that Minnesota Catholic leaders in the past have implored state lawmakers to provide security funding for local nonpublic schools, though those calls went unheeded prior to the Aug. 27 shooting. “People have noticed that,” he said.

“Looking at school safety programs, nonprofit security grants, all these things — we have to take an all-of-the-above approach to looking at public policy solutions that limit gun violence in our communities,” he said.

Focusing just on guns will ‘fall short’

The Annunciation shooting once again touched off what is a regular debate in U.S. politics regarding school safety and gun crime. Some advocates have called for broad new gun control laws, while others have argued for arming teachers in classrooms.

In a statement this week amid a special session of the Minnesota Legislature, Adkins acknowledged that “continued discussion is warranted about access to certain weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

“At the same time, a special session that focuses only on gun regulations will fall short, as the issue runs deeper than firearm access,” he argued, calling for a focus on school security measures “that ensure the safety of all students.”

Adkins told Hadro, meanwhile, that policymakers and leaders “have to have honest conversations and take a look at every facet of this problem and explore creative solutions.”

In addressing the problem, meanwhile, he said those seeking solutions “have to see with the eyes of Christ.”

“Ultimately, there’s no political solution to what’s a theological and spiritual problem,” he said. “The answer to all these problems and challenges is ultimately the call to holiness.”

Father Mike Schmitz to launch new podcast on corporal works of mercy

unitedyam September 5, 2025

Father Mike Schmitz speaks at the revival session of the National Eucharistic Congress at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on July 18, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

CNA Staff, Sep 5, 2025 / 14:25 pm (CNA).

Popular podcasting priest Father Mike Schmitz — best known for the “Bible in a Year” podcast — is back at it planning a new podcast titled “Called.”

Inspired by the Scripture verse Matthew 25:40, the podcast will be made up of episodes featuring conversations with individuals who have answered God’s call to serve others. From teachers and entrepreneurs to parents and community leaders, the podcast aims to inspire the faithful to put their faith into action.

The Catholic Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to renewing the Church and serving those most in need, has partnered with Ascension to create the podcast. An official release date has not yet been announced.

“This ‘Called’ podcast is giving flesh to the fact that every one of us is called to be the hands and feet of Jesus,” Schmitz said in a video released Sept. 3 announcing the new podcast.

The priest began the video by retelling the parable told by Jesus in Matthew 25. In this parable Jesus welcomes into the heavenly kingdom those who fed him when he was hungry, gave him something to drink when he was thirsty, and clothed him when he was naked. However, for others who did not do these things, they are told to “depart from him.” Schmitz called this parable “one of the most convicting.”

“Every time I read through it, every time I hear it proclaimed, every time I even think of it, I think, ‘Well, here is Jesus — he’s giving us the answer to the test when it comes to the end of our lives,’” Schmitz explained.

He continued: “Jesus makes it very, very clear we’re not being judged on what did you believe — although that’s very important — but here in this parable he’s not highlighting that part, he’s highlighting what did you do? Not just what did you do in your life, but what did you do for the least of my brethren?”

Schmitz said one example of someone who lived this parable was Pier Giorgio Frassati, who will be declared a saint on Sept. 7 in Rome. He explained that the young man would often return to his home without shoes on because he would give them to someone who did not have a pair of shoes.

Therefore, the podcast aims to answer the question: How is God calling each of us to live this out in our daily lives?

“On this podcast ‘Called’ you’ll be able to see ‘Oh, here’s how people right now do this.’ So it takes out some of the mystery and actually gives you and me the strength and the vision and the direction to be able to say, ‘That’s how they live that out. I can totally live that out in my life right now,’” Schmitz said.

“This podcast isn’t just to highlight and spotlight the heroes among us. What it’s meant to do is inspire us, to give us that new vision of what this could look like in your life and in my life.”