A Texas pastor who previously served as director of vocations for the Diocese of Dallas and now sees over 9,500 people show up every Sunday at his church in Coppell recently discussed the need for men to assume leadership roles, the challenges they will invariably face, and two challenges fathers should take on today.

Fr. Edwin Leonard noted on the episode of “The Catholic Gentleman” podcast published on Thursday that when he took on the role of pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church during the pandemic, he observed that “everyone had been separated from their church community” long enough for some men to have “gotten used to the loneliness.”

‘He also knew that you would be reading that Gospel.’

Gospel and grill

To combat this pervasive sense of alienation, strengthen the community, and “more purposely target the hearts of men” so that like King David “they could be men after God’s heart,” the parish under Fr. Leonard began holding an annual men’s summit.

“We just got a bunch of guys together, and we had barbecue. We had some bourbon, some beer, and some cigars, and just like hung out in the courtyard of our church,” the priest said. “And it was about, you know, a 20-minute talk that first year from our key presenter.”

Feeling inspired by the Holy Spirit to go beyond consuming content that filled their bodies and minds, the attendees broke into groups and shared what the Lord was doing in their lives and how that had impacted them.

The parish recognized that this summit and similar initiatives focused on fortifying the hearts and minds of men in the community were not only the way to cultivate Christian leaders but to strengthen the faith of multiple generations.

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Test your mettle

The priest noted, after all, that the likelihood of successful religious transmission is greatly increased when children receive and grow in their faith in the presence of their father.

“The fact that he is leading in some way, shape, or form — it astronomically increases the opportunity and the chances for your children to have their faith,” Fr. Leonard said. “So we said … if we’re going to pour forth effort, we can do anything, we just can’t do everything. Let’s build up some leaders.”

The aim behind the men’s summit evidently became helping men not just serve their community but point in their service “towards the Lord whom they know.”

Over the course of the podcast, Fr. Leonard raised several issues he has observed negatively affecting young men and undercutting their leadership prospects, not least of which is passivity and “delayed adolescence,” which he clarified is the result of a lack of exposure to adversity.

To rectify these problems, he repeatedly advocated for controlled adversity — for engaging with and surmounting challenges of the kind that test mettle and build muscle.

Action items

After discussing the need to be challenged, Fr. Leonard was asked to provide those men listening with at least one challenge that if met could help them become better over the next week and into the more distant future.

The priest instead issued two challenges, the first of which was for fathers to “pray over your children every night. Make a sign of the cross on their forehead like you did at their baptism. Bless them.”

The second challenge Fr. Leonard issued was for men to “practice listening to the Word of God. So you need to read the Word of God — I would suggest reading the Daily Gospel.”

“Read it once and then, you know, ask yourself two questions: What is the Lord trying to say to me? This isn’t like a historical, critical method Bible study where you’re like, ‘What was the original source material? What was God trying to say 2,000 years ago?'” Fr. Leonard said. “God is omniscient, so as He was inspiring this to be read, He had a literal first-century meaning, but He also knew that you would be reading that Gospel reading in 2026.”

“The second question is the real crux of what I want people to do,” he continued. “Think how you can put that scripture verse or what the Lord said to you into action that day.”

The priest added, “The more that you listen to the Word of God, the more that you’re going to be able to hear the Word of God” and emphasized that “the practice of putting it into action bears fruit.”

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​Faith, Religion, Catholic, Coppell, St. ann catholic church, Texas, Fatherhood 

As a modest contribution to the general welfare, I have once again taken on a task that state universities, despite their ever-expanding bureaucracies, seem unable to perform: helping parents and students decipher the course catalog before they accidentally enroll in an ideological boot camp.

This year’s expedition into Arizona State University’s listings produced a familiar discovery.

The challenge is recognizing ideological conformity when it hides beneath academic jargon and historical subject matter.

For fall 2026, ASU offers eight courses with witchcraft, magic, or the occult in the title — and exactly one with Christianity.

Think about that for a moment.

At one of the largest public universities in the country, students can choose from a small festival of courses on witchcraft, while Christianity receives a single titled course.

The predictable defense is already forming: These are history classes. They merely study witchcraft as history; they do not promote it.

If only the syllabus cooperated.

One ASU syllabus from this summer says the course will examine how the identity of the heretic and the witch was constructed against its binary opposite, the “orthodox” Christian. It then turns to “religious Othering,” especially “the female as Other,” and asks students to explain how centuries-old witch persecutions continue to shape their own lives.

A student scrolling through the catalog may think, “Witchcraft? That sounds like an interesting history class.” What the description does not announce plainly is that the course has already selected its moral and political framework before the first reading begins.

Allow me to translate the academic dialect into ordinary English.

The syllabus contains three ingredients that appear with remarkable regularity across what I call the oppression-studies curriculum.

First, orthodox Christianity is cast as the principal villain. The word “orthodox” is not merely descriptive. It identifies the force against which everyone else must be understood. Those troublesome Christians, always insisting that the Word of God is true.

Second, history is organized around a fixed binary of oppressors and oppressed. The key term is “Othering.” Outside the university, the word means little. Inside it, “Othering” functions as a philosophical skeleton key.

RELATED: Warning: This college course may be bad for your brain

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Whatever the subject — witchcraft, colonialism, literature, economics, architecture, or even mathematics — the conclusion is expected to fit the same template: One group possesses power, another is marginalized, and scholarship consists of exposing the machinery of oppression.

Questions about whether Christianity is true, whether Christ is who Christians say He is, or whether salvation is real disappear from view. The course’s operating question is not “What is true?” but “Who has power?”

Third, the historical narrative must be applied directly to the present. Medieval Europe is not studied merely to understand medieval Europe. Students must show how the old oppression continues now.

History becomes raw material for a contemporary moral narrative in which Christians are still preventing women from having a little fun — even if that fun occasionally involves necromancy. Dead people need friends too.

Once you learn the pattern, whole sections of the catalog become easier to read.

The subject often matters less than the interpretive framework. Whether a course concerns witchcraft, fairy tales, Shakespeare, climate, coffeehouses, or design, the destination frequently remains the same. Society is assumed to be organized by systems of oppression, and every topic marches toward that conclusion.

That’s precisely why parents and students need help reading college catalogs.

Course descriptions are often written in a dialect that obscures more than it reveals. The average 18-year-old has no reason to know that terms such as “Othering,” “lived experience,” “deconstructing,” “intersectionality,” “hegemonic,” or “dialectic of oppression” may signal not simply a topic but an entire philosophical system.

Learning to recognize those signals is an exercise in intellectual discernment.

At the most elementary level, discernment means making distinctions. Ideas have presuppositions. Professors never merely present facts; every course is organized around assumptions about reality, morality, human nature, and truth.

For Christians, some distinctions remain basic. The Word of God? Yes. Communion with Satan? No. That binary is not about power. It is about truth and goodness, and it should not require four credit hours to sort out.

RELATED: Why do state schools bankroll people who despise the state?

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Once students grasp that first level of discernment, they are prepared for the next: watching how quickly the narrative shifts when necessary.

One day, witchcraft is presented as a genuine spiritual tradition unjustly maligned by Christianity. The next, it is described as a social category invented by Christians to oppress women.

Those claims are difficult to reconcile, but reconciliation is beside the point. Both preserve the same moral architecture: Christians remain the oppressors, and everyone else becomes the oppressed.

The hardest courses to identify are not those that openly advertise ideology. Those are easy enough to avoid. The greater challenge is recognizing ideological conformity when it hides beneath academic jargon and historical subject matter.

The sooner students learn to decode that language, the sooner they can decide where to spend their tuition dollars and intellectual energy.

College is expensive enough without paying thousands of dollars to hear that orthodox Christianity is the principal menace of Western civilization — and discovering only after the drop deadline that you accidentally enrolled in Witchcraft 101.

​State universities, Witchcraft, Occult, Christianity, Arizona state university, College, Opinion & analysis 

When it comes to RAM shortages, no tech company is safe. The gaming industry was one of the first to feel the full effects of AI’s supply chain chokehold, but eventually, it extended outward to impact even the world’s most valuable brands, including Apple.

The Cupertino tech giant has been looking for ways to offset low RAM availability and keep the cost of its products down, but its latest solution has lawmakers worried.

RAM from these blacklisted manufacturers is untested for Apple’s needs.

The rest of us should be concerned too.

Apple’s choice could put at risk not only the company and its products, but our national security.

America’s memory failure

Apple may be a multi-trillion-dollar company, but it’s not immune to the RAM crisis. Especially now that so many Apple products are used alongside AI, ample RAM is crucial to delivering a reliable user experience.

Historically, Apple has relied on several partners to supply the RAM for its first-party Apple silicon chips. You may even know some of these companies — Samsung (yes, the prolific Android phone manufacturer), SK Hynix out of South Korea, and Micron (that recently closed its consumer RAM business after 29 years to service Big Tech AI brands). Unfortunately, the growing need for AI data centers has completely devoured available supplies, forcing Apple to look toward other unlikely partners.

Apple is getting desperate for more RAM

So who’s the memory supplier of last resort?

The very source America is ostensibly gobbling up all that memory to beat.

That’s right. China.

Reports say Apple is in talks with Chinese-owned manufacturers to increase RAM availability for its product ecosystem. This alone is enough to raise some red flags, considering that China has a reputation for spying on Americans and stealing from Big Tech.

To make matters even worse, the two China-based brands that Apple is eyeing for RAM — ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) — both have sordid pasts. The Pentagon previously declared both brands as companies linked directly to the Chinese military, while YMTC is on the U.S. Entity List, meaning the company is a direct threat to national security.

In other words, Apple is attempting to partner with adversaries of the United States simply to gain access to more RAM, and lawmakers aren’t happy.

Lawmakers don’t want Apple to make a huge mistake

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have taken notice of Apple’s RAM expansion strategy. Sens. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on Apple to withdraw its attempts to lobby the Trump administration to agree to the purchase of RAM from CXMT and YMTC, citing connections with the Beijing military. They also noted that Apple’s increasing reliance on Chinese manufacturers could harm attempts to bring more manufacturing jobs back to the States. Finally, national security concerns around Chinese RAM could prevent the U.S. government from using Apple products in any official capacity moving forward. Lawmakers have implored Apple to end its pursuit of Chinese RAM by August 21, but no final moves have been made yet.

RELATED: Trump bans Chinese robots — but your robot vacuum may be spying on you already

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It goes without saying that Apple is on the cusp of opening its products to unforeseen vulnerabilities or reliability issues. On a basic level, RAM from these blacklisted manufacturers is untested for Apple’s needs, and they may or may not hold up to the same quality as Apple’s current providers. On a national security level, Chinese RAM could make Apple’s products perfect targets for tampering or unforeseen security flaws. Chinese RAM integration could also make Apple susceptible to a U.S. device ban, similar to what we’ve seen with gadgets from Chinese manufacturers like Huawei and ZTE, though this would only happen in extreme cases, given Apple’s value to the U.S. economy, reputation among consumers, and prowess as one of the most innovative technology companies on the planet.

Apple technically doesn’t need the government’s approval to purchase RAM from blacklisted companies, especially if this RAM is only used in products sold outside of the USA, but moving forward with a deal could have serious consequences for the tech giant, its products, and consumers. That said, while Chinese manufacturers may have the RAM that Apple desperately needs, it may not save the company money in the long run as suppliers are poised to charge top dollar to bail Apple out of a jam.

​Tech, Microchips, Apple, China, Ram 

Caitlin Clark has become one of the biggest names in sports, but BlazeTV host Steve Deace argues she now faces a defining moment that could shape her entire legacy. He explains that she cannot afford to remain silent on the debate over the future of women’s sports, arguing that the issue is not only about personal conviction.

“She has an absolute obligation, not just morally, but financially, athletically, to address the issues that Sophie Cunningham is speaking on,” Deace says.

Clark has remained silent on the issue of men in women’s sports, as she most recently refused to comment on fellow WNBA star Sophie Cunningham’s stance that transgender “women” should not be allowed on the same court.

“This is not a matter of opinion, and I don’t even think it’s a matter of conscience. I think it’s a matter of fact that Caitlin Clark has an obligation to address this,” he continues, asking, “What league does Caitlin Clark play in?”

Deace points out that Clark’s league, the WNBA, is specifically called the “Women’s National Basketball Association.”

He also notes that despite her spot as a top women’s athlete, she still wouldn’t beat a much younger all-American male athlete.

“Freshmen going into college this year. How many of them do you think Caitlin Clark could beat one-on-one?” Deace asks co-host Todd Erzen.

“None. None of them,” Erzen replies.

“She couldn’t beat the average high school star athlete. And she’s the greatest, she’s maybe the greatest female athlete in the world alive today … so then it would seem like protecting the integrity of what that word ‘W’ means, would be vitally important to her,” Deace says.

“What would that do to Caitlin Clark’s stock to just watch these guys come in and pretending to be women and just absolutely physically just roll her, just steamroll her on the way to the basket. She could not even get a shot off,” he continues.

“So it seems as if you are profiting off of being a woman, playing in a league whose first word of its branding is ‘women’s’ … then defining what is and is not a woman would be paramount,” he adds.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Caitlin clark, Sophie cunningham, Steve deace, Womens sports, Transgender women, Wnba, Blazetv show 

The majority of practicing Christians believe that tithing 10% of their income is the biblical standard for living out financial faithfulness — but according to Christian finance expert and Ramsey Solutions personality George Kamel, true financial faithfulness requires a lot more than that.

On this episode of “Relatable,” Kamel tells Allie Beth Stuckey what it really means to honor God with our finances.

Financial faithfulness, says Kamel, starts with changing our mindset about money as a whole.

“I think people underestimate the freedom that exists when you go, ‘You know what? I’m a steward of this money. It’s not mine. I’m managing it for someone else,”’ he says, “and when you do that, you look at money through a whole different lens because now it’s not all about me and my selfishness and what could I do with this? It frees me to go, ‘OK, it’s God’s money.”’

This mentality shift, Kamel suggests, creates “three buckets” our money can go into: enjoyment, saving/investing, and giving.

But all of the buckets must be poured into “wisely,” he emphasizes.

“How do we enjoy [money] wisely? Well, obviously, we don’t want to, you know, use it on debauchery, but you can use it to go on vacation. You can use it to upgrade the car. You can use it to have a nice house. That’s OK. Those things aren’t evil in and of themselves,” he tells Allie.

As for investing, Kamel points to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 to argue that smart investing is biblical.

“Who got all the accolades? The guy who actually planted it and grew the money versus the guy who planted it and nothing came of it and it was just wasted,” he says, “and so you want to make sure that you’re stewarding this well, that it’s growing so that you can give an inheritance to your children’s children as Proverbs says.”

But in the Bible, money is most often discussed in the context of giving charitably.

“With the 2,300 scriptures about wealth and possessions, I think the authors of the Bible knew that we would struggle with the treasures on earth part more than the treasures in heaven part,” says Kamel, urging people to give their money for kingdom purposes.

Allie then wonders if it’s possible to be “too frugal.”

It all comes down to one’s motive, says Kamel.

“Why am I being frugal? To create margin to have kingdom impact? Great! That’s a healthy motive,” he says, “but if it’s just to save because I’m miserly and I have a scarcity mindset, there is no biblical scripture to back that up.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Allie beth stuckey, Christianity, Dave ramsey, George kamel, Money, Stewardship, Blazetv show 

I don’t love Shiloh Hendrix as a First Amendment martyr. Then again, most First Amendment martyrs aren’t especially lovable.

Maybe Hendrix is a great gal in person. I don’t know her. But on April 28, 2025, she was at Roy Sutherland Playground in Rochester, Minnesota, with her toddler when an 8-year-old black boy allegedly took an applesauce pouch from her diaper bag. Hendrix chased him, retrieved the pouch, and, according to witnesses, repeatedly called him the Very Worst Word in American English™.

A free country doesn’t need to convert every ugly human encounter into a criminal proceeding.

The row got the attention of Sharmake Omar, a Somali immigrant who began recording her on his phone. Hendrix told him it was “none of [his] f**king business” and walked away. Omar challenged her to say the word again.

Hendrix obliged.

“F**k you, n*****. N*****, n*****, n*****.”

Omar posted the video online, sans asterisks. Fifteen months later, an Olmsted County jury acquitted Hendrix of disorderly conduct toward the child — and convicted her of disorderly conduct toward Omar.

Say what?

For good or ill, Hendrix has now joined some august company: Eugene V. Debs, Charles Schenck, H.L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, Henry Miller, Clarence Brandenburg.

The First Amendment has always had lousy taste in clients. Still, Hendrix hardly belongs in that group. Schenck went to prison for distributing anti-draft leaflets with the Bill of Rights printed on one side. Sinclair was arrested for reading the First Amendment aloud. Brandenburg, a Klansman, gave us one of the great protections for political advocacy.

Hendrix doesn’t even rise to the level of “F**k the Draft.” She got angry in a park, took the bait, and said an ugly word over and over.

Should she have exercised more self-control? Probably. But since when did criminal law punish bad manners?

Which brings me to Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire.

The 1942 Supreme Court case gave us “fighting words”: face-to-face insults punishable when likely to provoke an immediate breach of the peace and forming “no essential part of any exposition of ideas.”

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Libertarians mostly hate Chaplinsky. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression calls the doctrine “quaint” and notes that the Supreme Court has not upheld a fighting-words conviction in 80 years.

True enough. Give government power to punish offensive speech, and it will abuse it. That’s why I’m against hate-speech laws. But that does not require pretending every noise made by a human mouth is an “argument” worthy of First Amendment protection.

Hadley Arkes, the constitutional scholar who has influenced my thinking for decades, suggests an admirably simple test:

The soundness of the test can be confirmed again instantly whenever we give a panel of people this set of words and ask if they can identify the terms clearly established as terms of insult, as opposed to words that may be on the borderline of insult, or perhaps even terms of approval and commendation: 1) kike, 2) wop, 3) n*****, 4) urologist, 5) meter maid, 6) saint. People will not show the slightest puzzlement here in fixing on the words used as insulting or “fighting words.”

Exactly. Nobody wonders whether “urologist” is the slur. A blind man could see the difference.

“F**k you, n*****” directed at a black man advances no proposition about race. It is an epithet. Threats, extortion, perjury, provocation — all are words, and all can be actionable.

I made a related argument 16 years ago in Snyder v. Phelps. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church had every right to preach that America was damned. I argued that they did not have the right to commandeer a dead Marine’s funeral. Mencken called the boundary “the last limits of the endurable.”

So two cheers for Chaplinsky.

But that’s a long way from concluding that Hendrix committed a punishable offense.

She was carrying her child and walking away. Omar was recording and baiting her. He practically announced the consequence: The internet was going to see this. It did. Hendrix was identified, doxxed, and condemned by millions.

Omar had counter speech. He had a camera. He had the internet. He won.

Why did the state need to pile on?

Nothing about the encounter suggested an “imminent breach of the peace.” Yet the jury convicted Hendrix for insulting Omar while acquitting her over the nastier conduct alleged toward the 8-year-old.

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Hendrix’s attorney, Brian Karalus, says the judge excluded exculpatory evidence and mishandled witness disclosures. He called the proceeding a “fraud” and a “circus” and has filed an appeal. Maybe the appellate court says he is wrong, but I hope he wins.

Chaplinsky does not give prosecutors a permission slip. The state still must prove that these words, in this context, were likely to provoke a fight in the moment.

That’s what angers me about this case. It was needless.

Hendrix behaved badly. She said something vicious to a little kid and allowed herself to be provoked when she should have kept walking.

At the same time: So what? A free country doesn’t need to convert every ugly human encounter into a criminal proceeding.

Again, two cheers for Chaplinsky and the “fighting words” doctrine. It’s good law. We should keep it and use it — sparingly. But thank God for every last constitutional protection Shiloh Hendrix has coming to her.

​Fighting words, Opinion & analysis, Disorderly conduct, First amendment, Minnesota, N-word accusation, Law and order, Chaplinsky v. new hampshire, Hate speech