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Modern Man

Twenty-five years after September 11th, and one year after the assassination of Charlie Kirk — three Catholic men ask what a man is supposed to do with a tragedy he watched from a distance. Three hosts, no guests: where each of them was on both days, what constant tragedy in the news cycle actually costs, conspiracy theories as a search for meaning, and the virtues that hold when nothing else does. Sam's mother put up the Christmas tree on the morning of September 11th, 2001, and played Christmas music all day so her children would not have to carry it. Noah was on his honeymoon when the texts started arriving, got sent the link over and over, and has never once clicked it. Brad's father put him on a plane to Boston three or four months after the towers fell, because fear does not get to make the decision. Along the way: whether humanity was ever meant to carry this much tragedy at this speed; why we go looking for confirmation that the world is broken; Arthur Brooks on conspiracy theories as a hunt for meaning; Pope Paul VI on why modern man listens to witnesses rather than teachers; and the sentence the whole episode lands on — in scripture and in church tradition, nobody asks who killed the martyr. What it costs to fill a gap with trust is your ego. That is all it costs. We exist to rediscover and redeem the heart of man in the modern world.