A Catholic Take – Joe McClane – October 2026, updated daily

NYC Eucharistic Procession: The SHOCKING Return to Tradition! | ACT LIVE 10-15-26 – Joe McClane

Thousands of Catholics filled the streets of New York City for a public procession with the Blessed Sacrament. But could this remarkable display of faith reveal something bigger about the future of the Catholic Church?

Guest host Mike Koeniger welcomes Nicholas Cavazos, known as The Traditional Thomist, to examine what the procession—and the young, diverse crowd following Christ—might tell us about a growing conservative movement among younger Catholics. Why are traditional expressions of the faith attracting young people? Could the very things older generations believe will draw people into the Church actually be driving them away? And what does the ongoing tension between conservatism and modernism mean for Catholicism today?

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10-14-2026

Fr. Gerald Murray: Can Catholics Still Support the Death Penalty?
Joe McClane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRlZgvn51AI

The Pentagon plans to execute Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan by firing squad on December 3 and livestream it. Days later, Pope Leo XIV called the death penalty “inadmissible.” Fr. Gerald Murray joins Joe on the question Catholics are arguing about: can a faithful Catholic still support capital punishment?

On November 5, 2009, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood, Texas. Among the dead was Pvt. Francheska Velez, three months pregnant; her unborn child was never counted in the charges. Convicted by court-martial in 2013 and sentenced to death, Hasan is now set to face an Army firing squad, the military’s first firing-squad execution since World War II. Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth says the public will be able to watch. President Trump says the final call on the livestream is his.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin called the plan “truly incomprehensible.” Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services told Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused. At The Catholic Thing, Brad Miner argues the sentence is just but the broadcast is not.

Fr. Murray, canon lawyer and columnist at The Catholic Thing, takes up what Scripture and two thousand years of Church teaching say about the state’s power of the sword, what changed in the Catechism in 2018, and whether an execution should ever be a public spectacle.

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims):

Genesis 9:6 — “Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made to the image of God.”
Romans 13:4 — “For he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil.”
Ezekiel 33:11 — “I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live.”

FURTHER READING:

Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2265–2267 (no. 2267 revised 2 August 2018)
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to the Bishops on the new revision of no. 2267 (2 August 2018)
Pope St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 56 (25 March 1995)
Roman Catechism (Catechism of the Council of Trent), Part III, the Fifth Commandment

FR. GERALD MURRAY:

The Catholic Thing: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/

If this helped you think it through, send it to a Catholic friend who’s arguing about it at the dinner table.

10-12-2026

Columbus Wanted the Gold — to Free Jerusalem | ACT 10-12-26 – Joe McClane

Christopher Columbus wrote that he hoped the gold of the Indies would let Ferdinand and Isabella “undertake the conquest of the Holy Sepulcher.” Pope Leo XIII wrote in 1892 that “the Catholic faith was the strongest motive” for his voyage. So why is he remembered as a villain?

This Columbus Day, Joe McClane reads Columbus in his own words, walks through the 800-year war he was born into (Constantinople fell when he was not yet two, and the Turks invaded Italy at Otranto in 1480), and answers the seven strongest charges against him, conceding what’s true and correcting what isn’t. Plus, Joe’s regular Monday visit with Mike Koeniger.

FREE Columbus Day cheat sheet: https://joemcclane.com/columbus
Columbus in his own words, the Church’s word on him, a timeline of Islamic expansion from 632 to 1805, the Crusades from Clermont to Acre, and seven charges answered with sources.

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims):

Isaiah 65:17 — “For behold I create new heavens, and a new earth: and the former things shall not be in remembrance.”

Matthew 28:19 — “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

FURTHER READING:

Pope Leo XIII, Quarto Abeunte Saeculo (16 July 1892) https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xi…

Pope Paul III, Sublimis Deus (29 May 1537)

Christopher Columbus, Journal of the First Voyage (1492) and Book of Prophecies (1501–1502)

Carol Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem (2011)

Raymond Ibrahim, Sword and Scimitar (2018)

If this helped you answer the Columbus Day critics, send it to a Catholic friend who only knows the textbook version.

#ColumbusDay #ChristopherColumbus #Crusades #CatholicHistory #PopeLeoXIII #CatholicNews #ACatholicTake #Catholic

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10-9-2026 – Cardinal Burke Out, Cardinal Cupich In: Rome’s Amoris Laetitia Meeting | ACT 10-9-26 – Joe McClane

Cardinals Cupich, McElroy, Tobin and Fernández are on Pope Leo’s personal guest list for Rome’s Amoris Laetitia meeting. Cardinal Burke is not — and neither is any cardinal who signed the dubia. Plus, Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s exclusive: Amoris Laetitia is “against divine law” and must be explicitly corrected.

Ten years after Amoris Laetitia, about 190 bishops are meeting behind closed doors at the Vatican, October 7–14. Dr. Anthony Stine of Return to Tradition joins Joe to walk through who was invited and who was left out — Cardinals Burke, Müller, Brandmüller, Sarah and Zen among them — and what that guest list says about where the Amoris debate goes from here.

Michael Haynes of the Catholic Herald brings his exclusive interview with Bishop Schneider, who calls Amoris Laetitia a practical denial of the indissolubility of marriage and an attack on the sanctity of the Holy Eucharist. Haynes also covers Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle’s appointment as Dean of the College of Cardinals, succeeding Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, and Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s defense of Mary as Co-Redemptrix at the “De Maria numquam satis” conference in Rome — a year after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith called the title “always inopportune.”

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims):

Matthew 19:6 — “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”
1 Corinthians 11:27 — “Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.”
Luke 1:38 — “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.”

FURTHER READING:

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia (8 April 2016)
The dubia of four cardinals (19 September 2016)
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mater Populi Fidelis (4 November 2025)

10-8-2026 – The Woman at the Well: Flirting or Fulfillment? – Joe McClane

A rabbi alone at a well with a woman who has had five husbands. Flirting? No. Isaac, Jacob and Moses all found their brides at a well, and in John 4 Jesus sits down at Jacob’s well at high noon. Plus Nicholas Cavazos on the Amoris Laetetia Summit.

Abraham’s servant found Rebekah for Isaac at a well. Jacob met Rachel at a well, rolled the stone away and watered her flock. Moses met Zipporah at a well in Midian. So when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and the conversation turns to husbands, every Jew who heard the story knew what kind of scene it was. Joe walks through the whole pattern: why she came alone at noon, what the five husbands meant for a people who served five foreign “lords,” why Jesus told her plainly, “I am he,” why she left her water jar, and how the living water at Jacob’s well becomes the river of life in the Apocalypse.

In the first hour, Nicholas Cavazos joins Joe for his standing Thursday segment to discuss concerning developments coming out of the Amoeris Laetetia Summit.

FREE CHEAT SHEET — The Woman at the Well: Flirting or Fulfillment? Seven printable pages: the brides at the well side by side, the husbands, and the living water. https://joemcclane.com/woman-at-the-well

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims)

John 4:6 — “Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour.”

John 4:10 — “He would have given thee living water.”

John 4:18 — “For thou hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband

John 4:26 — “I am he, who am speaking with thee.”

John 3:29 — “He that hath the bride, is the bridegroom.”

Osee 2:16 — “She shall call me: My husband, and she shall call me no more Baali.”

Apocalypse 22:17 — “And he that thirsteth, let him come: and he that will, let him take the water of life, freely.”

FURTHER READING:

Genesis 24; Genesis 29:1–12; Exodus 2:15–21 — the brides at the well

4 Kings (2 Kings) 17:24–33 — the five nations settled in Samar

Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, note on John 4

St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 15

Watch Joe teach it — Catholic Bible Study on Salvation History: • Catholic Bible Study on Salvation History

10-7-2026 – Ex-Pastor Keith Nester: God Wants Everyone to Be Catholic – Joe McClane

Keith Nester spent more than 20 years as a Protestant pastor. Today he explains why God has one plan of salvation for all mankind — and why that plan is the Catholic Church. Plus, on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary: the Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571, and what happened when the sun came up.

Keith Nester served as a pastor and youth pastor in United Methodist, Assemblies of God and Evangelical Free churches for over two decades before he entered the Catholic Church. He now leads Down to Earth Ministries, leads The Rosary Crew, a daily livestreamed Rosary, and wrote The Convert’s Guide to Roman Catholicism. Joe asks him the question every convert eventually has to answer: if Christ founded one Church, what does that mean for everyone outside it?

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and most Catholics can’t tell you why. In Their Catholic Story, Joe tells it. Pope St. Pius V asked all of Christendom to pray the Rosary, and on the morning of October 7, 1571, the fleet of the Holy League under Don John of Austria met the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto. By most accounts, more Christians were set free that evening — galley slaves chained to the Turkish oars — than died in the battle. Pius V gave thanks with a feast of Our Lady of Victory; Gregory XIII renamed it the Feast of the Holy Rosary in 1573.

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims):

1 Timothy 2:4 — “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Acts 4:12 — “Neither is there salvation in any other.”
John 10:16 — “And there shall be one fold and one shepherd.”
Ephesians 4:5 — “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
Matthew 16:18 — “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Psalm 123:7 — “The snare is broken, and we are delivered.”

FURTHER READING:

Catechism of the Catholic Church 846-848 — “Outside the Church there is no salvation”
Council of Florence, Cantate Domino (1442)
Pope Pius IX, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863)
Holy Office, Letter to the Archbishop of Boston (1949)
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus (2000)

KEITH NESTER:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KeithNester

Know a Protestant you love? Send this to them. That’s how many of us got here.

10-6-2026 – Fr. Gerald Murray: Amoris Laetitia, 10 Years of Confusion – Joe McClane

Ten years after Amoris laetitia, and on the eve of Rome’s summit marking its anniversary, Fr. Gerald Murray makes his case: it brought confusion where there had been clarity, and no pope has the power to change what Christ taught. A release-day interview on his new book, A Papacy of Confusion!

Fr. Murray is a canon lawyer and the pastor of Holy Family Church in New York City. His new book, A Papacy of Confusion: The Controversial Legacy of Pope Francis (TAN Books), gathers a decade of his real-time commentary on a twelve-year reign he calls “a time of tremendous upheaval and doctrinal confusion.” He joins Joe on release day to talk about what he says went wrong: Communion for the divorced and civilly “remarried” after Amoris laetitia, four cardinals whose dubia were never answered, a Synod of Bishops turned into a voting assembly, Fiducia supplicans, the McCarrick cover-up, and the crackdown on the Traditional Latin Mass. And the question every faithful Catholic has wrestled with: is opposing a pope’s errors disloyal? Fr. Murray’s answer is that it is “a requirement of fraternal charity.”

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims):

Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and to day; and the same for ever.”

Luke 22:32 – “But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.”

REFERENCED:

Amoris laetitia – Pope Francis (8 April 2016)

The dubia of four cardinals (19 September 2016)

Vos estis lux mundi – Pope Francis (2019)

The McCarrick Report – Holy See (2020)

Traditionis custodes – Pope Francis (16 July 2021)

Fiducia supplicans – Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (December 2023)

Meeting in Rome marking the 10th anniversary of Amoris laetitia (7-14 October 2026)

LINKS:
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Speaking – https://joemcclane.com/speaking
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10-1-2026

2026 Fall On-Air Appeal | A Catholic Take / The Catholic Current – Day Four – Joe McClane

We welcome back Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J. to cover the headlines from a Catholic perspective and raise funds to keep The Station of the Cross on the air. Because we are a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, all donations are tax-deductible! To make a donation, call 1-877-711-8500 or visit thestationofthecross.com

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