Andy McGill, left, a parishioner at Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Henderson, talks with John Edwards, right, one of the featured speakers at the Feb. 8, 2025 Catholic Men’s Conference of Western Kentucky. ANDY TELLI | WKC

BY ANDY TELLI, WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC

Many men today are isolated and alone, which makes them vulnerable to the devil and a host of addictions and vices, said John Edwards, the founder of Just a Guy in the Pew Ministries.

“A lot of men have been raised to be these one-man armies, to not be emotional or have feelings,” said Edwards, one of the featured speakers at the 10th Catholic Men’s Conference of Western Kentucky, held on Saturday, Feb. 8. “They’ve been told to put their heads down, work hard, never complain, never have feelings or emotions and do it by yourself.

“So a lot of men are isolated and alone,” he added. “The devil goes after them just like on the Discovery shows you see with the gazelles running and then one goes off to the side and the lions maul it. It’s the same thing with men. We isolate and we pull back, we become easy targets for the devil.”

To combat this danger, Edwards has launched an initiative to start men’s ministries in parishes across the country.

“If you don’t have a healthy place to go to be yourself, to be real, to have authentic relationships where you can share, then you’re always going to struggle, and you’re always going to try to do it by yourself,” he said. “And you wind up self-medicating or turning to something else other than Christ.”

During his talks at the conference, Edwards spoke about his own conversion story, in which he turned to Christ to help lift him from a life of drug addiction, and his ministry to help parishes organize men’s groups.

Edwards is coming back to the Diocese of Owensboro to lead an overnight Leadership Summit Men’s Retreat, April 25-26, at Rough River State Resort Park. During the retreat he will explain his program for launching men’s ministries.

“This retreat is about how to form men’s ministries and how to make sure our lives are solid in our relationship with God and our prayer life,” said Dr. Jeff Andrini, director of evangelization and discipleship for the Diocese of Owensboro. “What are the pillars of men’s ministry. We have to have social, we have to have adoration and prayer, we have to have learning. So (Edwards) talks about how we develop those pillars so you’re not just having a social group cooking ribs, which are nice but that doesn’t give the guys what they really need in their lives.”

The retreat, which costs $100, is open to any man interested. For more information, contact Dr. Andrini at [email protected] or (270) 683-1545.

The men’s conference, like the retreat, was an opportunity for men to deepen their faith, Dr. Andrini said.

Dr. David Anders, left, one of the featured speakers at the Feb. 8, 2025 Catholic Men’s Conference of Western Kentucky, speaks with Joe Wagner, a parishioner at Christ the King Parish in Madisonville. He is an author and host of the EWTN program “Called to Communion.” ANDY TELLI | WKC

“It’s important that men gather together. So often we know we’re supposed to be in our homes being spiritual and leading our families. But often men don’t take that role,” he said.  “So, here’s an opportunity to kind of really challenge men to be fully human by being connected to the divine, having a relationship with God.”

When it comes to one’s faith, there are different modes of knowledge, said Dr. David Anders, the other featured speaker at the conference and an author and the host of the EWTN program “Called to Communion.”

“There’s propositional knowledge, which is the kind of knowledge that you can put in sentences and write in a book,” Dr. Anders explained. Another mode of knowledge is perspectival, “when you can take a certain perspective,” he said.

“A lot of what Catholic faith is about, is about coming to take the perspective of Christ, say with regard to the poor or one’s neighbor or one’s enemy,” said Dr. Anders. “It’s one thing to have the abstract knowledge that I should love my enemy. It’s another thing to actually be able to view him as an object of love.”

Participating in the life of the Church is a way a person can gain the perspective of Christ, Dr. Anders said. “That’s what the system of sacraments and teaching in Catholic life are meant to convey. They’re not there just to convey information. They’re there to change our character so that we fundamentally live life a different way.”

This year’s Catholic Men’s Conference of Western Kentucky was the first since 2019. It was suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Andrini reached out to some of the board members of the Men’s Conference to see if they were interested in organizing another conference: “They were like, ‘You know we’d like to, but we need more people. We just can’t keep doing this forever ourselves,’” Andrini said.

So Dr. Andrini recruited more people to help organize the conference and brought some resources from the diocese to the effort, he explained.

This year’s conference, held at the RiverPark Center in Owensboro, attracted about 350 men from around the diocese and beyond, said conference board member Randy Clemens, a parishioner at St. Stephen Cathedral in Owensboro.

Clemens helped start the men’s conference after attending conferences in other cities. On the return trip from one of those conferences in Cincinnati, Clemens recalled, “I said, ‘We can do this in Owensboro. We don’t need to make this drive.’”

After getting approval from the bishop, Clemens, fellow St. Stephen parishioner John Kurtz and others launched the first men’s conference.

“Even if you can’t explain it to yourself, the people who have a stake in your life and you in theirs, know we all need to continuously improve. And that’s not just emotional, physical, intellectual, it’s spiritual,” Kurtz said. “I mean if you’re not honest with yourself and make yourself vulnerable, just like John Edwards said, then you’re not going to grow, because you’re just stifling your spiritual growth.”

Andy Telli writes from Owensboro.

Originally printed in the March 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.