Fr. Steve Pullis: Welcome to another episode of Open-Door Policy. Each week, we sit down with a different guest and share how they are unleashing the gospel in their lives. Today, our guest is ... Danielle Center: This guest is you. It's you. Fr. Steve Pullis: No one. It's just Danielle and I talking. Danielle Center: No, it's you. Well, but I'm going to interview you. Fr. Steve Pullis: Okay. This week I am not the host, but the guest. Danielle Center: You are the guest. Fr. Steve Pullis: All right, let's rock and roll. Danielle Center: I'm just going to jump in to rapid-fire questions. Number one, what was your first job title? Fr. Steve Pullis: My first job was a sandwich artist at Subway. Danielle Center: Okay. What is the most beautiful church you have ever visited? Fr. Steve Pullis: Ooh, my favorite church that I have ever visited is the Casanova in Rome. Danielle Center: What is the most recent song stuck in your head? Fr. Steve Pullis: I've been on this Mandolin Orange pick lately, and there's some old friends and companion. Speaker 3: (singing) Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, that's been in my head a lot. Danielle Center: In what fictional world would you like to live? Fr. Steve Pullis: I am not a fictional world person, so I don't have a lot of that. I really like John Steinbeck novels. Some of those can be dark, so I feel weird saying it, but maybe in a John Steinbeck novel. Danielle Center: Salinas Valley. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. Danielle Center: Children [crosstalk 00:01:30]. Fr. Steve Pullis: Look at you. Look at you. Danielle Center: Look at that. Fr. Steve Pullis: Do you see? Speaker 4: Most of Steinbeck's work is set in the Salinas Valley in central California. His work frequently explores themes of fate and injustice. Danielle Center: Hey, what is your favorite breakfast food? Fr. Steve Pullis: Ooh, I really like an omelet. Once in a while, we'll have omelets at the seminary for breakfast and they're awesome. Danielle Center: What location was one of your most powerful encounters with God? Fr. Steve Pullis: The Adoration Chapel at Orchard Lake, St. Mary's, in Orchard Lake. Danielle Center: Which Bible verse has recently struck you? Fr. Steve Pullis: I don't know it by heart because I'm Catholic. Danielle Center: Good for you. Fr. Steve Pullis: But the beginning of 2nd Corinthians, where St. Paul talks about the encouragement that he received from God, and he gives us his encouragement so that we can encourage others. Danielle Center: I'm in 2nd Corinthians right now to good. Okay, have you ever met anyone famous? Fr. Steve Pullis: I've met a number of famous people. I met this really cool woman named Danielle Center, and she was pretty famous. Danielle Center: Oh my gosh. What about any athletes? Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, I've met Wayne Gretzky, which was awesome. Danielle Center: Any musicians? Fr. Steve Pullis: Have I met any musicians? I met Matt Maher. I don't know if he counts as famous. John Levi. That's who I'm going to say. John Levi. Danielle Center: Perfect. Who is your hero? Fr. Steve Pullis: Saint Maximilian Kolbe. Danielle Center: Good. What is the favorite book you've ever read? Fr. Steve Pullis: Plato's Republic. Danielle Center: Okay. Fr. Steve Pullis: Don't laugh at that. You don't get to laugh at that. Danielle Center: I'm so sorry. I'm over here. What is your favorite item of clothing ever? Fr. Steve Pullis: I love wearing a cassock as a priest, I would say that's my favorite item. Danielle Center: Really? Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. Danielle Center: Okay. We're going to start right there. We're just going to reverse where this came from. Your favorite is cassock. You're like a sports guy. Fr. Steve Pullis: I am, but I'm also a priest. I don't know if you know that. Danielle Center: Ooh, that's why I call you Father. Okay. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. No, I love wearing the cassock. I don't wear it much because it's the norm now, but when I wear it, I just feel like, I don't know, this is weird. I don't want to say extra priestly, but I remember this one time we were going to the March For Life. I was in seminary. There were like eight of us on the summit, on the subway together in our cassocks going into the vigil mass for the March For Life. I just remember feeling, I don't know. People were looking at us, but there was a sense of ... I feel like it helps represent God in some way. I'm not very articulate about this, but I really like wearing a cassock. Danielle Center: Sure, clothes make the man. Sandwich RT's time. What is your favorite sandwich and what is your least favorite sandwich? Fr. Steve Pullis: Are we talking Subway or in the whole wide world? Danielle Center: Yeah, the whole world, and also Subway. Fr. Steve Pullis: I'll stick with Subway. I worked at Subway all through ... I started when I was 15 and then I left to enter the seminary. I worked there through high school and college. Had some other jobs in between that I would take some time off for, but, yeah, I was a pretty competent sandwich artist by the time I entered seminary, which has served me well as a priest. Speaker 5: Today we'll make a turkey sandwich. When putting our turkey, make sure that it is at 45 degree [crosstalk 00:05:26]. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, my favorite sandwich there, I would say ... oh gosh, I don't know. They had a seafood and crab that I liked that no one else liked. I'm going to call that my fav, and then the one I didn't like was the cold [inaudible 00:05:43]. Danielle Center: Okay, good. Okay, tell me about this church in Rome and why it's the most beautiful, because you've been in a lot of places. You travel a lot. Fr. Steve Pullis: Can I change my answer? Danielle Center: Okay, fine. Fr. Steve Pullis: Thank you. You're generous, Danielle. Danielle Center: I know. Fr. Steve Pullis: I was rapid firing, so it was inarticulate, but favorite church ever was Notre-Dame in Paris. I just remember from the ... it's caught on fire and it's closed probably, I don't know for the rest of our lives. Who knows when it'll reopen, but both the outside and the inside, I remember just being in awe at the time and effort that went into create something beautiful, and all the details that went into it, the beautiful stained glass, the way, the different parts of the church work together, the intricacy of little parts. It just made me think of the body of Christ, that God puts a ton of effort into a little part so that the body can flourish. It works in harmony with other parts. The stained glass works in harmony with the vaulted arches, which by themselves, you wouldn't necessarily think they have a lot to do with each other, but they come together and they compliment each other. I just think about that as this great metaphor for the body of Christ, that some of us have very different roles, but when God is the architect and we let him design the church and we're obedient to Him, whatever part we are, whether we're a gargoyle, a stain glass or a beautiful statue, that we fit together to make the body of Christ beautiful. Danielle Center: Last question. When did you encounter Saint Maximilian Kolbe and what about his life inspires you? Fr. Steve Pullis: Everything about his life inspires me. Danielle Center: Good, good, good. Fr. Steve Pullis: He was my confirmation Saint, so I encountered him when I was younger. I grew up way back when Danielle, in the '90s. Here's a little thing. I felt a lot of time when I was growing up, our faith was treated ... The Catholic faith was like ... I wasn't always confronted with the beauty, the majesty and the awesomeness of the faith. I found reading about the martyrs enlivened my faith and my desire to follow Jesus, even when I was young. I think about Saint Ignatius and his story that you read about him being in a hospital bed and reading the lives of Dominic and Francis, and just his heart being stirred up to do great things for God. I felt that way very much with Saint Maximilian Kolbe, with Saint Isaac Jogues, with these great martyrs. Middle school, high school, and then as I matured in my faith, I began to see that Jesus was really someone worth giving my life for, and that took the shape of priesthood, not martyrdom, at least not yet. I would say Maximilian's, both his ingenuity, so he was very ingenious in looking for ways to spread the Catholic faith, and then his self-sacrificial nature to give his life. I feel like I've talked about this before, but he gave his life in the deepest, darkest place you can imagine. He did it without any thought that anyone would tell his story. Just imagine the powerlessness he had in Auschwitz when he took the place of the condemned man. There was no reason he had to believe that anyone would know about this. He didn't do it for fame or for worldly glory. He did it out of obedience to what it meant to say yes to Jesus, his whole lifelong. I guess that being a light in the darkness, even when it doesn't look like anyone else will see it, that's part of his story that inspires me. Danielle Center: Well, thanks so much for sharing that with us today. Sorry I cut out and then I cut back in. I just heard you say the last word. Fr. Steve Pullis: You didn't hear. Danielle Center: Hey yo, Fr. Steve. Fr. Steve Pullis: Hey yo, Danielle Cerner. Danielle Center: Hey, talk to me a little bit about your experience as a priest in quarantine and what God's been doing in your life. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. I think this is good. We get to hear how God's working with lots of other people. I'm happy to just share a little bit of my own faith, and we'll get a chance to do this with you sometimes, Danielle, too. Maybe even here but ... Danielle Center: Only time will tell. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. These days of quarantine that we've been living through since mid-March have just been like ... I don't know. For me, I am so much better when I have a routine, when I have my life structured out. I think about they talk about people who are like, hey, he needed to go to the military because he needs that routine in his life, or he needed that. I think that's me. When I don't have routine, my life can just get out of whack, and I'm not praying as much as I should. I'm not ordered in reading like I should, been disciplined in my work. I would say the quarantine for me was a real opportunity to see my own weakness and then to bring that to the Lord, which I hate doing. I love telling the Lord how great I am and showing off my little projects that I do, but it's been this chance to be like, Jesus I thought I had all these parts of my life that were in order and I was doing well. The quarantine for me was just a time to say, man, if I am not constantly seeking the Lord and really for his guidance, it's so easy for me to get off track. One of those ways was just in my daily prayer. I found with working from home, not having that same ... I live here at the seminary, which was a great setup because there's three chapels here and ample opportunity. Danielle Center: I'm just going to say it must be nice because that needs to be inserted right there. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. But I really found the first few weeks of the quarantine, I got in this work mode where there wasn't the normal break of going to work and then coming home and like, okay, I'm in this different zone. I'd find it's 10 o'clock at night, I haven't prayed my Holy hour yet, I'm falling asleep praying. I'm making all these excuses not to give the Lord, not just the time of the day, but really my good time to give him the prominent time, the time where, before I make important decisions, I want to invite him into that. The quarantine for me is just spiritually, been this, reset button's a little dramatic and it overstates how well I've done with it. But this realization that, even as someone who's been a priest nine years and tried to be faithful to the Lord my whole life, how easy it is for me to fall away from that, and how much I need to acknowledge my complete dependency on God day by day. Just realize that I am not a joyful person when I'm not living out of that well. When I'm living out of my own resources, I find I'm snapping at people more, or I'm just more ... I got a quicker trigger, either to write something snarky or say something snarky. God really wants me, not just as a priest, but certainly, especially as a priest, but as His disciple, He wants me to be living out of that relationship with Him. That's been a huge awakening and just realization of my need to do that more and more throughout these weeks of quarantine. Danielle Center: I think that it's also worthwhile to extend some grace to yourself as well. Your entire routine was completely shaken. Of course, none of us know how to do it well at first. Fr. Steve Pullis: Is this your first quarantine? Danielle Center: This is. This has been. Yeah, we shall see. But this was the first one I experienced. My experience was, like we just mentioned, I don't have a chapel at my house. It's like, even the way that I prayed had to shift. Frankly, I usually go to mass in adoration. That wasn't there. Mass is slowly opening up again, but I would say also like, I'm going to extend you some grace because it is new and you're doing your best. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. I don't want to sound either a pity party or as how awful it was. It was a realization to me of how easy it is for other things to creep into the center of my life instead of Jesus, and even things that are good. Because there was a ton of stuff we had to do for the church, for the work I do in the Archdiocese of Detroit that was really important stuff. It's not like it was Netflix [Luthern's 00:15:55] all the time. Although there might've been one or two of those. Danielle Center: I'm not judging. Fr. Steve Pullis: But it was really just like, man, how intentional I have to be in my spiritual life? That was a realization, that was a wake-up call. I think it's with any relationship, right? Whether it's a good friend or family, if we stop calling, it's just so easy for that to build up, and it's just not going to happen on its own. Living an intentional life takes effort, it takes commitment, it takes discipline, and it takes humility to say, okay, I've gotten off track a little bit. I need to backtrack and shift my priorities. For me, one of the places where it takes humility is being able to say no to work, because I'm a dude, so I get my identity and my value through the work that I do. Danielle Center: I don't think that's a gendered thing, I think that's just a human thing. Fr. Steve Pullis: Well, I think with a lot of guys, we get our identity through how much work we can do. To be able to say no to that, because the relationship with the Lord is more important. That's been, what's the term? There's this great term. Not a harsh grace, but a severe mercy of the Lord to show me that in my life. Danielle Center: Yeah. Then you also said that verse from the beginning of 2nd Corinthians talking about an encouragement, that's been on your heart. Is that tied into all of this as well? Fr. Steve Pullis: I think so. I think, part of that is, I find it in my preaching, especially that, when I am not committed to prayer like I need to be, I find it come out in my preaching that it's more about me and less about the Lord. I do think there's this way that a priest is meant to be a vehicle for the Lord to speak his word. If I'm not listening to him or hearing his word, then it just becomes my word and that's not life-giving. I do think that phrase, that passage from 2nd Corinthians is to receive the encouragement from the Lord and then to share that with others. Danielle Center: How has God been encouraging you? An aside on that, I heard once that, and maybe I said this on the podcast before, is that encouragement, like the root of it means to pour courage into someone, and discouragement is to take courage from someone. What has been encouraging you lately? What has been giving you courage? Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, I think talking to more and more people and realizing how difficult it's been for them, that we're all in this together, and that Jesus wants me to be that instrument for him. Just hearing how other people have either received blessings through this, or received lots of challenges through this, and to see this is an experience that everyone in our country is going through together. Certain family members who work in healthcare and to see a pandemic through their eyes is very sobering. I know other people who've lost their job because of this, certainly know that there are people whose living situations are not great, and so to be stuck at home in kind of a quarantine, the challenge that presents. I guess, just knowing that each of us has a cross to carry during this time, and that I don't know what most other people are carrying in their cross. That God wants to use me to be His instrument of peace and His instrument of joy. That's been encouraging to me. Danielle Center: Thanks be to God. Thanks, Fr. Steve. Okay, Fr. Steve Pullis. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. Danielle Center: Hey, that's you. A few weeks ago, there was a series of announcements. People might've heard this in their parish news, they might have heard it online, but the Archdiocese is going to be working towards something called families of parishes. Can you talk a little bit about that situation and then we'll just go from there? The general overview. Go. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. I can talk a little bit about it. I probably am not super qualified to talk a ton about it, but it's a huge thing happening in our Archdiocese. Right now we have 218 parishes. It's incredible. Just a little diversion here. Being the arch Bishop secretary for four years, I loved going to a different parish because he would go to parishes for 50th anniversaries, or confirmations, or to install a pastor, or to dedicate a church and to get to see all the different parishes. I didn't go to all of them, but I don't know, I've probably been to 150 of the 218 in the archdiocese, which is awesome because there's a lot in the city. Danielle Center: That's a lot. Yeah. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, and then there's a ton in the burbs, a ton in the Monroe, St. Claire, Lapeer County, kind of the rural area. But demographically, it's very clear that the number of priests we have is going down. You can look around and see a lot of our pastors are approaching retirement age and a number of them are serving past retirement age. So, this is an approach of how our parishes can work together to share some of the administrative burden we know is not going to go down, but the number of people took to carry that burden, the number of pastors is going to go down. Family in parishes as a concept to say, how can we think about parishes working together administratively, and then also in a mission way so that we are ready to proclaim Jesus Christ to Southeast Michigan as the way the truth and the life, and we don't just become kind of fixated or paralyzed by the administrative work of 218 buildings and more than that sites, managing all of that? Does that make sense? Danielle Center: Yeah. My question for you next is, how has this been received? Just be honest. What are the rumblings? Where are people concerned? Where are people excited? That kind of thing. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, I think because it's so new, both in newly announced, but also like some places around the country have done this, but a lot ... the concept we're talking about is a little different than what most places have done. Because we're really trying to live out of the graces of Senate 16, which calls us to be this missionary diocese, and it calls us to have this renewal of structures, and that's where this is coming out of, that foundational conviction of unleash the gospel. There's a lot of questions that we just can't answer right now. Like, well, what does this exactly mean? What does it mean for certain staff positions? What does it mean for the mass schedule at my parish? I think there's a lot of uncertainty right now, which is not surprising. There's a lot of questions that, a lot of priests have questions. What will this mean for my priesthood in 10 years? Will I be a pastor of one parish? Will I be an associate of this family of parishes? A lot of that's up in the air. Then there's people who have been hurt over, and the Senate acknowledge this too, over the past decades of the mergers and closures that have had to happen. There are people who feel like this is just a slight of hand to say we're closing and merging parishes. I think there are people who are hurt by it and who are living out of that hurt, and then there are other people who are asking genuine questions to understand it more and to try to get a better sense of what it means. There's lots of questions right now. Danielle Center: Yeah, as a priest on the younger end of things? Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. Danielle Center: Right? Okay. My perspective as a lay person and a millennial young person, so in like a young middle age, is I can look- Fr. Steve Pullis: And someone who's worked in the church and gets church life. Right? Danielle Center: Right. I'm an optimist, but I think that realism is also important. It's okay to look at trends and say, this is where things look to be going. How do we prepare for trends? How do we prepare for the future now instead of being just pulled around by it when it comes? Us looking, let's say 20 years into the future, the reality is a lot of our parish communities, and the tithe base, and the volunteer base is, let's say baby boomers. When there are fewer, it's going to look different in the parish. For you, as a younger priest, you're looking at this future as well as I am. What are you thinking about for how we can support our priest population? Is that a part of this discussion? What are your thoughts on that? Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. I don't know if I have a lot of great thoughts on that, how people can support their priests. I think, just like all relationships, it's a balance of tough love and support. I know, oftentimes, people ... There's a podcast I listen to that someone turned me on to called Radical Candor. Have you heard of this, Danielle? Danielle Center: Tell me everything. I have not. Fr. Steve Pullis: It's this place of love in between, I forget the other two, but one's like just being a jerk, and the other one is total indifference, just a sicofante or someone who says yes to everything you do. Radical Candor is this concept of being completely candid with the person, sharing honestly feedback about how they're doing, but doing it from a place of love, which is super hard because oftentimes just as a priest, sometimes you hear, and I was talking about this a little bit earlier. You'll hear either people who just say yes to everything you do. Like, oh, poor Father, you're working so hard. Poor priest. Just like want to help in any way. There's a place for that. Danielle Center: Comes from a well meaning place. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, exactly. Better said than I did. Then there's the other side, which is just like, well, he just needs to hear the truth and I'm just going to be a total jerk. Danielle Center: This church wasn't the way it was when I was a kid. Yeah. Fr. Steve Pullis: I'm never coming back here again until you blah, blah, blah. I'm never given another dime, or you're ruining it. I think all of us, this way we love each other as a church needs to come out of this place of radical candor, which takes investment, that I'm really invested in the good we're trying to seek here, and I'm invested in the good of the other person. How can people support their priests? I would say with radical candor, with sharing all their concerns and all their hopes, but doing it from a place of love and not just lashing out, and not just kind of being a doormat. Danielle Center: I heard a saying one time, and it was like, golly, I'm going to slaughter this, so my apologies to the listener who told me this, but it was like, if you never want to hear the truth again, become a bishop. It's the opposite of what you're talking about. I'm not saying that's the truth in this situation. Fr. Steve Pullis: Was that a bishop who told you that? Danielle Center: No, but I think that that's the side that ... If a Virtuix exists between two vices. Fr. Steve Pullis: The mean, between two extremes. Yeah. Danielle Center: Yeah, then what you're talking about is like, oh yeah, whatever you say. That's a tricky place to be too. Yeah. That's something to pray about. In your life ... Go ahead. Fr. Steve Pullis: Danielle, tell me some of your thoughts about families of parishes who are going forward, or what the church needs in ... just demographically saying we're going to have 70 fewer priests or something like that in the next 10 years. We can't just ignore that. Danielle Center: Yeah. I'm going to be frank. I'm hopeful about things. I think that it's better to face the music now and dance now. The one thing that's really beautiful about our faith is that it's ours, but we're also a part of a long line. This faith is the faith of like my nieces and nephews, and their grandchildren, and their grandchildren. We're just a part of this. I think about, what do I want their church to look like? I want it to be strong and I want it to be something that is good. I want it to be something that doesn't suck them dry. I want it to be something that gives them life, and the same for me. I think about you guys. You priests, I think that the expectation that frankly, you can maintain the way that we've done faith in the past. That's unrealistic. I'm hopeful that this is a thing that is healthy, even though I know that pruning is really hard. It's hard in my spiritual life. I don't like saying no to things. I don't like saying no to people, so I'm not good at it, but I know that it is a good practice. In that sense, I am praying for the church. I want good things for it. Just like you do, I'm fighting for this church. Fr. Steve Pullis: One thing I've been thinking of in my own prayer is how ... as we've been in this slow return to mass, and we're telling people, especially in high risk categories to wait to come back, I was thinking, this might be the chance for people who had been jumping at the bit to do something in their church. This may be the crucible to say, we need to rely, or we need to lift up, or find a generation of people who are not just attendants, people who attend mass, but who are really invested in giving of themselves, and calling them to leadership and inviting them to leadership in this moment. This may be one of the silver linings of the coronavirus is the way it could be the crisis that allows a younger generation to say, okay, our church needs us now, or this has a chance where I can step up, where maybe people we relied on in the past, it's not prudent for them to be in these active leadership positions right now. Does that make sense? Danielle Center: Yeah. I was at a bonfire socially distanced from a few of your peers, and we were just talking about how ... One of them was saying, the quarantine advanced the technology of his parish by decades virtually overnight. Because suddenly, they needed the ability to have a stronger online presence. Their website was redone. They were livestreaming things. Which I think is a good thing. I think there's also that, sometimes like technology, sometimes advancements moves slow, and sometimes it's like a jump. I think it'll be interesting. Fr. Steve Pullis: Can you do that sound again? Can you do that sound? Danielle Center: Literally, as soon as I said that noise, I was like, I hope our producer puts in a better noise. Anyway, so ... Fr. Steve Pullis: Ron can work miracles, Danielle. Danielle Center: With my noises? Good. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah, with everything. Yeah. Danielle Center: With everything. Okay, good. I'm glad you guys liked it. Anyway, I was just saying, I am interested in seeing, what does this mean for how we do church from now on? That's another thing is, maybe call me crazy, but I'm like, let's dream bigger. Our friend, Fr. Athanasius, he has a saying that I really love, and it's, "Dreams are free." Right, we've done church in a certain way for a while, which is really good and beautiful, but frankly, we don't live in a Christian nation anymore. We live in a post Christian nation. That's not something to be afraid of. That's just something to be aware of, something to respond to. I hope that we can be bolder beyond like, okay, let's say this amount of buildings needs to look like this amount of buildings. Instead, we can be like, what would be radical evangelization look like in 20 years? You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Fr. Steve Pullis: Oh, it makes total sense because I think you're talking about institutions and structures, which in some ways can be a distraction from the mission. If we are so hell bent on making sure we never lose a building, how much of that time and energy are we not putting into reaching the people in our communities, in our parish boundaries who really need to hear the gospel, but we're more concerned with structures than we are with people. I think that's one of the things that the Senate called out, and calls us to, but we can talk about how good that is or how right that is in the macro picture, but when it comes to my church, or when it comes to me changing, then that's when we see the value or the real kind of metal of the Holy Spirit taking shape, to say, okay, I'm willing to change, not just say things need to change. Danielle Center: It's really interesting just personally too. You know, and I think the listeners know that I worked at a church or in ministry for some capacity for the past decade. Now, I'm on what I would consider a sabbatical of sorts, but we had an earlier guests this season, Fr. Mario talk about like all the keys that he had to a church, and for a long time, I've had all the keys to a church. In this chapter of my life, I don't have all the keys to a church. It's been really interesting how I have to adapt my life and ministry to not having the keys to a church. It was the easiest fallback of all time. Because I would just be like, oh, I want to host this speaker, and so here's the key to the gym. This is where we'll do it, which is good. It's a good thing. But now that I don't have access to that anymore, it's interesting to see how creativity functions within new parameters because I'm like, look, well, right now we're just like is not a quarantine, but I was talking to a friend today and we're like, what can we do? We're like, we can still meet outside on picnic blankets. Each of them are six feet apart. We could still do this. We could still do that. It's interesting how parameters do fuel creativity. That's something else that I'm curious to see as well. Fr. Steve Pullis: Well, you see this here now, and I think about so many priests. You mentioned about moving online, so many priests and others that I've talked to who have said, the people watching our livestream masses or the people that we're reaching out to and inviting to see what we're doing in our church, whether it's worship, study, or Christian service, were forced out of our buildings into online communities, and those by nature, other people are going to be able to see, and the way they've been able to reach people is something that we just wouldn't have done unless we had to do it. This is how, not that God causes crises, of course, but God allows these things to happen, and we can say, okay, where is God in all of this? Usually, it's only in hindsight that we look back and say, okay, well, this is the good that came out of it. It's hard for me to see that in the moment, but in the rear view mirror, I can see more clearly what was going on there in a spiritual realm that turned out to be a blessing. Danielle Center: Yeah. You know my friend, Fr. Ryan, and one thing that he said to me before is, do you believe that God can take something bad and make something good or not? When he phrased it like that, it was like, actually that is the tenet of our faith, that God can take something bad, like the fall, the crucifixion, all of these things and make something good. Yeah. I choose to live in hope. Then also, my pastor is Msgr. Dan Trapp, and he made the announcement. He's so chill and cool. He's like, "We're going to trust that the Holy Spirit is going to do the right thing." I was like, yeah, we are. Yeah, we are. That's that. Hey, as we close, do you have any words for- Fr. Steve Pullis: What do we do as we close? Danielle Center: Okay. When we close, usually the guest, like you, for instance, maybe has a word, a prayer, a phrase for the listeners. Is there anything that you would really like to leave them with tonight, Father? Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. We're talking in the midst of ... it almost feels like end times cataclysmic stuff going on with ... we talked about George Floyd and all the just tragedy around the ending of his life, the injustice of that, the hurt that people are speaking out of, and then how some of that, or some people have reacted in violent ways, whether that's opportunistic, or whether that's out of a place of hurt. Obviously the pandemic. We have murder hornets on their way. This is like end times stuff. I guess, in the midst of all of that, I would say we have to be men and women of action who don't just hide away. We have to be willing to step out and make mistakes and be men and women who engage in all of these things. But that's only going to come from men and women who are on their knees before the Lord in prayer. I would say we have to be inaction, but in order to do that, well, we have to be begging the Holy Spirit to show us the way forward. Pray and then step out in action. That's what I would say. Danielle Center: I really appreciate Fr. Steve Pullis, my guest tonight on Open Door Policy. Fr. Steve Pullis: Thanks Danielle for being an awesome interviewer and keep listening to ODP. If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends, your neighbors, your relatives, your trader Joe cashier. You can also leave us a review on iTunes. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Our handle is @opendoordetroit. Help us unleash the gospel. Open Door Policy was produced by Ron Pangborn of the creative team of the Archdiocese of Detroit. We just give you stuff to work with, Ron. Ron Pangborn: I know. I know, and I love every second of it, except when I don't. Fr. Steve Pullis: I'm Fr. Steve Pullis with Danielle Center. Danielle Center: And this has been another episode of Open Door Policy. I really appreciate Fr. Steve Pullis, my guest tonight on Open Door Policy. Fr. Steve Pullis: Thanks Danielle for being an awesome interviewer, and keep listening to ODP. Is that what you wanted? Danielle Center: Sure. Let's give him two more to work with. Fr. Steve Pullis: Two more. Two more. Danielle Center: Okay. Are you counting me in or I just go? Okay. Well folks, that was my friend, Fr. Steve Pullis. Fr. Steve Pullis: Thanks Danielle for an awesome interview, [inaudible 00:42:58]. Danielle Center: Okay. Fr. Steve Pullis: I got something to work with there. Danielle Center: Okay. Ready? Fr. Steve Pullis: That was me being nuts. Danielle Center: Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, everybody's favorite ginger pirate, Fr. Steve Pullis. Fr. Steve Pullis: Thanks Danielle for an awesome interview, and thanks everyone for listening to ODP. Danielle Center: Wow. You really went off the wall now. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. Danielle Center: Okay. Yeah, I think it really [crosstalk 00:43:40] too. Fr. Steve Pullis: So do I. I would advocate for more of it. A, it's a lot simpler than trying to hunt down guests, and B, Danielle and I can usually fill up plenty of time. Danielle Center: It's true. All right, my friends. Have a great evening. Fr. Steve Pullis: Yeah. Let's plan on doing another one of these other way, with Danielle as the interviewee, I don't know, at some point later this summer. Cool? Danielle Center: Perfect. Fr. Steve Pullis: Thanks, everyone. Danielle Center: Thanks, guys. Have a great one. Fr. Steve Pullis: [inaudible 00:44:13].