Ray McKenna
Episode 243
25 SEP 2023
A Washington, D.C.-based attorney and former general counsel of the General Services Administration. He served as a lay baseball chaplain for eight years and is the president and founder of Catholic Athletes for Christ. He has served in sports-related ministry for close to 30 years including ministries associated with Major League Baseball, the NFL, professional boxing, and youth sports programs. He was a participant in Rome at the Vatican’s first-ever sports conference in 2005 and has been working with the Vatican’s sports office to promote the Church’s mission in the United States.
Notable guest quotes:
“I was born and raised Catholic and I’m a product of Catholic education all the way from grammar school through college.”
“My uncle – my godfather – and my dad, they both played baseball, they both were semi-pro baseball players. My uncle was very accomplished. He was offered a contract by the Yankees.”
“I played just about every sport that I could, mostly first in the streets. I played baseball most primarily and basketball in school… I went to St. John’s University, and I didn’t make the baseball team there, I tried, so I was involved with the baseball program in an advisory and a coaching capacity for many years after I graduated also.”
“I appreciate very much my mom and dad sacrificing to pay to put me in Catholic school and I really had a wonderful time there.”
“I actually became rejuvenated in my Catholic faith through evangelical Protestant sports ministries.”
“I was invited by a friend at one point to help him with a sports ministry called Baseball Chapel – which still exists – and they do wonderful work. They minister, provide, like, a sermonette, to baseball players in all the major leagues, all the minor leagues, and now even in the Latin America and the independent baseball leagues.”
“I began to really feel the Holy Spirit had put on my heart… that there was a real void, that there wasn’t a room for Catholics to practice their faith as Catholics… in baseball most Catholics didn’t have that opportunity to go to Mass during the season and I felt that that was not right.”
“I’m a big fan of St. Paul and many others who had, not that I had a moment like his on the road to Damascus, but if there’s hope for me there’s hope for everybody.”
“…been… back to the Vatican a number of times… to try to be a part of the Vatican’s effort to share Catholicism in the world of sports.”
“John Paul II was a great athlete… and Pope Francis is a big soccer fan.”
“One of the initiatives we have that’s a little over ten years old began in the Trenton New Jersey Diocese under the leadership of Bishop Dennis O’Connell, which is still flourishing, which is our high school chapter program.”
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