The Vice You're Hiding Behind A Virtue

He was seventeen, sitting in a confessional at a Steubenville conference, listing his sins — and the priest stopped him. "Son, I'm going to stop you right there. You love your sin." Conall Hughes smiled. It was the first time anyone had cared enough to tell him the truth. Eight years into full-time mission at Damascus, Conall sits down with Brad Pierron to trace the whole road: the Eucharistic procession in 2011 that he can still date to the hour, the high school of 1,600 students with six kids in its youth group, the mentor who taught him how to pray because nobody ever had. They get into the three stages every conversion moves through, why giving from your surplus is not the same as giving from your sustenance, what happens to a man who learns a lot of theology and starts using it as a weapon, and the fear Brad names out loud near the end — how often we hide vice behind the veneer of virtue. It closes on the two words Conall says to himself every morning. If this one lands, send it to someone who is trying to take the faith seriously and does not know where to start. The Damascus Podcast — where encounter meets mission.