Band of brothers called to service

Some who disapprove of the phrase ‘Man up’ do so because they associate it with stereotypes about masculinity, many of them negative. However, to the keynote speakers at the Catholic Diocese of Wichita’s 2026 Men’s Conference, which was held on Saturday, March 28, at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School in Wichita, manning up is not about suppressing emotion, flaunting one’s physical strength, or acting without reflection. It’s about service, first to God, and then to others.

Or as Hollywood actor Neal McDonough advised an engaged man seeking advice on how to be a good husband during the conference’s question-and-answer session, “Put your wife first. It’s simple,” he said. “Manning up means to serve  . . . your job now is not to serve yourself nor look to be served.” 

As he offered examples of how a husband can serve his wife, McDonough acknowledged the challenge. “It’s hard work, but it’s awesome work, and it pays off,” he said. “Trust me, 26 years later, I love my wife more today than I did yesterday. I guarantee you, I’ll love her more tomorrow than I did today.”

Moreover, said the event’s other keynoter – author, podcaster, and media personality Chris Stefanick – in his first talk, Christianity is first and foremost a love story. He acknowledged love stories might sound ill-suited for a men’s conference, but insisted otherwise. “We come into the world through an act of love. All our lives, we are looking for love because we know it’s the truest path to joy, and we’re made for joy,” he said. “Brothers, there is a love story that encompasses every experience of life, that encompasses the history of the universe, that takes all of our broken love stories, and highs and lows – everything – and turns all of life into something worth rejoicing in. And you know where you find that love story? You find it in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You find it in your Catholic Christian faith.”

All about service

During the onstage conversation between Anthony Keiser – who, among his many roles in the diocese, helped organize the conference – and McDonough, the two discussed the actor’s life and career. McDonough grew up in an Irish-Catholic family in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. McDonough recounted his early struggles in both athletics and theater, including failing to make the cut for numerous teams and productions during his early years of high school. He found success in the later part of high school after attending a Catholic spiritual retreat, and chose acting over a minor league baseball contract. 

McDonough emphasized the importance of faith, family, and integrity, and detailed how his Catholic faith influenced his career decisions, even when they jeopardized his career. McDonough also discussed his journey to finding purpose through his wife, Ruvé McDonough, and Angel Studios, the production company with which they are involved.

And although he hailed from Red Sox country, McDonough acknowledged his own major league baseball allegiance had helped draw him to speak in Wichita. “I am a devout Kansas City Royals fan,” he said. “George Brett is the greatest ballplayer of all time.”

As he looked back on his early career, McDonough recounted years of rejection. Even some of the better parts he got were on films that bombed, he mused. After several years of frustration, he gave up and returned to Massachusetts to be near his family. 

“About a month after being on Cape Cod, I got a phone call from a friend of mine: ‘Steven Spielberg is looking for you,’” McDonough said. “How the heck does he even know who I am?’ He goes, ‘Well, Steven knows everybody.’”

Spielberg was casting for a show called “Band of Brothers” and wanted McDonough to audition for the role of Lynn “Buck” Compton, even though auditions had concluded two weeks before. “I said ‘I need a one-way ticket to Los Angeles . . . and I’m not coming back,” McDonough said. 

He walked into the audition room brimming with confidence, but wavered when he realized that the actor with whom he would be reading was the legendary Tom Hanks. “I can feel sweat coming everywhere, and within 15 seconds, he diffused all tension,” McDonough said. “Tom is just an incredible Christian and phenomenal human being. And after the audition . . . he looked at me, and his words were, ‘You know you crushed it, don’t you?’”

Even so, the audition process went on for six months, during which McDonough said he spent his nights in a sleeping bag on a friend’s closet floor. “I would go to church every day and pray,” he said. “And finally, I got the part.”

Although “Band of Brothers” supercharged McDonough’s career, more trials awaited, such as a two-year dry spell that followed his firing from a television show for refusing to kiss a woman other than his wife. He described the pressure of life as a breadwinner who suddenly could not provide for his family. 

“I couldn’t work,” he said. “I lost my house, lost the cars, lost everything, lost my swagger.” 

He also drank to excess and lost the consistent practice of his faith and intentional connection with God. “Then one day, my wife grabbed me and said, ‘You need to man up,’” McDonough said. “She dragged me back to church because I had forgotten about him. I made all of this pain about me . . . she dragged me back to St Brendan’s Church, and I remember it like yesterday.”

In that church, McDonough said he realized that he needed to quit drinking and place his focus on God. Shortly thereafter, he was cast for the show “Justified.” As success and respect started to return, McDonough said he started a tradition of beginning each new year by climbing into a body of water and asking God, “What do you want from me?” He had never heard a response as strong as the one he got nearly a decade ago while floating in a frigid pool in Vancouver.

“I heard him say, ‘Make movies and give glory to me,’” McDonough said as he pantomimed the surprise of hearing a disembodied voice. “Okay, I’m not drinking anymore; I definitely heard something.” 

He shared the experience with Ruvé, who said she was getting the same message. They weren’t sure what to do, but it was to that apparent revelation that they returned during the Covid-19 pandemic, which prompted McDonough to act on independent projects such as “Redstone” and “Boon,” the latter of which he co-wrote.  

“We sold these movies, and they did well,” he said, noting that the proceeds from those films led to more projects. “We made ‘The Last Rodeo’ for $8 million, and it’s made $30 million so far . . . We have two more films coming out because I stopped making it about me.”

Moment of grace

During his second talk, which concluded the conference, Stefanick issued what he referred to as “four simple challenges” that he said would help change the world: 

• Keep first things first;

• Be not afraid;

• Make friends; and

• Be a saint.

In his remarks on the first item, he reminded Catholics to always prioritize their faith in and relationship with Jesus. Although there are many important and beautiful implications that follow from Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection, they should never overshadow the central truth.

On the second matter, he urged the audience to always be open to the promptings of the Spirit in sharing the gospel, and related the awkward experience of doing so with his wife’s 92-year-old grandmother who was dying of pneumonia. “I was there at her deathbed,” Stefanick said. “She never went to church and had told my wife – years before that deathbed moment – that she thought she’d end up in Hell when she died.”

Standing in a room with a woman so close to death, Stefanick said he needed to say something, even if the very thought of it made him cringe. “This is not the time you want to rock the boat with a challenging discussion about religion with Grandma – why don’t we talk politics too?” he laughed. “Let’s make it more awkward: Her son, my father-in-law, was agnostic at the time.”

Nevertheless, Stefanick said he leaned in close to her and began to speak softly: “Florence, there was a thief crucified next to Jesus. He never did anything good, but at the very end, he just said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And Jesus said, ‘Today, you’ll be with me in paradise.’ I said, ‘That guy went to Heaven that day, not because of what he had done, but because of what Jesus did for him. That thief can be you.’”

The next day, Stefanick said, Florence was received into the Catholic Church, and the day after that, she died. “Fast-forward a bit, her son, who was an agnostic, is going to be baptized this Easter at the age of 85,” he added. “One reason he decided to finally do that, he said, ‘I told my mom before she died, ‘Mom, wherever you go, I will find you.’ What if I hadn’t said anything because it was awkward?”

Stefanick concluded his remarks by discussing an encouraging shift he’d noticed during the past decade in which he’d been addressing audiences about the Catholic faith. “What is going on, guys?” he asked. “There are dioceses reporting a 70% increase in the number of people being baptized this Easter over last Easter, which is a 50%-70% increase over the year before that.”

He suggested a new moment of grace was underway. “This is not the moment for you to shy away from your identity as a child of God, because you have the thing the world is literally dying for,” Stefanick said. “You know whose you are. Lean into this moment. Keep first things first. Do not be afraid. Make friends. Be a saint.” 

Holiness for all

In his homily during the Mass that opened the conference, Bishop Carl Kemme affirmed the assembled men for devoting a Saturday to attending an event focused on helping them grow in virtue, faith, and holiness. 

God calls each one of his people – without exception – to holiness, even if it manifests differently according to a person’s circumstances, the bishop observed. “Whether we are young or old, rich or poor, single or married, whether we are a priest, bishop, or religious – whatever stage of life, whatever state of life – the Lord God calls us all to holiness of life,” he said. “How we accomplish this holiness is by living our lives in varied and different ways – but all united to Christ. The more we encounter the Lord and his word and sacraments through prayer, worship, and adoration, the more we will grow in his image and likeness.”

Amid the sin and darkness besetting the world, Bishop Kemme pointed the congregation to Holy Mass and Eucharistic adoration as particularly powerful means of holiness. For Catholics unhindered by illness or other legitimate hardship, he reminded, Sunday Mass attendance is a precept of the Church. 

“To willfully absent ourselves from the Mass on Sundays is mortally sinful, and I trust that every one of us here has fully embraced this precept,” he said. “But we know, do we not, that there are many out there – sometimes members of our own families, even your children and grandchildren – who are not with us on the Sunday celebration of the Mass and put their souls in jeopardy in doing that. We must pray for them. We must encourage them. We must challenge them in a unique, simple, humble, and loving way: ‘Be with us once again in the celebration of the Mass.’”

Bishop Kemme went on to encourage the congregation to consider attending weekday Masses. 

“To be a daily communicant is a great goal for all of us,” he said. “The saints often speak of the incredible strength and protection, the divine assistance and support that they receive every day from going to Mass, so much so that they would never miss the Mass on any given day unless they were physically prevented from doing so.”

On the subject of Eucharistic adoration, the bishop noted that a few years ago, he commissioned a diocesan adoration audit that identified 50 adoration periods or chapels in which the devotion took place, often perpetually. Bishop Kemme said he rejoiced in the knowledge that so many of the diocese’s faithful dedicated at least one hour a week to adoration, a practice he likened to how Mary, sister of Lazarus, used to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen. 

Obligations with family, work, and other demands may seem to preclude such a commitment, Bishop Kemme acknowledged. “Some may say, ‘Bishop, I don’t have time . . . I feel like my life is going from fast to faster and I just don’t know how I could fit that in,” he said. “Let me tell you what I discovered far too late in my life, to be honest, when I, too, have wrestled with those same questions and thoughts: ‘I could be doing something else.’ ‘I could be getting all my other things done if I just forego the daily Mass and . . . my daily Holy Hour.’ But I’ve learned that the more time I give to Jesus in the Mass and in adoration – I don’t know how it works, but it does – the more time I give to him, the more time and energy he gives to me. And all the things that I had to do or could have done seemed somehow to get done with extra time to spare.”

Takeaways

In the moments after the event, Rob Knapp, who also helped organize the event and served as emcee, acknowledged a remark by Bishop Kemme earlier in the day that the event drew more than 1,100 registrants. “I don’t know the exact final number,” he said, “but it’s the most Man Fully Alive Conference registrants we’ve ever had.”

And the overriding impression he took away from the conference? “As men, we need to step up, look up, and man up,” Knapp said. “Like Neal McDonough said, we need to take responsibility for ourselves, our families, and our Church. It’s no good for us to hide behind the veil of diffused responsibility – of letting somebody else take the lead. Each man needs to take responsibility – individually and collectively in small groups – to help build up our parishes, build up the diocese, and build up our Church.”

As they filed out, numerous attendees acknowledged they had attended at the encouragement of another man. 

One example was Mark Belluomo, who grew up in Wichita’s St. Patrick Parish and graduated from Bishop Carroll, but who now lives in Tulsa, where he attends St. Bernard of Clairvaux Parish. He said Man Fully Alive 2026 was his third such conference. “My buddy invited me,” he said. “It is an outstanding conference, and I will come back next year.”

That buddy, Steve Howell from Wichita’s Church of the Magdalen, said he reached out to Belluomo because he thought it would provide the right kind of boost. “It’s always good to fill your spiritual tank, I thought it would be good to experience together as friends,” Howell said.

It was similar for Brian Rucker, a parishioner from Wichita’s St. Francis of Assisi, who says he attended “Because my friends were coming and they invited me.”

Was that yet another apt example of the “Band of Brothers” theme at work?

“That’s exactly right,” Rucker said.