🎙️ He came out, left the Church, got a dream from God he tried to ignore, and now he works full-time for a ministry that helped bring him home.
Manny Gonzalez is a Catholic campus minister turned mission development director at Eden Invitation, an apostolate for LGBT+ disciples pursuing the Lord in alignment with Church teaching. In this episode, Manny walks through his full story — the years of suppression, the combustion, the ultimatum he gave Jesus on his knees in his bedroom — and what it actually looks like to carry a cross you didn't ask for.

They also dig into conversion therapy narratives, the "father wound" assumptions Catholics throw around, what the Church gets dangerously wrong about belonging, and the belong → believe → behave framework that should flip how we think about evangelization. This one's for you if you love someone navigating this — or if you've ever said something well-meaning that landed like a brick. The LIVing Room with Liv Harrison — pull up a chair.

Guest Bio:
Manny Gonzalez is a Catholic speaker, content creator, and mission development director at Eden Invitation, a lay apostolate for LGBT+ disciples pursuing faithful discipleship in alignment with Church teaching. He holds a master's degree in catechetics from Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he also served as a campus minister for three years. Now based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Manny works on community growth and mission partnerships for Eden Invitation while using his platform to share his story and speak hope to disciples navigating similar experiences. He is a self-described dramatic Hispanic man who once gave God an ultimatum on his knees — and credits what happened next as the turning point of his life.

In This Episode
00:00 Technical Chaos, Pet Birds, and Getting This Thing Rolling
04:10 Manny's New Life in Minnesota (One Month In)
05:45 Six Months Unemployed After Franciscan — The Real Talk
10:30 Breaking Performance Mentality and Learning Who God Actually Is
13:00 21-Year-Old Manny vs. 27-Year-Old Manny
17:50 The Both/And: You Can Be Grateful AND Say "This Sucks"
19:00 Saints Were Messy Too — Why Grit Is the Point
22:00 Manny's Conversion Story: Growing Up Catholic, Coming Out, Leaving the Church
30:00 October 2018: The Ultimatum on His Knees
33:30 Eden Invitation — What It Is and Why Manny Joined Their Staff
36:00 "I Could Have a Girlfriend and Still Go to Hell" — Dismantling the Wrong Goal
38:30 What the Church Actually Teaches on Chastity (And What It Doesn't Mean)
40:30 Conversion Therapy, Father Wounds, and the Dumb Stuff We Say to People
43:00 Liv Gets Real About Her Own Cross — Weight, Suffering, and What "Rid Of" Actually Costs
47:00 How to Be a Better Ally Without Becoming the Savior Nobody Asked For
50:30 Belong, Believe, Behave — The Framework That Should Change Your Parish
53:30 How Can We Pray for You, Manny?
55:45 Goodbyes and "We're Definitely Road-Trip Friends"

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🎙️ He got on a bus at 17 with no faith, no plan, and honestly — hoping to meet a girl. He got off it a completely different person. That one weekend in Monterrey set the next three decades in motion: a career switch from economics to communications, a conviction that the Church deserved better storytelling, and the founding of Digital Continent — the creative powerhouse behind some of Catholic media's most recognizable productions, including Seeking Beauty on EWTN.

But building something great on the outside doesn't mean everything is okay on the inside. In this episode of The LIVing Room, Liv Harrison sits down with Edmundo Reyes for the conversation behind the résumé — the 14 months that quietly took everything apart and put it back together differently. Therapy for the first time at 48. This one is for anyone who has been building, serving, and showing up — and suspects there's still something God is trying to get to underneath all of it.

Guest Bio:
Edmundo Reyes is the founder and creative director of Digital Continent, a Catholic media and production collective that partners with organizations and individuals to bring mission-driven content to life. His work spans high-profile Catholic media productions, most notably Seeking Beauty, a series currently airing on EWTN that he counts among Digital Continent's proudest achievements. He and his wife Melanie live in Michigan where they have grown a beautiful family over the last 24 years.

In This Episode
00:00 Cold open: the retreat, the therapy, the spiritual director
01:30 Welcome, marriage jokes, and how Liv keeps getting Edmundo's story wrong
05:30 Meet Melanie's husband — and the man behind Digital Continent
07:00 Not an agency — a collective of dreamers and builders
09:30 Liv calls him a creative architect — and he nearly cries
12:00 Why great creative work looks effortless — and what that actually costs
13:30 Your team is not a contract — they're brothers and sisters in Christ
16:30 Growing up Catholic in Mexico — faith as a subject, not a relationship
18:30 17 years old, friendless, and talked into a retreat he didn't want to go to
19:30 Arms crossed in the back row — his first encounter with charismatic Catholics
21:30 The retreat leaders wrote him off as a lost cause — then God showed up
23:00 "What if this is actually true?" — the leap of faith that changed everything
24:30 From economics to communications — why the Church needed better storytellers
27:00 God's dodgeball team — and raising his hand to be picked
30:00 He said yes before he knew what he was good at — and that's how he found out
31:30 How is your prayer life different now? — the question that opens everything
32:30 Walking 46 miles on Holy Week because his ego takes two hours to quiet down
34:30 He used to see himself as St. Francis. Now he sees Pontius Pilate.
36:00 The Jesuit spiritual director who stopped him mid-sentence
37:30 Two things he finally learned: the depth of his sin and the depth of God's love
40:30 Gen X, Mexican, male — and finally in therapy at 48
42:30 The JP2 Institute healing work — and crying in a reflection he didn't expect
44:00 Healing shows you the wounds. Therapy explains why you kept reopening them.
46:00 How can we pray for you? — closing a chapter of healing, entering one of giving
47:30 Hurt people hurt people — but healed people heal people
48:00 Seeking Beauty on EWTN — where to find it and why you should watch it

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🇻🇦He named all four of his sons after Popes — Leo, Gregory, Nicholas, and John Paul — and he's a contractor who fixes toilets by day. Matt from The Popecast joins Liv in The LIVing Room for one of the most surprisingly moving conversations about papal history, faith, and what it actually feels like to "meet God on the way down." Matt opens up about his first marriage, a quick annulment, and how sitting in a Starbucks writing six and a half single-spaced pages finally gave him peace beyond understanding.
They also dig into the Pope who accidentally kicked off the Reformation with a pet elephant, why Pope Leo XIV's Lutheran best friends still call him "Bob," and what the loneliness epidemic looks like from the front seat of a contractor's truck. This one's for you if you've ever loved the Church but felt like the mess of your life didn't quite fit the story.
Guest Bio:

Matt is the creator of The Popecast, a podcast and Instagram account dedicated to papal history with a mission to remind people that the chaos of today is nothing new in the life of the Church. He launched the podcast in 2018 after writing a daily email series on the full history of the papacy, and his Instagram following has grown larger than his podcast audience — a fact he finds equal parts ironic and delightful. By day, Matt runs a small remodeling company in the Diocese of Spokane; by night, he digs into 2,000 years of Church history. He and his wife are expecting their fourth child, whose name — John Paul — was never really in question.

In This Episode:
00:00 Mystery Face Reveal: Matt Finally Shows Up on the Internet
01:20 What Is The Popecast? Papal History, Instagram, and One Man's Anxiety Cure
03:30 The Hiatus, Pope Francis Dying, and Getting Back in the Game
04:00 Father Rich from Duluth and the World's Largest Private Papal Collection
05:00 How Marilys and the Conclave Put Matt on Liv's Radar
06:00 "Aggressively Normal Catholicism" — Matt's Approach to Faith Online
07:30 Faith Journey: Growing Up Catholic in Montana, Carroll College, and FOCUS
09:00 The 2013 SEEK Conference That Changed Everything
09:45 "I Met God on the Way Up, Got to Know Him on the Way Down"
10:30 The First Marriage, the Divorce, and What Nobody Talks About at Mass
12:00 Pope Francis, the Annulment Process, and Why Matt Defends It
15:30 Starbucks, Six and a Half Pages, and Peace Beyond All Understanding
18:00 Contractor by Day, Pope Nerd by Night — What Self-Employment Actually Looks Like
20:00 Digital Life vs. Real Life: What the Loneliness Epidemic Looks Like from a Truck
22:00 The Widow with the Alzheimer's Husband and the Cup of Coffee That Matters
24:30 Historian of Real Life — Teaching Kids to Reverence Old People and Old Things
25:30 Meet the Kids: Leo, Gregory, Nicholas, and Baby John Paul
27:30 Pope Leo XIV, "Bob," and His Lutheran Best Friends Who Called It 46 Years Ago
31:30 The Wildest Pope Facts: A Pet Elephant and Death by Eel
35:00 The Pope Who Founded Western Civilization: Gregory the Great Explained
40:00 Five Popes at the Mac and Cheese Dinner Table
46:30 How Can We Pray for You? Matt's Request and Closing Prayer

⚡ Subscribe on YouTube!
⚡ Visit Liv on the web at: https://www.thelivharrison.com/
⚡ Follow Liv on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelivharrison/
⚡ Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more!
⚡ Subscribe to Liv's newsletter: https://bit.ly/livnewsletter

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