In Podcasts, The Inner Life

Compassion – The Inner Life – June 24, 2026

Patrick Conleyby Patrick Conley

Father Ryan Brady joins Deacon Patrick Conley to discuss Compassion

  • (2:45) what is compassion?
  • (18:07) Bob – I have a person in my life (sister) that gambles. She gambles up to 100k per year. I don’t want to be involved in it, but she buys dinners for her friends every Friday. I asked her if I could say grace, she said she doesn’t do that. I make the sign of the cross over myself. It has a hold on her bad. Am I being a hard liner or unloving/uncompassionate for her and what she’s enslaved with?

(23:09) Break 1

  • (24:26) Melissa – I feel like there’s a lack of compassion toward me when I try to do as the church and Jesus guides us to do. If I voice that, I feel a great deal of rejection. I don’t feel the compassion. Am I to be compassionate to their misunderstanding of the truth?
  • How do you be compassionate without being condescending?
  • (35:52) Email about compassion shown while at a seminary.

(38:32) Break 2

  • In what ways can we practically show compassion to others?
  • (47:41) how can we grow in compassion?

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Patrick Conley

Patrick Conley

Patrick Conley was born, raised, and baptized in Wisconsin in a Protestant tradition. After meeting his wife, Kendra, through an Evangelical ministry at the University of Minnesota, they entered the Catholic Church in 2010. They listened to Relevant Radio, specifically The Inner Life, while preparing to enter the Church. Conley now holds a degree in theology from Oxford University and has served the Church in both academic theology and grassroots pastoral ministry. Conley teaches religion classes in a Catholic elementary school, serves as his parish Director of Religious Education, and is in formation for the permanent diaconate. He also hosts Practicing Catholic on Relevant Radio, exclusive to the Minneapolis area’s airwaves, and is a traveling presenter for the Catherine of Siena Institute apostolate. He lives in rural Wisconsin with his wife and their bulldogs, Georgie and Bingley.