St. Anthony's Tongue

In this episode of From the Margins, I’m talking about why I wrote Beware of Catholic Robots — my new manifesto on Catholic AI, prayer apps, digital spirituality, human dignity, work, and what happens when faith becomes optimized, monetized, and frictionless.
We’ll get into Catholic AI companies, spiritual formation, AI and pastoral care, the gamification of prayer, ethical labor, and why the Church should remain stubbornly human.
Get Issue V: Beware of Catholic Robots
https://www.stanthonystongue.com/margins/p/issue-v-beware-of-catholic-robots

Order My Book, A Catechism of the Strange
What is the stigmata — and more importantly, what does it mean?In this episode, we explore the strange Catholic phenomenon of the stigmata, the wounds of Christ appearing on the bodies of saints and mystics. We’ll talk about St. Francis of Assisi, redemptive suffering, victim souls, “offering it up,” and why these mysterious wounds reveal something deeper about suffering, sacrifice, and union with Christ.This is also one of the central ideas behind my new book, *A Catechism of the Strange*: strange Catholic phenomena aren’t just curiosities — they teach us something about God, holiness, and the human soul.

Matthew 14 gives us two banquets, and two very different kinds of kings.
Herod feasts inside a palace, surrounded by wealth, spectacle, and powerful guests. By the end of the night, John the Baptist’s head is carried into the room on a platter.
Then Jesus gathers the hungry in the wilderness.
No palace. No guest list. No VIP section. Just grass, hunger, compassion, and bread placed into the hands of God.
In this Mass Prep, we explore what these two feasts reveal about power, Catholic leadership, luxury spiritual experiences, and the uncomfortable question of whether we sometimes look more like Herod at the banquet than Christ among the hungry.
Every kingdom eventually sets a table.
The question is what it eats.

Pre-order A Catechism of the Strange here: https://www.amazon.com/Catechism-Strange-Stigmata-Relics-Miracles/dp/0829460683
Catholicism is full of wounds, bones, dreams, incorrupt bodies, visions, relics, and saints who seemed to glow with the presence of God.
But these strange things are not merely spooky trivia. They reveal something essential about the Christian life: grace does not simply forgive us from a distance. It enters us, transforms us, and conforms us to Christ.
In this episode, I talk about why I wrote A Catechism of the Strange, how wonder helped lead me back to the faith, and what the strangest corners of Catholic tradition reveal about what every human person was created to become.

We live in a world that constantly tells us we need one more thing. One more book. One more devotion. One more answer. So on and so on.
But in Sunday's Gospel, Jesus tells a different story. The merchant finds one pearl—and stops searching.
In this week's mass prep, let's talk about what it means to stop shopping for God, why the Kingdom can't be mass-produced, and how Christ is the treasure that changes everything.