PALM BEACH GARDENS | The 25th annual Men’s Rally, sponsored by Catholic Men for Jesus Christ, is set for Saturday, Jan. 24, at the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola, 9999 N. Military Trail. Participants will begin to gather for continental breakfast, registration and social time in the cathedral’s Family Life Center at 8 a.m., with the closing Mass starting about noon.
The keynote speaker will be Msgr. James Patrick Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, who may be known to some through his appearances at the National Eucharistic Congress in 2024 and last year’s National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
Jim Manhardt, organizer of the gathering of men in the Diocese of Palm Beach, said he had the hardest time getting the monsignor to commit to the event. Working through Msgr. Shea’s assistant, “he never told me ‘yes,’ but he never told me ‘no.’ So, I kept on trying.” A friend told Manhardt she had been with Msgr. Shea on a recent European pilgrimage also attended by Jesuit Father John Horn, a professor of spiritual and pastoral theology at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach.
Manhardt, who had previously met Father Horn, called the Jesuit priest and asked for his help in signing up Msgr. Shea. “Father Horn is a wonderful, gracious man, and so a short while later I get this long email from Msgr. Shea. The punchline of the email being, ‘I want to do this. I want to come to the Men’s Rally and speak,’” said Manhardt, who has come to know Msgr. Shea from his talks on YouTube and other websites.
The 50-year-old monsignor, who has been president of the Catholic university since 2009, is impressive as a speaker, he said. “He never has a note in front of him. He doesn’t use a teleprompter. He doesn’t use a piece of paper. He uses nothing, OK, and he’ll speak for like 40 minutes, and he will not miss a word. It’s incredible,” Manhardt said.
Other Men’s Rally speakers include former Swiss Guard Mario Enzler, who served at the Vatican during the days of Pope John Paul II. Enzler spoke recently to the new Legatus chapter in Vero Beach, Manhardt said, and told interesting stories about the saintly pope and St. Teresa of Kolkata.
Former Air Force Capt. Guy Gruters will talk about his time as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. “He was in solitary confinement, tortured, the whole deal, for five years, and his Catholic faith got him through everything,” Manhardt said.
Father Mike Schmitz, the popular priest from Minnesota who spoke at last year’s Men’s Rally, is connected to the other scheduled 2026 speaker. Nash Georgiev, who is a fan of Father Schmitz, attended the 2025 rally to see him speak even though he was a Protestant. Since that time, Georgiev has been received into the Catholic Church and is a daily communicant at the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola, Manhardt said, with a growing footprint as a podcaster talking about his conversion to the faith.
The rally will have priests available for the sacrament of penance and praying of the rosary. Bishop Emeritus Gerald M. Barbarito will be the main celebrant of the closing Mass.
The cost to attend the rally is $35. Manhardt said he is offering a special deal to younger men.
“We are trying to get as many young men to come to the rally as possible, and we are offering free tickets to every high school kid, college kid, essentially anybody who doesn’t have a full-time job. There is no cost to attend at all,” he said.
To buy tickets and learn more about ministry to Catholic men, visit www.catholicmenforjesusflorida.com.
