I am the host of the Popeular History Podcast and a lot of what I do is talk about Cardinals. The most amusingly named Cardinal in the long history of the Catholic Church is Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who will be visiting Detroit in December to raise money for the struggling Christians of the Holy Land. This will put him an achievable distance from me and I would love to meet him as he is a podcast legend. But I don't want to crash a fundraising tour empty-handed. I want to bring along a comedically oversized check made by my children as well as an actual check for a meaningful amount. I really want to do this so I have decided a relatively small amount will still count as meaningful. So budgeting $200 for travel expenses and giant check creation, and the rest will end up added to the actual check, ultimately bound for the aforementioned struggling Christians of the Holy Land via Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa.

Patriarch Pizzaballa will be landing in Detroit on December 4th 2025 so we've just got a couple weeks to pull something together for in-person. But if things come together too late I will still get him the money for the cause, just in a less fun way.