I kept waiting for this CNN program hosted by Lisa Ling to say, “Surprise! Here’s the dark secret!” But it didn’t. It’s genuinely inspiring, so much so that even Ling seeems to have been moved by the example of these men.

This episode of Ling’s program focuses on Fowler, Michigan, a town of 1,200 that has a reputation of producing priests, even in this time of lean vocations. Ling spends time with several of the young men from the town who have become priests, and one 19 year old who’s in seminary. It’s really something else. The best part is an interview with Father Mathias Thelen, 32, a former football star at Fowler’s high school. He was ordained in 2010. At about the 26-minute mark in the show, Ling asks him how the Scandal affected his sense of calling to the priesthood. He says:

“Right after the scandals broke in the church, I remember thinking to myself is this really what I want? Do I really want to step into the church here? There are two responses to evil. Either I allowed that evil to in a sense discourage me from doing good or I actually use that as a motivation to do all the more the will of God. And so, I actually used the scandal as something which propelled me forward in proclaiming God to a world that is hurting.”

It’s something else to see how solid he is, and how convicted.

Later, when Ling talks to a group of seminarians, the Scandal comes up. One of the men says that their generation is going to have to be the one that rebuilds. This is a burden they accept. Powerful stuff. Watch it and be inspired.

I found the show through a tweet by Nicholas Cotta, who tweeted that watching that program makes him think that I might be right — presumably about the Benedict Option. How is it that this little farming community can produce so many priests? The show doesn’t really answer that question, but you can see that this is an overwhelmingly Catholic town that takes its faith seriously. People go to church. They talk about Jesus Christ, and they’re not embarrassed or cagey. It’s nothing fancy, just good country people who believe, and who believe as a community. Somehow, they have found a way to hold on, and not only to hold on, but to bear astonishing fruit.

Whatever they’re doing, we all need more of it.

The show is called This Is Life with Lisa Ling. I really have to give Ling and CNN credit here for a well-done show. She asked some hard questions of the young priests and seminarians — I wish she had asked them questions that gave us more of a sense of what they believe, and how they place themselves within the Church — but she let them speak for themselves, and it ended up being the most positive portrayal of the Catholic priesthood that I have seen on TV news since I can’t remember when. Even if you’re not Catholic, if you find yourself despairing of the state of religious life in the US, watch that program and see what the young men of Fowler, Michigan, are creating: hope.