The Catholic Patriotic Minute #59: Fr. Mark Beard
Catholics For Catholics Special Edition | August 17th, 2026
Father Mark Beard: The Voice Crying in the Wilderness of Modern America
On July 30, 2023, Father Mark Beard–the pastor of Saint Helena Catholic Church in Amite, Louisiana–delivered a homily, warning his parishioners that Catholics cannot remain on the fence regarding their Catholic faith. In fact, the consequence of picking and choosing Catholic doctrine to believe is eternal.
With a certain urgency, Father Beard asserted, “[t]he only thing that matters is your soul. Do you not understand? There [are] no exceptions when you’re in front of Him. There’s no arbitration. There’s no mediation.” He reminded his parishioners,
[t]he nanosecond you and I die, the nanosecond before people walk away from your bed, before they leave to get in their cars, you have already been judged and you’re either in heaven, hell, or purgatory. That’s it. It’s done. And there’s nothing else to go, and it’s for all eternity. I’m trying to tell you, you can’t pick and choose. Either He’s the Great I Am or He’s not.
On August 2, 2023, three days later, Father Mark Beard got into his car, far away from any fence, fully believing that God was “the Great I Am.” And, he died in a car accident. Hundreds of thousands across America listened to his last Sunday homily after the news, drawn to his reminder, right before his own death, that heaven, hell, and purgatory are not far away or abstract. They are so real, that we can be at one of the three at any moment.
On July 26, 1961, Mark Beard was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His father was “the quintessential John Wayne”–a powerhouse and straight shooter–and his mother was the heart of the home. His parents were dedicated to raising Mark and his brother Catholic, but, according to Father Beard himself, his younger self did not consider his faith or education as important. At a young age, Mark believed praying the rosary and reading to be pointless.
After attending a Catholic grade school and an all-boys’ Catholic high school, Mark entered Louisiana State University. Father Beard recounted that he began college as an unimpressive man of 130 pounds and left a “gym rat” of 180 pounds.
With a degree of business in hand, Beard, alongside his father and older brother, started Beard Engineering and United Industries, a company involved in waste water treatment. By the year 2000, Beard was earning a large income, traveling the world, and coming home in the evening to his, in his own words, “plush home, a maid, a 20,000 grand Harley, and a rag-top jeep.” Later, Father Beard wrote, “I was in my thirties, bullet-proof, and married to money, power, and ‘datin’ for medicinal purposes: the unholy Trinity.”
One day, his father stepped into his office and asked Beard, “[d]id you know the Blessed Mother is appearin’ in Medjugorje?”. Then, he suggested, “[i]f I were you, I’d go check it out.” Bewildered, Beard soon thereafter read the book, Queen of the Cosmos, in one sitting. He tried to discount the possibility of apparitions in Medjugorje quickly, but the idea of the Blessed Mother watching us from above made him wonder.
Beard figured a trip to Medjugorje would vindicate his doubts. During his journey there, Beard faced more problems than he had on all his previous trips, including losing his pilgrimage group. He had his first anxiety attack ever. A fellow pilgrim told him it was the devil.
Throughout his conversations with two of the alleged visionaries and the locals, he attempted to test them and see if their stories and accounts of the apparitions conflicted with each other, admitting to “lookin’ for inconsistencies.” However, he was faced with the peace and joy the locals possessed, in their devotion to the Blessed Mother and as they prayed altogether every evening for three hours. And, the alleged visionaries’ telling of the apparitions were consistent with their accounts in the book, Queen of the Cosmos.
Beard called his dad, exclaiming, “Pop, they’re tellin’ the truth. They got nothin’. Nothin’. If they’re lyin’, then the whole town is lyin’. Either the Good Lord’s mother is here, or she’s not. You can’t just believe the visionaries part of the way—you can’t just go 50 percent or 80 percent. And there’s a sense of peace here that you can cut with a knife. It’s . . . it’s unbelievable.”
In prayer, Beard asked the Blessed Mother the only question remaining: “[s]o why am I here?”. One pilgrim questioned Beard, “[y]ou sure you’re not supposed to be a priest?”. At first, this answer seemed laughable to Beard. He returned home, longing for Medjugorje and the peace he felt there. He resigned from his job and began to attend Mass and Adoration more and more. Whispers from heaven mentioned the seminary again and again.
Finally, he joined Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, only to consider the priesthood. For the whole first semester, Beard had one foot in the seminary and one foot out. He did not fully believe God’s call for him to be a priest, until he attended the Institute for Priestly formation at the University of Creighton for an eight-day conference.
Beard was assigned to the spiritual director, Monsignor John Esseff, who was once the spiritual director of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and who himself had St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina as his spiritual director. In response to Beard’s worries about discernment, Monsignor Esseff said,
The only thing you should be concerned with is whether or not you should be going back to school. And when you’re in school, the only thing you should be worried about is praying every day and doing well in school. The discernment of whether or not you’re called to be a priest will take care of itself over time. You’re trying to determine that every day, while you should be focusing on living in the moment and taking care of what’s in front of you.
Monsignor Esseff directed Beard to pray the Rosary daily, in light of Beard’s devotion to the Blessed Mother, and Beard began feeling the peace he saw in others at Medjugorje.
During the conference, a fellow seminarian described aloud a woman holding a child, whom he saw at Mass and believed to be the Blessed Mother. Beard began praying for Mother Mary to send him a special picture of her, to verify she had actually accompanied Beard on this path to the priesthood. In the same week, he discovered an image of Mary, drawn to the way she gazed at her Child Jesus. When the seminarian told Beard the Blessed Mother in this particular image and the woman he had seen at Mass were one and the same, Beard went directly to his spiritual director. Gazing at the image of the Blessed Mother, Monsignor John Esseff claimed, as a matter of fact, “She’s not holding the Christ Child. She’s holding you.”
At last, Mark Beard felt his Blessed Mother consoling him, assuring him that God his Father was calling him to the priesthood. On May 30, 2009, Father Mark Beard was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge. He was the pastor of Saint Helena Catholic Church for twelve years before his death. A few years before he passed away, he opened Our Lady of Hope Catholic Retreat Center in Mississippi.
After his death on August 2, 2023, Father Mark Beard’s last homily quickly became popular online, and then more and more were watching his other homilies as well. Hundreds of thousands were drawn to his call for lukewarm Catholics to quit apologizing for being Catholics, to get off the fence, and declare their faith, without fear of disapproval and condemnation. Quoting Johnny Cash, Father Mark Beard ended his last homily, saying, “[i]f there was a fence between heaven and hell, it would be owned by the devil himself.”
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