okay and we are live I'm here with Jost Jost how are you doing I'm pretty good how are you thanks for taking the time thanks for reaching out on Twitter and agreeing to come and chat with me about uh all things Catholic before we get started I'd like to hear a little about you uh keep it PG and keep it as Anonymous as you want to be or whatever protect your privacy because this is live but just talk a little bit about where you're from how old you are how did you grow up how were you raised what kind of religion you had growing up just fill us in from A to Z starting with the earliest memories you have about God and religion and then just bringing us up till today and just touching on the highlights that you think are good to share man that's uh that's difficult uh so you know if I had to give you the absolute crash course in uh where I came to acquire the personality that you're going to be butting heads with for the next hour um I was nominally nominally raised Catholic um not because any of my family actually believed anything but because I was from Massachusetts and if you're not a Jew you're a Catholic so um I was I was raised with a whole bunch of uh very very stereotypical very cultural very Very Superstitious sort of beliefs and uh and I played along with that until I until I reached the Age of Reason and you know when I was going through uh early High School really I I was convinced that uh this is going to become a recurring theme by the way but I was convinced that the religion of my parents and of my larger family was just a a collection of of superstitions and immaturities and and inconsistencies that was incapable of of satisfying a rational mind and uh this is the recurring theme okay that's what I thought when I was younger and now that I am older I've come to realize that's absolutely 100 true you know I I thought that their faith looked ridiculous as an atheist well it looks even more ridiculous as a Catholic who actually pays attention pays attention to what the church believes and uh and actually um cares about the difference between right and wrong so you know I guess the the story I'm building here is that I I was raised nominally Catholic um left the church out of out of a frustration with not being fed of you know on a logical spiritual objective sort of level and returned to the church for the same reason uh so you know it's it's a very out and back again story uh as far as the subjects at hand goes uh I am currently attending I'm I'm a musician and I'm playing the organ at a traditional Latin Mass on Sundays and the piano at a Nova sword on us on Saturday so as as far as credentials go I have one foot very firmly in both pools and I I frankly wouldn't exchange that for the world so when I speak it is as nothing nothing other than a Catholic who is very scandalized by many things that are going on today yeah uh just give a brief overview of the family situation uh if your parents are both still alive and all that sort of thing or where are they in their faith journey and any siblings you have what's the sort of situation my parents have very firmly given up on a faith journey and walked away from the train station before they could even see the smoke over the horizon um they're both they're both living with other people at this point um it's uh the funny story is I have three sisters and a brother from four different sets of parents because nobody on either side of my family knows how to stay married for more than nine months bro you're gonna have to stifle a lot of laughs are you exaggerating all right uh I I may have exaggerated the number of of couplings it might it's three not four okay sorry I was some of those unions did not produce children um but yes I am with with a single exception of a sister who is just as frustrated with the family dynamic as I am I'm pretty much I I I'm the black sheep I'm the person nobody in my family wants to talk to um that's cool and we don't have much to offer each other uh I am currently living several time zones away from the rest of my family with my wonderful wife and my wonderful children and that's that's doing all of us good it's your fifth wife or your eighth or which one oh that was perfect yeah I know yeah yeah okay so she's my third wife my first wife um we we just call her Joe's mother because according to the convention she no longer has a name no no it's it's just me it is always it's always been the two of us very cool so um you're straddling the tlm and the new novus ordo and you've got some concerns about scandal in the church uh what was it you saw on on Twitter that made you think that I was sympathetic to Pope Francis or that I was willing to defend him do you remember well what I mean it wasn't necessarily just what I saw on Twitter it's been a couple of your podcasts honestly um okay but uh the I guess the thing that really made me want to engage with this was you had posted a meme saying we should not disparage now I expect that that verb is going to become important but that we should not disparage Pope Francis because uh by disparaging the Vicar of Christ we are disparaging Christ and of course you and I and and everyone else Catholic or not should absolutely be horrified at uh at the thought of even even entertaining that uh but I don't see that equivalence um frankly so if I can throw the ball into your court sure can you possibly explain how somebody who uh who objects to Pope francis's words and actions is is guilty of um of disparaging our Lord I remember now I remember having a little a tiny little back and forth with you and I just said well let's chat about it on a live stream so that's where we're at now okay got you so yeah so now I'm I'm sort of connecting now to how we met and what it was okay yeah so yeah you can uh I I disagree with the Pope about uh most things okay and uh uh I don't have any philosophical problem or theological problem with having different opinions from the pope Pope's got his opinions and he's entitled to them you know what I mean on the young Earth creationist he's ostensibly an evolutionist of some sort which I think is absolutely ridiculous and absurd and silly and evil and dumb but I still love and respect the man I still love and respect sugar coat it bro don't sugarcoat it man I I why don't you tell us how you really feel I think it's I think it's evil but whatever you know and same thing with the jab we shouldn't talk too much about the job but I'm never going to get the job and the pope is pushing the job so we're on the opposite end of a lot of spectrums but I love the man I like the man and I respect him I think he's a good Christian a good Catholic and he's a mystery like every other human like you're married you know what other humans are like they're very mysterious but we love them we love them okay truly was it written the more I know of men the more I like my dog hmm so we're not who said that we're not that different you know we're not the different you and I probably it's just you think you you just thought I was being overly dramatic with my meme but I stand by the meme like it's all about respecting the Dignity of the the man who is Pope and certainly the office of the Vicar of Christ that has to be respected and revered but we can differ in opinion and I mean I don't mind poking fun or whatever as long as it's done with love and it's done uh in a way that's not disparaging his character and one thing I like about the Pope the current pope is that he emphasizes the Dignity of the human person and how it's a grave sin to uh to put people down or even gossip he said gossip is a greater plague than the uh on the the plague that shelter a name remain unnamed during this podcast so I don't lose my YouTube channel because I've had some strikes okay just by subtly hinting at my opinions and I've had some strikes and I almost lost my channel so we're going to be very careful well you're just gonna have to bleep me out until musk buys YouTube and then unbelief it that's the really the only option at this point yeah is that happening yeah he's talked to game uh I haven't really paid attention um but I I'm pretty sure it's just talking so um when it comes to criticizing the Pope I think it should be done um you know like I said with love and we can agree to disagree and all sorts of things and but when it comes to like the doctrines of the church which cannot be changed I think we should just give them the benefit of the doubt no matter how absurd it seems in the newspaper headlines that he wants gay marriage and women priests or whatever like I'm not these aren't real headlines I'm just exaggerating but you know he wants us all to worship pakamama and all this sort of thing like I've I've never seen a paco Mama anywhere except in the posts of rat rats so I mean I did see it I did see it when it was going on in uh where was that in the Amazon or what was that or something if you're talking about when the when the statue was brought in yeah um okay well okay the whatever it was they threw into the type of Realm that was not the same as the big the big Idol in the canoe I'm I'm G I know that those are geographically distinct I don't know more than that but I do recognize that we're not necessarily talking um there's multiple incidents because the the rad trat and I hope you're not a rat trap but the rat trats I like to sort of pick on them on my podcast but they they uh get excited and they get paranoid about the Pokemon and all this sort of thing it's like I'm not I've never been worried in the slightest about worshiping the Pokemon I'm not interested I'm not interested and most Catholics I know are not interested they're not interested and I don't think Pope Pope Francis is interested in worshiping an idol I don't know any full-grown adult that's interested in worshiping an idol like I really don't when I read the Old Testament I laugh at the people who are allegedly worshiping these gods made of stone and wood I'm laughing just like the authors of the books of the Old Testament laugh at these fools for thinking something you made with your hands is gonna be your God like I just don't get it I just don't understand it well and what was it is it Jeremiah who says you know you're you're carving an idol out of out of a out of wood and you get cold in your Workshop so you start burning the wood just to get warmer and it doesn't even occur to you I just burned this for warmth why am I turning it into a God to worship uh if that's yeah I think it was the other way around I think it was I think it was like he was cold to put wood in the fire and then with the scraps that were left over uh he made it idle or something like that but it's the same difference it's the same difference it's just like a joke either way yeah I mean it takes and and for the record I would not I wouldn't attribute this to to Pope Francis um but it takes a very special kind of of uh spiritual infantility to uh to really believe that this thing you made with your own hands uh has somehow acquired some kind of spiritual power over you so I I wouldn't I wouldn't uh attribute that to our Holy Father as well uh for certain um it just occurred to me one thing just occurred to me I would like to interject here before I forget because I got a short memory of course yeah uh there is such a thing as uh demon worship and there are people that consciously invoke the demons to get power and money and fame and fortune so that's one thing this I'm surprised it took me this long to figure it out but there is one kind of of idol worship that I think is real and I think people consciously engage in and it's serious and it's real and it's powerful and it's dark and it's demonic so I think that type of idol worship is happening to a certain extent like and I studied a little bit I was a Satanist before myself I was an atheistic Satanist but I've always admired welcome aboard I've always admired Aleister Crowley uh he called himself the uh what did he call himself the most evil man in the world but I call him the saddest man in the world because he was so pathetic and in his golden years he I think he I think and I hope and I pray that he regretted his uh bonds that he his contracts that he made with the demons but I've always admired him because if you're going to be a Satanist I much prefer someone who boldly just does it rather than sitting in a in a Catholic Church in the pews and pretending that you're Christian I just I have no respect for that type of crypto Satanist and when I was a Satanist I admitted it I was open about it I was an atheistic Satanist so it's all about reason and the self and self-will and these sorts of things yeah so so more of the levay school than the Crowley school yeah yeah yeah for sure for sure for sure you know if I if I believed in Satan and in God I would definitely choose God like I think you have to be foolish to choose Satan but there are people that do think that Satan is cool hell is exciting and fun that's where the rock and roll is and all that sort of thing but I always tell my uh atheist friends all the sex drugs and rock and roll are in heaven you don't get any of that in hell it's all that's good um where where was you you had me thinking of something very popular interesting but you know having well not even necessarily pakamamo though it does it does sort of dovetail with it in a way that could be interesting I mean having studied at least some of the occult do you know the name Marie Laveau no Marie Laveau was the original witch queen of New Orleans and um you know so she was a she was a practicing Catholic in the sense that she would go to she would go to mass and she would pray with people and everything um but but out of out of church uh by all accounts it was mostly on you know just indigenous spirituality um you know it's with all with all the stereotypes and everything um you know if you go to her uh if you go to her grave in Louisiana it's a mausoleum with a bunch of little X's drawn over it and offerings of cigarettes and whiskey and everything it's quite quite interesting um she she would instruct her followers to go to Catholic masses okay yeah because they had more to lose by culturally separating themselves from the Catholic Mayu and which in which they were living and she was she was confident that they had nothing to lose spiritually because she believed in her God she believed in her spirits and I've always joking like uh like diogeny's going about with a lantern looking for an honest man I'm going about looking for a Catholic who believes in Catholicism as much as Marie le've over believed in Voodoo it's like to to believe in your religion so strongly that you can tell the people who follow you go ahead and do that that's fake that's real that's not going to hurt you our gods are bigger than their gods wow she she believed that so unhesitatingly and uh and I and I find I I don't know why I don't see that level of faith in Christians and Catholics more often well because she's like an anti-saint and you know they're rare but so are the real saints the good Saints like there's always a mirroring and there's always a mockery of God in this religion so you're gonna see in uh in some satanic worship something that looks like a Catholic mass but everything's inverted or not everything but a lot of things are inverted it's hard to invert everything Crowley try to invert a lot of stuff right backwards walk backwards uh whatever you know sodomy everything whatever you could pervert but um yeah it's always a mockery of Christ and his church so yeah she was kind of like an anti-saint and then just think about how rare it is to meet a saint it's just it's incredibly rare and I guess the project that we should uh give ourselves the task we should give ourselves is to become that saint that we want to see right to be the one who who embodies Christ in his church in our every thought word indeed so that's uh a humbling task to set for yourself well Amen to that um now when it comes to when it comes to being scandalized when it comes to the people in Authority around you who are who are engaging in behaviors that you see at best unhelpful now here's the question that I had posed to you and I'll I'll pose it in a little more elaborate way since we're talking on the podcast now um but the the best example that I believe we have of a pope of a supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church behaving in a way that is questionable at best in a way that has the potential to to hurt many and help none uh I I believe that goes all the way back to the book of Galatians because if Paul had not been willing to oppose as he called him cephas and say you know simply by the side of the table that you're sitting on you are introducing division into the church and you were causing Discord that doesn't have to have to happen if it hadn't been for Paul opposing him on that uh we would we would be in a very different church today people would have followed his lead we would have had the Jews and the Greeks arguing with each other our church would have been more fractured and divided than it actually is and it is to Saint Paul's intervention uh that that the division is in our church don't go all the way back to that incident so when we're talking about Pope Francis uh specifically about his own and we can we can get we can break out all these bullet points if you want to but when we get into his interpretation of amorous Leticia when we get into his comments about precillatism when we get into this very questionable appointments to pontifical councils uh I I believe that faithful Catholics need to have a a book of Galatians moment and say hey man what are you doing and I I have yet to uh I've yet to hear anybody offer a coherent response to that question I I don't recall hearing anybody saying okay so when Pope Francis does all this stuff that emboldens the The World At Large and scandalizes Catholics who actually want to follow Church teaching and makes everybody wonder what set he's on I haven't heard anybody explain how that's good for the church and I have it explains who heard anybody explain um how that can be of God and I'm I'm frankly here hoping that you'll be that person yeah well I pray every day for the current pope whoever it happens to be so right now it's Pope Francis and I do like him I do uh I do love him as I've said and I never tired of saying um do I think he's wrong about a bunch of stuff yeah obviously um so the prayer is let me see a prayer for me prayer is something that I do every day it's it's memorized but when I'm talking having a conversation it's hard for me to start the prayer so I'm trying to remember how my prayer begins it's part of my morning ritual but part of the prayer is uh it says that God you appointed Pope Francis right to be the head of the church so that's the Salient point I can't bring up to memory the the prayer unfortunately I'm just that's the way my brain works but part of the prayer that I'm emphasizing here is that God himself appointed Pope Francis uh to head up the church and a lot of the prayer is saying please protect Pope Francis and please help him to avoid falling into sin and protect him from his enemies his many enemies and protect him from worldliness and all these sorts of things it's a traditional prayer for the current pope but the point I want to emphasize is that God himself appointed the current pope with good reason everything that's happening actually is happening because God sees that that's what's best for each and every individual right so uh I was talking with a friend last night and uh we joke about 5D chess and Trump maybe he's doing this maybe he's doing that and whatever um or I think that those Glory Days are gone now but um you know we talk about 5D chess we can talk about five quasilian to the cuazillion chest when it comes to God arranging everything just so for your greatest benefit and for my greatest benefit and it all fits together uh miraculously it's just it's mind-blowing so the pope is part of that the pope is part of Divine Providence and uh just like good things are part of Providence uh some good things are ordained something good things are allowed and all the bad things are allowed they're permitted by God's permissive will so it's that all important distinction between Gods ordaining will his permissive will and understanding as uh I don't know if you know census fidelium but um Stephen whatever his name is that runs that he was a guest of mine and he said we don't get the pope we want we get the pope we deserve you know so it might be that it might be that that's either way I mean I don't feel that strongly about it I really don't feel that strongly about it that you know we're being punished by this Pope I don't feel that but some people do and so it just you just have to meditate on the the permissive will of God you know that's it I mean I I I have that kind of discussion with said of a cantus all the time you know there was okay here's here's my distillation of of what they claim it's like okay so your claim is that uh Pope Francis cannot be the Pope because of it and actually okay stretching back to everybody after Pius the 12th okay your claim is that uh National your claim is that whoever the name is cannot be the pope because of the way that you perceive they have abandoned the faith and taught things that are heterodox and and led people astray and my answer is always can you can you point to me a single instance in which you could possibly say the church doesn't deserve that like can can you give me a good reason why our church as it has been for the past 80 years or so 90 years can you give me a good reason why the church doesn't deserve a heretical pope who shows confusion wherever he goes crickets I I see nothing it seems totally logical to me it's it's a yeah well that whole Canard about you can't have a heretical pope why not why not yeah why not you know uh we and they always want to say well they could be sinful as they want but they can't be heretical why not I don't see why not if I were Pope I'd be probably be heretical in many ways because like the thing is the thing is about the Catholic faith it's it's heard I mean it's heard to be Catholic as you know it's hard to be Catholic it's hard to know everything and to believe everything as you should and to follow the teachings and to you know to live it out and to walk the walk and all this just hurt you know and very often we as humans we rationalize our Strange beliefs saying that we have heretical beliefs you know might be a bit of an exaggeration because you know but we do rationalize and we do cut corners and whatever and like I I had bacon this morning and then just now preparing for this interview I'm like it's Friday I ate me on Friday why did I eat meat on Friday and then I'm like hey but I wasn't aware that I was doing that I just did it because I'm on holiday I lost track of time so it's okay I gotta pass whatever should I do some little extra thing so anyway my point is that we're human we're weak we're flawed and we're imperfect and we can rationalize almost anything and so like I mean uh to to say that a pope is not a heretic that's that's High Praise You know for me like I mean pretty much have to be a saint I think a saint so all the glory goes to God oh absolutely for every every tiny little bullet point of your faith and your belief in your practice to be in line with what the church has consistently taught throughout 2000 years I agree that that is that is superhuman that is certainly not not a human accomplishment for sure no no mere man or woman could do that the other point that I want to raise with you sort of as a thought experiment is you know the rad Treads and the set of accountants and all these sorts of things they're outraged by Pope Francis being ambiguous and and and leading people into error and all this sort of thing it's like well why am I I'm a new convert 2009 so it's been 12 years whatever but I'm a relatively new convert and why is it that I'm not shocked I'm not horrified and I'm not scandalized like if if the pope started literally preaching like gay marriage is good women or ordination of the priesthood whatever I would not be scandalized I would just say he's wrong if that's if if he's saying what I think he's saying he's dead wrong look at what the church teaches like compare what the Pope says with what the church teaches I'm not going to be scandalized I'm not going to lose my faith I'm not going to waver in my faith I'm not going to abandon the church but if the church tells me oh Pope Pope Francis is not Pope Francis he's anti-pope Francis and he's been fooling us for however long how many years and he was never Pope and whatever then when the church tells me that I'll be like okay so who's the Pope you know because like in all these in all these uh quandaries that that Catholics can get into and all their insecurities the set of vacantus and the rat rats get into is very very very simple where is the church what is the church who is the Pope who's like who's the who who are you praying for in your mass you know who who is the Pope that's being named in the mass that's the pope period end of discussion why are you losing sleep why are you worried if the pope believes something that's wrong pray for him if he says something wrong discard it compare it with what the church says and go with what the church says you know that's why if you're a traditional catholic this should be easy right I'm not a traditional catholic I'm just a regular Catholic relying very very very very very very heavily on Big T tradition why because that's what the church is right and if some Wayward Pope starts talking like a maniac maybe there's a good reason maybe God's allowing it for a good reason maybe he's maybe I'm just misunderstanding him maybe the the big media is twisting it and turning it and the translations I don't know but it's I'm not going to lose any sleep over it well now and I wouldn't necessarily lose any sleep over it either and um I I struggle to think of how much uh respect I would have for somebody who does sleep over that now granted if you know Pope Francis were to come out tomorrow with you know a with a document with all the ecclesiastical watermarks and stamps and wax seals on it saying we hereby affirmatively Proclaim and declare and order you know that I'm not even going to finish that sentence but something at odds with uh what the Catholic church has taught for the past 2000 years obviously that would that would be an end of the world sort of scenario frankly I I would do a whole lot of a whole lot of questioning of my faith I don't believe that would ever happen it's like I don't believe fine I don't believe anybody's gonna dig up Jesus's bones either but that doesn't stop me from thinking about what my reaction would be still a deal breaker it's still a deal breaker theoretically yeah yes so so so like you I don't necessarily believe that that's going to happen uh on on that sort of Faith ending level and his behavior doesn't really affect my behavior in the sense that I I look at the things that he says that are definitely odds with what the church has traditionally thought taught and maybe will and and start thinking well gee maybe the church has been wrong this entire time and the pope is right you know maybe he's going to be the one to blow the gate open on these on these two Millennia of error um I'm not necessarily thinking that but I sort of feel like the reason that we're having this conversation is that this situation doesn't it it's not limited to you and me and the pope it's it's not these three people it extends Beyond us it extends to every person who has been considering Catholicism every person who has been attracted by the truth of the church who is now based on this current pontiff's words thinking that they won't have to compromise uh you know that that they won't have to make amends to their lifestyle their personality when they actually do uh it extends to everybody who really absolutely would like to believe that there is uh as we stereotypically say salvation outside the church as somebody who is taking from his words justification of that belief and therefore does not feel the obligation to become Catholic uh it extends to uh yeah there's a whole there's a whole category of people probably billions strong who say I really wish that God would stay out of my bedroom because he doesn't belong in there or I really wish God would stay out of my uh I'm not going to say bank account because that's the one thing that Pope Francis thinks God should have his finger in but there are plenty of people who say I believe that God should stay out of my sex life because he doesn't belong in there and um just to pick that as a a popular example I feel like Pope francis's conduct give a lot of those people justification for believing that error I believe that he actively strengthens their ability uh to to plausibly believe that and I believe that as faithful Catholics we not to the point of disparaging him and making jokes about what he can't find with both hands on a map but I believe as faithful Catholics we have a responsibility when he says something that's really outrageous that's going to lead people astray to say no that's not how it is you're you're doing the opposite of your job right now your Saint Peter sitting on the wrong side of the table right now look at what you're doing to these people look at the example these people are taking from you and fix yourself yeah the the Saint Paul to Saint Peter thing is a complete joke unless you are in the position relative to Pope Francis that Saint Peter was that the Saint Paul was to in relation to Saint Peter okay and you're not you're not in none of the red Treads or the set of accountants are so it's just a complete joke and I completely dismissed that as hubris that's hubris to say well it's like Saint Paul to Saint Peter uh no it's not okay you're not in that position relative to the pope and just forget about that and if you are a great Saint like uh who is that Saint Catherine that talked to the pope and I've been you know to go back to Rome whatever if you are that great Saint then you're not going to be complaining on Twitter you're going to be acting right as an instrument of God and we're going to be the history books are going to be glorifying you for that so yeah it's just a complete hubris when people talk about the relationship between Saint Paul and Saint Peter and that and try to compare and make a comparison with complaining on Twitter sorry uh this is not directed at you by the way uh well it is to the extent that you buy into that nonsense but um no offense is intended it's just my point of view uh so I I understand that I mean my rejoinder I I'd have a couple different things to say about that number one being that I don't think Saint Paul was exactly thinking of himself as a great Saints when he opposed Saint Peter I'm pretty sure that I'm talking more about the relationship the intimacy the intimacy of the relationship that's what I'm talking about and I'm talking about the the roles in the hierarchy and all this sort of thing like what's your role in the hierarchy relative to Pope Francis and what was Paul's role relative to Saint Peter and can you compare the two no he can can't so that's which and and I would freely acknowledge that I am not Saint Paul I I am not uh I I am not Jeff 7 800 to Saint Francis as Paul is to Peter I am I am not the Saints who is opposing him I am one of the absolutely horrified uh Greek Christians sitting at the other end of the table going why is he hanging out with the Jews Like This does he even know we're here like hey bro hello is so I I freely acknowledge that in that in that galatian scenario I'm one of the folks you should be you should be nudging Saint Paul right now you should be nudging Saint Paul like find him and nudge him so that probably is like a your local bishop or someone yeah well I don't know who has a in that in that uh context too as like Saint Paul vegano Sarah I don't know is it somebody like that do you like the gun I mean I I don't know enough of the man to say that I like him he has I I have never heard him articulate that uh he is very he has been very forthright about the idea that the church has the equivalent of a deep state in it obviously not just just these these people who have positions that they have inherited or that they were appointed to or whatever uh who are well that's I I wouldn't know that um but just the idea is that there's a very significant portion of the church's governance that is committed to opposing the church's mission that yeah I want to say that's I want to say his position as I understand it and I find it hard to argue with yeah well it's just obvious like I mean I was anti-catholic before I came into the church obviously I was a freaking Satanist so I was very anti-catholic it was like high on my radar like the Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular so I knew because I loved reveling in the fact that the church is corrupt I knew that and I didn't suddenly get lobotomy when I became Catholic I didn't get a lobotomy and I didn't black hole my memory I still know that the church is very very corrupt in its human element in this Fallen World meaning in the church militant and that's funny Michael Voris with his church militant he doesn't seem to realize there's a church suffering in a church triumphant and that's the church and the church the church militant is a hot mess it's corrupt like I mean this is not rocket science so why is everyone all upset and confused we have weeds among the wheat and we have promised were promised by the God man himself that the weeds will remain until the very end so we have wolves in sheep's clothing they're going to be there till the end and it's just it's your job as a Christian to be like Christ to die to self and to live in Christ and uh you know if you're in a position where you can do fraternal correction to Pope Francis go for it but you're not I'm not and no one we know is and it's like six degrees of separation to get to those people that are in a position to correct Pope Francis and if you've read the traditional teaching on fraternal correction they're very specific guidelines right about how when it's appropriate and uh in certain in certain circumstances it's an obligation but in most circumstances it's not an obligation and in many circumstances it's not your place so given that neither one of us is or likely ever will be in a position to fraternally correct Pope Francis a likely situation given that that's never going to happen what would you suggest what what sort of attitude would you suggest we take with regard to the other people that we encounter day to day when when Pope Francis appoints pro-choice people to pontifical academies when Pope Francis um you know when when he introduces unnecessary distinctions about personhood into a discussion of regarding abortion and embryology when when Pope Francis says something that has the potential to shake a lot of people's faith and stunt a lot of other people's spiritual growth granted that we're never going to have a chance to look him straight in the eye and say hey I really feel like you ruined a whole lot of people with your words just now what kind of attitude would you suggest we take toward toward the people who's uh whose faith is shaken well it's it's going to be on a case-by-case basis like is this someone that's contemplating leaving the church because of it or it was going to enter but is not sure because of it or I'd like to like you you listed a couple of those scenarios earlier generally and there's so many different situations each each case is different like right now I'm talking to you and uh I could uh I can gauge that you're not in danger of leeching leaving the church that's my impression you could tell correct me if I'm wrong it's true as far as I know I I don't know my soul any more than you do but it's true as far as I know but but you know the faith this is this is the key it's all about education do you know the fifth do you love the faith ignorance of the faith is ignorance of Christ ignorant the ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ and ignorance of this councils and the popes and the Saints and ignorance of the whole thing is ignorance of Christ because Christ and his church are one it's it's the mystical bride of Crisis so it's the mystical Body of Christ and ignorance of the church is ignorance of Christ so get if you love the church get to know it if you love Christ get to know the church and so if you know the church you're not going to be scandalized and like I always say it is a sin to be scandalized it is a sin to allow yourself to be scandalized this is in the Sumo theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas and I don't have the reference memorized but I could uh sure to be scandalized in the sense of allowing something that uh that's purely purely emotional and hasn't raised any legitimate objective objections to your faith to allow that to shake your faith on an objective level no like I mean because I would no like if if Pope Francis is I was going to say the Antichrist but anti-pope and antipope if he's let's say let's just say that in the history books he goes down as an antipope okay that could happen if that's the case and he's teaching all kinds of nonsense that's anti-catholic if you're scandalized by that which is pretty serious stuff if you're scandalized by that it's a sin I will not be I will not be scandalized by that because if tomorrow morning we realize the skies are like a complete whack job he's anti-catholic and maybe he is the Antichrist whatever it's still not going to rock my faith and there'll be people like you and people who are grounded in the tradition of the church always there will always be just look around how many schisms how many factions how many uh groups are there of Catholics that say no this is the way this is the true church this is the true church you and I will always recognize and the the true church and I think the Clue the obvious clue I think is sexual morality which of these competing groups is teaching sexual morality properly and which ones are sneaking in license that to me is cut and dry like it's the only it's the only church on Earth today who is teaching against contraception and against divorce and against gay marriage and everything else against masturbation how many Christian uh communities teach against masturbation I don't know but uh oh God I was going to say I could name a handful but I swear to God that pun wasn't it that's the clip that's the sound bud so anyway you you agree with me that we can recognize the church and one of the big Clues is uh well besides the four marks but we also have uh sexual morality like that is just like so obvious to me that I'm in I'm home I'm in the right church okay because we're not sneaking in license to be worldly and those those Bishops and Cardinals who want to sneak that stuff in to me they're just making a fool of themselves and they're just embarrassing themselves and they're just wrong and everyone knows everyone that's in touch with Christ in this church knows it's wrong to smile on sin especially sexual sin you know I agree I I'd really like to hear more of what you when I would like to hear more of your interpretation of Saint Thomas teaching that it is a sin to be scandalized because I can't help thinking that we're applying slightly different definitions to that term but I I I can neither I can neither agree nor disagree at this point because I'm not sure where you're coming from so if if you'll indulge me can I ask you a little bit more of how you would how you would Define that well Scandal like it's a sin to to actively Scandal to to actively scandalized active scandalism passive scandalism I could pull up the reference and by by scandalizing we are talking about creating a stumbling block making the faith more making the making the Christian life more difficult than it has to be by putting obstacles in it that didn't have to be there yeah and even to the extent where you are in danger you're you're causing you are the cause of a spiritual downfall of uh one of the faithful that's a grave sins causing scandals a grave sin right but also falling prey to that is also a grave sin so we need to stand firm even though someone is out there trying to undermine our faith and believe me I mean I don't know what rock you've been under but everyone around me is trying to undermine my Catholic faith 24 7. including my wife who's the most violent anti-catholic you'll ever meet okay so this is why I'm battle ready because I I entered the church against her will and I've been living with the Enemy okay you told me 53 minutes that I couldn't you told me 53 minutes ago I couldn't talk smack about my own wife and here you are dang she never listens to this I could say whatever I want no Mrs joust is very Catholic she is the one who will not let us eat meat on Fridays I I am going to I swear I'm going to single-handedly bring back the slame term mackerel Snapper out of the 20s just so I can use it just so I can throw it at her what should I do by the way what should I do now that I did the little venial sin by eating bacon this morning what should I do what would you do not tell the wife yeah but my wife doesn't care about it is that Worthy is that worthy of confession I'm being serious now is that worthy of confession I should just mention it well I I think my understanding is that it is not in itself confessable unless you have a personal obligation that would make it that would sort of make it trip the boundary I mean it was it would depend on how that's kind of what I'm getting at like unless you had unless you had done something very publicly solemnly irrevocably to not eat meat on Fridays uh that sounds like a venial sin because you gotta look at the level of the of The Vow that you're not abiding by it was removed from uh the guidelines in Canada by the way we don't have to skip meat on Friday we just have to do some little gesture or whatever like Amen to that uh but I got a nice big crucifix have you seen this have I shown this to you can you see him no that's that's pretty neat it looks like yeah it's very Hefty it's beautiful though so this is what it's all about it's it's all about meditating on the uh the sacrifice of Christ I don't know if you're done with if you were done with the Scandal thing or if you want to keep talking about that I mean it makes sense you know that it is a it is a skin sin to scandalize somebody and yet if you should fall prey to that scandalizing um that doesn't happen without your own your own willful weakness taking part of it so yes there's there's sin on both sides of the of the uh the situation I could send you just actually if you wanted to read what Saint Thomas said do you like St Thomas I do I I can't I can't pretend to have read the whole book um he's on top of the fridge so I never really had that much of a use for it uh but uh he never finished the book so no one's read the whole book fair enough finding the I can't find this I'll find it for you and I'll send it to you later because I can't multitask like I said right yeah um yeah you know let's let's talk a little bit on the same note if you don't mind uh let's talk a little bit about a concrete example where you think I should get my panties all up in a knot in a bunch and uh I'm gonna just remain cool as a cucumber and just be totally Zen okay um yeah because I really feel like I've rambled too much and used ways too many commas and semicolons in places a period so yeah I guess this is my chance to uh to verbally redeem myself now and and keep you from lamenting that you invited me on your show for an hour this this is where Redemption is going to come from right now so regarding defense of Pope Francis uh there's there's some questions about this example but I'm going back to it anyway because it's very iconic who am I to judge uh when well that's uh well okay fine you want to talk about that okay so the Bible specifically says that Christians are obligated to judge one another yeah so that can't be what he meant so that can't be what Saint Saint Pope Francis as a bit is it too soon too soon sorry [Laughter] I often do this when I when I try to say Pope Francis I often find myself saying Saint Pope Francis full disclosure I did that with Junior this morning he said what are you going to talk about I and I must have said Saint Francis because he came back to me and he said you said it was going to be about Saint Francis it's gonna it was going to be a riot I'm like oh God no not not the Saint the pope no that so 5D checks 5D chess he chose that name on purpose Okay so in the letters of Paul and throughout I would argue the history and tradition of the church it has been the place of Christians to not not to judge each other in the you're going to hell sense although that might be obligatory on somebody based on their relationship but to observe each other's Behavior to correct one another and to keep each other in line and the context in which that comes out and I I think it's First Corinthians I might be wrong but the context in which that comes out in in Paul's letters is you guys shouldn't even have the energy to judge non-christians like you you shouldn't even have the mental bandwidth to observe what people outside the Christian church are doing and object to their behavior you should be too busy paying attention to each other you you should every time you notice a non-Christian sinning every time you pass judgment on on the behavior of somebody who is not a sister or brother and obviously I'm extrapolating now because you know he doesn't say all of this in the Vulgate or anything but every time that you correct so every time you try to correct somebody else's Behavior every time you try to judge somebody else's Behavior you're taking that energy you're taking that Focus away from your brothers and sisters in Christ who could actually benefit from that now correct me if I'm wrong but that's always the way that I understood not judging um you know in in the context of of the Christians I've never I've never understood it that way I've understood it sort of in a very uh philosophical way where there are some things we can know there's some things we can't know and the things we can know we can judge and we should judge so the there are three things to make a sin mortal it needs to be objectively evil that we can judge you need to have full knowledge and give full consent those two we can't know okay so we know one of the three so we can objectively judge the objective evil acts okay so someone's in the middle of doing giving an abortion or whatever abortion Health Care to a woman and uh you can just you can you can and must intervene and say this is wrong and uh yeah I don't know why you're doing I don't know if you know what you're doing I don't know if you're giving full consent or if someone's coursed you into doing this but I don't need to know that I just need to know what's wrong so in terms of uh the quote the famous quote by Pope Francis you know I've always laughed at this one because there's a big if a very big if attached to that do you remember the exact quote if someone it well it's a paraphrasing but I could probably find it if I wanted to but he said if someone is sincerely seeking God and striving to be holy and and happens to have this inclination who am I to judge that's a big if that's a big if like this this okay this person is suffering from same-sex attraction is sincerely seeking God and striving to obey him that's a big if have you met any homosexuals like that unrepentant homosexuals no you might meet some repentant homosexuals that are like that and there's a group for them it's called courage right it's a big if so that just that just completely undermines any criticism and Pope Francis himself said on that occasion I said this if a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing who am I to judge that person the Pope says I was paraphrasing by hurt the catechism of the Catholic Church where it says that these people should be treated with delicacy delicacy and not be marginalized that's his whole trip that's Pope francis's Mo from start to finish always always always the delicacy and the treatment of Person of the marginalized and to never speak ill of anyone or never to denigrate anyone's character and to uh respect the Dignity of everyone and to be very very delicate and careful with people uh because they're on a journey and no one's perfect and we're all Sinners and let's let's walk with these people let's support these people let's be with them and I I can I can admit openly with some trepidation and some embarrassment that I have I'm not fully committed to the popular opinion on the right about Father James Martin is that his name the gay guy the gay preacher guy that wow is that his name I think you just went beyond whatever any rad tread ever said about the man I really do wow no the man I I forget that I forget the name of his ministry but yes he is the he is the guy you're talking about anyway he seems to be all pro-lgbtq plus and all that sort of nonsense right which is demonic but I don't know I haven't really I don't know the man I haven't digested his content like I see some photo ops with him in it and he looks kind of fruity and when he talks he sounds kind of fruity and maybe sympathetic to them because he's like closet gay or something I don't know but I don't judge him for that but in terms of like the substance of his mission like what's he trying to do is he on board with Pope Francis to try to be delicate with these marginalized people and to try to help bring them into the church if so I applaud him period is he promoting sin if so I don't applaud him and I you know I want to avoid this guy I haven't looked into it what's your opinion on Father Martin well it's again it's going to be a very big if because you know I I freely confess I've not read his book so anything that I say about him um would be hypothetical uh so a lot of it is an if and you know I I should lay some things out on the table uh you know I I'm as straight as a snake man you could ask anybody you could ask anybody who I knew in high school there was no secret about it back then either but um Mrs joust keeps complaining we never talk about this I try to revive it every two or three years and she's like this isn't a thing yeah yeah it is you just never but [Music] um where was I going with that so just so just kind of laying that on on the table if the objective of of his ministry is to make people who are who are non-heterosexual or non-binary or you know whatever whatever their acronym is if his objective is to help these people realize that they belong in the church and and that the church does not exclude them that's that's a beautiful and that's a wonderful thing uh even on Twitter I was I was having a conversation like this recently uh I don't believe any I don't think there's a Christian alive who actually believes that simply Desiring same-sex intimacy like just the fact that you have that hunger in your spirit that that automatically means you're going to hell like that that's a caricature that's that's the media that's crime procedurals nobody is stupid enough to believe that in my opinion um because you know if that were the case if if just wanting some kind of non-euclidean sexuality just makes you fit for hell I'm I'm first in line and you all are gonna have to be shot back so if what he's trying to say is these things about you do not make you Damned that's beautiful that's true people need to hear that but if and this this is where the hypothetical comes in this is what a lot of people say about him and again I don't know enough about the man or his ministry to confirm or deny but the conclusions are correct if his claim is that you don't need to change if his claim is that you don't have an obligation to come to terms with this aspect of you as something that has to change if if his claim is and again we're getting even more extreme if his claim is that yeah you can continue to live in these relationships because in another 30 or 40 years sanity will finally Prevail and the church is going to realize that it's been wrong this whole time and it's going to start blessing your marriage just like they're already doing in some countries that that's of the devil yeah that's that yeah and it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be about sexuality I realize that we're talking about that right now but you can extend it to any Walk of Life if somebody wants to talk to a person who has a particular type of struggle with a particular type of behavior and their message goes beyond God loves you and you are welcome in the church in spite of this behavior of yours if their message goes beyond that too this behavior of yours is not an impediment to your faith this is something that you can this is a part of yourself that you can continue to co-exist with and still live a full Christian Life that I cannot think of any more damaging spiritual thing to say to somebody than that I yeah I really can't uh it's it's like uh you know whoever is the the evil Professor from the movie Whiplash I just I watched it last week because it's free with ads on YouTube plug because it's one of the greatest movies ever made but he says despite being the villain of the movie he's right most of the time he says there are no two words more damaging in the English language than good job Mr you tell somebody they did a good job they stopped trying to get better that's they they think they've reached the peak even if they completely sucked and I think that's true on a spiritual level too there are there's nothing more spiritually damaging that you can tell somebody then you're fine just the way you are you don't have to change you don't have any Improvement not even not even on a spiritual level but even a psychological level like how would you be happy if I told you uh hey Mr CBS podcast your life is just fine the way it is absolutely no party needs to change because it's gonna get that would be hilarious you're on the podium you're on the summit you can turn 360 degrees and it's all downhill from there because this is as good as it gets can you think of anything more disastrous I could tell you right now than to tell you it wouldn't work it just wouldn't work it wouldn't work I'm a bottom dweller and there's nowhere to go but up for me so that's just like that doesn't work on me that kind of psychology I'm immune to that but most people have some level of success and pride in the their life like so it might be damaging to them but to me it's just like uh I'm really low I uh I don't say I have low self-esteem but I'm realistic about who I am and what I am and I'm just a disgusting worm and miserable Sinner and uh you know it's like I'm immune to that sort of thing but I get your point I do take your point and it's sort of strange to me like I mean I might look into father uh Martin uh James Martin whatever his name is I might look into him just as a charitable gesture like to say hey like people are bashing you I should find out what you have to say and I'm the reason I haven't to be honest is because I'm scared that he's a bad guy uh these wolf in sheep's clothing I'm really scared I don't want to discover that it's it is actually depressing when I find a wolf in sheep's clothing it's one of the few things that depresses me in this life uh because it was I think it was Saint um at Lourdes who was at St Bernadette Subaru yes who said I think she's the one who said I only fear bad Catholics and it's true it's true I'm not afraid of an Aleister Crowley or you know or Christopher Hitchens or whatever it's like you do you you you're be consistent with your world view and go for it I don't care that's fine no offense taken okay you want to round me up and kill me go for it whatever like do your thing you're if you're a communist do your communist thing you know how's that working out for you you like it um but if you're claiming to be a Catholic then I'm going to be watching you if you're claiming to be Catholic I'm going to be scrutinizing you and if you're claiming to be Catholic and you have a bad reputation I'm kind of scared to look under that rock that's just the way it is yeah yeah and that's that's been my experience pretty often too um you know I I had not until in in preparation uh for this discussion actually only then did I read uh Amorous Leticia was some proudly pronouncing wrong uh from from cover to cover uh you know I I had seen little Snippets of it uh you know heard some of the truly awful ways people were attempting to implement what they took to be its teachings um but I I had never actually looked at the words and this is going to sound very strange and I'm looking forward to you disagreeing with me on this but I think it's a profoundly sad document okay it's called Joy it's literally called The Joy of love when you read it you do not experience Joy you you you read the voice of a man who very very very very strongly wants to call black white and white gray and do it in the Name of Christ and is butting his head up against no less than the Holy Spirit and I am sure that that was an absolutely excruciating experience for our Holy Father I've read it I forget it it had it had no impact on me none of these writings have had much impact on me I have to be honest um but that could be partly due to my attitude which is like no matter what I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and even if he turns out to be the Antichrist you know then I'll just deal with that when it happens like my my expectations are kind of low I want to give them the benefit of the doubt but my expectations are low like it might be the Antichrist it might be this you might be that it might be a communist I don't know but I have thought to myself will the Antichrist do more wonders than this man somebody who did more wonders than that man showed up so I have quit uh I see that's okay yeah I don't seriously entertain the idea that he's the Antichrist but you know you know what I'm saying like there are many antichrists there are many antichrists and he might be one of them right I don't think he's the Antichrist but he might well be one of them whatever each you know every saint has a past every sinner has a future whatever but um does the Antichrist convert at the end of his life I don't remember what happens but um you know with the um what are the bullet points on Amora Leticia or however you pronounce it and what should I find offensive in it other than just a contrived ambiguity we'll see see here's here's kind of where I was going with that because there really isn't anything there really isn't anything contrary to the teaching of the church in there it's as a reiteration of what the church teaches it's it's very beautiful but you get the very strong impression when reading The Words which I believe is borne out by Pope francis's subsequent comments and behavior he really wants to readmit divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to full communion with no obligations on their part I do believe that is part of his agenda I think that is what he wants and I believe that writing that document was as close as he could possibly get to doing that officially now that's the funny thing in a hundred years this is going to be used as a perverse proof of infallibility because there's no there's no better proof of infallibility than the fact that the the closer Pope francis's bottom gets to the titular chair of excathedra the more Orthodox his words get like when he when he actually sits at his desk and writes things he generally just reiterates what the church has always taught and generally reiterates it in a very beautiful way and then he puts his pen down pushes his chair back stands up and says oh by the way what I meant to say was something completely contrary to what the church has always practiced and I I want you and I want you Bishops to follow my lead um so yeah I mean I mean we all know we all know what the church teaches on communion for the those who are in irregular situations or whatever divorce and remarried and whatever like we know what the church teaches and it's not easy it's not it's it's very uncomfortable I know I know Catholics who are so-called divorced and I cringe every time you know they take communion or whatever it's just like but you know to the to to come to the defense once again of uh future Saint Pope Francis um you know there is that there is that need we have to be delicate with those who are in sticky situations and I think it's rare I think it is rare for someone to abuse uh divorce like to use divorce the same way abortion is used as a contraceptive like it's just like ah don't worry don't worry about it we just kill the baby afterwards whatever I don't think people Waltz into marriage thinking they're going to get divorced uh you know my sister's coming up to her fourth marriage now uh I've interviewed her her name is Linda she's going to get married for a third or fourth time I think but uh you know she's not religious she's atheist so she can do whatever she wants to do but um you know I know that she wants to understand so I know she wants to have a successful uh marriage I need to interrupt you there because every time somebody in this household talks about atheism or or any kind of uh neutral spirituality as just doing whatever you want to do the answer is always no it's not doing whatever you want to do it's doing whatever the strongest devil in your head wants you to do there is no you there's no volition in that situation all right good point yeah good point no but I just had to to be you know to be consistent with the atheistic worldview and the bar is low the bar is low the bar of morality is low let's just put it that way okay the bar is low compared to Catholicism like the bar is high and when I talked to Protestants this is another thing I'd like to talk to you about is the our separated brethren in the Lord I mean I just don't get it I really don't get it how they remain outside of the Catholic church but one of the things is the the sort of um once saved always saved attitude or once saved always assured or once saved always comfortable or whatever it is um because I come across as sort of like a neurotic uh you know scrupulous kind of uh Nut Job to a lot of these Protestants like I interviewed Kent Hoven and he just was laughing at me like that I'm not assured that I'm going to heaven you know and a lot of Protestants laugh at me when they see me like so unsure and worried about my salvation and striving to be virtuous against my fleshly inclinations and all this they're just laughing at me so I mean I'm sure you're in the states right I'm up in Canada Montreal Canada but you're in the states so you're probably surrounded by Christians I'm surrounded by atheists the only Christians I made are on my podcast but uh I'm sure I'm sure you have a lot of real life examples where you've talked with Protestants and uh have they scratched their head when you mentioned Purgatory or that you weren't assured of your salvation uh you know not as much not not recently like you go back 10 or 15 years it would be a different story but you know recently I'm I'm in a bit more of a closed group okay uh the fun the funny thing about somebody who says once they've always saved uh I don't know are you familiar at all with Dr John bergsma no because that he and Dr Scott Hahn have recently launched a a publishing Endeavor uh publishing uh books regarding the Catholic church and teaching the faith [Music] b-e-r-g-s-m-a [Music] I know Scott Hahn obviously he's yeah one of my heroes he was I I had the I had the very good fortune to take uh take one class with each of them uh no way a very very long time ago ah but they're both convert Scott Hahn you know obviously uh bergsma was a Dutch calvinist Pastor for a while and he he begins he begins one of his lectures talking about going out on I think they still call the mission you know kind of like Mormons go out on a mission just going door to door uh in their own hometowns but talking about going out on Mission uh with one of his pastors and you know reading a bunch of Bible verses you sort of leading somebody into this psychological area where they're ready to accept Christ at least superficially verbally just to get rid of them but then they would go into the into the once saved always saved sort of Spiel and say okay so you've accepted Christ so now if you were to go and I don't know if this was ever spoken but it was it was the example that he used the one time I heard him say it now that you've accepted Christ if you were to go out and uh and murder your neighbor would you go to hell it's like well obviously yes no because you've accepted Christ like they're they would take it that far they would take it Beyond that point of character and the way that he described it his his conversion to Catholicism uh or I should say his conversion to a more logically morally coherent version of Christianity and finding out that that was Catholicism began with experiences like that and I've generally found that the the the more nuanced Protestants and and Christians I deal with kind of the more willing they are to think of things critically the more willing they are to sort of put some conditions around that whole once saved always safe thing until they get to a point where they'll say once saved always saved but really they mean pretty much the exact same thing by salvation that Christians do so it's it's the uh or or the Catholics yeah I understood I understood what you meant it's like I I'm I'm not going to admit that I could lose my salvation I'm not going to admit that I could profess Christ and still go to hell but I could I there was something I posted on Twitter a long time ago and you probably didn't see it it's just a little uh too little statements I want to see what you think of it um you are only Christian to the extent that you're Catholic that's number one and you're only Catholic to the extent that you're Christian can you find any holes in those two statements or is it does it make sense is it sound is it valid you're only Christian to the extent that you're Catholic ha well I mean you're making those two statements rely on each other so the question be what's your measurement okay let's take one at a time let's let's pretend there's only one of the two pick one of the two and tell me if you think it's true you're only Christian to the extent that you're Catholic so what I mean by that is that everything that the non-catholic Christians hold dear is Catholic every truth that they have is a Catholic truth all truth is Catholic truth so to the extent that they have the truth it's Catholic truth so to that extent they're Catholic right and uh well I mean let me stop you right there because that makes perfect sense I mean if you are willing to look at the scripture I mean okay so suppose that you you are a stereotypical American seeking Christianity you go into Barnes Noble you pick up an NIV Bible hopefully it's not the gender neutral one you look through it you make a bunch of highlights you you realize what God is saying what Jesus is saying this really speaks to your heart because even through the translations and the printings this is the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking and you can only muffle it so much and you come to accept uh at least the the big gospel points that Christ was God become man Christ has died for you it is not in your own goodness but in his that you have any hope whatsoever uh to that extent your your certain degree of Christian and I'm kind of trying to illustrate what you're saying here now suppose you reach a point at which you're not entirely sure what that what that dollar store Bible level of Christianity actually says you know you've got a confusing point about church governance or or about your personal conduct or your relationship with the rest of the world and the Bible itself isn't helping you so you would go back in archeology and you would read what the church father said and you would try to see what kind of opinions were held by the people who were closest to Christ and the apostles whom he commissioned and you would see what they believe that all of this is a way to say the more Christian you get the more coherent your Christianity becomes the closer it becomes to just being Catholicism in the first place am I am I getting you so far there yeah yeah so I I would argue that that's true um and then the other way around when you flip it around you're only Catholic to the extent that you're Christian so that's talking about the carbuncles and the man-made Traditions that are admittedly in the church and the corruption that is admittedly and obviously painfully obviously in the church the smoke of Satan has entered the church there are wolves in the sheep's clothing but you're only Catholic to the extent that you're a Christian because you go to you you can't be attached to the pakka mama worship or anything like that you know that's not Christian it's not Catholic it's not Christian so if you could it strip away all the man made garbage that's in the so-called Catholic church or attached itself to the Catholic uh Customs or whatever you want to call it these stupid Voodoo Traditions they have down in South America or wherever it was um then yeah I mean it's just like we can purify our Catholicism we end up with pure Christianity you purify your Christianity end up with pure Catholicism I think I think it makes sense my thesis there that makes perfect sense I've I've really got nothing to argue with on that score well on that on that point a lot of Protestants I enjoy talking to Protestants and I was myself a Protestant until the age of 14 when I lost my faith um I was in a very liberal I couldn't tell you exactly what the years were it was probably like late 90s but I I had a couple years long dalliance the same way and you know it sort of has a bearing on what you were just saying but really my starting point of taking the Catholic Church seriously was going to I don't even know if it's still a thing but going to Christian answers ah they had a quit I don't even know if that name applies to the same publisher so complete caveat that's what they were calling it back in 1998. but just uh they had a quiz asking if you're Catholic okay their objective of the quiz was to see if you're harboring these um these uh these what they perceive to be unbiblical beliefs like if you if you have these spiritually immature beliefs uh clearly you are suffering from some kind of vestigial Catholicism and we in our perfect Bible Christianity are going to purge you from that so it was a whole bunch of A or B questions and and it wasn't about Mary um a lot of it was just it was about justification and salvation and me being very young in in faith very young in uh in Christianity I remember one of their questions and it was does God allow you to enter Heaven in spite of the fact that you are evil and sinful and unclean or does he first make you righteous does he first make you clean does he first Purge what is evil in you and then allow you into heaven and I'm reading this and and ignorant me is going okay so so that first one that first one that says you you can be a sinner and still get into heaven that's the Catholic answer okay because if you're Catholic you can cheat on your wife you you can you know you can drink every night whatever and as long as you keep giving money to the church you're fine you're in heaven okay so that's the Catholic answer all right and that second answer that's going to be the Protestant answer because it very clearly says in both many places in scripture and C.S Lewis's Mere Christianity you know that nothing unclean will enter Heaven and that God really does he he desires to call us sons of God um and so if so of course thinking that I had it locked down I clicked on that second option that's Catholicism no that's no we are all dung Hills covered in snow we all remain absolutely wretched even through eternity in heaven and to believe otherwise you may as well be a popeist you know I'm on I'm on holidays here which means I'm not showering regularly and I can tell you it's very uncomfortable like my armpits get sticky and stinky and uh sorry for the graphic imagery but we've all been there we've all been there right and uh it's like thank God for Purgatory thank God for the Catholic church because I do not want to be a dung Hill covered in snow it's very uncomfortable it's very very uncomfortable I go two days without a shower it's uncomfortable you know have you ever read uh letters to Malcolm no you mind if I read something yeah because i i to the extent that I speak from my own heart I speak nonsense so I always find much much better uh words in somebody else's mouth so this is Lewis writing to his imaginary friend about purgatory now Lewis by Anglican standards by the way was unequivocally a heretic he believes so many things that Catholics believe that are unatheled by two anglicans de facto Catholic yeah and and he hid it less if he had been if he had been uh double and Irish and not Belfast Irish he would have been Catholic no no question about it um but this is him writing to his imaginary friend about purgatory he says our souls demand Purgatory don't they would it not break the heart if God said to us it is true my son that your breath smells and your Rags drift with mud and slime but we are charitable here and no one will upgrade you with these things nor draw away from you enter into the joy should we not reply with submission sir and if there's no objection I'd rather be clean first it may hurt you may know even so sir like isn't that it's amazing yeah that's I have read that I have read that so I didn't know it was called letters yes powerful stuff it's common sense and Common Sense is very uncommon today right absolutely yeah but the the thing with our separated brethren is they they're so in love with Christ apparently ostensibly I mean I I do I do admire the sort of naive childlike innocence that they have in their faith it's so unsophisticated and so simple and straightforward and I feel the same way about Luther I used to hate Luther um when I was a you know a new Catholic I hated him because I think he's a scumbag and he let his sexual license go wild after he left the church and stuff like that and he did a lot of pornographic imagery of the popes and stuff like that uh fart jokes you know whatever um I just thought he was a classless loser and full of demons but I read something very touching uh an Anglican read me something on the Internet about Luther's last breaths when he was dying and he just was clutching his big crucifix and it moved me and I actually grew to love Luther and to respect him in the Simplicity of his faith and I kind of saw that there's something in Christianity there's something in protestantism that we can benefit from on our side in the Catholic church we can really benefit from a sort of total abandonment to the will of Christ and to just that that Jesus Take the Wheel you know that sort of that song so that's lacking in me temperamentally and certainly as a Catholic I have lots of toys to play with that will keep me away from that that Protestant Vigor and that sort of recklessness that Reckless abandon to Christ that I think that I think Luther had according to this reading that I was read but God only knows a heart so I can't judge you know the hurt but I'd like to think that Luther would you know went to heaven I I hope so and I kind of got a soft spot for him so what's your take on Luther I have what little I read of the man's actual words I either read just as history in high school or I read through Catholic eyes which were very hostile so I don't necessarily feel um qualified to give that anything other than a hypothetical you have a hunch though you have a hunch you have a chemistry with the man well from from what I know of him he was somebody who was who was uh deeply deeply upset with himself scrupulous had a very he had had a very strong that's where I was going with that had a very strong not even necessarily the scrupulocity because I don't think the man invented any sins that he didn't actually commit but um had a very strong sense of his own his own dirtiness depravity and and was genuinely skeptical about the ability of God to take that that gray and make it white uh and when you now this is just from from my experience reading his works but that's the impression that you get as somebody who is searching for a way uh searching for a way to be at peace with his knowledge of his own sin so yeah well you know Saint so postina right with the Divine Mercy yes sir Jesus said to her that what he finds most upsetting or most offensive or whatever is when people don't trust in his Mercy it's like hey it's a big insult to God it's a very big insult to God so yeah we we have to be aware of uh falling into that trap that Luther fell into I guess but kind of kind of moving back there so when when you sort of bring that back to this by the way can you I I don't know if this is my microphone or not like is this making any difference whatsoever when I wave it around okay good because uncomfortable in the air excellent so man what were we talking about Lutheran Lutheran is scrupulosity and he would always take out his earbuds in the middle of a conversation stuff like that oh shoot yeah okay yeah no one no what we could rewind we could stop the stream rewind it watch it and then start a new stream if you want buddy I want you to erase this whole thing I've done nothing but embarrass myself for the past hour I'm gonna rename it I'm going to rename it commas semicolons M dashes Galore I was just kidding no just okay so this began with us with us talking about Pope Francis oh we're going all the way back okay all the way back take two let's go okay nice to see you nice to meet you tell us about yourself uh I'm from Massachusetts that's about so you're a Jew you dirty Jew so what do you think of oh I'm Catholic when you are not a Jew in Massachusetts you are Catholic thank you sounds familiar what do you think of Nick Fuentes and yay that means nothing to me really okay I'm just trying to like refresh your brain so that you can remember about what you're going to tell me about Luther ah shoot no that's that's gone no I was just I was just trying to think that I was just trying to think about how to bring how to bring that back to Pope Francis and how my objection against Pope Francis would be that that he makes it difficult for people to live their spiritual lives that he makes it hard for people who are not United with the church yet to understand number one what the church teaches and number two why they should be and to the extent that I have any kind of objections to his uh his words or his behavior at all it's always going to be from that standpoint because it's not my place to judge the man's Soul it's not my place to say if you believe this or speak this way you are hell down because I have no way of knowing that but I I have a I believe a reasonably good judgment to say when you talk this way when you preach this way when you introduce unnecessary ambiguities and equivocations into the church's discourse this way you make it harder for people to come to the church you make it harder for people who are interested in in Christ and in Catholicism to know what it is that they're actually getting into you you make the you make that voice more ambiguous than it has to be you make it harder to understand and you you do frankly the exact opposite of of what Christ calls us to do which is to to tell the truth to preach love to let everybody know that they're that they're loved by God and that God's love knows no limits and and will sanctify them to whatever extent whatever extent is necessary to be with them forever I believe that when you talk as Francis often does do you uh you'll fouscate that you make that you make that more difficult to comprehend and you do put a stumbling block in the way of people who who otherwise would be would be much more amenable to amending their lives and being part of the church so ironically you're you're flipping out on him you're saying look the people's faith is delicate we have to be delicate with these people that want to come into the church so it's it's you're doing a Pope Francis on Pope Francis saying hey these these people are like they want to come into the church but so we have to be very delicate we have to be very clear and what the rad tribes always say is more clarity uh no they say yeah they say they emphasize Clarity and then the Liberals emphasize charity so there's this debate Clarity charity and of course the answer is both we want both right um but my friend my Catholic friend got upset with me because we were talking in a group chat uh with Rebecca and it's it's on my podcast you can watch it uh we're talking to a Protestant about uh do Catholics worship Mary and I'm like yeah we do and he's like no no we don't and uh you know um I we have different opinions I think we should be bold and we should be shocking and if it's misunderstood they don't care anyway they don't these people don't care anyway the people that want to find fault will find fault and if they want to like if they want to throw a tantrum they're going to throw a tantrum let's just be bold and say yes we worship Mary well what do you mean by that do you mean the same adoration latria that you give to God no in fact we don't oh oh thanks for asking you know it's like people that care are gonna find out what the church teaches and I you know if you read the the tradition of the church they were not shy to talk about worshiping Mary because they understood the difference between dulia hyperdulia and latria and I understand the difference and any [ __ ] that wants to come into the church is going to learn what the church teaches about that and about everything else right so my found in absolutely beautiful tract in a Parish Church back in Mass actually um it and it said something like if your Devotion to Mary uh does not make Protestants nervous you're not devoted enough yeah and my friend was like no no David you're going to turn people off people that you know Protestants other people that don't under they don't understand they don't understand yeah it's like well I didn't understand either when I was anti-catholic and then guess what I got the grace of conversion I said yes to the grace and I found out when the church actually teaches and I fell in love with the church because that's the way it works same thing like with my wife walking down the street it's like this is my wife I got to know her I fell in love with her and she's mine you know and if that guy thinks she's too tall Too Short too fat too skinny or too ugly or whatever I don't care it's completely irrelevant because it's a love story right like you're in love with Christ in his church or you're not and this is not like let's dress Christ up just right and oh Christ you have to walk like this oh no no don't say too much oh we'll speak now okay do this do that it's not a a a pony show or whatever they call it Christ is uh is God it's the God man Jesus Christ and his church uh Christ and his church are one flesh so we don't need to dance around being careful how do we display Christ Christ in his church no be bold let's be bold like this is what we believe we believe in purgatory we believe in the papacy we believe in uh Mary no she's not God but she's pretty close right like if you read alfonsi and Alphonsus liguri on the glories of Mary it's like you want to shock a Protestant just quote from that because it's got some really really really powerful language to the point where Saint Alphonsus liguri saying like I would have thought you were a God if the church didn't tell me that you're not I I heard somebody walk in but I don't know sorry it's it's all good we can keep going it could be your ghost so uh yeah I like I like to be a bold Catholic and to be shocking and to you know to be misunderstood and all these sorts of things and uh my friend thinks we need to be delicate so we can do a sales job and get everyone to join I don't want numbers I don't want quantity I want quality if you're in the church like I'm always preaching let's have an inquisition let's get rid of Biden let's get rid of Trudeau let's get rid of all these people I don't want them in my church I don't want I want a smaller church that actually is full of Catholics not a bunch of people sitting in the pews who are lukewarm or that are libtards or whatever you know let's let's kind of unpack what we actually mean by delicacy here though because that that was that was a very interesting point is that in in one sense that I'm sure that was very Papa Franciscan thing that I just said um so I I like to say uh you know it's it's our job it's our job as evangelists you know you know it's our job as preachers as evangelists as people with voices it's our job to tell the truth to everybody we meet it is not our job to make everybody we meet care about the truth right it takes a much more intimate relationship to make somebody care about what's true or false than it does to Simply State what is true or what's false so there's there's definitely two two distinctions there and I I think when we talk about how we need to be uh delicate with with unbelievers you know with people who's whose faith is new there's a confusion that can take place that I think in Pope francis's Face Place often takes place and and I think it's disastrous so hey could you close that door please thank you so there is a human there yeah they're back from the candy store you can wrap it up anytime you feel like you need to no I'm I'm kind of glad I asked her to close the door because I was going to use a real life example and I don't want the real life example to overhear what I'm about to say so we have got a we've got a family member visiting us over New Year's who is I believe still thoroughly convinced that she is a witch uh you know if I don't think she brought her asthma here because I don't think she could fit it on the bag but you know she's she's got the books in the herbs and the bottles and the incantations and the grimoires and all of that stuff um now supposing yeah and and I I often have talked about religion with her and it's they're they're always very fascinating conversations but um there's there's two ways to be to be delicate when you have that that you know that difference of Faith you can ask this person okay what do you believe why do you believe that um how do you perceive these beliefs as being coherent with with one another and with the way that you live your life and with the rest of the world and and we can have a wonderful far-reaching conversation there but when you're having that conversation there there's never a question but that you perceive some certain things as true and other things is false you know we're we're not saying okay maybe you maybe you can continue making love potions when you're Catholic you know maybe maybe there maybe there's a saint missing from our lexicon and this and this funny looking six-armed 32 toad seven-legged Idol in your grimoire's popon Aureus is actually you know maybe there is an aspect of God that actually looks like that you know what even when we're delicate with these people even when we're trying to respect what they believe and really try to understand where it is that they're coming from there's no sense in which we're compromising the truth there's no sense of what you're saying okay so maybe this thing you're doing is acceptable after all uh there's never that note when you're having that type of conversation but that's the note that I hear coming out of Pope francis's mouth all the time and again maybe that's misunderstanding maybe Pope Francis is just as Orthodox as I am maybe Father James Martin has the exact same uh opinions toward uh non-binary Catholic members in the churches I do which I superficially we'd probably talk very much the same uh you know if you gave us a a microphone and a couple shots of whiskey so maybe that is the case but the note that I get out of out of Pope Francis and many modern Catholic preachers today is not it doesn't stop at we care about you we believe that you have good reasons for believing what you do uh we we believe in your your goodness and your honesty and we believe that the Catholic church is going to satisfy those good qualities in you more than what you currently believe I I don't get that note out of the way that they talk I I I get notes of of compromise and uh and and of watering Faith down and of uh avoiding speaking Truth for fear of imperiling a relationship and so how does this tie in with Luther's attitude toward the indulgences and the 95 Theses or whatever it was there a parallel you were drawing there I think if I know man that is uh and what did you smoke before going live with me today um do you know do you have any idea if I were high right now now and the this this next question is a serious question can I please talk to your niece which or whoever that is that person that is staying with you can I please do an interview with her at some point before she leaves your place oh I don't know before she leaves my place but she's a lot more plugged in than I am so yeah go I mean I've got your fighter information I can give it to her somehow yeah give it to her because that would be fun that would be fun you know you know what would be great okay I I gotta see how long she's here and then can can okay can can we uh can we I have done nothing but blab and sound like a talking rock crawling down a hill the entire time that we've been connected here I am absolutely mortified no at the possibility that my incoherence is going to leave this chat so so if I actually get her on your show can you please just do me do me a solid and overwrite this conversation because I how can I answer Ambiguously so you think that I'm promising you something I'm never gonna give you oh that's what I was thinking with Pope Francis you know I might be talking people off the ledge it's like yes yes let's give you everything you want just come down off the ledge and then once they're off the ledge and in the church it's like well here's what we do in the church and we have to have virtue and we have to follow the teachings of Christ so maybe there's that 5D chess thing happening but no on a serious note like I mean if I could talk to your uh relative who's a witch or think she's a witch that would be fun and if you want to make it happen uh at your place or give her the info so we can do it once she gets back to her place um or if you want to do a group chat with her but in terms of destroying this beautiful conversation no I would never do that come on all right well I humility humility this is humbling for you you're not the genius you thought you were this is very humbling for me this is like this is finding out this is finding out your mic's not plugged in level of humbling right now I've done that I've done that so uh wrap it up because it is it's been an hour and a half and we're gonna talk again for sure for sure for sure you can become my co-host for two hour and a half in my life it's been yes absolutely I make this offer to a lot of people so don't get too excited but you could be my co-host in the future if you want to be and we'll talk and we'll we'll uh we'll have uh guests on and you can uh take the show whatever Direction you want to go but uh nobody the door is always open you can come back anytime we'll talk about the faith and we'll talk about Pope Francis and whatever else but before we do wrap up um is there anything that you were kind of thinking it would be nice to cover like one of your bullet points or notes for the show today like some of the uh uh was there uh father Frank Pavone did you want to talk about or was there anything or um I don't really feel comfortable talking about anybody with whom I'm not on intimate terms I mean all I know is what reaches me yeah and again it's it and you know Father James Martin is a good example because uh everything that I have everything that I've seen actually come out of his mouth uh doesn't really sound like anything I wouldn't say myself it's it's mostly the interpretation of of what he's doing uh that that draws a lot of the a lot of the suspicion [Music] um so yeah I guess the short answer is um I I will only talk about people I don't know personally in terms of hypotheticals and if they actually said that then I think that's crazy it's always going to be an if by whiskey if it's somebody who I don't have a good relationship with and it's the same case and it's the same case with it well I mean Pope Francis not necessarily because a lot of his stuff he's just flat out said in front of a microphone um but you know to the extent that I don't have knowledge of what somebody's doing or saying I I frankly don't feel comfortable talking about them what about me is there any little tweak or change you would suggest to me in a loving charitable way in terms of my carte blanche to Pope Francis am I just being silly and naive like do you have any advice to me on how I could tweak my attitude toward the Vicar of Christ frankly the only thing the the only thing in this entire conversation that I would I the only thing is sort of raised a flag to me is when you talk about Pope francis's Behavior not impacting your faith yeah and you know he he can say the most ridiculous thing ever and it wouldn't shake your faith at all okay it wouldn't shake my faith either but we're not the only two people in the church yeah we remember what I said remember what I said about how I wasn't I was an anti-catholic Satanist and whatever and I got the gift of faith remember that the faith is Supernatural right I was talking to a good friend last night and he he said I should watch this video by uh Restrepo there's this guy Restrepo that converted to the faith and there was a gem of a cool name but that's about it there was a gem of a quote that he gave because he was complaining to God like hey I converted now I want all my family and friends to convert and that's how I felt right and God said to him very clearly whoa whoa whoa whoa there's sunny boy like I gave you the greatest Grace ever that's possible which is the grace to be not only Christian but Catholic so just pump the brakes okay I've got a plan trust me this is not a gift that goes willy-nilly this is not cheap Grace you got the the big one okay be great be grateful and of course I'm riffing here I'm totally paraphrasing obviously but you got the big one don't go asking that I give the big one I don't give the big one to everybody cool your jets so I thought that was pretty cool and that reminds me that you know uh we we have to trust God God has a plan the faith is a supernatural gift it's it's by Grace by grace alone and I love talking with Protestants about Sola grazia because I'm a solo grazia guy I'm a totally Sola grazia guy I only cooperate with The Graces of God by the grace of God it's only by The Graces of God that I cooperate with The Graces of God but you as a Protestant you have to remember that you got to cooperate with the next Grace that comes your way right it's only by the grace of God that you cooperate with it but you still have to say yes to that Grace to cooperate with the next set of Graces that come your way it's just like you know there's there's it's all a gift you get the first gift if you open it then you get another gift and if you open that one you get another one it's Grace building upon Grace but if you don't open it if you say no to Any Given Grace you're stagnating your slip you're backsliding because it's an ongoing thing this is not a waiting room it's not the ante room of Heaven we're in a really tricky dangerous trial here and uh just read Saint Paul what he says about the race like we're uh lest he fail he has to strive and strive and strive and look always forward toward the end goal right and so um yeah I'm a Sola grazia Christian for sure but that Grace is an ongoing thing and we have to cooperate at every stage by the grace of God we're able to cooperate what you have to cooperate nonetheless so uh it's it's sort of like a distinction without a difference that the Protestants want to foist on us the same thing with the works uh the the faith in Works uh dilemma it's like I'm hearing scratching outside my door so I think I I think I may actually have to go yes uh however um just kind of something to close with yeah and and this again comes from C.S Lewis because my goodness the man was an absolute Genius of crotchetiness uh when he talks about uh just Worship in the Anglican Church one of his things was and and I was looking for the actual quote but I can't I can't find it for some reason so I'm going to have to paraphrase but what he said was the Anglican worship service should take about the exact same amount of time every morning because the priest who lengthens it even by five minutes has the potential to just completely throw off the rest of somebody else's day and here's the important part he says uh we may be tempted to feel uncharitable toward our pastor and such Temptations are good for us but it is not the pastor's responsibility to supply them God's Providence and Satan's diligence will see to that without his additional effort so I so very apropos so when we're when we're talking on a spiritual level uh I guess we just need to make sure that we are not that we're not providing Temptations you know that we're not providing those scandals that we're not making things harder than they have to be for people who are trying to figure out what the truth is and then trying to figure out what the church is we have an obligation to to not confuse that and um I agree with you Clarity Clarity and we obviously need charity and Clarity but Clarity is of the utmost importance for sure for sure so so to the extent that Pope Francis and James Martin have confused anybody on that score I I think that's horrible I think that's uh worthy of a filial correction but to the extent that this understanding is mine because I am only a man and their teaching is perfectly Orthodox and their motives entirely pure and uh people are actually coming to a live vibrant version of the faith and not a watered down version that ignores all of the all of the difficult parts to the extent that's that's actually happening I'm wrong they're right I'm more than happy to admit it yeah it's probably somewhere in between right mix a mix of the two so uh yeah I do share your concerns I have to I have to you know I don't want to totally act like I'm unflustered or whatever the word is by the controversies like I mean they raise my eyebrows at the very least and uh you know it's just like some bad stuff and my wife who's an anti-catholic will always bring it to my attention She'll always bring it to my attention because she's watching like uh she's she became a conservative when a covet struck so she she's watching uh Evangelical right-wing Christian conspiracy theories and stuff like that there's a lot of Pope bashing and Catholic bashing that takes place so she brings it all to me and I just have to say you know good is good evil is evil this looks evil but I don't know the heart and we don't know for sure we'll find out on judgment day so we'll talk again soon thank you so much for taking the time it's been an hour and 45 minutes and you got to get to your scratching uh wildebeest there so we'll talk soon on Twitter and we'll arrange to have you come back and we'll chat some more okay yeah I'll try to get my Nissan here and hopefully that will atone for the fact that I've done nothing but jabber and talking rear off for almost two hours and uh we can we can try to make amends right it was excellent you you got away with words and you're very funny and Charming I bro this is so hard you see you you saw my tweet offering to completely lie to people in real life and say thank you but this isn't but but now we're talking online and in this it's this weird uncanny valley of okay do I actually say what I'm feeling or do I just say yeah thanks so uh you're you're getting the thanks all right thank you very much my brother please pray for me and mine you and yours are in my prayers and I'm enrolling you in a Perpetual mess so you get the infinite Graces of the sacrifice of the mass every day till the end of time friend we will pray with we will pray for you and your whole family tonight because I want you and God wants you to be that one coin that the old lady not only finds but it turns out to be a magnet and everything else in the house sticks to it wow excellent thank you so much my brother take good care we'll talk soon God bless