Pints With Aquinas - 239: Why Civilization is DOOMED Without True Religion w/ Dr. Scott Hahn

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Scott Hahn about the importance of true religion for civilization. Then we will take questions from patrons and super chatters (patrons, ask here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/questions-for-dr-45289408)   Get Scott's NEW book "It Is Right and Just": https://www.amazon.com/Right-Just-Civilization-Depends-Religion/dp/1645850706/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=true+religion+hahn&qid=1608573334&sr=8-1   SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints  Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/   GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn’t be possible without you. I can’t thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show.   LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd   MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Hello, hello, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd, and today I have the very great pleasure of interviewing Dr. Scott Hahn about his new and very excellent book that I have in my hand here, which he co-authored with Brandon McGinley. It's called It Is Right and Just, Why the Future of Civilization Depends on True Religion. As you can see, I have underlined it a great deal. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Dr. Hahn has a great ability to take sophisticated concepts and break them down for knuckleheads like me. And I've got a link in the description below if you want to get the book, but we'll bring up Scott. Dr. Hahn, lovely to have you. It's great to be with you again, Matt.

Indeed. Okay. Well, hey, thank you for writing this book. You're welcome. Thanks for the invitation to have this conversation. And also, thank you for last month coming up with the family for that visitation.

We're still reverberating from that fun time. Thank you. Yeah, it was good to be in your home and I think to be destroyed at table tennis by your sons. That was real fun. I know the feeling,

only it was in your hands. Yeah. I know last time we chatted, we spoke about your book on death, essentially, and cremation, these sorts of things. And we never really got around to talking about it until the last 20 minutes. But today, I am really excited to talk about this topic because obviously in this day and age, especially in America, but all throughout the world, people are talking about religion and society and maybe Western civilization coming undone at the seams. And so there's a real interest, I think, in this. So maybe just to begin with, tell us why you wrote the book. Well, I had my reasons.

I think our Lord had his. Over 50 books I've authored, co-authored or edited in the last 35 years or so. co-authored or edited in the last 35 years or so. But never have I had a sense of timing for the two that came out in this auspicious year of 2020. The one that you mentioned a moment ago, Hope to Die, the Christian meeting of death and the resurrection of the body, came out in the immediate aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the shutdown everywhere in the church and in the world. I was just thinking, perfect book in time for Easter. Our Lord had, I think, bigger plans, and it did a lot of good for a lot of people in a lot of places. This book, It Is Right and Just, Why the Future of Civilization Depends on True Religion, came out in the immediate aftermath of the most recent presidential

election. And I kind of knew that would be the occasion, but little did I know the circumstances and the controversy and all of that. And I feel as though the book helps people to raise their vision beyond the election, beyond the ballot box, beyond the allegations of fraud and that sort of thing, to recognize that we as Christians, especially we as Catholics, don't think simply in terms of election cycles. Mother Church thinks in terms of generations, in terms of centuries. And so we have to plant the fall crop and harvest it when it comes. But we also have to plant forests and plan for bigger things, thinking in the long term. And so almost every single thing I've ever written, going back to my freshman year in college, that would be 1975, has had something to do with

covenant. I was a triple major in theology, philosophy, and economics, and it was thinking in terms of covenant, discovering the notion of family, but then finding out that in sacred scripture, all 12 tribes of Israel form not only one nation, but a national family. And so the principle of covenant is a whole lot more expansive and intensive than I ever realized when I began. And so as I think back to all of the various titles, you know, from Rome's sweet home and a father who keeps his promises and especially the lamb's supper and swear to God, this has really been a narrative arc.

And in some ways, the circuitry is completed in this book. It is right and just because while I've never really dabbled in politics in terms of my writing, you can't really think long and hard about covenant and not recognize that the church's social doctrine has a way of concretizing the inner logic of divine love and law. It's the love of the covenant. It's the law of the covenant. And so I can't help but also think in terms of my own philosophy major and how going back to the Enlightenment, we began to think in profoundly wrong ways. And since ideas have consequences and bad ideas have bad consequences, you know, I think

it's also important to recognize that the so-called enlightenment implies that previously there was an endarkenment. And that meant, you know, an age of faith, a civilization known as Christendom, rooted in this integral sacramental organism we call the church. And if that's what darkness is, then Rousseau's notion of social contract and the secularization of society and relativizing religion, privatizing it too, this is how we become enlightened by reason alone, philosophy, science, you know, and the rest is the narrative of secularism with which we're mostly all familiar. And so to think of covenant is not just to think of an individual relationship with God. Every Israelite was called to that. Every Catholic Christian is too. But it was, as we've seen,

national back at Mount Sinai. It was also international when Christ established the Catholic Church. And so there's no room for denominationalism, you know, that kind of fragmentary reduction of the church to ethnicity or to a voluntary society that we choose and then leave and then choose another one and move on. You know, I just think we have to sit up and recognize, however painful it is, that we've got scrambled eggs for brains right now when it comes to thinking about politics, social, economic, interpersonal relations. It just isn't reducible to contract, individualism, you know, and I could come and go from this marriage because it's really nothing more than companionship. No, you know, you knock over the first domino covenant and all of a sudden, you know, a lot of other dominoes start to fall in rather unexpected but significant ways. So writing this book for me was sort of, I got to get this out of my system too. And Brandon and I, oh, we had so much fun going back

to late 2017 and the conversations in 2018 and recognizing this might come out in time for the presidential election in 2020. And you could see a year or two away, you know, that that is going to be a significant time, if not a debacle. And so there you have it. Those are sort of the prime reasons for us doing it. I'm sure I and many of our viewers have imbibed these ideas just by living in a secular society without even realizing it. So I think one of the things this book does is it helps you see the way you should see rather than just sort of adopting even people from our particular political party's view of the world. So you begin by talking about religion and defining it in a way that we used to define it, but in which we don't really today. You begin by quoting Marx when he talks about the religion being the opium of the masses. And you say that many of us today just sort of think of religion as a sort of category under which there are different religions.

But we really shouldn't think of it that way. We should think of it as a virtue. Talk to us about that. Well, since this is Pints with Aquinas, you know, I am very fond of St. Thomas and addicted to the Summa. Someone needs to make a t-shirt, I am addicted to the Summa. Continue. Yes, well, you know, I think of question 81 in the Secunda Secundae, which is devoted in its entirety to religion. And it's got eight different questions in Article 81. And so, I'm sorry, eight different articles in Question 81. And it looks at religion through the eyes of Cicero. It looks at religion through the eyes of the Greco-Roman philosophers and ethicists. So we're thinking of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,

but also and especially Cicero, what he calls Tully, and Seneca. And for all of them, using nothing but natural reason, discovering in the natural order, this thing we call the natural moral law, you can see that there are four cardinal virtues under which you have dozens of other practical, specific virtues. But of the four cardinal virtues, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice, there's a profound sense in which we all recognize that justice is sort of primary. It's the ultimate virtue. Because when you act with justice, you give to others what is their due. Well, it's easy to see the low hanging fruit of commutative justice, which is, you know, paying for your groceries in the, in the checkout line. But distributive

justice is a little more complicated because it involves equity and fairness, you know, and this is where people often use the term social justice. They weaponize it and use it to hijack a lot of tradition and traditional morality. But even beyond those two familiar terms using referencing justice, there is another form of justice. It's a transcendent form because there are certain relations that really you can't enter into them and pay back to the other what you owe them. For example, you know, parents, you can't give them back what they gave you because they gave you life, love, food, clothing, and shelter, and all of the nurture that goes with it. So what does justice call for? Well, it calls for pietas, the Latin term we

translate piety, but in the 10 commandments, it calls for pietas, the Latin term we translate piety. But in the Ten Commandments, it's honor your father and mother, cavo da. You receive whatever they give you and you give it back to them however much they need it. But even more, there's a sense in which the community, the country, has secured the common good in a way that goes beyond what your parents did in providing for you. And so the transcendent justice of patria, patriotism is such that you can't give to the country what they've given you, but you can honor and respect them. And you can also enlist, for example, or you can perform public service. You can enter into public office and serve the common good. But there's the highest form that Aquinas emphasizes, but also so does Cicero, and that is religion. Religion is the

debt of justice that we owe to God. Curiously, in the catechism that came out way back in the early 90s, the term religion is used to describe the virtue of religion, which is the highest form of justice. And in the Summa, Aquinas refers to religion as the virtus ver tutum, the virtue of virtues. And what does he mean? Well, it means that's the highest because it's right and just to give thanks and praise to God. It isn't just our duty, it's our salvation, but it is our duty, and not just for individuals, but even Cicero recognized that for communities, for a city, for a city-state, a polis, so for a country as well. And so you begin to tap this out, and you begin to recognize that modern secularists who say that religion is irrelevant to modern justice and law

and even poses a threat to national life. Wait a minute. You know, religion is not just designed for individuals. It isn't just reductionistic in applying it to married couples, but no farther. No, it includes the kids. It includes the extended family, it includes the neighborhood. You know, what does Aquinas mean by virtue of virtues? Well, you know, you think of a symphony. You know, virtue is, you know, the virtues are to the soul what the muscles are to the body. They make it so that we can be strong and upright and do good more and more easily and frequently. And so it's sort of like assembling an orchestra. You might have an assemblage of master musicians, but unless they're on the same page, unless they're really being led

by a conductor, it might come off cacophonous. And so the harmony, the unity of the virtues is really under God in the sense of my personal life, but also in terms of the social order. And so to not acknowledge God publicly, to not give him thanks or praise is wrong and unjust. And I'm proposing with Brandon that it's a crime and not a misdemeanor, but a kind of, you know, a cosmic crime, something beyond a mere felony. And so societies are, in a certain sense, in the process of self-demolition when they turn their back on God. And that's why we draw so much from Alexander Solzhenitsyn as well, who looks at the debacle, which was Mother Russia. You know, what could have happened to Russia when it had been probably the most religious of the country, certainly in

the Orthodox world. And the elders, when Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a child growing up, continually their refrain was, men have forgotten God. It isn't like the concept just escaped their mind. They privatized, they relativized, and they basically reduced religion to this minimal role that is, you know, spiritual, not physical, personal, not social, private, not public. And the rest, as they say, is history. But it's very dismal history. It's almost like Israel's damnation history, as Gerhard von Rod called it. And so the public nature of religion is something that even most Catholics have lost a sense of. Yes, yes. Aquinas hasn't. You know, and this is why I refer to those two thieves

who broke into that Swedish bank and took four hostages and held them for five days. And when they were finally released, strangely, the hostages came to the defense of the captors. released, strangely, the hostages came to the defense of the captors. And this became known as the Stockholm Syndrome. And we've seen it repeated in many other instances. And the strange thing is, it's gone almost entirely undiagnosed for Catholic Americans. I mean, we're more American than we are Catholic. And I love my country. But at the same time, the greatest gift I can give to my country as a patriotic Catholic is the fullness of my faith lived out with joy, and publicly and not just privately, by way of reminder. And the last thing I'll say on this point is, you know, that in Vatican II, we've had a renewed sense of the universal call to holiness. And so we strive to be saints. But the call to holiness

is not reducible to me alone as an individual. I'm going to be holy, but I'm not going to try to make my spouse holy. No, of course. Well, okay, my marriage, I want to sanctify that, but not my kids. Well, that's absurd. I want to sanctify my kids and bring holiness to my family, but not my neighborhood. No, I want to love my neighbor as I bring holiness to my family, but not my neighborhood? No, I want to love my neighbor as I love myself and my family too. So I want to do whatever I can to spread holiness to them, but not to the town of Steubenville. Well, yes, but not to the state of Ohio. Okay, exactly where do we draw the line and how do we justify it? Jesus made it clear, go and make disciples of all nations, not just disciples in the nations, but of the nations.

And how could he get off saying that? Because previously I just said all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Not that it will be given at the end of time when I come back and it's no more Mr. Nice Guy. No, it's here and now all mine. And I am with you to the end of the age. And so like, you know, like bookends in the Great Commission of Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, all authority is his and he is with us to the end of the age. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing. baptizing. So it's a sacramental organism that Christ wants to establish, but teaching them to observe whatsoever I've commanded you, not just the low hanging ethical fruit that, you know,

the Republicans and the Democrats look at the social doctrine and say, well, we could agree on what solidarity and subsidiarity, like you go through a cafeteria. No, our responsibility is set forward. It's not a numbers game. Jesus didn't, you know, count his success on the basis of the fact that the majority in each town of Capernaum, Nazareth, believe in him. It's basically what Mother Teresa said. It's faithfulness, not success. But I think what we need to do is rekindle the desire, because I don't think most Catholics would even want a Christian social order or a Catholic civilization. So my question for you is, you've termed it sort of Stockholm syndrome, you know, Catholics in a culture kind of adapting to the culture and imbibing its beliefs about the state. And defending them, too.

Religion and state and defending it. How does that express itself amongst church-going Catholics that you've seen? What does it look like? I mean, obviously, if they're going to church, they're a cut above the rest, you know. But if they relegate their faith just to an hour on Sunday or one or two other things, they're really falling short of what we would call discipleship. So faithful disciples become fruitful apostles. And Vatican II made it so clear in Apostolicum Actuos Hittatum, arguably the most neglected of the 16 documents, but it's on the laity. And it's a call for the laity to recognize not only the universal call to holiness that applies to us personally and socially, but to sanctify the temporal order is the language. And it's not

idealism. It's not wishful thinking. This is a command performance. We're, you know, those are our marching orders to sanctify the temporal order, not just to sanitize it. And so when we wake up and experience the grace of an adult conversion, we've got to recognize, okay, I would sanctify the whole world if I could. I can't, so I won't. And so we distinguish, as Covey would say, we distinguish between the sphere of concern, I'm concerned about the whole country, from the sphere of influence. What can I make a difference? Where can I make a practical difference? And so as lay apostles, we bear witness in our friendships, through our work, in the neighborhood, in our parish, and basically try to put as many pebbles in the pond and send out ripples, find as many light switches as we can and illuminate the landscape.

But at the same time, we ought to buckle up for a rough ride because you can't do this in postmodern, secularized America or any other Western country and not expect a fair bit of pushback. And it might get harder. So today, when we think of religion, people often think of it as a like a hobby. It's cool if you're into this particular game or this particular movie, but obviously don't try and push that on other people. Maybe invite them into your weird little interest. But this isn't something you should expect of everybody. Too expected of everybody seems to maybe breach the line between church and state. What do you say to those who say it sounds like you're kind of wanting the church and the state to be, what do you say, together? Yeah, I mean, one of the things I refer to in the book is a master study by Andrew Willard Jones, who wrote a book entitled Before Church and State. And he's focusing on the only French king who was canonized, Saint Louis. And he's looking at how it

was back in the 12th and 13th century. And everybody assumes and everybody asserts in articles and books that, you know, there was a, there was no separation of church and state. Well, in fact, what Jones points out is that there was no state, that what we would call the state is never that term, no term like it is ever used in the primary sources. And so historians are sort of imposing or projecting our categories into the medieval society. When you read the documents, you discover that it wasn't church and state, it was clergy and laity. King Louis was baptized, he was confirmed married in the church, he was even crowned by the bishop and all of that. And so there was a distinction, but you distinguish not to separate and to oppose, as Aquinas would tell us,

you distinguish to unite the human nature and the divine nature of Christ, the clergy and the laity who are together members of the mystical body of Christ. So French Catholic culture was a sacramental organism. The clergy are defined by the sacrament of holy orders. The laity are defined by, well, baptism and confirmation. So sanctifying the temple order is what the monarch and all of the laymen and women were doing while sanctifying the members of the mystical body by administering the sacraments. That's what the clergy are doing, but the sacraments have an inner logic, a sort of hidden dynamism to create civilizations in a way that nothing else can. form of true religion in the Catholic faith. What I discovered as I was getting over my vehement anti-Catholicism way back in the late 70s and early 80s was that the Catholic religion

is the only form of Christianity that exerts this civilization-forming power for 2,000 years. And it's not primarily political. It's primarily cultic, the liturgical, but it's also cultural. So it's art, it's music, it's architecture. It's also the way in which the social order is not centralized. So you're backing into totalitarianism. It recognizes the family as the domestic church, you know, the whole of the city as an extended family. And so you're looking at reality through the eyes of God the Father, and you're seeing a fatherly vision, which, again, is not religious rhetoric. It isn't a kind of pious projection onto the political order of our make-believe. It's really raising our minds to the level of our hearts and

saying, you know, what we call this, it's reality. Jesus Christ is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. He didn't say my kingship is not in this world. He said, my kingship is not of this world. So my disciples aren't fighting, but at the same time, they're brandishing the sword of the spirit and spreading the word and also baptism and the other sacraments. And so, you know, I would just say you add up all of the sacred mysteries that we call Catholic doctrines, and you recognize that here again, there are dominoes tumbling. And the result, the conclusion that one reaches, has been hiding in plain view for a long time, unless we have been seriously, although silently afflicted by a kind of spiritual Stockholm syndrome. You know, I also referenced Jim

Marshall, the Minnesota Vikings, who holds the record for the most fumble recoveries in football, 30. But one of them is the most famous because it's the wrong way run where he picked up the football and ran in the wrong direction and scored a safety for the 49ers instead of for his own team the Vikings and you know I think he wasn't mutinous he wasn't betraying his team he just was sincerely convinced that that was the right way to run but he he was sincerely wrong. Fortunately, the Vikings won anyway. But I feel as though we would pass a polygraph in thinking that we've got to relativize religion, privatize it, and allow the secular culture to go on and on. Christ is saying that's really not an option. You know, there isn't a square inch of the earth that he doesn't point to and say, mine. There isn't a single person or city or country he doesn't turn to the Father and say, mine. There isn't a single person or city or country. He doesn't turn to

the father and say, I purchased all of that with my blood. What do you say to those who say, but the beauty of America is that it's so diverse and we have all these different religions and the beauty lies in our diversity. I mean, I would say there is a certain natural sense in which that's true, but there's also a deeper sense in which the supernatural grace that would come down upon that diversity wouldn't reduce that diversity to a monolith. It would actually enhance the diversity as well as the unity that we would have as children of God, of the Father, and brothers and sisters with Christ. And so when you look at the Catholic Church, here comes everybody, you know, every race, every country. And what does that mean? The diversity doesn't threaten or diminish the unity.

When it's lived right, it enhances and deepens that unity. OK, you speak about secularism a great deal in the book. One chapter is called Liberal Societies are Necessarily Secular. The next chapter is Secularism is idolatry. So I suppose you could conclude from that, if you were to put it together as a syllogism, that liberal societies are necessarily idolatrous. Talk to us about that. Yeah, I mean, we have to reconsider the public nature of religion to see that human beings are religious by nature. You know, as Dylan sang back in the 70s,

you gotta serve somebody. You know, that was the decade of his own Christian conversion, this spiritual awakening, where you realize that, you know, human beings serve something, someone. You know, it's what Paul called your ultimate concern.

And it might be the living God or it might be the stock market, you know. But sooner or later, we have to recognize that what the prophets called idolatry wasn't private. It was public. You know, it wasn't just interior. It was exterior. It was an immoral form of life, but it was also a political form of tyranny. And so what we want to show is that not only is religion the virtue of virtues, but the true religion, the Catholic faith, will cause human flourishing more than we could

imagine. And it's one of those things where, do I expect to see it? No. But I'm not an optimist by nature, but I am hopeful because hope is another one of those virtues that we can't live without. And so whatever Christ wants to do through my feeble and meager efforts, I will thank him for. But what I want to do is just to, well, it's basically what he wanted to do. I came to earth to set it on fire. You know, my mom reminded me before her passing that she had known all along that I set the cemetery on fire back when I was six years old. And likewise, the high school field on fire. And she said to me shortly before she passed, you know, I just have finally figured it out.

You are still a pyromaniac. You're just a spiritual pyro. I think that's what all of us want to do if we're in lockstep with our Lord. He wants to send fire to the earth. I like your point there, right, about us being idolatrous. There's this line here from Thomas Aquinas' commentary on Matthew. He says, for in whatever a man establishes his last end, that thing is his God. And I think too often we think of other gods as necessarily being supernatural. And certainly there are people,

perhaps a new sort of paganism in which people are worshiping supernatural things or turning their attention to them as the last end. But I think for many of us, we can kind of pat ourselves on the back and say, well, it's okay because there's money that I think about all the time and talk about all the time and takes up all of my interest. It's not levitating. It's not supernatural. Therefore, I can't really be worshiping it. And it just kind of struck me recently as I was listening, actually reading this book that, my goodness, like what are these little mini gods on the throne of my heart that I need to see and rip off? And I know they're there, but maybe up until now, I've just been telling myself, no, no, like money's a good thing and I worship God. How do we know that we're worshiping these false a good thing and I worship God. How do we know that we're worshiping these false idols and how do we see them? How do we renounce them? Well, I mean, the light exposes the darkness. And so when we reflect upon the Holy Trinity

and see how the Father sent the Son to pour out the Holy Spirit of Sonship to draw us into this divine love, this life-giving love, it's almost too good to be true, but it's certainly not something that the human mind could ever invent. But it does illuminate the darkness of what otherwise might just look to be gray, and that is the unholy trinity of money, sex, and power. I dare say we can see greater sacrificial worship in the lives of those who want money, who seek more sex, and who ultimately acquire more power by whatever means. I mean, this is what Satan is doing. This is why he's the prince of this world. He's the father of lies, and he's got a big family. He's got a big family because he's been fathering them through the lies that deceive us into thinking that this world is all there is.

through the lies that deceive us into thinking that this world is all there is. Well, this world is something that we are grateful for. But to enter into the uncreated life of the creator of this world is to discover not plan B, but plan A. This is the only thing for which we were made. And faith, hope, and love are the only way in which we all get home. But we don't just arrive by different routes alone by ourselves. It really is, like God himself, three persons who form a family communion, and it isn't a metaphor. God is a father more than any dad on earth. They are a family more than the Hans will ever be, and to discover that we're made in the image and likeness of this mystery of love,

called into it, I mean, it just might seem like stratospheric speculation. And at one level, it is. It's why we were given minds, but we're bodies also. We're embodied souls. And so to recognize that to express this in a visible way, socially, publicly, not just legally, but especially liturgically, because when you look at the law of Moses that made Israel a theocracy, almost 80% of the laws have to do with worship, with sacrifice, with the altar, and how that brings unity through joy that makes us know that we are a family and not just a politea, not just a political organism, you know? And I think we almost have to turn inside out every way we think in order to realize, wait, that's right side up. That is the proper way to think. If there is a God,

and God is our Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, then it's going to be a lot safer, eternally speaking, for us simply to comply with the King of Kings and say, hey, look, you know, even if we're going to fall flat on our face, and we probably will, let's not compromise. Let's not deny our Lord. Let's just, you know, go down swinging, you know, and singing and worshiping. And to me, religion has that capacity in my marriage, in my family, and in many others where we live and everywhere else as well. Okay, well, I want to take some questions from our patrons and those who are watching right now. But before we do that, I want to say thank you to EL Investments, which is a great Catholic group with whom you can invest. In the pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All the USCCB states that

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question here from one of our patrons I think is really interesting comes from Bianca Fuller she says what kind of damage does a false religion do to a society versus no religion? How would that answer change for a state-mandated Christianity that's not in communion with the Catholic Church? Great question. I mean, what we need to do is distinguish religion from false religion, and then also distinguish natural religion, as it was in pre-Christian times, from what we would call supernatural religion, and then also distinguish natural religion as it was in pre-Christian times from what we would call supernatural religion, that is the true religion of the Catholic faith. You know, clearly false religion is disastrous. And you can not only look at Israel's neighbors

to see how idolatry brings them to ruin, but how the idols are not just superstitious or fanciful entities, they're demonic powers. You know, and so to recognize the gods of Egypt and to understand that, wait, the 10 plagues were targeting them. It wasn't just God flexing his muscles. It was God revealing to him, his people, Israel, but also to Egypt that I am your father, God. You know, and so Cicero himself, though clear on the notion of religion being important, a matter of justice and a matter of public life, is also rather ambivalent because most all of

religion that he knows is superstitious. It's false religion. It's a lot of ignorance and a lot of, well, just a lot of waywardness. And it doesn't unite, it disunites, it confuses, and all of that. So on the one hand, we can see the natural potential for religion to unite people in a civil order. On the other hand, we can recognize that God really hasn't left any other options to the true religion. But when people turn their back on that, because it is difficult, you know, carrying your cross every day, you know, becoming like children, and I could go on losing your life in order to find it, etc. I mean, who wouldn't want to turn their back on that if it was really

a viable option. But once you do, you end up discovering way too late that you succumbed to mammon instead of God, to the father of lies, you know. And you can study the second half of chapter one in the book of Romans from that point on where claiming to be wise, they became fools. They didn't give God thanks or praise. And so they lapse into impurity. Then they lapse into a kind of unnatural pollution, which isn't just an intellectual confusion. It really is a kind of impurity that becomes more self-conscious and more powerful against the good. And by the time you get to verses 31 and 32, not only do they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, but they approve of those who do those. And you could finish the sentence by saying, and then disapprove and turn on those who would only approve of the natural moral law. That's

hate speech, you could almost say. In age after age, you know, we think we're so highly original, mainly because we don't know history. Or if we do, it's an abolished version of history. When you go back and you see the downfall of many, so many civilizations, you realize that basically, you know, this is a well-worn path we're on. That leads in nicely to this next question from patron Steve Brosco says, What's the role of the state in legislating morality? Christians always get accused of this when it comes to things like abortion or same-sex marriage, but what are the issues that Christians should legitimately fight for in the public square?

Issues like ending abortion and same-sex marriage seem grave enough and fundamental enough to fight against, but what about other grave matters like pornography or contraception? Is it realistic to try to make those areas illegal as well? Wow, this is another great question. You know, at one level we have to say, no, it's not realistic. You know, it's like squeezing toothpaste back into the tube. We're so secularized, etc. You know, on the other hand, to think that we can prop up the secular post-Christian, anti-Catholic civilization

and hope that our great, great grandkids may still enjoy the economic prosperity, that's unrealistic. You know, as Billy Graham's wife once said, if God doesn't bring judgment and destruction upon America, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah a personal apology. So we've got to remind ourselves we're pilgrims. We are grateful for all of the good of America, but we're not unmindful of all of the deviations from the truth and the good and the beautiful. And so, you know, I would also say this, that with the separation of church and state, there really isn't a solution. You know, and so we've got to walk it back and recognize that, you know, the sphere of concern that we have for the nation just goes light years beyond our own capacity to make a difference. So our sphere of influence is really important to stay focused on.

Otherwise, we just give it to despair, reactive anger, and we end up empowering our enemies in the process. That's not what we want to do. So, you know, I'm reminded of my favorite Peanuts comic strip where the little yellow bird, Woodstock, had his wings up and Lucy was mocking him because he thinks the sky is falling and you're going to hold up the sky with those two little wings. And Woodstock's line is, one does what one can. I love it. Yeah. And that's what we, but I think what we have to do, what we can do is rethink this.

So that we're not just sowing the seed for the fall crop that is the next election cycle. We're sowing the trees that will become a forest long after we're gone for our kids and our grandkids. And, you know, I've got, you know, six kids and now 20 grandkids. And so I've got skin in the game as far as the trees and the forest are concerned. But what we've got to do is recognize that it's not church and state. Like St. Louis, the King of France recognized, it's clergy and laity. And so what we've got to do with laity is not just join the parish council not to become eucharistic ministers that's not our vocation we're to go out and sanctify the temporal order intellectually economically investments like you were just speaking of

a few minutes ago in our neighborhood in our in the community, maybe in the city with Kimberly as city councilwoman at large. She has great ideals and she's, you know, discovering how hard it is to achieve those, but she just plugs on in her second term as well. You know, and the other thing I thought of, you know, because we're not in that kind of culture where we're all either clergy, we're all laity. No, we're more like exiles. And I'm working on a book with Brandon right now entitled After This, Our Exile. And the starting point, the premise is this, that when you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the prophets, the major prophets who addressed the exiles who had been driven into the Gentile and idolatrous

regions of these pagan nations. You know, obviously it weighs heavily on their hearts that the people of God are now scattered among these idolaters. You know, and Jeremiah says to the people, what are you to do? You're asking, well, you know, plant fields, build houses and pray for the peace of the city to which the Lord your God has driven you. and pray for the peace of the city to which the Lord your God has driven you. But then later on, you realize that as they planted the fields and as they built the houses and as they prayed for the pagan cities and countries where they've been driven to, they begin to get comfy. They begin to get downright cozy. And so what bothers the prophets much more than the fact that they've been driven into captivity

is that they no longer think of themselves as exiles Yeah, they're in exile and don't even know it. They just have a stalker and a symbol exactly and And they in the process, you know They become divided not only with our religion privatized on the one side and our secular life on the other But in a syncretistic form, okay Well to survive and thrive and flourish in Babylon or Assyria or Egypt, you've got to adopt some of their religious customs too. And so you're really living double lives, if not triple lives, you know, by a form of

idolatry that is always easy to rationalize or to excuse unless you happen to be one of the prophets. And then there is no you know there is no option for that sort of thing there's only you know originally jeremiah said 70 years and that should be enough we'll press reset and you'll come back to the lord you'll come home to jerusalem and rebuild the city and the temple and then daniel after jeremiah is dead realizes it's been 70 years and nothing's changed and And that's when the prophet hears St. Gabriel and Daniel 9 say, well, 70 years weren't enough, so we're going to have 70 weeks of years, 490 more years of Gentile captivity.

Because God is patient. If you don't repent after 70 years, well, here, the Messiah will come 70 times 7 in 490 years to fulfill all righteousness. At that point, you're either on the boat or off. You know, what can we learn from St. Augustine, who lived, you know, during or shortly after the slow collapse of the Roman Empire, and I believe it was shortly after his death that Hippo was burned to the ground. I mean, I feel like we could take a lesson from his book,

because there is a temptation to be like, you know what, America's done, it's collapsed, let it just all fall apart, and just to kind of fall into despair like that, I think that's just an easy way to kind of control or, you know, not have to wrestle with this gigantic problem that we're facing. That's a gigantic, great question. We can't count all of the lessons we could learn from Augustine, the city of God. I mean, he really writes the work to explain why Rome is allowed to be sacked by Alaric in around 1410. And it's so long, but it's so rich. On the one hand, you can see him beginning with the importance of religion and then going on to identify the catastrophe,

the terrible consequences of Rome's false religions, of their false gods. And he names names. He's very specific. And so he's saying Rome hasn't collapsed because of Christianity. It's collapsed because of false religion and idolatry. If anything, Christianity has sustained its life. It's provided longevity that it never would have had, you know. But more specifically, what he points out is that the root cause is love. You know, the city of God is defined by the love of God, you know, even to the contempt of self, whereas the city of man is described as the love of self, even to the contempt of God. And where does it begin? When Cain sacrificed his brother Abel. That's, and he goes on to form a city

and he names it after his son. So the city of Enoch that Cain built is the city of man's self-worship. And yet industry, technology, the fine arts are all on display in Genesis 4, as Augustine points out. So if you want technology, if you want culture, if you want to be way ahead of the city of God, you know, switch your allegiance.

to God, and God preserves that, but not by making it more powerfully, you know, more powerful militarily, more prosperous economically, but by making them more faithful. And so it's a familial culture. It's not primarily an industrial fine arts center like the city that's described in Genesis 4. So, I mean, Augustine gives to us the first universal theology of history, because what he's showing is that all of human history, all of human civilization is basically defined by those two competing loves. And by distinguishing, you can see why we're in exile, but you can also wake up and realize, wow, why is it we don't know that we're in exile? It's because our loves are in conflict with one another. On the one hand, we love God, but we love prosperity. We love our wife. You know, I love my wife, Kimberly, and yet you're the expert on pornography and how powerful it is. You know, it's become the principal weapon in the arsenal of Satan's army. And, you know, and it isn't, well,

it just affects those people who have pledged their allegiance to him, to money, sex, and power. No, we're still so weak and vulnerable that we've got to exercise our own rights as God's children and enter into the celebration of all of the sacraments, and I dare say, especially penance in preparation for the Mass. You know, for 35 years now, I've been going to confession weekly, and Kimberly and the kids have never suggested that I go too often, because I need the medicine of that powerful mercy that comes from the seven sacraments. And I think that, you know, if we have 20 grandkids and two of our sons are in seminary study for the priesthood for the diocese of Steubenville, it's all God's fault. I mean, he is the one who makes up for what I lack. And

I think that is what, you know, we need Psalm 115 to be emblazoned on our hearts, not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name, give glory. Thank you very much. This next question comes from Super Chat. Thanks, Michael. Michael Beaumont, he says, do you see danger or trending among U.S. Catholics align with political religious movements? How do we be salt and light, substantively engaged, and not relegate truth to a humanistic left-right dynamic? Right. Well, you know, this is a series of really great but complex questions, you know. I'm going to do it in a dialectical way again. You know, on the one hand, the prophets were hoping that the Jewish exiles would evangelize Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, but without confusing Babylon for Israel or the city of Babylon for Jerusalem. You know, so we have to recognize on the other hand, that right now

we do have a lot of Catholics who, who buy into our religion because it will shore up the Republican Party. It will make certain that we have a more good... And I'm not going to get into the debates over the presidential candidates. I think by now, everyone can probably guess who I voted for and all of that. But the point is, I might vote for Nebuchadnezzar's successor, but I just don't want to ever forget he's the prince of Babylon, you know, whereas Christ is the king of kings. And so if we live in exile, in the dispersion, we ought to recognize ourselves as pilgrims. We ought to be prudent and we ought to not invest all of our heart, mind and soul and strength into a political party that is closer to us than the other one. I mean, that's what Marshall Pétain did in France, you know, and the collaborationists that went along with him, collaborating with the Nazis because they were better than the

Soviet communists and the Marxists. And they probably were. And they granted the Catholic Church all kinds of, you know, temporary rights. But Vichy France turned out to be a disaster for the Catholic Church because they became so deeply indebted to Marshal Pétain and all of the others. And so in Spain, a similar thing with Franco. And so we've got to be politically involved, but we've got to be extraordinarily wise and prudent and assert the kingship of Christ, quasi primus, you know, in our hearts, first and foremost, in our homes, just as much, and in the hearts of others that are part of our parish family, because we share flesh and blood with our parishioners. We're in a supernatural family. And so first things first, my own heart, my own marriage, my own family. And in a way,

that's more than enough to keep me busy, but I've got to do the other things too. In the end, I would say the synthesis is achieved by saying this. We quote Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, you know, who was addressing the Academy of Higher Learning in France and, you know, addressing the question, well, what role did the church have in forming European civilization? And his point is that the monks, without Cluny, without the monasteries, without the monastic centers of the re-civilizing of Europe, it wouldn't have happened. But the monks weren't striving to rebuild culture. They were striving to establish the right worship of the true God and the true religion in their hearts, you know, in daily worship in their own lives. And when families began to congregate and cluster around these monasteries, because the abbot of Cluny ended up having authority over at least 1,500 to 3,000 monasteries, you know, it's sort of like you seek first the kingdom

and these things will be added. But if you seek first those things that will be added, you won't get the kingdom and you'll end up losing those things as well. And so Pope Benedict's message was so clear, so simple, they thought it was oversimplified. But, you know, the more we take our faith seriously, the more monasticism will grow, and the more the sacrament of matrimony will restore this, the social order that is natural, and the more we're going to have clergy and laity and religious united in a sacramental organism. This is why John Paul said that the goal of the new evangelization is not just an individual conversion not just ongoing conversion for individuals but a civilization of love and he distinguished that from utopia because it will never be a utopia but the problem is we don't even

think in terms of next century's force that we could be planting to produce a Catholic culture that our great-great-grandkids will thank us for. This is what secularism means. It means that the here and now is all there is. We're so short-sighted when you talked about 70 years or 470 years. Most of us are like, four years. Can we turn it around in four years? Yeah.

This question comes from patron Benjamin Handelman. He says, how would you recommend we reach across the aisle to our Protestant brothers and sisters to fight against this? And then let me just kind of add something to that. I mean, you talk about the true religion. I presume you're talking about Catholicism, not just the different Protestant denominations. So how does that fit into this as well when you talk about the true religion? When we speak of the true religion as Catholic, we don't speak of the bigger and older denomination.

We're talking Catholicos means universal. So where is the center and the source, the fountainhead of the church? It's not Rome. It's not the Vatican. The Pope is not the head of the church. Jesus Christ is. The Pope is the vicar of Christ and whatever he binds and looses, et cetera, et cetera, with those keys. But when we recognize that, we recognize that the principal place where the church is located is in heaven. It is in a different denomination. The church triumphant is in glory. The church militant is

in a state of grace where our life is vulnerable toward mortal sin and all of the rest. And so, you know, I would say 30 years ago when I first moved to Steubenville in 1990, you say Protestants and I think make my day, you know, put up your dukes. You know, now, 30 years later, you say Protestants. I'm like, brother, sister, come join us. You know, they're still separated brethren, but they're separated brethren. Let's shift the accent a lot because to fight this world war against the postmodern secularization that is out to deconstruct, you know, everything that we stand for, you know, we've got to stand shoulder to shoulder. We've got to get down on

our knees together with our Protestant brothers and sisters who long to live out the lordship of Jesus Christ and say, you know, let's just suspend for now the public debates on our differences, because though they're serious and significant, what we share in common is like 90% plus. We'll get around to that 10% because that's important too, but right now the common ground we stand on and kneel on, that is more important. And so I do believe that the ecumenical emphasis, if it's properly adjusted, that we hear from Pope Francis is something we can work with. It's something that we almost have to work with by necessity. Yeah. Cun grano salus, with a grain of salt. know yeah well i i'll

ask you one more question that just came in because it's it's heartbreaking and i think you'll have a you'll have a lot of wisdom here but before we do you know we've had over 500 people watching this from the majority of this interview if you are watching right now and you agree that this is worth your time it's no doubt worth the time of those who follow you on social media so please share this link on Facebook or Twitter, that's a great way to help us out. Click that thumbs up button, leave a comment, all of this helps this episode go far and wide.

And remember to get Scott's book. I really am not just saying this, but it's excellent. It is right and just. It just kind of crystallized everything for me in a way. I was able to see it in a way that I haven't for a while. So the link is in the description below, so be sure to click that and check it out. Here is the question. It comes from Mark Saluta.

He says, Recently converted to Catholicism from Baptist. Losing many friends. Alienated from my family, including wife. Wife wants to raise son fundamentalist. Threatened divorce otherwise. Any advice? Well, perhaps I'd suggest starting off by reading our account in Rome's Sweet Home, because

that's pretty much where Scott and Kimberly were back in 86 when I entered the church. And for the next four years, I didn't think Kimberly would ever join. She surprised me in 1990 on Ash Wednesday. But I had to learn that I'm not the Holy Spirit, you know, and so I had to give her the space and the time and the freedom that God gave to me as a rabid anti-Catholic, which she never was. I would also say, you know, show her and all of them, your friends, that it isn't subtracting the good news. It's not only adding more sacred mysteries, it's almost an exponential multiplier. The good news just goes out of control. It's amazing. And so live the joy of the gospel.

Show them the love of the Holy Spirit. Find that common ground that you share and then build as much as you possibly can in prayer together, in reading the Bible together, in avoiding debates. You almost win a debate every time you avoid one, with your wife especially. And take her out on a date instead of a debate, you know, and let her see that becoming a Catholic has made you a better man, a better husband, and Lord willing, a better father. And a humbler sinner who knows that only through the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, in our bodies and souls, can we be turned into saints. More than bread and wine becoming Christ's body, blood, soul, divinity.

The Eucharist is a means to an end. Sainthood is the end. And the Eucharist is the indispensable tool. And don't say it. Let her see it. And again, this isn't just rhetoric coming from some spiritual stage up on some sage up on stage. I think I got that expression from you, Matt. I stole it from someone.

We don't need a sage from the stage, but a guide from the side, I think. Yeah, that was well put. And I've been thinking about it ever since. I just, I really believe that living it out, enjoying it, sharing it, not fighting about it, and letting her see that you have, you know, significant differences, but the Lordship of Jesus Christ is the only reason you became a Catholic. And, you know, the last thing I would say is, you know, tell her that, you know, if it were up to me and you, I would never do this. But if it's up to the Lordship of Christ, and he was the one who told me to do it, it wouldn't be safe for me or for you, for me to shrink back and to just simply say no, because my wife is too upset. You know,

as I said to Kimberly, delaying obedience to what I know is true is feeling more like disobedience every day. And I meant it. It wasn't just a line I rehearsed, though I did rehearse it. It was straight from the heart and she knew it. And that was really what turned her heart to recognize, okay, you needed to do it. I need to not do it. And I said, I don't want you to ever do it

until you know that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who is calling you, not your husband. Amen, yeah. And Mark, that book again, it's called Rome Sweet Home. And I know many people in the chat right now are saying how much it's helped them. So please be sure to check that book out. I love what you said there. Take her out on a date, not a debate. That's really good. Hey, I want to show everybody the front cover to this excellent book as we begin to wrap up here. It is right and just. Everyone can see it right now, Scott, on the screen. Why the future

of civilization depends on the true religion, on true religion. Maybe tell us a little bit about this beautiful front cover and, you know, how it sort of maybe sums up what's in the book. Well, you know, the front cover depicts the Eucharistic procession of these clergy and all of the parishioners who mostly are farmers out in the fields, but they're consecrating the fruit of their labor in terms of the goal of the Eucharistic liturgy and how their work for six days is ordered to the worship of the Lord's day, but how the Lord's day spills out in every day. We look through a lot of cover art options, but I mean, as soon as my eyes fell upon this, we all knew this is the thing that we're really

getting at it because, you know, how do you, you know, how do you eat an elephant? Well, in small bites, you know. And we've got to just take baby steps when it comes to living this out with the goal of seeing a social order that is under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings. Just by creating the longing in our own hearts, I think it will have a beneficial effect on our children and our grandchildren. Supernaturally, even if we don't talk about it, and it's probably good not to just yap a lot about, oh, we want a Catholic culture, we want a Christian state. I mean, at this point, I think going to our Lord in prayer and letting him know, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, straight from the antiphonal Psalm of today's mass, Psalm 33. That wasn't just true for Israel. That's not just true for America and every other country. It's true for every state, every city, every town, every

neighborhood. So, you know, to the Lord, we just want to give back to you more and more because we'll never be able to do justice to you by giving back to you all that we owe. But here, please enable us to be more faithful and just because we know it's not only right and just to give you thanks and praise. It is our duty, but it is most assuredly our salvation. These are more than just lines from the liturgical script that we memorized since we were kids. These are like ticking time bombs. Yeah, well, again, I would just tell everyone, go out and get this book. I'm only halfway done. I have to say I haven't finished it, but I have tomorrow off. I'm planning on sitting home and smoking a cigar and finishing it. Oh, let me just say, I really enjoy the first

half, but it's mostly laying the foundation that you don't see once the building is finished. The second half, especially the last five chapters, I really suspect you're going to be texting me saying, you were right. This stuff is the best. Oh, that's excellent. Well, thank you. And I love what you said too. I mean, let's maybe quit complaining about not living in a Christian society and begin to worship our Lord and to be creative in how we pray and lead our family in prayer and help our communities to flourish. That's really excellent. Another thing I really got from at least the opening of the book, which has really helped me, is I think a lot of the times parents, when they talk to their kids

about why it's important to go to Mass, is they talk about what you get from it. And of course, that's true. We get infinitely more than we give because we get our blessed Lord Himself. But I think it's really important to say it's a matter of justice that we go and worship our Lord. He demands it of us, and it would be unjust for us not to go. I really think that's an approach that might be helpful with a lot of kids out there. I mean, it reverses the polarity because, you know, God didn't owe us anything to exist, to become his children, yet he lavished upon us everything we owe him everything yet We measure out of a eyedropper how much we actually give so if you're not getting at getting much out of mass next Sunday

You know or last Sunday You know thank God for that because if this is rooted in the love the you know loving your the Lord your God with all Of your heart mind soul and strength loving God even to the contempt of self You know it's almost the prayer where you're like, I'm not getting anything out of this. So it's proof, Lord. I don't love you enough, but I love you much more. And if it was just about my feelings, I'd walk away.

It really is an opportunity for us to lay our emotions upon the altar and say, I'm going to sacrifice my own warm, fuzzy feelings. Yeah, excellent. Dr. Hahn, thank you very kindly. I know you all, as we wrap up here, you also have a podcast I'd love you to point people to. Yes. Where can they find that?

Well, okay, three steps. First, the St. Paul Center, stpaulcenter.com. I'll show people what that looks like as you're speaking. And the publishing arm of our St. Paul Center is Emmaus Road, which published this book, It Is Right and Just. And The Road to Emmaus is the podcast that you will find simply by going to stpaulcenter.com. And it's about a weekly thing. But Kimberly also has a podcast now called Beloved and Blessed. And tens of thousands of people are finding out who I married and how I won the Cosmic Lottery with Kimberly. I know you. Yes, she is. Both my wife and I would agree. She

is fantastic. That's awesome. Beloved and Blessed. I can see it. I'm showing the folks right now. Okay. So if they go to stpaulcenter.com, they can find your new book and they can find these excellent podcasts. And A Church in Crisis. My goodness, that was fantastic. Ralph Martin's book we published. Yeah. Oh, my. That is the book of the decade. I am not kidding. That was outstanding. All right, Dr. Hahn, God bless you. And thank you kindly for taking the time to be on the show. Well, Professor Fradd, I am so grateful for being invited to be on Pints with Aquinas again. God bless you and all our audience too. Thanks.