Pints With Aquinas - 241: Why Catholics Can’t Reject Vatican II w/ Timothy Gordon

Episode Date: January 19, 2021

Today I chat with Tim Gordon about Vatican II and why Catholics can't actually reject it. We'll also be taking your questions! ARISTOTLE COURSE Go to https://www.timothyjgordon.com and click “enroll”   SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints  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

Timothy Gordon. Matthew Pratt. What's up, brother? Nice to have you on the show. Nice to be here, man. Thanks for having me back. What is new in your life? I know you guys had a move recently.

I know Rules for Retrogrades is blowing up. Tell us a bit about that. What's not new? You know, I'm in a new place. I'm in Mississippi, southern Mississippi, loving it, and doing Rules for Retrogrades, the podcast, full time. And I'm in a doctoral program studying Thomas Aquinas. And I'm doing lots of shows a day, writing or editing three books.

Got three classes in the works. I'm teaching online Zoom, teaching people about Aristotle's ethics and church history on TimothyJGordon.com. So things are busy, but they're good. How the heck are you, man? I am very well. Christmas has been crazy and chaotic for a number of reasons, but overall I'm doing well. What is your thesis going to be on regarding Thomas Aquinas? Not sure.

I might pick up what I would remember. I had just gotten into a doctoral program in Rome when my daughter Abigail was born there with emergency, we talked about that on your show over a year ago so I might pick up what I was going to do under Father Kevin Flannery, one of the most

famous Thomists in the world or I might do something else, it depends what they want it's always dependent in a doctoral program on who wants to do what with you but yeah we'll see tb good for you that's cool i i think like if you would have i think maybe four years ago if i had said i want to get a phd i think it really would have been for the ego um you know because who doesn't want to feel like an expert in something whereas today i actually am attracted to pursuing a PhD,

and probably for ego, but also because I love to do a deep dive into a topic of interest. I just love losing myself in a particular area of study. Yeah, precisely. That's what it is. I've been to law school, and I've been to grad school. They're kind of like polar opposites. Law school, everything's about looks and, you know, presentation.

They teach you really how to present yourself. It's law school is more about ego than than deep grad school. Deep grad school is about studying what you're passionate about in your socks, you know, and taking extra classes. You don't get credit for to learn, you know, Greek at the last minute or do a Kunal Ladin reading group for no credit. It's the kind of polar opposites. I don't think it is ego. Yeah. Cool. Well, today we've titled the video, Why Catholics Can't Reject the Second Vatican Council. And let me just kind of set this up a little bit. I feel like, just like if you want to use the kind of categories of left and right, right? On the left within the church, it seems like you have people who are pushing to sort of overturn things that were said in Veritatis Splendor, right? About intrinsically

evil acts. It would seem that there are some people who want to say that, say, homosexual acts can be good. No one seems to be coming right out and saying it, but there's this idea in the air that they're trying to promote that maybe. Whereas on the right, and again, forgive me if these categories are terribly unhelpful, it seems like you have this unspoken idea that Pope Francis is not really the Pope,

that the Second Vatican Council was invalid, and the Novus Ordo is not a legitimate mass. And I don't know of anybody saying those things. Maybe you do. Certainly people in the comments section on my videos will say things like that. But I just wanted to have you on the show to kind of discuss this side of it. And part of the reason I wanted to have you specifically on the show is, you know, if I had Jimmy Akin or Trent Horn on the show to discuss why Catholics can't reject the Second Vatican Council, there'd be a lot of people who have like trad leanings who'd be like, well, of course they would say that they're Catholic answers.

Whereas I feel like you are uniquely hated by both sides of the church for some reason. church for some reason. You have people who consider you trad, and then you, I guess, had some falling out recently or over the last few years with people in more traditionalist Catholic circles. I know there was something that happened with you and Taylor Marshall. I didn't follow that closely. Do you want to maybe talk to that a little bit? Yeah, well, historiographically, it's relevant. It would seem to be. One, I should say, I'm writing a book on the Second Vatican Council and most specifically the Hermeneutic of Continuity. It was one of these books I started out writing to prove, not opposite, but at glancing blows, a differently placed thesis than what the research turned up. I was more anti-Vatican II when I was contracted by Tan Books to write this book. I was more vaguely anti-Vatican II when I began on TNT, which let's face it, that's Taylor and Tim. That was a sensation. It was a rebranding moment for Taylor Marshall, you know, where he went kind of from well-respected, somewhat known, normie, Protestant convert guy, but somewhat vanilla, you know, he

defended Pope Francis very publicly, to kind of Catholic bad boy. And I went from being from the people that knew me, more known as a conservative thinker who also was Catholic to the opposite, a Catholic thinker first. And we were both kind of Catholic bad boys. And it was an exciting time because we were taking on Summer of Shame, McCarrick, you know, to some extent in unspoken ways, the pontificate of Francis. But with that rebrand, what's happening during TNT and after is we're taking it different places. Taylor and I were just business partners. We didn't know each other going into it. But as we kind of researched for what became Infiltration, we were originally going to write that book together. And then we kind of split it off.

We were each going to do our own version of infiltration i'm still working on mine it's one of my three books i'm working on i was turning up different research that didn't square with the narrative that i'd been hearing in traditionalist circles and you know i still most of my following is still a kind of traditionalist they're just an open-minded kind. Quite simply, there are things, one-liners, that are trotted out among traditionalism that are flat wrong. One of them being that Vatican II was the only pastoral ecumenical council. It was sui generis. And this really sticks out when 20 of 21 ecumenical councils, according to the misnomer, are all dogmatic, all of them except for Vatican II. Why would that be? No, there are like three or four other ones,

medieval councils, that did not pronounce or define dogmatically. That was a head-scratcher moment for me. They will typically cite this part, this quotation by Pope Paul VI on January 12, 1966 without citing the rest of it. They will say, the council has invested its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium, which ordinary magisterium is so obviously authentic that it must be accepted with docility and sincerity by all the faithful, according to the mind of the council as expressed ordinary magisterium is so obviously authentic that it must be accepted with docility and sincerity by all the faithful, according to the mind of the councils expressed in the nature and

the aims of individual documents. Actually, that's what the part they won't read. They'll always read a part where Pope Paul says, I'm not going to declare something dogmatically. And then he reads that. Let me just go right to one of the favorite trad talking points, the syllabus of errors, promulgated by Pope Pius IX. They love it because he's saying, you know, I love it too. We're not always distinguishable, me and the trads. I love the syllabus of errors. Can you just pause and explain what you mean by trads? Because I'm sure to some people that's like a disparaging term. And like me, I'm like, I guess I'm a trad. So what do you mean when you say trad? Well, I'm glad you said that because no one knows. I mean, you and I are traditionalists because we love the Latin mass. I mean, this is the one aspect of Vatican II that is, I think, in a full unadulterated way, the way that most traditionalists describe it. It is, okay, we probably need to return to the Latin mass, not that that's my job. It's the other documents in Vatican II that people

who call themselves traditionalists say fell into some sort, some level, more or less formal, of doctrinal error. And that's what I've researched as just false. There is no doctrinal error in the other documents of Vatican II. So broadly speaking, I guess you and I are trads. Maybe I'm considered a little traddy than you, but you love the Latin Mass too and want to go back to traditions. More acutely speaking, it just means that it has designations for whether or not you accept either the validity of or the realistic plausibility of the practicability of the creatures of Vatican II and its documents. That's a more acute definition. Okay. I would love to hear kind of how you kind of grew in this understanding because it sounded like you were saying when you joined Taylor Marshall to do those videos where you were clearly scratching an itch, right?

People were just furious and wanted somebody to say what was in plain sight that you were kind of more skeptical of the Second Vatican Council. I want to know like why that was and what, I mean, you've kind of expressed it a little bit, what it was as you began to investigate that kind of changed your mind on that. Because I think a lot of people, they would see the abuses that have taken place after the Second Vatican Council. I have confessed on this podcast more than once that during a high school mass on a tape recorder for the closing hymn, I played a Metallica song mama said from load and that's disgusting and uh but like i mean maybe shame on me but like shame on like the parish and the church and the priest no good song in your defense to be fair it's a good song but nobody taught me that you shouldn't kind of so obviously there are a lot lot of abuses that kind of followed on the heels of Vatican II.

Do you think that that's why a lot of people want to just reject it outright? And is that perhaps why you were skeptical of it? Yeah, let's just state right out up front. It's a combination. The mistrust for Vatican II is a combination of the post hoc ergo propto hoc fallacy and good solid reasoning. Post hoc ergo propto fallacy and good solid reasoning. Post hoc ergo propter hoc means it's a fallacy. It means, yeah, I believe that this is caused by this because this was after this. To some extent, it's that. In another more complex way that I'd like to talk to you about here today. It's not. In some ways, Vatican II, before,

during, and after the Council, was the coming out party. I still believe this. It's well documented. The research turns up this as well. There was an ill intent by many of the most powerful people there and that they they they caucused effectively they they won many to their their side i mean even the most conservative people there archbishop lefevre signed all the documents which trans also will get mad if you bring up but it's true so they were effective terrifically efficient at caucusing um the end of, I think, an evil intent. You know, Skillebix, one of the kind of lefties there, famously said, we know what we're going to do with the documents. We made them sort of anodyne now, but we're going to stretch them later. You really do see that with the Latin mass.

So I am fully trad when it comes to what happened with the liturgical abuses. It's obvious. I call it binder drop theory. If I'm a substitute teacher in a classroom of seventh graders and at 2.57 p.m., all 30 of the students drop their binders all at once. It's ubiquitous. To assume that there's not some sort of prefabricated plan in place is absurd. To believe that that was just a coincidence, right, at 257, that all of the binders, the parishes across America, 99% of them, are doing the weird amalgamation concoction novelties in the mass that are like quasi-creative in a hippie 70s way and just just stupid and anodyne pizza coke masses we've heard of those terrible things yeah yeah how are people all doing that at once so so there had to be some plan so that's that's a really solid basis that

traditionalists have on on the behalf of traditionalists for believing there's got to be some plan it's got to be from vatican too and was. They were meeting at my school, where I was in the doctoral program before, the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where I studied, under Father Kevin Flannery. They were meeting there at night during the council, the lefties were, and they were changing the rules by day. So that's real. I just have to insert my own anecdote here. I was speaking at a men's conference in Kansas and I forget where, but the church, I saw a photo of how the church used to look and it was breathtakingly beautiful. And now

it was whitewashed and just not beautiful. And I said to the guy, this is a bloody tragedy, you know, and he was probably in his, I don't know, fifties or something, I forget. But he said shortly after the second Vatican council, they took these statues out into the parking lot and all of the school kids smashed them with hammers. And I just was incredulous. I thought, there's no way that's true. That's like, why would you even say that? And he called over a friend of his who was in his class,

and sure enough, he kind of backed it up. Yeah, yeah, we all smashed them. I just couldn't believe it. I mean, it was to your point about this all happening around the same time. This didn't sort of spring out of nowhere, I guess. Yeah, it's not to be believed. And let me just say, though, that the liturgical abuses, which don't... Here's my defense, okay? Here's my entire position. When we judge the 21 ecumenical councils, Matt, what we mean juridically, what we're judging, not that we're in a place to judge, but we use our minds to judge, we're judging the documents or the sacred constitutions. between talking about the Second Vatican Council in terms of what happened at the council,

what happened, what all these lefties did to Cardinal Ottaviani, the number two in the church, you know, venerable, old, conservative, good soul, how they treated him, the way lefties treat everyone when they get together in groups. They mistreat them. It was horrible. They turned off the mic on him. That's real. When he was speaking, he was half blind. It was a pitiable scene. It was bad. I have no doubt about that. But when we talk about Vatican II ex post, from our position now, we're talking about the documents. And here's my whole point. The documents contain, in some places, ambiguity, and in some places, not even much in some places not even much ambiguity. They don't contain error. Even Sacrosanctum Concilium, the liturgical document, that seems to be the one

that's really especially vague and doesn't have errors in it, but was very clearly used by the Concilium, the kind of subcommittee group, they seized upon the vagueness to go and write bad stuff into it within the next three to six years. So that's true. But the other documents that get attacked relentlessly by fellow traditionalists, when you go and you look at the spots that they're saying, oh, look at this line. Like a lot of times they added a word. They literally will have added a word to make it worse. The same like Martin Luther did. Or if you look a paragraph above or below, there's something so thornily Catholic that you can't even believe it came from Vatican II and it explains away any ambiguity there. It's the opposite experience, Matt, that one has when one checks on Vatican II than one has when they check on the Magisterium of Francis.

Every time I go check into a Francis quote, I find 10 more things that are bad. The original quote was as bad as I thought and it's really bad. I've been researching Vatican II for the better part of a year now, and almost everything I look at is it gets way better. You see what I mean? When you check on it, it gets way better, and you're like, whew, okay, this was a misnomer or just a kind of fib about the council. That's not true with Francis. And since TNT broke up, there's been kind of two camps of traditionalists. There's Marshall and some of those people.

I won't go through all who they are, but they say that Vatican II is really dubious cardinals. I mean, these are the guys that put it on the line. They went against the living monarch, Pope Francis, to say he says bad stuff. You look into it, and it's really bad. This is a full-on crisis. Vatican II, you look into it, and it's really bad. This is a full-on crisis. Vatican II, you look into it, and it's not bad. He said, the hermeneutic of rupture is made both by those who see in Vatican II a distancing from the authentic faith, thus an error or even a heresy, and also by those by means of such a rupture with the past want to daringly make a courageous departure toward new

shores. However, the presumption of rupture in the teaching and the sacramental action of the church is impossible, even if for only theological reasons. In other words, there are two camps of traditionalists, right? I'm somewhere near the front of the other camp where I'm like, look, I'm with the Dubia cardinals. I'm with the two surviving guys, Burke and Bramuller, who are opposing this pontificate because it really is doing bad things. But it's not the ordinary magisterium of Vatican II. And then the other set of traditionalists who are what I'd call the more mainstream traditionalists are saying Francis is the apotheosis of Vatican II. Even Archbishop Vigano, who I much revere and respect,

revere and respect has drawn very closely together Vatican II and this pontificate. He said, you know, if you look at Pachamama, just look at Dignitatis Humanae. And that's really not true. The one thing I wanted to read really quickly, if you'd permit me, after I read you about six minutes ago, that segment that never gets read in Pope Paul VI's speech, they say, look, it's not extraordinary magisterium, Vatican II. It's one of the few, not the one, the ecumenical councils that is not making a dogmatic definition. So it's not extraordinary magisterium. He does affirm that it's ordinary magisterium, and he well knows that the syllabus of errors, trads love it, of 1864, anathematizes, condemns their position. In paragraph 22, it says, the obligation, it's condemning this view, the obligation by which Catholic teachers and authors are strictly bound is confined to those things only which are proposed to universal belief as

dogmas of the faith by the infallible judgment of the church. Do you realize how big that is? The syllabus is condemning that point of view, the point of view that this mainstream group of traditionalists have that say all we have to listen to is extraordinary magisterium, not ordinary magisterium. If you're a Catholic, this is the answer to your question here today, the title of the show. If you're a Catholic, you must take all ordinary magisterium, which encyclicals don't ipso facto count as, by the way. They'll also throw that point. Well, then you have to listen to every encyclical ever written. Now, it's got to be repeated, habitual teaching in encyclicals. So Laudato si' first time, for a rite of first impression, it's not the same thing. But all the councils, even the four or five that are just pastoral,

are ordinary, and you have to receive them with what is called religious submission. You mentioned that these conciliar documents and certain passages within them are sort of You mentioned that these conciliar documents and certain passages within them are sort of unfairly maligned. Can you point out specific passages that people point to to say, look, this is in error? Do you have that in front of you? I do. I do. I'd love to. One of the greatest ones is Dignitatis Humanae, which I will say this, argues for religious liberty. It's a badly defined term, to be fair, but I could read you from Pope Pius XI. I could read from Pope Pius XII, who are pre-conciliar. I could read you something from Pope Pius IX that sound exactly like

religious liberty. So the traditionalists often critique, this is sort of the big game, Vatican II and John Courtney Murray, kind of liberal at the council, made up religious liberty, made it up out of whole cloth. The extraordinary magisterium, by the way, had never figured on, had never pronounced on religious liberty. There had only been these other ordinary pronouncements by popes on religious liberty. And it's a really mixed question. But Pope Pius XI, Pope Pius XII were generally for it. Suarez was generally very for it. Now let me read to you a controversial traditionalist passage. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship and the full power given to all of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts

conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. This is from favorite passages that traditionalists will cite. Now, Dignitatis Humanae, it talks about the fact that the state cannot compel nonbelbeliever, non-believers to worship. And this is throughout all of the late medieval studies. Like I said, Suarez, even Pope Pius IX, who went through the famous Edgardo Mortara affair, where he took away a Jewish kid from a Jewish family because he'd been baptized. Even Pope Pius IX, you know, he's the one that broke up the ghettos, and he said he had four, I think, public synagogues in Rome, even though there are two types of states, secular and confessional. In Rome, they're pretty much the one state anymore that's a confessional

state. He allows public worship. So this is what's meant by Ditatis humanae as religious liberty. I mean, if there are four public synagogues in Rome, a confessional state, city-state, then we don't know exactly what can be wrong about articulating that this should be legal, particularly in states that aren't secular. All a document has to do with the church is to say that confessional states are still good and are still licit. And Dignitatis Humanae leaves this in place. But like I say, Pope Pius XI in Mit Brenender Sorge says in paragraph 31, the believer has an absolute right to profess his faith and live according to its dictates. Laws which impede this profession and practice of faith are against natural law. I'm reading that because that's Pius XI.

We all trust him. He's pre-conciliar. This is all Dignitatis Humanae is saying. Okay, any other passages you want to point to? Yeah, I mean, so Archbishop Vigano, who I love and respect for what he did after the Sower of Shame, said, if the Pachamama could be adored in a church, we owe it to Dignitatis Humanae. That's really unfair.

That's really unfair. Dignitatis Humanae says this, okay, this does not sound like what you're expecting after you listen to that quote by Archbishop Vigano. First, the Council professes its belief that God himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness. We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church. Subsistence is the strongest form of existence, expressing that in thomas aquinas to which the lord jesus committed the duty of spreading it broad among men um in lumangensium another passage that gets criticized as lumangensium 16 just above it lumangensium 14 is very related to what i just

wrote in dignitatis says this sacred council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon sacred scripture and tradition, it teaches that the church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Necessary. Christ, present to us in his body, which is the church, is the one mediator and the unique way of salvation, not the privileged path, you know, which you hear from people after the council, is the one mediator and the unique way of salvation, not the privileged path, you know, which you hear from people after the council, but the unique way of salvation. This is Vatican II. In explicit terms, he himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the church. For through baptism, as through a door,

men enter the church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved. This is hardcore. Matt, this blew my mind when I read it, that this is of the Vatican II document, two paragraphs up from a place where all the trads, I used to do it too, criticized Lumen Gentium 16. Sounds like, you know, the Council of Trent. Maybe address the fact that those lines that were thought to be ambiguous have been clarified by subsequent people, I think like the CDF, for example. Isn't that the case?

What I've found, so my book is looking into essentially ambiguity that is weaponized, like one senior Charles Pope says about Francis. He's no longer weaponized ambiguity. It's just weaponized outright attacks on tradition. But what I've found is that Sacrosanctum Concilium seems to have been drafted in an anodyne way. There's no liturgical abuse wired into it, but it seems to have been allowed, especially by Bonini, the guy who was running the concilium and who really got away with it, and Pope Paul VI let him get away with it, and young Ratzinger went and expressed concern and says, this guy on this subcommittee, Concilium, which is charged with instantiating a new mass out of this very

ethereal, uninstantiated document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, he's running amok with it. And so it does seem, I can't defend there. This is where Sacrosanctum Concilium does seem to have lent itself to the abuses, but not the other documents. How do we go from Sacrosanctum Concilium to what we have today? Because of course, Sacrosanctum Concilium, the document on the liturgies, says nothing about the priest facing the people, it says Gregorian channel to be given pride of place, etc, etc. So how do we go from that? And this goes back to what you had to say, about the binders dropping on the floor at about the same time. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's just all of the shadow council.

This is, again, why you can't be, Vatican II is a complex question. You can't just be all in or all against. You're not allowed to be all against if you're Catholic. all in or all against. You're not allowed to be all against if you're Catholic. You can't be all in if you're, this is what I say to my friend Chris Plants, who's like, rah, rah, Vatican II. I'm like, don't go too far. They were really doing shadow council at Gregoriana by nightfall. They were really, really set. And they were saying, even during the council, just like traditionalists say, just like me and Taylor read on our show, the Skillebeck's quote, we know what we're going to do with this ambiguity later, and binder drop theory. It's just, yeah, there's no rejoinder to that. But similarly, when it comes

to Nostra Aetate and Lumen Gentium and Dignitatis Humanae, there's not even a lot of ambiguity. I'm struggling to write this book because I thought it was going to be that in each of the sacred constitutions, it's ambiguity. The intent was bad, but the original public meaning, the text of the language, I'm a Scalia originalist, is good. So I'm kind of parsing intent from text. The meaning of text really adheres in the original public meaning, not the intention of the author. If the author is using secret words to signal esoteric meaning to a secret crowd, the way they, I guess they kind of were with sacrosanctum concilium,

if the theory is right, then the words still mean what the original public meaning was. The original meaning at the date, public meaning the way a reader who wasn't in the know would have read it, the first meaning of dictionary definition terms at that date. That's the meaning. So I thought I was going to be doing more parsing and culling that way. I'm really not. The only document where there seems to be much ambiguity is Sacrosanctum Concilium. All these other trad complaints, I haven't gone through all of them but indignitatis umane lumigensium and nostreatete they all come out there's they all have a big problem with um

in um a combination of lumigensium and nostreatete the the council documents signifying that islam is one of the three monotheisms that worship the one God. Well, then I did some digging and I found the catechism of Pope Pius X, who's obviously a hero to myself and other traditionalists, St. Society of St. Pius X. His catechism literally calls Islam the one true faith. I mean, literally, because... What does that mean? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Worshiping the one true God.

Let's clarify that, because that's going to be taken out. No, no, no. Not the one true faith. The one true God. Whereas in the Vatican II documents, all it had said is the one God. I mean, it's one of the three monotheisms, and both Vatican II and Pope Pius X are both right. They both distinguish, and Edward Fazer makes the same distinction, the difference between sense and reference. One can reference the Christian god and not understand his Trinitarian aspects.

One can reference, even as a Christian, the Christian god and not understand his Trinitarian aspects. One can reference, even as a Christian, the Christian God and not understand his Eucharistic aspects. I mean, think about it. Protestants who don't accept the real presence, they are denying Christ's existence in the only place that exists anymore on earth. Does that mean they're not Christians? No. Does it mean a monotheist is not a monotheist because he doesn't understand? And even in really wicked and violent ways. Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, even people like Dr. William Lane Craig, who I've had on the show, denies divine simplicity. So my conception of God and his conception of God, right, the Catholic versus his conception is vastly different, and yet we wouldn't say that he's not worshipping the one true God. Yeah, exactly. Divine simplicity is a great early example.

The Cappadocians, they said that God's attributes did not disrupt divine simplicity, even though the divine attributes were essentially what Thomas would call a proper accident to God. Well, God can't have proper accidents. That doesn't mean that Gregory of Nyssa, you know, and Basil the Great are worshiping a different God. It means there's a dichotomy between sense and reference, and they're getting it wrong. Now, with the Muslims, they, in really condemnable ways, are ascribing really wicked features to the Abrahamic God. And in many cases, it's really, really condemnable, and we should all say this is violent and evil. And people were mad at me last summer because I would teach Islam by teaching Robert Spencer. So I'm not a great defender of Islam. I'm just saying Catholic churches always acknowledge that they are one of the three monotheisms.

This is interesting. It's almost like the way Protestants view the Deuterocanonicals. They read it almost like expecting to be suspicious, expecting to find error. It sounds like there might be those in the church who read the Second Vatican Council the same way or the Second Vatican Council documents, whereas, as you pointed out, like previous popes and previous councils have said things that are pretty much the same thing as what the Vatican Council has said in different language. Absolutely. That's a great, great comparison. I couldn't believe it when I read these things. And it's almost the double

take you do when you're like, wait, this is, I read the big quote from Vatican II. I mean, even Bishop Robert Barron sounds, I thought he was like slightly right of Vatican II. That's always my impression, but kind of close to it. He's slightly left of what Vatican II is saying about the unique way, the salvation. Oh, sure. That Christ is the unique way to salvation. I could not believe it. And look, Matt, any honest reader, when they go to these passages and they see them, not only will your jaw drop to the floor, but then you have to say, okay, this isn't the enemy document that I thought it was. And there are people that will be honest about that. And then there are people that will hold to their bias. I want to be one that sticks with the truth because the truth is Jesus. And even if it

surprised me, I want to be one of these guys like Antonio Sochi, who wrote the great Fourth Secret of Fatima book. He wrote that book to defend the church's position on the Third Secret of Fatima. And the research turned up the opposite. You got to be honest. And that's what happened to me as I set out to write this book. Awesome. Hey, before we jump into questions, is there anything else we should kind of... Hmm. Awesome. Hey, before we jump into questions, is there anything else we should kind of... Well, actually, I wanted to ask you about, maybe help us understand the meanings of, say, the hermeneutic of continuity and rupture. That's good. That's good. Yeah. I mean, hermeneutic of rupture is essentially an interpretation of the documents of Vatican Council II, interpretation of the documents of Vatican Council II, upon which the far left in the church and the far right agree, intellectually. They don't agree in terms of their attitude thereto. The far left

and the far right say, look, Vatican II is sui generis. It's Council No. 21 that breaks with all tradition. The left celebrates it. The far right is obviously mad about it the way I would be if it were true. Then there are two hermeneutics of continuity. OK, one's wrong. One is rats, airing rats in Gary and correct. The one that people meet me and Taylor actually did. This is one of our final shows. We kind of debated hermeneutic of continuity the the wrong version says everything in the council documents squares nicely without applying a hermeneutic a hermeneutic is an interpretive aid right it squares nicely

on its own that that would just be continuity that wouldn't be a hermeneutic of continuity I'm mainly thinking of sacrosanctum concilium here how's this square up with this coca-cola mass that I'm seeing thinking of Sacrosanctum Concilium here. How does this square up with this Coca-Cola mass that I'm seeing here with the clown pants and the hoverboard? The priest brought his dog and he's wearing an earring during that. Well, what? Hermeneutic of Continuity 2 is the right one. It's, look, there's stuff that got out of whack because whatever. The boomers called it um uh spirit of vatican ii okay but why does

why is the spirit not conforming more with the text that's a reasonable question that we have to ask it's a reasonable suspicion that tradition is traditionalists have fully reasonable fully honest would be dishonest not to raise this suspicion the spirit of the council doesn't match up with the documents of the council, allegedly. And so we have to apply a hermeneutic, an interpretive aid, to make sense of it, because when there's ambiguity, it's a canon of interpretation that judges have used for a thousand years. The church uses the same basic presumptions. We have to make this square with tradition. And we don't do it by pounding in a puzzle piece that doesn't fit. We do it by looking to Suarez or Pope Pius XI or Pope Pius IX or Pope Pius XII.

I didn't read you all their quotations. Oh, okay. Even though extraordinarily something like religious liberty has never been pronounced upon, there are all of these thinkers. And Bellarmine, Suarez, even Thomas Aquinas says a lot that would not be anathema to what is today called religious liberty. It's a matter of first impression. And so instead of pounding in the puzzle piece, that's not what we're doing. We just have to see how the puzzle piece is fitting when we're incredulous that it fits. That's hermeneutic of

continuity, the proper way. That makes sense. So, okay, so there's this ill intent in people who are in the council, but it didn't end up in the documents. It sounds to me that's what you're saying. So it's like prior, you've got these people who are trying to push a particular agenda that's contrary to church teaching and afterwards as well. But it sounds like what you're saying is the church documents, while there are some ambiguities, it's good. How do you explain that? Well, I explain it, Matt, through the Holy Spirit. and I explain it because it's it's amazing awesome action to guarantor the documents even as against their own authors I mean isn't that amazing when it's it's like if you set out to write

you know my own mother wears military boots or something like that and the pen won't let you do it right it's like that wow that's amazing because or the holy spirit keeps the pen from letting you do it like no that would that would be mean to your mom she doesn't wear military boots right that so that's what it is traditionalists did not make this up i've researched that it's happening at the council i even heard of um one cardinal would would every night urinate on ottaviani's door i I never verified whether that was true or not, but just bad behavior. These are not acting like princes of the church.

But the Holy Spirit guarded the documents. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. I mean, surely it's the case that if we read other church documents from other councils, I mean, ambiguity can also be in the eye of the beholder, I guess, and I'm sure that there are other documents that are considered ambiguous in previous councils.

You know the funny thing? This is another one of those aspects of history that just cracks me up. The Syllabus of Errors, promulgated in 1864, a favorite trad document because Pius IX is just going through and picking stuff out that's wrong. It was so ambiguous itself. It had ambiguities that Cardinal Bishop Dupinloop had to go through and correct it for Pius IX, and Pius IX later praised him and said, well, thank you for doing this, because it was unclear what he was condemning in the original syllabus of theirs. So Dupinloop goes through and corrects it and then later is praised for it. I mean, if you're going to condemn a bunch of stuff, it sounded like they're condemning religious

liberty at one point where there would be like forced observance of Roman Catholicism. And that from like the year 500, you know, Pope Leo says, no, do this through sweetness of preaching. We've never affirmed that you force at the point of a sword. That's Islam, you know, on the unbeliever. So, yeah, even the favorite trad document had ambiguity in there. It probably wasn't weaponized, but it was just bad writing. And within two and a half years, Dupin Loop had to go through and correct it all. This stuff happens. Ambiguity happens. I don't believe it happened at Vatican II in something like Sacrosanctum Concilium accidentally. I believed it was what I call

codified heteropraxy. They did within five years make a pretty much a bad new mass out of it. But the mass is still valid until it's not. Hopefully the church will. Well, you know, pretty much a bad new mass out of it, but the mass is still valid until it's not. Hopefully the church will, well, I, you know, that is my position on the new mass. I hope we can all go back to one uniform TLM. I think it's pretty clear what fruit that's wrought. That's another traditionalist point that I think is strong. The statistics on the mass are bad because of the weaponized ambiguity. Before we jump into questions, I have one more question for you. It's more of a practical question, and then we'll take some questions here live. How does one remain faithful to the church's teaching while remaining in love with Jesus Christ? Obviously, these two clearly aren't contrary, but sometimes you encounter people,

maybe I myself have been that person who seems far more concerned about how tall those bloody candlesticks ought to be than I am about my relationship with Christ. And I'm not saying the size of the candlesticks doesn't matter. Obviously, how we worship is important. But how do we kind of hold this with good humor? Like, how do we love our Lord, promote the traditions of the church without kind of white-knuckling it? Because I see a lot of that. I also see the opposite. When I go to a Latin Mass, I see a lot of beautiful, happy families, and they're not like that. Maybe it's more on YouTube, people are like that. But yeah, how do you do that? How do you balance that?

I don't know. It's a good question. It's a really hard question. It's not become, No, it's a good question. It's a really hard question. It's not become, as Pope Francis calls people like us, traditionalist rigids. But to still care, I mean, to maybe be fair and to sing the other side a bit. I mean, think of what my friend Patrick Coffin calls the Judas protocols, right? Take the really fine garments and sell them and give them to the poor. That's like Judas reasoning in his condemned Judas brain, pre-condemned Judas brain. Oh, this is how to sound holy. And Jesus is like, no, no, the poor you'll always have, but it actually matters to do stuff right, to get me a proper kingly garment. And you're like, whoa, if you read that, having been brought up in the 80s and 90s.

That's a great point. It sounds like heresy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, seriously. You're like, whoa, okay, so Jesus actually cares about what I wear. And again, I'm a dressed down kind of guy, as lots of my critics will say.

I'm not a guy that wears a three-piece suit to uh the dinner table every night i don't wear a three-piece suit to bed right i don't order my pizzas in latin but uh but that's i do have to remind myself of that like okay you think about jesus with the judas protocol so i have to dress up a little bit the average person going to latin mass might need to let their hair down a little bit more. Who knows? But it's still right. Like you said, Matt, there's still concomitance. There's still a natural fit between loving Jesus and loving the way that the liturgical forms are celebrated, because we're doing them for him. So maybe to just be mindful, this is all for Jesus, because he died on a cross for me, as we say, and for all of us, for the whole world, that they might be saved.

Most people laugh at him and spit on him. Very few will be saved. And that's tremendously sad to both he and his mother. And so I'm going to—I want the candles to be the correct—like, I want this Mass to follow the proper liturgical forms. That's how you unify those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. All right. I had some other brilliant insight, but it probably wasn't as brilliant as I thought, so let's go on. Let's take some questions here. First question comes from Benjamin Handelman. Go on. Let's take some questions here.

First question comes from Benjamin Handelman. He says, can Timothy speak to how SSPX get the council wrong? Their name is often thrown out as the only true place one can attend mass in the West. Because one, I mean, like, let's state the facts what they are. SSPX and Archbishop Lefebvre did amazing, amazingly good work in the 70s and 80s to kind of connect that. It's a chronological bridge in the 70s and 80s. So I want to forget either the first thing I just said, that they did great work in the 70s and 80s and in a lot of ways in a lot of ways not all still do great work and then part two that if you attend fssp latin mass they are a break off from sspx so there's a kind of tendency now to say oh there's no difference between sspx and fssp well there is

there is fssp and they get called bootlickers if you if you talk to fssp to ask them have you ever been kind of maligned by some not not all sspx yeah there's a rivalry there because one split off the same the same way that's how kind of split offs work you know there, there's a natural rivalry there. But so it's unclear what this small orders actual SSPX now, what their actual positions are on their website. It could be found that they're discouraging people from ever going to a Novus Ordo mass. Look, I probably have the same point of view about how bad the mass is, but they don't have the dispensatory power to tell you, stay home if you can't hate them. There are people out there like, I definitely also don't pretend I'm a middle ground or something. That's ridiculous between the McCarrick Left Church and SSPX. I'm very, very, very sympathetic. And I guess Ecclesia Dei, the letter from

And I guess Ecclesia Dei, the letter from Pope John Paul II through Ratzinger, does say it's very dangerous, but you can attend an SSPX chapel for Mass, but you have to be very careful not to give formal adherence to a schismatic spirit. So what is that? I don't know. But you got to check your own soul because there's a lot of schismatic spirit. Whether or not they're actually schismatic is a canonical question. I don't really care. I'm a Thomistic philosopher, not a canonist. But just be careful if you go that you don't start talking about people that go to the Novus Ordo like they're less than you, because they're not. It's the work of our Lord that made any form of mass better, worthy of our salvation. You're not better for going. If you go to a movie on Sunday afternoon, you and your wife and your kids go to the other movie because you can't agree on a movie,

and let's say you get back together later that night and you're talking about the two movies you and your wife saw and your kids saw at the dinner table there's no merit in the fact that you and your wife saw a better movie and then the kids are like i wish i'd gone to that one so as between people who go to latin mass and novus ordo there's no merit on the part of the goer the church go goer, you know, and that's where I do see that spirit show. I was talking with a priest friend of mine. I was kind of complaining about this poorly celebrated liturgy I went to. I was all indignant about it. And he went, Matthew, listen to me.

You don't deserve a good liturgy. You deserve hell. And I went, all right, good. Yeah, good. That's so good. That's what Matt Bradford says. That's so good. Another's what Matt Fred deserves. That's so good. Another question here from Catholicism.

Question. In what way is the Pachamama scandal and the ancient conversion of Rome, Greece, and their understandings of Sol Invictus Logos different? Try and sum it up again. In what way is the Pachamama scandal and the ancient conversion of Roman Greece and their understandings of Sol Invictus different? Well, Pachamama is not, for one thing, I'm not saying it would be justified even if it were setting out to do this, but it's not aiming to convert anyone. It's aiming to take a Catholic man in the so-called Amazonian rite, which I think Francis and his cronies are cooking up even as we speak, it's straightforwardly a false god brought in for adoration or worship, it's unclear, during a Catholic mass. It is like the number one thing

that got the Israelites in trouble. It's what kept Moses out of pure paradise state. So this is big no-no, big, big, big no-no. So it's distinguishable in any way from, I don't know, say the Pantheon in Rome. We kicked all the other false gods out. Pantheon means all the gods. And we converted it to a catholic chapel that's that's like the opposite it's reverse action we kicked out all the false gods they're bringing in false gods goddesses like uh pachamama opposite based byzantine says i always love

reading these names that's my favorite part about reading questions do you think another council is necessary to clear up the confusion in the church, even if Vatican II was fully orthodoxy after? Which I don't think are that vague, and I don't think there's any badness. Lumen Gentium, I don't think it's that vague. I don't think there's much badness. And Nostra Eteta, I think it should clear these things up. And by the way, it should clear up some of the remaining questions, can I just say this, of Vatican I. Remember, Vatican I was not ever closed because the Franco-Prussian War broke out. It wasn't closed until the start of Vatican II. They were not done deliberating.

The Francis pontificate has proven the need for more gloss, real development, meaning more detail, not change. More detail on what is meant by papal infallibility. If number 266 doesn't make you wonder that, what would? So Vatican II, Vatican III, call it, should clear up that question of infallibility from Vatican I, much needed after Francis' pontificate, and should clear up some of the issues, mainly the Mass from II. And by clear up, I mean, let's just go back to the TLM universally. Yeah, I would love it. For those who are watching, be sure to subscribe,

because shortly we're going to be hosting a debate between a Catholic and an Orthodox on whether the First Vatican Council's definition of papal infallibility is, dates back to the patristics and to the, to, to Christ, obviously. So that should be good. Um, let's see. Solo Cristo says, Matt Fradd, will you ever get Michael Lofton? Oh yeah. On Pines with Aquinas. From what I've seen of Michael Lofton, he seems like a really cool guy and i'd be definitely open to having him on the show uh this person says what do you think of new movements that come out of vatican to like neo-cataclysmic way that's for me i get asked that like every third show i do and um i'm very very very wary that's all I can say of new news just always a buzzword I mean I'm that trad

news dangerous V2Zooey says how to distinguish between ordinary magisterium that we have to agree with and that we can reject can we reject Amoris Laetitia or Fratelli Tutti? Why? We cannot reject bona fide, authentic, ordinary magisterium, which basically any ecumenical council, the three or four or five pastoral councils, even though they're not dogmatic, they are still doctrinal insofar as they have some teachings, they're automatically ordinary magisterium. That's not so with the ordinary papal magisterium. It's very complex,

making the determination what papal encyclicals are and are not ordinary automatically, but they're not part of the magisterium. Even though they're magisterial documents, they're not automatically ordinary magisterium if they're a matter of first impression. So like I gave you the example of Laudato Si. Pretty much everything Francis writes, no one's ever written before. And when he does cite now, he only cites himself. That's the only way he can get any citations

because what he's doing is a right of first impression. So it's not considered an encyclical or an exhortation. It's not considered ordinary magisterium until it's been habitually repeated in multiple documents. How many is multiple? I don't know. But it's not ordinary magisterium just by virtue of the fact that it's an encyclical. John DeRosa says, Matt and Tim, great to see you two teaming up. What are each of your favorite documents from Vatican II and why? I love, I mean, I love all of them. I love Dave Verbum. If I want to kind of get a, you know, reinjection of enthusiasm to why I should love and revere the sacred scriptures i love to read that gaudium et spes i love sacrosanctum concilium i mean that's what's so

funny it's like if you encounter somebody and they talk about the spirit of vatican ii like this is a spirit of vatican ii mass and you've got the guitar band and all this and you're like okay but like when you read what the second vatican council said about it like y'all should know the ordinary in latin you know yeah i mean i've just been drawn to again i'm still leery and this is all kind of new to me defending some of the documents but so dignitatis though particularly if you go watch on my channel timothy gordon rules for retrogrades on youtube my interview and with my brother Dave of Thomas Pink, the Oxford philosopher who gives the best account for how Dignitatis Humanae is really just saying stuff that Bellarmine and Suarez said before about religious liberty. It's amazing. And there are

not ambiguities in Dignitatis Humanae. it might be the most hated document by certain quarters of traditionalists. And I think it's the clearest of the documents. So I'm still new at defending them and loving them. I'm still not in that Chris Plants, my buddy, place yet. He seems like such a cool guy, I've got to say. I've seen him a few times with, who's that other bloke, DeClew's? Richard DeClew. Man, he seems like such a cool guy.

I really have a lot of love for him. I really helped to turn me around. I just pointed out, he's like, you thought I would yell at him. Richard DeClew. I haven't really followed this. I actually don't watch Taylor Marshall. I see a couple of snippets here and there. This whole thing that happened, I really wasn't following it a great deal. But I remember Richard saying in a video that he had a lot of respect for you because it's not every day that you encounter someone's like, okay, yeah, that helped change my mind. And I was wrong and I accept this now, thank you. So I don't know if you saw that video.

I think I did. I think I did. Or he just told me in person. Yeah, whenever somebody on the internet admits to being wrong an angel gets its wings i think that's what thomas said somewhere it's true well it's it's a beautiful thing isn't it we're supposed to be lovers of truth lovers of god and any youtubers that are out there particularly laid or lady or ordained youtubers that are out there saying that they're always right are ridiculous. Now, there's one thing.

I'm not going to say I'm wrong when you haven't shown me that I am. But DeClew was like, no, Tim, you don't know. And let me show you. I mean, I'm a Thomistic philosopher. I'm not a theologian. So he showed me. And I'm deeply grateful to any of you out there who have a good citation, don't call names, and are just like, look, look,

this goes directly against what you're saying. Check it out. I love that. I think it'd be good for us to remember this, right? Like people on YouTube are people. They're not, it's almost like we expect people to be open to truth, but we also expect them to be like a catechism that never errs, has no false opinions, never teaches error. But it's like, it's, yeah, it's a great responsibility to be on here because I know i've said things that are false i'm sure you know that thing i just did the other day about santa claus i had somebody send me like several articles about why i'm wrong i'm like crap maybe i am i feel terrible i gotta maybe if i'm wrong i gotta fix this you know i responded to you matt on your i said oh my friend matt frat yeah yeah go watch my thing i was like i raised some points

where i was like i think Matt might be overlooking this. See, good. See, this is my point. Like we need to be, I think, give each other grace, right? Because it's like just because you have a YouTube account, it actually doesn't make you infallible. It doesn't make you the Oracle at Delphi. I mean, look, man, it's so weird.

Like here's why. Okay, well, people all want to ask about what happened with TNT, right? And it's very relevant to what you just said let's do it when when people when you there are two types of youtubers the type that are like yeah let's debate and if you beat me then awesome if you beat me and there's no uh point shaving uh november 3rd style right if you beat me fair and square and this is just maybe the difference between people that played sports and people that don't if you just beat me then i respect you and i think you're awesome if we both think we're the best basketball player in the room

then let's square off it's not an ugly thing it's a beautiful thing contest let's debate and i've you know i've asked tay asked Taylor Marshall to debate me on this, this new Vatican two stuff, not because we're enemies, because we agreed on basically everything else. And it's the opportunity for the victor or whoever prevails to convert the other person. People used to say about me and Taylor, iron sharpens iron, like, like St. Paul. That's the only way iron sharpens iron. If you beat me and I know, okay, I'm the second best basketball player, I know I'm really good, so you beat me, you must be better. Then we're friends.

That creates camaraderie. Look at what happened between me and Trent Horn. Because Trent, the reason I actually like Trent a lot and respect him, well, there are multiple reasons, but one is that he debates and he'll get on the sticks and and um yeah i love it be willing to debate like you've got you can't just go back to your tribe talk smack and then not debate people right and so what would you debate taylor on if he would agree to a debate hermeneutic of continuity and and the vatican ii documents themselves look he saying, I mean, this happened on his show where he was reading, I can't remember if it's Nostra Aetate or Lumen Gentium, on what Vatican II says about

the Muslims, and he added in a word. He said, he literally said, he told his crowd that it said that, you know, Vatican II says the Muslims worship the one true God. It says the one God, and then I pointed it out to him, or I think Plants did. No, no, actually, it's the Catechism of Pius X says the one true God. Vatican II just says the one God. Both are right. Muslims do worship them in a very diabolic way. Difference between sense and reference.

But he wouldn't respond to it. And I'm like, why not thank me and just be like, okay, cool. We need to have somebody start a kind of GoFundMe page where we raise money to get you and Taylor to have a debate. I'm happy to host it. Taylor seems like a great guy. He obviously loves our blessed Lord. He's done a lot of good. So I don't know.

I'm open to that. I've hosted several debates now. It's always fun and just kind of giving people equal time. Sometimes it's great to let people have a conversation. Like with Betsy, then when you debated Trent on feminism, I think you and Trent would both agree it would have been awesome to have a moderator so that each person has their allotted time to say what they have to say. So I'd be open to that.

I don't know if he'd be open to that. It sounds like you've reached out to him and he said no. Look, he's a good man. He loves our Lord. I just think he needs to see this which is real goes back to the 1800s how do you say it goes back to the 1800s but it began in the 1960s in 1960s there's a contradiction there but yes yes he's a he's he's a good lover and a faithful lover of our lord i just think you have to get out and debate people and look it kind of kind

of drove us apart. And then things go cold. And if you're not talking, the not talking part is just so lame. It's like, let's just talk. At least off air. Hopefully, you're always chatting. Yeah, and that's not it either. The cool part about Trent, I know I talked a lot during Trent's, but he also brought me on as a guest.

That's why it's better if you are debating to go on someone else's show that way right so it was kind of it was kind of ambiguous right because he did bring you on as a guest but he wanted to debate this topic so in that sense i would think there ought to be equal time but if there's some kind of ambiguity about okay this is a debate it's an interview i think that that was the problem that's why i actually do like doing moderated debates because yes you know it it's just everyone gets their say. No one can say it was unfair, you know. So anyway. By the way, Trent Horn's book on socialism is excellent.

It's very good. Everyone that doesn't read it or that hasn't read it or doesn't have it should go buy it. See, what I don't like, Matt, is false or just cosmetic civility. I like real civility. So anytime I say, look, you know, Tim Staples set up this on the Pope, you know, and gay civil unions. But I have to be honest there.

I don't think this is right. But his book on Mary is beautiful and I think you should go read it. It's one of the best apologetic books on the Blessed Mother. It's the best I've ever read. You know, it is funny. I did that little video where I was talking about Pope Francis

and the ambiguity and I was like, can somebody please address this? Not just people who deny his papacy. Can someone please address it? And I talked about all the gaslighting going on because all these faithful Catholics are like, this isn't right, right? And no sooner had I released that video,

I think it was a day later, Tim Staples, who I love, who used to be my boss at Catholic Answers, released a post and it was basically like, calm down. I'm like, this is what I'm talking about. No, I know, I know, I know. Calm down, Spat.

It could be a real debate. Can we say that? In faithful Catholicism, see, I don't like the term trad. I don't like the term rad trad. I don't like whatever. It's just you're either an Orthodox Catholic or you're not. And that includes all of us.

That includes traditionalists, even includes radical traditionalists. It includes you. It includes me. And we just need to, like, say when we disagree. You disagree with me about that, but we agree about this. Like, is that a surprise? We don't have to hate each other. We don't even have to not be friends. Me and Chris Plants don't agree about a lot of stuff, but we're really close friends and he can help me to learn in areas where our weakness is of mine. What do you say though, to those who say, well,

this is a divisive and these are sort of things ought to be discussed privately, not publicly? I think C.S. Lewis said something like that regarding Christians and the different denominations. You know, we really shouldn't be arguing about this. This is like an in-house kind of affair. I know that's why William Lane Craig won't debate other Christians, for example. Yes. What do you say to that? It's wrong. Why? Because error needs to be exposed well the other thing too is

it's so public anyway it's like who do we think we're hiding this from it's like youtube exists right also about steeus lewis and and and you know maybe maybe william lane craig he's steeus lewis had this major kind of blind spot right it's that he's converted to Christianity by a Catholic, J.R.R. Tolkien, the master. And he converts probably for cultural pressure reasons to Anglicanism. And he was always kind of Catholic adjacent, you know, C.S. Lewis. And so I think that remark probably stems more from sort of a blind spot, like, look, I don't want to go up against Catholic debaters because I know I'll lose. I said I wouldn't psychologize, and I did. But I think it's outright wrong.

I just think it also is wrong because it presupposes that when you debate someone, you don't like them. I'm not just saying this, and it's not just because I'm a lawyer philosopher. When someone's like, I disagree with you, Tim, and here's why I'm like, oh, this is good. I I'm interested. And when they say, here's why it's fine. I don't like being called horrible names on the internet. So we're, we're not going to be friends that way. And then that makes me want to box you. But if you're like, here's why you're wrong. I'm going to give you the three reasons. I'm like, this will be good. I'll either learn or I'll look smarter than this person.

And I like both. Hey, we got a bunch of questions. Do you mind if we try to get through these a little quicker? Yes. Connor says, where did all the priests who wanted to undermine the church at Vatican II come from? Good luck saying that quickly. Yeah. saying that quickly. Yeah, well, remember, Pius X and even Leo XIII, you know, 50 to 70 years previous to this, had been talking about modernists in their midst. Even, you know, Gregory and Pius

IX are talking about it. That's why he published the syllabus of errors. They came from 150 years before that. Good. All right. That was quick. Directional faith says, we talk a lot about our differences and how things are, but what is the way forward? How do we attempt to repair the division in the church? Just real quick, I would say in response to this, like, this is such a difficult question, right? Because we only have our little realm of responsibility. You know, like we can't actually affect things at a major level. Most of us can't. And it's sort of similar to like, how do we fix our country? You know, but what would you say in response to that? Remember, our Lord and Savior was batting. What was his batting average for conversions? I don't know, but it was low. He did not judge himself by the perfectionist standard that everyone you evangelize has to be evangelizable.

He said, if people won't hear you in one town, shake the dust from your sandals and go to the next. In other words, if our Lord can't do that, then we can't. So what we need to do is clarify and correct error, get all the error out of the teaching like charitably like this but you do it through debate and you do it through remembering the facts don't care about our feelings they don't he don't call names that's what dumb people do get the joke um and and just just clarify and just just you don't have to be and people say charitable this charitable that it you don't have to worry about that just clarify and don't call names and just say he c bizzond says what about those who aren't convinced idol was pachamama since she was

an amazonian goddess and the andean natives don't worship Amazonian gods. Yeah, so what do you say to the objection that that wasn't an idol? She wasn't considered a deity. This was something else. I don't know. The same thing that, you know, defenders of Moses' group would have said, oh, that's not really Baal. It's just people just say stuff.

But it really was Pachamama. Even the Pope in the Vatican has said it was. So, sorry. Yeah, it's interesting, like in Thomas Aquinas, where he talks about polytheism and other things, he talks about how these other gods that we talk about, these are demonic spirits. And I think we often forget

that. It's not like you have God and then you have these other things that we worship that aren't divine, anyway. Yeah, true. Now we've learned Zoom classes work. Aristotle's Ethics is one of the most important classes a Catholic or a non-Catholic could ever take. It's life-changing. He's the philosopher of common sense, but it's still better to read the 10 chapters of the Nicomachean Ethics under guidance. inaugural class. It's live taught by me. They're not just modules. It's life-changing. I promised them that and everyone's just stoked about it. So I decided to begin another one. I'm not even done with the other ethics section. It's still going into the spring, but I'm starting another one January the 19th. Go to timothyjgordon.com and take these classes. I've taught these classes with slides for years. I love the ethics, and you will too. Awesome.

Tim, do me a favor. I'll put that in the description below, but maybe remind me if I forget so that people can check it out. I think we just had some technical difficulties. People are complaining about things freezing up, so sorry about that. Hopefully things are better now. I'm not sure. But, Tim, thank you kindly for being on the show. All the best with your three books, beautiful family.

Say hello to your lovely wife and your doctoral program. It's a lot to get done. Thanks a million, Matt. I really appreciate you being such a good all-around dude and being so responsible with the medium that you have. And having me on twice, you're really a genuine seeker after the truth. I appreciate that. I think you deserve your large and growing audience.

And you've proven worthy of it. Kindly. Thank you. I hope that's true. God bless you, Tim. Dezville. Peace. Thanks.