Pints With Aquinas - Destroying Sedevecantist TikToks Jacob Phillips | Last Call Ep. 24

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Dr. Jacob Phillips is back to dismantle sedevacantist TikTok arguments, explaining why the belief that the papal seat is vacant since Vatican II is not only theologically incoherent but spiritually ruinous. Enjoy these episodes and exclusive content ad free, one week early with DailyWire+ : https://get.dailywire.com and select All Access membership  Pints: Last Call Ep. 24 - - - 📚Resources Mentioned:  More From Dr. Jacob Phillips: https://jacobphillips.net Dr. Jacob Phillips on Pints With Aquinas: https://youtu.be/viI_TXPzhBo?si=LPSpxcfGgZxFP951  Truthy 30 Day Free Trial: https://get.truthly.ai/TlbX/MATT30 - - - Sponsors: Exodus90 - Download the Exodus 90 app today, or visit https://Exodus90.com/matt Catholic Match - Visit https://CatholicMatch.com or download the app today. It’s free to get started. St. Paul Center - Start your 30-day free trial today at https://StPaulCenter.com/pints or become an Annual Member and receive a free copy of the complete Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: ⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe⁠⁠ 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. - - - 📕 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://a.co/d/bDU0xLb 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mattfradd.locals.com/support⁠⁠⁠⁠ - - - 💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattfradd 𝕏 Twitter/X: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas⁠⁠⁠ 🎵 TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠https://tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas⁠⁠⁠ 📚 PWA Merch – ⁠⁠⁠https://dwplus.shop/MattFraddMerch⁠⁠ 👕 Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com - - - Privacy Policy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/privacy⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Taste. View. And enjoy. Via Rail. Love the way. This man, Leo, apostasy, the only restoration is said of a canterism. The Pope has the ability to make solemn pronouncements when he speaks from his throne, ex-cathedral.

This chap is sitting in his car and feels that he can actually make pronouncements which are more solemn, more theologically binding than those of the Pope of Rome, which is a pretty audacious thing. Cold showers, holy hours and 2 a.m. night vigils. Join Father Columba Jordan, CFR, and the Exodus 90 Brotherhood for the St. Michael Lent Challenge. We start August 12th. Download the Exodus 90 app today or visit Exodus 90.com slash Matt. Dr. Jacob Phillips, thank you very much for coming on the show today. We want to respond to set of a cantist TikToks.

Now, I might not surprise you to learn that it was kind of difficult to find these because there's not a lot of set of vacantist TikToks. And in fact, when you type set of a vacantist TikToks, and in fact, when you type set of a cantist in, the internet is intent on telling you that you've spelled what you've spelled correctly wrong. And so, I suppose that leads me to the first question, we should probably define our terms. What is a set of vicantist? Well, I was a set of a cantist myself for the few weeks after the Pope Francis died and Pope Leo was elected.

Very good. As indeed was everyone. So it's the belief that the papal throne is empty, the papal seat, Sadie, is empty. And therefore, a saint of acantist will say that the human man occupying. magnifone is not the bona fide pope and there hasn't been a bonafide pope since vatican two. Yeah, right. By the 12th usually. Yeah.

When most people say there are set of a cantus, I guess what they mean, this is like a relatively new phenomena, I think. I suppose there probably have been people throughout history. I don't know. Have there been Catholics throughout history who have said that's not the true? I mean, you've got the three pope controversy. Maybe that was something. Yeah.

There have been points where people I believe in church history have said that they believe that the Pope is an imposter. But I don't think the idea that the office of the papacy itself is intrinsically debased and therefore out of continuity with all of the prior papacy. I think that's something that only came about with the council. The focus of those other groups would be a particular issue, a particular content or particular heresy. Now we have the idea that the entire papacy is somehow in some kind of Babylonish captivity of heresy. Now, surprisingly, and I think certainly after the council, but I think it picked up again, picked up some steam during the pontificate of Pope Francis. There were some Catholics who were terribly confused about what was going on, and it seemed to

me that they sought refuge in something like set of occantism. It was also called benevolentism, right, which was the idea, I think, that Pope Benedict hadn't fully, what do you say, what's the word, abdicated, yeah, his role. And so they were saying he's still the true Pope. And I, I don't know, maybe this doesn't give the set of a countess a fair shake, but to me, it seems like, there was this, we don't like tension as human beings, and we want to get rid of it. That's how I see it. So you had some people rushing to the Pope-splaining side, he's actually the most based best Pope that's ever existed. And that kind of does away with the tension. And then on the other side, like he's not a Pope at all. And that does away with attention. Yeah. Just to deal with

the fact that we have a confusing, maybe less than ideal, to put it charitably, Pope, it was not something we wanted to engage in. But to you, what is the attraction of set of a cantism? Why does it attract people? And why is it false and should be rejected? Well, I think the attraction, I think it is understandable as an attraction for exactly the reasons you outline. It's that it's an easy option. What you're doing is you're getting rid of the untidiness, the awkwardness, the difficulty, the challenge. And you're coming up with a much tidier, cleaner, abstract, theoretical option.

But it's clean because it's abstract and theoretical, and this is the problem. It's not real. You're turning around and saying you think you can draw a particular line in history after which none of the popes are genuine and therefore the papal seat is empty, it's vacant. The biggest problem I have with it, the theologian of my generation, I was taught by often liberals, sometimes outright modernists, and one of the problems that we had in that period of the church was people thinking they knew better than what the hierarchy was actually saying. And sometimes they may have been right or no? No, because these were liberals and progressives and modern. Oh, right, okay, fair enough. I'm going back to the 90s.

Sorry, sorry, yes. The late 90s and people saying, my private judgment knows better than what the Pope's saying. Yeah. It might be coming from a wing of the church that I'm naturally more sympathetic with, but the basic principle is the same, that if you disassociate yourself... Yeah. I'm not talking about a particular individual poet, I'm talking about the entire office of the papacy. And it's not just the papacy, it's nearly the entire hierarchy,

Yeah. The odd exceptional bishop. I mean, to turn around and say the entire hierarchy has gone completely wrong, you just cease to be Catholic. Yeah. I think what's difficult about just accepting what the hierarchy says is that the church hasn't actually taught that the laity cannot know something that the current pontiff or the current bishop in your diocese is saying.

There is to say there have been times where popes have been wrong and bishops have been wrong and the laity have known better. Yeah. So when you encounter that, you know, you kind of get this taste for sort of cynicism or and you don't actually receive with docility what you're told. Yeah, of course, yeah. But the Catholic Church is the longest running organization in human history. It takes a lot of time for things to work their way through the church.

There are difficulties along the way. There are moments of disagreement. There are sometimes people that die in a state of disagreement or feeling that their conscience is at variance from the church. It's a very sad situation to be in. But to simply turn around and say the entire teaching authority of the office of Pope is beyond repair and the seat is vacant is a step that's just far too far to be conscionable. Right. So if somebody says today, I'm a Catholic, I just deny that Pope Leo is the Pope. What would they be? A schismatic?

I don't think they would be canonically classed as a schismatic. I'd just be a bad, I mean, if they're a layperson, they're not under any orders or. vows or anything, they'd just be a phenomenally bad Catholic. Well, wouldn't they be a schismatic? Because you're actually no longer in union with the Holy Father or those who are in union with him. Well, I don't know chronically, if you would be or not, because you're not bound by canon law as a member of the laity.

You're just disposing a silly opinion that has no basis, in fact. I know what you're doing, but it's more than silly, isn't it? Like, it's ruinous. Yeah. And then talk about the despair. that sort of a cantism leads to, if you agree with that? Yeah, well, I mean, in Thomist ethics, the hope is a theological virtue, and when hope is forfeited through excess or deficiency, it becomes despair or presumption.

Now, people from the more trad side of the church tend to fall more into despair, which is the lack of hope, the deficiency of hope. Okay. The problem is, once you draw the lie, once you say this is the point at which it's gone completely, beyond repair and we need to go back. Well, I can see how despair follows because firstly there's the danger of purity spiraling. Someone will draw the line at Piuster 12th. Someone else will say, actually, it's Pius to 10th. Someone will say, well, hang on, I didn't like Pius to 10th suggesting frequent communion. Maybe it was Piuster 9th. And then someone

else will say it's Trent. So you get this competing purity spiraling, which leads to more ambiguity and confusion. You then get, you've got to think sort of realistic, and pragmatically, sedivacantism, what's the end goal that the church in Rome are going to suddenly realize that Vatican II was wrong? They're all going to resign and let those people calling themselves priests who are said of vicantists become the curia and the hierarchy, and one of them become the put, I mean, what happens? How does it get put right? What's the end game? Where's the hope? The reality of despair is very real, and then there's also what happens after that. I mean, people will talk about a pipeline.

A pipeline. Okay. We can go all the way back, a reverent Novus Aordo, occasional TLM, FSSP, SSPX, Sada Vacantism. I'm told, beyond that, there's such a thing as a homelona. I've only learned about recently. What is that? The homelona is the one who believes, I think, that there are no validly ordained priest left at all. Okay.

So they look at the set of acantists as like beta. Like, yeah, not, not gutsy enough. Yeah, they're just liberals. Yeah, that's what I meant. So the home alone on a Sunday morning stays at home alone. Yeah. And I believe this is a real thing, so I'm told. But we mustn't forget that the opposite to despair is presumption.

Okay. And that's what we see in liberals and modernists and progressives. Okay. People who can presume to know the truth of the church. They're going in the other direction, but the outcome is basically the same. They will say that more should have been done, more should have been said. The Synod didn't end up ordaining women. it didn't end up with same-sex marriages, so then that's wrong, and then they end up falling into this state where they can presume to know everything that the church should do.

The outcome is the same. What they're saying is that the Pope in Rome doesn't know what he's doing, and I know better. This is where both of them end. Progressivism and extreme radical traditionalism, radical progressivism, they both the same, because they are both refusing to accept the authority of Rome. All right, well, with that as a prelude, let's take a look at some of these videos. So Pope Leo recently in the media said that if you're pro-capital punishment you can't be pro-life. Even though in the history of the Catholic Church, 12 popes have said the very opposite. In fact, the last Pope who made it profoundly clear was ironically, ironically, Listen to this, Pope Pius 12, 1958.

And what date was that? That was the date when the new so-called Pope came in, who actually wasn't a real Pope and there hasn't been one since. The prone of St. Peter's is vacant. This man, Leo, apostasy has proven that. They've all been bad. One after the other, after the other, after the other. When will the Roman Catholic Church realize it's broken and there needs to be restoration? The only restoration is set of a canterism. So there's a lot there, right?

So it feels like he began by making a claim that one could consider as legitimate, right? Or at least a criticism that one could entertain. And then he says that the only key to restoration is set of a cantism, which is interesting. Your thoughts? Yes. So the Pope has the ability to make solemn pronouncements when he speaks from his throne, ex-cathedra, from his seat. This chap is sitting in his car, he's left his seatbelt on,

which I find remarkable, and feels that sitting in his car with a seatbelt on, he can actually make pronouncements which are more solemn and of more theological binding than those of the Pope of Rome, which is a pretty audacious thing, because the Pope of Rome is, metaphorically speaking, sitting on the throne of his office, not in his car. wearing his seatbelt. But less superficially, he's wrong about the death penalty. Insofar as the current position in the catechism, and the position which arose with Pope Francis and has

been reiterated by Leo, is that the death penalty is inadmissible. That is not to say that it's intrinsically wrong. So those 12 popes who spoke in favour of the death penalty, allegedly, will have been considered or should be considered as a right in the time at which they were speaking in that it's not intrinsically wrong under natural law. Capital punishment isn't intrinsically wrong, but in our current

situation now, when we have the ability to detain people much more effectively for much longer periods of time, it's inadmissible now to enact capital punishment because the criminal justice system in the modern age is able to contain those who would otherwise have been subjected to capital

punishment. So if a Catholic says, I just disagree with that, but I want to be a faithful Catholic. How would you advise them to talk about the church's teaching, current teaching on capital punishment? Well, they are at variance by conscience with a prudential judgment of the church, which is fallible. As prudential, it varies according to circumstance, and it's therefore fallible. The bit which is infallible about it is the ordinary universal magisterium, where it was the universal position of the church that the death penalty is okay. But in our current circumstances, it's considered prudentially inadmissible. So I realize there's a difficulty there, but to me there is a consistency

because there are different layers in different contexts. There are many believers who find themselves at variance from particular aspects of Catholic doctrine at particular points. And what you have to understand is there's a conscience of the church and there's the individual conscience, and they don't always mold together brilliantly and perfectly all the time. And our job as faithful Catholics is to pray and to ask our Lord to bring us into unity with the ecclesial conscience. And this can be a very, very long term project. You know, everybody has a weak spot in doctrine that they struggle with. That's okay. That's part of being a Catholic. I'm talking really about the laity here. That's part of the experience of being Catholic. If you can turn around and say, I absolutely 100% know,

absolutely that every aspect of the church's life at this point in time is entirely transparent to me to the point that I feel utter 100% conviction at everything the church does, that to me seems an unrealistic goal of what it is to be Catholic and to believe in the mystery of God. Can I offer a practical observation? A lot of Catholics talk about discernment, and that is obviously a good thing, but sometimes what we call the sermon is really just hesitation. We're waiting for the perfect sign, the perfect profile, the perfect message. Meanwhile, nobody actually asks anyone out on a date. Men, take the lead. A simple, respectful, would you like to grab coffee Saturday, is one of the most charitable, non-awkward sentences you can send. And women, you're allowed to start the conversation

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One of the reasons Catholics sometimes struggle with Scripture is that the Bible can feel overwhelming. It's a big book. Actually, it's a collection of books, written across centuries filled with kings, prophets, covenants, wars, poetry and parables. Where do you even begin? Well, the answer is simpler than you might think. Start with our Lord Jesus. Because every page of scripture is actually ultimately pointing to him. That's one of the great insights you'll discover through the St. Paul Center. Their studies help reveal the deep connections running throughout the entire Bible and show how God's plan unfolds from Genesis all the way to Christ and his church. The Bible stops feeling like a collection of disconnected stories and starts feeling

like one magnificent story of salvation. Start your 30-day free trial today at St. Paul Center.com slash pints or, and I would recommend this, become an annual member so that you can receive a free copy of the complete Ignatious Catholic Study Bible. It really is an absolute, excellent Bible. Again, that's st. Paul center.com slash pints. He was concerned that I have placed myself outside of the church by taking the state of the contest position. So I wanted to respond to him by making it clear. that we hold and defend and protect everything that the Catholic Church has presented to us as coming from Jesus Christ. We believe and firmly hold all of the dogmas and doctrines concerning the primacy of Peter, the chair of St. Peter, the dogmas and doctrines, the keys, the Holy Ghosts guiding the Supreme Pontiff, the titles, all of the church.

of it, what we have a difficulty with are the men who have now declared themselves to teach something contrary to what Christ taught. All right, so I don't know who this is. He's taken the set of a countess position, but he says he's a faithful Catholic. Yeah. My question for anyone in this sort of position is to explain to me, the burden of proof is on them. If you're with Rome, you have a hermeneutic of charity towards the Pope. It's really the burden of proof is on someone to say that it's all gone completely wrong and

that the church is teaching something at variance from what it's taught before. I don't know any theologian who is saying that at the moment. Not saying what? The church is currently teaching something in complete contradiction. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. I don't know any the theologian that's saying that.

So my question is the burden of proof is on him to give me these concrete examples. The video we looked at before was a death penalty. I've given one way of responding to that, which is shared by, I mean, that argument I was giving, I've taken from Ed Faser, who is no liberal modernist at all. That's his argument about the difference between intrinsically wrong and inadmissibility. So, you know, good, solid, faithful, orthodox people who are not saying this. The burden of proof is on this gentleman here. I don't, I think part of the problem here is perhaps not fully applying the hierarchy of truths

between dogmatic teaching, authoritative teaching and prudential judgments, which gives us a grammar of dissent. We can disagree with prudential judgments without being in schism or separated from the means of salvation. But at the level of dogma, the level of unchangeable truth which we receive in faith, the burden of proof is on him to tell me where this problem is. And what's interesting is it sounds like he agrees with the dogmas and doctrines in practice. Yes. But then as a set of a contest makes it such that those dogmas and doctrines cannot actually be in the real world.

So he says, like he believes that the Holy Spirit is protecting the Pope and so on and so forth. But he also says he doesn't like the men, as in those who've held the office. Now he goes on to say... Yeah, he doesn't like what they teach. But I would just say, although I'm slightly picking him up pathway along that argument, we won't like some of the men. We're called to love them and be obedient to them, but you can dislike them. You can say they're of a different generation. They've got different priorities, or they're coming from a South American context.

It doesn't speak to me coming from a British or an American context, an anglophone context. That's fine. But when you look at the consistency of the teaching itself in its proper form, there is no contradiction such as the one that's being portrayed. And what this hierarchy gives us is what I call a grammar of dissent, an ability to dissent in a way which is faithful when it's permitted. And I look at this video and I see someone who's speaking in a way that's sort of ungrammatical. It looks right.

It really looks the part, but it doesn't all hang together. And the onus, the burden of proof is on this gentleman to convince me that he's not operating from private judgment. Because the bulwark against private judgment is ecclesial authority and continuity. Well, I don't think there would be any shortage of websites that would propose to give you that, these arguments. Why should someone not even waste their time reading them anyway? Well, by all means do. I mean, if you feel called to do so. But I have encountered some of those arguments,

and I have certainly encountered many arguments from a completely different position, from those who hold firms of Vatican II, with serious reservations about the implementation of it, serious reservations about some of the clumsiness of the Francis years and all the rest of it, but good, faithful, respectable Catholic theologians who would think that this has gone way beyond the realm of anything that's reasonable or acceptable. Yeah, I think what I meant when I said

shouldn't be reading it is not that theologians and others shouldn't engage with these objections, and some of them are serious, it's that the layperson who isn't versed in theology and finds themselves frustrated with the Pope and the bishops, it's like a lot of these things. You get into it and you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. And so you don't know how to respond. Yeah. It's like try reading a book that says 9-11 was an inside job or that Americans never landed

on the moon or any of these other things. Or even if you take issue with those, like the thing that you think is pretty sure that others disagree with you on. Yeah. There are people who've written whole books that you wouldn't be able to refute, actually, because they've thought about this way longer than you and yet they're wrong. Yeah. So I suppose I would discourage people from reading this.

that, especially if they're lay people, but would want to say, okay, suppose you do want to engage with some of these arguments, you should engage with them, read them alongside a faithful, say, priest or theologian or Catholic, who can help you navigate them. Otherwise, you'll find yourself in despair. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think I was answering a bit more as an academic rather than a believer. And if you look at an old examination of conscience, they will often have actually engaging with stuff that can become problematic very quickly. Things like New Age, ideas, new religious movements. Maybe we need something in there about people that are directly at variance with church teaching. When it comes to Catholicism, one simple way to show that the

Sidi-Vicantist's conclusion is valid is to show that the very argument against Sidi-Vicantism would prove that it's a good idea to be a Sedi-Vicantist. What? How could this possibly be so? In the main, Sedyvacantists believe that a split occurred between the Catholic Church and an imposter church at the time of the Second Vatican Council. Those who embraced, followed, and spread the teachings of Vatican II are part of a false religion. And those who have rejected its legacy and remains true to tradition have retained the true faith. This would mean that the men who have filled the Holy See since the time of Vatican II have not been legitimate popes, including the current claimant. So he makes a claim, it sounds like he's saying to argue against set of occantism is to prove set of occantism and then doesn't show us how that didn't follow at all.

Then he just explained what it was. I tried extremely hard with a full hermeneutic of charity to try and at least stand the coordinates of the arguments. Yeah, all right. I failed, I'm afraid. Well, that was, like, I picked that one. That is a, that is, but I didn't notice how incoherent it was. But, okay, maybe we could deal with the overarching claim that the Second Vatican Council fundamentally departed from the Catholic faith. I strongly disagree.

All the theologians, I respect, disagree. So there are some moments where there would seem to be differences which are relatively superficial. Certainly condemnation of Jews that, I think, Council of Jews. Florence, for example, compared to Nostriotate, doesn't take into account the dimension of invincible ignorance. And lots of work had to be done on that. And to a certain extent, it had to be done after the Holocaust, which is a different, it affects prudential judgments as a very serious issue in European self-identity. I'd also say with this video, I mean, it's not just, you can't just pick out the popes and say they're wrong. You're talking about

pretty much the entire hierarchy as well. It's not sadivacanism, it's a kind of hierarchy vacantism. The entire hierarchy is wrong. It's an imposter church. Right. The entire hierarchy. We're talking about Cardinal Pell. We're talking about Cardinal Sarah.

We're talking about Cardinal Burke. You know, you're saying all of these people are members of an imposter church. Talk about an audacious claim. He's a really orthodox, faithful people. And the other thing, the problem I have with this, is that Seda Vacantism is a phenomenon that arose in the mid-1960s in response to the Vatican Council.

It's a situation of pure novelty. And that to me is modernism, novelty. The Catholic Church managed to last nearly 2,000 years without this novelty arising, and yet the people think they can arrive in the 1960s and say something entirely new, completely at variance with what all the saints and doctors of the church have said over other doctrinal developments, and believe that they're in a position that's right. Yeah, you know, to that point about the seeming contradiction between Florence and Nostriotate.

Nostriotate, right? So in Florence, you have this declaration that says, no outsiders, Jews, heretics, whatever. I think it's not that they just weren't enter heaven, it's that they will be cast into the everlasting flames unless before their death they convert. And then Nostratate says, basically. Nostriotate, there's a profound respect to the Jewish covenant and its influence on Christianity and the way in which the Jews have maintained their... obedience to the one God.

Okay, but I'm also thinking in the Second Vatican Council where it talks about that non-believers can be saved, right? Not that they will, but they can if they are invincibly ignorant. So here's just the point I wanted to make. It's easy to take this text here and this text here and go, they seem contradictory, therefore Catholicism is false. But what's interesting is you can look at the scriptures. I think it's John 6.53.

Unless you eat the flesh or the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Yeah. That seems pretty straightforward. Yeah. And yet, the heretical modernist Catholic Church says that you don't actually, because you could be baptized, die as a baby after that, and your salvation is assured. Yeah.

Do you see? It's like, that seems like a contradiction. And yet, if you're willing to grant, well, okay, yes, but what he meant was this, then we should as Catholics, I think, be willing to, like, try to look for the nuances in two seemingly contradictory. Completely. And I think you have to jump through far more hoops with this way of thinking instead of a cantis way than this way that you're describing. And in Vatican, I think it's Lumengencium, is it Lumengencium where it says that those who

through no fault of their own. Yes, maybe that's what I was referring to. I think it's phrased that, yeah. Those who through no fault of their own have been unable to accept the word of Christ or something. So that's invincible ignorance. But think also of those who have had the Catholic faith presented to them in a way that's appalling.

I'm thinking victims of abuse, for example. Are they consigned to hell because they cannot accept the teachings of the church because of something that was done to them beyond their power at an age where they were too young not to be formed by it? Right. You know. I think at the very least, a Catholic would say, at the very least, right, they would say, I hope not. And as soon as they say it, it's like, all right, now you have to give an account for that, which is why invincible ignorance can be helpful. Yeah. Yeah.

But I'd also just say on that, that also that we talked about the implementation of the documents. Yeah. careful, it's very tentative in the Vatican II documents. It was implemented by theologians who for 20 years were teaching full universal salvation. Now that's a problem. Yes. And Ralph Martin was instrumental in changing that view. Yeah.

So I was saying that in plain, yeah, we were talking about him. He's excellent, and that's why I said earlier, it's not to say that if you're invincibly ignorant, you will be saved. That's not the claim. The claim is that if you're invincibly ignorant, through some means known only to God, you may be saved. Yeah. But it doesn't mean you're in a good position. No.

All right. Let's look at the final one here. One of the dangers of modern life is that we can spend years avoiding ourselves. The phone comes out the moment there's silence. A podcast feels every drive, maybe now. A screen fills every quiet moment. We're constantly distracted from the deeper places of the heart. But God often speaks in silence, not because he isn't speaking elsewhere, but because silence finally allows us to.

to hear him. That's one thing I really appreciate about Exodus 90. It's an invitation to remove some of the noise, not for its own sake, but so that we can encounter God more deeply, to enter those deeper caverns of the heart where God wants to heal, strengthen, and transform us. And to do it alongside other men who are pursuing the same freedom, not alone, not through willpower, but through prayer, fraternity and grace. St. Michael's Lent with Father, Columbia Jordan begins August 12th. Download the Exodus 90 app to start your 14-day free trial or visit Exodus 90.com slash Matt to learn more.

That's Exodus 90.com slash Matt. Become the man you are created to be. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us. Because we love the Pope, because we know that he cannot err, because we know that he is Christ on earth, because we know he is the successor of Peter, because we know that he has the prayer of our Lord that he cannot err, because we know that the magistrateum of the church is infallible,

because all of those things, that's why we are a centrist. Yeah, what's funny is he saying because we love the Pope, but there's no Pope. So again, the Pope's loved in theory, but not in practice because there's no Pope to love. Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's this difference between a neat and tidy, abstract idea and the real fleshly reality of something, which means that it's challenging and there's bits you don't understand,

and there's bits that have to be worked out. And I think it, I go back to an analogy, the sort of marriage analogy between the person who's struggling in their marriage and thinks they can trade in their wife for this sort of neat and tidy younger model. It seems to be very like that. It's very unrealistic, it's theoretical.

Yeah, it's easy to love people in theory. So, like, in this analogy that you've just brought up, it's like, the woman over there, I know nothing about her. I got no idea what baggage is under the hood there. It just seems like it's neat and tidy. And then you realize, I mean, how many stories do we have of this of men running after a woman that seemed like she'd be the answer to everything? And then they get divorced again and, you know, so on.

Completely. Sade of a cantonism is the young harlot pulling at the heartstrings. Yeah. I was going to ask you, as we wrap up, could you just sort of help us maybe in a quick way understand when we can disagree with the Pope and when we can't? On prudential judgments, disciplinary matters, which are pragmatic and bound to particular circumstances, you can, for reasons of conscience, disagree with the Pope if your conscience is genuinely at variance with what's being said by the Pope or the Pope. So an example of teaching I'd put under that bracket is fiducius supplicans, for example. that was at the level of sort of pastoral prudential disciplinary matter that we can do blessings in this particular way

there is the capacity for legitimate non-assent if you like with authoritative teaching with its inscyclicals etc that we are required to strive to submit our will and intellect so can you give me an example of what that might be where we're allowed to disagree but we have to submit our will and intellect well if it's not teaching on faith and morals, and there'd be, I know many, certainly economists, right, who strongly disagreed with stuff that was being said about economics under Pope Francis. Okay, yes, there's a slight grey area there, because there is a moral dimension to economics. But generally speaking, that was seen as permitted, because it couldn't come under the faith and morals bracket.

Okay. But what we are required to do is, we're required to submit, or this is only at this level of authoritative doctrine, whether the Pope speaks in an encyclical or such like so. He's not speaking infallibly. He's speaking fallibly. We're required. to submit. Now, I find very interesting the use of submit, the Latinus obsequium, which is in the oath of fidelity you take of teaching in a seminary and such like, that actually requires that you will strive to submit your will and intellect in the teaching of the Pope. So you will try. You will have a hermeneutic of charity. You will do your best. And even if you disagree, if you're

under, if you're in orders or under an oath, the idea is that even if you disagree, you should really submit to the teaching. And if you're not under orders, but let's say run a YouTube channel, you should keep quiet about that thing. Well, I think what we open up here is this kind of third space that maybe we need some church teaching on Catholic media, which we don't have in the way that Catholic media has grown and developed, because I think there it's very much about conscience and particular circumstances on what you're seeking to achieve. Yeah. All right. And then the final level, like when the Pope does teach on faith and morals. Suppose you find yourself in variance there,

like on contraception, say. Suppose you disagree with the church that contraception is intrinsically evil. Yes, so that would be, that's part of the ordinary universal magistrate of the church. That's infallible. And that really comes down to prayer because it's a gift of faith

to believe in the infallible teachings of the church. So you should do everything within your power prayerfully to ensure that your conscience is aligned with the conscience of the church where it's very, very clear teaching. And this really becomes a pastoral matter for priests and such like to guide people

in that kind of scenario. As we wrap up, final bit of advice to someone who's watching, who's flirted with or is tempted by a set of occantism. What advice would you give them? Schism, Babylonish captivity are things for Protestants. Trust in the church. It might be difficult. It might take years to work out a few challenges here and there,

but trusts in the saints and the doctors of the church, and a unanimous cloud of witnesses of scripture, tradition, and magisterium. I like that. I like how Peter Kwasnevsky put it to me. He said people often view the church as a great, glorious bark, sailing across the oceans of time with the premier specimens of Catholic man and womanhood. He's like, I don't see it like that. Like, I see it, like the ship's almost falling apart. You know, like there's a cannonball that went through the side, the mast is broken, the sailors are drunk, but it will make its port. I thought that was really helpful. It's really good, and it reminds me of one I particularly like, which is that once you get to know the Catholic Church inside out, you realize God must exist. Because for this to have lasted for 2,000 years, and still be the largest religious denomination on earth, and still be proclaiming the truth, surely proves that God must be at work.

because those of us that are within the church are so unworthy for the calling of it. Dr Phillips, thanks so much. Pleasure.