Pints With Aquinas - I'm Quitting The Internet for the ENTIRE Month of August! w/ Fr. John Parks

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

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Alright, we're live. Matt, what are you doing? Father Parks, what's up? How are you? Doing well. So I am currently, I have an... Okay, hi everybody. We're live, yes, you said.

Welcome to Pines with Aquinas. Oh wow, we are live. I just had that up. And I'm here with my good friend, Father John Parks. And we are going to be discussing my quitting the internet for the entire month of August. You're doing this? Yeah. You're quitting the internet? Quitting month of August. You're doing this. Yeah.

You're quitting the internet. Quitting, this is like the fourth year, I think. So just to answer your question, I have to, so by the end of this live stream, Neil is changing the password on my desktop. I already changed it actually. Thank you. I'm giving him my laptop and my phone.

Please don't lose or break them. And he will give them back to me in September. How are you feeling about this? How did you feel into? I know you said it's fourth year. So what I'm doing right now is I'm cut just so I can finish this thought because I feel like it's not that interesting now that I've tried to say it, but I'm just cutting and pasting this text message to all these people in my phone book and it says, hi, I'll be giving up the internet and my phone for the month of August. I'm sending you this text in case you think I'm ignoring you or something because there's no automated responder on text message. Yes. So I got to do that before I go or else that that's the thing that causes

me the most anxiety. We begin at the beginning. What inspired this is the first time four years ago. So about through seven years ago, I just started to feel very overwhelmed by the internet and I just had this thought, you know, like I should just well like everybody has the thought I should put my phone in a drawer when I come home from work and not look at it until the next day, right? And I would do that, but then I would often kind of pick up my phone and realize Wow, this thing has more control over me than

I'm willing to admit. So I started doing this thing where at the end of Friday, I would put my laptop and my phone in a bag and I would drive it over to my mate's house, Jerome Boudreau, give it to him and say, if I come after this until before Monday morning, I want you to mock me. And then I would back out of his driveway. And I remember one time I reached for my pocket to tech to tweet something that I thought the world clearly needed to hear at that moment.

And I would go home and for the first couple of hours, I'd feel really quite anxious. And maybe on that trip home, I'd already thought about three or four things I could have done. Oh, I need to email this thing. I need to order this thing. I need have done. Or I need to email this thing, I need to order this thing, I need to whatever. But then my brain would start to slow down and the days felt like they did when I was a child. Long. Leisurely. I would be playing Lego with my kids without thinking, I wonder what somebody said in response to that snarky thing I said or...

You know what I mean? Yeah. And how long was it before that affects... about a day, like a maybe a few hours, like an evening. Did you feel free? So free. Amazing. It was so great. I've never done hard drugs yet, but I, it was so good. And so that's how it started. Right. And then the other thing you become aware of is just how hooked everybody is because you don't have anything. And then you go to the

coffee shop and you know, you kind of want a conversation. But like that's difficult to do because everyone's looking at their screens and you didn't realize that when you were doing that as well. I once saw that. That's a tweet. So this is ironic.

But as a tweet where somebody said, I saw somebody come into a coffee shop, they sat down, they ordered a drink, then they read a book and they spent two hours there and they never looked at their phone. Like, what a psycho. There must be something wrong with you that you are. So let's talk about practicals. So it's a month. It is. Can I tell you what I did after that?

So after I got my hit from that and I just loved it I said to my wife like what if we rented a cabin in the mountains for like a week or almost a week and We did that and we just left our phones at home and it sounds super pretentious what I'm about to say But I read like Plato to my wife I read bits of the Republic to her. And like, we don't do that kind of stuff, you know. But it was so lovely. And then what happened? I can't tell if because Dave Rubin, you ever heard of that guy?

Yeah, I can't. I do not remember if he inspired me to do this or if I was doing it. And then I realized he did it at the same time. It's probably the former because he's been doing this longer than me. But I just like I'm going to give up the internet for a month because what I could do the blessing of my job, and I understand that everybody can do this. So I'm not, you know, telling everybody to do this obviously,

and this is a very difficult thing to do. But I realized I could work my tail off in July, upload a bunch of things and then just pay people to kind of manage them and just disappear for a month. So the first month I was, it was so cool, dude. I gave my phone to my wife, she changed the password, she changed the password to my laptop, and I read the entirety of the Brothers Karamazov like that month. That's a long book.

Yeah. I mean, I'm a slow reader. So maybe some people, they're not that impressed with that. But for me, it was impressive, but it was actually really easy because I had nothing to do. Yeah. You know, reminding of the story of Hilaire Belloc, GK Chesterton, one of his close friends.

He apparently came to America and he had to come to find, I believe his future wife who was on the West Coast and he landed on the East Coast. And he made his way across America. He would knock on people's doors Yeah, and he would say in exchange for being able to stay your house I can either draw your portrait or I can recite to you Things from famous books or speeches and he made his way across America doing that you mentioned trying to do that now just How's the rest of three times taste twice?

You imagine trying to do that now. Just imagine. I was arrested three times, tased twice. Yeah, like, and people would not have it. I'm a one-event from arrest in 11 states. Yeah, people would, like, why are you here? You know, are you my Uber driver? Uber eats? Get out.

But the fact that Americans had such a common knowledge of literature, they're like, oh, do you know Emily Dickinson? Do you know Shakespeare? Do you know? And he's like, yeah, and then he would just recite things. That's wild to me. The reason why I'm saying that story is because we spent a lot of time on our phones. You know, somebody once said, if you spend two he's like? Yeah, and then he would just recite things. That's wild to me. The reason why I'm saying that story is because we spend a lot of time on our phones.

Somebody once said, if you spend two hours a day on Instagram, at the end of the year, that's one month of your life. If you spend two hours a day on Instagram at the end of the year, you'll suck. And still single. But think about spending a month of your life, not a month of your waking hours,

a month of either waking or sleeping hours. Isn't that what we're here to think about? Our phones anyway. So practicals, you are doing this for a month. It starts tomorrow. It starts right now. I'm going to give Neil these things while we're live. That's why I got to cut and paste this thing to all these people. Although you know it feels like freedom in about a day, how's it feel right now? Right now? I feel anxious and very excited. I feel anxious. It's like everyone's at a party and has a ton of plans to keep partying and I have to go. So there's this sadness that like, I'm,

I'm going to miss out because I'm not going to listen to podcasts. I don't have a phone. I wouldn't have any phone. I wouldn't even have a dumb phone this year. Last year, I had a dumb phone. This year, I got a phone. I got the house like the landline. People can call. I don't even know the number to that. I don't really plan on telling people it.

So but what are you going to do when you drive? That's a really good question, because my wife is going somewhere to an Airbnb with a really good friend of hers on Tuesday for four nights. And she wants me to bring the kids up. And I'm like, I don't know how I'll do that. So somebody once said of Gandhi, like if only Gandhi knew how expensive it was to keep him poor. It's a little like that with me.

Like my wife's life becomes much more difficult. So does Melanie's incidentally. Well, I don't know what Gandhi is. I didn't get Gandhi. Oh, God. He's sorry becomes much more difficult. So does Melanie's incidentally. Well, I don't know what Gandhi is. I didn't get Gandhi. Oh, God. Sorry. OK. Sorry. No, sorry. Yeah. Yes. OK. So there's some. I don't know how I'm going to do that.

I think she'll print out the directions for me. But I also have like a good out the directions. MapQuest is right there with blockbuster. Like, does it still exist? That would be funny if she printed out the directions to the only blockbuster left in the United States. That'd be funny. Um, all right. Yeah. Cause you mentioned walking up to a stranger and be like, do you know where

I've had to do it? Yeah. No, like I'm sorry. Did you just come out of a time machine? Couple of years ago I spoke in somewhere in Georgia and I went to Walmart and bought a GP GPS thing for my car and then returned it the next day. I wasn't lying to anybody. No one said, do you intend on keeping this forever? Okay.

I didn't say it was defective. I said, I don't want this anymore. But you needed it for a day. I needed it for a day or two days, three days. I had to get to this place and back. So the feeling is a little bit of like FOMO. You're gonna be fear missing out. There's this thing going on on the internet.

It's like a party, everyone's involved in it and you're gonna go off that thing But you know in a day from now, you're gonna start to feel free your wife's life gets a little harder She'll be fine. Yeah, she needs more to offer up What is it? What would you say is you've already mentioned a little bit like the main fruit of it? Things slow down you said Just I get are you better, Dad. I don't know. I have to ask my wife.

I think I have I know people debate whether 80 D is like how real of a thing that is. So I don't mean to wage that war, but I'm pretty sure if it is real, I have it. And I've been told that one of the reasons you know that is you get very overwhelmed when there's a lot in front of you. So when I go to a mall, remember those. Yeah. I just feel exhausted

within minutes like I feel like my eye. It's like this dirt in my eyes, you know, that grainy sand feeling in your eyeballs. You just that tired. You just like maybe you don't know what it's like, but there's just too much, too much stimulation, too much color.

And I just break. I just like I get exhausted. So I don't know if it's a temperament thing, because I believe that people can manage their technology use appropriately. I just get fried by it. So I had a dumb phone. Someone stole it. It was in a wallet. So someone thought it was. I don't know.

They stole it. All my credit cards got lost. So I had my iPhone in a drawer. So I have my iPhone now, but I block the app store. So it's essentially a dumb phone. Right. But even this feels way too much. Father Gregory Pine had this great point about phones.

He said this phones are these magical devices through which I can make demands upon you But they're also this device through which you can make demands upon me. Yes. I like the first part. That's right I like people like come on. I just texted you takes me back. What's going on? I remember when I first got a cell phone people weren't shocked if they Called or texted you and you didn't call her tricks into the next next day. I was like, hey, I called you last night. And you're like, yeah, I was busy. But you were supposed to be available to me. I want you to read this really interesting article.

And I think it was First Things. And he basically talked about how when he was growing up, they didn't have cell phones. So you had a phone at work and you had a phone at home. And he basically said it was a huge deal for your boss to call your home phone number. It never happened. Like if your boss called your home, you picked up your home phone number. It never happened. Like if your boss called your home,

you picked up your home phone number and you're like, hello. It's like, hi, this is your boss. You're like, why would you call me? Yeah, this is not appropriate. But now with cell phones, those lines are gone. So now it's people call you at home all the time. Like my staff members on my parish, I try to be really conscious of that.

Like after four o'clock, but I have to admit there are some times. So I know I'm like, hey, sorry, it's kind of late, but can you, I do that to Neil, I did to Melanie. Yeah. I try not to though. Yeah. And I really don't feel bad if it's after hours and I don't get a text back. I really don't, but no, it's true. It's like with every advancement, a poverty. That's right. With everything that leads us forward, there's something that's lost. So working from home is great, but now like, your work is at your house.

Yes. That's where you rest or used to. Apparently there are articles written in the 1950s when things like the washing machine are coming out. They're basically saying, what are people gonna do in the future with all this time? Like everything's so efficient. Instagram.

Snapchat. But I think we've learned that if we wanted more time to do things, we'd make things less efficient. Yeah, my wife is in the live chat. Hey baby. There she is. She says, she's obviously responding to people. She says, Matt has people he's hired to look after Patreon

and Locals for the Month and new contents coming out. Okay, so for those who are watching, I just want to throw this out. Yeah, hi camera from father. We'll be there for dinner soon. Locals, mattfrad.locals.com. If you support me over there, I have a fella who's leading morning coffee every morning.

Derek, fantastic dude. So morning coffee is still going on. Also, I have hired somebody to read Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle and Neil has scheduled it up. So every single day for 27 days, you will get an audio chapter of the Interior Castle. So all you do is go be a supporter of us over there and you'll get that there's a ton of stuff coming out there. I just put the link in the description. Also, I'm hoping

that you know, people comment and locals is kind of like a community thing too. So I'm hoping there's like community like book club kind of thing because it's really Yeah, we also have a book club. Do you know we're also going to book clubs going on locals because Derek's leading a book club over there. Someone in the in the live chat was saying, is there going to be content releasing? And I think they should know we just recorded an episode with.

So this is what I'm. Yeah. When I say I work my tail off in July, that's kind of what I mean. So we've recorded four excellent long form interviews in July that we haven't released yet, which will be being released. I would say my interview with you is my favorite episode of all time. We just finished it about an hour ago and I just thoroughly enjoyed talking with I loved it too. But thank you. It's very kind. It was wonderful. So those will be releasing two clips a day releasing like, yeah,

it'll be all Matt Fred all the time. Can you tell us what the other interviews are or do we want to build suspense? We have built Donahue from theology, the body Institute. We have father pine, father Gregory pine in which he smoked two huge cigars and drank three beers. Wow. That was a fun episode. And then we have Dr. Matt Bruin, Joe, that was such a fascinating,

60 seconds about him. He teaches psychology. He's a therapist here. Okay. Really insightful fella. Yeah. So it's just four great conversations. So stuff's coming out, you know, beautiful. So anyway, Oh, look, Pat. So funny. People are texting me back.

So I want to do this now. I got to do it later. I've got to text everybody cause that is the one anxiety I feel is that people are texting me right now and I don't know what's happening. You're almost free. My friend. This is like, I feel like I'm talking to somebody the last day of high school. And they're about to be, the bell's about to ring and this man's gonna be free.

But you know, part of why I do this too, is I do hope that it encourages other people to take stock of their own internet use, and maybe they have to decide that they need to, they need to get a bit more serious about how they regulate it. Absolutely. As you know, I've told you before,

I'm a big fan of don't tell me, show me, and you're just doing it. You're just modeling for people. And again, as you said, you made all the qualifiers, people have different states of mind, what's going through. And so, but even for a few days, I was a high school chaplain and we would take students on what's called a Kairos retreat, which they'd be without their phone for like three and a half days. And you know, we take their phones and then, I really felt like on day two, day three, they started to act more childlike.

And I really felt like the word that would come to me is detox. Like for some of them, like say they got a phone in fifth grade, it was the first time they'd been out their phone for three days, literally in like five or six years. And then when you plug all the phones back in or they turn them back on, the amount of like,

it was kind of overwhelming. was like yikes yeah you know so anyway it's a beautiful thing so the brain rest I love it I love it so much I'm so excited I'm gonna read Lewis's space trilogy you read that book I have read out of the sound planet which I think is the first one I've read para landro second second one but what's the third one? I think a hideous strength. Yeah, I've not read that one. I haven't read any of them. I started reading them and I'm just like, this isn't talking. So I put it down. So let's, I want to take a look. I guys in the chat. Hi, by the way,

I really want to look at some of your comments and get to some of your things here. So please feel free to post stuff in the live chat. If anything interesting comes up, Neil, let me know. I'm happy to answer it. For those who want to learn more about Father Parks, I promise we have like a two hour discussion coming out soon where we. Chatted out, we chat. Yeah. People like, who is this guy?

Who are you? You should probably, we should probably have said that. Oh, yes. Hi. I'm a priest of Phoenix, Arizona, and I'm a pastor there. I've been a priest for just over 12 years and uh, yeah, I met Matt, gosh several years ago, probably at a conference. I don't know. When did we, I gave a chastity talk at your high school. Yes, actually. That's right. You have a chest. We of course both know Melanie and, I was the cheaper Jason Everett people like, Ooh, Jason. Oh, who's this guy?

Jason may have some other white Caucasian the white Caucasian before or after but yes, that might have been the first time we met So anyone was delightful to be on your show. We had a comment from Clint Collins He says is this the same father parks that went to World Youth Day in 2016 with life teams. That's on my guess Yes, was that in Poland? I believe those in Poland yeah that was amazing so you've been on a few world these days you had a massive conversion on a world these day Rome okay 2000 yep have you been any sense I went to Canada the year after trying to chase that same high I didn't get it blamed Canada I, how many like, how many like, thanks Toronto. How many life changing conversions can one man have?

I had one last year. Did you? Yeah. Love that. Last year, year before. Just going to put that out there and not say anymore? Yep. Okay.

That was good. Let's see. Let's see. Francesco on Locals says, if I remember well, some months ago you said you were doing a new shop for pints with Aquinas shirts and other stuff. Is that ready? Okay. Yes. So this is good news. Our brand new pints with Aquinas website is launched. Go to pintswithaquinas.com to check it out. And I think on Monday or Tuesday, the store will be live and you can, we're going to keep adding cool stuff to it. So check that out. Mandala says, do you have a PO box where we can send you mail?

My church has a priest up for beatification. I'd like to send a medal and a prayer card to you. I attend a minor Basilica, yada yada. They didn't say yada yada. I just offended them by truncating their message. Yes, I do.

I forget. We can give people the address here. Can't we, Neil? Sure. Not for my house. Probably best. Yeah. Not your house. The PO box, the PO. Do we have a PO box? I don't think so. We can give people the address here. Can't we Neil? Sure. Not for my house Probably not your house a PO box the PO do a pair books. I don't think so No, I mean like this the seventh the floor here. Yeah, I will look for it

Here's a question. Do people know what Neil looks like or see like the voice? Yeah, they can see you right now That's me Are you excited to have a break from me? I mean you have to listen to me and look at my face on video a lot part of this is I can also just Have everything like set to go up ahead of time, you know, and I'll be monitoring it the whole time Of course, but yeah, I can also just I'm gonna go to Colorado It's gonna be nice that you have to come in I mean, I know you like coming in to do interviews and stuff

But it's gonna be nice for you to, yeah, you can kind of work from the road and get stuff up and hopefully have a bit more of a break as well. Let's see. You must tell Matt, oh, I'm trying. Does your wife ever do something like this? If not, how does she support you while you take time away from the internet?

Ask her, she's in the live stream right now. What's up, baby? I love the idea and have seriously considered joining you, but I know it would put a strain on my husband. The difference is I don't care that it puts a strain on my wife. I guess that's the difference. He just kept to not care as much. No, I, uh, has my wife doesn't do something like this, but, but she it's funny. Like I have to be unflinchingly rigid about the rules or else I don't follow them. Are you like that? Like if you come up with a diet or an exercise plan

or a reading plan or any kind of plan. Something like this, I would have to be very clear with myself, I would have to be like you. I have to give somebody my phone and be like, do not give this back to me. Cause you know, you start to justify like, I'll just look one, exactly, gotta do this thing. And next Cause you know, you start to justify like, I'll just look one. Exactly. Got to do this thing. And next thing you know,

James Hetfield lead singer of Metallica has this line that I'm using all the time now. He says, I'm smart enough to know where I'm dumb. And so you might say, well, why don't you just have the self control? It's like, because I, cause I know I don't have that. It shows that I'm smart. Like I know that about myself. Like when Jesus says, if your hand caused you to sing, cut it off, I can't pluck it out. I think we think sometimes, Oh, Jesus is like so hardcore, but actually it's the opposite. I think Jesus is saying, you're so weak. You're so weak

that you shouldn't even trust yourself. You should just get it out of your life. Cause you think like I'm strong enough to enter that. That's like basically kind of for that. That's such a great insight. It's not a crisis or hardcore, although of course he is in the appropriate way, but, but it's the way we're so weak. Yeah, he's so aware of human nature our ability to rationalize justify Endless Joshua Castro says any plans for spiritual reading during your month long log off. Not really Just just Lewis's trilogy and then also someone gave me a book by Michael O'Brien, have you ever read Michael O'Brien?

Do you like him? I have. I do. I've read probably three or four books by him, Island of the World is probably the- I think that's what they gave me. It's massive to Tome. I will say this though.

You have a vague sense of what Paralander is about. No, don't ruin it for me. Okay, then nevermind. I'll just say this as he's saying that spiritual reading, as you know, Lewis- Island of the World, that's what someone gave me yesterday to read, so maybe I should read that as well. Yes, it's very beautiful. Sorry to cut you off. No, no, no.

But but I lose can be it's kind of spiritual reading. Michael O'Brien, you're I think you're going to like him. You're going to really I mean, I read Father Elijah and I've read bits of other books. Do you like it? I did. What's difficult for me is I never got into reading and then I got into Dostoevsky. And so everything's kind of downhill after that. you know, like I didn't grow up reading. I never read the books my teachers assigned me. I always felt I was kind of too stupid to understand them. After I came to Christ or he came to me in the year 2000, I started reading spiritual books and

started to love reading. But then the first time I really started to read fiction really wasn't until 2012, 2013. And I just fell in love with Dostoevsky. Reading anybody after that. What have you read about? Reading Michael O'Brien after reading Dostoevsky would be like reading me after reading Michael O'Brien. It's like, it's good. It's just not Dostoevsky good, you know?

Yes, but I feel, Dostoevsky, I've just read Crime and Punishment and the Brothers K. That's all I've read and I've read his short works. And I also read, what's the first book he wrote? Dostoevsky? No, yeah. Yeah, what's the, no, I didn't read it. I think Crime and Punishment was, oh no, it wasn't.

This is what the internet is for, last day. Yeah, tomorrow. Oh, I think there's notes from the Underground. Yeah, I've read notes from Underground as well. I mean, I think he's amazing. Yeah, tomorrow. I think there's notes from the Underground. Yeah, I've read notes from Underground as well. I mean, I think he's amazing. He's amazing. But he's a genre unto himself. Well, he needs us.

So sometimes your brain wants to shift gears. Yeah, yeah. So it's funny that you say that because it's true, because you read Dostoevsky and then you read Tolkien and you're like, wow, this is so different. And you might think by different, that means less good. It's just different. Tolkien's incredible.

Cause I read Lord of the Rings last year and I decided that was my favorite book ever. Uh, even though I thought the brothers K or crime and punishment, can I give an unpopular opinion right now? I didn't, I didn't love Lord of the Rings. Now I've just read the hobbit, the uh, and the first two fellowship and two towers. I didn't read of turn of the king really he didn't like it I didn't say didn't like it no I think you said you didn't like it I said I hated talking I'm not sure if he's educated you

would have said something dramatic but I just I don't know I mean I thought it was good but when people are I have friends who think it's like almost canonical scripture like they think it is like Astonishing like every Catholic and I wanted to add to my Catholic like nerd factory You know like I want to be in the club like I've read So for three of the four including the hobby, but I just couldn't I don't know the person was like you haven't finished Return of the King and I was like No, I don't cycle get to that and it's been no couple years and stop it done no, I was like, I'll get to that. And it's been now a couple of years and still haven't done it. Yeah, so anyway.

If you were just alienated by that, by the not liking Lord of the Rings, I remember when Bill was on, you guys talked about Lord of the Rings for like, a long time. Yeah, that's coming out. But I understand what you're saying too. I love Tom Bombadil, we talked about that.

Love Tom Bombadil. Hey, don't get me wrong. You know? Can you imagine if there was like a, keep drinking while I tell this point, cause I think it's going to be fine. You might spit it out. Are you serious? Yeah, have another drink.

Oh no, oh no. Imagine if Baywatch was a book. I guess it would be Playboy. I don't know. Sorry, shouldn't laugh about that. I just thought about how vacuous that would be. Have you read Baywatch? It's based off the show.

Yeah. All right. That's a little bit of a confused how, what's like free Playboy for the articles. You taught me the word. What's the opposite of magnanimity? Pulsin. How do you say the word?

Pulsinanomy? No. Pusa, Pusillanus. Right. Pusillanus? Yeah. Is that the right word? I don't think so I didn't teach that word. I think you did. Yeah So what I feel like you're gonna say something is there I accidentally well, I'm not gonna say it All right, let's do another one

Correction before we move on the first book. I think that was completed by Dostoevsky The first novel was poor folk. Oh, that's true, but that one's awful. So Derek Cummins has a question. Yeah, I have a question. Where do you get the nerve? Next question that was the goal question. Yep. He was joking. Unfortunately I won't be there live since I live in Hungary, but I'll be watching tomorrow morning wishing you a blessed August. Thank you so much their lives since I live in Hungary, but I'll be watching tomorrow morning wishing you a blessed August. Thank you so much. Hungry.

Wow. What are some ways? I mean, I would like this to be kind of beneficial to people watching and not just me kind of congratulating myself for taking the month of August is even that's fun. But I mean, I would love to know in the live chat, like what are some ways that you've tried to distance yourself from technology? And do you even feel that need? Maybe you don't.

Maybe this is just a me thing. You're asking the people out there. Yeah, kind of. Okay. That's a great question. you I mean do you feel that way I I feel like when I'm in internet land I have no taste for books when I'm in internet land books are to me what vegetables are to a sugar addict it's like yeah I guess I can have it but why would I because I don't know chocolate covered brittles you know yeah no I totally get what you're saying. What you getting zones?

You pull out your phone while you... Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm taunting you. Jealous? No. I'm watching videos of cats. They're so cute. My phone at 9 p.m. goes dark.

Like I don't have access to the internet and it goes live again at 4 a.m. and there's a password and I don't have it the priest I live with has how interesting you know I didn't know you could do that on the iPhone you have the internet so even data you can make any app or oh yes I go dark I see and so you still have connection to the internet it's just none of the apps work yeah like I could check my email see I would like to make it I could do maps but I couldn't like search the web or I couldn't go on like Instagram or anything like that. OK, so if my wife's watching, I would like to do

that to your phone. I think that would be a nice compromise. Sometimes I want to watch something is like 915 and I would definitely waste time if I did. And I'm like, oh, man, my phone says, sorry, you ran out of time. Now I'll just read having the last night. I was like, I'm going to look at something on my phone and then it was thing. I have reading two chapters of Scott Hombuck. I was like, you know, I would have never done that. It's exactly right.

If my phone was on, I would watch some dumb YouTube video about whatever. So anyway, Andrew from the live chat says it's more and more difficult to quit the internet as time and society moves forward because of the development of technology and the requirement of it for education, the news and work spot on. It's so true. It's like even last year, I gave up the internet and I had to go to Savannah. I went to Savannah and uh, couldn't get an Uber cause it didn't have a phone. Oh, so I had to go to the guy at the hotel lobby and be like,

taxis are still a thing, right? And so I took a taxi, but then you have to play your credit card in a taxi to pay for it How weird you know and then I was in the air I went to I missed my flight and I was stuck in the Atlanta airport for about seven or eight hours And I didn't have a phone and then podcasts and then email. I didn't have text message. What did you do? I bought a Stephen King novel and read ten pages and then threw it out because I don't like him I'm sorry. Did you give it you threw it away? Yeah, I threw in the bin Wow Okay, he's that good of an author. So what'd you do for the other six hours in 45 minutes?

Um, I don't know. I just walked around chatted with my daughter. She was with me Shush daddy's reading Stephen This is called loitering. He's just walking around aimlessly. Moses King says, I'm spiritually edified by the internet. Father Mike Schmitz, homilies are better than my parish. He gets to you. I would suffer spiritually by giving up the internet. Fair enough.

What do you say to something like that? Well, yeah, certainly the internet has brought us good things. So, you know, our phones are simultaneously access to the kind of knowledge that people in other times couldn't believe. It's like unfathomable. Of course, you have to weed through it. The second thing that our phone also gives us is unlimited distraction, diversion, you know? So it takes a lot of virtue to use it well and not use it poorly. Yep. So anyway, if everyone's honest with themselves, I could say how addicted to their phones are they not? All right. I'm going to go through the last like a

hundred texts and just cut and paste this to everybody. I still need to do this because I'm going to give him my phone. So even though this is going to make for really poor watching, I'm just going to sit here and text everybody. I'll just stare. You'll feel free to read the chat. Something comes up. Yeah. Yes. I'm just going to sit here and text everybody. I'll just say, feel free to read the chat. Something comes up. You think of notes that we could respond to in the chat. Let's see. People know about Neil's news, by the way. I don't want to break things that I shouldn't be breaking. Let him break it. Uh, I just got engaged. So to be wed. Very exciting.

To be wed. Am I right? To be wed. And what is the young lady's name? Shayla. Shayla, everyone. Shayla. And it's S-H-A-Y-L-A.

That's right. I misspelled it earlier today. That's how I know that. Shayla, wow. Let's play a little game called Name Etymology because everyone loves that. Shayla is from the fairy kingdom. That's what her name means. Wow. And when you propose, you say,

do you want to join my kingdom? Sheila? With me. Yes. And she said, yes. Uh, what does Matt mean? Matt means gift of God. Matthew means gift of God. Sure. Yep. Cause I thought so what John means and Ryan you can look at him. Yeah, God's Christian Ryan means little king. That's my middle name. That is a good name. I love names.

You're my wife's name. Cameron means what crooked nose. No true story. Neil looked it up the other day. I'm not lying. Here, crooked. What's her middle name? Cameron was she changed it is McLaughlin.

I can. What's her middle name? Cameron? Well, she changed it. It was McLaughlin. I'm aware that it's doesn't look well for me that I've forgotten my wife's middle name, but it's McLaughlin. Okay, yeah, I wasn't judging, but you know, when you get married, how women sometimes take their last name and make that their middle and that's what I was struggling with. Got you yeah McLaughlin. No problem. What is Neil mean?

Oh with gotcha yeah McLaughlin no problem what does Neil mean oh yeah are you looking up what Neil means I looked it up before but I forgot oh champion there you go oh cloud or passionate these are all so much better than cloud and champion passionate cloud these are all so much better than crooked nose. Yeah, that's true. That is true. All right. I think I'm just going to, I think I'm just going to turn it off. This is, this is like weirdly scary.

It's what makes you feel any better. I've been on a number of sound retreats in my life. I've probably been on four, eight days, our treats and one 30 day and going into silence. I'm like, fuf, silence, fuf. But once I'm about, to be honest, like four hours in definitely by one day and I love it. I'm like a duck to water. I'm like, yeah, I love this. So I'm hoping you, uh, and you from your own experience have had that after a day and you'll start to feel free. All right. Here we go. All right.

I'm turning it off. All right. We ready, Neil we go. All right. I'm turning it off. All right, we're ready, Neil. Can you see this? I'm watching. Yeah, it's thinking it's thinking somebody just texted you. And here we go. This is like really like sadly. OK, I'll just do it. And it is. That's it. That's it. So I'm gonna take my cards out and I give this to Neil. Wow!

Hey Well done. Yeah, that's good, man. Feels good. Yeah, this is what happened to me last year. I shared this story of school, but I had Peter craig He was my last interview last year. I think it's a 31st of July So it's like this time last year and I finished my interview with him and I gave my computer and my phone away And then I went to pray at Franciscan and I was walking Where that beautiful circle of grass and flowers is you know that kind of entrance thing? Where's this Franciscan? By the bookstore and the church.

And I saw it all. I'm like, wow, man, these are beautiful flowers. And then I thought, OK, don't be the kind of spaz who's going to now like, oh, really look at the flowers because of offline, you know? And I thought I want people seeing me looking at flowers. And I thought, why? This is the only reason they've been put here. There isn't another reason. It's not for the honeybees, even if it does benefit them. That's not why they put it there. They put it there so we could look at them and admire them. And I don't

want to do that because I'll look weird. So I went up and just stared at him. Pluck one. Did you melt it? Put it in my Bible. Sat with it. Thanked it for existing. Yeah, you're free. It was really good.

You're getting Nicholas Sparks novel. Got romantic, you know, YouTube is addictive not only for consumers, but for those who produce on it. And it's created that way intentionally. They need to make it as addictive for me to push out content as they need it for you. You know, it's very smart. So it's kind of like a, it's like a double loss. Like I do love doing these things, but I love the. Like right now we have.

Yeah, we have the. Just 455 people watching this right now. Well, we had the gentleman, I guess 455 people watching this right now. Wow. We have the general talking about how, you know, there's good that's come to his life from the internet. 100%. Yep. I'm not doubting it. I'm grateful for the good it does.

I'm not trying to demonize it. I'm just really glad to be off it. Teddy Laurent says, I'm off all social media since February. I only watch Catholic content'm off all social media since February. I only watch Catholic content on YouTube or listening to the radio. Good for you. That's fantastic. That's what I'm going to say. I'm off it right now. Actually, the first time I gave up social media,

I think a lot of people know this story. I was it was a podcast by Matt Walsh back in the day, maybe eight years ago, maybe less. I forget exactly. But he just kind of lampooned social media. And I did that thing. I do got super enthusiastic and quit. And then, but I, I knew I wanted it for, for pints of the coin has to advertise things.

So I hired somebody to take over my social media, but I made them change the passwords and that's I've maintained that. I mean, occasionally I would log back on, but I made them change the passwords. And that's, I've maintained that. I mean, occasionally I would log back on, but not anymore. My boy Derek Cummins is watching right now. He runs my social media. And I asked him to change the passwords, which is probably irresponsible of me. Like he could totally ruin my life right now.

He could do. You trust him. I totally trust him. Yeah. Can I tell him about my thoughts about daily wire? Yes. I think, uh, daily wire is in a large way doing the Lord's work. Wow. Like I feel like people like Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, uh, Candice Owens, Ben Shapiro. Um, I don't listen to the ton. I don't spend a ton of time in there. But, net But have you seen the documentary? What is a woman? Yeah I

Just think that documentary at this time is so me speaking truth that clearly is but also with that I feel like there were times Ben Shapiro has said something Candice Owens Matt Walsh Michael knows why I just thought to myself You're speaking the truth like you're speaking the truth and the public square. And it sounded kind of shocking. Like, can you still say that in public? You know, Ben was talking about something going on at some award show or somebody was doing something really provocative, like mildly pornographic. He's like, what this is really about is like, uh, corrupting innocence.

It's about attacking innocence. And I was like, yes, that's what's really going on. And it was so shocking for somebody to hear truth. Do you know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. Your thoughts. I think one of the roles Daily Wire plays is making us feel less alone and less crazy.

Feel like we're being gaslighted by mainstream media, big tech and government. Yes. You know, like men don't exist, women don't exist. You know, men can have vaginas, you know? You're like, I don't think so, right? I'm pretty sure. And when you live like that, having someone remind you, Hey, whoa, look at me, look at me. You're not insane. That's, that's insane. It's so bloody comforting and necessary to help us stay the course. Last week I was on vacation in San Diego and I was reading 1984 for

the first time, just some dystopian novels on vacation. And in it at one point he says, the heresy of heresies was common sense. And you're right, I think you get like, it's like, the truth is like oxygen, and when you feel like you're holding your breath for a long time, and finally somebody speaks the truth, you're like, yes, yeah, I'm not crazy, that's right.

The chromosomes, they're real, you know? So I feel like Candice Owens has said things where I'm like, yeah, girl, preach. Like you are speaking the truth. That's amazing. So anyway, dearly aware. I'm gonna have her husband on the show in September. He'll be in studio.

His name is George Farmer. Super cool dude. He's the CEO of Parla. Do you remember Parla? Yes. Back in the day, Amazon is George Pharma. Super cool dude. He's the, uh, CEO of parlor. Do you remember parlor? Yeah. In the day, Amazon and everybody canceled them. Yes. I think they're kind of coming back from they weren't platform but they got to platform. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. So he'll be on. We've got a ton of interviews scheduled for September and I'm going to hit the ground running because what happens towards the end of August? I'm just like,

I'm ready. I'm ready. I love it love it what I think about you are they had a movie that you could watch I got the subscription yeah which was called terror on the prayer hated it so much it was I can't believe you just said that it was awful it was terrible so bad it was a terror on cinema bad tear on the eyes yes yeah it was and I was so frustrated because I was so excited I stopped watching it and then I had to read I stopped watching I was like this is and then I just finished it cuz like I gotta see how bad this is and I was so excited like if this is legitimately good like entertaining and interesting What is that gonna do for the world because we could really use just good entertainment like just no agendas

I can't not see agendas, you know, you're watching a movie, you see some agenda put in, you're like, okay. Yeah. Okay. That is, I didn't even follow the story. I was just awkwardly put in there. And I was really frustrated. I was like, daily wire. I'm really glad you thought that. Cause we wouldn't want to fall into the trap

of just celebrating whatever stuff we think our allies are pumping out. You know? I mean, yeah, What Is A Woman was an excellent documentary. And I would highly recommend everybody become a daily wire subscribers, just so you can check that out. But I heard they were putting like a hundred million dollars into like children's

education. So like children's cartoons. Yeah. So they have like serious capital. So I thought if they're going to start to get into making major films, which is very important to capturing like the cultural imagination, people can know what's right and wrong in their like logical mind, but if their imagination has been captured by another worldview, it just what it'll lose every time. So you have to form people's moral imaginations and you do that through story

and images and movies are in some ways the dominant storytelling medium of our time. So I was so excited. Like this could be incredible. Like in a way, we don't even understand for our culture. And then I saw the movie and I was like, but they have put out a couple of movies before that which were much better Really? Yeah on daily wire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they called one was good shut in that was quite intense And then the other one was about a school shooting, which was also quite intense. Both were good. Okay fine I don't know. I don't know anything about it, but you know, you got to think maybe they were like scripts that they bought You know

That they have to pump up and pretend a really One thing that Shapiro says is we want to produce content that people want to watch not want to want to watch That's exactly want to watch which I think is great. No, I'm so glad now. I think it's I mean Peter crave said when an enemy is at the door feuding brothers reconcile and I think it's I mean, Peter Crave said when an enemy is at the door, feuding brothers reconcile. And I think there's this line we need to walk between not swallowing everything these people at Daily Wire are saying, because some of the things they say are false or some of the things they say are unhelpful or some of the scenes in these movies are unhelpful, whatever. scenes in these movies are unhelpful, whatever. But also just like also accepting an ally when I where I can, you know, without having to make enemies of everybody.

Yeah. And the scriptures say test everything or retain what is good or retain what is true. So I mean, did you have you read Barbara Nicolosi on? No, but I know her sister. I know her sister. OK, she actually she I write these little stories that she then edits for me She kind of does copy editing for me copy editing. Is that the right word? I think that's right But you know the word Barbara Nicolosi does not really okay. Well, it's anyway She she's in media and she once taught I think at Azusa Pacific and she taught like screenwriting and she did act one Which was like a way for Christians to get into Hollywood through writing screen likes scripts, but anyway, she she has And she taught like screenwriting and she did act one, which was like a way for Christians to get into Hollywood through writing screen, um, like, uh, scripts.

But anyway, she, uh, she has an Ezekiel type prophetic, um, vision of what Christian should be doing in the media. And it's, it's good to listen to. Cool. Okay. Hey, I just realized reason and theology is in the chat. Um, so I would just, uh, I wanted to ask Michael to write to assistant at mattfrad.com if you're interested in coming on the show, So I would just, I wanted to ask Michael to write to assistant at mattfrad.com if you're interested in coming on the show, because I would love to have him in studio.

I love that guy. He's doing really good work. Who's this? Michael Lofton runs a show called reason and theology. And I've been really impressed with his bravery of late. He released a video the other day called why I stopped bashing the pope. And then he interviewed somebody about kind of recovering from traditional Catholicism, not because this person doesn't consider themselves

a traditional Catholic, but because, you know, we should fight error wherever we see it. And I just thought was super brave of Lofton because he's definitely said some harsh things about Pope Francis back in the day. We have to give each other so much leeway. I think we are living in crazy times man, and we're all just trying to process it. But unlike 100 years ago, you can process it by clicking a button and having 500 people show up. We really need to give each other some freedom to mess up and say things incorrectly. Anyway, point is, he's sort of dialing back some of the

rhetoric he used in the beginning and sharing why. And I just think that takes so much bravery to come out and be like, yeah, I would have said that differently now. He's like, I'm not saying he can't criticize the Pope, not saying he can't criticize bishops, but here's why I now take this approach. I love seeing people grow. You know, that's what people liked about Dave Rubin. Rubin was, you know, a lefty, as he would have termed himself. And then gradually had this sort of political conversion, as it were.

And he's beginning to adopt different beliefs. And it's really beautiful to see people evolve. Yes. Not be afraid to change their minds on things. Yeah, that is impressive. Kierkegaard said something like we can be very subjective about our own sin and very objective about other people's sin when the exact opposite should be true. Say that again. We can be very subjective about our own sin and very objective about other people's sin when the exact opposite should be true. Say that again. We can be very subjective about our own sin and very objective about other people's sin. When he says the opposite should be true, we should be very objective about our own sin and very subjective about other people's sin. Yeah. You know, like we see people say, yeah, that's wrong. And our own's like, well,

I was tired and you know, like, so I had to hit him with my car, you know, whatever it is. And so yeah, just to leave it there. We always chalk up. That's what Lewis says. We always chalk up our sins to our bad mood or something. We never chalk up our virtues to that. That's right. I had a good night's sleep. That's why that's why I was kind.

Oh, that's well said. That's well said. Yeah, that's connecting. I want to let people know about Exodus 90 because they have an Exodus 21, which is way more in my ballpark. Exodus 90.com slash Matt. Um, you've heard of them. Have you done it? I have. Did you do it? Yeah. I've done a couple of times. Wow. Yeah. Was it helpful? It was. Glad you said that because they're paying me to talk about them. Okay. Yeah.

I'd say a couple of things that I've learned from doing Exodus 90 is that people generally don't know how to pray. And so that that's been, you know, as they're trying to like develop and ask to just think for a lot of people, the difference between I would say Catholic friendship and having friends who are Catholic is what's the foundation of the relationship. Do you know what I mean? So if you and I were friends for a year before we found out we were Catholic, you know, like after a year I sneeze, like God bless you, like are you Catholic?

Yeah. With your spirit. Then it would be like, maybe this isn't the foundation of our relationship. I think for Exodus 90, the fraternity for a lot of guys is the first time they're really trying to like seek something together, like holiness and a mission. So it builds this incredible fraternity because we're, we're suffering together and we're praying together. So Exodus 90 bears a lot of good fruit. So I have this thing called Exodus 21, you get access 90.com slash

Matt, and I'd highly recommend checking it out because I'm much more of a sprint person than a marathon person. And what you do on Exodus 21 is you don't eat until 4pm every day, except weekends and on celebrities, but you can have alcohol, you can have warm showers. Then you read through, I think it's first Corinthians. It just seems a lot more doable for me. So, and they've got an amazing app. Like you only have to look into apps

and how much they cost to make something good to start appreciating really well-made apps. It's excellent. So go check out Exodus90.com slash Matt. Also, I want to tell people to go to check out hello.com slash Matt Fradd, I think it is. You get three months free when you sign up over there. It's the, I think the frankly,

I mean, there's probably no other runner, but the best prayer and meditation app out there. Have you ever used that? I have, yeah. And I gotta say, and I'm not just saying some of the show, you have the Lo-Fi. Yeah, baby. That's on there now. I listened to the first one. It's called like green lantern green something and I was like, I'll be honest

I went in there a little uh Skeptical that's all say that and I clicked on it and it was like amazing. Yeah, I was like this is a great swell Yes. Yeah, I know right now Neil. It's amazing called green swell. I think it is I took all the names from Hopkins poetry. Oh name them all yeah I love so do I yeah five favorite poem. Yeah one Well, like God's Granger of course last year I learned God's Granger by memory one morning over coffee That's the other thing that I learned couple of like uns like suspecting things that took place after giving up the internet Well, let me say three things.

Number one, I interviewed Dave Rubin last year. He told me that on one of his August free internet things, he became a believer in God. Look what happens when you unplug from the matrix, you start to see reality. That's about him. But for me, I could just start my brain work better. I was sitting down with my wife and I just read her God the grandeur of God's grandeur and I was like I memorize this and I did before my coffee finished and it's there. That's insane I can't I mean other people can maybe do stuff like that, but I can't third thing was I bought so much less stuff

I When you've got an Amazon app or something you're always like I'm gonna get this thing and get this thing I just like I didn't buy anything because I had no Unless I want to go to a store like a loser, you know I heard me knew this guy years ago. I was giving a chat to talk in DC and he told us that when he got married He and his wife decided they just wouldn't buy a TV to start and see how long they could go good for them And his parents his kids were no teenagers He had never bought a TV and like what kind of effect have you seen is that one of them is when kids?

Don't see products. They don't know what they want So he said his daughter got really into making things out of duct tape Wow So for like Christmas, yes for one thing and the chef's for duct tape I was like what he's like the reason why kids want stuff so often is because they see advertisements for like Legos and so to your point of before not always constantly bombarded with They see advertisements for like Legos and so to your point of before not always constantly bombarded with Advertisements or desire for things just is not kind of peaked. Yeah. Also, I have you seen Gerard Manley Hopkins who I love The Virgin Mary compared to the air. I breathe it is it's very long it is

Amazing. Yeah. Well, I know word on fire put out some beautiful books of Hopkins poetry. so I have it at home. I'll go check it out. It's read by Jonathan Rumi, right? Oh, I meant... Oh, the like, literally they just released them. Okay. Where did Rumi read that? He's been reading poems for Word on Fire. Stop it.

Yeah, he's got such a dreamy voice. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Sorry, that was supposed to be an advert and I forgot all about advertising them. Sorry, sorry. No, I just, for the first time, bought my subscription to Halo like a week ago. If you go to halo.com slash Matt Fred and sign up, you get three months free and you don't have to pay a cent.

If you cancel at the end of the three months, you don't get charged anything. So go do it. And I'll just add with that. I'm just here just to, you know, be here for the team. A friend of mine who works for Halo, he was telling me that they, the one they do with Father Timothy Gallacher,

they have a kind of a Saint Ignatius of Loy nation of loyal retreat. Yeah. I think it's 21 days. Okay. He said the response has been outrageous. People are doing it and like it's life changing. So hello. Yeah. Big fan. Good on you. Is that what you said? Not sure. Good on you, my good on you, man. No, no. That's that's, that's me doing my accent. Why did I do that? I'm a caricature of myself. Let's see. I want to see some comments here. Jack Preston from the live chat says, I'm a Protestant, but converting to Catholicism first pints with Aquinas episode was with Father Lambert.

And the experience was experience, which was just like you described. Matt has esteemed Protestant guests ecumenical. Yeah, I love my brothers and sisters. I always like saying that. I'm afraid people don't believe me. OK, I just I love my pros and brothers and sisters. I always like saying that. Yeah, I'm afraid people don't believe me. Okay. I just, I love them. And I really say this in not a condescending way that they, my friends who are Protestants teach me so much. Amen. Amen. So his name is Jack. Uh, I don't know. First I want to say, I don't want to miss his name now.

Yeah, let me see if I can find it again. Yeah, Zach. Zach, Zach, God bless you. That's amazing. Good for you. Wow, welcome home. Unbelievable. I also had a conversion to ecumenism in this way.

Ooh, conversion to ecumenism, let's do it. When I was in seminary, I didn't understand what ecumenism was. From a Catholic perspective, I just thought a Catholic would sit down with a Protestant and say, have you read John 6 again? Yes. What do you think?

I don't think it's real. Well, read it again when we get back next year. You know, I just thought like, friend, how do you not see this, right? But now I have a different view. I took a class on evil. This will come full circle, I promise. And one of the things my teacher used to say

is whatever the Catholic church throws away, the culture will pick up and put it on. And so when we see like, and he used examples of like, we see the rise of like interest in spiritual things is because we stopped teaching about like, man, it's the spiritual soul. Yeah, or about angels. But we have a desire for religious things.

And so I think some of the things that Protestantism excels at is because Catholicism is not doing it. So there are Catholics who don't know the gospel and that's painful. And sometimes Protestants are really good at proclaiming the gospel, you know, just like the core gospel message. And sometimes now the gospel is a start of something, it's at the end of something and it grows into this real beautiful thing.

But sometimes there can be Catholics who don't know the heart of like, well, what is in like 10 minutes or less mean to be Catholic, you know? So I think there are, in that sense, there are things that Catholics can learn from Protestants and, and they sometimes have beautiful community at their churches and that's all great stuff to learn from. So in other words, ecumenism in that way is just a gift. Last thing I'll say, John 17, Father, may they be one as you and I are one. And he says,

may they see their unity and then worship us or adore us. In other words, I never saw the connection between ecumenism and the evangelization of the world. That one, when I think when orders start to come together, when people start to have communion, I think God is glorified and people start to look at the church and say, like, what if one of the Eastern Orthodox came back in a full communion? Like, what would that do? You know, that would be wild.

You know what I mean? They'd say the opposite. What if? That's true. That's true. What if the one holy, Patricia says, Matt, I can't believe I have watched you for over a year. I started months before last August.

Love you, dear brother. Know this granny I had praying for you and your family. I think she means know this granny is praying for you Thank you so kindly Man Kevin like going on vacation vacations are not permanent. You should come back and get back to work How about piss off Cooper? I'm just checking Get back to work you know what people don't do in real life? What's that talk to you like they're doing comment sections?

That's so true. I don't read the comment sections anymore. One, because I don't believe people's outrage. Two, because I don't trust if they're a reliable person and you can't gauge that from the little thumbnail of their face next to the comment. Three, because I trust my friends and mentors more than them. But even the most polite criticisms people don't offer to you. So like we might get a comment below this is Matt, like you were kind of looking at your screen a lot. My father was talking or you cut him off, which might be true.

But like if we were like doing a live show at the coffee shop across the road and we got down from the stage and we're greeting people like people wouldn't say that like they maybe they should but the point is people don't even offer those sort of gentle criticisms if they don't know you. Whereas on YouTube that's all you get. Yeah. Is it the anonymity? Is that is that the reason?

Yeah, maybe. And I'm not saying they're not wrong like this criticisms that are worth given and that was that wasn't even a criticism I was joking about you know, I think you're right. I just disagreeable or a little more punchy They're coming after you Matt for misunderstanding what Cooper was saying He was responding to someone who said why only August? Oh, so I just shout on Cooper and he's trying to defend me Sorry Cooper Sorry, Cooper.

Friendly fire. It's going to be tough without Matt for a month watching this channel while I work out or bike or cook brings me back to prayer and faith. So just to let people know, Matt Cooper, I love you. Right to assistant at mattfrad.com prove that you're Cooper and I'll send you a free beer Stein for misunderstanding you. Not joking. Do it. Um, now there's going to be a bunch of people claiming on the server Yeah, so just to reiterate I'm Neil is gonna be posting like a wild man to this channel

We've got four long form discussions that we've pre-recorded they're gonna be released in July two clips a day We're shorts coming out. There's gonna be way too much. Have they not heard Neil's a champion? He's a cloud of content He's gonna really passionately coming out. He's unreal Not of me of you just to be clear The cloud of content of me here poor guy Yeah, I Just want to say again, these are great interviews that are coming out I think these are some of them not that I mean the other interviews are good but these

are some of the best interviews I think that we've had enough what do you think that was do you think that had to do with them not being live or do you think no it was just the guests hard to say I think the pine one was better than the live panel one because you guys have already been talking for a while it was so good was it he's always good he's unreal but like what I love about father Gregory pine as I say He sucked down two gigantic cigars and drank three beers, and then I heard he went to a friend's house and had another cigar But I love that. He's not trying to pretend to be something. He's not in person Yes, and who he is in person on video is glorious

That freedom Free man Christopher West is a free man. That freedom, free man. Christopher West is a free man. He is a free man. Can I ask about your children? Yep. Can you tell me about them? I would love to.

Liam Fradd is very intelligent and industrious and entrepreneurial, scrupulous to a fault, honest, very clever. And we could drop him in the woods now and he'd still be president if he wanted to be. So can you give an anecdote about Liam that you felt kind of captures his personality? Like here's a Liam story that you get the sense of, you know, like honest Abe, he wanted

to return the thing for two cents. Like Abe Lincoln was real honest. Well another thing about Liam is he's very good with money. He's like his mother in that regard. So if we go shopping at the grocery store, I never look at prices. I should, but I just, I just don't like I just, that's just maybe a fault. I have whereas Liam, if I give him my credit card and take it, you can go get a few things like I know he'll get the cheapest of all of those things and the

best deals, which is kind of cool. Um, so that's not really cool about Liam too, is that he has a wide variety of friends and the friends don't necessarily hang out with each other. Like some may be more nerdy and some might be more into sports and he, he's really great with them all, you know, and he'll defend them. He won't let you speak poorly about them. He also, people like him who are older than him. So like college kids really like him. How old is Liam?

14. Wow. So that's him. I want to keep going because this is making me happy. Please. Avila. One of the most interesting human beings I've ever met. Funny.

So funny. Sensitive, beautiful heart. Yeah, we we have so many games in the Fred family that I love playing with my kids. Here's a couple. One is I sit in a chair with my arms on the arms of the chair and it's called the robot game. There is a point on my body that they have to press to activate me, but they don't know where it is.

Once they activate me, I rise up like a robot and destroy them, and they scream and run away. And the only way to turn me off is by pressing that same part of my body that activated me, at which point I say, I was just learning to love and then collapse on the floor. First game. I was just learning to love and then collapse on the floor. First game, I was just learning to love. I was just learning to love.

How did this game develop? I don't know. Here's another game school, Barry the butterfly. And what I do is I'll lay on the couch with my kids and this is the butterfly and it flies up in the air like this and it tickles them and comes down and tickles them. But they can put him to sleep by saying abracadabra. And then he'll fall asleep, let's say on their arm. And he's like snoring.

And if they move, they wake him up again and he comes after him again. That's that's another good game I like to play. And then here's another game I play with my kids as I wrestle them. And this is the other day I was wrestling with Peter and he's jumping on my back and he's like five five And I'm like what he what the number five and I forgot that I came up with this rule that Number ten is me fighting them as I would an adult No, I don't obviously smash him in the face or anything like I use all of my strength and I dominate them completely

One is nothing, you know, so it's so funny I was wrestling my kids in the bed today right before Holy Mass And they'd be like 10 1 or like 7 and then 1 if they start losing so that's a fun game as well I just love playing with my kids. It's so beautiful. So Aval is just remarkable and sensitive and artistic and glorious Chiara Luce, ooh scatina Matani Chiara is Fierce she is Cameron 2.0. She is the new and improved my wife. That's what she says. Not not me.

She's ferocious and. Kind and good to people and super defensive of people. So I remember when she was in she was at kindergarten, someone stole Avila's water bottle and for the next like three months if the topic ever came up, bad girl, she's a bad girl. And then one day they were at a party and someone came up and stole Avila's balloon and Kiara like totalled over there and ripped it out of this boy's hand and went, no, Avila's balloon.

Like she's just defensive and beautiful. Peter Fradd is just filled with wonder. Peter is the one who said to me the other day, do you know you can cut your tongue with a single blade of grass? I just did it. How old is he? Peter is six or seven, seven.

He has bees. We bought him bees. He named the queen docile. I told him he had to name all of the bees, all hundreds of them, but he didn't do that. But he's so funny. He'll just sit in front of the beehive for like 20 minutes just watching the bees.

You're gonna love him. Yeah. I had good kids. And I have to say, like, I really am enjoying this stage of life. You know, people have said that. They're like, as your kids get older, it's, you know, it's easier and it's easier and harder.

But I have to say, maybe it's my temperament or whatever. But I just love talking with them. I like having good conversations with them. I'm really liking it. Cameron had a, had to have a hysterectomy several years ago because she, uh, she got sepsis. She got it. Yeah. After it was awful. Um, so we can't have any more kids naturally. I don't think I knew that. I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. But I'm loving it, man. All right. Let's see what else we got.

Pines of the quietness. If you are the Catholic, Jamie is Derek the Orthodox Jamie. No, because Derek doesn't really sit behind the camera. Maybe one day has has he for. Oh, yeah. For which episode that was. I feel Matt is a role model for the Catholic laity. He's like a classic dad if that makes sense.

That's really kind. I'm not reading them ahead of time and then choosing what I read by the way. That could have been nasty. Even though the channel will still post, I connect a lot with Matt, immigrant from Europe, husband, father, cigars, sweet. What's funny is that of my siblings, says William,

two of them are named Avila and Chiara. Sweet. Matt, did your kids get dual citizenship? Yes, they have Australian and American passports. I love hearing Matt talk about his kids. You can tell how much he loves them. They're okay. Let's not go overboard.

Joe Rogan has talked about the Catholic church in a very bad way lately. Someone like Matt Frattran, Horne and Michael Lofton need to go on his show. Yeah, if he would have them, I would never go on his show. How come? I don't know, I just don't trust him.

I would chat with him off air, but I just don't trust that he has goodwill towards the church in that he's not, I don't know if he's terribly open to hearing a person's position of faith. Are you saying you're afraid he would, after the interview, like splice it in such a way that later? I think on air he would just go after you without really trying to listen. I think so. Okay. But I think if I

met him and we had a cigar and we could chat, like I think we'd get along. I just wouldn't trust that. It's frustrating though, like I saw him say something about abortion or faith that's just way off. You're like, oh man, if you met any well-formed Catholic, they could disabuse you of that notion. Well, what he said recently is that the thing that keeps him from becoming Republican, and I don't care what he becomes, you know, I'm not here to champion any party,

but I like what Jimmy Akin said to me. He's like, I'm going to vote for who I think hates me less. Isn't that a great way to decide who to vote for? The logic of wonderful. Yeah, that's why I'd vote for. That's why I would have voted for Trump if I were American, because I think he hated me less probably than Hillary Clinton, you know. What was I saying? Oh, yeah.

He said the thing that would that prevent him from becoming a Republican is the gay marriage thing and the abortion thing. And I think like conservatism is this like weird thing that we don't really understand what it is. It's like we're conserving what people thought was OK five years ago, but maybe what they thought five years ago was insane. So we shouldn't be we should go far deeper. So it would be really sad to see conservatives start to justify immorality like sodomy,

like abortion, like pornography in order to get votes. I'm sure we'll see that. Yeah. And I would just say, so to your point, conservatives is, and there's always the question of what are we trying to conserve? And there seems to be some people in the conservative movement, how I've like given up on marriage and that is to give up on marriage is to give up on society. Like it would jump all the seconds. So goes goes then family so goes the nation. It's just a fact so Marriage is always worth fighting for what marriage is, you know

Yep. So yeah, you're right To abandon it would be insane. You can't build a culture without it I feel like trying to build a I think Anthony Esselstyn uses this analogy So trying to build a house out of styrofoam or a canoe out of cement. It's not the material. The way you build cultures properly is families. Yeah. That's just what you do. That's really good. I love Anthony Esselstyn. I really wanted him to come on my show, but he, he's not traveling. Um, so, and he wanted to do like a Skype

interview. I don't do that. Really? Yeah. OK. I like sitting with people and seeing him. I love Esalen. He's so terrific. He's he's an incredible writer. I think I got so many great interviews coming up in September. Peter Crave's coming back in. Oh, nice. I don't know if I told you this or not, but I reached out to him like,

hey, would you come on my show? He's like, yes, but like I have like I have a daily rate. He's like, I'm a I'm a philosophical, what do you say, like intellectual prostitute? I'm like, I'm happy to be your John. How much do you need? He said that in his talk at Steubenville, his graduation speech. He said that.

Did he say that? Don't a graft. I love that man. I met a wonderful Protestant man, says Mark Bollinger, on Friday, who loves us and defines with a quietness Trent. And I forgot who else he also just found out he is going to be a dad. Pray for Eli. What's he like? Joe Rogan loves his daughters, says this person.

You can tell now imagine if his wife told him she wanted to get an abortion. Fair enough. Cooper, who I'm going to bow down towards. Yes, Cooper says, Matt, do you think that we are in a, tides are turning time right now, both in America and the church, like a snowball teetering on the apex of a snowy rooftop? Very poetic of you, Cooper.

Wow. What do you think? Father, I'll throw that question your way. Oh, friend, I don't know. Do I think our culture or the church is at a turning point? I feel a lot of hope, I really do. I mean, I saw part of your interview with Steven Rommelsberger after Roe v. Wade,

which Roe v. Wade was like a miracle. It was a miracle. It was a miracle on the feast of the sacred heart, the last day of pride month, and moving forward will be the feast of the nativity of the last day of pride month, and moving forward it will be the feast of the nativity of Saint John the Baptist when he left in his mother's womb. Only the Lord, I mean only the Lord could have done that.

Isn't that the most unbelievable thing? Yes. He's like, I'm in control. So the Roe v. Wade thing is quite exciting and that the democratic process is now in place. So I think it's an incredible opportunity for our culture. And it would send shock waves throughout the world as we become more pro-life. democratic process is now in place. So I think it's an incredible opportunity for our culture. And it would send shock waves throughout the world

as we become more pro-life. So in that sense, I think that's a very decisive moment. But you know, the gospel has power. The gospel has power and it's power. I think one of the good things for me in our culture, sometimes we get in a place where I'm like, where do we go from here? I just think people need the gospel. Like you read the rising triumph of the modern self?

It's the best description of modern man's written by Carl Truman. It's amazing And anyway in it he's talking about something called expressive individualism, which is a modern man has been Psychologized he thinks of himself and like about his feelings and then he was sexualized and he's been politicized And so to be a person today is to be authentic, which that means I need to express all of my desires, especially my sexual desires and that happiness is found in doing that. And any limit of that is considered like you're hurting there, preventing me from being happy. So when I read this book, I'm like,

this is right. And it's devastating. It's, he traced all that to like Jean Jacques Rousseau, you know, I'm like, what's the answer to this and I think the only answer must be metanoia Must be like repent and believe in the gospel like only Jesus could radically change your whole worldview. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so I love reading philosophy But if you pray over somebody you get like a word of knowledge for them and they suddenly know that God is real He loves them. He cares about them. Knows everything about their life. He's a healer.

He's good. He's kind. Do you know what I mean? All of the things were just proven in one moment. One of my, actually, you know, this is how much I like your homilies, Father. I actually played one of them for my kids. It was so terrific.

And one thing you said in that is like, Jesus is the savior. Like that's what he does. He loves to save. Do you know what I'm talking about? Can you talk about that? I think I use the analogy of like Jesus his name means God saves. That's what his name literally means. He loves to save stuff, right?

So that'd be like you having a friend his name his name is I love to save stuff And then finally you're like something breaks and you're like, well, I want to ask him and he's kind of busy You're like that's something else breaks like no, you know, he's probably like, you know, I don't want to be like inconvenience him then finally one day he's like, oh man, he comes over house I call this stuff's broken. You're like, why didn't you ask me to help? It's like what I didn't want to like inconvenience you he's like my name is I love to say stuff and I named myself I love to say stuff cuz that's what my name is, you know And that's his name means God saves and so when something is broken he loves to safe and

Something Graham Cook the writer says is, he said, Jesus is the kindest person I've ever met. He said he was the kindest person the first day I met him, and he's been the kindest person to me every day since. Amen. And so I just, it doesn't matter what somebody's done. If somebody's out there listening right now who committed serious sin, abortion, whatever,

like Jesus is the kindest person I've ever met and he's kind to you and that is that is good news. And the key to sin is that we repent and I've had to repent many times in my life. I will have to repent many more times in my life but the way to peace is repentance. Like we got to pray with David like what is evil in your side I've done, you know Blot out my iniquity, you know But when we do that Jesus is the kindest person

So I always have hope because Jesus is Lord, you know, yeah One of my favorite spiritual books to read is I believe in love. Oh, yeah and in it He says I'm not telling you you believe too much in your own wretchedness Oh, you're far more rich than you could ever possibly understand what I'm telling you is you don't too much in your own wretchedness. Oh, you're far more wretched than you could ever possibly understand. What I'm telling you is you don't believe enough in merciful love, because I think we have a knee jerk reaction as Catholics in the modern era. When somebody starts talking about the kindness and mercy of Christ, it's like we get our guard up like, oh, I don't want to get somehow into some erroneous idea of God.

And so I think it helps to kind of say both of those things at once. Like you're far better and far worse than you think. Amen. Amen. And don't look at your wretchedness apart from the merciful gaze of Christ, who is the kindest person you could ever possibly meet. That's right. Yeah. This my one of my old teachers and somebody said there's a, there's a sinful way to think about sin or talk about sin,

which is to think about sin outside of the context of mercy. So sin is worse than we could ever possibly imagine. Like we simply wouldn't do it if we could actually see the effects of it. So mercy must be the catechism says God shows his almighty power primarily through the forgiveness of sins. Isn't that wild? As Pope Benedict says, God is so big he can be small. Like he can humble himself because he's not in competition with anyone. You know he doesn't have a low self-esteem. Like I

gotta stomp you out. You know what James and John are like, do you want us to call down fire? He's like, no. No. No. Jesus named them the sons of thunder. That was his nickname for them. I didn't realize that was his nickname them the sons of thunder. That was his nickname for it. I didn't realize that was his nickname. The sons of thunder. These dudes, what were James and John like? We just want to call them fire. I love that.

That's what I'd be if I was Jesus. You want us to call them fire? We'll do it. Guys, let's have some hummus. We'll be all right. Oh my gosh. Let's keep looking at some. What'll be all right. Oh my gosh. Let's keep looking at some. What are we talking about?

I don't know, but his Cooper again. What's up, Cooper? I'm trying to keep up with issues and attending political meetings. It is exhausting, but I feel that now is a uniquely important time to be engaged in the culture. Then place the rest at Jesus's feet. Don't criticize him. Even if that isn't exactly right.

Oh, no, I think anything Cooper says is gold. rest at Jesus' feet. Don't criticize him even if that isn't exactly right. Oh no, I think anything Cooper says is gold. That's what I'm saying. We have an obligation to be in the public square. Anthony says, Matt just wanted to say you've played a huge role in my reversion beginning three to four years ago at university. I love your show and often bring your channel up in an effort to evangelize family. Thank you. Amen. There was one earlier from Ben. Hey, Matt, thank you so much for helping me grow and become a practicing Catholic. As a young guy, it's hard to find a good Catholic, or find good Catholic role models around now. And Father, any tips on how to pray well? Oh yeah, well we talked about this a

lot, but maybe we can sum it up. How do you pray, Father? Well, you should. That's the first thing. I would say very simply, Catechism of the Second Vatican Council says every Catholic should be fed at the two tables Which is the table of the Eucharist and the table of the word? So we want to know and love the mass so I would read books about the mass like the Lamb Supper And then I would try to really pray the mass and not just pray at mass but pray the mass and so by that I mean when I go to mass the priest is saying those prayers on my behalf He's a mediator which means there's a go-betweener And so one of my favorite things is you I see to a teaching mass for my high school students

And at one point they would ask hey father when you're on like when you're looking at the book Do you do you know what it says? I said? Yeah a lot of it I do they said well, then why don't you look at us? Then I would say, Oh, cause I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to God on your behalf. So you don't want me looking at you. Want me to be thinking about the Lord, which is what like Otter into mass, right? That's the confusion. It creates. I look at the people. It's not their fault. They're confused. It's our fault that we turned around and looked at them. Yeah.

Sometimes you are like the Lord be with you as you are doing, but, but a lot of times like you're saying the Eucharistic prayer, for instance, you're speaking this on their behalf. So yeah, I wanna be praying that along. The second thing is, the word of God is, Pope Benedict says he thinks the entire renewal of the church and the world will come about through a prayerful rating of scripture.

And he's right. It's the living word of God. I mean, it has power to convict to heal to restore Cutting between bone and marriage so any of the thoughts that you want to pray act as if you believe that's true I'm mad before you believe it's true even that's exactly right It's accurate if it were true because I don't know you when I was a kid the new American Bible had like daisies on the cover Looks like the Vaughn trap family is gonna come out the heels are alive look like the cover of Yeah, the sound of music.

And I was like, this is just not, I was like 15, you know, like read this. No, thank you. And then I studied Spanish in Guatemala when I was a seminarian and the covers of their Bible say Dios habla hoy, God speaks today. And I was like, Ooh. And so I, I like I right now I'm living in Psalm 23. I'm just living in Psalm 23 and 23, and I was praying with it, and it said, even though I walked the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me.

And those five words, it was like the rest of the Bible went blurry, you know how good we get iPhones, like urine, and everything else goes blurry, those five words. And I was like, for you are with me. And I was just like enamored, like like the Lord is with me and he's for me. How does that even mean? So anyway, that's the word that has power to change us, convict us. So I would say starting out, um, whether that's praying, literally the hours,

obviously the rosary scriptural prayer, but that I have, I'm praying with scripture. I pray before in and also learn to love the mass. I'd say those are kind of basics, getting a prayer life started. I like it. Kyle Whittington, who is on local said, Matt, while you're gone, would it be strange if I dropped off a bottle of booze at the studio when I visit student bill next weekend? That's so kind of you. Well, Kyle, two things. We have first Friday on fourth street. So there's a street party every month here in student bill.

We'll get like thousands of people who show up. Really? Yeah. Wow. So Kyle, I'll be there. So if you're there, look out for me. I'd love to see you. I'll buy you a beer. You can totally drop off a bottle of booze, but you know where you might be able to do it

that would make the most sense, because since I don't want to give out my address on live YouTube, you could give it to, go to the coffee shop here, Leo's, just give a bottle of booze and say, this is for Matt. And they'll give it to me next time. But I hope I get to catch up with you, Kyle. I'd love to meet you. Zach says, just want to say how happy I am to have taken the locals plunge.

I'd otherwise be dreading Matt's month off, but the community here is solid, encouraging, inspired and loving. I look forward to what gets posted here so much. Yeah, I really want to encourage people to go sign up on locals. You know, Twitter suspended me. Tiktok has given us a red flag. It might not be that long until YouTube bans me. And it'd be cool if we could keep talking and you could keep consuming this content.

And the way to do that would be to go join us over on matfrad.locals.com. Just so you guys know what you get. You can you can go follow me over there without paying me a cent, by the way. You can do that and you can see a lot of the posts that go up there. You just kind of engage in the community in the comments section and you know, until you support us. But my friend Derek Cummins is going to be leading a book study every single morning of August in every weekday.

And it's going to be the ladder of diviner sent by John Climacus. Is that how you say it? I always forget how to say it anyway. Damascus? No, no, no. I don't know. So you can go check that out. You don't have to pay anything to be a part of those live streams. And just in case people missed it, we've paid someone to professionally record

Interior Castle. And so every day in August, there's going to be a chapter released and you can play that audio book. We have a locals app so you can download the locals app on iOS and Android. And every day you can listen and you'll listen to the entirety of Interior Castle. And you know, I just came out with an ink on paper newsletter. No, yeah, I'm so excited about it. I'll put in your address so you can start getting it.

It's really beautiful and excellent. It looks great. It's actually on newspaper paper. It looks really old school. It's beautifully put together. There's articles and essays and Catholic crosswords and comic books that I've commissioned and poetry. And you guys can get that just by becoming an annual local supporter. If you go to matfred.locals.com, become an annual supporter for any amount. And then the pinned comment will ask you to put in your address. You'll start getting these will even pay shipping. So if you live in Yemen or Namibia or Australia or Canada, we'll pay shipping as

well. And you'll just start getting them quarterly. Lots of cool stuff over there. Beautiful. Heidi says, not a question, just a statement. If you don't have Mother Natalia wrong within the next year, I riot. Just meditate on that in August. I will absolutely have her on I'm pretty sure she's scheduled to come back on I had her last time as sister Natalia She's the mother of a community. No, no, she's an Eastern nun. And so I guess mother is the name After they've made final profession, okay

I did not know the last time I was here. She's like Matt you she was on air So Matt you shaved your beard and you're now not going to the Eastern church anymore. You've become a real pansy. Thanks, mother. That I can't do. She's so beautiful. My gosh, if she weren't a nun and I weren't married and she were into me. OK, Lumini says after watching the video. OK, I want to ask you to tell me that hilarious story about that priest that was in love with Sister Miriam.

Speaking of people who are in love with nuns. Can I tell the story you told me? Or do you want to tell me? I promise it's appropriate. Oh, sure. Okay. You and I were having coffee together in Arizona, I think. And you said this to me.

You said a priest friend of mine said, I'm in love with, can I tell the story? Sure. Well, no, sure. Well, now it's going to be weird if I don in love with, can I tell the story? Sure. Oh no. Sure. Well now it's going to be weird if I don't. Yeah, go ahead. I'm in love with sister Miriam. And you were like, yeah, I know.

We're all in love with her. He's like, no, no, no, dude. I think I'm in love with her. And you were like, yeah, deli counter, take a ticket. We're all in love with her. That's right. I did say that. I think I said the line starts right here.

You said that. She's so lovely. Mother Natalia right now. And I don't know how super public it is on, but it's in the schedule for September. Oh my gosh, see I can't wait to come back from August so I can interview these beautiful people. I love my job. I love this so much. Amen. There's the sirens. Steubenville.

You know it's safe. That's my wife's line. You know it's safe because you always hear police sirens. Steubenville. You know, it's safe. That's my wife's line. You know, it's safe because you always hear police sirens. Wait, what? Lumine says, after watching a YouTube vid, which mentioned how it's going not to sleep with not good to go to sleep with electrical things near your head. Yeah. Well, that would be right. Due to the electrical waves as you'll sleep better.

I don't realize that I now don't take my phone's TV laptop to bed with me, but have a battery operated moonlight on my bedside table. What is that and a radio? Clock only at the other end of the room people have those lights that are like the moon and then a light inside So it looks like a glowing moon. I wonder if that's what they mean. Okay Gina says so I have poor television and most social media two years ago I gave up Facebook for Lent never look back canceled my cable don't miss it at All any plans to permanently cut a type of technology not including Twitter Did do you to cut a permanent second? Yeah, like okay. It's cool. We're giving up for a month, but

She's asking you this question Okay, so I don't know. I don't know. I'll probably have grand plans when I return But I gotta be honest I think like I tell you who checks my, I'm going to burn it all down and move to the woods. Other people I meet all the time who say that their lives are changing. I mean, I, I don't know how else to say that. I understand that could sound arrogant,

but I had people come up to me and they say I'm Catholic because of points with Aquinas. Now they usually also say, and Bishop Robert Barron and father Mike Schmitz and great. Happy to be a little guy in the tag Team wrestling team of that, but it's such an honor. So I hear that and It's barren fruit Glory to Jesus Christ now from a priest once said like, you know Lord use my bull crap as manure for their growth So use what I do well and use the things that do bad use it all Lord Jesus

I surrender it all to you amen amen amen man so many comments you seeing any good ones this priest seems Fantastic and I look forward to his show It's my mother. I don't know who it is Happy Feast of Ignatius of Leola. He says didn't know that yes, it is sweet What would be with this guy asked if yeah, all right See I'm afraid to quit this live stream because when I do be this guy asked if you're all right. See, I'm afraid to quit this live stream because when I do, that's it. I got to give you my computer and walk away from this thing. Actually, I thought about this.

I think sometimes we want to get immersed in things we want to dissociate because we want to cease to exist. You ever heard that phrase, I want to drink myself into oblivion. That literally means I don't want to cease to exist. You ever heard that phrase? I want to drink myself into oblivion. That literally means I don't want to exist anymore, and I think that's the root of many of our addictions. We don't like ourselves. We don't like existing with our interior chaos and we seek something to silence it. So video games or booze or porn or

just doom scrolling Facebook, we just don't exist. We don't want to sit in the in our own poverty before the master and. Reconcile ourselves in in his gaze, you know. Yeah, I think that's actually we just made a heavy turn. I'll just say, I think that's actually, uh, we just made a heavy turn. I'll just say, I think that's actually the primary cause of school shootings. I think the primary cause is that people,

we create people in our culture who don't know why they exist. And that is a tragedy. And it's, it's an unbearable pain when you, because as dark as this is, if somebody hates their life and they want to end their life, they could just send their life. But why do they go into school and shoot little kids? I think it's the logic is something like this My life has no purpose or meaning my life is absurd and therefore I project that on other people If my life is has without purpose in anything, guess what?

None of your lives have purpose and so it's like a revolt as Jordan Peterson says it's like a revolt against being itself Like I hate being I don't want to exist. So I think you're right, but I wonder if people in our culture, it's because we're, so do we distract ourselves from that question or do we actually know that that's true? And therefore we're trying to move into, uh, to immerse ourselves in some, something that will, we can sort of obliviate ourselves. Here's how I've summed it up in the past with a little analogy.

If you and I go to a party and we're at the little table getting some crackers and cheese and we see someone across the room who's headed our way and we don't like that person, what do you do? Well, most of us, unless we decided to be particularly charitable, would quickly turn away if they hadn't made eye contact yet and go our little way. Right? We try to distance ourselves from that thing we don't want to engage. But when you're the person you don't want to engage and be with, it's a little more difficult. So I think plunging headlong into a myriad of distractions to fragment our interior life so we don't have to exist with ourselves is to take it. That's like the best you got.

Yeah. You know, somebody said people fear silence, not because they fear the solitude, but because of the person they'll meet there. That's it. Yeah. That's it, man. All right. So I guess this is it, baby. Father Parks, what are your thoughts on gun control?

No, it does. That's not real. It is. No, it's not. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Chad, Chad, the Numenorean.

I literally got that question not real. It is. No, it's not. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Chad, the Numenorean. I literally got that question yesterday after my talk and I was like, I don't know.

Like I was like, I don't know if I'll add anything substantive or interesting to that. Someone came up during my talk at the conference and asked me my opinions on Harry Potter. And there was like 850 people in front of me. I'm like, I am not going to divide the room. So I was like, Trent Horn's got a great podcast on this next question. Anyway, do you want to answer that?

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I would add anything substantive to it. Like I understand the second amendment. I understand why we have it. Um, having said that obviously what's going on in our culture is utterly tragic. As far as this is going on, where those two things meet in the middle, I, I don't like to talk about things that I feel like feel like I haven't researched. Well, do you have thoughts about it?

Thoughts about it. I have thoughts on everything. You have opinions about everything. I think that the right to life, uh, Trump's all other rights and we have a right to protect that. And it therefore seems to make the most sense that we should be able to defend that with the means necessary. So I'm a pro-owning gun guy. As I understand, this is from Antonin Scalia.

He said that back in England, they would allow militias, but then they would just take all their guns. What's that? They would allow militias, they just wouldn't allow them to their guns. What's that? They would allow militias, they just wouldn't allow them to have guns. Okay. But a militia without a gun is something that no government's afraid of.

It's like a rowdy party. Exactly, I've got these sharp elbows. So he was like, well, that was the reason why the second amendment says, you know, the right to bear arms for a well regulated militia, you know? So anyway, so that's an interesting argument. I think it makes sense.

I also think that arguments that seem obviously. Like it's sort of like it's when something sounds good, but then you engage that thought seriously, you sometimes realize it's terribly more complicated than they're making out. Get rid of guns. Like, okay, tell me exactly how that's going to happen because there are more guns than human beings in the United States. So how does that happen? Who's enforcing that? Who's most likely to surrender their guns.

What does that look like? Yeah. And for me, I agree with all that. There's, there's a real complexity there. And I, first of all, I think, are they saying no guns? Are they saying some people still have guns? Just citizens wouldn't have guns. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. The other thing I'm saying though is,

I feel when we have this conversation about gun control, we're often forgetting the root of the problem, which is why are we creating people in our culture who want to go into schools and shoot children before either ending their life or being killed shortly thereafter? Do you know what I mean? So that to me is the more interesting question. Like what is happening?

How does the human being get to this point? But I would like Americans who are pro gun to try to take their ideological opponents seriously and to respond to them in a way that they can hear. Cause what I often find is the polarization in this country is so great that anyone who opposes our core beliefs as a particular political American is seen as a threat and the answers we give are often aggressive and Not treating the person like they're coming from a place of good will,

because very often they're not. But sometimes they are. Like try to put yourself in my parents shoes, right? That sounds weird, but let me go with it for a second. Like I mean, they hear, oh, another gun, another series of shootings in America. And like, bloody hell, what is with Americans in guns? Now maybe you've heard that objection and maybe you think you know how to answer that. Good answer it, but try to take their concern into account or else they won't be able to hear you.

And what you ultimately want is for them to hear you. I mean, this this is true of every objection people put to us or that we put to them. We want to be heard. And we even want them to articulate our position better than we can so that we can trust that they've understood where we're coming from before you respond. Amen. And yeah. Yeah, one other thing I just think is a factor. I don't know how big it is.

I think this is probably with shooting with gun shooting. So I saw this after 9 11, probably something with COVID, which is we just don't have as much control as we want. Like there are things that are out of our control in life. And it makes us feel helpless. Death makes us feel helpless. Tragedy makes us feel helpless. Pandemics can make us feel helpless. And there are just things that are outside of our control.

And I understand that politicians can't say that because they have to like have the answers, do you know what I mean? But yeah, like as a pastor of a grade school, anytime a school shooting happens, everyone's like, lock it down, 40 foot walls, barbed wire, you know? And you're like, well, we could do that to our children,

but I don't know if that's a reasonable thing. But do you see what I'm saying? I think that's just a piece of it, that existentially, it's very painful to feel helpless. And so we wanna feel like we can do something. I'm not saying there isn't something we can do, but I'm saying that we can't also escape the fact that part of life is-

Yeah, risk death. It's like with COVID, right? It was that kind of maybe in some sectors, like an overreaction, where it's like we need to make sure there's no risk. That's exactly right. And so you can't say that to a lot of people because what it sounds like you're saying is I want people to die from this. You're like, I'm not saying that. I'm saying everyone is going to die and that we have to somehow find our ways to live despite

the fact that there are infectious diseases or these other things. So all right, baby. Here we go. This is it Wow, I don't mean to drag it out So I'm not because I'm making it but do you have any closing comments before you go away for a month? I would just ask people to please if it's okay with them to please maybe offer a rosary for me and my family I like to tell people a specific prayer. They can pray I feel like just pray for me is a little too vague But if you would offer a holy rosary Good five good solid five decades not just one decade

Not just one of those Hail Mary's in the introductory press now. I want a whole rosary pray for me Pray for my wife pray for our kids. I'd really greatly appreciate it That's it all right Neil hey look Shayla's on Neal's fiance. Oh wow. She gives some advice to Shayla. Is she really? That's Neil's fiance. Oh wow. Why don't you give some advice to Shayla as she's about to get married to Neil. Shayla, I just met your future husband and he was wearing sandals with space socks. That would be socks with planets on them.

And I immediately liked it. I was like, yeah, I like this. So anyway, I don't know who you are Shayla, but I'm excited about your life. And Neil seems delightful. And I'm just excited for you guys So that's about it. So here's what's good. You've ever done this thing where you know how you hop around from sorry No, did you I just said thank you. Oh, yeah You have a hop around from window to window. You know what I mean? Like you open up like right now I've got one two, three, four, five, six, seven eight nine ten tabs open. Yes, you know what all they are

They're all are let's see. Do you want to know what all they are? What they're all are. Let's see. Do you want to know what they are? Yep, please. Pineswithaquinas.com. All right, I'm about to close it. I'm closing it for the last time until September 1st. Hey guys, if you haven't gone check out

pineswithaquinas.com, it's our brand new website. Bunch of money went into it. It looks really cool. Go check it out. We've got four blogs a week coming out and they're written very beautifully and the text is like large enough. And you know, sometimes you open up an article it's like oh my gosh I

can't read this the font is too small it's beautifully laid out pints with Aquinas comm go check it out I'm gonna close that off now boom next one is my victory channel okay yeah I have another YouTube channel called victory it's to help people overcome pornography go check that out people if you want. I'm about to close that off for the last time. Chk-boom! All right, here is my Gmail. Oh, you know what?

I need to make sure that I've set my vacation responder for Gmail. Oh, that's important. Yep, it's set. I'm closing that off. Chk-boom! Chk-boom! My dear friends on Locals, I love you so much and I cannot wait to see you in September, closing that off. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom

boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom Bam.

This next window is another Gmail. All right. Not as exciting. Check that. Close that. This next one is GK Chesterton. Because we were looking at that quote. The best line from GK Chesterton Because we were looking up that quote The best line from GK Chesterton ever poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese Virgil if I remember right refers to it several times, but with too much Roman restraint

He does not let himself go on cheese The only other poet I can think of just now who seems to have had some sensibility on the point was the nameless author of The nursery rhyme which says if all the trees were bread and cheese, which is indeed a rich and gigantic vision of the high gluttony. We're going to read this entire thing. If all the trees were bread and cheese, there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where I was living. I love him. All right. By Chesserton. Love you. Chkaboom. This next one. OK, so shout out to George

Farmer, who's the CEO of Parla. Him and I've been chatting lately. He seems like a beautiful guy. He was telling me to check out Dennis Prager's cigar recommendations because I wanted to buy some cigars before I went

offline. Closing that off. Chica boom. Next one is Michael O'Brien. We were looking at his books. Chica boom off, boom. Next one is Michael O'Brien. We were looking at his books, boom. And now the final one is the YouTube channel. Father Parks, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Boom, close it off. All right, bye everybody. Bye everybody. God bless, shutting it down, shutting it down.