Pints With Aquinas - On Hell, Heaven, and the Fate of Your Soul (Dr. Ralph Martin) | Ep. 589

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Dr. Ralph Martin is here to discuss his new book "The Coming Judgment," the neglected doctrine of hell, the final judgment, biblical evidence for eternal damnation, objections from universalism, and the church's need to preach these truths more boldly. Ep. 589 Theotokos Rosaries: https://dwplus.shop/TheotokosRosaries - - - 📚 Resources Mentioned: The Coming Judgement: Are We Ready?: https://stpaulcenter.com/store/the-coming-judgment-are-we-ready Renewal Ministries: https://www.youtube.com/@RenewalMinistries The Hell There Is - Msgr. Charles Pope: https://a.co/d/04uEtx9G Truthy 30 Day Free Trial: https://get.truthly.ai/TlbX/MATT30 - - - Today's Sponsors: Catholic Herald - Subscribe to Catholic Herald, and enter promo code FRADD for 30 days of free access: https://thecatholicherald.com/subscribe?plan=us-digital-monthly&coupon=FRADD Charity Mobile - Visit https://charitymobile.com/MATTFRADD and use code MATTFRADD to get a free phone with every new line, plus free activation and free shipping. Shopify - Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at https://shopify.com/pints Seven Weeks Coffee - Go to https://sevenweekscoffee.com/PINTS  and save 15% forever when you subscribe. Plus, use code PINTS for an additional 10% off your first order and a free gift. Hallow - If you’d like to grow deeper in your relationship with God, visit https://hallow.com/mattfradd and get 3 months free. Exodus90 - Download the Exodus 90 app today, or visit https://Exodus90.com/matt - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: ⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe⁠⁠ 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. - - - 📕 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://a.co/d/bDU0xLb 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mattfradd.locals.com/support⁠⁠⁠⁠ - - - 💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattfradd 𝕏 Twitter/X: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas⁠⁠⁠ 🎵 TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠https://tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas⁠⁠⁠ 📚 PWA Merch – ⁠⁠⁠https://dwplus.shop/MattFraddMerch⁠⁠ 👕 Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com - - - Privacy Policy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/privacy⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Car shopping this Civic Holiday weekend, most car dealerships are closed and all you'll find are crickets. Not Performance Auto Group, they're open this Saturday and Holiday Monday for their annual Civic Holiday Sales Events. Celebrate this long weekend with rates from 0%. They might be closed. Performance Auto Group is open to serve you. Join Performance Auto Group this Saturday or Civic Holiday Monday 9 to 5 for the best time to shop this summer. Now streaming on Disney Plus, the Hulu Arroup. The original series Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black, played by Emmy Rossum, on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer.

Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. New episodes week over week. Watch the Hulu original series Furious, now streaming only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest.

Conditions apply. Visit Scotia Bank.com slash H-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. What is hell like? People have chosen to be separated from the source of life, the source of love, the source of kindness. It's a pretty painful state.

At a certain time, he's going to say, the world has been given a generous chance to be saved. I'm not looking for robots. I'm not looking for slaves. This is going to sound shocking too. God's looking for love. Could I throw some objections your way? It seems like an unloving thing to torture.

Don't use that word. Okay, why? I'd like to talk a little bit about scrupulosity. Scrupulosity is really a psychological condition. If we couldn't have hope in Christ, then perpetual, terrifying panic would be perfectly appropriate. What indication might we have that the end is coming? He does give significant signs that will come in close proximity to his return.

We don't understand what this life thing is. Is this like a hedonistic debauchous romp? Like sex in the city? Is it like the show Survivor where I have to outlive my friends? Or is it a dramatic spiritual war? Cold showers, holy hours and 2 a.m. night vigils. the Columba Jordan CFR and the Exodus 90 Brotherhood for the St. Michael Lent Challenge. We start August 12th.

Download the Exodus 90 app today or visit Exodus 90.com slash Matt. I think I've had you even five times before this. Yeah, there's a number, yeah. Maybe three or four, I don't know. No, I think five. You think five? I counted. I think this is six.

Oh, this is a six. Wow. It's great to have you. Well, I must be okay then. Well, I mean, you. You teach the scriptures and you help us love Jesus Christ and listen to His Word. Are we being recorded right now? Oh, yeah.

This is being, not live, but it's being recorded. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. But no, I love you for that. You know, it's funny is I think it was your first book in 1983. Is that correct? I actually wrote something in a little big booklet way back in 70 something when the charismatic queen was first coming.

and I didn't write about the charismatic renewal. I wrote about confusion in the church. That was in the 70s. You wrote that. Yeah. And then in 1982, I, well, in 1978, I did a book called Hungry for God, practical help and personal prayer, which was a pretty popular book, and double-day published that.

And then in 1982, I published a book called The Crisis of Truth, the undermining of faith, morality, and mission in the church today. So one of the people who works for me said, Ralph, you've been saying this. same thing for 45 years. Yeah. Yes. Jesus Christ is the same. Yes.

You've been a gadfly on the butt of a, of a church that is, I think, since the council, maybe before, I didn't live then, but due to lack of oversight or what have you, this church just more, not the church per se, but individuals and structures within the church, seemingly willing to abandon the word of God to say it's just words. about God to abandon the teachings of the church when they're uncomfortable. It does seem like there's more of that than there should be, you know, to just say it. But for somebody who's always like being the gadfly, and you're a very joyful man. Well, because Jesus is the Lord, and we know how it's going to end, and nothing's happening that

he isn't permitting to happen, and anything he permits to happen, even the bad stuff, he's got a plan to bring good out of. So, you know, maybe the good he's going to bring out of it is a remnant. You know, Pope Benedict seemed to think that when he was just a young priest in Germany, that the church is going to get a lot smaller, but it's going to be a lot more a spiritual church, a church that's really... I'd love to get to that because I think sometimes that is used as a way to justify quasi-apostasy or quasi-sism.

I know you don't mean that, of course. No, but I agree. I absolutely agree with you. The church is getting smaller, so it's going to be better, but it may be getting smaller because we're so unfaithful and we're so irresponsible. It's such lousy leadership. It's such crappy teaching and preaching, really. You know, like, I have some statistics here.

I know I saw them. They're horrific. I get them right here. From 1972 to 2024, the number of Catholic churches and missions has declined from 335 to 213. This is the Archdiocese to Detroit. Yeah. The number of Catholic schools has declined from 223 to 80. Yeah. Infant baptism went down by 68%. Yeah. And when infant baptists go down, future parishioners are going to really go down too. And Catholic marriage is decreased by 69%. So when you don't have Catholic marriages, you don't have children, you don't have children being raised in the faith. So I'd say the statistics for the Archdiocese of Detroit are actually devastating. These statistics were put out by Archership Vigna just before he retired. And he used, he used.

the scripture passage, Jesus saying, don't take another tunic with you, but he says, we just gotta really depend on the Lord more. We've just got to really turn to the Lord more. This is not just like a irreducible, sociological, cultural thing. There's a spiritual thing here going on. We really need to take

it seriously. But it's absolutely devastating. You know, from just over four years, population in the Catholic schools decreased by 50% just from 2020 to 2020. Well, that might be good. People might be homeschooling. I doubt it. Yeah. So anyway, things are awful. Some things are, but you don't know other places, things are wonderful.

Well, if people are wondering, we are reading from your new book, The Coming Judgment, Are We Ready? In full transparency, I've only read about half of it. It's a beautifully put-together book. Congratulations to you and Amas Road for putting together a lovely book. Thank you. No, I'm very excited about the book because I've been concerned about these themes of the second coming and final judgment for as long as I've been reading the scripture. Yeah. And I've been just as concerned about how few times I've ever heard a sermon on these really critical truths. Like every Sunday in the Nicene Creed we say, he's coming again in glory to church living the dead. I don't think I've ever heard a sermon about what this is really saying. You know, is Jesus really going to come, you know, and is it going to be really a final judgment?

What's about? What's going to be the questions on the final exam, you know, type of thing? I'd like to ask everybody watching right now in the comment section, let us know, when is the last time you heard a sermon about hell? I think the last time I heard a sermon about hell was at a beautiful FSSP church in San Diego. And that would have been about 13 years ago. Yeah. I know it's... What about you?

When's the last time? You know, I don't know if I've ever heard a sermon on hell. That was like really serious or ever heard a sermon on the second coming or the final judgment. There's so much revealed in God's word about these things. It is so important that we know them because they're an essential part of the gospel. You know, we used to say the gospel acclamation at mass. Christ has died. Crisis seriously.

Christ will come again. The plane of salvation isn't finished until the Lord returns. again in glory and there's a judgment. I mean, the whole thing isn't finished. We need to know how it ends and what happens in between, the first coming, the second coming of Christ, you know. So years ago, a husband and a wife in Lithuania sent me one of their handmade rosaries, and I was so struck by it, the weight, the quality, the care in every detail. It was seriously the most beautiful rosary I'd ever seen. Now, in collaboration with Theotokos Rosaries, I'm making two of their hand-crafted rosaries available to you over.

at Dailywire.com slash shop. Italian olive wood, gold, plated brass, micro braid cord built for a lifetime of prayer. Each one made by hand in Lithuania. These are not just beautiful rosaries. They can be family heirlooms that you would pass down. Use for personal devotion. You can also give them as a wedding gift, ordination gift, confirmation gift, or for graduation. Now the first batch sold out right away. So, pre-order yours now at Daily wire.com slash shop before the next batch is gone. That's dailywire.com slash shop. Let me read something that you've quoted here from Dorothy Sayers. Is that how I say her name, a 20th century English Catholic writer? And maybe this is a great way to get into this subject.

And this is from, well, your introduction. There seems to be a kind of conspiracy to forget or to conceal where the doctrine of hell comes from. The doctrine of hell is not medial. The doctrine of hell is not medieval priestcraft for frightening people into giving money to the church. It is Christ's deliberate judgment on sin. We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ. Yeah. That's the bottom line, Matt. I mean, this is the inspired and errant word of God we're talking about. You know, they say, where did this thing about hell came from? It came from the lips of Jesus. It came from the Old Testament prophets. It came from the book of Genesis where the Lord says, if you do this, you're going to die. And from the very beginning, it's about a choice that's being presented

to human beings. It's like, I want to give you this amazing thing, but you need to choose it. You need to kind of harmonize yourself with it. You need to allow yourself to be purified, to grow, to grow in holiness. And if you don't want that, it's going to be deterioration in your life and a final deterioration in your life, which we call hell. You know, the page before that, Matt, there's a quote from Father Carter Griffin, who up until recently has been rector of the St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington, D.C., and I'm used to kind of like looking into this topic, but I was quite shocked when Father Carter Griffin wrote this in a book about spirituality. He said, I mean, it's going to be really shocking to hear this. He says, I am increasingly convinced that hell is the linchpin of faith. I know that sounds strange. It does, doesn't it? But let me explain. Certainly, our faith is primarily about going to heaven

and not just avoiding hell. It's about loving God and not just hating sin. It's about genuine joy, not just avoiding sadness. Nevertheless, the widespread denial of hell has undermined the very foundation of our faith, which is the incarnation. Jesus is called Savior because He saves us from something. If we don't need saving, then we don't need a Savior.

No belief in hell, no need for Jesus. It's as simple as that. Moreover, hell is not just a distant or theoretical possibility. Jesus would not have warned us so frequently about it if it posed little real dangers to us. Hell is real and you and I can go there. And then the final sentence says so much implications for evangelization. Hell intensifies above all the urgency of our preaching. It's true that we should not preach about hell all the time, but we we should preach about it at least some of the time. That line is excellent. Let's say that again.

Hell intensifies above all the urgency of our preaching. It is true that we should not preach about hell all the time, but we should preach about at least some of the time. Yeah. And that gets to the question earlier, when's the last time did we hear it preach? You know what? It occurred to me recently because people don't like the idea of hell. I don't like the idea of hell.

I think that's fine. And yet what we see among Protestants and some heretical Catholics is the desire to get rid of hell, to reinterpret it, to say, well, that actually comes from the Greek word this, and therefore that means this and not hell, as we now understand it. The only reason they're doing that is because they don't like the idea of hell. If those verses had to do with heaven, let's say we replaced every one of those instances, and it was Christ talking about heaven, there wouldn't be such a desire to get around what Christ was saying. We would take it at face value, it seems to me. And what this touches on is our fallenness. What this touches on is how

in some ways our wills have been corrupted, our minds have been darken, even after baptism and the guilt of original sin is taken away, the disorder desires are still there, the culture of the world is still there, the lives of the devil are still there. And so we're living in an environment that has trained us to be disobedient. And these days, particularly to be our authentic self, you know, nobody could tell me who I am. I'll tell you who I am. I'll tell you who I am. am, and if you don't like it, you're an enemy, you're a hater. And that, unfortunately, is profound rebellion against God and all of us do it in different kinds of ways. You know, Romans chapter one says, you know, people are without excuse because they knew God's will, but they exchange the truth of God for a lie. You know, they love the darkness more than the light. And because of that, their minds were darkened. So we're coming to the word of God with darkened minds. So we have to just just face the fact. So we've got to be careful when we react. And we're against something in God's word,

we're reacting out of a darkened mind to some extent. So we need to say, why am I reacting? What's being touched in my soul here? What area of reservation about resisting God's will? Am I touching here type of thing? And so I think every time we find ourselves reacting against something that Jesus says, we just need to ask ourselves, what is Jesus trying to help us with?

What is Jesus trying to free us from? What is Jesus trying to exchange in us? He wants to take away the lie and replace it with the truth. He wants to take away the rebellion and replace it with loving, grateful obedience. So that is just so critical when we deal about these issues about the coming judgment. That's such a helpful point to realize that we're not objective observers. as we read the scriptures. We are fallen creatures. And like Peter said of Paul's writings, the ignorant twist them to their own destruction. We can tend to do that, which is why we've been

what Jesus Christ established a church so that that church could teach us authoritatively what it is the scriptures are saying. Yeah. And believe me, what the church says is that what it seems to be saying is really what it's saying, you know, for the most part, really. You know, and. Yes. And, and, and, and, And not only do we have darkened minds, but we've made investments in things of this earth. We all have our own idols, you know, there's things that we really have wrapped our soul around that we're looking to for happiness, for vindication, for feeling good about ourselves type of thing. And when Jesus kind of pricks that and we react to it, we're reacting to Jesus' desire to actually bring us to our true self. to help us let go of the idols, to help us let go of the things that we wrapped our soul around

that will not bring us happiness in this life. It will not bring us eternal happiness. He's trying to bring us to something better. But a lot of times we say, no, I just like what I have. Thank you. You know, I just want to stay where I am. And if we just stay where we are in certain ways, depending on our idols, depending on our darkness, depending on our sins, where we're running the danger of closing ourselves off to the lifeline that the Lord is giving us in illumination of. of the Holy Spirit and the objective truth of His Word and the teaching of the church. So all I want to say is the people who are listening and watching

is anything we talk about now that you are disturbed by, please, please, please give the Holy Spirit a chance to show you why you're disturbed and bring you to a liberation, to a freedom, to a love that you don't know exists, you don't trust that exists, but it does exist and the Holy Spirit is trying to touch the darkness. in that little corner of your life so you can let go of it and find healing.

Would it be okay if I asked you to lead us and our viewers in that prayer now so that what we say can be received well? Yeah. Holy Father, thank you for loving us so much that you created us, that you gave us life, that you will us to be,

that you call each of our names, that you're inviting us to, to be with you forever, with the sorrows of this life and the sufferings of this life over forever. Thank you for still loving us, even in our sin, even in our fallenness, even in our rebellion. Thank you for sending us Jesus. Not only for sending us Jesus, but for showing us how awful sin is, by the awfulness of his suffering and the price he paid so that our sin can be forgiven.

that we can be born again of water in the spirit. And right now, Holy Father, we thank you for the apostles. We thank you for their witness. We thank you for their love of Jesus. We thank you for their repentance. We thank you for the courage that you infused in them on the day of Pentecost.

We thank you for the contemplative graces you poured into their soul in the day of Pentecost that helped them to really get what Jesus was saying. We thank you, Lord, for helping them to write it down. We help you, we thank you, Lord, for the Holy Word of God's sacred scripture. We thank you that the Catholic Church is affirmed again and again and again, including at Vatican 2, that this is the inspired and errant word of God, that whatever the apostolic right is assert is actually being asserted by the Holy Spirit. So, Father, please help everybody with us right now who will be hearing some challenging things,

some things that maybe they haven't heard before, some things that they know are theoretically true, but didn't know how relevant they are. Help us not to resist your word. Help us not to pretend we didn't hear it. Help us not to flee from it. Help us not to cover over the light that pierces our darkness, but allow that light to dispel the darkness

and bring us to healing and love and freedom. We ask us in the holy name of Jesus, your son, who has paid such a great pride, that we can be set free and brought it to eternal communion with you through the Holy Spirit. Amen. What would you have people know about judgment and hell? It's an important part of the gospel. You know, we profess his death, we proclaim his resurrection until he comes again.

Every Eucharist, we bring out all those dimensions of the carigms. So sometimes we think the charygma just includes crisis died, crisis race again. But in a part of the gospel message is he's returning in glory because it's not finished until he finishes it. It's not over until he declares it over. And what he has to do is enact a final judgment on the human race. He's going to give everybody as much time as possible to come to repentance, to come. to faith, to come to baptism, to come to membership in the church. But at a certain time, he's going to say, the world has been given a generous chance to be saved. I want everybody to be

saved, but I also want everybody to be free. I'm not looking for robots. I'm not looking for slaves. This is going to sound shocking, too. God's looking for love. God's looking for friends. That's what Jesus says. I don't call you slaves anymore. I call you friends. that's pretty amazing to hear the eternal and mortal God call us friends. I mean, we're so used to presuming on the relationship, we don't realize how special it is, what a gift it is. So because the Lord is not looking for slaves, and because he respects the dignity of our freedom that he's given,

fundamental identity of a human being, is he has the capacity to choose. He has a capacity to know. He has a capacity of love or not love. He has the capacity to believe or not believe. He has the capacity to obey or not obey. And the Lord is going to give us all the grace we need in our darkness, in our weakness, in our failures, to say yes, to believe, to obey, to repent when we fall, to keep coming after the Lord,

expressing our desire to him. Yes, Lord, I want to follow you. Help me on belief. Help my own belief. You know, I believe, but help my own belief. Oh, Lord, I want to live a right. righteous holy life, but help me when I fall, you know? And so the Lord is not asking instant perfection. He's asking us to day by day, each day to take a step, just to say yes to him in some way,

yes to love in some way, yes, the truth in some kind of way. And so, but the day is going to come when we're all going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. That's what scripture says. We're all going to stand before the judgment of the seat of Christ, and we're going to give an account of our life. so I think it's worthwhile for people to think when we stand before the judgment of the seat of Christ what are we going to say what are we going to say about our life what are we going to say about our choices

what are we going to say about we didn't do what are we going to say about our families what are we going to say about our jobs what are we going to say about people who have hurt us what are we going to say about things we've done God is merciful hopefully by the time we stand before the judgment seat of Christ will have a chance to have repented fully of any serious sins we've committed.

God and his great mercy might even give us the opportunity to receive the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, which would be fantastic. But we may die where there's still purification needed. Now, in the Catholic Church we talk about poor souls in purgatory. I'd like to do a video someday Matt about the happy souls in purgatory. because if you're, if you die and you're saved, but you're not ready yet to see the holy, immortal God,

the Lord has a provision as a purification in purgatory. Yes, it's going to be painful to kind of deal with the crooked twisted things in us that didn't quite get straightened out on life. It's going to be painful to let go of things. We still were not willing to let go of before we die. But it's God's love saying, yes, you made it. You fundamentally decided for me. Yes, you died in my grace.

and now I'm going to prepare you now to enter into a glory that if you saw right now, you couldn't handle. You know, in the Old Testament said, nobody could see God to live. You know, Moses said, well, Lord, I'd like to see you. And the Lord said, get behind the rock. And I'll let you see the little back part of my glory. And that's really true. I mean, God is so transcendently, infinitely holy.

He's so transcendently, infinitely pure. He's so intensely loving that to be exposed to the fire of the love of God without being purified, we couldn't handle it. We couldn't handle it because our moral condition, our spiritual condition. We couldn't handle it because our body. Our bodies can't handle that right now. That's why we need to be raised from the dead. That's why we need to have risen bodies.

That's why when Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, John chapter 5 says Those who have been faithful to the Lord will rise to resurrection glory Those who have rejected the light And the mercy of God to the very end And have definitively decided against salvation Are going to be rise to condemnation

So there's going to be A general resurrection of everybody And there's going to be a difference There's a difference between those who say yes to the Lord And those who say no to the Lord There's a difference between those who are willing to humble themselves and repent and believe and those who proudly say, no, I will not serve, no.

Now, right after death, we're getting into the whole picture here. Right after death, we're immediately judged. The church calls it the particular judgment. So right at the beginning of our death, we know where we're going. We know whether we're going directly to heaven that we're ready to enter that glory right now, or we know whether we're going to purgatory

because there's still some purification that's needed. And also we need to know if we're going to hell. or not, we're going to go directly to those places. You know, this is the teaching of the Catholic Church, the catechism, this is the witness of the saints. But as we die, we're going to receive our particular personal judgment. But when Jesus Christ returns in glory, it's all going to be made manifest to the whole world. And the whole human race as a race is going to be going to see the justice of God, the wisdom of God. And believe me, nobody, when they stand before the judge of the seat of Christ, when they see the glory of his second coming,

it's going to be say, it's going to be say, well, I think Jesus should have done it something different. You know, I think the Lord should have done it differently. You know, I think he should have handled the situation differently. We're going to say, oh, my God, the wisdom of the providence of God. Oh, my God, the generosity of his mercy. Oh, my God, his kindness to every human soul, even those who said no to him. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's, Yeah, all right, beautiful. What is hell like? Well, I get the impression you don't want to go there.

Why would you say that? I asked you the question. Well, because Jesus says it's a place of pain, of suffering. It's a place where... Yeah, well, that's perhaps why I asked with trepidation. Yeah. And that perhaps might be why this isn't your best-selling book. Do you see what I mean?

Well, this might be my best-selling book. I hope it is. Yeah, let's make it our best-selling book, Matt. But my point is I think a lot of us don't want to address this. Well, I don't want to deal with the topic of judgment and hell. Well, you know what? The best publicist for these truths is the Holy Spirit. And I think the Holy Spirit is really working to lead people to encounter the Word of God.

Not just this way. Like there's another book I want to tell you about. You probably know about it. Yes. My senior pope. Hope to have him on. The hell there is. Yeah.

He's a great commentator on Sacred Scripture, and he's a great pastor in Washington, D.C. Have you had him on? I have once before, and hope to have him on in person. Yeah, have him on with his book. I will. It's a tremendous... If he wants to be, I mean, I'll have to ask him. He does have free will.

But if he says, yes, I'll have him on. Do you mind coming in a little bit so you're closer to the microphone? Yes, yes, thank you. Well, he raises every objection that people have to hell, you know. And it's really good. And then he also points out that the majority of Jesus' parables talk about the separation of the human race at the end of the time. You know, the wise versions, the fullest versions, the wheat, the weeds,

you know, the good fish, the bad fish, you know. And he just goes through a whole thing. 21 out of 38 Jesus' parables are about the separation of the human race, the judgment. I did not know that. I know. And he goes through every single, he doesn't go through every single 38 parable. And he goes through, he shows you how frequent it is. One of the chapters in my book here talks about the teaching the apostles.

And I just came across a book by a really famous Bible scholar who's in the Saccharapagina series. And he published a new book called The Economy of Salvation, The Teaching of Paul on the Second Coming and Final Judgment. He says, every single one of St. Paul's epistles are written in light of the final judgment. That's another strong statement, you know. I mean, it's like Paul is living within a way. awareness and how it's all going to end. And he's trying to get people to be ready for the final judgment. And it wasn't just because he believed it was going to happen in his own time, but he knew it was an essential part of the gospel. Here's one of my favorite details. J.R. Tolkien used to write

letters to the editor of the Catholic Herald. Think about that. The man who gave us Middle Earth thought this publication was worth engaging with. And he's not the only one. The Catholic Herald has featured contributions from some of the greatest Catholic writers of the last century. Chesterton, Evelyn War, Monsignor Ronald Knox, and has been covering the life of the church since 1888. That kind of history matters because institutions build credibility the same way people do over time. And for more than a century, the Catholic Herald has been a trusted source of news, analysis, and opinion on the church and the world from a traditionally Catholic perspective. If you're tired of shallow commentary, factional infighting and reaction-driven media, you'll appreciate what they're doing. Visit the catholic herald.com and use frad for 30 days of free access.

I have been reading the Catholic Herald for a little bit now and have been genuinely impressed at what they're putting out. Let me ask you a simple question. Why are you with your current phone company? Seriously, think about it. Why did you choose that service provider? Well, if you're like most people, including myself, to be honest, the answer is probably, I don't know, I've just always been with them and fair enough. But if another company offered nationwide coverage, affordable plans, no contracts, excellent customer

service, and help support causes you actually believe in, well, why wouldn't you switch? That's charity mobile. Every month, they donate a portion of your bill to the pro-life, pro-family charity of your choice. and they've been doing it for over 30 years and have generated millions of dollars in support along the way. The service is great. The mission is even better. So if you're due for a change, this is an easy one.

Visit charitymobile.com slash Matt Frad and use code Matt Frad to get a free phone with every new line, plus free activation and free shipping. That's charitymobile.com slash madfraud. Can I share this quotation from St. Catherine of Siena? Yes. And have you comment on it. And then tell us what hell will be like and why we know that. Yeah. Yeah. So she said, but those who do not keep to this way, what she's talking about. She's talking about the bridge, which is Christ. Okay. So those who not keep to this way travel below through the river. No one can cross through it without drowning. Such as these are following a lie by going the way of falsehood. They are children of the devil who is the father of lies. and because they pass through the gate of falsehood, they are eternally damned. Thus will those miserably come to their end who travel by the way beneath the bridge through the river. They never turn back to admit their sins or ask for my mercy.

So this is the father speaking to Catherine. Okay, I just got that. That's pretty amazing, is it? Yeah. Father speaking to Catherine. It is. So they come to the gate of falsehood because they follow the teachings of the devil who is the father of lies. and the devil is their gateway through which they come to eternal damnation.

So for those at home, Catherine of Siena received what we would call interlocutions from God the Father. And so this is the Father talking about how Christ is the bridge, our only hope of salvation. And if we go underneath the bridge to try to cross, we will be damned. So feel free to comment on that and then tell us a bit about hell. Well, when Jesus says, I am the way the truth in a life and no one comes to the Father except for me, I think he's telling the truth. I really do, you know. And it's an outrageous claim.

It's a shocking claim. The Jews wanted to stone him because he said things like that. Or like he said, you know, he said before Abraham came to be, I am, you know, like, oh, he just declared that he's God, you know. So they picked up stones, you know, to stone him. So if we really hear what Jesus is saying, we're going to either fall at his feet. say, my Lord and my God, or we're going to push him over the cliff like people wanted to do or stone him like people wanted to do. And I think one of the best ways of knowing who Jesus is is to see how he's introduced by John

the Baptist, how he's prophesied at his first visit to the temple by Simeon and Anna. John the Baptist in all four Gospels introduces Jesus as the one who will take away this of the world, the Lamb of God, and the one who baptizes the Holy Spirit. But in Matthew's Gospel, he goes on to say, his threshing fork is already in his hands. He's only throwing up the wheat into the air and the chaff is falling to the side. The wheat he's going to bring into the barn and the chaff is going to burn with fire, so that bringing in hell. So it says that the coming of Jesus is going to be a separation point for the human race.

It's going to be a place where he kind of finds out. where the weed is, where those who want to be, sons and daughters of God, we're those who really love the things of heaven. And it's going to also be a place where those who don't love those things and don't want those things

are given those things, and the image of the pain of those things is fire. And then, in Luke chapter 2, the fourth joyful mystery of the rosary is one of my favorite mysteries now. Yeah? Yes, a sign of contradiction.

Yes, but also because I'm getting older, Matt. I know what, you know, it happens, you know. And Simeon and Anna, Anna was 80 years old, Simeon was old, Anna was a widow after seven years of marriage. And so I find great delight these old people continuing to follow the Holy Spirit to the end. You know, Simeon was promised that he wouldn't die

before he saw the Messiah. And he was getting up there, I bet he was wondering, Lord, you know, was that a true prophecy? Did I really hear you say that? And then the Spirit leads them into the temple when Joseph and Mary and Jesus arrive. And the Holy Spirit must have interially spoke to him saying, here it is. Here's the Messiah. Here's the one.

And so Simeon takes the baby Jesus in his arms, how wonderful, and prophesies, saying, this child will be a sign of contradiction. Oh, that's kind of a tough prophecy on a very happy occasion. This child will be a sign of contradiction. He'll be the cause for the rise and the fall of many in Israel. He'll reveal the secrets of hearts. That's why he was the cause for the rise and the fall. He revealed the secrets of hearts.

He revealed the darkness in people's hearts. And some repented and asked for mercy and forgiveness. And some hardened their hearts and said no and fell. And then finally to Mary, A sword will pierce your heart. Here's the happy occasion of their firstborn son being brought to the temple and the prophecy to Simeon being fulfilled about the Messiah. But the Messiah isn't going to be a conquering hero.

The Messiah is going to be the cause for the salvation and the damnation of many in Israel. That's who Jesus is. He's a sign of contradiction. Now Peter Crave, who you were just talking to me about, wrote a book called Jesus Shock. And he says, if you're not shocked by what Jesus says and who Jesus is, you're not paying attention. I honestly think that's true. I think most people are not paying attention. There's shocking things written read every single day in the Mass.

Every single day. There's really some shocking things said almost every day. and honestly, I wonder if people are paying attention because everything Jesus says is calling for or surrender. Everything Jesus is saying is calling for us to believe what he's saying, to remodel our thinking, have our mind renewed by the Holy Spirit. And I don't know if we really realize enough. Mary Healy in her commentary in Mark's Gospel said, I think,

at one chapter, there were 13 references to, hearing the word of God. Yeah. In Mark's Gospel. Yeah. Yeah. How often he says listen. Yeah.

Yeah. And we don't. It's often like white noise. Sometimes I'll even, this is, I think I did this this morning in Holy Mass. I had my Magnificate and I'm reading along. I love my Magnificat. Yeah. I was reading along and at the end of the gospel, not only did I read it and hear it, at the

end of it, I realized I have no idea what was just said. Yes, I know. I had no idea what I read. Yeah, that's our weakness. But I go back and read it. Yeah. This is shocking. He's telling me love my enemies.

And I didn't even notice it. Yeah. So we can fully pray to that. We need to work. We need to make an effort to pay attention. Now, I just gave an article to our staff at Renewal Ministries in Ann Arbor from the New York Times called Cognitive Decline. And it's a very serious study on measuring the ability of children to pay attention, to read, to write, to listen. Yep.

And as soon as the phone came in, the cell phone came in, just, It's a steady decline. People aren't able to be still anymore, to be quiet anymore, to pay attention anymore. They're not able to read anything very long. They're not able to pay attention to anything very long. And the way that, you know, media is working right now, it's speeded up. It's moving from scene to scene. And, you know, the type of thing.

It's sort of like, and people are just really getting affected in their, their brain is being rewired in a way that makes it difficult for them to pay attention. But not only is it being rewired, but we're having stuff poured into our, soul that's taking so much space that's very hard to hear the word of Lord. You know, Psalm 46 where it says, be still and know that I am God. It's almost like the world is being made incapable of being still so that they won't know who he is, you know. So we're up against a pretty big battle here. And our only salvation is Jesus. The only salvation is the Word of God. The only way, The only sure path out of the darkness, out of the lies, out of the corruption is to follow him. You still haven't told me what hell is like.

Yes. Well, Catherine Siena actually gives the description of it. Do you want to see what Catherine says? Yes. But let's not forget what the scripture says about it. Yeah, that's a good place to stop. That's where it all comes from. Yeah, we have to test everything that comes from the saints against everything the private or relation brings has to be tested against Holy Scripture and the teaching of the church.

and it's a fire that never stops burning. It's a worm that never stops eating. It's darkness, it's gloom, it's scary sounds, it's the gnashing of teeth. Now all these are images, hell can't be described. We're incapable of really describing heaven or really describing hell. So what we're left with is images,

but what the church tells us, these images, even though they're not giving us hell in itself or heaven in itself, they're giving us reliable images to help us to understand essential truths about hell and heaven. So the essential truth, I think, that Jesus wants us to get about this. This is an awful place. It's an awful place to be in. It's awful to be separated from God from all eternity. There's like a never-ending anguish or torment. God isn't torturing people in hell. You know, sometimes people talk about that. But people have chosen to be separated from the source of life, the source of love, the source of kindness, and have chosen to lock themselves into their anger, their rebellion, their hatred,

their unforgiveness, their idols, their lust, their greed, whatever is, they loved it more. They didn't want to humble themselves to say, Lord, I need your mercy. They've rejected mercy. And so it's a pretty painful state to be in that. We can even get intimations of it from our own of holding on to negative things in our soul and how it eats away at our soul type of thing. You know, like scripture says, don't let the root of bitterness take root in your soul. You know, bitterness, unforgiveness, anger, hatred,

being addicted to like you have talked about in your career so wonderfully to lust or being addicted to money or being addicted to jealousy, you know, it eats away at the soul. It's a worm that never stops chewing or eating type of thing. And to have an eternity of that, to kind of choose that forever because you reject the mercy of Christ is a pretty awful place. Now, you know, I know you want to get to Catherine, I think.

Yeah. But I want to say something too, because just like you were saying earlier that our darkened minds wish to quickly repel any language of justice and condemnation of scriptures. Yeah. I think likewise, we have this other desire to repel any idea of hell because it's too much. and I don't, it scares me. Yeah. But then I think of the Blessed Virgin Mary

who showed the three children a vision of hell. Yeah. She didn't think it was too scary. Yeah. The children. Yes, it's too scary. Okay, it is too scary.

But she didn't, because of that. It's okay to be scared. Yeah. It's okay to be scared. What would you rather not be, have this not talked about and then end up there? Yeah.

Or have this talked about so you don't end up there. No, that's exactly it. So I just want to encourage our viewers who attempted to just turn away from this. You can handle this. Christ spoke about this. You can handle this.

I'm so glad you're saying that. I want to say that too. You can handle this. The Lord is going to enable you to handle it. He's going to enable you to stop your defensive actions and to listen and to be loved. The Lord wants to love you out of hell. The Lord wants to love you out of hell. And bringing up Mary and the children are fatom, I think, is really,

significant. It relates so directly to everything we're talking about because she did show the children a vision of hell. Lucia describes it in her memoirs and she says, we were terrified. Then she describes what she saw. She says, you know, terrible shapes, you know, demons, souls, you know, just agony, horrible things, you know. And then she says, we almost couldn't handle it. We looked up to Mary as if like, help. And Mary, and Mary, he said, you have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. If what I'm asking you to be done is done, many souls will be saved. And what was she asking them to do? She asked them to establish devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the world. We can talk about that if you like,

because that's a mystery to many people. But then she also, in a later apparition, said, pray, pray very much because so many souls are going to hell because so few people are praying and offering sacrifice for them. She was asking him to offer prayer and sacrifice. So people don't go to hell. Now, if Mary was teaching at a normal Catholic school today and she scared children about hell, she'd be blacklisted, she'd be immediately fired.

She wouldn't be allowed to teach children anymore. But I think Mary, in her immense compassion, her immense wisdom, her immense love for the salvation of souls, knew that little children are capable of a degree of holiness, a degree of commitment to the Lord, a degree of love for the salvation of the souls that most people don't believe children are capable of or anybody's capable of it, so they don't want to talk about these things at all.

Now, let me just kind of see if I can push back against that, even though I agree with you in a way. I think it's also probably fair to say that these three children were given the grace to see the Virgin Mary. They were also given a particular grace to see hell and not die. And so I don't think we should take from this, incident, the idea that I have to talk to my children in the scariest way possible, that would clearly be a bad idea.

I agree with you. But the fact is we're not even talking about hell at all. Yeah, that's the main point. We don't have to go into the details that Mary did with the children for her purposes at that time. Now, her purpose at that time was that the children would devote themselves to praying for the salvation of souls. You know, and so, you know, I think if you don't know that souls are in danger of going there, are you really going to fast?

Are you really going to pray? Are you really going to say the rosary every day? Like she asks them to say, you know, probably not, you know. There's going to be a laziness in our spiritual life, a laziness in our evangelization. So that's what we see. Yeah. And that's, there's going to be a lack of urgency, you know, and one of the reasons why, you know, I could have retired years ago. one of the reasons why I haven't retired because I want to help as many people as possible be saved and not go to hell. The reason why I'm talking about hell sometimes is because I don't want people to go there. You know, you know.

Did you want to reference Catherine's depictions? Yes. Yes. Let's take a look at that. She couldn't read her right. She died at the age of 33. And she's a doctor of the church. and which means what for those at home yes well doctor of the church is first of all someone who's a saint

but also someone who has a depth of knowledge or wisdom that's helpful for the whole church like a like a higher level gift of seeing things and knowing things and writing about things you know like st thomas aquinas points with aquinas is a doctor of the church systematic theology you know st alphonse la gory a doctor of the church because of his expertise moral theology. Francis DeSalle is a doctor of the church because he wrote the first book for lay people about how to grow in the spiritual life. And so different doctors of the church for different things. But Catherine was a doctor of the church because she really combined the charismatic and contemplative in a lay woman. She didn't want to become a nun. Because nuns in those days

had to be in cloisters. They had to be behind walls. They couldn't go out in the world. She wanted to go out in the world. She wanted to live a chase life, a celibate life. She didn't want to get married, but she wanted to go out in the world. And so she went out to the world with a band of friends, you know, she was like a traveling community. And she went to princes of these Italian cities that said, stop fighting, you know. She went to Avignon, where the Pope had fled and told them Holy Father in all respect. There's a smell in the papal court yard here, in the papal court. She said, is the smell of sin. Imagine trying that today.

Yeah. Yeah, I won't go there. And then she said, Holy Father, you need to get back to Rome where you belong, you know, so he got back to Rome, the type of thing. But anyway, because Catherine couldn't read her right, she would ask people

to kind of, okay, here it is. Because Catherine couldn't read her right, she would ask the Lord to give wisdom about certain topics. She would also talk to Dominican priests in the town of Sienna, but she did ask the Lord to say, please show me what heaven, hell, and purgatory is like. So, here it is. She talks about the four sufferings of hell. She says the first suffering is that these souls are deprived of seeing me. This is the father, again, speaking to Catherine

Page of 65. This is so painful for them. them that if they could, they would choose the sight of me along with the fire and excruciating torments rather than freedom from their pains without seeing me. The second torment is ceaseless regret and agonizing about what has been lost. It's not true repentance for what they've done, but it's anger for the punishment they received, not regret for the sin they committed. For when they see that their sinfulness is deprive them of me and of the company of the angels and made them worthy instead of seeing the demons.

and sharing their fellowship, conscience noise away at them constantly. It just as, you know, when I was growing up as a boy in grade school, nuns told me that what heaven is about is a beatific vision. And I thought, you know, we're just going to sit around all day

and look at God, you know? I mean, couldn't we play basketball or something? You know, like, and, of course, the beatific visit is short for the fulfillment of all desire. It's short for everything good, everything true, everything beautiful, everything that's lovely. infinitely there, infinite perfection, infinite fullness, and infinite fullness in us too.

Our capacity to enjoy the beautiful, the truth, the good is really increased. And John of the Cross says, people go through this purification, appreciate the creation even more. They love the creation and more. They're able to hear the sounds of the creation. They're able to see the colors of the creation. They're able to hear the music because their soul has been purified. So the purification of the soul helps us to appreciate. everything that God is created, including creation, including people.

So anyway, the third suffering of hell, according to God the Father, speaking to Catherine, is the opposite of the beatific vision, the demonic vision, seeing the devil as he really is. And Catherine says, you know, Father, you let me see him once for an instant, and I fainted, I couldn't handle it. And God the Father said, you haven't seen anything, Catherine. You know, when you see how truly twisted and perverse he is, how truly evil is, how truly he hates human beings with an incredible hatred and deceives them, you know, St. Paul says something really important in scripture. He says, sometimes the devil comes to skies as an angel of light. You know, we're in deodorant, having theology degrees, you know, like being a college professor maybe, you know, just whatever, you know, having being popular on YouTube or whatever.

you know, I'm on YouTube too, so it's nothing, nothing personal, Matt. Yeah, you know, and, and he deceives people with lies. And of course, Jesus says he's the father of lies. Matt, as you know, the culture day is filled with lies. The father of lies is feeding, he's got an incredible streaming operation going. He's streaming lies into the human race in so many different ways, and

so many people are being deceived. And they're being deceived about the reality of God's love. They're being deceived about the order of creation. They're being deceived about the consequences of not receiving the gift that God's giving us. And that's, of course, what this book is about. There are consequences to turning love down, this consequence to rebellion against the structure of humanity. He created a male and female. The fourth vision of hell, the fourth suffering of hell is a long description of how the sufferings of hell are customized according to the nature of the ways in which we made an idol out of things on earth. And that if we might suffer in our bodies in different ways, we might suffer in our souls in different ways. And he talks about people who are avaricious are going to suffer in a particular way.

This is very much the vision of Dante too and the, you know, the divine. comedy. It's very much the vision also St. Faustina, right in the 20th century. You know, God sent an archangel to take Faustina to a tour of hell. And Faustina wrote what she saw there. She says people are suffering according to the nature of their unrepented sins, you know. One of the things Faustina also says is that she noticed that most of the people in hell didn't believe there was one. Yeah, isn't that a bummer? Yeah. Yeah. My senior Pope, fear says you may not believe in the four last things, but you're going to find out, you're going to encounter the four last things, you know. Could I throw some objections your way?

You know, Matt, you always can. You're welcome to object, to insult me, to, you know, speak badly of me. No, I wouldn't do that. But God is all loving and God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. So it seems unreasonable to think that people would be damned because God is all powerful and if he wants us all to be saved, therefore we will all be saved unless you want to say that his power is somehow not all power. Maybe he's not all powerful. He can't make what he wants to happen happen. Well, St. Thomas Aquinas talks about the antecedent will of God and the consequent will of God. The antecedent will of God is God wills the Holy universe to be saved. The consequent will of God is that people who refuse to be saved will not be

saved. You know, so it's, you know, to put it in common terms, God wills that every human being freely choose to come to him for forgiveness of their sins and be reconciled and live forever and have eternal life. People don't want to come to him for the forgiveness of their sins will not have their sins forgiven because they don't want their sins forgiven. They don't think they have sins maybe. And they're going to be left in the darkness of their sin. All right. But wouldn't that be due to a deficiency, like a cognitive? cognitive deficiency for a lot of people that maybe they truly believe that they're not responsible for their sin or they won't be punished for their sin. Yes.

And so if they're ignorant in that sense, it seems like an unloving thing to torture or to have, okay, torture might be the wrong word. Don't use that word. Okay, why? Because God doesn't torture people. People are tortured by their own clinging to their... Well, it seems wrong then to allow for our old loving or powerful God. to allow people to suffer eternally. Yeah.

Because they got it wrong. Yeah. I mean, we live in a pretty confusing day and age. Yeah, right. We can agree on that. Yes. There's all sorts of competing voices and ideologies. Yes.

And yes, the truth is available to people, perhaps today more than it ever has been. Yeah. People can, for example, as you said, watch that excellent five-hour show I did with Ethan Muse. And maybe they watch that and their heart is converted. But there's so many things competing for people's attention. Yeah. so many falsehoods.

And their attention span is so little. Yeah. So why would a good God not just blame them, but condemn them to hell for all eternity for not getting it right? Well, we know that such a thing as inculpable ignorance. Some people are truly ignorant. It isn't like they've buried the truth. They're used to know the truth.

They turned away from it. Some people truly don't know the truth. But there's a limit to our understanding of inculpable ignorance. the catechism of the Catholic Church says that nobody should be deemed ignorant of the natural law everybody has some instinct that to hurt another person to kill another person

to take something that belongs to another person is wrong now what the catechism and the writings of the saints like St. Augustine say is that well what catechism says it is that you can by making repeated acts of violating your conscience get to the point where you're not

no longer believe what you're doing is wrong. But you actually have become responsible for having gotten to that point that you can actually deaden your conscience. You can actually deaden a light that God's given you that's very fundamental called the natural law. St. Augustine said, when he was writing about when he finally got ready to be a Christian, he said, I really want to be a Christian, but I can't live without a sexual relationship. He had a mistress. He had a child out of wetlock. And he says, I can't get out of this. I can't stop it. You know, I'm, I'm truly a slave to sexual sin, but he said, I'm responsible for having gotten to that point. By a whole series of free decisions I made my late teenage years, I kept sinning and

sinning and sinning and eventually a habit of sinned of sin developed, and an habit of sin became a chain that helped me. But I was responsible for forging the chain that now binds me, but now I just need to cry out, God, have mercy on me. I've made myself a slave to sin. I'm responsible for making myself a slave to sin, but I can't get out. I'm really a slave. And of course, then God came to him in different, different ways and gave him the grace to walk out. So, um, let me give you another objection then. I think if most people will give in the opportunity of what heaven actually is like and what hell is actually like, nobody would choose hell. So this, this is the devil's advocate, uh, it's unreasonable. It's either unreasonable to think anyone is in hell or it's unfair for

an all loving, all good, all knowing God to conceal the reality of these things, such that people don't actually really know what their choices are going to get them. If everyone was given the same vision that the children at Fatima were given, they would have probably become as saintly, maybe not, but as the children. So there's the maybe not. There's the maybe not. But, you know, remember the parable of DeVage and Lazarus, you know, is the rich man, you know, and this poor man lying at his doorstep.

And they die and surprise, surprise, the rich man goes to hell and poor man goes to heaven. And the rich man says, oh, this is awful. Could you give me a drop of water? And the answer is there's an abyss between us. There's no passing between us. And then the rich man in hell says, well, could you at least send somebody to warn my brothers? And then the answer is, your brothers have the law and the prophets. and even if somebody would rise from the dead, they would not believe.

So it's sort of like the Lord has witnesses that he's given to everybody, the witness of creation. Romans chapter 1 says everybody could know something about God because if you look at the creation, you just got to know this, a creator, you know, despite what people are saying, where does come from? Who is he? And a desire to know who he is is something that God expects from human beings.

And then there's also the law of conscience in Roman. chapter two. So what I would say is that God has given sufficient opportunity to know what a saving act of belief or a saving act of obedience would be for every human being, despite their traumatic childhoods, despite their terrible education they got, despite the abuse they suffered or whatever, that there's a light that's going to come that's going to be sufficient for them to say yes to God. Okay. Because I would think that I could see an objection to what I just said being it's not necessarily so.

Just because people know that God exists doesn't mean they'll be obedient to him. Look in the book of Exodus. I mean, what did God have to do? He part of the Red Sea. He guided them by a pillar of fire and smoke. He fed them, manner. And yet the people were rebellious. And so I agree, I'll concede as the skeptic here, playing the skeptic.

I'll concede that people may still choose against God, but I'll still insist that a lot more people would choose God if it were made abundantly clear to them. And I don't know if today it is abundantly clear to people. Well, you know what? There's a reason why it has the degree of clarity it does. And I think it can become abundantly clear to people if they take the initial step or responding to initial light. You know, we hear about the unpardonable synagogue. against the Holy Spirit. What's the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit? It's definitively saying no to a merciful light

that's being given to the person's mind or soul. And the person can say no to that so often that they pretty much seal themselves off from the lifeline. They don't want it anymore, they don't see it anymore, they don't know it anymore. So I think that as you grow in union with the Lord, it becomes abundantly clear his goodness, It becomes abundantly clear the joys of heaven.

It becomes abundantly clear the rightness of obeying him. It doesn't start out that way. It starts off maybe painful. The part starts off, like Francis DeSalle says, when you look at the spiritual life from outside, the early stages look terrible. Why would you ever go through the agony of turning away from sin? Why would you ever turn from those things that you're clinging to?

That's painful. It is painful. It's a purifying night of the senses type of thing. But after you walk through that, you come into a place of greater peace, of greater joy. And if you keep walking, it gets greater and brighter and clearer and clearer. A lot of people have business ideas. Very few people actually start. Not necessarily because they're lazy.

Usually because they assume it's more complicated than it really is. I remember a few years ago now when we launched the Pints with Aquinas Shop. What surprised me wasn't how difficult it was. It was how much Shopify. had already figured out for us. The storefront was ready, the checkout experience was ready, the systems that helped customers actually complete their purchases were already built in, and that's important because the goal isn't to spend months tinkering with a website. The goal is to start serving customers. One thing I noticed early on was how seamless buying felt for people

visiting our store. Shopify checkout made the experience simple, which gave me confidence that we were building on solid ground. And once that's take place, care of, your attention can shift from setting things up to actually growing. That's why Shopify powers businesses of every size, from entrepreneurs just getting started all the way to some of the biggest brands in the world. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash pints. That's Shopify.com slash pints. Most of us aren't going to change the world before breakfast, but we do make dozens of small choices every day and overtime. Those small choices matter. What we read, what we watch,

where we spend our money, what businesses we support. That's one reason I love seven weeks coffee. Every morning starts the same way. I wake up. Very first thing I do even before prayer is I grab, well, it's right after prayer, to be fair. But before I read my book, Bible, I need my coffee. And it's nice knowing that even something as ordinary as my morning coffee is helping support life. Seven Weeks Coffee donates 10% of every sale to pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations nationwide. They've already raised more than $1.5 million and help save thousands of lives. So yes, it is, and it actually is, fantastic coffee, but it's also a simple way to support something you believe in every single day. Go to seven weeks coffee.com slash pints and

save 15% forever when you subscribe, plus use code Pints for an additional 10% off your first order and a free gift. That's up to 25% off your first order at 7weeks coffee.com slash pints. Well, then my next objection is perhaps hell is possible. You really need my senior pope's book. Perhaps hell well, you're here to explicate it for me. Perhaps it is possible. And yet, surely it's not most people or even many people. people. And that's not just some maybe modernist, you know, unfaithful interpretation. Let me quote to you, Pope Benedict XVI from space salve. He says, with death, our life choice becomes definitive.

Our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life, takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lot. Why people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves? This is a terrifying thought. But alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. And such people, all would be beyond remedy. And the destruction of good would be irrevocable.

This is what we mean by the word hell. So why, while Pope Benedict doesn't say a few will be damned, you kind of get that impression, don't you? Yeah, you do. Okay. So now I got Pope Benedict or you? So why should I listen to you? Well, because I'm not coming up with many ideas. I'm just representing what the scripture and tradition say.

Do you think Pope Benedict was coming out with his own ideas? I think he was. That's what he says. He says, one supposes. He's speaking as like a speculative theologian. He's not teaching definitively. He's saying one supposes. And as a matter of fact, I happen to know that about 60 or 70

of the most solid theologians in the church wrote to him saying, I think you're giving a different impression than what scripture and tradition really are saying here. So you agree with me that the impression given is... Yes, I do, yeah. So is it possible that he held that view? No, I think he would... Let's put it this way.

I think he's written a very famous book in eschatology. And it covers all of eschatology and covers hell. But about a 600-page book, he devotes three pages to hell. Yeah. I think he was influenced by the post-Vatican to sort of, let's be optimistic, you know, let's be a friend of the world, let's not talk about things that could disturb people, let's try to build bridges type of thing.

So unfortunately, I think him and some others as well were colored by that. Let's emphasize the positive. And I think in a 600 book, Eschatology, only three pages in hell, he says, we can't deny it's a doctrine. We can't deny that it's a truth, but he doesn't explain its purpose in the constellation of doctrine. So anyway. Yeah, couldn't someone argue that how victorious is this God if most people or many people end up in hell? He's as victorious as he thinks is the most perfect victory. And I think that does mean, like when the scripture says, there's such joy in heaven.

when one soul repents, that a fallen creature's decision to humble themselves and accept mercy and forgiveness for the horror of sin. And part of the picture here is we don't really realize how horrible sin is. Like one of the children of Fatima, Francisco, St. Francisco, the night before he died, Lucia was visiting with him and said, Francisco, what were the most important? practical things that, you know, we've experienced over the last couple of years for you. And he said, well, I just love seeing Mary. But I loved even more that light that Mary put into our heart by which we could see God.

And he said, that was really the most special thing. He says, but God is so sad because it's so awful to commit sin. We mustn't commit even the slightest of sins. So I think we have gotten casual about sin. sin. We don't fully understand the horror of insulting our creator. We don't understand the horror of going our own way, even though God has told us, don't go your own way, go this way, you know, that weighs death, this way is life, you know? So I think that's part of the story. Weren't there church fathers that taught or implied universal salvation, universalism? And if

that is the case, why not think that's a legitimate option? No, there were some church fathers who apparently taught that. The world's leading expert on what the church fathers teach is a Jesuit professor at Notre Dame, and he said that people are exaggerating the number of church fathers who taught that. It's certainly a minority, and the church has clearly decided that the views attributed to origin are heretical and are anathema. that to believe that all human beings and even demons are going to be reconciled in the end universal salvation is anathema it's to be condemned it's interesting in the orthodox churches you have some priests that acknowledge this that this is being condemned and then you have other people

like david bentley heart have you read any of his work on universalism i have yeah and what's your thought i think it's awful why do you think it's awful well honestly when i when i read him I feel like I'm reading just an incredibly arrogant person who thinks that his interpretation in the New Testament is better than the tradition, better than other theologians alive today. And, you know, I think Michael McCleiman in his two-volume work on universalism

has an appendix on David Bentley Hart and really nails what's going on there. It's just a terrible... The creature basically deciding for himself how God should have done things, you know. Anyway. Yeah. You know, just like...

But there's those who have done very serious deconstructions of his argumentation, which I'm not qualified to do, but... Yeah, yeah. Yes. It's interesting, we were quoting that priest earlier who said that in a way, hell is the linchpin of the faith. Yeah. But in a way, I see that in people's lives, you know,

like if you throw out hell and you've got all your little... philosophical rationalizations for why you've done that. I think you're going to start to see someone who's less interested in evangelizing, less interested in praying, less interested in accepting Christ when he says, I am the only way.

Less interested in resisting temptation. Yep. Obviously. For sure. Less interested in becoming a priest. Let me quote you to you. You wrote in the book, but I couldn't find it,

but I posted it the other day. Okay. Jesus Christ died to reconcile us with God. There is no other name by which anyone can be saved. And all people, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, secularists, fallen away Catholics and other Christians need to repent and believe in him and to be baptized and join the Catholic Church if they have not already done so. Isn't that rather anti-Semitic or Islamophobic? It's very pro-Semitic and pro-Islamic. It wants the best for Jews.

Jews and Muslims that wants true salvation and wants them to know the one true God. You know, and I do want to say that every time you say that, every time I say that, every time Jesus says that we have to also include what the Catholic Church adds to that about those who are invincibly ignorant of that. Invincibly ignorant just seems like, is that a high bar to be invincibly ignorant? Yeah. It's a high bar, but it exists for somebody. I'm sure there's some people in villages here, there,

and everywhere who've never heard of Jesus, you know, never heard the gospel type of thing. So Vatican II actually asked that question and tried to really clarify what the church actually teaches about the possibility of being saved without hearing the gospel. Because, you know, the gospel's supposed to be preached

the whole world, but a lot of people haven't heard or haven't heard an adequate version of it or haven't heard a distorted version of it. So what about people who haven't heard an adequate version of the gospel, haven't heard it at all? section 16 of the constitution on the church from Vatican 2 square on deals with this question

I think it's important for Catholics to know this because they have a mistaken understanding of what Vatican 2 taught and it didn't teach what many people think it did it says it's possible if people are invincibly ignorant of the gospel but are nevertheless sincerely seeking God and that gets back to Romans chapter 1 where God expects that people have received a witness to

him in the creation and expects them to want to know who is this God, who created the universe, who is he, what is he, what does he want? And thirdly, are living it according to the light of their conscience. And that gets back to the catechism saying nobody should be deemed ignorant of the natural law about instinct for right and wrong. So people who are through no fault of their own don't know the gospel, but are responding to what God has shown them in nature or in their conscience can be saved. Now, some of the greatest theologians of the Catholic Church stop there, and they ignore the last three sentences of the important teaching.

What are the last three sentences? And your viewers are going to have a chance to hear things that the greatest theologians of the church ignore. What it says is, nevertheless, very often, people exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship the creature rather than a creator, or they give in to ultimate. despair. Therefore, it's urgent that the church carries out its mission of evangelization. In common words, what is saying is possible, but it's hard. It's possibly they say without knowing the gospel and obeying it, but it's very difficult because the disorder of original

sin that we talked about earlier, or disordered desires are very strong and it's so easy to give into them when we don't have the help of the church, the sacraments, the Ten Commandments. Because the devil is real. The devil is leading people to exchange the truth of God for a lie to worship themselves. We're in a big, we're a big culture of self-worship right now. We're elevating the creature, aren't we? We're just really adoring the creature. And the devil's whispering things in people's ears and the culture is whispering things in people's ears. So even though people theoretically have a possibility of being saved without meeting Jesus Christ, without meeting the church, without the help of the sacraments, it's very hard.

Because even look for us Catholics, with all we have, sometimes it's easy to listen to voices that aren't the Lord. With all the help we have, sometimes it's easy to give into disorder desires. With all the help we have, sometimes it's easy to go along with the crowd. I don't want to stand out. You know, I want to fit in. You know, I want to maybe not hold the truth I think I'm holding so strongly. Maybe there's another way you're looking at. Maybe the church is changing his teaching.

Maybe there's a way of reinterpreting him, so I don't have to be such a conference. with my culture. This is really true in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I live. You know, if you don't stand out in Ann Arbor, you're going to really be swept away. You know, you got to say, you said in your book that as you drive to church or drive anywhere, you're passing these Protestant communions that have pride flags and so on. Oh, yeah, yeah, like First Methodist, First Presbyterian, first Baptist. I mean, it's just, it's almost like, like, they're proclaiming a new religion where anything goes, You know, like we're, our religion is to affirm you in what you're doing and what you have. Well, it's easy to pick on the Protestants, not that you're doing that, but the German bishop.

Well, you don't mind picking on the Protestants. I saw one of your shorts recently. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm pretty hateful. What about the German bishops? What about priests like James Martin, who's to wink and nod at sodomy and these sorts of. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think we have a big problem in the cafe church. You know, I think that, uh, You know, there's a big argument about Vatican II. Is Vatican II the reason for all our problems, or is the interpretation of Vatican II, the reason for all our problems? I personally firmly believe it's the interpretation of Vatican II, but I don't deny that the pastoral strategy of Vatican II, which is to be friends with the world to a certain extent, without denying the doctrine of faith, open the door for people to lean in a certain direction and be quiet about, be silent about these truths. You know, yeah, I don't deny it.

I wrote a book by doctoral dissertation called Will Many Be Saved, what Vatican II actually teaches, you know, and its implications for the new evangelization where I go a lot into Lumengencium v. Chapter 16. But the last chapter of that book says, it's time for a change in our pastoral strategy. Yeah.

Being friends with the world has run its course and it hasn't done what we hoped it would do. What the world is rejoicing at, the Catholic Church is finally coming around to our values. The UN is finally rejoicing that the Catholic Church is signing on to our 12 values of ecology in the future, which sometimes includes abortion and things like that. So I would say, particularly during Pope Francis Pontificate, there was a big thing about being friends with the world and a big focus on the horizontal rather than the vertical. And I think the last chapter of my book will many be saved is it's time for change in pastoral strategy. We've got to get back to preaching the truth about salvation. You know, what does scripture say?

He who wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. And the church still has this strong desire to be loved by the world, a strong desire to be friends with the world. And it's pathetic. And it's not winning any friends, really. it's people thinking that we're affirming them and their unbelief and their immorality. So I think one of the things that, you know, I taught at the seminary for 23 years

and I taught summer programs for priests and programs for seminarians and a lot of seminarians than priests are more afraid of what people think than what God thinks. Honestly, I know it's sad, but that's just our culture. Our culture has deformed our personalities.

You know, we're incapable of being unpopular. that we're incapable of being disagreed with, we're incapable of standing up for the truth of Christ because of what people are going to think about us. Like in parishes, people are saying, you know, this, I know these things are true, but I'm afraid to preach them. I don't know what people are going to think.

They're going to think it's like fire and brimstone. And I say, I say, look, all you have to do is preach the lectionary. You know, you don't have to go out of your way. You don't have to major on this, but all during the year. But look at this. Let's talk about the lectionary, okay?

Yeah. You say perhaps the most notorious case of the editing of the lectionary at Sunday Mass. That's what we're referring to, right? The readings that are read there. There's been a real editing there to spare people's feelings. Yes. You say perhaps the most notorious case in point is the reading for the principal service of the seventh Sunday of Easter in year C. when the verses to be read from Revelation,

22, are specified as 12 to 14, 16 to 17, and 20 to 21. Jay, I wonder what was in 15 that they looked out. Let's have a look what was said there. Yeah. The verses omitted are, quote, outside the gates of the New Jerusalem are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loved and practiced falsehood. And you say amazingly, we could say,

Ironically, this quote from verses 18 through 19, which again is omitted, I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book. If anyone takes away, you can't make this stuff up. Takes away from the words of this prophecy. God will take away that person's share in the tree of life and in the holy city which is described in this book. So let me ask you this. how can, this is a broad question, but someone might listen to this and go,

this, well, the Catholic Church can't be the true church. Why is it omitting the word of God? Well, the Catholic Church is filled up with human beings who are afraid of offending people. And unfortunately, in the liturgical reform after Vatican 2, and I'm not a traditionalist, I'm not an SSBX person, unfortunately in the liturgical reform after Vatican 2, it was colored by the whole thing about,

John the 23rd, when he called for Vatican Council, he says, we don't want to condemn anyone. We don't want to be prophets of doom and gloom. We want to just be positive. And so that led to some of these editing. It really did. You know, right after Vatican II, a group of skips, trips to college says,

let's omit 103 verses from the Psalms that people would be not understood, you know, be offended by. And then when they edited Sunday readings and the weekday readings, too, they said, well, you know what? I think this would be upsetting for people. They don't really understand what eternal punishment is, you know, type of thing.

So let's admit those, let's admit the punchline of Jesus' parables. Let's admit Jesus' own interpretation of his parables, you know? And so it is very disturbing to see the brackets, you know. For the shorter form of the reading, you can admit what's in the brackets. And oftentimes what's omitted in the brackets is the challenging things, the things that Jesus are saying to try to wake us up to help us. Yeah. Um, you know, when you read our blessed Lord's words about hell, he speaks a great deal about

him. Yeah. And just to kind of, I like to sometimes consider, you know, Pascal's wager and apply it to different things. So, for example, when people were making the ridiculous claim that Pope Francis wasn't the legitimate pope. Yeah. I would say to myself, all right, let's, let's put this into Pascal's wager.

If you're right, then, uh, what would follow? And, well, it would follow that, well, congratulations, you've somehow arrived at this bit of esoteric truth that really you have no authority to teach on. It's not going to affect you one way or the other, really. But if you're wrong, then you're now proclaiming a falsehood, calling people's faith into question and leading them outside of the church, you know? Like, God's not going to hold you accountable if you don't know that a certain pope is an

anti-pope, presumably, like if you're just some YouTuber in North America or something. Likewise, it's like if I get to heaven, and I know that this is false, it's false that there is no hell. But even if the universalists were right, I don't, I can't, it's like Jesus, but like you kept telling you were going to throw people in the lake of fire and divide us sheeps and goats. What was I supposed to believe? Like, we're just being faithful to the words of Christ. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, and I mean, it is such a fundamental theme. of God's word that he's speaking to the human race. He says, it's going to be a division.

Moses, his closing speech, keep the covenant, you're going to be blessed. Don't keep the covenant, you're going to be cursed. You know, I mean, the fundamental choice is being presented to the human race every day, you know, and it's just one choice. Let God love you and save you and rescue you and forgive you your sins or refuse love.

Yeah, our blessed Lord says, this is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Yeah. And we say, well, that's just, that's just some sort of. Yeah, I mean, like, that's the literary form of apocalyptic. We find that in the prophets.

And it's the inspired word of God for us. People sometimes use literary form to shield themselves from what Jesus is saying. Like, for example, Jesus says, if your right eye, cause you to sit and pluck it out. hyperbole. If your right hand cause you to sin, cut it off. If your right foot causes you to sin, cut it off, better enter the kingdom with a missing arm leg or arm foot or eye than they go down into hell with an intact body. Now, every time my wife hears me say this, she says,

Ralph, make sure you tell them that they're not supposed to take it literally. You shouldn't really do that. It's a literary form of Jewish hyperbole. But we use that sometimes to protect us from what Jesus is really saying. Why is Jesus using such extreme hyperbole? Why is he using such powerful imagery? Because he wants us to know very, very clearly that we need to do whatever it takes to get free of serious sin because serious sin will kill us and send us to hell. So a little education can be a dangerous thing. Yeah. You know, and using literary form to to neuter the word of God is, I just wish, I could tell everybody that. I guess this is one opportunity to do it, you know.

Take seriously the urgency and the seriousness that Jesus is speaking to us, even if he's using images of a literary form of apocalyptic or whatever hyperbole. He's using those forms because he wants to wake us up and impress on us the urgency of this, the seriousness of this. And again, this is what is such a blessing to be a Catholic, right? I mean, I was just listening recently to this Protestant, and of course there are all sorts of different Protestants. So to condemn one Protestant is not to condemn all in the same way. So this Protestant was making the claim that since the scripture isn't as clear as it might be on having multiple wives, that therefore polygamy is completely in harmony with Scripture.

And this is the pickle you get into when you reject the church, Christ. establish which gave you the Bible. Oh, yeah. And I understand that there are Protestants who wish to be faithful to God's word, and so they read what he says about hell and they accept it. But I think this is the problem when you don't have a church that can definitively settle the matter, your darkened intellect will start to go wherever you'd like it to go so you can justify whatever you'd like it to justify.

Absolutely. And myself included, right? It's not a Protestant problem. It's a human problem, which is why we have to submit to God's church. when it? No, no, absolutely. And even to believe the scriptures today, we need the church to say, we still believe the scriptures. Yeah. You know, we still think that the inspired word of God, you know, they verven, the Constitution and Sacred Revelation. You know, so, yeah, everything in this book is in the Catechus in the Catholic Church. Just reading the eight or ten sections of the

catechists on it doesn't connect with people. So I'm trying to connect. To be with people. Do you hear what's being said? Do you hear what Jesus is saying? Do you see the understanding what the church is teaching here and what it means for your life? You know, you've got to really take this seriously. So when you appear before the Joseph's seat of Christ,

he'll say, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master. I'd like to move on to talk a little bit about scrupulosity and the hope we should have in our salvation as Catholics, because I think some people will hear this, because there are many good, good men and women, right, who watch this show, who love Jesus Christ, who go to Holy Mass, who are raising their children the best they know how, who are growing in virtue, and they hear something like this, and it terrifies them to their bones, and they think, well, how can I even live? How can I sleep,

knowing that this is even a possibility to me? And they don't understand the hope, the real solid hope we can have as Catholics in our salvation. They might think it would be something like this, you know, suppose I said to you, Ralph, all right, after this interview, we're going to go out there and we're going to sit down for a nice steak dinner. Or I'm going to set you on fire until you're dead. That's one of those things is going to happen. So there's no way you could focus on this interview. And if I said, well, there's not really a way you can know one way or the other. You'll find out, though, I think a lot of people might be mishearing us to think that that is essentially the state that they're in. They have to go through this life, not knowing to what state they will

be forever consigned. And so I want to say, and you can correct me if you think I'm wrong, that, you know, the sixth session at the Council of Trent, which dealt with justification, did not say you cannot have a high degree of certainty. Yeah, people misinterpret that you can ever be sure of your, whether you're in a state of grace or not. Right. So can you, can you help ease? Because I understand, look, I think it's like Aristotle says in the Nicomikian ethics, right? Like if a stick is bent in a certain way, you need to bend it backwards further than where

it ought to be so that it can arrive where it ought to be. And I understand we live in a day and age where we're not taking hell seriously. Many of us don't remember the last time we heard a sermon on hell. And so to maybe ask you, can you speak to that in people, might be. might feel too quick. Like, no, no, no, we've been doing that. We really need to talk about hell. And yet what I'm saying to you is I know there are many good and faithful souls

who fully agree with Christ's teaching and just need to know the hope they have. Yeah. Well, I want to start by saying I'm not trying to bend it back from the center. I'm trying to bend it back to the center, not go on the other side because we need to compensate for all the distortions. I'm trying to faithfully pass on what the Lord is. has revealed to us, period. I'm not trying to overcorrect to bend something that was bent a certain way. I'm trying to just pass it on in the best balance and the best proportion that

Jesus himself actually says. I'm trying not to overemphasize or under-emphasize. That's a very hard thing to do, but that's what I'm trying to do. That's what renewal ministries is trying to do. We're trying to be in the very center, scripture, tradition, Vatican II, the church, you know, church fathers, church doctors. That being said, We spend a lot of time talking about how there's a lot of natural resistance in us when we talk about these things for all different kinds of reasons. Now, I would call those normal resistances, normal fears, normal whatever. Scrupulosity is really a psychological condition. You know, it really is like an unusual, it's something that can be helped by therapy, by a good counselor, a good confessor, you know.

Scrupulosity isn't like what the average person is. gets when he gets this. He gets it excessively type of thing. So I would say that when we're dealing with a scrupulous person, and you have much more experience with all of this in different ways than I do, we need to be careful, we need to be careful not to coddle them and not to say, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, you know,

don't be afraid, you have nothing to be afraid of it. It's all okay, you know. Actually, you know, there's no possibility if you go into hell, don't worry, you know, that type of thing. So I think we need to be careful about coddling somebody and not thinking that they can kind of grow as a man and kind of face facts and face reality and face hard things. But again, if it's a psychological condition, it needs more help than it can be given in a TV program or radio program. Think about how much audio we consume every day. Podcasts like this one,

music, YouTube, videos, audio books, news, commentary. We're constantly listening to to somebody. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it's Pines of Aquinas. You know, we learn from great teachers. We grow through good conversations. We encounter truth through books, podcasts, lectures. But here's a question. What's actually forming your soul? Because it's possible to spend hours every week listening to people talk about God while spending very little time talking to God ourselves. I know that's a temptation for me. We can become experts in Catholic content. We can know the arguments, know the theology, know the answers, and yet prayer can kind of become an afterthought. But Christianity isn't ultimately about information.

It's about communion. It's about friendship with Jesus Christ. And friendships don't grow through observation. They grow through conversation. That's one reason I love hello, whether it's guided prayer, scriptural meditations, the rosary, saint reflections, sleep prayers, or simply a few quiet moments with the Lord. Hallow helps create space for the most important conversation you will have all day. Not another conversation about God, but a conversation with God. If you'd like to grow deeper in your relationship with Christ, consider visiting hallow.com slash Matt Frad and try it out for three months for free. That's hallow.com slash Matt Frad. I think one of the deepest truths of Christianity is also one of the easiest to forget. Before you are a husband, before you're a father, before you're

successful or unsuccessful before you've accomplished anything at all, you are a beloved son of God. That's your identity. It's not something you earn, not something you achieve. It's a gift. And yet so many of us, myself included, live as though we have to prove ourselves. We're constantly striving, constantly distracted, constantly looking for something that will finally satisfy us. Exodus 90 is an invitation to step away from those false promises and rediscover who you really are, a beloved son called to freedom in Christ. Through prayer, fraternity and intentional sacrifice, men are invited into a deeper encounter with God's love and a deeper experience of authentic freedom, not because they've failed, but because God always has more for

us. St. Michael's Lent with Father Columbar Jordan begins August 12th. Download the Exodus 90 app to start your 14-day free trial or visit Exodus 90.com slash Matt to learn more. That's Exodus 90.com slash Matt. Become the man you were created to be. I had a priest once make the helpful distinction between a tender conscience, which is good. Yeah. That's a good distinction. Yeah. Being sensitive to offending the Lord is a very good thing, you know, but being compulsively or morbidly or, you know, consumed by anxiety is not, you know. So I don't, I'm not qualified to.

Well, but I would say it's not, but it's only not because of the hope we have in Christ. Yeah. You see what I mean? Yeah. Like, if we couldn't have hope in Christ, yeah. Then perpetual terrifying panic would be perfectly appropriate

and there would be nothing psychologically wrong with you. Yeah, right. Well, I would say that dealing with all these truths has to come out of an experience of being loved, being saved, being rescued, being forgiven, and the assurance of those things. Like Romans chapter 8 says, for those in Christ Jesus, there's no condemnation. You've passed from death to life. The judgment of Christians is not a judgment of condemnation. It's a judgment of purification and reward. So, you know, I just, you know, I do have a concern.

that the traditional teaching that we can't know our state of salvation, you can't experience grace, and you don't know if you're a state of grace or not, I think that's a distortion of what the scripture really says and what the saints really have taught. We can be absolutely sure that we're in a good relationship with the Lord. Jesus expects us to know him as a friend. You know, one of the most important passages for what we're talking about is John Chapter 15, where Jesus says, I'm the vine, you're the branches, my father's a vine dresser. And everybody who stays connected to me is going to bear fruit, and my father's going to prune them so they bear even more fruit.

So pruning is painful. Okay, there's painful dimensions to the process of purification. Things have to be scraped away, cut away, straighten out, and there's pain to that, but so we're going to bear more fruit. So it's going to be more fruit in our life, the fruits of the spirit, the fruits of apostolic surface, the fruits of love. But then it says, if you don't stay connected to the vine, you're going to wither away and you're going to be thrown into the fire and you're going to be burnt up. So even in these most tender moments of intimate friendship, Jesus says, you know,

yes, we're friends, but you've got to stay connected to me. So if we are staying connected to Jesus in the normal ways in our church teaches us to stay connected to Jesus, if we pray, if we go to confession if we commit a serious sin, if we go to Mass, we're staying connected to divine and we shouldn't be concerned about being cut off the thrown away. And even though, even Teresa Vival and John of the Cross disagree on this, John of the Cross says you can reach the point of being confirmed in grace where it's actually impossible for you to turn away. Teresa says, no, even in the highest stages of the unit with God, it's possible, but not at all likely. You know, and what happens is what she says is that if you start making little compromise saying,

I'm so deep in the Lord, I'm so, I'm such a deep prayer life, I've overcome so many things in my life, you know, I can make a little exception for myself here or there, this won't hurt me. If you start making little moral compromises or just unwise compromises, exposing yourself to near occasions of sin, there can be a downward spiral even from a very high place with the Lord. But people know that. I mean, you know if you're going to start playing with fire, you could get kind of. So don't play with fire. You know, don't play with near occasion of sin.

Yeah. I mean, don't make a big deal. They just don't do it. And just stick with the Lord and you're going to be with them forever. I love, thank you. I love what Thereseo said on her deathbed when her fellow sisters asked her, they said, well, they didn't ask her. They said, it's no wonder you're so confident of heaven. We don't think you've ever committed a mortal sin in your life.

And she says, oh, it's not because of a lack of moral. sin that I go to God with confidence, even if I had on my conscience, all of the sins creatures can commit. I am sure I would lose none of my confidence because I would turn to him, my heart bleeding and broken. Yeah. I know too well what to think of his mercy. And she compares it, a drop of water flicked into a raging furnace.

Yeah. No, no, that's great. That's great, Matt. And she also says, I'm not afraid of the judgment because he knows he's just judged that he's going to reward us because we've. faithful to him. You know, she's not scared of the judgment. She knows it's going to be a judgment reward because she even says because of his justice, he will take into account my weakness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's honestly, he's a good God. He's a good God. You know, taste to see that

the Lord is good. And having some personal taste of the Lord, having some personal experience of the Lord's love, having the love of the Holy Spirit poured into our soul, we've got to nurture that. We need not be afraid of that. Some people who are really Orthodox Catholics are a little afraid of religious experience. You know, they want to have correct faith, but they need to have a heart that's vulnerable to the Lord, to the Holy

Spirit. They need not be afraid of their emotions. Not to be afraid of losing control by their intellect of their relationship with God. But, you know, this is where different renewal is coming can help people. This is where retreats can help people. But, you know, there's a lot of experience

of the Lord spoken about in the scripture, you know, and taste the sea that the Lord is good. Well, another thing you talk about in this book is the second coming of Christ. I want to ask you, what should we expect? Hey, Matt, before we go any further, can we tell people how to get the book? Sure. Yeah, well, I'll tell them. Well, you tell them. I'll sell it for you. Okay. There is a link in the description up the top. It's called the coming judgment. Are we ready? Pick up a copy, maybe for you and a friend. It's got incredible endorsements. Anthony Fisher, for example, who is the Archbishop of Sydney, gave it a glowing endorsement.

Father Thomas Joseph White, brilliant, another brilliant Dominican. So there you go. Is that a good enough plug? Yeah, I'm really happy because these are sensitive topics. You know, and to get them right in all the different ways in which you have to get them right,

take some help from the Lord and some hard work. And I'm just absolutely thrilled by the endorsements, honestly. I needed to have scripture scholars. I needed to have theologians. I needed to have well-respected church leaders. say, this is solid stuff, you know, type of thing. Yeah.

You know, especially, you know, Thomas Joseph White, rector of the Angelicum in Rome, you know, or, you know, all the other, you know, Father Dave Pavanka says, you know. Yeah. You know. People of God pay attention. Yeah. Yeah.

I think people are recognizing that this is a word that needs to be spoken right now, and this is a balance. Before we move on to the second coming of Christ, I want to ask you your advice to those priests who are watching. Yes. How might they preach about hell on a given Sunday? It's no big deal. It's no big deal.

Don't go out of your way. When the readings come around in the literature, they always do. Monsignor Pope's write that 21 or the 38 parables of Jesus talk about separation and judgment. Don't choose another reading that Sunday. Go with that reading because people need to hear that and know that it's love. You're loving them by telling them the truth. and also prepare yourself because some people are going to get mad. If you tell people the truth about Jesus,

if you point out what Jesus is really saying, somebody's going to come to you after Mass and said, my Jesus would never say that. What a horrible thing to say, huh? No, no. They'll say, haven't you heard the Vatican II changed all that? Or don't you know that Pope Francis says that that's not a sin anymore, you know? I mean, people are going to come up.

Yeah. People are going to come up and say that. And you just have to be prepared for it, not be afraid of that and handle it. Say, well, as a matter of fact, this is what Jesus says. This is what the church teaches. No, Pope Francis didn't change it. He said some confusing ambiguous things, but he didn't.

He can't change this teaching, and he didn't. This is what the catechise of the Catholic Church says. So please be open to it because the fact that you're reacting against it means that maybe something in there for you that would really be helpful. So I would say, just read the reading and say, did you hear what Jesus said? what are we going to do about that? What does that mean, you know, type of thing? You know, it's, I don't know, I don't think it's any big deal,

but a lot of priests have to get over fear of people and wanting to be liked, wanting to be popular. They're also afraid sometimes of getting reported to the bishop and the bishop not backing them up. Well, that's beyond our pay grade. That's something they're going to have to deal with. But something they've been commissioned to do is to preach the entirety of the gospel and the scriptures.

They're going to appear before the judge of the seat of Christ. He said, Jesus is going to say, did you tell them what I told you to tell? You know, did you pass on the teaching? Do you remember the Great Commission at the end of Matthews Gospel? You know, teach them everything. I've taught you, pass on to them and make disciples of them. You know, I told you to teach them everything, and you've left out a whole bunch of stuff because you were afraid of what they're going to think.

My goodness. I hope they don't, he then says, depart from me, you unfaithful ones. But honestly, that's being unfaithful. Okay. Christ says that no man knows the day or the hour. Yes. So this next question is probably moot then. But what indication might we have that the end is coming?

Yeah. He says nobody knows the day or the hour, which is complete specificity about when he's going to return. But almost every time he says that he says, nevertheless be ready. And he does give a number of really significant signs that will come in close proximity to his return. First of all, he tells us some things that will happen and need to happen before he returns. This is both Jesus and the apostles.

One is that there's going to be some final dealing with Israel. You know, after the full number of Gentiles enter in, God's going to then turn his attention to the Jewish people and give them a chance at recognizing their Savior, and it seems like many people are going to respond. There's another text that says, you know, Jerusalem's going to be trampled down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles has come to an end. So there's a couple of witnesses to the thing about the time of Gentiles coming to an end and God dealing with Israel. Of course, the Jerusalem was trampled by the Gentiles for thousands of years until 1947, 48, the the birth of the state of Israel.

And then 1967, the Sixth Day War, they took control of Jerusalem. And so at a certain time, in a not too distant past, the time of the Gentiles trampling Jerusalem came to an end. And the Jews now control Jerusalem. So that's... But aren't we falling into the Protestant era of Christian Zionism in saying that the modern state of Israel is a necessary? Why think that?

That's not what I said. Okay. Yeah. What I just said is that Jesus says, these are signs of His coming, is saying nothing about the state of Israel and its current condition and relationship to the Lord. Okay. And it's pretty clear that the modern state of Israel has huge resistances to the Lord going on.

It's the secular Israel, which is the dominant Israel, is proudly in rebellion against God. You know, abortion, homosexuality. You know, I mean, you know, just, you know, blasphemy, you know, not keeping the Lord's Day holy at all. I mean, it's just like a very secular, rebellious nation. And then the Orthodox Jews, for the most part, are extremely hostile to Christians. So you have a nation that right now is hard-hearted, just like it's stiff-necked, just like the Lord accused of, you know, in the Old Testament times. And even that's what they did to Jesus.

They were hardhearted and stiff neck than they crucified them. So somehow or other, time's going to come when the Lord's going to apply something that helps them to become less hard, harder and stiff neck than. And will that be a sign that the end is coming? Yeah. But saying that isn't saying anything about the current state of Israel. Okay. Yeah.

Another sign that Jesus himself talks about, he says, the gospel has to be preached to all nations, only after that will the end come. Now, how do you measure that? He didn't give us any criteria about how to measure that. I would say that for a long period of time, huge sections of the world, you know, Muslim countries, Buddhist countries, Hindu countries were extremely close to the gospel, and there were no easy ways of preaching the gospel there. I would say with the advent of the global village, with the advent of the internet, with the, you know, advent of satellite communications, there's a lot of effort being put into preaching the gospel in every nation, even nations that used to be closed.

I would say that things like the chosen TV series, I would say the Lord is using that to preach the gospel in an impressive way. It's being translated into over 100 languages type of thing. It's really, it's making Jesus real for a lot of people. I know people have criticisms of it and everything like that. I think overall it's really excellent. I think it's really communicating the love, the peace, the gentleness, the goodness of Jesus, but not compromising his words, not compromising the fact that he's a sign of contradiction, not compromising how he's going to be rejected so on.

But anyway, you know, I think divine mercy is another way. God's reaching out to people, quite honest. I think that those of us who are doing what you're doing, Matt, are doing, we're preaching the gospel. We're still doing a weekly program for EWTN. It's the longest running program at EWTN. And when I first started doing the program when Mother Angelica was alive, I'd say, you know, wow, how did this all happen? And she said, well, the Lord was looking for somebody willing to do this. And everybody he asked said, no.

So he got to the bottom of the barrel and he found some cloistered nuns. And we said yes, and so he decided to use us to make a big international television network. Yeah. And he said, she said, I feel very strongly that the Lord asks us to do this because of a scripted verse in the book of Revelation, the angel with an eternal God preached it, you know, proclaim the gospel to the whole world. She says, the Lord wants our network to be there. So when things start to happen that

terrify the world will be able to tell people what's happening and what to do. That's really interesting. Now, Paul, and then there's lots of things about there's going to be upheaval, this is going to be wars,

there's going to be confusion, there's being false teaching and preaching to church, but that's happened forever. You know, that's been going on forever, but that will be present when the Lord, just before the Lord returns.

But the two signs that I think are the most illuminating is in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2, where Paul says, don't let anybody deceive you. You know, I'm going to count sometime how many times Jesus and disciples say, don't let anybody deceive you. There's a lot of it because Jesus knew his gospel was going to be preached, and even in the church there were going to be false preachers and teachers. A lot of Paul's exhortations to people who are not living in an orderly life or to Christians, you know, false teachers and preachers. when John the evangelist talks about the Antichrist, he says there's been many Antichrist,

they've come from our midst. Or Paul says, you know, the day is going to come when people aren't going to listen to sound teaching, but going to look for teachers and tell them what they want to hear. He also talks about false teachers infiltrating the doctrines of demons into the church.

So it's going to be a mess. It's a mess right now. You talk about the German bishops, you know, there's a lot of other stuff, you know, too, but it's a mess. But 2, Thessalonius chapter 2 says, don't let anybody deceive you because the Lord will not return despite what you're hearing through supposed prophecies. You know, in 1st Thessalonianus chapter 5 it says, don't despise prophecy, but test everything. And then Paul says, the Lord will not return until first of all, the mass apostasy takes place.

So what's an apostasy? An apostasy isn't something that pagans do. it's something that Christians do. It's a turning away from faith on the part of those who once had it. So Paul is saying that one of the signs that the Lord's return is imminent is to be a mass apostasy,

a massive turning away from the faith and the part of those who once had it. Now, again, it's a little hard to measure this or to know what the sure criteria are, but quite honest, for the last couple of years, the established Western countries have been massively turning away from the faith. You know, we read those statistics from the Archdiocese,

Detroit, massive, massive turning away from the faith. And certainly in Europe, and certainly in Canada, certainly Australia, New Zealand. I mean, there's a massive turning away from faith. There's bright spots. There's Africa, you know, where we do a lot of mission work. There's other places where the faith is growing. There's small communities of faith.

There's new religious orders. There's, you know, a growing, returning to the Lord through OCIA. like that, but it's very small compared to the mass apostasy. So I would say that we're seeing something that we haven't seen for like at least 1700 years, the collapse of Christendom. We're seeing the Christian nations kind of collapse and revert back into pagan nations. So I think that's significant. That could be, that's certainly a mass apostasy, whether it's the mass apostasy or not,

that Paul's talking about, quite honestly, we won't know until we see what happens. there's no way of knowing in advance whether this is it or not, although we should be attentive because something big is happening in terms of a mass of apostasy. The second thing is that out of the mass apostasy, a removal of the restrainer is going to take place. Something that's been restraining evil is going to be removed, and the man of lawlessness is going to appear, which most commentators think is the Antichrist. So what we have here is certainly all kinds of things. of restraints on evil have been removed in our culture.

And, you know, they're still working hard on country after country to remove even the last remaining restrainer's on euthanasia of people with mental illness who are children, you know, making a crime to cite the Bible in public in Canada. I mean, like, you know, it's just like they're just not going to stop until, until complete, anything goes, goes. It seems that when we read the New Testament, there are different depictions of the Antichrist? Is it one? Is it many? Yeah. What does the church officially teach about the Antichrist?

The church officially teaches that despite the many Antichrist figures that happened in church history, it still happened. In the last times, before the Lord returns, there's going to be the appearance of the Antichrist, an individual who's going to seduce the world and lead them away from the faith. And second, that's in the Catechus in the Catholic Church. I'm pretty sure. I'm sure I included it here in the appropriate chapter. But it also says, Second Thessalonius chapter 2 says, how the Antichrist is going to work. He's going to work through deceiving people through false signs and wonders. And this is pretty important because there's a lot of emphasis on healing and a lot of emphasis on miracles.

And authentic healing and miracles are intended to lead people to faith in conversion and repentance. sentence, spectacular other things or mysterious other things that seem to be unusual, lead people to marvel at the people doing them or to sign up for a course in miracles, which leads people away from the Lord. And then the second way in which the Antichrist works is through every deception at his disposal so that those who believe his lies are going to fall into an event. in deeper darkness, and as a consequence, God is gonna turn them over to a darkness

that it's almost impossible to turn back from. So that's why knowing the truth is so important. That's why Jesus says, you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. In order for us not to be deceived, we need to know what the truth is, but it's going to be hearing lies. But not only do we need to know what the truth is intellectually,

we need to know the master's voice. It says, my own know me and I know mine. They know my voice and I know them. So that means we need to have a relationship with the Lord. We need to have prayer in our life. We need to get accustomed to what's from the Lord and what is it from the Lord. We need to grow in discernment. We need to learn about recognizing what's coming from the Lord, what's coming from our own inner desires, our thoughts, and what's coming from the devil.

So like Paul talks about in Ephesion, Chapter 6, we need to put on the spiritual online. armor because we're in a spiritual battle. Again, a lot of people don't take that seriously. You know, if you don't know you're in a spiritual battle, you're a sitting duck for being wounded, captured, and brought into the enemy's army. I often think that one of the reasons our life doesn't make sense to us, or one of the reasons we keep getting very confused, is that we don't understand what this life thing is. Yeah.

Right? So that is to say, none of us are asked to be alive. or to be born and yet here we find ourselves. And without God's revelation to guide us and to instruct us, we seek narratives to make sense of what's in front of us. You know, is this like a hedonistic debauchous romp, like sex in the city? Is it a romantic comedy where I'm supposed to find my soulmate live happily ever after? Is it like the show's Survivor where I have to outlive my friends?

Yeah. Or is it like waiting for Godot or we're sitting around? Not knowing what's going on. There's just no point. You're meant to be confused. So make the best of it. Or, and this is the Bible's answer, is it a dramatic spiritual war? And like was said in the third, install one of the Lord of the Rings, the video at least, like open war is upon you whether you would have it or not.

This is the reality. It's nothing else. So all this stuff about working for a nice retirement and being by the beach, sure, maybe that'll be the way it is, but you're in a spiritual war and heaven and hell await. This is the story we're in. And unless we get on board with this story, we'll just keep being desperately confused. You know, amen, brother. That's exactly what I'm saying in this book. I agree with you 100%. Preaching to the choir. Well, hopefully we're helping some people who are hearing this, you know. Well, the choir needs to be preached to, you know. Yeah. Well, one priest was telling you.

I'm so discouraged. All I do is preach to the choir. I said, Father, the choir needs to be converted and become missionary disciples. Yeah. Get them out of the choir laugh. So you have traveled the world. You've probably been on every continent. Yeah, I think so.

To proclaim the gospel. What an honor. No, it's been wonderful. And I remember the first time I went to a foreign country, well, I was living in Belgium. So Cardinal Sooner is the head of the kid. head of the Catholic Church in Belgium and had been asked by Pope Paul VI to guide the Catholic Charismatic Renew in the Church. And then John Paul II renewed his commission to do that. So that's how we got to Belgium.

He wanted us to be there and started an international office for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which is now in Rome. But anyway, while in Belgium, we got a lot of invitations to come to different countries to help explain what the charismatic renewal is and to just help bring renewal to the church. and so I remember going to Ghana, Africa for the first time, by myself. You know, a lot of times when we take these long trips, we'll go with a partner, but in those days, there weren't partners, I was just all by myself. And this young man named George Muzay met me at the airport and was my guide for the whole time in Ghana, so I gave a lot of talks. But I also just learned a lot from George about the Catholic Church in Ghana.

And one of the interesting things I learned is that a lot of young Catholic couples don't get married, but, you know, live together because they can't afford to get married. Because marriage in Nagana is like a big deal, and you have to invite a lot of people. You have to pour expensive liabilities with, you know, alcohol to, you know, to honor God, I guess, or somebody, hopefully God, you know, type of thing. and they have to have a dowry, all those kinds of things. So I was just really happy to kind of follow George over the years and he got married and has a Catholic family, as Catholic children, and became a successful businessman.

But one of the things that's happened to me in almost every country I've been in is I want to stay there. The people are so beautiful. The different races, the different languages, the different cultures are just so beautiful that does give you this wonderful feeling about the beauty of the earth, the beauty of all the races, all the tribes, and how beautiful it's going to be in heaven when all the tribes

and all the nations of the world are gathered, all the languages and all the songs, and if they wear their native costumes, it's going to be very colorful. But it's just really, same thing when I went to Lutheranian for the first time. It was just when communists had kind of stopped, and Father Michael Scanlon and myself, and Sister Anne Shields and Peter Herbick and myself were there, and Bishop Sigatis Tomkichus was there,

and he had just gotten out of the gulag. He had just been freed. You know, he was there. You know, he was involved with an underground newspaper and things like that. So he was very joyful, very radiant. But I remember when we were having our closing rally at the ice arena, They were like the ice arena, the ice arena was full. And he was there and we were offering to pray with people.

They experienced God's love. And so he warned us. He said, nobody's going to come forward with her prayer. Nobody trusts anybody. They really, the communists really taught us all to be suspicious of everybody. There's this spies here, this infiltrators, this people who turn their family members in type of thing. So there's just a deep current of suspicion. in fear. So nobody's going to come. So all of a sudden, this one lady with a little babushka on,

you know, kind of crippled, kind of walking up the aisle, and she comes the first one for prayer. And then it's like the damn burst. Thousands of people came up and they were weeping and they were, it's the first time they were able to express their faith publicly, you know, since coming as times. And many of them had experienced such significant wounds. You know, family members have been taken off to concentration camp. You know, people have betrayed people. And there was just a real healing love coming from the Lord. And then Peter asked the bishop, bishop, you know, you too could pray with your people. He said, can I?

He says, yes, you're an apostle. You're a successor to the apostles. And people would love it if you would be there and be willing to pray for them and say a blessing for them as they come up. And so he did. And then everybody went into his line. They were so happy to have their bishop, you know, pray for them. them. And the way they do it, a lot of times in Poland or Eastern Europe, they laid their head on their chest, and the bishop just sort of like this, like love them as a father, you know,

some type of thing. It was just such healing and such a, such joy. And then the final, the final praise and worship and songs were very joyful. People were really, really experienced, like a real liberation, really, from the oppression of communism and the bishop kind of being their father type of thing. So that was really great. Then I remember the first time I went to India. I went by myself again. And all I knew is that somebody named Romeo was going to pick me up. And so the planes at time were arriving like around midnight at night into the airport and Mumbai. Of course, before the time of smartphones where it was easy to text Romeo.

Right, that's right. I think it was back in the 80s. So I got out of the airplane. and it was the old airport in Mumbai. The new one is absolutely fabulous. I've been there too. But this was like kind of smelly and you can smell sewage.

And it's like, it's like noon. Like thousands of people are just swarming around. Like it's just like noon. And I come out of the airport and people say, Mr. I carry your bag for you. You know, so people were swarming me, you know,

wanting to carry my bag and I had no idea how he was going to meet Romeo or what he looked like or anything like that. And then this guy, pulled up on a motorcycle and says, hurry up, jump on. I said, wait a second, who are you? He says, Romeo. So I'm going to need some identification. Yeah, I got on the back of his motorcycle with my suitcase, you know, and we went roaring through the crowd. He's just so long, you know, and he's become a lifelong friend. He's become a really significant leader in India. I ended up staying

at the Archbishop Ivan Diaz's house. He was the Archbishop of Mumbai at that time. And He then became a cardinal, and he became the head of the congregation for the evangelization of peoples, and he died just a few years ago. So there was lots of culture shock in India. I won't go into all the details, but it's really different. And the smells, the colors, the spices, the saries, these bright orange saries. I mean, every race is so beautiful. I mean, the Indians are so beautiful, the Africans are so beautiful, the Latin Americans are so beautiful. I feel a little deprived of color myself as a white guy, you know.

Anyway, more recently, well, I have to say in Africa, we've seen some of our greatest healings and miracles, you know, the Lord's Healing and Miracles. Tell me about it. Yes. I remember we were in a big field and it was surrounded by stands and, you know, thousands of people. And Father Mike Scamland, in particular, who really turned around Francisco University of Stumville, he died a few years ago, really had a gift of healing. So I believe the Lord heals people, but I believe he heals people more through some people than other people. I don't know if I ever prayed for anybody who got healed. You know, I think

I have a different gift, you know, type of thing. But Father Mike was very bold in praying with people for healing. So he said, is there anybody blind here today? Yes. Yes. So a young girl led up her mother or grandmother who, you know, obviously couldn't see, you know, so Father Mike did this. Can you see my hand? Can you see my hand? No, you know, type of thing. So then Father Mike prayed for her.

And then he says, can you see my hand? And she says, yes. So she got our sight back right there. And then she went back to where she was in the stands and her family got all around her. We had actually a TV crew with us at the time. We did a documentary on this. And so we asked the family members, was she really blind? She's been blind from birth.

She can't see a whole type of thing. So right there, the Lord healed this woman right before my eyes. You know, the time I saw it. You know, I saw the testimony, the type of thing. And so some of our missionaries, we have people we call country coordinators that work with us in different countries. Just yesterday, I was saying goodbye to a team of three people going to Papua New Guinea. husband and wife of five children are going a man a older man in a marriage his wife's not going but the three of them are going 14 hours from Detroit to South Korea six and a half hours from South Korea to Singapore overnight in Singapore

six and a half hours from Singapore to Papua New Guinea and another hour to an interior city where they were going I said well it's it's quite a journey you know I've been on journeys like that myself I don't I don't like them you know, they're hard. I said, how are you feeling? I said, the husband of the wife said, I feel it great. I just love to preach the gospel. The last time we were there,

a seminarian, we were preaching the seminaries, a seminarian came up, said, when I was five years old, I came to one of the healing sessions that your team did, and I got a vocation to their priesthood when he's five years old. So you never know what the Lord's doing,

Like you put a little pebble in the pond and the ripples just kind of just go out and keep going out. You never know. Who knew that there was a five-year-old boy in the crowd a number of years ago who's now a seminarian because he heard some of our team members preach and teach, you know, type of thing. So, you know, those are the things that I'm so impressed by the heroism of people who work with us in missions. More recently, Bishop Scott McKay, whom I know you know, have done a lot of priest conferences together. I feel like right now I need to be focusing on priests. and just priests are discouraged, priests are confused, priests are putting in time, priests are, you know, finding it hard in different kinds of ways.

So two years ago, we were in Uganda, and we had a priest conference with 500 priests from a bunch of different countries, mainly from Uganda, but from surrounding countries. And we've been working in Uganda for years. We've been working with the most incredible lay leaders we ever met. The best lay leaders I've ever met in the world, wise, gifted, committed, anyway, called the MOWAS Center. And we've helped them put on Life in the Spirit seminars for more than 2,000 seminarians and priests in the country. And it's made a big impact on the country. six of the people who worked to the life in a spirit seminars who are priests, are now bishops.

And so when we came back two years ago, there was a bunch of bishops there and 500 priests and Bishop Scott and I were the speakers. We each gave five talks. There were ten talks. And I want to put in a word for your friend, Bishop Scott, because I heard some of the best proclanations of the gospel I've ever heard in my life. I've heard a lot. And I do it a lot myself, Bishop Scott. Yeah, don't tell him I said.

this because I don't want to praise him unnecessarily, but he is the best preacher I think I've ever heard. He's very, very good. I mean, like I said, I think it's the best I ever heard, you know. And he does very good on the chrygma, it's very good on baptism of spirit, spiritual gifts, very good on evangelization. So, you know, I did a lot on holiness and all the things, and he did a lot on that and things like that. And it was just very, very powerful. And so many of the priests told us that they were confused, they were discouraged.

And now they feel ready to really... Where was this? This was the Uganda and Kampala. Yeah. Yeah, I've been to Uganda to evangelize. Who was I with? I was with the fellas who helped start net ministries in Uganda. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yes. Was that from Canada? No. Okay, Andre Renee and... Oh, no, no. Okay, they do things in Uganda too. But, yeah, okay, yeah. Good.

Yeah, you've been around quite a bit too, Matt. It's a joy. You know, just recently getting to go to Lithuania was a real joy. Yeah. And I don't know about you, but it's, uh, I, I just feel the Lord working in my heart before I go on one of these trips. And I, and I, and it's like, oh, something's happening. I don't know if that makes sense. I don't even know what it is. But I'm like, oh, Lord, I just give you everything. I give you every encounter with the baggage people with people I bump into it. Yeah. Yeah. You know that the special grace operating. Yeah. You need to be alert to how

the Lord is. I also pray that the Holy Spirit would cloak me. from the enemy so that I can get through without too much distraction. Yeah. But it's been beautiful. I would fill up my bag with rosaries and people I meet, I just, like, I bumped into this one fella. He's like, oh my goodness, I've seen you on YouTube. Yeah, yeah.

I'm deciding whether to become Orthodox or Catholic. I'm like, here's a rosary. Yeah. Just those little things like that, to pray with people. Well, it's really interesting because we have our own YouTube channel. It's growing quite a bit. We have 120,000 subscribers. I know it's nothing compared to you.

But when I go to all these. country. It's just people watching our programs. And a lot of people said, I've seen you on Matt Frad. Yeah. A lot of people are watching you, Matt. I mean, it really is. I mean, it's pretty amazing. It's pretty wonderful. Yeah. I remember hearing a priest, I've said this a million times. He said something, Lord, Lord, use even my, he used a different word, my dung, shall we say, as manure for their growth. Oh, yeah. That's really my only hope, you know, like. Well, I don't know, I think, there's a lot of, I don't mean to be, I don't mean to be self-deprecating. But, you know, like, especially when you realize the reach that you have, like yourself.

Yeah. The whole world is. You start to feel the, oh, dear Lord, please forgive me for all the ways that I failed. Yeah. The whole world's watching YouTube. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we arrived in, I want to show you this with there. Well, it's obviously an icon of our blessed Lord.

Yes. And there's a reason I'm showing you this. My wife and family were in Austria. And we were there for six months and I was co-teaching a philosophy course. As soon as we arrived, one of the ladies... We're at Francisco University's Gaming. Yeah, in Gaming in Lower Austria. As soon as we arrived, one of the women who works there says,

what do you want me to do with all of these emails I'm getting? What are you talking about? Apparently people from all around Europe were inviting us to come and speak. So I took this icon of Christ and you'll see on the back here. You probably can't read those countries, but I think we went to about 20 different countries. countries. Oh yeah. Zagreb, Croatia, Hungary, Hungary, Rome, Italy, Vienna, Austria. But what was beautiful, as I said to them, you don't have to, we don't want money.

We just want you to pay for our travel and have put us up somewhere and have priests available for confession. And then one of the things we did that all of these different places is we placed this icon out and invited everybody to come and venerate it. Oh yeah. So to think that, you know, people in Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, which is not like I could called the Czech Republic, but Slovenia and so on came. It was beautiful. Yeah. It was just such an honor.

But to your point. Yeah. Well, speaking of icons. How many people have, because of YouTube, how far everything is. Speaking of icons, though, this is my favorite icon. I have this in my office. It's where I pray each morning. Yeah.

And I look at the icon of Jesus. Yes. And it just makes Jesus so real to me. I mean, I... Did you ask for that cover? I did. Yeah. I asked for that cover.

They did a great job. Yeah. It's so... I just... I've never been into icons, but I know I'm not committing idolatry, but I really love the icon. That is correct. I really love looking at Jesus. I hope you know.

Yeah, the type of thing. But anyway, more recently, Bishop Scott and I have been doing stuff in Latin America. This past February, we did something in Peru for, it was a smaller group. It was about 80 or 90 Peruvian priest. And it was a whole week again. we both gave about the same number of talks. And Peru is in a tough situation. They still have remnants of liberation theology.

That's very influential amongst some of the priests. And they have the Cardinal of Lima's head scandals. You know, there's just discouragement and confusion and that type of thing. So we try to bring clarity and strength and hope and confidence in the truth of the gospel. I remember at the Synodon Evangelization. that I was a delegate at a number of years ago, the Cardinal who opened the Senate said, the number one priority for us is the church

is to recover our confidence in the truth of the faith. Amen. That's it. You know, in time of faith. So anyway, so we're trying to help them recover their confidence and the truth of the faith, the value of their priesthood, the importance of their vocation.

And at the end, we had people share. the first priest that got up said, I've been living a double life. Bless him. Yeah, I've been in a relationship. Yeah. I really feel like the Lord's convicted me and I'm repenting.

God bless his humility. Wow. That took courage. I know, he said the public in front of everybody, you know, on top of it. I'm sure others were in that situation too because in some of these countries, that's a weakness, you know.

Another priest got up and said, you know, I've been so afraid to preach with boldness. the gospel, and I really have gotten boldness this week, and I'm really looking forward to that type of thing. So Bishop Scott and I looked at each other, and I said, this makes it all worthwhile. It would be worthwhile to come all the way to Peru

for this one priest who the Lord delivered from sin and depression and deception, that type of thing. And then a couple months later, we just came back to the Uruguay, and we didn't, we weren't sure really we should go to Uruguay or not, because the Cardinal was inviting us, Cardinal Sterla.

The president of the bishop's conference was inviting us, but they were telling us the priests in Peru, the priests in Uruguay are very discouraged. They won't come to anything. They don't believe any good could come, you know, for them. They're just sort of discouraged, but this is a very secular country. They say maybe it's the most secularized country in Latin America, and it has a very, very hostile secular government. The church is sort of despised, you know, it's, we,

weak, it's small, you know, everything like that. So they said maybe we could get 25 priests to come, but only for one day. We said, it's a long way to come for 25 priests for one day. Don't you think they could come for a couple days? So the word came back, no. This honestly would be the best. Yeah. But it would be a start for us.

So could you please come? So we came. And it was really. good. They had about 35 or 40 priests come, which they were very surprised at. At the end of the day, the Cardinal asked us to hang out with him and order Domino's Pizza. I got a picture holding a box of Domino's Pizza, Cardinald, Sturl, and sent it back to Tom Monaghan in Ann Arbor, you know. Yeah. Free advertising. Yes. And Tom Wanahan, for those at home, is the faithful Catholic who founded at Domino's Pizza.

Right, right, right. And in Ann Arbor, where I come from. So the Cardinal said, I needed to hear this myself. He said, I really needed to hear this. He's been trying to uphold the faith. He's like an Orthodox Cardinal, but not a lot of support in Latin America for that. He says, I really needed to hear this. Thank you so much.

And then the president of the bishops conference at this pizza get together said, this is a new beginning for the church in Uruguay. There's new hope now. There's new life. There's new joy. There's new confidence. So I do think it was worthwhile going there because even though it was a small number of people, there were key people and something got released, some power of the Holy Spirit got released,

some joy, some love, some confidence in the gospel, some belief in the possibility of holiness and things like that. And it's really great to do with Bishop Scott because we're both on the same page and Having a priest and a light people working together is really a good thing. As we wrap up, where can people, we know where we can get the book. Links in the description, people should check it out. But also, I want to put links to your excellent YouTube channel, maybe to point people to the show that you and Pete do together. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, they could get it at our website, Renewal Ministries. Or they can get it on Amazon.com. You know, it's available. So, yeah. Yeah. But what about your specific renewal ministries? Anything to say about that?

Yes. Renewal ministry started when I started giving those talks about a crisis of truth. After living in Belgium for four years, we came back to the United States. And while I was in Belgium, I was kind of keeping in touch with theologians, Catholic publications. And I couldn't believe what I was reading. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't believe the untetheredness from scripture and tradition that large numbers of people were doing, you know. And so I just really felt like I got to identify the lies that believe, people believe in, tell them again what, what's scripture and tradition, the church teaching these areas. So I did that. People responded very, very strongly, and they said, you really got to keep doing this. I said, well, now I got to start getting some support to do it. I was part of an ecumenical community, but they didn't want to support a Catholic ministry. So I had to do it myself, start a Catholic ministry, and things like that. So I wrote a letter to 25 friends and said,

I feel like the Lord's asking me to do this. Would you be able to help support it to happen? So that's how Renewan Ministries came out. And, you know, then one day somebody walked into my office and said, hey, why don't you do TV? And he was a University of Michigan TV guy. And so we've been doing TV now for 35 years or 40 years or something like that, longest running program on EWTN.

Then we started doing the YouTube channel. And I really like that because, you know, most of our team does it in a set. the office with, you know, cameras and everything like that. I do it in my office. I like that. I like your, I like your little videos that you do. Yeah. I agree with you. It's more intimate the way you do it. Yeah, I just, I just feel like I get up for my prayer time and I just want to share what the Lord's giving me. And it's kind of simple. I don't dress special. I probably should do something with my hair, but, you know, that type of thing. But I, I just really like sharing

the beauty of God's word, you know, with people in a simple way, whenever you can, you know, the type of thing. And then we have a mission work all over the world. I told you about the team in Papua New Guinea right now. And then we got teams going to Tanzania later in the summer and, you know, just all different kinds of things. So we, in any given year, we might have 30 or 40 different missions in 30 or 40 different countries. And we try to stay with the country. We try not to be just hit and run, but we try to support them financially, support them with teaching and preaching and things like that. And then we have this new development of youth ministry, we have a really incredible ministry to high school boys and girls. And it's really, really beautiful.

And these young men and women are really giving their lives very fully to Christ. And we hope that they kind of get formed as disciples. So when they go off to college or go off to jobs, that they can really be 11 wherever they go type of thing. My granddaughter is in the ministry of high school girls. What's this code? What's this ministry code? It's called Beloved Revolution.

Be love. Be love revolution. Like, the Lord's calling you to be love. Okay. And cause a revolution by loving. Mother Teresa is there like, you know, saint. The boys ministry is called forged. I want to be forged into men of God type of thing, you know, things. So that's going on. So anyway, my granddaughter had a pretty big conversion through the camp, summer camp we run. And I decided to ask you to be a guest on the choices we face TV program, because she's really, she got. got really deeply touched by the Lord. And we just released it about a month ago. And it's one of the most popular videos we've ever done.

She's so beautiful inside and outside. And she's so beautiful in sharing about the love of Jesus type of thing. And some of her friends have seen it. They posted on, you know, she's got 10,000, 10,000 views on, I don't know, Instagram or whatever they call it. You know, I'm trying not to subscribe to those things myself. I hear about them, you know, the type of thing. So I'm going to send you a link to that because I think it's very inspiring, you know. I think it would just would cheer your day.

Yeah, I'm sure it would. Ralph, God bless you. Thank you for the good work you've done and thanks for coming on the show. Well, thanks for having me, Matt, and I do feel like I'm feeling I'm talking to a fellow disciple when I'm talking to you. And even your devil's advocate questions are very good. We need to ask those questions. We need to confront what's in people's minds. Yeah.

And then this other book, we need to point people to, if they perhaps have objections to hell from maybe universalism or annihilationism, they could check that out. Yeah, this is my senior pope is great. The book he wrote, The Hell There Is is great. All right. Thanks. Okay. Thank you.