Pints With Aquinas - Sound of Freedom Beats Indiana Jones

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

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Hey everybody, before we jump into the podcast, I wanted to let you know that if you become an annual supporter over at matfrad.locals.com support, you will get a free Pines with Aquinas Beer Stein. You just pay shipping, you'll get access to our free courses, you'll get access to our post-show live streams that are exclusive to our local supporters. Also monthly spiritual direction with Father Gregory Pine, as well as our free quarterly newspaper sent to your door. It's called The Jill, and we even pay the shipping on that one, no matter where in the world you live. If you're interested in getting these perks, please go to locals.com, sorry, matfrad.locals.com slash support, and sign up as an annual supporter to get those perks and you'd be tremendously helping us as a ministry. Thank you.

Who knows what's best? I want a girl with shoes that cut and a chest that burn like a cigarette. Wow, that's such a good song. The bit about the fingernails that shine like justice. What does that mean? No clue. You want me to look it up on Lyrics Genius and read the meaning of the lyrics to you? Yes, let's do it right now.

I want a girl with a black eye location Who's fast and thorough and sharp You're playing it twice, I think. What? You have our stream up, you idiot! What'd you say? You've got our stream up on your computer! She's touring the facility

And picking up slack I want a girl on your computer. See that's beautiful. I love when Americans sing like Americans. Yeah, it's really I love that song. If I sing that song it would be like I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket. Yeah. Hi everybody. Welcome to Pines with Aquinas. Just nice to have you here. Just a chill little stream that me and Thursday are doing.

Lots going on. I just interviewed Dr. John Berg some of this morning. I was thinking it was going to be a lot longer than it was. Unfortunately, I only had like an hour and a bit, but it was a fascinating discussion. If you want to learn to love the Bible more, or if you want to feel convinced, right, justified in thinking of the Bible as a reliable historical set of documents, watch that show. It was absolutely the bomb diggity. Also, I wanna let people know that we are going to be running a course on Flannery O'Connor this summer over at matphrad.locals.com. So please go and join us over there, matphrad.locals.com. When you become an annual supporter,

we will send you a pints with Aquinas Bierstein for free. We send emails at the end of every month. So if you become a supporter right now, wait to the start of next month, and then we'll shoot an email to everybody who becomes a supporter. Thanks so much. One thing I wanna talk about

that I'm really excited about is Sound of Freedom with Jim Caviezel. Now, I had Jim on the show. If you wanna watch that full interview, you have to be a supporter over at matphred.locals.com though we did release a couple of clips over on YouTube. But last night I started watching an interview between Jordan Peterson and him and Tim Ballard, who Jim represents in the movie.

And it was a fascinating interview. Really, really excellent. It was far less awkward than my interview with him. It was awkward. Yeah. That's all we have to say about that. Yeah. It was terrific. And I would highly recommend that you go check out that interview between Jordan Peterson and Tim Ballard and, and Jim. It was a made over a million views already, but this is, so if those of you who aren't familiar, let's see, uh, how do we sum up this? Um, I want to tell you what it's about. What's about, it's about this guy called Tim Ballard who goes into places and helps rescue those who

are sexually trafficked and trying to bring those who are trafficking them into justice. I think it's been kind of cornered as a sort of faith film because it came out of Angel Studios and because Jim is so open about his Catholicism, Tim Ballard is also a man of faith. And so because of that, I was really excited to see that it's doing better in one sense, you know, maybe not anymore, as Disney's Indiana Jones. I don't say that to just crap on Indiana Jones because I don't know, maybe it's a good film. Have you heard anything about it?

No, I've heard that it was a pile of garbage. Was it? Yeah. But what I'm excited about is that you've got Hollywood who thinks here's what the people want. And then you have this faith-based film that's trying to uncover a real evil that's taking place in the world today

that in some ways I think is trying to be more and more normalized, not the sex trafficking part, but the pedophilia part. And it in one sense did better than Indie. Now, what do I mean by that? Here's what I mean. Angel Studios' Sound of Freedom, a drama starring Jim Caviezel, grossed around 14 million on its first day of release. Disney's Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny made less, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny made less and also had the luxury of playing in two thousand more theaters. Come on.

Sound of Freedom has a limp budget of fifteen million. I love that that's a limp budget. Why did they use the word limp? Yeah, like anyway. Indiana Jones costs around three hundred and twenty nine million. So that's wild. So a budget of 15 million dollars and on the first day of release they make 14 million dollars. They gross 14 million dollars. That is so cool. Let's see. Tom Bruggeman says in one day, freedom grossed more the full domestic runs of recent award

contenders. This is not a coherent sentence, I don't think. Like the Banshees of Innis Sharon. Have you seen that? Innis Sharon? Yeah. T'Tar? Haven't seen that.

Haven't seen movies, dude. And Women Talking. That sounds fun. It it's gross. Nearly doubles that of current independent hit past lives. I haven't seen any of these things, but this is still in theaters and

people should go check it out. If you have one near you, I'm going to try to do it. They sent me a link because I'm really special. So I had the chance of watching it before it was released. Our link is expired. Yeah.

Did I tell this? This is a little bit funny. So my friend Benedict is like, you want to go see this movie? And I was like, nah, they sent Matt and I. I'm not going to pay to go see a movie that we that I could see for free. Right.

And he's like, fine, I guess we're not friends. Like, he's joking with me. Right. I was like, no, it's not about that You know, like I'm not gonna pay a hundred dollars to go to a movie theater And then I click the link and it's like your link is expired. I was like, well, yes, I'll go No, I'm soon I think we'll go see it soon in Robinson. I don't know I'd like to go see it But you know, there were some there were some naysayers about Tim Ballard and the work that he was doing. And right away in the interview between Jordan Peterson and him, he he goes through all of the well, several of those criticisms, which which Tim puts

to bed. I actually was with Tim Ballard. I just realized this at a National Center on Sexual Exploitation Summit several years ago, I gave the closing address and he was there I got to meet him and wow what an honor what an honor so I think this is this is really why is this exciting do you think Thursday I've said why I think it's exciting what do you think it's exciting any day that Disney loses is a good day done and any day that Jim Caviezel wins is a good day. And now we get both. That's really cool. Yeah. So that's that.

What else is going on? We just bought a building. We did, we closed yesterday. On 4th Street in Steubenville. Yep. And that's kind of exciting. Yeah, that's exciting. Pines HQ coming soon.

Yep. So. I'm gonna put up some different studios. Kind of like the idea of you could start your own. We all do some sub brands. Yeah, we do. We hadn't talked about that on the show, but that's something that Matt and I've been talking about for a while is starting some podcasts. We have all the equipment.

We have the space. We have green screen stuff. We definitely have the space now. We definitely, the equipment to run another small green screened podcast. Yeah, no, so the building's going to really allow us to grow a little bit now in ways that we can and probably should. And it's also big enough that it's going to give us the opportunity to continue to grow for years to come And really build out pints and you know up with the mission and the good work the Lord's allowing us to do so Matt frad dot locals comm slash support, please Please please Yeah, yeah, I

Want to address something else this came up on my locals. People are talking about student bill and listen to this. See what you think of this. This comes from well, it doesn't matter who it comes from just in case. But yeah, Matt and company, I keep hearing about how everyone is trying to build something new and different in student bill. I would love to see an episode on exactly what that means. The more little tidbits I get, I'm starting to believe it's not exactly special what y'all are attempting to do Not in a special good sense, but in a where the only ones doing it sense For example, you spoke recently about a local farmers market downtown We have a farmers market in a co-op here in Greenville, South Carolina

started by Catholics and it hit me that maybe if we the larger pines community or Understood exactly what your community is attempting to achieve You'd find many of us have good examples of how to achieve those things, or better yet have done them already ourselves. Whether it be a farmers markets, co-op, low interest microloan programs, fighting gentrification at a city, country, and state level, et cetera. I think you'll be happy to hear that Steubenville isn't the only place that... So I just saw that and I just wanted to say, yeah, I know. Yep. They're totally.

Yeah, but I think Steubenville is unique in the history and the Catholicity That's built into the to the the actual place. Mm-hmm And a lot of other places that are doing it Don't have because the intellectual is important the intellectual understanding is important. I don't think it's Be careful I say this it is at least as important as the as the actual physical farming and everything. Yeah. But the other thing is like we're doing it together and we're living life together. And if you are in a community where like you can walk to another Catholic's house or like trust your kids to run around in the city. And you know, that's great.

But as far as what Matt and I, a lot of other student, the locals were student townies of what townies are, have experienced, it is unique in that regard. So there, we're not saying by any means that it's the only place it's happening or it should be, we're just saying it's a good place where these things are happening. And honestly, the world would be a better place if everybody did them. So, like... And to be fair, this lady, I don't think she's being critical. I think she's just...

But I don't want people to think that that's what we're saying, that like, Steubenville is the only place we live. No, it's just I talk about Steubenville because I live in Steubenville. And I'm sure you're doing great things and good for you. And I'm sure if you had any kind of... Matt Walsh and Michael Noles talk about Nashville. Yeah. Yeah. So that's all. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah.

I feel like we really should have had more things to talk about today. I can tell the story of the, the, the thing I said right before the, the first man to tell it. So we were joking about me having you having the bladder of a six year old. And I said, actually, I just have a digestive disorder. That's right. Because I said, is there any to go to the toilet before we begin this episode with John? I said, I should. I'm like, yeah, you should. You got a bladder of a six year old.

Like, I have a digestive issue. I went, oh, crap. So, oh, we should I have a digestive issue. And I went, Oh crap. Sorry. So, Oh, we should talk about that too. Um, I should pressure Matt to do that on camera. Uh, so this is a true story. So when I was 16, it was the second time I was inpatient. I have Crohn's disease. I was inpatient in Riley Children's hospital in Indianapolis with Crohn's disease. And, um,

the pain I was having was internal pain in my digestive tract. And so they had me on morphine. And can I just say, if you struggle with heroin or morphine, I completely understand why it feels amazing. Imagine just like existing floating in a warm cloud and not caring about anything in the world and not having any worries.

Yeah. It's that sounds great. It is the greatest physical feeling I've ever felt my life. How old are you? I was 16. Wow. So it's great. But so I'm sitting in this hospital bed.

We're against a dick being addicted to. Yeah, please don't. But I'm just saying I understand if you are. So I'm sitting in this hospital bed at like 16 years old, laying there on morphine, just chilling, you know what I mean? Sure. Just vibing. And this nice old lady comes in, she goes, hi, I'm the director of the children's life at Riley here. We're having story time in the library. And my mom's sitting in there and I'm

just kind of, I'm stoned. I look over at my mom stoned, like confused. Like is this, this old lady asking me a 16 year old, if I want to go to story time, like I've got morphine, like we're fine. I didn't say that, but I was sitting there like, why would I want to go to story time? And she, and my mom's like, he's, he's 16. I don't, I don't think he wants to go to story time, but thank you.

And she goes, well, Andrew Luck is reading. And for those of you who don't know Andrew Luck was the quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts for a long time, for a couple of years. And he was like a generational talent at quarterback, but he got injured and had to retire early, unfortunately. But this was during like the height of like, he was like at his prime before he was injured. And I like turned back around and I'm like,

yeah, I'll be there. So we go down to the story time in the in the hospital library. It's Andrew Luck and me, a 16 year old growing up in Indianapolis, Peyton Manning and then Andrew Luck. It was I mean, it's a big deal. Right. Yeah. And I was kind of a little star truck, but I was also stoned. And so there's all these like little kids

sitting around in a circle at the floor and Andrew said in this chair, read this picture book and at one point and first of all, can I just say Andrew Luck was one of the nicest celebrities I've ever met. Yeah, he Apparently and we asked later He during the offseason will show up and during the season when he has time We'll just show up to the hospital without a posse or anything Oh and ask if there are any kids who are especially down who he could help by cheering him up.

He just shows up unannounced. He like, he uses a flip phone, doesn't have a smartphone, never did, rides his bike most places. Great guy, just an all around really good guy. And so he looks, so you can tell, cause I've got my IV hooked up and everything, you can tell I'm a patient and not an older sibling. And he's like, what you can tell, cause I've got my IV hooked up and everything. You can tell I'm a patient and not an older sibling.

And he's like, what's your name, man? I was like, oh, and I was like, my favorite book is The Man Who Was Thursday. That's amazing, a 16 year old. It's an allegory written by GK Chesterton about the consequences of moral relativism. And it's not, I thought I knew what it was about at 16. I don't. I've read it.

Chances are he hasn't read it. Read it. So he's just like, he just goes, yep, cool. Then moves on. So I've got two stories of meeting professional athletes, and I want to know if you've heard them. OK, I probably have it. Here's why professional athletes would be lost on me.

The first example, I had to literally type in who is the Atlanta baseball team to remember who they were. Atlanta Braves. There you go. So I was given a talk somewhere in Kansas, I think. And I was given, and there's this Catholic fellow who plays for the Atlanta Braves. He says, I'm from Atlanta. I'm from Atlanta. He said, Hey, I'd love to, I'd love to give you guys, you know, some, some tickets to come watch us practice. You know, I didn't realize, I didn't, I didn't realize what I then said was so offensive until I relayed the story to my wife. So what I said was, I was like, Oh wow, no, that's okay. But thank you so much. She's like, wait, what? You said no? I'm like, yeah, I don't, I don't,

I don't even really care about baseball. So apparently that was really offensive. Is this saying no thank you? Yeah. I don't think that's offensive. Nah, I'm good. I didn't say that. Oh, that would have been different.

It depends on the phrasing. Here's the second thing that happened. I was at Latin Mass in Atlanta and Harrison Butka? Harrison Butker? I guess he is the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs. He was there. Yeah. He looked like a Greek god descended from the sky and put on a suit. Dude, the legs on those kickers. Unbelievable.

Anyway, he was there. He was there and I just thought, wow, that man's very attractive. And after he came up and said, hello, I had no idea who he was. People were around him. I kind of thought maybe they were there because of me. Because of Pines with Aquinas. And so he's introducing himself to me because he listened to Pines with Aquinas. Like, awesome, you know.

And then he tells me he plays for the who are they again? Kansas City Chiefs. My next question was actually, that's awesome. So is that baseball or you said no, it's NFL. I didn't feel like an idiot. But I bet he enjoyed it that you

didn't know, I guess. But those are my two examples of meeting people who have been professional. But I don't know. I guess, but those are my two examples of meeting people who've been professional, but I don't know, not a big sports guy. If somebody asked during the last AMA, oh, we could answer more AMA questions. Let me go over there. I don't think we got to them.

Which if you could only watch one sport for the rest of your life was, and I was like, he's gonna say cricket. Yes. Because he doesn't care to watch. He doesn't enjoy watching any other sport besides cricket. Cricket and Aussie rules football.

I liked that as well. Yeah. All right. So let's, unless you have something to say on that, I wanted to get some questions here. Let's do some AMAs. Fabi says, we need Brett Cooper on the show. Friends, here's how you make that happen.

You write to her and you comment under everything she posts. I'm not suggesting you do this or else it would seem like harassment, but if you want her on the show, you ask her. This person, Eric Roy says, what are your views on ghost apparitions? So interestingly enough, in the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas kind of addresses this. He says that God can make it such that the blessed reveal themselves to men on earth, so can those in purgatory to beseech our prayers, so can the damned to maybe warn us in some other way.

And so if, let's see, what is a ghost? What is a ghost? Let's find a definition here. An apparition of a dead person, which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living. So that's a ghost. So Aquinas says, yes, ghosts are possible.

That would be my response to that. Real quick, I'm seeing people comment about this. So real quick, we did start to try to simul-stream this to locals. Did you tell them we were going to? Is that why? I posted it a coupleul stream this to locals. Did you tell them we were going to is that what I posted it a couple times But we will be in a couple weeks locals is doing they told us they're doing an overhaul of their Of their

Streaming sir system. So we'll be simul streaming to local. Yeah, so from now on hopefully everything Yeah, once we're gonna give it a shot in a couple of weeks when it's revamped. Once we get this fixed, we'll set up all of our live streams here on YouTube will be simul streamed to locals. And then at the end of every live stream, we're going to do a locals only portion. And that's going to be fun because up until now, what we've done is I've done an interview, we click stop, and then we do another video and then we upload it and it's not live to locals. But from now on, on we're gonna always have a bonus

After hours or after stream segment just for local support. It's another good reason. Matt Fred at locals local Lydia Serati says oh, I didn't read the question ahead of time. I'll be driving to Steubenville tomorrow, but she wrote this on June 30th What are your cigar lounge hours? I'm driving 25 hours all the way from McAllen, Texas. Sorry, Lydia. I hope not to see me or the kicker guy from Canada. Anyway, 10 to 10 every day, but Sunday. He's probably in Kansas.

You probably drove the wrong way. Yeah. Took a wrong turn. What countries have you visited? I have visited a lot of countries. I went to Taipei, which is either part of China or off the coast of China. I think it's a separate country. Taiwan, Taipei.

Pretty sure it's Taipei. Taipei is a city, I thought. Maybe it is. Taipei. Where is Taipei? I don't know. How do you spell Taipei? Taipei City, you're right, is the capital of the Republic of Taiwan.

So, but it says the Republic of China. What does that mean? Parentheses Taiwan. Here's your here's our moment where we get cancelled. Is Taiwan a part of China? Not answering that. I don't even know how plastic is made. Point is, I went to Taipei and while I was there, there was a lot of different kind of, what do you say, like temples

around the place, not Christian temples. And so what I did is I took the, I took a Chinese Bible and I wrote, I kind of wrote it on a separate note, I am the way, the truth and the life in Chinese, I guess Chinese So they call it this is getting off the rails quickly I gave it to a woman and I told her about Jesus as best as I could so in Taipei That was fun. I've been to Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi is a city as well. I think it's in the UAE. Yep, correct That was fun. Those are the two most exotic places. I went to New Zealand and I will say this, New Zealand is probably a better looking country

than Australia. It's hard to say. Australia is a very beautiful country, but if you're trying to decide if you go to Australia or New Zealand, it wouldn't be a wrong decision to go to New Zealand. New Zealand is like Scotland and Hawaii had a baby. It's tropical and rugged. It's a very beautiful country. Politics can't speak to that, but... Oh, hey, do you know Brian from Cathola Holohism? Catholah-hism?

Who we accidentally banned. I didn't ban him. He was banned before I started. I said, we accidentally, I guess, someone accidentally banned him. He said, well, we have him on the show to talk about memes. I don't know. Is he interesting? I'm sure ban him. He was banned before I started. I said, we actually, I guess someone accidentally banned him. He said, well, we have him on the show to talk about memes. I don't know. Is he interesting? I'm sure he is. I mean, memes are not a great long form discussion topic. Unless we have like a video up here where we go through a hundred memes. That'd be exhausting. I tried that with Peter Craft.

How is Zellie- Meme review. That's all. Thank you for my- everybody else got Matt didn't it's fine. No, it's PewDiePie It's a PewDiePie thing from way long ago Anyway move on Do you want to talk about how I'm a boomer I Don't think you're a boomer. I think from last night. I mean the text message just sent you. Oh, yeah, do you want it? so this leftist channel I think you're a boomer. I think from last night. I mean the text messages sent you. Oh, yeah, do you want it? So this

leftist channel What how did I I did not am I I'll talk about it and then I'm trying to figure out what happens to my shot There we go. Oh, so so this leftist channel like posted a video of And it's my face and then next to me is two fellas kissing. Yeah, I think it says disgusting Yeah, and then the title was like religious fundamentalists find transgenders and gays icky. Yeah. Which is not true, but I do find gay men kissing disgusting. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so, but Matt sends me this picture that says, and I, all that's in the picture is the thumbnail and then it says religious fundamentalists find gays and dot dot dot. And so I reply, hold on, let me get this correct. So the, and it's dot dot dot. So it's cut off in the screenshot he sent me and it's not a link.

It's a screenshot he sent me. And I said, I can't see the whole title. And he says, click it. And I said, I did. So that Matt's solution to this is not to take a new screenshot, it's to crop it to where just the title is in it. And it still has the ellipsis without the full title and send it to me once again, religious fundamentalist, fine, gay and dot, dot, dot.

The title is cut off. And so I replied, the title is cut off in the video you're sending. And then you send me that same screenshot with the title cut off again the third time. What was funny about this story is I thought you didn't get it and what are the chances that that's the case with anything to do with technology? I'm like why can't he figure this out? You just press it and it opens up. That's funny. So I was at Ultimate Frisbee. That's funny. So I was at Ultimate Frisbee.

I was at our weekly pickup game of Ultimate Frisbee and I show it to our friend Alex Wren and I was like, I literally walk up to Alex Wren because he was the only other like adult at the game. And I was like, look at how much of a boover my boss is. And we're just sitting there laughing because you're insisting that if I click a video, an image, it'll take me to like the full video. You'll be able to see the title. It's funny when you first have people commenting on your videos on YouTube, you pay attention. Like it's almost an honor that people do that. Yeah.

But then you really don't care anymore because it happens too often. So let's, this is an interesting thing. I want to see what you think about this. Okay, so when most people Do stuff on the internet they get progressively more popular, right? And so they are Exposed to that level like that a type of attention slowly But I joined pints at 280,000 subscribers. So I got an instant injection of like it very quickly. And so it was really surreal and very hard for me to adjust to that phenomenon.

Does that make sense? It's interesting, because I probably don't recognize it because it happened so slowly in the same way that you did. Could you give us a couple of examples of how? Like at first, when people would comment negative things, it was like, you know, it wasn't like one or two people, right? Cause the number of comments we get, if somebody comments, if somebody has one negative thought

or you make one mistake, like 10 people comment. And so instead of me like realizing that 10 people isn't a ton, because I was like being thrown in at a large number to me, 10 seemed like a lot and it had a lot more weight and so it was a weirder adjustment for me to make. And then when I like, for the solos, when people started seeing me like, multiple dozens of people commenting on like, oh Thursday's a handsome guy.

Like that does a weird thing to your ego if suddenly. Is that all they were saying? Was there no critical feedback? People like, you volunteer too much. I'm like, whatever. There wasn't a ton, but it was just a like weird thing to be thrown in so quickly. So I'd noticed that I talk with them. I talk about that with my therapist a lot. No, I think that's interesting. I think that's really good to, to be aware of,

you know, I think articulating kind of what we're experiencing is a big part of the issue or reading the brothers Karamazov right now. And there's this woman who talks about how she wants to love humanity, but then she's so afraid that if they show the least bit of ingratitude, she'll totally give up on them. And then Father Zosima says, the fact that you realize that is a good thing, unless you just said that, so I would praise you for your humility.

And she's like, that is what I just did. I'm sorry. But again, that kind of inner awareness is a big part of it. I think it says like, I think the quote is like the very awareness or the very knowledge of your own sin is the first is the first step or something like that. Something about a fact. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it. So let me ask you then, like, how have you how has that been something that you think, okay, this could be spiritually poisonous? I've struggled with pride a lot. And so I notice myself when I pay attention to it, I notice it.

And so more than like it's currently an issue, I don't think, I think it is sometimes, but like I'm more scared of knowing that that much positive feedback that quickly will, I think, start to affect me in ways that will inflate my pride. I told you this, I asked Christopher West about this, right? Because he was on the circuit writing books, getting a lot of public recognition. And then of course, there was that kind of hit piece on him after the ABC interview that was horribly edited. And, you know, he, to his credit, like took a year sabbatical, which is just beautiful. I love Christopher so much. Yeah. But, you know, I said, like, how how do you how do you live in such a way?

Pray in such a way that it doesn't like affect you. And he said, oh, no, it will mess you up. Like it just will. Yeah. And then it's about kind of dealing with that. I think it's weird, though, right? Like because 20, 30 years ago, there was a small amount of people who had an audience, but now everybody does.

Yeah. And everyone, you know, seems to want it. So how do you avoid that? I remember Tucker Carlson being asked about his like resting face. You know how he did this like resting face that people would make

fun of? And he said he's aware of it, but he says you just cannot allow other people. That's my impression. You can't allow other people to get to you like that because you'll drive yourself crazy. In other words, if you kind of manicure every part of your personality and facial expressions and how you look to the crowds, you know, then you just become something fake. You and just have a. Yeah. But it's hard to do that. I think acknowledging that it's hard to do it again is the first step, because if you say, I don't care what people think, it's like, no, you do. Unless you're a sociopath or a very prideful person, you do. And so now, now what do you do

with both negative and positive feedback? I think to me, a good litmus test as to whether I am just like grounded in the Lord as opposed to interested in your opinion of my identity kind of thing or others opinions is how much does negative criticism impact me? And it often does very much because I think if I was truly humble, when someone said something very critical to me, I'd be like, OK, like, oh, all right, well, is that truth in that? Maybe I should. But instead, if I feel as very jarring, I think to the degree I allow negative criticism to affect me negatively is to the degree I'm allowing positive feedback to affect me. And then you

want to wade through that because you also want to be sensitive. Like, okay, am I doing a good job? Like, should I keep doing this? Am I doing a bad job? Did I say something false? Should I correct that? It's very scary in a way, because saints didn't have, not that I'm a saint, but I'd like to be and believe the Lord wants to make me one. Saints didn't have these kind of platforms where they could just spew hundreds or thousands of hours of themselves to people all around the world. If they did, I think we'd be a lot more realistic about their imperfections.

And something. Well, this is really interesting because when we do the canonization process, we literally have a devil's advocate whose job it is to try to find those things. And so now it's like you're you have a devil's advocate going through 30 years of Twitter Well, no, like if you're trying to be holy, right? But you also have an online ministry you have a constant devil's advocate in real time that you're hearing right like like Athanasius or or somebody who's canonized more recently, I guess I mean Padre Pio Padre Pio. Padre Pio.

Yeah. John Paul II, like, they probably didn't care about the work of the devil's advocate while it was happening, because they were in the beatific vision, right? And that was their primary concern was, I'm in the beatific vision, I'm as happy as is humanly possible, right?

But like, people like you or like Christopher West or other people who have large platforms, like even Catholics who aren't working in specifically the Catholic sphere, but the political sphere, like ooh, this political sphere, like Knowles and Walsh and Seamus, they've got real time devil's advocates while they're trying to sanctify themselves

pointing out where the faults are. Yeah. And that is something completely different. Devil's advocate on a platform that is made for clickbait comments. Yes. So yeah, which is why I think it's a good piece of advice to anybody out there to take more interest in those around you who love you and who are going to be Charitably critical of you to take more interest in them than than the YouTube comments. Yeah

Yeah, yeah These are good points. I was really the other day was the feast of the Apostle Thomas, right? You think okay the feast of the Apostle Thomas gosh What what could we take from the Gospels that shows his excellence? And what was it? It was him doubting. It's like that's what we magnify on his feast day, is that he doubted. And you know, the humanity of the disciples came through in the Scriptures in a way that it often doesn't come through in hagiography. Now of course hagiography is written for a different reason than the Gospels, but I think it is important to realize that yeah, of course you're a sinner, of course you're selfish and all these things. And we want to grow in Christ. But it's tough

when you just read the lives of the saints and then you look at yourself, you're like, holy mackerel, I got a way to go. Yeah, yeah. Got any more good questions in there? Well, I'm happy to get to that, but I do want to just float this idea. I know I floated it by you the other day and you recoiled a little, but I think the Lord might be calling me

to do something of a sabbatical soon. Yeah. Do you want to say why you, because I think it was just off the cuff. My worry is that because of the way the algorithm works, if you're not caught... The platform of YouTube itself is growing, and so if you're not growing at least consistent with the platform's growth, you know, you're steady. You're actually declining relative to the platform, which will start to result in your D rank. And then over time, that stagnation will result in decline.

And so my my worry with slowing down content is that you are also just you're waving the white flag to the algorithm and you will decline. waving the white flag to the algorithm and you will decline. Yeah. So that's fair. That's that's a real point. But from my point of view, I want to save my soul and I want to save the soul of my children and my wife. And. I don't want to be beholden to what YouTube says I ought to do. And I don't know you agree with that, right? But I just let me kind of expound on that.

You know, I don't want to be beholden to what YouTube expects of me. And it's very easy to fall into that trap. You start working, you start thinking YouTube's this free platform I can provide content on. And then you realize in a way that it's kind of like your boss that is demanding things of you. Not in the way an actual boss would demand things of you, because you're free to stop at any time. But if you want to be rewarded, you've got to keep cranking out content so that people keep clicking and their faces keep looking at the website that is YouTube. And I think it's probably a good idea for any content creator at some point to really take a sabbatical and to step back and to ask themselves the question, who am I now? You know, because we do have this,

I think this this disordered tendency to look to other people to tell us who we are. And I'll be honest with you, and this is a bit vulnerable to say this, but that was my fear when I first took seriously like what if the Lord does say, come away with me for like three months, let's say, just as a number, and just spend time in the word and love your family. I was, people can attack me for this and maybe I'm right to be attacked for it. But my first response was a fear of being like forgotten. Really? How's that? Like I was just like, oh gosh, if I do that, who am I then? And as soon as I answered that question in my head, again, it wasn't like an articulate, explicit, I'm afraid of being forgotten because I'm too prideful to acknowledge that so directly. But it was just this feeling of, oh, but this thing will disappear. And when I realized that, I thought, thought okay I need to bring this to

my spiritual father then because this seems more of a proof that I should do that. Now that doesn't mean that pints would stop, it doesn't mean that content would decrease, we could think of other things to do, but yeah that's my concern. Like I don't want to just be on the treadmill and I think everyone probably experiences this at some point who's a youtuber. I mean YouTube has like exploded in the last five years say. I imagine there's a lot of big channels with people like I just need a break and they probably do. Yeah I also think people and I kind of had this perception but I wasn't because I've liked content creation and been into like the business

of how content creation works and interested in it for a long time. So I think when people like, Oh, you're a YouTuber, like you make content or you're, you have all this money, like how bad could your life be? Right. It's like, they don't realize that being a content creator is not a 40 hour a week job. Even if you're working less than 40 hours a week, you know, where you're actually working, you're also just basically on call unless you choose not to be consciously almost 24 7, right? Because you're at a certain point you become a public figure, right?

And so burnout is a real thing that like people who aren't in the industry and give people in the industry crap for. I don't think they fully understand what the creators are talking about when they say these things, because what they mean is like, unless I take time to consciously not be on call and like a part of this project. Like even if it's like, I'm going to take a quick break, you're still going to be thinking about it. So you have to choose at some point to just walk away. Yeah.

Um, I see the frustration that people might have to capitalize on. I'm walking away. Like sometimes you'll see these videos and like, I'm done. I quit with a sad face. And then you're like, okay. No, you mean you're taking a weekend off Yeah, that was manipulative and I'm very like I don't know if this needs to be said or not But I'm so grateful for pints and I want to keep it going and I'm so grateful for how it helps people having these wonderful interviews with people like dr. Berg's more and others Praise the living God. I think I.

I think I said this year, you know, Ben Shapiro's producer reached out to me and said her husband came into the faith largely because of the interviews we've done on points. And it's not because of knucklehead me, it's because of all these beautiful canopy of Christian souls who are love on the Lord and are able to explain the faith. I'm so grateful for it. I was talking to Seamus Coughlin about this and he was talking about the importance of respecting what we've built. I think I've said this to you before, right? He said, because sometimes he feels like

that, I just want to quit this thing, I'm just done. And he's like, imagine if you, Matt, gave pints with Aquinas to somebody, like here, here's like 10 years of work and cash and effort. Here you go. If they responded with the same ingratitude that you have to the thing you've built, like you'd be rightly offended, but often, and people can apply this to whatever sphere of life they're in and whatever it is they build, their home, their family, their career. You know, so I am very, very grateful for it. And it would be like, I don't want to quit. I don't want to take a month or two or three off. You see? Like, I love this so much. I get so excited. But I just think it's probably important that Christians who are in any kind of public ministry just go and be with the Lord.

And cause your point about burnout, I think is very real and it's not just for content creators. I think it's for anybody who has a cell phone because I think it's self. I don't know if this is too much of an exaggeration, but I think a cell phone puts you in this fight or flight response. A lot of the time, like you've always responding to something like you're responding or you're avoiding your reaction reactionary vibrating buzzing binging all the time and that's that's something we all have to take seriously I think yeah yeah no I think

you're correct I mean yeah it's it's it's really difficult. And for people in the comments asking, the conversation was that there would be like a guest host for those times, for that time. Yeah, we'd find a really good guest host or... And they would have to be in student bill because we wouldn't want to transition away. We would want to keep pints pints, right? And part of what makes it pints is that we very rarely do anything virtual and only when it's strictly necessary. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so here's this thing I'm going to I'm going to bring this up to you because I texted this to you and you didn't reply. Okay. And Haley brought it up. We need pints with Aquinas Hawaiian shirts. What would that look like?

Just a logo strewn across a shirt? I don't know, but it would be so cool. Like a Hawaiian shirt design with like pints with Aquinas stitched into it at the breast. Yeah, let's all look into it. That would be so cool. I want to start a... I want to start a Mazurkski t-shirt. Yeah.

Now we'd get fine for copyright probably if we just slapped that image on a shirt. I don't know. Is it copyrighted or is it public? I don't know how to know. I don't know how to figure that out. I, well, sorry. The, the, the guest host, I cannot do that and produce the show. Yeah, praise the Lord. But I gotta say, as I say that out loud, and even just as we entertain it, my soul feels so free. Like I have the same feeling right now that I do on July 30, 31st, when I'm about to just give my phone and computer away. Just like this, thank you, Lord.

And again, I don't mean to seem ungrateful because I, but it's, there is something there. So we'll see what the Lord wants. And this is the good thing about having a spiritual father a spiritual father who's like really in tune with the Holy Spirit and with you and your personality and your ways of lying to yourself and other people and who can like ask Pointed questions to show no you don't need to be doing this or I'm seeing some justification. What's the Lord saying? So anyway, yeah That's a great idea. Somebody said we should make it little pints

instead of like, like put pints and like Aquinas in it with the leaves and stuff. Man, leaves? Like the flowers and the leaves that are on Hawaiian shirts. Let's look into that. That would be really fun. You know who would be probably good at designing that? Who?

I mean, I really like, if I say it now, it's gonna be like, we'll talk about it later. I don't wanna say it on the show cause then we'll be like, if we decided. Committed, yeah, if we go against it. Yeah, yeah. All right guys, well look, I'm gonna, unless you have something else you wanna do it.

No, do you have any other questions that we wanna answer? No. I don't think I do. Unless you're seeing something. I don't. I don't have them pulled up. Alright, so let's look at this guy. He says, this is our change. Or, yeah, he says, I'd love to be able to use the internet in a good way, however, I am supporting evil media cooperation with every minute I spend on here. How can I ignore that fact? The vast majority of it's sinful. I mean, we have to do, we have to make a distinction between remote and

proximate cooperation with evil and living in the world as we do, we cannot fully get away from the fact that we do cooperate with evil on a remote way, unless you want to go hide in a cave. Maybe even then, I'm not sure. You also have the, I'm going to bring it up again, the structures of sin concept that John Paul II talks about in Sintessimus. So it's not to say that people, certain people aren't called to, you know, oppose even remote cooperation with evil, especially if you have other options, but not to become so scrupulous that you're

equating remote cooperation with proximate cooperation. Like these are different things. Like if I, if I go and buy a coffee at Starbucks or some other coffee place that supports Planned Parenthood, that is not the same thing as driving my girlfriend or anybody else for that matter to Planned Parenthood to get an abortion. And so you've got to keep that distinction or else not it's because it's just wrong to not keep that distinction. But if you can't avoid, if you can't avoid, there are cooperations that you can and cannot avoid. Right.

Like you don't need Starbucks. You don't need to shop at Target. You don't need Bud Light. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's admirable when people then make that decision like I have, I think, to never ever buy Bud Light. Not that I ever bought it, but same thing with Target. Oh, we do have super chats. I can read them. All right. Somebody gave $10. Bless you. Dad, the Numenorium said that was just saying again, suggesting Brian from Catholic Holocism.

And then we have retro-pocalypse. After 25 years of being an atheist, my doubt upon returning used to plague me to the point of despair, but that is actually engaging with Christ. What do you think about that? Do you have thoughts on that? Not really. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about that? Do you have thoughts on that? Not really. Um, yeah.

Yeah. Uh. Huh. Um, let me, let me have a crack at it because I bless this fella for after 25 years of being an atheist, my doubt upon returning used to plague me to the point of despair, but doubt is actually engaging with Christ. What does that mean? Doubt. I have no idea. Yeah, I think I think we could kind of distinguish between like the sin of doubt.

So if you know God is speaking and you doubt it, then you're wrong to doubt it. I think that's different to being trying to be critical and to believe what's true. All of us have to try to do that. If you've never heard the gospel before and somebody says, you know, look, here's what has been revealed, let's say in the gospel of John. And you're like, how do I know that's true? That's different to knowing that God has revealed something and then, and then choosing to reject it. Yeah. I don't know. Or doubting it. Yeah. Carolina says me sipping my Starbucks coffee. Yeah, I saw that.

I was running late to my coffee for my coffee this morning. That's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. But I think like even apart from how we're engaging remotely with slave labor and whatever else because of the phones and computers we use, I just mean it in the sense of like, cause he said it's difficult to use the internet in a healthy appropriate way for those reasons. But I want to say it's almost like we as humans are incapable.

I wonder if this is true. Cause people always talk about tools being amoral, you know, and how you, it's what you do with them. And I'm wondering, and I've said this before, increasingly, if that's just not true, if we're willingly choosing to engage in tools that are, you know, what not smarter than us in the sense of human intelligence or any intelligence. Mark on, and he talked about the difference between a tool and a machine. This one, that's it where I wanted to sit. Yeah. He talked about the difference between a tool and a machine where one is automatic and one is an extension of the person. I think a really good distinction he made was that phones and a lot of our modern technology

are machines that are made to feel like tools. If I do this, it feels like I'm doing something to it. But what's happening is that I'm just pushing a button on the machine, right? Yeah, not even a button, just tapping a window. In the philosophical sense, right? Like, so, yeah. Yeah.

But you know, it's true, like as I, yeah. I think as parents transition their older teenagers to smartphones, which I think is necessary, right? Because we have to live with this technology that we've created. I mean, we don't have to, but we often, I don't know, if you want to live a life that other people are living, you're going to have to, you know, I don't know if you want to live a life that other people are living, you're going to have to or you know, yeah. Then it's yeah, like it's really important I think to realize like once my children get to a smartphone age, I'm going to have this is before they're 18, but then I'm not going

to allow them to have like the Instagram app, the Twitter app, the any kind of app like that. I'll let them use those programs perhaps through covenant eyes because the algorithm that that what it throws at you when you turn on instagram and just on your app and start scrolling some of it's very very very negative right now yeah very questionable very sexual very addictive even apart from the sexual nature that it might present. Mine's mostly memes. Yeah. No, I think those are all good distinctions to make.

You want to, somebody else. Can I tell you that I went to confession the other day? Am I allowed to say this? I think I'm allowed to. I'm allowed to break the seal of confession. You're allowed to talk about yours, yes. So at the 4th of July big party street party Yeah, it's doing bill which is so unique. No one else has The other side of student bill. That's right. Look at the other side of the hill and

It was cool. I got to ask Scott Hahn's son if I could go to confession to him Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and what a joy what a good priest I mean just a sick on son and go to confession and I wrote he's a great priest. He really is Yeah, I texted Scott the next day and I said I got to go to your son for confession yesterday And he's a very good priest praise the Lord and he said As someone who has gone to my own son for confession on more than one occasion I tend to agree you imagine going to your son for confession. How beautiful. So here's, this is a tradition in the West. I don't know if it is in the East,

but I think this is beautiful. So, um, and I don't know how popular it is, but I know it was pretty much done by every new priest in the diocese I grew up up in the lot Dices, Lafayette, Indiana. Um, they, they keep this, they hear right after they're ordained, they hear a confession and they keep that stole and that stole is then after the first mass given to the father. Oh, and then the young priest then gives a statue of the Pata to his mother. Yeah, that's lovely. At the end of his first mass.

Wow. And I just think that's phenomenal that each of the parents has given a piece of the priesthood of their son in a very real way. So look, as we wrap up here, what do you got going on? What are you excited about these next two weeks? Tomorrow is? Tomorrow's first Friday. Yeah.

Big street party in Superville for those who aren't aware. Big block party. I'm excited about that. Last year I was working at the workshop and so I was working all the first Fridays. And so last month and this month were the first times I'm getting to experience it as just somebody who's there to experience it

and that's a lot of fun. I think next month I'm gonna volunteer experience it as just somebody who's there to experience it. And that's a lot of fun. I think next month I'm going to volunteer or they need more volunteers tomorrow. Help out. Yeah, those are great. I'm streaming tonight. Hey, good stuff. Put a link in the description.

This is your game. Did you get a boost last time we talked about it? I did get a pretty big boost. Yeah, I gained 100 subscribers. So tell them what it is. So I just enjoy playing video games. Um, it's just a way I like to relax more than TV or movies. Um, and so, uh, I'm not great at them,

but I do enjoy playing them on a stream to have people to interact with and talk about whatever people are interested in. So on Monday we talked about Medjugorje. Um, yeah, is it audible or are you? Yeah, so I'm sitting there talking and playing. What are you using, Discord or how do you do that? I stream to YouTube. How do you, oh of course, but they're not talking back to you as my friend. No, I'm reading the chat. I like how we're doing now.

That's awesome. There'll be a link in the description for that. Yeah, I'm excited for that. I've just been having a great time with it. I've been doing it for like... I love when people acknowledge what they find restful without feeling ashamed about it. I mean, provided it's not sinful. I just like to smoke crack. You know what I'm saying?

I just like crack, dude. That's me. You know, that's me. But hey, that's me. No, I've just been having a good time with it. It's a lot of fun to get to like do something but then also you know interact with people in the pints community and other people other my friends who I really enjoy. What is it called? What's your channel code? Do you remember? It's youtube.com at the at symbol because that's how youtube does the names now.

I was wild yesterday. I had to get sanitation and sewage and water reconnected. And I've got a few things like that to do today. I'm just going to take the weekend off. And then next Friday, next Saturday, I'm so excited. It's my 40th birthday party. 40! Oh, everybody, next week, we will have a stream for Matt's birthday where the business manager of Pints with Aquinas, Melanie,

and I have put together a surprise for Matt that he doesn't know about. That is true. I have no idea what that is about. But we're doing a stream next week. A little nervous. What day works for you? Ah, let's see.

We'll plan it right now. What do we do Wednesday? Wednesday at what? You want to do like noon? Wednesday would be a great time, yeah. Wednesday at noon for locals only. It'll be a really yeah macro. We might publish it later. We'll see Yeah, I've been talking to Cameron and Melanie about it, but we're gonna do a locals. Oh, no I mean, I don't know. It's nice yet. I should we're all in on this

Matphrod.locals.com. Yep good. So everybody come matphrod.locals.com. It'll be a locals only supporter stream there Wednesday. And just, just so people know, like you don't have to pay me to watch it. I'd like that. Oh, okay. Yeah. Just all you got to do is follow me on locals in the same way you'd follow me on Twitter in order to see my tweets, which I'm not on, but you get the point.

Like you can't just follow me on Facebook unless you sign up to Facebook. You have to sign up to locals. Then a lot of the stuff we post over there is free. Um, but some of it isn't, but we'll make this free to go to map, Fred.locals.com. So, yeah. And Matt is not on Twitter, but do follow the show on Twitter at pints underscore W underscore Aquinas. I mean, it's good. This should be our weekly meetings. We should just strive. We should stream our weekly meetings. Talk about how I'm thinking about

who just texted me? Father Jeremiah Han. Really? What'd he say? It is real long. Oh, was it in reference to what we said? No, no, no, no. It's just very long. We probably shouldn't read private messages. Yeah, it's very long. But that's funny that he just texted me. God bless you, Father Han. If you're watching, please pray for Matt and I.

But next, next Wednesday at noon, we'll stream this to locals. So pray for Matt and I. But next Wednesday at noon, we'll stream this to locals. So everybody come and enjoy that. It's a great, it's gonna be awesome. All right. I think you're gonna love it. We'll see. But this first 40th birthday party,

I'm so excited about this. So Mark Barnes, he tells me he's bringing a 10 piece band. Awesome. We've got people flying in from Portland and Atlanta and Canada. And I've told people it's 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. I'm an old man. I'm going to see the night through. I think I've said this on the show a couple of times, but I can't go.

My roommate is getting married. Yeah. He didn't even change it right when he found out that my wedding was definitely scheduled before you know I don't know him and he has no but I'd still it would mean a lot to me if you would change it Imagine if I said that and meant it You did say that to him, but it's clearly a joke and we all we all laughed about it Honest injury gave us a super sticker of a blue thing dancing for five dollars we appreciate that thank you very much yeah so two things that are coming up that

people might be interested in is one I've got a new horror story that's gonna drop over on sibling horror it's a podcast it's also a YouTube channel sibling horror I've written it it's being I've given it to an editor right now just to kind of clean it up and that's coming out soon, I'd say probably next week. And then also we're working on a new Catholic lo-fi album that will be a beautiful, it's going to be a beautiful cartoon of St. Kateri Tekowitha. Oh. So please subscribe to those channels if you're interested as well. Alrighty. Anything else? Does anybody have any questions?

Last one was that Tom's? What was the song? Tom's diner. Oh, look up the, um, put up German cup, put in German. That is so funny. I think it says I'm Australian. I type diner D I N A and it's like, no, you mean D I N A are diner German.

All right. Put that in. And then it's the band is called and in May Marie can't Aree oh? Yeah Oh, that's the song I say Wow Wait for the other guy's voice. Okay.

Trust me. You guys are going to want to see Matt's reaction to this. Come on. It's so good. No, no, no, no, no. Go back. Go back. Go back to where you were.

You want to hear the other guy's voice. Is it that insane? People haven't seen this. It's Anne and May Cantarit. And this guy is very skinny. You don't expect this voice to come out of him, but it's insane. And it's, it's so good. His singing is so good.

They're both amazing. And you guys should watch this video. I'm going to rant about how great this video is for like 20 more seconds. Okay. Go. What will you do? You watch the full thing. It's a single shot. Okay. So and what's about to happen, like a minute into the video, they go, they put the past the camera out the window and go back into the other window.

And there's another band that they come in and sing with. But that song is amazing. Wow, he's had 120 million views. It's so good. The original is by Susan Vega, but I think their version is better. So yeah. Yeah.

All right. All right. God bless everyone. See ya.