Pints With Aquinas - The Magisterium, Apologetics, and Liturgy Wars (Voice of Reason) | Ep. 529

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Alex Jurado, known online as Voice of Reason, is a Catholic apologist and content creator with one of the most recognizable voices in the space. A former teenage catechist and seminarian, he began creating videos in 2023 and quickly gained a global audience. In 2024, he debated Dr. James White in his first public debate and later appeared on The George Janko Show, sparking major conversations around Catholicism. Alex now creates content, leads pilgrimages, and continues his work in apologetics and dialogue. 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early, score a free PWA beer stein, and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors:  👉 Seven Weeks Coffee – Use promo code MATT for up to 25% of your first subscription order + claim your free gift: https://sevenweekscoffee.com/matt 👉  Exodus 90 – Join Exodus 90 on August 15 for St. Michael's Lent: https://exodus90.com/matt 👉  Truthly – The Catholic faith at your fingertips: https://www.truthly.ai/ 👉 Hallow – The #1 Catholic prayer app: https://hallow.com/mattfradd  💻 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 – Wear the Faith! Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com

Pines with Aquinas is brought to you by Truthly, which is a ground-breaking Catholic AI app built to help you know, live and defend the Catholic faith. Start your 7-day free trial today when you download Truthly on the App Store. Coming soon to Android. I think that the one thing that Catholics need to learn, maybe more than anything, is how the Magisterium actually works. I think solo scriptura is a great starting point. Let's do it. Let's start with solo scriptura and let's see what the scriptura actually says.

And it's, oh, we can't just have the scripture alone. We need the church to. The Catholics that spend a lot of time online, those are the ones that always want to go to the Latin mass, the Byzantine riot and all that. I think people are desirous for tradition, beauty and reverence. And you know, if you don't give that to them,

what do you expect them to do if they have a legitimate other option? If I got elected Pope, I would fix the liturgy and then I would excommunicate all of the public figures, the dissent from the thesies of the church. Cause we all understand how things unravel on the liberal side, but we don't often take seriously how things are unraveling on the conservative side. These false don't often take seriously how things are unraveling

on the conservative side. These false presuppositions that, you know, the Pope is tight-haired, see Vatican too tight-haired, if what they're saying is true, Catholicism is false. Thank you so much for watching Pines with Aquinas. Before we get into the interview, I'd like to ask you to please consider subscribing. Over 58% of people who watch this show regularly are still not subscribed.

So please do it. It's a quick, free, easy way to support the channel. We really appreciate it. I was in Ukraine with Father Jason, and he was making the point that if you actually say like, glory to Jesus Christ, or Christ is risen because it was around Easter time, like anyone in the street will give you the response that you would expect in an Eastern Catholic church.

That's beautiful. I thought that's probably true. Yeah, I'll show you. And he did it like several random people on the street. Wow. Yeah, it was really cool. That's beautiful. That's what Catholic culture should look like. Yeah, right?

Like in Mexico, when you say, Que viva Cristo Rey, they are like, Que viva! Really? Que viva la rica de Guadalupe, que viva! So it's the same thing like in Mexico. You speak Spanish? I do, yes. Yeah. That's my first language. Yeah, so if I butcher the English language, you know why, because I... You were born here though? I was born here though, yeah. You're folks? My folks are from Mexico. Oh, that's great. They are. Yeah. So I'm first generation here. So I speak both languages, neither of them very well, but

but look what I'm doing now. I'm on points with the quietness. So I'm doing something right. Do you, do you ever, do you ever do Spanish shows or do you ever speak? Yeah. Yeah. Evangelize I mean in Spanish. Yeah. We've done Spanish content.

I'm going to be doing a, so Catholic answers. They have their Spanish wing of what they do. Yeah. And I'm going to be doing... So Catholic Answers, they have their Spanish wing of what they do, and I'm going to be doing a lot of stuff in Spanish with them. William Albrecht, he also speaks Spanish, and he even does debates in Spanish. Can't see. God bless him. He's a champ. He's a machine. He's a machine, I think is the best way to describe him. William Albrecht is fantastic. English, Spanish, German, he speaks all these these languages and he and I are going to be doing stuff in Spanish for Cathagansers. So I saw what they were doing on Cathagansers. I saw that there was a separate YouTube channel. So is a lot of that professionally and AI dubbed or?

I have no idea. Yeah, I don't know. I think some of it is because I think they've got Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn and I'm pretty sure. Oh, yeah, I don't think this is Spanish. But it looked, if I'm not mistaken, I might be wrong about that. I don't know. I think some of it is, because I think they've got Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn, and I'm pretty sure if he doesn't speak. Oh, yeah, I don't think this explains anything. But it looked like that. If I'm not mistaken, I might be wrong about that, but that's great. God bless them for doing that. Yeah.

Do you think there's a massive need? I think so, because what we're starting to see now, unfortunately, is especially in the most Catholic countries in the world, like Brazil, that they are now becoming very Pentecostal. Yes. And the Pentecostal Church is going to overtake the Catholic Church here pretty soon, I think, as a majority in Brazil, which is, that's Brazil. That's crazy. So there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Sometimes we look at these Catholic countries and we think that, oh, you know, these are Catholic countries, it's in their DNA, so you kind of just leave them alone. Sometimes you do need to preach to the choir. The choir does need to be preached to because it's very easy, and in a generation, it's very easy to lose the faith. And I feel like we have really refined our apologi- by the way, whenever I speak to you and you speak back to me, I feel like a girl, because your voice is so deep, and I'm like, I don't usually feel this, but you have a fantastic voice. Congratulations. We've

refined our apologetic skills so much because of champions like Carl Keating and Madrid and Dr. Scott Hahn, you know, Tim Staples, all these fellows that I feel like no, we've, we've done a really good job at responding to Protestant objections. I feel like America was the perfect place to do that for multiple reasons. So now to be able to, as it were, export that knowledge and wisdom and work that those fellows put in to those who are being pulled out of the church into evangelical churches, that's, I think, necessary. I want to do something like that with pints, but I don't know how to do it.

Right. Let me know. I will help you with anything you need for that, okay? Thank you. Really let me know. Anything for you. You anything you need for that, okay? Thank you. Really let me know. Anything for you. You know what I love about the apologetics efforts that are happening in Mexico and in South America? The top apologists in Mexico, South America, and the Spanish-speaking countries, they're all priests.

So it's the clergy that's doing it, you know? And I think that's really important. I love the fact that the top apologist in Mexico is a priest. I like that, you know? God bless all the lay people that do it as well, but I love seeing more priests doing it too, you know? So I'm not in these circles, but do these priests get the word out through social media? YouTube? Social media. Padre Luis Toro is one of them. Give us a couple. Padre Luis Toro is one of the... Give us a couple. Padre Luis Toro is the top guy.

Okay. He's known all throughout the Spanish speaking world. I cannot tell you how many people have asked me to do something with him, you know, Father Luis Toro, and he's incredible. He is just... What I've heard is that he has the entire Bible memorized, that he has it memorized like he can quote it verbatim, the entire... That's what I've been told. That's what I've heard is that he has the entire Bible memorized, that he has it memorized like he can quote it verbatim, the entire, that's what I've been told, that's what I've heard.

And I've seen some of his videos, and he's like a genius, you know? Incredible. And he's so personable, and he's so, you know, his spirit is so, he's excited. You can tell that he genuinely loves sharing the truth with people. So, he's excellent. And I love that it's a clergyman that's doing it, a priest that's doing it. Yeah, I agree. That's important. So, it's funny because you brought up Patrick Madrid, and then you brought up that I make you feel like a girl.

Yeah. Just a funny story, just because you brought it up. I met Patrick Madrid years ago, long before I was Voice of Reason in Albuquerque. He was doing a speaking event at the Hispanic Cultural Center. It was at the Men Under Construction Conference. And I bought a bunch of his books. I got him signed. And I had been listening to Patrick Madrid for years, since I was 16, listening to him. I would drive to high school and I had been listening to Patrick Madrid for years since I was 16, listening to him. I would drive to high school and I would listen to his morning show, driving to school every morning.

Huge fan of his, and I got his books. There's a long line of people, he's talking to people, he's taking pictures, he's signing books. I finally get to the front and I say, Patrick Madrid, I'm a huge fan of yours. Thank you for what you do. And he looks at me and the first thing he says, he goes, he goes, Hey man, you have a good voice for radio. That's the first thing that he ever said to me. The only thing he's ever said to me, that's the only time I've interacted with him. And he said, you have a good voice for radio. And I was like, Patrick Madrid, it just told me I could be on the radio.

What year was this? Was this before podcasts were big? This had to have been 2016, maybe? Yes, this is his podcast. We're beginning to explode. 2016, yeah. You know, it's funny because in the Byzantine Church, we just had, you know, the first Sunday of Lent is a forgiveness Sunday. And we're doing forgiveness Sunday last week, and the bishop was there, my local bishop emeritus. forgiveness Sunday last week and the bishop was there at my local Bishop Emeritus.

And I go up to him and I say, have mercy on me a sinner. And he looks at me and he goes, hey, you should be on the radio, brother. He gives me a big hug and then he just shoot me after that because he had a long line of people. I didn't want a compliment. I asked for your prayers. Yeah, he didn't even follow the script. He just said, hey, you should be on the radio. And he was... When you the script. He just said, hey, you should be on the radio. And he was... When you were coming up with your name Voice of Reason, was that part of it? Yeah, that was part of it. You have a very unique voice. Thank you. Yeah, my whole life I've gotten it. My whole life.

Well, when did your voice break? Surely you weren't like this when you were six. I don't know. I'd have to ask the people that knew me. But I remember the very first time that I ever, that someone pointed out my voice. I was probably around 16 when someone said I sounded like Rocky. Yeah. And I remember the very first person that ever told me that.

And I've, it's probably been in the thousands of the people that have told me that. But I remember the very first person that ever said that to me. You sound more like Rocky than Rocky does. Oh, well that's, hey, I was a boxer too. So I think it's appropriate. So so when I think the first time I encountered you, you were on

maybe Michael Lofton show a couple of times. Oh, yeah, yeah. Stuff back. Yeah. Yeah. I was with Michael Lofton. That was incredible, too, because when I when I first started as Voice of Reason, my my only goal, you know, I had no idea where I was going to take it, how I was going to be, but I always said I would love to work with Michael Lofton. We started in March, we're about to hit two years in like three days.

Why did you want to work with Michael Lofton? Because I learned, because, so I think that the one thing that Catholics need to learn, maybe more than anything, is how the magisterium actually works, because I feel like a lot of Catholics, they kind of, they, you know, get themselves in trouble or they make themselves confused because they don't know how the magisterium works. So, what I love so much about Michael Loftin was that he was the one that was actually breaking down what the magisterium is, how it functions, how it works, how to read the magisterium. And for me, that saved me from, I was going down that road where I would probably be Eastern Orthodox right now. Really?

I would probably be a set of accountants right now, maybe, because I was going down that road. And when I discovered Michael Lofton, I learned how the magisterium works. And I tell him, he knows, and I say it publicly, like, I know, I think that Michael Lofton is doing work that is so invaluable, and I think he's so underappreciated, because there are so many people, myself included, I'm the prime example of people that would have left the church had it not been for him. And I think that once you learn how the Magisterium actually works, you know, everything else that's going on, all the craziness of the church, you can always know how to identify what's most important.

Lofton's got a great book on orthodoxy. What's it called? Answering Orthodoxy. What's it called? Answering Orthodoxy. Answering Orthodoxy. Answering Orthodoxy, yeah. You should check that out if they are tempted to leave the Catholic faith, because I think that's a good resource.

Excellent, excellent book. You know, his book, you know, Eric Ibarra's book on the papacy. Oh my gosh, I've got it up there. Yeah, oh my, the huge tome. Did you watch the debate he did on my channel on the paper. Oh my gosh, I got it up there. It's giant, enormous. Oh, huge tome. Did you watch the debate he did on my channel? I did. Did you understand any of it?

Yes, so I'm actually having, I'm actually debating Wubbe in May. Oh my. I'm going to be having a debate with him, yeah. Look at that. Whereabouts? In Las Vegas. In Las Vegas. And we're going to make a big event out of it.

We're doing it at the Our Lady of Wisdom, the Talo Greek Byzantine Catholic Church. He was a nice guy. Let me tell you something. I talked to him for the first time just a couple of weeks ago over Zoom. He's hilarious. He was making me laugh nonstop. He and I hit it off.

Really nice guy. Really, really nice guy. He's treated me so well. He's very- He was very polite. Yeah. Very nice, very nice person. I know the reason I asked you if you understood it wasn't because I doubt your intellectual

capacity. They just got deep into historical weeds. So what will your thesis be? What's the debate about? So we actually discussed that. He said, I don't want our debate to end up like how my debate with Eric was where it was so inside baseball that the people in the chat were just like, they've lost me. I don't know what's going on.

And at that point it's not really productive anymore. So the thesis that we'll be debating is, we're gonna put orthodoxy in the hot seat. And he has to prove that the Eastern Orthodox Communion is the one holy Catholic and apostolic church, which is a debate that I don't think I've seen yet. Usually it's the Catholic position that is in the hot seat that we have to prove the papacy,

we have to prove Vatican One from the first millennium, which is the debate that my very first ever formal debate was that topic against the Eastern Orthodox apologist, but with Ubi, and he thought it was a great idea too. I said, hey man, you know, usually we're the ones in the hot seat to do something fresh and something a little new. Why don't we have you defend this?

And he's like, that's a great idea. Good for him. He's a bright guy. Oh, he is. He's wicked smart. Yeah. Really nice. Such a gentleman.

And I think that this is the beginning of a really good relationship that he and I can have and we can have good dialogues. Cause I don't know if you know this, that was his first time revealing his face. Yeah, it was his first. So he wouldn't even let me buy his plane ticket for him. We reimbursed him after the fact, because he didn't want me to know where he was coming from.

And so I'm talking to Eric. I'm like, what's the worst that could happen? Like, what's going on? Who could he be that we'd be dead? Anyway, but he was great. Maybe he's Batman or something. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, another great guy.

Tell me about your debate with James White, because you did. Did you see me shout you out? I did. You did. Thank you so much. Excellent. And I didn't expect you to do excellent, not because I had any doubts about you, but just because James is a seasoned debater.

He's been doing this for 800 years and he's made some Catholics, definitely not lately, but maybe in the 80s and 90s, look back on their heels, you know? But you did really well. How did that come about and tell us about the debate? Well, first of all, thank you so much for sharing it because you shared the debate on your YouTube. And when I saw that, it was so surreal. I'm like, Matt Fred just shared one of my videos and that was incredible.

And I saw that you shouted me out when you were talking to Ruslan. And because you and Ruslan were talking about me. Even Jonathan clipped it and he put it on my Instagram of you guys talking about me. That was so surreal. And Ruslan and I have gone on to become really good friends. He and I talk almost daily. Really good guys as well. So the debate with Dr. White, that's one for the history books, because I took that debate

on three weeks notice. I had three weeks to prepare for it. Keith Nestor was the one that reached out to me on Instagram. Oh, he's, he's the best. Yeah. Keith. I could talk about Keith Nestor. We'll do a whole, we'll do 20 minutes on Keith Nestor after the James Watt debate talk. Keith Nestor was special, really special. Yeah. He reached out to me on Instagram. It was in July, July of last year, and he just reached out to me. I had never even talked to him before. And he reached out to me and said, hey man, would you be interested in debating James White?

And I saw the message. And did you think it was just in general, or did you think, no, no, he set this up? No, I could tell that it was the way he phrased it. I was like, oh, this is gonna happen if I say yes. So I said immediately yes, didn't even think about it. Didn't even think about it. I said yes and He said okay cool. I'm gonna shoot your information to the people that are gonna set it up and we'll make it happen then I said, thank you and

and then later that month in late July we had our famous debate and I had a whole three weeks to prepare for it. And it's funny because I was the fifth or sixth guy. They had tried all these other guys. They had asked all these other guys to debate him and for whatever reason it wasn't working out, the schedules wouldn't work. People couldn't do it. So I was not the second, third or fourth or fifth choice. I was like the sixth or seventh choice. Well, you've got this real,

you've got this gift, you've got this gift where you're just very likable and open and people trust you. And they should, they're right to. It's not a manipulative tactic. You're just kind and you could tell that in that debate with James White. Thank you, he hugged me.

Yeah, that's wild. He hugged me, yeah. He's not usually like, he wasn't like that with Jimmy. He's never done that before in any of his debates. And when I think about it, like it kind of makes me a little, I don't know, emotional maybe, just because he said he loved me and hugged me. I've been watching James White since I was a teenager. So I studied all of his debates when he was doing his thing in the 90s against all the Catholics that he was debating

back then. I watched, I studied, I learned, I took notes. I had been preparing for that debate for 10 years, which is why I was able to, you know, I tell people, oh, I took it on three weeks notice. They're like, wow, you were able to do that with only three weeks of preparation. No, it wasn't three weeks of preparation. I had been preparing for it since I was a teenager. I first probably started listening to Jim's wine. I was 18, I guess. So, that was about 10 years. For those at home, what was the debate about? And what do you think he did well? What surprised you? Why did you ultimately win? Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. So, the debate, it was actually two debates in one,

because the thesis of the debate was Catholic authority versus solo scriptura. So, we were actually having two debates. So, he was trying to disprove Catholic authority and prove solo scriptura. I was trying to disprove solo scriptura and prove Catholic authority. When we set the debate up, I didn't want to do that thesis because I thought it was just a little too, you know, it's really two debates. So, I said, can we just pick one or the other? And the guy that was organizing was like, no, Dr. White would like to, you know, spice it up. I said, okay, I'm not in a position to be making the bands right now. And I can't let this opportunity pass me up. So I said, hey, I'll debate whatever he wants. He can pick anything that he wants and I'll do it. And

so even though I wasn't really a big fan of the thesis, I did what I had to do. And it's really funny because the people that set the debate up, again, they had gone through like five, six other guys, and everyone for whatever reason wasn't able to do it. So they didn't even know who I was. They were like, hey, look, man,

we're only reaching out to you because Keith Nestor said that, you know, he gave, you know, he vows for you. And I could tell that they were very nervous, very, look, man, we're only reaching out to you because Keith Nestor said that, you know, he gave, you know, he vows for you. And I could tell that they were very nervous, very, very nervous. Why? Because they thought that James White was going to decimate me because-

Oh, was it a Catholic event? Yeah, so it was a Catholic and a Protestant group that came together. So it was a Catholic group that were nervous. And it was the Catholic side. He seems nice, but we don't know if he can handle James White. Yeah, the Catholic group was like, and I love them,

and they're great guys out of Colorado. It's a completely understandable reaction. Oh yeah, and I don't blame them. I don't blame them at all. Inferno Men is what they're called, and they're amazing. They're amazing. One more time? Inferno Men is what they're called. That's their Catholic apostolate. They had a big conference back in November. They're going to be doing it again this November. They had all of these speakers come. I was part of it, and it was incredible.

But anyway, going back to the debate and how it was set up, I could tell them my correspondence with them, you know, I would talk to them over the phone. I actually wanted to debate Pope Francis. When they reached out to me and they said, what do you want the debate? And I said, tell Dr. White that I want to debate Pope Francis, let's have a Pope Francis debate. That was what I proposed. And they were like, look man, like, they were like, no, they were like,

if that's, if that's, he said, if that's the thesis, our guys are not gonna back it and we're not, we're just not gonna do it. They didn't want me to debate Pope Francis. Fair enough because they don't, they don't want the Catholic position looking poor. And they're afraid that you can't bring to the table. Maybe now they would, right? Maybe now they'd be open to it. But I think that's prudent actually on their part. Yeah, I would say it's prudent and they have no reason to trust me or believe in me,

but I told them, I was like, I promise you guys, if you let me have, I was like, Dr. White's debated all of these things. He's never debated. And he's always saying that no Catholic apologist wants to touch Francis with a 10-foot pole. So here I am raising my hand, let me do it. I will do it, please let me do it. And they didn't want to do it. So I said, okay. So I said, whatever Dr. White wants to do, we'll do it.

And then when I got there, I got there the night before for the debate and I meet with everybody and I could tell that they're just super nervous that they're, they're just super nervous. The Catholic, they're, they're like, they're like super nervous. Like they're like sweating bullets and we went to have dinner and we know we're eating and they're like, okay. They wanted to like make sure, you know, cause they were so nervous.

They're like, we need to hear your opening statement now and we're going to, we're going to cross examine you and we're gonna like, they were wanting to make sure I was prepared. Were they inviting you to do this or were they like, this is how it needs to go? You need it right now. That would have been awkward. No, they invited me to do it.

And I knew on the way there, they had called me and they said, hey man, when you get here, let's go over some stuff. Let's go over to make sure. And I'll never forget it. We're sitting there at the table. There's like, I don't know, like 10 guys and They're like, all right, let's see your opening statement. I gave him my opening statement and they're just and

they just didn't and Then they're silent and then finally one guy goes he's like, what if James White says this and I told I said no He's not gonna say that this is what he's gonna say He's gonna say this and then I'm gonna say this and then I'm going to say this and then he's going to say this in response and then I'm going to say this. And I literally went through the entire debate verbatim. The night before at the dinner table, we were eating at the little Mexican restaurant that was right next to the church where we did the debate.

And I told him, I said, this is how it's going to go. I said, trust me, I know, like I know, I know what I'm doing. I know how it's going to go down. He's going to say this, this, this is how it's gonna go. I said I trust me I know like I know I know what I'm doing I know how it's gonna go down he's gonna say this this this is gonna bring up this I'm gonna say this he's gonna say this I'm gonna say this and you know they were trying to cross-examine me and I was like no that's not good enough Dr. White that's that's that's too that's not good enough for Dr. White he's gonna say this stuff that they didn't even know so the night before they were like, I could tell, you know,

by the time dinner was over, that they were a little more, a little more relaxed. And then when the debate happened, as soon as Dr. White got up to speak and he started speaking, that was when I knew, I said. He did all those things you said he would do.

Every single thing that I said he was gonna say, he said. And I remember I wasn't even listening to him. I was just looking at the crowd and I was looking at the Catholic guys in the group and their jaws were on the floor. Wow. All, you know, people that came that traveled from, you know, my people that that traveled with me to the debate, they were there too, listening in. Jonathan was there. My good buddy, Yiram, who does Spanish polygynyx content as well. And they were just looking at me with their eyes wide,

mouths on the floor, they were just, you know, Dr. White was speaking and they were looking at me because they were like, wow, like, how did he know what he was like? Cause I've been watching Dr. White for so long and the debate went exactly how I said it was gonna go. And I told him, he's gonna bring up all of these things that don't even have anything to do with the thesis.

Like debates he's had in the 90s. That was unfair. I'm sorry. But it's true. Yeah, but of course, bringing up Pope Francis, bringing up all of these things. And I had to make a decision, I said, you know, because normally when he does that against like Jimmy Akin or Trent Horn, they'll point it out, they'll say, you know, Dr. White is bringing up all these things that really don't have anything to do with the thesis.

So let's ignore these things and let's go. And I couldn't resist the temptation when I got up there to do my first rebuttal. I was like, all right, I only got a short amount of time, so let's do this. So I answered every single thing that he said in his opening statement, I responded to all of it. And I responded to everything.

And I remember just looking out at the audience and they were just like, everyone was just like, jaws on the floor as well. It was very surreal for me. I was paying more attention to the audience than I was even him. It was really weird. I responded to everything and I challenged him. I said, Dr. White, I challenge you to show me one magisterial statement from Pope Francis that has ever contradicted anything that the magisterium has promulgated in the last 2,000 years. And I told him, I said, I challenge you to do it, but you're not going to be able to do it, because that doesn't exist. And he never brought it up again.

So, it was just so surreal. And the only reason that it went the way that it went is because that morning I went to confession, I received the Eucharist, and that was the only reason that it went that well, just because of that. That was God having mercy on me and maybe feeling sorry for me, like, oh, this kid is over, he doesn't know what he's doing. And He allowed me to go and receive the grace from the sacraments, and that's the only reason that it went the way that it did. And then Dr. White hugged me, said that he loved me. We met up. He was in Albuquerque a couple of weeks later and we had lunch.

We're like friends. I like him. I think he likes me. And the crazy thing is that most of the people that were there watching the debate, they were Protestants. And when Dr. White would get up to speak, I could tell who was Protestant and who wasn't Protestant. And the Protestants were, you know,

shaking their heads at Dr. White and then, you know. But then I went up to speak and those very same people, at first they had their eyes wide open, jaws on the floor. And then the next time that I'd go up to speak, they started nodding their head with me. And they started. So it seemed like I was winning over his crowd.

And I don't say it to brag or anything. I'm just saying like, this is what I, what I, and what other people confirmed to me with people that, you know, people that were telling me, they're like, did you feel the energy in the room? Like, the Catholics were looking at the, you know, the non-Catholics in the room too, and they were like, they agree with you. And all of them came up to talk to me afterwards. How did that go? What kind of feedback did you get in person and online afterwards? It was 99% positive. 99% positive. If you look at the comments on the video, so here's another story about it too. The reason that debate happened, we did it at a reformed Baptist church in Colorado. The reason that debate happened was because the pastor of that church became Catholic, and he left the church. So the new pastor that took his place, he had to kind of pick up the pieces of his church

because the pastor left them for Catholicism. He became Catholic. Wow, God bless him. He had to pick up the pieces because his, you know, the people were scandalized that their pastor left them he became Catholic. He had to pick up the pieces because the people were scandalized that their pastor left them to become Catholic. So he thought, he said, what I need to do is I need to get the biggest gun in town, James White, have him come here in front of my people and get any Catholic. He said, I don't care who it is, any Catholic, and just have James White destroy him in the debate and that'll fix the problem and nobody will think about leaving the Catholicism. They go through all of these guys

who were much more capable than me, much more capable. But in God's providence, you were chosen. They may not have done as well as you. And it was me went up there, and the one word that everyone kept using, because everyone knew the backstory, everyone knew why the debate was taking place, it was basically they were just tossing me to the wolves. They just wanted Dr. White to make an example out of me so that their people could be cool, right? Well, we did the debate.

It went down the way that it went down. And what everyone was telling me after was the word that they used was it backfired, like terribly on them. It backfired really bad. Now the situation is worse. And I've, you know, so many, so the crazy thing is that there's two versions of that debate online, their version, the church's version, and then my version on my channel.

In their version they had to disable the comments. Because all of them, 99% of the comments were saying that I won and they disabled the comments. And then it made it worse because then people were going to their other videos on their YouTube channel saying, why did you disable the comments on the James White voice of reason debate? And it was a big backlash. So they had to put out a statement. They put out a statement saying that, oh, disable the comments because people were misbehaving in the comments. But, you know, Jonathan was like, man, I was monitoring the comments, man. I thought I saw no vitriol, the comments whatsoever. I only saw just positive everyone saying that you weren't.

So we put out our video and the comments are up on our video. And if you go and you read the comments, it's just. Yeah, it's did you agree to them beforehand that you would use the video you would have rights to put it on your channel yeah yeah yeah we have and and by the way this this church amazing people they treated me so well they were so good to me they were so loving you know they were so easy to work with you know they let Jonathan set up his cameras and everything and we have our version and you know Jonathan put the mic on

James White. James White had like three or four mics on him. I had my mics on me and it was just something I don't think you could have scripted a better story or outcome of how it went just. Wow. It was really like a rocky story it was like you know yeah and when that happened then I had that was when everyone started coming to me like I want to interview let me talk to you I want, you know, yeah. And when that happened, then I had, that was when everyone started coming to me, like I want to interview, let me talk to you. I want to, you know, I saw all these articles that were being put up by Catholic publications,

David Slays Goliath, you know, stuff like that, or the real life Rocky story, you know, in the apologetics. Low hanging fruit, but okay. Yeah, and it was just so surreal. Oh, that's cool, man. It was just so surreal. And I haven't really had the chance to talk about it fully. Like I am now, which is why I'm just vomiting all over you.

I'm sorry, but- No, this is really interesting. Yeah, so it was just, it was special and you know. Well, and you said you met up with James after this. Yeah. God bless him. God bless him. He's so good to me.

Yeah. He treated me so well. Yeah. He treated me so well. I mean, it's not, I mean, I remember listening to debates back in the 90s. I won't name names, but people who went up against James White, who I thought at times were kind of nasty. Yeah.

You know, it's one thing to like drive your point home forcefully. Great. But sometimes it just felt a little cheap shots and you didn't do that. And I'm sure that's why I appreciated you. And that's not because of me. That's just because again, I received the Eucharist beforehand, and that was what I was the most worried about. I was worried because I like to argue, I like to fight, I like to, you know,

I like to fight dirty. Like, deep down, like, I know I like to fight dirty. And it was just because God had mercy on me, and He didn't let me make a fool of myself, because my prayer is always, I said, please, don't let me embarrass you. If I embarrass myself, fine, but don't let me embarrass you. That's what I was going to ask you, I mean, because it didn't sound like there was any hesitancy whatsoever on your part, but presumably there's got to be something in you as you're discerning whether to say yes or not, is I don't want to make the church look stupid.

That's always in my mind. But as you say, given that you had 10 years of listening to and understanding his argumentation, you felt confident right away. No, I've got this. Yeah. I knew I could do it. I knew I could do it. And yeah, I never I wasn't really I wasn't nervous or anything leading up to it.

Yeah, it wasn't until it's a great great way to learn a topic, isn't it? I used to do these little debates with Cameron Batuzzi back in the day before he became Catholic, right? And we'd debate the Eucharist, we'd debate prayers to saints and, you know, I'm not a debater, but he's a friend. And so we felt like, okay, we can debate, but we trust each other. You know what I mean? Like I wasn't going to like pin him to the wall and then try to make him look silly and he wouldn't do that to me. And so that's really why I was open to it. But having those like two or three weeks to do a deep dive into a topic, it's wonderful because nothing, nothing kind of burns it into your brain more than knowing I'm gonna have to defend this publicly.

Right. But then also how convicted I was of the things I was arguing for. I'm like, no, there's no other, there's nowhere around this. Like the idea that the Eucharist is merely a symbol is just so novel, so unhistorical that I felt confident to debate it. So Zwinglian. Yeah, it is very Zwinglian. So it was neat the other day to see Cameron Batuzzi post something.

He's like, go to adoration. That was his post. I saw that. What a man. He's incredible. He's a good dude. He's really doing great work, especially lately with his work on the,

on Marian apparitions and his work on, you know, things that, you know, he's, he's engaging other Protestants. And I think he's doing some of the best work of his career. Yeah. He really is. He's on a great run right now. Yep. Yep.

I love that guy. And I don't think people realize, or they're not sympathetic enough as to just how traumatic it is to change from Protestant to Catholic, especially when you've got this large following. And when your father-in-law is a Protestant pastor, as is his case, it's a difficult thing. And I think as both Catholics and Protestants, we can be just too impatient with the other person. Like, hurry up, hurry up, just change your mind. Why haven't you changed it yet? Why are you being so insincere? So now it's a difficult, it's difficult.

And I think it's really cool that he's come out and announced that he's getting confirmed. I'm gonna be his sponsor. Are you? Yeah, yeah. God bless you. I mean, it's provided I can go down there for the, I hope I can for his confirmation, but it's really exciting.

Wow, God bless you. Hey, the Lord used you, my friend, to bring home. Yeah, he can use anyone, eh? A heavy hitter to, you know. Isn't it funny? What was it? Ratzinger said that the Lord can use dull instruments. Thank God. Jonathan, he tells me this funny story about that he was talking to an Orthodox priest, and that the Orthodox priest said,

he said, you're God's donkey. That's what he said to Jonathan. He's said, You're God's donkey. That's what he said to Jonathan. He's like, You're God's donkey. And I remember we were on the phone when he was telling me this, and he was like, he was like, Is he calling me a jackass? Or is it like a compliment? And I'm like, I think it's both.

He's calling you a jackass, but he's telling you that God can still use you. Yeah, yeah. And no, I said, No, it's a great compliment, man. God used a donkey in the Old Testament to prophesy to it. And it's the beast upon which Christ rode into. Yes, God's a donkey. That's a great, that's a beautiful compliment. So, okay, when did you take your faith seriously?

Cause you were raised in a Hispanic household, were you a folks Catholic? Yes, yes. And so was there a point where you intellectually and just with all your powers grasped onto Catholicism or was it something you just grew up with accepting until a particular point when you started to have questions and doubts?

Yeah, I grew up going to the church. I grew up in church. I was an altar server, everything, typical Hispanic upbringing. When I was 15 is when I really, really just went all in and I started, it was like, I was like a maniac, like a madman. Like all I wanted to do was read and study and learn, and it was an obsession.

I was obsessed. What got you into it? What made you obsessed? I don't know. I think I just, I think that when you're that age, that's the age when you start asking all of the big questions. You know, why do I exist? Does God exist? Does God exist?

Is God real? Why did He make me what, you know, you ask all those big questions and I feel like sometimes we'll go and try and get those questions answered. Other times we're just like, ah, there are no answers to these questions, so I'll just live my life and try to make myself happier

and that's it, and I fill in the camp of, no, I need answers to this. I really need answers, so I just started. Where did you go looking? Because obviously, everywhere. All right, where? were everywhere like at your parish online books what? All the above. I talked to a lot of Protestant pastors too. A lot of people are always surprised to hear that when I was around you know 15, 16 there was a time there where I almost became Protestant. Where I was you know why I

almost went just because I had a lot of Protestant influence around me. So Most of what I was learning most of what I was, you know devouring, you know content and information was from the Protestant side Just because I was the influence that I had My friends were Protestants adults that I had in my life like at school were Protestants and I would I would just talk to anybody and I would ask them questions and You know the knowledgeable Protestants would give me answers and I'd kind of start there and just keep digging. So yeah, you know, books, you know, your videos, that was a little later though, but you know, books, all of Patrick Madrid's books, I was listening to Catholic radio, listening to, you know, I would literally, I would put on the

Protestant, what is it called, the TBN, Trinity Broadcast Network. I'd put it on and I would put on the Protestant, what is it called, the TBN, Trinity Broadcast Network. I'd put it on and I would listen to all of the Protestant evangelists speak, and I'd listen to all the guys, all of them. I would get any information that I could from anybody. I even listened to Joel Osteen, to see what he had to say, Joseph Prince, Crebholt Dollar, TD Jakes, all those guys. I just wanted to learn everything. It was an obsession. It was a crazy obsession. Were you falling in love with Christ more as this was taking place or was it wasn't simply a head thing? No, no, it was love.

I think that love is, you know, I always tell people too, because they always ask me, they say, you know, how do I learn the faith? And I say step one, fall in love. You have to fall in love. If you're not really in love, you'll maybe get so far, but then eventually you're gonna tap out and you're gonna, you know, you have to be in love. I was madly, deeply, passionately in love with our Lord and you know, with his word and with his truth. And I, you know, love makes you do crazy things.

Love makes you do crazy things. Love makes you do crazy things. So I always tell people, step number one, fall in love. Because if you fall in love, you know you're doing it for the right reasons and that will carry you for the rest of your life. Fall in love. That's the advice that I always give people when they ask me, how do I become an apologist or how do I learn the faith or how do I study better? Fall in love.

Ask yourself, are you in love? Because if you're not in love, you're just going to be flirting. That's good. And if you're just flirting, flirting is only going to get you so far. It's non-committal. Yeah, yeah. Don't, you know, I say don't flirt with this. Don't flirt with our Lord.

Marry Him. Yeah. Marry Him. And then you just go from there. When, so you never had like off the rails left Christianity, lived my whole life, praise God. No, thank God. But then you said earlier that you could see yourself in orthodoxy or set of accountism. Tell me how that happened. Cause I think it's, that's very relatable to what a lot of people are going through right now. So how did that begin and,

and, uh, again, just through my, my study, my research, you know, voices that I was listening to, I think it was in 2016, when after Amorist Laetitia came out, that I, you know, all of the people online were making a big deal about it, and I was listening to them and they were making really good points, and I was like, wow, like, how do I reconcile this? And just using your own logic and reason, the things that I was hearing from these people saying, you know, Pope Francis probably taught heresy, or Vatican II probably taught heresy. And I said, okay, if I'm exercising my logic and reason, if this is true, if Pope Francis is the Pope, and if Vatican II taught heresy, the Catholicism is false.

It's false. There's no way around it. If what they're saying is true, that's why I always tell people on that side of the spectrum, I say, guys, I don't think you guys realize that the things that you are saying, if you take them to their logical conclusion, you have invalidated Catholicism. And that's why people are leaving. There's so many people that fall into that. I know so many Eastern Orthodox apologists that were the rad-trad Catholics,

and they tried to hold on to it as long as they could, and they realized being a rad-trad Catholic isn't good enough because eventually they hit the wall that Catholicism is false, because they started from these false presuppositions that the Pope has taught heresy, Vatican II taught heresy, and they … So, they're actually the ones that are actually being consistent. The consistency of being a rat rat is that if that's true, Catholicism is false. So then they leave and they become used to an Orthodox,

or they do something else. Yeah, I think it's two things. I think that's definitely one thing when you are, you know, it's even, it's interesting how these fellows went with the Benny Vacantism idea, not realizing, you know where this ends. This cannot end with you remaining in the church.

Exactly. Same thing with what you're talking about, and I agree that it leads people out of the church. I see the other end of the spectrum is this idea that we can't criticize the church or the leaders of the church in any capacity, either. I think that sometimes gaslights people, maybe not intentionally, so maybe gaslight is the wrong word. Yeah, but no, I agree with you.

I sometimes listen to some of these voices online. I'm like, it doesn't feel like they're trying to bring people into the church sometimes. Sometimes, not always. It feels like they're trying to evangelize people into traditional Catholicism and even make fun of the Novus Ordo and these things. The most beautiful mass that I've ever seen in my life was in Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska. The most beautiful mass that I've ever seen was a Novus Ordo that you could not tell apart from the Latin Mass. Well, people get very angry at that. I agree with you, because I'm not inculturated into the Latin Mass.

We had a priest come to our house who did just what you're saying, like the ad orientum was all in Latin. It was glorious. It was so beautiful. And you're right, I couldn't have really told. If I went to a regular church and that happened, I wouldn't, I personally, I'm sure the trads would,

I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Yes, St. Peter's Church in Omaha, Nebraska. If you're ever there in that area, go and check it out. Yeah. Come on. It was, it was. Speechless. And I went with Jonathan because we were on a trip, we were on a work

trip in Nebraska and we went to it and, and we walked out and he was like, I told him, I was like, hey, you know, that's an oversold, right? And he was like, what? I was like, that's an oversold, that was an oversold. And I was like, wow. I cut you off. I'm sorry. You were talking. I probably cut you off. I'm sorry. No, you're fine. You were talking about, yeah, gravitating, listening to these voices, accusing the Holy Father of heresy, accusing the church councils of heresy. And that was beginning to, like, what, be convincing to you? Yeah, yeah. Like, I didn't know how to reconcile certain things that Pope Francis was saying, certain things from Vatican II. I didn't know how to reconcile Vatican II with things that were taught before. And then that was when Michael Lofton came in,

and I started educating myself about how the magisterium actually works. I think that's the one thing, you know, for Catholics, the one thing to educate yourself on, to make sure that you're secure, that's more important, is learn how the Church actually works, how the teaching Church actually works. And if you can do that, you're solid, and you'll be able to know how to... I want to look up this while you're talking this book by Jimmy Akin. He's got an excellent book. Teaching with Authority. There you go. Right. Yeah, that's a great book. I'd recommend

teaching with... Yeah, that's a great book. I read that book as well. Yeah, teaching with authority. Really learn how the magisterium actually works. And when you know how it works, you'll know how to identify... You'll be able to learn how to identify what you can ignore. There are things that you actually can't ignore and you'll be able to learn to identify what you can't ignore but what isn't considered a definitive teaching of the infallible magisterium. You'll get to learn the levels of authority that certain propositions come with and when you know that you're not going to be scandalized when, you know... The pope says something on an airplane.

When the pope says something on an airplane or, you know... And what's interesting is that every single thing that Vatican II teaches and says was said going all the way back to the patristic age. A lot of people don't know that, for example, St. John of Damascus, he said that Islam was a Christian heresy, that Muslims were considered Christians, but that it was a Christian heresy. And even going as far back as, you know, yeah, those saints of the 7th century, that's what they were saying, all the Syriac saints, they saw it as a, you know, a Christian, and they even said they believe in the same God as us. And when Vatican II says it, everyone gets scandalized, not knowing that, you know, a Christian, they even said, they believe in the same God as us. And when Vatican II says it, everyone gets scandalized,

not knowing that Pope Pius XII, Pope Pius XII said the same thing. You know, other popes that also said the exact same thing in the medieval times. I wanna just encourage everybody, because we have a lot of Protestant listeners. Right. It's cool. I'm so honored to have them.

If you've heard this kind of stuff online, I'd beg you to just go pick up a document from the Second Vatican Council, like Gaudium et Spes, for example. It is beautiful. I often think, clearly there are scholars who read it and take issue with things. Fine. But I think most people who complain about Vatican II haven't read the documents lately or have not read them at all. There you go. Beautiful. That's the biggest problem. I always tell people, I said, Hey, look, from now on, just one rule of thumb. I said, and they were written by trads. Yes. They weren't written by anyone who celebrated the nervous order, only written by people who celebrate the traditional. Yes. And I told people, I

said, Hey, just go, just go read them. Just go read them. Yeah. You know, read them and you'll everything. I promise you just go read them and you're going to fall in love more. Yeah. You will fall in love. And then I said, go read everything that came before, because what you're going to see is that every single thing that you find in Vatican II was taught before. And as a matter of fact, the documents from Vatican II, they're quoting their sources, they're citing their sources and saying, oh, this pope in the medieval times said the exact same thing. St. John of Damascus said the exact same thing.

So you can see that there is no rupture. It's a total continuity. I think what people mean, obviously, is the rupture feels like it's not so much in the documents, but the lack of oversight and the implementation of Holy Mass and liturgies after. And you know what? That's totally valid.

That's fair, because we know that Vatican II was not implemented well here in America, especially because the guy that was in charge of implementing Vatican II here in America, the cardinal that was in charge, he was actually the one that was in charge of the liturgy here in America of implementing the Novus Ordo. He died right after the council and they never replaced him. So it was basically all of the bishops that weren't even there that were trying to kind of figure out, like, what did the council and they never replaced them. So it was basically all of the bishops that weren't even there that were trying to kind of figure out like what did the council mean by this?

And we're still kind of feeling the effects of that. So that, we can concede that, absolutely. We can definitely concede that. But then when you go to St. Peter's Church behind Nebraska and you see them celebrate the Novus Soto and then you actually read the rubrics of the Novus Soto and you say, hey, they're actually doing what the rubrics say.

They're doing what Paul Benedict XVI said to do. This is what it's supposed to be, you know? So what do you see? This is all inside baseball that we're doing right now, which we had to check. It's why and the intricacies of the Novus Ordo. But there's a there. But what do you think the future is in America with the Novus Ordo and the Latin Mass? Not that you're a prophet or the son of a prophet, but have you thought about this? What does it was it look like in 25 50 years? Hmm. It's a really good question, honestly, I

Don't think we're gonna see either of them I think something's gonna have to give in the Roman right and I think they're gonna have to do something with a I I think something's gonna have to give in the Roman right and I think they're gonna have to do something with a I Don't know if I want to say promulgate something new And when I say new I mean, you know when we say promulgate something new It's always fixing the you know, the errors right some sort of movement to actually yeah, you know follow the rubrics, you know, yeah and But I don't know I honestly know. I've been really gratified at the masses I've been going to. Just this Sunday, I went to the cathedral in St. Augustine. Father Mack, I think his name was. What a guy!

I'd never met him before, never heard him before. This young priest gets up. I said to him after holy mass, I said, father, you preach like a man who believes in Jesus Christ? I do. You could tell. This is so beautiful. The choir was beautiful.

I don't know, I don't see a lot of young men who aren't kind of on board with a beautiful liturgy. Oh yeah. Because we love beauty, beauty's a transcendental. Yeah. And again, maybe it is beauty for beauty beauty sake, but the point ultimately is we want to have reverence for God. Right. He's not our buddy. He's the Lord who we come to worship.

Right, exactly. Yeah, we're not hanging out with God. No, no, we're giving God everything that we have. That's what worship is. We're not there to hang out. We're there to to remind ourselves that He's God and we're not. So, all right, so then were you closer to set of accountism or orthodoxy? we're there to to remind ourselves that he's got and we're not. So alright so then were you closer to set of accountism or orthodoxy during this time if you had to pick? Where were you leaning? If I had to pick I would probably you know probably the rad-tread closer to set of accountism because I didn't know much about orthodoxy but now looking back maybe if I

had to look more into orthodoxy, I probably would have gotten orthodox. You know? Oh, I see. So then it was Lofton's videos and other things that like talked you off that ledge. Yeah, I probably would have become a, you know, SSPX, you know, which would have led me to a set of a contism, which would have led me to orthodoxy.

That's probably how it would have been for me. But then again, yeah, just again, just learning how the magisterium works and learning how to distinguish between divine apostolic tradition, human apostolic tradition, ecclesial tradition, just knowing how to categorize things, knowing how to categorize the things that we're looking at, things that we're arguing about. First, you've got to put them in their proper category. Once you know what the categories are and where each thing fits their proper category, once you know what the categories are, and where each thing fits in the category, now you know what hill is the hill to die on,

what can't be touched, what can't be touched, what can change, you know, how things have changed over the last 2000 years. It's just good to know, you know, the person with the most information is usually the one that makes the right decision. You have to have the right information, have the most knowledge, have wisdom, and you'll know what to do. And what

I always see with people that end up leaving the church is that they just didn't have enough information. So they're making a choice as best as they can with what they have, but what they had just wasn't enough to keep them in the church. And that's a shame, because if you just had all of the information, I think you'll be solid, you know? Yeah, okay. But obviously, the debate about whether one should abandon the Catholic Church for Eastern Orthodoxy is a different question to, did Pope Francis or the Second Vatican Council or some other council after the Great Sism teach heresy? So, I mean, you still have to wrestle with the claims of Eastern Orthodoxy. And so when you were wrestling with them, were you wrestling with them as a convinced Catholic or were you open to becoming Eastern

Orthodox? Well, what I would say to people is I'm open to anything. I think that the best way to move forward is to be open, always be open, because truth does not change. If Catholicism is true, if it is indeed objectively true, that's never going to change. So you can actually go through life with an open mind, which just means, you know, take everything as it comes, look into it, you know, the claims, see what the claims are, and see if it's credible or if it's not credible. see what the claims are, and see if it's credible or if it's not credible. And because truth doesn't change, I can be convinced and convicted in my Catholicism, and I can engage with Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Assyrian Church of the East,

all of the Protestant denominations. I can engage with Islam, atheism, whatever, and I can see them for their own merits, and come to the conclusion that all of these worldviews are false because truth doesn't change. So, you know, whenever I come into a debate, you know, I tell people, I said, hey, I'm willing to be convinced by you. If you can prove me wrong and you can convince me of your position, I'll follow that. Always be open to it. But let me tell you why I take the position that I take. And that's because Catholicism, with all of this evidence, and I go through everything I said,

it's all that it's true, and it really can't be shaken. And then when I was looking into orthodoxy, I started seeing all of the deficiencies within it too. So it- Yeah, like what? Like break that open. What's your journey into looking to orthodoxy and why you're ultimately not orthodox? Sure. So big picture, the Eastern Orthodox Communion or the Oriental Orthodox Communion

or the Assyrian Church of the East, those communions are not the church of the first 400 years or the church of the first millennium. Because when you go into the First Millennium, you see that what Vatican I taught about the papacy, you see in the First Millennium, in the ecumenical councils. The councils of Ephesus, Constantinople III, and I see it too, teach what Vatican I taught about the papacy, and then you actually see it in action with the Council of Chalcedon, with Pope Leo, even Constantinople II, which is a very controversial council, but it actually proves the Catholic position as well. These councils, five of the seven ecumenical councils, either explicitly teach or demonstrate the papacy. Saints in the first millennium, East and West, for example, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, said

that every Christian church in the world needs to be in agreement with the teachings of the Church of Rome, because the Church of Rome holds the apostolic faith. And so many other saints that said, you know, the same thing over the first millennium. And the important thing is that they said that the authority of the Church of Rome was a divine authority, that was a divine mandate that was given to it by Jesus Christ. So basically, the saints of the first millennium taught that the papacy is a divine institution, and divine institutions cannot change and do not change because they come from Christ. What that means is that the papacy is a divine apostolic tradition, and divine apostolic traditions cannot be changed, cannot be tampered with,

cannot be discarded, cannot be ignored, because they come from Jesus Christ. So, when you look into the church of the first 400 years of the first millennium, you will see that the universal belief, the Catholic belief, was that the papacy came from Jesus. And you cannot deny anything that Jesus gave you. If Jesus wants you to have seven sacraments, you've got to have all seven. If Jesus wants one head for His church on earth, you've got to have that one head. And that's what you find looking into the first millennium, but then even looking at how things are now, and you just look at the history of the Eastern churches, you see that because the universal teaching authority of Jesus Christ's church

is tied with the Pope, with the Bishop of Rome, you see that the other churches don't have that universal authority, they don't have that magisterium, and that's why they cannot promulgate any teachings that are binding at the universal level that everyone agrees upon. Yeah. There's actually, you know, being one means that you are united in matters of doctrine, governance and worship, and you actually don't find that in the Orthodox Communions. They're not one in matters of doctrine or governance, or even worship, like in the case of, I know it's kind of a low blow, but like Constantinople and Moscow.

or even worship, like in the case of, I know it's kind of a low blow, but like Constantinople and Moscow. The question is, how do you identify the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church? How do you identify it? Where do you identify it? Because we all agree that the Church is visible. How do you identify the universal Church? Catholics, we have an answer to that. But Orthodox do not have an answer to that. And if they try to give an answer, there's no universal answer. They disagree with each other about how to identify the universal church. So it always comes down to an issue of just disunity or not even having the capability

of being able to solve these issues at the universal level. That's the point I heard Michael Lofton make that I really liked. He said, you might criticize the Catholic Church for not doing something, but we all agree that it can bind at the universal level the faithful to say, accept the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary or something like that. So the difference is that we have that apparatus and the Orthodox don't for the reasons you just specified. Right. And then when you get into it, when you get into the weeds and you're actually involved in their communities and you just have conversations with their priests, with their bishops, as I've done, you see, you know, disunity as well.

Not that there isn't disunity on our side, there is, but the only problem is that their disunity, there's no way to solve it. That's the problem. You know, if I'm a Greek Orthodox and I can't go receive the Eucharist at a Russian church, or I'm a Russian and I can't go receive at the Greek church, that means you're not in communion, so now I have to pick. If I'm an Eastern Orthodox, I have to pick. Do I go with the Greek church or with the Russian church? How do I identify which is the church? Because they both can't be, because they're not in communion.

The question is, who's in schism from who? You need to be able to identify what the Orthodox church is and then who's in schism, and they can't do that. That's the huge problem. If you can't even identify the church, the visible church on earth, which they all agree that it is visible, but if you can't identify it, that's a big problem. That's a deal-breaker. Why, you said it's a low blow. Why is it, I don't think it's a low blow, I think it's a good modern illustration, but why do you say that? I think it is a good modern illustration, but the reason that it feels like a low blow,

and this is me saying this after just having conversations with other Orthodox, it's kind of like when they say, oh, Pope Francis said this, and they, you know, we're like, oh, that's a low blow. It's like fresh and new. Yeah, so They're reeling from it. And the reason that it would come up as a low blow is because what we're seeing now with their communion, we've seen throughout the entire history of the Church.

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use the promo code Matt for an extra 10% off your first order. That's a 25% total savings on your first order plus your free gift. Remember, your order will directly help support a network of over a thousand pro-life organizations across the US. Sevenweekscoffee.com. But the problem is again, throughout the entire history of the church, we've always been able to identify who was Orthodox and who was heterodox, right? So it's kind of a low blow, but really not really,

because if they were able to identify who's Orthodox and who isn't, then it wouldn't be an issue. And the reason that it feels like a low blow to them is because, you know, like for us, it's not a low blow. Like if an Orthodox or a Protestant brings up, oh, you know, you have your set of a contests, you have your SSPX, you have all of your Catholics that don't even think Pope Francis is the Pope, for us that's not a low blow.

Because like, yeah, and they're wrong, they're heterodox, they're not, we know how to identify the true church and people that have separated themselves from the church. But I think that because Orthodox don't have that, they're not able to do that to them, it feels like a low blow because it kind of shows, it's kind of like exposing their nakedness, you know? But I mean, it's true. And if it's true, you can't just ignore it, because we're supposed to be in pursuit of the truth, of the whole truth, the fullness of truth. So yeah, I agree with what you're saying, and I think that you're probably on the same page as me, that it's important that we be grounded in the truth that we have accepted

while being open to potential new evidences, but that doesn't mean we hold on to our current faith in a tentative way. We've given ourselves over to it, and should someone present evidence that's contrary to mine that I do not respond to, that is not a good reason to go along with them. We have to be very slow and dutiful because just because someone can respond to you doesn't mean their answer is the last word, right? And you said this with your friend John who helps you run the channel, Roots of Orthodoxy is his channel, people apparently check that out. Oh yes. Yes. It's incredible. It is incredible. I mean, maybe I'll have him on one day and he can tell me his story.

I don't mean to speak for him, but I mean, this is, this is, well, can you speak for him just briefly and that he was open to Orthodoxy or you can't speak about that. I would rather let him know it because it's his, it's his journey, his channel. The main point I was trying to bring up was before this conversation, we were talking about telling people go slow. That's all I was doing.

That's what I told him. Because he and I, we've been best friends since six years old and he was sincerely looking into orthodoxy and because I know him and I know that he's honest, he's intellectually honest, he will go where the truth leads him even if he doesn't like it. Because I know that he's honest, he's intellectually honest, he will go where the truth leads him, even if he doesn't like it, and because I know that about him, he's always been that way. I said, Osei, I said, you have the perfect disposition to go looking elsewhere. If you're intellectually

honest and you don't fool yourself, you don't let your heart fool yourself, and you're really just looking at, you know, you're looking at this objectively, you have the freedom to look into everything. You have the freedom to look into everything. And I told him, I encouraged him, I said, do it, do it. And I even told him, I said, this is what's going to happen when you start looking into this, you're going to find this, this, this, this. And there was even times that he was like, I doubt it. And then a few months later, he'd be like, hey, man, you were kind of right about this. And then a few months after that, you come back and be like, Hey man, I kind of see what you mean. Like I am seeing this now. See, when we have the truth on our side, we don't have to be threatened by anything else.

When I say, you know, you can be open minded, what I mean is don't be threatened. Don't be threatened is what I mean is because if you know this is true, and it's objectively true, what that means is that nothing can ever contradict it. Nothing will ever objectively be able to contradict it. So don't think like you have to be threatened by anything, and actually look into other things and just look at them for what they are. And don't be threatened by them, because truth is truth, truth doesn't change. So if you're sure that this is true, then it should not change.

Then have that faith go in and look at these things, and you'll be able to always see where the defect is and why it's not true, ultimately. You know? Yep. So also, people have different temperaments, and they're cool with different things. And I think it's wise at times if people find themselves burnt out on online debates and

back and forth, that it's perfectly okay to take a step back, pray, fast, read your scriptures, love your family. Yes. In fact, start with that. Yeah, that's right. Start with that. Start with the scripture. Start with prayer, with fasting, with being a good son,

a good husband, a good parent, a good friend, a good, you know. Yeah, and if this stuff is taking you away from that, stealing your peace, it's okay. Like, it's not a retreat, where it is a retreat, but it's not a sort of cowardly retreat to move away from that which is just stealing your peace. Because I mean, it used to be the case if you wanted to listen to a debate, you could get a Catholic answers and buy Tim Staples versus whatever, you would listen to it. But now you could probably spend like five weeks nonstop, like 24 hours a day, just playing different Catholic debates.

Which I've done. Yeah. Yeah. And here's the thing we always got to keep, you know, always keep your eye on the ball. That's what I always say. So remember, God isn't expecting you to know about the acts of Constantine 3 and the Pope Vigilius controversy and Pope Honorius.

God isn't expecting you to know those things, but God is expecting you to be a good son. God is expecting you to be a good father, a good husband, a good friend, a good whatever. That's what your job is. And often that's a lot more, it can be a lot more difficult and it requires a lot more virtue. That's why we prefer just to throw ourselves into study. Right. Because it's too hard to be patient with my wife or my children or what have you. I think you just convicted me. Yeah. I think you've just convicted me. Honestly, right here, live on air. It's true, isn't it?

I mean, imagine living with people who are annoying, just like you're annoying, and you've got to put up with them. You've got to put up with their mess. You've got to put up with their annoying habits. You've got to put up with their illnesses. That's hard. It requires a lot of you.

And your own poverty is exposed when you're in the midst of that, as you become impatient with them. But that's clearly where Christ is trying to meet you. And I want like, no, no, don't meet me there. Meet me over here in this Jimmy Akin book or whatever, this council. And it isn't, I mean, of course, if you start thinking I'm saying either or, then you've misunderstood. Yeah, no, yeah, absolutely. It's not either or. It's interesting because I'm not married, I don't have kids. I spend most of my time with Jonathan because we travel all over the country and we do all these things and Jonathan has never annoyed me ever, ever annoyed me. He didn't get along great but I

think I annoy him sometimes and he's holier than me because he puts up with it like he's he we've never had a fight never had an argument never anything never you know but I'm like man because I know me and I know you know that I can be kind of and I'm like man this, because I know me and I know, you know, that I can be kind of, and I'm like, man, this guy puts up with me and I really appreciate it. And I'm like, and he's married with kids. So maybe that's the, you know, I hope that I'm holy enough to where I can do that. But I don't know. I don't know.

Meekness is an interesting virtue that we don't often talk about anymore, but this idea of being gentle with others, you know. Right. Yeah, you get into a monastery or you get into a family or you get into a parish and all of a sudden, meekness is required. And it was easy when it wasn't required,

because you didn't have to do anything. You could just talk about how great and lofty that virtue was. But now when the house is a mess and your kid's sick and your wife's sick, you're like, oh, now is where I actually have to pray for this grace. And I think that's when you really get to know yourself and know if you really do have those virtues, because I think meekness is easy with strangers. Yeah, I think it's easy. You don't have to be with them for long.

It's easy to be polite to strangers. It's very easy to to go out into the world and Go to the coffee shop around the corner or whatever it is and go in and be and smile and wave and and be pleasant That's very easy. Yeah, but when you come home to your family when you come home to that's when the test That's when it's really on especially when you start getting too comfortable with each other and you start becoming selfish and insisting upon your own way and tyrannizing others just so you can get what you want It's amazing. I mean you realize just how wretched you are It's CS Lewis's line that a man doesn't know how wretched he is until he tries to be good Something to that effect like if you have never actually really tried to be perfect, right? Then you're like, yes, I get that

It'd be pretty easy. All right. Just today. Just today, don't lose your patience. Do it when it's hard. Do it when it's hard. Do it when it really counts. All right, so you've got this debate coming up in, why Vegas? Because that's where it's being hosted, because that's where.

Ubi? Yeah, I don't know if that's public knowledge of where he lives. I don't know if he knows public knowledge of where he lives. I don't know if he'll... Yeah, well, he'll be there. How about that? He'll be there, and it's being hosted at a church there. Father Nathan Simeon is hosting it.

He has a relationship with Ubi, you know, and I have a relationship with him, so we're going to Vegas to do it, and we're going to see if we can sell the place out, you know. That's great. My experience is, and this is probably true, I think every Christian communion has this contingent. There's like the loud contingent online of Catholics. They just seem kind of like, sometimes, can be spiteful and they've usually got their Crusader meme hat thing that they're wearing, they don't have their real name and they just lob insults at other people.

Ortho bros, something similar, right? They tell me, I don't know, but I guess the Calvinists might have that contingent within them. I'm not saying all of them or any of them like this all the time. Cage stage, I think that's what they call it, the cage stage Calvinists. But my point, my broader point is when I meet Orthodox, I love them. They're beautiful. You know, it's weird's weird. Isn't it the online world? What it gives us? I've never had a negative experience ever ever in person. I mean either I once went to this Russian Orthodox Church I just ducked in there with my kids a few prayers and

I met this fella in the bookshop and he wasn't being cheeky. He's like you guys still doing the Pope thing Yeah, I've heard that story. Yeah. Yeah, we're still doing that. Okay You guys still doing the Pope thing? I've heard that story, yeah. Yeah, we're still doing that. Okay. That's very charming. That's about as combative as it got. That's charming.

But I had Jonathan Pagio on, he was an absolute delight. When I debated Dr. White, there was a few Eastern Orthodox that were in attendance. And they came up to me, not even after the debate, it was during the intermission, right? Normally during the intermission, that's when you go to the locker room and you're talking to the coach and you're like, what am I doing right? I didn't have that opportunity because during intermission I got swarmed.

So during like the 15 minutes or whatever it was that I had to try and regroup and get my notes together and all that, I was just talking to people and there was a couple of Eastern Orthodox guys that came up to me and they told me like, hey man, we think that what you're doing is you're doing an amazing job of defending us, is what they told me. That's great. And I was like, wow, and I kissed their hands and I said, I love you and thank you for being here and thank you for your support. I have so much love for all of them, for all of the orthodox, even for the Protestants.

I get so much love from everybody and I've never had a negative experience ever, ever had a negative experience with anybody. person, in person. Yeah. And you know what? Even online, I don't think I've, I mean, there might be a nasty comedy here or there, but I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm spoiled. I feel like I've had it easy. I've never, I've never had like, cause I see other guys that the vitriol that they have to put up with and the things that people say online about them.

I feel really spoiled. I don't know if God is just protecting me because he knows I'm, I don't know. I don't know. Yabara was, he brought up this great point when I was talking to him. He said it's how he deals with online criticism and things like this. And he said, he realizes it's this generation's doom. Now you're younger than us, so you might not, do you ever play Doom as a kid? Probably not.

But there's video games where you go around shooting aliens and bad people. Oh, okay. And it feels great. Yeah. And you feel like the boss and you're this, and it's like today's comment section, people often treat it like that.

A video game. Yeah, it's a video game where it's like, and once you realize that, you can be like, okay, whatever. No big deal. Yeah. I also don't know about you, but when people have their real name,

then I'm a lot more open to hearing them. But if it's some fake name and it's just slurs, I don't care even a little bit. Yeah. I don't even- But as you say, you haven't experienced that. So there you go. So you know what's really funny is that I,

so again, we're about to celebrate our two year anniversary here in like two or three days. On the 13th of this month is when we started Voice of Reason two years ago. We started on TikTok and then in July of that year is when we got onto YouTube and Instagram. I still don't really know how to use, like Jonathan does everything. Jonathan uploads everything, he does all the, I don't know how to use, like I really know how to like turn my phone on. So I think that's kind of like a grace. I think maybe God allowed me to do this because He knows that I'm not really interested in it. Like, I've noticed it kind of hurts people's

feelings when they ask, they're like, tell me about the future of Voice of Reason, where you'll see it going, and what's going to happen. And I'm like, honestly, it could end tomorrow. God could take it away from me, and I don't really care. Yeah. God could take it away if He wanted to. Like, this isn't me. This was not my idea. This was Jonathan's idea. He's the one that talked me into it. And if God is letting us do it, cool.

And if God ever says, okay, we're done, cool. Like, I really don't, I don't... Well, what's your job? I mean, do you have a job? This. So you might care in that regard. I do, I do care in that regard, but like, there's other things that I could do. I was perfectly fine

and content and happy two years ago, and I think I still would be if this were to end. So I think that the reason that maybe God has allowed us to do this and has allowed us to have the little bit of success that we've had so far is because maybe He knows this guy isn't going to lose himself and you know because I've never had personal social media myself ever in my life I'm like the only person that I've ever known that I've never had an Instagram or Facebook or you know even like back when my space was popular I never had that yeah I've never been on social media before I just start for the first time ever two years ago now I'm sorry sorry for. Sorry to hear that. Sorry for your loss.

I've never, but so I don't pay attention to it because I'm old now. I'm about to be 30. So it's not something that usually that hook that gets its hooks into you when you're like a teenager. I grew up, you know, I I want to affirm that you are old. You're right.

I'm old brother. Cause I'm 42 and people are like, you're not old. I'm like, shut up. You're just ancient. I know I'm really old. You're old too. No, 30 is old. I had 100%. I know I'm old and like you're not on my shut up. You're just ancient. I know I'm really old. You're old to know 30s old 100% I know I'm old and that's cool. That's beautiful. It's been here longer than those people that makes you better than that It's something to rejoice. I think it's great So so so social media stuff like that never got its hooks in me

But when it really could get its hooks in me, so now I'm able to do it and not really worry about it Yeah, I don't really look at comments. I don't have time to look at all those comments. I kind of just check it to see if I got any important messages. I check it to see if your sister has reached out to me to ask me about what I just saw on TV. We got to talk about this. So my sister and you are chatting regularly apparently about WWE. We're like best friends. Isn't it crazy? I've been watching you for years. I'm sorry.

I don't know if you are, but I've been watching you for years. Matt Fred. I have watched you for years and I've learned so much from you and I've been so edified by your content and, and you know, I remember, you know, me and Jonathan talking about, Hey, what if one day I get to be on with Matt Fred on my show, the coinless and I'm like, I'm honored to have you. Oh no, the honor is all mine. It's like a, like a boyhood dream.

I'm telling you. And I'm like, yeah, I'd be cool and then and then it's your sister that it gets in contact with me and we become like best friends and Tell them how that happened. So so she posted it wasn't that long ago No, no that she posted you and her or you're in Australia, right? No. No, I was Spoke she took me to a wrestling. Okay. okay. I don't know why I was thinking. She's huge into wrestling. I think she might've posted it when you, cause you were recently in Australia, weren't you?

Didn't you go back there recently? I did, but I don't know when she posted what she posted, but she took me to this, what do you call it? Like a B grade, C grade wrestling event. An independent wrestling event. There you go, that sounds way better. Independent wrestling event. And I went cause I love my sister and she's great.

And I love to hang out with her. But it was actually really enjoyable. It was shocking just how talented these people were at what they did. Incredible. Yeah. I remember looking around at the crowd at this like Pittsburgh little thing.

I went, no one here voted for Kamala. Literally no one voted. But if you remember who that was. But no, it was actually really fun. And then I think she posted it online and then what happened? I saw it and I left a comment on it and I don't even remember what I said. And then she commented back and she's like, who are your top five? I was like, all right, here we go.

So I gave her my top five of my guys that I like now. And then the rest is history, I guess. I don't remember. I think she had sent me something and I think she told me, I guess, and I don't remember, I think she had sent me something and I think she told me, she was like, hey, I hope you get on my brother's show soon. And I'm like, oh, that'd be great. I'm like, if you can make that happen, that'd be cool.

And she's like, oh, talk to Melanie. And I'm like, oh, so I'm like, okay. So I was thinking that I would have like the back door in to get you to, you know. I didn't even know that happened. Yeah, yeah. I don't know that conversation happened. Yeah, she was like, I think she was like,

hey, I'm a big fan of yours, you're doing great things. You should be on my brother's show. And I was like, oh, you kidding me? I'd love to, like, that's like a goal of mine. And then we just started talking about wrestling and, and that's it. Like, so- So when I was a kid, it was Legion of Doom.

That was my tag team. I don't know who they were. Oh, of course. Ultimate Warrior, obviously he was phenomenal. Hulk Hogan, I guess, but it was really Ultimate Warrior and Legion of Doom were my favorite, but I do not like watching women wrestle at all. Me neither.

I resent it. I'm not a fan. But yeah, no, I liked it. Big Boss Man, I don't know. Do they still have those real over the top characters? Not anymore, no. It's a lot more sports-based now. I don't like Now, cause I think it was like a reflection of the time, like in the eighties, it was like the era of like, kind of like, I guess, kind of like the campy action hero movies.

Like, you know, you had a Sylvester Stallone and Schwarzenegger and that was like the culture. That was the, the big explosions, the over the top, the guys with snakes and that's what I love. Don't you wish that was back a little bit or no? Cause you're a different generation. It wouldn't land. I don't think it would land because, you know, wrestling is so interesting. Pro wrestling is so interesting because it's an art form.

A lot of people don't realize it's actually an art form. Like it's art. Like when you see professional wrestling done well, like exceptionally well, it's like you're watching, you know, it's like watching a movie, but it's really it's like poetry in motion. Like it's artistic, it's storytelling, it's drama, it's it's theater. Yeah, it's it's good versus evil. It's it's a it's like Shakespearean. And it's all you're gonna have to give me one wrestling match to watch. I could try to change my mind. I could give you not against it. I just don't think it could hold my attention. Yeah. And it's not for everybody. It's yeah, it's not for everybody. But if you um, that's I've never heard that summary there, what you just said there about the reflection of the eighties and the movies at the time. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

That's why I don't see today the same kind of gimmicks, which I thought was kind of fun at least. Yeah, and when you look back at it in nostalgia, you're like, I love that stuff because it's nostalgic. But if it happened today, it might... And then if it happened today, it wouldn't land. And we've got to remember, it's still a business, so they have to do things that are popular, at a popular level that the masses are going to flock to. Right now actually, right now is a very interesting time because right now, the business, the wrestling business is probably hotter than it's probably ever been maybe, like in its history and it's 130 year history, whatever it is.

It's like on a fire right now. They're making, WWE is making like a crazy amount of money. Who? WWE, the company, they're making crazy, crazy profits. How do you think with the rise of UFC over the last however long, how is that? Do you think if you had to guess influenced wrestling? I think that there has been an influence. How people watch it, what they want from it.

Yeah, because like I said, now it's more sports-based. Well, at the same time, you can still see it and see, oh, this is theater, this is Shakespeare. But it's sports-based. So you're not going to see the big boss man. You're not going to see Jake the Snake Roberts. You're not going to see Jake the Snake Roberts with the, although I think that gimmick could work today,

because coming out with the snake, that's just like, that's cool. And that's like, what is is it mind games intimidation but being that it's more more sports based because like professional wrestling as just really as a business it has to evolve and it has to adapt to what the what the culture is and what it wants and what the culture is looking for so it is more sports based i think because of the influence of ufc So it is more sports based, I think, because of the influence of UFC. But it's like just recently there was a big Shakespeare, where probably one of the best good guys ever in the history of the pro wrestling business became a bad guy.

What do you mean the big Shakespeare? What does that mean? Shakespeare is like, you know, the drama. The drama. Oh, okay. So there's a lot of drama. The storyline of it, the story. And so a good guy? John Cena, who was one of the greatest,

they call him a baby face. He's a good guy. He's a hero. He was Superman. By the way, I saw your Superman figure that you have in the bathroom. That's cool. Thank you.

So Superman just became a bad guy after being a good guy. And how did they set that up to make you believe it and hate him? Okay. Let's do it. So John Cena, John Cena was a good guy. And how did they set that up to make you believe it and hate him? Okay. So John Cena was a good guy. I'm talking like what Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior were to you,

just like that and maybe even more so for like my generation, because he was a good guy a lot longer than Hulk Hogan. Hulk Hogan was a good guy from 84 to 96. John Cena was a good guy from 2004 to literally like last week. And he was the top good guy. He was the biggest star that they've had, you know, since the 90s. All right, forgive me.

I've got a lot of questions that I need to interject as we go along so I can understand this. So I understand how they made Hulk Hogan a hero because he was pro-America against the communists or whatever. But and those in the Middle East, you know, he would fight that Sergeant Slaughter. Sergeant Slaughter, yeah. How did they make John Senior a good guy without all those gimmicks? And then explain how just recently they were able to convince everybody that they hate him. So John Cena is his character of relief from like 2005 until just recently. He was the guy that would always hold on to his morals.

He was the moral person. He was all about the children. He was about being a good role model. He was about all the classic morals of a good guy, integrity, loyalty, respect, hard work, honor, giving it your best try. And even if you, his motto was never give up. And there was a whole generation of kids that like they took that to

harden and he always said, you know, never give up, work hard, try your best, uh, don't give into, you know, the evil of the world. And he, and it was, uh, it was like visceral, like, like we believed him, you know, cause we all know that pro wrestling is a show. We know that it's a show, but the people within that show, like you believe that they're for real. Like Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar is one of the biggest professional wrestlers of all time,

but he was also a former UFC World Heavyweight Champion. So you can go to a wrestling show and you can say, I know that this is all a show, but Brock Lesnar, he's for real. It's like that with John Cena. Like that's who he really is in real life in person. And so a whole generation of kids, myself included, grew up with that. It's like that with John Cena, like that's who he really is in real life in person. And so a whole generation of kids, myself included, grew up with that, a hero, a pop culture icon.

And the thing is that over the last 20 years, you know, more than 20 years now, 22 years, whatever it was, whatever his run was, he's had so many opportunities to become the bad guy. And part of his story is that it's so easy to become the bad guy because it feels so good. And you, you know, sometimes you have the right to become the bad guy, but don't you have to stay the good guy because you want to be good. You don't want to be the bad guy. Okay. And that's been, that's been a story for over 20 years because they wanted him to be the bad guy.

There are times when the fans like, you know, they, they want you to be the bad guy. They want you to fight dirty. They want you to be the bad guy. They want you to fight dirty. They want you to- Presumably WWE is not yet ready to make the switch because clearly they're the ones writing the script. They're the ones that tell the story. But the story is also based on the reaction of the audience. So when the audience reacts in a way, they kind of plan accordingly. So that's the beauty of the art form is that it's interactive. And if the audience rejects

something then they'll have to switch on the fly, you know, or if the audience accept it, they'll write it as long as they can, right? It's very interactive in that sense, you know, so it's like the audience, the crowd, they're the ones that kind of dictate how they want the story to go. When you go to the movie, it doesn't matter how loud you cheer or scream or chant or whatever, like the movie's a movie, it's gone. Or a play. Or a play. But with the theater that is professional wrestling, the audience actually is able to influence what happens. And for a long time, the audience want, you know, the adults in the audience wanted John Cena

to be the bad guy. But the kids loved him. And he's a hero. And John Cena was always about the children. He never, always about the children and being the upright, the moral person, and always be good good and loyalty, respect, honor, virtue, all those things. And he was able to withstand all of those calls for him to... Just bring this right, yeah, to bring this around. He was able to withstand all of these calls for him to be the bad guy and it was incorporated

into his story. And he never became the bad guy up until like about two weeks ago. All right, what happened? When he finally became the bad guy. So John Cena, he's in his final year, he's about to retire. And right now the top good guy is a guy named Cody Rose and he's the world champion. And he's like the John Cena of today. He's beloved by, he might even be bigger than Cena, right now at this day and time. Cody Rose. Cody Rhodes.

R-H-O-D-E-S. And they call him, yeah, he's like the classic American, hard work, and just like John Cena was. And he's beloved just like John Cena was for over 20 years. And John Cena turned on him. They're gonna have a match of the biggest pro wrestling show that happens every year, that's him. Cody Rhodes. And they're gonna have a match of the biggest pro wrestling show that happens every year, that's him, Cody Rhodes and they're gonna have a match, they're gonna main event WrestleMania, which is the biggest show of the year and all your audience is probably like

man, I didn't know Voice of Reason was such a nerd, but I'm a huge nerd. This is great. And they're gonna main event, you know, in front of like, you know, 80,000 people, whatever it is and Truthfully is a groundbreaking Catholic AI app built to help you know, live and defend the Catholic faith with clarity and confidence. Whether you're navigating a tough conversation, deepening your understanding, or looking for daily spiritual guidance, Truthly is your companion on the journey. It's like if ChatGPT went through OCIA, got baptized and made it its mission to proclaim

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They thought it was going to be good guy versus good guy. Cody Rhodes, today's John Cena versus you know the John Cena of this generation. And so people couldn't tell who they were going to root for. They couldn't tell, so they, John Cena said I'm going to tell you who to root for. And he turned on him and there's actually a video of it. John Cena and The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, The Rock was like the biggest star in Hollywood. Cuz he came from pro wrestling and he's back in pro wrestling and he's- I didn't know he was back in it.

He's a character on TV. I think the most watched social media moment of WWE was John Cena turning to a bad guy and turning on Cody Rhodes and aligning with the Rock. Can you tell me how this happened? So what happened was John Cena won a match to earn the right to fight Cody, to wrestle Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania for the belt for the World Heavyweight Championship. Cody Rhodes came out after John Cena won his match to congratulate him and

they hugged in the ring. It was a big hug in the ring and they was like, yo good, you know, our two favorite guys are gonna get to have a great, you know, classic good guy versus good guy match. And then The Rock came out because The Rock was involved in a story with Cody Rhodes where The Rock is the bad guy and he's trying

to get Cody Rhodes to become the bad guy, right? So it was kind of like what John Cena was going through back in like 2012, 2013, where The Rock is trying to get Cody Rhodes to be the bad guy. And Cody Rhodes says, no, I'm not gonna be the bad guy, right? The Rock was trying to get Cody Rhodes to align with him. And he said, no, I am not gonna follow you. I'm gonna have a match with my hero, John Cena.

And we're gonna tear the house down at WrestleMania and we're gonna do it honorably. And then John Cena turns on him. In the ring, at WrestleMania and we're gonna do it honorably. And then John Cena turns on him. In the ring? In the ring, he turned on him. They hugged, they had a big hug. And then John Cena, some of the best acting he's ever done in his life where his face just drops and he's looking at the rock.

And the rock is in the ring watching them hug and they're hugging, they're hugging and John Cena looks at the rock and gives him the wink and the evil face just comes out and the rock goes like this and he does the throat slit. So John Cena lets Cody go and he kicks him in the nuts. Just low blows him, just kicks him. And then John Cena, the rock and Travis Scott, who was also in the ring, they just, you can watch the video but they just, they pummel him, make him bleed like for real, like he he was bleeding for real they hit him like they were hitting him for real they were whipping him with a weight belt it was it was classic Shakespeare beautiful storytelling the drama the way that the crowd was reacting little kids in the crowd crying oh my crying because their hero

just turned on their other hero even grown grown men that were shocked, you know, grown men that grew up with Sina that were shocked. So it was amazing storytelling, beautiful storytelling, and it was, and everyone played their part so well. You know, John Cena is excellent, Cody Rhodes is excellent, The Rock is The Rock, he's excellent. The way that they shot it, the camera work, the, you know, The Rock's, you know, doing the throat slit, Sina's face, while he was hugging Cody and kicking him, and then blooding him up, you know, doing the throat slit, Cena's face while he was hugging Cody and kicking him and then blooding him up and just, it was beautiful. It was Shakespeare. Wow, okay.

I got a Shakespeare professor who would take issue with that. But we'll accept it. I watched that episode, by the way. Excellent. Thank you. He's great. Yeah, Aaron, Dr. Aaron, the band, something way. Excellent. Thank you. He's great. Yeah. Yeah. Aaron, Dr. Aaron, the band's something Polish. Right. Okay. So when's WrestleMania? WrestleMania is in April, I

think April 20th and it's two nights. Okay. So at this point, as someone who doesn't know anything about wrestling, it would seem that Johnson, you has to lose because this is his, I know, but that's what I was about to get to right yeah but you can't have you can't give the audience what they expect but then maybe you do sometimes you do sometimes you don't know when expected that John Cena in his final year he was on his farewell tour he was on his farewell tour and he said I want to just come back for one final year to you know cuz John Cena does acting now too he's in movies but he said I want to give you guys all of me for one final year,

this is a thank you for the 20, cause he's been doing this since 2002. So for the 23 years that you guys have been supporting me, I wanna come back and give you one last run and. So how do they, what do you expect from this wrestling match between Rhodes and Cena? I honestly think that John Cena might win. That he might win and the bad guy is gonna prevail

at the biggest show. It's because I think, well obviously Rhodes, oh, that he might win and the bad guy is going to prevail at the biggest show. And then- It's because I think, well, obviously Rhodes wins, he's the good guy, which leads me to think, oh, therefore they won't let it happen. So John Cena will win, cause also it's his last WrestleMania. But then it's like, okay, so then it was, so Rhodes is probably going to win. Like, I don't know. So you have no idea.

And that's one of the things about what's so great about the product, the WWE product right now is that it's so unpredictable. Usually you can predict it. You know how things are going to go? Right now it's the most unpredictable that it's ever been while still being so good. The quality is so high and you really don't know where it's going to go. They're really at levels now, new heights of storytelling. It's really good. The characters are so fleshed out. Everyone is over, meaning everyone is popular. The audience cares about fleshed out. Everyone is over meaning everyone is popular The audience cares about all of them, you know, cuz there's guys that can you know that now the audience doesn't really care about this guy So but everyone right now the cheers are deafening, you know, I mean to a W oh I have yeah

I've been to events before it's a blast. It is a blast. Yeah, I remember the Undertaker Yeah, I don't know his real name, but Mark Calloway is his name. Okay. And he was wrestling for what felt like 50 years. I mean, it wasn't that long, but when did he stop? He stopped in 2000. He had his last match in 2021, I think, or two 20,000, 20,000 eighties in that he was wrestling in the eighties.

He went to WWE in 1990, November that he was wrestling in the eighties. He went to WB in 1990. November of 1990 was when he made his debut. What was he in his fifties or sixties when he finished? Late fifties, I think. Come on. Yeah. So from 1990 all the way to 2022, I think was his last match. His body must be destroyed.

Yeah. And he was incredible too as a performer. And he was the one guy that could have those like gimmicks, like the cheesy gimmicks from the eighties. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the earn. Yeah. That shouldn't have worked today. It shouldn't have worked, but because he did it so well back when it, when it did work, he was able to maintain it and carry it on and they, and they went with it. The audience always accepted him.

They never rejected it because it's the undertaker like it's and he, and but as a performer, just as an athlete, as a performer, the things that he could do in the ring word Did you ever Emma told you this and I won't I won't reveal this person's name Yeah, but a woman from the WWE wrote to me over Instagram Don't say it is if you know because I don't think I don't want to expose her wrote to me, too Okay. Yeah. Yeah And she said she converted or she's converting. Yeah, praise God. God bless him.

And I think I'm like, well, let's have you on the show. Right after I've criticized female wrestlers. And I don't think she's ready to do that. But that's amazing that someone from the WWE is watching our channels and is making influence towards Catholicism. Isn't that wild? So she and her husband, who's also a professional wrestler, me and him are like really good friends to him. We talk like at least weekly as well. And they're not ready to come out, am I right? I don't know.

But I told him, I was like, hey, you should maybe think about getting on with Matt Fred. Because that would be huge. That would be huge. But it's funny because she wrote to me, and my sister was like freaking out. Really? To me it was like someone from Kroger Works on the checkout sent me an email.

I'm like, that's cool. I'd love to, who is she? I didn't get it. Yeah. When they reached out to me as well. I just mean somebody I don't know. Right. Yeah.

You don't write another face. I don't know. I, cause I've been watching, you know, especially her husband. I had been watching his career since he was in Japan and I was watching him wrestling in Japan and everything. We're giving it away now. Oh, sorry. I got to deduce. Oh man. Oh well. Um, do you remember that sumo wrestler back in the eighties and he had that stink face move? That was unfortunate. Rikishi is it from the nineties?

I think it's Rikishi. Okay. His, his sons are wrestling right now too. And they're on top. I want to get into sumo wrestling. Not me personally. I want to get into watching. I said you're going to put on a couple hundred pounds. That's what I really would like. That seems like a fun thing to do. What's the weirdest thing you're into? The weirdest thing that I'm into. That's a good question. I mean, most people would go, okay go okay wrestling I'll settle for that wrestling is weird but just when they know your persona they wouldn't

necessarily expect you're into that's a really good question I want to be into simmer wrestling I want to get into that what's the weirdest thing that I'm into huh I don't know what would be the weirdest thing that I'm into I don't know what would be the weirdest thing that I'm into. I don't know. I need more weird things to be into, I think. Weird things to be into. I've shared this before, so it's not a surprise, but there's a great couple of games from the 90s, these point-click adventure games called Tex Murphy Interactive Games.

Me and my son, Peter, he's 10 years old, occasionally. We don't do it much, but we sat down recently, we played Under a Killing Moon, is what the name is. It was just such a beautiful thing. And then what I do is I buy those, the novels that were written in conjunction with the game, that I hope the author will never watch this.

They're not like great, they're not like literature. It's just, whatever. But because I have such nostalgia from the 90s. I love it. So that's what that's something I'm weird, weird that I guess that I'm into. Yeah. That's a good question. You've stopped me. I don't know what I'm into that I'm because I feel like I'm boring. What would you like to get into? Even if you can't see yourself getting into it? What would be a cool thing to

say that you're into? So I just said my in sumo wrestling of a weird thing that I'd like to get into I just offended everybody's into sumo wrestling is anyone okay now I need to let's I'm gonna get into it right now on the show wrestling like is that still I know it's still a thing but is it huge somewhere like is anyone I don't know in any corner of America they're like oh my gosh you don't know huh with that American accent I don't know about any weird things that I'm into but there's something that I'm really into that I think you'll appreciate okay I brought some things for you Japanese style of okay yep we're gonna read that alright you were not a cut from the same cloth

mm-hmm I know that there's nothing that I can you know, give me this is an ultimate warrior Oh, but you smoke. Oh my goodness. Are you kidding me? Um, so I'm of big that is so nice I'm a big cigar guy. Would you smoke one with me now? Of course so my audience knows that Thank you very much my dream and my audience has known even before I was voice of reason. My dream was always to have a cigar with Matt Fred. Really? That was one of my, my dreams.

I hope you like those. I hope you. Now, do I have a lighter? Thank you, sir. Oh yeah, I do. I do have a lighter. Yeah. I'm a big cigar guy. Really?

Big cigar guy. So there you go. That's awesome. So there's, there's two people in this world that I wanted to have a cigar. You go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. There you go. That's awesome. So there's, there's two people in this world that I wanted to have us to go. There are two people in this world that it was my dream to have a cigar with one is Matt Fred. I'm about to live out my dream right now with Matt Fred. The next guy is Michael Noles.

Yeah. So the two guys that I want to have a cigar with. That's so nice. So I'm about to accomplish one of my, one of my dreams right here and my audience knows. So my audience is watching this. They my dreams right here and my audience knows. So my audience that's watching this, they're probably so happy for me right now because I've talked about it quite a bit. Do you want a bit of whiskey or just the water's good?

I'm good with just the water. I don't drink actually. I'm a cigar smoker, but I'm not a drinker. When did you get into cigars? I got into cigars, I think in 2018. That's very nice of you. Thank you. No, of course.

Yeah. 2018? 2018. Yeah. 2018. 2018. Yeah. Yeah. And I got some other things for you too. So, but this is just to start out. Yeah. I hope you enjoy. Yeah.

What kind of cigars do you like? Do you have? I like more if I'm going to get like a, if I usually I buy Cubans, but if I buy, because I like the more Connecticut type. Yeah. So Maduro's we'll see'll see how I can stomach it. I love a Maduro.

Sometimes it'll do a number on me, but let's see. And is this one of your favorites for some reason? Yes, I have quite a few favorites. I have a few brands that I really like, that I really enjoy. So how did you get in? So I got into cigars because of my father-in-law. He's a big cigar smoker and I just thought it was kind of cool. So I tried it a couple of times and I enjoyed it, but I didn't enjoy it for the right reasons.

I was enjoying it because it just seemed like a kind of cool thing to do. I remember once early on in our marriage, my wife went away somewhere. So I thought, I'll go get a cigar. Didn't really know what I was doing. Got a cigar set out in the back porch in San Diego and I got so sick. Where are you really? I was on my hands and knees just trying not to vomit. But since then the reason you probably heard me say this but the reason I love cigars is it's just it's a forced way to sit

down and slow down. It's very meditative. You light up a cigar like this, this will take like an hour and a half to smoke. Right. It's just a, yeah. What about you? How'd you get into it? The way that I got into cigars was my oldest friend from preschool, when he had his daughter, he became a father and when he had his daughter, we were all there when she was born and his father, my friend's father, brought us out to the parking lot after, you know, after she was born. Yep. And when the, when the excitement was kind of settling down, he took us to the parking lot after she was born.

And when the excitement was kind of settling down, he took us to the parking lot of the hospital and he passed out cigars to everyone and said, in honor of my first grandchild being born, I wanna have a cigar with everyone here that was here to witness this. So that was when I had my first cigar. And then I didn't smoke again for a while and then you know

Sometime down the line. I just picked it back up and I got to the point where I was smoking about one or two a day For a while. Yeah, that's what I do. I already have a cigar today. Have you? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And how do you do I mean are you like me do you have to deal with people getting upset with you online about it? I have but again, I don't really look at the comments. So I did a video recently with a friend of mine, also from New Mexico, who's also a content creator. We had cigars together and there was a couple of comments like, oh, I expected more from

you, Alex. You know, like, you know. Well, that was your first issue. Christian shouldn't be smoking. Yeah. But I've smoked cigars before on lives and things like that. That's delicious. Thank you. You're enjoying it. I have a brand new Pints with Aqu things like that. That's delicious. Thank you. You enjoying it?

I have a brand new pints with Aquinas cigar dropping. We sold out real quick. Oh yeah. That's the box up there. I'll open it. There's a gorgeous image of, do you see it on that section? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're about to release them online.

So I will send you a few and you can tell me what you think. They're really, really good quality. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So you're enjoying it? Is that good? That I picked good ones? It's delightful. It's delightful. Oh, very good. Very good. I'm living my dream right now. Yeah, thanks. The Mayflower cigar is great too. Is it? Yeah. I would love to have to try them. So I'm about to cross you off my list and then just Michael Nose is all I got left. He would love that and I could die a happy man

Yeah, so what are you doing hoping for marriage or looking at the priesthood or neither right now or what? Honestly, and I've been thinking about this a lot lately too. I Feel like I'm being called to just remain single. I don't know if I... So I was in the seminary for a while and discerned out of it. And then a lot of, you know, Byzantine priests that I know, they say, hey man, you get married and then you come and, you know, you can be a Byzantine priest, but I don't think I'm called to that either.

And then when I look at this marriage by itself, I don't think I'm called to that either. So I don't know. I don't know. And then, the funny thing about the sermon is that you kind of like ask yourself, like, why do I feel this way? Is it like what you brought up earlier? Is it because I know it's gonna be hard and maybe I don't feel like I'm up for the challenge or whatever it is?

Am I not mature enough to do the married thing? I don't know. But you know how people that are not called to the priesthood and you bring it up to them, you say, hey, maybe you'll be a priest. And they're like, oh, no, like, they just know that's not the thing. When you bring up marriage to me, that is kind of the same. I kind of have the same reaction, like, no, I just know that's not my thing. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'm dead wrong. Maybe I'm weird. Maybe I'm I don't know. Well, it sounds like you're introspective in a

good sense. And it sounds like you're processing this maybe with a spiritual father. Yeah. So I think if you're doing both of those things and you're at peace, it might be a good place to remain. Yeah. Don't you think? Yeah. I think for me, I was afraid of marriage because I was afraid of being a bad husband.

That's one of the main reasons, motivating factors, I would say that I was, I mean, I love Jesus Christ and I want to serve Him and love Him and read His word and proclaim the gospel I wanted to do that ever since I was 17 But I think a Significant motivating factor for me being a priest was I was afraid I'd be a bad husband bad lover bad father Right wouldn't be able to provide for my kids. I got no idea how to do anything and I had to realize that Choosing the priesthood

because I'm afraid of something is not a good thing. So I had to really look into that. Yeah, and then obviously I became a husband. Well, I'm thrilled. Let me tell you a story and God bless you. That's great when we find our vocation and you, you know, that's beautiful. When I was in the seminary and I kind of,

I just turned out of it, you know, and it was my spiritual advisor then in the seminary, and I kind of, I discerned out of it, you know, and it was my spiritual advisor then in the seminary who kind of helped me through the process. And he said, he told me, he said, you know what? He said, I think there's something else out there for you that God wants you to do. He said, I'm not sure what it is, but go and figure that out, go and find it. And he says, and if for whatever reason it doesn't work out, the door is always open for you to come back here. So he left the door open for me. But this is what he told me and I'll never forget it. And it kind of like, I don't know. He told me, he said, I don't know if you're being called to be a priest or not. But I know for sure that God is not calling you to marriage.

That's what he told me. He said, if you were, why did he say that? I don't know. He said, if you get married, I think you're going gonna be miserable. That's what he told me. Okay. But I wonder, it'd be great to know what he meant by that. Cause that could either be, not that he would have ever meant it this way, but that could be an insult. Cause you could see someone being,

and this isn't your case, I'm not saying it is, but you could see someone just being immature. Or you could see someone being selfish. Like, now if you were married, you'd hate it. Cause there'd be, you'd have to care for somebody else. You'd have to be interested in other other people and you're not like that. I'm sure that's not what he meant. I wonder what that means in a positive sense. If I have no idea, maybe maybe he just means like, I don't think you're being called the marriage.

Yeah. Do you know other people? This is an interesting conversation because I've met people who've been consecrated, consecrated like Janet Smith, Dr. Janet Smith is one of them. And there's, there's others who've been single and have made the decision to sort of consecrate themselves to the Lord. Yes. Do you think, or have you thought about that? Like, I guess I wonder, sometimes you'll see this debate online and I haven't gone into it much, so I don't know, but is just perpetual singleness where I'm not making a commitment either to remaining chaste for the kingdom or getting married. Is that a viable option for an individual? Does that make sense?

Like it's one thing to go, okay, I'm single for now and I'm open to marriage, I'm open to priesthood, but at some point do you have to choose or do you think it's permissible just to, yeah, just remain in that state as a bachelor? Essentially. Yeah, right. That's a good question. I'm not sure because maybe it could be that I'm being called to consecrate myself as a single person, you know, but I don't know. That's when I honestly, just, I don't know. They always say, you know, do what scares you, but I don't think I'm afraid of... Yeah, that's not always a great thing.

Because I'm not afraid of what I'm doing now. I'm not afraid of meeting James White or talking to any, you know, I'm not afraid of that. And I do it and it's bearing a lot of fruit. It's edifying other people. I wouldn't be afraid of being a priest. I don't think I'm afraid of getting married. I don't think any of those things scare me. I think I have like the normal, like you said, like, oh, maybe you doubt yourself, you know,

would I be a good husband, a good lover, you know, a good father? I think that's normal for all men to think that way, but it's not, you know, if I think that way, it wouldn't be something that would stop me from trying. And one of the reasons that I would feel like maybe it's not God's will for me is because I have tried. I have, you know, sucked that out, you know, to be married and it never works. Yeah, yeah. For whatever reason, even when everything is going well and it should work and it's supposed to work, for some reason something just, and it just doesn't work.

Do you have siblings? I have one sister. Is she married? No, she's 21, about to turn 22. And she just goes to school, she's not married either. You said you're from New Mexico, so I gotta ask, I mean, I'll just put my cards on the table. I thought that Breaking Bad was a bloody excellent series.

And I remember meeting a fella who had just started it. And I'm like, oh man, I wish I was in your shoes and I could watch this from scratch. Obviously it has morally problematic content in it. Obviously I wouldn't just, you know, advise that everybody check it out. But a really well written story. And I asked you as Albuquerque,

does it look like Breaking Bad? You said yes. What a beautiful part of America, huh? Thank you. It is very beautiful. I know I've been there before yeah, but I just I don't remember when It's very beautiful, and that's what we're known. That's what we're known for is is Breaking Bad more than anything now I think is that I know was that annoying in the beginning for people I've never watched the show I'm from there. I'm from Albuquerque, and I've never watched it all right well one of the funny though. Yeah, I'm in it Okay Lead with that what? I'm from there. I'm from Aba Kruki and I've never watched it. All right. Well, I don't know something funny though Yeah, I'm in it Okay

Lead with that what? You're gonna have to keep lighting that I thought yeah, I'm I got nervous that I'm having my cigar with one of my heroes So I didn't light it right. This is never happened to me before that's why I keep staring at it. I'm like Yeah, I don't want to tell someone how to light the cigar. Especially they... Matt Fradd probably thinks I'm a noob or something. You are in Breaking Bad. That's going to be the name of this video, Breaking Bad actor. So it's funny, so here's something that I haven't said yet. Before I was Voice of Reason, I was a professional actor.

Professional actor, I was a working actor because Hollywood kind of moved out to New Mexico, that's where they make a lot of movies now. So I was an actor from 20, so when I left seminary in 2018, that November I started acting. And it's interesting because before I went to seminary, I had an opportunity to start acting that kind of just fell into my lap, and I said, sorry, I can't, I'm going to seminary. But they said, well, if anything changes, let us know, and we'd love to try it.

And then when I just turned out of seminary, what's interesting is that the priest that was my spiritual director in seminary, because I was living with the—it was a religious order, and I was living with the community of priests, and I had a special relationship with each priest. We just had like our own thing. There was one priest that he and I, we bonded over sports. Another priest that he and I, we bonded over food. Another priest that he and I, we bonded over music. And my spiritual director, he and I bonded over films, over movies. And he and I would watch Spanish films together, you know, Shakespeare. You know what I mean? Everything always goes back to Shakespeare.

Yeah. And we'd bond over it, and he knew, because he knew everything about me, because he was my spiritual actor in the seminary, he knew about the offer that I had for acting, and he and I really bonded over it, because he was a big arts guy himself, and he loved the craft of acting and storytelling and art. And when I left the seminary, he was a big arts guy himself and he loved the craft of acting and storytelling and art.

And when I left the seminary, he was like, hey, you should really try that. He said, I think you could do it. He said, I really think you could do it. Like, go and give it a shot. Because he said, I would hate for you to get ordained, get an assignment. And then somewhere down the line, you start to have regret and then you regret that you became a priest because you didn't try this. When you had an opportunity. He said, not many people have opportunities like this. He said, go, he said, I think you should go and try it. So when I left seminary, I went and I tried it and right off the bat, I started working. Um, and it just, you know, um, it kind of just took off and I was working from 2018 to 2020.

And what happened in 2020 that cut my career short was the pandemic. So when the pandemic happened, everybody lost work. I stopped working, they were requiring the the jab. I didn't get it. I had the virus and it was I was really bad. It almost killed me. I had it really bad. And they were like, you know, we can't take you back unless you have it. So I know that kind of bothered me. So I just didn't go back. So tell me about how did you,

what do you mean when you say you're in Breaking Bad? So I started acting in 2018. My theater mom is what I call her, her name is Karen. Karen Jones Meadows, who I love dearly. She was the one that got me into acting. Started doing theater, started doing auditions, and I started doing movies, television shows, and because you know Breaking Bad is made in in Albuquerque. It was

Breaking Bad and they have this the spin-off, what is it called? Better Call Saul? Better Call Saul is what I'm in. Better Call Saul is what. Yeah. So I did that. What do you mean you did that? What role did you play in that? I play one of the mafioso bodyguards of the so the funny thing is I've never seen either show. What? I've never seen either show. I've never watched it.

So I'm on TV and I've never seen it. Why? Why wouldn't you watch it? Cause I like to read books. I don't know. You're a very different person. You don't want to get married. You don't read your YouTube comments. You've been in Better Call Saul and you've never seen it. You know what's so funny? So my followers, they know that I'm in that show and all it happens, maybe at least weekly where someone will message me on Instagram and say, I just saw you on TV,

was that you? And they'll send me the picture of it and they, you know, and like other content creators that they didn't know because I don't really talk. Well, it seems like I talk about it a lot more now, because it comes up when I just tell my story. But they'll see me on TV and they'll be sending me pictures, they'll make videos, like other Christian content creators have made videos, Voice of Reason exposed. I need to see this. This is wild! So, let me tell you something. Let me tell you a funny story.

So, when I started working with Michael Lofton, I started doing streams with him regularly, right? We would do streams, and he and I did a stream one day. So when I started working with Michael Lofton, I started doing streams with him regularly, right? We would do streams and he and I did a stream one day. And after the stream, we did it in the morning. And then after the stream was over, we said our goodbyes and we each went about our day. Well, after the stream was over, he went

and he went to go have lunch and he put on the TV and Michael Lofton and you know, Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad are his favorite shows. So he puts on Better Call Saul and he sees me in it. So he called me. We had just done a stream like two hours earlier and he calls me and he goes, bro, he goes, I just saw you on TV. Is that you? That's me. Raul? Raul. This is crazy. And he calls me. What's crazy is you don't seem to think it's crazy.

It was pretty, it's pretty crazy. So, so Michael Lofton calls me and goes, I was just having lunch. And every time that he has lunch, he and his wife, they'll watch, they'll watch that show. Cause this is his favorite show. It's a lovely show. And he saw me. And so he said, he said, we need to do a stream where we talk about this. So I did a stream with Michael Lofton where that outfit in that picture,

I put on that same outfit, I wear it, and I do a whole stream with Michael Lofton where I'm in character, the character of Raul. And he like reveals it to his audience and he plays the clip of it of me in that show. So yeah, so it's- How long were you, I mean, in the movie, how many, not that you would know

because you haven't seen it, but how many minutes are you playing on screen? I think it was only just briefly because whenever people send me, it's always that picture that they send of me. It's funny because all of my- You look good. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

So I had to audition for it. I auditioned for it. I interacted with all like the main actors. We did scenes together and everything. And the thing about the movie business or the you know, or film, you know, or television, is that the vast majority of the things that you do gets cut out. Yeah, you know. And and I've always had this problem with directors is, you

know, I'll speak, I'll say lines and the directors like, you know, they say, I don't like your voice. Do you think some of them think you're putting it on? I don't know. I don't think so, cause they'd get to know me and they'd talk to me what it is. They said, your voice is too distracting. Yeah, okay.

And it's when you're on set and you see how they work and how they operate, they're so meticulous. If there's like a little something in the shot that's like no one would even notice and they fix it and they said, no, take that away because that's not, that's not gonna work, that's like no one would even notice and they fix it and they said no take that away because that's not that's not gonna work that's gonna ruin everything it could be like a vase or something or whatever and though I've seen arguments where you know directors and producers will have an argument over if a vase should be here in the shot or there in the shot

and they'll go at it for like 20 minutes and somebody wins and somebody loses in there so it's so meticulous and the problem that I that I found In acting was that my voice actually hindered me more than it would help me because they said your voice is too Distinct and it's going to distract from the story Yeah, they said it's you know, when when when they see you on on tv or on the movie or whatever Especially because you're not the main character. Yes, they're gonna be like you're gonna distract from what's going on So no, so they always my lines would always get cut Do you remember what lines you had? Oh, yeah, like in that in that scene So I guess the and I don't know I don't even know the characters names

I think his name is Lalo or something like that He like just got out of prison and he's coming back to like his compound and we're greeting him because he was locked up For a while then we're and he's like giving us instructions of what we're gonna do next and then I get killed. And I have an off camera death too is when I came to find out that my death happens off camera. So we put a lot of work into me getting killed and they didn't even show it. How did they kill you on set?

How did it? We got shot up and it was like a massacre like that. How, and then when they're filming it, what does the shooting look like? Is there any actual sound happening? Oh, there's sound that you can hear the sound and everything. It's just they're not live rounds. In that scene, actually, that where that pictures from in the scene, they're coming in in a

big SUV. And there's guys hanging from the SUV and they're shooting into the air, like in celebration of that they're the bosses back home. And yeah, and I'm holding in that picture. You can't see it in that picture, but I'm holding a big rifle. So, you know, how is it heavy? Like a rifle? Yeah, it's a, yeah, it's like, it's like a real rifle. It's not a prop.

They're, they're used like it's, it's yeah. But obviously it's, we don't want to have an Alec Baldwin situation that happened in New Mexico in Santa Fe, you know, that situation, that tragedy that happened. They use real... they try to make it as real as possible. It's crazy. But you didn't have any ammunition? No, no, of course not. No, no. So yeah, so I was an actor before I was Voice of Reason. Wow.

And do you have any aspiration to do more of that? Yeah, I would love to. I really, really would. What about it do you have any aspiration to do more of that? Yeah, I would love to. I really, really would. What about it do you love? I love art. You know, you just heard me talk about my, you know, be a nerd about pro wrestling and art and storytelling. I just love, I love storytelling. And I love the small intricacies of a performance. And I love thinking about things deeply.

I love, what I love is sharing the truth with people. And when you're an actor, the beauty of acting is that you're sharing the truth with people. You're sharing the truth in an artificial situation and imaginary circumstances, right? But you're sharing the truth. And it's beautiful when you can bring the truth out. Even when you're in a make believe world, and you can still be true, you can still be real. When John Cena turned on Cody Rhodes, we know that that's a show, but that was real. That was, because that's life.

In life, you become the bad guy sometimes. In life, sometimes you go against your own morals and you become the hypocrite and you turn into the bad guy. That's life, that's real. So even though you're in a show, you're in imaginary circumstances, you're trying to show that, portray that, express that in a way that resonates with the viewer and says,

that's me. That's why Shakespeare is so amazing because you can read Shakespeare and you read it and you say that. It's almost like, this is me, this is my life. Shakespeare back in the 16th century wrote a story about me because it's all of our story because it's the human condition. Yeah, I find that when I read the when I read Crime and Punishment, I see each of those characters within me. So what books do

you love to read? First of all, what's the least impressive book you love and then we can talk about more impressive book. The least impressive book that I've... Here's the thing, I don't really read fiction. I've never really gotten into fiction. Although, you know, so I want to... I love Chesterton. I love Chesterton. I love Odraxxi.

I love, you know, I've never read though his fiction. I want to read his Father Brown series. I want to read, you know, The Man Who Was Thursday. I want to read all of those books. For me, I don't know, I've just... And I know that... So I love Shakespeare, but I've never really gotten into, like, novels. Reading fiction, yeah. Into reading fiction just because I've always been so caught up in, you know, apologetics or whatever it is and reading theology. But I can't think of anything better than

waking up in the morning, having a cigar and reading Chesterton reading Shakespeare reading you know what I mean yeah reading good fiction but I just you gotta try the Lord of the Rings yes I've never read Lord of the Rings I've never seen any of the films I've never seen Star Wars here's the thing I'm I don't know why for some reason like fantasy films like this I find like they don't really like yeah sure I don't know why it's just not really anything that's ever interested me. I'm more interested in like like realism of like a Robert De Niro film Al Pacino film

Daniel Day-Lewis This is you know, cuz you're into pro wrestling like you're not into fantasy, but you're into pro wrestling Yeah, Daniel Day-Lewis is absolutely exceptional. He's maybe the greatest to ever do it. Don't you think? He's maybe the greatest to ever do it. Things that that man can do in putting a character together. It's like you don't even recognize him. Goodness gracious.

You can't even tell it's Daniel Day-Lewis when he's like another person. And that's the goal. Can you imagine how intimidating it would be acting with him alongside him? I was intimidated like the cigar in front of you, man. And I did a terrible job of it. I've kind of redeemed myself now, but I could imagine the nerves of doing something. You know, I worked with Angelina Jolie. I'm in a movie. I'm in a movie with her.

Which movie? It's called Those Who Wish Me Dead. It was filmed in New Mexico. OK. It came out. So it was filmed in 2019. They delayed it because of the pandemic, so they put it out in 2021. They released it a year later. I'm in that movie as well. I worked with... Like as an extra or do you have lines? No, I had to audition for it and everything. You have lines in the movie?

My lines were probably cut because of the voice. Because of the voice and yeah, my lines are always cut. But I've never been starstruck before in acting. The one time that I was starstruck, I did a Netflix show called Daybreak with Matthew Broderick, you know, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Matthew Broderick. I've never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but Matthew Broderick was Inspector Gadget in 1999, when I was four years old you know and I watched that movie I had that VHS and I probably watched that thing like a 500 times

in a row. I loved that movie he was Inspector Gadget and I remember I did that you know the first time I ever saw him on set we were in a high school I remember and he was he's like the principal and he and I was just there and I was I froze because I was like Inspector Gadget is in front of me right now and that's the I would with Angelina Jolie I didn't freeze I worked with uh can remember his name a big actor who's worked with Al Pacino and all them and I didn't freeze when Matthew Broderick walked onto the set and I saw him it was over it was over because that's Inspector Gadget. Wow. So would that be the time you were most starstruck? Up until now, yeah.

I wonder what, I'm just gonna go over that comment. I wonder what is it that makes us act like that? It's just, you know, it's very surreal. That's the word I was gonna come up with. When you think you're like, I remember being four years old in my little room and my parents' home and watching Inspector Gadget and jumping on the bed and bouncing off the walls

because I love, you know. Cause you know they're just knuckleheads like you and me. There's no difference. And now I'm here in person and I'm working with them. It's just very surreal. When I got on with Michael Lofton, that was very surreal.

Doing this with you was very surreal. Talking to Lyle Rose was very surreal cause these are people, you know, I've watched you guys for years. I think what's gotta be hard about being someone famous like the people we're talking about is you know that every meeting they have with somebody is gonna be a story that gets repeated.

So I could ask you right now, well, what was Angelina Jolie like? And so she must be aware on some level that every interaction she has with anybody because of her fame is going to be a story. So therefore, since I should probably always have my best foot forward, but nobody always has their best foot forward. People have bad days and what was she like?

Oh, she was great. Good job, Angeline. She was great. She treated us so well. She took the time to talk to all of like the lesser nobody actors like me. She took pictures with us. She took the time to talk to all of like the lesser-nobody actors like me She took pictures with us. Yeah, she talked to us She asked us how we were doing about how our day was going She was so she was trying to be as accommodating as she could to the people and she you know

Was she the director or just acting? No, she was just the she was just acting. She was a star Obviously, it's Angelina Jolie, but she was great to all of us. She was really good to all of us She was great. I've never really had a bad experience even with an actor. I've met quite a few of them, and they always treated me so well. I think a lot of it has to do with your expectations. I think that might be why people speak poorly

of other people is because they have some weird expectations as to how they ought to behave with them. But if you have a kind of humble approach, or hey, look, this is Angelina Jolie. I don't expect her to say a word to me. Why would she? And then she does. But if you go in kind of expecting

they should give you more time than they really should, then I could see you getting upset. My point is I wonder how much of our criticism of famous people is actually more of a reflection on our pride than them. Exactly actually more of a reflection on our pride than them. Right. Exactly.

That's a really good point. That's a really good point. And I've always been very aware of that. I love praying the litany of humility. Every morning I pray the litany of humility. God bless you. Yeah. Every morning I try my best to, almost every morning, there you know, I get up, pray the litany of humility

and I wish I'm not myself, you know. God is God, I am not, and I'm, you know, don't have these high expectations that things are supposed to be. Which ones, because that's, people should check this out if they haven't, the litany of humility. Google it, print it out, put it on your phone,

make it your screensaver. Get it from the Piedra prayer book. It's like getting kicked in the guts every morning. Oh, yeah. And if it's not kicking you in the guts, then you don't mean what you're saying. Or you're a saint. Yeah, you're not doing it right.

So what, which line affects you the most? Which one, if you don't mind me asking? Oh my God. When you say it, you're like, oof. There were some in there that I didn't realize why they were there until I maybe grew more in self-knowledge. One of them is to be consulted.

It's like, oh, that doesn't affect me. And then I realized, oh no, I really want people to include me in their plans. Oof, Lord, deliver me. You know what's the line that stands out the most to me from that prayer is that I desire that everyone be holier than me, provided that I be as holy as I should be. That line is always like,

there's just something about it that, you know, every time that I prayed, I just kind of just stop and I think about it like, what does that look like? How do I know that I'm as holy as I should be? And I ask myself, like, would I be jealous if someone was holier? And I know the answer is no, because I've met people that are way holier than me, and I admire them. I love being around holy people. I love when I meet somebody and I say, that's a holy guy, I want to be like him.

If I'm the holiest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room. I don't want to, you know, I'm, because I know myself and I know that I have so many problems and I need to, you know, things that I need to get fixed and things that I need to work on myself. I want to tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free That's like a lot of time You can decide whether it's useful to you or not whether it's helpful if you don't like it

You can always quit hello dot com slash Matt Fradd. I use it my family uses it. It's fantastic There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers meditations and music including my lo-fi Hello has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries that helps you pray helps you meditate helps you sleep better it helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer there's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all just go check it out hello.com Matt Fred the link is in the description below it even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories to them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic.

Hello. Dot com slash Matt Fradd. You know how you might go to a doctor and I don't know, I'm just thinking of an analogy and the doctor might press on certain parts of your body. Does it hurt here? Does it hurt here? Oh, that hurts right there. Okay. Now I know what needs to be healed. Same thing with the litany of humility. If I say, Lord, from the fear of being forgotten. Oh Yeah, all right. That's where you go to work. Yeah, but it it hurts it hurts to be vulnerable enough to admit I'm terrified of being forgotten. What does that mean? Like what do I do with that Jesus Jesus, right? I

Think now that I've thought about a little bit more the line of, from the fear of being despised. Because I go out of my way whenever I meet somebody, I want to make sure that they have a good opinion of me. I never want to, because I know that I'm representing being that I'm in the space that I'm in I never want anybody to have an interaction with me and then when they walk away and they go voice of reason was a jerk That guy's he's fake. I never want people to have that experience with me so I always tell myself like I need to you know, and it's funny because there'll be times when I'm out in public and I'll notice people that are like looking at me they see me and

You know and I see it and then not until much later they come after me and they're like, hi, I just wanted to talk to you because I know you, you know, I've watched you on YouTube or whatever. And I see that I'm like, okay, I know that I have a responsibility now that when I'm out in public, I better not be, I better be behaving and I better not be doing anything stupid because people know people do recognize me, you know, which is crazy to me, which is really crazy to me. Um, so I always keep that in mind. I'm like, I have a, I have a duty, I have a responsibility to make sure that I'm carrying myself correctly.

That's true. Right. And then there's also the flip side of this, that if you care too much, it might be a sign of your pride. Exactly. That's what's difficult. Exactly. Yeah.

Because you could also see somebody who's, just like we were saying earlier about somebody who's really famous, they're trapped by that. Like, I can't have anyone think poorly of me. Right. It's like, why can't, wait, why? Why? Because that's not good either.

Yes, that's true. You don't want to be responsible. But you cannot control how people will receive you. Right. That's true. They may not have had a coffee that morning. Maybe you just said something on a video that rubbed them the wrong way,

and then they see you, and then they, you know. We just, we're not in control of other people. We're only in control of ourselves. Right. Yeah, and I'm not extroverted. Me neither. And so it's difficult for me to have conversations with a lot of people that are very quick.

Right. So if I'm meeting people after something, you know, I definitely try to be, hey, and I hope it's sincere, but it exhausts me quickly. Like if you think of those, those sort of like health bars and those fighting games, like I'm depleted really quickly.

My wife, very extroverted. She gains life by interacting with people. She becomes best friends with her hairdresser and the lady she just met in the elevator. That's beautiful though. It's great. It's so beautiful. It's great, but I don't want to do that.

That's not me and I don't need it to be me. Right. Right. And that's not me having a license to be rude to people. It's just, that's good. Praise God, that's a real gift, but that's not me. You know what's one of the hardest things to do that me personally,

one of the things that I have the most difficulty with. So I try, I go out of my way to try and do this. Small talk. Yeah. I'm really bad at small talk. I don't like small talk. Like I don't like, like I have a million things going on in my head and I'm thinking of... But then that's my pride.

That because, oh, because I think I'm some sort of great, I'm trying to think the way Aquinas thought, you know, so I can't trouble myself with talking to the little people or whatever, that they just want to talk about the weather or whatever, but then I know, you know, the Holy Spirit convicts me and I said, no, no, no. There's more charity in having small talk with people, you know, and actually respecting them, giving them the respect and the honor that they're due because they're made in the image of God, by having the small talk with them,

then to ignore people, because I'm thinking of these abstract things. You know? But small talk for me is really, really difficult, which is why I go out of my way to do it, because I want to do it right. I want to get good at small talk, because really that's actually more important. That's actually really, at the end of the day, that's more important than, you know... It primes the pump for a deeper relationship. You can't go into a deeper relationship

without basic affability. And you may know this, but Aquinas has a section on affability or friendliness. And he actually called me out one day, right? Because I'm like that too. I'm like, it's easy to put lipstick on a pig and try to justify our vices. So if you don't like small talk, it's

easy to be like, wow, the reason is I'm too smart. I'm too smart. I prefer more meaty conversation. Yeah, we got to be always careful of doing that. Right. And so one of the things I would say is something like that. Or maybe like, no, I think what I would say is I don't want to be fake. Right. So I'm not going to pretend to be happy around someone if I'm not feeling right, which okay, there's a list something there But actually that's one of the objections Aquinas responds to right So I'm sitting on a park bench and I'm reading the summa in my hand and I come across that line and his point was Okay

You in order for society to work actually we need to be basically friendly to each other And it doesn't really matter how you feel. You got to fake it till you make it. Yeah, I used to have a problem with that. Oh, fake it till you make it. But no, but no, that's true. That's true. You know, like Shapiro says, facts don't care about your feelings.

Well, human interaction really, it really doesn't care about your feelings. It's not about how I feel. It's about what is good for society. What is good for the world to keep spinning the way that it does and for things to go well is that we all respect each other enough to be able to, because we're social creatures, to socialize with each other. Once you remove yourself from the social aspect, even though, because I'm the same way, I don't like to go out, I don't like to be in crowds, I hate crowds, I can't stand being in crowds, I don't like,

and that's how I am personally, but I'm still a social creature, and if I find myself in that situation, I have an obligation to participate, because that's part of what, we all have that obligation, because that's how society is built and how society continues to thrive and push forward is when we all recognize that we have the obligation and the duty to perform in it and to do our part and contribute to it because if we imagine if we were all the

same way society would collapse. It really really would. So who am I to think that I'm special and that I don't need to be involved in These in these human rituals that we do that, you know seem pointless in the moment. Who am I to think that I'm Special no, I'm not. Yeah, you know, so let me go and let me try to be good at the small talk Let me strike up a conversation with the the guy selling me coffee or whatever, you know, but with the mailman whatever it is Because that's what that really that's that's part of being pro-life. That's part of being pro-life. Being pro-life is about respecting the human dignity that we all have, and part of respecting

human dignity is recognizing that we are all people made in the image of God and that we all have that inherent value that I should be worthy enough to have a, you know, I would like to think that I'm worthy enough that someone would want to have a stranger or want to have a conversation with me. I've wondered often if the rise in introversion, because I'm hearing it more and more, right? And there's a lot of memes online about it, and I'm wondering how much of that is genuine and how much of that is the result of being glued to our screens and becoming there,

socially awkward because of that. And this, I don't want to engage with other people now because other people are actually more difficult than my Instagram reels. So I was like, okay, no, you're not, you might not be introverted. You might be just a selfish person who needs to stop that. Right.

Well, you know what's so interesting? It's kind of like, you know, I feel like Chesterton, if Chesterton, you know, because Chesterton, he's the prince of paradox. Right. Right. I feel like if he could see the way that we are now glued to our phones and the irony of it is that we have sacrificed being social in person to be social virtually, because I don't want to talk to this person that's in front of me right now because I have about you know I have a you know 90,000 Instagram followers that I want to see what they're doing and I want them I want to know what they think about what I'm doing or whatever yeah but the one guy that's in front of me I don't I don't

care what he thinks about me so it's very it's a really weird I think though and it's always right the way to heal from these things is not to listen to What you just said and realize how we see that in other people Uh-huh the way to heal it is to hear that and immediately realize how that's true in our own life Yeah, don't worry. I made a mess. I'm sorry I'm a bad. I'm a bad guy. It's not a very big ashtray You know because it is always easy. Oh Oh yeah, I know people like that. So now stop.

That's not the Christian way. The Christian way is like, oh, I see that in me. Yeah. What's that? Yep. Yeah. Being ugly is so easy. Being what?

Being ugly. I find it quite easy. Being ugly is so easy. So easy. But the things that are worth doing or like I like the line that you say that things that are worth doing are worth doing poorly like the line that you say that things that are worth the things that are worth doing are worth doing poorly.

I think it was Chesterton. Right? Even if you, even if you fail, try it and keep trying it. Cause you'll get better, but time, if I'm not good at small talk, keep trying it. Just keep trying it because it's. I had a friend outdo me. Cause I often like talk about how my rosaries have changed

over the years with my family. And I'm so grateful because of it. But my friend outdid me. He's like, they pray the rosary while they wash up. So his wife makes them a beautiful dinner and then, you know, she made the dinner. So there's a husband, good friend, one of my best friends gathers the kids and him and the kids clean the entire kitchen while her puts the baby down. It's beautiful. It is. And they all pray the rosary while they're cleaning, you know? So it'd be easier if you had that kind of perfectionism, like, no, no, no, man, we got to be kneeling, we got to be... And of course, there's merit to that, and there's merit to paying attention to our mysteries.

But if you only do the thing when you can do it perfectly, you may not ever do it at all. There you go. I always tell people too, when they ask me, you know, and again, I'm an apologist, I'm not a spiritual, you know, I always tell people go talk to your spiritual father, go talk to a priest, go talk, you know, but when people ask me about like prayer, I always tell people I say don't think that your prayer has to look pretty. The vast majority of the time your prayer is not going to look pretty, and God is not requiring your prayer to look pretty. Sometimes you pray while you're, you know, in look pretty. Sometimes you pray while you're, you know, in the shower. Sometimes you pray while you're fixing your car. Sometimes you pray while

you're rush hour. Yes. It's not supposed to look pretty. They don't worry about it. It's, is it authentic? Is it genuine? Are you doing it out of love or are you just doing it because you, you know, you're trying to look perfect. You know, I wonder, I've had this conversation with someone recently about the temptation to switch the let's call it the poverty of parish living uh-huh right with the vibes of social media right right so it's easier to scroll through big bearded monks and my Instagram and people praying the Chotky or the rosary. That feels great. I'm getting all these vibes from that. But that's not where the daily life,

the poverty of... When do you need to leave? I don't know. I'm here for as long as you need me. What time's your flight? I think five. Yeah, it's about to be 1 30, so you want to know something funny? Yep. I have a court date today and I's about to be 130. So you want to know something funny? Yep. I have a court date today. And I skipped it to be here with you. You're allowed to do that? Oh, it's your court date. You're not on No, I'm the I'm the guy that's guilty of what I did. So I have to go to court. But they told me that I could just call in and do it like over the phone. Yeah. So I'm just keeping being mindful of the time to make sure when do you have to do that. So it's 2pm my

time, which would be 4pm. Oh, yeah, today. So I'm good keeping being mindful of the time to make sure. When do you have to do that? So it's 2 p.m. my time, which would be 4 p.m. today. So I'm good, yeah. So yeah, I gotta call in and just let them know that, it's cause I'm a bad boy, you know? Yeah. I got, you know, yeah. So. Do you wanna say what you did?

Got in trouble with the law. I got pulled over for my registration of my vehicle being expired. So I have to call and present the, you know, that I fixed it, which I did. Yeah, yeah. I have my vehicle registration in this bag here so call and present the, you know, that I fixed it, which I did. I have my buccal registration in this bag here so that I have it, you know. Very good. When you switched from your Western tradition to Eastern traditions, because you go to an Eastern Catholic Church, for those at home, did you, how did,

did you, do you, have you retained any of your Western devotions? Oh yeah. Like Rosary, you know, the rosary beautiful. Oh, my gosh. I don't do it enough. Beautiful. I don't do it enough to my shame. Yeah. You know what? It's interesting, because now that you bring that up about the rosary, because that's the devotion that always comes up. It's the most popular devotion in the West. And, you know, I always feel to my shame,

especially like all of these new converts that I've become friends with, and they're like, I pray the rosary every day now, and it's great, and I'm like, shoot, I don't pray the rosary every day. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I should, I probably should. I know that I'd be a better person if I did,

but I don't do it every day, and this guy is brand new. He's praying the rosary every day, He's praying the rosary every day. She's praying the rosary every day. They're more Catholic than me now. Well, certainly I think we can learn from confidence. But I've always thought, you know, I pray the rosary every day, but I think it's like to demand what the church doesn't

is to get on icy ground. You gotta be so careful, especially in the... No, please. Well, just in the throes of new vigor. Yeah. You start getting excited about something, something that works for you. Let's say it's a particular saint,

particular book, particular devotion, particular scapula, and great, it's really great. But if you start demanding, as it were, that other people do this thing, or also sub-Catholic, Exactly. Yeah, you've lost it. 100%.

Now that's different to passionately and enthusiastically encouraging people. Like the way I see it is, all right, man, this thing, this little devotion was good enough for St. Dominic and the Monfort and Maximilian Kolbe and Padre Pio and Mother Teresa and Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the holy men like Dr. Scott Hahn. All right. So all right. Might be good enough for me to do. Yeah, I think it's. But then when I see that, right, it's always reminds for me too. Yeah, yeah. I think it's, yeah. But then when I see that, right, it always reminds me back to the litany of humility. That clause when you say, I pray that others become holier than me

as long as I become as holy as I should. So whenever I see all of these people that I know that are now like more Catholic than me or they're more faithful than me or they pray more than me, and I'm like, well, you know what? Isn't this what I pray for every morning when I pray the Litany of Humility? So I'm like, okay, good. And I always tell them, I say, pray for me. When you pray the Rosary, please pray for me as well, because I need it. You know? So

I'm happy. I'm genuinely happy for people when they become holier than me, more devout than me, more knowledgeable than me. I can honestly say that I'm genuinely happy for them. I think what's beautiful about the Holy Rosary is it's a real easy way to immerse your mind and heart in the scriptures that you probably otherwise wouldn't do because of its simplicity. So I was driving up the highway today and I was meditating on the third, fourth joyful mysteries, the purification. And as I'm praying and I'm thinking of our lady, this is a bit, I don't know what you think about this. Okay, this is meditative prayer, right? So I think that I put

myself standing next to the blessed Virgin Mary and she asked me to hold something. And so maybe I'm holding the pigeons, you know? And I say to her, could I hold him instead? And she smiles at me, and she gives me our Lord, and I press my face against him, and I feel his warm, soft skin, and I tell him I love him. Dude, that was driving in Jacksonville. Here's my point is, can you do that elsewhere? A hundred percent. But are you? Maybe you are, and that's

great, but for me, I wouldn't. You know, I love to pick up the New Testament every morning and read it, but there's something about the Rosary, the simplicity of it, the mobility of it, just thrusts you into the Word of God like that. I have a really good dear friend of mine, She's become such a great friend of mine. She's from Armenia, and she's part of the Armenian Apostolic Church, she's Oriental Orthodox, and she's becoming Catholic. Oh, wow! And she picked up the rosary, and she has a big devotion to the rosary, and when we

talk and she tells me all about it, and she just tells me about how much she loves praying the rosary, and like, just a few days ago, she actually had a meeting with the Armenian Catholic Bishop on California, and he gave her his own personal rosary that he always carried with him. And he gave it to her because she was telling him how much she loves the rosary. And he said, perfect, good, here, this is mine, now it's yours, I want you to use this one,

I want you to pray for me. And she called me when that happened, and she was so—this happened just a few days ago, and she was so excited, and she was so happy. And she told him—he told her, because, you know, he was kind of interviewing her, because she said, I want to come into the church. And she was—he was so impressed by her, he said, I will receive you into the church right now today if you want to. She said, all you have to do is go to confession, I'll give you the Eucharist and you're Catholic. She said, right now. And she was like, she was all, you know, and she said, she wants to receive her for sure before Easter. So she chose to be received with

the other, you know, catechumens that are coming in to be received on Easter. But he said, I'll do it right now if you want. Because she was so impressed by it because he gave her like a theological exam. And he was like, let me see, let me see if you're coming in here for the right reasons. Do you understand this? And she passed with flying colors. And he was very impressed. The bishop was very impressed and said,

how do you know this? How do you know all these things? Where did you learn these things? And she goes, I listened to Trent Horn and a voice of reason. And she's just, yeah. And we're making an impact. She goes, I listened to Trent Horn and Voice of Reason. And she's just, yeah. And we're making an impact.

I'll get something for you. You have something for me? I got a gift for you. No. Now you wait there and I'll. Another gift? You've already given me so much. Thank you.

Oh my gosh. I'm spoiled. I'm a spoiled man, let me tell you. All right, so this is a holy rosary from Theotokos Rosaries. Okay. They make them, have you seen them? No, I don't think so. I think they make the most beautiful rosaries

I've ever seen. Yeah. And I said that to them, and they said, let us send you a couple. So my wife and I did a little recording of us opening them and they couldn't keep up with the demand and they sold out immediately. And they were grateful, busy.

And so they said, well, can we just send you a bunch and you can give them occasionally to a guest. So I got, you know, Tammy Peterson coming on soon. I can't wait to give it to them, but this is for you. It's, give us, open it up, tell us your honest thought. This is beautiful, look at this. And dude, you should see how they actually send them. They send them with boxes and there's feathers in them. And I said. And dude, you should see how they actually send them. They send

them with boxes and this feathers in them. And I said, don't send me that stuff. Just just the bags enough because to open it up on set. Oh, yeah. It's a lot. Oh, my gosh. Oh, this is weighty. Oh, my gosh. Look at this. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my gosh. This is gorgeous. Look at this. Isn't that beautiful? So go everyone go watch. Yeah. Go follow Theotokos rosaries online. This is beautiful.

Thank you so much. What I respect about this woman who makes them is she makes them based on particular churches around the world. So she does like seven different rosaries and that's it. And if you ask, well, could you do it? No, no, it's one of these. So this one's based on,

it's inspired by St. Peter's Basilica. And you'll notice that they have these beads for each decade. Do you see how there's a different bead for that first one there on that first decade? On this one right here. No, the first decade. See that bead?

And then you go to the next one, see it's the number two. Right. No, no, that one. Oh, right here, yeah. And then the next one is number three, because you're on the third decade. And the next one is the fourth bead down.

Oh, oh, oh. You see what I mean by that? Yes. Yeah, anyway. So pray that and pray for me. Yes. Oh my, thank you so much. This is beautiful. Thank you so much.

This is beautiful. Yeah, I just want to encourage everybody to pray the rosary. Thank you. I really do. It's just simple. Just talk to our lady. Thank you so much.

Meditate on the life of our Lord. Okay, so if we're doing the gift giving thing, I have one. Stop it. You know what? I'm looking around thinking, what can I give you now, next? I will not be outdone, watch.

I got some, all right? All right. So I got two more things for you. Wow, all right. Just two more things. And the one that I'm the most shy about, I'm gonna say it to the end, and I'll tell you why I'm shy,

but my priest, who was the pastor emeritus of my church, he's a historian, and he wrote a book about the underground church in the Soviet Union about the Byzantine church, it's called Finding a Hidden Church, Father Christopher Zuga. And that's his book, and he signed it for you. Oh, that's very kind. Father Christopher Zuger is, he has been to Ukraine, I don't know how many times, all over the Soviet Union, getting smuggled in, you know, he wrote a whole history of the Church Underground. That's beautiful. And then he also has this brief, it's a little, an essay on the history of, and he also wanted

me to give this to you as well. Thank you, thank you. So that's for you from Father Chris Zuger, who's also TikTok famous and Instagram famous, because we put him on, we started making videos with him and he's incredible. He is one of the holiest men. I love the front cover, I love the minimalism of this, it's beautiful. Yes, Finding a Hidden Church from Father Chris and he talks about he interviewed, you know, he did a lot of interviews to write his books. He has multiple books and his work is remarkable and he's incredible.

Are you writing a book? No. Are you tempted to? A lot of people have asked me that like, what do you get? You know, you should write a book. And I'm like, I don't know if I could write a book. I don't know if... Yeah. Well, you should write a book and I don't know if I could write a book. I don't know if Yeah, well, you know what? Maybe one day I'll write a book but you've written a very very important book about

Something that most men deal with today and now that we're on the subject of books I have a he's a friend of mine, he's one of my patrons. He's from Europe, his name is Dominic. He is a convert. He actually came into the Catholic, he used to be one of those people in my comments that would like, attack me, not attack me, but he like, he's like, I can't stand this guy, I don't like this guy. Well, he was watching my stuff for a while, and now he's Catholic. He's a beautiful man, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful man with a heart of gold. He is starting a ministry in, I forget, because he travels so much around Europe, I can't even remember where he lives. He's starting a ministry to help men overcome addiction to pornography. And I told him, I said, hey...

God bless him. I told him, I said, because he wants my help. He's like, he emailed me the stuff that he has, the stuff that he wants to share, and he was like, can you help me with getting this ministry off the ground? And I said, I've never done anything like this before. And I said, but I know someone who has. And I said, hey man, when I talk to Matt Fradd, maybe I can send him your stuff and he can take a look and maybe he can help you and give you some pointers on how to do this,

because it's something that he's really passionate about. He's so devout to Our Lady. He's a saint. Is he an English speaking European? Yes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's an English speaker. And I said, hey man, like, God bless him.

Matt Fradd is the man when it comes to this. I'm sure Matt Fradd, you know, he can help you with this. He's a saint. He's a saint. oh yeah, yeah. He's an English speaker and I said, hey man, like, Matt Fradd is the man when it comes to this. I'm sure Matt Fradd, he can help you with this. So if that's something that, if I could just forward you the email of the stuff that he sent, and then maybe I could get you in contact with him, because he really wants to do this. And I don't know. What does he want to do?

He wants a ministry where he actually goes and helps men and you know kind of like forms a group where he helps them overcome pornography addiction. I'm not an expert on this topic I just I'm the pamphleteer. Do you know what I mean? Oh yeah. So if I was talking to him my advice would be you already know what to do. You already know. So just do that and pray more. That's it. That's beautiful. You don't need advice.

You don't need direction. Just listen to the experts. I mean, there's some really good people writing on this topic. And depends on what angle you want to take it from, but and then just do it, do that thing. Cool. I mean, I'll still look at the stuff.

I'm not saying I won't. I just think often when people, it's like that passion, that fire, that's what you need. That's the thing you can't teach. So if he's got that. He's in love. He's one of those guys that is in love, Matt. He's in love with the faith.

He's in love with our Lord. He's in love with his church, meaning he's in love with you. He's in love with me. He's in love with his fellow, you know, his fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord. He just wants to, you know, he's very passionate about this,

he feels really called that he wants to help men overcome this issue. And when he talks about it, like, that's a guy that's in love, you know? More and more, I've said this recently, but more and more I'm convinced that what we put into our bodies, it's a big thing when it comes to sexual purity.

Oh yeah. If we're eating junk and drinking trash. Not sleeping enough. Not sleeping enough, which is often a result of the kind of trash we're eating. Then there's this like, we ride the highs and lows of like dopamine spikes and crashes. Yup.

And we're just in a perpetually agitated state. If we can kind of balance that out. There you go. I find it just makes everything easier. Yeah, it all comes down the routine. You need to have a routine What is your routine look like? So my routine is I wake up in the morning. I Pray what time do you wake up? So I wake up about five is when I try to wake up Do you have an alarm or do you just tend to wake up? I just wake up around that time. So I wake up, I pray, I go to the Piedad prayer book and I pray all of my, you know, the prayers from there that I pray every day. I read scripture. Well actually, no, I wake up and I brush my teeth. That's the first thing. I wake up, make the sound of the

cross, go brush my teeth, go back to bed actually. And then I pray while I'm in bed, and then I wake, you know, and read scripture. Then I get up, make my bed, go to the gym, come home, eat, bathe, and then, and I'm praying all throughout, actually. I say the Jesus prayer, like, I don't know, a hundred times a day. And then I just start working. I, you know, look through my emails, my messages, start filming videos, start doing chores, running errands, whatever it is that I need to do, and then just work really

hard all day. And then at night, wind down, pray again, read scripture, read a good book, go to sleep, and then wake up and do it again. Do you go to the gym every day? Monday through Friday. I know you can't tell but... Strength training? Yeah, I go about three or four times a week and it makes such a difference, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. If you're anything like me, you sometimes reach the end of summer feeling a little spiritually drained and in need of rest. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Saint Michael's Lent with Exodus 90. Rooted in an ancient tradition practiced by Saint Francis of Assisi, this 40 day journey was born out of his deep devotion to Saint Michael the Archangel. In

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It really, really does. It helps. And it's interesting, when you have a routine and you put the important things first, you pray, you read scripture, you know, meditate and all that, and you do that. You go to the gym, you eat well. You go throughout your day and you don't feel the urge to sin, because you have your mind. It's all about keeping your vision on Christ. You know, like St. Peter, when he was walking on the water, when he looked away from Him is when he started sinking. If we just keep our gaze on him, it's through his grace that we can do anything. We just keep our focus on him.

I think that, absolutely. I think that self abuse and pornography and these types of things are ways of medicating. Yes. Self soothing. Yes. That's been the most helpful way for me to think about this. So it's again, usually when we're internally, um,

dysregulated that we seek to regulate, we were frustrated, we're agitated, we might be angry, we might be hurt by somebody. Right. And we try to make us the interior feel better quickly. Right. So you're exactly right. I think with routine, you're more likely to be in a stable place, and that will be less of an issue. The other thing I would say though is when one does have a sexual fall, just to not be surprised and just to go, yeah, that sounds like something I'd do. I'm an idiot who's easily distracted, but I'm an idiot loved by the good Jesus whose mercy is

always available to me, and so I'm just going to repent and not be terribly worried about it. Of course. Yeah. Sometimes it's as simple as that. We're just easily distracted people who make bad decisions. Yeah. And this helps a lot too. This helps a lot too.

When you're meditating on our Lord, you're not thinking about how to self-medicate yourself, how to self-medicate yourself, how to, you know, overeating. You know, my big problem, my two big problems are anger and gluttony are my two biggest problems, you know? What I've found is I've been for the last seven months, I've been eating almost only meat. Mm-hmm, yeah. And on Sundays, I'll loosen it,

and so I'll have some like plantain chips with no bad oils or sugars, right? Or even some macadamia nuts. But what I find is even when I have that stuff, I become irrepressible. Like I just want more, I want more, I wanna satisfy this craving for something. But when I just eat, and I'm not promoting the meat diet,

people can do whatever they want, they can apply it to however they eat. But I know for me personally, when I'm just eating like red meat, whether it's like mince meat, some eggs, I don't have that weird urge to keep trying to fill or scratch that itch. Right.

And I think if that's true, because we all know what that's like, like you eat a big steak, you're done. Yeah. If someone brought you another steak, it might even look disgusting to you. Like, no, I'm good. But you eat like a bag of Skittles,

like you'll have another one. Or you'll have another can of Coke. You can eat that and never be sated. Cupcakes and muffins. So what I think though is if I live in that state of I always just want more, I'm trying to satisfy something that cannot be satisfied, then yeah, I think that pornography,

self abuse and things like this are more likely to occur. I remember once I was eating junk constantly and I was rummaging through the cupboards. My wife said, what are you looking for? I said, happiness. Cause I was rummaging through the cupboards. My wife said, what are you looking for? I said, happiness. Because I'm just trying to satisfy something. I think bad food does that to us. It puts us in a perpetual, I need more of something.

When you find yourself in that state, all that means is that you've been feeding yourself the wrong thing, you know? So you're right, yeah, when you feed yourself the right thing, you're good So you're right, yeah, when you feed yourself the right thing, you're good. So it was better. Yeah. Cause we talk about internal and external triggers.

Yeah. So an external trigger is the sex scene that showed up on the show and I didn't even know it was gonna be there. Right. The internal triggers are much more difficult to find. Like maybe I feel emasculated or maybe I feel like someone criticized me, but I didn't even sit to ask myself about that.

I just rushed on because it was uncomfortable. And now this stuff happening underneath the surface I'm not even cognizant of. Now when that external trigger appears, now it's a whole lot easier for my world to fall apart. But if I'm like recollected the way that the Carmelites and others talk about being recollected and that the good Jesus is with me talk about being recollected in that.

Right. The good Jesus is with me now, present before him, yeah. Oh, it's so good to be Catholic, isn't it? Oh, praise God. Praise God. Praise God that he had so much mercy on us that he revealed himself to us, and that we know exactly where we can find his grace and his healing. We know exactly where it is, and all we gotta do is just go and it's there. That's... Final question, and then we'll have a break

and we'll come back. But what's a book you're reading right now? They're like, oh, people have to read this book. So I have it on me actually right now. It's, I'll pull it out so we can promote. So I have a, he's actually an Eastern Orthodox author who, he wrote a book. I'm gonna be doing a review on it. I was reading

it on the plane on the way here. It is called Types and Symbols in the Bible by Christopher Lockwood. I met him in California, I think it was last month that I was there in California, and I met him and he gave a lecture, it's actually on Jonathan's Roots of Orthodoxy channel. He wrote this book and he's just going through all of the ways that the Church Fathers, the connections that they made between the Old and the New Testament. Really good book, so I'm reading this right now and I'm going to be doing a review on it, on my channel. And he's a great person. I got to meet him at a Greek Orthodox church and he spent some time with us and he wants to do collaborations and he wants to and he wants to do collaborations, and he wants to work together. Great guy, great, great guy. So, everyone, types and symbols in the Bible, Christopher Lockwood.

Can I check it out? Support, yeah, of course, go and check it out, go and get the book. He has a PhD and he taught like in seminaries, like in Europe and he's a young guy too. He's young. Whoa. He's probably, I wouldn't say he's older than 40. He's a young guy and you know, he wrote that book and yeah, good stuff. All right.

So that's one book you're reading. Is that the kind of book you would say, yeah, you got to read this book or is there another book that you've read lately? A million books. There's so many. Thank you. Mine is always searching for a maintaining piece. It's like Jacques Philippe.

Oh, okay. I've never read that one. Very little book. Oh, okay. That's people, I wish I read them. I read that. It's easy. It's, it's so beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. It's always this, you know, talking, cause people are always asking me for book recommendations.

Yeah. And I always go back to the basics and I always go back to the, the books that were like game changes for me. Right? So Peter K Kreift wrote a book that is more for like young, like a teenager who couldn't, it's called Jesus Shock. I'm sure you've read it. Excellent! It was based off a talk he gave. Jesus Shock is just, that was the book from Dr. Peter Kreift that it kind of, the light bulb kind of went on. That was one of the first books that I'd read when I started my journey in learning about our Lord and the faith in His Church, Jesus Shock, Game-changer. And then I know you know this one, Matthew Kelly, Rediscovered Catholicism.

Yeah, I haven't read it, but... Oh my, Matthew Kelly, Rediscovered Catholicism. Those are the two that I always come back to because in my life, they were the ones that were the most impactful. Yeah. Those two books, Jesus Shock, Rediscoveredolicism, and then a million other books. But it's amazing how many people have been brought into the church from Rome's sweet home. But I think the new Rome's sweet home, if I can put it that way, is Trent Horn's Why Wear Catholic. Yeah, yeah. Patrick Madrid's work too.

Which one? So good. In particular. The Surprise by Truth series, Pope fiction, even Patrick Madrid is so to which one so particular the surprise by series Yeah, Pope fiction even even the Patrick Madrid is so great because he's able to present. It's just apologetics Just apologetics, but he's able to present it in a way. That's like He's the real deal to I know Patrick. I've been to his house. I know him. I know his wife. He is so down to earth Really down to earth and kind and normal and just a balanced individual.

A normal person, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's incredible from his work is so good. When he debated James White, both times they debated James White. Incredible. I gotta be honest, when I listened to the debate he did on intercession of the saints, I wasn't sure how I felt. I wasn't just, maybe I just took it superficially, but I felt like I wasn't convinced he got the upper hand on that one. Maybe if I went back now, I'd disagree with that assessment, but when he debated James White and Sola Scriptura, it was over. So you know what's so interesting? I have the opposite on those two. The 1993 debate, I sound like James White now, 1993, you know, the 93 debate

with James White, excellent. But the 2002 debate with James White on the veneration of images and that one right there was just for 2002. That was in 2002 when he had that debate. Yeah, you thought he did really well on that one. I remember when I only listened to it once, but I remember listening to it and being like I remember when I only listened to it once, but I remember listening to it and being like floored, like, wow. Like, maybe I have to go back to listen to it now, to listen to both. But I thought that that one, Patrick Madrid, just stole that debate, just running, you know. The 93 debate, because I have the 93 debate, the Sola Scriptura debate, I have listened to it a few times.

And it's great, it's really, really good. But I think that even the 93 debate, the Sola Scriptura debate, I have listened to it a few times, and it's great, it's really, really good, but I think that even the 2002 debate, I remember my impression of it when I saw it was that that was even better. What was a Catholic versus whoever debate that you've watched that you thought, oh, this was sensational for the Catholic position? So that Patrick Madrid debate, the 2002 debate with James White, anything that Trent Horn has ever done, anything that Jimmy Akin has ever done. Even a lot of the debates from the nineties when Dr. White, when he debated like Robert Tsvungenis was excellent. It was so good. It was so good. There's many, many debates debates like that Did you see Joe Heschmeyer's debate with white? I haven't watched it yet I haven't watched it yet, but I've heard that he was just he just went in there and

Violence as they say I think Joe Heschmeyer. He's unreal. I think pound for pound, you know, I Think he's the top guy right now. Yeah, I think Joe Heschmeyer, if I had to list them in what in what regard as an apologist. Yeah, I think his apologetic work right now. It's always Trent Horn, Jimmy Akin, but I think Joe Heschmeyer right now he's on a run where he's the Cody Rhodes. And that's what's interesting is that you're saying that having not yet watched perhaps his most incredible debate. Yeah. So what was it that you saw that you were like, oh, he's the guy right now. Just his video, he's a lawyer. Joe Heschmeyer is a lawyer by trade.

So he knows how, he just knows, he knows how to argue in a way that's, he has training in this. I got his book, Pope Peter over there. I read that in like a day. People should get Pope Peter, excellent book. Excellent book as well. There's so many good resources out there.

He's great, he really knows, he has a very excellent way of the way he explains things. You could tell he's a lawyer. It's very calm, very simple, very like, well, consider this. Like with Trent Horn, it's kind of like a matter of fact kind of thing where he's just putting out the facts and he's just, but something about Joe Heschmar, he just has a way of just getting, it's like just has a way of just like getting... it's like visceral the way that he explains things, you know. And then Jimmy Akin, he's just a robot from space. He's a futuristic cowboy, space pimp,

whatever you want to call him. That's just... I got to talk to him for the first time recently when I was in San Diego. I was on Catholic Answers. That was an incredible story too, but I was on the air with Jimmy Aiken. And it was- I'll just shut up, you go. So I got to ask him a question and he responded to me. And he was like, Hey, if you ever want to do anything, let me know.

And I'd love to work with you. And I'm like, it's incredible. Jimmy is one of the kindest men I've ever met. I met him when I applied. Well, Catholic Answers flew me down for a job offer. I thought it was an interview. It ended up being a job offer. I thought it was an interview, ended up being a job offer. I got to meet him there and my entire friendship

since 2012 to now, just a kind person. He came to my 30th birthday party, and that was wild. And he brought all of his superhero shirts over for my friends, because he had like 800. He just brought them, we all put on the superhero shirt, we all just hung out in San Diego. Just wanna, someone said this of him to me,

and I think it's spot on. He said, when you're with Jimmy, you can tell he's someone who's trying to be good. Always just trying to be kind. And he's a straight shooter and he's courageous. And he's, yeah. Jimmy Aiken is always the one name that always pops up, like when I have personal conversations with other people with, you know, they always say, Jimmy Aiken, he's like the, he's the,

he's that hero that just doesn't let you down. He's just, he's that guy that everyone has nothing but good things to say about him. His debate with Bart Ehrman. Oh my gosh. Was a bloodbath. That's another one. Thank you for reminding me. That was a great, great, great debate.

That one was great. You know, he has this way of like twisting the knife in well while smiling. And I don't mean that. And you know, yeah, take that the wrong way. But what I mean is he's, he's, he's very polite as he's dismantling your, yeah, he's a robot cowboy space pin from the future. That's what I'm telling you. That's, that's exactly what he would do. He's, I watched just this morning. Um, when I was, you know, getting ready at the hotel to come here,

I watched a video that he just put out where he's responding to something James White said. And he- Oh, I saw that on the Blessed Virgin. Yes. I haven't watched that yet, but I'm sure it's worth watching. Yeah, it's like, you watch it and it's like, you're like in a class,

like he's like teaching like a class on like rhetoric or a class on argumentation on how to, he's, you know, has the premises. And he's like a robot. He's like AI. Yeah. Whenever I'm with him, I'm like, I'm too stupid to be a part of this conversation. Because it's like he sees this much of the picture.

And I'm looking through a keyhole. And even as I ask my questions, I can tell they're not as good as they could be. He's the guy I want to go on Joe Rogan's show. If I could choose any Catholic, it would be Joe Rogan. He has to be the one. And I know that he's exactly what Joe Rogan is looking for. I've said, Jim Aitken is the guest to end all guests

on Joe Rogan. Like if Joe Rogan has him on, they could talk for 10 hours about everything from religion to Bigfoot to UFOs to whatever. Yes, yes. And that's it. Then Joe Rogan would never need to have another guest on. Jim Aitken would be the guest,

the end all guest for Joe Rogan. He's exactly what Joe Rogan is looking for. Oh, they would have such an amazing conversation. It would be, there was a petition going around, I remember, for trying to get him to get on the Joe Rogan. We gotta make it happen. We gotta. We gotta make it happen.

He was on my show for six and a half hours. I watched that one. I was just about to say, I watched the six and a half hour show last year, and that is one of my favorite episodes of Pines with Aquinas that I've ever seen. It was one of those, it was just. And then what happened, people didn't see this bit,

but after we finished that episode, we both walked down to my cigar lounge, where we had an event and he continued to speak and answer questions for about two and a half, three hours. And I even said when I got up there, I was trying to be polite to Jimmy. I didn't ask him ahead of time and Jimmy didn't say, keep it short. But I thought, okay, this poor bugger.

So I was, Hey, we just did a six and a half hour show. So you know, he might not be able to say, he's like, Oh no, Matt, I'm, I'm happy to. All right. He's okay. Well, whatever you want then, Jimmy, here we go. He's a robot. He's a robot. He's a robot.

He's a blessing that you say, you know, the church sent him from the future to help us out. I saw that from Trenton Hall. He said he's a cyborg sent from the future to save the church. Yeah, he's special. He's special. And he's so nice to me when I interacted

with him on Catholic Answers. He's great. I tweeted, I remember I was like, um, I said, uh, All of these people are so impressed by AI I'm AI doesn't impress me. I've been listening to Jimmy Akin for over 10 years I'm not impressed by AI when I said when AI can do what Jimmy Akin can do then come back to me You know, and he retweeted he liked it and he retweeted. I think so, that's nice. Yeah. Well, dude, thank you very much for being on the show. Thank you.

Thank you for making the trip out from New Mexico. This has been an honor. It's been like a really like a dream when we first started Voice of Reason, me and Yant and he was like, that's nice. Imagine if one day you could be on Matt Fratt on Points of the Quietness. I was like, wow, that'd be. Well, that makes you feel very uncomfortable, but I know what you mean. I'm grateful.

That's very kind of you to say that. And I'm happy to see your success. And I don't mean that in a superficial sense. I mean that you're helping souls come into the church and stay there. Thank you. I couldn't do it without you. Whenever I talk to the people that have influenced me,

and you're one of the biggest influences, I always let them know. I said, hey, there is no voice of reason without Jimmy Akin. There's no voice of reason without Michael Lofton. There's no voice of reason without Trent Horn. There's no voice of reason without Jimmy Akin. There's no voice of reason without Michael Lofton There's no voice of reason without Trent Horn. There's no voice of reason without Matt Fred. Yeah. Yeah It's nice to see that we're all I mean, I understand that there are disagreements between us at times and some of those disagreements are real Oh, yeah need to be settled and someone's wrong. I'm open to that. Oh, yeah

Some people have unhelpful things that they say. My goodness knows I've done that. Fair enough I also think it's true that it's okay that one man's fight is not another's and that we can fight on different fronts of this beach. So if there are some people trying to help people understand the Magisterium while other people are trying to refute atheism, while other people are trying to show

why a set of accountants is the wrong road to go down. There you go. Yeah, let everybody do what their expertise is. Let Lofton teach the Magisterium, let Ibarra teach the papacy in the early church, let Trent Horn do pure apologetics. Trent Horn can do anything. Let Jimmy off his leash to do whatever he needs to do. Trent can do anything, Jimmy can do anything. Those are those special guys that are jacks of all trades. And let the other guys do their specialty. Let Gary Machuta talk about the cannon. Oh yeah. Let, you know, let, oh my, yeah, let, let them, let them, and let's all be

together, united and give each other a platform so that everyone can go around it. And then I think what we need to do too, so a bit of a pep talk to Catholic YouTube and Twitter is, um, and when we, and I'm trying to get better at this. I've actually gone to confession in the past for when I've spoken negatively about a fellow Catholic. Yeah. Um, and I'm trying to get better at this I've actually gone to confession in the past for when I've spoken negatively About a fellow Catholic. Yeah, and I think rightly so I think I'm right to have done that Yeah, it's okay to have criticisms of each other, but I think as much as we can To try to build each other up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because infighting is really ugly Yeah in fighting is really ugly and if if there's going to be fighting,

because there has to be fights, and it's great, there needs to be fights. Right. People are saying false things. I think we need to address them. But man, I think what I'm trying to say is it feels for many of us that we live in a very confusing time in society, in the church,

and to try to give each other the benefit of the doubt as we grapple with these things. Right. Yeah. That sounds cliche, maybe. Right and and to try to give each other the benefit of the doubt as we grapple with these things, right? Yeah, that sounds cliche. Maybe I did a video just a few days ago that came out where I don't know if you saw about Like the Georgia Janko controversy. Oh, yeah, and I put out a video and I said hey like he's new with this Let him figure this out that instead of trying to tear him down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let's pile on Let's offer a helping hand. Hey, let's have a helping hand and say, hey, let's have a talk, man, so we can, you know, you have a lot of questions, let me answer your questions. And I thought Ruslan put it really well. He's like, look, just like a Protestant going on their show and calling you an idiot, it's not going to help you be open to Protestantism.

I'm so thankful for Ruslan because he and I talk very regularly now and I kind of go to him and he's kind of like my sounding board and I say, Hey, Ruslan, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? Would this be effective for you guys, for Protestants? And he'll tell me, he'll say, don't say it like this, say it like this, cause we're not going to hear you if you say it like this. So he helps me. He actually helps me. He says, another shout out to Ruslan.

Okay. This is, this is not, this hasn't been public until now. He wants, and I didn't know him that well. We had texted a couple of times. He once posted a video about Candice's husband, who's a good mate of mine, George Farmer. And there was some implicit accusation of something George believed.

And I knew George didn't believe that. So I wrote to George, I'm like, do you know how to hold this, do you? And he said, not at all. I'm like, okay, I'll talk to him. He's like, yeah, good luck. He's not gonna take it down. Cause it felt a bit, you know, all of his stuff, right?

All of his thumbnails, they're all very kind of dramatic to get you in. It's part of the game. Yeah. Anyway, to his credit, I wrote to him. He doesn't believe this. This isn't true. I've done this in the past to other people.

I've reached out around the back. I'm like, hey, that was too harsh. You shouldn't be having things like that. Yeah. And they really didn't respond that well to me. Ruslan took it down right away. Ruslan is a man. And I love, I love this because you guys talked about me when he, when you had him on and I love that we're talking about him when I'm on, because he's the man. He actually wants, you know, he wants to, he wants to represent Catholicism at its very best. Yeah. So he's always telling like like he told George, he's like,

hey man, you need to talk to Jimmy Akin, Trent Horn, Voice of Reason. Those are the guys that you should be talking to. Don't listen to all these other guys on the internet, or listen to the very best. So Ruslan is helping us. Ruslan wants us to have a seat at the table, and he wants us to share our point of view

and our understandings with the broader Christian community. So shout out to Ruslan. Salute. He's my brother. Ruslan is a man. One last thing. I think I can guess what it is by the shape of it. Is it an icon?

It's a bicycle. Oh, it looks like an icon because maybe I'm not looking at the right thing. Let me tell you why I'm nervous to share this with you because your sister, I reached out to your sister. It's John senior. What? It's an icon of John senior. I reached out to your sister.

And I told her I said I sent her a picture of this and I said you think your brother would like this? And she said, she's like, like and I was like and she's like she's right by the way and she that whatever even if I pretend I love it whatever Emma said is actually how exactly how you but I'll still be grateful for whatever it is that's exactly what you told me very well because I said with a picture of it and then it took a little while to respond that I just went ahead and got it and then she responded to me and she was

like I don't know and I was like oh no I hope I didn't mess up and she said don't worry I'm sure he's gonna be super grateful. So I'm already grateful. Am I allowed to be like, that's great. Am I allowed to do that? You won't be offended if I- You can, you can- Here's why I say that.

Even if you don't like it, you can tell me. The other day, I'll give you a story before you show me that. The other day, someone brought me over two bags of Cubans cause he has a work with a fella in Cuba and they're hand rolled. They're not like, he brought them to me and he said, what are they like? I went, they're not great actually.

And I felt bad that I was honest, but I thought, well, what do you want? I mean, he's a good guy. He's not going to... He's all right. So I got you this icon of the prophet Elijah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

That's how I feel. That's great. She told me she was like, do you have any like handwritten icons instead of printed Yeah, yeah, that's great. That's how I feel. That's great. She told me she was like, she was like, do you have any like handwritten icons instead of print? Yeah, you're not bad, am I? And I was like, oh yeah, I'll just sell a kidney. Oh, I was like, that's very kind.

Is there a reason for it? If you have a reason for it, I'll be more impressed. Because Elijah, he's the prophet that was, you know, he's the prophet that was fighting against the cult of Balaam, right? And, you know, he's the prophet that was fearless and that he wasn't afraid to call out, he would even like make fun of like the pagan gods, right? And I feel like your platform, what you do, you remind me, you remind me of the prophet Elijah. And I know that might sound kind of weird, but I just, the way that I would explain it

is I feel like you're fearless, you're fearless, and you're fearless when it comes to calling out like the debauchery and the paganism that we're seeing now. I feel like of all the guys online doing their thing that just speak out against it from the Catholic group, I feel like you're just the one. When I think of, in the culture, who's actually fighting against evil in the culture, I think of you.

And when I was looking at the icons, I saw Elijah and I said, that's the one, that's it. I wanted to get something special. I was, you know. It's very kind of you, thank you. Yeah, I hope. It's very nice of you. I hope that you like it, and if not,

I know you'll like the book, and I hope that cigar treated you well. Oh my gosh, oh, we haven't done. We're gonna come back and we gotta do this. All right, we got some, so what I do when I ask my local supporters and others for questions is I say, keep them short and sassy. So I've not seen these ahead of time.

Michael Trembly, well I don't know if you wanna ask that. Jacob says, why does voice face killer think so many stop taking their faith seriously or why we stop being well catechized in the US? Okay, what does that mean? What does voice, does that mean anything? That's my alter ego. Oh, okay.

My rap alter ego, I'm a voice-face killer. When I was with Michael Lofton, we were doing a stream because he and I are both big fans of like hip hop music from the 90s rap music, you know? And there's one of my favorite rappers, his name is Ghostfacekiller. Okay. And so I just said it just kinda just

in the spur of the moment, I was like, I'm voice-face killer. Okay. And it stuck and they call me me voice face killer, the pink Pope. They call me a bunch of stuff. Um, why the pink Pope? Because me and Michael Lothren were responding to silly TikTok videos. And there was a guy that, uh, some guy on TikTok that was just promulgating totally false information that there's a secret Pope called the black Pope that

he really wants to show. And I was in a pink hoodie. He's in the street. I was like, well, I'm the pink pope. And then people started calling me that. All right. So the question is why we stopped being well catechized in the US or why so many stopped taking their faith seriously. So just a small question. Surely you can sum it up in a sentence. I think that that's a joke. Yeah, I know. Right. I think that what happened is that here in this country, we started to compartmentalize the faith. So we have our faith over here, and then we have other things.

Faith over here, politics over here, our social life over here, and we try to separate them. And because they were separate, you know, they became distinct from each other, you know, people didn't really feel like one has to do with the other. And that was a big mistake. It's, you know, everything else in your life comes from the faith. So, you can't just be a Catholic over here on Sundays, you know, or on holidays of obligation, but then be a vote this way when you're, you know, when it comes to politics or support these candidates and then live your life here, you know.

It all has to come together. So, I think it started with that. We started being Catholics in private. I think that's what it is. And when you're a Catholic in private, you don't feel the need to like learn the faith in order to be able to defend it in public because in this country, we were encouraged to keep our religion private.

And I think that's where it all started. Yeah, yeah, it's funny, I remember my parents even, and maybe more of that generation, would say as if it were a good thing that my faith is a private thing, and they would say as if it were a virtue. And I think what they meant by that is, we're not like the Mormons who are going to come and knock on your door and annoy you. So I think what they were trying to say was- We're not going to be pushy. Yeah. But that's like saying my faith is private is like saying my marriage is private.

Marriage as an institution is not a private institution. Marriage is a public institution. That's why you get married in the church. It's a sacrament that you do in public, because marriage is for the common good. It's for the public. It's not, marriage is not a private endeavor, and the faith is in a private endeavor either, you know? The faith is supposed to be public. Pete Laurels of Dante asks, Alex, why did you choose to become an Eastern Catholic instead of remaining a Latin Roman Catholic? Alex Well, canonically, I'm still a Latin Catholic,

but I practice as a Byzantine because on accident, I fell into the Byzantine, my local Byzantine parish that I didn't even know existed until one day during the pandemic when all of the Christian churches were closed, I got anxious, so I Googled just out of curiosity if there were any Christian churches of any denomination that were open. And the one church that was open was a Byzantine Catholic church that I didn't even know existed in my area. So I started going there while all of the other churches were locked down. I fell in love with it, fell in love with the people.

They welcomed me with open arms and they just haven't been able to get me out ever since. Mike Frank says, what would you do if the Cardinals elected you as the next Pope? Oh, I've talked about this with Michael Lofton too, you know, if I got elected Pope, it would be over for everybody. I would probably be a tyrant. So it's probably best that I don't become the Pope, but I would fix the liturgy. I would probably be a tyrant. So, it's probably best that I don't become the Pope, but I would fix the liturgy, wars. What would you do? How would you fix it? What I would do is I would go to the pastor of St. Paul Catholic Church in Omaha, Nebraska,

and I would say, you, I'm appointing you to be in charge of the liturgy in the United States, and everyone's going to do what you say. And so the Novus Ordo would look like how it looks at his parish. I mean, that's one country, even if that was successful, because a lot of the Novus Ordos here look like they do everywhere else in the world. So I know you said about this lack of oversight in America, but I mean, Australia, everywhere you go

is you have these sloppy liturgies. Right, yeah. So yeah, all right. So you would maintain the Novus Ordo. I would at least go back to what the rubrics called for and maybe that pastor whatever his name is maybe I'd make him in charge of just Everything in the West as far as the liturgy. I let him put his team together You know of people that would you know, just do it right really what it is

I want to unite, you know the TLM the Novus Ordo kind of But really what it is, I want to unite, you know, the TLM, the Novosorov kind of... Would you lift the mode appropriate? I would, I would. I would, you know, start with that because that's obviously a stumbling block for people. So what I want to do is get rid of the unnecessary stumbling blocks. That restrict the Latin Mass. That restrict the Latin Mass. And then I would, you know, just start fixing the things I need to get fixed.

Yeah. You know, what's difficult for me is the fact that we have different calendars. I find that hard and we have different feast days. With the 62 calendar and the- And the, yeah. Yeah. That's, and I'm not saying it's not okay. It just sometimes feels like

we're part of different churches. So the readings. Right. I don't think a dyed in the wool trad would be open to this, but I'd like them at least to entertain the possibility that for the traditional Latin mass to continue, it would need to incorporate the new calendar

and the new readings. Yes, that's exactly what I said when I was with Michael Afton. I said I would keep the TLM then with the option to do it in the vernacular if people want it in the vernacular, but you could also, you know, Latin would be essential for certain

parts the TLM with the Novus Ordo lectionary and the Novus Ordo calendar and I feel like that's a good way to kind of make everybody happy. I think you'd piss everybody off you wouldn't piss the Novus Ordo off and you'd be open to yeah but you know why it's so difficult when you start identifying as trad and you really ensconce yourself in that corner, there's nothing that will actually. Yeah, that's what I would do. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I like that. And then I would excommunicate all of the public figures, the descent from the teachings of the church that I'll be out, discipline the rad trads that, you know, not excommunicate them, but discipline them and say, hey, like I would have all of the Catholic content creators, I would say that they need to make a profession of faith on their channels, the platforms, the profession

of faith from Vatican II, they need to say that Vatican II wasn't a humanical council, that it's authoritative, and that all of the popes from, you know, Vatican II onward have been valid popes, and then we can just continue as normal, and you can keep sharing the traditional Catholic faith, but we've got to make sure that we have these housekeeping things in order. Right, so let's say you make this statement, and Taylor Marshall comes on and says, respectfully, Holy Father, I cannot affirm this, What do you do as the Pope? Then I would say, oh, well, look, if you look at this canon,

this canon of the Catholic Church, you have just automatically excommunicated yourself. And I would say, I would tell them repent. And if you don't, then I will have to ratify this automatic excommunication. Yeah, it's interesting how with this new say election in the US, there's been more seriousness placed on social media influencers and podcasts

because they realize, okay, this is the new game in town. People aren't listening to CNN unless they're in the dentist's office or Fox News even. So that's interesting. I wonder if we will get to a point where a Pope has to start addressing the new media. I would do it. And probably, probably not,

probably through their own bishops, I would think, right? You wouldn't want to circumvent the bishop, but as Pope, since you're Pope, you'd want to speak to the bishop of my bishop to rein me in, Taylor's bishop, if he needed reining in, et cetera, Lofton, whoever. Yeah, I would, yeah, I would do it. I would do it.

The ordinaries would do it. I'd say, take a profession of faith, the Vatican too, affirm it as a council, affirm all of the popes since then, and then you can just continue as normal, but just stop badmouthing the council and the popes, and don't be a TLM supremacist. Acknowledge the nobis ordo, and don't worry, I'm going to fix the nobis ordo too, okay? We're going to get it all fixed up. We're going to meet everyone's needs, but we all gotta play nice.

And we all gotta make sure that we're respecting each other, respect all the other rights and respect, you know, respect the authority of the church, please. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, something has to happen. It feels like, because we all understand how things unravel on the liberal side, right? But we don't often take seriously how things are unraveling on the conservative side.

Or if you do point to it and go, this seems like it's unraveling over here, fellas. You get accused of not taking what's happening on the left seriously. And I think that's a legitimate criticism if all you're doing is attacking the conservatives. Right, yeah. But if you're not, then you really have to be attentive to, okay, like how is the devil getting in our camp here, making us holier than thou, etc.?

That's why I would fix everything on the left first. That has to happen first. So I would, I would allow the Latin Mass to be, any priest would be able to do the TLM, right? I would allow any priest to have the faculties to do that. I would excommunicate all of the politicians that are not Catholic, right, that claim to be Catholic, but they don't follow the teachings of the Church, excommunicate them, let it be known. I would fix the liturgy first. I'd fix all of these things first, that way everyone can see that everything is getting

fixed. And then I would tell the conservatives, okay conservatives, we fixed everything in the good, but now it's your turn to what you say, that Vatican II is valid and the popes, have all been legitimate popes and if you don't, you don't get to experience all of these beautiful things that we just fixed. So that's how we do it, but you have to fix

the problems on the left first. Feel free to either slide that on or throw it off. Yeah, you're fine, whatever you do. Getting animated, all this coffee's got me. All this coffee on the empty stomach. Just leave it either slide that on or throw it off. Yeah, you're fine. What are you? Getting animated, all this coffee's got me. All this coffee on the empty stomach. Just leave it. Sorry about that.

Yeah, I like that. Now, I think, okay, so, but I think a big part of your pontificate, I love that we're just doing a deep dive into your theoretical pontificate, is that it's how you act. It's not just what you implement, but how you celebrate liturgy, right?

So how, so presumably you're celebrating at orientum. Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. Absolutely, at orientum. Cause I know, I know really good priests. Yeah. And they're just afraid, and I don't blame them for being afraid. To try it.

They're afraid to celebrate at orientum because they don't want to be thought of as a rabble rouser. They don't want to be slapped on the wrist and then suppressed, and then the good work that they're trying to do within this parish gets, you know? I think some of them are even afraid to ask permission of the bishop, lest they be put in that category. So I think to have the pope be like, no, you can celebrate without your bishop's permission, and I encourage you to celebrate Ad Orientum. It was clearly a mistake to face the people, we're acknowledging it. Even

better if you get rid of the second altar and use the primary one. Clearly. Exactly. That's what I would do. And also, not only that, I would also have to either discipline the people that need to be disciplined within the church, clergy, probably remove some cardinals, make some, Bishop Barron, he's a cardinal. I'd make him a cardinal right off the bat. Bishop Barron would become a cardinal. Would he have more influence as a cardinal? He would. I just don't want to remove people. You know how they talk about promoting people into obscurity?

Yeah. I want Barron where he can make the most impact. Oh yeah. I would make him a cardinal and he could still continue as he is, still do his thing. I would help whatever he needs for his ministry, help him. I'd make, he'd be the guy. Are you afraid that you're too focused on America?

Cause you've said nothing about every other country in the world. Well, I'm not too sure what's going on. I have to figure out what's going on in the other countries first and then I will address everybody, I promise. No, but you know, I know other countries get upset about America, but it's just a fact.

You know how they say America gets a, or coughs and everyone gets a cold, the whole world gets a cold? It's also true in regards to influence. It's just true. And America should stop apologizing for the influence they have in the rest of the world. When I'm in Australia talking to people,

they say I came back to the faith because of Bishop Barron, because of Father Mike Schmitz, because of Trent Horn, right? Of course. Praise the good Lord Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. So I think if you did make a lot of gains in the United States of America, that would go a long way for the rest of the English-speaking world at least, and then you would know who to trust in

those other countries to elevate them and to implement. Yes. I'd like you to be the next Pope. Thank you. I just decided. I would promote good people. I would give you a position. You would I'd like you to be the next Pope. Thank you. I just decided. I would promote good people. I would give you a position. You would be like, you would have,

no, no, really you'd be like the official spokesperson. Could my kids come and rollerblade in the Vatican halls? Of course. Okay. Of course. I like that. I think that'd be a cool place to rollerblade. Not in any sacred space, you understand.

No, yeah, yeah. Just the nice marble floors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Anything, anything. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, anything. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was lovely. James says, and this is a very serious question,

what's your go-to at Chipotle? I don't go to Chipotle. Next question. The Roman says, what is your biggest opposition, Protestants against Rome, Orthodox, or Catholics telling you you don't Catholic their way? Oh, okay.

Let's read that again. What is your biggest op? Oh, I see. So maybe the most criticism you get, right? Protestants against Rome, ortho bros or Catholics telling you you don't Catholic their way? Of those three of those options that he gave. Yeah. And if you have another one, feel free to probably would be the Protestants.

But the, I think the biggest opposition I get is from Muslims. Why, why I've made some videos about Islam and the, my most viewed, most watched and the most commented on videos or videos where I talk about Islam and that everyone in the comments is just tearing me to pieces, all the Muslims that, you know, well, so I just had, I won't say the name, I'll tell you off air, but I had this Muslim who was, I won't say more, I just want to give it away, but he's left Islam and he just bought my book

on the Holy Rosary. That's beautiful. So remind me, I want to take a photo with you after that so we can give them a shout out. Yes, yes, yes. Do you have, do you use a voice changer? Wouldn't it be funny if we actually used a voice changer on your real voice? Yeah. I try to expose you. It may sound like Peewee Herman or something. Yeah, no, he does not. What is, this is a good question from

Chaley. What is the best argument that you've heard from a Protestant and what is your response? the best argument that you've heard from a Protestant and what is your response? The best argument that I've heard from a Protestant for his Holy Scripture would be this. We want to follow what the apostles taught. We want to just be faithful. We want to match the faith of the apostles, right? That's what we want to do. Okay, we know that the scriptures, Okay, we know that the Scriptures, we know that those are reliably from the apostles, everything else. We don't know if they come from the apostles, so let's ignore everything else and let's just stick to the things that we know for sure come from the apostles, and that's what's in their writings.

Because we can't be sure about the other things, so let's just stick to their writings, okay? Sounds reasonable. It sounds so reasonable, right? So that's the best argument, but then the reason that it fails is because when you read their writings, in their writings they say, go to the church and the church has this authority and the church will, you know, if you just read my opening, if you go and you listen to my opening statement and my debate with Dr. White, I explain why that doesn't work. So even if you have the Bible alone, from the Bible alone, you can come to the conclusion that the church has authentic authority that's definitive

from the writings of the apostles alone. So it's a good, I think solo scriptura is a great starting point. It's the best starting point. That's perfect. Let's do it. Let's start with solo scriptura and let's see what the scriptura actually says.

And it's, oh, we can't just have the scripture alone, we need the church to. I love how Dr. Scott Hahn put it. The church is not an instruction manual. I'm sorry, the Bible is not an instruction manual for a church still in shrink wrap. Rather the Bible presupposes a church already in existence. It's a great way to put it.

Ish says, do you feel that Catholics are beginning to give up on the Latin right and are changing towards the Eastern rights? If so, what do you think about this? Can I give you a short answer first before yours? Yeah, yeah. I think it's because of the abuses in the liturgy. I think people are desirous for tradition,

beauty and reverence. And, you know, if you don't give that to them, what do you expect them to do if they have a legitimate other option? I know that's why me and my family, we drove past like four Latin Rite churches when we lived in north of Atlanta just to get to this one, because we desired our children to experience the reverence that they ought to have for our Blessed Lord. Yep, absolutely. You know, what I would say is, the answer is yes, you definitely do see that in pockets within the Church. But something I've also noticed is that the funny thing is that

the Catholics that spend a lot of time online and they're like, you know, plugged into like online Catholicism, those are the ones that always want to go to the Latin Mass, the Byzantine Rite and all that. And then the Catholics that aren't plugged into what's going online, they are so happy, so fulfilled, and they are so holy going to the Novus Ordo. So it's kind of like, hmm, that's interesting, that's just an interesting thing that I've noticed. You know, like, they don't know what's going on online, they don't know about the liturgy wars, but they're going, they are so faithful, so faithful. And they follow the teachings of the church

and they love the Novus Ordo. If I can use a crass analogy, then maybe you temper it if it's not good. It'd be like a married man, just like looking at other women who are objectively more physically attractive than his wife or a man or a woman looking at other men and online all the time.

And then becoming like discontent. Like, why are you doing that? Don't do that. Love this person. And cause there are objectively more beautiful liturgies and it would be good if you had that in your town and you may not, but if all you're doing is going online, complaining and being upset about that,

you're kind of missing a big part of growing in holiness, which is just a... And the irony about that is that if you're looking at other women on Instagram or whatever, you're not happy either because now you're just covering something that you don't have. So it's not doing you any good. It's better to appreciate what you do have

and grow in fondness and be happy with that because that's your best friend. That's, you know. So there's no point. And if there are things about your spouse that objectively she needs to grow in, then encourage her in that growth. Same thing with your parish.

Looking at the sexy woman on Instagram, it's not gonna help you with anything. It's not gonna help you. So why even? It's pointless. That might be the first time in YouTube Catholic history that the trad liturgy has been likened to a sexy woman. All right.

Jay Epic says, why do we not read or know anything of Lazarus after he was raised? I don't know. Do you? After he was raised? Yeah. Well, there are some early church fathers that tell us that Lazarus actually became

ordained and that he was a bishop of Bethany. Yeah, that he was the first bishop. Yeah. So, we know that from the tradition of some of the early church fathers. Yeah. Tim Paul has a good question. He says, what has Catholic media done extraordinarily well in the past five to 10 years? And what has it miserably failed to do? Well, how do you define Catholic media? What do we refer to that? I would say new media.

The new media, us? What else is there? Like honestly, what is it? EWTN? Honestly, what else is there? Yeah, but even EWTN is now being consumed through YouTube. Right. And so unless you wanna talk about DVDs

or even streaming services, right? Like Formed, that would be something, I think that's worth people's time. Halo would be an obvious example of like just dominating the culture somehow. Halo came out swinging. Everything, obviously everything. It's not that we don't have our own, I don't know,

Bishop Barron, I mean, Father Mike Schmitz, Bible of the Year, Ascension Presents. I would say these are examples, but what would you say? I would say the best thing it's done is that it's brought all of these devotions, the Rosary in a Year, the Bible in a Year, all of these things that have become mainstream. You know, like during the pandemic,

I think the Bible in a Year podcast was the top podcast. You know, the Rosary in a Year podcast, I think recently was the number one podcast for a while. It was. So I think that what it does best is it reintroduces these things that our grandmas would do, and it reintroduces it to us, the new generation, that it shows us why our grandmas were right. That's the best thing. Yeah.

Worst thing? Worst thing is that it puts all of our dirty laundry out there, and people that are maybe a little bit mature will start to criticize the church as an institution, criticize the Pope, the bishops, and you know. Yeah, rip into each other, use mycobolic language. Causes a lot of vitriol. Michael says, when is your album coming out?

I need some Catholic rap from that deep voice of reason. So I have a song that's coming out with Enoch that he's gonna put out and we're gonna probably, I think he's gonna put it on an album. So I'm gonna make my debut as a rap star with my man Enoch. I wrote the verse actually on the way here on the plane, almost all of it. So that'll be cool and then yeah, I'll do.

I'll start a new career. He seems like a great fella. I've never met him. He's awesome. Mike Franks asked a question that's a, it's pejorative. So I'm not going to phrase it the way he did, but he's criticizing SSPX and he's what's your opinion on SSPX?

I love him, man. I just wish that they could just come, you know, I would love, you know, the local SSPX parish. It's like, you know, 10 minutes away from where I live, back home in Albuquerque. I wish that I could go there and just go and enjoy the Latin Mass.

I mean, you can. Yeah, I can, but I mean, like to be, for it to fulfill my obligation, to be a canonically regular, you know what I mean? I want that to be canonically regular. It would fulfill your Sunday obligation. Well, it depends on the ordinary. On the ordinary.

The local bishop would tell you, and I think in my- I like that. I did an interview a while ago, John Solza. He's amazing. He talked about a machine. One of the first things he said to me in that question is ask your bishop. Yeah, ask your bishop.

So I think that's right. If you wanna go the SSB, ask your bishop. Ask your bishop if you can, yeah. Yeah. Joe Ward says, what is your favorite period of church history to learn about? My church history to learn about? My favorite period to learn about?

Probably the pre-Nicene period, just because it's so easy, because there's only a few church fathers. So you can really learn with the pre-Nicene period as well. But like, it's like asking you to pick your favorite child. The medieval church is fascinating, so fascinating. Who's a saint you want to read more of and study if you had the time?

A saint that I want to read more of. Yeah, like one of these church fathers that you referenced, the pre-Nicene fathers perhaps. Is there someone you... Well, I've read all of them. Let's see, what's a good church father that I'd like to... Any saint? Whatever you want. Interpret it however. Oh man, any saint? Whatever you want, interpret it however. Oh man, that's asking you to pick your favorite child.

Okay, then pretty nice here, who would you like to read and reread and study? Well, what's interesting is that he's not a church father, but Origen, just because of his influence. His influence was so massive that Origen would probably be the one that you get a lot out of, but I know he's not a church father. Joe Ward says, what's your favorite period of,

I've just read that. Hayden says, what are some vocal exercises I can do to get my mind to sound as, my voice to sound as deep as yours? Man, people love your voice. Thank you. Unless they're in Hollywood shooting a movie. I feel like I'm getting, I know, right?

I feel like I'm getting sick. So I feel like my voice is like- It's gonna go down an octave. I feel like my voice is like really weak lately. I've been getting feel like my voice my voice is like really weak lately I've been getting like sick so I don't know I've never done vocal exercises I just finally the cigars yeah yeah final question is from ish what do you think is the future of the eastern rights in the US and other Western countries I honestly think we're gonna see an explosion yeah I think we're gonna see an explosion of the Eastern tradition here in the West. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. That's it. Wow. Those are great questions. Oh, we have one more. Oh, one more. OK, cool.

From Kyle V. How would you reconcile baptism being salvific and the Holy Spirit worrying in baptism despite the fact that there are people who are baptized with no personal connection to a relationship with Christ. I'm trying to understand that. On the flip side, there are people who have not been baptized with a profound... Okay, so I think this is what he's saying. How do you reconcile the fact that there are people who are baptized? You see no kind of external evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in their life, but you see other people who

love Jesus Christ, they have a voracious appetite for the scripture, they're growing in virtue, they're overcoming sin, and maybe they have not yet been baptized. Right, right. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, so the church tells us, the church tells us that we know where the Holy Spirit is,

but that doesn't mean that we know where the Holy Spirit isn't. So the question is, we know that the ordinary means of salvation and the ordinary means of receiving the Holy Spirit is through baptism. So, baptism is the objective way to know that you have the Holy Spirit or that you receive the Holy Spirit. But if you see somebody that's baptized that isn't, you know, practicing the faith, what that means is that that person is ignoring his or her relationship with the Holy Spirit, and you could have other people that don't have that, let's say, you call it like marriage.

They're not married to the Holy Spirit yet, but they love the Holy Spirit. They love, you know, they love Jesus and they're, you know, they can be provided extraordinary grace apart from the sacrament, right? But they do have the obligation to receive the sacrament, to receive the ordinary means of grace. So, the Holy Spirit is able to work outside receive the sacrament, to receive the ordinary means of grace. So the Holy Spirit is able to work outside of the sacraments extraordinarily. Well, yeah, right? Because if He wasn't, how do you explain conversion? Right, exactly. Who or what is leading them into the fullness of truth if it isn't in some way God Himself?

And Augustine, St. Augustine talks about this, he says that, you know, because the Scriptures say that it is God's desire for all men to be saved. And Augustine says that even that desire to want to go to baptism, the desire to want to receive the Holy Spirit and be in communion with Jesus Christ, that desire also comes from God. So God gives us that desire and it's called, why can't I think of the term, I think it's called, is it general grace? God gives—

Ah, not general grace, I know what you mean. I can't think of the term. Specific grace and... Yeah, I know why I think of all the coffee and the cigars on the empty stomach about me. Wired, but yeah, so we all have that grace to lead us to the Divine Self-Vigful Grace that we get through the sacraments. Yeah.

Praise God. Dude, thanks. No, thank you. This has been so much fun. Oh my gosh. No, thank you. The honor is all mine fun. Oh my gosh. No, thank you. The honor was all mine. And thank you to your wonderful, beautiful supporters. I'm so glad you brought a cigar.

I didn't even know you were a cigar guy. So this was so pleasant. I need to have that. I need to have Melanie when she reaches out to people, be like, would you like a cigar? Are you open to this? Would you like a drink? Are you open to this?

So I can not offend people by just lighting up a stogie. I was like, in my wisdom and prudence I was like you know maybe you know Matt Fred is a big cigar guy maybe he might not have any on him so let me take some. I didn't have any on me. I mean they're in my humidor at home I didn't bring any with me. There you go the Holy Spirit was nudging me you know because I had to fulfill my dream of having a cigar with you. That was great I really had a good time. Me too thank you I hope you enjoyed it. I do I'm loving it. I hope it treated you well. Yeah thank you. Thank you so much God bless you guys.