Pints With Aquinas - The State of the Church w/ Dr. Ralph Martin

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Catholic Lofi: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZlJ1VMQEnZhs7SRfJBExwg Try Hallow for Free! https://hallow.com/mattfradd Exodus 90! https://exodus90.com/matt Support the Channel: https://mattfradd.locals.com/   Free Booklets from Dr. Martin's Ministry: https://www.renewalministries.net/ Ralph's Latest book "a Church in Crisis": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LZYKCZJ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 The Fulfillment of all Desire: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MWRTHM/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_XGPZ7HZJCBWRZ3SQ SSXN Ralph's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCamEooO2x92YRiL-UNWiONQ  

Hey, welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Thank you so much for listening. If you like Pints with Aquinas and want to support us, you can do that in one of two ways by supporting us on locals or Patreon. If you go to pintswithaquinas.com slash give it'll let you know there what you get in return. Thanks. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas everybody. Matt Fred here with Dr. Ralph Martin.

Before we begin, I need to give a huge shout out to jegs from Rochester Hills Michigan and you might be thinking why and that's fair enough and here's why I started a Catholic lo-fi channel you can just type in Catholic lo-fi I will put a link in the description Joshua Masterson the very talented Joshua Masterson put together this beautiful Pines with Aquinas kind of illustration and he told me to give Jegs from Rochester Hills a shout out. So I don't know who Jegs is but what's up Jegs, thanks for watching Pines with Aquinas. That was an awkward way to begin wasn't it?

Well you know I understand it, I like shout outs, I think we should recognize people, I think we should encourage people, I think we should recognize that it takes a village. Yeah. Maybe I need a whole list and the whole episode can be just me shouting. Before we jumped on the air today, we were talking about idiosyncrasies that we all have and how being married helps with that. Yes, definitely.

What were you saying about your wife last night? Well, I talked to her on the phone last night and I have to be careful how I say this, so she might be watching. No, yeah, just like you were, you know, careful. You were talking about your wife recently. Yeah, and she was saying she's catching up on my YouTube videos and she was watching a recent one.

She said, you know, it seemed a little repetitious to me and she says, I don't know, maybe I was sleepy and, you know, wasn't really paying attention that well. I said, well, thank you. I'll take a look at it and see, you know, it could have been. Yeah. So does that still sting after how many years of marriage? Well, it's a little bit like, like you kind of still wish that the first response of your wife is, wow, it was really good. That's the greatest thing ever. It was really good, you know, type of thing.

But you know, thank God for, you know, honesty and, you know, just the security of a relationship where you can say things like that. And not, not, I really wasn't offended, you know. Did your wife watch all your videos? She doesn't watch them when they first come out, but when a free Sunday comes around, she catches up. That's so nice. My wife does the same thing.

She'll tell me, hey, great video, I watched this, I really wanna listen. And I think that's so amazing, because you're with me all the time. Surely I've become boring, but I suppose she watches it also for the guests. Yeah, and she sometimes travels with me, and I. But yeah, I don't. And she, some of these travels with me and I say, and you don't have to stay

because you've heard this talk a hundred times. You don't really go, go knit somewhere or go call somebody or something like that. How many years you've been married? Over 50. Terrific. I have to, so maybe 52. Wow.

Yeah, come June. 16 for me this year. Good, very good. What advice do you have for anyone out there who's about to get married? It takes three to get married, doesn't it? You know, like Bishop Sheen used to say, you know, if you both know the Lord, if you both love the Lord, if you both committed to obeying the Lord, if you both committed to being formed by Him and He really being Lord of your marriage and Shepherd of you, anything can work out. Any two people are going to have adjustments, right?

But if you really have a common love for the Lord and are looking to Him and avail yourself of the wisdom of the Church and the sacraments and the support of other couples, anybody can get through and become something really beautiful for God. You know, a faithful marriage for year after year open to life is very special. And these days, a Catholic marriage is just a tremendous witness in the world. I mean, so many people are afraid to get married, afraid to have children, and so it takes a certain amount of trust in the Lord these days to actually get married and commit yourself for your whole life to another person, and then to be open to life. So many people are saying, no, no more children, we don't have enough oxygen, carbon dioxide is going to increase, global warming. I was at a church in San Diego after our second child, maybe our third child. Oh, it wasn't after.

So my wife was pregnant with our third child, and this old woman came up to my wife, put her hand on my wife's belly and said, please don't have any more children. And here's what I should have said. If you'd like there to be less children, you can go jump off a bridge. But I didn't. I was so shocked that this cute Catholic old woman would say something so disgusting as that. Yeah, I have a daughter, only one of my five married daughters lives near us in Auburn, Michigan, and she was telling me a story of she was going grocery shopping and she had three

little kids, you know, in one of these super duper strollers, you know, where, you know, two sit in the front, one stands in the back, and you push them in. And a woman came up to her and she said, are all of these children yours? You know, she's like, no, I just go around collecting them. Yes, they're mine. I just rented them for the day. You know, I was like. Well, that's what they're doing in Japan right now.

Have you heard of this? These older folks who don't have grandkids, I'm looking at you because I'm doubting what I'm saying, but I know it's true. Yeah, yeah. So these older folks rent children for the day to play with because their own kids aren't having children. Wow.

I know. It's so sad. It's a whole service that does that. Please just check that, Neil, because I just want to be... Well, even from a... No! Even from a natural point of view, demographers and economists and political scientists and people concerned about Social Security are saying, we're going to be really in trouble if we don't have children.

And it's so unnatural. I mean, it's so. My best response to somebody who did this to me. Here it is. I was at a coffee shop in Nashville and someone looked in our car and said, you know, something about us having so many kids. And they said, don't you have a TV? And I said, and I want to offer this to everybody watching.

I said, if you think TV is better than sex, you're doing it wrong. Come on. No, I regret saying that. OK. But yeah, marriages is good. I think one of the things people said to us right before we got married and we got this intellectually, but as we've grown in our marriage, we're understanding it more and more, is the necessity of realizing that your spouse isn't God and cannot fulfill all of your needs.

Yeah. Not even close. We're both limited human beings that are together trying to make it to heaven, really, and bring as many people with us as we can and Be kind to one another. How have you grown in your kind of realization of that? Because obviously when someone says your spouse isn't God when you first kind of get married, I don't know She may as well be I mean, it's like it's the greatest thing in the world when you first get married Well, it gets greater but in a different more nuanced way. It is one of the greatest things in the world, whether you're going through good times or bad times, it's so special that God has had two of His limited

imperfect creatures entrusted to each other. You know, like I say, wow, you entrusted one of your beloved daughters to me, Lord. I mean, really. That's a beautiful way of thinking about it. Yeah, really, like, and you know, like, entrusting a beloved daughter of God, you know. That's a beautiful way of thinking of it because your wife isn't yours, in a sense. I mean, she is in a sense your one flesh, but this is God's daughter.

Yeah, and you know, you know, so, you know, one of my faults is impatience. And, you know, it's miserable to live with an impatient person, you know? It's really terrible. So I really feel sorry for my wife. You know, I think, you know, I try to make up for it in other ways and I've grown to become more patient,

much more patient as the years have gone on. And so there's very few times now where that impatient thing happens, you know, the type of thing. much more patient as the years have gone on. And so there's very few times now where that, that impatient thing happens, you know, the type of thing. But yeah, I just feel like, you know, I got to treat God's beloved daughter, you know, the way that she should be treated. And I feel like it's so special that she, you know,

I still am just amazed at, you know, all the meals she's cooked all these years, all the laundry she's done. She's worked outside the home too. She's worked for Redual Ministries. She was our webmaster for a while, our newsletter editor and designer, everything like that. And she does tons of stuff. She does a Bible study, but she's been loving and serving me and our six children. And it's just so like, whoa, I mean, that's, I mean, that's really holy, you know? I mean, just going through the responsibilities of marriage really is a very holy, wonderful, godly thing.

And I just really feel very grateful. Yeah. So what did some cardinal say somewhere? Who's the cardinal that came out and said we should change our teaching on homosexuality? Oh, the numbers are growing, Matt. There isn't just one anymore. Which is really pretty shocking. If you were to ask me what I thought was going to happen, obviously there's a gay lobby in the church. Obviously there are a lot of people who really don't feel like our teaching there is true and it really needs to be changed.

But I never thought I would see very high ranking church officials come right out and say it. I thought where we were gonna go was that we would keep the teaching on the book. We wouldn't change the catechism. We wouldn't change the teaching, but in practice, we'd basically wink and say, it's okay, you know, type of thing.

I thought that's where we were going, but over the last couple months, things have happened that really make me wonder because I don't think these people come back down now. You know, I think they publicly have declared themselves as not believing the teaching of the church in the area of sexuality. It started with Cardinal Hollerich, you know, the Archbishop of Luxembourg, who's appointed a Cardinal by Pope Francis, and then he got elected as President of the European Bishops' Conference's relationship with the European Union,

and then he got assigned as the President of the Synod Process. He's the General Relator, which is the guy in charge of this worldwide Synod Process that probably all of our listeners, if they're Catholics, have heard something about. Every diocese is supposed to be doing some kind of consultation, whatever.

And then he was doing an interview, maybe two months ago now, where he was asked a question by a reporter saying, what do you think about the church's teaching that homosexual activity is sinful? He says, I don't believe it. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean, it was just like right out there. He says, I think we believe it. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean it was like, it was just like right out there.

He says, I think we need to change the catechism. I think we need to catch up with modern sociology and science. I think we need to recognize that there's a gap now between the church and the culture. We got to close the gap. His idea about closing the gap is... Chasing after Babylon. Yeah, it's accommodating to the culture around them. They think that that's gonna somehow attract people to the church. I mean, that's what the product... Idiotic, reprehensible thing to say. And that's what the Protestant churches have done.

Why don't we look at the experiment that's happening and see, has this helped the Episcopal church gain members? No. Has this helped the Methodist church gain members? No. Has this helped the Episcopal Church gain members? No. Has this helped the Methodist Church gain members? No. Has this helped the Presbyterian Church gain members? No. You know, the liberal Lutheran denominations? No. I mean, it's crazy. Not only that, not only is it not effective

in accomplishing bringing people back to the Church, it's profoundly disloyal to the Lord. It's profoundly offensive to God, and it's profoundly unloving to human beings. I mean, when you have a leading churchman like that say something like that, what are people going to do who are struggling with sexual temptation, which many people are, whether heterosexual, homosexual, whatever, you know, what is it going to say to people? Yeah, give up the struggle, give in. It's okay, You know, the church is going to change its teaching, you know, we've got to accommodate to the culture. So that was really unusual because I don't think that Cardinal Hollerich would have ever said that if he thought he would be corrected by Pope Francis.

That makes it even more troubling. No correction has happened. Cardinal Pell came out just a few weeks ago saying Rome needs to correct Cardinal Hollerich. He's denied an aspect of the faith. Bishop Strickland came out and said the same thing a couple days ago. So there's just silence from Rome. You know, that type of thing.

And then Cardinal Marx, who is probably one of the chief advisors to Pope Francis, he's been on the council of cardinals that have met now for nine years, advising the Pope about changes in the Vatican and the Curia. He came out recently and celebrated what they called a queer mass,

you know, with all the LGBTQ symbols and everything, celebrating 20 years of ministry to LGBTQ communities in a parish in Munich. And we know that these parishes, the ministry they're doing is affirming people in their sin, and they're not calling them to repentance, they're not calling them to call upon Jesus for his mercy and grace to live a life of chastity like all of us need to do if we're not in a holy marriage. And then he was, after that, he was asked in an interview about homosexuality, he says if it's loving between people it's not a sin. So here we have two very prominent cardinals,

very close in having the trust of Pope Francis, outright saying the teaching of the church about the act of practice of homosexuality, probably other things as well, is not true. And then Bishop Batsing, who's the current president of the German Bishops Conference, came out and said the same thing. Oh my gosh. I think now...

It's like they're collaborating and pushing this. And I think there's a lot of other people behind the scenes who have been encouraging them in this. I think a lot of the Pope's advisers are in this camp type of thing. I think Cardinal Schoenberg, believe it or not, after the tremendous work he did with the catechism, now seems to be leaning in this direction too. So at least this old German speakers at the moment, you know, whether it's Austria, Luxembourg, or Germany, but we have a really serious crisis in the church. I mean, we have leading prominent cardinals openly repudiating the teaching of the church

in this very important area. And I don't see how they're gonna back down. I mean, they've declared their personal unbelief publicly. I don't see how they can back down now. I thought they were gonna, like I said, kind of keep giving lip service to the teaching, but basically bless people and living sexually disordered lives, you know?

So you have the whole bishops conferences now sorta coming out like all the bishops conferences of Scandinavia, all the countries in Scandinavia, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, all came out saying Germany please turn back from the course you're on. Who said this? The Scandinavian bishops conference, you know, representing the bishops of all Scandinavia, and then the Polish bishops conference and the Ukrainian bishops conferences both sent letters to the German bishops of all Scandinavia. And then the Polish bishops conference and the Ukrainian bishops conferences

both sent letters to the German bishops saying, you're not basing your adjustment to the modern world on scripture and revelation, you're departing from the faith and you're weakening the commitment of people in our countries to live chaste lives. So this is really a very evil thing. Their motivation may be

wonderful, they may be sincerely trying to, you know, make the church more attracted to people, but they're wickedly kind of basically telling people that they can go ahead and engage in sexual relationships, that the Lord says are profoundly offensive and can exclude people from heaven. That's pretty serious. Do you have people say to you, stop being so sensational, Ralph, stop being so negative? I certainly do. Or people will kind of accuse me

of only addressing these things because I want clickbait for my videos. That's not why I'm doing it, but what's your response if you get accusations like that? I've been raising an alarm for 40 years, even before I knew about clickbait. I only found out about clickbait about a year ago. I didn't know what it was, you know, type of thing. There were no mouses to click on when I started talking about this.

I'm just trying to address things I think that will be helpful for people that are endangering people's salvation. St. Paul said, don't let anybody deceive you, the immoral will not enter the kingdom of God. My bottom line is I want people to enter the kingdom of God. I want them to know the truth and become free. Jesus says, you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free. That's what's driving me. I'm concerned about people's salvation, and these people are endangering people's salvation in a very, very serious way. Now you might say, why are you talking about sexual morality? Why don't you talk about other things? Well, this is the tip of the spear that our culture is pointing towards the heart of the

church. It's saying you've got to change on this area. What that really means is you've got to let go of obedience to God. You've got to let go of obedience to the Ten Commandments. You've got to let go of your loyalty to Christ. And this is the tip of the spear, so we have to confront it. Just at the time when the church most needs to speak a clear message to the culture, it's divided, it's confused, it's cowardly, it's foolish.

So has anyone that you've, because you've probably run in circles of people who are cardinals or who know cardinals closely. Yeah, I do, yeah. Other than Pell and Strickland, because you probably run in circles of people who are cardinals or who know cardinals closely. Other than Pell and Strickland, do you know somebody who've been reaching out to these bishops? And since the Pope seems not to want to? I suspect that privately there are things going on, but when you have a public repudiation of faith, you need a public response to it.

I think there's a lot of bishops in the United States, for example, a lot of archbishops, some cardinals, who are very concerned about what's happening. I think Archbishop Aquila in Denver has already published a response to the first findings of the German synod. To my knowledge, he hasn't done anything about the recent overwhelming vote to change the catechism and bless same-sex unions. The strange thing though is that the Pope's own doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, was asked by bishops, can we bless same-sex relationships? And they gave a very clear answer saying we can't bless sin. So here we have the right, you know, the important doctrinal office of the Vatican saying, no, obviously we can't, and then you don't have Pope Francis correcting people saying, look, we've answered this question, you know, of

course we don't need the congregation of the Doctrine of Faith to tell us that. I mean, 2,000 years of Christian tradition, I mean, the, I mean... What would you do if you were Pope right now? You know, I'd ask God to give me wisdom about how to handle the situation. So I... but obviously you can't let leading church people repudiate something so important for people's salvation and sexual morality, you can't. So, but all these people have been appointed by the Pope, all these people have been entrusted with high office by the Pope, so you gotta say what's going on? Is the Pope secretly sympathetic or is he does he have some plan to address it

that we don't know yet? Will he down the road say something? When he was asked by reporters about what's going on in Germany, he said, I wrote them a letter and I expressed my concerns. I think we're beyond writing the letter and expressing the concern stage of things. I mean, this is like an incredible challenge

to the Pope and to the faith. You know, I like what you said a moment ago, I think you said something public, as public as this requires a public response, because there's that line from our Blessed Lord in Scripture, if a brother sins against you, go to him privately. But is it different when someone is publicly declaring something and you might not have immediate access to that person and therefore need to correct them publicly? Well, when they publish something in a, like, Cardinal Marx did a ten-page interview in Stern Magazine, which is like Time Magazine here in the United States, where he said this,

and Cardinal Hollerich did it publicly in an interview, Bishop Batson did the same thing. They're not hiding it, you know, it's not like a private sin. They've departed from, they said, but they don't believe it, you know, they've moved into unbelief. And so it has to be corrected. Otherwise, what people understandably will take is that, gee, well, I think that this is a legitimate option, you know, like the very respected people who are saying this is the case. So what moral theologians say is that when there's a difference between moral theologians, you can take the probable opinion. So people are going to say, well, look, you know, these people aren't being corrected. This is what they're saying. So I think it's a very, very

serious... I think when I was a teenager, some priests gave me the impression that sex outside of marriage could be okay. And at the time I didn't care about their opinion, but if I did, I would have went, well, great. So if you've got a cardinal, not just a priest, but a cardinal saying that. When you have a bunch of them, and when you know that they,

you know, the person leading the process to create a new style of church is the guy who said this. Yeah. Well, the reason I brought up that, you know, public versus private distinction is there's people now in Catholic circles who are saying certain things about Pope Francis. Patrick Coffin, for example, seems to have come out and said that Pope Francis is an anti-Pope, not actually the Pope, but Pope Benedict is still the rightful Pope.

Taylor Marshall has accused Pope Francis of heresy. And gee, I'd like him to come out and really clarify certain things because in one tweet he said Pope Francis is a heretic. In a following tweet he said something like some Pope who is a heretic is no longer the Pope. It's like a syllogism, but he doesn't give you the conclusion. He can lead you to draw it out.

And perhaps he said some clarifying comments. I don't watch him. So maybe there's been a comment that he's made that I'm not aware of. But you know, when people come out and publicly call Pope Francis a heretic or an anti-pope, I think that's, it's similar in that I don't need to privately reach out to Coffin to then address it or Marshall. This is something that everyone, I think, it's in the public so we can publicly respond to it.

So have you looked into Coffin and Marshall's thoughts? I have, and I've been a friend of Patrick Coffin over the years, and I thought he did a fabulous job as a Catholic apologist with Catholic Answers, and I was on with him many, many times, and I felt like he could answer all the objections to the faith better than any of his guests, including me. And so I just have a lot of respect for him and appreciate him and his family. And he actually sent me what he called an hypothesis about the Pope being an antichrist and asked for my opinion. No, anti-Pope, not antichrist.

Excuse me. Excuse me. Yeah, you're fine. That's another issue. Yeah, the Pope being an anti-Pope and he said, I'd like to hear what you have to say. He said, I watched your video where I talked about the Cardinal Hollerick thing, and which is, I think I titled it, I never thought I'd see this happen. And he said, I could see your anguish, I could see your concern, this is what the problem is. So he gave me all his reasons why he thought that Pope Francis

was an anti-Pope. Was he looking for guidance or advice? I think he was trying to convert me, which is okay. I mean, you know, when you think that something's important that people should take a look at, I believe I respect them, I took a look at it, but I just wasn't convinced by what he was saying. You know, I think he's kind of clutching out straws in a lot of ways. He said like the apostolic constitution that governs people elections forbids kind of politicking before the conclave and we know that the St. Gallen mafia met and they talked about it type of thing.

What I responded to that is that I was there at the conclave, well, I wasn't in the conclave, but I was with a cardinal that elected John Paul II. I was in Rome a few months before Benedict resigned. I was a delegate at the Synod on New Evangelization. Cardinals get together regularly and talk about what's going on in the church. They know there's going to be a conclave pretty soon, so I think they were starting to talk about it even back at the Synod for New Evangelization. But is there a difference between talking amongst themselves and then trying to promote a particular guy? There is, but who knows what really happened, who knows what they were doing. You know, we don't have the evidence, you know. Determining that they violated the apostolic who knows what they were doing. You know, we don't have the evidence.

Determining that they violated the apostolic constitution requires a due process, which hasn't happened, you know. So we don't know. And I think that is quite unrealistic to expect cardinals not to talk about who they know, who they think would be a good candidate.

I think that's a good thing to do, you know, and I don't think that violates the apostolic constitution, but anyway, that's, I think, a murky issue. But then he says there were some errors in Pope Benedict's resignation letter and that he didn't resign from one aspect of the papacy, but he did from another, and there were some Latin mistakes. You know, I just think that's nitpicking, you know, and Pope Benedict himself obviously is not challenging that Pope Francis is the authentic pope. Absolutely not. He's fully endorsing that Pope Francis is the pope.

Now Patrick says he hasn't come right out and said that. Well, in so many ways he relates to him as the true pope and he was freely elected, even if the St. Gallen mafia were politicking, this cardinal is all over the world that aren't beholding to a few German-speaking cardinals who are trying to push their candidate, you know, type of thing. So I don't think that's really valid. And then he says that Archbishop Ganswine, I don't know how he pronounced his name, Ganswine, the Pope Benedict's secretary, said some ambiguous things about Pope Benedict continuing the papal contemplative dimension of

the papacy and Pope Francis doing the active one, and I think that was unfortunate. I don't think he should have said that. I don't think it's helpful. I think the argument that Benedict shouldn't still be wearing white and shouldn't be, you know, living in the Vatican, you know, I think there's some merit to those arguments. But I don't think anything that Patrick says in any way establishes that Francis is the anti-Pope. Yeah, I think he's a legitimately elected pope. I've talked to cardinals who were in the conclave who elected him, and they told me they just

felt like that's where the Holy Spirit was moving them to vote. One of the things I think Patrick said was, we're fine looking back into history and saying that person was an anti-pope, so we've got precedent of this. It's just that perhaps we're a lot more reluctant to do so, and I think we should be, that's the point. We're a lot more reluctant to do so in the day and age that we do have this person on the throne. Yeah, I don't know as much about the history of anti-popes that Patrick now knows, but usually when somebody becomes an anti-popist because the election is contested and a rump body of cardinals

goes ahead and elects somebody else. Nothing like that has happened. There's no competing pope, but normally when the church has had anti-popes it's because somebody didn't like the outcome of the election and got together a bunch of cardinals and elected somebody else. So now there's a dispute. Do you know who Brian Holdsworth is? Have you ever seen any of his videos? No, I haven't. He's a Catholic friend of mine, lives up in Alberta anyway. I think he's one of the best lay commentators on what's going on in the church today. And he did a video responding to Coffin, though not mentioning him by name, I don't think. And he kind of offered a similar wager to Pascal's wager.

He said, all right, let's say that you're right. And Pope Francis is an anti-Pope. Well, you're not in any position of authority to perhaps make that judgment and certainly do anything about it. So, and God's not gonna hold you accountable on judgment day if you just accept Pope Francis as the Pope. Okay. What if you're wrong and Patrick Hoffman is wrong? If you're wrong about this and

you're saying, you know, he's the anti-Pope, think of the terrible damage you're doing to souls, I think. So and even if that was too strong, what I just said there when I said he's wrong, I mean, that's my opinion. But I mean, just it's I think a good wager. It's like, no, no. If you get to heaven and you thought he was the pope because everyone said he was the pope or the hierarchy assumed he was the pope, you're going to be judged on that.

But if you're if you're wrong and you're telling everybody that Pope Francis isn't the pope, you know, well, doesn't put you in a good place. I wouldn't think. Yeah, well, I think he's, like I said, clutching at straws because this overwhelming support that Francis is the true Pope. I haven't heard any Cardinal disputed, even those who are seriously concerned about Francis' governing. You can have serious concerns about how Francis is handling things without challenging his legitimate role as pope. I mean, we've had so many legitimate popes that have done stupid things or have been incompetent or have been foolish,

you know. I mean, Francis periodically says, you know, I'm an imprudent person. Please stop. Yeah, you know, that's a very serious fault in a pope. You know, a pope is gonna cause a lot of problems if he's an imprudent person, but he just said it again recently. You know, he's impetuous, he said, you know. So these are serious character weaknesses, and somebody who holds a position of responsibility

like that, he's acknowledging them. So we can acknowledge that there's some sort of inconsistent leadership, we can say there's some, you know, troubling appointments, there's been some questionable this and questionable that, and sometimes he seems like he's saying that nobody goes to hell, and sometimes he's seeming to say that God's mercy is so powerful that everybody's going to be saved, and sometimes, but this leads to the heresy question though. Yeah, all right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Should we go to that question? Let's do it. Yeah. Well, first of all, did you see what Taylor Marshall had to say on this issue?

I did. I watched his videos on that. I want to begin, just preface this whole conversation, maybe I showed on this in the beginning, and maybe I shouldn't feel this way, but I feel a lot more sympathetic at this point to those who are on the Patrick Coffin, Taylor Marshall spectrum. And even to those who are post-sizing right now, I just, I feel a sympathy for them because we live in a very chaotic time in the church and everybody's just trying to make sense of this and it's not easy to do. So I don't want people to think that I'm lambasting people who are, I don't know, it's a difficult thing to wade through. Well, you know, I've written a book called The Church and Crisis Pathways Forward.

I highly recommend it. I raise a lot of the same questions that Taylor Marshall and Patrick Coffin are raising, but I'm taking a different approach because I feel like it's... I think yours is absolutely the way to go. It's critiquing with love at the heart of the church. Yeah, and yeah, so okay, is Pope Francis a heretic? Now, Taylor Marshall seems to be unambiguously declaring that he is a heretic. Now, Taylor Marshall seems to be unambiguously declaring that he is a heretic. Yes, he is. Because of certain things that he said. Now, if you look up in the Code of Canon Law what a heretic

is, Pope Francis does not qualify. A heretic is somebody who persists against all kinds of reasoning and dialogue on a position that's clearly outside the pale of the church. Pope Francis isn't doing that. He's making maybe foolish comments and prudent comments, not well thought out comments, false comments, that kind of thing, but he's not formally teaching. He's not persisting in holding to a viewpoint that's outside Catholic faith. For example, when Bishop Schneider went to fraternally talk to him about his comment that God wills the diversity of religions,

when Bishop Schneider reported on the conversation, he said, Pope Francis just meant to say that God permits the diversity of religions, not that He wills that type of thing. And then Bishop Schneider said, could you please publicly make that distinction, because a lot of people are feeling like you're saying all roads lead to God type of thing, which would be religious indifference, which would be departing from the Catholic faith. So Pope Francis never publicly made that clarification, but he hasn't persisted in a formal way in teaching error.

He's saying maybe ill-conceived formulations, maybe he personally believes that that's the case, but he's not holding to a doctrine in the correction, you know, and doubling down on it. He's not formally teaching error. When you look at the definition of heresy and the code of canon law, you know, when I was supposed to come here a couple weeks ago, I had my canon law with me, but I don't have it with me today. I mean, what would Pope Francis have to do practically and specifically in order for you to sit there and say, yes, he's a heretic? He'd have to say, he'd have to teach something in contradiction to Scripture or tradition, the deposit of the faith, either in faith or morals.

If he formally taught that we've been wrong in our teaching of homosexuality, that would definitely be a departure from... All right. Please, God, that never happens. Right. Suppose he does that though, what next? Or did you want to continue? Then the bishops and cardinals of the world need to consult together about confronting him fraternally as his brothers and asking him to repent, asking him to reconsider. Then there's no mechanism in canon law for deposing of a pope,

you know, but we'll just have to see when we get there what will happen. But I don't think Pope Francis is going to do that. I don't think he's going to formally teach heresy. He may have heretical sympathies. I don't think he's going to formally teach heresy. He may permit others to, which is a dereliction of governing responsibility, but it doesn't make him a heresy. He may permit others to, which is a dereliction of governing responsibility, but it doesn't make him a heretic. What are we supposed to do during this chaotic time? Because as fun as getting angry continually about what some blinky German Cardinal is saying is, I don't want to live like this.

Right? No, no, absolutely. This is, this is, this is where it really, where we need to go because, you know, I address some of these issues on our YouTube channel periodically and we get comments and we decided only to allow comments to be published which are positive, not because we want people just to affirm us, but because we really want, we don't want to put poison into the system type of thing. I asked our YouTube person to give me a report on what comments she's not permitting. Almost all have to do with Pope Francis.

About 60% of them, Pope Francis is heretic, about 40% Pope Francis is anti-pope. That's new. That's really showing the impact of Patrick Coffin's views. We never had the Pope as anti-pope quite in those numbers before. So unfortunately a horrible division has happened in the church. I mean, there is an objective division, but if we're going to be Catholic, we can't, I don't believe that we can call Francis an anti-Pope or a heretic. We need to accept he's the legitimate Pope. We need to owe him the respect that's due to a legitimately elected Pope. We need to acknowledge the good things he says and does, acknowledges the positive things that he's contributing right now

to this time of the church. I think his attempt to live poverty and simplicity in his own life is admirable. I was speaking at a huge conference in Italy a couple years after he got elected pope, maybe 50,000 people in the Olympic Stadium. And I had heard he drove a Ford Focus, and I saw it with my own eyes. I don't think he's doing that for show. I think he really has a real attraction to Franciscan poverty and simplicity, and he wants to model that. I think it's very positive.

And then all his thrust in the early years of his pontificate, his very first document, well the one he didn't do with Benedict, but the one he did by himself, Evangelii Gaudium, a lot of really good stuff in there. Let's get out of the sacrates, let's get out of our little enclaves, let's go to the peripheries, let's reach out to people, let's welcome people, let's really preach the gospel. And I thought that was really great. Now, in the last four or five years, he doesn't seem to be emphasizing that so much. He seems to be like correcting people for proselytizing and even telling people he's not happy that they're bringing their Jewish and Muslim converts to meet him type of thing. And you know, really, you know, some really troubling things like that, you know. He is saying things that sound like they're urging on universalism.

He is saying things like de-emphasizing, you know, proclaiming the gospel. Quite honestly, I think there's a huge problem right now where the emphasis that's coming from the Vatican is on improving this world and not calling the world to faith and repentance in Jesus Christ, you know. You know, I think the Amazon Synod, you know, just all the things, all the relationships with NGOs that are very secular, their endorsement of United Nations values, their inviting Jeffrey Sachs to be the main speaker at the Vatican over the last five years,

you know, all these things. Francis's new humanism, his new economy, all these things are putting the focus on collaborating with sometimes extremely secular organizations that promote abortion and don't have any real respect for the Catholic Church. They're really happy for the Catholic Church to become the chaplain to the New World Order, but they don't really want to hear about Jesus. They don't want to hear about honoring God, they don't want to hear about the Ten Commandments. So the primary mission of the Catholic Church is not saving the Amazon environment, it's saving the people who live in the environment. The primary mission of the Catholic Church is calling the whole

world, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, unbelievers, nuns, old, young, whatever, to repentance, to faith, to acknowledge that God has given Jesus as the saviour of the world and the only hope the world has for salvation. Amen. So we were getting to the point of what do we do? Yes. Yes. Because we should just acknowledge how addictive it is to click through more sensational media.

And I'm sure there'll be clips like this that will be sensational. I don't think either of us are doing it to be sensational. It's just to address what's actually happening. Like I've got so many people who watch Pines for the Aquinas who are wanting to convert, but who have a lot of questions. So this idea will don't call the spade a spade, don't address these troubling things, only teach the Catholic faith and the beauty. Okay, but I've got all these people who have

legitimate questions about Pope Francis and the Cardinals, so if we don't address this, what are we to do? Tell them to shut up and stop asking legitimate questions? No, I'm firmly convinced, I know this from talking to lots of people and hear from lots of people in response to the book. People feel liberated when you identify, yes, we do have some problems. They don't find it convincing to kind of just... Everything's fine, nothing to see here. They don't find it convincing to ignore what's happening that really deeply troubling.

Once you can name what's going on, they feel like, oh yeah, I'm not crazy, yeah, this is realistic, yeah, we're facing reality. But then I go on to say, like the first six chapters talk about the crises, the second seven chapters talk about the pathways forward. And what we really need to do is now take personal responsibility for forming our heart

and mind according to Christ and the Church. We need to know. I just want to pause and tell people, if they haven't got your book, A Church in Crisis, Pathways Forward, to go and get it. Because what you just said there about pinpointing the problem and then how not to lose hope, to realize you're not crazy, but then how to grow in holiness. I think this could be the manual on how to do that,

which is why last time I had you on, or a few times ago, we gave away 100 copies for free, because I just thought the book was so terrific. So Neil, would you put a link in the description, because I really, really, I read the whole thing and I thought it was excellent. Well, thank you, thank you. You didn't even pay me to say that.

No, that was a shocking thing you did there when you bought 100 copies. It was so good. I've never heard anybody ever doing that. Yeah. Yeah, so that was really, really something. But we have to get so deeply rooted in Christ and so clear and sure about the truthfulness and goodness of his teachings.

And we need to start with Jesus because if you start with the church teaches or the bishops say, that's not the foundation. The foundation is God has revealed it to us in the sacred books, and it's recorded in the sacred books, and we have access to who God really is. We live in a very privileged time, where we don't have to try to figure out who God is and search for Him in shadows and distances and forests and streams and nature.

God expects us to search for Him, but now He's come and searching for us in the person of His Son, Jesus. We live in such a privileged time, we live in a time where the Word has become flesh and dwelt among us, and that He's told us who God is. He's told us what the path back to paradise is. He told us how to come back to the Father's house. He told us how death can be defeated, and the devil can be defeated, and we can be healed of the wounds of sin.

He's told us all this, and if we don't pay attention to it, we're absolutely foolish, you know, we're crazy. You know, what has been given to us in Jesus is like, you know, prophets and kings have longed to see this, and we're seeing it, you know, and everything that came in preparation for it, it didn't come and now it's here. And we have access to God now. We have access to

union with God. We have access to God's love. The Holy Spirit can be poured into our hearts. And once we know who Jesus is, these troubles that's going on in the world in the church are secondary. They really, really are. And people ask me, Ralph, you know a lot about what's going wrong. I do, but I know even more that Jesus is Lord, and he's established a church.

And even though there's people in the church that are confusing things and doing wicked things, doesn't take away from the fact that the Catholic Church has been established by Christ and is going to prevail. One of the greatest signs for the truth of the Catholic Church that is still here, really, it really is, you know? And people who want the truth can find the truth. People who want relationship with God

can find relationship with God. And even though the Pope is doing this or not doing this or the cardinals are saying this or that, we don't have to be confused at all about what the truth is and we don't have to be anxious at all about what the truth is, and we don't have to be anxious at all. Now, how many times did Jesus say, don't be anxious, you know? You know, unbelievers are always worried about these things, but I say to you, seek first the kingdom of God and His holiness, and these other things will be yours as well, because your Heavenly Father wants to give them to you.

And then Paul in Philippians 4 says, don't be anxious about anything, but with everything, with supplication, make your needs known to God, and then the peace of Christ will come live in your soul. So we need to recognize that Jesus is still the Lord, and he wants to dwell and live in us, and he is dwelling and living in us, and we already have the gift of eternal life,

and we already know what's gonna come to us in the future. So everything else is secondary compared to that, but that should lead us to a tremendous concern for the salvation of other people. We should be so grateful that this has been revealed to us, so grateful that we know the Lord, so grateful that we're able to eat His body and drink His blood and, you know, avail ourselves with the graces of the sacraments and have the healing of our soul happen So grateful that we want this for other people because it's very very clear that there's a fundamental choice Facing the whole human race from the beginning of the Bible to the end Are you going to obey the Lord or not? Are you going to believe him or not? Are you going to follow him or not? There's two ways. You know, Moses said there's two ways.

This way leads to death, this way leads to life. Jesus says there's a broad way and there's a narrow way. The broad way leads to destruction, the narrow way leads to eternal life. You know, it's just throughout the Bible from beginning to end. You know, and so I'm full of joy, I'm full of happiness because I know the Lord, you know, and I know the truths of the Catholic faith, and I know that God's going to prevail. I know He's got a plan. I know that there's nothing happening right now that isn't happening under the providence

of God. This is a doctrine of the Catholic Church. There's nothing that happens that doesn't happen under the providence of God. The horrible things that are happening in our culture, and they really are horrible. I'm tempted to talk about the last horrible thing I heard, but I won't. Really terrible things happening in our culture, happening in our country, happening in our government. And there's terrible things happening in the church. We've been talking about them, and they really are terrible. They're endangering people's salvation. They're misleading people about the path that leads to life and the path that leads to death.

Despite all that, Jesus is the Lord and God is permitting this. So you might say, what good could possibly come out of this? Well, evil is being surfaced, that was unto the surface and it's being exposed for what it is. So those who have eyes to see and ears to hear are gonna see something really, really terrible. And they're gonna judge it as really terrible

because they're judging it from the point of view of the biblical worldview. What good could come out of it in the church? The purification, the church needs purification, the church needs shaking up, the church does need a breath of fresh air. You know, the church does need a breath of fresh air, you know, the church does need a revival, the church does need to regather around Christ in a more committed way.

And individual Catholics now need to answer for themselves this question. Who do you say He is? They need to make a personal decision about who Jesus is, and if Jesus really is the Lord, they've got to really become disciples. Now, disciples is the new buzzword. Everybody's being called a disciple, but everybody isn't a disciple. A disciple is somebody who actually surrenders their whole life to the Lord and wants Jesus to take control of every part of their life,

to bring all our life into harmony with God's purpose for us and God's love for us. And so people have to become disciples now. Either they're going to choose for the world or choose for Jesus. It's getting harder. You just kind of stay in the middle, you know. You got to choose, do you believe what he says, do you not? Are you going to obey what he says or do you not? So you know, it's a very interesting time and individual Catholics need to make some personal decisions about who they're going to follow, what they're going to believe. And the most important thing is their own relationship with the Lord.

That's going to give them a clarity of mind and a peace of heart that's going to keep them from getting wrapped up in the problems where they either drift into calling the Pope a heretic or him an anti-Pope, you know? How do you personally thread that needle? Because you've obviously written a book on the crisis, you comment on the crisis. Other than just knowing Christ is the foundation in an intellectual way, day to day, how do you stay on this right path? Well, I'm so excited that we have the sacred scriptures, really. I mean, like, what a gift. I mean, these are people who knew Jesus, who lived with Him, who were part

of the early communities, who are eyewitnesses, who were assisted by the Holy Spirit to write down what Jesus said and did, and the Holy Spirit led them into further aspects of the truth, too, that were put down in the sacred books. So I every day try to take a morning prayer time, 95% of the time I succeed. And I just start off by just being quiet before the Lord. I've got an icon of Jesus on my desk across from where I pray, and I look over to him and I Reminds me about how real he is and

How accessible he is and he became a man so that we can understand And then I start by kneeling down like the children of Fatima did the angel taught them to pray a particular way, and so I kneel down with my forehead towards the floor and I say the prayer that the angel taught the three children of Fatima to pray. You know, I believe in you, I adore you, I hope in you, and I love you, and I ask your pardon for those who don't believe in you, who don't adore you, don't hope in you, don't love you, and I do it three times.

And then I add a little something saying, Lord have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. And I'm particularly asking the Lord to deliver me from deep rooted distortions in my personality or in my thinking or feeling that I'm not even aware of because I'm looking at the world through them. You begin every morning doing this exact thing. Yeah, yeah. And then I ask God to have mercy on people that have particularly recently asked me to pray for them

because of urgent needs, you know. So I've got a couple yellow little stickers for urgent current needs, and then I've got a couple pages of people I pray for periodically, you know, in an ongoing way to support them. And then I just be quiet for a while and I pick up the poor man's breviary, the Magnificat. And I know it's easier to do the breviary now that it's electronic, but you know, when people encourage me to do it originally, I couldn't keep track of all the ribbons, you know, and what season it was and what, you know, all that stuff and where the antiphons were. So, for me, the Magnificat really, really works, you know,

and so, you know, it's this little monthly publication that contains readings, you know, for each of the days of the Mass and little prayers and Psalms, and morning prayer, evening prayer. And so I'll just kind of start slowly and prayerfully going through that. And I would say that there's hardly a day that there isn't some line from the Psalm that just kind of speaks to me, just shows me something or gives me something or invites me to actually pray that line with more intentionality and more conviction and just kind of reading it. You know, there's a difference between saying your prayers

and praying, you know. And so, and then I'll read the readings from the mass of that day. And I actually tore out a little page from the Mimificat from a couple days ago because I felt like it was so relevant to what we might be talking about, which I'll get to. But, you know, but, and I'll read the Epistle of the Gospel, and you know, sometimes it could be a very familiar passage

that I've heard a hundred times that I'm tempted to skip over, but I'll read it. And almost always there's something there that I'm seeing something more, I'm hearing something more, it brings me more into communion with the Lord. Now, I think about what Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees. He said, you searched the Scriptures, but you refused to come to me for life.

So I'm not like studying the Scriptures here. Yes. I'm trying to- Be fed. Be fed, kind of get connected to Jesus through the Scriptures. I'm trying to know Him better. I'm trying to understand what He's saying to me, what He's revealing to us, you know,

that type of thing. So it's, you know, probably His technical name is probably some form of Alexio Divina, that type of thing, you know, but it's sort of like a kind of a prayerful, thoughtful, meditative openness to the Word of God, and it really is the Word of God. And so I just feel like of God and it really is the Word of God. And so I just feel like day after day I'm being formed by the Word of God. And I think that's the key for all of us, you know, the type of thing, to be formed by the Word of God and not formed so much by the Word of man, the world or even the evil one. Have you heard of Halo? I've heard of it, yeah.

Do you have an iPhone or something like that? An Android iPhone? Yeah. Okay. So this is an advert, to be clear, but it's also like, I really mean it. Yeah. Do you have an iPhone or something like that? Android iPhone? Yeah. Okay. So this is an advert to be clear, but it's also like, I really mean it. Hello is this Catholic company. The fellow who started it used to be practice Buddhism, I think to some degree, and he was using a mindfulness application that taught new age sorts of things. Once he converted to Catholicism, he thought we need something like this in the church. And so he started this app called Halo, H-A-L-L-O-W.

And it is fantastic. I actually have people write to me say, hey, this is actually good. As if the only reason I'm talking about it is because they're paying me, which is the primary reason I'm talking about it. But I would highly recommend people check out Halo. Halo.com slash Matt Fradd,

link in the description below. Yeah, it leads you through Lexio Divina Matt Fradd link in the description below. Um, yeah, it leads you through Alexio Divina. It leads you through the rosary. I just spoke to a guy. I interviewed him. He was an Antifa member who was imprisoned for his far left activities in England. He started listening to pines for the quiet. I heard about hello and he learned the Holy Rosary from, from this app and ended up converting to Catholicism. So yeah, I'd really recommend people check that out

because sometimes it is just helpful to have that voice in your earphones explaining to you how to do this. I know Bishop Barron has read every one of the Psalms and so you can listen to a daily Psalm from Bishop Barron. It's really good. Hello.com slash Matt Friday. Click in the description below people. Yeah,, I mean, my, I don't know, mate, I know I kind of feel like you want to advance beyond that

at some point. You know, you want to just sit with the Lord with the scriptures in your hand is more natural. But for those who are going through a rough time or who wish to be consistent in their daily prayer and are not, this can be a really big help. Yeah, good. Well, you know, and are not, this can be a really big help. Yeah, good. Well, you know, I would say that the practical life of the Catholic church today, including in how priests and bishops normally teach and what they teach, does not adequately reflect

what's revealed to us in Scripture. I know that's like a strong thing to say, but quite honestly I think that's the case. I think there's all kinds of things and emphases that Jesus is giving us in His Word that are not being transmitted in the proportion and balance in which Jesus Himself says them. Not like that, proportion and balance. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, Paul says, consider both the kindness and the severity of God. We consider His kindness, but we don't often consider His severity.

You know, we consider His mercy, but we don't often consider His wrath. That's all part of what's being revealed to us, you know, and it's leaving out, what it's really leaving out is an appropriate fear of the Lord. And the reason why there's so much unheroic virtue in the church today and so much cowardness and so much lukewarmness is that

there's so little fear of the Lord, there's so little knowledge of who God is and his holiness, there's so little knowledge of the seriousness of what Jesus is communicating to us. Someone might say, why should I be afraid of a God who is love? What do you say to that? We should be afraid of offending

the creator of the universe. We should be afraid of offending somebody who shed his blood for us. We should be afraid of rejecting the sacrifice that can save us. We should be afraid of departing from the faith and not paying attention to Jesus. We should be afraid of our own sin. We should be afraid of being deceived. We should be afraid of looking for teachers to tell us what we want to hear.

On the left and the right of the kind of ecclesial church. We have a motto or something at Renewal Ministries where we want to be in the radical center. Yeah, what does that mean? Because, and you might be getting to this, but the idea that like sometimes people say, I love that so often you speak in the middle. I'm like, eh, I hope that's not true, because if the entire church starts leaning left, then the middle isn't where you want to be at that point. So what does the radical center mean? You want to be in the radical center. You want to be in the very center of divine revelation. You want to be in the very center of what Jesus is saying and doing. That's why

meditating on his word is so essential to knowing the real Jesus. We won't know the real Jesus unless we're actually paying attention to what he's saying about himself. What he's saying about himself is extremely radical. Unless you love me more than mother and father, you're not worthy to be my disciple. You know, we have to deal with our affections, our attachments, our idolatries of personal relationships. We have to be willing to experience the pain of division over Jesus, even in families. We're not talking about that, and that's an issue for people every day.

And nobody's talking about what Jesus is saying, the radical things He's saying. So, yeah, we have to have such a profound respect for who God is, such a profound respect for the length that God has given to give us Jesus, and what Jesus has done, what the apostles have done. You know, people say, well, how do you know, you know, these writings are authentic,

and you know, there's been various editorial things that have happened, and you know, just all the skeptical scripture scholarship, all the good scripture scholarship, and all I want to say about that is that the best scripture scholarship are now saying that archaeology and literary analysis is bearing out that this is first-hand testimony from people. But the thing that really solves it for me, the apostles were willing to die as evidence

for the truth of what they were saying. They were willing to be tortured, they were willing to go to the four ends of the earth, they're willing to be in prison, they're willing to be slaughtered because they knew that Jesus really is the Lord and he is the path to life. And that they believe what Jesus said, even if you die, you won't die.

Because I am the resurrection and the life. Sometimes people wrongly object to that argument by saying, yes, but people are willing to die for false things all the time. Look at nine 11, look at these other things. So a person's willingness to die for a certain belief doesn't show that the belief is true, but it shows that they're sincere in their belief, which is very important given that these were the early followers of Christ, you know. Yeah, and honestly, the little grain of seed which is the kingdom has blossomed into a worldwide tree, and it's gone through its ups and downs, but generation after generation has come to the same faith the apostles have come to and have been willing to live heroic lives.

So anyway, so yeah, so I think relation with the Lord and taking on his mind and heart and paying serious attention to sacred scripture is really where it all begins, you know. And then how important would you say it is that we learn from the saints? Because the saints, it's almost like, I think that when you read a saint like Teresa of Avila, you know, or someone else, it's like the mama bird who's, you know, eaten the food

and now regurgitates it for you. And you can just sort of really understand the scriptures how you ought to understand them. Yeah. Without your worldly lens, you see. Yeah. Yeah, well. and you can just sort of really understand the scriptures how you ought to understand them without your worldly lens, you see? Yeah, yeah, well, when I first turned to the Lord as an adult, senior at university,

I got that Jesus is the Lord, so it was like a real conversion. It took me years to kind of sort out getting my life in order, you know, so I really, it was like a real conversion. It took me years to kind of sort out getting my life in order, you know, type of thing, but I just really knew that Jesus was the Lord, and so I wanted to grow in relationship with Him. So I had heard about great saints like John of the Cross, for example, and so about a month after I made that curseo when I was a senior, I picked up a book by John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, and honestly, after about 60 or 70 pages,

I stopped reading it. I said, I don't understand what he's talking about. And what he does, what I do understand sounds so negative. I want to go back to singing Dei Caloris, singing Dei Caloris, you know, Aurelian, you know, that type of thing. And so, and then 20 years later I had to, I left grad school and started just preaching the gospel and all that kind of stuff for about 20 years. And then when the charismatic communities were going through troubles and upheavals

and we were trying to identify imbalances that need to be corrected, and I decided to take one course at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit on ecclesiology to try to understand how renewal movements like the Charismatic Renewal and other renewal movements relate to the wider church. And the Dean at the time, who's now my Bishop,

Bishop Earl Boyer of the Diocese of Lansing, said, why don't you stay and get a master's degree in theology? I said, okay. So anyway, for a Catholic spirituality class, I had to read another book by John LaCrosse called Spiritual Canical. And I remember sitting in the airport in Zurich, Switzerland doing my homework, reading Spiritual Canical,

I was still traveling and doing stuff. And all I could tell you is that all the lights went on. The Lord just decided to help me get John on the Cross. And I don't know why, I don't know how, but I felt like things were getting integrated in me in a way that I couldn't even articulate, couldn't even tell you what was happening, but something was happening. And so this really gave me a tremendous impetus

and zeal for holiness. I had zeal for holiness before. I was trying as hard as possible to be holy, but this time I felt like, wow, so much more is really possible in a relationship with God. And so I began to read the rest of John on the Cross. And then I said, who else is like this? And I discovered that some of the doctors of the church

are doctors of spirituality that are sort of being recognized for their knowledge and wisdom about how you make the spiritual journey. So I said, look, you know, life is short. Let's get the best we have and ask God to help me understand what they're talking about. And so then I began to read all of Teresa of Avila and all of Catherine of Siena and all of Frances of Sales and so on and so forth. And as I was doing it, I was finding it tremendously helpful for my own life. I said, wow, there's practical wisdom here.

And every now and then they'd say something that sounded very extreme. I say, is this biblical? And honestly, every single time I even found their language in the Bible, like when John John of the Cross talks about being annihilated, you know, I found that in the Bible. Or when he's talking about dark nights, I found so many references to dark nights and things like that. So sort of like, I became really convinced that they're sort of like showing what happens when you surrender to the Lord and how the Holy Spirit wants to work to bring about greater and greater conformity to the will of God, you know, things like that.

So, I found it really helpful. I wrote a book called The Fulfillment of All Desire, a guidebook for the journey to God based on the wisdom of the saints. Father Mike Schmitz in his recent interview with Bishop Barron said that he reads it every year to keep him on track. That must have been humbling given how influential Father Mike is to think that the work that you did in part because of the light the Lord gave you in that airport. Yeah, I know. Amaze Road publications, whom you know very well, right here in Steubenville, says it's their best-selling book of all time, which is pretty... Well, it just goes to show, too, that in a way, don't take this the wrong way, but in a way, it's far less about you and way more about, we just want Orthodox, we want union with the Lord.

We want Orthodox teaching on prayer. No, absolutely. The book is not about me, it's about me presenting the best wisdom the Catholic Church has. This is- On the spiritual life. The value of the book is the wisdom of the saints. Now the Lord did help me to put it together

in an orderly, clear way, everything like that, but the treasure of the book is the wisdom of the saints about how to grow in holiness. One of the things that Father Mike said in his interview, he says the reason why he actually listens to it in the audible version, you know, type of thing. So he says the reason why he listens to it so often, he says on his sixth or seventh time,

is because he needs to keep reminding himself that there's more. He keeps reminding himself that there's more. you know, because you know how it is, you kind of get to a good place in your spiritual life, you feel like you're kind of there, and maybe you've reached your limit or your level, or you know, this is as far as you can go, and it's a good level, it's reasonable, it's going to work, you know, that type of thing for your personal life, for your ministry. But one of these things these saints do is saying, there's more, don't settle down halfway up the mountain. There's more, ask God to do more.

Ask God to let this wisdom from the saints kind of show you additional steps you can take, or additional surrenders you can make, or additional self-knowledge you can get, or additional desire that can be stirred up in you for a greater union with the Lord. So it's, yeah, I think he got the purpose of the book. That's the purpose. There's more. Help us understand the three articulators of spiritual life, the Church has come to an understanding of three stages called the purifying stage, the illuminating

stage and the unitive way. I don't like to use technical language very much because it sort of puts things in a mysterious sphere like what exactly is that? I don't like to use a lot of technical spiritual theology language. That's sort of like the beginning, the middle, and the end. And the beginning is about the initial stages of conversion and repentance, like turning away from serious sin, or waking up that God exists, coming to understand that you need to really start to conform your life to the Lord, you need to start praying,

you need to start going to mass, and you need to start going to confession, you need to start bringing your life into a certain stability of living as a Catholic. And so, Saint Teresa of Avila says, there's no reason that people who get to a basic place of stability in their life as a Catholic, they're praying, they're not regularly falling

into mortal sin, things are going pretty well in their life type of thing. She says, there's no reason why these people can't go to mansion seven. So we're talking about mansion three and four here. And she says, there's no reason why people who get to mansion three or four can't go all the way. She says the reason why they stop there

is they lack knowledge or they lack desire, or they lack determination. So she says, if you lack any of those things, ask God to give them to you and he will. So it's sort of like you qualify for divine welfare. You know, you reach your end, your limit, you know, you've reached the limit of your resources, of your will, of your mind.

And Teresa says, don't be discouraged, don't say that's all there is. Ask God to give you a greater desire, ask God to give you a greater determination, ask God to give you a greater knowledge, you know, both self-knowledge and knowledge of Him. So I sometimes forget to do that, you know, sometimes like I'm sometimes puzzling over how to understand something in the faith. Like right now what I'm puzzling over is what's it really like to

not have your body, you know, after you die. Like, what is that? You know, like, you know, you're with the Lord, you know, after you get out of Purgatory, if you were in Purgatory, even in Purgatory, like, what's it like this whole intermediate time where you're somehow a soul and a spirit, and, you know, how do you see, how do you know,

how do you recognize other people, like, how does it all work? So I'm just recognizing that I really should ask the Lord about that. I'm gonna consult Thomas Aquinas about it too. Yeah, good. Yeah, I'm sure he's got some really good insight into that, really.

But I'm just asking the Lord, help me understand, because I'm trying to picture a very, very important stage of our spiritual journey where it's before the second coming, we've died, we're alive but we mysteriously don't have our bodies, so what do we have, you know? So I'm asking God to help me. That's good. They say Thomas Aquinas would lay his head against the tabernacle and weep when, when he would try to sort out a particular difficulty,

just begging the Lord for light. But it's a great point. When's the last time any of us said, Lord, give me more faith or Lord, I'm intentionally now praying for more desire, more determination. I think for a lot of us like, Oh yeah, I've kind of forgot that I have to do that. And that's why Father Schmitz, when he, when, when he said, I got to get reminded that this war, I think we all got to get reminded as warm because it's, it's easy to reach a certain plateau and say, I've gone far enough.

And one of the things Teresa talks about in interior castle is the indispensable ability of humility. She almost says, and maybe she just does say, you put it all together. She's saying those who are humble will be saved. Those who are not humble would be damned. Like it all comes down to humility, which is such a difficult virtue in some sense to cultivate.

Because if I choose to humble myself, say, by, you know, making a fool of myself in an appropriate prudent by, you know, making my, making a fool of myself in an appropriate prudent way, you know, maybe whatever I can then congratulate myself for what a humble person I am. It's really difficult to know if you're humble. So I wanted to ask you, how can we cultivate humility? Um, maybe what are some signs that we're either prideful or going in humility? Yeah. Well, I think that,

and then we'll get onto the rest of the stages, the spiritual life. I understand we just took a diversion there. That's okay. Uh, yeah. Um, I think the thing that I find most helpful to humility is getting a glimpse of how truly without him I could do nothing. You know, and so it comes from like insight revel into what God's revealing to us about Himself and about us, and that really without him I could do nothing. Without him I am lost, I will be lost, I was lost. You know, so I just sort of like the total dependence on God.

And then also just recently saying grace before meals has become less routine and more like, well Lord, wow, once again, you're providing daily bread. You know? And I'm so happy in the wintertime I almost every day I thank the Lord that there's heat in the house, you know, you know, I just feel Grateful for everything the Lord's providing, you know and knowing that That I'd be I'd be lost naturally and supernaturally without his continual I'd be lost naturally and supernaturally without his continual provision, you know?

And so it makes me feel my limitedness, my dependence, and my gratitude towards the Lord. So that's the thing I found most helpful, and it's just something I think the Lord infuses in us through prayer, through scripture, through whatever, you know, type of thing. So. Yeah, gratitude, that's a great sign of humility.

If I'm constantly complaining about everything, that's probably not a sign that I'm being humble. I'm so grateful for my wife, you know, like, you know, how good it is to have a partner in life, you know, how good it is to be on the journey with somebody else, how good it is, you know, to just all the blessing of marriage and family. What a blessing God's given us being able to have children and grandchildren.

And so just recognizing total dependency and total gift, like St. Paul says, what do you have that you haven't been given? Nothing, including existence. Nothing, including existence. You know, God's given us the opportunity to exist. That's pretty fundamental, you know? And He's given us the hope of eternal life, you know, that the decay of our bodies and the deterioration of our minds

isn't going to be the end, but He's going to raise us from the dead, you know, give us bodies like His, you know. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. That's why I'm trying to figure out the intermediate state, but when we get our resurrected bodies, we already know that they're going to be really cool. You know, we can eat fish somehow or other, even though we're now spiritual bodies, we can walk through walls, we can appear and disappear. And then the saints do ask God the Father occasionally give them extra little glimpses into what it's like. Like Catherine of Siena says,

will we recognize people in heaven? Will we still be close to people we're close to? What does he say to her? Oh, he says wonderful things. He says, relationships that were godly relationships on earth are gonna be even better in heaven. People are gonna be even closer and it's gonna be even more union and it's not gonna take away from the blessing that this relationship is or that these relationships are

for everybody else in heaven. So it's not gonna be like an exclusive possessive thing, but it's going to be a special and particular thing. Can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I, um, you know how, the more you get to know somebody, the more unique you realize that they are. I mean, before you get to know them, you sort of look upon humanity in a coffee shop or at a bus station or wherever you see them.

And you sort of characterize them, like they're like this, they're like that. You've got your kind of narrow minded ways of putting people into categories. But anybody who's got children sees how incredibly different every single child is. And you're amazed at just how different they are. And you know, I've been married 15 years now

and there's times I'll look at my wife and I think, who are you? Like you are a mystery to me. And so heaven just must be all the more like that, where you look upon someone and be like, I had no idea you were this fantastically wonderful. Yeah, I really think it's going to be like that because all the things we now see through a glass darkly, including seeing each other through a glass darkly, then we're going to see face to face, including seeing each other face to face. And. Then we're going to see face to face, including seeing each other face to face. And so that's really what God the Father told Catherine of Siena.

So all the things that how we miss each other and don't understand each other and don't get each other and don't satisfy each other in different ways, all those impediments to perfect communion are going to be removed. And we're going to have perfect union with people that we're most close to on earth in godly relationships. So, godly marriages, godly friendships, godly family relationships, godly co-discipleship relationships are going to be even better in heaven. But

those things that are in Christ are going to be perfected, you know, including our relationships. Then she also goes on to say, what do we do in heaven? Who's this, Catherine? Catherine, yeah. And God the Father said, well, you're gonna be interceding for those that you love that are still on earth. I'm gonna do everything I can to answer your prayers

for them, provided that they don't foolishly resist my mercy. So right now, Jesus is interceding for us at the right hand of the Father. That's one of the things he's doing. I think he's a multitasker. Yeah, I'd say so. You know, and he's interceding right now

for those of us on earth, you know? And God the Father tells Catherine that you're gonna join that intercession and you're gonna be intercessing, particularly for people that you loved on earth that are still on earth, that they finished their journey and I'm gonna do everything I can to answer your prayers provided that they don't foolishly resist my mercy." So he's not promising an automatic answer to this really

powerful intercession but he's promising that he's gonna give maximal opportunities but people still have to say that yes to mercy. They still have to humble themselves They still have to repent and believe, you know, so Yeah, so we talked about the beginning the purgative way. Yeah, talk about the other two delusional Yeah, little toes where you know, you're not You know, you're not racked and ruined by continually falling into serious sin. There's a certain stability in your life.

There's a certain regularity. You're going to mass, you're praying. You're trying to be a Christian father, a Christian wife, or a Christian mother. And you're trying to live a good Catholic life like so many people are today. So we talk about all the terrible things that are happening. There's a lot of good things happening too, isn't there?

I mean, like there's just a lot of people that are awake in the Lord right now, and there's a lot of apostolic activity going on that's really good, and a lot of movements and organizations and new religious orders and all that kind of stuff. So that's good. So the Illuminati way though is where you kind of start to dig in on overcoming these patterns that we've been talking about where, you know, you're free now from being a slave to mortal sin, but now there's still the issue of venial sin.

So what Teresa of Avila and Francis de Sales say is that you need to make a distinction between inadvertent venial sin and advertent venial sin. And Teresa refers us to the book of Proverbs where it says the just person falls seven times a day. So there's this wounds of our fallen nature that are still there. The guilt of original sin has been taken away, but the woundedness is still there.

The woundedness of our past sin and people's sins against us are still there. And so the old man is still alive until the day we die. And so the old man kind of keeps throwing stuff up like little momentary indulgence in a bad thought, maybe a little white lie that we tell out of embarrassment without reflection or premeditation, or a little bit of gossip, or a little bit of detraction or slander, whatever. But because we're not premeditating them,

because we're not intending them, because we're not consciously choosing to do these things, they're no big deal, the saints say. They'll get less over time. But they say what is a big deal is freely choosing to offend the Lord, even in a small matter. So Teresa and Francis both say, it's really important to make a clear decision. I never want to freely choose to offend the Lord, even in a small matter.

And this removes an obstacle to the work of the Holy Spirit in our soul. And quite honestly, I was careless about Vinylsson. I was so glad not to be committing mortal sin. I was, you know, what's the big deal about Vinylsson? And my wife would try to point this out to me, and I wasn't too receptive to her. What do you mean? How did you do that? She'd say, Ralph, I don't think you should be so careless about this or that, or I wasn't too receptive to her. What do you mean? How did she do that? She'd say, Ralph, I don't think you should be so careless about this or that, or I don't think you should say that, or that type of thing.

But would she refer to it as sinful in a kind of Christian understanding, or would she just point out your flaws? No, she wouldn't call it sinful, but the implication was, this is not the ideal. You know, this is not what you should be saying or doing type of thing. And it wasn't grave, but it was careless and not right. But then one day I read Teresa of Avila and she was talking about nuns in her convent who were complaining about not feeling well, and they were like over attached to health.

I guess it's possible to be that. So she says they stay away from community prayer three days because they just had a headache. They stay away from another day because who knows they could start aching again. And they stay away another day because who knows, it could ache again. And she says, well, another day, because who knows, it could ache again. And she says, God help me, this complaining among nuns.

If they don't swallow death, they'll never do anything. If they don't accept that they're gonna die and they're not gonna be able to preserve their life and they need to take a little pain now and then in order to keep on praying and serving. So honestly, I felt really convicted about that. I'll tell you how it relates to being in sin in just a minute, but I felt like I was over attached to how I was feeling.

Like if I was, didn't get enough sleep the night before or had an upset stomach, I just wasn't feeling good. I'd say, well, maybe I should wait till I feel better to pray that type of thing. You know, or I was just sort of like, sort of back off from what I should be doing. And honestly, she just convicted me. The Lord used what she said to convict me. I'm not a nun, but I'm a guy in Michigan and I really felt convicted about being over-concerned

about my health and I felt delivered. You know, I felt like sometimes a word can convict you and you can get delivered. You know, there's power in a word spoken in the Holy Spirit, you know? And so from that day on, I can convict you and you can get delivered, you know, this power in a word spoken in the Holy Spirit, you know. And so from that day on, I can honestly tell you that was, I don't know, 20 years ago, whatever it was, from that day on, I just haven't been concerned hardly at all about my health.

Even when I've actually had some health issues, you know, hey, maybe I'll die. Okay. You know, I just felt like I got delivered from the fear of death and I got delivered from the fear of illness, you know. So anyway, so then I read the stuff about venial sin and I felt like I felt convicted again. I just felt like, yeah, I'm offending the Lord, I'm living a sloppy spiritual life, I need to make a clear decision that I never want to freely choose to offend the Lord, even in a small matter, after reading Teresa.

And I made that decision, and I have to tell you, I think it's very possible to make that decision. You know, I think God, that's an easy grace to have, you know, that's an easy decision to make, and it's very, very helpful. You know, it really removes a little murkiness in our soul, it really removes something that's not right about our well-being and conformity with God's will and things like that. How do we avoid a spiritual solipsism as we attempt to, with the Lord's help, uproot these minor sins in our life. Because I look at my wife and she doesn't

have a sort of melancholic disposition like I do. So she's not continually self-reflective in the way that I am, but she's outward focused and I think she's doing much better than I am because of that. So I think we can kind of fall into a sort of spiritual paralysis through thinking too much about these things. Yeah. Well, all these saints are tremendously strong that you can't separate love of God from love of your neighbor, and that one of the signposts about whether you're really growing in union with the Lord or not is whether you're growing in love, compassion. You know, and so, this isn't just about our perfection, our spiritual life, this is about our availability to the Lord to be His servant.

This is about our availability to the Holy Spirit to be His instrument. This is about our availability to take our place in the mission of Christ, to seek and to save those who are lost, you know, and to deny ourselves every day and follow Him. So yeah, they're very, very strong on the link

between love of God and love of a neighbor. And unfortunately, I think that this is a problem right now in the Catholic Church. I think a lot of people are concerned about their own spiritual life, but they're concerned about it in a very self-focused, self-centered way, and they don't see, they don't see the call to relationship. They don't see the call't see, they don't see the call to relationship,

they don't see the call to service, they don't see the call to love, they don't see the call to being with other people on the journey, and being with other people serving. And so, I think one of the weaknesses of the Catholic Church is a private relationship with the Lord that isn't supposed to be just private, but it's supposed to be communal. It's supposed to be missionary.

Even for the hermit, right? Right. Even for the person who's forsaken all human relationships, he's praying on behalf of the world. He's not just focused about his own. Yeah, absolutely. You know? And so I think a zeal for souls should arise in the soul of those who are getting closer to the Lord because that's what's in the heart of the Lord, was zeal for souls. Growing in holiness is growing in love. It's not just growing in saying more prayers, it's growing in love. It's growing in union with God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son. And we want to be given too, you know, for the sake of the world.

So what's the unitive stage, the final of the three? You know, there's so much more in the Luminatube, but that's a little taste. Well, they'll have to get the book. A little taste, a little taste, yeah. Well, the unitive way is, and we were talking about this off the camera, so to speak, a while ago, where you go through purification, you go through what John across describes as dark nights. And what a dark night, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, because I think honestly sometimes we're so wimpy

that we just consider any spiritual discomfort as, oh I'm going through a dark night. Yeah, yeah,'s there's a normal fluctuation of our experience of the presence of the Lord, the love of the Lord. It's normal sometimes not to feel his presence, not to feel his love. It's normal sometimes to be getting weary and serving him. It's normal sometimes to feel a repugnance for spiritual things. And that's where we just need to kind of push through. Say that again, because I mean, that's like a sign of being possessed, isn't it?

Like a repugnant of spirits, repugnance to spiritual things. No, it's the Holy Spirit tapping into deeper levels of our resistance to God and surfacing them. What does that look like practically? Well, you don't want to pray. Yeah. You don't want to show up to serving other people. You don't want to engage with your wife. You don't want to, you know, type of thing.

So, but, and John of course says periodically, you know, he says a lot, but he says periodically, the Lord removes our experience of His presence and love to surface in us things that we need to conquer through faith. So what's going to happen is that faith is going to be tested, hope is going to be tested, love is going to be tested, and the way they grow is not just through positive infusions of the Spirit, but the way they grow is by taking away supports, which gives us an opportunity to make decisions, I believe even though I don't see. I hope even though I don't possess. I love even though I'm

not experiencing love in return, you know, and that kind of is something where God deepens faith, hope, and love in us through these dark nights. I see. Okay. But he also says that not everything that we experience as dark nights is actually an action of God. He says sometimes we can be experiencing this emptiness, this dryness, this repugnance for things, this emptiness. Sometimes it comes with external trials as well, illness or humiliation or financial setbacks or whatever,

relationship problems. He says, sometimes it's because of our own carelessness. Sometimes it's because of our own infidelity to the spiritual practices that keep us in communion with the Lord. So if we're allowing too much of the world into our soul, if we're too much passive entertainment, too much distraction, too much news, too much podcasts, too much, you know, too much information about what's going on in the world or the church, you know. A certain amount of information is helpful, but too much kind of consumes our soul. So he says sometimes we can stop praying, we can drift away from prayer, we can drift away from

relationship with other people that help us keep, you know, zealous in the spiritual journey. And he says, and we experience this darkness, this emptiness and dryness, but it's not a dark night. It's something we brought on ourselves. So like Teresa of Avila said, the only solution for this kind of darkness and dryness is repentance. And you got to return to your first love. You know, book of Revelation, you know, I have this against you. I want you to return to your first love. Book of Revelation, I have this against you.

I want you to return to your first love. And when you drift away, it's hard. It's like physical fitness. Once you get out of shape, it's harder to walk that two miles a day or it's harder to run or whatever. And we got to get back into shape and it's painful. So the solution is don't get out of spiritual shape,

you know, and just keep in there, you know, keep on. John of course says also that we can experience in darkness and dryness because of physical or emotional illness. So what do the saints say about that? They say, try to get better. They say, go to the doctor, for instance, the sale says go to the doctor

and do what he tells you to do. He also says, you know, God can heal you instantly if that was the best thing for you, and if he doesn't heal you instantly, he's got a plan to bring good out of what you're suffering right now. And then he says, don't waste your suffering. Unite your suffering to the suffering of Jesus and turn it into intercession. Turn it into reparation for sin, offer it

as reparation for your own sin, reparation for other people's sin, the conversion of sinners. And even if you die, thank the Lord that he gave you such good advance warning. You know, so basically that's it. Francis de Sales has this great line that many of us have taken comfort from in Introduction to the Devout Life where he he says have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. There's something to the effect of never lose heart at seeing your own poverty,

but every day begin the task anew. Why is that so important to have patience with ourself? Because at first, it almost sounds like we're giving yourself too much leeway. You should actually be really aggravated and anxious about your own shortcomings. John of course says something very similar when he's analyzing the various disguises that pride kind of takes in. He says pride can manifest itself in impatience with your spiritual development. You know, it's kind of like I should be better, I should, you know, I'm better than this, or I

should be doing better, that type of thing. He says, you need to be patient with yourself until God gives you the grace, it gives you the acts in your soul type of thing. So impatience with your spiritual growth can actually be rooted in pride. So he's like, he's a master at identifying things like that. But then he says, sometimes people are too patient, you know, with their spiritual

failure. So there is that middle, the good middle. So without the direction of a good spiritual father, how do you know whether you're being too patient or not patient enough? Because I would suspect that most people who are really trying to live a good Christian life, who are praying every day, who are going to Mass when they can, who are trying to raise their children in the faith, who are going to frequent confessions, or at least monthly confession or bimonthly. These are people who probably do fit the former, where they actually have to have more patience with themselves.

And my fear is that sometimes we can lead people into a scrupulosity by telling them. Well, you know, the spiritual practices don't guarantee union with the Lord. They dispose us for His action in our soul. So we need to kind of carry out the spiritual practices like doing the right things, not with the expectation that if I do the right things, I'm going to be into deeper union with the Lord. But I'm disposing myself as a beggar,

asking God for his action in my life to help me be healed from the wounds of sin or help me grow in unity with him. So it's sort of like, we need to be doing the spiritual practices from a posture of dependence and poverty, you know, and just depending on the Lord, trusting in him, and not from a posture of if I try harder or do better,

you know, I'm gonna actually get the goal. The only way you're gonna get the goal if the Lord does it to you. Only God is holy. Like Jesus said, call no man good. You know, somebody called Jesus good, he said, call no man good. Nobody's good, only God is good.

Only God can impart goodness to us. He wants us to want it. He wants us to strive for it, but not in an anxious way, but in a dependent, hopeful, faithful way. Let's talk a little bit about the hope Christians ought to have in their salvation. Because I know I've had you on the show before and we've talked about the reality of hell, the narrow way and the broad way, which we can continue to talk about. However, I think, you know, you said it to me last night and it's, where is it, 1 Timothy 2, 4, is it? God desires all men to be saved.

So God desires my salvation and your salvation and those watching salvation more than we desire it ourselves. Absolutely. And we ought to have, you know, is it Psalm 51? Return to me the joy of the salvation you've given me, you know? So we ought to have a joy in the salvation that we have. It doesn't mean we have infallible certainty because we could fall away, we could be deluding ourselves, and yet surely this joy and this confidence is something the Father wants us to have. Yeah. No, I think Catholics unfortunately make too much out of the technical theological distinction that we can't be absolutely sure that we're in the state of grace. I think that's not the biblical view. The biblical view is that if you're in Christ, you're a new creation,

the gift of the Holy Spirit has been given to you, you're eating His body and drinking His blood, you're part of the Christian community, and if you're not doing those objective things that can separate you from Christ, you should be really confident, really glad. Now, you also need to know that you need to persevere to the end, so that's where we need to guard against presumption, you know, because Jesus, a number of times, the apostles a number of times says, He who perseveres to the end will be saved. So we need to have a certain soberness. That's right. That doesn't take away from the basic joy and confidence that we are Christians. You know,

we've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and if we just keep depending on the Lord and keep, you know, doing what He's asking us to do as best we can, we're gonna be with him forever. And it's fantastic. In fact, we're even told, 1 Peter chapter one, it says, "'Set all your hope on the gift that will be yours "'when Christ Jesus appears.'" We should be looking forward eagerly

to the resurrection of the body. We should be looking eagerly to the fullness of redemption that comes at the end of time, that comes to us at the end of time. And we should take great hope and great consolation from knowing that we have already been given the gift of eternal life, and if we don't turn away from it, wow.

I mean, how much would Bill Gates give for eternal life? How much would he pay for it? The Psalm says, what price can a man pay for his own soul? You can't. You can't give all the gold in Fort Knox and get eternal life. You can't. It's being offered, though, as a free gift to those who repent and believe and join themselves to Jesus and follow his instructions about how to return to paradise. Jesus is here to take us back to paradise. Pay attention to him. Grab a hold of him, don't let go.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's no small thing. We shouldn't underestimate the fact that it is possible that we will fall away. We only have to look at certain public figures who have been worship leaders or church leaders or podcasters, who knows, uh, who have then apostatized. I mean, if it's true for them that they made that choice, leaders or podcasters, who knows, who have then apostatized. I mean, if it's true for them that they made that choice, it could be true for you and I, and we have to have that sort of-

Yeah, that's where there's a balance in the scripture. Work out your salvation if you're in trembling, and make a joyful noise to the Lord. Yes. That sort of thing. It's sort of like, and it's a balance that you don't intellectually accomplish. It's a balance that is accomplished in you

by the Holy Spirit. And that by meditating on the word of God, you get warnings. 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, "'Look what happened to people in the Old Testament "'who turned away, they were destroyed. "'These things have been preserved in sacred scripture "'for you as a warning upon whom whom the end of the ages has come.

So we're supposed to be sobered by the fact that people have turned away from the Lord and it's a disaster to turn away from the Lord. Judgments have happened in history and judgment will happen at the end of time. God is not to be mocked. So it's a balance, but it's a balance that the Holy Spirit can create in our soul. So on a daily basis, we're living in joy, we're living in confidence, we're living in peace,

and yet at the same time there's a certain soberness. Even I could fall. There's a disagreement between John of the Cross and Teresa about whether we can ever be confirmed in grace. You know, like whether we can get to the point where it's impossible for us to fall. And Teresa says it's always possible, you know. Yeah, that you can fall from the seventh mansion.

Yes, you can, you know. So I think that and this is what happens to people. This is you can, you know. So I think that, and this is what happens to people, this is what happens to spiritual people, this is what happens to spiritual leaders. They know the Lord, they know His power, they know fruitfulness and ministry, they know deep intimate relationship, they've had incredible mystical experiences, whether they're charismatic or contemplative or whatever. And somehow they feel like that they're above the law in a certain kind of way. This is the danger that I'm too strong to fall, or I can allow myself this indulgence,

or I can start to make little compromises in my life. And yes, I used to have a problem with drinking, but I know I don't now. Or yes, I used to have a problem with loss, but I can really, I'm free from that. And just making little compromises, little exceptions. And little by little, getting to the point where you can have a serious fall. And not only a serious fall, but a serious fall that pridefully and angrily you don't repent from, you know. So have you seen, I mean, you've been doing ministry for how many years now? 50 more? Yeah.

I mean, what's it like to see people who've been co-workers in the vineyard turn away from the Lord? It's very sobering and there's a lot of casualties. There really are a lot of casualties. You know, there's a, I think somebody wrote a book once called The Devil Likes a Shining Mark. The devil does nothing more than to destroy somebody who's really doing damage to his kingdom, who's advancing in union with the Lord, who's expanding his ministry.

The devil does nothing more. You know, and so that's why I think we need the protection of solid relationships, people that really can speak into our life. You know, it happens in marriage, but I've been in a men's group for 50 years now, you know, different men, different times, you know, that type of thing. But I think we need to be in relationship with other Christians that are also serious about following Jesus and able to talk about our life with them, able to talk about how we're doing in prayer, how we're doing in dealing with temptation, whether we need their prayer support and encouragement, how we're doing in our ministry, how we're doing dealing with what's happening in the

church and the culture, how we're doing in our family. So I just think, you know, part of the Cursillo movement that was so instrumental for me was they have these little small groups that they get people into afterwards. And so I've been in some kind of small group ever since and very, very important. So I would encourage everybody to have spiritual friendships. Francis DeSales says you need to have spiritual friendships, you know, where we don't just talk about sports, we just don't talk about the weather, we just don't talk about politics, but we talk about Him and we talk about where we are in our relationship with Him and where we are in living as disciples in our families and so on and so forth. No doubt we've got people who watch Pines with Aquinas who would say, look, I want to believe in Jesus Christ, you know, maybe once I did,

but I just can't find myself to be able to intellectually assent to this. It seems beyond my power. It's not that I don't want to. Yeah. It's that I do want to, but surely I can't believe something if it's not true. What sort of advice would you give to them? Well, I would say ask the Lord about that. Say, Lord, if you exist and I've fallen into some kind of deception, or I've fallen into some kind of rationalization, or I've been deceived by the spirit of the age, show me. I would just encourage them to do what they can to say, Lord, if you're there, if you do exist, if I made a mistake,

if I'm deceived, please, please show me. You know, I think there's all kinds of great apologetics about, you know, books approve the resurrection of Jesus, or, you know, give good evidence for it. There's all kinds of good evidence about the reliability of scripture. There's all kinds of, there's all kinds of great apologetic literature.

You probably know what to refer people to, but I would say it's a heart thing. And it's a mind thing. And I do believe that people can sincerely not believe, but I think they need to say, they need to talk to the Lord about that. If he exists, you say, I'm sincerely open to you showing yourself to me. And sometimes even as they say that prayer, they know that they're not sincerely open. And sometimes even as they say that prayer, they know that they're not sincerely open. Joan of Arc, it's attributed to her as saying, if I'm in mortal, what does she say?

If I'm in a state of grace, keep me there. And if I'm not, put me there. I love that prayer. Yeah. It's really what it's all about. Yeah. Are you working on any other books? Well, just once a year, we have a weekly TV program called The Choices We Face on EWTN. And you can get it anywhere. And we offer a free booklet to people each year. So this year is my turn to write the booklet.

And I wrote a book called Join the Resistance. And I'm not calling people to join the political resistance, but like Scripture says, resist the devil and hopefully from you. So we've got to get tough. We've got to resist and not just lay down and accept the lies of the evil one. We've got to identify them and we've got to resist them. We've got to use the shield of faith that extinguishes the fiery darts of the evil one. We've got to be able to identify what's from the Lord and what's not from the Lord. We need to know how to hear the voice of the Lord,

to know his objective revelation in Scripture and so forth. So it's sort of like a call to, hey, we're living in a chaotic time in the culture and the church, and we need to get clear in our own heads what the truth is and resist the lies. I want to make a plug here for Exodus 90, we need to get clear around our heads what the truth is and resist the lies. I want to make a plug here for Exodus 90, because it has to do with exactly what you're talking about there with getting tough. Exodus 90 is an ascetical program for men to help them grow in the spiritual life. If you're tired of living this kind of cushy existence with your bum warmers in

the car and your warm showers, I mean, it can really make us into spiritual wooses. And we have this culture of dispensation in the church today where we just always sort of dispense ourselves from this or that. If you want to get serious about living a masculine spiritual life, go check out Exodus nine zero dot com slash Matt. Yep. Exodus 90 nine zero dot com slash Matt. Yep. Exodus 90 nine zero dot com slash Matt. You can do 90 days of fasting

and praying and things like this. They also have Exodus 90 that you can do for a week and you can sort of sign up. The app is really top notch. You can download the app to learn more. Right now, if you have failed at your Lenten promises,

it's not too late to get back on the horse. You don't have to let the rest of your land go to waste. Go check out Exodus 90 dot com slash Matt, and you can sign up for their Lenten practices, which are modified. There are certain instances where you can drink alcohol, where you don't have to have cold showers, for example, but don't get the wrong impression. It's really still quite tough.

But I would recommend men check that out. I often have men come up to me and they're like, yeah, like look at our lives. I mean, it's so cushy. How can we not be these weak men? So Exodus90.com slash Matt. That sounds great, Matt. On Tuesday, I'm doing a Zoom talk with 10 priests

in Ireland who are doing Exodus 90. Are they? Yeah. What have they said about it? Well, they they said it's been really great and everything, but they need a little encouragement and support, you know, so it's tough. So they asked me to kind of talk to them for a little while on. Yeah. So, yeah, it's. So this book that's going to encourage us to get tough is a booklet.

It's a little booklet. Join the resistance and join. There's this. Yeah. People get it or do they have to get it for free?? It's a little booklet, join the resistance. People get it or do they have to watch it? Sure, they can get it for free. Yeah. How do they do that? I'll tell you the secret. All right. Go to our website, renewalministries.net. Okay. And click on free booklet. Normally people get there by watching the TV program where we offer a free booklet, but for your listeners, Matt, just to your viewers, they can skip watching the TV program

and go right from the podcast to renewalmiches.net and they'll click on free booklet and we'll send them a free booklet. That's really cool, good for you. Yeah. Yeah, how helpful of those, because you've been doing that for a while now, giving out these little booklets.

Yeah, well people, it's like Catholic tracts. Yeah. Yeah, it's like something that people can give to people. It's really good. So we got dozens of them type of thing and people order huge quantities to leave in dentist's office, not just office, and give to neighbors and things like that.

So it's an instrument of evangelization as well as personal strengthening type of thing. There really is something too about an incarnational thing that I hand to you as opposed to like texting you a link. Yeah. This is a totally different experience. Yeah. Excuse me. God uses all ways though, doesn't he? He does. Yeah. Please God is using this podcast, he's using yours. Have you been surprised at how successful your podcast is doing? Totally. I didn't even know what a podcast was. You know, when COVID hit, we had a YouTube channel. I had no idea what we were doing with it or who was doing it.

And we had 7,000 subscribers and then all our... This is on YouTube? YouTube, yeah. Yeah. Then all our travel got canceled and got canceled for a long time. You know, it's just picking up again. I'm doing my first international trip in May and, you know, it's just picking up again and doing my first international trip in May and you know, US is back big time. But so we decided how are we going to carry out our mission to seek and save those who are lost. And so we decided to do a video each week. I do one and then Peter does one that you met last weekend. And now we have 63,000 subscribers

and some, you know, our top 10 videos are all over 100,000, a couple are over 300,000. And so I was shocked last night, Matt, when you, we've been getting lots of orders for Sister Lucia's book on Fatima. I still need to get that. Fatima in her own words. And we say, where are these orders coming from? Like, what's going on? And then you showed me last night that you took out a little segment from our last interview with Fatima and it had how many? 200 something thousand? Yeah, it's crazy. 280,000 or something. Yeah, so that's where those orders are coming from. I think I deserve a free book, Ralph, if you and your people want to ship that to me, I'll be sure to try to read it. Yes, yes,

I absolutely will do that. Or at least a booklet. You definitely deserve a free book or more. How many do you want? Yeah, no, it's a fabulous book. It's, I was in Fatima a couple of years ago and I just kind of connected for the first time, you know, as a Catholic kid, I heard all about Fatima and believed in everything, but it wasn't like up close and personal type of thing. But there I kind of visited the graves of the three children, and I got this book,

Fatima and Lucy's On Words. And all I can say is that it's a little bit like the experience of reading John on the Cross in the Zurich airport. It was like, wow, these kids are in contact with heaven. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is talking to these kids, and they're listening, and their life is being transformed. And so many people's lives are being transformed because their lives have been transformed. And one night I was reading it and I began to weep for my sins. I hardly ever weep for anything, but I was actually weeping for my sins by reading that book.

And I can't tell you that the book was talking about weeping for your sins, but it just occasioned this profound sorrow for sin. And one of the things that St. Francisco says is that we shouldn't offend God in even the smallest things, you know, and it just sort of like, you know, it ties in with what we were talking about. And so many of the little things they say are just really, really something. And then, you know, people are so afraid of scaring people about hell today, and, oh, we don't want to tell children about it, you know, we don't want to scare people.

Mary showed these three little kids, seven years old, nine years old, and ten years old, a horrifying picture of what it's like to be eternally separated from God. And they freaked out, and they looked to her, and she said, you've seen hell where poor sinners go. And then she said, so many souls are going to hell because so few people are praying and offering sacrifice for them. So it was like a call for holiness and evangelization from the very beginning. And from the very beginning, the prayer that the angel taught them that we talked about earlier in the program,

it doesn't just affect us. Lord, I believe in you, I adore you, I hope you love you, and I ask your pardon for those who don't believe in you and don't adore you and don't love you. So I don't hope you don't love you. So there's this profound call to union with the Lord and His salvific purposes, profound call to obedience and communion with God, and profound call to join with the Lord

in His heart for the lost, you know, type of thing. So it's about, not just about us, it's about us. So anyway, yeah, how did we get on that? Oh, the book. Yeah. So that, that must be, I can see that. Yeah. You took that little segment and it's, it's really helping. Yeah. So many people. Yeah. It is crazy how YouTube works. We're always trying to figure out how it works. We don't know. We'll just keep throwing stuff at the same. Why are people ordering this book? I really would like to read that book.

I'm going to text you and I'll give you my address. Yeah. I don't have to buy it. Yeah. No, no, no, no. No, you're saying why are people ordering this book? I really would like to read that book. I'm gonna text you and I'll give you my address. Yeah. I can also buy it. I don't want it to be cheap. No, no, no, give me your address. Write it down, hand it to me, a little slip of paper. When I get home today, we'll get one. Yeah, I'd love that.

Because reading a first person's account is generally more interesting. It absolutely is, honestly. Books about the saints are not the same thing as what the saint himself writes. It's just an anointing about somebody who has that kind of relationship with the Lord. And the secondary literature can be helpful,

but the primary literature is really where the power is, where the anointing is, where the encounter with God is. What was your opinion of the consecration of Russia? My understanding was this had already been done and fulfilled because Saint Lucia said it had been. But what's your opinion? Yeah, well this recent consecration has triggered a historical account of all the consecrations that have happened over the years in some relationship to Mary's request,

Pope Pius XII, Pope Paul VI. And then the most significant one was John Paul II in 1984, where he consecrated the world to Mary and he asked all the bishops of the world to join him. That was what was missing in some of the other consecrations. It was just the pope doing it. And Mary asked the pope in union with the bishops of the world to join him. That was what was missing in some of the other consecrations, it was just the pope doing it. And Mary asked the pope in union with the bishops of the world to do it.

So John Paul II was obviously trying to fulfill the conditions, although he didn't name Russia. Some people said he said it under his breath because of diplomatic concerns. Now, honestly, I'm very disappointed at how many diplomatic concerns suffocate the preaching of the gospel from Rome. Maybe we're gonna offend the Russian Orthodox to do it.

Maybe we're gonna offend the Soviet government to do it. So what? Let's fear God more than man. Let's boldly proclaim Jesus no matter what. Let's boldly respond to requests from heaven no matter what, you know. People respect us more if we don't wishy-washy around, you know, with politics, you know. Did you read the consecration that Pope Francis wrote and read? Yeah, I did. What do you think? Well, first of all, I want to say that the thing that John Paul II said, people wondered if it counted or not. So they asked Lucia, who is the last remaining living child from Fatima, she said, it counts, heaven has

accepted it. I think that's the most definitive statement that we can get. Yeah, what else do you want? You know, that type of thing. So this latest consecration, I think it's the most definitive statement that we can get. Yeah, what else do you want? You know, that type of thing. So this latest consecration, I think it's good. I mean, I think it's really good that the world in its time of need turns towards heaven. You know, Pope Francis did specifically mention Russia, but he also mentioned Ukraine, so people are going to say, well, it wasn't exactly, you know, exactly what was supposed to happen. So I think we should accept the words of Lucia that heaven accepted what John Paul II did. And of course what John Paul II did,

later on, a few years later, Russia began to disintegrate. The Soviet Union began to fall in 1989, 1990. Who would have ever thought that would happen? And then there has been some kind of real Christian revival in Russia. First of all, the evangelicals rushed in 1990, who would have ever thought that would happen? And then there has been some kind of real Christian revival in Russia. First of all, the evangelicals rushed it into a whole bunch of stuff, and then thousands of monasteries

have been returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and we may have criticisms about their close relationship to the government, but the fact is that the monastic life is thriving again in Russia, you know? So, I don't know. It's always, prophecy has always been difficult to envision how it's supposed to be fulfilled. You know, so, you know, who could have put together,

you know, the Messiah coming and rescuing Israel and the suffering servant, you know, these, all these different strains, you know, who could have put together, you know, the Messiah coming and rescuing Israel and the suffering servant, you know, these, all these different strains, you know, until something actually happens, it's hard to really speak definitively about what's supposed to happen. Mary says something good is supposed to happen if there's repentance between World War I and World War II, Russia will, otherwise Russia will spread its errors throughout the whole world. The amazing thing is that Russia

has spread its errors throughout the whole world, even though we're not calling it communism in the United States, but atheistic materialism is alive and well, you know, in the Western countries. Do you have any thoughts about Medjugorje? I like Medjugorje. Yeah, I've been there a couple times and I've looked into it. I've Medjugorje. Yeah, I've been there a couple times and I've looked into it. I've I looked at a lot of the original video footage of the early apparitions and I don't see any way in which the children could be faking. Word is that the Vatican has agreed that the early apparitions are authentic but they can't say anything about the whole thing until it's over because there's these ten

secrets that are part and parcel of the message, you know. See, sometimes this stuff just sounds like tabloidy. Yeah, so I have to say, you know, either it's going to happen or it's not going to happen. Which is why, as you said earlier, Christ is the foundation. It's not the papacy. It's not visions of LAD in certain countries or cities or places. Yeah.

It's got to be Christ. Because I'm sometimes afraid that Protestants are tuning into us, being like, okay, what is happening? Where? Bosnia, Herzegovina? Sometimes it does seem that the time that Catholics spend and the way they talk about Mary, that she's more central than Christ.

Sometimes it does come across like that, no question about it, and that's a problem. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. I think it's important to acknowledge that to our Protestant friends who would approach us and kind of like what we said earlier, like papering over the thing, saying there's no problem here. That doesn't help anybody if it's not true. Similarly, if a Protestant comes and says, don't you Catholics put too much emphasis on Mary? You say, well, sure, some do. But is there a specific teaching you're referring to or a specific devotional practice that you're criticizing?

Because I can respond to that, but the abuse doesn't negate the use. I mean, there's also Protestants who choose to spend their time with the Lord without going to church. They only read the Bible. They don't think they need to go to church or something like that. But you wouldn't say, well, therefore there's a problem with the Bible or Bible reading. Right. And chapter 8 of the Constitution on the Church from Vatican II, I know right now the comments are going to light up, is a fabulous chapter on Mary. It really fully honors her, but it talks about

fully honors her, but it talks about everything that is accomplished through her is because of Christ, and that we shouldn't talk about it in a way that obscures the primary mediation of Jesus. And we use titles about Mary in an allegorical way or metaphorical way. We don't literally mean she's our Savior, she's participating in salvation through Jesus type of thing. I'm not getting the exact wording right, but it's a great chapter that I think doesn't in any way diminish Marian devotion, but really properly relates it to Christ in the Church. Yeah, I think Christians can legitimately say the following sentence. If it were not for Mary, I would be damned. And if you can, and here's a way to show people who are skeptical. Replace the word Mary with cross.

If it were not for the cross, I would be damned. I think most Christians would agree with that and understand what I mean. Okay, but if I can say that about an inanimate object that by God's providence was used to bring about the salvation of man, surely I can say that about a person who had a choice in the matter. And so, if you can show how that lion is justified, which I think I just did very briefly, then I think you can show that almost everything else anybody's ever said about Mary can be justified as well. I think it's important, when we talk to Protestants about Mary to begin by saying what we're not saying, and then say what we are saying.

Otherwise, people get confused. No, I think that's really true. Honestly, if you look at, for example, devotion to our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, and you see people on their knees coming towards Mary. It looks like they're worshipping her. It looks like they're worshipping her. Some might be, you know, but they're not supposed to be, you know, type of thing. You know, Catholics don't want us to worship Mary. She's a creature. There's actually a heresy for that, which I've forgotten the name of, in which some

said that Mary was the fourth person of the Blessed Trinity or something. This is being condemned by the church. In fact, Louis de Montfort, who sometimes I really enjoy, sometimes I think he's too much, like too flowery, I just don't enjoy his style. Not what he's saying, but just how he says it personally. I love what he has to say about the Blessed Virgin Mary in the beginning of True Devotion to Mary. He says, you know, the, the, the Lord never has nor has now nor will ever have any absolute need of the blessed Virgin Mary and that she is less than an atom or rather nothing at all compared to he who is. That's how he kind of begins. That's amazing. Yeah, that's what he says.

But then he goes on to say, however things being the way they are, we can trust that he who doesn't change will not change his plan. I mean, it was through Mary that we receive Christ, and he continues in that way, but that's what he says. Yeah. Well, I think the Catholic teaching on Mary is very sound, and like I say, I think chapter eight expresses it very well. But I also think that there's no question about it, that I think the Lord is currently

and has in the past sent Mary on missions to remind people about the gospel, to remind people about the stakes, to remind people about what's at stake. And I think there's been extraordinary fruit that's come from it, you know, whether it's Guadalupe and the Aztecs turning to Christ. Yeah, it's an amazing story. Yeah, just all the people have begun to pray and offer sacrifice for sinners to Medjugorje, through Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, you know, I think five million people come each year

to these major Marian shrines and a lot of people come Opening their hearts and minds to the Lord I'm sure there's a mixture in people's lives, but I you know, the Lord has given some pretty extraordinary Technical miracles, you know at Lord's and Medjugorje, you know millions and millions of people have experienced conversion. So you know, many vocations have come out of Medjugorje, many priests have gotten their vocation there. So if you know them by their fruits, there's some amazingly good fruits.

I mean, I don't know if I would go with you all the way in that argument. You don't have to, because we can agree and still like each other, right? Yeah. Disagree. I disagree on that. I think we should not like each other when we did not. No, but I mean, just because something's bearing fruits, it doesn't mean that thing is authentic. It doesn't, but it's one of the signs that Jesus says about how to know whether something,

you know, a bad tree bears bad fruit, good tree bears good fruit. Yeah, but then someone would have to do an investigation into what fruit has Magigore actually born. I'm not convinced it is all good. I don't know. Yeah, well, I think. But I would, I mean, maybe I'm nitpicking. I do agree that certainly people go to Magigore

and have profound experiences of conversion. It's beautiful to see. Yeah. I just don't think it proves that what's happening is... Yeah, it's one of the significant factors that you evaluate. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. That heresy you're talking about is called Choleraism.

That's right. Yeah, Choleraism. What does that mean? Does it say? So it says it comes from... Isn't he good? ...a Greek word, which means bread roll, because the heresy was that they were doing a Udvaristic sacrifice. Oh dear God. They were offering sacrifice to Mary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. I think it's pronounced Koli-ris, which means bread roll, because the heresy was that they were doing

like a Eucharistic sacrifice. Oh dear God, they were offering sacrifices to Mary. Yeah, so Koli-ridianism has been officially condemned. Yeah, Mary is not a deity. Yeah. I think individual Catholics should definitely cultivate a relationship with Mary and the saints. They're not dead, they're alive.

We're part of the communion of saints. We know in many ways that if they're united to Jesus, they're united to his care for the salvation of souls, they're interceding with them, him. And their prayer must be particularly powerful because they're particularly close. They're particularly unimpeded in their intercession. Yeah. Well, here's what we'll do. We are about to wrap up here, but we're going to do a post-show wrap-up video for people who support Pines for the Quietness on Locals and on Patreon.

The reason we do this is we have things to discuss and I have something very specific in mind that would likely, well, maybe not likely, but get me pinged on YouTube if not banned. So this is kind of where we talk about those. It's unfortunate, isn't it? But that seems to be the case. I'm just looking over here at your award.

My award, yes. YouTube gave you an award for passing 100,000 subscribers. Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. It's now 211,000. Not that I'm counting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, it's, it's funny. You look at awards like that, that YouTube sends you think, oh, this is cool. Like we're on the same team. They're congratulating me, but no, no. Yeah. Like you speak deliberately against secular dogma and they will just rip your platform from out from under you. Even in really arbitrary ways sometimes I think.

I think sometimes it's legitimate. They're a private company who have specific rules, but sometimes it's like, man, you speak against the narrative. So that's, that's what we're going to do. So if you are a supporter on Patreon or locals, please go over there. We're going to do a recording now and upload this. And if you're not yet a supporter, please consider supporting the work of Pints with Aquinas.

All of this stuff costs money. People work here, not just me, and we want to be able to pay them because they like that. So patreon.com slash Matt Fradd, or I think it's locals.mattfradd.com or something. I don't know. Look at her while I do this voice. I also do morning podcasts on locals. So matphrad.locals.com.

Locals is a free speech platform that isn't going to kick me off. Oh, that's really quite cool. I did this big talk on transgenderism and sent it to the heads of locals because they were the ones trying to get me over. And I was pretty convinced it was going to upset them. I mean, they weren't practicing Christians, but they were like, no, this is

terrific. Well done. Really great. Oh, great. Yeah. So that might be where we end up heading to locals after a while because it's like a, something like a YouTube, it's like, it's, it's a social media platform where people can support you financially to get bonus content. So it's like, it's like a mix between Patreon and Facebook. Okay. So I do morning podcasts called Morning Coffee. You don't have to support me to watch that. But every weekday I do a little podcast in the morning. Anyone can watch that. But then people can support you financially. So if you want to support us, you get back bonus to access this bonus content like what we're going to do. You guys should consider that. Do you guys have a? We know we don't. People support us, you know. Oh, yeah. Every, you know, like what we're gonna do. You guys should consider that. Do you guys have a? No, we don't.

People support us. Oh, yeah. We're totally dependent on donations. The Lord is very faithful in providing everything we need to do what we're supposed to do. Every now and then, maybe every four or five videos, I'll say something like, if you could help us appreciate it type of thing.

Yeah, I would recommend that. People who are watching right now, maybe you're about to start a podcast, you're about to start some initiative where you want people to support you regularly. This isn't a, this isn't a pain to say this, but local, I would choose locals over Patreon because they're not gonna ban you

for being a secular heretic. Well, I've learned something new every time, Matt. Good. I learned about locals. Yes. Well, thanks again for being new every time, Matt. Good. I learned about locals. Yes. Well, thanks again for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Your website is?

Renewalministries.net. And if people search Ralph Martin or Renewal Ministries on YouTube. Right, they'll find our YouTube channel. Yeah, and I- All those links are in the description. Isn't he great? You gotta get a kneel.

All right, God bless. Thanks, y'all.