Pints With Aquinas - The Synod, The State of the Church & How to be a Saint

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Matt talks to Ralph Martin about the state of the Church, the recent synod on synodality, and how to become a saint. Giveaway Link: www.catholicwoodworker.com/giveaway Follow Ralph on YouTube:  @RenewalMinistries  Citations: New Dubia on TransSexuals and Homoaffective Persons: https://reasonandtheology.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/rc_ddf_20231031-documento-mons-negri-en-1-1-3.pdf  Moto Propio on a New Way of Doing Theology: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/motu_proprio/documents/20231101-motu-proprio-ad-theologiam-promovendam.html  

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Visit catholicwoodworker.com slash giveaway. Again, the link is in the description below and that's how you join. Good luck. And we are live on Pines with Aquinas with Dr. Ralph Martin. Good to be back again, Matt. It's great. Live and in person.

Yeah, you know, it's funny this show, I get to know people while I interview them. I had Dale Alquist on the other day, that episode will release later, and I never met him before, didn't really speak to him much beforehand, but I feel like we're friends. This is why I come to Pittsburgh when you invite me. I feel like we are friends. I feel like we're on the same page in lots of different ways. We both want the truth. We both want honesty. We both want love. We both want fidelity to the church. We both want to try to figure out what the heck's going on today. Not easy. And speaking of figuring out what's going on today. Yeah, not easy.

Yeah. And speaking of figuring out what's going on today, you were in Australia recently. Yes. How was that? Because I'm going to go at the end of the month and I'm very excited to speak in Sydney and Adelaide. That's great.

Well, you know, being in Australia, of course I thought about you because you're the only Australian that I somewhat regularly see. Yeah. And so while I was there, I had to think about you because you're the only Australian that I somewhat regularly see. And so while I was there, I had to think about you. And it wasn't an easy decision to accept the invitation to Australia. I've been there three or four times

and it's a very long trip. Yeah. As you know. Yeah, it ruins your month. Yeah. It ruins my month. I don't bounce back quickly from international trips like that.

Well, five hours from Detroit to Los Angeles, 14 and a half hours from Los Angeles to Sydney, five hours from Sydney to Perth. So it is just really a really long trip. But I feel like the Lord's calling me particularly to try to strengthen and encourage priests these days. So I did get invitations to three different archdioceses to speak to priests, and so that's what kind of tipped the balance I did a bunch of other stuff too in parishes and things like that, but thank you for doing that really you know I respond well to you did you get a sense yes, but I think what happened is that You know the archbishops who sort of were on the same page wanted me to speak to their priest That's good.

And, you know, I couldn't really do any more than the three things I did in two and a half weeks. But, you know, so I spoke to all the young priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney, all who were ordained ten years or less. One of them was a student in our STL program, still is, you know, at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, so he kind of arranged that. And those priests are great. As you know, most priests who are dating less than 10 years around the world are really, really, you know, really focused on the Lord, trying to live holy lives, you know, committed

to evangelization. And why would you do it otherwise, right? Why would you become a priest in this day and age where the respect for priests could not be lower, certainly in places like Australia? And one of the really interesting things is that a new survey just came out, I think just a couple of days ago, and it said 80% of the new priests are considered Orthodox or conservative. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it, Matt? I mean, why would you become a Catholic priest unless you believed what the church teaches, you know? So these young priests believe it.

But at the same time, there hasn't been an upsurge of vocations with Pope Francis, like there were with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict, you know. It's sort of like... Has it stagnated or gone down? It's gone down a little bit, yeah. And you don't hear people say, I'm becoming a priest because I'm so inspired by, you know, Pope Francis. You just don't hear it. You know, so I think there's a reason for that. Maybe we'll even get into it. But one of the highlights of the time in Sydney was I had dinner with Archbishop Anthony Fisher.

I've heard good things. Yes, I consider him like the intellectual leader now after George Pella has gone, you know, of the Catholic Church in Australia. And I was really happy to read a lot of the things he said at the Synod in Rome. But I had dinner with him one night, and he came into the dinner table in his Episcopal residence, which is quite impressive and quite big, you know, type of thing, and he brought in a copy of Fulfillment of Old Desire, and he said,

would you please sign this for me? So I wasn't, I had never met him before, but I felt, well, I think this is gonna be a friendly evening, and it was. We really Would you please sign this for me? So I wasn't I had never met him before but I felt well I think this is gonna be a friendly evening and it was we really had a really good conversation about The church from Australia and what was happening things like that Then I was invited by Archbishop Julian Porteus in Hobart Tasmania to speak to all his priests which I did and also to give a lecture at the Christopher Dawson cultural center in Tasmania and then also I spent a lecture at the Christopher Dawson Cultural Center in Tasmania.

And then also I spent a night with a new Benedictine monastery that just started there. So that was really good. Where was that? That Benedictine monastery, because I think I saw videos of that. It's called the Priory of Notre Dame. And it's just about maybe 45 minutes from Hobart and it's a little group of six or seven monks. And I'd actually got to know the prior through corresponding with him when he was a monk in France even though he was a American so he did his doctoral dissertation on a similar topic as mine, you know about salvation

Yeah, so we became friends. It was really great seeing him and then I went on to Archbishop Archdiocese of Perth and There was an open invitation to all the priests who wanted to come. It wasn't a mandatory thing, so about 40 or 50 priests came. That's a good sign. Oh yeah, it's very good. Yeah, and you know how I don't waste my time, you know what I mean? I just talk about the stuff that I think is really important to talk about, you know, and, you know, the things we're under attack on these days in a marriage and sexuality, uh, salvation, heaven and hell, you know, holiness, you know, all those things. So, and I have to tell you that a lot of the priests said, we never hear this from anybody else.

And we're just so glad to hear it because we kind of believe this, but we needed some encouragement that it's still true. And it's still important. Yes, they that to you. Yes, they were. Yeah, they said it every place I was, they said that, you know, type of thing. But unfortunately, while I was in Perth, the Archbishop was called up before Parliament and every night it was on the news about a big scandal because the Bishop of Broome, that's two dioceses north of Perth, apparently had involved in serious sort of sexual wrongdoing maybe with indigenous children. The Archbishop had a kind of

report on this, but he had kept it secret. Maybe he kept the secret for good reasons. I think they were waiting to get a response from him or something like that, but it became a big scandal that he had information about credible significant crimes by one of the Australian bishops and didn't immediately go to the police with it and things like that. So, and the bishop of Broome was on the news every night kind of running away from reporters and you know, it was a terrible scene. Especially what happened to Pell who was wrongly accused and sentenced and the witch hunt that was.

Right, right, really terrible. So it's, I mean, I'm not saying there's no credibility to these accusations, but... Yeah, no. I think most people feel like, who know about the situation, including the Archbishop of Perth, feel like there is serious credibility. But while I was there, the Western Australian Parliament removed more restrictions on abortion. And now no longer you have to treat a baby who's born alive, but they just won't ask any questions. They won't look into it. The coroner won't investigate it because,

and the reason they gave is because people will feel uncomfortable if you ask them about what happened to the baby. It's just crazy, but I really felt like in some ways all these forces are at work in our culture and our country, but I was really kind of shocked to see how far advanced it was in Australia. And then in the capital territory, Canberra, the government said, Catholic hospitals

just have to start to abortions. Thanks be to God, the Catholic hospitals said we can't do abortions, but now the state is in the process of taking them over. So it's sort of like all the levers of power in Western culture today, in every country, are now in the hands of people who are hostile to Christ and the church, and they're going for the kill. They don't want anybody to say that what they're doing and what they believe and their new code of ethics, that there's anything wrong with them. It's a guilty conscience not wanting to be convicted by the light of Christ's truth. So all that's happening, and

I was really sobered by how advanced it is in Australia to tell you the truth. It's sort of like Canada. Canada, Australia, they're neck and neck with... Advanced in the way a man advances towards a cliff and then dies. Right, right, right. And then also in the state of Victoria, and I heard about this before I left for Australia, somebody sent me a news report that the Australian, the South, where, no, Victorian, the Victoria Parliament had passed a law making it a serious offense to help anybody who came to you, a counselor with same-sex attraction, wanting help to overcome it with fines up to $200,000

or jail terms up to 10 years. I thought this was fake news. I thought this is so crazy, it couldn't possibly be true. So I wrote to one of our mutual friends in Australia, Shane Bennett of Brisbane. I said, Shane, could this possibly be true? And he sent me the copy of the law. And he said, yes, unfortunately it is true.

And all the states in Australia now are developing legislation, but what happened in Victoria is the most extreme. So to clarify, if you're a therapist and you want to treat somebody with same-sex attraction because they don't wish to have it, you can go to prison for 10 years. That's what the law says. It says up to 10 years. Yeah.

Yeah. Type of thing. So I mean, it's like, I don't know. Praise God. What else to say? It's deeply disturbing because civilization is going to continue to be torn apart by our own stupidity. Yeah.

But... So I wrote to Shane and he said, unfortunately this is true, he said the church did make some protestations to the government, but the government no longer listens to the church because they've lost the credibility because of the clergy sex abuse scandal. And he says we're going through a tremendous time of humiliation now for the church in Australia, and it's going to take decades for us to recover any kind of confidence in preaching the gospel. So I don't know if that's the case or not, but I hope it's not the case. But I'll tell you, all over the world, bishops are sort of hunkering down a little bit

because they sense the power of the culture turning against them. Well, let them hunker down and let the laity proclaim the gospel with full-throatedness, because what might take 10 years naturally can take just a moment with the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen, brother Matt. Right. I totally agree, and God's doing that. It's really interesting.

Father Tom Wynany, who used to be head of the American Bishops' Doctrinal Committee and was on the International Theological Committee, recently came out, he said, there's three places in the world that's resisting this world culture coming into the church. He said the United States, Poland, and Africa. He says the rest of the world has gone quiet. Yeah, or worse, Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that type of thing. So I'm proud to be part of the American Catholic legality who are speaking clearly and are not waiting for 10 years to speak up, you know? And it's a little bit disturbing to hear Pope Francis say, oh, the

terrible American church is so backward and they're backward looking, here are the papal nuns say to the United States, Cardinal Pierre say, oh, America doesn't understand Pope Francis, and they're opposed to him. Of course, nobody wants to be opposed to Pope Francis, but we're opposed to interpretations of what he says that are contrary to the faith and are causing confusion. Contrary to the faith or ambiguous, what do you think? Well, I would say, I said interpretations of Pope Francis that are contrary to the faith, and a lot of interpretations of Pope Francis are contrary to the faith. I don't believe he's teaching anything formally heresy, but I think his lack of clarity and his obvious kind of nods in a certain direction, his obvious sympathy for a certain direction, his appointments. You know, I did a YouTube video a couple months ago saying,

I never thought I'd see this happen. And what I see is Cardinals fighting Cardinals and Bishops fighting Bishops, and whole Bishops conferences contradicting other Bishops conferences, and one thing that's a grave sin in Poland is now okay in Germany, and so this is sort of a crazy situation. The unity of the Catholic Church seems to be under very serious attack. And then after Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Fernandes as in charge of doctrine in the Catholic Church, I did a YouTube video saying it's now unmistakably clear where we're being led.

And I know that's a kind of a strong thing to say, but I think it's unmistakably clear where we're being led. And I know that's a kind of a strong thing to say, but I think it's unmistakably clear where we're being led. That, you know, lots of people say personnel is policy. Don't listen to what somebody says, but watch who they appoint because personnel is policy. And the Pope has appointed all kinds of people who are publicly on record for not believing what the Catholic Church teaches anymore about... Can you give us one example? Yes, well Cardinal Hohlerich, who was in charge of leading the Synod, the Archbishop, Cardinal of Luxembourg, gave two news conferences where he said, I don't believe that the

Catholic teaching on homosexuality is well-founded. And then when he was appearing in a news conference shortly before the Synod, somebody said, well, what about same-sex blessings? Can we bless same-sex couples? And he said, well, I think the door is open on that. And then somebody said, well, just two years ago, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith says we can't bless same-sex couples because we can't bless sin. And then Cardinal Hollerick said, well, I don't think the door is closed. I think that's still an open question. Archbishop Fernandez said the same thing, you know, so it's pretty clear.

So if the bishops are confused, no wonder the sheep are. Right. And I think, I think there's particularly devout Catholics are troubled. Catholics who are Catholic in name only, maybe cheering it on, saying, oh good, alas, the church is kind of getting with the times,, alas it's getting real, you know, about where the world is with sexuality. But honestly, accommodating to the world is a recipe for disaster. You know, we're betraying our mission, we're betraying the whole reason why Jesus sacrificed his life for us. sacrifice this life for us? Well, I'll be honest with you, I have really kept out of the news of the Synod and the things like this, and it's for selfish reasons, it's not for like intentional reasons. It's like I just don't care. Maybe I should because I run this channel. Tell me why

you don't care. That would be an interesting answer. I don't care because I suspect that what I will find will be at best kind of just confusing. So if I squint correctly, I'll be like, you know, this makes sense. Yeah, of course we could bless people in same-sex relationships, like we can bless anybody, provided we're not blessing the union. But then I go, well, I see that, but then I can also see how everyone around the world will interpret that the way they wish to. So I'm kind of expecting, and maybe I'm wrong too, a bunch of ambiguity. So that's why I'm not interested. No, I think exactly that's the case. And remember when we talked about what we could talk about in this program, you suggested talking about the Senate. Do you remember my answer?

You said I haven't read the documents, didn't you? I said I don't want to talk about the Senate. You know, I think it's a waste of time. I honestly, until it's over next October, until Pope Francis publishes his post-Sinatto epistolic expectation, it'll just be a bunch of speculation. Yeah, we won't even find out what this is all about, because in the last analysis, the Synod's not gonna cite anything. The Synod just kind of gives its reports to recommendations to the Pope,

and the Pope can accept them or not accept them. So, you know, I think the Pope already knows what he's gonna say, so in some ways, this is a waste of time, although, since I told you I didn't want to talk about the synod, I think I could say a couple things about it, because I think what's happening is the methodology of the synod is undermining the authoritative teaching of the church. And the methodology of the synod is these things called conversations in the Holy Spirit, where everybody sits around and gives their opinion on everything, and then they give reports saying, you know, we

agreed on this, we didn't agree on that, and then it's all put together in some kind of synthesis. And they want to make this methodology normal for the entire church. I think what that's doing is sort of getting us back into the situation we were in the 70s when Richard McBrien wrote his Catechism and the American bishops corrected it because Father McBrien said, well, of course we take into account revelation, of course we take into account tradition, but we also need to take into account contemporary experience and read the signs of the time. And somehow or other in his conclusions, taking into

account contemporary experience seemed to trump revelation and tradition. I think we're a little bit in the same situation. I think that was confirmed when the Pope published his Motu Proprio on a new paradigm of how to do Catholic theology. And honestly... I didn't read that. Yeah, well, I've got the text here, but it's... I think it's very serious and very disturbing.

What's the main point if you could steal man of Francis, if you could give it the best possible interpretation? Well, he's saying we need a paradigm shift in theology, which doesn't just abstractly take principles, but we need to really get engaged with the real context of people's lives. We need to now be ecumenical and interreligious. We need to take into account people's personal experiences. And out of that, we need to have a dialogical process. Somehow out of that, truth is supposed to emerge. Now, yeah, so if I took what you just said

and tried to understand that in a charitable way, I would say, well, I can see how that makes sense. We are living in the aftermath and rubble of the sexual revolution. People's understanding of human sexuality and marriage and gender roles has been just lambasted. Right. So, for example, sometimes people criticize the church for the amount of annulments that have been given out. And maybe there's criticism to be offered there, I haven't done any kind of study on it, but it also seems to me that in a day and age like this you would expect more annulments where people don't know what marriage is or sex is or gender roles are, that kind of thing. So okay, fair enough, like you want to try to

understand where people are at. We absolutely need to take into account people's personal experience, but we don't come to people's personal experience expecting their experience to tell us what the truth is. Right. You know, God has revealed the truth. Right. And we need to see how it can be applied to somebody's personal experience or personal situation. But this document gives the impression that that's not the ruling thing anymore in theology. For example,

we need to, of course, continue to discern the signs at a time, therefore it's necessary that the knowledge of people's common sense, which is in fact the theological place in which so many images of God dwell, often not corresponding to the Christian face of God, only and always love, be privileged first of all. So it says people's experience, even though it doesn't contain true images of God, needs to be... Can I look at that? Whereabouts are we?

It's in section 8 of the Modo Proprio on a new way of doing theology. What's the date on that so I can put that in the description? Do you know the date on that? Well you can find... I just put that in the description. Do you know the date on that? Well, you could find it. I just need to find the way. Given a first day of November 2023. Okay, thank you. Let's see. It is necessary the knowledge of people's common sense, which is in fact, a theological place in which so many images of God dwell. So many images. I want to know what that is. Often not corresponding to the Christian face of God.

I want to know what that is. Often not corresponding to the Christian face of God. Only and always love. What does that mean? Be privileged in what sense? Privilege as a source of theology. Privilege as the place where you start doing theology and where you give special priority and privilege to what people think. Now, I think it's very dangerous. I think it's inconsistent with everything else that's been going on. I think it wants to shred

the authority of God's Word and really allow people to evolve in their understanding of it according to what their contemporary experience is. It really looks to me like the seventies again, quite honestly, this is what was going on. This is what was going on with proportionalism. This was what going on when people say, well, when the group of theologians made a report to the Catholic theological society in the seventies saying, well, here's what scripture and tradition say about sexual morality.

But we know now that in certain situations depending on the circumstances what looks like it's objectively adultery may not be, because we now have this new set of criteria about how to judge the morality of actions. Is it life-affirming? Is it joyful? Is it positive? You know, it's sort of nebulous categories

that could justify adultery, homosexuality, and fornication, which was the reason why it was really floated. So I think we're back there again. You know, I think it's crazy. We're back in the 70s again, before John Paul II, before Veritatis Splendor, before Pope Benedict the 16th. Yeah, my criticism would be we live in a day where people are being brainwashed about all sorts of sexually perverse acts, and this seems to be prevalent in most of the Western world certainly, maybe not in places in Africa like that. And if it's true, right, that neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice sodomy, if it's true that they'll go to hell unless they repent, and we live in a time where this is being pushed on us, then it seems to me that what the people

of God need is clarity. And that seems to be the thing that we're not getting. And that's very serious. So I think from where I'm sitting as somebody who hasn't read the documents, admittedly, I, maybe I would read the documents go, Oh yeah, I guess I can see how this makes sense. But what I don't think is acceptable is the ambiguity and confusion to a people who are starved for needing to know what to do because hearing all sorts of things.

I think the ambiguity is intentional, for needing to know what to do because you're hearing all sorts of things. I think the ambiguity is intentional, just like the never directly contradicting church doctrine is intentional, but also the ambiguity and the kind of stew and the mishmash that's kind of always part of these documents is intentional too, because, and Pope Francis even says, let's not make any general rules, let's have people make their pastoral judgments, you know. So what this does is opening the door to anybody who, under emotional pressure from people who are not living according to the Church teaching and want a blessing or want to be

a godfather or godparent or whatever, you know, it just makes the door open for priests who don't have the courage to go through the difficult conversations to call people to repent. Wasn't Pope Francis clear recently, not so recently, but that that we cannot bless in, we cannot bless homosexual unions, yes? Well he says we can't give a blessing that seems to indicate that we're blessing the sinful relationship. No, he didn't say that. He says we can't give a blessing that appears to be giving the impression that a same-sex union is on the same level as marriage. Right.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, with his signature on it back in 2021, said we can't bless same-sex unions because we can't bless sin. Great. But this is now being repudiated. 2021 said we can't bless same-sex unions because we can't bless sin. But this is now being repudiated. Yeah, not by Pope Francis, but by those who are looking at the more recent Duvier? Well, it's being repudiated by the person he appointed to lead the Senate.

It's being repudiated by the person in charge of doctrine in the Catholic Church with the signature of Pope Francis and with the commission to let's not correct error now is mainly what we're doing, but let's create creativity in theology and stimulate theological exploration. So, hmm. And then this most recent dubia came out a day or two ago, didn't it? On whether we should be baptizing those who've had transgender surgery. And I'll be honest, what I read made sense to me. I thought, yeah, this is good. I can see how it sounds bad. But it seems to me that if someone's approaching the sacrament,

it even said, what I read is, you know, if you bless, if you baptize somebody who's in a state of mortal sin and wishes to be, that the sanctifying grace is not given until repentance of that is. Right. So that... Yeah, and you're not really supposed to baptize people who aren't willing to repent. Right. Thomas Aquinas has a whole section on, you know, baptize people who are not ready to repent. Right. Thomas Aquinas has a whole section on, you know,

baptized people who are not ready to repent. So should you baptize trans, sexual transgender people who haven't repented from their grave moral wrong and mutilating their bodies and denying God's purpose for creating a male and female? And what does the document say about that? It says if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating public scandal or disorientation among the faithful, you can do it. But it doesn't talk about you need to presume repentance. So what it looks like, I think what this is going to do is going to get a lot of people

baptizing adult transgender people who feel like there's nothing wrong with what they did and it actually is going to be interpreted by the faithful as I guess this is okay. Yeah, so we're back to the ambiguity, right? Yes. Where people can take it and run with it in whatever direction they wish. Yep. Am I wrong in thinking that when the Germans first proposed to bless homosexual unions, that Francis said no to that pretty vigorously? Well, what he said is, don't move ahead of the church as a whole.

Okay. You know, don't go off on your own on this. And he did give some correction by way of letter. But when Cardinal Marx, who was one of the leaders of this whole thing, offered to resign because of not handling clergy sex abuse stuff in his own diocese, the Pope said, no please don't resign, and he continues to be one of the main advisors of Pope Francis. Okay. And then nobody who seems to come out and say we're gonna bust same-sex unions ever gets corrected. You know, the Flemish bishops said a while ago they're going to do it.

Another German bishop just came out and said, I give permission to my priest to do it, you know. Shame. You know, so again, don't look at what people say, look at what they do. at what people say, look at what they do. But anyway, my point isn't to build a case about the degree to which Pope Francis is complicit in all this, although obviously he's complicit to some significant degree. Is it because of ignorance? Is it because he has a well-intentioned plan to try to attract more people to the church by doing things like this? But I think it's pretty clear it's gonna just sow confusion it already has, and I think the ambiguity unfortunately is intentional. I mean, think about it in the context of a family. If I said certain things to my children

about having sex before marriage or taking drugs, and what I said was clear sometimes, and then I seem to say something that may have contradicted that. And although, I mean, to this papacy's credit, the responses are now being given, it seems in a way. Like there are being, these dubias are coming out more frequently. So it would seem that Pope Francis has a desire to, I'm reading this as best as I can,

to give clarity to the questions that bishops and others have. No? Except he's not bringing clarity, you know, and I think the Dubia are actually another thing to advance their agenda by publishing, ambiguous, you can interpret it this way or that way. So the way is open for everybody who wants to move in this direction to invoke Pope Francis and invoke the Dubia as a way of moving forward. Of course, we're going to baptize transsexual people. No, we're not going to require them to repent. The Pope doesn't say they have to repent. Yes, they could be godparents. They're not witnessing to the moral Catholic life, but the Pope says we could actually take into account particular pastoral

situations, and if maybe it's gross and it's going to really cause a lot of problems in the parish, maybe they could be witnesses, not official godparents. But you know, honestly, a lot of Catholics are just going to kind of throw up their hands and say, I'm out of here. I mean, it's going to be ridiculous. I think most decent people have their stomach turned when they see a man dressed up like a woman. And they should feel that way. They should feel disgusted by it. They should have compassion and love for this poor individual. But it's very disquieting to see somebody pretending to be

something that they're not. Not just faithful, orthodox Catholics, but the regular person in the pew, if you were to see. Already, we have a man problem in the Catholic Church. And I think we're going to have a bigger man problem. Because I don't think men are going to really handle this us anymore to tell you the truth. I hope they do I never intend to leave the Catholic Church no matter what happens I believe it's established by Christ and is the fullest of means of salvation in it's gone through terrible times in the past

I think it's going through a terrible time right now, but I think Jesus is Lord and everything's happening under God's providence He's got a plan to bring good out of it. But hold on to your seats. You know, get buckled down. Get really clear. Take personal responsibility for what you believe and who you believe in and what the truth is about all these matters, because it's going to get pretty wild and woolly. Let me play devil's advocate, because I think we're on the same page, but I'll just play devil's advocate for a moment. No, that's fine.

That's good. Why even bring this up? I mean, all you're doing and coming on this show and talking about this is creating confusion among the faithful who, look, just stick to your book, The Fulfillment of All Desire. Tell us how to become saints. Tell us about the Eucharist. Why get involved in this stuff? Why attribute, it sounds like you're attributing motives to Pope Francis when you say things

like look at the appointments, when that's not the most charitable thing to do. Maybe you could try to read it a different way. Isn't this just creating unnecessary confusion that's going to end up driving people out of the Catholic Church? Yeah, well, I don't think you can explain the appointments any other way. You know, I've heard people say that, I've heard people actually attack me because I did the video on it's unmistakably clear where we're now being led, and they say, well, you can't judge Francis's motives. I'm not judging his motives, but if personnel is policy and these are consistent appointments

and there's a growing number of them, wake up and smell the coffee. And they say, the defense people give sometimes as well, maybe he doesn't know what these people believe. That's ridiculous. It's kind of insulting too to put Francis. That's ridiculous. It's kind of insulting too. It's ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous. Or, or maybe he has bad advisors. Oh, he chooses his advisors. He chooses who to listen to.

He's not some dummy that just does what people are telling him to do. So the defenses I find just totally lack credibility. And I think there's a tremendous danger here because of reverence for the papacy to deny reality. And I think that's very bad for the church. I think it's very, very bad for the church where our reverence for the office keeps us from seeing reality about what we're really facing.

Because if we don't see what we're really facing, we're not gonna be able to prepare ourselves to resist it. Yeah, I'll make an analogy and it might be a bad one because I'm certainly not accusing Pope Francis of sexual immorality or anything as grievous that took place in the American sex abuse scandal. And I certainly have never accused him of that. No, no, no. Yeah, of course you haven't. But here's the analogy, right? Like if, when that happened, I think a lot of Catholics didn't want to address it, didn't want to look at it. We're deeply ashamed of it.

And then, well, everybody else is now talking about it, including those people who are interested in becoming Catholic. And they're, they're looking to Catholics to try to address this in a way that can keep them within the church and not in some sort of set of a contest off shoot or push them into orthodoxy. So it would seem to me if I lived during that time in America, what would have strengthened my faith is listening to a faithful son of the church give a sobering account of the reality of things. So I get, okay, so it is that bad and yet you're still here, why? That kind of thing. Yes, and I really want to make that clear because I know that when people who aren't as familiar with things hear some of the depth of it, they get shaken. And I definitely want to say, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

There's a lot of dirty bathwater in the Catholic church. There's a lot of corruption, there's a lot of financial wrongdoing, there's a lot of immorality, there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of incompetent leadership, there's a lot of questionable appointments. Well, that's still history. But Jesus is the Lord and He's a lot of questionable appointments, knuckleheads like me. But Jesus is the Lord and He's the treasure of the Catholic Church.

What He reveals to us, what God reveals to us in the sacred scripture and the sacred tradition is life-saving. Where else are we going to go? That's the truth that will save us, you know? So the sacraments. So I haven't had the slightest temptation ever to leave the Catholic Church. And I hope nobody does. And I think if you have it, you need to resist it. I know we've gone around this wagon a bunch of times, so it might not be worth circling again,

but just this idea that, you know, there's been, there's been very, very bad popes in history. And we weren't around with Twitter and Facebook or X and Facebook and Instagram to force feed us this sort of information constantly. Yeah. Well, you know, people sometimes ask me, is this the worst crisis the Catholic churches ever faced? And I say, no, it isn't, but it has the potential for it. All right. Let me, that's good. And I want you to talk about this. When I have heard people

say, no, no, no, it was the Aryan heresy. I wonder, as someone who's ignorant really of Christian, and much of Christian history, and the nuances of it. I often think, well, is that just something you're saying to cope? Or was it really bad back then? Now I know you've written on this, so I'd love you to tell us about the Aryan heresy. Yeahesy. Well that's why I say this isn't the worst crisis the Catholic churches ever faced, but it has the potential for it, so I'm reserving judgment. I've got to see what happens. But in Arian heresy you actually had most of the bishops of both the West and the East really uncertain about the divinity of Christ.

Wow. Yeah, you really did. Not good. And you even had a council or a synod where 95% of the bishops signed on to a creedal statement that could be interpreted in an Aryan way. It's the whole ambiguity thing again. Even the Pope signed it. And of course, this is an important issue,

is Jesus just the greatest man who ever lives, somebody who was taken up into divinity but he's just a human being, or is he really the same substance as God? So the Council of Nicaea is trying to sort this out because Arianism is kind of in the land, and the Council Council of Nicea says he's fully man But he's also fully God not just divinized as a human being There's a high form of Arianism where God creates him before the world as a special creature, but he's still a creature He's not of the same substance as God He hasn't always been and so the Council of Nicea says no, this is a great mystery

But he's of the same substance as God. He's always been, he always will. And then he became incarnate and he's fully man. So that was a bloody battle. But it took another 50 or 60 years for the heresy to really die down. It even got stronger after Nicaea. Wow. Yeah. And Athanasius, who was the great defender of Orthodoxy, got exiled from his sea multiple times. Arian bishops got appointed in Jerusalem

and Alexandria and Antioch, all over. They were all Arian bishops, partly because the successor to Constantine, his son son Costantius, became an Arian, and he thought that would be better for the Empire because it wasn't making such a radical claim about Christ, and it would be easier for the different religions of the Empire not to be freaked out by Jesus being Lord of all type of thing, and the way to God type of thing. And then there was also the Arian bishops

asking the emperor to persecute the Orthodox bishops. And so that put a lot of pressure on people to kind of hunker down and lie low. And actually the Arian bishops had the civil authority torture people who were leading proponents of Orthodoxy. And so it was a pretty bad situation, and even though Nicaea clarified the truth, they didn't stop. They just kept going, and they used the power of the

state. So just thinking too about the thing we talked about about Australia, how the power of the state now is being used and invoked by people. That Catholic church needs to be crushed. They're haters, they need to be stopped type of thing. So the power of the state's now coming against the church just like it did in the day of Aranus. But hopefully Catholics of a different persuasion than us

won't resort to asking us to be put into prison. Well, it does give me great hope though, that, um, you've got these priests willingly coming to your conference. I mean, they know about you. I spoke to a thousand priests in this last year and I've done that for the last several years. And you know, I, you know, So in some sense, whatever ambiguities are being peddled by individuals within the hierarchy doesn't seem to be convincing a lot of people.

Well, it might be convincing a lot of the uneducated faithful. No, but like, and we do honestly, I would say the American bishops, just like Pope Francis says they're backwards. Thanks be to God. They're looking back to revelation. Does he say that the American bishops are backwards? Yes he does. Yes he does. Okay. Yeah, and so does the papal nuncio. He says they're backward looking, they're not getting with the program,

and Cardinal Pierre says the American bishops aren't getting with the program, and they're not really accepting the magisterium of Francis. Now the strange thing is that Marshal Sifonandes has said, he wants to make sure that the magisterium of Francis can never be overturned. So they're working very, very quickly to kind of institutionalize this all. And I think that's one of the reasons why the Dubuys are coming out

and all the things that are happening. They're trying to institutionalize the revolution of Francis, which is now being called the Synoderal Way, which is now being called to give a privileged position to the experience of people who don't even believe in the Christian God. So I think we're facing something pretty powerful. So Pope Francis said a very strong, reactionary attitude in the U.S.

It's called backward. Doing this, you lose the true tradition and you turn to ideologies to have support. In other words, ideologies replace faith. I mean, there's a sense in which I understand that. You know, I am somebody is a great lover of tradition, but I also know the temptation of becoming so sort of fixated about tradition that I forget to read the scriptures or forget to love the poor. Who's doing that though?

Who's doing that in the United States? What American bishop is really doing that? I mean, who's more committed to evangelization and you know, than the American bishops. I mean, it's, you know, who's more, you know, committed to empowering lay people than the American bishops, you know? Yeah. I mean, it's just a terrible stereotype.

Do you think by backward he's referring specifically to the Tridentine Mass? I think he has that in mind, but I don't think he's specifically referring to that. The vision of the doctrine of the church as a monolith is wrong. I don't know what that means. I think he definitely doesn't like the traditional liturgy, and he doesn't like the people who go there, and he keeps criticizing seminarians who wear castics. I mean, it's sort of unseemly for a pope to be attacking faithful Catholics, going to a liturgy that's permitted by their local bishops and is within the parameters of his universal liturgical legislation. So you know, it's ridiculous how

he's insulting people. I want to remind these people that backwardness is useless, and they must understand that there's a correct evolution in the understanding of questions of faith and morals. Well, that's obviously true. Yes, we all believe in the development of doctrine, but we also believe that the development can never contradict what was understood before, but just goes into it deeper, brings out other implications. But unfortunately, what they're calling about, you know, living tradition, they want to change some things that actually contradict

what goes before. They want to change some things that just were defined by the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith two years ago, you know, in harmony with tradition and scripture. Yeah. Should we take heart that Pope Francis has been Pope for, what, 10 years now, over 10 years. And really, I mean, other than the addition or the edit in the catechism on the death penalty, which we can quibble about perhaps, but you're not seeing female deacons being introduced by him. You're not seeing him say, yeah, sodomy's all right.

You're not seeing him. If anything, I haven't heard another Pope speak so strongly on abortion, for example. He was on a Hulu series. And before that came out, I'll be honest, I thought, oh, this is not going to go well. Either because he'll say something that I wish he hadn't of or it'll be edited in such a way that it'll seem like he meant something other than he did. But then it came out and it was excellent from what I saw. He said very beautifully to these young people that we have to journey with these mothers, we have to be loving,

and yet you don't solve problems by hiring a hitman. And then what you noticed was complete crickets in the traditional YouTube world because everyone didn't have red meat to throw out. Yeah, no, I totally agree. He's been totally consistent and clear about abortion. No question about it. He's even been clear about transgender ideology. He calls it a new form of colonization. Yeah. But then he does things that seem to point

in a different direction. He has signed on to the UN's sustainability goals which includes reproductive health type of thing. He's going to the climate change conference by the United Nations. The experts he invites to the Vatican are sometimes in favor of abortion, Jeffrey Sachs. The people he appoints now to the Papal Academy for Life include people who favor abortion type of thing. Him closing down the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family, appointing people in charge of that who actually are dissenters to Church

teaching. So there's the good words, which I totally agree with, but then there's the very disturbing and contradictory actions. Okay, and you think that the actions and appointments are sort of more illustrative of the direction he'd like to take the church than some of his words. If I had to make a judgment on that, I'd say yes, but minimally I'd say it's confusing. Yeah. And it's like St. Paul said, when the trumpet doesn't give a clear sound, who's going to show up for battle?

And this is taking away the heart of bishops and priests to show up for battle. It's taking away their clarity. It's taking away their certainty. And that's very, very bad. It means that the enemy is going gonna come flooding in without much resistance because people have lost their confidence in the truth of the gospel. You know, I was told by my priest, Father Jason Chiron, that the desert fathers were laymen and women. And I didn't know that. I thought they were ordained priests who went

out into the desert. I mean, perhaps somewhere, but he said in a similar way, we're going to have to have lay people get really serious about holiness. Yes. To quote, and we'll get to that, but to quote Ed Faser, I think he, what he said was excellent. You know, the failure on the part of the bishops, let's say, and the hierarchy to condemn sins that ought to be condemned, to teach truths that ought to be taught, does not alleviate you and me of the responsibility to teach what has obviously been revealed to us. So I agree with you that it's taken away our heart, but we might need to help our Father bishops by giving them the courage, by showing them.

Yeah, and I would say that we've got a good number of bishops here in the United States that have risen to the occasion, are speaking clearly. I mean, Archbishop Quirt alone, finally telling Nancy Pelosi, no, you're not a Catholic in good standing, and no, you shouldn't be receiving communion because you're advocating killing babies. That's incompatible with being a Catholic. Then we have Archbishop,

the Archbishop in Denver. Yes. What's his name? Aquila? No. Aquila. Yeah, Archbishop Aquila. What a guy. Yes. I really like him. I do too. Good. And when Cardinal McElroy came out with his I do too. And when Cardinal McElroy came out with his long article in America magazine saying we should dismantle all the structures of exclusion in the church and everybody who's baptized should be welcome to come to the Eucharist, whether they're living a chaste life or not. And he particularly singled out the LGBTQ community and he said, that's no longer distinguished between people living a chafed life and people sexually active. Now, probably his theory is if we welcome everybody, eventually they'll meet the Lord and everything like that.

But what they're going to understand that is that I'm being confirmed in my sinful life and it's okay, you know, type of thing. And then of course, Bishop Praprocki came out, who's in charge of the American Bishops Committee on Canon Law and Pastoral Practices, and saying what Cardinal Hollerich said in Europe and what Cardinal McElroy said here in the United States, if they really mean it, it's heretical.

So we have some very brave American bishops, and I don't even call it particular bravery. It took 10 years for our scripture court alone to kind of say the obvious. But here's the thing, you know, like when someone does something well, even if you've got a million criticisms of that person, I just want to offer this encouragement to anybody who's watching. If you have any kind of platform on social media of any kind, if you notice a bishop doing something manful, something courageous, shout it, praise him,

call him, thank him. I did a video in Archbishop Gomez when he spoke clearly and his things saying... On wokeism. Awesome. Yeah, and I said, look, he just hit a home run, who's next up the bat? And then I did a video on Archbishop Quirula, and I did a video on Bishop Prapraki, titled, Thank God for Bishop Prapraki. So I'm trying to encourage the bishops, and I think we've got a lot of good bishops, and we have a healthy situation here in the United States, much healthier than many other traditionally Catholic countries. You know who Brian Holdsworth is?

No. Okay, people need to go follow Brian Holdsworth if you haven't already. I had him on the show a couple of weeks ago. Wonderful fella who runs a channel, very thoughtful Catholic commentary, but he just posted this yesterday. The fundamental dispute in the church today is whether the church should convert the world or be converted by the world. And isn't that a no brainer the answer you think? You think. Yeah. You'd think. Yeah.

You would think. I'd say the whole notion of mission is being ambiguatized also. In the early days of this pontificate, I think Pope Francis talked a lot about evangelization. His first document on his own, Evangelia Gaudium, I think very good, very inspiring. I teach at the seminary. But then he kind of drifted into a period of time where he started criticizing people for proselytizing without actually clearly identifying it.

Some woman, I think in some country he was in, brought up a Jewish and a Muslim person saying they've become Catholics now, and the Pope seemed to be upset about that and saying, no proselytizing, no proselytizing. And so I'd say there's a real ambiguity right now about mission. And when the Synod talks about mission, you don't really know what they're talking about. Are they talking about engaging in respectful dialogue with everybody and expecting somehow the truth is gonna emerge from that?

Or does it still include proclamation? Does it still include announcing the gospel? Does it still include doing what Jesus asked us to do, preach the gospel to all creatures, and those who believe in our baptised will be saved, and those who don't will be condemned. Yeah, I mean just ask yourself this question if you're watching right now and you think we're maybe being a little too critical. If you were to say, listen, if you're

living a life of serious sin, repent and believe in the gospel or you will go to hell. If you were to say that, how do you think the majority of bishops would comment on that if they had to? If they were putting it like, what do you think the majority of bishops would comment on that if they had to? If they were putting it, like, what do you think of this? You know, like, I have the suspicion that if the bishop had a microphone and a camera put in his face, he'd be like, well, I mean, well, instead of, yes. We believe that, but that's not the most sensitive way of saying it. We have to understand that there's many circumstances in people's lives. Yes. It's a process. And yeah, well, I've been speaking,

as you know, on this topic for a long time about the reality of heaven and hell, because scripture talks about it. And Jesus tells us it's pretty important. And periodically, I'll kind of tell a story of Mary showing the children of Fatima a vision of hell. And then I've been also adding recently that if Mary was teaching at a parish CCD program and told seven, nine and ten year old children about it, she'd be totally removed.

She'd be told she's not qualified to teach little children. She should never tell little children about anything that would scare them. Now, Mary, who's the most loving mother in the world, wanted these beloved shepherd children to know the eternal consequences of sin, because she wanted them to dedicate themselves to prayer and sacrifice for the salvation of souls. But quite honestly, if she was teaching a CCD program today, religious education program, she would be, they'd protest to the bishop.

Even if you take out the graphic descriptions of hell that the children saw, and you just mentioned it. Right. Oh, parents would be up in arms saying, this isn't what I signed up for Catholic school for, you know. And, you know, that just shows you how far we've departed from the biblical worldview, how far we've departed from what's revealed to us by heaven. It's so special that God sent Mary to, to as a prophetic messenger, to warn us, to remind us what Jesus said about what this is all about. Her life is short. Only one thing is necessary. And she said, so many sinners are going to hell

because so few people are praying and offering sacrifice for them. You know, people say, Ralph, you know, you seem to be a little obsessed with hell. No, I'm obsessed with keeping people out of hell, just like Jesus was. I'm obsessed with keeping people out of hell. No, I'm obsessed with keeping people out of hell, just like Jesus was. I'm obsessed with keeping people out of hell. I'm obsessed with salvation because that's what this is all about. Yeah, that's such a gaslighting tactic. It's like when the world says you're obsessed with sex, it's like, no, I'm sorry, you idiot. You are. And we're responding to you. Right. You know,

and it's not like we're obsessed with homosexuals. It's like, no, this is the thing being pushed on our children, so we're responding to it. Right, right, exactly. Yeah. I just never talk about this stuff, but if you don't talk about this stuff, you're gonna turn people over to the deception of the culture. Now, I want to talk about something we might disagree about. That's okay. We're okay with disagreeing. And it has to do with the Eucharistic, what? What are we calling it? Revival. Revival going on in the United States today. Cause I know you come from more of a sort of

charismatic background and I've had, I've had some of that as well, which I appreciate. I'm grateful for. But I think if you want a Eucharistic revival in this country, the first thing you do is you bring back the altar rails. And bring back what? In the West, you bring back the altar rails.

Oh, altar rails. And you make people kneel. Yeah. Because how we act in church informs what we believe. Yeah. Secondly, you make the priest face ad orientum. You do those two things and you're going to start to see a revival. Maybe that's not enough, but you're going to begin to see a revival in the church.

Well, you know, I think a strong case to be made for those things, and I'm not sure what I think a strong case to be made for those things, and I'm not sure what I think. I've become more sympathetic to that line of thought than I used to be, because I've seen it done in a really wonderful way. In fact, I just gave a talk at a parish in New Boston, Michigan, very close to the airport. It was so nice to stop short of the airport and just go to this parish, St. Stephen's Parish. And just an absolutely holy parish, you know, it's got a school and it's got statues of saints all around. And it isn't just statues of saints, but this parish believes what those saints believed. And this parish actually lives in communion with those saints. And the Eucharist was celebrated Novo Sordo at Orientum, communion rail, very devoutly, a very holy priest, and I was just tremendously impressed, you know, type of thing.

I do think that you can have very devout Novo Sordo masses without at Orientum. Some of our parishes in Ann Arbor do that, but... And I'm certainly not condemning that. It just seems to me like, if you, like, me like, if a person doesn't take themselves seriously, why should anybody else? And if we're not taking the Eucharist seriously, and we're not treating the Eucharist with reverence, then why should we expect the faithful to get it? Absolutely. But I want to throw something in about Eucharistic revival. but I want to throw something in about Eucharistic Revival.

A Eucharistic program is different than a Eucharistic Revival. What's the difference? Yeah. Well, you can't buy a Eucharistic Revival. You know, a $28 million marketing budget can't produce a revival. It can point towards a revival. it can ask God for one, it can kind of provide opportunities for people to experience God in a revival way, but you can't make it happen. And no revival of any depth or power happens without repentance, without a sense that God is holy and I've offended him and I need to repent. And so I am concerned that that isn't more front and center. Encouraging people to go to confession isn't the same thing because if people don't know what sin is and how horrible sin is, what's the motivation for going to confession? But people don't want to talk about sin. People don't want to talk about first Corinthians six that you quoted earlier

in the passage. People don't want to be specific about the particular sins that people have already accepted into their life. You know, so I, I do have some concerns there. I do also have a concern that the focus on real presence while really important and so special, the Catholic Eucharist is so special, but people can have a belief in the real presence, but not know who is really present, not know who he is,

not know what he teaches, not know what he's asking, not responding to him a way of total commitment and discipleship. So I think we need to explain more who it is that we believe is present in the Eucharist and what he says. Otherwise we'll have a devotion that will be comforting and consoling, but we won't have repentance, conversion and discipleship. Yeah, I see what you mean.

Anyway. Yeah, I'm often shocked, even myself, when I read Christ in the New Testament, I mean, he's such a shocking figure. He really is. And you know, Peter Crave's book, Jesus Shock. Yes. Excellent book. If you're not shocked by Jesus, you're not paying attention, and most people are not

paying attention. Even when they read Jesus saying the most shocking things, it's like, you know, it's just like there's a veil type of thing. So that's why we have to kind of open up the scripture and preach the word. I have an episode coming out soon on the Second Vatican Council, which was awesome for me to experience. It was with Richard de Clou and just the beauty of the Second Vatican Council documents. I think I would wager a bet that most people who are spouting off about how terrible they are online,

I'd say at least 50% of them haven't even picked up a book to read. I would agree. They read critiques of the council. They don't really read the council. Yeah, well, they watch YouTube critiques of the council. Absolutely beautiful. And of course, to all of our traditional friends, I mean, none of these documents were written by nervous auto bishops. Every bishop who contributed to that was a traddy. And every document had like 95% or more, you know, approval. Yeah, yeah, I hear they reworked it. And so I picked up Gaudi Mitz Spares recently.

It's just like Christ is front and center. It's beautiful. But one thing I've heard you say is, okay, the documents, beautiful, good. There were some ambiguities. Those have been cleared up. But what's left that needs to change is... Oh yeah, pastoral strategy. You know, I... Oh, just those two words make me nauseous. Yeah, let me say something about it. But just two days ago, this week's YouTube video, renewalministries.net or Renewal Ministries YouTube, I did a YouTube video on this particular topic,

Vatican II, what needs to change? And the doctrine doesn't need to change, obviously, but I think the pastoral strategy does. If you could sum up the pastoral strategy, what would that be? I think the pastoral strategy of Vatican II was it started with Pope John the 23rd saying let's not condemn anybody, let's show how beautiful the church is. You're paraphrasing, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you're giving the, yeah, well, you know, I kind of don't like it when people hold me to written standards when I'm doing an informal interview. I think it's unfair. Will Barron I just want to, can I pause there a moment? I don't mean to cut you off because

I know what you're about to say is brilliant, but that is so spot on. I mean, I just, I did a review of a lady called Brett Cooper. She spoke about pornography and she said a few things I disagree with. And the thing I tried to make clear right up front is I don't want to pretend that this is her crystallized opinion on the matter as if this is a book she wrote and intended every specific word. If she did that then I would have maybe more of a right to attack her. But part of the reason we love listening to podcasts, maybe even more than audiobooks, is just the freewheeling back and forth. Yeah. All right.

I've written my doctoral dissertation on this. Go ahead and read that. Criticize that. Yeah, I mean that's where all the footnotes are, that's where all the exact citations are, you know. And so when I'm talking formally I'm paraphrasing, but St. Paul paraphrased in the epistles and he got the quote wrong. You know, so I mean, I'm gonna hold myself to a high standard of accuracy. I want to accurately paraphrase, but sometimes I won't get it exactly right. So I just want to say... Thank you.

Okay, but what the pastoral strategy of Vatican II is... Well, John Paul II... John Paul... St. John Paul... No, St. John the 23rd. Yes, I get my Pope confused. St. John the 23rd said, this is going to be a pastoral council. We're not coming against any heresy. We don't want to condemn anything. We don't want to be prophets of doom and gloom. We want to really show how beautiful the faith is, you know, how beautiful the church is. And he was trying to reset the Catholic Church's relationship with the modern world, saying, look, we got a bad rep right now. The Galileo thing is hanging over us.

We're against science. We're allied with the French monarchy. We appear to be against labor unions and the people and that type of thing, democracy. So we're kind of used to being the Church of No-No, that type of thing, democracy. So we've got to, we're kind of used to being the church of no-no, that type of thing. So let's kind of be as positive as we possibly can, affirming everything that we can in contemporary culture. And then at the time, and I have this quote in my book, the book that's based on my dissertation is called, Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for new evangelization, which mainly deals with another point,

but the last chapter talks about time for a change in pastoral strategy. Well, one of the priests at the time said, these documents are so beautiful, the church is just going to come flooding into our doors, they just, we're gonna like, we're not gonna be able to hold everybody, the world's just gonna love us, this is so beautiful. And of course, after Vatican II, it's like the bottom fell out. You know, it's like people left in droves, you know, tens of thousands of priests and nuns abandoned their vocation. You know,

missionary orders began to collapse. You know, the given purpose of Vatican II and every single pope since Pope John right up to Pope Francis has said the purpose of Vatican II is renewal for the sake of evangelization. So the purpose was let's get our act together so we can be more effective in showing the beauty of Christ to the world. Just the opposite happened. Now why? I don't know, do you want to go into that or not? Yeah. Okay. This is a long form interview.

Exactly. Take your time. Yeah. So, well, partly is because the press version of Vatican II, there were the good guys and the bad guys. There were the progressives and the conservatives. And it was truth to that. There really were. There really were some hardcore Vatican theologians and bishops who didn't like the open-ended thing that was going on with the council

and wanted the documents they prepared in advance to be rubber stamped. And Pope John XXIII said, no, we're gonna kind of leave this open here for people to get more input and stuff like that. So the heroes of the council, Carl Rahner, Hans Kung, people like that, the media said, these are the good guys, these are the heroes.

So after the council, these guys, you know, Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, and others began to give lecture to us throughout the world. And their message was Vatican II is a good start, but it didn't go far enough. So everybody started to think, hey, where else can we go? What else can change? And then the change in the liturgy was really disorienting for people. Some people cheered, saying, alas, I can understand the words of the Mass. Other people said, wow, that's a big thing to change, you know, and you know, if the church can change that, maybe it can change this, that, and the other thing. And then, of course, about the same time, Pope Paul VI set up the birth control commission. He said, well,

I don't know what the council will deal with that. We're going to appoint a commission. And that gave the signal that, well, golly, maybe this can change. And I think it took three or four years before the commission kind of issued its final report. And word leaked out in the media that the report was, yes, the pill changes the situation, and that could be an acceptable method of birth control. And then it was a big shock when Paul VI kind of said no. And, you know, the beautiful Humanae Vitae and all that kind of thing.

But it's like all the horses were out of the barn already, you know, hundreds and hundreds of theologians were down the road already. Even bishops conferences were. So that really put in a big, big question mark over church teaching, you know? So that was a big problem. Then in 1968, the student rise broke out. And the whole culture went into rebellion. Make love, not war. Protest against war, the flower of children, free sex, all that kind of stuff.

Just question authority, bumper stickers. So just a big cultural storm broke out just at the very time that Pope John XXIII wanted to open the windows of the Holy Spirit. The spirits were loose again. They were really loose, and they were having a big impact on the Church. Philogans were beginning to write articles saying, well, as Vatican II taught, it's possible for people to be Christian without, be saved without being explicitly a Christian or hearing the Gospel, so maybe our missionary work is not needed anymore, so let's work on human

development. So it just goes on from there, there, there, but it's just the perfect storm kind of broke out. I remember I was in Nova Scotia in 2003, and I was sitting around a table with a nun, habitless nun, and she was reading out of an old prayer book, the St. Michael prayer, as if she had just encountered it and was laughing about how silly it was. And people around her were also, isn't that so silly? So it's amazing how that insanity has kept around for so long and how hard it is to exercise. Yeah, and it's sort of like how did this thing go so quickly?

Both in the culture now, I'd say in the last 10 years, it's kind of like breathtaking how all the levers of power have fallen into the hands of people who are hostile to Christ in the church, but also in the church. You know, Apollo six said, boy, this thing is whole. This thing is falling apart. This thing is deteriorating. He says the smoke of Satan is coming forth from cracks in the church, you know? So he identified some really satanic power that was loose.

Then Pope Benedict, after he retired or resigned, he continued to do some writing. And he basically said, a hundred years ago, people would have thought we were crazy to say that such a thing as homosexual marriage and the same thing about abortion and other things in euthanasia and he says but now we're living in a culture that's creating an anti-christian creed and if we don't give our allegiance to it we're being excluded from society. He says this is the power of the anti-christ. Pretty shocking. You know he's saying that doesn't... Yeah, let us be excommunicated, eh? By the world. Yeah. You're, he's saying that. Yeah, pretty. Let us be excommunicated a by the world. Yeah Yeah, he says this is this is really a strong spiritual power And so we really got a really up our game. We got to really take responsibility

At first Corinthians 6 it says don't let anybody deceive you so you got to take responsibility for not being deceived Well, there's that line you tell me where it is, do you not know that the unjust, the immoral, and it's like, no, I didn't. Thank you. Yes, I know. And what a terrible thing not to tell people the truth that they need to know to be saved, you know? And now the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that

nobody should be considered to be ignorant of the natural law. Everybody knows there's something wrong with adultery. Everybody knows there's something wrong with murder. Everybody knows there's something wrong with lying and stealing. But a lot of people dead in their conscience. They're ashamed into holding those views. Yes, yes, that type of thing. But anyway, this is pastoral strategy, Vatican II we're talking about. So I think the pastoral strategy of let's be friends with the world, let's be nice, let's show the church how reasonable we are and how affirmative we are of them

is not the appropriate strategy anymore. And it still is something that people are trying to do. That's what the Germans are trying to do. They're saying, let's try to show the world that our sexual teaching isn't as bad as they think it is. We can change it, it can adjust, it can grow at the times type of thing. So I think we need to, again, to hear what you were telling me before the program today. We need to hear the Apostles and the successors of the Apostles cry out, save yourself from this wicked generation. This is a wicked generation. It really, really is. And nobody's nobody's a lawyer.

Nobody's alerting Catholics saying you got to break with the culture. You got to make a decision between Christ and the world. You got to make a decision even between the closest people in your life and the primacy of Christ

in your life, you know. So we need to begin to preach the gospel again. We need to fear people less than fearing God, because we're all going to have to give an account to God. Have we paid attention to what He's told us? Have we paid attention to the revealed Word of God? Have we paid attention to the real Jesus? Because a lot of people are

creating a Jesus in their own image. That's what's going on, really, in a lot of the things that are going on in the church today. People are saying, well, I like this and I like that. And, you know, I regularly hear people say things to me like, well, my Jesus would never say that. And they're talking about something Jesus actually said. And you need to cast your Jesus out and listen to the Jesus. Yeah, yeah. And and this comes back to recovering our confidence in the inspiration and inerrancy of sacred scripture. Now, you can't even say inerrancy today, and you'll be laughed out of the room by theologians.

People have lost their confidence because of years of skeptical, corrosive deconstruction of scripture. So they actually think scripture is something that gives us some indications, So they actually think Scripture is something that gives us some indications, but not with any clarity that's really authoritative. And Vatican II, Constitution on Sacred Revelation, it's a great document, says the primary author of sacred Scripture is God. No other book has the primary author as God. He works through human instruments, he works through their culture, their language, their psychology, but the primary author

is God. And what he inspires these sacred authors to write, what he inspires them particularly to assert in the area of faith and morals, is really being asserted by God. In section 11 of the Constitution on Sacred Revelation says, everything asserted by the sacred authors should be considered to be asserted by the Holy Spirit to teach faithfully, firmly, and without error those truths that God wished to consign to the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation. Our salvation depends on paying attention through our God. And a lot of Catholics are kind of misty about it, you know, well you know, we don't know if this really happened or not, we don't know about, you

know, you know, Jesus was, you know, a man of his culture, Paul was a man of his culture, and you know, there's debate about inerrancy in the Catholic Church. Does it cover, one debate is, does it cover everything asserted by the sacred authors, or does it just cover things pertaining to faith and morals? And the traditional position of the Catholic Church for 2,000 years, it covers everything that's actually intended to be asserted by the sacred authors, but hey,

nobody who actually does theology on this issue denies that the teaching on faith and morals is inerrant. Nowadays, they just ignore it. They don't pay attention to it. They don't like that part of just ignore it. They don't pay attention to it. They don't like that part of the teaching, so they don't pay attention to it. But that's why there's so little power in the preaching and teaching. People do not preach and teach with conviction that this is the Word of God. Like Paul says in the readings just from this past week, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, the word you received is not a human word, it's the Word of God.

Thessalonians chapter 1 the word you received is not a human word. It's the word of God So I I don't know Matt, you know, I think I think we need a new pastoral strategy I think the pastoral strategy is stop trying to be nice to people in the world who hate us I would have had so much more respect for my local parish growing up if the priest had said repent and believe the gospel Yeah start and he had to treated his faith of the seriousness he expected me to treat it with. I probably would have spattered him and rejected him and did what I wanted to do, but this, hey buddy. No, thank you. I don't want to...

Well, you know, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul says, God has decided to save the world through the foolishness of the proclamation. So we've got to get over our shame of the gospel. You know, Paul says, you know, Jesus says, if you're ashamed of me before people, I'm going to be ashamed of you before my Father in heaven. And most people, I would even say most priests to maybe most bishops, are more concerned about how people are going to respond to what they say than whether they're faithfully passing on what God has asked them to say or not. They're concerned about somebody standing up in the middle of our sermon and saying

that's hate speech, I don't like that. They're concerned about being reported to the bishop. A lot of priests are concerned that if I'm a little too clear, a little too strong in these issues, the bishop's gonna say tone it down. Yeah, it will move you out to some parish. Exactly. A priest told me that once, we've got to be careful, but so we could be put out in a rural parish, they say praise the Lord, there's great work to do in rural parishes, you know. And people will come, people will find you, they will drive an hour to be at your parish. Just give them the truth.

Yeah, and Jesus said, don't be afraid of those who can kill the body, but rather be afraid of the death of body and soul in hell. You know, so people are filled with fears of what other people are gonna think or what the bishop's gonna think, or, you know, are we gonna lose donors? And they gotta really fear God, a holy fear of God,

a holy awe for the power of the revelation, the preciousness of the revelation, the preciousness of the death of Jesus. The Catholic and the Sanhedrin said the death of Christ is no joke. You know, this is the gift, this is the precious gift that God's given to humanity, and now is the time to proclaim it, and now is the time to appeal to people to believe in it and repent and be saved. To your point, I think it's Acts 2, you me where save yourself from yes. Yeah 20. Yeah for this wicked generation back to that for a bit I agree with you. I think we keep rehearsing and repeating the line from Fulton Sheen

There aren't a hundred people in the United States who hate what the Catholic Church truly is But what they believe it to be now far be it for me to criticize that quote Maybe that was true in the 50s, but I don't think that's true now. I think people, they don't hate the church because what they don't understand it to mean, they hate it and are its enemies precisely because they understand at least elements of what the church teaches. This is a wicked generation and they are enemies. And if you think that's too strong, then take off your miraculous medal because that's the very prayer on it. It says, Mary can see without sin pray for us who have recourse to thee, but of course

the full prayer is, and for those who do not have recourse to thee, especially the enemies of the church and those who recommend to thee. So there are enemies. Like we have enemies, but we wish to convert them for their salvation. Right. And Jesus says, love your enemies and bless those who persecute you, but we need to recognize their enemies. But the wicked generation wants to convert us under damnation.

That's really true. Embarrassed by that, then just, I guess, apostatize, because this is the gospel. I heard you did something on this, Matt. Did you on this text? What's that? Did you do something on this text? Save yourself from the wicked generation. I'm right.

I've just written a talk that I'm going to be giving in Australia on this topic. Good. I'm really glad to hear that. That's great. Yeah. Because I don't think I've ever heard anybody preach on that. I've never heard. I preach on it occasionally, but you know, it's. Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard anybody preaching that. I preach on it occasionally, but you know, it's.

Yeah. Let us know in the comment section. Maybe we're wrong. You know, like you have to hear Catholics say, I've never heard a homily on hell. And I'm like, well, I have once, I think, you know, so you tell me in the comment section below, have you ever heard, uh, uh, a homily on save yourself from this wicked generation? And if you're a priest watching, tell us why you might be afraid to do that or what your opinion is because... Yeah, that's good. Yes. Praise the Lord. Well, what do we do? This is so disappointing because you point to a problem that's mammoth,

and then you say, what do we do about it? And what we do about it really does feel, again, like a cope, just like, do you do what you can do and do what you have authority over and pray and fast as if these weren't powerful weapons, but this is precisely what we have to do. Well. What I have to do. Those things are all true,

but I'd like to put it in a certain context. I think we really need to step up our game because the game against us has been stepped up. And that coasting along with the love for Christ that we had in peacetime isn't going to stand us in good stead in wartime. Coasting along with the union, depth of union we have with the Lord in peacetime when there was a certain understanding between culture and the church that at least wasn't hostile. So we need to up our game. We need to up our game also in terms of really zeal for the salvation of souls, because we really need to understand that that's what's really at stake, and that when we care about people, we're not just going to care about them getting healed of their illnesses or getting good jobs or whatever. We need to care about where they are in their relationship with the Lord.

We need to care about their salvation. So I think that means very practically for people, quite honestly, we need to really say, I need to up my game and I need to take personal responsibility not to be deceived, which means I need to take personal responsibility to know who the real Jesus is and what he's really saying and what the church is really teaching. That means we need to know the Word of God. We need we need to know the Word of God. We need to be meditating on the Word of God. We need to not just be reading it as an intellectual exercise or a devout exercise, but we need to say, this is truth.

This is life. Lord, I want to live it. I want to incorporate it into my life. Help me do this. Help me make it my own. Change my mind and heart to be your mind and heart so I could look at things as you look at things. And then I think it really means taking some time each day for personal prayer. I know we talk about this all the

time, but I don't think there's any substitute for simply taking time to be with the Lord. We need to learn how to recognize His voice so we have an instinct when we hear something that's not His voice we say, you know, that sounds kind of funny. I don't think that really is the Lord, you know. You know, we need to have that kind of interior familiarity with the Lord and then we need to have the objective knowledge of what He's really told us. The truth is about us and about the world and about life and death and judgment. We need to know His objective word and we need to know his objective word,

and we need to have that personal relationship growing in depth. So we're equipped not to be deceived. So we need to take responsibility of upping our game, of knowing the Lord in prayer and knowing the Lord in his word. So we're not deceived because a lot of times people kind of pretend they don't really know and they may not know as much as they should, but they kind of give in to their disordered desires, they give in to the pressure of the culture, they give in to satanic temptation, and they're culpable. Maybe it's a reduced culpability, but it's a culpability. I think

it also means then that we need to really see every relationship within we're in, as an invitation to help that person come closer to Christ and to help them to persevere. And if they don't have faith in Christ, to help them to come to faith in Christ, to do whatever it takes. Because if we really love people, that's really what it's about. You know, Jesus' love for people is a love that wanted to save them. Our love for people has to be a love that wants to save them. Yeah. So those are just a few thoughts. I think your book, the fulfillment of all desire is excellent. One, because you put it together so skillfully, but two,

because you're just giving us the wisdom of the group, some of the greatest saints who ever lived. So if this book's excellent, it's really because of them, not you, right? Absolutely. It's their wisdom. And I'm really, really happy to say this is not my wisdom. I'm a servant of the best wisdom the Catholic Church has to have, and I think the Lord has given me an understanding of how to communicate it, how to organize it so that people can receive it without watering it down.

Sorry. I have your book up here. Do I? No. Could you pass it to me? Sure. I really want people to get this book. This isn't a sales pitch for Ralph. I mean, it is, but he didn't ask me to do it.

It's just, it's such an excellent book. And if you wanna, if you're like, I just need a spiritual kick in the pants. Yeah. You know, I need to be praying every day and I'm not. I need to love the Eucharist and I don't. I need to love the Word of God and I kind of do. Please get this book now, The Fulfillment of All Desire, a guidebook for the journey

to God based on the wisdom of the saints. You do put this together really well. I mean, give people a summary. Yes. Well, you know, the traditional categories of growth in the spiritual life divides it into three stages, the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. And I don't really like to use that language too much. I don't like to use technical language because it kind of puts people off, you know?

And I'd like to try to use as common language as I can to describe those stages of spiritual growth. So I think like on the purgative way, say the journey begins, or the limits of the way the journey continues, the units of the way the journey concludes or something like that, where basically it's the whole process

of the healing of our soul, the Holy Spirit working to heal the wounds of sin, to give us understanding, to give us love, to give us freedom from things we don't even know we're in bondage to, deceptions, disorder desires, attachments. Now all that sounds crazy, but like in chapter 10, the chapter 10 is called Growing in Freedom, and there's a category in traditional spiritual writing called disordered attachments, and it sounds so negative, but what it is, is that sometimes we're attached to good things,

but in a disproportionate way to their intrinsic worth compared to other good things. And if we're inordinately attached to a lesser good thing, that's not leaving room for the better good thing to take its proper place in our life. And so when Jesus says, you know, unless you love me more than mother and father, son and daughter, you're not worthy to be a disciple. It's not that he doesn't want us to love our mother and fathers and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, but he wants to

love them under his lordship, under his rule, under his guidance, under his love. He wants us to be actually profoundly united with them and profoundly loving them, but not looking to them for a satisfaction or fulfillment that only God Himself can give us. And so the beauty of all the things that God has created, like there's another chapter called The Fruit of the Dark Night, and the purification that God does with us isn't an end in itself, it's to bring us into a realm of freedom, it's to bring us into a realm of love. And John of the Cross says we're going to even appreciate the physical creation more than we ever have. We're going to appreciate human beings more than we

ever have because we're appreciating them in God. We're appreciating them as God appreciates them and God thinks they're very good and really loves them and wants us to love them and love people like He loves them. And so it's not taking anything away, it's taking away things that are blocking us from the fullness that God has for us. I think Peter Crave has said something to the effect of sanctity entails sanity, you know, so the saints were the most sane people who ever lived. Conversely, those who are steeped in sin are insane because sin scrambles our brains and so we need to be spending time, I mean I need to be spending time first and foremost in sacred scripture, but

then listening to the wisest, sanest people who ever lived and their opinion and their readings of sacred scripture. Exactly. And that's what you have here. Yeah, and I thought, you know, hey, life is short, you know, and there's so many books on the spiritual life, but the Catholic Church has identified some saints as like the best we have, writers on the spiritual life,

and they're challenging, but I said, hey, I want to have the best we have, you know, I don't want to have just Father Richard Rohr with his, you know, this and that, the other thing. I want to have St. Bernard of Clairvaux. I want to have John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila, and Treasurly Sioux, and Francis of Sales.

I want to have those that have the deepest insight into the process of sanctification. And so, honestly, true confessions here, I started to read John of the Cross about a couple weeks after I had an experience, a conversion when I was a senior at Notre Dame. And I didn't understand what I was reading. I didn't understand what he was talking about.

It sounded very negative and very dark and just really kind of, I put it down. And 20 years went by, and then I was taking a class on Catholic spirituality at the seminary and I had to read another book by John of the Cross. I was doing my homework in Zurich, Switzerland. Spiritual Canical is the book I was reading and quite honestly all of the lights went on like something was going on in me and I couldn't even put it into words like things were getting integrated. Questions I had that I didn't even know I had were getting internally resolved somehow or other.

Creation and redemption, I can't even tell you, but anyway God was doing something in me and opening up understanding John of the Cross and so I just felt like, well I guess the time has arrived. And I just began to devour him and then found out the other spiritual doctors of the church one by one over a period of 10 years. I started off by doing CD albums on each of the saints, and they're still available by CD albums. I know, I know, I know. I won't talk about cassette albums. Yeah. But now we have MP3 versions of it all,

things like that. But anyway, so after 10 years, I said, you know, I was brought up to think about all these separate schools of spirituality, like, you know, there's Franciscan and Dominican and Carmelite and Silesian. I thought it was all like different flavors. But as I was studying them, I said, you know, they're all talking about the same thing.

They're really all talking about the healing of the human soul and the unifying of the human soul, making it one with God. That's what they're all talking about because it's the same Holy Spirit that they're talking about. It's the same process that they're observing. Each one sees different parts of it. But I thought if you could ever put it all together

with all their unique insights, but into the basic plan that they all have, you'd have the most incredible guidebook for the journey to God. So I'm very grateful to the Lord that he let me do that book because it has helped a lot of people and continues to help a lot of people. I know it's by far the number one bestseller of, that's what I've been told, right? Praise the Lord, that's wonderful. And it just shows too, right? It's sort of like when podcasts came out,

like these ones, long form, and people said, well, people don't have attention for that longer conversation. Well, apparently they do. And likewise, people might say, well, people don't want to read the... Well, apparently they really want to read the doctors. They want meat. Yeah. And the audio book is available

too for people who prefer to listen and Kindle and all that kind of stuff. But there's a video version. I'm sure you talk about this, but I'd like you to help me understand. I think one of the things we have to do when we come to sacred scripture, one thing I'm learning is I have to admit that I don't know something. If I already know something, then there's nothing to be told. But I, I try to come to the scripture now and be like, I think I know something, and that's probably an obstacle.

So Lord, what does it mean? So I'd like you to help me and our listeners understand what the world means, because I think serious Catholics have an understanding of the demonic. I think anyone who's lived a Catholic life for more than five minutes understands what it means to fight the flesh. We encounter it as we strive for holiness. But this world thing is, it's a bit difficult to kind of wrap your head around and I want to know what it is and how we battle it. Well, I think you could answer that question, Matt, but I know you want me to, so I will.

I'm sure you do a much better job. No, I don't think so. But there's different senses that the scripture uses when it talks about the world, like John chapter 3, God so loved the world that He made us all. So humanity. Yeah, and the physical world. God created the world. Or like in Genesis, God created and said, this is very good. This world is very good.

What I've just done, the universe I've just created is beautiful. It's very good. This world is very good. What I've just done, the universe I've just created is beautiful. It's very good. And man is very good. So everything that God created is very good, and that's the world that God created. But then, unfortunately... But then, let me just throw in a couple of scriptures here, because I think this ought to shock us, right? So yeah, the scripture talks about the universe, it talks about humanity when it uses the word world, but here's this other sense. Do not love the world or anything in the world.

If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. That's from 1 John 2, 15 Romans 12, 2 says, do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed with the renewing of your mind. It gets even more intense. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. How about this? He who is a friend of the world is an enemy of God.

Yeah, that's it. That's what I was looking for. That is amazing. Yeah, James 4-4, you adulterous people. I want a priest to say that to me. You adulterous people. Don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Right. No, I didn't. I thought we were supposed to basically make them like us.

And that's how we should read Scripture, saying when Scripture asks us whether we know something... Just assume the answer is no. Yeah, we just say, no, you know, and help me understand, you know. That's the interactive way of really interacting with the living Word of God. So obviously, there's the world that God created, which is very good. There's the world that rebelled, which is not very good. The world that declared its independence from God, the world that said, I don't need you, God,

the world that said, I don't believe you, and I'm not gonna keep your commandments. The human beings who said they'd rather be God's themselves and listen to the lie of the devil. So that world is in rebellion, that world God still loves, but we need to recognize that the world that we're living in, the fallen world we're living in,

has the beauty of the original creation, but now it also has structures of sin. Now it has powerful creations that are based on fallenness, based on darkness, based on rebellion, and we need to be able to discern What comes from the Lord and what doesn't come from the Lord just gets us back to personal prayer reading the scripture. I'm I heard somebody say that I think it was John Eldridge He said we're affected by the world in the way a man a healthy man is affected by a bunch of sick men in the same

Elevator you don't even realize this is the air that you're breathing that's making you sick. And so it can take some time to go, how have I given into the world? And here's a couple of examples. Sometimes my wife and I like to relax and watch a show. It's very difficult to find shows these days that aren't filthy. And so we'll say, hey, anyone know a good, well, this bishop or this priest recommended this series, and we start watching it. God have mercy! I hey, anyone know a good, well, this bishop or this priest recommended this series, and you start watching it. Yeah, I know. God have mercy. I know. I'm pretty sure the Bible isn't cool with us watching people have sex, right?

Or something changed? So how is it that Christians can, you know, just think that this is acceptable? Well, yeah. Like you say, we have to like discern when the world in its fallenness is drawing us into it. And it can happen in like shocking ways that we recoil from, but it can happen in little by little ways, little compromises, little exceptions. Everybody's doing it. Hey, a bishop said it was okay, you know, that type of thing. So that's why we need to take responsibility ourselves. We really need to take responsibility ourselves

for having the kind of relation with the Lord and the kind of knowledge of His word, that when we see something that we know isn't good for our soul, isn't good for our chastity or whatever, then we say, you know, hey, I'm attracted to that, but I don't want it. And a lot of people now are sitting ducks, you know? Ephesians chapter six, Paul says, you know,

our battle is not against just flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, so we need to put on spiritual armor. One of the saddest things is so many of our fellow Catholics don't have the spiritual armor on. They're there... Because we don't think we're in a battle. Yeah, they don't think we're in a battle,

and they don't have the spiritual armor, and so they're taking in all kinds of poison into their soul all kinds of presumption Particularly the shield of faith also as you extinguish the fiery darts of the enemy by the shield of faith and the shield of faith I think has two dimensions it has the dimension of faith in the person of christ I believe in him. I love him.

He is the Lord. Faith in Jesus, but also faith in what he says, faith in his revealed word, faith in his instructions to us, faith in what he's telling us we must do in order to be saved. So we need both of those things in order to discern when a flaming dart from the enemy has just come into our memory or just come into our imagination or just come into our disordered desires and when you say, hey, wait a second, that's not from the Lord. That's from Him. That's from the enemy of my soul, and I need to identify it and reject it immediately.

There's a lot of really good wisdom from the saints about how to deal with temptation, identify it and reject it immediately. There's a lot of really good wisdom from the saints about how to deal with temptation, you know, how to, how to little by little, get over serious sins, little by little, get over lesser sins, and little by little learn how to deal with temptation. So there's just a lot, you know, the spiritual journey is a journey. It's a long journey. You know, I continually am kind of, kind of like startled by these saints that are like our saints when they're 15 years old or 23 years old or dying at 33.

And I say, gee, I think I still got some more years to go of purification. I guess I'm on the slow track, you know. Now, I'm comforted because Francis de Cécile says a slow cure is the best cure. So I'm getting the slow cure, but I'm getting cured. Yeah. Praise the Lord. I want to talk maybe about how to like scripture. How I had a, um, I had a priest once in a homily and this is one of these homilies. It might seem a little hokey, but the lesson has always stayed with me. And you've heard what I'm about to say and

so is everybody, but let me say to anybody. It's good to repeat useful things. Yeah. This is what St. Peter says. I find it good to remind you of these things, though you know them and are grounded in them. Yes. Yes. So you think of a pitcher that's empty, right? A pitcher of water and, or a jug, because I don't think we say pitcher in Australia. So jug of a jug. If you fill it up with sand, then you'll have no room for pebbles or bigger rocks. But if you fill it up first with rocks, then you'll have room for pebbles, then you'll have room for sand. And of course, the analogy is there are those things we do maybe for recreation or just time wasting activities. That's the sand.

or just time wasting activities, that's the sand. Then you have the most important things in your life, your relationship with God, reading the scriptures, loving your spouse and children. Those are the rocks. And then of course the pebbles are the less meaningful things, but still meaningful. All right, so I think that we've just filled up our lives with distractions.

This is a recurring theme on my podcast, because I do it and I need to repent of it more and more The reason I don't have a love for scripture is because I'm watching a movie right now or I'm listening to this podcast right now Or I'm doing eight different things now lying to myself that I can multitask. Well I Really think that one thing I need to do and I think those watching need to do is Yeah, just manfully rip out those. Currents of information coming at you through the television or YouTube or podcasts that are distracting you from the primary thing you have to do.

There's not another app for that. There's not a way to well, if I could keep doing this just, I could maybe, you know, read scripture over here. I think we have to have this, yeah, this desire for what, a poverty of spirit or... Also simplicity, you know, you know, I, it's not rocket science, really. Like sometimes people think, you know, she to make progress in spiritual life, it's got to be like a really special kind of way of praying, or a special really long periods of time, and things like that. And that can have a role. But I tell people when I talk to them about the importance of personal prayer, I say, this is how I pray. And it's really simple. I say, first thing in the morning, I get a cup of coffee. I go into my office where I work. I turn off my cell phone, and I look at this icon of Jesus. Actually, that's not the first thing

I do. The first thing I do is kneel down. I've shared this before with you, but... Yeah, do it again. Yeah, do it like the children of Fatima, the angel told them, pray like this. They melt down. 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, don't adore you, don't hope in you and don't love you. And I've kind of added a few little things, mainly because there's no rule against adding things. So I'll begin by just putting myself down on the floor and adoring the Holy Trinity. You know, a little bit like that beautiful prayer you did at the beginning of the program, just adoring God, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Then I'll say, Father, I believe in you, I adore you, I hope in you, and I love you. I say, Most Holy Father, I believe in you, I adore you, I hope in you, and I love you, and I ask your pardon. Then I say, Most Holy Son, I believe in you, I adore you, I hope in you, and I love you, and I ask your pardon. And then the thing that really has added something, saying, Most Holy Spirit, I believe in you, I adore you, is somehow that's kind of brought out the personal identity of the Holy Spirit more.

And so, I don't know, I just kind of have felt led to do that, and it helps me kind of focus more on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you know. And then I'll get into the comfortable chair that my wife bought me 20 or 30 years ago. That was really one of our best investments. And get my cup of coffee and just be quiet before the Lord. And I'll just kind of think about Him. I try to be aware of His presence.

And I've got this icon. Anybody who's watched any of my YouTube videos sees this icon behind me, and I just look at it. I don't look at it all the time, I look at it from time to time, and I just feel like He's so real. He's a person. And I know the icon isn't Him, but I know the Orthodox say, it's a doorway, it's a window, you know. And so I feel like it is a little window into the person of Jesus, you know. And sometimes I feel like He's maybe looking at me in a slightly chastising way.

Like maybe I've been a little bit more kind of culpably distracted or something. Sometimes I think He's just looking at me saying, yes, keep coming, you know, the type of thing. Yes, I love you, you know, type of thing. And then after a while when I start to get distracted, maybe 10 or 15, 20 minutes, I'll pick up Magnificat. I don't even do the Divine Office, you know, and people sometimes are scandalized to hear that, but now I probably could do it. I used to not do it because I was really ribbon challenged. I couldn't figure where all the ribbons go, what day it was, what an antiphon it was, you know.

But I really like this little Magnificat thing. In fact, I have it. Well, while you're getting at it, I mean, this is what a lot of the Eastern saints and obviously the Western saints would say too, that it's better to pray for a short amount of time and be intentional and to pray with the heart than to pray long lists of prayers just because you're trying to keep up. So this little thing, I get no commission for this, I don't think they even know that I recommend it, but this little monthly booklet with prayers and readings of the

mass and meditations and saints lives and things, I'll pick it up after about 15 or 20 minutes, and I'll just start reading the morning psalm, and maybe there's something there that strikes me, and I'll say, Lord, help, or yes, I, you know, whatever, I'll interact with it a little bit. Then the readings for the Mass, I say there's hardly a day where there isn't something in the mass readings that I'm seeing it slightly new or sticking out a little bit more. And sometimes I'll read something that I don't really know how to interpret it. So I'll pick up my Ignatius study Bible, the New Testament, Scott Hahn type of thing, and I'll look in the footnote, and oftentimes that

will kind of clarify what I was wondering about. Some of the most puzzling things, no commentary actually clears up, so I won't say anything about it. And then I'll pick up maybe one of the volumes I have right next to me of the Catholic commentary and sacred scripture that Dr. Mary Healy and Dr. Peter Williamson from my seminary have done, and I'll pull out gospel or epistle and I'll look up what they say about it.

And usually that will be enough to make me feel like I've got basically what this is about and they don't get completely sometimes what it's all about, but that's okay, you know? So most of the time I get it without even having to look at the commentary or the footnote or something. And then after, then I have a, this is my top priority intercession list. This is my every now and then list.

Yeah, that type of thing. And so I pray, there's a little place where you do intercession. So I pray for people and pray for things, pray for the day. I prayed for our visit today, that type of thing. And then I'll read the meditation and the life of the saint. And then maybe I'll just put this down and just be quiet before the Lord again. And some days it's pretty easy, feels pretty good. Some days it's pretty hard, you know, and I'm looking at my watch,

you know, type of thing. But I could tell you that, you know, it's simple. It's basic, you know, and one of the biggest principles of growth in the spiritual life is just keep showing up. Well, and I've used this analogy before, so did Brian Holdsworth on our show recently, that there's a real analogy here to fitness. If I decide I wanna be muscular, then I can go to the gym tomorrow, but I shouldn't expect to be muscular

the first day I go to the gym. I need to keep showing up, and I need to be okay with incremental progress. I need to go when I don't wanna go. I need to go when I do wanna go. Exactly, exactly. And I honestly think first thing in the morning for a lot of people is the best thing, because once things start coming into you about the business of the day

or the work of the day, it gets a little harder, you know, not impossible, you know, are people who successfully do it during lunch hour or an evening. Beautiful. This for me is the best time. All right, we're going to take a break. And then when we come back, we're going to take questions from our local supporter supporters. So if you were a local supporter, go to matphred.locals.com and put your question there. Thanks. Hello, I want to say thank you to Hello, which is the best, not just the best Catholic app

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by these things naturally. They had to work out them very hard. Let us know when we are back and we are back with Dr. Ralph Martin. All right, we've got questions here. We have 23 questions from local supporters. I know I mentioned this in the break, but I really want people to go. Please check out strive twenty one dot com slash Matt. It's a 21 day detox from porn course I created.

So if you're a fella struggling with sexual impurity in that regard, there'll be a link in the description below. Strive21.com slash Matt, click that link and it's 100% free, really highly produced videos. It'll help you I think and we're really proud of it. So check that out. All right, Dave says, hi Dr. Martin. I yearn for the Holy Spirit, but I don't know Him. I think that I have been more in search of His gifts rather than He Himself.

How can we best begin to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit so that we can best hear Him? Well, I would say pay attention to what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit. You know, there's a lot that Jesus actually says about the Holy Spirit in John's Gospel. You know, He talks about the Spirit leading into all the truth, reminding you of the things I've said. He says, you know, stay in the city until you receive power from on high. So there's something besides orthodoxy and, you know, reverent liturgy that Jesus says people need.

And he says, we need to be clothed with power from on high. So I would say, meditate on where the disciples were before Pentecost and where they were afterwards, and then ask the Lord, Lord, do this thing to me. A little bit like Paul tells Timothy, stir into flame the gift that you receive, for they're laying out on my hands. So we receive the Holy Spirit and baptism and confirmation,

but a lot of times we're living more like the disciples who were before Pentecost than after. After Pentecost, they lost their fear. They became so convinced of the truth of the gospel. They became so convinced of who the risen Lord was that they just had to evangelize, they had to be witnesses, they were filled with fire, they were filled with love. And so, lots of people are experiencing that in one degree or another through Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Life in the Spirit seminars,

through Divine Renovation programs by Alpha, Christ Life, Ignatian retreats. So I would say, say, Lord, I want more, there's more. I want more of the Holy Spirit, Lord, give it to me. You know, Jesus said basically, do a novena, you know, say nine days, you know, in the upper room with Mary and the disciples, and you'll receive power from on high. So you know, long for it, desire for it, pray for it, hang out with other people who could maybe pray with you for a release of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Here's a practical suggestion I'm just thinking of. If you refer to someone as the something, you're not talking to them, you're talking about them. So it might be helpful in your prayer to say, to call the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, speak to Him, Holy Spirit. I love you, Holy Spirit, guide me, Holy Spirit. No, that's really good, Matt. And it kind of was a little bit like what I was experiencing when I added something to the Fatima prayer, you know, most Holy Spirit, like addressing Him personally, kind of did something to remind me that it's not just a force or impersonal power, but he's a person. Esau the Warrior says, thoughts on modern church architecture? Oh, not particularly. Next question. Not particularly. Yes, beautiful churches,

beautiful architecture is great, but you know, whatever church we got is what we got, and the Mass is being said there, and Jesus is present in the Mass there, as He is in a beautiful church, and maybe it's a little harder to be inspired to lift our minds and hearts to the Lord in an unbeautiful church, but you know, let's be grateful that we have churches, that we can go to them, that we have religious freedoms still, you know. I've said before that I was just in France and many of these churches, certainly the bigger ones, are all owned by the state and they kind of give it to the church to use perpetually. But you know, I don't know, man, I went to that, what was it, Mount Michel, that beautiful... Mount Saint Michel. Yeah, it's just a tourist trap. That's what it is.

But the really little parish church that you can go to and Christ seems to have been forgotten. And you think, gosh, as beautiful as that is and our love for Christ should drive us to build beautiful things. Saint-Chapelle you went to. Was it Paris? No, no. Was it Mount Saint-Chapelle, the island on the coast of Nori? Yeah, okay. Yeah. So I mean, our love of Christ should lead us to want to build beautiful things, but as you say, yeah. All right. Thank you for writing, says Michael Kay, the fulfillment of all desire. It really got me over my apprehension in reading John of the Cross. He has so much clarity, wisdom to offer us, and it seems like he often isn't talked about

in Catholic circles, especially when compared to Teresa or Thérèse of Lisieux. Yeah, well, John is more challenging, you know, and it takes a little bit to get him and to integrate him into the teaching of the others. And in some ways, he's more abrupt, he's more severe, he's more direct in what he says, he's more demanding. And so it takes a little bit to kind of receive him and let that start to work in us and get over our shock and our fear. Just real quick, before we go on to the next question, I posted a poll here for the live chat and we've had 619 votes. I said, what's your opinion on the most recent dubia?

Although I misspelt it, I put Dubai. Oh! So I'm not sure what people are responding to now, but I said, have read it and are now worried. Have read it, not worried. Have not read it, worried. Have not read it, not worried. The majority of people have not read it and are now worried, have read it, not worried, have not read it, worried, have not read it, not worried. The majority of people have not read it and are not worried,

but the next percentage are those who, uh, have not read it and are worried. Yeah. Yeah. Most people haven't read it. It seems. Yeah. All right. Um, Catholic Viking says, how do we bring Catholics that are leaving because of the liberal teachings when the only options nearby are Novus Ordo Mass? It's not a liberal church, but they feel it's not true and tied to Pope Francis. So I think he's criticizing the Novus Ordo and it seems like he's equating it with liberalism. Well, if it's not liberal and it's orthodox. Yeah.

Go. Yeah. Receive. Yeah. Yeah. Kyle Whittington says, it seems that much that comes out of Rome is just confusion with no shortage of those that are happy to throw gas on the fire.

How much does the average layman really need to keep track of Vatican News? I think the average layman doesn't need to keep track of visiting Vatican News, but what's happening is gonna come seeping through into the parish. It's gonna come seeping through in things they hear. It's in the New York Times, you know, it's in the Washington Post, it's in the air. Sometimes it's accurately reported, sometimes it isn't. New York Times today reported on the Dubia and reported on the transgender, you know. And what was its take?

Did you read it? Well, it was a pretty objective take and I interviewed different people and, you know, sympathetic, you know, I interviewed people from Dignity and trans people saying this is a good step forward. And then one of them actually volunteered that it's good to see that what the Congregation for the Reduction of Faith said in 2015 has now superseded. Mark Thompson says, Hi Matt and Dr. Martin, being involved in my local theater groups,

I am close with a lot of people who ascribe to leftist slash radical gender beliefs. Many people are openly gay or trans, and I love these people, but how should I represent my traditional Christian beliefs to them even though it may hurt them? Well, I would say be friends, love them, share your common humanity together, but don't hide you being a disciple of Christ. Don't hide that you're a Catholic, and be open to conversations where people say, well, do you really buy that type of thing? And be open to saying, I know that this is maybe upsetting to you, but I do believe that our happiness lies in obeying God, and that He has created us male and female,

and that if we're experiencing gender confusion or same-sex attraction, that's something that we can really receive healing for, and that the purpose of human sexuality is for a man and a woman to be together in one marriage, open to human life, and that God's gonna give us the help to live faithful to him,

whether we're married or unmarried, whatever our temptations are, whether they're heterosexual temptations or same-sex temptations or whatever. But, you know, I would say we got it, we got to be there with people and we got to, you know, be kind and good, good neighbors, you know, and good co-workers. And, but at the same time we shouldn't hide, you know, where we, who we are and they kind of know and they're probably kind of, they're probably wondering time we shouldn't hide who we are. And they kind of know, and they're probably wondering what we think about their lifestyle. And they may ask us at some point,

we shouldn't volunteer saying, oh, you sinners. But when they ask us, what do you think about same-sex relationships, we should tell them in a loving, gentle way what we think and why. And then just let the seed kind of percolate or germinate. I've always been impressed with people who are Christian, who I'll go out to dinner with these people say, and the waitress will come and my friend might say,

and this happened the other day, what can I pray for you for? Yeah. Like that takes some courage. Yeah, it does. Because you can be looked at as a giant weirder and you have to mean it. I mean, so if these people are sharing problems in their own life, you could let them know that, yeah, I'd love to pray for you for that.

I hope things are good. Yeah. Yeah. ABC123 says, not to be contentious or uncharitable, but all the problems do seem to occur with the entrance of our modern liturgical practices and theology of recent times. If we believe the words of Christ that by their fruits you will know them, young people are flocking to the TLM where there is nothing but clarity and there is no confusion about the teachings of the faith. Not to say they don't have their own faults, but TLM parishes don't have this lack of faith and are repenting from this wicked generation.

Do you think it's simply by coincidence that people are flocking to the Latin Mass? And if so, have you considered going to one for a longer period of time? No, I don't think it's by coincidence. I think people are looking for something solid, something clear, something that's not ambiguous and something that's also reverent. So I don't think it's coincidental at all. I understand completely why people are doing that. I just don't think that that's the only way that we can express authentic Catholic faith and have a reverent liturgy. Emily Bacon says, do you think a lot of this confusion is part of the Fatima revelation? If so, what could that mean for the Third Secret?

I think it's becoming more apparent that the Third Secret was not revealed. Thoughts? Well, you know, there's so much stuff, speculation about the Third Secret, and I honestly don't get involved in that. You know, Pope Benedict published what he considered the official interpretation of the Third Secret. He says it was fulfilled with the assassination of John Paul II and his recovery. People say, well, no, that doesn't really fit the Third Secret.

And I don't know. I think the I think the. I think we just need to be ready for whatever happens by helping our game, you know, and not speculating about end times or, you know, third secret. Luke W says, tell Ralph I enjoyed his talk in Rochester, Minnesota. Also glad he could stop by St. James coffee shop. Only coffee shop in America with an adoration chapel. What? Yeah, I know. I know. It's pretty amazing. Yeah.

I gave a talk for real presence radio, which is this network of radio stations in the upper Midwest. And then the next morning, went to Mass with the team and then also went to the coffee shop. And sure enough, St. James Coffee Shop was given permission by Bishop Quinn, the previous Bishop of Winona, Rochester. And they have this beautiful Adoration Chapel

right there in the coffee shop. It's a separate room and everything like that, but yeah, yeah, it's true. It's good. It's real. People are witnessing there in the coffee shop. That's amazing. This is a bit of a longer comment, but it's pertinent to what we're talking about. This is from JP Bowling. He says, my wife and I, a young Catholic studying a family, and we recently went with theology on Tap event for a date night that was sponsored by our diocese. It was advertised as a talk on blessings from Eucharistic Adoration. The presenting priest is a local elementary school chaplain and he only spoke a few minutes on adoration before deciding to spend the rest of the time to voice his opinion on the recent Synod and Duvia. He was telling the college students there that he would bless gay unions in private and that we need female clergy. Out of obligation, me and a few

other people rebuked the priest's comments. Good for you, friend. And then we wrote to our bishop about this, but I haven't heard back. Any advice on young families who are confronting these situations and how to interface with our local bishop? Well, I do think we have a responsibility in our parish or wherever if we hear somebody saying something that's damaging to people, that's a departure from the faith or whatever, to politely and respectfully go to that person and say, you know, this is what I heard you say, is that what you're really saying?

You know, do you really feel like that's really where the church is at these days? Unfortunately in this area, they could cite some things and say, yeah, that is where the church is these days. But if it's clearly something that's inappropriate, the person doesn't respond or makes fun of us, I think it is important, depending on the seriousness of the issue, to go to the bishop,

write the bishop a letter saying, you know, I'm a faithful parishioner here, and Father, maybe not just for a one-time thing, but if there's any kind of pattern of kind of undermining teaching or something like that, write to the bishop and say you'd like to talk with him about it. Bishops don't like to get letters like that. They don't like to hear any problems. They feel like they got enough problems. They don't want to hear that one of their few...

Too bad. One of their few priests is, you know, undermining people's faith. They don't want to deal with that, but we need to help them to deal with that. It's not a letter writing campaign instead then. Like flood his office with letters. Just because a bishop doesn't want to hear that doesn't mean he shouldn't, right? Yeah. Yeah. The Catholic dude says, what can Protestant converts bring to the table when converting to Catholicism? I was Protestant for years before

converting and it seems like Protestants have a much more supportive community than Catholics when it comes to bringing people into the fold. I guess it depends on what kind of Protestant you were, but have Catholics fallen short when it comes to loving their neighbor the fold. I guess it depends on what kind of Protestant you were, but have Catholics fallen short when it comes to loving their neighbor on a personal level? Yeah, well, a lot of Catholics, you know, would rather die than share the faith with anybody, type of thing. But so many Protestants that have come

into the Catholic Church, like we're right here in Steubenville, Ohio, how many thousands of people have come into the Catholic Church through the work of Scott Haun and other people like that, you know? And so what they bring a lot of times is gratitude for their being one true church. A lot of times they bring fire for evangelization.

So we're extremely grateful for Protestants who have come into the Catholic Church and they bring with them their love for Scripture, bring with them their zeal for evangelization, and bring with them their appreciation for the Catholic Church. Sam says, hello, Matt and Dr. Martin. My wife and I were raised in charismatic evangelical circles

and are in the process of converting to the ordinary. We are currently Anglican Catholic. My question is, how do we integrate our charismatic evangelical heritage into our newfound Catholic identity? My initial reaction was to throw out our heritage as heretical or misleading, but I'm starting to see the beauty and orthodoxy in charismatic traditions. Well, we shouldn't throw out anything that's part of the deposit of faith. We shouldn't throw out any aspect of the Holy Spirit's working.

So, yeah, evangelical means gospel-centered, you know, Christ-centered, evangelization-centered. Charismatic means we're open to the God-given gifts of the Holy Spirit that are spoken in Holy Scripture, spoken about in the documents of Attagin II, that are part of our doctrinal tradition, part of our spiritual tradition. So we should be contemplative, we should be charismatic, we should be Eucharistic, we should be Marian. You know, so don't throw out anything that's from the Lord, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Aquinas Pius says, what do you finefellas suppose is the benefit of limiting thriving communities that celebrate the TLM? Could you say that again? He's asking about the motu proprio that celebrate the TLM. Could you say that again? He's asking about the motu proprio, about the TLM, and he's wondering what the benefit of this

would be. Well, I guess you'd just have to go read the Pope's motu proprio. He made the case there. was some of the distortions that are present in some TLM communities, which include rejection of Vatican II, hostility towards the Pope, you know, and obviously there's a lot of healthy TLM communities that don't embody those, but I think he was reacting to those as one thing. And so I think unfortunately he used a meat cleaver rather than a scalpel. And fortunately, he's basically put into the hands of local bishops

to discern what was happening in their local communities. And I think most bishops have, you know, with maybe a few exceptions, have sort of like a firm, healthy TLM communities and given them a place to worship, you know. I think another reason that the Pope gave is that we're supposed to have one liturgical right, you know, in the Roman Church, you know, and even though we have different Catholic rights, you know, in different ways we're supposed to have one liturgical right. So I don't know. I mean,

I think healthy TLM communities are growing. I think most bishops are giving them room. Here's a quote from Cardinal Seurat speaking about pastoral strategies. He says, quote, even today, our pastoral strategies without any demands, without an appeal to conversion without a radical return to God are paths that lead Nowhere, they are politically correct games that cannot lead us to the crucified God our true liberator Yeah, yeah, amen. Yeah, Colonel Sarah is is fabulous How old is he is he within It's fabulous. He says so many things. How old is he? Is he within, is he of the age that he could be elected? He's not over 80, but he's over 75, yeah.

Come on, that'd be great. No, he's so insightful and so spiritually sensitive and theologically sound, yeah. Now we have a question here from Paul who asks, what do young people like myself have to look forward to in the church holiness evangelization love Big part of the solution not part of the problem There's nothing there's no law against loving God and loving our neighbor. That's what life's all about. So go to it

Well that that that just about does it. Praise the Lord. Anything else you wanna talk about? No, I feel like the long form is really long. And I think we covered a lot of ground and it's a lot to take in. I think we moved through a lot of different, I think worthwhile things. What do you do for fun that's not impressive?

That's one of my favorite questions to ask my guests. Remember, not impressive. You're not allowed to impress me with this fun thing that you do. What do I do that's fun? For relaxation. Yeah, okay. Well, I play tennis twice a week. Do you? Good for you. And my wife and I like to be watching some kind of series that is interesting, entertaining, well done and not bad. Pornographic. Yeah, and so we're actually watching something now called Foils War.

It's an older kind of English detective story set in World War. Is this a BBC? I think it's a PBS. Yeah, a joint production or something, but it's really quite good. The acting is fabulous and the settings are really great. And it's during World War II,

and they're all expecting the German invasion to come any time into Britain. But in the meantime, ordinary murders are happening and they have to be investigated. And so it's enjoyable. I just watched There Will Be Blood with Daniel Day-Lewis for the first time. And I watched it twice in one week. It was one of the best movies I've ever watched.

What's it called? There will be blood. Oh yeah. It's a, it's about this fellow who's looking for oil and oil companies scrambling for land in the early part of the country's founding. And I would highly recommend it. Daniel Day-Lewis, I think might be the greatest actor ever. Yeah, I'd really recommend it. It Day-Lewis I think might be the greatest actor ever. Yeah, I'd really recommend it.

It's excellent. Well, that's good. What do you read? Do you read fiction or do you tend to? I don't have much time for reading apart from my work, which is theology, you know, type of thing. I do read the Franciscan University alumni magazine, even though I'm not an alumni. My kids are. Father Dave Pavanka is on our board of Renal Ministries.

I read random kind of newsletters that I get like a family mission company from Louisiana. So I usually start reading and 20 minutes later, I fall asleep, you know, by the time I get to bed. My goal is to stay awake till 10. That's your goal? Why do you even have that as a goal? You don't have kids at home. Because I wake up too early if I don't. I love waking up early. Well, I will wake up early, but I don't want to wake up at three or four in the morning. Oh, that's when you wake up. Yeah, I'd like to like.

Now, is this as you've gotten older, you've found you need less sleep or has it always been like that? No, it's kind of always been like that. Like I fall right asleep as soon as I lay down and my wife is a night owl. So we have a little things to work out there. You're like me, that's my wife. She's a night owl and I need to go to bed early.

But I like this morning I woke up at 5.45 and I was thrilled with that because I got to go out pray read Yeah, yeah, yeah have my coffee without the the kids. Yeah. Well, I had to wake up at a What time to get to the airport to come here today, you know, so oh, yeah, I went to bed too late last night Came back from playing tennis and my wife was just finishing her Bible study and the ladies were hanging around was just finishing her Bible study and the ladies were hanging around. We wanted to see another episode of Foil's War.

So that didn't get started till whatever, that didn't get finished till 11. And then she was watching a little bit of Jesse Waters or something, you know, Fox News, you know, type of thing. She didn't come to bed right away and it's hard for me to go to sleep until she comes. So insensitive of her. I feel like that as well.

How am I supposed to sleep? Turn the light off. So I got to bed later. I only got like probably five or six hours sleep, but I'm doing okay, you know? Good, good, good. Yes. Good.

Well, pleasure to have you as always. Yeah. Well, tell us as we wrap up, you have an excellent channel. I told you this the other day, I like listening to your YouTube channel with you and Pete Herbeck. You have some excellent wisdom to offer. What is the name of your channel and where should we find it? It's Renewal Ministries YouTube channel. You can get there. We can put in Ralph Martin YouTube or

Peter Herbeck YouTube, that type of thing. And we are kind of excited about it because when COVID came, we had to cancel our travel, do a lot of traveling, and we kind of really got into the YouTube thing. And I really like being able to, when I get an inspiration in prayer or reading scripture, to be able to share it with people, you know? And, or when new dubia come out, maybe people need a little help wrestling with that.

I like to try to give a little perspective. Yeah. So yeah, so yeah, yeah. If you enjoyed the interview today, you know, add Renewal Ministers YouTube channel to your subscriptions along with Pints with Aquinas. Yeah, one final plug before we go, right? So currently we have, out of all the people who watch our channel, 64% of people aren't yet subscribed. So please subscribe to this channel. If you appreciate what we're doing, if you appreciate the content,

it probably just shows up in your feed. You didn't realize you're not subscribed. It would really help us if you would click subscribe, click the bell button, click all of the things except the thumbs down button, unless you didn't like this, in which case you can click that as well. God bless, unless you didn't like this, in which case you can click that as well. God bless, thank you.