Pints With Aquinas - Two Boomers Complaining About The World (Trent Horn) Ep. 565

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

Catholic apologist Trent Horn opens up about his wife's brain tumor, the toxicity plaguing online Catholic discourse, and why he now sends his scripts to critics before publishing. This wide-ranging conversation covers everything from dating culture and Gen Z struggles to practical advice for Protestants considering Catholicism. A candid, honest discussion about faith, suffering, and how to evangelize with both truth and love. Ep. 565 📲 Connect with Trent:  Instagram: @counseloftrentpodcast/ YouTube: @TheCounselofTrent - - - Today's Sponsors: Seven Weeks Coffee: Save up to 25% with promo code 'PINTS' at https://sevenweekscoffee.com/PINTS Charity Mobile: Visit https://charitymobile.com/MATTFRADD to get started. St. Paul Center: Join the Bible Study movement alongside a global community. Sign up today at https://stpaulcenter.com/pints Cowguys: Visit https://tallowdeodorant.shop and get a beef tallow balm for free. Catholic Match: Download the app or head to https://CatholicMatch.com and find your forever. - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: ⁠https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe⁠ 🍿 The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is now streaming exclusively on DailyWire+ Watch now: https://dwplus.watch/ThePendragon - - - 📕 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://a.co/d/bDU0xLb 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 ⁠⁠⁠https://mattfradd.locals.com/support⁠⁠⁠ - - - 💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattfradd 𝕏 Twitter/X: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas⁠⁠ 🎵 TikTok: ⁠⁠https://tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas⁠⁠ 📚 PWA Merch – ⁠⁠https://dwplus.shop/MattFraddMerch⁠ 👕 Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com - - - Privacy Policy: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/privacy⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Gen Z is like one of the least Christian generations. I don't see anything contradicting the claim that for every one person who becomes Catholic, eight leave. Man, social media is just an inhuman thing. This world rewards vice. Pride, lust, envy, greed, wrath, sloth. Everything that gets multiplied on the internet appeals to one of those deadly sins. In the so-called manosphere, there are things they'll say that are true.

Like for men, if you want to attract women, there's things you should do, things you shouldn't do. This idea like, oh, I'm just better off without women. And then they go forward 20 years and can't go back. Some people get all nervous in our Catholic circles. Like, well, I don't know. Am I called to marriage? Like, yeah, you are. Do you think there are things that you're seeing kind of rear their head within the church itself?

When I will put forward content that will say, oh, they got X right or we got X wrong, it's like, hey, wait a minute, you're going against the team on this. Why are you counter signaling us? You mean saying something you disagree with? Trent, I remember the funniest way I ever introduced you, at least to me, is I went, Trentius, horniest, and you went, nope. We're going to, we're going to pave right over that. Start that again.

We're going to hear the speed bump. We're going to ask, what was that we hit? I'm not even going to look back. We're going to keep driving. That reminds me of that office episode. One day Michael came in complaining about a speed. speed bump in the highway. I wonder who he hit with his car then. I wonder. Thank you for being on my show. Oh, thank you for having me. This is, this is a lovely set by the way. So. Thank you. It's amazing.

I did nothing at all. I just told him I wanted to kind of look like a hunting lodge meets cigar lounge, meets Nook in a library or Irish pub. So your set design crew is just kind of like a living chat GPT. And you're like, what would it look like if we did this? And it's like, yeah. Well, it's actually a lovely woman because I met her in one of the meetings we had here at Daily Wire to talk about the set and I walked in and she was so classy looking she had like leopard skin glasses on

and I looked at her and I thought whatever you want I'll do I just I show my belly well so you just have to defer to the experts someday. A hundred percent. Essentially if it's something totally outside of your wheelhouse it's kind of interesting in writing my books for Catholic Answers at the very beginning like my first and second book I would be really knit

picky about all of the edits. Like, are you changing this? Are you changing that? But now I think I'm on like book 12 or 13. I'm like, select all. It's probably fine. I'm sure you guys know what you're doing by now. Ah, that's funny you say that because me, I'm not a good writer. So I actually beg them to like edit the stuff out of it and then I'll accept it all. But I would presume you're actually pretty good. I'm trying. You're good, but tired. I give up. There's a lot going on with this recently. But when it comes to writing, it's interesting for council of I've really enjoyed doing the shows, doing two episodes a week. What started as just an audio podcast where, I mean, that was back in the mid-20, well, late-20s,

when everybody just throw on a microphone, here's what I think about this, and that's podcast. Then I thought, oh, what if I had a camera rolling while I did podcast? And then that turned into, I want to make content that really edifies people and is efficient. And that it makes a good use of your time. I want to be respectful of people's time. Why do I feel like this is a low-key shot at Pants with Aquinas? You know where I'm about to go three hours. I've already called you Trentius, horniest.

Why would you do this? There's a difference between an organic chat that is really enjoyable and just rambling, especially if you're by yourself. And you're just rambling and spinning off. Some people are going to do that well. But I really wanted to give people, oh, so I started scripting it. Like, here's what I could take an hour to say,

I can get it done in 20 minutes, then scripting it. So now with the episodes, I did a word count of it. Because I'll tell Laura, like, oh, it's, I'm writing, about five or six thousand words a week. And she's like, that has no meaning to me. And most of you all that has no meaning. So, oh, well, it'd be like if you wrote a 25 page research paper every week and included all your citations as well. Because I also have to include editing instructions. I have to find clips to comment on B-roll instructions from my editor. It is a lot of writing.

I don't know if this is too personal. So tell me to stop being creepy if it is. But how's Laura? Oh, I think you're going to ask how much I, my current weight class. Okay. No, no. How's Laura? You know what? She is keeping on, keeping on. It is very, very hard. I worry sometimes in trying to give people optimistic hope. Maybe I don't. The problem is, like, I'm a melancholic and she's a sanguine. So, like, I'll just be like, oh, it's fine. And, like, I can maybe understate and maybe she can overstate. So if we mix the two together, I would say, I'm really grateful. We found her brain tumor early, that we were able to intervene, found a surgeon willing to do that. but it has been, it is a hard recovery. It's one thing if it's a different part of your body, it's like my foot hurts, but when it's your brain, because that's like around where you are.

It's just like all consuming in here. So she, you know, she's tired, lightheaded. I mean, once during her recovery, we had to take her, we thought she was having a stroke. We had to take her to the hospital, call an ambulance, half her face didn't move. And it's like, was this going to be permanent? It's like, it's scary. So now it's just like you're worried, like what's going to happen. Is it going to come back?

And you just have to trust in God. Do you feel like you're in a constant state of maybe needing to react at any point to something that happens? Or have both of you sort of been able to calm down? I think maybe I'm in that state, but I'm so dead inside. I don't feel it anymore. Whiskey helps. One would, one would think. I mean, I can't even get myself out of the house to go pick that up.

No, it's, so she is, she's doing really well. But it has been hard. So the prayers have been really, we've really appreciated that. but you know this is the the big cross for us to carry we're grateful for everyone who's helped and how did it sort of i don't know the the conversation the two of you had when you announced it was so beautiful and laura is so disarmingly wise she'll just be talking and making jokes and i'm laughing and all of a sudden she'll say something that's so profound and she said i won't be able to repeat it well i don't think but she said something to the effect of now once i realized i had this

brain tumor, I realized, why, where was I? Why was I always going out? What did she say? Well, it was interesting. We have noticed things negative since operation, but also things positive. Hang on, do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, and that's related to that. The idea is you're always worried like, you know, like, we'll yell at the kids. Like, come on, we need to get going. I see. What are we doing? Come on, come on. Like, you're always in a rush. Yeah. And you get, you get easily flustered with them. But now after it, like, you know, both of us, but especially for her, like doesn't like rise up to that high level of like, you know, ah, it's, it's a slower like, yeah, where do I? Why was I in such a rush to where did I have to go? I'm here with my kids.

Yeah. Life is going to continue. Just take it in one day at a time where God wants you to be and just stay open and listen to him. And yeah, maybe he's going to take you down a really rough, uh, rough road. That's where we're at right now. It's kind of funny. I feel not bad, but I mean, for a while, I was just praying and feeling like, I've been so blessed. Like, I can't even, I feel bad. We haven't had a major cross to carry. Now, Lord's going to kill me that I was saying that in my prayers. Because I felt like so good. I've been blessed children, blessed an awesome wife. I've been able to reach people. And I just get super excited about telling people about Christ,

about his church, and really being able to reach a lot of people and help them. I'm like, this is, so many people would love to be able to do that. Although part of it is I do that, it also is like a big responsibility. Like, I kind of wish I didn't have to. But I kind of wish you didn't have to want. The burden of evangelizing and wanting to help others. So like, for example, like, I've been able to reach a lot of people. I want to counter these awful errors that are out there that are ensnaring people, sin, heresy, whatever it might be.

So I spend a lot of time, you know, like on the internet, seeing what is the buzz? What's going on? and social media. Also, I don't really post on social media, but I lurk there. To see, like, put, you know, my finger on the pulse, see what's going on.

And if you talk about things that are really popular and can provide a Christian point of view to it, then you can get your message out more. But, man, social media is just an inhuman thing. The internet itself is just so overstimulating. I hate looking at a computer that much. It's like, if I could just live more of an analog apologist's life,

of like writing a book on a typewriter and teaching, I'd love that. But I feel like I can't do that at least right now. It's like in Philippians, Paul says as Philippians, he says, my desire is to depart and be with Christ, but for your sake, it is better than I'm here. Yeah. And that's kind of where I feel about like,

kind of where I'm at right now and doing Council of Trent. Like, this is the best place, even if it's hard and there's times I don't like it, it's the best way to help people. I think the reason for me that I spend so much time building up fences around the internet and social media

is because I do find it so consuming. So when I came here to Nashville recently, we had the release of our first ever show and I intentionally shifted my phone, making it a dumb phone. It's impossible to go on social media, impossible to go on browser, left my computer at home.

So I was just... Because in a way, it's unnatural to not care about what people are saying about this beautiful thing you just put out into the world. You want people to know. And then you go in and start reading... comments and some of them are great, most of them are beautiful.

And there's a couple that are unhinged. That always stick with you. Well, Aquinas talks about that. And he talks about the sin of vanglory. And he says that it is natural to want to esteem one's own works and to recognize that and see that in others esteeming you. And he cites Matthew 516 where Jesus says, let your light shine before men.

So it's not like, oh, you have to keep everything is secret to never be praised. Like literally God wants us, when Christians do good works, that's one of the best ways we can evangelize because then people who are not Christian and that's traditionally throughout church history people have seen oh the Christians took in the poor the orphans the widows look at everything they're doing and you see God in that and then people praise

these people are awesome they're great but the devil is just great at taking good things and distorting my point was simply that this I had this strong desire to check it constantly yeah and you're like well so I'm not sure if I would be like you like what it sounds like you're saying is if you could you'd put it away and wouldn't give it a second thought. I think I would give it a third and a fourth thought. So that's why I need to set up those sort of boundaries and others might not need to,

but I do find that when I do that, my head is a lot clearer. Yeah. There's a lot of people on internet today talking about intrusive thoughts. Have you noticed this as a thing? I've heard of that. And I know people have always dealt with this, but I think a big part of this is this constant media consumption. Yeah. You lose your focus when you're trying to attend to all of these different things. It's distracting. What I've tried to do, I've, I've gotten a, like a dumb phone app. It just makes, not a dumb phone app per se. I still have too many apps.

It's helpful to have. But it makes it like a black screen so it's less enticing to want to pick up. Also, just like logging out of X. So I can't get it on my phone. And then creating, I use a program called Cold Turkey. Yeah. So I use it on the computer too. Yeah.

So I can just like, it's mostly X and other forms of social media. That's really the one where I think. you get sucked in a lot. Who are the people who like X? People who like attention. People who constantly want, people constantly want dopamine hits. Because I think a lot of reasonable people are saying what we're saying. Like what we're saying is not a new idea.

People like, no, I got to get all. Everyone I know who I like says that. And I'm wondering, does anybody on Twitter love being on Twitter? I think as much as like an alcoholic loves beer. You know, they love it, but they know it's like killing them on the inside. But there's still a pleasure there that they want to seek after. So that's why I think just the more being able to trans... I mean, I wouldn't call it hypocrisy.

It's like, I want to be offline. But I want to be online enough to be able to help people. That's why, like, for my episodes, they're short. You know, they're just like they're 15 minutes. They give you the material. I'm not constantly doing stuff just to, like, keep people, you know, in, you know, wrangled in, so to speak. It's just, I wanted... I even thought at one point, I wanted to...

I wanted to do like a promo. If I had enough money or resources, I want to do this, where if you promise to get off the internet, I'll send you a CD of my podcast every month to, like, listen to. Like that, I don't know. Yeah. But I don't have the resources to do something like that. But I mean, it's, I'm doing, I mean, I'm doing a conference soon on online evangelism

because people are going to live there. Yeah. So if you're going to be there, you might as well share the faith well. And just avoid, avoid the traps. Yeah. Usually the traps are just when you're there, it just makes you inhuman when responding to other people. So, like, a lot of times when I see someone.

has posted something and it's our first instinct is like oh i'm gonna dunk on that person by reposting it with my snarky jab totally which is why which is why the quote tweet exists to begin with is so we could dump on people it's the repost matt repost well what are they cool it's not a tweet anymore is it could a quote post or what are they cool it's a repost i don't know we're not i refuse to do it that's and that is fun that's fine um can someone rewind that DVD for me sounding like now uh but i so i what i haven't I just privately message people. Now, every now and then, if I see something absolutely atrocious, I'll just say like a little thing and a comment under. This is atrocious. No, I'll just, I'll just include something factual or just a quote that contradicts it and shows it's wrong and then

just like let it be. So it is a good play. It is still, I mean, there are so many people. And that's why, I mean, I've met people, being able to send my book to people to help them. Yeah. So it's a good place. It's just, you just have to really take it with a lot of great care. Because there's no opinion you could put out into the world that at least someone won't congratulate you for. Like, I'd be horrified to know what people would be willing, oh, let's not, we could just use this. We've seen what people have said about Charlie Kirk and his wife. Oh, yeah. We've seen how disgusting the things have been that they've said. And when that initially happened, you would think, obviously no one's going to be like an absolute demon. But there are, but there are

absolute, there are literal demons out there. And it wasn't the demons who were tweeting as far as I could tell. Right. But I mean, the point is they influence people to behave in in sinful and even demonic ways. And especially if you operate behind an anonymous avatar, you are extremely tempted to do things you would never do in your normal life. So we have tried a lot of coffee over the years in the frad household. But our sponsor, Seven Weeks Coffee, is the one my wife and I have chosen to land on. And now it's constantly stocked and brewed in our house. house. It's not just great coffee. It's a brand built around values that we take seriously. Seven Weeks Coffee is America's Pro Life Coffee Company on a mission to fund the pro-life movement

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but the coffee needs to be excellent and I'm happy to say that it truly is. So go to 7weekscoffee.com and save 15% forever when you subscribe. Plus get a free gift with your order. And exclusively for my listeners, use code pints for an extra 10% off your first order. That's a 25% total savings on your first order. Plus a free gift, just use code pints at checkout. Let's talk about how the sin of rash judgment, slander and detraction are grave sins. Well, the catechism says that everyone has the right to a good reputation. So you have you have

the right to a good name. And when we look at you look at the commandments, right, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt honor their father and mother, thou shall not kill. Our moral obligations go beyond just like the strict definitions of the commandments, right? So, you know, if you, that's why Jesus said, if you call your brother Raqa or fool, you'll be liable of fires of hell. It says, thou shalt not kill. people thought, oh, I didn't actually kill the guy. Yeah, but, you know, if you punch somebody in the face, you don't kill him, that's still sinful. But you can also hurt someone with words. You can, if you spread lies about someone, that can hurt someone far more than just punching him in the face.

At least punching somebody in the face from one who's done moitai kickboxing and know what that feels like. You eventually, you know, that heals and gets over, but you put things on the internet, they can be there forever. Yeah. So in many respects, when people engage in that, especially online, spreading things that are not true, you know, it's like you can't, a lot of times can't be undone. Or spreading things people have no right to know about. There you go. Yeah. So there's a difference there. So detraction, so calumny right is spreading lies about somebody. Detraction is sharing something that's true that nobody else has a right to know about. So the L and calumny stands for lie,

t and detraction or truths people should know about. Yeah. Another thing I'm seeing is a lot of people online saying, hey, I don't hate anybody. And you go, yeah, all right, but like everyone can say I don't hate anybody, but if your behavior looks as if you're treating someone as intrinsically evil, do you see what I mean? Well, it's this... How do we know when something crosses over to hatred? Well, I would say, don't use the word hate,

use the word unloving. Because a lot of times when we think of hate, we think of malice, wrath, foaming at the mouth, wanting the worst for someone, the absolute worst for them. And so they're like, well, I'm not that. I don't hate people. Right. But there's a big there's a big spectrum between wanting the worst and wanting the best or even just willing the good for someone. So maybe you don't hate them, but if you're willing something that is not good for them, like you want your willing pain for them to feel embarrassed about something that they

actually shouldn't have to feel embarrassed about, you may not hate them, but you're not showing love to them. You're being unloving. So I don't think the God who is love itself wants us as Christians or anyone, but especially Christians, to be unloving. That's really good. Yeah, asking, do you hate that person? It's too high of a bar. But if I say to myself, am I being unloving? Well, okay. Yeah, or it's a very low bar. It's a low bar. It's a low bar to step over. Like, okay, great, you don't hate them. Well done. But are you showing love to them? Now, that doesn't mean that you can't preach the truth to someone or call someone out for something or present them with something that they will feel bad hearing. But that's why in Ephesians 415, Paul says we should speak the

truth in love to others. And people really know that they know the difference. They know the difference. There's people I see online who can model that. And then there are others, you know, you know inside when you're relishing making someone else feel bad when it's crossed over from justice to vengeance, when you're personally relishing in it. How is this influence? affecting modern apologetics today? What I worry about with modern apologetics is, I mean, a lot of different things, like kind of a cult of personality and an aggressiveness that is uncalled for. I don't think you'll have to be mealy-mouthed.

I don't think they should have to qualify every single thing that they say. But it is an idea that we're not going to destroy arguments. We're going to destroy people, and it should be the opposite of that. Like I've always said, you should destroy an argument. you should destroy an error, don't destroy a person. But it'll get conflated where manipulative, aggressive tactics will be used to destroy the person himself, making them feel embarrassed, small, you know, owning a person. And it also creates this mentality of circling the wagons or tribalism.

This idea that in apologetics where you stop really thinking critically about things, it becomes our side is always right and they're always wrong, when that may not be the case. So when I will put forward content that will say, oh, they got X right or we got X wrong, it's like, hey, wait a minute, you're going against the team on this. Why are you doing that?

Why are you having this loser mentality? Why are you, you know, why are you counter signaling us? That's what I hate. You mean saying something you disagree with? So it becomes a tribalist framework where it's just our team, which is usually a very narrow ideology, much narrower than the Christian faith. It's our particular proclivities. This is what needs to win. And we're going

to defeat anyone who feels otherwise. And I don't like that. We should all be promoting the truth and speaking it in love. Yeah. And what's tough, though, is the internet applauds and applauds and benefits those who do speak with that unnecessary aggression and who are snide and triumphal. The internet And in a way, it penalizes. And by the internet, you know, what I mean. The online world. Yeah, the online world. But if you're like, if you're humble and gentle and honest, like, you'll get nowhere.

So it's almost like to win the internet, it feels like sometimes you have to be a giant. Well, in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he calls Satan the god of this world. So this world rewards vice. The natural world does. Like, what are the things that are most popular on the internet? you know, explicit materials, angry things, think about the seven deadly sins. Yeah.

Pride, lust, envy, greed, wrath, sloth. Everything that gets multiplied on the internet, you know, appeals to one of those deadly sins, one of those capital sins. Spot on. I've never thought of it that way. So it's not just that it rewards, like, anger. If it's any of the deadly sins,

because Satan is the God of this world, we are human beings are fallen, the internet will lower people to that common denominator, whereas things that call us to higher virtue. It's like, oh, that's, that will just not be as popular. It's just the same way there's no drive-through vegetable place. There's drive-through burger places. But there's no drive-through, I mean, there's like a few salad and goes,

but like it's a lot harder to find something like that. On the go. Yeah, I get a turn-up on the go. But some of those things, like healthier places, what's interesting with healthy food, like that has sprung up more when people realize, oh, the fast food, it makes me sick and I hate myself. So I do think there is a bit of, we're building here. There is a bit of a turn, and I'm seeing more of people who are once really angry critics of me, be supportive and come into the full little more of what I'm trying to promote and others because the other influencers who just want to stoke, anger, envy, all of these other things, gossip.

It's just not satisfying. So you don't have to mention names if you don't want to, but can you tell us more about how people have reached out and said? I'm sorry. It's just like things I'll read in just comments. people say, I used to listen to so-and-so, but they'll say it just got old after a while. Yeah. It just got old of always just complaining or griping or casting aspersions on others. And like I said, it is fine to call a spade a spade. I have done that. I have I have critiqued,

you know, Pearl or Destiny or other people and have used blunt language to critique some of the awful things. You're an insane person. Well, when you say that beastiality isn't bad, That's, and we've been arguing about it for two hours. Oh, no, dude, it was the best. I'm so glad you said it. But then maybe I shouldn't be glad that you said it. Well, you know what really set me off in that moment, actually? It was not even him defending bestiality.

It was the counterpunch because what I, how the exchange, you know, led up to that. I was trying to show their sexual ethics don't work because it leads to an absurd conclusion. And I said, you know, wouldn't you see this is wrong? And he said, well, we wouldn't see that because we're not religious. And I just was like, I was just sick of the bad. black-handed slap to like, oh, a religious person is an ignorant, uncritical simpleton who follows arbitrary rules and they're just, they're the dumb-dums. Oh, we're not religious. I'm like, no, it's because you're not sane. You're being an insane person when you say, oh, you know, there's no

moral problem with sexual relations between human and animals. And the thing is, there are insane views that smart people defend because smart people are really good at rationalizing, positions they got to for dumb reasons. I borrow that. That's actually Michael Shermer, who is a skeptic, he's a pretty passionate atheist, wrote a book called Why People Believe Weird Things. There's a chapter in it called Why Smart People Believe Weird Things.

I think that was Peter Craveh also, he said, it takes you a PhD to, you need a PhD to believe something that's stupid. Yeah, so that's why I worry also in the internet is that people will go on there and they'll say, look, dude, this guy's so smart, man. He can just like say anything. A lot of times they'll just say so much.

People can't catch all the wrong things they say. He's just so smart. I'm like, there are a lot of people who have read a lot. But just because someone is smart, it doesn't follow what they're saying is correct. So people will follow positions based on the confidence of the, and this is an age-old problem. You follow a position because the person proposing it just sounds very confident. Of course. And the problem, and the reason for that is most of us, we do not have the time or resources to vet everything.

You go back, you know, 50,000 years ago, sorry if everyone was gonna get mad at the age of the earth and stuff, but, you know, a prehistoric man was just trying to survive. You know, what did you do? Well, that guy's really confident, and he seems to be doing all right. I'm gonna go with him. And the people who did that ended up okay,

and the guy who was like, couldn't make a decision, you know, the woolly mammoth ate him. Well, the woolly mammoth wouldn't eat him, but you wouldn't get to eat the mammoth. You know, or something would, that kind of stuff would happen. So that's where I worry is that we have, we have that tendency built into us, just to gauge,

It's like when people watch a debate, like, that guy, that guy killed it. He was awesome. Like, oh, well, what argument was best? I don't know, but he just seemed really confident. Yeah, and it's like, okay, that's what you want to say. So that's why I really want to encourage people just to slow it down, think about evidence, and also just pray and let God guide you. I love in scripture, I think it's Ephesians, where Paul says that, you know, we are not,

it's after he talks about the, it's in Ephesians where he talks about the armor of God discourse, like put on the helmet of salvation. the breastplay of righteousness. Yeah, phoeuvre. Yeah, and so he says in there, we will not be children tossed about to and fro by the winds of doctrine. And if you just follow confident people

who, at least people who sound confident, you will be tossed about to and fro, you know. Yeah, I noticed that there is a correlation there between people who sound uber-confident tend to be very insecure, I've found. What's interesting also is I find that the smartest people I know are able to speak in very simple terms.

Yes. Jimmy Aiken. Yeah. He can just, and I love when Jimmy will discuss things, because Jimmy can go very deep on subjects. He and I had a deep back and forth on the Kalam argument. We have a, it's never, it's,

it's never easy to disagree with Jimmy Aiken on something. You want to get on stage, you'd be like, Jimmy, here's why I think you're wrong. It takes a lot of gumption to want to do something like that. But I am, you know, but we actually do agree a fair amount. I've changed my mind a lot on that, but we still have a disagreement there.

But Jimmy can just, he has no pretension to want to sound smart. He can just be smart. And the smartest people I know are all like that. One of my favorite Protestant philosophers is Josh Rasmussen. Yeah. teaches at Asusa. He wrote a book of how reason can lead to God. And we were speaking at the Capturing Christianity Conference like four years ago.

That's where I debated Ben Watkins, who's another smart guy. And we could just talk and just like be on the intellectual treadmill. And I'm like, duh, this is so fun. I never get to have anyone. They could just do this, but without someone just, like, being pretentious about it. Like, for example, like, jargon is fine when you're among experts and you need a shorthand to refer to something.

But I can tell a lot of times a lot of people online might use jargon just to confuse people or sound smart when it wouldn't help your audience to use these kinds of terms. So someone, I find that people who, there are people who oftentimes want to try to sound smart. And then there are just people who really are smart and they can just communicate that well to people. My colleague and friend, Isabel Brown,

is quite sanguine about the fact that many Gen Zias are turning to Catholicism. I'm old and cynical, so I'm like, there's got to be whatever the opposite of silver lining is, there's got to be that there somewhere. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel, and usually it's an oncoming train. It's an oncoming train.

So it's a freight train coming. So what is your take on this resurgence or return to Catholicism? Many young people. I would say there are definitely stories that have that have become public. We are seeing, I think, a resurgence in vitality and vigor among those who choose to return to the faith or come to it. And it's definitely increased a lot in the public consciousness. But I think the data does not show this, like, giant wave of Gen Z

becoming Catholic. And we have new, and this is a disagreement that I also had recently with, with my colleague Joe Heschmeier and others when they were kind of being really triumphal about Catholic And when I look at the data, I don't see anything contradicting the claim that for every one person who becomes Catholic eight leave. Now, I've been told by others, oh, well, that's really older data. Like, you know, it could be different, right? It could be better or it could be the same or it could be worse. But now we have from Pew 2020, 23, 2024 data. And what I'm seeing among Gen Z is, Gen Z is like one of the least Christian generations.

And it's like, and if we just think, oh, all Gen Z are deuce fault. Catholics or Christian nationalist Calvinists or they're all these like really hardcore Christians. Maybe on the internet where the algorithm is locked you into a small bubble. I mean, think about when you're on, because like if you're on X, for example, I'm sure there's like, let's say, a thousand us seem familiar to you. I mean, I'm never on X. So what do you mean? Well, I mean, if you're on there and you just see posts that come up, right?

I mean, there are tens. You see the people you know. Is that the book? Yeah, you see a tiny fraction. Yeah. You're not seeing the world. You're not seeing there. There's tens of millions people in this country. And my understanding is that Twitter changed its algorithm when Elon came on as well.

So it used to be the case that you would just see what's trending in the world right now. Now you see what you want to see. Now you see what you want to see. Yeah. So it distorts your view of the world. And if you just think all Gen Z are like these hardcore Christians, you're going to miss. And also thinking that like atheism is dead. We killed it. I do think new atheism has kind of died off. That's kind of cringe now, the Reddit atheism.

but a different kind of atheism, either more relaxed Gen Z atheism or agnosticism or kind of more highbrow, Alex O'Connor, you know, trying to treat religion respectfully, but still disagree with it. That's gaining a lot. And we're, oh, well, they're all Catholic.

They're all Christian. This is great. Well, we're missing out on people who are really far from the Lord. And that's my mission. Like, at Council of Trent, like, I just want to, I want to reach the most people who are the furthest away from God. So that's why, like, I don't want to talk about silly things.

I don't want to talk about just like clickbait or drama or I just try to think myself, okay, who are the people who are most, the furthest away doctrinally? Also furthest away morally. And how can I help them? Look, are you tired of sending your money every month to a phone company that doesn't share your values? I want to tell you about our sponsor, Charity Mobile, because they're different. They're proudly pro-life and they're not apologizing for it. Here's what I love. Every month, they take a percentage of what you pay and send it directly

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slash Matt Frad. That's Charitymobile.com slash Matt Frad and use promo code Matt Frad at checkout. It is bananas, though, to think that today it's cool, even just online, to be a trad, orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, in a way that when you... As a kids would say, there is a vibe shift there. I don't know that. What is the vibe shift? Because when you, I mean, the internet didn't exist when you and I were growing up, thank God. And we can talk about that. But if it did, none of us would be.

You'd be laughed at. Well, I disagree slightly with that. So, I mean, my child, childhood, before... I started high school in 1999. So pre-high school childhood would be a time where... I would say I would say atheism was a weird thing. It was not a celebrated thing. No, that's true.

When Sheney O'Connor ripped up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, she was booed at a conference weeks later. Like Joe Pesci has to go on SNL and be like, what's the matter with you? You're doing this. So like there was still, Christianity was seen as an important bulwark, especially in the 90s.

And we had a kind of a return of like the American values. Like I think one reason that like George Bush won in the year, thousand. Because people saw like what Clinton did in the private, in the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the world of the, the, the world, what, what, what really turned for me is in 2001, well, you have the rise of the internet, and then you have September 11th, where now it's like, oh, religion is not just another thing that I disagree with. It's an existential threat. So I would say if we did have the internet in the 90s, well, who knows? It wouldn't be the great 90s that I enjoyed. But it wouldn't be the same. But I do think that the viciousness of trying to say that religion isn't just wrong,

it's a dangerous delusion. That was unique in the post-9-11 landscape. What changed that, I think, was people have to say that once we get perfect rationality, once we get rid of religion, we'll have flying cars and all of this great stuff. and instead, you know, we've got people saying, well, maybe bestiality isn't that bad. Men can have periods. Men can have, or not in that men can have periods,

but that you are a bigot if you don't believe that. And what was interesting in what we call the Great Awakening, so that period really after Obama was elected. I think what that also showed is like, you can take man out of religion, but you can't take religion out of the man. People still want to explain

there is original sin for America, it's slavery and discrimination of the founding fathers. There has to be a way of atonement. There has to be things we have to do to sacrifices that have to be made. Adulation has to be offered. Man, as the catacant says, man is a religious animal. We're a religious creature. We're ordered towards giving praise to God. So, I mean, come on, was it just a random thing that all throughout history, people would

try to find anything near them, like a bird or a statue of man and, like, offer worship to it, the children. Like, we, we are built to offer worship to something greater than us. If you take God out of it, it's going to be idolatry, animism, great awakening. In the 20th century, it was dictatorial communism. It was the state. The state becomes God. You know, so there's always going to be something. So do you think it was a reaction to that woken sanity? Yes, the great awokely. Yeah, because the great awakening became a new religion. Transgenderism is a perfect example of religion. It's elevating the idea of gender, which is an immaterial, scientifically undetectable concept that other people have to recognize or risk being called a blasphemer.

You can't, you know, so people are like, oh, we're, this is, this is nuts. So that's why, like, I love in my book on socialism I wrote with Catherine Bacolic, who's a Catholic economist, we promoted a view of society and reality called Christian realism. It's understanding God created the world. Christianity is the way of aligning understanding it. But we're also realists about human nature, how to function together. But I think the Great Awakening created that kind of a backlash seeing like, oh, it's not a question of religion or no religion. Sorry. It's just what ultimate thing are you going to believe in? And then I've said multiple times, I think Jordan Peterson became something of a gateway drug into Christianity for many people, at least in the

sense that he helped them stop making fun of it. Yeah. Wouldn't you say? Well, I think, is Bible lectures on YouTube that have had millions and millions of years. Well, he tapped into, I mean, even just going back to Aquinas, like one of the things was interesting about Aquinas was that what was controversial about his work at the time it was published was his work on human anthropology and psychology. But now we've come to see that like there's these great insights rooted in Christianity. I think a lot of it though is a bit of a pushback. So going back to the Pew stuff, by the way, a lot of people think like, oh, Catholics are overtaking because we're seeing a collapse in Protestantism. And we are. The main lines are collapsing.

I've heard that like the average, some of the average Methodist denominations, there's like 20 people. in attendance and these huge churches that have endowments. So they can keep going, but nobody attends them. There'll be museums in 30, 20 years. And we're seeing a collapse there of, and this is something I've spoken with other learned Protestants about Gavin Ortland, Jordan Cooper, who are really trying to bring back an intellectual tradition,

redeem Zumers doing the same thing, where people rebel against this shallow Christianity, then they embrace a shallow atheism and realize that can't be fulfilling. be fulfilling. And so I think from there, you either go to a deeper form of atheism, which is either a kind of nihilism or some kind of secular humanism that really tips towards Christianity, or you go to a deeper understanding of the Christian faith. So it's not about religion or no religion. It's just shallow worldviews or deep worldviews. And thankfully, we've had 2,000 years

of building up a deep worldview. Something even Graham Opi is an atheist, he did a review of J.P. Morland and evangelical philosopher in his book review of Morland, He said, there's a lot of different denominations. Look at Catholicism, probably the most developed and deepest form of theology in the Christian tradition. So, I mean, I think people are hungering for a deep abiding worldview to ground them when life throws tough stuff at you. Brain tumors included, right? So if the mainstream denominations in Protestantism are collapsing, what do you suspect the future of Protestantism will be in the United States in like 15, 20 years? I also think the bigger like mega church things, those shallow things are collapsing.

The more close-knit evangelical communities, those seem to be growing a lot. Why is that? Well, I think because people do hunger for a community in an age where we're lonelier than ever. We have a loneliness epidemic. I think it's for, especially for men, but for everybody. Women are just better at making friends. I mean, you and I are both married. How many of our friends do we have because our wives are.

My wife makes best friends with people on the elevator. Whereas me, as an intro of it, if I get in. to an elevator with someone I don't know, it ruins my day. Right. Yeah. So, and that's one of my arguments, like, you know, because I debated, you know, Pearl a while back on the marriage being good for men. I think, like, oh, I don't, I don't need to be married.

I'll be, I'll be fine. Women will just ruin me. But it's like, no, actually as a man, like, if you, if you forsake it, like, well, women civilize us. They help us to be our best selves. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. And especially, I see a lot of guys struggle with.

I've read these really sad posts online from guys saying, like I've tried so hard to make friends. I don't know where to go. Like going, we don't have third spaces. It is a very difficult thing. But like when you're married, like, women are just good at just, they're made for that, you know? And we get dragged along for the ride and it helps us. So just like modern feminism has done a real injustice to women such that you hear many stories

today of women in their 40s, 50, 60s who were never married because they were going to be like the boss girl or whatever they're called. Right. And now they're desperately alone and can't go back in talking. and have children. Do you think in 20 years we're going to see that men were influenced in a similar way by the bro movement online? Yeah, so the Manosphere, red pill movement. And what's difficult here is there are things that they say that are true. I think what's difficult is people say, oh, but they say this is right, and this is true, so why wouldn't I follow them? Hey, look, Father James

Martin says correct stuff. Bishop Barron endorsed his book on prayer. But clearly he says really problematic things that you have to be on high alert for much the same way in the so-called manosphere there are things they'll say that are true like uh for for men if you want to attract women there's things you should do things you shouldn't do but the ones who go down the path especially more of like black pilling or men go their own way migtau this idea like oh i'm just better off without women uh one thing in catholic theology i was reading an article about this on homiletic pastoral review is the idea of marriage is a natural vocation Like some people get all nervous in our Catholic circles like, well, I don't know, am I called to marriage? Like, yeah, you are. Because priesthood is a supernatural vocation. Only a few are actually are called to that. But marriage, everybody is called to marriage in virtue of having a body that is created male or female. It doesn't mean you have to get married. But it means it's something natural. That's why, you know, people who aren't Catholic obviously are called to marriage, too. You know, so I worry that like some who have like bit in.

to propaganda. It's really similar to the 90s and early 2000s girl boss feminism, third wave launch feminism, right? They'll have horror stories about men. I'm better off without men. I don't need a man. And you could imagine a woman who's listening to this who has been hurt by men is saying, but so much of what they're saying is true. Yes. And I've seen it. I've seen it. I don't need that. And then they go forward 20 years and can't go back. I do really worried about worry about men. They'll think like, oh, you know what? Well, even if I'm 40 or 50 and I want to get married, I'll just, I'll just get married then. Well, it might be hard if you've learned to just kind of be by yourself, haven't been in a social group. And honestly, it's a fantasy if you

think if you're a guy in your mid-40s, like, oh, I'm going to pick up that girl in her mid-20s, just super easy. That's what we call magical thinking. Rather, and especially this idea of just And it all comes back what we said earlier about social media being on there so much. It just fries your brain and keeps you from appreciating the beauty of life as it is. Because you're just presented with so many things that are just fake. And it's just not the case. It's like people who live on processed food. And when they try to just eat beans, rice, and vegetables, they hate it.

It takes a bit. Then they realize, I feel way better on this because it's real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to somebody recently about this, about how the Manosphere movement will not only perhaps, and again, I'm not saying it's all bad, of course, but not only will it cause men in 20 years to be like, I can't believe I never got married, I've bought into this thing, but it also

might make for very unhappy marriages. In other words, if you've got individual, you have a chip on your shoulder, right, and then eventually you just get married because you're like, well, I better, I better kind of like the women dilemma. I'm getting older. My prospects are actually thinning. It'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, and you'll say, all women are the same, just like women said all men are the same you'll delay delay delay get married because you feel now pressured to and the woman you'll marry is someone in a similar boat who has also baggage and is dysfunctional and it's a self it's a self-fulfilling prophecy in that regard that's why like well i don't know that's why i feel like how do i i was talking to lore about this gen z can weigh in on it if it's

controversial to help them i really want to encourage marriage and early marriage but i think gen z is going to have to get over the age gap thing have you heard about age gap discourse no tell me And Gen Z in the comments, I believe I'm correct about this. Someone else can shout out if I'm wrong. Gen Z is much more sensitive to power imbalances and relationships. So they would say, so for example, when I started dating Laura, I met her and we started dating. I was 25 and she was 19. And that would be like for many Gen Z, foreboughton.

Oh, really? Not okay. How would it be foreboten for Gen Z girls and Gen Z guys? Well, they would say the guys are, it's predatory. Oh. It's like, would the fellas say that as well, would they or just the show? I'm the, who've bought into this. Yeah.

Uh, so they'll say like these age gaps, this age gap discourse like, oh, no, you've got to be within like only one or two years of each other. But really, it's like, it takes guys a while to get their career going. So like, I wasn't able to really get married until I was 28. Dude, when I, when I got married, the day I got married, I was an unemployed illegal alien. Yeah, but you're a trophy husband. That's true. I was very attractive.

Yeah. Also, it was through. All of us can do that. Thrilled that ice wasn't in full swing back then. Anyway. They just, they carry you off. Hopefully you have all your paperwork in order, Matt,

because I would laugh hysterically if they just bust through the door. Well, I am legally an American right now. All right. So it's no longer as bad as it used to be. But my point was, no, I agree that it takes man a long time to get there. Yeah.

I'm glad that I'm married a world. But you're saying you don't necessarily have to have all your ducks in a row. I'd like to have a few ducks. Some. A couple of ducks. A couple ducks. Put a few in the pond and we're off to the races. So I do think,

And I talked about this with Nick Fritus. You're about to say Fuentes? No, Fritis. No, there are two, that is two diametrically opposed versions of masculinity. Nick Fritus and Nick Fuentes. And I'll just say there, look up both and you'll see what I'm. Oh, Fritus is amazing. He's such a good dude.

Yes, he is. And so we had a great chat about Catholicism a while ago. And he said, I should come back on the show, talk about biblical. manhood. We were talking about stuff, talking about jihitsu, talking about all of this stuff, and how you can be a masculine guy, you know, without being overbearing. And we were talking about the idea of women, because there was another woman we knew, who was going back into law school in her 40s. You know, like women will say like, oh, why don't I just do my career in my 20s and 30s and then I'll have kids. Having kids after 35, you are geriatric maternity. You have high risk,

very, very low fertility. And also, even if you do get pregnant, it's like the energy you have when you're 40 to chase kids around. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. So it's like, well, why don't we just reverse it? Why not have a family in your 20s, then start a career in your late 40s? Why not?

Why not do that? Well, I'm going to be so tired in my 40s. What's more tiring? Going to work and managing that. Or kids and they're screaming in the middle of the night, like they did last night, my leg hoits. because he's got, he's so cumma, a little five-year-old, has his little growing pains.

He is, he's, uh, he's, he's going to be like, I always joke with his brothers. He's the little, the youngest boy. Yep. But I think as they're getting older, watching their growth track, he's going to be bigger than both. He's going to be the bigger little brother. Yeah.

So like, even when they were at Jiu-Jitsu, um, my middle old child was teasing the younger one. And the black belt coach is like, oh, don't do that to him. He's going to be bigger than you one day. And he's going to learn this stuff. Yeah, but I get what you're saying. I mean, this is the,

second of three shows I'm recording today, there's no way I'm more tired than my wife is right now with three kids at home. Yeah. Yeah. And they're older than your kids too. Even when it's tiring, I mean, I went on a Catholic Answers cruise 10 years ago to, haven't been back on one or a while. I would like to go on one, but I really feel bad, sack and lower with kids. How do you sack your wife with kids for two weeks? And then call up on the phone. There's no, there's no, like, how's it going? And you pick up the phone. And you just hear screaming. You're screaming. You're And the kids like, what are you doing, Dad? And you're like getting midnight cookies, which is something I did do on the cruise.

That was delightful. It's just like, how can you do that to your spouse? But yeah, but that's why it's like, why not? Start a family early. And if career is something you really want to pour yourself into, you'll have ample time. And the thing is you will learn more. You'll grow financially and in wisdom. Do it later.

Save your best self for your children who are kind of images of your best self or should be. Now, I'm 42. How old are you? 41. Oh, yesterday I was to turn 41. Was that shocking to you? I thought you were a lot younger than me. There you go. We're like the same age.

You know why this is? Because Laura makes me younger. So she just, maybe she brings that out of me. I don't know. But you know what's funny is I would love to talk a little bit about what it was like growing up in the 80s and 90s. Just do it, man. Isn't it? But the first phone I ever had was not even a flip phone.

It was a brick phone and I was 17. Now, technology advanced slower in Australia than it did in America, obviously. So I would probably have more in common with a 50-year-old than I would with someone my own age. If you go to Europe, one of the things like if you go to Eastern Europe, what's really quaint about it is it kind of feels like the 90s. It's the best. I love it. Because you've been there, right? Yeah.

You go and you see like the pop culture being consumed. Yeah. I was in Transylvania and Romania. Yeah. Hungry Croatia. So when you see what they like and things they're into, it's like stuff from like the 90s and early 2000s. Yeah. So it's like, I want to just chase that around the globe.

But yeah, it was very different. I think when you said like, what was it like going up in the 90s? Like the first thing pops in my head is previously on X-Men. Or, yeah, but the phone thing, so the first phone I got was a, it was a cricket phone. Oh, it was a big, thick monster. I think I had it sophomore year of high school. I had a nerdy clip function. Like a supervisor, like a supervisor and an electric company would like clip on his belt.

So awful. Did you think it was cool? I thought it was cool to have a phone. And, like, have freedom, like, be able to go and check out of my parents and do things I normally wouldn't be able to do. But otherwise, it wasn't a big part of my life. Because I grew up in a small country town in South Australia. One of my favorite things to do would be Friday night. You'd drive over to your friend's house.

And we would watch movies, play video games, and go on what we called night walks, which it doesn't take much explaining. And it was just, I loved it so much. And I love that there was no option to distract ourselves with anything else. No one sat around looking at screens because they went. no screens to look at, so we all just had to be together. Right. If you look at, and also the internet wasn't distracting. Even if you had a computer, it was 1,600 times slower than it is today.

Is that right? Yeah, I think in like the year 2000, internet speed was about 127 kilobytes a second. Now we're at 215 megabytes a second. Like just you could not, the real world moved faster than the online world. Do you remember? Do you want it to be in the real world? Do you remember when you'd have to install? stole the game and it had like six floppy disks that you put in one after the other.

Oh, yeah. Or when you try to play a video game, you got to switch over to disc too. Yeah. So, but what we did like screens and technology, and that's where I just feel so bad for like Gen Z and Gen Alpha today. We got to have the transition. We knew what life was like without screens. When we were little kids, at least for me, it was Capri Sun, Pogs, comic books. Come on. Yeah. And then we got, then we got screens. But they served to supplement things that were in person. that really that in-person interaction. I saw a meme actually. It showed a frame, probably from like the movie

She's All That, I think. Okay. Or can't hardly wait. One of those 2000s teen drama comedies. And it showed like the teen party scene. And under it somebody wrote like, I always see like parties and movies where people got together and just did this.

Was this a real thing or did they make this up? Totally joking, of course. What? That was a joke though, obviously. No, the meme? Yeah. No, I think it was sincere. Someone was actually awesome.

I believe that was 100% sincere. They're like, was this real? Like, did people like, because people don't do that now. Huh. Like, we wanted to have, like now when you desire interaction with people, you go on social media. But back then, if you desired interaction, we could use our phones to like, who's hanging out? Oh, we're over at Brad's house. Oh, yeah, I can come over.

I can make that. You know, or, I think I got off. I was working Harkins movie theaters. It was like junior, senior year of high school. New Year's got. done at like, I managed to finish my shift at 1120. I just shoved all the popcorn under the seats. Don't look under the seats. You know, you go to the movie theaters and just like blasts out of there. I didn't have a car at a bicycle. And I have my suspenders and my bow tie on. And I was like,

as New Year's Eve, like I had to, well, I picked it. I picked up a shift because it was double pay. And I'm like texting like, hey, we're you guys up to anything. And it pings around over at Noah's. You know, and we managed to get there with like 15 minutes of spare. Then we spend the whole night just watching old movies. Nobody's on their phones. One was on their computer. I would love to recover that. I don't, but honestly, I think it's kind of a romantic dream. Oh, it is for sure. I mean, it's like trying to recover a time without street lights or automobiles.

Yes. Which, honestly, there was a Pope. I cannot remember who, but he did rail against lighting, like artificial lighting, electric lighting. That is based. I think it is. At first, I would have been like, oh, come on. But, well, no, I mean, so I get what he's saying. I think things could be better.

I do think, though, artificial lighting went too far. The freaking LEDs. I, I, there are a few things I hate a lot in life. I hate cell phones at concerts. One just got ruined for me. I hate that. Another reason to hate phones. Outdoor LED nighttime lights.

I think they are purposely meant to just grind us down to be subservient wage slaves. Like, they think when you go out like they're bright, they're white, they agitate you. Yep. But when you go on a walk against an under an orange sodium lamp, ah, feels good. It feels good. The older I'm getting, the more I feel like a less depraved Larry David, everybody bothers me. And I can't tell if it's them or me. Whether I'm at the movie theater and someone's, I go very rarely, but someone's in front of me on their phone, I get so angry.

Or someone plays music from their phone out loud in the same room as you, maybe in a restaurant. You and I, we should do a remake of the movie, Grumpy Old Men. Yes. And that's what we're going to just go around slapping people turn into. But yeah, it is a sense of when, especially with phones, people are so concerned. into that. They turn inward into themselves. And then, yeah, become a... What do you think of the idea that the internet has replaced real life from being hyperbolic, but the internet has replaced real life? Therefore, we do not know how to live in

real life. Therefore, social interactions, you're right to think they're getting increasingly weird and will only get weirder. So then people get anxious and they retreat. It becomes a cycle. You think that's right? I do think so. I mean, going on an airplane and the way people act... Yeah. I can't tell if I'm just getting... older and grumpier or if people don't know how to act in public anymore? I think it's probably a combination. Probably both. We have to always remember that we're not neutral observers.

You know, the way we perceive life is going to be different. I was reading a graph somewhere that said that childhood represents half of our perceived life. Because think about it, we all had that experience when we were 10 years old and it was summer vacation, summer lasted forever. And then we're like, it's August. already because you just you perceive it differently when you're when you're older and have already gone through things and there's different ways of trying to explain that it's like three months for a 10-year-old is a much larger portion of his life versus three months for you or I it's four times smaller so you know we're not neutral observers so I think and this has happened to me

I've seen it in my apologetics when I was 20 like when I started a Catholic Answers I was 28 29 fresh-faced getting good sleep bright-eyed bushyed tail yeah And I was very optimistic. I'll tell you a story, actually. And I started pro-life apologetics when I was about 18. That was really where I cut my teeth. How that got started was there was this girl who invited me to her prom. She went to a very small Catholic school.

And there were only 20 people in their high school. So everyone invited somebody out of the school. So she invited me. I meet her dad. He's the president of the state right-to-life organization. And I felt really convicted like, I should do something and be involved and speak. And so I got involved and I would do talks on pro-life

and I was very charitable. I remember once like I was talking to Mr. Jay, my mentor. I said, I'm going to say this like, oh, we should really give them the benefit of the doubt about this, about a critic, a pro-choice guy. And he said, Trent, they will lie through their teeth.

Don't believe anything they say to you. And I had thought back then like, oh gosh, grumpy, cynical old man, you know. But now that I am older, I'm in that position, I'd go back until 28-year-old Trent. Yeah, you haven't seen the things that I've seen. You haven't seen people lie to your face Try to destroy you

Try to do all of these inhuman things But I think it's a good thing And that's why I worry about the internet Making people overly cynical Like if you think of the worst of people When you're 21 Where do you have to go When you become a grumpy old man

Where do you have to go? So you really should start your life In your 20s especially overly optimistic And cheerful And then gradually get beaten down by life Where you don't become cynical but you become prudent, savvy, you've attained a wisdom of the world in that regard.

So I worry about people growing overly cynical and then missing out on wisdom because they still see life, instead of a distorted happy lens, it's a distorted angry lens. So that's where now I would see, like, go back to my older self, be like, it's a lot rougher than you think, Trent.

Tell me one of your best memories from childhood. I don't want to say the best one because that's too difficult to narrow down. Just give me one, what's a good memory from childhood? It's something you used to do that you look fondly on. Oh, goodness. Laura will tell you at this point, don't do that.

Why? Because I am painfully nostalgic. Nostalgia is a huge weakness for me. Let's get into it. She's not here. Right. You can't tell them what to do, Laura. Well, she's, it's just, it's funny to share.

I think part of, I have a very melancholic temperament, extremely melancholic. And I read somewhere that nostalgia, what's interesting is nostalgia was one thought to be a very serious mental illness. soldiers who had nostalgia and like the Russian army would be taken and shot because it'd be such bad it'd be such well it'd be like whistle they were like out marching

to this battle they don't want to be at and they're whistling a song from home and they're like Yordson remember that song from home oh I love doing that like in the morale infects the whole truth well no one will shoot you here no one will shoot me and Laura won't see this till well after it's recorded so I think that nostalgia I read this article saying that

the melancholic's longing for nostalgia is sort of like his longing for heaven because he wants because he wants a good, unchanging thing. Yes. What a beautiful way to prove. And the past can only exist in our memories that are not accurately reflective of reality.

So we can make it this ideal, unchanging thing that we retreat to. So, you're like, now you make me cry, give me more than... No, dude, I'll tell you one of my best memories, but you go first. Well, okay. I guess two would be, I don't know,

be in the upstairs loft, playing, what do you mean by childhood, I mean like teen or a little kid? Doesn't matter. Okay. You pick it. All right. Teen's fun. I'm going to say something.

I remember a teen memory. We were all, a bunch of us guys got together. It was a co-ed group. We were all hanging out. We were senior year at a friend's house. He's a fifth year senior. So he was a grown-up with an apartment. And so we had two televisions hooked up together.

And so a land party, four-on-four, Halo. The girls were just hanging out with us talking. They were practicing baking. So like we got brownies also. We're like, oh, man. But we were like a cool co-ed group where we just all chilled and liked each other. And like, you know, we could get along. And I remember it was like 49-49.

The grenade goes off. You're falling down the platform. I get one pistol shot through Sam's head. It's like, you did it! It all culminates to that. Or, you know, just like the late night things you mentioned. Like, just like being out all night, just having like wholesome bonding fun and not knowing what the night would bring.

and there is that air of adventure about it. If I was a child, I guess something similar, but the air of adventure was in very small things. Like, I went back to my old hometown, and I remember behind this playground, I thought there was this huge forest, and I went and walked through it, and it was like four trees.

But, like, it seemed big to me because I was little. You know, so a big adventurous, I think having those big adventurous moments when you're young, before you can grow up and realize they're really more bigger in your heart. But it's okay, just keep them there, because they still formed who you were. Yeah.

Well, it's funny. A lot of my greatest memories have to do with video games. And I've shared this with my wife, and she always says, oh, that's so sad. She's probably right, but I think, no, she's not. No, that's not sad. That's the digital woolly mammoth hunt. I'm sure 50,000 years was your great memory. Oh, Bjorn's, Bjoren and I, I don't know why it's the same of the Russian soldiers name.

What would a caveman be named 50,000 years ago? Rockhead. Oh, Rockhead and I. We were going at this woolly mammoth. We're going 49-49, and I threw the spear and went right through his head and we were all, oh, it's amazing! How is that, does it not the animal? I think what she means that I think she's right is like if you were out running around in the paddocks,

throwing spears at each other, that would objectively be a cooler thing than doing it digitally. That's what probably, she probably meant that. And that's why. And that's why, I think 50 years ago when you had like the sandlot type environment or like movies like Stand By Me touch us so well. But my point is just that it's so fond. So some of my greatest memories, I would wake up in the morning on a Saturday, get on my BMX bike, ride it over to my best friend Jake's house. Yeah.

Knock on his door with my numb fist from the cold. He'd welcome me in. We would drink coffee, eat Tim Tams. I don't know if you know what those are. I know Tim. Oh, I always have Tim Tams when I'm there. And then we would play video games like the Pandora Directive, you know, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, all those games. And I just don't remember ever being happier.

And I'm sure if I was there, I would go, no, there's other stuff I want to do. I'm not, but my memory of that is terrific. So that would be one of them. You weren't carrying the weight of the world yet. It was wonderful. It was so wonderful. And then the second thing that I love, similar to you, is those nighttime conversations. So, I mean, think about this, Gen Z who were watching.

We would have what we called glue conversations, which stood for God, Life, the Universe, and everything. And we weren't even religious. So we'd have a couple of beers under our belt. we'd walk out onto some, you know, desolate, lonely road, we'd lay on our backs, look up at the stars, and we'd all just chat. And we'd talk about, like, what are stars and what's life? Because there was nothing else to distract us.

But I think what's important is, like, I don't want to blame Gen Z for, like, having a lack of connections or things like that. I really feel like, I feel like they got, like, them and Alpha. But especially Gen Z also got a really raw deal, especially when COVID wrecked high school and college for those prime. bonding times that you would have. Now they want to go out in the world. The housing market's gone absolutely nuts. Social media, internet. I think especially for millennials and older like us, so we're parents of Gen Alpha, Gen X or parents of Gen Z, that we have like a responsibility,

like, okay, I would like to help you to find what God is hoping for you. And to find that happiness that like I had also when I was younger and I can help you with that. So my friend Melanie, our friend Melanie, for example, does, well, hosts just like these swing dancing nights for high schoolers. So I guess they would, I think they would be Gen Alpha or the very, very young Gen Z. And just telling the boys like, hey, boys, are you asking a girl to marry you? No. Girls.

Is he asking you to marry you? No. We're just going to dance and have fun. And create an environment for that. Because if we don't create, if we don't actively go out and create these environments, an evil thing will fill the void. That's just what's going to happen. So I think as older generations,

and I would love, that's why I'm doing for my children. Like, I even created a little retro room where I play like the older platforms with my sons. And I would love to be like, have your friends over. Stay up, stay at, like maybe not a sleepover because I would not let my kids go to sleepover, by the way. That's just where nodding this and bad things happen,

which I remember from being younger, these things we've improved on. But maybe like a lateover. Like everybody can stay and parents will come get you at midnight. or one even. And then it's like, you know, just to create, I think it's important for those of us who are older

to make sacrifices of our time, our talent, and our treasure so we can provide areas and environments for young people to grow and properly develop that the world has really robbed them of. And I think we have that obligation now and we have to take that seriously. Bible Across America, an inspiring initiative from the St. Paul Center

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What do you think about dating and Gen Z? Because I've gotten to the point where I've stopped offering advice because everyone just looks at me like I'm so out of touch when I tried to offer advice. What are you seeing? Well, I mean, what's hard is people are going to, they're going to say the same thing to myself when it comes to that. I don't know.

You seem more hip than me. You're way younger than me. Two years. One year. I'm one year younger. I'm 42. I'm 41. We did that.

I can do math. Keep going. Yeah. Well, this is something now my, I think, but I think this also happens. This is another responsibility that we have. Like my wife and I will we will try like oh we know this girl who's 19 or 20 do we know a good guy for them like being able to to pair people together You know what I mean it's like don't get me advice you don't know what it's like well I do know that it does seem pretty terrible

And I'm not trying to I'm not trying to tell you you're being bad or stupid or dumb I just see you're in a bad place and I could try to offer some help I agree I think apps are are our our at dating apps are awful mm-hmm I thing. They are designed just to kind of reward bad behavior, treat people more for vain glory. The apps, I mean, think about the apps don't have an incentive for you to be paired off and turn the app off. I think they can, I think they can be evil. I don't think they have to be. I think they certainly can be the lesser of two. There's a difference. I'm saying there's dating websites and there's dating apps. Okay. I think there's a difference. There's a difference between Catholic Match and Tinder. Of course, and that's what I'm saying. Yeah. So when I say dating

apps, I'm talking about like Tinder page. The most superficial swipe. left, swipe right, because that's just not how it works. So like for me, if I wanted to recreate an environment that, well, I had. So like, I didn't start dating Laura until I was 25. So in my dating in my early 20s, like a lot of guys who are following the manosphere and other people like that, they might, they'll give you, and this isn't new, by the way. I remember hearing this stuff, this crap from the pickup artists, P-U-A, you ever hear them? a relative of mine. Okay.

So pick-up artists were the big deal in like the early 2000s who would teach men how to psychologically manipulate women and pick them up in public. Like just go up to a random woman, get her phone number, okay? And they just use these little psychological tricks

and manipulations and other just weird things to get attention, confidence boost, peacocking, all that stuff. There was even a reality TV show based on this called the pickup artist. Neil Strauss was a guy who, who wrote a book about it called The Game, I think. And mystery was this ridiculous guy with a top hat and wears a big clock.

Not the other guy who wore a clock. That was Flav of Flav. And he would just try to teach these guys how to be pickup artists. And I see it now with the manosphere of like red pill of trying to just manipulate women to use them, where black pill are like to stay away from them. It's not even worth it. But it's a lot of the same thing that there's what's called cold approach and warm approach.

So cold approach is like, you're attractive. I'm going to go up to you. I'm going to flirt or show I have Riz. We call it a game, which I think made more sense. And I'm going to get your number or your social media handle or whatever. And there's ways you can do that if you apply yourself and you're manipulative enough, sure. But I don't think cold approaches are a good idea because, look, what are the odds? Even if you do get this attractive person to be interested in you, what are the odds you two are actually even compatible?

You can't build a relationship, you know, just on looks. I mean, if you're just, if you just want to go out and engage in carnal sins, hey, you've You can take that up with the Lord later when there's an accounting. But if you're trying to actually meet someone in relationship, move towards marriage, like a cold approach, the odds this person's compatible with you are just so very, very low. Whereas a warm approach is someone you've already had like a preexisting relationship with. So that's why in a lot of, honestly,

one place where I met a lot of people I ended up going out with was doing pro-life work. Is there a lot of women want to be involved and not as many men. Men are told this is in your field. And we'd be working side by side running the pro-life booth together. then like, oh, we're done doing our shift. You want to get coffee after and just kind of hang out? And it grew organically from that. Not the whole like friend zone, tricking you type thing.

But you're more like acquaintances who are aware of each other. You're not strangers and you have like we're pro-life kid. We already have a core value. How many people are out doing a pro-life booth? Like we're already pretty bond. That's why Laura and I connected because we did a pro- You're in the trenches together. Well, we did Justice for All.

We did a pro-life college outreach program. Right. So we already knew like, hey, you like to be crazy and have pictures of aborted fetuses on campus and talk to people? Me too. Turns out, not a lot of people have that in common. Wow. That's my own Wilson. Wow.

You really like that. And I knew she was the right one because she showed me stories. She was like 17 getting arrested for doing the aborted fetuses on the highway. Your beautiful wife? Pictures, not the actual fetuses. No, of course. But your beautiful wife was arrested for that? Yeah, she was.

Go, Laura. Wrongfully arrested. And then she was like, but I don't think she was like as hassled by the police. So she got a lesser settlement in the lawsuit. She's like, I wish they'd just gone after me. I could have gotten the big bucks. Because she's little and blonde and cute. I know, right?

Who could be mean to her? Who could be. Anyways. The internet. Yeah, right. So I was just impressed by just how she's really cute and pretty, but also like she stands up what she believes and she's fine. Yeah. I met my wife doing ministry work.

Yeah. We got to know each other. We became really good friends. So I think my advice for Gen C would be grow your friend network as much as you can. And I think relationships can organically come from that through acquaintances and others. Well, where do I go get friends? I get it. I understand that it's hard right now.

That's why we, the older generation, have an obligation to help. And it might involve fixing people up. And it's okay to go on a date. And if it works out great, if not, well, whatever, no harm, no foul. but to create these environments where there can be this... I think we have to go back to arranged marriages,

or at least semi-arranged marriages, where I say to a friend who's got a daughter, kind of my son's age, all right, how are we going to make this work? Well, I think there's a... I think there's a place... I'll give you three head of cattle.

Three head of cattle. I don't know. So far, I don't know, my oldest is he is absolutely dead set on the priesthood. Come on. So I'm a little... Matthew?

He is... Oh, no, it's all good. No, he is... I mean, what's funny is I have not like... I mean, I leave it open to him, but like, ever since he started altar serving, he, like, wants to go to mass every single day just to be around that altar. And I really pray the vocation stays. If it doesn't, it's God's will for him. So it is hard.

But, I mean, you know, the others to see. I think parents should really be involved in that and creating these mutual networks where you don't feel like you have to go meet a stranger on the internet to get married. Like, for a long, to have a long lasting successful marriage, you need to have a course. values that unite you. What unites you is like it can't be you both have a favorite TV show or something. It's that you both care about you both are in agreement about the most important things in life. You're an agreement. So for example, my test, if you're, if you're in a relationship, especially for women, and you don't know if it's, you know if the guy, you're a faithful Catholic girl, you're dating a guy, he's rough around the edges and you think maybe I can fix him, maybe I can help him.

I knew Laura was the one because I knew if I just like drop dead, my children would be absolutely fine if she raised them. So I challenge, especially women, but men too. If you're dating someone, would you trust this person to raise your children if you die? And if the answer is no, cut them loose. Cut them loose. Cut them loose or a year. Don't extend things beyond a year without grave, you know, reasons. But I think finding that, so I think working and volunteering side by side, building these kinds of friend networks, creating multi-generational environments where the older generations who have been through this can help put people in the right places. And creating all of this in a safer offline world, I think that's what we really should be moving towards.

What's your opinion of where the church is at now under Pope Leo? We just went through some turbulent times with Pope Francis. A lot of us lost our stuff. A lot of people felt tremendously anxious. It fell over, the bark of Peter, it fell over the railing. My bags. Don't worry. It'll be fine. Um, what, what are you seeing? What, what do you, what's the vibe right now? I don't, it's, I'm not sure. People seem to have calmed down. Probably because a famous woman, one, they keep saying things that. A famous woman once said, you need to calm down. So maybe that's, the advice has been taken. I, I, I think, I remember when, um, Pope, you know, when, when, when, when Pope, you know, when, when, when,

Leo was elected and when it was announced and when I heard them say you know in Latin Robert Provost and Laura's like is that the Pope I'm like nah that can't be the Pope it's got to be the guy who's announcing the Pope they're never going to pick it I told they're never going to pick an American did you know who that was no did not you know what the well I hear Robert Provost it doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like I thought they're just going to let's just get an Italian in here yeah yeah let's go go back to basics get an Italian they were announcing the guy who was going to make the announcement I guess, well, it's all in Latin.

I don't understand. I'm a Greek guy, not a Latin guy. So I was like, I'm falling in a bit. But just seeing it, I really, I appreciate, I think a lot of times they see like, oh, you know, we don't want an American being Pope. The prejudice against that, against it, I believe is similar to how in the 60s, and even longer after that, there was a feeling in America, we don't want a Catholic to be president. It's like that's too much conglomeration of power

to put that together. So it's a similar thing in Italy is saying, well, we don't really want an American to be Pope. But he went and he did a mission field in South America. So he's not just some kind of ivory tower or disconnected typical cowboy Yankee bishop. But I do think that Americans can bring to the Vatican

our unique sense of healthy work ethic and bureaucracy. Bureaucracy can be bad. but also it's one thing American bureaucracy but when you go to like European things to try to get done they're like well when's the office open oh 10 maybe

I don't know 11 I hope we went on a honeymoon we're in Greece we're like let's get breakfast no restaurants open because nobody feels like being open at 9 it's too early you know you I mean literally we have like the word Byzantine refers to the Eastern Empire of things that are so convoluted and complicated you can't figure out all the law codes

so I think like Americans can kind of put that forward I will be the first say, I'm not a Catholic news observer. All I can sense is what I feel from people. I do get kind of a sense from Gen Z more that there's a yearning for tradition, but not necessarily for traditionalism. There's a yearning for tradition. Make the distinction.

What is traditionalism? Well, I think, like, for example, think about, like, what we had under Pope Francis' pontificate, you have a resurging interest in, like, the traditional Latin Mass. And think about the, like, the stereotypes of a traditional Latin Mass. community about how someone who is a traditional Catholic carries himself, right? He's got a suit on, got a, you know, the particular kind of liturgy. Yeah. Um, Smokiniskar, uh, Chesterton. You're like, I'm liking. I love it. I love all of it. I think it's terrific.

Whereas I think for a lot of Gen Z, they might say, well, I really want tradition and Thomas Aquinas and these 19th century's classic theologians, but I also like anime. and the Nova Sordo. And I don't mind spreading absurd nihilistic memes that don't make sense online because it's hilarious to watch boomers overreact. And I get called a boomer. I'm like, I'm a millennial man, come on.

I have been called the world's youngest boomer because I do enjoy yacht rock. Thank you very much. But so that's where I see, I don't know if that makes sense to make a distinction. I guess I'm out of touch. I haven't been following the trends of young people. You know, I suppose

And that's just online too. I don't, I'm not around a bunch of young people. I'm not around, Matt, I'm not around people. I work in an office by myself and three times a week, I go and people, you know, try to choke me to death and jujitsu. That's all I do. Well, I think there's always a reaction to something that comes out strong, right? And so if there was a sort of resurgence of interests in the traditional Latin mass, which is a terrific thing in my estimation, but if there was in a way that was unhealthy and belligerent,

condescending. If that was the case, then it wouldn't surprise me if there was now a reaction to that. Yeah, but I do think, though, that for among Gen Z in Catholicism, at least what I'm seeing is a desire, and this is what I've seen from, and not just Catholicism, but I see from Redeem Zumer and his followers and others are involved. There really is a desire to go beyond the surface level, but this could also just be a selection effect, too. I do see it, at least in the online interactions I had people who spend a lot of time there. They want, what's interesting, you'll have the younger Catholics who get really, really fascinated with particular precise theological questions, but then sometimes they can't see the forest for the trees and don't want to just focus on, let's just grow in the fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control. Yeah.

But at the same time, though, the internet is a self-selected, small sliver of the general population. I was just at Sikh, you were at Sikh, right? Yep. Yeah. You meet thousands of people. and I think they really also just hunger for the faith being presented in a way that's easy to understand, that's applicable for their life, that can bring them and others joy and knowledge of salvation. And I just feel a burden and a joy also to like want to present that for them and renew the culture that they're in. But also just like a sense that they want to live the faith, but they live in an unusual time, like the things we've been discussing of where they've lost,

third spaces, lost communal activities, loneliness epidemic, excessive online behavior, you know, even just excessive things related to body modification, gym, plastic surgery. I also worry about this generation that, like, every generation has to heighten its ability to detect BS. So if you think about it, it's like, it's like who falls for like the Nigerian email scams, right? it's like, mom, when we were millennials, when we first got on the internet, we're like,

mom, did you download a cursor? Oh, now we got a virus. You got to get the Norton antivirus out here. And so there's a sense you have to get more and more able to spot like people that are coming after you. And so you can't put up your real self.

You have to be wary. But if every generation has to get more wary of not just like rogue, bad operatives online, but literally algorithms coming after you, I feel like, especially with Gen Z is more of like there can be like a detachment or reliance on irony and absurdism. Constant irony.

Yeah, to protect yourself. I believe I want to say it was Kierkegaard, the Christian existentialist philosopher who said that in the face of tragedy, the only face of tragedy, the only way you can navigate it. So if the world just seems totally hopeless for you and you think, well, by the time I buy a house when I'm 40, and by the time I buy a house when I'm 40, how is it median cost of a home will be $2.3 million. And you just start to be overwhelmed about the future and other things going on. You just retreat into irony and don't put your real self out there so you can't be hurt. Yeah, you can't, maybe you're not necessarily getting hurt, but you're dying on the inside. And I would just say to anyone who's struggling, there have been saints, there have been heroic Christian.

who have been through yeah, things aren't perfect now and I think in some respects things have gotten worse but there are been Christians who have gone through far, far worse. Those who could maintain

I would much rather live in the 21st century than 14th century Europe right as the fleas infected with the black plague come into town, you know. The papacy gives you grief I'd rather be in a 21st century

papacy than the 10th century pornography of the the horrible, you know, the Pope digs up the cadaver of his predecessor and puts him on trial. And, like, you know, so there have always been darkness. But that is the time when people who cling the closest to God really do shine that light for others to see. And we have that. Like, I love that we have the first millennial saints, St. Carla Acutus. I remember when I was in, like, when I did our youth group, those 20 years ago, I was a college volunteer in a high school youth group.

And I was telling, like, the high school was like, look, you guys are really like, you're the future here. And some of you could be saints. Like I bet in the future they're going to have, like, you look in the church today, there's pictures of saints wearing like habits and old clothes. Like maybe in the future, we're going to have saints in hoodies and shorts and T-shirts. And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, in five, well, I'm not like in 500 years in the holographic church. Right.

But now it's like, no. Like when I said that, that would have been 2005, maybe 2006. That's when Carlo St. Carl Acutus, that's when he passed away. 06. Yeah. So it's right there. There's saints in every generation. Yeah.

And all you have to do to be one is just to say yes to God. And every time the devil knocks you down, go back to God, ask him and pick you back up. Given how much we know about people nowadays and their every passing opinion, is it going to be the case that in the future will have far less saints, more realistic assessment of saints in the sense that a canonization just means. this person's in heaven, not that he was infallible. Like, do you see what I mean? Like, if Carlo Acuteus had a YouTube channel, there's probably things he said that he regretted. If he had a Twitter account, no doubt,

but we have to remember that saints are not, they're not sinless. Yeah, that's my point. Well, you go back to writings of many of the church fathers. Jerome. He's an irascible individual. Things him, things that Chris has said, things you say, oh, that's a problematic thing.

But we have to look at how they died. how their life was ultimately ordered. I mean, you even hear other saints dealing with Dark Night of the Soul and things like that. I just mean, the more we know about human beings who become saints, I think the less tempted we will be to...

Want to canonize? Divinize. Not canonize, but we'll be less likely to be like, well, they were perfect. But I think that's important because if you think saints are perfect, then that means you think you can't be a saint. Yes, thank you.

That's excellent. Great way to put it. So we need to get people to be detached from that idea. And many times, though, thankfully there are saints who left us diaries into their internal struggles, and I think we need to be more cognizant and aware of that

so that we can encourage a realistic model of holiness. But I think we also have to remember at the end of the day, 99.99999% of saints are unknown. It's like so funny, you're going to get to heaven. It's like, the heroes you want to see, it's like, there's people who have, like, I think, we have eternity in heaven. Think of all the stories of saints will hear it.

you know, the Christian woman in Japan, when the priests had been banished, who did wonderful heroic acts that was lost to history. You know, like, I am, I am just psyched to get there. And, you know, to learn more and grow deeper in the body of Christ, and then ultimately just, like, growing more and following God for, for up. Now, I don't think you were referencing this particular scripture, but in first Peter, let's say, chapter 3, verse 15, right, where Peter says, partly, you know, to give a defense for the faith, but to do it with gentleness and reverence. I think you said this about St. Paul, the same thing could be said of St. Peter, that you think

today, if he were to say something like that, people on the internet would call him a tone policing feminist. Yes, I find that very irritating. Well, especially the charge of tone policing, I don't know what that means. If that means, it's wrong for you to tell other people what they should or shouldn't say. First, that's incoherent and contradictory, because you, you know, you know, it's wrong for you to tell other people what they should or shouldn't say. because you're tone policing me in telling me what I shouldn't tell other people.

And second, clearly, and because they do that, clearly there are ways of speaking that are unbecoming of a Christian. That should just be obvious. Now, could it be the case that, for example, there are overreactions, and we should call that out. Like I did an episode where I said,

hey, we can call certain cultures savages. Some cultures engage in savagery. And it should be, not all cultures are equal. and we should be able to say that. And I had some people criticize me, and I think people might call that tone policing. We shouldn't say that. It's a hurtful word. And I can understand that, but that's why in my episode, I was very clear,

it's racist if you say, oh, well, the savages are all the brown cultures. No. Medieval, well, first, pre-Christian Europe was a very savage place. You had the druids and Celtics sacrifices, doing human sacrifices. And even in medieval Christianity, you had savagery, savage punishments like drawing and quartering that are incompatible with Christian life that the church has to discern

oh this is something that we can no longer do anymore so the tone policing thing I think that what I would say here is no don't say tone policing just say look is the criticism valid or invalid to say like you shouldn't say that why shouldn't I? Okay so for example like profanity

I don't think profanity in and of itself is a bad thing necessarily I remember when Stephen Colbert did an interview with Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo did back in the 70s the Stanford Prison Experiment. You're familiar with that? No.

It was a unethical experiment in the 1970s where college students were recruited to role play a prison in a basement at Stanford University. So half the students are guards, half of them are inmates and see how they interact with each other.

And about like a few, just even a few days into it, the guards become sadistic and start abusing the priest. prisoners. And Zimbardo used this to try to talk about the innate sinfulness of, you know, the innate evils in man. And I would agree with a lot of that, actually. So he did an interview with Stephen Colbert, and he was like trying to defend the devil as like the good guy in a story in scripture. And Kobe, back when he was like actually decent Catholic Cobert, this was long time ago, he like says,

no, it was, it was, it was Adam Nees free choice. The devil was the, you know, he, he schooled Zimbardo on the point. And Simbardo says, oh, you must have attended your Sunday school. And Colbert goes, I teach Sunday school, Mother Effer. And it's like, I'm like, nice. And they're like, you shouldn't say that? I'm like, no, that's awesome. But so that might be like tonebleas and get mad about that. We're in the context and a secular cable television show, like, oh, okay, that was a cool

way to stand up for the faith. But it's when people use profanity in an abusive way. When they are used, and you know it when you see it. When you use it to try to belittle, degrade, mock a person. just because you think they're wrong about something. That's unbecoming for a Christian. The 2nd Timothy is very clear. It says,

the servant of the Lord must be kind, it must gently correcting people with kindness so that they may escape from the snares of the devil. Colossian says, let no filthy talk flow from your mouths. Like, when you read scripture, it is just patently clear. You should not be a total a hole

when dealing with people. people should be offended by the truth you present, not by you who is presenting it. That's the goal. Yeah. So that's why, so yeah, I think that a lot of the things that if Paul was, in Paul's letters especially, he tells people, you know, to present yourself with kindness.

And interesting in his letters, it's always interesting in the letters to see what is not said. You have to infer, like the troubles he had. So St. Paul is my patron saint. That was my confirmation name that I chose. And I have a very affinity to him. When I try to do a lot of this work, always ask for his prayers and his intercession.

And he says, people say, ah, he is mighty in his letters, but he is weak in person, which makes me think that when he dealt with people, he was not an agro, over the top debate, bro, constantly interrupting, you do, do, do, do, do, do.

You know, like, going at people in that way. because even like, it's interesting, it's an admission in his letter. This is what people are saying about. Yeah, I like it. They say I'm a man. They say, I only want to please people, which is interesting as people like say that,

oh, Trent just wants to be accepted by the Normies. If I want to be accepted by the Normies, I wouldn't say sodomy is perverted and transgenderism is a mental disorder. Yeah, I guess in based Catholicism online, that's old hat. But you go out in the regular world, that will still raise people's ears and eyebrows

when you say it's just to regular, secular, non-religious people. But yeah, for Paul, it's interesting to see what he, was concerned. People complained that he was a people pleaser. And he said, no. In Galatians, he says, no, I got this gospel from God. I'm not trying to please anyone. And he makes

an interesting point here for a Catholic apologetic. He says, I went to Peter. And I corrected him to, you think I'm a people pleaser? I went to Peter. And I told him he's wrong, which is an implicit admission that Peter is the head honcho. Because he's trying to say, you know how many, like, I'm not that worried. I even went to, I went to the prince of the apostles. And I corrected

him when I said that he was when I said not his teaching but he was being a hypocrite for sitting at the lunch table with the Jews but not the Gentiles. I'm like what are you doing man? So and that's where I feel like I feel like Paul was like total melancholic. I feel like Peter is like kind of the sanguine. That's why I love Laura and I. It's like a Peter and Paul relationship because Peter is just like totally impulsive. I'll do it. I will defend you Lord. I will and it's like ready to just like jump in. And Paul is just like very methodical. I will go to Arabia for 14 years to make sure I've gotten this right. And so like that's like Laura and I, we balance each other in that way.

But then we can have conflict when we do that. So so I love to think that like St. Paul and St. Peter had a similar tumultuous but also affable relation to those. So seeing him in this in this melancholic sort of way, yeah, it just reminds me of like Laura one said to me, oh, we were at the zoo. and there was a family there. They were giving food to the capuchin monkeys. And Laura's just like watching. And I go and say, excuse me,

you can't feed the monkeys. It'll make them sick. And it's like, you can't. You're on a special diet. You can't do it. But like a lot of people. And she's like, well,

you're a melancholic. You're like the rules. The truth is what matters. I don't care about your feelings. Don't feed the monkeys. They'll get sick. Whereas other people are like, well,

I don't want to rain on their parade. Yeah. I don't want to make a fuss. You know, so I think St. St. Paul is like, no, this is the truth. Right, gotcha. This is what people need to hear. Big brands ruined deodorant. They

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safe, but this tallow-based deodorant is way more effective than most all-natural deodorant brands. It's crafted to keep you fresh all day. Search up tallodeodorant.shop and get beef tallow balm for free. No special code needed. That's two months of tallow balm plus a deodorant for $34. Buy from an American farm. We bought several of these tallow deodorants recently for me and my wife and some of our older children and we all love it. Click the link below to grab a deodorant and a telobarm for the price of one. I wanted to ask you about the different movements we've seen even in our lifetime. They come out of nowhere, they seem formidable, unstoppable, and then tend to dissipate. So before you join Catholic answers, well, well before both

of us joined Catholic answers, right? Protestant apologetics was what had to be responded to. Atheism we didn't really think much about, right? And then... Well, in the 2010s? In the 2000s, I think... No, I'm thinking... I'm thinking before the new atheist movement. I'm talking about...

You're like the 90s? Yeah, like when Carl Keating started Catholic answers. His primary objective wasn't the refute the atheists. When they were selling cassette tapes. Yeah. All right, so you've got people who are, right, Protestantism, that's what we got a refute. And then all of a sudden, the new atheism comes along,

and then all of us start pouring our energy into atheism. We kind of forget maybe a little bit about Protestant apologetics. And we're certainly not thinking that they'll come a day where we have to respond to the Orthodox. And then atheism kind of dissipates. And now there's a lot of people going into, you know, apostolic Christianity's like Orthodoxans who are responding to that again. Here's the question I want to ask you. Yes.

What's coming up if you had to guess? I mean, obviously we need people being able to respond to Islam, LDS, atheists, all of it. I understand that. But what do you think the next big thing is that's coming up that we Catholics are going to have to be on God against? Oh, I was not really great. prognosticating even what came about in the last 15 years. So I'm hesitant to want to make predictions going in the future. I think some things, like I think like, for example, Eastern Orthodoxy, when you look at pupils and see where just numbers of people that are involved,

that's a very, very fraction of a percentage of people who are involved. It's overrepresented online, whereas I think the errors that most people are falling into today will be not, religion, some kind of a low church Protestantism, followed by more of like a high church Protestantism. I think numbers wise, now I don't think it's, I don't think it's a snarky new atheism, but it is just kind of a more detached secularism. I think. Like an apathism, as it were. Yeah, apathism, maybe something like that. But it's one that I think will overlap, it overlaps a lot with Christian values. So there's common ground there. Like when they, see, like transgender, support for transgender ideologies at an all-time low, for example.

That's an example of something that seemed like a unstoppable force. And then what is a woman came out? And I think the goal there is the hot thing that seems to be taking off. You need to show its absurdity. You got to show the bat. We, our job is to preach the gospel. You, Gellion, good news. Good news is best received in light of bad news. Yeah. So when we could show, oh, you transgender ideology, well, if you want to be a woman, whatever, that's your thing. they're going to tell you if you don't say she's a woman, you're fired. And this individual can go in a changing room with your eight-year-old daughter. It's like, okay, even just regular people, I've had my fill now. Right.

So I do think that going, I don't know, I think really going forward, we have to look at just what an increasingly online culture will do to deform the human person. So I would say just sending people to the far left and far right, which can be split religiously. I think those are two things we have to really, where they're either going to try to find their identity in social justice or some kind of neo-fascism, kinism, even racism-type ideologies. I think we have to look to see what are the competitors for a holistic worldview where people feel like they're fulfilled.

So not just enemies outside. I shouldn't refer to them as enemies, perhaps, but not just sort of movements and heretical movements outside the church. But that's another question I'd love to ask you. what is happening within the church that you think we might have to now be on guard against? Because you could think over the last 60 years, like modernism was something that was kind of creeping into the church.

Well, it's still there. Of course, it was. Yeah. Relativism. Yeah. Do you think there are things that you're seeing kind of rear their head within the church itself? Because you could think of like an ultra-traditionalism that would, you know, we had certain people who denied Pope Francis was the Pope.

Yeah. But, I mean, I think that that's even become a marginalized movement. that itself is fractured and dissolved, basically. I don't know. It's always hard to tell. I think just, I try to think, okay, what am I seeing in the church when I go to Mass,

when I go to a lot of different places? Obviously, it's the same in many other denominations. I get worried about an imbalance where I see a lot of older people and hardly any younger people. Or I see the key here is, where am I seeing 18 to 30-year-olds? I mean, kids are at church

because their parents drag in there. They got to go, right? Yeah. And then you see older people, where are the people who are starting off into adulthood? Dude, come to the Diocese of Nashville. I was just at 7 a.m. Mass yesterday at the cathedral, and it's just filled with young people that I saw. It was terrific. Well, and I think that will be...

And by young people, I mean mid-20s. Are they united in any other way, like a college group or something that bonds them together? Or they just happen to be all geographically, they're united. Yeah, I'm just visiting, so I'm not sure. Sure. And that's what I would, that's what I would, that's to be my curiosity if you see masses where it's, there's an overrepresentation of young people, praise me to God. Yeah. I'm so glad that's the case. I want to ask, what is the cause of that? If it's just geographical, then like, like, that's just not the same in other places. And it makes it kind of hard. You can't fix geography. But if it's like, oh, well, we all do this or we all do that, or we're all folks missionaries or where we have this kind of thing in common or we work, we all happen to work at this company or da-da-da-da. It's like, oh, okay, then we need to create a, kind of community offline to replicate that. Especially for young men, I was talking, I went to a parish, I gave a talk at.

I was really happy to see what they do for a young men's group, like for men like age 18 to 30. Because that's one where I think we've really failed young men is create proper social groups for them. Because it's like the parish, the Catholic parish, what is the Catholic parish men's group? It's guys in their 50s and 60s meeting at Saturday at 630 in the morning. you know, or guys in their 50, 60s or 70s smoking cigars as someone's house. But especially the 6.30 in the morning.

Yeah. Why? Of course, we all know why that is. It's because these guys are fathers. And that's the least. And you can't have them out during weeknight because kids have sports, dinner. Can't have, you know, dad out during the week. Like, it's already a zoo around here.

Okay, go at 6.30 a.m. You're back by 8 o'clock and we can have the whole day with dad. And that is a great way for dads to get. together where there's the time for them. That's not great for a night to a 19 year old Catholic guy to find community. But I went to this parish and they have no, we meet Thursday nights at seven. And to quote Ben Stiller's dad and Zoolander, that's what I'm talking about. One more of my millennial references, 2001 Zoolander, to say, no, that's it to have something like that. Like my ideal, if I had, and maybe I'll get the free time at some point, I'd have to just

get through the little kid phase once that's kind of, and I think that's where it's like, okay, you have your time back now as an older guy. Don't waste it just like, you know, going off like fritting or whatever. When you were, as a Catholic, like, when you're blessed with the family, you invest your time in them. When you get your time back, it's not your own. Now who can you invest it in?

So I would love, like, I would love to just have, like, and maybe I could do it now. Like, who knows or rotate off of people? Do like a young men's group where like ages like 18 to 30. We hang out. and each week we just practice a masculine skill. So one week it's learning how to change your oil. Another week, it's we're going to go shooting.

Just practice loading and shooting a handgun and just getting a feel for that. Go fishing. You know, I would happily lead a jihitsu round. I have enough as a blue belt to sort of know what I'm doing. Not really, though. I would bring in the black belts for help on that. Oh, actually, no, the guy who runs our, Or the guy runs our parish guardians program.

He is a well-skilled jiu-jitsu guy. I used to work for SWAT. And he demolishes me on the mat. I'd have him come in and be like and teach the young men to do something like that. But just where you feel like, oh, I have community. And I have somewhere where my masculinity is praised and not tis-tisked.

And where you can just kind of be yourself and learn something. Do you think that the Catholic YouTube, do you think Catholic YouTube culture today is better or worse than it was five years ago? What was it five years ago? I don't know. I just chose a random number. Five years.

Well, it's also during the Pontificate of Francis, too. I just think, do you think it's more encouraging and helpful and good and true and beautiful? You know what I'm blessed by seeing is so many people. Because let's go back. I mean, five years ago, that's when I started doing YouTube was five years ago. Yeah. During COVID, I, like, uploaded a response to Mike Winger. And that was just like my most low tech.

I played him doing a video in Catholicism. I had my crummy logitech webcam. And I stopped. I would pause. Here's blah, blah. Here's my response to him. Keep going. And that's where I just like kind of...

I'm seeing a proliferation of these people. Oh, so much. And I'm so grateful to people like Kyle Whittington with the creators conference. And I know you're doing something coming up soon. Just to get these creators and creators. I don't know if I like any of these words. I think it's better than influencer. I like digital artist.

Yeah, a digital evangelist. Evangelist. Just bringing them to get. I think that's so important to do, you know, because when I used to live in Stubenville, the one thing you would never see is a Stubanville person online attacking another Catholic Stubanville person online. And the reason is we'd have to see them at mass. We had to interact with them.

And so if you had a problem, you'd be better advice to figure it out between the two of you. So having these conferences like Kyle's putting on and you're putting on brings people all into a room together where, okay, we're not going to go after each other online. We're less likely to. Yeah. And so that's why I'm really excited. So April 11th, we're having our conference. As of this taping, we have sold over 400 tickets.

We only have about 35% of the tickets left, honestly. So get yours if it's still out there. But we will have over. What's the website, do you know? Conference of Trent.com. Lovely. Conference of Trent.com. We only have limited number of tickets available.

We'll have speakers, myself, Joe Heschmire, Brian Holtsworth. Good. Evan Ruggas, who's a Jenzie speaker. What a guy. So we have Gen Z represented. Lila Rose will be there. But we'll also have over 30 other creators on different platforms. YouTube, X, Instagram, lots of people who are out there.

So, yeah, like if you, the difference, let's say go back seven years, like in 2018, it was, if you wanted to be a creator that got out there, you just made an audio podcast. Because you didn't have as easy video technology. Like, you could just turn on a microphone, upload it. And that's how Council Trent started. It was just, oh, I'll just do video. If you were doing video, you had to have like a big production. That's why we had like church militant when it used to exist.

You know, but you had like, it was like big. If you wanted to like, or ascension, if you wanted to be on YouTube, you either had to be like kind of a bigger production or you got in early and you just stayed with the long grind as others did. But not as many people had access to the funds like get out there. But now what I'm seeing, I'm seeing so many Catholic channels. And I'm excited by that, but I'm also concerned is my desire for them is to not want to be focus on being successful. Yeah. It's to be faithful. And I hope in being faithful, they will be successful.

Like, I would love for them, I would love one day to be out of a job. I would love to just do something else. I don't, the limelight is not something I really need to or want to seek. I just want to help people. And so when I see there's other people, like, it would be so cool. like, oh, there's the next generation. They'll go. They'll carry the baton. I want to encourage them. And here's the missteps I made.

Don't do that. And just encourage them in that. But what I worry is a lot of them think, like, oh, to be a successful channel, I got to do a three-hour interview and be really charismatic. Or I have to do a 15-minute, really well-thick, apologetic video essay. I'm like, no, be what God gifted, the gifts God gave you. Yeah. And expand the mold. Who know? There's so many horizons. This reminds me of a quote that John Eldridge shares in Wild at heart. He says, don't ask what does the world need? Ask instead, what makes me come fully alive and go do that?

There's something similar. Like, what do you want to do? Because what you want to do will give you life and you won't be dependent on successful views to feel successful because you'll just be enjoying doing it. And here's the difference. Also, if you do what makes you feel alive, people will sense that and be attracted to it. If you're just doing it because you think this is what the algorithm wants and we most successful, people will be able to tell, oh, you're just trying to get out there. And we see that.

There's a, because I'm seeing things that are proliferating, but I also feel bad when I see someone who pours their heart and soul into, like, a YouTube video, and they get nine views. And they've, and I see they've poured so much into this, trying to maybe emulate another creator they admire. Yep. And they might keep at it, like, well, that might not be the format for you. Maybe it is, so I love, for example, Gen Z, like, I don't understand TikTok and short form social media. Not my area, but there's people who cut up my work and do that. But I love seeing new creators think, oh, I'm not going to do a YouTube channel, I'll make a TikTok channel, whatever, great. Or there could be a lot of other areas to be involved in. But I would encourage you to discern

and pray how has God blessed you? What gifts has it given you? And one way you can recognize is what do people genuinely praise you for? Now you're fishing for compliments. They genuinely go out of their way to say, you're doing really great at X. And if it makes you happy, we'll double down on that and share it. I'd also say bloom where you're planted. A lot of people think like, oh, you know, I need to get out there and be viral on the internet. Maybe you could just be that really good speaker or artist within your community that created a great mural, a great song, a great, giving a great talk series for the CCD kids. That's how I got started before Catholic Answers. I was in the Diocese of Phoenix, and I was local. I think there's a loss of that. Like, I'll give you an example

something I worry about. Like I love doing Sikh. I love doing these big Catholic like a conference. Like a conference, what's hard is like, yeah, you can watch a video of a talk. But there's something different when you're there with a bunch, you know how it is. You're there with a bunch of people and a speaker really connects with you. And you have that, it's like a concert. It's like when you go into a concert, it's so much different than like watching a music video at home. Because it wasn't just you. You connected with the act with everybody there. That's why I freaking hate cell phones. I go to see the I'm bad Michael Jackson tribute and someone filming the whole thing in front of me.

Like right in front of you? Right in front of me. And did you have, did you say, have the moral dilemma where you're like, am I being a coward by not saying something? Or did you say something? Oh, no, I tried to just, well, I tried to just step around.

So like, are you standing up or are you sitting? Well, it's standing room only. So why didn't you say, I'm so sorry, I can't see you when you have your character? What am I going to do? There's 20 other people doing that. Am I going to tell all of them to stop it? And then, you know,

what I should have told them is, I should have told them to just beat it. Because I'm that. That's very good. I would have told them that. Oh yeah, how annoying is that? Yeah. So just seeing like, no, what's that connection we have?

So back to the speakers, like you go to seek, you go to focus and all that. Where are the speakers, the Gen Z under 30 speakers? Where are- Well, they're not there. Really? And the reason they're not there is it's a different platform. We don't live in real life anymore. We live on the internet.

But that's the thing, like, but you and I, like, if, like, back in like the 2010s, for your name to get out there. Yeah. You had to earn your chops first. I went and spoke at eight million high schools. Million high schools, million parishes. Spoke on pornography, made everyone uncomfortable. Yeah. So you had to go and build your chops. Your platform could only grow by appearances in the real world. And then Buzz grew like, oh, he spoke in our school. It was great. We got to get him. Same thing happened to Jason Everett, happened to Jackie Angel, all the people we know. Yep. That's how they got out there and created that buzz. And in the process, They honed their craft to be very gifted speakers to reach people at conferences.

And we're still blessed by that. But now the problem is to get out there if you're young Gen Z, you can just TikTok, turn on your webcam. You don't have to speak to more. You can just speak to your camera. You don't have to go to a group of people and learn that art. But I really feel like young people will be so blessed if they were at a public format and saw a young person like them who commands the crowd, shares their faith. It's really interesting. Why do you think that is?

I mean, I didn't look at the speaker lineup. at Sikh this year. But are you, did you and did you notice that there wasn't any Gen Z? I see more, I think I see more older. I do too. Yeah. I, I wonder why, because a lot of these Gen Z guys are getting out there. I'm not saying there's none, but I do think it's, it's not as prevalent where it's weird. When you look at the speaker lineups for conferences, it's the same as what you and I went to 20 years ago. Yeah. It's like, well, they're tried and trude. Right, but then, like, what about the other people who got, who should have gotten experience in the, in the interim 20 years? you know that it shouldn't be that obviously they'll still be around but there should be the new guard

well i mean that's what you're doing with this conference you're reaching out to some genzy people because they've proven their chops by putting up several videos and they're not insane and you want to give them a platform and but i definitely want to find people but what's interesting though is you could be really good doing videos and like totally freeze up and you can't give a public talk you just you're not because it's one thing it's kind of like with the younger generations and what's funny is laura and i have this disconnect she likes to test I like to call because she's a baby millennial. I'm a geriatric millennial.

But there's this idea like, oh, I'm going to text because it's just, it's easier. Way easy. When actually studies have shown, you are, it's less tense, psychologically better for you to have a phone call. You have less anxiety because it's over and it's done with. You're not agonizing over what should I be texting.

Or you see the bubbles, the endless bubbles. Yeah. What are they going to say? No, you're thinking about it. You know, so that's my heart for this younger generation, for the saints among them just to really rise up. I love that in Paul's letter to Timothy, he says, let no one have contempt for your youth,

but be a model in a purity. And I would love to see that, but I think especially I'd love to see them as speakers going to a high school for a gen alpha high schooler to see someone in their 20s, not someone of their 40s. Please. How many...

I stopped giving talks. I was doing great, given talks to young people about pornography. I think I did a very good job and that I was very good at it. I think I gave one or two talks at some point. I'm like, oh, I don't know anymore. Like, I can tell they're a different creature to me at this point.

I think Jason Everett, I hope he still does save by the bell references. I really hope he does. I'm like, God bless him. He's incredible, man. But like, he is the machine. He is. But it's like, I don't have it in me to keep. Like, I can't, I just can't connect to a 15 year old.

But what about the 25 year olds today who can't? Who are just there. You would think that high schools are looking for Gen Z guys to come in and speak. And I wonder why they're not reaching out to people. online to do that. But then it's like, well, you've got a diocese that has a million protocols and has to be vetted. But also, I mean, you've got a, it is also hard. We have to, we have to also vet to make sure that people are safe and reliable and orthodox.

And so what's hard also is like, we're going to get Crusader 1564. Whereas like before, we'd had people vetting us like dioceses. church offices, whole ministries. I mean, when I went out and did pro-life speaking, I had the president of Arizona Right to Life could vouch like, yeah, I've been working with him, he knows his stuff. But if you're just an upstart with a YouTube or TikTok,

it's a bit dicey for a Catholic school to bring you in. It's like, well, what are you going to do? Where are you bona fides? So once again, that's why I would love for those of us in the older generation to identify those who have talents and gifts God have given them. and to testify to, yeah, I've really worked with them.

I trust them. I've given them some input and advice. And I'd say, yeah, you should really go with this person. So we've got to work together on this. More playful question. What do you do for fun? And I don't want you to talk about your kids or your wife. All right.

So let's say your wife and your kids go somewhere for a weekend and your home alone in your house, which honestly, as an intro, it just sounds terrific. Although I will be honest, after the second day. I can't wait to see my wife and my kids. But for those two days, what are you doing? to rest it's so sad I have those every now and then

the kids Laura's taking the kids to see her parents and I've stayed behind but just to get caught up on things so like well I sure could really change those air filters now here we go I'm so old

you know the dad thing of always like yeah it's kind of like I suppose all that's taken care of yeah what he did someone comes up a dog and he fixes it all for you because he's the man

What are you doing to rest? What am I doing to rest? Probably, if I'm just in the house? Yeah. Probably watching old movies. Love it. I just got to, and I watch them on DVD because it makes me feel better. Love the menus.

Like I was watching, I started watching Mystery Men the other day. I don't know if I've seen it. Mystery Man is 1990s comedy about a team of incompetent supernors. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Including Ben Stiller as Mr. Furious. You have the shoveler, the spleen. Just things that.

have an older, and also I love older, older movies, like from the 90s. One thing that's interesting, you'll notice the difference between newer movies and older ones. They have more dramatic lighting, so they're more cinematic. Whereas newer, like, watch Devil Wears Prada. No. I guess, well, I'm just saying hypothetically.

Devil Wears Prada versus the remake with Glenn Close and Anne Hathaway. The lighting is all completely flat because they're, you know, they're 15, 20 years older, however much it is. and they have to use the diffusion lights, like what we have in this studio, to give us a nice, oh, it looks so good. I look really nice on here.

I see. But it's not very dramatic. It's not like how films were shot. So you were saying that the reason they light that way today is for the vanity of the actors? I think it's part of it, but also things are shot on digital and there is a constant production treadmill.

Go, go, go, go, go, go. We got to get the next thing on the streaming platform. So it's just easier set up diffusion lights, quick digital cam shots. Yeah. And there is actually, a sitcom I am thinking about, not a sitcom, it's a two-season interesting show. I don't know anything about it so I can't vouch for its moralness. It's, but the show is called, it's something like

Kevin can go F himself. Nice. Sounds lovely. Well, it is, it's filmed half like a sitcom from Kevin's perspective. He's an oafish husband. Okay. But when it's the wife's, when it's the wife's perspective, she's actually like kind of like abused and neglected. So the lighting changes to be a cinematic style. So it shifts between cinematic shooting and sitcom multi-stage warm. Oh, interesting. And the shift is very dramatic. Yeah.

So I don't know. So there's some newer stuff I dig, but listening to, I guess, old music, old movies and TVs. Well, dude, actually, you know what I would love to do if I was just at home and nobody was around? Come on. Read a book. Yes. Well, right now with little kids, I try to read as much as I can. Like right now, I'm on a random one.

I'm doing bonfire of the vanities, which is really interesting to, it's a satire of like 1980s, corporate greed and racism and New York City. I love like stuff about grimy New York City from the 80s before they've cleaned it up in the 90s. But right now for me to get through books, I have to do Audible at 1.75.

Yeah. Just because like I'm driving, I'm moving, I'm picking up stuff, I'm cleaning. You know, it's life with kids. You know, so I love listening a lot of books and I'll do that, but I could just sit in the chair Yes. Have the book and just read the book.

Delightful. Yeah. No, that's what I do. I like to wake up. I love to sauna. Oh. And I love to cold plunge. I love that so much.

I never realized that the cold plunge, for me at least, I need to do sauna, then cold plunge, then rest. That is a fun one to do. Yeah. I've done those. I would never just do a cold, did we do it together? We have not done anything with plunge related together. We have never done that. I would never just cold plunge without having been in a sauna first.

But the two together and rest, I love doing that. I love having a cigar on the back porch. Love reading. I'm reading crime and punishment for like the third time right now. I just absolutely love it. I was thinking about trying to, and I'm still thinking about trying to tackle war and peace. I just don't know if I can do it. Do you know, there's over 500 characters in war and peace?

I tried reading war in peace, but I listened to it. And I can't, I would need to take, for a lot of Russian novels, would take notes. Have you read Anna Karenina? Yeah. I think that's the, that's probably like, honestly, probably the better Tolstoy book or like, it's one of the greatest novels of all time. But I cover, I was going before Laura's diagnosis, I was really run and through a ton of classics just on Audible. Yeah. And enjoyed that. This episode is sponsored by Catholic Match with Valentine's Day being this month. Our culture tells us that dating apps are the way to go. But most of them are just about superficial connections and endless swiping, where half the people don't even know what they truly

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politically, your liturgical preferences, how you approach your faith in daily life, and so much more. Plus, Catholic Match offers live virtual events exclusively for premium members, creating opportunities to connect and grow together in faith. This February, let the month of love be about more than chocolates and flowers. Download the Catholic Match app or head over to Catholicmatch.com to find your forever. Again, that's Catholicmatch.com. When it comes to physical things like refresh the body, well, that's hard. It's like, jiu-jitsu is that thing for me, but you can't do it by yourself or at home. Unless, I mean, I have had friends invite me their house and they just have to come around and fight me? Dude, it's so fun.

If a friend asked, hey, you want to come over to my garage? I got some mats out. I'm like, I'm there. Actually, one of the guys, the black belts in our gym, I got invited to, like, the more super secret Thursday morning roles. Yeah. And so it's like, but we just get together. Joe Rogan was talking about how weird it kind of is.

Like, you do jiu-jitsu with a friend, and it's like, you do it. And then you're like, okay, you killed me. Let's reset and I'll try to kill you. Because if we actually were enemies, you could just kill the person. But you feel good, like doing it. It's fun. Who's someone in the Catholic space that also does Jiu-Jitsu? Tons of people.

Name one. Andrew Swofford. Okay. Someone more popular in the YouTube sphere. Well, I think Taylor Marshall. All right, so how much could we raise to get you and Taylor in here to roll? You don't have any math. We could.

We could raise a lot of money for charity. Or for the Dominicans. Or for the Nashville Diasis. We could see. All I remember was that he used to be at a purple belt. So I don't know. If he hasn't trained in a while, I just got my blue belt. Blue Belt is a beginner belt

where you understand the fundamentals you can usually deal with someone like untrained 40 pounds bigger than you as long as they're not a monster Purple belt though is like you really... But blue belt's a big accomplishment I mean this isn't like when I was a kid and did a martial heart a made up martial art maybe I don't know called Zendo Kai

and they'll give you a belt every week and then 800 you know Yeah No and again that's a big deal in the martial arts where we call that Mick Dojo Zendo Kai It could be real things some I'm sure it is but I want to The one person watching Zendokai,

I will avenge my, my, my, sence, my dojo. I'm not saying anything against him. So, no, it's, it takes, to get a bluebell, it takes about two or three years. When you're an older guy who gets injuries, I tore my ACL, it set me back a bit.

But I kept at it. That was about, so it was about three years to, to get that. I tore my MCL by falling in an ard vark hole while hunting for baboons in Namibia. Really? Yeah.

And it really hurts still, and it's been about six months. With your accent, you sound like, Like, that's like a 19th century British explorer problem. I was going after the nambibia in that exchange. I was trying to shoot baboons in the, not the face because I wanted to happen. Fortunately, my faithful man's servant carried me back to the tent.

It hurts so much. I've never hurt myself like that before. So I fell in this ardvark hole, twisted it. It killed. But, you know, I could walk. And, you know, I've always been of the opinion that, okay, like, if you can walk, it's not broken, you're fine. Nope. Nope.

It's been about five months. It still hurts. I mean, I've had some, like, platelet injections. Oh, that happened five months ago? It had, well, seven, about seven months. It still hurts. No, that's right. Well, I mean, I've had, just so everybody knows, I've had x-ray, I've had platelet injections.

Yeah. I've worn a brace. Is it a full tear or a partial tear? It's a partial tear. Okay, you can, well, my ACL was a partial tear. And I did physical rehab without surgery. I did platelets. Yeah.

Did that kill? It killed when I got platelets. Did it hurt you? It felt a little uncomfortable. I was laying on a doctor's whatever bed. And, and. My body just started sweating profusely. And I'm thinking, I don't know what my body's doing or why it's,

I don't mean to question my body. I'm not sure why this is supposed to help to sweat this much. Man, it hurt. It's weird because it has to go in deep in like the bone area. And it has to go into an area where there's already a bunch of stuff. Yeah. So it took me like a full year, I feel like to get my, my ACL back to like. Like even if I stretch it, oh, I can feel it.

It will, in time, if it's a partial tear, it'll heal. You might have some scar tissue. But that's interesting, the way you describe how the injury happened, Because in Jiu-Jitsu, we like to say arms hurt and then they break, but legs break and then they hurt. So, like, if you do what's called an arm bar, so if you do the joint like that, you will feel the pain and you'll tap unless you're like a dumb teenager who wants to stick it out. But it's nice and it's like, oh, no, don't do that. But there is a move in J-Jitsu that's dangerous, and I actually don't do it on people. And I tap immediately if I'm stuck in it called the heel hook.

Okay. And that is where you get your elbow around their heel, you have their leg, and you turn it. and you can blow out the tendons in the knee. The danger is if you hook the heel, there is a way out of it. If they're turning it, if you turn with the turn, you can roll out of it.

But it's 50-50. You turn one way you escape. If you turn the other way, you'll instantly destroy your knee. So you have a 50-50 chance. So that's why when I'm in those situations, I'm too old for this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I tap because it's a 50-50 chance you'll get it wrong and destroy your knee. So that's why, but mine was different. I wasn't, it was a takedown. A guy swept my leg. It was a big guy tried to bring me down. And I was being too tight about, about it. But it'll heal

over time, you know. What's your favorite martial arts movie? Why is it American Ninja? No, American Is it American Ninja? Remember that came out in the 90s? Mine is I'm thinking, mine is it man. 100% it man. It's excellent. Can it be Street Fighter with Sean Claude Van Dam? Was it? Why not?

Raoul Julia? Because it was terrible. Kylie Kylie Minogue played, who was she? Who was she? Who's that blonde-haired chick and treat fighter? Cammy? I don't know. Right? That's funny. Yeah, Cammy. No, no, because it's got, that's one of Raul Julia's last performances. He's this like classically trained actor and he did the movie just because his kids

liked the video. And he's got such great lines in it. The day Bison went and entered your village was the most memorable day. I'm butchering the line. I apologize. I'm doing the best I can. It was the most memorable day of your life. But for me, it was a Tuesday. So he's just chewing the scenery. And you have Jean-Claude Van Damme as guile.

The American soldier. I'm going to tell that Bison. that I'm going to get him. It's like... I'm going to watch that again. I'm so excited about it. American Ninja was almost up there with cringe level. Do you remember that?

Yeah, of course. I'm not again, not saying people should just go and watch these movies. We have the classics though, probably like... Oh, actually a good martial arts one. 36 chamber of Shaolin. It's a very classic kung fu. I need you text these to me. If you want a classic kung fu movie, 36 chamber of Shaolin, so a very classic kung fu movie.

It's bananas that they have two of the dragon in. Bruce Lee. Enter the dragon and way of the dragon. Right. No, I don't wonder why they decided to do that. That's kind of confusing. That is one I would need to get the behind the scenes of the DVD for. I don't know.

Exactly. Another reason to get DVDs. I don't remember the Chuck Norris fight, but that was terrific. Yeah, yeah. In the Coliseum. I actually, you know what's funny? I'm doing an episode on debates and why they've devolved and we need to make them better. And I reference, I say like, we should not turn them into Bloodsport.

And I show the scene from Bloodsore Van Dan like punches the guy. and he's like, oh! It's just like totally over the top. Yeah, remember karate kid when you were young? I am the karate kid. Okay. I literally have had people tell, like, does anyone ever tell you?

What I get, so here's what I get. You look like Ray Romano, Miles Teller, karate kid. I don't know any of these people. You don't know. I don't know any names of any actors. Everybody loves Raymond? Yeah. Okay, well, Ray.

Cool. So, or did you see Top Gun Maverick? No. He's not a gun maverick. I heard it's good. It is good. So Miles Teller is another one that I get. And I'm okay.

I used to get, back in the day, I used to get Shia LeBuff and also the kid from Boy Meets World. It changes over time. As we deform, you know, older and older and older. But yeah, so karate kid. Actually, Cobra Kai, the reboot,

not reboot, but continuation of the story is what God's interested in martial arts, why I put my kids in, Jiu-Jitsu, and then when I started. I remember people who used to be like, you look like that guy from Coldplay. And now they're like, you look like Jack Nicholson.

You Jack Nicholson. No, you look like. No one's ever said Jack Nicholson. I just mean people of that age bracket, they now say. No, you, I always said to Laura, I was always jealous because I was like, oh, you know, you look like, um, people say I look like Shia LeBuff. Who was, okay, there is a movie spy. It's not, okay, let's see. I, you know, it's fun.

Before you show it to me, let me tell you a story. I was at the Cathedral Basilica, St. August. and someone comes up to me and they're like, hey, you look like it. He did just what you're doing now. And people 20 years ago said I looked like the particular person, so I was waiting for it. Okay, all right. And then he shows me a photo of a man who was 700 years old. 700.

That's crazy. You look like Methuselah. No, I was going to say, I think you look a bit like Jude Law. That's what they used to say. Okay. They don't say that anymore. I still think you're doing all right. I think you get to be Jude Law.

I get to be Shia LaBuff. I get to be. I get to be everybody loves Raymond well I mean now he's doing not now he's doing Padre Pio and his

changed up a bit but like I get to be everyone loves Raymond you get to be Jude Law but you know Have you seen any good new movies lately Oh

when do I get to go see I usually only go out and see movies to What did you think of David I did I did a review I hate musicals

I hate musicals I shouldn't but I do and yeah I hate it so much and I was sure I was in several music

I'm sure that's a fault of mine but they did an excellent job. I mean, my goodness gracious, it was so beautifully done. I didn't see your review, but sum it up real quick and people can go watch the longer version. I would say, good, but not great. Good, that's an excellent summary. It's good.

You should do TikTok reviews. Good and not great. I love how they, now for movie trailers, when they show like the quotes of how good the movie is, it's like random Twitter users, not even like New York Times or Wall Street Journal. It's like, at movie guy 314 said, this is amazing.

Funny. What? So, yeah, I thought it was, that was probably the most recent one I'd been to, to take the case and they liked it. What was the one with Russell Crow? Nazis.

He was put, Nuremberg. See Nuremberg? Oh, no, I did not. That was really good. I did not see Nussle-Roe Russell Crow is fantastic. But it is, it is hard.

I wish there were, you know, we were in a time more where we were growing up always really hit films coming out. And I think, unfortunately, with DVDs, not being an ancillary market, they have to pick different kinds of films to create

and they can't just rely on mid-budget romantic comedies, comedies, dramas for studios to make money. So that's unfortunate when there used to be, you know, like movies like office space, for example. They have to rely on like international distribution and American comedy doesn't do well internationally, even though we are the funniest. Objectively.

Yeah, awesome. Well, what else are you working on? You writing any books? Well, I just finished a book. salvation is from the Catholic Church. So that one has just been finished. I am desperately trying to get my mojo back in a groove. I'm like, when I write books, I kind of hop

between different ones. I've got a few just open word documents that I'm pouring things into. There's one I did want to do, because like I said, I want to reach people who are furthest away. The most people who are the furthest away. And I want to do one on Christian miracles about how the triumph of Christian miracles, Christian miracles have unique evidence for them

that other claims do not. People say, well, why do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? You don't believe in Islam or Thor, Joseph Smith, or these other, or you don't believe in Bigfoot or aliens or, you know, here's a mass psychosis incident. Trying to show the skeptics either the comparable, the counter examples either have less evidence in Christianity or they're not incompatible with a Christian worldview.

They could be examples of paranormal activity. They could be demonic activity. So that's something. And also then at the end of the book, I was going to have a bit, by the way, some Christian miracles that are really well attested are things like Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions, which I think says something interesting about Catholicism. So that's my way to build up body of Christ.

It's something that any Christian, Protestant Catholic Orthodox, could use to reach out to an atheist. but also there's something neat about Catholicism in there. And I think that's what, you know, I want to share the Catholic faith with as many people as possible. And really, I don't think this is deceptive what I'm trying to do, but it's like one way I try to do that is by trying to be a really good Christian apologist. Yeah.

Like just trying to be like, hey, I want to defend, especially if there's not Catholics, not focusing on that. I think what people say about, I think what other Protestants and religions say about you is probably what Catholics and other Christians say about our. Alex O'Connor. They're like, well, at least it seems like he's taking us seriously and he's really intelligent. That's why people say that about him. And I think they're right to from what I've seen haven't seen everything. I think people say that about you. They're like, well, he's not a blowhard

and he tries to understand us even if he's wrong. And yeah, so thank you for doing what you're doing. Well, that's my go. And that's why I am just so sick of like some people, you were talking about apologetics earlier what's going on with this, of this idea like, well, I have to hammer the heretics. I'm not going to pull any punches. I'm going to call them whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, but those same people are, one, not going out and doing debates. Or two, they're not being attractive to people who belong to those worldviews. Even if you win the argument.

People, they don't want to listen to you. But, like, I'd rather have, like, well, I remember when I debated Gavin Ortland at Franciscan University of Stubanville, there was, like, two vans of Protestant kids that came to that debate. Just I hosted it. Do you remember? Yes. Good. I like that you forgot that.

It's fun. Keep going. I'm sorry, you've lived in so many places. I can't keep track. Oh, that was back when you lived in Stubenville. Yeah. Oh, now he lives here. We should do it again. Right, babe.

Why not? And so we, my colleague, John Sorensen, our director of operations, Catholic Answers, was at the debate. And he saw this group of Protestants and he was talking with them. And he was like, hey, so. And they told him, oh, we're from this first Baptist church and we're really so excited to be here. And he's like, oh, you must be, you probably came here to go see Gavin. They're like, no, we came to see Trent Horn. We're like his biggest fans.

Because, like, we love his pro-life. book. We love his atheism book. Like, we're super excited to, like, to see him. And so there's, there are people who have made their way into the Catholic faith that were introduced to me through the things that I have done just to try to build up Christianity and a moral worldview in general. And just for them just like, oh, yeah, I just, I see that. And I really appreciate how you come at these issues. And then they see the Catholic stuff I've written. And they already, like, I hardly really like his stuff on atheism or pro life. I wonder what he wrote about Catholicism. And then it's like, no, check it out. I recommend, just so you know, I recommend

your book. You haven't paid me anything for this, which is very unfortunate, and you should begin to do that. I recommend your book why we're Catholic all the time. It is, thank you. It's the number one book I point people to who are discerning Catholicism. It's excellent. Well, I try to make it accessible. Yeah. And I was just right now, here's another shout out. Like, if you're like considering the Catholic faith or you know someone who is and is open to reading a book, this is the book to get them. Why we're Catholic? It's easy to read. It's sophisticated. It's not adversarial. It treats people with seriousness and gentleness. It's excellent. That's the goal. And that's what's interesting. I debated Gavin and I've actually enjoyed my interactions with Gavin more.

It's funny when I've had... Me too. I get the feeling Joe hasn't. But I love Gavin. Well, what's funny is I'm really excited. Well, it comes to apologetics, by the way, about things being different. And like we had this huge cross to carry with the tumor. I remember, I think this is really divine providence. About three weeks into Laura's healing, I was just, I hadn't been sleeping, was exhausted. Her parents came into town to help us. The kids came back. I had spent two weeks caring for Laura post-surgery.

And it's scary and exhausting. I just got sick. I was throwing up. I crawled into bed. My father-in-law was telling the boys, you gotta be quiet. Your dad needs this. Like every dad knows like, dad needs us sleep. And I was just laying there, I was like, I want to be kind.

I want to be kind. You know, if people are like, oh, he's such a softy. I don't care. You think that way, you can come to jihitsu class and we can kindly have some words there and play around a bit. Even there in jiu-jitsu, I don't go super hard on people. I don't want to be a jerk to people. I actually miss out on a lot of submissions because I don't want to be mean.

And that's what I love about jiu-jitsu is I don't have to sock somebody in the face. I can just kindly fold you up. So I was laying there in bed and I was like, I want to be kind. and I thought, you know what would be really cool? I got to get back to episode soon. I'm just going to send the script to the guy. Yes, I love it. I'm going to send the script to Gavin.

She said, Gavin, did I, have I understood everything he said? And he was like, well, yeah, it's all fine, although I would say this and that, and you might want to consider this argument. I'm like, okay, great. So is that when you started sending your scripts to people to review? That's when I started. Yeah. Has that been beneficial?

Oh, night and day. I love it. It is made doing rebuttals and videos. is dealing with people. It's advanced the channel by light years. Well, who's that agnostic fellow who's brilliant? Joe Schmidt. Yeah, you sent your script on the moral argument to him, you said, and he's a bright guy.

Yes. I hope to have him on the channel soon so we can just, because he's funny. I'm kind of like his favorite theist to pick on. Not to pick on, but I think he actually appreciates that I'm willing. I think Joe appreciates I'm willing. There are some Christian apologists who do atheism that just trade and stop. talk arguments and slogans. Okay.

And I try really hard to like understand like the depth of the arguments and go deeper analytically. And so I think he appreciates that. And that's why he's willing to more like make responses to me when when I go about stuff. So I figure like, well, here, I'll just send this to you beforehand. Then I can deal with your response before it's public and I can strengthen up. And we actually found common ground.

He said, I actually agree with you on this point related to sexual ethics. And but yeah, like it just creates like. And then when I talk to Gavin or other people, it's like, oh, here. Then there's none like you misrepresented me. And then what's nice too is if they do a response video, they're forced to say it. Now, in fairness, Trent did send this to me. And that's just a really stand up thing to do. But they can't say that I misrepresented, misunderstood.

It clears the air more. So it's just easier for people to see that. And also for an audience to see what I'm putting forward as an argument to see like, look, I trust my argument enough. I don't have to bamboozle my critic. I can send it to him first. And for them to see, oh, wow, like they take your case way more seriously. I have an excellent book idea for you. It'll do very well and it would be very easy and you should listen to me.

You should do a collection of Trent Horn's essays because that will enable you to be extra attentive to these video scripts you're writing. And you'll get a two for one because you've written so many excellent scripts for these videos. I may, I might a doubt. I love this. I love reading. Oh, yeah, yeah. Is it a Bishop Eric Varden? Is that his name?

He came out with a book with Word on Fire recently. I love a good essay because like I got kids. I've got a busy life. Everyone's busy to be able to sit down for 20, 30 minutes and read an essay. It's wonderful. Why don't you do that? I'm open to it. I think sometimes that's where my editor would come in here.

Like you might like it, but we also as a press, we have to release things that'll sell. Anthology essays a lot of times. Yeah, fair enough. They don't sell as well. But keep them somewhere. So one day... Oh, well, I have all the documents. And I think, but the other problem is, and what I might do is if I wind down in the future from doing

video essays, then I might lean more into the written word and do compile that way. But the problem is when I write the video essay, it's not in its best form for like a book. No, totally. But you could get an editor to change that. Yeah, the structure, because it's made for you to watch it and receive it casually. But no, I definitely, so I'm working. A lot of times, though, if I'm writing a book, I could do an episode about a chapter and then streamline it together in that way. So yeah, no, I'm definitely excited about that. But I would love also, especially if other Christian apologist follow this mold. I haven't seen any yet. What mold? The mold of if you're going to do a rebuttal to somebody, run it by them first. Just run it by them and talk to them first and get their input

and then put out your rebuttal. I think Brian Holdsworth had a critique of a woman who had a TikTok take on liturgy he disagreed with. Yeah, and he was so charitable in doing that. But he reached out to her first to talk with her. Yeah, he's the man. And then, he, but that's a great example of it right there. So I'd love to see more people, especially if you're in the, the public argument sphere and putting these kinds of things out there. Or also, it's not just a rebuttal, but like if I write about a subject, I might say, if I'm writing about a certain religion, I'll contact an apologist for that religion and say, did I miss, because there's so many things, think about all the refutations of Catholicism out there,

that the people just, they just don't even understand how the Catholic Church operates or the levels of authority. teaching. If they just send it to Jimmy Akey and he could say, oh, we actually don't teach. It's not even a, I disagree with your argument. It's we don't teach X, Y, and C. And the same thing is for, Mormonism, Islam, you know, other forms of atheism. Protestantism is a huge one. Just be like, oh, we actually don't believe that or, you know, so it can help you when you critique something, because a lot of times you don't understand a religion until you've lived inside of it. But you can at least get that perspective and incorporate it into your critique. So, all right. Let's see. Final question. Dun done. Many Protestants here at Daily Wire are Catholic

Curious, including people you've met today, who are wonderful people. And there are many people who are watching who are open to Catholicism. Maybe they're terrified about conversion. Maybe it just seems unnecessary. I know that's a big spectrum of people, so it might be an unfair question. But what advice would you have for them? I think my advice to them would be to pray. ask God just to to lead you into truth and to not allow fear to dictate how you follow him. So it's one thing to be leery of Catholicism because you're afraid of being wrong. Okay, well, then you have to just pray and look at the evidences and weigh the arguments. It is another thing if you're afraid of what might happen if you become Catholic.

That's not a valid fear that should be driving your discernment. I would ask them, what would you say to a Muslim who's scared of becoming Christian in a culture where he could be killed for it? you know, or someone who's afraid of becoming a Jew who's afraid of becoming Christian just because his family is going to cut him off. You know, he's not going to, he's going to be called a traitor, you know. And, frankly, even coming into the church, people will still say that to this person. It may not seem worth it to them. Yeah. Andrew Claven would be an example of that.

Well, yeah. And others who will get that label sometimes. To say to them, well, what would you say to those non-Christians who are afraid of the cost of Christianity? I'm sure you say something like, but to be fully united to Christ is just worth it. Christ themselves says, will not be those who give up wives or children or lands who will not receive tenfold in the kingdom to come. And I would say the same for being fully received into the church that Christ gave us, the church that guides us to the right beliefs, the right moral actions, gives us Christ fully in the Eucharist to offer to God the perfect sacrifice on the altar for the

forgiveness of sins, to be united fully into the one holy Catholic and apostolic church. of our Lord. I would just say to them, yeah, pray, know that if you try to grow closer to God, the devil will attack you. Go, go to the liturgy and just, hey, don't worry about that you're not taking everything in. Just go there. And just be open to God and find a Catholic who's sensible, just who can be a sounding board for you to kind of walk alongside you. So conversely, then, I would say, in order for those people who are Catholic curious, we who are Catholic, to model an approach where we can be an open door for those people who have questions. We're not going to shut the door because we're scared to talk, and we're not going to berate the

person and demand when he's signing up for OCIA yet, where we don't fight them toe to toe. We walk with them, shoulder to shoulder, and we're there alongside them. So, yeah, I would encourage them. And like I said, I would definitely pick up my book, Why We're Catholic. I think you can get it on Kindle for like five bucks. But I think it could help clear up a lot if you have a lot of questions for sure. I love you, not in a gayway. I love your wife.

No homo. No homo, no mo. I'm glad that you exist. Thank you for all the good that you've done for people. I'm sure you get this a lot. I mean, it's nice. People sometimes will say that to me. They're like, I'm sure you get this all the time, but thank you.

I'm like, no, I get the opposite as well. So this is nice. But thank you for what you do. And thank you for all the work that you've put into helping. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful for what you've done with this show just to bless people. And, man, it has just been. fun really like in the last. It's been over 10 years. We've been doing this side by side.

I'm excited. It's been wild. We wouldn't have guessed this. We were doing this way before it was cool and way before you could make any money at all doing it. Well, I'm excited what the future will hold and I don't know. Hopefully it'll be cool. There'll be a time. Maybe you and I'll ride off into the sunset at the same time. No gay. Not gay. Not gay. With our wives on the other horses. That's right. Our wives on the other horses, Indiana Jones style. But you and I are secretly holding hands and they can't see. That's not. This is this is not. Now the broke Mountain music is playing. And then we get to watch the others take the place.

So I think that'll be cool. I'm excited for that. Thanks, Trent. Okay, lovely people of the internet. Good news. From now on, all of these episodes are going to be available one week early on DailyWire Plus and the DailyWire app. Otherwise, they'll be here on Mondays at 11 a.m.

Great darkness is falling upon this land. These brothers are only hope to stand against it. Not our only hope. We need you, Merlin. Merlin. Merlin was a myth before a father was even born. Merlin slewes 70 men with his own hands. You might escape you of such a thing.

The immortal man. The Pen Dragon Cycle. Rise of the Merlin. Now streaming. Only on Daily Wire Plus.