Pints With Aquinas - Why Would ANYONE Want to be Catholic Right Now? … Here’s Why. (Larry Chapp)

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Dr. Larry Chapp is a retired professor of theology who taught for twenty years at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. He holds a doctorate from Fordham University, specializing in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. Dr. Chapp is also the co-founder of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania. A former Evangelical Protestant, he returned to the Catholic Church and is known for his insightful writings on Catholic theology and social teaching. Larry's Links: https://gaudiumetspes22.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@gaudiumetspes22dr.larrycha26 https://dorothydaycwfarm.org/ 🍺 Get episodes a week early, 🍺 score a free PWA beer stein, and 🍺 enjoy exclusive streams with me! Become an annual supporter at https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors: Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd 💻 Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas 👕 Store: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com/

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Where we put all this emphasis on the sin and synodality and nobody knows what it is because nobody cares and nobody should care. Let me know when we're ready already Larry chap. Hey, lovely to have you. Great to be here. Thanks for the invite. I've been longtime fans. So I got the invite. I thought, well, I can't turn down Matt Fradd. No way. Oh, well, it's great to have you. I last I listened to you is on Eric E. Barras. Is it your bar or E bar? I never, you it Ybarra or Ibarra? I interviewed him on my show and to be honest with you, I don't remember, I think it's Ybarra. Bright guy, smart guy, hey Eric, if you're listening,

come on the show again, I know you're coming on here. For those who are new to you, who is Larry Chapp? Larry Chapp, well the easiest thing to say is I'm a boy group in Lincoln, Nebraska who decided that Nebraska wasn't for me after a while. But anyway, I got a PhD in, I went to seminary, was in seminary for a while, but turned that into a PhD in theology.

I realized I wasn't cut out to be a priest and that my interests were more academic. So I got a PhD at Fordham University and worked at DeSales University, which is near Allentown, Pennsylvania for 20 years, and very happily did so, you know, did the whole theology thing, academic thing, professor thing. And then my wife and I, my wife also has a PhD in theology from Duquesne in Pittsburgh

near here, and she was teaching at DeSales and then at St. Charles Seminary in Philadelphia. We both had been teaching about Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. We realized that we could talk the talk. We could talk some stuff, but we weren't walking the walk. You can't read a whole lot of writings from people like Dorothy Day, Catherine Dougherty up at Madonna House, and not start to feel a pinch of conscience that maybe my little bourgeois comfortable life wasn't exactly what I was being called to. So we, I retired from the professor at like age 54 and we bought this small little farm in Northeastern Pennsylvania and we started a Catholic worker farm near Wilkes-Barre,

Pennsylvania. And I've been doing that for 12 years, but starting about five years ago, four years ago, 2020 was COVID year, my former students were all saying to me, chap, you need to start a blog and do a blog. And I hate blogs, I don't even read my own blog. I don't read blogs, I can't stand them. And I thought, no, I'm not doing that.

So I thought, okay, I got kind of bored one winter, COVID winter, and I sat down and I said, okay, I'm going to start a stupid little blog. What am I going to call it? I called it Gaudi Mitzpez 22. And if you know anything about Gaudi Mitzpez, Vatican II document, section 22 begins with the famous line, it's only in the light of the incarnation of, you know, the word that the mystery of man takes on light. In words this carol voitiwa pope John Paul was kind of instrumental in getting that into GS 22 He quotes it in every one of his encyclicals, and I always thought if I ever started a blog

I would call it either GS 22 or Gaudi Mitzvah 22 So I went with the full Gaudi Mitzvah and I just posted these little blog posts and for whatever reason they hit a nerve And they went by I think it's because I you know I use some dirty language here and there and I just posted these little blog posts and for whatever reason they hit a nerve and they went viral. I think it's because I used some dirty language here and there. I mean a few S-bombs, you know, that kind of thing. And in other words, it was irreverent, it was cheeky.

It wasn't meant to be taken seriously. It was just like me venting my spleen. Here's what's wrong with the world. Here's what I think about that. And whether you like what I have to say or not, I don't care. And it just hit a nerve and went viral. All of a sudden, my old friend Robert Barron,

Bishop Barron, who had started Word on Fire, he calls me, they email me and say, oh, Barron wants you on his show. So I went out to California when he was still out there and went on the Word know word on fire show interview show with Baron and Then my blog really went viral then I added the podcast part of the blog I started interviewing all these people and now here I am with you. So there that's a five-minute nutshell of

Larry chap is I'd love to hear more about how you and your wife made that decision And what a beautiful thing in a marriage where the two of you are aligned and choose to make this adventure, not when you're 20, but presumably. Yeah, I gotta tell you, man. And for every married person that's out there, I mean, marriages come in all sizes and shapes, and I'm not here to judge, to judge anything.

Because I'm actually, you know, I had a first marriage that ended in failure and I have an annulment and all the proper things. So I understand failed marriages. My current wife and I are married 26 years now in the church, obviously, and so on. And so I've seen marriage from both sides, from a bad marriage that failed to this wonderful, that wasn't even really

a marriage to put it that way, and to this wonderful one. And I can honestly say that it has just been an absolute joy to be married to someone who shares, we don't share every single opinion. She's very orthodox, supports the church's teaching and everything. We don't share the same opinions on everything, but what we do share is a common belief in vocational mission, that the goal and purpose of life as a Christian is to put on the mind of Christ and to figure out what your vocational mission is and then to live it. And to be married to somebody who has that powerful sense of whatever sacrifices we need to make

in order to live out this vocational mission, we will make those sacrifices. I mean, she's actually better at sacrifice than I am. I'm a big, you take my cigars and bourbon away and it's like, what, no, Lent, no no, you know, yeah, but she's very good at it You know with the two of you teaching at the university when I was teaching at DeSales University Yeah, like I said, which was is near Allentown PA and was there 20 years loved it I loved teaching was all undergraduates loved teaching undergraduates. And if I can toot my own horn

I thought I was pretty good at teaching undergraduates. My former colleague and I, Dr. Rodney Hauser, we sort of made a great tag team, and he and I created this sort of energy there. So I was, this is just to set up the fact that I was very, very happily ensconced living the life of a professor. My wife actually was a dean

at St. Charles Seminary in Philadelphia. So was she commuting or is it close enough to each other? It was an hour and a half commute or maybe an hour and 15 minutes commute from the Lehigh Valley down to the seminary. And she loved her job at the seminary. She knows more priests and bishops and hierarchs than I do because she ran into them all, you know, like she knew Cardinal Burke and so on and so forth. But we both, we had a very comfortable, therefore academic, we had a nice little Cape Cod house in the woods, it became a little entertainment hub for students and professors, and you get the picture. Trips to Rome, fancy restaurants once a month, twice a month, three times a month.

But, you know, we both were facing the cognitive dissonance of then walking into the classroom and teaching the Sermon on the Mount, teaching about the Catholic social justice, teaching about Dorothy. Now, I'm not here to condemn wealth, neither would she, or to say that it's wrong to want to have a comfortable life. What I can say, to go back to that sense of vocational mission, is that she and I together came to the conclusion, let's not worry about extrapolating this into a general principle. Will Barron What are we called to do. So how long did that conversation take?

That took about a year. And part of this conversation is that there was a former student of ours. He's now a priest, Father John Gribowich. He is a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, but he was a former student of ours and before he became a priest he was still in the seminary, his father passed away and you know and actually John Gribb, which the former student had lived with us for a while, that's part of this backstory as well, it's a long story, but he lived with us for a while. So it became like this adopted son to us and when his father

passed away, his father left him a little bit of money. And then we had some equity in our house. We owned it. And so when his father was in the hospital dying, and he was very big in the Dorothy Day as well, he had dealings with the Catholic workers in New York City, and we just sort of all, at about the same time, looked at each other and said, let's just do it, let's just do it. Let's just start a Catholic Worker Fund. How old were you and your wife, roughly?

I was about 54 years old. That's amazing. At that time. You know, kind of that, you know, everyone out there listening, when you hit your 50s, midlife crisis, I don't think happens when you're like 40. Okay. It happens when you hit about 52 or three or four,

because you realize, you know. Coming close to the end of the conveyor belt. Yeah, you know, I either need to make a career change now, or I'm pretty much gonna be doing what I'm doing now until I'm dead, okay? And that's the sense that I had at like age 54. If I wanna start a farm, I maybe have 15 more years, I'm 66 now, and I'm starting to feel it.

All right, but still I knew. So that was part of the sense of urgency on my part. And we knew we wanted to start a farm and not start a soup kitchen kind of a thing. And Father John Grubowitz said, yes, I've got my dad's money. Carrie and I looked at each other and said we have our house Let's do it. Let's just do it She we had a mutual friend who lived where we live now and she called him up said, okay. Where do you live? What's your address? What and she searched the internet from around him because she liked the area

And we found this little ramshackle farm. That is a piece of garbage You should have seen it. Something that should have fallen into the swamp years ago. It's still a horrible, terrible place to live. It's just awful farm. It's 125 year old farm. I think the total square feet is about 800. It's just tiny. Yeah, our farmhouse.

But it's about 15 acres of land or so, and we've got sheep and goats and stuff. But anyway, we've started getting all these visitors coming. We've discovered over time, my wife and I are both Benedictine Oblates, we've discovered over time that the number one draw to the farm isn't the farm anymore. People come to the farm because they're seeking a spirituality. the farm because they're seeking a spirituality. This is interesting. You know, we dwell a lot today on what's wrong with the church. We can talk about that today. All these horrible bad things happening to the church. And there's lots. There's a lot of bad stuff, right? But there's a lot of good stuff going on. And what I see, Matt, is this bubbling up from below. I'm sure you see it too. A lot

of young Catholics in particular saying there's something toxic about our culture. It's breeding a sense, who was it, George Parker Grant called it the monism of meaninglessness, and I was like, it's breeding this meaninglessness. We're seeking something deeper, more profound profound and the church has that as Peter Moore and the co-founder of the door of the Catholic worker movement called we need to blow up the dynamite of the church The church is sitting on this dynamite. Let's explode it and one of that is this her great prayerful mystical spiritual tradition and when people come to our farm, they're more interested in praying with us and talking with us and conversing with us, I

guess what you'd call fellowship, than they are with the actual, oh yeah, those goats are nice, let's milk the goat, let's collect some eggs, let's look at your sheep, fine. Now let's get down to prayer and conversation. So that, I mean, rest down the road here is the College of St. Joseph, which is run by these great guys that are combining liberal arts education with practical skills. They're gonna be building for us, at least,

hopefully, we raised them, we have to raise the money. It's gonna be expensive, we have to raise the money. They're gonna build for us a hermitage on the property, a Pustinia hermitage, and hopefully that will spur more people to come as well. So that's kind of, that's our story. That's who we are, that's what we're doing right now. Did you have any experience working on a farm?

No, my wife calls me the YouTube farmer. I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and so people think, oh, you're a Nebraskan. No, no, I know nothing about farms. I didn't grow up on a farm. You know, I think a Nebraskan, you know? No, no. I know nothing about farms. I didn't grow up on a farm. You know, I think a lot of us, as we get older, don't like to put ourselves in situations where we're incompetent.

We stick to our lane because we don't like being sort of exposed. Right. You, in your mid-50s, chose to embark on an adventure that you had little to no experience in. What was that like, starting this thing and realizing you weren't good at it? Yeah, it was humbling.

Let's just put it that way, because I'm not only, I not only didn't know anything about farming, like, you know, okay, how do I butcher a chicken? I looked it up on YouTube, and there's a dude there showing you, you can go on YouTube and there'll be a dude or a dudette showing you how to butcher a chicken, and it works. But also, you know.

Yeah, somehow you can actually do that. The chicken will die, and you can eat it. Yeah, you can eat it. Well, the other complete tangent, one of the things you do discover too, you have all these romantic ideas in your head, like, oh, this is a fresh chicken, it's gonna be wonderful, it was terrible.

Free-arranging chicken, the kind of chickens you buy at the supermarket, those Frank Perdue, genetically engineered, Frankenstein chickens with. Giant breasts. Giant breasts, they taste pretty good. These little sinewy, skinny chickens we were butchering were terrible. And you discover that as well.

But anyway, yeah, I not only didn't know anything about farming, I didn't, you know, I'm an academic. I've been a bookish, little, intellectual nerd since I was five years old in my bedroom as a boy reading encyclopedias. That's just who I have been since I was little, a bookworm, an intellectual and academic. So not only did I not know about farming, I have no carpentry skills, plumbing skills, electrical skills.

I could barely, I barely knew how to use a hammer and a nail. So yeah, it was very, very scary and unnerving to decide to do something that required so many tactile skills that I lacked. And yet at the same time, I felt a craving for it. I don't know, maybe that's the blue collar boy in Nebraska coming out in me. I don't know. But it was both fearful, but also I had a sense of adventure. You say, okay, how did you feel? I felt like, okay, I have a 10 foot sailboat, no motor,

the sail is full of holes, but I'm gonna cross the Atlantic with this thing. And it's foolish and it's stupid. And somehow you end up on the Irish coast. It's like totally shocked that you made it there. Wonderful. Yeah. And what about your wife, what part of the farming

was she interested in? She is very interested, well she's interested in everything. And she too is just, she grew up in New Jersey, a suburban Jersey girl, she had no farming skills. But what she was interested in is the fleece of the sheep. She's into what we call these days, if you live on a farm and you know the lingo of farming communities,

she's into what's called fiber arts. The fiber arts. And she goes to all these fiber festivals, which I didn't even know existed. And what is essentially, it's mostly female, but there are some men. And they're very much interested in recovering the old artisanal skills associated with creating fiber primarily from animals that you raise yourself, whether you're talking about Angora goats or alpacas or or in our case sheep. We have border lester sheep and we shear them.

And she processes the fleece and turns it into a usable wool and then she spins it into yarn and teaches other people to do that. And did she have any idea how to do that? No, none, we had a friend, former student of mine, an older woman, Lois Miles is her name. She and her family have a little community agriculture, what do you call those things?

Anyway, it's a farm that raises produce and you can buy shares in it. Community supported agriculture, CSA. Anyway, she taught my wife how to spin. Well, they had sheep and she was into it. And she taught my wife how to spin. But Lo they had sheep and she was into it. And she taught my wife how to spin. But Lois also gave me the best advice I ever got because I knew she lived on a farm.

I said, Lois, we're doing this farm thing. What advice can you give me? She goes, expect failure. Good. Don't romanticize it. So anybody listen to this going, okay. There are, talking about what's good in the church these days.

What's good is that there are bubbling up from below, there is a kind of back to the land, regenerative agriculture movement going on amongst Catholics. You see it all over the country, we hear from people all the time. The problem is is that people that enter into it quite often have very romanticized, idealized notions of what it's like to...

How is that true of you? Even though she said that, I'm sure you still had... Well, yeah, I thought, yeah, yeah, expect failure. But what she meant was that you have to lower your expectations as to what the endpoint is going to be. It's not just expect failure in the sense of complete failure. It's expect failure in the sense that none of your ideals, none of them are going to be met. You're going to say grow 200 green pepper plants

and you're expecting every green pepper to look like the ones you find at the supermarket and they all come out about this big instead. Instead of viewing that as a complete and abject failure, you have to realize that's what you should have expected because there's a reason why industrial agriculture gets a green pepper to look like that. It's because they've infused it with so much fertilizer and stuff like that. So that kind of rang true.

The first year when we were growing tomatoes and peppers to realize you're not going to be able to achieve what you, what you think you should have been able to achieve. And then of course, then there are times when things just fail utterly and completely. You, you buy a certain dairy goat, for example, and then it turns out to be a completely impossible animal to milk, or it's prone to mastitis and infection, and you realize, well, okay, I gotta get rid of this goat.

And so, yeah, it turned out to be very frustrating to realize how often none of your idealized goals are going to be met. You just, you have this bucolic image, like I'm going to have racks and racks of canned tomatoes and I'm gonna go out and milk these wonderful goats every morning and we're gonna have 300 chicken eggs every day and so then you realize, oh geez,

raccoons ate half my chickens last night, darn. And you realize. But in a way though that's, how could you, it's in a way I'd be you can't help that it's the same with any kind of endeavor if you get married people who've been married for 20 years tell you not to idealize marriage but you can't know that at the time or should you know so you can't know yeah so like or you know anybody out there's ever you don't know what it's like to have a kid until you

have a kid yeah people can tell you, oh, just wait, your whole life is going to change. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that baby shows up. Now I know what you meant. Mason Harkness I remember my mum saying to me, because we had our firstborn and he started to look like he was going to walk and we were encouraging it. She's like, don't encourage it. Because once he starts walking, yeah. Okay, so was there a time in the first year or two where you where was it? When was it when we were the closest to saying maybe we made a mistake or did you never hit that point? Actually, I hit that point I Never I never ever once thought maybe we made a mistake. I always thought we made the right decision

Even in years like we've had drought years and overly wet years and you just realize, oh my God. Now, I've never felt like, oh, ever, not once, this was a mistake and we should never have done this. In my case, to bring it more up to date, I started the blog in 2020 and the blog went viral and the podcast went viral and it's become not nearly popular to your level of subscribers and popular, but it's kept me busy and I've gotten speaking gigs to go around the country

to speak and I'm available to speak if anybody wants me to speak. What's your website? It's called gaudiemitspense22.com. It's a mouthful, I should shorten it to just GS22 maybe at this point. We'll put a link below. Yeah, and I'm available to go on speed,

but the point is that I write articles for Catholic World Report and the National Catholic Register for a sub stack called What We Need Now, run by Jade Henricks, sometimes for Our Sunday Visitor, The Catholic Thing, and then I also have my original blog entries that I still write on the blog, And then I also have my original blog entries that I still write on the blog. And then I have my podcasts,

and I have speaking engagements. And the point is that now there's conflict, starting in 2020 until now, over the past four years, you know, I can only, I'm one person, and I can only do so much. And so, and I've had this conflict with myself about how much time do I devote to the farm and how much time do I devote to everything associated with the blog. And quite frankly, I mean the blog has just become all consuming. I went to a

conference at Notre Dame, the de Nicolas Center for Ethics and Culture. They had a conference on the Catholic imagination a couple weeks ago, my wife and I went. And I didn't, I mean, every time I turned a corner, somebody was saying, and I'm not saying this to brag, I'm just making a point, because I'm isolated on the farm, I don't know. Every time I turned a corner, someone said, oh, you're Larry Chap, you run into this,

I'm sure all the time. Oh my God, Matt Fragg. Yeah, it's surprising, because to get that feedback from real flesh and blood people, you're Larry Chap. You run into this, I'm sure, all the time. Oh my God, Matt Frank. It's surprising because to get that feedback from real flesh and blood people, you're like, oh, that's right, this is actually reaching people. I thought it was just me here in this room. I'm sitting in my little study on my farm

doing my little podcast and so forth, and all of a sudden, I'm running into people from Ireland and South Africa and Europe and all over the, saying, oh, you're Larry Chapp, I watch your podcast. And that really hit home to me, going back to this question of vocational mission. Well, maybe at this point in my life at age 66, God is showing me that you're getting maybe a little

too far on in years to be farming for too much longer. With all the, I have arthritis in my back and knees and yeah, okay. And maybe you should be spending more time just doing this. And I was going to ask you, how did you fund this farm after you quit your jobs? Is it primarily after the blog? Fortunately my wife has been, yeah this is another good point about people that are back to the land Catholic homestead types who want to know how do you do this? How do you do this? Well it takes money. You have to have the money to buy the

land and then don't think that you're going to sustain yourself from what you grow and you're just not. Unless you're a full-time farmer with 200 acres, and all, no, you're not going to. Plus, we're a Catholic warrior farm. We weren't doing it for profanity. So my wife, when we first started there, she ran the online theology degree program

for St. Joseph's College in Maine. And that paid her enough salary to pay our bills. And I just did the farming. Well then COVID hit 2020. Get this, get this, all right. So she runs their online degree program. Ran it. Online. Never set foot on campus. They required her to get a COVID shot. Oh my goodness. She refused. Good woman. So no more job. So we did suffer through a couple of years.

Did she try to explain to them? Oh yeah. This is stupid. This is nothing. Yeah, but no, it's a woke school. You know, it's a very woke run by Mercy Sisters. It's a woke school and they were part of the whole steamrolly COVID propaganda bandwagon, all right?

And you get the vaccine or you're out. Well, she was already starting to feel like, I'm not a good fit with this very liberal institution. And so she spent a couple of years doing, now she's back at St. Charles Seminary, but they have since moved the seminary further north, and so the commute isn't so bad. So that's, to answer your question,

that's how we pay our bills. It's my wife, and now I make money. But I could monetize the blog, but I refuse to do that. I don't put it behind a sub-stack, and I make no aspersions to anybody who actually does make money from their blog or whatever, but to me, it's just not me.

I make money from freelance writing and get paid for doing that. But I think one of the reasons that has allowed my blog to, in a sense, go a little viral is that it's just complete, it's not behind any kind of a subscriber paywall of any kind, just click and you're there. And I think there's, now maybe the day will come

when I say, man, I need the money. And like I said, $5 a month to do a sub stack subscription or maybe, maybe someday, but not now. How many articles do you post a week? You say it's all consuming. Well, usually I do like two articles a month for the National Catholic Register and two articles, sometimes three for Catholic World Report.

And so that's like five, and they tend to run 1,200 words to 2,000 words. And of course you don't just do, they have to do a little research. So that, and then I also do original blog essays on my own, which I don't publish in any publication other than my blog, and that takes time. And I do that, I keep doing that,

because that's like going back to the well. The blog got started with me just writing long, what I call long form 4,000 word ruminations. 4,000 words, I don't even care if you read it. That's right. I woke up this morning and this is what I think about this. All right, that's my first love. And every once in a while I return to that.

It's funny you bring this up. I just started a Substack about two days ago. Oh, I didn't know that. I knew about Substack. I didn ago. Oh, I didn't know that I knew about sub stack He didn't know that I had like started one like a year ago and just because I didn't know what it was And so I'm on the plane I'm writing this article and I say, you know If enough of you say nice things it I might keep going like I'm gonna need you to like me and say, you know Yeah stroke my ego and a few people did So I wrote, I've written like four articles

in the last week on Substack. And I still don't really know what Substack is. I think it's like Twitter for people who wear turtlenecks. That's the best I can come out with. Where people are slightly less angry and would like to think of themselves as literary people. That's what I'm getting. But I don't know.

It's like three days I've had this thing. I can't go on. That's hysterical. It's Twitter for people who wear turtlenecks. That's great. Yeah. No, and I don't, you know, I have a friend, Cale Zeldin. He used to do a, he used to do the podcast with Rod Dreher called The General Eclectic and every once in a while-

He'll be coming on soon too, Rod. Oh, yeah, I interviewed Rod last week for his new book, Living in Wonder. Great guy. Yeah. I am unabashed. I know people like to criticize Rod. I'm an unabashed Rod Dreher fan. Yeah, me too. I love the guy. None of us is perfect, and I love Rod Dreher. And anyway, Cale is always trying to get me to do Substack.

And I think, well, someday maybe, someday. But I like your description of it. I like your description of it. I like your description of it. But, you know what I'm saying. X or Twitter, I mean, are we really gonna keep calling it X? Is that really gonna happen? I can't do it. Twitter is too anxiety inducing.

It's just people yelling at each other. I do not have the stomach for it. I'm really impressed with people who do. I'm on Twitter, I'm on X. Oh, I bet you have the stomach. Grouchy works well on you. Yeah, oh. You know sometimes you'll meet a fat guy and you're like, you look good fat.y works well on you. Yeah, oh. You know sometimes you'll meet a fat guy

and you're like, you look good fat. Fat works well on you. I don't mean you. I'm fat and grouchy. But it wouldn't work well on me. I wear this vest mainly to hide the fat. But that kind of like piss and vinegar grouch thing works really well on different people.

Yeah, I'm, people. They appreciate it in you, I think. People, even, you know, this is, and it's not an act, it you, I think. People, even, you know, this is, and it's not an act, it's who I am, people who know me know that, with Larry Chap, what you're getting is a singularly unfiltered human being. Completely unfiltered, and that's both good and bad.

And you get a bourbon in me and it's even less filtered. All right, and that's the bad, that's really bad. But I'm a happy tipsy. You should start a new blog, 3N, and you can only write blogs after three boobies Oh, I have I haven't I actually have like one bourbon a night at night just one yeah, and but I have a rule No Twitter no Facebook posts nothing after that at night. Yeah after that you know pretty good with that Yeah, I'm very good with that because I learned the hard way that that's just a very, very bad idea

because you can delete things the next morning, but once they're out there, they're out there. If they're spicy enough, someone took a screenshot, so it doesn't matter if you delete it. And four years ago, five years ago, when nobody other than my former students or somebody who read academic journals knew- 100%.

Yeah, knew who I was. But now my wife is really good at this. She's always telling me, Larry, you know, cause when we went out to Notre Dame and all these people were coming up to me and saying, Oh, you're Larry. She said to me afterwards, she goes, this is why you have to be very careful about the. I feel that as well. There is a responsibility.

I'd like to think that there isn't, and I can just be... Yeah, just... But it's like, no, there are different people on different stages of the spiritual journey who I could turn off, and God knows I do, and my continual prayer is, Lord, use my manure as... Use my bullshit as manure for the growth of others,

because you have to do something with whatever this is. Yeah, yeah. I have to admit, I kind of miss the freedom of the. Because you have to do something with whatever this is. Yeah, yeah. I have to admit, I kind of miss the freedom of the early days of the blog, when I could write on the blog things like, hey, this is bullshit, or even that kind of thing. And now, of course, then I added the podcast too, and the podcasts, and they're pretty,

my podcasts are never going to be for popular consumption in terms of a really broad-based audience because my podcasts, I'm primarily, 90% of them I'm interviewing other theologians on highfalutin theological. I'm like the official podcaster for the journal Communio International, which was started by Joseph Ratzinger and Hans-Ousmane Baldesson, Andy Lubach, and down in Washington DC now, the English version. And so it's now, I do have to be careful. Like when I first started the podcast four years ago,

if I said bullshit or something like that, I mean, but everyone wants one I'll let go with a, you know, it's a good thing that no one listens to this podcast or else you saying bullshit may have undermined what you were trying to accomplish. I was liberated when you did that. You liberated me. So be careful what you've unleashed. But now I occasionally slip and say something like that in my... And I'll get an email from somebody, hey, I had that on in my car with my little kid in the back. And I was like, okay, OK, sorry. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, mate. Well, here's a good here's a question for you.

I mean, you've you talked about this thing bubbling up within Catholicism, this back to the land. But what's the difference between Catholics are going back to the land and, you know, just pagans go because it doesn't seem like it's just a Catholic thing. It seems like this is a trend. Except this, I think that the Catholic vision is more sustainable because it's grounded in something more profound.

It's grounded in a sense of vocational mission. It's grounded in a sense of missionary evangelization. It's grounded in a sense of devotion to the Lord. Whereas, I mean, look, I'm 66. I remember, I grew up in the 60s and 70s. So I remember the era of the original hippie pagan back to the land commune sort of let's just go pick daisies. And it was, as I like to say, cannabis fueled

free love communes all ended in failure. There's a reason why they all ended up working for banks and finance. You know, the hippies of 1968 were all investment bankers by the time they were in 1978 because there were no deep spiritual roots to any of it. It was very epicurean. It was eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die, and oh by the way, let's offer up a pinch of incense to the solstice and pretend that this means something. There's an ersatz quality to so much modern paganism. I mean, it's almost an insult to ancient pagans to refer to the sort of wiccan, new agey, kind of neo-pagan garbage that is, I call it boutique shop paganism.

A dream catcher here, an angel pin there, I'm going to burn some jade incense and get in the yoga position and meditate on God knows what. But it's all therapeutic, it's all reinforcing. I'm going to be interviewing Carl Truman soon, his great book on the therapeutic self, you know, it's all a way of reinforcing this culture of rabid autonomous individuality and the dictatorship of the imperial therapeutic self and where it all ends up this notion of the

Imperium of the therapeutic self it begins with a hippie commune in 68 Smoking pot and engaging in free love and it ends with an insistence that men can get pregnant And and and you know and women can have penises, that this is where that leads to this notion of the radical malleability and plasticity of it. No ancient pagan would have believed that, because they believed that the ruling archons that infused the living spaces of our world and then the animate objects out there, that those things were essentialized properties of existence that don't change, which is why their mythologies and their rituals tended to be those of eternal return and cyclic return

because they believed same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same. One of the revolutions that Christianity introduced when St. Paul says Christ crushes those archons, those principalities and powers, and why Christianity unleashes onto the world a linear concept of history and progress is that we crush the fatalism and essentialism of the old paganism and unleash this power of the Holy Spirit, behold I make all things new. New! We forget how new Christianity was. And so now I have a hard time looking

out at this new agey garbage, this boutique shop, Wiccan garbage, and even thinking of it as pagan because it runs absolutely contrary to that essentializing of existence that the ancient pagans actually believed. No, this is just therapeutic bourgeois feel-goodism with spirit sprinkles on top that have no substance and no legs. And that's why I do believe that any back-to-the-land movement that's going to involve distributist economics, a la Chesterton and Belloc, or a localist

sense of our politics, a la Dorothy Day and others, a communitarian sense that fights the Leviathan of the modern state, a kind of paleo-anarchic sort of thing, that is going to have lakes. That's going to have substance, whereas this other garbage is not. Wonderful. Tell us about Dorothy Day, because you've brought her up several times, and tell Catholics why they ought not to be afraid of her, as if she's some kind of undercover communist or something. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people who watch this show,

just like people who watch my blog, I mean, a podcast, tend to be on the more conservative wing of the Catholic spectrum, and I'm happy about that. I have no time for Catholic progressists in a pox on their house, for when we can get into that. I saw it up close and personal in Rome covering the Senate. But anyway, yeah, Dorothy Day,

a lot of more conservative Catholics say, oh, wasn't she a socialist and a Marxist? No, she wasn't. She was all for the workers. She didn't like capitalism. And of course, capitalism is a real fluid concept. Well, what kind of, when you say capitalism, what is it you mean?

She did not grow up a Catholic, she became an atheist, she was a Marxist in her youth, she had an abortion at one point in order to keep a man. She fell in love with a dude, she got pregnant, the dude didn't want the baby, so to keep the dude, she had the abortion, which was illegal, but then the dude didn't want the baby, so to keep the dude, she had the abortion, which was illegal, but then the dude dumped her, and that was a real crushing moment for her.

And she ended up living on Staten Island with this other man she really loved, Forster was his name, and they had a kind of common law marriage, and she did have a baby with him. And it was the birth of her child, Tamar eventually she ran into these nuns and she was very moved by them and to their life there. She was inquisitive spiritually, she was seeking. Long story short, she became intrigued by Catholicism and she converts.

But she didn't lose her sense of radical devotion to the poor and to the working classes. So when she became a Catholic she started reading more and more and more of the social encyclicals of like Rerum Navarum and so forth and realizing that the Catholic, just exactly what I was explaining to you, one of her problems with Marxism was that okay they fight for the workers but where's the depth? Where's the substance? Where's the moral vision beyond fight and, you know, rise up? She saw in Catholicism roots, intellectual depth, metaphysical depth, moral depth, and

realized that this was a far better way to sustain a movement of reforming our economy and reforming our way of life than anything the Marxists had to offer. And so she started this paper called The Catholic Worker, and the movement was called The Catholic Worker, and it was doing it because there was a paper, The Marxist Worker, you know, and she deliberately chose this to ape that, but then to subvert it. And the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement with her was a guy named Peter Moore and this self-taught French peasant dilettante.

He had studied with the Christian brothers, immigrated to the United States, long story, but he was very intellectual. And so it was like 1932, the height of the Depression. They start the, and it really takes off, starts in New York City and it starts with soup kitchens and things like that. She was a radical pacifist,

since they lost a lot of followers during World War II, because no one understood her pacifism. But after World War II, it picked up again. Peter Moran died, but they also started the farms. And so that's who she was. But you know, she lived to be, you know, into her eighties and in the sixties and seventies, she was very anti war Vietnam war, you know, but she was never ever a believer in socialism or Marxism.

In fact, she opposed social security when it was introduced on the grounds that that was giving too much power to the state and that it undercut charity and replaced charity. The obligation of families to take care of each other. Exactly. And so yeah, it is a grand myth in the sense of a falsehood that Dorothy Day was some kind of a political liberal. I think one of the reasons why this notion crops in is too is that sadly, many Catholic worker houses today

are simply mouthpieces of political leftist politics. I don't know about this, so feel free to expand on that. Yeah, I mean a lot of Catholic worker houses beginning in the 60s, you know, this is the era of the post-conciliar church. This is the era of dissent from church teaching in matters of human sexuality in particular. And gradually over the past 40, 50 years, not all,

not all, but many Catholic worker houses, it would be hard to find a believing Catholic in one of them. And if you find a believing Catholic, that Catholic is somewhat persecuted and beleaguered I've heard many many stories of like a devout Catholic This is okay I'm gonna go to this particular Catholic worker house and live there and volunteer and they go there and they last like six months And and realize I'm odd man out here. No, nobody believes anything here. It's just a hotbed of leftist

LGBTQ thing here. It's just a hotbed of leftist LGBTQ. Amazing. That's certainly not true of Cumbermere and the house there, right? No, no. I mean there are many Catholic work houses that still have a great Catholic vision. Do I have this right? Dorothy Day, didn't she set the Madonna house? No, that's Catherine Dougherty. I'm sorry, I misheard you. My apologies. No, that's Catherine Dougherty.

Yes, yes, yes. That's Madonna house. Yep. In fact, we want to build this Madonna house, Pustin House, she called it Pustinia, which is Russian for desert, Hermitage on our property with the College of St. Joseph guys, hopefully are going to build for us if we raise the money. But anyway, Dorothy- How are you raising the money?

Like I just want to give another shout out to wherever you'd like to be. Oh, well, we're a nonprofit. And you go to my blog, there's a donate button. Once you look up how to spell Gaudi Mitzpehs- Gaudi Mitzpehs22.com. We're just going to keep saying that. There is a donate button. Once you look up how to spell gaudium at spares. Gaudium at spares22.com. We're just gonna keep saying that. There is a donate button in there, and we are a non-profit.

So, no, trust me, I'm not here, hey, I'm not trying to. No, do it. But yeah, I mean, any donations that would help us buy this are tax deductible. But it's not just so that the chaps can have this lovely little hermitage on their property. We really, there is a groundswell of need

for people to find these little oases of spirituality out there. But anyway, back to Dorothy Day, whatever Catholic war house she was ever in was always very soundly Catholic. Are there newer ones? Are there like the newer folks who the Catholic will convert? My friend Colin Miller started one out in the St. Paul, Minneapolis area.

That's great. What is one? What is it? They take various forms, but usually one of two forms. You either start what's called a house of hospitality, which means you give soup kitchen for the for people who need food, or if you have the space and they have an emergency shelter for the homeless. So you house the homeless and you feed them.

And so Colin Miller out in St. Paul, Minneapolis has a house of hospitality, at least he did until recently. I don't know if it's still there, but I think it is. There's one in South Bend, Indiana, started by my friend Mike Baxter. There's one that's been around for decades now in Houston. It's called the Houston Catholic Worker. Mark and Louise Swick, Mark has passed away,

but they run, and it works with immigrants, tons and tons of immigrants. There's one in Oakland. There's, of course, then the original one in New York City, which is run by Carmen Trotta. It's a really wonderful, it's great. And Dorothy Day's granddaughter, Martha Hennessey is often there, she's been to our farm,

she's one wonderful, wonderful lady. So I don't leave a bad impression here. There are a lot of good Catholic worker houses out there, but there is also a lot of them that are not. And I think, my point point is I think people that those stand out to people. The ones that don't have much Catholic identity. They get a bad taste in their mouth. It is a bad taste. It's like, oh yeah, I went to a Catholic

worker house one time and they were bad-mouthing the church and they, you know, they hate the Catholic Church. It's like, whoa, well, geez, what's that all about? I forget who it was who said the problem with the church is the conservatives aren't liberal and the liberals aren't conservative and I think the point they were making is why is it that there seems to be this divide between those who are intent on getting doctrine and liturgy right and then it feels like on the other side you've got people who are running soup kitchens and wanting to take care of the immigrant and the poor. Where did that come from?

Why does it remain? Why shouldn't it remain? I think a lot of it has to do with it shouldn't remain. We need a coming lot of it has to do, it shouldn't remain. We need a coming together of the pro-life wing of the church and the social justice wing of the church to use these hackneyed categories. And then I was gonna say, try to rehabilitate that word real quick, because people hear social justice

and they just think leftism. Yeah, and that's precisely the problem, and not without certain justification, because this is how the bifurcation happens. All right, a certain kind of a Catholic who is very concerned with outreach to the poor, to those who are economically disadvantaged, to the immigrant Catholics who are very anti-war and anti-military industrial complex, you know, you get the time, who're in favor of, you know, health care for all. Those sorts of Catholics, it's very hard for us, let me back up a second, it's very hard

for any human being to not to think in political categories. And so eventually what happens is you begin to drift towards whatever politics most supports your favored causes. And if your favored cause is economic egalitarianism and equality for the masses and universal health care and free and open immigration, you're gonna gravitate towards Democrats. Oh, but the Democrats have this thing with abortion. And so you end up saying, well, we're not just gonna pay any attention to that. All right. And you, and anytime you're reminded then, Hey, you're a Catholic and abortion is important and euthanasia is important and

assisted suicide is important. And you know, in vitro, fertile, all that stuff matters. And you don't want to hear that. It makes you uncomfortable. It's because it's upsetting your politics. Now it's also the true pro-life people. They're great on all the life issues. And in both cases, you can't do everything. If that's your cause, great. If that's your cause, great. But what happens then is you wed your cause to a particular political party. So the conservative Catholic who's pro-life and abortion is his or her premium issue, said, well, the Republicans are better on that.

Donald Trump is good on that. Roe v. Wade got overturned. I ran into this all the time. I don't wanna get into my politics, but I didn't vote for Kamala Harris. I didn't vote for Donald Trump either. But there's a certain kind of Catholic that came after me and said, Trump man, pro-life,

you need, that's where it's at. And I felt like saying, you know, this is what happens when you reduce the moral causes you're fighting for to the political apparatus that you think is going to best ensconce those values. And so are the Catholic right and left become just as bifurcated as every other American out there in terms

of liberal versus conservative. And this is unfortunate, very unfortunate, because there is a deep connection. Dorothy Day saw this. Dorothy Day was as conservative as they come when it came to sexual morality, the life issues, and because she saw that there is a deep connection between as St. Paul himself, you know, between moral, licentiousness and the sexual domain and social injustice. Here's what's interesting to me, though, which I'd like you to explore. How come these constellation of issues seem to group around both left and right to use political categories? So if you're on the right, why is it that pro-life, good liturgy, sacred music, right doctrine? Why does that

all, I mean, I guess it makes sense why sacred liturgy and doc, that makes sense. Maybe you've also got pro-life in there, which is a little different, a lot different. And then over here you've got taking care of, you know, the immigrant and the poor. These are complex sociological questions. Numerous scholars these days from Charles Taylor's secular age, a secular age to others, Eugene McCarahers great big huge wonderful book The Enchantments of Mammon, he's at Villanova I think, they've catalogued the fact that okay we live in an age of, I don't want to get overly fact that okay, we live in an age of deep

I don't want to get overly academic here, but we live in this secular era of demystification the the old gods have been Banished so our public square our public domain has become very antiseptic spiritually very secularized and it seems as if very secularized. And it seems as if those on the left who gravitate towards issues more of economic justice and immigration have now suddenly become obsessed with sexual justice. Justice for every sexual minority, sexual minority on the face of the, Bill Clinton called it sexual, face of the earth. So it's, I think a lot of it has to do with their secularization has led to them to become gradually morally

exhausted with the deeper and more substantive issues, and have therefore gravitated towards the simple issue of liberating the autonomous self, whatever selves want, and okay, especially in the area of sex. So I tie part of this, my point is the bifurcation, and the statistics point this out. If you're pro-life and Republican and conservative conservative you care about good music and good liturgy it's because you haven't become completely secularized yet you still care about spiritual things and God and so forth so I'm not here arguing for I think a spiritual and moral equivalency between right and left I think the

right is is the superior metaphysical spiritual vision of left. I think the right is the superior metaphysical, spiritual vision of...and I think right-wing Catholics get some issues wrong, and I wish they would pay more attention to the soul as a Catholic worker, to the economic justice issues. But my heart leans in the conservative direction, and why I define myself as a conservative, because I think at least the conservatives still believe in God, and that God matters. And I think it's why they are so keen on the life issues, because they understand there's something, there's something really foundational, right, Matt, about this. If you can murder a child in utero, then you're capable of anything. All bets

are now off. There's something foundational about the pro-life issues that don't involve the kinds of prudential judgments that more left-wing issues do. Like, reasonable people can disagree about what our immigration policy ought to be. There's no hard and fast moral absolute that says, here's how many immigrants and what countries we have to let in. There's no hard and fast moral absolute that says, here's how many immigrants and what countries we have to let in. There's all kinds of prudential considerations there. But there are no prudential considerations

on whether or not I as a doctor should help somebody kill themselves. Or whether I as a doctor should be involved in prenatal homicide. Okay, and there are foundational critical issues involved that I think that conservatives get and understand. And I think more left-wing Catholics, I think they don't get it. I think they don't under... I think my biggest problem with progressive, and I talked about this before, you know,

oh, don't get me started on progressive Catholics. Progressive Catholics don't understand that culturally speaking, we are in deep kimchi. We are in deep doo-doo. Our culture is toxic and spiritually dead if almost completely so. And it seems to me that the liberal wing of the church doesn't understand this. And so conservative Catholics understand we need to stand against this. I mean Simone Vai, not Catholic, but she called it the apparatus. Paul Kingsnorth calls it the machine. Hans Oesvold Balthasar called it the system. Okay, and various authors have different names for it,

but there is this awareness of the Leviathan of modern culture, which is toxic to the faith. I know I'm dominating this conversation, I'll shut up in a second, but you know if you want to see the truth of what I'm saying, look at the fact that it's not just Catholicism. Across the board, religion has declined in Western cultures. As Western culture gets more and more secular, more and more left-wing, more and more liberal, the less and less and less religious it is. And you can look at whether you're talking Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, whatever. Two generations in, the grandchildren of those original immigrants are no longer practicing

their faith. And I don't care what religion you're talking about. There is an acidic corrosive quality to liberal modernity that has harmed almost every religion that enters into Western civilization. And when Western civilization gets exported, what do we export? We export sexual liberation, pornography, drugs, fentanyl, whatever. This is what we export, sweat shops, okay? This is toxic and it seems to me liberal Catholics might be superficially correct on some issues like we need to care for the poor, but they don't get the crisis. They don't get the metaphysical crisis, the existential lack of meaning

to anything. And the conservatives therefore get this and understand it, which is why they say liturgy matters. The vertical dimension of existence matters. Beautifully put. It's a little, makes me a little frightened if this is so toxic. How do I know I haven't already been completely poisoned?

Well, as I like to say, every single one of us is infected with the bacillus, the bacteria of modernity, whether, you know, we have it's the air we breathe. It's it's with our mother's milk. It's possible to transcend your culture to an extent to fight against it, to swim upstream. And most great reformers and saints have done that down through the ages. That's what made them great reformers and saints. They were able to pull their head up over the fence

and look out and say, oh, yes, okay. And then back down again. Okay, and with great ascetical effort, they gradually get themselves over that fence and say, over here, guys, this way. Okay, but most of us are resistant because it's so... Tiring.

Tiring, I mean, as GK Tushen said, it's dead things that float downstream. And when you become spiritually dead, you just As I said before about a certain exhaustion that kicks in you just start floating down the lazy river. That's my lazy Yeah, just slowly, you know the lazy river floating down the river Whereas only as Chastain said only living things swim upstream and in a Catholic Context this is why I think And in a Catholic context, this is why I think

what we've been talking about before, little spiritual havens and retreat, lay people need time away. Lay people need to look into themselves and realize I am infected. As I tell people who say, oh chap, you're getting kind of judgmental now on your little high horse, oh I suppose you think you're living the whole thing, right? Right, you're living it.

But no, no, I'm a leper preaching to other lepers. I understand and get the crisis we're in because it's in me. I have felt it since I was a little boy growing up. I didn't quite understand it as a little boy growing up. I didn't understand it until I was an adult. But I looked into myself and said, yeah, I'm infected with this garbage. And it's not, it's not an acute illness that has sudden onset that you can then pop a pill and goes away. It's a chronic condition. And it's a chronic condition that's

going to require long-term maintenance pharmaceuticals, spiritual pharmaceuticals. Okay. And that means asceticism and so forth, all the spiritual disciplines. What's an example of a symptom that would show to us that we're infected? I mean, other than complete atheism, supposedly believe in God, Christ and his church, we're living the kind of liturgical life. What are some symptoms that we could see to start realizing, oh, yeah, more needs to be done here? Oh, well, this is where I could maybe start to sound judgmental, as I say.

Uh, please do point things out, which okay. When I was a little boy, I grew up, there were five kids in my family and we had a tiny little cracker box, little ranch home in Lincoln, Nebraska. My father was a fireman. My mom was a stay at home mom. He didn't make much money. My dad hung blankets from raptors in the basement with spike nails to make makeshift bedrooms for us boys and so forth. And then I noticed as I grew older that everybody's houses got bigger as they had fewer and fewer children. And the yards got smaller.

Yeah, so you ended up with these, what they called McMansions, right? People had homes with five bedrooms and three bathrooms and a family room and a living room and a dining room and a fixed up basement and a little studio above the garage and so forth. And they had two kids or one kid. And one of the things that really struck me then

as a young academic is as I looked out at this landscape realizing isn't it strange as our family shrank, our houses grew. So there's a symptom that we started to place material wellbeing and material comfort above children. In other words, one of the signs that you've been infected with modernity is how much do you value children? Now, not everybody can have children.

And there are various reasons why people might, I'm not here telling you, hey, everybody go out and have seven kids. But I'm visiting here with my friend Marcus Daly. He has eight children. I go to an Anglican Ordinary at parish. For those of you, my pastor's married, former Anglican priest.

He has 10 children. Our parish is filled with people that have five, six, seven kids. So- For those unfamiliar, you're in union with Rome. We have Protestants who work here. Oh yeah, that's right. And Pope Benedict established what's called

the Personal Ordinarily of the chair of St. Peter where Anglicans were allowed to come into the Catholic church and sort of retain essentially the Anglican liturgy but with Catholic elements obviously. So yeah, there's a beautiful, beautiful Anglican ordinariate parish in Scranton, Pennsylvania, St. Thomas more, oh so many great things going on there. Pro-life pregnancy center.

My friend Marcus Daly has a coffin making business that's very, it's divine mercy. He's very good. Oh, excellent. I've been to a couple of conferences with him and have seen his work. Do you happen to know his website that we could plug it? It's mariancaskets.com.

Marian Caskets. Beautiful. He was inspired by the funeral of John Paul when he saw John Paul was buried in this. Yeah, please everybody go check out these caskets. Beautiful. He was inspired by the funeral of John Paul when he saw John Paul was buried in this. Please everybody go check out these caskets. I actually, like my poor wife, I said I'd like to buy mine now. I had this idea of putting it in the corner of my room and turning into a sort of icon corner. My wife's like, it's a little morbid. I know, but I'm melancholic baby. You know that about me. I'm melancholic too. I want to be like St. Jerome and get like a real skull and put it on my desk, you know,

memorial that you're going to die, dude. But all I have to do is go and visit my friend Marcus's shop, which is right across the street from the church, and all these coffins are everywhere. I'm sitting there having a cup of tea with him, and I'm like, okay, coffin here, coffin there, and it's like, it's kind of hard not to be thinking about death. But there's so much, so to come back to the question of- The symptoms. How do you know the symptoms?

Look at your, and not just at you individually, but look at your parish. And what's going on in your parish? Does your parish, I hate to use this word, so many priests hate this word, but I'm gonna use it. Is your parish simply a sacrament mill, where it's like a drive-through, where people come in, they play parking lot bingo,

all right, where it's, you're like, okay, the musical chairs, I guess a better analogy. You go in, you don't want the liturgy to last longer than 50 minutes, you don't know anybody, get away from me, hi, my name is Larry, I hate you, stay away. Buffer, excuse me, buffer zone, you're touching me, that kind of thing, and I'm exaggerating,

but you know the kind of parish I'm talking about. And then half of them leave after communion, they're off in the, you know. And okay, that might be a huge exaggeration. Feel free to adjust it. Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right. You're good, boss.

There we go. And I get very adjust it. Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right. You're good, boss. There we go. And I get very, and I talk with my hands, sorry. You know, but then you come to a parish like ours, St. Thomas More in Scranton, all right? And it's one of the poorest neighborhoods in all of Pennsylvania, the Providence neighborhood of Scranton. Our pastor says by zip code, it's the poorest.

And yet we have all of these outreach ministries from our parish, beautiful liturgy. Like I said, we've got the Providence Pregnancy Center, Jim Caviezel was just there, and my friend Marcus with his coffin ministry, but then we have Divine Mercy Farms run by my friend, Matt Nichol, that sends food into the city. We have our Catholic Worker Farm that sends food in.

We have a guy named Jerry Baumann who runs Divine Mercy Ministries out of the parish. We have a homeschooling cooperative at the parish. It's just vibrant, vibrant, vibrant. And I would say a sign that you've been infected with this is has your parish been infected with this? And are you comfortable with the fact that your parish has been infected? And another sign is, how much do you actually pray? I think that's a huge sign. I know in my case, it's always a sign.

Like I said, this is a chronic illness, and I'm constantly fighting against it. There'll be some, we do Liturgy of the Hours on our farm, because we're Benedict and Oblates. You and the Mrs.? Or do you have other people who come and stay with you? Well, actually my wife's brother, Hank, who lives with us. He's like 61 years old and never married, long story,

but he lives with us and he's like a farmhand. We have a little cottage on the property he lives in. So it's like our little community and we do Liturgy of the Hours. God bless you. About say, I know when I'm starting to be reinfected, when my wife will say, oh, okay, it's time for morning prayer, and I'll say to her,

oh, I have to, I'm like 100 emails behind. That's all, I'll get to it. You and Hank go pray. I've got to, man, I have some time-sensitive email. You know the deal. I'm sure you get 10 gazillion emails, right? And I got all these emails to catch up on. Well, morning prayer takes 15 minutes.

And then I realize, oh, I've gone five days in a row where apparently I'm catching up with morning emails. That's a sign, I'm infected. Prayer isn't that important to me. I mean, that's the definition of sloth being sorrow, what is it, in the face of a spiritual good that you don't wanna have to put in the effort to attain, something to that effect.

That's right, and it's related. And we all know what that's like. I know what that's like, I get up in the morning, I told myself I'm gonna say my prayers, and I'm just, I don't want to, I just don't want to. Yeah, what's the word? Acedia. Acedia. Acedia, where you've lost all the joy in spiritual things.

I think that's a symptom that you're infected. If you have acedia, and I'm infected with that big time, I'm constantly fighting, like you said, I'm a melancholic, you're a melancholic. There's a certain kind of personality that's prone to it. But I think our culture breeds melancholy. Because it infects us with a sense of the pointlessness and meaninglessness of everything. You know, I just, I just had an article somewhere. So

I think it was Catholic world report yet where I talked about how everything about us is meaningless. I was having this conversation with a friend this morning over a cigar. I should have brought one if I knew you. We could have one after if you're interested. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was in Uganda and it was a joy. And I just thought there's a very palpable lack of cynicism and sarcasm.

Yeah. And nobody who would ever use a word equivalent to cheesy. Whereas here we just seem weary and there's a desire to show that we're above things and this cynicism is rampant, which I think has to do with what you're talking about. Yeah. I mean, once again, oh yeah, I'm cynical as heck. I mean, you talked before, I'm a curmudgeon. Yeah, I'm a curmudgeon because I'm cynical about everything. But you also seem very joyful. You seem like a short-term pessimist, long-term optimist.

Well, yeah, people who get to know me realize, you know what, you're all bark and no bite. Okay. It's like I have a border collie, he barks at everybody and then all of a sudden he's on his back and wants his belly rubbed. That's me, right? Yeah, yeah, I'll bark and bark,

but ultimately I'm a marshmallow. But you know, in some sense, that's fine. But there's also a sense in which, well, why is the bark there though? I mean, I like to, I say people, my curmudgeonliness and my grouchiness and the fact that it does give my writing an edge, my podcasts an edge, I've turned it into a positive. But I never want to lose sight of the fact that these are vices. These are vices, and these are vices in me

because of the culture. I mean, St. Paul says, be kind. I mean, he lists the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Curmudgeonliness is not one of them. A sense of anger over the tiniest little thing. You know, I get angry over small things. Not, you know, somebody can back into my car and it's like, oh, okay, that's why we have insurance.

I drop a fork on the ground when I'm cooking spaghetti and I'm, expletives are flying, like the end of the world has happened. That's not, that's a vice. That means you're easily annoyed by small things in life Which means you're not finding joy in what you're doing Yeah but I also think that the positive side that wouldn't be sinful is

You're aware of things that other people are aware of and you're you write about them with a magnifying glass Like you put a magnifying glass over things that people knew of but couldn't quite articulate and that's and I think you need kind of hyperbole and aggression to convey it in that way which I'm sure is what people appreciate. Yeah it is so you know I don't want to be too hard on myself because I do want people to read my blog. Well I'm not gonna read him. Apparently he's nothing but an angry guy. No that's not true. But I think but you're right I mean I'm annoyed over little things like I just said, but the thing is, there's also a sense where righteous indignation is not a vice. Righteous indignation is what I try to turn my curmudgeon list into, in the sense that, yeah, I have... I'm not gifted with a lot of things in life in terms of personal skills or whatever

But God did gift me with a certain skill I think I think and that is an ability to see through BS and a short fuse for tolerating it I don't suffer BS lightly and so when I see something And I think this is nonsense, I say so. Recent example? The Senate on synodality in Rome. I wrote a diary on it for First Things. You can go check out First Things. Thanks to George Weigel I was writing.

Well, just to be clear, you're saying this and to tell people what the synod of synodality is because no one knows still. G'day fellas, for over a decade I've spoken to men around the world about the battles we face. Temptation, apathy, anger and the struggle to find meaning. Now let me tell you, one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Jesus Christ is Exodus 90. The Exodus 90 challenge begins this year on January 20th, but this isn't just a 90 day program. Exodus 90 is a spirituality for men in modern times built on three ancient pillars, prayer, self-sacrifice and fraternity. We all long for something more, and that something is to be found in becoming the men that God

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Exodus90.com slash Matt to join tens of thousands of men from all around the world for Exodus 90, starting Monday, January 20th. Recent example? The Synod on Synodality. All right. In Rome. What is it? I wrote a diary on it for First Things. You can go check out First Things. Thanks to George Weigel I was writing. You know, go ahead. Well, just to be clear, you're saying the Synod. And tell people what the Synod of Synodality is because no one knows still. No, that's one of the problems, right? Where we put all this emphasis on the sin and sin and sin and ality and nobody knows what it is because nobody cares and nobody should care.

It's essentially, you know, the church is saying there's your opening, Josiah. Yeah, nobody should care. Before I get into the, you know, Joseph Ratzinger, I mean, Pope Benedict, when he was still Joseph Ratzinger, young priest, a theologian in Germany, pointed out that Germany actually held a German wide synod in like 1972. I don't know if it was in Cologne or Munich or someplace like that. And it fizzled.

And it fizzled because the average lay Catholic in Germany didn't care about these bureaucratic questions of, you know, how much authority should the Pope have versus how much authority should bishops have and what should a parish council look like and what is the canonical structure of a chancery and should the Vicar General have this power or that power? I'm bored already just hearing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for the love of Pete, for crying out loud, who cares?

What does this have to do with Christ and salvation and the sacraments and love of neighbor? Nothing! And so that German synod fizzled. And Joseph Ratzinger, God, I can't remember where I read this from him now. It might have been in Peter Seawalt's biography of Ratzinger, quoting Ratzinger. Peter Seawalt's biography is fantastic by the way. And, oh, thank you. And Ratzinger says, thank God the sin had failed in Germany. He goes, it's actually a healthy sign that lay people didn't care about this thing because I wrote an article for Catholic World Report once and

Carl Olson, my editor, very insightfully gave it the title, Rome fiddles while the world burns. And essentially the gist of my article was, three years, Rome has been saying we need to develop a more synodal church. What does that mean? Well, in theory, if you look to Eastern Orthodoxy, it means a church less centrally organized around papal authority. So in theory it means we need less centralization of authority in the church in Rome and a healthy decentralization out to local bishops,

Episcopal conferences. That's it. I mean, ever since the Second Vatican Council, actually even before, most even very Orthodox Catholics have understood that there's been an exaggerated papalism in the church. I mean, we've begun to treat the Pope like he's the oracle on the Tiber. Like every word that comes out of his mouth is infallible. You know, there's been this infallibility bloat where, you know, oh my god, what did the Pope say on that airplane interview? Well, in part of me, he says, I don't care, because he's utterly fallible when he's standing on an airplane answering reporters' questions.

And yet, this is the point, this hyper-papalism has crept in. And so, yeah, in theory, a church that is a bit less focused on a cult of personality surrounding the papacy is a healthier church. Now, in theory, therefore, that's what this synodal process was meant to do. But then almost immediately, synodality starts to be equated not with a decentralization of power from Rome, it becomes to be equated with liberalization of the church on various doctrinal issues. We want women deacons. We want blessings of gay couples.

We want contraception, we want a complete reform of moral theologies as Cardinal McElroy says out in San Diego, all right, we want to be able to give communion to people in whatever sexual situation that they're in. Cardinal McElroy just recently said, oh synodality means that we now can basically allow people in non-traditional sexual relationships to go to communion. So synodality has simply become a buzzword for liberal issues. Or finally, we progressive Catholics, we've been waiting for 60 years for all the bad

popes to die off, and now we've got this pope we love who's going to give us everything we want. All right? And so now he's called this synodod and it's a curated form of listening where the only voices that are getting listened to are the Father James Martins of the church. Yeah, notice for example, you know, who amongst the synod voting members that were actually involved in ministry to homosexuals, who got invited? Well, the people of the liberal ones. The president of courage, international, was not invited to the synod, but James Martin was invited to the synod. And so you look and you realize the synod has been micromanaged in advance by people like Cardinal Holowick of Luxembourg,

who's the Relator General of the Synod, and he's on record dissenting from moral theology on homosexuality, right? So it's been micromanaged from the beginning to lard the synodal process in a progressive direction. Now fortunately they didn't get what they wanted. Fortunately there was enough pushback from other members of the synod to saying no, that's not what this should be about. And one of the reasons why they were allowed to push back, as even Pope Francis admitted last year, is that the average lay Catholic doesn't give a damn about any of this what's going on.

I went home to my family in Nebraska, and I said, well, they said, what are you doing next? Well, I'm going to be all month in October in Rome. Oh, doing what? I'm covering the Synod on synodality. They're all Catholics. What's that? Three years in, three years into the process. And my churchgoing family had no idea what the Senate on synodality is. You said that Pope Francis admitted that people don't

care about it? Yeah, about a year ago or maybe even slightly before, Pope Francis in an interview said that he under, he understood that this was in the National Catholic Register, I think Jonathan Liedl was reporting this, that Pope Francis said that, I understand that most average Catholics do not see the importance of what we're doing right now with the Senate on Seneddella. Not that it wasn't important, just that we didn't see it. Yeah. So yeah, I'm trying to get so much out here that I'm maybe rushing through this.

No, you're fine, I'm just trying to understand. And so yeah, Pope Francis said, I understand that most Catholics don't really care about this, but nevertheless he goes, it's important. Now, if he meant by that the decentralization of Roman authority out towards bishops and so on, Then I'd say, okay. That's not what I see. That's not at all what I see.

That's not at all what you see. I just, you know, I had an article that came out in the National Catholic Register on November 27th, and it was about how this is the 60th anniversary of Vatican II's dogmatic constitution of the church, Lumen Gentium. And I said, let's compare what Lumen Gentium said about Episcopal collegiality with this synodality stuff today. Vatican II was very concerned with the relationship between the authority of the bishop and the authority of the Pope. Vatican II understood the Pope had way, way, way too much canonical this, canonical that.

You want him to move over a bit? Okay, there we go. We're getting excited, we're moving around. Yeah, and so Vatican II said, okay, we need to bolster the authority of the local bishop, and we need to make it very, very clear that the local bishop is not simply a branch manager of Catholic Inc.

They're not little, and with the pope as CEO. They have legitimate apostolic authority as a college by them. So this- Even what you just said will shock many people watching. Cause they'll be like, oh, I thought that is what the case was. Exactly.

I mean, prior to Vatican II, the idea was the pope is the CEO, bishops are branch managers, and all authority the bishops have is delegated to them from the pope. Okay, now it is true, even today, even with Vatican II, a bishop can only rule with papal approval. I mean, the Pope does have universal jurisdictional authority. That's why we're not Anglicans. That's why we're not Eastern Orthodox. The Pope is the glue that holds it together with

Peter under Peter. But Vatican II also realized, okay, but the Pope is not an absolute monarch, as Pope Benedict said. It's not an absolute monarch. Bishops too are successors of the Apostles. They have authority. Vatican II then enforced that and said, okay, we're calling this the doctrine of collegiality. The Pope has universal authority, but he should rule in conjunction with the bishops. That's what created the Synod of Bishops. John Paul had annual or biannual Synods of Bishops, so did Benedict and Francis has continued that. We need these, but now we get synodality, and they're claiming that synodality is the fulfillment of the

ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium. No it isn't. It is most certainly not. It's the exact opposite of it, in my point of view. Because now they're saying synodality is about a church that listens, listens to the people of God. So it's this ooey gooey egalitarian populist BS. Like, oh we've listened to the people of God and we now know the people of God want us to have Lady Deacons. Who said? All right, and so this is not

collegiality. Collegiality would mean every single bishop in the world has been consulted on this issue. Collegiality would mean that bishops have been asked to give their input on this. That's the ecclesiology of Vatican II. Not that 350 hand-selected people meeting around round tables in the Paul VI hall in Rome over one month in October, involving laypeople and bishops and priests of all kinds who issue a final document that really says virtually nothing. And then everybody goes home and says, okay, that's Vatican II at work. What are you talking about? What about Vatican II here? In many ways, it's undercutting the authority of the bishop. Because we're saying 350 mixed group of people, even Cardinal Mueller said this

is not really a Senate of bishops because it's got lay people in it. Okay, so like 350 various people voting, now all of a sudden a bishop in Grand Island, Nebraska, you know, or Lincoln, Nebraska, all of a sudden has to kowtow to something he had no input on. Nothing. So his authority as a local bishop, which is what Vatican II was concerned with, increasing the authority of the local bishop, has just been cut out from underneath of it by a group of hand-selected 350 people in Rome meeting around round tables talking about hot-button issues. Anyway, that's, you know,

I think that's, I think that's an example of BS that I see and I say, you know, so I wrote about it first things, BS, BS, along with George Weigel. Weigel had no time for it either. Help me understand, help us understand, you know, in reaction to this, you've got people on both sides, eh? And this is a thing I keep coming back to because I'm trying to figure it out myself. You've got the people who just seem like very angry, who might tend to be in the traditional camp, though there are angry people everywhere. And then you've got the kind of, I don't know, are there still the lefties out there? Lefty Catholics? Do they still exist except for Catholic workhouses? I don't meet them.

for Catholic workhouses, I don't meet them. You know? They're out there. The thing is, once again, average Catholics, however you want to define that, let's say Catholics who are not in any way employed by the church and are not theologians or academics, they're just devout Catholics who go about their jobs and their families and

attend Mass somewhat of a regular base. That's an average Catholic. I think, I don't think that kind of Catholic fully understands the extent to which the Catholic intelligentsia represented by the Catholic theological say and philosophical guild in the academic world at the Fordhams and the Marquettes and the Georgetowns and the Notre Dames of the world. I don't think the average Catholic fully understands how that class of Catholic intellectuals from Vatican II until today has been dominated by the Catholic left, by the progressives. Anybody? I mean, for example, I'm a white male conservative Catholic theologian,

and I can tell you that every single white male conservative Catholic theologian is going to have difficulty, A, finding a job at any of those places because they're too busy hiring the next wave of progressives. Number two, even if you get the job, getting tenure. This is enough, it's better than it used to be. You have little pockets of really strong Catholic orthodoxy in places like Steubenville, Dallas, Ave Maria, Notre Dame, great theology program, but for the most part the Jesuit institutions are a complete wasteland. The colleges run by the Sisters of Mercy, a complete wasteland.

OK, so given that, what is your opinion of the loud trad voices online? Because I fully understand and sympathize with them. But I'm also nervous because sometimes it feels like we're veering away into something that could be schismaticismatic even if it isn't yet. Yeah, see, okay, I'm glad we're talking about traditionalism because I have such oh my god my feelings are so mixed about the traditionalist movement and I have a kind of I have a visceral love-hate relationship. I'm so glad you said that. Mixed is what I need because mixed is how I feel and I'm

tired of getting clear black and white answers because it doesn't seem To meet the confusion. I feel yeah, it's it's and you know, I know There are traditionalists that I know personally You know like a Peter Kwasniewski friend of mine. He and I don't see lovely lovely man. Very bright But boy do we differ on some? Theological points. Yeah. Yeah. Well. I just bring up his name to say, okay, I'm not here to paint traditionalists in a bad light.

I'm friends with Peter. I don't agree with Peter on many things, but Peter's a great guy. And I think many traditionalists are like that. But there are many traditionalists too that I think are, I'm not gonna mention names, but they're grifters. I think they've detected that there's money to be made in the red meat of anger, of

Catholic right-wing anger, and they like to gin up that anger by, in a sense, constantly inventing new crises, new crises, new crises. Like, I'm not a huge fan of Pope Francis, not at all. Nevertheless, I don't think Pope Francis is a heretic. I think he's legitimate Pope. I'm going to criticize this, that, or the other aspect of his papacy. But I look out at the trad world and I see this, like you just put it, this somewhat sadistic leaning, where if if you know what, based on everything you've said, podcaster X, if you connect the dots of everything you've said over the past year, I don't know how you're not a seidei vacantist. I don't know how you're not a believer that Pope

Francis is an anti-pist. Now some of them have the courage to say, yeah, I'm a Sede, but most do not. So my, my, so anyway, my attitude is this, the, this exponential explosion, it seems, at least in the internet world of radical traditionalists can be tied almost exclusively to the rise of the papacy of Pope Francis. Mason- Just to interrupt you a little, earlier you were talking about this being rife throughout academia, right? All of this liberal leftist bullshit. But then that seems to fit with the right-leaning podcaster talking incessantly about abuses. and it would seem that these aren't things

they're making up. If there is... Oh, they're not. See, this is my point. Okay, so there were liturgical abuses galore. I grew up with them. Hold on. Clown masses.

This is not a caricature. Yeah. You know, old men in dresses doing liturgical dance. Yeah, this happened. Bishop Barron is a friend of mine talked about how, you know, he was a mass and a kid and the priest rode up on the middle of the island on a motorcycle. Yeah, that garbage actually really happened. And so their fears and their and the academic Catholic world, very liberal, their fears are real ones. The trouble is this. As long as we had a pope in Rome, a John Paul or a Benedict, that you could point to and say, well, okay,

for every Hans Kung that's teaching nonsense in a Catholic university, at least we've got the pope holding the line. The center is holding. That gave people hope. Which I think is partly what led to this ultramontanism you were speaking of. Oh, that's exactly right. You would have found no bigger fanboy of John Paul II than yours truly. I entered the seminary in 1978, the very first year that he was elected, and I remember I saw him in Philadelphia as a seminarian, you know, and him standing at that podium, and, be not afraid, launch into the deep water. I mean, gosh, this was so damn inspiring. I wish I could say to young Catholics today who only maybe even remember the elderly,

elderly John Paul, you need to understand how inspiring he was. And then Benedict as well. And there was therefore a sense, I was very aware as a young conservative Catholic how crazy the academic guild was I was entering into it how crazy Many bishops and priests still were how many liturgical abuses but by gosh we had Carol Voiteva We had John Paul and then we've got rot singer. We've got Benedict and even though there were SSPX types on the fringes and there were angry rad trads on the they were a minority. Enter in Pope Francis okay and within two or three years it becomes very very clear the center is not holding. Yes. Rome is giving these

guys way way too much power and over several more years, you look, I will mention one name. You look at it like a Taylor Marshall. You go back to watching Taylor Marshall in 2013, brilliant Thomistic scholar talking about Aquinas. He was actually a defender of Pope Francis at first, He was actually a defender of Pope Francis at first, but then you see gradually the radicalization of Taylor, who I like. I mean, Taylor Marshall is a good guy, you know, but you see him getting, what's the word, he was red-pilled. He got red-pilled by Pope Francis, I think. And I think many, and I was talking with Peter Kwasniewski about this, and he goes, yeah, he goes, I used to be a reformer, the reformer of the liturgy kind of guy.

I was a JP two conservative Catholic, but gradually goes, I agree with you, Larry, there's been this, this radicalization of the traditionalist movement as the perception is taken hold that not only is the academic guild liberal, not only are many priests and bishops liberal and so on, but Rome is now liberal. I think Carl Keating put it really well in a book he wrote on Pope Francis. He said,

we used to look to the pope to clarify the confusion of our parishes. Now we look to our parish to clarify the confusion coming out of Rome. As I like to say, the role of the Petrine ministry is to unify by clarifying. We don't have that. We don't have that. We have the exact opposite of that. Are we allowed to say we don't have that? According to everybody who's going to comment under this video, you and I are both heretics. Well, you know, yeah, the where Peter is, Mike Lewis types that are out there are going to say that we're quasi-seismatic. That's their favorite thing, though. That we're breeding schism, because... and they'll throw Lumen Gentium 25 at you, which says,

you know, we owe the Pope obedience of mind and will and so on. But one thing I've noticed, you know, Lumen Gentium also says we owe the episcopacy in general the submission of mind and will. You know, that the Pope doesn't rule as an absolute money. Go read Lumen Gentium 25. Yeah, it's big on papal magisterium and the need for religious submission of mind and will, but it also emphasizes that the episcopacy in general as successors of the apostles did deserve our obedience as lay people.

And yet I noticed that those who would criticize us for criticizing the pope have no problem in criticizing the Cardinal Birx of the church, okay? And constantly, oh wait a minute, whatever happened to the notion? Oh, I guess we're only supposed to be obedient to the Pope. We can be as critical as we want to be of any bishop, Bishop Strickland, Bishop Schneider, Cardinal Pell, Cardinal Mueller, Cardinal Burke. We can be as critical of those guys as we want to be and call them schismatics and everything else so long as we're faithful to the Pope.

Interesting. You know, loyal to the Pope, but loyal to the Pope by their definition. Now as a theologian I'm gonna say this with regard to those who are watching this and saying, okay, you're critical of Pope Francis for not fulfilling his Petrine ministry of unifying, but he divides instead. Well, I think that's just an empirical fact and I'm going to say it. And I don't think it violates religious submission of mind and will of Lumen Gentium 25. Because what Lumen Gentium 25 is arguing for is not slavish, servile obedience to every word that comes out of a pope's mouth. Because if that were true, then every saint who has ever challenged a Pope was sinning.

All right? Catherine of Siena was sinning, okay? That any saint that had anything critical to say of a Pope at any time was sinning. No, we have to be able... this is what I mean by exaggerated papalism. You've got to be able to criticize the Pope from time to time with respect. Yeah, absolutely, and you'd know this more than me, but isn't it true that the Holy Father has invited people to express their concerns? Or is that not true? It's very true. Do you think when he said that he meant in reference to the papacy, or did he not mean that?

I think that he means it with reference to the papacy in general and to his own exercise of that ministry. I think he is sincere when he asks people to critique his ministry. However, I think that he's not consistent in that sincerity because he's human. Let's put it this way, I don't think Pope Francis is a saintly person. I think he has like garden variety vices like I have. In other words, I would look at John Paul and Benedict and say, I think those people are better Christians than I am. They have virtues that I don't have and they lack vices that I do have. I look at Pope Francis and I think, you know, there's a part of me that sympathized with him because he seems like me.

And so when people criticize him, he said, I invite criticism. He bristles at it. He doesn't like to be criticized. And so I think one of the things that explains, he talks about going to the peripheries. He talks about reaching out to the margins. He talks about accompaniment. He talks about todos, todos, everyone. And then he issues Tritonis Custodes and says, says, well everyone's welcome in the church but you people are not. You people to the right of me have criticized me and so I'm going to put you in your place. See I think this is a vice, I think this is a vice. You can't in one breath say per hesia,

open discussion, todos, todos, everyone, everyone's welcome, non-judgementalist, accompaniment, and then say, yeah but all you people that like the Latin Mass are backwardists and hateful, pharisaical people that we don't really want to deal with anymore, you know? And that's hypocrisy, I'm sorry, that's hypocrisy. And I don't care if people want to call me out for saying that I think the Pope is a hypocrite in these matters, because I think that's the truth. I think he is. Yeah, what are we to do then? Because I'm increasingly of the opinion that we clearly took a left turn that we shouldn't have taken after the Second Vatican Council, whether that was due to a lack of oversight or whatever, how the Novus Auto developed. You go

to a Latin Mass, you have to be freaking blind to not realize immediately that this is clearly more appropriate and more beautiful, given what we're doing here than the typical nervous auto. And I don't know, for a long time I've tried to justify it and but now like maybe we just maybe I'm more like I'm gravitating more towards your friend Peter where I'm like maybe this was all just a giant mistake but now that we've done this, now that we've thrown this wrench in, put this full stop on tradition and it's morphed violently into something else, now what do we do? How do we go forward here? Because I was speaking to an F, and maybe you disagree with some of the steps in this

argument and you're welcome to say so, but I was talking to an FSSP priest and he said to me that of course he wants the Latin Mass to be reinstated, but he wouldn't want the Novus Ordo to be eradicated the way the Latin mass was because for many it is their tradition and he wouldn't want done to them what was done to him. I agree with that. I do agree with that. First of all, let's go back to that attitude of Peter Kwasniewski and others. Maybe I'm getting this wrong. Is it Peter Kwasniewski? I don't know if it's New ski or nevsky or whatever. He's done some excellent lectures. I've looked at recently.

He's the fellow with the glasses and kind of gray hair. Is that the fellow? Yeah, good. Yeah, I was always dressed like this. Yeah. And but anyway, you know, what you said, maybe their attitude is, and I think it is that, OK, we were willing to put up with Vatican II and the Novus Ordo and all the shenanigans so long as the center held in Rome. But now the center's not holding,

and so our attitude now is this, if this is what Vatican II has led to, then to heck with Vatican II. If this is what modern theology has led to, then to heck with modern theology. And if this is what the Novus Ordo has led to, then to heck with the novus ordo. I'm here to say I sympathize with that point of view

in the sense that I understand the sentiment. But I disagree and disagree strongly with the conclusion that therefore we need to go scorched earth, scrape Vatican II off the map, completely ignore it, go back to simply the old Latin mass, and I think more importantly, go back to the old neo-scholastic, I'm speaking as a theologian here,

let's just all be straight-line Thomas, let's forget all the De Lubach, Rothsinger, Daniel Lou, Guardini, Balthasar, Bouillet, all of those theologians that led up to FX Durwell, people like this that led up to the Second Vatican Council, let's just forget all them too. See, this is my problem. You know, I'm on the editorial board of a journal

called Communio, International Catholic Review, which was started by Ratzinger, Balthazar, and De Lubach. And it was deliberately started as an antidote to Concilium, which was a liberal journal. And there's an English version of Communio, which I'm a board member on, and their attitude is we need Thomism for sure, but we also need the Church Fathers, a revivified approach. In other words, Aquinas is great, but let's not reduce the tradition to that.

Now my problem with traditionalists is what they're saying, because they're red-pilled by Francis, and they're reacting, and they're saying, listen, their attitude is to be safe, to stop the madness, let's just go back to Aquinas. I think that's unwise. I love Aquinas, but I think there are other theologians, not liberals, but not straight-line Thomists, that are out there that we can turn to that can help us. That's the school of theology that John Paul II came out of. Benedict himself came out of that school of theology, and I think we're really really losing a powerful theological resource for renewal in the church if we simply say

a pox on everything not called Thomas Aquinas. I think that's a big problem. Likewise with regard to the liturgy. I am a, like I said, I attend an Anglican ordinary liturgy because to me it combines the best of two worlds. It combines the reverence, the elevated language, the bells, the smells of the traditional Latin mass with my language, with prayer spoken out loud. I mean the mass, the Anglican Ordinary Mass, it's odd orientum, facing away from the people. We receive communion kneeling on the tongue at an altar rail. But doesn't this just go to show that people are being pushed into these little ghettos

where it's like I can't trust the local parish. So you asked me what my local parish is like, well it's garbage and I'm not taking my children there because I want them to experience the reverence of liturgy and therefore you've got these people now who are rushing to Byzantine churches, Anglican Ordinary parishes, the odd Latin mass in a chapel if it's still allowed to be celebrated. So what's the solution? Because I'm with you, I agree with you. First of all, it will never happen that we're going to just do away with all this history

after Trent and Stuyvesant. Because there are broad swaths of the church, say in African places like that, where the Novus Ordo liturgy is the liturgy that has sustained their faith. Clearly, I think there are problems with the Novus Ordo. I'm a big, huge believer in the reform of the liturgy that has sustained their faith. I would say, clearly I think there are problems with the Novus Ordo. I'm a big, huge believer in the reform of the liturgy. And I think one of the deficits of Benedict's papacy,

which is I thought if any modern pope had the theological acumen and resources to reform the liturgy, it was Benedict. Why he didn't do that? I've been told by those who knew Benedict, who are Benedict scholars, say that Benedict was very contrary to the grand myth about him. He was very averse to authoritarian measures. He didn't want to impose any. So he instituted Samoram Pontificum. He created the Anglican Ordinariates. He wanted to create a movement from below. Yeah. And maybe there was wisdom in that, but I think though that ultimately we do need, and this is, I've said this over, instead of a synod on synodality,

endless BS on hot-button issues, what more important issue is there in the church than the Holy Eucharist? Why can we not have a two or three year long synodal process on the liturgy? Is there not, is there a bigger and more festering long-term issue in the Church, going back to the Council, than liturgy? If there is maybe sexual morality, I don't know. Why can't we have a Senate of Bishops in Rome that bring the Peter Kwasniewski's there, the trads there, that brings in the uber liberals, you know, the Novus Ordo tambourine mess.

Lock them in a room. Put them in a room and let them suffer through there. No way the hippies would win. Bring in the ordinary types like myself who want to say elevated liturgy but in the language of the people, let's get us all together and really have this out. You want to have, as the Pope says, perhigia, open dialogue. You can't have an open dialogue from the liturgy while on the one hand you're saying accompaniment, the next hand you're smashing one side down. Because the Traditionists have a point about

the darn liturgy. They do. They have a point. They deserve to be heard. Alright? And I deserve to be heard. You deserve to be heard. Do you feel heard, Matt? Do you feel heard? I don't know if I deserve to be heard. I don't feel heard. I tell you why I feel heard. I have our good bishop from St. Augustine in Florida, Bishop Eric, just contacted me recently and asked me if he could come over for dinner. I was so honored by that, and I can't wait to talk to him. There are good bishops out there, but they've been hamstrung.

In that sense, I feel heard. I think what's been a major shift in the last five, ten years is the authority of the priests and bishops has diminished and the authority of the Catholic podcasters has ascended in the minds of many. I think that's good and it's bad. Yeah, I think so too. Once again, I have mixed feelings about it and I'm part of that tribe. You know, one of the things I said, I've said to Peter, Kwasniewski, however pronounced, I've never, Peter, if you're out there, tell me how you pronounce your name. How do you pronounce it?

But one of the things I said to Peter was, your very existence, Peter, and my very existence is testimony to Vatican II. Right. Before the council, the church, I mean, it was the idea that you'd have laymen and women as theologians in the church, lay men and women who are doing things, you know, ministries, you know, from you to me,

the people like Chris West, Matthew Kelly, I mean, I mean, across all these sorts of lay people involved, unheard of in the precancelier church, unheard of. There has been an explosion of lay participation and therefore I say that's a good thing. I think that's a healthy sign, the universal call to holiness, and therefore I think the papacy needs to do a better job of let's have a synod on the liturgy. Let's get all the lay people that have risen up in podcasts and so forth. Let's get them to Rome and let's have a discussion about this. And you talk to me of a good bishop, you know, think of Trinitio nus custodes and what it

did to bishops and their authority. Right down to micromanaging what it is a parish bulletin can say. Trinitio nus custodes says that it tells a parish that it can't advertise the time that they have a traditional Latin Mass. Now how is that synodal? How is that decentralizing Roman authority? By actually having a Roman decastory micromanage what can go into local parish bulletins about Mass times? This is what I mean about cutting the conversation off at its feet. And there

are bishops out there, I know, you know them, I know them, who would love to have the Latin Mass back in their diocese, but now can't. They can't, because Rome says you can't. So what are they to do, practically speaking? We have a little chapel up the road from our house, about 15 minutes, that celebrates the Latin Mass. But what about when that gets... what are people to do, practically speaking? Do they just... Do they go to the SSPX?

No. I would never recommend going to SSPX. I would never recommend ever anything that hurts the harmony and unity of the church. Aren't these Novus Ordo sometimes doing that? They are, but the Novus Ordo is the ordinary form of the Roman liturgy. It has flaws and it has defects, but it is not an invalid mass. Nor is the SSPX.

No, it's not, but they are, what are they canonical? Are they in schism, Are they not in schism? I know there's all these questions about what their canonical status is. It would be great if the Pope would clear it out. Yeah, clarify that. Do you tell me what you think of this opinion? If I ask my bishop and he says, yes, you may go, then I feel like I have the freedom to go. Yeah, if the local ordinary says the SSPX Mass is something that you may attend. Now, I say all this look

I'm violating norms too. Right, so who am I to judge? Who am I to judge? Because good heavens, because look I'm supposed to be at my territorial Novus Ordo parish, right? Aren't we supposed to go to our territorial parish? I think that's still in the books, right? I don't know. I'm not a canonist. Somebody can inform us, please. But I think technically I'm supposed to attend my territorial parish.

I'm a cradle Catholic. I'm not supposed to be a parishioner at an Anglican Ordinary at church. Now I'm probably going to bring the powers that be down on me now, so yes, yes, get after him. But what are they gonna do to me? So I violate that norm because I choose this liturgy and this community which feeds my soul.

So what I would say to Catholics is no. If the SSSP, if the SSPX is a systematic group, then I would never recommend anybody to go there. Whatever they are, my attitude these days is that Catholics need to go where their souls are fed. You know what? If the church is going to demand that I attend my territorial parish and they're going to demand that I attend this liturgy, then the church has an obligation to feed my soul in a way that's spiritually uplifting. Don't obligate me to go to Father Skipito's Mass over here if Father Skipito's is going to undermine

the faith of my children. And if I choose to vote with my feet and head over here to this FSSP parish or this Anglican Ordinary parish or this Melkite Right Church or this SSPX Mass, then by gosh I'm gonna do so. I'm gonna do so. And I think that millions of Catholics are doing that or I'm going to go to a parish 20 miles away from mine that has a novus or to liturgy. That's actually great. Yeah, that's what we've been doing. We've been driving 35 minutes just to go to one that doesn't make me nauseous. Yeah. And that's the thing I say about the novus or to lit.

I wish that it had more elevated language and there are elements that were changed, but you know what, I have seen it done magnificently. I've seen it done beautifully. I was that former student of mine, Julia Vidmar was her name, Julia Buderbaugh. Now she got married to the cathedral in Baltimore and it was the most gorgeous and beautiful Novus Ordo liturgy I've ever seen in my life. Gregorian chant. Yeah, we had a priest come to our house and celebrate the Novus Ordo at Orientum in Latin, and the average Catholic wouldn't know the difference between that and the Latin Mass. I'm not saying there aren't differences, just that they wouldn't notice it. I think too, like, okay, we can both fully agree that the liturgy is more important than we realize

for Catholic culture, for salvation, for soul, all that. I also want to say at the same time that, or maybe just pose the question, is it possible that one can become so fixated on this issue that one forgets about one's daily obligations to pray without ceasing, to love the poor, to love my wife? Now I know as soon as you say that it sounds like I'm belittling the importance of liturgy, that's not what I'm doing, but it's like if I find myself at this point in history, at a time when I find many of these churches not great, and I'm not willing to abandon the Catholic Church, then I have to find a way to live within it and not be angry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh boy.

To live, that could be the motto of this whole conversation. How does a modern Catholic live within the church and not become angry? And part of that, I think, is- Irrationally so, in the sense of irrational anger. Yeah, exactly. Part of it is that maybe we need to decrease, to a certain extent, our daily consumption of internet news about the church or whatever, but maybe a lot of people don't. But the fact is, yeah,

we need to recover a sense of the practice of the presence of God in our daily lives. We need to recover a sense of this too shall pass, that there have been moments in the church's history before that were corrupt and horrible. There was the 10th century pornocracy of the church of horrible, immoral popes and so on. Yeah, and this is kind of what we do on the farm while we're Benedictine Oblates. Recover a prayer life, whether it's Liturgy of the Hours, or daily scripture reading, daily rosary, whatever. There are a million ways to keep the faith alive.

That's weird, I sometimes wonder if the Holy Rosary is not in fact the central ritual that's keeping Catholics together at this point. I'm being a little, I'm just thinking out loud, and this might be wrong, but I mean you've got the Latin mass guys and the Nova Sorda guys fighting, and then you've, you've, we're all upset with everybody. I carry this little thing around all the time, and whenever... Give us a look at that, that's nice and manly.

Yeah, that's a nice manly one. A reader of my blog sent it to me. It's very, it's one decade of the Rosaride, but I carry it with me everywhere. It's kind of like something off of Seinfeld. Serenity now! You know? Because even if I'm not praying it, if I feel like this insanity coming up within me, where I'm, it's like I grab this and I essentially say, oh Mary, serenity now!

Because you need, you know, and there's something tactile and tangible, but I'm reminded, people can go back and read, you know, the history of how Catholicism remained alive in Japan after Catholicism, you know, all the, all the martyrs in Japan, you know, like 400 years ago whenever and Catholicism was outlawed and had to go underground. I don't know how much you know about this, but, but yeah, but the, the faith survived in Japan Japan non-sacramentally.

There was no public mass, no Eucharist, there weren't any many priests. But what happened is late people remembered Catholic devotions. And so things like the rosary were kept alive. The little tiny statues of saints and Jesus and Mary were retained and novenas to various saints retained. So when Catholicism was again allowed in Japan, you know, whenever it was, 19th, 20th century, people were shocked and surprised to find that these strange and bizarre Japanese Catholics who are completely non-sacramental came out of the woodwork. Like, here we are. We've been here for 300 years. And I'm not saying we're in that bad of shape yet, and I'm

not encouraging non-sacramental forms of Catholicism, but the fact is, yeah, your point is so well taken, because I try this to myself all the time. Don't get so upset by all of this stuff. Identify which prayer forms most connect you with our Lord and the saints. And man, do those. Do them. Stop complaining.

Just go do. And I know it's cliche, but to worry about what you have control over is a lot less exhausting than to worry about what you actually cannot control. I can't control what the pope does. I can't control the future of the Latin mass. I mean, except you're like bitching on my podcast, which I don't think is doing anything. Except maybe helping people feel less alone. Well, that's it. People could, I say to myself all the time, because I was talking about the horrors of the Synod

on almost everything I wrote and every podcast, the Synod, and I started to question myself, why am I doing this? But then, as you well know, you get an email or you run into somebody, a text message or something, says, oh man, you really helped me. Yeah, I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only one who thought this was crazy,

but no, because I know there's nothing we can do about it, but thank you for making me not feel so alone. Yeah, I am so grateful for the, there's a lot of good happening in the church, and I'm so grateful for Bishop Barron and Word on Fire. I was just down in Australia recently, and, well, a couple years ago now, I guess, and I was talking to a dear friend. She was just down in Australia recently and yes, a couple years ago now I guess and I was talking to a dear friend. She was a childhood friend's mother and she always meant

a lot to me. I thought of her as a second mother and she was like an atheist feminist and converted her radical conversion to Catholicism. But then because of the parish she just drifted into more of a Pentecostal group. Anyway, she was pretty much on her deathbed when I was there in Australia recently, and she's telling me how she's listened to Bishop Barron. Yeah. So how she got in touch with Bishop Barron, I have no idea. You know, other family members, the same thing.

And so I'm so grateful for the good work they're doing. Whether we like it or not, we live in the internet age and word on fire. I mean, I had a conversation with Bishop Barron once and I've known when he was still Father Barron, rector at Mundelein. He was a theologian. I was a member of the theological guild. I'm not dropping names.

I've just known Barron for a while. And you know, and it just, he said something very interesting and he goes, look, this is the internet age and we either occupy that space or somebody else is gonna occupy that space. And they've done a very interesting. He goes, look, this is the internet age, and we either occupy that space, or somebody else is gonna occupy that space. And they've done a very good job of that, especially with the production values that they, but I know he's come in for a lot of criticism

from traditionalists on this, that, and liberals too. I mean, you've got Michael Sean Winder is the National Catholic Reporter, who seems to have an irrational hatred for Word on Fire and Bishop Barron. Oh, okay. I don't know. Oh yeah, he hates Robert Barron.

He's just very hateful. But then you also have very, very radical trad types who think that Barron is a squishy modernist because he likes Balthazar. You said something earlier that I think is really good. Something to the effect of, it's almost like we expect everything to be the answer to everything. It was when I was talking about people who are interested in soup kitchens or liturgy, right?

And you were like, we can't actually, no one is called to everything. I think sometimes that is the criticism that people level at groups. Because that group, which may be very successful in the thing it's trying to do, which is a noble thing, isn't doing my priority, then it's, you know? So like, oh yeah, Bishop Barron,

but they're not doing this. So it's like, well. Well, I get a kick out of the criticism, for example, of Barron. Well, he likes von Balthasar, and von Balthasar hopes that maybe someday hell is gonna be empty. I'm a Balthasar, and I kinda think that too.

All right, but we can debate that. Well, you know, Ralph Martin was here, he was on your show, he criticized me for this. Okay, fine, Ralph, we disagree. And Ralph's a great guy, but we disagree. And so the fact is, the criticism of the trads is that Robert Barron's views on Balthazar and salvation are going to undercut our evangelization.

Can I lay out the argument and then you respond? Because I think here's the argument, right? And I've said this before, you actually criticized me in a blog post you did. But I don't know if you misunderstood me or not. Because what I was trying to do was to distinguish myself from those online who would call him a heretic. So before I was about to say anything critical of him, I was like, I'm not calling him a heretic. You know, I was trying to do that. And I got the, I think what you thought me saying was like, I'm not saying he's a heretic, like kind of a, anyway, but my point was just to say, I do think that sometimes the way he has spoken

could lead some to think Christians are in first class. The rest of us are in coach or the rest of the non-Christians are in coach. I'm not saying he believes that, I'm just saying there's times I've heard him that I've been given that impression. That clarifies what you were saying. Now if that is, if I'm right in that, and I might not be, but if I'm right in that, then I could see how that would undermine evangelization. Well my point, and this is a debate worth having, Like, how does the church in an era where its concept of salvation is far more inclusive and less exclusive in terms of salvation outside of the visible confines of the church? All salvation comes through Christ and through the church. Let's

be clear about that. And that's what Bishop Barron believes, Balthasar believed. All salvation, all of it, comes through Christ and through his church. Now the question is, what does that look like extra ecclesially? And if we are going to affirm that the Holy Spirit is moving in all kinds of salvific ways outside of the visible church, then what does that do to our missionary efforts? Well, okay, my point simply is this. When we can have this debate, I don't think this is a valid criticism to bear, to bring to bear on Bishop Barron as such, because

he has built the biggest and most successful evangelizing... My story's proof of that, the old woman in the bed in Australia. Yeah, on its face, it's an absurd accusation. It'd be like saying, well you know if you follow Fulton Sheen's theology we'll never have a priest on television. Wait a minute, he is on television and he's beating Uncle Milti, you know, in the 50s in the demographics. So yeah, okay, maybe Bishop Barron's Balthazarian leanings will eventually lead to the undermining of evangelization. But it isn't right now, and certainly not with word on fire,

and I'm a Balthazarian, and I have spent my entire adult life spreading the message of the gospel. I've never once felt like, oh, well, supoy, everyone's going to heaven anyway. I've never thought that because I don't believe that we can know who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. That's up to God, not me. And here's the other thing. The reason why I preach the gospel, because I think it's true. I think it's true.

I have a good friend who's like in my face about all this stuff, and he's trad. I'm like, you know, why do I bother to be good if we're all gonna go to heaven? Why do I, I thought, why? What a silly question. I thought, you know, what are you saying here? The only reason why you're not remaining faithful, the reason why you're remaining faithful to your wife

is simply because you're afraid of going to hell, not because you love your wife, not because it would be an abhorrent thing for you to do. That would lead to your own misery, this side of the grave? Your own misery, no. I know I'm gonna get tons of hate mail over this and blah, blah, blah. Look, I'm not denying the existence of hell.

People can go there, it's very possible. I'm not a universalist, but I do have, perhaps more than many viewers of this, a very expansive view of a hope, a hope for the salvation of most, at least. I mean, Pope Benedict in Space Alvy, paragraph 46 says, probably, you know, in terms of purgatory, probably most people are going to purgatory.

And he speaks as if hell is reserved for like the worst of the worst of the worst. And you know, we can speculate about this until the cows come home. I'd love you to lay it out for me, because I've heard about Balthazar, but I haven't read him. So I'm an absolute layman. And I'd love you to lay it out for me because I've heard about Balthazar, but I haven't read him. So I'm an absolute layman. And I'd love you to help, you know, give us the Balthazarian

view, I mean, we're touching upon it, but maybe you could kind of build it up for us. What is the argument? The book that everybody points towards, that if they, Balthazar wrote, I mean, I did my dissertation on him. He wrote so much and his entire theological system is so beautiful. There's a reason why John Paul and Benedict were his friends and loved him. The reason why he's considered one of the greatest theologians of the Monarch Church.

Anyway, all of that notwithstanding, the one thing that most people seem to know about him because it's been popularized is his little book, the title of which in English is, Dare We Hope That All Shall Be Saved, That All Men Be Saved. is this little book, the title of which in English is Dare We Hope That All Shall Be Saved, That All Men Be Saved. Well, the first thing I like to point out to people is that that's a mistranslation. The original German title of his book is, and I know German, Vos Dürfen Wir Hürfen,

which means what are we allowed to hope for? Not dare we hope that all, like he's like some sort of ecclesial Don Quixote tilting at the windmill of infernalism. No, you know, he was saying, what in the, within the boundaries of the church's dogmatic faith, what are we allowed to hope for? What are we allowed to hope for? And so he lays out the church's teaching and he says, yes, we have to maintain hell is real, that hell is eternal, that people can go there, and that we stand under judgment. He explicitly condemns universalism, or the doctrine in Greek, apokatostasis, which

means we can know dogmatically that in the end all are going to be saved. Balthazar's point is one of a kind of eschatological agnosticism in the sense that he doesn't believe God provides us with an eschatological census. He doesn't believe that we can know that God has given us to know via revelation who is being saved, who is not, or how many are saved and how many are not.

He argues therefore for a sort of profound veil of ignorance about the final destiny of the human race and he affirms there are such things as mortal sins and venal sins. There are such things as you know the final rejection of God. He holds up the possibility of all of that. Nevertheless he does at the end of the day say, what are we allowed to hope for? He believes, it's his opinion, and I agree with it, that we are at least allowed to hope that God will save everyone.

We're allowed to hope for that. Because St. Paul says God wills the salvation of all. He wills the salvation of all. Now, someone like Michael Lofton, I was on his show talking about this, and he says, yeah, but then we have to make a distinction between God's antecedent will and His consequent will. It's God's antecedent will,

or eternal will, that all be saved. Just like it is that none shall sin. Yeah, but God's consequent will, given the fact that some will sin, then He does will for some to go to hell. But Balthazar's response, he deals with that argument. And he says, where in the scriptural passage does it make that distinction

between antecedent and consequent will? Where does it, well, and Loftin would say, well, you have to compare that verse with other verses. You don't wanna pull, and I wanna be fair to Michael, you don't wanna pull that verse out of context and absolutize it. And so Lofton's point is that when you compare it with other things from the New Testament, a picture does emerge of a distinction between antecedent and consequent wills. But Balthazar would say, not only does that verse not say that and not make that

distinction, it simply said God wills a salvation of all. There are elements of the New Testament that argue for a more universalist understanding of things. Balthazar says that there are things that stand in the New Testament that are in tension with each other. There is a clear implication in some New Testament verses that there are going to be people in hell, maybe a lot of them. But then there are other New Testament verses that make it seem as if, yes, there's that danger,

but God, like Jesus says, when I, when I'm lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself. Or when St. Paul says, God wills the salvation of all. Or when St. Paul says that Christ will present creation back to the Father, and then God will be all in all. We can debate what those things mean, but then Balthazar points to the liturgical tradition of the church and says, look, there are points

in the liturgy where the church prays for the salvation of all. And why is the church asking us to pray for the salvation of all? If we weren't allowed to hope. If we're not at least allowed to hope, why is the church asking us to pray for something that according to certain traditionalists, we're not at least allowed to hope. Why is the church asking us to pray for something that, according to certain traditionalists, we're not even allowed to hope? People write to me

all the time, no, it's a stupid hope. You can hope it all you want, but it's a dumb hope because we know from the Bible that Judas is in hell and somebody's in hell. And so, fine, those are valid arguments, I guess, but that's not the point. What did Balthazar have to say about Luke 13, 23, 24? You know, make every effort to enter through the narrow door because many, I tell you, will try to enter, will not be able, and there's other... it's in other Gospels as well, but the idea that the majority of people seem like they're... He deals with that verse and other verses like it. I mean, let's say I said, Balthazar is very upfront about the fact that there are New Testament verses that imply that not only are people going to hell,

but the majority of people are going to hell. And he would say we have to view those verses, and Cardinal Dulles pointed this out as well in his First Things article on this. We have to view those sorts of verses as what we call admonitory, where Christ is warning us. What is the narrow path? Christ is the narrow path.

How many of us are on that narrow path? None of us are on that path. Okay, none of us. The only people that are gonna be on the narrow path that is Christ are those for whom Christ has granted the grace of being disciples and so on. In other words, Balthazar would say that is more of a verse pointing towards the necessity of grounding yourself in Christ because he's the narrow path and not following the herd. And that is therefore an admonition, it's admonitory saying you need to get on this narrow path because this narrow path is the path to salvation now both as I said but that does imply most people are not going to get on

despite this admonition most people are not going to get on are not going to get on that path and he would say okay fine but we still have to hold out hope that God's gonna find a way to get those people on the broad path under the narrow path. Now okay I'm gonna be critical of Balthazar though here a little bit. I think he fudges. I mean I'm a Balthazarian by both theology and sentiment here but the trads have a certain point which is that it's hard to read the New Testament and not come away with the feeling that there's going to be people in hell. Sheep and goats at the end.

You know? And so I'm not here to say, oh, those people that criticize Balthazar and Barron and me, that they're just... No, there's an argument to be made here. There's an open argument. But I think it boils down to this, and I'm sorry I interrupted you and I'll stop talking here in a second. It boils down to the very title of Balthazar's book, What are we allowed to hope for? And the church does ask us to

pray for the salvation of all. I held up my rosary earlier. What's that rosary prayer, that Fatima prayer? Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy. Now is that a, is that, do I pray that with my fingers crossed? Yeah. Lead all souls to heaven except the ones I know that aren't gonna make, no, I'm sincerely praying that I don't want anybody in hell. It seems to me, too, the people who criticize the Second Vatican Council documents most vigorously, I sometimes wonder if they've ever read them, and that's a bit tongue-in-cheek. I know there are people who have read them and are critical of them, but I also feel that way about Bishop Robert

Barron. Like, he put out a whole, there's a whole webpage where he explains very clearly he is not a Universalist. This has been condemned by the church. It couldn't be clearer. And it's almost like we don't care. We're just going to keep saying the same thing even though it's not true. I think it's because, you know, you had Ralph Martin on here, and like I said, I like Ralph, but I think there's, once again, there's this sense, and I know Eric Sammons has argued this at Crisis Magazine too, that, okay, Barron has a point, Balthazar has a point, the Church asks us to pray for the salvation of all, but let's not foreground that. I think it's the foregrounding of it.

Ah, interesting. Because I think they believe, look, culturally, let's situate this. What are the times we live in? We live in an era of religious indifference. Mass apostasy. Mass apostasy, religious indifference, secularization, religious relativism. Now is not the time to foreground. Now is not the time to foreground. Hey, it's a big tent and a big party. Oh, I like that.

I think that's a good criticism. Psychologically, when I differ with a Ralph Martin, when I differ with a Peter Quist, I think there's a certain cultural point to be made here. Now, Eric Sammons, I think Eric Sammons' article was called, Dare We Hope That hope that all are damned or something like And he was tongue-in-cheek. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy But and I don't know him personally. I just you know, I like a lot that he writes and

You know his point was a cultural one, you know Yeah, no, none of us know who's saved and who's damned but jeez is this really the time to be saying? Hey, everybody's gonna get saved. Hopefully that was Simmons his point of Simmons foregrounding I like that he didn't use I used I like that a lot I haven't heard that expression In other words because when you get into an argument with a traditionalist on this point They will eventually admit With maybe the possible exception of Judas,

who they believe is certainly in hell because Jesus said so, they will admit that, you know, it's possible that most people are in heaven or the vast majority or everybody except Judas and Hitler. Okay, they'll admit that. But then they'll completely then keep coming back to this point of, but man. Can I also offer a psychological explanation for why we seem intent on

deciding who's going to hell right now? And that is we live in confusing times. And when you live in confusing times, you're not meant for that. You're actually meant for order. And when it feels like order isn't being made or things aren't being clarified, it's a terrifying place to be in. I'm gonna need some bloody black and white, please. And I think that's part of it. It's like who's in and who's out.

That's right, I need Joy Behar in hell. Hopefully not anytime soon. No, I get the point though. Yeah, it's like I need that. Because she's so annoying. Like I need Joe Biden in hell, so I'm gonna need that. Thank you. And I'm going to need because I can't the idea of having a God that could be that merciful to let's say a grave sinner who on his or her deathbed repents. I don't know if I like that. There's something in that. There's something

else. Because it's just like my friend who said to me, why am I being a good person and going to mass? You know, if everybody goes to heaven, I don't believe for one second that this person loves his wife, loves his kids. What he was articulating is exactly what you're saying. In this era of mass confusion, what is the rock I can cling to? What is the pillar I can wrap my arms around if everybody's gonna go to heaven anyway?

We need we need some victims here, you know, yeah, and this right? I mean, it's it's almost though though in one sense I'm a big devotee of the of the thought of the French intellectual sociologist Rene Girard Yeah, I'm gonna be in fact interviewing Elias Carr who's just written a book on Girard for word on fire I mean in Gerard's point is, you know, we do like to scapegoat. Are you familiar a lot? Are you very familiar with Girard? Oh yeah. Could you tell us the scapegoat theory? Because I think it's fascinating.

Well, first we have to begin with his theory of what's called mimesis. Mimesis is a Greek word that means imitation. And so Girard's great insight as sociologist was his analysis of So Gerard's great insight as sociologist was his analysis of desire, of why it is that we come to desire the things that we do. And he says we essentially grow up learning to desire certain things by watching others. And so our desires are mimetic. They imitate. If I see that you're really desiring something well, then it becomes more desirable to me That's true of maybe most things but not everything is it not everything like food sex shelter love

I don't desire them because you desire them. No, but you might end up desiring certain forms of sexual expression because other people do or So his point though in general is that the realm not just at the erotic but in general our desires are imitated we imitate but then what happens is that we all start desiring the same things which sets up so this is a kind of Hobbesian vision a competition in society of a war of all against all where we're all competitively fighting for the same things, but there's limited numbers of those things. So that sets up social tension and conflict.

The conflict then reaches a certain point where violence ensues and the social fabric becomes tenuous. It begins to unravel. Kind of like a period we're in now, where everything is up for grabs and so on. At that point, Gerard says, we look for a scapegoat. We look for someone or some group to blame for our problems. And so we go after them. We persecute them. We cast them out of the city in whatever sort of form casting out takes. And then, so then there's this great cathartic release of emotion,

and things are set temporarily back right. We think the world is fine. So, you know, that's Gerardism in a nutshell. Mimetic desire followed by scapegoating. And I think we're kind of in a Gerardian moment here where we're looking at our... Even if you just isolate it to the church, yes. What are the scapegoats here that you see? Well, I think that for speaking then from a conservative sort of Catholic perspective, I think the scapegoats are any modern theologian, period. The scapegoats are the novus ordo liturgy and anyone who supports it, the scapegoats is any modern theologian of any kind that isn't a

straight-line Thomist or whatever. The scapegoat is Vatican II. And these things are irrational because there are great things in Vatican II. Okay? Vatican II, one of the things I tell people all the time is if Vatican II caused this, let's put it this way, if the pre-Vatican II church was so strong, and Vatican II is to be scapegoated as the reason why the church has fallen apart, if that pre-Vatican II church was so strong, why did it fall apart almost immediately after the Council? I mean, if you wanted to take the point of view that what Vatican II was the lifting the lid off the

ecclesiastical libido, and then after it did that everything went crazy, okay, then what you're essentially saying is that the Preconciler Church was like a group of Catholic school kids that go on their first field trip and end up terrorizing the museum because they're so ill-behaved. It's like, oh, freedom! The sister's not watching me. That's a great point. It's nice to remember, too, that the documents of the Second Vatican Council were written only by trads. Oh, that's right. Everybody trained in the pre-concilier church. The other thing is... Trads in the sense of celebrating the old liturgy. The other thing is there's a control in this experiment. The fact is, had Vatican II never even happened,

my thesis is that the weaknesses of the church of that time meant that the cultural revolution of the 60s would have unraveled the church in very similar ways. Maybe not as fast, Vatican II was a catalyst, not as fast. Because if you look at other religious bodies, Protestants, Jews, Muslims living in the United States, their religion's unraveled too. Unraveled in what sense? Because I don't see that in the Orthodox. But people walked away from them.

I don't see that in the Orthodox liturgy. I see people walking away. I don't see any kind of mass mutilation to their liturgy though, the serious changes. Well, yeah, you, you, you, you, you look in the, in the Protestant churches, there were all kinds of permutations. No, I believe that I'm talking about Orthodox Eastern Orthodox. I can't speak.

I don't know the statistical data with regard to the Eastern Orthodox in the United States. I do know some Eastern Orthodox priests who say that they're facing some of the same problems of demographic implosion and people walking, the young people walking away from the faith. But I'm not talking here about the mutilation of the liturgy so much as I am simply about the corrosiveness of the secularity of the 60s and 70s and the sexual revolution that ensued. And that my point is that you saw religions in mass, suffering, decline, you know, in that same era. And they didn't have a second.

You saw conservative Judaism, even Orthodox Judaism, suffering, declines. Now why is that? That wasn't because of the Vatican Council. No, they didn't have a Vatican Council. So okay, this is a debatable point. I'm not saying here that I'm entirely right There were elements of Vatican to that can be legitimately criticized and I myself have done so but you asked me a question Are we in a Girardian moment? I think so. Are there scapegoats? Yes, there are and I think

You know, let's put this way just because you've identified a scapegoat doesn't mean the scapegoat isn't somewhat guilty. In other words, and Gerard points this out, that one of the things that makes the scapegoating plausible is that the group or the person being scapegoated is somewhat guilty of what they're being charged with. All right, and so, yeah, okay, I can see that that's, you can't just make up

completely implausible scapegoat. There's got to be some basis in fact. So the fact that the Novus Ordo has flaws, and that the liturgical reform was botched, the fact that Vatican II has flaws, and there was this immediate horrific collapse afterwards, you know, the fact that there are a lot of horrible modern theologians, that all makes the scapegoating all the more plausible. So then a traditionalist would come along and say, oh, Henry de Lubach, Robert Barron, von Balthasar Ratzinger, Voitiwa, they're part of the problem. So they get scapegoated incorrectly, I think, because they get lumped in with this very legitimate problem, you know?

And I guess on the other side you would say that those who wish to skate, and you let me know when you need to go by the way. Oh no, I'm just looking at my watch because I'm curious how it seems like we've been talking for five minutes and yet... Oh, that's nice, I'll take that as a compliment because this is a long time to sit with me. Yeah, on the other side too, I suppose you've got people who want to scapegoat the traditionalists by pointing to the angry people online or something like that. Oh, gosh, I'm glad you brought this up

because I'm guilty of this. And so, you know, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. My friend, Matthew Minard, I don't know how to pronounce his name, Minard Minard, I mean he's a scholar and all that, brilliant guy and he's set about the task of recovering the neo scholastics, the Lagrange's, the Jouenais and people like this and he got on my case, and I interviewed him a couple times

and I'm gonna interview him again because I love the guy, but he got on my case because oh you are constantly Trashing the trads and the neo scholastics and Gary Goulagrange and all those scholastics Because your heroes both as are and Rod Singer and Daniel Lou and Gordini they and de Lubach they had battles with those guys back Sit back in the 30s 40s and fifth and that's all true and Minard is absolutely correct And you know Bishop Barron has been guilty of this as well. I've never said this to him. So Bishop Barron, if you're watching, I'm sorry.

But he and I have both engaged in this, and people in my theological camp have engaged in this, which is this vilification of Thomas of the neo-scholastic tradition. I just had dinner with Scott Hahn the other night, last night actually, and we were talking about this, that the great theological need of our time, speaking as a theologian, is for the Thomistic,

scholastic wing of the church and the traditions that people like Matthew Manard, Father Thomas Joseph White, and others are trying to retrieve. There needs to be a rapprochement with that group, with the Reisshaus Mont, Communio, Balthasarian, Ratzingerian, Voitiwan group. We need to come together. What's the word?

We need to unite the tribes because we have far, far more in common than what divides us. And what we have in common is a love for Christ's church and a belief in the power of orthodoxy. We differ as to the expansiveness of that orthodoxy. We differ on that. And we'll have, it's like the old Franciscans and Jesuits going at it, or the Dominicans and the Jesuits going at it. But we need to have those debates, but within the sense of a common love for the church.

And, and I think that, yeah, I, I look at, but within the sense of a common love for the church. And I think that, yeah, I look at, I'm reacting to online radtracks. You know, I'm human. And so when I get 50 hate mails from radtracks calling me a sodomite loving, you know, heretic, you know, you can only be accused of being a sodomite lover so many times before you start to not like those people. Yeah. Yeah. You know. And so, yeah, I'm a little thin skinned. No, but I mean, there's not many people on the internet who admit that they've

may have been at fault. I don't think anyone's ever done that until you just did then when you said that maybe you and Baron and others have at times and Well, yeah, it's the nature of the beast and you're chatting with my not even though he disagreed with you. That's oh, yeah He's great guy and and the older I get the more I just realized, you know I don't know everything and the thing is this you you know this too when your whole career really revolves around words and opinions and thoughts on deep things and you spend years and years and the idea that I'm infallible or the idea that I've never said anything wrong or untoward or stupid is itself really stupid you know and actually man I just don't have the energy to defend everything I've ever said.

It's too many things. It's liberating to sit back and say, you know what? Yeah, you know, I said that and I was full of it. And by it, I mean bourbon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to tell you about Hallow, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hallow.com slash Matt Fraddadd sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful.

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It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories for them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic. Hello.com slash Matt Fred. Would you mind if we took some questions from our local supporters? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. This is the point where I awkwardly turn from you and look at the camera and go, Hey, if you want to support us over at Matt, Fred.locals. Yeah, absolutely. This is the point where I awkwardly turn from you and look at the camera and go, Hey, if you want to support us over at mattfrad.locals.com, we would really appreciate it. When you do, you will become,

when you become an annual supporter, we will send you this free pints with Aquinas beer Stein. You just have to pay shipping. You'll get access to our exclusive streams. You'll get these interviews one week before they hit YouTube. You'll get to be part of a great community and you'll be helping just fund the work of us, our little team here. So we don't have any big donors. We just have a lot of little people given 10 bucks a month. We really appreciate you. MattFrad.locals.com. How's that for a pitch? Was that all right? Oh, that's a great pitch. I'm going to have to copy and paste that. Make that my pitch.

Good eye, guys. All right. Let's see. Edward says, any advice for converts when they receive pushback for joining the church in such a confusing time? Oh, God, any advice? Well, I'm not a convert myself, so that is a hard question for me to answer. I think that converting right now, but I go to a church, Anglican Order, that's filled with converts. And so I do talk with a lot of them. And what a lot of them say to me,

they have dual emotions. One is still a sense of great love and devotion for Christ's church that despite the confusion that is going on in the church right now, is still a far more stable environment than the ecclesial communions they left behind. For all the confusion in the Catholic church right now, we ain't the Anglicans, baby,

and we're not the Lutherans, and we have our problems, but we don't have those. The other thing, though, the feeling that they do have is, to a certain extent, a sense of betrayal. Like, geez, I thought I left all of these disputes behind, and here we are in the Catholic Church disputing these same things all over again. So when I talk to the converts in my church and say,

yeah, I sometimes have this sense of not buyer's remorse, but because I'm glad I'm a Catholic, but a sense of betrayal. I just bring it to our Lord, I bring it to our lady, I just pray about it. And I find that when I pray about it, this is my advice, pray, pray to our Lord and our lady, pray the prayer that Pope John the 23rd prayed

every night before he went to bed. Where he said, Lord, it's your church, I'm going to bed now. There's a German word, glassenheit, that means to let go, to let be. Just let it be. And I know that seems like tried advice. Just let it, but you know,

I always say to my, the prayer I give to myself, I say the Jesus prayer a lot. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon the living God, I'm a sinner. I often say, and this too shall pass. And usually it's in reference to whatever- I just wish it would pass before I do. Yeah, suffering that I'm going through at that moment.

But then I also often pray with regard to the church. Because even though, unlike your questioner, I'm not a convert, I think even cradle Catholics feel the crisis of the moment and feel the instability of the sand dune beneath us. I think this crisis has taken us down a notch as far as our ego. You know, it did feel for a while

that Catholics would look at the Protestant, shake their head, disappointingly look how divided you are. Yeah, triumphalists. Like I said, as long as JP too and Benedict were there, we could be triumphalist as much as we, we have Rome. Now we don't have that anymore so much. And so I do believe and, you know, with regard,

no respect to the questioner who's a convert, the fact is there's a great demoralization across the board in the church. To use a political analogy, the Pope has alienated his base, and the base are devout Catholics. Do you think he's alienated his cardinals? Because I think that's what a lot of people are concerned about. Well, you know, I've had conversations with people who know cardinals, I can't mention names, who say a lot of them are angry with Francis, but is there enough of them who are angry that in the next conclave?

It's gonna make a difference. Yeah, after all this means making 21 new Cardinals very soon. Almost every Cardinal is his appointee But so we'll see Luke says the final document of the Synod of Synodality was published with a note from Pope Francis stating that it Participates in the ordinary Magisterium of the Chair of St. Peter. What are your thoughts on a synod which includes laypeople producing a magisterial document? My thoughts are those of Cardinal Mueller to an extent, which is that this is not a true synod of bishops because it involved laypeople that were voting members. Now the question arises,

well maybe it's still a Senate of Bishops if those bishops who were the majority vote to allow laypeople to have votes. So okay, they've allowed them in, and therefore it is a Senate of Bishops. So I would say the fact that laypeople are voting was a papal decision, it was an episcopal decision, and therefore their votes count.

So the deeper question isn't, is it magisterial because lay people were involved, because after all we do have a voice in the church. The question is, what level of magisterium is it? And in theology we talk about, what theological note do we ascribe to this level of magisterium? So an infallible statement is the highest kind.

Then there's encyclicals, which is a very high theological. Then there's apostolic exhortations, which are even lower. So the question now becomes what is the theological note? What is the level of magisterial authority? Even if it was just a bunch of bishops and there were no lay people voting at all, the question would arise since the Pope didn't even bother to write an apostolic exhortation after this. He just signed off on the final sit-in document and said, this is now magisterial. It's got to be of a very low magisterial authority, in my opinion. Very low. So that's my answer. It's a very low magisterial authority. It doesn't mean we can ignore it, but it doesn't mean it should keep us awake at night. Lewis – Tim Paul says, what would Dorothy Day say is missing from the political intentions of someone like AOC who purports to be looking out for the poor and

marginalised? Scott – Oh, that's a huge question. I don't think Dorothy Day would be a fan of AOC. Once again, the presumption seems to be sometimes I'm not saying with this question with many that because AOC is a big-time liberal who advocates big government solutions to social justice questions, therefore Dorothy Day would have supported that. Dorothy Day was opposed to big government solutions. Wouldn't have supported that. She would not have supported that because she was opposed to big government solutions opposed so she was not a socialist and I think she would have thought that a OC is too secular. And as a potential totalitarian okay good let's see Michael.

while we are seeing some confusion from the Pope and the Hierarchy, is it really that unusual from, say, the Aryan heresy? This is a this I don't like when people do this. And I don't like it because it feels like they're trying to dismiss what I'm going through now. It's sort of like if I complain to you about something legitimate and you tell me that something terrible happened to you that's much worse or you're even close, I'm like, that's not helping me right now. Yeah, it's like the comedian Brian Regan

who says he's learned never to tell a two wisdom tooth story at a party. Because those four wisdom tooth people parachute out of the air. Exactly, because you open yourself up to criticism from the four wisdom tooth people, all right? So yeah, it's a similar situation. Yeah, I don't like questions like that either.

Nevertheless, the premise of the question is a valid one, which is that the church has been, like I've said, but it was in deep kimchi before. I mean, the Reformation, the 10th century, the Aryan controversy. The difference seems to be this time around though, is that, this is a very complex question because I mean I just had an article came out this our modern modern-day culture is nihilistic in a

way that we've never seen before in human history. Modernity presents us with a set of challenges spiritual, cultural, that are unrivaled in human history and it's enhanced by our technological prowess, the rise of surveillance capitalism, the surveillance state, radical secularism. All of these things are violently anti-Christian, post-Christian. So the question is, a church that acquiesces or flirts with subordinationist Alexandrian Christologies, a la Arius, and says, well, maybe he's got a little point here, because the Christological language hasn't quite been hammered out yet. Well, a Greek word like homoousias

had been condemned by a previous minor synod as too ambiguous. And so, I mean, the church fathers were using words for the first time and they were trying to match Latin terms with Greek terms. And there was confusion in that terminology. But eventually it got it right in the council of, you know, of Nicaea and on through Chalcedon, despite those deputies. And the Pope himself was never an Aryan.

So the fact remains, okay, now we have this modern toxic culture and we have a church that seems to be embracing it. And so people like you and like me who are raising the red flag and saying this is a crisis unlike the churches ever faced before, I think are correct. I think this is the gravest crisis the church has ever faced. The crisis of the modern secular world. I think it's the gravest threat to the church in their entire history.

Why? Because it cuts to the very foundations of the spiritual, of the supernatural, of the very existence of God. In other words, the challenge of the church during the Aaron Harrison wasn't atheism versus belief in God. In other words, the challenge of the church during the Aaron-Harrison wasn't atheism versus belief in God. It was a difference of opinion about the spiritual status, the theological status of Christ. Is he subordinate to the Father? Is he equal to the Father? And so on. And as the church moved, I mean, you know, Rodrior writes the Benedict option. We need to know St. Benedict. Well, one of the things St. Benedict never had to confront was an utterly atheistic culture.

St. Benedict never had to confront a culture, the basic premise of with, which we can organize ourselves socially around the premise that God doesn't matter. And that anybody who says God does matter is a social contagion that needs to be stamped out. Okay, that's what we face today. Benedict could transform the fall of the Roman Empire into modern European civilization because he was at least dealing with pagans and this real pagans

People who believed in stuff, which is why I was critical of neo paganism earlier It's not really a belief in anything. Our culture is Radically nihilistic. We don't believe really in anything We don't believe, really, in anything, anything, when you peel back the layers of that onion. And that's a crisis the church has never faced before. And so when you have, when you have prelates and priests in the church standing up in the pulpit and arguing that we need to baptize the moral valuations presented to us by modernity in all kinds of areas, I raise a red flag and say, no, this is mortal. This is a mortal danger to the church.

Thank you. Cigars and Roses says, does synod of synodality basically mean communication about how to communicate? If so, what exactly was the point of it with so much going on in the world right now? I personally feel like it was a big distraction. Yeah, I called it the big meeting on meetings. Or I said, it's a church that was gonna develop

a flow chart about how to make flow charts. Before I became a theologian, I just spent a few years in the corporate world. I worked for a direct mail marketing company in Lincoln, Nebraska, and a cubicle job, that kind of thing. It just seemed like the language of synodality and everything that was all the concerns were the typical corporate bureaucratic concerns of human resources departments and the little missives you'd get from HR about treating the other with respect during these holiday

seasons. We didn't use the word Christmas. During these holidays, here's how we should behave. It's like, yeah, it's just stupid. I'd like that to be if someone, if you either an autobiography or a biography about you, it's just, it's just, that's what I want it to be. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. James Coffey says, what are practical ways that people who do not live in rural areas can live out the mission of your Catholic worker farm, particularly the Three Cs, Cult, Culture, and Cultivation. Wow. You know, I hate these sorts of questions that ask me about how can I practically do

this because I don't really know. I don't know. I've never tried to live out Dorothy Day's vision in an urban environment. And quite frankly, I think that Dorothy Day and Peter Moran couldn't probably even answer that question. How does one live a rural life if one isn't in a rural area? No, if you want, if you want the values, this is the whole point to the back to the land movement, which is you cannot do this in an urban area. You can do other things, but if you want culture and cultivation,

well, unless you have a vacant lot on your Bronx neighborhood where you can all do a community garden or something, there's not a whole lot you can do. You can, however, try to develop localist principles, communitarian principles. You can make a point of frequenting only local businesses, avoiding chain businesses, avoiding amazon.com and Lowe's and Walmart and shopping

at the little bodega down the street. Yeah, you can do all those things. But if you ask me how can I do cult culture and cultivation while living in the Bronx, I don't think you can. I forget who it was who wrote a book. I want to say his name is Devon. He wrote some book for Catholic Answers. Maybe I got the name wrong. So he talked about basically going to live off grid

and then regretting it terribly and going back to the city, which I just thought was such a beautifully honest book. I haven't read it, but I heard about it. I often say to people, look, look, I'm going to have to get that book because I often say to people, the thing that I hate really more than anything is suburban existence because it's neither fish nor fowl.

I always say I could be really, really happy either in a very rural environment or a very urban environment. Like Rome is my favorite city in the world. If somebody gave me a million dollars, I'd live in Rome tomorrow, all right? And I could thrive in living in Manhattan or Queens or Rome or any major urban center or in the sticks

like I am now. What I can't stomach are the burbs because there's something to go back to then to your previous question. You can't do cult culture and cultivation, but you can do cult and culture. Yeah, I think what's nice about if I mean, I'm sure I think New York's gone to hell since COVID even more than it previously had the previous years. But correct me if I mean, I'm sure I think New York's gone to hell since COVID even more than it previously had the previous years. But correct me if I'm wrong there, but that's what I've been told. But at least it's walk friendly. At least you can walk to the local local supermarket, walk to the local mass.

There are elements of community in an urban neighborhood that are there that are not in a rural area. And there are deficits to being rural life can life can be isolating, it can be lonely. And rural people can be real jerks. I mean real jerks. And there's no corner on virtue in the simple fact that you live in a city of 500 people. Anybody that's lived near, I mean I grew grew up in Nebraska, right? I mean,

there's the small town princesses and the small town princesses can be absolute jerks. So the point is, cult and culture can be done anywhere where you are and I think in urban environments maybe even somewhat better than in rural but you can do the cultivation part in a rural area than a way that you can't do unless you really stretch the mean of cultivation too. Well, I'm cultivating this other thing. I would love to meet your wife. I bet she's terrific.

My wife is a saint. She's wonderful. Her name is Carmina Magnuson-Chap. Magnuson was her maiden name. She goes by often Dr. Magnuson because when people call our house and they say, I'd like to speak with Dr. Chap, we never quite know who it is.

So professionally, she does that. She's a joy. She got her PhD at Duquesne right over here. Is she a firecracker? I feel like to live with you, she would have to have a spine. My wife does. She has tremendous grit and spine.

I feel like we should find a way to do a double date because I think you'd love my wife. I know you would. I think I would. I feel like I feel like we should find a way to do a double date because I think you'd love my wife. I know you would. I think I would. Yeah, I would love to meet your wife. I'd love for you to meet my wife. She would she watches your show. She likes what you do, too. She's a very strong and outspoken woman. My wife too. We're also very different. Yeah, we're not carbon copies of each other. It's funny that you said earlier, you said that you and your wife have different opinions and I really admire that it feels like that's what I should want to say Too, but I I can't think of one

I think there might be maybe difference of opinions in the sense of emphases or maybe I would go a little bit further on An opinion that she already holds. I don't think we have Yeah, she's far more prudential than I am and therefore more wise. I'm a real I'm a very emotional guy in case you haven't noticed, you know, you know, and so I often state an opinion and Overstated on purpose I do that to make a hyperbolic point Yeah, and then I that's what I always say and then I have to walk it back after she says no Larry You don't really mean that I do that all the time

I speak in hyperbole's and that's my wife's job to dial it back three notches and that's where the truth is. There you go, yeah, and that's my wife. You don't really mean that, here's what we need, okay. Okay, okay, she's far more practical than I am. Yeah. And far more prudential. I exaggerate a lot.

We'll get into a little argument and I'll say, how marriage is going up in flames? She's like, you need to calm down. I'm like, yeah, you're right. I probably shouldn't have said that. Oh no. You know, we're the same. We're exactly the same. We, you know, we rarely argue. I could count on one hand in 26 years of marriage, the times were actually bonafide, you know,

argument where you're screaming at each other and really, really. It's good fun. You want to have at least one of those. It's good. Makeup's terrific. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It is. But I think the key to a good marriage among many, many other things is the ability, really, not just saying this, the ability to swallow your pride. Oh my gosh, you are a hundred percent right. To swallow your pride. I can't tell you how many times we'll get into a little disagreement and there's a part of me, and this is the part that I think would go to hell if it took over my entire soul and the part says no you know apologize like let her do it this time like you know what she would you apologize you know she's in the wrong all that stuff and the thing is you're both in the wrong like and it builds these like she has this habit of leaving every light in every room

she's ever been in that day on and I'm the like, turn off the light, turn off the light. So, you know, I've told her 10 million times, her last name is, her maiden name is Magnuson. I said, a Magnuson never met a light that they didn't want to keep on. And then I'll say something really sarcastic, I'm flipping off. You know, and now I've reached a stage now

where I just laugh about it. Yeah, and I leave the light on yeah All this has cost me point zero zero one cent an hour So I think it's worth my marriage just keep my pie hole shut and just it's nice to talk like this I think because just like people can idealize Farming they can idealize marriage and if they watch shows like this and their only encounter of other people, Catholics marriages is us talking so rosy, rosy about marriage, which it is. I mean, my wife's really a dear friend and I respect her. I think that's what's so crucial. I really, really like her and I respect her. I know that makes sense. I'm saying simple words. No, respect is huge.

I respect my wife and I like her. She came with me to Rome for the Synod. She was there the first two weeks, then she had to go back to work, and then I stayed a few more weeks, and it was like night and day. I thoroughly enjoyed my first two weeks in Rome. Loved it because I was there with my wife. And that was all I needed was to be there with my wife. The last two weeks? I had a fellow say to me he's been married a long time and he said it's gotten

to the point where if I don't debrief about my day to my wife it's like the day didn't happen. I'm not sure what he means but I think I'm close to understanding. Well you know it's the same, you know, I just met with these guys from the College of St. Joseph over here and we were talking about them building a Pustinia Hermitage for us. That was my wife's idea. And she said, when you go out there, see if you can't hook up with these guys.

So of course when I got done with them, and it was a very successful meeting, they're great guys, and we were there for two hours. What was the first thing I did? I texted my wife. And I was just, I couldn't wait for her to respond. Like, oh, she's gonna be so happy. This is great. You know?

So yeah, it's, in other words, that event would have been far diminished in my eyes if I didn't have this woman to text to and say, oh, it went really well. Yeah. I was just asked to come to Australia, like I mentioned earlier, last week, January, first week of February. And they said, would you, you know,

do you want to bring your kids down as well? And, you know, I do, but I don't want to bring my kids down for two weeks. It's very expensive because I'm paying for my kids flight. Yeah. But I'm like, I'm so excited to go with my wife. The two of us are going to go together, just hang out together. It'll be good. Yeah. Well, this has been an absolute pleasure. Well, thank you for hanging out with me. Thank you for having me on the show I've been a longtime fan. You're very articulate I think it's probably because you write when you write a way of hammering out your thoughts, isn't it?

So that yeah, and when I was young I was in theater and stuff I've kissed the Blarney stone, you know, we all have gifts and talents. I can talk some stuff Well, we're gonna try to remember aren, Josiah, to put his URL below. But so Gaudium, it's Spares22, which we're going to put below. So don't even worry about typing that in. Look below, click the link, see the great work you're doing. It's all there. All my articles, blog posts, podcasts, it's all there. Awesome. All right. Thank you, Larry. Thank you, Matt. Thank you so much.