Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1216 | Can Catholics Claim the One True Church? | Lila Rose

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

Today, we sit down with Lila Rose, founder of Live Action, to discuss her perspectives on family, faith, and doctrine. We explore her insights on discerning when to have more children, navigating the emotional and spiritual challenges of motherhood, and the Catholic teachings on fertility and IVF. Lila shares her views as a Catholic on the pope, baptism, and the role of Mary, and Allie gives her thoughts from a Protestant perspective. Check out Lila's podcast: https://youtube.com/@lilaroseshow?si=NAm0vdqzLh3uTmk4 Share the Arrows 2025 is on October 11 in Dallas, Texas! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sharethearrows.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for tickets now! Sponsored by: ⁠Carly Jean Los Angeles⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.carlyjeanlosangeles.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Good Ranchers⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.goodranchers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠EveryLife⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.everylife.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://a.co/d/4COtBxy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Timecodes: (00:30) Kids update (02:30) Mothering boys vs. girls (08:30) How many kids to have (22:10) IVF (28:00) Can the Pope be wrong? (33:30) Is the church disunified on social topics? (39:12) Baptism (43:30) The first pope (55:30) Mary --- Today's Sponsors: We Heart Nutrition — Get 20% off women's vitamins with We Heart Nutrition, and get your first bottle of their new supplement, Wholesome Balance; use code ALLIE at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.WeHeartNutrition.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. EveryLife — The only premium baby brand that is unapologetically pro-life. Visit ⁠everylife.com⁠ and use promo code ALLIE10 to get 10% off your first order. Patriot Mobile — go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 972-PATRIOT and use promo code 'ALLIE' for a free month of service! Field of Greens — Use code ALLIE at FieldofGreens.com for 20% off your first order of superfood supplement for better health and energy! --- Episodes you might like: Ep 997 | Why Do Catholics Pray to Mary? | Guest: Trent Horn https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-997-why-do-catholics-pray-to-mary-guest-trent-horn/id1359249098?i=1000654720287 Ep 1100 | Secret Senate Votes, Sophia Bush & Our Pro-Life Future | Guest: Lila Rose https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1100-secret-senate-votes-sophia-bush-our-pro-life/id1359249098?i=1000676858812 Ep 594 | The Pro-Choice Movement Takes Its Dying Breath | Guest: Lila Rose https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-594-the-pro-choice-movement-takes-its-dying-breath/id1359249098?i=1000556339615 --- Links: Pew: "Few Americans Blame God or Say Faith Has Been Shaken Amid Pandemic, Other Tragedies" https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/11/23/few-americans-blame-god-or-say-faith-has-been-shaken-amid-pandemic-other-tragedies/ Pew: "Public Opinion on Abortion" https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/#:~:text=Views%20on%20abortion%20by%20religious%20affiliation%2C%202024,Illegal%20in%20all/most%20cases --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://alliebethstuckey.com/book⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Is the Catholic Church the church the church Jesus established 2,000 years ago? My good friend Lila Rose of Live Action and I are debating this and much more about Catholic and Protestant doctrine today. But first, we are getting into the joys and the challenges of motherhood, how we know as Christians when to stop having children. This is a great and very full discussion and a lively debate on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends. at Good Ranchers.

Go to Good Ranchers.com, Code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code alley. Lila, thanks so much for joining us. Tell me what's going on in your life. What's your favorite thing about motherhood right now? I love that question. I just, my daughter, our youngest, Gigi, is 14 months old. Yeah.

And she's chunky. She's wearing two tea. And she's so sweet. She's walking, talking, doing all the things. And so it's just the oxytocin that I get from just holding her. and cuddling her and just seeing her smile. There's nothing more joyful when I wake up in the morning than seeing my daughter. Yes.

And then my sons, of course, too. They're magical. So it's just, literally I wake up every day and I pinch myself that I get to be their mom and I get to have this life. Yes. It's just such a blessing. Your kids, your boys, I think, look alike. And then your daughter looks completely different than your boys.

And they're all so distinctly cute, but so different. Yeah. Everyone's like, we're asking about. their coloring and saying like, where did these kids come from? And we're like, I don't know. Although we saw our relative, we saw my brother and his sister and his wife, my sister-in-law, and their youngest has the same coloring strangely as my boys. So they all look like a little pack. Yeah. Genetics are very fun. Oh, I think your boys look like you. Oh, really? Okay. Yes. I can see it. That's how what people say. They say he's all, they're all my husband. Okay. Well, that's okay too. I know. I don't get a lot of,

like, your kids look just like you. I thought that my, um, I thought that my, um, jeans would be dominant because I look like my mom and my mom's jeans are so dominant. And my jeans didn't put up that much of a fight. I thought that they would. Well, I think you and, like you and Timothy have similar coloring. Yeah. It kind of works. Yeah.

That's true. You can see both of you and the girls. Okay, what's one thing that you learned? Okay, two things. One thing that you learned going from two kids to three kids and then one thing you learned going from boy mom to boy and girl mom. Okay. I'll start with the boy mom to girl mom because that's easier.

It is so different, All right. I know there's like a spectrum, of course, of how kids are because of their personalities and temperaments. But she is so, the way that she emotionally responds to things, everything's a bigger deal. And she's just like 14 months, but different than her brothers were. She's more almost emotionally interested. It's like she kind of has this, she has little bits that she does with the people that she meets. Yeah.

Again, it's spunky personality, but there's also something very girly. about it. And then what she's interested in. It is so undeniable, the biology. She goes for the doll. She goes for the, she's very, like, careful with the toy and gentle. The boys, it's about destruction and building and conquering and climbing. I mean, she still wants to climb and build and do things, but you see already, I mean, I get to see anyways. And again, not every girl, but my girl, definitely. There's just girly, girly stuff that she's into. And it's not because we're pushing it on her. She just kind of explores. Most of the toys are boys' toys. because of the older boys.

Yeah. So that's the biggest thing, just the beautiful differences that are already emerging between them, that just like innate differences between boys and girls. I know. They are different. Yes, totally different. I was asking Timothy the other day because our youngest is, you kind of like start losing track of the months.

She'll be two in a few months. So I don't know, 21 months maybe. But she points out every baby that she sees, baby, baby, baby. I'm like, that kid's bigger than you. But like everything is a baby that's small. And I'm like, I'm wondering if we had a boy this age, would a boy be pointing out baby, baby, baby to everything? It's so funny.

They point out the trucks and the cars. Yes, which my kids are not interested in that at all. A boy mom asked me the other day because like where we're staying is right by a train. And they were like, oh, I bet your kids think that's so cool during the day when they see the train go by. I'm like, no, they don't at all. They don't think it's cool. Now, my boys still love babies and they love little kids and they're very tender. But it's different.

Don't tell me it's not different. Again, not every child is going to be the same as every other child. But there is largely speaking, generally speaking, there's differences. And they're beautiful. So what do you do to help your kids get their energy out? Because two boys especially have a ton of energy. And they need to be active in all of that. And so, like, what's your advice on that?

Great question. We wander around the backyard and just, like, go in circles. We actually took the cars out of the garage and they just ride the bikes in the garage if I need them more contained and they'll just go in circles and circles and circles. They wrestle. Yes. With super, try to like supervise from at least a distance. But it's hard.

I mean, I will say around 4 p.m. every day. Yeah. There's complete chaos and that's usually dinner hour. He's trying to like try to prep dinner. So I haven't really figured out exactly how to do it because it does just get. And there's only, I only have three. Yeah. My mother had eight kids.

My mother had eight kids and she had to do, you know, do that. And she had almost no help, you know, and I'm blessed with much more help than she had. but it is, it is, I don't know, do you have any tricks? Yeah. I guess you're,

you have girls, so maybe they're not as crazy. But they still, you know, it's like they're still kids. And so they still have the energy and they, at the end of the day is when you start hearing like,

I'm bored, I want to do things. And we try to push off screens as long as possible. We don't do iPads or tablets or anything like that. But for TV, we do let them watch TV sometimes, but we try to push it towards the very end of the day. So it's limited to like when we're trying to get dinner ready and all of that.

and all of that. But even that, like, if I can get them to go outside or to start doing something, I prefer that. And a little bit of a consequence to that. So we have, like, a crate myrtle. Do you know what that is? It might be more prevalent in the south. Oh, it's a plant.

Yes, it's a tree. But it's not really, like, a good climbing tree. It's, like, very flimsy. But my oldest started climbing in it because she found a bird's nest and she was so excited about this bird's nest. And it was occupying so much of it. of her time. And I'm like, that is great. I love that for her. And she started trying to find worms and bugs and putting it in the bird's nest. So there were baby birds or eggs? There were,

there were eggs in there. So she was really excited about that. And the mama bird would come back and all of stuff. Of course, the mama bird was like not excited about my, like, a six-year-old being up there. And my six-year-old accidentally knocked one of the eggs out and it splattered on the ground. And she was like very traumatized. Could you see a chick embryo? No. But she was like very traumatized by this. And I'm like, okay, you know what? This is a good life lesson though. We did. No, not touch. Well, we did talk about that. But it was also, I'm like, well, it's kind of my fault because I totally allowed her to do that, even though we did talk about the risk of it. But also, like, it's good to be sad. We take care of nature. We take care of

animals. We care about animals. But also people that are more than animals. And so it's okay. That's great. And so, yeah, I just think there's like, a lot of lessons to be learned when we do try to, like, get our kids to push past boredom, which I'm not perfect at at all. All of the little adventures that they go on, like, contains so many, so many different lessons. But that does require, like, more energy and patience from me, which I don't, like, you know, always perfectly give. I've actually, that's something I've been noticing more is intentionally letting them just play together. And if there's even a little bit of a squabble, letting them figure it out. Now, obviously,

if someone's getting injured, go and check in. I'm more talking about the older boys, the three and the five-year-old. But if they're in the backyard and I hear a squabble, see if they can resolve it. And then also just let them get busy. And they come up with the most interesting little, you know, they'll color pages and put up signs, like tape signs on the wall, like do not pass or, you know, just coming up with random stuff. But they entertain themselves. They learn to play without me having to get in there and having to direct every step. And I think that's healthy. I think we, as modern parents, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to hyper plan for our kids, how to engage them, how to entertain them, how to, yes, educate them.

We should be very focused. We should be nurturing. We should be forming them. But free play, I grew up just spending most of my time running around our backyard with my brothers for hours. And my mother would be taking care of the younger kids or doing other things in the house for hours. And we would get in trouble.

I mean, we would mess things up. We would get dirty. But it was so wonderful because our imaginations could kind of rule the day instead of having an apparent imposing an activity on us. Yeah. Remind me where you fall in line with your siblings? Third oldest out of eight kids. Okay.

And you have, do you have older sisters or were you the first girl? I'm in between five boys. Okay. Oh my goodness. And then I have my little sisters at the end. Okay, what was it like growing up with that many siblings? I just have two. And they're way older than me.

So it's kind of like an only child in some ways? What's the age gap? 10 and a half and seven years. So you're kind of like in a way, in a child. In some ways. So I'm curious like what the experience is like with so many close siblings. Yeah. It makes me want to cry thinking about it.

It was awesome to have brothers and sisters to play with. I mean, there was chaos. There were certainly elements that my parents were like, I wish we'd have done this better because there is a lot of little souls to raise. But we got to be best friends. We got to do crazy stuff together. We got to learn so much about dealing with different temperaments and different kinds of people and different interests and different desires.

I mean, it's really a school, a school of human formation to have to deal with all these different people. I highly recommend big families. If you're able to have a big family, you know, God willing, I highly recommend people. When I was talking to a couple recently and they said, oh yeah, we have three. We're not sure about four. And I said, well, what do you mean you're not sure about four? Well, you know, it's just, you know, it's nice to be out of diapers, whatever. And I can understand that, of course. When you're in it, you're in it. It's hard. But I just think about the gift that a sibling is to another sibling. Just how irreplaceable. All seven of

my siblings, they are irreplaceable to me. They are unrepeatable. They're so beautiful. And imagine life without even just one of them is so sad. Quick pause to tell you two things. Number one, sign up for Share the Arrows, get your tickets, come by yourself. That's totally fine. You'll meet lifelong friends there. Bring your friends. Bring your mom.

Bring your mother-in-law. Bring your small group. This is the biggest conservative Christian women's conference in the country. There is not another stacked lineup like this out there. I am so excited. We've got Elisa Childers, Ginger Duggervolo. We've got a biblical health panel with Taylor Dukes and Shauna Holman, a motherhood panel with Abby Halberstadt and Hillary Morgan for rare. We've got Katie Faust bringing her powerful message, yours truly will be there as well.

We've got VIP tickets that allows you to meet all of the speakers and come to a fun dinner the night before. But our general mission tickets are also amazing. And you just won't find a conference like this anywhere else. If you want to be challenged in your faith, if you want to be a lot. if you want to be led in worship by Grammy Award winning artist Francesca Badis Deli, you got to sign up and be there. October 11th outside of Dallas, Texas, go to share the arrows.com. Also, let me tell you about WeHeart Nutrition, one of my absolute favorite sponsors. I mean that because I just love the people, Jacob and Kristen, that own WeHeart Nutrition,

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pregnancy centers across the country. They are just awesome all around. Go to weheartnutrition.com. Use code Allie. You'll get 20% off your order with my code. That's weheartnutrition.com code Alley. How do you think you decide? And maybe this is where Catholic teaching speaks into this, but like how do you decide when you are done? What factors do you think are legitimate to consider? It's a great question. So the Catholic teaching on it is, and I was raised Protestant, so my family wasn't even Catholic growing up. You just had a lot of kids. I know. They were very unusual in their church. And they got judged for it, actually, because they just felt this sense of saying yes to God's generosity of if God gives us assistance with children, we're going to just accept them. They felt contraception. They just had a visceral ick response to contraception. But how do you know when you're done? So I think for Christians, I believe we should always be open to life in the sense that we know that sex can bring life into

the world. And if it does, we're going to embrace that child, right? We get to decide when to have sex when we're married, right? It's not like we're being forced to. We shouldn't be forced it. We decide, right, as a couple. And so there's that natural built-in, okay, we're going to delay or not have children at this time because of some, you know, serious issue. Or you have your fertility window. We're not going to, you know, be intimate during this fertility window because we want to space children for this important issue. And so the Catholic teaching says that that's okay to do like fertility awareness method or natural family planning.

So it's okay to purposely try not to conceive. Yes. There needs to be a good reason. It shouldn't be like, oh, I want to go on 10 more vacations and I don't want to be bothered with kids because the crown of marriage is a child, right? And that's really the point of marriage is sanctity for the spouses and then to bring up the next generation. So that's, and that takes sacrifice.

I mean, to be generous with God and open to life, it's not necessarily an easy thing. Some people are like, yay, kids, but other people like, this is really hard for me. A lot of people, this is really hard. But it's the hard is a beautiful hard. It's a meaningful hard. So with Catholic teaching, it's not so much about are we done yet and more about discerning, okay, is there a reason, a significant reason to pause on? you know, having children at this time. If we do conceive, of course, we're going to be open to them,

but we're going to either use fertility awareness to space the child or to delay, you know, getting pregnant, or they can choose to abstain, obviously, but they can just not have sex during the fertile period. And a lot of couples will do that. Now, some couples, maybe they have, you know, four or five kids, and they say there's some significant health issues in the family, right? There's a significant economic issue in the family. And they can say, okay, we're going to pause, maybe even indefinitely. and that might be done in a way because maybe by the time they're able to start again, they're not able to conceive, she's older, there's other health issues. So in that sense, you can be done in the sense that you can say, well, this is not a good time

because of these important reasons, so we're going to wait. But I think the attitude of, I'm done, I got my three. Sorry, God, it doesn't matter if you have more in mind, I'm done so. Like that, I don't think that's a Christian posture. Separate from Catholic Protestant Orthodox, I just think the Christian posture as children or a blessing from the Lord. You want many arrows, you know, gifts from God. And that what's the whole crown of marriage?

Yeah. Child. Yeah. This idea of two to three kids is a very, and I know both of us have three kids. So we're only halfway, you know, we're only starting. But this idea of just one, two, three kids is a very modern idea. Yeah. Yeah, we've been talking about, and I haven't talked about this publicly.

But my husband and I, we've been talking about, you know, having more kids. and the difficulty that we have. And I know that this is legitimate. I just am wrestling with whether this is like not trusting God and I'm being fearful or whether I'm employing wisdom and discernment. And, you know, Timothy and I are praying about this and talking about this. We have three. We love three. We'd want more. But all of my births and postpartum have been really hard. I had two C-sections and then I had a vaginal birth. I'm so thankful that I, I got to experience both, actually, because it's given me just like a lot of understanding and appreciation for all of that. But they've been tough, like very painful, very difficult.

I won't get into like graphic things, but just hard and emotionally because of the physical pain that lasted for so long. And there's a part of me that's like, I'm scared. You know, I'm scared to do that again. And I'm scared that I won't be able to be fully present for my kids for an extended period of time. And obviously, the child will be worth it. It's not a question about that. It's just a question about at what point can you weigh those factors and say it would be wise to not do that? Or are you saying, you know, I trust you, God. I trust you with my body. I trust, you know, you with my recovery and it is going to be difficult. But like, you know, we know that a child is a blessing. And I don't know if there's a hard and fast answer to that. I do think it takes prayer and

discernment. But I also just want to say I relate to those out there who are, you know, wrestling with those very real thoughts and fears. That is very real. And that those are tough things. Yeah. And like you said, you've had these very tough, very tough pregnancies and deliveries and other women, they have other health conditions. And yeah, it's, it's tough. It's tough. I think a foundational principle for us as Christians, right, is like you just said so beautifully, is true. It's Trust, trust in God. And then I think another piece of it, too, is generosity where, yes, you want to be prudent. So if there's some, you know, significant reason or there's obviously a kind of a health crisis, that's, you know, maybe a pause moment. It's not a required pause moment, by the way,

but it may be a pause moment. But I think the generosity piece is so important. And it's tricky because, well, how generous is generous, right? Yeah. You know, in today's world three is already generous compared to, you know, other people. So I think praying about it and just ask, asking God, you know, give me, give me, if this is, for you, you know, from you, I want more confidence maybe. Peace, yeah. Yeah. Because it sounds like that fear of what you've been through is, is holding you, you know,

back. It's a heavy thing weighing on you, understandably. Yeah. And it's kind of true in all decision making that we have as Christians, when you're not choosing between sin and the right thing to do. You're not necessarily choosing between good and bad. you're choosing between good and best. And that takes like a lot of fine-tuning discernment and a lot of Holy Spirit.

Because I might not open the Bible and have my exact verse for my exact situation. Yeah. And that is a beautiful thing about marriage too is and a beautiful thing about being a wife is that when I don't know what to do, I can always pray that God would lead Timothy and that Timothy would lead us. And it's great that that is like a mantle that he holds that I don't ultimately. hold that he's like the leader of our family. My mom always says like she always wanted one more and my dad after every child was like, no, we're done. He was done after one. He was definitely done

after two. And every time my mom prayed, okay, God, I want another baby, but it has to be his idea, my dad's idea. And so she says it was always the timing that my dad would just one day turn around after saying, I don't want any more kids and say, we should have another baby. And then they did. And so I'm not saying that's everyone's situation, but I think for us women, too, kind of like releasing that and remembering that our husband is like, is the leader in our family, it kind of relieves some pressure too. I love that. Yeah, it's true. God speaks through obviously the natural order of the husband and the home. I think the other element that's really peacegiving is, you know, I see, you know, as you know, I'm Catholic and contraception, the teaching there is that anything that frustrates the procreative and the unitive and the sexual.

act is wrong. So sex is designed to bring two people together incredibly intimately and it's designed to bring life into the world. Not every sexual act can bring life into the world because you're not always fertile as a woman. We know this, of course. But if you intentionally during your fertility period are using contraception to separate the procrative and the unitive, then you're frustrating the design that God has. And so that's the beauty of natural family planning or fertility awareness methods is you can space pregnancies. You can delay potentially getting pregnant. if there's a significant reason. And you do that using the natural rhythms of the body as opposed to this artificial

contraception. So I think that also gives a lot of freedom. Yeah. For Christian families to say, okay, we don't do contraception like the culture does, but we do use fertility awareness and make those best judgments about when to maybe pursue having a child or when to, you know, intentionally like we want to have a child. We're going to make sure we're having, you know, in intimate during when we're ovulation. Obulation, exactly.

but that there's still this posture. I think the posture is important. There's still the posture of openness to life. Because keep in mind, every time a life comes into existence, that's God's work. God creates that soul. Yeah. That is an act of God. And so there's a beautiful confidence in that, that there's no life that comes to us

by accident. Yeah. And that I think my parents, I know that was their posture again. They were Protestants. Their posture was like, these children are from God. So we're just going to say yes to, yes to whatever God may give. Okay, something I've gotten a lot, and you've probably gotten this too, when it comes to IVF, that God is the giver of life. And therefore, even though scientists and doctors are bringing together the sperm and the embryo, it always has to be God who gives the spark of life.

So God is in IVF. That's what some defenders of IVF say. And so I think I know what your response would be, but what would you say? Yeah. I've definitely heard that as well, Ali, and it is true that those are precious human beings made in God's image. So that is, but God respects human freedom. Like if we have technologies to manipulate life, to create life in a test tube, God respects our power to do that and he is allowing it. Just like, and not to say that IVF is like rape, because they're obviously very different, but in a situation of sex outside of marriage or sexual assault or any other situation that there's

immoral acts taking place, right? And a life comes into existence. That's still God, you know, in that life, bringing that life into the world. But the act that brought that life into existence, that was not the moral act. So the act that brings life into existence can be immoral, but the bringing of the life into existence is never immoral. And I think that's the distinction that a lot of people maybe philosophically aren't seeing with IVF. In IVF, you are taking life out of the natural order where children deserve to be conceived in a loving, in the loving marital embrace. They deserve to be conceived in love. It's a natural order and there's a lot of protective mechanisms in God's providence for that child if they're conceived that way. We know those

protective elements just on its face looking at the fact that, as you've talked about many times, a million babies frozen in IVF clinics. Seven percent of these babies make it out alive. Many are destroyed or miscarried. The levels of risk for them are so high and the destruction is so high, the natural order is much more designed for their safety and their nourishing. So IVF is wrong. The act of IVF is wrong. But what is not wrong is that new human life. Right.

The baby is always a blessing. Yes. But that doesn't mean that we are endorsing every method of making a baby. Exactly. And that's why I really get frustrated with what I kind of think is a form of emotional manipulation when we talk about the ethics or the lack of ethics in IVF. then we get, while you're saying that my baby shouldn't be here, or you're saying that my child is not a blessing. And I understand for someone who has conceived their children through IVF, you're

looking in their face every day. You love them so much. They're an image bearer of God. To separate that child from the means by which you had that child would be really tough. I've seen people do it, though, because God can work in your heart and allow you to do that. But I understand that it's really difficult. And I just wish there were a little bit more of an honest conversation between those who are for IVF and against IVF, can we at least acknowledge that we're not demonizing the people who are created? But it turns into that very quickly, which makes the debate and discussion difficult, even among professing Christians, which is really like my biggest frustration. I know the Catholic Church itself has been really clear on this,

and that's something I'm very thankful for, their stance on IVF, their stance on procreation. But I imagine, I don't know the numbers on it, I imagine there are a lot of professing Catholics who aren't against it, who might not know the church's teachings, I guess, and who would support it. Do you find that as you're talking in Catholic circles that some Catholics just like, they just don't know? Yeah. There's definitely a lot of Catholics who are not catechized. So they're not well formed in their faith. Because I think in the Catholic space, particularly, there is this passing on of the sacraments, right, that Catholic parents will give to their children typically, right? not always, but typically, but if they're not including a deeper understanding of those

sacraments they're receiving and the faith that they're being given, right, then they might be doing the motions of that. And the motions still have power. Baptism is still baptism, even if I didn't understand what was happening when I was baptized, but they still have power, but I may myself not be able to correspond to the graces that God wants to give me to live a Christian life, right? So that's the piece that is the state of American Catholicism today, is that there's a lot of uncatechized Catholics. They don't even believe in the true presence, in the real presence in the Eucharist.

They don't understand the church's teaching on contraception or sex. And there's a lot of good intentions, but there's a lot of confusion. And that exists in the Protestant community too, but I can particularly speak to it in the Catholic world because the teachings are so clear. You know? Yeah. You can open the catechism.

You can read, you know, in cyclicals. You can obviously go to Holy Scripture and the teachings are there. Yeah. And what's beautiful about, you know, I'm so grateful as a Catholic is, you know, people say, well, the Pope, you know, he has his issues. Well, of course, he is himself an imperfect man. But when he's speaking in authority as the head of the church, speaking for the church in matters of faith and morals, and this is magisterial doctrine, and then we can understand how to interpret things like IVF as an example, you know, things like, you know,

human cloning, all of these technologies that are coming down the pike, obviously the word IVF is not in Holy Scripture, right? A lot of, the word, the word, contraception specifically. There's a lot of words, even the word Trinity is not in Holy Scripture. So how do we take Holy Scripture, the early traditions of the early Christians, and understand how to apply those to the modern life? And, you know, so the teaching exists. I just think it's not clear to enough Catholics. Is it possible for the Pope speaking out of authority, not just sending like a tweet or something, but speaking out of authority, is it possible for him to be wrong in in accordance with the Catholic feel?

Not when he is speaking ex-cathedra on matters of faith and morals. Which is rare, right? That doesn't happen very often. It's rare. Exactly. That's exactly right. And for the whole of Christendom. So it has to be a directive for, this is for all, is binding for all Christians.

What's an example of that? An encyclical would be an example of that. And these are very formal, beautifully written. I mean, they're so rich. Oh my gosh. But they're these beautifully written, like Humana Vita as an example, condemning abortion and contraception, right? And it really makes the philosophical case for it, makes the theological case for it. And they're these rich documents that are just carefully articulated. I mean, every letter is

carefully articulated because it's binding for Mother Church, not just today, but for all time. And, you know, they're rare. There's not like endless encyclicals, but you're going to get maybe a few in any given papacy. Another pause to tell you about every life. This is America's pro-life diaper company and you might be thinking isn't every diaper company pro life? Like shouldn't they be pro babies they can sell more diapers that way? Unfortunately, that's not true. A lot of major diaper companies actually donate your dollars to pro-abortion politicians and organizations. You don't want to be a part of that. You want to get your diapers and your baby supplies like their awesome shampoo and body wash and baby lotion from a company that you know is unapologetically pro-life.

They are supporting pro-life causes, organizations. Right now, they're sending diapers and wipes to affected areas in Texas after the floods. They're supporting all of their pregnant and adopting employees and y'all. Their products really, really work. I would not be using EveryLife diapers if they didn't work. Nobody has time for diapers that don't work. I can say that as a mom of three. If you're a mom, you know what I mean. Every Life diapers are awesome. They blow the competition out of the water. Also, they have amazing lotion and body wash that is tear-free, dermatologist tested. All so good. Go to everylife.com. Use code Alley 10. You'll get 10% off your first order today. That's everylife.com. Code alley 10. Okay, here's a question that I have. And it's not supposed to be

antagonistic, but it goes on based on something you just said about a lot of Catholics being un-catechized. And as a Protestant, I'm sure that you get a lot of messages in comments from Protestant saying you shouldn't be Catholic. And here's why I get a ton of messages. And so sometimes when I talk about, you know, my Protestant beliefs, people will be like, why do you feel they need to talk about this? I'm like, I get so many messages, some of them from like totally well-meaning Catholics who are just devout Catholics, and they love me. And they want me to know what Catholic doctrine teaches. I was just going to say, the Catholics love you. Yes. And we have like a great, And then sometimes, as I'm sure you get from the evangelical side, sometimes they're super antagonistic and rude and like, you know, not persuasive. And I'm not saying that's indicative of Catholics. That just happens to be indicative of some online discourse. But something that I hear a lot is that the church has always been so clear on this and or XYZ, whatever it is. And Protestantism has given way to division. And the Catholic Church is unified. But Protestantism, the fruit.

of it is this dissension and all of these denominations. And yet, when you look at statistically what professing Catholics say they believe and what professing Protestants say they believe, it seems to me, if we are to believe a Pew Research or something like that, that Protestants, when it comes to things like abortion, when it comes to things like homosexuality, statistically, we're a lot more united on, this is what the Bible says, homosexuality is a sin. Abortion is a sin and should be illegal, not just here, but also in South America. Whereas it's like 68% of Catholics, according to Pew Research, people who call themselves Catholics, who are, like, say that they're pro-choice. And so my question is, if, like,

the Catholic Church is a bastion of unity, why are professing Catholics so disunified when it comes to these really big moral theological issues. It was like, I'll have to look it up. It was like 70% of Catholics believe that non-Christians can go to heaven according to Pew Research. That's like huge. Well, let's set that one aside for a minute because it's like, what do you mean by a non-Christian going to heaven? Because God can do whatever he wants because he's God. And he's not bound to our ideas of him. He is God. So could there be someone at the moment of death that Jesus appears to them? You know, and they're given the opportunity to say yes to God and his love, absolutely. So in that sense, it's a non-Christian in our view. I would call them a Christian. I would say if they, you know,

of course they're a Christian in heaven. There are only Christians in heaven. That's true. So I think, so I think these, again, these words might mean even different things to people and might be lending some of the confusion. But listen, I would have to look at that particular study. I do know for a fact, I would agree with you that especially if it's a Catholic and name only, kind of like the Easter Catholic, the Christmas Catholic. They're not a daily, certainly not a daily Mass Catholic and they're not a weekly Mass Catholic, right? This is not something that is, you know, they don't even understand the first thing of, oh, if you missed Mass on a more on a Sunday, unless of some significant reason or illness, that's a, that's a mortal sin. Like, that's a big deal.

You don't do that. Or if you do that, you go to confession afterwards. Those Catholics, I would guess, I don't know the study that you looked at, based on my experience and the research I've seen, they're going to be pretty pro-life and pretty down the line on, on largely speaking on sexual ethics. There's still going to be confusion, even on contraception and IVF, things of this nature. But I think that cohort, they're doing the weekly gathering as God is commanded of worship of the mass, right? So I think it would depend on the groups who are comparing, quite frankly, because I do know the idea of I'm a believer, I'm a Christian, or I'm an evangelical can be very watered down here in the United States. globally in terms of what that means with morality, right? I think what matters is not so much, I think two things matter. The teaching itself, right? What does the teaching say about matters

of faith and morals? And is it true or not, right? Is what the Catholic Church is saying, true or not? And then number two, the fruit does matter, like you're saying, the fruit does matter, but you have to look at the full picture of the fruit. And for the Catholic Church, we look at 2,000 years of Christendom, and we look at the sacraments. Which, of course, Protestants would dispute because we don't believe that the Catholic Church was established by Jesus 2,000 years ago. Okay. I know that's what, you know, Catholic teaching teaches, but Protestants don't believe that.

We believe that Jesus created the global church and he created Christians. And when he says to Peter, on this rock, I will build my church. We don't believe that he's making Peter a pope. And when we look at, like I hear Catholics say a lot that, you know, we are worshiping. being how the earliest Christians worshipped, and this is historic Christianity, but the only infallible inerrant and totally authoritative record of the early church that we have is the Bible. I think Catholics would agree on that. The only inerrant one, right? But it's only inerrant because there was a church council that came together to declare it inerrant. Because you have the

didic. We believe that it's anerrant because the Holy Spirit inspired it. And I don't think that all Protestants would dispute everything that Catholic councils have, you know, have agreed upon throughout the time. But we would say, okay, if we look at Acts, if we look at the epistles, do we see Roman Catholicism? Like, is there mention of a pontiff of Rome or a vicar of Christ? Is there a mention of like praying to Mary or praying to the saints? There's, to me, I see, I see zero implication of those things at all. There is no command to pray or to venerate or honor Mary at all. There is no talk of Peter being the head of the church.

And so I don't see a reflection of Roman Catholic doctrine and worship in the earliest record of how the early Christians worshipped and acts in the epistles. So when I hear it's 2,000 years old, like, well, then why don't we see that? the Bible. Well, I would argue that we do see it in the Bible, and you do see Peter taking on teaching authority in the Bible in Acts. And you do see there, if you look at the early church's history, right, and it's not captured in Holy Scripture, because Holy Scripture, I think it ends, is it, I don't want to get runger, but is it 70 AD? I mean, it really doesn't go. Yeah, decades after. It doesn't go much further than that. So there's a whole world of Christianity that

happens after the canon of the Bible concludes time-wise. Now, it wasn't established for a few hundred years after that, right, in terms of this is the canon of the Bible. But there's a whole world and there's a, there's a lot of documents and writings from the church fathers, which are so rich, where you learn about how they applied what that early church was doing just a decade after Christ or two decades after Christ when St. Paul's, you know, traveling around and preaching at people, were you not just see what they were doing in just a few decades after Christ, but then what they were doing 100 years after Christ and 200 years after Christ and how they passed on the traditions that were established by Jesus Christ. Now, a tradition that's established in, you know, first century, you know,

Roman Empire, right, will inherently have a different context in 21st century America, of course. But the core will be the same. So, for example, Eucharist, this is my bread, this is my body, this is my blood given for you, eat and drink, right, and coming together in the breaking of the bread, which is talked about in the book of Acts. Or the fact that they would do preaching, right, as the liturgy of the word, often in the synagogues, in just the decades after Christ resurrected, and then they would unascended, and then they would do the breaking of the bread privately, because that was more controversial, and that was the Christian element, the preaching of the word could be more what had been done in the synagogue historically. So that's what the mass is.

It's the, it's the liturgy of the Word, and it's the literature of the Eucharist. It's going to look different in a 21st century American church than it looked in a synagogue and a house church or a home, a private family home, back in the time of, you know, the early, early Roman empire. And then you have the Christians going underground with Roman persecution. And you have the Christianity spreading globally and how it's now taken a new life in all these different cultures and continents. But you have core elements that remain the same. And those core elements are Eucharist, their baptism, their confession, their confirmation, their marriage. Dunking baptism.

is what Jesus did and what we see throughout scripture. We don't actually see a baby being baptized. So you're saying you don't think that Catholics baptize their babies actually? No, I think that, well, I think the model of baptism that we see in the New Testament is dunking baptism after someone has become a believer. I don't think, like, I have Presbyterian friends. I don't think it's wrong in a dedication. The head is fully covered with water.

You need to, you're not putting the baby underneath the water in baptism. Right. But you are covering the head with water. But I'm saying that the New Testament doesn't support the idea of sprinkling babies. I wouldn't. That's what the Protestant. I mean, most Protestants believe. I think even Presbyterians, my Presbyterian friends can correct me because they do baby baptism. But they, I think they have different beliefs about what that baby baptism actually represents

than Catholics do, whereas I'm Baptist. And so we believe only in believers baptism after you believe in your heart. confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord. You probably even go through like a new Christians class just to make sure you really understand the gospel and have really accepted it. And then we see it as an outward symbol of an inward regeneration. And we believe that that's what we see throughout scripture that baptism always followed belief and that Jesus gives us his example of baptism in actually being adult. It followed the belief of adults, you're right, and heads of households. But a couple important points. In Acts, there is scripture that talks about the whole household being baptized

after the ascent of the lead of the household. I think the safe assumption is that probably the whole household believed. But if you're a child, you wouldn't be excluded. Jesus said so many times, let the little ones come unto me. Yeah. And we believe the children can get baptized. You don't have to be an adult. But it's not biblical, Ali. It's not biblical to say that the children were excluded from baptism. I didn't say that. But you're saying that the child, if they can't physically profess the words of Jesus and have this, you know, belief, whatever that means exactly for a little child, then they can't be baptized. And I think that's wrong. Of course we should baptize our babies. That is the Baptist position that baptism should always follow belief. But I would say include the

baby. Even if you're, it could be three. You could be three years old, but no, I mean, we just don't believe in baby baptism. And I'm just saying it's, and I don't think we see a clear example of that in scripture. Well, I think it is pretty clear in the teachings of Jesus about children and in the baptizing of household. And there's no note about excluding the babies. I don't think you would exclude your, we also, we also don't know that there's a baby. That's an assumption that there is a baby and they're baptized. We don't have no idea. The youngest could be 12.

That is true, but typically whole households are going to inevitably involve some children, very young children. Seems like a leap. So I don't think so. But then you look at just the traditions of the early Christians. You don't have to call them Catholics in this moment. If you're not comfortable with that, but they baptize their babies. That's as a tradition that's 2,000 years old.

Do we see that in scripture? Well, we were just talking about scripture and you said, well, the household didn't explicitly say baby. So you said, I don't buy that. But I'm saying, well, if you look at how they practiced baptism in the early church, they were baptizing their babies. That was a common practice. So where do we read that?

I don't disbelieve that necessarily because there's a lot of things that the early church practice that we don't necessarily practice today and shouldn't practice today. That's why Paul had so many letters to write. Next sponsor is Field of Greens. So Field of Greens makes sure that you are getting all of of your vegetables and your fruits in every day. I don't get my vegetables and fruits in every day when I'm not drinking my field of greens. I'll just be honest with you. Your girl does not like vegetables. I mean, there's very few vegetables that I like, and I don't really feel like making them

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not founded with Jesus Christ and with Peter. So I'm curious when you think it was founded. I don't know exactly when it was founded. I know that, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm sure that you know more about Catholic history than I do. But from my understanding, the establishment of the official papacy was really kind of rallied around about 500 years after Christ. Like, would you say Gregory the first, I know that you probably wouldn't say that

he was the first pope because I know Catholics assert that Peter was the first pope. but if I remember correctly, there was something significant about Gregory I first being like a singular pope because before that there was debate over how many popes and which and which pope was what and what kind of authority he had. So it seems like authority solidified at least, if I can say it more generously or charitably, about 500 years after Christ died. I wouldn't read it that way. I would say more that the bishop of Rome was given a special deference. And there was debate later on, especially with orthodoxy and Catholicism, about, okay, well, who gets, who's kind of the final say amongst the bishops or who's the, you could say a tiebreaker of sorts or who's going to, where does it, you could say the word solidify the authority over where does it kind of land ultimately in the bishop of Rome, you know, the Holy See, the Peter is where, you know, the pope is where it lands. And so there was definitely at a certain point debate about that, especially when you had bishops that didn't want to obey Rome.

then you have the schism, right? So that did happen, and that's, in my view, tragic, because I think we're all meant to be one. But I think that Jesus didn't create his church to leave her without authority and without guidance because he said, the gates of hell will not prevail. And he said, well, that's not necessarily to popes, but he did intend for us to be one. He did intend for there to be one teaching. He did intend for there to be one breaking of the bread. And I think right now you go globally to any Catholic church and you're going to see the same things. You're going to different cultural elements, of course, we can see these core things that are the same, the breaking of the bread, the liturgy of the mass, the same readings are said, you know,

by millions or a billion Catholics every single... And I do think there's something beautiful about that. But I think that's, it's not just a Catholic thing. I think that's meant to be a Christian experience, that we are all united in that way. And I hunger for that. I know, like, I'm going to guess your heart is there, too, that we want Christian unity. We want people to know us by our unity, by our love, by the... sign of Jesus, of course, working in us and the Holy Spirit working in us. And I think that there's, I think knowing our history as Christians is so important. I know you said, well, you know, just because the early church fathers said it doesn't mean it's true. Well, I think we

have to really examine what they were saying, what they were teaching, and look at the trajectory of Christianity when we're dealing with today with modernity, this upsetting, quite frankly, of tradition and this upsetting of history. it's like, we're going to decide because we're the smartest ones on the block. And it's like, wait a minute, there's 2,000 years of other smart human beings post Christ. You know, we should, we should take a look at what they said and did. That a lot of people who deconstruct who think they're the first people to ask difficult theological and apologetic questions. And it's also the me and my Bible thing. I mean, we should read Holy Scripture. We should, this is the words,

the words of God. They have the power to create incredible inspiration and change in us. I mean, that is a gift that God has given us, beautifully so. But it's not just me and my Bible, one man, an island. It's meant to be me and my Bible and the church and the communion of the brethren. And Protestants believe that. We don't believe it's just me and my Bible, but we do believe in the authority of the local church. We do believe in theologians and mentors and teachers. There are some traditions that we hold to. It's really like what I see with Catholics and Protestants, it's really not unity versus disunity because, as we've already talked about, there's plenty of disunity within the Catholic Church, even if the catechism is clear. Like, I just had a sweet Catholic

older couple come up to me the other day. And they said, you know, we're so excited to go to Santa Fay. I guess there is some Catholic, he said something about, like, it's important for a Catholic something in Santa Fe. And he said, what the, would it be the bishop? I forget which leader it was, or the priest maybe of the church that they were going to go to, sit and email out, like, opposing Trump's immigration policy and supporting our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. And obviously, we have a lot of problems with that within Protestantism, too. So I'm not singling out Catholics. But it seems to me, like, even if the Catholic Church is clear, there is plenty of disunity

within the Catholic Church. Well, the Catholic Church isn't going to tell you what political label to take on. And it's not going to prescribe very specific political policies. That would be wrong. But it is going to provide principles. And you might have any number of priests who will say, well, I'm going to take the principle and say, you should vote for X, Y, Z. And they have, you know, to some degree of the freedom to say that they should be,

maybe they're going to get in trouble with a bishop, you know, eventually if they're being too aggressive because they're not supposed to be telling people how to vote necessarily, right, in terms of a specific candidate. But there are principles that we all share, including on immigration, including on respect for persons who struggle with same-sex attraction and how that, you know, plays out in even political discourse. And that doesn't mean that they are supporting open borders or they're supporting, you know, gay marriage or anything. No, the church is very clear that a nation has a right to national sovereignty and a right to borders and borders are, are necessary

and good thing for the protection of a nation. And that, you know, sex is for one man, one woman in a marriage and any sexual activity outside of that is wrong. So the church is not, there's no confusion on that point, but the opinions, any number of Catholics will have opinions, right? And that's a normal thing. I think with Protestantism is, you know, and there's so much to Protestantism. There's Baptists, right? There's Presbyterians, like you mentioned earlier. So I don't want to paint too broadly with one brush. But you go to a church service in any number of a Protestant church on a Sunday morning anywhere in the world. It will be very different in terms of what you're getting and even being taught, you go to a Catholic Mass. It is the same mass in every church,

Catholic Church, around the world. The same words are being spoken in the liturgy of the Word. The same words are being spoken in the liturgy of the Eucharist. The same Eucharist is being celebrated. And I think that's the unity that is so beautiful to me. Yeah. I just wonder why. Okay, let me read some statistics. And you can tell me. Now, I don't think that I will say. By the way, thanks for having this combo. What? I thank you. I love this conversation. Yes. Okay. And we only have a few minutes. I respect you so much and I appreciate your getting to talk about. Well, me too. And Bree is telling me that we have to wrap soon. So I want to say this. And then I have one of the question.

Part two on my show, Allie. Yes. I have a question about Mary. Because that is maybe like one of my biggest points of confusion. And okay. So we're talking about the fruit. And this, I don't know if it is completely fair because who knows how Pew is defining Catholic and evangelical. And evangelical is like a part of Protestant and they're weighing Catholics as a whole. So maybe that's not completely. Fair. Let me just say that up front. But this is according to peer research. So 60% of Catholics believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases versus 27% of evangelicals. They look at Argentina specifically, 76% of Protestants, one abortion illegal versus only 59% of Catholics. 62% of Catholics believe casual sex is fine versus only 36% of evangelicals. Only 33% of Catholic say homosexuality is a sin versus 62% of evangelicals. Well, there's a distinction there. They're saying

that to have same-sex attractions is not the sin. But that's different than the gay lifestyle. So I think that's also just how the questions are asked, but keep going. Maybe that maybe Catholics have like a different understanding. Like the word, like when you say this is, is being homosexual a sin, what does that mean? Is having same, like an intense same-sex attraction and desire a sin? No, because you don't have control over that. What would be a sin is to act on it. Yeah. We probably have some disagreements there. I think it's a disordered desire. No, we agree on that. At the very, at the very, We agree, but if your young child is severely tempted to something, that doesn't mean they are sinning by being tempted. To be tempted is not to sin. To act upon the temptation is to sin. So the question

is, with all of the unity that you just described and all of the differences within Protestantism that you just described, even evangelical churches, evangelical could be Baptist, it could be a different denomination. And yet, at least according to these statistics, which people can say, I don't trust P research, and that's their prerogative. But evangelical, are actually a lot more aligned with what the Bible actually teaches on those things, and we're a lot more unified. So it might be true that you could go to our local congregations, and you could hear a different sermon, you could hear a different passage, you could hear different songs, sung.

How do you define evangelical? Is that a Baptist? Like, who is an evangelical? An evangelical Christian would be someone who believes in the gospel, that you have to be saved by Jesus Christ in order to be saved, and that we are evangelistic in our faith, that we are going out and we are sharing the gospel. and we are trying to get people to become Christian. Mainline Protestants who are, like, I would consider that progressive Episcopal, for example, a lot of Methodists, even some Presbyterians,

are not evangelical. So who would be the earliest evangelical Christian in your view? I don't know. I'm not sure who the earliest evangelical Christian would be. And the reason I'm asking is because I think you're right in that, like if you look at mainline Protestantism and you look at Catholics, especially the Catholics kind of in culture, but not necessarily the Catholics in practice, right?

You're going to see those numbers. So I'm not denying those numbers. And I think today there's this born-again Christian sort of identity that's very beautiful that a lot of people experience where they say, I just want to 100% follow Jesus. It's just whatever he says and they are willing to do the harder things morally. But that doesn't mean that the teachings of the Catholic Church or the 2000 years of fruit there. I know we're debating about the history isn't real. It means that there's a catechesis crisis in the Catholic Church.

That's what I wanted to ask you if that's what you think the answer is. Oh, for sure. For sure. there's a catechesis crisis in the Catholic Church. And I would say there's a catacesis crisis formation, formation, broadly, more broadly speaking. I agree that I think Protestants do too. I think we should employ, like the Westminster Catechism, I think we should do a better job of knowing the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed. That's something we agree on is the Nicene Creed. And I think that we should do a better job as Protestants of knowing those things, too.

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You can use my code alley for a free month of service. That's an awesome deal. Go to patriotmobile.com slash alley code alley. Okay, last question. Sorry, Bree, but I have to ask it. And I know it's a big one. Okay. If, and this is genuine.

This is not like a trap question. I really like, and I ask Trent Horn this too. And I don't think I got a sufficient answer. If Mary is the queen of heaven, if she is carrying our prayers, she has a supernatural ability, according to Catholic teaching, to understand multiple languages, to hear multiple prayers happening at once, I guess millions at one time, and then carry them to God. That is a hugely significant role. Well, just to be clear, she did not have that ability when she was here. No, but now.

But that's only because she's in the beatific vision. She's one with God. I mean, in heaven, we are in total communion with God. So that power is not, just to be clear, that power is not of Mary's power. That is the power that is God. God has given her that power. Well, it's God's power to be clear. Okay.

But he has given it to Mary in a way that he hasn't necessarily given to others. That's the Catholic teaching. Not quite, no. So everyone has the same power that Mary does in heaven. The saints in heaven have the same power to hear the prayers of the faithful, just like Mary. Any Christian in heaven has the power in heaven to hear prayers. That's Catholic teaching. Yes.

Okay. My question is, we could talk about that too. That's in revelations. The prayers rising up to the saints in heaven. That's a, that's a revelation scene. Revelation, yeah. So this idea of praying to the saints in heaven is a revelation's concept. Yes, we would disagree on what that actually means and if the people who are in heaven are carrying prayers to God. My question about Mary, okay, whatever her power is, she is set apart. from the other saints, the mother of God. Yeah, I mean, come on. You say a rosary.

She's the mother of Jesus. You say a rosary every day. Yeah. But the rosary is meditating on the life of Christ, to be clear. The rosary isn't an obsession with Mary per se, although she's pretty amazing. The rosary is a meditation on the life of Christ. It's literally a meditation on the scenes of the gospel because you have the different mysteries of the rosary.

The whole idea of praying those prayers is to get into a meditative sort of habit of thinking about what you're praying about, which is, you know, and the joyful mysteries, right? It's the nativity of Jesus, you know, it's the initiation when the angel comes to Mary. And then you have the visitation when Elizabeth comes to Mary. And then you have the birth and nativity of Jesus Christ, da-da-da. Which we all believe is inerrant and beautiful and good. And we should be reflecting all of those.

But Mary is special in Catholic doctrine, of course, not just as the mother of Jesus, but she's discussed a lot. And I hear a lot. Mother Mary pray for us. Well, she's discussed a lot because she is the mother of Jesus, to be clear. Yes. More so than in Protestantism, though, it's definitely a different level of honoring within Catholicism. My question is, if she is to be honored in that way, if she is to be prayed to, and I know that she is, Catholics pray through her.

Why don't we ever see that in Acts? Why don't we see that in any of the epistles? Like, why is she never mentioned once? Why does Jesus rebuff every attempt to honor her in a special way, except, for one time when he's on the cross. Why don't we see any example of praying to or through Mary in that way in Scripture at all? You do see it in Scripture. In the epistles in the early church in Acts? You see it in scriptures most importantly in the life of Jesus Christ and what he said and how he interacted with his mother. It's kind of rude sometimes. I think to us it seems like. Well,

I think with a modern lens you might consider it rudeness, but we know that God is not rude. And Jesus was never rude to his mother. Yes. Jesus had the greatest respect. cross that way. And I think he did, of course. That's a modern lens though, Callie. I think of course he did respect his mother. Can I read you from Holy Scripture? Sure. You said, what is Mary's, there's nothing about Mary and not much about Mary in Scripture, not much about Mary in Scripture. There's actually a lot about Mary in Scripture. Well, I didn't say not much about Mary in Scripture. I said that there's nothing in the epistles or an axe that shows us to pray to or through Mary or honor her as the queen of heaven. She was probably still around quietly doing the Lord's work. That's probably why.

But don't you think she would have been talked about at all? Not necessarily. Like you don't think Paul would have written about it? Not necessarily, no. I mean, there might have been letters that we don't have that Paul wrote specifically to women saying, you know, learn from the mother of Jesus. I don't know. But that's not. We don't know.

But what you do know is this. This is from Holy Scripture. This is the Magnificat when Mary is praising the Lord for choosing her to carry his son. But she says, my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day, all generations will call me blessed. For the Almighty has done great things for me.

From this day, all generations will call me blessed. And that is what Catholics are doing and some Protestants to this day. Literally when they pray the rosary and when they honor Mary and when they celebrate, Mary the mother of Jesus. Yeah. I don't think that we disagree in calling her blessed. But I don't think you can. Obviously she was very blessed.

but we don't believe that she is carrying our prayers to Jesus or that she has the ability to do that or that she's the queen of heaven. Well, just to be clear, when you say- Or that she was immaculately conceived. Just to be clear, when she's carrying our prayers to Jesus, we can pray directly to Jesus. We should, and to the Holy Spirit and to God the Father, to the whole Trinity. Mary isn't meant to be a mother for all Christians. Like Jesus gave her upon his death on the cross before he took his last breath. He said, behold your mother and behold your son.

Everything Jesus did was with intention in Holy Scripture and what is passed on by the first. you know, by those who, you know, wrote, recorded, right, by the disciples who recorded it. And when Jesus said, behold your mother, behold your son, that wasn't just a little thing randomly for John. That was just got happened to be included. Because remember, I think it was St. John wrote, if all the things could be recorded, it would take endless tomes to record them of the life of Jesus Christ. So it's impossible to include it all.

They chose to include that alley. There's a reason they chose to include that. Because Mary is not meant to just be, you know, God is endlessly generous. Christ is an enlistly generous. Everything he did was for the good of Christians, right? Long term into eternity. His mother is also for our good to be an intercessor for us and to be a role model for us. That doesn't mean his prayer. We can't go directly to Christ, but I ask you, Allie, can you pray for me? I just asked my husband this morning, can you pray for me? Can I go to Jesus myself? Of course I can. But why wouldn't I want the saints in heaven who are forever glorifying God in

perfect communion with him to pray for me in a special way, Mama Mary, who Jesus literally gave to his disciples to be a mother and then by transfer to the rest of Christendom. How do you interpret this verse in Luke 8, starting in 19? Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you, but he answered them, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God in do it. So Jesus has multiple opportunities in scripture to specifically call out Mary and honor Mary

above the others, and he chooses not to repeatedly. So I disagree with that. I think he does frequently honor his mother, especially that first thing in the wedding feast at Cana when he talks about do whatever she tells you. He literally gives the command for the events and solving the problem of there's no wine. We're out of wine. It's embarrassing for the guests. The steward comes, over and says there's no wine and he says basically talk to my mother about it she she will do it and then he performs the miracle she prompts the first miracle um but to to luke eight so it you can say like you said um at first and by the way i want to tell everyone about this app it's called truthly and it is an AI app that has all of faith and morals theologically and morally correct unlike your typical

AI so it's called truthly but you just type in does luke eight disrespect mary right in some way right And I probably shouldn't have said that earlier, disrespect, because like you said, and you said it completely rightly, it's not possible for Jesus to be rude or to be disrespectful. But what I meant by that is if we are looking for Jesus to give her special treatment, it might seem to us. Well, he rebuffed her, actually. Well, it's not a rebuff. It's a teaching opportunity. And, and, you know, quite frankly, Ali, we weren't there, but I'm going to guess, like, Mary knew. Mary was very wise and loving and obedient. She knew, you knew, like, the Lord is going to teach through this. And, you know, this is truthfully's explanation, which is based on the catechism,

by the way, but it says, you know, Catholic teaching emphasizes, at first it might seem as if Jesus is downplaying his relationship with Mary. However, Catholic teaching emphasizes that this passage is not about disrespecting Mary, but rather expanding the understanding of spiritual kinship. In fact, Mary is the perfect example of someone who hears the word of God. So it was a side praise and does it for yes to God. Therefore, this passage underscores her exemplary role in hearing and obeying God word. So it's basically saying, you're not special just because you're my biological mother. You're special because you said yes to God. And he's using this moment to say, all of you can be special too. It's not just my mother who is special chosen by me.

Of course, she is extremely special. But I'm inviting you all to be children of my mother, to be brothers and sisters of me by hearing my word and acting on it. So he's beautifully allowing Mary to be an example of what true Christian living means. Okay, last thing I just want to clarify in the wedding at the wedding at Kana or Kana, I guess you can pronounce it like that. Jesus said to her, so Mary says they have no wine. Jesus said to her, woman, what does that have to do with me? My hour has, my hour has not yet come. And then his mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you.

So not do whatever Mary tells you. No, no, yeah. You're right. Of course. I'm sorry if I'm so. To me, it seems like Jesus had the opportunity to revere Mary in certain ways and he didn't. And obviously that's not what Catholic doctrine teaches. and I'm not trying to close this off.

Oh, you're saying you don't think he was respecting her with that or revering her with that. No, I don't think he was especially revering her to the point that Catholic doctrine teaches. I promise we will have a part two, but I've gotten multiple messages, and I want people to hear fully and honestly what the Catholic perspective is, and so I'm not trying to cut Lila off at all. We can have a part two. We can do it on her show. Allie's the best. Go to her show and you can see all of her amazing work, and she does absolutely incredible.

incredible work and the anti-abortion pro-life movement. And I am so thankful for her. And I'm so thankful that we can have these discussions and still be friends and be passionate about it and still respect to the heck out of each other. So I will always support Lila and so grateful for that. And you too, I'm a huge fan of yours. Yes. Well, thank you so much for this spirited discussion. It was super fun. And I hope people liked it. I hope people weren't too stressed out. Thank you so much, they're like stressing over here. And I did I misspeak. Did I say do whatever she tells you? I met. I did not mean to say that. You might have her. I could have misheard it, but just in case other people heard it the way I did. Well, thank you so much. Thanks, Allie.