The Exorcist Files - The Mother of God Vs The Demonic

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Father Martins does a deep dive into the history and theology of Mary and the enormous implications of her role in spiritual warfare. Part 1- 0-20 minutes- History and Theology of MaryPart 2- 20:-40 minutes Mary and Spiritual WarfarePart 3- 40-60- Protestant questions and objections to Marian Dogmas Head to http://lumen.me/EXFILES for 20% off your purchase.Download Echo Prayer for free and make prayer a daily habit. Visit echoprayer.com or find Echo in the App Store.Check out "The Lion" for all your news needs. Completely free. Want to honor God with every step? Check out WeareUnitus.com and use promo code EXFILES for 10% off your orderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So all Mary had to do was turn her head and cast her glance in his general direction. And that and that alone robbed the devil and his demons of their power. Now, this is a singular privilege possessed by the Virgin of All the Saints. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files. Today we bring you another of our season two bonus episodes to satiate your supernatural appetite, as we await the release of the final case files for season two. We know you love the dramatic episodes. We do too.

They do take a minute, though. And again, we've put out 12 dramatic episodes for season two already. So if you haven't caught up on them, do check them out. Today's episode is actually one of our most requested ones, the Mother of God, aka the Virgin Mary, and her unique role in spiritual warfare. Father Martins will guide us on a discussion of this very important topic, including a little history and, of course, theology.

On a personal note, I really enjoyed this episode because while there is significant theological divergence among Catholics and Protestants, when discussing the theology of Mary, it was a beautiful refresher to go back and just ruminate and meditate on the significance of Mary's yes. Truly, we are blessed because of a yes.

We also want to thank a sponsor today, and that is The Lion. The Lion brings you incredible up-to-date reporting that's completely free, and it's an amazing news site. Don't you want to impress your friends with all your knowledge? There's nothing quite like a well-referenced news article to make you seem like you're well-read and erudite. So go to readthelion.com.

That's read like read your Bible, the, like the word, and lion, like Lion of Judah. And go absorb some facts about what is happening in the world today. Trust me, there's a lot, as any quick Google search will render. People might even mistake you for King Solomon himself with all your newfound knowledge. Check out readthe lion.com and cement your image as a learned listener today. On a final and more somber note, last week father had some harsh words regarding the consumption of oatmeal, which prompted many theological questions and emails to the show. So we do want to say unequivocally, no, oatmeal has no bearing unholyness.

He just really doesn't like it. We apologize to all our oat consumers out there. Enjoy your oats for breakfast, but he won't be. Now, on to the show. All right, welcome back to The Exorcist Files. We are bringing you another much anticipated extra special bonus episode, which you, the dear listeners, made possible. Thank you so much for all your support. This is a really interesting topic and an important one.

It's something that has been a subject of some debate, but also it's a subject that actually has a lot of tie-ins to spiritual warfare. So we are really excited to bring you this episode and here to walk us through this topic is Father Carlos Martins. Father, thanks for joining us. Hey, Ryan, hey, everyone. Good to be here with you all. Father, how excited are you to talk about the mother of God and her trouncing the demonic? Yeah, very excited. You know, theologically, it's a very important topic. It's very important. You know, Mary is honored by both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. And so the vast majority of Christians throughout the world acknowledge her as having an exalted place, meaning that she was a singular and unique instrument in the salvation of mankind. Because Mary is the gun,

if you will, through which the bullet that mortally wounded the devil and all of the fruits that he ushered in, sin, sickness, and death, she is the gun by which the bullet was launched that killed him. And Christ, of course, being the bullet, but she was that instrument. And so we thank her, honoring her and acknowledge that among all the Christians, among all the saints, among all the intercessors, she is endeared to God in a singular way. So, Father, I think before we start here, just since we do have a lot of listeners who come from different religious backgrounds, could you just give us a quick primer? We know Mary is the mother of God, and there's no debate about that in Christianity. But historically, when did she live? What was her living situation?

Give just a little refresher on the mother of God and her early. earthly life, what was going on at the time? Yeah, so Mary was a young girl. When I say young girl, you know, most scholars agree that she would have been around 14, 15 years old. This was the marrying age for young women at the time, so that sexual maturity made one capable of getting married. So there is no scandal in the text because of her age. And that coalesces with everything that We know by way of history and archaeology within the Jewish culture of the time, that this was a normal age for a young girl to get married. We don't know anything about her background from the scriptures itself. In other words, there's no reason to believe that externally there was anything remarkable about her.

We know that she was from Nazareth because that's where she married from Nazareth in Nazareth. and then while pregnant went to Bethlehem. From Bethlehem, of course, the Holy Family went to Egypt until Herod was done and then were called back to Israel. And our Lord was raised in Nazareth. So there is very little scripturally pertaining to Our Lady. What is there is incredibly rich. But her last words are spoken at the wedding Akina. which is telling and significant because the inauguration of Christ's ministry begins with her intervention.

She comes to him and says, look, they've got no wine. And what he says to her is so telling, woman, what is this to you and to me? My hour has not yet come. In other words, why is this such a big deal? and the hour for my inaugurating, my ministry is not upon us. And her answer to him is to tell to the servants and look at them in the eye and say, whatever he tells you to do, you do. And then, of course, we know what happens.

The water is changed into wine and the married couple is preserved from shame and embarrassment. And, you know, would the world have stopped if, They ran out of wine. No, they would have been embarrassed, but life would have moved on, and today no one would know about it. But because she intervened, 2,000 years later, we are talking about that wedding. We are talking about that situation. And that intercessory power that she had, that the prevailing of her intervention with

her son is not lost on Catholic and Orchurch. Orthodox Christians, that he revised the timeline for the inauguration of his ministry because of her intercession. And so Catholics and Orthodox Christians see within Our Lady the intercessor par excellence. Now, this isn't because she's more powerful than her son, but it is within God's plan. It is foreseen by him. It is desired by him. That She exercises a ministry, and he responds. This isn't because she overpowers him, but he delights in having her exercise of ministry of intercession on behalf of the world, on behalf of Christians over him.

And so we have here within our lady, within Mary, the Blessed Mother, the Mother of God, the Ever Virgin Mary, all different titles for the same. same person. We have somebody here who has exercised a singular place of influence over God incarnate. Okay. And Father, what do we know about Joseph, too? Is he much older than her? Do we know? And is it most likely historically an arranged marriage? What do we know about Joseph? Again, we know very little. We know that he was also from Nazareth. We know that because it took place in Nazareth. But also, we know archaeologically. There's a kind of unbroken, record, an ancient record that he lived there and, in fact, that his workshop is there. We know

exactly where the workshop of Joseph was to this day. Now, Joseph, there is very little mentioned about him. We don't know his age. Is it likely that he was older than her? Yes. Why? Because, well, he already had an established business. He was already a carpenter. That meant he had some kind of footprint professionally. Was he married prior? And that is possible. It's possible. What gives us a clue that that might be the case? Well, at a certain point, there's a reference to Jesus' brothers and sisters. Now, that word is a generic word that means close relatives. In other words, it can include cousins as well. So your cousins were also called your brothers and sisters. However, it could be the case that those brothers and sisters were stepbrothers and step sisters from a previous marriage

that Joseph had and his wife, his partner may have died, thereby enabling him to free up to marry again. We don't know this is the case, but it doesn't contradict what is written in scripture. They married one another, and Joseph, as we know from the scriptures, was informed that Mary was pregnant. She said she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, it says, being a righteous man, wanted to divorce her, like this was, of course, a violation of their union. In other words, he didn't believe her that she's pregnant by the Holy Spirit. He's going to divorce her, but he was going to do so quietly so as to not bring her any shame. Shame also meant a death sentence because you would have been stoned to death.

He didn't want that to happen. He didn't want vengeance upon her, but was fulfilling what was demanded of him in the moral law, a divorce because they were already betrothed. So they were already married, but that had not yet come together to live under the same roof. There was not an opportunity for the physical consummation of the marriage. So in this time, she says to him, hey, I'm pregnant, but don't worry, it's a baby brought about by the Holy Spirit. And, you know, of course, he's hurt. He's incredulous at this and wants to divorce her.

Then in a dream, this is the remarkable attentiveness to the word that Joseph had. In a dream, he's told, don't be afraid to take her as your wife because this child is from the Holy Spirit. take her to be your wife, his name will be Jesus, and that's exactly what he does. So that, from all of the other junk that can come to us in our sleep, all the other illusions, the nonsense, the Jabberwocky, that can come to us in our sleep in dreams, in comes this word, and he can distinguish it as the truth from God, from everything else. This is how attentive to the word Joseph was, how pure of heart, because he could distinguish the truth from all of the other junk that can assail us when we're in our sleeping state.

So he takes her to be his wife, and then, of course, you know, like, he never utters a word in scripture. His presence is there, but he never utters a word. At some point, we know that he died because he's never mentioned again. beyond Christ's adolescence where he was found in the temple, there's no other mention of him again. There's no other mention. And so this means that Christ would have witnessed his earthly father, his foster father, die in front of him. And so another way in which Christ subsumed the human condition, where he had to watch his father give up his life.

And there was nothing he can do about it because he had not been yet empowered by his father to bring about an end to death, which happened at his baptism, where he was once again given his divine power, which he had surrendered at his incarnation. Right. We're told in Philippians, though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God, something to be taken advantage of. rather he emptied himself. And the word empty there is conosis, which means a complete emptying, such that whatever was there before, when you empty something to the level of conosis, whatever was there before is completely wiped out and the vessel is cleaned out of those contents. There's nothing left of what it once held. Now, he didn't surrender his divine identity because that's impossible. He always was God, always will be God, can never not be God. But he said,

surrendered his divine power. And so that power meant he couldn't have performed any miracles even if he wanted to as he was growing up. He was subject entirely and completely to our human condition. So at the side of his father as he's dying, and I mean, this doesn't appear in scriptures, but it's easy to conjecture. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could do. He had to accept it like any human must accept death. men, Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Christ. 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

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who God is calling you to be in the new year. It starts January 20th. So go to Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to join tens of thousands of men from all over the world for Exodus 90. Again, it begins Monday, January 20th. God bless you. So they would have been Orthodox Jews in a time when Rome was running the show, and they were well aware of a prophesied Messiah, right?

This was something that would have made their experience all the more extraordinary because all the Jews at this point were probably crying out to God and hopeful that a Messiah was going to come rescue them, right? Absolutely. And I'm interesting, in the scriptures, Gabriel doesn't tell. So Mary is visited by an angel, obviously Gabriel. And he doesn't mention exactly that Jesus is the quote Savior, right? But he does mention that she's aware that she's carrying someone of immense import, right?

She is. And the fact that there's this miraculous conception here, she as being an educated Jew, the importance of that is not going to be lost on her. So we can't interpret that through a modern lens. We are not Jews. We have not been raised as Jews, but the entire Jewish enterprise was a preparation for and a reception of the coming Messiah. So when this momentous thing happens to her, right? So this being comes to her and she knows it's not fake.

She knows that an agent of God is talking to her. How do we know? Because she says, let it be done to me according to your word. right so she accepts even though she doesn't understand and the text is very clear about that her response initially is how can this be how can this be let's look at what the offer is that is presented to her there's a verb tense that is used when when the angel says you are going to bear a child it's not the verb tense like it means in english you're going to sometime in the indefinite future this is going to happen to you one day because that wouldn't have been shocking for her. She's about to get married for crying out

loud. So what do married couples do? Well, they perform an act that results in children. So this wouldn't have perplexed her the way she was perplexed. But the verb tense that was used in the Greek is, God is going to do this to you now. It's happening to you now. It's about to happen right now. That's a unique verb tense, right? Greek is an immensely precise language. It has much more precision than English does. It has a range of tenses we don't possess in English. We have to use other language to express the same verb tense. So she's met with incredulity, or the news is met with incredulity by her. How can this be? I know not man. There's no guy around. How can this happen. The Holy Spirit is going to overshadow you. Now, look at the language that's used here. In the

marital act, one partner is typically overshadowed by the other, right? There's a disappearing of one partner beneath the other partner. This is the language that God chooses. The Holy Spirit is going to overshadow you. And the child that is going to be born into your room will be called the son of the most high. Bingo. This son is going to be different than any other son who has ever come in history. The meaning of this would have not been lost on her. She knows exactly who she's carrying. Wow. And again, we're going to get to the spiritual warfare aspect here. But before we leave our historical corners of the episode here, just, Father, put into context, we've heard this story a lot. We know how scandalous this must have been. But I mean, for Joseph, this would have been, like,

extraordinarily almost impossible to believe, right? And in the time period, like, to have another woman get pregnant outside of wedlock, that is a huge deal and definitely would result in her demise, right? It would have. Yeah. And so it is a big deal. But it goes to show you the level of virtue and spirituality that Joseph had. Joseph was not just a decent guy and a good provider with an adequate job that God the father selects for his special daughter, Mary of Nazareth, and frankly for his own spouse, she has become his spouse by virtue of her consent. This is a guy who he has picked, because of his attentiveness to the word, the formation he has, this is going to be the foster father that is going to form his own son.

This is not just some loser who works pretty good in the bowling league, who is able to pay down his credit card debt in a reasonably timely manner, who keeps a regular supply of beer in the fridge and never quite runs out. No, no, no. This is somebody who is going to take care of the Holy Family, because without Joseph, there would be no Holy Family. There would be an unwed mother and her child. Joseph is the one that makes the Holy Family to be a family. And look at what happens. After the child is born, you know, he's told to take the child to Egypt. So that desert between Nazareth and Egypt is such a deadly place to walk through.

It's incredibly hot by day. It's inhospitable by night because of the coldness. It is the place of bandits, robbers. So putting this in perspective, Alexander the Great and Ramo, Hitler's general, they both went through that desert, but with great trepidation, with great anxiety, because of how formidable that desert is. Joseph is the guy that God the Father empowers to take and places the responsibility on his shoulders to do that trek with his wife and their newborn child. Right. So this is not a nobody. This is not a loser. This is a loser. This is

somebody who's going to have more manhood in the smallest pimple on his rear end than a ramble or a Terminator has in his entire being within the movies. This is going to be the tough guy par excellence, right, who can take all of this in stride without complaining and who's going to view himself as fulfilling God's will. This is a heroic man. And it's for this reason that the universal church, that the Catholic Church selects Joseph as its universal patron. So the church has always been personified as a female. The church is called a she. Like ships are called shees. They're personified as females. Joseph is invoked as the universal protector of the church because of this nature that he has, this toughness, this grit.

and he was the one that was asked to protect Our Lady and her son. This is the one that the church asks for her own protection. All right, well, that has been our little history corner. I think it's time to get to a little spiritual warfare. Father, could you give us a high-level overview? Why are we covering this topic? And why is Mary, the mother of God, so relevant to spiritual warfare? Yeah, well, Our Lady was so important in the divine plan.

you know, she was the instrument that God used to bring about the Savior. She was the gun through which God fired the bullet. So a gun is useless without a bullet. But you know what? A bullet is ineffective without a gun. Now, you know, to be very clear, Jesus is the soul and unique mediator over Satan and everything that Satan inaugurated in the world, sin, sickness, death. Christ and Christ alone defeated Satan. He purchased the eternal victory for mankind. Full stop.

But that victory was enabled by Mary. She paved the way through her yes. God came up with the plan of the victory, but it was fulfilled only because she said yes to it. And this is why we call Mary the New Eve. Right. So note well. how the devil achieved his victory in Eden. He didn't go to Adam and tempt him. He went to Eve, and he seduced her with a lie. So he promised her that she would be like God, so would Adam, if she defied God and ate the forbidden fruit. Now, because Eve was Adam's helpmate, he trusted her.

And when she presented the sordid plan to him, he consented, which then caused the fall. His consent is what caused the fall. This is not to say that Adam had no fault, listening to Eve's suggestion that he violate the commandment of God was the greatest and most catastrophic mistake in history. It was his fault. But the devil as being the most cutting of creatures, we're told, saw within them a potential weakness. If I go to Adam directly, he's going to stamp me out.

but I'm going to go to her and I'm going to bank that he won't and if I'm able to seduce her, then he won't be able to say no to her, then I'm going to imagine that she has some kind of power over him. And I'm going to see if I can exploit that. That's exactly what happened. So whatever it was, the serpent who is described as the most cunning of all creatures spotted within the dynamic, spotted within their dynamic a weakness that could be exploited. But in a parallel and marvelous way,

God's plan to bring about the redemption of the world was a kind of copying of what the devil did. The devil went to Eve with his plan. God went to Mary with his plan. Eve consented. Mary consented. But contrary to betraying God, which Eve did, believed the words of God and obeyed. And she did this without understanding. See, Eve was

beguiled. Mary met with trust, not with a knowledge, not with an exhaustive knowledge anyway, but with enough knowledge that it was rational for her to believe. It was rational for her to believe. She trusted. She had faith, which is the very thing that Eve did not have. So, contrary to betraying God, Mary believed the words in the gospel and obeyed. And that agreement, her consent, her saying yes, paved the way for the incarnation of the Messiah, which happened immediately upon her consent. And so that then inaugurated the rest of the plan, which from that point was fullproof because the agent of that plan was God himself, incarnate as Jesus Christ. But the inauguration of that plan depended upon the very contingent

assent of this young virgin in Nazareth. It depended upon her, yes. Now, what is her place in in spiritual warfare? Well, look, name somebody in history. who was 100% faithful to God's plan. Well, other than Mary, there is nobody. And so it only makes sense that with her turned loose against the devil, that she's going to be the most wounding of all the saints. And I want to just read for you an account here. And this is from a marvelous biography by Father Francois,

and it's the biography of St. Bernardet's, the visionary of lords. It's published by Tan Books. Unfortunately, it appears to be out of print. But my gosh, if you can get a copy of this biography or any biography by Father Trotschou, it is worth its weight and gold. But in this account, he narrates for us during one of the apparitions, demons started yelling towards the apparition. They were in the River Gav. So the Grotto at Lourdes, right next to it, the River Gav runs along it. And from the water, there was this horatheur.

terrific disruption trying to interrupt the apparition. And listen to how he describes it. Bernardette revealed how at a certain moment the apparition seemed different from before. Suddenly loud yells belched from the gav had rent the sacred silence of Massabiel. They challenged, crossed, collided with one another, like the clamor of a brawling crowd. One voice, more furious than the rest, dominated them all and worried out. get out of here, get out of here. Bernadette guessed rightly that the threatening curse was by no means directed merely to her humble self, but was an attack directed beyond her to the vision of light standing above the eglotene.

The vision merely glanced in the direction of the rushing stream. So the virgin in her apparition merely turned her head and glanced in the direction. of where the sounds were coming from. This single look, one of sovereign authority, reduced the invisible mob to silence. The enemy of all good would not drive her from the grotto where she gave her audiences. That's it. That's the quote.

So all Mary had to do was turn her head and cast her glance in his general direction. and that alone robbed the devil and his demons of their power. Now, this is a singular privilege possessed by the Virgin of all the saints. 1 Samuel 2.30, those who honor me, I will honor. This isn't just a promise from God. It's also a verse printed on Unitus shoes.

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Or as always, you can just click the link in the show notes. All right, so Father, we've mentioned in the show several accounts about first-hand witnesses saying how much the demons revile Mary, how you have had your team seeing Christmas carols over victims. Can you share with us some anecdotes? For anyone who's just doubting some of this or saying, well, I don't know, we can say, hey, here's an exorcist and your fellow exorcist, I'm sure have also anecdotes. But walk us through some of your firsthand accounts and then maybe colleagues of yours and the role Mary has played in exorcism and deliverance. Yeah, gosh, there's so many.

It's hard to know where to begin. But I remember at one point, you know, I said to my team, let's invoke the blessed mother. Boom. Immediately the demon said, leave that. And then he uttered a word that I'm just not going to repeat. It was a terrible, ugly word, an expletive in reference to her. He said, leave that. blank out of this. All right. So, well, what do you think our next move is going to be? If we hate you

because of what you are and the misery that you are invoking, what do you think we're going to do when you express that you hate a heavenly being? Well, we're going to invoke that being twice as hard as we were. You know, depending upon how many people you can get on any particular exorcism day on your team, you know, and obviously more is better than less, if you can get more than what you need, say, more than the bare minimum for an exorcism, well, so much the better, because you have more intercessors, for example. And I have some always praying the rosary. And, you know, the dialogue may have happened an hour and 15 minutes where you're talking about this, that, and the other thing, with the demon. You may have

demon switching. And then all of a sudden, just randomly out of the blue, you're having a dialogue, an interrogation back and forth, and then he just pipes up, why don't you tell those people to shut up? So what he is revealing is that in the midst of all of that time, those prayers were really wounding him, even though there was nothing external, nothing audible that he revealed, that disclosed that, but they actually are wounding him. And, you know, the rosary is made up of 50 Hail Mary's. And part and parcel of, of that prayer is pray for us now and at the hour of our death. So when you're asking this saint among the saints for those prayers, well, what do you think she's doing? She's actually praying now.

She's participating in that session, in the prayers with you. And the demon disclosed that very thing. How much it bothers them. I've talked before, when I talked about the exorcism, we did where we invoked Elijah. The feast day was Our Lady of Mount Carmel. And Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a feast day commemorating Our Lady in a title that links her to Mount Carmel in Israel. Mount Carmel is the mountain where the prophet Elijah slit the throats of the 450 prophets of Baal, of the God Baal. And, you know, it just so happened that the exorcism that did was happening on July 16th, Feast Day of Our Lady Mount Carrable. Oh, my goodness.

It was that day that the Prophet Ball, who was that main possessing spirit, when he was evicted. And what happened is we had somebody read that account, a deacon read that account from the scriptures, and the demon just went wild. And we knew something major was happening because as soon as the account was read, that ball cried out in audible agony. And the significance of this was that he was a mute spirit and never talked. So we looked at one another, like, wow, this is a big deal.

So we said that he'd keep reading it. When you get to the end, just start over again, keep reading, and keep reading, keep reading it. And all of this was because of that feast day. So Elijah showed up, but the very day itself was linked to our lady. she was invoked, and all of a sudden she sends the prophet who is tasked to do battle with ball once again. So, Father, obviously, the demons revile many saints, and obviously their ire is expressed towards anything godly, but you have seen personally just a unique reaction from demons at the mere mention of Mary's name? Oh, absolutely. Disgust, a fear, a hatred.

it's never neutral. It's never neutral. Even if it's just nothing more than a wince, there's always something. It's not a neutral response from the demon. Even if it's a belittling laughter, that laughter itself is already a response. He's already revealing his hand. He's trying to make you think, okay, well, that doesn't work on me. But we know better.

We know better. The fact that you're reacting, the fact that you're not. remaining neutral, is itself already a disclosure of the disdain and the fear that you have for her because of the power she possesses over you? And Father, this might be my heretic side showing, and this may sound like semantics, but when Protestants hear about the litany of the saints and they say, okay, wow, if we had access to all this sort of hall of fame of Christian warriors and prayer warriors, naturally the litany of the saints would make sense. Like, let's get everyone involved in this. But given Mary's unique role, is this something,

where you would always start, like, there's no reason not to have Mary join in the fun of vanquishing the demons, right? Because you've talked about how some demons have specific nemesis, et cetera, but as I hear that, I would go, you would just make sense to get as much help in the room as possible, especially if they have a unique hatred towards one, right? Well, yeah, for sure. And you do. You do. Like, the right of exorcism begins with the litany of the saints. And in the litany of the saints, among the saints, she's invoked first, right? So she heads the pack, so to speak. Got it. So, Father, I guess maybe this is a bit of a technical question, but after the litany of the saints, would an exorcist or yourself ask for additional intercession, or is the litany sort of cover it and saying, hey, anyone who can help out here join us? No, you would ask for additional, sure. Like, you invoke and you pray from the heart, right? Like, the prayers of the right, are formalized, but you're not bound to just to them, right? You open a vein and you invoke your own interstate.

session in your own way. I mean, that's the way that I pray in the midst of all of this. You know, in boldness, I go to God and I go to the saints. I go to Our Lady and I say, look, please get involved here. We come before you. And that's a way to focus myself as well, right? Like, the audible prayer is a way to dispose you and your own faith as its own weapon. Right. The devil fears faith unlike anything else. So your manifestation of faith is kryptonite to him. It robs him of power. It terrifies him.

So I verbalize that in many different ways. I come back to it. I pick it up. I may go back into formal prayers. I may not. I may just go into informal prayers. I may pray silently. I may pray with relics and apply the relics.

I may pray through the application of a crucifix to the head of the victim and invoking, silently invoking, the crucified Lord. So all of these are different ways to pray. Is one better than the other? Well, I don't really even think like that. What you're doing is you're introducing a package. The whole package is the grand weapon. And I don't worry about distinguishing it to all of its many parts. Like if you're praying the right of exorcism, it's important to pray it well, to be exactly.

act with it because it is an official prayer of the church. So you do that. But it's not to say that in the midst of it, you can't do other things in addition. All right. That makes sense. And Father, real quick, are there any established relics that we have of Mary? Sure. Yeah. We have items of her clothing. We have her tunic, which, for lack of a better word, would be dress. The bulk of what's left of it is kept at Schott in France. We have her veil. Her veil is kept at the Church of St. Anastasia in Rome. It was brought by St. Jerome from Palestine,

and it has been venerated from the fourth century at St. Anestasia. And prior to that, in Jerusalem, because she was assumed into heaven, the church believes, from Jerusalem. This is what the tradition tells us. We have other relics besides that were left, then, in the possession of the Apostle.

vessels. So these were relics that were never outside the possession of the church. In other words, they were not, quote, unquote, discovered. They were never found. They were never found because they were never lost. They were left in the possession of the church when she was assumed body and soul, but it's not to say that her belongings were assumed with her. They remained. Maybe this will help because we're going to get into some of the Marian doctrine and some of the areas that divide different denominations. But, Father, what does tradition tell us? about the rest of her life, and then how would we have gained these relics? One thing I appreciate when I went to visit Rome on the trip where actually I was referred to you is that they always

use language, high degree of confidence, not absolute, recognizing that history is sort of gray in some of these areas, but walk us through how we would have confidence in Mary's veil and clothing and how the end of her life where she ended up and how this would have been stewarded by the apostles. You know, so I'll tell you this. We have the historical of these garments so that from the third century we have this veil which is kept at St. Tena's Station in Rome. We have the presence, the existence of that veil, which was brought from Palestine by Jerome. But that veil itself, portions of it, tiny little thread fragments of it through the centuries have been removed and distributed for worldwide veneration.

So I have one of those in my custody. And I use that with an exorcism. And the demon's reaction is visceral. So I don't need any other evidence. The evidence is right in front of me, because if this was just any old cloth that was got from a fourth century Walmart or Target or any other department store, it would be valueless. But the fact that there is a visible reaction, that already tells us everything. And I guess, Father, do you think there's something to, if someone held up a relic and they in full faith believed this had touched what of the true cross, that God would still back that play and the Dima would react to that faith sort of infused into that? Or is that defeat the purpose of it actually having touched the true cross?

No, because I've seen relics that have been bogus that people have used and invoked in good faith, in good faith. So, of course, one of the things I am, I'm an expert on relics. I'm an expert on spotting authentic versus counterfeit relics. It's one of my specialties. And put it this. way. I don't know someone who is my equal in the world today. I don't know someone who has seen as many as I have and and I say this humbly, but I do say it factually, someone who has the respect that I've garnered within this. And I have encountered exorcists who have been given what they thought was an authentic relic and it really wasn't. And I can tell because the seal on it has been faked. It doesn't belong to a known churchman. And I know that it's

fake, right? Just like a member of the U.S. Secret Service can identify that a $100 bill is fake because it's fake. It doesn't match what an authentic bill looks like and it doesn't have the characteristics of an authentic bill. So those, I'll ask, did you ever notice a reaction with this? And the answer is always invariably, no. Well, then there you go. That's all you need to know. Now, what complicates it is the fact that sometimes you can have an authentic relic and it still produces no visible reaction. And what's the reason for that? Well, in the mystery of God, we don't fully know. But that saint may not be the way or the saint through whom God desires this possession to end. It will wound the demon. It will. But it may not be a visceral wounding. And,

what you want to find if it can be found is the saint that will bring that about. So I bring many relics. I don't apply just one. I apply a great number of them to try to find who is one here that is really going to produce the effect that we want. And sometimes you may know why that effect is produced. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's not obvious. And for us, you know, our job is to just do the good and invoke God to bring about the outcome he desires.

In his graciousness, he may bestow upon us the knowledge to know the cause and effect of A and B. Sometimes he doesn't. And we just have to live with that. Okay. So no placebo effect with relics, right, Father? Correct. All right. So, Father, you mentioned the assumption of marrying to heaven. So let's get to a little more of our divisive corner here where, Father, theologically, for most of church history, what has the church agreed on with Mary? And I'll say this as a Protestant, I think a lot of our tradition has thrown out the baby with the bathwater in the sense that as a reaction to some of the Catholic doctrine, there seems to be a lack of reverence for Mary. And I've often thought to myself,

if the mother of Jesus Christ walked into your restaurant, you would get the finest table. You would bring out the wine. I mean, I just think about how excited I get if I meet an athlete. I'm a fan of, right? I mean, if you met the person who basically said yes and helped make all of us reconciled with God, that's a huge deal. And so I will say just at the onset, I think there is a lack of reverence that has happened there. But, Father, maybe you could start us off with, the church just had tremendous agreement on this. And I think a lot of folks are not aware of this, right? Correct. Now, let's start with just a little history. So, Father, maybe just as the consensus, can you walk us through Theotokos? Could you walk us through a little bit of what does the church

agreed on about Mary for the first 1,500 years? Right. So Mary is the Theotokos, which means God bearer. She bore God. And so there's a number of things that the Catholic and Orthodox churches have believed that that entails. So among other things, it means that she had to be sinless, that her nature had to be without spot. All right. So using theological terms, that she would have had to have original sin. And why is this? Why is this? Well, and this is a question I'll ask you, Ryan. Does God need a savior for himself? God would not need a savior for himself. He is that he is, right? Correct. But he would need a savior if there was anything in his nature that was less than perfect in his incarnation. And he would have if he had received his human nature

from a woman who was less than perfect. Original sin would have been a human. Original sin would have been in his very human nature, which is absurd. He himself, the Savior, would himself be in need of a Savior, which is an absurdity. So it had to be that his nature was itself preserved from original sin. And that means that she herself had to be, otherwise she would have passed it on to him. So we call this the immaculate conception, the conception of our lady that by which she was preserved from the stain of original sin. She wasn't preserved before her creation because then she wouldn't need a savior herself. She needed a savior. She was saved by the passion, death,

and resurrection of Christ, but she was saved in a unique way, in a way different than everybody else. It didn't come after because she would have already had that defect within her, right? That the original sin would have been in her nature. So she was preserved at the moment of her conception. Through the future merits, future in terms of time, but in eternity, there's no past, present and future. If it is true that Christ is the savior of the world, then it was always true to say that he is the savior of the world, even when that occurred before, even before time, even before temporally speaking, the event occurred. So this is the necessity by which the belief of the immaculate conception is there,

that her nature is sinless, of pertaining not only to actual sin, committed sin, but even original sin. And then from there you have the dogma of the assumption into heaven. Well, corruption of the body, the disintegration of the body, is a consequence of sin. We hear that right from Genesis. You know, unto dust, you shall return. Well, if sin is the reason by which corruption comes about, well, if there is no sin, then there's no consequence of sin. So it only makes sense that she is preserved in that regard. Now, that applies even to her own death. However, the death, or lack thereof, of Mary, is a kind of separate question.

our Lord of his own nature is not subject to death, is not subject, yet he freely and willingly undertook death. Our lady, being free from inherited and actual sin, was also not subject to death. But it appears historically, what we know from the tradition, that she agreed that there was an expiry. because there is a tomb right next to the Garden of Githemeni that is acknowledged by all the churches from ancient times as the tomb of the Theotokos, the tomb out of which she rose from the dead. And the tradition of that is, well, once our lady started to fail, once her health started to decline, and it became clear that the death is coming, the apostles were summoned back to Jerusalem. and all of them made it back in time before her death but one as the ancient tradition goes.

And the one who didn't make it was Thomas, who was in India. By the time he came back, she had already been entombed in that tomb. And so distraught that he didn't make it in time to see her alive, he asked if the tomb could be opened so that he could lay his eyes on the body of the virgin one more time. And so they did that very thing. They flipped the lid. Guess what? There's no body.

The entire tomb is filled with flowers. And that scene was held us so holy that at one time, every single cathedral in Europe had a stained glass window depicting that scene. The assumption of the Blessed Mother, the empty tomb in front of the apostles. All right. So, Father, common questions that come up with this is the question of infinite regression. if Mary was born without original sin, does that necessitate having a mother who was, and do you have to work that chain backwards? To the Protestants out there going, wait, hold on, like, how do you get around that?

What's the response from the Catholic Church on that? No, there's no need for an infinite regression. God saved her in a unique way by preserving her at the moment of her conception from the inherited sin of Adam and Eve. There need to be nothing further gone back. The argument doesn't necessitate that. So is it Catholic doctrine, Father, that God is not bound by his own rules that he shares with us if he wants to make an exception he can? Is that something that's a framework?

Well, it depends on what kind of rule you're talking about. If it's a rule that's based on his nature, then yes, he is bound by it. So in other words, can God do anything? Yes. Can he make himself cease to exist? No. So God can do all things that are possible for God. to do. And because it's very easy to fall into semantics for something like this. Well, God build a

boulder so big that he can't lift it. Well, if he's omnipotent, then yes, he can't. But if he's omnipotent, then no, he can't, because then there would be something he can't do. So these are simply word games that are present when you have competing omnipotences at play. But what is true is God can do anything that is possible for him to do. Gosh, I think my question was on, so if we mentioned earlier, would Christ need a Savior, right? The answer is God would not need a Savior because he is God. And so I guess one of the questions would be,

does Mary have to be sinless or could God have just made sort of an exception? And I guess, how do Catholics interpret Scripture when it says all have fallen short and all have sinned? Is that a general statement? And the explanation would be, well, clearly it doesn't mean the person. of Jesus and Mary, is that kind of left open-ended? Well, so we know this because Christ himself has not sinned, and yet he is a perfect man. So we know that this can't be absolute, right?

It can't be absolute. So there's already one exception. And if there's one, then it's possible that there are others and for the reasons that I've stated. All right, so, Father, we've talked a lot about the consensus. There's tremendous consensus when it comes to Mary, her importance, honor that is due to her. But there is obviously some theological disagreement that has happened over the years. But could you maybe walk us through a little bit of when this divergence and thought started

to happen? Was it the Reformation? And then what do you think the main differences are now with Protestant views of Mary and the Catholic view? Obviously, we've talked about assumption in heaven and sinlessness, but maybe you could take us a little bit through where the divergence started. Well, in a big way, the rupture started at the Protestant Reformation and specifically in the second generation reformers in their offspring, their children, so to speak. Look, one of the things to remember is Luther until the day he died prayed the rosary. And he thought it was a horrific thing. It was horrible that people were tearing apart their rosaries. So he believed in the intercession of the saints.

and the Lutheran Church today is in a very different place, very different place. Most Lutheran churches do not practice a devotion like Luther did. So they took his principles and went even further. The break at the Protestant Reformation extended to the approach to Revelation entirely. So there was an assumption that the entire and completely, complete and sole deposit of Revelation resides in Scripture and Scripture alone. Now that, as far as we are concerned, the Catholic and Orthodox, that's a heresy. Because nowhere does Scripture say that it exhausts God's revelation.

So that the Catholic and the Orthodox believe in sacred tradition. That revelation is, I mean, I'm using Catholic language here, that revelation, that revelation has one source, and that's God, but it has two fonts, scripture and tradition. And so one is not superior to the other because both are sources of revelation. And scripture itself hints at revelation. You know, Paul says, do this, whether you hear it by word of mouth or by letter. Well, what he instructed by word of mouth would carry no less authority than what he wrote in a letter. And if people say, well, no, the written one would have more authority. And the reply that I would give to that is, how can you justify that?

Where in Scripture doesn't say that? And it doesn't. So there was a break from the belief in sacred tradition. Now, that in and of itself is a break with revelation itself. For us, right, the Protestant declaration that sacred tradition does not form part of of the deposit of Revelation is a heretical statement. That would be the equivalent of someone else saying that sacred scripture is not revelation. And so, Father, to play, no pun intended, devil's advocate here, but for Protestants who wrestle with the idea of tradition being on par with scripture and to be a

different font, as you say, how do we reconcile when church fathers disagree on things like sacraments or the Deuter canonical text, et cetera, how do Catholics reconcile that difference? Is the belief that in the aggregate, ultimately the spirit leads everything into truth? Walk a Protestant through how you would justify tradition when, say, you have one church father saying there's 10 sacraments and another saying there's four.

So look, the church fathers are great and mighty authorities. They are great and mighty authorities, but they themselves are not the church. So what is the church and where is the church? Well, the church is expressed among other ways, but in a superlative way in its liturgy. Where you find the liturgy being practiced and lived by Christians, you find the church. And this is one of the criteria by which the canon of scripture was resolved by the church. You know, there were many competing texts that people regarded as scriptures.

that, you know, these church fathers regarded these Texas scriptures, those added these two others. Some didn't add those two others, but they added these three others, et cetera, et cetera. So the church at a certain point had to make a decision. What is the Word of God? And the way by which they resolved that is, well, if it's the Word of God, then the Holy Spirit is going to be present in that Word of God. and how is that manifest? Well, if the Holy Spirit is present, God is going to cause those texts to be used in its worship every Sunday. So if texts were never used in Sunday worship as readings, then that's proof the Holy Spirit is not present in them, not in the way that he is with Revelation, so those are already excluded. the text had to be written by an eyewitness of the word it had to be by somebody who was there present

so if it wasn't somebody if it was somebody who lived two centuries after it might be a really important text as any text of the church fathers is but it's not going to be revelation it's not going to be the word of the holy spirit so all of these things separate and exclude other texts that might be really, really important, but they didn't make it into the canon of Scripture. So what you have there is the Church giving a criteria for sacred tradition in this way in giving everyone the principles to discern what is going to be the text, the actual text of scriptures and what is not. What are just maybe really important texts for their historical and even theological value.

But we're not going to regard them as the Word of God. But, Father, just to be clear, you do, you and I have talked about this. I remember we had breakfast one morning, and you were asking me what my hold-ups were. And I mentioned the perceived difference in opinion from the church fathers. Also, the assumption into heaven for Mary being a little later, do you sympathize with Protestants who might just, you know, at first glance, look at various church fathers' statements and say, oh, it would logically make sense that scripture would be the only infallible.

article. Do you empathize with that? Truthfully, no, I don't, because when it comes to matters of this amount of seriousness, it requires great and significant investigation. This is investigation that I myself engaged in, you know, when I converted, I engaged in this. You know, and for me it comes down to this. It's that promise and that guarantee of Jesus Christ who said, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you towards all truth. Not some truth, not 80% of the truth, not 99.999% of the truth, but all truth. He himself, the son of God, savior of the world, is guaranteeing that the church is going to have an infallible access to the truth. So he guarantees that. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the church. In other words, the long-awaited promise is given to that church. And then the church begins

what it does. It begins being that bark of salvation, that instrument by which the salvation of the world is going to be promulgated and exacted. So people are baptized into Christ by way of the church, which means they're also baptized into the church of Jesus Christ. Now, if all of a sudden, the church believes something for 1,400, 1,500 years, like something critical, such as the belief that the Eucharist is the actual physical presence of Jesus Christ in the flesh, the presence of his body and blood, the enduring presence, the substantial presence to use philosophical, theological language. And then that belief changes. No, it's just a symbol. It goes from being actual to a symbol. There's something gravely wrong here. The change from viewing sacred tradition

as being one of the two fonts of revelation, and then now all of a sudden it's not. You know, it might be an indicator depending upon some context, but scripture and scripture alone. This is a radical change in the theology. Now, that change is unjustified. It's absurd if the church possesses the Holy Spirit, who is guiding it towards all truth. So if there is going to be any radical and fundamental change, Jesus Christ is a liar. Because either he didn't send the Spirit of truth or the Spirit that he sent is not the Spirit of Truth. Any dramatic change in the Christian church, in Christian theology, is impossible after Pentecost. So on that note, Father, You have a common phrase that you do like to tease me with, which is newer is generally not better when it comes to doctrines, even though there is a progressive revelation.

When it comes to the assumption of marrying to heaven, is it a fair retort that it's a later addition and required a little more kind of push and shove to get across the finish line? But could you walk us through a little bit of that? I think I recall you mentioning that at one point, that's a fair thing to, at least on the surface, look at and go that seems to be a later doctrine. Well, the dogma is later, right? It was pronounced in 1950, but a dogma is not a new revelation. It is merely the acknowledgement of something that was already existed. It was already a belief in the church. And the dogma of the Immaculate Conception shows how through the Word of God, expressed through Scripture and tradition, because even tradition is the Word of God. It shows how the Word of God already contained within this. And, And I already mentioned it earlier in this segment, that if decomposition, if the decay of the flesh is a consequence of sin, well, she who was preserved beforehand from all sin and who never committed any actual sin, she would be preserved from that. So it doesn't require any mental acrobatics to acknowledge that.

And it has been the belief of even the simplest people throughout time. the dogma was merely the codification of an echo that had already been there throughout time, throughout 1950 years. So you mentioned that was declared into dogma in 1950. Does that mean the Pope at that point issued one of the very rare statements which said the church is now bound to believe this? Is that what we mean by that? Yep.

That was one of the two uses of the Pope speaking ex-cathedra as the universal shepherd of the church, making a declaration to the entire church that this teaching is part of the deposit of faith. He's not making it part of the deposit of faith, but he's using his authority to say this has been always part of the deposit of faith. I know, obviously, you weren't around at the time, but what was the reaction of the church at the time? Was it controversial or was it a, oh, this makes sense, we've already sort of believed this for a long time and this is sort of formalizing it? Yeah, there was no controversy at all. It was accepted. It was nothing foreign to the sentiment mentality of the church already. The church already believed it. We already had churches, for example,

named Our Lady of the Assumption. So it was already a great feast day in the church. It just codified what we already knew to be true. And it was a process of immense consultation in the church. Every single bishop of the church was sent a questionnaire to express his thoughts on it. So all the many thousands had their input into this. So it's not something that the post did exclusively on his own, but he solicited the input of the entire church as a way of checking and making sure it, look, is the Holy Spirit present here? Even if it was already a de facto belief, it may not be the will of the Holy Spirit to have this promulgated right now. And so that survey, if you will, is a way to gauge that. And so that's what he did. All right, well,

fathers, as we sort of land the plane here, say someone still disagrees with everything we've shared and says, I don't know what to make of all this. But there's one last arrow in the quiver here, which does necessitate discussion, which is that there are numerous accounts of Mary appearing in various locales all over the world throughout history. And a lot of these have more eyewitness testimony than technically we have for the New Testament, for the apostles in Christ.

We have various things like Fatima, lords. We have a lady of Guadalupe. could you maybe just give some parting thoughts on some of these Marian apparitions? How do we know they are from God and not a deception, as some perhaps Protestants might have a reaction to? What are your thoughts on these various Marian apparitions throughout history? Oh, gosh. Well, how do we know that they're not a deception? We know a tree by its fruit, and our Lord gives us that principle by which to evaluate the workings of the Holy Spirit. I mean, look, take, for example, the apparition of Our Lady as Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.

That apparition is, the apparitions, which occurred in 1531, are credited with ending human sacrifice among the Aztecs in Mexico and bringing about their conversions. So the Aztec civilization practiced widespread human sacrifice, right? They believe that to appease the gods, humans had to be sacrificed to them. And so there were tens of thousands of individuals sacrificed annually. And in fact, we have an account, for example, one account in 1487, where over 80,000 people were killed in the course of one week for the dedication of a single temple. So this is deeply ingrained within society, within the Aztec society. Right. So then the Spanish come. We have then, in 1531, the apparitions at Garibundah, Teppiac, the apparitions that we now call our lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego, Saint Juan Diego, within 10 years, the entire Aztec culture, 9 million Aztecs embraced Christianity. I mean, if that is not something miraculous, I don't know what is. Right? And who can deny that? Who can deny 70,000 people on October 13th, 1917,

witnessing the miracle of the sun at Fatima? Right. And it was seen by people who weren't even present at the site. Now, the only explanation that I've ever heard, and I'm going to put it around quotation marks, explanation, is I've heard it attributed to mass hallucination. Whoever talks about mass hallucination, what even is? that? Like, in other words, I resent that as an explanation, right? It is a principle of science that you don't explain what you don't know with something you know even less. That's just bad science. It's inauthentic. It's garbage. So if you're going to deny 70,000 people all witness something and you're going to say, well, that was just mass hallucination, then you know

what it is? You're a fool and who ignores the obvious. Yeah. Well, Father, technically, I thought Mass hallucination is when you thought you went to Mass, but didn't, right? If you thought you went to Mass and you didn't go to Mass, it means you overslept at being at Mass, and that's not going to Mass. So you're probably in the state of sin unless some sickness prevented you from going and you overslept somehow. Yeah, mass hallucination does not remove mortal sin for missing church, right? Now, Father, just to be fair, since we try to take both sides in this, if we're judging it by the fruit, and you don't have to speak for all these. But does that also mean that many of these Protestant revivals, say the Great Awakening,

one and two, the Hebrides revival, some of these movements of God that swept some of the Market Street revival in New York where mass conversions to Christ happened, would those also be fair to say? And you don't have to specify for each individual one, but if there are mass conversions to Christ, that's generally not a winning strategy from the enemy. Oh, absolutely. I have no problem with saying that they're from God. Of course they were. Of course they were.

Yeah. Because I've actually met priests who have said, well, you know, maybe, but he's like, also, I could see the enemy luring people into a fake sense of a false sense of Christianity. And I thought, if baptisms are recognized, it seems like a pretty risky strategy from the enemy have mass conversions to Christ.

So I took a little issue with what he said. You think about someone like Billy Graham and the amount of people that were reached by him and even with theological differences, I imagine the Catholic Church would probably generally say Billy Graham was a net positive, right, Father? Correct. Oh, for sure he was.

Yep. for sure he was. All right. So, Father, when you're in the room and the church and the ritual, you're invoking the litany of the saints. And then later on, perhaps there's Hail Mary's going on and there's asking Mary to intercede. This is purely speculation, of course. But do you think the demons are seeing Mary come into the room? Could you posit a guess of what might be happening that is causing them such ire? Are they seeing Christ in her? What dynamics might be at play there? No, I think they are seeing her. And whatever quote unquote, means to them. They're certainly perceiving her. They perceive her presence, which is a present

distinct from themselves. They perceive the attack that she is bringing. They feel that attack. And they are expressing their displeasure and, frankly, their pain at that attack. So that's what's happening. We see that constantly. In fact, myself and many exorcist, Father Montsener, Patrick Brankin, for example, you know, when we want to land an exorcism and bring it to a close, then what we'll typically do is recite a Marian hymn. And that Marian hymn is our way of saying, okay, demon, we haven't got you out. So we make you recede now into the background so that this possessed individual stops manifesting and can safely now go home. And we will take up this battle again at some other time. And it's like a magic. You invoke the mother of God and the

session comes to a close. Things are manageable, so to speak. And it might be really dangerous to not have that closure because if the person is manifesting wildly and you say, well, okay, well, time for me to go, get in your car and drive home, that can be very dangerous for the victim. So you want the demon to be put in a kind of neutral place. And Our Lady is the one that does that. Okay.

All right, Father, we probably should mention this. And all right, so you've got a Protestant saying, you know, I appreciate this. I love Mary. She's amazing. She should be respected. But, man, I travel all over the world, and I see churches, and there's these giant portraits of Mary, and Christ is sort of off in the corner. And it's like a small painting. Doesn't the Catholic Church just worship Mary? They'll say doctrinally they don't. But, Father, could you speak to some of that perceived controversy there and clarify, again, the Church of Stance on Mary and maybe how to reconcile some of the observations that, I mean, I'll admit for myself, when I was traveling Europe years ago before I had interacted with you in the show,

I felt like I did see a lot more emphasis on Mary than on Jesus. Well, so Mary is the gun through which the bullet was shot. Mary is the model who was human in every way. You know, our Lord was human in every way, but it was also divine. So for some folks, our Lord as a model can seem unapproachable because he's. perfect in every way. But our lady was human and not divine and yet was 100% faithful. So as a model, that speaks powerfully. But I'll say to you, Catholics get accused of worshipping Mary a lot by Protestants. And that accusation entails an ability to pierce somebody's heart

and know exactly what's happening at the level of the heart. externals alone do not reveal worship. Worship is an act of the heart. So to make the accusation, you're doing this because I know what's going on in your heart, is itself a massive presumption. So one has to be very careful in leveling that accusation because you easily are stepping into the realm of sinfulness and of scandal. It is possible and it has been possible. that people have taken devotion of Mary to an excess. And just as we might say, Protestants have taken the truth of Scripture to an excess in the sense of excluding the truth that is present in sacred tradition, which the church has

believed from its beginning. And that was only changed in the year 1500. So again, if the Holy Spirit is present in the church, how in heaven's name could it err in matters that are so fundamental to its identity, that are so fundamental to its approach to God, that are so fundamental to achieving salvation. And those are questions that I have never heard an adequate Protestant response to. All right. Well, so, Father, in short, you would say there is something about Mary. Absolutely. Okay. Well, folks, we hope you've enjoyed this discussion, and whether you're Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, whatever, sounds like we can all agree that

it's worth revering and praising and also really diving deep into the role Mary played because it sounds like there are enormous implications for it, right, Father? You betcha. Well, folks, thank you so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this deep dive and we will see you next time for another amazing bonus episode.