The Michael Knowles Show - "What's Hidden In The Vatican?" FACE-Off Bishop Barron Vs Michael Knowles

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

What secrets lie behind the walls of the Vatican? In this explosive episode of FACE-Off, Michael Knowles goes head-to-head with Bishop Robert Barron to debate the mysteries, myths, and facts surrounding the smallest—and most powerful—country in the world. From the hidden archives and ancient relics to alleged conspiracies and divine revelations, no topic is off-limits. Is the Vatican hiding something the world deserves to know? Watch now and decide for yourself. - - - Today's Sponsor: Hallow - Put your relationship with God first. Head over to https://hallow.com/knowles for three months free today! - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Which of the following is a popular but unproven conspiracy theory about the Vatican archive, that they house a time machine. They contain proof that aliens existed on Earth. They hold the lost gospel of Jesus. They house the Ark of the Covenant. I've never heard the alien. That's kind of funny. The area 51 of...

The best is the Ark of the Covenant, if they really have the Ark of the Covenant, which is some plausibility. The Vatican does not have aliens, correct? That is no... Not that I know of, yeah. In preparation for the Pope and the Furor, the secret Vatican files of World War II,

streaming exclusively on Daily Wire, plus August 13th, we're stepping inside the smallest country in the world with some of the biggest secrets, Vatican City. Our competitors? In one corner, Michael Knowles, who's here to uncover

the real third secret of Fadma and promote his new documentary. And he's all out of promo scripts. And in the other corner, Bishop Robert Barron, a man who knows the Vatican in its secret archives so well he might just break news and reveal lost secrets right here on this very show. Hopefully, maybe.

Please, I hope so. Let's get into it. This is Face Off, Vatican Mysteries. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. Ben, thanks for having me on my own show. How does a Protestant know about the third secret of Fatima? I didn't know you knew what that was. Google.

You know, there's a wild, wild theories about it. And hopefully, Bishop Barron can fill us in on how to go. Before we get started, I have to ask about the premise here. The premise was you were going to bring me on for Vatican trivia, and I have to play against His Excellency, Bishop Robert Barron, not only a member of the Episcopate, one of the most knowledgeable and scholarly men of the church today. Is that right?

Yeah, but not about Vatican Sidney, so I've been to the Vatican City, but all the details of it. I don't know how good I'll be. Is which subway line goes to, I don't know, actually. You may have an event. I don't think Michael's been there. Michael, have you actually been to Vatican City? Yes, I have, thank you very much. Of course. Not recently. Not recently. All right. So the rules, I'll read a question. You'll have 30 seconds to write down your response.

At the end, whoever loses, we'll do a commercial for the other person. All right. Okay. Are you ready? What is the commercial for a bishop? I don't know. Like, I'm going to promote the succession from the apostles? Well, the various books, the fantastic books, the Bishop Barron has written. We're on fire. Yeah, we're on fire.

Okay, fair enough. You'll figure it out. Yeah. All right, here we go. All right. Question one. How many of the 95 feces can you write? Go.

How many do I choose to write? How about that? You have to write them. I don't know any of them. How many do I choose to burn? Here's the real one. Okay. Question one.

If you walked around the full border of Vatican City, how long would it take you to walk at a brisk pace? Oh, go ahead. I rode my bike around Vatican City at the end of a trip from Paris to Rome with this friend of mine and we did a victory lap around Vatican City. So I can answer by, so this is by foot though, huh? At a brisk pace by foot. And we have multiple choice. I go ahead. A, 10 minutes, B, 40 minutes, C, 90 minutes, D, two hours. All right. And, you know, I'm a New Yorker. So you got to shave, I'm doing it in New York time. That shaves off 10%. You're ready? I'm ready. Still riding. All right, Mike, what do you have?

I would say 90 minutes around. Bishop Barrett? I said B. B is correct. All right. Yeah. This is not a good start. Well, I did ride my bike around.

I can tell you that. It took about 10 minutes maybe. Yeah, actually, Vatican City is only about 0.6 miles around. Smaller than most long. Is it really? All right. Huh, okay. That's bad.

All right, number two. How long did it take to build the current St. Peter's Basilica. A, 151 years, B, 59 years, C 88, D, 120. What did you write, Michael? Well, it's a letter. No, I didn't do a number. He gave letters. What is it? I said A. I said D 120. Bishop Barron's running away with this. It is D 120. That was my second choice. Do I get partial credit?

No. This is bad. Construction began in 1506 under Pope George. The second. Yeah. And then early, what, 16-Henaders, they finished it. Yeah, 1626. Yeah. I'm going to be demoted to whatever is below laity.

I don't know if there's anything, but I might, I don't know. I don't know how it works. Alter boy. All right. Roughly how many printed books and manuscripts are housed in the Vatican Library. Oh, my gosh. This is roughly. A, 40,000.

B, 250,000. 50,000, C, 800,000, D, 1.1 million. Well. Bishop, bear, what do you have? I had D. I chose the highest one. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah, all right. So we rise or fall together on this one.

That was smart, Michael, because you're both correct. Oh, good. I figured the highest number, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Michael, I don't know why you're doing something. I think you should have really, like, prayed before we started doing this. I do. I pray a lot.

Not enough. Not enough, certainly. You know it would help you pray more. Oh! That was a good segue that I totally missed. Go check out Hallow! Right now, you've got to go to hallow.com slash Knowles. This August, I want you to join me for the St. Michael's Lent Challenge on Hallow.

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Try Welch's fruit snacks today. All right. Number four. In miles. In miles, okay. How long is the shelving space? inside the Vatican Library and Apostolic Archive combined. That's to be the closest without going over.

In miles. In miles. Closest without going over. There's no multiple choices. It's just... Oh, I see. Okay. And the Apostolic Archive is what we used to call the Secret Archive. That's correct.

Well... Have you seen it? Me? Oh, Bishop Barron. Yeah, no, I haven't let me into... I've been into the parts of it, yeah. So he'll probably have a better guess on this than you. No, but that's a total game.

How many miles? You were like counting off the shells. Like, all right. How many miles is the entire Vatican Library and Apostolic Archive? How many times around Vatican City does it go? This is the question. All right, 10 seconds. Either way, DW's budget has to be pretty weak.

You didn't even get me a marker with ink in it. Yeah, my mark is very good here at work. I think we need to hire some of the producers from Word on Five. I know. Three point one. He said three point one. Oh, I said five, a total guess. The correct answer is over 50 miles.

Oh, come on. Takes it again. I win, okay. 50 miles, seriously? Yeah. Okay. How high are they stacking them? You said all the way around is 0.6 miles.

So how high are those walls? There must be so many shells running through there in the archive. All the matters is that, I won. That's the only thing that anyone's going to remember. I'm glad I got one point that Bishop Barron also got. That's good. That's good.

What's the current score? A billion to one. No, it's three to one. 4-1, Bishop, okay. Four-one. Who's counting? Here we go. Which of the following is a popular but unproven conspiracy theory about the Vatican

Archives? A, that they house a time machine. B, they contain proof that aliens existed on Earth. C, they hold the lost gospel of Jesus. D, it has the Ark of the Covenant. Or E, all of the above. So a popular but unproven conspiracy theory. Yes, popular but unproven.

It has to be popular, though. Okay, I think I'll... I say D, the Ark of the Covenant. I'm going to say all of the above. Don't do this to me, Ben. Don't do this to me. It is E. No, it's not.

What are you talking? talking about. No, because I've heard at least a couple of those. That's why the Ark of the Covenant for sure and the alien life and all that. So I figured, why not all the above? I've never heard the alien. That's kind of funny. There's the Area 51 of

Italy. Okay. Bishop Barron, can you spill some tea on the Time Machine? Because this one actually has some legs and some stories behind it. Have you looked into this at all? Yeah. No, I must say that one, I don't really know. The Time Machine. Yeah, there was like a Cardinals that left and then he drew what it looked like and claims

They had this time machine down in the base. It was wild. This is wild story. And the Vatican hasn't. Yeah, that the Vatican has it. There's a drawing of it. The best is the Ark of the Covenant. If they really have the Ark of the Covenant, which is some plausibility.

Yeah. Yes. If it was still around the time of the Roman, you know, destruction of Jerusalem, and that's the question. Don't they say if the Ark of the Covenant still exists anywhere, it's either in the Vatican or Ethan. Doesn't Ethiopia claim to have it? Yeah.

Yeah. In fact, that was not long ago, I was with an Ethiopian priest. And we talked about that. And he said, oh, of course, we have it in Ethiopia. Did you, I wouldn't want you to call your friend a liar. Do you find, you have any credence to these theories? I think it was lost around the time of Jeremiah, and we don't know where it is. I think either he hid it someplace and it remains hidden or it was destroyed at the time of

the captivity. That's our best guess. There's the Tannis theory, because of course, Jeremiah goes to Egypt and likely died there, was killed there. Did he take it with him? Was it taken with exiles? Who knows? Interesting. We have the new arc of the covenant anyway. So it's not, it's just a historical curiosity as far as I'm concerned. We mean, we have the true arc. The true arc, yeah. The true arc, yeah. Do you know where Ben Shapiro thinks it is? No. Where does he think? He thinks you guys have it. He thinks it's in the Vatican. Oh, I kind of remember. I think he said

that on a yes or no once. He did, yeah. Well, it's a theory. And it's, it's, if it's, if it's, if it's, It were still around Jerusalem when the Romans came and, you know, destroyed Jerusalem. They certainly would have taken it and they'd taken it back to Rome. And then the church, you know, plausibly might have gotten a hold of it. But who knows? Yeah, okay. But Mary's the true arc of the covenant. That's right.

That's the most important thing. It's all that matters. It's really all I care about with regard to this question, though I do have to ask. The Vatican does not have aliens, correct? that there's no... Not that I know of, yeah. I met some weird people in the fact. I don't know about aliens, though.

And what we also know is that Michael's still currently getting destroyed as we go into number six. Yeah, okay, good. That's all the manners. You don't need to update. I remember. I remember. You don't need to update. All right, which Pope commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Is it A, Pope Innocent the 3rd? B, Pope Leo the 10th. C, Pope Julius II. D, Pope Clement, the 7th. All right. Man, this is so embarrassing. This is so embarrassing. I'm a Philistine.

I am, wow. Well, what do you have, Michael? Let's let his excellency go first. Okay. It's C. Was that Julius? Yeah, Julia. Oh, thank goodness.

Oh, yeah, okay, good. All right. I thought so, and I didn't want to be laughed out of the room. Michael, you thought it was Julius? I remember Julius. Okay. Yeah. All right.

What's hidden beneath St. Peter's Basilica? Oh, sorry. We're on the next question? Go ahead. There's one else you want to add? You want to give Michael another lesson? No. All right.

What is hidden beneath St. Peter's Basilica? Ah. You'll have to be more specific, I think. Do we have options, or we just have to say what it is? No, it's whatever. Okay. This answer. Is this like however many things you can name, you get it at that many points?

Well, it's like the main thing. If you Google what's underneath St. Peter's Basilica, this is what comes up. There's two possible answers. I'll take. All right, what do you have, Michael? I said the relics of the first pope, St. Peter. Bich Baron? Well, I say the scovie, which means the excavations under St. Peter's. The correct answer that I have is first century necropolis and the bones of St. Peter.

Hey, I mean, so Bishop Baron is literally correct. I don't know what that means. Scabi, that's what it uncovered was that first century cemetery. So I think I deserve credit for that. But your excellency, Mr. Davies is not cultured enough to have used that nice foreign word. So can I get double points for that instead? Yeah, because that word could mean whatever you tell me, because I have no, my Latin is so bad in Italian. I believe you that it's underneath there, so we can take that.

I deserve some credit for that answer. I'm not going to rest until I get some credit for that answer. You know, I was actually... Have you been down there, Michael? Have you done to the Skavi tour? I've never been. It's spectacular. I take you down there, and it does indeed reveal this first century cemetery with little roads and graves, and they lead you finally to where they are pretty sure they found the tomb of St. Peter.

That's amazing. Actually, just yesterday was having lunch with a friend of mine who, you know, in recent decades, Catholics don't seem to care as much about relics as we used to for the first roughly 2,000 years of church history. And so priests and other people have given her relics. And I actually saw what purports to be a, a relic of St. Peter. And she has some certificates of authenticity and things like that. But it struck me because modern Christians and even Catholics, today, they look at relics like it's kind of weird or idolatrous or superstitious or something. But it seems to me Christians have always had a great reverence for relics.

Go back to the Acts of the Apostles. You can see people going up to St. Paul and touching them with handkerchiefs and all that. No, it's a very ancient practice. It's all over the church fathers, the ancient church. It's an extension of the incarnational principle, right? That God really became one of us. And then the saints who are aligned to Christ, it's sort of a continuation of that incarnational principle.

And so in reverencing the bones or the flesh or the remnants of saints, we're reverencing Christ ultimately. I was just in France. We're filming on this cathedral documentary I'm doing. And in Amiens Cathedral is the relic. of the skull of St. John the Baptist. There's like the front part of the skull, which came down me in 1206 from Constantinople.

And then, you know, so they were very big in the middle ages. People loved relics. And still to this day, talk to Catholic, they love collecting relics. Yes, I was actually, my friend who I had lunch with, she was very kind and gave me two first-class relics,

one of St. Jerome and one of St. Thomas Aquinas. and I was, you know, I said, oh, that's so kind of you. And I found, I don't know, especially because I'm a revert, so I have to learn everything that I should have learned when I was 10. I find the veneration of relics is really helpful in my prayer life. Can I tell you a story about the Thomas relics? So this is a year ago, March. I was in Rome for this conference on Aquinas, and we went down to Fosanova where he died. And there was a great mass, and Cardo Perilin said the mass.

He was a papabouet in the recent election. And then right, I didn't even notice it until halfway through the mass, right in front of the altar, they had the Fosanova skull. So the people there claim that when Thomas's bones were moved to Toulouse, that's where most of them are now in the south of France, they kept the skull because that's where he died in Fosanova. So they have it to this day, and it was brought by car through the city. And there's this photograph of the driver, and next to him is the skull of a question. And then it was up in front of the altar. And it's very moving, you know. So there are two skulls competing for authenticity.

Yeah. Of Aquinas. And people say, well, he was so smart he needed two hands. One could not have possibly held at all. Right. Right. So during the mass, I remember just sort of noticing the skull of my great spiritual hero, Thomas Aquinas.

I had this thought, you know, in my office here, I have a Caravaggio, St. Jerome, writing as a memento mori that I should do my work so that I don't wait a way. stole my life. And then I, and I found I even put, when my friend gave me these relics, I thought, these are two wonderful relics to have when you're trying to write because St. Jerome and St. Thomas are, they're definitely a little more prolific than me. I crank out three tweets. I'm basically spent for the day. No, they both are extraordinary, you know, especially Aquinas. In a short career, he dies at 49. Yeah. So his writing career is about 25 years, and he wrote a library of books. the highest level of literary and philosophical achievement.

So, I mean, he's one of the great geniuses, dictated to three or four secretaries simultaneously. Like a chessmaster, you know, moving from chessboard to chessboard, he would dictate, you know, Aristotle commentary, a Bible commentary, part of the summa, and then a sermon or something. And he would just go around like that dictating. And they say in the afternoon he took a little nap and would dictate in his sleep. That is actually at the Daily Wire, that is how I do my tweets. I'll say, okay, talking about the American Eagle jeans ad, you, and now you're going to, yes. It's pretty impressive.

I'm sorry that I even have to continue the game. It's so fascinating. Well, I'm just trying to distract from my losing. I guess we're at a time. I'm sorry to butt in, yeah. Well, I'm sure you just want to continue because you're winning by such a large margin, Bishop. Of course, let's continue.

Yeah, we'll just knock this out. Number eight, what year did the name Vatican Secret Archives change to the Vatican Apostolic Archive? Closed this without going over. Without going over. Or not to name the exact year? Yeah. I'm going to say... Without going over.

And the reasoning was citing the negative connotation of the word secret. Yeah. I don't think secrets are bad. I think discretion is good and people don't have enough of it these days. Bishop Barrett? I'm guessing 1985 during John Paul Tuesday. I think it's more recent. I think it's

2013. Correct answer is 2019. Yes. Really recent. No way. 2019, that recently? Yeah. I thought it was in the Francis. He did. Well, I mean, it makes sense because he's done so much research in the Secret Vatican archives, especially

during World War II, actually, Michael. That's true. And you can all watch that show. the Pope and the Fuhr, the secret Vatican files of World War II at Daily Wire Plus, August 13th. I want to share something, and I'm very proud to have led here at Daily Wire Plus. That is a new docu series that uncovers one of the most distorted historical narratives of the modern age. It's called the Pope and the Furor, the secret Vatican files of World War II. For decades, Pope Pius I, one of the most consequential men of the 20th century, one of the greatest men of the 20th century, has been slandered and condemned for his supposed silence

during Hitler's rise and during Nazi atrocities. That narrative was always false. Now, with unprecedented access to the Vatican's wartime archives, we uncover what really happened and why the truth was buried for so long. Check out this teaser. History is written by the victors. But what if the victors got it wrong?

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The series premieres Wednesday, August 13th, exclusively on Daily Wire Plus. Looks like a great show. I'm glad you're doing that because there's a great calumny against Pius X 12th and against a lot of Catholics at that time, so I'm glad you're doing that. Yeah, I was thrilled when we could release this, because of all the maligned men of the 20th century, you know, some people earned their reputation, but Pius the 12th has just really been slandered in my view. And so I hope that people can enjoy it when it comes out. No, good.

I think that's important to rehabilitate him because it was a great calumny against him. I was just in Munster, Germany, you know, before Rome, I was in Munster and went to the cathedral there. And there's the grave of Cardinal von Gaulin. And his nickname, he was known as the Lion of Munster because he spoke out so strongly against Hitler. So there were some very courageous figures, not to mention the great martyrs like Edith Stein and people like that. Right. So no, it's important to round out that story, certainly. Yes. And you can round it out in your own estimation, everyone out there, if you just tune in, Dailyware Plus. How's that? That's correct. And speaking of popes who have passed, how many popes are buried underneath St. Peter's Basilica?

Would it be A, 5, B, 12, C, 45, D over 90? It's like the way you said D makes me think it's D. Oh, you know me too well. It is D gentlemen. I say D as well. So we both got, okay. All right. That's good.

I maintain my lead. You do. Buy a wine margin. All right, number 10. There's a sign there. They say, oh, here are the popes buried in St. Peter. This huge line. So that's why I knew it was a big number.

You know, I was just, I was in Rome very briefly with my family about a month ago. And it was so brief, in fact, that we didn't really have time to get to the Vatican. We were staying on the other side of the city. But we were near the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. So I said, okay, good. And we had to fly out for Sunday morning. So we went to a vigil mass on Saturday. And we're there.

And I said, man, this is a huge line to get into Mass. I'm so glad people are showing up to go to Mass. It's a Jubilee year. But then I remembered, oh, Pope Francis is entombed here. And so there was a separate line just to go see the Pope. grave. One yesterday was the feast of the dedication of St. Mary Major. That's right.

That's right. And it was, you know, Our Lady of the Snows? You know that story about... No, a little bit, but not really. August 5th. You're at the height of Roman, you know, tropical summer. And so way back when, when they were designing that building, snow fell anomalously on August 5th at the outline of the basilica.

That's the story. So she's known as Our Lady of the Snows. And they do it. In the liturgy, right, don't they drop rose petals? Yes, yeah, yeah. And that was built right after the Council of Ephesus when Mary was declared Tha Echocos, mother of God. So it's the first great church in the West dedicated to Mary. But that's an important kind of theological point that church is making.

And Francis loved it. He visited there all the time and that's where he's buried. There's also a point where sometimes when I'm chatting with my many Protestant friends, some of them are more pro-Mary than others. some are decidedly anti-marry. But sometimes you'll hear, say, well, don't you know, she's the mother of God? I mean, don't you think you should, show respect to your degenerate friend, Billy Bob. You're nice to his mother.

Shouldn't she be nice to the mother of our Lord? And they said, well, she's the mother of Jesus, not the mother of God. They're missed in the historian heresy, though. That was what they thought about at the Council of Ephesus. Yeah. Because the story has said just that. Call her, if you want, Christotokos, she's the mother of Christ, or Anthropotocos. She's the mother of the human nature.

But the church said, no, she's properly called Thaelotocos, bearer of God. So that, no, it's making an important Christological point. If you believe in the divinity of Jesus, right, Jesus is divine, Mary's his mother. Well, then she has to be called Mother of God, as sort of surprising as that title might be. But that's the ancient church. We're not talking the Reformation. That's in the early 5th century. They're making that determination.

But also, go out to the Bible. I say to my Protestant friends, Mary says, you know, from this day, all generations will call me blessed. Well, that's the biblical witness that she's predicting, encouraging. All generations will call her blessed. That's right. And there's no way to resolve modern debate. If we can't even resolve debates from the Council of Ephesus, for goodness sakes, how are we going to get to the modern stuff?

You know, we got to, all right, we figured that one out. And now we move on. Well, that's settled doctrine. That's why you should look at the council. That's settled doctrine. There's no more debate about that. Like, you can't say, let's go back behind Calcedon. Maybe Jesus wasn't the hypostatic union of two natures and one person.

No, you have to say that. You can further amplify it and deepen it, but you have to say that. So Mary the mother of God, that's settled Christian doctrine. That's right. Luther loved Mary. Luther got very strong things to say about Mary. Absolutely. No, I think I'm noticing even in this moment of the culture we're in where a lot of people are becoming Catholic,

a little bit Eastern Orthodox too, but a lot of Catholic, I've noticed even many of my pretty hardcore Protestant reform friends, they're coming to realize that there's something to venerating the mother of God. Well, didn't Charlie Kirk just do that? Didn't he just say something nice about the importance of venerating Mary?

But again, that's a deeply ancient Christian practice. And it's grounded in people like Luther and I'm not sure about Calvin and Mary, but Luther certainly had strong things to say about Mary. Yeah, that's the thing. I don't point to the Protestant revolutionaries most of the time. But if they back up the point

I'm trying to make, I do cite them. I'm happy to do it in that case. Another hotly debated topic is the Vatican's top 45 films. That's the next question. Which of these films was not officially screened or included on the Vatican's list of 45 important films. Okay. It was not. A, the godfather, B, Flowers of St. Francis. C. Schindler's list, D. 2001, a space odyssey. Which was not included on the 45. All right. What was the second one? The Flowers of St. Francis. It'd be kind of weird if that were the only one they didn't include.

You know, they put the godfather. They put a mob movie on there, but they don't, hmm. Bishop Barron seems very confident. Not really. I'm just kidding. I said C. Schindler's list. I said A, the Godfather.

The correct answer is A. The Godfather. All right. It's not, it's just that Schindler's list is not, it's just, I'm not saying it's like a terrible movie. It's just, to me, it doesn't rise to the level of great. of a godfather or or or i think we remember that list when it came out that's fine i i think i remembered shinler's list being on it uh yeah okay oh that's brutal i think claven hates that movie

he says it totally misunderstands the whole the entirety of the war bit i think i don't want to put words in his mouth but i just did so too bad if drew if you disagree with that there's list correct me yeah schindler's list yeah i don't never been in the vatican either i'm like no idea of these questions number 11 you never been to the vatican no go ahead Which artist designed the grand colony that surrounds St. Peter's Square? A. Michelangelo. B. Dante Bramante. My Italian's great.

C. Raphael. D. Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Please tell me it's Bernini. Is it Bernini? It's Bernini. It is, in fact. When you stumbled over Bramonte. No ground on me. Number 12. Which of these does the Vatican have? A. Its own telescope and its astronaut.

observatory, B, its own McDonald's, C, its own spa, D, its own Starbucks. There's such a good coffee in Italy. Why would they need a Starbucks? I love Starbucks, but... Only one of these things is in the Vatican. What do you have, Michael? Say it's the golden arches. They don't have a McDonald's. This is the one that does have. Oh, that it does have. You said that it does have. Oh, at the observatory. That's what I had, the observatory, which is out of Catherine Madolpho. It's not at the Vatican, but it's, because considered Vatican territory.

That makes more sense. I was wondering where the Vatican's... Yeah, isn't it in like Phoenix? Like the actual telescopes in Phoenix? Well, there's one in Phoenix, too, or outside of Tucson. But the big one's the Castle Gandalfal.

That makes so much... I said I've been to the Vatican, I don't know, three times. Maybe I never got the Vatican quarter pounder. The Vatican, the Big Vat. I thought the spa might throw you off. And you're such a big Starbucks, man. I was like, maybe.

Yeah. Okay, all right. All right. Number 13, this is a true or false. Can the Vatican's telescope see the Apollo mission equipment on the moon? The Apollo, oh, like the remnants of the Apollo? Yeah, the landing equipment. Can the telescope see that?

Can the Vatican telescope see that? Of our alleged trip to the moon? Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, Michael. Yes? Mr. Barron. I'm going to say it was false, so they can't see that. That's correct.

Oh, man, come on. But it's not just y'all's telescope. Even Earth's most powerful telescopes can't resolve that small amount. I was trying to imagine a telescope being able to see to that. Oh, so all right. So that backs up my first insinuation. It was obviously totally fake, right? We can't even see you in the telescope.

What is the name of this building inside Vatican City? What is the name of this building? I hope that someday the name will be the former building that stood on this location when it's renovated and this is one of the more modern buildings which is always Michael's favorite.

I know it's building very well. Yeah. It's known for its modern design and massive seating capacity. Over 6,000. I don't think I'm at any risk of becoming Pope but if I ever do,

that will be known as a ruin actually and will be rebuilt. Technically you could, right? Michael, you could theoretically. I would baptize Catholic male. But I would then have to have holy orders, once I was elected.

Yeah. My wife would not be. She actually might be thrilled. I don't know. You're right. That might be a good vacation plan for us. Okay, you go to Rome. What is the name, Michael?

What is that Paul the 6th auditorium? The Paul the 6th audience hall. That is correct. Yeah, okay. All right. All right. I spent two months there, the Synod, the last two octobers. I spent six days a week, eight hours a day in that hall.

It's not my favorite place. No. I can't, you know, I'm not asking you to tell tales out of school or anything, Your Excellency, but there's a lot of great art and architecture in the history of the Catholic Church. I don't think that the Paul the Sixth audience hall makes the first 2,000 buildings list. So what, it was of its time, you know, like Paul the Sixth himself was a devouté of modern art and thought, you know, let's bring the modern sensibility. And he knew people like Jacques Maritaine who very much appreciated like, you know, Georges Ruhul and people like that. So he did have, I think, he had good taste in modern art.

But that was so much of its time where it looks like, you know, something from the space age. And it's, to me, not a very warm space. And I don't like that kind of metallic sculpture behind where the Pope sits. So, no, I'm not the biggest fan of it. Yeah. To me, the good taste in modern art is kind of like being the best basketball player among the pygmies, you know? But listen, de gustavustin de sbatan de mest,

as far as I'm concerned. No, I think some of, like go to the east wing of the National Gallery in Washington. You'll see some of like the early Picasso's, like in the 1920s. Some of them are very fine. But yeah, that hall to me does not speak the best of the Catholic artistic

tradition. The most diplomatic phrase I've ever heard in my life. Well, speaking of art, it's the last question. Roughly how many... Yeah. Roughly how many works of art are housed in the Vatican Museum collection. Closest without going over. All right.

You have to skip the number. How many works of art are in there? And we know your least favorite. What about these other ones? All right, Michael, what do you have? I said alif Nall, accountably infinite number of works of art. Is that...

You get no credit for that. Is it highest without going over? How did you know? I said one million, simply as a guess. What's the answer? Around 70,000, only 20,000 are on public display. But the rest of 70,000 is all there is? I thought you're much more than that.

20,000 are on display. There's other ones that are hidden away. So if it's closest with that going over, then both a million and countable infinity are, so then we're even on that one. You are even. Yeah, we both went over. Okay. Which means Bishop Barron ran away with it.

So Michael, would you please give us a 30-second commercial? Hold on. You used to do a thing, Ben, where you'd say, whoever won, you say you could double or nothing on a bonus question. What happened to that? I don't think there's any chance that Bishop Barron would want to gamble away. Amazing victory. Truly astonishing. Even because he's an intelligent man?

Yeah, this is the greatest victory we've ever had on Faceoff. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah, that's bad. I think I may have automatically just... I might have automatically become a Lutheran because of that. That's bad. I got to... Oh, man, I got to put in a little work next time.

Well, in any case, I can very sincerely say. that you should all, well, you should go to church and you should avail yourself of the sacraments. And, you know, that's Bishop Barron's main job. But his side hustles are really great, too. Word on Fire is absolutely magnificent. All of the lectures, all of the series, all of the books. The Word on Fire Bible is wonderful. I have editions of it with the epistles and with the gospels in my home. And so you should go check out all of that. I don't know. Somehow, I'm not a bishop. I'm not a priest. I don't, all I do is this, and somehow Bishop Barron manages to produce more content, marvelously compelling content, and also manages to do his day job as well, which is very

impressive. Well, thank you for that. It was very nice. My pleasure. It is great. I do have, you know, I have a picture of it somewhere on my bookshelf. I have a little statue of Dante. I have certain little, you know, icons and relics and things.

And I've got the Word on Fire Bible, right? Two books of it right there. Beautiful. Oh, thank you for that. Well, there you have it. If you haven't already, go follow Bishop Robert Barron at Bishop Barron and subscribe to the Word on Fire show. And don't forget to grab a copy of what Christians believe understanding the Nicene Creed available wherever books are sold. Drop us a comment. Let us know who you'd like to have on next and what topic to cover in the next episode of Faithon. I sold my car on Carvana last night.

Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? is the problem. Nothing in my life goes a smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax.

I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this tablewood? I think it's laminated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on... Carvana. Pick up these may apply.