#682 - Bishop Robert Barron

0:00Your favorite friend group is back. FX's adults follows five roommates living in New York, leaning on each other to navigate love, work, friendship, and family, while tackling pressing questions of your 20s like, what if the person who inherited your fake ID is cooler than you ever were? Why does being around your family make you regress into your worst self? And how do you tell your roommates that you have other friends? FX's adults all episodes now streaming on Hulu. Today's guest is a Catholic bishop. He's one of the leading voices in the Catholic faith today. He started Word on Fire Ministries, and he's written many books on theology. I'm so excited to sit down and have a conversation with Bishop Robert Barron.

1:00Bishop Robert Barron, nice to see you. Thank you. Great to be here. Yeah, thank you so much for your time today. I'm delighted. You live in Minnesota. I do. Right? And you're a Catholic bishop from there. Right. So I'm the bishop of the diocese of Winona Rochester, which is the southern part of Minnesota. And I live in Rochester right near the Mayo Clinic. I'm like five minutes away from there. Oh, nice. You probably get to take a lot of visits to like visit with children and their families and stuff like that. Yeah, I visit a lot of sick people there. And so it's probably the leading hospital in the world. And people come from all over the place there. Oh, and you're right there, then. I'm right there. You just try to drive through, even. That'd be nice. Yeah. Just bless out the window. Maybe I don't know. No, maybe. Yeah. Okay, that's one bad idea for me. You started Word on Fire Ministries? Yeah, it's a media ministry. So it's an evangelical ministry to proclaim the Catholic faith. And I started just with a sermon show on the radio in Chicago 25 years ago.

2:00And it's grown now. You know, we use all kinds of things from publishing and podcasting and films now. And so it's just been, uh, been blessed, thank God. And how does somebody become a bishop? Well, you gotta be chosen by the pope. So you really got nothing to do with it. I was the rector of the seminary in Chicago. So I was head of the seminary, right? And then one day out of the blue, you got a phone call. And it came from this guy we call the Apostolic Nuncios. He's like the Vatican ambassador to the US. And he says, the pope has appointed you auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. That was my first bishop appointment. So that's like the NFL draft almost for a, is it kind of like that energy? Like you're like waiting for this thing. No, because you know, you're not waiting in all. You have no idea. It's coming. That it was a Sunday afternoon. And I'm lying on the couch watching golf. I have my shorts on a t-shirt and the phone rings. And it's this little Italian voice saying the Holy Father's appointed you. And then he says, do you accept? Do you think it was a scam or something? No, because I recognize, you know, his name and everything. I knew it was a... Okay, so you knew it.

3:00So you know it. But you have no idea. It's coming because if you're under consideration, no one tells you. It's not like, you know, oh god, I might get it. You have zero idea. And so just like that out of the blue. And not we're thinking about appointing you. He's already appointed you. Now you can say no. You can say, look, I'm not going to do it. But unless you got like a super good reason, you have to say yes to it. And then you know, I'll prove your entire life, move away from everyone you know. I moved to LA, Arstasy's, lived in Santa Barbara, which is pretty good, you know. But I had zero idea. And then four years later, what five years later, another phone call comes. Holy Father's appointed you, Bishop of Winona Rochester, Minnesota. So off you go. So when the call comes, it's kind of like a call from God, kind of coming and you go and take it. Yes. And for years, I used to preach to people, you know, your life's not about you. It's about God, but God wants. Unless you got a really good reason, you follow God's will. So how could I then stand and say, uh, no, yeah, I'm really happy where I am and tell the Pope to forget it.

4:03So you kind of have to say yes. Yeah. Wow. That's a big surprise in somebody's life. Did you have a job before you were a Bishop? Like, like, did you just work at someone regular? Like, well, when I was a kid, like when I was 16, I worked at a bookstore. I was like a stockboy in the bookstore. I worked at Stake and Shake for a while. It was a dishwasher. Go, dude. Yeah, but then I went to college, you know, and then, uh, entered the seminary and then did those studies and I became a priest when I was about 26. So I didn't have a big career, you know, before I became a priest. Yeah. What was the worst thing you didn't like about dishwasher? Oh, I hated dishwasher. Did you? The heat and the, you know, I thought it was the most obnoxious job I had. I didn't last very long, I quit after a few months. Oh, damn. I hated it. Yeah. I liked the bookstore job. That was, I was 16 and I was like, you know, stockboy and I was putting books on shelves. Yeah. I didn't mind that job. Yeah, I worked at a bookstore and I went out to college for a little while and enjoyed it too. Yeah. Because it's kind of peaceful in there and somebody comes over. Sometimes people are just hiding from their spouse or whatever in there, but sometimes people are looking for a book. Oh, yeah. And you get to help them and you just kind of start to learn inadvertently.

5:04Well, I'll tell you now. I discovered a book in that job called The Seven Story Mountain by guy named Thomas Merton. Seven Story Mountain? The Seven Story Mountain, which had a big impact on me. Merton was this guy very talented, very accomplished. He was in New York, wanted to be a writer, knew all these famous people. And then Luxor is short. He becomes a Catholic and then wants to become a trappist monk, which is about a serious monk as you can become, living in silence and prayer. And the book is the story of his conversion. The Seven Story Mountain. Have you ever gotten to meet him? Oh, there it is. No, he died in 1968. So, and he died as actually in Bangkok, Thailand. He was there for a conference. And he was elected. No, he was elected. He was elected. Yeah. He gave a speech. When back to his, he was like staying in this sort of like bungalow thing. And they found him with the standing fan lying on top of him. He had grabbed it and it had a short or something and it killed him. That's all Merton died, which is very ironic and strange. But he was a wonderful figure. And that book right there had a big impact on me when I was a kid.

6:06What about it? It's a story of a guy falling in love with God. And so he discovers God. And then it's none of his instincts move that way. He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to be kind of a cool man of the world. And then he starts gradually falling in love with God. And it's told in almost like this romantic way. He was a poet, very fine poet actually. And the book, and I was 16 at the time. And so it kind of caught up in all that. And it's a very human story. And it's beautifully told too. So that impacted me big time when I was about 16. Yeah, I've heard you talk about Thomas Merton before in some of your different podcasts and different lectures. Well, he was one of the great spiritual writers of the West century. So if you want to know how to pray, how to approach prayer, what prayer is, how to live the spiritual life, he's a guy that you turn to. To get a little bit towards Catholicism. So Catholicism is a branch of Christianity. What's the difference of being a Catholic and being a Christian?

7:09Well, of course the Catholic is a Christian. So you're a follower of Jesus Christ. We would maintain that the Catholic Church is the true church. It's founded by Jesus Christ. You get to the Reformation. You know, people that, you know, we're quarreling with different aspects of Catholicism and broke off from it. So Lutherans and Calvinists and all the various subbranches thereof. But you know, we'd maintain that the Catholic Church has all the gifts that Christ wants as people to have. That it's the fullness of what Christ wanted. But then we recognize that the Protestant churches, of course, have all kinds of gifts that Christ wants too. But the Catholic Church, we would maintain, obviously, has the fullness of it. Understood. How would you define God? Well, probably the simplest way to say God is the creator of all things. Okay. So there's the world of things, right? The world we're in all the time. You and me in this place and we go outside and the world of ordinary things and even like the planet Jupiter and I mean the far galaxies is the world of things. But they don't explain themselves, right? Nothing in the world explains itself. It is, but doesn't have to be.

8:11So we look for causes. That's all of science, right? It looks for what cause this to be here. Why are you and I here right now? We can look for all kinds of reasons. How about those things? Did they have to be there? Well, no, they were caused by other things. Then we say, well, God is the uncaused cause. God is the first mover. God is the reason why there's anything at all. So it's cool about that is God is not a thing in the world. There's you and me in the planet Jupiter and God and the Empire State Building. No, no, that's the wrong way to think about it, right? God is the reason why there's anything at all. So you might say he's the creator of all things to put it in religious language. He's the ground of being. Philosophers might say, right? And I would say like the reason why there's something rather than nothing. That's God. Interesting. That's the cool question that philosophers have asked. And some people just find it nonsensical. Others say it's the most important question of all. Why is there something rather than nothing? The answer to that question is God, I would say.

9:11How does God operate? Because you'll hear people will say stuff like, well, that's part of God's plan. But then if something horrible happens, then they're like, well, God can help you through this. Like does he cause bad things to happen? Or does he just there for us if something, no matter what happens? So he's the cause of all things, right? So God is responsible for all that exists in the world. You say, what about evil? Well, evil is not a thing. Evil is a lack of being. You remember in the Lord of the Rings, I don't know if you know Lord of the Rings guy, but remember the Nazgol of these things that fly around on and these dragons and everything? And they look so fearsome, but when they finally like, they stab at them, the cloak falls away and there's nothing there. That was Tolkien's way of saying this truth. That evil is frightening, but essentially it's a type of non-being. It's a lack of a good that ought to be there. Like a cavity in a tooth. So the cavity is at minus real and it hurts. But the cavity itself is just an emptiness, right?

10:12Evil is like that. Physical evil or moral evil. Moral evil is a lack of an integrity that ought to be there in your soul. So in that way, you can't say God's the cause of evil because God is the cause of all being, right? So then you have to say, well, God permits evil. And that's true. He allows it to be. Now why then pick up the book of Job is the best biblical wrestling with that, right? And God's great answer to Job when he's on the go, why am I suffering? Why is all this happening to me? And God says, where were you when I made the heavens and the earth? And where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? And where were you? You know everything. You tell me. In other words, why God permits suffering? We can't really see. Sometimes we can in little ways, right? Where you say, gosh, if that hadn't happened to me, you know, yeah. Sometimes we can see it. But very often you can't, but that shouldn't surprise us, right? If God, who's the source of all existence, who's concerned about all of space and all of time,

11:15he's got a design for that. That I can't see it. Well, of course, duh. Of course, I can't understand all of it. But I accept that God permits evil to bring about some greater good. That's the classical answer to that question. But it's cool. You're pursuing it the right way. See, which is God is not the cause of evil, but he permits evil to allow for some greater good. I see. So you believe that in the end, it's all ends good. In the end, it ends according to God's design. And God is love, right? And so to love is to will the good of the other. And so that's what God wants. God wants the good of the other. But how precisely it all works out, I don't really know. But St. Paul, all things work together for the good for those who love the Lord. That's it. That's the right theological vision. How do I best start my relationship with God? You suggest to somebody who's maybe has felt God that feels like God exists in the world?

12:16I mean, I've felt that for sure. I've always thought that God existed. But only recently, if I started to feel more of a relationship, how do you suggest that someone starts to begin their relationship? With God? You know, it's Thomas Merton said. Someone asked him that question. He said, take the time. In other words, dedicate some time every day to God. So I begin every day with what I call a holy hour, which is made popular by the way, by this fellow Fulton Sheen. Is that name Ring of Bell? Fulton Sheen. Bring him on. Bring him on. Because we're about to be out of fire him. Just in a few days, in fact, really? That's the last step before canonization, we come to say it, right? So Fulton Sheen was this great mid-20th century figure. A teacher, writer, he was one of the first to use radio and TV. Oh, he's Beatiful. So we're beatifying him just in a few weeks. And we're beatifying me just so we know? Well, it's the last step before canonization, which is St. Hood. But like, Beatiful's in Latin means happy.

13:18Okay. So like, can we say the beatific vision? That's heaven. It means happiness that when I look at this thing, it makes me happy. Okay. That's heaven, the beatific vision. So a Beatiful would be a happy person, right? Because he's so ordered to God. So we had it, did he have to work really hard to be happy probably? He was a pretty happy guy, Sheen. Like by temperament, he was. To a little insider trading, kind of. Right. Yeah. But what he gave us, which I really love, is he called the Holy Hour, which is every day, it's Catholic, spend an hour in front of the pluses sacrament. So, you know, we believe in the real presence of Jesus and the Eucharist. And so every morning, that's what I do. I go to my chapel in my house and I pray for an hour. And it could be like, we have a thing called the office that a precess to pray, it's psalms and cancels and things from the Bible and readings and stuff. But you can also pray the rosary, which I do. You can also just sit in silence. There's this one saint, there's a, what do you do when you're looking at the plus sacrament?

14:19And he said, I look at him and he looks at me. Hmm. And that's pretty good that you sit in silence, you know. In a meditative state. It's almost like it's meditative. Right. And so we call that mental prayer sometimes in the Catholic tradition. But I would recommend that is take, and it might not be an hour, maybe you have to build up to that, but even take five minutes to focus on the Lord. Now, it might be, you're going to read somebody from the scripture, which is great. It might be if you're Catholic, you pray the rosary, or you pray a decade of the rosary. That just kind of focuses your mind. You know, the Buddhists have this thing, the monkey mind, they talk about the monkey mind is, bop, bop, bop, bop, jump in a row, oh yeah. Brands to branch. Well, that's the way most of us live. Or like you wake up at three o'clock in the morning and your monkey mind is kicked in and you're thinking about. And they talk about calming the monkey mind, right? Merton, in fact, who was understood Buddha's very well, thought prayers like the rosary have that effect. You know, because all you do, you repeat the, you know, Hail Mary, Full of Grace,

15:19Lors of the Bloods are the Hail Mary, Full of Grace, Lors of the Hail Mary, Full of Grace. A mantra. It's like a mantra. It's a Catholic mantra. And what that does, many things, but it calms and focuses the soul, right? That's the great thing about prayer. And I'd recommend to you or anybody, take the time and find a way to get, you know, focused on the Lord. That's a good starting place. And how honest do you have to be with God? Well, see, the thing is with God, God knows everything anyway, because he's the source of existence. So not being honest if you're being secret if he already... What's the point? And that's what I mean. But it feels like there's some point to us. You know what I'm saying? Like it feels like, or there's a fear to do it or something. But see, it's stupid. It's a stupid thing because because God knows everything already. So what are you keeping from them? Or if you feel like I can just say these very kind of exalted, pious things to God. Look at the Bible. Look at the Psalms. The Psalms are filled with people. Angry at God and they're exalting, they're praising God.

16:20They're frustrated. They're tearing their hair out. Oh, yeah. It's PG-13 over there for sure. That's how you should pray. So why not be as with God about everything, about your sins? He knows them anyway. So I think praying with honesty is super important. But a lot of religious people, we kind of deceive ourselves and think, well, okay, I won't mention that to God. It's going to be okay. But then when you're keeping a secret, when you have a secret, though, that's where it feels like the devil can get in. When you have a seed of distrust. Because he's the father of lies, right? Is he? Yes, that's one of the titles, though. What the heck? I didn't even know that. Yeah, and that's actually a really good, interesting. He's the murderer from the beginning. But he's also the father of lies. Oh, murder from the beginning is way worse, I think. But definitely. That's definitely additional charges. But it's unrelated. Because when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. Yeah. So when you get on being with him, you're on being with what's truest about you, but also about all of reality. The devil's favorite move, therefore, is to lie,

17:20deceive, distract. Oh, that's not really true. And how often when we're not in touch with reality, we get so unhappy. And that's not an accident. So getting someone on the beam of truth is getting them on the beam of Christ, I would say. Because he announced himself as the truth. Yes, sometimes I'll pray. And it's like, I would want to keep things. Now I'm trying to be very specific. You know, like I just, because I don't want it anymore. I don't want to not have, I don't want something to be like just mine, if that makes any sense, especially if it's bad. Yeah. Like if I feel like it's bad, yeah, or it's like a sand or something I've done that's wrong or something I've been thinking about or something I'm afraid of, it's like, I don't want to just keep it to myself. Because I can't handle it. Yes. And look, see, from a calyx standpoint, the beauty of confession that we have the sacrament. You know, Jordan Peters has had it one time. To go before a representative of God,

18:21to admit your failure and your weakness and your sin and to seek the grace of God to do better, he said, I can't imagine anything psychologically healthier than that. Wow. And he was talking about Catholic confession. You know, because it gets portrayed times like, oh, this weird thing, you go into this box and you're muttering your sins to a priest. Oh, that's a caricature. It's standing before the Lord. Someone who represents him, because we're not angels. You know, I mean, we have bodies. That's why sacraments are physical and why you actually speak to somebody. But you're, he's a representative of God in that way. And you're telling God. Please represent the Lord. The priest, let's say if you go into confession. Okay. So it's saying. And you go to the priest and you confess your sins. You're speaking to God, really. And saying, Lord, I want to be honest with you. This is what's wrong with me right now. I'm not okay. I'm not doing well. And here's why. And then you seek the grace of God. That's beautiful. Because he, the father of lies, would love it if we just never admit that.

19:22Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm okay and you're okay. We're all doing great. Yeah. Don't tell me I've done anything wrong. Well, that's all the lie. And in confession, that's the beauty of it. I'm admitting how off-kilter I am. You know, and then I'm asking for grace. That's a beautiful thing. There's confession. Yeah. Oh, that's pretty cool. Yeah, but you know, the way most Catholics now go to confession would be face to face. I mean, you sit down with the priest. I think, well, we are. That's really. You can still go behind the screen and all. That's up to the individual. When I first started going to confession as a kid, it would have been behind the screens like that. But you can have this kind of direct conversation too. How has God shown grace in your life? Do you feel like personally if you don't mind if I ask? Well, no, I mean, like, well, so we can even talk about it. Because I think about it a lot, you know, when I think, or there's nothing, when I think about that, there's nothing, there's nothing like, that's one of the strongest thoughts that I have sometimes. It's just how much grace God shown. Right. In my own life. Yeah, I'm a big Bob Dylan guy. I don't know if you know that, but I love Bob Dylan.

20:23During his Christian period, he's got this song, I look around this whole world and all that I'm finding is the saving grace that's over me. And that's the way religious people in their more ecstatic moments talk. But yes, what it means, grace just means free gift. Well, what's a free gift? Is my being? Because I don't have to exist. There's nothing necessary about me. So the fact that I am and that I'm alive, that's a grace. Now you can start to name within that all kinds of particular things. You already was this morning. So our own existence is a grace. Yes, because you don't have to be. Right. See, God does, God is perfectly happy without the world. That's a very important theological truth. God does not need the world. He does not need anything outside of himself. God has got, yes, because God is perfect. God is the sheer act of existence. God is perfect. In every way. So then he must have created it with a purpose then. And the only purpose that we can identify is not a needy purpose. But God needs nothing. Therefore, whatever he does is done out of purest love.

21:24Because time is the quietness, along with Bob Dill on my other great hero. Time is the quietness, his great medieval theologian. He says that to love is to will the good of the other. And we think about that. That's a really rare, weird thing. So let me say it again, to love is to will the good of the other. The other as other. To will the good of the other as other. Yeah, and I'm kind of intensifying it to make the point. So let's say I'm nice to you that you might be nice to me. So that's what most of us sinners operate. So I'll be kind to you as long as you're kind to me. The minute you get obnoxious to me, I'm going to be obnoxious to you. That's the way most of us operate most of the time. Because we're doing it out of some kind of need. I'm not really willing, you're good. Now, love, but you're hoping that some that, right, explain, get something good will come out of it, that I'll get something for me. It'll redound to my benefit. Okay, I managed it. But see, and it's beautiful when it happens, and it does happen in the world when a parent or a spouse or whoever.

22:28Right, they have to love you because they just want you to be okay. They just want you're good. Or think of, you know, in a Catholic setting, we always go to the martyrs. I don't know if you know the same Max Millian Colby. You know, that right, Raya Bell. Oh, is he a great saint during the Nazi period? He was a prisoner in Auschwitz, right? He was a opponent of Hitler, so Hitler arrested him. He's a Franciscan friar. There he is. And he's got his the Auschwitz garb on there. Because the Nazis had a thing where someone escaped from the barracks. They'd bring everybody out into the yard, and they would pick tenet random and then starve them to death. It was like this horrible thing. Just if someone escaped. Right. As a payment. Right. So someone escaped from his barracks, and they brought the people out, and they picked out ten. He was not one of them. But this one man fell to his knees and started crying. And he said, I'm a husband, I'm a father, you know, please. So Colby stepped out of line, and he just said, I'm a Catholic priest.

23:29Take me in his place. And Colby barely knew this guy. And he's picking the barracks for them, I guess, but barely knew him. And so they starved from the death. Wow. And it was John Paul II who knew that story from the time in Poland, and kind of brought it to the attention of the world. Now that's love, say, the willing, the good of the other. What was in it for him? What was in it for Colby? Yeah. And so it's like it's unbelievable. It's like a black hole. You know, black hole will draw everything into itself. Right. That's what most of our souls are like. We want to draw the world in. Love is breaking the, the breaking the crap, gravitational pull of the black hole of the ego. And saying, I really want what's good for you. And in a while, we say, he God is love. That's what God is because he doesn't need anything. Yeah. He can't do anything out of self-interest. So my existence, our being in this room, is itself an expression of love. It has to be. So then the trick is, as you get closer to God,

24:31you become more conformed to that. Which is why the saints are so weird. That's why the saints are so weird to us. Because they're not operating in this ordinary sphere. So we talk about like supernatural virtue. That's Colby. That's all the saints. They have supernatural because they're very close to the way God is. So the greatest thing that we can do is try to love in a completely like selfless way. Right. And it's not easy. And that's why it requires prayer. I can't really will myself into that state. I have to kind of be open to God's grace transforming me. And prayer helps that. Yes. It might say it's the only way. Because like the Aristotle or Plato would have said, these virtues like courage, and prudence, and justice, you can kind of practice your way to them. But the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love, see that's why they're theological. That I can't really practice my way. I can just say, Lord, make me like this.

25:32Bring me into line with your way of being. And sort of it's kind of a miracle when it happens. Yes. Sometimes I notice like if I'm having trouble with something and I don't even think that I want to, sometimes I'll want something, but I won't want to do it. Yeah. Does that make any sense to you? The good that I would do is that that I don't do. Yes. And Paul says that Roman seven. So yeah, my brother was saying that I should ask for the willingness to do it sometimes. Like sometimes it's like a little bit of like a crack in the door. Like if I can't, like if I don't have the power to do it myself, maybe sometimes that I can pray just to ask God for willingness. Like God even just make me willing to try this. Yes. Maybe the Holy Spirit kind of let us to mert in that way. Because one of Thomas Merton's famous prayers begins, my Lord God, I have no idea where I'm going. Hmm. It's a great way to start a prayer. Like I don't know. But one of the things in there is, and the fact that I think I'm doing a will, doesn't mean I'm actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you.

26:36And then I have that desire in all that I do. That's a cool prayer. See, he's lost. I don't know where I'm going. And I don't even know if I'm doing your will. But the desire to please you, in fact, pleases you. So let me have that anyway. Amen. That's a good way to pray. I'll be honest that in the past, I was hesitant to invest. I felt like I didn't know enough for, or maybe I was too late. I wasn't timing things right. The truth is that so many of us only focus on where our money is today. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. It's easy. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money. Even if all you've got is spare change. Sign up now and join over 14 million people already investing with Acorns.

27:41New customers get a $20 bonus investment just for signing up. Takes about two minutes and it could be the quickest $20 you'll ever earn. Head to acorns.com slash theo. That's a-c-o-r-n-s.com slash THEO to claim your $20 bonus today. acorns.com slash theo. Limited time offer. Terms and conditions apply. See acorns.com slash terms for details. Yeah, it's funny. We're at a time where like you were talking about like or you just mentioned loss like being actually kind of lost and what are prayer to say that yeah, I'm lost. Like God, I am lost right? Like to give to allow possibility in your life because if you're lost then you need something right. You just mentioned being kind of lost right. It's interesting that we're in a time where we have so many things that help us have like direction right. Like we have GPS we have like

28:44map quest we have ways we have everything we had everything you could need to help us like direct we have all this technology we have so many things right. We have so much like material we have so much like we have storage facilities people are storing addicts or full right. Right. People are some people have two or three purses some women and some men. But what I'm saying is we have so much stuff but yet like it feels like we're at a spot where we're missing something that we just can't purchase anymore. Right. When it comes to the. Is it making any sense to you? Like we're missing something that's like a not on a shelf somewhere. Right. We just say why we're casting about so desperately. And it feels desperate. That's what it's got to. It's starting to feel desperate and I think someone has to do it like a sense of purpose maybe. Yes. I'm not sure. No, yeah, because we've lost the sense of like ultimate purpose or spiritual purpose. And so when you lose that the Bible would describe that as being an exile you've wandered into the desert. You're away from the sources of life. St. Augustine said you're in the land of dissimilitude because we're made in the

29:45lightness of God right. But I've wandered into the land where I'm not like God. And so. Yes. A Costco. I'm in Costco and so I'm just sort of lost. And so the idea is Jesus says I am the way. Follow me. I'm the way you get your bearings. I give these sermons a lot to kids in for confirmation. It's a bishop you confirm these like teenagers. You know, so I give the sermon and I use the example of ways a lot. And you know, I trust in ways. I got this the voice. I got this kind of English voice on mine. And this is what calm guy just tells me, you know, where to go, where to turn. And I kind of surrender to him because yeah, I'm driving all over the place. I don't know where I'm going. I was better when I was a kid. I knew better where I was going now. But I just kind of trust in the voice of ways. And I said, but that's like the voice of your conscience, the voice of God that we have to learn how to trust it again. And I would say the Bible, teaching of the church in the liturgy in great preaching in someone like the merton or fault

30:47and sheen or there are lots of ways to find your direction. And then see Jesus says about all of us Christians, you're at the light of the world. You're the city on the hill. See, the city on the hill was like a GPS. If you're in ancient times, you're wondering, oh, the city. Oh, yeah, I got to go just, you know, kind of just west of that city. So it was the way I found my direction. Well, that's us. We're supposed to be that now for other people that we followers of Jesus are meant to be a signal to the rest of the world. But if we're as lost as they are, and the Lord says, if salt is lost, it's saver, you know, who's and you don't put a light under a bush, no basket. But that's what a lot of us have done. Where's lost is everybody else? Sometimes it also feels like Bishop that it's being organized that way by like darker entities in society. Do you feel like that? That could be true. That like evil operates like that because it really feels like that more than ever, I think. Yes. The Bible knows about personal sin, right? So there's individuals, you and I,

31:49were sinners. I'm lost. I'm a sinner. But it also knows about, you know, kind of structural institutional sin. But then behind all of that, it knows about, I would say, a properly spiritual dimension that there's a spiritual world that's also fallen and that compromises the institutional and the personal level. There's all those dimensions of evil. I think we get naive in a way. But it was just personal evil. It's just something that we sinners do. Yeah, that's true. But behind us, our institutions that condition us and behind them, there are fallen spiritual powers, I would say. And we got to deal with all of them. We got to, you know, Paul says, you know, we battle not just with flesh and blood, but powers and principalities. That's still true. It seems to me. Did Christianity ever have like a military or was that even a thing? Well, there were military orders like around the time of the, you know, Crusades and stuff, like the Knights Templar and they were like religious orders that had kind of a military dimension, you know, because they were trying to defend the Holy Land and all that. But we tend

32:53not to do that today. Yeah. You got the Knights of Malta. There's certain things that kind of a holdover from that time. But we're not like going around with, you know, machine guns and stuff. Got it. There's the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were wealthy. That's varsity too. Look at them. The Knights Templar were a wealthier, were a wealthy and powerful Catholic military order of warrior monks founded in 1118 during the Crusades. Their mission formed to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem and sacred sites from violent attacks. Wow. So when Christians traveled to go to Jerusalem, the Knights Templar would kind of escort them or make sure that they got there safely. That was the idea. Yeah. Why were they attacked so much? Oh, it's a complicated story. There was some, you know, the charges of corruption, financial corruption, other things. It's a little bit murky and I don't know the history all that well, but they were eventually suppressed, you know. But it's like most human things end up going bad. Yeah. And there was some kind of corruption set in there. But I think at its best, it was doing a very valuable thing. Yeah. Most human things kind of end up

33:53going bad in some ways. Do you think like sometimes I get stuck in this space where it's like, like, like I want like, you know, I want to go to heaven. I want to have, like, happiness after, like I want to earn the possibility to, and I don't know if it's earned is the right word, but I want to have the opportunity to have a life past this, past this one here. Yeah. But also part of me wants this, like, you want to win in this world as well. Does that make any sense? It's like, it's like you want to see like humanity win, right? But does that really even matter if the goal is to, is to have an eternal life and to, is earn the right word? No, I wouldn't use earn, but it's a both am. See, but is it makes sense when I'm asking? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to lose here

34:54on earth. You know, not as a person, but as a species or as like, it's even as like America or as like a good, good versus evil. It's like, I don't want good to lose here on earth. You know, you want to try and serve as that as well as you can, but it seems like the more important thing is this, is this greater, yes, good that comes with salvation. Does that make sense? Yes, and they're both true. See, contrasts, Chris Biblical religion with, let's say, Plato and go at the Plato, these, these other figures that felt the body, this natural world was kind of a fallen world that was low level. The idea was to escape from it. So Plato says the whole point of philosophy is like a prison break to get out of the prison of the body. That's not the Bible. The Bible doesn't hold to that at all. So God makes the world, everything in it, including insects that crawl upon the earth and all that. And he finds it good. And he finds the ensemble of it very good. That's a radical thing though in the Bible. See, because so many dualistic systems would say like spirit, good,

35:58matter, bad, heaven, good, earth, bad, get out of earth to get to heaven. That's not the Bible. The Bible affirms the earth. It affirms the human project, right? And then it doesn't want so much escape from the earth. It wants a new heavens and a new earth. That's a different game. See, God doesn't give up on what he's made. He wants to lift it up and transfigure it and bring it to a higher pitch. Or like, you know, Jesus says, may your will be done on earth as in heaven. So he wants to bring heaven and earth together. That's the goal. And see, we believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It doesn't mean, oh yeah, Jesus died and his soul, oh my God, went up to heaven. That's not it at all. He walked in the room and he ate in front of them and he said, touch, touch my wounds. Risen from the dead. Yes, conqueror of death. Yes, but in his body. Right? So we look forward, like the creed say, not to the escape of the soul from the body. We look forward to the resurrection

37:00of the body. So see, that's to your point. That means God doesn't give up on the world. He doesn't give up on the human project. He wants us to strive to make this world as beautiful and just and good as possible in the hopes of now attaining this transformation or think of, you know, the scene of the transfiguration of Jesus when the clothes become dazzling white and all that. He doesn't go up somewhere else. He, he allows them to see his transfigured person. That's the biblical thing. So it's bullfand, right? Okay. Bullfand. What do you think is something that's a transfiguration? Oh, yes. Show it. Let me see. And is that one particular famous piece of art or is that just the Raphael one on the right there, the screen I'm looking at. There's a lot of different, but the Raphael is probably the most famous one. But it's the bodilyness of it. That's what I would emphasize. So many spirituality is kind of down in the body, down in the world, get out of the world. That's not biblical religion. Got it. Right. We like the body. The body's good.

38:04But it's part time. Not really. No, I mean, I look forward to the resurrection of the body. But think about this too. So you're saying our body will come back? Yeah. We'll see. This, this body's part time. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This body's part time. But I mean, like, how many of the of the cells in my body did I have, I don't know, the scientists will tell me four years ago, like nothing. My whole body's been replaced. Right. But the form of of me, the basic pattern of me remains. Right. Well, I think something similar, and we talk about the resurrected body. I'll die. I'll go into the ground. But God remembers the great pattern of me and can reconstitute, just as it's happening now in nature. I'm getting reconstituted physically all the time. That's a good point. So can it happen in this sort of transfigured way in heaven? Paul talks about the spiritual body. And he's saying, well, what's he talking about? But I think he's gesturing toward this. It's a body, but it's not like just this ordinary body. It's a spiritualized body. And he

39:04sense that in the resurrection of Jesus. One of the toughest things that I hear people talk about, like we're in a lot of like kind of like a, I want to see like a me time. But it's like, it's like, we've all kind of like we're inundated with ourselves. Right. Yeah. And people spend less time connected, you know, even though like technology has a hypothetically more connected, but they spend less time connected. And then a lot of people feel alone, right? Like even if they're not even alone, sometimes there's this just feeling of being alone. Why is it, is being alone a sin? Is it a sin to be alone? It's not good for a man to be alone. The Bible says, right? So I mean, from the beginning, see, God is a family. We'd say God is father, son, spirit. God is not just, yeah, he's a triple Denver. He's not a monolith. He's right. There's like something familial, there's something communitarian about God. And so he wants us to have that same kind of thing. See, I think what happens is when

40:06you forget about God, you lose your connection, everybody else. So you and I, we just met today for the first time. But see, we're connect. We are, I'll use a technical term. We are ontological siblings because it means we're, we're brothers at the level of being because right now, we're both coming forth from God's creative intention. So if you go to the very depth of my own being, I'm going to find the depth of your being. Hmm. See, and that's, that's why we're like our That's because why we're both here talking about it and learning together. No, because we're both creatures. We're both here because God is willing us to be here. And he's, he's breathing us right now into existence. I see so that at that alone that that birth in a way is something that we haven't common. Yeah, we rarely ever even talk about that. Right. And see, when you pray, so in prayer, again, Thomas Merton says, it's finding the place in you where you are here and now being created by

41:06God. That's what prayer it means. So if I in prayer find that place, I found that same place in you and the same place in everybody else. And that's why St. Francis can say, brother, son, and sister moon. It's not just whistle and dixie. I mean, that's a, that's a very accurate statement. Oh, yeah, the sun is, is my brother. The moon is my sister because we're all coming forth from the same creative source. And see, that happens in prayer. Yeah, the stitch is the same, that lowest stitch is the same. Right. But now you stop praying or you say, I hate church. I'm going to forget about God. I'm going to live for myself. You've lost that now. You've lost contact with that point. And so of course, we now live in antagonism. Okay. So if we're all connected, then what's a way to stay as tapped into that connectivity as possible? Love one another as I have loved you. So Jesus says to his disciples, I've loved you. I'm, I wield your good. And you found your commonality in me. Okay. Now you love each other as I have loved you. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says,

42:14God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. Okay. There's the whole purpose of Christ. He said, we wandered into the land of unlikeness, we're lost, we're in the desert, whatever metaphor you want. But now in Christ, God has reconciled us to himself. But then Paul says, now you become ambassadors of Christ. Now you become reconcilers. That's the saints then. That's their job. The divided societies, because there aren't enough of us. We're not light, we're not solved, we're not the city on the hill, and we're not doing our work of reconciling. You know, you know, it's you that Amish had behind you there, right? The Amish kid that was on your show. I guess. Oh, yeah, Timothy. I love it. Who's from my diocese. He's from my area in Minnesota. Lane's bro. Oh nice. Yeah, he's one of a kind. I want to have him back in because I hope I'm, I'm scared that he's going away from. I don't know. I just, there's a fear that I have that it's like he got a little too, a little too tempted out there. I mean, there he is. It's fucking hooters.

43:17I didn't see. He know. And I don't think the Lord's at hooters. No, but I don't know about this particular Amish kid, but the Amish. But I don't know. But the Amish are, they're beautiful examples of what I'm talking about. You know, these stories about, you know, a guy goes crazy and he killed these kids in an Amish school, right? And the community would just be so vividly angry with him. And these Amish people went to the home of the guy's widow. Like they killed these kids and killed themself. They went that night to the home of the widow to comfort her. And then they went to the, to the, to the trial or something to show their support. That's, see, that's Christianity. That's, that's grace breaking out. That's God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. They were acting as ambassadors of Christ in that regard because they were looking at someone else's pain over there. Yeah. Right. They were willing to go to the other, even if it meant enormous struggle for them. So that's what we're supposed to do. See, Christianity is never meant to be my little

44:19relationship with the Lord. And you know, so I go to church and I feel good about my prayers. Fine, as a starting point. But the whole point of it is now go. You're an ambassador of Christ. And if the world's lost its way, we Christians have got to take some responsibility. Like, no, that's our job is to, is to say Christ is the way. Let me show you. It feels like the world has lost its way. It feels like, I don't know if it feels like people have all the time, but it feels like the, like these darker powers and like corporations like greed has overtaken things. You know, I mean, you're just seeing things that are so painful in the world right now. And I, and maybe they've always been there, right? Maybe they're more like in our hand these days because we can see them on our phones and we can see them on social media. But it feels like we've just gotten like, it doesn't feel like we as humans, it doesn't always feel like we are that far off tune. But it feels like there has been like an organized like strategy against us to like,

45:27like get to like the down to the cell, like even with the algorithms and now your phone is watching you and how it's like and surveillance state that we're entering allegedly in some places. It seems like the devil is like, I mean, he's like in way heavily invested in attack. You know, he loves it. But it's like, what do we do? Like, and you can't like turn back the time of the world really. It's like, you can romanticize the past and I'll do that a lot. But it's like, um, like, I guess it's just like, yeah, what do we do? Because it doesn't feel like we're not trying. And maybe we aren't at times, but it does feel like the sword against us has been sharpened with a sharpener that that we couldn't even fathom existed. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does. That spooks me too. Cause I do think it's a favorite tool of the dark powers, the technology. You know, one way is just how mean that world is when you enter the world of social media and

46:30you know, that meanness has always been there. But in now it appears publicly in a way that's damaging people. And I know from a lot of studies in my own pastoral work, young people, especially young women are getting damaged like crazy on social media, just the negativity and the judgmentalism. And, you know, um, yeah, the dark powers love using that, you know, what do we do? Like, what do you do is someone who believes in like a good, right? Even even if they're even someone who may not even have the strongest faith in God, right? Or in a specific branch of religion, but who just believes in like a moral good, you know, right? It's just like, you never see that. That's a very important point, actually, the belief in a moral good because if I can quote another hero of mine, G K Chesterton, do you know that name? G K G K Chesterton. Great English writer dies 1936, I think. But he said this the light light 100 years ago, he said, men today have lost their his, men today have lost their way. Nothing's surprising that men have always lost their way.

47:31The difference is today they've lost their address. See, we've always wandered, you know, into a bad path, but at least we kind of knew we're supposed to be going. And he saw 100 years ago, it's true, we're like mad today, that we've lost our address. Like, well, where am I even going? Where am I supposed to be going? And see, we live in what I call the culture of self invention. I invent myself through my own freedom, right? I decide who I am. My values are. Don't you tell me? I won't tell you. We'll just tolerate each other, but I will decide my whole life. It is a recipe for disaster, depression, everything else. That's the black hole. Everything's drawn into me, right? What makes life worth living, I think, is when these great values appear, they could be aesthetic values like when it like a song, like when I first heard like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, that's a song that changed my life. It wasn't the first song I liked. That was sugar sugar by the Archies. Remember that song? Sugar, sugar, sugar, bam bam bam. So I'm a little kid, I'm nine

48:34years old and I thought that was the coolest song, right? I liked that song, but Bob Dylan, like a Rolling Stone, I was what, 17 or so when I heard that. That changed my life, that song. That's, now put it philosophically, that was an objective, aesthetic value that drew me out of myself, that changed my subjectivity. So you're saying that something you found on the outside of you, like brought, like kind of rearranged how you operated. Exactly. Now, like Merton's Semistry Mountain, what is a book like that? Thomas Aquinas, my other great hero, I discovered around that time. These are these objective, like beautiful things. I remember when I was a high school kid, and together in the class, we're reading out loud Romeo and Juliet, right? I mean, I understood about about 4% of it. Yeah, dude, it's not even that great. Well, right, but my reaction when I first wrote it, the notebooks better, I think, but go on. When I first read it was like, man, that such a thing should exist. I just thought it was like a miracle, like this thing, and it's complexity,

49:41and the beauty, the language, and the, it just sort of, it flummixed me. Yeah, you're right. Or like the first time I heard, like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the old to joy symphony. I mean, like if you were to say, hey, I really like that. What a stupid response. Yeah, it was so stupidly inadequate to it because it doesn't even do its service. Because it changes you. See, if you say, oh, I like that. I'm still kind of, you know, calling the shots. Right. But really great values. The saints now in the moral order. When you, like the story of Colby, when you hear that story, you're like, wow, I can't even get my mind around that, right? So those are the things that make life worth living. What I'm against is this self invention thing of like, oh, no, no, don't tell me what to think or do. I will decide for me to death with that, bore me to death with that kind of autonomy. What would be the appropriate response then of something that you heard of like, you know what I'm saying? What would be a response that was less autonomous to two? It would be what we call aesthetic arrest, you know, you're stopped.

50:47You're stopped in your tracks. And you let that thing do its work on you. Right. And then you become a missionary of it, which is happening right now because even though those things I'm talking about Bob Dylan and Beethoven and Shakespeare all hit me when I was a kid. But right now, you hear me? I'm a missionary. I'm announcing them because like, wow, I just finished a film on the Gothic cathedrals. I was trying to explain why was the whole world so captivated by the Notre Dame fire a couple of years ago? Remember? The whole world is like, oh my god. And I thought it's not just because, oh, this nice old building is bringing down people sensed in that cathedral like something of enormous value was being lost. So I did this film that's meant to tell that story of why those buildings are so remarkable and powerful. So stop. See, aesthetic arrest, stop. You shut up. Stop thinking. Stop. Stop. Stop. It's not about you. Right. Let that thing judge you.

51:52Right. And then it will rework you and then send you on mission. That's how it works, I think. Is pornography causing a problem in your life? Do you find yourself watching porn O for longer periods of time and having trouble stopping? Is porn affecting your relationship or dating life? Well, you're certainly not alone. Watching pornography has become so commonplace today and oftentimes men use porn to numb the pain of loneliness, boredom, anxiety, and depression. Shame and stigma prevent men from talking about these issues and getting help for them. I want to introduce you to my friend Steve. Steve is the founder of Valor Recovery, a program to help men overcome porn abuse and sexual compulsivity. Steve is a long term sexual recovery member and has personally overcame the emotional and spiritual despair of abusing pornography and has

52:54dedicated his life to empowering men to do the same. Steve is an amazing person and he is a close friend of mine. I mean that. Valor Recovery helps men to develop the tools necessary to have a healthier sex life. Their coaches are in long term recovery and will be your partner, mentor, and spiritual guide to transcend these problematic behaviors. To learn more about Valor Recovery, please visit them at www.ValorRecoveryCoaching.com or email them at admin at ValorRecoveryCoaching.com. Thank you. So you're saying just finding things to honor? Is that sort of exactly what you're saying there or finding things that move you? Yeah. Well they find you. That's my experience. Is it the thing? And not taking some sort of like, oh I like that or this or that, just honoring what it is. Let and I think there have been teachers of the great value. See who have been affected by them

53:58and now can present them to people in a powerful way. I had this great professor at Notre Dame University. I'm a kid and he was showing us his art history class, showing us images from the tradition, but he loved the Gothic churches and it was the first time I saw like the rose window at Notre Dame. And so he was someone who'd been affected by that and then he communicated it to me. So we need teachers to know how to do that. Well I think one of the things that we run into is so much there's not as much oration amongst communities and stuff as much anymore. It used to be the way you got a story was you had to go and hear it from the source. And it used to be like when I was growing up it was like, do you got to meet so and so. Yeah. Way to you here. Well way to you hear the story, right? So it had this like there was more opportunity for lore and and there was more opportunity for like advertising and build up of like a story or a person or something. Right.

55:00If you want to learn about like how to make something, I don't have to travel to the guy in my town that makes it and sit there with him and develop a like a princess and being a princess, right? We're not much an apprentice anymore. I can go watch a YouTube video of something and there's still an apprenticeship there because I'm watching someone do it, but there's a human, there's a but the lack of humanity there. I think I don't think we know the total value loss of that human connection of sharing a story or a skill or a mindset or belief. I think that I don't think that we've come to like a place that we can calculate the loss of that because it feels like there's that we're not doing something together. Yes. No, there's a lot right what you're saying there. The machines give us data and we're great at that and that's it has a huge thing. I use the you know the Siri every day and hey, Siri, what about this and I can get data information, but you're talking about seeing much deeper which is pattern and meaning and for pattern and meaning, Siri can't

56:04give that to us. The machines can't give that to us. You need you're exactly right. The the lore and the narrativity of a community. See that brings me right back to something else is really missing. The initiation rituals of primal peoples and this is true across the cultures go over the world in primal peoples of a young man let's say he's got to be ripped out of his comfort area so that the men of the tribe or the the the town will go take the kid out from his home. All right, and then they'll scarify him usually like a something on the cheek of the knacket two-thousand or circumcise him or something and the idea of that was that third one's ever real. I'll take one of the first two. I'll take the two. I mean, that somebody got me for the third. I'm not and I'm still going to catch the guy who did it. But yeah, yeah, anyway, let's carry on. But it's just it's meant to say life is life is hard. I mean, life's going to knock you around. So you're saying that like young men they used to they would extract them from sort of their comfort zone. Yeah. And they would and mark their body somehow. Okay. Like to say, okay, remind them life is hard

57:09expected. Life to be easy. I see. So as an educational right got it. But then see to your point, they would then speak the lore of the tribe. Now you need to know of a history of this tribe. This thing goes way beyond you way before you. It was here long before you'll be here long after you. Then the last step was almost invariably bring the kid to the edge of like jungle or tundra whatever it was. Give them a few simple supplies. Go survive. You know, and come back only when the sacred has communicated to you. And that's super healthy. That move. See, it got someone out of his self regard that the black hole of the ego your life is not about you. Life is hard. And you're meant to find meaning in this realm way beyond what you can imagine. And only when all those things have happened, can you come back to the tribe and be of any use to us? If you're stuck at home at the attitude of a 14 year old, you will not be of any use to this tribe. I think we have tons of uninitiated people. They've not been brought through that process of

58:15an annual use to do. That's a great statement, dude. I'm sorry. I don't know. And that feels like something, man. Yeah. It feels like, um, I don't know. It feels like we're all just capable of so much more. Right. Like I know we can do so much more in some ways. But there's a part of us that's capable of so much more that is like, wilting. Yeah. No, right. And that's the whole point of it. It's to bring a kid through that so that he can make a real contribution. And so how would we, like, what is kind of a modern date? Like, like, is there a way to do that now? Like, yeah. I think this is not to put you on this. I mean, but no, no, religion used to preside over this. That's the whole thing. Religious presided over this process. Oh, I didn't realize that. Sure. Let me go like to primal people. This is always like in a religious context. Right. So you're taking them out there. And you're also sharing the lore. I think the lore is so important. Yeah. Like, I don't, I mean, like, this is sad to say it's like, I don't even know that much of my family lineage. You know, like, I don't even like, I don't even a lot of times like yesterday was one of the first times I

59:19told my dad hello, like when I was praying, you know, like, not that that's where you can communicate with him. But I felt like kind of like the portal was open. So I told him hello. My friend sister just passed away and I was like, hey, look out for my buddy sister. You know, having me. Yeah. Yeah. But I just like, like, I think there was definitely this bigger connection between cultures and their ancestors. Yeah. And the existence beyond us. And I'm really honestly just speaking somewhat for myself, you know. And some of it's not any fault of mine. Some of it isn't things that were brought upon me. But it's like things that maybe I could incorporate when I have moon family and stuff. But I do think it's things that I think were like that there could be some lack of in our in our society today. This is many years going on. My niece, she's now like in her mid 30s when she was like around 20. She and her classmates. They took them up like in somewhere in northern Wisconsin and made them live outside in the woods for several days. They had a kayak and they were popping down rivers and they really put them

1:00:22through it, right? And I remember this case. She came home and was telling me about this with such enthusiasm. At that point, she was like a like a late teenager and kind of bored by everything. But man, she came alive talking about that experience. And see, there's at least an overtone of the initiation ritual stuff with that. You've got to go through something tough and challenging and gets you out of your self-regard. See, self-regard. Everything's about me. How does it affect me? Is it's the other regard? Because he that's love, willing the good of the other. But you got to be drawn out of it. How did the church used to do that? Well, there's no remnant. This thing that we stopped doing this after Vatican II, but at confirmation, right? So it's one of the sacraments and usually given around the coming of age time, right? So in my diocese when the kids were 15, there was a moment when the bishop would give the kid a little slap across the face. Well, that's the imitation of the scarification or the knocking of tooth out. So as Matt does a life is tough. Put the Lord in his cheeks. Yeah. That's what you get on saying.

1:01:25Or some physical reminder. Right. It was physical. I think we did it as a culture better. You know, that we realized. Yeah. Now, see, right, there's the bishop like me confirming a kiss. And we put the chrysanthemum oil on the forehead. But in the old days, they would also slap them. You've been using a botanol oil sometimes on my scalp at night. That's not chrysanthemum oil, though. Yeah. No, it's not. It's not ordained. I know that. It's just on the shelf or whatever. You know that right in the middle there, that's Cardinal George, who was of Chicago. No, go up with the red vestments right there. That's the Pope. No, he was the archbishop of Chicago. No. Who is that? That's the archbishop of Chicago. But he, I lived with him for about six years. Really? Yeah. Your roommates? No, roommates. No, I lived in the same house with him. And he was kind of a mentor to me, kind of a hero to me. Oh, that's beautiful. Let's say his name again. What is it? Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. Was he was either real deal? Yeah. He was a very serious guy, very smart,

1:02:26like understood everything we've been talking about. He understood the spiritual power of the church. And he was a real student of the culture. So we knew what was going wrong with our culture. He's very insightful about that. Yeah. It feels like there's bigger entities. How do we, I know you kind of touched on, I feel like how we battle that. But like at what point is there like a riot uprising about like at what point do you feel like there's like as a group, if we're kind of all connected, if there's some connection maybe because I think sometimes I'm amazed that there's hasn't been more like revolution. Are you amazed at that at all? Just based on where things are kind of and like because it's gotten pretty scary. You know, it's like we're at a place where we should be spiritual revolutionaries. And that's true. I don't want like political revolution. Yeah, I'm not saying political, but they're, you know, see, but the church here's something interesting to me. You know, when the Lord says to Peter, okay, if you're a Peter upon this

1:03:28rock, I'll build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it, right? Now all of my life, I would say I heard that statement. I took it to mean, oh yeah, hell is coming after us and they're not going to, they're not going to prevail, right? We're going to be able to hang in there. But that's completely backward. The gates of hell will not prevail against you. Well, see, if you were attacking a city in the ancient world, you attacked the gates. That was the weakest place. So the image is not we're defending ourselves against the onslaught of hell. No, we're going after you. We're going after the powers of darkness and we're going at your gates because it's the weakest place and we're going to break in and we're going to conquer you. And so the church is a militant organization in that sense. We don't use the weapons of the world, but we're battling the dark powers. And part, we've lost our confidence. We've lost our sense of purpose. Armed with the great weapons that Paul talks about, right? Yeah, because sometimes it feels like the church, yeah, it feels kind of sometimes like the church

1:04:30doesn't have any ball. I know. Yes. And that's the problem. That's the problem. Is it what? And that don't mean that offensively? No, no, you know, and you're absolutely right. We should be on the march against the dark powers. Now, here's something because if you guys aren't, yes. Like if the church isn't, then what is going to be? Right. And if the salt loses its saver, who's going to make it salty again? That's the, you know, and we put the light under a bush, a basket, and we've done a lot of that by kind of accommodating the culture of losing our edge. Here's something the saints always said about the devil. The one thing in us, the devil can't manipulate is humility. See, the devil is marked by pride above all. Pride means self-regard. Me, me, me, right? So the devil can use anything in me. He can use my strength, he's my ambition, he can use whatever. But the one thing he can't use is my humility. It's just frustrates him. Because it's not, it's not something he would do. Right. He doesn't know what to do with it. It's completely repugnant to his way of being. So if I'm humble, that means I've, I'm letting go of my ego. I'm letting God direct me. And the devil cannot mess with that. He cannot mess with it.

1:05:38But say you're so humble. You're so accepting, right? You just keep accepting and accepting and accepting and then there's and then nobody's it's a possession of power, real humility. Because it means, so give me an example, maybe, but does it make sense? Does it make sense? Because I'm just trying to make sure that I make sense. Yeah. Because sometimes I don't know to be honest with you. And so I'm trying to make sure that it makes sense to you. So when I say that it feels like it's just like, woo, okay, we essence are giving up. Yes, it's your acquiescing. Everything is just like, like if that is the humility, then that feels like surrender. It feels like, yeah, it's not that. It would be your humble before God. You're, you let go of your own pretensions, your own ego, your own plans and purposes so that God can work in you. So now you've unleashed enormous power into the world. Think of the great saints. They're not little, you know, muleing, melee mouth, you know, people. They're full of confidence and a sense of purpose because it's God's purpose, not their own. And then they boy, they radiate power all over. And that's what the double

1:06:43can't use. He can't use humility in that sense. Are we, are we so addicted to self, though, that do you think like? Because we're pretty far down the line in some ways of, um, really trapped in our own selves. It's like we're all our own businesses and we're, it's like, you know, I would say we're pretty far down the line with self. Yeah. Um, do you think that we are so far down that we can't, that, that switch can't be flipped? You know what I'm saying? Like we've, like we're so far like, we're like looking in a mirror of ourselves, looking in a mirror, you know what I'm saying? Like are we too far down like the narcissists reflection in the pond? Yeah, yeah. To be able to get back to some space of humility because this is what it feels like. I feel like sometimes you feel like, okay, this is what God would want me to do. And it feels like you run into like, well, what will other people think of that? Right. You know, or how will that be perceived? Right. You have to let go of that or you won't be getting done. Or what if nobody,

1:07:50like follows me or agrees with me? I think those are a lot of the fears that come up. No, that's the whole spiritual struggle in a way. See, I'm so held captive by my fears or by my addictions. Sin is always an addiction, right? Because sin, capital S, is putting something other than God at the center of your life. Okay. So it could be it's wealth, pleasure, power, honor, family, country, anything other than God. If I make it central, I will become addicted to it because I want God, right? That's what my heart wants. And so I'm going to try to find God in money. Well, no matter how much money I make, it's not going to be enough. It can't be. It's not God. Or, you know, my, my life is all about my family. Great. But if your family is, is God, it's not going to satisfy you. Now power, if it's power, it's not going to satisfy you. And before you know it, you're going to become addicted to these things, right? So breaking free of addictions and breaking

1:08:52free of fears, then you're at the point of Maxine Colby. Then you can say, I'm a Catholic priest, take me, right? Now that's an extreme case. That's a martyr. But, but see, on a smaller scale, that's true of all of us. I would say this to you, you do what you discern God wants you to do. And don't worry about the rest. I had a teacher around high school, good guy, Mr. Stark. He's our religion teacher. He came in one day and he had this glass, this glass of plain water, right? And without saying a word, he took this little eyedropper and put one little drop of blue, and then proceeded to teach the class, never refer to it. And finished the class, 45 minutes, and then he said, do you see this water up here? And by that time it was all blue, right? Even like dark blue. And he said, that was from one drop. And then he said, that's the influence of a saint. And that's always stayed in my mind. I think that's right. You know, that a saint, which means someone doing God's will, can have this enormous transformative effect. And so do what God calls

1:09:56you to do. And don't worry about it. You'll be that one drop of water that will make this huge difference. That's for everyone. Yeah. And gosh, have everyone did that? We transformed the world. And then to people are trying, I think it's just tough because it feels like the people that own the water, right? Like come over and say, no, no more blue water. But the gates of hell will not prevail against us. So if we have that confidence, you know, right? In the end, there's you, in the end, you have to believe that there's, you have to believe in good at the end, you, because there's no other way to operate. That is like, that gives you any reward. Right? Does that make sense to you? Like you have to believe that like even if everything points to like, no, you have to just have hope and keep going. I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. Merton says, right? So as long as I have that desire, all right. And I just follow it and just do it. What it prompts you to do. And God will make it happen.

1:10:58You know, so in a way, you want to pull back from the world and just think about you. What God's calling you to do. Yeah. And you know, people, I have this online ministry. So a lot of times people will write in and you look, there's your own depressed. I'm just I'm terrible shape. I'm so unhappy. What do I do? And because I don't know these people and I don't want to be giving big advice to people. I don't know for sure. But the one I feel confident giving and I do, I'll say, perform every day, the simplest act of love. And they know what I mean by that. To will the good of the other. And it might be it's a note to somebody. It's a kind word. It's a smile. Because in it, in that very act, you're pulled out of yourself. Yeah. You know, Jordan Peterson has studies, he's right about this. That self consciousness and misery are identical. I see that's the point we've been talking about all day today is the more I turn inward, that makes me miserable. What are the best moments in a day without exception when I'm least aware of myself. And

1:12:00I'm lost in something. Whether it's, you know, it's Willie Nelson or it's or it's Romeo, Juliet, or it's the shark cathedral or the Indiana fever. I like or it's this conversation. What draws you out of yourself. That's what gives you joy. So it's just why this spiritual life. It's always like on a razor's edge. You know, I become happy when I'm least preoccupied with me. And boom. Oh, yeah. All of religious practice, all of it is simply meant to affect that change, right? Yes. That's the whole purpose of it. Understood. Yes. Some of my favorite moments are thinking about somebody else. Yes. You know, and you become truly happier and better. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I just end up feeling better. Feeling better. Right. I've gotten so, there's times I've been so sick of myself. Like, I work and you have to see video myself and then I have to edit sometimes and I'm like, here, God, like, you know, so sometimes I wake if I wake up and I'm thinking about somebody else. So the first thought on my head is if somebody else, yeah, it literally feels

1:13:01like the greatest thing. It feels like the most like the best ice cream, a flavor they don't even have that nobody else can get. Right. Because if put it in theological terms, you are at that moment in in tune with God. Yeah. God is love. And so the simplest act of love puts you in tune with God. And therefore makes you happy. Yeah. It does, man. And it gets, I will say this, dude, I, it starts to get a little bit of dicting and a positive. Yeah. Yeah. Thinking about other people and wishing other people well and stuff like that. You feel like a little hallmark section. Absolutely. Well, you know, another spiritual heroine is Tirez of Liseux. To know that name, by chance, she's very popular in the Catholic world. Tirez of Lips. Defensively, Zue. Liseux is a little town in northwestern France. And she was a nun who joined the comment when she was 15. She died at 24. She lived there for nine years, lived like in a worldly sense, a nothing life, right? But she wrote a little book called The Story of a Soul, which has been

1:14:04massively popular all over the world. Most Catholic churches, almost anywhere in the world, you'll find a statue of the little flower. That's her nickname, the little flower. St. Tirez. There we go. Yeah, there she is. Oh, maybe I could get a piece of it. There she is. Yeah. Oh. Oh. Anyway, her book The Story of a Soul. And she has a spiritual path that's called The Little Way. Got it. What's The Little Way? It's at every moment of the day. Find the path of love. So at every moment, no matter what condition you're in, there's an opportunity for love. Do it. That's the little way. So like right now, what's the path of love? And see, I would say, well, the path of love right now is talking to you. I think I'm willing to go to the other. I think you're willing. My good. Yeah. This is the path of love. So good. That's stay on that. Amen. And at every moment, there's an opportunity for it. What most of us sinners do is we choose the opposite. We'll say, no, I'll go to my day choosing the opposite of love. It was why I'm miserable. What's the fear then? Because you're not going to have something. If you, you know, it's like a

1:15:04fear. Yeah. There's a lot of fear attached to it. Yes. Not going to have enough time to do the things I need to do. Yep. Which is why we put in front of our eyes as as as Christians. Jesus crucified. See, you know, that you know, the Buddhist thing, invite your fears in for tea. Do you know about that? It's a spiritual practice where you say, okay, what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of, you know, this is not going to go well. I'm afraid that purges like many more. I'm afraid of getting sick. I'm afraid of dying. Okay. So now imagine, you're inviting them all in for tea. And you're going to look, there's my fear of death. There's my fear of failure. Welcome. And you serve tea to them all. And what you, what that exercise accomplishes is it detaches you from your fears. You realize, okay, but I'm not my fear of death. And I am something else. Well, put that in Christian terms. It's detachment spirituality. I'm, I'm detached from both my success and my failure. Right? Whether that's Ignatius de la Hola, whether I have a long life or short life, I don't care whether I'm successful or a failure. I

1:16:07don't really care. I'm living in a space where I'm detached from any of the goods of the world. That's spiritual maturity. That's been a very hard day. But and that gives you freedom. Yes. No, I'm free. Oh, yeah. The binds aren't there then. And then you operate like at a, I mean, you're on a different plane. Yes. You can do that. And then you can accomplish God's purpose. And he can now work with free people is the trouble is you were, we centers are all addicts. We're all addicted. And we're all at best, we're in like treatment programs for types of addiction. That's what religion is. It's a kind of like treatment program for addiction. If we get free of our addictions, then God can use us. Right. Speaking of addiction, like there's a lot of, you know, pornography is such a huge thing in the world these days. And it's such a tool that's used really, I believe, to like tear apart the American family and just families around the world. And I shouldn't say the American family. I'm sorry, but families everywhere, you know, you're

1:17:08taking away like you're kind of hijacking people's lust and their love really a lot of times, you know. We've had people want to talk about that run porn addiction recovery centers and stuff like that. I feel like it's, to me, it feels like it's one of the biggest problems that's going on out there. Has the church spoken out like against it? Do you guys feel some sort of responsibility like to speak out against it? Like, and what do we do there? Because like, there's evil people that are just that are using this horrible stuff to ruin us. Yes. And it's working. Yeah. No, I, sorry, I gotta agree with you. I think it just makes me so angry. No, I totally agree with you. So, like, you know, like my generation, I mean, thank God we didn't get addicted the way young people are now because you couldn't get pornography the way, I mean, a 10 year old could get hardcore pornography on his, on his phone. Yeah. Oh, I'd have a buddy sketch me a little something for the weekend. You give him a couple bucks. No, it was not easy. Right. And you get a return fee too.

1:18:10If you returned it, I can't mind. But yeah. So it was a different time. Thank God. We didn't get addicted the same way. But man, today, and I worked, it's seminary work and do with these young people almost everybody to some degree. Oh, yeah. So many of my friends, but what happens is you watch pornography and you, you see it and they make they specifically make things. It's like father, child, you know, I'm saying they make evil scenario. It's the most evil and it's gotten more evil. It used to be like nice person meets, you know, meets other nice person like it started out. I think kind of like slightly maybe realistic, you know, it was he has to do that though because it's got to get ever more, you know, titillating and ever more different and that's not enough anymore. So but it even attacked like the female like the fan. It's, you know, it's like dad daughter, you know, it's like mother steps. It's like it's just like, um, I don't know, but it's so engineered. It's like, what do we do? Like, how? Why can't if Christianity is so strong and it's so many people,

1:19:13why can't it eliminate that from like being allowed to be played in our country or whatever? Does that make any sense? Yeah, I know. But the problem is that Christians have often lost their edge or lost their sense of of challenge to the culture. You know, we've we asked to a lot of the culture. We put the light under the bushel basket. I gave a talk this couple years ago. We had this big Eucharist of Congress gathering in Indianapolis. I spoke to like 50,000 people and I said, you know, if if every Christian in this country started living according to what we call the evangelical councils, you know, that the great recommendations given by the Lord, we changed the country overnight. You know, if we could harness the power of Christians, but we've we've lost our edge to a degree. And you're right. This is a major area though because it's drawing young people into really bad addictive patterns and it's hurting their brain. Chemistry is getting affected. Yeah. I mean, I've certainly been down that road myself. So I'm not like I'm also not separating myself from anybody. You know, I've gone to like different recovery, like, you know, meetings

1:20:15forth in my body run. So it's like, I've certainly been affected by it. You know, I don't feel like, I feel like I'm like, I've certainly gotten into a better place because I have a lot more awareness now. But yeah, I've seen the way that it's affected my own life. And it's yeah, the way it's just because it takes away the way that you look at a woman. It takes away the look the way that you then like look at your spouse or your girlfriend or even as other women that are involved in your life and circle. Yeah. No, like the sexual lives of married couples are getting dysfunction. Oh, yeah. Well, just hijacks the connection. And it's like, like, dude, we are, we hardly have any connection. And then it's like, but it's like, yeah, when does like is the church strong enough is the, because the Catholic church is the largest group in the world, isn't it? Yeah. The, or the largest, I'm kind of right though. I mean, the largest Christian denomination. Got it. Yeah. Yeah, just like, yeah, like I don't know so no what to like, I don't know if I'm, I hope I don't sound like I'm preaching at you,

1:21:16do I know? Okay. I think I'm just bummed out about it. And I don't know what to do. And I think it's like, I guess I'm asking a power that seems greater than myself. Like what, and I know that's not just you. Like you have total control over everyone and their behaviors. But I'm asking like, yeah, how do you like, but how do we get it out of our, like you would think if something gross came into our, or something that was causing a lot of harm came into our world with the, sheer number of people that we could get rid of it. Yeah. I mean, I think there does have to be some kind of government intervention when it comes to pornography. There should be some greater control over people's access to it. It's way too easy, especially for young people to access it. And I think it is a real blight upon society. And I think there, there should be more government intervention. The church has indeed spoken out against it. We've issued things as the bishops of America about pornography and different ways of addressing it and helping people with it. But I think it's reached the point where the government's got to get involved. Yeah. Yeah. It's heartbreaking kind of.

1:22:19But you know, the thing is, no one should feel so breaking fully, not kind of it's heartbreaking, fully. Yeah. But going in, I mean, you didn't feel like I made you feel uncomfortable. Did you? No. Okay. Good. No, no. I mean, because we're all coping with this. We're all here in the world. But also that no one should ever feel self-righteous because as I say, all sin is an addiction. Everyone's addicted to something. Oh, yeah. You know, there's, there's story about saying a gustan, the great, you know, a gustan author of the Confessions and all this. He's, um, he's very ambitious guy, right? And he wants to be speech writer for the Roman Emperor. And he gets the job and he's so excited. And he's being carried out a litter, right? To the site where one of his speeches, the emperor is going to give and he's so excited. And on the way, he sees this, this hopelessly drunk guy just carrying on and, you know, and a gustan like, oh, look at this poor slob, this, you know, addict. And then it occurred to him, he said, yeah, but tomorrow he'll be sober and I will still be drunk on ambition. And it was like this moment of illumination for gustan, with all of his sophistication. And I'm such a, he said, I'm a worse addict than that guy.

1:23:22So I mean, all of us sinners were, we're all hooked on something. Oh, yeah. And, um, yeah, I've been hooked on a couple of those things. Yeah. Working thinking that work would solve things, drugs, um, porn, uh, um, trying to think of what else. That's, that might be it probably. And most of those I'm in recovery for, I don't know, so do anymore. Um, or I'm not doing anymore. So that's been good. But like, uh, but yeah, there's a lot out there, you know, there's a lot of things that can get us addicted out there. Again, speaking of him, a Christian standpoint, when you put up the, the crucified Jesus is such a weird thing. And I was trying to convince people, realize how deeply weird it is that we put up in our churches. If someone came like in a time machine from the ancient, from Roman world and, and they walked in a room and they said, this is a religious gathering. And they see this guy on a cross. They say, what does him ban with you people? That's like the grossest thing. And this poor slob being put to death on this miserable instrument of torture. So why do we do? Yeah, why do we do it?

1:24:26Right. Why do we do it? Well, because you look at Jesus on the cross and you say, okay, he's got no wealth. He's got no pleasure. He's got no power. He's got no honor. He's a disgrace to his family. He's being mocked. It's like every single thing that we want or that we're afraid of, there it is. And he's got, he's got like none of it. All of our fears are on full display. Yeah, bear. And yet, and in that right, and it's stripped naked, like he's got nothing. And he says, Father, forgive them. And into your hands, I commend my spirit. He's someone utterly at that moment ordered to God. See, that's what's so weirdly powerful about the cross. It's a stripping away. See, of all of our addictions, all of our illusions. What's that line? W H Aud and the great poet. We'd rather be ruined than changed. We'd rather die in our dread than mount the cross of the moment and let our illusions die. That's

1:25:26odd and a great Christian poet. See, that last part, we'd rather mount the cross of the moment than let our illusions die. We'd rather be ruined than changed. We'd rather die in our dread than mount the cross of the moment and let our illusions die. The cross of the moment, we have to mount our own cross. Right. Right. That we're, we have to be stripped of these things. You know, go back to the very beginning of our conversation about evil. Well, why would God allow this? Well, see, evil, you might say in a superficial way, like, yeah, I was stripped of this thing that I really want. That could be the best thing. That's could be exactly what God wants. He wants to strip you of your addiction to this thing. You know, so that's mounting the cross of the moment and letting our illusions die. Yeah, it's like we'd like, like, like if you were brave enough, if I don't, if I don't mount the cross of the moment, right? If I don't saddle up and say, okay, this is it. Then I just, I just get to live in the comfort of this hypothetical idea of,

1:26:30of how things could have gone, because there's comfort and not taking risks. Right. Right. There's a demand there and there's a stripping bear that God wants you to do and you're not going to do it. Yeah. I'd rather be ruined than changed. Yeah. He's calling you to a spiritual change. That's that's conversion in Jesus, Metanoia, and is in the Greek of the New Testament. Going beyond the mind you have, that's what that means, Metanoia. That's scary. Yes. Right. It is very, because we all have a mindset in place. And Jesus always is saying, Metanoia, Tay, you got to get beyond the mind you have. And to reach the point of the little flower, right? Love every moment or a maximum Colbe. Boy, that's that is a major metanoia. That's going way beyond the mind that you have, because the mind we have is an addictive mind, it's self-regarding, it's self-important, self-protecting. Think of all the energy most of us sinners every day go through, putting walls around ourselves for protection, mounting attacks against our enemies.

1:27:36See what all of that is living in the land of unlikeeness. What's miserable? Yes, and it's miserable. What we see religion is all about joy. Jesus says, I've come that you might have life and have it to the full. I've come that you might have joy and that your joy will be complete. That's what we're here for. Yeah. And when I was running, like when I was in a relationship that I was cheating all the time, it was immeasurable. Yes, I was always worried. I was always concerned. I was always sick of my behavior and I was just like the lies and just like it was always a nightmare. Right. And it's funny, but the church has been saying that forever. It's been warning against that forever. But what's the move of the fallen mind of the church, pure tanical hung up on sex? They'll give me a break and you're caught in the middle ages. No, no, no. It's telling a truth that you discovered through experience. Right. Yeah. The church was saying that forever. You know, the Bible moved that truth forever. One of the biggest ways that

1:28:39like pornography and different addictions and stuff keep us down is shame. You know, yeah. Why does God allow us to have shame or how does God view shame or how do you see that? Yeah, well shame is not bad. I think of Adam and Eve, right? So they cover themselves and they feel shame in the presence of God. That's a healthy reaction. It's shame is. It is. If you're shamed in the presence of God, I mean, if you're feeling shame in front of somebody else, but it might, it might be stupid. It might be for the wrong reason or it might be misplaced. I'm saying like deep shame. You know, like you're just so ashamed of yourself. Yes. And even see, but that's liberating. If in the presence of God, you feel ashamed of what you've said or done. Good. That's God's way of trying to, you know, that's why like the conscience, John Henry Newman, another hero of mine, John Henry Newman, John Henry Newman, Cardinal Newman. They just named him a saint a while ago. Congrats. There he is. Yeah, congrats. John Henry Newman. He referred to the conscience. Yeah. There he is. As the aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul, the representative of Christ in the soul is your conscience. So when

1:29:45your conscience says to you, man, come on. That was bad. That's terrible. And you feel ashamed. That's Christ speaking to you. When the conscience, he says, like rewards you. And it does. The conscience says, Hey, good. Yeah. With good feeling, you're rewarded. Pay attention to it. That's the vicar of Christ in the soul. That's the voice of Christ in the soul. Let's pivot a little bit. I wanted to talk real quick about like just some interesting things from the Catholic church, from just like history. They used to have the things called indulgences. Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Like, it's just so, it's just like funny to me. I just learned about it the other day. My friend, Mr. Tommy was telling me about it. Yeah. And we still talk about indulgences. It would be, you know, in the treasury of Christ. So we say the Christ, we don't want for a salvation and by his great act of self-sacrifice, there's a kind of treasury in heaven and that we can call upon that, you know, on behalf of people that we love and we can pray and we can benefiting from that. Someone can grow closer to God. Someone can, to put it crudely, you know,

1:30:52get time off of purgatory. It's just a way of saying that lessening our punishment, it's calling upon the treasury of Christ, let's say. Is it a true thing? Because someone said you could like bail your wife out of purgatory or something like that or bail your cousin out of it. The problem is the time of the reformation when people were selling indulgences. So the church just smile upon that. Now that was being done in the middle ages where people would, you know, for some on money, I will sell you an indulgence to get your aunt out of purgatory, you know, for 60 years or because that's crazy because then I'm guessing probably those guys would hit you up and be like, hey, your brother's been in purgatory for like 11 months, you're going to get him out or what, you know, like, so he was abused because it became something that depended upon, you know, people started taking advantage of it. Right. And it should not be something that's that's bought or sold. So got it in itself. It's a legitimate thing, but not to be buying or selling. There's a lot of talk these days about like in the Middle East, like there's like a genocide going on. There's like a lot of like, you know, conflict in the Middle East. Like is the, is the

1:31:52Israel that we see that gets talked about in the Bible? Is it the same like the, as the government of Israel that's running the country that's there now? No, that's important. Just like how does the church view that kind of? Yeah. Or do they even have a view on it? Yeah. I mean, I'd sum it up this way that the church recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist. So the church is in the popes of affirm that, you know, over the last several decades. But it's important to make that distinction. You just do it. There's biblical Israel. Then there's the modern political state of Israel. And there are two different things, which means, you know, a Catholic can certainly be critical of the government policies of the state of Israel as we would have any other government. Yeah, sure. Israel see functions very powerfully and symbolically in the Bible. Promised Land, right. So there's the Promised Land that was promised to the ancient Israelites. But it becomes in Christ now symbolic of the Promised Land of heaven. So the new Israel, we might say is the church and the church as itself

1:32:55a sign of heaven. You know, so it's very important to make that distinction between Israel using the Bible and then the modern state of Israel. So it's not the same group. No, no. Secondly, the church has been adamant against all forms of anti-Semitism. So go back the popes over the last many decades. Been really strong on that. The popes of visits to Jerusalem, the pope visiting synagogues and all that. So we're against anti-Semitism. Understood. There's been like in the Catholic church, there was like over the years there was like kind of a moring of the Catholic church because of they had like, you know, I don't know if it's our pastors in the Catholic church as well. Yeah, we'll talk about a priest can be a pastor of a parish. Okay. So they had like, you know, I guess I'm trying to think of a way to even say it. They had like, you know, the Catholic church a lot of times they've had like kind of they've had like pdfilia or in the past in the church, right? They've had that happen over the years and it kind of gives it like anytime like you use if you bring it up people like

1:33:57make a joke like that happens a lot. I know. Yeah. And it's unfortunate. Yes, I'm sure. Why do you think that people who have suffered from pdfilia or labeled pdfiles? Why did so many of them kind of end up in the church? Yeah, I think that's a better way to put it because why would someone who sexually attracted to young people want to join the church and be a priest or a minister in the church? Well, the answer is obvious in a way because it gives them a lot of authority and access to young people. Got it. And so someone who has that pre-delection, I understand perfectly why they might be attracted. The same way again, to be fair, if you look at sexual abuse of young people in our public school system, in the Boy Scouts, in fact, wherever you find young people and then others in authority, you're going to find this problem of pdfilia. Most pdfilia, of course, exist in families, not in, you know, the Catholic church, but in families. So that's a better way to put it. I can,

1:35:00I certainly see why someone might be attracted to the position because they're going to be in a position of leadership, authority and access to kids. Yeah, that makes sense. What I think is really false, the insinuation that somehow the celibate priesthood produces people who are attracted to children. I think that's demonstrably false. You do. Yeah, I want to hear more why you think that. Well, because one thing you can find of sexual abuse of children, way outside the confines of the Catholic church, it's not something that's unique to the celibate priesthood. Sure. And you find it again in families and in coaches and in Boy Scout troops, etc. A lot of spaces where there is, like you're saying, where there's some sort of a leadership or trusting. It's, I think, what is more plausible is the other way around. You see why someone who's attracted to children in this kind of perverse way would say, oh, that's, that's a good position for me to get in. It's the authority and access to kids. And also, you know, I feel so important to point out the church responded really well. This was a terrible crisis. I mean, there was, there was terrible sexual abuse of children within the church on the part of a priest. And

1:36:04the knowledge of that was hugely important and the steps taken. There were very, very strong steps taken. What are some of the steps that kind of were kind of instituted? And I'm sorry, I don't know this. Yeah, no, no, it's good. First, like at the seminary level. So I was a seminary rector for a while, which was in charge of a seminary. And so when you're screening people for the seminary, a major major preoccupation was to screen for this kind of difficulty. And we did it through, you know, psychological exams and stuff and then lots and lots of instruction in the seminary itself about this problem. There's also the program that's now all the way through the Catholic church called the Virtus program that is educating people on a very regular basis and very seriously about sexual abuse of children, about the dangers, about grooming, about all of these things. So I mean, every single month I get in the email, this this virtuous thing I have to, there's a little article that I have to respond to and answer questions about it. But we all have

1:37:05to go through an extensive program around it. And what was some of the screening like, what was that? Like it's interesting. Well, like psychological screening. So every kid come in the seminary has to go through a battery of psychological testing and interviews and so on. Like everybody that wants to be a member of the seminary. Yeah. And then as as a rector, I had to read every single one of them, you know, and then very attentive to people's, you know, sexual history and that sort of thing. And because you were sort of the person that had to kind of be like their liaison, I guess, into the like getting approved, I guess. Yeah, I had I had to give the word finally, could someone get in the seminary. So sometimes I had to say, no, we're not accepting it. Would some of them feel at least this was a safe place to admit to you what they've been, they've been thinking about or what have been going on? Like, you never know for sure. I mean, sometimes people can deceive you. Yeah, for sure. But you know, we also have independence like colleges too, looking at all these guys. Got it. So they're different ways. But no, we are hyper attentive to this problem now in the church. And I think it's fair to say that one of institutionally one of the safest places for a young person is the Catholic church because

1:38:08we're so attentive to the problem. We've done so much to try to address it. And then also just deal with this problem of, you know, if people really are guilty of this crime, they've got to be out of the priesthood. And the problem was for so long a time, bishops and some of them, I think, in goodwill, thinking was the best thing would send a guy for, you know, prayer and maybe some psychological treatment and then reassign him. We now know that you can't do that. That's not help me. And so that's, you know, we're well aware of that. And what about today, like, if somebody is found guilty of sexual abuse, what happens? Yeah, I mean, if someone, it's clearly determined that the person is guilty, we have a zero tolerance policy. They're out of the priesthood. And yet, nothing too is it when accusations come forward, we take them with great seriousness, and we always bring the secular authorities in. We make sure that the police know about these accusations. That was a problem two years ago, as some of it was not brought to the attention of the police. Like, we'll handle it with and within the church, but it's a very high priority now.

1:39:12Understood. So before you go, and thank you so much for your time today, but you're my pleasure. I loved it. There's a lot of like, the pope spoke out against like artificial intelligence, right? I think there's a fear right now. This is my fear. Okay. I'll just tell you what it is. I fear that they create these data pools, right? They create these artificial intelligence, these AIs, and then we go there for everything, right? How do I feel? Why don't I feel good today? What's going on? This becomes your friend. And then that also becomes almost a place where you pray, right? This is how I feel. This is what's going on. This is what I'm scared of. What do I do? And it all leads into some like, it leads into a machine telling us what to do and not a higher power connection. And that feels like, like almost, I don't know if we start evolving. I don't know what's going to happen, but that feels very, very scary when you

1:40:12completely sever what it means to feel like it means to be human. One of the last, one of the most important things. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. No, the AI becomes the new God. Is we're not really understanding we're assembling data. And that really worries me a lot. We're getting graded data, but see, understanding means seeing patterns, seeing connections, thinking and issue through. And we don't do that a lot. We're so addicted to the quick, give me the quick data on something that can be useful, but it undermines our humanity. You're exactly right about that. Our humanity is tied to our capacity to understand, which means to see patterns of meaning, right? And purpose. And the AI is not going to give that to us. There's the economics side too. Jobs will be taken for sure by AI. And so if work is tied to human dignity, that's really a problem. The Pope sees that. No, I'm glad he's talking about it because it's on everyone's mind. And it is posing a spiritual challenge for sure. Yeah, because you hear

1:41:16just people say, ask chat. I know. People say ask perplexity. Ask, you know, they say ask, they say, I think it through yourself. Or ask God or talk to another person and have an argument about it or something. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to another person like, you know, because you can find God through other people too a lot of times. I love arguments. The problem is the social media world is giving rise to insult. And as all we know how to do anymore is just we throw insults and we're snarky. Yeah, it's more snipers and it is like wrestling. But an argument is, yeah, I mean, assembling data, putting it together in a logical formula, entertaining the view of your opponent, answering their objections. That's an argument, right? And that's a beautiful thing. It's a nonviolent way of adjudicating disputes. But if we've forgotten that, all we have left is you're an idiot. And, you know, I hate you and your mother's an idiot too. And that's all we're left with. And that's deadly. Yeah, I just wonder like, oh, yeah, here it says, the current Pope Leo, the 14th is not anti-AI, but he argues that AI must remain a human controlled tool and be judged

1:42:19by whatever it protects. And be judged by whether it protects human dignity, work, freedom, truth, and the vulnerable. He sees real benefits in technology while warning that efficiency, profit and technical power should never become society's highest values. AI should serve people not replacement, manipulate, surveil or dominate them. But if AI does these things, what recourse does the Pope have any recourse, really? Or is it just... He's a prophetic voice, I would say. But then also, I mean, he's connected to this huge network of influence. So if all of us who are, you know, under his authority, we say, yeah, that's important. We can all in our own way, you know, implement that. So no, he does have an extraordinary power. That surveillance thing you mentioned earlier, that always spokes me. Because I know my phone is listening to me. And, you know, I'll have a little casual conversation that I'm scrolling and something I mention, some product or whatever, it comes up. And I suppose it sees it as a positive. I see it as deeply weird and disturbing. Yeah, if that stupid machine is listening to me. Yeah, you know, at least it's listening to you,

1:43:22mostly to good stuff. Right. But imagine the rest of us, but you're a bishop. I mean, hopefully, you're on the up and up. Yeah, for the most part. But what if those things got more powerful and they could then start manipulating you? And, you know, it's spooky. It's very spooky. I mean, what do you think God would say about it? Well, do you pray to ask God for, like, thoughts about that kind of stuff? Sure. You know, why, yeah. But, you know, the Bible knew about this in a way. See, that's how our battle story, you know, of like, let's all get together. We're going to, we're going to through our own technical accomplishment. We're going to build this tower up to heaven. That's a beautiful symbol of this problem that when we want to get so in control of things and we so manipulate, well, that turns on us. That destroys us, you know, so the scattering of the people there, the scattering of the languages, that's a sign of how this project has turned on itself. It undermines itself. No, the Bible knew all about this stuff in its own way. And now, the craziest part of that even in its own moment is that Babel is now a language learning app.

1:44:23Right. So it's like, I think six out of four people or whatever, people you say, hey, what's Babel? And they say they don't even know the story, but they know the language learning model. Well, they think they know the language learning app, which is fine. I mean, it's a good app. They think Babel is related to Babylon. So that story was probably written down not long after they returned from the Babylonian exile, right? The Jews. And so what Babylon meant to them was this big, dominating political power. So the Bible has always been suspicious of big, you know, political and economic power. It's dangerous. Yeah. It's dangerous. Do you feel like the Catholic Church is still as powerful as it once was? Well, it doesn't have to find power. I think in many ways, we're more powerful. I mean, you could say years ago, it was more aligned with political power and that sort of thing. And I think we've learned the West in there that that's not a good road to go down. But in terms of our global impact and all that, I mean, look at the role the Pope is the most recognized religious leader in the world. I mean, who is his rival, the Dalai Lama,

1:45:25maybe, but there's no one that has the stature of the Pope. Oh, yeah. No one has the institutional of religion that we have. So no, we have an enormous power of influence and all that. But I would say stay away from from political power. Yeah. You know, it's scary. Yeah. Yeah. No, we should always be in a kind of a prophetic stance. That doesn't mean you're always denunciating power. Power is not a bad thing in itself. And the church can speak out favorably of political power. But we shouldn't be identified with it. You know, does the church support specific political parties? Are not really, no, we always make a point of not doing that. I mean, so we kind of bend over backwards in election season to say, here's what the church stands for. Here's what we feel strongly about. But we never say, therefore vote in a Democrat or vote Republican. Got it. We don't do that. Before you go today, there's an amazing thing I've heard you talk about. It's called the transcendent third. Oh, yeah. And we had a guru on actually as well, this gentleman named Guru Dev. And he talked about the same thing. Really? He talked about the same pattern. Can you tell

1:46:27me a little bit about the transcendent third? I learned that from Aristotle when I was a young philosophy student. I saw the great Greek philosopher Aristotle who was wise about so many things, Aristotle. But this was a friendship, he said, he studied friendship a lot, Aristotle. He said, a friendship will flourish when it goes beyond the two friends loving each other. So I like you, you like me. Okay, great. But it'll really flourish. When together, we fall in love with a transcendent third. So it could be our country. It could be art. It could be philosophy. It could be God, that there's something in common that we both love. And so you look, we're drawn out of ourselves looking upward together to that. Now we draw closer together, almost like Willie and Ili, without even trying, we get closer together. Early on, I mentioned Fulton Shin, about to be beatified. He wrote a book back in the 50s. I still recommend it to couples, engaged couples,

1:47:30called Three to Get Married. And he made exactly this point to get married. You need a bride, you need a groom, and you need Christ. And if you don't have Christ, the bride and groom are going to fall apart. But if together, they fall in love with the transcendent third with Christ, they'll stay together. And I think that was, there you go, that was true when Aristotle said it, it was true when Fulton Shin said it. And I think it's a great principle for anyone in a relationship. If we're just infatuated with each other, did you see the movie, by the way, Obsession, this summer? Did you see it? It was this, it was this cheaply-made movie, right? That was hugely, it's really good from a spiritual standpoint. No, I didn't see this. I heard about this, but I didn't see it. It's good. It's about this guy, right? Who, he loves this girl, and she's not reciprocating. It's so frustrated. So he got that guy. Shop, right? It's like a, like a magic thing or something. And it's this stick. And if you break the stick and you make your wish, it will come true. So he goes, Lord, not Lord. It's like make, make me love her or make her love me

1:48:32more than anything in the world breaks the stick. And at that moment, very spooky. He's just dropped her off, right? At that moment, she appears in the doorway. And he's like, my dream will come true. Well, I won't give the movie away, but don't watch it because it's spiritually very rich movie. What happens when? See, there's no transcendent of third. There's no transcendent of, she just loves me. Yeah, that's it. She will devour you and you will destroy each other. Hmm. Dead, right? And it's very spiritually alert movie that way. Yeah, this, um, yeah, I love, I just love the idea that I love the reminder of that because it's also a reminder of to go do something, right? Yeah. To fall in love with something else, right? Yeah. To find, yes, together. To find a friend. It's just like find a friend and go do something, right? Yeah, this, this guru that we had and he was saying, like, if you, if you're two lines and you want to get together, you're going to meet, but then you're also just going to keep going. Yeah, right. You know, but if you also then you're headed in the same direction, it's just like kind of a force,

1:49:37you know, it'll draw you together without even knowing it. It'll draw you together automatically. Can we say a prayer for you? Yeah. Yeah. You're going to pray or you want me to pray? Can you pray? Sure. Yeah. In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this chance to be together. We thank you for this conversation. May it prove to be a blessing to all those who, who see it and all those who hear it. Lord, continue to bless the Theo and his work and bring him closer and closer to you. And may all those who are listening, all those who are watching also come closer to you as the great goal of their life. And I pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. Where'd you baptized Catholic? Thank you. I was in a Presbyterian church. Presbyterian? Yeah. Where did I read Catholic or Catholic family or somebody probably made something on. Okay. But yeah, my journey, what it's been like is like most recently, it's like most recently is probably the most that I've like the strongest relationship I've had with God. I used to believe,

1:50:40I've always believed in God. I've always believed in God. I've always felt that there's something greater than me and thankfully, you know, but yeah, most recently, I just like, I don't know, just more than ever. I just, I just don't have any doubt about it. And I just have just been praying a lot more meditating. Yeah. I'm in a cool Bible study. And so like, it just gives me a group of people to care about outside of myself. Yeah. That's good. So it's been fun because everybody will share what's going on with them. And then it gives me something to pray about for my friends. Yeah. So it's like, it's so nice when I get to like think about this person. Like, well, what could I pray about for them? You know, and like, and how can I make it like kind of specific or like, you know, it's almost like you're like kind of designing yourself, you know, but it's just, um, yeah. No, stay with the Bible study. That's good. Stay with that. Yeah. It's been, and it's just been a great group. Yeah. So I just, yeah. So I just feel like, yeah, I don't know. That's why I'm at. Stay with that. That's great. Yeah. And I don't want to pretend to be somewhere that I'm not at either, you know, I just want to be, uh, yeah, I just want to just one day at a time.

1:51:40All right. That's it. Um, Bishop Robert Baron, thank you so much. Uh, for your, for your, uh, just, your desire to, uh, get out and spread the word and just share the message and always enjoy listening to you. And I'm so glad that we got to hang out today. Yeah. Me too. Thank you very much. Amen. Thank you. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of my, my, my, I can't feed it. Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back with support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result, a safer, healthier

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