#682 - Bishop Robert Barron

Bishop Robert Barron is a theologian, author and Catholic Bishop for the Diocese of Winona–Rochester in Minnesota. He also started “Word on Fire” ministries and podcast of the same name. Bishop Barron joins Theo to talk about what the Catholic faith looks like in today’s culture, finding purpose in an increasingly artificial world, and the connection between faith and love. Bishop Robert Barron: https://www.instagram.com/bishopbarron/ ------------------------------------------------- Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ Acorns: Go to http://acorns.com/theo to get your $20 bonus investment today! Valor Recovery: To learn more about Valor Recovery please visit them at https://valorrecoverycoaching.com/ or email them at [email protected] Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [email protected] Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Mail stuff to: ATTN: TPW PO BOX 40137 Nashville TN 37204 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend X: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Andrew https://www.instagram.com/bleachmediaofficial/ Producer: Halston https://www.instagram.com/halstonrays/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  Bishop Robert Barron, nice to see you.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Thank you. Great to be here.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you so much for your time today.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  I'm delighted.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  You live in Minnesota.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Right? And you're a Catholic bishop from there?

• 1:15Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Oh, nice. So you probably get to take a lot of visits to like, visit with children and their families and stuff like that?

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I visit a lot of, you know, sick people there. And so it's, you know, probably the leading hospital in the world. And people come from all over the place there.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Oh, and you're right there then?

• 1:37Speaker 02

  I'm right there.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  You should start a drive-through even, that'd be nice.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Just bless out the window, maybe? I don't know.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, that's one bad idea for me. Um, you started Word on Fire Ministries?

• 1:50Speaker 02

  It's a media ministry, so it's an evangelical ministry to proclaim, you know, the Catholic faith. And I started just with a sermon show on the radio in Chicago 25 years ago. And it's grown now, you know, we use all kinds of things. Publishing and podcasting and films now. And, you know, so it's just been blessed, thank God.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  And how does somebody become a bishop?

• 2:12Speaker 02

  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 get a phone call. And it came from this guy we call the Apostolic Nuncio, who'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.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  So that's like the NFL draft almost for Pope? Is it kind of like that energy, like you're like waiting for this thing?

• 2:38Speaker 02

  No, because you know, you're not waiting at 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 and 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?"

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Did you think it was a scam or something?

• 2:56Speaker 02

  No, because I recognized, you know, his name and everything.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Okay, so you knew, so you know about it?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  But you have no, 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 worth thinking about appointing you, is he's already appointed you. Now, you can say no. You can say, "Look, I'm not gonna do it." But unless you've got like a super good reason, you have to say yes to it. And then, you know, uproot your entire life, move away from everyone you know. I moved to LA, Archdiocese, lived in Santa Barbara, which is pretty good, you know? But I had zero idea. And then four years later, or what, five years later, another phone call comes. "Holy Father's appointed you bishop of Winona Rochester, Minnesota." So off you go.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  So when the call comes, it's kind of like a call from God kind of coming? And you go and take it?

• 3:48Speaker 02

  Yes. And I, for years, I used to preach to people, you know, "Your life's not about you. It's about God, what God wants. Unless you've got a really good reason, you follow God's will." So how could I then stand and say, "Uh, no."

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  "I'm really happy where I am and tell the Pope to forget it." So you kind of have to say yes.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wow. That's a big surprise in somebody's life. Did you have a job before you were a bishop? Like, did you just work at somewhere regular, like?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Well, when I was a kid, like when I was 16, I worked at a bookstore. I was like a stock boy in the bookstore. I worked at Steak and Shake for a while as a dishwasher.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Oh, dude.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then I went to college, you know, and then entered the seminary and then did those studies. I became a priest when I was about 26. So I didn't have a big career, you know, before I became a priest.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. What was the worst thing you didn't like about dishwashing?

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Oh, I hated dishwashing.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 4:36Speaker 02

  The heat and the, no, I thought it was the most obnoxious job I had. I didn't last very long. I quit after a few months.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Oh dang.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  I hated it, yeah. I liked the bookstore job. That was, I was 16 and I was like, you know, stock boy and I was putting books on shelves and stuff. And I didn't mind that job.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I worked at a bookstore and when I went to college for a little while, I enjoyed it too.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And you get to help them and you just kind of start to learn inadvertently.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Well, I'll tell you, I discovered a book in that job called The Seven Story Mountain by a guy named Thomas Merton.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Seven Story Mountain?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  The Seven Story Mountain, which had a big impact on me. Merton was this guy, very talented, very accomplished. Was in New York, wanted to be a writer, knew all these famous people. And then, long story short, he becomes a Catholic and then wants to become a Trappist monk, which is about as serious a monk as you can become. Living in silence and prayer. And the book is, is the story of his conversion.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  The Seven Story Mountain. Have you ever gotten to meet him?

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Oh, there it is. No, he died 1968. So, and he died actually in Bangkok, Thailand. He was there for a conference.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  I hope he was.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  And he was electrocuted.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  He was electrocuted, yeah. He was, he gave a speech, went 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 how 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.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  What about it?

• 6:07Speaker 02

  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, you know, 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 got 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.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've heard, I've heard you talk about Thomas Merton before in some of your different podcasts and different lectures.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Well, he was one of the great spiritual writers of the last 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.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  To, to get a little bit towards Catholicism? So Catholicism is a branch of Christianity? What, what's the difference of like being a Catholic and being a Christian?

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, of course, the Catholic is a Christian. So you're, you know, a follower of Jesus Christ. We would maintain that the Catholic Church is the true church, is founded by Jesus Christ. You get to the Reformation, you have people that, you know, were quarreling with different aspects of Catholicism and broke off from it. So Lutherans and Calvinists and all the various sub-branches thereof. But, you know, we'd maintain that the Catholic Church has all the gifts that Christ wants his people to have, that it's the fullness of what Christ wanted. But then we recognize in 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.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Understood. How would you define God?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Well, probably the simplest way is to say God is the creator of all things.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  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 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. So we look for causes. That's all of science, right? Looks for what caused this to be here? Why are you and I here right now? We can look for all kinds of reasons. How about those things? Do 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 what's cool about that is God is not a thing in the world. Like there's you and me and the planet Jupiter and God and the Empire State Building.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  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.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  That's the, 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.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  How does God operate? Because you'll hear people will say stuff like, um, well, that's part of God's plan, right? But then if something horrible happens, then they're like, well, God can help you through this, right? Like, does he cause bad things to happen? Or does he just there for us if something, no matter what happens?

• 9:30Speaker 02

  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's a lack of being. You remember in the, in the Lord of the Rings, I don't know if you're a Lord of the Rings guy, but remember the Nazgul of these things that fly around 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, like a cavity in a tooth. So the cavity is like, man, it's real and it hurts. But the cavity itself is just an emptiness, right? Evil's like that, uh, physical evil

• 10:15Speaker 02

  or moral evil. Moral evil is a lack of an integrity that ought to be there in your, 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, 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 like, why am I suffering? Why is all this happening to me? And, you know, 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, in little ways, right? Where you

• 11:00Speaker 02

  say, gosh, if that hadn't happened to me, you know?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Sometimes we can see it, but very often you can't. But that shouldn't surprise us, right? If, if God, who's the source of all existence, who's concerned about all of space and all of time, he's got a, 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 a cool, you're, 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.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  I see. So you believe that in the end, it's all, it all ends good?

• 11:44Speaker 02

  In the end, it, 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. Uh, but how precisely it all works out, I don't really know. But, you know, St. Paul, all things work together for the good for those who love the Lord. That's it. That's the right sort of theological vision.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  How do I best start like my relationship with God? Would you, would you suggest to somebody who's like, um, maybe has felt God that feels like God exists in the world? Like, I mean, I've felt that for sure. I've, I've always thought that God existed, but only recently have I started to feel more of a relationship. Um, how, how do you suggest that someone starts to kind of begin their relationship with, uh, with God?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  You know what Thomas Merton said? Someone asked him that question. He said, take the time. In other words, dedicate some time every day to God. So like, I begin every day with, uh, what I call a holy hour, which is made popular, by the way, by this fellow Fulton Sheen. Does that name ring a bell?

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Fulton Sheen, bring him up.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Fulton Sheen, bring him up, because we're, we're about to beatify him, just in a few days, in fact.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Really?

• 12:55Speaker 02

  That's the la, there he is. That's the last step before canonization, become a saint, right? So Fulton Sheen was this great mid 20th century figure, teacher, writer. He was one of the first to use radio and TV.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Oh, he's beatiful.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  So we're beatifying him just in a few weeks.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  And was beatifying, mean, just so we know?

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Well, it's the last step before canonization, which is sainthood. But like beatus in Latin means happy.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  So like, and we say the beatific vision, that's heaven. It means happiness, that when I look at this thing, it makes me happy.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  That's heaven, the beatific vision. So a beatus would be a happy person, right? Because he's so ordered to God.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  So he had, did he have to work really hard to be happy, probably?

• 13:36Speaker 02

  He was, he was a pretty happy guy, Sheen, like, like by temperament, he was.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  So a little insider trading, kinda?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Right. 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 Blessed Sacrament. So, you know, we believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. And so every morning, that's what I do. I go to my chapel in my house and I, I pray for an hour. And it could be, like, we have a thing called the office that a priest has to pray. It's, it's Psalms and Canicles and things from the Bible and readings and stuff. But you can also pray the rosary, which I do. You could also just sit in silence. There's, there's one saint that said, what, what do you do when you're looking at, at the Blessed Sacrament? And he said, uh, I look at him and he looks at me. And that's pretty good, that you sit in, in silence, you know?

• 14:25Speaker 01

  In a meditative state. It's almost, it's, it's meditative.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Right. And so we call that mental prayer sometimes in the Catholic tradition. Um, 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, um, to focus on the Lord. Now, it might be, you're gonna read something from the scripture, which is great. Um, it might be if you're Catholic, you pray the rosary or pray a decade of the rosary. That just kind of focuses your mind. You know, the, the Buddhists have this thing, the monkey mind they talk about. The monkey mind is bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, jumping around from branch 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, uh, who was, understood Buddhists very well,

• 15:13Speaker 02

  thought that prayers like the rosary have that effect, you know, because all you do, you repeat the, you know, hail Mary full of grace, Lord is with thee, bless her, the hail Mary full of grace, Lord is with thee, hail Mary.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  A mantra.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  It's like a mantra. It's a Catholic mantra. And what that does, many things, but, but it calms and focuses the, the soul, right? That's the great thing about prayer. And I'd recommend to you or anybody, uh, take the time and find a way to get, you know, focused on the Lord. That's a good starting place.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  And how honest do you have to be with God?

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Well, see, the thing is with God, God knows everything anyway, because he's the source of existence.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  So if you're not being honest, if you're being secretive, he already?

• 15:54Speaker 02

  What's the point? And that's what I mean.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. 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.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  But see, it's stupid. It's a stupid thing because, because God knows everything already. So what are you keeping from him? 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, and they're, they're exalting, they're praising God, they're, they're frustrated, they're tearing their hair out.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's PG 13 over there for sure.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Right. That's how you should pray. So why not be honest with God about, about everything, about your sins? He knows them anyway. Um, 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, I won't mention that to God, so it'll be okay.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  But then when you're keeping a, when you have a secret, though, that's where like it feels like, um, like the devil can get in, you know, when you have kind of like a seed of distrust.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Because he's the father of lies, right?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Is he?

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Yes. That's one of the titles.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  What the heck? I didn't even know that.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's, and that's actually a really good, interesting, he's the murderer from the beginning, but he's also the father of lies.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Oh, murderer from the beginning is way worse, I think, but definitely, that's definitely additional charges.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Because when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  See, when you get on beam with him, you're on beam with what's truest about you, but also about all of reality. The devil's favorite move, therefore, is to lie, deceive, uh, 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.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. 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, to not have, I want, I don't want something to be, uh, like just mine, if that makes any sense, especially if it's bad.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Like if I feel like it's bad.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Or it's, it's like a sin or something I've done that's wrong, or something I've been thinking about, or something that I'm afraid of. It's like, I don't want to just keep it to myself, because I can't handle it.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  Yes. And look, see, from a Catholic standpoint, uh, the beauty of confession, that we have the sacrament. You know, Jordan Peterson said this one time, uh, to go before a representative of God, to 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.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  And he, he was talking about Catholic confession, you know, because it gets portrayed times like, oh, this, you know, weird thing. You go into this box and you, you mutter your sins to a priest. Well, that's a caricature. It's standing before the Lord, as someone who represents him, because we're not angels. You know what I mean? We have bodies. That's why sacraments are physical and why you, you actually speak to somebody. But you're, he's a representative of God in that way. And you're telling God.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  He's a representative of God.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  The priest, let's say, if you go into confession.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Okay, that's what we're saying.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  And you go to the priest and, and you confess your sins, you're speaking to God, really, and saying, Lord, I, 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. Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm okay and you're okay. We're all doing great. You know?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Don't tell me I've done anything wrong. Well, that's all a lie. And in, in confession, that's the beauty of it. I, 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.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Oh, that's pretty cool.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  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 like the way we are.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 19:49Speaker 02

  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, you know, behind the screens like that. But you can have this kind of direct conversation, too.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  How is God shown grace in your life? Do you feel like personally, if you don't mind if I ask?

• 20:04Speaker 02

  Well, no, I mean, like.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  So we can even talk about it because I think about it a lot, you know? When I think, or there's nothing for the, when I think about that, there's nothing, there's nothing like, that's one of the strongest thoughts that I have sometimes is just how much grace God's shown.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  In my own life.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm a big Bob Dylan guy. I don't know if you know that, but I love Bob Dylan. During 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. Because yes, what it mean, 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 know where I was this morning?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  So our own existence is a grace?

• 20:54Speaker 02

  Yes, because you don't have to be. 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.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Really?

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Yes, because God is perfect. God is the sheer act of existence. God is perfect in every way.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  So then he must have created it with a purpose then?

• 21:13Speaker 02

  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. Because Thomas Aquinas, along with Bob Dylan, my other great hero, Thomas Aquinas, this great medieval theologian, right? 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.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  So let me say it again, to love is to will the good of the other.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  The other as other, like.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Wait, to will the good of the other as other?

• 21:47Speaker 02

  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 the way most of us sinners operate. So I'll be, you know, 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 your good. Now, love.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  But you're hoping that some, that.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Right. Something good will come out of it, that I'll get something for me. It'll redound to my benefit.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Okay, understood.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  But see, and it's beautiful when it ha, and it does happen in the world when a parent or a, you know, a spouse or whoever.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Right, they have to love you because they just want you to be okay.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  They just want your 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 Maximilian Kolbe, does that ring a bell?

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Ah, is he a?

• 22:41Speaker 02

  He was a great saint during the Nazi period. He was a prisoner in Auschwitz, right? And he was an opponent of Hitler, so Hitler arrested him. He's a Franciscan friar. There he is. And so he's got his 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 10 at random and then starve them to death. It was like this horrible thing.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Just if someone escaped?

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  As a payment?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Right, so someone escaped from his barracks and they brought the people out and they, they picked out 10. 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 Kolbe stepped out of line and he just said, "I'm a Catholic priest. Take me in his place." And Kolbe barely knew this guy. And he's in the barracks with him, I guess, but barely knew him. And so they starve him to death.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  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. But now that's love, see? The willing the good of the other, what was in it for him? What was in it for Kolbe?

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  And so, see, it's like.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  It's like a black hole, you know, a 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, breaking the 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, see, God is love. That's what God is because he doesn't need anything.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  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, you 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 Kolbe. That's all the saints, they have supernatural because they're very close to the way God is.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  So the greatest thing that we can do is try to love in a completely like selfless way.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Right. And it's, it's not easy. And that's why I see 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.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  And prayer helps that?

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yes, it might say it's the only way because like, you know, Aristotle or Plato would have said these virtues like, you know, courage and prudence and justice, you can kind of practice your way to them. Okay. But the theological virtues, faith, hope and love? See, that's, that's why they're theological, that I can't really practice my way. I can just say, "Lord, make me like this. Bring me into line with your way of being." And so it's kind of a miracle when it happens.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes I, I notice like if I'm having trouble with something, then I'll, and I don't even think that I want to, like, sometimes I'll want something, but I won't want to do it.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Does that make any sense to you?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  The good that I would do is that that I don't do. St. Paul says that, Romans 7, right?

• 25:54Speaker 01

  So, yeah, my brother was saying that I should ask for the willingness to do it sometimes.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  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 I can pray just to, to ask God for willingness. Like God, even just make me willing to try this.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Maybe the Holy Spirit's kind of led us to Merton that way because one of Thomas Merton's famous prayers begins, "My Lord God, I have no idea where I'm going." It's a great way to start a prayer, like, "I, I don't know." But one of the things in there is, "And the fact that I think I'm doing your will doesn't mean I'm actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. And may 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."

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  That's a good way to pray, you know?

• 26:57Speaker 01

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• 28:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny, we're at a time where like you were talking about like, or you just mentioned lost, like being actually kind of lost. And what a 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?

• 28:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  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, MapQuest, we have Waze, 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, we have so much, like, we have storage facilities, people are storing, attics are full, right?

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  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, uh, we're missing something that we just can't purchase anymore.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Right. When it comes to the

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Does that make any sense? Does it make sense to you?

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Like, we're missing something that's like a knot on a shelf somewhere.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Right, which is why we're casting about so desperately, and why

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it feels desperate, that's where it's gotten to. It's starting to feel desperate, and I think some of it has to do with like, a sense of purpose, maybe?

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  I'm not sure.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  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 in exile, you 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 likeness of God, right? But I've wandered into the land where I'm not like God, and so

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a Costco.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  I'm in Costco, and so I'm just sort of lost. And, uh, so, the idea is, when Jesus says, "I am the way, um, follow me, uh, I'm the way you get your bearings." I give these sermons a lot to kids in, uh, for confirmation, as a bishop, you confirm these like, teenagers, you know? So I give the sermon, and I use the example of ways a lot, that, you know, I trust in ways. I got this, the voice, I got this kind of English voice on mine, and this little 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.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  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 Merton, or Fulton Sheen, or, there are lots of ways to find your direction. And then, see, Jesus says about all of us Christians, "You're the light of the world, you're the city on the hill." See, but city on the hill was like a GPS. If you're in ancient times, you're wandering around, "Oh, the city, oh yeah, I gotta go just, you know, kind of, just west of that city." So it was the way I, 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

• 31:12Speaker 02

  to be a signal to the rest of the world. But if we're as lost as they are, that, and the Lord says, "If salt is lost, it's savor," you know, who's, and you don't put a light under a bushel basket, but that's what a lot of us have done. We're as lost as everybody else.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Sometimes it also feels like, Bishop, that, um, 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.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Yes. The Bible knows about personal sin, right? So there's individuals, you and I, we're 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, "Oh, it's just personal evil, it's just something that we sinners do." Yeah, that's true, but behind us, are institutions that condition us, and behind them, there are fallen spiritual powers, I would say. And

• 32:26Speaker 02

  we gotta deal with all of them, we gotta, 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.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Did Christianity ever have like, a military, or was that even a thing?

• 32:40Speaker 02

  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, um, we tend not to do that today.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  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.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  There's the Knights Templar.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  The Knights Templar were wealthy, oh, 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, the Knights Templar would kind of escort them, or make sure that they got there safely?

• 33:29Speaker 02

  That was the idea, yeah.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Why were they attacked so much?

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Oh, it's a complicated story. There were some, you know, there were charges of corruption, of 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.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  And there was some kind of corruption set in there, but I think at its best, it was doing a very valuable thing.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, most human things kind of end up going bad in some ways. Do you think, like, sometimes I get stuck in this space where it's like, um, like, I want, like, you know, I want to go to heaven, I want to have, um, like, happiness after, like, I want to earn the possibility to, and I don't even know if it's earn is the right word, but I want to have the opportunity to have a life past this, past this one here.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  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?

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  But does that really even matter if the goal is to, is, is to have, uh, an eternal life, and to, is earn the right word?

• 34:47Speaker 02

  No, I wouldn't use earn, but it's a both and, see?

• 34:51Speaker 01

  But does it make sense what I'm asking you?

• 34:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  But it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to lose here on earth, not, not as a person, but just as a species, or as like, sometimes it's even as like, America, or as like, um, good, good versus evil. It's like, I don't want good to lose here on earth. You know, you want to try and service that as well as you can, but it seems like the more important thing is this, is this greater

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Good that comes with salvation, does that make sense?

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Yes, and, and they're both true. See, contrast Chris biblical religion with, let's say, Plato, and go back to Plato, or these, these other figures, that felt the body, this natural world was kind of a fallen world, it 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, that's a radical thing, though, in the Bible, see? Because so many dualistic

• 35:57Speaker 02

  systems would say, like, spirit good, matter 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 heavens." He wants to bring heaven and earth together.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  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, thank God, went up to heaven." That's not it at all. He walked in the room, and, 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 creeds say, not to the escape of the soul from the body, we look forward to the resurrection of 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,

• 37:12Speaker 02

  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 both and, right?

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  It's both and.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  What do you think is something that

• 37:37Speaker 02

  There's the transfiguration.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, show it, let me see. And is that one particular famous piece of art, or is that, um,

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Well, that's the Raphael one on the right there, the screen I'm looking at. Uh, there's a lot of different, but Raphael is probably the most famous one. But see, it's the bodilyness of it, that's what I would emphasize. So many spiritualities are kind of down on the body, down on the world, get out of the world, that's not biblical religion.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Right? We like the body, the body's good.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  But it's part-time.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Not really, no, I mean, I look forward to the resurrection of the body. But think about this, too.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  So you're saying our body will come back?

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, see, this, this body's part-time.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying, this body's part-time.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  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, 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, we talk about the resurrected body. Uh, I'll die, I'll go into the ground, but, but God remembers the great pattern of, of me, and can reconstitute, just as it's happening now in nature, I'm getting reconstituted physically all the time.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  That's a good point.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  So can it happen in this sort of transfigured way in heaven? Does, like, 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 sensed that in the resurrection of Jesus.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  One of the toughest things that I hear people talk about, like we're in a lot of like, kind of like a, I don't 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?

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  And people spend less time connected, you know, even though like technology has us 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?

• 39:43Speaker 02

  It's not good for a man to be alone, the Bible says, right? So, I mean, from the beginning, see, because God is a family. We'd say God is Father, Son, Spirit. God is not just-

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a triple dipper.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  He's not a monolith. 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 you forget about God, you lose your connection to everybody else. See, 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 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. See, and that's, that's why we're like arch-

• 40:38Speaker 01

  And that's because why? We're both here talking about it and learning together?

• 40:41Speaker 02

  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.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  I see, so that, that alone, that birth in a way is something that we have in common?

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  We rarely ever even talk about that.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  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 God. That's what prayer 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 Whistling Dixie, I mean, that's a, that's a very accurate statement. Oh yeah, the sun 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.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, the stitch is the same, that lowest stitch is the same.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Right, but now you stop praying, or you say, I don't care, I hate church, I'm like, 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.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so if we're all connected, then what's a way to stay as tapped into that connectivity as possible?

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Love one another as I have loved you. So Jesus says to his disciples, I've loved you, I've willed your good, and you've found your commonality in me. Okay, now you love each other as I have loved you. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  There's the whole purpose of Christ, see, is that 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 salt, we're not the city on the hill, and we're not doing our work of reconciling, you know? You know, see the Amish hat behind you there, right? The Amish kid that was on your show?

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, Timothy.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  I love that, who's from my diocese, he's from my area in Minnesota, Lanesboro.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Oh, nice. Yeah, he's one of a kind. I want to have him back in, because I hope, 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 tempted, a little too tempted out there. I mean, there he is at frickin' Hooters.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  I didn't see that.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  You know? And I don't think the Lord's at Hooters.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  No, but I don't know about this particular Amish kid, but the Amish-

• 43:24Speaker 01

  That's him.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  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, and he killed these kids in an Amish school, right? And the, you think the community would just be so lividly angry with him. And these Amish people went to the home of the guy's widow, like he killed these kids and killed himself. They went that night to the home of the widow to comfort her, and then they went to the, to the, his trial or something to show their support. That, 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.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Because they were looking at someone else's pain over theirs.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, right, they were willing the good of 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 relationship 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, and let me show you.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  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, 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

• 45:17Speaker 01

  feels like there has been like an organized, like, strategy against us to like, like, like, get to like the, down to the cell, like even with the algorithms and how your phone is watching you and how it's like, and, and surveillance state that we're entering allegedly in some places. It seems like the devil is like, I mean, he's like, and way heavily invested in the tech, 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, like, I guess it's just like, yeah, what do we do?

• 46:00Speaker 01

  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?

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it does. And that spooks me too, because 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, you know, that meanness has always been there, but 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? Yeah, the dark powers love using that, you know?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  What do we do? Like, what do you do as 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?

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  It's just like-

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, but see, 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?

• 47:16Speaker 01

  G.K.?

• 47:17Speaker 02

  G.K. Chesterton, great English writer, dies 1936, I think, but he said this, like 100 years ago, he said, "Men today have lost," there he is, "men today have lost their way." Nothing surprising that, men have always lost their way. The difference is today they've lost their address. See, we've always wandered into a bad path, but at least we kind of knew where we're supposed to be going. And he saw 100 years ago, it's truer 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, what my values are, don't you tell me, I won't tell you, we'll just

• 48:02Speaker 02

  tolerate each other, but I will decide my whole life. That 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, 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?

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Sugar, sugar.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Right, so I'm a little kid, I'm nine years 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.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Rolling Stone.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  That changed my life, that song. That's, I'll put it philosophically, that was an objective aesthetic value that drew me out of myself.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  That changed my subjectivity.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  So you're saying that something you found on the outside of you-

• 48:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Like brought, like, kind of rearranged how you operated?

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Exactly. Now, like Merton's Seven Story Mountain, there's a book like that, Thomas Aquinas, my other great hero, who I discovered around that time, these were 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.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude, it's not even that great.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Well, right, but, but my reaction when I first-

• 49:28Speaker 01

  The notebook's better, I think, but go on.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  When I first read it, it was like, man, that, that such a thing should exist, I just thought it was like a miracle, like this thing, in its complexity and the, and the beauty of the language and the, it just sort of, it flummoxed me.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're right.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  Or like the first time I heard like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or the Ode to Joy Symphony.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  I mean, like, if you were to say, hey, I really like that. What a stupid response.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  It was so stupidly inadequate to it because

• 50:01Speaker 01

  Right. It doesn't even do its service.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Because it changes you. See, if you say, oh, I like that, I'm still kind of, you know, calling the shots.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  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, I'm against is this self-invention thing of like, I don't know, don't tell me what to think or do. I will decide. Bore me to death with that. Bore me to death with that kind of autonomy.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  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?

• 50:42Speaker 02

  It would be what we call aesthetic arrest, you know? You're stopped. You're stopped in your tracks and, 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, I'm announcing them. Cause like, wow, I just finished a film on the Gothic cathedrals. I was trying to explain, why was the whole world so, so captivated by the Notre Dame fire a couple of years ago? Remember?

• 51:22Speaker 02

  The whole world was like, oh my God. And I, I thought, it's not just because, oh, this nice old building is burning down. People sensed in that cathedral, like something of enormous value was being lost. So I told, I did this film that's meant to tell that story of why those buildings are so remarkable and powerful. So, so stop, see aesthetic arrest, stop. You shut up. Stop thinking. Stop, stop.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  It's not about me.

• 51:49Speaker 02

  It's not about you.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Let that thing judge you. Right? Um, and then it will rework you and then send you on mission. That's how it works, I think.

• 52:02Speaker 01

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• 52:46Speaker 01

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• 53:28Speaker 01

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• 53:38Speaker 01

  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?

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, they find you. That's my experience.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  And not, not taking some sort of like, oh, I like that or this or that, just honoring what it is.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  Let, and I think there have been teachers of the great value, see, who, who have been affected by them and now can present them to people in a powerful way. I had this great professor at Notre Dame University. I'm a, I'm a kid and he was showing us his art history class, showing us images from, you know, 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 that know how to do that.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Well, I think one of the, one of the things that we run into is so much, there's not as much, um, 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, dude, you gotta meet so-and-so. Wait till you hear, wait till you hear the story. Right? So it had this like, there was more opportunity for lore and, and, um, and there was more opportunity for like advertising and buildup of like a story or a person or something.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  If 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 like

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Be an apprentice.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  And be an apprentice, 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, um, or a mindset or belief. Um, I think that, I don't think that we've come to like a place that we can calculate the loss of that. Cause it feels like there's, um, that we're not doing something together.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  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 is 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 seemingly much deeper, which is pattern and meaning. And for pattern and meaning, Siri can't give 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 that's really missing. The initiation rituals of primal peoples. And this is true across the cultures, all over the world in primal peoples of a young man, let's say, he's got to be ripped out of his comfort area.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  So that the men of the tribe or the, of the town will go take the kid out from his home. All right. And then they'll scarify him usually, like something on the cheek or they'll knock a tooth out or circumcise him or something. And the idea of that was

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Well, that third one's unreal. I'll take one of the first two.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll take the tooth.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  I mean, somebody got me for the third. I don't, I'm not, and I'm still going to catch the guy who did it. But, uh, yeah, well, yeah, anyway, let's carry on.

• 56:52Speaker 02

  But it's just, it's meant to say, life is, life is hard. I mean, life's gonna, gonna knock you around.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  So you're saying that like young man, they used, they would extract them from sort of their comfort zone?

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  And they would, um, and

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Mark their body somehow.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  Like to say, okay, remind them, life is hard. Expect it. Don't say life to be easy.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  I see. So it was an educational.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 57:13Speaker 02

  And but then see, to your point, they would then speak the lore of the tribe. And now you need to know the history of this tribe. This thing goes way beyond you, way before you. It was here long before you, be here long after you. Then the last step was almost invariably, bring the kid to the edge of like jungle or tundra or whatever it was. Give him 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, the, the black hole of the ego. Your life's not about you. Life is hard. Uh, and you're meant to find meaning

• 57:55Speaker 02

  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, 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 and you know, we used to do it.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  That's a great statement, dude. I'm sorry. I don't know. That, 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.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Like, I know we're, 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.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, right. And that's the whole point of it is to bring a kid through that so that he can make a real contribution.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  So how would we, like, what is kind of a modern day, like, is there a way to do that now?

• 58:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  And not to put you on this, I mean, but.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  No, no, religion used to preside over this. See, that's the whole thing. Religion's presided over this, this process.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't realize that.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Sure. I mean, go back to primal peoples, it's always like in a religious context.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Right. So you're taking them out there and you're also sharing the lore. I think the lore is so important, man. 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?

• 59:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Like, I don't even, like, I don't even, a lot of times, like, yesterday was one of the first times I told 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's sister just passed away and I was like, hey, look out for my buddy's sister, you know?

• 59:31Speaker 02

  In heaven, yeah.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I just like, like, I think there was definitely this bigger connection between cultures and their ancestors.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  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 is in things that were brought upon me. But it's like, things that maybe I could incorporate when I have my own family and stuff.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  My, this is many years ago now, 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 to kayak and they were up and down rivers. And they really put them through it, right? And I remember this kid, she came home and was telling me about this with such enthusiasm. And at that point, she was like a, like a, or 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 gotta go through something tough and challenging and gets you out of your self-regard. See, self-regard, everything's about me. How's

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  it affect me? Is it's the other regard, because that's love, willing the good of the other. But, but you gotta be drawn out of that.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  How did the church used to do that?

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  Well, there's a little remnant of this thing. We stopped doing this after Vatican II, but 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 was, that's the imitation of the scarification or the knocking a tooth out, you know? So it's meant to say life is tough.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Put the Lord in his cheeks, you know?

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  That's what you get, you know what I'm saying? Or some physical reminder.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  It was physical. No, I think we, we did it as a culture better, you know, that we realized, uh, there you go. Now, see, right, there's the bishop like me confirming a kid. So we put the chrism oil on the forehead. But in the old days, they would also slap them.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been using a batana oil sometimes on my scalp at night.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  That's not chrism oil, though.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's not. It's not ordained. I know that. It's just on the shelf or whatever.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  You know that right in the middle there, that's Cardinal George, who was of Chicago? No, go up to the, with the red vestments on there, right there.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  That's the Pope?

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  No, he was the Archbishop of Chicago. No.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Who is that?

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  That's the Archbishop of Chicago. But he, I lived with him for about six years.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  You're roommates?

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Not roommates, no, but I lived in the same house with him. And he was kind of a mentor to me, kind of a hero to me.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Oh, that's beautiful. Let's say his name again. What is it?

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  Was he, was he the real deal?

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was a very serious guy, very smart, like, 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 he knew what was going wrong with our culture. He was very insightful about that.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  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 rye uprising about, like, at what point do you feel like there's like, as a group, if we're kind of all like connected, if there's some connection maybe? Because I, I think sometimes I'm amazed that we, there's, hasn't been more like, um, 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.

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  We should be spiritual revolutionaries. And that's true. I don't want like political revolution carries with it.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not saying political.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  But there, see, but the church, here's something interesting to me. You know, when the Lord says to, to Peter, okay, if you're Peter, upon this rock, I'll build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it, right?

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Now, all of my life, I would say, I heard that statement. I took it to mean, oh yeah, hell's coming after us and they're not gonna, they're not gonna prevail, right? We're gonna 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, we're defending ourselves against the onslaught of hell. No, 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 gonna break in and we're gonna 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.

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  And part, we've lost our confidence. We've lost our sense of purpose. Armed with the great weapons that Paul talks about, right?

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, because sometimes it feels like the church, yeah, it feels kind of sometimes like the church doesn't have any balls.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  I know. Yes. And that's the problem. That's the problem.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  And I don't mean that offensively.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  No, no, and you're absolutely right. We, we should be on the march against the dark powers. Now, here's something.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Because if you, if you guys aren't?

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Like, if the church isn't, then what is gonna be?

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Right. And if the salt loses its savor, who's gonna, you know, make it salty again? That's the, you know, and we put the light under a bushel basket, and we've done a lot of that. By kind of accommodating to the culture of losing our, 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 can use my ambition, he can use whatever. But the one thing he can't use is my humility. It just frustrates him.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Because it's not, it's not something he would do.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Right. He doesn't know what to do with it. He, 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.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  But say you're so humble, you're so accepting, right? You just keep accepting and accepting and accepting. And then you, there's, and then.

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  No, but it's, it's a position of power, real humility, because it means.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  So give me an example, maybe. But does it make, does it make sense? Because I'm just trying to make sure that I make sense.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Like acquiescence or giving up.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  Yes. If you're acquiescing to everything, it's just like, like, if that is the humility, then that feels like.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Like surrender.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  It feels like, yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  It's not that. It would be, you're humble before God. You're, you've 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, mewling, mealy mouthed, 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 devil can't use. He can't use humility in that sense.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  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, we're, I would say, we're pretty far down the line with self.

• 1:07:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  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 of, you know what I'm saying? Like, are we too far down, like the narcissist's reflection in the pond?

• 1:07:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  You know? Or how will that be perceived?

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  Right. You have to let go of that, or you won't be getting done.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Or what if nobody, uh? Like follows me or agrees with me. I think those are a lot of the fears that come up.

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  Now, that's the whole spiritual struggle in a way. See, I'm so held captive by my fears or by my addictions. See, sin is always an addiction, right? Because sin, capital S, is putting something other than God at the center of your life.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  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 gonna try to find God in money. Well, no matter how much money I make, it's not gonna 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 gonna satisfy you. Uh, now, power, if it's power, it's not gonna satisfy you. And before you know it, you're gonna become addicted to these things, right? So breaking free of addictions and breaking free of fears, then you're at the point of

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  Maximilian Colby. Then you can say, I'm a Catholic priest. Take me. Right? Now, that's an extreme case. That's a martyr.

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Speaker 02

  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 was 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, boop, one little drop of blue, boop, in it. And then proceeded to teach the class, never referred 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

• 1:09:45Speaker 02

  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 you to do, and don't worry about it. You'll be that one drop of water that will make this huge difference.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  And that's for everyone.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. And gosh, if everyone did that, we, you'd transform the world. And then

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  I think people are trying. I think it's just tough because it feels like, uh, the people that own the water.

• 1:10:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  Like, come over and say, no, no more blue water.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  But the gates of hell will not prevail against us. So if we have that confidence, you know?

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Right. In the end, there's, in the end, you have to believe that there's, you have to believe in good at the end. Cause 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.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  I, 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 just follow it, and just do it, what it prompts you to do, and God will make it happen. You know, so in a way, you wanna pull back from the world and just think about you, what God's calling you to do.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:05Speaker 02

  And you know, people, I have this online ministry. So a lot of times people will write in and you, you know, look, this year, I'm depressed. I'm just, I'm in terrible shape. I'm so unhappy. What do I do? And because I don't know these people, and I don't wanna be giving big advice to people I don't know.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  You know, Jordan Peterson has said, he's, he's right about this, that self-consciousness and misery are identical. 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 I'm lost in something? Whether it's, you know, it's Willie Nelson, or it's, or it's Romeo and Juliet, or it's the Shark Cathedral, or it's

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Or the Indiana Fever, I like.

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  Or it's this conversation. It, what draws you out of yourself, that's what gives you joy. See, which is why the spiritual life, it's, it's always like on a razor's edge, you know? I, I become happy when I'm least preoccupied with me. And boom.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  All of religious practice, all of it, is simply meant to affect that change, right?

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:12:31Speaker 02

  That's the whole purpose of it.

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  Understood. Yeah. Some of my favorite, most favorite moments are thinking about somebody else.

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  And you become truly happier and better.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  In that measure.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Well, I just end up feeling better.

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  Feeling better, right.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  I've gotten so, there's times I've been so sick of myself, like,

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:12:47Speaker 01

  I work and you have to see video of myself, and then I have to edit sometimes. And I'm like, dear God, like, you know? So sometimes I wake, if I wake up and I'm thinking about somebody else, that the first thought in my head is somebody else.

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  It literally feels like 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.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  Right. Because if, put it in theological terms, you are at that moment in, in tune with God.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  God is love. And so the simplest act of love puts you in tune with God, and therefore makes you happy.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does, man. And it gets, I will say this, dude, I, it starts to get a little bit addicting, and a, but it's positive. Yeah.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Thinking about other people and like wishing other people well and stuff like that. You feel like a little, a little Hallmark section.

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Well, you know, another spiritual hero of mine is Theresa Le Sieu. To know that name by any chance? She's very popular in the Catholic world.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  Theresa Le, Le, Le, Le, Le?

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  Theresa Le Sieu.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Le Sieu.

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  Le Sieu is a little town in northwestern France. And she was a nun who joined the convent 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 massively 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.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  Saint Theresa.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  There we go. Yeah, there she is.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Oh, maybe I could get a piece of art of her. Oh.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  Anyway, her book, The Story of a Soul. And she has a spiritual path that's called the little way.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  What's the little way? It's at every moment of the day, find the path of love. So that 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. Yeah. Willing the good of the other. I think you're willing my good.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  This is the path of love. So good. Let's stay on that.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 1:14:51Speaker 02

  And 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 through my day choosing the opposite of love, which is why I'm miserable.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  What's the fear then? Cause you're not gonna have something if you, you know, it's like a fear.

• 1:15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  There's a lot of fear attached to it.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Not gonna have enough time to do the things I need to do.

• 1:15:10Speaker 02

  Yep. Which is why we put in front of our eyes, as, as Christians, Jesus crucified. See, cause, you know, that, do you know the Buddhist thing, invite your fears in for tea? Do you know about that?

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Uh-uh.

• 1:15:23Speaker 02

  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 gonna go well. I'm afraid that person doesn't like me anymore. 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 gonna, okay, there's my fear of death. There's my fear of failure. Welcome. And you serve tea to them all. And what, what that exercise accomplishes is it detaches you from your fears. You realize, okay, but I'm, I'm not my fear of death. And I, I'm 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 of Loyola, whether I have a long life or a short life, I don't care. Whether I'm successful or a failure, I don't really care.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm, 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 high

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  That's hard to do.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  But see, but, but, and that gives you freedom though.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Now I'm, I'm free.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. You're, the binds aren't there then. And then you operate like at a, I mean, you're on a different plane then, if you can do that.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  And then you can accomplish God's purpose. See, he, he can now work with free people. Is the trouble is, you, we're, we sinners 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 a treatment program for addiction. If we can get free of our addictions, uh, then God can use us, right?

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Um, speaking of addiction, like, there's a lot of, uh, you know, pornography is such a huge thing in the world these days. Um, 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 taking away, like, um, you're kind of hijacking people's lust and their love, really, a lot of times, you know? Um, we've had people on to talk about, uh, 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.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Um, has the church spoken out, like, against it? Do you guys feel some sort of responsibility, like, uh, to speak out against it? Like, um, and what do we do there? Because, like, there's evil people that are just, that are using this horrible stuff to ruin us.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  And it's working.

• 1:17:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  Sorry, I got aggressive. I think it just makes me so angry.

• 1:17:48Speaker 02

  No, I totally agree with you. Uh, 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 ten-year-old could get hardcore pornography on his, on his cellphone.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Oh, I had to have a buddy sketch me a little something for the weekend, you'd give him a couple bucks.

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  No, it was not easy, right?

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  And you'd get a return fee, too, if you returned it. I kept mine. But, yeah, so it was a different time.

• 1:18:14Speaker 02

  Thank God, see, we didn't get addicted the same way. But, man, today, and, you know, I worked, um, in seminary work and do with these, you know, young people, almost everybody, to some degree, is addicted to pornography.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Oh, 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 what I'm saying? They make evil scenarios. 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?

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, but see, it has to do that, though, because it's gotta get ever more, you know, titillating and ever more different, and that's not enough anymore, so.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  But it even attacked, like, the famili-, like, the fam-, 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, why can't it eliminate that from, like, being allowed to be played in our country or whatever? Does that make any sense to you?

• 1:19:19Speaker 02

  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 acquiesced 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 Eucharistic Congress gathering in Indianapolis, and I spoke to, like, fifty thousand 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, like, the great recommendations given by the Lord, we'd change 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, uh, 'cause it's drawing young people into

• 1:20:00Speaker 02

  really bad addictive patterns, and it's hurting their, their brain. Chemistry's getting affected.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I've certainly been down that road myself, so I'm not like, I'm also not separating myself from anybody that, you know, I've gone to, like, different recovery, like, you know, meetings for it that my buddy runs, 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, 'cause I have a lot more awareness now. Um, but yeah, I can, I've seen the way that it's affected my own life, and it's

• 1:20:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, the way, it's just, 'cause 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 just other women that are involved in your life and circle.

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, no, like, the sexual lives of, of married couples are getting dysfunctional because of pornography.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  Well, it 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 Ca-, 'cause the Catholic Church is the largest group in the world, isn't it?

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, the largest, I'm gonna write, I'm the largest Christian denomination in the world.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, like, how, yeah, like, I don't still know what to, like, I'm not, I don't know if I'm, I hope, I don't sound like I'm preaching at you, do I?

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  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, and I know that's not just you, like, you have total control over everyone and their behaviors, but I'm asking, like, um, yeah, how, 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?

• 1:21:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, 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, as the bishops of America about pornography and different ways of addressing it and helping people with it. But I think it's, it's reached the point where the government's gotta get involved.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's heartbreaking, kind of.

• 1:22:20Speaker 02

  But, you know, the thing is, no one should feel self-righteous.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  It's heartbreaking fully, not kind of, it's heartbreaking fully.

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  But going, and I, I didn't mean, you didn't feel like I made you feel uncomfortable about it, did you?

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  No, no, I mean, 'cause we're all coping with this

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  We're all here in the world.

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  But also that no one should ever feel self-righteous, because, as I say, all sin is an addiction. Everyone's addicted to something.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:22:38Speaker 02

  You know, there's, there's a story about Saint Augustine, uh, the great, you know, Augustine, author of the Confessions and all this. He's, um, he's a very ambitious guy, right? And he wants to be speechwriter for the Roman emperor, and he gets the job, and he's just so excited, and he's being carried on a litter, right, to the site where one of his speeches the emperor's gonna give, and he's so excited. And on the way, he sees this, this hopelessly drunk guy, just carrying on, and, you know, and Augustine, 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, of illumination for Augustine, with all of his sophistication, and I'm such

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  a, he said, "I'm a worse addict than that guy." So, I mean, all of us sinners, we're, we're all hooked on something.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  And, um,

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been hooked on a couple of those things, yeah. Working, thinking that work would solve things, um, drugs, um, porno, um, trying to think of what else. That's, that might be it, probably. And most of those I'm in recovery for, or I don't still do anymore, um, or I'm not doing anymore. Um, 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.

• 1:23:54Speaker 02

  Again, speaking from a Christian standpoint, when you put up the, the crucified Jesus, it's such a weird thing. And I'm always 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, "Oh, this is a religious gathering," and they see this guy on a cross, and they say, "What is the matter with you people? That's like the grossest thing, and this poor slob being put to death on this miserable instrument of torture."

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, who taxidermies their savior, you know?

• 1:24:26Speaker 02

  Why do we do it? Right. 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 pleasures, he's got no power, he's got no honor, he's, 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, all of our fears are on full display.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, bare.

• 1:24:51Speaker 02

  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. Auden, 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 Auden, a great Christian poet, you know?

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  Say that last part, "We'd rather mount the cross of the moment than let our illusions die."

• 1:25:33Speaker 02

  Uh, "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 mo-, like, we have to mount our own cross.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  Right? That we're, we have to be stripped of these things. You know, go back to the very beginning of our conversation about, about evil. You, well, why would God allow this? Well, see, evil, you might say, in a superficial way, like, "Oh, yeah, I was stripped of this thing that I really want." That could be the best thing. That could be exactly what God wants. He wants to strip you of, of your addiction to this thing, you know? So, that's mounting the cross of the moment and letting our illusions die.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, we'd, 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, of how things could have gone.

• 1:26:33Speaker 01

  Because there's comfort in not taking risks.

• 1:26:35Speaker 02

  Right, right. There's a demand there and there's a stripping bear that God wants you to do and you're not gonna do it.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  I'd rather be ruined than changed.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  He's calling you to a spiritual change. That's, that's conversion in Jesus, metanoia in his, in the Greek of the New Testament. Going beyond the mind you have. That's what that means, metanoia.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  That's scary.

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  Yes, right. It is very, because we all have a mindset in place. And Jesus always is saying, metanoiaite, you gotta get beyond the mind you have. And to reach the point of the little flower, right, love every moment, or of Maxime and Colby. Boy, that's, that is a major metanoia. That's going way beyond the mind that you have. Uh, 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.

• 1:27:36Speaker 02

  See, but all of that is living in, in the land of unlikeness, right?

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  It's miserable.

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  Yes, and it's miserable. What, see, religion is all about joy. Jesus says that. 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.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  You know, and, uh,

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I was running, like, when I was like, in a relationship that I was cheating all the time, it was miserable.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  I was always worried. I was always concerned. I was always sick of like my behavior and I was just like the lies and just like, it was always a nightmare.

• 1:28:11Speaker 02

  Right. And it's funny, like, but the church has been saying that forever. It's been, it's been warning against that like forever. But what's the move of the fallen mind? Oh, the church, puritanical, hung up on sex. God, give me a break and, you know, you're caught in the Middle Ages. No, no, no. It's telling a truth that you discovered through experience, right?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:32Speaker 02

  But the church has been saying that forever. You know, the Bible knew that truth forever.

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  One of the biggest ways that, uh, like pornography and different addictions and stuff keep us down is, uh, shame, you know? Why does God allow us to have shame? Or how does God view shame? Or how do you see that?

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, shame, shame is not bad. Think of Adam and Eve, right? So they, they cover themselves and they feel shame in the presence of God. That's a healthy reaction.

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Shame is?

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  It is. If you're shamed in the presence of God. I, I mean, if you're feeling shame in front of somebody else, but it might, that might be stupid. It might be for the wrong reason, or it might be misplaced.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  I'm saying like deep shame, you know, like you're just so ashamed of yourself that you can't even.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  See, but that's liberating. If, 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 I like the conscience. Um, John Henry Newman, another hero of mine.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  John Henry Newman?

• 1:29:26Speaker 02

  John Henry Newman, Cardinal Newman. I just named him a saint a while ago.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  Congrats.

• 1:29:31Speaker 02

  Uh, there he is. Yeah, congratulations, John Henry Newman. He referred to the conscience.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:37Speaker 02

  There he is, as the Aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul. The, the representative of Christ in the soul is your conscience. So when your conscience says to you, oh 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.

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:59Speaker 02

  With, with good feeling, you're rewarded. Pay attention to it. That, that's the vicar of Christ in the soul. That's, that's the voice of Christ in the soul.

• 1:30:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Can you tell me a little bit about that? Like, uh, 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.

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, and we still talk about indulgences. It would be, you know, in the treasury of Christ. So we say that Christ won for us 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,

• 1:30:44Speaker 02

  benefiting from that, someone can, um, grow closer to God, someone can, to put it crudely, you know, get time off of purgatory. It's just a way of saying, lessening our, our punishment. It's calling upon the, the treasury of Christ, let's say.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  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 or whatever.

• 1:31:06Speaker 02

  Problem is the time of the Reformation when people were selling indulgences.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:31:10Speaker 02

  So the church does not smile upon that. Now, that was being done in the Middle Ages where people would, you know, for this amount of money, I will sell you an indulgence to get your aunt out of purgatory, you know, for 60 years or something.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  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 gonna,

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  get him out or what, you know, like?

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  So he was abused because it became something that depended upon, you know.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  People started taking advantage of it.

• 1:31:34Speaker 02

  Right. And, and it should not be something that's, that's bought or sold. So

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:31:38Speaker 02

  in itself, it's a legitimate thing, but not to be buying or selling.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  There's a lot of talk these days about like in the Middle East, like of, 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 Israel 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?

• 1:32:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  That's there now?

• 1:32:01Speaker 02

  No, that's an important distinction.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  How does the church view that kind of?

• 1:32:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Or do they even have a view on it?

• 1:32:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I mean, I'd sum it up this way, that the church recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist. So the churches and the popes have affirmed that, you know, over the last several decades. But it's important to make that distinction you just did. There's biblical Israel, then there's the modern political state of Israel. And they're two different things. Um, which means, you know, a Catholic can certainly be critical of, of the government policies of the state of Israel, as we would have any other government.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:32:33Speaker 02

  Um, 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 a 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.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  So it's not the same group?

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  No, no. Secondly, the church has been adamant against all forms of antisemitism. So go back, the popes over the last many decades have been really strong on that. The pope's visits to Jerusalem, the pope visiting synagogues and all that. So we're against antisemitism.

• 1:33:21Speaker 01

  Understood. Um, there's been like, in the Catholic Church, there was like, over the years, there was like kind of a marring of the Catholic Church because of, they had like, you know, uh, I don't know if it's, are pastors in the Catholic Church as well?

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. We'll talk about a priest can be a pastor of a parish.

• 1:33:37Speaker 01

  Okay. So they had like, um, 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 pedophilia or in the past, uh, in the church, right? They've had that happen over the years. And it kind of gives it like, anytime like you, if you bring it up, people will like make a joke, like that happens a lot.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  I know, yeah.

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  And it's unfortunate.

• 1:34:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not fair.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  Why do you think that, um, people who, uh, have, suffer from pedophilia or are, or, or labeled pedophiles? Why did so many of them kind of end up in the church?

• 1:34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I think that's a better way to put it because, uh, why would someone who's sexually attracted to young people want to join, uh, the church and be a, 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.

• 1:34:32Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  And so someone who has that predilection, I understand perfectly why they might be attracted. The same way, again, to be fair, if you look at, uh, 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, of pedophilia. Most pedophilia, of course, exists in families, not in, you know, the Catholic Church, but in families. So that's a better way to put it. I can, I certainly see why someone might be attracted to.

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  The position because they're going to be in a position of leadership.

• 1:35:06Speaker 02

  That of authority and access to kids.

• 1:35:08Speaker 01

  That makes sense.

• 1:35:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:35:17Speaker 01

  You do? Yeah. I want to hear more, why you think that?

• 1:35:20Speaker 02

  Well, because one thing you can find, uh, sexual abuse of children way outside the confines of the Catholic Church. It's not something that's unique to the celibate priesthood.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:35:29Speaker 02

  And you find it again in families and in coaches and in Boy Scout troops, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of spaces where there is, like you're saying, where there's some sort of a leadership or trusting.

• 1:35:37Speaker 02

  It's, I think, what is more plausible is the other way around. That 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, I feel it's 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. The acknowledgement of that was hugely important and the steps taken, there were very, very strong steps taken.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  What are some of the steps that kind of were kind of instituted? And I'm sorry, I don't know this.

• 1:36:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, it's good. First, I had the seminary level. So I was a seminary rector for a while, which I 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 that sort of thing. 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.

• 1:36:44Speaker 02

  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 virtus thing, I have to, there's a little article that I have to respond to and answer questions about it. But we all have to go through an extensive program around it.

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  And what was some of the screening like? What was that like? That's interesting.

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  Well, like psychological screening. So every kid coming to the seminary has to go through a battery of psychological testing and interviews and so on.

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  Like everybody that wants to be a member of the seminary?

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then as, as 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.

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:37:34Speaker 02

  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 you.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Would some of them feel at least this was a safe place to admit to you what had been, they'd been thinking about or what had been going on?

• 1:37:46Speaker 02

  Well, you never know for sure. I mean, sometimes people can deceive you.

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:37:51Speaker 02

  But, you know, the, we also have independent psychologists too, looking at all these guys.

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:37:57Speaker 02

  So there are different ways. But no, we are hyper attentive to this problem now in the church. And I think it's fair to say that, that one of institutionally, one of the safest places for a young person is the Catholic Church because we'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, that 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 it 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.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  That's not helping.

• 1:38:33Speaker 02

  No. And so that's, you know, we're, we're well aware of that.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  And what about today? Like if somebody is, is found guilty of, of sexual abuse, what happens?

• 1:38:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, if some, it's clearly determined that the person is, is guilty. We have a zero tolerance policy. They're out of the, you know, the priesthood. And another thing too, is that when accusations come forward, we take them great, with great seriousness and we always bring the, the secular authorities in. We make sure that the, 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.

• 1:39:08Speaker 01

  Like we'll handle it within, within the church.

• 1:39:10Speaker 02

  But it's a very high priority now.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Understood. So before you go, and thank you so much for your time today, Bishop.

• 1:39:18Speaker 02

  No, my pleasure. Loved it.

• 1:39:21Speaker 01

  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 the, they, 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?

• 1:39:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  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 unevolving. I don't know what's going to happen. But that feels very, very scary when you like completely 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?

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  That the AI becomes the new God?

• 1:40:24Speaker 02

  Is we, 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 an issue through. And we don't do that a lot. We're, 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.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:51Speaker 02

  Which means to see patterns of meaning, right? And purpose. And the AI is not going to give that to us. There's the economic side too, that, you know, 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.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause you hear just people say, ask chat.

• 1:41:18Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  People say, ask perplexity, ask, you know, they say, ask this AI.

• 1:41:22Speaker 02

  How about thinking through yourself?

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  Or ask God.

• 1:41:25Speaker 02

  Or ask God or, or talk to another person and have an argument about it or something?

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Talk to another person like, you know, because you can find God through other people too, a lot of times.

• 1:41:34Speaker 02

  See, I, I love arguments. The, the problem is the, the social media world's given rise to insult. And that's all we know how to do anymore. It's just, we throw insults and we're snarky.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's more snipers than it is like wrestling, you know?

• 1:41:45Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just wonder like, oh, the, yeah, here it says, the current Pope Leo XIV is not anti-AI, but he argues that AI must remain a human controlled tool and be judged by whatever it protects.

• 1:42:21Speaker 02

  Human dignity.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  And be, 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.

• 1:42:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  AI should serve people, not replace, manipulate, surveil, or dominate them. But if AI does these things, what recourse, does the Pope have any recourse really? Or is it just?

• 1:42:44Speaker 02

  No, he's a prophetic voice, I would say. But then also, I mean, he's, he's, he's connected to this huge network of influence. So if all of us who are, you know, under his authority, we, 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 it earlier, that's always spooks me. Cause I know my phone is listening to me and, you know, I'll have a little casual conversation that I'm scrolling and, and something I mention, some product or whatever, it's, comes up. And I suppose it sees it as a positive. I see it as deeply weird and disturbing.

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  That that stupid machine is listening to me.

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:21Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  At least it's listening to you mostly do good stuff.

• 1:43:24Speaker 02

  Right. But.

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  Imagine the rest of us, dude. You're a bishop. I mean, hopefully you're on the up and up.

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  It's very spooky. I mean, what do you think God would say about it? Like, do you pray to ask God for like thoughts about that kind of stuff?

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  Sure. You know why? Yeah. But, you know, the Bible knew about this in a way. See, the Tower of Babel 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, of how this project has turned on itself. It undermines itself. No, the Bible knew all about this stuff in its own way.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  And now the craziest part of that, even in its own moment, is that Babel is now a language learning app.

• 1:44:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 1:44:24Speaker 01

  So it's like, I think six out of four people or whatever.

• 1:44:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  People you say, hey, what's Babel? And they say, they don't even know the story, but they know the language learning model.

• 1:44:34Speaker 02

  Well, they think.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  They know the language learning app, which is fine. I mean, it's a good app.

• 1:44:37Speaker 02

  They think Babel's related to Babylon, you know, so that, 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's always been suspicious of big, you know, political and economic power. It's dangerous.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:59Speaker 02

  It's dangerous.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Do you feel like the Catholic Church is still as powerful as it once was?

• 1:45:04Speaker 02

  Well, it depends on how you define 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 lesson there that it'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's his rival, the Dalai Lama, maybe? But there's no one that has the stature of the Pope.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:45:29Speaker 02

  No one has the institutional range that we have. So, no, we have an enormous power of influence and all that. But I would say stay away from political power.

• 1:45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:41Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  It's scary.

• 1:45:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. No, we should always be in a kind of a prophetic stance. 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?

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  Does the church support specific political parties or not really?

• 1:45:58Speaker 02

  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, you know, Democrat or vote Republican.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:46:11Speaker 02

  We don't do that.

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  Before you go today, there's an amazing thing I've heard you talk about. It's called the transcendent third.

• 1:46:18Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  And we had a guru on actually as well, this gentleman named Guru Dev. And he talked about the same thing.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  Really?

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  He talked about the same pattern. Can you tell me a little bit about the transcendent third?

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  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 was, 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, right? That there's something in common that we both love.

• 1:47:09Speaker 02

  And see, look, we're drawn out of ourselves, looking upward together to that. Now, we draw closer together, almost like willy-nilly, without even trying, we get closer together. Early on, I mentioned Fulton Sheen, right, about to be beatified. He wrote a book back in the 50s, I still recommend it to couples, engaged couples, called 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. He said, "And if you don't have Christ, the bride and groom are gonna 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 Sheen said it.

• 1:47:53Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:48:10Speaker 01

  No, I didn't see this. Oh, I heard about this, but I didn't see it. It's good?

• 1:48:13Speaker 02

  It's about this guy, right, who he loves this girl and she's not reciprocating. And he's so frustrated, so he goes to this 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'll come true. So, he goes, not Lord, it's like, "Make, make me love her, or make her love me more than anything in the world." Breaks the stick. And at that moment, it's very spooky, he's just dropped her off, right? At that moment, she appears in the doorway. And he's like, "My dreams have come true." Well, I won't give the movie away.

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't.

• 1:48:47Speaker 02

  But watch it because it's spiritually very rich movie. What happens when, see, there's no transcendent third, there's no transcendent, "She just loves me."

• 1:48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:56Speaker 02

  That's it. She will devour you and you, you will destroy each other. Dead right. And it's a very spiritually alert movie that way.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  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?

• 1:49:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  To fall in love with something else, right?

• 1:49:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, together.

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  Yes, together, to find a friend.

• 1:49:19Speaker 02

  Together, we love this thing.

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  It's just like, find a friend and go do something.

• 1:49:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:49:22Speaker 01

  Right? Um, yeah, this, uh, 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 gonna meet, but then you're also just gonna keep going.

• 1:49:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, right.

• 1:49:32Speaker 01

  You know, but if you also then you're headed in the same direction, then it's just like kind of a force, you know?

• 1:49:38Speaker 02

  It'll draw you together without you even knowing it. It'll draw you together automatically.

• 1:49:44Speaker 01

  Can we say a prayer before you go?

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:49:46Speaker 02

  Are you gonna pray or you want me to pray?

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Can you pray?

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:49:48Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 1:49:49Speaker 02

  "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 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, uh, who see it and all those who hear it. Lord, continue to bless 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."

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  Amen, man.

• 1:50:17Speaker 02

  Weren't you baptized Catholic?

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  Thank you. Uh, I was in a Presbyterian church.

• 1:50:21Speaker 02

  Presbyterian, okay. What did I read, Catholic or Catholic family or?

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  Somebody probably made something up.

• 1:50:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah, my, 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, I'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, there's no, I just don't have any doubt about it. And I just, I've just been praying a lot more, meditating.

• 1:50:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  Um, I'm in a cool Bible study and so like,

• 1:50:59Speaker 02

  Oh, you are.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  It just gives me a group of people to care about outside of myself.

• 1:51:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  So, it's been fun because every, everybody will share what's going on with them. And then it gives me something to pray about for my friends. 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 it yourself, you know? But it's just, um,

• 1:51:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, stay with the Bible study. That's good. Stay with that.

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been a, and it's just been a great group.

• 1:51:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, good. I hear in Nashville.

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, good.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  So, I just feel like, yeah, I don't know. That's where I'm at.

• 1:51:32Speaker 02

  Stay with that. That's great.

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:51:40Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:51:41Speaker 01

  That's it. Um, Bishop Robert Barron, thank you so much.

• 1:51:44Speaker 02

  God bless you.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  For your, for your, uh, just, your desire to, uh, get out and spread the word and just share the message. And I always enjoy listening to you and I'm so glad that we got to hang out today.

• 1:51:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. Thank you very much.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  Amen. Thank you.