Transcript

Oh, this is incredible.

Welcome, Cathedral to Magdelene.

Hey, I'm Matt.

This is the 10-Minute Bible Hour.

And whether you're into the whole Christianity thing or not, I bet you've heard of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

These are two different expressions of Christian faith.

They're kind of two of the three really big ones historically.

And Protestantism is about a 500-year-old expression that was born out of Roman Catholicism.

Some Theological issues were percolating and people were debating them.

And ultimately, these two groups ended up deciding, we're just doing different things here.

We think different stuff.

And there's this parting of ways.

So like your Lutherans, your Methodists, your Baptists, these are all different types of Protestants.

Whereas Roman Catholicism continues to be kind of a singular monolithic thing.

I've always had pretty good relationships with Roman Catholics.

I've always had pretty high regard for Roman Catholicism, but it occurred to me the other day that pretty much everything I know about Roman Catholicism has been taught to me, told to me, explained to me by other Protestants.

But, you know, at some point, it'd be pretty cool to go and hear what Roman Catholics think and see what they do by talking to an actual Roman Catholic in an actual Roman Catholic church.

So, I put out feelers with a whole bunch of different churches, and one got back to me called the Cathedral of the Magdelene in Salt Lake City, which is actually secretly who I was really hoping would get back to me.

And they were kind enough to take a flyer on some Protestant stranger from the Internet and invite me there with a camera to see what happens.

So I went, I met with Father Martin Diaz, and, well, here's what happened.

Hello.

Hello.

Father Diaz?

Hi! Am I saying that right?

Yes.

Father is the correct title?

That's the correct title.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Matt Whitman.

Nice to meet you, sir.

Matt, great to meet you.

I'm walking in here clueless.

I have a billion things to learn.

And the first thing that I see as I walk up is that the front of your church looks a lot different than the front of my church.

Can you just walk me through what this means?

This is called a tympanum.

Okay.

And, of course, the crucifix there.

And you have Jesus in front.

And this is Jesus, the high priest, or Jesus Christ, the king.

The idea, of course, is that you're being welcomed by Christ.

Christ is sitting on top of the world, and so that coming into Christ, who is the universal salvation.

Are those, like, straight-up Notre Dame-style gargoyles up there?

They're actually fake now.

Oh, they are?

So they deteriorated so much.

from 1909 to 1993 when we did the restoration, that they were taken down and fashioned out of concrete and then put back up.

So they do not work as gargoyles.

Gargoyles are downspouts.

Yeah, or they can look like that, like griffins and like some of the gargoyles that can even look kind of like demonic.

Yeah, to keep away the evil, kind of scare off the evil.

Okay, so that's kind of a leftover from like European folklore and stuff like that.

Well, I'm glad you stuck with it because they're incredible.

Okay, so this stained glass window up here that I'm looking at...

The rose window.

It is called the rose window.

It's like Notre Dame.

Yes.

They're all called rose windows if they're round.

Oh! Yes, so the round rose petal.

And the idea of that is the rose petal.

So that's why it's called a rose window.

See, I'm already learning things.

I thought it was just like some special nickname that was like the special unique thing for just this one place.

Like rose color or something, but no.

See, this is why you ask questions.

I guess you have to have a building that can support that big of an, you know, that size of an open space in order to accommodate that kind of stained glass.

Right.

Is there stained glass inside too?

Yes.

Can we go poke around?

Sure.

All right, let's do it.

Let's go.

Welcome Cathedral to Magdelene.

Welcome.

Be stunning.

Angels at the top and down here the ground and the earth here at the bottom.

How long did it take to make this?

So it took 10 years to build the cathedral.

It was started in 1899 and was completed in 1909. Where do I even start?

There's so much going on in here in terms of imagery.

Maybe you could just walk me through the stained glass and what these represent and the story behind them to start with.

Where do we start with this thing?

The side windows are the mysteries of the rosary.

So it starts with the angel with Mary, Mary going to Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, the birth of Jesus, the presentation in the temple, and then Jesus at 12 years old in the temple.

On this side, then, the three mysteries of the Rosary that are not in the Bible.

This mystery is the Holy Spirit coming upon the Apostles, the Pentecost.

And then the last two, Mary taken into heaven, and Mary crowned as Queen of Heaven and Earth.

So that's the mysteries of the Rosary.

And the rose window, again, rose windows are classical in this kind of a cathedral.

In the center is St. Cecilia, and she is known for music.

So she's depicted with kind of a rudimentary organ because that's where the organ loft is.

So St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music and that's why she's in there.

I'm learning stuff.

The Foo Fighters have an album or a song called St. Cecilia and I had no idea how they pick on that.

Now I get it.

I'm learning things about rock music from your rose window.

Kind of the masterpiece, if you will, is in the act.

So Jesus is Divine, 100% divine, 100% human.

So it's earth, humankind, and divinity.

It's the sky, the heavens, and the earth coming together.

You're entering sacred space, which is where you, even though we're grounded on earth, are touching heaven.

So for us, the Eucharist is three events in one.

So it's the Last Supper.

So every mass is the Last Supper.

Every Mass is in the present moment, and every Mass is the banquet in heaven.

You're saying that word, is, with tremendous emphasis.

It is.

There's only one event.

There's only one sacrifice.

It's not a repetition of that event.

It's not a recollection.

It's an atemporal version of that event.

It is the Last Supper.

There's only one sacrifice.

Do you see my Protestant brain trying to wrap it?

Right.

So it's the cross.

He only died once for all.

Once for all.

And the Last Supper is the unbloody sacrifice of the cross.

Fascinating.

So this is my body, this is my blood, which is offered on the cross.

It's his body and blood that redeems us.

His death.

And so every time we have Mass, Heaven and Earth come together, whether you're in the Cathedral of the Madeleine or, you know, in a... So it's all one mass.

It's all one mass.

Okay.

All one event.

But it's outside of our...

So we left the world behind.

We left time and space.

We left our world outside.

And whether we're in this space or we're in a village someplace in Cambodia or Africa or whatever country that would be, it's the same heaven and earth coming together.

And so our architecture and art, Help to depict that.

Yeah.

Help us to understand that.

But it's not necessary.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

I want to go all the way down the rabbit hole with you on the mechanics of that.

Maybe when we sit down, I can pick your brain more about how that happens.

So this is a cruciform church.

Okay.

Right?

So you've got the crucifix up there, and then this is a crucifix.

So the altar in this, so this is architectural for this church, not, the altar doesn't have to be here.

But in this architecture, the altar is where the heart is.

So the pouring out of God's love from his heart comes from the altar.

So this is the gifts of grace flow from the altar.

And behind the heart is the head.

In the cathedral, what makes the cathedral to be a cathedral is the chair, the cathedral.

Every diocese has a cathedral with a cathedral.

But not every church.

Not every church, just cathedrals.

There's one in every diocese.

Okay.

And so that's our chair for the diocese of Salt Lake City.

Who sits in that chair?

So that's uniquely the bishop of our diocese.

That's his chair, uniquely.

So the chair sits at the head because the head of our diocese is the bishop.

So does he celebrate Mass weekly here?

Is he around a lot?

How does that even work?

Well, luckily he's not around a lot.

No. Forget that.

So he's here not every Sunday, but a lot of Sundays, and then the special celebrations that we have.

So does he conduct those services when he's here, or do you?

No, he does.

Okay.

It looks like a European coat of arms up above.

Correct.

What does this mean?

So... Each coat of arms is meant to pull something out of the area or the person.

This coat of arms is a three-part coat of arms coming out of who he is.

And the saying underneath the motto changes from bishop to bishop.

It seems like there's a lot of moving parts.

Do you teach from here?

The scripture is read from the anvil.

Only scripture...

and sermons, homilies are given from there.

We feed on the word of God from the table of the ambo.

What does ambo mean?

Pulpit.

It just means stand.

Some fancy word in either Greek or Latin.

That sounds good to me.

I don't know.

So we talk about the two tables of the Eucharist.

You go back to Acts of the Apostles.

What did they do?

When they met for the breaking of the bread...

They read the scriptures, which of course for them was what we call the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures.

They read from the scriptures and the breaking of the bread.

So every mass is reading the scripture, breaking the bread.

So then if that's what you do in every mass and every mass is the same, then everyone is always taking communion, the Eucharist, together.

Yes.

So we are at one, as Jesus says, may they all be one as the Father and I are one.

So in communion, we are one.

Because it's a sacrament, it does what it says it does.

It has a reality that's beyond your reality.

It makes you one.

It's almost like translating two languages from...

all of the language that I've been raised around my whole life and in, you know, the Protestant notion of symbolism, that we are, you know, this is a separate thing and we're commemorating an event that we would view as a singular event at the cross.

And so it's fascinating.

It's pushing me and I appreciate the idea of the universality of that singular event because, well, of course the cross was one event.

I've just never really thought about the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist being a singular event as well.

Do you serve from here?

From any altar.

And so the first part of the Mass, we have the chair for the prayers at the beginning.

Then the scriptures, the sermon homily.

Then we move into the second part, which is the Eucharist.

So the bread and wine is prepared on the altar.

Usually we have a procession with the bread and wine.

And then the Eucharistic prayer, the consecratory prayer, doing what Jesus did at the Last Supper.

This is my body.

This is my blood.

So that all takes place on the altar.

And then that part is over.

We move into the communion part, which starts with the Lord's Prayer.

There's an exchange of peace that we do also in our rite.

And then from the altar, we take communion to the people.

And this is, so what we're supposed to be doing is that the people are supposed to come to the altar to receive communion.

Like you would come to the table at home.

You sit down at the table to eat.

So they're supposed to be coming.

So the idea of the procession is that you're coming to eat at the altar.

So they line up right down the middle here.

They line up, but of course they don't come up to the altar because it's, you know, just logistically.

But that was in the past when you had an altar rail around where people took communion from the altar rail.

The rail was an extension of the altar.

So they come in procession because it's an altar call.

Again, that language means something a little different.

It's an altar call.

So if you believe in Jesus, if Jesus is your Savior, if you want to receive the body and blood of Jesus, come on up.

That's what we'll say it that way.

So a non-confirmed Protestant could take communion?

No. So if you believe and you've been confirmed.

And, yeah, you signed a Catholic doctrine, you can come in.

All right, all right, I'm glad.

Because it's that one.

I wasn't trying to get greedy.

No, no, because it was that oneness.

If we're going to be all, if it's everybody one, then we all doctrinally need to be one.

Okay.

Okay, so there's, I must admit, there's probably some people that have received First Communion.

Some really sneaky ones.

And we preserved the Blessed Sacrament in a tabernacle.

Oh, is that what this is?

Which is behind here.

We can go...

Let me show you the tabernacle.

Yeah, I'd love to see it.

So the tabernacle here is where we keep the blessed sacrament.

We have a light that lets people know.

And it's the communion that's left over.

And you can't untransubstantiate what is already the body and blood of Christ?

You cannot untransubstantiate.

So once it's the Eucharist, it is the Eucharist.

Which happens there?

There.

So once you say the prayer, it is Jesus.

So what is in here is all post-prayer.

And it's all post-prayer.

So we preserve that in here and we use it.

And then over the centuries, people said, well, you know, if I believe that was Jesus over there, then I believe there's Jesus here and I'm going to come and pray.

Well, where am I going to come and pray?

Pray in an empty building?

No, I'm going to come and pray, and then I'm going to light a candle, and then, you know, and now 2,000 years later, here we are.

So this is, in Roman Catholic theology, this is part of the presence of Christ.

Right, right.

And in this church, it's here, again, because it belongs, I mean, in a way, you would say that the head is right here in this cruciform, you know.

So again, so everything is Christ.

Christ is the altar.

Christ is the people.

Christ is the Eucharist.

Everything.

Everything says it's Jesus.

You're connecting the dots with all of that for me better than anybody ever has.

So thank you for your patience.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

With my fifth grade level questions here.

There's something else that stands out to me back here.

So that's a reliquary.

I kind of suspected it might be.

So that's a reliquary.

And a reliquary is as something...

based on a saint.

Okay.

So what we say is that that is a relic of St. Mary Magdalene, who is the patron saint of our church.

Cathedral of the Madeleine is Mary Magdalene.

There's something a couple thousand years old in there?

Yeah.

So a little tiny bone fragment, and that's all we know.

Okay.

I mean, we only...

have that and it's believed that that's that.

And that's tucked away in the...

Tucked away in the, you know, behind the fleur-de-lis.

Okay, all right.

And then Mary Magdalene, of course, is at the foot of the cross.

So Mary Magdalene appears three or four times in the church.

Is this a reminder or is there a spiritual reality?

It's a reminder that we're connected.

We're connected to our patron saint.

And it just turns out that our patron saint knew Jesus.

Even though she's a part of the church triumphant, that relic, does that mean that she is present in the same way that Christ is present?

Oh, no, not at all.

So no more, she would be, Like any other believer.

So it's just reverence that this is Jesus.

So she is here.

She is remembered.

Right.

Okay.

Right.

And it's just meant to make a connection.

And most people probably don't even know that that's a relic of St. Mary Magdalene.

This is called the Ambry.

Ambry.

Ambry.

Okay.

So every church has an Ambry, which is where the holy oils, are kept.

So these are the oils, the urns that are actually blessed every year by the, the oil inside is blessed by the bishop.

This bishop?

This bishop.

Okay.

And where does the oil come from?

What's it made of?

It's olive oil.

Olive oil and then the chrism has a balsam perfume in it.

So it's all the same oil.

Is there some sort of spiritual transformation or transaction that's occurring?

The blessing is is for each oil in particular.

Okay.

The oil for the sick is a healing blessing.

The oil of the catechumens, meaning those who are coming into the church, is a, well, catechumens are kind of a spiritual kind of get out the evil blessing.

Okay.

You will.

The gargoyles.

Yeah.

And then the chrism oil is the Christ oil, is the anointing oil of confirmation, ordination, and that, the sealing and the configuring to Christ oil.

And in that oil, when it's blessed, the bishop breathes on the oil because his spirit, like Christ breathed, I mean, God breathed into the dirt and got Adam and Eve.

So the bishop breathes into it for his spirit then resides, Christ's spirit resides in that oil because he is Christ for us in the sense of, you know, a vicar of Christ, if you will, one who stands in the place of Christ.

So is it oil instead of water because of a reference to the Old Testament anointing?

So when they anointed a king, Samuel anoints David, he breaks the horn of oil, pours it on top of him, and so that's that.

In James, call the presbyters, have them pray over you, and anoint it with oil.

Is this another relic here?

This is a relic of the true cross.

So this is, in Catholic theology, so we have very small pieces of the cross of Jesus.

So that's, we have one.

So this would be the one recovered by St. Helena in the 4th century.

Right, in the 4th century.

So they say that pieces of that have been spread throughout the world, and we have one.

Yes.

I mean, the historian in me just wanted to be like, well, how do you know that and how did it work?

We have one.

So we come down here.

Is there significance to the baptismal font being at the foot of the cross?

So the baptismal font is for the entrance into the church.

Okay.

So it doesn't have to be here at the entrance of the church.

Okay.

But we were able, in our 1993 restoration...

to place the baptismal font here because it's the first sacrament.

So it's a sacrament of initiation.

So how do you get into the church?

You were baptized, right?

I just never thought of it as being chronological.

Before you're baptized, you're not a member of the church.

You're not a member of the body of Christ, correct?

Correct.

Right?

Different than other traditions?

No, I mean, you're a pagan.

You're not a Christian.

Here, we have our confessionals.

Tell me about that.

So, again, they don't have to be where they are.

But in this church, they're on either side.

So, not every church has an ornate, wood-carved confessional.

We're lucky.

Okay.

In our confessional, there are two sides.

So I don't know.

Am I allowed to go in?

You can come on in, only if you're a sinner.

Oh, good.

So in our confessional, the priest sits on one side, and the people have a choice.

They can sit, talk face-to-face, or kneel and speak anonymously through a screen.

And surprisingly enough, people will kind of look and say, say hello, and then kneel down anonymously.

Oh, really?

For many people, the anonymous is, I'm not talking to this priest, I'm talking to God.

The priest is just listening for God, and they want to talk to God and say, okay, God, these are my sins, and this is where I need help.

Others, when people sit face-to-face, often it becomes more of a conversation.

These are my sins.

Can you give me some advice and help?

And each confession takes three minutes, five at the most, unless someone really wants to talk.

It's a very short experience.

Come in.

When was my last confession?

These are my sins.

Here's a penance.

Here's the absolution.

I'm sorry for my sins.

Absolution.

Blessing.

What is a penance?

So the penance is something that you do that kind of says you were sincere.

Okay, so like stopping doing the bad thing I was doing?

Well, it's usually like saying an Our Father, praying an Our Father, praying a Hail Mary, praying maybe a decade of the Rosary.

I'm so ignorant.

What are those?

So the Hail Mary?

Yeah, or the Our Father.

The Lord's Prayer.

Okay.

So we're sorry.

I thought, what?

You don't know the Our Father?

I do know that one, actually.

So I always say, pray one Our Father and one Hail Mary.

Hail Mary is the prayer that comes from the angel.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you.

Angel Gabriel.

And then the last part is Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

So it's just asking Mary, pray for us now at the hour of our death.

So sacrament of healing, people go to confession once a year, twice a year, once a month.

So just everyone has a different kind of style for kind of time period.

On Netflix's Daredevil, which is my main source of information about confession, it seems like they always open with how long has it been since your last confession.

Is that real?

Do you do that?

So you do that.

And why do you do it?

We can step up.

We don't have to stand in here.

I think it's really neat.

So if you tell me, It's been one month since my last confession, and I missed going to church twice.

So that's two out of four.

Okay.

But if you tell me it's been one year since my last confession, and I missed church Sunday twice, that's two out of 52. So it gives you context?

It gives me a context.

It helps to understand kind of what the person's working on and how, you know, it doesn't make any difference in the sense, you know, But if someone said, I've been a year since my last confession and I've not been to Mass at all.

That's a whole year's worth.

You know, that's a different kind of response, if you will, than if someone says it's been a month and I haven't been to Mass.

So this is a kind of an acute, something's going on right now.

What is it that's preventing you from going to Mass?

So how can I help you get closer to God?

Yeah, well, it's an entirely different pastoral exercise for you to work with somebody who's maybe kind of walked away from your faith than somebody who really wants to get it right in his venue.

From the forgiveness point of view, it's the same.

God forgives you.

Whatever you did, God forgives you.

But if I can help you, I need a context to offer some kind of, gentle advice or push or, you know, have you thought about it this way?

Does that make sense in terms of...

It does.

It does.

That's something I can relate to.

So, a practical question.

Yes.

If this is shut, can people hear you out here?

No. It's a heavy door.

Do you get a line sometimes?

Oh, yeah.

I hear confessions for an hour.

People back up and they're eager to be here.

And again, why do people line up?

It's a profession of faith.

Yeah, it's interesting.

We stepped in there, and maybe it's the architecture, maybe it's the environment, maybe something subconscious is brilliantly crafted into this.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm also a Christian, but my inclination was, I want to turn these off and shut the door and talk for a minute.

Every once in a while, we get non-Catholics who come and sit and ask for forgiveness.

Maybe we can have a conversation about that before I go.

Yeah.

That's pretty much where we wrapped up the tour, but there was so much other interesting stuff that I'm sorry I wasn't able to cram into this edit, but here's maybe the two biggest things that I personally am gonna take away from this experience.

Thing number one, I was struck by how utterly cohesive Roman Catholic thought and practice is within the context of a few key Roman Catholic assumptions.

It is so easy for me to do this routine where I sit over in my little intellectual thought bunker echo chamber and imagine that everybody who thinks things that are different than me is just crazy.

How could you believe something like that?

Or I Intellectually dishonest.

You're lying to yourself over there.

But not only is that not true of most people, it's mean on my part.

Now, the reality is that most points of view are rooted in a few key assumptions.

And then whatever happens after that flows pretty naturally out of those key assumptions.

Same thing here.

If you answer a few key questions about Jesus' relationship with the church...

if you interpret a couple of pivotal passages a certain way, you're just going to be Catholic, and everything's going to play out exactly the way it's played out.

If you answer them a slightly different way, you're probably going to be Protestant, and they're going to play out that way, or Orthodox, and they'll play out that way.

Whatever the case, this was a humbling, helpful reminder about that reality.

Second thing that really stood out to me here is, and you could probably see this coming as you were watching the video, but the confession bit there at the end kind of got through the armor for me.

The longer we were in that room and talking about it, the more I started to think about myself and about God and who I am and where I'm at with things.

And I found myself really wanting to try that out.

And so Father Diaz said it was fine to take confession from a non-Roman Catholic.

So after the cameras turned off, we shut the door and we did that.

And I know I can have that conversation anywhere, anytime with God if I want to.

But there was something different.

Very powerful about having Father Diaz sit in on that conversation and about the environment and context in which we had the conversation.

So huge thank you to the Cathedral of the Madeleine for hosting this.

huge thank you to father diaz for the time the honesty answering my questions even when he suspected we might disagree or maybe it would make me uncomfortable he shot straight with me what more can you ask from somebody than that and finally if some of you just watch this video and you're sitting there saying well why didn't you press him further on that or why didn't he push back on you on this point a little bit more we actually have a second half to this conversation father diaz and i did a sit-down interview where we cover a lot of those key theological differences that I referenced just a second ago.

I think that conversation is really worth your time.

It has a little different flavor than what we just did.

And so if you want to catch that video, I would be so honored if you would consider subscribing to this channel, which now, because of the way YouTube works, is kind of a two-fold process where you've got to click the red subscribe button and also hit that little gray bell or else they don't let you know when a video comes out.

But if you would consider doing that, I would be very grateful.

If not, it's cool too.

I'm just glad that you're here and that you're up for conversations like this.

I'm Matt.

This is the 10 Minute Bible Hour.

Let's do this again soon.