Transcript

I saw your debate recently with James White.

I think that James White is the best Protestant apologist in the English-speaking world.

Wow, were you nervous going into that?

Are you shaking?

I was lying.

What is the best argument for sola scriptura?

Pope Francis said that.

That sounds like something Charlie Kirk would have said, but Pope Francis said it.

Catholics think that Martin Luther removed that myth, and we need the Catholics to stop saying that one-third of the New Testament, nine books, were disputed in the early Church.

Wesley Huff was on Joe Rogan.

I saw this clip, and this is what caught my attention.

I'm curious your take on this.

So he's wrong.

He's wrong.

Case closed!

All right, no just kidding.

Well, let me tell you why he's wrong.

Why is he wrong?

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Lila Rose Show!

We talk theology on the show sometimes, as you know.

Today is going to be really fascinating because we're getting into some of the core differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, but more specifically between some of the Reformers' beliefs and some of the modern-day Protestant beliefs.

There's a lot of gems in this episode of things that you might not already have been aware of about some of these, not just differences, but the way that these debates unfolded 500 years ago.

I'm actually having on the show Alex Jurado, who is an apologist.

I hope you guys enjoy, and don't forget to subscribe if you're not already subscribed to the show.

And if you are listening on a podcast app, please give us five stars and leave us a review.

That helps the show reach more people.

Alex Toretto, welcome to the podcast!

Ms. Lila Rose, thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

I am so excited to be here.

Me too!

I'm excited you're here.

I've gotten to know your stuff most recently, and I was like, this guy, he's killing it.

Thank you.

Voice of reason.

We try; we're doing the best that we can.

And it's cool that your last name, you were just telling me, is Judge.

It's a Spanish word for judge, so you're Alex Judge.

For judge and jury, so Alex Judge.

So now, because by the ruleset, everyone is going to be calling me Alex Judge.

I love that name.

It's a strong name.

Oh, thank you, Alex.

Judge, why not?

All right, so there's so much stuff that you have been doing recently, and there's so much to get into.

I saw your debate recently with James White, who's a big, I think, Calvinist apologist, and at first I was like, okay, how's this going to go?

I started watching it, and you crushed it.

Great job!

Thank you.

Very kindly, you're just very simple.

Your arguments are very on point, and I think the comment section was overwhelmingly that you crushed it, Alex.

Voice of Reason voting for you.

I don't know how that goes in the comment section.

Well, thank you.

But you just started doing a lot of this recently.

Yes, so I want to talk about the debate.

I want to talk about your work, what you're up to, but also where you came from, because I feel like you just sort of came out of nowhere recently on YouTube, doing these debates, doing apologetics, and I want to know the story of who was Alex.

Everyone wants to know the story about Alex.

We began Voice of Reason in March of 2023, so it's about to be two years.

My producer, best friend since six years old, who you just met, Jonathan, is around here somewhere.

He was the one who convinced me to do it.

After about maybe a year, a year and a half, he had been trying to get me to do this for quite a while.

The YouTube channel, yeah, to be online, to do online apologetics.

Finally, in March of, you know, two years ago, I said, Sure, let's do it, because I had a role in his reversion to the faith.

It had such a profound impact on him that he said, I want to put you on camera.

I want to put you, because his background is in social media marketing and content creating.

He had been trying to get me to do it for quite some time, and finally, one day, he just barged into my house.

I don't know how he got in.

He just told me to sit down on the couch, and he set up his equipment.

Wow, what a friend!

I said, All right, and then he put it all together and said, This is what it's going to look like, and I said, Okay.

The only thing I came up with was the name Voice of Reason.

It was the only thing that I—every other idea has been his.

I can't take credit for anything.

Voice of Reason is the only thing.

So, okay, you told me that he—this is your best friend since you were how old?

Six years old?

And you said you had a big role in his reconversion.

Tell me about that.

Sure!

So he and I are both cradle Catholics, and he didn't get confirmed when he was supposed to get confirmed.

He knew nothing about his faith—very just culturally Catholic, like I think most Hispanics are.

A lot of Hispanics are culturally Catholic, and they don't really know the faith as well as they should, at least here in this country, here in America.

He really didn't know his faith, and he didn't really find it to be important.

He was actually looking into other things.

He was really into the New Age spirituality; he was really into the Eastern religions, you know, Buddhism.

He was even kind of looking into Islam as well because he was curious about truth.

He wanted to know what is true.

So he was exploring, and I think like most of us, we grew up in particular traditions, and because we grew up in it, we think that we know it.

We think that we know everything that there is to know about a particular tradition.

He knew nothing.

Most of us know nothing.

He was looking into other things.

Being that we're best friends and being that I have been devoutly Catholic my entire life, and I've studied it seriously since I was 14 years old and I was in seminary, I decided I'm gonna help my friend.

I helped him, and eventually, he had a really what we call a reversion.

He fell in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, fell in love with His Church, and now he's like more Catholic than me, and he's on fire.

It changed his life in such a dramatic way that it inspired him to get me to do this.

Because of that, I'm sitting here with you.

But I think that's the story of a lot of us.

A lot of people that are looking into other things because we find other things, things that are foreign, the Eastern spirituality and things like that, or other religions, we find them to be attractive.

But what I told him was, I said, Everything that you're looking for, you've had all along.

I brought him to my Byzantine Church.

I'm Byzantine Catholic, and I think that when he saw the Eastern expression of Christianity, that was when it clicked for him.

That was when he really, really fell in love when I brought him to the Eastern churches.

We just keep falling in love.

We talked to Father Simon, the Chaldean Catholic priest in San Diego, a few days ago.

Great guy.

Yeah, he's amazing, and we hung out with him.

He took us to his parents' house; we spent the night at his parents' house.

His father is a deacon in the Chaldean Church.

They treated us so well, and we just keep falling in love every day with God and with God's people.

Have you been to St. Michael's Abbey yet?

I was there last month, yeah.

It's so special.

I actually have it.

It's funny because when I was there, we stayed there for like three nights, and he gave me like a really special, exclusive card that gets me into like the whole building.

Oh wow.

I don't have that card, and I took it with me by accident when we came back home.

I've had it.

Oh, I see.

I think Jonathan has it, and you're like, Go turn it in, because they're probably like, Oh. I think Father Ambrose is coming by in the next few weeks.

I don't know; he might need it before that.

I was going to say you could just drop it off.

I think I could drop it off here with you, with Franco, and you guys could give it to him.

Give it to Franco.

He'll do a mission.

Take it over.

Yeah, I think you had said you wanted to go, right, Franco?

So, yeah, I was at St. Michael's Abbey.

We got to do a concert with Father Ambrose, and it was fun.

Every time that I'm here, every time that I'm with good Catholics and going to all of these beautiful Catholic places, I feel like a kid just having a blast.

All right, do you mind me asking how old you are?

I'm 29. Okay.

So what you said is when you were in high school you had this, you know, powerful passion for the Catholic faith.

You started studying apologetics as a teenager.

Walk me through the last decade because it sounds like you've done a tremendous amount of study of apologetics, but it sounds like some of that's been in seminary and then you left, and then some of that's been self-taught.

What's been your journey?

Have you always been passionate about your faith?

And then what kind of has inspired you to do the work to become an apologist for the faith?

It's been about half my life now that I've been doing it.

I started at the end of '14, going into '15, around the time that I started high school.

When I went to high school, I think like most young people that age, they get really curious about everything.

Curiosity is a beautiful thing because curiosity is what inspires you to go and figure out what is real and what is true, what is truth itself.

I had, you know, the big questions, just like we all have the big questions at that age.

I decided that I was going to somehow, someway get these answers to these pressing questions, these questions that I had that I just really became obsessed with figuring out what is truth.

And it's very possible, thank God, that it's very possible that through our intellect and through just doing our homework, we can come to the conclusion that God exists.

He has to exist; it's impossible for God not to exist.

We know that God is personal; He has to be personal.

It's impossible for God to not be personal.

And we know that this personal God has indeed revealed Himself to mankind, and that revelation is in the person of Jesus Christ and in His Church.

These are conclusions that anybody can arrive at just if you ask the right questions and know where to look to find the answers, and you just dive right in.

So when I was young, when I was that age, I just dove right in.

I had a lot of Protestant influence around me.

I had a lot of Protestant friends, Protestant adults, elders that helped me a lot and helped me in getting a lot of my questions answered, and I was just going.

But you were Catholic.

You were raised Catholic, but you were around a lot of...

I was raised Catholic, raised in the Church, but I took help from anybody that would help me.

You know, asking questions to Protestant pastors, to Catholic priests, and you kind of get all the information.

You look through it, you put all the pieces together, you see what works, and you see what doesn't. The most important thing that you're really looking for is consistency—historical consistency, logical consistency.

And when you go through all of the evidence, you hit a wall, and that wall that you hit, there's just no way around it: Catholicism is true.

If Jesus Christ really was, is who He says that He was, the logical conclusion to that, if we're following that, if we assume that Catholicism has to be true over all of the other traditions, no other tradition actually makes sense.

So I came to that conclusion because I was very close to becoming Protestant.

I had so much Protestant influence around me; I almost became a Protestant.

But, you know, I don't know what it was.

Maybe it was just a gift from God that I always made sure that I really do my homework closely, that I get all my questions answered.

And as long as you get all of your questions answered, and the important thing is to ask a lot of questions, get all of your questions answered, I think you will come to that conclusion.

So for me, it started at 14, 15, and then eventually later on.

Were you teaching catechism at a certain point?

I was, when I turned 16 years old, right after I was confirmed.

They saw me as like a teenage prodigy, and they had me teaching the adults.

So I was like 16, 17, teaching the adults at my parish.

They're like, this kid's on fire.

He's smart; he's studying what he believes.

He actually knows what to teach, and so they had to teach the adults at 16 at your parish.

Right, so I was 16, 17, teaching the adults, teaching the teenagers.

And then you went?

Did you go to seminary after that?

I was in seminary for a brief amount of time, very, very brief.

It wasn't for you, I guess not.

I got kicked out, not kicked out.

Okay.

Not kicked out.

Well, I got kicked out.

What it was, my spiritual director, he said, you know what?

He said, um, I think there's something else for you that you need to do.

I think God is calling you to something else, and I don't think it's this.

But when I was in seminary, it was the best time of my life.

It was the best.

It was the most beautiful, the most joy that I've ever experienced in my life was being in the seminary.

What has been your top three mentors/sources for you as you study your faith and study apologetics?

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What has been your top three mentors/sources for you as you study your faith and study apologetics?

Only three?

Wow!

Top three, or you can do five if you want.

Top three, top five.

For sources, you know the Catechism, the Church Fathers, because I love the Church Fathers.

It's a little cheat, a bit of a cheat, but that's fair.

That's okay.

It's okay.

All of them: the Catechism, the Church Fathers, and just theological manuals.

I guess it's kind of weird, but as far as people, man, so many priests that helped me in my formation were Father Javier Gutierrez, who was the one that got me into the seminary; Father Julio Gutierrez, who was my spiritual director in the seminary; and other content creators that I've worked with, like of course all of the usual suspects, right?

Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn and Michael Lofton, and so many people that I've been watching and studying for years.

I was watching Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn when I was 15, you know, when I was 14. I talked to Jimmy Akin for the first time at Catholic Answers just the other day, and it was very surreal.

I have so many mentors and so many people that have helped me.

Was that five?

I don't know.

That's a good list.

It went a little beyond five, but that was good.

You said your friend, when you put the camera in front of you, barged into your house with the camera in front of you and said, You just got to start talking.

Do you remember what that first video was?

I don't remember because he is it on the YouTube channel?

Oh yeah, it came out.

If you go to my TikTok page, you scroll all the way back to the very bottom, and whatever that first video was, I think was the person that we filmed.

I don't remember, but he literally sat me down and he just said, Uh, talk about this, and he would just throw topics out there randomly, and I would say, Okay, and then I would talk about it for two minutes.

And then, I think that first session we ended up filming something like nine videos or something, nine, you know, some long, long-form videos too.

And that was, um, in March, and then in July we started YouTube and Instagram, July, August.

So we started just on TikTok.

So I was a TikToker, still a TikToker, I guess.

Kind of weird.

It's kind of weird they don't really, I think, understand what a lot of these sacraments mean.

And so, I mean, I think it's a large majority of Catholics don't even believe in the true presence, that this is Jesus Christ, the real presence, this is Jesus Christ's body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist.

So, I think this world of just Christian apologetics generally is absolutely incredibly important.

And so, it definitely seems like God’s working in your friend's life to get you out there to do this more because it's so needed.

People need to hear it.

I want to talk about the James White debate and some of the debates that you've been doing, but I guess what's been the most surprising thing?

You've been doing this now, it sounds like almost two years, and your social media accounts are growing.

You're all over now sharing apologetics, doing debates.

What's been the most surprising thing about just jumping into this world of digital apologetics?

I think for me personally, the most surprising thing is just how big it got really fast.

Just really fast.

I meet people on the streets all the time that come up to me and say that they know Voice of Reason, and that's really weird for me.

Even just yesterday, we were out and about, and people were coming up to me.

When you meet people, you know, when I meet people that I know and they say that they're fans of me and I'm fans of them, you know, like when we were at Catholic Answers.

You know, I met Cy Keller, who's the host of Catholic Answers, and he said, Voice of Reason, so good to have you here.

We're big fans of you here.

And we walked into the offices, and everyone was swarming me, trying to take pictures and talk to me.

And that's kind of the weird thing.

I didn't think it would be like this.

I never in my wildest dreams thought that it would be.

My main goal when I started was I just wanted to work with Michael Lofton because Michael Lofton is my favorite, and I've done that.

I have a great relationship with him.

And now, when I worked with Lofton, I thought that I made it.

And I'm with Ida Rose, and I was with Callie Ganses the other day, and Father Simon, and St. Michael's Abbey, meeting all of my heroes I think was what was most unexpected.

I didn't think it would be like this.

What's your big goal with everything you're doing?

My goal is to always just help as many people as I can.

As long as I'm helping people, I get messages every single day from people that say, I stayed in the Catholic Church because of the videos you make, or I came to the Catholic Church because of the videos that you make.

I was considering other things; I was considering Islam, I was considering Protestantism, I was considering Orthodoxy.

I was considering all of these things.

I became gathered because of the videos that you make.

When I was here last month, this really stands out to me.

I had an event; I was at a speaking event where it was like hundreds of people that showed up, and I met like all of them.

You know, I've met pretty much everyone that was there.

They all know, you know, came up to speak to me.

And there was one girl that came up to me and she said, Hey, I want you to know that I got sober because of you.

Sober.

I've never talked about anything having to do with addictions or drugs or alcohol or anything, but she told me, she said, Your videos helped me get sober.

Did she say why?

No, she just said, she said, I think she kind of explained.

She said, Just hearing you talk about like the truth, and like you convinced me that this is true.

And when you're convinced of the truth, like you don't want the things of the world anymore.

And that, of all of the things that I've ever, all of the, I guess, all of the compliments, that one is the one that really, really stood out to me.

What do you think that means?

That she would be able to get sober from hearing you just talk about the truth?

I think it means that God is running the show, not me, because I know who I am.

Jonathan knows who I am.

I'm not special; there's nothing, you know, it is just the work of God.

Because, you know, I get these people that reach out to me and they tell me what my work means to them, and I'm like, because I think my work is okay.

I'm kind of like my worst critic.

Jonathan puts the videos out, and he always has to talk me down because I'm like, I don't know, man, I don't think that's good.

We should redo it.

And every single time, he's like, don't worry, man, this is going to work.

And I'm like my own biggest critic, and I'm always like, I don't like it, man.

I don't like how I said this; I think I could have explained it way better.

And he's like, don't worry, we're going to put this out.

Don't worry.

Next time, next time you can do better.

Next time you can.

I never liked what I do.

I've never liked it.

I don't know.

I can't even watch the James White debate back.

Really?

I can't watch it.

I tried, and I was like, Nope.

I stopped.

All right, that makes me feel a little better because I cannot stand watching myself debate.

I just don't. I'm like, I can't, I can't watch it either.

Let me tell you something.

And it's the same thing every time.

I'm like, could have been ten things better, but just got to be humble, like let it go and be like, okay, I know it wasn't great, but it's maybe good enough for somebody.

And you just let it go and pray that God uses it.

You are one of the best debaters that I've ever seen, Mrs. Lila Rose.

Let me tell you something.

We were talking about it, I think it was last night.

Me and Jonathan were talking about it.

He brought up that he—because Jonathan's wife loves you.

Jonathan's wife is just—you're her favorite.

They watched the—I don't know what it was on—where you were debating like 25 people.

They were just coming up to you one by one, and you would debate them.

The other one was like, Man, Lila Rose, man, she's killed all of them.

She crushed them, decimated them, just scorched earth.

Like, Lila Rose can't be—I would be afraid to debate Lila Rose.

I would be terrified of debating Lila Rose.

I mean, what you were sharing earlier, though, I just relate to that so much because we know, like, at the end of the day, God will use our little efforts.

But the reality is, I know very objectively that X, Y, and Z could have been better.

And I know you look at some of your stuff and you're like, Hey, I did.

But to the person watching who is maybe hearing some of that truth that you're saying for the first time in a way that they can connect with, that's what matters in the end.

And so that's where we're like, you just trust God.

Let's say, Hey, if it was good, it's of You; if it was not, help me do better next time.

You asked me about mentors earlier.

One of the best pieces of advice that I ever got was from Keith Nestor.

After the James White debate, I tried to watch because Keith Nestor was the one that got me that debate.

He reached out to me and said, Do you want to debate James White?

I was going to ask how that happened.

Well, after the debate happened, and I, you know, nothing but positive comments.

It was just everyone was telling me that it was great, you know, and there's a big backstory behind it.

We'll get into it, but when I finally went back to watch it, I didn't watch it until much later, like maybe two weeks after it happened.

I went back to watch it, and I watched it.

I watched the first, I don't know, I watched my opening statement and then like my rebuttal, and then after that, I had to cut it off, and I said, No, I can't do this.

I thought I did terrible.

And Keith Nestor called me.

He calls me on the phone because he wanted to congratulate me, and I answered the phone as a rock star.

What's going on?

And I'm like, Hey, what's up, Keith?

He said, You did so good.

I was like, I don't know, man.

Oh, I sit back.

I didn't like it.

I didn't like it at all.

But one of the best pieces of advice that he ever gave me, he said, This isn't about you.

He said, Have you seen all the comments?

Have you seen everyone that has, that has, what everyone is saying about you online?

People that are making reaction videos to it?

Like, are you watching the good impact that you're having?

Protestants that are saying that you won?

You know, he said, This is not about you.

And when he said that, I finally had peace in my eyes.

Who cares what I think?

If I'm helping people, if I'm helping people, and if I look stupid doing it, but I'm helping people, or if I don't, it's not up to my, I don't know, my standard or whatever.

Who cares?

It's not about me.

So if I'm helping others, so Keith Nestor, shout out to him.

He really helped me because I was like kind of feeling bad about myself.

That is a really good, really good reminder.

Yeah.

And we know it's true, right?

But it is easy to get up in your head of like, Oh, this is it, because the more you know, the more you realize, Oh, I could have done on this human level all of these other things.

But like you're saying, at the end of the day, it's not about us doing; it's about what God is doing with whatever the attempts are.

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Join, use the code LILAH. And you know, one of the things that I kind of do is I watch a lot of debates too.

And I'm always, obviously, when you're outside looking in and the pressure isn't on you, you can point out the mistakes.

I watch a lot of debates, including your debates.

I study you; I study you for debate.

You know, obviously, I've never debated the topics that you debate.

I would love to, but I study you for like debate technique because technique is very important.

And again, because I actually look at the basics, if I'm like a debate coach, I study you, and I can never point out any flaws in your debate technique.

Your debate technique is like you would make Trent Horn blush, I think.

But one of the things that I want to propose—actually, debate right now?

No, no, no.

Like I said, I'm afraid to debate you.

I would not want to debate you.

From now on, when I do debates, I would like to have judges.

I love that idea.

I would like to have judges.

I think that from now on, if we're going to do these debates—because we'll have the debates, debates will happen, and then everyone that was supporting one guy will say he won; everyone that is a fan of the other guy will say he won.

I want there to be judges.

I want there to be three judges.

I want them to score it.

I'm a boxer too; it's like boxing.

Someone's going to get their hand raised at the end.

So from now on, whenever I do debates, I'm going to really insist that we have somebody that knows how to score debates, like actual judges, because I want them to pull out all the logical fallacies.

I want them to point out all the times that people didn't stick to the topic, all the times that people conceded the point.

I did a debate where the guy that I was debating actually conceded the thesis of the debate three times in the debate, but it was my first debate.

I was so nervous I wasn't even listening to what he was saying three different times that I didn't catch him a single time.

Three times!

But the comments saw it, the live chat saw it, and I'm like, you know, if we had judges, they would have stopped in and said, Boom!

The debate is over; you just conceded it.

So, have you heard of team policy debate or Lincoln-Douglas debate?

Parliamentary, so there's all these formats, right?

I know this because in high school I was doing it, and then they called it doing these mock debates, you know, mock trial, and then they called it team policy debate.

But that's what they do; they have judges, and then they have a format, and they have a resolution, and you have to define the terms because that's always half the battle.

Like, what do these terms even mean?

Like, abortion, what is an abortion?

Or, you know, sola scriptura, what is sola scriptura in the case of your debate with James White?

And then there are judges, and they have a ranking system to determine how to evaluate the contestants on, and I think it's great.

But you know what?

Your comment section is your jury; it's your judges.

So, I mean, I think you're right, it would be very cool to have that, but there are judges; it's the people watching, and they're doing whatever ranking system they're using.

You know, they're using it.

How many debates have you done so far?

I've only done like three.

Public debates.

Just three public.

Those are big ones.

Those are big ones.

I've really, technically, two gyms.

I've got more that everybody wants to debate me now.

I want to.

I love debates.

Debates are my favorite, but they take a lot of time.

They take a lot of prep work.

I'm very busy doing other things.

I'm busy talking to you.

I've got to get all my other things in order first, and then I can focus on doing debates more.

But I really do want to.

Yeah, I think it's so refreshing for people to see them.

So, they're more and more, I think, attractive for people.

And there's this new resurgence of, Let's talk to people who disagree with us.

I do credit channels like Jubilee that are doing debates and doing these kind of crazy conversations and discussions.

The formats are a little weird, let's be real, but they're also really entertaining and engaging for people.

I think that's really incredible because people are finally having their ideas and their presuppositions challenged, sometimes for the first time.

And that is where the truth can finally maybe make an entrance that hasn't made one before.

So, James White, for people that are listening that maybe don't know who he is, he is probably, though, would you say, the most well-known Calvinist apologist in the country?

I honestly think that James White is the best well-known Protestant apologist in the English-speaking world.

Wow.

I think because he, you know, when I debated him, that was really my second debate, my first one in person.

That was his 199th debate.

Wow.

He's been doing it longer than I've been alive.

He started in 1990; I was born in 1995. And he, yeah, 199th debate versus my second one.

On specifically Calvinism on sola scriptura?

On just anything having to do with, you know, he debates Catholics, other Protestants, atheists, Muslims.

But I was in the 199th debate, and most of his debates I think are against Catholics.

He really likes debating Catholics, and yeah, it was like a David Rizk.

A lot of stories that everyone kept.

Were you nervous going into that?

Oh my goodness.

You're shaking.

I was like, I mean, I had to be cool for like the people because the people were already there beforehand.

You would think that like I'm about to debate James White, like I got to, like I gotta make sure that I'm focused.

I have people coming up, Let me take a picture.

How you doing?

Will you sign this?

Will you kiss my baby?

Whatever.

So I had no prep time for it, you know?

And then before I knew it, I was like, Oh, we're getting started.

Go take your seat.

And I said, Oh, great, you know, cool.

Big shout out to James White, by the way, for being willing to debate.

Dr. White treated me really well.

I mean, I think that's so admirable when you have people that are very passionate about what they believe and how they stand on philosophical and theological issues, like James White, who's willing to have repeat debates with people who disagree with him.

Huge kudos, obviously, huge kudos to you for doing it, because it sounds like it was not easy to get yourself into that position to do it.

Right, I don't know if I've ever said this publicly, but he and I actually met up again like two weeks later, three weeks later.

We met up to have lunch.

She was passing through my town, and we set it up after the debate.

Hey, I'll be in Albuquerque, you know, in a couple of weeks.

Maybe we can get together.

Yeah, let's do it.

And we got together, and we met at a little restaurant, and we were just hanging out.

But what did he have an opinion on the debate afterwards?

Like, how to talk about the debate?

Okay, we didn't talk about it.

We just got together.

Hey, how you doing?

And I was, Hey, Dr. White, how you doing?

He goes, Hey, come on, just call me James.

Well, I'm like, Okay, James.

And it was cool.

We were just eating, and he was telling me about just his life, and it was like two buddies catching up.

It was really cool.

No one ever saw the big debate that he and I had.

We had a very heated debate after we ate because the waitress brought the bill and put the bill right there in between us.

And I go for it; I'm trying to pay, and he puts his hand on mine and he goes, I'm paying for this.

It's like I'm twice your age.

I said, Dr. White, I said it's the least I could do.

I insist.

So he has like the thing, like the little thing that the bill comes on, and we're like doing like the pulling thing, like we're trying to like get the bill from each other.

And he's like, I will pay.

I invited you.

And I said, Dr. White, you came all this way to see me.

Let me pay.

It's the least I could do.

And he was like, I insist, Alex, that I pay.

I'm like, Dr. White, really?

It's not a big deal.

And then finally he says, I make more money than you, Alex.

So I said, All right, you pay for it then.

He's like, All right, cool, pay for it.

Yeah, I'm not going to argue with you there.

I'm like, All right, take it.

So James White beat me in that debate.

You're like, How do you know, Alex?

You're like, You definitely make more money than me.

James White beat me in that debate right there, so he got to pay for it on that day.

But he was great; he treated me really well.

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Okay, so you guys debated sola scriptura.

Was that the core topic of the debate?

I mean, that's how much I made out of it.

This is really one of the root teachings of basically the rejection of Roman rule and Calvinism.

So the debate that I had with James White was actually two debates in one.

It was Sola Scriptura versus Catholic authority.

I didn't want to do that because that's too broad.

It's like we're really having two debates here; like I'm trying to disprove Sola Scriptura and prove Catholic authority.

He's trying to prove Sola Scriptura and disprove Catholic authority.

We're having two debates.

I don't want to do that.

I like debate topics to be simple resolutions.

It's a lot better to have simple resolutions.

I think they're more productive, and you can actually get to a conclusion that everyone can see.

But I was a little annoyed by that resolution, but I had to do it.

I only had three weeks to prepare for that debate.

Um, so it was Sola Scriptura versus Catholic authority.

Really, it was two debates in one.

Um, and anyone that saw him, you all know what happened.

But it was, uh, it was a lot.

We had, they were dancing, they were like fighting, they were like yelling.

It was really wild.

He hugged me; he said he loved me.

That did happen in the debate, and that's another crazy thing too.

Never in any of Dr. White's debates, of 200 debates, had he ever taken the time in the middle of the debate to say, I love this guy.

Because he said, I don't know if you watched that part, he says, I want to take a quick moment to let everyone know that I love Alex.

And he came up to me and he shook my hand and he hugged me.

He pulled me in; he was like, Get over here!

and he hugged me and he said that he loved me.

Do you love Him?

I love Dr. White.

I love him.

I love him.

So beautiful.

And I've never seen him do that ever in debates, and I think that was one of the main things that everyone took away, was that he took time in the middle of a debate to say that he loved me, and he hugged me.

Why do you think he did that?

I don't know.

So, your guys' big debate: Sola Scriptura versus Catholic authority.

What is the best argument for Sola Scriptura?

And then what's your response?

So the best argument from sola scriptura would be that the Scriptures are the only thing that we have that are inspired by God, that are reliable, that no other things, no other traditions are that we can reliably know of that actually come from these apostles that we can even call inspired.

So the best argument for sola scriptura is that Scripture is unique, that Scripture is the only thing that we have of its kind that is indeed God-breathed.

That's really the best argument, and that's not me; that's what they say.

You know, Protestants, whenever they critique, you know, when Catholics, you know, are debating sola scriptura, Protestants always say.

You know, um, the best explanation of sola scriptura is that Scripture is unique in itself, right?

They all have, you heard, they also say, if I'm going to botch this badly, so you can correct me, but basically, 2,000 years, largely speaking, the same canon.

And of course, the Catholic would say, well, the Catholic Church put that canon together.

But regardless of that, they would say, well, sure, we're good with early bishops getting together and thumbs-upping what was already largely accepted by Christian people at large.

So I think part of the argument is that the Holy Spirit, generally speaking, has breathed upon the Christian people, Christ-professing people, over 2,000 years, who logically can see these books make sense together.

And that doesn't take the Catholic Church to say it; pretty much Christians at large could come up with the canon if they needed to by just using logic and looking at the last 2,000 years of Christian history.

That's what I've heard them argue as well.

That's the claim that they make, and the way that I respond to that is I say, Okay, how come your canon cannot be found anywhere in the first 1500 years?

Because the 66-book canon of Scripture that Protestants use today is not found anywhere.

They try and make arguments about certain Church Fathers that may be held to the 66-book canon; it doesn't work.

And what I always point out and say, Okay, if the canon, you know, if you can arrive at the canon, if the Christian community as well can just arrive at the canon, why was there so much controversy in the early Church about the canon of Scripture?

A lot of people don't know that, like, just the New Testament alone, our dispute with the Protestant is over the Old Testament, but just the New Testament alone, one-third of the New Testament, it was nine books that were disputed in the early Church.

It was Hebrews, James, Jude, 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and Revelation.

It was nine; one-third of the 27 books of the New Testament were disputed.

There were Christians in the early Church that said that 2nd Peter and Hebrews and Revelation are not Scripture.

There were other Christians that said there were, and there were disputes over those books.

So then the question that I would have for the Protestant, I would say, Okay, how do you know who was right?

How do you know who was correct?

And out of all of these disputes, they actually didn't dispute the Old Testament.

A lot of people don't know that in the early Church there was almost no dispute over the Old Testament, which is what we Catholics and Protestants dispute now.

But in the early Church, there was a lot of dispute over the New Testament.

So who was right?

And no matter who you pick or who is right, their canon doesn't match yours.

Why?

So I think a lot of people just don't know the facts.

Meaning there were Christians that didn't agree is what you're saying, but somebody called the shots.

Right.

And who is that somebody?

And who that somebody was?

Pope St. Damasus I in the year 382 at the Council of Rome.

That was the original council.

You can actually read the letter that he wrote.

The language that he uses in that letter, Pope St. Damasus I says, This is the canon for the universal Church.

He says there are many different canons that different local churches use, but this canon—these are all of the books that every universal church needs to have in all of their canons because these are the books that are inspired by God.

And this is 73 books of the Catholic Bible that we use today.

So read Pope St. Damasus' letter that he gave right after the Council of Rome in the year 382, and you read the language that he uses, and he's very forceful, and he's talking as if he's like the bishop of the world.

He said it's for all of the churches.

Well, he's the Pope.

That one thing right there, you know, shows that it was the Pope, Pope Damasus, you know.

So recently, Wesley Huff was on Joe Rogan, and I actually hadn't known about him before I saw the clips going around.

He did a great job.

He's a Christian apologist, although he is more Protestant, and he does debates.

It seems like he's been doing some more debates; I think he's doing debates with Roman Catholics.

So anyways, I saw this clip with him recently.

I actually reached out to him to have him on the show because I think he's really gifted, and I think we agree on most things, but there's obviously some key theological differences.

But I saw this clip, and this is what caught my attention.

I'm curious your take on this.

So here he is; he's talking about – effectively, he's talking not so much about, I think, sola scriptura as he is talking about the Protestant Bible versus the Catholic Bible.

So let me play this clip.

Where did the extra books in the Catholic Bible come from?

Yeah, so that's a good question because we do have a category of books that are sometimes referred to as the Apocrypha.

So, Roman Catholics will refer to them as the Deuterocanon, which means second canon, and they would say, I think accurately, this doesn't mean second in reception or second in influence, but second in reception.

So basically what we have is between Malachi and Matthew, the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament, you have a period of 400 years.

Now, it's sometimes referred to as the 400 years of silence, but that's a bit of a misnomer because there was a lot being written during that time, especially in Jewish history.

And so you have these books being written, books like 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, and so on.

And what it comes down to is for the early Christians, they were looking and they were seeing, okay, we have what's referred to as the Jewish Scriptures, the Tanakh, the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, what we would call the Old Testament, and you have this other group of books which is written after that group that the Jews considered Scripture.

What do we do with that?

And for a lot of people within the early Church, they looked at that and they said the Jews never considered that Scripture.

The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, like Paul says, so therefore we don't consider them Scripture.

So he's wrong.

He's wrong.

Case closed.

All right.

Well, let me tell you why he's wrong.

And I don't understand why Protestants keep saying this, because it's been debunked so many times.

The Jews during the time of Jesus did not have a finalized canon of Scripture.

If we are going to have our Old Testament match all of the books that all of the Jews agreed were Scripture, you know, in the time of Jesus and the Apostles, we will only have five books in the Old Testament: the books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, because those were the only five books that all groups of Jews agreed upon that they were inspired.

There were some Jews that said only those five are inspired.

There were other Jews that said those five and maybe the Wisdom literature is inspired.

There were other Jews that said those five and the historical books are inspired, but not the Wisdom literature.

There were different groups that had different canons, so there was no set defined canon that all Jews agreed upon during the time of Jesus and the Apostles.

The canon that the Jews use today was not agreed upon until after the time of Jesus and the Apostles, about 200 years after, by the Jewish people that rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

But at that point, you know, you don't follow them; you follow the Church, you follow Christ and His Apostles and their successors.

So what I always tell people, I say, Okay, do the Jews have authority over the Church today?

And they'll say no.

And I'll say, What about 500 years ago?

Did they have authority over the Church 500 years ago?

And they'll say no.

And I say, What about 1,000 years ago?

And they'll say no.

And I say, Okay, why do you think that in around the year 200 Christians had to follow what the Jews were doing when it comes to the canon?

Jews that rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah?

Why?

They don't realize that their canon was by the Rabbi Ben Sirah, who was, I think it was in the second century.

It was in the second century that he finalized it for the Jewish people.

Why?

Why does our canon have to match their canon?

Especially when you consider that Christians around that same time that the Jews were putting together their canon, they were quoting from those seven Deuterocanonical books as inspired Scripture, as the Word of God.

And that includes Maccabees, Tobit, and the others.

And that includes, yeah, you know, Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and there's a seventh one that I'm forgetting: Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and Baruch.

Those are the seven, and the early Christians quoted from those writings as the inspired word of God, as Scripture.

It's a great response.

So then the question is, who should I go with?

Should I go with what the Jews in the second century were doing, or should I go with what the Christians held to in the very beginning?

Because, again, a lot of people don't realize there wasn't controversy over the Old Testament in the early Church; it was over the New Testament that the controversy was.

And another thing that I would like to point out is that, you know who else actually agreed with me and with the Catholic Church about the canon of Scripture?

Martin Luther.

Because Martin Luther, even after 1517, in 1517, in 1518, and in 1519, he quoted from those seven Deuterocanonical books, and he called them Scripture.

Wow, I didn't know that.

Yeah, he called them the inspired Word of God.

Martin Luther wrote a lot; we have a lot of his writings.

So was it John Calvin who didn't want those seven books, or was it Luther who changed his mind?

So John Calvin, he thought Baruch, which is one of those books, that Baruch was inspired scripture as well.

He quoted from Baruch and said it was inspired scripture.

So the canon of scripture that Protestants use today doesn't even match Luther's canon or Calvin's canon.

CRAZY So what happened was when Martin Luther was debating Johann Eck, they had a really famous debate.

It was when they were going to figure out if they were going to excommunicate Martin Luther or not.

They gave him so many chances; they gave him three years to come to his senses and to stop what he was doing.

In this debate that he had with Johann Eck, they were debating purgatory.

And by the way, just as an aside, Luther affirmed purgatory in the 95 Theses.

A lot of people don't know that.

A lot of Protestants will say, Oh, Martin Luther, he put the 95 Theses on the cathedral door, which didn't happen either.

But the 95 Theses—that's it!

I don't think they've ever read the 95 Theses because if you go and you read them, I don't know of any Protestants today that can affirm what Martin Luther affirms in the 95 Theses.

He affirms purgatory.

What he got wrong is that he thought that the souls in purgatory could still go to hell, and that was what the Church said: No, you're wrong.

The souls in purgatory will end up in heaven.

But anyway, so he writes his 95 Theses in 1517. He gets three years; the Church gives him four years, almost four years, to repent, to come to his senses, and to stop with his heresy.

Well, during that time, he's quoting from the Deuterocanonical books; he's calling them Scripture.

He's actually formulating theology; he's formulating doctrine from those books.

But when he was debating Johann Eck, Johann Eck was a theologian that was commissioned by the Church to kind of convince Martin Luther to come to the census.

They got Johann Eck to talk to him, and he's trying to work things out with him.

And Johann Eck brings up 2 Maccabees because they're talking about purgatory again, right?

So he brings up 2 Maccabees 12, and Martin Luther, because he was getting—you can actually read it; you know it's transcribed—the debate.

It's amazing.

He was getting wrecked.

Luther was getting wrecked by Yohanek in the debate, and when he pulled out 2 Maccabees, Martin Luther kind of had his back against the wall.

He was like, Well, you know what?

He said, Um, I don't think you can use 2 Maccabees in this debate.

And they said, Why?

And he said, Because 2 Maccabees isn't, that's not Scripture.

You're kidding!

Was that the first time he was on record saying it wasn't Scripture?

Yes, that was the first time.

Because he was getting demolished on it?

And they said, Why?

And he said, Well, don't you know that there's controversy over that book because St. Jerome wasn't sure if that book was originally included in the Hebrew canon?

So, since we don't know, he said, I don't think it's right for us to be arriving at doctrinal conclusions from 2 Maccabees.

But here's the problem: when he said that and he tried to use St. Jerome to justify his position, because St. Jerome, he had an idea that we now know is false.

It's not true.

Um, and I'm getting into a lot of—okay.

St. Jerome, St. Jerome was commissioned by Pope Saint Damasus I to translate the Scriptures into Latin, the Vulgate, the Vulgate, right?

But St. Jerome, um, he wanted to translate the Old Testament directly from Hebrew, so he went to Jewish rabbis so that they could teach him Biblical Hebrew, so that he could make a direct translation from Biblical Hebrew into Latin.

When he was studying with Jewish rabbis, he noticed that those Jewish rabbis did not have those seven books in their canon because, again, they arrived at their canon 200 years after the time of Jesus.

And St. Jerome, he thought maybe it's because these books aren't originally written in Hebrew, because that's what he heard from the Jewish rabbis.

He said, If these books weren't originally written in Hebrew, then maybe we shouldn't consider them Scripture.

What language would it have been?

What language would it have been?

Greek?

He was concerned they were written in Greek.

Yeah, he said all these books were written during the Greco-Roman period, so they were written in Greek.

So maybe because they were written in Greek, maybe they shouldn't be considered to be the Scriptures that the Jews had.

That was just speculation on Jerome's part, which he was able to do because the canon of Scripture had not been dogmatically defined.

So because the canon of Scripture had not been dogmatically defined, he was free to maybe wonder about these things.

What year are we at right now?

So this is in the late 4th century, so it was after 382 when Pope St. Damasus said, This is the canon of Scripture.

It was around that time, so it was like in the 370s, 380s, around that time.

And so Jerome, he was just thinking, and he actually writes this in his commentaries to the books because he still translated those 70 real canonical books.

But in his commentaries, his preface to those books, he said, These books are not found among the Hebrew Scriptures of the Jews, so maybe, you know, maybe they shouldn't be considered Scriptures.

Maybe they're domestic, yeah, right?

Right, but then people, you know, leave out the fact that St. Jerome said he said, but he said, I could be wrong.

Listen to the Pope.

Listen to what the Pope says.

He said the Pope can tell us if this is Scripture or not.

He said, Listen to the Pope in all things.

And the Pope said, Yep, there's Scripture.

But here's the thing: St. Jerome's premise we now know is wrong.

We know it's wrong because we discovered Hebrew versions of five of those seven Deuterocanonical books.

How did we discover that?

With the Dead Sea Scrolls, we discovered Hebrew versions of these books, and also there were other writings, like those of the Church Fathers, that mentioned that these books are Hebrew, that they were in Hebrew; they just didn't survive in that language.

So even if we didn't have the Dead Sea Scrolls, we have other Church Fathers that say that these books were in Hebrew, and we know now for sure that five of those seven were indeed originally written in Hebrew.

The only two that, as of right now, we think were written in Greek were the Book of Wisdom and the Second Maccabees.

First Maccabees was written in Hebrew, in the Hebrew language, and so were the other four.

But Wisdom and Second Maccabees were the only ones that we know for sure—well, we probably know—were indeed originally written in Greek.

But the other ones were originally written in Hebrew.

So St. Jerome's premise, he was wrong because he just didn't know.

So now my question to the Protestants is, like, okay, if you appeal to St. Jerome for your canon, we now know that if you're sticking to St. Jerome's argument here, now you have to include at least those five in your canon because now we know that they were written in Hebrew.

So why don't you have them in your canon now?

Well, and also, if he's your authority, St. Jerome is literally saying, I'm not your authority.

Exactly.

Like, don't make me your authority.

Follow the Pope, which is pretty significant, I would say.

It is completely coherent.

It's like you take Him.

I mean, it is an interesting thing to cherry-pick the Church Fathers and say, Well, we like this, what they say; we don't like this, what they say.

But who's the arbiter of deciding what the Church Fathers say or don't say that you think is correct?

And I mean, it all comes back to, for me, and you know I'm a Catholic convert, so I went through a lot of these processes of delving deep into the theological differences between my Protestant upbringing and Catholicism, and looking at Orthodoxy, and looking at like other religions.

At one point, even before I obviously—clear to me, obviously, Christianity is true—but at the end of the day, it's like, who is going to make the final call on the interpretation and the traditions, quite frankly, of the Church for 2,000 years since Christ?

Who's going to make the call?

Is it myself?

Is it me or my pastor, whatever given church I choose to attend?

Or is it somebody else, maybe?

The gates of hell will not prevail.

Somebody else that might have a little bit more authority.

And St. Jerome, the guy that all Protestants like to appeal to for the canon of Scripture, he said, No, you follow the Pope.

He said, This is just my own opinion; this is just what I'm thinking right now, but follow what the Pope says.

The Pope can tell us.

And they always leave that part out.

But going back to Martin Luther and Johann Eck, when Martin Luther said, You can't use Second Maccabees in this debate because Jerome said he wasn't sure if it could be, you know, if we could get doctrine from it because we don't know if it was originally written in the Hebrew language.

Well, now, because Martin Luther, now he's trying to kind of be consistent, now he had to say the same thing about the other six.

So what Martin Luther did when he translated the Bible into German—and another myth that I've also heard Westhoff say, you know, I've heard him say that Martin Luther, you know, translated the Bible into a vernacular language—that's not true.

There were already at least 18 different German translations of the Bible commissioned by the Catholic Church long before Martin Luther did his.

We already had about 18; I think it was like between 17 and 19 different German translations of the Bible that already existed.

So it's not true that Martin Luther for the everyday person to be able to read it.

Yeah, so it's not true that Martin Luther was the first one to translate the Bible into vernacular language.

That's another myth.

But when Martin Luther did his translation, he put those seven books, the seven Deuterocanonical books, which Protestants call Apocrypha.

He didn't remove them from the Bible.

That's a myth on the part of the Catholics.

Catholics think that Martin Luther removed those books from the Bible.

That's not true; that's a myth, and Catholics need to stop saying that.

Martin Luther put them in a separate appendix in between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

He said, We're going to put these seven books in their own little group in between because we don't know if we can call them inspired or not.

And then, over time, that appendix got moved to the back of the Bible, so Old Testament, New Testament, and then those seven books.

And then, in the year 1823, the Scottish Bible Society decided to get rid of them altogether because it was cheaper to print skinnier Bibles.

Wow.

And that's why those books were left out.

That is so wild to know that.

So you're saying Martin Luther never definitively said, This is not inspired Scripture.

He said, You should read it.

Here it is.

We're not 100% sure.

And then a Scottish Bible Society, trying to save some money and be frugal, said, Let's just cut it.

Martin Luther never, ever, ever said this is not inspired.

He just said we're not sure if it's inspired or not, so let's, let's, let's try to avoid those when we're having doctrinal disputes.

That's what he said.

And then, yeah, it was in 1823 when those books were removed.

So when you know that history, again, the question, okay, how do we know?

You're in deep.

Is the Scottish Bible Society, are they the ones that are able to tell us if they're inspired or not?

I love this!

I'm part Scottish; I love the Scotch.

So how do you know?

Are they the Pope?

We haven't had a Scottish Pope yet, but that would be cool.

Maybe one day.

Maybe Franco might be the Pope.

Maybe I'll be the Pope.

I'll submit my application along with Pope Francis, you know.

But when he moves on to his heavenly reward, I'll submit my application.

Or he might do the Benedict way and just take an early retirement.

But I do want to talk about the Pope because that's another area that there's a lot of lively debate in different apologetic circles, and I like some of the stuff I've seen you saying, which hits the right tone.

I mean, where can I start with this?

So there's a group of online, really popular Catholic YouTubers who are very critical of the Holy Father, and there was a recent clip, I think, with Charlie Kirk and our friend Michael Knowles.

Both of them are friends; I love both of them.

They're amazing guys.

If Charlie Crook ever runs for president, I'm voting for him.

Amazing, yeah.

100% I'm voting for Charlie Crook if he runs for president.

Amazing, yeah, super solid, amazing people.

They had a debate, very short; let's call it even a discussion about the Holy Father.

Let's watch that really quick, and then I want to talk about some of Taylor Marshall's criticisms of the Holy Father and get your take on that.

So my question to you, because you're such an inspiration to Catholicism, Mr. Knowles, what advice would you give to somebody who's trying to spread the love of the Eucharist to the world?

Okay, well, you know that's wonderful that you're going to do that.

I think it's great.

Most of the time, people say, Michael, I want to start a podcast.

What's your advice?

And my advice is, Don't, because too many people have them, and I think every white man under the age of 75 has one now by law or something.

But this is the first time in memory that someone has proposed some new content project.

I've thought, Great, you should do that.

That's really good.

And my advice is you should recite the St. Thomas Aquinas prayer that he would have before study or writing or speaking.

I don't like it emotionally.

That prayer is beautiful, and then what you should do is pray a little bit more.

Praying is the first resort, not the last resort.

And then this is something.

I'm sorry, I got to do a quick segue really quick.

Forgive me for this, guys, but I just—this is like a PSA for prayer.

We had Immaculée on the show recently.

You know who survived the Rwandan genocide, was locked in a bathroom for 90 days.

Her own neighbor tried to kill her; her own neighbor murdered her parents and her brother.

Like, just insane story.

This woman is an incredible person, but she was saying that, you know, a million Rwandans were killed because of this genocide, right?

They went to war with each other.

Anyway, she escaped.

She ends up being this amazing—she's Catholic, this amazing.

She loves the Rosary, she loves to pray, she's all about forgiveness.

And I was asking her, What do you think about the United States?

Like, it's like really tough, you know, the divisiveness we have, abortion—it's like really a big battle here.

And she said, I am so hopeful because people here pray more, and more Americans, it seems, are praying.

And, you know, we had Alex from Hallow—shout out to our friends at Hallow.

I mean, all of these initiatives to bring back the power of prayer and remind people that this is the most important thing: our relationship with our Creator and with the Holy Spirit and with, obviously, our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, anyways, prayer is going to save the day, but I love that Michael Knowles just did that.

Right, he gives great advice.

Yeah, he does.

He really does.

Nice job, Michael!

I want to have a cigar with Michael Knowles.

Come to the live action gala.

He emcees it for us, and he very generously smokes cigars afterwards for hours.

I mean, I leave at like 1 AM because I'm like, I've got to get back to bed, get my kids.

Him and all of the other people, like you, are out there smoking, talking theology.

We Mackerel Snappers, we get it.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel every year.

We got 2000 years of people who are much smarter than you and I who have thought this out, who have debated these questions.

So if you just bring that, if you convey that—I'm trying to sell Charlie on this right now.

I know I'm answering you, but I'm really speaking to Charlie.

If you just do that, that's all you're doing.

You're just telling the story.

You're telling the greatest story ever told, and you have the deposit of faith, and you have the Magisterium behind you as a hermeneutic of interpretation.

But just do that, you know, and do that in sincerity and do that with the best of your effort, and I think it'll be wonderful.

As an evangelical who loves Catholics, I love that you're doing it.

But let me just edit what you say.

Here's the point; it's a big one you didn't catch, Michael.

It's that your goal should be to bring people to Jesus, not Catholicism.

So hold on.

What's the difference?

Hold on.

And so what I would ask Charlie Crook, I would say, Okay, Charlie, what denominations are not good for you?

If someone's going to come in to become a Christian, what denominations are good and what denominations are not?

Sounds like he's saying whatever you please.

But I know he would say, Yeah, okay, so if someone were to become Catholic, you'd be cool with that, Charlie?

And he's like, Yeah, sure.

And you're like, Okay, so the statement that he just made, I would say that it's the same as if I were to say, 'You know what?

Just bring people to Jesus, man.

You don't need to read the Bible.

What do you need the Bible for?

Just come to Jesus.

Just put your faith in Jesus.

What do you need the Bible for?'

He would say that's a ridiculous statement.

Well, in the same way, saying that you can have Jesus Christ without His Church, that's a ridiculous statement because the Bible tells us that the Church of Jesus Christ is a divine institution.

The Bible tells us that the Church is the continuation of the Incarnation on Earth.

The Incarnation continues through His Church because we, as the Church, are members of the Body of Christ.

You cannot have Christ without His Body.

That's the heresy of Nestorianism, which was settled in the year 431 at the Council of Ephesus.

You can't have Christ without His Body.

You can't have Christ without His Church.

You can't do it.

You can't have Christ without Scripture.

You can't have it without His Church.

I think Charlie might say, Well, yeah, of course you need church, but that doesn't have to be the Catholic Church.

That would be probably his response.

Again, we'll have Charlie on the show; he can speak for himself.

I would love to, yeah.

Yeah, we're going to line up some debates here.

I would love to talk to Charlie.

What do you guys think?

Should we do more debates on the Lila Rose podcast?

I'll debate Charlie, and I'll debate myself at the same time.

Just kidding.

Well, we can team up, or maybe get Trent Horn in here too.

So they can say it doesn't matter what church you go to; you can go to any as long as you're going to a church.

It's biblical.

I think they would argue it has to be biblical.

And I would say, okay, and I would say, all right, well, we can go to one church down the street that claims to be a Bible-based church and that says that their beliefs and that their ways of doing things, those are biblical.

Then go to a church farther down the street that completely contradicts the other church, the first church, and that says that their ways of doing things and their beliefs, their teachings are completely biblical and that the other church is wrong.

So you have all of these competing churches.

They all use the same Bible, but they have different doctrines, different beliefs, different theology.

But we know from the Bible, we know that the Bible tells us that the Church has to be united in doctrine.

The Bible says that we need to be united in the faith, in doctrine.

So if you have two churches that disagree on doctrine, we know that one of those churches or both of those churches can't be the Church of Jesus Christ because we know that the Church of Jesus Christ has to be one.

So my question would be, okay, which church has the correct doctrines?

Because in this country, we have tens of thousands of them.

And I know that a lot of Protestants don't like the tenth out the thirty thousand number or whatever it is.

The only reason that I'm okay with using that number is because of all of the non-denominational evangelical churches.

Each non-denominational evangelical church is its own denomination, right?

And we have tens of thousands of those here in this country, so that means we have tens of thousands of denominations because they're not in communion with any other church.

Right, I mean I have this first-hand experience of this growing up because my church was a non-denominational church that had sort of Presbyterian and then like just kind of a Bible-based church.

Those are the roots, right?

And then it was very much a Bible-based church, very evangelical, very much about like bringing people into the Lord.

Very beautiful, like a lot of beautiful faith in the church.

I believe the Holy Spirit was working in people's lives as He tends to work in people's lives, period.

Right?

But I remember my dad was an elder, and they were kind of rewriting, like, what is our church teaching on marriage?

What's our church teaching on divorce?

What's our church teaching on do we do the Nicene Creed?

Do we not?

What do we do with communion?

I mean, there are so many theological issues that inevitably came up in terms of the governance of the church and the faith and morals of the people.

And I remember my dad ended up leaving his position as an elder because there was a worship pastor who wanted a divorce, got a divorce, and they were going to retain the worship pastor.

But then it was this big sticky thing of now if he remarries, is this an issue?

And they had to literally rewrite their doctrine to accommodate the behavior of their clerical staff or whatever to say that in some situations divorce is okay.

So it's this endless rabbit hole of changes, which again, I'm not trying to mock it or make fun of it.

I have a lot of empathy for and sympathy for people who are facing these tough theological moral questions who don't have a clear authority to go to.

They can point at the Bible, but when there's disagreement about how to interpret that Bible, it's kind of a free-for-all.

One of the things I think we can all agree upon is that the Bible that we all try to use as our authority tells us to go to the Church.

The Bible tells us in Matthew 18 that you can actually go to the authorities, the people that are the elders, that are the overseers in the Church, and that they can tell us what's real and what isn't, what's true and what isn't. They can bind us; they can bind us to teachings, to disciplines.

Even 1 Timothy 3:15 says that the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth.

So if we have a dispute about what is true and what isn't, let's go to the Church.

But again, that's kind of circular because, well, that's what we're trying to figure out: which Church?

Because we have all of these churches that disagree with each other.

So now what you have to do is you have to ask more questions and go deeper and say, okay, which Church actually goes back to Jesus Christ?

And there was that debate with James White about the authority of the Catholic Church.

Right.

Um, what would you say is, and I want to, we're kind of jumping around here because I want to get to one other comment that Charlie made in this um debate with Michael Knolls.

But what would you say is the best argument for the authority of the Catholic Church that it's biblical for Protestants?

You can say, look, the Bible says right here that the Church of Jesus Christ is biblical.

I'm sorry, that the Church of Jesus Christ is an authority, a definitive authority that we have an obligation to follow.

The Bible teaches us that we can all come to the same agreement, and the best argument is that it is in the Bible.

The Bible tells us these things, and the Bible tells us that Jesus gave full authority to the Apostles, and those Apostles, they gave full authority to men by the laying on of hands, and that those men laid their hands on other men, and that that authority continues, and it continues to this present day.

It's apostolic succession.

So, 2000 years of the laying on of hands in the time of Jesus Christ.

Yes.

And that's our priesthood.

Yes, and apostolic succession alone, that's very important.

That's where you start.

But we have to remember, because here's the one thing that Catholics and Protestants agree upon: we all agree that the Church of Jesus Christ is one, it's holy, it's Catholic, meaning universal, and it's apostolic, right?

So all we have to do in figuring out which is the true Church is find the Church that has all four of those pillars: one, holy, Catholic, apostolic.

Of all of the Christian communions in the world, there is only one, and only one, that has all four of those, and it's the Catholic Church: one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.

The Orthodox, they're apostolic; they have valid sacraments, so they're holy, but they're not one.

They're not united in matters of doctrine, governance, and worship, and they're not Catholic because they're not universal.

Their teachings are not universal.

What is universal Christianity?

You go anywhere in the world, the average Christian is going to be Catholic.

It's incredible, actually, when you think about it, that the Mass is being said—the same Mass, the same Scripture, the same Eucharist—and it's being said in dozens, if not hundreds, of languages throughout the world and every continent of the world.

Maybe not Antarctica; I don't know.

Probably Antarctica, actually.

I don't know; that would be an interesting one.

But virtually every continent—I mean, it's a mind-blowing thought.

But it's also really beautiful and comforting to know that wherever you go, you can find your Catholic Church.

Beautiful.

Okay, there was one other thing that I think Charlie said, and one of our folks sent this to me before the episode, like, We've got to talk about the Pope.

We've got to talk about the Pope.

So we're going to do it, the Holy Father.

So I'm going to see if I can find it.

Oh well, maybe the Papa was misinterpreted.

You know, it's no big deal.

Forget about it.

You're too Anglo to understand that.

Too Anglo.

Attitude I have to just hope you know he doesn't mean that homosexuality is bad.

Okay, we should know he said God can't bless sin.

No, no, no, no.

I'm not going to give you that one.

He's been way more open on that topic, or the climate change thing.

Climate change and all this sort of stuff, you just have to kind of hope that he's saying that we want you.

Just kind of, it's like my grandmother sometimes.

When she, one of her grandchildren, says something that she doesn't like, she kind of turns down the hearing aid a little bit.

And so sometimes, you know, if you turn down the hearing aid on certain issues...

And I mean this like non-sarcastically, but like, why should I care at all what that guy from Argentina has to say?

Well, because you care what your pastor has to say.

Yes, but if my pastor starts saying crazy things, I find a new pastor.

This is the criticism that a lot of people have because there have been off-the-cuff comments that Pope Francis has made, which have been really confusing for a lot of people and have made a lot of people angry.

Obviously, I have opinions on this, and I've shared some of this on the show, but I'm very curious how you approach this because I think it is truly a stumbling block for people.

Right, here's the thing, and I promise you this is indeed the case.

If you literally just actually read what he said, actually read his writings, when you hear Pope Francis say something crazy, actually go and actually find it.

If there's a video of it, actually go and listen to it or read it in the entirety of its context.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's fine.

It's great, yeah.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's fine.

One percent of the media just completely, you know, he'll say something and they'll pull it out, and nobody bothers to go and read the whole thing.

No, here's the one thing that I think would make this world better if we all did it: let's all go read first-hand sources.

Stop worrying about what, you know, this news, you know, what the news says about anything, especially when it comes to, you know, the Pope.

Go and read it first-hand for yourself, what he said, and I promise you that if you just do that, you'll be fine.

You're not going to be scandalous anymore.

I mean, I see this so much even in pro-life work, where the divisive narrative that the media takes on can create so much confusion and consternation.

I mean, I remember even with like the President Trump stuff, where I was saying, like, if you're not going to stand for pro-life principles, you're not going to get pro-life votes in the way that I was talking about it in the media.

But there are people saying Lila's running a campaign to try to elect Kamala Harris because the media headline of the article that I'd be giving the interview would pick the most divisive headline possible.

When you actually read what I say, I'm saying something that's pretty common sense, like, hey – don't support the abortion pill.

Pro-lifers are not going to like that; they're not going to vote for you if you do that.

So it's just the power of the headline and the power of the cherry-picked quote out of context.

And I do think that happens rinse and repeat constantly on theological issues in the Catholic Church, with the Holy Father's comments for sure.

Because here's the issue that we as conservatives have, and I'm a conservative.

I make no bones about it.

I say I'll vote for Charlie Kirk if he runs for president.

I'm a conservative, but I can identify blind spots that conservatives have.

We don't trust the media, right?

Apparently, conservatives, we, you know, all this time we don't trust the media because the media lies.

According to, you know, why do they trust what the media says about what Pope Francis says then?

Because when it comes to somebody that they perceive to be on the other side, that they perceive to be an enemy, and conservatives perceive Pope Francis to be an enemy.

Conservatives have a lot of enemies that really shouldn't be our enemies.

Such a good point, Alex.

Conservatives, let me tell you something.

Conservatives, we want Pope Francis to be our friend because he actually really is our friend.

He really is.

Abortion is like firing a hitman.

I mean, he's so solid and outspoken.

Yes, and you know about communism, right?

Because I know that he mentions that here in this clip too about the communist folk.

Does he not realize all of the times that Pope Francis has condemned communism?

Does he not know?

So when President Trump got shot—and this is actually because he got shot back in the summer—but just recently, Pope Francis, he was talking about, he blamed, Pope Francis blamed the media for Donald Trump getting shot.

Nobody knows that Pope Francis actually said, and he didn't say Trump by name, but he said there was a very prominent politician that was almost assassinated back in the summer because the media lies.

Pope Francis said that.

That sounds like something Charlie Kirk would have said, but Pope Francis said it.

Pope Francis is actually on our side, and a lot of people don't know.

Power of papal infallibility: what does that actually mean in practice for the Church and the theology behind that?

Because I do think this is a huge misconception for a lot of people, definitely people that are not in the Church, you know, Protestants, our Catholic brothers, and non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters.

But some Catholics too, who see some of this and just get so upset.

Yeah, so it's important to understand that the papacy itself is a divine institution.

It was given to us by Jesus Christ Himself.

If the papacy or anything is given to us by Jesus Christ, then we need to accept it.

We can't pick and choose the things that we like from Jesus that we want to obey or follow, right?

Now, how does the papacy work?

Well, the Church tells us the way that the papacy works.

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church is what's authoritative.

The Magisterium is what has the authority.

So whenever you hear anything coming out of the media reporting on something that Pope Francis said or anything that the Church has said, maybe the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the first question that you want to ask yourself is, Is it magisterial?

That's the first question.

And when do we know if it's magisterial?

When the bishops or the Pope speaks?

Because the Church will tell us that it usually comes in a magisterial document like a motu proprio or an apostolic constitution.

And that's not even an encyclical necessarily.

An encyclical, yeah, an encyclical is magisterial.

So, all encyclicals are magisterial?

All encyclicals are magisterial, so papal encyclicals, motu proprios, and apostolic constitutions—if it was said in one of those types of documents, you know it's magisterial.

So if it's magisterial, you can't ignore it.

Now you have to deal with what the Magisterium has said.

If it's not magisterial, like Michael Knowles' kind of thing, if it's not magisterial, you can ignore it; it doesn't affect the faith.

You can turn the hearing aid down.

You can turn the hearing aid down because it's not magisterial.

However, most people are not reading the Magisterium, but most people are turning on the news and they're listening to what Pope Francis said on an airplane when he gets interviewed, you know, or when he was interviewed by 60 Minutes.

You know, most people are hearing that.

Even though I love that 60 Minutes interview, I wonder if Charlie Kirk ever listened to that 60-minute interview with the Pope, because that one interview alone completely just destroys this idea that conservatives have that Pope Francis is a leftist communist.

That interview right there, that alone shows you because you can even tell that the interviewer in that interview, you can tell that she thought that Pope Francis was going to be on her side.

She was disappointed.

Honestly, I was actually surprised that she wasn't fired because you could tell that she went in thinking that Pope Francis was going to just...

and Pope Francis was like...

Pope Francis made her look stupid.

Pope Francis made her look really dumb.

She would say, You know, Pope Francis, you said this about women's ordination or about homosexuality, and he was like, What are you talking about, woman?

He's like, 'I never said any of this.

Like, what do you mean?'

He made her look dumb.

We got to watch that clip, but he just said no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What was that?

And he just said, Yeah.

He said, No. And I'm curious, for a little girl growing up Catholic today, will she ever have the opportunity to be a deacon and participate as a clergy member in the Church?

NO I understand you have said no women as priests, but you are studying the idea of women as deacons.

Is that something you are open to?

If it is deacons with holy orders, no, okay, so.

Well, I saw the whole interview again.

If I was that lady that interviewed him, I would have been like, I'm going to get fired.

Well, even the way she asked that question, like little girls wanting to be priests, it's like, do little boys grow up wanting to be mothers?

Like, there are certain things that are different between men and women and have theological implications, and that's okay.

The differences are okay.

And then, at the end of the day, it's like, well, is there something biologically about men that make them more – better for the priesthood?

No, not that we know of.

It's just that Jesus Christ said that.

Jesus Christ chose 12 men; he picked men.

They have the laying on of hands for apostolic succession.

That's what Jesus decided, so I'm going with that.

Exactly.

And what it comes down to is that we all know that men and women are different, and it's okay to say that men and women are different because we are what we're supposed to be.

There's a reason that we're supposed to be different, because we complement each other.

Well, it's actually very beautiful.

Like, if you read St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body or just any of the great moral theologians that talk about this, about the differences between men and women, the man, right?

Men, because we're all made in the image of God, but the man represents Jesus, women represent the Church, right?

Because we know that the man gives and the woman receives, right?

And that's how new life is created.

Well, God can only give.

God doesn't receive because God is God.

God is infinite.

God has everything.

God is the giver.

Men represent Jesus, women represent the Church because the Church receives her Bridegroom, right?

So let men be men, let women be women, let men give, let women receive.

That reciprocation happens, and that is how you promulgate the human species, and that's how society was built.

That's how society functions, by letting men be men and letting women be women.

Men cannot do what mothers do; we just can't do it.

My producer, Jonathan, was telling me about this.

He says that he always gets scared when his wife leaves him alone with the kids because they drive him crazy.

He goes, I just can't. He can't give them what she gives them to make them calm down or make them listen or whatever it is, because children need their mom.

And his wife cannot do what he does either, and that's the point.

That's why they're together, because they need each other in order to raise their kids.

Um, so yeah, why do women, why do certain people, certain problems that be, why do they want to force women to be men?

Well, and forcing women to be priests, I think the simplest answer, the most obvious answer, is because Jesus said so.

And that there's so much freedom in that because you can make an argument that, well, there are some men that are more feminine in how they show up, like to their families, like they like cooking more than the woman.

And like these are like, in some ways, social stereotypes, right, which change with culture and change with time.

But the bottom line is Jesus instituted this, not us.

Like this wasn't our idea.

Like the priest said, it doesn't come from us; it came from our Lord.

And He had a specific—He chose to give Him to the world as a man.

He chose disciples as men, and He laid His hands on these men, and He gave them the priesthood.

And then He sent them out to bring more priests.

And then women were involved too, but He didn't—Mary Magdalene, He did not put His hands on her and say, You're going to be a priest.

Here, exactly.

So I think that’s very—that is the most significant thing in my view when it comes to this teaching.

Right, because of the ontological reality and the differences between what men and women are and what a priest is.

If a priest represents Jesus Christ, then men, let the men be the priest because the women represent the Church.

Mary is a representation.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is a representation of the Church.

You know, it's funny when you mentioned about how there are some men that like to cook.

Well, if you're a man that likes to cook, that doesn't make you a girl.

I always think of, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Donnie Brasco.

I love mafia movies; I'm like a big mafia movie guy.

Al Pacino, and he's like, it's the scene where he's with Johnny Depp, and Al Pacino's in the kitchen and he's cooking, and he's like, he goes back home, Only men are cooks.

Never let the women cook.

Men have to cook because women can't cook like men do back home.

And then he goes, Put this in your mouth, Donnie.

He goes, It'll melt in your mouth like Holy Communion.

So yeah, it's just a social thing; it varies from culture to culture.

There's a lot of, I mean, I think that we get tripped up, and I think conservatives, people, and even those that like the word tradition, we want tradition.

I mean, tradition is incredibly important.

We know as Catholics there's like 2000 years of tradition, but in terms of these cultural norms about who's doing what in the household, who's doing what in the economy of the family, project making a way in the world, providing for the family, that has looked different throughout the years based on cultures, based on the skills and the aptitudes of the spouses, and all this stuff.

So, anyways, I loved your response, though.

At the end of the day, Jesus is a man.

The priests represent Jesus; they're in the person of Jesus.

So, Jesus was a man, God the Son.

He's called the God the Son for a reason.

He became incarnate as a man.

There are differences here, and that's good.

It's supposed to be that way.

Alex, this has been awesome.

I've had so much fun!

I cannot believe that I got to talk to Lila Rose, and my man Franco is behind this camera right now.

My man Harrison is going to edit out all of the dumb things.

That's something you're going to have to edit out, Harris: me calling you by a different name.

Big shout out to Jonathan for making it!

I just want to do a shout out to all the people, because there are people like you and I that are out there doing camera stuff and trying to do our best, right?

But the only reason we are able to do what we're doing is because there are a bunch of other people that are doing what they're doing that are not showing up on the channel necessarily, right?

And so a huge shout out to you, Jonathan, to Harris, to Keely, to Morna, all of the people doing amazing work.

Franco, he's like, Where's my shout out?

Franco's in front of the camera too, though.

Franco's been hopping around behind the camera, all excited that we're doing this.

That's so funny!

He's going to do a little dance at the end.

Alex, what's next for you?

Where are you going next?

Wherever I get invited, I will go.

I was talking to a Chaldean deacon just a few days ago, who was Father Simon's father, and he said, You know, talking to me and John, he goes, 'You guys are like apostles.

He goes, wherever they invite you to go, you go, because Scripture says that any place that receives you, you go and you stay in that household.

Wherever they receive you.'

And he said, 'You remind me of the apostles; wherever you get invited, you just go.'

Amen.

So we're just doing what the Lord calls us to do.

For the Kingdom of God, amen.

Thank you so much for having me.

It has been an honor.

Awesome, thank you, Alex.

Thank you.

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