Transcript

It felt like this day would never come, but it's here.

This is the 1,000th episode of the Council of Trent.

Today, I wanna talk about where the Council of Trent has been, and where we plan to go in the future.

Before I do that though, I wanna thank our patrons, because none of these 1,000 episodes would be possible without you.

Over the past six years, your financial support has not only helped us produce 1,000 episodes of the Council of Trent, but it's been a way for countless people to become Catholic or return to their Catholic faith.

I'm so grateful for how God led you to support our work.

And if you feel God is calling you to be a part of our team, then please visit us at trenthornpodcast.com.

The goal of the Council of Trent has always been to lead people to Jesus Christ and to his Church, and the fullness of God's revelation.

I don't care about views, I don't care about hitting a certain level as a channel or a podcast, I just wanna help people know the truth and be freed from the lies of our culture, and I'm so proud of how we've done that for the past 1,000 episodes.

In fact, here is the beginning of the very first episode of the Council of Trent.

Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Hello, and thank you for stopping by the Council of Trent.

At the end of 2019, I started to experiment with doing more rapid response episodes on YouTube, and on December 12th, 2019, I uploaded my first YouTube video for the channel.

It was actually a criticism of Archbishop Paglia, who led the Pontifical Academy for Life, and I filmed it in my office at Catholic Answers in San Diego.

About a month later, I started to experiment with rebuttals to criticisms of Catholicism on YouTube.

So on January 7th, 2020, I uploaded my first rebuttal to Mike Winger's videos on Catholicism.

Around this time, the most controversial thing to talk about was when Pope Francis slapped that woman's hand on New Year's.

But oh boy, we were not ready for what was gonna happen for the next three years.

During early 2020, I uploaded more rebuttals, which mostly took the form of me watching an anti-Catholic video, and then pausing the video to offer my own extemporaneous replies.

But in March, everything changed when COVID-19 hit, though I thought it was just gonna be two weeks to stop the spread.

I ended up coming into the Catholic Answers office in San Diego to record when no one else was in the building.

My life and the channel took a big change though at the end of 2020, when I told the president of Catholic Answers I was sick of living under the tyranny of California during the pandemic.

I took my kids to a playground and the police were called on me, even though thousands of people could riot for Black lives downtown without any consequence whatsoever.

So I told our president, Chris Check, I'm moving to Texas, and he understood.

I uploaded one episode shortly after my son was born at home, and then I spent the end of 2020 relocating my family.

Then on March 2nd, 2021, I resumed posting on the channel and I said this: Hey everybody, we're back.

I'm super excited to do rebuttal videos, and I'm super excited for other stuff we're gonna do here on the Council of Trent, uh, YouTube channel.

So basically, I announced this on the podcast today, but going forward, I wanna do every podcast episode also on the YouTube channel.

This was the period in the channel's history when I was at a technological low point .

I was using a cheap Logitech webcam, and I cringe when I look back on the quality of the footage.

But I'm not a super technical person.

I did video production in high school, so I can manage shooting and basic editing, but it's not my forte.

As can be seen in some of these older episodes, where I just didn't know how to use the right equipment or have the right lighting to make it look professional.

I also filmed the Council of Trent in the closet of my master bedroom, which is why I put a slide lock on the door, to try and keep my kids from coming in when I was recording.

And I was still learning how to produce content and focus on just having the video element, so a lot of it was just me talking with a camera on.

During this period, I still thought of the Council of Trent as a podcast, albeit one you could watch on YouTube.

Traditionally, a podcast is when someone turns on a microphone and just talks about whatever interests him, and so it's more informal in its style.

In a lot of the episodes from this period, I would comment on text, or information, or PowerPoint slides that were on the screen in a somewhat impromptu way.

In March of 2022, our patrons grew enough to allow me to rent an office and escape the closet, and also upgrade our camera equipment.

I was also able to have other people design my thumbnails instead of me doing my best with PowerPoint.

And then, I put my books in the background because, well, every Catholic podcaster needs to have their books in the background to prove they know how to read, right?

In 2023, we experimented with the darker cigar lounge look for the studio, and I'm glad we've moved on from that.

And during this period, I started scripting not just my rebuttal videos, but every episode of the Council of Trent.

On July 12th, 2023, I posted about how critics were unfairly treating the film Sound of Freedom, and it became, for a while, my most viewed episode.

It was at this point that I transitioned the Council of Trent from being a podcast where I talk about issues, to being a video essay channel.

Now my goal would be to use the medium of video as much as possible to underscore an argument that I made in a written essay.

I became convinced to script and more heavily edit these episodes to improve their watchability by adding more clips, for example.

I also wanted to respect people's time by giving them content that is edifying, efficient, and entertaining.

I also made sure that even though I would change into creating video essays that would really engage people watching on YouTube, I never wanted to alienate our audio podcast listeners by making the show something you could only watch.

You will always be able to listen to a Council of Trent episode.

But now I wanted to do more advanced editing in order to bring in more people to see these episodes when they watch them on YouTube.

And this was killing me.I was working 60 to 70 hours a week editing these things.

I even felt my marriage straining because I'd be editing at night when I should be spending time with Laura.

But our patrons, they came to the rescue.

Because of your increase and support, we were able to hire Thomas West in May of 2024 to edit the episodes of The Council of Trent, and in doing that, I was able to focus more on writing, research, and preparing for debates and dialogues.

And, man, Thomas has been worth it.

When I saw the first episode he edited, I knew we made the right decision in hiring him.

We also made a great decision in hiring Vanessa, that one Catholic girl, to manage social media so I don't have to do that, and so we can reach even more people.

And in June of 2024, we started recording here in the studio that Thomas designed, and it is a beautiful set.

So now our goal is to continue releasing two episodes a week that focus on defending the faith.

I'll also post it online that I'll be dividing the content roughly, but not legalistically, between a variety of subjects, including Christian fundamentals, Catholic distinctives, important moral issues, and the all-important category, other.

And of course if you want to hear me unwind and just talk about whatever I fancy, go to the audio podcast feed for The Council of Trent and check out my Free For All Friday episodes every Friday, where I talk about whatever I want to talk about.

There's been about 300 of those episodes, so there's a lot you can catch up on.

And now I'll finish our 1,000th episode retrospective with a rapid fire Q&A session from questions that have been submitted by our patrons.

So here we go.

How would you succinctly articulate the Gospel?

Even though we have sinned and we are far from God, God loves us, and God saved us through the death and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ.

By being united to Christ through faith and obedience, we can spend eternity dwelling in perfect happiness with God.

Next, if Catholicism is true, why haven't all religious scholars converted?

Well, you could say that about any theology or atheology.

If it's true, why doesn't everyone believe in it?

People make mistakes in their reasoning, or sin compromises their reasoning ability.

When it comes to questions like does God exist or is Christianity true, somebody must be correct about those questions, even if not everyone is in agreement on the correct answer to those questions.

In our own lives, we should also remember that when we stand before God, we won't have to explain what other people did in response to God's grace.

We will just have to explain what we did in response to God's grace in our own lives.

How would your family support a son discerning the priesthood?

Well, we'd pray for him and we'd pray with him.

In fact, I took my oldest son to a seminary so he could see what life is like as a priest in training, because he talks about wanting to be a priest.

And so I'll pray that he always has an open heart to whatever vocation God is calling him to.

What was your favorite vacation or what is your dream vacation?

I wouldn't call it a vacation, but my favorite trip was going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in Israel, and my dream would be to take my entire family there.

There's just something so powerful about being in the same place where our Lord saved the entire world.

And perhaps in the future when things calm down in Israel, I could lead a Council of Trent pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

So, stay tuned for that.

If you could ask George Lucas to change one thing about Star Wars, what would it be?

Go back in time and don't sell it to Disney.

Even Lucas at the time was ambivalent about that decision.

Return of the Jedi should have been the end of the saga.

That's why I lean towards Jeti vacantism, or a rejection of the authority of Star Wars material made after 1983, with the exception of the 2003 Clone Wars animated series.

That was awesome.

If you could have one apologist superpower, what would it be?

Photographic memory.

I can decently remember things in my long-term memory, but it would be nice to have the recall that people like Jimmy Akin have.

What is your favorite jujitsu submission?

The one I pull off the most is the arm bar, and statistically it's the most common one for lower belts to pull off, so it's kind of a go-to.

But the ones I enjoy would be ones from closed guard, because I end up there a lot, especially the triangle and the kimura from closed guard.

They're very satisfying to pull off.

Sorry for the jujitsu nerd stuff.

I'll stop now.

What is one holy place you would like to visit?

Aside from the Holy Land, one place I've always wanted to visit would be the Monasteries of Meteora in Greece, which are located on the top of a huge rock outcrop that reminds me of something from the movie Avatar.

Or maybe Saint George Cosaiba Monastery in Jericho that's nestled in a desert cliff wall.

Basically, to go to a really secluded, beautiful monastery to pray and get away from everything, kind of a middle-aged dad fantasy.

What is your favorite Super Nintendo game?

That's a tie between Super Mario World and Star Fox.

Super Mario World is the better game, but I have a lot of memories trying to play the harder difficulty setting on Star Fox.

I just really enjoyed that game and I would brag to my friends about how awesome it was because it had the FX chip, whatever that means.

And now I love that my kids are old enough to play these games so when they ask, Dad, how do I beat this guy?

I can be like, Here son, let me show you how it's done.

And finally, what is your favorite book of the Bible and your favorite Bible verse?

My favorite book of the Bible used to be the Gospel of Mark because I love that it's a fast-paced, action-packed story about our Lord.

But recently I really enjoy Saint Paul's Letter to the Philippians because it's nice to see Saint Paul in a good mood.

My favorite verse though has always been Sirach Chapter 2 Verses 4 through 6, with a particular NAB rendering of it that I read a long time ago.

So Sirach 2 Verses 4 through 6, and it goes like this.

Accept whatever befalls you.

In crushing misfortune, be patient.

For in fire gold is tested and worthy men put in the crucible of humiliation.

Trust in God, make straight your ways, and hope in him.

And that's it for our 1,000th episode.

Thank you all so much once again for your support, and if you want to help us to get to our 2,000th episode and reach even more people, please go and support us at trenthornpodcast.com and hit the like and subscribe button.

Thank you all so much and I hope you have a very blessed day.