Transcript

Hello, hello, hello.

Uh, thank you.

We're Okay, I'm getting on here.

We're good to go.

Uh, first of all, welcome.

It's, uh, yeah, Monday, July 14th, feast day of Saint Kateri, who is, uh, fantastic.

Vanessa is back, and she'll be fielding your super chats.

So those of you who were here two weeks ago, uh, Mike subbed in for Vanessa, and he ranked them by dollar amount.

I don't know which way Vanessa's gonna do, and I haven't given any instructions or indication either way, but use your best judgment accordingly.

So yeah, if you have questions you'd like me to answer, I'd be happy to, to do that, and we'll, we'll kind of get those started as they're coming.

If you were confused by, uh, the thumbnail, uh, this is from duomo in Orvieto, the cathedral in Orvieto.

Um, it's the resurrection of all flesh, and I just am really tickled by the guy just, like, casually chatting to a group of skeletons.

He is resurrected, and they, at least to this point, are not.

Welcome Cameron Bertuzzi, and welcome everybody else.

Uh, yeah, so I've been playing around with trying to figure out a good way to do a thumbnail for tomorrow's episode.

So I'll just tell you, spoiler alert, tomorrow's episode is gonna be about how the early Christians saw this connection between the Eucharist and the resurrection of the body.

And this connection, they just take for granted.

Like, when you read, uh, Ignatius of Antioch, when you read Justin Martyr, when you read Irenaeus of Lyon, all writing in the 100s, 107, 150 to 160, and then 180, uh, they take for granted that one of the reasons we know Gnosticism is false is because obviously, since the Eucharist is the flesh of Jesus, this means we're going to bodily rise from the dead.

And I think a lot of people today, including a lot of Catholics, when they hear that, are just sort of like, What?

Like, what?

What's this connection?

I don't, I don't follow.

And so fortunately, some of them, uh, later ones like Gregory of Nyssa in the 300s, explain, uh, what this connection is.

You get a little bit of explanation in Irenaeus.

But anyway, I love this topic.

I'm super excited about this topic.

But I'll tell you, it is not the easiest topic to figure out a thumbnail-title combo for that makes any sense.

So I'm telling you that now.

Whatever it ends up looking like, I think you should click it.

I'm really excited about it.

All right.

Uh, looks like the first question was somebody just saying, uh, How are you?

And I, I'm doing very well.

Um, I Yeah, I'd say Okay, let's see.

I'm taking this question very seriously.

We had a lovely weekend, and a very joyful one.

This morning, I heard the kind of sad news about a, you know, fellow Catholic influencer who has, uh, had some kind of scandal attached to his name.

And it's someone whose work I'd kind of come around to lately, and was liking some of the things he was doing.

So it is very disheartening to see.

I think I'll probably do an episode on Thursday, um, trying to maybe give some tips for those who maybe this is your first time, where somebody you look up to has had a sort of fall from grace, or hasn't been everything they seemed to be.

Uh, those of you who are older Catholics and have been Catholic for a while may remember there were some scandals back in the day, uh, Father John Corapi, et cetera, where people who were well-beloved, um, you know, had some scandal attached to them.

So that was a you know, that was a sad way of kind of entering into a Monday.

And then, uh, one of my kids turns out to have two cavities.

We went to the dentist this morning.

So Monday's been off to a very Monday start.

Um, yeah, let's I just say that.

Okay.

Uh, GW Drummer says, Is it a sin to say the N-word?

I would say yes.

Now, I think there's, uh, what's called the use/mention distinction.

Um, mentioning it wouldn't be the same as using it.

So there are contexts where you might have to mention the word to explain You know, if somebody says, I don't know what word that is.

I don't know uh, like, like someone who's genuinely baffled.

You, you might be in a situation where you're like, Well, I sort of have to say it here to, uh, kind of explain it.

But using it is different than mentioning it.

And using it, it does seem, in the context I mean, again, let's add a second level of, of layer.

Language is heavily shaped by social norms and customs and everything else.

So what is offensive in one culture may not be offensive in another culture, or what's offensive in one time may not be offensive in another time.

A term like colored, for instance.

Saying colored people back in the day wasn't offensive at all.

I mean, the NAACP has colored people right there in the name.

Or the Negro League museums.

And so there is an evolutionary nature to language.

I know some people don't like that, but, uh, that is one of those instances where, um, if a term becomes offensive and is, uh, used in a degrading way, then to knowingly use it when that's kind of the connotation attached to it would be wrong.

So, uh, I would say, you know, based on all that, you shouldn't use language that tears other people down in a way that is, uh, degrading to their human dignity.

And, you know, like, using white supremacist language and then standing before Jesus, who is, you know, not gonna fit neatly into a white supremacist box, doesn't seem like a wise way to live one's life.

So I'd just maybe add that as well.

All right, Sherado 145 says, I'm born into an Evangelical Baptist home which is heavily anti-Catholic.

I can't convert just yet.I- IDEK? Anyone who's- oh, I don't know anyone who's Catholic.

Sorry.

There's an E there.

I'm not just so old that I don't know what IDK stands for.

I just assumed I-D-E-K was some young slang that I'm too, uh, out of it to, to recognize.

Yeah.

I don't know how old you are, and then that can create some additional kind of complications.

Let's say, do what you can.

Um, Sanca Cherry's a good example of someone who is young and nevertheless decided, you know, I'm going to Oh, I don't even know.

I guess it was, it is young slang.

Thank you, Vanessa.

Having someone who can be a generational translator is extremely helpful.

You don't know what it feels like to get old, 'cause it doesn't happen all at once.

You just suddenly realize you don't know slang anymore, and didn't ever make It wasn't like one day I was just like, I'm gonna not worry about slang anymore.

It's just one day, I'm hip, and then the next day people are saying, Skibidi Toilet, Ohio, and I'm baffled as to what any of this means.

In any case, you do what you can do in the context in which you are.

You can convert at the level of the heart, and dedicate your life to Christ if you're in a situation where maybe you're incapable of getting to mass.

Maybe you are in a situation where you can't feasibly convert, uh, in terms of making a, you know, public profession of faith and confirmation and all that.

But I think you have to be authentic.

Like, you can't, um, be duplicitous.

So that might require having some uncomfortable conversations, like with family members.

And it probably would be very helpful, uh, to get to know people in your diocese, so that you do even know people who are Catholics.

Uh, the beautiful thing about, uh, Catholicism is that it is very universal.

Now, there are places where it's a little sparse.

Like, the American South is pretty sparse.

I don't know where you're at.

But if you know what diocese you're in, uh, then, uh, that's something that I think, you know, you could at least have a starting point.

You can look up, like, a local parish.

You can even call the pastor, and then you can try to get connected to whatever faithful young adults that there are.

And I think you should just be very straightforward to say, Hey, I'm a young Christian discerning whether to become fully Catholic, and it would be very helpful to have real-life faithful young Catholics, not just people on screen, with whom to talk.

And, you know, hopefully, God willing, you'll end up forming some real, uh, friendships along the way, and have people to kind of accompany you on, on this journey.

It's, it's very, uh, very helpful to, to have that.

Uh, Harmony said, um, Protestants here are a large part of my diocese and people can't even g- hardly get priests.

Yeah, so there are places like that.

I don't know what diocese you're in, but in many If, if you wanna throw in your diocese in the chat, if that's not self-doxing too much.

I don't think it's too specific.

Uh, and anyone else in the chat who happens to live in that place and wanna give your own name, or maybe a good parish or a good priest or something like that, this, this is something that can be really helpful.

Because finding that, you know, it's crazy.

You will Uh, actually my pastor was talking about this today, or yesterday in his homily.

He was saying, you know, we are Like, they, he's very actively, like, trying to build up more parish community, because he's got kind of a destination parish.

And so we don't live terribly far from it, but there are people who drive in, like, half an hour away 'cause it's such a beautiful mass.

And so they have been working with, like, parishioner information to try to, like, create a little map and then set up, like, where people live regionally, so they can get together in person.

And he was saying, you know, there are times where it's, like, two people on the same block don't even realize they're parishioners at the same parish, 'cause, you know, like, uh, neighborhoods are a little more anonymous than they were before.

And if you're not careful, parishes can be, too.

So having things like that can be super helpful.

I'm a big believer that community is, is clutch.

It is absolutely vital.

If you're going through it alone in a world that is often hostile to Christianity, it's not a good way to do it.

Sometimes it's unavoidable, but if you can have community Like, Jesus sends them out two by two for a reason.

Nate gave $2.

No questions were asked.

Well, thank you, Nate.

If you have questions, fire away.

God bless you.

Uh, Eric L. Harb says, I'm Orthodox.

Where would you say the first popes claimed to have immediate universal authority?

Uh, so I don't think they originally put it in those kind of terms.

I think the first thing you see is just this phenomenon of popes, uh, intervening in disputes, u- upon request, typically.

Uh, but getting directly involved in disputes all over the church in a way you don't really see anybody else, even other, like, patriarchs and bishops doing.

Um, so you go back to '96, and you've got the Corinthians in Corinth, and when there's a dispute in the church, they write to Pope Clement.

Now, this is pre-'96, 'cause he apologizes for how long it's taking to get back with them.

So the Corinth, you know, they could write to the Apostle John, who was alive and doesn't live that far from them, and they write to the Church of Rome.

That kind of thing seems to be, uh, an indication of an authority that Rome has that nobody else has.

Or you jump forward, you know, like 190, uh, you've got this whole situation with Pope Victor and the, uh, Quatuordeciman controversy, where he's getting involved in the churches of Asia Minor, telling them, uh, what date they need to have Easter on, and, uh, threatening them with excommunication.

And he gets talked down from that, but it's very clear that he's under the belief that he can do this.

Now, people can guess whether other people agreed with that belief or not, but nobody actually says he didn't have the authority to do it.

They just don't think he's using the authority well.

Uh, so you do see this stuff quite early on.

Even before that, Irenaeus talks about the necessity of agreeing with the Church of Rome, uh, in Against Heresies, book III, chapter 3.And, uh, that's not So I watched little snippets of one of the debates Jay Dyer did.

Um, well, I think it might have been with Alex from Voice of Reason.

Actually, I don't remember who it was with.

Uh, but in the clip he misquotes, uh, book three, chapter three.

He claims like, Rome has this authority because it's like the, uh, capital.

But Irenaeus explicitly says, Rome has this authority because as a matter of necessity that other churches agree with it.

So that doesn't sound like, uh, administrative authority or anything like that, like later orthodox will claim.

So yeah, I mean, it's certainly one of those things where you, you see it in clearer view later on, as with many other things.

You know, the orthodoxy of like the Trinity or, uh, certain aspects of Christology.

Those things come into clearer view later, but you see them, uh, clearly enough, I think.

Uh, Apostolic in Nature asks for my thoughts about the ongoing situation with Voice of Reason/Alex.

I'm gonna probably do an episode on that on Thursday.

I was debating whether I'd be able to add anything in a way that'd be helpful.

And I think, I think there's a way of speaking into it that will be good.

So let me just say a few things now.

Number one, it is possible to do a lot of good and still struggle with sin.

And when somebody else is in that category, we can take the good that they've done without having to throw everything out.

I don't want people You know, because there are probably people who are watching who like, this was someone who was incredibly influential in their own spiritual journey.

And then when something like this happens, it can be incredibly disruptive, and it can, it can throw you off kilter a lot.

And it's an understandable reaction.

It's human in a, in a very deep way, and I, I wanna acknowledge that.

And there's even something rooted in the truth about it in this sense, that one of the arguments for the faith is the presence of the saints.

That when you see people actually living this, they live lives of incredible holiness.

But you also see people professing it who don't always live lives of incredible holiness, and even the saints struggle with sin.

So don't take the argument for, from saints in the sense that if there's any non-saints or any saints struggling with sin, et cetera, uh, that therefore Catholicism is not true.

But it's an understandable reaction, right?

And so we want to respect the This is a grieving process that goes on there.

Take the good arguments, right?

I mean, Socrates and Aristotle did some things in their private life that I wouldn't like.

And, uh, you know, a fair amount of Symposium involves like weird discussions of like man-boy love that is, uh, deeply unsettling.

Nevertheless, the Symposium is a beautiful work of incredible, uh, insight.

And so being able to separate the rose from the thorns can be tricky sometimes.

But I would say it's, it's well worth it.

One of my favorite articles This is gonna sound very strange.

One of my favorite articles on, uh, the authorship of the Gospel of John came from this Professor Jackson.

And I'd never heard of him, and I It was a really insightful article just arguing that the usual scholarly assumptions about a Johannine community and all this stuff have like very little evidence supporting them.

And it's just something people just kinda take for granted.

And if you ask them, Well, where's the actual evidence?

It turns out there's not much.

And I was like, Wow, this is brilliant, and wanted to find out more about this Professor Jackson, and like, how I hadn't heard of him before.

I have no idea if the guy was a Christian or anything like this, 'cause it I mean, the, the nature of the article was just scholarship.

And it turns out he had like a, a roommate, or maybe a live-in girlfriend who he murdered.

Sorry to bum you out over your lunch break.

But my point is like, I still like the article.

I don't endorse the guy at all.

That's a much worse allegation than anything else I've heard, right?

Um, so we want to distinguish between those two.

And then I've, I've got some tips as well for people who might be in the public space.

Like, you have to live lives of uprightness, and expect accountability.

And it's a mercy.

It is a mercy to be exposed if you are living a double life, even though it doesn't feel like a mercy.

Like, I'm sure this is the worst week of Alex's life.

And nevertheless, I am sure that this is a grace of God, because the deeds done in darkness will be brought to light.

And it's so much better if it's here and now, uh, than if it's at the last judgment.

So more could be said on that.

Um, I, I mean, we wanna I don't think this is a case where there's like a, he said/she said.

At this point there's not two sides to the story, and the people around Alex seem to be agreeing that this story is, is true.

And so then it's just a case of, of a tragic fall.

Um, and it might be the end of, of his kind of contributions in a public way.

But it might be the corrective needed to let him be the saint that God wants him to be.

And we have to trust that that's gonna do more good than all of the YouTube videos in the world will.

Um, again, more on that on Thursday.

I don't wanna Yeah, more on that on Thursday.

StormPillar says, What is your reply when someone said, would say the Coptic Church's fall schism magisterium or ecumenical councils contradict each other?

First thing would just be to ask, Well, where and how?

Second thing is distinguishing between levels of authority.

Because we talk about fallible and infallible teaching.

And so many times what people call a contradiction is more that things were handled one way in like the 18th century than they'd be handled in the 21st century.

That's not, strictly speaking, a contradiction.

Like, a parent treats a five-year-old differently than a 25-year-old.

And that's not a contradiction.

That's different situations requiring different prudential action.

And so particularly if it's at the level of action, then I would kind of address that.

Additionally, there may be areas where, um, a low level magisterial teaching, something that, that's part of very clearly the fallible magisterium .

is not well-suited and needs to be corrected by something the Church can clarify later.

This is one of the things we believe as Catholics.

So there's no contradiction in that sense, to anything we believe.

Like, we recognize that there can be a corrective set.

So you know, John XXII, in a papal homily, seems to suggest that the, uh, souls of the righteous, when they die, don't immediately enjoy the beatific vision, but will only enjoy it after the last judgment.

That's wrong.

It wasn't a bit of defined Church dogma, so it wasn't, you know, technically heresy in that sense, but it's nevertheless wrong.

It doesn't fit in with what we believe as Catholics and what God has revealed.

The theologians at the University of Paris quickly, um, correct him on this.

He retracts it, and then the pope after him dogmatically defines that they do in fact enjoy the beatific vision immediately.

So, uh, you know, you have those kind of situations.

Usually, there's a handful of situations where people will claim that there's a contradiction.

So Vatican II seems much more optimistic than, say, the Council of Trent about the salvation of those who aren't fully within the Catholic fold.

I don't think, number one, that that's an actual contradiction.

Uh, number two, I think it's fair to say people are in different situations.

You know, you've got, like, Catholic Europe, and somebody knowingly rejecting, seeing the faith that they grew up in, the faith that, like, all their ancestors for several centuries had been in, they're in a different boat than someone who was never fully exposed to Catholicism.

Or l- you know, you're a Lutheran in Sweden, and you've never met a Catholic, say.

Or you're a Protestant in Alabama, and you're not making the same knowing rejection of the faith that the first generation of reformers were.

And you coming to a relationship with Christ might mean becoming a Lutheran or becoming a Baptist.

That's not syncretism.

That's not indifferentism.

That's not any of those things.

It's recognizing people are judged based on what they know and not what they don't know, and the Church always recognizes that.

And so even when we talk about something being damnable, whether it is explicitly mentioned or not, it is always at least implicit that for something to be damnable, it has to be both grave matter and done knowingly and done freely.

And so if any of those criteria is gone, then it's not moral.

So there's probably a pretty good argument to be made that people in the 20th century were less likely to be knowingly, um, heretical on doctrines than people in the 16th century were.

And even in, in all those cases, Vatican II still says those who know of the necessity of the Church for salvation and refuse to en- enter cannot be saved.

So there's a total difference, for sure.

There's maybe a different set of assumptions about the likelihood of someone falling into invincible ignorance, et cetera, but that only is a true contradiction.

We can get into more cases like that, but I would just say try to drill down.

Okay, what are the specific statements you think are contradictory?

And then what did these mean at the time, uh, or is it just your assumption of X and your assumption Y contradict?

'Cause that very well may be.

Like, you misreading two documents, that could easily happen.

Those two doctrines tru- or two documents truly contradicting each other is a great deal less likely.

And then you look at things like Vatican II explicitly reaffirming the Church's traditional teaching on the necessity of the Church.

So, I don't know.

I, I think that's what I would say there.

That actually tees up nicely Cruz says, Are you familiar with the controversy around some of Lofton's recent takes on salvation through the rituals of other religions?

Thoughts on this?

I am aware that there is a controversy.

I started to watch a little bit about it this morning, and then got distracted with something else, I think taking my kids to the dentist.

So, I, at this point, am probably too ignorant to speak intelligently on it.

Um, we don't wanna give the impression that other religions are equally good as Christianity or, or something like this.

The traditional view is that these are preparation for the Gospel, that God uses the wisdom and insights of these other religions, you know, natural religion has a good deal of truth in it, to lead people to the Gospel.

That might be what he's saying.

I don't kn- I don't know enough of the situation, so I don't wanna speak and I don't wanna put words in the mouth of Michael Lofton or anybody else.

Um, but I think we wanna be clear that those who are innocently ignorant of elements of the Gospel might be saved, because it's different than knowing rejection, but we don't wanna There, there's a way to take that in a very dangerous way, with the kind of anonymous Christian theology of Rauner, that- that can easily go too far in a way that really stymies evangelization, where you say, Well, just be the best whatever you can be, and that's good enough.

And that's not good enough, 'cause God wants something more.

Like, he wants one flock, one shepherd.

There was a lot of loose talk about this in the late 20th century, and I, I think the Catholics have gotten a lot better on that.

YoungBabyTate said, Any good guidelines on moral culpability relating to addiction or other diminishing factors when it comes to sin, apart from the fact that the Catechism mentions it as a factor?

Yeah, I think that's where I would start.

Um, addiction is something we don't know a ton about still.

As strange as that is to say, it's still a fairly young field in terms of, like, deep knowledge.

Uh, what's the Mark uh, oh, the Chinese martyr.

Uh, St. Mark, uh, Tian?

Yeah, Mark J. Tian, Tianxiang?

T-I-A-N-X-I-A-N-G. I'm not sure I'm nailing that.

Um, he was an opium addict.

And so we, we have at least one very clear case of someone who was struggling with addiction, was combating it their whole life, but was struggling with addiction and who was still a great saint.

And so God can make use of your, uh, addictions and everything else and your spiritual journey.

But we don't wanna trivialize 'em.

We don't wanna say they, they don't matter.

You should be heaven bent, if you will, on, uh, squashing those, on giving them no room.

And if you really believe that you're in a situation where you deal with addiction, whether it's addiction to drug or sexual addiction or whatever else, s- seek out the resources that you would if you believed that seriously.

Don't just use it as an excuse to justify your sin.

But like if you think you're addicted to a vice, get a support group, reach out to other people.

Like respond to that like that is the biggest problem in your life because it very well may be.

And just get to work on combating that, and it can be incredibly liberating.

I have Someone I'm close to is in AA, and I've been to a couple meetings, uh, with them, and it's beautiful.

Like just seeing people who are aware of their own brokenness and their dependence upon God is actually something, um, really inspiring and something that I think, even though AA isn't, like, explicitly Catholic or anything like this, the spirituality of it can very easily be put in a Catholic context with maybe some minor adjustments.

Uh, DS says, Will you ever give your own take on who is the Angel of the Lord?

Some people have some interesting suggestions.

Also, is an angel just a messenger?

Well, just is a problem.

Aangelos is messenger, but, uh, when the Father sends his messenger in the person of Jesus Christ, that's He is the Angel of the Lord in that context, um, but he's obviously not an angel.

So I believe it's Saint Gregory the Great talks about how angel is a term for a role, not a term for a nature.

So even though we talk about angels and archangels, these are terms we use for spirits who have particular roles, um, and that's why they have that name.

But there are other people who can serve as angels.

And so the word for angel is used in the Old Testament to refer also to the priest, and I would argue in the New Testament Revelation, uh, one to three, when you have the seven angels of revelation, that these are the seven bishops, and then it's using that, that usage.

This is a person who represents the gospel to you, and they are the messenger of the good news.

And so, uh, when you read about the Angel of the Lord, remember that it can mean much more than just Gabriel.

And it You know, and it could very well in certain Old Testament contexts, be a, a reference to, uh, the second person of the Trinity.

And the two Yahwehs, as they're called, uh, they're the two powers, that you, you have this force where, you know, Psalm, Psalm 110, the most quoted psalm in the New Testament, Psalm 110:1.

The Lord said to my Lord, said at my right.

Uh, Jesus plays with this psalm in the New Testament where he is kinda like, Huh, h- how does that make sense?

How is this the son of David, but also David's Lord, referring to his own pre-existence?

But there when it says, The Lord said to my Lord, it's about the Father and Son and the interaction between them.

So you have passages like that.

And so then when you hear about the Angel of the Lord, that could mean an angel like you might be expecting.

That could mean Jesus.

That could mean a priest.

It could mean, you know, any kind of messenger of the good news.

Um, Batman Incorporated says, Modern consensus of scholars says book of Hebrews is not written by Paul.

Taking church fathers into account, example, Clement of Alexandria, is there enough evidence for Pauline authorship?

The church fathers aren't sure who wrote Hebrews.

You'll find different views on it.

It is certainly Pauline in certain senses, meaning, like, it has more of the theological, uh, focus of a lot of Paul's letters.

It's the things that he's most interested in writing about.

But there are also some real distinctions.

So Well, for one, the audience.

He's writing to the Hebrews, whereas Paul, pretty famously focuses more on the Gentiles, not exclusively, it's often exaggerated, but focuses more on the Gentiles.

And, uh, also, there's much more of an explicit focus on the priesthood of Christ.

This is something that you can find in Paul, but it's more implicit.

So in First Corinthians 10, when he compares the Eucharistic sacrifice to the pagan and the Jewish sacrifices, there's an implicit theology of the priesthood.

But the only book of the New Testament to explicitly refer to Jesus as a priest is, is Hebrews.

So it is linguistically and stylistically and thematically somewhat unique.

So as a result, I'm not convinced it's not Paul.

I'm not convinced it is Paul.

I am convinced it is divinely inspired.

And, uh, so as a result, like the question of whether Paul wrote it has never been something I focused a ton on because it's something where Yeah, this was an area where the church consensus did not exist in the same way it did for other books.

Uh, Andrea Govea Mata, hope I'm pronouncing that right, says, How does the Catholic faith discern that we can eat pork now?

I got asked but didn't know how to answer.

Thank you for everything you do.

Oh, thank you.

Very kind of you.

So yeah, there's a couple places.

The most famous is in Acts chapter 10.

St. Peter has this vision of, um, a blanket.

I like to imagine a picnic blanket descending from heaven with a bunch of different foods on it, including things that were not kosher.

And, and God saying, Rise, slaughter, and eat, which I think would be a great episcopal motto.

I don't really.

Uh, I just like it as someone who likes food too much.

But rise, slaughter and eat is a great divine command.

And Peter says, How can I Lord, I've never eaten anything unclean.

I'm paraphrasing, probably not getting I can just quote him directly.

But he says Oh no, I think he says, like, like, I won't do it.

Let me find out.He said, No, Lord, for I've never eaten anything that is common or unclean.

There it is.

And then he was told, What God has cleansed, you must not call common.

So, um, before that, Jesus had already hinted at the fact that the kosher laws had been fulfilled when He said that what, uh, renders you impure is not what goes into your body but what comes out.

And, uh, this Then Mark says, Thus, He made all foods clean.

But He doesn't do that explicitly.

Like, it's not that Jesus announced this in such a way that people couldn't miss it.

But Mark's just explaining the implication in Mark 7:19.

So, um, the question then becomes, okay, why?

Well, the whole reason the kosher laws exist, and these are part of a whole realm of, of similar Mosaic laws, is to separate the Jewish people from their Pagan neighbors so they don't fall into, uh, polytheism and idolatry, and so they remain radically unique.

So there's all these cultural markers.

And the radical uniqueness exists for two reasons.

One, for their own spiritual self-preservation, because they're surrounded by idol worshipers.

And two, pre- to prepare for the coming of the Messiah.

But this was never meant to be just the end of things.

That once the Messiah came, the mission is to bring in the Gentiles.

Like, through Abraham, all nations are going to be blessed.

And so it was always like phase one, build up this people which is pure and which is untainted by the stain of idolatry and all that.

And then, through this people, salvation comes from the Jews.

The Gentiles are then incorporated under the people of God.

That Israel expands.

It isn't abandoned.

It expands to include the Gentiles, not only the Hebrews.

And so this second phase happens with Christ coming into the world very clearly.

And so all the kosher laws have now been fulfilled.

They are no longer necessary because their purpose has been fulfilled.

And what's more, now they actually can be an impediment, because the point now isn't, I need to stay at arm's length from my Pagan neighbor.

Now I need to actually go out to my Pagan neighbor to tell them the good news of Jesus Christ.

We need to go out to all nations.

And so there's a, a major shift from kind of, uh, Fortress Judaica to the Great Commission.

And, uh, there is a raising of the bastions, if, if you'll take a von Balthazar, uh, kind of allusion, of, you know, we, we kind of blocked everybody else off because we think they're impure, but now we need to actually go out to them.

And if there are things that are unnecessarily keeping us from having fellowship with them, those things need to be put aside.

And that's really disruptive to a lot of people.

And as a result, people were very, uh, troubled by that.

But there you go.

Like, hopefully that makes sense.

Uh, Minor Improvement says, People want to believe, but have trouble submitting to Christ without seeing physical proof.

Would Saint Thomas have gone to hell without proof?

What happens to modern people who demand proof?

Well, if Saint Thomas would have, like, refused to believe in Jesus despite all the other abundant evidence, then I think he probably I mean, who can say?

But I think he probably would have gone to hell.

Yeah, I think he'd been exposed to more than enough to be morally accountable.

Uh, and nevertheless, given the unique role that he has, Jesus is still very merciful to him.

He doesn't give people just the bare minimum of evidence.

It is nevertheless true he often refuses to meet people's evidentiary demands on their terms.

If you've ever tried to put God on a timeline or make specific demands of God, you often know that He refuses to be your genie or your butler.

Um, so be it.

Turns out he wants to be your god, your lord, not your servant.

The physical proof thing, I think it's tricky, because I think people who demand physical proof often don't really have a good idea of what even would be proof that would convince them.

So, you know, there's Eucharistic miracles all over the world.

Is that physical proof enough?

Or do you need to physically perform a miracle yourself before you'll believe it?

And if so, why?

Like, that whole idea that, like, the real things in life are the things we can study under a microscope is a belief system that can't be put under a microscope.

It is self-refuting.

It re- really is a very silly way of viewing the world.

It's an understandable way in a certain form, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the modern scientism is in many ways the modern version of idolatry.

So, let me explain that.

Idol worshipers in the ancient world wanted a god they could see, and so they invented their own gods and they worshiped them.

And that's an understandable human impulse.

We want to have a face-to-face encounter.

If you've ever done like a long distance relationship, you know how hard it can be to not see your beloved.

So, okay, fair enough.

I get that.

But it's still dumb.

Um, and if you're having a long distance relationship and decide to cheat on your spouse so you can have someone you can look at, that's not good.

You wouldn't be like, Oh, well, we understand it.

You want to be able to see them.

Not a- not acceptable.

Well, that, and so a lot of the Old Testament, it just makes fun of idolatry for how stupid it is.

But a lot of scientism, where it treats the real as the visible and observable testable phenomena, is making the exact same set of, um, presuppositional errors, it seems to me.

And again, it's like you just do a little bit of critical thinking and say, Well, is your belief system observable under a microscope?

Oh, it's not?

Okay, then either it's wrong because it's not observable under a microscope, or it's wrong because belief systems can be true without being observable under a microscope.

Either way, the whole thing sort of falls apart.

So I would, I would stress that.

Um what does God do with such people who are confused?

That's something we entrust to His mercy, but we, we try for their conversion.

There's a great point in, uh, Ronald Knox's book, The Belief of Catholics, where he talks about, uh, at the time, you know, people Uh, someone asked what happened, and the answer is, I have no idea.

I, I was, uh, I was going, and then it crashed for a second.

So hopefully you can hear me now.

And it looks like we're, we're back.

Yep.

All right .

Fortunately, I've, I've learned what to do now when that happens.

Like before , I just like completely had to restart the stream, and it was a huge mess.

Um, okay, but anyway, all, all I was saying there, and, and that was probably God's way of telling me to wrap it up, was we entrust such people to God's mercy.

There's a point in, uh, Monsignor Ronald Knox book, The Belief of Catholics, where he talks about if you, uh, insist on having a duel, and, uh How, how does he do it?

He's like, if you insist that the weapon for the duel is only gonna be swords, you can't also say you wanna, like, oh, the winner is whoever shoots the other one.

Some I'm, I'm butchering the analogy.

But likewise, if you're going to take the miraculous off the table because, Oh, it's supernatural, then you can't then demand miraculous explanations.

Likewise, if you're gonna insist that all proof has to be physical, then just recognize, okay, well, you're gonna be removing, for no reason, 95% of the available evidence.

And in a way that would make it impossible to do something like history.

Like, if I had to prove George Washington was the first president, but I had to use only physical evidence, I have no idea how I would do that.

It's, it's, like, even very basic things would be very hard to do, um, with those kind of blinders on.

Uh, Aaron King says, Good afternoon, Joe.

I occasionally hear very surface-level comments about both very wicked popes in history and also anti-popes.

Also, the Western Schism, when there A full question is in express lane.

Where there were three, uh, popes, or three papal claimants, I assume.

Let me I could try to find the question from express lane chat.

All right, let me find, if I may, Aaron's Oh yeah, here we go.

There were three claimants, but eventually they were all deposed and there was a new pope.

Could you take some of these worst examples in history and share how the Holy Spirit prevented even the worst popes from teaching error?

Yeah, so a lot of the really bad popes were just popes who lived, like, sexually immoral lives, or they were too prone to, like, resorting to the sword in defense of either the church or the Papal States, or they were just greedy, et cetera.

And almost by definition, they weren't that interested in theology.

And so, um, they were, at worst, like, a scandalous distraction, but they didn't, like, say heretical things they Jeopardize the deposit of faith.

Um, even if they lived lives that were publicly scandalous, nothing in the Catholic claim, like, nothing in papal infallibility says, like, Oh, um, the pope's always gonna behave in the morally righteous way that a saint ought to.

No, that's not part of our claim.

Like, the whole point of papal infallibility is you're never gonna be put in a situation where you are forced to as- assent to a heretical teaching.

Because if you were, then you'd have to choose between heresy, by accepting, or schism, by rejecting.

And God says you're not allowed to do either of those things.

So, the whole point of papal infallibility is that you're not gonna be put in those situations.

So, even if you can point to the sinful and her- you know, uh, wicked popes, they're not putting people into those situations.

And the people who bring them up aren't really saying anything otherwise.

Like, you wouldn't disprove Protestantism by saying, Here are these, uh, sex scandals of megachurch pastors.

They exist.

There's some crazy cases where you've got pastors, like, complicit in Uh, my wife was watching My wife loves true crime, and then gets scared when I, like, travel.

But that's We're just doing couples therapy, right?

Um, but she was doing some, uh, true crime watching.

It was about a pastor who was in an adulterous relationship and then murdered the husband of the woman he was having an affair with.

So, that's pretty bad, but that doesn't disprove Protestantism at all.

That just shows that guy is a hypocrite.

So, a lot of the cases brought up about bad popes are in that kinda category.

Um, and then the second is with the Western Schism.

So, the Western Schism, to do a very truncated version.

Avignon, uh, Papacy.

So, okay, France is a major geopolitical power, and, uh, Pope Boniface VIII stands up to the French and talks about the necessity for them to submit to the Roman pontiff.

This is famously in Unam Sanctam.

And Philip the Fair, the grandson of St. Louis of France, sadly Uh, some You can't Your grandkids go bad sometimes.

Philip the Fair sends some thugs to beat up Boniface, and they beat him nearly to death, and he dies shortly after.

And then, subsequent to that, the popes are encouraged/forced to move to Avignon in Southern France.

Now, the pro is Avignon is beautiful, and the French crown was only too happy to provide some luxurious kind of estates for the pope to be in captivity.

And also, Rome was a chaotic, um, mosquito-infested, overrun, uh, cesspool at times .

I say this having lived in Rome, and, you know, it gets muggy in the summer.

The Romans sometimes would get pretty violent and restless, an- and etc. So, there was this period called the Avignon Papacy, where it was true pope, very clearly, but he was in France rather than in Rome, where he should be, ideally.

He's the bishop of Rome.

And finally, uh, Saint Catherine of Siena writes to the Pope and says, Estovear, like, Be a man.

And so she kinda shames the pope into bravely standing up to the French crown, moving the papacy back to Rome.

And the pope pretty promptly dies.

And then, the Romans take to the streets to riot, to demand that the next pope be a Roman who will stay in Rome.

Next pope is chosen.

Everything's good at first, but then he starts making some, uh, reforms in the Church that some of the cardinals don't like.

And so the cardinals say, Hey, we didn't actually feel like we had a free vote because there were, like, mobs outside.

And so we are now going to be safely, surprisingly, hey, in France.

And we're gonna elect a real pope, because that one didn't count.

It was coerced, and you know, you can't do these things coerced.

And so they, um, elect someone they claim is the true pope.

Now, I just want to pause for a second and say, it's a legitimate question in a situation like that.

Like, was this a valid election given the irregularities of, like, a mob being outside?

It's not crazy.

Like, you can believe in the papacy and believe all that stuff, and still not immediately know the answer to, well, what happens if there's a mob outside?

Like, in the same way you can believe in, uh, marriage as a sacrament, and still have a case where you're like, I don't know if that couple actually was free to be married or not, 'cause there were enough complicating factors that Was that valid?

Um, and so you have saints, or at least blesseds, who are on both sides of this question, who, who follow the Roman line and follow, uh, the, the Avignon line.

And the Roman line is the true line, by the way.

And then some other cardinals get together and they decide to be, uh, helpful, and they try to get a council together to declare, i- in Pisa, Neither line is going to be recognized.

We, as these, these cardinals declare both deposed, and we're gonna elect our own guy.

And they don't actually have the authority to do that.

Like, if you just said, Hey, I'm not sure about the election of, like, the president, so I'm just gonna call my own election and declare my own president.

You can't do that.

So now, they've actually made the problem worse by adding a third claimant.

So now you've got the Roman line and the Avignon line, and the Pisan line.

So this is a mess.

And the Church is kind of at a loss.

Like, what do we do here?

Pisan line never really takes off much because it's obviously not gonna work.

Like, e- all of the problems you would have with the Avignon line are gonna also be there for the Pisan line.

The cardinals didn't have the authority to convoke a conclave, etc. So then finally, there is another ecumenical council, and this time, uh, the true pope of Rome voluntarily resigns.

So that we can, Hey, the only way this is gonna be resolved is if all three people claiming to be Pope resign, and if they refuse to resign, those other two guys need to be deposed 'cause they are actually anti-popes.

And then we can have a clean papal election, and this whole thing will be resolved.

And that's exactly what happened.

The, the true pope resigns.

I think I would have to go back and look.

I think the antipope from Pisa also resigned 'cause he's, you know, he's in good faith.

He's just trying to do the right thing.

The, uh, Avignon antipope refuses to resign, and so he's deposed.

And so, um, at that point, you have a clean papal election.

This raises some lingering questions about the authority of councils, vis-a-vis a pope, but because the pope voluntarily submitted, it was, it was nice, and nice and fairly clean.

So, hope that helps.

The Man from Nance.

A small question, what are your thoughts on the Knights of Columbus, and would you consider joining?

Technically a first-degree.

It's not really my speed.

Um, so it's not like some deep doctrinal thing.

The, the secretive part doesn't do anything for me, and actually I find a little off-putting.

Um, you know, it's, it's supposed to be like a Catholic counterbalance to the Masons.

I find some of that kind of weird and off-putting, but I don't think it's sinful.

Just speaking totally honestly.

And so I know some groups where guys have gotten together, and they've formed good Knights councils, and they've done amazing work for the Church, and they've had good fellowship and all of that.

And I think that's tremendous, and I, I don't wanna knock that in the slightest.

Knights councils, in my experience, there's some very good ones, and then there's some ones that are more of a mixed bag.

Um, where it's just, you know, guys drinking beer and maybe, uh, doing a fish fry for the Church.

But I think it's a good way for men to, uh, have fellowship while building up the Church, and also it's a good example of kind of intergenerational male fellowship, which is something that can be a little bit hard to get in other contexts.

Uh, SirCastillot says, Do you support the material sufficiency view of scripture?

If so, why?

I, I mean, you, you certainly can believe this as a Catholic.

I don't, and my reason is basically twofold.

Well, I'll just say, first and foremost, I don't know from a material sufficiency view how you would derive the canon of scripture in any clear way.

And so it seems like I think it's, it's maybe fair to say everything that we hold dogmatically is at least implicitly in scripture if you treat the books of the Bible as, um, artifacts of revelation rather than objects of revelation, in terms of the canon list.

This is James White's distinction, and it's, it's a smart distinction.

So I think there's, uh, room for it, if you take that view.

It feels like an unnecessary thing to argue for, so I just don't argue for it.

Like, I, I don't think there's anything wrong, but if, my view would be whatever knowledge you have about which books are in the Bible is not coming from the Bible telling you so.

It's coming from things you know about the Bible.

So, if your view of material sufficiency can accept that, then fine.

Um, but otherwise, I think it runs into some of the same problems Sola Scriptura does.Eric says, Is there any merit to the Orthodox' concerns with Vatican I's articulation of the papacy?

What concessions would Rome allow the East in autonomy, if any?

Yeah.

I mean, the East has a fair amount of autonomy in things like the selection of bishops and, and all this.

And, um, it's more that the Pope could intervene in an emergency kind of context.

Now, technically this has already happened in the first thousand years of the Church, but Hang on.

Coughing.

So, I, I don't think you could just get rid of, like, Orthodox fears.

Like, what if the Pope used his authority really aggressively?

And look, if you Again, go back to, uh, Pope Victor in 190.

There are times where, uh, the Pope does use his authority in a way that's probably too aggressive.

There are times where fathers do that.

I say that as a father who sometimes is like, Maybe I should've picked my battles a little better on that one.

Uh, or, Maybe I didn't handle that great.

My authority as a father isn't tied to my brilliance in using that authority well every time, thanks be to God, because otherwise we'd be in trouble.

Well, likewise with the papacy.

So I, I get the Orthodox concern that, What if the Pope abuses his authority?

And this is true also with patriarch.

Like, what if, hypothetically, you had a patriarch who was, like, a puppet of the Russian state, say?

Um, those kinda things can happen, we'll say.

And, you know, I don't know any Orthodox who like both Pa- Patriarch Bar- Bartholomew and Patriarch Kirill.

Um, they're very different, stylistically.

It is clearly possible to have patriarchal authority and to use it in a bad way.

Um, what a bad way looks like to an individual Christian might, might vary.

So, yeah.

That's what I would say to that.

Like, yes, the authority can be abused.

That is part of the nature of the problem of authority, and every solution runs into its own problems.

If you say, Well, let's just all be congregationalists instead, now you've got the problem of, like, the, the masses can also, uh, misuse their authority.

So, yeah.

Uh, in terms of concessions the, that Rome would allow the East, yeah, there, there's quite a bit.

Everything from the role of Now, you know, historically, the patriarchs are often made cardinals, so they have this important role in electing the Pope.

And, um, they're not expected to have celibate priests and, and all this.

Um, they, you know, they have married priests, they have a different code of canon law, they have special protections in the case of a marriage between an Eastern Catholic and a Western Catholic, to make sure that the Eastern Catholic, uh, it's in their church unless there's a dispensation from the bishop.

All this stuff to make sure that You know, like, there are way more Western Catholics than there are Eastern Catholics.

There are way more Western Catholics than there are Eastern Orthodox.

We don't want the unique liturgical and theological heritage of the East to just be destroyed in favor of, like, the Latin traditions.

Um, and so the Church has actually taken steps to try to preserve those.

And, uh, there You know, i- this is something where I think the Church is much more in tune with this in the last, say, 100 years compared to before.

Like, you have, certainly in the US, this problem in the 19th century, of You know, 'cause writ large, the Pope was often very good about this, but individual bishops, like Bishop John Ireland, were not good about this.

And so one of the reasons the Orthodox Church in America exists is because American bishops were upset that, like, the Eastern Catholic bishops, or the Eastern Catholic priests, excuse me, weren't celibate, and they were afraid this was gonna scandalize and confuse people at a time when there weren't a lot of Catholics to begin with.

And so, the obnoxious, unnecessary infighting ensues, and then they, they break off and go Orthodox.

So, I think that's something where we've also learned from that.

Like, don't put unnecessary burdens on the East, but we're It's not gonna be something where we, like, abandon our own theological heritage just to become more like Eastern Orthodox.

That's not gonna be it.

Um, you have two prior examples, Second Fl- uh, Second Lyon and then the Council of Florence, of attempted reunion councils, and it was where the East acknowledged that theologically the, the Pope was right.

Now, they later repudiated this part of their own heritage, but it doesn't change the fact.

Jacob says, Hey, Joe.

Awesome books.

I agree w- with much of the content, but I still doubt it's truly the continuation of Christ's church.

Why are you convinced it is?

I tried to explain that in a couple of those books, but, uh, I'd say, very briefly, Israel was a visible people.

And the way the covenants are given to us, it's not that God abandons the idea of having a visible people in, in favor of an invisible people.

It's that he takes some of the people he has visibly and visibly unites them to others, faithful Samaritans and faithful Gentiles.

And so it's a reorganization, as it were, of the people of God, it's a reorganization of Israel, the grafting in.

So, if you understand the grafting in of the olive tree, that means grafting into Israel.

St. Paul says this in Ephesians 2. Th- what that means, ecclesiologically, is the Church has to be visible, because Israel is visible.

It doesn't make any sense to say, We reorganized Israel and now it turned invisible.

What are That doesn't make sense.

And you have plenty of other indications of the Church as the body of Christ, and the whole point of a body being visible.

The city on a hill, the reason it's on a hill is 'cause it's visible.

The reason it's a city is 'cause it's organized as so- as society.

So you have all these indications that, like, the true Church is a visible society.

It's also a structured society.

It has apostles and prophets.

It has bishops and elders and presbyter- or presbyters and, and deacons.

And you see it doing things, like at the Council of Jerusalem, speaking on behalf of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 15:28, It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us.

So given this, we are clearly, from the start, looking not for just a loose group of all people who call themselves Christians, wherever they may be.

We're looking for a gathering together, an Ekklesia.

Like, an assembly, visibly .

of followers of Jesus Christ.

And so, if we understand that that is the mission we're looking for, and it's not, just do whatever you want, call yourself whatever denomination you want, but there is this very specific kind of idea, um, then that narrows the options considerably to basically figuring out Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy.

And then you say, Well, what is the role of St. Peter?

And look at the whole story of Old Testament to New Testament, and this pattern of leaving one man in charge, even amongst other leaders, and it makes sense.

Like, the- the case for Catholicism matches so nicely the historical evidence and the New Testament, and the Old Testament, even.

But that's the, again, very shortened form of, um, yeah, why- why I'm Catholic.

Uh, Nate said, After complications from three C-sections, have been heavily advised to have vasectomy/hysterectomy.

Worried about wife's health, but wanna follow the Church's rules on birth control.

Advice?

Yeah, don't do anything that is going to like mutilate yourself to protect your wife's health.

Just be continent, if this is a- a legitimate worry.

Those issues, uh, this is one of those things very hard to answer any, uh, decent detail.

This is something to walk through with a priest.

In anything the church says off-limits, just take it as off-limits, even if you don't yet know why.

Because you can do irreversible damage to your own body.

Um, so just trust, don't do those things.

And then, work on trying to figure out like the complications and the origins of that.

Ideally, get somebody who's, uh, trained with like Catholic principles, who can deal with some of the underlying things.

A lot of the modern medical establishment treats women's health with kinda like a Band-Aid.

Just like, Have some birth control, have a hysterectomy, have whatever else.

And we're just gonna cover up the problem, and not investigate very deeply what's going on here or why.

Whereas like NaPro doctors and doctors who do NFP and all this stuff are often much more willing to get in the weeds and all the complications and messiness of like, Okay, so this is a complicated system.

What's going wrong here?

And- and trying to diagnose, uh, the underlying sort of issues.

And that, I think, is- is what to do.

And that might mean that you have to have a period of, um, you know, NFP for your wife's protection, and, uh, j- just avoiding pregnancy, where you just say, Okay, until we can figure this out, hormonal levels or whatever else need to get sorted, um, we'll abstain for a while, and then proceed from there.

So, yeah, and sorry to hear that you're going through that.

That is a really rough go.

But don't go to doctors who were telling you to mutilate your body as a solution to problems like that, I would say.

Uh, Daniel says, Does mortal sin lead people who are invincibly ignorant to help?

Well, it's not mortal sin if they're invincibly ignorant, definitionally.

They, the- they could be grave matter, but okay, you know, Jacob, he, uh, worked seven years to get married to Rachel, and he gets tricked and it's actually Leah.

But apparently he's had enough to drink at the wedding, he doesn't notice.

Um, situation like that.

Let's say, Rachel and Leah pull a switcharoo, and he accidentally commits adultery.

He has done something that is gravely wrong, adultery.

But he is apparently innocently ignorant of it, because he can't tell these two women apart.

So, in a situation like that, he would not be morally accountable.

Um, you know, or y- you wake up from a coma, and you go about your day.

And unbeknownst to you, you've slept through all of Saturday, and it's actually Sunday now.

Maybe not a coma.

You just slept, you're Rip Van Winkle.

You've- you've been working the night shift, you sleep.

You think it's Saturday when you wake up, it's actually Sunday.

You're in whatever situation you're in, you're not able to like check a clock, or, uh, you don't have a smartphone.

And so you have every reason to believe it's actually Saturday, and then it turns out to be Sunday.

You're not morally responsible for having missed mass there, because you didn't do it on purpose.

And you were, apparently in that case, invincibly ignorant.

You can come up with your own hypothetical to figure out how that would work, but those cases, you're not going to hell for that.

The Sentinel says, Joe mentioned Catholics in Recovery.

I don't know Catholics in Recovery, but apparently, it's a 12 step program specifically integrated with our theology and sacraments.

They have a website.

So there you go, there's a mention.

I, uh, can't give a specific endorsement, 'cause I've never been there.

But there you go.

Uh, Sherado says, Is being British a sin?

No, not technically.

But I'm just joking, British people.

Um, okay, I know it's already 2:00.

I'm gonna tell a quick story here.

And then, Vanessa, we should probably not take too many more questions, just so I can respect your time.

But I love Irish music, and my five year old loves Irish music too, and has for a long time.

And, uh, so when she was like three, she'd often ask what different songs were about, and I'd tell her.

You know, and a fair amount of Irish songs are about, you know, like the Easter Sunday uprising, or- or the Easter uprising, or- or you know, any of these things, whatever.

And so, she also knows the good guys are and the bad guys are, um, Foggy Dew, et cetera.

She made me put that on this morning.

So, one time we're, uh, coming out of mass, and I see a beautiful statue of, uh, St. Michael d- casting out Satan.

And I point it out to her.

She's three.

And I say, St- you know, who's that?

And she says, St. Michael.

And then I point to the devil, and I said, Who's that, that he's- that he's defeating?

She thinks about it for a minute, and she goes, The British?And I thought, Okay, we might have to, uh, might have to dial down a little of the Irish revolutionary music if, if she's taking away the confusion about, uh, the Devil and the British.

But I know plenty of lovely British people.

Um, having said that, if you've ever listened to the show Pints with Jack, I'll go ahead and give that, uh, a plug.

David Bates is a fantastic human being, and there are many lovely Irish Catholics who have, um, done a tremendous amount for the faith.

Monseigneur Ronald Knox is incredible.

Even, eh, you know, people like Northern Irish Protestants like C.S. Lewis have done amazing things for the faith.

So, all joking aside, there's some great British holy saints, uh, past and present, and God willing, future.

Rick says, Love your channel and insight.

Thank you.

You recently made a video about believers becoming gods.

I understand theosis to be different than becoming like God.

How does this view correlate with Isaiah 43:10?

So let me pull up Isaiah 43.

You are witnesses, says the Lord, and my servants whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

Before me, no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.

Yes.

This is talking about being divine by nature, rather than partaking in the divine nature.

So the easiest way to think about it would be, in our solar system there is one sun, and there can't be two.

It would destroy the whole system to have two suns.

Tattoine doesn't make any sense from a solar system perspective.

But there can be a sun and a moon, and the presence of a moon that reflects with the sun's own radiance, the solar glory, if you will, is not a contradiction.

So, um, that distinction hopefully helps.

Like, we will be sharing in divine nature in the sense of reflecting divine glory.

So if someone looking at you sees you radiant, like looking at the moon at night, you see sunlight.

You see genuinely It doesn't just like remind you of sunlight.

It is sunlight.

But it's not coming from the moon by nature.

Like, if the sun disappeared, you couldn't be like, Well, at least we've got the moonlight still.

Nope.

Moonlight is also gonna disappear.

Uh, and so that's how it is with, with our relationship with divine glory.

All right.

Nectar said, I recently gave your Eucharist book to my Baptist/Communist friend since he had doubts on it.

How can I help my Bible study group who aren't Catholic?

I like the way you've started.

Um, one thing is kind of exploring and stirring up the interest.

Because it's very hard to just plug a gap that they don't see as a gap.

Very hard to give an answer to a question not being asked.

And so you want them to want to know more about the Eucharist.

And you want them to know what the early Christians know about the Eucharist, but you want them to want to know that.

So, you know, there are books like my own, there's books like The Hidden Manna by Father O'Connor, where it just goes through, like, what the early Christians said on the Eucharist.

Uh, there's a lot of books written on the Eucharist, and those can be helpful for people who are wanting to know this.

But I think it is important to start with, number one, um, can we at least admit that it'd be really good if it would turn out we could have communion with God even now on Earth, in a deeper way than we could just spiritually?

Number two, Christ really does come to claim us bodily, not just spiritually.

Uh, number three, we should be able to trust that the earliest Christians understood the Eucharist, and that this is a big enough issue that if they can't get this right, that actually raises some pretty big issues for the reliability of Christianity.

And if they can get this right, then I think we're in a, a good spot.

So, exploring those kind of questions can, I think, be a good way to, uh, hopefully stir up some of that interest.

And then maybe even highlighting for them that amongst Protestants, there's a huge diversity of views.

You've got some Anglo-Catholics who think transubstantiation is real.

You've got Lutherans who think Christ is in with and under bread and wine.

Uh, you've got, uh, Calvinists who think it's that Christ is spiritually present somehow, but it's a little vague as to how.

And then you've got Baptists who think it's just a mere memorial presence, where Christ isn't really spiritually present even.

It's just a reminder of his presence.

Somebody should find out which of those groups, if any, is right.

Because they're just screaming about a really big thing.

And then when you find out like, oh, the Catholics and the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox have a view that makes sense with the other two views, then you can't blame this on, you know, like medieval Catholic theology from Aristotle, like some people like a James White might do.

Uh, it's like, well, no, 'cause there's couple schisms before that, and the people who were in schism also believed this about the Eucharist.

They might have a different way of articulating it, but they believed that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, and that this is a place where we should worship.

Like Um Oh, okay.

Sweet.

Okay, there's six more questions, and Melissa says she's happy to stick around if, if I am.

And I am.

So let's just do it.

Um, so yeah.

I would just say if the Eucharist is really Jesus, then we should worship.

If the Eucharist is just bread and wine, then worshiping the Eucharist would be idolatry.

And knowing whether, you know Like i- if, if the question was, Hey, that guy who's up there on the mount giving a sermon, is that Jesus or just a guy?

Getting that question of identity right would be huge, and you wouldn't be like, Oh, don't be so technical.

He's either made in the image of God or he is God.

You'd be like, No, no.

This is a night and day kind of difference.

This is huge.

Well, likewise, if the question is, Is that bread or is that Jesus?

That's a big question.And so one of the things that can be really discouraging is you've got people who've never thought deeply about the question, who just sort of wave it away like it's, Oh, I mean, we got different theologies.

We're just like, No, no, this is a huge issue though.

So I'd say start with that.

And once they have been stirred up into curiosity, then the books can help.

And then reading John 6 together and doing all that stuff can, can be helpful there.

But it has to start from that place.

Julie, and donated without even a question.

Well, thank you, Julie.

God bless you.

Um, if you have a question, fire away.

Young Baby Tate says, Thanks, Troy.

I primarily ask questions about addiction and culpability to inform my conscience while it comes to receiving the Eucharist.

Yeah, this is where it can be very helpful to have a spiritual director, because a spiritual director is a better judge.

Like, we are poor judges in our own case.

And it's very easy to say, Hey, I fall into this sin a lot, and therefore it must be addiction, therefore I'm not culpable in it.

Some would just keep falling into sin.

And that's not the way to do it.

So instead, uh, having someone who is outside of you who can follow you with your struggles and give you concrete tips and all of that, can also diagnose whether you have, um, addiction in a way that impedes moral culpability or whether you just are living a life of vice, um, or a life of incontinence.

Incontinence in the technical sense of you are living in a cycle of vice without enjoying it.

So true vice is you're living in a cycle of, of bad behavior, uh, non-virtuous actions, and you are delighting in doing evil.

The tier above that is what's called incontinence, where you are doing wicked things habitually or regularly, but you're not happy with that.

You're trying to get out of that cycle.

A step above that is, uh, you are doing virtuous deeds, and maybe even doing them regularly, but it's a great struggle.

That's called continence.

And then the step above that is virtue, where you do the virtuous thing habitually.

And so it's not a great challenge every time.

And so, you know, like, the person who is always, like, about to lie and holds themselves back, they are not living out the vice of h- or the virtue of honesty, excuse me.

They're, they're clearly in continence.

Y- like, where it doesn't even really occur to you to lie, that's where you're living the virtue.

So, there you go.

Um, ba, ba, bum, PRN says, I think we need to focus more on catechizing than apologetics.

Our model today better suits an early church with no Bible access and high illiteracy.

Our model of catechizing or apologetics, or both?

I would say a lot of my apologetics is stealth catechesis.

I can say that, I think, pretty openly.

Like, there's an area where I'm like, I wish more people knew this thing, but were not formed in it.

But if I just tell them, You should believe X, and don't give them any sense of like, Well, some people don't believe X, then there it can be a failure to kind of appreciate that.

So, I find it's much more helpful to say, Some people believe Y, but you shouldn't believe that.

You should believe X. And doing it in the form of apologetics or even polemics, not primarily to like dunk on anybody else.

Although certainly, if there's somebody who believes Y or is inclined to Y, that can be very helpful for them.

But also, for people who maybe don't have an opinion about X or Y at all, to see them contrasted.

Like, if I have never bought a car and I just see a car commercial, it doesn't give me enough information to know if I should buy that car.

But if I know among minivans, the Odyssey and the Sienna are the two that people seem fanatically obsessed with, then okay, now I have a comparison.

And that tells me that if I had, just had $40,000 lying around, I'd probably wanna get one of those, or a house.

Well, this got depressing.

Anyway, um, so that's, that's what I would say.

I think that the dialectical approach can be helpful, where you sort of merge some of apologetics with catechesis, but there's absolutely a need for both.

And, uh, there's room for both and people are skilled at different things.

So it's okay if you are better as a catechist than as an apologist, if it's better as a, just an evangelist to invite people to love Jesus.

Whatever it is, like, use the gifts and talents God's given you, and they should work in concert very well.

Um, John says, Do you think Benedict XVI should have gone to a mosque and prayed toward Mecca with the Mufti?

I don't actually know about that, but I don't love that.

Uh, Do you think J- John Paul II should have kissed the Quran?

No and no.

Um, I understand the desire to affirm what is good among people who are trying to follow the God of Abraham, and I think we can be Like, I think people who act like Islam is the world's biggest problem are maybe not aware of how much of the West is obsessively anti-religious, secular, atheist, in a way that is promoting everything from a very dehumanizing understanding of artificial intelligence, to a massive announcement of abortion.

And on a lot of this stuff, Muslims are allies rather than enemies.

But you can go too far in the other direction and act as if real important theological differences don't exist, and so I- I think we should acknowledge both of those.

Oh, PRN Give A Clarifying.

Um, uh, said, I meant the Church's evangeliza- evangelization today.

It is better suited for earlier times.

Catholics, I think, hunger for deeper study of the Word, hence the deflections.

Yeah, I think there's a reason things like Bible in a Year, um, was so massively, massively popular.

I agree, there is, there is that hunger.

It's a tricky thing to do because people are all over the place, and so providing that stuff can be very hard.

Um, but yeah, I think that's And also, uh, let's just say this, different audiences want different things.

Like, when I do stuff on spirituality, I do it knowing that, that it's not gonna be my best performing stuff.

That there's a fair number of people who just won't click on it.

But I think it's important to do, so I still do it.

And, uh, there may be people who, they don't need that.

Maybe that they need it and they won't click on it.

Well, similarly, eh, there are people who need and want to just have a deeper understanding of scripture.

And s- thanks be to God, I think we have more resources than at any point in history, to respond to that.

But if your, if your argument is we could use more, absolutely we could.

And there are some areas where, like, we are still woefully behind evangelicals, um, because we just like, e- especially from like a tech perspective, there's some stuff where it's like really hard to just find good, copyright-free Catholic Bible stuff you can, you know, freely, eh, copy and paste and all that, without having to worry about copyright.

That's a basic thing that should've been resolved a long time ago, but we're still baby steps on this one, I guess.

Anglo schizo says, How would you explain the absence of Marian practices, such as the consecration of the Blessed Mother in Saint Paul or even in tradition?

Some of this stuff is devotional stuff that, uh, develops over time.

Like, praying to the Holy Spirit, you don't see that in Saint Paul.

You don't even see Saint Paul praying to Jesus, right?

So some of this devotional stuff I guess two things.

One, spiritual practices are often not the things that people are writing about.

A lot of what they're writing about is theology or ecclesiology, indirectly.

So, um, I wouldn't make an argument from silence, say, Oh, well, we don't see this prayer to Jesus anywhere in Saint Paul, so therefore Paul didn't pray to Jesus.

We don't know what Paul's prayer life looks like 'cause he doesn't talk very much about it.

There's allusions to praying, but the content of prayer is a little opaque.

So trying to form some slam dunk argument on anything other than the early Christians prayed the Our Father sometimes, uh, i- is hard to do.

But I think that's an argument from silence, that is a weak argument.

Um, but then yeah, s- so asking Mary for prayers, it seems to kind of make sense, that you're not gonna see that as clearly when you don't even have people clearly pr- Like, the only time that I can think of at least where anyone clearly prays to Jesus is Stephen at his stoning.

That's it.

And nobody ever prays to the Holy Spirit.

And yet we know those are totally okay to do.

And not only okay to do, good to do.

So some of that stuff is stuff that gets unpacked more clearly over time.

And some of those are devotions at the start.

Like, this is a new devotional practice.

And plenty of devotions have existed, um, whether it's a devotion and a practice of, like, praying to Mary or a devotion like, uh, honoring the Sacred Heart or any of these things, these are devotions.

And devotions don't claim to be 2,000 years old.

Like, if you come up with a new prayer, you're not claiming the apostles wrote that prayer.

You are just doing a devotion.

And there are different ways of expressing your love and, and living that out spiritually.

Um, Chester says, How do we know when the Pope is speaking infallibly?

Well, yeah, when he's giving a definition on faith and morals in his capacity as the Pope.

Uh, so Vatican I talks about this.

So I can pull up the exact language.

When the Roman Pontiff, that's the Pope, speaks ex cathedra, and it explains what that means.

That is, when in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church So let's pause right there.

If the Pope is speaking off the cuff, if he is speaking in a particular context, not to everybody, if he's speaking on an issue that's not faith or morals, you see, if he's speaking on an issue but not defining any of those things, that's not gonna be what Vatican I is talking about.

H- For him to be speaking ex cathedra, he is, number one, speaking in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians.

So Benedict XVI's books of Jesus of Nazareth series that he writes as a private theologian don't count.

Second, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, so he's This is an official thing.

Think about the difference between, like, a presidential tweet and an executive order.

One has the authority of office and one doesn't.

Uh, three, um, he defines a doctrine, defines matters there, doesn't just d- discuss, but defines a doctrine, uh, for, concerning faith or morals, so anything not on those wouldn't apply.

Fifth, to be held by the whole Church.

So if it's something that, uh, letter to one country or bishop or king or whatever, then it doesn't apply.

If those five criteria are met, then he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, that infallibility which the Divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.

So that is what it means for the Pope to be speaking, uh, infallibly.

And I think significantly there, uh, as I said earlier, the whole point of it is to protect us from the Pope.

And I know that sounds very strange, but the idea is, if the Pope could err even under those conditions, then the Pope could force you to accept, could force the whole Church to accept heresy on pain of schism.

And that would put you in an impossible situation, that if Christ wills Like, remember, Jesus knows the future, and he knows all of the good and bad Popes, all of the schisms and movements and everything else that are, are gonna happen through all of history.

Not only the ones that have happened yet, but the ones that will happen.Um, knowing all of that, Jesus prays that we will all be one as he and the Father are one.

And, uh, so schism is off the table.

But also, he says, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

So you can't have a unity that is at the expense of truth.

So you can't have heresy and you can't have schism.

You need unity, you need truth.

And you can't say, I'll take 50% unity, 50% truth, or 60/40, or whatever.

No, you need 100%, 100%.

We need to be unified in the truth, and papal infallibility exists, uh, for that.

Uh, Tomas says, How to answer are you saved, how do you know?

I would say there is Probably it's worth pointing out that this style of evangelization is totally foreign to New Testament Christianity.

Nobody in the New Testament does this thing, where they ask a kind of leading question, and then whatever answer you give, they're gonna pounce on it.

And say, Aha, but you can be more sure if you take this other approach and believe this set of doctrines.

And just recognize that this is a marketing move.

This isn't Christian evangelization as presented in the Bible.

And it's a really effective marketing.

Like, it works really well at getting people to be like, Oh, yeah, well, I, I could have more certainty if I believed X. But that doesn't tell us whether X is true or not.

It just tells us X is comforting.

And so that's I just It can be a totally good faith question.

And it can It's even a very important question.

People do ask, like, What do I need to do to be saved?

That kind of thing does happen.

But I've never seen an example where the apostles just go, Are you saved?

How do you know?

And I think as a result, we should be a little reticent to use those tactics.

And I immediately react to those a little bit by saying, Uh, I don't know if that's the way I'd want to approach that.

Because even within that question, what does it mean to be saved?

Like, am I going to hell if I die today?

Or am I going to go to hell when I die at the end of my life?

Because those are two different things.

Because I believe, as a Catholic, and I think there's a huge wealth of New Testament evidence that points to this, that someone could be in a right relationship with God now, and then later throw that away.

Hebrews 6 warns about it.

2 Peter 2 is all about that.

We see an example of it with Simon in Acts 8. You get plenty of evidence that this happens, that people wander from the truth and have to be brought back, or they will lose their salvation.

So, the question, are you saved?

Seems to presuppose a certain vision of salvation that may or may not be right, depending on what the person means by it.

How can you know?

Well, is the life of God present in your soul?

Do you have acts of faith, hope and charity?

If you do, that is a, a very good sign that you are in relationship with God.

If you don't, even if you have the right ideas, then you're not in right relationship with God.

Because God is love.

And so if you are not loving God and loving your neighbor, um, merely having good theology is not gonna save you.

Merely believing the gospel is true won't save you.

If, uh, if it did, the demons would be saved, as James points out.

So, that's what I'd kind of say to that.

I mean, uh, I like Joan of Arc's answer.

Let me find Joan of Arc's answer.

'Cause you don't want to fall into Yeah, it's Paraphrase 7.5 of the Catechism.

It says, It belongs to supernatural order.

Grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith.

We cannot, therefore, rely on our feelings or our works to con- conclude that we are justified and saved.

All right?

So, let's start with that.

Plenty of people are convinced they're saved, and then live lives that seem to suggest the opposite.

That's a good red flag that my own feelings, and even works that I've done, are not enough to conclude that I'm saved.

Because I should have the awareness other people have, on the same evidence, come to the same conclusions and done wrong in the past.

And if you don't think that's true, I can give you plenty of examples, right?

However, according to the Lord's words, Thus you'll know them by their fruits.

Reflection on God's blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us.

It spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.

So we can have a guarantee of grace in our life, if we're able to look at our life and say, I see God's grace active here.

But it's something that I know by faith, not just from experiential knowledge.

And pleasing illustration of this attitude is found in the reply of Saint Joan of Arc, to a question posed as a trap by her ecclesiastical judges.

Asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied, If I'm not, may it please God to put me in it.

If I am, may it please God to keep me there.

That attitude of trusting God, and leaning on his mercy, is better than the confidence assurance that, that people want instead.

Uh, so that's what I would suggest there.

Uh, there were a few other kind of questions.

Uh, okay, I do have to say this.

Mironman says, There's a man at my parish in France who favors you.

Ever since I don't know his name, I call him French Joe Heshmeyer.

That's glorious.

Um, John Davis wants to argue about Islam.

I, I mean, is there a question there?

Like, I understand you have your opinions on it.

I What, what are you hoping to accomplish with that?

Like, I, I'm not I'll just be honest, like, there's, like, one or two people who ask a ton of questions to me, but not even really questions, just declarations about Islam, regardless of what video I do.

And it, it feels like a weird obsession that doesn't It's certainly not coming from God.

And it's not leading people into a deeper love of God.

Even when, like, there are valid criti- just, like, the, the singular focus on the issue is very strange.

Um, Afuera Media asked my thoughts about accusations of voice, against Voice of Reason.

I answered that at the beginning of the episode, and then I've actually got an episode Thursday where I'll be talking about that.

Uh, and then, um, why don't I will JFerg and Doubting Thomas, if you're good with it, I will have you kind of lead off in terms of the two questions next time.

'Cause I said, actually, like, a few questions ago, that'd be the last question.

So hopefully that's, uh, satisfactory.

Two weeks from now will actually be when I do that, I think.

Oh, you know what?

I say that, and I already know.

I'm gonna be traveling to California that day, so it might be, like, the day after.

But sometime a couple of weeks from now should, um, do a livestream.

And I will be in San Diego two weeks and a day from now, so maybe it'll be then.

I doubt any of you are planning your schedules around this, so we'll see.

But tune in next time.

All right.

God bless you.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

And yeah, tomorrow I'm really excited about this episode, but I've no idea how to present it in a way that'll be really, like, inviting.

So just, I don't care what you think about the thumbnail or the title or anything else, because we were racking our brains.

But if you want to hear about how the Eucharist is connected to bodily resurrection and it's a really cool subject, check that out.

All right.

God bless you.

And peace.