To Be a Man, You Must Worship Like a Man with Guest Host Mike Pantile

Can focusing on the fundamentals of faith transform how we perceive modern Catholicism? Join us on "Avoiding Babylon" as guest host Mike Pantile leads a thought-provoking conversation. We delve into 11 or 12 points of masculine worship, offering guidance for men navigating Catholicism in the modern world. 

Explore the intricate balance between traditional and contemporary Catholic practices as we discuss the significance of humility, drawing inspiration from the example of Jesus Christ. Personal stories highlight the transformative power of acts like kneeling during prayer and receiving the Eucharist, challenging the perception of feminized religious practices by examining historical saints who embodied physical and spiritual strength. The conversation underscores the importance of fraternity and community within the Catholic Church, reflecting on the dynamics of fatherhood and brotherhood and their impact on men's faith today.

Navigate the challenges of engaging with media and understanding the role of the papacy in modern Catholicism. We discuss the balance between reverence for the Pope and recognizing human errors within the Church, cautioning against both extreme criticism and blind idolization. Listen as we explore the ethical considerations of donating amidst scandals and controversies, advocating for informed giving aligned with personal values. Through humor, insight, and a deep commitment to nurturing a vibrant Catholic community, this episode promises to enrich your understanding of masculinity, humility, and faith in the contemporary Catholic landscape.

Chapters

• 0:08 Worship Styles in the Catholic Church
• 4:53 Navigating Traditional and Novus Ordo Catholicism
• 12:10 Debating the Liturgy and Worship Practices
• 21:09 Traditional Practices of Masculinity in Worship
• 25:18 Masculinity, Humility, and Papal Reverence
• 32:16 Balancing Respect and Critique of Papacy
• 38:00 Scripture Study and Catholic Faith
• 48:12 Navigating Catholic Giving Dilemmas
• 52:07 Building Catholic Fraternity and Community
• 1:04:08 Catholic Men's Fellowship and Penance
• 1:12:57 Personal Penance and Spiritual Disciplines
• 1:19:04 Penance, Devotion, and Masculinity
• 1:29:48 Faith Journey Through Intellect and Heart
• 1:37:33 Navigating Masculinity in Modern Catholicism

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Sancte, sancte, amare morti. Decadast nos. In taste, there are verand.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Can you take me higher Snow of the leaves with snowman's sea Can? You take me higher. Show up the list where sleigh bells ring I saw that today.

Speaker 1: 0:59

I figured it'd be perfect for our episode oh, perfectly relevant too.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Love that, who doesn't like god, stop. We copy patrick madrid, I guess.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Perfect for our episode Perfectly relevant too, Love that who doesn't like a? Little God's tap. We copied Patrick Madrid, I guess Rip Well we tried, guys.

Speaker 2: 1:14

There are worse people to copy, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:18

That's a good point. Well, anyways, everyone, welcome Mike to Avoiding Babylon and you are our host tonight, sir.

Speaker 2: 1:27

I got big shoes to fill, but I think you got loud shoes to fill.

Speaker 1: 1:32

He's only 5'9". Just as loud and just as obnoxious.

Speaker 2: 1:34

That's why me and Anthony get along, so it'll feel like he's still here, so we're all good.

Speaker 1: 1:39

You Italians. Everywhere you go, more Italians show up being loud and annoying.

Speaker 2: 1:51

Look at Anthony here in our comments, starting at like eight this morning. Yep, shout out to anthony man this what he's got like nine absolutely amazing comments in there. I was just like I was busting the gut reading this this morning. How do you come up with this stuff, dude? I love this guy recently married.

Speaker 2: 2:02

Congratulations to anthony oh wow, congrats, congrats based young catholic man love to see it. I love this guy recently married. Congratulations to Anthony. Oh wow, Congrats Based young Catholic man Love to see it. The the future of the church is bright, I'm not a doomer I don't take the doomer pill.

Speaker 3: 2:20

So anybody listening to this doomer just just sign off right now. But um yeah, when there's two of us now.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Yeah, when anthony uh reached out to me he was like yo, dude, you want to host this podcast? I said I'd love to. I'm like man, what do we talk about? You guys range from like staunch, like intellectual, theological topics and some light-hearted stuff. And you, we were just talking before we, we hit record and you know I certainly still feel a little retarded in the faith and I know a lot of guys are retarded and need to be told kind of what to do. I don't know if that word is flagged on YouTube. Hopefully it's not. Anyways, I apologize, we get you guys pulled.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Our audience is used to, it Doesn't bother me.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Yeah, exactly, yeah, good, yeah, I'd sign off if it did. No, but seriously, we're talking about, uh, I have like 11 or 12 points of masculine worship. So I uh, upon coming back to the church, because I'm a lapsed cradle catholic, I kind of wish I had these things sort of like in bullet bullet form. So these are going to sound like super basic to you guys and to anybody listening. That's already like a seasoned practicing devout catholic that you know goes to regular confession, yada, yada does the thing. But some guys genuinely have no idea.

Speaker 2: 3:31

I run a men's group, catholic Masculinity Project, and these guys really feel alienated in a way, because there's like a lot of content online that's really high level theology you know super trad, and they almost feel like they can't. Level theology you know super trad and they almost feel like they can't. They're almost like I don't know unworthy or don't even know how to grasp it. And then you get this sort of, you know, typical classical boomer catechesis which really doesn't do anything for them anyways. So they're in no particular order, but I just wanted to kind of get your guys' thoughts. We can riff off these points, but I guess I'll come out swinging with. The first point is so 11 or 12 points of masculine worship, not falling into the liturgy wars debate and worshiping faithfully at the Novus Ordo or the traditional Latin mass. Some guys?

Speaker 1: 4:14

are already going to be angry about that. I'm going to have to mute Nick for this one. Here we go.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Okay, no, that's it All. Right, rob, that, that was great.

Speaker 1: 4:26

that'll be short-lived I think, I think there is wisdom in that, uh, especially for a new convert or revert um, because there is so much you're learning, so much that's going on um, that if you get I don't want to say like that's minutia, but but it kind of is I mean, it's important, Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1: 4:53

You know, um, the history of the church and its tradition is, is is extremely important but, um, especially when you're just coming back to the church or coming into the church, there's more basic things that you need to get down first before you go down into these. You know some other areas especially, you know, especially if you're just coming back and you have a local Novus Ordo parish, all that's all you might have for an hour or two hour drive. You need to get yourself in the habit of of getting back to the sacraments and it may be harder to do that if you have to make that longer drive and I'm not saying people shouldn't make that drive, um, because eventually I think you should start to make that drive to get to a TLM or maybe a better Novus Ordo or something like that. But if that would prevent you from building that, that weekly habit, that habit of going to confession, at least monthly, things like that. Then build those habits first Make sure you're strong, you know sacramentally, and then start to explore things like the traditional arts and mass.

Speaker 2: 6:10

I think that's a great point because, I mean, that's how I got back to the faith too. Like I remember coming back and searching okay, catholic parish near me and I ended up finding this beautiful historic parish here in town. Okay, catholic parish near me and I ended up finding this beautiful historic parish here in town and you know, on the inside it's definitely a bit of a boomer parish, if you wanted to label it one. There's, I guess, some irreverent things about it, but you know that's. You know how I got confirmed again, that's how I introduced my family and you know where I got my children baptized and where I got my marriage convalidated.

Speaker 2: 6:44

And although, of course, you know guitar mass and you know not really powerful homilies and you know Eucharistic ministers and a lot of receiving on the hands, I can look past all that stuff and say, you know, I understand that the sacrament here is valid. I can get absolution here. I can come to, you know, come to confession, I can do the thing, come to adoration and I can be, you know, more or less still, uh, uh, uh, a traditional practicing Catholic, despite the liturgy that I'm participating in Now, with that said, like I've been to many uh TLM masses since then Anglican Ordinariate, eastern Rite, catholic Churches, just kind of exploring. And yeah, of course smells the bells, the sights, the, the, the power of the reverence and the historical aspect of these. These liturgies are, you know, I feel, like inherently masculine. There's something very masculine about the traditional liturgy but uh, it, it's certainly still there. If you're looking for it, you might have to.

Speaker 2: 7:42

I was talking to brian holdsworth, uh, a couple of months back, and he's like, yeah, it's there. You have to just kind of dig through some obscenities before you find it. But licit sacraments, valid sacraments, because I think a lot of guys feel alienated from the whole like trad conversation. I'm not as devout, or this guy's a better practicing catholic than I am, and what I'll say is, if you're a TLM going Catholic and you're possessed by a spirit of like rebellion and superiority over the Novus Ordo Catholic, then I mean, how Catholic are you If that's the kind of judgment you're putting onto your, your, your brethren in the faith? So what do you guys think about that?

Speaker 1: 8:19

I, I think a lot of that notion while it can certainly sometimes be true, I think a lot of that notion what? While it can certainly sometimes be true, I think a lot of that is due, um more to the difference between the fact like, like, uh, devotional practices in um, fasting, abstinence, things like that are just they're they're talked about a lot more in the traditional communities. They're practiced a lot more, whereas in your average Novus Ordo parish, in my experience, that just doesn't happen almost at all. So to someone in kind of the Novus Ordo Catholicism, if they have just a little bit experience with traditional Catholicism, they might get that feeling where it's all about showing off piety or something like that, more like performative piety, just because they're not used to actually discussing the practices of the faith, the, the traditional devotions of the faith, things of that nature definitely, and I think there's something to be said as well, and I don't know, I don't know if this is a somewhat controversial opinion in the in the novus ordo.

Speaker 2: 9:42

I mean, you can receive the sacraments a lot quicker if you're going through rcia. You're getting your marriage convalidated. From my understanding, I have some friends have gone through the tlm and done it, or at least attempted to, and it's like this long, drawn out process which I can see how there's tremendous benefit to that, but somebody just wants to get confirmed and receive the sacraments, to come to the fullness of communion with the church. It's like dude, like why are we taking? I know, historically I think that the discernment period was like two or three years. I could be wrong about that, you guys could correct me on that, but I think there certainly is a positive element to that, like getting your children baptized expediently, getting your marriage convalidated expediently, especially when you've discerned it, cause I came at it really quick, which which maybe could be, you know, not the typical experience, but I was like, let's, I want it all. I want it all right now, but it could be good or bad.

Speaker 1: 10:30

I found. I actually found the opposite to be true. When I was coming back into the church or not into the church, but when I was just coming back to church and my wife was converting, when we contacted our local Novus Ordo parish and this was in December so my wife could get into RCIA to convert they said that RCIA started in September, so she'd have to wait a year until the next September. I more or less told them that just wasn't going to happen, that wasn't going to work. So they and I'm like I will catch her up on anything that you talked about in the first two months, that took all about 20 minutes. But on anything that you talked about in the first two months, that took all about 20 minutes. But so we were able to get her into RCIA.

Speaker 1: 11:10

And then through the RCIA process the week or two before the Easter vigil, when they're discussing what's going to actually happen at the vigil, at no point did they mention anything about convalidation of marriages. So I bring that up and they were really surprised. They're like like, oh, you, you'd want that done. Well, it's like, yeah, I don't have a valid marriage otherwise. So, yes, we would like that done, be nice. Um, so if I hadn't brought that up, my my marriage would have been invalid, uh, until whenever we got it validated, whereas I've heard people who go through the traditional parish a lot of times they'll get one-on-one instruction with the priest, then the priest, whenever the priest feels they're ready, will walk them through baptism and confirmation and things like that. But I haven't personally been through that experience in a traditional parish, so I don't know for sure about that.

Speaker 3: 12:10

I think fundamentally, in all honesty, the conversation that is one of like this right is reverent. This right is reverent as I've talked about it before, the kind of like aesthetics debate. I actually think that's a very modernist way of looking at Catholicism and what I mean by that is that modernism fundamentally is that based off of our own internal religious sentiments, we should express the religion that like we see best fit, if that makes sense. And so you know, if, hypothetically you know, I'm attracted to the smells and bells, therefore my mass should have smells and bells. If this person likes the whole praise and worship, raise the hands etc. Then they should be able to have that. But that's not the mind of the church. The mind of the church is that the liturgy is part of the big T tradition, along with the Acts of the Magisterium, the Consensus of the Fathers, the Consensus of the Scholastics. So the liturgy is something that is part of big T tradition, handed down. So the missal is handed down, if you will, generation to generation.

Speaker 3: 13:08

And I think that the fundamental problem with the new mass is that it's one of a doctrinal issue, it's a doctrinally compromised right. I mean, if you just want a few examples of this we can find really three core examples. Number one the idea of propitiatory sacrifice being gutted from the new missile. We don't see the notion of the context of propitiatory sacrifice propitiatory for people who are unaware, it's the sacrifice that says we have sinned our sins, offend God. This sacrifice pays for those sins. That's essentially what propitiatory sacrifice means. That whole notion has very much so been blurred and obscured. Not denied, but blurred and obscured. The second thing is the emphasis of the priest being a sacerdotal minister going in to make sacrifice. His role has very much so been blurred with the hyper-exaltation of the participation of the faithful to where the faithful are doing a good percentage of what the priest would have done. Even just one example that maybe people don't know the reason that the priest prays the missal readings on the altar is that the missal readings are itself part of the sacrifice of praise. Lay people doing this here and there is completely disordered.

Speaker 3: 14:19

And then the third and final reason, broadly speaking, is that we see that the new mass, fundamentally in its rubrics, has great irreverence for our lord in the blessed sacrament. Everything from things along the nature of the priest's hands no longer have to be together. They can touch profane matter, of course, the abusive communion on the hand. If one was just to think about it, statistics say that it's around 10 hosts, right, or, excuse me, 10 particles, 10 particles, 10 particles, 10 particles per host. So if you just do the math and you say, okay, well, if there's I think it's roughly around 17 million Catholics go to mass every single Sunday in the United States, we'll just do the math. You know, it's like only about 1% go to the TLM. To just do 10 times, let's just say 17%, 17 million, and that's every single Sunday for 60 years, year after year after year. But that's in the missal. It's not an abuse, it's in the missal itself. The missal, of course, calls it a supper and a sacrifice, although that's condemned by the document on the liturgy, by Pius XII, the Mitator Dei.

Speaker 3: 15:20

And then, finally, I would say that what people need to kind of do is just wrestle with the question of the fundamental issue of lex orande, lex credendi the law of prayer is going to be the law of belief, and so the missal is the expression of the divinely revealed deposit of faith that our Lord entrusted to his church.

Speaker 3: 15:39

So, therefore, if we're going to allow individuals like, for instance, anibali Bunini, who very clearly in his work the reform of the liturgy wanted to get away from those three notions that I brought up, as well as having Protestants as well consult with the Missal. Then, while I'm all for people praying reverently, regardless of which Mass they go to, we don't obviously want them to pray irreverently or to not do that. We always have to look at man's needs secondarily to God. We have to ask the question what does God want? How does God want to be worshiped? And I think that that, unfortunately, that question is unfortunately moved away from or obscured or absent from the conversations oftentimes I'm not saying in this conversation, but in the conversations that I see as a whole online. So I think it's a good desire, but I would say that we have to be theocentric, I guess, in the way we approach each question in life. It's kind of my thoughts.

Speaker 2: 16:31

No, that's great, and I think the liturgy that you participate in really does in a lot of ways, sort of dictate how you practice outside of that. You kind of take that experience with you and it takes a certain level of conviction in your belief to. You know, be a traditional practicing Catholic while going to a Novus Ordo guitar mass on Sundays. It's hard, but the way that I've looked at it, at least in the temporary, short term, as my wife finishes our CIA, it's another opportunity for me to grow in holiness Because as a new revert I've got all this zeal, which can be hubris at times. It can be borderline, you know, being egocentric, right, and thinking about me and judging all these other people for taking it on the hands and et cetera, and I don't think that's always coming from a great place. I mean we shouldn't be judging other people in the faith in that way, at least not, you know, critically, in a prideful sense. I think it's looking at our own hearts and why we possess such judgments is important, because I know it's been a point of pride to me where oftentimes in confession there's been times where I'm like, yeah, I said bad things about you, father, and I don't feel the best about it. We should be avoiding that type of conversation and talking about the virtue of justice, religion, sub-virtue of justice is giving God what is rightly owed to him by going to mass. So it's not so much of you know where do you feel it the most. But you make a convincing argument, nick, about the reverence in the mass and those points. I haven't really thought about it in such a way, which kind of leads into the next point too, is kneeling to receive the Eucharist as a masculine form of worship.

Speaker 2: 18:09

From the very beginning I knew, despite going the majority of the time to a Nova Sorda parish, I never wanted to receive on the hands and I have yet to receive on the hands. The closest thing that's happened was at a Maronite parish, because I realized their tradition they take it standing on the tongue. But then I spoke to the priest and he allowed me to. He's like yeah, do it. If you want to do it on the knees, do it on the knees. He was totally respectful about that.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Um, from my end I never wanted to. I don't ever want to touch the host and I can't help but feel a sort of a sense of um, uh, almost a sense of judgment, like eyeballs kind of looking at me, look at this guy, how pious he is, although in my own heart I've identified that's not me trying to be performative in my piety, it's a personal conviction that I'm not worthy to touch the host. Therefore, I'm not going to touch the host and I'm not sure if you guys have had this experience with different priests. But there's a sense. Although there's priests that have been totally fine with me doing it, some are more okay with it than others and you can kind of sense it when they're administering the Eucharist. So I'm sure you're staunchly on the side of kneeling, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

Speaker 3: 19:15

Yeah, I'm very I mean pro-kneeling and on the tongue, with respect, of course, to the Eastern traditions that have their own liturgical customs that go back to the ancient church. I think what's very important about is one, as you mentioned, the psychological aspect. It puts you in your place, right? You're not god, you're not in charge.

Speaker 3: 19:33

At the end of the day, you're actually, in a way, fulfilling the scripture in saint paul's letter to the philippians, of every knee bowing for the name of christ and so it's a very beautiful thing and I think that what's helpful about it is that you know, kind of in the whole hand versus kneeling debate it's very good because oftentimes when you hear individuals who give the proponent of you know communion on the hand, I agree with you. I don't think that people should look down on individuals in the sense of like hey, you're lesser, because that can be a sin of pride, and sins of pride in the sense of their matter and the matter that's involved with it are very, very grievous sins. But I don't also think it's an either or thing. I think one can in charity say, brother, you know, we shouldn't do this for X, y and Z reasons. One has to look at the intention and the action that's done and then also recognize things like communion on the hand today are so vastly different from communion on the hand in previous generations.

Speaker 3: 20:26

So it's like you'll have people oftentimes here and they'll hear this, you know, as new converts, especially when they run into this debate. They'll be told by people they'll say well, the early church practiced communion on the hand. When in fact the, the form that the early church participated in, it was placed directly on the palm. The lady would bend down and pick it up with their mouth. Ladies would actually have cloths over their hand. So I don't see them trying to go back to that tradition women having cloths over their hands. There was never this picking up. That was very much the culmination of the Puritan who wanted to disprove the idea of real presence. So I'm very for it and it's very needed in our time of real presence.

Speaker 1: 21:08

So I'm very for it and it's very needed in our time. I uh, uh, as to your comment about running into some priests that don't support it as much as others, there was, um at our local parish. We had a fill-in priest for about a year, an old retired priest who came to help out when our, our pastor, had run into a health issue. And this, this old retired priest, after Mass one day after I'd received on my knees for he had been there two or three weeks at this point he came up to me as we were about to leave the pew and he said that he would no longer give me communion on the tongue, kneeling, because the Vatican was about to completely ban it. Yeah, yeah, I literally, just, I literally just laughed and said yeah, okay, sure, father, um, so, yeah, so, yeah, there are definitely some priests that are not as supportive of it as others, but he, he is the only one.

Speaker 1: 22:03

I've ever run into um and I've I've knelt and received on the tongue at quite a few parishes um, but uh, you know, when we talk about masculinity, we have to think um, like the word um, the word masculine comes from. If you look at the latin word um. It comes from like, virtue, like the, the base of the words. You know, virtue it means to be masculine, it means ver is strength in latin. So to be virtuous is to be masculine and to be masculine is to be virtuous. So you know, when we think of these practices, like it is virtuous to to kneel, uh and submit yourself right to christ and receive communion, you receive your god like a child, like, yeah, we, yeah, we might be receiving like a child, yeah, we might be receiving like a child on our knees, on our tongue, but that's virtuous and therefore that's masculine. It's far more, in a sense, virtuous than going up there standing and expecting God to be handed to you in your hand so that you can put the God of the universe in your own mouth.

Speaker 3: 23:12

So that's how I see it. I don't know if I ever told you this story, rob, and you'll be able to hear it now for the first time, mike, but uh, when I was a traditional latin mass server this was before our parish got banned um, there was, like it was maybe like a year and a half post-coVID time at least, here in Texas, and we were at Solemn High Mass doing our thing, et cetera, and I'm helping the priest down there with the patent, and I had seen this dude walk into the church. He was wearing a mask right, and so I kind of just knew he was very clearly new to the TLM, because we didn't even wear masks during the height of the pandemic. And so he's in the back, and when it came time for communion, he comes up and he refuses to have communion on the tongue, so much so that he grabs from father the suborium in the middle of mass.

Speaker 3: 24:06

He specifically grabs it to where his hands are, like reaching into the cup, if you will holds it towards him and start shouting that he has a right to receive this way, if you will, pulls it towards him and starts shouting that he has a right to receive this way, because my bishop says so X, Y and Z, and so it really kind of goes to show you that the Eucharist, which is not only the greatest gift but also, if you will, a privilege that Christ is bestowing upon you, people have this mentality that it is some type of a right and it's not something that's masculine, because when you brought up the reality of that being rooted in virtue, it reminded me of one of the sub virtues of fortitude, magnanimity, right To be manly, manliness, et cetera.

Speaker 3: 24:49

And there's nothing more magnanimous than just like recognizing your own place and saying like the infinite god, who not only created all things but in this very moment sustains all things, is here before me. And what is a more fitting response than kneeling I've seen? The most beautiful thing I've ever seen is I've seen children with cervop hobble up with their crutches and kneel for communion. It's amazing.

Speaker 2: 25:18

Yeah, this conversation about masculinity cannot be a conversation without, obviously, the virtue of humility, obviously all the virtues, but humility in specific, and realizing that how masculinity is expressed perfectly in the church, in in Jesus Christ and in virtue, obviously perfectly within the. You know, the blessed mother um is completely at odds with, with the world, right, why would you get on your knees? Never bow, you know, sort of the the Andrew Tate ism of of of the world, both being completely at odds. What I can say is, as a guy that in, in in my own ways, has struggled tremendously with pride and having a chip on my shoulder, having this sort of attitude, just the mere act. And these are two points. It was kneeling while praying, but also kneeling while taking the Eucharist. There's something so beautifully humiliating about it Because think about in any other point in your life, like when are you on your knees and like you're prostrating yourself a completely submissive position to be in as a man who thinks he's the shit and you're absolutely not, you're nothing, you're kneeling to the true God. There's something that's been profoundly, that's broken down, profoundly beautiful and it's breaking down a pride around you know, around my heart, in the way that I, even, the way that I show up with my family and one small point on that too Every time I go up, my eldest daughter's only three, and so she's now just beginning to sort of understand church and she prays with me.

Speaker 2: 26:40

It's funny. She recited the whole Apostles' Creed and will pray a full rosary with me at this point, like in her own little cute way. It's so beautiful, so based. I mean talk about. I well up with emotion when that happens, but I'll go to take the Eucharist and she'll purposely stop after she gets her blessings and turn around and look at me while that happens and I can't help but think that's having some kind of an effect on her psychologically. To see her dad. You know who, you know, hopefully, who she thinks is, you know Superman or whatever. But like kneeling before God like this is such a beautiful thing and she'll like mention it like oh, you know Superman or whatever. But like kneeling before God like this is such a beautiful thing, and she'll like mention it like oh, you know Papa takes the Eucharist and you know he's on his knees. There's gotta be something there. I know for me psychologically, if I saw my father do that, it would have an impact on me and so, um, I'd like to think it's obviously having a uh, some kind of an impact on her and the Lord knows we need more humility in general. But kind of diverting from that for a second, I know this is so relevant.

Speaker 2: 27:40

This wasn't even on my thing on my list, it just popped up into my head because I was thinking about Rob and his arguments with the Pope's planners this week. But I remember I think it was a Father Ripperger talk and he was talking about how we should take a medieval approach to our faith in that. Well, there's a couple of big things there. The lady shouldn't have access to the Bible. We won't talk about that. I think that's hilarious that he'll say it's so tragic, why read the Bible? But more so, we shouldn't be preoccupied with what's happening in the Vatican too much or what's happening with Pope Francis and in fact that it's above our pay grade that we should be submitting to our bishop. Our priests go to them for spiritual direction and I certainly can relate to this in a way. I guess I did this inadvertently.

Speaker 2: 28:25

Coming back to the church, I did not think about Pope Francis one time because I understood to a degree, on a basic sense, what papal infallibility meant. Does it mean he was an impeccable person? I have to agree with everything that he said. I just know that I can pray for him and I should speak carefully when talking about the Holy Father, but I think an element of masculine worship is not getting our panties in a bunch over what Francis is doing, as egregious as we may think it may be. I think treading with a little bit more caution and how we speak about francis and also how we speak about our, our parish priests. Like I said, I've gone to confession several times because I've said some disparaging things about the priest. But um, yeah, rob, what do you think about that one buddy?

Speaker 1: 29:07

I think there there's definitely truth in that whole kind of uh, medieval grind set, you know, uh mindset there. Um, now we have to recognize we don't live in the medieval period, right like we have all the information at our fingertips and we we can't ignore that. Nor should we, um, especially as as heads of households. You know, I think I I definitely don't want my wife and children preoccupying themselves with all the trouble in the world, whether it's political or, you know, church related, whatever. That's not for them to worry about, that's for me to worry about and pass on what I feel they need to know to them, me to worry about and pass on what I feel they need they need to know to them. So I think, as fathers and husbands, we we do have, we do have some more responsibility to concern ourselves with it, but by no means should we allow it to detrimentally affect our faith. Right, we either believe that the promises that the church has in terms of its indefectibility.

Speaker 3: 30:15

I love that.

Speaker 1: 30:16

This is so true. That is a good point.

Speaker 3: 30:20

We'll just go to war with the non-trads and we will be true medieval.

Speaker 2: 30:26

That point got stumped by this comment. Thank you, Sean.

Speaker 1: 30:30

He is right. So, yeah, thank you, sean. It's harder to pray because of what maybe the popes that are done, or what a bishop or priest says that are done. I've let it affect me and I shouldn't.

Speaker 3: 31:06

So, yeah, I think there's truth on both sides of that. Yeah, I agree. Actually it might sound kind of funny coming from me, of all people, at least to our audience, but I've spoken badly about the Holy Father before in ways that I'm not proud of, and I've talked about this on my show extensively. That like, it's a very fine line. One has to look at the intention in his will and look at specifically what he's talking about and therefore, when it comes to subjects like this, one has to proceed very carefully and very reverently.

Speaker 3: 31:41

St Thomas Aquinas talks about how, like, one can justly criticize the Holy Father for, like, a legitimate abuse. Right, just as anybody Right Like can criticize someone else for a legitimate abuse, but it has to be done with great reverence and great carefulness, et cetera. And I think that that's the problem is that we are oftentimes, by osmosis and by our own fallen nature, tempted to just kind of fly off the handle. I've done it myself. I'm not proud of it, those are, those are errors, but then on the other hand, it's like, okay, well, what's his name? He's on Pines with Aquinas this week. It was a really good interview, ed Fazer. Ed Fazer, yeah, thank you, he's always good can be helpful for some, and I think that, for instance, people who really do struggle with being scandalized very easily.

Speaker 3: 32:34

again, I'm not putting you down if that's you out there, but perhaps just prudently, it might not be the best thing for you to look at that stuff. But for other people, particularly like your example, rob, of someone who's a father, children who go out in the world and who have very zealous family members, and perhaps they become zealous they're trying to preach the Catholic faith. If we're in our trad bubbles, oftentimes we can have those bubbles burst whenever I, for instance, as the only Catholic in my family, am asked by my non-Catholic family member so is your Pope a communist? And it's like they'll point out examples all the time. It's like my mom today. We're chatting, I'm trying to help evangelize her and we're talking about the fall of protestant sexual ethics throughout the last century and I was talking about, you know, starts with contraception, then it kind of just rolls downhill etc, etc, and she's like well, but the catholic church accepts his gay blessings now.

Speaker 3: 33:27

So like it's, it's out there to me everyone, even if we don't look at the media, they still see media, and so we have to find a balance between speaking with great reverence of the Holy Father as well as doing what the First Epistle of St Peter talks about, which is be ready to give every man an answer for the hope that is within you.

Speaker 3: 33:45

And so I think, having a right and it doesn't have to be complex, but a right understanding of the papacy, the office of the papacy, which is that Christ instituted it for the central point of unity in the church, in doctrine and discipline and morals, et cetera. But if it steps outside of that bound, just as St Peter did on the night that he betrayed our Lord, then errors will follow. Errors will happen because it's that human element of the church, basic things like that, I think, can help people kind of come back in and not fall into either just like super, hyper despair or, at the other end of things, huzzah pope explaining pope francis is literally saint pious the 10th, you know it's it's either one, I think, is an extreme, and finding that middle ground is, uh, where it's important.

Speaker 3: 34:27

And uh, nick, are you a papal minimalist? I like to joke that I'm a papal maximalist when it counts and a papal minimalist when it counts. I would actually say, traditionally, I'm an ultramontine traditionalist, because I think that's just the true ecclesiology, but I think that in that it has its own area of papal minimalism, and so if you actually understand the papacy in the sense of how it's's traditionally formulated, you'll know the limits of where it can go well, ultramontanism, that was always meant as opposed to conciliarism, right?

Speaker 1: 35:01

so it's not the same as those who call themselves ultramontane today.

Speaker 3: 35:07

Uh, not really at all but yeah, I try to make the difference between, like ultramontane and the hyperpapalist. The hyperpapalist you we could call the pope's plan. It's like everything he says must be true, etc.

Speaker 2: 35:18

And I and I just say, well, I think the pope has immense power upon earth, but it is limited in the sense that, you know, the church has given those bounds, so yeah, I always think about this within the context of, like leading my family in the faith properly, and I can't see a scenario where speaking ill of the holy father or voicing my disgust or whatever my views on what he said or what he's done, how is that actually gonna properly catechize my, my children? How is that gonna properly catechize my wife? Do I want them concerned about what's happening? No, I want them to be faithful, devout Catholics and having respect and honor toward the Holy Father, regardless of what he's saying or what he's doing. And so, and I think if it's not adding to their proper catechesis, then it's taking away. I fully believe that. So for me, I try not to get involved and I just understand that. I just got to have to pray for the men and move on and understand there's been worse popes and the church is going to remain and I have full trust in Jesus' promise over the church. And it's okay.

Speaker 2: 36:24

It's easy to fall into, especially when you're in the social media game, to fall into the clickbaitiness of talking about anything, even if you're talking positively about Pope Francis, like that stuff gets a lot of views, gets a lot of likes, but you end up on this hyper Pope's planer side, which I think can be just as bad, because it's almost there's almost like a degree of naivete there. It's almost willful. It's like willful ignorance. I love, I love the energy that they have, but man, these Zoomer guys talking about him being the most base pope ever, I'm like guys I understand defending the holy father, but like let's not it's not virtuous to deny reality it's just not exactly, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2: 37:04

So again, this is not on my on my list here, but in in our private, in the sea mask chat, and I see in the chat too, um um, that there are some sea mask fans fans here, which is so cool, I love it. Will shared a snippet I can't remember where he said it was from, but it's pre-sented to him and essentially he was talking about how the laity shouldn't be reading the Bible as much. So I'm not going to be talking about that, but more practice of the virtue of religion and less bible study yeah, I think, uh, I probably want you to unpack that a bit, but I think I see what you're saying.

Speaker 3: 37:43

If what you're saying is that like, let's not just either a like, well, actually, before I speak, I'm gonna let you unpack that, can you unpack that? That fully Like what you mean by it?

Speaker 1: 37:53

Because I could go off. I will you know before you clarify things.

Speaker 2: 37:58

Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, for sure that makes sense. I just think the way that I, at least, I understand that. It's like okay, donolics are memed for not reading the bible. Protestants have that on us. They can recite scripture off the top of their heads. It's great.

Speaker 1: 38:17

But what I mean is, by practicing the virtue of religion, going to mass, honoring days of obligation, staying in a state of grace, receiving the eucharist often, going to confession often I I think those things are objectively more important for our souls and for our salvation than being the absolutely most well-read bible study geek alive I agree, and I think that's because if you, if you practice so many of the traditional devotions and practices of the church, things like, um, like praying some of the offices, um, not necessarily you know the whole daily breviary, because that was not really ever expected of the laity um, but you know if, if you, if you do things like pray some of the offices, um, you know at least read the daily, you know mass readings, um, things of that nature.

Speaker 1: 39:08

Like you will, you will get a lot of scripture and it's scripture that the, the church and all our wisdom over the last 2 000 years has decided. This is the, this is the scripture that you should get today or this week or this month or, you know, this time of the year, um, as opposed to just going and reading and studying something kind of for its own, your own edification, right yeah, I would say so.

Speaker 3: 39:36

I mean there had a good, a fair, a fair quotation from saint jerome. You're correct, that is from saint jerome. In in ignorance, excuse me, of scripture is ignorance of christ. I do so. I see what you're saying. I think in principle I agree in the sense that, um, on the objective level, for instance, if one cannot read which is, it's a real reality out there and it was way more of a reality in the sense that, on the objective level, for instance, if one cannot read which is, it's a real reality out there and it was way more of a reality in the past because of lack of education.

Speaker 3: 39:59

1000% receiving our Lord and Holy Communion is going to be the highlight of one's spiritual life, particularly in the moments after reception of the Blessed Sacrament and that heart-to-heart conversation that you're having. All of the theologians will say that that is the most important time in your life is those moments. But I would also say, because I do see a trend in Catholics today, and I've even seen some in the chat who will sometimes pit religious observance against study, as if they do go against each other, which cannot be a thing, because RIP all the Dominicans that are out there, my fellow brethren as a third-order Dominican Like Radcliffe, exactly St Thomas Aquinas heard of him. But what I would tell people is this so I think that's based on a faulty anthropology of man. The reality is that man can only love that which he knows, and the more he knows something that is objectively good, the more he loves it. So the more one studies scripture and the more one studies theology. If you're doing that correctly, with the spirit of Christ and letting the spirit of Christ lead you, then you will be led into greater intimacy with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. So as an example, it's like the more as an example.

Speaker 3: 41:13

Anthony is great about this. On this show he will talk all the time about Old Testament prophecy and its fulfillment in the new. That makes the world so much more powerful whenever you connect all the dots and you realize that this priest before me is not only another Christ, but he's in the order of Melchizedek, it is fulfilled the Old Testament law, et cetera, et cetera. So they all go, I think, together. But yes, on a principle level I would agree with you.

Speaker 3: 41:39

It's like if one is either A just studying to accumulate knowledge or, as I say, studying to get a swollen head but a shrunken heart, then that's an issue right, and one would be better off just going to the sacraments. That's an issue right, and one would be better off just going to the sacraments. But I think that they both have to go together and we can't ever downplay the study and unfortunately, the laity today I mean the laity today, at least according to a lot of Catholic teachers will admit that we're at about a second grade catechism level for adults, unfortunately, where it's sad because in a pre-conciliar area, the reason that manuals were even translated to English is because they thought the lady would read them. So it's a good question. It's a good question.

Speaker 2: 42:24

I do like it. Yeah, I think the issue is a lot of people fall into the trap of trying to. I think Father Mike Schmidt said this stop trying to find yourself in the Bible and start trying to look for God and Christ in Scripture. Because I used to look at like, oh, I'm reading Corinthians or I'm reading, you know, peter, I'm trying to find things that fit me completely, not taking into account the literary context of these verses and how they're actually speaking, using the language that they're using, but what I can say as a guy that's gone from Protestant world to Catholic world. I fell in love with scripture, even more understanding typology and I seeing the new Testament in the old and all of these prophecies revealed it. It was. I remember my first sort of foray into this was reading Behold your Mother by Tim Staples and really getting into the Marian dogmas, and I would find myself putting the book down and sitting back like feeling like galaxy brain, like the Bible starting to come alive. So there's absolutely a place to study scripture. And this is another point too.

Speaker 2: 43:27

I see a lot of Catholics that when, let's say, engaging in dialogue with other Catholics or Protestants, we're hesitant to refer to scripture. It's so bizarre because we don't want to sound like Protestants when if anybody has a legitimate claim to the authority of scripture, it's Catholics, but we're we cower away from such a conversation. It's so odd. It's like the divide between Catholic and Protestants has been happening to our brain. The Bible is their book and we have all these smells and bells in the tradition and the fullness of the faith and worship and the sacraments. But we're not just well-versed in Scripture, but we have a hesitancy to refer to it. I don't know if you find that as bizarre as I do. I just think it's super interesting.

Speaker 1: 44:09

My favorite is when you're arguing with a Protestant, you put scripture into whatever like, without telling them into whatever you're saying, and then they'll disagree with you because they oh no, look, you don't believe in the Bible.

Speaker 3: 44:22

Yeah, yeah, it's truly actually a kind of a really bad apologetic method, because St Thomas talks about I think it's in the first question of the Prima Pars, but he says, like, when arguing with a heretic, use the New Testament. When arguing with a Jew, use the Old Testament. When arguing with a pagan, you know, use Aristotle. And with arguing with an atheist, you know you just have to use basic reason and if they don't admit any truth, then you have to basically get them down to some type of first principle. But the point is'm I'm an ex-protestant as well. That's where I've I've had some success.

Speaker 3: 44:55

I remember one time I was outside with a bunch of fellow catholics protesting a trans drag show. We were protesting in one of our local towns and there was this protestant guy who was a street preacher there, not like the rabid anti-catholic ones, but one that, like, legitimately cared about those people. And uh, long story short, we ended up having an hour-long conversation about my, our faiths. Uh, I was just pouring in scriptural references off the top of my head all the time for the sake of this guy, and he said, okay, I'm ready to become catholic. It was like a total move of the holy ghost right there on the street right in front of this trans thing, and I gave him a catechism, told him where to go and this last Easter he was brought into the church and it wasn't just the one thing he literally just came in and so.

Speaker 3: 45:37

But it was because you know that exposure of scripture and saying like scripture points to Catholicism, like that's the reality.

Speaker 1: 45:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:46

Totally Okay. So, on a completely sort of separate note, I think I don't know where I heard this uh statistic or if this is even true. You guys could verify this for me, but apparently Catholics are the cheapest in terms of tithing and giving and being charitable with the church. So, uh, I think a part of fundamental, you know, masculine worship is is giving the first fruits of your income each month to the church, and I think it's it's so lost. I heard, you know my church. They were talking about how much they needed for these certain repairs and I'm like I know for a fact there are lots of wealthy people here. But somehow we we've lost the art of giving to the church. And I remember my priest saying you know saying this like with, with aggression. You saying you know saying this like with, with aggression. We're not Protestants, we don't give 10%. It's like, okay, I understand that. Like I think, just arbitrarily, give me 10%. Sure, I can't remember if it was St Alphonsus Liguori that said that after your bills were paid and you paid yourself, like give 2% of what's left over, and I think that number is going to vary, but I think, going back to what you know, give, but make sure it's a bit uncomfortable and that was something that was put on my heart.

Speaker 2: 46:54

I did the Seven Sorrows Novena a couple of months back and I'm not sure if you guys have done that before. It's like reveal my greatest defect. That's sort of the theme of the nine days, and it was revealed to me that I'm a bit greedy, but not with my time, but with my finances. I don't actually give to the church and there was a series of events that happened. A friend of mine, the day after I kind of came to this realization, he said it was on my heart to tell you that you should give to the church.

Speaker 2: 47:18

And then that same day I read my St Augustine day by day little devotional thing, and it was about that specific day was about giving to the church or giving to the needy or something. I said, okay, well, god, you're obviously smacking me over the head with this. And every month, in that first week of each month, I'm giving some kind of donation to the church and that's freed up a lot of that greed, that pride around money, that stinginess around money, and it's actually, you know, in a strange way it's like more businesses come my way. So I don't know what strong opinions you guys have about that. But man, like even seeing some of the participation in my men's group and how unwilling some men are to are are uh with regards to parting with their, their money in terms of self-improvement, let alone giving to the church. I think that's a problem.

Speaker 1: 48:03

I think charity is so important charitable donation um, I, I kind of agree with this here. Uh, some of the hesitancy to give money to the church stems from the scandals and payouts to cover those scandals. I'm not going to, um, it would seem like she's there talking about the, the sex abuse scandals. For me it's not so much, um, the payouts to cover those, but, like I know, I cannot give to my diocesan United Appeal without at least some of that money going to things opposed to Catholic teaching.

Speaker 1: 48:41

You know the Lepanto Institute and Michael Hitchport have done great work tracking down how, you know, tracking down these so-called Catholic charities, that from from our diocese and from our parishes and things like that. And like, like the rice bowl at Lent to give to a Catholic release services. Do you put money in that rice bowl and give that rice bowl to Catholic release services? You just bought condoms for Africa, like legitimately, you know. So so the border, oh, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, all the, all the stuff going down there is largely supported by Catholic money.

Speaker 1: 49:18

So it's it's hard, it can be hard to to give to the church, but there are ways yeah, there are ways to give to your parish in ear market for specific things because as, as a nonprofit, they have to use money that is earmarked for whatever it's earmarked for. So if you want to give your 10% or whatever it is you decide upon, you can give it to your parish for your parish's building fund, and then the parish has to use that for the building fund. They can't even give a percentage of that to the diocese fund. They can't even give a percentage of that to the, the diocese um. But then then the problem can become your parish might have a really nice, really nice, huge building fund, but they don't have money for certain other things. So I guess I would suggest talk to your priest, you know, on a semi-regular basis, figure out what they need money for at the current time and earmark your money for that.

Speaker 3: 50:13

Yeah, I guess I would say two things. So in principle, I agree with you a thousand percent, mike, because one of the things that tithing does is it helps us to detach from money, which attachments, again, like in and of themselves aren't per se sinful but they're imperfect. In and of themselves aren't per se sinful, but they're imperfect. And those imperfections will become purgatory time, right For the souls that do make it to heaven. And so we need to become more detached from everything so that we can properly use whatever that thing is, and so I think giving to the needy is very important. I was, uh, so, uh, I won't again say where I'm at, but uh, yesterday I was walking around, uh, in a subway system and I saw these really, really sad homeless individuals that were down there, and I just thought about how so many of these individuals don't even have people who just like, look them in the eye and smile at them. You know, and this is the opportunity to fulfill our Lord's request in matthew 25, where he talks about whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, my brethren feed them, clothe them, give them a drink, etc. So it's very important for us to do that and we can't fall into that, the habit of just ah, who cares, you know, let someone else do it. On the other hand, our lord talks about how, while we should be as innocent as doves, we should also be as cunning or as prudent as serpents, and so Rob is also a thousand percent correct.

Speaker 3: 51:37

I'm kind of known at least on my channel for saying that we need to boycott dioceses. I haven't really, actually. I'm glad you brought up those examples though, rob, because I wasn't even thinking about those in those videos, those natural examples of contraception and stuff on the border. But I've been talking about it from the theological perspective, in the sense that the diocese has continued to train priests in a quasi-modernistic fashion, and this has been going on for generations, and so therefore, we can't give money to the status quo and expect the status quo to change.

Speaker 3: 52:07

So what I would recommend people to do is be discerning and say, okay, where can my money best go? Perhaps it can go to my local parish, but, as rob say, can I earmark it for something specific? So, as an example, like when I do mine, I oftentimes will market specifically for the latin mass community, you know, for some reason or another. Or another example giving money to one of the traditional orders, the society, the fraternity, the institute a, et cetera. Or if you happen to know the priest very well and he's very good and holy man, sending it to him and saying, you know, maybe earmarking, and say, you know, I want this to be sent for any of the following you know clothing, the homeless, emergency money for those in need. You know, fill in the blank. Just be discerning. Don't just check a box and assume all the money is going to be going to the right place. You have to be right, yes, no, you must tithe to us, fellow Lefebvris.

Speaker 1: 53:03

That's funny.

Speaker 3: 53:04

I 1000% approve of that. But, yeah, just be discerning with your finances. Yes, actually, in fact, we do sell indulgences here on the show. So if you go to the website, you will find indulgences right above the t-shirts.

Speaker 3: 53:17

Remember my friends when a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs it would be kind of funny to sell a little indulgence card dude, why haven't we made a shirt that says when a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs, and make like a sale specifically during like reformation day? That would be amazing, would you guys buy?

Speaker 1: 53:37

that I would. That would be funny, I'm not gonna find one.

Speaker 2: 53:46

um, so that was all great stuff, guys. Um. The next one would be the importance of fraternity. This is another thing that I guess that Protestants do well, because they know how to have their little church groups and Bible study groups and all that stuff. I think a lot of Catholics. It could be the reason because we have again the fullness of faith in the sacraments. We don't need to focus so much on community building, but we absolutely need to, and everybody, you know well, not everybody.

Speaker 2: 54:12

I shouldn't say that I'm not, that I'm not important, but I've gone on a tirade talking against the pancake breakfast and hey, listen, I've had the pancake breakfast from time to time, but I know it's not making me holier, I know it's not forging me in the furnace of of uh, you know, fraternal correction that is at times needed and it's where it's almost like guys are looking around for a guy to start a group like that at the parish. We need to change that on a local level. I think we also need just to be talking about it more, where it's not just sitting around a group having a kumbaya talking about your feelings, it's going and actually doing these difficult things while having these edifying conversations about church, history, favorite devotions, the saints, whatever. But you know, lifting weights together, hiking together, smoking cigars together, drinking whiskey together, whatever. And you see people talk down on these. You know like, hey, that's just an aesthetic, dude, we're not iconoclasts like aesthetics are important. We have icons everywhere. I have icons. This is part of the reason I love Catholicism so much. So, yeah, aesthetics matter and I think they really they speak to the heart of a lot of men.

Speaker 2: 55:14

So, getting guys to together and actually having like difficult conversation, hey, let's call out effeminacy in our uh in in our fellow man. Let's call out lukewarmth in our fellow man, let's call out pornography, addiction, any such thing. And instead, you know we're sitting around a table with boomers eating pancakes on a Sunday and we're calling that, you know, a brotherly hangout. Nobody's getting edified with that, or at least 99 percent of people aren't. And I see these young men that are part of yes, I'm talking about the Knights. And I see, you know these young men everywhere volunteering and I know they can, they want this, they just don't know where to find it and I think I mean, that's such a under-discussed part of our, our faith. But uh, yeah, rob, what do you think?

Speaker 1: 55:58

well, just as you know, iron sharpens iron men forge men, right. Um, so fraternity and brotherhood is a huge part of it and it is something that is so, so sorely lacking. Um, you know, in the catholic world, uh, for like, for me, for instance, it's hard to forge close bonds with anyone at our latin mass parish that we we go to because it's two hours away, and the, the, the other guys there, that there are some that live right there but there are some that drive from an hour in the opposite direction. So then you know, you're, you're three to four hours away from a lot of these other guys, from their families. So, so that's hard. And then in our local parishes and are, like, at least in our small town, here, like the, of the 60 people at mass, there's only 10 of us under 60. So that and, and that's just our family and one other family. So there's one other, one other guy at our parish that's under 60, you know, so it's it.

Speaker 1: 57:09

It's really hard to find a catholic community, catholic fraternity, which I mean, let's be honest, that's probably why half the reason this channel exists was because anthony and I found each other online and got together and found all you crazy people. So, um, it's something that's so needed but so lacking in it, and I don't know the best way to solve it, at least in, like a situation like mine. Um, but if you're in an area, if you're in one of those cities with the last mass community where there are, there is a group of solid guys around you. If you're not doing something with them, if you're not creating a group, if you're not hanging out, what the heck are you doing?

Speaker 3: 57:48

yeah, it's a really, really good discussion. I actually was having a conversation with a couple people about this, something very similar to this, last night.

Speaker 3: 57:55

Um, it broadly this question reflects and I won't say I won't get into the details because, again, we don't want this particular group to come and rage on our channel, but let's just say that there is a lot of young men, unfortunately these days, who are getting sucked down into very negative movements. And unfortunately, these negative movements don't promote virtue, they don't promote even speaking well. They don't promote virtue, they don't promote even speaking well, they don't promote godliness. And so therefore, you know, people oftentimes will seek out movements like this because when we look in broader society, we see a lot of men in particular don't have friends. It's some statistics say, up to words of 37% of men in America don't have a close friend, and I think that's truly quite sad, but it's a real reality. I think for my generation it's higher, mainly because of the internet. I mean we they say that gen zero spent about eight hours a day online.

Speaker 1: 58:51

It's a problem but I think what I was gonna say like how much of it do you think is due to the fact, like that our media and culture just don't know how to portray like healthy male friendships.

Speaker 3: 59:07

A ton A ton, because when you look back at, there was a, there was a really. There's a really good video that's out there. I forget entirely what it's called, but I think it's called something like why Aragorn is the greatest picture of like film masculinity, something like that. It's made by a Catholic, actually, and he basically goes through it and when he gets to spoiler, it's been out for a while now y'all but when Boromir passes away, in the film you see Aragorn bend down and honor his friend by kissing him on the head and then giving him a proper warrior's funeral, and he talked about how, in know, in like the 1980s, you would have just seen like any type of semblance of male friendship just be labeled as, you know, they're gay, you know just, they're gay. It's all fake, etc, etc.

Speaker 3: 59:51

And then today, you know it's like, because there is so much sodomy out there, you know just, everything becomes muddled and so we don't have a lot of good pictures of masculinity, a lot of good pictures of masculine friendships. So a lot of young men are left alone, a lot of men go to communities that aren't good. So what can be the solution? The solution should be there for, yeah, as you said, mike, actually forming a community, but not having it be about the superficial, because life is too short for the superficial. It's like if we to go to heaven, then we need to get around other men. Or if you're a woman, get around other women, they can help get you to heaven.

Speaker 3: 1:00:27

And so actually opening up and having good conversations about like okay, look, this is my predominant fault, help me overcome this. You know what, what do you know about it? Etc. Or just walking day to day with them in your parish, is important. And then to your final, to your final point, rob finding a good parish is, so is so, paramount. Perhaps maybe it's not something that one can immediately attain to, but maybe it can be a good goal for you to try to reach in this next year or to consider in the distant years to, to, to move to a parish. I'm going to sign out now, unfortunately, because oh, it's been an hour.

Speaker 3: 1:01:02

Wow, it's been an hour. So I really I really enjoyed it. But, uh, so two things. No, number one, mike, it's been a pleasure having you on. Uh, I didn't know know who you were, cause I'm kind of a Luddite oftentimes.

Speaker 2: 1:01:12

So, uh, so it was a pleasure Nick Great to meet you man?

Speaker 3: 1:01:17

Yeah, I told Rob this afternoon I had this surprise that Rob would geek out on. I was in this shop today. I found something that I just had to buy and so I bought it. And so, rob, I think we'll appreciate this. Maybe some of you guys will appreciate this in the audience, but it's a genuine Confederate dollar bill, grade A, number 30, excellent condition, and I was very excited.

Speaker 1: 1:01:43

Everyone knows, outside of theology, I'm a huge civil war nerd, and so, uh, getting a genuine what's so ironic about that is the joke is you know always about how worthless confederate money became.

Speaker 3: 1:01:52

Exactly you know, and I bet you paid more than a dollar for that confederate dollar I, I did, I won't say, I'll say it's under a hundred but uh, but it's actually, it's worth a fair amount, but uh, not anything crazy. What's pretty cool about this money just a couple of nerd facts is that it's only pressed on one side.

Speaker 3: 1:02:09

It's blank on the back because they only had certain presses and then also these bills weren't really like bills you would trade in per se like a store I mean you could, but they were basically like bank notes saying, hey, like this is worth this much and when we really get our government up and running we'll be able to pay you out for this.

Speaker 1: 1:02:31

Well, and that's kind of what, um, what, what American dollars used to be? Right they were. They were receipts that you would take to the bank to to get that. You know that if you had, you would take to the bank to get that. If you had a $1 bill, it was a receipt you could take to the bank to get a dollar worth of silver.

Speaker 3: 1:02:49

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I thought you would like this, Rob I don't want to take away your guys' conversation.

Speaker 3: 1:02:55

You guys keep talking. But yes, everyone, rob and I will one day make the true history of the American Civil War episode, because it's long overdue and Anthony is just being dumb and he doesn't want us to do it because he's like, oh no, that'd be boring, that'd be boring. I'm like, look, your people are all throughout the story because you're Italian and you're black, so you understand, you're everywhere. You're everywhere. God bless, god bless you all. Mayor, lady, keep you made saint joseph, watch over and protect you.

Speaker 2: 1:03:26

I'll see you guys god bless you, bro, for sure, just you and me. Buddy, you just let me know when you want to take this in for a landing. I can't remember how long you guys go for typically anyway, so well, we've done anywhere from half an hour to five hours.

Speaker 1: 1:03:41

So whenever you want to be done, you're the host tonight. Who are you on for five hours? The election we did an election live stream that's wild.

Speaker 2: 1:03:50

Yeah, you, you americans, go crazy for that stuff. I'm excited for you. Though it's gonna be, the future is bright, hopefully let's hope, hopefully hopefully.

Speaker 2: 1:03:59

Yeah, no, getting just on that fraternity question too, I think this has had such a widespread effect on the faith and the zeal of so many young men. I started an online men's group me and my business partner, brian and there's a free group and there's a paid group. Doesn't matter which people join, just join one regardless, so you can at least get tapped in and involved. We do free group meetings it's called the Catholic Masculinity Project and in the free group we'll do two free meetings a month at least. We'll do a rosary group every Monday and we have a group filled with over 2,000 men okay, over 2,000. And in some of these rosaries there's maybe 15, 20 guys, and some of these group meetings was like 20 or 30 guys and I remember going on there and like liver leaving this, like blistering uh, uh, uh thread, calling them out, and suddenly it was like a hundred percent more guys showed up. It's, it's, it's almost like this being able to speak with fire and calling guys out and speaking to them in that way and speaking to them like men inspires them.

Speaker 2: 1:05:06

A lot of guys, you know, ended up canceling themselves. They couldn't take the heat. Cool, we don't want you If you're effeminate like we don't want you, you don't want to work on yourself? Okay, go away. But there's something about having those hard conversations that that inspired so many men to show up again, and I just can't help but think that this lack of fraternity, this lack of like you know, fellowship and brotherhood, has kind of created this sort of passivity in in in men's faith. We don't have other guys to sort of help rile us up, right, and uh, I saw this play out in real time in this group, but the more I call them out, the more, uh, the more they seem to react well to it. So maybe there's something to that.

Speaker 1: 1:05:43

Yeah, I completely agree. I'm one of the guys that needs to be called out. That's how I know a friend cares about me If he's willing to call me.

Speaker 1: 1:05:55

I'm a BS and I think so much of that stems from not that I want to put any blame on anyone, but on like failures of our, our fathers or at least of our father's generation, because you know, I think we learn how to relate to and communicate with other men from our fathers, and a good father, uh, is willing to call you out, but then also be right there next to you to help you work through whatever it is he just called you out on. And that's what good friends do, that's what good brothers do with each other, and I think so many guys today just have no experience of that at all.

Speaker 2: 1:06:34

Yeah, they don't, and if we had, we live in it. We're living in the fallout of the epidemic of the absconding father Right and I think if we had more fathers that were showing up and doing the thing, or even brothers in the faith that were doing the thing and and at least you know, trying to fight cause it's been an intentional subversion of masculinity Right and and just depict our friendship as homo sapien, as Tim Gordon would put it. It's, it's absolutely like a direct attack and this is one of the things that, um, the red pill fundamentally gets right. There has been a systematic attack on manhood and, at the same time too, like what a lack of fathers has created, is this vacuum with that, you know, in this, this space, where the red pill is filled, what andrew? Where andrew tate is filled, and because somebody in the comments talked about this where nick fute is filled, and because somebody in the comments talked about this where Nick Fuentes is filled.

Speaker 2: 1:07:24

Yes, because if there are good fathers calling out their children, there would be no need for absolute retards, capital R retards like him, online, um, and espousing the things that he espouses, I and I think you know equally leading men astray in a in a sort of different way, and we deify these people because we actually don't even know how to identify what actual man is. So instead we look at these, um, these really really piss poor examples, because we don't have these examples anymore. It's like we've sort of forgotten the manhood of Christ and the manhood of the apostles and the early fathers. And you know, when I read scripture and I read about St Paul, st Paul inspires me so much. You imagine this, this guy, that if he were, we'd all be getting a letter of some kind. It's all like the lay of the land right now, right. Could you imagine what that letter would be?

Speaker 1: 1:08:11

oh it would, it would be brutal. Uh, you know when I, when I think of of the, the father figure in my life, uh, which which was largely my grandfather, um, if, if, if I, if he were to have ever caught me watching something like Nick Fuentes, he would have been so disappointed in me, and that's how I know it's not. You know that that movement's probably nothing good.

Speaker 2: 1:08:39

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's nothing good from what I've, what I've seen, and there's people obviously on both sides. I'm trying to, hey, listen, I'll listen to more to the guy If I feel, um, if, if, maybe I've gotten the impression of him wrong, but uh, I think any kind of person that attracts the kind of followers that he does, it can't be, it can't be a good movement. I think you can. You can judge a tree by its fruit and the clips that I've seen. People want to say it's out of context or whatever, but where I've interacted with these and I'm not going to, I'm not going to call it all. You know gripers, there's actually been some really, really good ones that follow me on X. No, no matter what I've said about Nick, they're solid dudes.

Speaker 1: 1:09:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:09:13

Solid dudes and, and there's no matter what I said, they're like you know what, mike? I'm still a fan of you, man. It's okay, we can we can agree to disagree on this one, but that's like maybe 5% of those dudes, right, but I don't want to hammer on on those guys too hard and we just we can just pray for the salvation of his soul and and and that's it. But he comes to full repentance because what he's saying publicly is egregious and it is grave matter, and if anybody calls himself a Catholic, you need to repent of that and go to confession immediately, and I fear for his soul.

Speaker 1: 1:09:43

And even if it is just, even if it is just irony, it's scandalous, at the very least, right.

Speaker 2: 1:09:50

Yeah, that's exactly right, and I see people in the comment comments I've just said there's good Groypers, absolutely the one, some of them that I'm interacting with and you can't speak or paint with a broad brush.

Speaker 1: 1:09:59

But anyways, putting putting that aside, I'm sorry, rob, you're gonna say something I was gonna say, yeah, some of the most devised uh devout pious men maybe. But some of the most heinous people I've ever seen uh online have also been gorbachev too.

Speaker 2: 1:10:13

So yeah, totally, totally. So again, can't paint with a broad brush, but anyways, moving on from that for a second, completely departure from that topic is self-imposed physical or spiritual penance. So I'm curious, rob, how long have you been a Catholic for?

Speaker 1: 1:10:30

Well, my whole life. I was away from the sacraments for the most part for about 10 years. But yeah, I was born and raised Catholic.

Speaker 2: 1:10:41

So what would you say is some of your favorite self-imposed physical, spiritual penance that obviously you don't want to do, because that's the whole point of penance is self-denial. Um what, what are some go-tos for you with where you're at in your faith right now?

Speaker 1: 1:10:55

uh, I think, uh, cold showers are a good and easy one, especially in northern Minnesota in December, but fasting, fasting is always there, especially because I struggle with gluttony, you know, I struggle with my weight, so fasting especially can be a difficult but yet really fruitful penance, you know, during times like Advent or during times like Lent, things of that nature, and I should probably do it quite a bit more than just that. But so fasting has always been one. You know, it's especially back when I was younger and and in high school and involved with, with, with sports, more, uh, more physical penances, just doing, um, doing more, more lifting or, you know, more reps, higher weights, things like that, as as an actual like form of of conscious uh, penance was something that I, I did um, quite a bit, uh, so that's kind of me for the most part.

Speaker 2: 1:12:17

I'll have to say, just given my background, I used to be over 300 pounds. I lost like 120 pounds in like a short period of time, and I've done this for a long time. So I say this with complete sincerity If that's something that you've struggled with, I'm more than happy to help you out wherever I can. I got stuff that I've recorded that I could just send to you.

Speaker 1: 1:12:34

Yeah, I'd appreciate that man.

Speaker 2: 1:12:36

Holler at me. I know the struggle. I mean there's still an element of even though you kept the weight off years and years later. It's still something that I still have to fight against myself because it's I still got the big boy appetite and I can easily still gain the weight. It's still a fight, but there's a there's a way around it. So I'll be more than willing to help you out.

Speaker 1: 1:12:53

But yeah, I'll reach out to you.

Speaker 2: 1:12:55

Definitely, please do. Um, fasting has been a big one because, despite being a guy that stays relatively lean year round, I still have made such a thing about my food. And I actually had a conversation with Nick Stumpauser a good friend of mine, cmas crew when he was here when he was doing the stand-in for my daughter's um baptism, and he was saying, mike, like it's almost I think this is the term he used the gluttony of particularity, um, because I use a food scale, I, I, I track my food. I'm super OCD about it. He's like how about? You just didn't do that? And I was like appalled, I couldn't imagine not doing it. But there's a point there, there's a sense of an, there's an attachment that I have to that that I probably need to put to rest, at least for a short period of time, to prove that I can do it.

Speaker 1: 1:13:48

It almost requires almost more discipline.

Speaker 2: 1:13:50

right, yeah, give that up and just, yeah, it's like temperance and prudence, like magnified in that sense, because it's easy to kind of put in numbers into okay, I'm done eating, and you can kind of logically arrive at that conclusion. But how do you do that without these numbers in front of you? It's like you're kind of trying to discern it. It's it is kind of like virtue building on steroids. And another thing for me was and I encountered this recently I don't know how to not like I only train four days a week now, but I don't know how to take a break. And typically when I deload or I detrain, it's because I gotten sick, it's because of vacation, it's never because I've deliberately decided hey, I'm feeling beat up, Let me take a step back.

Speaker 2: 1:14:35

So, as of about two weeks ago, I started to notice a real degradation in performance. Body started to feel really horrible. But like with where I what I always do, I just push through and I'm like a hammer, push through. And then it all kind of came to a head. I tried to take a bit of a break. Nah, still went too hard. And then last Monday, my, my performance is down Like I don't know 20%, 25%, and I remember sitting down and I'm like I think God is telling me to just not do this right now. Percent, and I remember sitting down and I'm like I think God is telling me to just not do this right now. I'm making a bit, I think, as well ordered as this, as this has become, because I took it to an extreme for a long time, I think God is telling me just don't do it this week. And if you're going to do it, do something else, do something light, stop doing this.

Speaker 2: 1:15:17

So it's weird that, like my penance was not doing the thing. That is a typical form of modification for the average person. Right, it was, it was it was it was. I had to flip it on its head for a second and that was really hard to do. I felt a little bloated and uncomfortable and I was confronted with the reality of oh, there's still a bit of a feminist here, a feminacy here, from all the the sort of um, I guess, fitness industry indoctrination around being in a certain condition or lifting a certain amount of weight for a number of years. But anyways, in terms of physical penance, I would say it's, it's most definitely that fasting. And from a spiritual perspective I mean honestly, like when do I ever feel like praying a rosary? Never, yeah, so true, like I never do there's always an excuse.

Speaker 1: 1:16:05

Right, you always have an excuse ready but doing it.

Speaker 2: 1:16:08

I just finished the 33 day consecration to the blessed mother. Uh, it was a saint louis de montfort's consecration. It was beautiful, but man it got like there was. It was some heavy periods in there where man were like I was. That's funny. There were some heavy. I was heavily menstruating through this time, no, but there were some times where I'm marking this to cut later.

Speaker 1: 1:16:29

There we go.

Speaker 2: 1:16:30

There you go, but before bed I'm like it's late, I don't want to do this, but I guess that's the point of it, right? It's like find, don't just kind of get into piety. Sprawl, where you're filling your day with so much of this prayer, just sort of needlessly, can become legalistic. But prayer should challenge you. Like you know, you're kind of rising in holiness when you look forward to it. But I guess I'm not there yet because I don't.

Speaker 1: 1:16:55

One of the dependencies I have in a sense imposed on myself is for Lent and now Advent, I do these, I read these meditations, and that is kind of a form of penance for me, not because I don't enjoy doing it, for anyone who's listening to it, but I have to wake up a fair amount earlier because, even though the the reading that I'm recording is maybe only 10, 15 minutes earlier, because even though the the reading that I'm recording is maybe only 10-15 minutes, uh, all the, the work behind the scenes is the same as a two hour long episode, like we're doing tonight. So I have to wake up a little bit earlier every morning and and get dressed and presentable while everyone's still sleeping so I can record these and put them out and then get ready to actually go to work and start my day. So that's been one that, um, that it is hard to do, especially today, like, apparently, what I recorded this morning didn't work and the audio didn't work. So that means tomorrow I got to wake up even earlier to do two at once, but but, uh, that's, that's, that's been what I've been doing, and then one that I don't do as much I should, but one that I heard about. Actually, I think it was from Eric Sammons.

Speaker 1: 1:18:11

When I first kind of started looking into the TLM and just kind of more traditional Catholicism, I saw a video he did with Taylor Marshall and we've mentioned this video quite a few times on the channel because of how impactful it was for both Anthony and I and it was Eric and Taylor Marshall talking about living a traditional Catholic life and it wasn't so much about the TLM, just as. How do you live Catholic throughout your daily life? And Eric said one of the the small penances he likes to do is anytime he goes out to eat, uh, he'll find what he wants on the menu and he won't get it. He'll get what you know, he'll get whatever. Whatever the second option he would have chosen, that's what he'll get. And I think that's just such a simple and small small penance that you can do you all the time wow, yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:19:04

Just a quick story on on penance. This is actually what uh got me to finally quit drinking alcohol. I had a problem with it for a number of years and I went from doing it daily to doing on the weekends. But whether it was daily or on the weekends, I was going through, at times, bottles per week and it was. I was a functioning alcoholic and I could drink a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 and be pretty well okay, where now, if I snip a glass of wine, I feel like a 16-year-old girl at her first party.

Speaker 2: 1:19:36

It's absolutely crazy how that happens, but I'll never forget praying that first rosary. This is why I'll do it daily, faithfully, no matter how little I feel like doing it. I'll do it with my family, but I'll always do it at least one time. Um, because all of a sudden, this flashback that came to me was my, my great grandmother, who is still like the closest thing to a saint that I've ever met in my entire life, just in so many different ways.

Speaker 2: 1:19:57

But on Fridays, obviously, she wouldn't eat meat and she would, there would almost be like she'd be doing some kind of penance all the time and it was just so automatic for her and I remembered her specifically not eating meat on Fridays it's kind of a typical thing as a Catholic, right, and I said, okay, well, the hardest day for me to break the drinking cycle if I knew it was a Friday there was a whole ritual and routine around it for so many years had been ingrained into my schedule and I always thought to myself, if I can just break this cycle on Friday, I can break this for good. So, friday being a day of penance for Catholics, I said you know what, lord, I'm going to give this to you. I've tried to quit this on my own strength so many times before and I've failed. But I'm going to attach this to you, I'm going to offer this up as a sacrifice, this little petty pittance of a sacrifice, and suddenly the, the, that sort of spirit of alcohol, boom, gone, gone, disappeared. Don't crave it, don't want it.

Speaker 2: 1:20:54

You know, I might have a glass now and again, very, very, very, very rarely but even the way it reacts with my body when I do have it is not the same that it once was. I mean glory to Jesus Christ for that. I think that comes from penance, that comes from self-denial Right and, um, just a testament to what that can do to somebody's uh, spiritual life and and helping them grow in obedience. Um, meatless Fridays are hard, man, I'll have to start actually doing that. My wife was like pretty staunch about doing that for a while and then she, she, she got pregnant and I was like, ah, you know it's okay. So that's like that's on me. What a poor leader I was in that. It's like it's okay, babe, don't worry about it, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll do something else.

Speaker 1: 1:21:44

The uh, the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2: 1:21:45

This year was the first Fridayiday I've accidentally had meat in five years. I was once I realized it. I was so disappointed. You accidentally did it on fridays, yeah, on a friday, we were trapped.

Speaker 1: 1:21:50

you know we went, we traveled, uh, for for thanksgiving, the thanksgiving holiday, and you know we're staying at a at a hotel, and I went down the Friday morning for the continental breakfast and got a bagel sandwich that had sausage in it and I didn't realize it was Friday. It's like, oh, five years just gone. I know, I know it's okay, but still, you know it's like ah dude.

Speaker 2: 1:22:17

So there's a comment here. Uh, he says I think we're all required to go without meat on Fridays. We'll check Canon law If somebody could verify this for me, because we're a holy day of obligation for us, but it was for you guys, yeah. So I don't know if that's like worldwide, but if it is, then there will be no more meat consumed on.

Speaker 1: 1:22:49

Fridays. There I forget the Canon I want, 1271. It's popping into my head, but so there there's two applicable Canons. The first one does say that it is canon law that Fridays you abstain from meat. The second canon is a canon or two after that and it more or less says that you abstain from Unless your bishop's conference has decided otherwise. So, like here in the US, the USCCB has said that if you do eat meat on Fridays you can substitute a separate penance.

Speaker 1: 1:23:36

So, in the US anyways, it is still normative canon law that Fridays are meatless, but another penance can be substituted for it.

Speaker 2: 1:23:47

That was my understanding and that's why I quit alcohol. In place of that, I'm like this is my penance, but now that I guess it's become an easy penance, I should be doing something else. So that's what I mean. The more you know. I didn't realize I had to get my marriage convalidated. Then I woke up the day after my confirmation realizing I had to do that, and then that was a whole. We talked about it last show. I won't get into it again. That was a whole debacle in and of itself. I know you've, uh, you've gone through it yourself. Um, so kind of I only have a. You're good to go then I certainly am.

Speaker 1: 1:24:22

I'm good to go, so however long you want to go, Devotion to St Joseph. That's a big one.

Speaker 2: 1:24:29

You know, I don't know man, I'm still pretty new coming back to the church. But whether you're a single man and you're pursuing, you're trying to really achieve a firm control of chastity and your concupiscible appetite, or whether you're a man learning to lead your family and understanding chastity, even within the, the context of marriage, I think having some kind of a devotion to saint joseph is so, I think, so critical. This is why one of the biggest the, the. When guys come to me and they they want help quitting pornography, the first thing I'll give them is the 33 day consecration of St Joseph that I start them off with the fast. It's like you can't properly understand and embody chastity if we don't have some kind of an understanding or devotion to St Joseph. I think he gets almost like he doesn't get enough love. He's kind of an underrated saint he is.

Speaker 1: 1:25:19

And I don't fully understand why I think so much. Of it is because, uh one, he was so, so humble that we don't have any writings, we don't have any sayings of him are we all.

Speaker 1: 1:25:34

All we have are a very limited number of actions. You know that he took, uh took in the gospels. So we don't, we don't have a big, a large basis there and we have to um, I don't want to say infer, but it in some sense we almost have to infer a lot about him. But there are a lot, of, a lot of traditions about him that they might not be um, you know big t traditions, uh, but but there are some sources, um, I forget, oh, we interviewed um an author, I forget who it is, but uh, there was a.

Speaker 1: 1:26:14

There is at least one book, uh, of visions that mystics have had, say, and Catherine Emmerich Mary of Agreda, someone took visions from these mystics of St Joseph and put them into kind of a narrative story to get a better sense of his whole life, and that was. I really enjoyed reading that. But yeah, I think, st Joseph, I think you need to have a devotion to St Joseph because while Jesus is, is the perfect, uh, the perfect example of masculinity, he is the God man. We can't ever really compare ourselves to Christ, right, and while we need to form ourselves to Christ as much as possible, we're never going to really fully get there. So I think in many ways St Joseph is a lot more relatable and, besides Christ, he is as perfect an example of masculinity as you can get.

Speaker 2: 1:27:19

Yeah, 1000%, and I'm not sure if maybe somebody can enlighten me. I know obviously in the early fathers and the patristics there's a lot of devotion to Mary. You know Tokos, of course, like you know, all over the place Is there that same level with St Joseph? I haven't seen it personally myself, but I'm very obviously undereducated on the topic. So if anybody has any resources when it comes to that, the only one I know of is the consecration, and I've done certain novenas to St Joseph and they've all been so powerful, especially as a father that wants to lead in in humility and also understanding. You know, I think the red pill guys will screech if they hear this that you know there also is a place in your marriage, like I experienced with convalidation, where chastity is necessary. Of course it's agreed upon with both parties. St Paul talks about this, I think, in Corinthians, and if you don't have sort of an example or devotion to the saint that did this, the best, other than our Lord and Savior, it's St Joseph. So I mean obviously shout out to the Holy Father.

Speaker 2: 1:28:18

The next thing too and this is where that started my conversion process was obviously it's the most important state of grace go to confession, go to mass etc. But also studying the faith from an intellectual perspective and again I'm starting to understand a little bit about the staunch intellectual tradition of the faith. I will never get to the point where I'll ever understand the summa or saint thomas I. I bought uh aristotle's book on uh metaphysics and I read like one not that it's catholic, but obviously a lot of aquinas and stuff on it is on aristotle but I read like one page in my head like immediately started to hurt so I said I'm not ready. I'm not ready for this. I'll leave this to tim gordon and even him, like most of the time, I don't think he's even speaking the same language as I am.

Speaker 1: 1:29:01

Did you see his tweet today addressing a certain group of people and, like the second point, had a word. It's like I don't know that. I don't think who you're addressing is going to know what that means.

Speaker 2: 1:29:12

Yeah, I think he makes it up. No, I'm just kidding, he's just he's, he's absolutely him and Will are like the smartest guys that I know by far, just like the absolute intellectual horsepower. On those guys I'm on cmask, you know, every friday quite often I'm left there and like he'll just go off on this like incoherent tangent. That's obviously impeccably smart and then he'll go. So you know what do you think, mike? And I'm just completely pulling it out of my behind, no idea what he just said. I caught a few like ands and buts and ifs and I'm like okay, cool, I guess hopefully that's enough to run with.

Speaker 2: 1:29:48

But what really converted me was it started in the intellect. For my, for my wife, it started obviously in the heart and then became the intellect. She's fallen in love with the church and the teachings and the history and stuff. But for me it started there. First it was in the mind and then it kind of came to the, came to the heart.

Speaker 2: 1:30:07

When I prayed the rosary, so when I was reading the early fathers, it was saint ignatius of antioch that really red pilled me on the church and then it was reading a lot about the virtues and then how, how perfectly the natural laws expressed in Catholicism, and then reading some stuff on the theology of the body and what is like licit and illicit as far as sexual acts, that was so illuminating for me as well. But there was something that was so perfectly logical and coherent about these things that it just kind of clicked in my brain and it all started from there. It's like okay now, and it it. It totally started to make.

Speaker 2: 1:30:44

All of this started to make sense and, uh, I understand that there's still a lot of gray when it comes to um, um, you know the marital act. You know saint alphonsus liguri, saint thomas have are there on one side, and then you get the theology of the body, people on the other side, and we don't have like these concrete lines for most things we do on faith and morals, but we don't always. But it really was the intellectual tradition that started, started it for me. I'm not sure was it the same thing for you, or was it kind of like heart up or or was it head down?

Speaker 1: 1:31:15

so for me, uh, I've always, I've definitely always been more on the intellectual side as far as like returning to the sacraments. I had never like leaving the sacraments was never because of an intellectual disagreement with the church or what she taught. It was really just because I wanted to live in sin. And I did so for a decade of my life. And when, um, when we found out my wife was pregnant, that I don't know, I don't know if it's a movement of the heart that sounds so, uh, feminine, I don't, you know, right, right, but it's like it just struck me like I, I, I know I've been living in sin for a decade. I recognize that. I've recognized it for the last 10 years, um, you know, and I've even been okay with leading my, my wife, into it for a decade now too, well, not a decade.

Speaker 1: 1:32:20

We've been together for a few years, but regardless. But now you, you have a child that you are fully responsible for forming. You know what the hell are you doing, and and that that was it, that's all it took. That's all it took for me, um, but I've always leaned a lot on my intellect and sometimes I recognize that a lot of times the practice of my faith becomes far too much of an intellectual exercise for me. I start to equate learning more about the faith as being a better Catholic, when that's just not the case. It can help. It certainly can help, and it is necessary to always be learning more about the faith, but that's not the end goal.

Speaker 1: 1:33:03

The end goal is to become holy, not to know a lot your virtue of religion right, exactly, right, exactly, and and I forget that, uh, quite often I have to remind myself of it, but I think, I think, um, an intellectual exercise of the faith is something that it is manly. You can't take it too far. There's the whole stereotype of the tweed and all of that. So there's a middle ground. You know you have to always be willing to learn more about your faith, but it's far more about practicing it than it is about learning it.

Speaker 2: 1:33:49

You're the pious meathead theologian.

Speaker 1: 1:33:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:33:53

Exactly. I've been going on a tirade lately on my YouTube channel and actually, like I didn't think the message would be as well received. They're like man, look at this uh, tatted up idiot dude that lifts weights, has backdrop, is, is, is is his gym and he's talking about, you know, lifting weights and how. You know, physical culture belongs to the religion of the resurrection and all this other stuff about essentially lifting weights or combat sports or fasting, whatever. But men are liking that message and I think it's important because, like the tweed theologians talking about ha ha, they're sitting around with their, with their beards, talking about high level theology. When they're they look like you know you could break their neck by sneezing at them the wrong way. It's like not doing anything for the faith. I'll use the example If there's two guys that are like equally holy, but one dude is in decent shape, he can lift some weights, he can defend himself, and you have the other guy who's totally, absolutely weak and fragile, who's gonna be better at like evangelizing, it's gonna be the strong dude. It's gonna be the strong, pious dude, and we need to.

Speaker 2: 1:34:54

These things are not separate. If there's no other faith that has shown dignity and honor and respect to the body, like the Catholics have, like our faith has. If you look at I know it's like a meme, I bring up this letter so often but Pope Pius XII addressed the Italian Sporting Association in the 50s and he talked about the importance of sport and he was using terms like no pain, no gain, and it's an example of the unceasing work for Christ, in that we're not just spirits trapped in our bodies, we're both. And you know, if our natural, if we have a semblance of natural virtue, then how much more can the supernatural build on that grace building on nature? It's such a I don't know, it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's not like discussed enough.

Speaker 2: 1:35:35

So much of the online, other than, of course, I've loved avoiding Babylon since essentially you guys started, and same thing with Seamask. It's trippy that I'm even here having this conversation with you. It's really freaking cool actually. But because you guys bring a masculine voice to these topics, because even when reading the theology of the body, I'm like are these dudes? Do they think that it's only women that listen to this stuff? Because I can't listen to it, man, it's so flowery it that listen to this stuff because I can't listen to it, man, it's so flowery, it's in the woman voice and I'm like no dude, I'm turning this off. I don't care how right what you're saying is.

Speaker 1: 1:36:06

This sounds homo sapien af and I can't listen to this anymore that that is such a problem with so much uh catholic content that is produced uh, especially at the higher levels, right? I mean, if you look at stuff produced by the, the larger um publishing companies and things of that nature, it it is as a man it is it is hard to listen to, uh, it's hard to watch um, which is why uh, some of the the newer stuff from from podcasters, but uh, even from things like uh mass of the ages, you know they, I, even if you don't always um agree with the TLM side of things, like you, can't argue that that what they produce and those three uh films for lack of a better word we're not incredibly beautiful in a in a real masculine sort of way.

Speaker 2: 1:37:04

Yeah, I think it bordered on uh making the novus order look like it was a completely illicit, invalid mass.

Speaker 1: 1:37:07

it was a bit the second episode definitely right, but it did.

Speaker 2: 1:37:12

You know, when we me and my wife watched it, my wife after was like I want to go to, I want to check out the tlm, like good, yeah, that's absolutely. I've been waiting for you to say that let's go, let's do it. Uh, you know, it was kind of like a handholding process at the beginning. But yeah, I totally agree and I think this is why it's so important to kind of speak about these things in the way that you, anthony and Nick talk about, or how me, nick, tim and Will talk about it. And it's not popular, it'll never be the plot If our faith is not a patriarchal faith and we're letting women define what masculinity means. Or he's got, you know, I will submit to him if he loves me like Christ loves the church. So now she's defining manhood and everything's inverted and everything's all fake and feminized. And no wonder we're losing people to Protestantism or atheism or orthodoxy or Islam. It's we've just kind of lost our edge in a way and we've got to just, I think crypto Catholic crow in the comma comments it's too low T, yeah, but I also think there's another comment here the effeminates are a bigger problem than the nerds, yeah, but a lot of times the nerds are the effeminates. There are very few nerds like Tim Gordon. He's a nerd, but like high T nerd, that's the type of nerd that we should be trying to emulate. Will is a high T strong nerd. That's not the classical nerd you'd want to mess with, right?

Speaker 2: 1:38:31

It's just so much of this conversation. It's just kind of, yeah, and of course they all rant about. You know, Tim G, or whatever we talk about. You know talking about patriarchy and being anti-feminist, but you know, don't take it up with me, take it up with the church. This is things that have been discussed by numerous 20th century popes. It's in the catechism. You know, don't take it up with us.

Speaker 2: 1:38:51

We're just trying to bring that conversation back in a way that it's not just pointing to the truth. That's ultimately like the foundation of what we're trying to do is like let's, let's make men in the church great again, right, it's, I don't know, man, the people lose. We're losing them to the allure and the aesthetics of orthodoxy online and and you know the red pill and whatnot, and not that I'm anybody, but that's part of the reason I started kind of talking about this stuff in the first place. But I'm on, uh, I'm on a. I'm on a whole different topic. There's a lot of cope. I hear too, mike, the saints weren't physically hard. It's like, yeah, but you're not a saint and they were physically hard.

Speaker 1: 1:39:26

I was going to say, there's very few saints that I can think of. That weren't I mean? Let's see? Saint Dominic walked around the south of France preaching against people that wanted to kill him. Saint Tarsicius was stoned to death as a teenager protecting the eucharist. Uh, saint miguel pro was shot by masons in mexico. I mean, do we how they are? They are super hard totally.

Speaker 2: 1:39:58

And so anybody coping, saying any of these people in history weren't weren't gym goers okay, you're not that person. You probably have some work to do and it'll help you. So stop coping and do what you're supposed to do. It's not about being a bodybuilder or a powerlifter or being chiseled, because that can be all that stuff can be super effeminate too, it's like. But just do something like witness and experience the marvel of, of creation and god's. You know he built us in this way to adapt to these incredible external stimuli. Like, why not experience that for yourself? How much more you know pious and holy can we be if we're doing it?

Speaker 1: 1:40:35

and it's well ordered, um, but yeah, saint thomas aquinas, absolute strong saint ignatius ofius of Loyola was a soldier who then read and learned about his faith and became one of the greatest saints. I mean, that's a perfect mix of brainy nerdiness but also being physically strong. Uh, being physically strong, oh boy, one of us, one of us is frozen. I don't know who. I don't know if I'm frozen and no one sees me. Okay, mike is frozen. Great, here, all by myself. You guys know that's like worst case scenario for me, right? Let's see if I can get mike working here. Okay, uh, so he left. Hopefully he joins back in here and that fixes it. Yeah, see, that's why the only solo stuff I ever do on the channel is pre-recorded and then released, because, uh, yeah, I'm not. Oh, here we go. Oh, thank God, because being alone on this channel is like my worst nightmare.

Speaker 2: 1:42:02

I don't know, I have no idea what happened there. I apologize. The internet just like shut off oh, it happens spiritual warfare, as the the youngins would say.

Speaker 1: 1:42:15

That was spiritual warfare, guys more like just a bad internet company, but whatever that's what it was.

Speaker 2: 1:42:22

I live in the prairies, dude, it's it's like super frigid and you're in minnesota. You know what I find interesting about people in minnesota?

Speaker 1: 1:42:28

you guys sound like canadians don't, don't, don't tell me that you guys, do you guys? You guys, we sound the same there are definitely times, uh, there are words that I will say that will sound the way for sure.

Speaker 2: 1:42:45

Oh man, I was just laughing with a buddy about this actually yesterday. But, Rob, that was pretty much the end of my points for this masculine worship episode. But anything to add?

Speaker 1: 1:42:56

thoughts in closing in closing, no, um, other than, like the, once again like to be. To be masculine is is to be virtuous, and to be virtuous is, uh, at least for men, to be masculine. For women to be virtuous is to be truly feminine. Um so, whatever we do, whether it's learning more about the faith or trying to get stronger, whatever we do, we have to keep in mind the end goal, and that's to become more virtuous and to become saints, and whatever you do, that will help you get to sainthood. That's masculine.

Speaker 2: 1:43:35

It's having a posture, in all things that we do, oriented toward eternity. It's ultimately what we should be geared. That's the, that's the the goal, striving toward the upward call of Christ Jesus, like St Paul said. But, Rob, it was a pleasure Actually. I saw Enoch had a question. I didn't want to ignore him because Enoch is dope, so I just we'll get, just get to this real quick and then we'll bring her in. So question for Mike masculinity is interior self-discipline. Do you find it difficult that we have to use social media to teach while at the same time making sure we don't become addicted to it? I find it more difficult to take myself seriously because I talk about this stuff in sweatpants at home and not actually like working a hard physical labor job, if I'm being honest. How about?

Speaker 1: 1:44:16

you, rob? What do you think I find it difficult? Uh, I find it difficult. Um. So, just my, my temperament, uh, as many of you on the channel know, like I can be both very phlegmatic, where I don't like conflict, uh, especially like face to face in person, um, but on the other hand, I can be very melancholic, and that means on a platform like Twitter, especially where I'm not face-to-face with someone, I can just let it loose in a very vicious way sometimes and, uh, and that is not good. Um. So, yeah, I find it, I find striking a balance, um, with social media to be difficult, uh, where, where I can use it to promote the show, the channel, promote the church, but try not to fall into getting into fruitless arguments with pope-splainers.

Speaker 2: 1:45:10

That was actually one of my points too, was avoiding online debate, because I used to have a hard time with that, where now people think I just ignore them with the comments and I need to be better about it, but I just post and ghost. Now I just get away from it post and ghost.

Speaker 2: 1:45:21

Now I just I just get away from it, post the ghost, engage with some good comments within the first hour and then just forget it's even there. Twitter is especially bad about this because it's just endless. When a thread goes viral or a tweet goes viral, like it just it's seemingly never ending. You almost have to like put your thing on mute.

Speaker 1: 1:45:39

Well, Well, especially because, like the algorithm, like if you reply to a reply on your tweets, that reply that you, that you just wrote, is, in their algorithm algorithm, worth the same as like 150 or 200 likes, right? So so you know that it that if I reply to this, that like that's how I get this tweet to do better and it drives conflict. It's meant to.

Speaker 2: 1:46:08

It totally does. So I think in the end, to answer Enoch's question I have other hobbies lifting weights, playing guitar. That gets me away from it and if it wasn't for those hobbies, I'd probably be more immersed in it. But it's just like anything, man, it's the virtue of prudence and temperance. It's just another way to exercise that muscle and it's hard when you're living. You're making a living, at least you know.

Speaker 2: 1:46:27

For me, I'm making my living online. Shout out to ENV. I really appreciate it. God bless you, god bless all of you guys, even the people that disagreed. It's amazing to even be able to do this on this kind of format.

Speaker 2: 1:46:38

But, uh, having other things that we do go outside and actually touch grass and go walk around I know I feel I get cabin fever. Man, I work from home and it's a blessing to be with my family all day. I just absolutely am. So I'm so grateful. But I got to go outside sometimes and like keep the phone away, like don't even listen to a podcast, just like disconnect. That hour every night that I play guitar is the greatest, because I just forget that social media even exists.

Speaker 2: 1:47:03

So I think it's important to have hobbies that are disconnected from electronics and just looking at it as another way to practice those virtues. Um, you know, every opportunity, you know with these things that we have attachments toward, uh, there's another opportunity to grow in holiness or fall further into vice. It's like we have a choice and the action always precedes the virtue. As we know, as we climb and sort of like those levels of, of, of, I guess. What does aristotle call it? Continents, I think. But anyways, that's above my meathead pay grade. I should go read more. But uh, rob dude, we gotta do this again when anthony's back.

Speaker 2: 1:47:35

It was a pleasure we did this once and uh, we'll do it again for sure. But uh, god bless you, buddy, and, like said, I'm still extending that hand. If you need help with anything, dude, holler at me.

Speaker 1: 1:47:43

I got you Will do. Yeah, thank you so much for joining. Having you and everyone else fill in for Anthony has been a big help, so we really appreciate it. And our last episode without Anthony is Thursday, and that's going to be Keith Nestor Beautiful yeah is Thursday and that's going to be Keith Nestor Beautiful yeah, it's going to be great, especially because we're going to talk about whether converts should shut up after joining the church, and my answer is no, just Anthony, but yeah, that should be a good one.

Speaker 2: 1:48:14

I look forward to that. Keith is such a good dude. I love him.

Speaker 1: 1:48:17

He really is. I think we've had him on the show. I think it might be only once, but it is one of the more fun episodes that we've ever done.

Speaker 2: 1:48:29

Yeah, he spoke at my men's group and he stayed for legitimately two hours making sure that everybody got their question answered. He is one of the reasons I reverted and one of the reasons my wife has converted. Keith is an absolute blessing to the faith, Just tremendous human. So looking forward to that one. God bless everybody in the comments. God bless you, Rob. We'll catch you soon, buddy.

Speaker 1: 1:48:50

Yeah, have a good night everyone, thank you.