Should Converts Keep Quiet? with Guest Host Keith Nester

Join us as we explore a journey of faith with Keith Nestor, a former Protestant pastor who found his spiritual home in Catholicism. Keith shares his story of going from a life marked by diverse denominational experiences to a profound embrace of Catholic teachings in 2017. This episode unravels the challenges and enlightening moments of conversion, filled with personal encounters involving the Virgin Mary and the Eucharist.

As converts often face skepticism and misunderstanding, our conversation highlights the importance of patience and humility in navigating a new spiritual path. We discuss the nuanced roles converts might play in ministry, drawing lessons from biblical principles to underscore the necessity of grounding one's faith before stepping into leadership positions. This episode also engages with broader discussions on fundamentalist beliefs and the evolving landscape of religious training, emphasizing the value of personal narratives in shaping authentic faith journeys within the Catholic community.

We dive into the intricacies of teaching and sharing Catholic doctrine. Our dialogue touches on the delicate balance between sharing personal faith experiences and assuming authoritative roles in church governance, advocating for a respectful discourse enriched by personal stories while adhering to long-standing traditions. With insights from historical and theological discussions, we aim to bridge gaps by focusing on a community grounded in glorifying God and nurturing authentic spiritual growth.

Chapters

• 0:02 Catholic Conversion
• 14:33 Conversion and Ministry in Catholicism
• 20:14 Qualifications and Humility in Ministry
• 31:01 Pitfalls for New Catholic Converts
• 42:34 Guidelines for New Catholic Converts
• 54:06 Navigating Challenges in Catholic Ministry
• 1:07:39 Addressing Fundamentalist Beliefs for Conversion
• 1:13:21 Women Converts and Teaching Authority
• 1:18:21 Teaching, Apparitions, and Apostasy Discussion
• 1:26:32 Dating and Apologetics in Catholicism
• 1:34:29 Navigating Singleness and Spiritual Growth
• 1:41:06 Encouragement and Sharing Ministry
• 1:52:03 Reviving the Worship of Saints

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

SANTE MISERY, sante AMARE, morti DEI FRATAS NOS IN TEI SPELAVERUM. Normally I fly into your airport and I use that term very loosely the Des Moines International Airport. Yeah, not a center of international commerce, that one. Never a good sign when your gate number is two. Hey man, what terminal are you in? I'm in the terminal, you know. It's the one with the bathroom. I'm pretty sure Des Moines has multiple Menards bigger than your airport.

Speaker 2: 1:07

I couldn't help myself.

Speaker 3: 1:09

I love it. I love it. Was that Shane? It looked like a tattoo-less Shane.

Speaker 2: 1:15

I think it was someone like Nate or Nick Dickerson or something like that. I forget?

Speaker 3: 1:21

Do you guys have Menards where you're from Rob in in? Uh, where you're from rob, but probably not where you're from nick?

Speaker 2: 1:27

no, not at all menards is literally my five-year-old's favorite place in the world. He says so all the time oh yeah, it's beautiful it's a home improvement store.

Speaker 3: 1:36

For those of you that are wondering what we're talking about, but well, welcome keith.

Speaker 2: 1:43

You are our special guest host tonight for our very last show without anthony. Whether that's fortunate or unfortunate, I don't know it's been so nice having uh having the having the advent off we've actually gotten to speak, which is which is nice. Yeah, we're doing an episode of well-being, potentially being quiet, which is fitting for Anthony, not being here. So yeah, for those of you in our audience who don't know Keith, Keith, why don't you tell everyone who you are?

Speaker 3: 2:13

Well, my name is Keith Nestor. I am a Catholic convert. I converted to the church in 2017. I was a Protestant youth pastor, pastor, worship leader. I did all kinds of stuff in churches for over 20 years. Most of my time was spent in the Methodist church, but I was also. I did some stuff in like an evangelical free church and even a little stint. I wouldn't really say I like pastor to church, but I worked like on staff as like a teaching pastor at an assemblies of God church. So that's Pentecostal At the same time that I was senior pastor in the Evangelical Free Church. So two different churches, two different denominations same time. I'd go to one in the morning and one at night. So pretty wild.

Speaker 3: 3:00

But I became Catholic in 2017 for a lot of reasons. We might get into some of those, but ultimately it boiled down to watching my denomination. You know the Methodist church basically completely devolve into mass chaos, which you know, a lot of people have seen that and as sort of a Bible guy which is kind of how I operated to be the guy always standing there, going but wait, we can't do this, we can't do this, the Bible says this, the Bible says that. To have people say to me well, that's just your interpretation of the Bible. What makes you so smart? And I'm really not that smart, so I didn't have a good answer for that. So then I'd have to argue from the standpoint of church tradition. Well, which church you know? Our church is only 40 years old. We can do whatever we want, right? Which was true. So then it became down to authority. Well, what makes you have any more authority than anybody else in Protestant land? And that was sort of the force that pushed me towards Catholicism and then really, what I would describe as.

Speaker 3: 4:13

I mean there's a lot of other stuff that happened in there, but I had a couple of experiences. One was with the Blessed Virgin Mary and another one was with the Eucharist. That happened to me where it became not so much like this exercise of a thought experiment, intellectual exercise or whatever. I know some people read their way into the church. I didn't really do that. I did to a certain degree, but I really felt led into the church by the Lord and by the Virgin Mary. So that's kind of what happened to me in 2017. And I mean we can kind of just leave it at that for now. We'll get into the rest of the stuff later.

Speaker 4: 4:56

Okay, I didn't know it was in 2017. That's pretty cool, yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:03

Yeah, it's been a minute. It feels very I still feel very new, um, so I don't know what nick. When did you come into the church? Because I know you're a convert, because I saw the duct tape on your, on rob's thumbnail, I know rob had so much fun probably doing that uh I came into the church in 2020.

Speaker 4: 5:19

Uh, rough ish. So I don't know whether I'm not, like technically, if I'm a convert or a revert, because I was baptized in the church as an infant, which, according to like actual traditional theology, yes, you're a member of the church but in all practical terms, didn't grow up in it, grew up in evangelicalism, lived in evangelicalism until I was 22 and then practically converted over yeah, so it came in in 2020 and it was interesting, and then practically converted over yeah, so I came in in 2020, and it was interesting because it was in the middle of the whole pandemic and all of the riots going on and all of that fun jazz, and so I was brought in on the vigil of Pentecost oh nice, pretty fitting feast, I think.

Speaker 3: 6:00

So you were an evangelical. What flavor Like. What kind of Protestant were you?

Speaker 4: 6:04

Yeah, so the church I went to growing up was a, I think. So you were an evangelical. What flavor Like? What kind of Protestant were you? Yeah, so the church I went to growing up was a non-denominational church. However, I wouldn't call myself non-denominational, at least in its beliefs.

Speaker 4: 6:13

I was very much so reformed. I was definitely influenced by Calvinism and a holistic reform thought, not just, of course, tulip, which is what people might be familiar with, but the whole reformed thing from covenant theology to, uh, even kind of dipping into um, what's called like historic pre-millennialism when it came to eschatology. So for people who don't know what that is, that's like the uh, the more sane version of like uh, and you find this even in some of the writings of the early fathers but like a literal uh, 1000 year reign of Christ on earth. It's not the same thing as, like the nutty dispensational rapture theory or anything like that Um and so, yeah, it was uh, all of that, but I, yeah, I came into the church at that time and uh, haven't looked back since. It's been pretty fun, how do you?

Speaker 3: 6:57

let me ask you about that for one second. So, historical pre-mill. What did you say? Premillennialism? Yeah, historic premillennialism Okay so that's a view that maintains the literal thousand-year reign of Christ, but it's different from the dispensationalists.

Speaker 4: 7:12

It is, and it's mainly different in two areas. One in the timing of the rapture, so they wouldn't use the term rapture, but it's the same thing, and it would be what we would kind of call a post-tribulation rapture. So Christ would, there would be an actual tribulation of a literal antichrist for seven years, there would be a post-tribulation rapture and then Christ would come with all the saints and reign for a thousand years on earth, whereas dispensationalism would view the rapture as at any moment, poof, we're gone, we're all raptured up, and then there's a seven-year tribulation and then Christ will come for the 1,000 years. So basically it's in reverse that. And then the other main difference was on the issue of the Jews, the people of the Old Covenant. Historic premillennialism didn't see the Jews as God's chosen people, whereas, of course, dispensationalism. That's one of the bedrocks of that theory.

Speaker 3: 8:07

Okay, that's interesting. I'm not really like an eschatology nerd, but I love to kind of dig into that a little bit. What's interesting is, I think that people who are Reformed, I think, are closer to becoming Catholic in many ways, even though their whole identity is wrapped up in not being Catholic, but more than a lot of times, like the liberal mainline Protestants or even the non-denominational crowd, because I feel like the reformed and this is just my opinion, but I feel like the reformed crowd has a higher view of church, a higher view of authority and I would say a, I would even say a higher view of scripture, which are all things that I think will lead you into into the realm of hey, is there a true church? Is there one real authority? Is there one faith, one Lord, one baptism versus sort of the you know, whatever you want to do of mainline liberal Protestantism? So you know, even though most of the mainline liberal Protestants that I know aren't like anti-Catholic, yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:20

So there's this weird thing that a person who is not super anti-Catholic is sometimes harder to have that conversation with than someone who is super anti-Catholic. Have you?

Speaker 4: 9:31

felt that way too. I would say, yeah, I think it maybe depends on the area of theology, but in general I would agree with you because this is a really important piece of apologetic information. I'm about to say for the normie Catholic out there. Most Protestants in historic denominations that take their historic creed seriously, so, like in the context of the Reformed faith we're talking about the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Heidelberg Confession, etc. All of that they don't see themselves as like this separate entity from the Catholic Church. Rather, they say that they are the church in which Christ founded and the Catholic church was at one time, but that mainly in the medieval ages. It started to pile on accretions, as our astute Protestant apologist online you guys know who I'm talking about will say and over time got corrupted, and so all that Calvin and Luther wanted to do was basically just go back to the early church. They didn't want to separate.

Speaker 4: 10:26

We think in Catholic apologetics now that most Protestants hold what's called the bloodline theory of the Baptist, which is that there was this Catholic church but in parallel next to it there was this like hidden secret group of Protestants. Some people believe in that and you should be aware of that. But don't like strawman, every Protestant to be believing that. But the Protestants who do take their creed seriously, I would agree with you. I think that, for instance, a conservative Presbyterian, they're going to know the fathers A conservative Anglican, they're going to know the fathers A conservative Lutheran is the same thing. They're going to actually be serious about saying, okay, what authority was scripture on in the context of the early church? And they'll, for instance, with Lutherans and Anglicans, of course they'll have a much higher view of baptism, of sacramentology, and so we can't all just think that, as you put, like all Protestantism is like just the evangelical crowd in the United States. If we reduce Protestantism to just that, then I don't think we're going to do good in apologetics. And you're right. I think that for those individuals who have never studied church history it does come down into just well, that's your interpretation versus my interpretation.

Speaker 4: 11:35

But once someone, whether he's an evangelical or a Presbyterian, does a serious dive of the early church you can't walk away from. And just one example to give people an example is, for instance, the issue of assurance of salvation. Did the early church believe in the modern version of once saved, always saved, as hold by the evangelicals? Or perseverance of the saints, which is what the Calvinists hold on to. Well, neither they clearly hold on to this idea that you're justified by sacramental baptism, that you have to maintain faith and good works in Christ, in charity, and depending upon what state you die in right you'll go to heaven or hell, and a soul that was once justified can become unjustified through grave sin. So when you see the early church talking about mortal and venial sins, that already kind of just arose the foundations and I think that can help people move to the church.

Speaker 3: 12:30

Yeah, I think that's really interesting to me because I get to talk to a lot of people who are being pulled into the Catholic church through one way or another and it's interesting. You know, some are evangelical, some are the more reformed crowd and I think that there's just like these different pathways in our current experiences that I feel like can lead us into. They become like the highway that takes us into the Catholic church, which I think is interesting. But the topic for tonight that I wanted to get into only because I want to tell you guys a story about how I first got to know Anthony, because it had to do with this topic.

Speaker 3: 13:12

Okay, the topic is should converts keep quiet? And I know that's kind of a goofy topic because I mean, I think I think, you see, some people will say, yeah, if you're a Catholic convert, we get it Just shut up, we don't need any more of you guys out there. Other people are like the complete opposite deal. So we're going to talk about that. But I first met Anthony or I first encountered Anthony on Twitter when he made some smart-ass comment about Catholic converts and I didn't know him so I didn't get his, so I didn't, I didn't get his shtick Right, but he made some smart aleck comment about. You know, he can say something. I had just made a video about something. I don't remember what it was. I just made a video about something on YouTube and apparently Anthony had seen it, cause he was like it's not fair that these converts can make a video and everybody watches it, but us, us cradle Catholics. We said the same thing and nobody cares, you know.

Speaker 2: 14:10

And he always thinks he's the first one to say or come up with any idea.

Speaker 3: 14:15

Yeah, so I basically I can't remember what I said, but it was. I said something a little defensive to him at the time and then he just then, the next thing I know I'm getting invited on this show, so I'm like, okay, so anyway, we, we had that conversation. But you know, I remember seeing seeing those types of things from from certain individuals on on Twitter or whatever that were. You know, I remember, like right before the Easter vigil a couple of years ago, some people were like, oh great, here comes the Easter vigil with all these stupid converts. Now we get to hear all the new podcasts, you know, or how many new books are going to be written. And you know, I I remember reading that stuff going okay, I think this is a dig at at Catholic converts. So I thought that-.

Speaker 4: 15:06

It definitely doesn't sound like our Lord when he says, yeah, the angels celebrating in heaven over one sinner who's doing penance Doesn't really sound like that.

Speaker 3: 15:16

Yeah, it's not the most welcoming thing to hear, you know. Oh great, here you come, now shut your face right. But at the same time I will tell you guys this Like when I, when I was in my my journey to Catholicism, when I finally made the decision to become Catholic and I quit my job in the church that I worked in, I was working through this process with my priest. I didn't go through RCIA, he, you know, the timing was weird and he didn't feel like that was the best thing for me. And I agree with him. And I remember him saying to me as I was coming into the church, he said you know, keith, a lot of people are going to try to get you to do stuff and they're going to ask you to do stuff and you know, whatever, whatever, whatever. He said do yourself a favor and just don't do anything for a year. He said just keep your head down and whatever. And honestly to me, I didn't even consider that there would be any other way.

Speaker 3: 16:18

Like I never got into, I never became Catholic with ever the thought in my mind of I'm going to somehow do ministry again, I'm going to write a book, I'm going to go on YouTube. That was the last thing from my mind because I gave up that part of my life to become Catholic. That was kind of the last straw for me. It wasn't a theological issue, all those, all those had been solved. It was more of just my own sense of identity and what am I going to do with myself? That was the hardest thing for to surrender. So I couldn't yet have that be sort of a condition to my conversion. If that makes sense, hey god, I'll become catholic. But you know, you have to figure out a way for me to do this as a catholic. I I want, I wanted to go into Catholicism with, with like nothing, you know what I mean, just that. So I wasn't on that path.

Speaker 3: 17:11

So for me, that that initial year of of just being Catholic and not even thinking about a thing honestly, that was that was fantastic. Yeah, I did. I did share with a friend of mine's parish in another city. They asked me to, they asked me to come and share a little bit of my, of my testimony, which I did. That, but that was sort of a one-off, but I had never thought about doing anything like that and so it wasn't. It was more than a year later.

Speaker 3: 17:42

Um, first of all, I did feel called to write a book, but again, that was something that was put on my heart. I didn't want to do that. But it was after that that my priest came to me and said okay, your year's up, I think it's time for you to tell your story, which I was like okay, now, full disclosure. I got a job. You know, I worked a sec. I worked jobs. I didn't like go from being a professional Protestant pastor person to like going, okay, how do I become a professional Catholic? That was the. I didn't even know you could do that. So I was working jobs, you know, doing all this. So I have. So I need to say that Now I'm also not here to pass judgment on other people, but I want to share a few things, and I hope that we could lead into this discussion and I'll share a couple of things and then you guys can chime in on this.

Speaker 3: 18:41

So long story short. Here's my take on this. I don't think that you can make a hard and fast rule that applies to everybody across the board in every situation, okay, but I do think there are some principles that should be applied and could be very useful to everybody, and the first one. You know, a lot of people want to talk about this passage from 1 Timothy 3, where St Paul's talking about the qualifications to becomea bishop. And I'm just going to read a little bit of this to you guys, okay, because this is the one that a lot of times people say.

Speaker 3: 19:24

The saying is sure, if anyone aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. Now, a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his and then here's the kicker, here, verse 6. Or he may fall into reproach and theation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, or he may fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Speaker 3: 20:14

So question for you two, anybody else out there does this passage in and of itself rule out any type of I don't know, we'll just call it ministry whether it's paid or unpaid for converts?

Speaker 4: 20:29

in your opinion, what do you think, rob?

Speaker 2: 20:37

I would say I think it rules out, especially in this day and age, like ordained ministry within a short time period after conversion, and I think that's probably about it for that passage, in my opinion.

Speaker 4: 20:55

Yeah, I would say more or less two things. So I think one you're right, rob, because the whole context is talking about specifically the qualifications of a bishop, and it reminds me of most religious orders, traditional or not, usually have like a three-year waiting period before you can actually do anything. I mean, even most diocesan programs. You have to at least wait a year into conversion, you know, at a minimum, and I think that that's good because, like with anything, you have to learn just how to be Catholic. I mean, with Catholicism it's the transformation of the intellect and the will. So you can have your intellect transformed through study in RCIA, but then really learning how to practically live out theology, ordering your will toward final beatitude, that's going to be something that will take your whole life in order to do, and so that's something that I think having, I think having some kind of like buffer time would be good. I would say that passage, though, while it's not directly talking about converts, there's what you would call instruction in righteousness. That could be applied through principles to that, which is that if a person and this is just you know, basically ascetical theology in the context of pride and humility applied to this context, the ascetical theology in the context of pride and humility applied to this context, if, as the passage says, a young man who could be puffed up by the devil and then fall into that condemnation, then what we should do is realize that, okay for new converts, they should, yeah, ideally take time to continue to study their faith post coming into the church. They should walk with the Lord in the practice of virtues, in sanctifying grace, going to the sacraments frequently learning a life of prayer and then, when it is time and in time and place, then they should step out. Now. They should also, at the same time, listen to what the Lord says, because you never know what God might call an individual soul to do, but that should be sought with a prudent spiritual director and truly listening to the voice of the Lord in that regard.

Speaker 4: 22:50

So I would say, yeah, it probably. You know it's not talking directly about it, but there's instruction and righteousness that could be applied. And the last thing I would say is that when you think about it in our own time, right, maybe, whereas in like, for instance, the 1950s, let's say, the internet was around, back then, in the internet era of the 1950s, if that existed, would it be prudent for lay people to just be jumping on and talking. No, but they wouldn't have to worry as much because back then, of course, the seminaries were highly orthodox. Depending on where you were in the world. For instance, in Spain, it was just rigorous, scholastic worldview that you would have gone through, whereas today, unfortunately, it's not so good. I find that I'm oftentimes and I don't enjoy doing this, but correcting the priests in the confessional on basic moral theology, and so it's just like-.

Speaker 4: 23:40

That's a you move, that's for sure, yeah, and it's like I hear a thing it was horrible, for's for sure. It's like I hear a thing it was horrible for me particularly. It's like I'll hear these sermons and I'm like, okay, this censor applies to this statement and this censor applies to this. And I'm not trying to do it. I'm like I just want to pray my mass and enjoy this stuff but unfortunately, just because of the bad training out there, we're kind of like in pre-Reformation Europe, where priests had very little training. Oftentimes they were abusive in ways I'm not saying all priests, of course, and so in those contexts, maybe converts do need to say things, but they need to practice that humility and really diligently study and, of course, strive for holiness.

Speaker 3: 24:22

I would agree with that, just by way of like the mechanics of this stream. I see a lot of questions. Hold on to your questions, because I want to get through some of this material and then I'm going to leave time for you guys to just say whatever you want.

Speaker 2: 24:38

And I am saving some of the questions we've gotten Okay perfect.

Speaker 4: 24:42

I'm very proud of this statement.

Speaker 3: 24:43

yes, Okay, perfect, I'm very proud of this statement. Yes, yeah, I do think it's interesting that of all the things that St Paul messages in there, or his message in there, there's a lot more than just, there's a lot more things that will disqualify you from you know what he says the office of bishop than just being a convert. You know, above reproach, husband of one wife, temper, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt, an apt teacher. You know, there are a lot of things that we have to think about when we want to get into that position, and I think it's it's important to do that. But I do think that we have to pay attention here to this whole idea of of how putting yourself in a position of whatever kind of authority you know can somehow, can sometimes be used as a trick of the devil to play to your pride. He must not be a recent convert or he. He may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Okay, so sometimes when we, when we're, when we're new to something, we have all this fire, we have all this excitement. We can sometimes run just face first into everything without being very wise, and I think there's a species of pride that is present in that, because the faster we go through things, the less time that we have to really reflect on things and the less careful we're going to be. So I do think it's wise for this, because when you, especially when you come out of Protestantism and you become a Catholic okay, you've probably been in a lot of arguments, you've probably been in a lot of arguments, you've probably been attacked a lot, and when you have had that happen quite a bit and this happened to me and it still happens to me and I'll just speak for myself I can at times become so defensive because I'm sick of being attacked all the time that, let's say, I'm on you know whatever YouTube or whatever, and I'm being attacked by all these people on YouTube and and and this literally happened to me I'll tell you this, I'll tell you this quick story and I felt terrible about it.

Speaker 3: 26:54

But we have some some good family friends of ours who we'd were in ministry with for years. They're still family to us, even though I'm Catholic Okay, Like they didn't disown me and one of one of my my friends in this he has a little daughter, I think she was like maybe five years old and they were over at our house and we were praying the rosary on YouTube and they were upstairs we're getting ready to have dinner and she was watching it on on somebody's phone or whatever, and I had just been in fight after fight after fight all day long. Okay, so I go upstairs and my friends are there and I'm like hey, awesome. And this little girl says to me Keith, why do you worship Mary? And you know, she's like five years old, she was watching me on a live stream pray the hail, holy queen, and she's from a protestant background and she doesn't understand.

Speaker 3: 27:54

And what had happened was she'd asked her parents and they said to her why don't you ask, keith, that yourself and you'd like to think that I would have been like delicate and fragile and full of grace, but I just kind of went off on this poor little girl, as if she was the same person on YouTube, had been calling me an idolater all day. You know, I didn't handle it with with a lot of grace and I think that's a you know, that's a danger that we can walk into when we're constantly on the defense as a new convert, that we can respond to everybody around us with this militant sort of fire. That I don't think is the best way to handle it, which is again why, in verse seven, he says he must be well thought of by outsiders or he may fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. That's a trap that the devil lays for us and we all. We all understand what this feels like, when someone says something to bait you and then you respond to that emotionally and then now the topic of conversation isn't what you were talking about, it, your reaction to it kind of like how anthony baited you originally exactly exactly what that man will do for

Speaker 3: 29:11

views. I'm always falling into that trap, right, but I think that that's something that we have to be careful of as converts. But I do think that we also have to remember, too, that, even though there is a difference between, we have to, you know, make that distinction between, you know, making a video on YouTube or speaking at a parish mission versus being the office of a bishop. Okay, those are, those are different things. So I think that I think that we have different rules that need to apply, but those principles will be woven through us either way. And I think there's one other verse I want to share with you guys.

Speaker 3: 29:53

I did have this whole thing about St Paul going in Galatians when he says he spent three years studying. I don't think I need to go through all that. Here's the long and short of it. When St Paul was converted, he had some time before he became, you know, an apostle and a teaching authority. So that's, you know, we're not going to be any better than St Paul. All right, but to me, the verse that is the most important on this is James 3.1 that says let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness. That's something that we all have to be weary of, Okay, we all have to be weary of. If we put ourselves out there as some sort of authority on something. We have to be very careful, because now it's a different ballgame when you become a Catholic convert. And here's why Because Catholicism is a systematic statement.

Speaker 3: 31:01

It's not just well, whatever, you can kind of do your own thing. You know, as a Methodist I could disagree with my own denomination about a lot of things and nobody seemed to care. So if I said something that went against my official denominations, doctrinal positions or whatever, nobody was coming for me. Right, In some ways I would be viewed as this great, smart innovator. Okay, but in Catholicism that's not a thing. Okay, that's how you become a schismatic. That's how you become. You get yourself in trouble. The goal in Catholicism is orthodoxy. The goal in Catholic not Eastern orthodoxy, but orthodoxy in terms of oh my gosh, that is true.

Speaker 2: 31:45

She gave you a good talking to.

Speaker 3: 31:47

I got to talking to you about that, for sure, and I had to apologize to that little girl. She got over it, though she's like a sophomore in high school now. She doesn't even remember it properly, right, right. But do you understand my point here? Like there's, there's a bullseye that you have to hit in Catholicism, and if you don't know what the church teaches and you just start rattling stuff off, you are opening yourself up to. You know a lot of issues. So I think that there's a distinctive there between being a Catholic convert and being any other kind of convert. So here's what I want to say here. So here's what I want to say here.

Speaker 3: 32:23

We also are aware that there are stories in the Bible that I hear, oftentimes people going well, hey, this person was converted and they immediately went to tell everybody about Jesus, the woman at the well, she went and did that. But there's a difference, and this is huge. There's a difference between sharing your experience and something that has happened to you. There's a difference between that and setting yourself up as a teacher of the Catholic faith. Okay, and this is where I think we have to give people a little freedom, but also we have to give them a little bit of a leash too and say you know, it's okay for someone who's newer to share about what they're experiencing or what they have experiencing, because that's going to include, hopefully, humility of saying look, I'm no expert here. I'm not claiming to be the expert in all things Catholic. I'm just telling you what happened to me, in my view.

Speaker 3: 33:28

I think that that's important to make that distinction versus someone going hey, I just converted to the church earlier this year. And now here's my systematic theology book that I've written, where I am parsing through all of the church fathers and the scriptures and the councils, because now I know it all. I think I think we have to make that distinction. What do you guys think?

Speaker 2: 33:47

There is um. There's not much more uh, kind of ironic to me than seeing a new convert online declare that they've done all the research and they've determined we don't have a valid Pope. You know what I mean. Like like you just became catholic and now you're you're making a judgment like that.

Speaker 2: 34:08

So I agree, like um, sharing our personal experiences or how we even kind of apply the faith to our own lives or daily lives, like that's what anthony and I, like, have always really tried to do on this channel. We're even as Catholics him and I we're just, we're just two laymen. You know you'll hear him say a thousand times an episode that he's just a high school dropout. Well, I'm just a college dropout and neither of us study theology, so we do very few shows where we even try to teach theology or what the church officially teaches. We just want to talk about the faith in our lives and how we apply it to just the craziness of our world. So, yeah, I think you're exactly right on. I love hearing conversion stories, how the faith worked in the life of a convert, but I would definitely be put off by someone who's new to the faith teaching me what my faith is when I could go to sources 2,000 years old to do that.

Speaker 4: 35:18

Yeah, I would agree with that.

Speaker 4: 35:20

I think that one has to marinate in the Catholic faith before one can go out and proclaim it. I do like the distinction between a personal experience of saying, hey, I encountered Christ, let me show you how I encountered Christ. Or encountering his mother Let me show you how I encountered his mother. Versus, as you so aptly put, writing your own systematic theology and I think that's very apt your own systematic theology. And I think that's very apt what I try to do on my show, because after I converted I went and I got both a bachelor's and I'm finishing my master's in Catholic theology. It's so rich, particularly if you're reading good sources of Catholic theology, and so what I do as a practical thing is make the proper distinctions from what sources you're using. So, as an example, on all of the episodes on my show, it's just me reading straight up from scholastic manuals. I'll throw the manual up on the screen, we'll read through it, we'll go through all the footnotes, we'll define terms and thankfully, most of the scholastic manuals just define them themselves. And so we now know the mind of the church in a systematic formation. But even even then, as you so aptly put, rob, I was actually going to use the exact same example. You'll run into people who will read a few quotes online. They'll do a little bit of quote mining and then they will come out and say the church says X, y and Z. We don't have a pope. X, y and Z, we don't have a pope. And as I've told people, I say that should be rephrased as certain theologians have this opinion and therefore say that the church should teach thus and thus. But there are other schools of thought as well. There is like five different schools of thought on the question of heretical pope, and all of them are what's called in scholastic theology of probable opinion or, in more common layman's terms, free opinions that you can hold or reject with no problem. Right, but making those distinctions unfortunately doesn't seem to be a major priority. It does seem to me.

Speaker 4: 37:21

I saw Angela. She put a good comment up. She said we need to spend more time in prayer before we come online. I agree. I think people need to spend more time in prayer, more time in the textbooks, and then, if they do feel called to come out and talk about something, have it very aptly prepared.

Speaker 4: 37:37

They can't run into anything you know and just start saying the church teaches, the church teaches, and it's again.

Speaker 4: 37:42

It's the reason why I'm always like it start saying the church teaches, the church teaches, and it's again.

Speaker 4: 37:45

It's the reason why I'm always like it's a meme with me on this show and everywhere else, but like why I'm always emphasizing the manuals because they are literally the teaching textbooks of the church given to seminarians, used in seminary, with official magisterial emperor models of the Pope and of the Bishop. So it's like this is literally what the church teaches and I'll just be the audio narrator, you know, and explain some stuff. That might seem a little bit foreign, but yeah, like one has to live that life because otherwise, if they're just going to pop on a webcam and just start saying the church teaches, the church teaches, it's a big issue. And before the council you were actually laymen, were forbidden unless they were to receive the special dispensation of the bishop and then the proper training to speak about theology in a public forum setting or even debate Protestants in a public forum setting and unfortunately, through the age of the laity, in a post-council world, they threw off all those and so I think it's caused a lot of havoc, unfortunately.

Speaker 3: 38:37

Well, I think that's interesting. So I do have like a little bit of things that I've said are okay, like yes and no to these. I want to run these by you guys, but I agree with everything you're saying, okay so. So here's something that I think are are, um, are pitfalls for converts, you know, and you kind of you kind of walked into this. Okay.

Speaker 3: 39:00

So first, before I get into the yes and no's, this is and this is one of the reasons why I think it's wise to give yourself some time just to be Catholic, because new converts can easily get drawn into conflicts and church drama. Because when you step into the church and you're new, there can be a time when you step in and it's like, okay, I thought I was just becoming Catholic and everybody was the same, and then quickly you learn no, there's people in the Catholic church that like to think this way and not like to think that way. You know about liturgy or about different aspects of theology or whatever, and there are a lot of people that just thrive on drama, that just thrive on drama. And if you are coming into that without a real sure setting of who you are, that can become very distracting. So I would say it's important to give yourself some time to grow, but I do think, like we mentioned here, it's okay to share your experience with humility.

Speaker 3: 40:04

The other thing I would say yes to is this and here's how I put this answer when asked versus platforming yourself, okay. So if someone comes to you and says, hey, would you share with us what's going on with you, or would you, would you tell us your story or whatever? Or I want to understand what you did, or why did you choose to become Catholic, or whatever, to me that's completely legit to do that Okay. But it's a completely different thing If, before you even receive your sacraments, you're already planning how you're going to platform yourself as a, as a Catholic, you know, speaker, influencer, whatever. And I and I and I'm saying that not as some sort of like theological mandate, but just as a practical reality of what's going to be good for you or not good for you- I mean.

Speaker 3: 40:53

I can think of someone I know. Um, I don't mean this. I haven't talked to this person in a very, very long time, but I was helping a certain young man in his journey towards the Catholic faith. He's very young and he was all about it. He had a YouTube thing, he had an Instagram account, he had all of these things that were devoted to Catholicism. You'd think that he was a Catholic, but he was a teenager that was on the journey to the Catholic church and, by the way, his parents were against it and he created a website that was all about himself coming to be a parish mission speaker and all of these things, and he was like branding himself this way. And I remember just feeling like, dude, this is way too soon. You haven't even like become Catholic yet. You're already planning this. And the sad thing is, is he just completely disappeared off the face of the earth? As far as I'm concerned, is, is he just completely disappeared off the face of the earth? As far as I'm concerned, like, I don't even know if he ever became Catholic.

Speaker 3: 41:57

And when I've talked about, when I've talked to other people, you know there's a lot of, a lot of people will contact me because they kind of know my story or whatever, and I've had, I've had many, many people who are in ministry right now or when they contact me, who are feeling the pull of Catholicism, and the first question they want to ask me is well, I mean, in the short of it, how can I make money as a Catholic convert in ministry Right? Will you help me with that? How do I? You know, how do I platform myself? How do I get speaking gigs? How do I write a book? How do I platform myself? How do I get speaking gigs? How do I write a book? How do I do all these things to platform myself? And I always tell people this I'm like look, if you don't have a platform at all and you're becoming Catholic and you want that to be your platform, that's a bad idea for you.

Speaker 3: 42:51

Now, I think this is different. If someone already has a platform and they become Catholic, like we talked about, like Shane, for example, in the video and I don't know Shane, I love the guy, but I've never met him before but like he's a well-known guy who just became Catholic. Now is he supposed to turn off all of his public personality, all of his Instagram, all of his stuff and like duck away from that. No stuff and like duck away from that. No, I think I think there he can bring glory to God and other people like him who I know that had platforms, became Catholic and then now using that platform to share about Catholicism. I think that's a different deal. But what I'm talking about are people who who are coming into this with the understanding that this is part of what I have to do, because I want to make my.

Speaker 3: 43:31

I would say this you should, you should plan on laying low and you can answer if asked. But but don't be in a hurry and whenever you're asked, always as Nick was saying always point people not towards yourself, but towards what the church officially teaches. Always do that. Point people to what the church teaches and go there. Now here's what I have that you shouldn't do. We sort of already established some of these things.

Speaker 3: 43:59

Number one you shouldn't be in a hurry. You shouldn't make your conversion to Catholicism and your talking about it like the same thing. Those should be completely separate worlds. So don't be in a hurry. You need time. You need to learn what it's like to be Catholic and you're not going to learn that by studying. You can learn about the Catholic church, but you only know what it's like to be Catholic by being Catholic, and there are things that you can't learn just from reading in a book, and you need to have some, and you need to get your sea legs in the world of Catholicism for a little while. So don't be in a hurry.

Speaker 3: 44:38

The other thing is don't put yourself in authority over others. So if someone comes to you, oh, you're on fire for the Lord. Will you be my spiritual advisor? Will you be my spiritual director? Will you help me? Will you teach me All these things?

Speaker 3: 44:52

I would be very, very weary of that because, as a new person, you don't want to put yourself in an authority over anybody else, and you might not think it's an actual technical authority, but let's be real. I mean, when we speak about these things, some people are going to assign that to us, and we got to be very careful about that. These things, some people are going to assign that to us and we got to be very careful about that. Number three don't, as a new convert, walk right into super in-depth theological arguments. Okay, don't try to be the guy who is going to, you know, deal with these issues of you know, what did St Thomas Aquinas really believe about the Immaculate Conception or something like that? You know, leave that to the guys that are just Thomas nerds. You know, as a newcomer you shouldn't like jump in and try to be like I'll solve that. Go ahead, nick.

Speaker 4: 45:43

Oh, no, no, no, I was just. I was agreeing with you. I was just like yep the Thomas nerd here.

Speaker 3: 45:48

Exactly, and then this is the biggest one. Okay, just to me, whatever you do as a new convert, don't criticize other people. Don't come into the catholic church and start running your mouth about, well, that guy this and that guy that, and looking down your nose at everybody else who does things different than you, and start getting into all of this critical mindset. That's where you run into that issue with the trap of becoming puffed up with pride. Because when you start passing judgment on other people and I'm talking about, like specific other people and I'm not talking about, oh well, you know, you know the libs are doing this or whatever like general theological ideas I'm talking about when you decide to take it upon yourself to be the arbitrator of who's Orthodox and who's not Orthodox, and I'm going to start calling people out.

Speaker 3: 46:42

I know you're going to have your opinions, but I think it's a very dangerous game to play when, especially as a new convert, you make yourself out to be like the arbiter of who's really Catholic and who's really not. So those are kind of my, my yeses and nos of what converts should do, um, but that's just that's kind of that. I don't know if you want to tackle any of those in particular, if you just kind of want to respond to them. Um, but what tell me? Tell me your reflections guys.

Speaker 4: 47:16

Yeah, I basically I had two reflections. So I would agree with you, I think, on the point in which you were talking about the individuals who come in and they're very clearly trying to gain some type of platform or following and make this some type of potentially like a financial job or a career or whatever. It reminded me, actually, of the Pharisees in the temple who were selling animals and our Lord going in there and cleansing the temple. And the reason I said this is because when you were saying this at first, I was thinking about how individuals who could potentially fall into that I mean, we can all fall into that. So I'm not trying to point out particular people, but that mindset. It's so void of the mission in which we're given by Christ. The mission of the church is to give God glory by the saving of souls. That's our mission, everybody, from Pope Francis' mission all the way down to the one who was just baptized a second ago. It's everybody's mission. And if we lose sight of that mission by being puffed up with look at me, look at me, look at me, then we're not only putting resistance to other people seeing Christ but also, at the same time, we're more likely than not damning our own souls, because pride, in the sense of it being what's called a spiritual sin, is very, very deadly. It's very, very deadly. It's the root of all sins, it's the mother of all sins, as Aquinas says. So we have to be very careful with that.

Speaker 4: 48:33

I remember this old actually you know line from George Whitefield, who was, you know, a Protestant minister back in the first great awakening, but you could apply this to our context. He said let the name of George Whitefield be forgotten, but let the name of Jesus Christ be remembered for all eternity. I think that's the mentality every content creator should have. Rather than trying to build our channels X, y and Z, we should just say okay, lord, let me somehow just disappear in the video, let me just somehow disappear and let the teaching of the church come out and let you be glorified through this action. Because I mean, just think about how pitiful it is us trying to exalt ourselves to the one in which had nails born through his hands for the salvation of the world. I mean, like he is the one we live, breathe and should die for, not trying to build our own ministry. So it's like let us all just disappear, etc. And then the second thing was uh, I think it was your last point and I agree with you.

Speaker 4: 49:31

I think that the mentality of a person who comes in and starts criticizing the brethren willy-nilly when they don't have any type of firm foundation in what the church teaches is very dangerous, because other people perhaps maybe they're not as well studied either could see that and see that person as a source of authority and therefore be dragged away. And it reminds me in a way, kind of of those passages in 1 Corinthians 3 where St Paul is talking about schisms coming inside of the body of Christ. I am of Paul, I am from Apollos, I am of Cephas, etc. Etc. We need to really take a step back and say what does the Church officially teach? And let me, as you said, get my sea legs and become a Catholic. And then, as time goes on, as years and years pass of faithful church observance and of study, et cetera, and you do see legitimate errors and you do feel prompted to say, hey, this isn't correct, do so with humility, with charity and giving that person the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 4: 50:31

So, personal example I've told before on this show that I regret starting my channel as soon as I did. Mine was actually just kind of a friend's podcast that kind of turned into a Catholic show and what ended up happening was, I remember in the first year or so, falling very prey for kind of that really criticism. But I think it was born out of a good place, but I wasn't ready. I was just not ready. And then in this last month I did a pretty big video where I was giving some criticisms of some of the things that have been said over at Catholic Answers. But the way I looked at the video is I said, look, I don't know if these individuals in these clips are meaningfully what they're saying. Maybe it came out wrong, maybe it was just an off day for them, I don't know.

Speaker 4: 51:15

So instead of coming on here and blasting these individuals and you know, oh, they're this and they're that or whatever, maybe what I should do is say, okay, here's my concerns, here's kind of what you know you're saying, at least appearing of saying, here's what the church is saying. Maybe I'm reading you wrong, maybe the videos are chopped up, who knows. I invite you to come on. I'd be more than happy for you to like correct me if I'm wrong. You know what I'm saying. Having that like using it almost as a letter, uh, in the sense of they've they've given a public forum response. Now you give one, but you invite them on and you don't want this to be just an argument back and forth, like, come on, if we are brothers in Christ, then show me or elaborate to me. Maybe I'm in error, maybe you could help me.

Speaker 4: 51:56

And so I think having that humility in all of the spiritual life and in all of these contexts that you laid out, that's going to be the key of seeing where you are. And if people again just want to know, like, what does humility mean? Pride is an inordinate self, uh, absorption. You, you see yourself, uh, in an irrational light. But when you see yourself in a rational light, meaning like, okay, yeah, like I am, like saint paul, I am a wretch, I am a sinner, I'm in needing of a savior, I, I need him every single day, then, and I don't know everything then I think you'll be on the right path, you know, and you'll be able to see more clearly. Beautiful, I love it. What about you?

Speaker 3: 52:31

Rob.

Speaker 2: 52:32

You know, I think one thing that you kind of touched on a little earlier, nick and Keith, you kind of touched on with a few of your points, is, I think a lot of us both cradle in probably more so, especially converts like we forget what the Catholic church is.

Speaker 2: 52:49

You know, it's not just an ideology, it's not a set of beliefs, it's not even an organization you join. It's it's the kingdom of Christ on earth, in purgatory and in heaven, and it so, when you, when you convert, you don't it's like I said you're not just signing up for a new ideology, you're literally becoming citizen, a citizen of a whole new kingdom. It changes the language you use, you eat new food. In a way, it's everything, everything around you and everything that's a part of you changes. And even as a cradle Catholic, I'm still adapting to being catholic, to to living in, in christ's kingdom, um, and I think we always will be and always are. So, yeah, when you, when you convert, you have to get used to, to living in this new kingdom and it takes, it takes a long time before you're really immersed in it and enmeshed in it and before it's really a part of every part of you. So, yeah, you got to be careful to not jump into things too early because you're just not ready.

Speaker 3: 54:06

I think it's interesting because one of the struggles I think converts sometimes have is they come into the Catholic church, they studied, they figured it out, they were so passionate about it, and then they run into all these cradle Catholics that don't know anything, that have no passion, that don't practice the faith, and they go wait a minute. So you're telling me that I have to wait to become more like you before I'm allowed to share. It's like no, no, no, no. We're not advocating Nobody's advocating that just just time alone is going to make you somehow, you know, suitable for whatever. Right, it's not about that. I know some people who are, who are relatively recent converts, that are on fire for their faith and they know a lot and they do a lot of great things for the kingdom of heaven, um, so there's always going to be, you know, I don't want to say exceptions, but there always will be exceptions to the rule. But the thing about it is we have to remember that he can't even spell favorite right.

Speaker 2: 55:07

what's that? You can't even spell favorite right? What's that he can't even spell?

Speaker 3: 55:09

favorite right Kennedy Canadians. You know we have to remember that there's no like stopwatch that hits and then you go. Okay, has it been long enough yet? Has it been long enough yet? You know, and for some people they're going to be ready to share sooner than others, and for other people who've been Catholic a long time, they just haven't taken their faith seriously enough, so they need to get more into it or whatever.

Speaker 3: 55:39

But I think the point is this if we come into the Catholic faith with eyes wide open, without strings attached to God, saying okay, here I am, it's all about me, what can I do? You know, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, if we come in that way, we're in serious trouble. But if we come in just in awe of what God is doing and who he is and, like Nick said, it's all about him, we shrink and it's all about Jesus, which is one of the things that draws people to the Catholic church. It's amazing that you know, when you get out there in the Protestant world, you go church shopping, it's all about you, they're going to cater to you and you're the most important person in the room hands down as a visitor. You know we have parking spots up front for the visitors. We give them a loaf of bread and a coffee mug and we, you know, make them feel like they're the greatest thing in the world. When you go to a Catholic church, you're the least important person in the room. You know it's about Jesus and believe it or not, because God created us that way. When we walk into that, even though it's so jarring at first because we're not used to it, it's actually an attractive thing for people because they recognize that this isn't about me, this is about God, but so it's so.

Speaker 3: 56:56

We have to keep that, that mindset, as we step through our conversion. When it comes to to who we are, do we, do we always have to be the first one out in front? Do we step back? Do we do we yield to others or are we the ones going? Yep, I'm the you know, whatever. And I think that's a mindset for how we should operate, even in this space of when we are starting to share things, because I like what Nick said about this. I and I've said something similar all the time. Look, I can't speak for everybody else, but I'm not trying to build my own little kingdom over here as a Catholic convert, I'm trying to build God's kingdom and if he can, if he can use what I'm doing in some way, then praise the Lord. But if, if it's not ultimately about him, then what are we doing? You know it's, it's not right. So I think that that sometimes you have to give that time to grow. Now here's the other thing, and then I want to open up to questions and let you know whatever.

Speaker 3: 57:55

But the biggest reason why I advise people not to jump into things is because I want to make sure they're going to stay. You know, I want to make sure that they're actually going to survive that first year as a Catholic. And if we put a bunch of pressure on people hey, now you got to be a teacher. Hey, now you got to write a book. Now you got to have a podcast. Now you got to tell everybody about your life. Now you got to do all these things whatever, whatever, whatever. Now their focus isn't where it needs to be and that can lead them away. So I want to make sure because, let's face it, a lot of people, you know, don't don't make it as converts.

Speaker 3: 58:36

I talked to the Bishop of I think it was Bishop of Harrisburg a few years ago and he told me that, like I think it was, over 50% of new converts will leave the church within five years. Yeah, and to me, the thing that I just can't have in my life are people who want to tell everybody to become Catholic and get all excited and fired up, fired up, and then you see that they left the Catholic church. Like, to me, that's the most tragic thing is, you shouldn't be telling everybody about Catholicism until you have you have put down some roots, so that you're not gonna, you're not gonna, wait now. Now am I saying that everyone who does that's gonna gonna leave? No, but what I'm saying is that's a. That's a. That's a fear that I have oftentimes.

Speaker 3: 59:21

When I see new converts so excited, you know and maybe that's wrong, I don't know but I look back and go are you gonna? Are you gonna make it? You know, are you gonna stay? And when I see people getting caught up in the criticism and in the church drama, I go. You know what? They're probably not going to stay because their focus isn't on Christ. Their focus is on being right or being part of the cool club, or whatever it might be. When you have to empty yourself and throw everything about yourself away, you disappear and make it all about Jesus. That's how you thrive as a Catholic.

Speaker 2: 59:57

You know. No, what you're saying there about trying to avoid the drama, I think is really important. I would say for anyone cradle or convert, I think is really important. I would say for anyone cradle or convert considering getting into doing podcasts about church news or writing about church news or anything like that. Like you need to be prepared because we as a show, we we try to avoid it, but it's hard to cause. Those shows do get views. So you know when we're looking for news stories about the church or when you've covered, you know it's like three shows in a row now about some sort of bad news in the church. Like it really it really does hurt, um, it it gets really hard, uh, and it can really have a detrimental effect on your faith eventually. So if you're considering that, you've got to know what you're getting into and you have to be sure you have a faith strong enough for that.

Speaker 4: 1:01:00

Yeah, I agree, Because I like how you put it, Keith, at the end, Like, is it about Christ or is it about being right? And the reality is that being right? There is, of course, an objective right and wrong, but that right and wrong is Christ himself, not necessarily your own opinion. I mean it's either we conform our will to Christ or we conform our will to a God that we created in our own image, as the psalmist talks about. So it's very, very serious. I agree with everything you say.

Speaker 4: 1:01:30

I mean, what really bugs me is when we do whether the person's online or not when we, like St Peter, turn our eyes away from our Lord and we look at the storm, the storm in the church, the storm in secular society, and we start saying what so many just people who are struggling with theism itself say why does God allow suffering? Because essentially, that's what we're asking when it comes to a lot of the crisis in the church or anything like that. We're basically saying why does God allow bad things to happen? Why does a good God allow bad things to happen? And it's a question that you know takes us to an uncomfortable place, because we, as humans, naturally want to avoid suffering. But yet what's so beautiful about Christ and beautiful about the faith is that he doesn't avoid suffering or give you a coping mechanism for suffering, but he goes into suffering and redeems suffering and he says like, OK, yeah, suffering is in this life and it is hard, and it's not something to take lightly, but I have overcome the world. You know, I'm the one who's in charge and you know, Peter, you can. Why did you doubt me? You know, like, your task is not to become a great YouTuber or to become a great person in the eyes of the world, your task is to become a saint. And if we don't have that mentality as our forefront, it becomes very scary in light of eternity.

Speaker 4: 1:02:59

I'll give this story and then I'll open it up for the question section, if you guys want. But so this, every at the end of every liturgical year, I kind of I'll do a long walk and I like to think about what is like the big one truth or whatever one thing that really stuck out to me over this last year. And so I do this every year, right, Just kind of thinking back and reflecting. And this year I was thinking about. You know, I, within the last year and a half.

Speaker 4: 1:03:22

I've had both of my grandfathers pass away. One was very nominally Catholic, One was not. I've also seen a lot of friends, family members, pass away. I've seen a lot of people go through some suffering in the context of my close family.

Speaker 4: 1:03:37

But what I've seen through all of it is that life is so short, Life is beautiful, but life is so short and eternity is truly something so long, and we can't just say that we have to know it and we have to feel it, the reality that, like we don't know when the judgment will be, we don't know when we'll take our last breath.

Speaker 4: 1:03:57

And so are we going to make Christ not just the Lord of my lips what I say, but truly the Lord of my deeds and of my heart? Am I actually going to go out there and live for him now? It doesn't mean again that you'll be perfect, right. We strive for perfection after the one perfect right being our lady and being our Lord. But we can't fall into this mentality of, okay, Catholicism is about being right, or me being a teacher, or me getting a career, Making those our little gods, our priorities. We have to focus in on sainthood and if God gives you a large audience, then beg God on your knees even more that pride does not slip in and you can continue to practice humility. And so always keep your death in mind, always strive after sainthood and never let whether you're a content creator or you're not pride in whatever area of life. Um try to rise up and cloud your judgment beautiful I love it.

Speaker 4: 1:05:00

Let's see, and I think we have, is it? Is it eight starred questions over here, or?

Speaker 3: 1:05:05

are we ready for that, rob? Can we do that?

Speaker 2: 1:05:07

I think we're ready for that. Yeah, um, we're gonna start off with a very important and serious one here. Keith, do you believe dragons are real?

Speaker 4: 1:05:19

um like right now or ever, I think ever we had. We've had some guests that we've, uh, in the last couple weeks that have talked about this discussion I missed that show show.

Speaker 3: 1:05:30

It was a good one I'm going to go with maybe.

Speaker 2: 1:05:36

Solid, solid, yeah. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Speaker 3: 1:05:41

Can't rule it out.

Speaker 4: 1:05:45

Hitchborn convinced me. I was like. You know. There's a lot of what he says here that makes a ton of sense to me. So yeah, watch it's a. I think is it. Is it just called our dragons real rob? Is that what the episode's called? Uh, here we dragons yeah, it's with, he's not saying there's dragons now is he?

Speaker 4: 1:06:01

no, he's saying that maybe in the past they were a type of dinosaur that could maybe potentially, you know, spit acid and that acid could combust with oxygen and maybe make flames, but it basically— I can totally buy that. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it was rooted in things like why does all these cultures that are so far removed from each other? In the ancient world, they all have dragon myths. The term dinosaur, of course, is fairly new in human history and so are all these references, and whether it's literary works, like in sacred scripture or in pottery, or even money and legends and stuff, why do we have all these images of dragons in these flying beasts? You know all removed. So it's a good episode. He gets into the science of everything until, like, you know, what would the uh, the temperature of the earth be like and all this and stuff. So it's good to to go watch. You should go watch it Okay.

Speaker 3: 1:06:50

Well, I'll go with they. Very well may have been.

Speaker 2: 1:06:55

Okay, this next one can be kind of for both of you, since you're both converts. Was the rapture stuff a stumbling block for either of you when converting?

Speaker 3: 1:07:09

I would say for me not really. I mean I was. I saw his comment too and I was Calvary Chapel for a while when I was first coming up in the faith. So I know that I know the whole left behind stuff, I know all the dispensational stuff, I know I know the whole narrative there. But, to be honest with you, I never really bought it completely from scripture, so that wasn't a stumbling block to me becoming Catholic.

Speaker 3: 1:07:34

And me, I'll tell you this. And then I want Nick to jump in, because we talked about this a little bit earlier. To me a bigger stumbling block, okay, and I need to have this explained to me in a better way. I've read up on it and I still struggle with it. To me saying that there is not going to be a thousand year literal reign of Christ, that's harder for me to say, oh, we don't believe that. Um, because to me that's like right there in the Bible it says you know literal rent, you know a thousand years he will reign. So when I hear people say, oh, that's, that's figurative, that's the church and I, and if the church teaches it, I believe it. But that's been a bigger struggle for me than the rapture.

Speaker 4: 1:08:12

Yeah, I gave up believing in a pre-tribulation rapture as a Protestant, maybe like five or six years before I converted, so it was a good amount of time.

Speaker 4: 1:08:21

And I think for me the big nail in the coffin with that discussion was, ironically, kind of a very Catholic mentality, which was, I looked and said, this doctrine is so new in church history and to me, you know, it was just, it's something uncomfortable, because I guess the logic that I was again just operating under was if, like, if the truth, if this is truth, then why has it been absent for so long?

Speaker 4: 1:08:48

You know, does this mean that not that, you know, people who didn't believe in this were damned, but does this mean that so many millions of people were deprived of this after the canon of Scripture is closed and so therefore weren't able to prepare, you know, or something along that nature? But then, of course, the classic reading in Matthew 24, when you just very clearly see, and after the tribulation, you know, the sun becomes darkened, the moon should not give her light, and then you'll see the sign of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven. Like that whole, I was like, okay, yeah, that kind of seems to debunk it. So for me it wasn't really an issue coming in.

Speaker 2: 1:09:27

How do we get fundamentalists to consider honestly, honestly, that the Catholic faith is true?

Speaker 3: 1:09:40

That's a good question. Fundamentalists as a, I mean I don't. I think of okay. So what I said earlier about reform dudes, like being closer to Catholicism, I think fundamentalists are a little bit tougher because and I'm going to paint with a broad brush here a little bit tougher because and I'm going to paint with a broad brush here I think fundamentalists have a high view of scripture and a high view of authority, and when I say scripture, I mean their interpretation of scripture. They're very close-minded to any other type of potential understanding. So they will miss very obvious things that the scripture teaches, like what Nick just said about Matthew 24, or about Matthew 16 or whatever Acts, chapter one with apostolic succession. They'll miss those things because they're so committed to their fundamentalism.

Speaker 3: 1:10:21

So I think what you have to do is you have to become more of a fundamentalist than they are. Ok, you have to do. You have to go back to the early Christians. You have to get into these things and talk about. Well, let's get into some of these issues. You have to dig up the church fathers, but also, for example, john, chapter six. Man Jesus says my flesh is true flesh and my blood is true drink.

Speaker 3: 1:10:51

Put the fundamentalists on the defensive, to deny the scriptures and see how they like that, cause they're always going oh you Catholics, where's that in the Bible? Where's that in the Bible? Well, okay, nick just gave you a good example of something that probably a lot of fundamentalists will believe in the pre-trib rapture Where's that in the Bible? Right, like, turn the tables on them with their. Where's that in the Bible? Stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:11:12

And I think that you can start to like. You have to enter into their world. One of the problems that that Catholics, that Catholic apologetics, suffers from is we scratch where nobody's itching and we, we, we offer up to people solutions to problems that they don't have, while ignoring the problems that they do have. So if the if the guy who's who is so, um, committed to the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible, and your response is to talk about a Marian apparition or a church council, you know, so for fundamentalists it's going to be all about the Bible, the Bible, the Bible. So get into the Bible and show them the Catholic faith in the Bible.

Speaker 4: 1:11:52

I fully agree. I think going to a Marian apparition to a fundamentalist would probably be the worst shot in the foot you could go to because they I mean it wouldn't work. People have to understand that fundamentalism, like with any worldview, is a worldview, that if you spend a lot of time and you conform your intellect to that worldview and so I have a lot of individuals in on my mom's side of the family who are part of the IFB, independent fundamental Baptist, and so I'm very aware of this world and so you have to understand, for for individuals like that, they're coming from a very um, I don't want to use this in a, in a, in a insulting term, because I'm probably the most patriotic trad you'll ever meet but coming from a very American context in which the fundamentalism arose out of the great modernist fundamentalist dispute in Protestantism in the early 1900s. This is, of course, where you had a series of books that were called the Fundamentals, that were basically here are the big doctrines of classical Protestant Christianity, and then you had, of course, the great debates with evolution and then the great Bible translation debates and things like that. So most people who are part of fundamentalism it's them, their local parish, if you will, and their King James Bible. That's all that it is. So how do you break through to them? I would recommend essentially two methods. The first method, keith, you're 1000% right on. And because you have to use sacred scripture for them.

Speaker 4: 1:13:21

St Thomas Aquinas, in his Prima Pars, he asks the question it's in his first series of questions, but I believe it's in the ninth or tenth article. He says whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument. And without getting into that whole discussion, I just pulled it up here. It has this brief line. He says, quote hence sacred scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation. Thus we can argue with heretics from holy writ and against those who deny one article of faith, we can argue with another article of faith. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only in answering his objections, if he has any.

Speaker 4: 1:14:09

So in other words, for the heretic, you want to use the New Testament. For the Jew you use the Old Testament. For the pagan, you use philosophy For those who admit no divine revelation. You have to start with philosophy and the credible proofs of revelation and work your way up. So for the fundamentalist know your Bible. You have to know it very well and get into that. And the second resource I would recommend to people would be two. Number one, if you're wanting good books by the saints, to read the work it's called the Catholic Controversy by St Robert Bellarmine. It's a series of, if you will, pamphlets that he wrote in the 1600s, francis de Sales.

Speaker 3: 1:14:47

That's de Sales, francis de Sales.

Speaker 4: 1:14:49

Yeah, did I not say, Francis de Sales?

Speaker 3: 1:14:50

You said Bellarmine.

Speaker 4: 1:14:52

Oh well, bellarmine's the second author. I was going to recommend.

Speaker 3: 1:14:54

He's probably next.

Speaker 4: 1:14:55

Saying Francis de Sales, and he wrote a series of tracts and it ended up converting. I think it was around 30,000 Protestants in the city of Geneva, and so go and look at that. Uh, work, that work.

Speaker 2: 1:15:15

Read it kind of systematically you'll get it kind of he invented chick tracks before chick. That is true because they would leave them on benches and stuff like that all throughout geneva. Put them under under like door frames of houses and things.

Speaker 4: 1:15:20

Yeah, that's right, that's right. And uh, the second book this is why I was thinking st robert bellarmine, it's the work called on the controversies of the christ religion 70,000, okay, the controversy of the Christian religion, it's. This is how you know that God is Catholic. He writes 12 massive volumes that is nothing but Scripture, the church fathers and the first seven ecumenical councils that the Protestants would at least accept, and he debunks every magisterial Protestant argument and post-Tridentine Protestant argument from those sources. He doesn't use any of the scholastics because he knows that they won't accept them, or any previous councils. So go and you read those works. They're very hefty, but what's amazing about them is that he does this all from memory, 12 massive albums, all from memory. He's a doctor of the Church for a reason, doctor of ecclesiology for a reason. So if you're really invested in Protestant apologetics, go to there because unfortunately, kind of, some of the apologetics now are fairly weak. Well, I love that.

Speaker 3: 1:16:22

I have the Catholic controversies, I have that, but I don't have the Bellarmine one, so that sounds like something that's right up my alley. I would love that. It's great. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2: 1:16:32

Okay, we got a few more questions here, um, so this one might be a little controversial, but uh, can you guys speak to women converts becoming teachers? Uh, st Paul clearly prohibits women from teaching anyone besides other women.

Speaker 3: 1:16:48

Okay, I think that you know, in Catholicism we have like built-in guardrails for this. Okay, so women, women aren't going to be priests, they're not gonna be deacons, all that kind of stuff. But I personally don't have a problem with a woman convert sharing her faith. I don't. To me that is not taking authority over someone, like like a teaching authority. Now, I wouldn't advise a woman to be the spiritual director of a man and anything that was construed as like authoritative. But I think it kind of depends on what you said in there about teaching when, when this person, when this person in the in the question.

Speaker 3: 1:17:26

So if you're trying to use that to say that women converts shouldn't be allowed to talk about their faith, I'm going to disagree with that a hundred percent. But if you're trying to say that should women, should women be like the spiritual leaders of men, you know I will, I will agree with saying that that's not a good idea. You know, st Paul says I do not permit a woman to teach a man. He's speaking in the context of church governance, in that situation he's not just talking about you know, can a woman teach a man in any sense at all? I mean, and you can see this getting getting like. You know you can go down a lot of rabbit trails with this, but that's just. That's just my opinion, so, and if you disagree with me, that's okay, you know yeah, I think there's a lot, of, a lot of wisdom in what you said.

Speaker 4: 1:18:21

So I brought up two passages of holy writ. The first one, um, is the, the kind of the classic passage that you've you've cited, ke, and it's kind of alluded to in Janina's question or in Janima's question, my bad. It says this quote Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection, but I suffer, not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man, but to be in silence, for Adam was first formed in Eve and Adam was not seduced. But the woman being seduced was in the transgression. Yet she shall be saved through childbearing if she continued faith and love and sanctification with sobriety. So that comes from 1 Timothy 2. This is the classic passage that, keith, you're correct on. This is talking about church governance. So we don't have female bishops, female deacons, because that's part of the threefold ministry of the bishop, female priests, etc.

Speaker 4: 1:19:10

However, scripture by the same author does have women teaching in certain contexts. So I'll read this as an example. This comes from the book of Titus, chapter 2, verses 3 through 5, if individuals are interested. It says this quote is false accusers not being given over to much wine. Teaching well, right, teaching who? It's specifically talking to younger women, that younger women that they may teach the young women to be wise, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, sober, having care for the house, gentle, obedient to their husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. So I want to say two things about this. First and foremost, women do have a place of teaching, but very clearly in Holy Scripture it's a place of passing on wisdom to the next generation. And I think, as you, branch and Keith, sharing their story, we of course have the saints, female saints, sharing their stories that are out there, and so I think that that's very important and should be not de-emphasized. And in the second place, I want to say this more to the men, because I'll be going on and doing a series with some other Catholic content creators in the few weeks to come, about some of the really bad over-corrections that we are starting to see in right-wing circles. We're starting to see, because of feminism on the left, an overreaction in hardcore chauvinism on the right.

Speaker 4: 1:20:32

And of course, virtue is found in the middle, and so what does sacred scripture say about how young men are supposed to treat women? They are not supposed to say things like I don't care what a woman says unless she be the blessed virgin. There's a lot of Catholic guys who just straight up say stuff like that. That's stupid. That's just straight up stupid. St Paul says that you are supposed to treat your fellow Catholic women, and all women, as younger sisters in the Lord, honoring them and giving deference to them and preferring them over yourself. He says to treat them as sisters in all holiness and all chastity and all chastity. And so we need to recognize that, while it is not the God-given place for women to teach in the ministerial context, we're not supposed to go on and therefore treat women like garbage. That's an overcorrection, that's viceful and that will just like. Feminism is a disorder. Chauvinism itself is also a disorder, right, and so we can't fall into. Just hey, it's trendy and edgy to be right wing in this area. No, be Christ-like.

Speaker 3: 1:21:35

Yeah, I think that's huge. There's that distinction of ministerial authoritative leadership versus what is met these days by teaching A woman expressing her opinion or her perspective. You know the people who, like you talked about, have overcorrected to the right on this. They're going to go ah you're teaching, shut up, you should be silent. Now you know the whole. I think you have to make that distinction there. So I think I agree that makes sense. Okay, I agree that makes sense Okay, bully.

Speaker 2: 1:22:09

Keith, were there any Marian apparitions that you now hold to that were a blocker for you, kind of before your conversion or during your conversion?

Speaker 3: 1:22:18

I would say no, there weren't any that I now hold to that were a blocker. You know, the reality is I didn't study Marian apparitions as part of my conversion. I mean, I did learn, you know, I did go to Medjugorje. I was invited on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje when I was, you know, 20 years ago, when I was a Protestant Um, and I've been back since, but that wasn't like there was nothing that I learned about the faith there, that I experienced some things about the faith there that had a powerful impact on me, but it wasn't like I was pouring over messages of aberrations that went, oh, now I have to be Catholic and this is why I didn't really learn too much about like Fatima or even Guadalupe or anything like that, till after I was like pretty far down the road. So I guess I would say no to that question.

Speaker 2: 1:23:18

Okay, and then kind of the last one, what are the best proofs for the lack of a great apostasy? I imagine they mean historically. Aside from the gates of hell should not prevail. Just about everyone in this person's family Is Jehovah's Witness.

Speaker 3: 1:23:34

Okay, I mean I think that that's just a terrible argument and I mean there's a lot of ways you could approach that argument. You could say well, okay, when does the great apostasy begin? When does it end? Who started it? Was it far reaching? Was it you know? Know in all things or just some things?

Speaker 3: 1:23:55

I mean, the people who want to talk about the great apostasy typically only apply that to things that are, you know, too Catholic for them. But would they apply that to the canon of the new Testament? Would they apply that to you know? Maybe? I guess JWs would probably apply that to the Trinity. So I guess to me it's just dumb. I know that's not very sophisticated.

Speaker 3: 1:24:20

Nick probably has a way better answer than that, but I just kind of look at the great apostasy and go that just doesn't make any sense. Why would God, why would God allow such a destruction of the church? And what's the cause of the great apostasy right? What, what, what? Like in the old Testament, when you see God's judgment coming upon the people, there's very clear reasons why they've got wicked Kings, they've committed idolatry, they've done all sorts of things right. But what happened in the early church that would have offended God so much that he would withhold the true faith in such a way, like what's that historical thing that has taken place? It just seems to me like there's no foundation for that view, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:25:06

I agree.

Speaker 4: 1:25:08

I'll go for it, Rob.

Speaker 2: 1:25:10

When someone brings it up, you you got to push them on it. You know, if it's a historical event, give me the historical details, the who, what, where, when, why. And they can't, they can't, ever, they can't tell you when it started or, like you said, keith, when it ended. Who apostatized, who caused it, started where you know where, where geographically it was, you know, who maybe escaped it. They can't, they can't tell you a single thing about it. And if they're honest with themselves in acting in good faith, then that should be enough. Uh, how do they know they've come out of it right? Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:25:50

Yeah, I don't think either of your answers are off at all. I think that it brings a lot of common sense wisdom to the discussion of just asking those basic questions of who, what, when, etc. I would approach the question. You know this question is from a Jehovah's Witness perspective. So I'd first say you first need to establish what perspective are you coming from perspective? So I'd first say you first need to establish what perspective are you coming from. If it's a Jehovah's Witness, if it's a Mormon, then your answer is going to be a little bit different than if it's a Reformed Protestant or something like that, or even a Muslim, because Muslims believe in a corruption theory as well. They just believe that it kind of was out of the gate. If you will, immediately out of the gate, and so I would say, first determine who you're talking to and then start asking those questions of who, what, when.

Speaker 4: 1:26:32

But for instance, let's just take one issue or two brief issues when it comes to the canon of Scripture, if someone like a Muslim or Jehovah's Witness wants to say something like well, the Bible has been corrupted, basic apologetics can tell you well, we have over 5,700 extant Greek manuscripts, we have the quotations of all of the early Christians, and even if I was not a Catholic, all I can say is that, just through the historical critical method, we see that we have the New Testament, the same New Testament today. We have the same Old Testament today, and we have all the writings of the fathers, in which also have the entire New Testament and Old Testament, essentially inside of their quotations, and so we clearly know, from dates and records, when people or how people understood these texts, how these texts read, etc. So that theory doesn't wash, and so you'll have to go back to square one and say, okay, well, if the Bible isn't corrupt, then how did we get the Bible? And then, of course, you can point them to the First Council in Rome and say, okay, well, look, this is when the Catholic Church started putting the Bible together. The second thing I would say, though, is, when it comes to this discussion of the church, someone will need to ask the question okay, so, like the church, whether it's Reformed Protestantism or any other of the groups that have come forth from that, the church was corrupted at some point in church history. Whether they want to be like the independent Baptist who says it's just, you know, it was Constantine who corrupted the church, or it was the medievals, they corrupted the church, or something like that.

Speaker 4: 1:28:03

I think going back again and saying having a really good, healthy understanding of the doctrines of the fathers can be your way out and say, well, no like, let's look as an example my friend who believes that baptism is just a symbol. Every single person in the early church believed that John 3, 5 is talking about baptism and that it's salvific. So if that is the case but you're right then are all of the fathers damned or they were just the worst disciples of the disciples. So are we going to say in kind of an absurd fashion, that you, oh man, who is alive today, in 24, knows more about the true interpretation of Scripture than the guys who knew the apostles themselves? And then, on top of that, does that mean that everybody, until at least the time of Luther, or, if you're really a hardcore easy-believer or something you know until Billy Graham, like the vast majority, were damned? Because that does not work with Revelation, which says there is a great, vast amount of people from every tribe, tongue and nation who are worshiping the Lamb in heaven.

Speaker 4: 1:29:07

So asking questions like that, you know, about the characteristics of God, about history. Those would be where I would go. I'd first figure out who am I talking to and then go and say, okay, you know, proving the inerrancy of scripture and proving the establishment of the church. The last thing I'll say on this question is, just, in dogmatic theology, before you begin dogma in a seminary, right, you go through who is God and all of that, the sacraments you first start off with what's called fundamental theology.

Speaker 4: 1:29:35

It's basically two courses. The first one's called De Revelation. It's proving that divine revelation is even possible, metaphysically, like how do we know, like, even if there is a God, how do we know that he would give us revelation? And then, number two how do we know that we could even understand that revelation? So going and reading a good manual on that can help. But then two, it's always De Ecclesia, on the Church of Christ, proving that Christ did in fact, from reason, from history, from scripture, from tradition, found a visible, hierarchical, monarchical church with Peter as its head page, books just proving these things themselves. So go find good books like that and use these basic arguments and and you'll be off to the races, you know. And and even if you don't read those whole texts, you know, gaining a few first principles will help you in a long way yeah, or you can just do what I said and say well, that's just dumb I think you should include that.

Speaker 4: 1:30:29

I think you should include that and say, yeah, that's like whenever the mormons I always just ask the mormons the question, I'll be like so, before we get into the whole, like you know, denomination question, do you really believe that lucifer is the brother of our lord? Because that's insane. And or just metaphysically, like you believe that there are separate gods. How does that metaphysically work when god is defined as like an eternal, immutable, unchanging first cause? Like how does that metaphysically work? So, in other words, yeah, that's dumb. Like it makes no sense, that's dumb.

Speaker 2: 1:31:01

Just make fun of the magic underwear.

Speaker 4: 1:31:04

There you go. You could do that too.

Speaker 2: 1:31:07

So yeah, I think we'll cut the questions at that.

Speaker 4: 1:31:11

So true, kennedy, so true. If you ever want a manualist to jump on your show, kennedy, I'm your guy. I read. I read van nor every night before I go to sleep, just for fun and because I don't have a girlfriend.

Speaker 2: 1:31:20

I was gonna say nick, we need to get you married, man, I know dude it's all over. That could be a whole other deal right there we should do, we should, I, we've talked about this. We need to do like a uh, like a dating game, like a dating game show for nick yeah I would hate that so much, that's why we need to do it I'm a private person in that area, so I would.

Speaker 4: 1:31:43

I would hate it unless you paid me money. If you want to pay me, pay me like a grand. I'll come on for an hour you our chat would.

Speaker 2: 1:31:51

We could raise that pretty easily. For that I think, yeah, I'd be pretty mean to.

Speaker 4: 1:31:55

Whoever the girls are, though I'd be, I'd be asking them scholastic questions like the first question out of the gate I'd ask to the girl would be something like so what is your like opinion on the insolvent theory? Are you like, uh, more?

Speaker 2: 1:32:04

okay, maybe in or maybe seven areas best for you heck.

Speaker 4: 1:32:08

No, it's not, but I would just do it just to get the girls away.

Speaker 3: 1:32:11

No, I think what I think we need to do is we need to have, we need to have anthony give nick like, pretend that he's his son, he's giving him dating advice oh, he's tried doing this.

Speaker 4: 1:32:21

He gives me dating advice like it's in the 1980s.

Speaker 2: 1:32:23

I'm like first date, you go to a nice restaurant 300 bucks for steak, something like that. Second date dirty water dog on the street, new york that's literally what he tells people.

Speaker 4: 1:32:34

Well no, he tells people he's like Dick, why don't you just go up and ask someone out? And I'm like well, aside from the fact that there's zero women, even at my parish, it's not like in the 80s, where you could just walk up and ask somebody out. You don't understand how the social norms between men and women work anymore. That's how you get tasered, exactly.

Speaker 3: 1:32:55

I was like you get an assault charge thrown on you just for existing dude. I someone that we probably all know just met an incredible woman on catholic match yeah, I've tried that before.

Speaker 4: 1:33:04

It's all over, it's going. What I'm convinced of is, when it is the lord's good time, he will bring somebody to me and's just truly. It is going to be a miracle, truly a first-class miracle. Up there with the walking on water, nick getting married.

Speaker 3: 1:33:19

So I'll tell you what, nick. That is the truth, that is a true statement. I, you know, I remember my, my daughter, who is 27 now. Um, there was a period of her life where she was like I just want to be married, I want to. You know she was, she was feeling the pressure, right. She was, she was through with school. She was like, okay, I want to be married and have kids and all this stuff, but she, she just wasn't meeting people, right.

Speaker 3: 1:33:44

And I remember saying to her you know, you never know when that person's going to come into your life. It could be tomorrow, it could be tomorrow, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week. So you can't live in that space where you feel like there's, it's just hopeless because if you trust God with it, he will bring that person to you. But there's a big difference between you know, you looking for that person and God bringing them to you. You know, and I I believe that if that's the desire of your heart and you you offer that to the Lord and that's his will, that he'll bring that person to you when you're both ready for that. But it could happen anytime.

Speaker 4: 1:34:19

Yeah, I'll say this to people maybe as we close, just as like an encouragement. This is just true for the whole spiritual life, what I'm about to say, not just this area, but the whole spiritual life. So I'll be a little bit vulnerable. This year has been rough, especially in the world of just trying to get a date. What's so funny is that people who know me in real life whether it be family, friends, acquaintances, etc. They don't understand why I can't find anybody. And I don't understand it either.

Speaker 4: 1:34:45

And I've actually gotten to a place where in several weeks, it's been near borderline spiritual despair. It's like, lord, these desires are on my heart. I don't understand what's going on. There's just no fruit here. It's like I'm toiling in this valley of tears, but there is zero fruit.

Speaker 4: 1:35:03

And I've realized something because, especially as a guy, you know you want to figure out a plan, you want to get your life together, et cetera. And I feel like I'm in a dark room throwing yet like screaming at the wall saying, lord, help me, show me where to go, and nothing. But maybe that's what god wants. Maybe you're in this season of life and it's. Maybe it's not dating, maybe it's, maybe it's work, it's family who knows you, just your spiritual life in general, and maybe you don't feel like you know what to do. But maybe the reason that god has you there is he wants you to have radical trust and obedience and humility with him. Like an extreme, like just saying like, yeah, I'm going to bring you to a place in which it's like the alcatraz jail. You're not going to be able to see anything in solitary confinement, but hold on to me, you know, because again it's like people are saying in the chat become a priest. I don't believe that you shouldn't become a priest just because you can't find somebody. You 100, 1000, nick, 1000.

Speaker 2: 1:36:02

There you go, there you go that's how you get priests leaving the priesthood that's how you get that.

Speaker 3: 1:36:06

That's how. That's how we wind up in a big catastrophe. Disaster is when the men who become priests are only doing it because they couldn't find a woman to marry them. That's a recipe for disaster. No, you have to, and I love what you're saying, nick, and I would say this too like you know and I don't think this is you but one of the things I tell people that are single is don't waste your singleness, because there are things that you can do as a single man that I can't do as a married man. And so what I would say?

Speaker 2: 1:36:42

is Shoot guns all the time, drink really nice whiskey, buy nice cigars oh, I'm sorry I do those.

Speaker 3: 1:36:49

But that's what you can do when your kids move out of the house, rob, okay.

Speaker 3: 1:36:53

Oh okay, okay, which that's me, okay, but I'm just talking about as a single man, you're not encumbered by a lot of the attachments that married men are, so this is the time for you to like take big risks and jump out there and put yourself out there and do radical things for the Lord, that that you couldn't do if you were married. And the worst thing is when I see single people that I know we totally changed directions here in this, in this whatever, I know it's cool, it's cool.

Speaker 4: 1:37:25

This is how the show normally is.

Speaker 3: 1:37:27

Yeah, I know, if Anthony were here we wouldn't have even started talking about the topic yet Exactly. But what I'm saying is Aaron is a liar. He knows that's not true. I know that's what he likes to drink. He does. I went over to his house and he was like hey, do you want this like pina colada? I'm like what? Why don't we listen to Jimmy Buffett?

Speaker 2: 1:37:47

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 1:37:48

But no, my point is this. No, my point is this when I see single people that live the life of someone who is like super and I'm not talking politically or even theologically, but like super conservative, and they're afraid to take risks, they're afraid to make big moves because they don't want, you know, they're too worked up, like that season of your life is coming, okay, but now it's the time for you to get out there and see what, what God can do through you in those big ways. And who knows, maybe that's where you're going to meet that person. But, um, you know, don't waste your singleness by obsessing about being married. You know, do the things now that you can't do when you are married and just watch what happens exactly I.

Speaker 4: 1:38:37

I told people earlier, like a few months ago, I I'd never, I very, very rarely hear the lord say anything to me, but I do remember him distinctly saying and this is true for all of us who are in this situation imagine what spiritual progress you would make if you were to take all the amount of time and energy that you're wasting trying to find somebody and turn it into striving to become a saint, into becoming, into loving me. It was specifically what I heard, like you're spending all your time trying to find love elsewhere. Just love me, spend all that energy loving me, and it's it's the truth, because it's like God will provide when it's his time. If it is his will, yeah, that's huge.

Speaker 2: 1:39:26

You know, nick, I don't know if I've I know you know some of like my, my story with like my wife and stuff, but I don't think you, I don. 2014, I was in a five-year relationship at that point and it fell apart and at the same and I was living away from home Um, at the same time I lost my job, and so it's March and I just lost a five-year relationship, had to move two hours back home to live with my mom again and, man, life sucked, absolutely sucked, and it was almost near total despair for months. And then, as summer came along, I just kind of let go of of of the despair. You know, realize that if that the relationship I was in, just if it wasn't going to work, it wasn't going to work. And that month I met the woman who is now my wife. So, yeah, you never know when, when God is going to to provide for you like that, and you just have to just kind of trust in him. That's all it takes exactly.

Speaker 4: 1:40:38

Thanks for sharing. Yeah, that I don't think I've heard that story. You, you and anthony just need to do like one big episode per person and tell your stories whatever you feel comfortable with well, that one local show got spicy, that one time with anthony remember it did. It was fun, but I was just like, please, let me, if you die, let me make a movie of your life. It's just amazing. That would be cool, it would be very cool.

Speaker 2: 1:41:01

Anything else from either of you guys before we end it tonight.

Speaker 3: 1:41:06

Well, I just want to make sure that people got their questions answered. That had serious questions. I want to just thank everybody for being here hanging with us. I can't see how many people are watching and that doesn't matter to the number, but I'm just thankful for people to be here. I'm thankful for for you guys for inviting me to host or a guest, be a guest here, and you know, I just I just had a good time hanging with you guys and I appreciate that.

Speaker 4: 1:41:34

Yeah, we appreciate you coming on, man, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:41:35

Yeah, all of our guest hosts these last two weeks have been having a big help and, even better, it's just been good conversations. And don't be surprised if Anthony reaches out. Uh, because it's been a while since he's had you on the show with him on it too, so I wouldn't be surprised if he reaches out to all of our guest hosts these last two weeks to to almost. He probably wants to have the exact same discussion, just with him in it.

Speaker 3: 1:42:01

Let's be honest he's probably like well, hold on, remember that thing you said well you know exactly, but uh, how he is uh, but yeah, thank you so much, keith.

Speaker 2: 1:42:14

It's been uh, we've only done two shows together, but both of them have been super fun well, I love you guys and I pray for for you and your families and um.

Speaker 3: 1:42:24

I always want to keep encouraging you to to follow the lord. Don't build your own. I hear anthony sometimes get worked up about subscribers. I'll tell you what man. That's a complete distraction and don't worry about that. Just be who you're supposed to be and help build God's kingdom in your own very unique style of doing it, Because you guys do have a unique style of doing that. It because you guys do have a unique style of doing that. And don't get sidetracked by all the crap and don't get sucked in to all the drama. You guys don't need to become like the reactionary guys to whatever's going on in the world. You know I and I know you've made the comment earlier, rob like that's what gets views. Who gives a flying rip about that. It's not about getting views. It's about bringing people closer to the Lord. And if you're going to thanks Paul, Hold on a second oh no, it's not about getting views like it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3: 1:43:34

Okay, so like don't even let that register in your mind, because that is just a complete pride fest distraction.

Speaker 2: 1:43:42

That is a waste of time that was next level, trolling right there wow, I am being serious by, by the way. I know, I know, oh, so funny. Well, since you do have 10 times our subs, you probably don't need to promote your own channel right I? Really don't. Oh, that kind of hurts more, actually All your subs are my subs anyway.

Speaker 3: 1:44:12

Exactly, I'm not sure how to answer that. In a humble way, do I say, oh no, I please let me, let me promote. Or do I say, yeah, you know, but honestly, I'll tell you what man you know you guys are. You guys are awesome and I appreciate you and I and I I really am thankful for you guys having me on. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:44:34

For real, though. If any of our subs don't follow you and they like the show, how can they find you?

Speaker 3: 1:44:39

So I have two YouTube channels. The first one is just Keith Nestor and it started out really as like an apologetics ish sort of Keith reaction to to crappy arguments against Catholicism, but it is really sort of. My channels have kind of morphed in the last couple of years into more of like. The main thing I do on that channel is I do a Bible study every single week called Unpacking the Mass, where I go through the week's readings and I mean full disclosure. I attend the TLM pretty much exclusively, but I do the readings for the Novus Ordo because my mission for that is to help more Catholics live into the scriptures and that's just where they are. So so I do the readings for the Novus Ordo, I do a Bible study through those and that's one of my favorite things to do. And I'm also I started doing in-person interviews with with other converts, typically talking about their stories and different things like that.

Speaker 3: 1:45:33

We've made the switch in the last few months to flying people out here to do interviews rather than doing you know these, these lame virtual things. You know the Des Moines airport was uh, oh, dude, we're not even bringing into the Des Moines airport, we're bringing into an airport about half the size of that. So, um, so. And then I have, um, so that's just, the Keith Nestor YouTube channel. Then I have the one that I'm really excited about. That has far less subs but still more than you. It's called Rosary Crew with Keith Nestor and that is the place where we pray the rosary every single day on on YouTube. We started it about five years ago during the pandemic and it was supposed to last two weeks and we've never stopped. So we've prayed the rosary live on that channel every day for like it'll literally be five years in March and that's really all we do there.

Speaker 3: 1:46:29

I don't make other content. I mean, we have a few other little things on there, like different prayer things, but that's our prayer community and a lot of those folks came here tonight because I told them to come to the stream. So that's just Rosary Crew with Keith Nestor. So if anybody wants to pray, we have a 24-7 rosary presentation that just loops perpetually. It's really cool. It's got all the different mysteries. We even do the luminous mysteries. So I know you guys will love that and it's it's, it's just. It's just the rosary thing. Even as my, you know, when I became a convert, I wasn't even sure I was going to be that kind of Catholic, you know like a rosary guy. It just seemed kind of like you know, generic or whatever, but that has literally changed my life doing that. So we have that channel as well. So you guys are invited to come.

Speaker 2: 1:47:20

I haven't told you this and I haven't told Anthony this, but I actually knew about you before, anthony, because I tuned into the rosary crew quite a few times when you first started during the pandemic.

Speaker 3: 1:47:31

Oh, I didn't know that. That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:47:32

And then that was two years before I joined this channel. So yeah, so I knew you before, anthony.

Speaker 3: 1:47:41

Excellent, excellent. Well, that's that's where you can find me. I have a couple of books. If you go on Amazon you can find I have two books. One's called the Converts Guide to Roman Catholicism your first year in the church, which is really about a lot of things we talked about here tonight.

Speaker 3: 1:47:54

Another book called unpacking the mysteries of the rosary, where I approach the mysteries of the rosary from a scriptural perspective and talk about where they come from in the Bible and what the what, the application of that is. Cause you know, I was a pastor for a long time, so I just I have to do the practical application thing. Um, so that's just that's just that's what I'm made for. Um, so that's that's what I do, um, and if it, if it's helpful to people, then praise the Lord.

Speaker 3: 1:48:19

God's opened up so many amazing opportunities for me to travel around and be with people and and and connect with people through the, through this rosary ministry. I'm just completely blown away by what he's done in my life through all that, and I never and this goes back to what we were talking about beginning to kind of wrap this up If you, as a convert, plan your ministry as a Catholic, you're going to screw it up, but if you let God just have control over it, then he's going to do things through you that you never thought, that you never would have thought possible. If I would have planned my ministry life out as a Catholic convert, it wouldn't look a thing like it looks today and it would be nothing special.

Speaker 4: 1:49:07

But because Our Lady and Our Lord have led me in these directions.

Speaker 2: 1:49:09

I'm seeing things happen that there's no way I could have ever made happen on my own.

Speaker 4: 1:49:11

Yeah, that's awesome, it's so true, just always keep Christ in the focus.

Speaker 2: 1:49:13

Nick, you want to share your channel.

Speaker 4: 1:49:16

Sure, most of you guys, I think, know it, but it's called the Traditional Thomist. It's more of an academic online journal, if you want to call it that Kind of my impromptu thoughts and reflections over various scholastic topics. So I'll promote these two things. We're currently going through a series on the Roman Catechism for the Sundays and feast days of the year. So if you guys have a Catechism of the Council of Trent, in the very beginning you'll see a Sunday sermon program that priests will use. I basically go through all of that, but I also incorporate a lot of manuals into it. So, as an example, today in the episode we went through a massive treatise on the topic of sin. So all the kinds of sin, how to uproot sin, all the nitty gritty fun stuff, and then two starting in January.

Speaker 4: 1:49:59

I'm actually going to be starting a fair amount of series for this next coming year. All of them are basically going to be if you were at a traditional seminary, you would take every single one of the things I'm about to say. So we're going to be doing an ascetical and mystical theology series which is going to be over how to become a saint, how to live the spiritual life. We're going to do a series called the Acts of the Magisterium. We're going to go through about 50 encyclicals and look at what the pre-Vatican two popes taught on various subjects, everything from liberalism, modernism, neomodernism et cetera. We're also going to go through over three philosophical manuals. So we'll go through the entire corpus of philosophy, everything from the beginning with logic, formal logic, minor logic, all the way to metaphysics, ontology and then, of course, finishing with theodicity and ethics and stuff. We'll go through then eight manuals of dogmatic and fundamental theology. So we'll go through those courses.

Speaker 4: 1:50:51

I recommend De Revelazione De Ecclesia, but then also Theology Proper, the Study of God. God is One, god is Triune, all the way to the Sacraments and the Last Things. And then we'll finish the year next year up with three massive series over moral theology, again using moral theology textbooks, fundamental moral theology, the commandments we're gonna basically be using six manuals for that. Three commandments we're going to basically be using six manuals for that. Three of them are up in the corner right up there, uh, some of them by father merkel box, so you'll get a more of a tomistic virtue ethics perspective and then some of the great tomistic jesuits before the council who did it more on the treatises of the commandments. So very academic, very systematic. That's just how nick's brain works, is what it is. But yeah, if you're interested in like yeah, I want to see a pre Vatican to seminary course, like legitimate course, but in a YouTube free video format, then go over there and you'll find it.

Speaker 3: 1:51:42

I'm going to do that. That sounds awesome yeah that'll be awesome.

Speaker 4: 1:51:45

I'll definitely. I'll send you it whenever we start launching. It'd be early January Hit me up, dude, Dude.

Speaker 3: 1:51:49

I would love to learn that. Yeah, it should be fun.

Speaker 2: 1:51:54

Okay, Well, thank you both and thank you everyone in the chat and everyone else watching Next Tuesday. Anthony returns. Oh boy and boy. Is he going to have stories?

Speaker 4: 1:52:09

Dude, it's going to be like a four-hour long story.

Speaker 2: 1:52:11

Yeah, we told him. He gets one show to talk about Italy and it can only be four to five hours long, so we'll limit it to that, but in reality he wants to start a series about bringing back the, the worship of the saints. He's learned a lot about the different saints whose relics he saw in Italy and he is very motivated by it. So be prepared everyone, this is your warning. But anyways, thank you everyone, have a good night and we'll see you next Tuesday.

Speaker 3: 1:52:49

God bless everybody.