The Most Important Conclave in History?

Three Catholic commentators gather to examine what's at stake as the Church anticipates a new pontificate. Rather than simply handicapping papal candidates, they dive deeper - asking what Catholics can expect regardless of who steps onto the loggia.

Looking back at the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, they challenge nostalgic simplifications by acknowledging both strengths and weaknesses in these pontificates. Michael offers a counterbalance to popular narratives, noting problematic moments like Assisi interfaith gatherings alongside the doctrinal clarity these popes provided on moral issues. Mark reflects on how Benedict's theological precision offered stability during a formative period in his faith journey.

The conversation pivots to a crucial insight that frames everything: "The faith isn't about the Pope. Faith is about your relationship with Christ and the sacraments." This perspective grounds their analysis of two potential post-conclave scenarios - either a return to doctrinal orthodoxy that triggers external persecution, or continued progressive momentum that maintains internal tensions. Either way, faithful Catholics must prepare for challenges.

They explore whether a formal schism looms on the horizon, with Michael distinguishing between true schism and the theological divisions already evident. Mark notes how God continues working through seemingly desperate situations, pointing to unexpected growth in vocations and renewed interest in tradition among younger Catholics.

As they consider whether current trials represent apocalyptic moments or simply another chapter in the Church's long history, the discussants agree on one certainty - personal holiness and penance remain essential regardless of ecclesiastical politics. The Church has died and risen repeatedly throughout history, and will continue to do so through divine providence and faithful witnesses who keep their lamps trimmed and burning through the darkness.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Catholic Friends and Background
• 3:58 Reflecting on John Paul II's Pontificate
• 8:10 Benedict XVI and Changing Perspectives
• 16:47 Church's Internal Challenges and Growth
• 24:09 Faith Beyond the Pope's Identity
• 32:20 The Coming Conclave's Significance
• 38:30 Potential Schism and Church Division
• 48:13 Apocalyptic Times and Church Renewal
• 58:04 Individual Responsibility and Penance

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

SANTE, sante AMARE MORTI NECRADAS NOS IN TE SPERA VERUM, in tes per a verum. Good morning guys. This is my first time doing like a daytime show on my channel, because I typically work construction during the day.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Oh, but daytime television is the worst, so I wanted to get I can still do enough of the daytime television slot Anthony.

Speaker 1: 0:47

I wanted to. Well, the thing is I have a little energy in a daytime slot, like typically. I worked all day and then we do the 8 pm and I'm exhausted. I usually ask Michael after he just did his show, so he's on like his fourth hour of streaming as he comes into hours, the poor guy. But I thought the three of us would be a good combination because first, we spent a significant portion of time together at the Catholic Identity Conference last year and you got Mark. When I first started talking to Mark, he had told me that you guys were actually friends long before either of you met me. So how do you guys know each other?

Speaker 2: 1:31

Traveling in similar circles. Really, we met through various acquaintances and met at certain gatherings and we just hit it off.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Yeah. So I figured when we went to that conference Michael and Mark were basically my wingmen went to that conference, michael and mark were basically my wingmen. So mark flew in and he was jet lagged and had slept about two hours and the guy stayed up until like 2 am with us just drinking pints and like just getting into conversations and talking. And it was english yeah, it was. It was really fun because I think mark had some preconceived opinions of me that when we actually got to talking about things he was was like oh OK, you're not really just like some crazy rad trad, you actually have some nuanced opinions on some things. But we're coming up on the Catholic Super Bowl. Essentially Right, we have a conclave happening, which this is the third of my life.

Speaker 1: 2:23

I wasn't alive for John Paul's election, but I was for. Oh no, my, yeah, this will be my third. So Benedict's election, francis's election are now this one, and there's a lot of people that are saying you shouldn't be talking about this stuff yet and you're just doing it for clicks. But I also think there's a lot of new people that came into the church that have never experienced the conclave and it is something exciting as a Catholic to experience.

Speaker 1: 2:49

So I wanted to just go over with you guys what man, maybe, what it's been like being a Catholic, you know, being Catholic our whole lives and witnessing some of the changes we've gone through over the years, and then we'll get into what, what some of the options are out there and what we think is going to happen, regardless of who's elected. So let's just go back to, like, the early days. Like were you guys oh, because I grew up in a, I'm a cradle Catholic but didn't take my faith seriously until my twenties. Like were, um, were you? Were you guys heavily invested in the John Paul, the second pontificate.

Speaker 2: 3:32

Not really. Um, I mean, I I liked John Paul and I I definitely appreciated his, his documents with regard to orthodoxy and specifically with the pro-life movement. But growing up I saw some of the other things too. I saw both sides. I saw the glorious stuff that he put out and then I saw kind of the seedy underbelly, when he would go to these Assisi blessings, for instance, where he met with a bunch of interfaith groups and leaders and they were all called to pray in their own way at the church of Assisi.

Speaker 2: 4:14

And it was a confusing time in some respects. I kept waiting for him to do something, like, you know, drop the hammer on a bunch of heretics and kick them out of the church and say you know what, enough of this, stop messing with the mess, stop monkeying with this, stop changing church you know church teaching and stop trying to promulgate heresy. But he didn't excommunicate anybody except for Marcel Lefebvre. So I, um, I didn't have any animosity towards Pope John Paul II. I actually, like I said, I really liked him, but I wasn't, you know, like part of the JP two generation kind of thing. I wasn't going to go to those, uh, youth day, what was it World?

Speaker 3: 4:53

Youth Day and that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 4:54

I wasn't going to be part of the big, the big party. It just wasn't my scene.

Speaker 1: 4:59

That's interesting. Okay, so, mark, I think you you probably didn't have, cause I think Michael was a little more like cued into these things before, definitely way before I was. So I don't hear about Assisi until 2017.

Speaker 3: 5:19

So, mark, were you one of the part of the generation that was, like the man's, a living saint? I don't know about that. I don't know that I was, that I was a cradle Catholic and I didn't have any formation in my faith, really, you know. So, um, he was the Pope and he was a bit of a rock star. I went when he came to England, I went to Wembley. I was only a little fella. My wife was there as well as a. You know, we must have been 11 or 12 or something like that. You know, um, I didn't know her at the time, but you know it was a massive celebration of what it meant to be Catholic.

Speaker 3: 5:47

So, from all that side of things, I was completely thought the man was brilliant and his down of communism is like. Then I discovered the history of his life and everything he would lose in his family, and you know the difficult circumstances. Then I discovered his philosophical writings, I think the book when I was about 14, I found Crossing the Threshold of Hope, which was an answer to a series of questions that were written by a journalist that he didn't have time to get into the meeting, but he answered them and sent them to him afterwards and they turned it into a book and those answers really strengthened me in my faith, because they were the sort of questions that were leveled at me by friends and, you know, people like peers, and they were really good answers to those questions and I didn't even know that popes wrote books, let alone encyclicals, at the time. So, um, it really fed me, the papacy, you know, jp2 really fed me.

Speaker 3: 6:47

I was, I was in uh, I was in venice when he uh died, I was celebrating I think it was my, I think it was our 10th wedding anniversary. Would that be right?

Speaker 3: 6:56

20 years ago, it may be this time that was 20 years ago this year yeah, so so yeah, so we were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in venice and we were, we were thinking, should we get the train down to Rome, you know um, to see, to be part of all the funeral and all that sort of thing? And then of course, we got Benedict the 16th elected off the back of that and that was absolutely golden, because that was when I really started studying the faith properly. And of course he was. He just felt like he, he had your back.

Speaker 1: 7:27

You know, he was a brilliant theologian and yeah, I think, I think, mark, I think guys like you and I like I, always have this, this huge nostalgia for those two men.

Speaker 1: 7:39

You know, it was like John Paul, the second, what her name, uh, mother theresa, were like the two living saints of my youth and that's all I ever heard. And then when benedict came in, it was like, oh god's rottweiler is the pope, and it's I find it interesting that, michael, you, you kind of were a little more savvy than most Catholics were throughout that period, because I mean, I just have this like the way my memory works, is John Paul II was this huge conservative and he was fighting the powers of evil. And it isn't until much later that, especially after the priest scandals, that you start finding out like man, he might've known some of this stuff was going on and maybe I don't know. You know I don't want to ascribe motives to him, but you know there was a lot he did do for evangelism. He had some beautiful personal devotions, but there was also a lot of dark stuff under the surface that he just did not contend with as Pope Right.

Speaker 2: 8:40

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right there. When I was growing up now we've talked about my background quite a bit my grandparents were very involved in fighting the communists here in the United States. They were exposing communist cell networks in Southern California. My grandmother used to keep a list in a little booklet that she had of new bishop appointments and she would track who they were and where they came from and what they were up to and the things that they said and she kind of developed a good bishop, bad bishop list. So when John Paul II started appointing certain bishops, and I remember her talking to my mother and saying I don't understand why he would appoint this man, this man, da-da-da-da-da. I'm starting to think that's not good. So you know, I didn't know what all of that meant at the time, but I would log these things in the back of my head and it's just.

Speaker 2: 9:34

I have a very sharp memory. I remember these things, I remember the conversations and then, as other things would come up, I would go, oh, oh, now suddenly that makes sense or suddenly that doesn't really color him in a good perspective. I mean, I remember when he kissed the Koran, which was extremely disturbing to me Because for all intents and purposes. He may as well have kissed the Satanic Bible. It's just, I don't understand why he would do something like that.

Speaker 2: 10:08

At Assisi, they placed a statue of Buddha on top of the tabernacle. Why didn't he remove it? Why didn't he throw it to the ground and smash it? He didn't. Instead, he stood with all of those other interfaith leaders and prayed with them quote unquote to their own respective deities, which I mean that's something that had been condemned by the church in previous decades, previous centuries. You just never did that. So I just kind of logged these things. It's not like I did anything active about it, but I remember going to Christendom College and having people and all my classmates, oh, jp2, jp2. And I was like, ok, all right, and they didn't understand why I was so reserved. And I would bring these things up and they'd say, oh, why are you so against him? I'm not, I must have been.

Speaker 1: 10:59

I must have been a tricky time to be awake to all these things.

Speaker 2: 11:04

Well, I got labeled conspiracy theorist and, uh, you know, basically a tinfoil hat wearer and a friend of mine. Fairly recently after, uh, after they became awake, after uh, pope francis's papacy and and uh, the obamas and everything else, uh, we met at a reunion at christendom and she walked up to me and she said I never thought I'd ever say this, but, holy crap, you were right.

Speaker 1: 11:30

You're right about everything, michael look, well, the part of the reason I'm even bringing it up is because, um, so I saw, uh, father gerald murray, who I really do like yesterday I'm with jo McLean and he was and even Cardinal Dolan gave an interview where they're like, well, what are we going to be looking for in the next pope? And both of them seem to suggest that, you know, we want someone with the clarity of John Paul II and Benedict.

Speaker 2: 11:58

They weren't that clear, though that's the problem they weren't. They were clear on certain moral issues, but theologically and philosophically they were not clear. John Paul II was a phenomenologist, which is bizarre, it's alien to the church's thought, and he wrote these philosophical ideas that kind of meandered and didn't really settle on anything and it left several, several philosophical thoughts open-ended. That's not a good thing. Um benedict was more clear, but we have to remember benedict also was a. He was part of the school of the, the uh nouveau tloj. He was right there with um hans ors von balthasar and henry deac.

Speaker 1: 12:43

He praised von Balthasar several times.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Yes, and you know, I like a lot of what Benedict did. I loved the man, but his theological writings had some issues. So you know, again, I'm not here to judge either of them. I'm not going to say that I'm a better person or a better Catholic than either of them, because I'm not here to judge either of them. I'm not going to say that I'm a better person or a better Catholic than either of them, because I'm not. But I have reservations, I have concerns. I wouldn't want somebody with the clarity of John Paul II or Pope Benedict. I would want somebody with the clarity of Pius X, the clarity of Leo XIII, the clarity of Pius IX, the clarity of Leo the 13th, the clarity of Pius the 9th. They didn't have to write volumes of books and 200, 300 page dissertations on any given topic to explain it. What they wrote was on 10 pages, five pages, and it was clear. It was concise and it was thorough. It closed the gap. We don't need long dissertations to explain a simple problem.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Well, I think there's this idea, especially amongst Catholics right now, that if we just get a pope who's willing to speak out against the rainbow movement, if we just get a pope who's willing to speak out on the life issues, and we just get a pope who's willing to speak out on the life issues, and we just get a pope who's willing to speak out on a few on, like, just those major issues that all these bishops seem to pay lip service to under the pontificates of JP to and Benedict, but then as soon as Francis came in, those guys masks kind of drop, like I, I. I thought there was a bit of naivete in Father Murray's position saying that we just want somebody with that kind of what we're coming up on. I don't think a Benedict XVII or a John Paul III will be sufficient to tackle what we are actually up against in our culture. What do you think, mark?

Speaker 3: 14:40

I don't think it matters. That's not what the faith is about. The faith isn't about the Pope. I don't think it matters. That's not what the faith is about. The faith isn't about the Pope. Faith is about you and your relationship with Christ and the sacraments and making sure that your family go to mass and live their lives. That's how you change culture. That's how we change the church, if you like, you know the Pope's just some bloke in Rome. If he's not holding to the deposit of faith, he's no good to any of us.

Speaker 3: 15:05

So, you know, I haven't even really I say I haven't listened to Pope Francis. Of course I have and poured over all his rubbish that he's written and you know all of that sort of thing and been absolutely depressed by it. And I have to say, you know, I'm really not of the same opinion with regard to, you know, especially Benedict XVI. And I feel that I feel you're right that the Pope's not going to save the church by any stretch of the imagination. But I do feel that what we're looking at in terms of trajectory is that everyone who was, you know, except for Michael, of course, but everyone else who was a JP2 Catholic or a Benedict VI Catholic. They're all trads now.

Speaker 3: 15:47

You know, the Overton windows moved because we thought that Benedict XVI and JP2 had the. They had it solid, they were the solid centre, and instead we've found out now you know how quickly that all was. Absolutely the scales fell from our eyes, didn't they with Pope Francis, and everything went horribly wrong. So, and I mean, I found myself thinking how can this happen? Pope Benedict XVI said that the, the authority, his authority, ended at the door to his office and yet Pope Francis seems to be able to do whatever he wants to do, don't even bother saying mass. You know, like let's not bother with it. But the trouble is, because of the media age, we're all so focused on what the pope's doing to take a lead from it that, um, we're forgetting that that's not really what the catholic church is. The catholic church is the magisterium of pious the ninth of. You know, like it's not what francis is doing. You know, it's not that.

Speaker 1: 16:43

Yeah, no, but there is. There is a um, the, the, the faith is not the Pope, you're 100% right, but the the Pope is supposed to confirm the, the little you know, confirm the brethren in their faith. So there is um, there is. I mean, he plays such a significant part in the catholic life so that when you have somebody like francis come along, it is super discouraging for the average catholic to just be dealing with the onslaught from the media and there's no corrections and things like that.

Speaker 1: 17:20

But I and and not just that, it's such a mess, yeah, but the next that's what he did the next Pope is going to be the. He will have full juridical authority over the church to kind of clean up some of the things that are within his authority, which would be I mean, we saw what Francis did by getting rid of Bishop Strickland as opposed to getting rid of McElroy like McElroy gets elevated and Strickland gets taken out. So you know, the next Pope. I do wonder what he's going to do with Bishop Strickland, who lost his diocese. You know, it's Nothing, I wouldn't have thought. Oh man, it's an interesting, you know, hypothetical to play with.

Speaker 3: 18:05

What one of these guys is going to? We're not getting onto that yet, are we? What one of them is going to stand up for anything? I just can't see it. I just can't see any of them going right. We're going to reverse everything. The very best we can hope for is that they let it. They let synodality and all that rubbish quietly die and stop going on about it all the time.

Speaker 1: 18:27

You know, I think that's the best we can hope for so you yeah, I was going to ask you that like, what do you guys think? Do you think the synodal church continues?

Speaker 2: 18:34

I don't know, I depends on who goes in.

Speaker 1: 18:38

It really does what's going to be interesting about this next conclave is that, even like when francis gets, we were all like, oh, he's a South American Jesuit. Like that can't be good. Where, with this conclave, there has been so many interviews and so much media we're going to know exactly what this next Pope's position is on almost everything, because these guys can't stop blabbing their mouths. So it will be interesting to see who steps out on that loggia and within five minutes, you're going to see Catholics being like okay, what does he say. What does he say? What does he say? It's going to be really interesting to see how that plays out.

Speaker 2: 19:13

You know, I have to tell you a funny story. After Pope Benedict stepped down and there was going to be a conclave the one that eventually elected Pope Francis my friends and I played a board game called Conclave and it was supposed to be this game about how a conclave works, and each one of you plays a cardinal and you go through the cardinal's career and then eventually you have this conclave and you vote, and it depends on what kind of influence you have to determine who gets chosen. Well, at the beginning of the game, in order to put together your profile, you draw certain cards that explain where you're from, what your background is and that kind of thing. Well, I drew South American Jesuit, and this was a month before, or like weeks before, francis was elected. I won. I was the least likely to win of our group, but I won, so it was. It was a very funny little, if not a sad, determination.

Speaker 1: 20:19

Well, look, I see everyone talking about Cardinal Serra, cardinal Pizza Ball, cardinal Erdo, but like, what do we do if Tuco Fernandez steps out there?

Speaker 2: 20:30

Well, it would be a mess. I want to just kind of read you what I wrote this morning on X. I said a timely reminder. God does not choose the Pope. I said a timely reminder. God does not choose the Pope, he confirms the man chosen to become the Pope. Just as any man is free to marry any woman, he should be wise in his choice and choose a woman of virtue. If he does, god seals the marriage and he will enjoy a good life. But if he chooses a woman of vice, he will seal that too and he will be miserable.

Speaker 2: 21:06

We must pray unceasingly that the cardinals choose a virtuous man to become the pope so that we may enjoy a period of goodness in the life of the church. If we do not, they may choose someone terrible who will bring dishonor and scandal to the church. For good or for ill, god will seal the choice, and that's kind of where we are right now. The cardinals make the choice, god seals it. And if we get somebody like a Sarah, I think Sarah is too old. But if we get someone like a Sarah or we get someone like an Erdo or an Ike, god be praised because he will at least steer the ship back in an orthodox direction. If we get someone like a Fernandez, well, we can then be sure that we are under a chastisement, that God is punishing us, because we know the direction that such an individual is going to steer us.

Speaker 2: 22:03

It doesn't mean that we get the power or the ability to determine whether he's the Pope or not, but there are limits on the power of the papacy, on the authority of the papacy, and we don't have to follow those things which he says that are not in conformity with what the church has always taught, with what the church has always taught.

Speaker 2: 22:27

So if a Cardinal Fernandez becomes the Pope and he comes out and says you know what? We're going to go ahead and allow homosexual couples to come into the church, we're going to let them go up and receive blessings and, by the way, they can go up and receive Holy Communion because they're in a committed relationship and we want to encourage them to participate in the life of the church. We don't have to follow that. In fact, we should stand against it because it goes directly against natural law, it goes against common sense and it goes against moral law. So, even if a wicked pope were to say such a thing, we're not it. And people like uh, mike lewis, over at where peter is, is going to sit there and say, oh, that's the teaching of the church, that's the magisterium. No, it's not. No, it's not.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Every word uttered by the pope is not magisterial what I think is interesting about this conclave, though, is okay.

Speaker 1: 23:20

So after, after jp2, and, and Benedict, I think the Cardinals went into the, the conclave that elected Francis, with kind of a naive attitude of oh well, no matter who gets elected, you're going to get somebody in that, in that mold, whereas this conclave I see even with Cardinal Zen speaking out already about them organizing meetings before he could even get there that what you're going to see is those cardinals who have Francis fatigue and those cardinals who do want a more orthodox pope to be elected are going to be way more on their guard to be elected, are going to be way more on their guard, and I think that there will be.

Speaker 1: 24:10

I don't think they're going to be able to just get whoever they want in this time. I think it could be very contentious, and I think we could have a significant period of interregnum, which is why I think Francis anticipated that and made it. I think this, after a certain amount of votes it's a simple majority elects the Pope, like I think he changed the rules knowing that he caused such a mess that it'll be very difficult to get a two-thirds majority of these cardinals to agree on somebody.

Speaker 3: 24:36

I don't think it's going to be Fernandez, just to put your mind at rest.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Yeah, no, I expect the worst of them.

Speaker 3: 24:43

And also the fact that Pope Francis has made such an absolute mess of everything. And Fernandez is part of that mess insofar as, you know, even with something like Fiducia Sopercans, where he said no further clarifications will be given, immediately issued a clarification. You know he's just made a clown of himself. Everyone knows that Everyone who's done a theology degree, you know he's just made a clown of himself. Everyone knows that Everyone who's done a theology degree, you know, knows that I'd be very, very surprised if anyone was stupid enough to vote for more of the same. You know and apparently I mean this is what I hear from Rome is that, you know, everyone is, they're broke.

Speaker 3: 25:21

There was a regime of, you know, listening in to conversations and the reign of terror. Some people said Francis would swear people out and you know he was a bit of a bully. There must be tremendous relief that all that is over and I think that they'll be looking for something different. You know, I think Pete Sabala might be your man there. I don't think there's a chance he's getting in. He's an Italian and they'll. You know they like to bring it back to Italy, don't they? After a period of insanity, and he's also, I think, the work that he's done in Jerusalem has been really when he offered himself, you know, for the hostages. I thought that was very broad. So what I'm saying is he's made waves and he's made himself look competent when he speaks. I mean, michael matt had him on his last remnant and, uh, you know, he was saying really catholic things.

Speaker 3: 26:16

Yeah walking along saying, you know, we've got to stand up for jesus, and all I was like, wow, that'd be good. Well, there's two.

Speaker 1: 26:25

There's two ways this goes and in my opinion it's if you got um, especially from what you're saying, it does sound like it. If you're right, that would mean a Cardinal Serra actually does have a good chance, a Cardinal pizza ball actually does have a good chance. Because maybe these men are like, okay, we need to settle down with all this craziness, right, if that happens. I see it as the world is so right now we're in a place where you can see it in the media reports, right when Francis, the people's Pope, the Pope who was liberalizing the church and bringing the church in a more progressive direction and he was blessing same-sex unions and all that stuff. So I think that we've been kind of left alone by the media. They never went after Francis once, not about sex abuse, not about anything.

Speaker 1: 27:14

They just laid off of him. And it was like Catholics have had. As much as there's been turmoil about wondering if your mass is going to be taken away or wondering if Francis is going to lay the hammer down on a good, faithful bishop, there has been an utter tranquility when it comes to real persecution from the world. So if you get a man like a Pizzabala or a Seurat or a well-known conservative, that will change immediately and you're going to see the church have you know, the media and the world will set its sights on the Catholic Church. So the persecution will then come from the outside, which I think will build the body of Christ up.

Speaker 1: 27:52

So I think all of us had always had the idea that if we receive persecution from the world, we're prepared for that because we expect you're a follower of Christ. You expect the world to hate you. If it hated me, it will hate you. But what none of us were expecting was this persecution from within the church, where it was like our own leaders were trying to demolish the faith on us. So the two routes I see forward are persecution from the world because we have a faithful pope, or persecution from when the church continues. The revolution continues, and we're going to be getting an onslaught from within the church. So so, either way, I just see hard times ahead for catholics. You guys think I'm wrong on that, or?

Speaker 2: 28:36

well, uh, in terms of persecution from within the church, until the church is cleansed of the modernist errors that have persecuted her for the last hundred years, um, I think that, uh, that's that's going to continue. Even if we get a good pope, we are going to continue to have persecution of modernists. That's, that's just going to continue to go on, um, unless there's a rounding up and a mass execution, or, I'm sorry, uh, mass um oh, that was a freudian slip.

Speaker 2: 29:15

Bring back the inquisition um, yeah, unless we have something like that going on, that's going to continue. In terms of the world, the close relationship that we have seen between the world and the church over the last 20 years, 30 years, 60 years actually, is crumbling. We're starting to see that the United States government is drawing a line between the finances and what the church has been doing. People are starting to realize that Catholic Charities was involved in, let's say, illicit transfer of human beings across the border. We're starting to see that the people of the world are rising up against the mass scandals. The child abuse, the homosexual abuse, everything along those lines is being recognized by the world as incongruous with what the church is. So the world at some point is going to throw off the yoke of this.

Speaker 2: 30:21

We love having a relationship with the church because they give us moral rightness and we give them money. That's not going to happen anymore, regardless of who gets in, because you know you. You get a liberal coming in and the world's going to look at that liberal and say we're not fooled again. We're still not giving you money. In fact, we're going to start shutting down your parishes because you're running a criminal operation. You get a conservative coming in and you're going to get the other part of the world that says we hate what you represent. You represent oppression of people, of sexual diversity, and we're going to start shutting you down because we hate what you're doing. So, either way, we are going to be persecuted by the world. It doesn't matter who's Pope.

Speaker 3: 31:04

Okay, now here's another perspective. Right, we've seen a massive turnaround in the UK at Easter, with people, young men especially who are disaffected with the culture, looking for answers and are drawn to the Catholic faith. Our Prime Minister, who was saying that you couldn't say what a woman was or something I don't know, that women could have penises or something I can't even. I don't even know what he's now saying, that only women are women, which sounds obvious to us. But there you go. That's how crazy things have been over here, but it could there.

Speaker 3: 31:38

I think that we can't go on with the madness that we're seeing in our culture and that the catholic if you know, the three of us, everyone watching we believe that this is the truth and I think that it's persuasive.

Speaker 3: 31:51

The truth is persuasive and people can only put up with the madness and insanity that they're being told is normality by secular culture for so long. And that, you know, if, as like, if we can just hold on to the truth as past the deposit of faith as given to us by Jesus and the apostles, if we can only maintain the goodness, the truth and the beauty, um, I think we'll start seeing a turnaround. I think we'll start seeing the. That's what we it feels like at Easter, you know, even in our parish. I said to my parish priest, you know, have you not? He said I can't believe how many confessions and how many people they've been at mass. And you know, people are coming and, like, my next door neighbor came to mass on Easter Sunday and he went, oh, that was really, you know, really ancient, felt really like it was something important and mystical.

Speaker 1: 32:42

Going on, yes, there's definitely something happening with God stirring the hearts of people. Right, They've been fed this nonsense from the culture for so long and it's so empty and I think, even like the new atheist movement that came up years back, people saw okay, you get rid of God and other gods come up, right, Like you can't just get rid of God because these other gods pop up. And then all of a sudden you start seeing these insane things happening all over the culture. So I think God is definitely working with the insanity to draw people to him, and that's what Chesterton said, wasn't it?

Speaker 3: 33:18

You know that it's not that people won't believe in anything, it's that they believe in anything, and that's what we saw. That's what we've seen.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Have you ever seen a tree with root rot? Do you know what root rot is? Yeah, okay, so root rot comes from an abundance of water. In other words, if a tree is in standing water or in a wet area for a long, long time, mold starts to grow on the roots of the tree and it starts to rot. And it rots on the outside of the roots, but it'll eventually kill the tree.

Speaker 2: 33:48

Uh, the only way to treat it is to dry the tree out as much as possible without killing it, and I think that the church back in the 60s was undergoing a a deluge, uh, like just full of water. The the roots were were rich. They were, excuse me, pulling in all kinds of nutrients, but there was a mold that was growing on it, and we have been experiencing that rot for the last 60 years. But to treat it, we had to go through a period of dryness, and I think that the last 12 years has been a period of dryness. The rot has been exposed now and what's interesting is that when you dry out the roots, they become combustible. It's easy to light them on fire, and I think that that fire is what we're looking for at this moment. We want that fire, we want that passion to enter into the church and to shock the roots so that they suck up the nutrients and the moisture and revive the tree. I think that we're seeing that kind of thing happen now, especially with the youth movement in the UK, and we're seeing it in the United States as well.

Speaker 2: 35:01

So, again, this all goes back to the question of the purpose of the church. The church exists for the salvation of souls. She is only interested in salvation, that's it. She's not interested in climate change, she's not interested in coddling homosexuals and their relationships. She's interested in the salvation of souls. And if you have a pope who is not interested in the salvation of souls but is looking to sanctify the world, well, she's going to spit him out eventually. And again I think to Mark's point it doesn't really matter who is the Pope, because as long as you know and understand the faith and you promulgate the faith and you look to spread the faith as much as humanly possible, that's where the church is going to be, regardless of who's sitting at the top.

Speaker 3: 35:48

Well said, and it's been. Look, we've had 12 years, right, and we're seeing all this growth, but, like the church is alive, we believe that we believe that this is Christ's church and God is doing something. And I think, if you look've, what our job almost is is to see what god is doing, what god is using, what he has used pope francis for. And I think if you look online now, you've got loads of lay people like us, fulfilling fault and sheen's prophecy, coming online and telling people what the faith is, and the priests don't even know what's going on. They don't need to, because what's their job? To give the sacraments, to say the mass. You know that's what their job is. It's not really. It's our job to evangelize the culture, and here we are doing it and it's having an effect. And that Francis has brought that about by trashing the faith for 12 years, really hasn't he?

Speaker 1: 36:45

Well, I see that as one of the like god writing straight with crooked lines. It's you know. As much as, uh, they're the powers that be. We're trying to destroy our foundation of doctrine, things like that. What winds up happening is people that take their faith seriously dig in even deeper and they want to learn more about it. And it's, it's you know. People saw his papacy as apocalyptic. They were like what is going on here and they started studying and going deeper into all of it. So, as much as Satan is trying to destroy the church, god will always use evil for good.

Speaker 1: 37:20

Do either of you see schism on the horizon? Cause I kind of think there's going to be one, whether it's a. Do either of you see schism on the horizon? Because I kind of think there's going to be one, no matter who the Pope is next. I see, because to me, there's two different churches under the same edifice at the moment. There's one set of people who believe one thing. I mean, there's probably even more than one schism, to be honest, but I think, especially if you get a conservative Pope, there's going to be a schism, to be honest, but I think, especially if you get a conservative Pope, there's going to be a schism, all these people who thought the Francis Revolution was the pinnacle and it was going to just go on forever. If that suddenly does a 180, I don't know how. The people who thought that stay within the confines of the church.

Speaker 2: 38:03

Mark.

Speaker 3: 38:05

Well, I don't know. I think there is an existential schism, as you say, like the Germans are in full schism. You know, we just haven't acknowledged it. So I think that's existed my whole life. That's been the case. And I'd say 80 percent at least of the people who go to my church don't know. Or you know. I mean, if you look at the, I mean obviously I'm getting UK TV here but if you look at the interviews outside Westminster Cathedral about Pope Francis, none of them got a clue. No one's got a clue.

Speaker 3: 38:37

What's going on? Most people aren't engaged with their faith, you know. I think more and more people are waking up to it. But so you know what different? I don't see that it will make any difference. The church is the church and it always will be.

Speaker 3: 38:51

But you know, maybe if you get a more conservative pope, I mean, what are they going to do? You're not going to get. Who's the one who looks like Daddy Pig Marx? You know, in Germany You're not going to get him walking out of his massive palace, are you? He's not going to go. Oh, add the keys back, boys. I'll go and live in a shed somewhere and preach heresy.

Speaker 3: 39:15

You know, all they're trying to do is get their money back by following the secular narrative. That's all they're trying to do. They don't care about the faith or about the people, about anything. They've got no vocations. None of these people have got any vocations. It's sterile, so that I'm afraid that project is dead in the water.

Speaker 3: 39:32

It doesn't, you know, we look at, look at. I can't but feel we're talking about this and we look at things in such a, you know, a microcosmic way. It's just in the, in our lifetimes, don't we? You know, three school years and ten or whatever, and and that's the way that we're judging all of this. But the church works in centuries and it takes a long while for these things to work through. But if you've got the eyes to see, you can see God doing amazing things with all of this stuff. And we're you know like it's like we're rebellious children.

Speaker 3: 40:05

I always go back to Genesis. It's like the Genesis story and you can see. You know every generation does it in some respects and you know everyone's going well, we know better. We know better than the church. We're going to have gay blessings. We're going to have all that was rubbish. We know better now, in 2025. We're going to do it all different and it will all collapse and it will all be destroyed and the church will build it up again, because that's what the purpose of the church is, that's the history, the timeline of scripture.

Speaker 3: 40:37

That's the way all these things have always worked. You know that if we are faithful, we see through that, we stand on the shoulders of the saints and the fathers and we learn those lessons and we stay close to Jesus. And that's what we need to do and that's the message, really, that we need to put out there, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 40:53

So with regard to the question of schism, I think we have to define our terms. The nature of schism is to say that I refuse to be in communion with that person. That's the nature of schism. So one who is in schism is to say that I refuse to be in communion with that person. That's the nature of schism. So one who is in schism against the Pope says I refuse to be in communion with the Pope. He is not my head, he is not telling me what to do, I'm not going to be under him. That would be schism. Or you have schism of the lateral sense, which is I refuse to be in communion with Mark Lambert and his family. We're not part of the same church. I refuse to be in communion with him. So that would be a lateral schism where you're making a distinct cut.

Speaker 2: 41:35

I am not a part of this. I'm taking my own authority to excise them from the church, but I don't think what we're facing is schism. I think the word schism gets tossed about because people think there's going to be a split. But schism does not necessarily mean I'm not going to be a part of this or I don't want them to be a part of what I'm with.

Speaker 2: 41:55

What we're looking at more is really a moral and theological heresy, and I think that what we're going to see is, at some point there will be a defined heresy and there will be a kind of an inquisition that points out okay, the homosexual heresy, the transgender movement heresy, the revolt against Humanae Vitae heresy, and all of these things that go directly against the moral underpinnings of the church. And then you're going to have the theological heresies, where modernism, which is already a defined heresy but is hard to pin down, will be codified and anybody adhering to certain ideologies regarding the modernist heresy is going to be so codified that they will be easy to identify and the split will take place on those grounds. It'll be a matter of heresy, and anybody who refuses to acquiesce to what the church says with regard to these moral and theological issues will be deemed to be heretics, and they'll be. They'll be removed from the church by the very nature of what they profess to believe. So the split is a theological and moral one.

Speaker 2: 43:12

It's not um, it's not a matter of whether we want to be unified, it's.

Speaker 3: 43:17

It's a totally different animal, um isn't that like a late tente sentia excommunication like?

Speaker 2: 43:25

well, but it's going to have to be more explicit it's going to have to be.

Speaker 3: 43:29

But you, at the moment, you've got catholics who don't, who believe that abortion is okay. Loads of them, loads of consciousness, loads of you know, and that I think the the problem, like in the past, when we had a problem like that, come up, we had a council you know, or a synod and that's what pope francis should have been doing over the last 12 years, saying no, instead he gave us a massive problem, yeah, and and like, let's deal with that.

Speaker 3: 43:51

Let's get all the brains together. What's the church's response to this massive challenge? To you know reality, and, but instead he's wandered off in all these different useless directions and it it will be really.

Speaker 3: 44:04

I think you know it will be interesting to see how that is dealt with, because that's what we're desperate for. I know from teaching young people, you know from being involved in catechesis with teenagers and stuff, that the biggest question for most young people is surrounds homosexuality and our cultures not just acceptance but promotion of homosexuality, which I think in historical and you know, perhaps philosophical terms is a sign of the decay and end of society. You know, historically speaking, this is a sort of a pattern that you see, repeated um, and we've failed to address that. We've completely failed to address that the last thing that the church issued was the letter on the pastoral care of homosexual persons. In what? 89? Yeah, that the CDF wrote and it's weak, it needs an update, yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:59

Well, I think this is a good place to jump over to locals, because what I would like to do is talk to you guys about the apocalypse in the end times and whether what we're seeing might be something more apocalyptic. So I don't like doing that on this end because people say I'm a black pillar and things like that. But if you guys want, we're going to go over to locals now because they're not local subscribers. It's the best way to support the show and we're going to get into. I want to because I see I kind of see the things that are happening right now as maybe a little more significant than just, oh, are we getting a good conserve, a good pope or a bad pope? I kind of see things as heating up and a climax to the story. So I'd like to get you guys both of your take on that because, especially what Mark just said about the decaying culture and the end of Christendom, because very clearly, christendom is over. There is not really a Christian culture left. So what role does the church going forward play as society continues to crumble? So, mark Lambert, you are over at Catholic Unscripted. If you guys are not subscribed to Catholic Unscripted, I am going to be interviewing Catherine Bennett at 1 pm today, who is also on with Mark and Gavin Ashenden over on Catholic Unscripted, michael Hichborn at the Lepanto Institute. If you guys are not subscribed to Michael, head over there and also subscribe and get Michael's newsletter, and we are going to continue this conversation on the other side.

Speaker 1: 46:30

I'm just going to cut you guys from YouTube off right about now. Let's see, okay, that one's removed. Facebook's got to go. I got a few I got to remove. Hang on Facebook's got go. I got a few I gotta remove. Hang on Facebook's gotta go. Should I leave it on X? Nah, you guys don't even get to watch on X. We gotta get rid of everything. I'm gonna just leave it on rumble. Rob does a lot but I'm not paying attention. That's rumble, that's locals. We get rid of rumble to locals only. Okay, michael, I think you probably are a little more. I just want to make sure we're still up on our locals. Let me just check and make sure we're still live. Okay, guys, you guys who are on locals, let me know if we're still live just a heads up.

Speaker 2: 47:50

I do have an interview at noon.

Speaker 1: 47:52

No, we're not gonna be that long, you know, like 20 minutes, 20, 25 minutes. I I just I want okay. So I, because the way I see things heading, uh, okay, local, still good. So I see everything like since the council and since pope paul, the laying down his papal tiara and the escalation of everything since the council coming with the liturgy, changing everything, like I don't know if we're just in one of those phases in church history where it's like okay, we got a good Pope and things kind of get fixed. It feels like everything's kind of building to a climax right now. And you know, people say I'm a black pillar for talking like that and I'm all doom and gloom. But I don't see it as doom and gloom because I do see a glorious resurrection of the church before the end comes and I think there's a possibility we may witness it in our lifetimes.

Speaker 3: 48:46

Yeah, do you know that brilliant quote from Monsignor Ronald Knox?

Speaker 1: 48:51

No.

Speaker 3: 48:52

Which I think is probably, is probably, you know, the best way of illustrating what you're saying, which is you cannot kill the church. He said that, um, she, the church, was buried in the catacombs. She rose again with constantine. She died in the dark ages. She rose again with charlemagne. She died with the renaissance. She rose again with the saints of the counter-reformation. You cannot kill the cath Church, and that's how I feel about it. And what did Jesus say? Keep your wick trimmed and oil in your lamp. You know, that's it, and let's go and have a beer.

Speaker 1: 49:26

Yeah, so I see it as are we going through the passion of the church and if so, does that passion continue in the days forward?

Speaker 1: 49:36

Now that passion can take different forms and typically we don't understand prophecy until after it's fulfilled. And you see it in hindsight, like a lot of times even in your own life, you'll think God has abandoned you in a certain period and meanwhile you realize later on that, like he had his hand in things the entire time. I see everything we're going through as part of the story of salvation. I know God completely understands what's going on, but I also see the radio address Benedict put forth in the 1960s where he talks about the church losing all of her prestige and she's basically going to be stripped of all of her privileges, and I think we're still heading into that time. I think the church has a lot more to endure, like, essentially, we've gone through maybe the scourging at the pillar, but the church still has to endure the crucifixion, and I see that as the days that we're coming up to right now before the resurrection before the resurrection.

Speaker 2: 50:40

Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2: 50:40

I think so. I'm looking for a particular newsletter that I wrote about the suffering of the church and the passion of the church, because there's an analogy that I used in it. So here's one example. All all right.

Speaker 2: 50:52

The following story comes from the end of the present world, by father charles amignon. In the evening of november 24th 1248, the season was mild, the air was calm, the stars twinkled in the sky, the whole valley where the present town of chambray is situated lay, quiet and secure. An evil, irreligious man then ruled tyrannically over the town now gone forever, but which at that time stood next to the city of my story. This man had gathered a large number of merry companions, with banquets and drunken revelry. He was celebrating the sacrilegious plunder of a monastery that he turned to profane use after mercilessly expelling the monks and holy inmates who were the legitimate owners. Probably as in Balthazar's time, it was a sumptuous meal and the wine and liqueurs, mingled with blasphemies and sardonic laughter, flowed in abundance. Suddenly, in an instant, in the middle of the night, the earth was shaken by a tremendous shock. Sky and ground seemed to be shaken by horrible whirlwinds, voices and the howling of storms which you could have thought came from the caverns of hell, and before the guests could rise to their feet, before they could utter a cry for help, they were buried alive under the collapsing mass of a gigantic mountain. One town, five hamlets and a whole region of 6,000 inhabitants were engulfed in chasms. However, the sanctuary of Maia, which should have been crushed under the avalanche of stones, remained intact. Boulders surrounded it on all sides and others stopped right at its doorstep, but none reached the sanctuary. Inside the sanctuary at the time of the disasters were the monks who had left Amignon in the morning. They were praying to the black virgin at the precise moment that giant landslides occurred. All the monks survived.

Speaker 2: 52:58

There's an anecdote to this or an attachment to this. According to Matthew Paris, who chronicled this event, quote when the wicked Lord and all the other inhabitants had been engulfed, the monks heard Satan inciting the evil spirits to complete the their work of destruction saying further, further still. Destroy the chapel. To which they replied we can't, because the black prevents us. She is stronger than us.

Speaker 2: 53:25

Yeah, so the point of that is to show look, you had evil men who took command of this monastery. You could look at that monastery as a representation of Holy Mother Church, and you can also look at the evil men being the robbers who have taken control of Holy Mother Church, the cardinals that were appointed by Pope Francis, you know the Cupiches, the McElroy's, the, the, the Tobin's and so forth. There are so many of these evil, wicked men that are now being drunk in revelry and uttering blasphemies drunk, yeah. And then what happens? In the middle of the night, they get buried alive by a mountain.

Speaker 2: 54:12

I think that the same thing is what is going to happen to Holy Mother Church. There will be some sort of cataclysm to that extent, because God will not allow his church to be buried by wicked men, and their wickedness will bury them. Look at what happened to Kordath and Anabiram when they rebelled against Holy Mother Church God opened up a chasm and swallowed them whole into hell. It's going to happen, it's one of those inevitabilities, because God will not permit them to bury his bride.

Speaker 1: 54:46

So I think the way, mark, you were describing it was the church works in centuries. I see it more like what Michael's saying here. I see a, I see something huge on the horizon where God is going to make himself known that it is. It's going to appear as all hope is lost. But I do think, I think even even Francis was a purification for us, for those of us who take the faith seriously, to dig in deeper and be prepared for what is to come, because I think something major is on the horizon.

Speaker 1: 55:20

I know we've been saying this for a long time, but you think about everything we've endured, especially the last decade. But it starts with especially the priest scandals and just the way the church has just been mocked. And then you get up to Francis bringing the Pachamama into Rome. All these things are so significant that I don't see it as, oh you know, maybe in a few centuries we'll have some you know, the conservative priest. They'll be our leaders in the long run. I see the mess as so rotten that it is going to take a divine act to clear it out, and I think God is going to do something like that. Now, I'm not a seer, but I always have Our Lady of Fatima in mind, where she talks about the city and ruins and things like that, and I think we're working our way towards something like that, our way towards something like that.

Speaker 3: 56:12

Yeah, maybe you could be right. I always think of the parable of the. You know the vineyard, where the vineyard, they kick out the. You know the sun, they kill the sun.

Speaker 1: 56:27

Yeah, they kill First they kill the people who go out and announce and then eventually they kill the sun.

Speaker 3: 56:33

And you know, I just think like that's. If I was clergy I'd be absolutely terrified to be part of what's going on in the church. And you know, even with priests that I know who are kind of, you know saying oh Francis was so merciful, or whatever now to people no, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 56:53

you know saying oh Francis was so merciful or whatever now to people Are you honest?

Speaker 3: 56:55

No, that's what I'm saying, it's just that. And yet I don't know a priest who actually thinks that Francis was good in any way for the church or for the people or for anything. So I find that very. I don't think I could tell lies like that if it was me. I find that very. I don't think I could tell lies like that if it was me. And there's always this thing about you know, covering up for the church in some way, and I think that that's a grave mistake. I think we should be telling the truth and we should be committed to the truth. So but yeah, I mean it wouldn't surprise me if there was a correction I don't know about. All hope is gone, though. I kind of think.

Speaker 1: 57:34

No, all hope won't be gone. It will appear as though all hope is gone, because that's kind of how God works throughout salvation history, where you think you know all hope is lost and then all of a sudden God does something dramatic and you know he had his hand over the church the entire time.

Speaker 3: 57:55

That's all I'm thinking. I think I see that in the church all the time, and I see it in interactions I have with other people. You know, one of the things that Pope Francis pushed me to do was to get involved with the local Baptist community.

Speaker 1: 58:06

For some reason, you know, I know Bible studies with them right.

Speaker 3: 58:09

Yeah, but it's been glorious, like in lots of ways, and I get to tell them catholic things all the time and they sort of seem to quite enjoy it and, like you know, I think that that it's amazing the way that good comes out of these things.

Speaker 3: 58:25

If you, if you're looking for the positive, and I really do see, like one of the priests who I was speaking to after the Pope's death said to me that the fact that he inserted St Joseph into the canon made a massive difference to his prayer life.

Speaker 3: 58:42

The fact that he said those things about the, the confessional not being a torture chamber, meant that huge swaths of people of a certain age, you know, who had, who had been, who felt that they had been kind of abused by the confessional, by priests in the confessional, came back to the sacrament of confession and there was and there was a huge outpouring of grace from that. So, you know, I think that you can, even in times when we feel that we're being internally persecuted, for the faithful, for those of us who love the church and love the faith, god is working, you know, all the time, and doing amazing things and you just gotta keep your eyes open and keep praying and and and using the church, you know, using the teaching of the church to help people live their lives. And I think it's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, um, it's not what you want to hear. Well, no, I, I've noticed, I've noticed this.

Speaker 1: 59:38

There's always. There's always different reactions. People have to that because, look, we're catholic, so we don't want to have that apocalyptomania right where you're like always like that's.

Speaker 3: 59:48

That's a very protestant thing I just think be ready, you know that's. I just think be ready and maybe it will. I just think be ready. And maybe it will happen. And please God, I'll be in a state of grace when the you know the coming of Christ falls.

Speaker 1: 1:00:01

I just see the story of salvation history as a very big story and what we've watched happen to the church over the last decades is a very significant part of that story. And it feels like, because of what we're seeing in the culture, specifically how we you know, if you look to the early centuries of the church, how it was, the pagan altars were coming down and the Catholic altars were being raised and Christianity spread across the earth what you're seeing now is a reversal of that and the Catholic altars are coming down and these pagan gods are coming back up. And it seems like a very significant point in the story where we are now like the you know it goes back to the story of King Arthur, where you know King Arthur's coming into this pagan world and you still have the old gods are around and stuff like that, but Christianity is on the the rise and it seems like it's a total reversal. It's like a typological inversion of that, where we're seeing, you know, we no longer have our priests doing processions with incense to ward off these evil spirits. It seems like these evil spirits are coming back out and people are worship, worshiping them out in public now and you're seeing the pagan gods return and I I think that is a it's more significant than just um, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:01:21

But but I also, I I see there's two different. There's two different reactions to when I talk like that. Some people are like, no, come on, you're overblowing things. And then there's people who kind of see it the way I do. I don't think either of us can say who's right or wrong. It's a matter of just letting the story play out, and that's the only way to find out.

Speaker 2: 1:01:40

The Reconquista took almost a thousand years.

Speaker 1: 1:01:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:01:44

You know there's, there's that, but then there's also the sudden reversals that we've seen in in history as well. We don't know how God's going to play it out. I think a lot of it depends on how much penance we actually do for Holy Mother Church and a lot depends on us. A whole lot depends on us. The graces that are won by those who are willing to do penance can't be counted. You can't calculate that, and I think it's incumbent upon us to pray unceasingly for God to deliver us from the plight of the modernists.

Speaker 1: 1:02:19

Man, you think about all of us that are up here complaining about the church, who aren't doing penances? We will be held to the same account as those bishops who are destroying the church. It's like you want to point the finger and you're not doing anything in your personal life to actually restore the church. We'll, because we're presenting ourselves as as something I don't know. If we're presenting ourselves as teachers.

Speaker 1: 1:02:42

Yes, yeah, so maybe we'll end on that note. This was a very, very fun guys. I knew it would be an uh, an, an interesting show getting the three of us together. I, I, I pray that another event comes along where we could get Mark to fly into the States and the three of us get to spend another weekend, because I had a lot of fun with you guys.

Speaker 2: 1:03:03

We'll put the program together and we'll all be drinking beer.

Speaker 1: 1:03:06

Well, next time we should live stream something. We'll do something in person, because there's a very big difference in doing this on screen and being in front of each other, cause some of the conversations we had that weekend were so good and you know especially when you got a pint in your hand and you're you.

Speaker 2: 1:03:21

let you guard that a little bit so we'll set up a table and have have Rob clicking the camera angles while he was set up.

Speaker 1: 1:03:30

And he popped in to fix a few things we didn't we didn't see his face, but he popped in to fix a few things while we were on air. So, all right, man, look, it's going to be an exciting few weeks coming up. We have a conclave coming and all of the prognosticating we did over the last hour or so. We will see how these things get fulfilled as time plays out. Yeah, so, man, it's an exciting time to be Catholic, amen. So, all right, boys, we will speak again. Everybody, I will see you guys at one o'clock when I interview Catherine and the, the, the, the. The streaming mayhem on avoiding Babylon today continues. All right, I'm going to end it now. I'm so bad at this. Thank you.