Avoiding Babylon
Avoiding Babylon was started during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these difficult and dark days, when most of us were isolated from family, friends, our parishes, and even the Sacraments themselves, this channel was started as a statement of standing against the tyrannical mandates that many of us were living under. Since those early days, this channel has morphed into an amazing community of friends…no…more than friends…Christian brothers and sisters…who have grown in joy and charity.
As we see it, our job here at Avoiding Babylon is to remind ourselves and those who enjoy the channel that being Catholic is a joyful and exciting experience. We seek true Catholic fraternity and eutrapelia with other Catholics who, like us, are doing their best to live out their vocation with the help of God’s Grace. Above all, we try to bring humor and joy to the craziness of this fallen world, for as Hillaire Belloc has famously said:
“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”
Avoiding Babylon
Will Pope Leo Kill the Trad Movement? - with Christian Wagner (Full LOCALS Version)
This episode is only available to subscribers.
Avoiding Babylon +
Access to the FULL show on audio!The Catholic media landscape is experiencing a seismic shift. After a decade where Pope Francis served as the perfect foil for traditional Catholic content creators, Pope Leo's arrival has disrupted the entire ecosystem.
Anthony and Christian dive deep into this transformation, examining how many Catholic media personalities built entire platforms on Francis-era outrage and now find themselves struggling to adapt. "Pope Francis was the lifeblood of the trad movement," Anthony explains. "He pushed normie conservative Catholics into the trad column and spawned an entire industry where every day there was a new headline to be outraged by." But that era is over.
Unlike his predecessor, Pope Leo isn't providing the same controversial material that fueled viewership for years. His communication style—which Christian describes as "squishy platitudes that allow everyone to hear what they want"—leaves both progressive and traditional Catholics claiming him as their own. The result? Many established content creators are floundering, unable to generate the same engagement without the reliable controversy machine that was Pope Francis.
The hosts offer a challenging perspective on the future of Catholic media: those who continue treating Leo like Francis, desperately searching for outrage fodder, will eventually become irrelevant. Instead, they advocate for a more substantive approach focused on catechesis, building genuine connections with audiences, and developing long-term strategies for passing on the faith.
"We have 15 years of Pope Leo ahead of us," Anthony notes. "Why would you make the daily lives of your fellow Catholics a living hell just for clicks?" The conversation explores how Catholic content creators should think beyond viral moments to consider their true mission—furthering the kingship of Christ and preparing the next generation of faithful.
Whether you're a content creator yourself or simply a Catholic trying to navigate this new era, this episode offers vital insights into the changing media landscape and the path forward. Join us as we examine what it means to create meaningful Catholic content in a post-Francis Church.
Take advantage of Recusant Cellar's "Christ the King" sale by heading over to https://recusantcellars.com/ and using code "BASED" for 20% off at checkout!
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I'm sorry guys, I know you all wanted your taffy intro. We're going to save the taffy intro for locals tonight.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got a big, big show tonight because I have my member stream. You guys got your local stream. Mine's going to be on members and Patreon, so we'll see who gets the signups tonight.
Speaker 1:So, okay.
Speaker 2:So the original game plan was Michael Lofton threatened to sue us. So Christian and I have been speaking a little bit and he's like let's just get on and we'll talk about it. And uh, something big happened behind the scenes where we're like, okay, we can't talk about that because, um, michael, michael had reached out to both of us. So we're not going to discuss it on youtube. But if you guys can reach into your pockets and scrape some pennies together and stop being cheap and come subscribe to either Christian's channel or our channel either Scholastic Answers or Avoiding Babylon at Locals, you guys will get. We spill the tea over on Locals. That's what Molly says. Right, molly says that's what we spill the tea. So, yeah, we're going to discuss it over there. Christian actually had a conversation with Michael and Michael emailed me, so we'll get into it over there.
Speaker 3:But Anthony, anthony likes to act like a tough guy. You know me, I was. I was like carrying both my kids getting my fishing stuff together, drinking some beer, and you know I I got the phone, you know like that doing it, and I had a whole conversation like that. Anthony's just like calls me. He's like Christian, I don't know what to do. I'm really nervous about. Yeah, I had to be the man here and you know, deal with business.
Speaker 2:But anthony likes to talk big game I, um, I will, I'll discuss, I'll, we'll talk about it over there, because I don't want to, I don't want to do it on youtube. But, uh, we both have some interesting perspectives on this and and we'll see how that goes. But I, I am, I have been talking to you a little bit behind the scenes about just like I feel like there's a monumental shift coming in Catholic media. I kind of wrote a tweet about this the other day saying I mean you want to pull it up or I don't want to go through this whole stupid thing. But Francis one, yeah, I threw it in there. So I I'm not going to read the entire thing, but, um, I said pope francis was the lifeblood of the trad movement. He pushed normie conservative catholics into the trad column. He spawned an entire industry of new catholic media where every day there was a new headline to be outraged by.
Speaker 2:For 10, 10 years Francis called Catholics who leaned conservative names names like rigid and backwardist. He made normal Novus Ordo. Conservative Catholics feel like they had more in common with trads than they did with the Pope. That era is over. Pope Leo is not that villain. Gosh, I just did the whole stupid thing. No, no, my final thing in there said Leo is going to kill the trad movement, not with a heavy hand, but with squishy platitudes that allow everyone to hear what they want. Entire media companies that flourished under Francis are going to collapse if they don't figure out a new strategy.
Speaker 2:I want to be very clear. I didn't mean the trad movement. I'm talking about catholic media. Um, I think the trad movement, like the real trad movement, will probably look more similar to what it did under benedict and you know, when they were getting their indult and then some more of them came out. It kind of expanded a little bit. But what we experienced under francis was very unique in that it made people come together that probably would not have come together otherwise. And I'm watching guys who were friends under Francis now starting to take shots at each other and take jabs at each other, and I don't think it's actually about anybody's position on Leo. I think it's like a battle, battle of strategy. They can't figure out what to do. You have all these people just kind of scrambling for how to react under leo and I'm I'm curious to see how this all plays out, because I I mean, I don't know, nick cabazza I think, leaving the trad movement I think there was something, uh, because I mean we named it like the end of trad Catholicism.
Speaker 3:Obviously, you know, we're not talking about the people who go to an SSPX mass or the people who go to whatever sort of mass or live whatever sort of lifestyle. We're mainly talking about a type of media complex, of media complex. But I think that while we named it trad Catholicism, I think it is really the any sort of environment that thrives off of sensationalism surrounding the Pope, and that wasn't only right-leaning, that was also left-leaning. You had a lot of different media that was based on trying to make the Pope sounds like a communist, marxist and, you know, reach out to that sort of sector for a type of liberal who wanted to use that to dunk on Catholics. You had a type of media that was Pope-planning. You know people who were out there simply to try to reconcile the statements of Francis with tradition, sometimes attacking tradition, sometimes stretching a little bit in how to interpret Francis.
Speaker 3:So I think that each one of these different groups, if that was your thing like, if you like for me, for example, that wasn't really like my thing, like I would talk about it, but I did a million other things Like that was maybe 10% of the actual content that I made. So switching over to a different form of Pope tracking, like I do with my bi-weekly Pope Leo stream or bi-monthly, I guess, pope Leo stream, that's some sort of completely different content than sensationalizing the Pope. So I think on every single side you have a lot of people uh losing their footing and you're gonna see the destruction of um. Quite a few of these different media groups thrived off of that sort of um content yeah, I.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sorry. Do you want to say something?
Speaker 1:I was gonna say, yeah, I think're right, it's not just the trad side. I don't think where Peter is exists without Pope Francis.
Speaker 3:I haven't seen where.
Speaker 2:Peter is in forever. Leo also killed the Pope splainer. You know what I mean. And this isn't me saying Leo is this great guy.
Speaker 2:I have my opinions on leo. I think leo I mean I'll I think leo is a perfect embodiment of what I see happening in the church right now, which is kind of the church and its passion is weakened and, um, because I I mean, I don't care if you agree with my stance on this is very you, you know opinion completely opinion. I think that the church is going through her passion and I would imagine, if the church is going through her passion, it's not like the church is teaching heresy, it's that it's kind of weakened and it's not boldly proclaiming the truth, it's kind of soft peddling things to not be so offensive. And I kind of see Leo as the embodimentiment of that, where, even in that interview we just saw with with crux well, I don't know why everybody's saying crux, it's crux, right, the crux of the matter isn't that. It's bizarre the way people are pronouncing that. But and it's not a knock to leo, it's not anything.
Speaker 2:Leo, I just think, is a product of vatican ii catholicism and he's terrified. He's a boomer, so he's afraid to offend people, you know, and he's kind of exactly what I expected him to be. He's not like he's. I'm not surprised by any of it, and I'm watching people react like they did under Francis toward him, like this last interview. They're acting like he's a revolutionary and he's just not. He's not at all a revolutionary. You're not going to see the same outrage about him. He's just he. I think he's a, I think he's a faithful Catholic that's afraid to offend people, which is a very common thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Um, I think more people now under Leo are willing to to. When they see those headlines of like pope leo does this, pope leo said this, I think they're more likely to roll their eyes and move on rather than actually like getting enraged about it. I think the example of the interview is really good, because there was a statement that he made in there like oh uh, I don't foresee the church's teaching changing on homosexual issues, yeah. And it's like well, yeah, I don't think any of us foresee the church's teaching changing on homosexual issues. Um, that's not really the the point, right? I mean that that's something that we can all agree upon.
Speaker 3:It's just stated in such a way as to be liable to um a multitude of interpretations. It's a very softened way of stating it rather than just going out there and saying which you know, francis himself actually spoke like this to say no. It is like, for example, in the interview with 60 minutes on issues surrounding female priests, female deacons. They asked him straight up, like you know, is it ever possible for this to happen? He said no. They asked him straight up, like you know, is it ever possible for this to happen? He said no, no. If he said something like that, something like Francis framed that issue, you know, people would somehow have a greater reverence for him. Even though, technically speaking, those two statements communicate the same content, they just communicate them in different ways.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because I'm watching people see the same interview and pulling completely different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's it's such a it's like it's you're.
Speaker 2:I watched gavin ashen. Didn't talk about, like, decoding him. And then I'm watching uh, I watched stephen cox's video today and I so I actually understand all of these arguments and I'm I'm looking at them and I'm saying I I get like the Uber trads who are like, no, we need a Pope who's going to speak clearly and speak the truth. And then I also get the people who are like no, no, he's trying to be a, he's trying to be gentle and go about it this way. And then you have um, and then you have James. Like we're still in this scenario where the James Martins and the Cardinal Burks are both claiming him to be their guy. Yeah, and it's such a weird place to be in the church right now.
Speaker 3:I was crashing out over this a little bit, because this is really like the stupidest People really. I think they're getting bored and they're trying to look at because with France it's like you know, I I love them, I defended them, but it was pretty easy every day to find something to get pissed off about. Yeah, uh, and just reading, you know, daily sermons and letters and whatever, it's fine, it's easy to find something to get pissed off about if you're of the right disposition, but with leo it's kind of really boring. Um, like when I I don't mean it like that, but when I read that's how.
Speaker 3:That's all I've been saying I'm like we're gonna have a boring boring actually like when I read through a lot of his magisterium, I read through everything he's ever written um as pope. When I read through a lot of it, I actually like in my streams I don't really cover a lot of things, because it's like, uh, okay, he's going to, you know, speak about the Sunday gospel and he just kind of explains it like you wouldn't hear in your Sunday morning homily, like there's nothing like special about it, except you know it's the gospel and that's awesome and it's explaining sacred scripture, but it's not, you know, exciting. You know it's not provocative. You don't really see anything like that. See anything like that. And pope leo, he has um.
Speaker 3:So so people, what they have to do is really, in order to generate the same sort of like media stir, the same sort of controversy, what they really need to do is they need to look for stuff to get pissed off about. So they're like, ah, he met cardinal burke. And then you see people just like getting pissed off about. It's like I met, you know, father james martin, and father james martin said this. They get pissed off about.
Speaker 3:And really, if you're at the point that you are now scrupulously looking through all of the people that the Pope meets. You need to grow up. You should be doing better things with your life. It's really such a waste of time. It's like, why are you doing this?
Speaker 3:There are genuine things to get pissed off about the um, the lgbt uh mass. You know, in rome, that's genuinely. If you get pissed off about it, uh, you are exactly disposed to the right sort of affections. And if you're trying to explain this away, or if you're not pissed off about this, then you really need to have an examination of conscience and you need to think about some things, because that should drive you to some very, should drive you to some very righteous anger. Yes, exactly, drive you to some righteous anger. And that's, I guess, all that I have to say. Because if you're comparing you know, meeting with somebody to the LGBT mass and that's in your media presentation the same thing, it's you're presentation the same thing. You're kind of missing the point. You're missing a point of proportionality with how you express things.
Speaker 2:I think that I'm looking at it like we have 15 years of Pope Leo ahead of us and I'm very concerned with things like what Rob just had to endure because of Tradition Iones Custodos to get his child baptized. Like he has to travel four hours, he couldn't get, we couldn't get a priest set up to actually do it. Like people's lives are chaotic right now because they want a Latin mass and we're going to have 15 years of Leo. So I understand both approaches. I understand the people who are like we cannot compromise the truth. We need to speak the truth. And then I also understand that people are going look, we have to be a little strategic about this. Like the pope's extending an olive branch. Why would you not want to give that like extend one back and say, okay, we're, we're like. Why would you? Why would you want to make the daily lives of your fellow Catholics a living hell just for clicks at this point? Like we're not in the Francis era anymore? I think that we all have to figure out a new strategy for all of this and how we even do social media, how we do our YouTube channels Like it was very easy to generate this outrage for years under Francis. I mean, rob and I made the decision early on. We're like we're not going to do people news every day.
Speaker 2:So this show isn't actually about Leo. The show is about, like the, the media, how people respond. Yeah, it's. It's more just me seeing people that I genuinely like handling Leo the same way they handled Francis, and I'm like you guys are going to have a very big problem if you don't figure out something new, because we have to get back to just actually discussing the faith, teaching the faith, preparing the next generation, because a lot of these outlets and I'm saying this with affection to you guys, if you're watching you're not speaking to the younger generation by doing the boomer clickbait stuff, like the younger generation does not respond. They're still doing the same thing they did on the Francis, and I want to know how we pass the faith onto the next generation and actually catechize them so that we do have this longer term strategy for when we can get the most baseball ever for real.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think there's um, this is, this is really good, because I think there's both a like descending and there's also like an ascending aspect to this. There's two aspects because there's obviously the aspect of the relationship of the content creator with those consuming the content, like your average layman. For me to and I get it's a little bit hypocritical because the fact that this is a show about you know this sort of thing and we're not just going in and talking about you know, the incarnation or whatever or something in the spiritual life, but having a constant sort of diet of contemporary news coming out of Rome, with who's getting appointed where, or you know whatever else is there, that really doesn't feed those people to be able to actually engage in Catholic action. That's something that I want to instill in everybody is that you know you should take especially the teaching of Leo, because I think he's really really good on this. You should take all of what you hear and you should actually put it into action, whether it's, you know, in your parish or in the government or in business or whatever else.
Speaker 3:So there's that descending aspect where people are starving in the content realm for actually quality material that's just not rehashed takes of rehashed takes about whatever's going around Twitter right now. There's also an ascending thing, so us in the hierarchy, because I think a lot of content creators forget and this is something that I've been realizing more and more in the last few months that actually Rome kind of. We have this image that Rome like doesn't know who Taylor Marshall is, or Rome doesn't know who Michael Lofton is, or Rome doesn't know who, like the sort of what is going on in the content sphere in the Anglo-speaking world, and I think that's actually completely wrong. I actually think that there is some sort of general awareness of what is going on through a lot of these different outlets, and I think a lot of people in Rome actually know some of these outlets by name and have a very bad taste in them.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And I think that this actually does affect the way in which we get treated. Of course it's not, you know, victim blaming, but it is a way of understanding that we need to be, as you said, we need to be prudent about. If we want to better our chances of change, then the best way of going about it is not to cry wolf all the time Like sure. If there is actually something legitimately bad and there are very strong grounds for bringing this up and you're not just a logging the pope like you're, there's actually a situation which people are genuinely scandalized, like the situation with the LGBT mass. To freak out about that, to speak out about that, to make a stink about that, that makes sense. And if that was the only thing we freaked out about, the to, you know, make us think about that, that makes sense. And if that was the only thing we freaked out about the last six months, you know, if that's how the trad media sphere worked, that would actually probably get a much better hearing.
Speaker 3:And it's kind of like, you know when, when you have the woman who always complains all the time, you know the broads always complaining about something all the time, you know, and she complains about something serious, you know. You just kind of filter it out. That's why women are always complaining about their husbands, not listening to them, because they're always complaining. They complain once every month. You're probably listening. Pick your battles, ladies.
Speaker 2:Pick your battles and maybe we'll pay attention to you.
Speaker 1:It's really the exact same reason why Anthony waits 30 days to hang things on the walls, Because if he did it all the time, it would just become expected of him Exactly. But if he does it once a month, then for that day he is a hero.
Speaker 2:I told you out of principle I will leave a picture. My wife will ask me to hang something and out of principle I won't do it for 30 days Because if I did just hang it right away I'd come home the next day and there'd be another picture for me to hang. So I leave it there for 30 days and then, when she's not home, I will hang it without her asking and then when she comes home and sees it hung, she thinks I'm a hero. I'm telling you it's very easy to to to make yourself seem way better of a person than you are in your marriage anyway. Um, so um.
Speaker 2:What's interesting with with leo is, under francis you had, when fiducia supplicants comes out, every news article comes out saying that Francis is allowing for gay blessings. What happened with this Leo interview is the total opposite. But every news outlet going out like the mainstream news came out and they were likeo puts the kibosh on lgbt, because you know they basically took the opposite approach. So I know we, as you know, more conservative or trads are reading that and we're like man. This sounds really squishy, but a big one of the biggest problems with francis was the scandal he caused through the way he spoke and the way the media ran with everything. You're not seeing that under Leo. You're seeing actually the opposite, because I think even they can perceive the something different here.
Speaker 2:My, my thing is he's a, he's a post-conciliar Pope Like he's just this is what you're going to get. So I want to bring the next generation up, not with a spirit of hatred, like I want to bring the next generation up and even even look, I kind of laughed at stephen cox. Stephen cox was like cardinal burke's, giving orders to trad inc, to taylor marshall and michael matt and telling them to shut up and zip it. Now, at first I thought he was nuts, but now.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of thinking about it and like maybe Burke did say something to them and they're listening. Now, if you're in their position, a Cardinal of the Catholic Church comes to you and asks you something, do you not like, would you not obey a Cardinal of the Catholic Church if he came to you and said something? Like I'm trying to understand people's logic in this yeah, if Cardinal Burke comes to me and says I'm asking this of you, I'm sorry, I'm going to obey him.
Speaker 1:What if it was Cupich man? But to your point, if a cardinal you know said hey, big man with a little beard, listen up, I'd be like yes, sir, we're not allowed to go there.
Speaker 3:Settle down Robbie. What was that?
Speaker 2:Everything Rob, you just Come on, that was funny.
Speaker 1:Come on, that wasn't that bad. I know he had to chuckle a little at that Come on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was thinking that we were all thinking that, but it we were all thinking it. But, um, I think, with what's good with leo, is he actually total pope splainer? Vindication with leo, he's, he's. It's kind of funny.
Speaker 3:Pope leo is literally, when you look at the commentary on fiducia supplicans, uh, pope leo is literally doing the exact same thing that the, the pope's planners, uh, were doing when the document came out. So, w Pope's planners, pope Leo, he has confirmed and he's really accepting Francis's legacy in a spirit of continuity. I think that's in a way of kind of toning down some of the more controversial aspects, which is exactly what I think is needed, controversial aspects, which is exactly what I think is needed. I know that you guys would probably prefer Pius XIII to go into, like start, you know flipping tables and stuff, but I really do think that, for the health of the church, that there is not a catastrophic split and a catastrophic exodus from the church, a catastrophic exodus from the church, I think that it is actually positive to boil the frog rather than throwing them in the boiling water.
Speaker 2:I think you have to make a decision Are you a set of a contest or not? Like? If you are not a set of a contest, you have to rethink the way you're doing this. Papacy Like it's not. I understood the outrage under francis. I even get, like, why people are frustrated with leo and he's doing the same thing and he's not wording things right. I'm just, I'm not a set of a contest, like I know everybody wants me to be. I'm not, and that's I don't want to be not you.
Speaker 2:I'm good, I know he talked to three people specifically.
Speaker 2:It's just, if we're not, we have to think about what we're going to do, going forward, and I don't I don't know what people's plan.
Speaker 2:I do see guys trying to adapt and handle things differently, and I think that's a good thing. I think that something new needs to come in in the catholic media realm and I would like to see now that we don't have a a pope who's hostile towards even conservative, because, like that was my point in the tweet, is that francis was acting hostile towards, like people who just loved reverence, and it wasn't just trads he was going after. So, if you have somebody who's not hostile, it should be a time for brothers to make peace, which is going to lead to the after show We'll figure that out too but it should be a time where, ok, we don't have a father who's abusing us, like a lot of us perceived Francis to be doing. I know, christian, you didn't see it that way, but a lot of people did feel that way under Francis. So if we have a father who's not so abusive, it should be a time for brothers to reconcile, at minimum, whether you're thrilled with what's happening in rome or not. It should be a time where we can all open our communication and start talking to one another again yeah
Speaker 1:boy, why?
Speaker 2:No way I haven't heard from Jeremiah, so nothing would surprise me, it's over, it's over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that you're right. I think that a lot of the mission of Catholic media should be very much sharpened. I've been thinking about this a lot with myself, anthony and I. We've talked over the phone. I've talked over the phone with a few other people as well Uh, trying to like think about how I want the future of my content to go. Like, what is the sort of practical end that I'm seeking? Because a lot of the time, it feels like a lot of the Catholic media is just content for the sake of content, like it's, it's following the trends of whatever's being spoken about in media. You want a content. Um, uh, actually there was. Uh. Kyle said a funny thing to me. He said that, um, eventually, a lot for a lot of people that the their content creation becomes a monster that they have to feed so they can feed their family, like that that's what it is for them listen they're just thrown in whatever, whatever works basically, that's actually a really good point, right?
Speaker 2:so a lot of these guys are still like this is always something that I I raised about being like a professional catholic, that that you get into the problem of like I'm dependent upon this now, so I have to do the most outrageous thing to get clicks. Rob and I are in a unique situation that we have day jobs, right. So I don't I'm working 16 hours of construction a day. Sometimes I don't actually have time to sit and read and then present you guys with like a theological topic, which I would love to do, and I hope to do it on occasion, but for the most part, I really my only option is to just discuss whatever's happening and whatever's on my mind that day.
Speaker 2:I don't have time to give you guys something you know of in depth at all times. I hope to do that through interviews, things like that, but the danger in when you do this for a living is that you just need to get clicks. All right, we get it. Yeah, I know I say the same thing all the time, but you guys trying to just share with you a little bit of the difficulty in what we do is because I had.
Speaker 2:I had my brother, my brother gave us a comment last time we did a show and he's like what about Robin? And then you get back to doing talking about the Catholic faith and stuff, so and he was just breaking our chops. But I had to actually say to him like Joe, you're on my crew all day, like we work together. When do you want me to like? What do you want me to do? Study the sumo while I'm at work. Like I can't do it.
Speaker 3:I used to do that when I worked at Walmart.
Speaker 1:Did you yeah?
Speaker 3:Did you? Yeah, that's where it comes from. Yeah, dude, where else was I supposed to work when I uh joined the catholic church and was completely without a, without a job, with a newborn child? I could work construction like anthony, but you know, I've want to keep my soft hands. I actually did my my dad's a construction superintendent and I actually did work with him in, uh, one winter. So I uh I know how easy it is, it's not that hard he's crying for nothing especially like the past week.
Speaker 2:I've been sick for the past week I've been barely sleeping. I have all these ideas going through my head and I watch pretty much everybody's stuff when I'm when I I'm driving and I try to keep an eye on, like, what everybody's doing. And I would like to see people come together. Like I'm tired of the infighting, I'm tired of the warring factions and stuff like that. I would like to see them come together. I know there's going to be some people who are just like I'll know. You know I can't I can't associate with these people, but it'd be nice to see everybody helping each other out and doing stuff together. Can't we all just get along? Sing kumbaya.
Speaker 1:If Anthony's uncle is watching. Anthony meant to say he listens while he drives.
Speaker 2:Yes, I don't watch.
Speaker 3:I agree. I think that we need the broad coalition because there's this weird thing that happens on the internet. I don't know exactly what it is or why it is. I jokingly tweeted out and I think, rob, you actually tweeted something similar to this is basically like I need to stop crashing out on everybody who I agree with on 99% of things.
Speaker 2:Yes, like I need to stop crashing out on everybody who I agree with on 99 of things
Speaker 3:yes, that's like a real thing. I literally no reason somebody will like make a snarky comment and like in response to something I say, so I just have to like give a nuclear level, crash out in the replies and, like you know, post their, post, their docs and you know, send, uh, send a division of wagnerites you know to their house and you know I just have to go like full on, you know scorched earth with this person. But really I think that a lot of the collaboration and having a broader idea of like what we're doing here, because a lot of times and this was kind of my point, mentioning the content for the sake of content A lot of people don't actually have like a very missional idea of what they're doing on the internet. They're kind of like, oh, it's not that serious, you know we're just doing live streams or we're just doing videos, but this idea of like just doing X or just doing Y, I don't think that's really appropriate when it comes to Catholic media.
Speaker 3:There really should be a broader and wider vision, like the call of the Catholic is to take over the world. Wider vision, like the call of the Catholic is to take over the world is to say that Christ has died, christ has risen, christ, he's coming again. Christ has redeemed all of creation, not merely our souls and bodies, but all of creation, and therefore, anything we're doing is meant to further this kingship. And having a broad idea of 10, 15, 20 years down the line, how am I going to further the kingship of Christ within whatever sphere that I'm given a spot in like, however small or however large it is? I think that's very important.
Speaker 3:So doing content for the sake of content rather than for the sake of furthering the kingship of Christ. I think that's something that a lot of us need to think about, and I think that a lot of the sensationalizing that had to or did happen under Francis was very unfortunate, because I've been a public opponent to a lot of the trad ink people, I will admit it. We've disagreed on a lot of things, we've had public falling outs, fights, whatever, but a lot of them are very talented people. A lot of them are very bright people, very smart people, people who, if they put their minds to more productive contents, they could change a lot of hearts. They could lead to a domino effect wider than they could ever imagine. And the fact that they're out there doing news reports, basically, and sensationalizing content on whatever Pope Francis did yesterday. It's very unfortunate. It's a waste of talents. They are burying their talent by doing content like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the place where I might be able to offer assistance is. I have a lot of conversations with people in the world, like I'm much more in the world than I think most people are, and it even comes to like this weekend I was away and this somebody that was away with us had just gotten in trouble with the law. And this person, because they got in trouble, they, they were talking to me and my friend, bobby, was there. Bobby came, bobby watches the show and he came and they were. They actually said I actually, uh, they, they were reflecting on their sins because they had gotten in trouble with the law. Okay, so they got, they got caught stealing and they were like, when this happened, I finally just had to like, do a little bit of like thinking about my life and and I started thinking about all my sins. So now this person is opened up to reflecting on their, their life a little bit. They're they started going back to mass, but they have absolutely no catechesis whatsoever and we just sat and we started talking and just going through some stuff.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of, even from people who are raised Catholic. There's a lot of Protestant, uh cultural stuff that drips in and you know, you think, because this person was raised in a Catholic home and all this stuff, the amount of Protestant stuff you have to deprogram out of even your cradle Catholics, who should know better. It's really important how you go about those conversations, because I very easily could have scared this person off. You know, by by over and and going. I'm being very careful because I'm on YouTube and my family watches. You know it's those. Those conversations are what I try to share with people so that if they come across a situation like that in their lives, they might have some success in the areas where I've had success In sharing the gospel without going. Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?
Speaker 3:Have you accepted Mary as your personal mother and intercessor?
Speaker 2:That's absolutely how I went about it.
Speaker 1:And that shirt is available for purchase, guys. Link down below.
Speaker 3:Yeah, don't buy that. Spend the money on the YouTube membership so you don't have to be a local. Get out. I've never done it to a guest before, but have you heard about the owner of Locals, the owner of Rumble.
Speaker 1:That's all I'll say.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, I will not be further commenting on that, because I want to keep our YouTube channels up.
Speaker 2:Man, some interesting things have been happening on YouTube, like just even live concurrent viewers and the way YouTube counts the stuff. One thing I will ask you guys is, if you're watching this, leave comment, not in the live chat, like leave comments in the video, because when they see a lot of interaction, that's when they like, they said yeah, they, you know they like to see if our videos cause conversations and stuff.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, guys out there, if you, if you've seen your favorite content creator like doing weirdly like more clickbaity stuff over the last two-ish months. The reason for that is because of the like the weird counting changing and the notifications changing and the algorithms shift so they've been getting lesser viewership than normal. So a lot of people thought that was because their content was more boring than normal so people stopped watching it. So they had to like ramp up that. I've seen that with a lot of people, but I just took the month off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but what's interesting is our interactions and all our other metrics are the same, but our view counts are down. It's like a weird thing. Our view counts are down, but all other metrics are the same, so it's like I don't know what's going on with it.
Speaker 3:That would be hilarious if it was literally just like a counting change and everybody thought that their audiences were like getting nuked.
Speaker 1:That does seem to be what it is. People are saying, like they've been looking at their like-to-view ratio and, like you know, it used to be say they would get 50% of their number of views and likes. Now it's like 80% or 90%. Their number of likes has stayed the same, but the views has dropped. So it seems to be youtube's just changing the way how they count views can I live stream your local stream after this he did pay us five bucks right there. That is true um you can.
Speaker 3:You can live stream my member stream. I will give you.
Speaker 2:I will give you the permission um, uh, all right, so before we do, because we're gonna, we're gonna keep this one short, I'm just, we do have some live chats. We will get before we even get to the live chats. We will get to those before we wrap up here. But my, my, my point to the the trats um, I, I think it's time to, like, you guys have to come together and figure something out, because and being entertaining does help Very much, very much.
Speaker 2:The a lot, of, a lot of what I'm seeing out. There is just this this I don't. I don't like what I'm seeing. That's all I'm saying. You know, I I'm seeing guys sniping at each other who, I know, agree in substance and are just it's a difference in approach and they're fighting about an approach, and I think there should be some kind of a conversation to be had, because I think that we blow it on as conservatives and trads. We blow it every time by not having a long-term strategy for things like there needs to be some long-term planning, some ways that we can maybe like turn the turn the ship around down the road. We want everything now, now, now, now, and it's not going to work. So we do have to. We have to figure some things out. We might have to have some conversations with people, bring them on and get people talking. Hopefully we could pull that off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think another I guess my closing thought somebody actually a former teacher of mine reached out to me recently and he was asking about content creation stuff. You know how he goes about it, like he's just starting out. You know what are, what are the tips and stuff like that. And I think one of the things that I wanted to emphasize the most because I've seen people not do this and then completely destroy like their entire channel Basically, you want to focus on building an actual audience, and that's very important, because when you have like an actual relationship between content creator and audience, there's actually something that happens with that that stabilizes.
Speaker 3:So for a lot of the people out there who kind of want to monkey around and mess around with trying to just get the view count up on as many videos as they can and get this viral video here and get that viral video here and there, and that's going to create a sustainable sort of channel that just doesn't work, sort of channel that just doesn't work.
Speaker 3:So really you're, you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing the sensational stuff when, if you just kind of were a uh, you know, a more, a more boring, stable, honest broker, you know, just creating quality contents.
Speaker 3:Over time, you're going to get an audience and that audience is going to uh, they're going to be dedicated to what you have to say. They're going to. They're going to like what you have to say. They're going to be dedicated to what you have to say. They're going to like what you have to say. They're going to follow what you have to say. They're going to actually not just watch for entertainment, but actually to get out something from what you say. So I think that the sort of like long term strategy of the stratosphere of a lot of very talented and skilled people who could really help with the furthering of the gospel, I think that that would be a much, uh more healthy way of looking about it rather than trying to like seek those short-term gains that end up in a long-term and that's exactly what will happen out there, like you, if you okay.
Speaker 2:So, and a lot of this will come back to our conversation on locals, because, like how lofton built his channel was by like going after Taylor Marshall and going, and you will build an audience doing that, like you will. But there's not really like a long-term sustainability in that and and we're starting to see that I'm I don't mean to bring Lofton up, I really don't. I'm saying because we, we've done that too. Everybody can do that. If you go and pick, you know, a group and start attacking that group and picking people in that group, you will make a name for yourself but you're gonna, you're gonna destroy relationships and you're not going to build beyond this tiny little bubble that you create for yourself and then and then you're gonna constantly be trying to chase that. You're gonna see, the only time you get those views is when you're criticizing somebody.
Speaker 2:Like it isn't easy to do an entertaining show regularly. It's very difficult. And like our show is like I'm not trying to be some trad icon at all, like our show is really just two guys having a conversation about catholicism, from whether it's from what's in the news that day or something deep spiritual experience that one of us had at some point, or raising our children and what's helped in, you know, catechizing our kids in this secular world, things like that. But I'm telling you, it's easy to go for the, for the low-hanging fruit, and take shots at somebody by name and you will build a channel, like you could do a video saying has Anthony left, try it Inc. You know it's Anthony left. Has Anthony left left track? I thought, like, like Nick Cavazos did, say, you'll get a couple of clicks, nick, but I don't know if it's a good. I don't know if it's a good long-term strategy. I love that.
Speaker 3:You got video. By the way, I was totally cheering him when I was listening to him. I'm sorry, but if you guys watch it, I'm so sorry to point this out, nick, but it's like one of his like lips was super chapped it was driving me nuts. I was like watching, his lip was super chapped and he kept licking it and I was like I couldn't why he shut it off after like three minutes he was actually dissecting my tweet and what I was saying.
Speaker 2:I think some people missed, misunderstood my tweet. They thought I was saying like the trad movement is going to die. And I don't think the trad movement is going to die, I just think it's going to go back down to a size more like it was under benedict and it's going to be more faithful people and that might be a good thing, because I think it was over inflated and there were these entire media conglomerates that were built and blew up, especially during COVID, like COVID happened and everybody's channels blew up because everybody was sitting home and then they thought they were going to sustain that and it just to keep people's attention is so difficult these days. There's so much competition out there. There's 80 billion podcasts for people to listen to, billion podcasts for people to listen to. It's just you have to.
Speaker 2:You do have to build an audience that actually liked you and not just clicks because of what topic you're covering or who you're interviewing, and that's a really tricky thing to do. We're just teasing you, nick. We love you, bud. Sorry my lips, sorry my lips, part of your christian. I will try. Yeah, why you gotta be mean christian?
Speaker 3:that's not nice, it's just just the autism struck at the wrong moment. Too much Tylenol, too much yeah, nick, we love you.
Speaker 2:You'll be on the next one we do with Christian, but we're all right, let's read the Super Chats before we head out.
Speaker 1:Okay, why do you so? Why do you think trads embrace Kirk? I would assume, Charlie Kirk and the Trent Horn types don't? Is it a feminism thing? I think they'd be all for the ecumenism.
Speaker 3:What in the world is that? I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know what he means by that. Why, like Trent Horn and those guys, didn't embrace Charlie Kirk. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Is it Charlie or Erica? The feminism comment makes me think erica the trend. Maybe, I don't know, maybe charlie too, because, right, because charlie was anti-feminist maybe we could discuss on locals also.
Speaker 2:Um, what you guys thought of the charlie kirk memorial, because I have kind of mixed feelings about it and I don't want to. I don't want to just jump on and I've very strong feelings very strong, all right.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll hear those over there all right, I didn't watch it, so I saw clips. That's the thing. I didn't watch it, I saw clips and, um, yeah, so, like fed, fed's a protestant and he watches our show regularly. He says we're fun, you know, like like you don't. It doesn't always have to be um, I know I'm very adversarial to protestants on on twitter, but a lot of it's just sarcasm and just teasing, crazy humanism going on right now.
Speaker 3:I can't, can't handle um, let's see here.
Speaker 1:So this is not so much for anthony, because he doesn't really know, but taffy wants to know if we think will a 30-06 have an exit, a body at 150 yards?
Speaker 3:look all I'm gonna say, rob all I'm gonna say. I don't know whether we'll disagree on this. I have shot a hell of a lot of deer. I've skinned and gutted. A hell of a lot of deer have been shot with a 30-06. If I shot somebody in the neck with that, there's going to be an exit hole, I can guarantee you.
Speaker 1:It's, yeah, it's unlikely to not have an exit wound, but bullets do do crazy things. But it's, I don't know man, the only thing I could think um some ranges, indoor ranges, especially for rifles, make you use frangible ammo right because they don't want the rifle rounds penetrating into like a backstop.
Speaker 1:You wanted to break up, so maybe the maybe the idiot was, you know went to his range and just used whatever range and when they made him buy and it was frangible and it just shattered, maybe on a spine or something, I don't know it.
Speaker 2:It is unlikely oh, you got guns and rosaries for this stop, I don't care he paid us 20 you care for 20 yeah, some guy uh, mores ultra, shout out the mores ultra.
Speaker 3:He gave me 50 memberships, so I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:So everybody can watch the after show on lofton I want to see somebody give 50 locals memberships.
Speaker 3:Guys, let's go can you gift locals memberships? I don't know you can give coins or something. Yeah, coins, way they uh. So jd says, I'm my coins, coins or give, or you bag, give me 50 locals coins. Yes, I know it is.
Speaker 1:We're still on youtube christian.
Speaker 2:Um, so um, yeah. Bishop paprocki said, honoring a public figure who has actively worked to expand and entrench the right to end an innocent human life in the womb undermines the very concept of human dignity and solidarity that the award purports to uphold, which he's talking about, supich, giving an award to a Democrat politician. And then Archbishop Cordelione said I stand in solidarity with solidarity with Bishop Paprocki in Springfield, illinois, in urging Cardinal Cupich to reconsider giving Senator Durbin a Lifetime Achievement Award through the Archdiocese of Chicago's Office of Human Dignity and Solidarity, given his long record of supporting legal abortion of human dignity and solidarity. Given his long record of supporting legal abortion, bishop Paprocki, who is Senator Durbin's bishop, has expressed shock that the Archdiocese plans to honor Senator Durbin who, although a self-professed Catholic, supports access to abortion so radically that he has even opposed legislation to protect babies born after an attempted abortion.
Speaker 2:Bishop Paprocki is correct that both clarity and unity are at risk. I hope this will be a clarion call to all members of the body of christ to speak out to make clear the grave evil that is taking of innocent human life. I'm sorry, but this statement does not happen under francis. This does not. People were terrified they would get Strickland. I'm telling you, there's something happening where our bishops are like, okay, new pope, I'm going to start speaking out, and they're going bishop against bishop, publicly.
Speaker 1:So it's a unique moment. So House Music for $50 has a question?
Speaker 2:Okay, so House Music is my little Patrick. Little Patrick came to.
Speaker 1:Italy with me.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah yeah, little Patrick who was supposed to come to Pennsylvania and we called him like you coming to PA. He's like no, I'm in Japan.
Speaker 3:I don't know how the heck he's in Japan, but Well he asked a question of me and he sent a super chat on your.
Speaker 2:He said I might super chat tonight. I go, you better super chat on my channel and not Wagner's channel, because I'll kill you next time I see you. That's fair enough, wow.
Speaker 1:That's what someone's like. Okay. Does prayer aid the development of moral virtues? I know that it depends on action, but if I'm praying for courage or magnanimity. Even if it depends on my action, I can't imagine that God wouldn't help us in that situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, when it comes to the natural moral virtues, there are the virtues which are somehow essentially supernatural, so faith, hope, charity, the gifts of the Holy Ghost are also habits, et cetera, et cetera. And there are those which are naturally. They are essentially natural but they are modally supernatural. So by modally supernatural basically means that it is something that comes to us in a supernatural way. So all of the moral virtues and natural intellective virtues, they come to us by sanctifying grace.
Speaker 3:And when it comes to the exercise of these virtues, we can think about the increase of their adhesion in us. We can think about the different obstacles in our faculties, like we might have a superfluous amount of concupiscence or irascible behavior, or we may have various different vices that order us in strengthening the adhesion of those virtues within us to aid us and give us those good inspirations so we can consider the goodness of the exercising of those virtues, to actually elect to carry them out. So there's many different ways, like, if you want to scientifically break it out, break it down in moral theology and look at the various different aspects of the exercise of a virtue, like we can talk about all those things, but the short answer is just yes, like God, can aid you in the exercise of even natural virtues.
Speaker 2:I'm glad to see our audience finally super chatting a bit, because Christian's audience super chats like crazy on his show. I've caught your live streams. Your audience is very generous, I'm like you guys are awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, somebody on my side said sorry, but trad LARPers, who don't chant the hours in Latin every day but screech about Vatican II, are the actual enemy. Just my opinion. So real, you guys are so cucked right now.
Speaker 2:I learned that I don't know the Angelus in Latin. Last week we were away with a bunch of guys and they said the Angelus in Latin.
Speaker 3:I was like I only know the Hail Mary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I only know the Hail Mary and like the Glory of, the. Angels, trad LARPer. I am a Trad LARPer. We got a couple more.
Speaker 1:Andy paid us $30. I don't know what he means.
Speaker 2:I don't know what he means, but what about?
Speaker 1:Cavazos though.
Speaker 2:Sorry, andy, we love Nick.
Speaker 1:Someone said that they're broke, but they really wanted us to answer this. So sorry, anthony, but do you think there's a connection with an Augustinian Pope and a president that talks a lot about peace? Because St Augustine talks a lot about peace as the supreme good of life.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, he asked me that question on mine too, but I accidentally skipped over it.
Speaker 2:I think there's more of a connection between the fact that we have the first American Pope and we have an American president who acts like an emperor. And I'm more interested in that connection, you know, because I see America as like the new Roman Empire and we have the first American pope. I think that's a connection. But what do you think about St Augustine?
Speaker 3:I think there's an interesting connection with Leo XIII, because when you read Immortale Dei, what you see is that basically, the political program of the Catholic Church is based on St Augustine and specifically on the city of God, in response to the claims against Christianity and the good of the state. Like this is Leo XIII, like he completely explains political Catholic political philosophy in light of this. So I think that when it comes to Leo XIII, he also had a very sharp understanding of the American situation, the different virtues that the American people have, the hope that we have for the American people in the future, if, when she accepts the Catholic faith. And he I think it was very clear that Leo XIII thought that America would eventually accept the Catholic religion. And he I think he was very clear that Leo XIII thought that America would eventually accept the Catholic religion in its fullness, not only in a truncated way, like a lot of Americans viewed the effects of Catholicism on in the civil sphere.
Speaker 2:Somebody's asking if I know the Our Father. Yes, I know the whole rosary. I know all the responses at Mass. I'm not that bad JD, I would say so. My wife was.
Speaker 1:So JD asks what is your advice to get your spouse into TLM?
Speaker 2:Thank you, rob. I'm terrible about actually reading the questions and I know people get driven nuts by that. I can only share my experience. My wife was very resistant early on and it was because I kept pressing it. But eventually I just asked her to go and I and I didn't argue with her about veiling, I just brought her and she fell in love with the music and the aesthetics of it at first. And after bringing her several times without like arguing about why it's this and that, I just kind of left it to God. And now my wife she just likes the Novus Ordo more than I do. Based Advice for a diocesan seminarians who are traditional.
Speaker 3:Don't be an idiot. Do not be an idiot. If you try to be a hero, you will get screwed over. Okay, your bishop will bury you. If you try to be a hero and you act like an idiot, okay, be smart. Do not spurg out. Okay, I'm telling, I've seen it before all these off to tylenol seminaries. They spurg out. You know, think they're going to be a hero and change their bishop's mind and they get hammered into the dust yeah, then they have to go to an old, old roman catholic bishop to get ordained, and it's just not pretty.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if I'm going to promote mass of the ages until I get a call from cameron. That's all I'm going to say cameron's, still, cameron's, still, you know, still stealing our idea A call asking you to come on or a call apologizing for stealing the film series.
Speaker 1:You're the one that brought that up. I dropped a little hint at something.
Speaker 2:here you just. What am I going to do about this guy?
Speaker 3:You were yapping about him on the phone for like an hour.
Speaker 2:All right. So what we are going to do now, we are going to go over to locals and Christians members only and we're going to discuss what happened behind the scenes. Michael often reached out and we'll we'll get into that, and then I think we're going to discuss the Charlie Kirk Memorial.
Speaker 3:I'm thanking all my people for the super chats Come over to locals.
Speaker 2:Guys Like, where else are you getting a show? Come on, like I'm so tired of you guys watching the YouTube only portion. It's absolutely.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I'm switching over to my member stream, or, if you're a patron, I posted a link there as well. So I'm switching my stream over, all right, rob.
Speaker 2:Thank stream over. All right, rob. Thank you everybody. God bless, remember to like subscribe, blah. Yeah, if you're subscribed to, uh, avoiding babylon and not scholastic answers, go throw him a sub. If you're subscribed to scholastic answers and not avoiding babylon, throw us a sub. Uh, it's five bucks a month. You could get like a single episode for four bucks and then you could get the year for 50. People are asking how much it is, um, very much worth the the money. We we do a locals episode pretty much every show we do and that's where we can get a little little more spicy and we don't have to worry about, you know, the general public watching what we say. So, all right, we're heading over take it down, family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I'm just so, because the video you want to play on locals, I'm gonna just remove all the public broadcasts.
Speaker 2:Then we'll have an intro video coming that only Locals gets.
Speaker 3:If you're still watching on X, get over there quick. I already stopped mine and started my member stream. I started before you, which means everyone's going to flood into mine.
Speaker 2:Find it bad Rob. Let me get my Locals chat up.
Speaker 3:I don't even know how this works, because for some reason they don't show member viewers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you don't even know if you got more than us, but we'll tell you how many we got in a second Hang on.
Speaker 3:Well, I just got 50 members, so they better be watching.
Speaker 1:All right, let's see, we have 116 locals right now.
Speaker 2:That's it 119 now. I was hoping to see a lot more than that.
Speaker 1:Come on, cheapos 121 is the most we've ever had.
Speaker 2:Bump it up, let's go. You guys don't want to hear the loft and gossip.
Speaker 3:Anthony never reads the locals chats my dad, so everybody's hating on locals in my live chat. That's why I always watch the locals chat who?
Speaker 2:what are they talking about?
Speaker 3:uh, where did the pious attempt intro go? So this is a uh member exclusive. But ui. Ui is cooking up a new intro, so the new intro will be premiering soon. He messed up the first one. So whoa Taffy with the $50 super chat. Members only stream, no he's on your stream. I'm going to kill that mixed marriage, mixed marriages? Wait, say that again. I'm sorry. He asked about my opinion on mixed marriages.
Speaker 1:You know, like Anthony and Nicole.
Speaker 3:So I'll tell you about, like marriages of disparity of cult. So I'll tell you about, like marriages of disparity of cult, which I am against marriages of disparity of cult, although with dispensation, they can be validly enacted.
Speaker 1:Okay, are we ready for the video?
Speaker 2:Let's do the Taffy intro, even though he's watching on Wagner stream.
Speaker 1:So don't tip Taffy this time.
Speaker 3:Actually no do do tip Ttap here. Hmm, I wonder, grok, what states have the lowest Jewish population? South Dakota and North Dakota have the lowest Jewish populations in the US. South Dakota has approximately 250 Jewish residents residents and North Dakota has around 400.
Speaker 2:Lexi, lexi, start packing for anybody who doesn't know is moving to the state with the lowest jewish population yeah, I'm moving for that reason it's definitely the jews you're running from, not not anybody else.
Speaker 3:mr goldenstein, it's a little cold up here. Oh, you're right, it's cold, all right.
Speaker 2:So here's what happened. I received an email from Michael.
Speaker 1:I received an email and forwarded it to Anthony.
Speaker 2:Yes, here's how it really happened. I received a phone call from Christian and Christian goes did you check your email yet? And I said no, why? He said well, michael Lofton sent you an email and then, christian, you can reveal the rest of the story from here.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean he emailed me. I had family coming over this weekend because it was my daughter's baptism, so my parents were visiting, a cousin came, a friend. It was a nice outing Got some people over for the baptism and last second I'm about to go on a fishing trip. I'm taking care of my kids and I open up my Gmail app and I see Reason and Theology. I thought it was like a spam email. I'm like somebody is punking me right now. Someone subscribe me to his email. I know Somebody's like punking me right now. Someone subscribe me to his email, I know so. Somebody's like punking me right now and it's like it's michael. Often he's reaching out to me. I I would read the email, but you know it's better to just summarize it rather than reading off all your tweets on air or whatever. Um, summarization is uh, summarizing something is good he doesn't even realize you're talking about him.
Speaker 3:I know, anthony, I can see the scheme coming out of the ears right now, um, but he just emails me and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, sure, like you just want to talk on the phone, like I got family over this weekend but I can make myself available, you know, for a phone call, because I found it to be very important and I wanted to talk to him over the phone call. Uh, for those who don't know, I've been asking, asking for a phone call with Michael for years. At this point, every time I critique him, I'm like, oh, you know, call me on the phone, we can talk. So we got on the phone, we talked. It was a very cordial conversation. He was asking about my family, he was asking me about, you know, things like that. That is my daughter, because we didn't talk, like four-ish years ago, um, so, uh, he knew my, uh, my son, through digital means, obviously.
Speaker 3:So we were talking about that and you know, he apologized to me for, uh, some of the things in which you know he had done. I apologized for him about some of the things that I had done and he and he said you know, if you ever have a issue with something, I say you know, you have my phone number, just call me up and we'll talk about it. So it was a very cordial conversation. I was very glad to hear that. So the temperature just kind of went way down, you know 400 below zero. So yeah, it was very. I found it to be a very good and respectful conversation.
Speaker 2:The thing is, I respect him for calling you. There's something about when we do this stuff online where the constant sniping and sniping and you don't know the person and it just, and there's something about just calling the person and having a conversation. That humanizes that person and it makes it difficult to react like that. Now Michael sent me an email as well. I've had Michael's phone number for years actually because Kyle Whittington had given it to me. I haven't, I haven't, I've been, I've been sick, and then I was away and I haven't slept and I wanted to make sure my mind was in a good state and I had actually thought this over before I decided whether or not I'm going to speak with him. Um, and that's because there could be these superficial um, you know, patch things up, kind of things that happen and it's like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not averse to, uh, christians reconcil. Like you know, our Lord commands us to forgive.
Speaker 2:I don't actually have any personal gripes with Michael, other than that time he, like you know, went off the handle and said I was going to hell and stuff. But I take stuff very lightly, I don't really care about that. My issue would be like I have a phone call with him, I make up with him and then like two weeks later he's doing another video talking about a friend of mine or something like that. And it's like early on in recent theology like I genuinely liked that show, I loved like they would have four or five of them sitting around, they would debate these topics and yeah, you know it was. It was I mean back early and early on. It was like jade dyer was on there and stuff. It was a really interesting thing that he was doing at first and then he kind of went down that rabbit hole of critiquing kind of what we were talking about tonight, like you go after marshall and all of a sudden your views blow up because he's a controversial figure. Then you went after a bunch of my other friends too. So my issue with him was always that, especially with people he had on the show and he was friends with that he would have these falling, fallings out with.
Speaker 2:Now I understand that stuff happens, especially when you're doing online stuff and, like I said I would, I would be open to that conversation. But I don't want some superficial thing that like I, I, I don't know I I have to like have a very clear mind about it and it would have to be a meaningful conversation. I don't want to just, you know, make up like and be like okay, I accept your apology and I apologize, and not have any substance to it. So I have to think about it more Like I have no ill will towards Michael. I honestly wish him the best.
Speaker 2:I never took issue with him defending Pope Francis. I thought you know there are some people who have that position in the church. It was more just the destructive behavior online and then over time I've even had some of that destructive behavior myself. So it's like, if I'm being honest, like I understand how you could fall down that road. I hope to not become like always doing that. But yeah, it's just something I want to think about a little bit before I make a decision on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I get what you're saying Because I obviously have that thought as well. But I think that if somebody is on my end, I am actually intended. I have a firm resolution, kind of no matter how it goes in the future, that if something happens and the break off happens, then it's not going to be from my end. I will voluntarily choose that, obviously, unless something crazy happened and he became a Muslim or something like the normal contingencies of what could happen, what ordinarily we could expect to happen. I don't expect myself to be the guy to break it off. So if I have problems with something he's saying I'm going to take seriously.
Speaker 2:You know he said I can maybe have a conversation look, the thing is I'm like I don't I don't foresee like Lofton coming on stream with me. I just don't, like, I like, yeah, I. I just I just don't see that. But I'm I'm okay with like agreeing to not take shots at each other, like I'm okay with that. I don't dislike many people and I don't even dislike people that dislike me. I don't need somebody to like me for me to like them. I don't really care. I would like to see less content where the purpose of the content is to drag someone else down. I know I've done that myself a few times, but typically it was either Michael or it was Voice of Reason.
Speaker 2:We've been pretty much right, though, when we've done it but and but also, like I I try not to like, like I'll take like little digs and shots and stuff, like I don't, I don't. We don't do content about other creators like that regularly. I mean, those are the ones, the ones that we did wind up blowing up and stuff, but I don't, I don't know. It's something I do have to think about and I'm going to take it seriously. I'm not just going to take the phone call without thinking about it first. That's all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got, I got the call. I got the call. Yeah, Well, no, I don't, and I don't blame you for it. I think I think it's good that you guys spoke.
Speaker 2:I always think it's just good to get on the phone with somebody. Like I've had bad interactions with guys online and then made a phone call to them. Like Mike from RTF, his and I relationship started off dicey because he said something about me on a stream and then I said something about him and I said you know what, let me just call him. And I called him up and we had a. You know what, let me just call him. And I called him up and we had a conversation and now I'm friends with Mike. It was such a good thing for me to just call him instead of continuing and letting that stuff get out of hand. But I have no bad will towards Lofton, so I mean, if he wants to just chill out a little bit like the only time I've really brought him up is if he was, you know, antagonizing or something so I'm all right with with dropping that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, somebody made a weird comment. I need to make sure I correct this. So he said I heard from a friend that your wife was still protestant. Is this true or set a blasphemy? That's's completely wrong. She joined the church right when I joined the church.
Speaker 2:Um, I hate that we can't see your you can't bring your comments up.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, no, it only brings up on my end.
Speaker 2:Well, I remember when we used to do like the, the, the simulcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what was what sucked about that is that I couldn't schedule it ahead of time, like it will only pop up right now, like right when we start streaming.
Speaker 2:So so you're streaming your screen basically then yes, okay um, okay, so private comments and see all the abominable things that anthony is saying behind the scenes then I think I am going on the rundown, molly, um, I actually just spoke to mike about it, mike it, mike invited me on. So what is the rundown? The rundown is um, uh, it's mike parrot, um, uh, james, I think is he the texas or nigerian trad on nigerian trad nigerian trad on twitter um age.
Speaker 2:Uh, adrian fontake is on there sometimes a bunch, of bunch of guys oh, oh, yeah, I know because ryan grant's on there.
Speaker 3:Ryan, grant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I like all those guys, we need to have ryan on our show sometime. Yeah, definitely. He was on the gaspers today. They did like a three-hour marathon stream.
Speaker 3:I caught like an hour of it I know I need to interview r Grant. I need to just get like a five-hour crazy stream where we just talk about schizo stuff all the whole time. He's very smart, that's fun. I love those streams. We just have somebody cook the whole time and I'm just sitting there learning the whole time. He's a Jewish convert too, right. Yeah, oh, dude, trust me, I don't, was he ever Get him?
Speaker 1:and Gideon?
Speaker 3:Lazar in the same room and you'll get like you'll get that one time I was doing.
Speaker 3:I don't think this is the locals member only stream type content, but I think I told Gideon this. I don't think I was going to say it's like having a conversation with Gideon, but Gideon he wanted me to do a debate review with one of the debates he had did on Judaism with somebody else. It was a very interesting debate. It was about the book of Daniel and whether it is fulfilled in Christ. It was really awesome. But he was debating this Jewish guy and it was like two Jewish guys arguing and I was listening to it and I was like dog, I cannot do it. And Hassan had to do it all with me. Hassan literally printed out a transcript for us just so we could read the debate and we didn't have to listen to it. I just couldn't handle the Jews arguing. They just argue in a certain way and it's just like I just zone out. It's impossible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get Gideon Ryan and Redeem Zoomer.
Speaker 3:all on, ryan and redeem zoomer all on, get a pet, get a panel of all of the uh, the theology, the e-theology jews together to argue about something yeah, the panel of the elders of zion so true oh I, I do kind of want to touch on the on the Memorial.
Speaker 2:Now, I didn't watch the whole thing, I just saw clips that were going around. I did try to tune in. I was driving home from upstate yesterday and I tried throwing it on and I was just like, oh my goodness, this is too much for me. It was just too much for me, but you said you have some strong feelings on it Christian. Let's hear your strong feelings.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, I was just saying that. I was saying that the bait people, so they were selling the local show. No, I didn't watch it either. Uh, but from what? From what I saw, it was nuts. I mean, what the hell was that? It was just like it was so weird. They were having erica kirk come up with like the UFC thing.
Speaker 2:Donald Trump dancing up there and then they were hugging.
Speaker 3:It was just so cringe, it was crazy, how cringe it was.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to know what's happening there. It's spectacle, it's bread and circuses it's government your average evangelical service.
Speaker 1:So but.
Speaker 2:But they're always calling it a revival right and it's always in these big stadiums. Then it's I. I know what happened here is a special moment, so I don't want to just go down the. That's why I only wanted to do it on locals. I didn't want to do it on youtube. But it's man, the spectacle of it is bizarre to me. It's it's almost too much for me to to it. Just all of the like did.
Speaker 1:Did you see they had? They got, uh, trump and elon on camera as they were talking privately. Uh, they got a lip reader like saw trump tell elon like I miss you, or something like that it was so, it was so staged.
Speaker 3:I mean come on now like we're, we're not, we're not stupid. If you're a high profile public figure, you know, like when you're in the camera, of course, when you're not in the camp, the range of a camera. If you're media trained, you know about that stuff. They were just that's just showy.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what that's, man, and I just want to be careful about it because I don't like it is such a delicate thing what we all just went through with Charlie Kirk. Passing, you know, I think that Erica Kirk holds so much as the grieving widow, but man, that can turn quick if she goes reaching to be the starlet. I'm not saying she's doing that, I'm just like she should be very cautious, that's all. The whole thing seems just so showy to me and I don't know I I felt uncomfortable watching a lot of parts of it.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean to be fair, it was, you know, the there was also. The thing is like all the fundraising emails it's like hi, I'm erica kirk, like send 10 trillion dollars to israel, and it was like all the all the fundraising thing. Obviously and this is I'm not making fun of erica kirk what I and this is I'm not making fun of Erica Kirk, what I'm making fun of is I'm making fun of marketing people, because when somebody, by the way, when you get a text that says, hey, I'm Donald Trump, please send money, that's not Donald Trump writing that text, that's a marketing person writing that text.
Speaker 3:And marketing. People are evil and they will play off of anything to fundraise money. That is what they're doing. So to make fun of that and to say that's stupid, that's not making fun of erica kirk or disrespecting charlie kirk's legacy. What they're doing is very, um, inappropriate, extremely inappropriate, um, that's just. That's just. They're fundraising people in their organization doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah um molly, no, I saw, I saw your tweet and I'm not like I think you had a point in your tweet like there is. That's why I'm not discussing this on youtube. I didn't want to make a thing of like going after the protestants on youtube tonight. It's just the. The way that thing went down was just bizarre to me. Like you know what it is like.
Speaker 2:Protestantism is just so unserious. It's just so unserious and for all the criticisms that they they level at us about veneration and icons and our saints and stuff, it's like you people don't think like I'm watching them do this and arguing with the catholics over charlie kirk was catholic or charlie kirk was protestant. I I'm I'm trying to get a little deeper so that they think, like Erica Kirk just lost her husband. Do you not think she's crying out to heaven at certain points saying, charlie, please give me strength? Like that is just if you lose a spouse, you think you're not crying out to your spouse after they pass and that's just because if, like, if they, if, if they don't exist now, then they never existed. Almost like if death really cuts you off, there's like love has to be eternal.
Speaker 2:For that aspect, they act like we venerate icons. They venerate icons. They just chose to do it with Freemasons and freaking the founding fathers instead of the church fathers. They have all the same things we do. They just chose to venerate the men of politics instead of the heroes of the faith. Like they have their heroes of politics instead of the heroes of the faith. They have the imagery All of it is everything, with America and politics. Like you cannot separate Protestantism from being a Republican. It's like there's no ability to separate the religion, their religion, from their politics. And I'm not saying you don't have a duty as a Catholic to have political views. It's just there's such an intertwining of Protestantism with all it takes. It's a bizarre thing that I don't know.
Speaker 3:Maybe I'm wrong, but no, I think this is actually. It's very true and this is why, in the political involvements that I am in the sphere of, I always tell them like you can work with Protestants, just never trust Protestants On the political sphere. It is essentially tied in with our politics, our allegiance to Rome, our allegiance to the teachings of the church, the eternal teachings of the church. This is a principle whereby we do catholic action, whereby we work. So when you have somebody functioning on a different principle, in a different wavelength, like next week, they could totally just throw you under the bus, um, but when you have fellow catholics who are all loyal to the magisterium of the church, um, there is a sort of solidarity and unity and action that strengthens all of us to be able.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like the jews, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of like being a jew, except not like ideological.
Speaker 3:For them it's obviously personal, but jews they're, they're always wanting to, you know, further the further, the uh, greater israel. So for, for the jews, they're always knowing that, you know, liberal jew, conservative jew, whatever they're, always, you know, trying for this one end of furthering the good of their people. Catholics, they have to have similar ideas. Jews will work with Goyim. They'll work with Goyim all the time. They work with America all the time, but they never trust America. You don't think they'd throw us in the trash can and work with China if that was better for Israel? And I think we have to have a similar idea with working with the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is we can't have this weird tying up of loyalty with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, but rather we just have to take our own side as Catholics and seek the good of the church and to spread the teachings of the church and never trust anybody who doesn't have that in mind, even while you work with them.
Speaker 2:What do you think of all the people saying parts of the new testament are blood liable?
Speaker 3:it's not liable.
Speaker 2:If it's true um, yeah, I there were. There was, oh, uh, charlie kirk's pastor doing the altar call. That was the part that I just happened to tune in during and I was just like that's when I got this. Just, man, this is so unserious. Like it's just, they say the phrase and it's like everybody sit down if you believe, but if you don't believe and you'd like to accept Jesus in your heart as your personal, I'm just like man they've been, they've been doing that for so long. But I will say this like my my in-laws told my wife they watched Erica Kirk speech and my mother-in-law said she was crying and she couldn't wait to go back to church and stuff like that. I mean they go to church. But like they were like like something did happen with this event where it inspired a lot of people to think a little deeper about their faith. What do you think about her getting up and forgiving the killer the way she did?
Speaker 3:It's hard to do something like that and not have a. You know, I feel a sort of similar way. Because, you know, I feel a sort of similar way, Like as somebody who's done these sort of things publicly. Like about two months ago I went and said, okay, I need to work with some of the Catholic people and I apologize for some of the ways I've acted in the past, et cetera, et cetera. It's hard for those sorts of things to take place in public without it feeling performative, yeah, Without it looking a little bit performative, even if it's not meant to be performative. So I'm totally fine with it. We just have to remember what is happening and the uh not be super cynical about it and just assume that it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard for me not not to be super cynical. It's, um, because in some ways this woman hasn't been able to grieve, like she's just been in the public spotlight the entire time, so you don't know how much of it is her being pressured to do these things and she just kind of has no choice. So she's doing it because she thinks that's what she's supposed to do, and you know my heart breaks for her. She lost her husband. It's got to be a really tricky thing to have the whole world's eyes on you and watching your every move. But yeah, like you said, it's hard to like not see it as spectacle, like as performative, when it kind of it like she probably did rehearse that, right, I mean it's the speech that was written that she probably did. So it's just just. I mean it's a terrible situation for her to be in where she has to do this in front of the world. I don't know. I mean I'm just not comfortable.
Speaker 3:To be perfectly frank, I just I don't like the idea of putting women out to do stuff like this. It feels like that's sort of like it's a very intimate moment grieving over the death of your spouse, especially for a woman, for her husband. And it feels really weird for the TP because it feels like this is sort of a campaign by a lot of the GOP, by a lot of the TPUSA and the conservative media.
Speaker 2:It's basically you're grifting off of a widow's grief.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying anything negative about Erica. I'm saying negative things about the people who thought this was a good idea to push all of these different sensationalized events about it. I'm just not really comfortable with it.
Speaker 2:I did not feel like I was watching a memorial, I felt like I was watching a MAGA rally. It felt like a MAGA rally and look, I'm also going to say this like these children were robbed of their father. Yeah, how is it justice to rob them of their mother by putting her at the helm of this thing when she's like I? I understand people want her to run it because that would you know, that that was Charlie's wishes and all this stuff. But these children have robbed and robbed of their father. How is she going to run this organization and be like?
Speaker 2:We talk about this stuff all the time, how important it is for children to have their mother, and I mean, I don't know, it's a rough one to not come off sounding awful when you say it, but I'm just thinking about the kids. Those kids are going to just have their mom constantly dragged away to be doing these things. It was one thing when Charlie was doing it, which I don't even think. It's healthy, for a husband to constantly be traveling and being all over the place without his family but to then have the father pass and the mother go and do it. The kids are going to be raised by, you know nannies, or you know what I don't know. I mean I yeah, I don't like it either.
Speaker 2:But, anthony, that's exactly what charlie would have wanted. The movement was bigger than him in his mind. Yeah, I'm sure, but he was wrong.
Speaker 3:Uh, was baron there, I thought baron was there based baron, we love baron. Uh, I have a few super chats. Hashtag trad larp, lunch money for child. Thank you by trinity something nice. Thank you random catholic. And colin gordon says happy birthday bilbo baggins. I don't know what that's supposed to mean um, hope.
Speaker 2:The goal is to get young people to Christ and for us to make a better case for Catholicism. But yeah, look, I'm not trying to black pill here, I'm. That's why I did it over here, because I've had. I have like mixed feelings about it, like part of me thinks, like you know, you have you had five hours of people proclaiming Jesus Christ and the whole world is watching. You know so like that people proclaiming jesus christ and the whole world is watching. You know so like that's a great thing. Um, it's just. It's just, protestantism is so bizarre to me, man.
Speaker 3:It's just yeah, somebody said, um, and this is probably what a lot of people think uh, perhaps tp, usa and erica recognize this span of time as the best possible moment to push charlie's mission forward. Taking time to grieve privately would have made for lost momentum and it it's like the content creator mind in me understands that. It's like when you know, for example, I came back. I was, you know, on leave when Lofton made his comments. You know, I came back specifically because I know, if I did it a week later, who the frick would watch that. So you kind of have to strike while the iron's hot when it comes to something like.
Speaker 3:You know, I have a grieving widow. This is why I made the comment that it's a. It's like the organization and the gop are grifting off of a widow's grief, and that's exactly what they're doing. That's exactly what you described is, they recognize there's a moment of success and in order to fulfill this moment of success, what they need to do is they need to go and bring her out in front of people to grieve publicly, and that is, by definition, grifting off of her grief. Whatever you think about that, I don't like it. But whatever you think about it, that's what it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you said, the content creator and you get it. But when you think of it on a human level, like those children and that woman needs to grieve, but when you think of it on a human level, like those children and that woman needs to grow, like that woman needs time alone to to grieve her husband, who the whole world watched one of the most horrific killings ever, I mean it's just, and then all the stuff around it.
Speaker 3:Man like oh, somebody made the comment. It is quite possible that this moment just secured the 2028 election. Oh, it's so over First off.
Speaker 2:2028 is a very long way away. This is more of a midterm pitch. It's just. I don't know, man, it's such a such a I don't know how to think about it without coming off like a total a-hole, but it was a hard one for me to watch with a lot of the stuff. But let me just see something.
Speaker 3:We're getting President JD Vance and Vice President Marco Rubio, and you're going to like it, rob.
Speaker 1:Vice president marco rubio, and you're gonna like it, rob me yeah, you're gonna have to like it I guess we're gonna have to like it I think we're gonna have a civil war before that.
Speaker 3:But no way. Well, I mean they really honestly. They probably hate jd vance more than they hate trump, probably. I think so it's weird because when they, when they talk about vance, they have like a special sort of like with trump it's kind of like they're mocking a clown, but like with jd vance, it feels like they're, they're scared um, so uh, shelly says uh, she actually is catholic.
Speaker 2:They just got their marriage convalidated in the church recently. So I heard that er Erica's going to go on and address all of these rumors on a podcast this week On, I think, charlie Kirk's show. She's going to sit down and she's going to address all the Catholic rumors, like a bunch of different rumors, and that's my fear is that this woman is going to just go and do the podcast.
Speaker 1:I think she's going to dispel every single room she's going to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, especially because they know the evangelical audience is the most important thing to tp usa. It just is so. She's not going to come out and be like, yes, we were, charlie was in rcia, like you guys have to so I was, I was teasing the protestants about it. You know, it's like when kimmel got fired I was like look, charlie kirk's answering prayers from heaven. He's definitely catholic, you know, like things like that. But the reality is, this is just rumors and who knows.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think it's perfectly like. A lot of the takes I saw on it were like monkey, like fist on floor, drag, knuckle, dragging, retardation. It was like some of the dumbest stuff I've ever seen. His better people like um, look at this clip. He said that catholicism was wrong and it's like well, uh, but he said he prayed the rosary. Uh, but he was at mass this one time, but uh, he said that he disagreed on birth control. Like, and what is that perfectly conformable with somebody who's just kind of inquiring and they're interested but they're not like really into it.
Speaker 3:So they're like not just about the joint rcia or anything, but they're just like you're just kind of tasting the water, testing the water, seeing what's good. Like everybody, I did that before I converted. Like every protestant I know who converted to catholicism did weird things like that. They would say like oh, I with Roman birth control. But they'd be like praying the rosary, like there are people do that all the time. It's so stupid that people were just spurging out over it saying, oh, he hated Catholicism. We're saying like, oh, he was a Catholic already.
Speaker 2:Like it was dumb, I think a lot of people now are looking at orthodoxy and Catholicism because they're looking at serious versions of Christianity and I think they see the unseriousness of Protestantism Like part of the thing that's happening with the Whizzies and the Chads and the Indiana Brunners on X. They think they're roasting Catholics and they're saying things to roast Catholics on Twitter to get revenue from the algorithm. But they're making everybody wake up to how ridiculous Protestantism is. They're actually causing conversions because their arguments are so childish and stupid that, yeah, you might get the like they're preaching to the choir to some people. Who is just their. Their hearts are so hardened they're never going to come over. But a lot of people are looking on in that and then all of a sudden, you'll see a Catholic respond to it thoughtfully and you don't know who's watching in and and seeing it, because there's something much more serious about what we believe than what the you know. The it's like.
Speaker 2:Protestantism is especially evangelical Protestantism is. It's like a cheap knockoff. It's, it's, it's. It's a religion loosely based on a Catholic book. That's what Protestants. It's a religion loosely based on a Catholic book. It's the James.
Speaker 3:White effect yeah, Same thing. Yeah, James White gets like beat in front of a crowd for the 500th time and it's and it's making people sort of have a positive view. I don't even think some of the people that James White debated did the best job or whatever. But James White he just says so many crazy things that it actually does have an effect of causing people to convert.
Speaker 2:Cleave to antiquity as hair plugs.
Speaker 3:Never forget. Christian Mario said St Augustine never believed in the filio quay. Okay, I bullied him about that. Remember? I had that like hour and a half stream where I went through like a bajillion texts from saint augustine and spurred out the whole time. I love doing that. That. That's like my favorite night, you know. So I I just spend all day just like collecting all these texts and I just spurg at somebody.
Speaker 1:Did you guys see the Department of Homeland Security drop the most amazing video ever about three hours ago?
Speaker 3:No, so here Anthony you're not going to understand this because you're too old of a millennial.
Speaker 1:But Christian will probably enjoy this.
Speaker 2:I want to be the very best. Trisha will probably enjoy this. It's amazing Pokemon. I will travel across the land searching far and wide.
Speaker 1:It's Pokemon, it's a.
Speaker 2:Pokemon.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's kind of funny.
Speaker 2:That is our federal government. They have been putting some funny stuff up. I will say that, Wait, somebody said now the tribes don't have a plan in opposition. We need to organize to go on the offensive. Where is the AB combat office? But no, what are some?
Speaker 3:steps we can do. Oh, my entire audience says gang cringe.
Speaker 2:What are some things? Yeah, I didn't get that video, but they have been putting out some funny roasts here and there.
Speaker 3:They're too young, you're too old, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 2:Rob is perfect.
Speaker 1:I grew up. You're too old. Yeah, maybe Rob is perfect. That's right when I was growing up.
Speaker 3:I had older siblings who watched.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my kids are too young to have watched it and I'm too old to have watched it.
Speaker 1:I was six with Red and Blue, launch it's so over.
Speaker 3:Why are millennials so boomer? You're getting absolutely wrong.
Speaker 2:Why are millennials so boomer?
Speaker 1:That's fair.
Speaker 2:I will say this. It is an interesting thing that we were talking about on the other side. They seem to not be able to connect with younger people like these other Catholic content creators that have been around forever. Who is succeeding Scott Hahn? That's what I want to know. I subscribe to the Emmaus Road thing that they have because I wanted to hear Scott Hahn's three part series on the Gospel of Matthew and I I'm trying to find another like presenter on that whole platform and I can't find a single one that I enjoy millennials.
Speaker 3:they, they have no zeal, like when I, when I'm in political crowds, like I see a lot of gen z and millennials like they, like. If I bet, if you look like this is probably this would be a crazy statistic to look at. If you you looked at and compared state legislatures and compared the proportion of Gen Z to millennials, there literally might be a higher proportion of Gen Z to millennials in political office. Because millennials don't do anything. They're awful, they're so lazy, I mean, they're cringe. They're basically like young boomers. It's awful, rob crashing out. Rob crashing out would be insane.
Speaker 2:All of these outfits are like word on fire. Who takes the helm from Bishop Barron? None of them can find successors that have the charisma, or whatever you want to call it, that thing that makes people Most of them are built on personalities, though, so they're never going to have success. You would think the St Paul Center would have.
Speaker 1:What did they say about me Christian?
Speaker 3:No, somebody said I always cringe whenever I see Taylor Marshall's livestream chat filled with boomer women. Have you ever looked at?
Speaker 1:his telegram chat.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, but that, but that's, but that is his audience, right? So, like all of these guys are having a hard time connecting with younger, younger people, like it's a what we do is unique in that we have the younger gen X all the way down to gen z audience. Yeah, you know, and I'm finding a lot of these other guys just can't seem to connect with younger people. They do, they don't. It's like they they don't have the self-awareness to know they're, they're being cringe or something I don't. I don't know, and I'm not saying anybody specifically, I'm talking about in general. Like even the, the scott hans, not having a successor, the word on fire, not having us, all these outfits that kind of catechized millennials are are falling away. So who? Who's the next generation of apologists that's going to take? I mean, is it cameron reicher? Is that where they're going to be?
Speaker 3:he's no like no, I like cameron, I'm not. I met cameron in person. We shared a car bomb. I met his wife. Actually, they're, they're very, they're very nice people he was like a very nice guy.
Speaker 2:I'm saying but is he the guy? Is he getting?
Speaker 3:to the, to the the next uh catha creator conference, but no christian listen, it was going to be alex harado yeah, of course it was going to be him.
Speaker 2:He was going. I don't like it, but yeah, I knew it, he he was going to be the next guy and now that he's gone there, like they, like I, like, I like all the, I like all those guys I'm not knocking any of them but like sips with sarah is very like laid back and quiet and he kind of does his analysis and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:But none of them have that it factor?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I don't know how a lot of these outfits are going to. I don't know. I've been saying for a long time Catholic Answers, better figure something out with you. Scott Hahn needs to get Joshua Charles to succeed him, and Catholic Answers needs you.
Speaker 3:I love Joshua Charles so much. We, we, we talk over the phone a few times a month, but he says he's the next Catholic.
Speaker 2:Okay, do we think, josh?
Speaker 1:do we think Josh has Anthony or Christian on the show First? Christian, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean he's, he's invited me on. I like inviting him on my show. I like getting the views.
Speaker 1:Oh, he invited you on huh.
Speaker 3:I invite him on my show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, he's been on your show. You haven't been on his yet, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess that's true. I need to text him and see what's going on with that buddy. No, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand all these guys.
Speaker 2:They come.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everyone's going to come on our show because they want our audience, but they don't want to introduce us to their audience because their audience is boomers. They're afraid we'll offend the boomers. That's a good point. I know that somebody was saying in my chat where was Anthony? Oh yeah, anthony said Gen Z have no money to donate to you, so be nice to us. That is literally the problem with doing any really big long-term project as a Zoomer internet, zoomer Zoomer humor type stuff is that you don't have the people with the money bags really really respecting you. So, yeah, I can fund stuff and I can fund stuff pretty well. I guess I can do good fundraising and things like that to get projects done. But like doing like the really, really big stuff that that's just not going to happen for a while until the Zoomers get older.
Speaker 2:You know they get a little older and they make some money. Yeah, yeah yeah, we're in the same. We're in the same boat, like our. Our audience is like young guys trying to get their lives together. So you can't ask them for much. You feel bad like I'm. I constantly joke around calling them cheap, but I understand these guys are like struggling to get their lives in order. You know it's uh, but that's what. So I think a lot of these other guys are catering to the boomer audience because that's where the money is. But that generation is on its way out and they're gonna futurism.
Speaker 3:This, this is the futurism I was telling you on the phone about. Yeah, we need to be thinking, like 20 years from now, like what is? What is the landscape going to look like 20 years from now? Like what are the type of things we're going to be able to do 20 years from now, the type of people in different industries, different parts of the church we're going to be able to mobilize you eyes, just think about it. 30, 35, 40 years from now, you're going to have bishops who or you know who knows, cardinals even who have, like watched you know my YouTube channel or whatever, like that's a really weird thought, but I mean it's. That's just how the future is going to be. You're going to be getting people in the Anglosphere who are you know, they're watching content and they that's just a normal part of Catholic life. Just like you have bishops and cardinals and popes who read Scott Hahn Benedict XVI loved reading Scott Hahn You're going to have bishops and cardinals who watch Scholastic Answers on YouTube. It's a weird world to live in.
Speaker 2:We have seminarians and priests who watch our show. We do Som. Someday one of those might become a bishop or something like that. It's, uh, it's. I wonder what the trad movement looks like in 20 years when the michael matts aren't around anymore. Right like I. I really wonder, because I don't think it will be. I I don't think the like the, the tweed suit and and pipes and stuff like I don't know if that that translates yeah, that well, you know it, doesn't it?
Speaker 3:doesn't it really?
Speaker 3:I've I found that that shows like a very strong lack of authenticity that a lot of people they can't as Rob Lacey's mom yeah, rob's getting his mom out as we speak Like it doesn't transfer a lot very well to people.
Speaker 3:I feel like a lot of people have this they really like adhere very strongly to the principles of traditional Catholicism.
Speaker 3:They really adhere very strongly to the principles of traditional Catholicism. They're just not really into a lot of the ways in which the I think there's more of a Gen X, a little bit millennial, but more of a Gen X thing of the way in which that generation ordinarily will express traditionalism that's not super attractive to them. Traditionalism like that's not super, um, like attractive to them. And those are aspects that you know, as somebody who wants a lot of people to become a traditional catholic like I would say that I'm a traditional catholic in the broad sense um, as somebody who wants everyone to become a traditional catholic, I think it is very damaging to the movement to turn this into adherence to like external trappings or like mere accidental sort of aspects to it, rather than, you know, getting to the heart and soul of it, which is adherence to the faith and adherence to the traditional morals of the church, which must always be in front of us at all times.
Speaker 2:Right, like, of course you're a trad. Like, like what is a trad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a trad is somebody like who's not a liberal?
Speaker 2:yeah trad is just a catholic it's not just about the aesthetics of the latin mass, of course that is part of it, but it's, you know, like the what, what were we? What were we talking about? Christian, where you were talking about, like the, the people who downplay the, the morality, and like, like, there's something about those, those, that group of people who kind of like, don't they downplay the, the moral teachings of the church, but still want to go along with, I don't't know, I forgot. I forgot the conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah. There are a lot of people actually out there who go with a lot of the external trappings of traditional Catholicism but they actually are like extremely laxist when it comes to morality and that kind of like misses the whole point. Actually, if you're like a super laxist on morality and you kind of are just like Actually, if you're like a super laxist on morality and you kind of are just like you like the social environment of being within traditional Catholicism like just become a Jew, at that point, like what do you put in here to where there's not this sort of very stuffy and honestly, really boring.
Speaker 3:We need to be futurists. I want traditional Catholicism which is going to be very compatible with something that people would find very native to themselves and I guess I used to think differently than this something that people would find very native to themselves and I guess I used to think differently than this. But what really changed my mind on this is seeing how traditional Catholicism was like enculturated in among Muslim converts, like among all these Arab and Amazians, you know, other formerly Muslim ethnic groups, like all these different groups. Seeing traditional Catholicism, like we were literally, you know, in north africa, like celebrating tlm, like it was we heard the call to prayer in the back, like while we were celebrating tlm, it was awesome, but we were doing prostrations.
Speaker 3:Um, I mean, we were like a lot of people would say that's super weird, but it's like no, this was like normal. Like we didn't tell them to do a prostration here, like this was kind of like native to them, like this is what they. If they didn't do a prostration here, they would have sort of felt like they were dishonoring God. You know, reciting the rosary in the office, like this. It was quite amazing to see.
Speaker 2:But you know, I would, I want this, for you know, like white Americans, yeah, so I don't want some picture of a 1950s family, right, like I want to figure out how this thing coheres into the future, and that's what you're saying like being a futurist instead of a traditionalist. It's like you want to be a tribe, but not like the aesthetics of before. You want the traditional faith, you want the traditional liturgy, but it doesn't need to look like a package that was kind of presented to us, especially in the 2017 era. You know, and and I don't think I don't think that was anybody like purposely doing that. It was more just, um, guys who were exposed to it were, were trying to play the part, right. I think they were genuine in what they were doing, but then it kind of became a caricature and it became a LARP and stuff. And I want to see like a more natural flow into this and I want to know what it's going to look like in 10, 15 years.
Speaker 3:I think we've already done it, though, like, I think that it really became natural for a lot of us, like you. Look at the fact that a lot of I saw actually a lot of, I've seen a lot of like millennials and Gen Xers kind of like personally attack me because the specific way in which I create, you know, live stream content is very Zoomer-ish, like the fact that I have the type of mannerisms. I have explained things in the type of way that I do. A lot of people find it to be very zoomer coded the way that I speak, and they don't really like that. That's fine.
Speaker 3:Like, if you're a millennial or gen x or whatever, I could see why you would find the way in which different generations do things to be cringe, like, like by the. The feeling is mutual, but the feeling, like I, I find some of the ways in which you know they do things to be cringe as well. But I think a lot of the enculturation within discord circles, within Twitter circles, within YouTube circles, like a lot of the expert, like a, an expression that is Gen Z Catholicolicism, like it's already here and it's already happening and it's really um, a lot of the uh, the sort of weird larping tradisms have kind of just been mocked out of existence for a lot of gen z people yeah, and then you know.
Speaker 3:That's why it's it I like.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm messing with you, nick, if you're listening, it's why I like getting you on too, though, because, like, we're not that far apart in age, but there is like a gap between my generation and yours, that that that needs to. You know that there. There needs to be where Gen Z can can be around older guys and feel like they're not awkward around the older guys. We've got to figure out a way to make all of this. One thing I don't know. I remember because I've always been around older guys from being at work, but a lot of these guys are just online all the time. They're not around adults a lot, especially like normal adults. I don't know, I don't know. I wonder what, like the average, the? What do you go to? You go to a um, uh, an ordinary parish right now, me, no, no, my.
Speaker 3:The ordinary parish is like two hours away, so I'm a member there, but I just go to a normal novus or I'm a type two novus ordoid how far is the nearest tlm to you?
Speaker 3:um, it would be, uh, saint. Well, it used to be saint marks, which was like 25 ish minutes away from me, but they axed their friday tlm, so sunday tlm would be saint thomas aquinas, saint anne's, you know, and that conglomeration of Charlotte, um TLMs which are which are in purgatory right now. But I just I've, um, I've never really been. I love going to a TLM, like I'll. I'll go a few times a year and I really enjoy it every time I go to a TLM, like just sitting there and and just absorbing what is being said, and the way in which it's being said just brings out the meaning so much I'm able to contemplate very well. There's the exigencies of bringing my family to mass.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know both of you do it and both of you are able to do it well, but I'd just rather I wouldn't say well, struggle every week just survive. It happens, but yeah going to nova, sort of 15 minutes away from me, and it's just convenient, that's just convenience have you checked out where you're moving, what the power situation is?
Speaker 2:yet?
Speaker 3:yeah, so, um, in bismarck. So I'm moving to bismarck, north dakota, it's awesome. But there are, they have a. They have like um, a lot of novus ordos. One sspx um, a tlm like 45 minutes away. But actually a lot of the clerics in the diocese are very, very interested in celebrating the latin novus ordo. So I was talking with them about that and um, I was telling them about you know some of the different documents of the church about the latin novus Ordo. So I was talking with them about that and um, no, I was telling them about you know some of the different documents of the church about the Latin Novus Ordo and they're, you know, I was being, I was being, uh, you know the Zoomer, the Zoomer autism of being like, well, you know, st Paul said that you got to celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin. And they're like, yeah, well, my professor said back in seminary that he banned the latin in the mass, I was like no, he didn't mean that.
Speaker 3:Um, have you ever read this? But you know I was having having some conversations. They're really a lot of them really want to do that, so I would be an instant attendant at a latin novasordo. That's like my, my dream. I'm just type two novasordo, white latin, like boom, I'm locked.
Speaker 2:I would like to see the younger generation like really pushing for tradition in the liturgy, whether it's a novus ordo or not, like I really want to see. I want to see the younger generation going to their priest, going to their bishop and putting up a stink about this stuff because you guys put enough pressure on for a long enough time.
Speaker 3:Maybe you get, maybe we'll get somewhere but I, I think that this is honestly that is the most important part, where, um, I I think, like the, the obviously clearly in the tradition, like the main locus of our spiritual life is the mass. The mass well said, and the mass fruitfully uh received, um, the, the text meditated on well, et cetera, et cetera, like uniting ourselves properly to the sacrifice, understanding the ends of the sacrifice, the mass, why it's here. This is the most important part of the Catholic life and the fact that for most Catholics, it isn't not because of necessarily or entirely a defect on their part, but because of the, the corny and absurd ways in which the mass is normally presented. It's just, it's one of the worst tragedies and I, I just hope and pray that we will have a Pope that focuses on liturgical reform and that's like the doctrinal stuff is very important and I, like my heart is very close there.
Speaker 3:Reforming the seminaries, you know, reforming, kicking out, you know, heterodox priests and theologians, but I really think, for the normal lay faithful, that the liturgical reform and actually reforming it, you know you could complain about the changes that happened. You know, after Vatican II with the Novus Ordo, missae know you could complain about the changes that happened. You know um, after vatican two with the, the nova sort of me say you can complain about all that stuff. I'm sure both of you would agree if the entire world was celebrating in accordance with the rubrics, the nova sort of saint john can't?
Speaker 3:he is everywhere yeah, like I'm sure you would agree, like, okay, yeah, I wouldn't like it, but you know I wouldn't make a stink about it, sort of thing. Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:My issue is that the majority of parishes out there are just a liturgical wasteland and people are not. You know, it's hard for people to connect in any meaningful way with the liturgy when it's celebrated the way it is in the majority of parishes. That's all. But all right, we're gonna. We're gonna call this one a night. Uh, almost two hours, I'm exhausted. I need sleep. Um, rob, you got guns and rosaries tomorrow, right? Yep? Uh, christian, what do you got?
Speaker 3:coming up, so I'll be streaming on wednesday with limbo. Uh, we're going to be talking about some of the Vatican insider stuff. I wanted to interview him about the ways in which the Vatican works and how things are decided and stuff like that. So I just found it to be an interesting interview, so we'll be talking about some of that. The after show will be about a little bit of the interesting stuff he's heard at the Vatican about the content creator sphere, and then Friday I'll be doing another installment of my pope leo series all right man, all right christian, I've, uh, I've you, you, you and I've.
Speaker 2:I'm like really glad that you and I became friends and uh that we've uh, yeah, it's gay but I don't care I really do enjoy like, because, because you and I talk a lot behind the scenes now and I like running ideas by you, I like having somebody younger to spit ideas at and get a little help on the content side of things, because you're very good at it. Thank you, yeah, appreciate everything you're doing. Brother, we'll talk soon. Absolutely, I'll talk to you later. All right, take us doing. Brother, we'll talk soon. Absolutely, I'll talk to you later. All right, take us out, rob. Thank you.
