Faithful in the Crisis: A Priest's Advice for Catholics w/ Fr. Amato (Full LOCALS Show)

Death has a way of walking into the room without asking permission. We start with a real, late-night phone call about a sudden loss, then follow the ripple effects: the shock that hits a family, the unique weight a spouse carries, and the reality that priests live close to death far more often than most people realize. That honest starting point pushes us into the questions Catholics sometimes avoid until it’s too late: What should we do when someone is dying, and what does the Church actually offer in those final days?

We dig into the practical Catholic details around anointing of the sick, last rites, confession, and viaticum, including a clear takeaway many families need to hear: call the priest earlier, while your loved one can still participate and receive real consolation. We also talk Catholic cremation, what respectful treatment of remains looks like, and why modern habits like delaying burial can keep grief stuck instead of healing.

From there the conversation opens up into the interior battle. What does “cast your anxieties on Christ” mean in real life, not as a caption? We connect God’s providence to concrete spiritual practices like Eucharistic adoration, and we address Gen Z scrupulosity and the difficulty of believing God’s love is personal. Along the way we also touch aliens and the limits of revelation, spiritual warfare versus mental illness, confession culture, marriage boundaries in a social media age, and why secrecy is often where spiritual collapse begins.

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Transcript

Welcome And Priestly Radio Life

SPEAKER_06 0:30

Stupid Rob never changed the intro video for me. That was what we did on the that's what we did when we did the last um the last history show. Just as a countdown. Yeah. He thinks like I know how to do things, and it's really frustrating. He's supposed to take care of everything for me, and he just trusts me.

SPEAKER_09 0:49

It's better. Just get just gets right, it just gets right into it. So don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_06 0:53

Uh, how have you been, Father?

SPEAKER_09 0:55

I've been great. A lot going on, good things, but uh it's good to be back on the show.

SPEAKER_06 0:59

So for anybody that doesn't know, this is uh my friend Father Anthony Amato. Um he's uh you you're sometimes a guest on um what what radio uh show do you do?

SPEAKER_09 1:10

Ask a priest live through the uh the station of the cross, the Catholic radio station. And um I kind of was one of the priests who started that show. It was uh I was the only diostetan priest on it at the time. It was uh FSSP and Institute priest. And um, so I did it for two years and then they um they changed the schedule to noon, and uh which is when my daily masses are. And so I like I said, okay, well, it's probably time to do uh do something else, especially with all the other things I had going on, confirmation class, the men's group we were starting. So I was like, well, two years is a lot of episodes. That's like it was like 30, 40 episodes. I caught, but you did one recently, right? Yeah, so they had their uh spring fundraiser uh last month or so. And uh so they said, Hey, when you want to come back on. So I went into the studio, drove to Buffalo to do it live in the studio. So it was that was a lot of fun. I like I like that. So I told them I'd do it occasionally, you know, for a device schedule.

SPEAKER_06 2:00

Because I caught it and I'm like, man, I don't think I could ever do like professional radio. Yeah, they're just so professional, like everything is so professional. I had um I had a huge argument with my wife the tonight because she didn't like the sign. She thinks the sign doesn't look very professional.

SPEAKER_05 2:19

I don't think I don't I don't think she understands the show's supposed to be on professional.

SPEAKER_09 2:24

Is it like a neon sign?

SPEAKER_05 2:25

It's a neon sign.

SPEAKER_06 2:26

I can sign like I can change like the the uh the brightness on it and stuff. It's pretty uh it's pretty bad. But like if I go too bright, it'll it'll blare out on the on the screen. But um yeah, so I'll we'll keep it low. It's fine. Um yeah, so I caught yeah, I caught that episode and I was like, oh my goodness, I don't think I could ever do radio. It's just they're they're super professional, and and then they they threw you on the spot with a question that you didn't know the answer to.

SPEAKER_09 3:00

Yeah, I was just like, I wasn't ready for I think it was that the uh the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Like, I know that, but I was just like, I wasn't ready for that, that kind of thing, but we got it eventually. We got it, yeah. Yeah, the way everything's like timed and scripted, and it's just a different genre, you know, than what we're you're dealing with here, you know.

SPEAKER_06 3:15

I was um I was on John Henry Weston's show one time, and uh he starts to show off with uh Ave Maria in Latin, and he throws the second half to me, and I'm like, No, I did remember it, it was okay. I didn't remember when you're put on the spot like that. But um, so uh before we get into anything, because I have a few things I wanted to talk to you about tonight,

Sponsors, Rosaries, And Pilgrimage Talk

SPEAKER_06 3:40

but I have um I have another um knick-knack success story. Okay, please. Possibly two. And so here's the thing. I can't I don't know if I can prove this scientifically, but I'm I'm I'm going to Italy on a pilgrimage in a few months, and a couple of the guys that are coming on the pilgrimage are married, and they bought knick-knacks. I just got uh messaged by two different guys that their wives are pregnant, and I don't know if we can prove it scientifically, but I think the knick-knacks might be like a super enhancer of fertility. I'm not sure. I mean, not sure. I buy it. I buy it, yeah. Can I get away with saying something like that? It's gotta be true. Yeah, I don't I don't know if I'm gonna get in trouble for that. I am not a doctor, I'm not a scientist. All I know is there's a couple of guys who are coming to Italy with us, and uh they took knick knacks, and now their wives are pregnant and they can't come. So, not just knick-knacks. So go to knick knack.com, use code AB25. Oh man, I better pull the banners up. I never get these right. Hold on. Um media asks that. What am I supposed to do here, Rob? I hate when he doesn't tell me what to do. I don't know, guys. What is it? Is it A B25 or A B25? Where does he keep this stuff? Oh, I got it.

SPEAKER_05 5:06

Wait, I don't know where it is.

SPEAKER_06 5:10

A B25 for 25% off your first purchase, AB 10 for 10 off uh subsequent purchases. Nick Knacks does contain nicotine, it has it is a nicotine product. Nicotine is an addictive substance. Go to nicknack.com. Um, and the other thing is I sent you a uh Black Monk rosary.

SPEAKER_09 5:28

You did.

SPEAKER_06 5:28

You did. Am I lying when I say it is the most heavy-duty rosary you've ever had? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_09 5:35

Yeah, absolutely is. No, I love it. I love it. I'm gonna keep it in my dresser right now. I'm gonna get it in my car. It's gonna be just indestructible.

SPEAKER_06 5:43

We uh we yeah, we sent one uh as a as a gift to Father Amado. And uh I it's it's my favorite, my favorite rosary. So go to Black Monk Rosaries, you use uh code Avoiding Babylon to checkout, and

Sudden Death And Priestly Ministry

SPEAKER_06 5:55

they'll give you 10% off. So um, so last night my wife got a phone call um at around midnight. And uh our like our our very close friends, my wife's best friend. Um I'm like pretty I I think it's weird when guys say they're best friends, but like her husband and his husband and I are very close. And uh they were supposed to be coming, they live on Pennsylvania and they're supposed to be coming to Long Island today to help her parents pack the house up because they were moving to Florida. And my wife got a phone call at midnight last night that her friend's mother, uh her friend's father, died. Like he went up to go to bed. He told his wife, uh, I'm gonna go up, I'm gonna put my pajamas on, I'm gonna lay down. He went upstairs, and when she went up to bed like a half hour later, he just he just died like unexpectedly. And it made me think about like how how often you have to deal with death as a priest. Yeah, like it because because death is one death is one of those things where we go we kind of go through our lives pretending we're not going to die. And then every once in a while somebody close to us dies and it hits us like a freight train. But as a priest, it's a constant thing you're dealing with because you have parishioners and they're you're dealing with their extended family and their friends and things like that, right?

SPEAKER_09 7:16

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. You asked me uh today. Uh, so it was 30 years ago, um, uh Friday. It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend 30 years ago that my my grandfather had died. Um, he was only 62, and uh he was a barber, and as he was cutting someone's hair, just dropped dead, died of a heart attack. And I was uh I was nine years old. So that was my first experience of death. Because you know, when you're a kid, hopefully you have this very stable, you know, life. Things don't really change, you know, you don't really move, parents are together and so forth. But that was like the first experience of um the things aren't always going to be the same, right? And so I experienced that, you know, pretty early on, and it was it was you know pretty shocking. But now as uh as a priest with a lot of experience of that, not just with funerals, actually, uh funerals aren't so bad because usually don't you don't like see the person they're in the coffin, or these days they tend to be cremated.

SPEAKER_06 8:10

Um, but when you're in the hospital, is there real is there a lot of Catholic cremations?

SPEAKER_09 8:15

The vast majority. Yeah, what? Yeah. Interesting enough, Italians tend not to cremate. But that's just my scientific, unscientific uh experiment. That um, yes, I get a lot, a lot of cremations. Yeah. I don't know if that's just around here or if that's pretty common. But um yeah, that that's I think that's most people what they're experiencing. But I think it's actually harder dealing with someone who's dying rather than someone who has who has died. Um, you know, I just the other day go to the hospital to anoint someone who's on, you know, end of life care and they're it's a bad scene. You know, I've knew this person for a few years now in the nursing home, and to see them in such a state is different. I think it's so you have to find this balance between being emotionally invested enough to know to the family, and the person knows your you care for them, right? But you you can't let it like destroy your day or anything, really, right? You have to go on like tonight, you have to go like, okay, I have to go anoint this person who's in their their

Last Rites, Anointing, And Cremation

SPEAKER_09 9:15

final agony, and then um go meet with a couple for marriage prep.

SPEAKER_06 9:20

You know, so okay, so so so Keith Nestor, um, his wife just went in for surgery um the other day. His his wife had to go in for surgery. Keith Nestor's wife was diagnosed with breast breast cancer, and he said he he tweeted out that his wife he it was the first time he had ever experienced the anointing of the sick. Um but the anointing of the sick is only part of last rites, correct? Right? Like because you can only get last rites once, can't you?

SPEAKER_09 9:50

Well, yeah, so we use the last rites as a the term for like the multiplicity of the sacraments would be confession, anointing of the sick, and usually the apostolic pardon. Um communion would be, you know, including the viaticum. So yeah, you people would call it the last rites typically when they're you know uh pretty sure they're they're going to die very soon.

SPEAKER_06 10:11

But technically you would you would do all those same sacraments when someone is going into major surgery, you know, except for the apostolic pardon, I would assume but you you can get the anointing of the sick multiple times.

SPEAKER_09 10:22

Yeah, yeah. So if you again go face, are you going if you're going under general anesthesia? That's you know a pretty good time to do the anointing of the sick because you just don't know what's going to happen. And if you're going to um and someone is going to die, you know, very soon is pretty clear. Or if you anoint them and they end up recovering. If they're in the hospital, they recover, they come out, you they can be anointed later if their condition gets worse, even uh significantly worse. Um look at the making point of wife, by the way.

SPEAKER_06 10:52

Have I ever received last rights or something? I don't know. What's the point of asking a priest? What do you gonna Yeah?

SPEAKER_09 10:59

So it's um yeah, it's important, I think, because most people, most people, the vast majority of people, these people who are at mass every Sunday, don't know, I think, about about that. I I my experience has been that people, the fam, the families think that if you call the priest to anoint their loved one, is that they're it's like they don't call the priest until they're ready to give up on their loved one. Like I'm ready to let go of my loved one who's clearly dying. And so now I'm gonna call the priest rather than letting their loved one have the consolation of the sacraments while they're still fully conscious, right?

SPEAKER_06 11:36

Yeah, and especially, especially confession before before that that point, right?

SPEAKER_09 11:42

Gary, because that's one of the one of my favorite lines in the uh the litany of the saints. Um, we're asking when one in the petitions part, uh asking God uh to protect us from an unprovided death, you know, and that's one of the most important petitions, right? That are that we be provided for um by the sacraments.

SPEAKER_06 12:01

That death is such a crazy thing because we were we're like we were talking, I was talking to Nicole about this. Like um, so our like our friend Tina lost her dad and she's devastated, uh, and so are her kids. But I know in a couple of weeks, there's some there's something that's not unnatural about losing a parent, even if even if they pass young, there's something natural about losing your mother or your father, right? And yeah, you you you know, you you are going to have a heavy grieving process, but then after a few months, it's it's going to be like the big events, the you know, when your kids get married or a sweet 16. Those are gonna be the times that are difficult, a birthday when the when the father's birthday comes, the anniversary of his death comes. But it's nothing like when a parent loses a child, like there's something so un like we were talking about it. If like if you lose one of your children, there's something that I don't know if you ever go about your life the same without thinking of your child every single day of your life.

SPEAKER_09 13:04

Right. No, I yeah. I mean, I don't think I've I mean, I've been with people who've experienced miscarriage, you know, and that's yeah, some people can be pretty devastated, you know, for that. And but I've never I don't think I've experienced that where someone has lost a child, you know, um between ages of birth and any any age really. I mean, and and it's certainly a young child anyway, so yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:29

Do you have to if for those people that are doing the cremation, because the like uh under Francis, they released uh a document on cremation because people were yeah mistreating the remains, right? So I g I guess cremation is technically allowed as a Catholic. Yeah, it was never it was never ever encouraged, but people would like hand knickknacks like trinkets with the ashes in them and give them to different, and they would kind of separate the body from each other, right? Oh, it's wild.

SPEAKER_09 13:57

It's wild. I I have I haven't seen, I mean, I've heard people doing that. I haven't seen like Catholics uh doing that for you. I think at least for the most part, some things I've seen. I mean, the worst I've seen is that people will like not bury the the remains, they will just keep on the keep them on the mantle or something. I'm like, look, we gotta bury like your father or something. They're like, no, we're not ready yet. Like, what is what does that mean?

SPEAKER_06 14:25

Why would you want to keep the remains on the mantle?

SPEAKER_09 14:27

Yeah, that seems a lot worse. That seems a lot worse, uh, to me. Like, why would you I wouldn't never want to do that? Like, would you if it was if it was not cremated, would if it was bot his body was in the coffin, would you keep him around? Like that'd be that'd be crazy.

SPEAKER_06 14:42

Like how um how serious of a surgery does it have to be? Because uh people are saying like um uh for for the anointing of the sick, like does it have to be a very serious surgery, surgery you're going in for?

SPEAKER_09 14:54

I would say if you go under general anesthesia, you can be anointed. Yeah, so if you're unconscious, you're out. Um because like no matter what the surgery is, if you're no longer conscious and you're under general anesthesia, like you're there's a chance you won't wake up. Yeah. Um, so I just yeah, I think that's I think the um the rubrics provide for that. Um, so you can be anointed for that.

SPEAKER_06 15:19

Um, I also I had um I had a friend. Oh, I know Bobby's asked me. Uh yeah, yeah, Bobby. It's Tina and Mike. Uh Tina's Tina's Tina's father passed last night at midnight. So Bob Bobby knows knows uh the couple. Um yeah, my wife is just like in shock from this whole thing.

SPEAKER_09 15:39

And then um his name's Keith. Keith. Well, you turn over the soul to him, oh Lord. Let perpetual light shine upon him. He has soul and the souls of all the faithful departed to the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

SPEAKER_06 15:51

Um, yeah, it was just like one of those things where like I you know, I wasn't planning on talking about that tonight, but it was just it kind of just was my whole day was just thinking about about her and her whole family, what they're going through. And just like her mom, right? Like you, you know, talk you you lose your father, that's one thing, but like how do you go? You there is something so um uh like if you lose a spouse, you lose a part of yourself. Like, there's a the you know, if you if if C. S. Lewis's grief observed is probably the best book to give somebody who's going through grief, but and he wrote it after he lost his wife, and it's like there's something so profound about the loss of a spouse because the two really do become one in a very real way. So I don't I mean, I just I don't know how her poor her poor mom's

Anxiety, Providence, And Eucharistic Prayer

SPEAKER_06 16:40

gonna get through these next yeah. Um but uh yeah, then uh there was uh my friend my friend Jason had uh texted us last night and I think I think he's going through something heavy and he he just said how does casting your anxieties and worries on Christ actually work, like in reality, it's not it's something you know we say oh cast your worries on Christ, and uh he asked me and I said, you know, I don't I don't know if I can give you a a great answer for that, other than um like really whatever you're going through, kind of just understand that it's in God's providence and and maybe you'll see it in hindsight. And I said, honestly, you should really just go sit before the blessed sacrament and just give it away.

SPEAKER_09 17:28

You know, I noticed from my own um experiences as a priest. Um, you know, of course, speaking of priests, I have more uh more access to uh to being in front of the blessed sacrament. Obviously, I think as you said, that's uh that's really important. Um, and because you're speaking not only to to Christ that is in his divinity, but in his humanity present there in the Blessed Sacrament too, right? So you can see yourself there with him speaking to him. But I know from difficult situations that I've just had to deal with just as a priest, um, that it's in those those moments, those really difficult moments, that you realize that I am completely at the mercy of God. And you don't know those things. You don't understand God's um, well, you understand God's providence, but the reality of of God's providence doesn't is not clear to you when you're in control, when you or at least you feel like you're in control and things are going well, or it's only when things are are shattered or potentially so that you realize, oh, I have not yet abandoned myself to God's providence. And but what's required first, I think, for that is to to abandon yourself is just a trust in God's actual love for you. You know, if you if you believe that that God actually loves you and wants you to be with him, and that everything he gives you is some in some way, somehow is for your good, for you to grow in virtue, to learn something about him, then you're going to that's how you're going to eventually abandon yourself to him, you know. And um the you know, two books on that you probably have read them. Uh, I think it's Kausad's book. Um I probably read them. I don't know if you've talked to.

SPEAKER_06 19:14

I only read I only read Rob Gives Me Homework.

SPEAKER_09 19:18

There's the abandonment to Divine Providence and actually I've read that surrender to divine providence. Or uh I forgot who wrote which one uh right now, but those books are extremely powerful. I know people have read those 20 times, and we have to keep learning those lessons over and over again. Um, but yes, um it's yeah, it's kind of kind of nuts.

SPEAKER_06 19:38

Like when you're going through something, you think, especially those from personal experience, those moments in my life when I thought I was the furthest from God, where I I, you know, you have that where you think God has completely abandoned you and you have no connection to God. I've I've seen in hindsight, looking back, that I mean it's a stupid footprints prayer, right? Oh man, it's so it's so cheesy, but it really is one of those things where everyone, yeah, the stupid footprints prayer. Oh, that was when you were carrying me. No, but there's like something very real about that. Uh, I especially um at probably the toughest points of my marriage when I thought my marriage was going to fall apart, and like me and my wife were going through stuff, and um just different different stages in in in my own life where I was in really bad shape. And then you kind of it's not maybe it's not that you were the closest to God at the moment, but that God was using those experiences for his providence to bring you into a deeper relationship. Well, all things work for good for those who trust in God, essentially, right? Like the the horrible things that happen to us, God will still use those. Right.

SPEAKER_09 20:50

The hard part is that the is the the the not knowing what the what the future is, right? Because you you want to understand right now, and but this is really the the fundamental act of faith is the the is is trust, right? It's entering into that uh that relationship of trust that I don't see everything, I don't know everything, I can't possibly know everything. That's but I do trust that God does, and that and trust in his confidence and his love and his mercy. So whatever it is I'm going through now, that but I know that as you mentioned, this is going to make sense some at some point, but I I can't see it now. I just have to keep going through this this darkness, um, knowing that there's there's light there. And where does that light come from? Well, uh, we always see that light just beaming, you know, from pulsing from the tabernacle. Um I always like to see the plus the sacrament, even as the the tabernacle itself is like the the beating heart, right? The sacred heart of our Lord. And I think you see it like that, you can just feel that pulse of of our Lord's heart coming from from the heart from the center of the church. And

Aliens, Revelation, And The Spiritual Realm

SPEAKER_09 21:55

what's more attractive than that, you know?

SPEAKER_06 21:58

Um I uh Just to change gears a little bit. I I want uh so I watch your homilies every week. I listen to your homilies every week. I that uh they're so I used to I used to listen to uh with my kids, I used to listen to Father Mike Schmidt's homilies with my kids on the way to church. We we've replaced our Father Mike Schmidt's homilies. Wow. Father Mike Schmidt.

SPEAKER_09 22:19

Oh my goodness. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 22:21

No, but they're always they're always so interested. I'll I'll I can't I would tell you guys I'd post the link to his his parish website, but I don't know how to do that stuff. So um I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 22:34

DM me and I'll give it a if you go, yeah, if you go on my parish's website, you'll see the live stream. And then what I do is I have a SoundCloud account, which is mostly for music. I I discovered SoundCloud because I was listening to the Tomistic Institute and they post their stuff on there. But I record most of my homilies uh for my Sunday homilies, and I pick what I think is the best one and post it on SoundCloud. Um so I post the best one on SoundCloud, and um, but you can watch the live stream too because it this live streams at eight o'clock, so I'm like, I'm not in my in my rhythm yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um that's why I post on SoundCloud. But in any case, yeah, well, thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_06 23:16

Yeah, so all right, so so I caught uh your your homily last week was you dove into the alien topic, and you were the first priest I have ever heard give a homily on aliens. And I had I had just uh I I I screen recorded it and I posted it to my to my Twitter account because I just wanted other people to hear the homily because I just had uh Joshua Charles and and uh Daniel O'Connor on about this. Yeah, the the alien thing is such a weird thing to me when I see Catholics trying to downplay like the seriousness of this issue that you're kind of playing around with the idea that God's rev revelation wasn't fully given to us, right? And like we as Catholics we believe that the fullness of God's revelation ended with the last of the apostles, right? So like you you jumped into that a little bit, and it was really people people don't I I don't think they see the fundamental issue, right?

SPEAKER_09 24:20

I think if they can be made more aware of it, which I which I tried to do. Um, because and I I wanted to preach in that for a couple of reasons. One, I saw your episode with Daniel O'Connor and and Joshua Charles. The next day, Daniel posted like a think it was like the next day, a three-hour video, which is basically his Facebook.

SPEAKER_05 24:36

Daniel's like Daniel's nuts in this topic.

SPEAKER_09 24:39

He's just going, he's just going. Like, and uh it and it was fantastic. And so, and then on Monday, I had our like our men's group, and the topic came up on that. So I was like, I should probably preach a homily on aliens. So by the end of the week, I was went to the first hour of Daniel's video, and um again, and I was like, okay, so give me some give me some good references here, and just pulled that, pulled that together in like an hour or so. Um and yeah, because I think the the fundamental issue really, what it comes down to is if you can show from the data of tradition and scripture that man is unique amongst intelligent beings in the universe, that is beings and uh the corporeal intelligent beings, uh, other than the angels. If you can show that definitively, then that would rule out aliens, uh, because what you're are other intelligence beings in the universe, because to have an intellect and a will is therefore is necessarily ordered towards God. I mean, ultimately, and therefore we need a savior.

SPEAKER_06 25:44

For for me, it's we we say our lady is the crown of God's creation, yeah, right? She is the crown of God's creation. So, this idea that there could be these beings that are that I mean, they would have to be superior to us if they're from another planet traveling through galaxies to get here, like they would have to be superior. Be like the theological issues that come up if you if you believe this are preposterous. I have no issue believing there is something here that is a non-human intelligence that has always been here and that the ancients always had a category for, but then once you get to the enlightenment, materialism kind of gets rid of that category for people, right? Like, like you get you get to the enlightenment and they want to write off all the things that the medieval's believed as superstition. So any encounters with the demonic, any encounters with these non-human intelligences just gets written off as just crazy lunacy, mental illness, things like that. But like the the the people in the ancient world actually understood this stuff way better than we do.

SPEAKER_09 26:56

And they had a yeah, they had a far greater understanding, and just read the gospels, you know, and you'll see that they had a far greater understanding of the deep and abiding relationship between the the spiritual world and the material world. I mean, look at like would anyone think like today, when someone is physically ill, um, for example, it's some kind of long-term illness, that by casting out that you they think to cast out the devil from them and they would be physically better. Usually it doesn't happen, right? Yeah um, but you see that in the gospel, right? You see the forgiveness and the forgiveness of sins, it's of course a spiritual reality, and and it's some kind of a physical malady, usually are going hand in hand very often in the scriptures.

SPEAKER_06 27:40

Um we just especially, especially, especially when Paul says, Are any of you unwell? Right? Like Paul's talking about the the Eucharist making people sick. Like there's something I think we I don't think we grasp what he's getting at in that, right? Right, he he's equating demonic possession to illness. When when he's saying, Are any of you ill? Yeah, and yeah, I don't like you're you're receiving he he equates receiving the body and blood of Christ in a state of Yeah, what is he talking about?

SPEAKER_09 28:15

Is there a physical illness, a spiritual illness he's talking about? Yeah, you're kind of breaking up on me here, by the way. Yeah, you're breaking up and then kind of uh it was just like I think you're a little behind. Okay, I think it's good now.

SPEAKER_06 28:33

I think it's good. Oh no. Are we uh are we lagging? Oh no, we have a lag.

SPEAKER_09 28:40

Now we have a lag. Uh oh.

unknown 28:44

Oh no.

SPEAKER_09 28:44

Hold on. How about now? I mean, I think it may be a few seconds.

unknown 28:52

Oh no.

SPEAKER_09 28:54

Oh no. I don't know if I don't know. Well we'll think we're gonna try it. So I think there's a um besides the theological issues with the the alien question, I think there's just some logical issues that people need to like think, just kind of think about. Like, for example, um, you know, why would we even think about aliens if it wasn't something that was just such a common part of our media is experience? Like starting with like, you know, uh, let's say Star Trek, you know, like was it the late 50s, probably early 60s, and then up until all your all the great shows and movies that involve actually terrestrial life, you know, great stories, fun stories. But would that be in our consciousness like now, thinking this is a real possibility or then just science fiction? I don't know. I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 29:43

Okay, so the because I in some ways I feel like trad's Trad's like uh what some of some of the um uh some of some of the exorcism, exercise seeing exorcist stuff, like I feel like that's like like trad corn.

SPEAKER_05 30:02

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 30:03

Like I feel like I feel like it's um it's almost like I equate it sometimes to um apparition chasing, where people just want to hear the next apparition that's going to predict the next thing, and you're seeing what what our lady's message was in this place and uh do you think that um especially like more traditional Catholics? Do you think they make too much of the demonic or not enough? Do you think mental illness is under like under prescribed or over-prescribed? Like

Demonic Claims Versus Mental Illness

SPEAKER_06 30:35

what what have your experiences been with this?

SPEAKER_09 30:38

Yeah, the issue of the relationship between mental illness and demonic activity is a difficult one. I actually just went to uh a conference on this uh on Monday. Actually, just this Monday on that very question. Um, and it is it can be very difficult. Now, there are distinct criteria um when you're talking about, say, various mental illnesses, schizophrenia, depression, so forth, um, and demonic possession, specifically possession. But when you get into different types of diabolic activity, what we call someone would call oppression um or other such thing, lesser things than that, uh obsession, it gets very difficult to determine what exactly is going on with someone. Um, and because but because the relationship between the spiritual reality and the material reality of our of our being, not surprising that there's you know often an overlap. And the best thing to do, really, I mean, any the best, I would say, uh, I wouldn't say the best exorcism, but the best way to be rid of the influence of the devil is a good confession. Yeah. You know, make a good confession and return to the regular practice of the sacraments. And yes, it'll take time, but um exorcisms from what I I hear from these priests on the internet can take a very long time, too, you know. But but those only happen when someone is like already striving to live in a state of grace.

SPEAKER_06 32:09

I I man, uh I gotta be careful because it's another close family friend. But uh we my wife and I have another friend who we grew up with, and um she's struggling with with some kind of mental illness, right? And she's she supposedly has schizophrenia or was schizophrenia, I don't know how you pronounce it, but um, we were at like a Halloween party with her, and she was explaining to my wife how she sees things and hears voices and all this stuff. And my wife was like, You mean like right now? She's like, Yes, I I hear the voice right now while I'm speaking to you. And all I'm thinking while she's telling my wife this is you're a Catholic, you need to go to confession. Like, I'm I'm I it felt like you don't need medication, you don't need a doctor, you need to go to confession and you need to go receive communion. You need like that's that's all I could say because she's been going to doctors for years, struggling with this thing, but she hasn't gone to mass once. Oh, and yeah, everything she describes sounds sounded like demonic possession.

SPEAKER_09 33:13

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, yeah, you might could be schizophrenia or um schizoaffective disorder, you know, if she's having hallucinations, um, yeah, or or delusions. I don't know if there are delusions involved, but like that's um from what I've read. And that's yeah, that's that's a difficult thing. But if you're hearing like but so many people do hear voices, uh like they're schizophrenic, that's what they're hearing. But yeah, where is that line? I mean, you really got to sit down with someone and get their whole story. Um say, well, when did this come about? How did this how do you think this kind of thing came about? Was it always there, or was it something that came about after a specific event? Were you playing with like tarot cards? Like, and then all of a sudden you start hearing these voices.

SPEAKER_06 33:55

Probably was. This person specifically is probably playing with crystals and all that that I uh yeah. Next time I see her, I'm gonna bring holy water and throw it on. The power of Christ compels you and see what happens. Um, this is a good one. No, wait, Father,

Learning God’s Love Amid Scruples

SPEAKER_06 34:10

I have a quick question. If if if all right, guys, if you want to ask Father a question, you got a super chat. Is that Simony? I'm gonna charge people to ask you questions.

SPEAKER_09 34:19

Is that's not that's a good no, because I'm not getting the money. You are.

SPEAKER_06 34:23

I'm getting the money, right? Right. All right, so this is actually a good question because I know a lot of young guys like this. And so the question is a question for father. I'm a gen Z young adult struggling with believing that God could actually love me on a personal level and trusting in his love for me. How do I learn to believe in his love? And I've heard this a few times, especially with the younger guys. Yeah, um, I think scrupulosity um and despair is something very big amongst Gen Z. And I don't know if it has a lot to do with their online constantly, things like that. But I I I have some insight on my advice, but I would let I want to hear what you would have to say.

SPEAKER_09 35:06

Um I don't know what our questioners you know struggling with or what you know his sins are and all that, but various sins can bring about a sense of uh shame, you know, to think that we've done things that make it so that God doesn't love me, or I don't have tangible signs of God's love. You know, um one remedy, there's a reason why so many of the saints will tell us meditate upon the cross of Christ. Like you get a nice crucifix and meditate upon that, because there's no greater sign of our Lord of our Lord's love for you than than his cross. Um do you need you need greater proof? Um well, if you need greater proof, then you can see the living God in the tabernacle. Um that's as I mentioned earlier, the see that as the very beating heart of God. You know, then that's the same heart that you that John the Apostle, you know, you know, heard beating at the Last Supper, and he laid his head upon our Lord's chest at the Last Supper. Um, you get that experience too. No one understands the greater, no apostle understood that greater love of God than than John as he as he wrote about that so frequently. But, you know, immerse yourself in the writings of the saints on that particular topic. You know, you need those ideas filling your head. I mean, if I were sitting down with you, uh questioner, I would ask, okay, like what does your day look like in terms of what are you reading on the internet, even if it's not impure material or whatever. Um you're filling your mind with things that are going to contribute to your knowledge of the love of God or or just other things, you know, other things.

SPEAKER_06 36:47

Like I think I think those guys have to be careful reading the scholastics and moral manual. Sure. Yeah, I'm thinking more of the spiritual text of like um there's a million, there's a million things.

SPEAKER_09 37:01

Uh, even even some newer things.

SPEAKER_06 37:02

It doesn't have to be something from the 13th century or something, but um uh I'm trying to think of no, I'm I'm so I I because because the guys I've encountered, they're they're they tend to be these younger guys who fall in love with the traditional faith, and then they will start reading like Saint Alphonsus, and they get like they I think they feel overwhelmed and they get really scrupulous. Because look, you if you if you're reading from some of these saints, these are saints who have you know they're not they're like they're barely committing venial sin, and they're and they're talking about things like the fewness who were saved, and man, that like some of some of those saints you'll read and you will feel like holy cow, nobody's going to heaven. You know, it's like and I think if you have a certain kind of temperament, you you do have to be on guard for certain certain reading materials, and then there's probably um reading material from that time period from different kinds of saints that may speak more to help you with the with that area, possibly.

SPEAKER_09 38:08

Yeah, I mean, again, is it if someone is struggling with a particularly moral issue, um then yeah, I mean, but if it's just this overall sense of of the love of God, I mean there are plenty of good of spiritual writings of the saints that don't involve specific moral questions. There's a reason why these moral manuals are written in Latin, we're written in Latin, right? Because so because when the common person might read them, um, if they're written in a vernacular language, you these problems, you know, problems may happen where you someone might come scrupulous and things like that. You need someone who has a a sense of the bigger picture, like uh perhaps they're their priest, who can guide someone to help them understand from an objective uh perspective uh on their life. But if you're just reading it alone, you know, not really understanding the full like picture, it's yeah, I can see how someone can get scrupulous because of that.

SPEAKER_06 39:02

Well, I think I I think um I think I even went through a phase like that when I when I was early on in my conversion, like you just um like even even reading what was it, St. John Climactis, like the ladder of divine ascent, things like that. You know, like you start reading stuff like that. You're just like there was something there's actually something really good in that book, actually, that uh because it might it might I think it was that book where that that comforted me a bit, where he was talking about um uh uh if you're married, if you if you're in a state of marriage, right? And you have you have everyday worries, you have a family to tend to, you have all these different things. Uh, because he he was like, Look, you're obviously didn't say it like this, but like if you're not a monastic, you can't forego the world. So it was really uh like a simple thing. It was like just make sure that you stay away from mortal thin, uh, attend, attend as much prayer as you can, and make sure you're raising your like it was a very simple thing, it was a one-page thing, and it brought me great comfort because it was like, okay, I am working these 12-hour days, and I don't have hours to devote to mental prayer and things like that. And it's like your state in life is very dependent on that stuff too.

SPEAKER_09 40:22

Yeah, so a couple things that some of these a lot of these writings, uh, I'm thinking it's like the imitation of Christ, right? These are written for monks, like the imitation of Christ, for example. Um, I think he was written it for early religious brothers, from what I understand. And a lot of the writings like that as well. So I think that has to that context has to be taken uh into um consideration, I think, when you're you're reading those kinds of things. And as you just said, um not everyone is required the same kind of prayer life, right? I mean, I chose this life as a priest, and like that means that not only do I drawn to that that sense of uh of prayer and to have that time to do that, but I need to do that, right? Because if I any state of life you that you are called to, God's going to give you the graces to accomplish it well and to attain heaven by that state of life. Therefore, you need to live up to those graces that God is giving you. I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_06 41:25

I'm sorry, my brother-in-law is a doctor, and he can prove that term fertility maxing substance. This may or may not be the guy who is expecting he may not be. I don't want to blow his spot. I don't know who he's told yet.

SPEAKER_09 41:38

Fertility maxing, that is a new term.

SPEAKER_06 41:41

Um, there are two couples that are coming to Italy with me who um this is the danger in booking a Catholic pilgrimage, especially with young people, because my pilgrimage that I'm doing is filled with young people. It's so look, there's also possibly four spots that are opening up, uh, two for sure. Uh, so there's two couples. One is like, we can't make it, but she's going to be 32 weeks and it's just way too close. The other couple's like, we're gonna speak to our doctor, and if the doctor says it's still safe to go, we're gonna go. So there's going to be four spots available. If anybody would like to go, uh email me, Anthony at avoidingbabylon.com, uh, and we'll see if we could get you in in one of those spots. Now, Molly, you had asked something earlier. Um, I'm not, but the person I referenced who lost their father is. So my wife's friend Tina, who lost her father, her aunt is the Long Island medium. So that's what that's an interesting connection. Interesting. Yeah, and they're all Catholic.

SPEAKER_09 42:44

Um there's a place right across the street from one of my churches that's having a medium uh it's an old church that was closed down, and they're having a a uh describe yourself as an energy practitioner. What is that?

SPEAKER_06 42:59

I find I find it's it's the it's mainly Catholics who fall for the going to mediums carbon, falling away Catholics, lapsed Catholics, things like that. It's like there's this yeah, this acute awareness of the spiritual realm in these people who were raised Catholic, uh, maybe were never like brought to church, they were like Catholic in name only. They have this acute awareness of the spiritual realm, and they're the ones that are most susceptible to falling for going to mediums or psychics and things like that. It's yeah, one of the scariest things ever. Yeah. Uh what do you think of this, Father? Kneeling for the chalice at the Novus Ordo.

SPEAKER_09 43:39

Kneeling for the chalice. That's that is a new one. Um, I don't think it. Um, I think so. When it comes to the chalice, obviously it's allowed, you know. Um, but anything that's going to increase the chances of you dropping. Stopping it, I think, could be um a problem. You know, so if someone handing the chalice down to you while you're kneeling at an angle they're not used to, it may seem like something small, but the routine of handing something back. I know from giving communion to hundreds of people every week, the routine and the proper angle really matters. Um, but if you're handing something with liquid in it that is that precious, are you yeah, I just do for not like receiving the channels, you know. Uh in that case, yeah. I think you're right there.

SPEAKER_06 44:32

Um, okay, so there's a couple things. So um locals tonight. I have a John Deloney clip for Father that I did not let him preview. John Deloney. I have a John Deloney clip for locals that I did not let Father preview tonight. I also have the funniest video I have ever seen in my entire life. And it's not an internet video, it is a video of a a coworker. And this co-worker, it's I thought you would find it funny because you're Italian and this is a very Italian family. The and the daughter calls the father and tells the father she wants them to come to church because they're gonna she's she's like, Dad, I want you to come to church next Sunday with me. They're gonna baptize the dog. And the father's like, What? Like, but it's one of the funniest. I was my ribs hurt from laughing at this video, and I thought I give people a little insight into what my world is like outside of the podcast. I just showed you the characters I work with, so that's what we're going to be doing on locals tonight. But the the John Deloney clip is going to get into male-female dynamics because I'm interested to hear what you think on this. I know I have my opinions, but I'm a bit of uh bit of a chauvinist, they say. So it'll be interesting to hear your take on it. Um, okay. Uh, are there any other questions before we head over there? Let's see. Um, oh, somebody asks, are you guaranteed a girlfriend if you come on the pilgrimage? We don't do girlfriends, we do straight to uh engagement. So you meet someone there, you have to buy the ring while you're there, and you'll have a fiance by the time you leave.

SPEAKER_09 46:17

That's that's how we're gonna get faculties to do the wedding right there.

SPEAKER_06 46:20

I will say this Bobby met my sister in January, and I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure they'll be engaged. Wow. Well before well before Italy. We'll see how it goes, but it does seem that way.

SPEAKER_09 46:36

We're uh no, yeah, that's well, hey, if you um give them a knickknacks and this this adds to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:45

I am I'm looking to do better than than uh uh Tim Gordon's pimp service. I mean uh dating's come on, come on. I know I'm just teasing. We love Tim. I'm just kidding. Um, all right, so before we go, I'm trying to think. Uh oh no, actually, there is a couple things. Um I had uh I wanted to know if you saw uh a couple of things. Um hold on one sec. Let me pull these

Catechesis Failures And Liturgical Weirdness

SPEAKER_06 47:15

out. Um Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert. Uh uh he's been called the greatest Catholic evangelist of our time by yeah, by James Martin. Oh man. All right, hold on, let me see. Uh all right, hold on. Wait, what did I do here? I know what I did, hang on. I'm sorry, guys, you know me. All right, I'm gonna share this and we're going to play this video. I want to see what you think of this.

SPEAKER_04 47:59

That's what I want to say. All right. So all right, hold on.

SPEAKER_06 48:08

You guys gotta be on with me here. All right. Ready?

SPEAKER_08 48:16

What do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_01 48:19

Here's what I here's what I picture. Some of these questions, if I answer them, I have to think of what do I think as I'm waiting for the person to answer them when I give it to them, what comes to mind. When I come to mind when I ask this question, I think of uh almost like uh it's more like a feeling. And the feeling is that when we die, I think there is some continuance of some kind, but it's a um like a dispersion of the self into some other greater being. And I don't know, I don't have any of the feelings beyond that.

SPEAKER_08 48:53

What you're saying is we become Frebries.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Yes, right, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_09 49:02

So greatest Catholic evangelist.

SPEAKER_06 49:05

Um that's a problem. I've been having this fight on on Twitter with no, I've been having this fight on Twitter with the set of acontists who um they say the novice order was a new religion, and um like okay, that's ridiculous, right? Um, the church has the authority to change things, this and that. But every once in a while something like that comes out, and you see Stephen Colbert is one of those guys who's like brought up by the you know, I mean, the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan brings him up, like he's the you know, he's this and it does at times feel like there are two totally different religions inside the same church. Yeah. But you just wonder like how how people even get these ideas in their heads that when when we die, I feel like we just go into this greater like I think the the state of cat catechesis is just so hard.

SPEAKER_09 50:05

That's the thing though, that the church does has has some pretty clear answers. I mean, it open the catechism and um read the writings of the saints, you know, and um in some ways and the catechism was written in like the 90s, okay, so that's very uh novus order time period. So, you know, and it's it's solid. And I think the question is about eschatology. So, you know, I don't know why uh Stephen Colbert happens to not uh understand, not think that uh what the church teaches about the beatific vision, okay. Um about being communion, you know, with uh union with God in that way. I don't know. And I don't know why he someone would want whatever he just just described there, or why someone would strive for it. Um because if you don't have a good idea of what heaven is and um and what hell is, then you know, I guess I can understand that you might work for something other than you know the the attainment of heaven, the avoidance of hell, right? Um I don't know. Yeah, I I I I can't imagine. I don't know who taught him that or where he got that from, but it wasn't the catechism of the Catholic Church. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:14

Well, the I mean, you know what, we could keep doing like the I I just think like I would because this g does get discouraging, right? Like we'll see. All right, I'll play one more, and I don't want to actually do this, but it's kind of like you kind of have to. Um, um trying to find a bit of this. I'm so bad at this. I need Rob, here we go.

SPEAKER_05 52:31

So bad.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

From the earth to heaven, it's what Jesus did for you and me. Let's be grateful for the end of our hand for the gift of new eternal life when we're with Jesus' ascension. It's a I know I think I know it's a life side thing. It's like this is real eternal life sublime.

SPEAKER_09 52:52

What the ascension, it's the focus of this literature of all of all tunes that you could choose to like do a homily for.

SPEAKER_02 53:01

What are we doing?

SPEAKER_09 53:02

Like, I'll I don't I don't know. Like, you know what I wonder these kinds of things, like when you like start making up stuff at mass or doing kind of crazy things like that, like uh why are you bored? Like, are you like how do how does that how does that like when I'm sitting down to write a homily, I'm not it never has now I've been ordained almost nine years, but it has not crossed my mind to okay, what tune am I going to preach this homily to uh this weekend? Um I don't that's exactly how the book of Acts.

SPEAKER_06 53:37

So when I see like really bad Protestant stuff like that, there's like like smoke machines and fog machines. I'll that's my tweet. I'll write this is exactly how the book of Acts describes work, drives Protestants nuts, but it's it's as bad in Catholicism at times when you kind of get this look, they they had a uh I saw an article of uh the like Pope Leo's going to Spain or somewhere, and they're not setting up confessionals, they're going to set up listening stations, right? And you're just like, man, like what what is it with that older generation of and it's not all of them, obviously, but there's like this very liberal version of this older generation who sings Flintstones at Mass. They they're like Stephen Colbert, they think heaven is ethereal and it's nothing. They want to set up listening stations and they want to do all this stuff, and it's like I'm I I have no experience of people who take their faith seriously that think any of this stuff is okay or enjoyable.

SPEAKER_09 54:35

Yeah. Yeah, I I don't know where it came from. I don't know. I think it's um maybe I don't know what the confessionals are like where you well, or you live everywhere you frequent, but um do you have you know more traditional style confessionals, or is it like the option of going face to face?

SPEAKER_06 54:50

I uh so it depends where I go. Like if I if I go to the more traditional parishes, you're in a box. If I go to but even the even the Novus Ordo parishes by me, they always have a screen option. You always you could do either, or I've never been to one where you only can do face-to-face.

SPEAKER_09 55:06

Yeah, no, I mean, like even just the like one of my three churches, one of them had the traditional style confessional all set, but two of them were adapted so that you can do either. And I said no. So I put up a barrier, um, and then two separate entrances so that there's no way that you can go, you know, face to face. And that's protection for the honesty for the priest, not just for the uh anonymity of the penitent, but you

Confession Norms, Privacy, And Trust

SPEAKER_09 55:35

gotta be able to say that I have I didn't see the person. You know, I think that's very helpful. Um yeah. Uh I don't know, I don't know why why personalizing confession made people thought that would be better. Um so you can see someone's face. Uh seemed like it'd make you more nervous um if someone is anxious already about going to confession. I don't, I don't know. I don't get it.

SPEAKER_06 55:57

We I had uh some so I saw somebody the other day. I mentioned this on the on locals the other night. There was a guy who was uh coming into the faith and he was coming into the church and he's like, Well, now I've gone to I've gone to uh learn the faith. Like this priest catechized me and he knows my voice so well, and I don't want to go to confession with him. And I like personally, I would rather go to the priest who knows my voice, and but because not not maybe not for the for the initial one, because then it's kind of daunting. But once like I I can see his point and not wanting to do your general confession with the priest who knows you, but then I don't know, I don't even think that's an issue either. But I do like going to the same priest every time because when I leave there, I'm more aware that I have to confess my sins to that same man, and it it it puts my guard up way more, and also uh the priest, like I don't I don't know. I I I would prefer that. I but I but a lot of people do will will parachop and go to a priest they don't know so that they can, you know, I don't I don't know what yeah as a priest, like do you ever judge somebody that comes into confession?

SPEAKER_09 57:13

No, no, never. Um, and I think any of the any of the saints will tell you you should have a consistent confessor if possible, um, precisely because you do want them in a way to be able to help you if you're struggling with something consistently. It's not the the embarrassment about some sin, really, it's pride. Yeah, right. I mean, it's pride. Like, of course, like if you're struggling with something and you really want to get over it, um, you don't just go to confession just to feel better about yourself. You go to confession so that you can be healed, or at least take that next step towards the eradicating of this particular sin or tendencies, whatever they happen to be. Um, so that's how I think a priest approaches confession. I've never had uh a confession bother me outside of confession, really. It just doesn't. There's I think I do think there's certain graces given, you know, to priest to be able to deal with it in that moment and then just it's just gone. Right. And I think and partly because we know we know our own sins, right? As being just humans, we know what we're capable of, you know, as well. So it's not people should never I get why people are nervous going to confession. Who wants to just say your sins, right? Um, to someone. But there's I've noticed just from catechizing people and you know hearing general confessions is that once you build up that that trust with someone, I do think that they who else are they going to confess to, right? Because they want someone who already knows them. I think is this partly my experience is that that's what people that's what people want. So how is it for you? Like, um, do you have to put a confession too, right?

SPEAKER_06 58:53

Yeah, right. Like like for you, do uh and especially confessing to another priest, like yeah, man, that's gotta that's gotta be a bit of a humbling experience, too, right?

SPEAKER_09 59:03

Like, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think I think an important advantage of just um one of the graces just being being a priest is that you have plenty of opportunities to be humble, to be to be humble is that you get plenty of opportunities. Uh one is having to, you know, to go to another your friend, you know, someone who's uh do confession like that. And you know, I'm fortunate that I'll have any number that I can, you know, call and just go to when I and see them. And obviously, priests will, at least priests I know, they will will drop everything and hear another priest's confession, right? They'll make whatever accommodation they have to, you know, to hear someone else's confession, hear a priest's confession. So yeah, it it yeah, I mean it's it's difficult. And I think actually one of the great privileges of uh of a priest is hearing other priest's confessions who come to, you know, and that's because like um helping them in their ministry um to continue on their ministry to be strengthened by by God's grace, that really is uh a profound thing that um most people don't think about. Most people don't think about priests going to confession.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:09

I I I I did because I've been well, there's two two things. One, I've been with a priest friend when we went to a parish, and when we walked in and saw the priest, the priest I was with went, Father, will you hear my confession? And I was like, Whoa, that was it was a really a really cool thing to like. I I went I it was a priest visiting New York, and I was showing him around New York. And when we went to Holy Innocence, I introduced him to Father Myara, and the first thing he said when he met Father Mayara was, Hey, will you hear my confession? And I was like, Oh wow, this is that that's pretty cool. Um, and the um the oh man, what was the other thing I was going to say? Um yeah, I don't know. I had something else I was going to say also, but yeah, it was a it was a very, very cool thing to be beat. I was there was a priest visiting New York who I was friends with, and when I introduced them, he was just like, Oh, well, you hear my confession. You forget, like, priests are Catholic too, and they're doing their best to be Catholic, right? And we're all human. And one of the one of the most interesting things about my friendships with priests has been how they've related to some of the conversations on this show because they're seeing the same thing I'm seeing, right? And they're like, Yeah, this stuff is kind of crazy, right? And uh, we're all trying to make sense of it. It's not like you're a priest and you stand in a different place than us. We all see the craziness in the hierarchy, right? And all of us are kind of like, What is you know, what's going on?

SPEAKER_09 1:01:45

Yeah, you wouldn't want like a a priest who didn't uh understand what the people are seeing, right? I mean, you you want that priest to be with them, um, to understand, to see the world as they see it, because that's how you can hopefully preach effectively and minister effectively to them. Uh, if you were just like separate in some way, um, that wouldn't be wouldn't be good. You wouldn't want that. You got it. You got it.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:09

Look, you you you think like you think about um, I mean, I think about my own reversion to the faith and coming in, and especially those of us who are like on fire for the faith, like you have this deep desire to see the the faith lived out fervently, right? And you and all all you want is to see the hierarchy, like Rob and I are going through this whole series of like pre-conciliar Catholicism. We're just like, Yeah, what a time to be alive, right? Like, even though the world's falling apart, it's like at least the Pope and the like at least he's on our side, and then we're kind of in our age, and we're just like, Oh my goodness, they're doing what now, and you just but there are tons of priests out there who are in the same boat as us, all looking at the same stuff, and all of our hearts are aching as we're watching this stuff. But you know, you gave your life to the church and you gave your life to Christ, and you're and you're in it with us. That's it's one of my favorite things about making friends with priests is feeling like they're not like we're not crazy for thinking the way that we do, and you guys are kind of going through it with us.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:14

Yeah, and the priest, I think, sorry, uh, should be so I try to be, because you know, there's when you're in a parish, you have people who are at various levels of engagement with um, you know, the the kinds of things that you would talk about you're on the show, whether it's the the Catholic social media sphere or just you think general things going on in Rome, right? Most a lot of people don't pay attention to that, you know, especially some older lot of older people I know, and just like, and that's and that's just fine, probably for the best. And but to be, I think a priest should be it's just that stable force, right? Is whatever's going on in the world, when they go to mass, they know what they're gonna get day in and day out, right? They know here's how the mass is gonna be, and here's generally just how the homily is gonna go. Um, it's gonna be perhaps this long, it's gonna be um, you know, I'm gonna learn something, you know, hopefully, or at least be encouraged in some general way. Um, and as crazy as the world is, you you you should have that stability, and the priest, I think, just should represent that stability in this very person.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:24

Um yeah, the every every single parish I attend, I don't care what you know, whether it's novels or or or traditional, what what we do at the parish, what the priest talks about, has nothing to do with what you see in the news cycle. Ever. Yeah, like the like the priest is never talking about like the what the latest thing. I've I've never heard never heard a homily on the Sonatal Way ever, you know. Every time I go, it's a reflection on the readings and the parish life lived on the ground is so different from what they're doing on like the grand level of of of the church right now. It's kind of kind of interesting to to to live in this time period because when you just go to mass and you attend the sacraments and you and you find a a decent parish and you're living out your Catholic faith, it's like just you tune that stuff out and you can be Catholic. And you know, you can raise your family Catholic. And if you kind of just don't obsess on that stuff, you have a much healthier spiritual life. Are we freezing up again?

SPEAKER_09 1:05:33

Losing yet.

Locals Switch And Comic Relief

SPEAKER_06 1:05:36

Okay, so what we're going to do. What we're going to do is we're going to go over to locals. We're going to hope that the delay goes away. Uh, for anybody that's not a locals member, we're gonna go have some fun over there. Locals is going to be uh we're gonna play a John Deloney clip. And oh, I don't know. I have to load that thing because I didn't think I loaded it. Um uh Let me see if I can find it. Alright, so we're gonna do that over on locals. I'm gonna kill the feed over here, and we're gonna we're gonna do two videos over there, and then we'll just continue the conversation. So let me kill let me kill the Facebook. Remove uh one at a time. This is Rob does this so much better than I do. All right, see you later, YouTube. You guys are gone. All right, all right, YouTube's gone. I'm gonna kill X. I am so unprofessional, it's not even funny. Like, without people are like, oh, what does Rob do? Are you kidding me, guys?

SPEAKER_05 1:06:40

You have any idea what Rob does?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:45

Oh man, I one of the coolest things has been to watch Rob come alive during this uh series.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:53

Yeah, no, that's great. I I love it. Um, seeing what exact what he's you know, uh is all his his knowledge. I mean he's got a lot of knowledge.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:04

He is so good with history, right? Like anytime we've ever done the show and he gets into uh like because he studied Russian Russian history or something in college, and anytime we've ever done anything that gets into some kind of like historical context, he just blows me away. And when I was trying to find what we were going to do, when that idea came to me to do like we'll do encyclicals, but not just encyclicals, like let's do the historical context around the encyclical and why why the encyclical was written. I just had this feeling that he was just gonna blow it out of the water and blow it out, like knock it out of the park with that. And holy cow, he he will he'll send. Um, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to find that Deloney clip. Um, he will send me a short summary of the history, right? So he gives me like a two-page short summary of the history. He's like, okay, this is like the a summary of the historical context that I'll read. And then he writes a script for the show. Like he writes a 45-50 minute script to go through the history, and then going through the encyclicals has been so like I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:24

I I we what's the what's the next one you're doing, Rarero Novarum?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:28

Not yet. That's I want that to be one of the crown jewels of the series. So going through Leo the 13th is going to be awesome though, and um he has uh he has a few that he's like really excited to get to, but I think on Thursday we may do Leo's Encyclical. That's the thing. Okay. Um, all right, hold on. Yeah, that'd be interesting. We may, yeah, we may do Leo's Encyclical, which is going to be on AI. Shoot, where's this club? I'll be so mad if I can't find it. Hold on. Oh, I got it. Okay, so I gotta send this to X. All right, I do have the other thing we're gonna play first, but hang on. Let me get this one in. All right, Rob. Okay, let's say photos. Don't worry, on locals, they're not as uptight if I like take forever on stuff. They know I they know I stink. Okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:30

All right, so that was we are just on locals right now.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:33

Right now, we're just on locals, yeah. Okay. So, all right. I have to let's see. I have to show you guys this video. This video, all right. So, this video I'm gonna show you guys is a video of a coworker. Oh, here we go. And this is probably the funniest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I would have played it on YouTube, but I didn't want to um I didn't want to share because his daughter is in the video, and I didn't want to um, you know, share, share his daughter on YouTube. But wait till you see this. Hang on. All right, let's see. I gotta share that. So let's hit share. It's gonna take a little bit. You guys gotta just give me a sec. I gotta make sure I got everything set up. All right, that's set up. I don't know why I'm so bad at this. Let's see. All right, here we go. I'm gonna add to stage. Okay, here we go. Ready?

SPEAKER_09 1:10:35

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:37

Oh, the freaking volume. Hang on. Start it over. No, it's okay. Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:47

Hello? Hey dad. All right, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:51

No, not in point.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:52

Okay, so a little context. So this is my friend Moss I work with. This is his daughter Lena. His daughter Lena, I mean, she's a real guinea broad, okay? She's like, she's like, these they might be like you guys think I'm Italian. You don't even know how much I tone it down for this show. So she's calling her dad, and they do this to him a lot. They'll just call him with stuff because they he's one of the funniest people I've ever talked to in my life. So she's calling her dad to ask him to do something next Sunday. So just listen carefully.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:27

Oh, I just got home from a very long site, but I wanted to ask you, I know it's last minute, but are you available next Sunday by any chance? Like you and mommy, are you around next Sunday?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:43

This Sunday coming up?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:47

Yeah, I guess we got anything going on Sunday?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:51

Yeah, Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:53

No, because we got a wedding Saturday.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

Regina Patches is like doing a special that they're baptizing dogs. So I'm I want to take J. I'm gonna see what to go.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:05

What? Listen, baby, listen to me. I'll do anything for you. I'm not going to church to baptize the dog. I'll baptize him.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:16

Did you hear that? Wait, did you hear what he said? I missed it.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:21

I missed it at the end.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:22

Wait, you gotta listen so carefully. Honey, I'm not going to church to baptize the dog. I'll baptize the dog. He says you gotta listen carefully when he says the funniest thing I've ever heard. The daughter's dying. It's so funny. Hold on, let's go back.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:43

Coming up?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:50

Yeah, Sunday.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:52

No, because we got a wedding Saturday.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:55

Regina, Regina Patches is like doing a special that they're baptizing dogs. So I'm I want to take Geo. I want us all to go.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:05

What listen, baby? Listen to me. I'll do anything for you. I'm not going to church to baptize the dog. I'll baptize him. I mean, what are you talking about? Well, what are we saying here? Hello?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:27

I can't stop winning. I I thought it'd be nice. He'd be blessed by the priest, and then we could go to dinner.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:36

We blessed him already. We're not going there. We, you know, the priest don't have to do that. He's blessed. Come on, man. What do you know?

SPEAKER_09 1:13:48

That's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:49

I cannot tell you. Like the people I work with are so freaking funny.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:57

Some of them. This guy, he's like, I'm not, I'm not going to church to baptize. I baptized before, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:09

Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:12

Like, I I don't know, man. I think uh this guy, he would have been such a great character on the Sopranos. Like, it's just he would have just been, you know, on one of the or in The Godfather or something. He just would have been the perfect uh the perfect cast member on that. All right. So we're gonna get into Deloney. All right. All right. And I'm curious to know what your stance is on this controversial question.

Opposite-Sex Friends And Marriage Boundaries

SPEAKER_06 1:14:45

Are you ready?

unknown 1:14:46

All right.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:46

Off your first month.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:49

Can couples have friends of the opposite sex?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:52

Um a hundred percent yes. I think you have to be boundaried in wise. I believe it. And the times I've gotten, I'll say I've got myself in trouble, but the times I have found myself over-emotionally invested in someone in a woman who wasn't my wife, is that friendship became one of the most important friendships I had.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:13

I hate him. Like, what what do you mean? What is he even saying? All right, we'll let him play it out. We'll let it play out, or we'll let it go for another.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:22

Then suddenly I'm calling that person or texting that person, or I I think of something and I can't wait to tell that person, and that's on me, right? Like, if I if I leave this little executive club membership too, that's my marriage, and I start leaning on people of the opposite sex for I I think that can get heavy. Now, I've got when I say great, I mean super close friends um that are women, but it they're all boundied and structured. And I've always um believed in like it, it's when you I I think I don't I shouldn't tell my wife that I had that conversation. Like, that's when I think for me, the signals over the last 25 years I've been with my wife, like that's when I know that's that's not right.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:08

And so I'm always open with my wife about who I'm talking to and why and about what I think he's like in near occasion of thin territory right off the bat.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:16

Yeah, I mean, at least he's got that part. Like, okay, like I don't keep uh I don't keep secrets, you know, or the types of conversations that he may have had. At least there's that. Okay, like but yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:29

So this look, I'm I'm not going to say it's impossible. Um I just think that, especially in our culture today, I think that um I think that uh people people don't really understand the dangers in this, right? And and even you as a priest, right? Like you have to probably be so cautious of the female relationship, especially because you're a priest and um like it you do have women coming to you and confiding in you, and especially with confessional situations, like, but I think married men have to be so on guard with female friendships, and the same thing for women to have male friendships. I I don't know, like the the that quick reaction to 100% yes. I don't know. I think there's very, very narrow circumstances where that should be okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:28

Yeah, I mean, your initial reaction, your initial reaction should be no. I think to you know to that. I mean, now what how is he defining friendship? I mean, he's talking about having um a lot of he says female friends and a lot of a lot of conversations. Uh, you know, what how how often are you hanging out with with female friends with the nature of these conversations, you know? But you know, I you're right. I think that I you think that's extremely you know dangerous. And even just the appearance, you know, of that, like again, is even just as a priest, but I could see it as a uh someone as a married man, like when you're you don't want to be seen in the kind of situation that you would be with with your spouse, that you should be in your spouse, right? Um, in the sense that you know, especially if it's someone who looks like okay, there's some someone who looks like they could be your spouse, but they're not, and you're like at dinner, you know, with them, like why would you do that? Why would you do that? Um, yeah, and I think he's discounting the well, he he kind of mentioned it, the emotional um attachment that happens just when you spend time with someone.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:38

I think I think people really discount the danger in in the male-female dynamic, in that especially with modern work scenarios where men and women do work together, and what starts off as just a friendly coworker thing, like, hey, and you're texting each other because hey, I need this thing. It's it's a it's why I like I'm not even on Instagram or Facebook at all. Like, I don't go on them. I don't, you know, I might have an Instagram account, but I don't go on it because it's too personal. Um, like you're you're sharing personal family stuff, and then there could be uh like people from your past who who follow you. Like, I won't even play games with those. I'll do Twitter, but my my profile picture is of me and my wife to make sure everyone knows I'm married, and I have I will never entertain even the slightest inappropriate conversation in a DM with a woman. Like there I do I do have there, are like a few women who might DM me a question about the show or something like that, but it's super professional, something where I would hand my wife my phone at any moment and just go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could totally check this out. This is I've never had a single inappropriate private conversation with a woman other than my wife.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:59

Yeah, yeah, and and just the yeah, the danger of it turning into something that you you wouldn't. He he he mentioned that in the video, but why was you don't want to be in that situation. And I think just having, if you have a bunch of you know, women, if you're as a man, if you have a bunch of women that you're friends with who are not your spouse, you are you're just opening yourself up to that possibility more and more and more and more the more you more you do that. Um, and there's something about just being in close proximity with someone, if there's someone you're spending time with, it's almost seemed like it's inevitable, you know, almost. Um depending on the nature. But yeah, I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:38

Trent Horn's wife, Laura, was on Matt Frad's show. And I think she opened up about something vulnerable, right? And she was she she just opened up about something vulnerable where she was like, um, there was you know a co-worker who was texting me, and it got it just got a little too much, and she was being a little too friendly with the person, right? And it was they got lambasted because she admitted to this thing, and she was like, nothing happened, right? Just shared something on social media, she never should have. She never should have shared this on Matt Frad show because it embarrassed Trent, and then the groupers went into Trent, and they and they were yeah, yeah. But I think what she was doing was actually very she was just trying to like be honest about something that happened, which I think is something that happens in people all the time, is that you're you're texting someone, you think nothing of it, then all of a sudden it gets a little too personal, and it becomes like a friend, and then all of a sudden you're complaining about your spouse to the person, and then it's before you know it's hand, right? And you're saying something to you're sharing something personal about like your about your life, and then all of a sudden you shared it with them, and it is how affairs begin. And I think Laura Horn should never have said it on Matt Frad's show, but I think she was just being honest, like this nothing ever happened, but I saw how it could happen, yeah. And yeah, they got and they got persecuted so bad online.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:17

I felt bad. Yeah, people don't appreciate how easy that is. Um I think and the and part of that is the um say co-ed work environment, like that you know, creates that when you have, you know, uh a woman has a a boss who's who's a man, you know, who's not her husband. Um that's uh that's it could be like a bad situation, or just other coworkers, you know. I mean, there's a reason why things were separated the way they were, you know, and they and we had a society ordered in in a certain way that um kept the family intact, you know, more frequently, far more likely in the way we had a society um that the family was going to remain intact um because you didn't have because it is we implicitly understood the dangers there. And those dangers don't stop after a certain age. Okay, whether it's not just like you have to, if you're a uh man and woman who are even a boy and girl when you're 15, you're not gonna let your 15-year-olds be alone. You're a boy and a girl, right? Well, it's kind of the same thing when you get older, like it doesn't stop like when you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s, or older. Um, those kinds of feelings and the desire for a deeper human connection on whatever level is always going to be there because your humanity is going to remain. So, and if you don't have that one person as your spouse, you know, to to find that in, well, you're gonna seek it somewhere else.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:53

Yeah, I I see like the lore of social media constantly towards couples. Like, I I worry so much for couples these days, man. Like, I'm always trying to like I try to give little tidbits of like what's worked in my marriage, not because I'm bragging about my marriage in any way, it's just kind of like these these things seem to be working for us. I hope you know, it's like because I know how hard it is. I've seen I have I have siblings that their marriage has ended, and I've had you know, you there when when sister Lucia or even um John Paul II said the final battle will will uh the the devil's final battle will be against marriage in the family. I I used to think that was about marriage as a as an institution, like it would be like the LGBT stuff and stuff like that. But no, I think it's actually the devil is after Christian marriages, like and Catholic marriages specifically, like sacramental Catholic marriages, the devil is after because that is the symbol of Christ and his church. That um that that's that marriage is the like Saint Paul uses marriage as the mystery that describes the situation of Christ and the bride. And I think Ephesians five classic, yeah. Yeah, and and I think Catholics have to be so on guard, men have to like cherish their wives and make sure your wife's feel seen and things like that, because we have to be that like light on a on a hill to the other people who are considering marriage.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:27

Yeah, yeah. When you read like when you read Ephesians 5, read it real slow, and and to pray, you know, with that, you see it's how profound that is, that that connection that really uh what it is there a deeper connection than the ratio between Christ and his church. And if Paul St. Paul's likening that to the husband and wife, um, then you need to do everything you can both to to maintain that bond, to strengthen that bond, but to avoid everything that's going to disintegrate that or seemingly disintegrate, as we know the sacramental bond can't be broken, um, only seemingly so, but um at least the the common life very often is is broken. Um so you have to do everything you can, you know, to preserve that. And I I don't get what a you know a married man we doing with spending time with female friends. It just doesn't it doesn't add up for me. It doesn't add up like I don't

Dating Temptation And Chastity Advice

SPEAKER_09 1:26:25

know what I don't know what you hope to gain there.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:27

Did you uh uh okay, so the other thing is uh uh Christian Wagner put this thing out about um uh no you can't kiss your girlfriend the other day, right? And there's there's this I mean I I I honestly I just he also did a bitch a baron video. Yeah, I didn't I didn't watch that one, but uh good the um the the one on the kissing, like I it's just such a a hard subject to discuss as a married person, like even Christian diving in. I uh because I spoke to Christian after that, and he was like, Anthony, I don't even want to do like online stuff anymore. He's like, I I I think I might just go back to like battling Protestant apologetics. He's like, I just tried to put something out to like warn people like, hey, you you know, like you're putting yourself in the near occasion of saying you shouldn't it was pretty common sense what he was saying. It's like don't don't get the heavy petting, don't do but the reaction to it was so nuts, he got thousands and thousands of people on all really oh man, he got some people like because this is it was just basic, or I think basic moral advice, especially um yeah, moral advice and comments. The thing is, once you if you're a married guy and you share something like that, the impression you're putting out is like the it's just the way it is. This is why, like, I think it's a dangerous thing for a Married man to go out. It's the same thing with Christopher West. Like Christopher West is going out and talking about, like, oh, I see a woman on the beach, and I and he's got only and it's like Christopher West, you're a married man. Like, you shouldn't be telling the world that you're looking at women on the beach. Like, it's just not an appropriate thing. Like, you just should your eyes should only be for your wife. You should have custody of the eyes for your wife.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:18

I think if I started a homily like that, that wouldn't be good.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:21

Yeah, it's just uh it's just a thing he shouldn't be doing. And I think even on the other end, when you're going too strict, what you're because I don't, I don't, I don't think Christian meant it like this. It's just a a difficult place for a married guy to be talking about this stuff because what he caught was all these people coming after him talking about him like um like trads are so uptight, and Christian's not even a trad, but like you, you Catholics are so uptight, and you're and you're and it's like I don't know. I th I felt bad for him because he was just trying to give simple advice to guys like be cautious of this stuff. Like if you're dating a girl, this will lead to this, and this will lead to this.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:02

Yeah, no, he was absolutely right. Um, and again, and just this basic principle that if you're trying to avoid serious sin, you avoid the occasion of sin. And if you love the occasion of sin, then you love the sin. And you can't you can't do something that's going to lead you to serious sin, like directly and almost immediately, and then claim that you didn't sin. Like to that, like no other situation does it work, but like would you accept that kind of thing? But when it comes to that, the sixth commandment people want all these exceptions, and it doesn't it doesn't make sense to me. I mean, think of any other situation, whether with yourself or with another, where that would apply. Um, I think he was right. I mean, if you do something to cause, do something to cause arousal in someone, which of those actions do, you are going to be you're you're in you're in serious in. Uh yeah, I think I don't know why people would get problems for that. I mean, this is just most likely my might probably bothers their conscience.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:04

I think I think a lot of it's probably people are watching too much filth on the internet and their brains are just in the in the gutter. Right, the bars also I think I think it's probably because like the church as a as a you know, the hierarchy in general has kind of just dropped this issue and decided they don't want to discuss it anymore, right? You you heard we heard Pope Leo recently said, like, oh, I think you know, we we obsess too much on the pelvic issues, and it's time to talk about social justice and stuff like that. And in a way, there's never been a more important time for the church to actually speak to the younger generation because so much temptation is around every corner. And I think Christian was just trying to like like well, the church isn't talking about this stuff, but like some of us need to like remind people what the church has always taught.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:58

Yeah, and yeah, and maybe it was just not I mean again, what he said was correct, but uh where do you even start today when you're talking with young people youngerish youngish people youngerish people as to how to have proper relationship? Like, okay, that's one aspect of it that he but like there's also a lot of other aspects of just like basic human relationship that I think a lot of people don't get either these days because they're grew up on on social media. But I would I would hope that if someone's in a relationship, they they can see that you know you you don't want to get involved with those kinds of things. And even he might I think he brought up hand holding, you know, too.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:42

Did he bring up hand holding? Did he say there's no premarital hand holding?

SPEAKER_09 1:31:45

He's no no he said like he hand holding can be can be acceptable, but there are definitely cases where someone who's maybe particularly sensitive might uh be led in a certain direction, at least internally, by by hand holding. And it's like if that's um I'm not I can't remember exactly what his if he went further and talked about it more, but people have to be careful.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:09

One of the funniest things that ever happened on this show, we had we had we had him on and we played a clip of him going over a void voice of reason was talking of uh talking to somebody. A voice of reason was he talked about like hugging George Jenko's sister, like he's like, Oh, I met your sister and I hugged your sister. And Wagner pauses the video and he goes, No premarital hugging, like something like that.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:38

And this was before all the scandals around voice of reason came out, and it was just the funniest thing because it's like premarital hugging led to voice of reason doing all these other things to slippery slope, it's a slippery slope. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:55

We're just in we're just in such a crazy time right now, man. It's like every everything just seems nuts. No premarital hand holding, no premarital hugging.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:07

Um that's why it is arranged marriages. You see your bride on the day of your wedding, and just that's it. That was such a better time. It avoids all of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:20

Well, there was also the um the whole uh like Trent put that video out a uh probably might have been like a year ago or something. He's like trad trad the trad's dirty little secret is there, and he played uh um uh uh father um uh who wait, who was it? Uh is it a Rippiger clip? Yeah, he played a Father Rippiger clip where Father Rippiger said, like Trads are one of the biggest sins is like they're constantly confessing sins of the flesh, which it in my mind is like, okay, so I think Trads recognize like okay, I have a problem with this, I'm coming into the confessional with it. And I do think faithful Catholic men are probably struggling with that, and they are bringing that to the confessional, but the dirty little secret on the liberal side is that they're just not confessing it and they're and they're going through it, right? And they just think nothing

Pornography, Idolatry, And Accountability

SPEAKER_06 1:34:15

of it. But yeah, I would I would imagine that's probably uh okay. So we live in a we live in a culture where um guys nowadays think that might be the only sin. So Rob and I were talking about this last episode where like once you get that out of out of your your life, that's when you actually get to focus on your actual like the like the spiritual life begins once you get like those big things out, and that's when you focus on that.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:44

You do not begin with the spiritual life to you stop like habitually committing mortal sin. Yeah, like that's just the beginning. Yeah, yeah. And not, I mean, not to if anyone was already despairing, I hope they do not despair over that that statement. But but that is you're free because then you're really free to actually to to love better, right? And you know, I think I was thinking about this the other day with thinking about the whole thing of people reading, you know, St. Alphonsus and probably getting you know scrupulous, which again I I recommend. I people if more people read St. Alphonsus, maybe things would be better, I don't know. But you know, he could not have imagined what we are dealing with in our culture. He St. Alphonsus got to imagine the smartphone and those kinds of images being blasted at you from every direction, you know, from your phone. And when you're talking about people relapsing into sin and and so forth, what what impure images did they have in 1760 in Italy that you would you would fall into habitually? Um how would you access such material? Like I think it would take a far more corrupted heart in order to to fall into such things, whereas today it's pretty normal. Uh it's just like just part of people dealing with these dealing with growing up, I know.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:12

We're so desensitized to to like one of the one of the things uh we it's it kind of sucks that we were just talking about this last episode, but like the sacred image is one of those, and and like like to me, pornography is the greatest example of idol worship we have in our in our culture today, right? It's not just an image, uh but like you're kind of worshiping that image, you're giving an offering of yourself to that image. Like like you you think about what idol worship is, that to me is the greatest example of idol worship. And if you see images on the internet as idol worship, like you're you're worshiping a foreign god when you do that stuff, right? And I think if people really thought more in those terms, they may be a little stronger in resisting them because you are worshiping a foreign god when you get into that realm.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:14

It's very when it is, yeah, and ultimately in that sense, it comes down to worship of yourself and a desire to really be worshipped, you know. And I think I I've I've I've seen it, like I think that's important to maybe think through that, um, and say, okay, well, who do I want people to worship when it comes to um just in general? Um, but if you're committing those kinds of sins, watching those kind of that kind of material, I think it does come down to um like I want to be worshipped kind of thing. Um rather than leading people to worship the true God. And that's obviously quite dangerous and difficult to for someone to pull out of the that life. Um, because partly because it's so secret. And I think if someone, if people were to have like accountability partners and be more open to like other people knowing at least one person knowing what their struggle is, that's the biggest barrier. Because if they can get one person to know what the struggle is and to be like an accountability partner to um have watch over the material they're seeing on their phone and computer, that would probably stop at least the viewing of that material pretty quickly. But sin hides in sin loves the the darkness and loves hiding. And as long as no one knows, you're gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:41

For me, it's um like I need my kids to know I only have eyes for their mom, and I need my wife to know I only have eyes for her. Like it's been um like I need my kids to know they could pick my phone up at any time and they're never going to see something. Like they may see they may see a tweet that I wrote, right? But like but because I said this to you, you said uh when I posted your homily, you were like, Oh, somebody from like kind of outside of this world follows you on Twitter and like told me about it. I was like, Oh man, that's kind of funny. Because it's always kind of jarring to me when somebody outside of my social media world finds my podcast or finds out I'm doing a podcast or something, but I'm never embarrassed about it. I'm never like I'm like, yeah, go ahead, watch it. I don't care. Because I'm not different here than I am in real life. Like the I'll have the same conversations I have on the podcast are the conversations I have with my in-laws, and they're the same conversations I'm having with guys at work. It's not I'm not like doing something different here than I do at work. So in some time, some in some cases when guys at work find out I do this, I'm like, yeah, watch an episode. And then they'll come to me at work the next day and they want to talk to me about what I just talked about on the show. Nobody's ever shocked by anything I say, including my kids. My kids know their dad's a loudmouth and he says obnoxious thing. Like they know who I am. I'm not different.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:09

Well, that's good. That's I mean, having having integrity, really partly having integrity, right? At the very least, to be the same person in all circumstances, right? And and hopefully the same person exteriorly as we are interiorly. That's that's the greater battle, right? I mean, um, is to be the same person on the outside that we are on the inside, or at the very least, to to conform those two in actual virtue, right? And because someone could be the same person on the outside they are at the inside, but they're just a bad person on the inside. You don't know. Yeah. Um when I was in uh senior year of high school, there was uh an English class was a called the hero's journey. And we read um Beowulf, uh Dante's Inferno, and uh Hamlet, and I think A Man for All Seasons. And we watched the movie, A Man for All Seasons.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:06

And we reviewed it on this channel. It we Rob, Rob, me, Rob, and uh Father Dave Nix did a series Faith in Film, and we reviewed A Man for All Seasons.

SPEAKER_09 1:41:16

Yeah, what a classic. What a classic. But that was one of the movies, and it and I think played a certain role in my own vocation. And this uh teacher, this guy who also taught my dad in high school year many years prior, um said well, he said something that really always stuck with me. He said there's three words that are that are synonyms for each other. And he said, um the one was uh adult um and saint. And I forgot what the third now I'm bringing up the third one was, but now that I'm telling you, but the equating the idea of being an adult with being a saint, with being a person of integrity, like true integrity, that the interior matches the exterior, that kind of blew my mind initially. And the idea that well, I think you're because you we're all seniors in high school, but like, oh, we're we're adults now, we are we're a big deal. And we were not adults. Um, and most people are not, and that's the really the tragedy. Um, because that's the and then there's the challenge, like, well, but really want to be an adult and be like St. Thomas more to be a saint. You would be a saint if you were a person of real and true, perfect integrity, which is hard to integrity is what?

SPEAKER_06 1:42:39

Like the the person you are when no one's looking, right? Like the yeah, yeah, like who who you are when there's when you're not putting on the show for everybody.

SPEAKER_09 1:42:47

Right, right. Yeah, and that's it can be a hard thing to accomplish, be perfectly all the time. And you know, but we can do it. We can we can do it, and then like the even harder thing, again, the to move to have the interior desires that are then even transformed to always want what is good and to delight in the good and to actually be repulsed by it by what is evil. Um, that's that's hard. That requires a real transformation of the heart that is really that's the a lifetime project.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:20

So so some somebody okay, so I just saw a question said uh that was left two hours ago and said, I'm leaving this question in case I missed the live. And I think it's I went all the way back to the beginning.

Vocation Discernment And Priestly Pressures

SPEAKER_06 1:43:35

Uh okay, QA. Uh, what should a man who wants to marry do when he's assailed by doubt and choosing between that and the priesthood? And what should those men discerning the priesthood do when they're torn about where to go to seminary?

SPEAKER_09 1:43:53

Well, when he says doubt, what is what is the doubt? I mean, he's talking about is vocation or like doubts of faith.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:01

A man who wants to marry do when he's assailed by doubt. Yeah, is he doubting his faith or is he doubting his vocation? That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_09 1:44:12

Yeah, that's what I assume he means vocation here. Um obviously if you have serious doubts about faith, you gotta resolve those before you go to seminary. Um but one thing to realize is that you don't choose like seminary. Uh it's the diocese or the religious order that that chooses you. And it's always an ecclesial vocations are ecclesial. That is, you're called by the church to to take this next step. So you don't say like, I want to go to this seminary, that seminary. Well, some religious orders uh may have their just a one seminary they send guys to, then okay. So, you know, for me, I just started, I was seeing myself in the role of a priest. And say, what are the things that make me happy? What are the things that actually bring peace and consolation? Um, and you start seeing yourself saying mass, you start seeing yourself hearing confessions. There was a moment when I was in Boston, uh I was doing my master's degree there before seminary, and I was praying the Compline, just like on my bed praying Compline. And the thought just came to me is that I don't really want to do anything else but this. And and that's that was scary uh to have that realization. But one thing that if you're choosing, and if those kinds of thoughts come to you and you're in a position where you could enter seminary, uh, meaning that like you have um, you know, you're you're free to do so, you're not like burdened with an incredible amount of debt or something, then I think you need to take that look. Um, you will be in a expect a period of mourning that may come up time and time again in various points in your life in terms of the loss of the possibility of marriage and family, you know. Um why? Because marriage is a good thing that God created, and all the things that go along with marriage are good things, and therefore giving up something good will be sad, we sad for you. Um, but you're doing it for something greater, and you have to you have to to accept that that there's there there is a cross that's being placed on you if God is in fact calling you to that kind of vocation. Um but um there are also a tremendous amount of blessings that you can't even imagine right now in advance.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:40

It's a very it's very different from okay, so like I was thinking about this the other day, as when I was thinking about what we were gonna talk about, um like uh as a as a husband, my like my biggest stresses and worries are like, okay, first of foremost is financial, right? Like I'm like, okay, I gotta keep the I gotta keep this whole thing running. Um, but then there's things that come up uh throughout even just keeping the financials going that come into um stresses with your children, they get in trouble, or they're your children are hurt because their friends mistreated them and all these different all these different things. Then you then when as your kids reach the teenage years, you're worried about your son making sure he has a career so he can support his family and making sure your daughters find a good spouse, and there's all these different things. What are the and I I wanted to ask you, like, what are the biggest stresses of the priesthood? Like what are what are some of the because I will lie awake at night sometimes worried about money, or I'll worry about, oh man, did I do this right? Did I do this right? There are there are a lot of pressures that come with being a husband and father that you know it's not it's not the easiest thing in the world, especially as a man.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:52

Yeah. Um what are the biggest transferers? I would say, I mean, so much of the I think of all what we do really is just there's a lot of interpersonal relationships, right? Dealing with various uh relationships or people who I don't say people causing problems or things like that, but um how do you how to approach someone when there's a problem, how to deal with serious situations when someone is being is hurt or someone saying the things they they shouldn't have basically having to like sometimes sometimes referee sometimes um uh have difficult conversations with people especially regarding very important parts of their life, you know, um that most people wouldn't have to have, you know, those those conversations.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:47

But um, you know, I don't have to I don't have to worry about money in the same way that you know you would, but even for like for for the parish, because I was gonna say, don't you you have to make sure the parish is famously running?

SPEAKER_09 1:49:01

We do, but like also like I can't do anything about that. Like I can only I can do is like ask people for more money that can parish like here's what we need. Can you can you help? You know, and they do, and they do, yeah. Um, so because uh I don't I can't get my audience to help.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:17

You freaking bums donate help the guy out. We gotta we gotta put a new studio in this room.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:25

Yeah, I mean partly this like there's such a variety of things like okay, this I really have to help this couple prepare for their marriage and say the things that they need to hear, even if they might not want to hear it. Um not being afraid to be like the bad guy to to say the things that need to be said. Um not necessarily in a homily, but in various um various other contexts. Um having to make decisions, just having that burden of it really does there's so many people, great volunteers who help in so many aspects, everything that it is to run a parish, but someone has to make decisions. decisions.

SPEAKER_06 1:50:00

I would imagine drawing boundaries. I I would imagine drawing boundaries as a priest is probably tough, right? Because it's hard, it's hard for me to draw boundaries sometimes where especially um I I I uh I I don't I people are gonna think this is weird but I don't I don't like uh having confrontation face to face if unless somebody starts with like if I'll fight back if somebody starts with me but like generally I don't enjoy um having to say no you went too far with something like I I don't know it's just like it's it's uncomfortable right and I would imagine no one does yeah I would imagine in parish life maybe some of the parishioners are you know you have to just say okay look like this yeah that's that's you know we all hear the Susan from the parish council story so though I've gotten better over the over the years at that I think there's just a certain amount of experience that you have to have and it's yeah there's personality um traits that might help with it but it just learning over the years of us how there's only there's a certain number of types of personalities that you will encounter and um beyond you know beyond that you just have maybe people that might just be psychotic but you but there's a certain number of like normal personality sets that you encounter in life and you see how you see how those play out and how to navigate those various things just from being around people.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:39

And I'm fortunate to have a lot of good people you know who are around me.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:43

But even even Rob and I man like Rob and I have been doing this for crap four years now right and there's times where we're going to strangle each other right there's there's times where I want a video title and I'll be like all right this is what we're gonna talk about this is the title and Rob will change the video title and like two things like that I'm just like like that's not what I wanted you know like little things like that where it'll like something might drive me nuts and it's how do you how do you handle the relationship right because relationship I think I I think that especially in our day and age so many people have grown up in situations where their parents called it quits uh you have this this um you have this movement of um people saying no contact right so like people kind of women will cut their mother out or this one'll cut yeah and I've felt a responsibility and I talked to Rob about this too I'm like you like him you and I have a responsibility to show people that a relationship and a partnership can work through like anything like we me and Rob have had we had the blowout about co-sleeping there's there's been times on air where Rob is fed up with me wanting to talk about certain topics and it'll get to the point where I'll go I don't know what do you want to talk about then you know it'll get really tense between us yes like a lot of some people will pick up on us other people just kind of think it's part of the show but like there's very tense moments where it gets frustrating but always at the end of the day I feel like part of what Rob and I do and are doing is showing people like what friendship looks like and like it it might get rough and like this thing isn't breaking apart. I I mean you watch we watched Tim and Taylor do their thing and that broke apart. I've I've watched how many different things come together and people try to do something and then somebody gets a big ego and then it kind of breaks apart and it's yeah it's a it's a it's an important thing relationships.

SPEAKER_09 1:53:52

I think just like in in marriage um as I would imagine um as as in the parish like when someone does something that you don't like or maybe they you know that they did something kind of to try to try to get to you got to know what to what to let go. You know you got to have enough humility I know they did this or they said that for this reason but you know what to brush off and know what to deal with. Because like yeah it doesn't it ultimately like doesn't those those kind of things don't matter right and just like be be better be you'll be better than just and lead it's just part of us being a how do you be an effective leader um because whether you whether I like it or not like people like you're in in a way the pastor as as a father as of a family like the and kind of the partly the embodiment of the image of the of the parish right or of the family and he's the leader.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:53

So you you gotta set the example in every way in every way right I mean you're in public people see you um you know I'm the only guy in my these three towns who dresses like this like like this like people look at me like what is this guy doing why is he dressed like this um but you know what they know anytime I see a priest and clerics I grabbed them like confession I don't care no I get it's it's fine to see the generational divide um on that younger people let's say high school kids will look at me and think I'm completely insane yeah they have no clue why give them a few years give them a few years in a few years they'll get it they're just in their fades right now if they never no no but they've no they've never seen a priest wow and it's weird and then the people who are older like they recognize at least they'll say hi at least be happy generally happy to to see a priest um but yeah um you're in so many ways um this guy just goes back somewhat to Deloney's comments that everything you do creates a perception and whether who you're with what you say the way you talk anything anything uh creates a perception that you have to be careful and the only way to avoid being paranoid is the only way out really is to just be try to be virtuous so that who whoever is looking in on you doesn't they're never gonna see anything that's

Finding Catholic Community Today

SPEAKER_06 1:56:25

that's a problem you're just just being you and you can invite them in with you. So it's it can be a lot of pressure at times a lot of pressure but um it's all right I I had uh somebody's asking here they said um do you have any advice for someone who just came into the church and doesn't have a lot of Catholic people in my life it's hard to stay motivated and stay on course um that look that I mean that's why I started the podcast because I didn't have a lot of Catholic I mean I and I'm actually one of the fortunate people who has a big Catholic family. Right? So I have I have siblings I could talk to about this up but like generally I'm the Catholic guy and and when other people kind of have something come into their lives like even um like my I I I might have mentioned this on the show my wife is getting her hair done recently and the girl doing her hair knows me and my wife take our kids to church every week right and she's and she started asking my wife questions like we're one of the only people in our lives that go to church every week and everyone around us kind of knows me and my wife go to church every week. So like for somebody who's just coming in you're not alone in that aspect like I think the majority of us are kind of alone in in in in some to some degree because we don't live in a Catholic culture anymore.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:48

Right because what what happens is once you if you start to take the faith seriously all of a sudden your hopefully what happens is your priorities change your the topics of conversations change the things you watch change right so if you're going to hang out with people who don't share the faith you're what do you talk about? Like what what are the topics conversation because now you don't have a shared culture you don't have a shared experience of of life so the kind of things that they might want to talk about or the language they use is not going to be the same as yours. And so that it can be a pretty I can imagine it can be a pretty lonely feeling um but this is that's the advantage of having an online community I mean I think so how do you find that balance between having an online community and not being consumed by this whatever's out there.

SPEAKER_06 1:58:45

Yeah I had I had a guy who lives up by you I talked to recently um he he just reached out he was like hey you mind taking a phone call yeah of course and when I called him this was like one of the things that was he was struggling with he's like um he's like I'm Catholic I'm 23 years old 24 years old and I l he lives up by you as that he lives in the Finger Lake region and he's like I just don't have anybody to talk to you know he's like he's like he has no community and it's like it's really tricky I actually told him to go to your parish I was like I was like go hang a father amato or something I'm like even at you gotta even at my parish like you know there's I don't have really pretty much anyone just few very few who are in their like twenties like the people who they're like 40 and they have a lot of kids right so like again like it's not someone that someone a guy in the 20s can really relate to you know so much.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:46

Um it's a very different life and um yeah you have to go to I what I I don't the idea of living in a in a rural area is is great. It's a it's a fantastic life and because you have easy access to pretty good sized cities but it's almost like you have to just go find like a live in a big city for some time and just make you get go find someone to marry and then leave the city because you know if you can do that if you can go live in a in a highly populated place just long enough to find someone to marry and then get back here you're gonna be okay but you don't want to stay there you can't afford it. But I tell you what when I was in Washington DC for seminary these parishes like uh whether it's the the cathedral St. Matthew I was assigned to the cathedral there St. Matthew the Apostle um I was also assigned to St. Peter's on Capitol Hill right down the street where St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill they all have these enormous young adult groups these are all people who graduated college they're all coming to DC for their first jobs and they're just getting married um to people and you know like that's kind of what you have to do because you don't want to live in DC you know.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:01

Well you see you see it at the the the parishes I think it's St. Joseph's in Manhattan they've been on like Fox News and stuff it's all these young people they're just they're like hey let's just get together at you know after mass and they're doing like pizza hour after mass just to form a community and get to know each other and it's like when you're in a big city you have that ability when you're up in in a rural town it's just yeah yeah tricky I I I don't have an answer other than like it's like be around more people but like that's that's not very helpful.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:32

Um come to Italy with us.

Farewell And Blessing

SPEAKER_06 2:01:40

Um all right we are getting to the two hour mark father uh you're one of my favorite people that I've become friends with uh over the past couple of years I'm very grateful for your time but also our friendship man it's been really really cool to even just you know some of the conversations we have in private and getting to bounce ideas off you and stuff and and it's good to have a little bit of accountability from a priest so I I I don't push my boundaries too far at times because I have that no that's that's always good and I I appreciate I always appreciate our our little our calls for the usually they're they're early in the morning which is great. Yeah yeah I'm up at four I usually text you on the way to work and I'm like I hope he's up praying I'm up early I am off early don't you worry I I figured I'm like all right sorry for the early text I'm on my way into work and I'll shoot him a text then I usually I'll get I get a call back like a half hour later but um uh yeah guys oh I will uh I will you know what I'll do is I will post uh as um as a post on my on my YouTube page I'll post a link to father's parish so that you guys can watch his homily his homilies are amazing like I I I really do look forward to your homily every Sunday they're almost always like pertinent to what I'm talking to my family about even before knowing the readings and stuff so it's uh they're really they're really awesome you do you do these deep dives into the old testament at times and stuff so I hope everybody goes and checks them out um and uh yeah we'll have you back on too man I I I this was this was awesome to get you to sub in for Rob and play second mic tonight for me I appreciate it yeah yeah thank you thanks for having me on it's uh always a pleasure let me uh I'll give a blessing to your audience here the Lord be with you and with your spirit bandic show day onipotentis patries at feed the spirit to song to shinna super vos and money at semper amen amen god bless you all right we will see you next month thank you father see ya