Rome Has Spoken: The Encyclical That Brought Aquinas Back | Aeterni Patris (Full LOCALS Show)

Europe tried to bury the Catholic Church in the late 1800s. The Papal States were gone, bishops were being exiled, Catholic schools were getting squeezed, and the intellectual class was busy announcing that faith was obsolete. So when Leo XIII takes the chair of Peter, he makes a move that still surprises people: he doesn’t lead with a new list of condemnations. He leads with a 13th-century Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas, and an encyclical that treats the crisis of the modern world as a crisis of philosophy.

We break down Aeterni Patris and why Leo insists that false ideas about God, man, morality, and the soul don’t stay in classrooms. They spread into law, politics, journalism, and family life until society can’t even agree on what “truth” means. Along the way we map the big modern currents Leo is up against, including Kantian subjectivism, Hegelian historicism, positivism, and materialism, and we talk about the uncomfortable fact that Catholic formation had already weakened in many places before the culture fully collapsed.

Then we pull the thread forward to today: AI hype, attention slop, and the way technology accelerates whatever a culture already worships. If you’ve been looking for a Catholic philosophy framework that can actually engage modern science, mental health narratives, politics, and the ethics of AI, Thomism is not a museum piece. It’s a discipline for clear thinking and moral realism.

If you enjoy deeper long-form Catholic conversations, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What do you think is the most destructive “modern” idea Leo XIII would call out today?

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Transcript

A Church Cornered In 1878

0:31

When Pius the Ninth died in February of eighteen seventy eight, the Catholic Church was the weakest, most besieged, most politically humiliated institution in the Western world. The Papal States were gone. The Pope had been a prisoner in his own city for almost a decade. Catholic schools had been closed across Prussia, religious orders had been expelled from France. Italian troops were patrolling Rome. The intellectual movements driving every government in Europe, rationalism, materialism, positivism, historicism, had declared the Catholic faith philosophically obsolete. The man the Cardinals elected to follow Pius IX, a 67-year-old Italian aristocrat from a town nobody had heard of, looked at all of it and decided the way to fight back was not with another syllabus. It was not with another condemnation. It was instead with a thirteenth century friar.

Late Start And Sponsor Notes

2:11

And I set a haircut appointment for 7 PM. And Rob texted me and he's like, Are you coming? And I'm like, holy cow, I cannot believe I totally bungled that one. So sorry for the hour late start, everybody. Yes, I got a glow up, Jim. No, I actually this is what happened. I forgot my knick-knacks, my brain farted, and then I totally blew the I don't know that I don't even know what phrase I was going for there. I'm gonna pull Candace Owens and just make one up. Um, yeah, I I uh I I must have had a a a brain zap from lack of knick-knacks, and I forgot the show started at seven. Um, thank you. I'm working on the lighting still. I don't know exactly how I'm going to uh work this out. I have to still get my wife has like a light diffuser that I'm gonna try and use, but still gotta figure that out. Still ironing out the kinks. Um, yeah, knickknacks. Uh I wish my sister had had some. Oh boy. Uh we have quite the story for everybody on locals tonight. Uh my sister had a pretty bad injury with a lawnmower on Mon on Sunday, and uh I had to go to the emergency room and spend the day with her. So I'll tell that story over on locals. Um, we don't have a Knickknack success story tonight, though. But go to knick knack.com, use code AB25 for uh 25% for 25% off your first purchase. Use AB10 for 10% off subsequent purchases. We love Knickknacks, they are our uh uh our premier sponsor on this show. They're bread and butter. They're our bread and butter if it wasn't for that. But you probably shouldn't. And it helps you eat less bread and butter, too. It is a great fasting assistant, it's like a fasting aid. Like, I'm not kidding. Uh, if I gotta make it through the day, Knickknacks helps me get there. So sticking to one meal a day is much easier with Nick Knack. Uh, and also black monkrosary.com. Go to Black Monk Rosaries. Wrong one. Uh, go to Black Monk Rosary, use code uh avoiding Babylon at checkout, and you will get 10% off your amazing Black Monk Rosary. We love Black Monk Rosaries. Great gifts for confirmation, communion. I think that season's kind of passing. Good wedding gifts, birthday gifts. This time of the year is also when most priests are and were ordained. So uh if your priest is having a ordination anniversary upcoming, great gift for that. Yeah. Um, did we miss what's coming up? Is was what came last Mother's Day or Father's Day? Father's Day's coming up. Father's Day's coming up this month, yeah. Father's Day's coming up. Get your father a black monk rosary. Great gift. Um, so now, yeah, so we got some uh I got I have a wild weekend story to tell on locals when we go over there, so stick around for that. Um, this episode,

Why This Encyclical Hits Hard

5:00

man, I'm gonna I think I'm gonna take some interesting uh turns on it. Like, I honestly, in the encyclical itself, I did not highlight any of the Thomas stuff. Really? I I highlighted almost all the Thomas stuff. I actually like half the encyclical is about St. Thomas, it really is. Um, and I I kind of thought you would jump on some of the Thomas stuff, so I was like, I looked for some unique things. First off, the intro to it is probably one of the most amazing encyclical intros in the world. Leo. So the the last two encyclicals we did, um, not conning Vatican I because that was written really differently. Ocean's not that far off, but um Gregory uh Gregory's uh Mirari Voss and then uh Pius the Ninth, like they they were written well, obviously, but they were like um it's a good way to describe it. Um they were to the point, right? They like they cut right to the right to the heart of the issue, and not that Leo the 13th doesn't, but um he just is he just writes really well, yeah. Yeah, I man, I um I and I also want you to bring up the outro to uh Magnificad Humanis or whatever Leo the 14th's encyclical was because uh especially with all the Leo encyclicals we've been but all the encyclicals we've done so far, the the uh entrusting everything to our lady has been a common theme in every single one of them, right? Yeah, and I want I haven't read um the latest encyclical, but I do want to see the last paragraph and see the difference in the the modern encyclical versus versus the pre-conciliar one. Yeah, yeah, Bobby, you know, definitely, but also like um man, I want to talk about AI tonight because some of the things that Leo is getting at in this kind of um it leads to it leads to the the malformation of of how all science and all stuff is done, and you're you're now in this realm where they're playing with genetics because they no longer have this Christian philosophical grounding, they're playing around with things that the that the uh you know the the medieval world never would have dreamed of doing because they had a moral conscience, and it seems like everything Leo the 13th is talking about in this was not listened to or heeded, and we are in this insane mess today that is eerily similar to the world in the time of the flood. Yeah, he uh yeah, well, I mean we'll get into it with the encyclical, but he he talks a lot about how like how good philosophy and and theology isn't opposed to like physical sciences, it's a help to it. The problem with the physical sciences at the time and the problems he foresaw was was people doing you know doing it just to just to do it, just to uh you know, just to advance themselves in in things and and not you know not for good purposes. And it's a a really um telling warning, especially with what what's going on with AI and everything. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's why kind of the sum of the disappointment in Leo in Leo the 14th's encyclical, right? Like I especially after reading this, like it's like you the the the popes between um the first six centuries have like the most amazing popes, they're all martyrs and you know the the the greats, right? Then you get this period in the middle ages, in the early middle ages, late dark ages, I guess you would call that period. I don't know why they call it that. Um where you get the pornocracy and you get these people fighting for the papacy. You get um Theodora and all like uh the the uh all the all the women like are are involved with because their families are powerful and they're getting their influence. Theodora I think was before the sixth century. Yeah, she was actually yeah, fifth century. Fifth century. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh it might have been Theodosha, I'm thinking of. Like, I don't know. There's this whole period in the in like the late Middle Ages where you just have like one wicked man after another, and then that kind of culminates in Alexander the Sixth. And then once you hit Trent, like from Trent to Vatican II, it is just one amazing Pope after another, man. You might add one or two duds. I think, but between Trent and like the 19th century, there's not many good ones, honestly. Like, not as bad as the pornocracy, but they're just kind of meh. Well, we haven't really done since Trent, right? We've only we've only done since you so what do you think? Like since Pius the Ninth, uh Gregory Gregory, right? Gregory the 16th science, Leo. Um I just they're just you know, because before that you had the start of the Enlightenment and you had um, yeah, I don't know. I don't know much about those popes. Yeah, well, that's got that's so a lot of people were saying today to me that they're like a lot of people have covered this period. They can't I think a lot of people want to go back to Trent. Yeah, which I don't know if we should jump out of order in these. I think you should stick to the order of the thing. And then go back. Okay, all right. Just people have to realize like there's not gonna be like, yeah, there's a lot on Trent, obviously, but like there's not there's large periods of time where there's not many you know documents to really look at, and because Gregory the 16th is essentially the first papal encyclical that we covered, right? Yeah, uh yeah, and I mean uh there were a few before him, but nothing like Murari Voss. Yeah, yeah. I mean it'll still be interesting to go back and check those time periods out. The um the historical stuff, okay. So especially uh what what Leo the Thirteenth is getting into here, I'm going to be curious to see what saints are in this period, and also like uh because I I Rob had some good points and we were talking about it before the show, just about how this kind of uh because I um I asked Rob, I said, um, what year does Gary Goulagrange come? Right, because uh it he's early 19th century, it's not that long after this. He's like born in early mid-20th century, 20th century, I mean, yeah, yeah, 20th century. But this is the end of the 19th century, yeah. Yes, so he's not too far after this, and this could have had an impact, but that you said it also could have brought us guys like um uh uh the the reaction to neo-scholasticism, right? Which is was what this encyclical movement birthed, the reaction against that is what brought us the theology, you know, of of the the nouveau taylog um Ronner or yeah, Ronner and and all you know, all those guys that were so big around Vatican II, you know, and now everyone's been raised in a world that has that as its base. Um you know, so that yeah, it it's yeah, it in well in the encyclical Leo talks about um the state of things, you know, at that time. Yeah. And he you know, he goes, he he, you know, ex exhorts all the bishops to to bring back Thomism and Scholasticism, but like I think one of the the most telling warnings that I I got out of it was he warns them specifically, like, be careful who you put in charge of this stuff. Yeah, you know, he's he like he more or less tells them if you put the wrong people in charge of this stuff, it will all be for naught. And well, what do you know? And they don't listen to any, they don't listen to any of the warnings. It's like this is why I'm saying like these these pe these popes were amazing in this period, and it still didn't stop it. Like you had amazing popes, you had the liturgy was still great, you know, and it still doesn't stop what's coming. Anthony's red because it's summer. Everybody's asking why I'm red. It's summertime. Like, I can't I am Italian. He has a boat, I have a boat, and I'm out of my boat every weekend. I don't know what to tell you guys, but all right, let's get to the historical context. Let's let's let's get into the script. And what before I do the history, I just want to say, like, uh, we are giving ourselves basically a week to prepare for these, and like that's a week to uh kind of come up with some sort of like summary and narrative of what's going on historically at the time. Like some of this stuff I know pretty really well, some of the stuff I don't. So I try to make sure everything's like actually factually correct, but I'm gonna I'm gonna miss stuff, I'm gonna like gloss over some stuff, all and to try to just build an interesting narrative that is at least mostly accurate to what was going on. So don't expect this to be amazing history, but it's not gonna be false either, if that makes sense. Because you gotta make it interesting. But all right,

Pius IX Dies And Rome Falls

14:30

let's jump into that. Okay, so where we left off. So if you've been with us through the first uh three episodes, you have a pretty good idea of where the church was standing at the end of 1870. But um, if you haven't been with us, uh we'll kind of go over that quickly. So Pius IX had defined papal invalidity at Vatican I on July 18th. Um, 64 days later, the Italians, uh the troops of the Kingdom of Italy breached the wall of Rome at the Port of Pia, and the thousand-year-old papal states were gone. Um, so for the next eight years, the last eight years of his papacy, Pius IX lived as the self-declared prisoner of the Vatican. He refused every offer of compromise, he refused every guarantee from the new um state of Italy, and he died on February 7th of 1878, um, with the church in what uh what historians would basically call its lowest point since the basically since the Reformation. Um but like but all the secular forces of Europe weren't really done yet. Um so in Germany, you had Otto von Bismarck. Uh he started what's now called the uh Kultur Kampf. Um and he was basically arresting and exiling Catholic bishops. The Third Republic in France was working on legislation that would expel the religious teaching orders. In Italy, the new government had seized a lot of church pop uh property and abolished religious communities, um, and basically across all the universities of Europe from Berlin to Oxford, um the all the dominant you know philosophical schools had basically reached a consensus that Catholicism was you know was done, um basically. So then uh as we said, uh Pius IX dies on February 7th. The conclave to elect his successor opens on February 18th. This is the first conclave held uh um after the loss of the papal states. So this is when the conclave moves into the Sistine Chapel because they didn't have much else big enough to hold the cardinals, you know. We we the previous two papal elections and a few before that had taken place in the coronal palace, but Italy, the Kingdom of Italy, made that like their uh their their pals for the head of state. So they move into Sistine Chapel, um 61 cardinals lock themselves in, and it's the first time in centuries where the cardinals are princes of just the church and not like princes of an actual sovereign state. Yeah. Um, so they're guests of a hostile foreign government. Yeah, the the something interesting about this period is that um I I don't think we as modern Catholics grasp how much power um the church actually had and it and how quickly that was evaporating. And like how much of an influence cardinals and bishops had over matters of state, because like even even under like King Henry VIII, if you actually understand that period at all, like Wolsey is making all these deals for him, and you have like the cat the cardinals and bishops are very powerful, and there's this whole period of upheaval where they're trying to like get rid of any of that power within matters of state, and they're trying to relegate the church to basically what it is today, where it's like, oh, your priests can talk to you about spiritual matters, but they don't want them interfering in secular matters whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, how many of those uh bishops or cardinals uh you know had just been exiled from you know the new the brand new state of Germany? You know, how many had uh just recently been allowed to even be Catholic in England? How many um used to be secular leaders of uh Italian city-state, and now they are kicked out of that? Like, yeah, I I think all we all grew up with the Vatican being just that, the Vatican. That's not what it was up until 150 years ago. It was you know, it was Rome was the papal states. Um, so I I think we miss how I mean that probably seemed very apocalyptic to to Catholics at the time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, really, the the papacy is still the last monarchy on earth, like real monarchy, you know. I mean, there's probably like a couple of smaller ones, right? But like the the the English monarchy is really just for you know for show at this point, it doesn't really have much say in things, it's kind of just uh a tradition at this point, but like the the the Catholic Church is still the one surviving monarchy, and it's this this relic from the old world that that they still hate to this day, yeah. The king of Jordan, Joe McLean says. Um, but anyways, you got all the the cardinals locked in. The uh Italian authorities had assured them that they could conduct the election in peace, but no one really believed it at the time. Several of them had argued that the the conclave should be moved out of Rome entirely, um, but of course they did it. Uh the front runner was a Vatican decider named Cardinal Luigi Billio, and that's that's the guy who drafted the syllabus of errors under Pius the Ninth. Um so the expectation was that he would be um elected and that he would be another Pius the Ninth. Um basically, you know, someone to to denounce the modern world uh from the from the Vatican. But Bilio was not elected. So on the third ballot on February 20th, so in basically two days, the Cardinals elected Vincenzo, uh I'm not gonna try the middle name. Uh Vincenzo Pecci, and he was the Archbishop of Perugia. So Pecci was a diplomat and a scholar. He was a man who spent uh decades

Leo XIII’s Strategy Shift

20:40

at this point outside of the Vatican, running a diocese in central Italy. And there in Perugia, he was quietly building in the seminary basically one of the most important intellectual experiments um in 19th century Catholicism. So uh Petchi takes the name of Leo XIII uh after Leo XII, who was a pope known for restoring scholarly institutions. Um so he you know he he comes into his papacy with seemingly with this at the front of his mind. And um this this ends up not being his first encyclical, but it's it's it's within the first year basically. So he this was a priority to him. And you know, we we saw that Pius IX had fought with you know anathemas, with condemnations, with a syllabus. But Leo, at least initially, is going to try to fight against the issues of modernism with intellectual formation. Um and a bit to understand what he was trying to do and what he was going to do, you have to understand basically the the philosophical battlefield of of

Four Philosophies Shaping Europe

21:50

Europe at this point. So in 1878, there were basically four dominant schools of thought. And this is this is the area I'm shakyest on here. Like I'm I don't still Study phil philosophical history very much. Um, so if anyone notices any errors, please correct me. But there's basically four schools of thought. The first was um Kantian subjectivism. Um, and Kant argued that the human mind can't actually know reality as it is, we can only basically know uh what we experience, what you know what how it appears to us. So the the thing in itself, basically the essence or substance of something, is forever hidden from us, um, in in Kantian subjectivism. So uh as Leo, you know, Leo saw that with this, the entire enterprise of of natural theology was basically dead on arrival. Because according to Kant, you can't reason your way to God because reason itself can't really touch reality, which is why in the syllabus of errors, it's condemned. Uh, if anyone say that you cannot come to the knowledge of God through natural reason, let him be anathema. Yes, because this is already starting to pop up under Pius the Ninth. So by the time Leo comes in, Leo's like, All right. My wife. She loves to pick like a part of how I talk. I'm glad my wife's not in the chat. Um, but but so under under Kant, faith gets demoted to basically private feeling, uh, and truth gets demoted to personal experience. So it's it's it's really kind of uh wokeism in a sense, it's right, it's uh it's or the start of it, modern it's postmodernism or something, right? Like yeah, so the second school of thought is uh Hegelian historicism. So uh George Willem uh Hegel thought that truth is not eternal, it uh basically unfolds throughout history, and it does this through a dialectic of thesis versus antithesis, and then them coming together to form a synthesis. So religion for Hegel was a primitive stage that philosophy and um would eventually outgrow. Uh to Hegel, every doctrine, like every Christian Catholic doctrine, was just the current thesis that would eventually be reformed and remade through a dialectic struggle with some sort of antithesis to reach then a new synthesis, a new doctrine, right? So, I mean, this is almost not exactly, but kind of like you know, the uh not Newman's development of doctrine, but like the modernist development of doctrine, right? So, like in in uh in historicism, you hear the like the philosophical seed of every time you hear someone say like the church needs to evolve with the times, yeah. That's kind of Hegelian historicism. So the third school of thought was positivism, and this was from uh Compt, Compty, Compt, I'm not sure. Uh uh, so Compt and his disciples taught that the only real knowledge is something that can be empirically verifiable and is something that is scientifically demonstrable. Um materialism. But yeah, yeah, well, kind of materialism is related, but so um basically they thought like physical science was like the final stage of of intellectual development, of intellectual thought, that theology and metaphysics were obsolete. And then the fourth school of thought is materialism. This is um materialism is is just that it certs that only matter exists: mind, soul, spirit, god, angels, demons, you know, all of that. Uh they're they're all just chemical reactions inside of the brain, more or less. There's nothing transcendent, there's nothing eternal, there's only the body. This ends up this ends up informing like um uh uh all of the like uh modern mental health, right? So this is like why they start playing with SSRIs and stuff, like, oh, you have a chemical imbalance, that's why you're depressed. Like it, like they've they've completely thrown out the spiritual realities and all these things, and they're like, No, no, it's just a chemical imbalance, let us just fix it. And that's not actually what is going on with people. They don't even know why those SSRIs work, things like that. It's just everything's just been written off to a chemical imbalance, or somebody's gay because they have a you know their their um whole gene that we can't actually point to. Yeah, it's like this is how all of these things that start in this seed form end up blossoming into some of the most diabolical things that we're what that we see today. I mean, really, so positivism, like uh I don't know so much about that one, but like the other three, like subjectivism, you know, like we talked about is kind of vocism, but it's also like modern therapy culture, you know, like it's all it's all whatever you think about it, it's all however you feel about it, and like you said about materialism. What's your truth? Um, you know, all of this, I mean our whole modern world is based on these ideas, yeah. You know, and yeah, and um unfortunately, so is the theology in the church these days. Well, so much theology is is based on these ideas, too, you know. Unfortunately, yeah, but um, you know, another thing these four systems have in common is that they didn't even try to argue against like the Catholic Church, they didn't argue against Catholicism, they didn't even engage it. They just yeah, they declare that all of Catholic thought is intellectually like inadmissible, you know, it's all obsolete, don't even bother with it. Um, and that so that that's what Leo saw as the battlefield is like the church needs to reclaim philosophy and and go to battle with these philosophies that are you know were uh leveling Europe with destruction, basically. Yeah, because you because you really you go back to the early philosophers, and it's and you're and you're going back to the Greek philosophers, and that's what Thomas is dealing with, right? Like Thomism is essentially going back to Aristotle and breaking down Aristotle, taking what's good in Aristotle, even the way he uh uh goes through problems and and you know steelmans every single argument, things like that. And yeah, they're just acting like um like the like Catholic thought is obsolete, it's this archaic thing, let's just get away from it and let's just they they were so excited whenever a new philosopher would come around or a new you know a new a new a new thinker would come around and they jumped all over them. Um so one thing that we don't realize today that most of us have no idea that I didn't even really know before starting to to look into this episode is is just how bad things had gotten intellectually in the church at you know

Seminary Decline And Cultural Drift

28:50

prior to this. Um by the mid-19th century, so you know, by 20 20, 30 years before this, the scholastic tradition, you know, the tradition of Aquinas, Bonaventure, SCOTUS, um, basically of the the entire high medieval theological system that had defined Catholic intellectual life had collapsed. You know, like like it like you said, it had been it hadn't been refuted by these ideologies, these philosophies, hadn't been argued against. It was just abandoned basically. Um in its place, seminary professors across Europe had basically adopted whatever was fashionable. So, you know, the Cartesian rationalism, you know, the the philosophies we just talked about, um, all these, you know, all these different things, they've they they adopted, they abandoned scholasticism and adopted these new philosophies. And the the result was basically exactly what you'd expect. The the the Catholic intellectual class, the you know, Catholic clergy and theologians, basically the men who were being trained to defend the faith, um, were being formed in these these in these philosophies, in these systems. And of course, they couldn't actually do the job of defending the faith. Yeah, it just shows how it was like while you still have a good papacy during this period, the clergy are already starting to to to fall, right? And those men that are the clergy learning these things, and this stuff is exciting to them, and they're learning this in in their seminaries, they eventually then become bishops, they become the bishops who are Vatican II eventually, right? Right, like you're you're not that far off, you're you're within 80 years of Vatican II. So these maybe not quite yet the guys that are going to be the bishops at the at the council, but you're getting close to it, and these ideas are starting to take hold within the church. It's not just something that happens to Vatican II suddenly out of nowhere. I think, I think in our day and age, we you know, we've if we didn't personally see the clash, we've heard the story of the clash from our parents or god or grandparents uh of of the council and what happened after, and um in you know the sexual revolution of the 60s, you know, we we we see and know how bad the last 80 years have been, right? And and and we see what was what it was like before that, and we I think we have this idea that things were great before 19. Things were great, and and they they largely they had been built back up to be great, but prior to you know, prior to a lot, I mean there's a reason why the encyclicals we've read you know were written, and I a lot of it's because these issues were were there already, yeah. Um, and maybe not as bad as they were now, but um no, the popes were prophetic, they saw they saw what was coming down the pike, and they were and they weren't taking it for granted that oh, we're you know, we have the church and everything's going to be fine. It was like they saw this stuff taking root in society. They saw look, we we we even look at today and we're like, oh look, church attendance drops off a cliff at Vatican II, but there's already people going through the motions because it's still that there's the pressure in society to still maintain, like the uh, you know, you're going to church, and you know, oh, I'm a God-fearing man. But like people aren't deeply rooted in their Catholic faith on large scales, even at this point. You have people who are not well formed in it, and they're just it's it's very much a cultural thing still, and they still have it as a culture, but they're not they're not, you know, there's no apologetical arguments being given to the lady on the ground that this is. Oh yeah. The um I I think we'll I think we'll end up finding that the popes, you know, of this era did a good job of of rebuilding kind of the church, but they didn't do the a good job, and and they probably couldn't have really uh of their own volition, do a good job of rebuilding Christendom, right? Like like I we're seeing how they're how they're rebuilding the church in it, and they did seem to work, but society as a whole, Christendom fell even harder, yeah. You know, and so you have a you have generations then prior to to Vatican II that while they're raised in a a fairly healthy church, they're raised in a very sick society, very sick. Yeah, the culture is totally sick. It's just yeah, Christendom is over, right? Like the all the revolutions that are taking place, you have all these things happening in the world, and they're getting all of the churches' um positions, like it's always they're all trying to subordinate the church to the secular authorities and and instead of having them you know be in their proper place. So you so but like the really the I think the Pope is seeing that the the lady don't stand a chance against this stuff in the long run, right? They're seeing it that oh man, these people are just gonna be so susceptible to it. Like the only thing they're clinging to at this point is culture, Catholic culture, and people still loving their traditions and things like that. Now, as you get into the 20th century, once like once the television is invented, it's a wrap. There's just the like the television destroys any kind of culture. Well, I mean, it's just propaganda machine that's just being pumped into every household. That's what I was gonna say. You have uh people like um uh what's his name? The basically the the the godfather of modern marketing who did a lot of work for the CIA. What was his name uh oh I don't know Edward Bernay or something like that, right? Something like that. It sounds familiar, but like, yeah, the the government, the government and and and I don't want to sound like conspiratorial, but like the CIA, and they start using ever all the power they have to propagate. Do they think shape the culture, but really it's to tear down whatever culture's left, right? Yeah, yeah, to get to because look, it I still say the biggest threat to any government is the united Catholic people. I mean, it just is a a united Catholic front can take down any government, and it's the only way a government has a chance is if you break apart that unity, because throughout history they were unable to defeat the church because every time you start killing Catholics, it just winds up being martyrdom that spreads the faith even even even more wild. So the the idea is that look, I mean, people have criticized Taylor Marshall for his book, but infiltration is actually what happened, it's this infiltration of wicked men within the church spreading bad ideas, and Bernays was uh Freud's nephew. Um but but yeah, so so this is what things were like in the the mid-19th century, and uh Leo the Thirteenth, uh at the time, uh Vincenzo Pecci, um, he was well aware of this, you know, because so he had been a cardinal, and before that he'd been Archbishop of Perugia in in Perugia starting in the 1840s and continuing for more than 30 years, Vincenzo, who

Perugia’s Thomistic Experiment

36:20

would become Leo, and his older brother, who was Cardinal uh Giuseppe Pecci, who himself was a serious Thomas scholar, had been running um kind of a counter-revolution in their own seminary in Perugia. They had founded the uh uh basic uh the Academy of St. Thomas, um, the uh uh Academia di San Tommaso, um, and they brought back all the text of Aquinas. They reformed that seminary's philosophical curriculum around scholasticism, and in this little backwater Italian archdiocese away from Rome, away from the spotlight, they basically created a working model of what uh Catholic, you know, a real Catholic formation could look like if it really fought back. Um, and they weren't the only ones. Um, in Rome, there was, believe it or not, a circle of Jesuits um at the Sevilla Catholic Journal. Um, they had been publishing a Thomistic revival for two decades at this point. In Naples, there was uh someone who had been writing systematic uh Thomistic textbooks. There was um a Dominican at the Collegio Romano who um was being prepared uh in this sort of system. Leo would later make him a cardinal. He was being prepared to be one of the the basically the principal intellectual architect of of Leo's um rebuilding. So you know there they this had been in the work in a few areas. Um it didn't really necessarily begin with attorney Patras, um, but had been building in the seminary with Jesuit journals, um, and just kind of out-of-the-way little areas for 40 years at this point. But what Leo did in 1879 was to take that underground movement and basically put the entire force of the

Aeterni Patris And The Thomist Push

38:10

papacy behind it. So uh it's with that that on August 4th, so 18 months into his pontificate, he issues what would be his fourth encyclical. 18 months for encyclicals. Wow. No wonder why the guy's written a third of all encyclicals. Yeah, but uh so he names it attorney Patras of the Eternal Father. The subtitle is on the rest of uh restoration of Christian philosophy, and it had done something that like no encyclical up to this point had done. Um and if for those of you who have read it or who will read it, you'll you'll see this pretty clearly. It doesn't really condemn the necessarily the philosophies it's working against, it doesn't anathematize anything. Um, it's it's not the syllabus of errors. Um, it's actually kind of the opposite. What it's doing is encouraging, it's encouraging Catholics, uh and especially the priests and the bishops that he's writing to to take up arms with philosophy and telling them, look, even Saint Paul goes into uh the um what when he goes into Greece, he goes into the uh what the heck is the name of that? The um the Aragopagus. He goes into the Aragopagus and he and he's he's points to the to the unknown god and he uses the Greek mind and the Greek tools to try and evangelize these people, right? And so none of this document is condemning anything, it's it's a it's a document of encouragement and try and it's something that's relevant to us today, right? And we all should, and and and that's kind of why I want to after after we're done with the historical thing, I want to talk about AI a little bit and like I don't know, we'll we'll get to it. So yeah, so so basically the thesis of the encyclical is that the the crisis in the modern world is philosophy is is fundamentally a crisis of philosophy. That the answer to that crisis is is better philosophy, yeah. Um, and he argues that false ideas about God, about man, about the soul, about morality, all of these false ideas have crept into every area of the state. They've moved from the classroom into the law school, into parliament, into newspapers, into the marketplace, into the family, and that bad philosophy at the top had become bad policy at the bottom, and that basically all the bitter strifes of the modern world were the harvest of this. Um, and the answer, according to Leo, wasn't retreat, not necessarily condemnation, it's recovery. Um, and he argued that the Catholic Church is was sitting on the greatest intellectual inheritance in human history, um, basically what's now called the high medieval scholastic synthesis, not synthesis in the Hegelian sense, um and that the church had stopped using it. Um in Leo a law a lot half this encyclical, Leo basically names the man who's at the center of all of it, right? And it's of course uh Thomas Aquinas. Um and he he names them as the very m uh model and pattern for how Catholic thought should be done from that day forward. Um, and it calls for a restoration of Thomistic philosophy in every seminary, every university, every Catholic institution on earth, and it wasn't just going to be one option among many, it was going to be the very foundation of it. Um, but there's more more to this movement than just the encyclical. That same year in 1879, he founds the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome with uh the Cardinal uh Zigliara as its first director. That was the cardinal he had been um forming, you know, for a few decades at this point. He commissions uh uh in 1879, he commissions the Leonine edition of Aquinas's complete works. Um, and it uh it's still actually being completed today. So that's how long it's it's taken to to do this this edition of all of Aquinas' works. He poured Vatican funding into that, he poured uh um Vatican prestige into that. Um, and he made very clear that that was going to be the direction of the church. He revives the Roman College, which would later become Mark Robertson's favorite institution, otherwise known as the Pontifical Gregorian University. Um, but he he he revives it as a tomistic institution. He pushes the Dominican order back to its its you know, the the intellectual mission of its founding. He elevates more and more tomistic scholars to the to to being cardinals, he appoints tomistic bishops, he basically used every single lever he had, um, which was fewer than any pope had had in centuries, but he used every lever lever he had to rebuild the entire intellectual foundation of the church from the ground up. Um so a lot of times when when historians say Leo is the Pope that really began the church's recovery from the disasters of the 19th century, this is is really the beginning of that. Um, you know, and and at the very heart of this recovery is is you know good scholastic philosophy. And the the results didn't happen overnight, but they did they did happen. So by the early 20th century, neoscholasticism, which was the modern revival of this tomistic philosophy, um, had become the dominant intellectual movement in Catholic seminaries, uh, basically all over the world. And the this revival produced um figures, you know, like obviously uh Gergu Lagrange, um, you know, produced figures like uh

Neoscholasticism And Vatican II Fallout

44:00

Marathon, uh, Etienne Gilson, um, and you can even have even f figures like uh Edward Faser, you know, in our day and age. Yeah um all of these guys are are downstream of this this revival. And and basically what it it did, it gave the church um it gave the church weapons to confront modernism, right? Because when when when you have like Pius X confronting modernism in the 1900s and theologians working against modernism, like like Gargoud Lagrange, that you know, they had these weapons that were given to them by by Leo and that also they learned from from the from the institutions that were built up under Leo. Yeah, exactly. Um, but you know, there's there's the other side of that is when Vatican II opens in 1962, every theological expert there had been trained in this neosclassicism. Um so you know, we'll I'm sure we'll get to it at some point. Yeah, even Benedict the 16th, there's you know, when he was Ratzinger, there's quotes of him talking about how they just wanted to get away from Thomism, they were so tired of Thomism, you know. Right. So like so the the quite like they they'd all been formed in it. The question really is, did those men of of the Vatican II did they remain faithful to that inheritance or did they abandon it? And uh I mean I think I I know the answer. I think I think it's pretty obvious now, but we'll we'll get to that eventually. I do think that um we do discount how it yes, the council for sure, and the church changing these things for sure, but I I don't think we take into account enough how much indoctrination goes on during that period leading up to the council, especially with the invention of radio and television and and mass media and the way the the way they're able to influence the masses and the education system being taken away, you know, like all of the things that that Leo is worried about happening in Catholic education, especially. Like there was uh I was watching that um that uh that Orthodox priest with the uh we played the clip on this show with the with the fake accent. The guy with the fake accent where he was like Catholic institutions, Catholic schools were were educating like 65% of the American population in the 1960s. Yeah, like we were we had the ability in the 1960s to indoctrinate every freaking kid in America. We could have made this entire country Catholic Josiah Trenham. Is that who it was? Yeah, I think so. I'm just teasing. Um, the uh like they could have indoctrinated every single kid to be with a Catholic education and well-formed, and they just dropped the ball completely. And now Catholic schools, Catholic education is no better than secular education, and it's it's all these Jewish Jewish programs that they're running through everything. Bill Gates teaching our kids math in the worst way possible, it's all garbage. You know, and um these the those formed in the in the the neo-scholasticism, like yes, they were formed, you know, in that inside the church, but they're also formed in part by the society they live in. Like you have someone like um Maritan who who was definitely you know strongly orthodox in his theology, you know, in his belief, but uh even as a neo scholastic, he was also very strongly like pro-democracy, right? And pro like modern, you know, modern political systems and things like things like that. So you know, he who knows what would have happened if society itself had been a little different than it had been. Yeah, yeah. I think I think all of this is part of God's uh you know, his divine plan for us. No, Epstein didn't fund McGraw Hill. Um Epstein's uh what was uh Ghislaine, Ghislaine Maxwell, her father was the founder of McGraw Hill, and also uh his funeral was attended by six um former Israeli prime ministers and five former Israeli presidents. Yeah. Um how much you got left on the on the historic? That's that's basically it. But I know you had some questions about like saints and things like that. Yeah, like what saints are are are I don't know if I want to ask which ones are being canonized or which ones are alive during this period. Like what saints are alive during this period? Uh quite a few. Um, like this is pretty close in time to uh uh the visions um that Saint Bernadette is having, you know, at Lord's. Oh, yeah, that's right. Um, you have the um uh the Martins. Um you know, so so St. Therese and her parents are uh was would Terez be alive at this time? If she's not, her parents are obviously. Yeah, um you have obviously Newman. Uh Newman's alive. Um, we just talked about that. Um I know I sent I texted you some yeah. Um let me look at my phone here. Yeah, he did. Um, because I asked you then. Uh St. Bernadette, John Bosco, Damien of Malachi, who's an interesting one, man. I really like Saint Damien. I know Newman. I know his basic story, but I should learn more about him. Yeah, uh St. Charble during this time. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, this is this is a this is a really you know god. Obviously, Pius the 10th was alive, yes, of course. Um what just happened to my camera? I don't know. Can you hear me? I don't know, but now Rob's finally darker than me. Everybody has been having a ball talking about my you guys ever think the problem isn't that I'm red, but it's that rob's translucent. Come on now. And

Reading Key Lines From Leo XIII

50:30

hope's saying you have a sunburn right now, which is on my on my arms, yeah. Okay. Um, all right, so yeah, so let's get into the document itself. Hold on, let me see if I can get my camera working. Um, the beginning of the document is one of the one of the great openings of a um an encyclical because it's yeah, there you go. Uh, the only begotten son of the eternal father who came on earth to bring salvation in the light of divine wisdom to men conferred a great and wonderful blessing on the world when about to ascend again into heaven, he commanded the apostles to go and teach all nations and left the church which he had founded to be the common and supreme teacher of the people. For men whom the truth had set free were to be preserved by the truth, nor would the fruits of heavenly doctrines by which salvation comes to men have long remained, had not the Lord Christ appointed an unfailing teaching authority to train the minds to faith. And the church built upon the promises of its own divine author, whose clarity it imitated, so faithfully followed out his commands that its constant aim and chief wish was this to teach religion and contend forever against errors. To this and to this end, assuredly, have well, I like I wanted to pause there because yeah, I'm just can you like do you think there how many bishops alive right now would say that the constant aim uh and you know chief aim of the church is to contend forever against errors? It's crazy, man. Uh, to this end, assuredly, have tended the incessant labors of individual bishops to this end, also the published laws and decrees of councils, and especially the constant watchfulness of the Roman pontiffs, to whom, as successors of the blessed Peter and the primacy of the apostles, belongs the right and office of teaching and confirming their brethren in the faith. Since then, according to the warning of the apostle, the minds of Christ's faithful are apt to be deceived, and the integrity of the faith to be corrupted among by men, uh among men by philosophy and vain deceit. I mean, I could read this whole thing. The supreme pastors of the church have always thought it their duty to advance by every means in their power, science truly so called, and at the same time to provide with special care that all studies should accord with the Catholic faith. Like this is just alien to modern to the modern church. Yes. It's it's sad because this is it's all you're thinking when you're reading this. It's like I I wish the church still felt this was their mission to defend against errors, and instead they're playing footsie with the freaking world now. Well, they think right now they think the the mission and chief aim of the church is to help immigrants, you know, yeah materially. And to and to bring about this um this uh brotherhood of man without the fatherhood of God, right? To bring about human fraternity and just communion, communion at at any cost, which is meaningless because communion separated from the truth just leaves you with, oh, let's just be nice to each other. It's really sad. So would you would you have highlighted? So on paragraph uh in the next paragraph, he he basically lays out what he thinks the the the issue in the world is, and he says, uh, whoso turns his attention to the bitter strifes of these days and seeks a reason for the troubles that vex public and private life must come to the conclusion that a fruitful cause of the evils which now afflict as well as those which threaten us lies in this, that false conclusions concerning divine and human things, which originated in the schools of philosophy, have now crept into all the orders of the state, and have been accepted by the common consent of the masses. For, since it is in the very nature of man to follow the guide of reason in his actions, if his intellect sins at all, his will soon follows. And thus it happens that false opinions, whose seat is in the understanding, influence human actions and pervert them. Whereas, on the other hand, if men be of sound mind and take their stand on true and solid principles, there will result a vast amount of benefits for the public and private good. It's yeah, I I had all that highlighted. In our day and age, like we're told to to to dialogue right with these errors and the people who hold them, you know, with the the to those who uh who believe men can become women, we're supposed to to walk with them in their journey. But Leo is is saying no, you know, we have to combat these these actual beliefs and these ideologies with with better stuff, you know? Yeah, it's um Joe. We probably said Leo the Thirteenth was a great writer. We weren't talking about the new encyclical. Um I'll be honest, I have not read basically anything in the news. I've heard people's like uh criticisms of it, and I've seen highlights of it. And uh I almost kind of want to get through the encyclicals we're gonna read, you know, and then see how it compares. But um, I got I got paragraph four is the next place I got highlighted. In the first place, philosophy, if rightly made use, uh rightly made use of by the wise in a certain way, tends to smooth and fortify the road to true faith and to prepare the souls of its disciples for the fit reception of revelation, for which reason it is well called by ancient writers sometimes a stepping stone to the Christian faith, sometimes the prelude and help of Christianity, sometimes the gospel teacher. It's like like people that's that's people who are studying philosophy properly come to the conclusion that we believe in a god of of reason, right? Like you, like the world is made up of things that are understandable, and just that alone, just the fact that the world is understandable and able even through science, you should be able to come to the knowledge of God's existence because the world is legit, like it's it's it's it has order, like that alone. Yep, yep. Um, let's see what I had next. Um yeah, yeah. I mean it he says here it is certain it is that certain truths which were either divinely proposed for belief or bound by the closest chains to the doctrine of faith were discovered by pagan sages with nothing but their natural reason to guide them. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit after that he says it is most fitting to turn these truths. Yeah, I had I had this highlighted, which have been discovered by the pagan sages, even to the use and purposes of revealed doctrine, in order to show that both human wisdom and the very testimony of our adversaries serve to support the Christian faith. Yeah, a method which is not of recent introduction but of established use and has often been adopted by the Holy Father of the Church. What is more, those venerable men, the witnesses and guardians of religious traditions, recognize a certain form and figure of this in the action of the Hebrews, who, when about to depart out of Egypt, were commanded to take with them gold and silver vessels and precious robes of the Egyptians, that by a change of use the things might be dedicated to the service of the true God, which had formerly been the instrument, instruments of the ignoble and superstitious rites. So it's like there, all right. So somebody said earlier, like there needs to be a distinction. Like, just because this is being said doesn't mean that you can baptize every single thing that's happening today. But at the same time, like there's there are some things which we can take of the of non-believers and use it against them to like to take their own arguments and use them against them. There is a a spirit of that coming out now where especially in this postmodernism and people talking about, you know, oh, I don't need God, uh, I could be good without God. It's like, well, what do you mean good? You know, like you start getting into their own arguments and breaking down what they even mean by these things. So I mean, there's a there's a level to which we do have to know the arguments our our adversaries are using so that you can kind of you know use uh jujitsu on them and flip them on them. Um, do you have anything before the end of the number four there? Um so right right before paragraph five, I have if natural reason first sowed this rich field of doctrine before it was rendered fruitful by the power of Christ, it must assuredly become more prolific after the grace of the savior has renewed and added to the native faculties of the human mind. So if if if you know the philosophy of the Greeks and such could figure all that out before they had the grace, you know, the before they became Christian, imagine how much you know more fruitful

AI Slop And A Coming Bubble

1:00:20

and we saw we see how much more fruitful it was under Aquinas and Bonaventure and SCOTUS and things like that. So, like a part of what I wanted to get into a little bit was like um everything now is kind of like brain rot, you know, like even the even the the shorts that I'm coming across, they're all just like everything's just so terrible, right? Um, even with AI, somebody posted before that uh groc wants money now. Like we we've been we've been given AI models for free for a few months now, like maybe a year or so. But I think they were doing that because they wanted to kind of test us out and see what we would be using it for, and they were using it to to data mine, right? But we're going to get to the point, especially now they're talking about how expensive it is to run these data centers and all that, that they're gonna start charging for this stuff. You're gonna start seeing ads on AI. Like, I don't know what is going to happen with that, but what I do think is that there's going to be a segment of people, yeah, there's a lot of slop out there, and I think there's gonna be a segment of people who want to escape the slop. And I like I don't I'm I'm I'm on one hand, I'm worried that everything's just going to be garbage being fed to us, AI garbage. And on the other, I'm like, even the stuff we're doing with this encyclical series, I think this one was a little slow, but like I think we got to pick a good one next. But I do think there's still going to be there's a lot of good ones coming up. Yeah, I I still do think there's going to be a market for people who want to do, who want to watch long-form content, who want to actually learn stuff. What do you think? Taffy's going to go go broke making your intros. Oh man. You want a silver play button, Taff? Um, we should send him one. Yeah, um, does this mean that people will stop posting AI pics of them and their non-existent spans? I've been seeing that too. I hope. Yeah, no, like like we talk, like you talk about like you remember when the internet you used to be able to watch YouTube, and there would be like uh, you know, you'd have a five-second ad, you'd be able to skip it. But now, like if you don't have YouTube premium, you're just bombarded with commercials. And it's it's unwatchable at this point. That's going to happen with AI. They're going to put ads on everything. You're gonna, it's going to be just total shittification of AI, and it's going to be, it's it, it's I see it already. Like, I even see the way the propaganda for AI is changing suddenly. Like, people are starting to like you're seeing those the the the the uh audience of kids when the commencement speaker came up and spoke, and they all booed her when she mentioned AI. Like, I don't know what's I don't know, man. I'm starting to think AI is just going to be a big flop. I we're in over the next year or two, it either has to become immensely profitable, or it is gonna be the biggest bubble in history. Yeah, it's gonna be the dot-com bubble all over it. It's gonna get way worse. Way worse. They sunk trillions into this thing because they keep telling people it's going to be it's going to be this thing, it's going to be this thing, and this thing isn't it. Like AI is essentially just a large language model. It's not what it's not, yeah. It's all it's all it is. It's AI is a large language model, and people are like, it's not that great. I don't know. I mean, it's gonna be a useful tool. I was gonna say, I I'm finding more and more that there are things it is really a useful tool at it, especially for instance, like making this podcast, like it it definitely does help with things that would take me three times as long and be half as good, right? Like, yeah, to go looking up books to read this um right, or even I mean, it's gotten better at making thumbnails, honestly, and like I don't know, like I I I want to not use it, but if if it's say like I would our product would be worse if we didn't use it, unless we hired someone with money we don't have, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you know, if if we were a big uh if we were like the Daily Wire and could afford someone, then I would rather pay more money for a person to do it. But if it's a question of not having it all or using AI for some things, like I don't know. Yeah, that's fine, but I don't think it's going to disrupt the world the way they made it out to be. I don't see I don't see robotics coming into the picture. I don't see like they're like, Oh, every single job is going to be obsolete. It's like you people are insane. Do you know how expensive this crap is going to be? You're it's just going to be way too expensive, and I don't think the everyday person is going to have access to AI like that. It's just it doesn't seem that way. But we'll see. But even uh like to bring it back to to this, like I just think that there's going to be a a market for people who do want to go and like it's going to be kind of like the the people who do you remember like I don't know if you're old enough to remember this, but like during like the grunge era, people were like so against corporate stuff. Yeah, like everything was just like oh big business, corporate, and then they kind of like shunned it. And it was like you only wanted to listen to you didn't want to listen to. bands that were on the radio like you hated the idea of like you you you want you had your garage band that you listened to and whenever they went mainstream you were like they sold out you know like you hated it when Metallica's black album came out everybody was furious it's like oh they sold out man like I think there's going to be a there's going to be a large segment of people who want nothing to do with AI and they're gonna be those I don't want to I don't want to buy into the matrix man I want to live you know I want to go live off grid or I want to go you know it's going to be like it it won't be the biggest community the you know the majority of people will be using this crap but I think there'll always be a market for people who want to not be sucked into this stuff. They want to get judged people having a conversation. Judging from the number of people that seem to enjoy pineapple soaked in Kool-Aid yeah I I think most people will I don't I don't get that reference but it's that oh you have not seen that on Twitter and on that no so a certain segment of the population um a certain very scholarly uh segment of the population has come up with taking the big old like Costco jars of pineapple right that come you know they're like a gallon of pineapple spears inside of uh you know uh like syrup and you know sugar water basically they'll take that and they'll pour Kool-Aid packets in it to turn that sugar water into Kool-Aid and then they'll sell this jar of uh pineapple soaked in Kool-Aid for like 15 bucks on the street and you you'll you'll you'll uh I Taffy do you did you see the the clip of the um uh dispa dispa g guy or whatever I want you to put ant's face on that guy if you know what I'm talking about it's their own version of sangria basically yeah ghetto gangria ghetto sangria um yeah I don't know man it's just I I I kind of wanted to just touch on that but also like like we were saying earlier all the all the things that Leo was warning about in this they kind of came to fruition with the way that modern science is done with the way that they've handled the AI thing I was really hoping for Leo the 14th

Sex Bots And A Moral Cliff

1:08:20

to address some of this stuff but I don't even think those old men in the Vatican have a clue what is what we're on the because the biggest danger we're actually facing I'm telling you like here here's here's the real thing you ever see Tropic Thunder yes you remember the scene where the kids walking talking to um uh uh Robert Downey Jr. about uh blue Blu-ray versus uh versus uh what was it was like Blu-ray versus whatever other H D D V D yeah it was like DVD versus Blu-ray or something and he was like he's like well and then the porn industry went with this and that's what made the whole industry go with it what's going to be for AI is going to be the porn industry and once they start doing AI girlfriends and sex bots and things like that that's going to be where they make their money and it's going to be horrific. So it's gonna be whichever uh it's gonna be wherever the elder brothers land. They're good they're just that's going to be how they make their money and it's and it's going to destroy the rest of like because you see what a mess the dating world is already and once you add that factor into the equation I don't know I don't know what women are going to do like I don't know what women are going to do but hopefully hopefully like some of the menial jobs that women do now those are the ones that are going to be eliminated and they'll be forced to actually come up with like a way to yeah no more OF arranged marriages of the way the future maybe but yeah uh have I seen Tropic Leather and we've all seen it I don't know you know it's a Catholic show we're not supposed to watch stuff well the zoomers probably haven't seen it it's one of the greatest movies of all time I'm sorry it's amazing how quickly the world has changed since then they'd never make that today they never could no way was life worse than this pre-flood I think it was probably similar but different the moral decay was similar I think the moral oh sorry wait uh I think the moral decay was similar I think the technology was different but I do think there was some super advanced technology that we can't possibly fathom today but I do think the moral decay and debauchery was probably pretty similar I think that's where we are today we're at the the the state of the world in the times of the flood which is why our lady said the world will see a deluge not seen since the time of the flood yeah Nikita so um I mean dude I have I I there's so much highlighted here we'll be on here all night do you want to grab some of your highlights yeah uh one one I circled every time they mentioned Vatican I which was a lot but they also mentioned Trent and other uh other things I have one section that I specifically labeled as important so let me at least read that and then we can be done with it um but I mean like literally half of this is him talking about how amazing Thomas is and it's like but we we do know that so I think we could that's why I didn't highlight any of the Thomas stuff because we all know how amazing the angelic doctor is and this whole encyclical it's

Why Aquinas Matters For Science

1:12:00

like 50% of it is just speaking about the importance of bringing Thomistic philosophy back into Catholic institutions. Okay um this is kind of long but I labeled it as important I don't remember why hopefully it's important um this is towards the end for the for the teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty which at this time is running into license on the divine origin of all authority on laws and their force on the paternal and just rule of princes on obedience to the higher powers on mutual charity toward one another on all these and kindred subjects a very great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of things into public safety in short all studies ought to find hope of advancement and promise of assistance in this restoration of philosophic discipline which we have proposed the arts were wont to draw from philosophy as from a wise mistress sound judgment and right method and from it also their spirit as from the common fount of life when philosophy stood stood stainless in honor and wise in judgment then as facts and constant experience showed the liberal arts flourished as never before or since but neglected and almost blotted out they lay prone since philosophy began to lean to error and join hands with folly nor will the physical sciences themselves which are now in such great repute and by the renown of so many inventions draw such universal admiration to themselves suffer detriment but find very great assistance in the restoration of ancient philosophy for the investigation of facts in the contemplation of nature is not alone sufficient for their profitable exercise in advance but when facts have been established it is necessary to rise and apply ourselves to the study of the nature of corporeal things to inquire into the laws which govern them and the principles whence their order and varied unity in mutual attraction and diversity arise to such investigations it is wonderful what force and light and aid the scholastic philosophy if judiciously taught would bring um I think I highlighted that because he talks about how how back when philosophy was good the the liberal arts flourished science was flourishing human flourishing but he he's talking about how in the 1870s how the liberal arts then were uh they lay prone um you know it and were neglected and almost blotted out like it's can you imagine what he would think of of life today forget it these popes these popes back then forget it if they ever saw what we were in today yeah so what I want you to do is while I'm reading this I want you to bring up the end of Leo the 14th's encyclical and just see what the um you know what the end of that encyclical looks like because this is how this one ends and this is how almost every single one of them give me a minute to uh to bring it up here um so I'm I'm just gonna read it while you're looking and therefore let us all in humble and united prayer beseech God to send forth the spirit of knowledge and of understanding to the children of the church and open their senses for the understanding of wisdom and that we may receive fuller fruits of the divine goodness offer up to God the most efficacious patronage of the blessed Virgin Mary who was called the seat of wisdom having at the same time as advocates Saint Joseph the most chaste spouse of the Virgin and Peter and Paul the chief of the apostles whose truth renewed the earth which had fallen under the impure blight of error filling it with the light of the heavenly wisdom in fine relying on the divine assistance and confiding in your pastoral zeal most lovingly we bestow on all of you venerable brethren brethren on all the clergy and the flocks committed to your charge the apostolic benediction as a pledge of heavenly

Mary At The End Then And Now

1:16:10

gifts and a token of our special esteem given in St. Peter's in Rome on the fourth day of August 1879 the second year of our pontificate I love that he speaks in the royal we um do you have the end of it yeah what uh I mean oh the very end or yeah the very end i look I do see the blessed virgin mary do you want the last paragraph? Yeah the last paragraph what is it it's 244 yeah 245 okay so well 244 the blessed virgin mary not only teaches us to recognize God's invisible work but also directs our gaze to the points in which humanity is broken and the world becomes distorted the contrast between the humble and the powerful the poor and the rich the satiated and the hungry teaching us to look at the world from a lower position through the eyes of those who suffer rather than the mighty to view history through the eyes of the little ones rather than through the perspective of the powerful to interpret the events of history from the viewpoint of the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the wounded child, the exile and the fugitive the blessed virgin thus becomes poet and prophetess of redemption because on her lips is proclaimed the strongest and most innovative hymn ever articulated the Magnificat. It is she who reveals the transformative vision of the Christian economy the historical and social result that still draws its origin and strength from Christianity with the same faith as Mary let us become weavers of hope I mean it's it's a little flowery and cheesy but I am glad that they're coming to her in our world sharing who we are and what we have so that the presence of Jesus may grow among us and his kingdom take shape and the humble fidelity of daily life even in the era of AI can become a time in which the Holy Spirit brings about the civilization of love in our lives indeed the Lord continues to make all things new and offers every era the possibility of becoming part of salvation history in the light of the incarnation I entrust our desire to the mother of Christ to whom the woman of the Magnificat that she may guide our steps through this time of change and preserve in each of us the true faith of the gospel so that we may be may bear witness to the grandeur of humanity in which God has made his dwelling you know I'll give it to him I'm I'm very I I will say that I mean look it's a little you know it's a little it's a little got a little bit of a commie flair but I think it's still good I have a feeling you know some of what Leo the thirteenth says in rare numarum about you know the industrialism and capitalism could read in certain ways too but that's true uh look the thing is that like I'm I'm not gonna knock Leo for talking about the grandeur of humanity though because because of the incarnation like be because of the incarnation there is a a magnificence to humanity because Christ redeemed us because of the redemption right and we were made in grandeur in magnificence you know yeah and and so I didn't read the whole document but I'm not going to knock him for saying the magnificence of humanity because of Christ's redemptive work so much so that if you read Paul's epistles he talks about we the church are something the angels look upon in wonder and and in awe at what God has done with the lowliest creature of man and and redeemed him into the saints like the it's it's actually a really important theme that Paul is constantly touching on in his epistles so I didn't read the whole encyclical but I'm not gonna knock that that

Support The Show And Next Picks

1:20:00

the uh the the theme of it and the end of it so but all right so we're gonna head over to locals um I have quite a story from the weekend that man you guys can't even you can't believe what my sister did but also look if you guys made it to the end which I'm very grateful for those of you who did because these this one was a little slower than the last couple but if you guys are if you guys are enjoying these and you like something a little bit deeper we're gonna the next one's gonna be pretty good we're gonna make sure of it and we are working our way to rarum Navarum which is going to be one of the crown jewels of the series but if you do like it Rob put up a tip jar over on our website you can always if you're watching the replay you can leave a tip in the comments we are going to get super low views on these they they don't generate any kind of revenue we really do count on you guys to support this uh endeavor so we appreciate you guys yeah just super chat always welcome www avoidingbabylon.com it's right there on the front page or if you're watching video just scan the link it this qr code I have up three bucks guys four bucks come on but all right so we're gonna go over to locals uh yeah I want to talk to you guys about my weekend and uh I'm sure we'll have some gossip over there I know you guys love the gossip do we even guess can always bring stuff up in the comments if you want us to talk about something specific I know somebody had mentioned uh the comparing the oh the SSPX documentary looks awesome dude I saw the trailer today I haven't seen the trailer for it I mean I've seen it but I haven't watched it the the trailer looks pretty good man kind of makes you realize why the sets hate this the SSPX because there's more than a dozen of them and they actually Yeah they they they just hold a uh they hold a um they got an aura i mean there's no other way to say it there's an aura about the SSPX man I don't know um all right so we'll go over there if you guys want to join us uh locals is the best way to support us if you're gonna throw us a five dollar tip on here you may as well come over to locals and join there so we'll see you guys on the other side thank you for I'm just gonna cut the video yeah yeah we don't need to get too uh fancy here yeah the SSPX's name is even cool all right we'll give people a few minutes to get in here holy crap dude my weekend yeah it sounds like you had quite a doozy goodness man so Friday I I work that Thursday night so uh Friday I get home from work at like 10 a.m 9 a.mine a I get home from work and I get the boat ready it's beautiful out it's like 78 degrees I'm like we're going to fire island we're gonna go spend the weekend there I pack the boat up uh I gotta wait for Stella to get home once she gets home we head out I take it's me and my wife and then um my youngest Stella and my niece Frankie um so we're going me and my wife are staying on the boat you have a niece named Frankie Francesca you Italians go way too far Francesca so it's me and uh me and my wife are sleeping on the boat and then they have these glamping sites on Fire Island where they're like they're like circus tents essentially right like a small circus tent that's how thick they are they have like king size beds in them and it's like fancy camping uh so the girls are staying in the tent and my wife and I are staying on the boat we get we get on the boat it's gorgeous out like 78 degrees we get over to Fire Island as soon as we get off the boat the freaking clouds roll in and the sky gets black and the temperature drops like 15 degrees and now it's 50 degrees cloudy cold and starting to get windy my daughter and my niece are miserable they don't want to be there and I'm just like guys come on stop please like like we just got here you guys are starting I'm cold and oh my goodness so we go to bed that night and about two in the morning the wind picks up to about 60 miles an hour dude like it's like 40 miles sustained 60 mile an hour gusts I'm out like I'll I work the night shift I'm up all day we go to bed at like 10 at night so I'm up for like 36 hours or something you know I went to work at at one in the morning the night before so it's yeah I was I was up for a crazy amount of time I go to bed at like 10 o'clock at night I wake up to my wife at two in the morning and she's just like Anthony it's bad and I'm

Fire Island Weather Chaos Story

1:25:00

like I wake up and the boat is like it was so bad it was so bad. I'm just like Nicole take a melatonin I don't know what to tell you I'm not getting up right now. So now the girls will typically sleep till like 11 o'clock you know like if they don't have to wake up for anything they come to my boat at like 5 30 as soon as the sun rises they're at my boat they're like we thought we were gonna die last night the tent was sounded like it was gonna blow over they're like we want to go home so I'm like okay you guys will take the the first ferry out of here so the first ferry's at like 1 p.m now my brother Mikey he's a trooper man he's like because saturday is cloudy cold windy rainy like terrible weather and we're there and my brother Mikey was supposed to come and I call him in the morning I call him at like nine I'm like you still gonna come because yeah I'm coming don't worry about it they jumped on a 10 o'clock ferry and came over and there's supposed to be a one o'clock ferry leaving and a four o'clock ferry leaving so the one o'clock I was gonna put the girls on and they canceled that ferry because it was so windy so now the girls are stuck there till the four o'clock ferry we come my brother comes there with his wife and we just had the dude it was terrible weather we just hunkered down in the tent and we just freaking laughed our asses off and drinking having fun the second they get on the four o'clock ferry to leave the sun comes out and it's 80 degrees and beautiful I'm like you gotta be kidding me of course I'm not even kidding like the ferry leaves port and the sun came out and me and my wife had the most beautiful Saturday night and Sunday morning so I look up churches on on Fire Island and I thought so I went to I went to uh confession last week and was talking to the priest about being on fire island all the time and he's like well try the one in ocean beach there's a church there is pretty orthodox and stuff so I'm like okay turns out it's not really in ocean like it's too far and like the mass is at 10 a.m so I'm like all right I gotta make it home for five o'clock mass so we got to spend like most of the day on fire on Fire Island but we have to head out we leave at like two o'clock we get home I get home at three o'clock and I'm getting ready to go to church and my mom texts me and she goes Aunt pray for Michelle she just had an accident with the lawn mower and she's in the ambulance and I'm like I see the text and I'm like pray for Michelle I'm like what so I told my mom I'm like what are you talking about? Like what happened like what is going on she goes Aunt I'm in Pennsylvania I'm freaking out right now I don't know now my sister Michelle is divorced she's really got kind of got nobody she's got her kids but so I'm like I'm like what happened she goes I don't Know what happened. All I know is Elisa, my my my niece, my sister's oldest daughter, called her and told her there was an accident with the lawn mower. Right. And she's in an ambulance

Lawn Mower ER And Missing Fingertips

1:28:10

and she's on her way to the ER. So I'm like, all right, I'll I'll go to the hospital. Because no, my my parents were up in Pennsylvania at their house and they couldn't make it. So I'm like, all right, I'll go. So I head to the ER and I walk in, and my sister just breaks down weeping, like when she sees me. Like she was alone, she was terrified. And like just seeing somebody come there, she was just like started hysterically crying. Right. She's also whacked on fentanyl. I'll do it. Okay, I'll do it. She is whacked on fentanyl. And I look over at her hand, and her hand is just it's covered in gauze. Right. But dude, the blood is pouring through the gauze. Like it's on a table in a in like a tray, and the blood is filling the tray. Oh my god. And I'm just like, what the hell? You're wondering what is or is not under the that gauze. I have no idea. And she hasn't looked at it, so she doesn't know. Because she like so she went to look at it and she blacked out. The neighbors, thank God, were outside and came over and they wrapped their hand up and they called an ambulance and they got her to the hospital. What kind of lawnmower does she have? I don't know, but what from what she told me, her lawnmower is really hard to start. Okay. And so she saw something on the ground she had to pick up, and she left the you know, the handle you pull in to keep the blade spinning. She's like, I didn't want to turn that off because it would have shut the mower off and it's really hard to start. And she reached down to grab something that was in the way, and she must have got too close to the blade, and it clipped off three of basically the tips of her three fingers. Okay. Her middle finger is now these three, right? The index, the ring finger and uh middle finger. Okay, so now her middle finger got it the worst. I was gonna say because that's the longest one. So yeah. Now her middle finger is now shorter than her pointer and her ring finger. It took off the entire thing past the nail. Like the last digit basically of that finger gone. Like off. Her pointer and her ring finger were mangled. Okay. So I'm I'm in there, and the doctor comes in. And first off, I'm just like, how the hell do you doctors do this? Like, I can't even look at this thing. And she takes the wrapple. My sister's whacked on drugs, and she's just like, I don't want to look, I don't want to lie. She doesn't look at it. And I'm like, I have to see how bad her hand is, you know. So the doctor starts cleaning now, dude. There's grass inside the fingers. Clean it out. Like, dude, you don't under. I'm watching this woman. I uh yeah, I'm watching this woman do this, and I'm just like, like, I don't know how she's doing it. I can't even look at it. So now the the P they did find the piece that she chopped off, and the doctor's like, Look, I'm gonna sew that back on just because there's not enough skin there for her to close the wound to sew without putting the piece on. She goes, but it's gonna be like an umbilical cord, it's gonna turn black and it's gonna fall off. It's essentially just there as like a suture to close the wound. Now, look, if if me or you has an accident like this happen, it's like it's a battle wound. Like, ah, I'm a men, you know, it's like once you get past that initial shock and pain, like now you can show everyone your middle finger in a funny way, you know. Like, yeah, like men, you know, it's like ah shit, I cut my fingers off, dude. I don't know. I like I had a I had a um I had a uh a shop teacher when I was a kid who put his freaking hand through a bandsaw and like right down to the knuckle. He was missing his front three finger or his back three fingers or something. And it was like he's a man, it's like yeah, all right. My dad had uh his pinky cut off by uh he was a car mechanic, and the the he had a car jacked up and the jack failed and it came down and cut off his pinky. But they got it that they got it in the pinky to the hospital in time where he he didn't have any movement. They're like, Do you want it like this forever or like this forever? So he chose like this forever, but the finger was a finger at least, you know. So now my sister hasn't seen it yet, right? And my sister is like, um, man, she's she's she's very she's very emotional, and she, you know, so whatever. But like she's she's on drugs in the hospital, and she's handling it well in the hospital. She's like, look, all right, like like she's gonna have functionality in her hand. Yes, she'll have functionality in her hand. It's gonna be a long time, don't get me wrong. She's not gonna have feeling in her fingertips. In the fingertips, no, that's gone. Not gonna have feeling in her fingertips, but she'll have functionality again, you know. But I just know when the drugs wear off is when she's she's gonna have post-traumatic stress from it, and she's gonna like, I just know my sister. And she's like in the hospital, she's like, It's like, all right, it's all just vanity, as long as my hand's still there, and I, you know, as I'm like, yeah, and I'm trying, like, I'm the only one with her, and I'm like, Yeah, you know, everything's fine. Like, dude, she's going to the doctor for the first time. She now her hands wrapped, she's not allowed to open that wrapping until she goes and sees the she hasn't seen it at all. She has no idea what her hand looks like, okay. And it's wrapped up in a way where it's just she can't even get a glimpse at it. And um and the the I pull and the doctor tells me she my sister was like nodding out whacked on opiates in the hospital. And the doctor tells me she goes, Listen, there's a chance that when she goes and sees the surgeon in five days, that they have to do like a further amputation. Yeah. Like that, you know, there's a chance, especially if there's any kind of infection or anything. Like she was like, she needs to take these antibiotics because, dude, the thing was like when you if you even knew how this woman had to clean this wound out, like I was I was like just freaked out looking, like her fingers were dangling, her fingertips are dangling off her hands, and she's suturing them up and go picking grass out of them. It was just horrific, man. Like her hand is just mangled. Now, like I said, like me or you get that. It's a battle. Like, my sister loved getting manicures and her hands looking pretty and stuff. Like, she's never gonna be able to do that again, you know. My sister um does cakes, like um, so for like it's like her her, she makes sourdough and she likes to make like decorative cakes and stuff. She's not gonna be able to do any of that for a very long time. Yeah, I'm hoping she's able to do it at some point, but just oh so I mean, I went to the hospital at like 3:30. I didn't get home until like nine o'clock that night, and I was just like emotionally and mentally drained. And I'm like, I don't think it's a mortal synthem is mass Sunday for that, right? No, that that reason is is yeah, like I she needed me there. There was no way around that, and in some ways, it's like visiting the hospital, it's a corporal work of mercy, I think, right? Yeah, plus as far as you knew at the time, it could have been life-threatening, horrific, yeah. It's just man, this poor girl. So I put so I posed the question should women be around allowed your lawnmowers? Which is really crazy because a year ago today, a year ago today, June 2nd, 2025. I asked that question. She said, Are we allowed to use lawn mowers? It was almost like a prophecy, and man, oh my goodness. And uh clearly the answer is is no. No, they should answer is I took dude. I talked to my cousin Eddie, and he's like, uh, he's like, Aunt first off, Todd sent them the screenshot of my tweet. Um, should women be allowed to use lawnmowers? So he calls me up and he goes, I have to ask you what like what happened? He goes, What happened? You know, so I told him the whole story. He goes, Aunt, he goes, I have this conversation with my wife all the time. He goes, I so he's buying the same sprinter van you are the Mercedes Sprinter Van. So Eddie's having another baby, Eddie's pregnant with baby number six. Okay, sweet, and he's like, Yeah, I gotta upgrade, I gotta get the sprinter van. He goes, but I'm getting a diesel. Yep, that's what I got. I told my wife she is not allowed to fill this fuel tank under any circumstances, ever, ever, because it's just a matter of time before she puts gasoline in it. So um Hope thankfully has only put diesel in, but some of the pumps around here have diesel one and diesel two, right? And at one point is one like kerosene. Uh I'm not exactly sure of the difference. One's probably kerosene and one's diesel. But I think I think the truck will run on either one, though. It it does, but what's funny is one time she's in the car with me in the van, and I go to fill it up, and I and of course I I look to see which one I should be putting in. So yeah, I I start putting in, and she goes, Um, just out of curiosity, which one of those should we be putting in? Oh, she already did it. Why so basically like one of them's kerosene, it's like pink, and your truck will run on it. It's just like just like if you have a if you have an oil burner, uh, they'll bring it's fuel oil basically. Yeah, they're like diesel fuel oil, they're they're super similar. So, like you're if you run out of fuel oil and you can't get a delivery, you can go to the gas station and get diesel and put that in your oil burner, it'll it'll burn diesel in there. So it your truck will run on it, it's just not it's not great, it's probably not as clean, it's not as clean, and uh yeah, it basically you can do it if you need to, but try not to. Yeah, if you do it over time, it'll probably damage damage some casey is asking, aren't the hoses different sizes? Yes, but so a diesel uh nozzle is bigger, so it is almost impossible to put diesel in a gasoline engine. But the other way around, you can do, but because the gasoline nozzle is smaller, you can put that in a diesel. But gas in diesel is not as catastrophic as diesel in gas. So we have diesel trucks, we have some diesel pickups, we have some gas pickups at work, and you can't, like you said, you can't get the diesel nozzle in the gas tank, but you could get the gas nozzle in the diesel tank. And we've had several instances where they've put and these are these are like you know, just morons at work, just oh so like we have big signs on the trucks, diesel gas. So these people don't make the mistake and they still do it, so and he's like, I told my wife she is never under any circumstance allowed to fuel this vehicle up because I know it will just be a matter of time before she puts gasoline in it and destroys my truck. I will kill her. So our our van, we we bought it uh it's a 24, right? So it'd been used a year or two. Um, we think as like a rental, right? Um, and and it has a big diesel-only sticker on the the the the cap for the fuel tank. I'm like, it's kind of annoying and it kind of looks crap. I kind of want to take it off, but you know what? I'm leaving that one there. It's a good reminder. It's a good reminder. It's a good reminder, and you never know if somebody borrows your truck to go do something, and you know, it's like it's a it's a good it's a good reminder, but yeah. Look, I think that because I I understand there are some women who are in a position where they kind of have to cut their own grass and stuff, but I don't know, like the the level of care that needs to be taken when you're operating equipment, it's just you know, it's not it's not intuitive to the female brain, it's just you're exactly right. It's it's just it's not intuitive. So yeah, I I said to my sister, I'm like, Michelle, it's like 30 bucks a week to have a landscaper come. Like it's not it's 30 bucks a week. Like she goes, Yeah, but aunt, they don't do it right. And like I she had like yeah, but do they cut their fingers off? Yeah, like do they bleed all over your law? Because you do. In some ways, I'm very proud of my sister because she's managed to keep things together on her own, you know, and it's like you're you you're like you know, look, I know there's all this talk of feminism, girl boss stuff, but it's like you want like I'm proud of my sister that she is capable, like she's she's a very capable woman, she's not she's not like this, uh it's not like you know, like my my wife is way more girly than my sister, you know. Like my wife needs me for everything, which I like because I like to feel needed, it's a good thing. Like, there's no scenario where my wife's cutting the grass. Yeah, I can't see Nicole cutting the grass. No, but dude, she my wife, my backyard looks like a magical forest. Like, my wife loves planting flowers and like she's she I don't want to make like my wife does yard work, like she loves like her my backyard has when you walk back there, it looks like this, it looks like something out of a fairy tale with the roses and the um honeysuckles, and she's got this plant and this, and they're all like, dude, she has trellises all over my yard. So the the like you walk in my backyard and there's archways that are rose bushes wrapped around them, and it's really, I mean, she's amazing at that, but like I won't let her near power tools, you know. She could she could have a shovel, but like I'm not giving her a drill, like I'm not chainsaw, no, nothing like that ever. Oh man. Oh my backyard sounds gay. My backyard is kind of it is kind of gay. It's like it looks like something out of like it looks like the shire back there, man. I'm telling you, my wife is like between between the uh the marinade. Yeah, if the if the coi were still in there, it'd be really magical. But like I'm gonna get I'm gonna get more. If the coy were still in there, it'd be really magical. Yeah, I'm gonna get more. So, like the pond right now, I haven't even been cleaning the filter, it just looks like murky because I'm just like there's no fish in there, I don't really care. Um, but the between the Marion shrine back there with the waterfall and stuff, then she's got all these archways with stuff all over. It's it really is pretty cool. Oh man. Uh Nikki Vu, I love using power tools, an electric chainsaw is fun. Um, yeah, just be super careful though. That's all I'm saying. Like, I know I know some women are a little more capable than others. Just I I don't want my wife ever getting hurt and cutting her fingers off. Like, I I like my wife's soft, feminine hands. I don't need her. Like, even when she freaking digs in the backyard, like she doesn't wear gloves. And like, I'm like, Nicole, you're gonna have calluses on your hands. Like, I don't want, I don't want a woman with calluses on her hands. Knock it off.

Catholic Media News And Hot Takes

1:44:20

Wear gloves and like be careful in what you're doing. Like, I want I want nice soft hands. Like, this is not not okay. Not okay. What uh what else is going on in the in the in the Catholic world? Because I kind of missed a lot over the weekend. Well, um, so far Mike Lewis has completely uh managed to avoid mentioning how his foes at EWTN now hold the uh castry for Vatican Communications. Well, all right, so this there's a couple things with that though. All right, so you pointed out okay. This is this this could be an upgrade, right? Like, like there's a the guy that was there before was like some flaming homosexual from Italian guy, right? Who uh he's the guy who said uh who am I to judge in regard to uh Rupnik? You know, because because the the this Dicastri had been using Rupnik images and all the Vatican websites and stuff, you know. Do you remember how they would get criticized for that all the time? You know, and so anyone asked about it about Rupnik, he says, Who am I to judge? So that was the guy who was in charge, yeah. So it's like in some ways, it's like, all right, we got this millennial chick from EWTN, yeah, and EWTN's not like known for liberal catholicism. They're you know, they're they're on the I mean they're hermeneutic of continuity, you know, but like they're they're at least fairly orthodox, right? Yeah, so like in some ways it could be an upgrade, but then on the other hand, it's this chick is part of the Phylos project. Is she? That doesn't surprise me, and she's probably an unmarried woman in her 30s, and yeah, almost for sure. You know, I mean, I don't know, I don't know who she is. I don't I'd have to look in look into her more. But uh it's just it's it's interesting because because Francis himself at one point in like 21, I think, said that EWTN was doing the work of the devil. Yeah, I remember that. People who posted Mike Lewis's tweet from back then, right? But Francis himself said that. So this I mean, this is the closest, you know, anything Leo has said or done that is somewhat contradictory. Yeah, vibe shift, yeah. Like, and we don't we don't have to be super happy about it to recognize that it it's something anyways, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Um man, we do have to talk about cavazos. What about cavazos? No, it's it's bad. Oh, I can't see. Oh, there he is. Dude, he's got a bag. This little guy was such a trooper on the way to Florida. Holy cow, 20 32 hours in the car with him. Uh that's just one way. 64 envelopers total, huh? He was such a little trooper. So probably yeah, we kind of do need to talk about cavazos, though. What about oh cow? Yeah, he uh definitely in his kind of post-trad arc, huh? Just not even that. Like, dude, this whole thing of he posts a video, gets a bunch of comments that are negative, and then he takes the video down. What is he still what video is he? I don't even see him post videos anymore. He he put up this whole uh explanation of his thing with Pelican. Okay, he took that down two days later he takes it down. Why then he puts up another video explaining his decision to take it down? It's like Nick. When he put the Pelican video up, I texted him and I said, Nick, good video, leave it up. That's all I said. I said, leave it up. Don't let anybody don't let anybody convince you to take it down. Because I'm more at this point concerned with his like his his sporadic the kids got whiplash back and forth. His yeah, his erratic behavior, right? Like and and and in this latest video is a lot of moralizing, and I'm just like, man, just take a break from the internet, just take a break from the internet, man. Like, there's no there's there's no need for it. Like you're not, it's like you're making money doing it. It it's he's not even I don't think his videos are even monetized. Like, I don't understand, like he's just opening himself up to abuse. Like he should just stick on Facebook to his Civil War series because that's not getting into his feelings, it's not getting in. He needs he does need a big brother. Um the irony is that like the show where I where we had him on and I ragged on him for the hour. Um a lot of the things I said to him in that video, he seems to have actually been doing like with going like getting out getting away from like the because look, I'll I still consider Myself a trad, but holy crap, are the trads awful, man. Like I don't know if I'm getting less and less capable of putting up with the BS or if the BS is getting worse. It's just some of it borderlines on like cult like behavior and stuff. You gotta like there's something about there's something about the church since the council where it got less culty. And in some ways more culty, like with the weird stuff they do with the mass with the holding hands and all that stuff. Like I understand that, but like less trying to control your, you know, and if you and if you speak outside the church, we're going, you know, like there's something a bit healthy about that, where it's not coerced. Where especially with sede's, like that yeah, that one kid, Dietrich, he he was a sede and he left side of contism. Like, like he he'll tell you like the cult, like so. Like, if you the second you try to leave sedevacantism, they treat you like Scientology treats somebody who leaves Scientology, you know. It's like it's like Muslims, yeah. The honor worse, it's worse in some ways. They they just you know, they their it's their mission to just go after that kid, and it's you know, but whatever. Like, so the like I love the traditional faith, I love the traditional liturgy. Some of the stuff with trads gets to just be like so like shut up with the complaining all the time, guys. Like, all you do is complain. It's like this is this negative evangelization of just like I'm just gonna complain and complain. It's like, all right, so like in some ways, I'm happy he's getting away from that, but then in other ways, it's like you don't need to tell everybody your journey, you know. Just go one, we generally don't care, not about your journey, just about I other people. Yeah, I'd hate to see him end up like that was that Tigler guy, uh Charles Tigler, Charles Tig Tingler, yeah, except Nick hasn't you know lay uh leveled bomb threats against schools, so he'll never be. I I I just worry I worry about Nick is all it is. Like, I'm not even trying to bash him, I just worry about the kid. I don't want, I don't want. Oh yeah, I don't want to see he just like he opens himself up to this online abuse, man. And like and the and the trads are so freaking vicious to him, dude. And it's like in some ways, I just try not to comment on it publicly because I don't I don't want to add to it, but like I mean, uh the whole put a video up, take a video down, put a video up, take a video down. That that's like if you say something, stand by what you said, you know. We went through that, like we we yeah, but we've done it with three videos ever. But I'm saying, like, we but we came to a decision we weren't gonna do that anymore, is my point, right? Like we did it, it wasn't three in a row, it was you know, right one video here, and we took it down, and it was like uh and then we got to a point where it was just like, look, if if we put something out, we gotta stand by it because it we did we had one video with uh Eric Gabara. It where he asked, he has to take us down, and and we'll still do that, obviously. Yeah, if if a guest comes on and they ask us to remove something. Um the uh yeah, the the whole look, if you say something, you gotta just stand by it, and it's like, all right, deal with the repercussions of it. People aren't gonna like everything because I see it with and I and I don't want to um say anything bad about the guy because he just lost his kid, but Cameron Riker was doing that also, where he would like once a month, he was coming on and doing an apology video for the way he behaved online. I just want to apologize to everyone for my behavior online, and I wasn't charitable, and I wasn't. It's like if you're coming on every three weeks or a month to apologize for your behavior online, that tells me you don't belong online. It's like what I tell my my my boys like, don't tell me you're sorry unless you're actually gonna change it. Yeah, like if you're gonna tell me you're sorry about the same thing over and over, then you're obviously not sorry, so just don't even bother. Yeah, it because what happens is people don't think you mean what you're saying at that point, right? So you either don't say anything and just kind of own your behavior, yeah, or if you apologize for doing something, you don't do that thing again, or like I don't know. It's it just becomes insincere after it comes off as virtue signaling, it comes off as oh, look, I'm so holy, I'm willing to recognize my faults. I'm not the perfect Christian, I make this mistake and I do this, and uh and it's like it's like the person who prays the rosary and has to tell you they prayed the rosary, or the person who has to tell you every time they go to confession, or the person, you know, and like I'm guilty of it too. I've done it here and there, but it's like we don't have to like tell everybody everything. This is what priests priests are for, right? You go if you're really sorry, you go and go you go to confession and you work on this behavior, and a priest will have uh withhold absolution if you're continuously going in for the same thing, hopefully. Like, I am a melancholic asshole on Twitter a lot of the time. That's probably just gonna be how I am on Twitter, guys. If you want to follow that, you don't you don't do the apology thing. No, what's what's the point? That's that that's who I am. Like, if I ever feel like I've actually really committed to sin, I will go to confession for it, I will make a private apology to someone, but like outside of that, you're just gonna have to deal with me. I look I look at like my social media behavior uh as not if not that different from like my real life behavior. Like, I don't know, like I'm kind of like that in real life. So it's like I'm not I wouldn't be embarrassed if like someone from my real life found my tweets. It's like I don't know, it's kind of they all I've always been kind of a wise ass. I've always kind of just no snarky and sarcastic, and I don't know, it's just how I am. So I'm not going to apologize for that and then go and just continue doing it. It's it's a weird, it's a weird thing to do. Um yeah, uh a lot of um a lot of what he did in the video sounded like him. Like it sounded like him. I don't know. It didn't come off like he was it didn't come off humble, that's all I'll say. It came off very prideful. So I think I have found Nick's alt on Twitter, and I mean that legitimately, I'm pretty sure it's him. Yeah, boy, oh boy. I'll send you some of the tweets. Yeah, I want to see some of these. He's going after people I've people in organizate organizations I never would have guessed. Really? Yeah, he is very bitter about uh a lot of things, yes. He's got cisformative. We see your messages. Why would you be blocked from messaging? We don't block people from messaging on locals. Uh I've crashed out on cavazas and put all my chips behind May May retarded Al carbo. What is it? Speaking of retarded Daff, really try to read that before you Yeah, I don't know what that means. What's stuff? I don't know what stuff you mean. Uh I don't know either. Uh what do you want to all right? So

Next Encyclical On Freemasonry

1:58:20

uh what's the next encyclical first off and then Thursday? Oh um, what do you want to do Thursday? I mean we uh the uh the Thursday show I'll probably figure out Thursday morning like I usually do, but yeah. Um I don't know. Somebody asked earlier if we went through the father Stephen DeYoung on Tucker content, but I didn't really watch that. I didn't really care to. Stephen DeYoung is he's orthodox, right? Yeah, he's an orthodox priest. Yeah, he is pretty good. I do I do like some of the stuff he does, but um, so for next next next encyclical. Um I I think we have to read humanum humanum genus. It doesn't at some point, uh, that's the one on Freemasonry. Uh I feel like we need to skip ahead some years because we don't want to do a historical context of like being elected again. Like we've kind of done that in the last two episodes. But you said you want to do so. His the next one sequentially is on Christian marriage, but that's only six months after the one we just did. Man, this guy writes. I know, right? But the what that then would come so what if we just do the encyclical for that? We could why don't we just because like you know how like we're always rushing the encyclical at the end, yeah. What if we I mean, so so obviously, like these are gonna come pretty with Leo pretty like pretty periods of time. So I can't do like just a summary of historical events, but like if we did want on Christian marriage, I would have to I would try to research you know what what had happened in the previous hundred years with marriage in general throughout all right, you could do that, but I'm just saying it doesn't have to be seven pages, right? Yeah, right, right. But I think it would be a shorter historical do we want to do that one or do we want to skip four years ahead and do human genus on Freemasonry? Because then we like the history of that one's gonna be good with the history of secret societies like masons, like the Illuminati, like all right, let's do it. Let's do that one instead. That one, yeah, because I think one of the encyclicals we're gonna do in the 20th century will like is probably gonna be Castou Canoogli, yeah. Maybe we'll which is on marriage after that. Okay, all right. We'll say, yeah, we'll say Christian marriage for Castingubi. Yeah, so we'll do human human and genus, and then the one after that that I think we have to do only comes a year after, but it's immortality day, which is on the Christian constitution of states. So I think we have to do that one, all right, and then we can probably go from that one to read. I think I think this episode you have to heavily focus on secret societies. I I think we go back to the night's templar, dude. This this one I like, I will try to keep it as historical as possible, but like we'll have to talk about some of the conspiracies, right? Involving some of this stuff. It could be kind of fun. Yeah, yeah, you might have to go back to the knights templar. Because that's like the the origins of this, some of this stuff. Yeah, some of it or yeah, masons. At least that's the that's the lore behind it. That's the lore. I wonder if we could uh I wonder if we could piss off and get a response from the lore lodge guy. Because he's a mason. Let's do it. Um, ocean, your obsession with Kabbalah, dude. We'll do an episode on Kabbala one day. Settle down. We'll have to get um Theo on for uh an episode on yeah, you really do have to uh focus on the thumbnail and title for that one if we're doing Freemasonry. I'll have to make it kind of fun. Yeah, like we because we're gonna that's gonna be uh that's gonna be a good one, I think. I think you can get you can get a decent audience for that one. Yeah. So um the Kensington Runestone, I don't even know what that is. It's in Minnesota. It's uh the it it's the lore behind it is that it's a runestone left by Vikings that made it this far inland. But um there, you know, there's evidence that it's a hoax. Have you guys seen Richard Tidwell? I don't know. I've never heard of him, never heard of it. Stop just saying random things that we don't know, guys. Yeah, I don't even know. The Emerald Hablet, the Sierra Acra. What about Queen Pluribus? Queen Pluribus. Put Alex Jones and Hillary Clinton in the thumbnail. Um, all right, so yeah, all right. Well, that's what we're gonna do next episode. Oh well Thursday I'll find something fun to talk about. We'll do uh we'll go old school, maybe uh we should do like a rundown on Catholic ink. Do a whole episode on the downfall of Catholic ink. What what has happened to them? Nah, we've done that too many times. I was gonna say we have done that too many times. I'm open to suggestions if you guys have good topics. Good so like if you guys see funny videos that you think would be funny for us to review on the show, DM those to me. Like, I'm open to open the we gotta get into suggestions. Yeah, we do. Uh Nancy Charles wants to come back on. She'd be about the only woman I would do. Yeah, she said that. She goes, I know I'm a woman, but I think uh it'd be it'd be fun to hear how things have changed for her in the years since we talked to her. Yeah, well, I think that's part of what she wants to talk about, like um the difficulty of being someone trying to live a chaste life that has same-sex attraction in the current church. Yeah. So all right, maybe we'll do that. And then uh I would like to get Catholic state on and maybe jump back into the Jewish question at some point. Um, but yeah, all right, we'll talk about all those behind the scenes. All right, we will see you guys on Thursday.