Build Catholic Culture or Lose Your Sons

Something feels off for a lot of men right now: more content than ever, more arguments than ever, and somehow less real community. We get into that discomfort head-on with Jason Craig, co-founder of Fraternus and editor behind Sword and Spade, and we talk about the missing ingredient most Catholic masculinity conversations avoid: actual brotherhood, in real places, with real responsibility.

We unpack what Fraternus is and why it starts with forming men before trying to “fix the youth.” Jason lays out a clear framework for men’s formation, rites of passage, and why fatherhood requires other men around you. Then we go practical: living historically, building for future generations, and turning the household back into a productive unit instead of a consumption machine. Whether you have acreage, a small yard, or a tight urban lot, the question stays the same: what are you building with your family that your children can see, touch, and eventually carry forward?

From there, we zoom out to American Catholic culture, localism, and the threats that quietly hollow out towns and parishes. We talk private equity, zoning battles, and why “defense” starts with cultivation, showing up, and refusing to abandon your ground. We also take listener questions on awkward converts who need formation, discernment about relocating for the Latin Mass, and how Catholic men should think about healing and hope in hard personal struggles.

If this conversation challenges you, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review, then tell us: what is one concrete thing you can build locally in the next 30 days?

Transcript

Cold Open And Chaos

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Strangers from distant lands, friends of old, you have been summoned here to answer the threat of eagles. We stand upon the brink of destruction. None can escape it. You will unite or you will fall. Bring forth our only hope.

SPEAKER_08 0:40

So it is true.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

There is a war on beauty. I will fight it. But I do not know the way.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

You have my sword. And my axe. Where is the elf at?

SPEAKER_08 1:05

Oh, hey, Josh.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

No. No, I'm not going to that. No e-girls ever, that's why. No e-girls ever. That doesn't count.

SPEAKER_06 1:28

What's with the turkey? Don't ask.

SPEAKER_08 1:34

What did we just watch?

SPEAKER_06 1:36

Yeah, we're at the point now where if you haven't been watching for like 18 months, you have no idea what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

I was trying to tell my wife what I'm going to. She said, What are you going to? I said, I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:48

Something professional and uh yeah, not so much. No.

SPEAKER_05 1:52

I like a mic pantila. It looks like you just got out of a fight. Yeah. No. Taffy has got to be blown some money.

SPEAKER_06 2:02

On AI. I mean, he is he himself personally is the reason for at least three data centers.

SPEAKER_05 2:10

For sure. We've lost like a hundred thousand acres in the rainforest because of Taffy's videos.

SPEAKER_06 2:17

You know, and I they would be so much better without War on Beauty. Yeah. Making so much more sense. Yeah. Anyways, welcome everyone to uh avoiding uh Babylon without Anthony. Um, I know I I was watching the comments in the live chat, but starting about 6:55, people were wondering if we were gonna be late, and everyone's like, no, Anthony's the one that makes them late, and it's usually true. We were ready to go at seven, but Jason's microphone, some for some reason, with whatever Adrian's doing, somehow Jason's microphone echoes. Um, so we try to figure that out and end up being late, but you yes, it is usually Anthony's fault, guys.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Wait, so if this is live, then we can ask, do you hear an echo as the people as the people watching?

SPEAKER_06 3:10

Yes, yeah. Does everyone else hear Jason's echo?

SPEAKER_05 3:14

I still don't hear an echo, but you're the problem. I it would usually I am in everything, but in this thing, how can I be the problem if I don't hear it?

SPEAKER_06 3:24

Okay, so everyone does hear it.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Says every dad ever. How can I be the problem if I don't hear it? No, watch this, everyone. Watch.

SPEAKER_06 3:33

I'm gonna I'm gonna mute Adrian.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Adrian's muted. So now I can talk freely without someone parroting back to me the bad things I say, like a child does.

SPEAKER_06 3:45

Okay, so now it's better. So it's clearly something to do with Adrian, but yet why aren't I echoing through your speakers?

SPEAKER_05 3:55

No idea. Because we don't have this problem on our show. No, we don't at all.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Well, what's funny is that when you mute Adrian, I know that you also mute the sound of his fan keeping him cool down below.

SPEAKER_05 4:09

Like it's 93 degree degrees here in Alabama. Like, I if I didn't, I would be sweating profusely like a cardiac patient.

SPEAKER_06 4:16

What's funny is it was on his his desk or table blowing right at him, and that was too loud. Yeah, so he had to move it down, I assume, to the floor. Yeah, so now we know exactly where it's blowing, right? Yes, Adrian.

SPEAKER_05 4:28

Yes, it's like the uh the cars in the eight in the 90s that had that vent right underneath the steering wheel, you know, to keep the undercarriage cool.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Yeah, yeah. I had to explain to my uh, I don't know, I'm new to this podcast, but I explained to my son, you know, I've I have five sons, and I was explaining to them recently, you know, that they're dealing with body odor, and I'm like, there's two kinds of body odor: the top half and the bottom half. The top half is acceptable, but it's still embarrassing. The bottom half body odor, you can't do that as a man. You cannot have no. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 5:05

This we we can't we can't be smelling cheese all the time. The uh it's a it's a Wisconsin delicacy, it's called Framunda.

SPEAKER_06 5:20

Okay, guys, that was a good run. What am I doing here? What am I what have I done?

SPEAKER_05 5:25

Wow. Look, if y'all don't understand, uh just keep in mind the things that come out what got blocked by my filter, and I kept it back. Just keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_06 5:42

Yeah, that made it through the filter. That's um yeah, that was worth it though. Yeah, you we have about 60,000 new subs since the last time you've even been on the show, Adrian. So keep in mind you're on avoiding Babylon, not Guns and Road Street.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

You but you're welcome. Since I've been on, y'all have gained 60,000 people. 60,000? Yeah, they what how many uh y'all are up to like 110 now, aren't you?

SPEAKER_03 6:08

100 and yeah, 111. 111,000. Oh my gosh, I'm out of my depth. I thought Adrian, I just know through fraternis, and he's like, You want to come on this thing? I I've never seen Avoiding Babylon. Now I'm echoing, we're talking about crotch fans, and there's like 160,000 people. All I see is YouTube people.

SPEAKER_06 6:27

There's only a hundred and hundred and six watching

Echo Fixes And Real Talk

SPEAKER_06 6:30

right now, so you're fine. Oh, that's it. Okay, yeah, yeah, you're fine.

SPEAKER_05 6:33

You're fine. Yeah, this is like 10 times more than what than watch our show. So the Rob Rob and I do a separate show called Guns and Rosaries, and it's mostly about current events, guns, things like that. And guys born in the 80s, or what?

SPEAKER_06 6:49

Basically, yes. I was, yeah, maybe 84. So, Adrian, would you like to introduce Jason for the uh the audio? I would.

SPEAKER_05 6:58

I would. So, Jason Craig, uh, co-founder of Fraternist, co-founder slash editor of Sword and Spade magazine, host of the Sword and Spade podcast, author of a few books, uh what Liturgy of the Land. Um, what's the one the other one you did? Leaving Boyhood Behind. Yeah, that's a fantastic book. Writes a passage. Yeah, writes a passage for me. What else? You're uh father of how many kids you got now?

SPEAKER_03 7:29

You forgot all my books. You got more books?

SPEAKER_05 7:32

No, the uh the oh you got the you got the localism that you edited.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Edited the uh American Catholic Land Movement book edited, and then uh I wrote one other one, uh the traditional virtues of Saint Thomas, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, a study for men.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Yep. I have all of them, actually. Um thank you, Adrian.

SPEAKER_05 7:50

I have all your books too books, too. And you've got what, seven kids? Eight kids. Eight kids. I'm gonna tell y'all a funny story. First time I met Jason Craig, it was February of 2020. We went up to hit a bunch of guys from Birmingham, went up to went up to uh went up to his farm, um, and we were doing like a retreat thing that he does at St. Joseph's Farm, and it it was snowing. And how you how we started it off is we had a pig, and we were going to kill the pig and gut it, and then it was something we were gonna eat it, what, on Saturday night, I think it was. So like a day later. He had like three or four of his kids, and it was cold. I mean, it was probably like in the teens. Three or four of his kids running around the yard, no shoes on, like hobbits, had no care in the world, just running around, just like little feral children. Feral. And Jason's out there, he's got his like gator boots on, right? Because we're all and we're we're fragile. And uh just having that, just seeing that picture of him and his kids running around like little hobbit feet everywhere, didn't phase them whatsoever. Walking through like water, right? So you know they couldn't feel their feet at some point, yeah. They didn't care, they didn't care at all. That's the kind of that's the kind of children Jason Craig raises. They're probably gonna grow up to rule the world, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Or run around in the swamp avoiding the world. That's just as good too. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Adrian. That that was a kind, knowing and I go on a podcast, like who's he's the author of somebody, but like you know my kids, which I don't put online. My kids are you can't find them online.

SPEAKER_05 9:32

Yeah, so well, that's why you know Rob sent me the thumbnail. I wanted to make sure you're good with it before we posted it, right? Because some people don't want their kids see, like y'all will never see my kids. Yeah, my kids are you know great looking kids, and I don't need some body pull up those pictures and but which which should be common sense for most people now. Don't put your kids on social media at all, yeah. Yeah, especially with AI. Absolutely do not, yeah. Um, but yeah, we that was you know, we're trying to be courteous, make sure you know that was okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

But you're more you're more courteous than my parents, which we like can't send them pictures. Yeah, because like I gotta show my people. I'm like I'm like, why you you know what it happened when we quit social media? It was 20 uh 14 or 15. I went to the post office with my son, and somebody that I don't know, and I live very rurally, very like I'm out there. Somebody at the post office goes, Hey boy, I heard you got a BB gun for Christmas. And you were like, What? And I said, I don't even know you. How did and it was like parents in social media, and I was like, That's it. I came home, like, we're cutting all of it out, we're not doing anything. So we've been off social media since uh at least then. Uh that that was when I quit social media in 2012. Uh, but then I had to cut off um family members of the boomer sort because they they're going to post your kids pictures, whether you want them to or not. And uh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:02

Um, so Jason, uh, do you want

Who Jason Craig Is

SPEAKER_06 11:05

to quickly explain what fraternus is? Um, I'm unfamiliar with it, so I would love to hear a little bit about Rob is so unfamiliar with no don't he compared it to a Catholic Boy Scouts.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Oh, I didn't know. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:19

So I had to correct okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

All right, brief quick history. 2007, we under under the really the direct um command of a bishop's like, we need we need something for boys. So we started a uh uh you know early on, one of the things uh, you know, uh what then at that point we could call it program for boys, it's not what it is now, so don't repeat that. Um, and it was but we need to stop the hemorrhaging of young men from the church because we were way back then, 2007, we were looking at the demographics, and it's like no one is stopping the bleed of boys, and they are the ones that become fathers, and fathers are the ones that have the greatest impact of uh religious practice in the church. So, like we got to reach the boys. So we reached the we're doing that, and then we realize, wait, why are we reaching the boys? The boys aren't the problem. If there's a problem with boys, there's a problem with men. So we started reaching out to the men, and then we realized sort of the crux of the matter, which is these men have no brotherhood amongst themselves as Catholic men in real life in their local community. So we recognize slowly over the years uh that to have a rite of passage for boys, for boys to become men, you actually the the first requirement is not at all a program for boys, it's the fraternity of men. So we establish serious, committed, rooted local Catholic brotherhoods who take on the task of basically being being sons, right? So I need to be serious about my own devotion, my own filial faith in God, the Father who loves me. I mean, be serious about growing in virtue, and then I have to have other brothers around me, or I'm I'm gonna fail at that first goal. Uh, and then once I have that brotherhood around me, then I can be a really good father because fatherhood requires brotherhood. You need other men around you if you're gonna initiate your son into manhood, it's not just the dad. The dad's not enough. He's not enough. He needs brothers around him. So that instead of the typical youth ministry approach, which is we need to reach youth today, which is false. You don't need to reach youth. You feel no obligation to reach youth, mostly because they live with you and you pay the all their bills. If you can't reach them, you can't reach anybody. You they don't need to be reached, they're in your control or they're under your authority. The problem is the the young men don't have a path to reach us as men because there's no us as men. There's no local uh brotherhood of men. So we establish those brotherhoods and equip the men. Not that we through so we say we're not a program, we're a brotherhood, and we're brotherhood of men. We're not a brotherhood, we're not a program for boys, we're brotherhood of men that build local culture that boys can then enter into and

What Fraternus Actually Builds

SPEAKER_03 13:55

become men.

SPEAKER_06 13:58

You're free to speak, KJ.

SPEAKER_05 14:00

Thank you. I appreciate it. Unmuted. The floor is mine. Uh so I j I started with fraternis. My I have my wife bringing me out my headphones so I can we can stop hearing the echo. See if we can make this better.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Oh, it's even better. I don't hear an echo and I don't hear Adrian.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Hold on. Oh no. Hey.

SPEAKER_06 14:48

How about now? Yep, we can hear you, gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

And I don't have an echo.

SPEAKER_05 14:56

Okay. You're welcome, Matt. You're welcome. So my first experience with fraternists was in uh 2000 eighteen. I had just moved to Birmingham from Georgia when I left the fire department. And uh when I had come back to the church about two years prior to that, I I lost all my friends. Like I was going to a non-denominational church. Um, and when I came back to the church, like they wanted nothing to do with me. Uh so which really made moving to Birmingham a lot easier. My wife's from Birmingham, it was in a simple move. Um, so we moved here in uh May of 18. And I was going to um St. Paul's at the time, and I went to go uh check and I got invited to fraternities, but I was there like the last week of the ad. Um and I liked it a lot. Um then I started the next year. 2019 was my first year, and I've been there ever since. My son has not been old enough, he won't start till this fall. So this has been seven years now that I've been going um since I you know started going in 2019. Uh my son's now at the age where he can join. And I've made all my friends since I've moved here uh through fraternists. Uh all the men I know, all the men I surround myself with. Um, and it's it to be honest with the the it got to a point where my wife at the beginning was forcing me to go uh because she saw how much how different I was when I got back and how much different the week went after spending that time with old men and young men um getting to know other men and and you know, especially you know, through the night getting to know other guys,

A Convert Finds Brotherhood

SPEAKER_05 16:40

you know, going through at the time we were just doing the you know the book and hearing the men's talk and the king's message and all that, and then ending the night with Conklin. Um but it it changed me quite a bit. And then a couple of years later is when I did the knighthood portion of it. Um, and we do a pilgrimage every year in Birmingham that goes from sort of comes from one abbey to a shrine. Um and it's it's some of the best guys I know. It's a bunch of men who are serious about their faith, um, men who are trying to hold each other accountable and trying to uplift each other. Uh it and it's it's probably been the best thing I've ever been a part of. Um outside, you know, I was in the Marines for eight years, and but that was just about that was eight years of shooting people and debauchery. Um but uh turn us was much was a much better grounding uh for me than than the Marines or the fire department that I was in. Uh but it's and that was really the biggest reason I wanted to bring Jason on because one, I love hearing Jason talk. Jason is like a guy that uh I'd have me and Jason would get along well if we lived near each other. Um he'd probably be annoyed with me sometimes, you know, like y'all all were at the beginning of the show, and that's fine. But um he I like I I listened to a lot of talks like he was on with Theo Howard on Two Cities podcast, and I love everything Theo Howard puts out. Um and just Jason has a way with words, um, and it conveys through fraternist, right? And his you can obviously see his influence through fraternis through the sword and spade uh magazine that they put out, uh, which is a phenomenal magazine. Um we'll talk about that in a minute, but that's just kind of what I've gathered from it, and I try and tell everybody about it uh any chance I can because it is it is as I explained in our telegram chat, it is a brotherhood built on growing in virtue and holding each other accountable. That's how I see it.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

But I would take uh you guys in Birmingham, though, I'm gonna I'm gonna praise the Birmingham chapter because it's it's somewhat of an ideal, and other chapters do it too, but you because you're a part of that chapter, it's these are guys actually uh you know what's the the nature of uh Catholic fraternity is not just um being social and co-religionist with each other, it's not even just holding each other accountable, that's like the beginning, but then you begin to build an actual culture, like an infrastructure of culture that the men in it, and what I mean by that is that's it's economic, it's religious, it's practical, it's local, it's grounded. And those guys in Birmingham, and they're not just like getting together for a Bible study, as good as that is, I'm not putting that down, but they're um they're actually they are the custodians of the culture in that area because they're the builders of it, because we live in a hollowed out culture and somebody's got to rebuild it, and it belongs to men to do it. Um, and most men get stuck just online, honestly. And those guys, those guys are in um, you know, guys in Birmingham, they're I mean, they're they're you guys are I mean, do you guys like how many like of the young men that have been married, how many of the young men have been ushered into adulthood, how many of the young men have been cared for, have been initiated into a into manhood through economic reality, making sure they have jobs, making sure they're they have healthy marriages, like and this is a job it's extraordinary in Birmingham, but it's this is a job that belongs to men that men aren't doing because they're too busy poking holes in arguments on the internet, they're not actually building anything locally. So uh that's my two cents of you guys.

SPEAKER_05 20:29

Well, and and just to kind of go off that a little bit, so we we've got guys that started with the chapter when it started like I don't know what 10 years ago now, 11 years ago, and uh guys that just started then who are just of age to be able to come in and who are now married with kids. Well, I'm now asking those young men to be the confirmation sponsor for my son this fall.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Boom! See that that's generation until and you don't know if what you're doing is working until it becomes generational. I'll just throw that out there. Once it's generational, you're doing something. Once it's passing down, right? Wis wisdom should go downhill. That's most of us young fathers, we're constantly fighting uphill, right? We're dealing with our parents and their generational issues, we're dealing with our kids and what we're trying to like not inherit in both directions. And uh, once it becomes generational, you've gained a new level of health in your community that's stabilizing, and only men can do that.

SPEAKER_05 21:30

We Friday when we had our stone, Rob couldn't be there because he's a he was the victim of a domestic terror attack from Taco John's.

SPEAKER_06 21:39

But um Taco John's letters to be precise. Oh, did you get that? I sure felt like I did.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Like three straight days of if there ever should have been a shutdown in this country, that should have been the shutdown.

SPEAKER_05 21:52

That's where the run of tola paper should have come from.

SPEAKER_06 21:55

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

We when we talked on when we talked on Friday, I was talking with I I brought in another guy, Chris, who's been on Marshall a couple times. And I was talking about the the wounds that I received from my parents. Right. Because I grew up, my dad was an alcoholic, my mom was a dry alcoholic. Um, and you know, I they got divorced, they got married when I was a kindergarten, divorced when I was in second grade. Like I grew up thinking love was, you know, somebody yelling at me and insulting me, right? So it wasn't until later on in life when I got married, um, and I met my wife and got and we got married that um I started to make a conscious choice to not be like my parents. And it's taken me some years to get, you know, we're we'll be married 18 years this this fall. Um and it's taken me up to this time, really, to be at a point where I feel like I'm actually almost a good guy, right? Um, and I'm trying not to pass that those wounds down to my kids. Right. And I'm I'm trying not to pass that brokenness down to them. And I my my hope is that my kids are less broken than I am, and by the time it gets to my grandkids, there may be no brokenness there. Hopefully. That's passed on anyway. I don't know what will happen in their lives every time I try to try and know they'll come across, but um you know, and I I feel like that not everyone has that desire, right? Some men never become men, even if they have kids, right? They never become men and then they never get out of that selfish stage where they constantly want to take, take, take, um, and they never transition to the I want to give of myself, which is focused on fraternists all the time. Like our our men say it all the time, but you know, men give, boys take. Right. Um, and which has been a huge focus for us in helping those young men transition. And I'll tell you, the the thing that I like about fraternities that really highlights every time is it's not boys just hanging out with other kids their age. It's boys hanging out with older men and being mentored by older men and those older teenagers mentoring the younger boys, right? And helping bring them along. Because I've only got one son, I've got three girls and one boy. So my uphill battle is I I constantly try and have him around other boys when I can, you know, through play dates or whatever, right? Um, or just events or whatever we do. And I'm glad he can finally start for turns because he'll he'll give that much more regularly. He'll be around other boys to learn how to be a boy outside of what I teach him. Because there's some things that boys are gonna teach him that you know I can't because he's not gonna listen to me because I'm a dad, right? You know, it's like dad, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, boy, you're 10 years old, you better think I know everything. But he doesn't.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Amen. That's well said. It's interesting how um the the error of like modern fatherhood, because it was sort of you know, psychologists and experts, they they divided um child development expertise into basically genes and environment. Yeah, right. The genes are what you're yeah, and then the the nurture is in, but the nurture became in our minds and us as parents that I better do everything right so that I don't screw them up later. So it makes you focus on the child. Um, but the the much healthier and natural anthropologically correct way to focus is like, well, I actually need to be living in a culture that I can invite my kids into. So that my so what Adrian's describing as my brotherhood with these men, my son's, you know, I I can relate. I've been going on that same pilgrimage for I don't know, four or five years with you. Um and I this year will be the first year my son goes. So, how much better is that for him to see his father go out, where are you going? I'm going with the men to go on pilgrimage because that's what men do. And then him going, I want to go, I want to go, I want to go. And so he's asking me the question, I want to can I come be a man with you now? And I say, Not yet. So imagine the moment when I get to say, now it's time, let's go. You're going with the men, and those men that he's surrounded by by me focusing on that fraternity, that culture, because that's what men do. We build culture outside the home, right? I mean, we we shape the culture inside the home, but that's much more maternal than than paternal. We shape the world outside of our home. That's our job. So when we shape that world and then we have a space to bring our sons in, that's a totally different dynamic than what most people are functioning with in their mind when it comes to parenting, which is like, I better not screw up my kids, I better not make the wrong mistake, I better not buy the wrong homeopathy, I better, you know, get the wrong homeschool curriculum. Or and um those men are the ones that are going to teach you, like, hey, quit yelling at your kids. What are you doing? You know, um like you're you're being a bad father. Like, you know, it's really easy to hear, or sorry, it's not easy, it's fruitful to hear from another man. Here's how you're being a bad father, you need to be a better husband, than it is when your kids come and go and and like question you because you get defensive, and they might be right. Um, but it's hard to recognize that it's easier to re when you're with other men's like you know what you're talking about, you know what you're talking about because you've done the thing that I'm doing, and you can help me do that

Sponsors, Ads, And Housekeeping

SPEAKER_03 27:25

thing. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 27:28

Absolutely before uh before we go any further, gotta do a little housekeeping uh to make sure Anthony gets uh paid to fix his boat, um, or now trailer, his boat trailer now. Um, but anyways, um let's see here. I don't have a fancy knick knack success story because those all get sent to uh Anthony for some reason. But if you enjoy nicotine, um head over to nicknick knack.com and use the code ab25 for 25 off your first purchase. And now my stupid camera zoom in on me. I hate it when it does this. This is terrible. Extreme close up, yeah. I know. So use nicknack 25 or ab 25 for your first purchase and ab 10 for every uh subsequent purchase for 10 off, and then uh make sure you're praying your rosary on a black monk rosary. Go to blackmonkrosaries.com and use code avoidingbabylon at checkout. You're 10% off a rosary you could beat someone to death with, but you probably shouldn't because it's a rosary. Yeah, but you don't need yeah, you don't need nicotine.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

Can I just defend myself? I wasn't sure. I'm like, is this a smoking? I don't, I'm not a smoker per se, but I've given if any social event if I which I use like if I'm talking to anybody, I like to be just don't smoke alone. Uh but I yeah, is it okay to smoke on the avoiding bangalons?

SPEAKER_05 28:58

We are we are pro-nicotine around here. Uh the uh the palliative and medicinal effects are phenomenal. It's just you know it is addictive.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Well, yeah, you don't you don't want it to yeah, over well, you don't want it to overwhelm um your your uh your intellect, your will. Um but you want to be social, and I think that's tobacco belongs as a social stimulant, just like uh whiskey. 100% yeah, or moonshine 80 percent.

SPEAKER_05 29:31

I'm uh I'm having an old fashioned right now that I'm in.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Are you really? I'm having moonshine produced in my neighborhood. Nice. Um I didn't know this was legally or real moonshine. What oh, it's definitely real. Well, I don't know if you know. Um, the Supreme Court recently upheld the rights. See, in America, this this has been one of the greatest evils that we've endured passively, which is in America, if you can consume it, you're allowed to make it, right? So if it's if it's legal to have, you're you're allowed to make it because the competency of men to make their own goods is like a founding principle of this country, right? That if I can if I can grow my own food or make my own spirits, then I can consume them. And this country for decades and decades, I don't know how long, um, thanks to the lobby of of big alcohol, we could call it, um, had made it illegal to be to have the freedom to make your to provide for your own needs, which is antithetical to the United States and a lot of our principles that are good. Not all of our principles are good, but that's a good one. And um, so I don't have to answer that question with names because that might result in some inquiries we're not interested in. But um, whether this is legal or not is now an interpretation, I think, as the Supreme Court ruling gets hashed out in reality. But it is from my neighborhood, I'll just put it that way.

SPEAKER_05 31:02

When you did that the Liturgy of Land conference a couple of years ago, I took my wife and I went, and uh, you had a gentleman there from I'm pretty sure from North Carolina who had made some type of strawberry alcohol. Probably Joel. And yes, that's exactly what it was. I didn't want to name names, you know, but and uh man, he was pushing it on me, and uh I liked it, it was pretty good, and so I probably had a little bit too much.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Um that that man, but that's a man, so he I've already named him, I won't name it again because I don't know, but I I will praise him. He is a maker of things and a provider for his community. He makes things for his family, he grows things for his family, and he makes things for his community, so he's not like he's not getting high on his own supply, he is making things that bring festivity and joy to other people, and he shares them. And he's it's a super evangelical, awesome thing that he does. I love that man. He's he's intimidated. Actually, I don't like to be around him too much because he's intimidating on what he accomplishes.

SPEAKER_05 32:09

Um, and he's really good at stuff, but yeah, he was uh when I was there, he was trying to get me to start a guild.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

Yeah, that's him.

SPEAKER_05 32:17

We're talking about the same guy here in Birmingham as a man. I ain't got no time for that.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Well, you have a guild, I mean he has a guild, your guild is for turnus, right? A guild is a brotherhood of men building something, protecting the things that they build and and setting the standards that would uh that everyone should should aspire to. So that's how he's doing it.

SPEAKER_05 32:36

Yeah, they got one kind of off the ground a little bit up here in in northeastern Alabama, and I went to it. We've got cows and pigs and chickens and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:46

And uh I went up there and I went up there and I was like, wow, I came up here to to learn something, and like everyone else here doesn't know anything, so I'm gonna have to feed all these people if I stay involved in this thing, which I don't have a problem with. Um but I it just made me realize because I've only been doing this since 22. I do. The homestead stuff. Oh, okay. Um, you know, but I it's all YouTube university learned. Um but it's it's there's been some some bumps in the road, we'll say. But uh it's I expected to go up there and like this is mostly farm country. There's almost a bunch of these people that I know about you, I'm gonna learn a bunch. Y'all know less than I do, and I'm only gonna do this for five years. I've I've already processed my own pigs, chickens, and cows, and milk my cows and everything. And y'all barely go in the garden.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

That conference was for people, especially that are just that dabbling in the thing. Yeah, um, because we you've been to other stuff we've done, which is like, all right, we're gonna castrate, we're gonna castrate these piglets, we're gonna butcher a hog, we're gonna milk a cow. Um, but most people are actually they're at the stage of discernment, like, should I even do this?

SPEAKER_05 33:57

You know, and um it's so I started a men's group here for my parish, um, and it was at my house for like a year. And I would always guys would come over and they would see my place and you know, see everything I could run. Like, oh man, this is awesome. I wish I could do this. And I'd be like, Oh, pop the bricks. You think you would like to do this? This looks great on YouTube. This is the second job I don't get paid for. Yeah, like I am constantly working at this thing all the time. It's nothing but sweat equity. Um, and I don't make any money on it, right? It's just to provide my family with better food. Like, I I am of the mind that I'm probably gonna die of cancer around 65 from all the crap I've ingested, you know, those you know, school lunches, the square pizzas we had, right? The amount of vaccines I've had in my body. Even when I joined the Marines, I when I got to Okinawa, they put like 12 vaccines in me at once when I got there. So I'm I'm probably gonna die of cancer, but my kids can eat better. I can make sure my kids have better. Right. So that's why we do everything we do. I haven't bought meat in four years. Yeah, I probably we have we raise all our own, but it's all for my kids. I make all these sacrifices for my kids so they can have better. You know, like would I love to be able to go to two or three vacations a year and buy a brand new car every two years or whatever? Yes, I would love that. But one that's stupid, the two, like that would I would not be able to provide for my kids if I did all that. So it's all the sacrifices I'm doing to make sure my wife and my kids have everything they need. So there's things I just do without.

SPEAKER_06 35:31

I forgot one part of the housekeeping, and I apologize. Here's another commercial kind of. Um what else is in what else could possibly cause cancer? Um I uh what uh one of my wife's friends um has a GoFundMe going on. Um they uh they had some uh health issues and got behind on rent and could use some help. We so far have them, I think, eight over 80% of the way to their goal. I think they have about uh less than 2,000 left. So if anyone is able to, please, uh the GoFundMe is pinned in the live chat and it's up on screen. So please head over there and help them out if you're able to. Um

Living For Future Generations

SPEAKER_06 36:15

but back to the the topic at hand. Um, I was listening to the uh the Daryl Cooper interview on um on Tucker Carlson today, and um one thing that that Daryl kept talking about is how the 20th century, you know, whatever part of it you want to look at, or whoever you want to blame, the 20th century was largely like one big long battle to get uh people all across the world to stop living historically, right? To stop living and thinking and planning and working for future generations for their kids and kids' kids and and things of that nature, in in to get them to live only basically for themselves, you know, and as if we're living only for ourselves in our own lifespan, or in many people's case, but they're uh largely living for a lot less than their own lifespan, but um we we we live almost like animals at that point, and I guess my question, Jason, sp more specifically to you, but Adrian, you as well like what do we how can we as men reverse that? How can we not only ourselves start to live historically to pass things down to to future generations, but how do we convince the rest of the world to to live that way again?

SPEAKER_03 37:39

All right. So two thoughts is the one, I think the word historically plays into the charge against uh you know these LARPing, cosplaying homesteaders like me, um, Adrian, worse of all, is that it's just a sort of um unknowing nostalgia that's not even really nostalgia because nostalgia is homesickness. This wasn't even your thing. You're just looking backwards at pictures and thinking you should be carrying bushels of apples up to the house at the end of the day, and then you've done the real thing. Um, what actually happened in the 20th century is the is the um it's not that we're trying to live historically, it's that we're trying to live naturally. So the question is, is the family natural in being productive or being consumptive? Right. And this is like a key insight of authors like Wendell Berry that the shift was not in like technique of providing for our family, like, well, we used to have to grow corn, now we buy corn. Like that's a technique of provision. Um, but it's are are we are we as families meant to be productive together or consumptive together? So the argument I make in Liturgy of the Land, which I I completely owe to authors like uh Alan Carlson, is that the and and the anthropology of the church, which is that the family was not constituted uh or not instituted by God as a um a sort of psycho-emotional support system, that it's fundamentally at its core a system of mutual care, meaning mutual productivity, so that the household and the family itself at its at its greatest um or at its most natural state is not taking care of each other by providing emotional needs, but taking care of each other by taking care of each other, by being, which is because we have bodies, means being productive, doing something, building things, growing things, fixing things with one another. And that when we do that together, we're more of a family than if we're merely coming home and making the decision on what we will consume together. So the recovery of the whole homesteading movement is not about not well, it's not only about agrarianism versus industrialism or technocracy. It is is the family just consuming together or is it productive? And this specific specifically involves fathers because fathers are primarily the means of production in a fun in a home. And we lost something significant when the fathers were no longer producing with their family to in proximity and visual, tangible, witnessable productivity for the family, when the father is no longer a part of that and he produces outside of the home and then brings and only brings it home for consumption, i.e., in the form of a paycheck. That that's unnatural. That is what is unnatural, that the family unit is meant to be, you know, Eve was given to Adam as a helpmate, not because he not just because he was lonely, which is true, but to help him do something. Right. And the children, when they're born, they're not just mouths to feed, they're hands to the plow. They also help him do something. And when we no longer have our family, when we no longer have the religious, economic, and social, psychoemotional realities of the family intertwined, well, then a father is left only managing productivity away from his family. And then he comes home, and all he can manage is the psychoemotional state of his family, which he's not really good at. But if you give him a project to do with the son, say, son, come do this with me, he's able to provide the psychoemotional reality in the context of like normal human development, like competency and provision and sacrifice and hard work and all those things. So in the modern world, I yes, I I wrote Lyrid Land as a cautionary tale of sorts, against anyone who thinks that will that just you know growing tomatoes will fix everything because that it won't. But the so there are ways because from the productivity within the family, you naturally bridge into the productivity of the community, you you naturally become intertwined with the you you just it just develops naturally because that's the net not the historical state, as if it's just a matter of points on a timeline that we would like. Well, I like this timeline point better than this timeline point. It's which one is actually getting back to the nature of the family and the nature of man, and what the modern world takes away from us is is not a historical reality only, but a a natural reality that this is what we're meant to be doing together, you know, something. Uh, it was uh gosh, what's his name? The quest for community. Robert Nisbet, you know, who really opened my eyes to this in a book called Quest for Community, is that the family used to be the economic center, which gave it its institutional force within the so now we Catholics are like the family is the is the pillar and foundation of society, the family, the family, the family, until the kids walk outside and they look around at the economic reality and the productive reality and the consumption, and they go, the family has nothing to do with this, the family is not important, right? So, as far as recovering that, looking through the lens of agrarianism, but not necessarily prescribing agrarianism as the only way, the question is what are you building with your family? What are you building? Because men and brothers build things together, and that is what you invite your family to be a part of because that's both individual, it gives you individual discipline, it's familial because you do it with your family, and it's social because you don't just do it for yourselves, of course not. We're Catholics, we can never live the family, it is an inadequate society, or as the church uh philosophically, it's it's an imperfect society, it doesn't have what it needs to be itself, it actually needs the the the community, the culture. The example I always use is um if your daughter is called to to a vocation of marriage, you can't find a husband in your family, right? You you have to have The fact of the family creates the need for community. So our by not having productivity in the family, we also don't have the economic connections with our family. And then we don't have the economic connections with our friends and neighbors. So when Jesus says love your neighbor or honor your father and mother, we don't really know what it means, other than like smash that heart button on their picture on Instagram, right? Like it doesn't even mean anything because we're not actually taking care of each other, right? We're just like affirming each other's individual choices. We're not intertwined. I mean, there are families, you know, this multi-generational families where if someone were to die, it would be sad, but it doesn't mean anything for the functioning of the home. Right? So it doesn't mean anything. Whereas if you have, say you have a daughter who's intertwined with the productivity of the home and she gets married, well, then all of a sudden, well, how do we now function without her? Right? So these kind of questions, it's a matter of what is the natural state of the family. And we we as families are meant to be doing things together, not just being together. But we're stuck just being together. So that that's the that's the homesteading lens that I propose, not just like cosplaying Little House on the Prairie. But the the lesson is why did you know Paul? If anybody's read, I presume a lot of your listeners have probably, you know, they're familiar with the little house books. Paul is actually like the worst kind of like in in those books, the worst kind of like workaholic, always moving, some new place. He never stops. And his children know and trust and love him and are a and want to be a part of what he's doing because they see what he's doing and they know it, and they're a part of what he is doing. And this is very different from I will now leave now, children. I will go home and do something that has no bearing on your life, I will return with money and we will spend it together. It's just like that's an impoverished reality, especially for fathers. And we're what we're trying to figure out is now in the modern age, is all right, well, that's the age we're in. And for a lot of us, growing some food is the most obvious way. Cultivating the soil is an obvious way, right? When Odysseus returns to Ithaca, what does he find his dad doing? Spading a tree, right? Out on the hillside, because everything's falling apart, so I got to go back to the soil, right? There's certain because I'm gonna I'm gonna spade this tree because a tree represents um the future, right? You plant a tree and you take care of a tree for future harvests, not for the current harvests, right? That's the current harvest is what you do with the quick flipping of a of a product or the trading of a stock. That's the but a tree is a future. My children will sit under this tree, they will eat the fruit of this tree. It's generational work. So, how that translates for somebody in an urban and suburban environment, I think it does, and it can, but the principle you have to begin with is what is the what is the thing I'm

Family Productivity Over Consumption

SPEAKER_03 47:00

building and working with with my family. Is that it? Is that a answer? Did I answer both questions? I feel like I split it up into two. I I think so.

SPEAKER_05 47:10

Sweet. Check out. I think I think practically how how we put that in place is like for I'll give you an example for my place here. Um two two ways. So read this past couple of days, my wife bought some hot ranges and she wanted them to put it in the ground.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Endless summer, endless summer.

SPEAKER_05 47:28

Yeah, like we've had them for a while. They've just been in pots, we just finally want to put them on the ground. And uh, so my boy, who's now of age where he can actually do some labor now and and not quit two minutes into it. Um, he I gave him the responsibility. I was like, look, I need you to put I need you to dig these holes while I'm at work and get these put in the ground. Um he did a great job. I mean, like, and that's been a struggle for me with him is getting him to do work, right? Without complaining about it and giving up, and oh, I'm so hot, and like we're all hot, get over it. Sweating's good, right? You'll be fine.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

We're all hot.

SPEAKER_05 48:03

Right. Um, and he's he's at a point now where he can actually do that, and you know, but I've I've got to make sure I make him aware of how well he did, right? Yes, understandably right. Understandably that you know he didn't do as good a job as I would, but he did a good job for him, right? And he he saw it through. Um, another example is so we do meat chickens normally twice a year. We do about 50 at a time, and we you that we raise them for about eight weeks and then we process them. 50 chickens for me and my family to process is an all-day event, right? So I invite families from church. Okay, y'all come over, y'all help us, I'll send you home some chickens, right? And so we'll have four or five families come over and we'll make a day of it. Like we'll process half of them in the morning, we'll stop, we'll have lunch, we'll feed everybody, right? And so all the little kids are running around like chasing the other chickens, whatever. Um, and then we finish up within a couple hours after lunch. And we've made an event twice a year, every year for the past couple of years. We we haven't done any this year because we haven't we haven't done eating as much chicken this year, but um it's but that's an event where you know, probably for these families who don't have farms, who don't have the land, they can still participate. And they do, they want to. Um, and they want to they want to go over the whole process of like wing the chicken to plucking the chicken or scalding the chicken, plucking the chicken, then gutting the chicken, and seeing it, you know, from the beginning to the end and realizing where our food comes from, right? It's it's it isn't grown at publics, right? They like it actually, they actually come from somewhere. Um and they they get to see that process. So although these people who live in these urban, suburban areas who may not have the capacity to do that, they don't have to do, you know, they don't have to farm. Oh, you probably have a little bit of land, you can do some tomatoes, right? And at least, you know, work together and do something like that as a family. But there are other things you can do. Like I've got a family right now who builds cabinets together, right? They just their dad, you know, got tired of doing what he was doing, uh, you know, working in the corporate world and wanted to come home and do something else, do something with his hands. And he said, Well, I'm just gonna learn how to build cabinets. Now the whole family builds the cabinets. Like he, him, and his two sons uh will build the cabinets, and then he's got three younger girls that you know will paint the cabinets or you know, put the fixtures on them, whatever. They do it as a family. Like they, you know, they're not you know living high on the hog, but they do fine. Right? But they're with each other every day. And they get to see that product that's growing out of the house that's produced by that family every day. They live in a very urban area, like their houses are basically touching to the next house next to them. So they don't have the capacity to maybe work with land, but they have other capacity to be able to do other things.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Yeah, and they're in correct me if I'm wrong, that family, they're in Southern Armature's shop, right?

SPEAKER_05 50:49

Uh there is a family, yes.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

Okay, so I don't know if it's the same one, but that that's an example. Like I know in Birmingham there's a cabinet maker in the basically that's what that is one, yeah, but but so say that's an example, but like that's where there's this intertwining and stacking of enterprises in an urban center. It often does come down to the father's work. And I mean, I think a huge deficit for us men is we don't have so those guys, just to like um depreciate my own clout here, those guys they have more than what I have because I do have an office job, you know. Um I'm on a you know, my kids are oh, he's going down to do a podcast today, right? Like I have um, but but the so it I do so my family productivity is in a certain sense on the side, but it's still the culture of our family. Like we have milk calls, pigs, chickens, gardens, vegetables, you know, fruits. And that's that's what we do together. Um, and a lot of men could, and it might just be like change your own oil, um cut your own freaking grass. If you have children and you're paying someone to cut your grass, you're being a bad parent. I'm sorry. Um, and to your point about like giving your son like what it what like like miss masculinity becomes this nebulous thing talked about constantly on the internet, but like ultimately it's like taking responsibility for what is in your care. You know, and when we get to invite our and and even a big fan, even a big homeschooling family does this, right? Homeschooling is actually uh a lens of productivity because instead of offloading um this the product of education, we're doing it ourselves, and it creates an economic, social, practical need within the home that they do together. It functionalizes the home. For a lot of people, the home is not a functional place, it is only a place of consumption. So if your home is only a place of consumption, then you you do have to bring some productivity, especially if you're a dad, because that is that's the place of connection, man. You don't have to sit down and have a counseling session with your kids to be a good dad. You need to you need to actually take them out and show them how to do something. But your point is really good too. You can't if you come home with uh you know wounds of uh in well, that's a whole nother topic, but insecurities, inadequacies, or whatever, and then you're just mad at your kid because he doesn't know how to change oil. It's like, okay, dudes, whoa, this slowdown. This is the place where you two can connect over. Don't make it a place of judgment and condemnation for your son, make it a place of blessing and affirmation. So you telling your son, hey, good job, I could have done it better, but good job. Um

Creating American Catholic Culture

SPEAKER_03 53:36

that's beautiful, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:40

Yeah, so um to kind of we'll kind of pivot towards another topic. So Anthony brought up a good point on their show they did last week, talking about um creating Catholic culture in America because we don't really have one, right? Most of our culture has been inherited by the ethnic groups that came over from wherever they are. Because I'm German, I grew up in a very German Catholic town growing up my entire life. A lot of my traditions I have are very German, right? They're not American. Um, you know, Anthony's Italian, so he's black and he gets a lot of his culture from that. Um yeah. Um so it because we don't have our own American Catholic culture, how do we what do we do to build? One example I see of it is like what we're doing with fraternists, like what we're doing with our pilgrimages, right? Um, I see that as one aspect, but like on that for the parishes that don't have fraternists, for the parishes that are still thriving regardless of the blue hairs and oxygen bottles, they're trying to shut that place down. How do we build a better Catholic American Catholic culture? And where do we start? Right. For those people who are actually involved in their parish, uh, because it's gonna have to start with the younger people that know that parish, because the older people, like the boomers, like they just want style in a garfuckle on everything, right? And they don't like we're just you know everything goes back to Woodstock, and that was the greatest time ever. Um but we have to we're at a point now where we have to create our own traditions, we have to create our own culture from here on out, but where do we begin?

SPEAKER_03 55:28

Yeah. Are you asking me or Rob both? Um, I mean, one, you do the first thing that you just mentioned is that there has to be a we, right? There has to be a we that we we understand that we're building something and we're not just together to we're not just there together. Again, the the community itself is not there for psychoemotional needs of one another. Although just like that's important. You actually have those needs need to be met, and they ought to be met within fraternity, so that a man doesn't have to go to his family alone to get all the emotional needs, right? That's where a lot of disorders and within the family come from, is that the father does not have in his act economic, practical, everyday life, you know, eight, twelve hours a day. If he doesn't have um meaningful bonds and relationships, you know what he actually does? He goes home for his family and needs to get that from his family, which is not a good place to be. So just recognizing, like, hey, look, I'm I don't talk about it a lot because it's an easy clickbait thing on the internet, but like, yeah, like I'm a Latin mass guy, like I love it. I've been I'm I'm 20 years in, right? I'm not a new, I'm not a newbie here. Um but we have not inherited a culture, so therefore, we're actually none of us are actually traditional, meaning we're carrying on a tradition. So the consequence of accepting that reality is one that you will stop pretending that that's what you're doing. I'm just being traditional. No, you're not. Recognize what you're actually doing, which is building something on principles that you're that are true principles that are probably good, but you haven't inherited them. So therefore, you actually don't know how to pass them on because you're not just doing that thing that was given to you and doing it again. So then, whatever it is that we are building, recognizing the multi-generational and social impact of it, that it doesn't matter that I'm just orthodox and right in my belief and practice, because the devil is orthodox, right? That's not enough. The devil knows Catholic doctrine, the devil can poke holes in error, like of course he can recognize them. That's his job. His job is to recognize the error because that's where he steps in, right? Um, so he's got to be orthodox, right? So we can we can easily do the work of the devil, which is to recognize orthodoxy and step in whenever we see error and just just tear it down and brutalize people. But when we as men, as laymen, and this kind it's funny that you keep bringing it back to like family, community, children. We recognize that we're actually building some, we're building an infrastructure for our children to live in, just like you would build a home for your children to live in. Your primary job is to build the local community that they will live in, which is my insistence constantly on localism. There is no there is no localism isn't an ism, it's just that's nature, it's humanity. Man lives locally, there is no other way to live. Um, it's the only natural way. Anything that keeps you from living locally is probably evil, right? So if you're getting good principles from things like this podcast, or all the podcasts are represented here, uh, which I think there's like four or five, you're just if you're just receiving like good principles, but you're actually not building anything with anyone locally, you're not doing it yet. And it's really good to admit that. So you need to find those those local guys and and build the customs, build the traditions. Pilgrimage is like, I think, the best example because we all can't immediately tomorrow, especially given our different circumstances, like, all right, we're all gonna do twice a year chicken processing, which we do too, except we do three times a year, Adrian. Three times. Um and we do turkeys because turkeys are bigger than chickens. Um looking at the lens of that experience, though, um recognizing that we are building customs and traditions where we as men are setting the standards, we're setting the standards of honor, of belonging, of mission, of of all sorts of things. And then we're we're bestowing that on the next generation so that God willing, they continue those, they inherit it in a way that they can pass on, which is an important thing. If you're trying to create an infra a cultural infrastructure that can't be passed on, well, then you're not doing it right. You need to think generationally. What am I doing that is creating that? And to do that is going to and I hate to keep just beating this drum, but it's the men really have to own that. So I think the I I call it or Trey Bailey, our the fraternist continent, he calls it the Robin Hood option, which is um so Robin Hood is a story set at a time where the social and ecclesial realities is totally disordered and wanting and terrible. But those men don't disparage that order. They respect it, they respect the order of the sacraments, the need for chivalry and all that stuff. It's just they know that they can do it better by taking a little bit of a step back, going into the woods, right? And being a band of merry men that continue to do what those social structures insist they do. Honor women without question. They respect the even their rites of initiation into the brotherhood. It's a pseudo-baptism. They pour them beer over their head and give them a new name, right? In the band of merry men. Um, so the Robin Hood option is just us binding together somewhat in the woods, which the woods are beautiful because they're not gone, right? They're not withdrawing from society. They're actually just right out the back door. It's just it's a place where men can dwell as men, as brothers, but they still do the thing. They don't they don't retreat into gangs or into like you know, weird man-only. They actually are still serving women and children, they're still serving the poor, they're still um criticizing and the rich. They're um respecting but demanding from the ecclesial authorities something that they need, which is why Robin Hood and his men tie the bishop when that bishop comes through the woods, they tie him to a tree, not just to like throw apples at or throw rotten tomatoes at him, they tie him to a tree until he will do what? Say mass for them. The bishop only escapes when he says mass for them. So they they they're demanding things that the ecclesial and social structures have to offer, they still respect them, but they in a certain way have just recognized I'm gonna respect and love these things while banding together with my men to help bring better peace and order to that. I don't know if that's a controversial option, but I think oh, I hope it is, um, because it's a good one. Uh, we we we men have to be and they're and they're merry men, they're happy, they're joyful, they are able to crush each other's egos with sticks and funny barbs and joy, and and and they initiate one another so that the individuals who have been disas has been um you know um harmed by the social and ecclesial realities, they still make them they say, look, get over yourself and realize we're still gonna serve that thing because we still love it. We're not we're not abandoning

Men Only Spaces And Rising Conflict

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

it, we're actually doing what's proper to us as men, which is to be married, to be united to one another, to build stuff, to defend stuff, to do what's obvious and necessary in our local community. Let's just do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:34

I think you and I, Jason, we lived at the tail end of the era where we still had men-only spaces. Um, I think it was sometime probably when like I was in high school or so when we started seeing a lot more girls getting involved and things. And it was probably after I graduated high school that we started seeing things like, you know, girls and Boy Scouts, right? Or um we started seeing, you know, uh women go into gyms more often, where it was usually a man-only center for a long time. Um and I think that has been done at the detriment of society, it has been done to um emasculate men more than anything. Uh, and so now that we're trying, we see a lot of men trying to claw their way back and create more men-only spaces, um, there is a massive fight coming back from society saying you can't do this because you know we're egalitarian and all people created equal. Men can do everything a man can do, you know, and uh it's we're we're seeing the fight happen now. Because we're I in my opinion, we're we're seeing the death roes of feminism. Um, we're seeing, we are seeing it has reached its logical outcome and it has been found wanting. And people want nothing to do with it anymore because they see how disruptive it is and what it has made men and women into. Um and I think I think we're seeing it it is thrashing around right now, knowing it is dying. Uh and so as as that progresses, it's only going to get worse for the next, I don't know, you know, decade or so, um, as until it finally dies. Um because as we talk about on our show, Guns and Rosaries, we the the only tangible force for change eventually becomes some type of force, right? Some type of physical manifestation, some type of violence, right? As we're seeing in like in Spain, happening there, where they're having this influx uh of uh Mohammedans uh coming in, where they had 50,000 come into a town of 80,000 and are ransacking the place. Uh, the only way that that can change now is through violence. Uh that's the only way. Way that'll be turned back. Um, and we're going to see it here in the United States. We saw it up in Dearborn, Michigan. Um that entire town is nothing but Muslims who are incompatible with Christian society. They we do not hold the same values. You cannot have two societies with alternate views on how important truth is. To the Christian truth is everything because Christ is truth. To Muhammadan truth is fungible. It can be anything I say it is. You know, uh, inshallah, it's whatever. You know, God can contradict himself anytime he wants. Um, and we are past the point now, in my opinion, of uh we are not gonna be able to vote our way out of this. Men are gonna have to stand up. Um, and unfortunately, because of the nature of things like Islam and communism, it's going to involve violence. Uh and we're gonna have to fight through this to get to the other side. And I think we have a we have a growing number of men, they're mostly young men, men under the age of 30 who realize that. My generation, like I'm a I'm a late Gen X, early millennial, right? Depending on you know what sociopolitical book you read about it. Um and my generation was much more, you know, go along to get along, as long as you don't bother me, I'm fine, right? Uh, but it once it once you get in my space, then I'm gonna, yeah, we're we're gonna have we're gonna stand 10 toes down, right? And um was like Gen Z specifically, they have grown up in an era where um they are the only thing they value is authenticity and they can detect BS way better than any other generation generation before them at this point, because all they've grown up is in is is a fake, you know, false community, right? People just putting things out on social media for people to see the best of them, or uh, you know, people just openly lying to their face all the time, or they're constantly being told because of your skin color, you're less than. Um, and then when they get out to the workforce, they realize it doesn't matter how hard you work, if you don't have the right skin color and the right politics, you're not ever gonna get anywhere in life. Um, you know, depending on where you live. But we're at a point now where they're we're coming to a culmination of something. Something's gonna happen. Uh, we have a society that can't even agree on what a woman is. Um, and when you have that kind of disparity in in reality, uh the only thing that can happen is God has to step in. God's gonna have to do something because otherwise, this is just gonna be extremely violent. Um, we're gonna see, you know, 1930s thing, as Rob did a video on it this week about uh you know the Spanish Civil War pretty much. Um and that's the situation we're looking at across the whole world at this point, because modernism communism has sinked into everything, and it has taken hold and it is starting to exert an in as an influence, and it can no longer convince people based on the ideal. Now it's gonna convince people based on violence. Um and so at what point, you know, we as we start to try and collect these men together and we're holding each other accountable and we're grouping together and we're growing in faith together and we're leaning on each other, um at what point does that end up having to become something else? Like it has to take a step forward, right? To where you're going out from just your guys and you're having to push out and start influencing other men who may be hesitant to show those things because they've sided themselves with the effeminate men for so long because it's it's easier to have security provided to you by someone else um than to do it yourself, right? At what point does that transition have to happen? Right? That's I don't I'm not asking if you know the answer, but that's it's kind of like a hypothetical. Like we're at the cusp of something. I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's good. Um and what happens from here? You know, do have you have you ever thought about that? Do you have any theories?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

Oh man, don't don't bring somebody who writes books on a podcast and ask him if he

Defend Ground By Cultivating It

SPEAKER_03 1:10:30

has theories. That's just asking for a monologue. Um I um on the one hand, I very much believe the the situation in Europe in those kind of places, um, is a weird mix of um cultural vacuum being filled with an anti-culture. Um but they at least they have in defense of the Muslims, here we go. At least they have a at least they have a culture, right? At least they have a common understanding that they're willing to just say, yeah, of course this is right, so this is how we will live. Um my caution in that line of thinking is for American men to take it up as their current reality and again put on the the the cosplay of the crusader when they're actually I'm just thinking of like my own community and probably an overwhelmingly amount of communities outside of like urban centers in places like Minnesota and Detroit and um that we actually still maintain because of the sheer reality of our land mass, right? How much country we have to live in, and the fact that that has not occurred outside of urban centers, um, that we're not at the same risk of like a complete takeover. But if we were to look at that as a cautionary tale, well, what is the lesson to be learned? I'm not sure it is well, I mean, I think a man's ability to defend his own place is like, yeah, that's that's a normal manly thing. Like you should just, but you also have to have something worth defending, so that the current task for us as American men specifically, I because I'm not I mean, the whole reason we wrote or we edited the the American Catholic land movement is that distributism and land movement stuff always gets framed in a European context, and America has a completely different context, completely different history, a completely different agrarian movement that's distinctly Catholic and distinctly American at the same time that looks very different from Ireland, England, Scotland, France. Um, and in our country, we have a lot of culture. Like, I'm actually I actually think that we're incognizant of the freedom we still have to create something worth defending if the threat actually comes to our door. So that our greatest problem might actually be our passivity in watching someone else's wars and preparing for their wars while not fighting the battles that are under our nose and in our backyard. So I don't know if that makes sense, but the the we still maintain an amazing amount of freedom in our country to associate and build with one another, our are especially in in many rural places and even urban places. I mean, there's the great example of like the guys in Dallas. This gets talked about a lot that were at a parish in Irving outside of a suburb outside of Dallas where they were going to build a casino, and all the men at the local parish got on the city council and basically defeated it. Instead of sitting passively going, Well, the Indians, as in from India, are starting a casino. Um, or like they're see, it's the other Indians up here in Minnesota that start casinos. Feather not dot the feather not the dot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So um I want to be careful that my point is not to diminish, but like someone brought this up to me on a podcast recently. Well, I mean, look at what's going on in South Africa. I'm like, that is obviously not what's going on here. That is that might be you can glean wisdom from that, um, but you still have so much, and this isn't just like, well, you you white Catholic conservative guy, that's not what I'm saying. I said you guys that actually operate in a place, you have a community that's still buildable, that's still defendable, that's still so cultural um wars, cultural vacuums, cultural wars are created by cultural vacuums. So then it's like, yeah, I understand the conquistador, but the conquistador was going to a foreign land. When it comes to our own lands, the men that actually won the battles were not the men that fought the cultural outsider or the foreigner, they were the ones that stayed put in stability and built their local culture so that the vacuum is not there, so that the edging out of the possibility of takeover, right? Because it's it's it's only when you seed ground that someone takes it. So quit seeding the ground. And I think the only reason that anyone can take over our local cultures and take over our local communities and take over our family is because we as men have let them, because we retreated from the ground that was our ground. So cultivate that's the whole reason the the the magazine sword and spade. The sword is what you're talking about. Well, you got to defend it, but the spade is the more important tool. If you cultivate the inheritable, defensible, tangible culture, well, that creates a mass that fills the void so that the the invading forces can't take it. Don't let them take it in the first place. So places like South Africa or places in France or places in Germany, they're now stuck with figuring out well, we gave up our Catholic culture, and then we acted surprised and mad when someone filled the void. So if there's a lesson for us as American men, don't give up that ground now and sit there and arm yourself waiting for an invasion. When if you would just sit on top of the hill and stand guard and hold your ground to start with, that you'll be in a less desperate situation later. Now, this I understand this is a complicated global political reality, right? We don't always control the influx of a foreign culture. But that's it's like when you tell your kids, like, I just want you to own your mistakes and repent. Well, my brother did this. Okay, no, I'm not asking you. I want you to acknowledge your own the thing that you can take responsibility for. So my answer to that concern is what is the thing that you can take responsibility for it now? And you're actually not being invaded and you're not being displaced and you're not being overwhelmed. What if right now you and your men were actually building a ground worth defending? That's our that's as American men uniquely, I understand. And perhaps not everywhere in the country, because now if you're in a place where you have to like take background, that's a whole nother battle. But I think the if you look at the map of the United States, the amount of territory that has been taken over is very minimal, and we have so much community worth defending and building. But if every family is just a diaspora of itself, if every community is temporary and cosmopolitan and utilitarian, then of course we're gonna have nothing to defend, so we can just await our deserved invasion by an enemy who knows how to cultivate our lands better than we do. Write that down, Rob. Write that down, Rob. That's that's that's what I want to say.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:19

So what I hear is Rob it has to uh have the Minnesota reconquista and retake Minneapolis and St. Paul's.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:27

Okay, yep, he's gotta do it. But Rob, so so was that not did they fill a void or did they take over a strong army? Who? The Somalis.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:43

Definitely, I mean, there was definitely they definitely filled the void that I think was left in so many uh American cities, you know, after like the 1970s, for instance. Um the yeah, because the Somali immigration started in the 90s and yeah, they moved into the bad parts of town, largely, at least initially, and now those parts of towns of like Minneapolis is is a no-go zone, and they've they've spread out from there to the point where what were good good areas are now have now become bad, but it was because even those good areas were in you know economic decline, for instance, and any uh opening in a strip mall was suddenly filled with a halal food joint or you know something like that, or a leering center. Many leering centers, yes, many of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:38

Well, that's my point. That's my point. Squatters don't squat in occupied homes, right? Squatters squat in empty homes. That's my point. So I think we can easily look at the squatters. They're not squatters, they are not an invading force. Squatters are like they're weak, they're pitiful, they're they're or they've got or a squatter in a home is actually just trying to make a home for his family because you're not making it, right? And maybe we we defend those, the so-called invasion, and say, well, at least they're inhabiting the infrastructure that we abandoned. Oh man, I hope that's not. I don't try to be controversial, but at least they're doing something, right? I don't think they're doing the right thing, but are we doing the right thing? It's actually good that Somalis are taking over. That I mean, okay, you know, like there's so many homes in the south, these generational homes that are 200 years old, and in the backyard is uh a trailer. So the house is falling down, the family graveyard is unkept, and there's a trailer in the backyard with somebody who's here trying to make a living. I'm like, who let that house? Who left their father's grave untended and left the house empty? That's our job right now. Fill the house, defend the house, make it worth living in.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:08

Like for my family, you know, like I have uh you know, three girls and one boy, but my girls all know hey, there's no reason for you to leave this house to either married or religious. You don't need to go get an apartment. There's no reason to waste your money on that and put yourself at risk. You stay in this house until then. As well, whoever has the most kids and takes care of mom and dad, y'all get the house. I'm not above bribing my kids whatsoever. No, um that's necessary. You know, but like my my goal, you know, because we have this property here around now, and I bought 40 acres eight minutes down the road from us. Um you know, and that was to give to the kids. I was like, hey, you know, you can build a house on that, you know, it doesn't worry about building code as long as you don't have to worry if you're never gonna sell the property, right? Um, you know, just build a house on it. You know, I'll give each of y'all 10 acres, y'all can build on it. Uh, but now it's I'm at a point where I may

Private Equity And Local Government Fights

SPEAKER_05 1:22:00

have to move over there myself because I have 200 acres around me that's owned by another gentleman, he just sold it to a developer and they're wanting to put 600 houses on it. I'm like, I don't want to live near that, so I might just have to move this property eight minutes down the road.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:13

Um, you know, but it's if my son can I can I just hold on, wait, can I I'm so I do not want to monopolize this, but in our country, that is our greatest risk. The foreign, the foreign invasion of most local places in the United States is not immigrants, the foreign invasion is investors developing a place that they have no affection for and they have no generational bond to. They are they are finding an asset that they can flip and make money from, and they have no rooted bond to that place. That's our greatest, and it and that, you know where that's fought? Local government, and you can be doing it. I know it's really not.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:55

It's funny you say that. It's funny you say that. So when they when that developer bought that that land, like I was, you know, obviously not happy. And so I started going to all the city hall meetings, like hey, you know, and listening to them, like pitch their wings or whatever. Um, and to be honest with you, my little small towns, we only have like 7,000 people in my town, and we nobody was happy about it like nobody like this gonna be a lot more traffic, the water infrastructure can't hold it. Like, why are we doing this? Why did y'all approve this? We had a election last fall, and everyone on that city council who approved it got voted out. Boom. The new people who came in, they immediately said, We're squashed, we're not gonna allow this neighborhood. Um, so now the city's being sued. But um but but but to your point, with you know, private equity, you you can see it in in places you go to is we're consuming, is like places like uh I don't know if you'll have a um a Jersey mics near y'all, but Jersey Mikes is bought by private equity about two years ago. There was a noticeable decline one week to another on the quality of product they had once private equity took over. Right? Same thing with um like Red Lobster, right? Uh Red Lobster is brought about private equity, and and they were and private equity is basically uh cannibalizing Red Lobster to be able to eventually sell them all and sell the property they were on. Because that's all they saw. They saw this way of rich real quick.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:21

The real estate is more valuable than the business, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:24

Yeah, exactly what it was. Um, and we're seeing it everywhere, and private equity is destroying um local areas, especially small towns, because they're cheaper. They can come in and buy something cheap, and if it's along a major thoroughfare, they know eventually they're just gonna have to wait a couple of years, they'll develop enough where they can flip it real quick and make quick money.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:44

So that's my point. Let's identify what's actually invading and harming our community because I wore this on purpose. This is Melvin Hill meets this. Is my neighbor, fraternist guy, Catholic guy, bought the property across the street from me. And uh, his question to the community, to me and the community is what does this community need? And we said, Well, there's a lot of homesteaders and farmers, and there's no butcher around here. We've got, you know, back, we can't get our animals processed, we can't get them to market. And so he started a butcher shop. So the community asked for this business to come here, and the local government went after him in ways that were crazy. And and they were gonna zoning, they were literally changing zoning laws to target him because they didn't like him, and we all had to go to a zoning meeting. We meaning the look the people right around him, because they put up all these signs like zoning, and the people and the local government called and said, Oh, there's this processor, this murderer going across the street from you killed guts are gonna be in the yard, vultures. And we had to go there, and had we not, they admitted later, some of them like, yeah, we were we were ready to like cast this guy out versus a developer that comes in and just fights with his lawyer and just gets what he wants and builds his cell phone tower and his subdivision and everything. You have to be engaged, and like you, and that's a case of what this guy right here is building something that the community needs, the community wants it's economically viable, that's serious, it's not just hey, uncle support me and my Catholic blog with my Patreon, like it's just a real local need. Um, you had we had to fight for it. It's and and it wasn't it that was a massive conversion to me that we actually have to fight for the things that we need and that we're asking for in opposition to essentially big government and private equity, right? These guys that are getting their pockets lined and flipping properties and flipping local communities. That's the threat to local community right now. And if you want to make sure you don't have a vacuum, you better make sure you're paying attention. And that's and hey, and what does this come back to? It's the men showing up, it's the business owners, it's the pastors of the local churches, even the Protestant ones, right? The Protestant pastors showed up to this meeting I was at because the Protestant church is right across the street, I mean, within earshot of this butcher shop. He said, My parishioners are super happy about this. What do y'all do? Why are you not letting this happen? And this other guy down the road, whose pond is our main fishing hole, he showed up and he just as a country man, he showed up, he said, Look, if if y'all don't approve this, something has gone seriously wrong in our county. So the neighbors had to defend themselves against a foreign invasion of interest that wasn't ours, and we had to make our interest known, and we had to build something. And now he's I I forgot, do not let me take this is like the hardest working man. If anybody wants to buy meat or like be a part of something, please sign up for Melvin Hill Meets newsletters. They're hilarious, they're funny, and you can get deals on meat. But this guy is like the hardest working, savviest, most loving, and annoyingly holy man and his family, and his wife, and his children that are. Also pharaoh like mine. Maybe that's why I like them because we don't have to wear sleep. Uh we but we had to fight for them, and those are the kind of fights that only happen when local men are actually in communion with one another beyond hanging out and and doing Bible studies. Not okay. I do not please study the Bible. I'm a convert, I love the Bible. You need to know the Bible. So I'm not disparaging that. I'm just saying the the uh if you read the scriptures carefully, St. Paul is mostly and most of the New Testament written by Saint Paul is advising take care of one another, do stuff, economic stuff, help each other build tents, feed each other, take care of your family, do local stuff because it's cool. Oh, look at there you go. Is that your job, Rob? Just like cool

Questions On Awkward Men And Formation

SPEAKER_03 1:28:50

things to click on. Basically, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:52

Pretty much, yeah, yeah. Uh, we've had a few questions. Let's do some questions, and I won't take up any more of Jason's time. He's got feral children to take care of.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:00

No, I'm gonna listen. I'm I'm stepping around. I'm still listening, I'm off gamer for just a second, but I'm listening.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:05

Okay, gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:08

What do we do about the extreme autism problem within the traditional Catholic community? So many of the guys in my parish are very antisocial and awkward. So, what do we do with antisocial, potentially autistic men?

SPEAKER_05 1:29:26

I'm gonna answer this first and I'm gonna let because Jason's is gonna be way better than mine. Um you gotta understand most of these younger guys are converting intellectually or they're coming to tradition intellectually, right? They see they see the constant shifting of culture and they want to mord themselves to something that is consistent and has always been there, and so they find these traditional communities. Um, they are are an outsider in their own families most times.

unknown 1:29:57

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:58

Most times they have boomer parents who are like, I don't understand why you're taking this God thing very seriously. We just we go to church on Christmas and Easter, um, but they're even usually they're outsiders in their own families, so they don't have very good social capabilities because they're they've always been the outsider. They they have never, they haven't really felt part of anything. And being somewhere like a contritional community, they they feel like they're part of something now, and they can bring their superpowers, as autism is, um, to assist them with understanding the faith, right? So it it it's a competing problem as with the women on the other end, right? The other side of the spectrum is the young women who are coming are usually coming with their own baggage and their own issues, right? And so it you know, we we've talked about this and Anthony's talked about this, and my my opinion is a little bit different. Uh, but uh, you know, when we are looking for if you're a young person now, right, and I'm only 45, so like if you're younger than 30, um, and you're looking for someone to potentially marry, the first thing you should not look at is what their external appearance is, right? How like attraction is necessary, but attraction can be uh can be grown, can be uh cultivated, right? You need to look for someone who is living and is striving towards virtue more than anything. Like you know, I I've brought up with Rob and I've brought up a couple of times with friends and stuff. If something ever happened to my wife, like I've got a six-year-old little girl, if she happened, if my wife were to pass away this year and if I had to get married again, it would absolutely be not be someone who is you know primarily good looking. It would be someone I see as one can push back on my BS, right? Because if I'm if I'm able to run amok, it's gonna be bad. I need someone to be able to push back on me, but I also need someone who is caring um and who is willing to follow where I lead.

unknown 1:32:14

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:15

I need somebody who has you know good home skills, like I need somebody that can cook, right? Because I'm a good cook, but I can't be cooking all the time, I work too much. Um but for young men, we we have to give them a little bit of grace, but do not put up with BS either. Right? Um, like we're seeing right now with the modesty talk on social media, right? And then that's gone haywire. Um and we're having we're seeing some people make some very um insensitive comments about how you should talk to women, um, not understanding that our primary virtue we're striving towards is charity. And you you should try to speak to each other in charity. And if someone needs fraternal correction or they need correction, do it in charity. You shouldn't just tell somebody, hey, quit being an autist, or hey, you gotta quit dressing like an like a thought, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:13

Um Rob, I love. Can you just follow me around and type little funny 100%? My my wife, if I if my wife dies, she told me, get thee to the monastery, boy. There ain't no one as good as me. And I'm like, all right, so yeah, I gotta enroll them in a post. Um I was recently told that my wife mogs me, which I believe is internet speak for she's way better looking than I am.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:39

Um uh another colloquial term for that is you have outkicked your coverage. What does that mean? What does that mean? That is that is a southern uh take because we're so football-centric. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:52

Um, well, all right, can I riff on that question now? Because that's yes. Well, that question, kudos to the person um recognizing the problem. The the challenge, of course, is how to love this this young man. I mean, everyone's very excited about these young converts, and I and do not let mishear me. I'm excited about young male converts. Um, but the number one rule in our homeschool, if you ask our kids what's your number one rule in your homeschool is don't be weird. And and by that I mean you actually have a social duty as a man to recognize how you're uh there's a lot of wisdom in learning how to interact with people. And you know, Saint Thomas Aquinas says that uh a hungry man does not need philosophy, he needs food, right? So um a lot of these guys don't know how to give anything else besides essentially an internet formation. So Saint Paul advises uh Saint Timothy, the bishop, do not ordain new converts because they're prideful and they don't know what they're doing. So let's just say that about new converts. But these young men are in drastic need of the formation of other men. If you have converted in a in a purely, as Adrian said, purely like intellectual fashion into the church, um, that is a very important but very small part of your your now social duties within that community as a man. And your ability to be hospitable, to be agreeable, to be peaceful um with other people, to be fatherly is something that they don't know how to do. So those men need the brotherhood of older men. It's it's not unlike a priest who has a very difficult um time associating with men, even if he's rock solid, traditional Orthodox. But if he went from homeschool to college seminary to seminary, uh to being ordained to being a pastor, he actually never spent uh any time in the company of laymen and the formation that they provide. You know, think of the construction site and the ego killing or the military, Adrian, of the the ego killing but fraternity building reality of like male infrastructure infrastructure. They haven't had that and they need it drastically. Um and they it and what they have is what psychologists call the, and I've been using this a lot, forgive me, people that are around me that hear this, I'm like hot on this topic right now, but the uh the illusion of explanatory depth, meaning because you understand one truth, you think that you have an understanding of complex problems that you don't actually have. Because the the solutions and the guidance and leadership over complex problems requires significant nuance, discernment, eyes open, relational abilities, um, communicative, communicational abilities, communicational is that a word, communication ability that these guys don't have, which is why they come off as weird. And so while I'm I'm sensitive, I love the fact that the Catholic Church welcomes everybody, and like as I like to say, psychopaths have to go to church too. Um, these are probably not the guys that can lead anything. In fact, they need to be led. So who is leading them? Um, if they just are going to church and going to the communities waiting to explain um how the Jews ruined everything or why America needs a Catholic king, and they're like not making friends or attracting girls, somebody needs to tell them why. You know? Um one of the best stories of fraternists that I I just shared with my son because he did it. He's a homeschool kid, is uh one of my good, you know, one of the the he's really a founding father of fraternists, Danny Snyder, grew up in Catholic school, his wife's a public school teacher. I mean, he's just like Captain Suburbia, like insurance company. And he told me his story about like a homeschool kid showing up to fraternists, and he walked up and started take flipping everybody's hats off their head, right? And he pulled him aside and he said, Don't ever touch another man's hat. Right? Like, where where are you where are they getting the experience to just know that? And if anyone out there's like, oh, they shouldn't be wearing a hat at church, you don't know where they were, they might have been at a baseball game. But my point is like those those that social competency will not happen online, right? And men, if you're listening to this and you're like, Yeah, those weirdos creep me out too. Well, don't look at them as weirdos and cast them out. Those are your brothers, those are your sons. Bring them in in love, earn the right to be heard, counsel them and say, Listen, I know you don't know this, but when you act in this way, instead of communicating the truth, you're pushing people away from it. You use truth like a like a like a club that you beat everyone with when really that's not how God works at all. He reveals himself as the sacred heart, not the sacred mind, not the sacred club of truth, the sacred heart. Okay, so where's your heart in all this? And then you'll find these guys are wounded, broken, they've got all sorts of insecurities, and that's where you can begin because they think in the illusion of explanatory depth, that because they have found the truth of Catholicism, that now they're experts in all sorts of things that they're not experts in, and what they need to be experts in is getting a wife, get a wife, you know, like they need to become. So I won't get into what the realm of how attractive a second wife should be. That's Adrian. Adrian brought that up. I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:52

No good can come for bringing that up online.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:55

No, no, and to be honest with you, my wife is the first person that if you die, Katie.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:00

If you're listening, if you die of going to the monastery or just living alone on the front floor.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:06

My my wife is the first person that I could ever be around for more than 24 hours and not want to strangle.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:14

Isn't this podcast about 24 hours by now? Goodness.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:18

It's about uh so to your point, Jason, like uh men need correction by other men. Uh to give you all a quick story. Um, when I was at the fire department, yeah, I was a paramedic. And I I would uh my you know, one of my tertiary jobs was I trained new paramedics, like they would come on the truck with me and I would teach them how to be a paramedic and how not to kill people or to try and be bring people back to life who are already dead. And uh by the end of a shift, a trainee would know if I liked them or not, and if I gave them a hard time. There you go. Right boom. If if I wasn't giving you a hard time, it's because I didn't like you and I didn't want you around. But if I was giving you a hard time and ripping, like I expected you, I was waiting for you to give it back. Hard times make good men. That's right. And so and eventually, like it got understood. Like some guys would pick it up and some guys didn't. Some guys, you know, I would basically not talk to them the entire shift after the first hour of knowing them. Um, and they didn't last long, right? Because you're not gonna last long in a male-dominated environment like that anyway, if you don't have you don't develop thick skin.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:27

And if your ego's not being killed and you're not willing to let this brotherhood of men kill your ego, and you're too touchy, you're out because we're out there together. We're we're doing stuff that's important, and we can't bring our ego onto the field. So I've got to kill it. That's my job. I'm your drill sergeant, baby. My name is Adrian. And yes, that's a male name. Hey, there was a Pope, Adrian. It's a male. That's what I said. Don't get me.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:54

It's a male, it's a male name, it's a male name, it's a male name. Oh, who's getting touchy now? Rocky. They spell the different you talking about spelling.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:07

What? I'm an immaculate speller. I'm an immaculate speller. Immaculate. That's like a rap name. Oh, but spelled Spella with an A H at the end, spella.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:21

Immaculate Speller.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:24

Wow.

Moving For The Latin Mass

SPEAKER_05 1:42:25

Let's do this next one from Paul.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:27

If you get two more questions, that's it.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:29

If you've built decent equity in a house on 20 acres, but you're a long drive from your TLM community. Would you downsize and move closer to the TLM community? Bonus, would you would also help pay off debts? You want to take that one first, Jason?

SPEAKER_03 1:42:44

I live on 20 acres, 21 acres. I live in the Diocese of Charlotte. My Latin Mass, which I have attended since 2007, 070707, um, has been disbanded by our bishop. And I have I built my own home. I bought my land in a sort of I had to build a road with an excavator in order to buy this land. That's another story. But like I put my sweat equity in. Um is $220,000. So my mortgage is very affordable. My equity is in the millions. My Latin Mass has been taken away. I could flip this property and leave my community and be mortgage free and debt-free tomorrow. I have a high I I if I put a sign out, I I get texts, I get people asking me, oh, I've got mountain views, I've got a farm, I've got acreage. I could do exactly what this question is asking me to do. So has the temptation crossed my mind? Yes. And I have viewed it as a temptation. The reason is I am presently under the good care of a good pastor. Um I am able, I have to be careful. I'm able to get my fix of masses. Um but I have not, I have under the guidance of good men, I've been careful not to make an idol of the liturgy itself. And I know, gosh, that's probably going to bring ire of some people. Um, but I'm not speaking of a newbie here. Look, I'm 20 years in, like I know what I'm talking about, okay? Um, but what is being built in this community, this most stabilizing force in our communities, you know, the three-legged stool is our economics, our community, and our liturgy. Right now, I have a relatively stable liturgy with some hopes of you know what what we can maintain within our family and our community locally, um, has value. But these are my people that will have already proven themselves because of states of life that I'm in that I won't share publicly because I don't I'm not into sharing thing and telling you what I'm doing with my kids all the time, but they are already the people that will ensure that my grandkids are Catholic and I trust them for that. So I'm a layman. I have very little, and I'm in a rural area, so I'm not in an urban area where I can just hop, you know, we can all just hop ship to the next parish over. Okay, I can't do that. Um, but my answer has been no, I'm not going anywhere. I will defend this place, I will demand from all authorities, ecclesial and and and government-wise, to preserve the place. And I will, and but what we have built in the cultural infrastructure of the people, of the brotherhood, of the men, of the women, of the families that are here, these are my people, and I will not abandon them. And they will not because I know they will not abandon me. That is not everyone's situation that is in a similar place, but I know that temptation, and I view it as a temptation because the the two, you know, the revolutions we're dealing with is the revolution of the altar and the revolution of the bed, right? The liturgical revolution and the sexual revolution. I don't have a lot of say as a layman over uh the altar revolution, but I have a lot of say over the bedroom revolution of families and and childbearing. And I will fight in the place that is that I have, that I've got a sword to draw and I've got a spade to spade with. That's where I am. Um, so I understand. Now, if it became completely onerous where I thought the faith of my children was in jeopardy and therefore their eternal salvation, then I would absolutely take the counsel of Jesus. He who's not willing to leave father and mother in lands for my sake uh is not worthy of me, if that were the case. But right now I don't discern that to be the case. Um, because my father and mother in lands are not hindering me to Jesus. But if I were to leave them behind, that infrastructure that's created by the culture of the bedroom, uh, and what I mean by that is families and community. Right, because sex is a social reality, right? That's what children prove to us. Um I'm I'm not going anywhere and I'm fighting. Would now there is a there's obviously there's gonna be thresholds, but I'm not there. And just the TLM alone, where I am, I'm not and I'm not dealing with liturgical dances in clown masses. It's not gonna happen. It's not foreseeable. If it became so onerous that I was seeing my family losing their faith, I would reconsider this decision. But until then, I'm not.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:09

I would so I'm in I'm in a situation where I drive 45 minutes to honor a diocese from Latin House, and we go to everything, right? We just know that's a cross we're gonna bear. We go, you know, on Sundays for Mass, whether it's you know, um holy days of obligation, whether it's parish dances or baptisms, we just know we're driving. Right. And we purposely made that decision when we moved here. We wanted to be within 45 minutes of the mass. Um, and this was right after traditional custodas happened, is when we bought this place. Um I'm in the position where I could sell this place um and build a house on my 40 acres and have no mortgage whatsoever. And that might be what I do eventually. I'm always only eight more minutes, but it's eight minutes further from mass for me to do that. Um but I am not of the opinion.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:02

But you wouldn't be leaving your community, you wouldn't be leaving your community.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:05

Correct. I'd be within my community still. Um but I am also not in the opinion we should be purposely moving to Latin masses if you if you're in a stable position now, because no Latin mass is safe. Even the Ecclesia Day masses are being taken away, right? Just look at Chicago with I with ICKSP, right? They took theirs away. That was their headquarters in the United States of America, right? And super took that away. Uh look in uh where was it, uh Germany, where uh FSSP got their parishes taken away. They at least one, right? Even the former Ecclesia Day communities are not safe. So the fact that if you could move towards a Latin mass, and then that Latin mass is taken away, or you've moved for no reason. Um and now you're you're in a bad position, which is ha which has happened in the last couple of years. All these black masses going away, and these people had moved towards them, and now they're in a position where the masses are there. And like, why did they move? They've they've uprooted families to be closer to a mass that they can no longer go to. Um, I think it is, but I also look at it from um a geopolitical perspective. I do not want to be in an urban or suburban area, which are where where most light masses are, um, and be surrounded by people uh that have no sense of community. And if things get bad, right, I can't trust anybody around me. That that and and this is kind of like you know, for me, for those of you like a you know proper minded or whatever, you know, like when things go bad, the rural areas are gonna survive way better than the urban areas.

unknown 1:50:44

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:44

The urban areas are gonna be given most support by the government, but you know, you're gonna have people eating dogs within weeks. Um, so I I more of it look at it as a way for me to take care of my family um for now and forever, uh, and still have access to Latin mass, but if my Latin mass is taken away, well then I'll just find the nearest good Nova Soto. I don't have an option. We don't have any traditional communities in my state whatsoever. The nearest one to me is in Atlanta, and that's an hour and 45 minutes away. I could pull a Rob in about two hours every Sunday one way to go to Mass, but I don't suggest it. It's it's a toll. You're taking, you know, that's your day, your Sunday is completely gone. You're spinning in the car the whole time, and that's not good for kids to be spinning in a car that long. Um, four hours a day at least, and that's if you don't have any traffic. I'm going to Atlanta, I'm gonna hit traffic even on Sunday. Um, so it may take longer. So if for someone, I can't say what your situation is, Paul, but um I wouldn't, I personally wouldn't do it for those reasons.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:57

Well, it depends on it. I mean, if he has a I would just be very careful and cautious because people leave good communities even to do good things, like I'm gonna move out and start a homestead. And people call me all the time and they'll ask, Well, I think I'm gonna do that because they're experiencing tradition and community, and they they get the pool to greatism, which happens to every family will be pooled to like, should we just move to a farm? Every family's gonna experience that. That's why I wrote the book Ligid Land. Like, okay, what do you do with that pool? Should you act on it? Um, but the first question is the I I just know, and this is from this is from experience and data. Um, that yes, the liturgical ecclesial uh infrastructure and atmosphere and culture around you is a huge part of your children's formation and your family's stability and generationally in the faith. Um, but right next to it, and I mean next to it, is the communal bonds, um, the in the the cultural infrastructure that the that the laymen inhabit and have control over, rightfully. Um that they, you know, I mean, these priests are coming and going even in traditional communities every you know five, six, seven, eight years. Um, if that infrastructure is also very important, so be careful of discounting it. If you have neither, okay, I guess I don't know, move, but you might be the problem. You might just continue to not have that where you go next, you know. Um, and if you're looking for the magic bullet, you might be missing it. And the fact that you actually just need to be doing the work of cultivating the culture and the and the community around you. Um, just it requires a lot of discernment and nuance, and um pulling the trigger, pulling the trigger quickly um for the mass is might be as imprudent in the long term as pulling the trigger quickly um because you want to grow more tomatoes.

Same Sex Attraction And Healing

SPEAKER_06 1:53:50

Okay, we have one final question and then we're done, guys. Is there any hope for Catholic men with uh same-sex attraction to be normal men and raise a family, or are they more or less predestined for a single celibate life?

SPEAKER_03 1:54:08

Is that me or you, Adrian? What do you want to do?

SPEAKER_05 1:54:10

I'll take this one. Um there was a study that was put out. A medical journal put out a study in twenty twenty-two, twenty twenty-three that men who took supplemental testosterone can have a reversal of same-sex attraction. Um every one of them, because you gotta you guys. You said that on the internet, you just said that on the internet.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:48

What do you do?

SPEAKER_05 1:54:48

Well, yeah, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did, but I'll say it again. Uh but you also have to understand what the genesis of the problem is. For most men, the reason they have same-sex attraction, which this is this is supported by psychological studies as well, is usually one of two things. Either it is a effeminate father or it is sexual abuse early in life. They create a perversion of the view of their relationship with men and sexualize it. Okay. That's not always the case, but that's a majority. The ones that uh it's more of they're raised by women and uh they're just they just incline that way because of of social pressure, they are much more likely to see a reversal with uh supplemental testosterone. Um is it a death sentence for every one of them that it can never be have a family or whatever? No, but it's gonna be rare. Uh it's gonna be extremely rare. Um, and when you have that disordered view on the world and a disordered view of relationships with other men, um it it will most likely be better for them to remain celibate. Um, and usually those men need to separate themselves from uh other people with that same sex attraction.

SPEAKER_06 1:56:14

Um yeah, I I would say, yeah, you're right. You you gotta figure out what what is at the heart of it and then work to heal it. Um, you know, I if you haven't seen our episode with our most recent episode with Nancy Charles, you know, a lot of what she talked about is is figuring out how she uh what she needed to do to heal her same-sex attraction, you know, and and I think obviously it won't be easy and uh take a lot, a lot, a lot of work, like it like really anything, but um I think there are ways to to heal that um and then move forward from there. But I think to move forward with you know, with a wife and with children, you do need to to heal that first. Um, you know, Mrs. Casey has a good point. If if if it's a serious enough, um, you know, if it's a disordered attraction serious enough to prevent of a according to the priesthood, it probably should prevent you from being a husband and father, at least until it's healed.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:26

I know a number of men who are middle-named who experience the same sex attraction. I know two of them, but they still act on it.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:40

So I may be the leather in law, but it's not spirit of law in the church right now, or hasn't been in the last 60 years.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:46

True. Yeah, I mean, um sexual deviancy amongst, yeah. I've I've dealt with scandals in my own life of heterosexual priests, right? Um, so there's that whole that reality. But again, the the answer of celibacy to a sexual disorder is just as wrong as thinking that the answer to um uh addiction to lust and pornography will be will be healed by marriage, right? It's um because it won't. These are um they're they're not healed in that way. I I would, and this is probably a big topic you guys have touched on with much better guests than I am in this topic, um, but I have dealt closely with it. And um, I would say, yes, I believe in the power of Jesus Christ to heal these wounds and disorders, and I lump myself in um with in all of us men, I lump us all in together with needing sexual healing in the in the modern world of the post-sexual revolution or the current ongoing sexual revolution. Um but to say, no, I would say I think the question says something like, is there no hope for? Like, well, of course not, because the the the virtue of hope compels us to say to God, um, that I expect your help now. Not just that I expect heaven as my reward, and that's what I'm anchored in, but I expect your hope, your help now uh in discerning that. And so for anyone out there who's actually just feeling that, absolutely, I'm with you. You are my brother, you are not other than me. I what we are brothers uh in in the same battle, in the same spiritual fight, and yours is manifested differently, and we will probably find um a lot of camaraderie in thinking, well, we need to be healed from our sins and our disorders, and yours looks different, but there's certainly enough evidence to say um that many men absolutely um I think one of the leading voices in courage that I knew and I talked to is a psychologist that helps with the the apostate of courage international, um, was a man active in the gay lifestyle and now has um a family and children. And he shared a story with me. And so going not on just like abstract data, but on people that have sat in front of me and looked me in the eye, I would say, well, of course, you can be healed. Certainly, what we can't say, well, is their life stuck with celibacy? Well, that's if you mean by that, that the anecdote is priestly fatherhood. Well, if you have sexual deviancy of any sort, you're not gonna be a good father. And a priest is a father, so it's it's not an answer. Just like my answer, if I have a perverse heterosexual deviancy disorder, I don't want to look to marriage as its cure, it's anecdote. I don't want to do the same thing with the priesthood because both of them are fathers. We need to be healed as men. And when it comes to this whole question of like men initiating men, oh, Rob's yawning during my apologies. As we deal with men, for a lot of men that that have same-sex attraction, they have just been more effectively initiated into the false culture of head of gay culture. Um, and that gives them a hump, they become instant heroes, they become victims that can be raised up. They become, you know, they got belonging, they have support. Um, and we have to, we as Catholic men have to provide the same thing with deep and serious compassion on them, um, not aloof judgment, but deep and serious compassion to bring them just uh under our fatherly care for them and and and to initiate them into our world as best we can with the help and the healing of Jesus Christ and the truth of the church.

SPEAKER_06 2:01:34

Do you think building healthy, normal, masculine relationships with other men would do you think that helps with that? You think I mean well it does absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:46

I mean, that's in the that's in the data because uh Adrian is right. This is and there's a there's a they they have you know because male homosexuality and female homosexuality is different. Females sexualize friendship, right? And then share in the sexuality of a friendship. Men overwhelmingly are sexualizing their relationships with with paternity and fraternity, right? Not not friendship. So um proper the proper relationship has to be experienced by these men. They have to be um initiated and guided by by men that love them, that for whom sexualizing this relationship and this bond is not an option. But if they're only being guided and initiated by men where sexualizing this relationship is an option, well that's like a woman who's looking to fill emotional and physical needs in her because they just sex this is why women fall in and out of homosexuality much at a much greater rate than men, right? This is why, like women, uh, and I have family members close to me in this that I've we've dealt with, they can be homosexual one day and heterosexual the next, they can bounce back and forth, where men have a much more deep-seated identity adoption uh of their homosexuality that's more all-encompassing. And so they're they're breaking free of it has much more uh I identification in the like sort of an arch identity than just where I'm sort of uh getting what I need, right? So um female homosexuality might, gosh, I don't know if I should say this on the internet, might be more like what men experience in prison, right? Where like they're just doing what's necessary to survive in the atmosphere they're in, right? Um, just getting there is where it's it's not, it might as soon as they get on the outside, they're totally not homosexual, right? Um, I think men that are actually suffering from this in the in the broader world um have a great have a great and deep need for the love of a father and the love of a brother that's not that's not that doesn't have the potential of being sexualized.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:56

Can we delete this? Wait, this is lies. This is lies.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:02

Sorry, Jason. I should have warned you about the show.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:06

I'm probably not gonna do that. We have to love them and trust that God can heal. That's uh that's what we gotta do. We gotta love and that if that sounds squishy, you're squishy. Shut up. We need to love them and trust in the healing power of God. That's what I believe.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:23

Oh man, the things we hear on this channel, I love it.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:30

We have to love them. Love, love is the answer, and you don't want to hear that. Liberals say that, but it's true. Love is the answer. Love is the answer, love is love, baby.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:41

And with with that wisdom, we're

Where To Find Their Work

SPEAKER_06 2:04:45

gonna end the show.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:47

I hope that's wisdom, Jason. I appreciate you coming on, brother.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:50

Yeah, this was great, man. Thank you so much. Way more fun than I expected. Sorry for smoking on camera. No, we go for it. I'm not a smoker. I just gonna say, I just I if I'm social, I'm smoking. That's all. I got it.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:02

I got if I if I had known you, we're gonna, I would have I would have smoked with you, and we could have been social together.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:07

Could have been doing that. I'm out of moonshine too. So after that, last after that last question, I'm like, wait, how much did I drink? Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_06 2:05:20

Yeah, thank you. Um where uh where can people go to find your work?

SPEAKER_03 2:05:26

Yeah, well, we would love Adrian and I are fraternist brothers, and uh this year we launched the ability where you can join us as brothers even if you're not near a fraternist chapter. Um, so we would love to have you. You can be our brothers, and and we will be united in our common pursuit of of virtue and holiness, but not just stopping there of actually building local fraternity community. Um, so they could, I mean, being becoming a subscriber, fraternist would be the if if you want the low-hanging fruit we'll be launching this year um or very soon. Um uh that basically you can get the the fraternist content that comes out weekly via email, or you can just subscribe to the magazine Sword and Spade, and we have a substack. You can do the Sword and Spade Substack.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:04

Everyone should subscribe to Sword and Spade. We get what four times a year every season. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:09

Well, that's the thing, Adrian. Now they can they can be when they become fraternist members, they will get our like virtue cultivation content and the magazine for like the same price of like a sword and spade plus so just just become a full member.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:20

And it's become a having and and somehow I won't say it's in my household, but some households where the when the sword and spade magazine comes in, the wives take it first. Yeah, they read it first before the men can get a hold of it.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:31

Do you know why? I'm sorry, hold on, wait, because if somebody takes it wrong, women want to because you said this earlier, like girls joining Boy Scouts, boys never were clamoring to join the Girl Scouts. The women want to know what in the world is going on in their mind, what are they thinking? So they come clawing at our clubs. So uh Swords Bade does open up the ability for them to sort of understand our hearts, but it's it's written to a man's heart, not a woman. They just they're just trying to get to understand us. So we're weird, we're weird men. Look at Rob's shirt. Yes, why Rob? Is that a tattoo on your cheese?

SPEAKER_06 2:07:06

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:07

Seriously, yeah. What is it?

SPEAKER_06 2:07:10

It's uh Cairo potato Cairo symbol, and above it says an hocke signal vintage.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:16

Heck yeah, dude. Man, see right here what I got.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:20

It's a it's a tick bite. Just kidding. He got the alpha gal.

SPEAKER_08 2:07:25

Yeah, can't he know red more raising all this meat for nothing? Nothing.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:33

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We'll go. See you guys. It's too much fun. See you.