Pints With Aquinas - 156: Should we be evangelizing the Jews? (Supersessionism) W/ Fr. William Goldin

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

Today we discuss the doctrine of supersessionism with Fr. William Goldin. SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform  

G'day, welcome to Points with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Well, today we are joined around the bar table by Father William Golden to discuss with Thomas Aquinas the issue of supersessionism. Basically the idea... well, we'll get into it. But should we... God has made a covenant with the Jewish people. Yes. All right. Is that still in effect? And if it is, does that mean we shouldn't be evangelizing Ben Shapiro and the Jews in general? We'll also

be learning today about, quite honestly, some horrific things that Catholics have done to Jews throughout the centuries. So, this is going to be both a pastoral kind of approach as well as a theological approach. Enjoy the show. Okay, welcome back to Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. And like I already said, today we're going to be discussing supersessionism. Anyway, what is that? That's the idea that sometimes it's called fulfillment theology or what's the other word? Replacement theology.

It's the doctrine that asserts that the new covenant through Jesus supersedes the old covenant, which was made exclusively with the Jewish people. So, you know, should we be evangelizing Ben Shapiro or not? We'll be talking about those sorts of things. And I think you're going to really, really enjoy this show. As I already said, Father Golden is a convert from Judaism. His grandpa actually was a Jewish rabbi in the conservative branch of Judaism. So pretty, pretty cool. Hey, I need to let you know something. Are you listening? Next week, starting next week, we are going to be selling our non-nicite domine merch for one week only. I was just out in the Catholic University of America in D.C. giving a talk.

Hello to all of you fine people who came. And I saw some folks wearing their awesome non-nicite domine t-shirts. You can look just as great as them, and I'll let you know when to get them next week. Nonnicite domine is a thing, it's a phrase that Aquinas said towards the end of his life to our Lord. So Jesus said to him, what would you have as your reward, Thomas? You've written so well of me. And Thomas said, nothing if not you, Lord, or nonnicite domine. So that's a really cool phrase. It looks really great. These t-shirts are super soft and they look terrific. And you can get into a wonderful slash awkward-ish conversation with your, I don't know, coffee barista or the riffraff that hang out at your

school and you can tell them that, you know. So anyway, that'll be available starting next week for seven days only. I've had a lot of people write to me and tell me that they want these to come back out, so that's why we're doing them. And okay, anyway, yeah, good. Look, oh, one more thing. In the beginning of this interview, there was a few little audio clicks and hiccups, but it doesn't last long at all, so persevere. last long at all. So, you know, persevere. Father William, thank you for being on Pines with Urquine Earths. Well, it's my pleasure. I'm really glad to be here. Yeah, I'm glad to have

you. Father Gregory Pines suggested that you come on the show to talk about supersessionism, which we'll learn about in a moment. But this is the first time we've chatted. So, tell me a bit about yourself. Indeed it is. Well, I'm a priest of the Diocese of Orange in California. So I'm here, you know, at eight o'clock in the morning caffeinating myself into existence for this. So that, you know, but I know Father Gregory through Dominican connections. So I was a student at the Dominican House of Studies as a layman a number of years ago, and then at the Angelicum in Rome later. So I have a number of Dominican friends, and I'm delighted to have made this contact through Father Gregory. Yeah. Now, were you studying to be a Dominican?

No, no. So, I actually was a lay student at the Dominican House of Studies, trying desperately to avoid a priestly vocation until I finally bit the bullet and realized that God was indeed calling me to be a priest and not just a theologian for the rest of my life. But while I was at the Dominican House of Studies, I was a layman. And that was back, let's see, 2007 to 2010, I think. So no, while I have great respect and admiration for the Dominicans, especially those of the eastern and western provinces in the U.S. I myself am not a Dominican. You're a parish priest? I am indeed, yeah. So I'm a priest

out in Cyprus, California, which is about, let's see, 10 minutes away from Long Beach, California, which is a bigger city in the greater L.A. area. So I'm a priest of the Diocese of Orange, which is just south of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. And for those who have heard of it, Orange County, the OC, as the television show was called. And I'm in the very far north of that diocese. Okay, terrific. Well, we recently had somebody reach out and ask if we would do a show on supersessionism. Really? Yeah, yeah. I have a lot of really geeky listeners, and they wanted to understand the church's relationship

with the Jewish people. I actually haven't read anything on this issue, be frank but just just just the last couple of days i've been uh consuming youtube videos on the issue uh so yeah looking forward to chatting about this where's a good place to start maybe defining terms yeah that sounds great so uh do you want to know what supersessionism is? Sure. Does that help? Yeah, talk about that and the different types of supersessionism, soft and hard. Yeah, sure. So supersessionism is a relatively modern term in its English usage.

Some scholars say that we've sort of seen a development in the use of the term supersessionism in the last sort of two centuries. And there's a theory that its modern usage may date to the work of a French Holocaust survivor, actually, by the name of Jules Isaac, who wrote actually wrote a book in hiding from the Nazis which was very influential but also another book in the 60s I believe it's called the teaching of contempt or and in that the English translation of that work we see the term supersessionism used as a means of describing the obsolescence and fulfillment, the relationship between the obsolescence of the old law in favor of the fulfillment of the new law, and the question of how the old and new laws relate the old and new covenants in God's economy of salvation. And with regard, you brought up soft and hard. That's a more recent development. A lot of people are writing on this, especially in the past two years since I finished my doctoral dissertation. I mean, keeping on top of it as a parish priest is a task.

But there's been some things written by David Novak and Father Thomas Joseph White, Dr. Matthew Levering, Dr. Gavin DaCosta. question because what supersessionism is in terms of the doctrinal content that the word tries to explain, it has a very deep rooting within the Catholic and more globally Christian tradition. And people are trying to find a way to integrate pre-Vatican II, i.e. the church up to the 60s, sort of the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church and of Christianity more globally on the relationship between the old and new laws with the very real concerns that developed after, well, especially after the Holocaust. Mm-hmm. Well, then, okay, so to be a hard supersessionist, does this mean that the covenant that God had made with the Jewish people has been done away with and has been superseded by the Christian church? Yeah, I think that that's a fair way to put it, but it's not just that. So, the terms hard and

soft supersessionism, I believe, although I could be wrong, I think that that is largely the terminology of David Novak. But in my work on it, the way I've looked at it is actually through the lens of a rather controversial Methodist theologian, a man by the name of R. Kendall Solon. And he makes a distinction in three types of supersessionism, which I found helpful, even though I disagree with him, I found helpful for sort of explaining what we're talking about here. And so he separates supersessionism into economic, structural, and punitive forms of supersessionism. And I think by hard supersessionism, what we would be trying to say is sort of a combination of those three forms that Solon comes up with. And if you'd like, I'm happy to explain what those are.

So Solon, who wants to get rid of supersessionism entirely as something that is simply not appropriate for our present context theologically or just as the human race. for our present context theologically or just as the human race. He would argue, I think, and I hope I'm doing justice to his presentation, but he would argue that economic supersessionism is the idea that in God's economy of salvation, the old law is fulfilled and canceled. And so that God's covenantal relationship with the Jews morphs, as it were, that God's covenantal economic structure of the mode of salvation. Um, and that structural supersessionism he says is, is that we can see within the very structure of the biblical witness. I mean, we talk about old Testament, new Testament. I mean, typically when we speak of categories of old and new, we mean, you know, less significant and better or, you know, expired.

And then with regard to punitive supersessionism, and I, in my work, have argued that this is actually the most difficult aspect of all of this, is that—did I lose you, by the way? No, no, not at all. All right. You're good. All right. Good. Um, so, uh, you know, with phones, you just never know. So the, uh, punitive idea that because of the Jewish rejection of Christ at and around the time of the crucifixion, right, so the Jews do not come to faith in Christ, the majority of the Jews reject Christ, reject the gospel, that these acts of infidelity on the part of the Jews, and again, this is the position of punitive supersessionism, but even this has a very deep rooting within our doctrinal history and our theological understanding, that God has abolished the covenant with the Jews in punishment. So that God rejects the Jews because they reject him, and that God the Father punishes the Jews because of their rejection of Christ with precisely the diaspora among the nations. And so that God says

that he, and actually, or excuse me, that Solon says that God, and again, Solon is explaining a theological and really, I would say, a doctrinal tradition that exists, Solon says that God punishes the Jews at the hands of Titus and Vespasian. And that's the tradition, that the destruction of the temple in circa 70 AD and the, you know, the more or less obliteration of the possibility of Jews to live their ritual life, which of course requires the temple, is a divine punishment for their rejection of Christ. And of course, I mean, this is not something that we've sort of just grabbed out of thin air theologically or doctrinally, but rather something that is not only rooted in the doctrinal tradition, but rooted in the Gospels. So, this is an aspect, you know, in terms of our Lord predicting the destruction of the temple. And so, it's tricky.

Yeah, it sounds tricky for two reasons. I guess one is the theological question, which is just a difficult question in and of itself. And then the other reason it's tricky is, of course, how Catholics have historically in certain times and places treated the Jewish people and how the Jewish people have been treated by other Christians, namely in abominable ways, really, regrettable ways. Right. I mean, you know, whenever people ask me about this, I always say, you know, look, if you read the history of Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish-Catholic relations, it is extremely scandalous. Can you give us an example for those who just are totally oblivious to this?

Well, you know, you will often find sort of excesses that are not sort of doctrinally sanctioned. So I want to make a distinction, I think a necessary one, between what the church has sort of promoted or allowed at different times in her history and what people have done sort of out of disobedience to the church, right? Because there was a tremendous amount of hatred of Jews and often perpetrated by Christians. I mean, John Paul II made much of this and, you know, on several occasions spoke of it very laudably and in an apologetic tone to our Jewish brothers and sisters. But so let's look at, I mean, in terms of excesses, look, Jews have been forcibly baptized at knife point. point. Jews have been, in Christian history, it was a tradition, not a tradition sanctioned by the church, but just something that happened, right, for pogroms, anti-Jewish violence, to be launched against Jews on Good Friday. So that you would attack Jews on Good Friday. And why? You would do that. These people felt prompted to do that by virtue of the fact that the Jews were seen,

as one scholar puts it, as, and I quote, the deicide race. So is it kind of like the idea like we've had one Jew suffered and saved the world. It's almost like this idea that we need to kill the rest of them and that'll somehow bring a benefit about to the human race. Oh, well, actually, I mean, maybe that's part of it. But I think that it's more the fact that, look, you killed the, I mean, they would say, obviously, this is not what I say. But some people in history have said, look, you killed the savior, and you deserve punishment.

Yeah. And, and so, you know, it's, I mean, it's the scapegoating mechanism. Yeah. That is so typical to humanity. Unfortunately, um, anti, uh, you know, I, I would encourage anyone who's interested in this, um, perhaps, uh, perhaps as a Lenten penance, uh, if you want to, you know, pray, uh, for historical, uh, sins of, of Catholics and other Christians to, you know, read on the relationship between Jews and Christians historically, because it's profoundly painful. I mean, and I'll tell you a little bit about, if you'd like, I can tell you a little bit about my background and why I got interested in this, because it's pertinent to the question. but I would like to also just briefly say that the, with regard to things sanctioned and promoted by the church, which today we would look at and go,

oh my gosh. So, and this actually is at around the same time as Aquinas, and Aquinas knew of this, and Aquinas spoke of this. So it's significant, and Aquinas approved of this. And that is that in the year 1215, right, during the Fourth Lateran Council, an ecumenical council of the church, the Fourth Lateran Council says that Jews are to be marked out, especially in their clothing, right? Separated. Who says this? The Fourth Lateran Council. Wow. Why? Why are they to be marked out? They're to be marked out because of the danger of error and blasphemy, quote.

That they pose. That they pose. That they pose. Why does the church have any jurisdiction over Jews? Because of the diaspora, right? You have Jews living in Christian lands. So the question of how to deal with this group of people who are not Christian in an entirely Christian society, right? So, in Christendom... Right, right, I see.

Right. It is... So, you have the power of the state behind you. It's not like the church is in a non-Christian state making demands upon Jewish people, yeah. That's right. And another thing that's interesting about that is that this brought up all sorts of theological but also politico-social questions with regard to the Jews. And you'll be happy to know Aquinas says no, but others say yes. So, for instance, a contemporary of Aquinas whose works Aquinas was well acquainted with is the English scholastic theologian Robert Grossetest, who was the bishop of Lincoln. And Grossetest says that the Jews are heretics, right? Now, why is that important? Precisely because of how you can treat them. So in a Christian society, in Christendom, right, the question of using the authority of the state to, because of the relationship between the church and the state to require

heretics to return to the true faith. Right. And I mean, heretics were put to death because they were heretics, you know? So can you put Jews to death? That's the question. And,

and because if, you know, can you require Jews to believe the Catholic faith? And Aquinas' position on this is actually quite helpful, I think. I mean, we look at it today and we kind of go, wow, that's – I mean, that's as good as it gets. But Aquinas does not hold that the Jews are heretics. He makes this very clear. So basically, while it is true that the Jews are being punished, Aquinas would say, while it is true that the Jews are in a terrible situation dispersed throughout the world because of their rejection of Christ. And Aquinas does have a sort of positive eschatological look in view of the second coming of Christ, which he draws from Romans on this matter. But because of all of that, Aquinas says that the Jews are sort of in a third zone. You can't treat them as heretics.

You can't punish them at the arm of the state by requiring them to believe the Catholic faith. They're actually permitted to continue adherence to their cult, but they are not to be—they're to be ghettoized. You know, they—so the ghetto is actually not originally a Nazi phenomenon. It's a Catholic idea. a Catholic, um, idea. Um, and now it's completely different. The Catholic medieval ghetto and the Nazi ghetto are completely different. And I can go into that if you'd like, even unto destitution, is a real part of our tradition. teaches that one has to be baptized in order to be a heretic. But back in Aquinas' day, would he consider the Muslims heretics or just part of a false religion?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So, the Muslim question is not something that I've gone into great depth about, so I hesitate to give you a... That's how everyone with a PhD speaks. I love how cautious you all are. Here I am talking about everything I know nothing about, and you refuse to go out of your lane. That's fine. No, but I mean, what I will say is this, you know, Muslims were an enemy also in terms of a political enemy. Right, that's right. So that context has to be known, right? When we're talking about the Jews, we're talking about a very, an impoverished sort of people, right?

That didn't pose a, in the time of Aquinas, did not pose any sort of military threat to Christendom by any stretch of the imagination. These were people trying to eke out a living in a Christian society that was hostile to them. That's interesting. It's also interesting, I mean, Aquinas does make the case that we should be able to put heretics to death. Exactly. Which is why it's very important that the Jews aren't heretics. Yeah, yeah, interesting. What about, I mean, in the early days of Christianity, there must have been some of this anti-Jewish kind of thought floating around.

I'm thinking of the heretic Marcion. Do you want to talk about that? Oh, sure. So Marcion, you know, has this sort of very black and white view of the relationship between the old and new laws. I mean, he does not see, or the old and new testaments of the Bible. He sees the old testament as, I believe he called it the creation of a sort of a demi-urge. You know, I mean, this idea of the that you have the God of Israel is this sort of nasty figure, you know, a punitive figure and war warmongering figure, whereas the God of the New Testament is peace and love. And so he makes this distinction, which the church completely rejects.

Right. So the church says that the that that the God of Israel is, is our God, right? So that, um, the, the God of Israel is ultimately, we would say the Trinity, right? Is the God of Israel. Um, so the relationship between the old and new testaments is, um, one that is, that is sacred and good and, uh, one of promise and fulfillment, um, one of, uh, perhaps shadow and light, but, uh, you know, not, not absolute darkness, you know, um, uh, and so anyway, Marcionism is certainly rejected in the history of the Church, but that doesn't change the fact that the sort of hermeneutic or interpretive lens of promise and fulfillment is one which is profoundly deeply rooted in the tradition, which is not Marcionite,

but which can have negative overtones. Do you think—you said the Fourth Lateran Council, right? can have negative overtones. Do you think, you said the fourth ladder in council, right? Yes, that's right. Do you think the fourth ladder in council was wrong to say that Jews ought to be, ought to dress in a certain way? Oh, absolutely. I think it was wrong. I mean, you know, not everything that a council sort of proposes as sort of social policy. Needs to be defended by Catholics.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, correct. Yeah. I mean, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Well, I mean, let me just play devil's advocate for a moment. Why shouldn't it be the case that God punished the Jews through the diaspora? I mean, you read in Jeremiah that God punishes Israel for her unfaithfulness. If here God is revealing himself to the fullest extent that he has thus far, and certain people reject him, why should we not think it's out of the room of possibility that God would punish them? Right. So, one thing that I would like to say about any time that we begin to look at how God is punishing, right? I think that we need to be super careful, um, because it is entirely possible, right? That the sort of punitive lens has an element

of truth to it. Um, but that said, uh, I think that, uh, we need to be very open to not understanding and not trying to impose sort of a very human lens on how to interpret God's punishment of the human race. God's punishment, I think we should say, is medicinal, right? That when we talk about God's punishment, there is a—I mean, when we talk about retribution, we should also see this in view of salvation and that God is all-loving, and so His punishments are entirely just, but also entirely paternal. I'm not trying to diminish that possibility, but I think that we need to become very sort of… No, that makes sense. I mean, we see people doing this after natural disasters, like Katrina things, and you just think, whoa, who the heck made you the prophet? Yeah.

Right, the arbiter of you the prophet? Yeah. that the Holocaust, in terms of its importance for looking sort of for a self-examination of our relationship with Jews, is not insignificant. It's profoundly important and has had a profound impact on, I mean, the church's discussion of this matter. I mean, the Second Vatican Council's document on the relationship between the church and other religions, which is Nostra Aetate, which is the Declaration, I think it was issued in October of 1965 or promulgated. But that document was actually originally, if I understand correctly, supposed to be a document on the Jews alone and then developed. And the impetus for that is really responding to a post-Holocaust context because the Holocaust was so horrific, so unimaginably horrific. the Holocaust was so horrific, so unimaginably horrific. And while it was by no means a Christian phenomenon, I mean, the Nazis were, uh, an insane sort of pagan racist ideology, right? Which has no, uh, has no Christian, um, deep connection that said, right, it was mostly Baptist Christians who inflicted the Holocaust.

And, um, there, the, it is an unfortunate truth, I believe, um, from what I've read on the topic, uh, that the sort of groundwork that prepared the prepared the stage, right stage for the insanity of Nazi hatred. The sort of preparatory knee-jerk position was very much related to Catholic practice and also to sort of a theological understanding of how we relate to the Jews. And I'm probably not being strong enough when I say that. So there was a lot of groundwork. The Nazis were not coming into something without a history, right? without a history, right? They were able to make use of and distort and turn a history into its extremely insane conclusions, but at the same time, didn't come from nowhere. Yeah. All right. I just want to ask a couple of yes and no questions.

All right. And then I know that's always kind of difficult because there's a lot of nuance that needs to be added, but maybe I'll just ask a couple of questions. You can give me a yes or a no, and then I'll give you time to explain it. Has the church superseded Israel? Is Israel still – should we still consider Israel the people of God, or should we say no? In a sense, Israel was a type of the church which superseded it. Can I refuse to give you a yes or no answer? Sure, you can do whatever you want. All right. I think that to give a yes or no answer to that question is simply impossible. I

think that we would need to make so many sort of clarifying statements about that. But what I will say is this, right? role in the economy of salvation now as it did prior to the coming of Christ in time is simply not something that I think to be tenable with Catholic doctrine. So in the sense of, um, I, I think that we have to hold that the fulfillment of Israel's cult and in the economy of salvation by the sacraments of the Catholic Church is simply something that is so deeply rooted within our tradition that to get rid of it would do great violence to our tradition. I don't think it's possible. All right, another yes or no question, but feel free to do whatever you want here. But should we evangelize the Jews? Okay. How could this not be

a yes, obviously, answer? Because there's so much writing on this question that it is... So, look, I'll tell you what I think, and then I'll do some clarifications. I think so. And this is where I'll tell you. I'm a half Jew, right? So I'm a convert to the faith. My grandpa was a rabbi. I am very happy to be a baptized person. Baptism changed my life. So I was baptized when I was 16. So I'm a convert myself, obviously not from Judaism per se because my mother is not Jewish. So by Jewish law, I was never considered a Jew because it passes matrilineally.

But I was raised very much within a partially Jewish home. So do I believe that we should preach the gospel to the Jews? Yes. Unequivocally, yes. But the question of what that looks like vis-a-vis the proclamation of the gospel to pagans is completely different. And Aquinas is very helpful, actually, on that front. like everyone else. And to give you one example of this, Matt, which I think is really helpful for understanding what the church is trying to get at when she is reticent to, because the church herself is reticent to say that we should preach the gospel to Jews in such a black and white way, is that within the Pontifical Council for sort of, or rather within the Curia, youia, you have the pontifical council for interreligious dialogue or interreligious relations, and you have the pontifical council for promoting Christian unity. These are two different pontifical councils. The pontifical council for interreligious relations deals with the non-baptized. relations deals with the non-baptized, right? So preaching the gospel to Muslims, pagans,

the people in no way related to, you know, Hindus, Buddhists, you name it, the non-baptized. And the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity deals with the proclamation of the gospel to, or the promotion of unity within all those who are baptized, Protestants, Orthodox, you name it. Now, where are the Jews? Matt, where do they fall in that? Would you guess? I wouldn't know. So they're not heretics, they're not pagans. So the church made a very deliberate decision that the jews fall under not the pontifical council for inter-religious dialogue fascinatingly it's the pontifical council for christian unity wow why because there was no better place to put them or no because the prefigurative signification of Judaism and of the Jewish people puts them in a relationship with Christianity, which we have with no one else. That's a very interesting point. Yeah.

have a sort of Judaism is ordered to Christianity. And also let's remember Judaism prior to the coming of Christ in time was the true religion on earth. And Christ makes no sense without Judaism. Christ makes no sense without Judaism. Christ himself is Jewish, right? In the sense that, I mean,

he is part of the people of Israel, right? And I would, I would dare say still, right? In the sense that, I mean, he is part of the people of Israel, right? And I would dare say still, right? I mean, so insofar as he is a part, I mean, in his flesh, right? Christ enters into the Jewish people. That's the flesh she takes. And God's relationship with the Jews is, it's its own thing. So, when we talk about preaching the gospel to the Jews, the church is obviously giving us an indication that this can't be the same sort of thing that we're doing with pagans. It simply cannot be if we're treating them in the same pontifical council as the baptized. This reminds me of how the philosopher Maimonides said that, who is a Jewish philosopher, for those who aren't aware, you know, he said that Jews could teach the Torah to Christians,

You know, he said that Jews could teach the Torah to Christians, but not to Muslims. And they could do that because we accepted the first five books of the Bible. And Maimonides' hope is that we would return to the truth of Judaism. Whereas Islam, even though it claims to accept some of the biblical stories, has perverted it. So that Maimonides didn't think you could teach the Torah to them. There's something similar here, right? In that we accept the first five books of the Bible and we come from them. We're kind of like almost part of the same family. Well, I mean, I think that's totally right. And I think that to use the family language that you brought up, I mean, this is language that is employed by John Paul II himself very explicitly in a speech he gave to a synagogue, to a group of people.

I think this was in the 80s and I believe in Germany. But he says unequivocally, right, the Jews are our elder brothers in the faith. Yeah. The Jews are our elder brothers in the faith. Yeah. And that—now, you should know that in some ways this actually made Jews unhappy. Why? Well, what are some of the other stories of elder brothers not doing so well in the Old Testament, right?

Right. Well, the ticket of Joseph and his 11 brothers. And also Jacob and Esau. Yeah. Right, so that the newer brother—or the younger brother supplants the older. Yes. So Jews were a little uncomfortable. Interesting. Yeah. Right. But that said, the use of family language from the Catholic perspective is very significant. And with your, you know, your mentioning of Maimonides is apt because Aquinas cites Maimonides all the time. So, he calls him Rabbi Moses. And throughout his corpus,

he uses Maimonides. He's well aware of what Maimonides says. And even I think we can see hints of Maimonides' thoughts in Aquinas' theological exposition on this question in the Summa and elsewhere. Okay, so then how do we evangelize the Jews, and how does Thomas Aquinas help us with that? I'm glad you said an unequivocal yes, because if you were to say no, or to clarify it too much, or qualify it too much, I'd be wondering why Peter and the apostles were evangelizing the Jews after Pentecost. Sure. I mean, so with regard to Peter first, I mean, I think it's just unambiguous in the Gospels and in the New Testament that the birth of Christianity is Jews preaching to Jews, right? And so, when Christ says, preach the gospel to all nations,

it seems to me that we really mean it, you know, and that we have to follow sort of the apostolic guidance. I just think that we need to make a lot of distinctions on how it's done. Now, I'm not sure, to be honest with you, Matt, that Aquinas gives us the resources for a contemporary exposition on this. I think Aquinas is profoundly important for understanding sort of the development of the tradition up to and including the 13th century, but also beyond. I mean, Aquinas' views are simply sort of a bellwether or signpost pointing to what the church has held and continues in some way to hold on this issue. But with regard to how we should evangelize the Jews and what that looks like, and my opinion on this, by the way, is super controversial because many Catholics would jump out of their skin at the thought that we,

you know, even using those terms in the same second sentence, evangelize the Jews, you know. That's amazing to me. And, I mean, I see this in more kind of traditionalist circles, that they criticize Vatican more kind of traditionalist circles that they criticized Vatican II kind of Catholics, if you want to use an unfair title like that, just with that claim, and that somehow Vatican II has made it such that we are no longer allowed to evangelize the Jews. Is there any truth to that? I mean, what does the document say in the

Second Vatican Council regarding that? Well, Nostra Aetate certainly does not say in... Don't evangelize the Jews. Yeah, right. It doesn't say that. You know, what Nostra Aetate is... What does that mean in Latin? Do you know? In our age. In our age. Okay. So, like most Vatican documents, or most encyclicals, the way they're named is after the first two or three words in the document itself. Right. So, and actually there's a biblical precedent for that, too.

I mean, Genesis, right, is just the Greek word translating bereshit, which is the in the beginning, you know, the first word of the Old Testament. So, but what Nostra Aetate does with respect to the Jews, we're looking at paragraph four in that document when we're talking about the Jews, is it provides a series of quotations, really, most of which come from Romans 9 through 11. Now, the reason that that's significant is Vatican II actually eschews very deliberately texts from Galatians on the obsolescence of circumcision and the problems with circumcision. It eschews texts from Hebrews on the sort of stark dichotomy between Old and New Testaments. And it focuses on Paul's views regarding God's promises to Israel being

sustained. And this is, I think, the most important aspect of Nostra Aetate itself, because there's a whole commentary tradition that happens after Nostra Aetate, and some of it rather magisterial. You have letters and speeches of John Paul II, which are very significant for looking at this question. You also have three documents, one that came out in the 70s, one in the 80s, I think 1974, 1985. And then in 2015, from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, guidelines, notes and reflections are the names of the documents. But these documents are trying to interpret and put into practice what Vatican II was sort of hinting at, which is, if God sustains his covenant with the Jewish people, if, as Paul suggests, the covenant of

God with the Jews, and in some sense endures, then our means of speaking to the Jews has to be unique and cannot be simply one of, you know, repent and believe in the gospel. You know, have you heard about Jesus? You know, I don't know if that helps, but... Yeah, no, that helps a bit. You know, one of the things I was thinking about asking you, and I'm not even sure if I've formulated this as a question, but I mean, you see the kind of succession and culmination of covenants from Adam all the way up to Christ. Yeah, sure, yeah.

And you imagine you've got Adam and Abraham and Moses, and suppose somebody only knew about, you know, that our God was the God of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob, right? about, you know, that our God was the God of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob, right? But if he were in a place to accept Moses as the leader of Israel, in a sense, and then didn't, I guess he would still be part of the covenant that God had made with his people, but he had maybe rejected this part of it. Is there an analogy there? Does that make sense? Well, yeah, no, I think it does make sense. I'm not sure that I know how to answer that question, because the relationship between sort of the Abrahamic covenantal structure, which is ultimately you get Jewish males are circumcised and enter into this

relationship of faith that abraham has right um is that that has a difference in degree versus a difference in kind maybe maybe but it also it's very clear um it's very clear in christian interpretation of this but i think think probably in Jewish as well, that what does circumcision do? Well, it obliges you to keep the law of Moses, which is the law of the people of Israel. Now, obviously, the law of Moses comes later, right? But circumcision inserts you into this legal structure. And St. Paul is very clear on that, right? He says, you know, for those who have themselves circumcised are obliged to keep the whole law, right? The whole law, you have to keep it. And because that's what this does, it inserts you into this relationship, which has a legal structure. I mean, this is completely, uh, uh, probably a poor analogy, but right. If you become a, uh, you acquire rights and also duties, right. And by becoming an American,

you can't skew those rights and duties, right. You, you all of a sudden have the right to vote. You're not obligated to vote. Um understand that in Australia, voting is compulsory. Is that correct? It is, yeah. That's kind of interesting. Yeah, you will be free, damn it. Exactly. But I think this idea of being sort of inserted into a framework that both gives you rights and duties is something that I'm not sure what it

would look like to be a—well, actually, I think a good example is, what are the Samaritans, right? They're basically, from Jewish perspective, Jewish heretics, not doing what the law asks of them. And how do the Jews treat the Samaritans historically? By marginalizing them, you know, by seeing the Samaritans as not part of the community of Israel, even though the relationship is very clear. It's interesting, you know, just to bring Aquinas into this, in the Tertia Pars, when he, in question 68, when he asked the question whether we should force the children of Jews to be baptized, he says, no, we should not. And one of the reasons he says that is precisely kind of the reason you're

laying out here, that when one becomes a Catholic, one has certain duties that you can't just throw off. I mean, one of those today would be marriage within the Catholic Church, you know? That's right. And I think also this, Aquinas' view on that comes down to the fact that he doesn't see Jews as heretics, right? So that this idea of what sort of compulsory of what sort of compulsory religious observance Jews are to have in a Christian society is simply sui generis. I mean, there's no—the Jews are a class unto themselves in Aquinas' views, even though Aquinas has a very negative, what we would consider today, a very sort of negative exposition on Judaism. You know, I'm just thinking about how we talked a moment ago about these two complications. One is the theological and one is kind of the pastoral approach, given all that's happened. But I could see this sort of forced ecumenism taking place because we feel guilty about all the bad crap our ancestors have done to the Jews.

It's sort of like an analogy there to my home country in Australia, where the English settlers did all sorts of terrible things to the Aboriginal people. And I could see the guilt of that leading us to make decisions that are sort of illogical. And likewise, I could see the guilt of how Christians have in the past, and maybe in some parts today, treated the Jewish people, leading us to come to a conclusion that's actually contrary to the gospel. Namely, that all ought to be evangelized and all must accept Christ. And if anybody knowingly rejects Christ, including Jews, they will be damned. And we have to talk here about invincible ignorance, but I'm assuming that if someone is not invincibly ignorant and they reject Christ, the idea that they have an automatic

ticket to heaven is just not what the church teaches. And so, I want to, I guess there's these, I guess it feels like there's two pitfalls on either side of this road that we want to push away from, and that's one of them. I completely agree with that. And there's no question that the church's soteriological understanding of the importance of Christ for salvation is just unambiguously clear, right? Dominus Iesus, which really lays this out, I think it comes out in the year 2000, is really a strong reaffirmation of the importance of Christ and the Church for salvation. There are some who say that the intention of that document was actually not to speak to the Jews. So there's always this sort of reticence within contemporary Catholic discussion with regard to the Jewish people. I think it's important to be aware of that because it's not insignificant. I mean, the fact that Jews are in the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity means something.

That said, however, right, I think that where Aquinas might help us with the question of evangelization is Aquinas is his interpretation of what St. Paul says regarding the eschatological salvation of the Jews. So Paul says, I believe it's Romans 9.45, but I could be wrong on that. But it's, in the end, all Israel will be saved. And the question of, in the end, all Israel will be saved, what does that mean, right? And so this sort of, between Romans 9.45 and Romans 11.34, there's this beautiful sort of covenantal exposition, which Aquinas takes up and looks at the question of the relationship between the old and new covenants in Christ and how we understand this. And he says that when Paul says, in the end, all Israel be saved, this is actually very strong and puts the Jews in a unique category,

unlike any other group, unlike even Christians. So what he says is that at this time of the second coming, and Aquinas says this everywhere in his corpus, I mean, especially in his commentary on Romans, which is exquisite. But he says that what this means is that at the time of the parousia, the elect of the Jews will be saved corporately. will be saved corporately. So that the entire elect nation of Israel at the time of the second coming will be saved. Now, some people interpret this, I think, erroneously to mean that basically we don't need to worry about the Jews, period. I don't think that we can read Aquinas that way at all. What Aquinas is talking about is the members of the Jewish community at the time of the parousia, at the time of the second coming, that these people will be saved corporately. That is incredible. And what's really interesting is that the catechism itself more or less takes this up and says that, you know, there is going to be sort of an

eschatological salvation of the Jews at the time of the second coming. So will it precede the second coming and be a sign of it, or will it happen at the second coming? What's the general position? Yeah. So I think that it seems to be this idea that one of the signs of the impending eschaton is the return of – is the coming to faith in Christ of the Jewish people sort of in a grand way. That the Jews will come to faith in Christ en masse and that this is both a sign and a completion of the events leading up to the second coming. How this works temporally, I have no idea, because, you know, when we start speaking about end times things, we can... Yeah, spiral quickly. Right, really tricky, really quickly. So, I think we need to be careful and saying,

really tricky really quickly. So I think we need to be careful and saying, you know, but there's no question that Aquinas and basically everyone else in the tradition interpreting Paul on this matter, everyone else I've read, seems to indicate that this sort of corporate eschatological salvation of the Jews is something for which we continually hope. Now, if that's the case, hope. Now, if that's the case, obviously, that doesn't just entail some sort of generic faith in Christ. Because for Aquinas, right, what does faith in, how is faith in Christ manifested sort of in this world? Well, it's manifested through the sacramental life of the church, right? So that faith in Christ means also becoming a Catholic. So that what Aquinas, I believe, is saying is that we believe that Jews will become Catholics at the Eschaton and that this is both a sign and a harbinger of Christ's second coming. Yeah, this is fascinating stuff. I know we're coming to a close here.

What else do we need to know? I mean, this unravels quickly because there's so much to say. I wonder if we can not just kind of bring it together a little bit here. So, it seems like the primary questions that people in the church have, whether because they've heard about what the Second Vatican Council had to say, or they've heard some theologians say. It seems like the primary questions are, you know, has God abdicated His covenant with Israel and replaced... Abrogated or cancelled. Yeah, abrogated His relationship with Israel and kind of when He began it with the Church,

the Church being the new Israel, and it sounds like we wouldn't want to say yes to that. Oh, I think that we need to nuance that even. So I, you know, I hesitate to give a yes or no question to these things simply because I don't think a yes or no answer does it justice. I think that God's covenant, this is my personal opinion based on what I've read, I think God's covenant with the Jews is fulfilled in the new covenant in Christ into which all are called. There you go. There's a nice way to sum it up.

That was beautiful. Yeah. Is Judaism still a sort of privileged, salvific economy that somehow runs side by side until the eschaton with Christianity? No. We can't hold that. I think that that is simply untenable. This idea that there's sort of a covenant for the Jews and a covenant for Christians, that just doesn't work. This idea that there's sort of a covenant for the Jews and a covenant for Christians, that just doesn't work. And it not only runs afoul of Aquinas and the theological tradition, it runs afoul of the doctrinal tradition, which is profoundly dogmatic. So this is not the idea of, quote unquotequote salvific dual covenant theory, this idea that there are sort of two covenants running side by side until the eschaton, oh, don't worry about the Jews.

They've got their own covenant with God. Don't worry about them. They'll be fine. I think that that simply does violence to the Christian tradition in a profound way and also doesn't explain how it is that Judaism relates to Christianity in terms of promise and fulfillment, which is something that is simply so deeply rooted within Christianity that to get rid of it would be to, you know, get rid of the idea of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb who fulfills the Paschal Lamb of Passover. In a way that I'm wondering where the controversy is, because it sounds like we've just come full circle, and that is Catholicism is the fullness of the truth.

It's the fullness of what God wants His people to know about Him, and all are called to that. The end. Yes. I don't mean to be a blockhead about this and i'm not trying to cavalier i'm just trying to understand this for myself and i imagine most of my listeners don't have phds and haven't studied this area in depth and so i'm trying to break it down for where they might be as well oh yeah no and and i certainly don't want to uh over nuance this to the point that it is unintelligible but what i would encourage people to do if they want to get an idea of how complex this is and how it is not as simply black

and white as some would uh yeah want to say is read what john paul ii says on this okay okay read john paul ii's speeches would you maybe send me a link or two to a couple of his speeches or documents i'll throw it up in the show notes for our listeners so they can peruse that and because that is obviously from a modern pope and yeah yeah yeah this this this makes sense because i suppose like again theologically and pastorally it's kind of like saying Protestants are called to the fullness of the truth, which is found in the Catholic Church. Yeah, okay, terrific, but then how do you break that down and simply saying Christ founded a church, then all these other guys founded their own church? That's clearly not nuanced enough. Exactly.

We're not addressing the tremendous scandal that was taking place in the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries of the church. Right. Yeah. And it's almost like talking with an estranged brother is a lot more difficult than talking with a stranger. Exactly. And especially if, unfortunately, the estranged brother with whom you were speaking is someone that your ancestors— You beat up when you were a kid. Right. That you beat up mercilessly as a kid. I mean, really, Matt, the—you know, I can't emphasize enough.

No, this is real. I'm glad that you're doing this. Do it. Emphasize it hard. I want Catholics and me to feel really uncomfortable. I mean, it is so shocking. I mean, you know... Because we want to wipe our hands of this. We want to keep saying... Whenever we hear someone say that Catholics were bad to Jews, we say, well, I don't think that was ever an official teaching, and then we just don't even think about it. Right. And, you know, the problem is it's a lot trickier than that. You know, I mean, Jews were treated so unimaginably badly. I mean, I'll tell you, Matt, when I read about this stuff, occasionally I have to put the book down and walk away just because it makes me so upset

and so profoundly uncomfortable. And I certainly don't want to make an equivalence because they're two completely different things. But when we read about these, you know, the horrific scandals going on in the church, um, at present, right. It's deeply scandalous, you know, and, and it, it, it, or it's deeply, uh, horrifying and, and, and that horrifying experience that we, we all feel and that is, you know, making news every day, or has been for a couple months now, you know, it's not wrong to feel shocked by that stuff and to think, wow, that's awful. How did these people do this? You know, and similarly, when you read about the way in which Jews were treated in the history of the church, obviously a completely different question.

But the feeling of revulsion that one gets is really rather amazing. I mean, it is bad. And it's something that we should be aware of because we can't uh we can't let me put it this way you brought up the question of invincible ignorance which i think is a great thing to bring up because i think that uh it it's a very important category for you know sort of understanding that when we evangelize we're dealing with different levels of knowledge and ignorance in the people with whom we're speaking, and that this is not insignificant. Well, I think that scandal, deep scandal, can also be something that leads people into an inability that is not

culpable, a culpable inability to hear the gospel. And I think that if you are preaching, if you want to preach the gospel, you know, if you want to share Christ with the Jewish people, let's put it that way, if you want to share Christ with the Jewish people, you must know this history, because the Jews know this history, and the Jews are profoundly scandalized by this. And so to dismiss that is to cause scandal yet again. Right. I mean, you know, the Nazis didn't invent labeling Jews. You know, we did. Wow.

Right. I mean— Yeah, I like how you put that. Yeah. That the Catholic Church—I mean, there was a famous ghetto in Rome, right? And it wasn't a pleasant place to live in. And they were made to live there? They were. Now, the Church doesn't have the power to make people live somewhere.

So, again, is this the commingling of Church and state? Well, the Church doesn't have that power now. But in the time of the papal states, the church definitely had that authority. And because the church remembered during the time of the papal states, we're talking about the political head of the state was also the pope, right? So, I mean, the papal states were a papal monarchy, right? Not only ecclesiologically, but sociopolitically. And, you know, this is actually going to be something that we're all going to have to deal with in a big way in the near future because it's going to be a scandal, unfortunately. But there's a major motion picture coming out, I think Spielberg's doing, about a very famous case called the Mortara case, the Caso Mortara

in Italian. And this case is something that happened during the papal states, which now we look at, and most people are profoundly scandalized by it. There was actually some articles written in First Things about this not too long ago. But in brief, just to give you an idea of what this is, during the Papal States, during the Pontificate of Pius IX, there was a young Jewish boy whose family had hired a Catholic nurse. and the boy was dying. He was, I think, eight years old, around there. And his nurse, following canon law, baptized him, thinking that he was dying. Right? So she baptized him on his deathbed, obviously without the knowledge of his parents.

Right? And after that, right, the church had political control. Right? He survived. His name was Edgardo Mortada. He survives, and the nurse reports this. She reports to the authorities, the civil authorities, which are also the ecclesiastical authorities, that she has baptized this young boy. So what does the pope do?

He sends in the Swiss guards to take the boy from his parents. Holy smokes. Is Pope Pius IX? This is Blessed Pius IX, yes. He takes the boy from his parents, never gives the boy back. The boy is raised a Catholic. He is – so he's raised a Catholic. Um, he is, uh, he is, um, so he's raised a Catholic. It was a major international outcry that, that developed this from this England intervened, Prussia intervened,

the Pope's, the Pope stayed, stayed clear that he would not return Edgardo to his family because he had to be raised a Catholic now. Um, and,. And the boy actually later became a priest and took the name Pio, if I remember correctly, and wrote a book about this. He died in Belgium in 1940. And the book is called Father Pio, A Child of Providence. But, I mean, obviously by modern standards, we look at that and we think, my goodness,

Pope Pius IX kidnapped a child from his family. Well, I mean, obviously by modern standards, we look at that and we think, my goodness, Pope Pius IX kidnapped a child from his family. Well, I mean, yeah, totally. But even Aquinas here talking about whether we should baptize the Jews is talking about that even the baptism of a child beneath the age of reason is contrary to justice. And so if that's contrary to justice, certainly stealing a child from its parents would be. But then we look at the question of what do you do with a now-baptized child? And so, you know, what Pius is effectively doing is he's saying, look, if we return a baptized child, I'm not defending his actions. No, I see. They were horrible. No, you're just trying to get inside his head in a sense, yeah. Right. I mean, what he's trying to do is take baptism seriously.

He says, look, if we return a now-baptized child to a Jewish home, he will be raised as a Jew. And if he's raised as a Jew who has the mark of baptism, this kid is in a bad— He'll go to hell, maybe, yeah. Potentially, yeah. But, I mean, by modern standards, we could look at things like— I mean, Edgardo came to identify very much with the Catholic Church. He became a priest. But I mean, you know, this is like, I'm not a psychologist at all. But what I understand about kidnap victims is that they frequently will come to identify with their kidnapper. It's called Stockholm. That's right. Yeah. It's called Stockholm. That's right. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, this is not exactly a thing that's easy, and it's going to be something that the Catholic Church is going to have to grapple with soon because it's going to be a major motion picture, and you know it's not going to be a major motion picture that's going to be positive for us. a lot of talk lately about, at least in the media, regarding Pope Pius XII and his either

helping the Nazis or being silent during the time of the Holocaust. And what do you say to that? Is that true? Okay. So, the question of Pope Pius's sort of silence, Pius XII's silence and or complicity in all of this is one that is still receiving much ongoing sort of scholarly study. announced that in 2020 he will be opening the secret archives, including the war period, of Pius XII's pontificate to scholars. So I think what we're going to see in the next, say, five years or so, is a more accurate picture of Pius XII's actions during the war period. I hesitate to say whether or not it was all good or all bad, because I think it's probably much more complex than that. What I would recommend to your listeners is there was a book that came out, I mean, Pope Pius XII has received a great deal of support as well, even from Jews. And so there's a book by a man by the name of Rabbi David, I think his last name is

Dalin, D-A-L-I-N. And it's called The Myth of Hitler's Pope. And it's a direct reply to the book Hitler's Pope, right? Which was one of the things that caused this sort of question about Pius XII's pontificate. But just to say that prior to the release of a play in the 70s in German, I think it was called Die Hochvertreter, The Deputy, Pius XII's public image was much more positive. And even people like the Jewish Prime Minister Golda Meir and Albert Einstein, other people like this, were actually very supportive of Pius XII's actions during the war. And then this play comes out and it sort of changes the narrative. Yeah, because it seems to me that even though Pius IX kidnapped that Jewish child and how difficult that's going to be for Catholic

Jewish relations, especially as it goes to the big screen. It seems like this is potentially, could be a lot worse for the dialogue if Pope Pius XII was silent or didn't do enough. Yeah, that's really possible. On the other hand, if it turns out, as you say, that he did do more than a lot of people expect, well, that could really increase relations. Indeed. And, you know, I think it's also helpful for us, let's say he wasn't a great, let's say his actions were really problematic. I don't necessarily think that's the case, but let's say that is the case. Well, you know what? We've had popes that have done bad things before. Catholic doctrine does not require us to believe that the popes are going to be great guys.

Yeah, so if it is that case, let's be the first to condemn it. Exactly. It's kind of like the sex abuse crisis. Like when I run into people at my gym who have heard about what's going on, I feel like we need to be angrier than they are, and they need to know that. Not just kind of dismiss it and say, well, it turns out that a fever failure or most priests are good guys. Right. Yeah, I agree. I think that we need to be the ones who are willing to talk about this without fear. I'm so glad you're doing this work.

Well, thanks. I mean, I find it very interesting and it's a compelling area to study. I think your readers or listeners, if they get into it, will find that it is an ongoing discussion, especially in scholarly communities and receiving a lot of very intense analysis. How can people learn more about you? Do you write anywhere online, or are you about to publish something that they can check out? Well, I hope to publish my dissertation at some point. You know, being a full-time parish priest makes academic work slightly challenging. But, you know, I'm not doing a lot of writing these days again because of full-time parish work. But I hope to start doing some more writing and publishing, so stay tuned.

And if anyone's out in California, come say hi. What do you think of Roy Shoman's book, Salvation is from the Jews, The Role of Judaism in Salvation History from Abraham to the Second Coming? Is that something you'd recommend? Yeah. I mean, his position is that the—he obviously takes the position that we should, you know, we must preach the gospel to the Jews. He actually says, and I think it's beautiful, he says, isn't it sort of anti-Semitic not to share Christ with the Jews? Yeah, right. That's a great point. Right. And he himself is a convert from Judaism, so he has a horse in the race, so to speak. But his works are certainly

on sort of the popular—they're on a very popular level. If people want to go to—I would suggest that if you're going to read Roy Shulman, you should also read a lot of John Paul II. Okay. a lot of John Paul II. Simply because I think John Paul II's views on the matter are a bit more nuanced in light of how difficult the question is. Whereas I think Roy Shulman does a very good job of beautifully showing his own conversion journey and why he believes preaching Christ to all people, the Jews included, is part of our evangelical mission. So I don't think it's an either or, I think it's a both and. And people can also read Aquinas on this issue, of course.

All I would say is if you're going to read Aquinas on this issue, know that as with, you know, our sort of hermeneutic for Aquinas in general, right? Not everything Aquinas says is something that we need to hold absolutely. And that's important because Aquinas has much to contribute, but Aquinas is also—it's important to read Aquinas in his context and to read Aquinas in light of contemporary church teaching. Yeah, indeed. Indeed. Well, thank you. This has been terrific. There's just so much out there now, and I'm just so afraid I haven't given you enough time. Is there any final thing you want to say before we wrap up? Are we good? No, I think we're good. I mean, I will say it's so fantastic. And it's fun to talk to an Australian again.

There were a bunch of Australians in Rome when I was there. And talking to Australians, I learned all sorts of new words. Colorful words, I'm sure. I think bogan is my favorite. Bogan is the best. Yeah, bogan is a, what do you say? I think white trash is a horrible word, but bogan is an affection do you say i think white trash is a horrible word but bogan is a is an affectionate way of kind of saying a laid-back aussie bloke yeah and and and you you smoke a

pipe we have that in common we found out oh yeah that's true i mean that's actually a new thing for me yeah i've just so i i've discovered that hobby and found that i really enjoy it it's so contemplative. It's great. Not sure it's great for my health. No, it's not. But I want to record a video that's called Why Smoking is Good for You. And I'm going to, of course, begin by telling you, you will definitely die. But I think there are so few activities that are conducive to good conversation. I think sitting with a friend over a cigar or a pipe

and a glass of whiskey forces you to sit in one place for a good 20, 30 minutes and have a conversation, which we lack those opportunities more and more these days. Right. Plus, it just looks cool. Yeah, it smells better. Someone once said to me, what's the difference between pipe and a cigar?

I said, women like the smell of pipe. Yeah, and I've learned also a lot of priests too. Oh, good. Well, it's a joy to speak to you. I hope we get to meet one day. Thank you for all that you're doing on behalf of the church and helping us as we relate to our older brother in the faith, the Jewish people. My distinct pleasure. God bless you and thank you very much for the opportunity.

Wow, okay. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Pints with Aquinas. There was a lot there. Some of it was quite disturbing, but I think it probably helped clarify a lot of things that we need to hear as Catholics while reminding us that we shouldn't exempt anyone from the call to relationship with Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. So, hope you really enjoyed it. Thank you very much.

Just a reminder, next week we're going to be launching our Non-Nissi-Tate Dominé t-shirts. They're going to be available for sale. They're going to look terrific. You'll look terrific. You'll definitely find a date way easier than you are right now because you look like a schmuck. I didn't want to tell you that, but there you go. Also, please, would you consider reviewing Pints with Aquinas on iTunes? The more reviews we get, the happier I am, and the happier I am, the happier my wife is.

So if you want to make my wife happy, please review us on iTunes, and I will speak to you next week. Best we be frauds or we're secure Hollow me to deepen you Whose wolves am I feeding myself to? Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive?

And I would give my whole life To save you And I would give my whole life to carry you.