Pints With Aquinas - BIG NEWS!

Episode Date: January 11, 2020

Thanks y'all! Please consider supporting at: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd

G'day, Matt here. I'm so glad you're here. Please listen to this episode because I've got a few things I want to tell you. Even if you think you already know what I'm going to tell you, still stick around because I say more. And I share with you a beautiful letter of a Protestant who just came into the Catholic faith because of the work of Pints with Aquinas. It was so humbling to get. Anyway, so much to share. Let's see. For the last 17 months, as many of you know, I have been running a show on YouTube called The Matt Fradd Show. And sometimes I post the audio here as a bonus episode to Pints with Aquinas. But as of a couple of days ago, we've made the decision to roll the Matt Frad Show into Pints with Aquinas, to amalgamate the two under that brand. So bottom line from now on, there will be no Matt Frad Show,

there will just be Pints with Aquinas. And I'm doing this for three reasons. Number one, for brand clarity. You know, when you think about it, the Matt Frad Show is very similar to Pines with Aquinas, except for the fact that they're very long discussions and they're not as narrowly focused on the text of Aquinas. But, you know, we're still discussing things like faith and philosophy, theology, morality, okay, through a Catholic lens, a Thomistic lens. We're still doing that over there at the Matt Fradd Show. and so people have been a little confused about what's going on I even heard somebody recently refer to the Matt Fradd show as my pints with Aquinas video show so this will clarify things and it'll give you a one-stop shop everything will be pints with Aquinas here's the second reason running Matt the Matt Frad Show and running Pints with Aquinas, it's two different brands, two different apostolates. And it's been difficult to give 100% of my attention to both.

Now, we have a small team here working alongside me, but still things fall through the cracks. And I really wanted to sort of solidify under one brand so that we can be laser focused on making it the best it can be. Substantive, beautiful, helpful, and the like. So that's the other reason. And the third reason, quite frankly, is it will be less work for me and more content for you. Less work because I'll still be releasing four episodes a month here on Pints with Aquinas, but two of those will be the long form discussion previously known as the Matt Fradd Show. So that's right. So up until now, we've been doing one Matt Fradd Show a month. Okay, now it's called Pints with Aquinas. We plan on doing two per month, which is pretty exciting. I'm not sure if you have seen it or not, but I just interviewed Trent Horn for four hours on

YouTube. Actually, to be fair, it was three hours and 56 minutes. Someone asked me, did you stop and take a break? Nope, we didn't. We just went the whole way through. It was really fascinating. That, I'm going to release the audio to that show on Tuesday, just to sort of stay, you know, Tuesday focused, but you can go right now and watch the whole thing if you want. And so, what we've been doing over on YouTube is we've been releasing a big episode and then taking eight smaller clips out of it and releasing two per week for one month. Now we're doing two big episodes that amounts to 16 clips, which amounts to 18, oh, sorry, 16 clips, so four clips per week. So over on YouTube, there's going to be a ton

of content cranking out. And what I love about that is, look, you might not want to sit down and watch me and Jason Everett talk for an hour and a half, or me and Trent Horn talk for four hours, but there's a lot of great nuggets in those conversations. Like me and Jason Everett talked about the AIDS in Africa thing, or what else did we talk about? Whether NFP is just Catholic contraception and things like this. And I think that these clips are really helpful. My goal is to kind of help you understand the beauty, coherence, and truth of Catholicism, but also to help you share it with your friends and family and Facebook followers and all that. And I really want this to be the best it can be. Like, why should our YouTube channels look inferior to secular YouTube channels? And so, we're working hard every month. I think we're kind of getting better and better. You know, if I had began right out of the gate with a ton of money, maybe I could have just made this great studio, this consistency and everything. But, you know, as I'm gaining more

patrons, I'm able to invest more money in this sort of thing. And so, I think you'll agree that it's looking better and better, and we're really excited about that. So anyway, that's what we'll be doing. As I say, just interviewed Trent Horn. Coming up is going to be my interview this month with Dr. William Lane Craig, PhD in theology and philosophy. And I've got a bunch of other people coming on the show. Father Gregory Pine will be in February. Father Michael O'Loughlin from Catholic Stuff, you should know. Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire, we think will be on. Ralph Martin from Renewal Ministries, and so on. Yeah, so look, if you don't like YouTube and you

just like listening to this podcast, nothing will change for you except that two out of the four episodes will probably be longer, right? Those will be my sit down Pines with Aquinas video shows. I mean, we'll see what happens. It might be the case that next year we're able to start doing, you know, Pines with Aquinas will essentially be a video show where every single week you can listen to that discussion or you can watch that discussion. We'll see. But for now, we're just doing two videos a week. So does that all make sense? It's kind of confusing, but I just, I wanted to be really clear with you guys and let you know what's happening. I should say too, that I'm just, just tremendously grateful for all of y'all for making this happen. This is not something

that happens except that you guys have made it happen. Many of you have become my patrons and you are the reason this stuff happens. That sounds cliche and maybe it is, but it's the truth. I don't have the kind of budget to fly people from around the country, put them up at hotels, interview them, pay for the camera stuff, pay for editing and filming and all that. I can't, the only, you guys are making this happen and I want to be faithful to you and honor your investment and give you the best thing I know how to give. So a big thanks. And yes, look, I also want to ask if you're not yet a patron to consider being one.

I think you'll agree, you know, like you supporting me for five bucks, 10 bucks a month. This is not about supplementing the lifestyle of Matt Fradd. This is not so that I can build a better bourbon collection or something like that, though that would be cool. No, I mean, I think you've seen, right, that we are really developing things. Just this coming summer, it looks like I'll be at least in two African countries at no expense to them. I've already got suitcases that

I'm filling out with catechisms and Bibles. I can do all this for free. They don't have to pay a cent. All of this is because of you patrons. The Matt Fradd Show, Becoming Pints with Aquinas, and Growing, and doing more of them, right? I just love investing back into this apostolate. I really do. I think some people probably have weird hobbies independent of their apostolate maybe. And so they're into crap, I don't know, yacht sailing or beekeeping or something. And that's fine. People should be able to have leisure time and do whatever the heck they want. That's great. And I obviously have hobbies myself, but one of the things I just love doing is this work. And the feedback we have been getting has just been absolutely incredible. I get so many people who riot and say, you know, their lives have been changing because of what

they've seen on Pints with Aquinas. And sometimes I don't share them because they're very personal, but I want to share a couple, just one with you now, because my assistant Melanie just saw one and they said that I could share this with you. Let me see here. Okay, check this out. Now, let's see here. I don't know. I don't want to read the person's name because I don't want to, just in case I don't want to, but they did say I could share it. But here's just an example of the many emails we get. I wanted to share, this person says, my story with you. It all starts in September 2018 when I joined RCIA so that I could understand my girlfriend's faith a bit more. She had been Catholic her whole life and at one point was a postulant of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. She pushed me

even though I was dead set on continuing my Protestant faith and was quite skeptical of what was being taught. I had attended Christian school my entire life, was well-versed in apologetics, etc. My pride would get the best of me throughout classes, and I felt as if RCIA was quite trivial. My girlfriend then brought me to you and pints with Aquinas. Again, I approached listening with great skepticism and pride. I got my feet wet with episodes that I knew would correlate with many of my Protestant teachings. But soon things began to change. would correlate with many of my Protestant teachings. But soon things began to change.

I would listen to sometimes three episodes per day, slowly bringing in more Catholic concepts like Mary, the saints, and eventually the Eucharist. Next thing you know, I'm confirmed at Easter 2019 receiving Eucharist. You, in combination with RCIA, taught me about the love of Mother Mary, the communion of the saints, the importance of the Eucharist, and many other beautiful mysteries of Catholicism. You helped me understand the beautiful and full Catholic faith. I wanted to say thank you for all the hard work you put into your shows. You are truly a blessing to so many people, and your impact on my conversion is immeasurable. You exemplify Catholicism. Okay, now he's just saying lovely, overflowing, praiseworthy kinds of things of me. Believe me, friends, I get a lot of criticism and some of that criticism is justified. So this isn't me putting myself up on a pedestal. I just want you

to know that Pines to the Coin is really having an impact in people's lives. And so if you want to support the work that we're doing, go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd, just to browse, just see all the free things I give you in return. I don't want to go through them all here because there's so many of them, but just have a look. And if you think this show is worth a dollar a month or five bucks a month, please consider giving because it really does make a big difference as we try and bring this to the next level. I was joking with my wife earlier. I said, honey, here's my big plan. I want to open up a brewery. I want to call it Pints with Aquinas. I want to name all of the beer that we are going to brew in the old fashioned sort of Benedictine way. I'll name it after Catholic things, right? Thomistic things.

And then I want to like invite philosophers to come and give lectures over beer once. I'm not even joking, people. I'm not even joking. This is something I want to pray about and see if this is something that we could do. What a beautiful thing that would be. Anyway, that's it. I just wanted to share that with you. So this Tuesday, I'm going to release my episode with Trent Horn. And as I say, three hours, 56 minutes. It was excellent. Gosh, he's good. And I want to say thank you too, for all of you guys and for your criticisms of me. Especially those of you who have given them with love, because it's really helping me be better. You know, like, yeah, just in my interviewing and some of the things that I do or don't do, just the way many of you have like called me on stuff, went, stop

doing that. It's really annoying. It's kind of insulting or, you know, and some of it, I disagree with you. And so I think, no, you're wrong. And I keep doing it. But then there are things that I think, yeah, yeah, you're right. And that's really kind of helped me adapt and grow as an interviewer and as a presenter. And obviously it's always a work in progress and we're all imperfect, but I just want to say thank you for that too. All right. That'll do. God love you. Thanks. I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you, to carry you, to carry you, to carry you.