Pints With Aquinas - BONUS: Lila Rose on her Conversion to Catholicism

Episode Date: November 10, 2020

I chat with Lila Rose about her conversion to Catholicism. Find Lila’s podcast at https://lilaroseshow.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/lilagracerose, Twitter at https://twitter.com/lilagracerose, and Instagram at https://instagram.com/lilaroseofficial. 🔴 Become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd Sponsors: Ethos Logos Investments - https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Hallow - http://hallow.com/mattfradd

Hello, hello, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I am really honored to have Lila Rose on the show today. I'll let her introduce herself in a little bit for those of you who aren't aware of her and the fantastic work that she's doing, but it's really great to have you with us. A couple of things I want to let you know about before we begin today's show. First of all, we have a big debate this week between Trent Horn and Steve Christie on the Deuterocanonical books of Scripture. Do Protestants have the correct Old Testament canon? That's what we're going to be discussing, and you will get to watch it if you subscribe so you don't miss out. It should be great. Also, I want to say thank you to our, we have a new, a new bloody sponsor. That's the word. Bloody sponsor, that's the word.

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maybe doing something like that. So if you're interested, click that link below to get started. All right. I would like to introduce you to the one and only Lila Rose. What's up, Lila? Hey, Matt. Not much. It's so great to have you on the show.

I've been seeing all the fantastic work that you're doing with live action and the different interviews you've been doing. I'm sure many people are familiar with the great work you do. But for those who aren't, who is Lila Rose and what kind of stuff does she do? Sure. So as I'm sure we'll be talking about, I'm Catholic, first of all. Child of God, daughter of God. I'm married. I have a 10-month-old son.

I'm the founder and president of Live Action. Some of you might know Live Action. We're the global digital leader for the pro-life movement. We educate on abortion, human dignity, the gift of motherhood, fatherhood. I also have a podcast, which will be cool like yours soon, Matt, because it's coming to YouTube in early 2021. That's called The Lila Road Show. Nice. Yeah, I've been on your show before when it was just an audio version.

You were on the baby version. Yeah, we'll have to have you back for the relaunch. Oh, that's really exciting. So are you going to have the studio in your home or? That's, yeah, what you're seeing right now, we just moved. You're seeing my very fancy studio, but it will be a little cuter when the time comes.

So yeah, we're going to be, you know, getting a little home studio and then doing some cool interviews. And yeah, I'm excited because there's so much to talk about, as you know. I mean, there's the culture of death versus the culture of life. But most of my work is on abortion and educating on that. But to build a culture of life, there's a lot to do there in just relationships, faith, marriage, health. So there's a lot of topics I'm excited to discuss. Awesome. Yeah, can't wait. I'm glad there's going to be another fantastic Catholic podcast out there in the world. We actually get messages quite often from Protestants who listen

to Pines with Aquinas who say they want to convert, but they're not really sure how, or they're seeing some stumbling blocks along the way, and they're not really sure what to do. So I'm really excited to hear your story about how you went from being a non-denominational Protestant to a Catholic, because I know you haven't shared it a great deal and I'm not familiar with it. And I think it'll be a blessing to those who are looking into the Catholic church. Yes. Well, exciting to talk about it because I see it as I first encountered Christ as a Protestant and I'm very grateful for that. And I see becoming Catholic as just a jumping even deeper into the pool of God's love and mercy. So, yeah, I'm excited.

That's beautiful. Yeah, I often find that when Protestants become Catholics, they speak very fondly of their Protestant background. You know, they talk about how their background helped them to love Scripture and have a personal relationship with Christ. And they see Catholicism as sort of the fullness now that they're entering. So that's really cool. So yeah, tell us how you grew up, what religion your parents were, that sort of thing. Sure. Yeah.

So I was born and raised in the Bay Area, so Northern California in San Jose. And I'm one of eight kids, actually. So a lot of people, they wouldn't think we were Catholic growing up. Some people thought we were Mormons growing up because we were we grew up at a church where it was an evangelical, like interdenominational type church in this really beautiful neighborhood and a lot of good families. But we were the biggest family by probably three or four kids. And I remember, you know, my mom piling us into the Dodge blue van, the Dodge van, like 15 seat passenger. So we were already like, I guess, want to be Catholic because of just having a big family.

My parents had this, I think, a special grace where they just saw kids as good. And they were like, contraception doesn't seem right to us. Like we want we love children. And yeah, thank God, because I have seven amazing brothers and sisters. And where were you in the lineup? I'm the third oldest. So oldest girl, which is kind of like being the oldest. So two older brothers, three younger. And then I prayed to God for years for a sister and finally got two of them. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So what kind of church did y'all go to growing up?

So it was basically like, I would just consider it a sort of a Bible church, kind of your standard wanting to really be Bible based. I think the church actually had Presbyterian roots. Basically, like, I would just consider it a sort of a Bible church, kind of your standard, wanting to really be Bible based. I think the church actually had Presbyterian roots. But it was, you know, fairly evangelical, very focused on mission, you know, keeping the doors open for other people. And then my dad actually served as an elder. So he was really involved in the life of the church, he had actually been raised in that church himself. So my grandmother went there, and she sang in the choir, I would go to Sunday school. So it was very much like, I think, a traditional Protestant upbringing, Christian Bible-based upbringing. But I think, I mean, I can kind of talk about all different ways, but I think one of the things that I really

wrestled with growing up was just wanting to know, what does it actually mean to be a Christian? Because I kind of had my own little born- experience, you could say when I was seven years old, where I was like, I had this, this idea of Jesus that was very strong to me personally, I remember just being captivated by the idea that there was a God who loved me, and that he died for me. I mean, it's very, most children, when they learn that they're just like, blown away. And I was blown away. But then as I got older, I older, there would be a lot of doubt that I experienced about what is really the truth and what religion is true. Is God, is Christ God? Is God real?

And so, yeah, I don't know how much detail you want me to get into. All of it. Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, seven years old. That's beautiful. Was that experience that you had, was that at Sunday school or when your parents were telling you about Jesus Christ or how did that happen? Yeah. So we were, I actually would sing for the church and we were on Easter Sunday, I would

sing this original, you know, I sang like for a few years growing up, like before the whole congregation or whatever. And my dad would accompany on the piano because we're really a musical family. I'm the least musical member of my family, actually, but I still managed to somehow be singing in front of the church. My voice got steadily worse as I got older, but it was cute enough when I was like six or seven. Anyways, we sang this song about Jesus dying for our sins. And so I would practice it at the piano growing up.

I was like five, six, whatever. And we'd sing this song about Jesus who gave his life for us. And I remember as I sang the words, just being totally overwhelmed with this feeling of God's love and just standing there bawling my little eyes out, you know, at seven. And so that was, I think that was my first like real emotional, personal encounter with God as a person. And then, you know, as I got older, I remember that that left a mark on me and I would learn all these things.

But I felt there was, as I got older, there was such a heavy emotionalism to faith. And I didn't always match my own emotions to it. I don't know if you're, you've talked to other Protestants about this experience, but like praise and worship was a big part of my church growing up, which I think is beautiful, by the way. I think it's a great, you know, can be a beautiful expression of worship. But I think there was this sense of like, okay, I have to kind of get in this mood to worship God and sing these songs and put my hands up. And I learn about the Bible and I have all these questions. And ultimately, it wasn't satisfying me. And then there were difficult things I experienced as a teenager that made me question, is this even true?

And also, the more you learn about and you're exposed to other worldviews, other religions, you start to wonder, how do I know my religion that I was raised with was true? So I started this kind of process of sort of in a way, starting from scratch as a young semi rebellious teenager to decide, okay, what do I actually believe? And that's sort of this, I think a real intellectual journey as well as a heart journey to discover what it was that I really believed. I wanted to believe in Christ, that Jesus Christ that I had met as a seven-year-old, but I wanted more proof. I wanted more context based on what else I knew in the world and what else I was seeing happening in the world. Two questions. How old were you at the time? And then were you open about this search with your parents and people at your church?

And then were you open about this search with your parents and people at your church? Yeah. So the Protestant church had this like semi-confirmation thing that we did. We'd get a Bible when we were 13 years old. So it was kind of like entering as an adult member. We actually were already baptized. I was already baptized, which was surprising. My church did not do infant baptism.

But my dad was into reading the church fathers and doctors, even though he wasn't Catholic. And he thought that there was a scriptural basis for children being baptized. So I was baptized at four years old. So I was already had that sacrament, which a lot of, a lot of Protestants talk about converting to Catholicism, but if you're baptized, that's not a conversion to Catholicism. You're already a Christian. You're already adopted into the family of God. It's a matter of just entering more deeply into the church. But anyway, so after that kind of 13-year-old confirmation, it was really this, you know, I went and announced before the church with my other 13-year-old classmates or whatever that we were Christians and we were entering the church. But I remember afterwards thinking, okay, do I really believe that? I just made this announcement, but there's so much more in the

world that I haven't looked at or studied yet. There's all these other religions that claim to be true. There's people that don't believe in any religion and think that that's what's true. So why do I believe that that's what's true? And then some really difficult things happened in my life personally and around me that made me also question. I think the problem of pain, of suffering and learning more about suffering in the world also made me question, where is God in all of this? I deeply wanted to believe he was in it. One of my friend's brother died at age eight of a brain cancer. And, you know, that was very, you know, obviously painful for my friend,

one of my closest friends, like her parents divorced. So things, you know, you know, another friend was sexually abused, things started to happen around me. And then in my own life, I struggled with some things that made me, you know, really wonder, okay, what, what is life all about at the heart of it? And how do I own this for myself? And so that began my own exploration of really who is God in this in the midst of pain and then also is God the Christian who the Christian church says or whose Christianity says is that the true God yeah that's awesome and so what did you do with these questions was this before the time of the internet yeah so I don't want to I don't want to try and guess how

old you are so well the internet didn't exist until I was 17. MySpace existed. MySpace existed. The internet, though. You have to have MySpace for internet. Do you know what MySpace is? Yeah. No, I remember being on MySpace.

I was about 17 years old. But see, in Australia, technology moved a lot slower. So maybe it was a big thing here. So did you go online to ask these questions? So basically, one other kind of big moment for me that gave me the path to the questions was, wait, how old are you, Matt? I am 37, but now I get to ask how old you are. I'm 32, but you had MySpace at 17?

I think so, yeah. No, it may have been much later than that. I'm thinking of MSN messenger that was big when I was 17 and then MySpace was well after that I think now that I think about it that's hilarious what was your handle at AIM do you remember oh I don't I think I remember but I don't think I should say I wasn't in a good place back then continue Continue. Okay. All right. I'm skipping around a little bit here, but I was at this world at 15 years old. This is when I think I had my first like big, I need to figure out what I believe intellectually. And do I really believe this? I was at this Bible camp in Tennessee that my friends and I went to, my parents sent me, you know, it was this like,

you know, worldview Bible camp. And there was this, I was already wrestling with faith. I was going through tough stuff personally. Some friends were going through tough stuff. So it was like, what do I really believe? And I wanted to believe in Christianity. That's all that I knew. That's what I was familiar with. But I went to this worldview camp and they really challenged you there, like know what

you believe and why you believe it. And so, you know, that was very profound for me. Around that time, my friend's brother died. So that was also like this big moment of, wow, you know, death is death can happen tomorrow. What do we do with the problem of death and the fact that even children die? I was already in pro-life activism. So I was already learning about, you know, the evil of abortion and the fact that there are thousands of children, children dying. So death is this like real thing that I was already grappling with, even though, you know, I was healthy, and I was fine. But I remember one thing at that, that worldview camp that really, I think,

instigated this sort of semi faith crisis for me, where I really wanted to back away from Christianity. And then I had to rediscover it was there was this pastor, and he was giving a speech in front of all the youth at the youth camp. And he stands up on stage, and he's snapping his fingers like this. And he says, every second, somebody dies. And I'm sitting there in the audience, like watching him. And he's like, every second somebody dies, he said, and they go to heaven, or they go to hell. And he said, and what you do today, will help determine if they go to heaven or hell. And I remember just sitting in my chair and being just kind of shocked and like, what do I do with this?

Like, I have personal responsibility. Otherwise people will go to hell. And so I get on the plane back to California from this camp in Tennessee and I'm like evangelizing to the people next to me. Do you know about Jesus? Cause I'm like, what if a plane goes down and they go to hell?

You know, that it's on me. I mean mean there was some beauty to it but there was also some bad theology to it right because how old were you lila 15 this was 15 yeah so this is like when i think it came to a head where i was like okay and but that sense of there's a sense of anxiety because the theology that this at least preacher was teaching was if people don't hear about jesus they go to hell. Right. And this is what a lot of Protestants, some Protestants anyways, believe. You actually have to profess the name of Christ before you die. And if you never learn about him before death, then you might go to hell.

Too bad for you. Yeah. Yeah. Bad for you. Right. And there's some Calvin, you know, some Calvinism connected to that and some other, you know, theology we could talk about. But I think once I saw strains of what I felt was a lot because because after like really thinking about that in the months that followed I thought if that's who God is if God would create somebody and then send them to hell simply because simply because I never told them about Jesus that doesn't seem like a very just or loving God to me right and then also this God that the only way to kind of encounter him is through really emotional praise and worship, which again, I was just trying to find out how to follow God,

how to connect with him. I thought this doesn't seem right either. It must be more to a relationship with God than praise and worship music or just studying scripture. Like what else does it really mean to follow God? And then is this God really true? And so there was a time after that Christian camp where I stepped back and I was like, I don't know if I'm even a Christian anymore. I need to reevaluate all of this. And you know, I should study some other religions, I should look at some other worldviews here, and really get serious about what is it that I believe and know to be true. And so that was like the big serious moment for me, age 15, of I need to figure it out one way or the other. And if I figure out that I can't figure out anything is true, then I guess I'm an

agnostic, you know, I guess I'm in that camp. But I, you know, I went to Barnes and Noble, I bought, you know, Islam for dummies, Judaism for dummies, the dummy, you know, the dummy faith books. Again, that was my initial foray into study. I had lots of conversations with lots of people. I didn't have any Catholic friends. So Catholicism, I had very little access to even what it was. But what had changed for me is I needed to make faith my own or lack of faith my own. And I needed to answer these existential questions. If God created people to just send them to hell because they never heard about Jesus, is that really who God, what would God would do? And of course I find out later, that's not what God does. You know, God doesn't do that. He's a God of justice and mercy. And we have a choice as human beings,

but we only have as much choice as much as our conscience permits us, right? If we're raised in a culture, we never get access to learning about Christ. Then, you know, God will make, God will, God will be just, God will be just with that soul. But so that, that exploration was really huge for me. And then after several months of that, Matt, I ended up back at Christianity. So quickly though, what were your parents and siblings going through as you were going through this? Yeah. So, I mean, my parents were really, I didn't really talk about it a lot with my parents. I talked about with my dad a bit because he was really into studying faith. And again, he was an elder at the church. But I think it was something for me as maybe for a lot of teenagers, I felt like I had

to do this on my own. There are also just things going on a lot of tension in our own home at the time, just because of other sort of mental health issues that my family was experiencing, I was experiencing that made those conversations just didn't really happen at that time. And so a lot of that exploration I was having with friends outside the home or reading or, you know, trying to learn, you know, from anybody that I could to try to figure this stuff out, because I also had a sense of my own mortality, like I can die, I'd like to have this figured out before before I die. But I will say one huge thing that my my dad especially gave me as like a gift was, you know, we learned we were, you know, I said he loved the church fathers and doctors. And one of

the things that we did is we took a Western civilization course with my dad, he actually taught me and my friends, all these church fathers and doctors, and we were reading all these books. And one of the things that we did, you know, this isn't church fathers and doctors, but in studying theology was Pascal's Wager. So we read Peter Kreeft's commentary on Blaise Pascal's Le Pensee, which I don't know if you've read that. I have. Yes, yes, I have read it. It's really excellent. Yeah, highly recommend. Anyone listening, one of my favorite books, Christianity for Modern Pagans by Peter Kreeft, commentary on Blaise Pascal.

And he talks about, of course, Pascal's wager. And that was one of the things that made me decide, okay, I don't know how to be a Christian exactly what it means, but I want to be a Christian. And that was, Pascal's wager is, okay, if God is real and, you know, heaven and hell are real, you would want to believe in God and try to follow and obey him

because you want to go to heaven. Um, if it's not real, why not try to believe him anyways, and try to go to heaven just in case, because we don't know, right. That's the wager. And so that, and then a number of other things made me decide, okay, I think, and I also read Case for Christ by Rod, by, um, what's his name? Lee, Lee Strobel. Yeah. That was another big book for me. I've heard great things about that book. I've never read it. Lee is really, really smart, really sharp. And it's basically the historical, um, proof for Christ. Um, so that was another big thing. I was like, okay, Christianity makes the most sense. Um, I want to be Christian. And then years later, you know, when I was in college, I become Catholic, but I, that was the first step I think, to really building a solid foundation that Catholicism

would later be added to. So was your dad and mom open to Catholicism or were they, you know, they seem to be friendly towards it if they're looking at the doctors and yeah um definitely my dad was friendly in the sense that he loved the early church you know and then my mom was a latin teacher so we actually latin and i would be we would study read thomas aquinas actually you have to translate it in and out of latin so that wow your family sounds amazing they are amazing um but we weren't catholic and my and and, and I think, I think my dad was going through his own journey. I mean, as a church elder at his, at this Protestant church, um, you know, the, the, the, the, um, the, the music minister wanted to

get a divorce of his wife and they had just written out all this, like the, what the church believed about marriage, like their little catechism basically. And I remember my dad coming home and just being like, okay, now I have to, you know, do we have to change it again? Because now divorce in some cases is okay, we can't judge, you know, they're basically reinventing doctrine, they have to kind of reinvent interpretations of scripture as a Protestant church. So they were very much open, I think, to my own exploration after I became after you know 15 going through that phase of What what religion am I thinking? I'm Christian. I I think I'm a Christian. I want to believe in Christ I ended up actually going to an Orthodox Church

Yeah, my friend was Orthodox and my parents gave me permission to do that So they were very open and respectful of my own exploration, which I'm so grateful for because I know some parents When their kids are exploring other faith traditions, it's very hard for them. Yeah, cool. Which Orthodox church was it? It was a Greek Orthodox church. Awesome.

Yeah. Okay, and so how did you go from there to Catholicism? Sure. So I know there's, like, lots of little iterations. I'm not one of those stories that's like, I saw the and then i'm catholic like there's lots and lots of things that's good it's human this is how most people's stories go yes so i was at the greek orthodox church which i loved about it was the mystery and the reverence i didn't fully understand the liturgy but i understood that this is holy and this is ancient. And I was like, I want to be connected to the source, which is Jesus Christ, the man, not just God, but Jesus Christ in human history, the man.

So that's what was what drew me to the Orthodox Church. I didn't really I didn't really know about the Catholic Church yet. I hadn't really had a real encounter. I mean, my uncle was Catholic who lived in Oregon, but I didn't have any Catholic friends. Yeah. So there was really no way for me to, I think, have a personal encounter in that sense. And then I got to UCLA and I was back on this kind of journey of like, okay, I need to find a faith community. Like I need to, if I want

to take my faith seriously, I know Christ is God. I believe he is God. I believe there's proof for it. I believe he was resurrected. How do I follow him? And so I like, I'm going to the Lutheran church. I'm going to like the, you know, campus crusade. I'm in a varsity. I'm like trying to find, but I'm, I'm not, um, I'm not seeing sort of this depth of depth of, of Christianity rooted in the early church rooted in Christ, the man 2000 years ago. And I'm also not satisfied with just praise and worship. And then reading the Bible, I was like, there has to be more to Christianity. And what about these, these, this, this, this idea of the Eucharist? I mean, in the Orthodox Church, it was all centered around this prayer, this like sacred right around the Eucharist and receiving Jesus bodily. And I

was like, that was very profound and attractive to me because I wanted more. I mean, I was ultimately hungry for the Eucharist and I didn't know it yet. So anyways, I end up meeting these Catholics at UCLA, which is where I would find my Catholic faith. And they were these girls that were involved in pro-life clubs. So I started a live action club at UCLA. They got involved. They were like, you know, very into their faith. And they would invite me to mass at the Women's Opus Dei Catholic Center. Oh, beautiful. You met some good people.

You're an honor, you know. There's no chance at this point. So I showed up, you know, one Sunday morning. And I'm in this little chapel above the living room, this little women's Catholic center where they're doing, you know, having Holy Mass. And there's all these like properly dressed women in there. And I was just so impressed. I had been to actually a Catholic mass before with my uncle, but it wasn't as, you know, it hadn't been as sacredly done.

You could say, I mean, it was sacred, but it wasn't done with such reverence as this Opus Dei priest was doing it. And he's praying before the, you know, he's consecrating our Lord's body and blood on the altar. And I don't know exactly what he's doing, but it's just very beautiful to me. And everyone is just, you know, reverent and just praying and worshiping in the Mass. And I'm just, my heart is just deeply, deeply moved. And I'm in the back pew.

And I just like look around after the mass and you know he blesses us and walks out or whatever and I turn to this like very kind looking woman next to me and I'm like can you mentor me? Oh that's lovely I was just like I there's something here that I'm looking for and I couldn't articulate it

but I thought. Oh man I'm sure she was pumped. Yeah she was she's a numerary. Their job is basically like mentoring and praying for people like me. Did you know not to receive Eucharist as a non-Catholic? Yeah, no, I knew not from my uncle. Yeah, because I knew that you don't receive it. And having gone to the Orthodox Church, I was able to receive there.

Yeah, so I knew that I wasn't Catholic, so I wasn't to receive. Did you find that insulting as a non-Catholic? No, not at all. No, because this is their this is their faith. And, you know, I was a Christian, but I didn't believe that the Eucharist was Jesus's body, blood, soul and divinity yet. Like I didn't I didn't even know deeply what it was. I knew it was sort of this ritual for them. But if I wasn't invited into it because I didn't believe it, I respected that. I think that's really cool. You know, yeah. Just like if I went to a Baptist church or somebody else's church and they said,

at this church, we have these rules. It would seem just to be a respectful thing to do to kind of go, OK, even if I don't understand it, fair enough. I'm in your turf, you know. Yeah. And most of the people, the Protestants the Protestants, I have many friends who are Protestant. They are very understanding of that. I mean, they don't feel upset by it. It's more I feel lapsed Catholics, some lapsed Catholics who don't want to believe all the Church's teachings, that don't believe or are not living the Church's teachings,

not wanting to go to confession. And I know some of them that they're very frustrated by not receiving communion. Just come to confession with me. No, it's great. So, okay. So you look at this kindly woman and say, please mentor me. And what happens? She was like, I'll see you this week. And I'm like, great. She's like, want to come over Tuesday? And I said, sure, I'm there. So I show up and how much detail do you want, Matt? I mean, I'm loving this. You are not boring me or anybody. I know sometimes when you've told your own story over and over again, sometimes you wonder,

but no, this is, I'm really interested. Well, I show up at the Women's Catholic Center again for this, you know, mentorship meeting with this, you know, Catholic numerary and a numerary, by the way, for those who don't know is they've, um, they've basically promised to be celibate in order to serve. It's a, they're, they have a calling to the celibate life in order to be a better of service to other, um, people of faith and help, you know, share the good news of Christ's love and help form people and formation, things like that. So anyways, I get there and, um, I'm wearing workout clothes. clothes that was definitely like the college student like with the you know i don't know about if you've ever had a yoga pants

debate on your show but i'm like yeah let's let's initiate one go i'm wearing cut off yoga pants right tank top so definitely not dressed you know very properly i was the opus day ladies not the opus day ladies show up and she's like what would you like what would you what does mentorship mean to you did you have it did you have a starbucks frappuccino in hand that's what i need to know um no but i would just complete the picture donut or something i was i was definitely snacking on something so i show up in my like ripped workout clothes and i'm just sitting in the like you know little sitting area and she's saying like what does mentorship mean to you and i'm like i want to be i be holy. I was like, I want to be a good woman.

I want to be, she's like, well, what is a good woman to you? I said, well, it's like my own mother is a good woman. Mary is a good woman. I mean, after my experience with the Orthodox Church, Mary was just, she wowed me. I didn't really understand her, but I was like, she's the most beautiful, the most perfect, the most loving woman in the world. You know, she was Jesus's mother, God's mother. And she's special. Like, I want to learn more about her. But growing up Protestant, we never really talked about Mary.

Right. That was like a big hole in our. The only time we talked about Mary was at Christmas time when they would sing, Mary, did you know? Mary, did you know? And it's like, Mary, did you know? You totally knew the angel told you that Jesus was, you know, your son and this was, you know, the savior anyways. But I wanted to, I wanted to be like Mary. So I told this woman that, and she said, you really want to

be like, you know, your mother and Mary. And so she was asking me, what do you love? What do you like about those women? And then I said, I just, I just I just want to be you know I just want to grow and then she said to me do you do you do you want do you mind if I'm a straight shooter and I was like sure of course like yeah she's like you is it okay if I just first yoga pants aren't pants now I'm just joking no no Matt you're right there you should be an open state lady because she literally said to me she said you sure you want me to be a straight shooter? And I was like, yes. And she's like, are you sure? I don't want you to be offended. I said, I won't be offended. She's like, you know, first step to being this woman you want to be,

you really shouldn't dress like that. Yeah. And I was like, wow, I'm like looking down. I'm like wearing these like bike shorts. I'm like, you're right. Like, I mean, if I'm going to the gym, maybe, but like, I'm going to class, I'm going to the gym, maybe, but I'm going to class. I'm going to a meeting with the whole best day. God bless your humility. I was like, you're right. Keep in mind, at this time, I'm starting live action. I'm starting to do international travel for pro-life.

I'm starting to go meet with Congress members. I'm doing all this intense work personally. I knew that it required a lot of me. And I knew that it, you know, my faith was the most important thing. And I needed to act like it, but I didn't know what that really looked like. And so that first bit of advice of like, okay, ask the part, I mean, look the part, be the part, like what would Mother Mary do? Like would she show up, you know, to a meeting and, you know, ripped up yoga pants, like in a, you know, torn tank top? Probably not, you know. And so that began a series of meetings with this woman where we looked at my whole life. We looked at my virtue. We looked at

my habits. We looked at my own, even my own wounds. I mean, some stuff that I had to work out in therapy separately, but my own sort of personal things like wounds from childhood. And we just started going through and doing work on making a plan to improve. And then at the same time, you know, she said, Well, what do you think about the Catholic faith? And I said, everything I've learned about it, I like, I have some questions, like, I'm not sure about praying to the saints, I still don't really get like the mass, I don't really know about like Mary as someone you can like, you know, the rosary. So like I, I begun to learn about these things, but I didn't really understand them. And I knew that if I was going to, you know, say yes or no to them, I needed to

first say what I was, know what I was saying yes or no to. So that began me doing more study of church fathers and doctors, Thomas Aquinas, like reading what he would say about these things. And then I would meet weekly with this Opus Dei priest that was just brilliant. I mean, he understood the church's teaching so well. He had worked with people of all faith backgrounds and no faith backgrounds. And we would just go topic by topic. Like, what was my question of the day? What was the thing that didn't make sense to me or the thing that I didn't think was maybe right? And we would just talk through it. He would teach me about it, the scripture base for it, the tradition base for it. And, you know, before, before long, you can imagine it was like

the puzzle started coming into focus. Like the piece, many of the pieces were already there, Matt, like from my childhood, from study had already done, from meeting people, but the more pieces started, were put down. And then the whole thing started to come into focus. And I was like, this is what I've been looking for my whole life. You know, this meaning Jesus in the Eucharist, like getting to like getting to actually receive my Lord, I wanted him bodily. I mean, I think that's one of the things as a Protestant, like, we have praise and worship, we have sacred scripture. I think that's one of the things as a Protestant, like we have praise and worship, we have sacred scripture, but there's no sort of incarnate experience of the faith. Right. So there's no like, you know, anointing with oils in confirmation. There's no sometimes there's not even baptism. I mean, but like immersion baptism, like really a baptism, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. There's no Eucharist. Like this is really God that you're, Jesus says to receive him.

And if you don't receive me, you know, you're not in me. You need to receive my body, my flesh and blood. You need to chew my flesh and blood as, you know, St. John writes in John 6. And, you know, this like very tangible, physical experience of faith where it doesn't depend on my emotions. It doesn't depend on like how I'm feeling that day. It doesn't depend on, you know, what's going on, you know, the hardships or the, the, the, the doubts I have,

but these are real physical facts of, of God in front of me that I can actually receive into me in God himself in the Eucharist, learning about that. And, you know, I was already primed to believe it. And I was just, you know, full on excited, like, I want to be Catholic now. And so within another year and a half after beginning those meetings with that wonderful woman, I would enter the Catholic Church. Wow. I think it's really cool that the Catholic Church makes you wait that kind of time to show that you're super serious about it. I think that really is like, just from an objective standpoint, even if someone's watching this, I know we have many Protestants currently live watching this. You know, that is that I think that says a lot about

the church. It's like you need to know what it is you're coming into and what it is you'll be accepting. Yeah, well, I think that's true. I think, you know, Christianity is not just some like pastime, you know, Christianity is not some like cultural sort of affect around us. You know, Christianity is, is who we are, it is it is it is the whole orientation of our life's journey. And it is, you know, heaven is our home, this isn't our home. And the one who made us is our first love, like, you know, St. Augustine says, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Jesus and in God and the love of our soul, the lover of our soul. And so, you know, if you're going to actually like really practice your faith, it should require study.

It should require practice. I mean, think about anything else you do in your life, like your job, my job, like any, any relationship you have, anything in your life that matters to you, it requires time and effort, you know, and, and it should, because that's what we're wired that way as humans, we're in time and we have our mental faculties, you know, our intellectual faculties, we have our wills, everything should be directed towards the love of our life and the salvation of our souls, which is our Lord. And so that's what I love about our Catholic faith is it is all those, all the graces, right, all the aids for that, physical aids for that, you know, the incense during mass to remind us that this is the heavenly banquet or whatever it is, like,

incense during mass to remind us that this is the heavenly banquet or whatever it is, like all there. And it's all meant to help us unite ourselves to the one we love. And anyways, that's beautiful. You talked about meeting those girls at UCLA. And then you're also involved in the pro-life movement at the time. I mean, obviously there are many wonderful Protestants who are involved in the pro-life movement, but I think it's pretty much understood that Catholics seem to be the most passionate about the pro-life movement, but I think it's pretty much understood that Catholics seem to be the most passionate about the pro-life movement. You cannot go to a protest outside of Planned Parenthood where there aren't rosary beads. I mean, was that also part of that helped convince you that the Catholics might be onto

something? It was definitely a backdrop. You know, it was a backdrop. Like those little Catholic ladies with the rosary is the very first time I ever prayed outside of Planned Parenthood in San Jose at age 14. There was, you know, a man out there and then there were, you know, there were Catholic ladies, Catholic lady with the rosary. So there was this backdrop of Catholicism. But again, I it wasn't up in front of my face and it wasn't something I really had connected with yet personally. So it was there. Um, I will say part of my, once I started meeting with this priest and this woman, that's when I also came across contraception. Why not? By Janet Smith. What a fantastic presentation. She's wonderful. She really is. Yeah. Anyway, anyone listening and she's a lion, she's a lion. And

contraception is such a controversial thing because of the way in our today's society and in the pro-life movement, you know, most people are against it because they understand that it creates an abortion mentality. A lot of the hormonal contraceptives are also abortifacients, but there also are good Protestants who think that, you know, in a marriage contraceptives are also abortifacients, but there also are good Protestants who think that, you know, in a marriage, contraception is not a big deal, right? It's something, it's one of the many sort of theological divorces that happened after the Reformation. Then, you know, a few hundred years later, the Anglican bishops would decide at the Lambeth Convention, and you probably already know all this and some of your listeners. No, tell us though, yeah, for those who aren't aware.

Yeah, in the earliest, early part of i think 19 around then 1931 or something the lambeth convention when the anglican bishops decided that they would permit contraception in a few cases this was the first protestant denomination of any sort of large size that would permit contraception before it was anathema, like everybody rejected it. Martin Luther rejected it. Calvin rejected it. All of the reformers who commented on it said it was terrible, contraception. It was like, well, you would only do with a prostitute. I mean, they'd say really harsh things about the use of contraception. They saw it as against God's design and plan, which it is. But then with the sexual revolution, sort of the early seeds of the sexual revolution, Margaret Sanger, in the early 20th century, starting the birth control league. So she's the

founder of Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion chain today. Before it was Planned Parenthood, it was the American Birth Control League. And her whole mission was get people to use contraceptives, because two big families are a big problem. Like we, we want families to not be so big and there were real concerns. Child mortality rates were high. Um, but you don't solve child mortality by having less, you know, killing off kids, right? That's not like the, or, or having less kids. That's not the way to solve it. The way to solve is better healthcare. Right. Um, anyways, all that to say, when I began to learn about that, and this was during the time I was studying Catholicism before I was Catholic,

and I learned the Church's teachings, the Catholic Church's teachings on contraception, and how they had really alone stood, you know, stood ground on that. You know, and many times they stood ground alone, or, you know, sometimes alone on abortion, but they stood ground on something even more controversial in many circles today, contraception. And the why, the theology behind it, the richness behind it, God designed, you know, sex to be both procreative and unitive, bringing together people in one flesh, but also with the potential for life. And once you sever one of those purposes, you destroy the whole thing. You, you, you harm the whole purpose. That's how God designs, you know, our bodies. That's how God designs marriage. I mean, learning about all of that, it was just one more facet of, wow, the church has figured this out, you know, like the, the legacy of the church and the, the, the,

the, the teachings of the church are so rich and they have, they've thought it through, you know, they've thought it through for 2000 years. So it would behoove me to pay attention to what they're, what they have to say. Nice use of the word behoove. Hey, what was your number one obstacle, if you can remember to becoming Catholic? So you're obviously attracted to Catholicism. You maybe liked the idea of the Eucharist. Was there one particular issue that you're like, I don't know, they might be wrong on this. Yeah, I mean, there were a few issues that I had to really like debate kind of or study before I could accept them, you could say.

I mean, first of all, purgatory did not make sense to me. I mean, most Protestants do not believe in purgatory. So that was like, okay, where in the Bible does it say purgatory, right? There's that kind of go-to of like, where in the Bible does it say purgatory, right? There's that kind of go to like, where in the Bible does it say, it doesn't say the word. It's not, it's not what God wants. Thank God that's not how Christianity operates, because the Bible doesn't say a lot of words that matter today for Christians, obviously. Another one of them was Mary. I mean, even though I was kind of in awe of her and I found her fascinating and amazing, I think the rosary was very kind of countercultural for me. It took a while to kind of get the rosary, get comfortable with the rosary.

And just the teachings on Mary as co-redemptrix, that was hard for me. I was like, okay, but Jesus is my redeemer. Does this mean Mary is just like Jesus? Of course, it doesn't mean that, but I had to really understand what the church actually said because these things down to Protestant ears, that's why I totally, um, you know, respect and relate to Protestants when they hear certain Catholic things are just like, Whoa, you know, it's triggering. It's actually triggering because they think it means often something it doesn't. And that's not, that's not their fault per se.

I mean, they might have just never like done a deep dive or talked to somebody who's really explained it. So those are two things. Praying to saints was another. That was another one that was like hard for me to understand. But after a little, again, study and understanding, you know, I was like, okay, wow, this is awesome. I have, you know, thousands of friends now who are like, can pray for me on top of my real friend, you know, my earthly friend. At the time when you converted, did you have any pushback from friends or family as you were confirmed into the Catholic Church? So actually, you know, very, very little. And that's, I know, a super grace.

I mean, I was already doing extremely controversial work at Live Action. So the friends in my life who, the people in my life, if they were pushing back on something, it was usually on the fact that I was going undercover into abortion clinics at the time. Becoming Catholic was like child's play compared to this. They're like, she's off the reservation already. like, you know, child's play compared to that. They're like, she's off the reservation already. So, you know, whatever. But my dad, you know, he was already having this love affair, as I said, with the church fathers and doctors himself. You know, he had been reading them for years. He had taught them us to read them as kids. And so when I decided I was becoming Catholic, I sat down with my parents and I was

like, listen, I'm becoming Catholic and it's your fault. I'm becoming, I didn't say it like that. I said, I'm Catholic and you raised me to have awareness of the early church to read these theologians that are just amazing, like Aquinas, Augustine, Athanasius, Justin Martyr. Why aren't you becoming Catholic? You know, I asked my dad, and he's like, well, he's like, you know, maybe when the Orthodox Church unites with the Roman Catholic Church again, maybe then I, you know, it was sort of inertia for him because he was, you know, born and bred in this beautiful Protestant church that we were raised in, which wasn't sustaining him spiritually necessarily. It wasn't theologically correct, but it was his culture.

It was their culture. But after this conversation with my parents, my dad was already ready to jump into the Tiber, I guess. What's the thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cross the Tiber. Swim the Tiber River I guess, or what's the thing? So cross the Tiber, swim the Tiber river. Dunk his head into it. My dad was like, okay, like, you know, he's like, yeah, I, it's time, you know, cause I was like, dad, it's the Eucharist. I mean, he believed in the Eucharist at this point. And why, why would you not give yourself that gift? You know? And so then he was

like, you're right. And, you know, he kept praying about it, but he decided to come into the church five months after I did. Wow. He brought it, he brought in my four youngest siblings. My mother,

I didn't already share this, but my mother was actually raised in a Catholic home, but she practiced. So the parents would send the kids to mass on Sundays. They'd stay in bed. You know, she never really understood what she was doing. She became born again, Christian at age 20. practice. So the parents would send the kids to mass on Sundays, they'd stay in bed. You know, she never really understood what she was doing. She became born again Christian at age 20, you know, didn't really had very negative experience with her Catholic faith. It wasn't alive. It wasn't, you know, familial, it wasn't personal. And so my mother was just like, you know,

not not really feeling it, you know, it was definitely a big change for her. So I think the biggest resistance at the time was my mother, just the culture shock of it. Like my Protestant family, my born again Christian family is now going to that, that I was raised with like this kind of cold Catholicism. But I think as she began to like, you know, she was, my mother's very smart. She was learning about it. And then she kind of had to reacclimate culturally to a different experience. That's a good way to put it. Yeah.

So once, once she did that over the next year or so actually took a little more than that, but she ended up, you know, now she prays the rosary every day. So she's like, Jesus Christ.

No, anyways, yeah, now we're almost a big, most of us are Catholic now, except for a couple of siblings. Wow. Glory to Jesus.

That's lovely. Thank you so much for sharing that, Lila. Well, for those of you who are in the chat, we would love to take your questions for Lila. So if you have one, feel free to write it and I will ask Lila about it. But before I do that, I wanted to say thank you to our second sponsor,

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Yes, you might be promoting it on an upcoming episode of the Lila Roche Show. If you pay me enough money. That's right. I'll do whatever. I'll take a free trial. Definitely, it sounds good. I mean, listen, if you're going to use your phone, why not use it to help you pray? I think that's great. That sounds good. All right, let's take some questions here. This first one comes from Random Gaming. He says, as a Protestant becoming Catholic, did you require a second baptism? I fear my first one isn't legit in the Catholic church. Okay. So I did not because there was evidence that mine was legit. We had eyewitnesses and my dad, because he was really into infant baptism as a Protestant,

knew to do it in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So it was a valid baptism. But I think, you know, I have other friends like my one of my best friends became Catholic after I did. And she was re-baptized because they couldn't, you know, confirm that her baptism was valid. So I think that's a conditional baptism, right? Right. Yeah, yeah.

It's a just-in-case baptism. Yeah, exactly. Like if you have serious reason to doubt, because of course to baptize twice without the need is sacrilegious. So if you have serious cause or serious reason to think that your first baptism was invalid, then yeah, a second baptism may be in order. Yeah, cool. Okay, let's see. Okay. But that's exciting from the gamer that he sounds like he's becoming Catholic or interested in it. It's great. Okay. Omar asks, was your church anti-Catholic?

It doesn't sound like it was, but. Well, you know, there were a couple. I definitely knew a lot of Protestants that were anti-Catholic. So like even the, you know, reading the Church Fathers and Doctors and like some of my high school friends were Calvinists, you know, because you know in his mind I had you know proven myself to not be one of the elect um so that there were definitely um some people like that that I knew that were very you know disapproved of being Catholic yeah um Ian Gallagher asks Lila have you attended the extraordinary form of the Mass? Of course. Cool. I'm a new Catholic. Girl, please. Come on.

The Pope is Catholic, by the way. That's another debate, but the Pope is absolutely Catholic. But yes, I absolutely have. And it's beautiful. Yes, indeed. Veritas says, Lila, the number one argument against NFP, so I'll disagree with her in a second, but I'll let you disagree with her first,

perhaps, is that NFP is a form of contraception in that the purpose of NFP is not to create life. Can you give your thoughts on this? So maybe she's asking for somebody else. So why is NFP not contraception? Yeah, sure. So first of all, I would say the purpose of NFP is not to not create life. You know, my husband and I, you know, study NFP together and we practice it not to necessarily avoid pregnancy. You can practice NFP to achieve pregnancy and you should just know about your body. I mean, I think as a woman, every woman should have fertility awareness and learn NFP in the sense of understanding their own bodies. Um, I think that should be education for every young girl. And then every husband to be should discover like how his wife's body works. I think

that's absolutely, I remember being blown away during preparation for marriage as we were doing these classes, just like looking at my wife's body and be like, oh my gosh, like you are such a mystery to me. Yes. God made us incredibly complex as women. And I mean, men are cool too. They're okay. Utilitarian, as Elaine says in Seinfeld.

Continue. Okay. But to answer the question about whether or not it's contraceptive, it's not, and this is why, because it's working with our bodies the way that they're designed. You can avoid pregnancy as a Catholic without a serious reason, and that could have the same sort of sin as using a contraceptive, as in you're rejecting becoming

a mother or a father, and there's not a serious reason for it. I mean, there's a teaching in the Catholic faith where you would use your natural cycle, so the way that God has designed your body through times when you're not fertile, to avoid pregnancy if there's a serious reason. A serious reason could be a health issue, you know, serious stress or maybe mental health issues in the family, very serious financial reason and things like that that you have to carefully discern. But that is fine. But if you're just using NFP like you would use contraception, then yes, that would be like the sin of contraception. So I don't know if that answers your question, but it depends on how it's used, how the married couple uses it.

And since you brought up Janet Smith earlier, I love her response to those who say NFPs basically the same thing as contraception. She says, OK, well, if they're basically the same thing, just do NFPs. And they're like, well, no, that's completely different. It's like, OK, so if it's completely different practically, maybe it's different morally. It has to do with the actual sexual act. Are you are you when you're having sex? Are you saying no with part of your body to your spouse? Are you holding back part of your body from your spouse, the actual part that can bring

life into the world? Or are you being free in the gift of yourself to your spouse? And in contraception, you're necessarily holding back part of your body. In NFP, you're never doing that. You know, you might be avoiding having sex during fertile times, but then you're avoiding sex entirely. You're just loving your spouse in other ways. Okay. Jesse Martin asks, how has becoming a mother changed your pro-life work? Well, it's definitely just deepened my conviction and determination.

So being a mother is an incredible privilege and um just looking at my little son it's all the more real who I'm fighting for and I also want to leave a better country for him and a better world I mean it's the babies today and it's also what kind of world will he inherit I don't know if you caught that debate between Stephanie Gray and Malcolm Potts on my channel I um watched a little of it. Stephanie is one of my dearest friends, and she is a champion. Yeah, she says you may be partly responsible for her marriage. No, I am responsible for Stephanie's marriage.

I told her to marry that guy for five years. She said that, yeah. That's why she should always listen to you. Yeah, so I'm a great matchmaker, everybody, in case anyone, you know, I actually have thought about starting a matchmaking, like a private matchmaking service because there's a lot of good men and women that need to meet each other out there. Well, in the closing statements, which we're going to, I mean, it's public now, but we're going to make that a little snippet and release it soon on my channel. It was weird that Malcolm said, you know, congratulations. that Malcolm said congratulations. It was amazing to have Stephanie,

just a newly pregnant mother, to be debating like this and to point out that Malcolm congratulated her and he wouldn't be congratulating her on a clump of cells or something. It was a really powerful closing statement. I mean, my goodness gracious. Anyway. Pray for him.

Pray for his conversion. I think intellectually, it's all sort of on the cusp. Yeah. That this is a life. It's killing a life. Abortion kills an innocent human life. So it's just, I think it's a matter of prayer. Yeah.

Ariel Pachico, maybe, says, Lila, how do I react to verbal insults when praying outside Planned Parenthood? I mean, direct those prayers for that person. Give them the finger. Wave your rosary. No, I mean, the fact that you're receiving insults, what a beautiful thing. Unite yourself to Christ. I mean, he's carrying the cross and he receives insults all the way up to Golgotha. We're not carrying a cross. I mean, we're just outside an abortion clinic. We're not getting crucified. But yeah, I mean, if you're getting persecuted for prayer, our Lord is one with you. I mean, he's with you. So just lean into our Lord, lean into our mother and pray for anybody who persecutes you. It's hard. I mean, it's hard,

but I think those are exactly the sorts of hard things as Christians that make our discipleship real, that we're actually following Jesus in the hard moments, and those include the moments of disapproval of others when we're praying outside an abortion clinic. And I'd also point out, like, it's okay and even really, really natural to kind of feel gross and afraid and, you know, to feel fearful and to realize that courage doesn't mean, as we've always, we've heard a lot of acting without fear, but like being afraid, but choosing to do the right thing anyway. That's what courage is about. Yeah. Good. Yeah, that's a good one.

Amen to that. A number of people have said this. I just have to bring it up. Apparently, there's a bunch one. Amen to that. A number of people have said this. I just have to bring it up. Apparently, there's a bunch of people crying as they listen to you talk. This person says, and for good reason, not because they don't like it. Lila, you are a saint, a living saint. This person says, I get teary just listening to you speak. I've seen a few people in this thread say that they're crying listening to your testimony.

So there you are. I think that's good. Okay, here is a question from Kiernan. I think this might be a challenge. He says, a question for your lovely guest. Is the Word of God enough or do you need other things to remain Christian? Thanks. Sincerely, Kiernan.

Well, if by Word of God we mean the Bible, because Jesus is the Word, right? Well, if by word of God we mean the Bible, because Jesus is the word, right? If by word of God we mean the Bible, then the Bible is not, the whole faith is not a Bible, right? The Bible are the words of God inspired by, you know, throughout history and different writers. It's the telling of Christ's life. It's his words. But, you know, we live, our faith is about more than words and things that we're thinking. Our faith is about what we do, how we treat each other.

Our faith is about obeying Jesus's commands to receive his body and his blood. I mean, he tells us you have to receive my body and my blood. He says, do this in memory of me. So the Bible is incredibly important. Scripture is incredibly important. And I'm grateful that Protestants hold it as so important. It should be held sacred scripture, but there's more to our faith than just scripture. There's also the practice of our faith, the traditions of our faith, and then there are sacraments, which are actually this living incarnate experience of receiving Christ, you know, obeying him in that way,

as well as, you know, getting confirmed or getting baptized, getting married, you know, you know, obeying him in that way, as well as, you know, getting confirmed or getting baptized, getting married, you know, all the different sacraments. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure if Kieran is a Protestant or not, but if we were to say to Kieran, you know, is the Word of God enough or do you have to be obedient to it? He'd be like, okay, false dilemma, really. I don't, you know, because if it's enough, you don't need to be obedient. So we as Catholics think that we have to obey Christ when he tells us to eat his body, drink his blood, be baptized, etc., etc. Well, that's in the Word of Christ, too. I mean, the Word of Christ says be baptized.

It says, you know, eat my body, drink my blood. So the Word of Christ is telling us many of the things that are the traditions that we hold as Catholics and living out the sacraments. Yeah. Okay, this is a good question. It comes from Beth Wright. She says, what would you say helped you get over your hesitation about praying to Mary and praying the rosary? That's a good question. I think definitely studying the theology was important because I had to realign my thoughts, which would ultimately impact my emotions. Because and to this day, there's sometimes stray emotions. I mean, much less to this day,

but they're definitely for years after becoming Catholic. There were emotions that wouldn't or a psychological experience of the rosary or of devotion to Mary that didn't always feel right. And that's because I was raised with zero of it. I had none of it growing up. And it was actually taught as sort of Mary was actually taught as just a girl. You know, Mary's just a girl, it could have been you, it could have been this other girl, God picked a random, you know, God closed his eyes, you need me to find him out. And he took this random girl, and there she is, and forget about it. And so anyways, so I think first step would be get your thoughts about Mary right. And maybe you have no thoughts about her.

Maybe you have negative thoughts about her. Because then we can inform our feelings. And for me, one book that was really helpful was The World's First Love by Fulton Sheen. Highly recommend. It's a beautiful book. Did I get that title right, Matt? Yes, The World's First Love. Love by Fulton Sheen. Highly recommend. It's a beautiful book. Did I get that title right, Matt? Yes, The World's First Love. Love by Fulton Sheen. And then I did do the Consecration to Mary through 33 Days Morning Glory. So not the initially not the Louis de Montfort, you know, fancy version, but the

more sort of, yeah, Michael Gately. So that because, um, we have to kind of re, um, we have to acclimate ourselves to things that are sometimes foreign and culture shock, just like physically, you need to go into a culture and experience it, be around the language, the smells, the tastes. I think with Mary, it's the culture of Mary. It's the culture of Mary as my mother, not just this idea, not just this character in a Bible story, but Mary as a's the culture of Mary as my mother, not just this idea, not just this character in a Bible story, but Mary as a mother of all Christians, as Jesus gave to John at the foot of the cross, he gave his mother to all of us. We have to acclimate ourselves to her. And sometimes we have a special grace. I mean, for some people, it's like, I'm in,

you know, like I'm all about Mary and they don't need to like acclimate other people. It takes time because it's foreign to them. I think it's also important. One other, one other thing, actually, also mother issues is another piece of this. So if you, depending on your relationship with Mary, with your own mother, biological or adopted or both, that will likely inform your relationship with Mary, your spiritual mother, the mother of God. And so if you have issues or wounds or things unresolved or bad habits in your relationship with your earthly mother, which all of us do to some degree, because we're all imperfect, that can influence or color your relationship with your heavenly mother. So that's where, again, to really live our faith,

it requires deep work. It requires all of us and it requires taking stock of our childhoods. It requires understanding really what has wounded us in the past, what habits we have today that we don't even realize that we have. And that if we do that work and we, you know, go down the path of really forgiving what has hurt us in the past, really reconcile and what, you know, is maybe unreconciled, that will help our relationship with God, with the angels and saints, and with the Blessed Mother. Yeah, that's really excellent. I would also say that, you know, just like people express their devotion to Jesus Christ in different ways, and some of those ways appeal to some people, but maybe other ways appeal to other people,

you know, it's okay if a particular act of devotion to the Blessed Mother doesn't necessarily appeal to you. Some people speak about our Blessed Mother in quite flowery language, like Louis de Montfort, that doesn't always appeal to everybody. And I would say that's okay too. But I will say, to add to that, I think this is true. All the saints that I have studied, they have a real serious part of their life,

their experience, is Mary. And I think that has told me something, you know, because there was a temptation as a new Catholic to be like, the Mary thing doesn't feel right all the time. I don't fully like I can't fully connect to it on a personal level. So I'm just gonna like, let it alone, which is okay. Like you say, you can do that. But I think the more I studied the lives of the saints and their devotions to Mary, and the more I just studied Mary, the more than I was able to have my own devotion. And I do think that's important because it adds, I mean, God is God, masculine, the father, the Holy spirit, the spouse of Mary, Jesus, the son of God,

Mary's a woman. And I think we are made for that relationship as we are made for our relationship with God the Father. And not saying that Mary is God, of course. Mary's not God, she's a creation of God. But she has this very special role to play in salvation history and, of course, for all Christians. So I do think, like, wrestling with the relationship with Mary, I think it's healthy.

You know, if you're not there yet, you're struggling, keep wrestling because it will pay off. Yeah, awesome. Okay, Here's an interesting question. And maybe this can be the final one. Margaret Cross Music says, Lila, I so admire your work, especially your undercover work. I'd love to know, though, how you square faith with the deceit necessary for going undercover. When do ends justify the means in your view? So maybe before you answer that, you could just kind of let our viewers know a little bit about the undercover work that you've done. Sure. So live action and I personally have done investigative reporting

that includes undercover work. I first started that when I was 18 years old as a freshman in college. I started doing investigative reporting, which included going undercover into abortion clinics in Los Angeles. We now do this nationally and even some international work. So we are, we're kind of a, we're not just a leading digital educator for the world. We're also doing investigative reporting of the abortion industry. We're like a watchdog organization for the abortion industry. I do not think the ends justify the means I, you know, as the church, our faith and moral theology teaches, it does not. I don't think that I do not see undercover work as lying. So I would not, you know, I don't think it's permissible to lie. But I don't see undercover work as lying. I see

it as taking on a persona temporarily, like you do as an actor in order to expose truth. And of course, afterwards, we're like, that wasn't, you know, you were talking to an actor, you were not talking to, you know, a person that, you know, we were talking to a person posing as someone, you know, or we don't always reveal the identity of our investigators, but we say, basically, this was an investigation, this is what happened. And the purpose of it, of course, is to expose truth. The reason we do it, by the way, at live action, the investigative reporting is because you can't just call Planned Parenthood or the abortion clinic and have them tell you the truth about what they're doing on the phone. And the government, the civil authorities are not doing it. So I do think that, you know, we as a not for profit organization are doing this work because civil authorities have given up their job to protect the innocent.

And so we're stepping in and doing work that really the local police department should be doing to shut down abortion clinics. Other government agencies should be doing, but the government has forfeited, has rejected their role as protectors of the most vulnerable, protectors of basic human rights. So we're doing peaceful, nonviolent work to expose truth to try to help save more lives. Lila, many people in the pro-life movement, I think it's fair to say, we're hoping that President Trump be reelected. It doesn't look like he will be, though we're not exactly sure. But suppose Biden is elected the next president. What does that mean for the pro-life movement? So, you know, Biden's extremely pro-abortion, as probably most of your listeners know.

There were eight years of a President Obama who was also extremely pro-abortion. And the pro-life movement, we grew. We grew. We persuaded, I think, really hundreds of thousands of people. We saved hundreds of thousands of lives. We shut down abortion facilities. We will do that under if he is, you know,

President-elect Biden. We shut down abortion facilities. We will do that under if he is, you know, president elect Biden. Um, so that does not change. Um, you know, the policies that president Trump's administration backed, um, you know, I think we're, we're valuable and that's the value of having a pro-life president, but I think we can, um, we can flip it again in 2024. I'm fully confident we can have, you know, leadership in a party that will just, you know, inspire the country and reassert pro-life policies. And the end game is much bigger. I mean, yes, the Trump administration, you know, did pro-life things, but we need complete legal protection. I mean, that is a reality. And there's deeper work that has to be done to achieve that.

So, you know, obviously we have Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court. That's great. I'm hopeful that the Supreme Court will rule in a good direction. But the Supreme Court usually rules in a direction they see the culture or the society tending towards. A lot of the rulings on same-sex marriage, things like that, were in the wake of voters rejecting, at the state level, voters not wanting to have same-sex marriage, but then cultural pressures moving the opposite direction regardless. remains the same. And I think we can actually educate more people than before because more people you know, now it's not this now it's not now it's not becoming about Trump versus Biden. I mean, if Biden is president, regardless of who's president, I think it's sometimes difficult to educate during an election. That's a great way of election year. Let's put it that way, because people are all about the candidates. It's all of you know, a lot of

different feelings and frustrations about the candidates. Now let's make it about the issue and let's persuade everyday Americans using reason and love that this is killing a child is never acceptable. So I'm very hopeful about the next four years. And I think we've got tons of great work to do to save lives. And then in 2024, we can, if Biden is president, we can, you know, kick him out, get somebody to be a pro-life leader like never before. Fantastic. Okay. I've got links in the description below, dear viewers, to Lila's Facebook and

Instagram and podcast. But Lila, tell the folks how they can learn more about you and follow the great work you're doing at Live Action. Thank you. Thanks to the links, Matt. I mean, that's great. I'm definitely on social media. Lila Rose official on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. social media um lila rose official on instagram i'm on twitter um i will be and live actions on all the social platforms as well so check us out there i will be as i said um relaunching the lila rose show podcast um at the beginning of the new year and it will also be on youtube so i hope you guys and maybe i'll interview matt frad of pints of the climate and other guests and do some cool stuff so um you can definitely actually do have a lila rose show youtube page that's not active so you can go find it be one of the first subscribers to it um and i'll see you there in

the new year great lila it's been a pleasure chatting with you thanks so much thanks matt bye all righty all righty, alrighty. Thank you to everybody who, look at that, we just have a big Skype window there. Let me just get rid of that. Boom. Thank you to everybody for watching. Lila is such a lovely woman doing great work, and it was wonderful to hear. I hope for those of you who are watching a Protestant, you know, know that we love you,

and it's not meant to be attacked when somebody shares their story about how they came to Catholicism. Just like, you know, we believe in objective truth. If you're a Protestant, you think I'm wrong on certain things. As a Catholic, I would say that you're wrong on some certain things. And as Catholics, we believe the fullness of what Christ wants for his church is to be found in Catholicism. So I hope that this channel is helping you kind of explore the Catholic faith a little bit more. It was crazy today. I went to a coffee shop that I usually go to. And it seems to me that coffee shops are either run by like evangelical Christians or just like far left people with Black Lives Matter pens. Like there's a really, that's all you've got when it comes to like trendy hipster coffee shops. So this coffee shop up the road, solid evangelical guy,

and we've gotten to know each other a bit. So I put a bunch of my Pints with Aquinas stickers in front of him. He wanted them. We put them by the cash register because people like that kind of thing for some reason. And I just went there today, and he said that somebody just came in and went, oh, my goodness, Pints with Aquinas. He said, I'm becoming Catholic because of Pints with Aquinas. True story. That just happened to me about two or three hours ago.

So this guy, I don't think even knows that I'm up the road from this coffee shop recording in the studio. I don't know if he even knows I live in Georgia or not, but apparently because of the work we're doing on Pines with Aquinas, having these wonderful interviews, this guy's coming into the church because of that.

So it's really cool. So hopefully I will meet him one of these days as I'm having coffee. But if you like the work that we're doing here, please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. As I say, we've got this big debate coming up between Horne and Christie on the Deuterocanonical books. Do Catholics, are they right to have more books in the Old Testament than Protestants? Protestants have a smaller canon and that would be nice to know. So that's going to be coming up this week. So be sure to subscribe to our channel.

That way you won't miss that. Also want to let you know that we're giving away something extra this year, this month because of Black Friday coming up. When you become a patron at patreon.com slash Matt Fradd, we send you signed copies of of books we send you beer steins that you can also fill with coffee it turns out um all sorts of cool things you get access to immediately well this month if you become a patron for ten dollars or more boom you get this pints with aquinas car magnet that you can put on the back or front of your car or side even and it will immediately increase the value of your vehicle maybe ten thousand dollars or more i can't say that with absolute certainty but you know it's it's at least possible so please consider becoming a patron over at patreon.com slash matt frad and

there you can see all the free stuff look at all this stuff here that we give you in return. We're constantly doing new things, like we're just doing these mini courses led by these college professors on different topics. We've done one on Dante. We've done video series on Flannery O'Connor, who's a fantastic Catholic author, and Thomism. So check that out. We also just did one on Augustine's Confessions.

We have other ones coming up. We've got free audio books and e-books, and it's just a great community. So if you like what you're seeing and you'd like to help us do more, go to patreon.com slash Matt Fred. Thank you so much. God bless.