Pints With Aquinas - Radical Traditionalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Pope Bashing w/ Michael Lofton (Reason & Theology ​)

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

Michael Lofton is a Catholic YouTuber and absolute powerhouse of Catholic knowledge and sanity. Check out his Channel: https://www.youtube.com/reasonandtheology Michael's Courses: https://maximusinstitute.com Please join our community: https://mattfradd.locals.com/support Sponsors Hallow: https://hallow.com/partner-mattfradd/?%24web_only=true&_branch_match_id=1065291887271942633&utm_source=Youtube&utm_campaign=mattfradd&utm_medium=influencer&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA8soKSkottLXz0jMyckv10ssKNDLyczL1k%2FVz00sKUkrSkxJAQASAEBXIwAAAA%3D%3D Parler: https://parler.com/mattfradd

Showing off my ignorance here. Oh, we're live. Hey, we're live Michael Lofton. So good to have you. Thanks for having me Matt It's going on brother. How you been? Oh just enjoyed the plane ride over here and also enjoying the culture I'll tell you as a culture. Yeah, as soon as I got here, I noticed that there is a very Catholic theme to the culture here when I walked into the hotel I was seeing pictures of bishops and I keep walking down the hall. There's a picture of a monk and I keep going. And then there's a quote from Teresa of Calcutta and I'm thinking, what is going on here? I thought I was just in a hotel.

Welcome to Catholic Mecca, baby. Well, you don't see that in Monroe. That's awesome. That's really, it's really great to have you. I, I've really been admiring like your stuff for so long and I'll just, I guess I's really great to have you. I I've really been admiring like your stuff for so long and I'll just I guess I'll get right to the point. I think one of my concerns is that right now a lot of Catholics Frightened because of what's going on within and without the church and especially within. Yeah Being tempted towards a sort of pseudo set of accountism. Maybe they're adopting just this suspicion of anything

that's post Vatican II, and that this is really not good for people. And what's interesting is I remember when reason and theology started getting off the ground and people started telling you about it a couple of years ago, I know you were doing a lot of Catholic orthodoxy things, but I also remember you doing a lot of criticism ago. I know you were doing a little Catholic orthodoxy things, but I also remember you doing a lot of criticism, if I remember correctly, of the Holy Father. And yeah, and then I saw

your video come out recently about how his wife don't do that anymore. We're going to get into all of this. Don't feel the need to explain all this all at once. But I just thought, wow, what humility to admit. I think I was wrong here, a bit more nuance needed, and yeah, so I've just been really impressed. So it's really an honor to have you. Yeah, and you know, that's been part of my personal journey, because I've had to struggle with, you know, some of the issues that we're dealing with right now. I've been struggling with that since 2012. That's, you know, when I entered the Catholic Church was 2012. And I immediately began to encounter problems in the Catholic Church.

And pretty soon, Pope Francis was elected pope, and so I started experiencing a lot of confusion. Was that 2013? Yeah. So I was really new, didn't have a whole lot of foundation. And I began to experience just a whole lot of theological confusion and didn't really know how to process the situation

But just continued to work through the issues and it just seemed to get worse as the years went by Because you came in right on the edge of Benedict and the very end of I mean he was he was woke when I came in But it was just the very end of his reign and so the the current pontificate really threw me a loop, right, because I came to Catholicism from Protestantism as a convert, convinced of the Catholic magisterium and the structure of the papacy, and then here I'm not seeing the papacy functioning the way I thought it was supposed to function. I would love us just to sort of spend some time in the confusion that you experience and not too quickly respond to it.

And the reason for that is I want us to like meet people where they are in this confusion right now. So was part of your conversion to Catholicism seeing like the theological chops of Benedict the 16th respecting his writings? Was that part of it or no? I wasn't too familiar with his writings as a new convert. For me, believe it or not, I was very confused with the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar reforms. That was something that I was looking into as you're converting. You know, coming from Protestantism,

one of the things that I did was read the entire Catechism and read all of Vatican II, among other things. And that caused me to have a lot of questions because I just felt like, well, it looks like the church has radically changed in the post-conciliar era. How does that really work? And how can this be the one true church if it's just radically changing so much? And here I'm coming from Protestantism where there wasn't a lot of stability, and now I'm coming into a new situation where I felt like there was a lot of instability. So I kind of felt like, well,

you know, am I just going from one situation of instability to another? You know, what makes Catholicism really different? So I just had to struggle with that and again a big part of confusion for me was how to process the postconciliar reforms another thing was really really early on in my conversion and I could tell you my conversion story if you're interested but really early on When I was introduced to Christianity back in early on when I was introduced to Christianity back in 2006. The group that introduced me to Christianity was very anti-Catholic. And one thing they did is they showed me a video of John Paul II in Assisi of 1986.

And you know, you have all kinds of people from different religions there and, you know, praying to their gods and the popes right there next to them. And they were saying, you see, Rome is full of paganism and corruption and this isn't the one true church. And so I was fed that anti Catholicism very, very early on. But I bring that up because whenever I came into the Catholic church,

I was still struggling with things like that. How do I process things like a CC of 86 and a pope allowing things like this and in light of the people claims? So very early on again, I was struggling with how does this work? So I'm very sympathetic to people who are confused today, especially people who might be new to Catholicism they're just coming into the church and they're seeing a crisis and a whole bunch of chaos and they just don't know how to process it. I've been there, I get it, I understand. I think my problem, change in the expression of the faith is what concerns you

What about like things that Pope Francis was doing just as you were kind of getting off the ground your Catholicism What was some of the things taking place? No, because this has been my kind of concern for a while. It's like It felt like you had two kind of sides on YouTube one that said everything is fine Don't ask the question like but is it right and the, though, if you don't have like a nuanced, charitable interpretation response to the clear craziness that's taking place, then you only have others that seem to want the drama and confusion and to blow it out of proportion. Or maybe they're not.

But so I felt like, gosh, we just need somebody to admit. Yeah, things are bloody crazy right now. Yeah. So, yeah, what? So with with that in mind, what were some of the things perhaps that you had seen Pope Francis do or say that caused you some grief? Within the first few weeks, he was saying things that I felt were imprudent. And it did not seem like he was coming back and correcting them. Yeah. And that might be a criticism that I think we could still offer. If we say something that's imprudent, it might be helpful to come back and correct it and clarify

what we mean. I understand that we might not need to do that for every time. Somebody might have to have another YouTube channel just apologizing. That could become a full-time job, because there is a sense in which some people could misunderstand something and you were clear enough, but I think that there were instances

where Paul Francis wasn't being clear, or at least that's the way I perceived him, such as some of his comments on same-sex issues in relation to the priesthood and stuff like that. And so, who am I to judge that whole thing? Again, I'm not weighing in on what what he actually said, but just my perception of it at the time was that this was wrong, and how could a pope say such things like this? So I started to see things like that that really concerned me, and then I would also hear him talking about the importance of the environment and things like that, and I'm. And then I would also hear him talking about the importance of the environment and things

like that. And I'm not saying that I was opposed to the importance of the environment. Screw the environment. I hate it. Yeah, let me just throw my trash out the window. No, I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is I was under the impression that the main purpose of the church is really to bring souls to heaven. And I kind of felt like the pope wasn't really focusing on spiritual issues, he was focusing

on issues related to the environment and a gospel of the environment. And coming from Protestantism, I'm thinking, but where's the gospel, you know, of the forgiveness of sins and the need to repent of sins and the gravity of sin and stuff like that, and the need to repent of sins, and the gravity of sin and stuff like that, and then the mercy of God. I wasn't hearing that, but I was hearing stuff about the environment. And so that was very confusing to me as well. And then I started hearing Pope Francis saying things about traditionalists. And for me, I felt like he was just attacking me as somebody

who just wants to be faithful to sacred tradition. Here I am as a convert coming from Protestantism to Catholicism. One of the main reasons why I came into the church is because I'm trying to be faithful to the tradition that has been handed down to us from Christ and the apostles. And I felt like, well, Pope Francis is attacking that whenever he's making these comments about traditionalists being Pharisees and stuff like that. And so those were some of the things that I started to experience. And the nail in the coffin, I don't know if I'm fast forwarding too much for me, but the nail in the coffin for me was Amor Slatitsia. At the time I just did not know how to sum up the confusion, confusion there for those who haven't heard of it

or don't know much about it. Yeah, so this was a document, a post-conodal apostolic exhortation that was released by the Pope after a sit-in dealing with the family. And there was a whole lot of hype that the Pope was gonna change the church's teaching on divorce and remarriage.

And I was very concerned about that. I had written articles about it, all kinds of things. I was very vocal about my concern in opposition to any kind of changing of that dogma. So I was very concerned at the time, and whenever he released his apostolic exhortation in chapter 8, I immediately read chapter 8, and I felt like in that first initial reading that he was just basically giving up the dogma in practice. You know, he wasn't denying the dogma theoretically, but in practice he was just making it moot. And I just thought, look, I thought the purpose of the papacy is to guard and

preserve the deposit of faith, but here you have a pope who's acting contrary to that which has been handed down to us from Christ himself. Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of the papacy? I mean, why do we even have a papacy at this point if the papacy can be such an active force in destruction in the church. I'm not saying that's my position now, I'm just saying that was my position at the time. I think a lot of people feel that way. And I can certainly sympathise with people who feel that way today because I've been there. I understand why you might have that impression.

So what was your, unless I'm fast forwarding too far, what was your reaction to all of this at the time? Well, for me that was a straw that broke the camel's back. I had already, you know, gone through about, was it three or four years already of confusion with what's going on doctrinally in the church, and trying to grapple with the situation in the post-conciliar era. So I already had a lot of confusion that was just bubbling up. But there were also some personal acts of betrayal where I felt the church betrayed me and failed me.

So at this time of reading Amor Satyatia, where I just kind of felt like this is the straw that broke the camel's back, it came on the heels of already a whole lot of loss of confidence in the papacy theoretically, but also having gone through a lot of hurt practically on the local level where I felt priests and different people did things that they shouldn't have done and it just really wounded me spiritually. Deeply hurt me at the time and just did not know how to process it. And I can get into details if you would like here.

But for me again, it was a more satitia that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back because it came on the heels of all of that. So for me, it was just like, okay, I'm out, I'm done, I need to just start considering something else. Because for me I felt like maybe this is God saying practically in the situation in my life, maybe that's God speaking to me through circumstances and saying, you made the wrong choice, you shouldn't have gone to Catholicism, you should have, you know, considered Orthodoxy or something like that. So I began to consider Orthodoxy at that time, but there's a whole lot more to all this, there's a whole backstory, I can give you more details.

I believe you gave me some of the backstory the last time we did an interview virtually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I did. Now you were married, yes, and do you have kids? Yeah. And do you mind me asking what was that like for them? Did they come with you into Catholicism and then start looking to Orthodoxy with you? Yeah, so when I came in at 2012, I at the time had two kids with my ex-wife. It's, you know, from a previous marriage that's been annulled, and that's part of my story here.

But two kids, and actually, I think my son was born right after I entered the Catholic Church, because I remember he was baptized in the local Catholic parish. So yeah, I had them, and of course had my son baptized, but my daughter had already been baptized, so she was just received into the Catholic Church. And my wife at the time was also confirmed and received in. Mason Hickman Did that make it, because I know I'm chatting with people right now who are on the cusp of converting and the drama of the family who might be reluctant or more enthusiastic. Was that a big part of your? Yeah, see, this is the thing.

Though my ex-wife converted to Catholicism, she did not convert to authentic Catholicism. It was more a social thing for her. So for me to actually convert to Catholicism, as she put it, a person who believes everything in the catechism, that was a source of tension. She wanted to remain Protestant. So it was a major problem for her.

In fact, I remember she even told me at one point before she had abandoned the marriage that if I had not converted to Catholicism, you know, she wouldn't have divorced me. So yeah, my conversion to Catholicism was very costly. It caused a lot of friction between us and- Gosh, that must have made the pain all the greater. When you make all this kind of sacrifice, you show up and then you feel let down both on the local level and the universal level.

It gets worse because what really made the pain all the more real is I wanted to be faithful to the church's moral teachings. So I could not in good conscience use artificial contraception in the marriage. She again wasn't serious about Catholicism, so she wanted to use it. That obviously created a lot of problems and then a lot of distance between us. And so she ends up, unfortunately, I think I mentioned to you before, she was unfaithful in the marriage. And I was doing everything I could to still try to be faithful

to God and save the marriage and be faithful to my marital vows. But it just wasn't working for her because I wasn't going to budge on the issue of artificial contraception. She was effectively asking for me to betray God, and that just wasn't an option for me. So that was kind of a deal breaker for her. Where it really hurt me as far as my conversion to Catholicism, where the wounds really showed up is she went to the local priest and mentioned to Helm the issue about contraception, and he said, oh, your husband is wrong. the issue about contraception and he said, oh, your husband is wrong. Oh, you're kidding. You can contracept and look, if he's that kind of guy and he's not going to contracept

with you, you can just divorce him. So he encouraged her to divorce. And you know, looking back on it providentially, it worked out for the better. I mean, I'm happy with my wife and everything. So looking back on it, it worked out well. But at the time, I felt so betrayed. Because here I was, I converted to Catholicism, and it was very costly. I had planned on being a pastor, a Protestant pastor.

I knew if I converted to the Catholic Church, that's not going to be an option anymore. So I got to figure out what am I going to do now with the rest of my life as far as a career. So I had to throw a whole career to the side. That's what I was setting myself up for. And then I felt very hurt because the church that I converted to, I expected to be a source of solace,

and here I felt like it was a source of pain. But that was just something that I felt subjectively and emotionally, and I'm a person of reason, so I said, look, these are just emotions. Just because people treat you wrong doesn't mean this isn't the church Christ established. You could have a great time in the Catholic Church, that doesn't mean it's the church Christ established. You could have a horrible time in the Catholic Church, doesn't mean it's not the church Christ established. You have to evaluate these things objectively. So I kept telling myself, look, yeah, these people hurt you, they betrayed you, and it seems like the church wasn't there

for you, but that's really just individuals. That's not the church itself, and that doesn't speak to whether or not Christ established the church. So, I continued to just push through it, push through the pain, and just, you know, move forward. But I was still struggling on the other hand, doctrinally, with how to make sense of what's going on with the papacy. And so finally I just came to that breaking point with Amor Stetizia where I just felt like, look, I converted to the Catholic Church for theological stability, and I feel like I'm getting the exact opposite than that. And maybe God is speaking through my circumstances saying,

hey, here's what happened with your marriage and here's what's going on with this doctrinal confusion. That's me showing you that this isn't where you need to be. So I started to consider other options. I considered set of a Kantism, but I did not find that to be something that I could, you know, truly entertain. So I looked more into Eastern Orthodoxy. Had your podcast started at that point? No. I was doing some apologetics at the time, but I was pretty radical in my apologetics. I was,

you know, all of the talking points of the of the more radical leaning traditionalists today, I was making back then. That's why I kinda feel like some of the more radical leaning traditionalist today, I was making back then. That's why I kind of feel like some of the people who are new to this area, they're Johnny-come-lately, because I was saying all these things years ago. So I get it, you know, whenever I hear people repeating some of this stuff, I get it, I've been there. But yeah, I wasn't doing reason and theology, however, at the time, but I decided, look, I'm confused at this point, I need to start discerning something else, so I just backed

off and stopped doing apologetics, stopped doing anything public, because I just felt like I need to figure things out. Mason- At that point, did you decide to stop going to Holy Mass and just distance yourself? Bregman- No, I still pushed through, but I would have to go to other liturgies because at that, at the place I was going to, one of the people that my ex-wife was unfaithful with was at that parish. And it was just, it's hard to go to liturgy and find it to be a source of comfort. And let me put it like this, actually. It's hard to make the liturgy prayerfully and meaningful whenever you're thinking about

that at the same time. Do you get what I'm saying? I'm not saying that we go to the liturgy to get something out as far as feelings, but it's hard for it to be prayerful and meaningful when you're angrier when you leave it than when you went in. And so it was difficult. So I had to find another liturgy and it wasn't really... And in Monroe, Louisiana, was that that difficult to do? To find another?

Well, the other ones were just really, really, really not traditional nov Nova sortos. So that was then a source of friction for me because I realized you know, I left Protestantism for a reason and here I am coming to a liturgy that really feels very Protestant and feels like it's deliberately not trying to be Catholic. And so if I wanted this I would have just stayed Protestant. So that became an issue for me. So yes, I would still go to mass even after all this while I was making this discernment, but it was still very difficult. At the same time, I would also visit an Orthodox liturgy.

So I'd fulfill my obligation at a novus ordo and then also visit an Orthodox liturgy. So I'd fulfill my obligation at Novus Ordo and then also visit an Orthodox liturgy. And had you discerned Orthodoxy as a Protestant or is it only now that Catholicism was seeming to fail? Were you then open to the arguments of Orthodoxy? So back in 2011 when I was, you know, discerning Catholicism, I was also discerning Eastern Orthodoxy simultaneously. I was a Protestant Presbyterian and they really push, or at least the group that I was with really pushed study in church history. So I started doing that and I realized,

wow, I'm in a communion that's, you know, very much divorced from the things that I'm reading. So I knew my options were pretty much reduced to Catholicism, maybe high church Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy. So I really evaluated all of those. And I ended up concluding Catholicism just because it made the most sense to me.

And even by 2015 when I started reconsidering everything, Catholicism still made sense on paper, still made the most sense, but paper Catholicism only gets you so far. You've got to walk into one of those parish things. That only gets you so far. You actually have to be able to live this. And when you're living an experience that's very different than what you see on paper and objectively, that caused a lot of cognitive dissonance. And so I just said, look, Catholicism makes sense to me on paper, but the experience has been dreadful.

And was that particularly the papal claims and the understanding of the Magisterium? Is that what kind of... That was the deal breaker for me, was the papacy. But then here I am, a Catholic, and I felt like the papacy is doing everything it can to destroy the church. So the very thing that I said is the deal breaker between Catholicism and Orthodoxy is the thing that I'm starting to see is actively going against, I felt at least, the church. So for me, ultimately, what made me to decide to really look to orthodoxy was not necessarily because of wounds and hurt, those factored in, but I still said to myself at the end of the day, you got to do what's right,

you got to go based on objective truth, but then I'm trying to square what I'm seeing with the papacy with objective truth, and it's not matching up what I thought the papacy was supposed to be, especially when I now see a morsel titsia and I felt that this was practically a betrayal of the indissolubility of marriage. So at that point I just said, look, maybe it makes sense on paper, but this might just be God showing me, hey, maybe it makes sense to you, but it really doesn't. Maybe you don't have all the answers on how this works and how orthodoxy might be right, but maybe you need to start looking into orthodoxy. So I started looking into it.

And where did you go to look into it? Well, I mean, my local Orthodox parish, but I also would check out things online, so there's all kinds of Orthodox podcasts and things like that. And did you find it particularly helpful? Some more than others, I'm sure. Yeah, I felt some were helpful, and I would also reach out to various Orthodox, but then I immediately began to notice some problems, because some Orthodox were telling me I would have to be re-baptized, and others were saying, me I would have to be rebaptized,

and others were saying, no, you would just be received by chrismation. So I'd be confirmed again. Darrell Bock Who do you listen to? Michael Svigel Right. And the closest place that would have rebaptized me was like eight hours away. And I would have done it if that's what God was asking. But I was thinking, look, that's also a problem. Is it really the case that God's truth would be so obscure that I have to drive eight hours

away past all of these other Orthodox churches in my area that are not doing this practice? Now, there's going to be some Orthodox who say, look, no, it's fine. If you're, you know, rebaptized technically, they'll say that's not rebaptism, and if you're received that way, that's fine. Or if you're only received by chrismation, that's fine too. So there's plenty of Orthodox who will say, look, this isn't a big deal, these differences that we might have in reception of converts. But some were telling me that it was a big deal, and I really wanted to consider that.

And some of these people were very prominent Orthodox figures, and they're telling me, no, if you aren't received by chrismation, you're really not actually an Orthodox. I'm sorry, if you're not received by rebaptism, and you're only received by chrismation, you're not actually Orthodox. That's kind of a minority view in Orthodoxy, so that's not the dominant view. But again, it was coming from some very respectful figures in orthodoxy that I really admired at the time. So I was considering it, but then again that creates all kinds of problems for me because

I'm thinking I've got to drive past eight hours of orthodox parishes just to get to the one orthodox parish that's holding the true orthodox method of reception, and I thought I'm already, you know, experiencing a lot of these practical issues in Catholicism. Now I'm starting to see these practical issues in Orthodoxy. So I, you know, I worked through that one and just said, okay, well, I'll just be received through chrismation at my local Orthodox congregation, because the majority of Orthodox are going to say it's not that big of a deal if you're not re-baptized, you're still Orthodox. So I just kind of went with the majority view there.

But you had been chrismated as a Catholic. Yep. Okay. Yep. Which I was a little concerned about because it's like why are we repeating sacraments? I thought we already dealt with this back with Donatism. I mean in the first millennium we already with Donatism. I mean in the first millennium We already addressed Donatism and I'm saying the problem of Donatism in

Orthodoxy with this issue. So why are we Re-confirming people that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But hey, you know what don't have all the answers I trust that you know, I'll figure it out later And so I'll just take it by faith. But I was noticing those problems, you know, even in that discernment period. And those were also some issues that I had previously discerned back in 2011 when I, you know, entered into the church in 2012. But when I was discerning Catholicism and Orthodoxy, I'd noticed some of those points of contention. And so here I was seeing them again.

So ultimately, however, I went ahead and after a few more years of discernment, took the plunge and became Eastern Orthodox. Okay, so you were with the Orthodox for a while. It wasn't like a Sunday afternoon, you decided to do it and then next week... No, I was there for a while. It wasn't like a Sunday afternoon, you decide to do it and then next week. No, I decided for a while. I was very hesitant to make any kind of quick decision, so I was certainly not going to do that and I wanted to put thought into it. But I came to the point that I felt like, look, I could study this the rest of my life and I just, you know, maybe I don't have all the answers, but I

just feel like Catholicism isn't that answer because of the way it's functioning. It just seems like the papacy is invalidating itself. Mason What did you find inadequate about the answers Catholic apologists were giving at the time? Because presumably you were looking into different Catholic groups to see if they could clarify the mess. Yeah, I felt like a lot of their answers were very surface level and weren't particularly nuanced, so I found most of them to be deficient.

So I wasn't very impressed with the responses that I was hearing at the time, and it wasn't really addressing the question that I had, how is it that the papacy is supposed to be here to guard and preserve the deposit of faith as a divine institution, and it sure seems like it's doing everything except that. It sure seems like it's doing the exact opposite. It's trying to destroy the faith. I got to the point that I just said doesn't that prove that Catholicism is really is it's invalidated itself. During these two years and then you entered the Orthodox Church, did you continue to have a high regard for Catholicism? Yeah. On paper at least?

Yeah. Or did you kind of grow in some anti-Catholic sentiments? No, I don't think I was ever really anti-Catholic. And in fact, here's the awkward part. So I would go and talk with Orthodox, and they would say, oh, so you're thinking about becoming Orthodox. Well, where are you coming from? Well, I'm a Catholic.

Oh, well, you know, the Catholics believe this and that, and they're wrong about this and that and they're wrong about this and that and and they would often say things That was just so fundamentally ridiculously falls And I found myself having to defend Catholicism in the process of converting to orthodoxy, which was very awkward I was at a Russian Orthodox Church one morning to pray Yeah, and while I was there I met a fellow in the bookstore and I said, well, I go to an Eastern Catholic Church. You went Catholic.

Do you guys still have the Pope? I'm like, yeah, still going on. Yeah. I would hear just the, you know, basic. And, you know, Jesus is the head, not the Pope. I mean, just silly stuff like that. I mean, and I guess, you know, I would have to say, well, you know, you as an Orthodox believe that the local bishop is the head of the local church, but I

don't think you would dare to say Jesus isn't the local head of your local church either. So obviously you can have a vicarious head or a material versus immaterial or invisible versus visible distinction here you have that right there on low grade and ecclesiology. Did you have Catholics in your life who are maybe disappointed that you would left the Catholic faith who are trying to talk you back into it or. It was one yeah. But he didn't try to talk me in for very long because I was responding back to him with information he wasn't aware of.

So he didn't have enough foundation to really respond to orthodox apologetics that I was offering in response. So pretty quickly he just said, hey, I think this is the wrong move, but I can't answer what you're saying. I love humility. And I respected that. That's so humble. That's fine. That's fair. So I respected that. And I

also respected the fact that he cared. And I knew that he thought I was doing the wrong thing. But anyways, I found it very awkward that I would have to defend Catholics there while I'm in this process of becoming Orthodox or I would you know, I'm trying to get away from Catholicism and enter into Orthodoxy and then now I'm seeing, you know, joint Vesper services between Orthodox and Catholics and it's like I thought I was leaving Catholicism and now I'm seeing a whole lot of you know mingling between Catholics and Orthodox and so it was just very awkward, you know But still again, I continue to just push through it and just say look I don't have all the answers I don't know how it all works but I just feel like Catholicism is not the answer and and I felt that

Orthodoxy then by default would be the answer Maybe I didn't know all the answers on how but I just felt like it would be the default answer if Protestantism is false and if Catholicism is false Therefore orthodoxy true is how I thought at the time Yeah, and you know And there were some decent arguments that I was coming across to defend orthodox ecclesiology and its perspective. So there were some decent arguments.

So I was saying, look, there seems to be some merit to what I'm saying here. It's not just completely unfounded or something like that. And the experience that I had was awesome. I was having a great experience locally with the liturgy and the people They were really great to me. So as opposed to Catholicism where the experience was horrible I was having a great experience liturgically and socially with the Orthodox

So I thought well, maybe that's again God just kind of saying this is where you need to be Again, I'm not trying to say that I knew for sure this is what God is saying. I was doing the best that I could to try to discern what is God's will for my life with the little information that I had. So yeah, eventually. How long were you with the Orthodox after two years in discernment and then chrismation? How long were you with them? I was with the Orthodox for three years. Okay, wow. I didn't realize you were with them for so long. So it was like five

years. I was with them for, I discerned for two years and then I was Orthodox for three. And then I don't feel like I really actually had to leave Orthodoxy though. See, I feel like Orthodoxy is here in the Catholic church in Eastern Catholicism. So I don't, I don't feel the Catholic Church in Eastern Catholicism. So I don't feel that I left. This is interesting. I don't feel that I've had to give something up.

This is what a lot of Protestants say, of course, when they become Catholic. They just think they got to take everything that they had and walk into a larger universe with it. Yeah, exactly. Do you kind of feel that way? I feel that way. That I didn't actually have to leave something or abandon something. I feel like Catholicism is where I find that tradition where it's most native.

But I can tell you how I ended up discerning returning to Catholicism. Yeah, because I'm sure your Orthodox friends and priests didn't see it that way. No, they definitely didn't. I continued to search out the question of the papacy, because for me that's where all of this stuff hinges on the papacy. The filioque way, all of the other debates really do hinge on the papacy. And I knew that then, and I still maintain that now. So I entered the Orthodox Church, but I said, look, I'll still keep an open mind.

Hey, God, if I'm wrong, if I made the wrong decision, just please show that to me. I don't think I'm wrong, but I'm open to your will regardless. So I continued to just study the issues and after I had some time where there's some emotional distance from the problems that I was experiencing and also the constant, I had some distance from the constant stuff from social media saying the Pope is doing this and look what he's doing here and look at this. And I had some distance from that to where I could actually just really assess Catholicism and orthodoxy a little bit more objectively without that. Yes.

Those additional elements. That battle going on around you. And the more I studied the issues, the more I felt like Catholicism just makes more sense objectively. But there was this still the struggle between Catholicism on paper versus Catholicism in reality. Mason- I would have thought that, yeah, the second time you came upon that conclusion, you would have been like, but I've been here before. I've already decided it makes sense on paper. But was, I mean, you say that you took your orthodoxy with you in a way, but were there deficiencies in the orthodox church or churches that you saw that made you go, okay, so I'm apparently

not going to find a church that doesn't have these particular ailments? Or, whoa? R. One thing that I'd hoped I would find an answer to, you know, I just kind of took it by faith, but I'd hoped that the more I was Orthodox, I would find an answer. One of those issues was how does the teaching authority of the church work? How can I objectively know what is right versus wrong? Is artificial contraception wrong in Orthodoxy? What is an ecumenical counsel?

How do I know what is definitive and what is not, what is binding on me, what is not. Those were all questions that I was asking because as somebody who's orthodox, I want to live my faith in accordance with what the church tells me to believe. So when I started asking those practical questions, I just continued to see problems. And I had seen this back in 2011 when I originally considered orthodoxy. I saw some problems here in answering those kinds of questions from orthodoxy. I continued to see them as I once again discerned orthodoxy.

And then as I was orthodox, I still continued to see those problems and I just wasn't getting answers to that question or to those questions. But what I was seeing is a strength to the Catholic claims of the Magisterium, how it works, its objectivity, and you know in identifying what is right, what is wrong, what it teaches definitively, what it doesn't, what is an ecumenical council, what is not. I would see, I would continue to see strength for, you know, the Catholic position here and an ongoing deficiency, an ever more increasing deficiency in orthodoxy. And there were other things that were going on at the time in orthodoxy that really just pointed out the need for the orthodox to be able to have an objective magisterium and an objectively identifiable teaching authority.

And I wasn't seeing answers, and I wasn't seeing it there in Eastern Orthodoxy. So again, that continued to make me say that I really need to continue to study the issue of teaching authority, the papacy, the magisterium, and compare those issues between the two. Mason Hickman You already know the answer to this, but sometimes you'll hear somebody say, like, the Protestants were so divided, so I became Catholic. And I'm like, yeah, but look at us.

Like, it's nice to pretend that we're all united, but in actuality, have a look. There's a lot of fracturing going on, there's a lot of infighting going on. And I imagine someone might have a similar objection when you say, I wanted to know, where is the definitive teaching? But then Catholics in today's day and age are also struggling with that about all sorts of different issues.

You know, they might say, well, my Bishop actually says it is okay as like your priest said, right? And you might say, well, I mean, maybe you can help us understand where do you go for the definitive teaching? Is it the current Pontiff? It's the, I mean, without getting too far in the weeds, but are we just sort of accidentally still manning the Catholic position when really it has just as many problems as orthodoxy? Or no? Well, those were the questions I was having to ask. You know, does Catholicism actually offer something that's different than orthodoxy

in this area? And what I noticed is, yeah, there actually is a way to number one, objectively identify the Magisterium of the Catholic Church as opposed to Orthodoxy, but also you mentioned there there are some things that are in dispute in Catholicism just as they're in dispute in Orthodoxy. But the difference is this, Catholicism has a way to objectively settle those issues. I'm not saying that in Eastern Orthodoxy. Now to give an example, you had some Orthodox study, you must be baptized again. And then many people said, no, you don't.

Where would you have gone for the definitive answer in your Orthodox church for that? Yeah. There may not have been a place. For a definitive answer on reception of converts into the Orthodox. Whether you should have been baptized having been baptized before. Like that's an example. Yeah, I mean, well, you could start, of course, on the local level with the practice of your local bishop, but then that just begs the question, what happens when you have another bishop who has a different one? And I was listening to Callistus Ware who was saying, look, this is a big, huge issue in Orthodoxy. This is not just a difference in practice, this is a scandal, according to Callista Swear.

And he was saying, you know, this Great and Holy Council of 2016 that's supposed to be coming out, I think it was 2016, the Great and Holy Council that was going to be coming out in Orthodoxy was supposed to settle that issue. Well, of course it never did. But, you know, I saw other figures like Callista Swear saying, look, this is a huge issue. So obviously I couldn't just say, well, what does my local bishop say because there's other local bishops who are going to say something different. That doesn't work. Well, what does this synod say? Well, there's other synods who say something else.

So obviously you're going to have to have something on a universal level that can settle this issue. Yes. Again, that's not to say that everything has been settled already in Catholicism, but what I want to say is the difference, however, is Catholics have a way to settle this issue on the universal level, whereas Orthodox don't. Some Orthodox might say an ecumenical council or a great and holy council or something like that, but again, they were calling the great and holy council for over 100 years, and then

it came and went and really didn't do anything. So a lot of people hung their hat on the Great Unholy Council, hoping that it would resolve all kinds of issues in Orthodoxy, and really it didn't do a whole lot. But again, other Orthodox might say, well, an ecumenical council can resolve these issues, but it just then begs the question, what is an ecumenical council? Some will just define it as, well, it's something that's called by the emperor. Okay, well, we don't have an emperor anymore,

so that doesn't work. Some will say, well, it's a council that's confirmed by the Penteche, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Okay, well, Orthodox aren't in communion with Rome, so I guess they're not gonna be able to have an ecumenical council right now, as long as the schism between East and West persists. So that doesn't work.

What's the third answer? There's a whole bunch of answers. Reception. There's another one called receptionism, and that is all of the Orthodox churches accept this council as ecumenical. Okay, well that begs the question, what is an Orthodox church? Because there were plenty of churches in the first millennium that didn't accept Chalcedon. There are plenty of bishops and churches, local churches, that didn't accept that. So it kind of begs the question, who are the Orthodox? And then number two, are we saying that they all have to accept it? So all 16 autocephalous churches

have to receive this council as ecumenical, and otherwise it's not ecumenical and it's not authoritative? Is it only that my local synod has to accept it as authoritative, or do all of them have to accept it as authoritative? There's not a whole lot of objectivity here. And so Orthodox theologians like Callistus Ware will look at this and basically say that they don't have an answer to the question, what is an ecumenical council? They'll go through all the theories and they themselves will point out none of these work. And so that's why you have figures like Florovsky in Orthodoxy who wants to just say, look, there's no objective way to identify an ecumenical council, and ecumenical council is a spontaneous event of the Holy Spirit.

Okay. I know a whole lot of Protestants who can make that same argument, so that doesn't really give me an objective answer on how to determine what is right, what is wrong, what is definitive, what is not objectively, if we're just relegating this to some kind of subjective movement of the Holy Spirit, because anybody can claim that they're on board with the Holy Spirit. That clearly did not work. So a lot of Orthodox would admit they don't have an objective way to identify an ecumenical council, and I will then compare that to Catholicism that does have an objective way, and that's through papal ratification.

So if the Pope is receiving it as an ecumenical council, you can consider it an ecumenical council. So what I was noticing here is that there's an objective way to identify what's an ecumenical council, and more importantly than what is an ecumenical council, there's an objective way to identify definitive teachings in Catholicism versus Orthodoxy. So yes, maybe not everything has been settled to date in Catholicism. But it has the structure in place to do it. But we have the ability to settle issues when needed.

So for example, let's just take a doctrinal example. We all agree. Protestants, Orthodox, Catholics would all say that Catholics teach the Immaculate Conception as definitive. Protestants and Orthodox may or may not agree with it. Most Protestants wouldn't. Some Orthodox might agree with it. Some wouldn't. But they would at least say that yes, Catholics do teach that definitively, right? So even they know that we have the ability to definitively teach something in Catholicism.

Whereas if you were to ask that same question in Eastern Orthodoxy, is this true? You're going to get different answers from different Orthodox. So now you have the ask the question, okay, all right, Catholicism has a way to settle this definitively and it has. Orthodoxy has not only not settled this issue of the Immaculate Conception, but it can't because it has no objective way to decide these things on that universal level. So I think that that's an example of the difference between the teaching authority of the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Now what I think an Orthodox could do is say, yes, maybe you as Catholics do have an objective way to identify what's definitively taught in your communion. Maybe you do have that, but that's not the structure that Christ gave us. The Mormons might actually have an objective teaching authority, an objective magisterium, but that doesn't mean Christ established the Mormon church, right? So just because you have that objectivity doesn't necessarily mean it's a slam dunk for Catholicism. I grant that. I grant that.

I understand that. It could be that Christ gave us a church that doesn't have an objective teaching authority structure, and you can't necessarily identify those definitive teachings objectively. It could be that that's what Christ gave us. But when I look historically at the data, I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing the opposite. I'm seeing that he did give us that authority structure, and then I'm seeing where Orthodox historically have accepted that. So that seems to push the needle. Can you give me some examples of when Orthodoxy has accepted that?

I would say the formula of Hermes' this is one. Explain that. I don't know what that is. So I mean there's a schism going on, of course, in the East. Most of the schisms in the first millennium originated in the East, but major schism that rocked the boat after the Council of Chalcedon. So we're talking fifth and sixth century here. And some of the Eastern bishops, including the and some of the Eastern bishops, including the Bishop of Constantinople, you know, went astray in some Christological issues related to Chalcedon. And long story short, in order for these Eastern bishops, including the Bishop of Constantinople,

to be reconciled to the Orthodox faith in the Catholic Church, they had to assign Pope Hermesdus' formula. And in this formula, he's teaching the papal claims, that is, papal supremacy. What year is this, roughly? So this is going to be in the 500s. I'm trying to think the exact year. That's fine. Yeah.

Is it 515? What's the council? Well, this is after Chalcedon. Maybe Neal can look it up. Yeah, this is after Chalcedon. Yeah, this is after Chalcedon. Okay. I want to say, how do you spell that? H-O-R-M-I-S. I can always, I can spell things when I write them out. It's hard for me to remember. But I think it's 515 somewhere around there. Over 250 bishops signed it. And the papal claims are quite explicit back then.

And the papal claims are there, and that's why you'll find Protestant historians and even Orthodox historians who recognize, yes, the papal claims that you find later on expressed in Vatican I are being expressed in the formula for misdice. They have their ways to try to respond to that, but it's generally conceded, yes, you do have over 250 bishops of the East signing off on the formula of hermits. So that's just one example. Another example is, probably a more important one, is you have some of these papal claims being made at the ecumenical Council it's dealing with the whole issue of monothelitism versus diothelitism so it's this debate between does Jesus have one or two wills I found a Pope yeah Pope Hermes this and it's a formula or liability of her miss this so when did he live though that's probably there I think I think it was five fifteen.

Wow. Is when the document was. Yeah, yeah. I should know. I was just looking at it in Dinsinger. No, I'm really impressed that you in the century. I was just looking. I don't even know the dates of my kids birthday. My kids died on five fourteen. Five fourteen.

OK, before then. OK, so I was I was in the bad part. For the second example, you're kind of in the middle of the frame. So I mean, you have the Six Ecumenical Council, and this one was one that was really pronounced for me in considering returning to Catholicism. Because in my reception to Eastern Orthodoxy, I had to profess the Seven Ecumenical Councils to uphold them. Well, one thing that's actually in the six ecumenical councils, you have a letter

from Pope Agathoth written to the emperor at the time that is then read at the council in front of the council fathers, and the council fathers accepted the letter. Now, the letter also has the papal claims. Okay. Papal supremacy and papal infallibility in it. So here you have the council fathers claiming this thing is divinely inspired. They completely accepted the letter that was again read out loud and has the papal claims. You know, some Orthodox might respond, okay, well, if that's your interpretation, if they're accepting papal infallibility, why did they then condemn Honorius? We can get into that question, how did they condemn Honorius just a few sessions after

affirming allegedly papal infallibility, and how does Honorius fair with papal infallibility? We can get into all that. But working through that issue, I still realize this was in favor of Catholicism. So I'm seeing more and more instances where the East is signing off in some cases to the Catholic claims that would then find their expression ultimately in Vatican I. So people of supremacy and people of infallibility of Vatican I, they're there already in seed form in the first millennium, and some of the Eastern bishops are signing off. Now, I don't want to say that this was always the case. There were, I think, plenty in the East who dissented from the papal claims.

I think there were also plenty in the East who dissented from the doctrine of the Trinity, or the deity of Christ, or that Jesus has two wills. There were plenty in the East who had doctrinally deficient views, including doctrinally or ecclesiologically deficient views, including doctrinally or ecclesiologically deficient views. So just because you find some people who descended from the papacy doesn't necessarily mean that the papacy is wrong any more than just because you find people who are denying the deity of Christ that somehow makes Jesus not divine. So again, you'll have people who will respond and they'll point to instances where some in the East did not accept the papal claims.

I'm aware of that. But I'm seeing in the context of an ecumenical council, them accepting the papal claims. I'm also seeing them accepting the papal claims in a very, very crucial context of coming back into orthodoxy with the formula of hermitis. And by the way, in the formula, there's a very curious phrase because it effectively notes communion with the Holy See is communion with the Catholic Church. It identifies those two things, so they're identifiable. In other words, if you're not in communion with the Holy See, that is Rome, you're not

in communion with the Catholic Church. And again, they're signing off on this. Mason- And this was to the point of what kind of church has Christ established. Maybe he doesn't want us to be all that clear on every particular doctrine, but the examples you're giving us is in history. But the examples I'm saying, and I think this is a point that Eric Ibarra has made very well, and in fact, a lot of his content really helped me work through some of these things, even though that he wasn't trying to push me in that way, but I was just hearing him out.

I'm hearing such a humble girl. Yeah, very knowledgeable. If I was as intelligent as him, no way. Very knowledgeable. No way. And so I was hearing him out, hearing the Orthodox out, looking into issues myself, considering what everyone has to say. But he would make some really good points. And one of the observations he's brought up, and I'll just simply repeat it, is that if Catholicism

isn't true and the papacy isn't true, what does that do then to Eastern Orthodoxy whenever you have Orthodoxy saying that it upholds these ecumenical councils and then in the acts of the ecumenical councils you have the papal claims? What does that do to Eastern Orthodoxy? I mean, another example is the Council of Ephesus, the third ecumenical council. You have the legate who is representing the pope, because the pope's not present at the ecumenical council, in Ephesus, the third ecumenical council. You have the legate who is representing the Pope, because the Pope's not present at the ecumenical council in Ephesus. This is 431. You have the legate representing the Pope. His name was Philip, so we call him Philip the Legate. He says in front of all of the

council fathers there that he effectively reiterates the papal claims as far as papal supremacy. He doesn't talk about infallibility, but he does effectively reiterate in seed form the claims of papal supremacy. Again, I say this in seed form because it's not fully flourished and developed as you find in Vatican I, but it's there substantially. And again, the council fathers don't protest this, and this is once again at an ecumenical council.

So the point is, at what point does this make the Orthodox lose credibility? If they're signing off on the papal claims in very important contexts like ecumenical councils, at what point does that then invalidate Eastern Orthodoxy if the papal claims are not true? And then upon what basis would I accept these ecumenical councils as Orthodox if they were wrong in their ecclesiology about the papacy? Upon what basis would I accept their Christology, but then reject their ecclesiology? This is the same problem that I noticed for Protestantism. Protestants might say, some might say, well, I accept the first, second, and third ecumenical

councils. But then you find things in the third ecumenical council that's completely foreign to Protestantism, such as the papal claims. And they'll say, well, we don't accept that stuff. I accept their Christology, but I don't accept their ecclesiology Okay. Well now I'm seeing Orthodox have that same problem I'm gonna accept the Christological outcome of some of these ecumenical councils, but I'm gonna then reject their ecclesiology I would imagine that the Protestant would say I accept these things from these three ecumenical councils because they align with scripture

Yeah, but those that diverge from it I reject. Does the Orthodox say something similar? I agree with what aligns with scripture and the teachings of the Church Fathers, but those that are foreign to those two I reject. BD That's a fair way of putting it. They might nuance it a little bit more, but it's going to boil down to I accept them as true in so far as they line up with the truth. But that begs the question, what is the truth?

Okay, so I need an objective way to identify the truth in order to then compare counsel to that. And again, admittedly, there really isn't an objective answer here for most Orthodox will admit to that. So that's a problem for me. You can't say, well, I accept this council as true insofar as it lines up with the truth, because you have Protestants who are effectively saying the same thing. I accept these councils as true insofar as they line up with the ultimate truth that is the standard of Scripture. It's the exact same problem. The Orthodox are just kind of relocating it to more locations than just

Scripture alone, right? I mean, they might expand it out into sacred tradition, which can then be found in the liturgy and things like that. And so they're expanding it out, the Orthodox, a little bit more than the Protestant, but it's the same begging of the question. And I would point these issues out to Orthodox that I was struggling with, and I remember I would often get the same answers. They became very stereotypical for me. The same answers, which would generally range from, oh, Michael, you're just, this is not how you access the truth. You access the truth through piety and holiness. You don't access the truth through rational reason and stuff like that.

And look, there's some truth to that, but there's some really holy people who disagree on some really important areas, so obviously that's not necessarily going to work. There's some really holy saints who completely differed with each other on some very important issues like Augustine and Jerome, among others. So that's not going to work. That's not going to be an objective way to identify what's true. So I immediately said, okay, that doesn't work. And then there would be others that would just say, look, if you want that kind of objectivity, you need to become Catholic. And I'm just thinking, what? So we're forfeiting here objectivity and identifying truth, and we're just completely making it subjective. What was the best sort of help you got from an Orthodox during that time to help you remain

Orthodox? Was there any particular one person or podcast or group that perhaps better answered these questions than your local friends? I think that what was pointed out to me was, Michael, you had a really bad experience in Catholicism, but you're having a great experience here in Orthodoxy, which again, I did. I loved my time in Orthodoxy. I loved my local priests. I'd lay my life down for that man. I loved the congregation. Great experience. Wonderful liturgy. I don't have any complaints there, as opposed to very bad liturgies that I went to in the Catholic Church a priest

Who in my opinion betrayed me? I think if I were in your shoes to be part of me trying to blind myself to the evidence of the policies Lest I have to go back to these sloppy nervous auto-massage want to Go where God wants me and I know that I can't ultimately make a decision based on how I feel or what an experience is because some people might have a horrible time in orthodoxy. That isn't orthodoxy. It's not true. A hundred percent.

Some people might have a great time in Buddhism. That doesn't mean that's the form. Right. So I don't, I don't think I've ever met a committed Mormon who hasn't impressed me with their morals and their kindness and their family. Now you might say, well, you don't know enough, but the point is my sample size, they all seem great. Yeah. But that's not how you judge the legitimacy of religion. That's not going to be the ultimate standard. So I had to say, look, even though I've had this

horrible experience, that still doesn't mean that the truth isn't there or that the truth is automatically in Eastern Orthodoxy. And so again, it was pointed out to me, but Michael you have this horrible experience with Catholicism, great experience in Orthodoxy, that's God showing you that this is where the truth is. And for me that ultimately doesn't do it because again you can have a horrible time in Catholicism, it doesn't make it not true, and you could have a horrible time in Orthodoxy, it doesn't make Orthodoxy not true. There could be people who scandalize you in Orthodoxy, that doesn't mean that isn't the church established by Christ and isn't the fullness of the faith.

So I need something objective. But when I'm looking for objectivity, I'm not getting answers objectively from the Orthodox, but I am getting it from Catholicism. Since contraception was a big part of your earlier years up until this point, had you tried to find some clarity on this topic of contraception as an orthodox and what was that like? A little bit. I mean at this time it was kind of moot for me because I mean my ex had already abandoned the marriage so I wasn't, you know.

But that seems to be a classic example of can the orthodox settle this question or not? And what's the answer? Because I'm not saying there isn't one. They don't have a settled answer. You know there are gonna be some who would say look in very limited rare cases you can use artificial contraception and others might say you can never use it. So I'm not saying that orthodox just all, hey, yeah, no, that hasn't been my experience. Maybe you'll find some Orthodox out there like that, but my experience tends to be that they tend to be reserved about it. Some will be entirely opposed and some will say it's allowed given certain circumstances and intentions in a marriage.

And if someone at this point says, yes, Michael, but your priest also told your ex, not wife, but you know, that there was a Catechist contraception, therefore it's exactly the same problem. You've got some Catholics saying this and some saying the opposite. Same thing in Orthodoxy. You've already explained this because you talked about the structure that can give you a direct answer, but. Yeah, in my observation, I would say it's not the same because, yeah, you might have people who have opposing views in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, but the question is, number one, is it settled in Catholicism, and can it be settled in Catholicism?

We can ask those same questions. Is it settled in Orthodoxy? The answer is no. Could it be settled? Yes. No, it can't be settled. Is it settled in Catholicism? I would argue yes.

But let's say I'm wrong. Let's just say that it's taught by the mirror authentic magisterium and isn't definitive, even though that's not my position. But Catholicism could offer a definitive intervention on this issue. See the difference. Yes, that's very hopeful.

It's kind of like this. The analogy I always give is, let's say you and I are going hunting, right? Although I've never been hunting a day of my life, I'm giving a hunting analogy. Let's say we're going hunting. Louisiana. Yeah, Louisiana. And I'm in the paradise of hunters and I've never been hunting.

Nobody in Louisiana has ever invited me to go hunting. If anybody's in Louisiana, leave a comment in the description. We'll get you in touch with Michael. I'd rather shoot a target because I know that I'm actually going to have a chance to shoot at something than wait on an animal that may or may not show up. Anyways, let's say a bear is coming at us, right? I have a gun. Let's say I have a shotgun. You have nothing in your hand. And he's coming at both of us. All right, now I may decide to put the shotgun down and fight it with a knife or my bare hands, right? But I at least have the ability to shoot that thing in the face and stop it, right? I at least have that

ability. You on the other hand have no chance. You're not gonna make it. So that's the difference. You might have a problem in Catholicism where something is being debated, but the question is, but can it be settled by the Magisterium? The answer is yes. Has it been settled? That might be a different question. Should it be settled? That might be a different question. But can it be settled? Yes. I can't say the same for Orthodoxy. And in areas where things should be settled, I'm not seeing them being settled. And I think a good example would be, again, the reception of converts. I think that the reception of converts really needs to be addressed in orthodoxy and the

late Metropolitan Callistus Ware agrees. This is a huge scandal in orthodoxy and needs to be addressed. So I'm not saying that to put down the orthodox. I'm saying that because there will be orthodox who try to say this isn't a big deal. Well again, according to Callista Swearer, it was. Now some people who are orthodox might say, well, I don't care what Callista Swearer says. But that just proves your point, doesn't it? It does.

And they also tend to be the more radical orthodox. You know how having Catholicism we have radical traditionalists. They have their own versions of that in orthodoxy because that's not just a Catholic phenomenon. I think that's a human phenomenon. So Protestants have that Catholics have it, Orthodox have it with everybody has that. We need a joke like a rad trad and ortho bro and a Calvinvinist whatever they're called walking to a bar stage calvinist okay so some people whenever they become calvinist they become so enthusiastic about tulip and calvinism yeah that that's all they ever talk about

and they're shoving it down your throat so presbyterians and reformed christians tend to call them cage stage calvinist because they're in that stage where they need to be put in a cage. Caged stage Calvinists also. I met a legend on a plane, that's funny. What's that? I didn't know there was a whole category. I met somebody like that on a plane. Did you? The machine's coming back from a Calvinist convention.

Yeah. Calvinist convention? Oh man. You made the mistake of asking. Here's another point. My time in Presbyterianism, I enjoyed it. I had a great time in Presbyterianism. So here's the thing. I had a great time in Presbyterianism. I became Catholic out of conviction, but not because I had some emotional dissatisfaction with it. I loved it. But again, I came to the conviction that that's not where

the fullness of faith is. I had a great time there. I had a horrible experience in Catholicism. I had a great time in Eastern Orthodoxy. So when people would tell me, but you're having a great time in Orthodoxy, it's a wonderful experience that's God showing you that this is where the truth is, I could always point out, but you know what, I had a great time also with the Reformed Protestants. So that doesn't really answer the question for me. That's not moving the needle. Yeah, that makes sense. Who did you reach out to at this point? I would think if I

was in your shoes becoming convinced of Catholicism, at least on paper, I'd be looking out to someone who's walked the journey ahead of me. Did you make contacts or friends? Were you just doing all this reading solo? Oh, it wasn't always solo. I mean, I was in correspondence with Galistus, where and others. I mean, a lot of Orthodox theologians. It's amazing that you're in correspondence with Calista Sweare and others. So I mean a lot of orthodox theologians and apologists and others. I would reach out to anybody that I felt had some kind of knowledge in the area that could point me in the right direction. Email with Calista Sweare?

Initially email and then yeah. I eventually had an opportunity to interview him on the show before you Like the year before he passed away. Okay, because he is just recently unfortunate pass away. Yeah Which is a tragic loss not only for Orthodox but also Catholics Hmm, he was an amazing figure and he was also very strong and uniting Orthodox and Catholics, which is something important to me Yeah, so I feel like when he passed away We all are suffering from that one Orthodox and Catholics, which is something important to me. Yeah. So I feel like when he passed away, we all are suffering from that one, Orthodox and Catholics. So when you say you brought, you felt like you could bring your Orthodoxy with you, you

didn't have to sever it, leave it at the door. What did that look like? What does that mean? I could see people who are Orthodox watching this being like, yeah, you kidding me? Well, I mean, there, you know, some people might feel that at this point I'm equivocating with terms on orthodoxy. They might feel that maybe I need to clarify and define my terms here. I think that the tradition of the East and what we would call the Eastern Orthodox tradition, that tradition that we find in the East,

I think that that is, its tradition is to preserve Catholic communion, communion with the Pope. I think that's native to Eastern Orthodoxy. So to be in communion with the Pope, I think is an essential feature to Eastern Orthodoxy. And I know Eastern Orthodox are gonna say, well, no, we don't agree, right?

They're gonna obviously define themselves differently and say, no, that's, you know, being a community with the Pope is not an essential aspect to Eastern Orthodoxy. So obviously they're gonna define themselves a little differently than that. But for me, when I look at the tradition of the East, I think that that's an essential feature of the Eastern tradition. So I want to say, essential feature of the Eastern tradition. So I want to say that's the fullness of Eastern Orthodoxy, that is Eastern Catholicism, being Orthodox in communion with Rome. But yeah, obviously we have to define our terms here. In this sense, I'm not saying Orthodoxy is opposition to Rome, adonaiola, the papal claims, adonaiola, the filioque. I'm not saying any of that. I think all of the

dogmas of the Catholic Church are native to the Eastern tradition, including the philiocue. So that's what I mean. So I don't feel that I had to abandon anything by returning to communion with Rome. I feel I gained something. Everything that Eastern Orthodoxy offers to me is offered to me in Catholicism, everything. The only difference is one thing is being offered to me in Catholicism that is not being offered in Eastern Orthodoxy and that is communion with the Sea of Rome. So if communion with the Sea of Rome is something that Christ expects us to preserve, then I have no other choice in the matter. And one thing that really, really, really, really stuck with me throughout this process of discernment

of returning to community with Rome was, I had already read the Second Vatican Council years ago before I even entered the Catholic Church in 2012. And one quote from Lumen Gentium really stood out and pressed on my conscience the entire time I was Eastern Orthodox. And it is from Lumen Gentium, I out and pressed on my conscience the entire time I was Eastern Orthodox. And it is from Lumen Gentium, I believe it's paragraph 14, where it talks about how you can't be saved if you refuse to enter or remain in the Catholic Church.

And here it's talking about the Catholic Church as centered around the papacy. So it's talking about the, you know, what we're calling the Roman Catholic Church has centered around the papacy. So it's talking about the, you know, what we're calling the Roman Catholic Church. It says, you can't be saved if you refuse to enter or remain in it if you know that it's established by Christ. So my difficulty here was I'm seeing all the evidence that the papacy is true and that the Catholic Church is established by Christ, but right now I have an imperfect communion with Rome. I have an imperfection and a loss of unity because I'm not fully in communion with Rome. That continued to press on my conscience the more and more I thought about it because I don't want to be lost, I want to be saved. But I'm seeing

Catholicism is true in its papal claims, and so I felt that that quote applied to me, that hey, if you know that this is something divinely established, that is a papacy, and you have that imperfect communion, you need to fix that. You need to be reconciled. Mason- I'm going to read that paragraph. It's quite short. This is from paragraph 14 from Lumen Gentium from the Second Vatican Council. The sacred council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful basing itself upon sacred scripture and tradition. It teaches that the church now surging on earth as an exile is necessary for salvation.

Christ present to us in his body, which is the church, is the one mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms, he himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the church. For through baptism, as through a door, men enter the church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ would refuse to enter or to remain in it could not be saved. That's the part that really pressed them. I bet there's a lot of people out there who didn't realize that the Second Vatican Council had such strong language.

Well they'll say it's mitigated by paragraphs 15 through 16, which I don't agree. I've done whole shows showing that no, that doesn't take away from paragraph 14 at all. Yeah, a lot of people are, they're surprised to see that you have that doesn't take away from paragraph 14 at all. Yeah, a lot of people are, they're surprised to see that you have that strong language there in the concealer fathers. Yeah, that's certainly true. And like I said, that continued to press on my conscience, but I didn't wanna make any quick decisions.

You know, I just continued to study through the issues and you know, discerning the matter for again, about three years, I finally just came to the conviction, look, I can study this the rest of my life. There's great arguments for orthodoxy, great arguments for Catholicism. I could spend the rest of my life studying this, but I have children,

and I have to be able to take them somewhere. And I have to be able to raise them some way, right? I mean, I have to make a decision here. And my Orthodox priest even pointed that out. Look, you gotta make a decision, because I was speaking to him about my struggling here. And he says, look, you just, you gotta make a decision. And when my priest kind of said, you need to make a decision, when he pushed the issue, I said, all right, look, in so far as I can tell, it seems that

I need to preserve Catholic communion if I want to be faithful to the ecumenical councils that I profess to uphold, and if I want to be faithful to the Eastern tradition in its entirety, I need to preserve Catholic communion. So I returned to communion with Rome, and I haven't looked back. And I feel, again, I've only gained something. I don't feel I've lost anything. I feel I've only gained since then. That being said, I'm not at all condemning anybody who hasn't come to that conviction and isn't, you know, of

that perspective and is still Eastern Orthodox. I'm not saying they're condemned to go into hell or anything like that. I'm just saying when I was at a point that I realized I need to preserve Catholic communion, I need to be in union with the Pope, or that's gonna have implications for my salvation, and this is an abiding conviction, this is not going away,

the more I look into it, the more it's confirmed, I realized I have to act on my conscience. And since my priest pushed the issue, it's like, okay, I'm going to make a decision then. Do you think if we had have had or a stellar Pope right now, that would have made the job easier? Like if we had have had just a rock star, orthodox, very clear hope, Holy father, while you were going through this, would it be an easier to come back to Catholicism? Yeah. Like personally, no,

it wouldn't matter. It's remarkable Catholicism? For me? Yeah. Like personally, no. It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter at all. It doesn't matter to me. Yeah. For you, you just looked at it. You're like, here's got to be where the truth is. The Pope could be awesome.

That doesn't make Catholicism true. The Pope could be horrible and could be a fornicating Pope. We've had those before. That also doesn't make Catholicism not true. And so you knew that going into this. I didn't care. Now I had to still work on the issue of, okay, but how does that then work with Amoristitizia? How does that then work with Pope Francis? How does that then work with the post-conciliar era? I have to have answers there,

which I came to a conclusion on. I came to find answers there, but it was certainly not something that Was immediately evident it took you know it took time for me to be patient and you know discerning and work through these issues Because again emotionally at first I felt like a more so it was a betrayal But then the more I looked into it the more I said okay. I see what's going on here This reminds me of something Cameron Batuzzi. He was in chat earlier. Was he? Sup, Cameron?

What a guy. He said something recently that kind of reminded me of this. He says, Catholics, when previous popes made serious errors, oh, it's all good, bro. Popes can make mistakes. Catholics, when Pope Francis makes serious errors, kill me now. I mean, that was kind of my experience at Catholic Answers, right? good bro. Popes can make mistakes. Catholics, when Pope Francis makes serious errors, kill me now. I mean, that was kind of my experience at Catholic Answers, right? Whenever we would try to talk to Protestants, we would say, we're not saying everything he says is right. You know, maybe

could be, as you say, a fornicator or whatever. Um, and then all of a sudden when Pope Francis starts saying crazy stuff, you, it felt like all the Catholics were like, no, I take that back. He has to always be right or else our world falls apart. You know what else kind of encapsulates that? I did a skit like a year ago where I said, you know, some Catholics will turn to the Protestant and say, hey, you know, Protestant Bob, you have to be in communion with the Pope or you're going to hell. You know, you have to be in communion with the Pope to be saved. Yeah. And then they'll turn around and say to others, Pope Francis is the worst thing ever. If you follow him,

he's gonna destroy your soul. He's abandoning the faith. Pacha mama, heresy. Yeah. And it's like you say one thing to Protestants, but then elsewhere you say that he has completely deviated from the faith. So then you're saying I have to be in communion with a heretic who's completely abandoned the faith, has deviated from it, is an idol worshiper. You're telling me that, but I have to be in communion with him to be saved. It's almost like Catholics don't realize we're speaking in the same room as Catholics and Protestants, and by the same room I mean YouTube. But that's important for me, because I have to engage Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants.

I engage all of the above, so I have to be consistent. I can't just put myself in a little box and make comments like that about Pope Francis when I have Orthodox and Protestants listening. I have to be able to be consistent in my apologetic of critiquing some aspects of the current pontificate, but in a way that doesn't do damage to the Catholic claims whenever I'm having the same discussions with Orthodox and Protestants, who are making those same arguments, by the way, some of them.

Some Orthodox and Protestants will make the very same arguments that I'm hearing from some Catholics Unless I'm jumping too far ahead Tell us about why you made that video that you released several months ago where you said I I don't I'm not good This is why I'm not gonna be attacking the Pope like I used to For those who haven't seen the video, maybe not sure what that means. Yeah Yeah. Yeah, I think the video is something along the lines of why I stopped bashing the Pope Yeah, because I used to be very, very critical of Pope Francis. And this is when you're back in the church, you're fully convinced of the truth of Catholicism.

Because I'm still working through some of those issues. Still working. It wasn't like that. I was still working through some of the issues, but I knew enough to realize that this is where I need to be. And I'll continue to work on the questions that I have as I go. But the reason why I came to that conviction is I look at Scripture and I see Paul basically saying he was wrong for rebuking the high priest whenever

he accidentally rebuked the high priest not knowing it was the high priest, so this is in the book of Acts. He called him a whitewash tomb, I think. If I recall correctly, which is also a term that Jesus used of the Pharisees, so Jesus used that same kind of language, but Jesus can do that because he's God. Yeah, you're just a YouTuber, dude. Yeah, yeah. Calm down, Matt Fred. But Paul, this amazing saint, uses that same language against the high priest, but guess

what? He gets slapped on the face and they say, how dare you say this to the high priest? And he says, brothers, I didn't know that this was the high priest because Scripture – Keep talking, I've got to look this up. Yeah, this is Acts – I forget what chapter, it's in the latter part of Acts. But he says, you should not – the Scriptures say in the Old Testament, you should not speak evil of your ruler.

Comes from Acts 23. Let's go to 23. For those who were standing near Paul said, how dare you insult God's higher priest? Paul replied, brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest, for it is written, do not speak evil about the ruler of your people. And he's quoting the Old and Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees, the other Pharisees called out in the Sanhedrin, my brothers I am a Pharisee.

Yeah. So he's quoting the Old Testament there where it speaks of not speaking evil against your ruler and he applies it there to the high priest who certainly we would say had a whole lot of problems at the time, right? Jesus had just recently been crucified and we know who all had a hand in that, and so there was certainly some culpability here. And yet he himself, this amazing saint, says that it would be wrong for him to say that thing about the high priest, even though there might be some legitimate reason to say that

about the high priest. It still wasn't his place. And this is St. Paul, so I'm realizing, hey, look, I've probably gone a little too far in some of the things. I may have 20 plus thousand YouTube subscribers, but I'm not poor. I shouldn't say some of these things. Bless you. Now, on the other hand, I don't think that that means that we can't express criticisms

or concerns. And it doesn't mean that everything the pope does't express criticisms or concerns, and it doesn't mean that everything the pope does is right and prudent, and it doesn't mean that everything he does isn't even harmful. I mean, there could be some things that he might do that is scandalous, and that does harm people. So I want to walk a balance between those. I don't want to go too far and say some things that are theologically wrong or that are impious. I don't want to go there. But I also don't want to go to the other extreme where people just act like there's no problem with the present pontificate or anything in the post-conciliar era and everything is just

wonderful. No, that's not true either. I think that there's a middle position here. I think that we can say, okay, well, number one, we shouldn't use that kind of approach and speak of the Holy Father with that kind of language. I think we can safely say that according to Scripture. I think we can also safely say that the Pope is not promulgating heresy or anything like that, and he's not actively destroying anything in his magisterium. He's not working against the Catholic Church in His magisterium.

And even as far as His private person, I assume that, you know, given the judgment of charity, I assume the best intentions on His part. I think we can safely say that, or at least we should be able to say that, because I think that we owe the Holy Father, especially due to His position, we owe Him the judgment of charity, right? So if there's a way to interpret him in a positive way, you owe him that obligation, unless it's just abundantly clear that you can't interpret his actions in a positive way. In some cases, I think that that might be the case. In some cases, I think that we can say, this was a wrong move of the Holy Father. And we have to be willing to express that. We have to be willing to say that rather than be the group that says, there's no problem.

Give us a concrete example where you would look at what Pope Francis has said and done and went, no, this was wrong. Okay, well, I think his recent appointment to the Pontifical Academy for Life would be a good example. I think this is an area where, according to Canaan 212, we can charitably express our concerns with some of the judgments of our leaders. So this would be the bishops or even the pope. And Dona Veritatis also speaks about some of this, where it notes that the magisterium can have some particular failures, prudentially. What about Pachamala? Yeah, I think this is another example.

I remember I got called a demon worshipper defender whenever I pointed out that they actually weren't intending to worship a pagan aisle or anything like that. If you look at the ceremony, they specifically identify it as Our Lady of the Amazon. I didn't know that. So it might be a horrible representation and way to represent the Virgin Mary. How do you know that they thought of her as the Virgin Mary? They explicitly, whenever they presented the image to the Holy Father in the ceremony, they explicitly call it Our Lady of the Amazon. But didn't he refer to her as Pachamama? Yeah, he did later on refer to it as Pachamama, but I thought that that was more accommodating language. This is the way people are referring to it. I don't think that he was

trying to say like, this is the pagan idol and we're venerating a pagan idol in light of the evidence that suggests that no, they called it Our Lady of the Amazon. Now, could there be some people who intended to worship a pagan idol through it? Maybe so. And if they did, they're wrong for that. But I can't assume that that's what the pope was doing in light of that evidence, just on the basis that later on he's using that kind of accommodating language to refer to how the media is referring to it. I have to give him the benefit of the doubt in light of the audio from the actual ceremony. That being said, though I will give him

to benefit of the doubt that he's not intending to venerate some pagan deity, what I won't do is say that this was a good move and a prudent action on his part. Here's the deal, we know that the average person, if they were to watch that, is going to perceive this as idolatry. Is that really prudent?

Probably not. So should we be doing this? Probably not. That's my concern here. So even if the pope is free from idolatry here, I don't think that gets him off the line. I think this was incredibly scandalous and improvement because it gives that appearance of idolatry.

So even if there is an idolatry because it gives that appearance of idolatry. So even if there is an idolatry, it gave the appearance. Now you might say, but people should know better, they should know the difference between veneration versus worship and know all these distinctions, sure. But again, the average person still doesn't know that even if we think that they should. So is this good? Is this prudent? Should we do this? No. So that's my criticism. I don't want to be one of those who says there's no problem here, but I'm also not going to take that extra step and

accuse him of idolatry when I don't see sufficient evidence. So what was it that led you, and if I'm getting this incorrect, you'll correct me. What was it that led you from being overly critical of the Pope to, I need to start giving him the benefit of the doubt, but be honest about, was it just that line from scripture that you read? Was it a slow progression that led? It was definitely a slow progress, but one thing that really changed things for me is when I started to see people interpret me uncharitably. Again, when I pointed out the issue about Pachamama, I immediately got called by some youtubers a demon worship defender, and then I saw

that being spread all over online, and I know I did not defend demon worship and I never would. So I saw, you know what? Hmm, that's odd. People are just taking whatever they see online and running with it and not actually listening to what I said. There's no way you can listen to what I say and say that's defending demon worship. That would be uncharitable. When I started to see people do that to me and misrepresent me, misquote me, and then that misquote circulates online, and then people distort it into something else, and then I realized, realized hmm I wonder if these people are doing that to the Pope too and others and I started watching and

noticing wow they're doing that to the bishops they're doing that to the Pope and then I had to start asking the question am I guilty of the same because if I'm saying a fault in somebody else I have to ask the question am I guilty of that same fault I want to be consistent because if I'm seeing something wrong with them but I have the same problem, that's hypocrisy. So I started asking the question. Let me remove the splinter from your eye. Exactly.

So I had to ask the question, am I guilty of the same thing that I'm seeing these people doing to me and others? And the answer was, yeah, to an extent in some cases I've crossed that line and I should have given the Pope or some bishop the judgment of charity. And so that really convicted me. That probably did it more than anything. You said that you had seen other people misinterpreting Pope Francis or the bishop's words or actions. Are there specific examples that have kind of hit the press and blown up, maybe blown

up in the YouTube Catholic-osphere, YouTube-osphere, YouTube vlogosphere, I guess, that you thought, yeah, here's a classic example of something being totally taken out of context. In Amor Cetizia, paragraph 297, it says something to the effect about it's contrary to the gospel to be condemned forever or something like that. Something along those lines. It's not exact quote, but it's paragraph 297, it's to that effect. And some will say, well, see, he's denying hell, right? Because hell has been condemned forever.

And here it's saying it's contrary to the gospel to be condemned forever. And so therefore, it's saying that there is no eternal hell, he's denying hell, and he has a false understanding of the gospel. Just read the previous paragraph, paragraph 296. It's talking about how the church is not able to condemn someone forever. It is not the role of the church to condemn forever, but it is the role of the church to always offer forgiveness and mercy, to make it available. Now whether a person receives it or not, that's another issue, but it's nowhere saying that God can't condemn someone forever, which is the way they're interpreting it. It's saying the church is not going to condemn you forever for any sin that you've done. It's

always going to make the sacrament of confession available to you. You're always able to come and confess your sins and to be restored to Catholic communion. You might have to do some penance, but that's always available to you. I see. That's all it was saying. If you just read the immediate context, it's not denying the gospel, it's not saying you can't be condemned forever, it's not saying God can't condemn you forever. It's just saying the church isn't going to do that because that's not the purpose of

the church. That's just saying the church isn't going to do that because that's not the purpose of the church. That's one example and I just thought, wow, and that thing is still being circulated today. And so what I noticed is people will give this false judgment or a rash judgment, they'll fail to give the judgment a charity, they'll distort something, intentionally or not, I don't know. That narrative will be created and it will continue to circulate itself no matter how many times you bury it and show that it's wrong. It will continue to circulate over and over and over and over and over. And whenever you have that just one time with just one area, more satitia, okay that does some damage. But what happens when you have a hundred things that the Pope has said that are being done this way?

Now you have an entire paradigm being formed and a person is now under the impression that the pope is doing all of these things. So whenever somebody like me comes around and starts to question some of these details, they think, oh, you're just, you know, you're just coping or you just don't want to, you're a pope's splinter and you just don't want to recognize reality. What it is, is they built an entire paradigm on some things that are true, but a lot of things that aren't. Notice that I said some things are true. Some of these criticisms are legitimate.

There are some things that I've heard some people say who engage in this rash judgement. I've heard them say some things that are true. So I'm not saying everything that you can hear from that camp is wrong but a lot of it is and Whenever you start to chip away at it and question it a lot of people in that camp don't want to hear it because they've Already built this a huge paradigm and impression of Pope Francis based on all of these Rash judgments right so it can have the effect of what's sometimes called the shotgun fallacy, where somebody throws out a ton of things at you, kind of like what happened in the set of a

Kantism debate, right, where there was this, we had way too long and way too many cross examinations where brother diamond was able just to, what about this, what about this, what about this, where it's like, even if there were a way to respond to every one of these objections, you don't, you haven't, you do not have the time to do it. No, there's no way. And so it just seems to mound up and you're like, well, look at this mountain and then look at what you've given and it looks like you won. Yeah. And, and I've pointed out that a lot of the objections that were raised there were the same, are the same objections that I'm hearing being raised by Catholics who are not set up a contest. That's what's concerned me. being raised by Catholics who are not set of a contest. And I've been trying to call this out for a long time,

saying a lot of this argumentation is the same argumentation that I hear non-Catholics using, and it really does lead you away from Catholicism. And I think it shocked some people to see that a lot of their hobby, not hobby, but a lot of their favorite critiques that they use against Pope Francis were being used by a set of a contests. I think that that shocked some people to hear how similar they are in their criticisms of

the Pope with a set of a contest. I think that confused some people. And I've been trying to warn them, telling them this is where it leads. I'm good at like just sort of understanding maybe my own psychology and the movements of my heart in this whole thing. And I've tried reiterating this a number of times to see if I can say it succinctly in a way that is true. And that's this, right? That when you are in a friggin storm, you look for shelter. You know, like, and if you go in shelter and it's crazy there, too, how do you live?

You can't live out there, the world. I can't live in here, the church. And it feels like we don't have a leader or something. And then you find a strong man who's saying things strongly. Maybe he's condemning the Pope, maybe he's condemning the Second Vatican Council, maybe he's a set of accountants, maybe he looks like he's going that way.

And you're like, well, this at least is clear. There's something sturdy and solid here. And I'm tired of living in chaos and I need security. I get that. Like I get that temptation. Yeah. But I think that's why it's so dangerous. People are looking for stability. Yeah. They're they're looking for an authoritative and reassuring voice. Yes. And they're finding that in certain figures. But some of those figures aren't necessarily offering solutions, they're offering additional problems. What if we blow ourselves up? Ah, no.

Well, here's the thing. I think that most reasonable Catholics recognize that there are problems today. At least they should. Yes. They should recognize there's problems at the Catholic Church. However, the question is, what is the solution? And what I'm hearing from some people isn't actually a solution. It might seem like it at first, but when you start digging deeper, it actually turns out

to be adding more problems to an existing problem. And I think that that needs to be addressed. By the way, you mentioned a shelter and a storm and all that, and what do you do when you're in a storm? You know what I thought of? What? I don't know if you remember me whenever you interviewed me the first time. That's right.

Remotely. But I was in a storm in my office, and I got struck by lightning whenever you interviewed me the first time. That's right. But I was in a storm in my office and I got struck by lightning whenever you interviewed me. You remember that? I got zapped in my ear by lightning. Lightning struck It's like, well, you just, you draw these things together and. But here's the thing. What I will hear some, what I'll hear some Protestants say is they'll look at that same event lightning striking the Vatican and say, this shows that the papacy is false. God is condemning Catholicism and condemning papacy. Others will look at it and say, this shows that the resignation of Pope Benedict wasn't accepted, or God was opposed to it, or God is opposed to Pope Francis. There's different ways you can read the exact same event.

So I don't really put any kind of stock into it because you can read that from a Protestant perspective, an Orthodox perspective, Catholic, and so. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't find that kind of stuff to be very stable. I look for objective answers. Yeah. But I am concerned, and I'm going to say it again, that many Catholics today are becoming set of a contest in many ways except the name.

So they'll still kind of give lip service to the Pope and the bishops but then completely distrust the Pope and the bishops and And I'll just give you a few examples of things that I've heard and encountered that seem to To suggest this, you know, you've got people probably in my youtube comments saying can we finally talk about the heresies in? Theology of the body or can we finally talk about the heresies in theology of the body? Or can we finally admit that Faustina and that whole thing that she was a fraud or women shouldn't be wearing pants? Or I had I heard of one group, I think it was in Arizona. They finally talked their priest into celebrating the Tridentine Mass.

But then they discovered that he was using some hosts consecrated in the Novus Ordo and said, actually, we'd like don't do that. So what are you saying? We don't do that. Like you're saying the Novus auto is invalid. And this stuff is just getting forgive me, but wackier and wackier. And it kind of feels like the more obscure thing you can point and cling to, the more maybe orthodox you are, the more conservative and trustworthy you are. Like, I wonder, I wonder if some of these people, like I know Taylor Marshall, for example, has a great video he did back in the day on how Muslims and Christians

worship the same God. I found that video very beneficial. I don't know if you'd say that today. I don't think he would after his critique of Nostra Aetate. He critiqued it. Maybe he's changed his mind, right? And people are free to do that. Yeah, I think he has, and he accuses Vatican II in that instance of heresy. And that's where I think, okay, this creates problems, because now we're saying that the Magisterium can promulgate heresy, as long as it doesn't do it definitively. I think that is one issue that really, really, really needs to be addressed today, because so many people are under the impression that the only thing that is really being protected by the Holy Spirit

is the infallibility of definitive teachings, like an ex-cathedra teaching or a solemn definition of an ecumenical council. Well, that's our hope, isn't it? Because if that's not true, we're just left with this pope who says all sorts of stuff. I think that's why Catholics are like, oh God, no, he's never done anything against the Catholic Church, so none of it matters. But this is why it's important to be aware of some very important distinctions when it comes to the Magisterium. I won't concede that the Pope has promulgated anything, even in his merely authentic or non-affentative teachings. I don't think that he's promulgated anything that's heretical or even erroneous. I haven't seen anything yet, so if there is something out there, I just haven't seen it.

That being said, that doesn't necessarily mean that he makes the best decisions prudentially, and that doesn't mean that he might not say something that's doctrinally deficient whenever he's not acting in his magisterium. That's certainly possible. But when we are aware of some of these distinctions, then we're able to start to say, okay, well, I think we need to be a little bit more limited in the scope of what we're saying here whenever we're critiquing Pope Francis for what he's saying. Because again, I don't think that it's a doctrinally defensible position to maintain that an ecumenical

council can promulgate heresy as long as it's not definitive, or that the pope can promulgate heresy in his magisterium as long as it's not definitive, or that the pope can promulgate heresy in his magisterium as long as it's not ex cathedra. Even though that tends to be a very popular view these days, I don't think that that's a tenable position. I think that that is actually, not only is it not a traditional Catholic view, it's actually going against some other things

that the magisterium has said, which is where the irony is, because usually the people that are saying this kind of stuff are presenting themselves as guardians of tradition and being the most orthodox Catholics when they're actually in descent from the Magisterium, and that's my problem. A lot of people don't realize, for instance, that non-definitive teachings of the pope or an ecumenical council requires a certain level of assent on our part. So Vatican II, its teachings,

even whenever it doesn't teach definitively, it still requires religious submission of intellect and will at the very least. A lot of people don't recognize that. They think unless it's taught infallibly, I can completely dismiss it. That's a major danger today. That's not a traditional Catholic view either in the Preconcilier Era or today. It's just completely

in descent from the Magisterium itself. And that creates problems because the Magisterium itself has said in these non-definitive teachings that those are instances of Jesus's words, he who hears you hears me. This is coming, for example, from Pius XII in the Preconcilier Era, who says his non-definitive teachings and his encyclical, if you're rejecting them, you're really rejecting Christ, because He who hears you hears me. He applies that to his non-definitive teachings.

How much more does that then apply to an ecumenical council? If I'm rejecting an ecumenical council, thinking, oh, I can reject it because it's not definitive, what you're actually doing is you're rejecting Christ, because the Magisterium itself has already said that these are instances of Jesus speaking through the Magisterium. That's a huge problem. Thoughts on beneficantism. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean...

Is Patrick Coffin one of the primary promoters of this I guess is not in any folks Very slightly different views. I know Patrick often recently critiqued his version of better benefit. Okay Is he backtracked at all or is he? Which one Patrick? No, I wouldn't necessarily say he's backtracked Patrick. No, I wouldn't necessarily say he's backtracked. What word do you give to somebody who rejects the current Pontiff and claims to be Catholic? Schismatic.

According to the definition of canon law, 751, a refusal to submit to the Roman Pontiff is the very definition of schism. So I would say if you're really adhering to a Beneficontist thesis, that's schismatic. And for those at home who aren't familiar with that term. So I would say if you're really adhering to a benefocontist thesis, that's schismatic. And for those at home who aren't familiar with that term. So for benefocontism, it's a unique phenomenon. It's a recent one, and I don't think it's going to be around that much longer. But it's this idea that Pope Benedict is still the pope.

Either he's entirely still the pope, and Pope Francis is not. He's an anti-pope. Or there's other versions that might say Pope Benedict is sharing part of the papacy with Pope Francis. There's various versions to it. Either way, however, I would just categorize that as falling within schism. And that's troubling because I hear a lot of people say, look, these are valid options in Catholicism, Pentecostalism, set of a a Contism, these are just various differences in Catholicism. And I'm just thinking, how does that work with our definition of schism? It doesn't really work with that.

I don't see that. Yeah, keep going. No, well, no, I was just saying that's one of my difficulties with it, aside from the fact that I don't think that there's any real reason to maintain that Benedict is still the pope. I think he made it very, very clear in his resignation speech that he's going to resign in such a way that the Sea of St. Peter is going to be vacant, and the College of Cardinals will need to elect a new pope.

All you have to have for a valid resignation is that it has to be free, you know, it can't be pressured, it has to be free, and it has to be manifestly stated. And he did both. He was free and it was manifestly stated. Because he's saying, I'm resigning in such a way that you're going to have to elect a new pope. He made it very, very clear. So I don't think that it's a tenable position. some people say oh, but maybe he was forced out. Maybe he was pressured out But when there's no evidence for that what I'm hearing is we're covering up one conspiracy theory with another conspiracy theory Because there's no evidence for this and we're covering it up with something else that has no evidence It's like what what is the attraction to set of account ism? Yeah, and why should we reject it?

I think some people find it and what is it for those at home? Yeah, so it's it's the view that there is no pulp at the moment a little different than been of account ism This is there is a pulp. It's just Benedict Set of account ism says there is no pulp and there's various versions of it But the most common would be that there hasn't been a pope since Pisa 12. So over, what, 70 years now? Hasn't been a pope. I think some people find it attractive because they think that they can conceptually still maintain Catholicism and its traditional view as far as the papacy and all of its doctrinal teachings. But I can completely ignore all the chaos that is going on in the post-conciliar era, including Pope Francis' pontificate.

I could just completely ignore it all because he's not the pope and none of these guys have been popes. So it's convenient for some because they say, I can still maintain Catholicism, which I'm convicted of, and I don't have to explain anything in the post-conciliar era. So however, sometimes the truth isn't always that easy, right? Sometimes it requires some digging and explanation. And my ultimate problem with a set of accountants is going to be twofold. Number one, you have Vatican One using language about perpetual successors to the chair of

St. Peter. There will always be perpetual successors to the chair of St. Peter, there will always be perpetual successors until the second coming. Well, if we've gone over 70 years without a pope with no end in sight, according to the set of contests, haven't we disproven already Vatican One's claim of perpetual successors? I mean, at what point have we invalidated the adjective perpetual. So I think that that's a problem. And then also a set of ecotism. Sometimes they'll point out to canonical questions on the elevation of John the 23rd and others, and they'll say, oh, there was this going on in their life so they weren't eligible to be the Pope. The problem with that is there's a very well established doctrine called the peaceful and

universal acceptance of the pope that you can find in the Preconcilier era. And this doctrine effectively says even if you have some kind of canonical problem in the elevation of a pope, even if there is some funny business that went on in his election or somehow there was something that made him ineligible to be the pope. If however, he has been, you know, if however, the faithful as a whole, the universal as a whole, receive him as the pope, that will heal in the root any kind of canonical deficiencies and any impediments that were there. And that makes sense because the faithful as a whole cannot be deceived. Now at the time of Pope Francis's election,

was there this major uproar that he wasn't the pope? No, there wasn't. I think that it was very clear that you have this peaceful and universal acceptance of his elevation to the papacy, even if he had some problems with his elevation in his election. I think that that sufficiently demonstrates that set of a contesim is untenable.

What was, I mean, you did an excellent response to that debate. What was your favorite response? Did you, I'm not sure how many you watched in response to that. I thought Trent Horn did a great job. You're talking about the recent one. That's right. Yeah. I thought Trent Horn did a great job. I like also that he addressed some of the counter arguments that you'll hear from the set of a contest position to the question of perpetual successors in that language from Vatican One. He addressed some of the pushback that the set of a contest will offer. So I appreciate it. I thought it was a good response. The thing is there's like a million things

that you would have to address and answer just from what was brought up in that debate. I think what you said in your response was excellent, that who the hell would choose a proposition that broad? And you're exactly right. It was too, I would have, yeah, that was just too broad. Because I thought that, oh gosh, his name's escaping state escaping me not diamond

Casman Casman like I don't think he did a bad job I think he's a formidable opponent and very intelligent but that statement yeah and that and I and I maybe he didn't realize and I didn't realize what we were walking into when we decided let's have 800 rounds of cross-examination yes it's just too broad of a thesis. It would be very hard to really have a thesis that wouldn't still kind of open you up to that, however, with set of a contism. But that's the problem. It's like you have these response videos that have been offered and they're great, but there's

just so much more to cover that it's nearly impossible to do unless you want to sit there and give a million hours of criticism back. So what I've just done is pointed out the fact that you'll see some of these set of contests effectively admit on their own part that, you know, there's pretty much no valid, there are just a few valid bishops out there. Most of the priests that are out there aren't really validly ordained. There's a handful of them out there. But in most cases, you can't really receive the Eucharist from them. So it translates into, if you're going to buy into my set of a contest thesis, you have to effectively say, buy to the sacraments in 99.99% of the cases.

I don't know how that's not demonically inspired, that position. It seems very problematic. So what I want to say is, all right, instead of us sitting here and spending a million hours addressing every one of these objections us sitting here and spending a million hours addressing every one of these objections and there will be a million more that will come once these have all been addressed, instead of us doing that, let's just cut to the chase. What am I really buying into when I buy into set of accountasim? Well, in the vast majority of cases I just won't be able to receive the sacraments. That's what I'm buying into. I think that shows the problem with it. I was speaking to a set of accountants

who bought into all this stuff, and he's asking me about Our Lady of Fatima and conspiracy theories related to it, and all kinds of stuff, asking me all these details. And I'm just thinking, look, you're asking me all these little details, but let's just talk very basics. Where do you go to receive the sacraments?

And the individual says that they don't, because there's nowhere that they could receive the sacraments according to the set of conscious theses that they bought into, even though there are plenty of Catholic churches available they couldn't receive from them. So I said, look, this is exactly where Satan wants you. You're so distracted with all of these little theological questions, but the more important things, the elephant in the room is, you're not receiving God's grace through the sacraments. When I pointed out like that, that really made him think, and shortly after that he went and reconciled himself with the church and received the sacraments.

It reminds me of our Lord's words, Satan has desired to sift you like wheat, right? To separate you individually, isolated in your own very, very, very orthodox garage where you pray the rosary very, very well. It seems like once you're estranged then from the sacraments, yeah, you're in a really problematic position. So maybe we need to take a step back from some of these particular arguments and ask the question, the fundamental questions. Am I receiving God's sacraments?

Am I in a state of grace? We need to ask those questions. I think when we do that, we can quickly discern through some of these solutions that people are offering us to the present crisis. What I wanna do now is take a break. And when we get back, we're going to have a metric crap ton of questions. There is a link coming up in the live chat for our local supporters who we

give them the preference because they're paying us and we like them more. But then if you've got some interesting questions, feel free to throw them in the chat at me so Neil can see the questions and if they're sufficiently interestingly enough, we will break our own rules and ask the questions. I'm going to have some whiskey. Do you like whiskey or no? You want some or no? I'll try it. Yeah. Did you drink whiskey or no? I rarely drink every now and then I'll drink a beer. Okay. I got beer. You want a beer?

Yeah, sure. Okay. Join us soon. We'll take a break. We'll be right back. Right. Hey, you there, looking at me. You want the number one Catholic app on the app stores is HALO, H-A-L-L-O-W. It's a prayer and meditation app, which is faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church and is incredibly well produced go check them out hello.com Matt to tease

Link is in the description below if you go and download it on your phone You got to start paying a small amount every month But if you go to hello.com Slash Matt you can sign up and you'll get three months for free. It has sleep stories One thing you might want to do, especially if you're a parent, they have sleep stories for kids. And so getting to play scripture to kids is super cool. Also, all of my lo-fi stuff is now over there. I'm just not interested, Matt, because I can't listen to your voice on that. Well, you could. Is that the setup? Yeah.

Okay. You can. I don't know why you'd want to, if you want to terrify yourself I mean if you're speaking of sibling horror, this is far more creepy Do you want to listen to me read the Bible to you like this and you know, I wouldn't want that Yes, forget about me Scott Hans there Jason Everett Jackie Francois So go go check them out. Hello comm slash Matt. Hello HALLOW comm slash Matt. It's fantastic. And next I want to say thank you to Parla. You guys have heard about Parla. It is social media the way it was meant to be. I'm over on Parla. So if you click the link in the description below, you can go see my profile and sign up over there. Being on parla means freedom

from reach affecting algorithms and shadow bands. Actually one thing that's interesting is when I post something on Twitter versus when I post something on Parler I actually get more engagement on Parler even though I've got like 3,000 followers over there and who knows 50,000 or something followers I didn't even know over on Twitter So you actually get to reach more people because you're not getting banned. It means being free to speak your mind. It means freedom from cancel culture and freedom to grow.

So go check out Parler, click the link in the description below and sign up. Start following me if you want to. We're always posting the videos we're putting here. Parler knows what it's like to be canceled. They've been there, but they rose from the ashes, never wavering in their free speech mission. The reason is simple.

They say that everyone's voices matter. So all on Pala are equal regardless of race, age, religion, politics, or dietary choices. I don't know if that includes pineapple pizza, but yeah, it's not just like a conservative platform. It's a platform for people who value free speech. So go check them out by clicking the link in the description below and I'll see you over there.

And we're back. Ah, this is always my favorite part of the interview. After the break, just feel like, all interview. Is that right? After the break. Just feel like, all right, time to just chill out a little. Yeah, yeah. That pipe smells really good by the way. Thank you. Do you, I mean, you must enjoy doing YouTube. You do 100 streams a day.

I know, right? Or three or whatever. I do enjoy it. It is a hobby. It's a hobby that has now turned into a, you know, my full time job. But you're doing a great job I enjoy it. I like talking theology I always have at least always from the moment that I became interested in theology

I wasn't always interested in Christianity and you know stuff like that. So That kind of developed later on in life. Are you doing work with you are doing work with Catholic answers Yeah, in what capacity so I'm an affiliate apologists with Catholic answers Okay, they're not gonna make you move to San Diego. Well, I'm unable to relocate I share custody of two of my children in Monroe So I'll be a Monroe for another ten years at least so I have to make do with where I'm at Yeah Which is probably not the most strategic played a place to be with a YouTube channel in Monroe, Louisiana with no Catholics around me

I say kind of hard to interview people in person when there's not a whole lot Okay, I never realized how helpful it would be to move to student bill Living in Atlanta, I'd be hey you want to fly into Atlanta and drive an hour north to be interviewed in my home No, not at all. Whereas soon everybody's coming. A lot of people are coming through. And yeah, it's it's convenient. But yeah, I'm in Monroe.

And so I had to figure out a way. How can I, you know, provide for myself and do what I like doing? And that is theology in a way that, you know, also is a source of income. I can't be a theology professor there because there's nothing available. And so what am I supposed to do? Well, YouTube just kind of naturally developed. Now you've got a Patreon platform that I'd love people to consider supporting, but you also have courses online that people can buy. Is that right? Where are they? I'll have Neil

put the link in the description. It's MaximusInstitute.com. Dr. John Joy's course on the Magisterium is there as well as my course on the Magisterium. And I would recommend certainly get Dr. Joy's series first and then check mine out as well. Although you could go the other way, get mine first and then Dr. Joy's. But I've actually found Dr. Joy to be incredibly helpful on the Magisterium, so I highly recommend him. But yeah, if you want to learn about the Magisterium, how it works, Catholic teaching authority from A to Z, that's definitely where you want to go.

Okay. What's the most helpful sort of lay guide to understanding the papacy that's not so lay, but kind of lay guide to understanding the papacy that's not so lay, but kind of lay. So when you say papacy, you mean specifically the Magisterium? Specifically. You know what I found to be helpful? It was actually the document that introduced me into the Magisterium and really is where I developed my passion for it.

It's by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It's a document called… Wow. Yeah. I was not expecting you to say this. It's a document called... Wow. Yeah. I was not expecting you to say this. Believe it or not, believe it or not, this is a wonderful introduction to the Magisterium. Again, by the, it's now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, but back then it was Congregation.

And the title of the document is Commentary on the Concluding Paragraphs of the Profession of faith. And it's a commentary on the profession of faith that John Paul II, from 1989, that will give you an introduction to how the Magisterium works in incredible ways. However, if you start to read that and you kind of feel like, eh, no, I need something else

to maybe work my way up to this, that's fine. I think Avery Dulles' book on the Magisterium, wonderful. It will be that stepping stone to that document if you want one. Or Jimmy Aiken's book on the Magisterium. It's with Catholic answers. Just type in Jimmy Aiken teaching authority and it will come up. I found that to be an incredibly helpful introduction because he not only explains how the Magisterium works, but also gives you practical applications with various Magisterium. And as you read it, did you agree with it?

Yeah, I agree with 99% of it. There's 1% that I disagree with on an issue that is debatable among people in Magisterial studies and it's not a big deal. So I was like, I can put my stamp of approval on it and highly recommend it. Would you mind passing me that whiskey, that tall bottle? This one? No, no, the other one. Yeah baby. There you go.

Look at that gorgeous amber liquid. I'm glad to know by the way that I'm not the only Pagan out here with with a tattoo. Ah If I could do it again, I wouldn't get it same here I wouldn't either I got mine when I was 19 and live in a really wayward life And if I could redo it, I wouldn't I think regretting your tattoos is the new getting a tattoo. It's the cool thing to do Is that right? Yeah, because everyone's making excuses for what this means and no one cares. Yeah.

All right. It's kind of like when you try to invent things in the liturgy and you like try to pretend there's some symbolism and everyone's bored. There's not. Okay, so we have questions here. Let's see. I mean, this is usually something of a lightning round, so feel free to be a little brief, but if you feel like it deserves more attention, no worries Sky T says hello Michael

I was having set of accountants adjacent doubts and took your advice of getting off social media for a month Now I'm more integrated in my parish and family life What a guy first of all for you for giving him that advice and good for this fellow for having the courage to do that I'm assuming it's a fella. I'm more degraded my parish and family life. What do you do to keep yourself grounded? He says yeah Unfortunately, I can't entirely get off social media I kind of wish I could but I kind of have to be in light of the YouTube So I try to minimize it. I I do need to be aware of certain things that are going on I do need to be aware of certain things that are going on so that I can be prepared to respond. But I also have recently, for example, gotten off Twitter.

I watched your video on getting off Twitter and I said, you know what, I agree with that. I'm off Twitter myself. So I try to minimize all of the exposure that I get to some of this stuff on social media. So that's helpful. I pray the Jesus prayer constantly. I find that to be very, very helpful. Daily scripture readings, and I tend to do vespers as well. Stuff like that helps keep me grounded. But to be honest, it's especially that rope right there.

I thought you were playing for the tobacco pipe. No, no, no, the prayer rope. The Jesus prayer. That's really my lifeline. So Kyle Whittington is a local supporter and he's used his comment to quote someone in the live chat who otherwise may not have been responded to, namely Steve Christie. He says Steve Christie is in the live chat asking a question that I think would be nice to have publicly refuted.

Question for Michael. The catechism of the Catholic Church and the Council of Trent state the canon was passed down quote hand to hand from Jesus and the disciples to the council. You stated you are open to RCC, I guess he means the Catholic Church, adding books from the Eastern Orthodox canon if they reconcile with Rome and if a future ecumenical council starts magisterium of firmances if this happens does this mean Jesus and disciples only passed down part of the canon which means Catholics are missing books does this mean Catholics are outside of Christ yeah a lot going on here I'll try to give a very quick answer I know I had a

very long discussion with Steve about this very issue a few years ago. But what I would say, well a couple of things here. Number one, yeah we would certainly say that the canon has been handed down. I would call it a secondary object of infallibility, but it's been handed down unto the present. The question is did the Council of Trent settle the canon as far as saying no other books can be added to it? Very technically, Trent did not. What Trent did do is say these books for sure are handed down to us, but it did not comment on a few additional books that some of the Eastern Orthodox maintain in their canon.

However, I do think it would be very unlikely for the church to ever come back and say, and yeah, these other books are also part of the canon when we've gone now 2,000 years without that kind of judgment from the Magisterium. I think it is incredibly unlikely. So I do want to point out the fact that Trent did not exclude a few of those additional books, but I think it's incredibly unlikely that it ever would include them at this point. Just think about the absolute upset in the Bible publishing industry. That's enough. It's like big oil.

They're really running the show. The Logos project. By the way, I don't know who the Logos project is. He's awesome. That's the Dom. I've seen him on YouTube and really appreciated him. I find him to be very balanced from what I've seen. I've had him on the show, I've been on his show.

I find him to be helpful because he's addressing some of these issues with radical traditionalism and I'm happy to see that because I'm tired of being the only one to do it. I feel like I'm the only one. Maybe there are authors who do it. So they have a YouTube channel? Well, he is the lowest. All right. There you go. So if people are getting, what did you say? Kind of tired of listening to me talk about

going to listen to him talk about it. Go YouTube, the Logos project and subscribe. Yeah. From what I've seen, this guy's doing great work. Question for Michael, what would it take for Catholicism to be proven wrong? Thank you both. Mm hmm. I think if you could show that its claims on the Magisterium and its definitive teachings are not true, I think that would falsify it. I actually think that there's a lot of ways that it could potentially be falsifiable, but that's a big one for me. So for example, anything

that's taught definitively by the Catholic Church, if you can show that that is actually not true, I would say you've falsified the Catholic claims, for sure. But I mean, there's a million other examples. If somehow somebody produced the body of Jesus, that will obviously disprove the resurrection and therefore disprove the Catholicism as well. If Pope Francis infallibly declared something that was false or that... I think that would do it. But I think a lot of Catholics would be like, well, he's just wrong, or he's not the Bible.

No, I would say that falsifies the Catholic claims. So if you have the Pope meeting the criteria of Vatican One and an ex-cathedra teaching, and what he's proposing definitively is heretical, that would falsify the Catholic claims. So I don't agree with some of the Catholics who just say, oh well if he does that he's wrong. Well he might be wrong, but he's also falsified the Catholic claims because the Catholic position is that that would be impossible. Because whenever the criteria the Vatican one gives for ex cathedra, whenever those are employed, it's already been said that it would be free from error. So if you have error in it, especially the grade of heresy, that proves

Catholicism wrong at that point. I mean, otherwise you're basically saying there's no way to falsify the Catholic claims of the Magisterium. And so our Magisterium is non-falsifiable? Is that where we're going? If that's the case, then we don't actually have an objective Magisterium. If you have a way to objectively identify with the Catholic Church teachers, you have a way to then say, here's how to falsify it. Anything that's in the realm of objectivity, you can then falsify. But if you're saying it can't be falsified, you're saying it's not in the realm of subject objectivity. I just get to decide for myself what Catholicism is. And

we already have that with Protestantism and in parts of Eastern Orthodoxy that wouldn't then make us any different from them. Okay Kyle Whittington says I'm honestly looking to be bluntly corrected here It seems to me that the Orthodox only seem to be willing to die on hills that don't actually ask anything of you. Filioque, et cetera. But when it comes to things that dictate the way you live, divorced contraception, et cetera, this is his words, not mine.

They crumble and cave to pastoral concerns at the drop of a Kali-Mav-Kion. What is that? Kamekabian. What is that? I guess he's talking about Kamekab. Kamiakov. Yeah. Okay. Kamekab. What is that come a copy and was it I guess he's talking about comica come a car yeah okay come a car he was he was a theologian orthodox theologian who accepted that theory of reception that we were talking about earlier with that community councils he's the one who made that famous. Well then he says am I off on this or are there deeper reasons to allow divorce and contraception. deeper reasons to allow divorce and contraception.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm really following the question. There seems to be saying Orthodox seem to want to die on the hills that don't require anything of them, maybe morally. Okay. You know, so it's easier to say the feel earthquake instead of I guess I'm using contraception, but they're not willing to die on other Hills that does require them. I would say that's my response to that would be like we shouldn't be psychologizing people if we're seeking to refute their arguments.

But you don't know if you point to a particular orthodox unless he said to you, you know, the reason I don't want to accept contraceptives, it means a lot for me. But these other things don't then what you're doing is trying to guess his psychological state, which is uncharitable. Yeah, I think that that would then go a little too far. I would say we need to address their concerns. If they have a doctrinal concern with the filioque, we need to just objectively engage

that rather than trying to psychologize them and dismiss it if we think it's coming from a bad place. Because, frankly, some Orthodox could have bad intentions and bad motives in their argumentation. That doesn't mean that the filioque is true. You still have to answer that question, is the filioque true or not? You have to be able to do that objectively

without trying to psychologize a person's intentions. That's right, that's really weird. It also seems like kind of a weird generalization of a group to kind of put that on, because it's like, I don't know, they're not super renowned for accepting contraception and divorce, at least to my knowledge. And some Orthodox would also accept the filioque, so not all would reject it.

They would just tend to say, those who would accept the doctrine of it, would just tend to say that I don't accept its recitation and the creed, which is a different question. Tommy Lee asks, what resources should I read and study if I want to better defend Vatican II from dissenters? What resources should they study if they're trying to... Better respond to Vatican II dissenters?

Yeah. I would first start with the documents of Vatican II. You'd be shocked how many people are trying to get in these discussions. I'm not necessarily saying that's who this person is, but some people want to get into these discussions and they've never actually read the primary sources. We need to read the primary sources. Number one, we need to read the Bible. If you don't know that, you have no business discussing Vatican II. Read the Bible, that's number one. And then number two, if you want to discuss Vatican II, go straight to the primary sources. I think that

that will get you so far down the line that it will address the vast majority of objections that people raise against Vatican II. You might still have a few lingering questions that remain, such as like Dignitatis Humani, how do I reconcile that with some of the merely authentic teachings of Leo XIII or Gregory XVI. You might have some very, very specific questions like that, but the majority and bulk of the objections that you get to Vatican II, those would already be addressed if you just read the documents carefully.

We got a super chat here from Michael Beaumert who says, Michael, you forgot doctors de Clou and Chap, who are also addressing the problems of radical tradition as well. That's fair. There are some others. I vouch for Richard. I'm not sure if I'd vouch for Chap given his apparent acceptance of universalism of late. Or is that unfair? I'm going to have him on the show to talk about it,

but I talked to him further about it, and this was done publicly on Facebook, so I don't feel that I'm disclosing anything. What he's referring to when he speaks of his perspective of universalism is it's kind of this, he has a moral certitude. I don't wanna speak for him, but it sounds like he's saying he has a moral certitude. I don't want to speak for him, but it sounds like he's saying he has a moral certitude

That all will be saved. He's not proposing it as dogmatically binding on anyone else or taught by the church as definitive He's not saying it has been taught by the church. He's just saying in his research It's not excluded by the church and he's personally to affirm excluded by the church and he's personally to affirm universalism. He would say it's not excluded by the church and that he is personally morally certain that that is more likely true than not. That's his version of universalism. It's not my perspective. And so I said, hey, come on the show, let's talk about our similarities and differences. So let's talk about it. And so he'll be on and we'll discuss it. it for him for being open Yeah doing that and I'm sure it says a lot about your willingness to give people a charitable take that has made him more open to

Discussing it with you. Yeah Deborah Ruiz says is Michael going to go on the Timothy Gordon channel? I think that would be a good discussion between both gentlemen's point of view on things that the Pope states. Mm-hmm I've been on this channel multiple times be a good discussion between both gentlemen's point of view on things that the Pope states. I've been on this channel multiple times. He's also been on mine and I'm happy to go back on and discuss anything with him charitably. Sure. Hallelujah. You know her. She's wonderful. Yeah.

You moderate some discussions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's she's in all of the Catholic comment sections. It's really interesting as to what she does in her off time. I don't know. She's omnipresent. Yeah, not a question. She says just a statement. I want to say I've thoroughly enjoyed helping both of you gentlemen.

You have both helped me grow in my faith and it is humbling privilege that I get to get to help in even a small way. God bless you and be merciful to both. I pray for both of you. Thank you kindly friend. She's awesome. She also helps boot out all the trolls in the chat. Yeah, Neil says thank you to you make his job way easier.

No, thank you sister and your prayers mean the world to me. Thank you kindly. Joe Ward says I'm still confused. Could the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, sorry, could the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Canon to its own one day? I guess there's, he says when I listen to debates and solid scriptura this sometimes comes up, why Orthodox Bibles are even bigger, etc. Number one, the Orthodox don't have an established Canon, some of them will

accept the Deutero canonicals, some will reject the Deutero canonicals, so there's no definitive Canon for the Eastern Orthodox. But there are some Eastern Orthodox who accept three additional books that are not in our canon, so they'll accept them as Deutero canonical. And all I was saying earlier is that Trent chose deliberately not to weigh in on those three additional books. Whenever it decided the canon, it's saying,

these books certainly are canonical, but it did not offer deliberately, it did not offer any comment on those three extra books that some of the Orthodox hold to. So for that reason, one could say that Trent has not yet excluded those, so it is possible that the Magisterium could one day include them in the canon. But just because it's possible doesn't mean it's likely. My personal opinion is it never will, because after 2,000 years, if we haven't been using those books in our liturgy and we haven't recognized them in our canon yet, it's incredibly unlikely we're all of a sudden going to introduce them into our canon and start incorporating them

into the liturgy 2,000 years later.ie says, I so appreciate Michael's balanced approach to outrage culture in Catholic circles. How can we exercise prudence while navigating the very loud voices on both sides of the aisle? I'm a recent convert and still have so much to learn, so I am trying to be careful about who I listen to and suggest to those who are inquiring. Start with the judgment of charity. Give people, I charity, give people, I know, you know, it's hard to sometimes do that.

And what I mean by judgment of charity is give the person the benefit of the doubt, look for a way to harmonize what they're saying, look for a way to give the best possible interpretation rather than the worst. I know sometimes that's hard to do. I struggle with giving people the judgment of charity just as somebody else might.

So I understand it, but we have to actively try to fight against that, do our best, especially when it comes to the shepherds of the church. We have that obligation to give them that judgment of charity all the more because they are shepherds of the church. If we're doing that, I think that's going to weed through a lot of the stuff that you're going to hear online, because what you're going to see is that's going to weed through a lot of the stuff that you're gonna hear online because you're what you're gonna see is you're gonna see some people are jumping to certain conclusions and engaging in rash judgment and there's not enough evidence to really substantiate what they've concluded. Yeah good Diego says what are the best videos arguments to show cities friends to repent and convert. to show Sedes, friends, to repent and convert. You know, if I've understood the question correctly,

as far as videos, again, Trent Horn did a recent video reviewing the debate that took place here on set of contes, and I would certainly recommend that. But if you're just asking, like, what is a specific point to consider, those two points that I mentioned earlier, the universal and peaceful acceptance of the church, I would look further into that. I would also look further into Vatican One whenever it speaks of the fact that there will always be perpetual successors.

Ask how does that line up with set of accountants? And then third, most importantly, ask how does this impact me practically? If I buy into this set of accountants thesis, according to them, am I really going to be alienating myself from the sacraments. It's really difficult to argue against conspiracy theories my dad was a 9-eleven conspiracy theories for the longest time and that man had thought more about 9-eleven than anybody I know so I knew that to get into an argument with him was to absolutely lose. Absolutely lose. It's a difficult question how to interact with yeah, I cut to the chase Especially with set of contests because at that point we're getting into a lot of conspiracy theories the more The less Credibility I will give to it and the less attention I will give to it

Let's see here. Lucky on says Michael and Matt, our Lord has used both of your examples and faithfulness among many others to help me draw, help draw me to his church. Glory to Jesus Christ. I am currently in RCA at a thriving parish and look forward with great joy to entering the church on Easter. Previously, I had been an evangelical pastor and recently closed the doors of my previous church to pursue and complete my conversion glory to God Michael in the midst of your work reconciling your faith with the challenges you recognized

Within the church. Do you have any words of wisdom in how to gently and graciously? Deal with family who believes in correct information about Catholicism family who believes incorrect information about Catholicism? Yeah, I mean this is a very tough one because there's really no one size fits all answer here. People are, you know, everyone's going to be different and they're going to have different concerns and frankly they'll probably have a whole bunch of concerns right now with the Catholic Church and you won't be able to just tackle them all. But what you can do is plant seeds and then pray that they will grow.

And what I mean here by plant seeds is not just through prayer, but also you could mention some things here and there. You could ask them, you know, what's one of your biggest concerns with the Catholic Church? And you could then maybe just address that one issue. Give them some things to think about, food for thought, and let that work work on them And then if they're then receptive to it and open they'll start to ask more questions Well, what about this objection and you can give them a response to that But don't try to do too much and give them like the answer to literally every objection that they might have all at once World warn says based on your knowledge of the magisterium Can Michael comment on

whether it's sinful to publish or promote novels that contain profanity I'm not talking about taking the Lord's name in vain but general profanity ranging from the mild f-bomb level thank you man and Michael for your work well I can't comment on that canonically I'd have to go and look as far as canon law what it says on the matter, but I could just speak morally, and I think that that's more what they're asking about because they mentioned there is a sinful. So I'm going to have to punt on the canonical question, but morally, I think that there

could be some problems here, especially if the, this by the, recently came up because there was a video that came out not too long ago depicting a Catholic saint, and they depicted the Catholic saint as dropping the F-bomb, which the Catholic saint did not do. So this actually recently came up there. I would certainly discourage it, but I imagine some of this could be left to your conscience unless there has been something that canonically would prohibit you from publishing a novel with that kind of language. Personally, I would avoid it, but I'm not necessarily condemning anybody else if they have that kind of language in a novel.

But again, that's my conscience and where I'm at. Sure. Daniel says, I'd like to see Michael do a debate defending material sufficiency of scripture. I guess another Catholic could hold the contrary view. I think that could be interesting. I would do it. Now, obviously, this isn't a hell of a diant since it is an internal debate to Catholicism that is open. So somebody could maintain material sufficiency, I'm sorry, formal sufficiency and disagree with my position. But I think all of the arguments are in favor theologically and historically for material sufficiency so yeah that would be a fun debate. Are you open to debates?

Yeah I mean and material sufficiency would be a really fun one too that's kind of an intramural one you know. Yeah yeah Pat Madrid's done a lot of good work on that I think. Adam I can't say his last name Adam says how do you see the Holy Spirit working through the confusion and instability in the church specifically? Is there good coming out of this, Michael? I do, and I think what this is going to do is it's going to cause us to further define certain issues about the Magisterium and the Papacy. What's happening is, I think that the current pontificate is pushing the envelope in some areas. And because of that, that's gonna have to make

the magisterium itself have to further define itself and further clarify how the papacy functions, how the magisterium functions. What are the limits of air within the magisterium? How far can it creep into air and what are the things that it can't do? It's going to have to engage those kinds of questions more and more, which is how it happens historically, right?

A problem is introduced and then the Magisterium responds and further clarifies. Well, right now we're having a question of to what extent can the papacy err? To what extent can the Pope fail? We're going to have to answer these questions more and more because of the post-conciliar era and also the present pontificate. I think what's going to happen is in the future you'll have a Pope and or the College of Bishops who will further define on the magisterium what are the limits of error. I think that the Magisterium has kind of done so implicitly in some of the things that it said, but what I'm saying is it's gonna need to make

some of those things more explicit and clarify and make it abundantly clear. Just like we might say, okay, well, the substance of the Immaculate Conception might be there early on in the eighth century or something, but we have to get much more explicit on it as More objections continue to be formulated same thing here. Okay This comes from Tommy Lee. He says which of the following three words are Michaels favorite distinction nuance or radical and why is it nuance?

They always you know It would be nuanced. They always, you know, mention that I tend to talk about nuance a lot, so there's this ongoing joke and reason in theology that it's about nuance and distinctions. Because that's true. Some things are black and white, some things are clear-cut. Is Jesus God? Yes. I can give you a black and white answer there.

Yes, he is God. Is Jesus fully man? Yes. Now, how does the humanity interact with the divinity? Now we're gonna have to start getting into some nuance and distinctions. That is not gonna be as I can give a yes or no answer to. So again, some things are clear-cut, but you'd be shocked how many things in theology need to be nuanced. And what I'm seeing today is a failure for us to do that in certain key areas. We're just giving blanket answers and assertions, and we need to be a little bit more.

Well, it's almost like social media has perpetuated this because it doesn't exist for nuance. It exists to say something very quickly in order to get a reaction. This is why I got off Twitter, because I listened to your video and I also said a lot of the people on Twitter, they're trying to have a discussion on something that it just requires more than 240 characters to tease out. There's too many people misunderstanding things on Twitter, so I'm not going to sit there on my phone and respond to all of them. How's it been since you quit it? It's been great, but great about anybody was only a few days ago that you did that. Yeah, we're posting frequently

Like daily once a day or so, you know But I noticed that there wasn't a lot of people engaging and the few that were engaging would tend to be trolls or would Misconstrued what I'm saying and rather than me sit there and spin an hour explaining the nuances of what I'm saying Yeah, it's not worth it. It kind of felt like for me and and again I had someone who was running my social media but seldomly I would go in there myself and post some things retweet some things see some things and it's sort of like walking into an insane asylum once a day and Trying to have a conversation and then be like I don't have to do this. Right? No, no. You mean no one's forcing me to be in this.

I can just leave. Yeah. You can even give us the keys. You never have to come back. Okay. I'm done. I think I'm done. Y'all go at it. And I never said that people have no reason to be there that they can't use it effectively. It was just, I can't, nor do I wish to. You know, for me, the, the point that you made about how, you know, you had over 50,000 followers and only a few people would retweet or something like that. Same thing for me. I only had maybe 3,000 because I didn't really try to promote that platform or anything, but I would get

maybe a few likes, a few retweets here and there but so it's not Matically, it's not worth it. It's not you know, yeah I'm not gonna get into a debate with Twitter theologians are accusing me of heresy and I don't have the time to sit there and on Twitter type a nuance to answer to show them why what I just said isn't heretical. So yeah, okay We do have people spamming nuance in check That's just that's just like love hearts. That's what I mean Be on the lookout would you for questions or anything interesting so we can get to them? But Kyle Whittington says will Michael often be willing to debate Peter diamond on whether palomism is compatible with Catholicism

On Palomism Wow, that's an interesting one Yeah, so I don't know if that would actually be a really good fit as far as a thesis. We might need to consider some other thesis. Do you think that with sort of the advent of YouTube and we kind of, we get the wrong impression that if somebody has a lot of followers that they're an authority, and so we're somehow giving authority to people who shouldn't be having in the church. I, number one, question whether or not he should be given that credibility to be engaged, and then number two, even if somehow I'm gonna be convinced there and

yeah, he should be given that platform and given that credibility, okay, I'm not sure that that's a really good thesis because I don't think Palomism is a hill to die on. It is a theological opinion within Catholicism. You're free to accept it or reject it. So I don't know that that would really be a good thesis. I would rather address, if I were to debate him, I would rather address the thesis of something that's more central to set of a Kantism. However, it needs to be narrow so that it's not too broad and too many things are discussed that can't be addressed

in the debate. Yeah, very good. All right, I think that just about does it for our questions. Anything else going on in the chat? Let's see. Just 630 people yelling at each other Bob asked if you're going to be at seek 2023. I don't know if you were I don't have any plans. No Kyle says Michael often drinking game drink every time he says nuance and the game ends an hour after starting Or when the ambulance

arrives whichever happens first. What a wonderful thing to be known for though. How cool is that? Not a bad thing right? I'll take that. Let's see. We just got a super chat. Let's see.

Okay well I'll read this. I don't know what it says yet though. Here we go. Phoenix 96 has a super chat saying. Thank you. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa Okay, well I'll read this, I don't know what it says yet though. Here we go! Phoenix 96 has a super chat saying,

Quo premium ensured traditional Latin mass in its calendar, yet John the 23rd rescinded Howl's Eve Vigil of all saints and changed Holy Week. Conceal your Pope's promulgated novus ordo and suppress its predecessor. There is no authoritative consistency if quoprimum isn't inviolate." Yeah, yeah, there's a couple points that I need to mention here. First of all, James Lakoudis wrote a really good book addressing this years ago called The Pope, the Council and the Mass, co-authored with Kenneth D. Whitehead, I believe. So he already buried that one, but I'll just briefly reiterate the response. First of all, one pope cannot disciplinary bind another pope, certainly not definitively. Whatever one pope has the authority to bind, another pope has the authority to loose in

matters of discipline. And the liturgical practices of the Roman Rite and what was bound there in Quo Primum could certainly be loosed by successive Pope. Moreover, that is how the Pope's understood Quo Primum. None of them ever understood that somehow the Roman Rite is locked into that particular form of the Roman Missal because that Pope himself who promulgated Quo Primum, Pius V, made himself revisions to his own missal and then plenty of other popes after that, way before John the 23rd, made other revisions to that missal. So the popes themselves did not understand themselves to be bound by Quo Primum. Lastly, if you look at the apostolic

constitution that promulgated the Missal of Paul VI, which by the way it was an apostolic constitution that, if I recall correctly, promulgated Quo Primum. So the exact same level that promulgated the Missal of Pius V is then promulgating the Missal of Paul VI, the exact same authority. Well anyways, if you look at the apostolic constitution of Paul VI where he's promulgating the new liturgy, he specifically cites in the opening part, Quoperimum. So he's well aware of Quoperimum, he knows it,

and he doesn't see that it's somehow an impediment for him reforming certain disciplinary aspects to the Roman Missal. So again, theologically, one pope cannot bind another pope to matters of discipline definitively, and number two, no pope ever understood that to be the case with quill premium. Mason Hickman John Mike asks if you could debate, I'm sorry all these questions about debating, I don't like when people put you on the spot.

I personally don't do debates because I'm not good at them. I've done like three. John Mike I think I've done three. Mason Hickman Yeah. And the question is, if you could debate Taylor Marshall on any topic, what would it be if you could just pick a topic? Whether Vatican to taught heresy or Paul Francis. Would you like to debate him?

Yeah. Yeah, I certainly would. All right. And if he's not willing to do a debate, at least a discussion. I will find ten thousand dollars to give to Taylor Marshall and I'll give you five bucks. If he will. Because only have ten thousand five bucks. I can find. Yeah, to give to Taylor Marshall and I'll give you five bucks Ten thousand five bucks I can find yeah, I'd like to especially start with that. Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to say that in a way You know people are free to debate or not to debate. We could just give it to a charity or the FSSP Yeah, I mean, I don't care about the money I I think that it's important to debate that thesis whether or not an ecumenical council can teach heresy. I vehemently oppose the position that says Catholicism allows for an ecumenical council to promulgate heresy.

I will fight that tooth and nail. Yeah. This was a good one from Ralph Becker Kooza from a Reason and Theology in theology patron Michael who is your favorite Eastern theologian? ancient or contemporary and who in the West Robert Taft probably I know I don't agree with Father Robert Taft on everything but I do find them to be pretty helpful and he is contemporary also you interviewed another one of my favorites Father Coppice you want a guy? Yeah, he's amazing helpful and he is contemporary. Also you interviewed another one of my favorites, Father Kappas. You've had him. What a guy.

Yeah, he's amazing. He's really good. Yeah, that was a joy to sit with him. I watched that interview over five times. Did you? Because it was so helpful. I always find his content to be incredibly helpful and balanced. What was interesting is after we took, turn the cameras off and Neil went home, him and I sat for another hour and a half to talk. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Should he get the cameras on? Henry says pints. What would be the first thing Michael would like people to understand better about the Orthodox Catholic church? So I'm not sure what he means by that. If he means the Eastern Catholic Church or if he means the Orthodox. What would I like them to better understand? Yeah, you just interpret this however you want. How about that?

What would be the first thing Michael would like people to understand better about the Orthodox Catholic Church? I'm assuming he means Eastern Catholics. And the first thing that I would like for people to get down is that there are Eastern Catholics. I can't tell you how many people that I encounter who are Catholics who have no idea what Eastern Catholicism is, and if you were to mention Eastern Catholicism, they think that you're talking about Eastern Orthodoxy. So if we can at least just get to a level of we're aware of each other, I'll be happy with that. at least just get to a level of we're aware of each other.

I'll be happy. I was with the priests in Wisconsin, the monks up there. Yeah. Romanian Catholics and Aussie fellow you've had on the show, The Abbott. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think he recently just retired. He did. Yeah. Oh, I love that man. Anyway, I was chatting with one of the priests and he said, we see ourselves, you know, as part of the body of Christ, like what organ or what body part of you? He said, we see ourselves as a scab.

There is a sign for deeper healing between West and East. Unfortunately, I know exactly what he's talking about. He's mentioned that before in some of his interviews about how the schism between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy is a personal wound for him. Same for me. Same for me. It's a personal wound because I desire to see communion between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox so deeply.

And I hate that some Catholics can't go and receive communion with some Eastern Orthodox. Some Eastern Orthodox are opposed to it, some are not. There are some cases where canonically a Catholic would be allowed to, and so, but again, some Orthodox are not open to commune cazio in sacros, that is sharing in sacred things in some contexts. And I think that that's unfortunate to an extent. Obviously I uphold the Church's discipline but I also recognize in the post-conciliar era it does allow in some instances for sharing

in the sacraments and Catholicism tends to be more open to that whereas right now Orthodox are a little less open to it even though historically in the pre-conciliar era up until the 1750s you have Catholics and Orthodox sharing in sacraments together in some instances. And even with the approbation of the Holy See. Some people don't know that. Wow, I didn't. It's a personal wound to me because I want to see us

sharing the sacraments more. But obviously it needs to be done properly. It needs to be done canonically and things like that. Simon says, Marshall would never do it. He's never engaged in conversation with someone who holds different opinions in himself in defense of Marshall. Like Marshall has no responsibility to publicly engage with somebody who disagrees with him. I don't think unless somebody could make an argument.

And I don't think you probably have. I mean, maybe what you mean is you've never seen him do it publicly, but I don't know if that means he hasn't done it privately. I'm sure he has. So I'm certainly not, I don't know what that term is when you start calling for debates, but. Well, he has no obligation to respond to me. But what I would like to see is for him to clarify his own position, because here I've noticed this group tends to be very critical of Pope Francis for not clarifying his own

words. This group tends to be very critical of Pope Francis for not clarifying his own words, and yet some of these people, such as Taylor Marshall, are accusing an ecumenical council of teaching Pelagianism, which is a condemned heresy. I would like some clarification there. Mason What do you think the rule is? If we want to, as we should, submit to our Lord's words, if a brother sins against you, bring it to him personally, that kind of thing. I'm of the opinion that if somebody states something publicly you can respond to it publicly without having to directly go to them first No, you don't have to go to them personally if it's public now if it's private you go to them privately

You can't disclose that so for example like Pat Coffin I would I mean I haven't spoken to him in a couple of years, but I really enjoyed him I considered him a friend we used to work in Catholic answers together I have a lot of love for him. He's got a beautiful family. He's a good dad Anyway, you know if he had privately said to me, here's what I held and then I was to come out publicly Yeah, that's not a good Detraction, but if he's gonna make a public video then it seems to me that okay. This is now public Then you you have every right to respond publicly and one does not necessarily have to go to them privately because their

Information is already reaching people publicly. That's what I'm yeah, that's what I'm thinking new. Gloff says Michael Can you comment on non-palomite Eastern Christian theologies such as here we go? Kai Don's brothers Kai Donis brothers. I think you don't yeah Manuel Calicas Byzantine Thomists, etc. Yeah, well, I mean, I do think that it's permissible for an Eastern

Catholic to, you know, reject the system of Palomism and accept a different system. Perhaps Thomism or a reformed version of Thomism or Scodism. I don't think that that's a problem. So just because you're Eastern Catholic doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be a Palomine.

I know Dr. Meiner, you've had him on, he's a Thomist. He's been on my show many times, he's a Thomist, and he's also an Eastern Catholic. Whereas Father Coppice, who you also had on, is a Scodist. And then Dr. Goff, who's also an Eastern Catholic, is a Palomite, if I recall correctly. Or I know he's a Scodist, but I think he would agree with Palomism I don't want to speak too much

for who's this dr. Jared Goff is also over at Byzantine seminary so but so you'll you'll in other words you have Eastern Catholics who maintain palomism and some who don't and that's fine can Michael often explain the meaning of the term manifest heresy what What does that mean? Yeah, I mean, depends on who's using the term. What I've noticed is the term tends to come up in context of Robert Bellarmine. So, again, it depends on who's using the term. They might have a different definition, but most of the time it comes up with Robert Bellarmine and what he means by that is somebody who's not only publicly

uttering a heresy, but but has been rebuked twice per the admonition of Saint Paul in the book of Titus, where you go to a heretic, you rebuke him twice, and then after that have nothing to do with him if he continues to be obstinate in his heresy. So Bellarmine understands whenever discussing a manifest heretic not to just be somebody who's publicly heretic but somebody who has been warned twice by the proper authorities and has persisted in it. That's a distinction a lot of people miss because what they think is Bellarmine's position, which is an opinion, Bellarmine's position is if a pope were to publicly teach heresy, he would automatically lose the papacy. It's actually not his position. There's a little bit more nuance in that.

He's saying a publicly manifest heretic who is a pope would automatically lose the papacy. That would be a pope who's been rebuked twice by the college of cardinals or the college of bishops. So again, that's an important distinction that's often missed in these discussions on papal heresy and how that works in relation to losing the papal office. And again, this was just Bellarmine's opinion. You're free to reject his opinion entirely. She says, did church fathers, pre or post-Nicaea, reject the filioque? Could an early church fathers reject the filioque and still be a saint? You know, you have the Eastern Orthodox Dr. Edward Szechenski in his book on the filioque.

He mentions how, you know, by, I think he says by the seventh century, you have the West, you know, teaching the filioque. I mean, all throughout the West teaching the Filioque, I mean all throughout the West. It had already just been universally received in the West. And he says by the time of the Council of Florence, if I recall correctly, which is the 1400s, the West had already accepted it for over a thousand years. Why is that important? Well, it's important because if the West in the first millennium accepted the Filioque and the Orthodox were in communion with

the West at that time, then you can't condemn it as heresy because that would then mean that they were in communion with heretics. So that's a very serious difficulty for Orthodox who want to condemn the Filioque as heresy. I think it's much more respectful for some of the Orthodox who just to condemn the filioque as heresy. I think it's much more respectful for some of the Orthodox who just say it's a theological opinion, I don't think it's heresy, but it's just a theological opinion. I think that's much more tolerable given how many Orthodox saints were in communion with other Orthodox in the West who maintained the filioque for so long.

But keep in mind that's a little different question than maybe it's recitation in the Creed. I want to make sure that we're clear on that. Just because one may accept the filioque as far as it's orthodoxy, doesn't mean that one is somehow determined whether or not it should be used liturgically in the Creed. Okay. John says, Mike, what do you think is the best argument for Eastern orthodoxy and how would you respond to it for Eastern Orthodoxy? Yeah, I think one very strong argument which you recently had a Mon Father John Ramsey Is that at least on paper the Orthodox have done a really good job at preserving the canons of the first millennium and What that does is it shows a strong continuity with the first millennium, or at least an apparent one on paper, seemingly.

I think that's got to count for something. The fact that, again, Eastern Orthodoxy has a strong canonical tradition rooted in the first millennium. There's a downside to that, because it hasn't been able to develop some of its canonical structure and some of its canons to modern times Whereas the Catholic Church has been able to do that But again, I do think that that's a strong argument for the Orthodox and showing continuity with the first millennium on their side Hi, dr. C says can we get a Trent Horn Cameron Batusi Matt Fratt and Michael Lofton roundtable? I would watch you all interact all day. It only ends with Cameron It only ends if Cameron capitulates Proselytism here. Yeah, you don't you know Francis can do

Just say lock the doors No one gets out as you convert you can't leave Yeah, no one gets out as you convert you can't leave No fantastic so what do you have on the horizon for reason of theology? I just the the same of what I've been doing now can just continue to address issues in Catholicism and with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism What have you learned not in the theological realm but on YouTube like what have you learned as you've done this YouTube thing? What's working what hasn't worked? What have you enjoyed found most of?

Impactful well, I mean as far as the positive side of I've learned that Some people can be very strong significantly Impacted by the content that one produces I've had a lot of people say you you've helped me enter the church and my family enter the church. And one guy say that I decided to become a monk because of your content and stuff. So that's very humbling because you realize, wow, I'm not just talking on YouTube, I'm actually to an extent with God's grace impacting people. That's a positive thing. Negative, however, is the vast majority of feedback that you tend to get. Tends to be slanderous, a lot

of people lying about things. Well, tell me what you think about this, because I would think that if you had a channel in which every episode you talked about a church scandal and bashed the pope, you would quickly acquire a particular audience that was there for a particular reason that would all clap and tell you how wonderful you are but you probably piss off people on every side of the church which means your comment section is probably filled with a good degree of outrage yeah that's that's true i upset everybody because i'm obviously criticizing protestantism uh some aspects of Eastern Orthodoxy,

and some Catholics. So I have a little bit to offend everybody. How have you grown in taking criticism on YouTube and elsewhere? Yeah, that's been a tough one because I have to learn to, number one, not return and respond in kind. That's a very tough thing because sometimes you just want to fire away and just put somebody in their place. A few clicks and enter. But that's tough to do. So it is a good opportunity to grow in one's own character whenever you're confronted with that situation and you realize, okay, I need to be more restrained. I need to respond charitably.

I can't say that I've always succeeded in that. I do go to confession. What? But I'm striving to, you know, respond positively. But that is a challenge. Yeah, it is. I tend to say to people that I very much trust, you would be one of those people, I would say to you, if you see me veering one way or the other please call me and correct me and

I've I mean that I really mean that because I would rather have like ten people I trust yeah for their read their prudence their theological accuracy their charity I would much rather be called on and encouraged by them then sort through 8,000 comments from nameless faceless people saying things. Yeah, what was the from the Book of Proverbs the wounds of a friend or something like that? Yeah, it comes. It means a whole lot more when it comes from somebody you admire and respect as opposed to somebody on YouTube. So yeah, and I've had people take me up on that. I've had a few people call me and like, you need to take this down. And here's why, or, um, do not host this debate that you're playing on. Unfortunately, no one said that about instead of a constant debate.

It was funny during that sort of account is debate. People don't know this, but whenever there was the side by side between Casman and diamond, there was a couple of photos of me just going, and then texting you, what is happening? I remember that. What is happening? That is so funny. All right, let's see what else we got before we wrap up.

Does Michael Lofton think SSPX is in communion with Rome? Hmm. Yeah, I appreciate the way you phrased it there in communion with Rome. I think that there are some elements to it that impairs its communion. It's certainly not as far away as maybe Eastern Orthodoxy, which Eastern Orthodoxy is a lot closer than, say, Protestantism. So there's obviously grades here when it comes to unity.

But I do think that there's some aspects, canonically, when it comes to unity. But I do think that there's some aspects canonically when it comes to the SSPX that takes a little bit away from their unity with Rome. However, they may share still an impaired unity in some areas. That being said, one thing that really does impact this discussion that a lot of people don't talk about is Some of their doctrinal positions. I I'm greatly concerned by I see some in the society and

Official publications rejecting the profession of faith it currently in use by the Catholic Church specifically in reference to non-definitive teachings And this goes back to Lefebvre, who himself criticized the profession of faith promulgated by John Paul II and said that it's modernist and Protestant, and he rejects the paragraph that speaks of assenting to non-definitive teachings of the church.

And the reason why he rejected it is because he realized he would have to accept dignitatis humanae and other things from Vatican II, and he did not agree with it. So he rejected that part of the profession. But it did not die with Lefebvre. It's still being pushed forward in some official circles of the society. And that's deeply troubling to me because now we're not just talking about an impairment in unity and some matter of canon law or discipline or in ecclesiology, we're now talking about an impairment of unity in matters of doctrine.

For Benedict XVI in his 2009 letter to the bishops, whenever he lifted the excommunications of the four excommunicated bishops, he specifically mentions there the problem with the society is not so much a disciplinary issue It's doctrinal and I have to second that okay Here's an idea new patreon perk t-shirt your head on it with the word nuance I might do that or I might do I was recently called the terror of dissenters. Ah.

I might do a- The terror of dissenters. The terror of dissenters. I mean, this is really something we all have to take seriously, no matter where we are. Like, honestly, like if you're watching right now and you're a set of a cantist or a liberal or a, you know, SSPX or whatever, like, we have to surely agree that from the beginning, the church has been attacked from without and from within. And today, it's very glaringly obvious that the church is being attacked from without.

Think certain Jesuit priests in the United States, think certain German bishops and others. And so the temptation for all of us can be to see that freak out and rush to the team or the side of anybody who's opposing them the loudest without fully vetting exactly what it is they're saying, you know. I mean, you kind of saw some of this with Trump. I mean, for whatever Trump's virtues were, and certainly has many, had many, you know, he would also sort of talk about transgenderism and things as if that was totally acceptable and conservatives would rush to him. And fair enough, right? You've got a two-party system, you got to choose one or the other, I suppose. But

it doesn't mean we have to, we have to be nuanced, apparently. I was right about to say you got to be nuanced, because there are some things that you hear that are, again, legitimate criticisms about things that are taking place in the Church. But again, we kind of have to be qualified to a certain extent, because if we're not, we might buy into an entire position that itself is adding additional problems to the current crisis. It's not being a full solution, it's actually adding problems to the church. So it's not the appropriate solution.

Someone asked, was this funded by Bishop Barron? That's funny. Harrison Hagen, maybe that was a joke, but it was not. Make an argument. Yeah, so it is a joke because one of the people who slandered me, he was a YouTuber, said that I am funded by Bishop Barron and the Opus Dei. You wish. He told everybody, he did this publicly, he said he told everybody to contact him for more information on proof that I'm funded by Bishop Barron.

So people did contact him. It was weird because he tried to dox me and he saw that I previously years ago lived in an apartment and he couldn't explain how I paid what $750 a month for an apartment but then I have this studio. So he's like the only way that I can explain that he pays $750 for his rent but then has his studio is he's funded either by Bishop Aaron Oprah's day. So that was his proof That's it. Those are the only two wild wild speculation was his proof. Yeah, this makes you want to look you up So we always laugh We talked about and sucks. I'm gonna stop on YouTube right now

We should take a minute. Thank you Michael often is a problem. That's the first thing that came up Michael often is a problem Yeah came up. Yeah, that's a little sweet guy. I was thinking about No, type in Michael Lofton is a problem. No, that's the first thing that came up. Michael Lofton is a problem that came up. Let's see what else we got. I was thinking about getting t-shirts that say Michael Lofton is a problem. It's by some radical traditionalist who's saying I'm a problem in the church, and I sure hope I'm a problem for some of the things that they're saying. Well, you are pro-demon worship, apparently, which is a little controversial. Well, that's what they say, Tommy.

Just a little bit, right? We should take a minute to say thank you to our sponsors, uh, Bishop Baron. Yes. Also to our sponsors, Bishop Baron, if you'd like to start paying us, I would accept a check from Bishop Baron. I'm pretty sure neither one of them know anything about it. Terrific. So you do a really good job on your set with the cameras and all that. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, is this kind of what you want it to be? Or if like if Bishop Barron did stop finding ways of theology, what would you look like? I'll probably get a little bit of a better camera. I have to say the quality that you're producing here Catholic answers and others as far as video quality is awesome And that's not to say that the content is and either I think the content is as well content Just talking about the video camera is great The video quality is is great and I think that I need some work towards that

So yeah, Bishop Aaron if you're watching and you purchase new camera for me Let me know people let Baron know that that'd be great All right, man, you know smokes the guys do you Ross? We could go have one? I'll try it Would you really it's been years since I've smoked one, but I'll do it that whatever you have over there smells really good so yeah, I think pipes are like black tea and Espresso like I like cig. I'm sorry cigars like espresso Espresso like I like cig I'm sorry cigars like espresso. So if I this is just that we're on the out now now So to all the how many people are watching? Let's see. How many people are watching Neil? Yeah, you can leave the rest is gonna be completely unimportant just clock out now

Black tea if I wake up and I'll have several cups of black tea. I like it, but I still need my coffee You know, oh, yeah. Yeah, and if I have a few pipes, I'm like, I still need a cigar. Yeah. I know I'm going to die young. Well, I kicked the pipe, Haggett had it many, many years ago. But coffee, you know, I'm a professional coffee drinker. I drink coffee all day and all night. So. When did you get into pipes? How did they have it? Oh, that was back in my reformed days.

They were really big in the pipes. And beer, probably big steins of beer. I didn't do so much beer, but it was more the pipes, yeah. Very good. I know Jimmy Akin is another one. So you got you, you got Jimmy Akin, both of y'all are bringing that into Catholicism. You you know what I think it is and I've mentioned this before I think it's because a lot of people now on YouTube not a lot of people but some people

don't have bosses mmm so we can kind of do what we want it's not like a Catholic answers if I had a pull out a cigar no way I'm lying that thing now I have a boss I can kind of do that yeah and so long as YouTube doesn't ban me for saying things. I Don't think that well not not for that not Definitely for other things which is why people should go to rumble calm and sign up to pints with a quiet on rumble Not yet. I'd recommend doing it. Well, I guess you don't wade into some waters that would do No, I mean if if the trads or the libs run YouTube you'd be screwed Oh, is that right?

Given your content, but yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh, we just got another We may as well did Michael's experience in the Eastern Orthodoxy influences decision to go Eastern Catholic Hello from a fellow Eastern Catholic Catholic actually no Um, I wanted to go Eastern Catholic back in 2012 when I was received into the Catholic Church. I just did not have an opportunity to be received through an Eastern Catholic parish, so I went through the Latin Rite. But no, even prior to my reception in 2012, I was convinced of paedobaptism, I'm sorry, paedocommunion, you know, infantion, which is a tradition practiced still in the East, but it's been discontinued in the West.

I was already, you know, in favor of a lot of these Eastern Catholic practices, but again, I just didn't have access to it at the time, so. Got to ask you this question, because I've seen you comment on this. This will be the last question, then we can wrap up and go have a cigar and throw up. Is Communion in the hand, yay You're now for today. Yes. I'm not in favor of it today. That being said, I will not say that it is sinful or wrong or evil. It was certainly the venerable practice of the first millennium. But that doesn't necessarily make it best and ideal for today. Let's get to the today thing in a minute,

but first make the case that it was the common practice in the first century. Oh, I mean, you can see this all throughout. In fact, I did a show just the other day where I go over the documentation, the primary sources. So you have numerous saints, East and West, and here I'm also including Syriac in the Eastern tradition. So the Syriac tradition, all over the place you have saints who are testifying to communion

in the hand in their day. And these aren't spurious quotes that have been cobbled together by? No. There are a few that could be questioned, some that might come from, for example, the catechetical lectures of Cyril but even if it even if that particular one doesn't go back to Cyril it probably goes to somebody else maybe one of his successors so it's still from that time period but you could even throw that one away and still consult the numerous other sources that show that also the scholarship then

bears out the primary sources like Yong Man, his liturgical scholarship confirms what the primary sources indicate. What's really curious is you have the Council of Trulon 682, which is in the Eastern tradition received as part of the canonical tradition from the Six Ecumenical Councils, so they would consider it part of the Six Ecumenical Council. You have a canon there, I think it's 101, that forbids the use of any kind of gold or something like that in reception of the Eucharist, that you must receive it only in the hand. And the argumentation it uses, along with the other fathers... Is the idea that you can't receive it on a golden plate?

Yeah, or any kind of metal. You shouldn't be receiving it through that. And the argumentation is this. You should be receiving it on the hand according to them because you are made in the image of God. That metal is not. So they saw it as impious to receive on something metal like maybe a liturgical spoon. Obviously the East departed from that practice for the use of the liturgical spoon. So did the West with Communion on the tongue. I think that for our current situation, that's probably the best to have in the tongue preference for, I'm sorry, in the West preference for on the tongue and in the East the use of the

liturgical spoon. I'm not willing to say it's sinful for on the tongue, and in the East, the use of the liturgical spoon. I'm not willing to say it's sinful or evil to use communion in the hand because I then have to condemn Jesus, the apostles, and the fathers of the first millennium. I'm not going to do that. But that also doesn't mean that it's necessarily the most prudent practice for today. I think that it actually might not be the most prudent that is communion in hand. Because I've noticed that a lot of people, whenever they go to receive it, especially in the Rominary right now, they tend to be fairly careless. And that's a problem, because there are particles that are left on one's hand. And we do believe that Christ is present,

body, blood, soul, and divinity in every particle. And so you do want to intend to be careful to not drop those particles. I understand that we can't prevent every particle. I understand that, but at least we need to do our best to be respectful and treat every particle reverently. And I think that that's probably hard to do for a lot of people today. So it's probably best to not have that practice.

If we were in a position that people were being more responsible in their reception, maybe we can then talk community into that. Okay, that's helpful, thanks. We have another Super Chat. Oh, cool, good for you. This is also from Michael Bommer, he had a Super Chat earlier,

but he says, question for you both, how do you manage any negative effects of? Being an online presence who frequently is asked to give opinions on various topics How do I avert negative effects? How do you manage any negative effects of? Being constantly asked to give your opinions on things or just thoughts on that situation I don't know if I would interpret being asked my opinion as far as something necessarily negative. So I suppose I'm not necessarily understanding the question. Are you getting something else out of that more than I am? Maybe the question has more to do with how do you deal with a spotlight on you where people maybe

look to you as some sort of authority figure. Yeah. Perhaps you've said things that were unhelpful and how do you deal with the negative consequences that you may have unintentionally affected? Yeah. It's caused me to be a little bit more careful in the words that I use. I'm not saying that I've always been successful and currently being successful with that, but I've had to try to be a little bit more guarded and mitigated in my delivery and what I say and my tone. And then whenever I do something that is wrong,

I'll generally come out and publicly say, hey, I was wrong about this, or my approach here was wrong. So I'll try to correct it. You familiar with the Babylon Bee? What's that? Hey, are you familiar with the- Oh yeah, I've seen the, you know, online articles.

As somebody who kind of leans trad anyway, just like you do, it would be funny to come up with kind of like a trad version of the Babylon Bee. I have three ideas. One, a fella realizes that church has faced East because East represents the coming of the sun and then decides that since God is all powerful

and should be his primary focus, he decides to go about his day only facing East at all times. OK, OK. That's why the second is maybe a man who adopts every conceivable sacramental in regards to chains and scapulars. So that he is now paralyzed. Yeah. But then rejoices in it. Thirdly, just just somebody who says since the Eucharist is the most important thing on the face of the planet, I will never leave the church under any circumstances. It's really sad, more than funny. Yeah, that one's very different than the other two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. God bless Michael. Thanks so much for being on the show, brother.

It was an honor.