Pints With Aquinas - The Problem with Critical Race Theory w/ Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

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When did we first meet? Um, focus conference in Indianapolis, I believe we met in the green room. In fact, I still have the photo that we took. Really? I'm like, yes. I still have the photo on my phone. Cause I remember we were hanging out in a green room at a focus conference, but I forget which one that was.

I think it was Indianapolis. OK. Yeah. When was that? I don't even remember. That was before COVID. They're doing another one this year, hey? They're focused.

Yeah, because I think they did it online. Yeah. Last year. I think maybe even the year before that. But I think they're going back to in-person now, which is awesome. Yeah. What was COVID like for you when all this came to a crashing halt?

Do you know, it was, it was difficult. I remember I was in Scottsdale, Arizona, and it was the first night of the parish mission. I had preached all the mass on the weekend, okay. You know, and attendance was down because even then they were like kind of warning elderly people or people with current medical conditions to kind of, you know, and as the first night of the mission and I finished the talk and then before I could say anything else, father got up there and read the letter from Bishop Olmsted basically shutting everything down. And everybody was like, what? Wait, what? No mass tomorrow? No meetings? I'm like, wait, what? What does that mean for me? Because like, what about this mission?

And so the other obviously canceling the mission. So I was on a plane the next day back home to Portland, Oregon, and I was home for over a year. And it was difficult, Matt. First of all, going home, okay, well, what happens now? How am I supposed to support my family now? And then as that was happening, all of the cancellations started coming in. Oh, we're going to cancel, we're going to postpone, we're going to cancel, like boom, boom, boom, boom. And so I'm

like, okay, what do I do now? And so one of the things I did, I did two things. One was I started a little daily little podcasting. I had no idea. The first one was on my phone. I had no idea about Zoom. I know anything about that stuff. So I just got my old phone and just started recording. You know, it's like I put it on Facebook.

You know, and so it's called The Daily Dose of Deacon Harold. So basically just a little prayer, a little either theological or scriptural reflection and that was it. And that's how I do a Walk by Faith Wednesday webinars. That's where I started giving like an extended talk on some topic in theology or something like that. And then I started interviewing people. I said, there's some great people I've been meeting as

I've been traveling around. Let me help give them a voice, you know, give them a platform. They could talk about what they're doing, you know? And so I started doing that. And I'm going to get back to that because that was pretty fun. But I've been so busy now, you know, speaking now post COVID, you know, that I haven't had really time for that anymore. But, but it was, I mean, it was great in a sense that my family was home because the girls, I had two girls in

college at that time and both their colleges shut down so they came home, was doing online, studying the twins. We're in our last year of high school and that was online so everybody was home. So we had this extra time with the kids that we did not expect, which was wonderful. So I really cherish that time that we had together as a family. And one thing that was interesting is relating to your children as adults now. You know, it's like, oh, we're having these like conversations now, like conversation, conversation,

on these different topics and getting their opinions on things and stuff. It was really great, you know, to get to know your kids at a deeper level. And so that was wonderful. And then my wife and I had some fairly significant conversations, you know, things that were on her heart that I weren't, wasn't aware that there was issues for her. And so we ended up, you know, we did some counseling,

quite frankly, you know, and it was great. And I learned from those experiences, I've been definitely been upping my game as far as what I need to do to make sure her needs are being met. And so we did a getaway weekend and I got another one planned, don't tell her. But I've got another one planned, already't tell her, but I've got, I've got, I've got another one planned, um, already planned out,

already paid for and everything. But did you go the first time? Went to the Oregon coast to Newport and Newport is where the aquarium is. You know, we haven't been, we haven't been to the aquarium since the kids were small. So it'll be a great trip. So he went to the aquarium, but it was all COVID. Right. So it was like, you had the schedule of time to go and some of the exhibits were closed. And it's Portland. so all the fish were wearing masks. Well, pretty much, you know.

And so it was still like the quarantine kind of thing. So it wasn't like the aquarium was a little bit of a disappointment for a record. But, but that time with her was really special and really valuable. So I said, Oh, I got to do this more often. And so now that we're almost pretty much empty nesters now, I'm gonna be planning more of these types of things. And we never talked about what our life was gonna be like after the kids were gone, you know? Yeah, what is that? What is that like? Because my eldest is 14, youngest is 7. Yeah, yeah, you still got a ways to go.

And you hear people say, I think it's good advice, like you got to be working on your marriage because when the kids go, this is still here. Definitely. And that's one thing that I, that I in a sense took for granted, quite frankly. I mean, my wife's love and support has always been there, you know, and I, and I wouldn't be able to do the things that I'm doing now if it wasn't for her love and support. And, um, I just kind of assumed, you know, certain things and, and I wasn't paying enough attention to her as I should have, which I, which I definitely rectified now, you know? So, but I remember the first time when Claire went to school and we were having dinner. So we were at dinner table and Claire's spot was them. They said, somebody go get

Claire. And they said, daddy, she's at school. I'm like, oh, oh right. So I guess it's just us. And then when Angela left, it was like, oh wait, no, it's just us and the twins. It was like, wow, it just felt different. It felt weird, it was quieter at home. It's just a little strange transition.

And then Sophia went off to school and then Benjamin. And so it was like, wow, it's just us. It was just strange. And then Claire graduated, well, after, she graduated in 2020, so she didn't have a real graduation. It was like, her face went across the television screen. And that was her graduation and middle of her diploma. So very anticlimactic college experience.

But she's living at home now. She wants to move out, trust me. But it's crazy expensive to live in Portland right now. It's almost impossible for her financially to move out on her own. So she's home, and we're grateful to have her home. She's working full time. And Angela just graduated from college and very interesting.

She went to a Catholic school, I use that in quotes. And so at the invocation at the beginning of graduation, they never, in fact, they never mentioned God the entire time. The invocation was the entire time. The invocation was the creator, the redeemer, and the sustainer. I'm like, oh, ouch. And the same school, by the way, during parents weekend when she first was starting, you know, they had this mixer, you know, so they had the students go off by themselves and the parents were there. And so I had this name tag and I wrote my name on the name tag and stuck it on. And I'm walking around looking at the other, you know, parents. I didn't really take a look at the name tag very closely. And I was looking at it. What does it say under the name tag? It says, what is your preferred gender pronoun

at a Catholic school? Yeah. And I went, Oh hell no. I ripped that thing off and threw it. I said, I'm, I'm, I'm out of here. You know, I ain't playing this game. Is this a school in Portland? No. No. No, California. Okay. Yeah. So, um, uh, so. Wow, and when you were mixing with these parents,

did some people have weird pronouns? No, they put he or she or, I just said, no, no, no, I'm done with this. So I was out of there. And so, uh, and then Sophia is as an NYU and Benjamin, you know, Benjamin is still trying to figure it out, you know. He, we thought he was going to go to culinary school. Hey Benjamin. Yeah, he's a great kid.

Trust me. You know, and well, Claire, you know, she took a gap year before she started college, you know. And so it's so funny when she said gap year, when she presented that to me, I'm like, I never heard the term before. It sounded to me like she said, I'm gonna waste a year of my life doing nothing, is what I heard.

And my wife said, no, listen to her. I'm like, okay. And she goes, I'm ready intellectually to go to college. Well, I'm not emotionally ready to go yet. So she needed another year to mature. Sure. So I said, okay, she might make a better decision about what courses she takes. Yeah.

I said, okay. Um, this is new for me, but I said, okay, let's do this. You're going to do your thing for a year. Fine. But I want you to work. I want you to start learning about the value of money and, and, and saving them responsibility, that kind of thing. So she took a job at a doggy daycare called Noah's Arf.

Nice. And so she worked part-time for them while she was also doing some other volunteer work and just figuring everything out. And it ended up being the best thing for her. Because when she went to school, she was ready. That's what I mean, yeah. She was on fire.

She was like, yes, I wanna be here. And it was great. When I first moved to America, I had never been to university in my life. In Australia, it's not the same as it is here, where if you don't go to university, it's like not completing high school or something. And I started going to university

when I started working with Catholic Answers. I was about 25. I was great, because I didn't waste a ton of money on silly classes like lesbian dance theory. I was super into that when I was 17. That's not true. I made that up.

So that's probably a good thing. I think it's important that people maybe take a year out. Yeah. And that's what Benjamin's done. Same thing. You know, so he's trying to just try to figure it out. And you know, the worst thing I think with him was online school, was going to school online. He was doing great, we never had an issue with him

in school, great student, then COVID hits, he has to go to school online and he didn't go. So for a month we thought he was going to school because he was on the computer and oh okay. And then we get this thing like where's Benjamin? He hasn't been coming, like what do you mean he's on his computer all the time, what are you talking about? And he just said, the way he put it was like, online school was like,

state mandated prison was the way he put it. And the worst thing for him was asynchronous learning. So it's bad enough that you have the teacher online and trying to keep track of everybody, trying to teach that way. But then asynchronous learning, there's no teacher. They give you a set of assignments on Monday. You have the week to finish them, then you turn them in on Friday, then next Monday you get another set. You're basically teaching yourself. Why was there no teacher? Cheaper. Yeah, they just called it asynchronous learning. Now, there wasn't all the classes were like that, but some of them were like that. It's like a fancy term they came up with so as not to have to pay

teachers. I guess, you know, but that didn't, he did not, he didn't adapt to that well at all. And so basically just, it's just the wheels came off for him during that time. And so now, but he's been home, he's been reading, you know, like, I mean, Robinson Caruso and like, you know, all these classic classic Iliad, I mean, on his own. He just been buying books and just been devouring books and reading, which he never liked to do before. He's been cooking. He's I think he's I think he's called to be a chef. He's very talented. Have you in the kitchen?

Have you heard of Hillsdale College? I've done I'm taking a course just to kind of re-educate myself on Aristotle's Nick and Mickey and Ethics. They've got a ton of incredible courses that are perfectly filmed. Honestly, I think 99% of people going to university, unless they know exactly what they want to do, would do way better on Hillsdale College. It's free. I'm trying to get the president right now to come on the show.

He's a beautiful Protestant man, so if anybody knows him, bug him. Tell now to come on the show. He's a beautiful Protestant man. So if anybody knows him bug him time to come on the show, but yeah, there is, there are some really good stuff online, but then there's that asynchronous learning that just sounds. Yeah. So, I mean, so he's, he's been great. Um, you know, and, and he's, um, vegetarian now, right? So, which is, I just switched to tell us about this. So look, look, look, my whole life, I've been struggling with my weight.

Okay. Okay. Up and down, up and down. Um, a few years ago, a Docker recommended the, um, uh, paleo, you know, or, uh, ketogenic. Did you do that? Eating like, you know, mead and that stuff. So I did that, lost a ton of weight, gained all back, tried to get lost a ton of weight, getting all back. So it wasn't working. And then during COVID being home and being depressed and eating all the time and close to the fridge and all that stuff, gained a bunch of weight. So then my sister last month sends out a text, because me and my siblings keep, we have a group text

and we keep in touch with each other. And so he goes, oh, I'm doing this plant-based way of eating and you know, all these health things have happened to me since I went to a plant-based way of eating. She didn't say vegan or vegetarian She said plant-based and so I was asking her more about it and she goes Oh, you have to watch something called the game changers on Netflix Game changers. What is that? So it was about this guy who was an MMA fighter who teaches Navy SEALs and guys in the army, like self-defense techniques, and he injured both of his knees.

And so he goes, well, I need to recover. So he was doing his research about recovery and stumbled across this plant-based way of eating. And one of the guys they had on there was this guy's a strong man, one of the strongest men in the world, and the guy's been eating plant-based for years. And so he says, he goes, how could you be as strong as an ox without eating meat? And the guy said, have you ever seen an ox eat meat?

Okay, fair enough. And I was like, oh! That's a great response. I was like, wait a minute, what? And so I watched the thing and I was like, whoa, wait, Arnold Schwarzenegger was on there, And I was like, wait a minute, what is this plant-based thing? And so my sister convinced me and my wife had been doing it for a little while.

So I said, okay, I'll try it. So I just started beginning the month, May 6th, right? Because I was going over to the Holy Land. So I figured that's a great place to start because they got a lot of plant-based meals there. So I started. And I've been actually surprised. I've definitely been losing weight.

Wow. I feel it. So you eat my joint. Are you eating grains? Yeah, grains, plant-based stuff. Basically anything but meat or eggs. Well, yeah. So eggs, milk, stuff like that.

The less processed the better. That's why I'm not saying vegan because I'm not buying it to the vegan mentality of all animal cruelty and that kind of stuff Uh-huh. Although obviously we shouldn't be cruel animals But I'm not buying into that that whole side of that piece I understand but it's just the nutrition and the eating and that kind of thing So for me basically the less processed the food, the better. And so like plant-based milk, like almond milk and things like that, instead of regular, you know.

Are you drinking dairy? No. Okay. I've never, I've never liked milk ever since I was a kid. Yeah. I'm not big milk fan. But you can have eggs. You know, yeah. So I'm not eating a lot of eggs.

I'm trying to get my proteins from other, cause eggs basically is from chickens, right? So it's still a kind of a protein based protein kind of thing on this diet that you're doing or do they call it a diet or do they lie and say it's a lifestyle? They try to make it sound more appealing. But on this particular thing is the goal not to have eggs and only to be well, it depends what your goals are. So for me, I'm still going to eat fish. I'm still going to eat eggs and not every day, but you know, I'm just still going to have those.

What is a typical day like for you? Like today, what will you be eating? So when you're traveling? Yeah, so lots of so I'm a diamond medallion on Delta, which I've been for like five or six years in a row now. So when I go to the club, I'll eat a big thing of vegetable fruit. So the fruit salad stuff, I'll have hummus, you know, I have brown rice, tofu or, you know, vegetables, broccoli, things like that. And I'm surprised, I thought

this ain't going to work because I'm a carnivore dude. I'm like steak, burgers, fried chicken, like bam, you know, and I thought this ain't going to work for me. But I've been very surprised And I thought, this ain't gonna work for me, but I've been very surprised how much I don't miss meat. You know, I thought for sure this was gonna be really, really hard. And I think starting off in the Holy Land and eating a lot of tabbouleh, a lot of the plant-based stuff

made the transition a little easier for me, ordering vegan meals on the flights, on the transatlantic flights and stuff. And you know, I've been embracing it and you know, it's only been like what, three weeks, right? But I've noticed like the joint pain is gone in my knees and my shoulder and stuff. That's fantastic. Because my wife says I'm not snoring nearly as much.

There's no way she's going to let you eat meat again. Yeah, yeah, nearly as much as before. I think what's difficult is there's so many experts pushing so many different types of eating. Like it's only, you can do only carnivore or only plant or maybe paleo or maybe keto that it's so confusing that it's so gratifying when you start eating the way you're eating and you notice the effects. Yeah.

Because that's what matters. I imagine for some people like Jordan Peterson's on an all meat diet, he says it's working wonders, you're on all, the point is like, is it actually working in my life? Yeah, exactly. I've cut out sugars and grains for the last eight weeks, except honey, all our honey,

and I've been, I feel so much better. Yeah, and I think no matter what you do, you're gonna feel better. So I think it comes down to what's good you do, you're going to feel better. So I think it comes down to what's good for you and you got to go to that, get your blood levels and enzymes and that check to make sure that it's healthy for you. You know? Yeah. So again, I liked the paleo and I liked the keynote kinogenic because it's meat. Like you You said earlier when you were doing paleo, you lost a ton of weight. I lost a ton of weight. So why not just go back to that and not do this plant-based stuff?

Yeah, because I'd done it twice and gained all the weight back. You know? Because I think for me it was more about the weight loss than actually like living that kind of lifestyle. And then like you'd miss certain things like breads and that kind of things. And then, you know, when I'm traveling and speaking, I treat my like, here I am away from my family, I'm sacrificing doing this great work for the Lord.

I deserve that slice of pizza. Or I deserve that extra piece of cheesecake or whatever it is, you know? And then you just get back into the old bad habits again. But I think what's happening now, at least with the plant-based, it's a different mentality for me now. You know, I'm not thinking, it's not so much like,

oh, I gotta lose weight. That's really not the whole thing. It's like, okay, I've got to adapt this lifestyle because, you know, diabetes runs in my family, heart disease runs in my family, my dad had colon cancer, you know, so I'm like, whoa, hold on here. I'm getting older.

I realize, Matt, I'm more, I'm closer to the end than I am to the beginning. You know, so I said, I've got to, you know, as long as the Lord wants to do this work, I got to make sure that I'm keeping myself healthy so that I can continue to do the work that God has called me to do. So that's a different mindset and a different way of thinking than I was when I was doing a ketogenic. I'm not not not ketogenic. I'm not to be but don't do it. But for me, it was like I lost a bunch of weight and then gained it all back. Lost. It was the idea that it wasn't sustainable. It wasn't for me. It was not sustainable.

Right. Yeah. So I guess only been a few weeks with this plant based thing. But so far, it's impressive. So good. You know, and my sister sent me a cookbook As it was these firemen, I guess, you know put together of couple because it's one of the things in the in the game changers They went to this fire department a lot of these guys had heart disease stuff like that But after eating this way like the health things improved significantly. So these farmer wrote a cookbook Based on this, you know plant-based eating it. So these, Farmer wrote a cookbook based on this, you know, plant-based eating.

And so my sister sent me that book. So I haven't been home long enough to dive into those recipes, I will, after I leave here. Do you find that you're, I'll be home for a week. You're starting to even lose, is meat beginning to lose its appeal even? No.

No. Let's be real. No, it does not lose its appeal, but it's just I'm not craving it like I thought I would. Yeah. Like I'm not as tempted to cheat like I thought I would. You know, I'm like, wow, this is surprising. And some of the stuff is actually quite good.

You know, like I used to knock people with tofu, like, oh, tofu, what is that? You know, I should like literally make fun of people that used to eat that way. I was at a burger joint and I accidentally ordered a vegan burger. I didn't know that until I was halfway through and I was raving about how great it was. And someone said, you know, that's that's not meat. I had I couldn't believe it. It was terrific. And that's what I'm finding now, you know, and for me, it's about the long the long game now. So it's not about like, I mean, I could go every day. It's about right long, the long game. Yeah, now. So it's not about like, I mean, not going to get on a scale every day.

It's about right. Right. Right. So given how I'm feeling just after a few weeks, even better when I was when I was doing ketogenic, you know, as far as the way I'm feeling. That's, you know, sounds like, OK, I'm I'm I'm getting a legitimate, a legitimate shot. And so so I it's just been a few weeks, but I'm committed. Isn't it wonderful when you choose to live a different way and within a few weeks, you want to keep living that way. What's brutal and exhausting is when you think you ought to do something and that thing is exhausting and doesn't seem to be yielding any fruit. As soon as you

start seeing the fruit, you're like, okay, this could work and I feel good and that's terrific. Yeah. And I think this helped me in a holistic approach to life. So mind, body and spirit, right? Spiritual, I've never had a real struggle with that. I mean, I love praying to office for rosary, chaplet every day. I mean, that's, you know, I'm dialed in, but then the, and the mind, the intellectual stuff. So I love, I have 3,600 books in my library at home. If you ever seen some of my podcasts, you see all these books behind me, like, dang deacon, that's a lot of books. That's that. And even all of them, if I were to turn the camera around, you see this whole room is filled with bookshelves, you know?

Uh, so that's been peace, but it's the body piece that's always been lacking and always been a struggle for me. So what this way of eating at least so far has done, it's brought me more focus into my prayer life. You know? How so? So Jesus talks about fasting. It's like, not if you fast, when you fast. So there's an expectation there about fasting. And so for me, this way of eating is kind of like fasting for me. You know what I mean?

Because all the things that I love, the meat and all that stuff, and desserts, staying away from that for a higher goal. And now the higher goal is not just the physical, but it's also the spiritual. You know, and that's brought that into clearer focus for me in a way that that it hasn't before in the other ways of eating. I was trying in the past again. I'm not knocking those things. I'm not saying that they're bad. I say, no, do them.

But for me personally, this this way of eating has brought me into more clearer focus. I know what you mean. I mean, most of us just eat whatever is in front of us without giving it much thought or at least that's the easiest way. So whatever kind of restrictions you're placing on your diet, like you're living a more self-controlled, more intentional life in the way that you eat. And that can only be beneficial, I would imagine. Yeah, exactly. So so that's what I'm seeing so far. And so my wife is thrilled, you know, so so and my son is in cooking

those kinds of meals, you know, so it's when I go home now, it's gonna be easier for me to adapt to that kind of eating, which I'm excited about. Yeah, that's awesome. Can I just give a quick shout out to nutritional yeast? Because it tastes like cheese, but it's just yeast. So it's just like protein and sodium. That sounds gross. It sounds gross, and I was reticent to buy it

the first time, but once you put it on something, it just tastes like cheese. It's so good, I recommend it. I'm gonna have to try that, Neil D, but once you put it on something, it just tastes like cheese. It's so good. Recommended. I'm gonna have to try that, Neil. Thanks. Nutritional yeast, yeah. Okay.

And I guess drinking doesn't change. Are you kind of trying to regulate how much alcohol you take in? No, I don't drink. Oh, well, then how does that help? You don't have coffee either. No coffee, no alcohol. No, no, so the alcohol thing was,

my father was an alcoholic growing up, so. And... Did you never drink then? Because of some of the crazy things that went on in our house, none of the four of us kids drink. My siblings and me, we don't drink. Yeah, okay, I got the college, right? So yeah, I did my little, I mean, I got drunk once

where I passed out and stuff like that. And I woke up like, where am I? That kind of thing. I'm like, I will never do that again. That was the dumbest thing I've ever done. Cause I was playing quarters with shots of Jack Daniels, which was dumb. Cause I- What does that mean quarters with?

What's that again? Back, so I was in college in the eighties, right? So there's a game called quarters where you would bounce a quarter off a table and if it fell into your glass, you'd have to drink. I see. I sucked at that. It was horrible at it. Or in a way you were good at it. That sounds impressive to be out of. But then the thing is if, if the person got in, you had to drink. I see. And if the, you know, and if you didn't get in, you had to, I was like, Oh no,

so you didn't get it in. Yeah. So it's like, so I was horrible at the game and I am. So so alcohol has never been very attractive to me again. I'm not against alcohol. I'm not against people who drink just for me personally. It just doesn't do it. So obviously, I think if you're not drinking, I imagine that's better. Yeah. Yeah. People talk about the nutritional benefits of alcohol, but I'm pretty sure.

I do drink occasionally. I think we just like to tell ourselves what we want to hear mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, like totally, but you know, so I have a wine occasionally and then with coffee I just never liked the taste the first time I ever had coffee was in college really, you know is Trying to step away do it a paper tries in my first all-nighter. Yeah, and my room was a good He's drink some coffee. I said, okay This stuff is nasty, you know and yes as introduced to Mountain Dew Before the five-hour energy and all that kind of stuff Oh, have you tried that five-hour energy? I'm always afraid whenever I look at it. I think it's gonna kill me

All the caffeine in my heart is gonna buy pot so I'm afraid to take that stuff So I've never done that but I've never just acquired a taste for coffee we get a drink it like my wife drinks it with tons of sweetener and almond milk and all sorts of weird things these days. Like lavender latte. No, it just doesn't do it for me. Just like, it's kind of like, um, when I was over, I'm a very daring,

I've been to 23 different countries speaking and I, and I'm a very daring eater. So I've had, you know, I've had, um, tarantula. I've had, yeah, I've had, uh, you know, I've had tarantula. I've had, yeah, I've had, you know, not octopus, but jellyfish and things like that. And, but there's a couple of things I won't eat. Well, one of my tried, I said I would never eat it by then. One was durian. What is that?

So durian smells like a dead body. It smells like a corpse. So it's this big green fruit with kind of spikes. It kind of looks like a pineapple, but not as spiky as a pineapple. Where were you in? Big green fruit, Malaysia. Okay.

In Kuala Lumpur. So you cut it open and it just reeks. And there's this big yellow sack in the middle and it's inside the sack. That's what you're supposed to eat. And you can see billboards for it it says smells like hell tastes like heaven oh so they even admit it smells bad oh yeah you can't eat it in public in Singapore it's like you can't eat it's a rule or law you can't eat it in public because of the stench it's

just horrific can you look up if it's illegal to chew gum in Singapore for me absolutely I have heard it is I've been to Singapore five times. Yeah, I need to be looking up anyway. That's amazing, go Singapore. Talk about government overreach. You can't eat chewing gum. It's very clean, you know, I've hardly seen it. I think I've, in the five times I've been to Singapore, I think I've seen one homeless person.

Wow. You know, so I, you know, it's very, I think they got it very dialed in there. Is it true? So it's not illegal to chew gum in Singapore, but it's against the law to import and sell it. Import and sell? You can't sell chewing gum.

Except for like nicotine gum, you can do that for some reason. That's funny. With pharmacists. Yeah, keep the habit. Isn't that interesting, hey? Different laws, different countries have. So anyway, did you try this disgusting,

dead body smelling thing? Yeah, so, and there's a picture of me on Facebook. You have to scroll through, but I'm like, ugh, taste it. It don't taste like heaven. I'll tell you why. I'm not sure. It don't taste like heaven.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be, but I didn't think it was taste like heaven either. So I'm like, not again. And the other one was called Balut in the Philippines. So they said, you like eggs, D-Ga? Oh, I love eggs. So this big egg, which is obviously as a duck egg, not a chicken egg.

And you crack it open. There's big feathers. Embryo. Shut up. Embryo in there. And I'm like, you eat them. Oh, yeah. Just bite. I'm like, I put that in my mouth.

Are you nuts? I love the impression of the duck fetus that you just did there. That's fantastic. Eating that. I'm like, oh eating that. And they eat that. I'm like, oh, no. And what do they do? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, got myself to do balut. How did somebody suggest tarantula to you? Where were you and how did that go? That was also in Malaysia and so what happens is this

this woman goes out with the kids in the morning and they look on the rocks and under logs up and get these tarantulas they bring them back they boil them to kill them and they defang them and then they burn the hair off. Oh, my gosh. Oil and garlic and stuff. And they're real crunchy. It's kind of like it's like kind of like a chicharron. How big is it? You know, a good size. It looks like a spider.

Oh, yes. It's a tragic. You know, it's like a chicharron. Do they not have food in Singapore? Why are they looking under rocks? It's like a snack, you know. It's a snack. This is in Malaysia. And does it taste like garlic, I guess? Yeah, it tastes, I thought it tasted pretty good.

It tastes like, almost like a chicharron, right? You know, like the pig, the pork rinds, that kind. Not as sweet as a pork rind, but I like it. I guess when you think about it, like pork rind is like, you fry the skin of a pig. I mean, that's pretty disgusting. Right. Can you do that on your plant-based diet? No.

No. No. Tarantula? No, no. But that weird green death smelling thing you could do that all day long. I'm not going to do that anymore. Would you have a tarantula? Yes, you would. Do you have? I would. I haven't. But I think I'd probably do it when I was in the Philippines. You know, I just had fish in the morning and they give you this fish.

But that to me was gross. I mean, I didn't mean to be disrespectful. And I'm glad that they enjoyed it. But I just couldn't stomach. Yeah. Yeah. Fish and coffee. Oh yeah. Because for me, uh, the reason why I even, uh, try some of those things, I call myself a daring eater cause cause food kind of brings you into the culture. That's right. Right. You know, and Barbados in my country where I was born, they serve fish whole with the head on. So one of the things that they do for a guest is that they serve the whole fish and you

have to suck the eye out of the head of the fish. That's what they do for a guest? Yeah. My father used to do it at home all the time when my mom used to cook fish. Because he was the head of the house as dad, right? So when you're a guest in someone's house, you get the honor of sucking the eye out of the head of the fish. That's the honor, good, in Barbados.

Right. Yeah. Cool. I was watching, what's that survival video, Alone? You ever seen that series? Basically, they send 12 people out on an island, and whoever lasts the longest wins. And you've got to find your own food, make your own shelter.

And somebody said, you know, people need to be hungry enough to be excited to smash the skull of a fish and suck its brain and eyes out. That's how hungry they were. But I can't ever imagine doing that, not feeling that hungry. But good for you. That's great. Oh my gosh. So 23 countries. Yeah. But good for you.

So 23 countries, yeah, that's amazing and you've proclaimed the gospel in 23 countries. Yeah, just they're visiting for different reasons No, I proclaim the gospel in 23 countries. Yes. Where's the most interesting place you've been? You know, I would say the Asian countries Singapore Malaysia now I think in Malaysia for example It's it's a it's on the Sharia law example, it's on the Sharia law, right? The entire culture is on the Sharia law. And so, my going there to preach was actually illegal. So, when I went to the parishes to speak, you know, there were tons of people. I remember one church in particular, Divine Mercy, in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. We're driving and they don't, if the government allows them to build new churches, they can't build in the city.

The churches that were there from the time of the Jesuits and that colonial times, they allowed them to continue to exist. But if they allow them to build a new church, they have to be outside outside of the city So we're driving and we're in this factory area where they're making purses and shampoo and we finally get to this church Which on the outside looks like a kind of a modern building but inside is beautiful. Hmm, you know, and there were ten thousand people One priest. Oh my and so I priest at all the masses on the weekend there were probably 2500 people every mass and they wanted to be there and they were passionate and they were in love and And I remember clearly from that experience

Feeling like in countries where there's some oppression is where the church is most alive This is church most most passion. I've had some very Moving moments in South Africa, okay? After preaching at a mass in Soweto, which was two hours and 20 minutes long, but it felt like five minutes, it was amazing. It was beautiful. The mass was in Zulu, Soto, English, which I preached in English, which you know, I think they did it for my benefit, and Latin. You know, and some of the main responses were in Latin.

So I said, Father, after Mass, I said, Father, this is also using Latin. He goes, Latin is the language of the church. Latin's what pulls us all together. And so after Mass, he goes, now we must take Jesus to the people. I'm like, oh, okay, we're gonna go to same Mass somewhere else. We had a suborium with us.

So we drive to the squatter camp. Now when you see these things on TV, much worse in person. Really? We're walking through this thing and it's these tents or these shacks with these tin roofs, dirt floors, no sewage system. I mean, the stench nearly knocked me to the ground. And what I noticed was I didn't see any adults. So I'm figuring, oh, we must be going to where the adults are gathered for mass That's why we're here. So we made our way and so we got to the center of this place and The only adults that I see are nuns Full habit it was hot. It was summertime full habit humid and all these kids

I'm like, well, where are the adults and it finally hit me and talking with the sisters This was this particular squatter camp was for AIDS orphans These were for children who literally were left in garbage cans who were driven out Dumped and then left there and these sisters gathered all these children, some left in toilet bowls, some left wherever and they gather and the sisters created this squatter camp. And I never felt more proud to be Catholic than that moment. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. Everybody else rejects these children and here is the Catholic Church in the midst of this squalor, in the midst of the anguish. Here is the church serving, literally the poorest of the poor and

the people that are rejected, the people that are not wanted. It was absolutely beautiful and The people that are not wanted, you know, and it just it was it was absolutely beautiful and I will never forget that experience as long as I live and and even you know, the nuns handed me one of the kids out and the first thing I was thinking this kid could kill me. You know, that was my first this kid had AIDS. These kids could kill me. But then I saw it was just a kid. It was just a baby.

I'm like, what you got going on over here? It's just like, you know, it's just a baby. You know, it was just it was you know, it's just a bit, you know, it was just, it was just an amazing experiences of my life. How many nuns are serving these children and how many children were there? Oh gosh. Um, well there were nuns and then they were volunteers from other countries that were also helping out as well. Um, and, and so, um, and the nuns also run an orphanage,

which I also got a chance to visit. So, uh, and then, and then they exchange. So there's some nuns that run the orphanage, which I also got a chance to visit. So, and then, and then they exchange. So there's some nuns that run the orphanage and they go out into the field and then the other ones come back and there were probably 50, 60 kids there. And how do they? And the government supplies, you know, money so they can run the thing. But, but they all can't fit in the orphanage, you know, so that that's what they love to put all the kids in the orphanage, they just can't. Okay, so obviously children need a lot of care, they need to be taught how to basic hygiene and when to eat and what to eat.

How are the nuns and the volunteers doing all that? Or are they just doing it the best they can? They're doing it the best they can. And these children are living parentless alone in shacks. Yeah, and now with the volunteers coming in, the volunteers are helping out and teaching, you know, providing support and food and hygiene and all that kind of stuff. And what were the kids like? What was their disposition? You know, they were joyful because that's all they know. There's no television.

They're not comparing themselves. They don't have access to Western culture. I mean, at least these kids, they're not looking at what else is out there. So that's all they know. And so they're joyful because they're with a wonderful sense of community. So it's called Nazareth House is the name of the orphanage that they ran there. And it was just... This was in South Africa? Yeah. Yeah. It's's beautiful moving experience. Absolutely.

Several years ago I was invited to go with father Stanford tuna to speak in Abu Dhabi. And while I was there, I remember they said, just don't speak against the prophet because there'll be some people here. And I said, well, he's not a prophet. They went, that's what we're talking about. Don't say the call for call for prayer, bellowing in the mosque next door, mainly Indian and Filipino folk, but also some locals. And there was several thousand there. And I had the honor of meeting the bishop of the underground dioceses in Saudi Arabia, as well as four folks from Saudi Arabia. And I was desperate

to meet with them. I wanted to talk to them about what it was like. And you've probably had a similar experience, but the priest was there and he's from the Philippines and they talk about how they celebrate Holy Mass in his apartment and house. There's a driver who was there who would drive around in secret picking up the Christians. They would always have people around the perimeter of the building with cell phones in case the police were coming. They would then call the people at Holy Mass who would then pull out a birthday cake that was always present in the fridge and turn the celebration into a birthday party. And I said to the priest, wow, so how did you get into Saudi Arabia?

You know, as a priest, he said, oh no, I came as a mechanic. I said, wow, you're a priest and a mechanic. And he went, no, I think as a mechanic. I said, wow, you're a priest and a mechanic. And he went, no, I lied about being a mechanic. God, it's just remarkable to see these people in serving the church in persecution. They asked me to come to Saudi Arabia and preach. They were no, you wouldn't get beheaded. Oh, good. All right. No, they would at best they would send you home.

You know, they would they would send you away. They said we recently had some people who were arrested because we had a conference in this old barn, but they always take their shoes off before coming into a holy place, which I think is a really cool thing. And I guess the police saw this mountain of shoes and then arrested people. Oh, I see. I see. Well, it's just like Moses burning Bush, right?

In Exodus, you take your shoes off because you're entering a holy place. That's cool. But what surprised me was they weren't super Christians. They're really no different to you and me. And I think sometimes we have this idea that they must be like a cut above the rest, and maybe in certain instances they are. But I've known many, and I continue to meet many holy people in the United States who love Jesus Christ and would give their life for him should God provide that grace for

that courage. But yeah, we can certainly learn a lot from Christians persecuted in different countries. Yeah, and one thing I think they appreciated was the fact that those countries also don't allow other priests to come in, right? So for example, the last time I was in Malaysia, these priests are like 80 years old, 90 missionaries, but they were grandfathered in. Now they don't allow priests to come in to take their place.

The only thing they allow is homegrown vocations because there's so few of them, they don't feel threatened. Oh yeah, go off to your seminary, whatever. I mean, you know, so when these priests die, it's like, wow, there's not gonna be many priests to come up and take their place, you know, which is why I always say yes to go to preach at places like that, to try to...

No, I'm not taking the place of priests as a deacon, you can't do that, but just to bring the message of evangelization to the people. And what's their response to you? Oh, it's very... It's very different style because they think I'm yelling, you know? Because you're yelling? But people on the West coast think that too. Because I'm from Jersey, right?

I was a bar best, but I grew up in Jersey, you know, so I grew up a lot around a lot of Italians, right? So I got to use my hands a lot. I'm, and I'm like, oh, I'm not angry. I'm like, it's passion, you know, but they mistake it for anger. It's like, we think there's a, thank you Deacon for coming and yelling at us. Like you're very welcome. You know, so they're not offended then.

No, no, no, not at all. No, they like the passion. They're just not used to that style of presentation, you know, but but they very much enjoy it, though. Well, when I was in Uganda a couple of years ago, speaking to these Catholic leaders, they treated me the way I treat Scott Hahn because not because I'm nearly as bright, obviously, as Scott Hahn, but because they hadn't been benefited by the apologetics movement in the United States in the way that we have. So they'll ask a simple question like, well, why do we call Mary the mother of God?

My Protestant friends are saying this and you'll give the simplest answer and they'll fall off their chairs like it was the most brilliant thing they've ever heard. So that's what I noticed that they hadn't benefited from these wonderful people like Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid and Scott Hahn and all these others, Mary Healy and others, you know, who are really saying the basic truth, which to us, well, of course, that's what we call Mary, the mother of God. She's the mother of Jesus, Jesus is God, et cetera. But so I found that they were really grateful when I came down. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the best reception I've ever had anywhere in the world was in the Philippines.

You know, and I've been there four times and I've been going down to the school in the southern part of the city in Quezon province, not Quezon city, which is near Manila, but Quezon province, about a four or five hour drive south. And I go to speak at this school and the last time I was there they like this massive massive like Billboard thing with me on it and stuff like that. I'm like welcome back Deacon Harold and then that all the kids were lined up You know, so as I was entering the school They were kids on both sides clapping and cheering and waving flags and then they had this whole presentation where they sang

Traditional songs did traditional dances in honor of my being there. You called your wife and you said, I think I'm staying here. No. You can come if you want. It was a little bit uncomfortable, quite frankly, but it was also very cool to see how enthusiastic they were about coming, you know, because that doesn't always happen, you know. You get that kind of welcome, you know? So it was really cool.

As America has become sort of increasingly post-Christian, have you had any recent negative experiences when you've proclaimed basic truths of the faith? Yeah. Yeah. If I say the city, because people are watching I know where it where this is but I was in a city recently Where I gave a preset mass And then I gave a talk to middle school students and I said basic things like marriage is a man and a woman That males are actually males and females actually females that a child in the womb is a person, it's

not a blob of tissue, that our brothers and sisters who are same-sex attracted, we love them with the love of Christ, you know, absolutely unconditionally. But we love everyone. We always love their actions. We judge actions. We never judge people. Things like that. And the kids at the end were like, when are you coming back? But some of the parents and the teachers that were there, I got some of the most hateful emails I think I've ever received in speaking. This is at a Catholic school. This is at a Catholic school.

What sort of things did they say? Don't ever go near my kids again. Bigoted, closed-minded, homophobic. They couldn't call you a racist. That must have been nice. Yeah. No, they didn't call me a racist. It was just belittling at hominem attacks. Instead of attacking my arguments, they attacked me personally. It's just, you know, it's just, I mean, you know, in a sense you could, that could be disheartening, right? But it was okay. How did the head of the school or the leaders of the school respond?

Presumably? No, nothing. I didn't hear anything from them. I still haven't heard anything from them. Were they happy that you said basic truths or do you think they were? Well, I think they were polite and thanking me for being there, but I think they were like, Oh, we didn't expect this, you know, because, uh, and I found out later that Jason Everett was also there and they also did not get a night.

So when you had told me this before, I would call Jason, James, what's up? Am I stepping into a lion's den here? And that's the, he got, he was warned not to say this and not to say this. And he was like, wait, what? You know, did he say it anyway? He did, but I think he knew us today way still some people off But I think he knew us in a way that you know that was more pill I mean if I would have known that ahead of time I still would have spoke the truth in love

You would have massaged it a little massage it a little bit a little bit better not not to deny the truth Not to speak the truth in love That's why I thought I did but I did it in a passionate way in my style and they thought I was angry. They thought I was attacking. I'm like, what? The kids understood what I was saying. The kids got it. Kids were smart enough. Yeah. And they weren't the ones that pushed back. It was the parents and some of the teachers there. Because I noticed during mass, a lot of teachers didn't receive communion.

I said, oh, they must not be Catholic or state of mortal sin or something. But I learned later that the vast majority of teachers are not Catholic at that school. And so there was a lot of pushback on what I had to say because they're not really teaching the Catholic faith. So a lot of kids are hearing these things really for the first time,

and it was for the, I guess, for the parents and some of the teachers, it was very jarring for them to hear the truth presented in such a bold, powerful, unapologetic way with passion and conviction, you know? And they took that as attacking and belittling, which of course is not. And most of people get it. And I've been criticized, but people don't like my style. I'm like, well, then go see someone else. No, I'm not going to change because you don't like my style. I'm being honest to who I am.

I love being Catholic. I am passionate about being Catholic. I'm not afraid to share that and to show that. Luke 9 Now, I think that's great. When you start editing your personality to make yourself acceptable to all comers, you end up as interesting as dentist art. You know, you're not offensive. You're also not interesting. And you've said nothing helpful. So I think that's really great that you're like, No, this is this is my yeah, this is how I just have to be. I have to be the person who God called me to be.

Was there a stage in the beginning of your ministry where you felt tempted to maybe change your style? I think the first time I got criticized, it was like, ooh, maybe I should change my style. And I prayed about it. I spent a lot of time in adoration. I prayed about it. I was like, no. Because what's happening is this, that I've realized.

Even people walk out on homilies, you know, and what happens is I'm preaching the beauty of the truth, and there are people that are listening to what I'm saying that are rooted in their sin. They're very comfortable in their sin. And so, the conscience always wants to turn back toward the true, the good, and the beautiful. The sonum bunum is Aquinas calls it, right? Their ultimate end. And so when you prick that conscience and the conscience wants to turn back toward the

truth, they fight that conscience. And because you're the one that caused that tension, they blame you. It's your fault. You made me feel like this is your saying these things. That's right. And they attack me without even thinking about what I'm saying. You see? But I try to use opportunities to try to preach the gospel without preaching the gospel. Let me give you an example. I'm crazy pro-life. I'm not afraid to speak on pro-life stuff.

I'm crazy pro-life. I'm not afraid to speak on pro-life stuff. I was at a pro-life rally. This was an outdoor event. The way they had it set, this was in January, so Roe V. Wade month, that whole thing. They had two stages. They had the stage at one end of the plaza where the speakers, they had another stage at the end of the plaza for praise and worship. The speaker would go then a praise and worship.

Then the speaker would go, praise and worship. And this is actually on my YouTube channel. So you see me get up there to give my speech and you hear all these protesters. So the camera pans over and you see tons of protestors across the street with the blue police barrier. They got their signs and they're yelling things like, get your rosaries off my ovaries, things like that. So I say on the video, let them yell. They're not going to be as loud as me.

And so I talked for about 17 minutes, then the video stops. Here's what you didn't see. I got off the stage, I greeted a few people, and I saw that the the protesters had shifted down the street because they wanted to drown out the praise and worship band but this one young lady was you know was still there she had her sign brace against her her knees and she had her head down she was texting I said let me go say hi you know so I walked into the police table, I walked to the blue police bar, she did this. I know you.

You were just the one that was up there talking. How dare you say woman doesn't have a right to choose? How dare you say woman doesn't have control over her own body? You want to go back to clothes hanger abortions? And she just ripped into me. She was yelling so loud, she was almost spitting in my face. portions and she just ripped into me. She was yelling so loud she was almost spitting in my face. I just stood there and said nothing.

So now I'm going to describe her only because this dictated my approach to her. This was an Oregon. So she was what I call a typical crunchy Oregonian young adult, right? In her 20s, blonde, white, dreadlocks, um, Birkenstocks, tie-dyes, ripped jeans, piercing tattoos, smell like, you know, not hairy. You smell like she'd been hugging a tree in the woods for three days, that kind of thing. She had that kind of vibe going on. So when she finished yelling at me, I said to her, are you a vegan? She said, don't change the subject. I said, actually it's pretty relevant to what I have to her, are you a vegan? She said, don't change the subject. I said, actually, it's pretty relevant to what

I have to say to you. So you don't eat meat? I don't eat meat. I don't eat fish. I don't eat eggs. I don't eat butter. I don't drink milk. I don't eat anything produced by an animal.

Because they fill these animals full of hormones and chemicals. And they take these animals into laboratories and fill them with diseases to find cures for us. No, I don't eat anything produced by an animal. Do you recycle? Of course I recycle. We have to protect Mother Earth. And they start talking about greenhouse gas and global warming and global footprints and all this kind of stuff.

So she finished and I said, you know what? I can totally appreciate where you're coming from. global warming and global footprints and all this kind of stuff. So she finished, I said, you know what? I can totally appreciate where you're coming from. Let me tell you how we understand as Catholics. You know, in the Bible, it says that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, right? And I said, when you eat good things like you're doing, you take care of yourself. That's a wonderful thing. I commend you.

The Bible also says that we're supposed to be caretakers of creation. So when you take care of the earth, that's a good thing. I applaud you. But can I ask you a question? And how is she at this point? And she's, she's like, but she's listening. She goes, I said, are you on birth control? What the hell kind of question is that? That's not your god damn business. That's a personal question. I said, well, we're both out here talking about abortion. That's pretty personal too. Humor me.

And she leans in, she goes, yeah, I'm on the pill. So what? Mm-hmm. And I went- Just make sure you're behind this. And I went, uh, uh, uh. Now I'm confused, cause you just told me me one of the reasons why you don't eat me cause they feel these animals full of hormones and chemicals.

Yet you're taking an artificial hormone that tricks your body into thinking that it's pregnant. And when you piss out the estrogen, it goes into the river system and kills the fish. So I, I, I, I, one of my fun, I put this little study from Colorado that showed the effects of river fish downstream from a sewage treatment plant because of the effects of sewage and estrogen in the water. And I held up my phone to, I said, the very animals that you're trying to protect, you're

killing them. I said, I'm green and organic when it comes to sex, how come you're not? And waited for an answer. So now she's like, uh, uh, uh. See, cause now she has to think. So what I did was I took all the emotion out of it, and I asked, it's a very Socratic method, right?

I asked a question, I just waited for an answer. She couldn't answer because now she has to get past all the questions because she realized the self-contradiction she just made. She goes, now how do I get myself out of this? Now as I'm waiting for an answer, we got a problem. The praise and worship band finished playing. So now her friends are coming back. I'm like, this is going to get ugly real fast. So I took out one of my cards and I wrote Pope Paul the sixth Institute I said green organic sex for free check it out right here now Pope Paul the sixth Institute right in Omaha right the dog NFP all the good stuff. So what could she have done at that point Matt?

She could have not taken the card. She goes taking the car spat on it threw it back in my face She could have taken the car crumpled up or ripped on it, threw it back in my face. She could have taken the card, crumpled it up or ripped it up and threw it back in my face. She took the card without saying anything and put it in her purse. And when her friends reached this, I backed away from her. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Now why did I do that?

So she could save face in front of her friends. Now she doesn't have to explain why were you talking to him. But did she pick up on that? Do you think? think took the card? Now that's effective evangelization. Is it my job now to follow up with her and see what God did in her life? Nope. I gave, she took the car.

She went, now what's she going to do when she gets home? She's going, when nobody's around, she's going to go, what is this? See? Cause the whole goal for me, in a confrontational situation like that, is how do I get this person in front of me to want to listen to more of what I have to say? It's not about winning arguments,

it's not about even who's right or who's wrong. Ultimately for me, it's what's true and what's not true. That's ultimately, and what's not true. That's ultimately, and I'm not trying to convince anybody, I'm not trying to proselytize, I'm not trying to change anybody's mind, but I will give you something to think about. See, that's the approach I try to take in those situations. Yeah, it's difficult to be in those situations because you can't really prepare them, prepare yourself for them unless you've been in those instances multiple times.

It's a very frightening thing when someone's that angry. I try to prepare myself by spending time in adoration thinking, okay, if I was asked about this, how would I respond? Or how do I think through these things? Or how do I get this across in a way that's meaningful in someone's life without pissing them off so much that they don't ever want to hear anything I ever want to say again? That kind of thing. So I'm thinking about these things. I'm praying about them when the opportunity presents itself. I'm like, oh, here I am right now. Okay. I just, okay, just take a deep breath. Lord, you know, speak through me right now. You know, let your love work through me right now to this person who's very, very

angry and upset. Because the last thing I want to do is to feel like I've won this argument and the person's even more upset than they were before. What have I gained? Nothing. Fulton Sheen said it's entirely possible to win an argument and lose the soul. See, there you go. And that's why I don't want to do so. I want I want someone that walks away from me to be thinking even if they don't like

what they heard, at least they're thinking about it. Are you concerned that as the polarization continues in America, that we're not actually talking to each other? We're just talking to the people who agree with us? Yeah, I'm concerned about that. Yeah. And that's exactly what's happening. I mean, you can't have respectful dialogue anymore.

I mean, I worked on a college campus for, uh, 11 years, um, as police chief. And, um, you know, you notice on college, when I went to college, I was a freshman in Notre Dame, right? The people who disagree with, you'd have these intense arguments and then you go have, okay, let's have dinner. Okay. Okay. It was never personal, but now if you say something to defend someone, they have these safe spaces. So you, oh, you offended me. Where's my safe space? We can go in like puppies and pet puppies and balloons and listen to Barry Manilow and, and, uh, you know, those poor puppies, that's going to be hell for them. You know, it's like, what?

Why can't we, why can't we have a dialogue where we agree to disagree? Speech is violence Deacon. That's where, yeah, Yeah see that's the problem and we and where you can't even have a respectful dialogue where you respectfully disagree with each other but still respect each other as human beings made in God's image of likeness, that's a problem. We can't have those discussions where we're learning from each other. Where we're growing in colleges and universities, the problem is they're teaching young people what to think not not how to think.

And that's a huge, huge problem. Because all they're doing is they're giving them an ideology, not allowing them to develop a way of thinking and critiquing what they're hearing. You're serving the thing immediately. You don't know, love, and serve. You serve the ideology. You come to love it, feel affection for it. And then you rationalize what you can't know because it's not everyone that

doesn't agree with you as a hater. Everyone that disagrees with you as a bigot, everyone that disagrees with you as a homophobe, everyone that disagrees with you is, you know, you start labeling people and you, and we never get to a deep, honest understanding and appreciation. That's why I love what you're doing here on Pines for the Quiet. And we never get to a deep, honest understanding and appreciation. That's why I love what you're doing here on Pines for the Quants. I watched an episode not too long ago

where Scott Hahn was talking with this dude that's like thinking about becoming Catholic. I forget the gentleman's name. Cameron, Cameron. And just the dialogue between, the time I said, why can't we have more discussions like that? You know, he's asking questions, good questions,

you know, and Dr. Hahn's answering the question. And he's, you know, he's asking questions, good questions, you know, and Dr. Hans answering the question. And he's, you know, he's not necessarily changed the young man's mind, but at least they're thinking, at least they're doing it respectfully. That's, I love that. That's honest. And that's helping each other to come toward ultimately what is, what is true, good and beautiful. I think one of the things that prevents dialogue is with

it seems like the media is trying to make us afraid of each other. Right. So I want to ask you about racism right now. And I've been told that I'm a racist because I'm white. I well, not directly, but that's the kind of sense I get when I watch the news. I also get the sense that to even ask the question about racism is inappropriate. So it's like, well, how can I dialogue if I can't actually try to understand somebody's opinion? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So it did little things too. It's like, I want to help this woman at the airport, but I've also been told it's sexist to open a door

for her or to pick up the suitcase that she's clearly struggling with that sort of thing. So it's like, we're afraid to even engage each other because we've been told or we're being conditioned by whatever media we're in, in taking that it's, uh, the, the other is the enemy. And yeah, that, I guess that's what I mean. So I want to ask you about racism because you're writing a book right now. What's it? Yeah, it's called the working title is called building a civilization of love,

a Catholic response to Racism. For Ignatius Press, it's due to come out in the spring of next year, 2023. And I wrote the book during COVID, because like, what else am I gonna do? And I've been thinking a lot about these things, especially given the climate that we're in the country and the George Floyd thing and all that,

and the other instances of racial tensions and things like that. So I said let me let me write something about this. So what I did in in the beginning of the book was talk about the define what racism is. I'm gonna ask you to do that for me. Tell me what that is. What does racism mean? So racism or race, as I define it, it's not about, you have to make the distinction between prejudice and racism, right? So prejudice is a preconceived notion about someone not based on any observable or subjective experience, okay? Not based on observable. Right. So you're making a judgment about someone.

You're not basing it because you know the person personally or there's any objective fact. You're just saying it because you're just looking at it and making a judgment about someone without without knowing. I just want to pause a moment without knowing where you're going. I don't know if it's possible not to do that. Now, you shouldn't be enslaved to that and you should be critical of your own assumptions of people.

But if I encounter, let's say, a South African or a New Zealander and every New Zealander I've met was a certain way, then it's I don't know how you can then not encounter a New Zealander or a South African and assume that this is what you're going to get, especially if it's been confirmed again and again. So I just want to throw that out there. I want you to push back on it if you like. I'm not saying we should be enslaved or beholden to those prejudices. I just don't know if it's possible not to have them as humans.

And we all have them as human beings. We all have these prejudices, but that's why I'm making this distinction between prejudice and racism. I'm not saying that's that. So let me just finish the definition. So a preconceived notion about someone not based on any observable subjective experience. Now what that becomes race, we take prejudice and you say the reason why I am saying this is I believe that my race is superior to your race. So the reason why I'm saying this subjective thing that

this, why I have this prejudice because I believe my race is superior to race that's racism. So let me give you an example okay. Agreed by the way. At a parish mission not too long ago a guy came up to me found out I went to Notre Dame. He goes oh you went to Notre Dame? What position did you play? Now he assumed in his mind that I played football. Why? Look, I'm a big guy, right? And I can see the calculus in his mind.

Big black guy plus Notre Dame equals football. When the truth is, I've never played football in my life. If you put Paz on the floor, I have no idea what to do with him. I'm not a football player. I got an academic scholarship. So what he should have, now people say that was racist. No, it wasn't racist, it was prejudice. See, he made a preconceived notion not based on any experience.

He didn't know me, he just assumed the way I look, went to Notre Dame, I must have played football. See, that's a prejudice. It doesn't make him an evil or bad person, but the statement itself was prejudiced. If it was racist, he would have met when he said it in order for it to be racist. The reason why I said that is because there's no way

that people of color can get to a school like that in academics. The only way you must have got in is by playing sports. That would have been a racist statement. That's not what he meant. Because when he found out that I didn't play football, that he went, oh, oh, I'm sorry, he was embarrassed. See?

So the statement was prejudiced. Again, that doesn't make him a bad person, but we have to recognize we have these prejudices within us. And I wasn't angry when he said it, because I knew it wasn't a racist thing behind it. What he should have asked was, oh, you went to Notre Dame, what did you study? Because that's what he would have asked anybody else. Yeah. You see, so that's, so I have to tease out racism versus prejudice because everyone has

prejudices, right? When I first started traveling to the South, I thought everybody liked Shrimp and Grits because you're from the South. I heard that people in the South like Shrimp and Grits. Well, I found there were some people that don't like it, you know So we all have these prejudices and these preconceived notions. That's not racism That's not racism. So I make those distinct. So I also make a distinction between institutional racism and people in institutions that are racist Okay, so we had institutionalized racism in the past, right?

Slavery, duh, right? Jim Crow, apartheid in South Africa. Those are redlining, the practice of redlining. Those were all very clear institutionalized racist ideologies. But now we have to, because now for example, if you're a federal loan officer, right, we have all these laws now that is illegal to treat anybody that way, that based on color, anything like that. But you may

have someone who works this, as we know, I'm not comfortable giving loans to blacks and Hispanics. I'm not gonna give them to white people. Now the institution is saying saying no, that's wrong, but the person still has an ideology in their mind. See? So you have to distinguish the institution from people in institutions who are racist. Right? So even the Catholic Church fell down on this. My little parish in Portland, Oregon, Immaculate Heart of Mary was traditionally a German and an Irish parish. So to this day, we have on the high altar, we have a beautiful statue of our Immaculate

Heart of Mary, because that's the name of the parish, Immaculate Heart, duh. But on either side of Blessed Mother, we have St. Patrick and St. Bonaventure for the German and Irish parish of the parish. Beautiful. But back in the day, when I talked to the older parishioners who were there, they came up from the South during World War II to work in the shipyards. So they came up from Louisiana, they came up from Alabama, they came up from Texas and other places, and McLeart was the closest church to the shipyards. So that's where they went to church. And they had to sit in the choir loft, or they had to sit in the back.

Now, they were following, why was the church following Jim Crow? Who's supposed to be following Jesus Christ? Not Jim Crow. But that was a practice. That was a practice, you're right. That was a practice that was even in the church itself. Right?

And there was, I document in the book, there were religious orders and priests and bishops who sold slaves, owned slaves, that kind of thing. Wasn't the Catholic church at one point one of the largest owners of slaves in the United States? Somebody's told me that. I didn't find that in my research, but I was looking for statistical stuff.

I was just looking at here, we have to be honest about where we were as a church when it comes to this issue. And even though I document pope after pope after Pope came up with very, very strong anti-slavery statements, the hierarchy in the country at the time were like, well, that doesn't apply to us. That's Europe, and they don't understand what's going on here, that kind of a thing. So they kind of ignored it and pushed it to the side.

And I also talked about some very strong Catholics who were very anti-slavery. So I try to find that balance in there. And then I talk about certain ideologies that people are trying to bring in to the discussion about race and the Catholic faith that don't belong there. The critical race theory, liberation theology, and the Black Lives Matter movement. What is that? What is critical race theory and what's wrong with it? All right, so you know when I was writing that section of the book I had intended

to put all three of those into one chapter because the book is not about that. The book is about a Catholic response to racism but I felt that I needed to address those because people are saying we need to incorporate these to help close the racial divide. And so I had heard about critical race theory. And so I said, well, let me understand what this is. I don't wanna read what some political pun that has to say about it or some critic. So I got the books by Janine Stefanik,

Richard Delgado, Derek Bell, Kimberly Crenshaw. These were the founders of critical race theory. And I've read their books to understand what it is that they're talking about. And it took me a month just to write that. Just to get my mind around the terms they were using, which I've never heard before, and the concept, it's actually a very complicated concept. So I said, well, wait a minute, where did this come from? So I had to trace the history back

and then move it forward to show why it's incompatible with Christianity. So critical race theory comes out of critical legal theory from the 1970s. So critical legal theory looked at even though civil rights laws have changed, the attitudes haven't changed. So the example I use in the book is from a golf course that was bought by a evangelical

church in Texas in Dallas, Fort Worth area. They bought the golf course not to buy a golf course, but they bought it because they want to control what's being built around them, around this community. So when they bought the golf course, they were learning a history of it, and they learned it was all white, and there were no people of color allowed to golf. And so when the laws changed,

the civil rights laws changed and all of that, one of the guys on the board of the golf course was like, okay, great, I got this friend who's black, he would love to play here. And so the rules were, the person, any new members had to be nominated by the board and they'd have the majority of the board approved the person So this guy brought his friend, you know and but but every person of color was brought there was not approved When was this what you so this this would have been in the 80s?

Well, so even though the laws changed the attitude had the attitude had that's what critical legal theory looked at But that comes out of critical theory for the 1920s which came out of Marx and Freud's Dialectical materialism which came out of the Hegelian dialectic. So I'm like wait wait, wait a minute So then how do we get from Hegel all the way down to critical race theory? So, you know, Hegel posits this thesis, antithesis that leads to a new synthesis. Okay. So you have an idea, you have a contrary idea, the tension between the two leads to a new idea, which he calls- Which is a better idea, presumably. Which is a better idea. What Marx did and Freud, he took Hegel's concept and applied it to politics and the sociology so now you have the the proletariat and

The bourgeois right thesis antithesis the tension leads to a new synthesis which end up being communism or socialism socialist communism from Marx and so but but the Thing that the thesis antithesis, what causes that new synthesis is tension, conflict, struggle. That sounds familiar. And that's the hermeneutic or the interpretive key that's fed all the way down to critical race theory today. That's the thread that's common when you look trace history all the way back and then

forward. Tension, struggle, conflict to affect change. Now I'm thinking to myself that's not a Christian approach to change, tantric conflict struggle. You know, so, so now you got critical race theory. Now for them, race is not about biological distinction or characterization within a species. So it's not about I'm black, I'm Hispanic, I'm Asian, I'm Irish. It's not about nationality, right? I'm, I'm Mexican, I'm Italian, I'm Nigerian. It's not about nationality, right? I'm Mexican, I'm Italian, I'm Nigerian. It's not about that. It's a social construct. So race is a socially constructed phenomenon in which the people of the dominant race suppress

and oppress people of the other races. For them, that's what racism is. And so they make five basic assumptions. I'm going to go through all of them now. I want you to. Okay. If you want. Yeah. So I have to, I have to look at some of these concepts. It's fascinating. I'll have no problem if you don't have it on hand.

So one of them is that we are innately racist. So we're born racist. Racism is something that's not learned, it's innate. And what does racism mean in their context? So when you say racism is innate, what do they mean by that? We're born by the very nature of who we are. But what does racist mean? That's their idea. It's not a biological distinction characteristic.

So it's not about color, it's not about the objective thing that we see from the outside. It's a social construct. Racism is something that's socially constructed and which the people of a predominant race oppress people of a lower race. Mason Like you're racist because you're white. Yeah. And I don't think at all that from a Christian perspective, or from a Catholic perspective particularly, we have this thing called original sin. So God created us, we were good, we're very good.

Then we had the fall. So we're not innately racist, we're not innately sinful. Our first parents made a choice to choose themselves over God, to choose their will over God's will. That's what brought sin into the world. So to say that you're innately racist by just the fact that you're white, you're innately racist, you're born racist, that is completely wrong. So I had to address that. I'm critiquing it from a Catholic perspective. I'm looking at as,

as a Catholic, okay, because people say we need to introduce critical race theory to Catholic schools into, into the churches. And I said, well, let's take a look at what this is and see if any of these tenants are compatible with the Catholic faith. So that's what I did. And I was thinking, I did that thinking, maybe there's something here, maybe there is something here that we can use. I looked at it objectively. You may find something here. You can find it. Right. Maybe there is something here that we can use that's good. And? So that first one, no, because that just goes against the Catholic

understanding of the nature of sin nature and the nature of sin. And the fact that racism is learned. It's a learned behavior. It's not something that's innate. It's something that's learned. Cause think about it, just anecdotally, you see little kids on a playground. The black, white, they don't play, they don't care. They don't even notice. They're just kids playing. But then what happens over time, you hear these jokes, right? You hear things from your parents, you see things on television, right? And social media, all these things that perpetuate a certain stereotype. And so you start to think, well, maybe that's true,

or maybe that's just the way it is, and maybe that's, and you start to develop these prejudices, which may or may not lead to racist attitudes. You see? So that, what I just explained there, how we developed racism is, is contrary to what critical race theory teaches. And so this is why under critical race theory, a black person could never be prejudice or could never be racist, which goes against your initial definition of

racism, since it's theoretically possible that a black person could think that Africans are superior to Caucasians. Correct. But even if he thought that under critical race theory Africans are superior to Caucasians. Correct. But even if he thought that under critical racer, he wouldn't be racist. Correct. See, that's a problem because it takes the objectivity out of it. To me, it becomes subjective.

Another tenet that they have here is something that they call these dual characteristics of white over color ascendancy, ordinariness and interest convergence or natural determinism. Again, you're like, I'm like, wait, what is this? Because I've never heard these terms before. So ordinariness, as they define it, means that racism is difficult to address or cure because it is not acknowledged. As a result, racial injustice becomes the commonplace or ordinary experience of non-whites. See? So, racism is an ordinary experience for you as a white person. So, again, why do they say it's the only experience for, it's a racism the way I experience it

is ordinary for non-whites. But see, here's the thing. I grew up in Hillside, New Jersey, okay, right outside of Newark. And we went to Christ the King Parish, and there's the Archdiocese of Newark, and that parish is predominantly white. There weren't that many black Catholic families in the parish. And I never felt racist.

I'm never felt the kids didn't like me or didn't like me because I was black or treated me different because I was black. I mean, I didn't feel any of that, but according to them, I should have felt, you know, this white over color ascendancy that the white people are, you know, have this ascendancy over people of color. And so you innately feel like, oh, I should, I'm feeling like I'm being, that someone's

being racist against me because I'm, I didn't feel any of that. Girl, I was in Boy Scouts, we were all mixed. I mean, some of my closest friends are still white guys from Troop 99. And I love those guys. And We have tremendous love and respect for each other. I've never, you know, so I'm like, well, wait a minute, what are they talking about here? It's almost like they're trying to create tension. That's what's the, what's the foundation conflict tension struggle to get to a new synthesis to get to a new evolution I'd love your take on this because it seems to me that if maybe as a kid you were

Ingesting CNN and Hollywood as it is today Maybe you would have chalked up every Unfortunate encounter with somebody as an instance of racism Like if I had have come to America and I was told everyone in America hates immigrants, like they're really prejudiced, especially Australians, they hate them. If I was told that and I believed it, then every unpleasant interaction I had with a barista or somebody I went see, that's because they hate Australians. Now, that might be the case, but it would be difficult to pass out whether it was or

whether it wasn't. Do you think that's? See, and that's what I'm trying to do when I'm trying to parse out racism and prejudice. Because we all have prejudices. What we, and the last part of the book, what I talk about is how we overcome those prejudices to build the kingdom of God on earth,

to actually close the racial divide. And I think the Catholic Church can take the lead in this issue, Matt, why? Because there's no one doing it right now. Now, back in the lead in this issue, Matt. Why? Because there's no one doing it right now. Now, back in the 60s, Martin Luther King, and one thing I have to say, I started reading a lot in Martin Luther King and research in this book, and I had not read a lot of him before.

I am totally impressed with his approach. When you read the letter from Birmingham jail, it was Nobel Prize acceptance speech. I'm like, oh my goodness, he laid out a plan which was gospel based, which was focusing on Jesus Christ, which really had concrete things to really close the race. I'm like, oh my goodness, this is awesome. And then he was killed. And then no one really picked up the torch after him in the way that he wanted to do it. So in the midst of this leadership vacuum, this leadership void on the air of race, what we're having right now, we have organizations, individuals that are claiming to want to help

close the racial divide, but as a Trojan horse. On the outside it says racism, but on the inside is a whole other agenda, which has nothing to do with race. It, they're using it as a, as a trojan horse, as a, as a vehicle to bring in their real agenda. And that, that's why we're, we're seeing so much problem. Just, there's no one, cause Martin Luther King cut through the polarization of black and white liberal conservative Democrat Republican, cause he gave

a message that everyone could say, yes, this makes sense. We don't have that now. How would his writings and speeches be received today from a critical race theory crowd? Suppose he was invited to- Oh, well, critical race theory thinks that the civil rights laws benefited white people. But what about his speeches in particular? That's what I'm asking. Would they themselves be received as-

No, they think that a Christian approach is a waste of time. That a Christian based... In fact, Derek Bell says that in his book. I quote that in my book. So modern people talking about in the critical race, Siri movement would consider Martin Luther's message a waste of time. Yeah. Because we have to do is you have to change institutional structures. That's what you have to work on. See Martin Luther King was talking about changing hearts. We're individuals, right?

The Christ-based approach, building relationships and that kind of thing. Of course, that would lead to structural changes as well, but they, but, in the Quirke Grace theory, forget about the people, we have to change the structures. We have to change the, we have to knock down the walls and things like that. And that's where, again, the same common thread with liberation theology, same common thread with the Black Lives Matter movement. It's not about changing hearts or minds or souls.

It's not about sitting down and having real conversation, even though it may be difficult. You know what, I would appreciate it, Matt, if someone came to me and said, you know what, I, every time I walk down the street, every time I see a black people, I get scared. I'm just telling the black, I don't want to feel that way. Can we talk about that?

That is so honest. That's awesome. I say, yes, please. Let's sit down and talk about this. The example, I know this example, I used my roommate in college. So I lived in a triple. And back then, Matt, there's no internet, there's no Facebook, no social media, there's no computers.

So you got a letter, okay, here's your roommates, here's where they're from. I don't know if they're black, white, whatever. So I get to the room first, I'm in a triple. I don't want to unpack my stuff because I'm with the other guys to get there, figure out what we're going to do with the room. So I'm sitting there and I got bored, so I pull out my guitar and it was 1984. So Van Halen was 1984 and I'm a big huge Van Halen. I love Eddie Van Halen, he's a hero to mine, of mine. And so I started learning

Panama on my guitar. And so one of my roommates walks in, Ed, he looks at me and goes, which one are you? Because on the list I said, I'm Harold. He goes, you're black. I'm like, oh hell, this ain't a good start. And then he saw me play. He goes, what are you playing? I said, I'm playing Van Halen. Black people listen to Van Halen? I'm like, oh, this is bad right here.

This is not good. So I come to learn that Ed grew up in Eastchester, New York. He was one black person in his whole high school. He didn't know anybody black. Now he has to live with me. But what we did over that year, we got to know each other. He got to know me. He got to know me.

He had no experience, I got to know him and experience him as individuals, as persons. And so our living together, started to break down those walls. We became very good friends. We roomed each other the next year. He was in my wedding, I was in his wedding, after graduation. And so we really,

so those are the kinds of things I propose in the book. I talk about the parish level that we can do to begin to break down those prejudices and those stereotypes and really get to know each other as individuals made in God's image and likeness. You gave three instances of institutional racism today. What are instances of institutional racism today. What what are examples of institutional racism in your mind? Does it still exist or are we just coming up with things? Well, no, I think there's still things that are obviously the clear examples are the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy and those kinds of things.

Institutional racism, of course. But like the golf course example, be another one. There's still golf courses that are like that. That have the unwritten rule, you know? But one thing I want to address is the police thing. Because they say, well, the police are instituting racism. No, they're not. You know, I was in law enforcement for 23 years. I taught at the police academy.

I was in a governor appointed position where I was on the board of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in Oregon. It's the agency that oversees the training of all police officers for the state. I served for six years, two, three year terms and you get term limited out. I was appointed by two successive governors and I chaired the board in my last term. I am intimately familiar with how police officers are trained. I guarantee you, no one police officer is trained

to kneel on someone's neck for nine minutes. That's ridiculous. I was watching that video, George Flassack, what the hell are you doing? Get off his neck. I mean, he's cuff, he's contained, he's not a threat. Why are you still on his neck? And the other officers stood around and watched it.

I was pissed man I was angry and so are many other officers saw that who know that's not how we're trained who are out there Putting their lives on the line for complete strangers because they feel called by God do that and and these few ones that are that are that may be a race of prejudice are causing the problems and And that's what and that's what everybody sees. They don't see. It's like the priest abuse scandal, right? All the priests are pedophiles.

I know priests that are afraid to travel in clerics now because they're gonna be called pedophile child molester if they walk through an airport or in a grocery store. So they wear their traveling clothes or their secular clothes because they're afraid of that witness. Same thing here. That it's a plea, You must, you know,

you're president against black people and that kind of stuff. No, I mean, you know, not everyone's like that. So to say, again, people in institutions are racist, but the institution itself is not racist. You see what I'm saying? But there could be departments where they do practice, like in the South, like, you know, there are places maybe that do practice that kind of, well, what are you doing here? You're in the wrong color. We don't see many people of color in this part of that kind of thing. That's, that's, that's would be institutional racism where it was like, even if it's an unwritten rule, that would still be an institutional racist. So it's not in the written policy, but it's kind of like, you know, we've got this understanding that we're going to treat people this way. That would still be institutional racism.

So what we want to do is not throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's what it sounds like your new books about because critical race theory, rubbish, black lives matter, movement, not the words. Of course not. The words are perfectly fine. Right. But that's the problem with sophistry. That's the problem with slogans in general. They're intentionally ambiguous like love is love. Well, of course, a bloody yes. Yeah. You got to tell me what you mean by that. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. What do you think that white conservatives get wrong about racism? Because I think a lot of white conservatives feel attacked constantly by the media, by big tech, by Hollywood, who are all pushing this critical race theory? Is it possible that the pendulum swings so that they're not even open to hearing about legitimate instances of racism? Has that been your experience on that?

Well, I think what, um, what white concerns need to do is first of all understand what critical race theory is and, and, and, and, um, and not just, and not just say, well, I don't like what you're saying, but why? What is it about what you're saying? That's why I try to find my Catholic. So I'm approaching it, I'm not approaching it from a sociological, psychological perspective. I'm approaching it from a faith-based Christian perspective. And that's what I haven't seen yet in this whole dialogue. Although I've seen Catholics embracing it, even writing books about how we should be embracing it. I don't think they understand it.

I don't talk about that. Here's my concern. I feel like, I feel like the critical race theory is making a meme out of racism such that if, if, if big tech and everybody else is saying you're racist, you're racist, you're racist eventually, like, okay, well clearly no one's racist. Cause what you're saying is bull crap. That's the pendulum swing. I wouldn't want to see happen.

Right. No, I agree. In you like. And then for you, is this something you said as a kid, you were never cognizant of being treated differently, anything like that? I mean, have have you seen instances of racism in your own life and your own ministry or is that do you feel like it's been totally overblown? Well, I'll give you an example. Well, I said is more prejudice than than race and to pass out. It's a subject unless you know exactly why it is.

They said what they said. That's not always example. I remember going to a parish in Florida and it was about a two-hour drive from the airport. So they told me rent a car, you know, it's gonna be a pain to have somebody drive two hours, two hours. No problem, rent a car. So the address they gave me was for the church, not for the rectory, which was not on the property, the church campus.

It was in a neighborhood somewhere. So I said, oh, okay, well, I still got plenty of time. Let me ask somebody at the church where the rectory is so I can go meet Father and get settled in before I had to preach at five o'clock mass that night. So I went up to the church and on the door of the church is a poster of me. Like oh, great, great. So I, and I so must come out of the church. So I went up to the person, I say, excuse me.

And the first thing I said was the St. Vincent of Paul is closed today. And I remember thinking, wow. And I said, that's really good information. But actually, you see that post on the door. That's me. I'm I'm actually trying to find what directory so I can at least

meet father before mass tonight. Oh, oh, Degan, how size that kind of thing, you know? See, I would imagine you only have to have a certain number of instances like that happen to just make you very attracted to critical race theory, because that's that's horrible. Yeah. Or for example, in Chicago, I was speaking at an event called Holy Fire,

right? Paul J. Kim was this week. So so in fact, I have a little video of it, I think on my Instagram. And so it's 5000 people, this thing. So I go first. So I get on the stage. I do my thing.,000 people this thing. So I go first. So I get on the stage, I do my thing, I come off. Paul's getting ready to come on. And Paul said, hey look, let's meet up for dinner afterward. Oh, that's gonna be great.

So I'm dressed like this, right? Deacon pin, crucifix, miraculous metal suit. And I go into the elevator hotel to go up the change and wait for Paul. And I walk into the elevator. The only other person is a little white lady. And so I just be implied, just nod my head and yeah, I don't say anything.

And she, her eyes get real big, she backs up and grabs her purse. Okay, now, people might say, well, look, maybe she, and I get it. I've interviewed and investigated a number of rapes in my career, okay, I get it. She may be experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome from something she experienced before.

There's also something unsettling, let's be real, about getting into a confined space with a stranger. No matter what color they are. A big man. No matter what color they are. I mean, you get into an elevator, confined space, you're in a stranger, oh my god, it's a little bit uncomfortable.

We all felt that, right? That wasn't what bothered me. Her grabbing her purse is what bothered me. I could see her backing up, like, okay, big black guy, she made me intimidated, something might happen. But why did she grab her purse? That was the thing. I mean, did you think I was going to rob her? And so I got out of the elevator and I just remember feeling upset. Yeah, well, how does that make you feel? And so I got out of the elevator and I just remember feeling upset. How come she never saw me? And when people don't see you, it hurts.

It hurts when people see a stereotype. They don't see you. It hurts, Matt. You know, um, I, I, I, you know, when I sit down with someone on the plane and you, and, and, and I heard one guy literally say, Oh no. As soon as I got ready to put myself in a great, to sit down, he looked at me, I heard him say, Oh no. Like I didn't say anything, but I almost like saying, you didn't think I just heard what

you said? Do you not want me to sit here? That kind of thing. But I said, well, if he's going to be on cover, you're going to cover for the next two and a half hours, you know? And I mean, so things like that, you know, whether it's red prejudice, whether it's racist, I'm not sure because I'm not in dialogue with them to see where they're coming from.

But it still hurts. Whether it's race or prejudice, it still hurts. I think this is really important for people to hear, because on the one hand, you want to reject the critical race theory, the Black Lives Matter stuff. But on the other hand, to deny all these instances of racism that still exist is is too far. And I can understand why someone would want to look at those things to try to find solutions. But we as people of faith have to remember our focus needs to be on Jesus, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That has to be the focus and the center of our approach.

So I don't want to spoil the end of the book, but one of the things I talk about in there is the Good Samaritan parable, right? Our tendency is to want to leave that person on the side of the road, but Jesus says no. His whole point was we have to be the Samaritans. And that's why I think the Catholic Church can take the lead in this issue. You know, we can fill that void because we always come from behind on issues. Right? I mean, the Catholic Church, we're afraid to speak out on things, and when we do, it's too late. Like the Marist thing. We should have been all over that thing when the Obergefell thing was being decided and all that stuff instead because we're still

reeling from the sex abuse scandal we're afraid to speak out boldly on issues of truth and so we held back and then what happens Obergefell happens and then we issue statements it's too late it's not with race I think we can actually take the lead that people can look and say, Oh, look what the Catholic Church is doing. And we can actually lead people and actually bringing people together and building relationships. But do you think though that your book and the message you have about racism would be heard by someone deep into critical race theory? I think we have to have a conversation first.

And have you had these conversations with people? Are they open to them? Cronin No. I'm actually going to, I actually have an engagement coming up in a week where I am going to be engaging someone. And they want to do it in a debate style, where I will be talking with someone who's Christian, who is a supporter of critical race theory. And we're going to be, I guess, having this debate. I'm not sure how it's all set up yet, but debating this person about critical race theory. And I hope it's not a debate where it's adversarial, but it's conversational. I hope so.

That's what I'm hoping. That's the only reason I agreed to it, because I'm not a debate, because I see debates get really personally, they add hominem attacks and all that. That's why I like when you do it. I mean, when you do your debates with the atheist and that Dominican priest that you have on that. Father Pines. Yeah. Father. I mean, those are very well done, but there's also one I've seen where it just turns into a- More heat than light. Yeah. More heat than substance. Stink conversation. And I think we have a conversation that you're

actually listening to someone. You're not thinking about what's my next argument, what's my next, but you're actually listening. Oh, you know what? And taking good things from, I can totally understand. Like the woman, the pro-life. I can totally appreciate where you're coming from. I didn't belittle her. I didn't mock her. I took what she, I acknowledged that she, there were some good things there. Your uphill battle is going to be, as you try to discuss race from a Christian point

of view, people feel so burnt by CRT that they may not give you a hearing. Does that make sense? Well, Jesus walked up a hill to die on it. So if I've got to walk up hill, I'm going to do it. Yeah. Simple as that. Jesus walked up. I'm going to walk up that hill too. And I'm not going to be afraid to do it because why I'm coming from a perspective of truth, goodness and beauty. I'm looking at the ultimate purpose, the ultimate meaning, really looking at the dignity of the human person. So I'm approaching from a Christian anthropological perspective, not from a political, sociological, or psychological

perspective. So good. Yeah. Yeah. We're about truth, not politics, I suppose. Although we want politics to align with truth. I don't want to politicize the issue because it's all to me about the dignity of every single human person. Then we can, for example, there are no physical descriptions of Jesus in the gospels. You don't know what color, height, weight, because it didn't matter. What mattered was the message. And that's what we have to get across in the conversation today.

That's awesome, man. Thank you for doing that. When's the book coming out? Some spring of next year, you know, it was supposed to come out earlier, but then Dr. Ed Faser has a book coming out. Fester has a book coming out about critical race theory and racism, which is coming out in the fall. And because they didn't want our books. And plus there's the, they also said something about supply chain paper or something. So because of those two factors, they pushed the book out until the spring of next year. So I'm excited for it to come out.

Because I'm not trying to be the expert or the guru in this area. I'm just trying to create a platform where we can actually have a conversation about this. And actually, from a Christian perspective, look at this and see Christ in everything. Thanks for doing that. The first book you put out was for men. What was that called? Behold the Man, a Catholic visual of male spirituality.

I just remember that too, and everybody was reading that book. That did well. Yeah, it did very well. You're passionate about men's ministry? Yeah, and I think a lot of it comes from the fact of my situation with my father. Born in Barbados, my father was a very successful touring musician and nightclub owner, and he lived like one. So when we left to come to the United States, my father did not come with us. It was my mother, my grandmother, and my little brother.

And the four of us came to the States. My mother was a cardiac care nurse and she worked at a hospital for 30 years, Bethesda hospital in Newark. And my father joined us till about a year after that. And when he did, you know, we learned quickly that he loved basically three things, womenizing, alcohol and cigarettes. So my father has about 15 other kids from other women that we know of. You know, some of my relatives tell me there's more than that, but we can document 15. My father has about 15 other kids from other women that we know of. Some of my relatives tell me there's more than that, but we can document 15.

And they also like drink. And then we became a strain. They got divorced. There's a surprise there, right? And I get often asked by young people, what's it like to be a child of divorce? And I tell them that marriage is a beautiful thing. It really is, but it's also the cross. And divorce is when the parents put the cross down and the kids pick it up.

And that's not a place you ever want to be. And so after divorce, I still maintained a respectful relationship with my dad until I joined the Benedictines. And when I, when I was growing to enter monastic life, my father did not understand that at all. It's the opposite. He, and I went to see him at his apartment out of respect because he's my father to tell him what I thought I'd be doing for the rest of my life. And our conversation went like, you're going to do what? You're're the first person our family ever to go to college You go to Notre Dame used to brag to his friends my son went to Notre Dame

You get an economics and business degree and now you can waste your life living with a bunch of men strong with you Not supposed to tell my friends. I Told me could tell his friends and then I didn't speak to for 18 years years. As far as I was concerned on that day he died. He was dead to me. And so we did have reconciliation, you know, 18 years later, which is a whole other story. But I've so I've when I left monastic life and was heading on the path toward marriage, I did not know how to be a father. My mother made sure that there were male figures in my life not to take the place of my dad,

but to show me authentic maleness. One of them was my scout master, Dr. Alan H. Tobe, who's a podiatrist. He lived in the suburbs, but came every Monday into the hood to be with his boys, his sons. And I love that man. He was amazing. He's a Jewish doctor, but our scout Sunday, and man, he'd be in the, we'd be in the front row, the scouts, the first two pews.

He'd be there proud as anything, showing off his scouts, his man, you know, it's got all he was just he was an amazing An amazing amazing man. The old was my wrestling coach Mike DiPiano senior Who's now retired down it down in Florida? with his wife Michelle, but Good with Karen his daughter's Michelle's Karen is his wife Michelle, but with Karen, his daughter's Michelle, Karen is his wife. And he was a huge influence on me as well. I mentioned both of them in my book, in the acknowledgments in the book. You know, they even helped me believe in me when I didn't believe in myself.

You know, it was just awesome male relationships. But still, when it came to marriage, I'm like, I don't know how to do this. Like I was going to be a monk. I didn't have to worry about, you know, wife and father and all that kind of stuff. So I've been thinking about these issues for a long time. And then I was approached by EWT about doing a television series for men called Behold the Man. And so it started out as a television series.

It was a 13 episode thing. It debuted in like 2006. And then they quickly asked me to do more series. Now I have nine series on the network. But after I left my career and started speaking and writing full time in 2012, Mark Brumley, who was one of my adjunct professors in graduate school at the University of Dallas, approached me about writing a book for them. I said, I'm not an author. I don't know how to write a book. What are you talking about?

He goes, well, let's just talk about it. So I met with them and kicked around some ideas. And I went down to California. They took me to dinner and I'll just wine and all this stuff. And I didn't drink, but I was, you know, and so we talked about and behold the man rose To the top because I don't remember seeing a book I remember seeing books. I talked from a Catholic perspective talking about aspects of male spirituality, you know pornography virtue fatherhood good stuff, but I didn't see anything that looked at the theology that undergirded what it means to be an authentically Catholic man. So I started looking at church documents, couldn't find any. Now, Quam Quam, Radio Tories Custos, which is John Paul II's

document on St. Joseph on the 100th anniversary of Quam Quam Plurias on St. Joseph, on St. Joseph on the 100th anniversary of Kwan Kwan Polaureus on St. Joseph, talks about St. Joseph, but not particularly about male spirituality. Familiars Consortio on the family in the modern world talks about fatherhood, but not particularly male spirituality. But yet he wrote Mulyar Siddhi Tatam on the Deity Vocation of Women. Beautiful theology of femininity and womanhood. Like, dang, where's the one for men? Well, there was none. And so I said, okay, let me do this. So I wrote the book basing it on John Paul's two anthropology applied to a male spirituality. So the hermeneutics are John Paul's two anthropology and the St. Paul's theology of the cross were the kind of the

foundation. Like if you thought about the hierarchy of truths in Catholic faith, right, you have the Trinity incarnation and grace and every sacramental life, everything is built on those foundation. So my foundation was John Paul II theology, Paul's theology of the cross as the foundation for building up everything else that I wrote in that book. Can you make sure we put a link in the description below to that book, Behold the Man, you got it in there already?

Please go buy that book, everybody, right now. That's great. Yeah, yeah. Hmm, if you could sum that up, how do you be a Catholic man? Probably difficult to sum up. So, well, basically, well, actually, let me do like this, given the conversation you had with Abigail

last, a couple weeks ago, who I talked about before the show, I'm obsessed with, not obsessed, I get the wrong idea. She's terrific. What are you talking about? See, I mean, I came across her by accident, and then when I started Googling more talks about her, I came across her first talk with,

on You with Pines on the Aquinas, and I saw the one just a couple of weeks ago and I just watched the whole thing. I was like eating dinner like, ah, you know, I just can't, I mean, she's just amazing. So I would say to be an authentically Catholic man is to live Paul's theology of the cross. So in Genesis chapter two, it says, God put man in a garden to till and to keep. Actually, the word for man is Adam in Hebrew, but in Genesis 2 it says, the man, ha Adam, ha Adam, the man, so definite article is there. So it's talking about specific male. It says your job is to till and to keep the garden, right? So the word till is abad in Hebrew. That means a work in the form of service. And to keep is shamar, which means to protect and defend.

So the man is put in the garden and he's given his mission and his purpose and his calling by God as a man. Serve, protect and defend everything I am entrusting to you." Right? So that's the basic foundation. Well Adam failed, right? When it came time to actually do that, when Satan was tempting his wife and lead her consciousness to sin, he stood there and said it did nothing. Now in the English translation of the scripture it says, who was with her, right? But in the Hebrew, it's not there. So how do we know he was there during this conversation with Satan?

You know how, if I were to say, hey you, who am I talking to? The person in front of you? Or a group of people, right? In English, we use the same word, right? In other languages, they have different U's for the different context. So for example, in Spanish, if I say two, that's you. If I say vosotros, you. So it's like, y'all, no y'all.

Right, right, right. So in Hebrew, it's the same. So when it goes, you will not die for when you eat of it, your eyes will open, you will be like, God, it's plural. Oh, is that right? In Hebrew. So he's talking to both. Interesting.

Now in English, we can't get that sense across, so they had to add in English who was with her. I see. It's to show that he was there. Yeah. That means he said and did nothing while Satan destroyed his family right out from under him. He stood there and did nothing, right?

So that's what's so awesome about St. Joseph. St. Joseph says nothing, but his actions spoke louder than his words. Everything God asked to do he did faithfully without saying a word. Right? So you move that to Paul's theology now, for example, Ephesus 5, you guys talk about that with Abigail. Now, I would say like, you know, the pericabe starts at verse 21. Be subject to one another out of the reference for Christ. Which, yeah, I think you cannot look at Ephesians 5 without understanding Genesis 2. You have to understand what's going on in Genesis 2 to appreciate what Paul is doing in Ephesians 5. So, let's quickly through Genesis 2. So, he has the man and then he says it's not good for the man to be

alone. John Paul 2 says the man was created in a state of original solitude. So, what does he understand in that original solitude? He's greater than all the other creatures that God created because he puts him in charge of all of them. He is self-aware and conscious. He is aware of himself. He can know himself. He's also aware of God and can have relationship with God. But what's the let? He has no one to share it with. So God says it's not good for the man to be alone. Why? Because we're made in the image and lightness of God. God exists as a family, as a commune of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So man by himself commune of persons, Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit. So man by himself makes no sense. In fact, the word Adam does not mean male in Hebrew. It's Isha and Isha. Like in Genesis 1, it says Adam, male and Isha, he created them. So out of the Adam, the flows of humanity, Isha and Isha, male and female. So the equality between man and woman is showed in Genesis one by creating them at the same time, although the woman is created last.

That's really important, I'll talk about that in a second. So what does he do? He doesn't start with another lump of clay, right? With another, because Adam, by the way, Adam, is a play on the word for dirt, dust, or soil in Hebrew, Adama. So he takes the Adam out of the Adama, the dirt, dust, or soil. That's beautiful. Why?

Because how do we remember this is Catholic in a very powerful way every year? Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday. Remember that you are Adama and to the Adama, Adam shall return. Wow. Beautiful connection there So he doesn't start no instead puts a man into a deep sleep Right and and while he takes out a rib builds up a woman and brings her to the man the guy wakes up

Right bottom of my bone flesh of my flesh right what's what's going on here? talking about, right? Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, right? What's going on here? First of all, it puts a man into a deep sleep, teradema in Hebrew. Deep sleep, teradema. It's a deep sleep without consciousness or dreams. And whenever you see that word used, for example, it's used in 1 Samuel when David and Saul are having this, Saul's trying to kill David, and then David goes into the camp with one of his soldiers, takes the spear and the water jug, and the guy said, let me thrust him through, I don't need a second thrust, right? And he goes, no, just that's our king, we have to respect him, he's chosen by God, leave him there.

And he comes back, they said they were putting it to a deep sleep, that's the same word that's used there, teredema. It's used in Job, it's used in Exodus word that's used their territory ma is used in job It's used in exits use a couple of other places whenever you see that word used When they wake up God does something amazing for example when everybody woke up Saul and the command woke up The feud between David and and and Saul was over right so God does something amazing out of that territory mom and he said he takes a rib. Now, in Hebrew, the word is not rib, it's seila. It literally Hebrew says he takes his side

and created her. Now, now why in English would we substitute the word rib when the word rib is not there in Hebrew? Very simply this, if we were to say side, what do you mean? Left side, right side, side of fries right side can mean a lot of things in English, but if you say say line he would a knew that it meant this from the side. So what's the equality this is the side. Why this makes this very point. Oh, there you go. He says if she was taken from the head, she would lord over him from the foot man would have her. Yes, exactly. So this creative military that, man, would lord over her. Yes, exactly! So this is creative from the middle, the equal.

Now what's beautiful about that picture, Matt? Think about it. Jesus Christ on the cross is in the teter de ma, the sleep of death. Remember, Christ always refers to death as sleep. Remember when the 12-year-old girl died? Oh, she's sleeping. She's dead! No, she's sleeping. She's dead No, she's just asleep and they say Jesus we're not stupid We know what dead that she's dead and keep everybody else at Peter James John and the parents

He said to leave that kuma that little girl arise and she was asleep woke her up when he went to raise Lazarus What he said it was the Apostle. Let's go wake our brother So there's Jesus in the terror of the emir, the sleep of death on the cross, and Longinus spears him in the side, what comes out? Blood and water. Blood and water. Right? So St. John Christ is the mother of the fathers of the church would say, water for baptism, blood for the Eucharist, the church is born from the side of Christ. The bride comes forth from the side of the bridegroom on the cross and see we see that you know Pre up a prelude of that in Genesis chapter 2 all right beautiful

Then he says that last is bone of my bone flesh of my flesh. Why is he looking to say man? She's hot Why does he say that in? Semetic languages like Hebrew and Aramaic there are no superlative words So we use words like the greatest, the best, the most to describe something to the highest or greatest degree. Because they don't have words like that, they're one of two things in Hebrew. They use a prepositional, well, they said something three times. So, for example, the Psalms at Mass, we took that from our Jewish brothers and sisters. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord because God gets the highest degree of holiness three times.

Or to use a prepositional phrase, so in 1 Timothy or Book of Revelation, Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. So he's the greatest of all kings and the Lord of all lords. So now the man looks upon the woman, right, who was created from his side, someone who is also created in the same original solitude as him, except she has curves and bumps and stuff. So here's someone, he's looking at someone who not only is equal to him, but complements him that in an earthly sense, perfects him. Now, because remember, all the relationships are looking to a fond relationship

with Christ, ultimately, in heaven. But this is pre-supposed. In an earthly way, she perfects him, she completes him, she perfectly complements him. So he says, this is the last bone of my bone, flesh of my bone. She's the greatest of my bone. She's the greatest of my flesh. She is the greatest part of who I am. I see. That's what he's saying. Then he says, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. The word for cling is daubach, which means to pursue as to overtake. Wait a minute, a man leaves his father

and mother and pursues his wife? Yes. Why? The woman is the greatest of all God's creation. She is the cherry on the whipped cream of the ice cream of God's creative activity. She's not created second after the man she's created last. God saved his best work for last. Why? Because a woman has a special intimacy with the Holy Spirit. Right? We pray every Sunday, credo et spiritus sanctus, dominum et vivi ficantem. I believe in the Holy Spirit, We pray every Sunday, Kredo et spiritus sanctus, Dominum et vivi ficantem. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. So a woman has a special intimacy with the Holy Spirit

as a life giver and a life bearer by the very nature of how God created her. So she can participate in the intimacy of bearing life in a way that we men can't. So that's why Satan went after her first. He's the author of death. intimacy of bearing life in a way that we men can't. So that's why Satan went after her first. He's the author of death, so he goes after the one who gives life. Not because she was weaker than him, but she was less than, she went after because she's the one that gives life and he's the author of death.

So that's why he goes after her first. And it was his job to stand up and serve, protect, and defend her, and he didn't do it. And that's how we got sin and all that kind of stuff. And that's why Jesus had to come back. That's why Jesus first was the bridegroom and the bride, Revelation 19 verse nine. Blessed are those who are called to the wedding supper or wedding feast of the Lamb, where Christ the eternal bridegroom will be giving life to his bride forever

in heaven, the church. That's anticipated by the church right now in our relationship with Christ and the Eucharist and in sacramental marriage. Right, now think about a couple of pictures here. You got married, right? You're married, just like I am. 16 years this year.

Yeah, remember your wedding day? Very much. You stood at the altar, everybody said, nice tux. Right? But then what happened? Then everyone turned around. Everybody turned, the ring bearers, the flower girls, all the pre-gates, then it was silence in heaven,

like back in the book of Revelation, broke the seventh seal. And then, da da da da da da da, then she came in, everybody stood up. Oh my God, she's so beautiful. Oh look at that, oh my God. And the whole thing, you're starting going, this is really happening, this is really happening,

this is really happening, right? And everybody, tell me I'm lying. The whole mass, everybody's looking at her. Yeah, no, you're not lying. Everybody's looking at her, right? She's got the dress, she's beautiful, and they're like, oh, I mean, it's something about the feminine. That's awesome.

Now think about this. Who brings her down the aisle? The father. God the father gave Eve to Adam in the garden. The father of the bride gives and entrusts his daughter to her new husband. God does the same thing in the garden. So we even say it in our Catholic religion, the giving away. Why do we do that? Cause that's what God did. God the father

and trusting. So I've never made that connection before. Thanks for sharing. So he pursued, what is he pursuing? He's pursuing she, which perfects him and compute perfectly in an earthly way, right? In earthly way, perfects him, completes him, perfectly complements him. And once he pursues her and attains her, then he puts her behind. You want to get to her, you got to come through me, serve, protect, and defend. Goes back again to Genesis, the original calling by man by God. So now you can understand Ephesians 5, right? Because it's rooted in covenant relationship. So that's why it starts off verse 21, be subject to one another out of reference to Christ, referring to the covenant relationship from the side created equally by God.

Then it says, wise be submissive to your husbands. The word for submissive is huppitasso in Greek. Now huppitasso is a military word that was used by Roman soldiers to describe troops arranged in divisions that placed themselves under the mission and direction of a leader who was typically a general. Because remember, St. Paul understands, remember in the next chapter, v. 6, he described the armor of God. Black, breastplate of righteousness, sword of the spirit, helmet of salvation, shot in the feet with the gospel of peace. He understands the Roman soldiers' uniform.. So in using that word, wives, place yourselves under your husband's mission. What is his mission? Ephesians 5 25.

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. How did Christ show his love for the church? Mm-hmm, died for her. He died for her. He gave his life for her. So what does our job as men? To die. When we said that all to not, you just, you said I do, but what you really meant was I die. You die to your ego. You die to everything that separates you from intimate, personal, loving life and relationship with Christ. And you give your complete self and love and service without losing yourself. Right? Because some people say, oh, I lost myself in him, I lost myself in her. That's not what covenant relationship is.

You don't lose yourself, you find yourself. Because your spouse helps you to become more of the person who God created you to be, not less. You don't lose yourself, you find yourself. And so, in that relationship then in Ephesians five, he dies to everything that separates himself, so that he can, the reason why you don't ask, this is a very interesting conversation you have with Abigail, about the headship.

The man is the head because he's not the boss, he's the chief servant. That's why he's the head. Because Christ gives the model, I have not come to be served but Mm-hmm to serve the greatest among you is the least is the Servant of all and not the synoptic gospel, but in John gospel. He watched his defeat Why does he do that two reasons? Exodus 30 and 40 was one of the ways he instituted the priesthood before the prune the priest offered the sacrifice He went from the tent of meeting to the altar sacrifice sacrifice. In between was a laver, a big bowl, we washed his hands and his feet. Only the priest did that, not the Levite.

Okay, because the Levite was the deacon, right, was the one who served the priest. Very clear. The Levite doesn't wash, only the high priest and the priest washed. Then they went to offer the sacrifice. They washed their hands and their feet. So one of the reasons why he washed their they went to offer the sacrifice and wash their hands and their feet. So one reason why I watched her feet was instituting the priesthood. The other reason it was something only a slave did wash the feet. He was given the model how they're supposed to lead the church. Headship and leadership and authority is rooted in service.

That's how you're supposed to lean. That's how we're supposed to lead our families. Amen. That's powerful. What are, let's talk about pornography. I know you've addressed this. Just Matt, I'm not kidding you. I'm not doing this just for the show. Literally just this morning, I can show you the email.

I got an email from a guy who I've been working with to overcome porn. He was doing great. Then he has some stresses in his life, some struggles, he's got a surgery coming up, and he fell back into porn again. And I have recommended you to him, and your research to him, and it's really, really helpful. But he had a setback. So he needed a little bit of encouragement.

He goes, I was doing great for months, and now all of a sudden, is that normal to have a setback? I'm like, oh yes, it's normal to have a setback. But here's what you need to do next. So I'm glad we're talking about this, because it was just this morning was very relevant. Yeah Yeah, well it's it is demonic that the pinnacle of creation ought to be turned into one of the lowest things in creation to woo us

That's what Satan has to do and it's yes is destroyed and this is I love how Jason Everett puts it, that pornography emasculates men. It robs them of the ability to be masculine. So I no longer go to you, my bride, to give of my strength. I go to you to take from you to subordinate your good to the inferior good of my pleasure. Exactly, because pleasure is not a bad thing. OK, pleasure is one of the things that God gives at a very, a very base, a very ephemeral level that raises our minds and hearts to God

in a very base way. So for example, my wife loves chocolate. I don't know many women who don't. There are probably a few out there, but most of them love chocolate. So I give my wife chocolate, he goes, oh god, that's good. Right? Because the pleasure of that chocolate raises their minds, oh you couldn't do a good steak before I was doing the plant-based thing, right? Oh god, that's good, right? Very platonic, right? Yes. So, pleasure's not a bad thing, but what Satan does, he takes pleasure out of its proper

context of a means to an end, he takes it out and brings it to the culture and elevates it, now is an end in itself. Pleasure is now your God. Pleasure is now your end, your purpose, and your meaning. See, that's a huge problem. That's a massive problem. And you're right, let me give you an example. I gave a homily once against contraception, but it was, it was very, again, the truth and love.

I didn't attack anybody. I said, well, here's the beauty of the church's understanding of this. After mass, a guy came up to me and goes, Kadee, I gotta talk to you. He said, sure. He goes, not here. I'm like, okay. So I got my vest and went to the rectory, sat down. What's going on?

And they're like, your homily. Which part? All of it. Okay. Well, what's, what's, what's going on? Why should I care about that? Yeah, I mean, what's going on? I don't want to tell anybody, just tell me what to do with my body,

that kind of stuff, da da da da. I said, turn back your relationship with your wife. Then he paused. I said, things not going well? He goes, well, she don't want to have sex anymore. I said, oh, that's not good. I said, and so I was empathized. I said, well, what's going on?

What's happening? Are you using contraception? And then he said, oh, here we go. See, this is what I'm talking about, deacon. He goes, see, the church is stuck in the middle ages, you know the church needs to come follow the times and you know like that's so antiquated out of date, you know, all those people you preach

they're all contraceptive. You know, I said, my friend, I asked you a yes or no question. He goes, yeah I'm using contraception, so what? I said, we'll get back to that. Tell me about this, what's going on with your wife. Tell me about the last time this happened. So he said, well, you know, we had dinner, the kids were gone, and you had dinner, and

then a little while after dinner I made some advances. I go, I got you. And he says, what happened? She goes, I don't want to have sex with you right now. So I'm waiting for the rest of it. And he's not saying anything. I said, that's it? He said, yes.

And you're angry. Yes. Let me see if I understand this. Did your wife say to you, I don't love you anymore? No. Did your wife say to you, I don't ever want to have sex with you ever again? No. You said that she said,

I don't want to have sex with you right now. Did you say, okay, baby, what about an hour from now? You even give her that much? No. That's just why you angry. Disappointed, I can see, right? But why are you so angry? And you couldn't tell me. I said, let me tell you why you're angry. Because love and life are two things that never intend to be separated by God. Now, I'm not saying that you're supposed

to have as many children as humanly possible. The church doesn't teach that, right? But you're supposed to be open to life. In fact, if you look at Genesis 1, that's, in sense, that's the first commandment. It goes, be fruitful and multiply, efratah in Aramaic, but para means be open. Like literally, it means to be open. So literally in Hebrew, if God's first command is be open to life. So love, he created out of love and then right away life. Psalm 119 verse 88, because of your love, give me life and I will do your will. Love, life, fulfillment of God's will. So what you've done by using contraception, you forced a wedge in between love and life, two things that never tend to be separated. And when you've separated, it doesn't matter what you're using, a condom, diaphragm, pill,

it creates this chasm and this void. And as human beings, we don't like to have those spaces within ourselves, those emptiness within ourselves. So you're trying to fill it with, what do we work, alcohol, drugs, in your case, pornography. So here's what you did. And I told him, I took my wallet out

and I slammed it on the table. I said, I bet you everything in my wallet right now. How did you know he was looking at pornography? Did you just say I just, I just, I just assume, right? I said, here's what you did. I took my wallet out, right? And I slammed it on the table. I said, I bet you everything in my wallet right now that after that happening, you went to your bedroom. You took care of things yourself, didn't you? Yeah, I did. Let me tell you why you do that, why you did that. Because your wife is now your whore.

I said, what you've done, it doesn't matter whether it's her, your hand, another woman, it doesn't matter what it is. Because all you want is pleasure. Pleasure is now your God. And now it doesn't, now your wife is another woman, doesn't matter what it is, because all you want is pleasure. Pleasure is now your God. And now it doesn't, now your wife is just now you see her as something that gives you pleasure. You don't see her the way God sees her. You don't look at her through God's eyes. You don't see what God sees when he looks at her. You just look at

her as someone that gives you pleasure. And when she didn't give you what you want, you were like a little boy who can't get dessert first before before dinner You just got mad Huh, and he looked at me is like He was just like whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. And he so he started trying to say something back to me Well, what do you what are you and your wife do? I said brother we just go for it and whatever happens happens But when we're disciplined we use natural family planning. He said, what's that? I had to explain through the Billings Ovelation Method.

Because what happens if your wife's not into it? Right? I said, okay, I said, I'll give you a real life situation, brother. When I come back from overseas, I'm gone for 10 days, two weeks at a time. I'm ready. You know, and so I'm unpacking my dirty clothes in the bathroom like tonight You know, I'm thinking and now I look in the garbage can. Oh, you've got to be kidding me man. That's going on now So now I gotta wait another week

So what do I do in that situation? I'm hyped up right? I'm thinking this whole thing and I can't have sex my wife What do I do? There's two things I got I can go to computer and take care of things myself like you did or here's what I did. In my office, on the floor- Just to be clear, when he's saying like you did, he's referring to the men in his office. Right, not you, man. I just want to be real clear.

Yeah, keep it going. So in my office, you can see all the books, right? But on the floor, because I don't have room on the shelves for this, I have the complete Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas in Latin and English, okay? I plot one of the volumes of the Summa and I just start reading because reading St. Thomas Aquinas will kill any sexual desire you have in your body. It works, my friend.

Trust me, it works, it works, right? And I told him I'd rather do that than to turn my wife into a thing, into an object, to strip her of her humanity and her dignity as a woman. Because every day of my life as her husband and the father of her children, I want her, I want to see her the way God sees her. I want to see every woman the way God sees her. That's why I will never contracept. And that was the beginning of our discussion, of our dialogue.

How did it end? Well, it ended pretty quickly after that because he said he had to go. But I said, I am here. If you want to talk more about this, I am more than happy to talk with you about this. Whatever requests you have, please feel free to come to me. You know, and I just left it like that. Yeah. You know, again, not, I don't even, I won.

No, no, no, no. It's not about that. How do I get this person in front of me to want to listen to more of what I have to say? That's the key. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm tracking with you. How do you balance the aggressive approach that you say that you do and that you kind of exhibited in a playful way then with the tenderness that's required.

Because one of the things I love about Jose Maria Escrava is he kicks you directly in the stomach. He talks to you like you're a man. Jordan Peterson has this effect as well. He knows that you're capable of being better than the way you are. And so he speaks to you in that way. How do you thread that needle? Yeah. So for me, it's about listening. better than the way you are. And so he speaks to you in that way. How do you thread that needle?

Yeah. So for me, it's about listening. So what I, what I try to do is first, before I say anything is to listen. I want to hear where this person has come from. Now, of course it's going to be, and how I listen to them is a man, is it a woman, where they are in their faith journey right now? Are they going to church? Are they not going to church? Where are they? I'm trying to listen so I can craft the way of responding for that individual person at that time. For, again, not trying, this is just an initial conversation.

I'm not trying to change their mind, it's just an initial conversation. So what can I say to meet this person where they are, to meet them where they are, and hopefully begin a dialogue that will lead to further discussion, further introspection, ultimately to a deeper love of Christ is all the way I want to help people to get to a deeper love of Christ. Yeah, because out of that, once you have that relationship.

Yeah, so I leave them thinking, okay, well that raised a bunch of more questions for me, and then they come back. That raised even more questions for me. And then they come back. That raised even more questions for me. And then they come back, you see, but they keep coming back. And I think that's the key. Is that respectful dialogue? We're actually listening to each other. We're trying to understand where each other is coming from in the search for ultimately

what is true. You know, I was thinking, you know, a cure for this sort of a feminacy, you know, it's funny Aquinas uses the word of a feminine, although of course there's a Latin equivalent, which is essentially meaning softness. That's what when he says a man is being a feminine, he's he's saying a man isn't doing the thing he ought to do because of his duty. I think pornography is one way of making you soft. There are other ways.

But I think devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is a great antidote to that. Not only as you say women, the pinnacle of creation, but she's the pinnacle of creation creation. You know, she's the pinnacle pinnacle, the pinnacle pinnacle pinnacle. Well, absolutely. Think about it, Matt. I mean, God starts to plan with the Blessed Virgin Mary in Genesis,

Genesis 315, the pro-evangelium, right? Or the first gospel, what emnity, what emnity means opposition, but in Hebrew it's ebaw, which means hatred. So, literally, it says I'll put hatred between, but I think that's a little bit too strong for the translators, but I know, but they put emnity, it was opposition, between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. Now, how do we know that the woman being spoken of there is Mary? Because think about it, Genesis 3 is the first three chapters of the Bible. There's only one woman. That's Eve. So, and God's given the punishment to Satan between you and the woman to your seat and hers. Of course, it must be Eve. You know,

that's the only woman. How do we know it's not Eve? Here's three clues for me. One, the punishment involves two people, the woman and the snake, but God's only talking to one of them. So for example, we have a rule in our house when the twins were younger, right? Because it rains a lot in Oregon, right? So you can't play ball outside when it's raining. So I said we have a rule in the house no ball playing in house I Was in the bedroom I heard crash I came downstairs

The lamp that was by the television was falling over the floor broken. There was a ball on the floor there the twins Who did it they're pointing at each other he did it she did it he did it she did who'd I punish Both okay, but it's both of them, right? So in Genesis if the punchman involves a snake and a woman Why is God only talking to the snake? If the punch involved you think the woman's he why he's not talking to both of them if the puncher involves both of them. Mm-hmm So the woman so I'm there. That's my first clue and by the way snake involves both of them. So the woman, so that's my first clue. And by the way, snake, the word in Hebrew is nahash, which means monster. Also used in other parts of scripture is leviathan, so it's translated as leviathan, but it's a monster. It's not like a little garden snake

wrapped around a tree that we sometimes see in medieval art. And by the way, the fruit, everybody thinks it's an apple. the Bible describes what the fruit is, but in Jewish, if you look at the Talmud and stuff, it's a pogromit actually, is what they think the fruit would have been. But anyway, that's an aside. So, in this whole way of thinking about,

oh, I'm losing my train of thought. He's talking to Jen. So that's my first clue. He's only talking to the snake and not talking to both of them. Secondly, calls her the woman. Now, remember I said when you want to say something important, how many times do you say it? Three times. Three times. Okay. So let's look. When he feasted Cana, Jesus is there with some apostles, some of the typos, blessed mother is there, and they ran out of wine. Right?

Now Middle Eastern hospitality, you ran out of wine. That's a big deal. I mean Middle Eastern hospitality is paramount. So the blessed mother is embarrassed for the family. She goes to her son, they have no wine. And Jesus answers answer seems disrespectful. Woman, what is this between you and me? Like, woman, I imagine my son Benjamin. Colleen says, clean your room. Benjamin says, woman, what is this between you? Benjamin, you in

trouble. Right? Don't come to me because you did this to yourself. Right? I mean, that's disrespectful. So, on the surface, it sounds like what Jesus is saying is disrespectful. That's not what's going on at all. The Blessed Mother is asking him to do something supernatural, so he refers to her by her supernatural name, woman, referring back to Genesis, right? That's first clue. Second, on the cross, he gives care of his mother to John. He says, woman, here is your son. Son, here is your mother. Not only was he doing supernatural, he's entrusting the care of the church, of which Mary is the

archetype, trusting the care of the church to the apostles. So he calls her woman, supernatural again. Third one, Revelation 12.1. The woman with the crown of 12 stars around her head, cloaked this on the moon under her feet, pregnant, duh, that's Mary, right? So, oh, how many times? Three times. Third and biggest clue, between your seed and her seed. Interesting. Who's the one that provides the seed in relationship? Men. The men the man but he were clear her seed I only know one woman

That provided the seed the complete human nature for her child and that was Mary So right there God sets a plan in motion, right? You say what he said what he's saying to Satan is, you used a woman to be a vehicle to bring sin into the world, I'm going to use the most blessed of all women to be a vehicle to bring salvation into the world. So he's using the greatest of his creation to be a vehicle to bring salvation.

What? That's awesome. That's awesome. And I should point out too that this was understood by the early church. This isn't like medieval inventions or reading into it too enthusiastically. And see, and this is some of the things that under that. Exactly. This is one of the things that underpin our understanding of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We don't worship her, right? We don't give her Latria, right? That word's only to God. But we honor her because of the role that she played in salvation history. You know, she's awesome. And I think that every priest, even though they're celibate, has to have an intimate relation with the Blessed Mother if they're going to have a fruitful priesthood. There's no question in my mind about that.

I mean, I love praying to Rosary every day. Sometimes I pray on the plane, you know, and so I'm not embarrassed to pray to Rosary in front of whatever, you know, and again, reflecting on the mysteries of our salvation through the heart of the Blessed Mother, you know, because our soul was pierced so that the thoughts of many hearts may be laid there, you know. So she understands what it's like to lose someone that you love, someone that you are part, physically part of. You know, she understands that pain. what it's like to lose someone that you love, someone that you are physically part of.

She understands that pain. She was there and saw it happen. So when we're going through something, we can look at it through the eyes and the heart of the Blessed Mother. That relationship we have with her is so beautiful. Someone I've been reading more and more is St. Maximilian Colbe. He had two doctorates. He never wrote systematically in his letters.

He outlines a lot of beautiful things about the Blessed Mother. And one thing I love that he does is he essentially stands before her and asks a question. Who are you? Who are you? He says, I don't even know what it means to be a creature of God, much less an adopted son of God. Like, what does that mean? I can't comprehend it. This is beyond me. So then who are you? Mother of God, spouse of the Holy Spirit, you know, daughter of God, the Father.

He says, you're not God. I know that. You're not Eve. I know that. You're not an angel. Who are you? Like the the absolute or we should have in front of the one who gave milk to our bread to quote Augustine. Right. Amazing. All right. Well, look, we've got questions that are flying in from people here. Would you mind if we took some of them? All right.

I want to apologize in advance to everybody because there's no way we're going to get through all of these. But before I get to these questions, I need to say thank you to Hello, who is a sponsor. You know, hello is great app, fantastic app, best Catholic app out there. Unless I come up with one one day and then mine will be. But until then, hello dot com slash Matt Fred. Hello dot com slash Matt Fred.

If you want to get better at praying daily, meditating, listening to beautiful audio books and all that, go check out. Hello, HALLOW dot com slash Matt. Click the link in the description below. When you do that, you'll get three months free. So you can try it out and decide if you want to continue by paying a small amount monthly. My wife and use this I use it every day they have beautiful Gregorian chant the lo-fi music I came up with is on there so that's cool check them out

hello.com slash Matt Fradd hello.com slash Matt Fradd now I'm gonna start asking these questions I haven't read them ahead of time we'll see what happens is it okay so Mindala says Deacon Burke Sivers never change. You rock. This was a brilliant way to handle that protester. Good. Nick says, I have a few Catholic friends very grounded in faith who defend certain more Christian sounding interpretations of critical race theory as applies to race, gender and class.

Could you give your best argument for critical race theory from a Christian perspective or steel man it and then respond to that argument? This is a great point because Aquinas does this all the time. He gives the best interpretation of his opponent's argument. Then he shows where it fails as opposed to straw manning it and then easily knocking it down, right? Right? so Gosh, I guess I would say that And I'm anticipating this and for the debate that's coming up with this whoever this person is that's gonna be supporting critical race theory

so I Would say that because critical race theory tries to address the changing of structures in society. Right? So I think that they would argue that we have certain structures that are in society that are inherently view other people or they're inherently racist. These structures and these institutions that were in our culture society are inherently racist. So therefore we have to critique, right? Critique that in light of race in order to see it. But ultimately, I don't know what the ultimate goal of critical race theory is, because it's

not the Christian perspective to bring people together. It's to create a new synthesis, which is what I love that you're asking the question. That's what you want to do in this debate. You want to have a dialogue. I don't understand. Like what is the ultimate goal of critical race theory? And remember, with them out, it's a theory, right? So people tell you it's critical race fact, but it's just the theory. So I don't understand what the ultimate purpose is. For me, the ultimate end purpose of racism is to close the racial divide and develop

a deeper understanding and seeing each other made in God's image and light. I have not seen anything like that from critical race theory to me. Again, because of the conflict and tension and struggle, it just creates more division. Fair enough. So I don't really understand what the ultimate end or purpose of what it's supposed to be, because it's not to bring people together. Yeah. Well, that'll be a good question for you to ask in your dialogue. And I love that, right? You're not going pretending you have all the answers. You're trying to learn from this person.

Exactly. Exactly. Trent Smith, who's a wonderful patron, only wonderful because he is a patron. I know nothing else about him. He could be a horrible person, but he does support me. He says no question. Just want to say thank you for the amazing content. Paul Antonio Ambrose says, I love Deacon Harold.

Can you explain you Deacon, how the Catholic universal nature of our faith speaks to the unity of all races. We are both one and diverse. Yeah, absolutely. You know, like, for example, in South Africa, right? I mentioned that the the the priest use Latin in the mass, and I was intrigued by that because I didn't expect to hear Latin, but he goes, that is a language that brings us all together. Right. And I mentioned how Jesus, there's no physical descriptions of Jesus in the scriptures as I didn't expect to hear Latin, but he goes, that is a language that brings us all together.

And I mentioned how Jesus, there's no physical descriptions of Jesus in the scriptures as far as race, color. I mean, he's a Palestinian Jew, right? So you can imagine what he looked like, but it didn't matter. Yeah, so what we have to do is look beyond our prejudices, look beyond our stereotypes,

which we all have to see what God sees. It says, therefore the man is white for both naked and not ashamed because God was looking at them through his eyes. And so we need to see, like when I look at you, I see Matt, I don't see white. I don't think white when I see Matt Fred. I think there's my good friend, Matt Fred. I don't think white. That's where we need to get to. I don't want somebody to see me as a black Catholic. I'm a Catholic who's

black. No, that doesn't mean I don't love my heritage. I'm not saying that. But when I die and say before Jesus Christ, he ain't going to ask me how black I am. Did you stand up for my son? Did you stand up for the... I gave you the three talents of fatherhood of Sonship of the diaconate. Did you fulfill those those talents? I gave you where's my tenfold hundredfold Or did you bury him in the ground? I ain't gonna be that guy See this might be the crux of the difference between critical race theory and the Christian view right because the Christian view says Person over group, You know, your identity is your personal identity, where it seems to me when we talk about these Marxist things, it's about group identity. Yes. And when you talk about group identity, you have to characterize

and have a particular prejudice. That's the thing that holds the group together. The thing you're saying is no, get away from the group and look at the person, get to know the person. See this thing, and when we attack, so when critical race theories attacks these institutions and structures, to what end? What's the end game there? Equality or parody or, that's what I'm not clear, even after reading all those books, I'm not clear as to what is the actual goal.

Because as us as Christians, it's heaven. It's deep, intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ, loving our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus Christ, loving our neighbor as ourselves. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. The two greatest commandments. That is the underpin for us, but I'm not sure what it is for them. Stacey B says, I recently watched your talk on YouTube, Becoming a Man of Prayer.

How excited are you to see bishops leading the charge for being convicted men of faith in our current time? And of course, Cordiglione, that's how you say his last name is. I'm always afraid when I say his name that I've said it wrong. Who has banned Nancy Pelosi from Holy Communion out of love? I think that's wonderful to see. What do you think? No, I agree. And I think it's time for our prelates to step from behind the curtain of sex abuse scandal. Okay. I think a lot of them have, their voices have been pulled back.

They've been afraid to speak out on, on difficult moral issues because of the credibility loss that happened with the sex abuse scandal. But now is the time I think for them to speak out boldly in love, the truth in love, just like again, Bishop Strickland, Bishop Cordialoni, and others are not afraid to speak out on important moral issues that may be difficult to talk about that Catholics need to hear. Because sometimes I'm out there speaking on these things, I'm like, am I the only one? Where are the bishops at?

And I love the fact that they're starting on Corpus Christi this year, they're going to emphasize a three-year kind of reinvigoration, re-insertion of the Eucharist. You know, it's kind of this Eucharistic renaissance, if you will, which I'm really, really, really glad to see. And they put out a very good document on the Eucharist. It's basic, but that's what we need now. We need to get back to the basics of our faith. So they can't be afraid to speak out. Now, a lot of bishops didn't want to, you know, like did what Bishop Cardiolone did with Nancy Pelosi because they want to politicize the

Eucharist. It's not politicizing the Eucharist. Excommunication is done out of love. That's what it's done out of. It's a chance for the person to understand, okay, I'm now separated from communion, and a chance to think deeply and seriously about the positions they hold and come back to the faith. What did she do? She just issued a statement doubling down on what she believes. We need to pray. We need to pray hard for her, but I think he did the right thing.

I think more bishops should follow that lead. Again, these are not politicizing the Eucharist. These are issues of life and death that have become politicized. Yes. Now what happens when you allow a public notorious sinner like Nancy Pelosi to say awful things like we can kill the unborn and even celebrate the killing of the unborn, then if the bishops do nothing, then it gives the impression that either abortion's not as bad as I'd thought or the Eucharist isn't what the church claims. It causes scandal and it's bad for her soul. So I've said it before.

I'll say it again. Everybody out there should praise Bishop Cordiglione and any Bishop that gets behind him right now, because if we don't, we want our praise to be louder than the hatred coming from the opponents so that we can encourage them. No matter what you think of the bishop, even if you've got criticisms, even if they're just criticisms, you know, no one likes if you only talk to me when you're angry at me, it makes me very uninterested in what you have to say. But if you if there's a balanced approach and you I can tell you're in my corner, I'm

a lot more open to listening. All right. Brian says any advice for a young husband and father, his 30 years old feeling called to the permanent diaconate? Ah, yes. So I was also young when I was ordained. I started the program at 30. I was accepted into the program at 30.

The formal training started a year later and five years. I was 36 when I was ordained, just turned 36. So I was the youngest deacon ever ordained in the Archdiocese and the first one under 40. And I had young kids at the time. I had a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and newborn twins. So yeah. So yeah, so the first thing you want to do is talk to your wife. Absolutely. Because without the love and support of my wife, it ain't going to happen. Because a lot of diachies are nervous, right? We have men that young, considered diaconate because they're thinking of the tension between the family life and kids that are small and the diaconate and the tension. But what our archbishop

at the time did, said was, we think you guys can be a wonderful example of family life. And so we're going to go ahead and ordain you, but we were the kind of guinea pigs in other words. And as long as I listened to my wife as far as managing the time I'm spending away and find that balance and really listened to her, not just listened to her, but listened to her heart, as long as I did that, things worked out fine. So that's what I say, talk to your wife first. If you both feel that this is something

that you wanna pursue, then go talk to your priest. Your parish priest will be the next stop. And then you can go talk to the office of the diacon in your diocese. And your new book, or relatively new book on the diacon. Yes, Our Life of Service. See, that's important is that language of service, because I'm sure there relatively new book on the do you have our life of service? See that's important Is that that language of service because I'm sure there's a fear on the part of the bishop of the diocese that somebody? Enters there the middle of their life and they're looking for maybe prominence of some kind or to be respected in there in their community

But first and foremost, this is a matter of you become a servant. Yes, absolutely So I talk about this tension in the book So maybe one thing you do is get the book and look at it. You can see what the deaconate service is about. I talk about marriage. I talk about the tension in the family. I talk about tensions in the parish. So I don't shy away from that. But I bring those things up to see how we can all better serve the body of Christ together. The PJ says, I have heard from some teachers in states like California that they are not teaching critical race theory. How much of this is true?

How many school districts include it as part of the curriculum in the United States? One teacher called me brainwashed for having even brought up the topic. He also told me to stop watching Fox News. As it turns out, I don't watch Fox News. Yeah, I have no idea how many and I know it's being proposed by school boards because I He also told me to stop watching Fox News as it turns out I don't watch Fox News. Yeah, I have no idea how many and I know it's being proposed by school boards because I see snippets of things on YouTube and stuff like, but I don't watch television and I'm not on social media. Also I can't give an exact number of how many school districts United States have

incorporated this or trying to incorporate it into their curriculum for their students. What I find difficult, right, is that we, I would love to see more atheists become pro-life, you know, but what's tough is we get into these group mentalities where we feel like we can't have ideas or beliefs that aren't acceptable within our particular group, right? So I always have such respect when I meet an atheist or someone who's non-religious, who's staunchly against abortion, because it shows me that they're thinking for themselves, right?

Pro-life isn't a conservative word. It's just about the truth. My fear is, okay, so on the left, it's like they have a monopoly on being against racism. My fear is then that you have people on the right who are afraid to dress racism because they feel like it's become a left word. Does that make sense?

And so how do we as parents educate our children about the evil of racism? I mean, it's an obvious question in one sense, but. Yeah, I think it's really teaching them about what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God and to see everyone and to expose them. And so, for example, here's one of the things I have in the book, Matt. And remember I talked about our little parish, we had St. Bonaventure and St. Patrick there? Well, the parish now, Matt, is half Vietnamese, the other half are Africans, Filipinos, and a bunch of other very, very diverse church. So we started putting images in the church that looked like the people worship in the church. So we have a statue of Our Lady of Lavon, we have St. Martin

de Pourez, we have an icon screen with St. Kateri de Tequitha and other saints of color on there. So when you walk in, imagine walking to a white parish, let's say, and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, but you walk in and as you walk into the church, there's a beautiful picture of Josephine Bikita. And your child says, mommy, who's that? Or daddy, who's that? Well, that's Josephine Bikita. Who, is she a saint?

Oh yeah, she's a saint. She used to be a slave and they really treated her bad, but then she became a nun and she actually thanked the people that enslaved her because it wasn't for them she would not have known Christ. And now this child's looking at a black person a different way aren't they? Mm-hmm. You see what I'm saying? So we have to counter the stereotypes that they're exposed to with positive images even though your church is a little bit ass-eating. You don't have anything

to do with Josephine Bacchus. So what? Put St. Juan Diego, some saints of color up there so that people can see the rich, beautiful diversity of the church. Amen. What book did you write about a black saint? It was called Father Augustus Tolton, the slave who became the first African American priest. I wanted to say black priest, but the publisher wanted to say I'm African American, you know. So and my book is not about his life. My book is about lessons we can learn from his life. So I would I would have not I would have changed the title if it were me. But but I like that.

That's one way that Catholics can talk about race is by this this lady. She's the patron saint of is it sex slaves or because I think yeah, yeah. Human trafficking. What's her name again? St. Josephine Bakita. So St. Josephine Bakita. So people should look her up and you could use that as a beautiful story to talk to your kids. Yeah. Colin Carr says, What are Deacon's thoughts on reparations?

Seems to me that all other forms of forgiveness require some sort of penance or payment by the wrongdoer to work towards reconciliation, is it really just to settle on the fact that most of those responsible for the victimized by past racial crimes in the US aren't around anymore? So what's your take on reparations? Well, that's the thing. I don't mention reparations in the book. That's a secular way of dealing with the issue.

I'm dealing with from a faith-based perspective, you know, and so, you know, We say that Jesus paid the price for our sins, but he didn't do it in money He did it with the cost of his life. And so if we're gonna make spiritual reparation, right we have to First of all see this issue is important and put the work in the effort that it's gonna take To be able to close that racial device. So for example, another example I have in the book is you have, there's some amazing documents that are put out by US bishops on issues of race over the years, or black bishops

or committee on racism. Wonderful documents. Start a parish group twice a month to study those documents together. And if you don't have any black people or people of color in the parish, bring in people from other parishes that are, and have a little meal together, have a little potluck, have a little, and then, and then break bread and share, you know, a few paragraphs, you know, maybe half hour, 45 minutes, maybe an hour, twice a month to really get a, bring an understanding of and have people share their experiences and share their stories and share their frustrations. Because now you're like, I didn't realize that was an issue.

So now we're learning, we're growing together as a people of faith where we're meeting each other where we are and we're helping each other to move further. And as we can, the more we do that, the more we're getting to close that racial divide. I think that's more effective than paying money. Again, that's a secular, again, that's somebody else.

That's a secular culture has ways of answering that, but I'm approaching from a faith. Do you still run your podcast? Do you still run your podcast? Yeah, so I haven't done it in a while because I've been, what's been happening, Matt, is that when all those things were canceled, 2020, early 21, they didn't wanna make them up last year.

They don't wanna wait till next year. So I've been really, I mean, hitting the ground, running for the past, even before Lent, like every single week I'm on the road. So I haven't been able to do the podcast, but I want to get back to it again. I can just see that being a beautiful thing for you to do is to read through a document and help people understand what's going on so we could learn from you. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. I think I'm going to do that, Matt. Thank you so much. Yes, you're welcome.

Just make sure you pay me. I'm joking. So tell us about your website and where people can go and learn about you. Yeah, just deaconharold.com. Very simple. Good. We have the link below so people can check you out. That'd be really cool.

Yeah, and I do have some podcasts. I have several different podcasts I'm doing. I have a show I do with my good friend, Ken Helanius, who's the director of communications at the D. Nic for ethics and culture at Notre Dame You know, we've we've done that was a radio show which now is being which now is a kind of broadcast Yeah, I cast as well. Yeah, so we're gonna do a shout out to our friend Hector Molina. Oh love Hector man We're both big fans. Love that guy. What's he doing? Is he got a podcast? Yeah, he's got a podcast called Walk in the Word. Check that out. Where he does it. Sunday

reflections on the word. Great. I love how passionate that man is about Holy scripture. He's just such a good man. One of the honors of my job ministry is I get to meet people like you behind the scenes before the talk, you know, at the at the bar afterwards. And I'm just continually impressed by the caliber of people. And Hector is like that. He's just a solid man. Loves his bride. He's exactly who he is off stage as he is on. Yeah, and he is world class.

I mean, when my mom died, I had an engagement the weekend of her funeral. And it was too late because my mom died on Monday with the funeral Saturday. It was too late to change to cancel or reschedule. Said, what are we gonna do? You're not gonna be here, what are we gonna do? I said, get Hector. We don't know who he is, da da da. So they called Peter Herbeck to vouch for Hector.

And they loved him so much, they brought him back twice. I mean, Hector is the real deal. I love that guy. And his family, his beautiful family as well. And he also speaks Spanish, so. Yes. It's something I keep thinking about about is if Catholics aren't doing a good job at helping our Spanish speaking brothers and sisters, you know, then they might fall away from the Catholic Church and drift into different forms of Protestantism.

Yeah. So we got to be. You know, and Hector has been pivoting like so many speakers are doing kind of moving away from speaking regularly. I mean, he's still taking engagements, but he's not taking nearly as many as he was before, and kind of pivoting to more online content, providing content that way.

Let's do one more question. This comes from Philip98. He says, my girlfriend is a non-denominational Protestant who is holding some views that unbeknownst to her have ties to critical race theory slash Marxism. Often when I try to have conversations with her, we don't end up diving into the issues because out of a desire to avoid conflict, she says things like it's okay to have different opinions and doesn't actually engage with the topic.

How can we have better conversations? You got it. You got to engage. I mean, here's the thing. Imagine if you did that in marriage, Matt, we're not going to talk about this because it's too hard. That's the that's if you did that in marriage Matt. We're not gonna talk about this because it's too hard That's the exact that's a recipe for disaster right there. Absolutely. I'm not guys dating right now Now's the time to do it How's the time to do it because because you want to see if this were to happen our marriage how we respond to this right now

How we respond to this conflict intention, you know, I had a guy recently who's uh, I guess daughter came out as gay or transgender, something like that, and the wife would support him. He wasn't. Ooh, how do you even begin to have a dialogue about that? You know, how do you begin to try to reconcile that in your marriage? So if you're not talking about these things now,

oh, let's just have a different opinion. That ain't gonna fly once the rings go on. You know, so you need to start talking about those things now. And it may cause some tension. You may pull away for a while. But again, what's the point leading to the beauty of truth? And you might use you might this episode. You might use this episode to share with her or some of the clips

that we pull out of it to kind of help her begin dialoguing with you and understanding where you're coming from. But yeah, I would say if you cannot have a conversation about serious things with your girlfriend, either learn how to or find a different girlfriend. Because as you say, to not address these issues is only to have them blow up later on. Well, and sometimes there's a fear there within her.

Like, she just believes it because she believes it. She hasn't really thought about why she believes it. Because maybe a lot of her friends believe in her. Maybe she hasn't really done a lot of the work herself to, because maybe a lot of her friends believe in her. Maybe she hasn't really done a lot of the work herself to really think through a lot of these issues, and him pushing will force her to do that. So maybe she doesn't want to do it. She just wants to be very comfortable where she is right now.

But again, look at Christ crucified. If you want to take things in your life to the next level, you've got to get uncomfortable, just like Jesus on the cross. You've got to get uncomfortable to take everything in your life to the next level you got to get uncomfortable Just like these on the cross you got to get uncomfortable to take everything your life to that next level Thank you for being here. Thanks for taking the time I know flying is a pain and I'm really grateful for you coming in studio I felt like this is just so much better than Skype. Yeah, absolutely It's nice to be able to sit across the table. Yeah, I'm honored to be as great to be with you man It's the most time we ever spent together. This is great. This is my hair.

Yeah, it's like I just fly people in so I can chat with them. It's the greatest job in the world. So if people want to learn more about you, your website's the place to go. Yeah, DeaconHerald.com. Absolutely. All right. God bless. Thanks, everybody, for being here. Please subscribe and hit that bell button so my ego will get a boost. Cheers.