The Auron MacIntyre Show - March 23, 2026


Are Catholics Secretly Sabotaging America？ ｜ Guest： Chad Pecknold ｜ 3⧸23⧸26


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour

Words per minute

172.96677

Word count

10,387

Sentence count

277

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

25

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Chad Pecknell is a professor at the Catholic University of St. Thomas Aquinas and a regular contributor to The Daily Beast. He's also the author of a piece on the conspiracy theory that the Catholic Church and Russia are working together to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Want to go electric without sacrificing fun?
00:00:04.040 That's the Volkswagen ID.4.
00:00:06.580 All electric and thoughtfully designed to elevate your modern lifestyle.
00:00:10.520 The Volkswagen ID.4 is fun to drive with instant acceleration that makes city streets feel like open roads.
00:00:16.740 Plus a refined interior with innovative technology always at your fingertips.
00:00:21.400 The all electric ID.4.
00:00:23.200 You deserve more fun.
00:00:24.520 Visit VW.ca to learn more.
00:00:27.080 SUVW. German engineered for all. 0.97
00:00:30.360 Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
00:00:36.620 Before we get started, I just want to remind you that one of the ways we keep the lights on around here is, of course, subscriptions to Blaze TV.
00:00:43.460 So if you'd like to support this show and you'd like to get access to all the great behind-the-scenes footage from all the different hosts at the Blaze,
00:00:50.760 you need to head to blazetv.com slash Oren and use the promo code Oren to get $20 off your subscription today.
00:00:57.160 That's blazetv.com slash Oren to get $20 off your subscription today.
00:01:04.060 So an insidious force is just haunting the United States.
00:01:08.720 That's right.
00:01:09.200 On the internet, we are getting a conspiracy theory that the Catholic Church has united
00:01:14.680 with, I guess, Russia, perhaps Alexander Dugan, to ultimately undermine the evangelical dominance
00:01:21.080 of the United States and to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel.
00:01:25.880 here to discuss this absolutely nefarious plot is one of our returning guests he's a professor
00:01:31.520 at catholic university chad pecknell thank you so much for coming on oh it's an absolute pleasure
00:01:36.240 to be with you yeah i i'm you know live from moscow you know i i appreciate that the kremlin
00:01:42.920 has has pitched in and for this broadcast and so you know we are of course joking quite heavily
00:01:48.980 here if you have not heard about this whole episode you're going to find it quite hysterical
00:01:53.120 But I thought it was important to address because you were one of the people named specifically in this charge, and I thought it was important for people to kind of get the background of what's going on here because this is one of the more ugly and clumsy psyops I've ever seen in quite a while, and so I thought it would be good if we dug into the meat of this.
00:02:13.640 But before we do, guys, let me tell you about Frontier Magazine.
00:02:16.580 Hey guys, we all have to read things digitally these days, but I'm old school. Whenever I can,
00:02:21.880 I want to feel the weight of the page in my hand. So when I look at Frontier Magazine,
00:02:25.720 which is always beautifully shot and beautifully laid out and has really interesting articles,
00:02:30.500 that's what I'm looking for. I've written for Frontier. Many of my guests have written for
00:02:34.960 Frontier from this show. And if you want to get access to Frontier Magazine, you need to subscribe
00:02:40.580 to Blaze Unlimited. When you do, you're not just going to get issue five, you're also going to get
00:02:45.380 all the other premium perks and you're going to get back issues one through four digitally
00:02:49.500 so you're immediately caught up if you want to do that you need to head to blazeunlimited.com
00:02:54.420 slash oran and use the promo code frontier 40 to get 40 off your subscription that's
00:03:00.260 blazeunlimited.com slash oran frontier 40 for that discount all right professor pecknold so
00:03:07.960 to give people a little bit of background before we dive into the substance all of a sudden i think
00:03:13.800 about a week ago we saw this big article from this account on twitter called insurrection barbie
00:03:19.720 i'm sorry about the inside baseball for people here who might not be super active on twitter
00:03:24.100 but i promise this will actually apply to our water situation and in this article she laid out
00:03:29.680 this case for the idea that the catholic church is working with uh russia possibly alexander dugan
00:03:37.700 to ultimately kind of drive away the support for Israel because this is an account that's a big
00:03:44.200 booster of the state of Israel and is very concerned that there might be some level of
00:03:48.420 wavering support for that country. And this is somehow tied to the kind of dilution of
00:03:54.340 dispensational theology in the United States. And as crazy as that is, you know, it's just one
00:04:01.260 internet account, right? It's ultimately just one anonymous internet account, but it is somebody
00:04:05.000 who's, you know, often retweeted by people like Elon Musk.
00:04:09.360 So it does get a lot of traction.
00:04:11.040 And you had guys like James Lindsay,
00:04:13.140 who some people have asserted
00:04:15.640 might actually be the author of this piece.
00:04:17.880 I have no idea, to be really clear.
00:04:19.520 I'm not making that assertion,
00:04:20.600 just that it's something that has been going around.
00:04:22.580 But many people like that.
00:04:24.460 And actually, like, several prominent Christian,
00:04:27.880 you know, podcasters and media figures on the right
00:04:32.400 started kind of echoing this.
00:04:33.700 And I've heard a lot about the dangers of conspiracy theory coming out of the podcast, right? How dangerous it is to have these conspiracy theories going on. So it was very interesting to just kind of watch all these people blindly repeat and pile on into this.
00:04:48.020 And at the heart of this was the idea that integralism is going to be this system that
00:04:52.940 ultimately captures the United States in this kind of Catholic Sharia law scenario.
00:04:58.600 So all that backstory to say, you know, Professor, are you now or have you ever been part of
00:05:04.720 a multinational conspiracy run by Russia to undermine evangelical control of the United
00:05:10.840 States?
00:05:12.460 I wish.
00:05:12.820 That sounds like a lot of fun.
00:05:14.080 no i mean you know it's extraordinary because i i'm struck by conspiracy theories you know and
00:05:23.000 the fact that many of them have come true and and the thing about conspiracy theories is
00:05:27.340 is they usually have like uh they make sense on some level right and and especially the ones that
00:05:34.200 come true but this one didn't make sense this was 8 000 words of gobbledygook that looked like it was
00:05:42.920 you know, very carefully scripted, and then put into a AI machine to garble out all these strange
00:05:51.000 ways in which Nick Fuentes and people like myself and Alexander Dugan, we're all, we're all aligning,
00:05:59.900 you know, we're all, we're all basically like the great old demon of the Soviet Union looking to 0.78
00:06:05.900 overthrow America. And I, you know, it, I didn't take it seriously at first, because I thought
00:06:12.760 this is just so absurd. Like nobody can really recognize themselves in this. But then I realized,
00:06:20.940 oh no, this is getting traction. There's power behind this. I'm sure there's money behind this.
00:06:28.580 And what's at stake? Why is this complete trash piece of AI nonsense going viral? 0.98
00:06:37.540 And, you know, my sense is that it went viral because it serves particular interests of the old school GOP neocon kind of forever wars approach to U.S. involvement in Israel and the Middle East. 0.95
00:06:55.000 And this is a way of discrediting anybody who wants, you know, a kind of new, you know, America first policy of restraint, you know, that actually doesn't want our national life dictated by geopolitics anymore.
00:07:11.940 And that this is a very silly kind of appeal to know nothing ism. I know you said you're, you know, a devotee of know nothing ism, but is a sort of a bad, bad caricature of American historical anti-Catholicism that didn't really make sense.
00:07:30.800 But it does make political sense. It is an attempt to disrupt a political coalition. If evangelicals and Catholics are coming together, you know, in different ways, evangelicals sort of deliver a vote, and Catholics are in unusual leadership roles, I guess, you know, this is a coalition that can't stand if we want to put the band back together that's held for a long time.
00:07:55.480 And in light of that, it made sense that people like Ted Cruz, you know, boosted it. It made sense that, you know, maybe Susie Edelman, you know, boosted it. That very influential sort of Israel hawks and boosters of the old regime are behind this. You start to see, well, there's kind of a conspiracy behind their silly conspiracy. 0.70
00:08:19.300 Yeah, I mean, as a Southern Baptist, I feel like it is my duty to warn about Catholic subversion and foreign potpourri. 1.00
00:08:30.240 I feel like that's what we should be doing.
00:08:35.200 We don't need others to be projecting their own political desires on our totally wholesome xenophobia towards foreign influence.
00:08:44.400 Don't take my job.
00:08:45.920 Yeah, you see, they're taking our jobs. 0.68
00:08:48.200 they're taking our jobs right another case of foreign agents taking our jobs from good americans
00:08:53.840 we can i don't need these h1b conspiracy theories i want good old domestic anti-catholic
00:09:02.360 conspiracy theories like my grandma used to make okay like i don't know it's it's um but all joking
00:09:08.260 aside it is very obvious as you point out that as comical as we may play this up this did really
00:09:14.920 get traction and the fact that it really got traction right like 20 million views or maybe
00:09:19.780 that's too much but it got a lot of views it did again when you have major politicians like ted
00:09:24.960 cruz out there pushing it when you have major conservative talk radio hosts uh you know doing
00:09:30.320 interviews about this like it really matters and so i think it's important to highlight what the
00:09:35.600 motivation was behind this because it's very clear and i think there there's a lot of people
00:09:40.820 as you say who are still hoping for the return of the old neoconservative understanding and if you
00:09:46.760 go to any of these gatherings where kind of new right politics is happening you'll notice that
00:09:52.440 there's a pretty healthy mingling of protestant and catholic there's a quite quite a heavy
00:09:57.060 concentration of catholics often uh you know even at the uh you know the highest levels uh something
00:10:02.460 i have lamented at at some points catholic domination of these circles but ultimately
00:10:07.240 I think this is a good pairing because, as you say, the point is to focus on America first policy, making the nation something that we are caring about first, the people around us first.
00:10:18.260 And this is something that is an anathema to neocon foreign policy because it's about being the world empire.
00:10:25.180 It's about controlling the globe. It's about this constant need for expansion, meddling in foreign affairs, making yourself constantly facing out and never addressing the needs of the people and the welfare of the people as they exist.
00:10:38.260 Now, a big part of this that has been very successful, sadly, over the years has been this relatively novel dispensationalist understanding that has worked its way into many evangelical churches.
00:10:51.260 But as somebody who grew up with this and I'm still attending an evangelical church, you can see this fading away very quickly in the evangelical world.
00:11:01.060 Nobody under 40 believes in this stuff at all.
00:11:04.180 Most people under 50 don't believe in it at all, even though they remain evangelical.
00:11:08.060 The idea that Israel is like the current secular nation state of Israel is the actual Israel of the Bible and is therefore promised like this geopolitical existence by God is starting to drift away. 0.62
00:11:23.260 And that is obviously creating panic among many of the people who kind of relied on this rhetoric to make this work.
00:11:30.740 And that's why they're desperately grasping about for explanations as to why suddenly there's less and less support for this eschatological understanding.
00:11:40.040 And this is where they kind of land in the Catholic conspiracy camp.
00:11:44.840 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, you know, and the very sort of keen political desire to capture what is kind of a fringe theological idea.
00:11:58.280 In the great tradition, it's a very fringe idea, right? You're right. You know, the sort of pre-millennialist kind of views are, you know, kind of grew up on American soil and developed in the last hundred years or so.
00:12:13.720 But I'm kind of interested at how quickly, you know, I don't know when to pinpoint it from. Maybe you have an idea of when organizations like AIPAC and, you know, lobby groups for Israel, like figured out that this particular fringe theology within evangelicalism was very useful for their political aims.
00:12:39.660 do you have a sense of that i don't because not being the southern baptist i don't have
00:12:43.620 as the insight you do you have a sense of that like when did israel suddenly become politically
00:12:49.700 interested in fringe you know evangelical doctrines of eschatology so i think this actually
00:12:56.120 like dates back to the balfour declaration like i think you like this actually british
00:13:01.680 understandings of dispensationalism played heavily into mandate palestine more or less
00:13:07.720 being handed over to israel and so i think that this uh while i do think it is largely rooted in
00:13:13.860 america at this moment i think that this is an understanding that has actually been at the heart
00:13:19.460 of the the foundation of israel made made it a possibility through the british government and
00:13:24.380 then carried over to american support for it so it's only been cultivated more and more to be
00:13:28.900 clear when i was in church i don't think i ever got a single sermon on israel or needing to
00:13:36.300 support israel or even comments about oh isn't it good that we're out there supporting israel
00:13:41.580 in a war or something i never got that from a pulpit i mainly got that from the left behind
00:13:46.700 books and um and talk radio people invoking christianity but i don't think i ever actually
00:13:53.980 heard it from southern baptist now i know there are plenty of people out there who have preached
00:13:58.020 that i know there are mega church pastors who preach that but just in my personal experience
00:14:01.840 It's the only thing I can reference. I have actually never heard it from a pastor.
00:14:06.900 But in my recollection, and yours is clearer than mine, but my recollection is that that was at its kind of peak period at the height of American power, neocon power in the 90s.
00:14:19.200 Is that is that fair?
00:14:21.180 I think that's right. And I think it continued.
00:14:23.000 you know i think it continued into the you know the 2000s as well uh i think we're really only
00:14:29.640 seeing it questioned you know in the last decade or so uh but i think it was just kind of baked in
00:14:34.940 and yeah you're probably right that that's when it it got its most muscular probably the 80s and
00:14:40.040 90s there are really and then obviously you know with the with the war on terror like that period
00:14:45.380 of 80s to 2010s is probably its height of uh kind of power inside the country and so what we're
00:14:51.980 seeing now is actually it's denouement right it's it's kind of it's kind of in its declension
00:14:57.740 its decline it's in its decay which is why you see the weird 8 000 word ai by insurrection barbie
00:15:05.620 i like i like to think of it as the ken and barbie team for you know trying to revive you know the
00:15:12.280 90s uh but it i just don't think it despite the high you know click count and i don't know how
00:15:21.280 many bots you know retweet these things but it just doesn't seem compelling to me like this is a
00:15:27.500 this is a fun news story but i don't i don't think people in the white house take this seriously i
00:15:34.240 don't think people in israel who make decisions take this seriously this is not something anyone
00:15:39.340 is taking seriously except for you know it's it it does touch on real things and so you know i
00:15:46.720 think it's good to touch on the real things that it does touch. And that is clearly who
00:15:53.180 is going to control the next, I don't know, 20 or 40 years of America's foreign policy.
00:16:06.780 And that strikes me as a real question. Who will control? Will it be? Will the leftists take power
00:16:12.380 again and what will their you know vision be for american foreign policy you know if ops like this
00:16:20.100 are successful at completely crushing a necessary coalition to win power because that's what it's
00:16:27.880 aimed at to blow up the gop so badly that there's no chance you know okay you know if people think
00:16:35.460 vance is gonna be hurt by this rubio is gonna be hurt by this everybody's gonna be hurt by this
00:16:40.660 And and so if if the if the op is to just blow up the GOP, well, then it tells you that whoever likes this op, whoever favors this op is actually just as fine with the Democrats being in charge of foreign policy as the right.
00:16:57.440 and why wouldn't they be right like for all the noises about anti-war barack obama was fine
00:17:03.620 continuing wars so was joe biden in fact in many cases they were uh more than willing to escalate
00:17:10.100 different tactics and increase the level of you know the body counts you know you have hillary
00:17:14.400 clinton laughing about uh you know getting guys sodomized by bayonets and and creating open air
00:17:19.920 slave markets and uh in north africa this kind of thing so it's it's very clear that despite their
00:17:26.520 rhetoric, Democrats have every intention of continuing kind of the neocon foreign policy
00:17:32.640 when they're in office, just pursuing it in a different tenor or a different tone, but without
00:17:37.160 any real material difference in the mission. And of course, Donald Trump ran on this idea that we
00:17:43.680 would not be continuously engaging ourselves in these conflicts. It's very clear that guys like
00:17:48.880 J.D. Vance were a spearhead of that. And J.D. Vance is the natural heir to that throne, which I think
00:17:54.020 is why we've seen so many people like max abrams and others just go extremely hard in the paint
00:17:59.520 every day at jd vance because they want the neocons to regain control and they know if the
00:18:05.900 democrats are in charge then they'll the democrats will do their bidding they know that if the neocon
00:18:11.660 right is in charge then that'll do their bidding the only question they had was is a guy like jd
00:18:17.240 vance going to carry on this no new wars uh more restrictionist more like you know pat buchanan
00:18:22.820 style understanding of foreign policy engagement or are we going to see you know the ability to
00:18:28.320 kind of blow him up and put somebody in his place and it's very clear that so much of the
00:18:32.560 conservative civil war that we are uh currently uh you know hearing about so often is really a
00:18:38.940 coordinated attack to take jd vance off the table so that maga is also removed and what we get is
00:18:44.480 standard issue conservatism from the 1990s as you say it's all about bringing the 90s back in every
00:18:50.720 way possible make the 90s great again right exactly exactly yeah i agree with that unfortunately i
00:18:57.160 mean i do think i do think it is you know i i have a lot of respect for chris caldwell um and i just
00:19:04.560 saw his piece you know i haven't read it uh yet but i i saw the lead and you know the the the
00:19:10.280 tendency within you know maga intellectual circles right now with a piece like that is kind of
00:19:17.000 discouraging a lot of, you know, mutual handing, you know, it's like you're at the, you know,
00:19:21.900 the drug party and everybody's handing out black pills, you know, uh, and you know, the post
00:19:27.040 Trumpism from Chris Caldwell, uh, is, was kind of shocking to me. Um, uh, and I, I think,
00:19:35.580 I think there is a lot of black pills being handed about even on, on the merits of the
00:19:44.020 administration and then when you add in the op it adds in oh my gosh and the opposition has not
00:19:51.080 gone away on the left and the opposition has not gone away on the right and so now now i think you
00:19:58.520 know the new right intellectual you know whatever whoever counts as you know doesn't have to be
00:20:04.940 intellectuals that could be just those who don't want to make the 90s great again uh are working
00:20:11.780 with a kind of two sets of discouragements. One, the admin is not achieving all the aims that they
00:20:17.800 wanted. And that's a kind of black pill. And then the black pill is that they haven't defeated the
00:20:26.160 left. Woke is not dead in the way that they thought it would be. And the neocons are not dead.
00:20:34.060 In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour.
00:20:41.780 Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling
00:20:47.240 in free skills training programs for in-demand fields like software development and information
00:20:52.740 technology.
00:20:55.240 Learn more at aboutamazon.ca.
00:21:03.360 At all.
00:21:04.800 And in fact, they seem to maybe have some influence over the president.
00:21:07.640 And so I think this kind of, you know, different vectors of different types of black pills coming in makes something like, you know, a dumb conspiracy kind of plausible because people don't know how to make sense of these different vectors and they don't know how we can win.
00:21:28.820 And I think this is the really depressing thing is this fear that we can't win. How did we go from a movement which was intent on winning to one that, you know, is like, okay, there's resistance. I'm giving up.
00:21:44.820 well you know one of my first pieces that i wrote for the blaze when i came on about three years ago
00:21:51.680 was called the neocon cycle and i i worry and i in that piece worried about exactly what we're
00:21:57.280 seeing now that all these people who left the left never left the left in fact when they came
00:22:03.500 over they were just hoping to turn the republican party into their new neocon party since they
00:22:09.220 didn't have power in the left anymore they don't like you they don't want to be around you people
00:22:13.340 like james benzie despise you they just have to be next to you because they think they can steal
00:22:17.720 power from you and so you have this coalition of a lot of people uh who used to be called i guess
00:22:24.220 the idw the intellectual dark web you know these kind of people and all of a sudden they think they
00:22:28.800 should be the ones driving the party and sadly as you point out many people myself included were
00:22:33.920 probably too optimistic about how thoroughly the neocons had been defeated by trump we thought okay
00:22:40.000 well now all these people have to pledge allegiance to trump and you can't be elected
00:22:43.240 without trump and even ben shapiro and guys who are saying they were never trump now have to kind
00:22:48.080 of you know kiss the ring with trump and so you know whether neocons are going to be at the the
00:22:52.840 fringes of the republican party or not they're more or less over like they're never going to
00:22:57.060 regain control but unfortunately it turns out that elite theory still holds and if you have the right
00:23:03.320 people in the right places uh telling people what to believe they can switch back pretty quickly and
00:23:08.740 And so if the neocons can reestablish institutional control, and they really never lost institutional control, it simply was challenged for the first time in a long time, then it is possible for them to ultimately kind of flip the direction that the party has been going.
00:23:22.760 And I think a lot of people have seen this with the rise of Mark Levin and Lindsey Graham is the most important counselors for Trump somehow at the moment.
00:23:31.020 And and so it just becomes very clear that there is a full on coup to basically slit MAGA's throat in the middle of this whole thing and get us back on track with a neocon agenda.
00:23:41.220 That's right. And and in addition to, you know, I mean, I was always aware that there was a number of people who had who had control over institutions with millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars that they set on.
00:23:54.520 And I noticed that they all kind of sat quietly last year and I noticed that
00:24:00.400 I'm like, ah, they're all so quiet. And, and now I think that, you know,
00:24:07.620 that the agents have been, you know,
00:24:09.860 told that they must now spend the money to regain power ahead of 28.
00:24:15.100 And, and I think, you know, on the other side of that,
00:24:20.640 I think, has been new right MAGA naivete about institutions and about money.
00:24:28.760 And, you know, we are not natural institution builders.
00:24:35.080 And, you know, generally conservatives are not natural institution builders.
00:24:38.620 We sort of think, you know, truth wins out.
00:24:41.320 And if we just say the truth, you know, we'll just say the truth about making America great again.
00:24:45.300 And we'll make it great again by tweeting it.
00:24:47.700 But really, the way I think, you know, I think this is should be a call to maturity on the side of MAGA is actually no, we need to build institutions, we need to build up institutions, both in media like yours, and, and think tanks, we need to build up institutions that actually can carry forward our vision of politics, in every walk of life, education, politics,
00:25:17.040 media, everything. And we have not been serious about that. And, and that says that we're not
00:25:23.180 serious about governing. And so I think all of these challenges should actually be bracing for
00:25:29.520 us. They shouldn't be black. I mean, they could be black pills for like a day or something, 1.00
00:25:32.660 but then you have to like say, okay, what, how are we going to act now? How are we going to build
00:25:37.600 the coalition to win power? I mean, this is one of the dumbest, the absolute dumbest things about, 1.00
00:25:43.220 you know disputes between christian nationalists or integralists or what you know whatever uh kind 0.98
00:25:50.060 of you know vision of of christianity you have for thinking about the governance of a nation
00:25:55.520 or a civilization like those shouldn't be the disputes that that make you lose power right
00:26:02.880 and it's when we can have those disputes sorry i mean i'm happy to have those disputes with you
00:26:09.280 or with doug wilson or whatever like let's have those disputes but let's not have those disputes
00:26:14.800 like defeat us all so that we're all in prison in four years like wow i won an argument with
00:26:22.160 doug wilson and now we're in jail together you know like we have to be smart about this and we
00:26:26.960 have to say okay yeah we've got some theological differences about the christian faith and how it
00:26:31.680 should inform public life and governance and everything but they aren't anything like the
00:26:37.680 the differences we have with the left who actually want us to be in prison right i'm more than happy 0.99
00:26:44.700 to defeat the people who are looking to murder children in the womb or cut off their genitals 0.95
00:26:48.960 or steal them from their parents if they don't you know change their names to the other gender 0.78
00:26:53.780 uh and then we can figure out you know exactly how properly to apply christian doctrine to the
00:27:00.140 government later like that's that's like can we just win power for 40 years first and i would
00:27:06.360 just 10 would be good yeah i'm more than happy to arm wrestle you over you know christian
00:27:11.820 nationalism versus integralism right after we get done getting rid of the marxists and like 1.00
00:27:16.320 the insane neocons like that's i'm more than happy to have that battle out then but since we got to
00:27:21.640 this integralism has been something that has been used as a boogeyman throughout this and i want to
00:27:26.700 talk about that a little bit because look uh you know obviously the united states at this moment
00:27:32.580 is still a predominantly Protestant nation. Now, that could change over time. Anything is possible,
00:27:39.160 but that is the reality on the ground and has historically been the case leading up to this
00:27:43.980 point. And so the idea that this kind of relatively, and no offense, but relatively boutique,
00:27:51.340 you know, kind of Catholic doctrine in the United States, at least, I'm sure it applies
00:27:56.520 more effectively in Catholic nations. But here in the United States, the idea that this is suddenly
00:28:02.440 going to take over and become the dominant way we understand american politics is i think laughable
00:28:08.520 and the big the big attempt to use this as the wedge for a lot of these um you know idw types
00:28:15.440 is that ultimately they are very worried they want to defeat the left but they don't want
00:28:20.180 christianity to really have any serious influence they are they tend to be atheists new atheists 0.75
00:28:25.260 this type of thing they're not interested in having an application of christian morality to
00:28:29.640 the public space. And so when we're looking at this, their juxtaposition that they're trying
00:28:35.540 to create is one of, well, Catholics are just like Muslims in that they want basically this 1.00
00:28:40.260 version of Sharia law as where evangelicals understand the need for separation of church
00:28:45.160 and state. But even that's like wildly not true, as we can see from the growing Christian 1.00
00:28:49.840 nationalist movement on the Protestant side of things, saying that actually we do need a very
00:28:55.380 robust application of christianity to the the public uh square even you know prior to the 1960s
00:29:03.060 or really even the 1980s it was very clear uh that evangelical christians were largely in favor of
00:29:09.480 public displays of christianity festivals you know having it taught in school school prayer
00:29:15.480 all these things these were not radical ideas uh even among protestants and evangelical protestants
00:29:21.580 So this is obviously, I think, a false dichotomy, but maybe you can explain a little more about integralism and why you think it's suddenly become such a punching bag.
00:29:29.400 Sure. I mean, for one thing listeners should know, like, integralism is not a word that the church uses.
00:29:36.260 The Catholic Church does not use the word integralism.
00:29:38.500 So you're absolutely right. Integralism is a kind of a boutique word.
00:29:41.440 It kind of really emerges after the loss of the papal states in the 1860s and 70s.
00:29:51.080 Pope Leo XIII was the first pope that I know of that gave the church's teaching a term, and his term was concordism.
00:30:01.320 Concordism was just that there should be concord between the temporal power and the spiritual power,
00:30:06.980 because they're both caused by God, and if there's conflict between them, it's some sign on one side
00:30:12.680 or the other that there's not concord with God's law, right? And so I'm a concordist, right? I think
00:30:19.280 the church's teaching is concordist. We have a pope saying concordism. Integralism was a version
00:30:25.380 of that that was ramped up for, it was ramped up in Spain, it was ramped up in France, and it was
00:30:35.780 ramped up in advance of, you know, various kinds of political movements, Catholic movements to
00:30:44.640 support those who became, you know, allegedly dictators or fascists. And so Integralism kind of
00:30:52.040 was, I think, on one level, an attempt to just summarize the church state teaching of the
00:30:58.460 of the Catholic church, similar to, uh, Leo's Concordism, but it got implement, implemented
00:31:06.880 in ways which are, you know, I think do carry these negative connotations. So there's,
00:31:13.700 there's like Potter Edmonds, very, very Concordist kind of definition of integralism as,
00:31:20.540 you know, the, the temporal being ordered to the spiritual power. Um, but that's like such a
00:31:28.080 minimal definition, right? That's just saying that the temporal power should recognize that
00:31:33.440 the spiritual power is higher for the salvation of souls. States don't save souls, the church
00:31:38.800 saves souls, and that sort of thing. So that very minimalist understanding of integralism,
00:31:43.440 I think is defensible, and I've defended it. But the more maximalist understandings of
00:31:48.320 integralism look like they're aligned with fascism, they look like, you know, theocratic,
00:31:52.560 they look like they're hierocratic, which is like rule by priests. And of course, that looks
00:31:58.000 Muslim, because that looks like you've collapsed. It's not a separation. There's no even distinction 1.00
00:32:04.820 between church and state then. And the church opposes that. I oppose that. But this is why
00:32:12.160 integralism kind of, I think, fizzled out as a discussion point. It started to be discussed
00:32:19.520 greatly in like 2017, and it kind of fizzled out around 2022 or 23, is my read on it. It was like
00:32:27.780 a five year, and I think it was there to match Christian nationalist discourse to say that
00:32:33.320 Catholics have a similar way of thinking about rightly ordered societies being informed by
00:32:40.240 Christian faith in certain ways. And, you know, it's better to, for a society to have a state
00:32:46.620 which is in concord with Christianity than one in conflict. And so you had Catholic and Protestant
00:32:52.740 and articulations of that but the important thing is why did we feel the need to articulate that
00:32:58.260 2017 through 2023 and the reason why is because it seemed like woke civic religion was actually
00:33:07.140 being instantiated in our lifetimes oh sure and so i think i think the felt the felt kind of auto
00:33:15.540 immune response from american christians was we have to figure out some way of giving some
00:33:21.780 alternative and authentically American vision of not a separation of church and state, but
00:33:27.880 concord between church and state that resists any Islamic view and resists any woke view,
00:33:34.080 because those end up being the same kind of tyranny. Yeah, I think that you're right about
00:33:40.000 that timeline, especially, you know, especially with Catholic thought, I think entering in a lot
00:33:44.920 of these areas, all of a sudden you saw Patrick Deneen kind of had a breakout to success with
00:33:50.920 why liberalism failed. A lot of people were thinking more about the application of Christian
00:33:56.200 doctrine and specifically Catholic doctrine to these different questions of politics and state
00:34:01.280 and organization of society. And then you saw kind of, I guess, Adrian Vermeule is probably
00:34:07.340 the most notable proponent of this, started writing some papers around this. And he kind of
00:34:12.920 had a moment where he was kind of every Catholic intellectuals kind of, you know, one of their
00:34:19.300 their guys they were kind of putting out there as answering these problems I think ultimately
00:34:23.520 you know as you say this was kind of running parallel with this recognition by Christian
00:34:28.640 nationalists that there had to be something had to be done it was very clear that this attempt to
00:34:33.520 simply uh kind of abandon the political and you know make Christianity something that only exists 0.98
00:34:39.820 inside the church uh was something that was not working we had left we had ceded this battlefield
00:34:44.460 to secular humanism which was ultimately conquering it left and right and and truly
00:34:49.300 turning itself into you know the the goddess of reason and the in the french uh revolutionary
00:34:54.500 sense uh being being placed in notre dame and so you have this moment where uh there there had to
00:35:01.460 be a re-injection of a christianity into public life if we were going to fight back and this
00:35:07.780 worry i'll be honest this does worry me a little bit because this reminds me of of oswald spangler's
00:35:12.740 second religiousness uh where he talks about you lose the original metaphysical animating spirit
00:35:19.540 of the religion and the religion becomes something that kind of uh high class people fall back on
00:35:25.500 because they've lost the structure uh that that is is built into society and so they see it more
00:35:31.600 as a tool you again i'm seeing a lot of these former idw people say actually it turns out maybe
00:35:37.560 we do need christianity we see richard dawkins out there saying actually i am a cultural christian
00:35:42.560 And that really is the Spanglerian second religiousness where it's not it's not authentic. It's this rush back to the structure, knowing that it was at some point critical to your society, but is no longer kind of holding up the pillars anymore.
00:35:56.960 And that's starting to cause serious problems. But it is, whether this is an opportunistic and tactical move by some or a genuine revival by others, it's very clear that this move is necessary. And that's why you saw both Protestant and Catholic forces kind of bring a version of this to the fore in the wake of kind of the great awokening. 0.77
00:36:18.380 Yeah, I mean, when the pride flag is venerated as a religious object, and it's flown from the White House, and then you see it flown from a church you used to go to, I think it's viscerally shocking, and people didn't know how to process that.
00:36:37.300 Ordinary people didn't know how to process that, and I think it gave a lot of energy, a lot of energy to thinking about, okay, let's go to historical analogs.
00:36:46.740 let's try to think about how we did this in the past how could we do it in the future uh you know
00:36:52.020 i i started writing on the religious nature of the city trying to you know think about the fact that
00:36:57.780 you know our political communities throughout the course of human history have always been
00:37:02.580 religious and so the question becomes like how will they be religious if they if they're clearly
00:37:08.740 going to be religious liberalism is not going to stop them from being religious because look we're
00:37:13.940 seeing this very very bad toxic religion and and i think then the question becomes you know at least 1.00
00:37:21.380 the particularist national one becomes is america is america's religion dead and is do we have an
00:37:32.580 idw kind of skin suit that some people are wearing are we infusing this new weird you know woke
00:37:40.260 transmogrification of some liberal protestant mainline christianity that died um because that
00:37:47.940 happened too we had the america civic religion was not evangelical for most of our history it
00:37:53.940 became liberal protestant and when the liberal protestant mainline died the power and the life
00:38:00.180 went over to evangelicals um for and i think that's a good thing but some of that power also
00:38:06.420 went to the woke and and i and i think i think the i think as a catholic i think we're dealing
00:38:14.400 the catholic church is dealing with very very similar dynamics because we have we have the
00:38:19.580 woke inside of our church like baptists do and and we don't quite know how to deal with it because 1.00
00:38:25.560 it's bound up also with episcopal with you know bishop's authority and things like that but i
00:38:31.860 think i think my sense is if we can save america it will actually be catholics and evangelicals
00:38:38.880 who do it um it will it will it will be actually christians who save the country um and it's not
00:38:46.220 going to be just catholics doing it and it's not going to just be evangelicals doing it it's going
00:38:51.920 to be them working together in different ways with different you know talents yeah maybe having
00:38:57.360 arguments here and there on Poisson. But the goal, I think, is to save the country. And if
00:39:03.980 we lose sight of that, we might as well just hang it all up and hand it over.
00:39:09.900 No, I agree with that a lot. And I want to be really clear. I'm going to continue to rib on
00:39:14.620 Catholics. You know, that's not going to stop, much like I do with the libertarians. But as
00:39:19.560 with libertarians, it's all about love. It's a brotherly jive. It's not a, you know, I understand
00:39:25.880 that ultimately you know these are directionally correct people who i could work with who are
00:39:30.140 critical to the coalition and as you say it is obvious that the attempt here is to break that
00:39:34.400 coalition before it can free us you know from ultimately what i think is a very dangerous
00:39:39.320 direction as you point out it really is the the death of the mainline protestant understanding
00:39:44.640 that the the death of the wasp uh control of of kind of america's elite culture that has put us
00:39:50.620 where we are and it's in this moment that we find uh many different struggles people attempting
00:39:55.860 to kind of reconstitute a coalition that can bring a meaningful Christian, you know, dynamic
00:40:01.340 to public life without perhaps driving too many people away simultaneously.
00:40:07.620 And the key to that, as I think you're pointing out here, really is that understanding that
00:40:12.540 it is, it really is Catholicism and evangelicals that are the two Christian kind of denominations
00:40:20.820 or branches that are thriving right now.
00:40:22.780 These are the only two that have real adherence, real faith. These are the only people having children, growing families, building communities. These are the people that are vital. And you can tell that a faith is alive by the vitality of its practitioners. And I think you see this truly in kind of these two branches.
00:40:40.080 but i i don't want to completely step away from some questions people have about the presence of
00:40:46.240 catholicism in america because i think there are a few real questions that would probably be worth
00:40:51.540 answering as you point out uh wokeness has unfortunately infiltrated all you know christianity
00:40:57.360 at this point we're baptists are dealing with it just as much as as catholics uh we can we can both
00:41:02.680 give each other a hard time about it but ultimately it's clear that this is a struggle that both
00:41:06.940 churches are facing it's a civilizational struggle it's not just for it's like all of the globe we
00:41:13.240 have this civilizational problem but one of the things that people point to specifically with
00:41:19.020 catholicism is immigration uh the the pope has been uh multiple popes in a row now have been
00:41:26.760 let's say uh less than tactical when discussing uh you know their their interest in in immigration
00:41:33.300 in ways that make people very worried about catholic desires for bringing large numbers
00:41:38.640 of people in here even some catholic intellectuals have played fast and loose with the idea that if
00:41:43.280 we get a bunch of people from south america who are catholic in the united states then we can make
00:41:47.760 america catholic and that would be desirable and of course the catholic charities are famously
00:41:53.000 you know pretty pretty good with getting a large number of illegals in now again to be fair 1.00
00:41:58.240 Lutheran charities and Jewish charities have also played roles in this. So it's in no way
00:42:02.760 simply a Catholic problem. But I just thought I'd put that out there because I think those are 0.99
00:42:07.740 things that are always brought up against Catholics in the United States of their influence.
00:42:13.640 You might know I wrote a piece for American Mind on this. And I'm against birthright citizenship 1.00
00:42:24.960 as it's currently interpreted and the bishops haven't been the bishops have been on the on
00:42:34.040 the wrong side of this i think um and i think there's a lot of reasons for that there's a lot
00:42:41.440 of there's a lot of internal reasons as well as external reasons i think some of the external
00:42:45.680 reasons is that just as the the left was very good and and not just the left but neocons and
00:42:52.960 all sorts of political actors were very good at cultivating evangelical ideas, eschatological
00:42:59.560 ideas for their political ends. I think a lot of political actors have been extremely good
00:43:06.440 at cultivating Catholic ideas about care for the poor, care for the stranger. They've been very,
00:43:14.640 very good at cultivating those doctrines for their own political purposes. And so I think
00:43:20.400 there's a sense in which we can see sort of political ideological capture of Christian ideas
00:43:27.080 in amongst evangelicals. We can see it amongst Catholics. On the immigration question specifically,
00:43:34.100 I think Catholics have been overexposed to these precisely because Catholics are always very good
00:43:43.220 sidling up to power throughout history and if if all of the ruling elite and i mean all of the
00:43:50.900 ruling elite want open borders guess who the church sidles up to those who are favor open
00:43:58.360 borders and we sidled up to those who favored open borders for far too long and you know
00:44:05.600 it's like kicking the cigarette habit it's like getting rid of the nicotine like you don't need
00:44:11.840 it. That's not part of you, but you've been in the habit so long. This is actually not easy to
00:44:17.180 just separate the church from its deep involvement in ruling elite priorities about how to deal with
00:44:24.520 immigration problems. And so I think in the Catholic church, we have to have a great reckoning
00:44:29.200 about this. I don't think we, I don't know about Popplio. Popplio is kind of still a closed book
00:44:35.040 to me. I don't fully understand where he's coming from on these questions, and I'm not sure he's
00:44:40.080 entirely formulated how he wants to deal with them but he stayed he stayed with the playbook of you
00:44:46.560 know christ is in the face of the stranger and what's what have you um but i think i think christian
00:44:53.760 the you know ordinary christians uh have all of the resources for the whole tradition you know
00:45:01.200 people like myself have brought forward thomas aquinas who's who has like the most uh strict
00:45:07.440 immigrationist policy on earth you know he's like he's got a moratorium of like you know three
00:45:13.300 generations so you know you get you you can get you can become a citizen after you know three
00:45:18.680 generations but um i think we we the laity those who are not in positions of leadership who have
00:45:27.520 not sidled up to the old ruling elite for decades have to speak up and have to have the courage to
00:45:33.520 speak up that we want closed borders. We want totally closed borders. We don't want birthright
00:45:39.940 citizenship. We don't want people from India stealing our jobs because all of these things 1.00
00:45:45.320 make homes more expensive. They make it possible for young people to get married and buy homes 0.93
00:45:51.260 that are affordable and have kids and go to church. The knock-on effects of the ruling elites
00:46:00.960 you know open borders theology really because it was an open borders theology
00:46:09.200 is a clear and present threat to our national good and so i i have no problem as a christian
00:46:17.240 standing up to bishops and saying no yeah i appreciate you saying that because like i said
00:46:21.920 i think that's a question that comes up so often and look uh you know caring for the sojourner the
00:46:26.220 thing about the sojourner is he moves on right like yeah right right up shop with start drawing
00:46:31.080 welfare getting business loans pushing your kid out of college you know there there is an actual
00:46:36.680 principle involved there we can't just you know uh mess with the dials on on the biblical story
00:46:42.640 so that we can uh kind of justify the current uh current political uh mood so i i do think it's
00:46:48.800 critical for people to understand that aquinas says all you owe them is safe passage like here
00:46:53.780 We won't kill you while you'll go through our country on your way out, right? 1.00
00:46:58.500 And I think we've lost sight of that as Christians, that this is something that is deep in our Christian faith, that we actually have to form—we don't treat our families like this.
00:47:13.180 We don't treat our families like our families can—anybody can come into our home.
00:47:17.440 why would we treat our the political common good which is that which defends our families in the
00:47:23.420 same way uh just makes no sense yeah and by the way i'm a huge fan of the acquaintance slash uh
00:47:30.980 you know aristotelian understanding of three generation citizenship i've been
00:47:34.620 shilling that non-stop and i think it absolutely has to be revived but before uh we go to the
00:47:40.560 questions of the people i have one more question for you and this one's just a pet peeve so this
00:47:44.760 is i want to i want you to know i'm venting a little here on you it's not your fault you didn't
00:47:49.380 do this to me but i have to i have to mention it as much as i try to defend catholics on this point
00:47:54.740 that i really do actually on a regular basis i always get at least one catholic uh like major
00:48:01.360 catholic coming in and being like well actually america was founded on catholic principles oh
00:48:05.580 yeah and it's a catholic country it's like look brother i get it you guys were here from the
00:48:09.520 beginning you're part of the you're part of the project i'm more than happy to have you
00:48:13.100 but please no stout stolen valor like it's a protestant nation it's founding just let us
00:48:18.220 have this one well i mean i think i think yes and no i had a good tomistic seek at known yeah i think
00:48:25.940 i think on on in in many respects our our constitutional founding we won't talk about
00:48:33.380 our unwritten constitution but our constitutional founding uh you know was dominated by uh the
00:48:41.260 British crown and response and Protestant responses to the British crown. And that's
00:48:45.980 inarguable. Um, it is also the case that Protestants made a, made a space for Catholics 0.60
00:48:52.100 and, and for lots of different reasons, I think. Uh, and so I think, you know, um,
00:49:00.140 and I think Catholics are generally grateful for that and have been from the beginning.
00:49:05.460 I think, you know, when Michael Knoll said this at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, and I think it's just obviously true, Catholics have thought this from the very beginning, that the Constitution arrives at conclusions that are deeply Catholic.
00:49:26.080 That doesn't mean that the founding was Catholic.
00:49:29.620 Right.
00:49:30.080 And so for Catholics from the very beginning to say, oh, I know why Protestants want us to be involved in this project is because they actually have a constitutional vision of themselves, which is true, which is classical, and which actually is not in conflict with Catholicism.
00:49:48.020 And so when I think Catholics say stuff like Michael did, like, you know, the founders built better than they knew, therefore, you know, the founding is Catholic, I think that's the wrong way to read that.
00:50:00.080 I think the right way to read it is the founding is compatible with Catholicism.
00:50:06.100 Now, are there things that would be, you know, elevated, fixed, augmented over time by other Catholic teachings?
00:50:15.020 Yes.
00:50:16.100 But is there something that is fundamentally wrong?
00:50:20.660 I asked AI once, from a Catholic perspective, from the whole course of Catholic thought, is there anything essential that would have to be changed about the Constitution?
00:50:33.720 And the AI response was really interesting.
00:50:36.340 It just said, the only thing that would have to be changed about our Constitution is some recognition of the higher authority of the Pope.
00:50:45.320 That's it.
00:50:46.080 Something like all subject to the spiritual authority of the Pope, not the political authority, but the spiritual authority, which I thought was a very telling and fair answer, actually, for AI, which you have to understand what the flip side of that is, is there's nothing wrong with it from a Catholic point of view.
00:51:06.760 And so when Catholics say built better than they knew, I think it's to say this is a concordist kind of position.
00:51:14.620 There's concord here.
00:51:15.760 There's concord between the Constitution and Catholic teaching.
00:51:20.220 Now, you know, Pope Leo, myself, others, we like to talk about the unwritten Constitution, what came before the Constitution.
00:51:27.340 And that involves a whole lot of, you know, Catholic, you know, foundations for the country, too.
00:51:32.940 But ultimately, I like the liberal Alexei de Tocqueville line that, you know, we're going to have to live with each other and Catholicism flourishes in America.
00:51:45.560 It has flourished in America. It will continue to flourish in America.
00:51:48.820 And it's going to it's actually works well with Protestants.
00:51:52.500 well i think if you're going to hold to joseph de maestra a rather ardent catholic's understanding
00:51:58.940 of constitutions unwritten you must understand that they emanate from the nature of the people
00:52:03.200 and therefore if the people are majority protestant the constitution you're going to get
00:52:07.380 is just going to be majority protestant of course it'll still jive in many ways with catholic
00:52:12.440 teaching and as you say catholics were there from the very beginning and so therefore i think there's
00:52:16.500 a totally reasonable and thoroughly catholic understanding of the nature of constitutions
00:52:21.680 that, that brings us to a similar understanding. But again, I appreciate you saying that. Like I
00:52:25.860 said, I know you didn't do it to me, but I had, I had to vent it and I had to get it out.
00:52:29.380 No, I think it's good. And I, I think, I think it's kind of important that we can,
00:52:33.320 I mean, it's important that we can actually have, you know, I, I, I both agreed and disagreed with
00:52:42.100 Doug Wilson and, um, on something. And I was just kind of struck that some people thought that that
00:52:47.720 wasn't possible right you could say yes and no to somebody yeah that there is a and and you know
00:52:56.200 i don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole but there does seem to be and there i guess there
00:53:00.620 always has been to some level but it's only gotten more and more sharp as people are trying to draw
00:53:05.540 these friend enemy distinctions and shoehorn us into a particular form of politics this understanding
00:53:10.620 that you can't read somebody you can't talk to somebody you can't understand something without
00:53:15.680 agreeing with all of it you you know if you agree with any part of it you have to agree with all of
00:53:20.160 it so i'm constantly catching flack because i've read the wrong guy i'm right to the wrong guy and
00:53:26.280 it's uh guys i'm perfectly capable of having a conversation with someone and taking the things
00:53:31.080 that they have uh you know kind of thought about and pulling it apart and finding the things that
00:53:35.480 work and the things that make sense without immediately adopting everything that person
00:53:39.320 has written down i don't know why that's suddenly become such a controversial position in the well
00:53:44.000 i guess i should say i know exactly why it's become such a controversial position but i
00:53:48.120 lament it either way uh but uh professor pecknold i have a few questions from the people if you have
00:53:53.380 time to oh yeah answer real quick love before we before we move to that can you tell people
00:53:59.160 is there anything that you want people to check out that you're doing you want people
00:54:02.600 a place that people find you a book anything like that oh i mean uh no that's okay i don't
00:54:09.960 I don't like to push my words. I I've got books people can look up and articles.
00:54:13.500 I think that the piece in American mind on, uh, I forget the title of it,
00:54:18.220 but maybe you can give it in the, in the links below, uh,
00:54:21.880 a piece I wrote on,
00:54:23.420 on the bishops and the birthright citizenship I think is an important one.
00:54:28.060 I think it's going to continue to be something that we have to debate as,
00:54:31.580 as Americans and as Christians.
00:54:34.400 Excellent. All right, guys, let's go to the questions of the people. Then,
00:54:37.740 uh the new game says do you think it's a good idea to make a list of all right-wing uh pundits
00:54:44.480 who are sweeping who are sweeping for this disaster of a war to hold them to account
00:54:49.040 drum them out when they uh distance from uh when they try to distance themselves from it
00:54:54.260 no and here's why um that behavior as cathartic as it might be at the moment more or less
00:55:04.980 encourages people to dig in as desperately as possible because they know losing is a zero-sum
00:55:10.640 scenario if there's redemption for people if they can come back and say all right maybe this wasn't
00:55:15.360 the best move then maybe we can get out of this quicker but if you tell people that there is
00:55:19.760 simply no escape and the only thing that will happen if we pull out of this war is that they 0.94
00:55:24.960 will personally like get destroyed and you know get excised from the conservative movement then
00:55:29.280 they're going to fight even harder to stay uh you know in this war and my main goal is not being
00:55:34.760 right my main goal is what's good for the country and what's good for the country is to get these
00:55:38.920 guys home declare victory and start working on the issues we have in the united states so
00:55:43.180 personally as much as i hear what you're saying i don't think that's wise i think we have to care
00:55:48.160 about what's good for the country first uh and not what would be cathartic for us after certain
00:55:53.680 people are proved incorrect amen i i i beautifully said i couldn't say it better perfect
00:55:59.600 althea says it may uh i it may have gotten a lot of views to laugh at it to be honest yeah
00:56:07.800 there there is some truth to that that the piece might have gotten most of its attention from
00:56:12.360 people who are ultimately mocking it yeah i think i think that's often the case uh patty b says i'm
00:56:18.840 a catholic and uh australian patriot catholic social teaching champions localism including
00:56:24.040 nationhood but we must fight uh subversion both in our church and our government stay strong usa
00:56:30.280 awesome your response is that well i mean i think you know it gets super boring to talk about the
00:56:38.260 principle of subsidiarity but uh the catholics do like we we love this idea that uh we are committed
00:56:44.980 to the place that we're placed, right? We're committed to our families, where God put us in
00:56:49.800 our families. We're committed to the political common good to which we're given. And Catholics
00:56:55.840 should give ourselves, you know, fully to that. We don't, Catholics are not called to give ourselves
00:57:00.820 to liberal globalism. We're called to give ourselves to the actual people that we, where
00:57:05.660 God has placed us. I mean, that's Demester, you know, this kind of providentialism, right? This
00:57:10.300 is the nation god has made america you think you think there's some other cause i mean we're
00:57:15.380 secondary causes of america but god made america and god placed us here and we have to fight for
00:57:19.740 our countries and the same is true in australia the same is true in france the same is true in
00:57:24.880 hungary the same is true um for every political common good for every political community the
00:57:30.820 christians should should be throwing themselves entirely into the good of their country yeah guys
00:57:37.160 i'm just gonna shill once again uh if you have for some reason have listened to me as long as
00:57:41.860 you have and you have not read joseph de maestra on the generous principles of of uh political
00:57:47.880 constitutions go do that like it's it's it's not that long and it's well worth your time and it's
00:57:52.940 absolutely essential and will completely reconstruct your understanding of kind of
00:57:57.620 how political doctrines are formulated so true uh and then uh word e curb says uh makes sense guys
00:58:05.860 like russell moore and david french have lost sway and fringe conspiracies gaining popularity
00:58:10.700 should have seen it coming yeah i think in a lot of ways what we're seeing and we kind of touched
00:58:15.660 on this already but you know we'll go ahead and get a little deeper into it that ultimately this
00:58:19.620 is a kind of a dying animals uh you know thrashing right it's they're the most dangerous in the
00:58:25.380 moment when they're about to die and i think you really are seeing this in kind of the neocon
00:58:29.940 attempt to kind of exploit uh this this evangelical understanding of dispensationalism
00:58:35.540 they recognize that this is probably the last generation, even if we maintain like evangelical
00:58:41.120 dominance in the United States, that anyone will believe in dispensationalism. Like this is
00:58:45.100 probably it. Like your, your parents are probably the last generation who will hold this novel
00:58:50.080 belief in eschatology, whether the United States remains evangelical or moves to Catholicism or
00:58:56.120 Orthodoxy or something else, like it's just dead. And so they have to do everything they're going 0.99
00:59:00.580 to do now. I think even Israel understands this, which explains a lot of their current behavior.
00:59:04.620 They now they know it's now or never. They will simply never have this level of sway on the American public and their their mind again. And so I think it's just critical to understand this moment. That's why you're seeing the rabid behavior. That's why you're seeing the insane denouncements. That's why you're seeing the conspiracy theories, because that dying animal is going to thrash out until it just has nothing left in it.
00:59:25.760 yep exactly right all right guys well we're gonna go ahead and wrap this up it's always a pleasure
00:59:33.140 to speak with you dr pecknold uh i will go ahead and tell you that you should absolutely be reading
00:59:38.040 uh his twitter and his columns and of course if it's your first time on this channel you need to
00:59:43.160 make sure that you subscribe on youtube click the bell and notifications so you know when we go live
00:59:47.840 if you missed it i recently did an interview with tucker carlson on friday so if you want to catch
00:59:52.820 that. It's there. And of course, if you want to get these broadcast as podcasts, you need to
00:59:56.800 subscribe to The Orr McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you everybody
01:00:00.660 for watching. And as always, I'll talk to you next time.