00:00:30.360Hey 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.
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00:01:04.060So an insidious force is just haunting the United States.
00:01:09.200On the internet, we are getting a conspiracy theory that the Catholic Church has united
00:01:14.680with, I guess, Russia, perhaps Alexander Dugan, to ultimately undermine the evangelical dominance
00:01:21.080of the United States and to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel.
00:01:25.880here to discuss this absolutely nefarious plot is one of our returning guests he's a professor
00:01:31.520at catholic university chad pecknell thank you so much for coming on oh it's an absolute pleasure
00:01:36.240to be with you yeah i i'm you know live from moscow you know i i appreciate that the kremlin
00:01:42.920has has pitched in and for this broadcast and so you know we are of course joking quite heavily
00:01:48.980here if you have not heard about this whole episode you're going to find it quite hysterical
00:01:53.120But 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.
00:02:13.640But before we do, guys, let me tell you about Frontier Magazine.
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00:03:00.260blazeunlimited.com slash oran frontier 40 for that discount all right professor pecknold so
00:03:07.960to give people a little bit of background before we dive into the substance all of a sudden i think
00:03:13.800about a week ago we saw this big article from this account on twitter called insurrection barbie
00:03:19.720i'm sorry about the inside baseball for people here who might not be super active on twitter
00:03:24.100but i promise this will actually apply to our water situation and in this article she laid out
00:03:29.680this case for the idea that the catholic church is working with uh russia possibly alexander dugan
00:03:37.700to ultimately kind of drive away the support for Israel because this is an account that's a big
00:03:44.200booster of the state of Israel and is very concerned that there might be some level of
00:03:48.420wavering support for that country. And this is somehow tied to the kind of dilution of
00:03:54.340dispensational theology in the United States. And as crazy as that is, you know, it's just one
00:04:01.260internet account, right? It's ultimately just one anonymous internet account, but it is somebody
00:04:05.000who's, you know, often retweeted by people like Elon Musk.
00:04:33.700And 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.
00:04:48.020And at the heart of this was the idea that integralism is going to be this system that
00:04:52.940ultimately captures the United States in this kind of Catholic Sharia law scenario.
00:04:58.600So all that backstory to say, you know, Professor, are you now or have you ever been part of
00:05:04.720a multinational conspiracy run by Russia to undermine evangelical control of the United
00:05:14.080no i mean you know it's extraordinary because i i'm struck by conspiracy theories you know and
00:05:23.000the fact that many of them have come true and and the thing about conspiracy theories is
00:05:27.340is they usually have like uh they make sense on some level right and and especially the ones that
00:05:34.200come true but this one didn't make sense this was 8 000 words of gobbledygook that looked like it was
00:05:42.920you know, very carefully scripted, and then put into a AI machine to garble out all these strange
00:05:51.000ways in which Nick Fuentes and people like myself and Alexander Dugan, we're all, we're all aligning,
00:05:59.900you know, we're all, we're all basically like the great old demon of the Soviet Union looking to
00:06:05.900overthrow America. And I, you know, it, I didn't take it seriously at first, because I thought
00:06:12.760this is just so absurd. Like nobody can really recognize themselves in this. But then I realized,
00:06:20.940oh no, this is getting traction. There's power behind this. I'm sure there's money behind this.
00:06:28.580And what's at stake? Why is this complete trash piece of AI nonsense going viral?
00:06:37.540And, 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.
00:06:55.000And 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.
00:07:11.940And 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.
00:07:30.800But 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.
00:07:55.480And 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.
00:08:19.300Yeah, I mean, as a Southern Baptist, I feel like it is my duty to warn about Catholic subversion and foreign potpourri.
00:08:30.240I feel like that's what we should be doing.
00:08:35.200We don't need others to be projecting their own political desires on our totally wholesome xenophobia towards foreign influence.
00:08:45.920Yeah, you see, they're taking our jobs.
00:08:48.200they're taking our jobs right another case of foreign agents taking our jobs from good americans
00:08:53.840we can i don't need these h1b conspiracy theories i want good old domestic anti-catholic
00:09:02.360conspiracy theories like my grandma used to make okay like i don't know it's it's um but all joking
00:09:08.260aside it is very obvious as you point out that as comical as we may play this up this did really
00:09:14.920get traction and the fact that it really got traction right like 20 million views or maybe
00:09:19.780that's too much but it got a lot of views it did again when you have major politicians like ted
00:09:24.960cruz out there pushing it when you have major conservative talk radio hosts uh you know doing
00:09:30.320interviews about this like it really matters and so i think it's important to highlight what the
00:09:35.600motivation was behind this because it's very clear and i think there there's a lot of people
00:09:40.820as you say who are still hoping for the return of the old neoconservative understanding and if you
00:09:46.760go to any of these gatherings where kind of new right politics is happening you'll notice that
00:09:52.440there's a pretty healthy mingling of protestant and catholic there's a quite quite a heavy
00:09:57.060concentration of catholics often uh you know even at the uh you know the highest levels uh something
00:10:02.460i have lamented at at some points catholic domination of these circles but ultimately
00:10:07.240I 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.
00:10:18.260And this is something that is an anathema to neocon foreign policy because it's about being the world empire.
00:10:25.180It'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.
00:10:38.260Now, 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.
00:10:51.260But 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.
00:11:01.060Nobody under 40 believes in this stuff at all.
00:11:04.180Most people under 50 don't believe in it at all, even though they remain evangelical.
00:11:08.060The 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.
00:11:23.260And that is obviously creating panic among many of the people who kind of relied on this rhetoric to make this work.
00:11:30.740And that's why they're desperately grasping about for explanations as to why suddenly there's less and less support for this eschatological understanding.
00:11:40.040And this is where they kind of land in the Catholic conspiracy camp.
00:11:44.840Yeah, 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.
00:11:58.280In 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.
00:12:13.720But 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.
00:12:39.660do you have a sense of that i don't because not being the southern baptist i don't have
00:12:43.620as the insight you do you have a sense of that like when did israel suddenly become politically
00:12:49.700interested in fringe you know evangelical doctrines of eschatology so i think this actually
00:12:56.120like dates back to the balfour declaration like i think you like this actually british
00:13:01.680understandings of dispensationalism played heavily into mandate palestine more or less
00:13:07.720being handed over to israel and so i think that this uh while i do think it is largely rooted in
00:13:13.860america at this moment i think that this is an understanding that has actually been at the heart
00:13:19.460of the the foundation of israel made made it a possibility through the british government and
00:13:24.380then carried over to american support for it so it's only been cultivated more and more to be
00:13:28.900clear when i was in church i don't think i ever got a single sermon on israel or needing to
00:13:36.300support israel or even comments about oh isn't it good that we're out there supporting israel
00:13:41.580in a war or something i never got that from a pulpit i mainly got that from the left behind
00:13:46.700books and um and talk radio people invoking christianity but i don't think i ever actually
00:13:53.980heard it from southern baptist now i know there are plenty of people out there who have preached
00:13:58.020that i know there are mega church pastors who preach that but just in my personal experience
00:14:01.840It's the only thing I can reference. I have actually never heard it from a pastor.
00:14:06.900But 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.
00:14:21.180I think that's right. And I think it continued.
00:14:23.000you know i think it continued into the you know the 2000s as well uh i think we're really only
00:14:29.640seeing it questioned you know in the last decade or so uh but i think it was just kind of baked in
00:14:34.940and yeah you're probably right that that's when it it got its most muscular probably the 80s and
00:14:40.04090s there are really and then obviously you know with the with the war on terror like that period
00:14:45.380of 80s to 2010s is probably its height of uh kind of power inside the country and so what we're
00:14:51.980seeing now is actually it's denouement right it's it's kind of it's kind of in its declension
00:14:57.740its decline it's in its decay which is why you see the weird 8 000 word ai by insurrection barbie
00:15:05.620i like i like to think of it as the ken and barbie team for you know trying to revive you know the
00:15:12.28090s uh but it i just don't think it despite the high you know click count and i don't know how
00:15:21.280many bots you know retweet these things but it just doesn't seem compelling to me like this is a
00:15:27.500this is a fun news story but i don't i don't think people in the white house take this seriously i
00:15:34.240don't think people in israel who make decisions take this seriously this is not something anyone
00:15:39.340is taking seriously except for you know it's it it does touch on real things and so you know i
00:15:46.720think it's good to touch on the real things that it does touch. And that is clearly who
00:15:53.180is going to control the next, I don't know, 20 or 40 years of America's foreign policy.
00:16:06.780And that strikes me as a real question. Who will control? Will it be? Will the leftists take power
00:16:12.380again and what will their you know vision be for american foreign policy you know if ops like this
00:16:20.100are successful at completely crushing a necessary coalition to win power because that's what it's
00:16:27.880aimed at to blow up the gop so badly that there's no chance you know okay you know if people think
00:16:35.460vance is gonna be hurt by this rubio is gonna be hurt by this everybody's gonna be hurt by this
00:16:40.660And 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.
00:16:57.440and why wouldn't they be right like for all the noises about anti-war barack obama was fine
00:17:03.620continuing wars so was joe biden in fact in many cases they were uh more than willing to escalate
00:17:10.100different tactics and increase the level of you know the body counts you know you have hillary
00:17:14.400clinton laughing about uh you know getting guys sodomized by bayonets and and creating open air
00:17:19.920slave markets and uh in north africa this kind of thing so it's it's very clear that despite their
00:17:26.520rhetoric, Democrats have every intention of continuing kind of the neocon foreign policy
00:17:32.640when they're in office, just pursuing it in a different tenor or a different tone, but without
00:17:37.160any real material difference in the mission. And of course, Donald Trump ran on this idea that we
00:17:43.680would not be continuously engaging ourselves in these conflicts. It's very clear that guys like
00:17:48.880J.D. Vance were a spearhead of that. And J.D. Vance is the natural heir to that throne, which I think
00:17:54.020is why we've seen so many people like max abrams and others just go extremely hard in the paint
00:17:59.520every day at jd vance because they want the neocons to regain control and they know if the
00:18:05.900democrats are in charge then they'll the democrats will do their bidding they know that if the neocon
00:18:11.660right is in charge then that'll do their bidding the only question they had was is a guy like jd
00:18:17.240vance going to carry on this no new wars uh more restrictionist more like you know pat buchanan
00:18:22.820style understanding of foreign policy engagement or are we going to see you know the ability to
00:18:28.320kind of blow him up and put somebody in his place and it's very clear that so much of the
00:18:32.560conservative civil war that we are uh currently uh you know hearing about so often is really a
00:18:38.940coordinated attack to take jd vance off the table so that maga is also removed and what we get is
00:18:44.480standard issue conservatism from the 1990s as you say it's all about bringing the 90s back in every
00:18:50.720way possible make the 90s great again right exactly exactly yeah i agree with that unfortunately i
00:18:57.160mean i do think i do think it is you know i i have a lot of respect for chris caldwell um and i just
00:19:04.560saw his piece you know i haven't read it uh yet but i i saw the lead and you know the the the
00:19:10.280tendency within you know maga intellectual circles right now with a piece like that is kind of
00:19:17.000discouraging a lot of, you know, mutual handing, you know, it's like you're at the, you know,
00:19:21.900the drug party and everybody's handing out black pills, you know, uh, and you know, the post
00:19:27.040Trumpism from Chris Caldwell, uh, is, was kind of shocking to me. Um, uh, and I, I think,
00:19:35.580I think there is a lot of black pills being handed about even on, on the merits of the
00:19:44.020administration and then when you add in the op it adds in oh my gosh and the opposition has not
00:19:51.080gone away on the left and the opposition has not gone away on the right and so now now i think you
00:19:58.520know the new right intellectual you know whatever whoever counts as you know doesn't have to be
00:20:04.940intellectuals that could be just those who don't want to make the 90s great again uh are working
00:20:11.780with a kind of two sets of discouragements. One, the admin is not achieving all the aims that they
00:20:17.800wanted. And that's a kind of black pill. And then the black pill is that they haven't defeated the
00:20:26.160left. Woke is not dead in the way that they thought it would be. And the neocons are not dead.
00:20:34.060In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour.
00:20:41.780Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling
00:20:47.240in free skills training programs for in-demand fields like software development and information
00:21:04.800And in fact, they seem to maybe have some influence over the president.
00:21:07.640And 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.
00:21:28.820And 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.
00:21:44.820well you know one of my first pieces that i wrote for the blaze when i came on about three years ago
00:21:51.680was called the neocon cycle and i i worry and i in that piece worried about exactly what we're
00:21:57.280seeing now that all these people who left the left never left the left in fact when they came
00:22:03.500over they were just hoping to turn the republican party into their new neocon party since they
00:22:09.220didn't have power in the left anymore they don't like you they don't want to be around you people
00:22:13.340like james benzie despise you they just have to be next to you because they think they can steal
00:22:17.720power from you and so you have this coalition of a lot of people uh who used to be called i guess
00:22:24.220the idw the intellectual dark web you know these kind of people and all of a sudden they think they
00:22:28.800should be the ones driving the party and sadly as you point out many people myself included were
00:22:33.920probably too optimistic about how thoroughly the neocons had been defeated by trump we thought okay
00:22:40.000well now all these people have to pledge allegiance to trump and you can't be elected
00:22:43.240without trump and even ben shapiro and guys who are saying they were never trump now have to kind
00:22:48.080of you know kiss the ring with trump and so you know whether neocons are going to be at the the
00:22:52.840fringes of the republican party or not they're more or less over like they're never going to
00:22:57.060regain control but unfortunately it turns out that elite theory still holds and if you have the right
00:23:03.320people in the right places uh telling people what to believe they can switch back pretty quickly and
00:23:08.740And 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.
00:23:22.760And 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.
00:23:31.020And 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.
00:23:41.220That'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.
00:23:54.520And I noticed that they all kind of sat quietly last year and I noticed that
00:24:00.400I'm like, ah, they're all so quiet. And, and now I think that, you know,
00:24:09.860told that they must now spend the money to regain power ahead of 28.
00:24:15.100And, and I think, you know, on the other side of that,
00:24:20.640I think, has been new right MAGA naivete about institutions and about money.
00:24:28.760And, you know, we are not natural institution builders.
00:24:35.080And, you know, generally conservatives are not natural institution builders.
00:24:38.620We sort of think, you know, truth wins out.
00:24:41.320And if we just say the truth, you know, we'll just say the truth about making America great again.
00:24:45.300And we'll make it great again by tweeting it.
00:24:47.700But 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,
00:25:17.040media, everything. And we have not been serious about that. And, and that says that we're not
00:25:23.180serious about governing. And so I think all of these challenges should actually be bracing for
00:25:29.520us. They shouldn't be black. I mean, they could be black pills for like a day or something,
00:25:32.660but then you have to like say, okay, what, how are we going to act now? How are we going to build
00:25:37.600the coalition to win power? I mean, this is one of the dumbest, the absolute dumbest things about,
00:25:43.220you know disputes between christian nationalists or integralists or what you know whatever uh kind
00:25:50.060of you know vision of of christianity you have for thinking about the governance of a nation
00:25:55.520or a civilization like those shouldn't be the disputes that that make you lose power right
00:26:02.880and it's when we can have those disputes sorry i mean i'm happy to have those disputes with you
00:26:09.280or with doug wilson or whatever like let's have those disputes but let's not have those disputes
00:26:14.800like defeat us all so that we're all in prison in four years like wow i won an argument with
00:26:22.160doug wilson and now we're in jail together you know like we have to be smart about this and we
00:26:26.960have to say okay yeah we've got some theological differences about the christian faith and how it
00:26:31.680should inform public life and governance and everything but they aren't anything like the
00:26:37.680the differences we have with the left who actually want us to be in prison right i'm more than happy
00:26:44.700to defeat the people who are looking to murder children in the womb or cut off their genitals
00:26:48.960or steal them from their parents if they don't you know change their names to the other gender
00:26:53.780uh and then we can figure out you know exactly how properly to apply christian doctrine to the
00:27:00.140government later like that's that's like can we just win power for 40 years first and i would
00:27:06.360just 10 would be good yeah i'm more than happy to arm wrestle you over you know christian
00:27:11.820nationalism versus integralism right after we get done getting rid of the marxists and like
00:27:16.320the insane neocons like that's i'm more than happy to have that battle out then but since we got to
00:27:21.640this integralism has been something that has been used as a boogeyman throughout this and i want to
00:27:26.700talk about that a little bit because look uh you know obviously the united states at this moment
00:27:32.580is still a predominantly Protestant nation. Now, that could change over time. Anything is possible,
00:27:39.160but that is the reality on the ground and has historically been the case leading up to this
00:27:43.980point. And so the idea that this kind of relatively, and no offense, but relatively boutique,
00:27:51.340you know, kind of Catholic doctrine in the United States, at least, I'm sure it applies
00:27:56.520more effectively in Catholic nations. But here in the United States, the idea that this is suddenly
00:28:02.440going to take over and become the dominant way we understand american politics is i think laughable
00:28:08.520and the big the big attempt to use this as the wedge for a lot of these um you know idw types
00:28:15.440is that ultimately they are very worried they want to defeat the left but they don't want
00:28:20.180christianity to really have any serious influence they are they tend to be atheists new atheists
00:28:25.260this type of thing they're not interested in having an application of christian morality to
00:28:29.640the public space. And so when we're looking at this, their juxtaposition that they're trying
00:28:35.540to create is one of, well, Catholics are just like Muslims in that they want basically this
00:28:40.260version of Sharia law as where evangelicals understand the need for separation of church
00:28:45.160and state. But even that's like wildly not true, as we can see from the growing Christian
00:28:49.840nationalist movement on the Protestant side of things, saying that actually we do need a very
00:28:55.380robust application of christianity to the the public uh square even you know prior to the 1960s
00:29:03.060or really even the 1980s it was very clear uh that evangelical christians were largely in favor of
00:29:09.480public displays of christianity festivals you know having it taught in school school prayer
00:29:15.480all these things these were not radical ideas uh even among protestants and evangelical protestants
00:29:21.580So 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.
00:29:29.400Sure. I mean, for one thing listeners should know, like, integralism is not a word that the church uses.
00:29:36.260The Catholic Church does not use the word integralism.
00:29:38.500So you're absolutely right. Integralism is a kind of a boutique word.
00:29:41.440It kind of really emerges after the loss of the papal states in the 1860s and 70s.
00:29:51.080Pope Leo XIII was the first pope that I know of that gave the church's teaching a term, and his term was concordism.
00:30:01.320Concordism was just that there should be concord between the temporal power and the spiritual power,
00:30:06.980because they're both caused by God, and if there's conflict between them, it's some sign on one side
00:30:12.680or the other that there's not concord with God's law, right? And so I'm a concordist, right? I think
00:30:19.280the church's teaching is concordist. We have a pope saying concordism. Integralism was a version
00:30:25.380of that that was ramped up for, it was ramped up in Spain, it was ramped up in France, and it was
00:30:35.780ramped up in advance of, you know, various kinds of political movements, Catholic movements to
00:30:44.640support those who became, you know, allegedly dictators or fascists. And so Integralism kind of
00:30:52.040was, I think, on one level, an attempt to just summarize the church state teaching of the
00:30:58.460of the Catholic church, similar to, uh, Leo's Concordism, but it got implement, implemented
00:31:06.880in ways which are, you know, I think do carry these negative connotations. So there's,
00:31:13.700there's like Potter Edmonds, very, very Concordist kind of definition of integralism as,
00:31:20.540you know, the, the temporal being ordered to the spiritual power. Um, but that's like such a
00:31:28.080minimal definition, right? That's just saying that the temporal power should recognize that
00:31:33.440the spiritual power is higher for the salvation of souls. States don't save souls, the church
00:31:38.800saves souls, and that sort of thing. So that very minimalist understanding of integralism,
00:31:43.440I think is defensible, and I've defended it. But the more maximalist understandings of
00:31:48.320integralism look like they're aligned with fascism, they look like, you know, theocratic,
00:31:52.560they look like they're hierocratic, which is like rule by priests. And of course, that looks
00:31:58.000Muslim, because that looks like you've collapsed. It's not a separation. There's no even distinction
00:32:04.820between church and state then. And the church opposes that. I oppose that. But this is why
00:32:12.160integralism kind of, I think, fizzled out as a discussion point. It started to be discussed
00:32:19.520greatly in like 2017, and it kind of fizzled out around 2022 or 23, is my read on it. It was like
00:32:27.780a five year, and I think it was there to match Christian nationalist discourse to say that
00:32:33.320Catholics have a similar way of thinking about rightly ordered societies being informed by
00:32:40.240Christian faith in certain ways. And, you know, it's better to, for a society to have a state
00:32:46.620which is in concord with Christianity than one in conflict. And so you had Catholic and Protestant
00:32:52.740and articulations of that but the important thing is why did we feel the need to articulate that
00:32:58.2602017 through 2023 and the reason why is because it seemed like woke civic religion was actually
00:33:07.140being instantiated in our lifetimes oh sure and so i think i think the felt the felt kind of auto
00:33:15.540immune response from american christians was we have to figure out some way of giving some
00:33:21.780alternative and authentically American vision of not a separation of church and state, but
00:33:27.880concord between church and state that resists any Islamic view and resists any woke view,
00:33:34.080because those end up being the same kind of tyranny. Yeah, I think that you're right about
00:33:40.000that timeline, especially, you know, especially with Catholic thought, I think entering in a lot
00:33:44.920of these areas, all of a sudden you saw Patrick Deneen kind of had a breakout to success with
00:33:50.920why liberalism failed. A lot of people were thinking more about the application of Christian
00:33:56.200doctrine and specifically Catholic doctrine to these different questions of politics and state
00:34:01.280and organization of society. And then you saw kind of, I guess, Adrian Vermeule is probably
00:34:07.340the most notable proponent of this, started writing some papers around this. And he kind of
00:34:12.920had a moment where he was kind of every Catholic intellectuals kind of, you know, one of their
00:34:19.300their guys they were kind of putting out there as answering these problems I think ultimately
00:34:23.520you know as you say this was kind of running parallel with this recognition by Christian
00:34:28.640nationalists that there had to be something had to be done it was very clear that this attempt to
00:34:33.520simply uh kind of abandon the political and you know make Christianity something that only exists
00:34:39.820inside the church uh was something that was not working we had left we had ceded this battlefield
00:34:44.460to secular humanism which was ultimately conquering it left and right and and truly
00:34:49.300turning itself into you know the the goddess of reason and the in the french uh revolutionary
00:34:54.500sense uh being being placed in notre dame and so you have this moment where uh there there had to
00:35:01.460be a re-injection of a christianity into public life if we were going to fight back and this
00:35:07.780worry i'll be honest this does worry me a little bit because this reminds me of of oswald spangler's
00:35:12.740second religiousness uh where he talks about you lose the original metaphysical animating spirit
00:35:19.540of the religion and the religion becomes something that kind of uh high class people fall back on
00:35:25.500because they've lost the structure uh that that is is built into society and so they see it more
00:35:31.600as a tool you again i'm seeing a lot of these former idw people say actually it turns out maybe
00:35:37.560we do need christianity we see richard dawkins out there saying actually i am a cultural christian
00:35:42.560And 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.
00:35:56.960And 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.
00:36:18.380Yeah, 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.
00:36:37.300Ordinary 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.
00:36:46.740let's try to think about how we did this in the past how could we do it in the future uh you know
00:36:52.020i i started writing on the religious nature of the city trying to you know think about the fact that
00:36:57.780you know our political communities throughout the course of human history have always been
00:37:02.580religious and so the question becomes like how will they be religious if they if they're clearly
00:37:08.740going to be religious liberalism is not going to stop them from being religious because look we're
00:37:13.940seeing this very very bad toxic religion and and i think then the question becomes you know at least
00:37:21.380the particularist national one becomes is america is america's religion dead and is do we have an
00:37:32.580idw kind of skin suit that some people are wearing are we infusing this new weird you know woke
00:37:40.260transmogrification of some liberal protestant mainline christianity that died um because that
00:37:47.940happened too we had the america civic religion was not evangelical for most of our history it
00:37:53.940became liberal protestant and when the liberal protestant mainline died the power and the life
00:38:00.180went over to evangelicals um for and i think that's a good thing but some of that power also
00:38:06.420went to the woke and and i and i think i think the i think as a catholic i think we're dealing
00:38:14.400the catholic church is dealing with very very similar dynamics because we have we have the
00:38:19.580woke inside of our church like baptists do and and we don't quite know how to deal with it because
00:38:25.560it's bound up also with episcopal with you know bishop's authority and things like that but i
00:38:31.860think i think my sense is if we can save america it will actually be catholics and evangelicals
00:38:38.880who do it um it will it will it will be actually christians who save the country um and it's not
00:38:46.220going to be just catholics doing it and it's not going to just be evangelicals doing it it's going
00:38:51.920to be them working together in different ways with different you know talents yeah maybe having
00:38:57.360arguments here and there on Poisson. But the goal, I think, is to save the country. And if
00:39:03.980we lose sight of that, we might as well just hang it all up and hand it over.
00:39:09.900No, I agree with that a lot. And I want to be really clear. I'm going to continue to rib on
00:39:14.620Catholics. You know, that's not going to stop, much like I do with the libertarians. But as
00:39:19.560with libertarians, it's all about love. It's a brotherly jive. It's not a, you know, I understand
00:39:25.880that ultimately you know these are directionally correct people who i could work with who are
00:39:30.140critical to the coalition and as you say it is obvious that the attempt here is to break that
00:39:34.400coalition before it can free us you know from ultimately what i think is a very dangerous
00:39:39.320direction as you point out it really is the the death of the mainline protestant understanding
00:39:44.640that the the death of the wasp uh control of of kind of america's elite culture that has put us
00:39:50.620where we are and it's in this moment that we find uh many different struggles people attempting
00:39:55.860to kind of reconstitute a coalition that can bring a meaningful Christian, you know, dynamic
00:40:01.340to public life without perhaps driving too many people away simultaneously.
00:40:07.620And the key to that, as I think you're pointing out here, really is that understanding that
00:40:12.540it is, it really is Catholicism and evangelicals that are the two Christian kind of denominations
00:40:20.820or branches that are thriving right now.
00:40:22.780These 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.
00:40:40.080but i i don't want to completely step away from some questions people have about the presence of
00:40:46.240catholicism in america because i think there are a few real questions that would probably be worth
00:40:51.540answering as you point out uh wokeness has unfortunately infiltrated all you know christianity
00:40:57.360at this point we're baptists are dealing with it just as much as as catholics uh we can we can both
00:41:02.680give each other a hard time about it but ultimately it's clear that this is a struggle that both
00:41:06.940churches are facing it's a civilizational struggle it's not just for it's like all of the globe we
00:41:13.240have this civilizational problem but one of the things that people point to specifically with
00:41:19.020catholicism is immigration uh the the pope has been uh multiple popes in a row now have been
00:41:26.760let's say uh less than tactical when discussing uh you know their their interest in in immigration
00:41:33.300in ways that make people very worried about catholic desires for bringing large numbers
00:41:38.640of people in here even some catholic intellectuals have played fast and loose with the idea that if
00:41:43.280we get a bunch of people from south america who are catholic in the united states then we can make
00:41:47.760america catholic and that would be desirable and of course the catholic charities are famously
00:41:53.000you know pretty pretty good with getting a large number of illegals in now again to be fair
00:41:58.240Lutheran charities and Jewish charities have also played roles in this. So it's in no way
00:42:02.760simply a Catholic problem. But I just thought I'd put that out there because I think those are
00:42:07.740things that are always brought up against Catholics in the United States of their influence.
00:42:13.640You might know I wrote a piece for American Mind on this. And I'm against birthright citizenship
00:42:24.960as it's currently interpreted and the bishops haven't been the bishops have been on the on
00:42:34.040the wrong side of this i think um and i think there's a lot of reasons for that there's a lot
00:42:41.440of there's a lot of internal reasons as well as external reasons i think some of the external
00:42:45.680reasons is that just as the the left was very good and and not just the left but neocons and
00:42:52.960all sorts of political actors were very good at cultivating evangelical ideas, eschatological
00:42:59.560ideas for their political ends. I think a lot of political actors have been extremely good
00:43:06.440at cultivating Catholic ideas about care for the poor, care for the stranger. They've been very,
00:43:14.640very good at cultivating those doctrines for their own political purposes. And so I think
00:43:20.400there's a sense in which we can see sort of political ideological capture of Christian ideas
00:43:27.080in amongst evangelicals. We can see it amongst Catholics. On the immigration question specifically,
00:43:34.100I think Catholics have been overexposed to these precisely because Catholics are always very good
00:43:43.220sidling up to power throughout history and if if all of the ruling elite and i mean all of the
00:43:50.900ruling elite want open borders guess who the church sidles up to those who are favor open
00:43:58.360borders and we sidled up to those who favored open borders for far too long and you know
00:44:05.600it's like kicking the cigarette habit it's like getting rid of the nicotine like you don't need
00:44:11.840it. That's not part of you, but you've been in the habit so long. This is actually not easy to
00:44:17.180just separate the church from its deep involvement in ruling elite priorities about how to deal with
00:44:24.520immigration problems. And so I think in the Catholic church, we have to have a great reckoning
00:44:29.200about this. I don't think we, I don't know about Popplio. Popplio is kind of still a closed book
00:44:35.040to me. I don't fully understand where he's coming from on these questions, and I'm not sure he's
00:44:40.080entirely formulated how he wants to deal with them but he stayed he stayed with the playbook of you
00:44:46.560know christ is in the face of the stranger and what's what have you um but i think i think christian
00:44:53.760the you know ordinary christians uh have all of the resources for the whole tradition you know
00:45:01.200people like myself have brought forward thomas aquinas who's who has like the most uh strict
00:45:07.440immigrationist policy on earth you know he's like he's got a moratorium of like you know three
00:45:13.300generations so you know you get you you can get you can become a citizen after you know three
00:45:18.680generations but um i think we we the laity those who are not in positions of leadership who have
00:45:27.520not sidled up to the old ruling elite for decades have to speak up and have to have the courage to
00:45:33.520speak up that we want closed borders. We want totally closed borders. We don't want birthright
00:45:39.940citizenship. We don't want people from India stealing our jobs because all of these things
00:45:45.320make homes more expensive. They make it possible for young people to get married and buy homes
00:45:51.260that are affordable and have kids and go to church. The knock-on effects of the ruling elites
00:46:00.960you know open borders theology really because it was an open borders theology
00:46:09.200is a clear and present threat to our national good and so i i have no problem as a christian
00:46:17.240standing up to bishops and saying no yeah i appreciate you saying that because like i said
00:46:21.920i think that's a question that comes up so often and look uh you know caring for the sojourner the
00:46:26.220thing about the sojourner is he moves on right like yeah right right up shop with start drawing
00:46:31.080welfare getting business loans pushing your kid out of college you know there there is an actual
00:46:36.680principle involved there we can't just you know uh mess with the dials on on the biblical story
00:46:42.640so that we can uh kind of justify the current uh current political uh mood so i i do think it's
00:46:48.800critical for people to understand that aquinas says all you owe them is safe passage like here
00:46:53.780We won't kill you while you'll go through our country on your way out, right?
00:46:58.500And 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.
00:47:13.180We don't treat our families like our families can—anybody can come into our home.
00:47:17.440why would we treat our the political common good which is that which defends our families in the
00:47:23.420same way uh just makes no sense yeah and by the way i'm a huge fan of the acquaintance slash uh
00:47:30.980you know aristotelian understanding of three generation citizenship i've been
00:47:34.620shilling that non-stop and i think it absolutely has to be revived but before uh we go to the
00:47:40.560questions of the people i have one more question for you and this one's just a pet peeve so this
00:47:44.760is i want to i want you to know i'm venting a little here on you it's not your fault you didn't
00:47:49.380do this to me but i have to i have to mention it as much as i try to defend catholics on this point
00:47:54.740that i really do actually on a regular basis i always get at least one catholic uh like major
00:48:01.360catholic coming in and being like well actually america was founded on catholic principles oh
00:48:05.580yeah and it's a catholic country it's like look brother i get it you guys were here from the
00:48:09.520beginning you're part of the you're part of the project i'm more than happy to have you
00:48:13.100but please no stout stolen valor like it's a protestant nation it's founding just let us
00:48:18.220have this one well i mean i think i think yes and no i had a good tomistic seek at known yeah i think
00:48:25.940i think on on in in many respects our our constitutional founding we won't talk about
00:48:33.380our unwritten constitution but our constitutional founding uh you know was dominated by uh the
00:48:41.260British crown and response and Protestant responses to the British crown. And that's
00:48:45.980inarguable. Um, it is also the case that Protestants made a, made a space for Catholics
00:48:52.100and, and for lots of different reasons, I think. Uh, and so I think, you know, um,
00:49:00.140and I think Catholics are generally grateful for that and have been from the beginning.
00:49:05.460I 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.
00:49:26.080That doesn't mean that the founding was Catholic.
00:49:30.080And 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.
00:49:48.020And 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.
00:50:00.080I think the right way to read it is the founding is compatible with Catholicism.
00:50:06.100Now, are there things that would be, you know, elevated, fixed, augmented over time by other Catholic teachings?
00:50:16.100But is there something that is fundamentally wrong?
00:50:20.660I 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?
00:50:33.720And the AI response was really interesting.
00:50:36.340It just said, the only thing that would have to be changed about our Constitution is some recognition of the higher authority of the Pope.
00:50:46.080Something 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.
00:51:06.760And so when Catholics say built better than they knew, I think it's to say this is a concordist kind of position.
00:51:15.760There's concord between the Constitution and Catholic teaching.
00:51:20.220Now, you know, Pope Leo, myself, others, we like to talk about the unwritten Constitution, what came before the Constitution.
00:51:27.340And that involves a whole lot of, you know, Catholic, you know, foundations for the country, too.
00:51:32.940But 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.
00:51:45.560It has flourished in America. It will continue to flourish in America.
00:51:48.820And it's going to it's actually works well with Protestants.
00:51:52.500well i think if you're going to hold to joseph de maestra a rather ardent catholic's understanding
00:51:58.940of constitutions unwritten you must understand that they emanate from the nature of the people
00:52:03.200and therefore if the people are majority protestant the constitution you're going to get
00:52:07.380is just going to be majority protestant of course it'll still jive in many ways with catholic
00:52:12.440teaching and as you say catholics were there from the very beginning and so therefore i think there's
00:52:16.500a totally reasonable and thoroughly catholic understanding of the nature of constitutions
00:52:21.680that, that brings us to a similar understanding. But again, I appreciate you saying that. Like I
00:52:25.860said, I know you didn't do it to me, but I had, I had to vent it and I had to get it out.
00:52:29.380No, I think it's good. And I, I think, I think it's kind of important that we can,
00:52:33.320I mean, it's important that we can actually have, you know, I, I, I both agreed and disagreed with
00:52:42.100Doug Wilson and, um, on something. And I was just kind of struck that some people thought that that
00:52:47.720wasn't possible right you could say yes and no to somebody yeah that there is a and and you know
00:52:56.200i don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole but there does seem to be and there i guess there
00:53:00.620always has been to some level but it's only gotten more and more sharp as people are trying to draw
00:53:05.540these friend enemy distinctions and shoehorn us into a particular form of politics this understanding
00:53:10.620that you can't read somebody you can't talk to somebody you can't understand something without
00:53:15.680agreeing with all of it you you know if you agree with any part of it you have to agree with all of
00:53:20.160it so i'm constantly catching flack because i've read the wrong guy i'm right to the wrong guy and
00:53:26.280it's uh guys i'm perfectly capable of having a conversation with someone and taking the things
00:53:31.080that they have uh you know kind of thought about and pulling it apart and finding the things that
00:53:35.480work and the things that make sense without immediately adopting everything that person
00:53:39.320has written down i don't know why that's suddenly become such a controversial position in the well
00:53:44.000i guess i should say i know exactly why it's become such a controversial position but i
00:53:48.120lament it either way uh but uh professor pecknold i have a few questions from the people if you have
00:53:53.380time to oh yeah answer real quick love before we before we move to that can you tell people
00:53:59.160is there anything that you want people to check out that you're doing you want people
00:54:02.600a place that people find you a book anything like that oh i mean uh no that's okay i don't
00:54:09.960I don't like to push my words. I I've got books people can look up and articles.
00:54:13.500I think that the piece in American mind on, uh, I forget the title of it,
00:54:18.220but maybe you can give it in the, in the links below, uh,
00:54:34.400Excellent. All right, guys, let's go to the questions of the people. Then,
00:54:37.740uh the new game says do you think it's a good idea to make a list of all right-wing uh pundits
00:54:44.480who are sweeping who are sweeping for this disaster of a war to hold them to account
00:54:49.040drum them out when they uh distance from uh when they try to distance themselves from it
00:54:54.260no and here's why um that behavior as cathartic as it might be at the moment more or less
00:55:04.980encourages people to dig in as desperately as possible because they know losing is a zero-sum
00:55:10.640scenario if there's redemption for people if they can come back and say all right maybe this wasn't
00:55:15.360the best move then maybe we can get out of this quicker but if you tell people that there is
00:55:19.760simply no escape and the only thing that will happen if we pull out of this war is that they
00:55:24.960will personally like get destroyed and you know get excised from the conservative movement then
00:55:29.280they're going to fight even harder to stay uh you know in this war and my main goal is not being
00:55:34.760right my main goal is what's good for the country and what's good for the country is to get these
00:55:38.920guys home declare victory and start working on the issues we have in the united states so
00:55:43.180personally as much as i hear what you're saying i don't think that's wise i think we have to care
00:55:48.160about what's good for the country first uh and not what would be cathartic for us after certain
00:55:53.680people are proved incorrect amen i i i beautifully said i couldn't say it better perfect
00:55:59.600althea says it may uh i it may have gotten a lot of views to laugh at it to be honest yeah
00:56:07.800there there is some truth to that that the piece might have gotten most of its attention from
00:56:12.360people who are ultimately mocking it yeah i think i think that's often the case uh patty b says i'm
00:56:18.840a catholic and uh australian patriot catholic social teaching champions localism including
00:56:24.040nationhood but we must fight uh subversion both in our church and our government stay strong usa
00:56:30.280awesome your response is that well i mean i think you know it gets super boring to talk about the
00:56:38.260principle of subsidiarity but uh the catholics do like we we love this idea that uh we are committed
00:56:44.980to the place that we're placed, right? We're committed to our families, where God put us in
00:56:49.800our families. We're committed to the political common good to which we're given. And Catholics
00:56:55.840should give ourselves, you know, fully to that. We don't, Catholics are not called to give ourselves
00:57:00.820to liberal globalism. We're called to give ourselves to the actual people that we, where
00:57:05.660God has placed us. I mean, that's Demester, you know, this kind of providentialism, right? This
00:57:10.300is the nation god has made america you think you think there's some other cause i mean we're
00:57:15.380secondary causes of america but god made america and god placed us here and we have to fight for
00:57:19.740our countries and the same is true in australia the same is true in france the same is true in
00:57:24.880hungary the same is true um for every political common good for every political community the
00:57:30.820christians should should be throwing themselves entirely into the good of their country yeah guys
00:57:37.160i'm just gonna shill once again uh if you have for some reason have listened to me as long as
00:57:41.860you have and you have not read joseph de maestra on the generous principles of of uh political
00:57:47.880constitutions go do that like it's it's it's not that long and it's well worth your time and it's
00:57:52.940absolutely essential and will completely reconstruct your understanding of kind of
00:57:57.620how political doctrines are formulated so true uh and then uh word e curb says uh makes sense guys
00:58:05.860like russell moore and david french have lost sway and fringe conspiracies gaining popularity
00:58:10.700should have seen it coming yeah i think in a lot of ways what we're seeing and we kind of touched
00:58:15.660on this already but you know we'll go ahead and get a little deeper into it that ultimately this
00:58:19.620is a kind of a dying animals uh you know thrashing right it's they're the most dangerous in the
00:58:25.380moment when they're about to die and i think you really are seeing this in kind of the neocon
00:58:29.940attempt to kind of exploit uh this this evangelical understanding of dispensationalism
00:58:35.540they recognize that this is probably the last generation, even if we maintain like evangelical
00:58:41.120dominance in the United States, that anyone will believe in dispensationalism. Like this is
00:58:45.100probably it. Like your, your parents are probably the last generation who will hold this novel
00:58:50.080belief in eschatology, whether the United States remains evangelical or moves to Catholicism or
00:58:56.120Orthodoxy or something else, like it's just dead. And so they have to do everything they're going
00:59:00.580to do now. I think even Israel understands this, which explains a lot of their current behavior.
00:59:04.620They 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.
00:59:25.760yep exactly right all right guys well we're gonna go ahead and wrap this up it's always a pleasure
00:59:33.140to speak with you dr pecknold uh i will go ahead and tell you that you should absolutely be reading
00:59:38.040uh his twitter and his columns and of course if it's your first time on this channel you need to
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00:59:47.840if you missed it i recently did an interview with tucker carlson on friday so if you want to catch
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00:59:56.800subscribe to The Orr McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you everybody
01:00:00.660for watching. And as always, I'll talk to you next time.