The John-Henry Westen Show - The Most Powerful Force： Candace Owens' Husband Describes His Christian Faith

00:00:00.000 I don't like the Catholic Church because of what I think it is, right? And actually,

00:00:03.460 the reality is that you don't even know what it is. And it is this great redeeming body. It is

00:00:08.040 this great body of faith and redemption and salvation in which we find God's love. And it's

00:00:14.700 not this great condemning vehicle, this monolithic sledgehammer that cracks down on people's morality.

00:00:21.580 Hello, friends. I had a really neat discussion with someone last week, someone who you'll probably

00:00:33.520 know. He's quite famous because he's the CEO of Parler, the social media app, but you might not

00:00:40.540 know him for that reason. He's also famous because he's the husband of Candace Owens. He's also a very

00:00:48.740 strong Catholic. He's a convert. I got to speak with him about his faith, about his wife. And

00:00:55.020 really strangely, he married his wife after only eight months of knowing each other. In fact, he

00:01:00.680 proposed 17 days after meeting her. Well, a lot of his friends might have thought he was crazy.

00:01:08.720 But after two kids and being happily married now for three years, he's doing quite well. Stay tuned.

00:01:16.020 Hello, LifeSite friends. Aren't you sick of the cancel culture? Aren't you sick of the overlords

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00:03:14.920 George Farmer, welcome to the program. Good to see you, John Henry. How are you?

00:03:18.760 Very well, thank you. Thank you for joining us. So let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.

00:03:23.260 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:03:29.360 So George, you're a fascinating guest for us, in a way, largely because your wife is so well-known.

00:03:36.980 Candace Owens is a figure who, in our community of sort of, you know, pro-life, pro-family folks,

00:03:44.180 Candace Owens is huge. Their outspokenness on so many of the issues that are so large in our lives.

00:03:51.180 And finally, a defender of, you know, the values that we have in our faith. And, you know,

00:03:59.820 on this side of the spectrum, it's so rare to see someone with that kind of gumption and so well-spoken.

00:04:06.600 So please pass on to your wife a huge thank you for us.

00:04:12.140 I'll pass it on. She's definitely not shy in coming forward, as we would say in the UK. And she's great.

00:04:19.440 I mean, I'm very biased. I'm married to her. So, yeah, it's fun to be around. You never quite know

00:04:25.280 what you're going to get hit with this week or that week. It's always something different.

00:04:28.540 But she's a real fighter. She has courage. She really does have tremendous courage,

00:04:34.840 I would say, about my wife. She is. It's incredible. It's, I think, just incredible courage that I've very

00:04:42.480 rarely seen in any human. Political courage, obviously very different to battlefield courage,

00:04:47.180 et cetera. But the ability to be unafraid in the face of overwhelming odds to speak the truth

00:04:53.580 is something which I think we would all do well to learn from. So she definitely has a lot of it.

00:04:59.980 It's very fascinating for us here at LifeSite because she is married to a Catholic. You're a

00:05:06.360 convert to the Catholic faith. And we would very much love to hear about that. If you wouldn't mind

00:05:11.680 sharing with us your conversion story.

00:05:13.060 I'll give you the abbreviated version because I think the full version might take quite some time.

00:05:18.320 But I was brought up in an evangelical household. And my father was in the UK. That's quite unusual,

00:05:27.420 which is obviously where I'm from. I'm from London originally. And my father was a convert to

00:05:34.160 the evangelical church through a religious experience, actually, which he's spoken about

00:05:39.560 before in public. And actually, I think it's quite an incredible story. And to me, it still

00:05:44.900 holds hugely powerful meaning to this day. You know, he heard a voice in the night calling him

00:05:50.800 literally just his name. And he got out of bed and said, yes, what must I do kind of thing?

00:05:57.820 And, you know, phenomenal story in many ways. And he became a Christian literally overnight. I mean,

00:06:03.360 literally overnight, he became a Christian. And so that brought me up in a home. This was before I was

00:06:07.800 born. But that brought me up in a home which was steeped in the biblical tradition

00:06:11.040 of scripture, daily scripture, daily reading, daily prayer. I always I kind of I could sense

00:06:17.640 from quite a young age, this was unusual amongst my peer group, the UK is much more advanced in its

00:06:23.360 secularism than the US. And as a result, you know, I could tell, like, okay, this is unusual. I'm I'm 0.60

00:06:30.120 talking about going to church on Sunday, nobody else talks about going to church on Sunday.

00:06:33.400 And by the time I was probably in my kind of early teenage years, I was very interested in

00:06:40.800 theology as a concept of, you know, theology as a as a sort of psychology in some ways, but as a means

00:06:48.840 of living. And the fact that faith throughout history had had more power on people than I think

00:06:56.800 any other force that we can that we can recognize as a race, that's still true to this day. In fact, 0.91

00:07:02.480 Candice was in fact reading me a section from a book that she's reading or rereading, should I say,

00:07:07.580 on human nature by E.O. Wilson, where it talks about the phenomenon of faith and religion and

00:07:12.280 actually says, you know, he's he's coming at it from quite a secularist point of view. And he

00:07:15.880 basically says, faith will never be understood by psychologists, because it's it's exerts this huge

00:07:21.700 power over people. And that was my experience. It had a huge power in my early years, it had a huge

00:07:28.020 power of persuasion and rationality, which was forming itself in my mind in my early teenage

00:07:32.900 years. And so I was very inquisitive in that area and in that in pursuing that kind of ground of

00:07:38.900 of truth seeking. I started taking religious studies. In the UK, the schooling system is

00:07:44.540 different. You start to specialize from a very young age. So really, by the age of like 14,

00:07:49.280 you're starting to specialize in your in your preferred topics. So when I was 14, I started dropping

00:07:54.480 other subjects. One of the subjects that I didn't drop. In fact, you kind of have to opt in in many

00:07:59.760 ways. So I opted into religious education, early theology, and started studying theology in a more

00:08:06.040 advanced function. And I think that when you start to study theology, and when you start to study the

00:08:11.820 Christian faith in more and more and more depth, there's many other converts to the faith have found

00:08:15.620 you start to get confronted with the reality that the Catholic Church holds the fullness of truth.

00:08:20.380 And many of the other branches, if you'd like to call it that of Christianity, don't don't haven't

00:08:26.580 got that. And for me, that was particularly made prevalent, really, because I had this chaplain,

00:08:34.500 who was actually an Anglican chaplain in the Anglican communion, because my school was an Anglican

00:08:40.480 school, and he was an Anglican priest. And he himself, after I had left school, converted to

00:08:48.480 Catholicism as well, which I found a great sense of irony. But basically, he was my priest for about

00:08:54.260 four years. And during this time, he and I really had so many battles in the classroom and out of the

00:09:03.360 classroom about Catholicism. And I went in with all these predispositions about what Catholicism was

00:09:09.760 really about, and what I'd been brought up to believe, and what it meant, and all this kind of

00:09:14.180 stuff. And actually, he was very good. Obviously, what I didn't realize was that he was also on this

00:09:19.100 path of discernment. But he was actually very good at dismissing many of my preconceived notions about

00:09:25.960 Catholicism. And by the time that I was 18, 19, my intellectual conversion had been completed. And

00:09:32.780 I went up to university in England. And I pretty much in my, I think in my second week, I emailed the

00:09:38.560 Catholic chaplaincy to say I wanted to become a Catholic. And they took me under RCIA. And then I

00:09:44.460 was confirmed having been baptized before by the Bishop of Oxford in 2009, I think it was 2009,

00:09:53.040 10, or something like that.

00:09:53.700 What was one of the biggest questions for you? What was one of the biggest things answered that

00:09:58.240 startled you? It was, I think it was Fulton J. Sheen, who said, there are very many people who hate the

00:10:04.800 Catholic church. But I think he said something like 90% of them hate the church for what they

00:10:11.040 think it is. There's very, very few who hate the church, knowing what it really is. But what was

00:10:15.880 one of those things that for you was most startling or most moving?

00:10:19.280 And answering that question is, it sort of leads me to my, I want to say my second conversion. So I

00:10:24.400 had this intellectual conversion when I was kind of my official reception into the church and my

00:10:29.120 intellectual conversion when I was in my late teenage years, early 20s. And then I actually went

00:10:33.360 through quite a period where I, you know, I've sort of was dormant in my faith, really, to be honest,

00:10:38.320 I was, I felt like I had achieved what I would set out to achieve, which was reception and acceptance

00:10:45.400 into the Catholic church. And then I kind of was like, well, okay, I'm done now, you know, I'm

00:10:49.840 finished. So that's it, you know, I don't have to worry about anything else. And then actually,

00:10:53.260 for many years, I wasn't practicing. And, you know, I fell away. And then I had kind of a

00:10:57.900 reversion. And in many ways, there were two, it was kind of a conversion of the heart

00:11:02.860 and a conversion of the head. The conversion of the head came first and the conversion of the heart 0.54

00:11:07.240 came second. And I would say in the first conversion, the conversion of the head, you

00:11:12.840 know, what, what persuaded me was, I was brought up sola scriptura, obviously, as many, as many

00:11:18.680 prophets and sire and, and, and my church, which probably was bordering on Calvinism in many

00:11:23.460 ways. And, um, I actually think that if you simply hold the scriptures alone, this was, this

00:11:31.140 was actually where I started off. I said that if you hold scripture to be true, and that actually

00:11:36.700 you just use scripture, you will get to Catholicism. Um, and I think that there's a few things in

00:11:42.480 there, which like a absolute, you know, atom bomb kind of landmark moments in my, the, the

00:11:51.340 transubstantiation, the, the issue of, of Christ's body and blood being present, the real presence

00:11:56.800 is, is clear. I mean, I just couldn't get around that. I kept on arguing with myself about this

00:12:02.420 issue. I kept on saying, well, hang on, you know, maybe it's a symbol, it's a memorial, et cetera.

00:12:06.240 But, uh, it's so clear and black and white in scripture that I, I just couldn't keep arguing

00:12:10.740 with this because at the end of the day, I said, well, he literally says it is my body. Unless you eat

00:12:14.780 of my body and John, you know, you are, you are not, you are not saved. It is, it is so clear.

00:12:21.460 And then likewise, I would also say the baptism issue, unless you're baptized with water and

00:12:25.840 spirit, you know, you cannot, you cannot find entry into the kingdom of God. This is, this is

00:12:29.980 again, unless you are baptized with water and spirit, this is in scripture. And again, so I was

00:12:35.040 presented with these scriptural arguments for Catholic positions. And I found it very difficult

00:12:40.620 to uphold Protestant teaching in this area because it's so flagrantly in opposition to

00:12:46.660 what scripture itself says. And then once I started investigating, you know, I'm a kind

00:12:51.660 of numbers guy in many ways, and the numbers didn't add up to me, you know, this is like,

00:12:55.560 well, what are we saying? We just, we're saying we lost one and a half thousand years of Christianity

00:13:00.240 before the reformation. You know, again, this didn't make any sense to me. Um, and then you

00:13:04.540 start reading the church fathers and then you get into the, and I studied patristics when I was

00:13:08.120 at university and as I did theology as a, as a degree, as a bachelor's. And then, uh, and then,

00:13:14.360 you know, I studied patristics, studied Augustine. I was overwhelmed with the amount of Catholic 1.00

00:13:19.880 doctrine and teaching, which is found in the early church fathers. And so for me, that was

00:13:25.240 kind of the intellectual conversion, my conversion, my head, that was really, I don't know, the Lord

00:13:31.080 called, I guess the Lord just thought it was the right time to, to get back involved with my life.

00:13:35.900 And, uh, and so I, I think, I think the, the longer term conversion of my heart was probably

00:13:43.360 as a result of the fact that I can see more evil in the world now than ever before. And this in,

00:13:48.500 and then this led me to question where my own faith was and how seriously I was taking it. And

00:13:55.140 what does it even mean to be involved in politics or, you know, culture or whatever it might mean if

00:14:00.140 you don't have the Lord and you don't have God? And so for me, that I think was then the, the step

00:14:06.820 where I just said, actually, I've got this all wrong and I've been ignoring him for a long time.

00:14:10.740 And this is really important to me.

00:14:13.080 What year are you living now where, where that conversion of the heart really happened?

00:14:16.700 I would say that took place at probably about three and a half years ago.

00:14:20.120 And what was it that you saw that most struck you in terms of seeing the evil in the world?

00:14:25.580 What was it that moved your heart and made you realize it? Whoa, it's not one factor. It's a

00:14:30.380 multitude of factors to some extent. It was, it's where culture is today is, is, is in a very dark

00:14:36.140 place as a whole. Right. And there are many examples of this. So you could say anything from,

00:14:41.040 um, you know, the rise in divorce to, uh, transgenderism to, you know, gay marriage to all of these

00:14:50.620 different areas, which are, you know, against church doctrine, against church teaching.

00:14:55.580 Um, all of these areas are clearly, you know, problematic and give a sense of the kind of

00:15:02.360 rising tide of secular faith, which is pushing, um, you know, which is pushing the church out.

00:15:09.940 What I would say is that in terms of where I kind of got to, I think there was a sense of

00:15:16.140 despondency on my own part, uh, a sense of despondency, because I also feel that to some

00:15:22.060 extent the kind of traditional, what would be called in America, the religious right is moving

00:15:26.000 away from that ground. Right. And I think that there's also a sense where they're losing sight

00:15:31.140 of true principles of what actually tethers us to reality. And what tethers us to reality is not

00:15:36.980 an adherence to free market principles. It's not an adherence even to the constitution of America.

00:15:43.620 Great. As these things may be wonderful things as these things may be, it's an adherence to God.

00:15:48.540 It's an adherence to the true underlying knowledge of the creator. Without him, we are all lost.

00:15:56.640 Um, and so I think as, as, as in some ways, as both sides of the political aisle move down the

00:16:02.140 path of secularism, and you can see that more and more and more, you start to be fearful of the fact

00:16:08.120 that nobody is taking God seriously. Nobody's bringing God back into the, to the political realm.

00:16:13.160 It's interesting too, that you decided to do that because the, the church herself, if you will,

00:16:19.320 has been involved in a lot of the mess or the, the dark times that we're in. You have this situation

00:16:26.300 right now in, in the church where you had a huge, even when you, when you had your conversion of the

00:16:31.580 heart, the church was steeped in a sexual abuse scandal. The church was steeped in kind of

00:16:37.300 infidelity among prelates and priests and so on. And yet you still, uh, came in.

00:16:45.060 Yeah. I mean, the church, of course, is a human, it's, you know, the church is the bride of Christ,

00:16:49.500 but it's physical manifestation in this world is, is a human institution, which of course is,

00:16:55.320 is deeply corrupted. Um, and you know, it's sad to see. And, and I mean,

00:17:00.640 I think the Bible talks very clearly, those who are entrusted great power of great, of much,

00:17:07.060 much of them will be asked. Um, and likewise, those who abuse power, you know, in this case

00:17:13.860 of sexual abuse will be, you know, cast into the fire pit. Uh, so, uh, and of course I'm not sitting

00:17:20.140 in that position and I'm each person's judgment, each person's own salvation is, is of course their

00:17:25.560 relationship with, with, with Holy mother church and God himself. But of course it is very sad to

00:17:31.780 see this from the outside. And we should, as a church be quick to react and to remove those who

00:17:39.260 have been abusing power for the, for many, many years. I think the church itself is often misunderstood

00:17:44.860 and you quoted Newman earlier. And I think that that's a really relevant quote, but because

00:17:48.960 as, as, as the rest of society sees it, it's always about like, I don't like the Catholic church

00:17:57.480 because of what I think it is. Right. And actually the reality is that you don't even know what it is.

00:18:01.860 And it is this great redeeming body. It is this great body of faith and redemption, uh, and salvation

00:18:09.080 in which we find God's love. And it's not this great, you know, condemning vehicle, this monolithic

00:18:16.560 kind of sledgehammer that cracks down on people's morality. And I think it is, of course there's

00:18:23.780 church teaching, of course there's church doctrine, which absolutely has to be upheld and preserved and,

00:18:28.260 and is sacrosanct. Um, and that has stayed the same for thousands of years and we must uphold those

00:18:33.420 truths to be true, but it is a vehicle for salvation. It's, you know, Christ came to save the tax collectors

00:18:39.040 and the sinners. He didn't come for the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Uh, I mean, he did, but they 0.68

00:18:43.820 turned his, turned their hearts against him. So, so, you know, I think it's, it's really important

00:18:48.580 that we as a church, remember that and offer that chance for redemption to everybody. Um,

00:18:52.660 you know, I mean, Candace has actually talked about the abortion topic quite frequently in,

00:18:58.840 in, in public, in the public sphere. And I think that that's her messages would be the same as mine.

00:19:05.860 You're not going to win this argument by making people feel terrible about themselves. You may have

00:19:10.720 done something terrible, but so have I, so have you. I mean, we've all done horrible things.

00:19:16.280 We've all done terrible things. We are all sinners. Um, and we are justified in the, in the sight of

00:19:21.780 the Lord through his, his son, Jesus Christ. So we, we have to find the church as a vehicle for

00:19:27.720 redemption. Here's a question for you. Feel free to not answer if, if you don't feel so called, but

00:19:33.120 you've received a great grace because a lot of people don't get one chance. You've been given two

00:19:42.000 very strong, first to move you, as you said, in your head and then in your heart, two very definite

00:19:47.580 interventions of our Lord in your life. Do you, and maybe you don't even know, do you have a specific

00:19:55.720 call, do you believe, uh, from our Lord to engage in something? Obviously you're called, everyone's

00:20:02.240 called to a certain work for the Lord. Have you figured out what that is for you? Because you've

00:20:08.140 been so powerfully, um, moved not once, but twice, um, in your, your upbringing, you could see it. Our Lord

00:20:14.620 sort of talked to your dad, um, and already put you on a path and then brought you to the fullness of

00:20:21.860 faith and then called you back when you went away from it. So, um, it's a fascinating development

00:20:26.860 there. I just wanted to know if you, if you knew perhaps what you're called to, or at least, you

00:20:31.180 know, a work that you're called to so far. Before I got married, which was kind of in the early days,

00:20:36.440 I guess, of when my faith started, you know, to call me back at that second calling, as you mentioned,

00:20:41.400 um, you know, that was kind of, when I look back on it now, I can see the workings of, of God's hand at

00:20:46.540 that time. Um, I would pray the prayer that I was praying at the time was, you know, Lord,

00:20:52.340 show me the path before my feet. Um, which is quoting from, from, from the Psalmist. And I still

00:20:59.160 feel that way a little bit to this day, you know, Lord, show me the path before my feet so that,

00:21:03.720 you know, I may have a heart of wisdom to understand your words and to see where you would

00:21:06.920 like to take me and let me, let me interpret the truth. I don't have a specific sense right now of

00:21:12.840 where he's taking me, um, or what he would like from me. Um, I, I'm just going with the fact that

00:21:20.340 he has placed me in Nashville, um, and that we have a very, very fast growing church here, which is,

00:21:25.700 you know, doing great work and incredible traction and growing out of control, which is fantastic.

00:21:32.660 Um, and I think that there are, you know, other things more, you know, having a family,

00:21:38.680 providing support in many ways to a woman whose fame and notoriety goes, you know, it's far,

00:21:45.700 far larger than mine will ever be or should be. Um, so I'm happy to play that support role in many

00:21:52.120 ways. Just a quick note before we return, if you would like to stay up to date on LifeSite's

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00:22:09.360 coverage to millions around the world, please consider making a one-time or monthly donation

00:22:13.960 at Give.LifeSiteNews.com. And now back to the video.

00:22:19.860 One of the interesting things is you mentioned now that the call you felt, the, that second conversion

00:22:25.180 started prior to your marriage. How do you feel God worked? Obviously he worked in your marriage,

00:22:31.320 but can you see the hand of our Lord working, um, in your marriage to Candice and how all that played

00:22:37.680 out? And if you're able to share some of how that played out. You know, when I look back on it now,

00:22:41.000 I view it in many ways as a miracle. I mean, uh, she and I met and we were engaged after 17 days.

00:22:47.600 Um, you know, it was a very, very quick turn around. Um, you know, we were, we were married within

00:22:53.980 eight months, um, of the first time we met, you know, we were married within eight months and it was

00:23:00.240 definitely something where I think the Lord, the Lord called me to it. You know, I felt very powerfully

00:23:05.200 that there was this voice saying, follow this path, you know, come down here. I have things to show you

00:23:11.960 down here. Um, that being said, Candice herself is obviously not a Catholic. Um, and I think that's,

00:23:20.580 that's well known in the public, in the public sphere, but she and I talk about it the whole time.

00:23:24.380 Uh, we talk about faith and I think that that's, again, that kind of comes back to,

00:23:29.320 you know, the second conversion in many ways, the kind of cultural realization that I had,

00:23:35.720 which is that the whole culture is moving in this weird and not necessarily a good path. You know,

00:23:43.740 the, the rise of the, the secular agenda on the right is as much a concern as it is on the left.

00:23:49.520 Um, and I think as a result, you know, she feels very interested suddenly in the, in the faith

00:23:55.740 conversation. You know, she and I talk about Catholicism the whole time. Her faith journey

00:24:00.600 is her own. You know, I, I, I can't, I couldn't put a place right now where she is. I, I, I wouldn't

00:24:06.720 know. Um, but she is very, very interested in, we talk a lot about Catholic ideas. You know, I play

00:24:12.720 Catholic podcasts quite frequently. I play the sermons of Archbishop Sheen quite, quite frequently as well.

00:24:19.400 She gets a fair dose of those in the car. I have books and everything, and she's read many of

00:24:24.200 them. So, you know, she and I talk about it a lot. And I think in many ways, as it's, you know,

00:24:30.300 it is, it is that kind of sense of, of irony that as the devil works harder to conquer, you know,

00:24:36.400 to kind of reconquer territory that, that our Lord has won for himself, you know, the, the surge of

00:24:42.460 light from him gets even stronger and, and starts to raise up people in this world who are speaking

00:24:47.440 up for him and speak up for his truth. And I think that that is definitely the case in, in her is

00:24:51.860 definitely the case and in myself as well. So I think that there's a kind of growing sense that

00:24:56.740 actually without God, all of these political discussions are somewhat meaningless. And we do

00:25:01.740 need to come back to first principles.

00:25:03.680 Let's talk about 17 days. A lot of parents would say, well, that's insane. What do you mean? Seven,

00:25:11.200 you've just met this person. This is like a little over two weeks ago. What in the world are you

00:25:14.960 doing? I'm sure you faced some of that and I'm sure Candace faced some of that from her parents. 0.98

00:25:20.180 So how did that go down?

00:25:21.760 It went down much like, as you just explained it, which was kind of, this is madness. You know,

00:25:27.480 what does one do about this? So my parents actually, you know, to give them real credit,

00:25:34.440 I think my parents were just like, okay, you know, we don't really know how to deal with this one.

00:25:38.460 So we're just going to let you one ride this out. I mean, I think that there was certainly a lot

00:25:44.720 of our friends who were very skeptical, to say the least, but also a lot of them, I think, saw

00:25:52.260 just the sense of it. I think that a lot of them thought that it just made sense. And some of them

00:25:58.140 didn't even ask questions. One of them was very, very skeptical. I remember to this day, he was

00:26:02.360 incredibly skeptical, but now I think as a convert to the fact that we're still married and obviously

00:26:08.380 have two kids and a growing family, et cetera. I think that we got over those initial hurdles after

00:26:13.680 we cleared the first year of marriage, because I think a lot of people just expected it to kind

00:26:17.180 of not work out and fail, et cetera. And I just said, that's never going to happen. You know,

00:26:20.800 this is, this is not the way it was set up to be. Today, our concept is, you know, meet,

00:26:25.960 date for five, 10 years, try it out, live together, whatever, whatever. Would you recommend,

00:26:33.840 having sort of been there, done that, a much more succinct dating period, a courtship period or

00:26:42.620 whatever. What's your thoughts on that? There's definitely something to be said for it. I've read

00:26:46.960 some commentary about some posts on the web about what people think about our dating period and

00:26:52.800 marriage, et cetera. And it's funny because you kind of get people divided into two camps. You get

00:26:57.820 really some people who just think we're completely crazy. And those tend to be, I would generally

00:27:04.000 argue those tend to be people who don't agree with Candace's politics as a whole. So, you know,

00:27:09.040 there tend to be people who are like, oh, you know, guys, you guys are ridiculous and you're 0.99

00:27:12.240 just never going to work out. And then it's quite sad. And those words, it's normally a little bit 0.99

00:27:15.600 more unfriendly than that. But then you actually get the other stories. And somebody else once said

00:27:21.400 to me in a funny way, which is that you should be able to tell, you know, after six months, you

00:27:27.260 should really be able to tell whether or not you're going to, this is going to work or it's not.

00:27:30.860 And if it isn't going to work, you know it by that point. And actually I can think back on

00:27:35.080 every relationship that I've had in many ways, you know, it was the same, it was the same story

00:27:41.960 after six months, I really knew. And, um, whether or not the relationship was longer or shorter,

00:27:47.080 uh, you know, I, I could probably tell by that point. So I, I would definitely say there's a strong

00:27:53.160 logic to not prolonging things, which, you know, actually don't necessarily make sense, you know,

00:27:59.580 end it.

00:28:00.660 One of the things you have to deal with, uh, because your wife is so in the limelight 1.00

00:28:04.540 is the condemnation, the pressure, the, the antagonism, the might say hatred, um, that she

00:28:14.180 will get. And therefore you and your children will experience, um, to some extent anyway,

00:28:19.200 how do you help with that? And, um, you know, just share what you can about that perhaps.

00:28:25.060 It's definitely tricky with children, you know, and we haven't yet reached that, uh, hurdle in terms

00:28:30.500 of a public, you know, kids are very young. They're both under three. Um, you know, and

00:28:37.860 so as a result, we will have to negotiate, I guess that somewhat tricky barrier, um, when

00:28:46.200 we reach it, dealing with the hate outside of kids, which as I say, mercifully, we don't

00:28:52.360 have to, we haven't yet had to cross that, that river yet, but dealing with the hate outside

00:28:57.220 of it, I guess, is I'm not going to be flippant by saying it's fine, but you know, there's a,

00:29:01.480 there's a lot of, there's a lot of it, which just does wash off after a while. You know,

00:29:05.520 I think, I think that the internet is a somewhat meaningless place sometimes, you know, I think

00:29:11.320 the internet is a wonderful place and also a meaningless place it has, and a dark place,

00:29:15.960 you know, I mean, there's pornography, there's violence, there's all kinds of stuff you could

00:29:20.900 possibly see, you know, and there's, and there's great stuff out there too. There's YouTube,

00:29:26.280 there's great content on YouTube, there's great content on rumble, there's great content

00:29:29.420 all over the place. It's really up to the discerning kind of reader slash viewer, uh, of

00:29:35.640 what you want to look at. If you spent your life living in the comment sections of videos,

00:29:41.340 which were really hateful, I think you would get quite depressed about it. That being said,

00:29:47.480 I have done that occasionally. And I actually do find it quite humorous sometimes because,

00:29:51.840 you know, if people could apply the intensity of their hate to their work, I'm sure we would be

00:29:56.160 a much more productive and industrious nation because there are people in the comments who,

00:30:01.660 it feels as if sometimes, you know, I've, I've wronged them personally in some way, shape or form.

00:30:08.340 Uh, but actually, of course, it's never been the case. I don't even know these people,

00:30:10.980 but somehow they just have this burning hatred for everything that I stand for, that I,

00:30:15.860 or that I believe in. And I, and I, I kind of, I, I wish them well. I pray for them. I think that

00:30:21.460 I hope that they find, I think, I hope that they find love in their life. Um, you know,

00:30:26.180 I think a lot of it comes from a, comes from a place where they themselves are either lonely or

00:30:30.220 love or loveless. Um, you know, and I, and I, I hope that they find the light of the Lord in there

00:30:35.960 as well. I, I think that that's actually, what's really missing from a lot of the conversations

00:30:39.940 in politics is that there, there's no sense of the love of God. There is only the sense of nowadays,

00:30:47.420 there is only vindictiveness and being right. And that is just not a healthy attitude to approach

00:30:54.080 political dialogue from. You have to approach it from position, position of love, um, and position

00:30:59.940 of wanting to mediate and seek the best solution, um, and to help find healing in many ways. I think

00:31:09.200 that that's probably the best attitude that I could put forward in terms of, in terms of where

00:31:13.680 I would take the internet to. One of the things that advocates for life, for family, somewhat for

00:31:19.500 faith as well, especially today, uh, receive is not only a condemnation from the outside, but sometimes

00:31:27.420 even within, particularly in our church today, where there's a lot of consternation with, you know,

00:31:34.480 lines being crossed in the wrong direction from the highest levels, you, you have this

00:31:39.840 confrontation and then condemnation for stuff that should be just normal, but it's nonetheless there

00:31:46.240 from those who you would expect would be on side with you. Uh, I know Candace has had to deal with 0.60

00:31:53.180 that and you probably have as well. How do you deal with that yourself? How does Candace sort of 1.00

00:31:58.880 navigate these waters because it's, it's hard out there in terms of criticism from the right

00:32:05.400 or criticism from those who you would think would be standing up for the truth in many ways. And I

00:32:09.540 think this is the same with sometimes with church leadership as well. You know, one does feel very

00:32:14.060 lonely sometimes about it. You know, you have Dr. Fauci a year before, you know, in the early days of

00:32:18.280 COVID saying wearing a mask is ridiculous. And then of course, a year later, he's saying, you know,

00:32:21.460 wearing a mask is, you know, you need to wear three masks or whatever. Um, you know, this was

00:32:25.240 something that she was very much almost, I would say solo talking about, and it's the same, you know,

00:32:32.780 that there's, that's quite unusual in many ways, but there are many other issues where one does feel

00:32:36.880 quite alone speaking the truth and saying, this is actually what God's word says in, in, in more my

00:32:44.620 context here, which is more the kind of church discussions, ecclesiology, all this kind of stuff

00:32:51.000 that the, I'm much more involved with talking about theology than I am these days about

00:32:55.040 politics. But, uh, you know, when one's talking about theology, it's, it's so important to have

00:33:00.640 that courage to stand up for the truth, even if one is going to get criticism from your own side,

00:33:05.100 um, or at least people who are supposed to be on one's own side. Um, and I think that that's very,

00:33:10.500 very true in the church of this day, where you see a lot of different viewpoints, some of which

00:33:14.760 are coming from church hierarchy, some of which are coming from church leadership. And you're thinking,

00:33:17.800 what is this? Uh, you know, this is totally counter to what God's teaching has always instructed the

00:33:26.340 church to be, to, to teach. Uh, and suddenly you've got completely different dogma or completely

00:33:30.820 different doctrine coming out. We're experiencing that right now in America with Cardinal McElroy and

00:33:36.720 the whole, and Father James Martin all around the LGBT issues. Um, it's coming also from Rome because

00:33:44.680 even though there's sort of a clamp down when the, the German bishops wanted to do immediately the

00:33:49.900 homosexual blessings in the churches, there was some little bit of a pushback from Rome, but they're 0.71

00:33:54.660 going ahead anyway. Nonetheless, this is coming out. Pope Francis, of course, has given multiple

00:34:00.600 positions to Father James Martin, who's very well known. He's also met with a lot of these

00:34:05.240 Catholic groups that promote the LGBT agenda within the church, uh, call for same-sex blessings and so 0.85

00:34:12.320 on. Um, he also made Cardinal of Cardinal McElroy when his views on the issue were well known. In fact,

00:34:19.700 even when he made Supich a Cardinal, his views on the reception of Holy Communion, for instance,

00:34:25.240 for homosexual couples was well known. So what do you make of these things? Because I mean,

00:34:31.200 you're involved in theology and, um, the theology of the church is very, very controversial today,

00:34:36.480 particularly with Pope Francis in, in a way the opposite we saw from, uh, what we had with Pope

00:34:43.460 John Paul II and Pope Benedict. What's your take? It's very sad and dangerous to see this,

00:34:48.580 this trajectory right now. You know, one of the great encouragements I have is that we have often

00:34:53.620 had errant teachers in the church. Um, and we have often had errant bishops and archbishops and even

00:35:00.280 errant, uh, you know, popes throughout history. And the church, and the, of course, the Holy Father

00:35:04.980 is not, uh, he is not without error. He is only infallible when he speaks ex cohedra. Uh, and as a

00:35:13.380 result, you know, he is as human as the rest of us. He can, he can, uh, and stray from the correct

00:35:18.860 path. Now that's not me saying that he, he necessarily has. I think that, uh, the phrase that I used

00:35:24.960 the other day, the phrase that I heard the other day, which I thought was interesting was, you know,

00:35:29.060 blissful ambiguity is the way that the Holy Father is currently producing doctrine, uh, which is

00:35:35.100 definitely correct saying that, for example, the death penalty is inadmissible. Well, that's

00:35:39.240 completely wrong because obviously God himself prescribes the death penalty in the old Testament.

00:35:44.680 So therefore how on earth can, you know, how on earth can God be wrong? He cannot. Uh, so as a

00:35:51.460 result, there must be something going wrong on this, on this earth. Uh, the same with, with church 0.98

00:35:56.600 doctrine and teaching the great, one of the great beauties of the Catholic church. And actually one

00:36:01.020 of the things that attracts me to it or attracted me to it in its early day, in my early days of

00:36:05.380 conversion was that the teaching body of the church is built up over thousands of years. We are not

00:36:12.600 dealing with something that actually, and this is, I would say you're, you're witnessing the complete

00:36:17.160 collapse currently in the Anglican community of this going on. Uh, you know, poorly formed doctrinal

00:36:23.840 bases, uh, fooled, you know, when you build your house on the sand, it gets knocked down by the

00:36:29.000 flood. The Bible teaches us this. When you build your foundations in stone, you have something which

00:36:33.440 is solid and the flood will come and the house will not wash away. Um, we, we have a thousand,

00:36:39.300 we have thousands of years of church doctrine and teaching, which has built and layered upon

00:36:43.420 layered upon layered. We are not, you know, we are not just a ladder where you can knock down the

00:36:48.840 rung beneath it. You know, it is, it is a, it is a seamless staircase where you need every stair to

00:36:53.740 get to the top. Um, and we have this great corpus, this great body of magisterial teaching,

00:36:59.940 which has been built up and it cannot just be done away with in one papacy. It cannot just be done away

00:37:04.900 with, with a few, uh, rogue cardinals talking about their position, their personal position on church

00:37:11.780 teaching, which runs directly in counter to everything that the church has taught for thousands of

00:37:17.860 years. Um, so the truth will always win. The church will not accept it. Uh, you know, the church,

00:37:24.480 the body of the church will not accept it. Um, and there are of course great forces within the church

00:37:29.220 who will seek to preserve the, the doctrine that has always been taught and has always been preserved

00:37:36.160 and is presented to the laity to this day. Um, and of course that, that key doctrinal position has

00:37:42.000 not yet been overturned or overruled. The church does not accept, you know, the LGBT agenda in any

00:37:47.960 way, shape or form, whether it be, you know, same sex community and blessings, or whether it be the

00:37:52.900 transgender movement or whatever, you know, monstrosity is presented to us. 1.00

00:37:56.920 That was fascinating. I was just in Africa and the, the Holy Father of course was there

00:38:01.720 just before he left for Africa, he talked about the need of the African bishops to have a conversion

00:38:06.520 on these issues around LGBT. While he was leaving, he held that joint press conference in the plain

00:38:11.980 with Justin Welby of the Anglican Church and the Ian Greenshields of the Church of Scotland,

00:38:17.280 reiterating sort of the need for, you know, the, this change on LGBT issues. It was funny because

00:38:22.720 in response, maybe perhaps not in direct response, but the outcome of that was, uh, this Lent,

00:38:28.280 the, uh, Catholic archbishops, uh, in, in Africa, particularly in Uganda and Kenya came up with

00:38:34.780 a Lenten movement to, to work against the LGBT agenda. Um, so I thought that was very interesting 1.00

00:38:41.520 from the new world bishops indeed. There's fearless Catholicism being preached. And, you know,

00:38:46.600 in the Anglican Church years ago, when they were already starting to go off in the same direction,

00:38:50.920 you had the concept of flying bishops where, you know, the, the Episcopalians in the West felt that

00:38:57.340 they had no real Episcopal leadership, no real, um, biblically based or faithful leadership.

00:39:04.260 And they would get sort of the leadership they needed from Africa, from where the largest number

00:39:10.140 of Anglicans actually are. And, uh, it's fascinating because I think it's happening somewhat in the

00:39:14.600 Catholic Church too today. You're having the voice of Christ on the issues of our day, which

00:39:21.040 weren't spoken of, or maybe even spoken from the other perspective, um, here in the West,

00:39:27.080 but you're having that Catholic voice still, but it's coming from Africa. It's amazing.

00:39:31.060 Again, coming back to the numbers and the political machinations of the whole thing,

00:39:35.480 you know, the reason that the German conference of bishops is so, you know, avowedly secular is

00:39:40.440 because the German church is, you know, the Archdiocese of Cologne, for example, is, is, uh,

00:39:48.580 is funded by state taxes. Well, I mean, in that, in that scenario where you have, you know, you,

00:39:54.540 you just replicated the church of England, which, you know, okay, the church of England doesn't receive

00:39:59.960 funding from the state, but it is an established church, which means that the king is the head of

00:40:04.820 the church of England. As soon as you start to remove God from the position of the head,

00:40:10.140 you know, you're in trouble. You're, you're, you're in big trouble because you then reliant

00:40:14.340 upon the state and the architecture of the state in whatever format that may take to back up the

00:40:20.360 church, the church in Germany. I mean, Germany is a very liberal country, uh, in terms of its

00:40:26.000 morality and ethical and secular teachings. It's very, very repressive on free speech these days.

00:40:33.060 It's got a lot worse in the last, uh, 10 years. And so it's obvious it's, it, it would seem obvious

00:40:39.300 to me that a church, which is so in bed with the state would start to adhere to status principles,

00:40:46.460 such as, you know, wanting to bless same-sex unions, because I imagine that they're probably

00:40:51.400 under quite a lot of pressure from the people who pay the taxes. Right. And so this is, this is

00:40:56.020 where that conversation has gone, right? It's a highly bureaucratic church, the German church.

00:41:01.000 And this is why it's, I would almost argue, you know, pretty, pretty far alone. I mean,

00:41:06.480 I can't actually speak for the rest of the Catholic European church. You know, like I'm,

00:41:10.900 I've seen churches in England with, with the pride flag outside, and I'm sure there are a few of them.

00:41:16.060 Um, but generally speaking, you know, the, the German church has been completely outspoken

00:41:20.280 in its advancement of this agenda. Um, and, and the reason being is because almost uniquely of all

00:41:26.740 the Catholic churches in the world, and I'm sure somebody will fact check me here and say,

00:41:29.300 well, actually, you know, the church in Eritrea is, is also provided with state funding, but,

00:41:34.740 but almost uniquely, this is the only church which gathers funds from its, from a state tax.

00:41:40.200 Right. And so I think that that has a lot to do with the way that the German church has ended up

00:41:44.740 governed.

00:41:45.700 And finally, I would just say, you know, it was Fulton J. Sheen who talked about how in the latter

00:41:50.980 times, it would be the laity called to speak out, called to defend the faith when the proper people

00:41:56.600 to do that job would, uh, probably not be there doing it. And one of those people, uh, even though

00:42:01.780 she's not Catholic, might I say Catholic yet, but, um, you know, is your own life. And doing so in a

00:42:09.340 way that's very convincing, very forthright, very down to earth in, in a way that many people, I think,

00:42:16.720 wish their prelates and their priests would speak out.

00:42:20.200 She has put, uh, Archbishop Sheen on her podcast before, so he's definitely made an appearance a

00:42:25.620 couple of times, but yeah, no, she's, she's very outspoken about everything.

00:42:30.940 George, any final thoughts?

00:42:32.600 Oh, thank you very much for having me. I'm very honored to be here, John Henry. And I thank you for

00:42:37.000 your mission and your calling, which is clearly evident. And I thank you for all the work you're

00:42:43.280 doing. Um, and, uh, I think what you just said there at the very end is, is so true. The laity

00:42:48.500 are called to this mission and the rise in people like yourself in, in video format to advance kind

00:42:57.680 of lay apologetics is so important in modern culture because so many people now get content

00:43:03.260 from this great medium, which is the internet.

00:43:05.840 Praise God. Thank you, George. Thank you for sharing, uh, about your conversion, about your life

00:43:09.660 and, uh, God bless you and God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.

00:43:22.100 Hi everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,

00:43:26.520 be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News. Check the

00:43:31.620 links in the description to read more and connect with us on social media so that you can stay up to

00:43:36.200 date with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news. Thanks for watching and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - March 22, 2023

The Most Powerful Force： Candace Owens' Husband Describes His Christian Faith

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