The Most Powerful Forceļ¼ Candace Owens' Husband Describes His Christian Faith
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Summary
George Farmer, the CEO of Parler, the social media app, and the husband of pro-life icon Candace Owens, is a convert to the Catholic Church. In this episode, George talks about his faith and why he married his wife after only eight months of dating.
Transcript
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I don't like the Catholic Church because of what I think it is, right? And actually,
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the reality is that you don't even know what it is. And it is this great redeeming body. It is
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this great body of faith and redemption and salvation in which we find God's love. And it's
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not this great condemning vehicle, this monolithic sledgehammer that cracks down on people's morality.
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Hello, friends. I had a really neat discussion with someone last week, someone who you'll probably
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know. He's quite famous because he's the CEO of Parler, the social media app, but you might not
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know him for that reason. He's also famous because he's the husband of Candace Owens. He's also a very
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strong Catholic. He's a convert. I got to speak with him about his faith, about his wife. And
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really strangely, he married his wife after only eight months of knowing each other. In fact, he
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proposed 17 days after meeting her. Well, a lot of his friends might have thought he was crazy.
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But after two kids and being happily married now for three years, he's doing quite well. Stay tuned.
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George Farmer, welcome to the program. Good to see you, John Henry. How are you?
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Very well, thank you. Thank you for joining us. So let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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So George, you're a fascinating guest for us, in a way, largely because your wife is so well-known.
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Candace Owens is a figure who, in our community of sort of, you know, pro-life, pro-family folks,
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Candace Owens is huge. Their outspokenness on so many of the issues that are so large in our lives.
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And finally, a defender of, you know, the values that we have in our faith. And, you know,
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on this side of the spectrum, it's so rare to see someone with that kind of gumption and so well-spoken.
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So please pass on to your wife a huge thank you for us.
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I'll pass it on. She's definitely not shy in coming forward, as we would say in the UK. And she's great.
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I mean, I'm very biased. I'm married to her. So, yeah, it's fun to be around. You never quite know
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what you're going to get hit with this week or that week. It's always something different.
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But she's a real fighter. She has courage. She really does have tremendous courage,
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I would say, about my wife. She is. It's incredible. It's, I think, just incredible courage that I've very
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rarely seen in any human. Political courage, obviously very different to battlefield courage,
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et cetera. But the ability to be unafraid in the face of overwhelming odds to speak the truth
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is something which I think we would all do well to learn from. So she definitely has a lot of it.
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It's very fascinating for us here at LifeSite because she is married to a Catholic. You're a
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convert to the Catholic faith. And we would very much love to hear about that. If you wouldn't mind
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I'll give you the abbreviated version because I think the full version might take quite some time.
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But I was brought up in an evangelical household. And my father was in the UK. That's quite unusual,
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which is obviously where I'm from. I'm from London originally. And my father was a convert to
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the evangelical church through a religious experience, actually, which he's spoken about
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before in public. And actually, I think it's quite an incredible story. And to me, it still
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holds hugely powerful meaning to this day. You know, he heard a voice in the night calling him
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literally just his name. And he got out of bed and said, yes, what must I do kind of thing?
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And, you know, phenomenal story in many ways. And he became a Christian literally overnight. I mean,
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literally overnight, he became a Christian. And so that brought me up in a home. This was before I was
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born. But that brought me up in a home which was steeped in the biblical tradition
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of scripture, daily scripture, daily reading, daily prayer. I always I kind of I could sense
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from quite a young age, this was unusual amongst my peer group, the UK is much more advanced in its
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secularism than the US. And as a result, you know, I could tell, like, okay, this is unusual. I'm I'm
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talking about going to church on Sunday, nobody else talks about going to church on Sunday.
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And by the time I was probably in my kind of early teenage years, I was very interested in
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theology as a concept of, you know, theology as a as a sort of psychology in some ways, but as a means
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of living. And the fact that faith throughout history had had more power on people than I think
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any other force that we can that we can recognize as a race, that's still true to this day. In fact,
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Candice was in fact reading me a section from a book that she's reading or rereading, should I say,
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on human nature by E.O. Wilson, where it talks about the phenomenon of faith and religion and
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actually says, you know, he's he's coming at it from quite a secularist point of view. And he
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basically says, faith will never be understood by psychologists, because it's it's exerts this huge
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power over people. And that was my experience. It had a huge power in my early years, it had a huge
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power of persuasion and rationality, which was forming itself in my mind in my early teenage
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years. And so I was very inquisitive in that area and in that in pursuing that kind of ground of
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of truth seeking. I started taking religious studies. In the UK, the schooling system is
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different. You start to specialize from a very young age. So really, by the age of like 14,
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you're starting to specialize in your in your preferred topics. So when I was 14, I started dropping
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other subjects. One of the subjects that I didn't drop. In fact, you kind of have to opt in in many
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ways. So I opted into religious education, early theology, and started studying theology in a more
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advanced function. And I think that when you start to study theology, and when you start to study the
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Christian faith in more and more and more depth, there's many other converts to the faith have found
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you start to get confronted with the reality that the Catholic Church holds the fullness of truth.
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And many of the other branches, if you'd like to call it that of Christianity, don't don't haven't
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got that. And for me, that was particularly made prevalent, really, because I had this chaplain,
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who was actually an Anglican chaplain in the Anglican communion, because my school was an Anglican
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school, and he was an Anglican priest. And he himself, after I had left school, converted to
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Catholicism as well, which I found a great sense of irony. But basically, he was my priest for about
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four years. And during this time, he and I really had so many battles in the classroom and out of the
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classroom about Catholicism. And I went in with all these predispositions about what Catholicism was
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really about, and what I'd been brought up to believe, and what it meant, and all this kind of
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stuff. And actually, he was very good. Obviously, what I didn't realize was that he was also on this
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path of discernment. But he was actually very good at dismissing many of my preconceived notions about
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Catholicism. And by the time that I was 18, 19, my intellectual conversion had been completed. And
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I went up to university in England. And I pretty much in my, I think in my second week, I emailed the
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Catholic chaplaincy to say I wanted to become a Catholic. And they took me under RCIA. And then I
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was confirmed having been baptized before by the Bishop of Oxford in 2009, I think it was 2009,
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What was one of the biggest questions for you? What was one of the biggest things answered that
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startled you? It was, I think it was Fulton J. Sheen, who said, there are very many people who hate the
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Catholic church. But I think he said something like 90% of them hate the church for what they
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think it is. There's very, very few who hate the church, knowing what it really is. But what was
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one of those things that for you was most startling or most moving?
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And answering that question is, it sort of leads me to my, I want to say my second conversion. So I
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had this intellectual conversion when I was kind of my official reception into the church and my
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intellectual conversion when I was in my late teenage years, early 20s. And then I actually went
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through quite a period where I, you know, I've sort of was dormant in my faith, really, to be honest,
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I was, I felt like I had achieved what I would set out to achieve, which was reception and acceptance
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into the Catholic church. And then I kind of was like, well, okay, I'm done now, you know, I'm
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finished. So that's it, you know, I don't have to worry about anything else. And then actually,
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for many years, I wasn't practicing. And, you know, I fell away. And then I had kind of a
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reversion. And in many ways, there were two, it was kind of a conversion of the heart
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and a conversion of the head. The conversion of the head came first and the conversion of the heart
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came second. And I would say in the first conversion, the conversion of the head, you
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know, what, what persuaded me was, I was brought up sola scriptura, obviously, as many, as many
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prophets and sire and, and, and my church, which probably was bordering on Calvinism in many
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ways. And, um, I actually think that if you simply hold the scriptures alone, this was, this
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was actually where I started off. I said that if you hold scripture to be true, and that actually
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you just use scripture, you will get to Catholicism. Um, and I think that there's a few things in
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there, which like a absolute, you know, atom bomb kind of landmark moments in my, the, the
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transubstantiation, the, the issue of, of Christ's body and blood being present, the real presence
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is, is clear. I mean, I just couldn't get around that. I kept on arguing with myself about this
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issue. I kept on saying, well, hang on, you know, maybe it's a symbol, it's a memorial, et cetera.
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But, uh, it's so clear and black and white in scripture that I, I just couldn't keep arguing
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with this because at the end of the day, I said, well, he literally says it is my body. Unless you eat
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of my body and John, you know, you are, you are not, you are not saved. It is, it is so clear.
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And then likewise, I would also say the baptism issue, unless you're baptized with water and
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spirit, you know, you cannot, you cannot find entry into the kingdom of God. This is, this is
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again, unless you are baptized with water and spirit, this is in scripture. And again, so I was
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presented with these scriptural arguments for Catholic positions. And I found it very difficult
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to uphold Protestant teaching in this area because it's so flagrantly in opposition to
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what scripture itself says. And then once I started investigating, you know, I'm a kind
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of numbers guy in many ways, and the numbers didn't add up to me, you know, this is like,
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well, what are we saying? We just, we're saying we lost one and a half thousand years of Christianity
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before the reformation. You know, again, this didn't make any sense to me. Um, and then you
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start reading the church fathers and then you get into the, and I studied patristics when I was
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at university and as I did theology as a, as a degree, as a bachelor's. And then, uh, and then,
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you know, I studied patristics, studied Augustine. I was overwhelmed with the amount of Catholic
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doctrine and teaching, which is found in the early church fathers. And so for me, that was
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kind of the intellectual conversion, my conversion, my head, that was really, I don't know, the Lord
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called, I guess the Lord just thought it was the right time to, to get back involved with my life.
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And, uh, and so I, I think, I think the, the longer term conversion of my heart was probably
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as a result of the fact that I can see more evil in the world now than ever before. And this in,
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and then this led me to question where my own faith was and how seriously I was taking it. And
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what does it even mean to be involved in politics or, you know, culture or whatever it might mean if
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you don't have the Lord and you don't have God? And so for me, that I think was then the, the step
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where I just said, actually, I've got this all wrong and I've been ignoring him for a long time.
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What year are you living now where, where that conversion of the heart really happened?
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I would say that took place at probably about three and a half years ago.
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And what was it that you saw that most struck you in terms of seeing the evil in the world?
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What was it that moved your heart and made you realize it? Whoa, it's not one factor. It's a
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multitude of factors to some extent. It was, it's where culture is today is, is, is in a very dark
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place as a whole. Right. And there are many examples of this. So you could say anything from,
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um, you know, the rise in divorce to, uh, transgenderism to, you know, gay marriage to all of these
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different areas, which are, you know, against church doctrine, against church teaching.
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Um, all of these areas are clearly, you know, problematic and give a sense of the kind of
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rising tide of secular faith, which is pushing, um, you know, which is pushing the church out.
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What I would say is that in terms of where I kind of got to, I think there was a sense of
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despondency on my own part, uh, a sense of despondency, because I also feel that to some
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extent the kind of traditional, what would be called in America, the religious right is moving
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away from that ground. Right. And I think that there's also a sense where they're losing sight
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of true principles of what actually tethers us to reality. And what tethers us to reality is not
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an adherence to free market principles. It's not an adherence even to the constitution of America.
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Great. As these things may be wonderful things as these things may be, it's an adherence to God.
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It's an adherence to the true underlying knowledge of the creator. Without him, we are all lost.
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Um, and so I think as, as, as in some ways, as both sides of the political aisle move down the
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path of secularism, and you can see that more and more and more, you start to be fearful of the fact
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that nobody is taking God seriously. Nobody's bringing God back into the, to the political realm.
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It's interesting too, that you decided to do that because the, the church herself, if you will,
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has been involved in a lot of the mess or the, the dark times that we're in. You have this situation
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right now in, in the church where you had a huge, even when you, when you had your conversion of the
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heart, the church was steeped in a sexual abuse scandal. The church was steeped in kind of
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infidelity among prelates and priests and so on. And yet you still, uh, came in.
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Yeah. I mean, the church, of course, is a human, it's, you know, the church is the bride of Christ,
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but it's physical manifestation in this world is, is a human institution, which of course is,
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is deeply corrupted. Um, and you know, it's sad to see. And, and I mean,
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I think the Bible talks very clearly, those who are entrusted great power of great, of much,
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much of them will be asked. Um, and likewise, those who abuse power, you know, in this case
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of sexual abuse will be, you know, cast into the fire pit. Uh, so, uh, and of course I'm not sitting
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in that position and I'm each person's judgment, each person's own salvation is, is of course their
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relationship with, with, with Holy mother church and God himself. But of course it is very sad to
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see this from the outside. And we should, as a church be quick to react and to remove those who
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have been abusing power for the, for many, many years. I think the church itself is often misunderstood
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and you quoted Newman earlier. And I think that that's a really relevant quote, but because
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as, as, as the rest of society sees it, it's always about like, I don't like the Catholic church
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because of what I think it is. Right. And actually the reality is that you don't even know what it is.
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And it is this great redeeming body. It is this great body of faith and redemption, uh, and salvation
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in which we find God's love. And it's not this great, you know, condemning vehicle, this monolithic
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kind of sledgehammer that cracks down on people's morality. And I think it is, of course there's
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church teaching, of course there's church doctrine, which absolutely has to be upheld and preserved and,
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and is sacrosanct. Um, and that has stayed the same for thousands of years and we must uphold those
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truths to be true, but it is a vehicle for salvation. It's, you know, Christ came to save the tax collectors
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and the sinners. He didn't come for the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Uh, I mean, he did, but they
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turned his, turned their hearts against him. So, so, you know, I think it's, it's really important
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that we as a church, remember that and offer that chance for redemption to everybody. Um,
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you know, I mean, Candace has actually talked about the abortion topic quite frequently in,
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in, in public, in the public sphere. And I think that that's her messages would be the same as mine.
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You're not going to win this argument by making people feel terrible about themselves. You may have
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done something terrible, but so have I, so have you. I mean, we've all done horrible things.
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We've all done terrible things. We are all sinners. Um, and we are justified in the, in the sight of
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the Lord through his, his son, Jesus Christ. So we, we have to find the church as a vehicle for
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redemption. Here's a question for you. Feel free to not answer if, if you don't feel so called, but
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you've received a great grace because a lot of people don't get one chance. You've been given two
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very strong, first to move you, as you said, in your head and then in your heart, two very definite
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interventions of our Lord in your life. Do you, and maybe you don't even know, do you have a specific
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call, do you believe, uh, from our Lord to engage in something? Obviously you're called, everyone's
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called to a certain work for the Lord. Have you figured out what that is for you? Because you've
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been so powerfully, um, moved not once, but twice, um, in your, your upbringing, you could see it. Our Lord
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sort of talked to your dad, um, and already put you on a path and then brought you to the fullness of
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faith and then called you back when you went away from it. So, um, it's a fascinating development
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there. I just wanted to know if you, if you knew perhaps what you're called to, or at least, you
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know, a work that you're called to so far. Before I got married, which was kind of in the early days,
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I guess, of when my faith started, you know, to call me back at that second calling, as you mentioned,
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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
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that time. Um, I would pray the prayer that I was praying at the time was, you know, Lord,
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show me the path before my feet. Um, which is quoting from, from, from the Psalmist. And I still
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feel that way a little bit to this day, you know, Lord, show me the path before my feet so that,
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you know, I may have a heart of wisdom to understand your words and to see where you would
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like to take me and let me, let me interpret the truth. I don't have a specific sense right now of
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where he's taking me, um, or what he would like from me. Um, I, I'm just going with the fact that
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he has placed me in Nashville, um, and that we have a very, very fast growing church here, which is,
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you know, doing great work and incredible traction and growing out of control, which is fantastic.
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Um, and I think that there are, you know, other things more, you know, having a family,
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providing support in many ways to a woman whose fame and notoriety goes, you know, it's far,
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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
00:21:58.720
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at Give.LifeSiteNews.com. And now back to the video.
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One of the interesting things is you mentioned now that the call you felt, the, that second conversion
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started prior to your marriage. How do you feel God worked? Obviously he worked in your marriage,
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but can you see the hand of our Lord working, um, in your marriage to Candice and how all that played
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out? And if you're able to share some of how that played out. You know, when I look back on it now,
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I view it in many ways as a miracle. I mean, uh, she and I met and we were engaged after 17 days.
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Um, you know, it was a very, very quick turn around. Um, you know, we were, we were married within
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eight months, um, of the first time we met, you know, we were married within eight months and it was
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definitely something where I think the Lord, the Lord called me to it. You know, I felt very powerfully
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that there was this voice saying, follow this path, you know, come down here. I have things to show you
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down here. Um, that being said, Candice herself is obviously not a Catholic. Um, and I think that's,
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that's well known in the public, in the public sphere, but she and I talk about it the whole time.
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Uh, we talk about faith and I think that that's, again, that kind of comes back to,
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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
00:25:03.680
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.
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
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
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,
00:28:00.660
One of the things you have to deal with, uh, because your wife is so in the limelight
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
00:31:53.180
that and you probably have as well. How do you deal with that yourself? How does Candace sort of
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
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
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
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.
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
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
00:41:45.700
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.
00:42:32.600
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
00:43:05.840
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,
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