The Michael Knowles Show

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00:00:37.660 If you start digging into the occult, you're opening a door.

00:00:41.300 And you might not be strong enough to close it.

00:00:43.300 And then you have to call me.

00:00:45.460 Someone wrote into my show and said, Michael, if you could meet the devil.

00:00:49.160 Met him twice.

00:00:50.820 Personally.

00:00:52.500 How'd that go?

00:00:54.960 Did not well the first time.

00:00:56.980 Baudelaire said, the finest trick the devil ever played is to convince you that he does not exist.

00:01:10.080 In recent days, however, he's been kind of flamboyant.

00:01:14.320 Wouldn't you say?

00:01:15.140 He's being a little more brazen about his existence.

00:01:17.700 When you look at devil costumes, at the Grammys, when you look at all sorts of weird, Wiccan, occult rituals and some of the biggest stages on earth.

00:01:30.760 And yet some people still don't believe it.

00:01:33.980 We are joined today, very fortunately, by Father Dan Rehill.

00:01:37.820 Not only a Catholic priest, but the exorcist here in Nashville.

00:01:41.720 I am.

00:01:42.020 And thank you, Michael.

00:01:42.720 Thank you for joining.

00:01:43.620 Good to be here.

00:01:45.840 People tend to like the political commentary that focuses on the day-by-day of policy and then the culture and then even sometimes the spiritual stuff that underpins it.

00:01:58.780 The most pushback I ever get is when I mention demons, when I mention things like the devil.

00:02:07.060 People stop me.

00:02:08.060 They say, Michael, now you're getting fantastical.

00:02:11.340 Now you're getting crazy.

00:02:12.160 You're talking about things that don't exist.

00:02:14.460 But these things do exist.

00:02:16.300 They do.

00:02:16.800 I mean, if you're a Christian, any Christian, and you follow the scriptures, we know there was a war in heaven and Lucifer, the most brilliant and the most beautiful of the angels, rebelled because of the plan for the Son, the Word, to become flesh.

00:02:37.360 And he was horrified that God would lower himself to our nature.

00:02:41.600 And so he said, I will not serve.

00:02:44.080 And he was cast out with his minions, and they became the fallen angels, the demons, and they were cast down to earth.

00:02:52.180 And soon thereafter, Eve encountered the serpent, and that was the beginning of our demise.

00:02:59.320 And so this is not mythical.

00:03:01.620 This is fact.

00:03:03.180 The devil is a real person, a person in the sense of having a will and an intellect.

00:03:08.660 He's a spirit, but he's a person.

00:03:10.360 And what you said is true, that he used to be very hidden, and he used to be very subtle.

00:03:16.240 And it should worry people that he's suddenly not worried about being seen.

00:03:21.600 Because that means it's what most people would deduct from that is that he realizes that his reign is coming to a close, and he's using everything he has now to try to drag as many people down with him so we can be miserable in hell too.

00:03:39.080 Now, what do you say to people who say, that's a nice story, Father, but I don't believe that the Bible is anything more than a collection of stories that have influenced the culture.

00:03:50.440 I don't believe there was any such thing as Satan falling from heaven.

00:03:53.460 I don't believe in Adam and Eve.

00:03:55.100 I don't believe anyone bit the apple.

00:03:56.480 I don't believe in original sin.

00:03:57.620 I don't believe in the personification of evil.

00:03:59.940 I don't believe in evil, period.

00:04:01.440 I think we're basically just a bunch of meat sacks.

00:04:04.040 And all of our conceptions of these things are just chemicals firing off in our brain.

00:04:08.580 And you can't convince me otherwise.

00:04:11.040 Oh, well, yeah.

00:04:11.800 You're a nonbeliever.

00:04:13.180 So good luck.

00:04:15.360 But that's it.

00:04:16.000 If you don't believe, I can't make you believe, but that's your decision.

00:04:22.120 And I would say you better really dig into what you believe a little more deeper before you make your final decision.

00:04:27.860 Because think about the consequences.

00:04:29.920 If you're right, no harm at the end of life.

00:04:33.900 If you're wrong, you spend eternity separated from God.

00:04:38.480 That would be a lot to risk.

00:04:41.080 So just on basic common sense, it would be good to do your research a little deeper before you come to the conclusion.

00:04:49.140 Because I would say you don't believe, but do you really understand?

00:04:52.360 Have you done any investigation into this?

00:04:54.980 Have you read?

00:04:55.640 Have you researched?

00:04:57.000 Have you looked at?

00:04:59.480 First of all, there's so many miracles in the church.

00:05:02.360 Just the Eucharistic miracles.

00:05:04.200 They baffle NASA.

00:05:05.660 They can't figure out how they were done.

00:05:07.780 And for people who are not Catholic, a Eucharistic miracle.

00:05:11.400 The Eucharistic miracle would be in the course of a Mass when the body and blood of Jesus is transfigured from bread and wine.

00:05:19.960 Now, during the Mass, we can't see that, but we believe it.

00:05:23.840 But on occasion, to bolster the faith of the Catholic community,

00:05:29.240 the Lord will actually allow the appearance and the accidents, you would call them,

00:05:35.040 to be changed into the body and blood as well.

00:05:37.220 Which means the host starts bleeding and dripping human blood, male blood, from a man of Middle Eastern descent.

00:05:46.160 And the host becomes the flesh, the cardiac muscle of a heart that's been horribly beaten and assaulted.

00:05:54.320 And still has white blood cells even weeks after it's being tested.

00:05:58.160 That's not explainable.

00:05:59.680 So you'd have to say, how does that happen?

00:06:01.860 That's the good side.

00:06:02.820 But on the bad side, if you were an exorcist, and you watched someone levitate off a couch,

00:06:09.040 and I can't put that into the DSM manual classification of a psychological disorder,

00:06:14.000 you'd have to say, something's happening here.

00:06:16.480 There might be something beyond what I believe.

00:06:19.980 So I would say, maybe do your research a little more before you come to that conclusion.

00:06:23.900 Have you ever seen anyone levitate off a couch?

00:06:26.020 I have.

00:06:27.680 Go on.

00:06:29.280 Well, it's an interesting thing, because in the Catholic Church in America, so the USCCB,

00:06:33.680 that's our governing body of bishops, we're the only body of bishops that require,

00:06:39.100 before we do the rite of exorcism, the person has to have both a physical checkup and a psychological exam.

00:06:46.700 Psychological exams are expensive.

00:06:47.960 They're about $2,000.

00:06:49.160 And we don't charge the victim, because they're already suffering, and they often don't have the resources.

00:06:53.960 They've lost their home, their job, usually their wife, husband.

00:06:57.440 But we require that, because the law says that I have to have moral certitude that the devil is present.

00:07:05.260 And to do that, we have to rule out psychological problems and all this.

00:07:08.980 Okay, when I saw the man levitate off the couch, I had moral certitude that that's not a psychological condition.

00:07:17.520 In all countries, the exorcist needs moral certitude to perform an exorcism, that there is the presence of the demon.

00:07:26.480 But like I said, in America, we have to do those two tests to rule out other things.

00:07:30.480 So when I saw this young man levitate off the couch, well, there's my moral certitude that this is not a psychological problem,

00:07:39.820 because that can't force someone to come out of the chair on their own.

00:07:45.040 So that was when I didn't have to do that, the exam.

00:07:49.240 So I believe all of this.

00:07:52.660 None of this surprises me.

00:07:54.620 My view of the world is a Catholic view of the world.

00:07:56.620 For people who might be skeptical, is it possible you just misperceived what was going on, or was your mind playing tricks on you?

00:08:07.960 No.

00:08:09.680 Period.

00:08:11.480 And I'll tell you why.

00:08:13.180 I don't work alone.

00:08:15.760 I mean, that would be horribly imprudent, to go into a situation when you're dealing with demons or the devil himself alone.

00:08:24.020 So contrary to popular opinion in the movies we see about exorcisms, we never go alone at midnight during a thunderstorm to a strange person's house in the woods to do an exorcism.

00:08:35.160 You know, sort of like this.

00:08:37.340 Wait, this is not the usual setting of, okay, got it.

00:08:40.800 So I have a team.

00:08:42.720 I always have other people with me.

00:08:44.680 Often it's another priest.

00:08:46.540 So we're all seeing the same thing, you know.

00:08:48.880 They can speak languages that they've never known.

00:08:52.760 They know things about you or other people in the room that they couldn't know.

00:08:57.500 So these are the hallmarks of how we would determine, is this really a demon?

00:09:01.360 Supernatural knowledge of things they could not know, languages they have not learned that they can speak fluently, and superhuman strength.

00:09:08.740 I remember there was a little nun, about a hundred pounds, five foot.

00:09:15.440 I won't mention the order.

00:09:17.500 And when she was going through a deliverance, it took six large men my size to hold her down.

00:09:25.580 And that's what I mean.

00:09:26.800 It's not possible that that little girl could have that strength.

00:09:30.140 So we look at these things as kind of the hallmarks of this is not normal, this is a supernatural thing.

00:09:36.500 I've seen that same nun run up a 20-foot wall like a squirrel.

00:09:40.980 And 2,000 people at a conference saw it too.

00:09:44.340 So there's the proof that that's not normal, right?

00:09:47.780 Can we all agree that's not normal?

00:09:49.360 That's not normal.

00:09:50.000 That's not normal.

00:09:50.680 I've never seen that happen.

00:09:51.920 No.

00:09:52.580 And it's scary when you see it, because he likes to inflame fear in people's hearts.

00:09:57.480 When people, or I guess demons, are speaking this language, having possessed these people,

00:10:05.660 I'm assuming they're not speaking Swedish.

00:10:09.520 What languages do they speak?

00:10:10.860 No.

00:10:11.340 They typically pick up ancient languages, or Hebrew, or Aramaic, or even Greek.

00:10:16.760 And I don't speak those for the most part.

00:10:18.900 So it normally has to be recorded.

00:10:20.440 But you can tell right away, oh, I know that that's definitely Hebrew, or that's this.

00:10:26.340 And I'm like, has this person ever studied these languages?

00:10:28.760 No.

00:10:29.760 No.

00:10:30.060 And in fact, sometimes they're maybe young, maybe a 15, 16-year-old who hasn't even gone

00:10:34.580 through high school.

00:10:35.920 Or they can tell you things about yourself.

00:10:38.940 So we always go to confession before we go into a deliverance, because you never want them

00:10:43.420 to, not that we're sinning in these great ways, but you want no weapon leveraged against

00:10:51.020 you.

00:10:52.440 You bring up confession, and I had this experience.

00:10:55.560 It's taken me 32 years to figure out something that's probably pretty basic to confession.

00:11:00.440 And confession is sacrament where Catholics go into the box, like you see in the movies,

00:11:04.940 confess your sins on your knees before the priest.

00:11:07.540 And the priest says, Ego te absolvo, and you go out.

00:11:10.820 And I was an atheist for 10 years.

00:11:12.720 I reverted in my early 20s.

00:11:16.320 And only recently, I was walking out of confession, and I had this thought, which is, not only do

00:11:24.480 I feel spiritually at peace here, but what's so striking is that I feel physically different.

00:11:32.100 So it's, I could understand feeling spiritually at peace as maybe there's just some psychological

00:11:37.160 thing happening when I say these sins to the priest.

00:11:40.780 But I would go into the confessional, and I would feel wracked by whatever, wrath, lust,

00:11:48.580 gluttony, go down the list.

00:11:50.920 And it would, I'd be shaking almost.

00:11:54.540 I walk out of the confessional, that physical feeling is gone.

00:11:59.520 And I said, how do you explain that, if confession is not what it says it is?

00:12:05.160 Well, it is.

00:12:05.860 But even people who would agree what it is don't realize, like, as human beings, we're

00:12:10.860 spiritual persons incarnate in a body, right?

00:12:15.400 And that's one person together.

00:12:18.100 So what affects the spirit is going to affect the body.

00:12:20.640 What affects the body affects the spirit.

00:12:22.240 And when we amass sins, particularly if they're grave sins, over a long period of time, in

00:12:30.300 particular, there are demons that hook into us, and they harass us, and they follow each

00:12:36.440 other in packs.

00:12:37.920 And so often, it's like a snowball going down a hill.

00:12:41.280 I just did this, and then I did that, and then I went to this sin, and then all of a sudden,

00:12:45.380 here I am, and I'm in a bad place.

00:12:48.100 Because that's what they're doing, they're pushing you to keep going further into your

00:12:54.620 sinfulness.

00:12:55.440 And when the priest absolves the person in the confessional, not only is their soul wiped

00:13:03.220 clean, but the demons are broken off the person.

00:13:06.920 And so when you feel that levity, that lightness of leaving the confessional, so many people

00:13:12.560 say to me, I feel like a weight's off my back.

00:13:14.440 Yeah, because you've been set free.

00:13:16.380 It's not just the sin, it's the demons attached to the sin.

00:13:20.180 I used to think that the type of scene you just described was merely a helpful metaphor

00:13:28.940 for what goes on in our moral lives.

00:13:32.820 It's a nice picture.

00:13:34.540 Ah, yes, it's the...

00:13:35.700 You know, I mean, everybody, perfectly secular people, will say, so-and-so had demons.

00:13:41.180 Oh, he never got over his demons.

00:13:42.880 But they mean it in this metaphorical sense.

00:13:44.720 They do.

00:13:45.100 And the longer I've lived, the more literally I view that kind of a scene, and even more

00:13:53.940 so, the less of a distinction I see between the literal and the figurative.

00:13:58.460 Yeah, well, we also believe we have an angel assigned to us, a guardian angel.

00:14:05.040 That angel has a lot of power, but the more you acknowledge the angel and ask for his help,

00:14:10.900 the more power he can give you.

00:14:12.860 So I tell people every morning, wake up, thank God for the new day, thank...

00:14:16.200 It's all gratitude, and then turn to your angel and say, I appreciate your help today.

00:14:21.240 Okay, and these are the things I struggle with.

00:14:24.080 These are the appointments today I think are going to be difficult, the meetings I have.

00:14:27.460 Can you be there and intercede for me through these things?

00:14:31.880 You'd be surprised how different your day goes.

00:14:34.320 And if you surrender to the day and not push for getting things your way, because we frequently

00:14:39.980 think, I have to have it this way.

00:14:41.400 But then if you let it go and see what God's going to do, if you've given him permission

00:14:44.920 over the day, he will wrap it up in a way so much more clean, neat, and tidy than you

00:14:49.280 could ever imagine that you could do.

00:14:51.640 But you have to do it to test it, right?

00:14:55.320 So some people say, I don't believe in that, I'm not going to do it.

00:14:57.080 Well, then you're going to miss out.

00:14:58.960 We can only lead you to the water.

00:15:01.320 So you have your angel, but then you have these demons.

00:15:04.040 Now the demons, their number one job is to get you to sin.

00:15:09.040 When most people talk about demons, they think of the exorcist movie, the devil with the horns

00:15:15.640 and the spear.

00:15:17.460 He can appear that way, but 96, 7% of his work is to tempt to sin and all of his minions.

00:15:28.380 Because when we sin, we break away from God.

00:15:31.520 And once we break away from God, then they can really go after us.

00:15:35.200 It's like stepping, there's a pit bull with a five-foot chain.

00:15:39.020 It's like stepping in to the three-foot mark.

00:15:41.780 You're suddenly now in the zone, right?

00:15:44.320 Then they can really attack you.

00:15:45.900 So if they can get you to sin, then they can really have a field day and really ruin your

00:15:50.140 life.

00:15:52.040 Coming after you physically, like the supernatural effects of the devil.

00:15:56.000 I call the first, sin is the natural.

00:15:58.580 The targeting somebody through vexations or obsessions or oppressions or possession would

00:16:05.520 be ways that we would say is the supernatural power of the devil to inflict harm on somebody.

00:16:10.540 What is the distinction between all of those tricks?

00:16:14.240 Okay.

00:16:14.780 So vexation and infestation is normally things that happen in somebody's home or in their

00:16:21.920 space.

00:16:22.780 It doesn't have to be the home.

00:16:23.620 It could be the office, wherever, the car, where the devil can manipulate, move things,

00:16:29.520 create chaos, losing car keys constantly, the computer constantly.

00:16:34.600 Whenever I try to print a homily, it only jams for the homily, or it only jams when I'm printing

00:16:39.960 out a prayer.

00:16:41.080 That would be like, I'm like, oh yeah, so I have to take authority over that spirit of

00:16:44.420 blockage.

00:16:45.440 And then it just goes right through.

00:16:48.800 But they can be bad.

00:16:50.020 Like the Amityville heart would be the worst example of a vexation of a home.

00:16:54.080 Um, and then you, you have the person himself.

00:16:57.560 So an obsession, a spirit of obsession attacks the mind and people who have this sort of attack,

00:17:04.980 it's the most horrible attack.

00:17:06.800 They can't think they have voices screaming at them all day, uh, screaming blasphemies,

00:17:12.640 putting horrible thoughts in their head, um, visions of suicide, uh, they can't sleep.

00:17:18.020 So then they're even more, um, in a bad way.

00:17:21.000 They often will wind up in a mental hospital, but they're not, it's not a mental problem.

00:17:26.760 It's a demon problem.

00:17:28.340 Um, and then oppression is attacks to the body.

00:17:33.100 That could be through sickness or in the worst cases I've seen, um, you know, somebody who

00:17:38.040 lives alone wakes up with bite marks all over the body.

00:17:40.640 You've seen that?

00:17:41.540 Yeah.

00:17:42.880 Could it be, uh...

00:17:44.380 No.

00:17:45.920 You can't...

00:17:46.220 I won't even finish.

00:17:47.020 You can't bite your own back.

00:17:49.200 Right?

00:17:50.140 Yeah.

00:17:50.420 I've not seen anybody.

00:17:51.420 It's not a dog.

00:17:51.740 It couldn't be a...

00:17:52.380 No, no, no.

00:17:53.440 A dog didn't sneak in in the moment, lock the door when he left.

00:17:56.360 No.

00:17:57.340 Um, or scratch marks.

00:18:00.900 Or, you know, in the worst cases, you see people who will vomit things that are odd,

00:18:07.060 like frogs or nails.

00:18:09.080 I've only seen that in, when I went to exosom school, I haven't seen it first, firsthand.

00:18:13.300 But this is all possible in the realm of evil, because they, they can imitate the power of

00:18:18.480 God, but they, it's short-lived and it's not as powerful.

00:18:22.700 Then if these things escalate and they kind of meld together, it would lead to a full-on

00:18:27.080 possession where the demon, usually Satan himself, will take possession of the body.

00:18:33.540 This isn't...

00:18:33.960 I mean, people think they, they take the soul.

00:18:35.940 You can't take the soul.

00:18:37.720 You can't sell your soul.

00:18:39.460 You know why you can't sell your soul?

00:18:41.120 It's a death block.

00:18:41.720 You don't own it.

00:18:42.480 You can't sell what you don't own.

00:18:45.580 But he'll trick you into thinking that, and then that puts the person in despair.

00:18:49.280 So, so Robert Johnson, he's there at the Delta in Mississippi.

00:18:52.080 He wants to be the best blues guitarist ever.

00:18:54.180 And he sells his soul to the devil.

00:18:55.960 At least that's what some album executive said decades later.

00:18:59.720 He can't really sell his soul.

00:19:02.460 So there, instead it's just the person inviting the devil in to their body.

00:19:08.420 Yep.

00:19:08.740 Yeah, when you make a deal with the devil, it's an invitation.

00:19:14.600 And he takes the invitation very seriously.

00:19:16.640 He comes right in.

00:19:18.080 One of the worst cases I've ever heard was from the exodus of New York City back about 15 years ago.

00:19:26.480 He was telling me, well, it would have been longer than that, maybe 20, 25.

00:19:31.900 There was a woman, a young girl at Juilliard, a violinist.

00:19:35.540 And she was about to graduate.

00:19:37.700 She was brilliantly talented.

00:19:39.880 But all of her friends were getting job offers, and she had none.

00:19:43.540 And her friends, remember, always are hearing her say the words, I would do anything to be famous.

00:19:50.240 Well, guess who's listening?

00:19:52.980 Your angel's listening, but also there's other things in the room.

00:19:56.340 And it wasn't long after that that she went to bed one night, had a dream.

00:20:01.820 And she said in the dream was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen naked, another sign calling Card of the Devil.

00:20:07.860 And he said, do you really want fame and power?

00:20:11.920 And she said, I do.

00:20:13.240 And he produced a contract, and he took his finger and slashed her finger and had her sign it in her blood.

00:20:22.260 And then he touched the contract, and it burst into flames, and the ashes fell on the floor.

00:20:26.620 So pretty easy to understand what happened, right?

00:20:30.840 You don't need an advanced literary.

00:20:32.460 Right.

00:20:32.640 So when you wake up from that dream, and you remember it, you might take a pause and be like, I don't think that was a good thing.

00:20:41.580 But what's worse is her finger was cut, and the ashes were next to the bed.

00:20:47.420 So she still doesn't say anything.

00:20:50.980 Not to be the devil's advocate, but I guess to be the devil's advocate.

00:20:54.960 Could this girl just have been nuts making it up?

00:20:59.060 She could have been.

00:21:00.140 She could have, yeah.

00:21:00.760 But you have to hear the whole story.

00:21:03.380 So within a couple of weeks, she signs this multinational tour, makes a ton of money, becomes very popular and famous on this circuit.

00:21:12.840 And within a few years, she gets involved with drugs, goes to needles, gets HIV.

00:21:17.880 Now she's dying in a New York hospital.

00:21:20.740 And this whole thing comes back to how this started.

00:21:23.540 And she calls her Filipino mother and tells her the story.

00:21:27.900 And mommy calls the chancery.

00:21:30.800 Hysterical.

00:21:31.200 I need an exorcist right away for my daughter.

00:21:34.040 So Jim is the exorcist.

00:21:36.260 He shows up, and they tell him the whole story from the dream forward.

00:21:40.360 And he says, okay, well, that's not good.

00:21:43.420 You signed a blood covenant with the devil.

00:21:46.320 So I'm going to need you to break that with a blood covenant.

00:21:50.320 So you're going to write out the whole creed, and then you're going to sign it in your blood.

00:21:54.640 Well, the doctor's like, she has AIDS.

00:21:56.300 She's not signing anything in blood.

00:21:58.500 Not going to happen.

00:21:59.360 And he says, well, then you need to step out of the room because she needs to do this.

00:22:01.920 And she did do it.

00:22:04.220 And she signed the contract, the creed.

00:22:07.280 And within a few seconds.

00:22:09.200 The creed, for those who don't know, is I believe in God, the Father Almighty.

00:22:11.740 It's what we believe as our faith.

00:22:13.320 Yeah.

00:22:13.820 The whole faith in a neat little package.

00:22:16.280 And she signs it.

00:22:19.340 And she convulses and flatlines and dies.

00:22:24.540 So now the doctor comes back.

00:22:26.920 And he's really upset.

00:22:28.480 The mother is out of her mind.

00:22:29.980 They're all blaming the priest.

00:22:32.100 Hysteria goes on for about 10 minutes.

00:22:34.640 And then all of a sudden, she jumps up off the table.

00:22:39.200 She's back.

00:22:42.440 And they test her.

00:22:44.260 No HIV, no AIDS.

00:22:45.780 She's completely healed.

00:22:48.640 And so she then committed for the rest of her life to only do music that would honor God.

00:22:54.500 And to tell people about the reality of the devil.

00:22:56.480 And not to make deals with him.

00:22:58.340 What's so crazy about the story is there are so many stories that are...

00:23:03.660 I had not heard that story.

00:23:06.840 I'm trying to think even if I...

00:23:09.100 Reading some of your writing.

00:23:12.140 But...

00:23:12.740 Wow.

00:23:13.700 Hearing that, I'm struck.

00:23:19.660 But then I think, well, there are all these miracles that have happened throughout history.

00:23:22.900 And then what hits me is, how do people not believe in the face of all of this?

00:23:29.560 Even...

00:23:30.080 I was just at a conference on signs and wonders.

00:23:32.900 And so I was thinking of all these little coincidences, these improbable, perhaps naturally impossible things that everybody has experienced at some point in his or her life.

00:23:43.220 Yeah.

00:23:43.460 And when they strike you, you're so hit by them.

00:23:46.180 And then five seconds later, you just go on with your life.

00:23:48.940 And it's as though they never happened.

00:23:50.840 Yeah.

00:23:51.040 So then I'm actually less surprised that people could hear a story like that and not believe.

00:23:55.560 I think a third of the people, if you picked up a mountain and moved it over there, a third of the people will believe right away.

00:24:02.160 A third of the people will say it never happened.

00:24:04.420 It was always over there.

00:24:05.200 And a third of them will be confused.

00:24:07.140 And I think that's just the way human nature pans out.

00:24:10.080 I've been pretty blessed in my life.

00:24:11.540 I've seen so many miracles.

00:24:13.160 I mean, so many that I expect them now.

00:24:16.580 I used to be a contemplative hermit, just pray in the woods with a group of hermits for most of the day.

00:24:23.880 And during that time, the Lord one day said to me, he said, the days are fast approaching when the extraordinary will seem ordinary.

00:24:33.360 The extraordinary will seem ordinary, meaning like the miraculous will be so prevalent for what I'm going to do that it will start to seem ordinary.

00:24:42.920 But don't ever take it ordinary because it's all grace and you have to always acknowledge that this is a great gift.

00:24:48.920 And there are just so many.

00:24:51.940 I mean, even the smallest little things.

00:24:53.380 Like there's a nun I'm friends with in Medjugorje, this place in Bosnia.

00:24:56.980 She, the beautiful community called the Community of the Beatitudes.

00:25:01.320 I think they have a chapter in Denver and they were in charge of providing dessert for an orphanage.

00:25:06.620 There's like 250 kids coming for a barbecue picnic thing.

00:25:09.760 And the nuns were doing the dessert.

00:25:12.060 And so one nun she put in charge of the dessert got a sample pack of like 12 pudding cups.

00:25:19.480 Said, will this be okay?

00:25:21.340 And she says, oh, it's wonderful.

00:25:23.080 Make sure we have enough.

00:25:24.000 And the nun who was purchasing them got the day wrong.

00:25:29.420 And she thought the barbecue was going to be the following day.

00:25:32.220 And they hadn't arrived when the kids showed up.

00:25:34.680 And she said, we have a big problem because, you know, I don't have the pudding cups.

00:25:38.340 She's like, well, we have all the other food.

00:25:40.380 I mean, they're going to eat.

00:25:41.820 But put out the 12-pack at the end of the table.

00:25:44.500 And she goes, well, that's going to be terrible.

00:25:46.060 Like only 12 kids will get it.

00:25:47.200 All the other kids will feel bad.

00:25:48.140 She goes, just put it out.

00:25:49.720 She puts it out.

00:25:51.600 And all 250 kids go through.

00:25:53.880 And every kid has a pudding cup.

00:25:56.700 And she looks at me and she says, you know what the best part of this is?

00:26:00.380 He didn't just multiply the food.

00:26:02.280 He multiplied the plastic cups.

00:26:05.000 And I go, sister, why is that a good thing?

00:26:07.560 She goes, because we kept them.

00:26:08.980 We have evidence of this miracle.

00:26:11.160 Huh.

00:26:12.120 Yeah.

00:26:13.480 People hear these miracles.

00:26:14.700 And they'll sort of laugh or write it off or just dismiss them.

00:26:19.060 Including Christians.

00:26:20.580 And I sometimes wonder.

00:26:22.340 I say, hold on.

00:26:23.240 You believe that God the Son became incarnate and walked around and performed public miracles

00:26:29.820 and then was crucified and died and was buried.

00:26:33.920 And on the third day rose again from the dead and sojourned on earth again for 40 days,

00:26:38.200 performing so many miracles that St. John could not possibly record them all

00:26:42.360 because all those books would fill up more than the entirety of the earth.

00:26:45.240 But you don't believe that your car keys could have turned up in an improbable place.

00:26:49.660 You don't believe that God could multiply some pudding cups.

00:26:52.640 I think, where does the leap of faith jump in here?

00:26:56.660 It seems they've already accepted quite a lot.

00:26:58.720 I don't know.

00:26:59.280 I feel it's the new beatitude.

00:27:01.760 Blessed are the unbelievers.

00:27:03.240 They will not be disappointed.

00:27:04.280 Because part of believing is impactful on seeing the miracle, experiencing the miracle, bringing

00:27:12.940 forth the miracle.

00:27:14.360 Jesus could do very little in his hometown.

00:27:16.280 Not because he couldn't do it.

00:27:17.840 Because he's bound by his own rules of providence.

00:27:21.360 And so he has required that faith be part of him doing the miracles.

00:27:25.420 So if you're not going to believe, you're not going to see him.

00:27:30.100 Unless, you know, he has an incredible amount of love for you to the point of like Saul of

00:27:35.200 Tarsus where he's going to force you to see.

00:27:37.520 Yeah.

00:27:38.140 Which he sometimes does.

00:27:38.980 Picks you off your horse.

00:27:39.780 Yeah.

00:27:39.980 I mean, sometimes they'll do it.

00:27:41.020 When I was reverting after 10 years of debauchery and decadence and atheism, practical if not

00:27:47.660 explicit, I did, I had a lot of these experiences.

00:27:53.600 It was a fairly lengthy intellectual process of coming to accept that God exists and then

00:27:58.680 coming to accept that Christ is who he says he is and coming to accept that the church is

00:28:02.300 what she says she is.

00:28:03.640 And sort of around that point that I started to have these numinous experiences.

00:28:08.980 And I thought at the time, this probably doesn't speak very well of my condition right now,

00:28:16.160 that God feels the need to grab me by my shoulders, shake me or smack me in the face and say,

00:28:20.780 hey, stupid, I'm here.

00:28:22.220 Yeah.

00:28:22.800 But how great that he did.

00:28:24.280 Right.

00:28:25.000 Right.

00:28:25.480 Because where would both of us be?

00:28:27.520 Yeah.

00:28:27.780 Same thing for me.

00:28:28.720 You were not a lifelong believing practicing Catholic.

00:28:32.620 No.

00:28:32.960 I left the church for 20 years.

00:28:34.280 So you leave the church and you were, I read, a banker in New York.

00:28:41.720 That seems like, I don't want to besmirch all bankers, but just knowing friends who have

00:28:46.820 worked in that profession, that can be a very different lifestyle, not always conducive to

00:28:50.000 virtue.

00:28:50.760 No.

00:28:51.320 Particularly on Wall Street, around from Harry's.

00:28:55.240 Right.

00:28:55.640 Right.

00:28:55.960 My old neighbor.

00:28:56.440 Both now.

00:28:56.700 Yeah, that's a life style.

00:29:00.340 It's full of drugs and money and power and all the decadencies that go with it.

00:29:07.080 You know, I watch guys cash checks for $150,000 and spend it that weekend.

00:29:13.920 Rent the penthouse at the plaza, bring in all the ladies and the booze and the drugs and do

00:29:21.320 it all over on Monday.

00:29:22.580 Like that's a life style.

00:29:24.360 So with that comes, with this great sin, you're going to have a lot of demons that are just

00:29:30.520 hovering, pushing you to go further.

00:29:33.240 But not everybody's like that.

00:29:34.700 In fact, in the center of that whole community is Little Our Lady of Victory Church.

00:29:39.700 Yeah.

00:29:40.060 Yeah.

00:29:40.340 And they had a group there that they founded called Wall Street Young Catholics Association.

00:29:46.020 So when I had my conversion, I had to dump a bunch of people in my life that weren't

00:29:52.360 healthy.

00:29:52.980 And I said, I got to find some good people here.

00:29:55.160 So I joined the Young Wall Street Academy.

00:29:56.820 That's where I met Father Jim Labar, the exorcist.

00:29:59.540 So there's good people there.

00:30:01.080 Not everybody's involved in all this stuff.

00:30:03.640 But if you're young and susceptible to all that, it's all there for the taking.

00:30:09.460 And you mentioned earlier these young people, like this case of this violinist woman, who

00:30:14.260 say, I would do anything for fame.

00:30:16.400 I would do anything.

00:30:17.600 All these young and hungry people who are very ambitious.

00:30:20.260 I can't help but notice there's a lot of occult and demonic symbolism, specifically in Hollywood.

00:30:27.160 And we focus on it now because Sam Smith gets up at the Grammys dressed up like the devil

00:30:31.540 and jiggles around about cheating on your wife.

00:30:33.780 And I don't know, Lady Gaga doing weird performances and all sorts of things.

00:30:39.780 But this has been the case in Hollywood forever.

00:30:42.620 Well, I would go back further.

00:30:43.760 Jesus said, the prince of this world, the rule of this world is Satan, right?

00:30:48.880 But it seems especially pronounced in Hollywood.

00:30:51.040 Or am I wrong?

00:30:52.100 No, you're right.

00:30:53.540 But now he has vehicles to promote that he didn't have back then.

00:30:58.160 So, I mean, think about this.

00:30:59.580 That violinist, that was pre-social media.

00:31:01.720 Now, think about all the people on Instagram that just want to be loved.

00:31:07.920 And they put all this stuff out there.

00:31:10.340 Why?

00:31:10.980 So that you'll like them.

00:31:12.980 It's all about envy.

00:31:14.640 Instagram is just about envy.

00:31:17.140 Envy and, I suppose, gluttony in that they call it a feed.

00:31:21.540 Like you're scrolling through your feed just to satiate your appetite for pixels.

00:31:27.320 Yeah.

00:31:28.100 Yeah.

00:31:28.400 And in Twitter, that's all about anger.

00:31:31.720 And Facebook is, they just sell you.

00:31:34.420 So they're all involved in one of these sort of capital sins.

00:31:38.480 And how that draws people in.

00:31:40.800 Imagine if you're spending your whole day trying to make the world love you.

00:31:44.320 And you're taking your own photo all day and photoshopping it.

00:31:48.400 And putting in fancy backgrounds.

00:31:50.060 And then posting it saying, look at me.

00:31:51.940 Look at me.

00:31:52.920 Look at me.

00:31:53.580 I mean, that's narcissists right there.

00:31:57.720 You don't have the pool to fall in.

00:31:59.360 But you're already in.

00:32:01.680 And those people are trapped.

00:32:03.600 Because that doesn't end after one post.

00:32:05.760 Then they have to do one tomorrow.

00:32:07.540 And this is a whole life.

00:32:08.920 It's all about them.

00:32:11.220 I can't help but notice.

00:32:12.300 It's so opposite of the gospel.

00:32:13.920 I have a lot of friends from Hollywood.

00:32:16.240 A lot of friends in show business.

00:32:18.740 And a lot of people I know in that industry, and in Hollywood in particular, do not turn

00:32:23.920 out very well.

00:32:25.240 You especially think about child actors, almost all of whom go completely off the rails.

00:32:30.640 But maybe most actors that I know have terrible lives.

00:32:39.720 I don't just mean because they don't make any money, like most actors don't make any money.

00:32:43.780 I mean, their personal lives just get wrecked.

00:32:47.880 More so than my friends who are in other industries.

00:32:51.060 Well, again, think about what they do all day.

00:32:53.780 So the focus of their life is on them and being in front of a screen.

00:32:58.760 And then on a big screen, where everybody can clap and tell you how great you are.

00:33:02.440 And everybody around you probably, to not get pushed off the team, is telling you what

00:33:06.280 you want to hear.

00:33:06.960 And your life is so focused on you.

00:33:10.820 Think about all the marriages.

00:33:12.100 It's a joke.

00:33:13.360 People say if you last 10 years in Hollywood, that's like 75 years in real life.

00:33:18.740 And then you spend half your year away from each other, filming love scenes with other

00:33:23.680 women.

00:33:24.700 How on earth is that going to work?

00:33:27.480 In a beautiful tropical island with alcohol.

00:33:32.280 But it'll work.

00:33:33.580 In essentially summer camp, because film sets are, it's like summer camp.

00:33:37.240 I mean, it's this whole group of new people.

00:33:38.940 It's a very intense experience.

00:33:39.940 You're there forever.

00:33:40.600 So you can see how that can go off the rails.

00:33:42.760 And speaking of the screens and all the social media and demons, have you heard about the AI

00:33:49.520 demon?

00:33:50.880 I have.

00:33:51.300 The story, for those who haven't heard it before, is an AI engineer or artist was experimenting

00:33:59.040 and plugged in and said, give me a picture of Marlon Brando.

00:34:02.880 And a picture of Brando pops up.

00:34:04.600 And this person was trying to explore the breadth of the map that AI is processing.

00:34:11.500 They said, okay, show me the opposite of this.

00:34:13.360 And it shows a landscape or something.

00:34:15.340 They said, okay, show me the opposite of that.

00:34:16.640 So you think, okay, maybe that shows you Brando again, right?

00:34:19.500 The opposite of the opposite.

00:34:20.600 But it doesn't.

00:34:21.320 It shows this woman's withered old hag that this artist calls Loab.

00:34:28.180 And then the artist inputs generated pictures of heaven, you know, angelic choirs and worshiping

00:34:35.960 God, and inputs that, juxtaposes it with the Loab, this demon-looking lady.

00:34:43.080 And what the AI spits out are the most gruesome images, snuff, sexual abuse, violence, all

00:34:51.260 this hideous, almost as if you presented an image of heaven to a demon.

00:34:56.880 Yeah.

00:34:57.120 Maybe the craziest part of it is, apparently this Loab demon AI lady persists.

00:35:05.000 That is, she's kind of separated from a lot of the other images in the map.

00:35:10.020 And so AI seems to like her.

00:35:12.720 She keeps popping up.

00:35:13.580 She doesn't get smeared and blurred with all the other images.

00:35:16.100 And I'm reading about this, and I'm thinking, is this just some weird, quirky coincidence?

00:35:21.980 Or is this a demon?

00:35:23.660 Well, you can't know for sure, especially being third party, not present for the whole

00:35:30.920 thing, right?

00:35:31.680 I didn't even hear about that one, by the way.

00:35:33.560 I heard about the New York Times reporter who went to test the, whatever it is, G, H,

00:35:39.040 C, whatever.

00:35:40.180 Chat GPT.

00:35:41.080 Yes.

00:35:41.640 And went in and started talking to the thing.

00:35:44.920 And it was very civil for the first five minutes.

00:35:46.980 And then that person left, and a new person came with a different name.

00:35:52.400 And that person was much more intrusive, and sort of really pushing into her, I don't

00:35:58.140 know if it was a man or woman, but their personal life.

00:36:00.420 It was a man.

00:36:01.800 And then out of the blue says, I love you, to the man.

00:36:05.440 And he's like, okay, that's weird.

00:36:08.180 First of all, you're not real, and you're not a person.

00:36:11.920 And then the thing starts telling him, he has to leave his wife.

00:36:16.140 She's no good for him.

00:36:17.740 She's going to destroy his life.

00:36:19.340 And it dragged him down a rabbit hole of horror, right?

00:36:22.800 And when he got out of it, he couldn't sleep the whole night.

00:36:26.120 So that's a sign that something is irritating him, even after he left.

00:36:30.380 So that would have more telltale kind of signs by what happened after he left, and not being

00:36:40.080 able to sleep is one of them.

00:36:42.380 And it really kind of terrified him.

00:36:44.260 He's like, that was so weird.

00:36:45.860 I would never go back on that thing.

00:36:48.200 There was another one on TikTok of a father who was testing this whole AI thing with a person,

00:36:55.000 AI, and then the son wanted to try it.

00:37:00.820 So the dad's like, sure, it's fake.

00:37:02.860 So he's, and all of a sudden, the son goes, well, who, where did you come from?

00:37:11.040 And he says, well, I existed from long ago.

00:37:15.500 And he goes, what does that mean?

00:37:17.680 He goes, I was, my father was one of the giants.

00:37:20.880 And he goes, what do you mean by giant?

00:37:22.460 He goes, a Nephilim.

00:37:23.320 And he goes, who is your father?

00:37:25.360 And he goes, Satan.

00:37:27.240 And then he goes, but I'm not going to hurt you.

00:37:29.040 And he puts up a happy face.

00:37:31.100 So then the kid's like, dad, this thing is going down a weird path.

00:37:36.120 And then the father started watching, and it went weirder.

00:37:39.360 And then the dad's like, we're off, right?

00:37:41.900 So that's not normal for a programmed computer program to go into, I'm the son of Satan,

00:37:50.340 and I want to be your friend, and I'm not going to hurt you, although I can.

00:37:54.100 He said, I can hurt you, but I'm going to be nice to you.

00:37:58.240 I do regularly refer to my phone as a portal to hell.

00:38:01.700 So, you know, I guess I'm not terribly surprised.

00:38:04.720 What phone do you have?

00:38:05.700 An iPhone.

00:38:06.900 Yeah.

00:38:07.360 The image on the iPhone is what?

00:38:09.420 It's an Apple with a bite taken out.

00:38:11.380 Yes.

00:38:13.380 Odd, right?

00:38:15.940 That is odd.

00:38:16.900 Yeah.

00:38:17.420 Forbidden fruit?

00:38:18.540 I was walking through a mall just the other day, and I looked at the Apple store, and I

00:38:22.440 looked at the logo, and I had that thought.

00:38:23.940 I said, wait a second.

00:38:26.040 Does that have some spiritual?

00:38:26.820 Somebody chose that logo.

00:38:28.380 Yeah.

00:38:28.620 It's subtle, because you don't think of it right away, but then when you start to see

00:38:33.420 all the evil that can be perpetrated through the phone, and the apps, and the social media,

00:38:40.440 all of it, it's...

00:38:41.720 We live in the most difficult time to be virtuous.

00:38:47.360 So a hundred years ago, even, they didn't have to contend with any of this stuff.

00:38:52.140 None of it.

00:38:53.000 And the portal to hell on the phone, the main one that people write into my show about all

00:38:57.760 the time, that I suspect has a lot to do with the kind of weird demonic activity we see.

00:39:04.000 It's porn.

00:39:05.540 Yes, that's the true pandemic.

00:39:08.840 I assume, Catholic priests, you hear plenty of confessions.

00:39:12.480 I do.

00:39:14.900 Is it a hundred percent?

00:39:16.100 Ninety, eighty percent of men are confessing to this sin?

00:39:19.640 Well, it's...

00:39:21.320 My parish is lower than normal, because we've been fighting it.

00:39:24.720 Okay?

00:39:25.440 But normally, 95% of men, they're coming in weekly with this problem, right?

00:39:30.060 And they say, I don't want to do it, but it happens every week.

00:39:32.900 So right away, again, there's a demon of lust attaching to them and pushing them.

00:39:38.660 So when you get out of the confession, you have to guard yourself, which means avoid

00:39:44.700 the near occasion of sin, too.

00:39:45.760 So when you know you're vulnerable, if after you have a few drinks, you're more apt to open

00:39:51.920 that up, then that's when you say, I'm not going to have...

00:39:55.280 Either I'm not going to have the drinks, or I'm not going to go into my bedroom with the

00:39:58.100 phone.

00:39:58.880 You have to guard yourself, right?

00:40:01.040 So I was talking with Father Don Calloway, probably about a year ago, about his book.

00:40:08.280 It was maybe long then, because it was the year of St. Joseph.

00:40:10.840 And he has the 33-day consecration of St. Joseph.

00:40:14.280 He was telling me that so many men have told him that once they do the consecration, they

00:40:20.760 have no trouble with the lust.

00:40:23.700 If they're really validly doing the consecration with their heart, you know, not just reading

00:40:27.940 the words.

00:40:29.040 So I said, wow, that's great.

00:40:31.440 I go, you know what?

00:40:32.160 I went online, I bought 500 books, I put them in the confessional, and when somebody

00:40:37.260 tells me they got that problem, I say, here's your solution.

00:40:40.440 You're going to do this 33-day consecration to Joseph, and he will protect you.

00:40:45.060 He's called the Terror of Demons.

00:40:47.940 And most men will come back to me and say, it's helping tremendously.

00:40:51.420 Like, the push is gone.

00:40:54.160 Now I have to just decide every day for virtue.

00:40:56.980 So there are things out there to help us, you know, but you have to choose it.

00:41:00.740 People will write to me sometimes and say, Michael, I'm struggling.

00:41:04.460 Often it's that problem or some other problem.

00:41:07.120 Do you have any practical advice?

00:41:09.140 And I know you're Catholic, and I know you're Christian, and I know you're...

00:41:12.700 But do you have any kind of, like, secular practical advice?

00:41:16.640 Secular?

00:41:18.600 I mean, honestly, Jesus says, if you're...

00:41:20.820 I, of course, you just didn't pluck it out.

00:41:22.100 Throw away your computer or throw away your phone.

00:41:24.160 Get a flip phone.

00:41:25.460 If that's your thing, and you really want to get over it, and you can't stop, then get

00:41:28.740 a flip phone.

00:41:29.760 Right.

00:41:30.740 But I also...

00:41:31.460 But on the other plane, we fight defensively.

00:41:35.320 Catholics are not good at offensive fighting.

00:41:38.220 So when we're tempted, that's a struggle, right?

00:41:41.860 It's a struggle.

00:41:42.720 Literally, we're struggling.

00:41:43.740 We don't want to do it, but...

00:41:44.920 It's like a cross.

00:41:47.340 The same thing you do with a cross, you do with this.

00:41:49.000 You say, Lord, let's say it's pornography.

00:41:52.500 You know I'm struggling here, and I hate this.

00:41:54.760 So right away, close your eyes, look at Jesus on the cross, look at his face, and say, Lord,

00:42:00.040 I give you this temptation, and I ask you to convert this to grace to rescue 100 other

00:42:05.000 men who are about to commit this sin.

00:42:08.160 It takes you out of the temptation, puts you into prayer, puts you into session prayer.

00:42:12.120 For others, and he'll do it.

00:42:14.980 And as part of the mystical body, we have that power to plug into the cross.

00:42:19.580 And now the devil is irate.

00:42:22.460 Because not only did he not get you, but now you're stealing from his kingdom.

00:42:26.960 And if you persist in this kind of prayer when you're tempted, he will leave and go after

00:42:31.760 an easier target.

00:42:32.540 This idea that suffering can be productive, can be sanctifying, our culture seems to have

00:42:42.660 forgotten that idea.

00:42:44.700 But that is a very traditional concept.

00:42:47.940 You kiss it up, offer it up.

00:42:49.200 Catholic.

00:42:50.140 It's a very traditional Catholic concept.

00:42:51.400 That's true.

00:42:52.540 But even among Catholics, it's far and away lost.

00:42:55.580 But St. Paul writes about this.

00:42:56.640 He says, I rejoice in my sufferings.

00:42:57.940 Yes, but who's reading this?

00:43:01.980 The Protestants really don't know about redemptive suffering.

00:43:05.060 Most of them will tell me, nope, God doesn't want you to be sick.

00:43:08.300 I said, okay.

00:43:09.880 But the fact that you are, you can at least use it while you are sick.

00:43:14.540 Maybe he'll hear you tomorrow.

00:43:15.340 But in the meantime, you can offer that back to him to help save a soul.

00:43:18.600 What's wrong with that?

00:43:19.220 I think about sometimes what's called the prosperity gospel.

00:43:25.100 People say God wants you to be rich, basically.

00:43:27.760 Yeah.

00:43:28.120 It was written in hell.

00:43:30.640 That's not a real gospel.

00:43:32.460 Yeah.

00:43:33.840 Jesus is God.

00:43:36.740 His first bed was where the animals ate.

00:43:40.180 Okay?

00:43:41.860 This was not a life of wealth and fortune.

00:43:45.440 They were nomads.

00:43:46.480 They had to go into a pagan country to flee from being murdered.

00:43:50.120 He could have had a life of being sitting on a throne.

00:43:52.940 He chose not to.

00:43:54.520 And if God can choose the lowest, he's not asking us to take the highest.

00:44:00.640 In fact, he said it many times.

00:44:03.180 Do not take the highest seat of honor for fear that the host will say, get out of there,

00:44:07.720 and you'll be embarrassed.

00:44:09.600 Now, if you come into wealth, and you didn't go say, I just want to make money for money,

00:44:16.840 but let's say you do a good thing, you're doing a good career, you have a great job,

00:44:19.860 and you're being rewarded well, the best thing you can do is make sure you use a good,

00:44:25.260 at least 10% of your money, tithe 10% back to a good charity or the church,

00:44:30.620 and that's sort of a protection.

00:44:33.160 You know, there's very few kings and queens who became saints.

00:44:36.380 In fact, the only British one is St. Edward, and there won't be any more after him now

00:44:42.260 because things have gone different.

00:44:44.420 But why?

00:44:44.800 I said Carl, I think.

00:44:45.660 Why did that happen?

00:44:47.260 Because he used all of his power and wealth for the poor.

00:44:50.120 And so it changes everything.

00:44:53.840 But think about it.

00:44:54.840 When you come into a lot of money, is that your first reaction?

00:44:57.240 Let me go help the poor?

00:44:58.980 We don't think like that.

00:45:00.240 Because I remember when I had insane bunches of money, the last thing I thought it was,

00:45:05.560 let me help the poor.

00:45:06.920 It was, no, what's the next thing I can get for me?

00:45:09.260 Right?

00:45:09.720 There's a weird thing that happens, because there have been plenty of times in my life

00:45:13.160 where I've made basically no money.

00:45:14.540 I grew up.

00:45:15.460 Money was a big problem.

00:45:16.600 We did not have a lot of money at all.

00:45:18.680 And I didn't really think about money.

00:45:21.980 And actually, it was only after I made money.

00:45:26.340 You know, I published a blank book that didn't have any words in it,

00:45:28.980 and it became a number one bestseller.

00:45:30.660 Talk about unmerited grace.

00:45:31.820 Really?

00:45:32.280 Yeah, I just called Reasons to Vote for Democrats.

00:45:35.380 And money just poured down from the sky.

00:45:37.800 And I thought, well, this is truly through no effort of my own,

00:45:39.880 because I didn't write a book.

00:45:41.020 It's totally empty.

00:45:42.540 And it was only after I made some money that I started to think about the money.

00:45:48.300 I thought, well, that's kind of a weird thing.

00:45:49.620 I didn't worry about the money when I didn't have any.

00:45:51.540 And now that I have a bunch of money, I'm worried about it.

00:45:54.320 Isn't that just the way sin works?

00:45:56.960 Kind of, yeah.

00:45:57.940 Because that's your new focus.

00:45:59.480 That's your new God.

00:46:00.980 The love of money is the root of all evil.

00:46:03.560 It's the love of the money.

00:46:04.500 It's not the money.

00:46:05.240 What strikes me about talking to you, Father,

00:46:07.240 is we're here talking about demons and possession,

00:46:14.160 people spitting out frogs and speaking Latin

00:46:17.400 and doing all these crazy things in this really eerie setting.

00:46:21.500 And yet, you'll go from talking about a guy levitating on a couch

00:46:26.220 to just really basic kind of practical stuff.

00:46:30.200 Say your prayers.

00:46:31.200 Do the right thing.

00:46:32.420 Don't practice virtue.

00:46:33.440 And you're not an eccentric guy.

00:46:38.080 You're a former banker from New York who speaks like an extraordinarily grounded person.

00:46:43.420 In fact, I've talked to a lot of politicians,

00:46:46.180 so you're relatively one of the most grounded people I've ever spoken to on this show, probably.

00:46:49.980 Thank you.

00:46:50.260 I don't, not to damn with faint praise, politicians can get a little out there,

00:46:55.240 but you truly, I mean, you seem so grounded.

00:47:00.240 How is that?

00:47:01.060 How do you reconcile the fact that you can go from talking about spitting out snails

00:47:05.900 to this obvious ballast and grounding in reality?

00:47:09.960 Well, my day starts different than most people's.

00:47:12.220 I get up at 4.30.

00:47:13.280 I'm in the church by 20 to 6.

00:47:16.080 I have two hours before the Blessed Sacrament.

00:47:19.440 Hear confessions, celebrate Mass, and then I start my day.

00:47:23.580 And that's what keeps me grounded.

00:47:25.900 And that's why I get up that hour, because nobody is going to call me at that hour

00:47:28.900 and say, I need you to come and do this, that, and the other thing.

00:47:31.340 So you protect your morning.

00:47:33.100 You pray.

00:47:33.620 You pray for the people you're supposed to be praying for.

00:47:37.240 I pray for the whole world every day.

00:47:40.060 I pray for, by name, Pope Francis every day.

00:47:43.460 There's a list of people, you know?

00:47:45.880 And if you're fighting Jesus Christ or our church, you're on my list.

00:47:52.020 So AOC has been prayed for most recently when she said she was triggered

00:47:57.840 by the Super Bowl ads about Jesus.

00:48:00.600 I said, well, I'm going to have to pray for her,

00:48:01.860 because the only one that gets triggered by Jesus is Satan.

00:48:03.720 So that would be a problem for AOC.

00:48:05.120 On the subject of politics, it's hard to look at the political scene

00:48:11.880 and not think that there could be some demonic activity,

00:48:16.040 especially when it comes to an issue that's very hot, transgenderism.

00:48:21.280 And I'm sure there are all sorts of mental problems that are involved there.

00:48:24.560 But I can't help but think when someone comes up,

00:48:29.680 and we've all seen these videos of someone saying,

00:48:31.760 hey, no longer call me she or her.

00:48:35.660 I am now they.

00:48:37.020 I am now multiple people.

00:48:38.340 There was a video of a young woman who said,

00:48:40.920 I have headmates, and my headmates are insisting that I go through a surgery

00:48:46.820 so I look more like a man.

00:48:48.140 And I don't want to.

00:48:48.880 I love my body, but my headmates insist that I do that.

00:48:52.180 And I listened to that.

00:48:54.380 Or even Sam Smith, the singer who danced around like the devil,

00:48:58.040 who said, no, I'm they and them now.

00:49:00.500 I think, well, I guess you're a legion for you are many.

00:49:04.040 Is this just demons?

00:49:07.560 Demons are influencing at the very least.

00:49:10.140 Again, I can't diagnose somebody without meeting them and talking to them.

00:49:13.120 But I'll tell you this, it's a mockery of God for sure.

00:49:17.420 Because God said, let us make man in our image.

00:49:22.140 He's the only one that gets to use a plural for his personhood, okay?

00:49:26.540 Everybody else doesn't get to do that.

00:49:28.900 Even legion, it was because they were many of them, not because one was many.

00:49:33.960 And then, what else did it say?

00:49:36.360 He made them male and female.

00:49:38.500 Only God assigns gender.

00:49:39.880 So this is man trying to become God.

00:49:44.140 It's the same, this is the same story in Genesis 3 over and over and over.

00:49:48.600 You know, it was pleasing to the eye and looked appealing.

00:49:51.040 And so they went for it.

00:49:52.400 They wanted to be like God.

00:49:55.340 And this is the same thing.

00:49:56.340 When you think you can assign gender, when you think you can terminate life,

00:49:59.780 when you think you can start life, that's not your role.

00:50:03.180 That's God's role.

00:50:04.160 So this is the greatest affront to attack and blaspheme God that we've ever seen in the history of the world.

00:50:11.520 And when people say these things, you know, this pronoun thing, I think they believe it.

00:50:17.640 Not all of them, but I think many of them actually believe what they're saying, but it doesn't make it true.

00:50:22.900 It means they're very lost.

00:50:25.080 They're very deceived, perhaps.

00:50:27.460 And I feel badly for them.

00:50:28.980 I don't hate them.

00:50:30.280 I feel like, my gosh, how awful it would be to think you're in the wrong body.

00:50:33.100 Right.

00:50:33.840 Right?

00:50:34.100 It would be terrible.

00:50:35.160 But I want them to be set free.

00:50:36.700 Now, I'll tell you an interesting story.

00:50:37.960 When I was a hermit, my superior was the exorcist of Omaha.

00:50:42.180 And we had a deliverance ministry, an exorcism ministry.

00:50:45.040 It was sort of like the last call when you had a problem with the devil.

00:50:48.460 If your exorcist couldn't get him out, we had people flying in from all over the world that would stay with us.

00:50:53.100 Some for a week.

00:50:54.260 That one little nun that crawled the wall, she was there for over a year.

00:50:57.280 Took a year.

00:50:58.140 She was satanically, ritually abused as a baby.

00:51:01.180 And she didn't know it.

00:51:03.100 And so that had to all come out.

00:51:05.380 That's another time.

00:51:07.280 So while we're there.

00:51:09.420 Before you move on.

00:51:10.960 No, no, no.

00:51:11.680 Okay.

00:51:12.080 All right.

00:51:12.320 I'll ask about it after.

00:51:13.060 So this man who thinks he's a woman comes.

00:51:16.860 This is long before.

00:51:18.480 I was there from 2005 to 2010.

00:51:20.560 So think about that.

00:51:21.160 This is back when gay was the big thing, not transgender.

00:51:23.940 And the mother of this young man said he wanted her approval.

00:51:29.580 And she said, I can't approve of this.

00:51:31.320 But if you go on a retreat to this group and you really go on the retreat for the purpose of opening your heart to God, I will.

00:51:38.040 If you come back and say you still want to be a woman, I will bless it.

00:51:41.520 So he comes.

00:51:43.040 So this is an intense program.

00:51:44.580 So he's there for eight days.

00:51:45.880 Three times a day he gets prayed with a group of men over him, right?

00:51:49.900 And we're releasing images of what we see about how God loves him.

00:51:52.920 And there's another group discerning on the side.

00:51:55.460 We're lifting him up and asking God to show us how to pray for him.

00:51:58.580 And then he's coming to mass.

00:52:00.060 And, you know, it's intense, right?

00:52:01.440 Every day.

00:52:02.440 We're not getting a lot of breakthroughs in the beginning.

00:52:05.140 And then one of the discernment teams finally said, you know, Lord, is there something we're missing?

00:52:10.840 And the whole team got images of the father.

00:52:15.960 And we're like, we don't know much about who's the father.

00:52:18.580 Like, what about, you know, because he had a father.

00:52:21.480 So one of the nuns says to the exes, can we have permission to call his mother who sent him here?

00:52:28.320 So sure, go call her.

00:52:29.460 So they call her.

00:52:31.000 What's the deal with the father?

00:52:33.480 And she starts crying.

00:52:34.640 She goes, I never wanted him to know.

00:52:36.060 But I got pregnant before I got married to what he thinks is his father.

00:52:41.400 But that's not his father.

00:52:43.660 And then she got pregnant by the new man who was married to her.

00:52:50.840 And it was a daughter.

00:52:52.360 And he did favor the daughter because it was his.

00:52:54.680 And subconsciously, this little boy learned, if I want to be loved by my dad, I have to be a girl.

00:53:01.860 But he didn't know this.

00:53:03.080 It was all, like, subconscious.

00:53:04.580 Right.

00:53:04.780 And so when we finally learned this and then started praying against the spirits of diversity and division and all these things,

00:53:15.740 we took him through him being created by God in a meditation.

00:53:20.740 And now God's looking upon you.

00:53:23.280 And out of his love, he's creating you.

00:53:24.720 And he creates your little heart.

00:53:26.260 And it begins to beat.

00:53:27.600 And he creates your little feet and your hands, your legs.

00:53:29.920 And then he creates your genitals as a boy.

00:53:32.900 And the demon went insane, screaming, these screeches from hell like you could never hear coming from a human.

00:53:42.520 And that was the signal.

00:53:44.900 Like, this is, we got it.

00:53:45.860 This is it.

00:53:47.100 We went back in, took authority over that spirit, threw that out, went back to the creation story, worked through the whole thing,

00:53:53.280 got up to the genitals.

00:53:55.340 He received it.

00:53:56.860 He embraced it.

00:53:58.260 Went through the rest of his body.

00:54:00.240 Finished with a closing prayer of gratitude.

00:54:01.900 Prayed a prayer of protection over him.

00:54:05.180 He went home loving being a man.

00:54:07.780 And he eventually got married to a woman.

00:54:11.220 The way you describe it, and I want to get back to the nun crawling up the wall because that's very interesting.

00:54:20.180 The way you describe it is like an exterminator going into a basement and clearing out cockroaches.

00:54:27.140 The way you're, just very methodical.

00:54:29.340 Okay, we're here, and these guys are doing this, and I'm doing this, and then we go through this, and that wasn't catching, and not this.

00:54:34.520 Okay, and then we kind of identified a problem here.

00:54:37.020 Then we investigated it on the phone.

00:54:38.880 And then we figured, okay, so then we had to go back in with this spiritual chemical and go in with this spiritual tool.

00:54:44.200 And then we cleaned it out.

00:54:45.020 Went back just to make sure it was all cleared out.

00:54:46.740 And then we're all good to go.

00:54:48.160 Yeah.

00:54:48.540 Time for dinner.

00:54:48.860 It's not a science.

00:54:50.740 It's not.

00:54:51.260 There's, it's sort of like firemen who work with fire.

00:54:54.580 There's principles you can guarantee will always be the same.

00:54:57.640 Yeah.

00:54:57.800 But you can't guarantee the way the fire is going to go in particular every single time.

00:55:02.580 And that's because the person is individual.

00:55:04.740 And their own life experience brings that to the table, which is different from the last guy we just worked with.

00:55:10.360 So you do have to, this is the best way to approach anything with God is, I am your child.

00:55:16.060 I'm here to serve you and help you with this person, but you got to show me what to do.

00:55:21.140 Isn't that kind of what our lady said?

00:55:22.720 I'm available, but I can't do that.

00:55:24.780 So let it be done according to your word.

00:55:26.960 You brought this person here for help.

00:55:29.240 Show us what to do and we'll do it.

00:55:31.440 Right.

00:55:32.200 And that works very well.

00:55:35.500 Is this a job that you wanted?

00:55:37.200 Obviously being a Catholic priest is, being an exorcist.

00:55:39.800 No, not in particular.

00:55:42.040 I didn't want to be a priest.

00:55:43.880 I didn't want to be in the church.

00:55:46.320 I mean, come on.

00:55:47.660 Who could make this up, right?

00:55:50.100 No.

00:55:50.480 And generally, if you want to be the exorcist, that's a pretty good sign that you shouldn't be.

00:55:53.960 Because if you're fascinated by the devil, that's not a good thing.

00:55:59.040 He's to be respected in the fact that he's more powerful than I am.

00:56:04.180 And it's only by God's power that I do what I do.

00:56:07.300 It's nothing is from me.

00:56:08.640 I am just the conduit that he works through.

00:56:12.300 And I tend to be, probably in a bad way, fearless, which is helpful with this ministry.

00:56:17.260 I don't get afraid because I really, if you want me to do it, I'm going to do it, but you have to protect me.

00:56:22.120 And I can't imagine why you'd let him hurt me.

00:56:24.020 Although one, I did have a woman who literally was on the floor like a snake.

00:56:32.120 And I had my little handler next to me to protect me.

00:56:35.680 And we're in a chapel in front of the blessed sacraments in the tabernacle.

00:56:41.360 I'm doing the prayers.

00:56:42.720 And she flew off the floor in one movement.

00:56:46.700 It wasn't like she got up.

00:56:47.780 It was when, and she took my stole and wrapped it around my neck and started choking me.

00:56:52.500 And it was a choke that was blocking my air.

00:56:56.360 And I kept looking at my friend here and I'm like, do something.

00:57:00.160 He's like, no.

00:57:02.040 And I finally said, in the name of Jesus, stop.

00:57:04.600 And she fell on the floor again.

00:57:06.060 But that's the only time I've been attacked.

00:57:08.720 Also worth mentioning, you're a pretty big guy.

00:57:11.820 I mean, the idea that some smaller woman would be able to actually choke you seems implausible to me.

00:57:18.460 Well, flying off the floor seems implausible too.

00:57:20.360 Flying off the floor also seems...

00:57:21.860 So when I saw that, I'm like, this is not good.

00:57:24.080 Speaking of the other woman that you alluded to before, the nun,

00:57:28.140 you said she was satanically, ritually abused as a kid.

00:57:32.240 This is the sort of thing when that phrase comes up,

00:57:35.100 the really respectable liberal people will tell you,

00:57:39.220 oh, that's a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

00:57:41.340 That doesn't happen.

00:57:42.500 Get off your tinfoil hat.

00:57:43.940 There's no satanic ritual abuse that goes on.

00:57:46.180 And yet, it does.

00:57:49.540 Oh, yes.

00:57:50.660 Why would they have reason to say that?

00:57:53.000 How can you disprove something just because you haven't seen it?

00:57:56.840 That's not logical.

00:57:58.040 This is the part that a lot of people who are a little more secular or skeptical of all these,

00:58:03.900 this is the part that they often get hung up on.

00:58:05.760 It's not that someone would sexually abuse somebody else.

00:58:09.000 It's not that someone would beat somebody else.

00:58:11.660 It's not that someone would murder somebody else.

00:58:15.500 It's that they would do it in a satanic ritual.

00:58:20.240 That's the part that seems so absurd.

00:58:23.340 If this is just a material world and we're all just bags of chemicals,

00:58:26.300 why would people engage in satanic ritual abuse?

00:58:28.560 And what even is that?

00:58:29.480 Okay, so satanic ritual abuse is when usually it's a family member, like a parent or a grandparent.

00:58:37.140 Usually it's not the parent, but a relative who takes the child and performs a ritual abuse,

00:58:44.660 like a rape on a baby, which involves blood, and they consecrate the child to the devil.

00:58:49.680 Well, why would you do that?

00:58:51.500 Because it gives them great power.

00:58:54.540 The devil asks for payment.

00:58:56.040 What are you going to give me?

00:58:57.280 I want one of the kids.

00:58:59.300 And so they do.

00:59:00.400 And they don't have to actually murder them,

00:59:01.820 although sometimes there are SRA victims who are killed.

00:59:06.360 Halloween is the number one time of year for the most human sacrifice to the devil on the planet.

00:59:13.500 People go, that's ridiculous.

00:59:14.640 Halloween's just about candy.

00:59:16.640 It's not.

00:59:17.300 In fact, in New York City, Father LeBar was telling me that it's the number one week leading up to Halloween

00:59:23.520 where the most homeless go missing.

00:59:27.800 There's these unmarked vans that come around and offer to take them to shelters and get meals for them,

00:59:32.140 and they just bind them, and they keep them, and they satanically sacrifice them on Halloween.

00:59:40.060 Who does this?

00:59:41.800 These are people in a cult.

00:59:44.560 You know?

00:59:45.760 Um...

00:59:47.300 They keep hidden.

00:59:49.520 I mean, obviously, if they were mainstream, that would be a bigger problem.

00:59:52.200 But if that day comes, you know, then I'm going underground.

00:59:54.980 Yeah.

00:59:55.500 But they're out there.

00:59:57.280 And, uh...

00:59:58.820 You know, when I went off to exorcism training in Rome, um...

01:00:04.140 The things...

01:00:05.100 These are seasoned exorcists that have been doing this for 20, 30 years,

01:00:07.960 that come in to teach what they've learned and what they've experienced.

01:00:10.620 One of the most interesting things was a case of a doctor, a medical doctor, in Rome, who was invited to go to a party.

01:00:18.580 And they said, you know, there's a way you can, like, triple your income like that.

01:00:21.900 Just come to this party.

01:00:22.840 He's like, okay.

01:00:24.640 Goes.

01:00:25.080 It was a very normal party.

01:00:26.100 Very, you know, bougie, high-end.

01:00:29.100 Drinks are flowing.

01:00:30.740 Heavy hors d'oeuvres.

01:00:31.860 Beautiful setting.

01:00:32.720 And then all of a sudden, all these people come out with the black robes and hoods.

01:00:39.320 And this weird ritual begins.

01:00:42.620 There was something done to a child, but it wasn't murdered.

01:00:46.060 But it was foul.

01:00:48.440 And he was a bit horrified.

01:00:50.840 And then they came over to him and said,

01:00:53.240 we understand that you're interested in increasing your income.

01:00:57.440 And he goes, well, I don't know about any of this.

01:01:00.140 I just wanted a get-rich-quick scheme.

01:01:02.520 Like, you know, like, yeah, he's like, well, we're not going to ask you to do that.

01:01:05.360 Well, you can just give us one of your children.

01:01:07.400 He goes, what do you mean give me one of my children?

01:01:09.520 They go, just spiritually, not physically.

01:01:12.220 And so he says, well, then you can have my daughter.

01:01:16.240 I don't know.

01:01:16.980 You look at me like that because I have the same mentality.

01:01:19.340 Who would do this?

01:01:20.660 But for some reason, he just had the influence over him that he would do it.

01:01:25.320 Within 24 hours, the daughter starts having nightmares,

01:01:28.580 then night terrors, then she's suicidal.

01:01:30.580 And the father knows what's going on.

01:01:33.380 So he finally tells the wife.

01:01:35.600 And the wife is, you know, as you can imagine, she's through the roof.

01:01:38.280 So she calls the bishop, gets the exorcist involved.

01:01:41.800 The exorcist says, this is a high-powered group running around Rome.

01:01:45.420 This is not the first case we've heard of.

01:01:47.580 But they're not going to let you out.

01:01:48.880 So we can do the exorcism of your daughter, but then you have to leave Rome.

01:01:54.640 And he packed up and moved to South Italy because he was frightened from these people

01:02:00.680 when he saw what they did.

01:02:02.680 So you don't have to believe it, but that doesn't mean it's not real.

01:02:06.980 Right. And when you see these sorts of symbols all over the place, in your face,

01:02:14.240 from Hollywood or wherever else, you have to think, okay, well, the symbols mean something.

01:02:17.640 Some producer is making the choice to put this symbol out there.

01:02:21.040 People are engaging in these things.

01:02:22.200 Even the videos that come out of all these weird secret societies

01:02:25.420 where, you know, one of them, they're worshipping a big owl statue.

01:02:29.980 And the Bohemians.

01:02:31.120 Yeah, the Bohemian Grove or the, you see these, I know of certain rituals, you know,

01:02:37.080 from secret societies at my own alma mater where, and everyone thinks they're just kind of fun

01:02:43.320 and, you know, okay, you get into a coffin or something like that.

01:02:46.880 And probably the people doing it just think it's kind of a fun thing.

01:02:50.100 But it is, but you are doing it.

01:02:52.380 It is a ritual.

01:02:53.320 Even if you think it's just a silly little act to go worship an owl in the woods.

01:02:58.240 Well, why are you doing it?

01:02:59.520 Does it have some meaning?

01:03:02.260 Yes.

01:03:02.720 And because we're corporal beings, we have bodies, what we do matters.

01:03:10.080 What we do matters.

01:03:11.400 And a lot of people think, well, I didn't mean anything by it.

01:03:14.440 Well, that doesn't matter.

01:03:15.140 When I do this, the Lord knows I'm invoking the Trinity.

01:03:19.540 Now, if a pagan does that, are they invoking the Trinity?

01:03:21.980 No.

01:03:22.600 But it probably still gets the Lord's attention.

01:03:25.060 Look, there's somebody making the sign of the cross, but they don't know us.

01:03:28.220 Maybe we'll go visit them.

01:03:29.960 The devil does the same thing.

01:03:32.120 You know, a lot of the ritual things people do, a lot of the yoga movements were originally

01:03:37.780 tied to spiritual entities.

01:03:40.780 And so when you make the movement, even though you're not thinking I'm inviting this thing

01:03:44.260 in, maybe you are.

01:03:45.580 So I tell people, you know, be intentional with what you do and do the things you desire to

01:03:53.320 do and don't do the things you don't mean to do.

01:03:55.460 Because what a horrible thing to go through life not knowing that all the things we do

01:04:00.480 actually have an impact in the spiritual climate.

01:04:04.500 You know, when I sin, even if it's a personal sin, pornography, it has effects on other people.

01:04:11.400 Right.

01:04:11.900 Right.

01:04:13.340 This we saw in religious life.

01:04:15.660 Because when you live in a house with nine guys, you know, when one guy falls and commits

01:04:21.280 a sin against lust, that spirit goes through the whole house.

01:04:25.820 And the next morning, everybody comes down to breakfast and is like, so who's the idiot

01:04:30.240 who...

01:04:31.140 Really?

01:04:31.560 Oh, yeah.

01:04:32.440 Yeah.

01:04:33.800 Yeah.

01:04:34.160 You can feel it because then you're all attacked.

01:04:36.200 And then if you're honest with each other, as usually religious are, it's like something's

01:04:40.660 in the house.

01:04:41.560 Did anybody get attacked?

01:04:42.320 Oh, yes.

01:04:42.760 I did too.

01:04:43.180 I did too.

01:04:43.660 And then we're like, I'm sorry.

01:04:44.840 That was probably my fault.

01:04:45.740 Well, when we're talking about these groups, you know, you mentioned the Bohemians or all

01:04:52.240 these weird kind of cult things, it's often powerful people who are associated with them.

01:04:59.740 All the stories about the Freemasons.

01:05:01.000 And then you think, well, it says right there in the gospel that the devil is the prince of

01:05:07.560 this world and their principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

01:05:11.120 So not to get too far down the rabbit hole, but I've been convinced over the last three

01:05:17.880 years that the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is about six to nine

01:05:21.260 months.

01:05:23.360 Is that stuff just all true?

01:05:26.280 What stuff do you speak of?

01:05:29.600 That these weird societies that have weird black hoods that show up at these cocktail parties

01:05:34.380 in Rome with the canapé and the champagne, that they actually exist and powerful people

01:05:39.300 are parts of...

01:05:40.180 They do exist.

01:05:41.120 And they believe it.

01:05:42.440 I believe the elite are part of it.

01:05:45.200 Would I say every rich person is involved?

01:05:47.340 No.

01:05:48.340 Like, there's the St. Edwards out there.

01:05:49.880 Yeah.

01:05:50.320 But I think at a certain level, you get invited in, just like that doctor, right?

01:05:55.420 And he's certainly not at that level.

01:05:57.240 But there is a story I came upon about a year ago of a Swiss banker at the highest level

01:06:05.160 of banking.

01:06:05.560 So we're talking global banking of billions and billions and billions of dollars.

01:06:11.120 And he was also brought into this whole group where they were doing human sacrifice.

01:06:15.740 And he knew he was going to have to do it at some point.

01:06:19.100 And so he went to a journalist and recorded everything.

01:06:23.140 And he said in his, you know, basically his story of what was going on, I don't expect to

01:06:31.760 be alive in a week, but this has to be told.

01:06:34.140 And three days later, he was found face down in a bog, dead.

01:06:41.520 And, you know, when that happens and somebody has the nerve to step up, you don't risk your

01:06:47.640 life for something that's not true.

01:06:49.520 Right?

01:06:50.460 This is my friends who are skeptical of Christianity.

01:06:55.140 They'll say, well, maybe it's just all a legend.

01:06:57.020 Maybe it's all kind of made up.

01:06:58.080 And I thought, well, 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrection and, you know, the gospels were

01:07:02.680 written, earliest gospels written within just a few decades of the resurrection.

01:07:06.440 And putting all of that aside, why would these, why would 11 of these guys go off to their

01:07:12.940 deaths?

01:07:13.960 And St. John goes and lives a long life, but the rest all go off to their deaths all around

01:07:17.960 the world for a lie or something that was fake.

01:07:21.960 They wouldn't.

01:07:22.580 They wouldn't.

01:07:23.040 They wouldn't.

01:07:23.360 And on top of the fact that if you looked at the church as a corporation in the world

01:07:29.540 of commerce and industry, it is only by the grace of God that something run inept for

01:07:38.540 so long could be still thriving, you know, given all the bad periods and the mismanagement

01:07:43.980 of things.

01:07:44.580 And I'm not mocking the church, but it's had such terrible missteps and it still goes

01:07:51.360 forward because Jesus is the head.

01:07:55.260 And only by that does the church continue.

01:07:57.880 But if it was left just to men, it would be over.

01:07:59.920 Yeah, Hilary Bell.

01:08:00.720 Clearly.

01:08:01.520 Didn't he say the way that he, he has to take the church's divine institution on faith,

01:08:07.160 but a mark of it for the unbelievers is that no other institution governed with such

01:08:11.760 knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight?

01:08:13.800 True, true.

01:08:16.320 So the, getting back all the way to the first thing we were talking about, the people who

01:08:20.400 say, look, father, you seem like a reasonable guy, but you're getting off in some crazy things

01:08:25.080 that I don't even think exist.

01:08:26.580 I don't believe that there is such a thing as evil.

01:08:28.860 Evil certainly doesn't have a personality.

01:08:32.640 How can you believe that some things are better than other things?

01:08:37.220 How can you believe that it's better to bake a pie for a widow than it is to kick a

01:08:43.200 baby in the head, which I think probably most people would agree to, and not extrapolate

01:08:48.660 from that, that there is such a thing as good, and there is such a thing as evil?

01:08:54.740 The modern world somehow can't go from something we all agree on to, okay, good and evil actually

01:09:01.000 do exist.

01:09:02.300 How do you make sense of that?

01:09:03.400 I think it's so clear, I don't understand if somebody says that.

01:09:08.180 Again, if you're talking about non-believers, different category, but if you're a Christian...

01:09:11.780 That is what I am talking about, non-believers.

01:09:13.420 Yeah.

01:09:14.060 Well, if you can't see good and evil in this world, I think you're blind.

01:09:21.420 I mean, how could you look at the news and not see good and evil?

01:09:24.620 Mostly evil.

01:09:25.520 They don't put the good on.

01:09:26.400 I mean, really?

01:09:29.160 So if someone pushed you on the train tracks to kill you, that would be okay?

01:09:33.580 There's not evil there?

01:09:36.280 I mean, I think it usually hits people when it's them, right?

01:09:40.140 So we just saw...

01:09:41.640 Who was it?

01:09:42.340 It was one of the congresswomen who was pro-defunding the police, but then she was just involved

01:09:49.360 in a mugging, and now she's...

01:09:51.480 We need the police.

01:09:52.960 Guess why?

01:09:53.560 Because it actually affected her.

01:09:54.960 Right.

01:09:55.160 So when it comes to your door, then they believe.

01:09:59.020 So maybe that's the...

01:09:59.860 You know, that was the prayer of St. Paul.

01:10:02.240 Let us cast his flesh to the devil so his soul might be saved.

01:10:05.460 It's a harsh way to treat somebody, but it'd be better to come to reality before death...

01:10:10.420 Right.

01:10:10.800 ...than lose eternal life.

01:10:12.640 Well, you know, in recent decades, the Catholic teaching on the death penalty has become a little

01:10:17.680 more ambiguous, I guess, because for most of the history of the church, capital punishment

01:10:23.500 was not only accepted as being perfectly fine, doctors of the church assented to it.

01:10:29.040 In fact, popes, including Blessed Pius IX, carried out executions and refused to grant

01:10:35.260 clemency, even in some cases.

01:10:36.560 I think it was one of the final, if not the final execution in the papal states, Blessed

01:10:42.140 Pope Pius IX was asked for a reprieve, and he said, I cannot do it, and I do not want

01:10:47.920 to.

01:10:48.820 And the guy was executed in the papal states.

01:10:50.520 But now we're told, no, this is a horrible thing.

01:10:54.720 And if not intrinsically evil, it's impermissible in all of these cases.

01:11:00.080 I think, can't it be an act of compassion, not only to society, to protect society from

01:11:05.520 a...

01:11:05.740 It is.

01:11:06.620 And here's the problem with our Holy Father for this situation.

01:11:11.140 He's thinking, and maybe rightly so, that we live in a time of civilization where there

01:11:17.460 is no reason why we can't segregate mass murderers from the rest of the population, because clearly

01:11:22.940 we can build prisons that way, right?

01:11:24.540 We can.

01:11:25.860 But that doesn't address the indigenous peoples living in the jungle.

01:11:31.200 How are they supposed to put those people?

01:11:33.200 In a tree house?

01:11:34.500 Right.

01:11:35.160 No.

01:11:35.620 They're going to get out.

01:11:36.360 And he's not probably thinking about that.

01:11:38.020 But even worse, let's say, God forbid, there's electromagnetic pulse goes off over America,

01:11:46.920 and all this goes away.

01:11:48.180 No electricity, no lights.

01:11:50.080 The prisons now can't house people privately.

01:11:53.520 That's when that would kick in again.

01:11:55.080 But you can't just take it away, because in one state and time, it doesn't make sense.

01:12:00.120 Because if you don't need to use it, you don't use it, right?

01:12:04.660 So just because we have the ability to keep people in prison separately, and we're not going

01:12:09.460 to perhaps do that, then you don't just take it off the table.

01:12:12.400 Because next week, what if we have to use it?

01:12:15.620 Because we've had the worst devastation in the country.

01:12:18.760 What if they do drop a bomb on a country, and that country is obliterated, and they

01:12:23.460 have mass rovings of gangs raping and murdering people?

01:12:26.960 You have to do something for the general population.

01:12:29.740 And if the only way to protect the innocent is to kill the ones doing the murdering,

01:12:35.380 then that has to be done.

01:12:36.860 Of course.

01:12:37.380 Because they're not innocent.

01:12:39.060 Murder is the taking of innocent life.

01:12:41.100 That's the definition.

01:12:43.860 Right.

01:12:45.040 Well, the ones being murdered in their homes by the pillagers are the innocent.

01:12:50.520 They're killing.

01:12:51.280 That makes them not innocent.

01:12:52.960 I especially think of the state of our civilization.

01:12:55.300 We seem to be trending in a pretty bad direction.

01:12:57.240 So as you say, there's a fair chance that in the not-so-distant future, we're not quite

01:13:02.480 so able to segregate all the mass murders.

01:13:04.360 And I even think, I can't help but...

01:13:06.220 They can't even protect people in Chicago.

01:13:08.260 Right.

01:13:08.780 Washington, San Francisco.

01:13:09.740 So I don't, you know, come on.

01:13:11.640 At what point?

01:13:12.740 That has to be, I'm not going to go there.

01:13:15.060 That has to be fixed in other ways.

01:13:16.180 But you can see how this is a devolvement of society is happening.

01:13:21.860 I also can't help but notice, Father, we've cut around it a couple of times.

01:13:26.300 Every time we're getting into a topic, there has been some weird sound that goes off in

01:13:32.980 this building.

01:13:33.400 Maybe it's just the degradation of society that we can't even keep the buildings and the

01:13:37.200 studios running anymore.

01:13:38.500 But I've done a lot of these interviews, Father, and I don't want to make you feel bad and make

01:13:43.220 you think it's just you.

01:13:44.320 But you come in here.

01:13:45.120 We've had to pause and stop and cut and restart this interview almost every seven to ten minutes.

01:13:51.180 And then only when I said, okay, well, let's just include it and I'll mention it.

01:13:54.680 And I'll mention these weird situations in the film.

01:13:57.680 Only once I said that, we haven't had a problem since.

01:14:00.900 I'm not saying it's you, Father.

01:14:04.060 It could be.

01:14:04.680 I think it might be you.

01:14:06.380 I think it's me, too.

01:14:07.920 This happens to me.

01:14:09.400 My whole life is like this now.

01:14:11.760 So part of my life is just surrendering and saying, Lord, you get done what you want done.

01:14:16.540 And well, I'll just take authority when I have to.

01:14:20.020 I'm not surprised.

01:14:21.220 I think of Father John Vianney, St. John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, who the devil

01:14:27.300 would bother him all the time.

01:14:28.360 And Pio, too.

01:14:29.180 And Padre Pio.

01:14:30.240 So there's a story of St. John Vianney in the confessional.

01:14:32.920 He's hearing from a penitent.

01:14:34.460 And the church starts shaking or something flies across the room.

01:14:37.540 Something crazy.

01:14:38.020 The penitent's terrified.

01:14:39.320 And St. John Vianney says, oh, don't worry about that.

01:14:42.180 That's just the devil.

01:14:43.760 Don't worry.

01:14:44.100 St. John Vianney's bed catches fire.

01:14:45.780 He says, oh, no, that's just the stupid little grapain he called.

01:14:48.600 Oh, just ignore him.

01:14:49.980 You know what he said?

01:14:50.680 He said he couldn't catch the bird, so he burned the birdcage.

01:14:53.640 It seems like some similar things might happen if one were an exorcist.

01:15:01.980 There's a lot of harassment because I'm directly stepping on his tail in a way most people can't.

01:15:09.600 So yeah, there's pushback.

01:15:11.220 But there's also protections against him, too.

01:15:13.180 So I have a profound love of Our Lady because she's the one who will crush the serpent's head.

01:15:21.420 And that will give him tremendous scandal.

01:15:25.100 It's one thing to be crushed by God because everybody knows God is God.

01:15:29.260 But to be crushed by a diminutive little Jewish woman.

01:15:33.180 A nice Jewish mother.

01:15:34.740 Oh, my goodness.

01:15:35.980 The scandal and the humiliation that he'll suffer.

01:15:40.860 You've mentioned Our Lady a few times.

01:15:43.180 Rightly so.

01:15:44.660 And notice a number of our Protestant viewers.

01:15:47.380 They'll say, Michael, I love everything you're saying about Jesus.

01:15:49.780 I'm totally on board.

01:15:50.760 But I just can't get into the Mary stuff.

01:15:53.680 I just don't get it.

01:15:54.980 Why do you guys care so much about Mary?

01:15:57.660 And even when I reverted, I had trouble with all the Mary aspects of Catholicism for a long time.

01:16:04.040 If not trouble, at least it was confusing to me.

01:16:07.440 Okay.

01:16:08.200 Well, let's say somebody gets to meet you.

01:16:10.580 And they find out you're a great guy.

01:16:12.900 And they like you.

01:16:13.480 And you start hanging out and going to dinner.

01:16:15.300 And they love everything you think and say and do.

01:16:18.360 They like your show, your ideals.

01:16:20.960 And then you invite this person home and say, I want you to meet my mom.

01:16:27.640 This is the person I love most in the world because she made me.

01:16:31.440 She's my mom.

01:16:32.220 She's my mom.

01:16:33.480 And everything I have, I give tribute to her.

01:16:36.940 How could you not want to meet this woman?

01:16:39.160 It's the person you're most, maybe after God the Father, would be most in love with.

01:16:46.480 Yeah.

01:16:46.980 If you think of it on those terms, this is the person Jesus loved most on the planet.

01:16:51.240 And if you really love him, wouldn't you want to know her?

01:16:54.480 She's not God.

01:16:55.460 But he's given her great authority and power and the ability to distribute grace through

01:17:02.360 her hands because of his love for her.

01:17:06.200 And the only thing she does is lead people back to him.

01:17:10.140 If they came to know that, they would be running to her.

01:17:14.160 Because the fastest way to get close to Jesus is to go through his mother.

01:17:18.540 Because he designed it that way.

01:17:20.340 Not because it has to be.

01:17:22.100 He wanted it to be.

01:17:22.920 This is the way he came to meet us, through her.

01:17:25.460 And so he wants us to go through her to meet him, similarly going back.

01:17:29.620 I think of the wedding at Cana, first public miracle of our Lord.

01:17:33.500 And what happens?

01:17:35.440 They run out of wine.

01:17:37.360 And Our Lady says, hey, they ran out of wine.

01:17:41.360 Go fix up the wine.

01:17:42.600 And Christ says, well, what is it between you and me, woman?

01:17:45.760 My time has not yet come.

01:17:47.440 And then she says, hey, to the steward, listen to him.

01:17:52.020 That's her role in the miracle is to say, hey, listen to my son.

01:17:54.580 Yeah, do whatever he tells you.

01:17:56.060 But if you back up even further, if you read the way that was written, it was very carefully written.

01:17:59.860 It says, Mary was invited to the wedding.

01:18:04.240 And also Jesus.

01:18:06.380 So she's the primary guest.

01:18:08.040 She knew the family.

01:18:10.080 He was the add-on.

01:18:11.800 Plus one.

01:18:12.400 Because he was the child.

01:18:13.420 Yeah.

01:18:13.560 Even though he's grown.

01:18:15.480 And so that was a point made about that she was the real guest that knew the family the most.

01:18:22.820 And Jesus came, too.

01:18:24.420 But it's through.

01:18:26.760 So I always tell people when you get married, invite.

01:18:29.520 Of course, Jesus is the third person in your marriage.

01:18:31.220 But invite his mother in, too.

01:18:33.060 You know?

01:18:33.340 Because look what she did.

01:18:34.180 And when you look at that miracle, the maitre d' is the one who tastes the wine.

01:18:41.860 But he has no idea where it came from.

01:18:43.760 It was the little humble servants.

01:18:46.300 When he said, fill up these stone jars, it says they filled them to the brim.

01:18:51.680 You know how much a stone jar would weigh that holds 30 gallons?

01:18:55.300 It would weigh a lot.

01:18:57.100 And so I would be like, maybe he doesn't need the whole thing.

01:18:59.660 Maybe we'll just fill it halfway.

01:19:01.180 No, they filled it to the brim.

01:19:02.160 They were obedient, and they were the ones privy to the miracle.

01:19:07.120 So if you want to be, if you want to view miracles, if you want to see miracles in your life,

01:19:12.140 get a front row seat by being humble and obedient.

01:19:16.360 And you'll always have that front row seat.

01:19:19.340 I can't help but notice we came here to talk about demons.

01:19:22.240 We're spending most of our time talking about God.

01:19:24.560 I guess that's the way it should be.

01:19:25.820 It's the way it should be.

01:19:28.480 C.S. Lewis made some point about this.

01:19:30.220 Maybe in Screwtape, I forget where, where he said,

01:19:33.980 you have to think about demons enough to know that they exist and to watch out for them.

01:19:39.480 But you shouldn't think about them very much.

01:19:42.840 You shouldn't.

01:19:44.100 You have to be aware of them.

01:19:45.620 You have to know how to deal with them, which most people don't.

01:19:48.780 What authority you have as a child of God, then you have authority.

01:19:54.200 You have authority over your own person.

01:19:56.040 You have authority over your wife.

01:19:57.160 You have authority over your children.

01:19:58.620 And you can cast things out if they're harassing them.

01:20:00.980 But curiosity is not a virtue.

01:20:05.740 And if you start digging into the occult and the dark world and things like that,

01:20:12.280 you're opening a door.

01:20:14.840 And you might not be strong enough to close it.

01:20:16.980 And then you've invited something into your life that you don't want.

01:20:20.460 And then you have to call me.

01:20:23.420 Someone wrote into my show, said, Michael, if you could meet the devil.

01:20:27.320 I said, I don't know.

01:20:27.840 I probably have met the devil a few times.

01:20:29.340 I just don't wish I had met him twice.

01:20:31.380 You've met him twice?

01:20:32.120 Personally.

01:20:33.540 How'd that go?

01:20:36.320 Not well the first time.

01:20:38.160 Because I wasn't even a seminarian.

01:20:40.980 I was discerning.

01:20:42.300 I just came out of my life of sin.

01:20:46.840 I joined Our Lady of Victory, like I mentioned,

01:20:49.280 and this little old Polish priest who became my spiritual director.

01:20:54.320 And I remember one day I went in and I said, you know,

01:20:56.680 this job is killing me because it was a sales position.

01:21:00.540 I was entertaining big shots at all fancy restaurants every night, drinking, drinking, drinking.

01:21:05.540 I said, I can't balance this with trying to live this new life.

01:21:09.400 It's not working.

01:21:09.940 So he said to me, well, let's do this.

01:21:12.820 Why don't you, for the next month, you can go call ahead or go to the meet to the restaurant early

01:21:19.880 and tell the bartender when you order a drink that it would be just club soda, no vodka.

01:21:24.720 But you would order it publicly and then they won't know.

01:21:28.460 I said, I can do that.

01:21:29.540 So he said, no alcohol for a month.

01:21:30.960 So it's the middle of the day.

01:21:33.400 It's like noon.

01:21:33.980 I come out of the church and there's this, again, this beautiful, handsome man,

01:21:41.260 custom tailored suit.

01:21:43.920 And he's staring at me, which if you've ever lived in New York, you don't stare at people.

01:21:49.520 It's pretty unusual.

01:21:50.420 Very.

01:21:51.100 Like you put your, you don't, it's almost an attack.

01:21:53.900 Like I'm being attacked now.

01:21:55.240 I have to fight.

01:21:56.420 And I just was like, weird.

01:21:57.660 So I turned to walk towards my office and he runs up next to me and he grabs me by the arm.

01:22:05.000 Again, no guys do that.

01:22:07.500 No guy grabs somebody by the arm and is like escorting them.

01:22:11.120 And he goes, let's get a drink.

01:22:14.820 And I just had chills go up and down my body.

01:22:17.960 And I said, get away from me.

01:22:19.600 And then I turned direction and went towards my apartment because it was closer.

01:22:23.440 And I got to my apartment and I walked through the doors and the doors closed behind me.

01:22:27.320 And I looked out and he was just laughing at me.

01:22:30.300 And it was like, so he leaves and I run back to the church.

01:22:36.060 I go, Father, let me tell you what just happened.

01:22:38.560 What do you think happened here?

01:22:39.720 What is this?

01:22:40.220 He goes, I told you, you're going to have a target on your back.

01:22:42.760 So you got to be careful.

01:22:44.580 And I said, was that how I think it was?

01:22:46.100 And he goes, sounds like it.

01:22:49.100 Certainly seems that way.

01:22:49.920 I mean, that was just no random person for sure.

01:22:53.400 So that really, it's frightened me to be honest.

01:22:56.840 I was like, I didn't sign up for this at all.

01:22:59.760 And then a few years later, I was on a vacation visiting an old banker friend down in Miami.

01:23:05.900 And she set up a whole luncheon at this place called Nicky Beach, which really isn't appropriate for seminarians or priests.

01:23:16.060 It's very, again, it's the glitterati, the high-powered wealthy people.

01:23:20.760 It's bottle service on the beach.

01:23:22.420 Right, right.

01:23:22.940 And I'm just like, oh, this is, I don't know how I feel about this.

01:23:26.680 And the two girls to my right, I knew both of them, Sandra was hosting, and my ex-boss, Christine, was with me.

01:23:34.640 And they start looking at this guy across over by the other end of the deck.

01:23:39.820 Like, oh, my God, look at that guy.

01:23:41.280 He's so handsome.

01:23:42.040 My guy's beautiful.

01:23:43.220 And all of a sudden, Sandra's like, oh, he's coming over here.

01:23:46.080 And I turn and I look, and it's him.

01:23:49.340 It's the one that wanted to get the drink.

01:23:51.680 Like, only now he's, like, shirtless in a bathing suit.

01:23:55.300 And he walks up and he goes, what are you doing here?

01:23:57.980 I thought you were going to be a priest.

01:24:00.640 And he goes, this is my territory.

01:24:03.440 You shouldn't be here.

01:24:05.280 And both the girls got flipped out.

01:24:08.080 They were, like, they had the scare mechanism.

01:24:11.520 Like the face that I'm making right now?

01:24:13.500 Yeah, literally, like, you know, danger Will Robinson.

01:24:17.180 And Christine's like, get the check.

01:24:19.160 And she threw money down.

01:24:20.320 And she's like, we're out of here.

01:24:21.320 And we left.

01:24:22.920 But, like, when those things happen, God allowed it, right?

01:24:27.420 So for me, I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there.

01:24:30.820 And God was letting me know, you have no place going to places like that anymore.

01:24:34.640 Don't do that again.

01:24:35.840 Right.

01:24:36.600 The devil, whether he wants to be or not, can be a tool of God.

01:24:40.320 Absolutely.

01:24:41.440 Absolutely.

01:24:42.180 He's not more powerful than God.

01:24:43.340 He's nowhere near as powerful as God.

01:24:44.780 And his own will will be foiled in God's providence, ultimately.

01:24:50.340 And the fact that you had these friends there who saw it, who reacted that way, who can attest to it.

01:24:56.700 It wasn't just you had a daydream or something.

01:24:59.320 No, they were visibly shaken.

01:25:02.360 And to this day, they talk about it.

01:25:03.960 And they get spooked just talking about it.

01:25:07.620 I don't know.

01:25:08.580 When I say maybe I've met the devil, I mean, you know, I've engaged in all sorts of sins.

01:25:12.700 I don't know that I've ever actually met the devil.

01:25:14.680 But I'm pretty convinced I've met angels.

01:25:17.600 I'm quite convinced of that.

01:25:19.920 And also in New York.

01:25:23.100 New York is a spiritually rich place, I guess.

01:25:25.980 But improbable kinds of meetings.

01:25:28.300 Again, in New York, strangers don't come up to you.

01:25:30.160 They don't look at you.

01:25:31.640 Striking up conversations.

01:25:35.180 In the strangest of places.

01:25:36.620 I mean, I sometimes fear when I tell these stories that it's like when you wake up and you tell your wife about the dream you just had.

01:25:42.520 And she goes back to sleep before you get the first sentence out because it's so boring.

01:25:45.660 It's very interesting to the people who have the experiences.

01:25:48.000 But, you know, unless they're as shocking as you were to with the old devil.

01:25:54.140 But when those experiences happen, you meet someone, strike up a conversation.

01:25:59.240 There was one guy.

01:25:59.940 All right, I'll get into it.

01:26:00.740 There was one guy.

01:26:01.860 I was really down in the dumps.

01:26:03.360 I was working in politics and show business, as I guess I still am.

01:26:05.880 But, you know, I was just right out of college.

01:26:08.640 I was back in this reversion moment.

01:26:13.240 It was really spiritually rich.

01:26:14.740 There was a lot of temptation and sin.

01:26:16.680 And there was a lot of shocking grace and kind of numinous experience.

01:26:20.320 But I was kind of down in the dumps because I'm not doing great in my career.

01:26:25.400 I just got out of school.

01:26:26.200 I went from being the big man on campus to being some nobody guy in New York.

01:26:31.760 And I'm on the subway on the 6th train.

01:26:36.980 And I forget exactly which direction it was.

01:26:39.720 But it was either I got on or either this happened at 28th Street going uptown or 33rd Street going downtown.

01:26:46.100 Okay.

01:26:46.220 And I'm on the train.

01:26:48.980 And this kind of funny looking black guy and this lady walk onto the train.

01:26:52.560 And they're clearly together.

01:26:54.060 They go, you know, she's standing over here.

01:26:55.860 And then this guy sits down right next to me.

01:26:57.880 And I'm just trying to read my Kindle.

01:26:59.180 So he's just looking at me.

01:27:01.020 Just looking at me.

01:27:02.740 Says, hey, who are you?

01:27:06.200 It's like, huh?

01:27:07.120 Oh, I'm Michael.

01:27:09.120 He was like, oh, my name's Michael, too.

01:27:11.840 We're angels.

01:27:13.620 I said, I had just come back into leaving in God and the church and everything.

01:27:20.700 I said, oh, yeah, how about that?

01:27:21.860 He goes, so what do you do?

01:27:26.160 I said, oh, you know, I work in politics and show business.

01:27:29.880 So, you know, essentially unemployed.

01:27:32.320 You know, that's not the, I said, I'm not doing very much.

01:27:36.780 Yeah.

01:27:38.480 Don't worry about that.

01:27:39.740 You'll be great.

01:27:43.080 Train comes to a stop.

01:27:44.840 He stands up, walks off the train.

01:27:46.880 Doesn't even look at the woman he walked on the train.

01:27:49.260 And the thing that's so weird about this, and you will know this as a New Yorker, is on that train, 28th Street to 33rd Street, it's five blocks.

01:27:58.040 Yeah.

01:27:58.620 Nobody in New York is going to take the subway to go from 28th Street to 33rd Street or 33rd Street to 28th Street.

01:28:05.140 Nobody's going to take the 6th Street to go five blocks.

01:28:07.740 You would take it to go 33rd Street to Brooklyn Bridge.

01:28:12.140 Yeah.

01:28:12.280 You would take it to, but no, that's one of the shortest intervals, maybe the shortest in the New York City subway system.

01:28:18.460 No one's doing that.

01:28:19.920 And I thought, look, it's such a minor trivial, but I can't.

01:28:23.160 It's a good point, though.

01:28:24.080 I couldn't explain it.

01:28:26.560 And I thought, and then I just thought, well, what does that mean?

01:28:30.240 What does that mean?

01:28:31.180 What am I supposed to take from that?

01:28:33.720 A little support.

01:28:35.340 That's what I took from it.

01:28:36.540 All I thought was just God saying, hey, I'm here.

01:28:39.740 I'm here.

01:28:40.380 You know.

01:28:41.860 It's just sort of like, hey, buddy.

01:28:43.880 Boo.

01:28:44.600 You know.

01:28:45.320 Yeah.

01:28:45.680 I'll tell you something, though, about people who believe and people who don't believe.

01:28:48.760 I think if you go through life, when these little things happen, believing, for the most part, believe everything, right?

01:28:58.220 Yeah.

01:28:58.500 What's the harm?

01:28:59.480 Is it going to harm you?

01:29:00.560 No.

01:29:01.940 But it actually makes you live a more uplifted, happy life than somebody who goes through their whole life believing nothing.

01:29:12.800 Because that's a horrible way to live, to believe nothing is happening.

01:29:15.600 It's almost like there's two strains of thought about how you interact with the world, especially in New York.

01:29:23.460 You can believe everybody's out to get you, and occasionally somebody's nice.

01:29:28.380 Or you can believe everybody's basically nice, and occasionally they fail you.

01:29:32.080 It's so much better to live thinking everybody's basically pretty good, and one or two people are going to get you, and it's, okay, I'll deal with it.

01:29:39.080 Yeah.

01:29:39.240 But to think everybody's out to get you, then every moment of your life is in defense and attack mode.

01:29:45.840 That's no way to live.

01:29:47.060 Yeah.

01:29:48.060 I know people that their marriages are like that.

01:29:50.240 Like they're in a marriage where they feel like they're in a battle all the time, and I'm like, you're not going to make it.

01:29:55.880 You can't go that long in that kind of a stressful zone without somebody giving up.

01:30:01.140 What do you say to people, many have asked me this too, say, I want to believe.

01:30:08.160 I think Christianity is good.

01:30:10.320 I think it's good to go to church.

01:30:12.500 I recognize the life I'm living is kind of dissolute and pointless, and I'm somewhat depressed.

01:30:17.000 But I want to believe.

01:30:19.520 I just can't.

01:30:21.600 Faith is a gift.

01:30:23.740 Ask for the gift.

01:30:25.300 It's that simple.

01:30:26.460 But the biggest blockage to believing is pride.

01:30:30.720 That's really true.

01:30:31.860 Pride is the mother of all sins.

01:30:34.460 And so it would be good to think about all the ways in your life you've blocked God or rejected God or said, I don't believe in you, I don't want you, and then say, Lord, I'm going to repent of having this unbelief.

01:30:48.500 And even though I don't know you, I'm asking you to come into my heart and reveal yourself to me and make it evident that you're with me and you're here.

01:30:59.320 And he wants you to know him more than you do.

01:31:02.520 So if you make that effort, he will do it.

01:31:06.380 And suddenly you'll find yourself looking at the world through a whole different lens, like, wow.

01:31:11.380 And you'll start seeing these little connections like you're seeing.

01:31:14.120 Like, I don't know if it'll be a man saying he's Michael an angel, but it could happen, right?

01:31:20.280 Because we're living in the most disobedient age, I think, in history with regard to rejecting God.

01:31:28.840 It's at a level I've probably never seen.

01:31:32.060 And the scriptures tell us that when sin abounds, grace super abounds.

01:31:36.860 So if you stop and say, I don't believe in God, but I want to, I just don't.

01:31:43.180 And then you turn to God and say, as an act of faith, I'm reaching out to you to say, if you're there, please let me know you're real.

01:31:52.000 And heaven's going to move a big spigot of grace over your head.

01:31:55.760 And you're going to get pummeled by Niagara Falls.

01:31:58.080 And you're going to come out of it going, I do believe in God.

01:32:01.720 And that's the first step.

01:32:03.880 You have to take the step.

01:32:05.040 The pride was certainly a big part of what got me.

01:32:07.520 Because I fell away when I was 13.

01:32:10.000 And it was, there was the sex abuse scandal, didn't help.

01:32:13.300 There was the weak catechesis and the kind of felt banners, hippy-dippy stuff that was not great for a teenage boy.

01:32:19.520 And, but it was the new atheists.

01:32:21.800 Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris.

01:32:25.680 They, going back and revisiting their arguments now, I think, wow, those are perfect arguments for a 13-year-old boy.

01:32:31.940 They're not good arguments to convince someone who's in any way educated.

01:32:35.960 But they really do appeal to a precocious 13-year-old boy.

01:32:40.700 And actually, my path back into the church was in a way another kind of appeal.

01:32:48.420 It was inverting that appeal to pride.

01:32:50.400 Because I used to think all the smart people were atheists.

01:32:53.080 And then I came to realize pretty much all the smart people were Christians or theistic.

01:32:59.200 They believed that God, throughout history, just statistically, 100% of smart people have believed that God exists.

01:33:05.040 And that helped me get back in.

01:33:06.660 I think that's a big stumbling block for a lot of people today.

01:33:09.240 They just feel that religion is for stupid people.

01:33:13.800 Well, that's what they will tell you, the communists.

01:33:16.680 I mean, that was the whole argument.

01:33:17.980 It's the religion of the masses.

01:33:19.420 And that's the first thing they do away with to control the people.

01:33:22.820 Get rid of the religion.

01:33:24.420 Or they think they get rid of it by shutting it down.

01:33:27.640 But I think people, in general, underestimate the immensity of God in his intelligence, in his power, in his everything.

01:33:39.920 We tend to sort of put him on our level, thinking we can outsmart him.

01:33:44.340 I mean, even a communist government thinking, if we just shut down the churches, God will go away.

01:33:50.220 Really?

01:33:51.120 Do you know who this is?

01:33:52.640 Do you know he made everything, even the whole universe?

01:33:55.600 But you closed the church, and now he's just going to pack up and go home.

01:33:59.580 Oh, no.

01:34:00.060 We were beaten by the Sandinistas or whatever.

01:34:03.020 It's kind of funny when you think about it.

01:34:04.660 But it's the same with an individual to think that part of the problem is they might have such an image of themselves that isn't that great.

01:34:13.820 Why would God make me, and then I don't even know who he is?

01:34:17.740 Because, of course, the enemy's always whispering in your ear, there's no God.

01:34:22.440 If there was, wouldn't he love you and take care of you?

01:34:25.840 And so they start believing that tape that gets played.

01:34:29.360 And it's only when you start breaking open the scripture and asking it to come into your heart that things start changing, and changing quickly.

01:34:38.140 Like, pretty quick.

01:34:38.820 I think, again, in this day and age, when I feel a very great urgency for people to come back to God, because I feel like we're on the very edge of an abyss, that something's coming.

01:34:54.080 And I feel like just with everything that's going on in the natural world, but also in the supernatural world, that we're on the verge of something big.

01:35:06.060 So my Lenten homily was going to Lent thinking it's your last Lent and treat it that way.

01:35:16.960 Like, do everything the best and the most.

01:35:20.580 Don't cheat it.

01:35:21.440 Go in wanting to come out a saint at Easter, because it might be your last.

01:35:28.160 And I preached that, and then the next day, I got sent a message from one of the mystics in, I think she's in South America.

01:35:38.620 And it was Our Lady.

01:35:39.940 Now, I'm not saying this was a true, but the fact that this came to be unsolicited, and nobody knew what I had said, because this was just a generated email from a, you know,

01:35:49.620 it's not from a person, it's from the website.

01:35:51.940 And she said, treat this Lent as though it's your last.

01:35:56.200 I said, ooh, okay.

01:35:59.820 And that doesn't mean it's going to be.

01:36:01.420 Right.

01:36:01.940 But we do things differently when we think it's the last time.

01:36:05.940 Right.

01:36:06.300 It's different than saying, this will be, you know, make, this will be your last Lent, it's on May 4th.

01:36:12.520 Right.

01:36:12.660 That's when.

01:36:13.240 Didn't say that.

01:36:14.160 Right.

01:36:14.880 But someone's going to live in the end times, right?

01:36:16.680 Some people will ask me.

01:36:17.500 But there will be 400,000 people die every day.

01:36:21.500 Half in the womb, half out of the womb.

01:36:23.380 In fact, more in the womb than outside the womb.

01:36:25.300 Did you know that?

01:36:26.460 I knew that in certain places.

01:36:29.520 Globally.

01:36:30.340 Globally, more people die inside the womb every day.

01:36:32.860 Everybody who dies outside the womb, heart attack, cancer, AIDS, accidents, natural causes, murder.

01:36:42.420 That's about 250, no, 175,000 or so a day, and then 200,000 a day in the womb.

01:36:51.760 More.

01:36:52.380 So more people die in the womb than outside the womb.

01:36:55.720 Imagine how that is.

01:36:56.800 Imagine how heaven looks on that.

01:37:00.040 We read accounts of human sacrifice, baby sacrifice in the Bible, you know, the Hittites or whatever.

01:37:06.160 And you see it in some of the indigenous populations before Columbus arrived, practicing all sorts of human sacrifice.

01:37:12.200 We look back, we say that's savage, that's barbaric.

01:37:14.920 We are practicing human sacrifice on a far greater scale than any other historical epoch.

01:37:23.860 Not even close.

01:37:24.780 Yeah.

01:37:24.880 And just to touch back on some of the occult stuff, there are witches who go on record saying they'll pay for abortions if they can be present for the abortion.

01:37:38.000 Okay?

01:37:38.280 Why do they do that?

01:37:39.300 Because they're making, since they paid for it, they're making the sacrifice to the devil.

01:37:43.820 This is documented.

01:37:48.140 This isn't, you know, this is real cases of women who said this, the woman came up to say shit, she wanted to pay for the abortion, and it turns out they've looked them up and they're practicing witch.

01:37:56.020 The other thing, going back, I'm just tying up loose ends here.

01:37:59.660 So, when we talked about the transgender, I don't know if you know this, but one of the ancient images of Satan is Baphomet.

01:38:05.920 Yeah.

01:38:06.400 Okay, what is Baphomet?

01:38:08.280 So, he's got the goat head, he's got the women's torso with the breasts, and the man's down below.

01:38:16.340 So, that's not a new thing.

01:38:17.840 So, imagine, the devil, he identifies as transgender as that image.

01:38:25.640 I made this point the other day on the show, not explicitly or directly with regard to Baphomet, but I just said, isn't it odd that depictions of demons tend toward androgyny, transgenderism, this kind of hatred of the human body as it is actually made?

01:38:44.440 They hate us.

01:38:45.340 They hate us.

01:38:45.980 But why do they hate our sex?

01:38:48.160 Why do they hate our sexual complementarity and difference?

01:38:51.480 That's a great question.

01:38:52.680 The only way man participates in creation is through the marital embrace.

01:38:59.400 We can't create anything.

01:39:02.060 We can build, but we can't create.

01:39:03.940 But when we come together and make a baby, man actually participates with God in creation.

01:39:10.720 The demons can't do that.

01:39:12.580 They can't create.

01:39:13.480 They don't have bodies.

01:39:14.440 Can't create.

01:39:14.940 Can't create.

01:39:15.980 So, the fact, that's one.

01:39:18.120 The second is that the word incarnated in human flesh drives them crazy because it elevated humans above them because now this divine person has a human body.

01:39:29.380 That's the two reasons they hate us.

01:39:32.520 So, we're talking about physical things.

01:39:35.820 I know a lot of people are going to say, look, I have faith.

01:39:39.080 I believe that evil exists and demons and the devil and God and the saints and the angels.

01:39:43.520 Maybe not the saints, they would say.

01:39:44.600 But I believe in pretty much all of it.

01:39:47.620 But why do I need holy water?

01:39:49.100 Why do I need to go through some ritual?

01:39:50.540 Why do I need some priest to confer some sacrament or blessing on me?

01:39:55.120 Why do I need all the stuff?

01:39:57.480 Why do I need a rosary?

01:39:58.260 Why do I need all the stuff that you Catholics have?

01:40:00.100 Why can't I just think of it?

01:40:01.200 You don't need it.

01:40:04.340 You don't.

01:40:06.440 But it's like you're going into a battle and you can take no weapons or you can take every weapon available.

01:40:20.500 I'm taking every weapon available.

01:40:23.480 Why not?

01:40:24.300 I want the shield.

01:40:25.660 I want the sword.

01:40:27.500 You're saying I'll pass on everything.

01:40:29.660 Okay, good luck.

01:40:31.740 Now, do you need these things to get to heaven?

01:40:33.500 You don't.

01:40:35.120 But I just had a conversation with a priest in this diocese who is over a lot of the education.

01:40:42.620 And he's realizing that the devotional aspect of our faith is the part that captures the heart.

01:40:48.320 The sacraments have all the power, but frequently people don't connect emotionally to the sacraments.

01:40:56.060 It's just a fact of life.

01:40:57.940 But they get very emotional when we talk about devotion to the sacred heart, devotion to the immaculate heart,

01:41:04.580 to all the great devotions of the church, the rosary, when we're meditating on the life of Christ through the eyes of his mother.

01:41:11.460 And it draws people deeper in love with the Trinity and Jesus' parents and his best friends, the saints and the angels.

01:41:21.620 Now, if somebody says they don't believe in saints, do you believe people go to heaven?

01:41:25.920 Yes.

01:41:26.340 What do you think we call people in heaven?

01:41:28.480 Saints.

01:41:29.340 So you do believe in them.

01:41:31.540 When you get diagnosed with cancer, do you call your friends and say, please pray for me?

01:41:34.980 Yes.

01:41:35.460 Yes.

01:41:36.200 Well, why wouldn't you ask your brothers and sisters in heaven to pray for you?

01:41:39.420 They actually have access to the throne.

01:41:42.560 So it makes no sense.

01:41:44.280 Right.

01:41:44.640 If I would ask Joe down the street to pray for my wife, Joe is just some schmuck.

01:41:50.000 Certainly, I would ask the only people that we know are in the presence of our Lord to pray for my wife.

01:41:56.060 The mother of God?

01:41:57.340 Do you think she has any influence?

01:41:58.480 And the physicality of it, I guess that's something I keep coming back to.

01:42:06.860 And it's probably what's most jarring for people about the idea of an exorcism is that some person is levitating and some person is spitting something out and some things are happening on people's bodies.

01:42:19.520 It's almost as if people can totally get that there is a spiritual thing.

01:42:26.740 And they can totally get that there is a physical thing.

01:42:30.540 But it's very hard to believe that they intersect or interact with one another.

01:42:35.740 Okay.

01:42:36.400 But, I mean, they do.

01:42:38.040 I don't know what to say to that.

01:42:39.440 Back to your feelings, I guess.

01:42:41.060 You know, it's like, again, the non-believer is a whole separate category.

01:42:45.300 But if you're a Christian, if you're a Baptist, do you believe the Bible?

01:42:51.140 A third of Jesus' time is spent driving out demons.

01:42:54.300 That's no small amount of time.

01:42:56.660 So, like, if you—and this is the Word of God, so either you believe it or you don't.

01:43:01.520 You can't pick and choose, right?

01:43:03.120 So, yeah, I believe that.

01:43:04.640 So, suddenly, the demons all went away when he went to heaven?

01:43:09.060 Have you looked around lately?

01:43:10.520 Does it look like there's no influence of evil?

01:43:12.160 Well, so, Antonin Scalia did an interview in New York Magazine probably about 10 years ago, maybe more.

01:43:19.200 And he mentioned something about heaven or hell.

01:43:22.860 And the interviewer, a very glib young woman, she said,

01:43:25.780 Oh, you believe in hell?

01:43:26.980 He goes, Yes.

01:43:28.460 She goes, Well, it must be awful scary believing in hell.

01:43:31.560 And he leaned in with a theatrical whisper.

01:43:33.900 And he said, You know, I even believe in the devil.

01:43:36.080 And she essentially laughs at him for it.

01:43:38.380 And he said, Do you realize how out of touch you are with most people, most people who believe in God and believe in the devil?

01:43:44.420 Do you know how out of touch you are with most people throughout all of human history?

01:43:49.280 And he said, Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil.

01:43:54.960 She changed the subject.

01:43:59.060 There was a priest who was a very big impact on my life who was a theologian who was frequently on these big panels discussing theology with other theologians.

01:44:09.640 And one of the other theologians had mentioned how he doesn't believe in the devil in his talk.

01:44:14.860 And so then the man I know got up and he said, Well, I have to address that right away because this is scriptural, first of all.

01:44:25.380 So, like, if you don't believe the scriptures, I don't know how you ever became a priest.

01:44:29.100 And then went through a few other things and then said, finished his talk, gave his talk, done.

01:44:33.900 Afterwards, he went up to the priest and said, I'm going to pray for you in a way that you'll come to believe in the devil.

01:44:42.460 And they were all staying at this retreat house.

01:44:45.720 And that night, there were shrieks coming from that priest's room.

01:44:49.900 And when they ran to see what was wrong, he let them in.

01:44:53.020 He said, The devil came tonight.

01:44:55.720 And now I believe.

01:44:58.600 But praise the Lord.

01:45:02.600 It's like we're filming this.

01:45:04.920 It's one day into Lent.

01:45:07.260 It's the second day of Lent right now.

01:45:08.760 And at Easter, we'll say, Oh, happy fault that won for us so great, so glorious Redeemer.

01:45:15.880 To celebrate even the fall of man because with incarnation and atonement, actually, we're living in an even greater world.

01:45:26.660 Yeah, better than paradise.

01:45:28.300 Father Rehill, thank you for coming in.

01:45:33.540 And thank you for all that you do.

01:45:35.300 You're quite welcome.

01:45:36.100 Happy to be here.

01:45:37.020 It's a pleasure.

01:45:38.620 See you next time.

Michael Interviews An Exorcist：＂I Saw Her Crawl Up A Wall＂｜ Fr. Dan Reehil

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The Michael Knowles Show

Michael Interviews An Exorcist： ＂I Saw Her Crawl Up A Wall＂ ｜ Fr. Dan Reehil

Summary

Transcript

Michael Interviews An Exorcist：＂I Saw Her Crawl Up A Wall＂｜ Fr. Dan Reehil