This Past Weekend with Theo Von - #682 - Bishop Robert Barron

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00:00:58.140 on Paramount+. Another thrilling season of the NFL on CBS is officially here streaming live

00:01:05.280 on Paramount+. Today's guest is a Catholic bishop. He's one of the leading voices in the

00:01:12.420 Catholic faith today. He started Word on Fire Ministries, and he's written many books on

00:01:18.320 theology. I'm so excited to sit down and have a conversation with Bishop Robert Barron.

00:01:42.080 Bishop Robert Barron, nice to see you.

00:01:44.200 Thank you. Great to be here.

00:01:45.280 Yeah. Thank you so much for your time today.

00:01:46.980 I'm delighted.

00:01:47.840 You live in Minnesota.

00:01:49.720 I do.

00:01:50.280 Right?

00:01:50.580 And you're a Catholic bishop from there.

00:01:53.080 Right.

00:01:53.580 So I'm the bishop of the Diocese of Winona, Rochester, which is the southern part of Minnesota.

00:01:58.260 And I live in Rochester right near the Mayo Clinic.

00:02:00.560 I'm like five minutes away from there.

00:02:02.300 Oh, nice.

00:02:02.760 So you probably get to take a lot of visits to like visit with children and their families

00:02:05.980 and stuff like that?

00:02:06.620 Yeah.

00:02:06.820 I visit a lot of sick people there.

00:02:08.940 And so it's probably the leading hospital in the world.

00:02:11.920 And people come from all over the place there.

00:02:14.100 Oh, and you're right there then?

00:02:15.080 I'm right there.

00:02:15.780 You should start a drive-through even.

00:02:17.020 that'd be nice. Just bless out the window. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah. Okay. That's one bad idea for

00:02:24.040 me. You started Word on Fire Ministries? It's a media ministry. So it's an evangelical ministry

00:02:30.920 to proclaim the Catholic faith. And I started just with a sermon show on the radio in Chicago

00:02:36.540 25 years ago. And it's grown now. We use all kinds of things, publishing and podcasting and

00:02:42.460 films now and you know so it's just been uh been blessed thank god and how does somebody become a

00:02:48.240 bishop well you gotta be chosen by the pope so you really got nothing to do with it uh i was

00:02:53.840 the rector of the seminary in chicago so i was head of the seminary right and then one day out

00:02:59.020 of the blue you get a phone call and it came from this guy we call the apostolic nuncio who's like

00:03:03.120 the vatican ambassador to the u.s and he says the pope has appointed you auxiliary bishop of los

00:03:10.360 Angeles. That was my first bishop appointment. So that's like the NFL draft almost. Is it kind

00:03:14.720 of like that energy? Like you're like waiting for this thing? No, you're not waiting at all.

00:03:18.080 You have no idea it's coming. It was a Sunday afternoon and I'm lying on the couch watching

00:03:22.060 golf. I have my shorts on and a t-shirt and the phone rings. And it's this little Italian voice

00:03:27.800 saying the Holy Father's appointed you. And then he says, do you accept? Did you think it was a

00:03:32.780 scam or something? No, because I recognize, you know, his name and everything. Okay. So you knew,

00:03:37.960 So you know about that.

00:03:38.960 But you have no idea it's coming.

00:03:41.200 Because if you're under consideration, no one tells you.

00:03:44.440 It's not like, oh, God, I might get it.

00:03:47.020 You have zero idea.

00:03:48.800 And so just like that, out of the blue, and not worth thinking about appointing you,

00:03:52.840 is he's already appointed you.

00:03:54.280 Now, you can say no.

00:03:55.800 You can say, look, I'm not going to do it.

00:03:57.920 But unless you've got like a super good reason, you have to say yes to it.

00:04:01.700 And then, you know, uproot your entire life, move away from everyone you know.

00:04:05.900 I moved to LA Archdiocese, lived in Santa Barbara, which is pretty good, you know, but I had zero idea.

00:04:13.180 And then four years later, or what, five years later, another phone call comes.

00:04:17.100 Holy Father's appointed you, Bishop of Winona, Rochester, Minnesota.

00:04:21.020 So off you go.

00:04:22.480 So when the call comes, it's kind of like a call from God kind of coming, and you go and take it.

00:04:26.020 Yes.

00:04:26.720 And for years, I used to preach to people, you know, your life's not about you.

00:04:30.880 It's about God, what God wants, unless you've got a really good reason, you follow God's will.

00:04:34.860 So how could I then stand and say, no, I'm really happy where I am and tell the Pope to forget it.

00:04:40.860 So you kind of have to say yes.

00:04:42.360 Yeah.

00:04:43.080 Wow.

00:04:44.200 That's a big surprise in somebody's life.

00:04:46.260 Did you have a job before you were a bishop?

00:04:48.040 Like, did you just work at somewhere regular?

00:04:50.080 Well, when I was a kid, like when I was 16, I worked at a bookstore.

00:04:53.300 I was like a stock boy in the bookstore.

00:04:55.220 I worked at Steak and Shake for a while as a dishwasher.

00:04:58.580 Oh, dude.

00:04:59.580 Yeah, but then I went to college, you know, and then entered the seminary and then did those studies.

00:05:04.700 I became a priest when I was about 26.

00:05:07.000 So I didn't have a big career, you know, before I became a priest.

00:05:10.080 Yeah.

00:05:10.500 What was the worst thing you didn't like about dishwashing?

00:05:12.720 Oh, I hated dishwashing.

00:05:13.760 Did you?

00:05:14.160 The heat and the, no, I thought it was the most obnoxious job I had.

00:05:17.380 I didn't last very long.

00:05:18.500 I quit after a few months.

00:05:19.640 Oh, dang.

00:05:20.200 I hated it.

00:05:20.820 Yeah.

00:05:20.980 I liked the bookstore job.

00:05:22.340 That was, I was 16 and I was like, you know, stock boy and I was putting books on shelves

00:05:27.040 and stuff.

00:05:27.580 I didn't mind that job.

00:05:28.780 Yeah.

00:05:28.920 I worked at a bookstore and when I went to college for a little while, I enjoyed it too.

00:05:31.720 Yeah.

00:05:31.980 Because it's kind of peaceful in there and somebody comes over.

00:05:34.400 Sometimes people are just hiding from their spouse or whatever in there,

00:05:36.820 but sometimes people are looking for a book.

00:05:39.080 Oh, yeah.

00:05:39.480 And you get to help them, and you just kind of start to learn inadvertently.

00:05:42.380 Well, I'll tell you now, I discovered a book in that job called

00:05:44.980 The Seventh Story Mountain by a guy named Thomas Merton.

00:05:47.420 Seventh Story Mountain?

00:05:48.320 The Seventh Story Mountain, which had a big impact on me.

00:05:51.680 Merton was this guy, very talented, very accomplished, was in New York,

00:05:56.480 wanted to be a writer, knew all these famous people. 1.00

00:05:59.120 And then long story short, he becomes a Catholic

00:06:01.160 and then wants to become a Trappist monk,

00:06:03.940 which is about as serious a monk as you can become,

00:06:06.640 living in silence and prayer.

00:06:08.480 And the book is the story of his conversion.

00:06:11.380 The seven-story mountain.

00:06:12.560 Have you ever gotten to meet him?

00:06:13.400 Oh, there it is.

00:06:14.120 No, he died in 1968.

00:06:16.680 And he died actually in Bangkok, Thailand.

00:06:19.300 He was there for a conference.

00:06:20.700 I hope he was.

00:06:20.900 And he was electrocuted. 0.99

00:06:22.220 Nuh-uh.

00:06:22.820 He was electrocuted, yeah.

00:06:23.700 He gave a speech, went back to his,

00:06:26.280 he was like staying in this sort of like bungalow thing.

00:06:28.540 And they found him with the standing fan lying on top of him.

00:06:33.140 He had grabbed it, and it had a short or something, and it killed him.

00:06:36.420 That's how Merton died, which is very ironic and strange.

00:06:39.500 But he was a wonderful figure, and that book right there had a big impact on me when I was a kid.

00:06:44.220 What about it?

00:06:45.420 It's a story of a guy falling in love with God.

00:06:48.260 And so he discovers God, and then none of his instincts move that way.

00:06:53.420 He wanted to be a writer.

00:06:54.520 He wanted to be kind of a cool man of the world.

00:06:57.480 and then he starts gradually falling in love with God.

00:07:00.460 And it's told in almost like this romantic way.

00:07:03.560 He was a poet, a very fine poet, actually.

00:07:06.180 And the book, and I was 16 at the time,

00:07:08.220 and so it kind of got caught up in all that.

00:07:10.580 And it's a very human story and it's beautifully told too.

00:07:14.320 So that impacted me big time when I was about 16.

00:07:17.580 Yeah, I've heard you talk about Thomas Merton before

00:07:19.860 in some of your different podcasts and different lectures.

00:07:23.320 Well, he was one of the great spiritual writers of the last century.

00:07:26.100 So if you want to know how to pray, how to approach prayer, what prayer is, how to live the spiritual life, he's a guy that you turn to.

00:07:36.060 To get a little bit towards Catholicism, so Catholicism is a branch of Christianity.

00:07:42.720 What's the difference of being a Catholic and being a Christian?

00:07:47.080 Well, I mean, of course a Catholic is a Christian, so you're a follower of Jesus Christ.

00:07:50.940 We would maintain that the Catholic Church is the true church that's founded by Jesus Christ.

00:07:56.100 You get to the Reformation, and you have people that were quarreling with different aspects of Catholicism and broke off from it,

00:08:01.520 so Lutherans and Calvinists and all the various sub-branches thereof.

00:08:06.300 But we'd maintain that the Catholic Church has all the gifts that Christ wants his people to have,

00:08:10.600 that it's the fullness of what Christ wanted.

00:08:13.400 But then we recognize that the Protestant churches, of course, have all kinds of gifts that Christ wants too,

00:08:18.540 but the Catholic Church, we would maintain, obviously, has the fullness of it.

00:08:22.680 Understood.

00:08:23.960 How would you define God?

00:08:26.880 Well, probably the simplest way to say God is the creator of all things.

00:08:31.140 Okay.

00:08:31.700 So there's the world of things, right?

00:08:33.500 The world we're in all the time.

00:08:34.640 You and me in this place, and we go outside.

00:08:36.760 The world of ordinary things, and even the planet Jupiter and our galaxies is the world of things.

00:08:42.360 But they don't explain themselves, right?

00:08:44.340 Nothing in the world explains itself.

00:08:46.720 It is, but it doesn't have to be.

00:08:48.820 So we look for causes.

00:08:50.220 That's all of science, right?

00:08:51.380 Looks for what caused this to be here.

00:08:53.440 Why are you and I here right now?

00:08:54.820 We can look for all kinds of reasons.

00:08:56.820 How about those things?

00:08:58.020 Do they have to be there?

00:08:59.340 Well, no, they were caused by other things.

00:09:02.000 Then we say, well, God is the uncaused cause.

00:09:06.020 God is the first mover.

00:09:07.540 God is the reason why there's anything at all.

00:09:10.480 So what's cool about that is God is not a thing in the world.

00:09:13.600 There's you and me and the planet Jupiter and God and the Empire State Building.

00:09:17.360 No, no, that's the wrong way to think about it, right?

00:09:19.600 God is the reason why there's anything at all.

00:09:22.920 So you might say he's the creator of all things, to put it in religious language.

00:09:26.980 He's the ground of being, philosophers might say, right?

00:09:30.520 And I would say the reason why there's something rather than nothing, that's God.

00:09:35.620 Interesting.

00:09:36.440 That's the cool question that philosophers have asked.

00:09:39.200 And some people just find it nonsensical.

00:09:40.880 Others say it's the most important question of all.

00:09:43.240 Why is there something rather than nothing?

00:09:45.360 The answer to that question is God, I would say.

00:09:48.600 How does God operate?

00:09:50.980 Because you'll hear people will say stuff like, well, that's part of God's plan, right?

00:09:56.040 But then if something horrible happens, then they're like, well, God can help you through this, right?

00:10:02.780 Like, does he cause bad things to happen or does he just there for us if something, no matter what happens?

00:10:08.280 So he's the cause of all things, right?

00:10:10.260 So God is responsible for all that exists in the world.

00:10:13.420 You say, what about evil?

00:10:14.220 Well, evil is not a thing.

00:10:16.400 Evil's a lack of being.

00:10:18.340 You remember in the Lord of the Rings?

00:10:20.340 I don't know if you're the Lord of the Rings guy, 1.00

00:10:21.720 but remember the Nazgul of these things that fly around on these dragons and everything? 1.00

00:10:25.460 And they look so fearsome, but when they finally, like, they stab at them, 0.99

00:10:28.900 the cloak falls away and there's nothing there.

00:10:31.400 That was Tolkien's way of saying this truth, that evil is frightening,

00:10:36.460 but essentially it's a type of non-being.

00:10:39.540 It's a lack of a good that ought to be there, like a cavity in a tooth.

00:10:44.240 So the cavity, you say, man, it's real and it hurts.

00:10:47.180 But the cavity itself is just an emptiness, right?

00:10:50.420 Evils like that, physical evil or moral evil.

00:10:54.120 Moral evil is a lack of an integrity that ought to be there in your soul.

00:10:59.280 So in that way, you can't say God's the cause of evil because God is the cause of all being, right?

00:11:03.900 So then you have to say, well, God permits evil.

00:11:07.780 And that's true.

00:11:08.500 He allows it to be.

00:11:10.840 Now, why?

00:11:11.520 then pick up the book of Job. It's the best

00:11:13.780 biblical wrestling with that, right? 0.63

00:11:16.000 And God's great answer to Job

00:11:17.660 when he's like, why am I suffering? Why is

00:11:19.660 all this happening to me? And

00:11:21.480 God says, where were you when I made

00:11:23.660 the heavens and the earth? And where were you when I laid the

00:11:25.560 foundations of the world? And where were you? You

00:11:27.560 know everything. You tell me. In other words,

00:11:30.360 why God

00:11:31.460 permits suffering, we

00:11:33.680 can't really see. Sometimes

00:11:35.780 we can in little ways,

00:11:37.920 right? Where you say, gosh, if that

00:11:39.600 hadn't happened to me, you know. Oh, yeah.

00:11:41.520 Sometimes we can see it, but very often you can't.

00:11:44.240 But that shouldn't surprise us, right?

00:11:46.520 If God, who's the source of all existence, who's concerned about all of space and all of time,

00:11:53.140 he's got a design for that, that I can't see it.

00:11:56.280 Well, of course, duh.

00:11:57.240 Of course I can't understand all of it.

00:11:59.720 But I accept that God permits evil to bring about some greater good.

00:12:05.540 That's the classical answer to that question.

00:12:07.960 But it's cool.

00:12:08.480 You're pursuing it the right way, see, which is,

00:12:10.420 God is not the cause of evil, but he permits evil to allow for some greater good.

00:12:18.200 I see. So you believe that in the end, it all ends good?

00:12:22.420 In the end, it ends according to God's design. And God is love, right? And so to love is to will

00:12:28.720 the good of the other. And so that's what God wants. God wants the good of the other.

00:12:33.740 But how precisely it all works out, I don't really know. But St. Paul, all things work

00:12:38.000 together for the good for those who love the Lord. That's it. That's the right sort of theological

00:12:42.700 vision. How do I best start like my relationship with God? Would you suggest to somebody who's

00:12:50.120 like maybe has felt God that feels like God exists in the world? Like, I mean, I've felt that for

00:12:56.100 sure. I've always thought that God existed, but only recently have I started to feel more of a

00:13:00.680 relationship. How do you suggest that someone starts to kind of begin their relationship

00:13:06.100 with God.

00:13:08.040 You know what Thomas Merton said?

00:13:09.300 Someone asked him that question.

00:13:10.360 He said, take the time.

00:13:12.580 In other words, dedicate some time every day to God.

00:13:18.280 So I begin every day with what I call a holy hour, which is made popular, by the way, by

00:13:24.500 this fellow, Fulton Sheen.

00:13:25.880 Is that name ring a bell?

00:13:26.980 Fulton Sheen.

00:13:27.620 Bring him up.

00:13:28.080 Fulton Sheen. 0.93

00:13:28.340 Bring him up because we're about to beatify him.

00:13:31.320 Just in a few days, in fact.

00:13:33.260 Really?

00:13:33.740 There he is.

00:13:34.400 that's the last step before canonization,

00:13:36.940 become a saint, right?

00:13:38.100 So Fulton Sheen was this great mid-20th century figure,

00:13:42.080 a teacher, writer.

00:13:43.140 He was one of the first to use radio and TV.

00:13:45.300 Oh, he's beatiful.

00:13:46.600 So we're beatifying him just in a few weeks.

00:13:48.780 And was beatifying, mean, just so we know?

00:13:50.560 Well, it's the last step before canonization,

00:13:53.480 which is sainthood.

00:13:54.260 But like beatus in Latin means happy.

00:13:56.320 Okay.

00:13:56.680 So like, you know, we say the beatific vision,

00:13:59.060 that's heaven.

00:13:59.940 It means happiness, that when I look at this thing,

00:14:02.880 it makes me happy.

00:14:03.920 Okay.

00:14:04.160 That's heaven, the beatific vision. 1.00

00:14:06.200 So a beatus would be a happy person, right? 0.86

00:14:10.300 Because he's so ordered to God. 1.00

00:14:12.280 So did he have to work really hard to be happy, probably?

00:14:14.800 He was a pretty happy guy, Sheen.

00:14:17.320 Like by temperament, he was.

00:14:19.540 It's a little insider trading kind of.

00:14:21.140 Right.

00:14:21.740 But what he gave us, which I really love, is he called the holy hour, which is every day, as Catholic, spend an hour in front of the blessed sacrament.

00:14:30.400 So, you know, we believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

00:14:34.040 And so every morning, that's what I do.

00:14:35.420 I go to my chapel in my house, and I pray for an hour.

00:14:39.340 And it could be, like we have a thing called the office that a priest has to pray.

00:14:42.820 It's psalms and canticles and things from the Bible and readings and stuff.

00:14:47.420 But you can also pray the rosary, which I do.

00:14:49.740 You can also just sit in silence.

00:14:53.080 There's this one saint that said, what do you do when you're looking at the Blessed Sacrament?

00:14:56.620 And he said, I look at him, and he looks at me.

00:15:00.280 And that's pretty good that you sit in silence.

00:15:03.620 In a meditative state.

00:15:04.700 It's almost, it's meditative.

00:15:06.180 Right.

00:15:06.840 And so we call that mental prayer sometimes in the Catholic tradition.

00:15:11.220 But I would recommend that is take, and it might not be an hour, maybe you have to build

00:15:15.060 up to that, but even take five minutes to focus on the Lord.

00:15:20.440 Now, it might be you're going to read something from the scripture, which is great.

00:15:24.280 It might be if you're Catholic, you pray the rosary or pray a decade of the rosary.

00:15:27.900 that just kind of focuses your mind.

00:15:30.680 You know, the Buddhists have this thing, 1.00

00:15:33.000 the monkey mind they talk about. 1.00

00:15:34.360 The monkey mind is jumping around from branch to branch.

00:15:38.000 Well, that's the way most of us live.

00:15:39.860 Or like you wake up at three o'clock in the morning 0.97

00:15:41.380 and your monkey mind is kicked in

00:15:42.820 and you're thinking about,

00:15:44.360 and they talk about calming the monkey mind, right?

00:15:47.500 Merton, in fact, who understood Buddhism very well,

00:15:51.580 thought that prayers like the rosary have that effect.

00:15:55.080 You know, because all you do, you repeat the,

00:15:56.300 Hail Mary, full of grace, Lord is with thee, bless the Lord.

00:15:58.380 Hail Mary, full of grace, Lord is with thee.

00:16:00.320 Hail Mary, full of thee.

00:16:01.220 A mantra.

00:16:01.640 It's like a mantra.

00:16:02.440 It's a Catholic mantra.

00:16:03.880 And what that does, many things, but it calms and focuses the soul, right?

00:16:11.080 That's the great thing about prayer.

00:16:12.760 And I'd recommend to you or anybody, take the time and find a way to get focused on the Lord.

00:16:19.900 That's a good starting place.

00:16:21.580 And how honest do you have to be with God?

00:16:24.480 Well, see, the thing is with God, God knows everything anyway

00:16:27.680 because he's the source of existence.

00:16:29.560 So if you're not being honest, if you're being secretive, he already—

00:16:31.680 What's the point?

00:16:32.500 And that's what I mean.

00:16:33.460 But it feels like there's some point to us.

00:16:35.700 You know what I'm saying?

00:16:36.460 Like it feels like—or there's a fear to do it or something. 1.00

00:16:39.900 But see, it's stupid. 1.00

00:16:40.780 It's a stupid thing because God knows everything already. 1.00

00:16:44.180 So what are you keeping from him? 0.99

00:16:46.020 Or if you feel like I can just say these very kind of exalted,

00:16:48.980 pious things to God, look at the Bible.

00:16:51.500 Look at the Psalms.

00:16:52.320 The Psalms are filled with people angry at God, and they're exalting, they're praising God, they're frustrated, they're tearing their hair out.

00:17:00.420 Oh, yeah.

00:17:00.960 It's PG-13 over there for sure.

00:17:02.880 That's how you should pray.

00:17:03.900 So why not be honest with God about everything, about your sins?

00:17:07.300 He knows them anyway.

00:17:09.260 So I think praying with honesty is super important.

00:17:12.640 But a lot of religious people, we kind of deceive ourselves and think, well, okay, I won't mention that to God, so it should be okay.

00:17:19.060 But then when you have a secret, though, that's where it feels like the devil can get in,

00:17:25.160 when you have kind of like a seed of distrust.

00:17:27.960 Because he's the father of lies, right?

00:17:30.040 Is he? 0.99

00:17:30.520 Yes, that's one of the titles of the devil. 0.99

00:17:32.020 What the heck? 0.95

00:17:32.260 I didn't even know that. 0.86

00:17:33.060 Yeah, and that's actually a really good, interesting, he's the murderer from the beginning, 0.72

00:17:36.580 but he's also the father of lies.

00:17:38.160 Oh, murder from the beginning is way worse, I think, but definitely, that's definitely

00:17:42.360 additional charges.

00:17:43.240 But they're related, because when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

00:17:47.140 Yeah.

00:17:47.340 See, when you get on beam with him, you're on beam with what's truest about you, but also about all of reality.

00:17:54.700 The devil's favorite move, therefore, is to lie, deceive, distract.

00:18:00.920 Oh, that's not really true.

00:18:02.540 And how often when we're not in touch with reality, we get so unhappy.

00:18:07.760 And that's not an accident.

00:18:09.540 So getting someone on the beam of truth is getting them on the beam of Christ, I would say, because he announced himself as the truth.

00:18:16.540 Yeah, sometimes I'll pray and it's like

00:18:18.660 I would want to keep things

00:18:20.200 Now I'm trying to be very specific

00:18:22.100 You know, like I just

00:18:23.560 Because I don't want it anymore

00:18:24.740 I don't want to not have

00:18:27.240 I don't want something to be

00:18:28.680 Like just mine

00:18:31.680 If that makes any sense

00:18:33.380 Especially if it's bad

00:18:35.100 Like if I feel like it's bad

00:18:37.360 Or it's like a sin or something I've done that's wrong

00:18:40.460 Or something I've been thinking about

00:18:41.600 Or something I'm afraid of

00:18:42.860 It's like I don't want to just keep it to myself

00:18:45.120 because I can't handle it.

00:18:47.320 Yes.

00:18:48.000 And look, see, from a Catholic standpoint,

00:18:49.900 the beauty of confession, that we have the sacrament.

00:18:53.720 You know, Jordan Peterson said this one time,

00:18:55.860 to go before a representative of God,

00:18:59.280 to admit your failure and your weakness and your sin,

00:19:03.420 and to seek the grace of God to do better.

00:19:05.780 He said, I can't imagine anything

00:19:07.680 psychologically healthier than that.

00:19:09.320 Wow.

00:19:09.760 And he was talking about Catholic confession.

00:19:11.760 You know, because it gets portrayed times like,

00:19:13.940 oh, this weird thing.

00:19:15.300 You go into this box

00:19:16.100 and you mutter your sins to a priest.

00:19:18.700 Well, that's a caricature.

00:19:20.040 It's standing before the Lord.

00:19:21.920 There's someone who represents him

00:19:23.180 because we're not angels.

00:19:24.780 I mean, we have bodies.

00:19:26.320 That's why the sacraments are physical

00:19:27.860 and why you actually speak to somebody.

00:19:31.300 But he's a representative of God in that way.

00:19:34.240 And you're telling God-

00:19:35.080 He's a representative of God.

00:19:36.080 The priest, let's say,

00:19:36.640 if you go into confession-

00:19:37.760 Okay, I see what you're saying.

00:19:38.700 And you go to the priest

00:19:39.520 and you confess your sins,

00:19:41.120 you're speaking to God, really,

00:19:42.640 and saying, Lord, I want to be honest with you.

00:19:46.300 This is what's wrong with me right now.

00:19:48.140 I'm not okay.

00:19:49.700 I'm not doing well.

00:19:51.200 And here's why.

00:19:53.180 And then you seek the grace of God.

00:19:55.000 That's beautiful.

00:19:55.920 Because the father of lies would love it

00:19:58.720 if we just never admit that.

00:20:00.740 Oh, no, I'm fine.

00:20:01.440 I'm okay and you're okay.

00:20:02.400 We're all doing great.

00:20:04.500 Don't tell me I've done anything wrong.

00:20:06.300 That's all a lie.

00:20:08.000 And in confession, that's the beauty of it.

00:20:10.060 I'm admitting.

00:20:10.900 how off-kilter I am, you know?

00:20:14.540 And then I'm asking for grace.

00:20:16.320 That's a beautiful thing.

00:20:17.800 There's confession.

00:20:19.200 Oh, that's pretty cool. 1.00

00:20:20.640 Yeah, but you know, the way most Catholics now 0.85

00:20:22.500 go to confession would be face-to-face. 0.59

00:20:24.920 I mean, you just sit down with the priest

00:20:25.920 like the way we are.

00:20:26.880 Oh, really?

00:20:27.340 You can still go behind the screen and all.

00:20:29.680 That's up to the individual.

00:20:31.240 When I first started going to confession as a kid,

00:20:32.880 it would have been, you know,

00:20:33.580 behind the screens like that.

00:20:34.600 Yeah.

00:20:34.940 But you can have this kind of direct conversation too.

00:20:38.100 How has God shown grace in your life?

00:20:40.140 Do you feel like personally, if you don't mind if I ask?

00:20:42.240 Well, no, I mean, like.

00:20:43.280 So we can't even talk about it because I think about it a lot, you know.

00:20:47.600 There's nothing, when I think about that, there's nothing, there's nothing like,

00:20:52.440 that's one of the strongest thoughts that I have sometimes is just how much grace God's shown.

00:20:56.420 Right.

00:20:57.400 In my own life.

00:20:58.020 Yeah, I'm a big Bob Dylan guy.

00:20:59.160 I don't know if you know that, but I love Bob Dylan.

00:21:01.160 During his Christian period, he's got this song.

00:21:03.200 I look around this whole world and all that I'm finding is the saving grace that's over me.

00:21:07.980 And that's the way religious people in their more ecstatic moments talk.

00:21:12.400 But that's what it means.

00:21:13.140 Grace just means free gift.

00:21:14.620 What's a free gift is my being because I don't have to exist.

00:21:18.440 There's nothing necessary about me.

00:21:20.900 So the fact that I am and that I'm alive, that's a grace.

00:21:25.160 Now you can start to name within that all kinds of particular things.

00:21:28.720 You know where I was this morning?

00:21:30.160 So our own existence is a grace.

00:21:31.880 Yes, because you don't have to be.

00:21:33.580 See, God is perfectly happy without the world.

00:21:37.560 That's a very important theological truth.

00:21:39.440 God does not need the world.

00:21:40.800 He does not need anything outside of himself.

00:21:42.980 Really?

00:21:43.400 Yes, because God is perfect.

00:21:45.380 God is the sheer act of existence.

00:21:47.140 God is perfect in every way.

00:21:48.900 So then he must have created it with a purpose then.

00:21:50.920 And the only purpose that we can identify is not a needy purpose.

00:21:55.460 But God needs nothing.

00:21:57.180 Therefore, whatever he does is done out of purest love.

00:22:02.040 Because Thomas Aquinas, along with Bob Dylan, my other great hero,

00:22:05.300 Thomas Aquinas, this great medieval theologian, right?

00:22:07.780 He says that to love is to will the good of the other.

00:22:12.820 And when you think about that, that's a really rare, weird thing.

00:22:15.900 So let me say it again.

00:22:16.980 To love is to will the good of the other.

00:22:19.920 Of the other as other.

00:22:22.200 Wait, to will the good of the other as other.

00:22:24.880 Yeah, and I'm kind of intensifying it to make the point.

00:22:28.080 So let's say I'm nice to you that you might be nice to me.

00:22:32.040 So that's the way most of us sinners operate.

00:22:33.780 So I'll be kind to you as long as you're kind to me. 0.74

00:22:37.360 The minute you get obnoxious to me, I'm going to be obnoxious to you.

00:22:40.400 That's the way most of us operate most of the time because we're doing it out of some kind of need.

00:22:44.760 I'm not really willing you're good.

00:22:47.960 Now, love—

00:22:49.700 But you're hoping that something good will come out of it, that I'll get something for me.

00:22:55.020 It'll redound to my benefit.

00:22:56.740 Okay, understood.

00:22:57.180 But see, and it's beautiful, and it does happen in the world when a parent or a spouse or whoever.

00:23:05.980 Right.

00:23:06.180 They have to love you because they just want you to be okay.

00:23:09.040 They just want your good.

00:23:11.500 Or think of, you know, in a Catholic setting, we always go to the martyrs.

00:23:14.780 I don't know if you know this name, Maximilian Kolbe.

00:23:16.900 Does that ring a bell?

00:23:18.300 He was a great saint during the Nazi period.

00:23:21.560 He was a prisoner in Auschwitz, right? 0.58

00:23:24.080 He was an opponent of Hitler, so Hitler arrested him.

00:23:27.100 He's a Franciscan friar.

00:23:29.320 There he is. 0.58

00:23:30.640 And he's got the Auschwitz garb on there.

00:23:34.940 Because the Nazis had a thing where someone escaped from the barracks.

00:23:38.480 They'd bring everybody out into the yard, and they would pick 10 at random and then starve them to death.

00:23:43.160 It was like this horrible thing.

00:23:44.300 Just if someone escaped?

00:23:45.320 Right.

00:23:45.640 As a payment.

00:23:46.540 Right.

00:23:46.820 So someone escaped from his barracks, and they brought the people out, and they picked out 10.

00:23:52.140 He was not one of them.

00:23:53.120 but this one man fell to his knees and started crying and he said i'm a husband i'm a father

00:23:59.620 you know please so colby stepped out of line and he just said uh i'm a catholic priest take me in

00:24:07.420 his place and colby barely knew this guy he's in the barracks with him i guess but barely knew him

00:24:12.740 and so they starved him to death wow and it was john paul ii who knew that story from his time

00:24:18.800 in Poland and kind of brought it to the attention of the world.

00:24:21.560 But now that's love, see, the willing, the good of the other.

00:24:25.900 What was in it for him?

00:24:27.260 What was in it for Colby?

00:24:29.140 And so, see, it's like—

00:24:30.260 It's unbelievable.

00:24:30.920 It's like a black hole.

00:24:31.820 You know, a black hole will draw everything into itself, right?

00:24:34.040 That's what most of our souls are like.

00:24:36.640 We want to draw the world in.

00:24:39.420 Love is breaking the gravitational pull of the black hole of the ego

00:24:46.260 and saying, I really want what's good for you.

00:24:50.720 And isn't it wild?

00:24:51.780 We say, see, God is love.

00:24:53.620 That's what God is because he doesn't need anything.

00:24:56.360 He can't do anything out of self-interest.

00:24:59.600 So my existence, our being in this room,

00:25:02.360 is itself an expression of love.

00:25:03.660 It has to be.

00:25:04.960 So then the trick is, as you get closer to God,

00:25:08.440 you become more conformed to that,

00:25:11.380 which is why the saints are so weird.

00:25:13.700 That's why the saints are so weird to us

00:25:15.960 because they're not operating in this ordinary sphere.

00:25:19.900 So we talk about like supernatural virtue.

00:25:23.480 That's Colby.

00:25:24.760 That's all the saints.

00:25:25.540 They have supernatural

00:25:26.440 because they're very close to the way God is.

00:25:28.900 So the greatest thing that we can do

00:25:30.360 is try to love in a completely like selfless way.

00:25:33.400 Right.

00:25:34.000 And it's not easy.

00:25:36.200 And that's why I see it requires prayer.

00:25:38.780 I can't really will myself into that state.

00:25:42.300 I have to kind of be open to God's grace,

00:25:45.280 transforming me. And prayer helps that. Yes. You might say it's the only way because

00:25:50.140 Aristotle or Plato would have said these virtues like courage and prudence and justice,

00:25:56.460 you can kind of practice your way to them. Okay. But the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love,

00:26:02.920 see, that's why they're theological. I can't really practice my way. I can just say,

00:26:07.660 Lord, make me like this. Bring me into line with your way of being. And it's kind of a miracle

00:26:14.780 when it happens. Yeah. Sometimes I notice like if I'm having trouble with something, then I'll,

00:26:20.560 and I don't even think that I want to like, sometimes I'll want something, but I won't

00:26:25.180 want to do it. Yeah. Does that make any sense to you? The good that I would do is that that I don't

00:26:29.680 do. St. Paul says that Roman seven. So yeah, my brother was saying that I should ask for the 1.00

00:26:34.080 willingness to do it sometimes. Like sometimes it's like a little bit of like a crack in the

00:26:38.900 door. Like if I can't, like if I don't have the power to do it myself, maybe sometimes I can pray

00:26:43.380 just to ask God for willingness.

00:26:46.020 Like, God, even just make me willing to try this.

00:26:49.460 Maybe the Holy Spirit's kind of led us to Merton that way

00:26:52.420 because one of Thomas Merton's famous prayers begins,

00:26:56.120 my Lord God, I have no idea where I'm going.

00:26:58.860 It's a great way to start a prayer.

00:27:00.520 Like, I don't know.

00:27:02.360 But one of the things in there is,

00:27:04.880 and the fact that I think I'm doing well

00:27:06.680 doesn't mean I'm actually doing so.

00:27:08.740 But I believe the desire to please you

00:27:11.880 does in fact please you.

00:27:14.080 And may I have that desire in all that I do.

00:27:16.420 That's a cool prayer.

00:27:17.700 See, he's lost.

00:27:19.620 I don't know where I'm going.

00:27:20.960 And I don't even know if I'm doing your will.

00:27:22.880 But the desire to please you,

00:27:26.060 in fact, pleases you.

00:27:27.880 So let me have that anyway.

00:27:30.260 Amen.

00:27:30.860 That's a good way to pray, you know.

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00:28:52.500 Yeah, it's funny.

00:28:53.820 We're at a time where, like you were talking about, like, or you just mentioned lost, like being actually kind of lost.

00:28:58.860 And what a prayer to say that, yeah, I'm lost.

00:29:01.700 Like, God, I am lost, right?

00:29:03.240 Like to give, to allow possibility in your life.

00:29:06.420 Because if you're lost, then you need something, right?

00:29:10.940 You just mentioned being kind of lost, right?

00:29:13.420 It's interesting that we're in a time

00:29:14.740 where we have so many things

00:29:16.180 that help us have like direction, right?

00:29:18.180 Like we have GPS, we have like MapQuest,

00:29:22.560 we have Waze, we have everything.

00:29:24.220 We had everything you could need to help us like direct.

00:29:26.860 We have all this technology.

00:29:28.060 we have so many things right we have so much like material we have so much like we have storage

00:29:33.860 facilities people are storing attics are full right right people are some people have two or

00:29:38.180 three purses some women and some men but what i'm saying is we have so much stuff but yet like it

00:29:44.860 feels like we're at a spot where uh we're missing something that we just can't purchase anymore

00:29:50.780 right when it comes to does that make any sense does it make sense to you like we're missing

00:29:55.140 something that's not on a shelf somewhere. Right, which is why we're casting about so

00:29:59.820 desperately. Yeah, it feels desperate. That's what it's gotten to. It's starting to feel

00:30:03.560 desperate. And I think some of it has to do with a sense of purpose, maybe. I'm not sure.

00:30:07.340 No, yeah, because we've lost the sense of ultimate purpose or spiritual purpose. And so when you lose

00:30:11.960 that, the Bible would describe that as being an exile. You've wandered into the desert. You're

00:30:16.840 away from the sources of life. St. Augustine said you're in the land of dissimilitude because we're

00:30:22.800 made in the likeness of God, right? But I've wandered into the land where I'm not like God.

00:30:27.380 Yeah, it's a Costco. I'm in Costco. And so I'm just sort of lost. And so the idea is when Jesus

00:30:35.380 says, I am the way, follow me. I'm the way you get your bearings. I give these sermons a lot to kids

00:30:45.000 for confirmation. As a bishop, you confirm these like teenagers, you know? So I give the sermon

00:30:50.560 And I use the example of ways a lot.

00:30:53.360 You know, I trust in ways.

00:30:55.040 I got this voice.

00:30:56.040 I got this kind of English voice on mine.

00:30:57.780 And this little calm guy just tells me, you know, where to go, where to turn.

00:31:01.280 And I kind of surrender to him because, yeah, I'm driving all over the place.

00:31:04.680 I don't know where I'm going.

00:31:05.500 I was better when I was a kid.

00:31:06.560 I knew better where I was going.

00:31:07.720 Yeah.

00:31:08.260 But I just kind of trust in the voice of ways.

00:31:10.580 And I said, but that's like the voice of your conscience, the voice of God,

00:31:14.300 that we have to learn how to trust it again.

00:31:17.100 And I would say the Bible, teaching of the church, in the liturgy, in great preaching, in someone like Merton or Fulton Sheen, there are lots of ways to find your direction.

00:31:29.860 And then, see, Jesus says about all of us Christians, you're the light of the world.

00:31:34.400 You're the city on the hill.

00:31:35.920 See, the city on the hill was like a GPS.

00:31:38.000 If you're in ancient times and you're wandering around, oh, the city.

00:31:40.400 Oh, yeah, I got to go just west of that city.

00:31:43.180 So it was the way I found my direction.

00:31:46.020 Well, that's us.

00:31:47.080 We're supposed to be that now for other people,

00:31:49.160 that we followers of Jesus are meant to be a signal to the rest of the world.

00:31:52.960 But if we're as lost as they are, and the Lord says,

00:31:56.840 if salt is lost, it's savor, you know,

00:31:59.520 and you don't put a light under a bushel basket,

00:32:02.500 but that's what a lot of us have done.

00:32:03.940 We're as lost as everybody else.

00:32:06.580 Sometimes it also feels like, Bishop, 0.97

00:32:08.460 that it's being organized that way by like darker entities.

00:32:14.440 in society. Do you feel like that that could be true, that evil operates like that? Because it

00:32:19.480 really feels like that more than ever, I think. Yes. The Bible knows about personal sin, right?

00:32:25.720 So there's individuals, you and I, we're sinners. I'm lost. I'm a sinner. But it also knows about

00:32:32.020 kind of structural, institutional sin. But then behind all of that, it knows about, I would say,

00:32:38.760 a properly spiritual dimension, that there's a spiritual world that's also fallen and that

00:32:44.820 compromises the institutional and the personal level. There's all those dimensions of evil.

00:32:49.880 I think we get naive in a way, but, oh, it's just personal evil. It's just something that we

00:32:53.740 sinners do. Yeah, that's true. But behind us are institutions that condition us, and behind them

00:33:00.800 there are fallen spiritual powers, I would say. And we got to deal with all of them. We got to,

00:33:05.680 you know, Paul says, you know, we battle not just with flesh and blood, but powers and

00:33:10.580 principalities. That's still true, it seems to me. Did Christianity ever have like a military

00:33:16.620 or was that even a thing? Well, there were military orders, like around the time of the,

00:33:20.940 you know, crusades and stuff, like the Knights Templar. And they were like religious orders

00:33:24.420 that had kind of a military dimension, you know, because they were trying to defend the Holy Land

00:33:28.860 and all that. But we tend not to do that today. Yeah. You had the Knights of Malta. There's

00:33:33.560 Certain things are kind of a holdover from that time,

00:33:35.900 but we're not like going around with machine guns and stuff.

00:33:38.480 Got it.

00:33:39.580 There's the Knights Templar.

00:33:41.520 The Knights Templar were wealthy.

00:33:43.160 Oh, that's varsity too.

00:33:44.180 Look at them.

00:33:45.060 The Knights Templar were a wealthy and powerful Catholic military order

00:33:49.320 of warrior monks founded in 1118 during the Crusades.

00:33:54.440 Their mission formed to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem

00:33:57.380 and sacred sites from violent attacks.

00:33:59.940 Wow. 0.87

00:34:00.220 So when Christians traveled to go to Jerusalem, 1.00

00:34:02.780 That was the idea. 0.97

00:34:03.560 The Knights Templar would kind of escort them or make sure that they got there safely?

00:34:06.760 That was the idea, yeah.

00:34:08.020 Why were they attacked so much?

00:34:09.980 Oh, it's a complicated story.

00:34:11.260 There were some, you know, the charges of corruption, of financial corruption, other things.

00:34:15.360 It's a little bit murky, and I don't know the history all that well, but they were eventually suppressed, you know.

00:34:20.020 But it's like most human things end up going bad, you know, and there was some kind of corruption set in there.

00:34:25.780 But I think at its best, it was doing a very valuable thing.

00:34:29.880 Yeah, most human things kind of end up going bad in some ways.

00:34:32.960 do you think like sometimes i get stuck in this space where it's like um like i want like

00:34:39.560 you know i want to go to heaven i want to have um like happiness after like i want to

00:34:49.300 earn the possibility to i don't even know if it's earn is the right word but i want to have

00:34:55.920 the opportunity to have a life past this past this one here yeah but also part of me wants

00:35:03.320 this like you want to win in this world as well does that make any sense it's like

00:35:08.860 it's like you want to see like humanity win right yeah but does that really even matter if the goal

00:35:17.040 is to have an eternal life and to, is earn the right word?

00:35:25.400 No, I wouldn't use earn, but it's a both and, see?

00:35:29.200 But does it make sense when I'm asking you?

00:35:30.800 Yeah.

00:35:31.020 But it's like, I don't want to lose here on earth, not as a person, but just as a species

00:35:35.140 or as like, sometimes it's even as like America or as like good, good versus evil.

00:35:39.920 It's like, I don't want good to lose here on earth.

00:35:43.380 You want to try and service that as well as you can,

00:35:45.820 but it seems like the more important thing

00:35:48.520 is this greater good that comes with salvation.

00:35:53.560 Does that make sense?

00:35:54.140 Yes, and they're both true.

00:35:55.460 See, contrast Chris' biblical religion 0.52

00:35:58.080 with, let's say, Plato, 0.68

00:36:00.260 and go back to Plato or these other figures,

00:36:02.780 that felt the body, this natural world,

00:36:05.600 was kind of a fallen world.

00:36:06.980 It was low level.

00:36:08.800 The idea was to escape from it.

00:36:11.080 So Plato says the whole point of philosophy is like a prison break to get out of the prison of the body.

00:36:16.380 That's not the Bible.

00:36:17.660 The Bible doesn't hold to that at all.

00:36:19.580 So God makes the world, everything in it, including insects that crawl upon the earth and all that,

00:36:25.720 and he finds it good, and he finds the ensemble of it very good.

00:36:30.660 That's a radical thing, though, in the Bible.

00:36:32.620 See, because so many dualistic systems would say like spirit good, matter bad, heaven good, earth bad,

00:36:39.220 get out of earth to get to heaven. That's not the Bible. The Bible affirms the earth. It affirms the

00:36:47.040 human project, right? And then it doesn't want so much escape from the earth. It wants a new heavens

00:36:53.700 and a new earth. That's a different game. See, God doesn't give up on what he's made. He wants to

00:36:59.220 lift it up and transfigure it and bring it to a higher pitch. Or like Jesus says, may your will

00:37:06.180 be done on earth as in heavens. He wants to bring heaven and earth together. That's the goal. And

00:37:11.920 see, we believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It doesn't mean, oh yeah, Jesus died and

00:37:16.480 his soul, thank God, went up to heaven. That's not it at all. He walked in the room and he ate

00:37:23.480 in front of them and he said, touch my wounds. Risen from the dead, yes. Conqueror of death,

00:37:29.400 yes. But in his body, right? So we look forward, like the creeds say, not to the escape of the

00:37:35.320 soul from the body. We look forward to the resurrection of the body. So see, that's to your

00:37:39.980 point. That means God doesn't give up on the world. He doesn't give up on the human project.

00:37:44.840 He wants us to strive to make this world as beautiful and just and good as possible

00:37:49.500 in the hopes of now attaining this transformation. Or think of the scene of the transfiguration of

00:37:57.580 Jesus when the clothes become dazzling white and all that. He doesn't go up somewhere else.

00:38:03.940 He allows them to see his transfigured person.

00:38:09.060 That's the biblical thing. 0.92

00:38:10.480 So it's both and, right?

00:38:11.820 It's both and.

00:38:13.960 What do you think is something that would—

00:38:15.600 There's a transfiguration.

00:38:16.240 Oh, yeah.

00:38:16.660 Show it.

00:38:17.020 Let me see.

00:38:18.680 And is that one particular famous piece of art or is that—

00:38:22.480 Well, that's the Raphael one on the right there, the screen I'm looking at.

00:38:26.180 There's a lot of different—but the Raphael is probably the most famous one.

00:38:30.480 But it's the bodilyness of it.

00:38:31.980 That's what I would emphasize.

00:38:33.500 So many spiritualities are kind of down in the body, down in the world, get out of the world.

00:38:37.700 That's not biblical religion.

00:38:39.640 Got it.

00:38:40.080 We like the body.

00:38:40.900 The body's good.

00:38:42.260 But it's part-time.

00:38:43.740 Not really.

00:38:44.440 No, I look forward to the resurrection of the body.

00:38:46.760 But think about this, too.

00:38:47.720 So you're saying our body will come back?

00:38:49.260 Yeah.

00:38:49.800 Well, see, this body's part-time.

00:38:52.400 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

00:38:53.120 This body's part-time.

00:38:53.880 But I mean, like, how many of the cells in my body did I have, I don't know, the scientists will tell me, four years ago?

00:38:59.580 Nothing.

00:39:00.240 My whole body's been replaced, right?

00:39:02.180 But the form of me, the basic pattern of me remains, right?

00:39:08.940 Well, I think something similar, we talk about the resurrected body.

00:39:12.900 I'll die, I'll go into the ground, but God remembers the great pattern of me and can reconstitute, just as it's happening now in nature, I'm getting reconstituted physically all the time.

00:39:25.180 That's a good point.

00:39:25.760 So can it happen in this sort of transfigured way in heaven?

00:39:28.880 But Paul talks about the spiritual body, and you say, well, what's he talking about?

00:39:34.300 But I think he's gesturing toward this.

00:39:36.660 It's a body, but it's not like just this ordinary body.

00:39:40.000 It's a spiritualized body, and he sensed that in the resurrection of Jesus.

00:39:45.700 One of the toughest things that I hear people talk about, like we're in a lot of like kind of like a, I don't want to say like a me time, but it's like we've all kind of like we're inundated with ourselves, right?

00:39:58.880 And people spend less time connected, you know, even though like technology has us hypothetically more connected, but they spend less time connected.

00:40:08.080 And then a lot of people feel alone, right?

00:40:10.960 Like even if they're not even alone, sometimes there's this just feeling of being alone.

00:40:17.300 Why is it – is being alone a sin?

00:40:20.200 Is it a sin to be alone?

00:40:22.040 It's not good for a man to be alone, the Bible says, right?

00:40:24.620 So, I mean, from the beginning – because God is a family.

00:40:27.840 We'd say God is Father, Son, Spirit.

00:40:29.660 God is not just –

00:40:31.380 Yeah, he's a triple-dipper.

00:40:33.200 He's not a monolith. 0.98

00:40:34.640 Right.

00:40:34.860 There's like something familial.

00:40:36.420 There's something communitarian about God.

00:40:38.600 And so he wants us to have that same kind of thing.

00:40:42.320 See, I think what happens is when you forget about God, you lose your connection to everybody else.

00:40:47.620 See, you and I, we just met today for the first time.

00:40:51.140 But see, we're – we are – I'll use a technical term.

00:40:54.660 We are ontological siblings because it means we're brothers at the level of being.

00:41:02.140 Because right now, we're both coming forth from God's creative intention.

00:41:07.740 So if you go to the very depth of my own being, I'm going to find the depth of your being.

00:41:13.360 And that's why we're like our—

00:41:15.760 And that's because why?

00:41:16.700 We're both here talking about it and learning together?

00:41:18.760 No, because we're both creatures.

00:41:20.480 We're both here because God is willing us to be here.

00:41:23.260 and he's he's breathing us right now into existence i see so that at that alone that that birth

00:41:29.520 in a way is something that we have in common yeah we rarely ever even talk about that right and see

00:41:34.380 when you pray so in prayer again thomas merton says it's finding the place in you where you are

00:41:42.060 here and now being created by god that's what prayer it means so if i in prayer find that place

00:41:47.920 I found that same place in you and the same place in everybody else.

00:41:52.480 And that's why St. Francis can say, brother, son, and sister, moon.

00:41:57.160 It's not just Whistlin' Dixie.

00:41:58.620 I mean, that's a very accurate statement.

00:42:02.180 Oh, yeah, the sun is my brother.

00:42:04.460 The moon is my sister because we're all coming forth from the same creative source.

00:42:09.360 And see, that happens in prayer.

00:42:11.260 Yeah, the stitch is the same.

00:42:12.600 That lowest stitch is the same.

00:42:14.560 Right.

00:42:15.240 But now you stop praying or you say, I don't care.

00:42:17.840 I hate church.

00:42:18.640 Forget about God. 0.51

00:42:19.740 I'm going to live for myself.

00:42:21.100 You've lost that now.

00:42:22.280 You've lost contact with that point.

00:42:24.180 And so, of course, we now live in antagonism.

00:42:26.680 Okay.

00:42:27.060 So if we're all connected, then what's a way to stay as tapped into that connectivity as possible?

00:42:34.420 Love one another as I have loved you.

00:42:36.520 So Jesus says to his disciples, I've loved you.

00:42:40.020 I've willed your good.

00:42:42.080 And you've found your commonality in me.

00:42:44.780 Okay, now you love each other as I have loved you.

00:42:49.800 In 2 Corinthians, Paul says,

00:42:52.420 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

00:42:56.780 There's the whole purpose of Christ.

00:42:58.080 See, we wandered into the land of unlikeness,

00:43:00.840 we're lost, we're in the desert,

00:43:02.040 whatever metaphor you want.

00:43:03.520 But now in Christ, God has reconciled us to himself.

00:43:07.960 But then Paul says, now you become ambassadors of Christ.

00:43:12.540 now you become reconcilers

00:43:14.760 that's the saints then

00:43:16.760 that's their job

00:43:17.620 the divided societies

00:43:19.860 because there aren't enough of us

00:43:21.440 we're not light

00:43:22.820 we're not salt

00:43:23.520 we're not the city on the hill

00:43:24.620 and we're not doing our work

00:43:25.960 of reconciling

00:43:26.880 you know

00:43:27.540 you know

00:43:28.420 do you have that Amish hat

00:43:29.620 behind you there right

00:43:30.320 the Amish kid that was on your show

00:43:31.840 oh yeah Timothy

00:43:32.760 I love that

00:43:33.320 who's from my diocese

00:43:35.860 he's from my area in Minnesota

00:43:37.460 Lanesboro

00:43:38.240 oh nice

00:43:38.940 yeah he's one of a kind

00:43:40.340 I want to have him back in

00:43:41.540 Cause I hope I'm, I'm scared that he's going away from, I don't know.

00:43:46.360 I just, there's a fear that I have that it's like he got a little too

00:43:50.080 tempted, a little too tempted out there.

00:43:51.780 I mean, there he is at fricking Hooters.

00:43:54.780 I didn't see that.

00:43:55.760 You know?

00:43:56.500 And I don't think the Lord's at Hooters. 0.99

00:43:58.580 No, but I don't know about this particular Amish kid, but the Amish.

00:44:02.060 That's him.

00:44:02.980 But I don't know.

00:44:03.960 But the Amish are, they're beautiful examples of what I'm talking about.

00:44:06.800 You know, these stories about, you know, a guy goes crazy and he killed these kids in an Amish school, right?

00:44:13.500 And you think the community would just be so lividly angry with him.

00:44:17.660 And these Amish people went to the home of the guy's widow.

00:44:22.380 He killed these kids and killed himself.

00:44:24.580 They went that night to the home of the widow to comfort her.

00:44:27.500 And then they went to his trial or something to show their support. 0.96

00:44:34.360 See, that's Christianity.

00:44:35.920 That's grace breaking out. 0.61

00:44:38.580 That's God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

00:44:41.920 They were acting as ambassadors of Christ in that regard.

00:44:45.260 Because they were looking at someone else's pain over theirs.

00:44:47.760 Yeah, right.

00:44:48.660 They were willing to go to the other, even if it meant enormous struggle for them.

00:44:52.720 So that's what we're supposed to do. 0.65

00:44:54.900 See, Christianity is never meant to be my little relationship with the Lord.

00:44:58.520 And as I go to church and I feel good about my prayers, fine as a starting point. 0.91

00:45:04.020 But the whole point of it is now go.

00:45:06.880 You're an ambassador of Christ.

00:45:09.060 And if the world's lost its way,

00:45:11.580 we Christians have got to take some responsibility.

00:45:13.780 Like, no, that's our job is to say Christ is the way

00:45:17.320 and let me show you.

00:45:18.840 It feels like the world has lost its way.

00:45:21.320 It feels like, I don't know if it feels like people

00:45:23.980 have all the time, but it feels like these darker powers

00:45:27.760 and like corporations, like greed has overtaken things.

00:45:30.960 you know um i mean you're just seeing things that are so painful in the world right now

00:45:36.040 um and i and maybe they've always been there right maybe they're more like in our hand these

00:45:41.700 days because we can see them on our phones and we can see them on social media but um it feels

00:45:46.460 like we've just gotten like it doesn't feel like we as humans it doesn't always feel like we are

00:45:52.320 that far off tune but it feels like there has been like an organized like strategy against us

00:46:03.340 to like like like get to like the down to the cell like even with the algorithms and now your phone

00:46:10.900 is watching you and how it's like and and uh surveillance state that we're entering allegedly

00:46:15.780 in some places it seems like the devil is like i mean he's like in way heavily invested in a

00:46:22.260 tech, you know, he loves it, but it's like, what do we do? Like, and you can't like turn back the

00:46:29.040 time of the world really. It's like, you can romanticize the past and I'll do that a lot,

00:46:33.100 but it's like, um, like, I guess it's just like, yeah, what do we do? Cause it doesn't feel like

00:46:38.900 we're not trying and maybe we aren't at times, but it does feel like the sword against us has

00:46:47.220 been sharpened with a sharpener that we couldn't even fathom existed. Does that make sense?

00:46:53.120 Yeah. Yeah, it does. And that spooks me too, because I do think it's a favorite tool

00:46:58.660 of the dark powers, the technology. You know, one way is just how mean that world is. When you

00:47:06.000 enter the world of social media and, you know, that meanness has always been there, but now it

00:47:10.900 appears publicly in a way that's damaging people. And I know from a lot of studies in my own

00:47:16.380 pastoral work. Young people, especially young women, are getting damaged like crazy on social

00:47:22.180 media. Just the negativity and the judgmentalism and, you know, yeah, the dark powers love using

00:47:29.420 that, you know. What do we do? Like, what do you do as someone who believes in like a good, right?

00:47:34.480 Even if they're, even someone who may not even have the strongest faith in God, right, or in a

00:47:39.640 specific, uh, branch of religion, but who just believes in like a moral good, you know? Right.

00:47:45.940 It's just like, yeah, but see, that's a very important point, actually, the belief in a moral

00:47:50.060 good, because if I can quote another hero of mine, GK Chesterton, do you know that name? GK? GK

00:47:55.360 Chesterton, a great English writer, dies 1936, I think. But he said this a hundred years ago,

00:48:01.820 he said, men today have lost, there he is, men today have lost their way. Nothing surprising

00:48:07.140 Men have always lost their way. 0.97

00:48:09.180 The difference is today they've lost their address.

00:48:12.100 See, we've always wandered into a bad path, but at least we kind of knew where we're supposed to be going.

00:48:19.060 And he saw 100 years ago, it's true, we're like mad today, that we've lost our address.

00:48:24.660 Like, well, where am I even going?

00:48:26.620 Where am I supposed to be going?

00:48:28.800 And see, we live in what I call the culture of self-invention.

00:48:32.180 I invent myself through my own freedom, right?

00:48:34.960 I decide who I am, what my values are.

00:48:37.660 Don't you tell me.

00:48:38.660 I won't tell you.

00:48:39.700 We'll just tolerate each other.

00:48:41.000 But I will decide my whole life.

00:48:43.040 That is a recipe for disaster, depression, everything else.

00:48:47.200 That's the black hole.

00:48:48.780 Everything's drawn into me, right?

00:48:51.220 What makes life worth living, I think, is when these great values appear.

00:48:57.160 They could be aesthetic values, like a song.

00:49:00.200 Like when I first heard Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, that's a song that changed my life.

00:49:04.640 It wasn't the first song I liked.

00:49:06.660 That was Sugar Sugar by the Archies.

00:49:08.780 Remember that song?

00:49:09.460 Sugar Sugar.

00:49:10.420 Right.

00:49:10.940 So I'm a little kid.

00:49:11.780 I'm nine years old, and I thought that was the coolest song.

00:49:13.980 Right?

00:49:14.140 I like that song.

00:49:15.520 But Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, I was, what, 17 or so when I heard that.

00:49:19.460 Like a Rolling Stone.

00:49:20.520 That changed my life, that song.

00:49:23.160 That's, I'll put it philosophically, that was an objective aesthetic value that drew me out of myself.

00:49:31.220 Okay.

00:49:31.400 That changed my subjectivity.

00:49:34.800 So you're saying that something you found on the outside of you

00:49:37.220 brought, kind of rearranged how you operated.

00:49:41.040 Yes, exactly.

00:49:42.160 Now, like Merton's Seven Story Mountain is a book like that.

00:49:45.180 Thomas Aquinas, my other great hero I discovered around that time.

00:49:48.640 These were these objective, beautiful things.

00:49:50.780 I remember when I was a high school kid,

00:49:53.160 and together in the class we're reading out loud Romeo and Juliet.

00:49:57.920 I mean, I understood about 4% of it.

00:50:01.400 Yeah, dude, it's not even that great.

00:50:03.200 Well, right, but my reaction when I first read it—

00:50:06.460 The notebook's better, I think, but go on.

00:50:08.600 When I first read it, it was like, man, that such a thing should exist.

00:50:13.640 I just thought it was like a miracle.

00:50:15.460 Like this thing, in its complexity and the beauty of the language, it just sort of flummoxed me.

00:50:23.800 Yeah, you're right.

00:50:24.580 Or like the first time I heard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the Ode to Joy Symphony. 1.00

00:50:31.400 And if you were to say, hey, I really like that, what a stupid response. 1.00

00:50:37.000 It was so stupidly inadequate to it. 1.00

00:50:39.340 Right, it doesn't even do its service. 1.00

00:50:40.640 Because it changes you.

00:50:42.080 See, if you say, oh, I like that, I'm still kind of calling the shots.

00:50:46.540 Right.

00:50:46.960 But really great values, the saints now in the moral order, like the story of Colby.

00:50:53.100 When you hear that story, you're like, wow, I can't even get my mind around that, right?

00:50:58.460 So those are the things that make life worth living.

00:51:00.940 What I'm against is this self-invention thing of like, oh, no, no, don't tell me what to think or do.

00:51:06.460 I will decide.

00:51:08.140 Bore me to death with that. 0.99

00:51:09.980 Bore me to death with that kind of autonomy.

00:51:13.120 What would be the appropriate response then of something that you heard of?

00:51:16.020 You know what I'm saying?

00:51:16.520 What would be a response that was less autonomous to?

00:51:19.820 It would be what we call aesthetic arrest.

00:51:22.760 You know, you're stopped.

00:51:25.000 You're stopped in your tracks.

00:51:26.600 and you let that thing do its work on you, right?

00:51:32.100 And then you become a missionary of it,

00:51:35.400 which is happening right now

00:51:36.760 because even though those things I'm talking about,

00:51:39.000 Bob Dylan and Beethoven and Shakespeare,

00:51:41.920 all hit me when I was a kid.

00:51:43.780 But right now, you hear me, I'm a missionary.

00:51:47.360 I'm announcing them because like, wow.

00:51:50.140 I just finished a film on the Gothic cathedrals.

00:51:53.220 I was trying to explain

00:51:54.120 And why was the whole world so captivated by the Notre Dame fire a couple years ago?

00:51:59.460 Remember?

00:51:59.900 The whole world was like, oh, my God.

00:52:02.240 And I thought it's not just because, oh, this nice old building is burning down.

00:52:06.840 People sensed in that cathedral like something of enormous value was being lost.

00:52:12.720 So I did this film that's meant to tell that story of why those buildings are so remarkable and powerful.

00:52:20.220 So stop.

00:52:21.240 See, aesthetic arrest.

00:52:22.420 Stop. 0.88

00:52:22.840 you shut up stop thinking stop stop it's not about judging it's not about you right let that thing 0.99

00:52:29.220 judge you right um and then it will rework you and then send you on mission that's how it works i 1.00

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00:54:13.320 Thank you.

00:54:15.400 So you're saying just finding things to honor?

00:54:18.500 Is that sort of exactly what you're saying there?

00:54:20.400 Or finding things that move you?

00:54:22.420 Yeah.

00:54:22.860 Well, they find you.

00:54:24.260 That's my experience.

00:54:25.400 And not taking some sort of like,

00:54:27.260 oh I like that or this or that just honoring what it is let and I think there have been teachers of

00:54:33.260 the great value see who have been affected by them and now can present them to people in a

00:54:38.260 powerful way I had this great professor at Notre Dame University I'm a kid and he was showing us

00:54:43.200 his art history class showing us images from you know the tradition but he loved the gothic

00:54:48.760 churches and it was the first time I saw like the rose window at Notre Dame and so he was someone

00:54:55.080 who'd been affected by that. And then he communicated it to me. So we need teachers

00:55:00.080 that know how to do that. Well, I think one of the things that we run into is so much,

00:55:04.640 there's not as much oration amongst communities and stuff as much anymore. It used to be the way

00:55:11.200 you got a story was you had to go and hear it from the source. And it used to be like when I

00:55:17.000 was growing up, it was like, dude, you got to meet so-and-so, wait till you hear, wait till you hear

00:55:22.880 the story right so it had this like there was more opportunity for lore and and um and there

00:55:30.200 was more opportunity for like advertising and build up of like a story or a person or something

00:55:37.540 right if you want to learn about like how to make something i don't have to travel to the guy in my

00:55:42.820 town that makes it and sit there with him and develop an apprentice and be an apprentice right

00:55:48.200 we're not much in apprenticing where i can go watch a youtube video of something and there's

00:55:52.500 still an apprenticeship there because i'm watching someone yeah do it but there's a human there's a

00:55:58.920 but the lack of humanity there i think i don't think we know the total value loss of that human

00:56:06.100 connection yes of sharing a story or a skill um or a mindset or belief yeah um i think that i don't

00:56:14.120 think that we've come to like a place that we can calculate the loss of that because it feels like

00:56:19.180 there's um that we're not doing something together yes no there's a lot right what you're saying

00:56:24.800 there the machines give us data and we're great at that and that's it is a huge thing i use you

00:56:30.140 know the siri every day and hey siri what about this and i can get data information but you're

00:56:35.820 talking about something much deeper which is pattern and meaning and for pattern and meaning

00:56:41.340 siri can't give that to us the machines can't give that to us you need you're exactly right

00:56:46.420 The lore and the narrativity of a community.

00:56:50.300 See, that brings me right back to something else that's really missing,

00:56:53.420 the initiation rituals of primal peoples.

00:56:56.220 And this is true across the cultures, all over the world,

00:56:59.220 in primal peoples of a young man, let's say.

00:57:02.240 He's got to be ripped out of his comfort area

00:57:05.520 so that the men of the tribe or the town will go take the kid out from his home.

00:57:11.640 All right.

00:57:12.160 And then they'll scarify him usually,

00:57:13.860 like something on the cheek

00:57:15.120 or they'll knock a tooth out 0.54

00:57:16.000 or circumcise them or something.

00:57:18.040 And the idea of that was-

00:57:19.380 Well, that third one's a real.

00:57:20.860 I'll take one of the first two.

00:57:22.260 Yeah, I'll take the tooth.

00:57:23.580 I mean, somebody got me for the third.

00:57:25.800 And I'm still going to catch the guy who did it.

00:57:27.880 But yeah, anyway, let's carry on.

00:57:30.220 But it's meant to say life is hard.

00:57:33.080 I mean, life's going to knock you around.

00:57:35.060 So you're saying that like young men,

00:57:37.000 they would extract them from sort of their comfort zone.

00:57:40.580 Yeah.

00:57:41.180 And they would-

00:57:43.160 Mark their body somehow.

00:57:44.600 Okay.

00:57:44.960 Like to say, okay, remind them, life is hard.

00:57:47.260 Expect it.

00:57:48.120 Don't expect life to be easy.

00:57:49.160 I see.

00:57:49.500 So it was an educational.

00:57:50.440 Right.

00:57:50.880 Got it.

00:57:51.140 But then, see, to your point, they would then speak the lore of the tribe.

00:57:55.420 Now, you need to know the history of this tribe.

00:57:57.600 This thing goes way beyond you, way before you.

00:58:00.740 It was here long before you.

00:58:02.100 It'll be here long after you.

00:58:03.440 Then the last step was almost invariably bring the kid to the edge of, like, jungle or tundra or whatever it was.

00:58:10.620 Give him a few simple supplies.

00:58:12.220 Go.

00:58:12.640 Survive.

00:58:13.160 And come back only when the sacred has communicated to you.

00:58:19.920 And that's super healthy, that move.

00:58:22.300 See, it got someone out of his self-regard, the black hole of the ego.

00:58:27.400 Your life is not about you.

00:58:28.760 Life is hard.

00:58:30.380 And you're meant to find meaning in this realm way beyond what you can imagine.

00:58:35.920 And only when all those things have happened can you come back to the tribe and be of any use to us.

00:58:42.260 If you're stuck at home at the attitude of a 14-year-old,

00:58:45.600 you will not be of any use to this tribe.

00:58:47.580 I think we have tons of uninitiated people.

00:58:51.200 They've not been brought through that process.

00:58:53.600 And you know what we used to do?

00:58:54.680 That's a great statement, dude.

00:58:56.140 Sorry, I don't know.

00:58:57.500 That feels like something, man.

00:59:00.140 Yeah, it feels like, I don't know,

00:59:03.420 it feels like we're all just capable of so much more.

00:59:06.660 Like, I know we can do so much more in some ways,

00:59:09.540 but there's a part of us that's capable of so much more that is like wilting yeah no right

00:59:16.000 and that's the whole point of it is to bring a kid through that so that he can make a real

00:59:20.380 contribution so how would we like what is kind of a modern day like like is there a way to do that

00:59:26.780 now like and yeah i think this is not to put you on the spot i mean but no no religion used to

00:59:31.880 preside over this that's the whole thing religions presided over this this process oh i didn't

00:59:36.820 realize that. Sure. I'm going to go back to primal peoples. It was always like in a religious

00:59:40.180 context. Right. So you're taking them out there and you're also sharing the lore. I think the

00:59:43.920 lore is so important, man. Like, I don't, I mean, like, this is sad to say. It's like,

00:59:48.860 I don't even know that much of my family lineage, you know? Like, I don't even like,

00:59:54.020 I don't even a lot of times, like yesterday was one of the first times I told my dad,

00:59:58.200 hello. Like when I was praying, you know, like not that that's where you can communicate with

01:00:02.060 him, but I felt like kind of like the portal was open. So I told him, hello, my friend's

01:00:06.260 sister just passed away and i was like hey look out for my buddy's sister you know in heaven yeah

01:00:10.340 yeah but i just like like i think there was definitely this bigger connection um between

01:00:16.240 cultures and their ancestors yeah and the existence beyond us um and i and i'm really

01:00:23.360 honestly just speaking somewhat for myself you know um and some of it's not any fault of mine

01:00:28.220 some of it isn't things that were brought upon me but it's like things that maybe i could incorporate

01:00:32.120 when I have my own family and stuff.

01:00:34.160 But I do think it's things that I think

01:00:35.880 there could be some lack of in our society today.

01:00:41.120 This is many years ago.

01:00:42.160 Now, my niece, she's now like in her mid-30s.

01:00:44.000 When she was like around 20,

01:00:45.660 she and her classmates,

01:00:47.240 they took them up like in somewhere in northern Wisconsin

01:00:50.980 and made them live outside in the woods for several days.

01:00:55.940 They had to take kayaks and they were up and down rivers.

01:00:58.840 And they really put them through it, right?

01:01:00.720 And I remember this because she came

01:01:02.100 home and was telling me about this with such enthusiasm and at that point she was like a like

01:01:07.340 a late teenager and kind of bored by everything but man she came alive talking about that experience

01:01:13.020 and see there's at least an overtone of the initiation ritual stuff with that you got to go

01:01:18.260 through something tough and challenging and gets you out of your self-regard see self-regard

01:01:23.900 everything's about me yeah how does it affect me is it's the other regard because that's love

01:01:28.680 willing the good of the other. But you've got to be drawn out of that.

01:01:32.940 How did the church used to do that?

01:01:35.460 Well, there's a little remnant of this thing. We stopped doing this after Vatican II, but

01:01:39.400 confirmation, right? So it was one of the sacraments, and usually given around the coming

01:01:44.020 of age time, right? So in my diocese, when the kids were 15, there was a moment when the bishop

01:01:49.640 would give the kid a little slap across the face. Well, that's the imitation of the scarification

01:01:55.820 or the knocking a tooth out, you know?

01:01:57.720 So it was meant to say life is tough.

01:01:59.420 Put the Lord in his cheeks, you know?

01:02:01.380 Yeah.

01:02:01.940 That's what you get, you know what I'm saying?

01:02:02.980 Or some physical reminder.

01:02:04.440 Right, it was physical.

01:02:06.280 No, I think we did it as a culture better,

01:02:09.320 you know, that we realized that we go.

01:02:11.740 Now see, right, there's the bishop like me

01:02:13.540 confirming a kiss, 0.86

01:02:14.380 and we put the chrism oil on the forehead. 1.00

01:02:16.680 But in the old days, they would also slap them. 1.00

01:02:20.000 Yeah, I've been using a batana oil

01:02:22.560 sometimes on my scalp at night. 0.98

01:02:25.820 That's not chrism oil, though.

01:02:27.140 Yeah, no, it's not.

01:02:28.020 It's not ordained.

01:02:28.840 I know that.

01:02:29.460 It's just on the shelf or whatever.

01:02:30.860 You know that right in the middle there, that's Cardinal George, who is of Chicago.

01:02:34.640 No, go up with the red vestments right there.

01:02:38.180 That's the Pope?

01:02:39.000 No, he was the Archbishop of Chicago.

01:02:41.780 Who is that?

01:02:42.560 That's the Archbishop of Chicago.

01:02:44.380 But I lived with him for about six years.

01:02:47.120 Really?

01:02:47.600 Yeah.

01:02:47.920 You're roommates?

01:02:48.860 Not roommates, no, but I lived in the same house with him.

01:02:51.180 And he was kind of a mentor to me, kind of a hero to me.

01:02:54.860 Oh, that's beautiful.

01:02:55.520 Let's say his name again.

01:02:56.380 What is it?

01:02:56.880 Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.

01:03:00.180 Was he the real deal?

01:03:01.680 Yeah.

01:03:01.920 He was a very serious guy, very smart, understood everything we've been talking about.

01:03:06.320 He understood the spiritual power of the church, and he was a real student of the culture.

01:03:11.220 So he knew what was going wrong with our culture.

01:03:13.520 He was very insightful about that.

01:03:16.800 Yeah.

01:03:17.200 It feels like there's bigger entities.

01:03:18.820 How do we—I know you kind of touched on, I feel like, how we battle that.

01:03:22.480 but like at what point is there like a wry uprising about like at what point do you feel

01:03:32.040 like there's like as a group if we're kind of all like connected if there's some connection maybe

01:03:37.940 because I think sometimes I'm amazed that we there's hasn't been more like um revolution

01:03:44.160 are you amazed at that at all just based on where things are kind of and like because it's gotten

01:03:50.200 pretty scary you know it's like we're at a place where we should be spiritual revolutionaries and

01:03:55.180 that's true i don't want like political revolution cares yeah i'm not saying political but there

01:03:59.800 see but the church here's something interesting to me you know when the lord says to to peter okay

01:04:05.340 if you're peter upon this rock i'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail

01:04:09.740 against it right right now all of my life i would say i heard that statement i took it to mean oh

01:04:15.020 yeah hell is coming after us and they're not gonna they're not gonna prevail right we're gonna be

01:04:19.040 able to hang in there. But that's completely backward. The gates of hell will not prevail

01:04:25.200 against you. Well, see, if you were attacking a city in the ancient world, you attacked the gates.

01:04:29.700 That was the weakest place. So the image is not we're defending ourselves against the onslaught

01:04:35.440 of hell. No, no. We're going after you. We're going after the powers of darkness, and we're

01:04:40.380 going at your gates because it's the weakest place, and we're going to break in, and we're

01:04:44.720 going to conquer you and so the church is a militant organization in that sense we don't

01:04:50.220 use the weapons of the world but we're battling the dark powers and part we've lost our confidence 0.84

01:04:55.800 we've lost our sense of purpose um armed with the great weapons that paul talks about right

01:05:05.620 yeah because sometimes it feels like the church yeah it feels kind of sometimes like the church 0.63

01:05:08.500 doesn't have any balls i know yes and that's the problem that's the problem and i don't mean that

01:05:12.860 No, no, and you're absolutely right. 0.99

01:05:14.820 We should be on the march against the dark powers. 0.99

01:05:17.640 Now, here's something that's—

01:05:18.360 Because if you guys aren't?

01:05:20.160 Yes.

01:05:20.560 Like, if the church isn't, then what is going to be?

01:05:23.000 Right, and if the salt loses its savor, who's going to make it salty again?

01:05:26.460 And we put the light under a bushel basket, and we've done a lot of that.

01:05:30.700 By kind of accommodating the culture of losing our edge.

01:05:35.460 Here's something the saints always said about the devil.

01:05:37.580 The one thing in us the devil can't manipulate is humility.

01:05:42.180 See, the devil is marked by pride above all.

01:05:44.340 Pride means self-regard, me, me, me, right?

01:05:46.880 So the devil can use anything in me.

01:05:49.320 He can use my strength.

01:05:50.400 He can use my ambition.

01:05:51.260 He can use whatever.

01:05:52.220 But the one thing he can't use is my humility.

01:05:56.600 It just frustrates him.

01:05:58.280 Because it's not something he would do.

01:06:00.320 Right.

01:06:00.680 He doesn't know what to do with it.

01:06:02.140 It's completely repugnant to his way of being.

01:06:04.960 So if I'm humble, that means I'm letting go of my ego.

01:06:08.960 I'm letting God direct me.

01:06:10.520 and the devil cannot mess with that.

01:06:14.800 He cannot mess with it.

01:06:15.980 But say you're so humble, you're so accepting, right?

01:06:18.800 You just keep accepting and accepting and accepting

01:06:21.100 and then there's, and then.

01:06:23.260 No, but it's a position of power, real humility

01:06:25.860 because it means.

01:06:27.920 So give me an example, maybe.

01:06:29.640 But does it make sense?

01:06:31.180 Because I'm just trying to make sure that I make sense.

01:06:33.000 Yeah.

01:06:33.240 Because sometimes I don't know, to be honest with you.

01:06:34.800 And so I'm trying to make sure that it makes sense to you.

01:06:36.660 So when I say that it feels like it's just like, okay.

01:06:39.500 Like acquiescence or giving up.

01:06:41.340 Yes, if you're acquiescing to everything, it's just like, if that is the humility, then that feels like-

01:06:46.800 Like surrender.

01:06:47.680 It feels like, yeah.

01:06:49.040 It's not that.

01:06:49.820 It would be you're humble before God.

01:06:52.420 You've let go of your own pretensions, your own ego, your own plans and purposes so that God can work in you.

01:06:59.860 So now you've unleashed enormous power into the world.

01:07:03.860 Think of the great saints.

01:07:04.840 They're not little mewling, mealy-mouthed people.

01:07:09.500 they're full of confidence and a sense of purpose because it's god's purpose not their own and then

01:07:16.040 they boy they radiate power all over and that's what the devil can't use he can't use humility

01:07:22.800 in that sense um are we are we so addicted to self uh though that do you think like

01:07:29.540 because we're pretty far down the line in some ways of um really trapped in our own selves it's

01:07:36.960 like we're all our own businesses and we're it's like you know we're i would say we're pretty far

01:07:41.760 down the line with self yeah um do you think that we are so far down that we can't that that switch

01:07:51.320 can't be flipped you know what i'm saying like we've like we're so far like we're like looking

01:07:56.660 in a mirror of ourselves looking in a mirror you know i'm saying like are we too far down like the

01:08:00.960 narcissus reflection in the pond to be able to get back to some space of humility, because this

01:08:07.840 is what it feels like. I feel like sometimes you feel like, okay, this is what God would want me

01:08:13.260 to do. And it feels like you run into like, well, what will other people think of that?

01:08:18.660 Right.

01:08:19.260 You know, or how will that be perceived?

01:08:21.700 Right. You have to let go of that or you won't be getting done.

01:08:25.080 Or what if nobody follows me or agrees with me?

01:08:30.420 I think those are a lot of the fears that come up.

01:08:32.420 Now, that's the whole spiritual struggle in a way.

01:08:34.840 I'm so held captive by my fears or by my addictions.

01:08:39.080 Sin is always an addiction, right?

01:08:41.540 Because sin, capital S, is putting something other than God at the center of your life.

01:08:47.480 Okay.

01:08:48.020 So it could be it's wealth, pleasure, power, honor, family, country, anything other than God.

01:08:53.680 If I make it central, I will become addicted to it because I want God, right?

01:08:59.940 That's what my heart wants.

01:09:01.900 And so I'm going to try to find God in money.

01:09:05.140 Well, no matter how much money I make, it's not going to be enough.

01:09:08.720 It can't be.

01:09:09.300 It's not God.

01:09:10.420 Or, you know, my life is all about my family.

01:09:14.860 Great.

01:09:15.540 But if your family is God, it's not going to satisfy you.

01:09:20.460 Now, power.

01:09:21.840 If it's power, it's not going to satisfy you.

01:09:24.100 And before you know it, you're going to become addicted to these things, right?

01:09:27.300 So breaking free of addictions and breaking free of fears,

01:09:31.440 then you're at the point of Maximilian Kolbe.

01:09:34.000 Then you can say, I'm a Catholic priest, take me.

01:09:37.960 Now, that's an extreme case.

01:09:39.100 That's a martyr.

01:09:40.440 But see, on a smaller scale, that's true of all of us.

01:09:43.580 I would say this to you.

01:09:45.040 You do what you discern God wants you to do, and don't worry about the rest.

01:09:50.640 I had a teacher around high school, good guy, Mr. Stark.

01:09:53.860 He was our religion teacher.

01:09:55.540 He came in one day and he had this glass, this glass of plain water, right?

01:09:59.280 And without saying a word, he took this little eyedropper and put, boop,

01:10:02.240 one little drop of blue, boop, in it.

01:10:04.460 And then proceeded to teach the class, never referred to it.

01:10:07.660 And finished the class 45 minutes.

01:10:09.360 And then he said, do you see this water up here?

01:10:12.040 And by that time, it was all blue, right?

01:10:14.320 Even like dark blue.

01:10:15.860 And he said, that was from one drop.

01:10:18.640 And then he said, that's the influence of a saint.

01:10:21.900 And that's always stayed in my mind.

01:10:23.280 I think that's right, that a saint, which means someone doing God's will,

01:10:27.520 can have this enormous transformative effect.

01:10:32.060 And so do what God calls you to do, and don't worry about it.

01:10:35.060 You'll be that one drop of water that will make this huge difference.

01:10:38.460 And that's for everyone.

01:10:39.440 Yeah.

01:10:40.020 And gosh, if everyone did that, you'd transform the world.

01:10:43.460 I think people are trying.

01:10:44.600 I think it's just tough because it feels like the people that own the water

01:10:50.340 come over and say, no, no more blue water.

01:10:55.120 But the gates of hell will not prevail against us.

01:10:56.800 So if we have that confidence.

01:10:59.040 Right.

01:10:59.480 In the end, you have to believe in good at the end

01:11:04.580 because there's no other way to operate that gives you any reward.

01:11:11.040 Does that make sense to you?

01:11:12.240 like you have to believe that like even if everything points to like no you have to just

01:11:18.380 have hope and keep going i i believe the desire to please you does in fact please you merton says

01:11:25.720 right so as long as i have that desire all right and just follow it and just do it what it prompts

01:11:32.140 you to do and god will make it happen you know so in a way you want to pull back from the world

01:11:39.220 and just think about you, what God's calling you to do.

01:11:43.220 I have this online ministry, so a lot of times people will write in

01:11:46.820 and look, Bishop, I'm depressed, I'm in terrible shape,

01:11:51.420 I'm so unhappy, what do I do?

01:11:53.580 Because I don't know these people, and I don't want to be giving big advice

01:11:56.400 to people I don't know.

01:11:57.280 For sure.

01:11:57.920 But the one I feel confident giving, and I do, I'll say,

01:12:01.680 perform every day the simplest act of love.

01:12:05.180 and they know what i mean by that to will the good of the other and it might be it's a note

01:12:11.560 to somebody it's a kind word it's a smile because in it in that very act you're pulled out of

01:12:19.780 yourself yeah you know jordan peterson has said he's right about this that self-consciousness

01:12:26.300 and misery are identical and see that's the point we've been talking about all day today is the more

01:12:31.440 i turn inward that makes me miserable what are the best moments in a day without exception when

01:12:36.780 i'm least aware of myself and i'm lost in something whether it's you know it's willie nelson or it's

01:12:42.920 or it's romeo juliet or it's the shark cathedral or it's the indiana fever i like or it's this

01:12:47.500 conversation it what draws you out of yourself that's what gives you joy so which is why the

01:12:53.040 spiritual life it's it's always like on a razor's edge you know i i become happy when i'm least

01:13:00.320 preoccupied with me and boom oh yeah all of religious practice all of it is simply meant

01:13:06.740 to affect that change right yes that's the whole purpose of it understood yeah some of my favorite

01:13:12.320 most favorite moments are thinking about somebody else yes you know and you become truly happier and

01:13:17.540 better oh yeah measure well i just end up feeling better feeling better i've gotten so there's times

01:13:22.960 i've been so sick of myself like right i work and you have to see video of myself and then i have to

01:13:28.200 edit sometimes and I'm like, here, God, like, you know? So sometimes I wake, if I wake up and

01:13:34.960 I'm thinking about somebody else, the first thought in my head is somebody else. It literally

01:13:39.040 feels like the greatest thing. It feels like the most, like the best ice cream, a flavor they don't

01:13:44.980 even have that nobody else can get. Right. Because if put it in theological terms, you are at that

01:13:49.720 moment in, in tune with God. Yeah. God is love. And so the simplest act of love puts you in tune

01:13:55.900 with god and therefore makes you happy yeah it does man and it gets i will say this dude i it

01:14:04.180 starts to get a little bit addicting and a but it's positive yeah yeah thinking about other people

01:14:10.600 and like wishing other people well and stuff like that you feel like a little a little hallmark

01:14:14.880 section absolutely well you know another spiritual hero of mine is uh therese of lesieux to know

01:14:19.540 that name by any chance she's very popular in the catholic world therese of lesieux

01:14:25.320 It was a little town in northwestern France, and she was a nun who joined the convent when she was 15.

01:14:32.140 She died at 24.

01:14:33.480 She lived there for nine years.

01:14:35.180 Lived, like, in a worldly sense, a nothing life, right?

01:14:38.760 But she wrote a little book called The Story of a Soul, which has been massively popular all over the world.

01:14:43.860 Most Catholic churches, almost anywhere in the world, you'll find a statue of the little flower.

01:14:48.340 That's her nickname, the little flower.

01:14:49.980 St. Therese.

01:14:50.920 There we go.

01:14:51.560 Yeah, there she is. 1.00

01:14:52.780 Oh, maybe I could get a piece of art in her. 1.00

01:14:54.440 There she is. 1.00

01:14:54.780 Oh.

01:14:55.320 anyway her book the story of a soul and she has a spiritual path is called the little way

01:15:02.320 got it what's the little way it's at every moment of the day find the path of love so that at every

01:15:09.640 moment no matter what condition you're in there's an opportunity for love do it that's the little

01:15:14.940 way so like right now what's the path of love and see i would say well the path of love right now is

01:15:19.880 talking to you yeah i think i'm willing the good of the other i think you're willing my good yeah

01:15:25.240 This is the path of love.

01:15:26.540 So good.

01:15:27.020 Let's stay on that.

01:15:28.400 Amen.

01:15:28.780 And every moment, there's an opportunity for it.

01:15:31.240 What most of us sinners do is we choose the opposite.

01:15:34.540 We'll say, no, I'll go through my day choosing the opposite of love, which is why I'm miserable.

01:15:39.400 What's the fear then?

01:15:40.340 Because you're not going to have something if you, you know, it's like a fear.

01:15:42.940 Yeah.

01:15:43.180 There's a lot of fear attached to it.

01:15:44.940 Yes.

01:15:45.360 I'm not going to have enough time to do the things I need to do.

01:15:48.040 Yep.

01:15:48.360 Which is why we put in front of our eyes as Christians, Jesus crucified. 0.85

01:15:54.660 Do you know the Buddhist thing, invite your fears in for tea? 0.81

01:15:59.760 Do you know about that?

01:16:00.460 It's a spiritual practice where you say, okay, what am I afraid of?

01:16:03.920 I'm afraid of failure.

01:16:05.080 I'm afraid of this is not going to go well.

01:16:06.640 I'm afraid that person doesn't like me anymore.

01:16:08.280 I'm afraid of getting sick.

01:16:09.320 I'm afraid of dying.

01:16:10.760 Okay.

01:16:11.840 So now imagine you're inviting them all in for tea.

01:16:15.220 And you're going to, okay, there's my fear of death.

01:16:16.980 There's my fear of failure.

01:16:17.920 Welcome.

01:16:18.180 And you serve tea to them all.

01:16:20.680 And what that exercise accomplishes is it detaches you from your fears.

01:16:25.560 You realize, okay, but I'm not my fear of death, and I am something else.

01:16:30.600 Well, put that in Christian terms, it's detachment spirituality.

01:16:34.060 I'm detached from both my success and my failure, right?

01:16:39.360 Whether that's Ignatius of Loyola, whether I have a long life or a short life, I don't care.

01:16:43.500 Whether I'm successful or a failure, I don't really care.

01:16:46.100 I'm living in a space where I'm detached

01:16:49.760 from any of the goods of the world

01:16:51.740 that's spiritual maturity

01:16:54.340 that's been a very hard

01:16:55.360 and that gives you freedom though

01:16:57.260 now I'm free

01:16:58.580 oh yeah the binds aren't there then

01:17:01.160 and then you operate like at a

01:17:02.720 I mean you're on a different plane

01:17:04.480 and then you can accomplish God's purpose

01:17:06.960 he can now work with free people

01:17:09.120 the trouble is

01:17:10.300 we sinners are all addicts

01:17:12.580 we're all addicted

01:17:13.380 and we're all, at best, we're in like treatment programs for types of addiction. That's what

01:17:18.540 religion is. It's a kind of like a treatment program for addiction. If we get free of our

01:17:23.000 addictions, then God can use us, right? Speaking of addiction, like there's a lot of,

01:17:30.640 you know, pornography is such a huge thing in the world these days. And it's such a tool that's used

01:17:37.620 really, I believe, to like tear apart the American family and just families around the world. And I

01:17:42.620 shouldn't say the American family, I'm sorry, but families everywhere, you know, you're taking away

01:17:46.960 like, um, you're kind of hijacking people's lust and their love really a lot of times, you know,

01:17:52.900 um, we've had people on to talk about, uh, that run porn addiction recovery centers and stuff

01:17:57.760 like that. I feel like it's, to me, it feels like it's one of the biggest problems that's going on

01:18:01.480 out there. Um, has the church spoken out like against it? Do you guys feel some sort of

01:18:06.440 responsibility like to speak out against it like um and what do we do there because like

01:18:12.960 there's evil people that are just that are using this horrible stuff to ruin us yes and it's

01:18:21.280 working yeah no i sorry i got aggressive i think it just makes me so angry no i totally agree with

01:18:27.100 you so like you know like my generation i mean thank god we didn't get addicted the way young

01:18:32.720 people are now, because you couldn't get pornography the way, I mean, a 10-year-old

01:18:37.180 could get hardcore pornography on his cell phone.

01:18:41.000 Oh, I had to have a buddy sketch me a little something for the weekend. You'd give them

01:18:43.740 a couple bucks.

01:18:44.740 No, it was not easy.

01:18:46.840 And you'd get a return fee, too, if you returned it. I kept mine. But yeah, so it was a different

01:18:51.780 time.

01:18:51.980 But thank God. See, we didn't get addicted the same way. But man, today, and you know,

01:18:56.440 I worked in seminary work with these young people. Almost everybody, to some degree,

01:19:02.200 is addicted to pornography.

01:19:03.180 Oh, so many of my friends.

01:19:04.040 But what happens is you watch pornography

01:19:05.580 and you see it and they make,

01:19:08.480 they specifically make things.

01:19:10.040 It's like father, child, you know what I'm saying?

01:19:12.440 They make evil scenarios.

01:19:14.380 It's the most evil and it's gotten more evil.

01:19:16.900 It used to be like nice person meets,

01:19:19.680 you know, meets other nice person.

01:19:21.980 Like it started out, I think,

01:19:23.100 kind of like slightly maybe realistic, you know?

01:19:26.060 Yeah, but see, it has to do that though

01:19:27.160 because it's got to get ever more, you know,

01:19:29.360 titillating and ever more different

01:19:31.000 and that's not enough anymore.

01:19:32.820 But it even attacked like the family.

01:19:35.600 It's like dad, daughter, it's like mother, steps.

01:19:39.540 It's just like, I don't know, but it's so engineered.

01:19:43.780 It's like, what do we do?

01:19:46.320 Why can't, if Christianity is so strong 1.00

01:19:49.200 and it's so many people, why can't it eliminate that 1.00

01:19:52.720 from being allowed to be played in our country or whatever?

01:19:55.800 Does that make any sense to you?

01:19:56.580 Yeah, I know.

01:19:57.260 But the problem is that Christians have often lost their edge

01:20:00.340 or lost their sense of challenge to the culture. 0.92

01:20:03.800 You know, we've acquiesced to a lot of the culture.

01:20:05.720 We put the light under the bushel basket.

01:20:08.160 I gave a talk this couple years ago.

01:20:09.560 We had this big Eucharistic Congress gathering in Indianapolis.

01:20:12.380 I spoke to like 50,000 people.

01:20:14.460 And I said, you know, if every Christian in this country started living according to what we call the evangelical councils, 0.98

01:20:22.140 you know, like the great recommendations given by the Lord, we'd change the country overnight. 1.00

01:20:26.780 you know if we could harness the power of christians but we've we've lost our edge to a 0.85

01:20:32.640 degree and you're right this is a major area though uh because it's drawing young people into

01:20:37.760 really bad addictive patterns and it's hurting their brain chemistry is getting affected yeah

01:20:44.060 i mean i've certainly been down that road myself so i'm not like i'm also not separating myself

01:20:48.640 from anybody yet you know i've gone to like different recovery like you know meetings for

01:20:53.280 it that my buddy runs. So it's like, I've certainly been affected by it. You know,

01:20:57.220 I don't feel like, I feel like I'm like, I've certainly gotten into a better place because

01:21:01.380 I have a lot more awareness now. Um, but yeah, I can, I've seen the way that it's affected my

01:21:06.780 own life and it's, yeah, the way it's just, cause it takes away the way that you look at a woman. 0.98

01:21:11.660 It takes away the look that the way that you then like look at your spouse or your girlfriend, 0.98

01:21:15.540 or even as other women that are involved in your life and circle. Um, no, like the sexual lives of 0.97

01:21:21.700 of married couples are getting dysfunctional because of pornography.

01:21:25.420 Well, 1.00

01:21:25.740 it just hijacks the connection.

01:21:27.540 And it's like,

01:21:28.100 like,

01:21:29.420 dude,

01:21:29.580 we are,

01:21:29.940 we hardly have any connection.

01:21:30.920 And then it's like,

01:21:32.320 but it's like,

01:21:33.000 yeah,

01:21:33.140 when does like,

01:21:34.580 is the church strong enough?

01:21:36.180 Is the,

01:21:36.600 cause the Catholic church is the largest group in the world,

01:21:39.620 isn't it?

01:21:40.080 Yeah.

01:21:40.580 Well,

01:21:40.860 the largest,

01:21:41.860 I kind of write that.

01:21:43.320 I mean,

01:21:43.440 the largest Christian denomination.

01:21:46.240 Got it.

01:21:46.700 Yeah.

01:21:47.440 Yeah.

01:21:47.700 Just like,

01:21:48.780 yeah.

01:21:49.000 Like,

01:21:49.300 I don't still know what to like,

01:21:51.300 I'm not,

01:21:51.700 I don't know if I'm, I hope I, I don't sound like I'm preaching at you, do I?

01:21:54.720 No.

01:21:55.140 Okay.

01:21:55.460 I think I'm just bummed out about it and I don't know what to do.

01:21:58.480 And I think it's like, I guess I'm asking a power that seems greater than myself.

01:22:04.160 Like what, and I know that's not just you, like you have total control over everyone

01:22:08.660 and their behaviors, but I'm asking like, yeah, how do you like, but how do we get it

01:22:14.260 out of our, like you would think if something gross came into our world or something that

01:22:19.580 was causing a lot of harm came into our world with the sheer number of people that we could

01:22:24.300 get rid of it.

01:22:25.280 Yeah.

01:22:25.800 I mean, I think there does have to be some kind of government intervention when it comes 0.80

01:22:29.100 to pornography.

01:22:29.700 There should be some greater control over people's access to it.

01:22:32.900 It's way too easy, especially for young people, to access it.

01:22:35.900 And I think it is a real blight upon society.

01:22:39.240 And I think there should be more government intervention.

01:22:42.520 The church has indeed spoken out against it.

01:22:44.640 We've issued things as the bishops of America about pornography and different ways of addressing

01:22:49.540 it and helping people with it.

01:22:51.400 But I think it's reached the point where the government's got to get involved.

01:22:54.840 Yeah.

01:22:55.200 You know?

01:22:56.300 Yeah, it's heartbreaking, kind of.

01:22:57.700 But, you know, the thing is, no one should feel self-righteous.

01:22:59.440 It's heartbreaking fully, not kind of.

01:23:00.300 It's heartbreaking fully.

01:23:01.100 Yeah.

01:23:01.520 But go on.

01:23:01.940 And I didn't mean, you didn't feel like I made you feel uncomfortable about it, did

01:23:04.660 you?

01:23:04.880 No.

01:23:05.220 Okay, good.

01:23:05.720 No, no.

01:23:06.080 I mean, because we're all coping with this issue.

01:23:08.360 We're all here in the world.

01:23:09.200 But also that no one should ever feel self-righteous because, as I say, all sin is an addiction.

01:23:13.780 Everyone's addicted to something.

01:23:15.700 Oh, yeah.

01:23:16.080 You know, there's a story about St. Augustine, the great, you know, Augustine, author of the Confessions and all this.

01:23:22.180 He's a very ambitious guy, right?

01:23:25.400 And he wants to be speechwriter for the Roman emperor.

01:23:27.520 And he gets the job and he's just so excited.

01:23:30.060 And he's being carried on a litter, right, to the site where one of his speeches the emperor is going to give.

01:23:35.140 And he's so excited.

01:23:36.440 And on the way, he sees this hopelessly drunk guy just carrying on. 0.98

01:23:41.280 And Augustine's like, oh, look at this poor slob, this addict. 0.98

01:23:44.860 and then it occurred to him he said yeah but tomorrow he'll be sober and i will still be 1.00

01:23:50.480 drunk on ambition and it was like this moment of of illumination for gustin with all of his

01:23:56.320 sophistication and i'm such a he said i'm a worse addict than that guy so i mean all of us sinners

01:24:01.820 we're all hooked on something oh yeah and um yeah i've been hooked on a couple of those things yeah

01:24:07.440 working thinking that work would solve things um drugs um porno um trying to think of what else

01:24:17.480 that's that might be it probably and most of those i'm in recovery for i don't do anymore

01:24:22.240 um or i'm not doing anymore um so that's been good but like uh but yeah there's a lot out there

01:24:29.760 you know there's a lot of things that can get us addicted out there again speaking from a christian

01:24:33.720 standpoint, when you put up the crucified Jesus, it's such a weird thing. And I'm always trying

01:24:38.600 to convince people, realize how deeply weird it is that we put up in our churches. If someone came

01:24:44.780 like in a time machine from the ancient, from Roman world, and they walked in a room and they

01:24:48.580 said, oh, this is a religious gathering. And they see this guy on a cross and say, what is in

01:24:53.980 bad with you people? That's like the grossest thing. And this poor slob being put to death

01:24:59.520 on this miserable instrument of torture. 1.00

01:25:01.980 Yeah, the taxidermy's our savior, you know?

01:25:03.680 Why do we do it?

01:25:04.480 Right, why do we do it?

01:25:05.560 Well, because you look at Jesus on the cross

01:25:07.760 and you say, okay, he's got no wealth,

01:25:09.760 he's got no pleasure, he's got no power, 0.94

01:25:11.700 he's got no honor, he's a disgrace to his family, 0.97

01:25:15.280 he's being mocked. 0.95

01:25:16.580 It's like every single thing that we want

01:25:20.080 or that we're afraid of, there it is.

01:25:23.700 And he's got like none of it.

01:25:26.060 All of our fears are on full display.

01:25:28.620 Yeah, there.

01:25:29.120 And yet, and in that, right, and it's stripped naked.

01:25:32.200 He's got nothing.

01:25:33.660 And he says, Father, forgive them.

01:25:35.600 And into your hands I commend my spirit.

01:25:37.900 He's someone utterly, at that moment, ordered to God.

01:25:41.980 See, that's what's so weirdly powerful about the cross.

01:25:46.180 It's a stripping away, see, of all of our addictions, all of our illusions.

01:25:52.200 What's that line, W.H. Auden, the great poet?

01:25:55.120 We'd rather be ruined than changed.

01:25:57.560 We'd rather die in our dread than mount the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.

01:26:04.260 That's Auden, a great Christian poet.

01:26:06.140 Say that last part, we'd rather mount the cross of the moment than let our illusions die.

01:26:10.860 We'd rather be ruined than changed.

01:26:13.060 We'd rather die in our dread than mount the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.

01:26:19.360 The cross of the moment, we have to mount our own cross.

01:26:23.020 We have to be stripped of these things.

01:26:25.820 You know, go back to the very beginning of our conversation about evil.

01:26:29.440 Well, why would God allow this?

01:26:32.260 Well, see, evil, you might say in a superficial way, like, oh, yeah, I was stripped of this thing that I really want.

01:26:38.800 That could be the best thing.

01:26:40.740 That could be exactly what God wants.

01:26:42.780 He wants to strip you of your addiction to this thing, you know?

01:26:46.680 So that's mounting the cross of the moment and letting our illusions die.

01:26:51.260 yeah it's like we'd like like if you're brave enough if i don't if i don't mount the cross

01:26:57.140 of the moment right if i don't saddle up and say okay this is it then i just i just get to live in

01:27:03.740 the comfort of this hypothetical idea of of how things could have gone because there's comfort

01:27:11.620 in not taking risks right right there's a demand there and there's a stripping bear that god wants

01:27:18.140 you to do, and you're not going to do it. I'd rather be ruined than changed. He's calling you

01:27:22.900 to a spiritual change. That's conversion in Jesus, metanoia in the Greek of the New Testament.

01:27:30.760 Going beyond the mind you have. That's what that means, metanoia.

01:27:33.640 That's scary.

01:27:34.420 Yes, right. It is, because we all have a mindset in place. And Jesus always is saying,

01:27:40.960 metanoia, you got to get beyond the mind you have. And to reach the point of the little flower,

01:27:47.440 right love every moment or of maxima and colby boy that's that is a major metanoia that's going

01:27:54.620 way beyond the mind that you have uh because the mind we have is an addictive mind it's self-regarding

01:28:01.700 it's self-important self-protecting think of all the energy most of us sinners every day go through

01:28:08.060 putting walls around ourselves for protection mounting attacks against our enemies see but

01:28:14.380 All of that is living in the land of unlikeness, right?

01:28:19.880 It's miserable.

01:28:20.900 Yes, and it's miserable. 0.97

01:28:23.060 See, religion is all about joy.

01:28:25.760 Jesus says that, I've come that you might have life and have it to the full.

01:28:28.620 I've come that you might have joy and that your joy will be complete.

01:28:32.040 That's what we're here for, you know?

01:28:35.740 Yeah, when I was in a relationship that I was cheating all the time, it was miserable.

01:28:41.080 Yes.

01:28:41.400 I was always worried.

01:28:42.340 I was always concerned.

01:28:43.060 I was always sick of like my behavior and I was just like the lies and just

01:28:47.360 like, it was always a nightmare.

01:28:49.460 Right. And it's funny, like, but the church has been saying that forever.

01:28:52.780 It's been, it's been warning against that like forever,

01:28:55.720 but what's the move of the fallen mind of the church puritanical hung up on 0.90

01:29:00.940 sex. Go give me a break. And you know, you're caught in the middle ages. 0.97

01:29:05.260 No, no, no.

01:29:05.980 It's telling a truth that you discovered through experience, right?

01:29:10.260 The church has been saying that forever. You know,

01:29:12.560 the Bible knew that truth forever. One of the biggest ways that like pornography and different 0.97

01:29:18.960 addictions and stuff keep us down is shame, you know? Why does God allow us to have shame or how

01:29:25.160 does God view shame or how do you see that? Yeah, well, shame is not bad. Think of Adam and Eve,

01:29:30.780 right? So they cover themselves and they feel shame in the presence of God. That's a healthy

01:29:35.360 reaction. Shame is? It is if you're shamed in the presence of God. I mean, if you're feeling shame

01:29:41.640 in front of somebody else, 1.00

01:29:42.780 but that might be stupid. 1.00

01:29:43.960 It might be for the wrong reason 1.00

01:29:45.160 or it might be misplaced.

01:29:46.760 I'm saying like deep shame,

01:29:48.180 you know, like you're just

01:29:48.680 so ashamed of yourself

01:29:49.740 that you can't even.

01:29:50.660 See, but that's liberating.

01:29:51.800 If in the presence of God,

01:29:53.440 you feel ashamed

01:29:54.900 of what you've said or done,

01:29:56.240 good, that's God's way

01:29:57.280 of trying to, you know.

01:29:58.420 That's why I like the conscience.

01:30:01.660 John Henry Newman,

01:30:02.560 another hero of mine.

01:30:03.500 John Henry Newman?

01:30:04.360 John Henry Newman,

01:30:05.340 Cardinal Newman.

01:30:06.240 I just named him a saint

01:30:07.280 a while ago.

01:30:08.420 Congrats, John.

01:30:09.300 There he is.

01:30:09.780 Yeah, congratulations.

01:30:10.680 John Henry Newman.

01:30:11.640 He referred to the conscience, there he is, as the aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul.

01:30:19.260 The representative of Christ in the soul is your conscience.

01:30:22.720 So when your conscience says to you, oh, man, come on, that was bad.

01:30:27.280 That's terrible.

01:30:28.020 And you feel ashamed.

01:30:29.580 That's Christ speaking to you.

01:30:32.020 When the conscience, he says, rewards you, and it does.

01:30:35.040 The conscience says, hey, good.

01:30:37.340 With good feeling, you're rewarded.

01:30:40.020 Pay attention to it.

01:30:40.880 So that's the vicar of Christ in the soul.

01:30:43.300 That's the voice of Christ in the soul.

01:30:46.720 Let's pivot a little bit.

01:30:47.700 I wanted to talk real quick about just some interesting things from the Catholic Church,

01:30:52.000 from just history.

01:30:53.400 They used to have the things called indulgences.

01:30:56.000 Yeah.

01:30:56.420 Can you tell me a little bit about that?

01:30:58.420 It's just funny to me.

01:31:00.300 I just learned about it the other day.

01:31:01.340 My friend, Mr. Tommy, was telling me about it.

01:31:02.980 Yeah, and we still talk about indulgences.

01:31:04.900 It would be in the treasury of Christ.

01:31:07.560 So we say that Christ won for us salvation and by his great act of self-sacrifice, there's a kind of treasury in heaven and that we can call upon that, you know, on behalf of people that we love and we can pray and we can, benefiting from that, someone can grow closer to God.

01:31:27.000 Someone can, to put it crudely, get time off of purgatory.

01:31:31.320 It's just a way of saying that lessening our punishment, it's calling upon the treasury of Christ, let's say.

01:31:38.200 Is it a true thing?

01:31:39.480 Because someone said you could bail your wife out of purgatory or something like that or bail your cousin out or whatever.

01:31:43.960 The problem is the time of the Reformation when people were selling indulgences.

01:31:47.820 Yes.

01:31:48.100 So the church does not smile upon that.

01:31:50.480 Now, that was being done in the Middle Ages where people would, for this amount of money,

01:31:54.400 I will sell you an adult just to get your aunt out of purgatory,

01:31:57.320 you know, 0.67

01:31:57.520 for 60 years or something.

01:31:58.800 Cause that's crazy.

01:31:59.360 Cause then I'm guessing probably those guys would hit you up and be like,

01:32:02.000 Hey,

01:32:02.120 your brother's been in purgatory for like 11 months.

01:32:04.880 You're going to get him out or what,

01:32:07.120 you know?

01:32:07.420 So he was abused because it became something that depended upon,

01:32:10.640 you know,

01:32:11.100 people started taking advantage of it.

01:32:12.360 Right.

01:32:12.720 And it should not be something that's bought or sold.

01:32:15.200 So in itself,

01:32:16.300 it's a legitimate thing,

01:32:17.320 but not to be buying or selling.

01:32:20.360 There's a lot of talk these days about like in the middle East,

01:32:22.800 like a, there's like a genocide going on. There's like a lot of like, you know, conflict in the

01:32:27.760 Middle East. Like is the, is the Israel that we see that gets talked about in the Bible,

01:32:33.940 is it the same like the, as the government of Israel that's running the country that's there

01:32:38.880 now? No, that's important. Like how does the church view that kind of, or do they even have

01:32:43.080 a view on it? Yeah. I mean, I'd sum it up this way that the church recognizes the right of the

01:32:48.140 state of Israel to exist. So the churches and the popes have affirmed that, you know, over the last

01:32:52.020 several decades. But it's important to make that distinction you just did.

01:32:56.240 There's biblical Israel. Then there's the modern political state of Israel. And there are two

01:33:01.560 different things, which means a Catholic can certainly be critical of the government policies

01:33:07.820 of the state of Israel, as we would have any other government. Israel, he functions very

01:33:13.720 powerfully and symbolically in the Bible. Promised land, right? So there's the promised 0.92

01:33:19.900 land that was promised to the ancient Israelites, but it becomes in Christ now symbolic of the

01:33:25.940 promised land of heaven. So the new Israel, we might say is the church and the church as itself

01:33:33.020 a sign of heaven. So it's very important to make that distinction between Israel using the Bible

01:33:40.060 and then the modern state of Israel. So it's not the same group. No, no. Secondly, the church has 0.98

01:33:46.260 been adamant against all forms of anti-Semitism. So go back, the popes over the last many decades

01:33:51.340 have been really strong on that. The popes visits to Jerusalem, the pope visiting synagogues and

01:33:56.660 all that. So we're against anti-Semitism. Understood. There's been like in the Catholic

01:34:03.380 Church, there was like over the years, there was like kind of a marring of the Catholic Church

01:34:06.920 because of they had like, you know, I don't know if it's, are pastors in the Catholic Church as

01:34:12.140 well? Yeah. We'll talk about a priest can be a pastor of a parish. Okay. So they had like,

01:34:17.440 you know, I guess I'm trying to think of a way to even say it. They had like,

01:34:21.700 you know, the Catholic church, a lot of times they've had like kind of, they've had like

01:34:25.880 pedophilia or in the past in the church, right? They've had that happen over the years. And it

01:34:31.840 kind of gives it like, anytime, like if you bring it up, people will like make a joke,

01:34:35.660 like that happens a lot. I know. Yeah. And it's unfortunate. Yeah. It's not fair.

01:34:39.560 Why do you think that people who have suffered from pediophilia or are labeled pedophiles, why did so many of them kind of end up in the church?

01:34:53.560 Yeah, I think that's a better way to put it because why would someone who's sexually attracted to young people want to join the church and be a priest or a minister in the church?

01:35:05.960 Well, the answer is obvious in a way because it gives them a lot of authority and access to young people.

01:35:10.660 Got it.

01:35:10.940 And so someone who has that predilection, I understand perfectly why they might be attracted.

01:35:15.560 The same way, again, to be fair, if you look at sexual abuse of young people in our public school system, in the Boy Scouts, in fact, wherever you find young people and then others in authority, you're going to find this problem of pedophilia.

01:35:30.520 Most pedophilia, of course, exists in families, not in the Catholic Church, but in families.

01:35:36.320 So that's a better way to put it. 0.98

01:35:37.600 I certainly see why someone might be attracted to the priesthood.

01:35:41.760 The position because they're going to be in a position of leadership.

01:35:43.940 Of authority and access to kids.

01:35:45.880 Yeah, that makes sense.

01:35:46.300 What I think is really false, the insinuation that somehow the celibate priesthood produces people who are attracted to children, I think that's demonstrably false.

01:35:55.520 You do.

01:35:56.060 Yeah, I want to hear more why you think that.

01:35:57.860 Because one thing, you can find sexual abuse of children way outside the confines of the Catholic Church.

01:36:03.680 It's not something that's unique to the celibate priesthood.

01:36:06.360 For sure.

01:36:06.840 And you find it, again, in families and in coaches and in Boy Scout troops, et cetera, et cetera.

01:36:10.740 Yeah, a lot of spaces where there is, like you're saying, where there's some sort of a leadership or trusting.

01:36:14.900 I think what is more plausible is the other way around.

01:36:17.960 You see why someone who's attracted to children in this kind of perverse way would say, oh, that's a good position for me to get in.

01:36:25.780 It's the authority and access to kids.

01:36:27.860 And also, I feel it's so important to point out, the church responded really well.

01:36:34.880 This was a terrible crisis.

01:36:36.440 I mean, there was terrible sexual abuse of children within the church on the part of a priest.

01:36:40.880 And the acknowledgement of that was hugely important.

01:36:44.380 And the steps taken, there were very, very strong steps taken.

01:36:48.340 What are some of the steps that kind of were instituted?

01:36:52.000 And I'm sorry, I don't know this.

01:36:53.140 Yeah, no, no, it's good.

01:36:53.960 First, like at the seminary level.

01:36:55.240 So I was a seminary rector for a while, which I was in charge of a seminary.

01:36:59.240 And so when you're screening people for the seminary, a major, major preoccupation was

01:37:04.560 to screen for this kind of difficulty.

01:37:06.440 And we did it through psychological exams and that sort of thing.

01:37:10.620 And then lots and lots of instruction in the seminary itself about this problem.

01:37:15.920 There's also a program that's now all the way through the Catholic Church called the

01:37:19.700 Virtus Program that is educating people on a very regular basis.

01:37:25.000 and very seriously about sexual abuse of children,

01:37:29.560 about the dangers, about grooming,

01:37:31.280 about all of these things.

01:37:32.840 So, I mean, every single month I get in the email

01:37:36.360 this Virtus thing I have to,

01:37:38.520 there's a little article that I have to respond to

01:37:41.080 and answer questions about it.

01:37:42.540 But we all have to go through

01:37:43.680 an extensive program around it.

01:37:46.100 And what was some of the screening like?

01:37:47.360 What was that like?

01:37:47.960 That's interesting.

01:37:48.940 Well, like psychological screening.

01:37:50.260 So every kid coming to the seminary

01:37:51.680 has to go through a battery of psychological testing

01:37:54.760 and interviews. It's like everybody that wants to be a member of the seminary. Yeah. And then as

01:37:59.060 rector, I had to read every single one of them, you know, and then very attentive to people's,

01:38:03.540 you know, sexual history and that sort of thing. And because you were sort of the person that had

01:38:07.280 to kind of be like their liaison, I guess, into the, like getting approved, I guess.

01:38:12.380 Yeah. I had to give the word finally, could someone get in the seminary? So sometimes I

01:38:16.480 had to say, no, we're not accepting. Would some of them feel at least this was a safe place to

01:38:21.020 admit to you what had been they'd been thinking about or what had been going on like well you

01:38:25.240 never know for sure i mean sometimes people can uh deceive you yeah for sure but you know the we

01:38:30.460 also have uh independent psychologists too looking at all these guys got it so they're different ways

01:38:35.600 but no we are hyper attentive to this problem now in the church and i think it's fair to say that

01:38:41.560 that one of institutionally one of the safest places for a young person is the catholic church

01:38:45.700 because we're so attentive to the problem.

01:38:48.800 We've done so much to try to address it.

01:38:50.680 And then also just deal with this problem of,

01:38:52.860 you know, if people really are guilty of this crime,

01:38:55.220 that they've got to be out of the priesthood.

01:38:57.040 And the problem was for so long a time,

01:38:59.840 bishops, and some of them, I think, in goodwill,

01:39:02.220 thinking it was the best thing,

01:39:03.240 would send a guy for, you know, prayer

01:39:05.300 and maybe some psychological treatment

01:39:07.240 and then reassign him.

01:39:08.580 We now know that you can't do that.

01:39:10.360 That's not helping.

01:39:11.000 No, and so that's, you know, we're well aware of that.

01:39:14.960 And what about today?

01:39:15.860 Like if somebody is found guilty of sexual abuse, what happens?

01:39:22.700 Yeah, I mean, if it's clearly determined that the person is guilty, we have a zero-tolerance policy.

01:39:27.620 They're out of the priesthood.

01:39:30.580 And another thing, too, is that when accusations come forward, we take them with great seriousness,

01:39:35.720 and we always bring the secular authorities in.

01:39:39.340 We make sure that the police know about these accusations.

01:39:42.260 That was a problem two years ago

01:39:43.800 as some of it was not brought to the attention of the police.

01:39:46.300 Like we'll handle it within the church.

01:39:48.220 But it's a very high priority now.

01:39:50.460 Understood.

01:39:52.460 So before you go,

01:39:54.300 and thank you so much for your time today, Bishop Barron.

01:39:56.140 No, my pleasure.

01:39:56.840 I loved it.

01:39:58.740 There's a lot of like,

01:39:59.980 the Pope spoke out against like artificial intelligence, right?

01:40:03.500 I think there's a fear right now.

01:40:05.100 This is my fear, okay?

01:40:06.300 I'll just tell you what it is.

01:40:07.740 I fear that they create these data pools, right?

01:40:11.600 They create these artificial intelligence, these AIs, and then we go there for everything, right?

01:40:18.120 How do I feel?

01:40:19.060 Why don't I feel good today?

01:40:20.580 What's going on?

01:40:21.780 This becomes your friend.

01:40:23.300 And then that also becomes almost a place where you pray, right?

01:40:27.240 This is how I feel.

01:40:28.640 This is what's going on.

01:40:29.720 This is what I'm scared of.

01:40:30.840 What do I do?

01:40:32.040 And it all leads into some, like, it leads into a machine telling us what to do and not a higher power connection.

01:40:39.060 And that feels like, like almost, I don't know if we start on evolving, I don't know what's going to happen, but that feels very, very scary when you like completely sever what it means to feel like it means to be human.

01:40:55.800 One of the last, one of the most important things.

01:40:59.120 Does that make sense to you?

01:41:00.140 Yeah, no, truly.

01:41:00.800 That the AI becomes the new God?

01:41:02.320 We're not really understanding.

01:41:04.360 We're assembling data.

01:41:05.820 And that really worries me a lot.

01:41:07.360 We're getting great at data, but understanding means seeing patterns, seeing connections, thinking an issue through.

01:41:16.400 And we don't do that a lot.

01:41:17.600 We're so addicted to the quick – give me the quick data on something.

01:41:21.660 That can be useful, but it undermines our humanity.

01:41:25.120 You're exactly right about that.

01:41:26.520 Our humanity is tied to our capacity to understand, which means to see patterns of meaning and purpose.

01:41:33.000 And the AI is not going to give that to us.

01:41:35.880 There's the economic side, too.

01:41:37.880 Jobs will be taken, for sure, by AI.

01:41:40.220 And so if work is tied to human dignity, that's really a problem.

01:41:44.100 The Pope sees that.

01:41:46.280 No, I'm glad he's talking about it because it's on everyone's mind,

01:41:49.880 and it is posing a spiritual challenge, for sure.

01:41:53.600 Yeah, because you hear just people say, ask chat.

01:41:56.160 I know, right.

01:41:56.740 People say, ask perplexity.

01:41:58.200 They say, ask this AI.

01:42:00.300 How about think it through yourself?

01:42:02.280 Or ask God.

01:42:03.120 Or ask God or talk to another person and have an argument about it or something.

01:42:07.260 Yeah.

01:42:07.740 Yeah.

01:42:08.180 Talk to another person.

01:42:09.380 Like, you know, because you can find God through other people too a lot of times.

01:42:11.980 I love arguments.

01:42:13.720 The problem is the social media world has given rise to insult.

01:42:17.700 And it's all we know how to do anymore.

01:42:18.920 It's just we throw insults and we're snarky.

01:42:20.960 Yeah, it's more snipers than it is like wrestling.

01:42:22.760 But an argument is, yeah, I mean, assembling data, putting it together in a logical formula,

01:42:28.620 entertaining the view of your opponent, answering their objections.

01:42:31.660 That's an argument, right?

01:42:33.120 And that's a beautiful thing.

01:42:34.420 It's a nonviolent way of adjudicating disputes. 1.00

01:42:37.400 But if we've forgotten that, all we have left is you're an idiot and, you know, I hate you and your mother's an idiot too. 1.00

01:42:43.680 And that's all we're left with. 1.00

01:42:45.300 And that's deadly.

01:42:47.920 Yeah.

01:42:48.440 I just wonder, like, oh, yeah, here it says, the current Pope Leo XIV is not anti-AI, but he argues that AI must remain a human-controlled tool and be judged by whatever it protects.

01:42:59.280 Human dignity.

01:43:00.040 And be judged by whether it protects human dignity, work, freedom, truth, and the vulnerable.

01:43:04.700 He sees real benefits in technology while warning that efficiency, profit, and technical power should never become society's highest values.

01:43:11.580 AI should serve people, not replace, manipulate, surveil, or dominate them.

01:43:16.260 But if AI does these things, what recourse—does the Pope have any recourse, really?

01:43:21.520 Or is it just—

01:43:22.020 No, he's a prophetic voice, I would say.

01:43:23.860 But then also, I mean, he's connected to this huge network of influence.

01:43:29.020 So if all of us who are, you know, under his authority, we say, yeah, that's important.

01:43:33.320 We can all in our own way, you know, implement that.

01:43:36.540 So, no, he does have an extraordinary power.

01:43:38.480 That surveillance thing, you mentioned it earlier, that always spooks me because I know my phone is listening to me.

01:43:43.560 And, you know, I'll have a little casual conversation that I'm scrolling and something I mentioned, some product or whatever, comes up.

01:43:50.740 And I suppose it sees it as a positive.

01:43:52.840 I see it as deeply weird and disturbing.

01:43:55.860 Yeah. 1.00

01:43:56.420 That stupid machine is listening to me. 1.00

01:43:58.540 Yeah. At least it's listening to you mostly do good stuff. 1.00

01:44:01.740 Right.

01:44:02.620 Imagine the rest of us, dude. You're a bishop. I mean, hopefully you're on the up and up.

01:44:07.600 Yeah, for the most part. But what if those things got more powerful and they could then

01:44:11.680 start manipulating you? It's spooky.

01:44:14.940 It's very spooky. I mean, what do you think God would say about it?

01:44:19.360 Do you pray to ask God for thoughts about that kind of stuff?

01:44:22.720 Sure. Yeah. But the Bible knew about this in a way. The Tower of Babel story of like,

01:44:28.380 Let's all get together.

01:44:29.300 We're going to, through our own technical accomplishment,

01:44:32.180 we're going to build this tower up to heaven.

01:44:34.620 That's a beautiful symbol of this problem,

01:44:36.660 that when we want to get so in control of things and we so manipulate,

01:44:41.360 well, that turns on us.

01:44:42.600 That destroys us. 0.97

01:44:44.240 So the scattering of the people there, the scattering of the languages,

01:44:47.440 that's a sign of how this project has turned on itself.

01:44:51.200 It undermines itself.

01:44:53.140 No, the Bible knew all about this stuff in its own way.

01:44:55.380 And now the craziest part of that, even in its own moment, is that Babel is now a language learning app.

01:45:01.320 Yeah, right.

01:45:02.000 So it's like, I think six out of four people, or whatever, people you say, hey, what's Babel?

01:45:07.140 And they say they don't even know the story, but they know the language learning model.

01:45:11.800 They know the language learning app, which is fine.

01:45:14.080 I mean, it's a good app.

01:45:15.120 They think Babel's related to Babylon, you know, so that story was probably written down not long after they returned from the Babylonian exile, right, the Jews.

01:45:24.400 And so what Babylon meant to them was this big, dominating political power.

01:45:29.640 So the Bible's always been suspicious of big political and economic power.

01:45:35.340 It's dangerous.

01:45:36.140 Yeah, it's dangerous. 0.50

01:45:37.640 Do you feel like the Catholic Church is still as powerful as it once was? 0.93

01:45:42.060 Well, it depends on how you define power.

01:45:43.500 I think in many ways we're more powerful.

01:45:45.360 I mean, you could say years ago it was more aligned with political power and that sort of thing.

01:45:49.400 And I think we've learned the lesson there that it's not a good road to go down.

01:45:53.600 But in terms of our global impact and all that, I mean, look at the role.

01:45:58.260 The pope is the most recognized religious leader in the world.

01:46:01.360 I mean, who's his rival?

01:46:02.580 The Dalai Lama, maybe?

01:46:03.560 But there's no one that has the stature of the pope.

01:46:07.100 Oh, yeah.

01:46:07.600 No one has the institutional range that we have.

01:46:11.520 So, no, we have an enormous power of influence and all that.

01:46:15.340 But I would say stay away from political power.

01:46:18.660 Yeah.

01:46:19.200 You know?

01:46:19.600 It's scary.

01:46:20.820 Yeah.

01:46:21.020 Yeah.

01:46:21.420 Yeah, no, we should always be in a kind of a prophetic stance.

01:46:23.740 It doesn't mean you're always denunciating power.

01:46:26.420 Power is not a bad thing in itself.

01:46:28.520 And the church can speak out favorably of political power,

01:46:31.240 but we shouldn't be identified with it.

01:46:33.400 Does the church support specific political parties or not really?

01:46:36.200 No, we always make a point of not doing that.

01:46:38.580 I mean, so we kind of bend over backwards in election season to say,

01:46:41.960 here's what the church stands for.

01:46:43.820 Here's what we feel strongly about.

01:46:45.180 But we never say, therefore vote Democrat or vote Republican.

01:46:49.140 Got it.

01:46:49.500 We don't do that.

01:46:51.000 Before you go today, there's an amazing thing I've heard you talk about.

01:46:54.060 It's called the Transcendent Third.

01:46:55.920 Oh, yeah.

01:46:56.800 And we had a guru on, actually, as well, this gentleman named Guru Dev,

01:47:00.500 and he talked about the same thing.

01:47:02.120 Really?

01:47:02.520 He talked about the same pattern.

01:47:04.560 Can you tell me a little bit about the Transcendent Third?

01:47:06.420 I learned that from Aristotle when I was a young philosophy student,

01:47:10.360 so the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, who was wise about so many things,

01:47:14.660 Aristotle, but this was a friendship, he said.

01:47:18.360 He studied friendship a lot, Aristotle.

01:47:20.780 He said, a friendship will flourish when it goes beyond the two friends loving each other.

01:47:26.680 So I like you, you like me.

01:47:28.400 Okay, great.

01:47:29.420 But it'll really flourish when together we fall in love with a transcendent third.

01:47:36.380 So it could be our country.

01:47:38.680 It could be art.

01:47:40.020 It could be philosophy.

01:47:41.880 It could be God, right?

01:47:43.640 That there's something in common that we both love.

01:47:47.040 And see, look, we're drawn out of ourselves, looking upward together to that.

01:47:53.240 Now, we draw closer together, almost like willy-nilly, without even trying.

01:47:59.000 We get closer together.

01:48:00.580 Early on, I mentioned Fulton Sheen, right, about to be beatified.

01:48:03.900 He wrote a book back in the 50s.

01:48:05.720 I still recommend it to couples, engaged couples, called Three to Get Married.

01:48:09.960 And he made exactly this point.

01:48:11.680 To get married, you need a bride, you need a groom, and you need Christ, he said.

01:48:15.500 And if you don't have Christ, the bride and groom are going to fall apart.

01:48:19.540 But if together they fall in love with the transcendent third, with Christ, they'll stay together.

01:48:25.000 And I think that was – there you go.

01:48:27.080 That was true when Aristotle said it.

01:48:29.120 It was true when Fulton Sheen said it.

01:48:30.740 And I think it's a great principle for anyone in a relationship.

01:48:34.000 If we're just infatuated with each other – did you see the movie, by the way, Obsession this summer?

01:48:39.420 Did you see it?

01:48:40.020 it was this cheaply made movie, right?

01:48:44.240 That was hugely, it's really good

01:48:46.560 from a spiritual standpoint.

01:48:47.880 No, I didn't see this.

01:48:48.780 Oh, I heard about this, but I didn't see it.

01:48:50.220 It's good?

01:48:50.800 It's about this guy, right?

01:48:51.960 Who, he loves this girl and she's not reciprocating.

01:48:54.520 And he's so frustrated.

01:48:55.780 So he goes to this shop, right?

01:48:57.860 It's like a magic thing or something.

01:49:00.120 And it's this stick.

01:49:01.660 And if you break the stick and you make your wish,

01:49:03.200 it'll come true.

01:49:04.020 So he goes, not Lord, it's just like,

01:49:06.080 make me love her

01:49:08.700 or make her love me

01:49:10.640 more than anything in the world

01:49:12.440 breaks the stick.

01:49:13.760 And at that moment,

01:49:14.460 it's very spooky.

01:49:15.360 He's just dropped her off, right?

01:49:16.860 At that moment,

01:49:17.900 she appears in the doorway

01:49:19.380 and he's like,

01:49:21.460 my dream will come true.

01:49:22.780 Well, I won't give the movie away,

01:49:24.260 but watch it

01:49:25.380 because it's spiritually

01:49:27.440 very rich movie.

01:49:28.960 What happens when,

01:49:30.040 see, there's no transcendent third.

01:49:31.640 There's no transcendent,

01:49:32.720 she just loves me.

01:49:33.900 That's it. 0.99

01:49:34.520 she will devour you and you you will destroy each other dead right and it's a very spiritually

01:49:43.340 alert movie that way yeah this um yeah i love i just love the idea that i love the reminder of

01:49:49.640 that because it's also a reminder of to go do something right yeah to fall in love with something

01:49:53.860 else right yeah together yes together to find a friend we love this thing it's just like find a

01:49:58.580 friend and go do something right right um yeah this uh this guru that we had and he was saying

01:50:04.200 like if you if you're two lines and you want to get together you're going to meet but then you're

01:50:08.380 also just going to keep going yeah right you know but if you also then you're headed in the same

01:50:13.080 direction then yes it's just like kind of a force you know it'll draw you together without you even

01:50:18.180 knowing it it'll draw you together automatically um can we say a prayer before you go yeah yeah

01:50:23.960 you're going to pray or you want me to pray can you pray sure yeah in the name of the father and

01:50:28.340 the son of the holy spirit heavenly father we thank you for this chance to be together we thank

01:50:32.740 you for this conversation may it prove to be a blessing to all those who uh who see it and all

01:50:37.700 those who hear it lord continue to bless uh theo in his work and bring him closer and closer to you

01:50:43.900 and may all those who are listening all those who are watching also come closer to you as the great

01:50:49.080 goal of their life and i pray through christ our lord amen amen man weren't you baptized catholic

01:50:56.500 Thank you. I was in a Presbyterian church.

01:50:59.240 A Presbyterian. Okay. Where did I read Catholic or Catholic family or?

01:51:03.680 Somebody probably made something up.

01:51:05.380 Okay.

01:51:06.700 But yeah, my, my journey, what it's been like is like most recently, it's like most recently is

01:51:13.940 probably the most that I've like the strongest relationship I've had with God. I used to believe,

01:51:18.100 I've always believed in God. I've always believed in God. I've always felt that there's something

01:51:21.560 greater than me. And thankfully, you know, but yeah, most recently I just like, I don't know,

01:51:28.340 just more than ever. I just, there's no, I just don't have any doubt about it. And I just have

01:51:32.240 just been praying a lot more meditating. I'm in a cool Bible study. And so like, it just gives me

01:51:37.760 a group of people to care about outside of myself. So it's been fun because everybody will share

01:51:43.520 what's going on with them. And then it gives me something to pray about for my friends. So it's

01:51:47.260 like it's so nice when I get to like think about this person like well what could I pray about for

01:51:51.840 them you know and like and how can I make it like kind of specific or like you know it's almost like

01:51:56.080 you're like kind of designing it yourself you know but it's just um yeah no stay with the bible study

01:52:00.780 that's good stay with that yeah it's been a and it's just been a great group yeah so I just here

01:52:05.500 in Nashville yeah yeah good so I just feel like yeah I don't know that's where I'm at stay with

01:52:10.080 that that's great yeah and I don't want to pretend to be somewhere that I'm not at either you know

01:52:13.980 I just want to be

01:52:15.020 just one day at a time

01:52:18.000 that's it

01:52:19.460 Bishop Robert Barron thank you so much

01:52:22.200 God bless you

01:52:22.880 for your desire to

01:52:26.320 get out and spread the word

01:52:27.980 and just share the message and I always enjoy

01:52:30.140 listening to you and I'm so glad that we got to hang out today

01:52:32.300 yeah me too, thank you very much

01:52:33.820 Amen, thank you

01:52:43.980 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.

01:52:51.900 I can feel it in my bones, but it's going to take.

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This Past Weekend with Theo Von - September 10, 2026

#682 - Bishop Robert Barron

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