← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1271 | A Catholic & Protestant on the Death Penalty, Immigration & Women’s Roles | Trent Horn
01:06:18
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- [00:01]
A
A group of Catholic bishops recently released a statement chastising Donald Trump for deporting illegal immigrants. But they didn't make similar statements about other causes like abortion or transgenderism. Why is that? We've got Catholic apologist Trent Horn here today to talk about this and so many other subjects, like why are men now trending religious but women are trending the other way? How to defend the sanctity of life. We also talk about the death penalty. The Catholic versus Protestant view on that. Such an enriching and educating conversation with my friend Trent Horn. This episode is brought to you by friends at Good Ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com use code ALI at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code ALLI. Trent, thanks so much for coming back to join us. Most people probably know who you are and remember a conversation, but just in case, who are you and what do you do?
- [01:02]
B
Sure. My name is Trent Horn. I am a staff apologist for Catholic Answers. I also host the council of Trent YouTube channel. And I just want to share the faith of Jesus Christ and his church with as many people as I can. I want to lead people away from moral errors when it comes to sins that are killing people's souls, like abortion or sodomy or hatred, racism, whatever it may be. I just want to, I just want to spread the gospel. And yeah, that's what I, that's what I like to do. And I can't believe it's been like a year and a half since I was here.
- [01:31]
A
I know. And last time we had a really fun debate and discussion. I thought it was fun about, about Mary. And not every conversation, though, that I have with the Catholic is a debate. Some people, my Protestant listeners, they get angry at that. But not every conversation has to be a debate. Maybe there will be some disagreements today.
- [01:51]
B
But I've got Catholics who say to me, why, why aren't you taking out your crusader armor deus vault and going right in there? I actually did a poll on my channel. I got about 42,000 votes. And it turns out about 30% of the audience for the Council of Trent are non Catholic Christians.
- [02:08]
A
Interesting.
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B
Most of them being Protestant Orthodox. And I think that's great because, I mean, what I do is I want to share God's revelation. And I think being a part of the one holy Catholic apostolic church is important, but really, like, from my heart, especially right now. I've been doing apologetics publicly for over 10 years, like 12 years. I really want to reach the people who are furthest, the most People who are the furthest from Christ. So, like, the very first book I did was answering atheism. The second book I did was persuasive Pro life. And so it's like, sometimes I don't like it when Catholics just focus on. And it's important theological issues. You would agree with that between Catholics and Protestants, but there's a lot of people out there need to be hearing.
- [02:48]
A
About Jesus, you know, and both of us, both Trent and I have done lots of debates and discussions, have been very clear about what we believe doctrinally. So there shouldn't be anyone who watches this and say, oh, like, how dare you agree on all of these things. Shouldn't she be more clear? We've both been very clear. But I am, I'm so interested. And you, you mentioned something. The Deus vault, I've seen that a lot. And you know, there's like, there's a side of that in Protestantism too that is kind of like very much in that spirit. But can you talk about what that means? And are we seeing more like Catholic young men kind of with that attitude of like, taking up arms and like, you know, forging a crusade?
- [03:28]
B
I have noticed that maybe 20 years ago, obviously there was also new Atheism was a big thing people were debating. But 20 or 30 years ago, like, if you brought up the issue of the Crusades, right, that would be one where Protestants would want to just dunk on Catholics and say, oh, this is why the Catholic Church is bad. Look what it did during the Crusades. But now you see a fair number of Protestants, people in the Reform community who would say, no, this is awesome. We need to get out there and, and we need to drive out the heretics, the infidels, the apostates. We need Christendom. We need Christian nationalism. And I think that there's two extremes when it comes to that. Anything we talk about theologically, there's going to be extremes. On the one hand, the extreme of thinking, oh, well, church and state are completely separate and the church should never tell the state what to do. No, that's silly. The church should be the conscience for the state. But the other side of glorifying everything that happened in the Crusades when there were, you know, sinful and excesses that occurred, you know, it was good to liberate the Holy Land from Muslim conquerors so that you and I can go to those sites today. The saddest thing, when I was in Israel not too long ago, I don't know if it's still the case. But the site of Christ's ascension is controlled by a Muslim trust. I don't know if it's still that way. That's that one particular holy site was controlled by a Muslim trust. You don't have iconography. It's much more restricted having worship services there versus the other sites that are generally controlled by Orthodox or Catholic churches, specifically the Franciscans who were there in the holy land like 800 years ago. But, yeah, so to say. But there were things happened in the Crusades that were sinful and awful, that then popes like Pope Saint John Paul II apologized for that. So I think it's about trying to find a balance there. But I do think there is a growing online sentiment of saying, why aren't we as Christians going more on the offense? And I agree we should go on the offense, but we shouldn't be needlessly offensive when we do it. The only thing that should offend people.
- [05:23]
A
Good distinction.
- [05:24]
B
The only thing that people should be offended by when we speak as Christians should be the truth we profess.
- [05:30]
A
Right.
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B
Not ourselves.
- [05:31]
A
Right. Oh, that's a really good distinction because I think both of us would agree. Like, I was interviewing an attorney who fights for religious liberty yesterday. That interview hasn't come out yet, but she was saying, look, I am claiming territory for the kingdom by defending these constitutional rights. And I just love that because she said, some people seem to believe that being a Christian is the same thing as being a doormat. That if, say, for example, it was a young woman who she wanted at her public school parking spot, she wanted to put a Bible verse there and the school said no. And of course she enlisted First Liberty, and First Liberty said no. That's actually a violation of your freedom of religious expression. And they're not fairly treating you the way that they're treating everyone else just because you're a Christian school back down and all of that. But that is a way, of course, that's, I guess, defensive in some ways. But that is a way for Christians to stand up and say, it's not about our personal power, it's about defending the vulnerable people who want to exercise their Christianity well. So I understand that sentiment of like, okay, no more being a doormat. No more just allowing the culture to take over. And again, it's not about me selfishly, it's about my kids. It's about my grandkids. It's about the child who's being pumped with cross sex hormones. It's about the child that's being slaughtered in the womb. I want to push back against darkness.
- [06:52]
B
Why is it that they can do Drag Queen story hour in a library? Like, I had a great idea. I would love to get Catholic nuns who are really sweet and charming and do Sister Story Hour. Catholic nun goes full habit, reading kids stories, you know, from the Bible, saint stories. And you've got. It's an interesting thing. Here's like, here's a person dressed in an unusual way. I would like to see more about this because that's the hook, right, with like Drag Queen Story Hour. But here it's like, here's someone who's dressed and dresses in a way purposely to show that they are. They are separated from the world and fully united themselves to Jesus Christ to live for him alone, like in a celibate lifestyle. I like, oh, they say, oh, that's religious. You know, you're imposing your religion on people. Right. And you saying that men can be women, which is basically a religious belief because it's rooted in just your feelings, not reality. You can impose that religious view, which is what it is. But I can't have a nun reading sweet stories kids in a library. What's going on there?
- [07:45]
A
Yeah, I think it's. It's such a pervasive belief, especially on the left, but even in what I call like the mushy middle Christians who believe that secular liberalism is a neutral worldview and that everything that comes from it is neutral and anything that opposes secularism is fascism or Christian nationalism or something like that. Yeah.
- [08:07]
B
I did an episode recently called the Four Bad Kinds of Christians, and I used two axes based on the political compass to divide them. Now, I'm not talking about heretics, like the theological questions. I divided it up based on whether you believe in conforming to the world or being very anti conformity, and then whether you're kind of morally lax or morally rigid. So you want to be in the middle. You want to balance between all those things. But on the extremes, like if you're really trying to conform to the world, like the mushy middle, you say you conform. And morality, you know, it's not that big a deal that you're the typical cafeteria Christian. You want to placate the world. And you know, I don't want to. I don't want to offend people. The other extreme to that is saying, oh, well, I'm going to rebel against everything society thinks is good and I'm going to be super duper rigorous. And you turn into kind of like a fundamentalist who requires belief in things that God didn't even require himself. That left it up for Christians to decide amongst themselves. Like saying, oh, if you're a Christian, you can't read Harry Potter or something like that. Like, oh, that's kind of opened up for us to discern amongst ourselves or questions like that, or whether you could host a podcast because you're a woman or, you know, something like that. So you're right. Those are the extremes. And I worry that the loud fundamentalist types will make people think, oh, if that's what Christianity is, then I want to be just these easygoing cafeteria Christians that don't offend anybody when there is a balance you can have between the two. Foreign.
- [09:33]
A
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- [11:42]
B
Right.
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A
And you know, just trying to be as subversive as possible and they use.
- [11:46]
B
The things that I've noticed is they relish abusive, vile insults towards people.
- [11:51]
A
Right.
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B
It's one thing to speak bluntly about the sins of others. I mean in Matthew 23 Jesus called the, the Pharisees, whitewashed tombs, brutal vipers. Yeah. Iniquity, you know, den of thieves, things like that. But I find that these people, what they do is they'll, they'll focus on people who disagree with them and it'll be very vile, abusive, wretched things you would never think a Christian should say. And completely forgetting to my minds, both radicals within Protestantism and Catholicism who do this. I wonder, have you read the Bible? Have you read Colossians 3, 8? Let no filthy talk come come from your mouth. We get the same lesson in Ephesians speak so that you can impart grace to those who will hear it. Like the, in Timothy, Paul says that the servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome, but know how to dispute with opponents with kindness. And to them it's just, they say, oh well that's. I feel like if St. Paul were here today, they would say he was a tone policing feminist.
- [12:48]
A
Right.
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B
I really believe they would say that about, about him and, and I, and I mean, and that's personal to me because when you convert and become Catholic, when you're confirmed receiving the oil that strengthens you in the adulthood of your faith, you pick a confirmation saint, like a saint name someone you admire, you ask for their prayers. And the one I picked was Paul because I was a convert in high school. I thought religion was for dumb people. I love science. But then when I watched, honestly it was evangelicals like William Lane Craig, JP Moreland. I was like, oh, they got really good arguments.
- [13:20]
A
They're smart.
- [13:21]
B
They, they are. And, and so from there, and then studying the history of the early church, like I had this radical conversion experience. And so like I read Acts chapter nine over. I must have read that a hundred times about Paul, Paul's conversion though. What's funny is he didn't, it doesn't say he got knocked off his horse. That's an urban legend. We always say, oh, he Got knocked off his horse. That's from a Caravaggio painting. It doesn't say he's riding.
- [13:41]
A
Oh, interesting.
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B
It's kind of like in the, or in the Nativity. It's like the three wise men. Doesn't say there were three of them. That's tradition. But.
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A
Right. There are three gifts. I guess they could have been five wise men.
- [13:53]
B
And I'm sure they had an entourage with them.
- [13:55]
A
Yeah, maybe so.
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B
But it was like. Yeah, it was, it was something that just like, captivated me.
- [14:01]
A
Yeah.
- [14:01]
B
And so to see. I want to really strike that balance. So that's why I think to have a masculine Christianity, you can show. Be assertive, but show kindness to others. Like, I will have a conversation with someone and I won't shrink away from saying the act of sodomy is sinful. Transgender identity is a mental disorder. Abortion is homicide, the killing of a little human being. But if I'm talking to someone who disagrees, I still want to recognize that they have been, they're not my enemy. The devil is. They've been caught up in the devil's lies. And I gotta, I want to, through the help of the Holy Spirit, to free them.
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A
Right.
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B
I'm not gonna free them if I'm just abusing them.
- [14:36]
A
Right. That's what I really tried to do. And I felt the Holy Spirit helped me do it. Cause in my flesh, I would never have. But when I was doing that jubilee debate, which you should Jubilee, by the way, they, they need to find a subject.
- [14:47]
B
I, Yeah, I, I, I sent in an application. It might have got lost in the mail, but I, I will, I'll keep knocking on the door word for me. But, but yeah, I think you, you showed there. And I think a lot of the Christians have been on Jubilee. Everyone that, that I can think of, and even non Christians like Ben Shapiro. But when Charlie Kirk was on there, Lila was on there. It, it was. That is the demeanor. Yeah, that works. For example, the non Christian who was the most successful on the Jubilee podcast is Alex o'. Connor. He's an atheist.
- [15:17]
A
I haven't watched that.
- [15:18]
B
Watch it. You'll see. He, he, he turns a lot of the Christians into pretzels. And he, but he does it in a very. Now he's British, so it already helps him come off there. Oh, it helps. You're just very refined and gentlemanly and just soft and inviting. It's just, but he does it with a very calm, cool and collected manner.
- [15:37]
A
Yeah.
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B
And people will listen to that instead of you just being. If you're violent, abusive. I would say, look, if someone did that to you, is that going to convert you?
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A
Right, right.
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B
So it's not going to convert them.
- [15:46]
A
Yeah, I got some criticism from that crowd. You know, I wasn't harsh enough or I wasn't aggressive enough. And it's always funny, you know, when people from the peanut gallery are like, they would claim that they would have done a certain way, but I just remember going in there and thinking, okay, I'm going to out gentleness them, I'm going to out love them. And truly, some of them surprised me with how gentle and kind they were to me. I can't say I was the only one. A lot of them were just very kind and very polite, which really set the tone. But if you decide that you're going to be unflappable because the only person you are trying to honor is the Lord, then that just takes a huge relief off of you that all you have to do is tell the truth. That's why I think it's so much simpler to be pro life and to be, you know, pro the reality of gender, because all you have to do is tell the truth.
- [16:32]
B
You're being kind, but you're not worrying about pleasing these people's feelings. To say, look, if they still take it the wrong way, that's not my problem. I was being kind. I treated them with respect. See, that's where the extreme comes, where you do everything you can to make people happy and be a people pleaser. That's wrong. But if they're still upset, odds are it's not you. They're upset about the truth. And so, yeah, I think that that's exactly right. Being kind to them. It reminds me what Paul says in the letter to the Romans, quoting back to the Proverbs, saying that kindness to an enemy is like pouring hot coals on their head. Like, they just absolutely can't stand that.
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A
Right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Right, yeah, that makes total sense. And so like the masculine Christianity that I think a lot of people rightly crave, we don't want like an overly feminized Christianity, but a strong, muscular Christianity, pushes back against darkness, speaks the truth in love totally boldly. And I do think, like when you talk about the Crusades, I mean, I just had someone on who talked about that it was actually from agape love that many of those men were pushing back against Islam. And it doesn't look the same today, but there is still a responsibility that we have.
- [17:38]
B
When you see innocent people, and that's where a true Masculinity is very important that men want to fight evil literally with their hands, you know, and being able to go and do that, say, look, here are people, innocent people living in the Holy Land or being killed, being beheaded, being enslaved. Someone needs to do something. And we have the same thing today. We've got children who are being dismembered in the womb, children being dismembered outside of the womb through so called gender reassignment surgery, mutilation surgery, religious mutilation is what it is. All of these things that are happening to say, okay, someone needs to do something when you need to fight, but you also have to remember, hey, you got to fight smart. Because if you just go in like a bull in a china shop, you can do more damage. You have to learn how to fight in a smart way. And I think that's good for Christian men especially to lean into that and learn. Like, for example, I've been doing Brazilian Jiu jitsu for about three years.
- [18:31]
A
That's awesome.
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B
Oh, it's a super fun hobby. Ye and I've met like a ton of Catholics and Protestants who also do it. Actually, I had a dialogue with a Protestant pastor. I went down to the gym where he trained. We rolled and fought with each other and then we, then we had a dialogue about baptism. So we had a literal physical fight and a theological fight. But we can be on good terms with each other.
- [18:54]
A
Yeah.
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B
And understand, like when you learn a martial art, whether it's jiu jitsu, judo, Muay Thai, kickboxing, whatever it may be you learn at the very beginning, if you come out just swinging and you're just fighting with blood pressure and red in your eyes, you're going to get demolished. But as a man, you learn to harness your strength and fight in a smart way. And that allows you actually to defeat people that are bigger and stronger than you. And the same thing, when we're taking on our culture, they're bigger than, stronger than us in influence and demographics and money and funding. So as Christians, we need to tap in, especially that masculine wanting to fight energy. She gotta do it in a smart way.
- [19:34]
A
Next sponsor is Range Leather. The owners of Range Leather, Kyle and Bailey, started this leather company from their kitchen table in Wyoming a few years ago. And all of their products are still handcrafted there in Wyoming. It's all American made, so high quality. Their stuff lasts a lifetime. I've got multiple bags from them. We've got custom made hats, we've got wallets, we've got jewelry. I love it all. They Came to share the arrows. They are awesome. Like they are such a great relatable couple and I just appreciate their products so much because they make for great gifts for yourself or for someone else, especially for the relatabro in your life. They have so many good products that he will absolutely love. Another Christian American owned company that you want to support. Go to rangeleather.com Alli you'll get 15% off all of their products. That's range leather.com Ally. Tell me what is traditionally the Catholic view of the role of women?
- [20:39]
B
I would say traditionally the Catholic view of the role of women is that women have a unique feminine gift to offer to the Church. I would say the, the traditional role of laypeople is to mirror the love of the Trinity, the self giving love of the Trinity. The Father and the Son behold one another in perfect love. And from their love, what proceeds from both of them is the Holy Spirit. Okay, so we, you know, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And so we look at that trinitarian love and that's reflected in the sacrament of marriage. A husband and wife fully behold one another and they fully receive one another and a new person flows from their love. And so I think the role, when we look at the role of women, it's similar to the role of men in that for most people they'll be called to the bond of matrimony and to build up the domestic church. And so both men and women play a role in that. I would say traditionally women would have a role within the domestic church, at the home of raising children, of bringing them up in the faith. But women have very unique gifts to offer the body of Christ in a lot of different ways. There have been saints throughout history. Think of like St. Joan of Arc. We think of St. Catherine of Siena, for example, who told the Pope, hey, I know we're having political instability now and you have to flee Rome to be an Avignon France. You got to get back to Rome already. And so, and we've had wonderful doctors of the church, female Catholic scholars, people like Blessed E. The Stein, for example, is a philosopher. So I would say there's, there is a preference for women to have a maternal role within the home, but that doesn't preclude some women having special gifts to bless the body of Christ with. Whereas though for men are called uniquely to be in the person of Christ in a pastoral role in the church, it's like when Paul says, I don't want women to teach in the church, well, we don't want anybody to teach in the Church who doesn't have the sacrament to holy orders. That's the priest's job. And that is given to them because they stand, you know, they stand in the person of Christ. And that's been a tradition for 2,000 years of the priesthood being reserved for men.
- [22:47]
A
Right. I think in principle, from the Protestant side, I agree with all of that. And I think about, you know, my good Catholic friends like Lila and Liz and Isabel Brown is that, you know, we all agree on that, that our priority is a special and unique role that we have as moms and as wives that no one else can fill. And none of us aspire to be a priest or a pastor or take a role in the church that are not called to have. Because I trust the Lord and I see his just like beauty and his design of our bodies and of marriage and how the Church reflects that so well. But also that many women have been given the gift of gab, have been given the gift of speaking, and that we can channel that in certain ways to glorify Him. I do believe that women can have a place in the public sphere. It doesn't look or sound, shouldn't look or sound the same as men, but there are women who are called to teach women.
- [23:41]
B
And the idea that for women to be in the public sphere, they have to ape or copy men. That's feminism.
- [23:46]
A
Right?
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B
The idea of feminism.
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A
And that's wrong.
- [23:47]
B
Yeah. For women to be successful, they have to act and be just like men. And that's not the case. I'll give you an example of women benefiting the church. So my friend Stephanie Gray Connors is, I would say, probably one of the best pro life apologists in the world. I have seen her debate and take apart pro abortion philosophers, abortionists and debates, and she does it in a uniquely feminine way where she's very kind about it and people just are so enthralled with her kindness as she philosophically turns the knife into the guy and just eviscerates their arguments.
- [24:23]
A
I think I've met her before.
- [24:24]
B
Yeah. So now she has retired from that to be a mother to her young children. But I've told her, like, if I ever couldn't do a debate, like my first backup, like, if someone had to fill in for me for a pro life debate, it would be her, because she has that unique gift. And I can see it as even superior to many other men I know who argue on abortion. And I'm not going to downplay the gift she had in Doing pro life apologetics just because she's a woman, because she's been blessed with it. You know, the church and the world at large benefit more from it. So I think women who have these authentic gifts, we should find ways for them to do that. And Pope St. John Paul II, and really since in the past few decades, popes have said that women should be given equality, but also an equality that recognizes their unique roles. So having flexibility to care for children, having work arrangements that be able to prioritize them in the home. Pope St. John Paul II talked about the need for a new kind of feminism that was in his encyclical, the Gift of Life. I don't like the word feminism, but. Me neither, but I just think it's a toxic word that. Yeah, doesn't. Doesn't help at all. I. I just think that you. Look, treat men and women as having equal dignity and having unique gifts that really do build up. Build up the kingdom.
- [25:42]
A
Yeah. Okay. Speaking of wives and moms, how is your wife doing? I know she had a cancer diagnosis not too long ago. How is that going?
- [25:50]
B
Well, so she. Yeah, she had a. All we knew is that there was some kind of tumor inside of her brain. What's funny is, for a long time, she'd always felt like, I feel like there's something not right in my head. And we were like, that's just having kids.
- [26:02]
A
Yeah.
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B
You know, you think, like, kids are driving you crazy. Like, you kids are making my head hurt. It's like, oh, actually.
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A
And sometimes the body just feels weird.
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B
Yeah, exactly. So. And then we went and we went and got. We went to do typical, you know, parents or young kids date. Our date was we went to a free study.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And we got to go out for four hours, and they pay us 400 bucks and do an MRI, and they ask us questions and get tacos after. Like, okay, that. That's what millennial parents do when they go on a date. And they called us back a few weeks, and they told her, like, hey, we saw something weird in your mri. Should probably go in. And I was just so insufferably optimistic. I was like, it's probably a smudge. I don't think it's anything. And then you find out it's a tumor. You don't know exactly what it is.
- [26:43]
A
Right.
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B
And we made the decision just to go in and have it removed. That's always like, do you. It's, you know, do you fiddle around in the brain or not? Because if you. Wait, what if it gets worse? But Things can go wrong in brain surgery. Now we knew it's in her speech center and she's a. She's a funny, chatty little gal. That's what I've always. Yeah, that was the first thing that just like checked the boxes for me, knowing that, like, you know, oh, yeah, this is, this is the person that's right for me. And so she did that back in July. It was a. I mean, that first month she could barely speak. We went on a walk.
- [27:14]
A
And she could only walk after brain surgery.
- [27:15]
B
Yes, because it was in her speech center, so they had to take parts of that out. So we would walk down the, the road on a walk. She'd walk me like 100ft and I point to things, I'd say, what's that? Like a squirrel? And she's like, that's a banana. I mean, but in her head, she knows it's.
- [27:29]
A
She knew. She just couldn't say it.
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B
Couldn't say it.
- [27:31]
A
Wow, that's so frustrating.
- [27:32]
B
So she had, she had a. She had aphasia. And this usually happens to older people who are suffering from the degeneration of the brain where they try to say words but they can't get the right word out or they say nonsense words that they think it sounds right to them but you and I can't understand them.
- [27:50]
A
Yeah.
- [27:51]
B
So she had that. But. But she's really, really improved. In three months. She went from saying squirrels are banana to now it just kind of like a light stutter if she's nervous.
- [28:00]
A
Okay.
- [28:00]
B
But it's hard. You know, you get tired, you get. And things that, you know, women deal with. She, I was great. She had another thing also for benefits, she had a female neurosurgeon. The male neurosurgeons were too nervous to.
- [28:14]
A
Do it really well.
- [28:15]
B
It's. They were like, I'd rather do watch and wait. I don't know if I want to do this particular one.
- [28:19]
A
Yeah.
- [28:20]
B
But she's. And she's world class. She went in there, got it out perfectly. And when they did the follow up MRI scan, couldn't see anything else in there. We got us saying that it was a very, very low. Basically, there's a kind of brain tumor that comes up in 3% of cases. That's the best kind you could get.
- [28:38]
A
Oh, good.
- [28:39]
B
And she got that one. Wow. And you can only find that out by doing an autopsy later on, the little stuff. But she had, you know, she had a female brain surgeon that did it really well. And because her surgeon was a woman, she made Certain, you know, I'm not going to shave your whole head. Yeah, I know that's a, that's a big deal for. I'm not. I'll just be. Do it, do a little bit here. But even then, you know, it's still hard for women. She told me if you tell Ali Bestucky, tell her I want her hair. I just want it as like a wig. You are Lila Rose.
- [29:04]
A
She's like Lila has amazing hair.
- [29:06]
B
So she would just. Yeah, like that. But yeah. So she's, she's a real soldier. She's really.
- [29:12]
A
I'm so glad that she's improving. I've heard that recovery from brain cancer, it just saps your energy for a really long time.
- [29:18]
B
Yeah. She still gets tired, she gets lightheaded. And we have a 5 year old, an 8 year old and a 10 year old. All boys.
- [29:25]
A
Oh my goodness. I don't know if I realize you had all boys. Wow.
- [29:28]
B
Dude, I love it. Yeah, it is so fun. We have three girls so that's what is so funny. So Laura only has sisters.
- [29:35]
A
Yeah.
- [29:35]
B
So our household is very foreign to her.
- [29:37]
A
Yeah.
- [29:38]
B
She didn't grow up with brothers.
- [29:38]
A
Right.
- [29:39]
B
So totally different. But our household is, is Lightsabers, X Men and Batman cartoons, wrestling, Jiu jitsu. Like I'm excited for the boys to be like big teenagers to give me some pushback. My goal to do jiu jitsu is I want to be that. I have to be like 70 when they can finally overpower me.
- [29:57]
A
That's a good goal.
- [29:58]
B
That's my goal. That even when they're adults like now grandpa still got some moves.
- [30:01]
A
Yeah.
- [30:02]
B
So. But yeah, the prayers are appreciated.
- [30:04]
A
Yes. We'll be praying for her. Just full recovery that her energy will be restored very quickly. So thanks for sharing about that.
- [30:10]
B
Of course.
- [30:15]
A
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- [32:06]
B
As pastors, we, the bishops of the United States, are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in our Lord Jesus Christ. And we are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement.
- [32:24]
A
We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.
- [32:38]
B
We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school or when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.
- [33:06]
A
Okay, so that was kind of long, but I wanted people to see as much context as we could. What are your initial thoughts on that?
- [33:13]
B
It's a mixed bag.
- [33:14]
A
Yeah.
- [33:14]
B
I mean, I think the Catholic Church, its teaching that you find in the catechism is a very moderate and a sensible position on immigration that you have to balance. There are two rights. So there is the right of a nation to be a nation to secure its borders and regulate who resides within those borders and who does not, that if you don't have borders you don't have a nation. Okay. On the flip side, though, there is the right of migrants to pursue safety and security for their families, which may involve having to go to another country to seek safety, especially when they're fleeing things like genocide, ethnic cleansing, war, dire extreme poverty, things like that. So those must always be balanced. And the catechism says that the prosperous nations, to the extent they are able, qualifier there, should welcome immigrants, but that immigrants, when they're welcome, they have a duty to assimilate into the culture that accepts them, they. And to respect their host country where they. Where they now reside. So I think a lot of times we err in these policies when we. When we focus on one end of it rather than all of it. When I. And I saw the whole video of what the bishop said, there are a few things pop out at me. One, I don't like a little bit of equivocation on the word immigrant, if you notice in that. And then in the longer clip, they just talk about immigrant over and over and over again. But we really need to distinguish immigrants from illegal immigrants. Those who enter a country and break the law in doing so, which would be applied everywhere. If I try to go to Australia, for example, for they've got a good healthcare system. There's people who do that. I watched a whole documentary on it. They'll grill you to make sure you're not sneaking into the country to do that. And if they see you're doing it, they're gonna send you on another flight out of the country. So I think that we should make that distinction. And there's what the bishops are doing here, we as Catholics would call prudential judgments. Prudence is trying to use reason to get to the good. Okay, so how do we get there? How do we balance all of this and prudential judgments that bishops, even the Pope makes. A Catholic could reasonably disagree with those judgments. They should give him respect. But you could reasonably disagree. So there's things they said that I do agree with. I think that there's some rhetoric about immigrants that dehumanizes them that is harsh or cruel. Some ways even illegal immigrants are treated. Even if you're a criminal, it doesn't mean you lose your dignity. So if you're kept in a detention center. There was an article I read the other day saying there was a prison in Florida. The heat index said it was 119 degrees for the inmates there. Like, even if you're a criminal, you should not be subject to conditions where your life and safety are in danger.
- [35:56]
A
Basically torture.
- [35:57]
B
Exactly. Yeah. People shouldn't be tortured, shouldn't be dehumanized. You also have rights to other things, not just a right to food, water, basic climate control. You also have the right, even as a criminal, to religious expression, like being able to see a priest for receiving communion or confession or to be baptized. I think Protestants seem to agree with this. Like a pastor, if there's a prisoner who says, hey, I want to see a pastor and be baptized. Yeah, you should be like, no, you can't come in and do that. So those things that the bishops have protested, I say, yeah, those are legitimate problems. But other things, I am, I think you'd agree with me on this. I am suspicious that I see the bishops all gathered together to make videos like this, but I don't remember a video like this when Joe Biden was implementing an anti life abortion regime.
- [36:44]
A
Right.
- [36:45]
B
And even more hypocritical, frankly, when under President Obama there were higher deportation rates than under President Trump. I don't remember the bishops making videos like this. So it screams of a kind of partisan favoritism when that stuff happens. I don't like it.
- [37:02]
A
Yeah. We see the same thing with Protestants who, for example, okay. When the George Floyd incident happened, I don't think the uproar would have been as loud if Biden had been president, but it was kind of a perfect storm of things because it was. All of that happened. And it was an election year in which Joe Biden was running against Trump.
- [37:23]
B
And people had gone a little cuckoo being locked in their homes.
- [37:26]
A
Right.
- [37:27]
B
I'm serious. I do believe that was a part of people. They want any excuse to get out and let their craziness out.
- [37:32]
A
Yeah. And they did. And so we see a lot of Protestants do this, that suddenly they like their justice muscle is very strong when Trump is in office, and it's very weak when Trump is out of office. And it's almost just a way. And I know this is kind of overused, but to virtue signal against Trump, but it's not something that they're interested in talking about when Trump is not in office. And same thing with abortion, same thing when it comes to gender. They're not as incensed about that as they are about something that they can use against Donald Trump.
- [38:02]
B
Yeah. And I think that for any Christian, including Christians on the conservatives, people on the political right, we have to be aware of that as well. We don't want to be tribalistic.
- [38:10]
A
Yeah.
- [38:11]
B
We want to put Christ first. We want to put the faith first. And if you start Making excuses for your guys in power. That's the problem. So I had people who are critical of me when I was pointing out the problem of President Trump wanting to expand in vitro fertilization in the name of pro life and having babies. There's lots of other things we could do to help people have babies. We could do something about deregulation to increase the housing supply so people can buy a decent starter home and have their kids. Let's start there. Not a process where human embryos, many of them are intentionally discarded and killed or kept in frozen storage or whatever. Let's not. Why are we doing that? Right. That's certainly not pro life and I'm not gonna make excuses just because a president who supports it has been helpful in other pro life things. Everybody has to be held account.
- [39:01]
A
Yeah, agree with. Next sponsor is Seven Weeks Coffee. Seven Weeks Coffee is America's pro life coffee company. They're called Seven Weeks because it's seven weeks gestation. That baby inside the womb is just the size of a coffee bean. Yet he or she is fully valuable, made in God's image. And therefore we have to do everything we do to protect that baby to make sure that we are loving the mom, giving the bomb all the resources necessary so she can make that life affirming choice. That is why seven weeks coffee donates 10% of every sale to pregnancy centers across the country. They have donated over $1 million to these pregnancy centers. Isn't that incredible? That's because you have chosen to allow your coffee to serve a higher purpose. Go ahead and subscribe. You'll save 15% on every order. When you do, it'll show up on your front door every month. Also, when you use my code ally, you get an extra 10% off. So that's a 25 total savings there. It's really incredible. Go to seven weeks coffee.com use code ALI at. Check out the seven weeks coffee.com code ALI. We've seen the Pope say some things about immigration and things like that. Pope Leo and he also made a comment that I think we talked about at the time and I don't think I have it in front of me, but I'm just interested in what you think. He was like, you can't be pro life and like you can't just be against abortion. You also have to care about the treatment of immigrants and you also can have to be against the death penalty. I disagree with that. I'm sure there are a lot of Catholics who disagree with that. But what is your thought?
- [40:45]
B
Just on that phrasing the death penalty will take us down a very long rabbit hole. But I, I hate the dilution of the phrase pro life. I hate it. If every issue is a pro life issue, then no issue is a pro life issue. Right? People will try to just make everything pro life. It doesn't make you care about it as much as abortion. It just makes, oh, if everything's a pro life issue. Well, I can't deal with everything, so I'm not going to deal with anything that. That's what I don't like. For me, pro life has a very, very specific meaning. It's about securing the right to life of human beings. Some of you might say innocent human beings. And so there's a small element where the death penalty is in. But even, like, you know, I'm opposed to the death penalty, I'm going to submit to the church on that teaching. But even there, like, there are more people working to end the death penalty than there are people on death row. So it's like, I think we have the basis covered. There are way more children in danger of being aborted. Or to take other examples, what would fall under pro life then? Euthanasia and assisted suicide. One in 25 people in the country of Canada were killed by assisted suicide. 1 in 25. You have people in Canada who are applying for assisted suicide. They call it medical aid and dying because they don't want to be homeless. They're sick and they're worried about living on the street and they'd rather be dead. And the government's processing their applications. So I think that when it comes to immigration, unless you have a policy where you shoot people the second they come over the border, it's not a pro life issue. Now, we have to remember also, when it comes to Catholicism, this is a global church. Like American Catholics, I think, make up, like 6% of the world's Catholic population. It's like, it's not all about us. A lot of issues when you look at immigration and migrants, like, there are things that happen in North Africa called desert dumping, where people will try to get to Europe. So smugglers will put them in boats or take them in caravans, and instead of taking them to Europe, they'll dump them in the Libyan desert to die. You know. And so the Pope is saying, like, that's certainly not pro life, if that's what you're. And if you're a government and you just hope immigrant migrants will be taken care of in that way, you know, it's like, yeah, that would fall under it. But simply just deporting people to a country where it's economically depressed, that's not a pro life issue. And I really don't want the term to be diluted so much. Now, there's other issues. Even if they're not pro life. There are, you know, I mean, people living in poverty. I mean, people in America living in poverty, worrying about their paycheck to paycheck, drowning in debt, can't have access to good health care. That's not a pro life issue, but it's an important issue. Christians should alleviate the suffering of their fellow man. Let's just get our terms right.
- [43:22]
A
Yeah. In Protestantism, Evangelicalism, there are a lot of Christians who call themselves pro all life Christians. So they would say they're more pro life than you and me because they are at least more than me because I vote Republican, I'm a conservative, and I do believe in enforcing our border laws. But they will call themselves pro all life because they want more welfare, they want an open border policy, they're against the death penalty, but the funny thing is they're for all of those things, but they're very, very weak when it comes to the legal defense of.
- [43:54]
B
I would ask them, do you think it should be illegal to kill human beings before they are born? Yeah, give me a yes or no. Should it be illegal? I'll even hedge it more for you. Do you think elective abortion, killing human beings before they're born just because you don't want to be pregnant, or even setting aside the health issues, don't give me the what abouts. Should elective abortion be illegal? And if they say no, don't, don't give me this crap that you're more pro life than me.
- [44:21]
A
Yeah, sorry. And they, you know, they always avoid answering the yes or no, the yes or no, the yes or no question, because they would say it's. Many of them would say it's wrong, but they think wrongly that it's a different question of whether it should be illegal. They, they would say it's nuanced or like there are some other things that we can do. And I always want to ask, like we can get to multiple sides that answer, but I just wanna ask, okay, you think that there needs to be more done for those women and children. What are you doing? What are you doing?
- [44:53]
B
And it's totally hypocritical. They'll say, well, we shouldn't outlaw abortion, we should just reduce the need for abortion. We should reduce the underlying causes of abortion and just have it be legal, but we're gonna fight. We're only fighting the underlying causes. We're not gonna make it illegal. But when it comes to gun violence. Violence, they don't say, well, you know, we're just going to reduce the underlying causes of gun violence. No, they want to ban any gun that looks scary to them.
- [45:19]
A
Yeah.
- [45:19]
B
They'll call it an assault weapon without any definition of what. What that is. Exactly. So. So for their pet political causes, they want the law to step in and the power of the law to make you conform, whether it's gun, whether it's gun control, whether it's transgender ideology, whether it's all these other things. But when it comes to other issues, oh, well, you know, so I think it shows the true colors.
- [45:40]
A
And they won't apply that principle, the belief in just fighting the underlying causes to murder of people outside the womb or rape of people outside of the womb. They won't say, well, no, rape shouldn't be illegal. Let's just make sure that men are satisfied in a different way.
- [45:53]
B
And they act like we can't do both. That's what makes it hypocritical to me is like you claim, they'll say, oh, well, we're more pro life because we're doing something about the underlying causes. And I'll say, and I'll ask them, are you volunteering at a pregnancy resource center? No. When you say you're doing something, what you mean is you're voting for a democratic economic policy for the Democratic Party that you think is better for the poor. And that if I don't vote for your liberal Democratic policies, I don't really care about the poor. Maybe I care about the poor because I've seen the 25% of poor people that live in California. I left California five years ago for the great state of Texas. And I love that. If liberal policies were all that's necessary to eradicate poverty, how come a state that has had a super majority of Democrats for decades has one of the highest homelessness rates, highest poverty rates in the country, in their major cities? That always makes me pretty suspicious.
- [46:55]
A
Yeah. And I remember when Thomas Sowell said, you don't judge policies by their stated intentions. You judge the policy by the outcome. And too many people judge the compassion of a policy by what a politician says the policy is going to do, not what by the policy has done.
- [47:09]
B
Yeah, but I think that Christians can reasonably disagree. And that's where we have to understand there's things we can reasonably disagree about. And when some Christians overstate their case and say, oh, I don't want this particular entitlement program. That's a personal judgment that people are going to make. Some people might consider more certain kinds of entitlement programs to be helpful. Others might support things like universal basic income. Other people might support other programs, fine, we can disagree about that. Or take gun violence. Like there's a variety of things that we can do to reduce gun violence. What's funny to me, I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, but I need to get this out there is. Liberals will say you conservatives idolize the second Amendment and you care more about guns than kids being killed. You know, you care more about that. To which I'd say to them, would you be in favor of this law? News organizations cannot broadcast stories about mass shootings. If we did that, that would save lives. There has been repeated empirical studies that have shown when, when mass shootings are, have greater representation in media, it greatly increases the risk of a copycat killing. That, that is indisputable. That. Think about the epidemic we've had. We have had guns for centuries in this country, but mass shootings are a relatively recent epidemic since Columbine. I remember Columbine. I remember watching it in high school. But that was when this started, getting the round the clock news coverage. And people felt like, oh, this is how I can live forever. That I'm gonna go out in a blaze of glory. And people always remember me as the guy who did this, you know, so we could save lives by just saying, hey, just, you can't broadcast stories about this. But what are liberals gonna say? But the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, right? So now maybe you can understand why the much you care about the First Amendment, even though it will cost lives, but that freedom is very, very important for the press to have that. Because when government says the press can't say certain things, that leads to totalitarianism. When you understand that, then you'll understand why I care about the second Amendment.
- [49:13]
A
And I know you don't agree with this since we disagree on the death penalty, but I tell people that I support the death penalty for certain crimes, for murder after due process, I support bans against abortion, and I support the second Amendment, all for the same reason. People try to say that that's hypocritical, but it's all because I believe in the defense of innocent life. It's all because I believe in justice for innocent life. I care about innocent life so much that I believe that intentionally taking innocent life the only just punishment for that is execution. I just agree with Genesis 9, 6 on that. That's also why I believe people have the right to self defense. It's also why I believe it should be wrong to kill innocent life. And whether we can disagree on the policy surrounding the death penalty and stuff, we might be able to disagree on some of the minutiae there, but it's not hypocritical for someone in principle to have those beliefs.
- [50:01]
B
No, I wouldn't say it's hypocritical in principle, especially if you're focusing on what to do for the defense of human life. And traditionally the church has understood that the justification of the death penalty was because this was the primary means to protect the common good of society, especially when you don't have things like prisons. And I think even Christians would understand there's a development in our understanding of when the death penalty is appropriate. So I mean, even just a few centuries ago, the death penalty would have been used for crimes we would never use it for today. Like if you're hunting on the Lord's land or just grand theft. Like even in the, even in The United States, 200 years ago, the saying was people are not hanged for stealing horses, they are hanged. So horses will not be stolen. Because if you don't have a robust prison system, the death penalty will be meted out a lot more. Whereas I think even you and I would agree that, oh well, we're just going to restrict it to the most heinous of crimes and there's places where now it would be inappropriate to leverage it. But I agree that ultimately what we're doing in all of it is we're doing this to protect the dignity of human beings.
- [51:09]
A
That's exactly right. Last sponsor is Shopify. If you are a business owner, you're trying to sell a product. You don't want to waste time creating an e commerce site from scratch. Like you want to go with the professionals, the guys who have done this so much that they know how to make it easy for you, they know how to make your site look good, they know how to cover all of the bases so you can go back to doing what you love, which is creating the product and then making money from selling the product. And that's why you need to use Shopify. It's what we use for our merchandise for relatable. And it really does make it so easy. You don't have to be tech savvy. They've got all of the tools available to write product descriptions to Match your brand. They really do make it so simple. And that makes it easy for you to actually make a profit from your business, which is really important as a business owner. So make sure that you go to shopify.com alli you'll have a $1 per month trial if you use my link. Turn your big business idea into. With Shopify on your side. Go to shopify.com ally. That's shopify.com ally. There has been a lot of studies showing that there is an increased interest, at least in Catholicism. But then I saw a study too that said, like, people, young people aren't going into vocations as much as they used to. So what is your thought surrounding that? And maybe just in general, since it's Protestant and Catholic, the talk about revival. Of course I'm excited as, as a Protestant that there's more people coming to our churches and stuff. I'm sure you as a Catholic are excited about more interest in Catholicism.
- [52:56]
B
Being Christian is cool. Being Richard Dawkins and Neil Degrasse Tyson is not.
- [53:00]
A
Yeah, and Richard Dawkins might be realizing that. So what is your thought on all of that that I just said?
- [53:05]
B
It's weird living. It's weird having been a. Being an older millennial myself, having lived through and now I can see like a cultural change, that I was there at the beginning and the end of it. I remember when I converted to Catholicism, I was 17 years old. That was in the early 2000s. And that was back when new atheism was just right at its heyday, after 9, 11. There was this cultural vibe that religion isn't just false, it's irrational and it causes people to do crazy things like fly planes into buildings. So new atheism got a big rise out of that for some reason. That's why my first book I ever wrote was answering Atheism. That was, that was in 2013, when it was still pretty strong. But I think people got really. And there was this promise like, oh, once we get rid of religion, we'll have a society of perfect rationality. And instead what did we get? We got 6 foot 4 inch guys yelling at GameStop employees saying, it's ma'. Am.
- [54:01]
A
Yeah.
- [54:02]
B
And we, and we got, you know, guys trouncing women in women's sports and being told, you have to accept this.
- [54:08]
A
Right.
- [54:09]
B
We got all kinds of things being degenerate, the proliferation of, like, a lot of people who are into online atheism. We're going to make the world a better place. I think what ended up happening is most of them just fell down the rabbit hole of. Can I say the P word about adult entertainment or do I have to call it corn?
- [54:24]
A
No, you can say porn.
- [54:25]
B
I know some channels are like, I can't get dinged. Pornography. I mean, I mean, like, I remember when I was in middle school, that would be in the late 90s. The first time I saw pornography, a kid pulled out a xeroxed photograph from his backpack. Like, it sounds quaint almost compared to what happens to kids now with Pornhub. With OnlyFans skyrocketed. So you had people who have fallen into this. What's supposed to be the atheist? Rational enlightenment. It's just a pit of degeneracy, nihilism and hopelessness. And people want out of it. And they see Christianity has it and especially men. And I think also. So you have this degeneracy. I think also you've seen in the past, like 10 years, men have been stepped on by society. Being told you have toxic masculinity. The Gillette razor commercial, like, oh, can't have boys. Boys are treated like defective girls in the classroom. Over and over being told it's bad that you like being a man, you like being white, you like your heritage, you like doing masculine things. And finally you just snap. And you know what? You don't want to apologize anymore. And you go to the way other extreme and you want tradition. You want in something that values your traditional heritage, identity. And you see that in Christianity. And so I think we're seeing. And just people in general who see that in cultural hopelessness. So we're seeing a big increase in Catholic baptisms, Eastern Orthodoxy people, big vibe shift for that online people going to that. I personally, though, I'm not trying to be triumphalist about that because we're still bleeding a lot of people. I still meet tons of people who say, I used to be Catholic, which always makes me sad. So I think I don't like when Catholic apologists get really triumphalist about that stuff.
- [56:01]
A
Yeah, I've actually, I got like a lot of pushback because I wasn't even trying to make like an anti Catholic argument. But I do see a lot of people saying, oh, like, because they'll say it sometimes. Some people will say it like as an anti Protestant thing. Like, see, like this is why we're winning because all of this. But I'm like, okay, but also both Protestants and Catholics, by the way, gaining people, losing a lot of people. We just need to be realistic about that.
- [56:26]
B
And I don't like some People, when I point that out to people, say, yeah, you're right, we're seeing a big growth. That's really praise be to God. And I'll say, but we're forgetting we're losing lots of people. And for Catholics, I mean, 24 of them maybe become Protestant. Like 50% of them are just non religious. We got to do something about that. And I've had some people tell me, oh, well, you know, it's quality, quantity. Like those people leaving the church. They were lukewarm, lackluster. We're kind of better off without them. And we're just, we're growing percentage wise in the most on fire people. I don't see the Church as a social club. Pope Francis used the image of a field hospital. Like in war, you set up the tents and you bring in the people off the battlefield. That's what I think the church should be. So to hear that an injured dying person walked out of the hospital and like, oh, good, now we've got the really smart doctors here only. So we're a lot better off that person's dying. We should be really, like, worried about that and that and grieve that. So, but, but I'm seeing the shift analogy. Yeah, we're seeing the shift. And we're seeing especially, I think, young men being attracted to this traditionalism that values their masculinity, values their heritage. I don't know if you want to get into this too early or not. It's kind of weird, though. Traditionally, religion was more popular among women than men, but in the past few years, it's kind of flipped.
- [57:41]
A
Yeah.
- [57:41]
B
And. And that's marriage, too. Yes.
- [57:44]
A
And I think that's not a coincidence.
- [57:45]
B
Well, there was a study. I forget if it was Pew. It was circulating online a lot, saying that they asked high school seniors in 1993, are you likely to get married? And I think women is like 82% or something like that.
- [57:58]
A
Yep.
- [57:59]
B
And men were like 74 or 76. 20, 23. So 30 years later, asking seniors today who'd be Gen Z, or are they Gen Alpha? No, I think they're still Gen Z, Younger Gen Z. Do you. Are you likely to get married? Men maybe drop by like 2%. Women drop by like 20.
- [58:15]
A
Yep, you're right. We just talked about this, and you're exactly right on the numbers.
- [58:20]
B
Yeah. So it's just like. So you see, women don't want to get married. And especially more traditional conservative Protestantism and conservative Catholicism, less men are showing more interest in that than women. Men are kind of becoming more conservative, women are becoming more liberal. And I mean, there's a whole bunch of explanations why for that. I think what we are seeing is the fruit of the third of third wave feminism from the late 80s, early 90s. So if you think about it, you know, first wave, like right to vote, stuff like that. Second wave, right to work, like sexual harassment is a bad thing. You know, women can actually own credit cards. Not that big a deal. Third wave is like raunch feminism. Like, okay, if men are going to be out, if men can sleep with anybody and it's cool, like women should be able to do the same thing. No, don't drag women down to our level. Lift men up to women's levels. So the third wave feminism, be the girl boss, stuff like, you can have it all, get your career, you don't need a man, you know, and this kind of man hating stuff from feminists in the 90s. And women imbibe this and then, and so that. And then those women. What do those women do? Well, they go and become teachers, professors. They become. Now they're the ones who are indoctrinating the seniors in 2023. Right, with. And part of it, I think is now they're in their, what, late 30s, early 40s, and they feel like that desire maybe to have children. And statistically it's going to be real, real tough, real tough to find someone and if you do find them, be able to have children. And I think, you know, misery loves company.
- [59:54]
A
Yeah.
- [59:55]
B
So that I think that we are, I think we are seeing. It's always like you say, why are women turning away from religion, turning away from marriage? There's two extremes. There's just only blaming feminism or women or just it's women, they're the problem. Women need men to reign them in. Like, women are bad, they're defective. No, we're all defective because of sin. There's toxic masculinity, there's toxic femininity. You know, there's women, men who use their gifts of masculinity to bully and beat up people. Women who use their gifts of femininity to seduce and destroy people. You know, so it's both. We're all defective. But focusing just on that or just blaming that on either extreme. I also disagree with people who would say it's only, oh well, it's men being abusive and misogynistic and vile and that's driven women away. That's not the whole answer. But I'm not going to lie if that's not a Part of if you have young guys and if you're a high school senior now and the guys you see all like, to act like Andrew Tate doesn't make marriage that attractive. You know, if they act like that and treat women in that way, it's not going to be that. That attractive to you as a woman, frankly.
- [61:00]
A
Yeah.
- [61:00]
B
So it's a part of it, but not the whole thing.
- [61:02]
A
Which is why for all of us, the perfect model is Christ, who was meekness, which is power under control. And why Christianity is the answer for women who are seeking worth and who are seeking equality and value and who are seeking the like honor and the dignity that can only be brought by their Creator. And men who are seeking the purpose and strength that they think they're finding in a counterfeit, like Andrew Tate, but really that just leads to a dead end.
- [61:28]
B
I think the biggest thing, like my advice for Gen Z women and Gen Z men now is the Internet is not your friends and it's not your therapy chamber. I would say like, for women, like, stop using TikTok as a diary. Stop it. Like, stop trying to get validation from strangers who like your posts. And because that's just a temptation to be dramatic, to be immodest, to be pornographic, frankly, to seek that, that attention, you know, it's not authentic femininity. Get offline. And same with men too, who easily fall down the rabbit hole of not being very masculine. Like, my advice, especially for like young men would be go do an activity that's a productive use of your hands with other men that does not have screens. Yeah, that could be a lot of things. For me it's jiu jitsu and like boxing and that's. And that's fine. Like, honestly, Madison, I know guys that are black belts in jiu jitsu and they do not walk around like puffing their chests out or being. Because they know they're strong. And once you know you're strong, you don't have to do that stuff.
- [62:32]
A
So true.
- [62:33]
B
But it doesn't have to be that, like I said, productive other men and no screens. So video games don't count. But it could be mechanics, it could be grilling, it could be jogging, it could be artwork, fishing. Yeah. Learned like what we did in the 90s, get a guitar and start a band.
- [62:49]
A
Yeah.
- [62:50]
B
Like real music that's not AI on the Billboard charts, but there's a whole list of things that it doesn't have to. You know, maybe martial arts isn't your thing, but there's a whole. A bunch of things. But it's with other men. Productive with your hands or feet. If you like jogging and running and there's no screens.
- [63:05]
A
Yeah.
- [63:06]
B
And doing that, it builds you up and that, that's why. And I think the church has to really step forward too and be accommodating to men. Like I know in Catholic parishes, I don't know what's like this in the Protestant world. The men's groups at a Catholic parish usually meet on Saturday at 6:30 in the morning. And I think the reason for that is who goes to them. Well, it's dads with kids and that's the least disruptive time to have them outside of the house.
- [63:32]
A
Yeah.
- [63:33]
B
But for 20 year old guys like you gotta have that at Thursday night at 7:00'. Clock.
- [63:37]
A
Yeah.
- [63:38]
B
To just for them and also to meet their needs where they're at and to understand like they were so like to understand their legitimate grievances for young men today. They've been told like hate their identity for over a decade. They've been put forth in an economy where it's very difficult for them to find full time work, to provide for a family, to find housing that is affordable, to recognize their difficulties. But to encourage them. It's okay to recognize this stuff, but don't make victimhood your identity. Same for women.
- [64:08]
A
Yeah. So good. Trent, thank you so much for all of your insight today. We agree on so much and I could talk to you forever. Tell people again where they can find.
- [64:18]
B
You if they want to check out my channel. It's just Council of Trent. C O U N S E L. If you just search Trent.
- [64:23]
A
One of the best and most clever titles of a podcast ever.
- [64:27]
B
Oh yes. We got to find a Catholic girl named Florence. We'll do Council Florence for her show.
- [64:32]
A
There you go.
- [64:32]
B
But yeah, so Council of Trent, trent horn on YouTube. My work's also available@catholic.com so we're doing that. And also we're going to be doing a special conference. So if you're Catholic and you want to come meet me and a bunch of other people. That'll be April 11th in Dallas. So that'll be Conference of Trent instead of Council of Trent. Conference of Trent people can go and check all that great stuff out.
- [64:56]
A
Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
- [64:58]
B
All right, Sam.