Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E131: This Priest Prayed For Trump Minutes Before He Was Shot w/ Fr. Jason Charron

Transcript

E131: This Priest Prayed For Trump Minutes Before He Was Shot w/ Fr. Jason Charron · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  We're nine days out from the assassination attempt on Trump's
• 0:03
  life, and you were actually there to pray before the entire
• 0:06
  rally for Trump's safety. I'm not the kind of person who's
• 0:09
  going to go to a political rally where there are Secret Service
• 0:12
  agents and and shout out loud. There are people who want to
• 0:15
  shoot him, but it just kind of came out of me.
• 0:17
  It's possible that God's using him.
• 0:18
  I think the sign that he was saved from a bullet within
• 0:22
  millimeters cannot just be dismissed out of hand.
• 0:25
  If that is the hand of God, then great things are expected of you
• 0:28
  and woe to The Who takes that as a canonization of everything.
• 0:33
  It should be a reminder of humility and to get right with
• 0:36
  God and to submit to God's plan. Father Jason, thanks so much for
• 0:44
  joining the podcast. Lila, it's an honor.
• 0:46
  So you flew in this morning all the way from Pittsburgh?
• 0:49
  From Pittsburgh through Phoenix. How was that?
• 0:54
  How was the flight? You were out it.
• 0:55
  Was wonderful. Yeah, it was wonderful.
• 0:58
  Thank you. Thanks for coming all the way
• 1:00
  out here that we're nine days out from the assassination
• 1:02
  attempt on Trump's life. I want to start with that my
• 1:07
  friend, my one of my dearest friends or mutual friend texted
• 1:09
  me and said you got to talk to Father Jason Sharon because your
• 1:12
  perspective on what's happening in our country is so important.
• 1:16
  But let's start with the assassination attempt because
• 1:18
  you were there that day and you were actually there to pray
• 1:24
  before the entire rally for Trump's safety.
• 1:27
  So can you share what happened? Right, so that the Trump
• 1:29
  campaign called me and people have asked me why did they call?
• 1:32
  And I've no idea. I thought, well, they maybe
• 1:36
  because I'm, I'm starting this pro-life shrine and they they
• 1:38
  wanted a pro-life representative there.
• 1:40
  I don't know. Maybe because I I rescued these
• 1:43
  orphans from Ukraine during the beginning of the war with
• 1:45
  Russia, when Russia invaded. But why they called me, I don't
• 1:49
  know. But in any case, was able to
• 1:51
  meet with him beforehand. We talked a little bit about
• 1:54
  Ukraine and Russia and, and then, you know, the, the I went
• 2:00
  out and, and said the prayer and after that, you know why I
• 2:07
  Secret Service let me out. And just before he was getting
• 2:10
  on the stage, I, I thought, I have to get out of here.
• 2:12
  Before all these, I had something, a place to be and
• 2:16
  there was no way I was going to, you know, avoid the traffic.
• 2:19
  So I, I decided to step out a little early.
• 2:22
  And just before he, he took the stage, people in the crowd
• 2:26
  pulled me over and they said, you know, is he here?
• 2:28
  And I said, yeah, he's here. He's coming on the stage any
• 2:29
  minute now. And I, I told them, you know,
• 2:32
  my, my job is done. I, I opened it with a prayer.
• 2:35
  And the prayer was really a request of God that he would
• 2:41
  restore our our, that our relationship with him would be
• 2:45
  restored with God. With God.
• 2:47
  Yeah. So, you know, you can't have a
• 2:49
  green forest without green trees.
• 2:50
  You can't have a green tree without green leaves.
• 2:53
  And so that each of us would would have this, this renewal,
• 2:57
  this Metania, this conversion, and then renew our relationships
• 3:02
  with one another. And having renewed our
• 3:05
  relationships with one another, that our nation would would be
• 3:10
  renewed and made right with God, and our nation being made right
• 3:14
  with God, we would be able to make our world right with God.
• 3:19
  And in this we would find our greatness.
• 3:21
  So that that was my prayer was really a prayer of conversion.
• 3:25
  And anyhow, so I said, my job's done.
• 3:27
  It's your job. Now you have to pray for him and
• 3:29
  his safety because there are people who want to shoot him.
• 3:32
  Wow, you said that. I said that, yeah.
• 3:34
  And there. Before the assassination.
• 3:36
  Yeah, this is about 8 minutes before the assassination.
• 3:38
  What? Why did you?
• 3:39
  What made you think to say that to you?
• 3:40
  You know, a number of people have asked me that.
• 3:42
  And I'll tell you this. I'm not the kind of person who's
• 3:45
  going to go to a political rally where there are Secret Service
• 3:48
  agents and, and shout out loud. There are people who want to
• 3:51
  shoot him. But it just kind of came out of
• 3:53
  me. And I, I, I, it was imprudent.
• 3:56
  Yes, it was guttural, yeah, but it, it came out.
• 4:03
  So I, I, I at that point I thought, OK, I'm going to get in
• 4:09
  trouble. So I, I, I, I headed out and by
• 4:12
  the time I was towards the back of the towards the back of the
• 4:15
  crowd, I heard something. Didn't know.
• 4:19
  I I never thought it would be what it was, but people started,
• 4:23
  you know, overtaking me and I heard them saying, you know, it
• 4:26
  was, you know, it was, it was, it was a gunshot.
• 4:30
  Other people saying it was a firecracker, It was a gunshot.
• 4:33
  And at that point just all pandemonium, you know, broke
• 4:36
  loose. It was, it was Bedlam.
• 4:39
  And one of my parishioners who was closer up to the front at
• 4:43
  that point, you know, called me and said, yeah, it's real.
• 4:46
  It was in, he was shot in the in the ear.
• 4:49
  And at that point there were there were many things.
• 4:51
  And I did that interview on, on Fried show a few hours after
• 4:54
  that. And what we were hearing was, I
• 4:58
  mean, that there were multiple people that were killed, that
• 5:00
  were multiple shooters, that there were people in the crowd
• 5:03
  with guns. And it was hard to know what was
• 5:05
  true, what wasn't true. And, and so there's a lot of a
• 5:08
  lot of pandemonium. But I remember just saying to my
• 5:11
  my friend on the, my person on the phone and the people there
• 5:14
  is that we were in the eye of the storm.
• 5:16
  And this is a time for prayer, to pray for, for angelic
• 5:21
  intercession for Mr. Trump, those who were injured for, for
• 5:25
  our nation. And so that's what we did.
• 5:28
  We just stopped and prayed. Yeah.
• 5:31
  When you agreed to speak at the rally, would that was that
• 5:35
  because you you know it's an invitation to pray.
• 5:39
  Would you have agreed to pray at a Democrat rally?
• 5:41
  Yes, I would, yeah. If, if the Democrats called me
• 5:44
  to begin with a prayer, you know, I'd, I, I'd say a prayer.
• 5:47
  And the reason is, is that, you know, God our Father sends his
• 5:52
  sunshine and his rain on the good and on the bad.
• 5:55
  He's the sower that so that gets a handful of the seed and he
• 5:58
  just throws it and some of it lands on, you know, fertile soil
• 6:01
  and some of it lands on on thorns.
• 6:04
  And so if they want me to invoke the name of God and to call down
• 6:09
  his his his his graces upon a crowd of far left Democrats,
• 6:14
  I'll do it. If they want me to do it on far
• 6:17
  right Republicans, you know, I'll do it because God doesn't
• 6:22
  will that any one of these should be lost.
• 6:26
  But I'm not going to I'm not going to change the prayer.
• 6:29
  No way. So it's I am praying in the name
• 6:31
  of Christ and the prayer is going to be 1 of of of
• 6:36
  conversion because that that's the central message that our
• 6:39
  nation needs at this point. We need a prayer to to kind of
• 6:45
  like a do that just softens the the crusty soil of our hearts
• 6:50
  that we can turn back to him. As Christians, what's our
• 6:53
  responsibility when it comes to praying for even the safety
• 6:58
  potentially of our elected leaders or candidates on both
• 7:02
  sides? Because of course, this is a
• 7:04
  hotly contested election. Every election is quite frankly.
• 7:07
  But what is our what's our Christian duty and how to look
• 7:10
  at the dangers to maybe both of the candidates as well as the
• 7:15
  our responsibility to pray? Great question from the time of
• 7:18
  the early Church through a letter of Saint Peter.
• 7:21
  You know his epistle in there, he says, you know, pray, honor
• 7:25
  the honor the emperor. And that's that's what we
• 7:28
  Christians have done is that even when, you know, they were
• 7:32
  filleting us, barbecuing us, crucifying us, feeding us to
• 7:35
  lions. We were exemplary citizens under
• 7:39
  the under the Roman emperors. We prayed for them and in, I
• 7:43
  happen to be, you know, Catholic priest of the Eastern Church,
• 7:47
  the Ukrainian Catholic Church. And in our liturgy, we always
• 7:50
  pray for our civil authorities, those in the armed forces.
• 7:53
  You know, that's just part of the symphonia, you know, that
• 7:58
  the American consciousness has lost.
• 8:01
  We think that there's the other reign of God and then there's
• 8:04
  over here, the civil order. That's all malarkey.
• 8:06
  You know, when you look at the Christian tradition up until
• 8:10
  like last Tuesday, it was that the the king, the government
• 8:16
  were, were enacting and embodying attributes of of God,
• 8:21
  God's justice, God's order, God and logos, God's reason.
• 8:26
  And Christians had a differential respect for King,
• 8:31
  even though they were sometimes absolutely crazy.
• 8:35
  But God still can work through that.
• 8:38
  And we see this in during our Lord's passion, how the
• 8:41
  Caiaphas, the high priest that year was a kind of a wicked,
• 8:45
  deceptive man who was complicit in having our Lord put to death.
• 8:49
  But nevertheless, the Spirit of the Lord spoke through him, you
• 8:53
  know, because of his office. So, yeah, it's not a prayer for
• 8:57
  a president or a presidential candidate is not a canonization
• 9:02
  ceremony. They are in need of prayer.
• 9:05
  And I woe to that person who doesn't pray for a political
• 9:09
  leader, because how much do you have to hate a man for the, the
• 9:14
  governance of a nation with millions of souls to be placed
• 9:17
  on his shoulder and you not to call down grace upon him and his
• 9:22
  mind, his reason, his emotions, his judgement, his will, that
• 9:27
  that's, that's, that, that's worse than hatred.
• 9:30
  I I can't imagine someone doing that.
• 9:31
  And you're talking about Biden right now.
• 9:33
  We we're to pray for Biden, 'cause he has the authority now.
• 9:36
  He is in the seat, he is in the office.
• 9:38
  Yeah, yeah, we, we pray every, every one of our liturgies, we
• 9:40
  pray for, you know, our government.
• 9:42
  And it's not like, oh, let me see, in this election year, if
• 9:45
  our government is, is composed of God fearing conservatives, if
• 9:50
  you're in Canada or, or, or Republicans or what have you, is
• 9:54
  that no governments come and go, Kings come and go.
• 9:59
  God alone remains and his church's bride, she sails on the
• 10:03
  waters of history until she will meet her, her bridegroom again.
• 10:09
  And until that time, as these kings and Queens, presidents,
• 10:12
  prime ministers come and go, we nevertheless are faithful and
• 10:16
  invoking God's grace upon them. Sevenweekscoffee.com is
• 10:19
  America's pro-life coffee company.
• 10:21
  This delicious coffee is organically farmed, it's
• 10:24
  pesticide free, it's small batch roasted, and it's low acid.
• 10:27
  You're going to love the different blends and roasts that
• 10:29
  they have on sevenweekscoffee.com.
• 10:32
  But what I love about this company, besides the best cup of
• 10:35
  coffee you're going to drink, is that seven weeks coffee.com
• 10:38
  gives back a full 10% of all of their revenue, not just their
• 10:41
  profits, directly to serve moms and babies in need.
• 10:45
  In fact, they have donated over 450, $1000 already to pregnancy
• 10:50
  resource centers to help moms and babies.
• 10:53
  And right now through their Drink More Coffee, Save More
• 10:55
  Lives campaign, they are working to reach half $1,000,000 donated
• 11:00
  directly to moms and babies in need.
• 11:02
  So if you go to sevenweekscoffee.com today, you
• 11:04
  can get 15% off your order and a free tote that says drink more
• 11:08
  coffee, save More Lives, helping seven weeks coffee get to that
• 11:12
  half $1,000,000 donated. You will get a subscription to
• 11:15
  this delicious coffee and if you use the code at checkout, you'll
• 11:19
  get an additional 10% off your order for a full 25% off your
• 11:23
  first sevenweekscoffee.com order.
• 11:25
  So go to sevenweekscoffee.com to help fuel your morning with a
• 11:29
  delicious cup of coffee as well as.
• 11:31
  Fuel the pro-life movement and use the code Lila at checkout
• 11:34
  for a full 25% off your first order.
• 11:37
  That's Lila at checkout at sevenweekscoffee.com.
• 11:40
  Do you think that as Christians we struggle in the West,
• 11:45
  especially the United States, with perhaps being too tempted
• 11:49
  to lionize or turn into a hero certain political candidates,
• 11:53
  and they get bitterly disappointed when they fail us?
• 11:56
  Oh, absolutely. You know, there's there is a
• 12:01
  what I would call like a civil religion, you know, in the
• 12:03
  United States and the apotheosis of certain historic figures.
• 12:09
  You know, you go to the Capitol Hill in Washington, DC and you
• 12:12
  look up in the call Bula there and you see the apotheosis of
• 12:15
  Washington and this kind of a what do?
• 12:18
  You mean by? Apotheosis, apotheosis is this
• 12:21
  kind of exaltation into the heavenly realms of a, of a, of a
• 12:26
  man who kind of becomes like a God like figure, you know, and
• 12:31
  of course it's lore, but it has a pull on the national
• 12:34
  consciousness, you know, and so you see it on both sides.
• 12:38
  I mean, when Barack Obama was was running, you know, the press
• 12:42
  went all Gaga for him and they took these photographs of him
• 12:45
  strategically placed in front of a bright light so that there's
• 12:48
  this aura around his head. You know, and you see, you see
• 12:54
  this on, on, on, on both sides. You're guilty of it, You know,
• 12:58
  and really it's it's a substitute for for supernatural
• 13:01
  faith because, you know, the only king that that governs our
• 13:04
  universe is, you know, the God man, Jesus Christ.
• 13:08
  And in he alone is has the solution to our problems.
• 13:13
  You know the psalmist says do not place your trust in the
• 13:15
  Princess of men in whom there is no hope of salvation.
• 13:18
  But the the function of government, you know in in our
• 13:22
  view as Christians, you know is is to execute you know God's
• 13:28
  justice. And you see this with you know
• 13:30
  in Romans Chapter 11 with regard to capital punishment and what
• 13:35
  not. And you see this with, with, in
• 13:38
  regard to all kinds of aspects of governance.
• 13:42
  But ultimately, though, I think for us here and now it, it's to
• 13:46
  just minimize the intrusion of, of that beast, you know,
• 13:51
  government into the lives of family and churches and
• 13:55
  communities. And you want to minimize it so
• 13:57
  that these pillars of, of a society can flourish.
• 14:02
  And so I, that's what I see our role is, is to ensure that this
• 14:07
  nation is, is true to its, its founding principles of limited
• 14:11
  government. Why?
• 14:13
  So that men can be free and, and, and men can practice their
• 14:17
  faith as, as their conscience dictates.
• 14:20
  And they can have families that are robust and plentiful.
• 14:24
  But the, the government at, at at the very minimum is to secure
• 14:27
  our safety, you know, from foreign invasion and issue
• 14:30
  currency, things like that. But yeah.
• 14:34
  Here's what's really tough, I think for even in what you're
• 14:36
  saying for a lot of people is that on the one hand you have
• 14:40
  this bloated government. A lot of people are concerned
• 14:42
  that the government is too big, too powerful, too corrupt.
• 14:44
  You have the persecution, I think at least some degree of
• 14:48
  people of faith. I think about the extra measures
• 14:51
  taken against pro-life activists as an example by the DOJ.
• 14:54
  You have of course, abortion, which is the worst of it all,
• 14:57
  the killing, the, you know, the franchising, the killing of pre
• 15:01
  born human beings and allowing doctors or these facilities to
• 15:04
  do it freely and have protected the police can protect the
• 15:07
  abortionist to kill instead of the police going to protect the
• 15:10
  child from the murderer, right? That's our society, the state of
• 15:13
  our society today. So you have that on the one hand
• 15:15
  and then you have on the other hand, the Christian duty, as you
• 15:17
  said earlier, to respect civil authority, to pray for our
• 15:21
  leaders. And you even mentioned the early
• 15:23
  Christians who would be praying for and even respecting the
• 15:25
  civil authority of the emperor when he was persecuting and
• 15:28
  killing Christians. How can you hold these two views
• 15:31
  at the same time? Well, that's, that's a great
• 15:34
  question. You know, that there comes a
• 15:37
  point where we, we recognize, for example, our father.
• 15:43
  In the end, we love our father, but he's in a drunken rage and
• 15:47
  he's beating up our mother, you know, and so we don't ever kill
• 15:52
  our father because that's, you know, that's to, to dishonor a
• 15:56
  God-given God instituted authority.
• 15:58
  But at a certain point when he oversteps his, you know, his
• 16:03
  authority and begins to abuse it, you know, the, the, the, the
• 16:06
  son can step in and stay the hand of the father to protect
• 16:09
  his mother, you know, And So what once government over
• 16:13
  overreaches its authority, our respect for that institution of
• 16:19
  a, that, that, that God-given institution in this case, you
• 16:24
  know, the, the government doesn't dissipate and disappear.
• 16:28
  But at that point, our, our obligations to the greater good,
• 16:32
  namely the salvation of souls. And we are first and foremost
• 16:35
  citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, not citizens of
• 16:39
  Washington, DC. Our first obligation is to be a
• 16:43
  worthy, honorable citizens of Jerusalem, the heavenly
• 16:45
  Jerusalem. So at that point, we, we, we, we
• 16:50
  have to recognize that the governance is based upon, you
• 16:54
  know, the, the, the recognition of first principles if and 1st
• 16:59
  principles cannot be debated, you know, like the right to
• 17:01
  life. And where we are at this point
• 17:05
  is where you have, you know, legitimate government authority
• 17:09
  that is overstepping its bounds by, as you said, using the
• 17:14
  police to protect those who kill babies and using the police to
• 17:21
  intimidate and sometimes arrest those who are protecting the
• 17:25
  innocent. So at this point, we're back at
• 17:28
  the the civil rights moment when churches and communities had to
• 17:34
  engage in conscientious objection.
• 17:37
  And this is the interesting thing is that, you know, back
• 17:42
  during the civil rights era, if, if churches weren't involved,
• 17:44
  there's a lot of pressure put on like, why aren't you involved?
• 17:48
  And there was no mention of, you know, separation of church and
• 17:52
  state and a faith getting involved in politics, so to
• 17:54
  speak. But this is the same scenario
• 17:57
  now is that a, we're at A at a crossroads where founding
• 18:03
  foundational principles are no longer agreed upon, the most
• 18:06
  core foundational principles. And this is where the churches
• 18:10
  should be coming out and saying enough is enough.
• 18:14
  This is a time for conscientious objection.
• 18:16
  But if churches do that now, then every flag in the book is
• 18:19
  thrown at them for, for violating, you know, the, the
• 18:23
  so-called separation of church and state as they interpret the
• 18:26
  Establishment Clause. So, you know, kind of a rambling
• 18:29
  answer, but we, we are at a point where the, what the
• 18:35
  government is supposed to do to protect its citizens, especially
• 18:40
  the most vulnerable, it's no longer doing it.
• 18:44
  And so there is a parting of the ways.
• 18:47
  And in our tradition that takes the form of conscientious
• 18:51
  objection. You see that in the case of
• 18:53
  Saint Thomas More, you know, I am the King's good servant, but
• 18:57
  I'm God's first. And so that's what we have to
• 19:00
  do. We have to begin to.
• 19:03
  We have to draw a line in the sand.
• 19:05
  What do you think that line should look like?
• 19:07
  I think about Joan Bell as an example.
• 19:09
  I was just at the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis and I
• 19:12
  spoke about Joan Bao, Saint Joan of Arc, my confirmation saying,
• 19:15
  and also Joan Bao, who is now 76 years old in a federal prison in
• 19:20
  the United States because of her rescue work, peaceful resistance
• 19:23
  inside abortion clinics, using her body to block the doorway so
• 19:27
  that the abortionist can't get access to kill human beings.
• 19:33
  I know some, even pro lifers and some Christians are like, that's
• 19:35
  too much. She's not obeying the law.
• 19:38
  No, I, I think that the, the Spirit of God is going to prompt
• 19:43
  the sons and daughters of God to begin not only speaking
• 19:47
  prophetically, but living prophetically.
• 19:49
  And the history of the church is going to indicate that the
• 19:53
  history of the church indicates that typically doesn't come
• 19:55
  from, you know, from, from the, the episcopacy.
• 20:00
  If you look at, you know, the the Church of England during the
• 20:03
  Reformation is that the episcopacy, with the exception
• 20:07
  of of Saint John Fisher, they folded, you know, at the moment
• 20:11
  of of great need. And, and during the French
• 20:14
  Revolution as well, a very, very few bishops withstood the
• 20:18
  pressure of the Jacobins. And so I, I think this says, as
• 20:23
  Fulton Sheen said, this will be the moment of the lady in which
• 20:27
  there will be more Joan Andrew Bells and more people who are
• 20:32
  going to say enough is enough. I, I wish I, I could give really
• 20:37
  specific examples of what that's going to look like, but I, I
• 20:41
  think it's, it's going to entail living radically.
• 20:45
  It's going to entail people pulling away from society, which
• 20:49
  has become a sewer and they're going to live in smaller
• 20:53
  communities where they have a good and holy parishes.
• 20:57
  And that's going to be the sign of just living radically holy
• 21:02
  lives in with the domestic church.
• 21:05
  And I think more people going to prison for their for the love of
• 21:09
  Christ and the love of the Holy Innocents.
• 21:12
  What is the role of non violence in all of this?
• 21:15
  When you mentioned earlier the Christians who were under threat
• 21:18
  physically by the emperor, right, They were persecuted
• 21:21
  physically by the emperor. Would it have been just for them
• 21:24
  to defend themselves? self-defense I think is most
• 21:30
  Catholic and evangelical and you know anyone a theologian would
• 21:33
  say you can of course defend yourself, you can defend the
• 21:35
  innocent. So what's the role of
• 21:38
  self-defense? What's the role of the use of
• 21:41
  force when it comes to these matters?
• 21:45
  Yeah. So there's a difference between,
• 21:48
  you know, the, the, the role of, of those in government who have
• 21:52
  obligation for those whom they govern and the obligation of an
• 21:58
  individual Christian in the face of violence and threats.
• 22:03
  In the, in the case of the individual, we are to, I think,
• 22:09
  receive the blow. And it's, it's in that, that
• 22:12
  pressure that the lump of coal becomes a diamond.
• 22:16
  And we're not going to convert the pagans.
• 22:18
  We have to recognize, we have to admit that Christendom's dead.
• 22:21
  We're we're in a Pagan society and the only way we're going to
• 22:26
  convert them is as Christ converted.
• 22:29
  The first Pagan, it was the centurion at the cross.
• 22:32
  Only when Christ is about to expire, he says, Father forgive
• 22:35
  them. They know not what they do.
• 22:37
  The blood comes out of him, and then it's his blood that clears
• 22:42
  the blindness of the eye, the spiritual eye of that centurion
• 22:46
  who makes the confession. Truly, this was the Son of God.
• 22:49
  We're no better than our our Master, you know.
• 22:52
  And so the moment is coming in which we too will follow the
• 22:56
  example of our Lord. And when they come knocking is
• 23:00
  to to go and to submit and to believe that our Father will
• 23:05
  provide for us. Like Mark Hooke, you know, he
• 23:08
  probably could have, you know, started pushing back.
• 23:11
  He submitted to this unjust, you know, gang of thugs in, you
• 23:16
  know, in, in, in government uniforms that came and dragged
• 23:19
  him away. And it was it was through that
• 23:23
  that patients proved perfection. So that's what we're going to
• 23:28
  have to do. And, you know, I think of my own
• 23:30
  church, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the, they proved
• 23:36
  themselves, these underground catacomb Catholics from 1946
• 23:41
  until 1991, the largest banned religious body on planet Earth,
• 23:45
  these underground Catholics in the Soviet Union.
• 23:49
  And they, they had no means to fight back.
• 23:52
  And they, they went to Siberia rather than, you know, renounce
• 23:56
  union with, with, with Rome. They weren't asked to deny, you
• 23:59
  know, the, the, the incarnation. They weren't asked to become
• 24:03
  atheists. They were simply asking keep
• 24:05
  going to whenever you're just when you're praying, just pray
• 24:07
  for the government, pray for the, you know, patriarch in in
• 24:10
  Moscow, the earth that I but no, you can't pray for the Pope.
• 24:12
  And for that they said, send us me, my wife, our kids, you can
• 24:17
  send us to Siberia and so. And what did that mean to be
• 24:21
  sent to Siberia? It meant to have your family
• 24:24
  packed up, put on a cattle train and you were sent to Siberia and
• 24:27
  if you were lucky you lived by the time it arrived there.
• 24:30
  And if you got there and you were alive, what would happen
• 24:32
  to? You.
• 24:32
  They had camps, labor camps. And you and your family, your
• 24:36
  children are in a labor camp. And what were conditions like in
• 24:39
  a labor camp? Well, I can ask one of my
• 24:42
  parishioners, Boldon Kanetsky, who, you know, was there and
• 24:46
  they were, they were, they were barracks and just pine beds and
• 24:54
  basic, you know, gruel and soup, not to subsist on hard work in
• 24:59
  the forests or in the mines. If, if it was a family, often
• 25:04
  they would have little villages with the bare necessities so
• 25:10
  that the kids were able to, you know, live, but the parents had
• 25:15
  to, to work in, in, in hard manual labor.
• 25:19
  And these sentences lasted anywhere from five years to, you
• 25:23
  know, 1820 years. But the the point of it is that
• 25:27
  it was through that crucifixion that they gained the admiration
• 25:34
  and respect of wider society. Those who continued to, you
• 25:42
  know, believe in the propped up Russian Orthodox Church
• 25:44
  controlled by the KGB. Those people didn't edify, you
• 25:49
  know, the pagans around them, you know, those people were
• 25:54
  edified who were able to see the blood and the sweat and the
• 25:59
  tears of the underground Catholic Church in, in Ukraine.
• 26:03
  And when the, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was their
• 26:07
  churches that were really full. And, and that's what we have to
• 26:10
  see now is that we have to go through a very narrow window or
• 26:13
  very narrow passage. For those of you who know
• 26:16
  anything about being splunkers and and crawling through caves
• 26:19
  is you have to crawl through a very narrow passage that can
• 26:23
  drive you crazy if you're, if you're afraid of tight spaces,
• 26:28
  But then you come out into a beautiful basilica like grand
• 26:33
  room under the earth in these beautiful caverns.
• 26:37
  And that's what's awaiting us is to go through the narrow
• 26:39
  passage. We're going to have to endure
• 26:42
  some form of, of persecution and we're not going to return blows.
• 26:49
  And that that's different. I know I'm remembering a little
• 26:50
  bit, but that's different from the state because the state that
• 26:55
  they had the obligation for those who cannot defend
• 26:57
  themselves, the women and the children.
• 27:00
  And, and that's a that's a different calculus because they
• 27:04
  can't make that choice for the three-year old.
• 27:07
  And so for the three-year old, for the the woman who's
• 27:10
  breastfeeding or is pregnant, the state has to use its means
• 27:15
  to to repel the unjust aggressor if all other means have been
• 27:20
  exhausted using equal force. The what you're describing about
• 27:27
  the fall of the Soviet Union and the blossoming of Christianity
• 27:32
  and its fall because of those that had gone underground and
• 27:36
  kept the faith alive despite the persecution.
• 27:40
  And you're kind of talking about here, us here in the West, in
• 27:42
  the United States, and about how, you know, we may be
• 27:45
  required to go through some sort of a narrow passageway.
• 27:48
  I mean, certainly I think someone like Mark Hawk, you
• 27:51
  know, he was praying outside an abortion clinic and then the
• 27:53
  feds showed up at his door and and scared the living daylights
• 27:56
  out of him and his family with guns at 6:00 AM in the morning
• 27:59
  and then dragged him off to prison.
• 28:00
  I mean, insane, right? And then he was totally, you
• 28:02
  know, ended up being, you know, vindicated, totally vindicated
• 28:06
  because it was ridiculous what they did to him.
• 28:08
  It was persecution of a Perilife person.
• 28:10
  That's what it was. And then Joan Bell, you know,
• 28:12
  she did put her body in the abortion clinic.
• 28:15
  And she's doing something even more aggressive than what Mark
• 28:17
  did. She's not just on a public
• 28:18
  sidewalk. She's in an abortion facility.
• 28:21
  Linda Gibbons in Canada and Mary Wagner.
• 28:23
  Mary Wagner yes, a hero. Another hero of mine similar
• 28:27
  went to jail for site abortion clinics, counseling, helping
• 28:30
  women, other options. These are all examples.
• 28:33
  And and what they did, yeah, what Joan did is certainly more
• 28:35
  radical than anything I've ever done.
• 28:36
  And and perhaps you, I'm not sure, but I think about what the
• 28:41
  Christians endured in the Soviet Union.
• 28:44
  I think about what the Christians endured in Nazi
• 28:47
  Germany, especially the ones that were trying to help their
• 28:49
  Jewish brothers and sisters and certainly what the Jews endured.
• 28:52
  I mean, horrific what they endured.
• 28:54
  And I look at the you know, America, you know, 21st century
• 28:58
  in America, and it's like, OK, we're we're doing pretty good.
• 29:00
  Yes, there's some persecution that's totally unacceptable pro
• 29:03
  lifers, but really the persecution in the US is of
• 29:08
  babies in the womb. They're the ones taking all the
• 29:10
  hits. Look at you and I are talking
• 29:12
  freely here on this podcast. We're going to put it up on
• 29:15
  YouTube. It's going to be fine.
• 29:16
  You know, we go about our business.
• 29:19
  The amount of persecution we endure in our day-to-day is
• 29:25
  there's no comparison to what they endured, what you were
• 29:28
  describing being sent to a labor camp in Siberia.
• 29:31
  Do you think Americans maybe sometimes have a complex that we
• 29:35
  are so persecuted when we're not?
• 29:37
  Do you think there's a temptation there?
• 29:42
  I think we're we're it's a foreboding of something to come.
• 29:45
  What do you think is going on there?
• 29:47
  I, I think most Americans are, are blinded to the, the soft,
• 29:53
  the soft form of persecution. You know, they're, they're
• 29:56
  blinded to it because of, of comfort and luxury.
• 30:00
  You know, is Saint John the, the divine in his letter, in his
• 30:04
  epistle, he speaks about three things that bring us down the
• 30:08
  world, the flesh and the devil. And the devil isn't usually
• 30:13
  going to come out and show himself for what he is.
• 30:16
  He knows that scares us and it's going to scare us into the arms
• 30:19
  of the Blessed Mother. So he lures us through the world
• 30:25
  and its comforts, it's glamour, it's false promises.
• 30:31
  And through the comfort of the flesh, you know, sex, gluttony,
• 30:35
  ease. And so long as as we're imbibing
• 30:40
  those things, we're we're kind of like the, you know, the
• 30:43
  centurion at the cross and we just don't we don't see the
• 30:47
  what's before us. You're.
• 30:48
  Saying we are the pagans. Yeah, yeah, we're, we're, we're,
• 30:51
  we're, we're, we're half paganized.
• 30:53
  We're half Pagan. Most, most, if you ask most
• 30:55
  Christians if, if, if a Hindu who has no idea of Jesus Christ
• 30:59
  comes up and says, what is it you believe?
• 31:01
  The vast majority of Christians in this country would not be
• 31:04
  able to give an Orthodox Christian answer.
• 31:06
  What is the Orthodox Christian? Christ has died, Christ has
• 31:09
  risen. Christ will come again.
• 31:11
  That's the Orthodox Christian answer.
• 31:13
  What is it if in a nutshell, that we Christians believe God
• 31:16
  became man? Christ has died, he's risen,
• 31:19
  he'll come again. Everything is encapsulated in
• 31:21
  that. But many Christians subscribe
• 31:26
  unconsciously to this kind of a form of a civil religion,
• 31:32
  moralistic deism, you know, or a therapeutic deism that God's
• 31:36
  the, the cuddly teddy bear that's there to comfort me when
• 31:38
  I, when I need comforting. And they, they, there is very
• 31:43
  much like Mormonism in that they'll borrow language of the
• 31:46
  gospels, Trinity, salvation, Jesus Christ, grace.
• 31:50
  But the meaning has been gutted. And I'm so, so, so long as
• 31:56
  they're comfortable, they don't go deep.
• 31:58
  They don't go deep into what did my forefathers believe?
• 32:04
  The grace of suffering. The the, the beauty of the cross
• 32:09
  is that it empties us of the illusion that we're something
• 32:13
  and it forces us to cleave to Jesus Christ.
• 32:16
  And in that we find our happiness in that we're, you
• 32:20
  know, we become who we've always wanted to be.
• 32:23
  But the, the constant drip of comfort and luxury and vanity,
• 32:28
  it is, is is like heroin to the soul.
• 32:30
  It just it, it prevents us from getting down to reality.
• 32:34
  Yeah. Do you see, do you think that
• 32:37
  current Christianity, American Christianity, Catholic,
• 32:40
  Evangelical, behold, all of it is too?
• 32:43
  It's too comfortable. Oh, by far and away how?
• 32:47
  How so? What are signs of that?
• 32:48
  Well, the fact is people can't be in church for more than an
• 32:53
  hour. A priest can't preach more than
• 32:57
  12 minutes. You know, they, they have the
• 32:59
  attention span of a net. You know it.
• 33:01
  It's do you? Think part of that's connected
• 33:03
  to the liturgy being so watered down.
• 33:08
  I think so like if, if. You lack of liturgical reform.
• 33:11
  Yeah, I, I think as the liturgy goes, so goes the society.
• 33:17
  It's the, it's imagine when you're in elementary school and
• 33:21
  your teacher comes in and says, you know what?
• 33:23
  You don't need to know the 10 times tables anymore.
• 33:27
  You only need to know the five times tables at at the end of
• 33:32
  the year. How many kids are going to know
• 33:34
  the 10 times tables? Not most.
• 33:37
  You know, there'll be some keeners who will, but the bar
• 33:41
  has been set low and most will just go for that.
• 33:43
  And so the American experience of worship over the past 50
• 33:49
  years, I'm not speaking just about Roman Catholics and
• 33:52
  Protestants, you name it, even independent churches,
• 33:55
  Evangelical is that it's become anthropocentric, centered on man
• 33:59
  and on our entertainment needs and on our therapy, you know,
• 34:04
  making us feel good. But the the whole approach to
• 34:08
  liturgy has has affected society because at our core, man is a
• 34:14
  liturgical animal. And the approach to liturgy and
• 34:18
  worship is what am I getting out of it?
• 34:21
  But that's all, you know, bass ackwards because when you go to
• 34:24
  liturgy, it's not what you get out of it has nothing to do with
• 34:27
  it. It's what you you give.
• 34:30
  It's what you. It's an.
• 34:31
  It's work, yeah. You go there 'cause liturgy,
• 34:33
  liturgia, the work of the people.
• 34:35
  You are going there to work your derriere off.
• 34:38
  This is our work. We and what is our work is that
• 34:42
  we give physical, spiritual, existential worship to God.
• 34:49
  Everything in us we give to him during that time.
• 34:52
  And that that's, that's the, that's the high bar.
• 34:57
  So it's your singing, it's your, you know, prostrations.
• 35:00
  It's, you know, outside of Sundays, it's fasting, it's
• 35:04
  going on pilgrimage. And over the, the, the course of
• 35:08
  the past century and a half, those here in America have
• 35:12
  slowly been falling away. Who goes on pilgrimage anymore?
• 35:18
  We saw it in Indianapolis. And how powerful was that?
• 35:21
  We need more of that, but that's the exception.
• 35:23
  We haven't had something like that since 1940s, you know.
• 35:27
  Yeah, it's interesting. I talked to a few people who
• 35:29
  went to the well to the Indianapolis for the Eucharistic
• 35:31
  Congress and a few, several people said the same thing, that
• 35:34
  I actually didn't want to go. It was kind of exciting that
• 35:36
  this was happening when pushing him to shove is like, I kind of
• 35:39
  want to cancel. This is like, you know, this is
• 35:41
  like a lot of work. Yeah.
• 35:42
  Getting on a flight, a lot of work.
• 35:43
  But. And they said no, I felt like I
• 35:45
  it was I owed it. I had.
• 35:47
  I needed to go. Yeah, I needed to go.
• 35:49
  Yeah. For my own soul and for for God,
• 35:52
  right. And I thought that's such a
• 35:54
  refreshing way to think about instead of I'm getting something
• 35:58
  out of this conference or this events or I'm getting something
• 36:00
  out of adoration, I'm getting something out of mass.
• 36:02
  So I was like, what am I getting?
• 36:04
  Am I getting something? Am I getting something?
• 36:07
  You're not there to get. You're there to give.
• 36:08
  And yes, you will get because everything we have is from God.
• 36:12
  Well, CS Lewis had a great a great quote.
• 36:14
  He said. You know if you aim for heaven,
• 36:16
  you'll get that and earth thrown in.
• 36:19
  If you aim for Earth, you get neither.
• 36:22
  You get help. You know, and, or there's,
• 36:25
  there's the other quote from the the soul of the apostolate that
• 36:28
  great work is that, you know, if, if, if priests are, are
• 36:32
  Saints, their people will be holy.
• 36:35
  If priests are holy, their people will be good.
• 36:39
  If, if the priests are good, their people will be mediocre.
• 36:44
  If the priests are mediocre, people would be evil.
• 36:49
  You know, it just, it just trickled down.
• 36:50
  So we have to, we have to aim higher, aim higher.
• 36:54
  We have to go beyond our comfort zone.
• 36:56
  And we've got it so easy. I was in India last month and
• 37:01
  working with Father Don Bosco, who rescues girls, Catholic
• 37:04
  girls who are sex trafficked. It it, it's a in India and he
• 37:10
  gets them. How old?
• 37:13
  Some some 4/13/14, some 18. And these girls, I can talk with
• 37:20
  that. But it, he, he's a hero.
• 37:22
  He and the sisters with him, what they do for these girls.
• 37:25
  And some of these girls choose life and it's going to make
• 37:28
  their life impossible, but they still choose life for the
• 37:31
  babies. And but I go there and it's hot,
• 37:36
  it's muggy, it's stinky, you know, it's crowded in their
• 37:40
  churches and they're there for a long time.
• 37:43
  They're not, they're not counting down the minutes, you
• 37:47
  know. So if, if they in their pain can
• 37:52
  be in their churches for hours, in the heat, in the humidity of
• 37:57
  an Indian summer and sing and smile and be radiant, then we in
• 38:02
  our air conditioned churches with the cushy pews, we can do a
• 38:06
  little more. Yeah.
• 38:08
  What does it look like for Christians in the United States
• 38:12
  to how How should Christians in the United States think about
• 38:16
  this election? That is very complicated.
• 38:23
  We have to realize that, you know, our our one true home is
• 38:27
  heaven. And there's always the
• 38:30
  diabolical temptation to raw power.
• 38:34
  There's always the diabolical temptation to make that we're
• 38:39
  going to make heaven here on earth.
• 38:41
  Isn't that the Lord's Prayer though?
• 38:42
  To some degree, this is the counter argument of.
• 38:45
  Course Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I.
• 38:46
  Will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and our job is to
• 38:51
  build the Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven.
• 38:53
  The difference comes down to the the the the will is that I'm not
• 38:57
  doing my will, I'm doing his will.
• 39:00
  And insofar as his prompting and legitimate authority confirms
• 39:06
  how I'm to live out that will I do it with the kind of the
• 39:09
  Machiavellian model is that this is my vision of what it's going
• 39:13
  to look like and I will do it. And so it's there's, there's no
• 39:17
  external higher authority that is rubbing up against your will.
• 39:23
  And so that that's that's the key difference.
• 39:25
  I mean, both want to do something good.
• 39:27
  Supposedly 1 is is checked against against the divine will.
• 39:35
  Well, what are you referring to there exactly?
• 39:37
  Though? I think about as an example,
• 39:39
  Protestant Christians who say, well, the Holy Bible gave me
• 39:43
  this inspiration or I follow the Bible.
• 39:45
  And, you know, I believe that God commissioned Donald Trump to
• 39:49
  save the United States from the evils that be, you know, the the
• 39:53
  pro abortion, anti life, anti this, anti that, you know,
• 39:56
  corrupt Democratic Party. And so Trump's not perfect, but
• 40:00
  kind of like, you know, Constantine, God is using him.
• 40:04
  And so, you know, we have a responsibility to back Donald
• 40:06
  Trump. So I think there is a biblical,
• 40:10
  there can be a biblical justification for that.
• 40:12
  I think there can be, but I think it comes with some
• 40:16
  caveats. You know, there there is.
• 40:19
  Like in Isaiah 45, we see that you have the very fallible Pagan
• 40:25
  ruler, Darius, who is, sorry, not Darius, Isaiah 45.
• 40:33
  Yeah, Darius, who is used by God and he is said to be Yahweh's
• 40:39
  Messiah, you know, and so God uses him for, for a good end.
• 40:46
  And the same as with like in in Numbers, I forget in Numbers 12,
• 40:50
  maybe with Barlem's ass, the donkey that God uses this man,
• 40:54
  this man's donkey for, for prophetic utterance.
• 40:58
  And God can do that with, with anyone he chooses.
• 41:01
  And I think, you know, last Saturday is a sign that that God
• 41:05
  is willing to use his human instruments here in this case,
• 41:09
  Donald Trump to accomplish a good purpose.
• 41:12
  But now here's the the flip side of it is that he has to
• 41:17
  cooperate with that. And there there are lots of
• 41:19
  examples in history like you think of King Saul, whose, whose
• 41:25
  life was altered by the hand of God that came upon him and
• 41:28
  showed favor to him through through Samuel the prophet and
• 41:32
  through other signs. Yet Saul in his pride spoiled
• 41:38
  it. And you can use the same with
• 41:41
  with, you know, many examples in Scripture.
• 41:44
  So I think with with Donald Trump, it's possible that God's
• 41:48
  using him. I think the sign that he was
• 41:51
  saved from a bullet within millimeters cannot just be
• 41:55
  dismissed out of hand. But it comes with a caveat that
• 41:59
  if that is the hand of God, then great things are expected of you
• 42:04
  and and woe to the ruler who takes that as a as a as a
• 42:09
  canonization of everything. It should be a reminder of
• 42:13
  humility and to get right with God and to submit to God's plan.
• 42:17
  So here in the United States, we have a problem.
• 42:21
  And that problem is that we expect of our political process,
• 42:26
  dogmatic authority and purity, while our churches are hesitant
• 42:31
  to even clearly affirm the most basic of doctrines.
• 42:35
  And this is the paradox. So like we look at the the
• 42:39
  Republican platform, you know, they've stepped back on on the
• 42:43
  issue of life in compared to what it was.
• 42:48
  And people are upset about that. And I think there's some measure
• 42:51
  of justification for that. But at the same time, they're
• 42:55
  treating it like it's a creed or they're treating they're,
• 42:57
  they're, they're expecting from a political party and their
• 43:00
  platform, a level of dogma that, that the church should be
• 43:05
  providing. And this is, this is the, the
• 43:08
  purview of the church is that the church needs to be
• 43:10
  prophetic. The church needs to provide the,
• 43:14
  the, the proclamation of life. And when a, when a, when a, when
• 43:18
  a political party shies away from it for, for reasons of
• 43:22
  political advantage, people get upset.
• 43:25
  They should be more upset with their churches who for 50 years
• 43:29
  have refused to proclaim boldly the sanctity of life in the
• 43:33
  womb. And it's because of that failure
• 43:36
  to be prophetic and bold on the sanctity of life for the past
• 43:40
  generation that it trickles down to our political parties.
• 43:43
  We we can't expect our political parties to be more prophetic
• 43:47
  than the Church of Christ. OK, I have a number of things to
• 43:50
  ask about what you just said. Bubbles up a lot of questions.
• 43:52
  So and maybe people listening are thinking of some of these
• 43:55
  questions Back to Joe Biden, President Biden still president
• 43:59
  as of this recording, although who knows what's going to
• 44:01
  happen? I mean, gosh, right.
• 44:03
  But or Kamala Harris for that matter, if she ends up taking
• 44:05
  over the presidency because Joe steps down and President Biden
• 44:08
  steps down. Whatever you said, God can use
• 44:11
  anyone you gave examples of God using.
• 44:14
  You know, Cyrus, it was. Cyrus, it wasn't.
• 44:15
  Cyrus, Yeah, the Cyrus mantle that, that, yes, not Darrius
• 44:19
  Cyrus. But anyways, do you think God, I
• 44:22
  mean, Joe Biden's a baptized Catholic.
• 44:24
  Do you think God was like, I'll use you, Joe, I'll use you.
• 44:26
  Look at these opportunities I'm giving you.
• 44:29
  You're now the president of the United States.
• 44:31
  I will use you. Joe Biden.
• 44:32
  Stand up for life, stand up for mayor, stand up for truth.
• 44:35
  And he just says, no, I'm, I'm peace out.
• 44:37
  I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to the dark side, basically.
• 44:40
  But God gave that choice to Joe Biden as much as he's going to
• 44:42
  give it to Trump. Yep.
• 44:44
  So back to Trump then for a minute.
• 44:46
  It's not like God specifically favors the Republicans versus
• 44:49
  the Democrats because of something in history.
• 44:51
  It's like he's going to give any man in any office the
• 44:54
  opportunity to do the good, or woman for that matter.
• 44:57
  I believe that to some he gives greater opportunities.
• 45:02
  But as far as the opportunity of being president of the United
• 45:04
  States. Yes.
• 45:06
  So with President Trump, you mentioned the Republican Party
• 45:09
  platform and you know, people have been upset that it's been
• 45:11
  weakened, although not as many people as I would hope.
• 45:14
  They're actually a lot of people are just saying buckle up.
• 45:16
  We're backing Trump no matter what.
• 45:18
  And yeah, when you it's Trump versus Kamala Harris.
• 45:21
  I get that right. And I'm speaking my personal
• 45:23
  capacity here. Obviously, live action doesn't
• 45:25
  take, you know, back city candidate, but we're
• 45:27
  not-for-profit. But as a personally, yeah, it's
• 45:29
  clear. Kamala Harris's record on
• 45:31
  abortion versus Donald Trump's, Kamal Harris, Joe Biden,
• 45:35
  absolutely more pro abortion. That's crystal clear.
• 45:38
  It's also clear and profoundly disappointing that President
• 45:41
  Trump is kind of possession himself as this leader of the
• 45:46
  the right, you could say Republicans, including the
• 45:48
  pro-life community. And he changed the platform
• 45:51
  through his own pressure that was for 40 years was pro-life
• 45:55
  and it no longer is. And for 40 years was pro
• 45:57
  marriage and it no longer is. And you know, people were upset
• 46:01
  as they should because this is the candidate that wants their
• 46:03
  votes, you know, and they're told when they're upset.
• 46:06
  How how dare you be upset? Look how bad the opposition is.
• 46:09
  Plus I gave you the overturning of Roe V Wade.
• 46:11
  You owe it to me. Don't, don't be upset.
• 46:14
  You might, you know, you might suppress the vote for me.
• 46:17
  So how dare you guys be upset. In fact, there's one far right
• 46:21
  Catholic trad commentator who wrote in an article saying how
• 46:25
  I'll just say peachy Keenan. She wrote an article how asking
• 46:29
  looking for the pro-life platform to go back into the
• 46:32
  Republican Party platform is like a toddler asking for too
• 46:34
  much ice cream. What?
• 46:37
  What do you use your take on that?
• 46:39
  Yeah. Well, I know that was a long
• 46:41
  question there, but. Right, Yeah.
• 46:43
  As I said, the psalmist says, you know, we, we don't place our
• 46:46
  hope in the Princess of men, and there's no salvation in the
• 46:48
  Princess of men. So at best, I think what we
• 46:52
  Christians can hope for in this world, because we're always
• 46:55
  going to have affliction and trouble in this world.
• 46:58
  At best, what we can hope for is a government that minimizes its
• 47:01
  intrusions into the life of the church, into the life of the
• 47:05
  domestic church and in the, the basic natural goods of providing
• 47:08
  for your family. And so, you know, when it comes
• 47:11
  to if, if you don't have the ultimate, the, the, the greater
• 47:13
  good placed before you and you have to choose between bad and
• 47:18
  really, really bad, then you have to, you know, choose the
• 47:21
  lesser evil. And, and I think in this case,
• 47:24
  it's pretty clear that people of conscience, Christians of
• 47:28
  conscience and conviction simply cannot go before God and say
• 47:34
  they knowingly vote for, you know, Joe Biden or, or Kamala
• 47:38
  Harris, knowing that they are explicitly endorsing abortion,
• 47:44
  whereas the alternative is unfavorable.
• 47:48
  It's really a now a pro-choice party, but it is a, a party that
• 47:53
  is, is going to at this point minimize intrusion into the, the
• 48:01
  domestic church and the life of the church And, and hopefully
• 48:04
  that creates some, some breathing room so that we can
• 48:06
  become Saints and we can raise our kids in the fear of, of God.
• 48:11
  But I, I think that we Catholics do ourselves no favors by, by
• 48:18
  settling for the lowest common denominator.
• 48:22
  Well, at least we have a party that gives us a seat at the
• 48:24
  table. If that's the case, I think we,
• 48:28
  we just better, you know, move to Newfoundland or, or, or, you
• 48:33
  know, Saint Pierre, the Michelin, the Atlantic Ocean.
• 48:37
  We have to be engaged in the process.
• 48:39
  We can't tune out. And one of the, the issues from
• 48:42
  history that I, I like to point to is the history during the
• 48:46
  Russian Revolution is that, you know, the, the leading up to the
• 48:49
  Russian Revolution, you have the Tsar and the, the Tsar and his
• 48:53
  powers were called the, his army were called the Whites.
• 48:56
  And they, they were brutal to religious minorities, Ukrainian
• 49:01
  Catholics and to Ukrainians. And when the revolution came,
• 49:07
  there were a lot of people who so hated the Tsar that they,
• 49:13
  they gave, they gave their support to the Reds and they led
• 49:16
  to the Bolshevik revolution. And we know how that ended up,
• 49:21
  you know, with, with atheistic Marxism taking over vast, vast
• 49:28
  swaths of, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the earth.
• 49:32
  So it was out of their their dislike for the Tsar that they
• 49:38
  they refused to to back him. I dislike of the.
• 49:41
  Whites of. The whites, yeah.
• 49:43
  And because of that we had the Bolsheviks success.
• 49:46
  So I think that there is a danger in that we can so dislike
• 49:52
  what you know what, what the the the Republican platform has
• 49:57
  become that we can disengage. And if we do that, you know,
• 50:01
  they get 2 votes, you know, for, for every pro-life vote that
• 50:04
  stays home, the Democrats actually get the pro the, the,
• 50:09
  the pro abortion vote gets to. When so much of our society
• 50:13
  today and our culture is politicized and politics, I
• 50:16
  would argue in some ways it's sort of like a reigning religion
• 50:20
  in a way. You know, what people believe
• 50:22
  and how they align politically. It's kind of become their
• 50:24
  worldview. It's not like they are Catholic
• 50:26
  and then they vote this way. It's like they are Republican
• 50:29
  MAGA or they are, you know, you know, blue collar, just like
• 50:32
  hardcore left, Democrat, whatever it is.
• 50:35
  And that sort of informs their whole, you know, at least much
• 50:38
  of their worldview and even their operational behavior too,
• 50:40
  or at least it's closely aligned in that case.
• 50:45
  What does it look like then for everyday people that are needing
• 50:49
  to, like you said, vote for the lesser of two evils effectively
• 50:53
  here? And you're saying to stay home
• 50:55
  is kind of a giving an extra vote to the Democrats here.
• 50:58
  But you also don't want to make some sort of a cultural
• 51:00
  statement that the religion of MAGA, so to speak, the religion
• 51:04
  of the Republican platform, if we'll call it that, for what?
• 51:06
  How people kind of see this is a good one.
• 51:10
  How do we do that? How do you?
• 51:12
  Because I've been criticized, I'll just say I've been heavily
• 51:14
  criticized for daring to even say Trump is not Trump's
• 51:19
  platform, is not pro-life. JD Vance just endorsed abortion
• 51:22
  pills, which commit over half of half of all abortions today,
• 51:26
  killing, yeah, 60% of babies today.
• 51:28
  And he said he's fine with them. And this is a Catholic man.
• 51:32
  I actually want to address that first.
• 51:33
  I know I'm a bunch of questions on you here, but let's start
• 51:36
  with that. JD Vance is a Catholic convert.
• 51:38
  IA young man just asked me this at a conference recently.
• 51:40
  He said I want to run for office.
• 51:41
  I'm feeling called to run for politics.
• 51:43
  Any advice for me? And I said, do not lose your
• 51:45
  soul for the sake of a political a a seat of power.
• 51:49
  And what I mean by that is if you are a Catholic man, you
• 51:52
  can't go out and say I support abortion pills, even if you're
• 51:54
  going to be the president of the United States and get to do a
• 51:56
  bunch of good theoretically. Is that is that correct?
• 51:59
  Absolutely, Absolutely. It's it's the.
• 52:02
  So what does the, I guess, sorry to interrupt, but the question
• 52:05
  here would be the first question.
• 52:06
  What is the prophetic? What does the prophetic witness
• 52:09
  of the Christian look like right now when you're dealing with the
• 52:11
  realities of what's happening in the Republican Party and the
• 52:14
  Democratic Party? Yeah, it it's to, I think to
• 52:19
  affirm the lordship of Christ. That's, that's the first thing
• 52:25
  is that Christ's lordship is first and foremost, whether
• 52:30
  you're a governor or whether you're governed, is that we're
• 52:35
  under, under Christ. And I, I think the second thing
• 52:40
  is for them to, to, to affirm the sanctity of life.
• 52:45
  And because everything is predicated on that, that
• 52:49
  primordial right to life. So I think the prophetic
• 52:53
  response of the church in this time is is is is is is mega make
• 53:01
  excommunication great again. And that I, I, it sounds funny,
• 53:04
  but I, it it's true is that that tool is medicinal.
• 53:12
  It is there for a reason. It's there to say, especially to
• 53:15
  people, Catholics who are in the public's in the public eye to
• 53:19
  say that you're causing scandal, you're causing disgrace to the
• 53:22
  name of Christ and you're undermining the Gospel by either
• 53:27
  affirming explicit, you know, theological heresy or by causing
• 53:33
  scandal, by by taking the life of of the unborn and supporting
• 53:39
  that. So they need to be called on the
• 53:43
  carpet. And I think what's happened is
• 53:45
  that there's now a precedence been set because you have the
• 53:49
  the Mario Cuomo's of the 1980s who these public Catholics who
• 53:55
  said I'm personally opposed. But then they went ahead and
• 53:57
  they they affirmed in their political offices abortion.
• 54:01
  And we Catholics rightly, you know, urge the bishops and and
• 54:08
  to to no avail to to, to, to discipline men like that because
• 54:12
  it caused scandal. So we have to be consistent and
• 54:16
  prophetic and hold our own camp to that same standard and say
• 54:22
  that about JD Vance is that, you know, you make a claim to be
• 54:27
  Catholic. Now, this doesn't apply to
• 54:28
  Donald Trump because he's never made, you know, a claim to be
• 54:30
  Catholic in his first administration.
• 54:32
  He does claim to be Christian. Though, right, But I, I'm, I'm
• 54:35
  speaking as a prophetic response as as a Catholic, I, I can work
• 54:39
  within my own camp. Is that you claim to be Catholic
• 54:46
  and yet you, you support in, in a fact, 60% of abortions in the
• 54:51
  country. And so I, there, there needs to
• 54:54
  be a public reckoning. And that's something that is, is
• 54:57
  incumbent upon the hierarchy of the church.
• 55:00
  You, you can't do it. I can't do it.
• 55:02
  And this is, this is the, the role of the, of the hierarchy of
• 55:06
  the church. If they, if they do it, I think
• 55:08
  there's, there's tremendous spiritual power in holy orders.
• 55:13
  And I think it's going to lead to a, you know, a renewal of the
• 55:16
  land. If they don't do it, then the
• 55:20
  trees continue to wilt and they continue to die.
• 55:23
  But there needs to be a prophetic and bold calling of,
• 55:26
  of JD Vance. You've made a profession of
• 55:28
  faith. You've become a Catholic.
• 55:30
  You did affirm life for many years.
• 55:32
  But now, whether it's with IVF or with the the the, the, the
• 55:37
  myth or prestone, you've affirmed something that we as
• 55:42
  people of life who worship Jesus Christ, we cannot let that go
• 55:46
  on. We Heart Nutrition is the
• 55:48
  highest quality research back ingredients in beautiful vitamin
• 55:52
  packages for your health. We Heart Nutrition crafts
• 55:55
  packages of vitamins specifically for every woman at
• 55:58
  every stage of their life. So they have your everyday
• 56:01
  multivitamin for women, they have your prenatal vitamin for
• 56:04
  women, they have your maximizing your body for fertility package,
• 56:08
  They have your post Natal package, your premenopausal
• 56:10
  package, your postmenopausal package.
• 56:12
  And what's so wonderful about We Heart nutrition.com is that this
• 56:15
  is all sourced in the United States with the highest quality
• 56:17
  ingredients and that all the ingredients are in the most bio
• 56:20
  identical form for the easiest absorption into your body.
• 56:24
  I love We Heart Nutrition because it's not just a best in
• 56:26
  class product, but this is a company based in the United
• 56:29
  States run by a small family business that is 100% pro-life.
• 56:33
  And in fact, we Heart nutrition.com is donating 10% of
• 56:36
  all of their sales directly back to the pro-life movement to
• 56:39
  support moms and babies in need through the pregnancy center
• 56:42
  movement. You're going to love We Heart
• 56:43
  nutrition.com because it's an amazing product.
• 56:45
  It's going to help you be healthier and you're also also
• 56:47
  going to know that you're partnering with a company that
• 56:49
  shares your values and that generously donates 10% back of
• 56:52
  all sales to the pro-life movement.
• 56:54
  So go to weheartnutrition.com today, put in your order for
• 56:58
  vitamins for whatever stage of life you are AT and use the code
• 57:01
  Lila at checkout for a full 20% off your order.
• 57:04
  That's we heartnutrition.com. Use the code Lila at checkout
• 57:08
  for 20% off your order. And by the way, if for whatever
• 57:11
  reason you don't like the product, it's not working for
• 57:13
  you, there is a full 60 day back guarantee that you can return
• 57:17
  the product no questions asked in 60 days and you can get a
• 57:20
  full refund. So there's no reason why not
• 57:22
  check out We Heart nutrition.com today and use the code Lila at
• 57:25
  Check out for 20% off your order.
• 57:28
  I agree with you. I mean, I think about Nancy
• 57:30
  Pelosi and the Archbishop of San Francisco, Cord Leone, being
• 57:35
  very prophetic and saying you cannot receive Holy Communion in
• 57:38
  my diocese. Nancy Pelosi is a passionate
• 57:42
  defender of abortion, as you know.
• 57:44
  And people saying you should not, you know, Joe Biden
• 57:46
  shouldn't. We know the Pope's meeting with
• 57:48
  Joe Biden very upset about the Pope for that.
• 57:50
  Although, you know, the Pope in that scenario, it wasn't clear
• 57:52
  the Pope was blessing Joe Biden's actions of of for
• 57:55
  abortion. Of course, to meet with someone
• 57:58
  isn't to endorse them as a candidate.
• 58:00
  Of course I've met with abortionists and I've debated
• 58:03
  them, and that doesn't mean I'm endorsing them.
• 58:05
  Now people will say, well, did the Pope debate Joe Biden?
• 58:08
  Didn't even bring it up. You know, I wasn't in the room.
• 58:10
  I don't know. But I bring this up because
• 58:12
  you're saying it's up to the bishops.
• 58:15
  It's up to the, you know, the the our priest to be prophetic
• 58:19
  and calling out moral disorder. You could say JD Vance right now
• 58:24
  promoting abortion as a Catholic, Nancy Pelosi.
• 58:27
  Doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on.
• 58:29
  Doesn't matter if it's an election or not.
• 58:31
  If you do this, there's a consequence.
• 58:34
  But the lay people have a role too, right?
• 58:36
  And, you know, I feel personally called to speak the truth about
• 58:40
  these moral issues day in and day out, whether it's popular or
• 58:42
  not as winsomely as possible. And, you know, back to the fact
• 58:46
  that we are dealing with an election, we're dealing with,
• 58:48
  you know, a not so great candidate and a potentially
• 58:51
  really bad candidate, right? But there's still this I think
• 58:55
  sensitivity where that's kind of the tribal thing where, well, if
• 58:58
  you criticize our guy, even though he's not as good, you
• 59:02
  know, even though he's sorry, he's even though he's not
• 59:04
  perfect, but he's better than the other guy.
• 59:07
  If you even criticize him, even if you're calling out the flaws
• 59:09
  that are true flaws like they're pro abortion in this way, then
• 59:13
  you are damaging the opportunity to win in this election because
• 59:18
  people are going to stay home. Well, I think the, the, the
• 59:22
  most, there is such a thing called loyal opposition, you
• 59:25
  know, and, and people who, who speak with conviction and their
• 59:30
  voice and their weight carries tremendous weight down, down the
• 59:33
  line, down the road. And we can be, you know,
• 59:36
  temporarily popular or, and, or sorry, temporarily hated and,
• 59:41
  and in the long term, respected. And I think that's the, that's
• 59:45
  the better option than being popular in the short term and
• 59:49
  then shown to be lacking wisdom in the long term.
• 59:52
  I, I think that with Trump, though, the, you know, when,
• 59:57
  when he was running in 2016, he was given a list and from
• 1:00:02
  various pro-life organizations and he returned it to them and
• 1:00:05
  he added things to it. His record, I think goes to his
• 1:00:11
  credit. I think that perhaps what's
• 1:00:14
  happening now is more of a political calculus.
• 1:00:17
  To, to, to, to get more votes. I, I personally think that you
• 1:00:22
  need to you, you, you need to adhere proudly and, and
• 1:00:30
  vociferously to the foundational principles.
• 1:00:35
  But I, I think that I'm just trying to get inside their head
• 1:00:38
  what they're thinking. And I think they're, they're
• 1:00:40
  just there. There's a political calculus
• 1:00:41
  going on that's unfortunate. And at at times like this, we
• 1:00:46
  don't need to back away. We need to, to, to be more
• 1:00:49
  present. I know there's that tendency to
• 1:00:51
  say, well, this is the unpure thing.
• 1:00:53
  I don't want any of the contagion.
• 1:00:55
  I'm not going to engage it. And the opposite has to happen
• 1:00:59
  is we have to lean in even more and we have to make the case for
• 1:01:04
  freedom, for life and for love. And unfortunately, I think we're
• 1:01:12
  at this place because people within the Republican Party who
• 1:01:17
  don't share our values, I think of Log Cabin Republicans,
• 1:01:20
  they've been at the grindstone for for a number of years, and
• 1:01:24
  we've become a little complacent.
• 1:01:26
  And so now is the time that we just need to to to double up the
• 1:01:31
  efforts and to make our case even stronger.
• 1:01:35
  My concern there is if the way to win loyalty to Trump, and I
• 1:01:38
  know this personally because I was asked to endorse him in the
• 1:01:41
  past. I had never have, not because I
• 1:01:43
  don't think he's better than Biden, because he clearly is and
• 1:01:46
  I would vote for him over Biden, but because the condition of the
• 1:01:51
  endorsement, and this is kind of known in MAGA world as you
• 1:01:54
  cannot say a word of loyal opposition.
• 1:01:57
  You have to just lockstep. He's our guy.
• 1:02:00
  And I think the, and I can understand why politically it
• 1:02:03
  makes sense. You know, to your point,
• 1:02:05
  politically you can make all kinds of sense out of all kinds
• 1:02:07
  of things for any number of compromises that are profoundly
• 1:02:11
  immoral. And I could argue they're also
• 1:02:13
  unwise. But, you know, that's an
• 1:02:14
  argument. But I think that's where, you
• 1:02:17
  know, the role of the Christian in today's election, right,
• 1:02:20
  coming back to that and the role of prophetic being a prophetic
• 1:02:23
  voice despite the unpopularity of that and despite the
• 1:02:26
  consequences of that. Again, a lot of Christians I
• 1:02:29
  think are feeling like I just got to shuffle and get in line
• 1:02:31
  because, you know, the big Democrats are on is on the move
• 1:02:35
  and I can't, you know, Trump was good in 2020 for for us.
• 1:02:39
  You know, he was or sorry, he was good up till 2020 for us.
• 1:02:42
  And so even though he's saying all this stuff that's crazy now
• 1:02:45
  we're going to get in line because we trust that it's going
• 1:02:46
  to be OK. And we're not going to criticize
• 1:02:48
  him because we don't want to suppress the vote.
• 1:02:50
  But the everyday American looking at that calculus, you
• 1:02:54
  know, remember, this is more than an election.
• 1:02:56
  We're talking about the heart and soul of the people are
• 1:02:57
  looking at that calculus and saying, you, you guys here, you
• 1:03:01
  claim you're so pro-life here. You claim you're pro marriage.
• 1:03:03
  You claim you're Catholic, you claim you're Christian.
• 1:03:05
  And you're going hard for Donald Trump and refusing to criticize
• 1:03:08
  an iota of what he does because of the election.
• 1:03:11
  Do you see what I'm saying? We lose the prophetic witness.
• 1:03:13
  It's going to come back and bite us.
• 1:03:16
  So you think of for example, you know, I used the example of the
• 1:03:19
  Soviet Union is that the Russian Orthodox Church has 0
• 1:03:24
  credibility. You know, they have a nice pomp
• 1:03:26
  and circumstance and pomp and circus, but they have 0
• 1:03:29
  credibility. Why?
• 1:03:30
  Because when they were living under the thumb of Stalin, they
• 1:03:36
  rubber stamped everything he did, you know, And, and so when
• 1:03:40
  Stalin dies and the Soviet Union a few decades later dies,
• 1:03:44
  there's there's no, there's no, there's nothing there.
• 1:03:47
  And you're, you're empty, you know.
• 1:03:49
  And so the same as you know, we run that risk as well as that if
• 1:03:53
  we only speak conviction when it's convenient.
• 1:03:57
  Or when it's the other tribe. Or we'll bash Joe Biden for
• 1:04:00
  this, but not our guy. Right then we don't have, we
• 1:04:03
  don't have prophetic voice and our children will not, will not
• 1:04:06
  respect us. And most importantly, the Lord
• 1:04:09
  will say get away from me. I never knew you, you know.
• 1:04:11
  So I have two, two responses is first of all, this country, you
• 1:04:17
  know, our first of all our allegiance is to Christ and and
• 1:04:20
  that has to be stressed so often, you know, clergy will
• 1:04:23
  speak about the natural law, the natural law, the natural law.
• 1:04:26
  You were not ordained for the natural law.
• 1:04:28
  You were ordained to save souls. And that is why we are here is
• 1:04:33
  to save souls and everything that we have in this time and
• 1:04:36
  space. The political institutions,
• 1:04:38
  social institutions are there merely as AIDS for men and women
• 1:04:44
  to become holy. The sacraments are here
• 1:04:49
  sacramentally, spiritually to help us become holy.
• 1:04:52
  So that's our first focus as citizens, though we don't take
• 1:04:56
  an oath. This country is unique.
• 1:04:58
  I, I come originally from Canada.
• 1:05:00
  You know, we take an oath to the queen.
• 1:05:02
  And most countries in the world, I think all countries except
• 1:05:04
  this one, they take an oath to, you know, a president, to a
• 1:05:10
  Prime Minister, to a king, to a queen.
• 1:05:14
  This country is unique. We don't do that.
• 1:05:17
  When when you take an oath in this country, let's say you're a
• 1:05:20
  federal judge, you take an oath to a document, not to a person,
• 1:05:24
  you know. So your oath is to the
• 1:05:26
  Constitution. So anything that would.
• 1:05:30
  Is that weird? It.
• 1:05:32
  Well, not really, because I think it presupposes in its
• 1:05:37
  founding that most of those who, who constituted the governing
• 1:05:42
  class, those who were in governance were, were God
• 1:05:45
  fearing people. And they, they, they, they
• 1:05:47
  presuppose that they already were in the service of, of of
• 1:05:51
  God. But in terms of the civil or
• 1:05:55
  ordering of life is that this document embodies principles
• 1:06:01
  without which the nation cannot be governed.
• 1:06:04
  So in, in one sense, I, I think it's, I think it's ingenious is
• 1:06:07
  that you're, you're taking a, an oath to, to, to execute, you
• 1:06:13
  know, the, the, the, the principles held in a, in a, in a
• 1:06:15
  constitution, in a document. It, it's, it's pretty amazing
• 1:06:18
  because persons can change. This is a, this is static.
• 1:06:22
  It doesn't change. If I take an oath to the queen
• 1:06:24
  and the queen says, you know, I jump off the, the chair and land
• 1:06:28
  on one leg. OK, but the, the, the document
• 1:06:33
  is static. You know it, it doesn't, it
• 1:06:34
  doesn't vary. And the second point to that, to
• 1:06:38
  your question is that we cannot simply be reactive based on
• 1:06:44
  fear. We act not upon the fear of what
• 1:06:49
  can be, but upon the love of what is and and that is the
• 1:06:53
  grace of God at work in us through the incarnation of
• 1:06:57
  Christ. And that, that is what that's
• 1:07:00
  what motivates us. And so what's happened is that
• 1:07:04
  we've become, we've become unmoored from our principles
• 1:07:09
  through fear of how big the enemy is.
• 1:07:12
  And and that that's, that's in counter counter witness to the
• 1:07:16
  example of David. You know, David goes up against
• 1:07:20
  Goliath and everyone's afraid. Everyone's afraid of the Israeli
• 1:07:23
  camp except David. Why?
• 1:07:26
  You know, because the others came up and they saw how big
• 1:07:30
  Goliath was. David came in and he said, he
• 1:07:34
  said how big his God is. And, and that, that's the
• 1:07:37
  difference. So we, we have a movement, I
• 1:07:39
  think in, in the conservative circles that is so bitter and so
• 1:07:44
  angry with what the, the transgender movement has done to
• 1:07:47
  the natural family. And rightfully so.
• 1:07:49
  They're, they're, they're angry because it's an evil.
• 1:07:52
  They're so bad mad with what they've done to our schools, to
• 1:07:55
  our Boy Scouts, to all of these beautiful institutions in our
• 1:07:59
  society, to culture in general. You know, leftism is like, you
• 1:08:04
  know, acid on skin. Is it, it's corrosive that now
• 1:08:09
  they want payback. They want blood.
• 1:08:11
  And my concern is that it's not guided by the perennial
• 1:08:16
  principles that have come down to us from, from the church.
• 1:08:21
  It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's guided by animosity
• 1:08:24
  and vitriol. And then if that's the case, if
• 1:08:28
  our animating principle is vitriol, then we've become the
• 1:08:31
  enemy. You know, we, we've, we've
• 1:08:34
  become a mirror image of them where they're cloned.
• 1:08:37
  The names might be different, but the animating principle is
• 1:08:39
  the same. And we can't allow that to
• 1:08:42
  happen. You know what, one example I, I
• 1:08:44
  saw this, I, I wrote about this in the Post Gazette in
• 1:08:47
  Pittsburgh, is that when, when the war happened, you had a lot
• 1:08:54
  of confusion of alliances with Ukraine, that with the Russian
• 1:08:58
  invasion of Ukraine. All of a sudden you think people
• 1:09:01
  who would support because conservatives under the Reagan
• 1:09:03
  era were, you know, supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian causes
• 1:09:07
  against, you know, the brutality of the Russians.
• 1:09:10
  And then all of a sudden, now what began happening two years
• 1:09:13
  ago are all of a sudden the conservatives were taking side
• 1:09:16
  of Russia. And I, I noticed that their,
• 1:09:19
  their, their positioning was not based on principles.
• 1:09:23
  It was based on vindictiveness. Is that, well, it's my enemy's
• 1:09:27
  enemy. So I'm not going to, I'm not
• 1:09:30
  going to align with them. And their, their, their, their
• 1:09:34
  moral reasoning was devoid of anything that the church has
• 1:09:38
  given us. And now that because that wasn't
• 1:09:41
  called out, violation of what I think is that the church's
• 1:09:45
  perennial just war theory, because that wasn't called out,
• 1:09:50
  the drip down effect is now here with, you know, the case of JD
• 1:09:54
  Vance is that well, he's no longer following the perennial
• 1:09:58
  principles on life. He he's not following it on the
• 1:10:01
  issue of just war theory and the protection of life for those who
• 1:10:05
  cannot defend themselves in Ukraine.
• 1:10:07
  And he's not using that's the same perennial Prince principles
• 1:10:11
  when it comes to the preborn through the use of of the
• 1:10:14
  morning after pill. So we have become largely of the
• 1:10:20
  conservatives. Unfortunately, there are many of
• 1:10:23
  us who have been so upset with the direction of our culture,
• 1:10:29
  with what the the left has done to our culture, to our border,
• 1:10:32
  to our our our our society, that we've adopted their unprincipled
• 1:10:38
  animosity. All right, I really want to
• 1:10:40
  unpack with the time we have left Ukraine because we, I knew
• 1:10:43
  we were going to talk about that.
• 1:10:44
  You have a very important perspective on it and we haven't
• 1:10:47
  talked about it that much on the podcast yet.
• 1:10:49
  But before that you talked about the vitriolic response that some
• 1:10:52
  may have in so much anger at the acidity use, the idea of acid
• 1:10:56
  dripping on skin, which I think is actually a, you know,
• 1:10:59
  powerful image. And I, I can see that culturally
• 1:11:01
  how acidic some of these ideologies are that are so, you
• 1:11:06
  know, turning the natural order on its head and destroying the
• 1:11:08
  family, destroying life, destroying marriage, all of
• 1:11:11
  these things. It's destroying human sexuality.
• 1:11:14
  What is how does 1 discern in one's own heart and then in in
• 1:11:18
  our action? Because sometimes our heart can
• 1:11:19
  deceive us. How can one discern?
• 1:11:22
  OK, this is born out of the vitriol, fear, fearful anger
• 1:11:28
  against this foe that's destroying culture.
• 1:11:31
  Left doesn't mean. Yeah, yeah, or any other you can
• 1:11:34
  put put any other, you know, right, bad ideology there.
• 1:11:40
  And righteous anger. Righteous anger which should
• 1:11:43
  motivate us to take courageous action on behalf of the good,
• 1:11:46
  the true, the beautiful. Because they can maybe look a
• 1:11:50
  little bit the same sometimes. Maybe they can even.
• 1:11:52
  People might feel that they're the same sometimes.
• 1:11:55
  Yeah. So are you asking this in in
• 1:11:56
  relation to Ukraine? No, let's, I want to go to
• 1:11:58
  Ukraine in a moment. I'm asking in relation to the
• 1:12:00
  kind of the culture wars, the political battles.
• 1:12:02
  How do we as Christians discern the difference between that
• 1:12:06
  angry anger's not even the right word because you can have
• 1:12:10
  righteous anger. So we're not going to even use
• 1:12:12
  that word here in the negative rage.
• 1:12:14
  I mean, sure, although you can there be righteous rage?
• 1:12:16
  I don't know, maybe there can't. No, they can't be.
• 1:12:18
  OK, Well, educate us here. How does one personally and in
• 1:12:21
  their action and their words ensure that they are not being
• 1:12:24
  motivated by the vitriol and hate, quite frankly, versus
• 1:12:30
  righteous anger? And how should we also discern
• 1:12:32
  it in other people that were choosing to follow as leaders?
• 1:12:35
  This is also very important because I think we're always
• 1:12:37
  looking for leaders, influencers, political
• 1:12:39
  candidates, thought leaders, whatever.
• 1:12:42
  And how can we help discern it and other people?
• 1:12:44
  Is this, is this righteous anger or is this?
• 1:12:47
  So you ask help to discern it. So yeah, you have to speak to
• 1:12:51
  yourself in practical terms here.
• 1:12:54
  When you're correcting someone that person, would you be
• 1:12:58
  willing to cross the street and forgive that person?
• 1:13:03
  Would you make an effort to cross the street and embrace
• 1:13:06
  that person and and wish them well?
• 1:13:09
  And if you can say yes to that, then whatever it is you're
• 1:13:14
  feeling is probably righteous anger.
• 1:13:17
  See, because what what you're feeling is not a contrary to
• 1:13:20
  that person because you still have a fraternal loving
• 1:13:25
  sentiment towards that person. What we need is is to know what
• 1:13:31
  we need to know is this is that anger.
• 1:13:34
  God kind of permits that passion in US so that we can do battle
• 1:13:40
  with Satan so that we can do battle with evil so that we
• 1:13:44
  would we would hate evil sin. And if we have that that that
• 1:13:52
  anger against that thing that's causing my sister to harm
• 1:13:57
  herself, that's righteous. But if we feel and perceive that
• 1:14:03
  that that direction, that kind of flow, I guess you use the
• 1:14:10
  word that that volcanic flow coming out of you isn't directed
• 1:14:14
  against the virus that's held her so hostage, but it's
• 1:14:19
  directed against her, then that is sinful.
• 1:14:25
  So that that's the difference. Is it directed against the virus
• 1:14:29
  that is holding her hostage? That's, that's, that's
• 1:14:31
  contaminated her mind, her will, her desires, and you just want
• 1:14:35
  to expunge that from her and you, you want to hold her,
• 1:14:39
  that's good. But if it's directed against the
• 1:14:42
  person and you have desire to harm the person to humiliate
• 1:14:47
  them, then that's an indication that it's not righteous.
• 1:14:50
  In some cases, there's a virus like you said that might need to
• 1:14:53
  be expunged. Expunged, you know, maybe an
• 1:14:56
  ideological. The woke mind virus is the the.
• 1:14:58
  Famous. Godzod phrase.
• 1:15:00
  I think that Elon Musk, but, you know, there's also just free
• 1:15:03
  will and people choose to make choices and sometimes they know
• 1:15:06
  what they're doing and they still choose to do what is
• 1:15:08
  wrong. In that case, you can have
• 1:15:10
  righteous anger against that person.
• 1:15:12
  No, like the abortionist who says I know it's a baby and I
• 1:15:16
  don't care, I'm making money. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:19
  So that that tool of righteous anger, first of all, it it can't
• 1:15:27
  be long standing. If if righteous anger is long
• 1:15:31
  standing, then it's not righteous and.
• 1:15:36
  Is that from the even the the Lord's wrath is just for a
• 1:15:39
  moment. Well, there's that, but then
• 1:15:41
  there's also I think it's Peter who says that when you know the,
• 1:15:48
  the, the, if you're, I can't remember the exact verse, but in
• 1:15:54
  Peter's letter, he speaks about the wrath that that's righteous
• 1:15:57
  anger. But it by, by by sundown, you
• 1:16:00
  have to let it go. So righteous anger is specific
• 1:16:06
  and it's not in, it's not enduring.
• 1:16:08
  If, if it's enduring and you're keeping it warm in your breast,
• 1:16:13
  then it, it, it's, it, it's passionate, but it's not
• 1:16:16
  righteous. It's passionate anger, not
• 1:16:18
  righteous anger. So that, that is, I think a good
• 1:16:23
  segue in, in terms of, of where we are in, in the pro-life
• 1:16:28
  battle here in America is that there are people who so hate
• 1:16:33
  what the abortionists are doing that it's become unchristian.
• 1:16:41
  I just want to stop what they're doing.
• 1:16:43
  But it's not it's not just stop the evil that they're doing.
• 1:16:47
  Do you want to save their souls? You know, and, and that, that's,
• 1:16:52
  that that's the critical distinction.
• 1:16:53
  Is that is that the responsibility of the Christian?
• 1:16:55
  I was talking to a wise, you know, I think priest about this
• 1:16:59
  and you know, if, if a child is about to be murdered on the
• 1:17:02
  street, you're running to rescue that child, right.
• 1:17:05
  And the man murdering that child, you care for that man's
• 1:17:07
  soul, but the child's the one being killed.
• 1:17:09
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:17:10
  So in that sense, you know, I, I would say sometimes in the
• 1:17:13
  public movement, we're not angry enough.
• 1:17:15
  We don't care enough. Joan Bell, she cares.
• 1:17:17
  Do I care enough? We care enough, you know.
• 1:17:20
  And so in a way we have to stir the fires anger because if
• 1:17:23
  anything, I would say like back to your point earlier about
• 1:17:25
  being comfortable. We are so comfortable.
• 1:17:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. I, I agree.
• 1:17:30
  We're we're not, we're not angry enough by the slaughter of the
• 1:17:33
  innocents. And that that anger, though, is
• 1:17:38
  it? It has to be directed to a
• 1:17:40
  spiritual end. And, and that, that's, that's
• 1:17:44
  what you know, that's what I, I, I very much believe that the,
• 1:17:47
  the healing of the nation, the healing of these wounds, the
• 1:17:50
  rebuilding of a culture of life at its core.
• 1:17:54
  It's not, it's not a legal solution.
• 1:17:56
  It's not a political solution. It's not a cultural solution.
• 1:18:00
  All of those law, politics, culture, they're all downstream
• 1:18:05
  from the liturgical and we need to make reparation to God on
• 1:18:10
  behalf of our nation for this form of demon worship.
• 1:18:14
  It's Moloch worship at its core. This isn't a social or a medical
• 1:18:18
  phenomenon. It is.
• 1:18:20
  We've fallen back into the, the trap of our forefathers, the
• 1:18:25
  Israelites who worshipped Moloch and the, the, the proof and the
• 1:18:30
  price of that worship is to pass your children through the fire.
• 1:18:35
  And so at its core, this anger that we, we, we feel and, and it
• 1:18:40
  kind of percolates in US. It has to be directed to the
• 1:18:45
  ultimate evil, which is the Lucifer and all of his his, his,
• 1:18:51
  his plans to destroy us and especially children, because
• 1:18:54
  children are icons of God in their innocence and beauty.
• 1:18:59
  So we always have to direct this back against the evil 1 and
• 1:19:05
  pray, you know, the Psalms of imprecation.
• 1:19:08
  We have to pray the Saint Michael prayer.
• 1:19:10
  We have to make sure that our houses is in order that we are
• 1:19:15
  doing the work of God and we're, we're, we're reciting of the
• 1:19:19
  Psalms, we're reciting prayers of, of deliverance because
• 1:19:23
  that's what we're facing right now.
• 1:19:24
  It's it's an attack of the demonic, and abortion is merely
• 1:19:29
  A liturgical symptom of disordered worship of Malik.
• 1:19:35
  Before you go, I need to ask you about Ukraine.
• 1:19:37
  You have a very unique perspective, father.
• 1:19:40
  You're married to a Ukrainian woman.
• 1:19:42
  It's my understanding. And you've spent time in that
• 1:19:44
  part of the world. Yeah, and a lot of people on the
• 1:19:48
  right right now say that Zelensky is a puppet put in
• 1:19:51
  place by effectively the CIA. This is kind of the argument
• 1:19:54
  from like the Tucker Carlson space and that, you know, we
• 1:19:59
  this is not the the truly the freely chosen by the Ukrainian
• 1:20:02
  people that a lot of Ukrainians actually Russian.
• 1:20:05
  And that we sort of created this this government effectively, or
• 1:20:09
  we helped create it. And that now by us funneling
• 1:20:13
  money into Ukraine, we are basically sending good, you
• 1:20:18
  know, young Ukrainian men just right into the jaws of the line
• 1:20:22
  just to be killed one after the next because Putin's not going
• 1:20:25
  to relent. And so why are we funding these
• 1:20:27
  foreign wars? Well, there's 11 problem with
• 1:20:32
  that is that the people who are invested in this, who actually
• 1:20:35
  live there, who speak the language, who are losing their
• 1:20:39
  sons and daughters, They, they know more about that than you
• 1:20:43
  know, the average American sitting on their couch here
• 1:20:46
  reading conspiracy theories from from extreme websites that are
• 1:20:52
  funneled handed information from the FSB.
• 1:20:56
  This the, the, the Russian secret police and their
• 1:21:00
  propaganda arm. We have to realize that this is
• 1:21:04
  a war. It's kinetic, involving
• 1:21:06
  missiles, but it's also propagandistic.
• 1:21:09
  And it's, it's striving to influence the minds of the
• 1:21:12
  public in the greatest superpower in the world right
• 1:21:15
  now, because this greatest superpower is giving missiles
• 1:21:19
  and armaments and bullets to Ukraine.
• 1:21:23
  So Russia realizes that it has A2 front war.
• 1:21:27
  It has to change American public opinion because that will change
• 1:21:32
  the deliverance of, of, of armaments.
• 1:21:37
  And So what we're hearing from I'll, I'll name it, like live
• 1:21:41
  site news are, are gross distortions of the actual
• 1:21:49
  reality in Ukraine. It's it's not true, I think.
• 1:21:53
  What is true? What is true is that Russia is
• 1:21:58
  going through a population implosion because of abortion.
• 1:22:04
  The average In some parts of Russia, the average number of
• 1:22:08
  abortions per woman is 12. Wow.
• 1:22:11
  OK, the average in some regions of Russia is 12, which means
• 1:22:17
  some of them have had 1718 abortions.
• 1:22:20
  I spoke when I lived there. I, I, I, I spoke to many women.
• 1:22:23
  And that's just their contraception is and they, they,
• 1:22:27
  they speak openly about it often.
• 1:22:31
  And So what, what, what happened is that Mark Stein in 2006 wrote
• 1:22:36
  a book called America Alone, and he prophetically said that
• 1:22:41
  because of this contraceptive abortive, abortive mentality in
• 1:22:45
  in Russia, they're, they will never be able to exist as a
• 1:22:50
  nation unless they very quickly fix their population problem by
• 1:22:56
  invading their neighbors and recouping populations.
• 1:23:01
  So you think Putin wants to invade Ukraine because they're
• 1:23:03
  not having enough babies in Russia?
• 1:23:05
  Yeah, it's, it's all meth. Wow.
• 1:23:07
  It's all meth. But he's not going to come out
• 1:23:09
  and say, you know, we're dying as a nation.
• 1:23:12
  Are the Ukrainians having a lot of babies?
• 1:23:13
  No. They're also struggling.
• 1:23:16
  Once the people breathe the air of socialism, they give up on
• 1:23:20
  reproducing. You know, so it, it's, it's this
• 1:23:23
  that whole sphere. It is, you know, Bulgaria, you
• 1:23:27
  know, the all of the eastern, the countries that were in the
• 1:23:31
  Iron Curtain, just they've given up on, on reproducing.
• 1:23:34
  But Putin still wants to because I think the concern among those
• 1:23:37
  that support the word Ukraine, in terms of supporting Ukraine,
• 1:23:41
  it's well, you know, if Putin goes and invades Ukraine, who's
• 1:23:44
  next? You know, he's he's like the re
• 1:23:46
  establishment of the Soviet Union.
• 1:23:47
  What's going on here re annexing Ukraine?
• 1:23:50
  Yeah. So, so the, the, the, the
• 1:23:52
  principle we have to work at with here is, for example, I
• 1:23:55
  like to draw historical parallels with Poland.
• 1:23:57
  You know, Poland was ruled by a series of puppets leading up to
• 1:24:03
  the Second World War and they were followers of the the
• 1:24:09
  deceased strongman and many of them were Masons.
• 1:24:14
  They were socialists, but the people were were God fearing and
• 1:24:21
  Germany invaded, no justification for it.
• 1:24:25
  And at that, the West gets involved, not because Poland had
• 1:24:30
  a great economic offer that it could give to the West, but
• 1:24:35
  simply because of the question of just war is that this is
• 1:24:41
  untenable. You can't be doing this.
• 1:24:44
  The same thing is happening with Ukraine.
• 1:24:46
  And and the Allen, what you're saying there, if I understand
• 1:24:48
  you correctly, is that the, the people we allied with to defeat
• 1:24:51
  the Nazis, we're not all these great liberty loving pro-life
• 1:24:55
  people. We're allying at one point with
• 1:24:57
  the Soviets. I mean, we're allying.
• 1:24:59
  With and then they gave them unbelievable amounts of
• 1:25:02
  armaments like. So that the same people that
• 1:25:05
  were going to eventually send Christians to the gulag.
• 1:25:09
  Had already. Sent Christians, excuse me, had
• 1:25:11
  already sent Christians to the gulag we are marching arm in arm
• 1:25:14
  with effectively to defeat the Nazis.
• 1:25:16
  Yes, yes. And the Socialists and the
• 1:25:19
  Masons in Poland, we, we came to their defense simply on a matter
• 1:25:27
  of justice, because what the Nazis were doing is wrong now.
• 1:25:30
  But then we sustained a Cold War, right?
• 1:25:34
  I mean, once we once we defeated Nazi Germany, it's not like
• 1:25:37
  we're all buddy buddy with the Soviets.
• 1:25:38
  Yeah, yeah. But I, I'm speaking about the
• 1:25:40
  Poles. Yeah.
• 1:25:41
  OK, so, so the, the Poles, the the people were Catholic.
• 1:25:44
  They weren't aligned with Moscow.
• 1:25:46
  They weren't aligned with Nazi Germany, but they were invaded
• 1:25:50
  by Nazi Germany. And at that, like England says,
• 1:25:53
  we're going to war with you. And the parallel I'm drawing is
• 1:25:57
  that the the government in Ukraine is imperfect.
• 1:26:02
  I admit it, I I mean Zelensky appointed Maria Abramovich who
• 1:26:07
  is into the occult and all kinds of things that are are just
• 1:26:11
  horrible. But that is no reason to violate
• 1:26:18
  the just war theory is that the people have a right to
• 1:26:22
  self-defense and they're in that position because of us.
• 1:26:25
  Because of us. They gave up their nuclear
• 1:26:28
  weapons. They had the third largest
• 1:26:29
  arsenal of nuclear weapons on the planet, Ukraine.
• 1:26:32
  Ukraine, Yeah, people don't know this.
• 1:26:33
  Tucker Carlson never speaks about it.
• 1:26:35
  They had the third largest. And they voluntarily, while
• 1:26:40
  under pressure from Washington, DC in 1994, they, they gave them
• 1:26:46
  up and they gave them to Russia on the condition that the UK,
• 1:26:51
  France and the United States would defend Ukraine's
• 1:26:54
  territorial integrity. But Ukraine had to give up their
• 1:26:57
  ballistic missiles and their nuclear missiles.
• 1:27:00
  And so Ukraine just came through the winter of atheistic
• 1:27:02
  communist. And they said, hey, if the West
• 1:27:05
  is going to be our friend, we don't want, of course we'll do
• 1:27:08
  it. We don't want anything to do
• 1:27:09
  with Russia. And so they did that.
• 1:27:12
  And then a few years later, in 1998, Russia signs an agreement
• 1:27:15
  with Ukraine that they will honor their borders.
• 1:27:19
  OK, so then what? Why did, why did Russia invade?
• 1:27:23
  Why did Russia invade? It wasn't as though Ukraine had
• 1:27:26
  sent missiles across the border or anything like that.
• 1:27:29
  It's unprovoked. And it's contrary to how
• 1:27:32
  Christian nations, as Russia claims it's, you know,
• 1:27:34
  supposedly a bastion of civil, of Christian civilization that
• 1:27:38
  it's on, it's contrary to how they, they, they are relate with
• 1:27:41
  one another. So this has nothing to do with
• 1:27:43
  an imperfect government. In, in, in, in, in, in Ukraine,
• 1:27:47
  we have an imperfect government. Does that mean that it's OK if
• 1:27:50
  Mexico invades us? Well, no.
• 1:27:52
  Well, OK, we have an imperfect government and the, you know,
• 1:27:55
  there are bad actors there. And therefore, if Mexico
• 1:27:58
  invades, well, these same people, they're going to say,
• 1:28:01
  well, let's just let Mexico do it.
• 1:28:03
  No, of course not. It's stupid to say that.
• 1:28:06
  It is not. It does seem contradictory how
• 1:28:08
  some of these folks can really blast other foreign leaders and
• 1:28:13
  also blast our leader but then say America is the best.
• 1:28:16
  Yeah, it's all convoluted. It sort of contradicts.
• 1:28:19
  Itself, it's all convoluted. You have my fellow conservatives
• 1:28:22
  who want a secure border here. OK, they want a secure border
• 1:28:27
  and they want to secure the right to life in the womb, the
• 1:28:30
  the left, the left. They don't care about life in
• 1:28:33
  the womb and they don't care about the border.
• 1:28:36
  Now, let's let's change the script.
• 1:28:37
  Let's say we're talking about Ukraine.
• 1:28:39
  All of a sudden, the conservatives don't care about
• 1:28:41
  their border and they don't care about all the babies that are
• 1:28:44
  dying from the Russian missiles that are not targeting
• 1:28:47
  government institutions. They're targeting hospitals,
• 1:28:49
  kindergartens, schools, residential buildings.
• 1:28:53
  They don't care about that. There's not a tear shed by
• 1:28:56
  Tucker Carlson on that. He's a heartless beast.
• 1:28:59
  You know, he needs to repent. He'll never see the light of
• 1:29:01
  heaven, Doctor Carlson. He will never see the light of
• 1:29:04
  heaven because he's a liar. He has no interest in defending
• 1:29:07
  the innocent God's little children.
• 1:29:10
  And he's used his platform to deceive and to serve the father
• 1:29:14
  of lies. So.
• 1:29:15
  By defending Russia. By defending Russia, who is
• 1:29:17
  violating the sanctity of life across borders and what it does
• 1:29:23
  in the womb. It it, it's, it's that the, if
• 1:29:26
  no country in the world has more abortions than than Russia and
• 1:29:29
  that's not brought up. But all of a sudden the left,
• 1:29:32
  for their part, all of a sudden the left is, is concerned about
• 1:29:36
  Ukraine's borders. That's sacrosanct.
• 1:29:38
  And every time you hear that a Russian missile hits a maternity
• 1:29:41
  ward in Kiev, it's on CNN, you know, but OK, that's horrible
• 1:29:46
  and I it breaks me apart when I hear about all these babies that
• 1:29:49
  die in with these missile attacks and maternity wards in
• 1:29:52
  Ukraine. It anger it, it angers me, but
• 1:29:55
  we have the equivalent of about what, 500 of that happening
• 1:29:58
  every day in this country. 2800 abortions in in America.
• 1:30:03
  Every day. So we're all unprincipled.
• 1:30:06
  They both certain of both sides of this political mess have
• 1:30:11
  they've gone cuckoo, they've lost their marbles.
• 1:30:15
  They've lost the founding principles of the gospel of
• 1:30:18
  Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what your
• 1:30:20
  political opinions are, doesn't matter who you are, you have an
• 1:30:23
  inviolate gift, and that's called life and it's sacred.
• 1:30:27
  And it doesn't matter what your nationality is, where your
• 1:30:29
  political opinions are, that is sacred.
• 1:30:32
  And I must lay my life down to defend and protect you.
• 1:30:37
  But the left and the right have they're in in a danger zone of
• 1:30:42
  completely abandoning those first principles.
• 1:30:45
  What do you think is the proper response of the United States
• 1:30:48
  with the war in Ukraine? And is the war winnable against
• 1:30:51
  Putin and Russia? Yeah, I think the the proper
• 1:30:54
  response is what Trump is doing. Trump has has the magic sauce in
• 1:31:00
  this and he hasn't got the credit that he deserves is
• 1:31:03
  specifics. And he's, he, he spoke about a
• 1:31:06
  white paper that was given to him in which he said that he'll
• 1:31:10
  threaten to, you know, give to Ukraine all the weapons it wants
• 1:31:15
  if Russia doesn't begin to get serious about real, real peace.
• 1:31:18
  And then he, he also threatened Ukraine that he'll withdraw, you
• 1:31:22
  know, withdraw weapons if, if, if Ukraine isn't serious about
• 1:31:26
  peace. And I hope that doesn't mean,
• 1:31:29
  you know, giving up territory like Zaparia and the South of
• 1:31:33
  Ukraine. But this is the magic sauce is
• 1:31:36
  that he, he has an exit strategy.
• 1:31:39
  It's hasn't been laid out very clearly, but he says within, I
• 1:31:43
  think he said 24 hours was his kind of his claim.
• 1:31:47
  But he said that he will give Ukraine more, more weapons
• 1:31:50
  unless there is a specific real piece that that's put on the
• 1:31:54
  table. So I think we need to have a
• 1:31:57
  deadline. Father, this has been so
• 1:31:59
  illuminating. We got to have you back on
• 1:32:00
  because there's so much more we could have talked about in
• 1:32:02
  addition to what we already discussed.
• 1:32:03
  But I do want you to share briefly about the shrine, that
• 1:32:06
  project that you're doing. You mentioned it.
• 1:32:08
  I think you referenced it earlier but would love to hear
• 1:32:09
  about it. The Shrine for the Unborn.
• 1:32:11
  Yeah, thank you. You know, Jesus begins his
• 1:32:13
  mission with the words repent, repent, repent.
• 1:32:16
  Everything begins with repenting, turning around and
• 1:32:19
  being being made new again. And our nation needs renewal.
• 1:32:23
  We need a revival. We need a revival, turning back
• 1:32:25
  to God and it requires work, it requires effort and it requires
• 1:32:30
  it that it be liturgical. So we need to raise an altar to
• 1:32:35
  make reparation to God for our ingratitude that the murder of
• 1:32:40
  at least 65,000,000 little baby boys and girls.
• 1:32:44
  You know, you cannot, you cannot spit in the face of God and kill
• 1:32:49
  65,000,000 children and expect us to walk through the flowers.
• 1:32:53
  You can't do that. A nation like that is under
• 1:32:56
  judgement. And the only way that a nation
• 1:32:58
  under judgement can be made right and be made great is to
• 1:33:01
  humbly admit their mistakes, to go to confession, as it were.
• 1:33:05
  And traditionally that means from the time of Abel, Elijah,
• 1:33:08
  Moses down through the early Christians, that's taken the
• 1:33:11
  form of raising the holy altar, a place that's visible,
• 1:33:15
  tangible, and holy, where sacrifices can be made to God.
• 1:33:18
  And for we Christians, there is no sacrifice greater than the
• 1:33:21
  unbloody sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist offered at that place
• 1:33:25
  specifically, exclusively for reparation for our sin of
• 1:33:31
  idolatry. Because that, Lila, is what
• 1:33:33
  abortion is. It is an act of idolatry to
• 1:33:37
  Moloch and Ball. That's what we are guilty of.
• 1:33:40
  Our nation has fallen in to the sin of Israel.
• 1:33:43
  Of old Of what? Worshipping Malik.
• 1:33:46
  So it's a place to first make reparation, but it's also a
• 1:33:49
  place once we've done that, to go through that narrow passage
• 1:33:52
  and come out and we have a beautiful place of Thanksgiving
• 1:33:55
  where anyone and everyone of of goodwill can come and to give
• 1:33:59
  thanks to God for this great nation, to give thanks to God
• 1:34:02
  for the gift of the family he gave you, the gift of the
• 1:34:05
  children he gave you. And it's a place of remembrance
• 1:34:08
  where these children will be remembered in their in their
• 1:34:12
  millions from throughout the country.
• 1:34:15
  It'll be a place also where pro lifers can gather.
• 1:34:19
  And it'll be a place of pilgrimage where people can do
• 1:34:22
  what our forefathers used to do in Europe and go on pilgrimages
• 1:34:25
  for days and finish it by walking through the crawling
• 1:34:29
  through the eye of the needle to come up into the one of the most
• 1:34:32
  beautiful churches in America. It won't be the largest, but
• 1:34:34
  it'll be the most beautiful, dedicated to Mary and she who is
• 1:34:38
  our protectress. And it'll be a place finally,
• 1:34:40
  where we will put on display for the whole country of the
• 1:34:43
  corporate works of mercy. A place where mothers in
• 1:34:46
  distress, mothers who are kicked out of their home and have
• 1:34:49
  nowhere to go with their kids. Mothers who've chosen life and
• 1:34:53
  have been abandoned by their boyfriends, where they will be
• 1:34:57
  welcomed and they'll be loved back into life so that we're not
• 1:35:00
  just against abortion. We're for mother and child.
• 1:35:04
  And this is going to be their little Bethany home.
• 1:35:06
  Beautiful. Where will this be?
• 1:35:08
  It'll be outside of Pittsburgh. Beautiful.
• 1:35:10
  Yep. Thank you.
• 1:35:11
  So. Much father the website
• 1:35:13
  isholyprotectionshrine.org. One of the inspirations for it
• 1:35:18
  was Sacrecur Basilica in Paris when France had abandoned the
• 1:35:23
  faith and, you know, spilled blood all over Europe.
• 1:35:26
  It was one holy man who said we need to raise a holy altar in
• 1:35:30
  reparation for the sins of our nation and to call our people
• 1:35:33
  back to their moral excellence they once possessed.
• 1:35:37
  And he did that by building that.
• 1:35:39
  The year they agreed to build was the year that Saint Teresa
• 1:35:41
  of Lazio was born. And it changed the course of
• 1:35:44
  history. And so if God, we can see this
• 1:35:48
  same willingness to sacrifice on our part to raise a holy altar,
• 1:35:52
  he's going to bless us with a future St.
• 1:35:54
  Therese of Lizia here in America.
• 1:35:57
  So visit holyprotectionshrine.org.
• 1:36:00
  Amazing. Thank you so much, Father.
• 1:36:02
  Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:36:04
  this episode of the Lila Rose Podcast.
• 1:36:06
  Really interesting stuff. I hope we have Father Sharon
• 1:36:08
  back on the show again. I'm sure you guys have thoughts.
• 1:36:11
  Let me know in the comments. Let me know in an e-mail,
• 1:36:14
  lila@gtbmedia.com. I love hearing from you.
• 1:36:17
  As always, don't forget to subscribe to the show wherever
• 1:36:19
  you listen and send this to a friend that helps the show reach
• 1:36:22
  more people. Thanks so much and we'll see you
• 1:36:23
  next time. And a huge thank you to our
• 1:36:26
  partner. EWTNEWTN is the largest Catholic
• 1:36:30
  network in the world, reaching millions with entertainment,
• 1:36:33
  news and more. Check them out at ewtn.com.