Transcript of #682 - Bishop Robert Barron

Today's guest is a Catholic bishop. He's one of the leading voices in the Catholic faith today. Uh, he started Word on Fire Ministries and he's written many books on theology. Uh, I'm so excited to sit down and have a conversation with Bishop Robert Barron.

Shine on me and I will find a song.

I'll be singing.

Hello, Bishop.

Bishop Robert Barron, nice to see you.

Thank you. Great to be here.

Yeah, thank you so much for your time today.

I'm delighted.

You live in Minnesota.

I do.

Right? And you're a Catholic bishop from there.

Right. So I'm the bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, which is the southern part of Minnesota. And I live in Rochester right near the Mayo Clinic. I'm like 5 minutes away from there.

Oh, nice. So you probably get to take a lot of visits to like visit with children and their families and stuff like that?

Yeah, I visit a lot of, you know, sick people there. And so it's, You know, probably the leading hospital in the world. And people come from all over the place there.

Oh, and you're right there then.

I'm right there.

You should start a drive-through even. That'd be nice.

Yeah.

Just bless out the window, maybe. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah. Okay. That's one bad idea for me. You started Word on Fire Ministries? Yeah.

It's a media ministry. So it's an evangelical ministry to proclaim, you know, the Catholic faith. And I started just with a sermon show on the radio in Chicago 25 years ago. And it's grown now. We use all kinds of things, publishing and podcasting and films now. And so it's just been blessed, thank God.

And how does somebody become a bishop?

Well, you gotta be chosen by the Pope. So you really got nothing to do with it. I was the rector of the seminary in Chicago. So I was head of the seminary, right? And then one day out of the blue, you get a phone call and it came from this guy we call the Apostolic Nuncio, who's like the Vatican ambassador to the US. And he says, the Pope has appointed you auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. That was my first bishop appointment.

So that's like the NFL draft almost for popes. Is it kind of like that energy? Like you're like waiting for this thing?

No, because you— no, you're not waiting at all. You have no idea it's coming. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I'm lying on the couch watching golf. I have my shorts on and a t-shirt. And the phone rings. And it's this little Italian voice saying, the Holy Father's appointed you. And then he says, do you accept?

Did you think it was a scam or something?

No, because I recognized his name and everything.

Okay, so you knew. So you know it.

But you have no idea it's coming. Because if you're under consideration, no one tells you. It's not like, oh God, I might get it. You have zero idea. And so just like that, out of the blue, and not, we're thinking about appointing you, it's, he's already appointed you. Now you can say no. You can say, look, I'm not going to do it. But unless you've got like a super good reason, you have to say yes to it. And then, you know, uproot your entire life, move away from everyone you know. I moved to LA Archdiocese, lived in Santa Barbara, which is pretty good, you know, but I had zero idea. And then 4 years later, or what, 5 years later, another phone call comes. Holy Father's appointed you Bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota. So off you go.

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

Yes. And I, for years, I used to preach to people, you know, Your life's not about you. It's about God, what God wants. Unless you've got a really good reason, you follow God's will. So how could I then stand and say, no, I'm really happy where I am, and tell the Pope to forget it? So you kind of have to say yes. Yeah. Wow.

That's a big surprise in somebody's life. Did you have a job before you were a bishop? Like, did you just work at somewhere regular?

Well, when I was a kid, like when I was 16, I worked at a bookstore. I was like a stock boy in the bookstore. I worked at Steak 'n Shake for a while as a dishwasher.

Let's go, dude.

Yeah, but then I went to college, you know, and then entered the seminary and then did those studies and became a priest when I was about 26. So I didn't have a big career before I became a priest.

Yeah. What was the worst thing that you didn't like about dishwashing?

Oh, I hated dishwashing.

Did you?

The heat and the— no, I thought it was the most obnoxious job I had. I didn't last very long. I quit after a few months.

Oh, dang.

I hated it, yeah. I liked the bookstore job. That was— I was 16 and I was like stock boy and I was putting books on shelves and stuff. I didn't mind that job.

Yeah, I worked at a bookstore when I went to college for a little while. I enjoyed it too.

'Cause it's kind of peaceful in there comes over.

Sometimes people are just hiding from their spouse or whatever in there, but sometimes people are looking for a book.

Oh yeah.

And you get to help them and you just kind of start to learn inadvertently even.

Well, I'll tell you now, I discovered a book in that job called The Seven-Story Mountain by a guy named Thomas Merton.

Seven-Story Mountain?

The Seven-Story Mountain, which had a big impact on me. Merton was this guy, very talented, very accomplished, was in New York, wanted to be a writer, knew all these famous people. And then long story short, he becomes a Catholic. and then wants to become a Trappist monk, which is about as serious a monk as you can become, living in silence and prayer. And the book is the story of his conversion.

The Seven-Story Mountain. Have you ever gotten to meet him?

Oh, there it is. No, he died in 1968. So, and he died actually in Bangkok, Thailand. He was there for a conference and he was electrocuted.

Nuh-uh.

He was electrocuted, yeah. He gave a speech, went back to his— he was like staying in this sort of like bungalow thing. And they found him with the, standing fan lying on top of him. He had grabbed it and it had a short or something and it killed him. That's how Merton died, which is very ironic and strange. But he was a wonderful figure. And that book right there had a big impact on me when I was a kid.

What about it?

It's a story of a guy falling in love with God. And so he discovers God. And then it's— none of his instincts move that way. He wanted to be a writer. He wanted to be kind of a cool, you know, man of the world. And then he starts gradually falling in love with God. And it's told in almost like this romantic way. He was a poet, a very fine poet, actually. And the book— and I was 16 at the time, and so it kind of gets caught up in all that. And it's a very human story, and it's beautifully told too. So that impacted me big time when I was about 16.

Yeah, I've heard you talk about Thomas Merton before in some of your different podcasts and different lectures.

Well, he was one of the great spiritual writers of the last century. So if you want to know how to pray, how to approach prayer, what prayer is, how to live the spiritual life, he's a guy that you turn to.

To get a little bit towards Catholicism. So Catholicism is a branch of Christianity. What's the difference of being a Catholic and being a Christian?

Well, I mean, of course, a Catholic is a Christian. So you're a follower of Jesus Christ. We would maintain that the Catholic Church is the true church that's founded by Jesus Christ. You get to the Reformation, and you have people that were quarreling with different aspects of Catholicism and broke off from it. So Lutherans and Calvinists and all the various sub-branches thereof. But we'd maintain that the Catholic Church has all the gifts that Christ wants his people to have, that it's the fullness of what Christ wanted. But then we recognize the Protestant churches, of course, have all kinds of gifts that Christ wants too. But the Catholic Church, we would maintain, obviously has the fullness of it.

Understood. How would you define God?

Well, probably the simplest way to say God is the creator of all things.

Okay.

So there's the world of things, right? The world we're in all the time. You and me in this place, and we go outside, the world of ordinary things, and even like the planet Jupiter and our galaxies is the world of things. But they don't explain themselves, right? Nothing in the world explains itself. It is, but doesn't have to be. So we look for causes. That's all of science, right? Looks for what caused this to be here. Why are you and I here right now? We can look for all kinds of reasons. How about those things? Do they have to be there? Well, no, they were caused by other things. Then we say, well, God is the uncaused cause. God is the first mover. God is the reason why there's anything at all. So what's cool about that is God is not a thing in the world. Like there's you and me and the planet Jupiter and God and the Empire State Building. No, no, that's the wrong way to think about it. God is the reason why there's anything at all. So you might say he's the creator of all things, to put it in religious language.

He's the ground of being, philosophers might say. And I would say, like, the reason why there's something rather than nothing, that's God.

Interesting.

That's the cool question that philosophers have asked. And some people just find it nonsensical. Others say it's the most important question of all. Why is there something rather than nothing? The answer to that question is God, I would say.

How does God operate? Because you'll hear people will say stuff like, well, that's part of God's plan, right? But then if something horrible happens, then they're like, well, God can help you through this, right? Like, does he cause bad things to happen or is he just there for us if something, no matter what happens?

So he's the cause of all things, right? So God is responsible for all that exists in the world. You say, well, what about evil? Well, evil is not a thing. Evil's a lack of being. Do you remember in the Lord of the Rings, I don't know if you're a Lord of the Rings guy, but remember the Nazgûl, these things that fly around on these dragons and everything, and they look so fearsome, but when they finally, like, they stab at them, the cloak falls away and there's nothing there.

Hmm.

That was Tolkien's way of saying this truth, that evil is frightening, but essentially it's a type of non-being. It's a lack of a good that ought to be there, like a cavity in a tooth. So the cavity, you say, man, it's real and it hurts. But the cavity itself is just an emptiness. Evil's like that, physical evil or moral evil. Moral evil is a lack of an integrity that ought to be there in your soul. So in that way, you can't say God's the cause of evil, because God is the cause of all being. So then you have to say, well, God, Permits evil. And that's true. He allows it to be. Now, why? Then pick up the Book of Job. It's the best biblical wrestling with that, right? And God's great answer to Job when he's going, why am I suffering? Why is all this happening to me? And God says, where were you when I made the heavens and the earth? And where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? And where were you? You know everything. You tell me. In other words, why God permits suffering— We can't really see.

Sometimes we can in little ways, right? Where you say, gosh, if that hadn't happened to me, you know?

Oh, yeah.

Sometimes we can see it, but very often you can't. But that shouldn't surprise us, right? If God, who's the source of all existence, who's concerned about all of space and all of time, he's got a design for that, that I can't see it. Well, of course, duh. Of course I can't understand all of it. But I accept that God permits evil to bring about some greater good. That's the classical answer to that question. But it's cool. You're pursuing it the right way, see, which is God is not the cause of evil, but he permits evil to allow for some greater good.

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

In the end, it ends according to God's design. And God, is love, right? And so to love is to will the good of the other. And so that's what God wants. God wants the good of the other. But how precisely it all works out, I don't really know. But St. Paul, all things work together for the good for those who love the Lord. That's it. That's the right sort of theological vision.

How do I best start my relationship with God, would you suggest to somebody who's like, maybe has felt God, that feels like God exists in the world? I mean, I've felt that, For sure, I've always thought that God existed, but only recently have I started to feel more of a relationship. How do you suggest that someone starts to kind of begin their relationship with God?

You know what Thomas Merton said? Someone asked him that question. He said, take the time. In other words, dedicate some time every day to God. So I begin every day with what I call a holy hour. which is made popular, by the way, by this fellow Fulton Sheen. Does that name ring a bell?

Fulton Sheen, bring him up.

Fulton Sheen, bring him up, 'cause we're about to beatify him just in a few days, in fact.

Really?

That's the last— there he is. That's the last step before canonization, become a saint, right? So Fulton Sheen was this great mid-20th century figure, a teacher, writer. He was one of the first to use radio and TV.

Oh, he's beatified.

So we're beatifying him just in a few weeks.

And what does beatifying mean, just so we know?

Well, it's the last step before canonization, which is sainthood. But like, beatus in Latin means happy. So like, you know, we say the beatific vision, that's heaven. It means happiness, that when I look at this thing, it makes me happy. That's heaven, the beatific vision. So a beatus would be a happy person, right? Because he's so ordered to God.

So did he have to work really hard to be happy, probably?

He was a pretty happy guy, Sheen. Like, by temperament he was.

So a little insider trading kind of.

Right. But what he gave us, which I really love, is he called the Holy Hour, which is every day as Catholic, spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament. So we believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. And so every morning, that's what I do. I go to my chapel in my house and I pray for an hour. And it could be like, we have a thing called the Office that a priest has to pray. It's Psalms and Canticles and things from the Bible. and readings and stuff. But you can also pray the rosary, which I do. You can also just sit in silence. There's this one saint, they said, what do you do when you're looking at the Blessed Sacrament? And he said, I look at him and he looks at me. And that's pretty good that you sit in silence.

In a meditative state. It's almost, it's meditative.

Right. And so we call that mental prayer sometimes in the Catholic tradition. But I would recommend that is take, and it might not be an hour, maybe you have to build up to that, but even take 5 minutes to focus on the Lord. Now it might be you're going to read something from the Scripture, which is great. It might be if you're Catholic, you pray the rosary or pray a decade of the rosary. That just kind of focuses your mind. You know, the Buddhists have this thing, the monkey mind they talk about. The monkey mind is bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, jumping around from branch to branch.

Oh yeah.

Well, that's the way most of us live. Or like you wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and your monkey mind has kicked in and you're thinking about— and they talk about calming the monkey mind, right? Merton, in fact, who understood Buddhism very well, thought that prayers like the rosary have that effect. Because all you do, you repeat the Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Hail Mary, full of grace.

A mantra.

It's like a mantra. It's a Catholic mantra. And what that does, many things, but it calms and focuses the soul, right? That's the great thing about prayer. And I'd recommend to you or anybody, take the time and find a way to get focused on the Lord. That's a good starting place.

And how honest do you have to be with God?

Well, see, the thing is with God, God knows everything anyway, because he's the source of existence.

So if you're not being honest, if you're being secretive, he already—

Then what's the point? And that's what I mean.

But it feels like there's some point to us. You know what I'm saying? Like, it feels like, or there's a fear to do it or something.

But see, it's stupid. It's a stupid thing because God knows everything already. So what are you keeping from him? Or if you feel like, I can just say these very kind of exalted, pious things to God, look at the Bible. Look at the Psalms, for example. The Psalms are filled with people angry at God and they're exalting, they're praising God. They're frustrated, they're tearing their hair out.

Oh yeah. It's PG-13 over there for sure.

Right. That's how you should pray. Why not be honest with God about everything, about your sins? He knows them anyway. So I think praying with honesty is super important. But a lot of religious people, we kind of deceive ourselves and think, well, okay, I won't mention that to God, so I should be okay.

But then when you're keeping a secret, when you have a secret though, that's where like it feels like the devil can get in, you know, when you have kind of like a seed of distrust.

Because he's the father of lies, right?

Is he?

Yes, that's one of the titles of the devil.

What the heck? I didn't even know that.

Yeah, and that's actually a really good, interesting— he's the murderer from the beginning. the beginning, but he's also the father of lies.

Oh, murder from the beginning is way worse, I think. But definitely, that's definitely additional charges.

But they're related because when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. See, when you get on beam with him, you're on beam with what's truest about you, but also about all of reality. The devil's favorite move, therefore, is to lie, deceive, distract. Oh, that's not really true. And how often when we're not in touch with reality, we get so unhappy. And that's not an accident. So getting someone on the beam of truth is getting them on the beam of Christ, I would say, 'cause he announced himself as the truth.

Yeah, sometimes I've prayed and it's like, I would wanna keep things. Now I'm trying to be very specific, you know, like I just, 'cause I don't want it anymore. I don't want to not have, I don't want something to be, like just mine, if that makes any sense. Especially—

Tell us more about that.

If it's bad.

Yeah.

Like if I feel like it's bad.

Yeah.

Or it's like a sin or something I've done that's wrong or something I've been thinking about or something that I'm afraid of. It's like, I don't wanna just keep it to myself because I can't handle it.

Yes. And look, see, from a Catholic standpoint, the beauty of confession that we have this sacrament. Jordan Peterson said this one time, to go before a representative of God, to admit your failure and your weakness and your sin, and to seek the grace of God to do better. He said, I can't imagine anything psychologically healthier than that.

Wow.

And he was talking about Catholic confession. Because it gets portrayed at times like, oh, this weird thing. You go into this box and you mutter your sins to a priest. Well, that's a caricature. It's standing before the Lord, someone who represents him, 'cause we're not angels, I mean, we have bodies. That's why the sacraments are physical and why you actually speak to somebody. But he's a representative of God in that way. And you're telling God—

Who's a representative of God?

The priest. Let's say if you go into confession—

Oh, Catholic we're saying.

And you go to the priest and you confess your sins, you're speaking to God really and saying, Lord, I want to be honest with you. This is what's wrong with me right now. I'm not okay. I'm not doing well. And here's why. And then you seek the grace of God. That's beautiful. Because see, the father of lies would love it if we just never admit that. Oh no, I'm fine. I'm okay and you're okay. We're all doing great.

Yeah.

Don't tell me I've done anything wrong. Well, that's all a lie. And in confession, that's the beauty of it. I'm admitting how off-kilter I am, and then I'm asking for grace. That's a beautiful thing. There's confession.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, but you know, the way most Catholics now go to confession would be face-to-face. I mean, you just sit down with the priest like the way we are.

Oh, really?

You can still go behind the screen and all that. That's up to the individual. When I first started going to confession as a kid, it would've been behind the screens like that. But you can have this kind of direct conversation too.

How has God shown grace in your life, do you feel like personally, if you don't mind if I ask?

Well, no, I mean, like—

Well, so we can even talk about it, 'cause I think about it a lot, you know? When I think about that, there's nothing like— that's one of the strongest thoughts that I have sometimes is just how much grace God's shown in my own life.

Yeah, I'm a big Bob Dylan guy. I don't know if you know that, but I love Bob Dylan. During his Christian period, he's got this song, I look around this old world and all that I'm finding is the saving grace that's over me. And that's the way religious people in their more ecstatic moments talk. Because that's what it means. Grace just means free gift. Well, what's a free gift? It's my being, because I don't have to exist. There's nothing necessary about me. So the fact that I am and that I'm alive, that's a grace. Now you can start to name within that all kinds of particular things. You know where I was this morning?

So our own existence is a grace?

Yes, because you don't have to be. See, God is perfectly happy without the world. That's a very important theological truth. God does not need the world. He does not need anything outside of himself.

Really?

God is God. Yes, 'cause God is perfect. God is the sheer act of existence. God is perfect in every way.

So then he must have created it with a purpose then.

And the only purpose that we can identify is not a needy purpose, but God needs nothing. Therefore, whatever he does is done out of purest love. 'Cause Thomas Aquinas, along with Bob Dylan, my other great hero, Thomas Aquinas, this great medieval theologian, right? He says that to love is to will the good of the other. And when you think about that, that's a really rare, weird thing.

So let me say it again. To love is to will the good of the other.

Of the other as other.

Wait, to will the good of the other as other.

Yeah, and I'm kind of intensifying it to make the point. So let's say I'm nice to you that you might be nice to me. So that's the way most of us sinners operate. So I'll be I'm kind to you as long as you're kind to me. The minute you get obnoxious to me, I'm gonna be obnoxious to you. That's the way most of us operate most of the time, because we're doing it out of some kind of need. I'm not really willing your good. Now, love— Right, you're hoping that something good will come out of it, that I'll get something for me. It'll redound to my benefit.

Okay, understood.

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

Right, they have to love you because they just want you to be okay.

They just want your good. Or think of, you know, in a Catholic setting, we always go to the martyrs. I don't know if you know this name, Maximilian Kolbe. Does that ring a bell?

Oh, is he a—

He was a great saint during the Nazi period. He was a prisoner at Auschwitz, right? And he was an opponent of Hitler, so Hitler arrested him. He's a Franciscan friar. There he is. And see, he's got the Auschwitz garb on there because the Nazis had a thing where if someone escaped from the barracks, they'd bring everybody out into the yard and they would pick 10 at random and then starve them to death. It was like this horrible thing.

Just if someone escaped?

Right.

As a payment?

Right. So someone escaped from his barracks and they brought the people out and they picked out 10. He was not one of them. But this one man fell to his knees and started crying and he said, I'm a husband, I'm a father, please. So Kolbe stepped out of line and he just said, I'm a Catholic priest, take me in his place. And Kolbe barely knew this guy. I mean, he's in the barracks with him, I guess, but barely knew him. And so they starved him to death.

Wow.

And it was John Paul II who knew that story from his time in Poland and kind of brought it to the attention of the world. But now that's love, see? The willing the good of the other. What was in it for him? What was in it for Colby?

Yeah.

And so, see, it's like—

That's unbelievable.

It's like a black hole. A black hole will draw everything into itself, right? That's what most of our souls are like. We wanna draw the world in. Love is breaking the gravitational pull of the black hole of the ego and saying, I really want what's good for you. And isn't it wild? We say, see, God is love. That's what God is, because he doesn't need anything.

Yeah.

He can't do anything out of self-interest. So my existence, our being in this room, is itself an expression of love. It has to be. So then the trick is, as you get closer to God, you become more conformed to that, which is why the saints are so weird. That's why the saints are so weird to us, because They're not operating in this ordinary sphere. So we talk about supernatural virtue. That's Colby. That's all the saints. They have supernatural because they're very close to the way God is.

So the greatest thing that we can do is try to love in a completely selfless way.

Right. And it's not easy. And that's why I see it requires prayer. I can't really will myself into that state. I have to kind of be open. To God's grace transforming me.

And prayer helps that.

Yes. You might say it's the only way because Aristotle or Plato would've said these virtues like courage and prudence and justice, you can kind of practice your way to them. Okay. But the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love, see, that's why they're theological. I can't really practice my way. I can just say, Lord, make me like this. Bring me into line with your way of being. And it's kind of a miracle when it happens.

Yeah. Sometimes I notice if I'm having trouble with something, then I'll— and I don't even think that I want to— sometimes I'll want something, but I won't want to do it. Does that make any sense to you?

The good that I would do is that that I don't do. St. Paul says that, Romans 7.

So yeah, my brother was saying that I should ask for the willingness to do it sometimes. Sometimes it's a little bit of a— crack in the door. Like, if I can't, like, if I don't have the power to do it myself, maybe sometimes that I can pray just to ask God for willingness. Like, God, even just make me willing to try this.

Maybe the Holy Spirit's kind of led us to Merton that way, because one of Thomas Merton's famous prayers begins, my Lord God, I have no idea where I'm going. It's a great way to start a prayer. Like, I don't know. But one of the things in there is, And the fact that I think I'm doing your will doesn't mean I'm actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. And may I have that desire in all that I do. That's a cool prayer. See, he's lost. I don't know where I'm going. And I don't even know if I'm doing your will. But the desire to please you in fact pleases you. So let me have that anyway.

Amen.

That's a good way to pray.

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Right? Like to give, to allow possibility in your life. 'Cause if you're lost, then you need something. Right?

Yeah.

You just mentioned being kind of lost. Right? It's interesting that we're in a time where we have so many things that help us have like direction. Right? Like we have GPS, we have, like MapQuest, we have Waze, we have everything. We had everything you could need to help us like direct. We have all this technology. We have so many things, right? We have so much like material. We have so much. Like we have storage facilities. People are storing, attics are full, right?

Right.

People are, some people have 2 or 3 purses, some women and some men. But what I'm saying is we have so much stuff, but yet like it feels like we're at a spot where We're missing something that we just can't purchase anymore.

Right. When it comes to the—

Does that make any sense? Does that make sense to you? Like we're missing something that's like not on a shelf somewhere.

Right. Which is why we're casting about so desperately and why—

Yeah, it feels desperate. That's what it's gotten to. It's starting to feel desperate. And I think some of it has to do with like a sense of purpose, maybe. I'm not sure.

No. Yeah. 'Cause we've lost the sense of like ultimate purpose or spiritual purpose. And so when you lose that, The Bible would describe that as being in exile. You've wandered into the desert. You're away from the sources of life. St. Augustine said you're in the land of dissimilitude, 'cause we're made in the likeness of God, right? But I've wandered into the land where I'm not like God. And so—

Yeah, it's a Costco.

I'm in Costco. And so I'm just sort of lost. And so the idea is, Jesus says, I am the way. Follow me. I'm the way you get your bearings. I give these sermons a lot to kids for confirmation. As a bishop, you confirm these teenagers.

Mm-hmm.

So I give the sermon and I use the example of Waze a lot. I trust in Waze. I got this voice, I got this kind of English voice on mine, and this little calm guy just tells me where to go, where to turn. And I kind of surrender to him 'cause, yeah, I'm driving all over the place. I don't know where I'm going. I was better when I was a kid. I knew better where I was going.

Yeah.

Now, but I just kind of trust in the voice of waves. And I said, but that's like the voice of your conscience, the voice of God, that we have to learn how to trust it again. And I would say the Bible, teaching of the Church, in the liturgy, in great preaching, in someone like Merton or Fulton Sheen, or there are lots of ways to find your direction. And then see, Jesus says about all of us Christians, You're the light of the world. You're the city on the hill. See, the city on the hill was like a GPS. If you're in ancient times and you're wandering around, oh, the city. Oh yeah, I gotta go just, you know, kind of just west of that city. So it was the way I found my direction. Well, that's us. We're supposed to be that now for other people. That we followers of Jesus are meant to be a signal to the rest of the world. But if we're as lost as they are— And the Lord says, if salt has lost its savor, you know, Who's— and you don't put a light under a bushel basket. But that's what a lot of us have done.

We're as lost as everybody else.

Sometimes it also feels like, Bishop, that it's being organized that way by like darker entities in society. Do you feel like that that could be true, that like evil operates like that? Because it really feels like that more than ever, I think. Yes.

The Bible knows about personal sin, right? So there's Individuals, you and I, we're sinners. I'm lost. I'm a sinner. But it also knows about kind of structural institutional sin. But then behind all of that, it knows about, I would say, a properly spiritual dimension, that there's a spiritual world that's also fallen and that compromises the institutional and the personal level. There's all those dimensions of evil. I think we get naive in a way. Oh, it's just personal evil. It's just something that we sinners do. So yeah, that's true. But behind us are institutions that condition us, and behind them, there are fallen spiritual powers, I would say. And we gotta deal with all of them. We gotta, you know, Paul says, you know, we battle not just with flesh and blood, but powers and principalities. That's still true, it seems to me.

Did Christianity ever have like a military, or was that even a thing?

Well, there were military orders, like around the time of the Crusades and stuff, like the Knights Templar. And they were like religious orders that had kind of a military dimension, you know, because they were trying to defend the Holy Land and all that. But we tend not to do that today.

Yeah.

You got the Knights of Malta. There's certain things that are kind of a holdover from that time, but we're not like going around with, you know, machine guns and stuff.

Got it.

There's the Knights Templar.

The Knights Templar were wealthy. Oh, that's Varsity too. Look at him. The Knights Templar were a wealthier— were a wealthy and powerful Catholic military order of warrior monks founded in 1118 during the Crusades. Their mission formed to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem and sacred sites from violent attacks.

Wow.

So when Christians traveled to go to Jerusalem, the Knights Templar would kind of escort them or make sure that they got there safely?

That was the idea. Yeah.

Why were they attacked so much?

Oh, it's a complicated story. There were some, you know, there are charges of corruption, of financial corruption and other things. It's a little bit murky and I don't know the history all that well. But they were eventually suppressed. But it's like most human things end up going bad. And there was some kind of corruption set in there. But I think at its best, it was doing a very valuable thing.

Yeah, most human things kind of end up going bad in some ways. Do you think, like, sometimes I get stuck in this space where it's like, I want to go to heaven. I want to have, happiness after. I want to earn the possibility to, and I don't even know if earn is the right word, but I want to have the opportunity to have a life past this, past this one here.

Yeah.

But also part of me wants this, you want to win in this world as well. Does that make any sense? It's like, it's like you want to see humanity win, right? But does that really even matter if the goal is to have an eternal life and to— is earn the right word?

No, I wouldn't use earn, but it's a both/and, see?

But does it make sense what I'm asking?

Yeah, yeah.

But it's like, I don't want to lose here on Earth, not as a person, but just as a species or as Sometimes it's even as like America or as like good, good versus evil. It's like, I don't want good to lose here on earth. You know, you want to try and service that as well as you can, but it seems like the more important thing is this greater good that comes with salvation. Does that make sense?

Yes. And they're both true. See, contrast biblical religion with, let's say, Plato, and go back to Plato or these other figures. That felt the body, this natural world, was kind of a fallen world. It was low level. The idea was to escape from it. So Plato says the whole point of philosophy is like a prison break, to get out of the prison of the body. That's not the Bible. The Bible doesn't hold to that at all. So God makes the world, everything in it, including insects that crawl upon the earth and all that, and he finds it good. And he finds the ensemble of it very good. That's a radical thing though in the Bible. See, 'cause so many dualistic systems would say like spirit good, matter bad, heaven good, earth bad, get out of earth to get to heaven. That's not the Bible. The Bible affirms the earth. It affirms the human project, right? And then it doesn't want so much escape from the earth. It wants a new heavens and a new earth. That's a different game. See, God doesn't give up on what he's made. He wants to lift it up and transfigure it.

and bring it to a higher pitch. Or like, you know, Jesus says, may your will be done on earth as in heaven. See, he wants to bring heaven and earth together.

Hmm.

That's the goal. And see, we believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It doesn't mean, oh yeah, Jesus died and his soul, thank God, went up to heaven. That's not it at all. He walked in the room and he ate in front of them and he said, touch my wounds. Risen from the dead, yes. Conqueror of death, yes. But in his body, right? So we look forward, like the creeds say, not to the escape of the soul from the body. We look forward to the resurrection of the body. So see, that's to your point. It means God doesn't give up on the world. He doesn't give up on the human project. He wants us to strive to make this world as beautiful and just and good as possible in the hopes of—

Resurrection.

Now attaining this transformation. Or think of the scene of the Transfiguration of Jesus, when the clothes become dazzling white and all that. He doesn't go up somewhere else. He allows them to see his transfigured person. That's the biblical thing. So it's both/and, right? It's both/and.

What do you think is something that would—

That's the Transfiguration.

Oh yeah, show it. Let me see. And is that one particular famous piece of art or is that—

Well, that's the Raphael one on the right there, the screen I'm looking at. There's a lot of different, but the Raphael's probably the most famous one. But see, it's the bodiliness of it. That's what I would emphasize. So many spiritualities are kind of down on the body, down on the world, get out of the world. That's not biblical religion.

Got it.

Right? We like the body. The body's good.

But it's part-time.

Not really, no. I look forward to the resurrection of the body. But think about this too.

So you're saying our body will come back? Yeah.

Well, see, this body's part-time.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This body's part-time.

But I mean, like, how many of the cells in my body did I have, I don't know, the scientists will tell me, 4 years ago? Nothing. My whole body's been replaced, right? But the form of me, the basic pattern of me remains, right? Well, I think something similar, we talk about the resurrected body. I'll die, I'll go into the ground, but God remembers the great pattern of me and can reconstitute, just as it's happening now in nature. I'm getting reconstituted physically all the time.

That's a good point.

So can it happen in this sort of transfigured way in heaven? Paul talks about the spiritual body, and you say, what's he talking about? But I think he's gesturing toward this. It's the body, But it's not like just this ordinary body. It's a spiritualized body. And he sensed that in the resurrection of Jesus.

One of the toughest things that I hear people talk about, like, we're in a lot of like, kind of like a, I don't wanna say like a me time, but it's like, we've all kind of like, we're inundated with ourselves, right? And people spend less time connected, you know, even though like technology has us hypothetically more connected. But they spend less time connected. And then a lot of people feel alone, right? Like even if they're not even alone, sometimes there's this just feeling of being alone. Why is it, is being alone a sin? Is it a sin to be alone?

It's not good for a man to be alone, the Bible says, right? So, I mean, from the beginning, see, 'cause God is a family. We'd say God is Father, Son, Spirit. God is not just—

Yeah, he's a triple dipper.

He's not a monolith. There's like something, There's something familial, there's something communitarian about God. And so he wants us to have that same kind of thing. See, I think what happens is when you forget about God, you lose your connection to everybody else. See, you and I, we just met today for the first time. But see, we're connect— we are, I'll use a technical term, we are ontological siblings. Because it means we're brothers at the level of being. Because right now we're both coming forth from God's creative intention. So if you go to the very depth of my own being, I'm gonna find the depth of your being. See, and that's why we're like our—

And that's because why? We're both here talking about it and learning together?

No, 'cause we're both creatures. We're both here because God is willing us to be here. And he's breathing us right now into existence.

I see. So that alone, that birth in a way is something that we have in common.

Yeah.

We rarely ever even talk about that.

Right. And see, when you pray, so in prayer, again, Thomas Merton says it's finding the place in you where you are here and now being created by God. That's what prayer means. So if I, in prayer, find that place, I found that same place in you and the same place in everybody else. And that's why St. Francis can say, brother sun and sister moon, It's not just Whistling Dixie. I mean, that's a very accurate statement. Oh yeah, the sun is my brother. The moon is my sister because we're all coming forth from the same creative source. And see, that happens in prayer.

Yeah, the stitch is the same. That lowest stitch is the same.

Right. But now you stop praying or you say, I don't care. I hate church. Forget about God. I'm going to live for myself. You've lost that now. You've lost contact with that point. And so of course we now live in antagonism.

Okay. So if we're all connected, then what's a way to stay as tapped into that connectivity as possible?

Love one another as I have loved you. So Jesus says to his disciples, I've loved you. I've willed your good and you found your commonality in me. Okay. Now you love each other as I have loved you. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

Okay.

There's the whole purpose of Christ. He said, we wandered into the land of unlikeness, we're lost, we're in the desert, whatever metaphor you want. But now in Christ, God has reconciled us to himself. But then Paul says, now you become ambassadors of Christ. Now you become reconcilers. That's the saints then. That's their job. The divided societies, because there aren't enough of us, we're not light, we're not salt, we're not the city on the hill, and we're not doing our work of reconciling. You know, do you have that Amish hat behind you there, right? The Amish kid that was on your show.

Oh yeah, Timothy.

I love that. Who's from my diocese. He's from my area in Minnesota, Lanesboro.

Oh, nice. Yeah, he's one of a kind. I want to have him back in because I hope I'm scared that he's going away from, I don't know. I just, there's a fear that I have that it's like he got a little too tempted out there. I mean, there he is at fricking Hooters.

I didn't see that.

You know? And I don't think the Lord's at Hooters.

No, but I don't know about this particular Amish kid, but the Amish—

That's him.

But I know, no, but the Amish are, they're beautiful examples of what I'm talking about. You know these stories about, You know, a guy goes crazy and he killed these kids in an Amish school, right? And you think the community would just be so lividly angry with him. And these Amish people went to the home of the guy's widow. Like, he killed these kids and killed himself. They went that night to the home of the widow to comfort her.

Hmm.

And then they went to his trial or something to show their support. And that's, see, that's Christianity. That's grace breaking out. That's God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. They were acting as ambassadors of Christ in that regard.

Because they were looking at someone else's pain over theirs.

Yeah, right. They were willing the good of the other, even if it meant enormous struggle for them. So that's what we're supposed to do. See, Christianity is never meant to be my little relationship with the Lord. And, you know, so I go to church and I feel good about my prayers. Fine, as a starting point. But the whole point of it is now go, you're an ambassador of Christ. And if the world's lost its way, we Christians have gotta take some responsibility. Like, no, that's our job is to say Christ is the way and let me show you.

It feels like the world has lost its way. It feels like, I don't know if it feels like people have all the time, but it feels like these darker powers and like corporations, like greed has overtaken things. I mean, you're just seeing things that are so painful in the world right now. And maybe they've always been there, right?

Yeah.

Maybe they're more in our hand these days because we can see 'em on our phones and we can see 'em on social media. But it feels like we've just gotten— it doesn't feel like we as humans, it doesn't always feel like we are that far off tune, but it feels like there has been an organized strategy against us to get down to the cell, even with the algorithms and how your phone is watching you and how it's like a surveillance state that we're entering allegedly in some places. It seems like the devil is like, I mean, he's way heavily invested in the tech.

He loves it.

He loves it. But it's like, what do we do? And you can't turn back the time of the world, really. It's like you can romanticize the past, and I'll do that a lot, but it's like, I guess it's just like, yeah, what do we do? Because it doesn't feel like we're not trying, and maybe we aren't at times, but it does feel like the sword against us has been sharpened with a sharpener that we couldn't even fathom existed. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah, it does. And that spooks me too, because I do think it's a favorite tool of the dark powers, the technology. You know, one way is just how mean that world is when you enter the world of social media. And, you know, that meanness has always been there, but now it appears publicly in a way that's damaging people. And I know from a lot of studies in my own pastoral work, young people, especially young women, are getting damaged like crazy on social media. Just the negativity and the judgmentalism. And, you know, yeah, the dark powers love using that. You know?

What do we do? Like, what do you do as someone who believes in, like, a good, right? Even if they're— even someone who may not even have the strongest faith in God, right? Or in a specific branch of religion, but who just believes in, like, a moral good. You know?

Right.

It's just like—

Yeah, but see, that's a very important point, actually, the belief in a moral good. Because if I can quote another hero of mine, G.K. Chesterton, do you know that name?

G.K.?

G.K. Chesterton, a great English writer, dies 1936, I think. But he said this, like 100 years ago, he said, men today have lost, there he is, men today have lost their way. Nothing surprising in that. Men have always lost their way. The difference is today they've lost their address. See, we've always wandered into a bad path, but at least we kind of knew where we're supposed to be going. And he saw 100 years ago, it's truer like mad today, that we've lost our address. Like, well, where am I even going? Where am I supposed to be going? And see, we live in what I call the culture of self-invention. I invent myself through my own freedom, right? I decide who I am, what my values are. Don't you tell me. I won't tell you. We'll just tolerate each other. But I will decide my whole life. That is a recipe for disaster, depression, everything else. That's the black hole. Everything's drawn into me, right?

Me.

What makes life worth living, I think, is when these great values appear. They could be aesthetic values, like when— like a song. Like when I first heard Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, that's a song that changed my life. It wasn't the first song I liked. That was Sugar Sugar by the Archies. Remember that song?

Sugar, sugar, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

So I'm a little kid, I'm 9 years old, and I thought that was the coolest song, right? I liked that song. But Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, I was what, 17 or so when I heard that. That changed my life, that song. That's— I'll put it philosophically. That was an objective aesthetic value that drew me out of myself, that changed my, Subjectivity.

So you're saying that something you found on the outside of you, right, like brought, like kind of rearranged how you operated?

Exactly. Now, like Merton's Seven-Story Mountain is a book like that. Thomas Aquinas, my other great hero, whom I discovered around that time. These are these objective, like beautiful things. I remember when I was a high school kid and together in the class we're reading out loud Romeo and Juliet, right? I mean, I understood about about 4% of it.

Yeah, dude, it's not even that great.

Well, right. But my reaction when I first read it—

The Notebook's better, I think. But go on.

When I first read it, it was like, man, that such a thing should exist. I just thought it was like a miracle. Like this thing in its complexity and the beauty of the language and the— it just sort of flummoxed me.

Yeah, you're right.

Or like the first time I heard Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the Ode to Joy symphony. I mean, like, if you were to say, hey, I really like that, what a stupid response. It'd be so stupidly inadequate to it because—

Right, it doesn't even do it service.

Because it changes you. See, if you say, oh, I like that, I'm still kind of calling the shots. But really great values, the saints now in the moral order, when you, like the story of Colby, when you hear that story, you're like, wow, I can't even get my mind around that, right? So those are the things that make life worth living. What I'm against is this self-invention thing of like, oh, no, no, no, don't tell me what to think or do. I will decide. Bore me to death with that. Bore me to death with that kind of autonomy.

What would be the appropriate response then of something that you heard of, like, you know what I'm saying? What would be a response that was less autonomous to—

It would be what we call aesthetic arrest. You know, you're stopped. You're stopped in your tracks. And you let that thing do its work on you.

Hmm.

Right? And then you become a missionary of it, which is happening right now. Because even though those things I'm talking about, Bob Dylan and Beethoven and Shakespeare, all hit me when I was a kid. But right now, you hear me, I'm a missionary. I'm announcing them. 'Cause like, wow. I just finished a film on the Gothic cathedrals. I was trying to explain why was the whole world so captivated by the Notre Dame fire a couple years ago, remember?

Mm-hmm.

The whole world was like, oh my God. And I thought, it's not just because, oh, this nice old building is burning down. People sensed in that cathedral like something of enormous value was being lost. So I did this film that's meant to tell that story of why those buildings are so remarkable and powerful. So stop. See, aesthetic arrest. Stop. You shut up. Stop thinking. Stop, stop judging. It's not about you. Let that thing judge you, right? And then it'll rework you and then send you on mission. That's how it works, I think.

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So you're saying just finding things to honor, is that sort of exactly what you're saying there? Or finding things that move you?

Yeah. Well, they find you. That's my experience.

And not taking some sort of like, oh, I like that, or this or that. honoring what it is.

And I think there have to be teachers of the great values, see, who have been affected by them and now can present them to people in a powerful way. I had this great professor at Notre Dame University when I'm a kid, and he was showing us, it was art history class, showing us images from the tradition. But he loved the Gothic churches. And it was the first time I saw the rose window at Notre Dame. And so he was someone who'd been affected by that. And then he communicated it to me. So we need teachers that know how to do that.

Well, I think one of the things that we run into is so much— there's not as much oration amongst communities and stuff as much anymore. It used to be the way you got a story was you had to go and hear it from the source. And it used to be like when I was growing up, it was like, dude, you gotta meet so-and-so. Wait till you hear, bro. Wait till you hear the story. Right? Right. So it had this, like, there was more opportunity for lore and, and, um, and there was more opportunity for like advertising and buildup of like a story or a person or something.

Right.

If you wanna learn about like how to make something, I don't have to travel to the guy in my town that makes it and sit there with him and develop like—

Be an apprentice.

And be an apprentice. Right. Yeah. We're not much an apprentice anymore. I can go watch a YouTube video YouTube video of something, and there's still an apprenticeship there because I'm watching someone do it. But there's a human— there's a— but the lack of humanity there, I think— I don't think we know the total value loss of that human connection of sharing a story or a skill or a mindset or belief.

Yep.

I think that— I don't think that we've come to like a place that we can calculate the loss of that because it feels like there's That we're not doing something together.

Yes. No, there's a lot right in what you're saying there. The machines give us data and we're great at that. And that's a huge thing. I use the Siri every day and, hey Siri, what about this? And I can get data information. But you're talking about something much deeper, which is pattern and meaning. And for pattern and meaning, Siri can't give that to us. The machines can't give that to us. You need, you're exactly right, The lore and the narrativity of a community. See, that brings me right back to something else that's really missing, the initiation rituals of primal peoples. And this is true across the cultures, all over the world. In primal peoples, of a young man, let's say, he's gotta be ripped out of his comfort area. So the men of the tribe or the town will go take the kid out from his home. All right. And then they'll scarify him usually, like something on the cheek, or they'll knock a tooth out or circumcise him or something. And the idea of that was—

Well, that third one's unreal. I'll take one of the first two.

Yeah, I'll take the tooth.

I mean, somebody got me for the third. I don't— I'm not— and I'm still gonna catch the guy who did it. But, uh, yeah, well, yeah, anyway, let's carry on.

But it's meant to say life is hard. I mean, life's gonna knock you around.

And so you're saying that like young men, they used— they would extract them from Sort of their comfort zone.

Yeah.

And they would—

Mark their body somehow.

Okay.

Like to say, okay, remind them life is hard. Expect it. Don't expect life to be easy.

I see. So it was an educational—

Right.

Got it.

But then see, to your point, they would then speak the lore of the tribe. Now you need to know the history of this tribe. This thing goes way beyond you, way before you. It was here long before you, it'll be here long after you. Then the last step was almost invariably, Bring the kid to the edge of, like, jungle or tundra or whatever it was. Give him a few simple supplies. Go survive.

Mm-hmm.

And come back only when the sacred has communicated to you. Now, that's super healthy, that move. See, it got someone out of his self-regard, the black hole of the ego. Your life's not about you. Life is hard. And you're meant to find meaning in this realm way beyond what you can imagine. And only when all those things have happened can you come back to the tribe and be of any use to us. If you're stuck at home at the attitude of a 14-year-old, you will not be of any use to this tribe. I think we have tons of uninitiated people. They've not been brought through that process of— and you know, we used to do it—

That's a great statement, dude. I'm sorry. I don't know. That it feels like something, man. Yeah, it feels like, um, I don't know, it feels like we're all just capable of so much more, right? Like, I know we can do so much more in some ways, but there's a part of us that's capable of so much more that is like wilting.

Yeah, no, right. And that's the whole point of it, is to bring a kid through that so that he can make a real contribution.

So how would we— like, what is kind of a modern-day, like, But like, is there a way to do that now?

Like, and yeah, I think this is not to put you on the spot. I mean, but no, no, religion used to preside over this. See, that's the whole thing. Religions presided over this, this process.

Oh, I didn't realize that.

Sure. I mean, go back to primal peoples. It was always like in a religious context, right?

So you're taking them out there and you're also sharing the lore. I think the lore is so important, man. Like, I don't— I mean, like, this is sad to say, it's like I don't even know that much of my family lineage. You know?

Yeah.

Like, I don't even, like, I don't even, a lot of times, like yesterday was one of the first times I told my dad hello, like when I was praying, you know? Like, not that that's where you can communicate with him, but I felt like kind of like the portal was open. So I told him hello. My friend's sister just passed away. And I was like, hey, look out for my buddy's sister, you know?

In heaven, you mean?

Yeah. But I just like, like, I think there was definitely this bigger connection between cultures and their ancestors. And the existence beyond us. And I'm really honestly just speaking somewhat for myself. And some of it's not any fault of mine. Some of it is in things that were brought upon me, but it's things that maybe I could incorporate when I have my own family and stuff. But I do think it's things that I think there could be some lack of in our society today.

This is many years ago now. My niece, she's now in her mid-30s. When she was around 20, She and her classmates, they took them up, like, somewhere in northern Wisconsin and made them live outside in the woods for several days. They had to take kayaks and they were up and down rivers and they really put them through it, right? And I remember this kid, she came home and was telling me about this with such enthusiasm. And at that point, she was like a late teenager and kind of bored by everything. But man, she came alive talking about that experience. And see, there's at least an overtone of the initiation ritual stuff with that. You gotta go through something tough and challenging and gets you out of your self-regard. See, self-regard, everything's about me. How does it affect me? It's the other regard, 'cause see, that's love, willing the good of the other. But you gotta be drawn out of that.

How did the church used to do that?

Well, there's a little remnant of this thing. We stopped doing this after Vatican II, but confirmation. Right? So it was one of the sacraments and usually given around the coming-of-age time, right? So in my diocese, when the kids were 15, there was a moment when the bishop would give the kid a little slap across the face. Well, that's the imitation of the scarification or the knocking a tooth out. So it was meant to say life is tough.

Put the Lord in his cheeks, you know?

Yeah.

That's what you get. You know what I'm saying? Or some physical reminder. Right.

It was physical. No, I think we did it as a culture better, you know, that we realized— there you go. Now see, right there's the bishop like me confirming a kid. So we put the chrism oil on the forehead, but in the old days, they would also slap them.

Yeah, I've been using a batana oil sometimes on my scalp at night.

That's not chrism oil though.

Yeah, no, it's not. It's not ordained. I know that. It's just on the shelf or whatever.

You know that right in the middle there, that's Cardinal George. who was of Chicago. No, go up to the— with the red vestments on there, right there.

That's the Pope?

No, he was the Archbishop of Chicago. Is he your brother? No.

Who is that?

That's the Archbishop of Chicago. But he— I lived with him for about 6 years.

Really?

Yeah.

Y'all roommates?

Not roommates, no, but I lived in the same house with him. And he was kind of a mentor to me, kind of a hero to me.

Oh, that's beautiful. Let's say his name again. What is it?

Cardinal Francis George. Cardinal of Chicago.

Was he the real deal?

Yeah, he was a very serious guy, very smart, understood everything we've been talking about. He understood the spiritual power of the Church, and he was a real student of the culture. So he knew what was going wrong with our culture. He was very insightful about that.

Yeah, it feels like there's bigger entities. How do we— I know you kind of touched on, I feel like, how we battle that, but at what point Is there like a uprising about— like, at what point do you feel like there's like, as a group, if we're kind of all like connected, if there's some connection maybe? Because I, I think sometimes I'm amazed that we— there hasn't been more like, um, revolution. Are you amazed at that at all? Just based on where things are kind of? And like, because it's gotten pretty scary, you know? It's like We're at a place where—

We should be spiritual revolutionaries. And that's true. I don't want like political revolution character to that.

No, no. Yeah, I'm not saying political.

But there, see, but the church, here's something interesting to me. You know, when the Lord says to Peter, okay, you're Peter, upon this rock, I'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, right?

Right.

Now, all of my life, I would say, I heard that statement. I took it to mean, oh yeah, hell's coming after us and they're not gonna, They're not going to prevail, right? We're going to be able to hang in there. But that's completely backward. The gates of hell will not prevail against you. Well, see, if you were attacking a city in the ancient world, you attacked the gates. That was the weakest place. So the image is not we're defending ourselves against the onslaught of hell.

No, no.

We're going after you. We're going after the powers of darkness, and we're going at your gates because it's the weakest place. and we're going to break in and we're going to conquer you. And so the Church is a militant organization in that sense. We don't use the weapons of the world, but we're battling the dark powers. And we've lost our confidence. We've lost our sense of purpose, armed with the great weapons that Paul talks about, right?

Yeah, because sometimes it feels like the Church— yeah, it feels kind of sometimes like the Church doesn't have any balls. I know.

Yes. And that's the problem.

And I don't mean that offensively.

No, no, I know. And you're absolutely right. We should be on the march against the dark powers. Now here's something that's—

Because if you guys aren't, like if the church isn't, then what is gonna be?

Right. And if the salt loses its savor, who's gonna make it salty again? And if you put the light under a bushel basket, and we've done a lot of that by kind of accommodating to the culture, losing our edge. Here's something the saints always said about the devil. The one thing in us the devil can't manipulate is humility. See, the devil is marked by pride above all. Pride means self-regard. Me, me, me, right? So the devil can use anything in me. He can use my strength, he can use my ambition, he can use whatever. But the one thing he can't use is my humility. It just frustrates him.

Because it's not something he would do.

Right. He doesn't know what to do with it. It's completely repugnant to his way of being. So if I'm humble, Well, that means I'm letting go of my ego. I'm letting God direct me. And the devil cannot mess with that. He cannot mess with it.

But say you're so humble, you're so accepting, right? You just keep accepting and accepting and accepting. And then you— there's— and then—

No, but it's a position of power, real humility, because it means—

So give me an example maybe. But does it make sense? Because I'm just trying to make sure that I make sense. Yeah, because sometimes I don't know, to be honest with you. And so I'm trying to make sure that it makes sense to you. So when I say that it feels like it's just like acquiescence, giving up— Yes, you're acquiescing to everything. It's just like, like, if that is the humility, then that feels like surrender. It feels like—

yeah, it's not that. It would be you're humble before God. You're— you've let go of your own pretensions, your own ego, your own plans and purposes, so that God can work in you. So now you've unleashed enormous power into the world. Think of the great saints. They're not little mewling, mealy-mouthed people. They're full of confidence and a sense of purpose because it's God's purpose, not their own. And then they, boy, they radiate power all over. And that's what the devil can't use. He can't use humility in that sense.

Are we so addicted to self though that do you think, 'cause we're pretty far down the line in some ways of really trapped in our own selves. It's like we're all our own businesses and we're all, it's like, I would say we're pretty far down the line with self.

Yeah.

Do you think that we are so far down that we can't, that switch can't be flipped. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Like we're so far, like we're like looking in a mirror of ourselves, looking in a mirror of, you know what I'm saying? Like, are we too far down? Like the narcissist reflection in the pond.

Yeah. Yeah.

To be able to get back to some space of humility, because this is what it feels like. I feel like sometimes you feel like, okay, this is what God would want me to do. And it feels like you run into like, Well, what will other people think of that?

Right.

Or how will that be perceived?

Right. You have to let go of that or you won't be getting anything done.

Or what if nobody follows me or agrees with me? I think those are a lot of the fears that come up.

Right. Now, that's the whole spiritual struggle in a way. See, is I'm so held captive by my fears or by my addictions. Sin is always an addiction, right? Sin, capital S, is putting something other than God at the center of your life.

Okay.

So it could be, it's wealth, pleasure, power, honor, family, country, anything other than God. If I make it central, I will become addicted to it because I want God, right? That's what my heart wants. And so I'm gonna try to find God in money. Well, no matter how much money I make, it's not gonna be enough. It can't be, it's not God. Or, you know, my life is all about my family. Great. But if your family is God, it's not going to satisfy you. Now, power. If it's power, it's not going to satisfy you. And before you know it, you're going to become addicted to these things, right? So breaking free of addictions and breaking free of fears, then you're at the point of Maximilian Kolbe. Then you can say, I'm a Catholic priest, take me. Right now, that's an extreme case. That's a martyr.

Yeah.

But see, on a smaller scale, that's true of all of us. I would say this to you. You do what you discern God wants you to do and don't worry about the rest. I had a teacher when I was in high school, good guy, Mr. Stark. He was our religion teacher. He came in one day and he had this glass, this glass of plain water, right? And without saying a word, he took this little eyedropper Boop, one little drop of blue, boop, in it. And then proceeded to teach the class, never referred to it. And finished the class, 45 minutes. And then he said, do you see this water up here? And by that time it was all blue, right?

Mm-hmm.

Even like dark blue. And he said, that was from one drop. And then he said, that's the influence of a saint. And that's always stayed in my mind. I think that's right. You know, that a saint, which means someone doing God's will, can have this enormous transformative effect. And so do what God calls you to do and don't worry about it. You'll be that one drop of water that will make this huge difference.

And that's for everyone.

Yeah. And gosh, if everyone did that, you'd transform the world. And then we'd be in a whole—

I think people are trying. I think it's just tough because it feels like the people that own the water—

Right.

Like come over and say, nah, no more blue water over here.

But the gates of hell will not prevail against us. So if we have that confidence, Right.

In the end, you have to believe that there's— you have to believe in good at the end, 'cause there's no other way to operate that is like, that gives you any reward. Right? Does that make sense to you? Like, you have to believe that, like, even if everything points to like, no, you have to just have hope and keep going.

I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you, Merton says. Right? So as long as I have that desire, All right, and just follow it and just do what it prompts you to do and God will make it happen. So in a way, you want to pull back from the world and just think about you, what God's calling you to do.

Yeah.

And people, I have this online ministry, so a lot of times people will write in and, look, Bishop, I'm depressed. I'm just, I'm in terrible shape. I'm so unhappy. What do I do? And because I don't know these people and I don't want to be be giving big advice to people I don't know.

For sure.

But the one I feel confident giving, and I do, I'll say, perform every day the simplest act of love. And they know what I mean by that, to will the good of the other. And it might be, it's a note to somebody, it's a kind word, it's a smile, because in it, in that very act, you're pulled out of yourself.

Yeah.

You know, Jordan Peterson has said, he's right about this, that self-consciousness and misery are identical. And see, that's the point we've been talking about all day today is the more I turn inward, that makes me miserable. What are the best moments in a day? Without exception, when I'm least aware of myself and I'm lost in something, whether it's Willie Nelson or it's Romeo and Juliet or it's the Chartres Cathedral or it's—

Or the Indiana Fever, I like.

Or it's this conversation. What draws you out of yourself, that's what gives you joy. See, which is why the spiritual life, it's always like on a razor's edge, you know? I become happy when I'm least preoccupied with me and boom.

Oh yeah.

All of religious practice, all of it is simply meant to affect that change, right?

Yes.

That's the whole purpose of it.

Understood. Yeah, some of my most favorite moments are thinking about somebody else.

Yes.

You know?

And you become truly happier and better in that measure. Oh yeah.

Well, I just end up feeling better.

Feeling better, right?

I've gotten so— there's times I've been so sick of myself. Like, I work and then you have to see video of myself and then I have to edit sometimes and I'm like, dear God. Like, you know? So sometimes I wake— if I wake up and I'm thinking about somebody else, if the first thought in my head is of somebody else, it literally feels like the greatest thing. It feels like the most, like the best ice cream, a flavor they don't even have that nobody else can get.

Right. Because put it in theological terms, you are at that moment in tune with God. God is love. And so the simplest act of love puts you in tune with God and therefore makes you happy.

Yeah, it does, man. And it gets, I will say this, dude, it starts to get a little bit addicting, but in a positive. In a good way?

Yeah.

Thinking about other people and wishing other people well and stuff like that. You feel like a little, a little hormone.

Absolutely. Well, you know, another spiritual hero of mine is Thérèse of Lisieux. Do you know that name by any chance? She's very popular in the Catholic world.

Thérèse of Lisieux.

Thérèse of Lisieux. Lisieux is this little town in northwestern France. And she was a nun who joined the convent when she was 15. She died at 24. She lived there for 9 years. Lived like, in a worldly sense, a nothing life, right? But she wrote a little book called The Story of a Soul, which has been massively popular all over the world. Most Catholic churches, almost anywhere in the world, you'll find a statue of her. find a statue of the Little Flower. That's her nickname, the Little Flower.

St. Therese.

There we go. Yeah, there she is.

Oh, maybe I could get a piece of cloth.

There she is. Yeah. Oh, anyway, her book, The Story of a Soul, and she has a spiritual path that's called the Little Way.

Got it.

What's the Little Way? It's at every moment of the day, find the path of love so that at every moment, no matter what condition you're in, there's an opportunity for love. Do it. That's the little way. So like right now, what's the path of love? And see, I would say, well, the path of love right now is talking to you. I think I'm willing the good of the other. I think you're willing my good. This is the path of love. So good. Let's stay on that.

Amen.

And every moment there's an opportunity for it. What most of us sinners do is we choose the opposite. We'll say, no, I'll go through my day choosing the opposite of love, which is why I'm miserable.

What's the fear then? 'Cause you're not gonna have something if you, you know, it's like a fear.

Yeah.

There's a lot of fear attached to it.

Yes.

I'm not gonna have enough time to do the things I need to do.

Yep. Which is why we put in front of our eyes as Christians, Jesus crucified. See, 'cause you know that, do you know the Buddhist thing? Invite your fears in for tea. Do you know about that? It's a spiritual practice where you say, okay, what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of, you know, this is not gonna go well. I'm afraid that person doesn't like me anymore. I'm afraid of getting sick. I'm afraid of dying. Okay, so now imagine you're inviting them all in for tea and you're gonna, okay, there's my fear of death. There's my fear of failure. Welcome. And you serve tea to them all. And what that exercise accomplishes is it detaches you from your fears.

Hmm.

You realize, okay, but I'm not my fear of death then. I am something else. Well, put that in Christian terms, it's detachment spirituality. I'm detached from both my success and my failure, right? Whether, that's Ignatius of Loyola, whether I have a long life or a short life, I don't care. Whether I'm successful or a failure, I don't really care. I'm living in a space where I'm detached from any of the goods of the world. That's spiritual maturity. That's being a very high— It's hard to do. But see, and that gives you freedom though.

Yes.

Now I'm free.

Oh yeah. The binds aren't there then. And then you operate like at a, I mean, you're on a different plane if you can do that.

And then you can accomplish God's purpose. See, he can now work with free people. The trouble is, we sinners are all addicts. We're all addicted. And we're all, at best, we're in like treatment programs for types of addiction. That's what religion is. It's kind of like a treatment program for addiction. If we can get free of our addictions, then God can use us, right?

Speaking of addiction, like, there's a lot of, you know, pornography is such a huge thing in the world these days. And it's such a tool that's used really, I believe, to like tear apart the American family and just families around the world. And I shouldn't say the American family, I'm sorry, but families everywhere. You know, you're taking away, like, you're kind of hijacking people's lust and their love really a lot of times, you know?

Yeah.

We've had people on to talk about that run porn addiction recovery centers and stuff like that. I feel like it's, to me, it feels like it's one of the biggest problems that's going on out there.

Yep.

Has the church spoken out like against it? Do you guys feel some sort of responsibility like to speak out against it? Like, and what do we do there? Because like there's evil people that are just, that are using this horrible stuff to ruin us.

Yes.

And it's working.

Yeah. No, I quit—

Sorry, I got aggressive, but I think it just makes me so angry.

No, I totally agree with you. So, like, you know, like my generation, I mean, thank God we didn't get addicted the way young people are now because you couldn't get pornography the way— I mean, a 10-year-old could get hardcore pornography on his cell phone.

Oh, I'd have a buddy sketch me a little something for the weekend. You give him a couple bucks.

No, it was not easy.

And you'd get a return fee too if you returned it.

I kept mine.

But yeah, so it was a different time.

Well, thank God. See, we didn't get addicted the same way, but man, today. And you know, I worked in seminary work with these young people. Almost everybody to some degree is addicted to pornography.

Oh yeah. Oh, so many of my friends. But what happens is you watch pornography and you see it and they make, they specifically make things. It's like father-child, you know what I'm saying? They make evil scenarios. It's the most evil and it's gotten more evil. more evil. It used to be like nice person meets, you know, meets other nice person. Like it started out, I think, kind of like slightly maybe realistic, you know.

But see, it has to do that though, because it's gotta get ever more, you know, titillating and ever more different. And that's not enough anymore.

So, but it even attacked like the family, like the family, you know, it's like dad's daughter, you know, it's like mother, stepson. It's like, it's just like, um, I don't know, but it's so engineered. It's like, what do we do? Like, how— why can't— if Christianity is so strong and it's so many people, why can't it eliminate that from like being allowed to be played in our country or whatever? Does that make any sense to you?

Yeah, I know. But the problem is that Christians have often lost their edge or lost their sense of challenge to the culture. You know, we've acquiesced to a lot of the culture. We put the light under the bushel basket. I gave a talk a couple years ago. We had this big Eucharistic Congress gathering in Indianapolis, and I spoke to like 50,000 people. And I said, if every Christian in this country started living according to what we call the Evangelical Counsels, like the great recommendations given by the Lord, we'd change the country overnight. If we could harness the power of Christians, but we've lost our edge to a degree. And you're right, this is a major area though, because it's drawing young people into really bad addictive patterns and it's hurting their brain chemistry is getting affected.

Yeah, I mean, I've certainly been down that road myself. So I'm not like, I'm also not separating myself from anybody that, you know, I've gone to like different recovery, like, you know, meetings for it that my buddy runs. So it's like, I've certainly been affected by it. You know, I don't feel like, I feel like I'm, Like, I've certainly gotten into a better place because I have a lot more awareness now. But yeah, I've seen the way that it's affected my own life.

Absolutely.

Yeah, the way it's just— because it takes away the way that you look at a woman. It takes away the look, the way that you then like look at your spouse or your girlfriend, or even just other women that are involved in your life and circle.

Yeah, no, like the sexual lives of married couples are getting dysfunctional because of pornography.

Well, it just hijacks the connection. And it's like, dude, we hardly have any connection. And then it's like, but it's like, yeah, when does like, is the church strong enough? 'Cause the Catholic Church is the largest group in the world, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, the largest, I gotta get it right though. I mean, the largest Christian denomination in the world.

Got it.

Yeah.

Yeah, like I just don't know what to like, I don't know if I'm— I hope I don't sound like I'm preaching at you, do I?

No. Okay.

'Cause I think I'm just bummed out about it and I don't know what to do. And I think it's like, I guess I'm asking a power that seems greater than myself. Like what? And I know that's not just you, like you have total control over every one of their behaviors, but I'm asking like, yeah, how do you like, but how do we get it out of our— like you would think if something gross came into our world or something, that was causing a lot of harm came into our world with the sheer number of people that we could get rid of it.

Yeah. I mean, I think there does have to be some kind of government intervention when it comes to pornography. There should be some greater control over people's access to it. It's way too easy, especially for young people to access it. And I think it is a real blight upon society. And I think there should be more government intervention. The Church has indeed spoken out against it. We've And we've issued things as the Bishops of America about pornography and different ways of addressing it and helping people with it. But I think it's reached the point where the government's gotta get involved.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah, it's heartbreaking, kind of.

But you know, the thing is, no one should feel self-righteous.

It's heartbreaking fully, not kind of. It's heartbreaking fully.

Yeah.

But go on. And I didn't mean, you didn't feel like I made you feel uncomfortable about it, did you?

No.

Okay, good.

No, no. I mean, 'cause we're all coping with this issue.

We're all here in the world.

But also that no one should ever feel self-righteous As I say, all sin is an addiction. Everyone's addicted to something.

Oh yeah.

You know, there's a story about St. Augustine, the great Augustine, author of the Confessions and all this. He's a very ambitious guy, right? And he wants to be speechwriter for the Roman emperor. And he gets the job and he's just so excited. And he's being carried on a litter to the site where one of his speeches the emperor's gonna give. And he's so excited. And on the way, he sees this hopelessly drunk guy. just carrying on. And Augustine's like, oh, look at this poor slob, this addict. And then it occurred to him. He said, yeah, but tomorrow he'll be sober and I will still be drunk on ambition. And it was like this moment of illumination for Augustine with all of his sophistication. And I'm such a— he said, I'm a worse addict than that guy. So, I mean, all of us sinners, we're all hooked on something. Oh yeah.

Yeah, I've been hooked on a couple of those things. Yeah. Working, thinking that work would solve things.

Right.

Drugs, porno. Trying to think of what else. That might be it, probably. And most of those I'm in recovery for, I just don't do anymore, or I'm not doing anymore. So that's been good. But yeah, there's a lot out there. There's a lot of things that can get us addicted out there.

Again, speaking from a Christian standpoint, when you put up the crucified Jesus, It's a weird thing. And I'm always trying to convince people, realize how deeply weird it is that we put up in our churches. If someone came like in a time machine from the ancient, from Roman world, and they walked in a room and they said, oh, this is a religious gathering. And they see this guy on a cross, they'd say, what is the matter with you people? That's like the grossest thing. And this poor slob being put to death on this miserable instrument of torture. So why do—

Yeah, taxidermy's our savior, you know?

Why do we do it? Why do we do it? Well, because you look at Jesus on the cross and you say, okay, he's got no wealth, he's got no pleasure, he's got no power, he's got no honor. He's a disgrace to his family. He's being mocked. It's like every single thing that we want or that we're afraid of, there it is. And he's got, he's got like none of it. All of our fears are on full display.

Yeah, bare.

And yet, and in that, right, and stripped naked, like he's got nothing. And he says, Father, forgive them. And into your hands I commend my spirit. He's someone utterly, at that moment, ordered to God. See, that's what's so weirdly powerful about the cross.

Hmm.

It's a stripping away, see, of all of our addictions, all of our illusions. What's that line? W.H. Auden, the great poet. We'd rather be ruined than changed. We'd rather die in our dread Than mount the cross of the moment and let our illusions die. That's Auden, a great Christian poet.

Say that last part. We'd rather mount the cross of the moment than let our illusions die.

We'd rather be ruined than changed. We'd rather die in our dread than mount the cross of the moment and let our illusions die. The cross of the moment, like that we have to mount our own cross. Right. That we have to be stripped of these things. You know, go back to the very beginning of our conversation about evil. Well, why would God allow this? Well, see, evil, you might say in a superficial way, like, oh yeah, I was stripped of this thing that I really want. That could be the best thing. That could be exactly what God wants. He wants to strip you of your addiction to this thing. You know, so that's mounting the cross of the moment and letting our illusions die.

Yeah. It's like if you were brave enough, if I don't mount the cross of the moment, right? If I don't saddle up and say, okay, this is it, then I just get to live in the comfort of this hypothetical idea of how things could have gone because there's comfort in not taking risks.

Right. Right. There's a demand there and there's a stripping bare that God wants you to do and you're not You're gonna do it. I'd rather be ruined than changed. He's calling you to a spiritual change. That's conversion in Jesus, metanoia in the Greek of the New Testament. Going beyond the mind you have. That's what that means, metanoia.

That's scary.

Yes, right. It is very, 'cause we all have a mindset in place. And Jesus always is saying, metanoia te. You gotta get beyond the mind you have. And to reach the point of the little flower, right? Love every moment, or of Maximilian Kolbe. Boy, that is a major metanoia. That's going way beyond the mind that you have. Because the mind we have is an addictive mind. It's self-regarding. It's self-important, self-protecting. Think of all the energy most of us sinners every day go through putting walls around ourselves for protection.

Wow.

Mounting attacks against our enemies. See, but all of that is living in the land of unlikeness. All right?

It's miserable.

Yes, and it's miserable. See, religion is all about joy. Jesus says that, I've come that you might have life and have it to the full. I've come that you might have joy and that your joy will be complete. That's what we're here for.

Yeah.

You know? And—

Yeah, when I was running, like when I was like in a relationship that I was cheating all the time, miserable because I was always worried. I was always concerned. I was always sick of like my behavior. And I was just like the lies and just like, it was always a nightmare.

Right. And it's funny, like, but the church has been saying that forever. It's been warning against that like forever. But what's the move of the fallen mind? Oh, the church, puritanical, hung up on sex. Oh, give me a break. And you know, you're caught in the Middle Ages. No, no, no. It's telling a truth that you discovered through experience, right?

Yeah.

The church has been saying that forever. The Bible knew that truth forever.

One of the biggest ways that pornography and different addictions and stuff keep us down is shame. Why does God allow us to have shame? Or how does God view shame? Or how do you see that?

Yeah, well, shame is not bad. Think of Adam and Eve, right? So they cover themselves and they feel shame. in the presence of God. That's a healthy reaction.

Shame is?

It is if you're shamed in the presence of God. I mean, if you're feeling shame in front of somebody else, but it might be stupid, it might be for the wrong reason, or it might be misplaced.

But I'm saying like deep shame, you know, like you're just so ashamed of yourself that you can't even—

See, but that's liberating. If in the presence of God, you feel ashamed of what you've said or done, good. That's God's way of trying to, you know, that's why I like the conscience. John Henry Newman, another hero of mine.

John Henry Newman?

John Henry Newman, Cardinal Newman. They just named him a saint a while ago.

Congrats, John.

There he is. Yeah, congratulations, John Henry Newman. He referred to the conscience, there he is, as the aboriginal vicar of Christ in the soul. The representative of Christ in the soul is your conscience. So when your conscience says to you, That was bad. That's terrible. And you feel ashamed. That's Christ speaking to you. When the conscience, he says, rewards you, and it does. The conscience says, hey, good. With good feeling, you're rewarded. Pay attention to it. That's the vicar of Christ in the soul. That's the voice of Christ in the soul.

Let's pivot a little bit. I wanted to talk real quick about just some interesting things from the Catholic Catholic Church from just like history. They used to have the things called indulgences. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Like, it's just so, it's just like funny to me. I just learned about it the other day. My friend, Mr. Tommy, was telling me about it.

Yeah. And we still talk about indulgences. It would be, you know, in the treasury of Christ. So we say that Christ won for us salvation and by his great act of self-sacrifice, there's a kind of treasury in heaven and that we can call upon that, you know, on behalf of people that we love and we can pray and we can, Benefiting from that, someone can grow closer to God. Someone can, to put it crudely, you know, get time off of purgatory. It's just a way of saying lessening our punishment. It's calling upon the treasury of Christ, let's say.

Is it a true thing? Because someone said you could like bail your wife out of purgatory or something like that, or bail your cousin out or whatever.

The problem is the time of the Reformation, people were selling indulgences. So the church does not smile upon that. Now that was being done in the Middle Ages where people would, you know, for this amount of money, I will sell you an indulgence to get your aunt out of purgatory, you know, for 60 years or something.

'Cause that's crazy. 'Cause then I'm guessing probably those guys would hit you up and be like, hey, your brother's been in purgatory for like 11 months. You gonna get him out or what? You know? Right.

So it was abused because it became something that depended upon, you know—

People started taking advantage of it.

Right. And it should not be something that's bought or sold. So in itself, it's a legitimate thing, but not to be buying or selling.

There's a lot of talk these days about, like, in the Middle East, like, there's like a genocide going on. There's like a lot of, like, you know, conflict in the Middle East. Like, is the Israel that we see that gets talked about in the Bible, is it the same as the government of Israel that's running the country that's there now?

No, that's an important distinction.

Or like, how does the church view that kind of? Or do they even have a view on it? Yeah.

I mean, I'd sum it up this way, that the church recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist. So the churches and the popes have affirmed that over the last several decades. But it's important to make that distinction you just did. There's biblical Israel, then there's the modern political state of Israel, and they're two different things. Which means a Catholic can certainly be critical of the government policies of the state of Israel. as we would of any other government.

Yeah, sure.

Israel, see, functions very powerfully and symbolically in the Bible. Promised Land, right? So there's the Promised Land that was promised to the ancient Israelites, but it becomes in Christ now symbolic of the Promised Land of heaven. So the new Israel, we might say, is the church, and the church as itself a sign of Heaven. You know, so it's very important to make that distinction between Israel used in the Bible and then the modern state of Israel.

So it's not the same group?

No, no. Secondly, the Church has been adamant against all forms of antisemitism. So go back, the popes over the last many decades have been really strong on that. The pope's visits to Jerusalem, the pope visiting synagogues and all that. So we're against antisemitism.

Understood. There's been like, in the Catholic Church, there was like, over the years, there was like kind of a marring of the Catholic Church because of, they had like, you know, I don't know if it's, are pastors in the Catholic Church as well?

Yeah, we'll talk about a priest can be a pastor of a parish.

Okay. So they had like, you know, I guess I'm trying to think of a way to even say it. They had like, you know, the Catholic Church, a lot of times they've had like kind of, they've had like, pedophilia in the past in the church, right? They've had that happen over the years. And it kind of gives it like, anytime, like, if you bring it up, people will like make a joke. Like, that happens a lot.

I know. Yeah.

And it's unfortunate.

Yeah, it's not fair. Why do you think that people who have suffered from pedophilia or are labeled pedophiles, why did so many of them kind of end up Yeah, I think that's a better way to put it because why would someone who's sexually attracted to young people want to join the Church and be a priest or a minister in the Church? Well, the answer is obvious in a way, because it gives them a lot of authority and access to young people.

Got it.

And so someone who has that predilection, I understand perfectly why they might be attracted. The same way, again, to be fair, if you look sexual abuse of young people in our public school system, in the Boy Scouts. In fact, wherever you find young people and then others in authority, you're going to find this problem of pedophilia. Most pedophilia, of course, exists in families, not in the Catholic Church, but in families. So that's a better way to put it. I certainly see why someone might be attracted to—

The position, because they're going to be in a position of leadership.

Of authority and access to kids.

Yeah, that makes sense.

What I think is really false, the insinuation that somehow the celibate priesthood produces people who are attracted to children, I think that's demonstrably false.

You do? Yeah, I want to hear more why you think that.

Well, because one thing you can find sexual abuse of children way outside the confines of the Catholic Church. It's not something that's unique to the celibate priesthood.

For sure.

And you find it again in families and in coaches and in Boy Scout troops, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, a lot of spaces where there is, like you're saying, where there's some sort of a leadership or trusting.

I think what is more plausible is the other way around. You see why someone who's attracted to children in this kind of perverse way would say, oh, that's a good position for me to get in, is the authority and access to kids. And also, I feel it's so important to point out the church responded really well this was a terrible crisis. I mean, there was terrible sexual abuse of children within the Church on the part of priests. And the acknowledgement of that was hugely important. And the steps taken, there were very, very strong steps taken.

What are some of the steps that kind of were kind of instituted? And I'm sorry, I don't know this.

Yeah, no, no, it's good. First, like at the seminary level. So I was a seminary rector for a while, which means I was in charge of a seminary. And so when you're screening people for the seminary, a major, major preoccupation was to screen for this kind of difficulty. And we did it through psychological exams and that sort of thing.

Wow.

And then lots and lots of instruction in the seminary itself about this problem. There's also a program that's now all the way through the Catholic Church called the Virtus Program that is educating people on a very regular basis and very seriously about sexual abuse of children, about the dangers, about grooming, about all of these things. So, I mean, every single month I get in the email this Virtus thing I have to— there's a little article that I have to respond to and answer questions about it. But we all have to go through an extensive program around it.

And what was some of the screening like? What was that like? That's interesting.

Well, like psychological screening. So every kid coming to seminary has to go through a battery of psychological testing and interviews and so on.

It's like everybody that wants to be a member of the seminary.

Yeah. And then as rector, I had to read every single one of them, you know, and then very attentive to people's, you know, sexual history and that sort of thing.

And because you were sort of the person that had to kind of be like their liaison, I guess, into the, like, getting approved, I guess?

Yeah, I had to give the word finally, could someone get in the seminary? So sometimes I had to say, no, we're not accepting you.

Would some of them feel at least this was a safe place to admit to you what had they'd been thinking about or what had been going on?

Well, you never know for sure. I mean, sometimes people can deceive you.

Yeah, for sure.

But, you know, we also have independent psychologists too looking at all these guys.

Got it.

So there are different ways. But no, we are hyperattentive to this problem now in the Church. And I think it's fair to say that one of institutionally, one of the safest places for a young person is the Catholic Church because we're so attentive to the problem. We've done so much to try to address it. And then also just deal with this problem of, you know, if people really are guilty of this crime, that they've got to be out of the priesthood. And the problem was for so long a time, bishops, and some of them, I think, in goodwill, thinking it was the best thing, would send a guy for, you know, prayer and maybe some psychological treatment and then reassign him. We now know that you can't do that.

That's not helping. No.

And so that's, you know, we're well aware of that.

And what about today? Like, if somebody is a Is found guilty of sexual abuse, what happens?

Yeah, I mean, if someone— it's clearly determined that the person is guilty, we have a zero tolerance policy. They're out of the priesthood. And another thing too is that when accusations come forward, we take them with great seriousness, and we always bring the secular authorities in. We make sure that the police know about these accusations. That was a problem too years ago, as some of it was not brought the attention of the police.

Like, we'll handle it within the church.

But it's a very high priority now.

Understood. So before you go, and thank you so much for your time today.

No, my pleasure. I loved it.

There's a lot of like, the Pope spoke out against artificial intelligence, right? I think there's a fear right now. This is my fear, okay? I'll just tell you what it is. I fear that they create these data pools, right? They create these artificial intelligence, these AIs, and then we go there for everything, right?

Yeah.

How do I feel? Why don't I feel good today?

Right.

What's going on? This becomes your friend. And then that also becomes almost a place where you pray, right? This is how I feel. This is what's going on. This is what I'm scared of. What do I do? And it all leads into some, like, it leads into a machine telling us what to do and not a higher power connection. And that feels like almost, I don't know if we start unevolving, I don't know what's going to happen, but that feels very, very scary when you completely sever what it means to feel like it means to be human. One of the last, one of the most important things. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, no, it's—

If the AI becomes the new god?

We're not really understanding, we're assembling data. And that really worries me a lot. We're getting great at data, but understanding means seeing patterns, seeing connections, thinking an issue through. And we don't do that a lot. We're so addicted to the quick, give me the quick data on something. That can be useful, but it undermines our humanity. You're exactly right about that. Our humanity is tied to our capacity to understand, which means to see patterns of meaning and purpose. And the AI is not going to give that to us. There's the economic side too. Jobs will be taken for sure by AI. And so if work is tied to human dignity, that's really a problem. The Pope sees that. No, I'm glad he's talking about it because it's on everyone's mind and it is posing a spiritual challenge for sure.

Yeah, because you hear just people say, ask Chat.

I know, right?

People say, ask Perplexity. They say, ask this AI.

How about think it through yourself?

Or ask God.

Or ask God or talk to another person and have an argument about it or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Talk to another person, like, you know, 'cause you can find God through other people too, a lot of times.

See, I love arguments. The problem is the social media world's given rise to insult. And that's all we know how to do anymore is just we throw insults and we're snarky.

Yeah, it's more snipers than it is like wrestling.

But an argument is, yeah, I mean, assembling data, putting it together in a logical formula, entertaining the view of your opponent, answering their objections. That's an argument, right? And that's a beautiful thing. It's a nonviolent way of adjudicating disputes. But if we've forgotten that, all we have left is, you're an idiot, and, you know, I hate you, and your mother's an idiot too. And that's all we're left with. And that's deadly.

Yeah, I just wonder, like, oh, yeah, here it says, the current Pope Leo XIV is not anti-AI, but he argues that AI must remain a human-controlled tool and be judged by whatever it protects.

Human dignity.

And be judged by whether it protects human dignity, work, freedom, truth, and the vulnerable. He sees real benefits in technology while warning that efficiency, profit, and technical power should never become society's highest values. AI should serve people, not replace, manipulate, surveil, or dominate them. But if AI does these things, what recourse does the Pope have? Any recourse really? Or is it just—

No, he's a prophetic voice, I would say. But then also, I mean, he's He's connected to this huge network of influence. So if all of us who are under his authority, we say, yeah, that's important, we can all in our own way implement that. So no, he does have an extraordinary power. That surveillance thing, you mentioned it earlier, that always spooks me.

Yeah.

Because I know my phone is listening to me. And I'll have a little casual conversation, then I'm scrolling and something I mentioned, some product or whatever, comes up. And I suppose it sees it as a positive. I see it as deeply weird and disturbing.

Yeah.

That stupid machine is listening to me.

Yeah. At least it's listening to you mostly do good stuff.

Right. But—

Imagine the rest of us, dude. You're a bishop. I mean, hopefully you're on the up and up.

Yeah, for the most part. But what if those things got more powerful and they could then start manipulating you? And, you know, it's spooky.

It's very spooky. I mean, what do you think God would say about it? Do you pray to ask God for thoughts about that kind of stuff? Sure.

You know why? Yeah. But the Bible knew about this in a way. See, the Tower of Babel story of like, let's all get together and we're going to, through our own technical accomplishment, we're going to build this tower up to heaven. That's a beautiful symbol of this problem, that when we want to get so in control of things and we so manipulate, well, that turns on us. That destroys us. You know, so the scattering of the people there, the scattering of the languages, that's a sign of how this project has turned on itself. It undermines itself. No, the Bible knew all about this stuff in its own way.

And now the craziest part of that, even in its own moment, is that Babbel is now a language learning app.

Right.

So it's like, I think 6 out of 4 people or whatever, people, you say, hey, what's Babbel? And they say, they don't even know the story, but they know Yeah. The language learning model. They know the language learning app, which is fine. I mean, it's a good app.

They think Babel's related to Babylon, you know, so that story was probably written down not long after they returned from the Babylonian exile, right? The Jews. And so what Babylon meant to them was this big dominating political power. So the Bible's always been suspicious of big, you know, political and economic power. It's dangerous.

Yeah.

It's dangerous.

Do you feel like the Catholic Church is still as powerful as it once was?

Well, it depends on how you define power. I think in many ways we're more powerful. I mean, you could say years ago it was more aligned with political power and that sort of thing. And I think we've learned the lesson there that it's not a good road to go down. But in terms of our global impact and all that, I mean, look at the role that the Pope is the most recognized religious leader in the world. I mean, who's his rival? The Dalai Lama maybe, There's no one that has the stature of the Pope.

Oh yeah, he's the pioneer.

No one has the institutional range that we have. So no, we have an enormous power of influence and all that. But I would say stay away from political power. Yeah.

It's scary.

Yeah. Yeah, no, we should always be in a kind of a prophetic stance. Doesn't mean you're always denunciating power. Power is not a bad thing in itself. And the Church can speak out favorably of political power, We shouldn't be identified with it.

Does the church support specific political parties or not really?

No, we always make a point of not doing that. I mean, so we kind of bend over backwards in election season to say, here's what the church stands for, here's what we feel strongly about, but we never say, therefore vote Democrat or vote Republican.

Got it.

We don't do that.

Before you go today, there's an amazing thing I've heard you talk about. It's called the Transcendent Third.

Oh yeah.

And we had a guru on actually as well, this gentleman named Gurudev, and he talked about the same thing.

Really?

He talked about the same pattern. Can you tell me a little bit about the transcendent third?

I learned that from Aristotle when I was a young philosophy student. So the great Greek philosopher Aristotle, who was wise about so many things, Aristotle. But this was a friendship, he said. He studied friendship a lot, Aristotle. He said, a friendship will flourish When it goes beyond the 2 friends loving each other. So I like you, you like me. Okay, great. But it'll really flourish when together we fall in love with a transcendent third. So it could be our country, it could be art, it could be philosophy, it could be God, right? That there's something in common that we both love. And see, look, we're drawn out of ourselves, looking upward together to that. Now we draw closer together almost like willy-nilly without even trying. We get closer together. Early on, I mentioned Fulton Sheen, right? About to be beatified.

Mm-hmm.

He wrote a book back in the '50s. I still recommend it to couples, engaged couples, called Three to Get Married. And he made exactly this point. To get married, you need a bride, you need a groom, and you need Christ. And if you don't have Christ, the bride and groom are going to fall apart. But if together they fall in love with the transcendent third, with Christ, they'll stay together. And I think that was— there you go. That was true when Aristotle said it. It was true when Fulton Sheen said it. And I think it's a great principle for anyone in a relationship. If we're just infatuated with each other— did you see the movie, by the way, Obsession, this summer? Did you see it?

No.

Cheaply made movie, right? That was hugely— it's really good from a spiritual standpoint.

No, I didn't see this. I heard about this, but I didn't see it. It's good?

It's about this guy, right, who he loves this girl and she's not reciprocating. He's so frustrated. So he goes to this shop, right? It's like a magic thing or something. And it's this stick. And if you break the stick and you make your wish, it'll come true. So he goes, Lord— not Lord. It's just like, make me love her. or make her love me more than anything in the world, breaks the stick. And at that moment, it's very spooky. He's just dropped her off, right? At that moment, she appears in the doorway. And he's like, my dream has come true. Well, I won't give the movie away.

Yeah, don't.

But watch it because it's spiritually very rich movie. What happens when, see, there's no transcendent third. There's no transcendent, she just loves me. That's it. she will devour you and you, you will destroy each other. Dead right. And it's a very spiritually alert movie that way.

Yeah, this, um, yeah, I love— I just love the idea that— I love the reminder of that because it's also a reminder of to go do something, right? Yeah, to fall in love with something else, right?

Yeah, together.

Yes, together.

To find a friend. We love this thing.

It's just like find a friend and go do something, right? Right. Um, yeah, this, uh, this guru that we had, and he was saying like, if you, if you're 2 lines and you want to get together, you're going to meet, but then you're also just going to keep going.

Yeah, right.

You know, but if you also then you're headed in the same direction, then yes, it's just like kind of a force, you know.

It'll draw you together without you even knowing it. It'll draw you together automatically.

Um, can we say a prayer before you go?

Yeah.

Nice.

Are you going to pray or you want me to pray?

Can you pray?

Sure.

Yeah.

Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this chance to be together. We thank you for this conversation. May it prove to be a blessing to all those who see it and all those who hear it. Lord, continue to bless Theo in his work and bring him closer and closer to you. And may all those who are listening, all those who are watching also come closer to you as the great goal of their life. And I pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Amen, man.

Weren't you baptized Catholic?

Thank you. Uh, I was in a Presbyterian church.

Presbyterian?

Yeah.

Okay. Where did I read Catholic? Or Catholic family? Or—

Somebody probably made something up.

Okay.

But, um, yeah, my, my journey, what it's been like is like most recently, it's like most recently is probably the most that I've like the strongest relationship I've had with God. I used to I've always believed in God. I've always believed in God. I've always felt that there's something greater than me. And thankfully, you know, but yeah, most recently I just like, I don't know, just more than ever, I just don't have any doubt about it. And I have just been praying a lot more, meditating. I'm in a cool Bible study. And so like—

Oh, you are?

It just gives me a group of people to care about outside of myself.

Yeah, that's good.

So it's been fun because everybody will share what's going on with them. And then it gives me something to pray about for my friends. So it's so nice when I get to think about this person and like, well, what could I pray about for them? And how can I make it kind of specific? Or it's almost like you're kind of designing it yourself, but it's just—

Yeah. No, stay with the Bible study. That's good. Stay with that.

Yeah. And it's just been a great group.

Yeah.

Good.

Here in Nashville?

Yeah.

Yeah. Good.

So I just feel like, yeah, I don't know. That's where I'm at.

Just stay with that. That's great.

Yeah. And I don't wanna pretend to be somewhere that I'm not at either. I just wanna be, yeah, I just wanna just one day at a time.

All right.

That's it. Bishop Robert Barron, thank you so much.

God bless you.

For your desire to get out and spread the word and just share the message. And I always enjoy listening to you and I'm so glad that we got to hang out today.

Yeah, me too. Thank you very much.

Amen. Thank you.

Floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found. I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna take a little time.