#682 - Bishop Robert Barron

23:41Please. So Colby stepped out of line, and he just said, I'm a Catholic priest. Take me in his place. And Colby barely knew this guy. 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? And so, see, it's like— That's unbelievable. It's like a black hole. You know, a black hole will draw everything into itself, right? That's what most of our souls are like.

24:17We want to 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. 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.

25:04That'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 have 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.

25:45I 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 and I don't even think that I want to. Sometimes I'll want something, but I won't want to do it. Yeah. 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. Like sometimes it's like a little bit of like a crack in the door. Like if I can't, like if I don't have the power to do it myself, maybe sometimes I can pray just to ask God for willingness.

26:26Like 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. 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.

27:08So let me have that anyway. That's a good way to pray. I'll be honest that in the past I was hesitant to invest. I felt like I didn't know enough or maybe I was too late. I wasn't timing things right. The truth is that so many of us only focus on where our money is today. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. It's easy. You can sign up in minutes and start automatically investing your spare money, even if all you've got is spare change. Sign up now and join over 14 million people already investing with Acorns.

27:59New customers get a$20 bonus investment just for signing up. Takes about two minutes and it could be the quickest$20 you'll ever earn. Head to acorns.com slash theo. That's A-C-O-R-N-S dot com slash T-H-E-O to claim your$20 bonus today. Acorns.com slash theo. Limited time offer. Terms and conditions apply. See acorns.com slash terms for details. Yeah, it's funny. We're at a time where like you were talking about, like, or you just mentioned lost, like being actually kind of lost. And what a prayer to say that, yeah, I'm lost. Like, God, I am lost, right? Like to give, to allow possibility in your life.

28:47Because if you're lost, then you need something, right? 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? People are, some people have two or three purses, some women and some men.

29:22But what I'm saying is we have so much stuff, but yet 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 deep - Does that make any sense? Does it make sense to you? Yes. Like we're missing something that's not on a shelf somewhere. Right. Which is why we're casting about so desperately. 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 a sense of purpose maybe. I'm not sure. No, yeah. Because we've lost the sense of ultimate purpose or spiritual purpose.

29:52And so when you lose that, the Bible would describe that as being an 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 because we're made in the likeness of God, right? But I've wandered into the land where I'm not like God. Yeah, it's a Costco. I'm in Costco, and so I'm just sort of lost. And so the idea is when 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 like teenagers so I give the sermon and I use the example of ways a lot I trust in ways 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 I kind of surrender to him because 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 But I just kind of trust in the voice of ways.

30:51And 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, 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 got to go just west of that city. So it was the way I found my direction.

31:26Well, 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 is lost, it's savor. 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 darker entities in society. Do you feel like that that could be true, that evil operates like that? Because it really feels like that more than ever, I think. Yes. The Bible knows about personal sin, right?

32:06So 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, but, oh, it's just personal evil. It's just something that we sinners do. Yeah, that's true. But behind us are institutions that condition us, and behind them, there are fallen spiritual powers, I would say.

32:45And we got to deal with all of them. We got to, 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, you know, 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. You got the Knights of Malta. So there's certain things that are kind of a holdover from that time, but we're not like going around with machine guns and stuff.

33:19Got it. There's the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar were wealthy. Oh, that's varsity too. Look at them. The Knights Templar 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, them, 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, the charges of corruption, of financial corruption, other things.

33:56It's a little bit murky, and I don't know the history all that well, but they were eventually suppressed, you know. But it's like most human things end up going bad, you know, 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 um like i want like you know i want to go to heaven i want to have um like happiness after like i want to earn the possibility to i don't even know if it's earn is the right word, but I want to have the opportunity to have a life past this, past this one here.

34:41But also part of me wants this, like you want to win in this world as well. Does that make any sense? It's like, it's like, you want to see like humanity win, right? But does that really even matter if the goal is to, is, is to have, uh, 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 when I'm asking you? Yeah. But it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to lose here on earth. Not as a person, but just as a species or as like, sometimes it's even as like America or as like, um, good, good versus evil. It's like, I don't want good to lose here on earth.

35:24You 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 Chris' 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 that 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.

36:08And he finds the ensemble of it very good. That's a radical thing, though, in the Bible. See, there's so many dualistic systems. It's 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 Jesus says, may your will be done on earth as in heaven.

36:49So he wants to bring heaven and earth together. 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. That means God doesn't give up on the world. He doesn't give up on the human project.

37:25He wants us to strive to make this world as beautiful and just and good as possible in the hopes of 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— There's a 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.

38:07There's a lot of different—but the Raphael is probably the most famous one. But it's the bodilyness of it. That's what I would emphasize. So many spiritualities are kind of down in the body, down in the world, get out of the world. That's not biblical religion. Got it. 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, four years ago?

38:40Nothing. 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? But Paul talks about the spiritual body. And you say, well, what's he talking about? But I think he's gesturing toward this. It's a body, but it's not like just this ordinary body.

39:21It'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 want to 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?

40:01Is 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 – because 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 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—we are—I'll use a technical term. We are ontological siblings because it means we're brothers at the level of being.

40:43Because 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 going to find the depth of your being. And that's why we're like our – And that's because why? We're both here talking about it and learning together? No, because 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.

41:25That'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, son, and sister, moon. It's not just Whistlin' 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 hate church. Forget about God. I'm going to live for myself. You've lost that now.

42:03You'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've 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 there's the whole purpose of Christ 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?

43:09You 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.

43:43But I don't know. But the Amish, 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. He killed these kids and killed himself. They went that night to the home of the widow to comfort her. And then they went to his trial or something to show their support. See, that's Christianity. That's grace breaking out. That's God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

44:22They 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 to go to 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 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 got to take some responsibility. Like, no, that's our job is to say, Christ is the way and let me show you.

44:59It 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. You know, I mean, you're just seeing things that are so painful in the world right now. and maybe they've always been there right maybe they're more like in our hand these days because we can see them on our phones and we can see them on social media but it feels like we've just gotten like 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 like an organized like strategy against us to like like like get to like the down to the cell like even with the algorithms and now your phone is watching you and how it's like and and uh surveillance state that we're entering allegedly in some places it seems like the devil is like i mean he's like in way heavily invested in the tech he loves it he loves it but it's like what do we do like and and you can't like 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 Like, I guess it's just like, yeah, what do we do?

46:19Because 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.

47:03Just 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 even if they're even someone who may not even have the strongest faith in god right or in a specific uh branch of religion but who just believes in like a moral good you know right it's just like yeah but see that that's a very important point actually the belief in a moral good because if i can quote another hero of mine gk chesterton do you know that name gk gk chesterton a great English writer, dies 1936, I think.

47:40But he said this a hundred years ago. He said, men today have lost, there he is, men today have lost their way. Nothing surprising 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 a hundred years ago, it's true, we're 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.

48:18Don't you tell me. I won't tell you. We'll just tolerate each other. But I will decide my whole life. It is a recipe for disaster, depression, everything else. That's the black hole. Everything's drawn into me, right? What makes life worth living, I think, is when these great values appear. They could be aesthetic values, 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. Right. So I'm a little kid. I'm nine years old, and I thought that was the coolest song.

48:55I like 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. Okay. 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 was a book like that. Thomas Aquinas, my other great hero I discovered around that time. These were 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?

49:39I mean, I understood 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 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 it just sort of it flummoxed me 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 was so stupidly inadequate to it because it changes you see if you say oh, I like that.

50:25I'm still kind of calling the shots. But really great values, the saints now in the moral order, like the story of Colby, when you hear that story, you're like, wow, I can't even get my mind around that. So those are the things that make life worth living. What I'm against is this self-invention thing of like, oh, 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? You know what I'm saying? What would be a response that was less autonomous to?

51:00It would be what we call aesthetic arrest. You're stopped. You're stopped in your tracks. And you let that thing do its work on you. 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 because, 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? The whole world was like, oh, my God.

51:42And 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. Right. Let that thing judge you, right? And then it will rework you and then send you on mission. That's how it works, I think. Is pornography causing a problem in your life? Do you find yourself watching porno for longer periods of time and having trouble stopping?

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53:16Steve is an amazing person and he is a close friend of mine. I mean that. Valor Recovery helps men to develop the tools necessary to have a healthier sex life. Their coaches are in long-term recovery and will be your partner, mentor, and spiritual guide to transcend these problematic behaviors. To learn more about Valor Recovery, please visit them at www.valorrecoverycoaching.com or email them at admin at valorrecoverycoaching .com. Thank you. 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 not taking some sort of like oh i like that or this or that just honoring what it is let and i think there have been teachers of the great value see who 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 i'm a kid and he was showing us his art history class, showing us images from the tradition.

54:28But 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 got to meet so-and-so. Wait till you hear, wait till you hear the story, right? So it had this like, there was more opportunity for lore and there was more opportunity for like advertising and build up of like a story or a person or something.

55:19If you want to 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. Be an apprentice. And be an apprentice, right? We're not much in apprenticing where I can go watch a YouTube video of something. And there's still an apprenticeship there because I'm watching someone do it. But there's a human, but the lack of humanity there, 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. I don't think that we've come to a place that we can calculate the loss of that because it feels like that we're not doing something together.

56:03Yes. No, there's a lot right 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 seem to be 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.

56:43He's got to 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, and I'm still going to catch the guy who did it. But yeah, anyway, let's carry on. But it's meant to say life is hard. I mean, life's going to knock you around. So you're saying that like young men, they would extract them from sort of their comfort zone.

57:22And 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 jungle or tundra or whatever it was. Give him a few simple supplies. Go, survive. And come back only when the sacred has communicated to you.

58:00And that's super healthy, that move. See, it got someone out of his self-regard, the black hole of the ego. Your life is 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. And you know what we used to do? That's a great statement, dude. Sorry, I don't know.

58:38So that feels like something, man. Yeah, it feels like, 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, is there a way to do that now? Yeah, I think— And not to put you on the— No, no, religion used to preside over this. See, that's the whole thing. The religions presided over this process.

59:17Oh, I didn't realize that. Sure. I mean, going back to primal people, this is always 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. I mean, this is sad to say. It's like I don't even know that much of my family lineage, you know? Yeah. But I don't even a lot of times, like yesterday was one of the first times I told my dad hello when I was praying. Not that that's where you can communicate with him, but I felt 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.

59:50In heaven. Yeah. Yeah. But I just 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 you know and some of it's not any fault of mine some of it isn't things that were brought upon me but it's like things that maybe I could incorporate when I had 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 my niece she's now like in her mid-30s when she was like around 20 she and her classmates they took them up like in somewhere in northern Wisconsin and made them live outside in the woods for several days.

1:00:37They 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 got to 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? Is it the other regard? Because that's love, willing the good of the other.

1:01:11But you got to 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's one of the sacraments and usually given around the coming of age time, 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.

1:01:45Right. It was physical. No, I think we did it as a culture better, you know, that we realized. Now, see, right, there's the bishop like me confirming a kiss. 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 baton 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 is of Chicago. No, go up with the red vestments right there. That's the Pope? No, he was the Archbishop of Chicago.

1:02:22Who is that? That's the Archbishop of Chicago. But I lived with him for about six years. Really? Yeah. Your 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 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 like at what point is there like There's a wry 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?

1:03:19Because I think sometimes I'm amazed that there hasn't been more like 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 political revolution. No, no, no. Yeah, I'm not saying political. But the church, here's something interesting to me. When the Lord says to Peter, okay, if 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.

1:03:55I took it to mean, oh, yeah, hell is coming after us, and 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.

1:04:26And 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. We've lost our confidence. We've lost our sense of purpose.

1:04:42Armed 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. 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 going to be? Right. And if the salt loses its savor, who's going to make it salty again? And if you put the light under a bushel basket, and we've done a lot of that.

1:05:11By kind of accommodating the culture of 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? 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, that means I'm letting go of my ego.

1:05:49I'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 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. Like acquiescence or giving up.

1:06:22Yes, if you're acquiescing to everything, it's just like, Like if that is the humility, then that feels like – Like surrender. It feels like, yeah. It's not that. It would be you're humble before God. 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, boy, they radiate power all over. And that's what the devil can't use.

1:07:02He can't use humility in that sense. Are we so addicted to self, though, that do you think like – because 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, it's like, you know, we're, I would say we're pretty far down the line with self. Yeah. Um, do you think that we are so far down that we can't, that, that switch can't be flipped? You know what I'm saying? Like we've, like, we're so far, like we're like looking in a mirror of ourselves, looking in a mirror, you know what I'm saying? Like, are we too far down? Like the narcissist reflection in the pond to be able to get back to some space of humility?

1:07:48Because 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. You know, or how will that be perceived? Right. You have to let go of that or you won't be getting done. Or what if nobody like follows me or agrees with me? I think those are a lot of the fears that come up. Now that's the whole spiritual struggle in a way. See, I'm so held captive by my fears or by my addictions. Sin is always an addiction, right? Because sin, capital S, is putting something other than God at the center of your life.

1:08:28So 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 going to try to find God in money. Well, no matter how much money I make, it's not going to 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.

1:09:14Then you can say, I'm a Catholic priest, take me. Now, that's an extreme case. That's a martyr. 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 around 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 and put one little drop of blue in it and then proceeded to teach the class, never referred to it, and finished the class 45 minutes.

1:09:50And then he said, do you see this water up here? And by that time, it was all blue, right? 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, 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. I think people are trying.

1:10:25I think it's just tough because it feels like the people that own the water come over and say, nah, no more blue water. But the gates of hell will not prevail against us. So if we have that confidence - Right. In the end, you have to believe in good at the end because there's no other way to operate that gives you any reward. Right? Does that make sense to you? You have to believe that even if everything points to no, you have to just have hope and keep going. I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you, Merton says. 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.

1:11:16So in a way, you want to pull back from the world and just think about you, what God's calling you to do. I have this online ministry, so a lot of times people will write in and, look, Bishop, I'm depressed. I'm in terrible shape. I'm so unhappy. What do I do? Because I don't know these people, and I don't want to 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.

1:11:57Because in that very act, you're pulled out of yourself. You know, Jordan Peterson said, he's right about this, that self-consciousness and misery are identical. 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, you know, it's Willie Nelson or it's Romeo and Juliet or it's the Shark Cathedral. Or the Indiana Fever, I like. Or it's this conversation. what draws you out of yourself, that's what gives you joy.

1:12:33So which is why the spiritual life, it's always like on a razor's edge. 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. And you become truly happier and better. Oh, yeah. Well, I just end up feeling better. Feeling better, right. Dude, I've gotten so, there's times I've been so sick of myself. Like, I work and you have to see video of myself and then I have to edit sometimes and I'm like, here, God, like, you know?

1:13:13So sometimes I wake, if I wake up and I'm thinking about somebody else, the first thought in my head is somebody else. Yeah. 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 if 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 it's positive. Thinking about other people and wishing other people well and stuff like that, you feel like a little hallmark section.

1:13:56Absolutely. Well, you know, another spiritual hero of mine is Therese of Lisieux. I don't know that name by any chance. She's very popular in the Catholic world. Therese of Lisieux. Lisieux. Lisieux is a 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 nine 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 the little flower.

1:14:29That's her nickname, the little flower. St. Therese. There we go. Yeah, there she is. Oh, maybe I could get a piece of art in her. 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 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. Yeah. I think I'm willing the good of the other.

1:15:04I think you're willing my good. Yeah. This is the path of love. So good. That'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? Because you're not going to have something if you, you know, it's like a fear. There's a lot of fear attached to it. Yes. I'm not going to 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. Do you know the Buddhist thing, invite your fears in for tea?

1:15:40Do you know about that? It's a spiritual practice where you say, okay, what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of this is not going to 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 going, 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. You realize, okay, but I'm not my fear of death. And I am something else. Well, put that in Christian terms.

1:16:13It'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 hard to do. And that gives you freedom, though. Yes. Now I'm free. Oh, yeah. The binds aren't there then. Right. 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.

1:16:50is 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 a kind of like a treatment program for addiction. If we 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, um, you're kind of hijacking people's lust and their love really a lot of times, you know, um, we've had people on to talk about, uh, that run porn addiction recovery centers and stuff like that.

1:17:39I feel like it's, to me, it feels like it's one of the biggest problems that's going on out there. Um, has the church spoken out like against it? Do you guys feel some sort of responsibility to speak out against it? And what do we do there? Because there's evil people that are using this horrible stuff to ruin us. And it's working. Yeah. Sorry, I got aggressive. I think it just makes me so angry. No, I totally agree with you. 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.

1:18:22Oh, I had to have a buddy sketch me a little something for the weekend. You'd 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. But thank God. See, we didn't get addicted the same way. But man, today, I worked in seminary work with these young people. So almost everybody, to some degree, is addicted to pornography. 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.

1:18:55It's the most evil and it's gotten 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? Yeah, but see, it has to do that, though, because it's got to get ever more, you know, titillating and ever more different. And that's not enough anymore. But it even attacked, like, the family. You know, it's like dad, daughter, you know, it's like mother, steps. It's like, it's just like, I don't know, but it's so engineered. It's like, what do we do? Like, 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?

1:19:36Robert, 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. I spoke to like 50 ,000 people. And I said, you know, if every Christian in this country started living according to what we call the evangelical councils, you know, like the great recommendations given by the Lord. We changed the country overnight, you know, if we could harness the power of Christians, but we've lost our edge to a degree.

1:20:14And 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. And 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.

1:20:48And it's, 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 as other women that are involved in your life and circle. 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? Because the Catholic church is the largest group in the world, isn't it? Yeah. Or the largest, I mean, the largest Christian denomination in the world.

1:21:27Yeah, like I don't still know what to like, I don't know if I'm, I don't sound like I'm preaching at you, do I? No. 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. And I know that's not just you. You have total control over everyone and their behaviors. But I'm asking, 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.

1:22:06Yeah. 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 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 got to get involved. Yeah. You know?

1:22:37Yeah, 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 going in, 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, because we're all coping with this issue. We're all here in the world. But also that no one should ever feel self-righteous because, 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, you know, Augustine, author of the Confessions and all this.

1:23:03He'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, right, to the site where one of his speeches the emperor is going to 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 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 and um yeah i've been hooked on a couple of those things yeah Yeah, working, thinking that work would solve things.

1:23:54Drugs, porno, trying to think of what else. That might be it probably. And most of those I'm in recovery for, I don't still 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 such 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.

1:24:31And they see this guy on a cross and say, what is in bad with you people? That's like the grossest thing and this poor slob being put to death on this miserable instrument of torture. Yeah, the taxidermies are a savior. Why do we do it? Right. 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 like none of it. All of our fears are on full display.

1:25:09Yeah, there. And yet, and in that right, and it's 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. 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.

1:25:51We'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, we have to mount our own cross. We have to be stripped of these things. Go back to the very beginning of our conversation about evil. 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. So that's mounting the cross of the moment and letting our illusions die.

1:26:33yeah it's like we'd like like if you're brave enough if i don't 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 i just get to live in the comfort of this hypothetical idea of 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 bear that god wants you to do and you're not going to 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.

1:27:13That's what that means, metanoia. That's scary. Yes, right. It is because we all have a mindset in place. And Jesus always is saying metanoia, you got to get beyond the mind you have. And to reach the point of the little flower, right love every moment or of maxima and colby boy that's that is a major metanoia that's going way beyond the mind that you have uh 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 mounting attacks against our enemies see but All of that is living in the land of unlikeness.

1:28:00It'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, when I was in a relationship that I was cheating all the time, it was miserable. 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.

1:28:37But 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. You know, the Bible knew that truth forever. One of the biggest ways that, like, pornography and different addictions and stuff keep us down is shame, you know? 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.

1:29:15That'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 that might be stupid. It might be for the wrong reason, or it might be misplaced. 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.

1:29:47I 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, oh man, come on, that was bad. That's terrible. And you feel ashamed. That's Christ speaking to you. when the conscience, he says, like, rewards you. And it does. The conscience says, hey, good. Yeah. 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.

1:30:27Let's pivot a little bit. I wanted to talk real quick about, like, just some interesting things from the Catholic church, from just, like, history. They used to have the things called indulgences. Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Like, 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 in the treasury of Christ. So we said 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 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, get time off of purgatory It's just a way of saying that lessening our punishment, it's calling upon the treasury of Christ, let's say.

1:31:19Is 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 when people were selling indulgences. Yes. 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. Because that's crazy because 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.

1:31:46You're going to get him out or what? Right. So he was abused because it became something that depended upon – People started taking advantage of it. Right. And it should not be something that's bought or sold. Got it. 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 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?

1:32:20No, that's an important distinction. Or like, how does the church view that kind of? Yeah. 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 have any other government.

1:32:52Yeah, sure. Israel, he 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. So it's very important to make that distinction between Israel using 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 anti-Semitism. So go back, the popes over the last many decades have been really strong on that.

1:33:33the Pope's visits to Jerusalem, the Pope visiting synagogues and all that. So we're against anti-Semitism. 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 pediophilia or in the past in the church, right?

1:34:10They'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 pediophilia or are labeled pedophiles, why did so many of them kind of end up in the church? 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.

1:34:51Got 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 at sexual abuse of young people in our public school system, in the Boy Scouts, in fact, wherever you find young people and then others in authority, you're going to find this problem of pedophilia. 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.

1:35:26Yeah, 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. 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.

1:35:55I 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. It's 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 a priest. 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 instituted?

1:36:32And 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 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. 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.

1:37:13So, 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 the 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 a 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.

1:37:46And 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 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 we also have independent psychologists, too, looking at all these guys. Got it. So they're different ways. But no, we are hyper-attentive to this problem now in the church.

1:38:20And 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.

1:38:51That's not helping. No. And so that's, you know, we're well aware of that. And what about today? Like if somebody is found guilty of sexual abuse, what happens? Yeah. I mean, if somebody is 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 two years ago some of it was not brought to 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 my pleasure, I loved it there's a lot of like the Pope spoke out against like 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.

1:39:59How do I feel? Why don't I feel good today? What's going on? This becomes your friend. And then that also becomes almost a place where you pray. 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 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 most important things. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, no, truly.

1:40:41That 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.

1:41:18Jobs 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. 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, because you can find God through other people too a lot of times. I love arguments.

1:41:54The problem is the social media world has given rise to insult. And it's all we know how to do anymore. It's 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. That's all we're left with.

1:42:26And 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?

1:43:02Or is it just— No, he's a prophetic voice, I would say. But then also, I mean, 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. Because I know my phone is listening to me. And I'll have a little casual conversation that 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.

1:43:36Yeah. That stupid machine is listening to me. Yeah. At least it's listening to you mostly do good stuff. Right. 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? 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. Yeah. But the Bible knew about this in a way. See, the Tower of Babel story of Let's all get together. We're going to, through our own technical accomplishment, we're going to build this tower up to heaven.

1:44:15That'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. 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 Babel is now a language learning app. Yeah, right. So it's like, I think six out of four people or whatever, people you say, hey, what's Babel? And they say they don't even know the story, but they know the language learning model.

1:44:53They know the language learning app, which is fine. I mean, it's a good app. They think Babel's related to Babylon. 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 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.

1:45:30And 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. The pope is the most recognized religious leader in the world. I mean, who's his rival? The Dalai Lama, maybe? But there's no one that has the stature of the pope. Oh, yeah. He's the khan. 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. It doesn't mean you're always denunciating power.

1:46:07Power is not a bad thing in itself. And the church can speak out favorably of political power, but 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 Guru Dev.

1:46:41And 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 two 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.

1:47:19It 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. 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, he said. And if you don't have Christ, the Brian Groom are going to fall apart.

1:48:00But 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? it was this it was this um cheaply made movie right that was hugely it's really good from a spiritual standpoint no i didn't see this oh i heard about this but i didn't see it's good it's about this guy right who he loves this girl and she's not reciprocating and he's so frustrated so he's been that guy shop right it's like a 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 like make me love her or make her love me more than anything in the world breaks the stick.

1:48:54And at that moment it's very spooky. He's just dropped her off. At that moment she appears in the doorway. And he's like, my dream have come true. Well, I won't give the movie away. 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.

1:49:41Right. Right. Yeah. This, this guru that we had and he was saying, like, if you, if you're two 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 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. Can we say a prayer for you? Go. Yeah. Are you going to pray or you want me to pray? Can you pray? Sure. Yeah. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this chance to be together.

1:50:13We 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 and 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. I was in a Presbyterian church. A Presbyterian. Okay. Where did I read Catholic or Catholic family or? Somebody probably made something up. Okay. But yeah, 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.

1:50:58I used to believe, I've always believed in God. Yeah. I've always believed in God. I've always felt that there's something greater than me. Yeah. And thankfully, you know, but yeah, most recently I just like, I don't know, just more than ever. I just, there's no, I just don't have any doubt about it. And I just have just been praying a lot more meditating. Yeah. I'm in a cool Bible study. And so like, it just gives me a group of people to care about outside of myself. Yeah. That's good. So it's been fun because every, everybody will share what's going on with them. And then it gives me something to pray about for my friends.

1:51:27So it's like, it's so nice when I get to like, think about this person and like, well, what could I pray about for them? And how can I make it kind of specific? It's almost like you're kind of designing it yourself, but it's just... No, stay with the Bible study. That's good. Stay with that. Yeah, and it's just been a great group. Yeah, good. Are you here in Nashville? Yeah. Yeah, good. So I just feel like, yeah, I don't know. That's where I'm at. No, stay with that. That's great. Yeah, and I don't want to pretend to be somewhere that I'm not at either. I just want to be... Yeah, I just want to...

1:51:58Just one day at a time. All right. That's it. But Bishop Robert Barron, thank you so much 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. Now I'm just 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