Avoiding Babylon
Avoiding Babylon was started during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these difficult and dark days, when most of us were isolated from family, friends, our parishes, and even the Sacraments themselves, this channel was started as a statement of standing against the tyrannical mandates that many of us were living under. Since those early days, this channel has morphed into an amazing community of friends…no…more than friends…Christian brothers and sisters…who have grown in joy and charity.
As we see it, our job here at Avoiding Babylon is to remind ourselves and those who enjoy the channel that being Catholic is a joyful and exciting experience. We seek true Catholic fraternity and eutrapelia with other Catholics who, like us, are doing their best to live out their vocation with the help of God’s Grace. Above all, we try to bring humor and joy to the craziness of this fallen world, for as Hillaire Belloc has famously said:
“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”
Episodes
678 episodes
SSPX Fallout and Catholic Infighting w/ Michael Hichborn
One decision lit the fuse across Tradland: SSPX consecrations, a papal command to stop, and the cascading arguments about excommunication, obedience, and whether “resistance” can stay Catholic. With Rob away, we sit down with Michael Hitchbourn...
SSPX Fallout and Catholic Infighting w/ Michael Hichborn
A single decision in Rome can light a fuse across the Catholic world, and that’s exactly what happens when the SSPX consecrations collide with papal warnings and a decree of excommunication. With Rob away at a family funeral, we take a hard loo...
SSPX Drama Continues: Sede Inc. Comes After Avoiding Babylon
A single letter from Rome can change the whole temperature of the Catholic internet, and this one hits like a brick: Pope Leo pleads with the SSPX to “please turn back,” warns of a “schismatic act,” and points to the seamless garment of Christ....
SSPX Drama Continues: Sede Inc.Comes After Avoiding Babylon (Full LOCALS Show)
A pope pleads with the SSPX to “please turn back” and warns that a coming consecration would be a “schismatic act” with serious consequences for the faithful. We read Pope Leo’s letter line by line, then read Fr. Pagliarani’s reply, and you can...
Catholics Lose Their Minds Over the SSPX Consecrations (Full LOCALS Show)
Catholics Lose Their Minds Over the SSPX Consecrations
The SSPX consecrations story isn’t just about bishops and Rome. It’s a stress test for the whole traditional Catholic world, and the reaction tells you more than the headline ever could. We talk through why people who never attend an SSPX chape...
Michael Knowles Just Betrayed Catholic Teaching on Israel
“Can we please be normal?” That’s the line we start from, because the Israel conversation rarely stays normal for long. We take a careful look at Michael Knowles’ comments and the broader conservative Catholic media instinct to treat the modern...
Michael Knowles Just Betrayed Catholic Teaching on Israel (Full LOCALS Show)
Somebody says “Just be normal about Israel,” and suddenly a huge question hides in plain sight: is this really only about foreign policy, or does it touch theology, biblical interpretation, and Catholic tradition in ways most people never exami...
Nancy Charles: I Escaped the LGBT Lifestyle to Live a Chaste Catholic Life
She was alone, spiraling, and ready to end her life. Then a single thought cut through everything: “What if the pain doesn’t end here?” That question didn’t just stop Nancy, it started a chain of events she still can’t explain away: five days o...
Rome Has Spoken: The Most Contested Encyclical in the Modern Church | Immortale Dei
You’ve probably heard the Saint Michael Prayer. The part most people miss is that its origin story is bound up with a Pope who believed the Church was facing more than bad politics, and he answered with something sharper than commentary: Immort...
Rome Has Spoken: The Most Contested Encyclical in the Modern Church | Immortale Dei (Full LOCALS Show)
If you’ve ever assumed “separation of church and state” is the safest way to keep the peace, Pope Leo XIII has a blunt counterargument: a state that acts like God is irrelevant eventually rewrites everything that holds a society together. We wa...
This can't continue... | Karmelo Anthony, Henry Nowak, and Belfast
Something feels different lately: the same news cycle, the same platforms, but a heavier sense of pressure, anger, and exhaustion. We start with a last-minute scramble when Rob can’t make it, and Mike Pantile jumps in on short notice, then we g...
This can't continue... | Karmelo Anthony, Henry Nowak, and Belfast
Everything feels louder, harsher, and more exhausting than it used to and we can’t ignore that mood anymore. With Rob sidelined by last-minute car trouble, Mike Pantile jumps in and we go straight at the question behind so many late-night doom ...
Rome Has Spoken: When the Pope Declared War on Secret Societies | Humanum Genus
For 146 years, pope after pope warns Catholics about a secret society and almost nobody listens. So Leo XIII does something different: he frames the whole problem as a war between two cities, the City of God and the City of Man, and then names ...
Vatican Picks A Zionist As Press Secretary | McElroy Removes The Exorcist
A few viral clips and one Vatican appointment raise a bigger question than most Catholic media wants to touch: when Church communications tries to sound modern, does it end up teaching something else entirely? We dig into the resurfaced audio a...
Vatican Picks A Zionist As Press Secretary | McElroy Removes The Exorcist (Full LOCALS Show)
The internet can bury a clip for years, then resurrect it the moment a person gets real power. That’s the mood today: a major Vatican communications appointment collides with old comments about Catholic-Jewish relations, evangelization, and “su...
Rome Has Spoken: The Encyclical That Brought Aquinas Back | Aeterni Patris (Apple Video Podcast Test)
Europe is declaring the Catholic faith “obsolete,” the Papal States are gone, and the Pope is effectively boxed into Rome. That’s the moment Leo XIII steps into, and instead of answering with another list of condemnations, he reaches back to a ...
Rome Has Spoken: The Encyclical That Brought Aquinas Back | Aeterni Patris
The modern world keeps telling you the problem is politics, policy, or personality. We argue it’s deeper: bad philosophy becomes bad theology, then bad culture, and eventually a society that can’t even explain what truth, freedom, or the human ...
Rome Has Spoken: The Encyclical That Brought Aquinas Back | Aeterni Patris (Full LOCALS Show)
Europe tried to bury the Catholic Church in the late 1800s. The Papal States were gone, bishops were being exiled, Catholic schools were getting squeezed, and the intellectual class was busy announcing that faith was obsolete. So when Leo XIII ...
100,000 Subscribers: Where Avoiding Babylon Goes From Here (Live Q&A)
100,000 subscribers is supposed to feel like a finish line. For us, it feels like turning on the camera, realizing the lighting is still bad, and choosing to fix it live anyway. This milestone stream is a behind-the-scenes look at how our Catho...
100,000 Subscribers: Where Avoiding Babylon Goes From Here (Full LOCALS Show)
100,000 subscribers is supposed to mean you “made it” but the weird truth is our views don’t look anything like they used to, and the algorithm feels more unpredictable than ever. So we kept this milestone stream honest: we troubleshoot the stu...
The Glorification of Man Over God w/ Michael Hichborn
A papal document tries to warn the world about artificial intelligence, but what happens when the warning itself is so ambiguous that it feels like it cannot guide anyone’s conscience? We dig into Pope Leo’s new AI text and ask the questions th...
Faithful in the Crisis: A Priest's Advice for Catholics w/ Fr. Amato
Death doesn’t schedule itself, and when it arrives suddenly it can make even strong people feel numb, angry, or terrified. We sit down with Father Anthony Amato to talk about what happens on the ground when a family gets that midnight phone cal...
Faithful in the Crisis: A Priest's Advice for Catholics w/ Fr. Amato (Full LOCALS Show)
Death has a way of walking into the room without asking permission. We start with a real, late-night phone call about a sudden loss, then follow the ripple effects: the shock that hits a family, the unique weight a spouse carries, and the reali...